Regular City Council Meeting December 5, 2023

0:00:01Excuse.

0:00:12Mayor, whenever you're ready we are okay to begin. Great. Thank you.

0:00:21The December fifth, 2023 regular City Council meeting is called to order at

0:00:286 PM. Will the city clerk please call roll Mayor matyama here Mayor potem Redneck as councilmember Fideli. Here councilmember quinto here councilmember Weisinger. Here we have a quorum. Next item is pledge of allegiance. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence.

0:00:53To

0:00:58it is

0:01:00just his perfume.

0:01:06The next item on the agenda is teleconference and public comment instructions.

0:01:12Thank you. And just for the record just to clarify. There are no requests under A. B 2, 4, 9 for this meeting tonight. and then this hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person, or via Zoom, with closed captions. Available meetings of the City Council are subject to the Brown Act, and are held for the purpose of conducting city business. The Brown Act also ensures the public's right to be heard, and while city council is not able to respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to council taking action

0:01:40for members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony. The mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item. Public comments will only be taken in person, and a request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a Speaker card. The Council's adopted rules of order and procedures specify that public speakers address the city council in an orderly and respectful manner, proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. Thank you, Mayor, that concludes my instructions.

0:02:07Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is Council staff Communications City Manager. Do we have any staff communications. Thank you, your honor. I'm Karen Pincus. I'm the city manager. I just wanted to. I have a couple of announcements. I know the Council, I'm sure, will reiterate these. But first and foremost, I wanted to remind our community of City Halls hours

0:02:30during the holiday. We will be closed at City Hall, beginning on December 20. First. That's Thursday. We will reopen City Hall on. I'm sorry. Tuesday, January second. So please plan accordingly. If you need to come to City Hall. Other hours for other departments will be posted on our website. I wanted to invite the community. And again, I'm sure the mayor will talk about this as well

0:02:55to the city's first citywide official.

0:02:59sponsored by the city state of the city address. That will be done by Mayor Modiama prior to the regular city Council meeting on December the nineteenth. It'll be at 5 PM. Right here in council chambers, so we're very excited about that. That'll be like, I said, I hope, beginning of an annual event for the for the city to be able to put together. And then, lastly, I wanted to call.

0:03:26He's chief to the lectern to talk about our evacuation drill that happened.

0:03:35Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Modiyama and City Council members. I'm Paul Keith, your chief of police, so, like the city manager said, I'm here to talk about our evacuation drill that we held on November sixteenth of this year.

0:03:48So we held an evacuation drill for about 1,000 residents. The zone that we evacuated

0:03:56see

0:03:57east of the hills by nature area west of Arlington, north of Mosher and south of Petrera.

0:04:04a big block of a city that's just adjacent to the hillside nature area.

0:04:10So the way we did the drill is, we decided we were going to hold an evacuation drill for that neighborhood, but we were also going to put out messaging to the whole city to encourage disaster, preparedness and evacuation, readiness.

0:04:23So participation during the drill was low. We do have some things to build on from a city readiness standpoint. We had about 5 people participated in the drill itself.

0:04:35We also paired the drill with a survey that we sent out to all of our social media followers. We had about 19 responses to the survey so fairly low participation. But there were some positives that came from it. One of the positives that we held the drill on a business day, so we didn't incur any overtime for city staff or county staff.

0:04:56Our staff at the police department also developed some really great relationships with the community morning system staff, who are county employees. So we did a lot of planning in the lead up and training in the lead up to make sure our staff were prepared for evacuations

0:05:09are also our staff also gained great experience in using the incident command. Set the command instant command system for a preplanned event and also experience in activating evacuation systems and in the lead up to the event. One of the things we hoped to achieve. We did achieve that we saw a significant increase in people signing up for the community warning system, which was a big part of what we wanted to see happen, so that people were getting the message.

0:05:33and from talking to residents. People certainly receive the message. They just tuned out because it said, This is a test. So they said, well, it's not important. I can. I can ignore, or I'm not ready to participate today. But we're pretty sure a lot of people got the message in that communication. Wise, the system works as it was supposed to.

0:05:53So we're gonna be focusing in the future on continuing to try to drive those cell phone sign ups with the community warning system. Currently, they've got, I think, about 4 to 5,000 cell phones signed up in the system. So we know there's more cell phones in El Cerrito. We're gonna continue to try to work on getting the word out around that we're really gonna have that be our evacuation readiness plan for the coming year?

0:06:19Alright, thank you. There's some questions. Mayor. Progeny

0:06:26how many folks signed up for the cws. In the period of time that we started to promote the evacuation drill, and then afterwards we got over 200 signups in the lead up. So we had about a three-week lead-up. So each week we were getting increased. Sign-ups and cws. Compares it against the rest of the county kind of as the control, and you know there wasn't a lot going on. Sign up Wise and the rest of the county. So they really saw a significant increase. Thank you.

0:06:53So, Chief, thank you for your honesty.

0:07:00I got a lot of feedback and comments, so I'm sure you got the same thing, and there's a lot to learn for the next time, and I'm assuming there will be a next time next year.

0:07:09Well, we'll see where there's it is a lot of effort going into it for both our staff and the county staff. So one of the things we worry about, and that, you know, may have played a part in this is this testing weariness that maybe people get, so that when they see test there was a national telecommunications test that people probably largely tuned out because everybody gets it. You know, everybody's in the meeting, and your phone goes off, and then everybody just turns it off. And

0:07:36so that's one of the things the community warning system is concerned about is doing too many drills like this and having them be close in time to one another. There's like, I already have the system test. I don't need to pay attention to this one.

0:07:50but I'm hoping that's not saying we're not going to try Mel Cerruto because everyone else is doing it. This town needs to know about drills. We need to know that we need to be ready for a drill, and when I got the gloomy happenings I thought the drill should be there. So people know that we did it, and maybe there might be a new one, we need to be aware. So absolutely okay. So I think we need to try again. Take the lessons from this year. Apply them the next year and let everybody know as much as we can that we care about being ready.

0:08:21But we absolutely care right great, great. Thank you. I have a question about

0:08:27the process of the evacuation. I don't know if the fire trucks went through the streets or anything. Did you find any pinch points where people were parked on those sides, or there were blockages of escape routes or anything like that. So there was actually trash service that day, so that did kind of navigate through the streets. So you can imagine a trash truck could be similar to other vehicles and cause potential

0:08:54challenges for navigating routes. So we're not their normal route and get around streets where, drastically, like trash fledge.

0:09:04I councilmember Fideli is asking about future drills. Is there some plan to do a live drill where you know the whole like a whole disaster to me, activated

0:09:18role-playing drill.

0:09:20Well, we have talked to the fire department about that, too. We do have plans in the next year to for staff first, to go through some scenario based training where we're applying the training that staff has just gone through into scenario based experiences. As far as incorporating the whole community. And I think it's too early to say, you know, when we would be ready for that component of it.

0:09:45This was kind of a whole, you know. Yeah. thank you.

0:09:51And you have come.

0:09:54Thank you. By their age

0:10:00council members that would like to

0:10:03make an announcement.

0:10:05I've got a couple. Yeah, thank you.

0:10:07superbook by the Jarian mentioned that he had in his Christmas party on the seventh 5 30 in his office on San Pablo Avenue, most elected in West County, will be going on Friday to an all day event dealing with our school district.

0:10:22I don't know how many here on this panel most most will also I mentioned to Councilmember Quinto that wptack at the next Wigtack meeting coming up on Friday. Congressman Garmendi has agreed to

0:10:39give us an update of transportation and infrastructure issues from Washington, DC. And that's the same day as this event. So we're going to have to a lot of stuff. But if you care about those issues and the Latin fairy and other translator, it will be held in this

0:10:56menu at 7 30 in the morning on a Friday. So yeah, sign up. Now

0:11:02also, the Urban Forest Committee will be coming together on December the eleventh. We have a lot of pine trees out in our community at this time of the year, so come and talk to us and and join us.

0:11:14Thank you.

0:11:16Any other announcements. Okay, I have a few starting with Wednesday, December sixth, in the camp spent, called the Mixture, starting at 5 30 PM. On Tuesday 12, the twelfth

0:11:30at 9 11 is the recreation program sign ups that open up for El cigar residents as well as the city's nutcracker program from one to 2 at the community center, and on Wednesday, the thirteenth, the senior singer, from one to 2, also at the Community Center, Saturday, the sixteenth, the holiday maker fair at Hannah Gardens from 10 to 2. That's also sponsored in part by the Economic Development Committee.

0:11:56and then also on the sixteenth. It's the first day of the Cindershadi holiday display over on Mosher starting at 5 PM. Going to 10 PM.

0:12:06And oh, I'm missing one on Wednesday, the sixth. We also have the Ulster Historical Society, Historic Photo contest reception at Juku on Stockton from 6 to 8 pm. So there's a lot of fun things going on.

0:12:21And oh, I just

0:12:24yes. Don't you before forget that deadline is December fifteenth, to apply to be an artist-in-residence for the Arts and Culture Commission's reuse program as well as this new city poet Laureate, who's going to be a new application period both end on December fifteenth.

0:12:43Thank you.

0:12:44and before we move on I would like to request that city manager provide us with an update on the pickleball agreement and for the H. And a trail work so that will be reviewed by the school district as we speak, and we are waiting on to hear back from them

0:13:02and the trails. Actually, I see a vet in the audience. I don't know if you have any update on another trail project is in motion.

0:13:12You have an update. Sorry to put you on the spot.

0:13:18You know that Director Ortiz is always prepared. Council members.

0:13:24Was it the Charles Project or the Hma filed by Zillions plan.

0:13:30Tell us about both.

0:13:33Okay, so we did have a successful workshop for the hillside metro area, Bio-resilian and Vegetation Management plan. A couple of weeks ago we had great participation in the discussion, and we are encouraging the public to pull out a survey that's still available online, so definitely encouraging the public, we're soliciting your input

0:13:55in terms of the HMA. Trails refinding signage. We have no progress. We are working with our designer on finishing up.

0:14:06Just the minor changes to the signs we're reaching out to assign manufacturer to do mockups, to make sure that those signs look the way we want them to look. we will proceed with ordering the signs and installations planned for the spring of 2,024.

0:14:22Great. Thank you very much.

0:14:25Okay.

0:14:27The next item is oral communications from the public. Now is the time for members of the public to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda. Consent. Items and presentation items requests to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in-person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Please proceed.

0:14:54Thank you, Mayor. I just want to take a very brief moment just to remind anybody who is on our zoom call. That remote public comment is still currently suspended. We only take remote public comment when a member of the City Council is participating remotely under AV. 249.

0:15:11And if you are experiencing any audio challenges in Zoom, you can also view the meeting on our city's website via our live stream. And I have also posted that message on the website itself.

0:15:25So with that I will go to.

0:15:32We have one speaker for items, not on the agenda, so I'll invite how to Gabby up to the podium.

0:15:42Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Howdy Cowdy and I live in El Srido. And my comment was actually just about what was just mentioned. But I think it's problematic to have an inconsistent policy on remote public speaking that it's

0:15:58hit or miss depending on whether council is choosing to avail themselves of A. B 2449, and I think the public deserves a consistent policy one way or the other. So that's my comment. Thank you.

0:16:12Thank you. Thank you. My requests are at concludes our request to speak on this item. Okay.

0:16:20our next item is adoption of the consent calendar, which includes the following items

0:16:27and

0:16:32approve the twenty-twenty-four regular meeting scheduled for City Council agreement with Karasov to procure Spot AI security video surveillance management and storage system for city facilities and stormbrain easement, acceptance and agreement for 7, 2, 9, Kearney Street.

0:16:52Hmm!

0:16:56Are there any blink questions or requests by the Council to pull items off the consent? Calendar?

0:17:04Thank.

0:17:07I would like to ask questions about the Carasoft

0:17:15agreement. Only because I know that city Andrew Campbecos did send out sort of a late update to the agreement, and I think it'd be nice to just give a summary on that.

0:17:29Sure, I'm going to call our it manager arrogant to the

0:17:33the lectern, and and and for for form of reference. The Mayor Morgana asked some several questions which I shared with the council, and they did result in a revised agreement. And so, Eric, if you'd like to go over a little bit about what that was how that came about. Please thank you, Mayor councilmember. I'm Eric King, your it manager

0:17:59and mayor to answer some of your questions. Would you like me to go to each of the items that you were asking about? Yes, there was not a red line for the changes. So I did spot check. But I just wanna make sure that we are all aware of what changed. And just for context for the people in the chambers.

0:18:18My questions were all around data. And who owns our data and who has access to our data through this software system. So, Miller, one of your items, this first item is on 3.2 a section 3.2, regarding the

0:18:34either around the verification, remote access. So the

0:18:40the Council, our council, and their team, agreed to remove the language of including, but not limited to, to make it more specific, to say, as it deem necessary, as it deem reasonably necessary solely to verify our usage of their product.

0:18:57though they are not accessing enough footages generally to make sure that we are staying within what we pay for. hey?

0:19:05And then going on to the next item of concern is a 5.3 mayor, and over there

0:19:15originally we had the language of saying, with cities, consent written consent, the company spot AI can use our footages to train the AI. So we worked it out to make it even more specific to say the spot. AI will only use our data for the purposes of providing access and facilitating the use of the software by us.

0:19:40and they will not use our data for the purpose of training their artificial intelligence or improving their product.

0:19:49Fate.

0:19:52The last section that you have concern about is on 73.

0:20:00Your concern is whether the city is

0:20:06being obligated for any damages and things like that. Actually, our city attorney staff and explain that this is to protect Spot AI from our action because we are using gap product to collect footages. So if somebody is

0:20:24you know.

0:20:26bringing us, suing us for doing that. We think that's our action. We are, you know, using your product. So you guys are not going to be liable for what we are doing. So in that spirit they have removed the using connection

0:20:43and the designated system and software and spot AI product. And we place that to say that is necessary to support customer use. It's about the foot flying down on the starting of seven-three

0:20:59great.

0:21:02And lastly, you're concerned about the evaluation. The whole section doesn't apply to us, and they have wholesale removed it from their contract. Great!

0:21:12Yes, I don't think they should be their beta testers for free anyways. Okay. so this. anyone have any other comments or questions, or

0:21:26I will move the consent. However, a second.

0:21:31Okay.

0:21:33Lost my script 1 s.

0:21:37Okay. so we have a motion by Fideli, second by Councilmember Hinto. I have a motion and a second. So, Madam Clerk, please call, and just to clarify. That is, a motion to approve the consent. Calendar, including the revised agreement for item 7 C. All those in favor, pleasei any opposed motion carries.

0:22:01I'm sorry. 7. B.

0:22:03Pardon my apologies. Yes, for 7 B. Thank you. And I had a typo in 7 C. But I'm sure you fix that. Thank you for mentioning, I know, and actually let me

0:22:15so for Item C, and cause we should ensure that there's no issue with that being part of the option as well. The resolution for item 7 c. The second is Clause corner of when it's talking about the location of the storm drain. So if I could just ask you to confirm that small modification for approval of the consent. Calendar, please say aye, and post motion carries. Thank you so much.

0:22:44The next item is the proposed East Space Cemetery, garbage and organic waste collection and cost collection routes and integrated waste management fees effective. January first, 2,024.

0:23:05May we? Please have the staff report?

0:23:15Good evening. Good evening.

0:23:17I'm Susan Kaczy, and

0:23:23I missed it set. It's not up there.

0:23:32There we go. Perfect.

0:23:36Thank you.

0:23:39Okay, yeah.

0:23:40Good evening, Susan Katcher. The interim operations and Environmental Services division manager to make city staff is requesting adjustments to the 3 components of the solid waste rates and fees charged to El Cida residents and businesses as we do each rare around this time for the

0:24:04calendar year. This year we again engaged R. 3. Consulting services to advise us on these adjustments. R. 3 has extensive experience in the field of solid waste management and sustainability and municipality clients throughout the State.

0:24:24Garth Schultz, principal of R. 3, consultant, is here tonight to walk you through the rate changes

0:24:29also. Yvette Ortiz, public Works director, is here to answer questions as well.

0:24:38Okay.

0:24:40not going too far. This is our agenda for tonight.

0:24:44I will provide a brief overview and the city solid waste services and then hand it over to Garth. He will present the overall rate changes and the details of the adjustments for each of the solid waste components

0:25:07think I can change this

0:25:11now I can see my screen

0:25:14alrighty. The Elsorito. Solid waste services are comprised of 3 fee components. The city's integrated waste management fee which supports the city's curbside recycling collection, the daily operations of the recycling environmental Resource Center and the various integrated waste management. Programs.

0:25:35We also have the East Bay sanitary services, our franchised hauler who collects garbage and organic waste, and then the third component is the post collection services provided by Republic services, who processes and disposes of the waste after it's collected, and it also includes the component by recycled, which is the West contra costa

0:26:00joint power authority for integrated waste management overseeing, for example, the household hazardous waste program, and also other programs that ensure we're in compliance with State laws.

0:26:16Okay.

0:26:19garbage and recycling carts.

0:26:43It was both a large project for the city and for East Bay Sand to swap all these carts out.

0:26:52We're now in compliance with the State law, probably before, I think, convinced any city in the State of California. So that's a good accomplishment in the last year. And the other thing, I think we're really happy about is the renewable Diesel for the city fleet, so that, being able to be able to purchase that renewable Diesel and use it in our respect

0:27:12to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Is a great

0:27:18okay. I'm gonna move on and let Garth.

0:27:23Okay, so lot of slides, lot of numbers. I'm gonna move a little bit quickly, but also try to give you the comprehensive detail. So this slide is just giving you kind of an overview of what is overall happening with the rates. Given all 3 of the components and the factors that are built into the proposed rates before you this evening for residential rates you can see depending upon container size. This is slightly different, depending upon container size, because

0:27:48those 3 different components add up and they're sorry. So on 5, 5% for residential between 5 fifths and 5% for commercial rates. The components that we'll discuss, and I'll kind of break them apart as we go through a slide deck. Sand component of the rate was adjustment.

0:28:14It's a modest adjustment. They're really suggesting each and every year, in accordance with a refuse rate index. But there's also a revenue account, a balancing account carry filled, and so, if they earn from revenue requirement that carries forward to subsequent years to Sierra. The rate year 2,024, because of balance, carry forward largely due to expected revenues from

0:28:38an industrial delete box sector, the item portion and different councils. They haven't been adjusted in a couple of years. There's glaring to be able to advance the 0 emission fleet requirements. And so that's part of it. We'll discuss this evening, starting at the top end. This is how everything adds up altogether. This is for residential customers. You can see on the left hand side.

0:29:01the espace sand collection component, then the post collection component. Then the integration was management as the first.

0:29:14by compelling to last year's rate total difference subscribers save each other's twenty-gallon cans, are talking about $2 sixty-cent a month change rate next year compared to this current year

0:29:30outcomes similar to similar outcomes. And you can see those outcomes here

0:29:38from council was an interest in it.

0:29:43Funding operations, operations.

0:30:12anti-space sans solid waste, garbage and name waste collection operations, organics. So find, with consideration of what it meant for rate payers and weight payer Twox. And this year was effective plan to find the cost of a conventional internal combustion engine, or a Diesel engine called electric or

0:30:36hydrogen hydrogen solid based marketplace. So the idea here is start finding around the foot of that council enacts rates in the following 2 weeks secure? You know, like amounts of additional funding.

0:30:53The outcome by 2026 is the delta between Zev and dimensional vehicles for both operations and starting that.

0:31:04So that's what's built into. This supplier's not an addition we had to show this evening. It's actually built into the proposal. However, we're talking about a 3 Year plan, continued commitment, that funding requirement in future years in order to fully fund that delta. By the time you get to the year 2046.

0:31:29So now we'll start with the Espay safer collection and compact to move back through the bus. This so Espay safe

0:31:36Council and the Committee about compensation, the oversee definition of college and mechanics and other services that they provide through the franchise agreement with the city comes from rates that compensation is actually calculated.

0:31:54Compensation amount is stipulated. Dollar fees compared to that compensation figure Adam carries forward to a subsequent, either as a credit. Total since this has been replaced 12 years, it's always generated a surplus. So there's been a consistent carry forward

0:32:18of surplus revenues to the benefit of rate payers throughout the term of of this version of this rate Salogene.

0:32:26that compensation has been adjusted, calculated constraint index, which is just an amalgamation of C's indexes for whether it's feature.

0:32:39something that approximates the change in cost in a solid release collection operation like this one. You can see here on the slide. That value is through 40% huge here. It's also offset by surplus. Carry forward from 2 years ago, already covered the Zeb, as you can deduce the

0:33:03or 8% recharge is.

0:33:06and the increased infliction are expanding today. Its collection rates are also part of what's included in recompensation. So the post-collection rate effectively provides compensation to a-space sanitary to then cyclomorba.

0:33:23So it's typically for all of the disposable garbage, the composting organics and the recycling of construction devolution that's also escalated or changed on calculation specified in your Pope's collection

0:33:41Republic services for this coming year. That's a hundred $28 and 55 cents a time, and in addition to funding the disposal of garbage, the composting of organics. It also funds recycle Morris, budget, cal recycle compliance funds and household hazards. Program operated by recycle more and Republic.

0:34:05There's some change in my elements that were brought forward last year with respect to a request made by Republic to help provide additional funding for their composting operation, and this continued to be included here as well.

0:34:18Mind point here is that before you help eastbaccine meet the obligations to pay those proton fees to Republic. and that if

0:34:29or under collection in that that also accrues to the balancing account, carry forward that I discussed earlier. So this table, unlike the tables you saw previously, which were the entire package. This is just a subset that's for a space sanitary. So you can see on the left a collection component

0:34:47next to that, the post collection component their total for this year, compared to last year, and again for 20 gallon customers, which are common in the city just over dollar change, space sanitary. That's for the residential rates. This is for Delta families.

0:35:04Reminder, commercial, commercial and multi-feet sales of a couple of years that are now included.

0:35:09Mixed levels of organic service for

0:35:1264 gallon organics, container

0:35:18unsubscribers subscribe to additional self-organic service. Add an additional. Those are genres, and you can see the rate of exchange for those

0:35:29so

0:35:33franchise agreement that the Council approved the space and public set of additional service charges. These are very common like these. So for the things that we just covered with for the

0:35:46regular weekly collection of garbage organics. But there are also other services that folks may request from doing extra pigment supplements, collection, extra service

0:36:00warnings, and working with these generators, assess a contamination charge or an overview surplus charge Associated

0:36:10Annual Service charges in accordance with Cpi, that the Cpi. For that Belden

0:36:21changes, so they have requested the contractual request, a change to the service charges and exhibits aside.

0:36:33Excuse me.

0:36:35I'm sure

0:36:38it's empty. Okay, so much

0:36:48perfect. But I didn't think I should be myself. Okay, so we can show all of those, but they are in the agreement, and there's not a change to them other than the change in Cpi value

0:37:02into the integrated waste management fees. Your item fund funds, the recycling collection services, the operations of the recycling center and other integrated waste management programs throughout the city. You also bear primary responsibility for the city, for compliance with important State laws. And the Waste Management

0:37:26Fund also has a 10 Year Plan. So though you may look at any given. See what the budget is. There's also a part of your budget process, a 10 year planning horizon plan for future capital investments

0:37:38changes in rates, and just look down the horizon and see what's coming for the fund.

0:37:43So part of what is included is always a look forward towards what's going to be necessary to continue to sustain the operation.

0:37:51The Id. One thing component is set on each of the garbage rates. And so it's it's

0:37:58charges to solid waste generators for their primary monthly collection is on the garbage size. It's not separate for garbage and recycling and organics. It's all bundled within the garbage rate itself, and that's commonplace throughout the entire State. So your Iwm fee is set on the garbage size, and it's collected by E space sanitary with the garbage bills, and then with the revenues rooted to the city deposited in the integrated Waste management fund, and then

0:38:25funding your collection programs and the operations of the recycling center. So you can see here for the residential subscribers. Actually sorry. This is all subscribers, residential and commercial combined. This. What? 20 years ago, still effective now, because it had. There was no change to the Iwm fee last year in 2,023, so you can see the rate of change over that 2 year period, as shown on this slide. Again for your common 20 gallon subscribers, a dollar and 50 cents a month.

0:38:55Ida. The one fee is also set on the organics collection that's primarily to help the city fund its obligations with respect to State law and compliance.

0:39:05and then, though East Basin has the ability to set service charges for additional services like contamination, the city was not previously set. Very many of those. There's been a couple of them included in prior master fee schedules, but the city does, in fact, provide additional services. Collection of extra materials, return charges for additional pickups if needed, and in particular the city does need the ability to be able to assess containers.

0:39:32examination charges when necessary, and after multiple warnings to send signals to waste generators to participate properly in the recycling collection program. So the proposal before the Council is to set a handful of Iwm Fee service charges that Eastbacen would collect and remit to the city in the same way to do for the rest of the

0:39:55fees, and the amounts that are proposed are identical to those that are recommended for E space sanitary. We've looked at these and made sure that they're equivalent and consistent with the cost of providing service, and here what those are, so I couldn't show all of them for you on one slide for Eastbay sand. But this is the entirety of what's being proposed for the IW. One fee service charges. Again, these are identical to those that would be included in Espay Sands request.

0:40:21You can see, for contamination, cart replacement services, extra dumps, and then lock-in key systems for those that need to provide a bit more security and protection over their recyclables.

0:40:35Goodness, real quick. I believe that covers all of mine, and I'll be here for questions at the end of the presentation.

0:40:48Thank you. The proposed 2024 rates of editing fees will continue to support the city's comprehensive, solid waste services. In addition to funding the global bay operations, I think, Garth, to finish with this one as well includes the recycling center. And these are some of the highlights of what we do working under next year.

0:41:15The big ones continue to implement services and programs to

0:41:21to Esp 1383

0:41:23and to begin the speed fleet implementation. Planning

0:41:29to conclude

0:41:33the proposed council action shown on the slide to hold 2 public hearings and adopt 2 recommended resolutions establishing East basinitary rates and setting the integrated waste management fees for twenty-twenty-four.

0:41:51And thank you, and if you have any questions before the public hearing, we can take them now. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Are there any questions from the Council? Smirotem.

0:42:05thank you so much for the presentation, appreciate it very much. I was hoping that the rates would be in that 5% rate especially given how the rates are being set in the region. So I was glad to see that it's within that 5% range, also incorporating the 0 emission vehicle fund and understanding that it is supplementing what is already in existence. So appreciate that context.

0:42:31As far as any other anticipated capital improvements that are not highlighted in the presentation it'd be really great to get a sense of

0:42:41within the next 10 years. One of the things that we need to be looking at right now. This is a month we'd love to just begin to pre-plan about what would be a capital project that we need

0:42:55take one tack at that. So so one thing that's not

0:42:59it was recommended around Zev.

0:43:01The infrastructure is associated with the charging infrastructure that hasn't begun to be evaluated in terms of what it means in terms of costs. The things that would be considered, of course, is how to power up to either the courtyard on Schmitt Lane or elsewhere. That was a little bit issue when the facility was redeveloped back in 2011.

0:43:25So that's the primary line is going to be how to provide for the charging infrastructure occasionally. Beyond that, in terms of the on the ground infrastructure. You'll have some replacement of containers. 10 years that facilities kind of hard to say 20 years old so there will be probably some you know,

0:43:49to the recycling center itself. But the carts are on the truck replacement schedule need to continue to cycle through. But that's just regular course of business in that 5 years, anyway. But beyond that I don't see anything large.

0:44:08both in terms of price tag location. How to handle this infrastructure for whatever Zev solution is available.

0:44:19And

0:44:21my next question is around the item and 13, and some of the compliance activities which 13. So for the Iwm fee, is that going to be better stable here in house in El Cerrito? Or is that part

0:44:43psychopaths. 1383 activities. Are we doing separate routine? 3 activities?

0:44:51Yeah.

0:44:53what is or will be provided for at the recyclable level?

0:45:12Thanks, Scott.

0:45:13I've got covered it. Thank you. One of the things that we is crucial, that 13 g. 3 compliance fund which has been helpful at the level and for that site. So I would hope that we reflect that also in Elsa show that the 15 Compliance Fund is really spelled out so that we can be able to advocate for activities that make sense for 13. So you know

0:45:41that we just did cycle that compliance fund. There's a few other activities to think about juicing taste. So just wanted to make sure that we're really thinking about our own 1383 activities.

0:45:57what that would be.

0:45:59And does anyone else have any questions?

0:46:02Councilmember? Fideli? Yeah, thank you. I agree. Had the transition to Zeb. We had a lot of discussion here on the council about that. So you said the

0:46:18the phasing of that revenue over 3 years was the first of several actions. Basically, what you just said was another action. The infrastructure that is, the main step is engaging consultants to help us with the transition.

0:46:34It could be stability and cost for the infrastructure which you need to have in a way to get the get the be able to feel those new vehicles. So that is our pound channel for is to engage consultants to both. Look at the vehicle. Replacement plan over Ceos, as well as the infrastructure

0:46:56to charge those vehicles. And you said likewise similar fashion in the next couple of years from assuming at the same rate increase level as well. Yeah. So I think that the point there's adoption of rates this year with the inclusion of that funding. It isn't going to fully fund that additional

0:47:20$500,000. So because you set rates annually, you would continue to provide that level of funding in the next couple of years rates in order to meet that full half a million dollar target.

0:47:35Why is it important that the I demand fees for the city and municipal. He matched them. You said it was the fees as ebs.

0:47:47Oh, for the additional charges consistency for?

0:47:56Oh, so if you're the same thing from one or the other, yes, that's right in terms of additional pickup or return charges, or if you're continuing cycling or your organic spend, it's gonna be the same penalty. Okay?

0:48:11Also, the council woman made a few comments. About Sp, 8, 1,383.

0:48:19Wasn't there some state funding we were supposed to be getting from that? And isn't that supposed to be coming?

0:48:25You know about this? It was a puppet

0:48:31details.

0:48:39Well, do we get it?

0:48:46Okay?

0:48:50Yes, thank you. Actually, at the next council to authorize that Grant. They asked for an additional resolution from us, and for a 2 year grant to

0:49:07purchase, compostable to and compost, to do, some additional outreach to our business community and multifaming community around organics

0:49:19and more moving more of them out of the garbage and into the the compost containers. We are, in compliance with all of the multifamily and commercial customers having green waste service. So that's actually an exciting, and I should have brought that up on our what accomplishments we've had in this last year. But that that is exciting, that we've gotten through the whole entire customer base, and everybody does have that service, and the next is to get them to use it more more.

0:49:49The bustling, I guess, is the word.

0:49:52and I think those were the main points of the grant. So we might get some funding in the future. Yeah, over the next 4 it would be for 2 years

0:50:01is is March along here tonight. Nope, we're on zoom sorry. So what he did mention was multi-family. What I wanted to ask him, and maybe Garth knows is that at the last last year

0:50:14Ebs took on a lot of extra responsibilities. Extra services to our city. and I was just wondering how it went and how multifamily is going, and

0:50:25if there are any issues involved.

0:50:28No, we're fully compliant now, cerrito, right like it was. How multifamily units are composting! And we were actually the first in West County to be fully compliant. But he had some other services, too, that he would like picking up trash on demand. And anyway, it it was a nice package last year, and I was we were. Gonna ask, how are those extra things going, and

0:50:52hey, balance? Get a response sometime that was like legal dumping. There's 50 illegal dumping piles. Let's call them that the city can assign to East Bay Sand for collection. And we're we're continuing to work on making sure we make that assignment.

0:51:09Thank you. And I appreciate that the Iwm fees were not increased for 2 years, but it's time to do that now. I also think you're referring to the bulky waste pickup

0:51:18accomplishments around those additional services that we're having. Thank you.

0:51:40Great Council. Am I looking, too? Thank you, Mayor. Going 1383. My question is, I know there's great news that El Cerritos is the first, and we've been recycling since the 1970. S. So my my question is like

0:51:57when there was contamination. How many of those do you get per month? What's the average amount of that

0:52:06number? You know we don't. We don't have that data at this point in time. And it's something that we're going to have to start recording. Mostly we've been doing the education system right now where we're really talking to people

0:52:19showing them how to do it correctly, putting oops tags on the containers to indicate when they've made a mistake. But the data collection is gonna have to happen here in in 2024, so that we can actually

0:52:32know the answer to that question that you're

0:52:35so. The notice would be on a in a plastic. Yeah, we have both cart hangers and cart tags where it's like a sticky note that you just slap on top of the container, and it indicates what you've put in the wrong container and what you need to do to correct it. Okay, yeah. Like, I've seen that on my street. A couple of my neighbors. So make it even easier to understand. So we have. We have that task in front of us. Okay, thank you very much.

0:53:06I have a question as well. It's about the revenue balancing account with these new fees, and a portion being set aside for the 0 emission vehicles. Will that revenue balancing account not really offset as much as it has in the past? Or do? Is it all set to kind of continue some additional revenue to to do that offset and

0:53:31do the savings for those as your admission vehicles? That's an excellent question.

0:53:37The answer is, maybe so.

0:53:42When

0:53:44rates are calculated. Next year you'll be looking to the 2022,

0:53:51yeah, 2023 s. Revenue carry forward. So become once you're done, next year there will be, you know, some balance, whether over, and they're most likely over again from 2023 that will carry forward. That will be absent this funding allotment, because there's a year gap between when you know what the balancing account yielded, and when you can apply it to the rates, so 2022 carries to 2423 will carry to 25, so on and so forth. So it's really the 2,025 rate setting where the city would want to be mindful.

0:54:22Espace Sands, balance, carry forward and say, Oh, we see something on the order of now. I'm just going to make up a number. Say it's 200,000. We know that 160 so 7 odd 1,000 of that was to be for the Zev funding implementation.

0:54:39the remainder will be available to carry forward for offsetting future rates. So it's a little early to say what the outcome will be with rate revenue generation. It's always subject to what the subscription levels are.

0:54:52Some precessionary signs out there which might potentially cause a dip in building high interest rates are causing a dip in building, and if that affects debris revenues, then perhaps we won't have a carry forward in 2025, because there's been in one in every year. I think we can say with confidence, there's a high likelihood that there would be, but it's a little too soon to say so.

0:55:15The short version is, yes, it could potentially do both. But it's dependent on revenue generation

0:55:23understanding. What you're saying is that only the revenue from 2024 that we are setting today will take into account the 0 emission vehicle. So the outcome of that doesn't show up until 2025. That's correct, though, if there is a surplus in 2023 revenue generation, presumably the city and the Council would have the option to say, rather than carry that forward to the benefit of rate offset. We want to carry it forward to the

0:55:52benefit of early Zev implementation so that you could make policy decisions around that next year.

0:55:58Okay, thank you.

0:56:02Ok, thank you for the presentation. Now we'll open it up to the public. Hearing. The public hearing for East Bay sanitary rates is now open.

0:56:12Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in-person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor, for the ebs state hearing we do not have any requests to speak.

0:56:36Oh, okay, well.

0:56:42so

0:56:45is there a motion to close the public hearing. So moved second motion by councilmember Quinto, second by councilmember Fideli.

0:56:54All those in favor, please say aye, aye, aye, opposed motion carries OK. So

0:57:02and now I'm going to open the next. Probably next action needs to be consideration for the resolution, for the Ebs rates, and then we would hold the hearing before I. Okay.

0:57:14okay, do I have a motion to approve the resolution adopting espay sanitary rates effective. January first, twenty-twenty-four.

0:57:24So moved there. A second second motion by Mayor Protem, second by Councilmember Weisinger, city clerk. Please call the vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed

0:57:37motion carries, hey? Now I will

0:57:40open the second public hearing. The public hearing for integrated waste management rates is now open. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Please proceed. Thank you, Mayor, we do have one request to speak. On this hearing, Gaudi can come up to the podium.

0:58:13Good evening, Mayor and council. My name is Gowdy, and I live in El Srido. So I welcome and support the intention to explicitly set aside money for the

0:58:270 emission vehicle funding. I think that's really important, and I appreciate you taking that action both for East Andquari and your own fleet with the recycling trucks.

0:58:42and I hope you'll continue to, you know, support it in future years as as is necessary. I guess. One comment I wanted to make was.

0:58:53you know, a couple of months ago you chose to purchase one recycling truck instead of 2, and that was a $500,000 savings. And so I'm wondering if that $500,000 is spent, or is in savings toward the next purchase, in which case you, you know, still need to do your extra $5,000 of 500,000 fundraising. But

0:59:20You've already got that in the bank, and whatever the normal rate of savings for new trucks would be is, is there as well, and and could contribute towards

0:59:34infrastructure. So it seems like you do have extra money just from that 500,000, and I would be interested. How that's

0:59:41being handled.

0:59:43I mean the other thing I'll mention just on, you know, sort of infrastructure possibilities. as you're well aware.

0:59:55the recycling center is just

0:59:57a few doors down from a gigantic substation. There's a lot of power on that street, and there's a lot of need by the grid for storage and energy services. And so if you can get into an arrangement either with Pg. And E. Or someone else who wants to demonstrate

1:00:18energy storage for grid services being coupled to a fleet of trucks like

1:00:25you might eventually have for the recycling center. That is a very powerful opportunity, and I think it should be explored in your research about

1:00:37infrastructure choice.

1:00:41The other thing I wanted to say is that you know

1:00:43the fact that there was a $500,000 amount

1:00:49available in the past budget to buy a second truck that wasn't really necessary at the time suggests to me that there is a bit more, you know, revenue being collected than

1:01:01is actually needed. And and I think it's great to be putting some of that towards. You know the extra costs of of transitioning the fleet, but I think it's also vitally important that we take a very serious look at reducing waste. Yeah, we can't just be in the business of

1:01:21hauling it away in trucks and processing it somewhere else. We have to reduce it, and that has to be an integral part of this program. So thank you. Thank you. May I conclude a request to speak?

1:01:34Hmm!

1:01:38We have a motion to close the public hearing.

1:01:41So I'm going to give that one to councilmember. Weinstein. Is there a second

1:01:47second by Councilmember Quinto.

1:01:50so you could please call the vote all those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries? Do I have a motion to approve the resolution adopting integrated waste management routes effective. January first, 2024, so moved

1:02:06motion by Mayor Irwin, second by Councilmember Fideli.

1:02:10So the court please call the book. All those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries.

1:02:17Thank you. I apologize. I'm getting over a cold. So I sound kind of

1:02:28hmm

1:02:29before we move on to the next item, I would just like to say that I was very remiss, and not thanking our director of it for doing the revisions to the contract so quickly, and it's very heartening that I could ask questions and have a result so fast. So I want to say, Thank you.

1:02:47Okay.

1:02:49The next item is construction contract award for the illustrated Downloadage Transit, Oriented Development Complete Streets, project City Project number C, 4, 0, 1, 4, Federal project number Cml, 5, 2, 3, 9, 0, 2, 9. Can we please have these staff reports?

1:03:12Good evening again, Mayor and councilmembers Ibetiz by the city's public works. Director.

1:03:19I'm excited to bring this item forward to you to day. It's been many years in the making.

1:03:25and tonight city staff is requesting that council take several actions so that we can start construction of this project

1:03:37first, I'll start out with some quickly, walk you through the project, background and design, and then move on to the bidding and budget

1:03:46for the project

1:03:49to start the Elsa people that marked the Complete Streets. Improvement project of Israeli Israeli, and implementation of the multimodal improvements that were identified in the San Pablo Avenue specific plan

1:04:01and the active transportation plan that were adopted by City Council in 2014 and 2016 respectively. It's really intended to support our transit oriented development around the bright station and the existing and planned residential and commercial developments in that area.

1:04:22What you see here is the project area. It's spanned several streets. The most important, the most significant one is San Pablo Avenue. Between, and then we ran the north south to Portarro Avenue, as well as Cone Boulevard, from the I. 80 freeway to Key Boulevard and Hill and East Shore.

1:04:46What you see here on the left are pictures of the existing conditions. Along this area you can see the the top left. For example, it's a very auto focused

1:04:57area

1:04:58and with missing crosswalks, more bike lanes minimal transit facilities. So the project really is intended to transform this important area of El Cerrito.

1:05:13I won't go through the whole timeline, but you can see here a timeline from 2,012 to 2,015, prior to 2,019. It was really the citywide planning efforts that I mentioned earlier that got this project going so that we could secure millions of dollars in grants. So it's important to do that citywide planning to then.

1:05:32It makes us competitive, it gives us a vision. It it told us that multimodal improvements in this area were a priority for the city, and we were able to communicate that to other funding agencies

1:05:45on the right. Here you see the green bubble. This because the majority of the project is on the State highway on San Pabo and Avenue, south of cutting and cutting west of San Pabo Avenue. We had to go through an extensive Caltrans. Project approval process. And so, and this summer and fall we got significant approvals from Caltrans so that we could move forward or fitting this project

1:06:15before I move on to more project detail. I did want to recognize the large consulting team that is helping us deliver this project early on in the project, when we were doing the preliminary engineering, we solicited the support of our on-call engineers, including Bkf. Anchor.

1:06:34Avila project management. As we move forward to design and construction management, we did formal requests for proposals for design teams. Csw. And

1:06:44and now Garrard Delhi with construction management, they're really a key part of making this project its success and moving forward with communicating with the public on the construction impacts.

1:06:56Again, summarizing why this project is important to also read over, really repurposing the existing street with to provide a balanced to to balance the needs of all street users, pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, motorists, and of course, the buses that come to and from the north of Bart Station, which is a regional transportation hub

1:07:20versing the businesses and new residents in in the area, and encouraging Modeshift, also reading R. And

1:07:29to goals as a city.

1:07:30Here on the right you'll see the photo on the top, which is San Pablo Avenue in 2,018 prior to the construction of the Mainfare Building. So that's why it looks so stark. But also, you see, there's no crosswalks

1:07:43on the South lake of this intersection of San Pablo and cutting on the bottom, you see a vision for San Pablo Avenue with the development that's planned and approved, and the Complete Streets project this vision photo simulation was approved, but was developed by Steve Price. So I have to give him credit for that. It really is inspiring to see that type of graphic

1:08:08moving on to just the project. Elements enhanced crosswalks, meaning

1:08:14protected crosswalks, signalized crosswalks mean enhanced bikeways. Ada compliant bus boarding islands and simplified circulation for this area. What happens here is we're allowing eastbound travel on cutting into the Bart station so we can eliminate some of the dual rights and left turns in this area, and by eliminating the dual rights and left turns we can repurpose the street right away.

1:08:42Crosswalks and bikeways and bus boarding islands.

1:08:45We're also going to do

1:08:47streetscape amenities. And I'll walk through those really quickly. So, as I mentioned, we're having, we're protecting crosswalks in this area. So we're adding pedestrian hybrid beacons at San Pablo and Wall and cutting them here with, we're asking also adding flashing beacons at the freeway on ramps to provide pedestrian enhancements for

1:09:12for this area. We're also going to add protected bikeways on Pablo and Tunnott and Hill and on East shore. And it's a combination of concrete buffers and some delineators.

1:09:26They're adding the busboarding islands to make it more comfortable for transit riders to use the bus as well as to reduce delays for buses coming in out of traffic.

1:09:38These are beyond some padlading. and finally, but not finally, one of the other important elements is for bikes is to add protected. Turn

1:09:48pockets for bikes so they can easily more easily get through some really busy intersections.

1:09:56And finally, we're doing enhanced landscaping, lighting bike racks and benches.

1:10:04Here is the funding plan that we've developed over many years with the first, when we applied for grants in 2,016 from Federal grants and measure J. Transportation for livable communities grants. And then, most recently, when we applied for the safe routes to Bart grants

1:10:20so about 14.9 million Grant funds.

1:10:26then moving on to bidding and budget. Once we got Caltrans approvals, we moved quickly to advertise the project. We advertised it in September, and we received 2 responsive bids.

1:10:40The the low bed wasn't within the engineer's estimate below, the engineers estimate by 11% and other little bit. Lisbon July Brothers.

1:10:52and they also meant the Meta disadvantaged business enterprise participation goal for this project, which is a requirement because it's federally funded.

1:11:02So the current cost estimate for the project based on the bid and also based on the requested contract change order, amount of about 10% is just under 2.3 million dollars.

1:11:18So at this point we have the budget. We have the funding.

1:11:23and we had some contingency funding from SB. One and measure A, but we don't need it, because the project came under under budget. And so there is only one action in terms of budget-wise that we need is to appropriate expenditures for the safe outs to bark. Grant that we received, as well as some additional design, related expenditures that occurred this fiscal year.

1:11:49So, to conclude, we are requesting that Council take several actions to award the construction contract and to amend the adopted fiscal year 2324 budget and capital improvement program

1:12:02to appropriate $179,000 and a few dollars in the capital Improvement fund for the project.

1:12:08I'm going to answer any questions, thank you. And if I may, your honor, before you ask questions, I just want to make sure that we give a huge shout out to a vet ortiz for this project. This has been her baby for years. 14.9 million dollars is extraordinary.

1:12:26And so she's done an amazing job putting all of this together, and as she said, It's going to absolutely transform the north end of town. We're so excited about it. But a vet. Thank you so much for all your hard work. It's been an amazing ride, and it's gonna be even better when it gets done.

1:12:41Thank you.

1:12:43Ok, so thank you for the presentation. Are there any questions from Council

1:12:51now? It would.

1:12:54I saw Council Member Council member Fidelis. Thank you, Mayor. I have just a couple of questions, you know. I know 3 of us live on the northern end of town. I think it's a

1:13:11fantastic. This is finally going to be happening. And we've been waiting for this for many, many years. Can't tell you how many times my vet at El Cerrita Pet Hospital has complained about the northern end of town, and especially crossing the street. And how dangerous it is on that side of town because of the lack of

1:13:34yeah safe pedestrian walkways. My question is.

1:13:40will this include anything dealing with expanding the Oroni Greenway or making it wider.

1:13:52We have a separate project for the Oloney, Greenway and north of Nott. It's the Oloney Guay uptown project which we recently applied for design funding from the West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee. And so we have that grant funding for that so separate project. But we will connect to it for sure.

1:14:14And I remember a lot of the bike activists were asking about cutting Boulevard and the future of that street. Now, the eastern part of cutting from San Pablo Avenue is that can be a two-way street.

1:14:32It will be two-way street for automobiles, and will also add, like a bus bike shared Lane in the eastbound direction, and a bike lane in the westbound direction between that tight area of San Paulo and Naloni, but a west of San Pablo between to the freeway will have a protected bike lane. That's great news. Thank you.

1:14:56Thank you. Councilmember Fideli. Yes, I was gonna also applaud you. That's efforts. A tremendous tremendous effort pulling all that money together. The city manager did use the word when this gets done, and I did want to ask you a question about

1:15:12First World Level bike lanes along San Pablo Avenue in this part. Yes, it'll be a combination of a bike on your standard bike Lane as well as a protected bike lanes with a concrete pepper, and they'll be between Ampertrero and Mott.

1:15:29So my question is kind of a broad one, because, as you know, I was going to ask you a question of how do you deal with anything getting it done when there's so many other

1:15:40and processes going on. As you know, cal

1:15:44influences come to us about doing some safety projects along San Pablo Avenue.

1:15:50There's greater discussion now with Ccta about a Brt program to re-study San Pablo Avenue again.

1:16:00How do you get done? What this is with all these other big things? Maybe changing those dynamics. So I think. Well, what we do is we are like this regional as a city. What we are in tune keeping, participating in these regional transportation planning efforts while continuing to implement city city priorities, city goals. And we can do that because we are staying

1:16:32up to date on these other efforts and providing our comments? And how to how can we integrate these projects? How can we phase these improvements? So the improvements that we're building now can be built upon with these other more regional efforts.

1:16:47Okay. good luck. With that. There's a lot of things planned for 2 decades out 10 years out, and we just need to get money to get this done and deal with the housing around Dod in the future. At the Bart station. I guess. Right?

1:17:07Yeah, I think for us it's important to. I think we cannot agree that pedestrian bicycle facilities to improve safety and access is important, and we can do that now and continue to work with our regional partners on these longer-term efforts.

1:17:25Yes, thank you. And I was just gonna follow what in Kimber was saying is as a little kid. I lived in the north side of town and walk where sketchers is now used to be the discount Mart, where they sold records and Butel records and everything.

1:17:41and I would walk down the street, and there was actually a bomb shelter, too, by where the Starbucks is in the sixties a demonstration. Do you want a bomb shelter in your backyard? And it has improved since then, and I'm looking forward to great improvement in the future. So thank you for all your effort.

1:18:00Oh. Councilman, my senior! Well, I would like to first say I was not here for the discount mark or the bomb shelter, and I was trying to picture it. But I mean I didn't come around to maybe 84 or something. So I wanted to applaud you as well right there in the middle of that plan, and II got to see. I know that some of the concerns that I've heard from our name would be if this particular plan, or in maybe a Roni plan, is coming later. But what is going to look like parking wise.

1:18:38Once the second building goes up for the you know the affordable housing. Once we finally find out what's going on the hotel that may or may not be across the street, so do we have any plans as far as how the layout, because it's it's getting a little bit stressful. Now that we're at 90% occupied over there.

1:18:56Yes, community Development Department and public works are really closely together on developing executive to address the needs of the residents of Canada and throughout the city, as we continue to build with labor arts.

1:19:12sight breaking.

1:19:13And I just wanted to also troll Melanie like, I'm saying that in that mockup there's still something missing out of that picture. She knows what I'm talking about. We need to. We need to fix them.

1:19:25Mayor Tim.

1:19:27I mean the congratulations that you've been receiving is very well deserved. Aside from the fact, it's going to be a beautiful. It's create a sense of place that's been really absent for time. But I also think that ultimately this project could save lives.

1:19:45And I think that's an important thing. Safety of this is, we need to save lives. So I just wanted to explicitly call that out.

1:19:55Last week we talked about some of the A/C transit. I just wanna make sure that whatever plan is, aside from where this stops are gonna be that we'll make sure that our bus islands reflect any potential changes to those stops. I just wanna it's not a question. It's just kind of a comment more. But the question I have, and it was a little bit connected to what comes in, the Clinton said, which is the

1:20:20connectivity? The biglands on San Pablo to the Olympics?

1:20:25Is there a very explicit connectivity to those? Is that what you refer to before the Nott Street. But I know that that's one of the challenges that a lot of cyclists face on the north side is that that connectivity of the Avenue and the Greenway, so the most direct facilities

1:20:53protected concrete buffer. So we have dedicated bicycle facilities there, enhancing as well

1:21:09and lighting as well will be, will have lighting perfect. And I'm really excited also about just the beautification that will come from increased of.

1:21:18I think that

1:21:20a more technical term for plants, but having more plants, more trees, it's going to be really nice. Yes, thank you.

1:21:32So I'm just gonna echo the the thank yous on this. II know you have worked so many years to put this grant funding together and keeping that vision in your mind, and and to echo. What counsel Mayor pretend saying about saving lives? I've driven down there a lot, and you know people are like running across half San Pablo and standing in the middle and running across the other way, because there's not a better way to get across

1:22:01near the Bart station, so I think this will make it much safer, and it will. It will encourage mode ship, because it will make it so much easier to, you know. Get around safely. So I have a couple of questions

1:22:16I saw in the image that you have that protected bikeway with the concrete

1:22:22barrier and the bus loading on the other side of that. Is that just kind of a design, or is that something we will actually get? We do have bus boarding islands on San Pablo Avenue between Cunning Hill, and so there'll be a bike lane next to the curb, and then the bus boarding island. Okay, that'd be really exciting. And then by approving all this, I just wanna understand, just logistically, the money goes from the cip into like the budget. So our budget overall budget expands by 14

1:22:55point 2 million. So the expenditure appropriation is already there. For the most part, because we already had that funding program. But we just recently got the art safeguards to Bart Grant. So that wasn't programmed in the fiscal 2324 budget, so that needs to be moved over to give us the authority to to spend that grant funding.

1:23:20Okay.

1:23:22great.

1:23:24thank you, hey? So now we'll go on to public comment. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city or residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Please proceed.

1:23:49Thank you, Mayor. We do not have any requests to speak on this item. Okay?

1:23:54Oh. are there any further council comments, or is there a motion to approve?

1:24:01So moved second

1:24:03and motion by Councilmember Weissenner, second by Mayor Protem, city clerk. Can you please call the vote? All those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries

1:24:15very much. The next item is adoption of the city of El Cerrito. Strategic plan 2,024 to twenty-twenty-nine. Can we please have the staff report.

1:24:30Thank you, your honor. I'm ken Pinkus, City manager. And for as we're getting tech ready, I just wanna thank the Council for. And the community, actually, the staff. Everyone who participated in our strategic plan update this year. This is the culmination of all of the work and all of the input that everyone has brought forth, and I would like to introduce Nancy Hetrick of Baker Tilly, who is going to lead us through the presentation.

1:25:01Oh, push the base till you see the green just push it, and there's the green light. You come. Okay.

1:25:07thank you, Mayor. Members of Council. It's a pleasure to be back and to present to you the the content for your strategic plan, and to hear with fresh eyes your feedback and comments so that we can move the process forward and create a final document that reflects the final decisions of this council. I'm gonna take you through just a short presentation. You have a copy of the content in your packet.

1:25:32But for everybody's information I'll take you through our our short presentation. So just a a quick reminder of the process that we went through. I'll I'll take us through a a walk back in time of how we got to this evening. We will then take fresh eyes to the Vision Mission and values that were the result of a workshop that was facilitated on Saturday October the 20 eighth, with Council as well as the set of

1:26:01goals and strategies that are outlined for the next 5 years. So I'll go through these, and then you'll have an opportunity to provide comments or feedback before they're adopted.

1:26:14So starting off with just a reminder that why we do a strategic plan is really to have focus, to provide, to identify and to prioritize the big rocks, the big things that the community cares about, that you care about as policymakers on behalf of the city. So with this we establish a framework that really drives and serves as a roadmap

1:26:37for the next 5 years. For the city. At the top of that we have the vision. That's an aspirational statement of the future that you're striving toward. We also have a mission which articulates the purpose. The key reasons for existence of the city of El Cerrito.

1:26:54also organizational values which are really important to shared expectations

1:26:59from council through staff, and how work is achieved, and then, importantly, and to really inform and drive decision, making resource, allocation. These sorts of things. You have broad multi-year strategic goals and key strategies that articulate the the how within your framework

1:27:18at the very bottom of that inverted pyramid you see the implementation action plan. That is a staff tool for ensuring that this is a living, breathing document, that you have this as a tool to really prioritize annually and evaluate the progress that's being made.

1:27:36Our process overview. These are the activities and the major steps the major activities that bring us to this evening. So a variety of engagement strategies and activities were involved, beginning with interviews with each of you on council. We also performed survey information. We we took advantage of the

1:27:59National Community Survey that the city participates in. We also did an employee staff survey to balance perspectives.

1:28:07We facilitated a series of community represented focus groups. We involved our graphic recorder as a part of that process, including an opportunity to go speak with students at Elsworo High School, which was pleasure for all of us.

1:28:24In addition, through community activities, community events as well as at community facilities City Hall Community Center. There were opportunities for community members to weigh in and provide input on the things that they care about for the city. So all of this information was pulled together and helped to inform the conversation that we had in a workshop on October the 20 eighth

1:28:48together. That's a facilitated workshop, the outcomes of which are reflected in the information you have before you today. It's always helpful to take fresh eyes and see them all put together. And so hopefully, you feel that it's reflective of our time together and feel confident in the process behind it.

1:29:04I'm going to walk us through the key elements. I won't read everything, but I'll hit the highlights as we go through. So, starting off with the vision statement, I'll read the vision and the mission. The the strategies are the areas where I'll let everybody process on their own. So the proposed vision statement for the strategic plan is the city of El Cerrito is a welcoming community, committed to a high quality of life, thriving businesses and public spaces and diverse cultural, educational and recreational opportunities for everyone.

1:29:36Mission for the city of El Cerrito. Again, the purpose why you exist as an organization reads, as the city of El Cerrito serves our diverse community by providing exceptional services that create a safe and resilient future for all.

1:29:54Next, we have 5 organizational values with some definition articulated behind them. I will go through the the areas. I'm not going to read through the detail of the statements, but they are intended to provide definition and clarity around what is expected. So the organizational values include ethics and integrity, fiscal responsibility, transparency and open communication.

1:30:18professional excellence and inclusiveness and respect for diversity. And so these are fundamental operating principles in everything that the city does.

1:30:28Next, we have 5 strategic goals. These are high, level, strategic north stars, if you will, to focus on those big rocks for the city for the next 5 years. They include being a high-performing organization and array of strategies to ensure that and to continue to invest in the city. And the progress that's being made community safety

1:30:53with an array of strategies for that as well. Livability and belonging

1:30:59infrastructure and amenities and environmental sustainability. So we have these 5 big rocks and goal statements that reflect what that is intended to achieve.

1:31:10Next, on the the next set of slides outline the set of strategies that are intended to move toward that desired outcome of it, the goal statement, these will be prioritized annually. Some of them are likely to take much longer than others. But annually there's an opportunity to invest resources and prioritize those activities that are going to be

1:31:34pursued in the annual in the year. Again, keeping in mind that the strategic plan has a 5 year horizon. So this is a high-performing organization with 5 strategies that have been outlined here.

1:31:46And again. We can go into any of the detail you'd like to, but I'll leave it at that, for now the next is community safety. And again there are 6 strategies that are intended to move the the city forward in the goal of community safety. And importantly, this includes not just public safety in the traditional sense, but really focuses on preparedness, emergency preparedness as well. So there's there are full dimension of strategies and areas of focus within this area

1:32:19with ability and belonging as really the quality of life area, and and something that the residents of El Cerrito value so highly. As you can see, there are a whole array of strategies that are incorporated into this goal area that reflect many of the things, including the presentation that was just presented for continuing to ensure

1:32:44a community that people are proud of it and enjoy living in

1:32:48infrastructure and amenities. This is a big area of interest and focus, as well, perhaps not as sexy as some of the other areas. But you know, critically important to the organ, to the the community. So here you have 7 specific strategies that have been articulated that really provide a focus, and ensure that the the underpinnings, if you will, of the of the city.

1:33:13the infrastructure and the facilities meet the long-term needs of the residents.

1:33:20Lastly, we know how important environmental sustainability is to the community and to this Council, and it stands on its own as as a goal as a result. And there are 5 specific strategies that have been proposed to for inclusion in this strategic plan.

1:33:38So next, steps following your discussion and feedback and any fresh eyes reflection you may have, we will take the content with the adopted input to create a formal strategic plan document. That document then serves as a communication tool. It will be provided on the city's website. It serves as a roadmap for Us. Policymakers and certainly for city staff

1:34:03and driving the work that you do every day. So we'll prepare the document. Bring that back and develop an implementation plan that starts to move the organization forward towards meeting these goals.

1:34:19Thank you so much for the opportunity to be a part of this process again. It's always a pleasure. I love the opportunity to work with all of you, and I welcome your comments and your input. Thank you.

1:34:32Thank you very much. Are there any questions from the Council?

1:34:37No questions. Okay.

1:34:42make a comment. I just wanted to applaud you, Nancy, and your team, for the way that you really workshopped that mission statement. That was something that was very, very important to me. I know that word safe became a kind of a wedge issue, and I think that the way you all worked that in there was very important, because you took it from being something that was considered a wraparound thing that everyone feels every day in El Cerrito to something that we are striving to make

1:35:07sure that people feel every day in El Cerrito. And you know words mean things. Grammar means things. And so I just wanted to thank you for that

1:35:16councilman. So we're not talking about the words of those statements here, or are we not doing so? This is an opportunity. If there are things that you feel ought to be revised or amended in any way, I just have a couple questions about

1:35:34okay, please. And in the vision statement. I mean, we're getting real specific here. But the word and after businesses

1:35:43is that necessary? Are you trying to show difference between businesses and public spaces specifically, or it just seems like a word that doesn't need to be. There could be a comma.

1:35:56I can go either way. And II mean at the end of the day we want to make sure that there is the listening thing. So it looks like an extra, and in there, that's all I'm it's up to all of you, I think, Elizabeth.

1:36:12Actually, I believe I don't know, your honor. You had a question about that. Are you done?

1:36:22Dunwood ain't done.

1:36:26Are we talking goal? He mentioned vision mission and organizational values. But goals, too. Is that something the word belongs was that one that was used a lot in our

1:36:37meetings and discussions. So

1:36:40workshop we held on the 20 eighth, talking about the goal of livability. What's the request to add? End belonging as a part of that goal. So that's what's reflected here, we've updated that strategic goal to incorporate blinding specifically as your one of your 5 strategic goals. We all feel good about that. That's fine with me.

1:37:04Any other comments on this slide? No, pretend

1:37:08I actually, you know. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And we went over this. So much so I think that's one of the reasons why, just for folks here in the chambers. We has many, many questions during the strategic planning session. I agree with councilmember Fideli on the thriving businesses and public spaces, and then the kind of the comma versus. And I will. I support the like modifications. Yeah.

1:37:33that's happened. Okay, is it, Elizabeth? He's okay. She's approving.

1:37:42Okay? So I had an issue with the

1:37:47is not so much an issue. But I'm realizing looking at the sentence with fresh eyes about our vision statement. And we're talking about thriving businesses and public spaces, and we don't have a modifier for the public spaces. I am. I'm happy to get rid of the and but I think this is an opportunity to talk about our public spaces.

1:38:07you know, kind of how we want them to be, and I would like to see if my colleagues have a thought about. I was thinking activated public spaces or active or dream. Not all of them have to be

1:38:22planted, you know, like the hardscape public spaces. But there's something this is an opportunity to kind of put the vision there, and I don't want to miss that opportunity here, because

1:38:37we have kind of modifiers for all of our other other things. So

1:38:43may I pretend I could see. Is it activating activated? You can see that

1:38:55any comments got a lot of wood. Smith's up here. So of the house.

1:39:02Well, I don't think that Active activated would be it, because that's a passage if you're gonna call it active, and you call it active public spaces. Former English teacher. That's

1:39:14okay. This teacher takes it. Okay.

1:39:18the thriving business and active public spaces that works together cause. I think the focus of that sort of clause was really intended to spotlight the amenities and the the vibrancy, thriving public spaces, public spaces, and active public spaces.

1:39:42or you could change the whole thing and make it. The city of El Cerrito is a welcoming community, committed to high quality of life, thriving businesses comma active public spaces and diverse cultural, educational, and there was something that needed to be taken out of, and I got to read it again.

1:40:02referring to business and public spaces in diverse, cultural, educational. I lost it. It's gone. Now, I think it's better. Yeah. Business is comma active public spaces comma.

1:40:24including

1:40:27committed to a high quality of life, including thriving businesses and public thriving businesses. Hama. Active public spaces as well as that's what it was. The city of El Srido is a welcoming community committed to a high quality of life, including thriving businesses.

1:40:45active public spaces as well as diverse, cultural, educational, and recreational opportunities. That's why it was so weird that, Anne, before diverse cultural, it should be as well as

1:40:56because you're starting a whole new thing. You're starting a whole new thought.

1:41:01Yeah, that's what it is. City of Rosarito is a welcoming community committed to a high quality of life, thriving, including thriving businesses, active public spaces as well as diverse, cultural, educational, and recreational opportunities for everyone that might make just a suggestion. But with following the high quality of life, you would say, with

1:41:25driving businesses in active public places, public spaces and diverse culture. If you wanted to emphasize it, it was like, it's a high quality of life with these things.

1:41:37just trying to keep to the words as simple as possible, because part of the objective we talked about in our workshop was trying to keep it concise and focused right so.

1:41:50And then one other thing that has come up a lot is that under community safety under the hillside, natural area, we are not addressing

1:42:03wildfire prevention. So I think that would be a good thing to add, under community safeties.

1:42:10the community safety strategy of sustained and enhanced climate, adaptive resilience.

1:42:16forest conservation activities and wildfire prevention in the hillside natural area

1:42:23there definitely

1:42:29so adding is a separate new strategy, or are we adding it to the sustain and enhance climate adaptive resilience. Right? I'm doing a red line for you, too. Thank you.

1:42:40I'm on it. Here's the best I'm doing a red line for you guys, we can. Ok. Clarifying confirm at the end.

1:42:49So if there are not no questions or comments from council, I'll I'll open it up to public comments. And now is the time for members of the public who is to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by concluding a speaker card, public comments will be taken in person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comment. City clerk, please proceed. We do have one request to speak everybody up to the podium.

1:43:23Thank you, Mayor and council. My name is Howdy, Gowdy, and live in Els Rio. So I wasn't planning to speak on this item. But I appreciate the great job that everyone did in producing this strategic plan. I think it's very positive.

1:43:35I'm especially happy with some of the

1:43:38language around climate action and infusing it into all the actions that the city takes. I appreciate that. And my word, comment that just came up watching the

1:43:52the slides which I actually included in a written comment for a different agenda item, but you know whether you want to get it into this or just keep it in mind for the future. I think it's important to

1:44:05be intentional. When

1:44:07when you say emergency, you mean emergency, and when you say disaster, you mean disaster because people conflate the 2. But it really is 2 very different functions. And you know, I think you know, the simplest way to say it is that emergency is the, you know, day to day critical

1:44:25events that our first responders handle very well and have the capacity to do so. But disasters are the much less frequent but much more impactful events that

1:44:37really are beyond the scope of what normal day-to-day emergency response can handle. And and so it's just important to, you know, if you're thinking about one or the other to use the right word. And and I think the city in general needs to. Do you know more thinking about disaster response and not just emergency response? Thank you.

1:45:00Okay, so thank you very much. Back to council comments, I think, Mayor Pratam, you have a comment. Yes, II agree. So in the third bullet point under community safety, strengthen Elseridos, overall disaster, preparedness, capabilities, resources, and tools.

1:45:20Then the last sentence. It ends with popping a position to respond to disasters to emergencies and disasters.

1:45:36Okay. great. Are there any further council comments?

1:45:42Councilman Fidel? Yeah, I was just hoping to have a maybe a discussion with council members here on.

1:45:50Let's see if there was support for something. I wanted to move the the strategic plan. Considerations in this agenda Bill says Staff will continue to prepare agenda bills

1:46:01in alignment with the strategic plan, including stating the relevant strategic goal and the objectives and the associated relationship.

1:46:12More than 2 and a half years ago, when I was mayor, we did get approved a equity program for 2 things, one for the city to look at its overall equity proposals and programs and changes that needed to be made, and then also include in our analysis

1:46:29equity considerations, so that staff would make those decisions on sees age. O gender, LGBT, racial or economic issues that people might have about equality and equity

1:46:44in this. you know, we could tonight. But equity in our analysis, if we agree to that, based on what they said about other strategic goals going forward.

1:46:57There's a lot of strategies listed here. There is one for equity going forward, but it's been 2 and a half years, and I'm just not sure how soon we can get it. Very simple wouldn't change a lot of things to go forward and have equity considerations being something that we deal with, and that staff deals with, and that we discuss on every policy change we made.

1:47:21But staff. I did talk to the city manager and staff, and they're very supportive of the goals. But it's just maybe not doing this as well. I don't think that changes anything in our goals, but it's a real assignment when we start beefing up our Hrc. Again that they will have this to do so.

1:47:38Councilman Fideli, just to kind of tag onto that. As councilmember, Fideli said, the City Council directed staff to develop with the Human Relations Commission

1:47:48equity work plan that was back in September 2021 obviously the Hrc. Has had some vacancies, and we've had staff vacancies as well. So.

1:47:57however, I did want to report that the staff, internally as well, in addition to the external work on the work plan that we hope to work on with the Hrc.

1:48:08That staff actually has begun the process of equity training of all of our staff, and I believe all of you have participated in that as well. And phase 2 is coming up next year, and that gives us kind of a baseline. We want to make sure that we're all speaking the same language when it comes to what those equity considerations are, what the definition is and what exactly. I don't want.

1:48:30You know any staff member writing staff report and kind of rope that up on their own. I want it to be a shared language that we all have. And so we have begun that training process internally, and I'm hopeful that once you know, now that the Hrc. Is starting to ramp up again, I know the staff is on Shannon Bassy, who's our human Resources Division that I've been speaking with them.

1:48:51As far as putting together now the kind of the external part of that. So that is exactly why we wanted to make sure we're we're very glad that the Council chose to include that development of the equity worked in as a strategic goal, that we are definitely going to hit. So it kind of brings that back up to the forefront and the priority. It's moving slowly but surely, I know.

1:49:13need to be asking those questions. Absolutely.

1:49:38Okay. So, councilmember Fidel, is that something that you would like to have added support for the motion? I don't see it changing much in the city council, because we've already made that decision to go forward

1:49:55about the Sheik plan itself or the structure of the staff reports. It would be like an equity considerations on agenda bill items. And, as I mentioned to the city manager pending Eq. Consideration and review. So it's just another message from our city council that we care about this, and we're trying to push this. It doesn't change what the city manager is saying.

1:50:24Yes, Guy, you're gonna say something.

1:50:27make sure that it's yeah. I'm just trying to agenda. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously related to the agenda item. But but it's not some specifical discuss. So I'm just trying to evaluate music plan on here talks about agenda items and bill analysis.

1:50:44So I thought that would be, that's always when I thought that I thought, this is the proper place to re, yeah, the little public, and that have understood that it she, without audio reconsiderations to agenda items. So that Council is going to discuss and potentially take action on activity in this strategic plan. That's I'm just trying to think, Joseph.

1:51:09my goal is to include on on bill analysis, or whatever you want to call them, the agenda items agenda bill items

1:51:22that we include a

1:51:24equity considerations as as an item would be considered by council and developed by Staff Steve. In addition to the strategic plan, it's in addition, it's a process that we would go through on every Council meeting suggestion that this become a strategy under the liveability

1:51:43attached to developed city pride, equity, plan, and equity considerations to

1:51:50city Council separate. I don't know, Nancy, what do you think to incorporate this so that it's adopted as part of the strategic plan

1:52:01that was going to be my question. If the equity plan is part of our strategic plan, once we have an equity plan, then we can have that equity piece as part of each bill when they. So the same way we have a, if I may. And taking notes on your guys, comments, that's where I had put it under that strategy develop a citywide equity plan, including equity considerations for city Council agenda bills.

1:52:26That's kind of what I had drafted while you guys were talking. But I'm happy to. I mean, that's not just wait another year or 2 for this to happen to to event strategic plan, can I? Can I ask, instead of equity consideration. So we have equity analysis.

1:52:50Well, I'm just going by what's on our oh, we use that wording. Well, it's financial, it's strategic. And it's analysis is what to do to report that. So I'll actually be a little bit of a

1:53:06develop, a citywide equity plan, including an equity analysis of all city Council agenda items.

1:53:12That's a requirement for us to do that analysis and report it. II mean, I don't mind either analysis or considerations, but that requirement for staff to do just like we do financial analysis and legal analysis, that I think that either one works for me. But if you very much put that as part of the

1:53:33it can certainly be added another option just to toss it out. There is, if you keep the strategic plan elements at the level they are. So they're sort of consistent at higher level in the implementation plan as drafted where you're talking about the timeline, the priority. That's an action item that would link right right back to the equity plan.

1:53:52And so you could incorporate it there, as you're doing your annual priority setting within the framework. You can prioritize that. And so you'd have that. Then, in your annual work plan either way works. It's ultimately your your choice as to how you want to message that

1:54:07I am in agreement with Councilmember Fideli, that I would like to see it here. Just so. It keeps us accountable. And you know it is a higher level, because this is a equity consideration for every single thing that comes before us on every agenda bill. So I think that's that's quite a large rock, in my opinion, and I would like to see it in the bucket

1:54:31summoned.

1:54:33I can review the discussion, and if everyone, if you and the second are in agreement that can become the motion to adopt the strategic plan with those modifications.

1:55:03Okay, actually agree with Councilmember Weissinger about developing a citywide equity plan. I think this is what you meant by it is that once that equity plan is, you know, once we implement that equity plan, then that would be an element to it, because I do have a little bit of concern with us, asking for an equity analysis on all city Council agenda bills if Staff haven't really gone through, and I know that staffs come in the first phase of getting a sense of what this common license

1:55:31language is, and the type of analysis that we need. But I don't want to

1:55:37impact. I don't want to mean negative impacts to come. If they're not ready. I would like if we have this equity plan. I just it's kind of cart and horse type situation. So I would be comfortable with it, just remaining develop a citywide equity plan.

1:55:55And I appreciate just having a discussion. So the community here is that we care about this. But I worry about all these equity plan all these plans? Should we have? What 17 strategic plans here? And does it get lost again for a year and a half?

1:56:09I thought Council could make a statement by saying, we eventually want this on our analysis, that's all I'm saying is pending Hqc. Reviewing it and making a recommendation. We want this on our analysis, it doesn't have to be done. Now, it's just us saying we want that. So that's all I'm saying.

1:56:29I appreciate you, Brett.

1:56:31Sounds good. Okay. City clerk, would you like to read us back with? So are we removing that last recommendation, or we, including that last recommendation

1:56:45or the modification to that specific the agenda bills for the agenda bells.

1:56:51I'm for leaving it in, but I will defer to my colleague. I would be happy if it just stayed out. But no, that's why you have votes. Yeah, I'm for reading. And then I made the motion so

1:57:06can't believe saying this. But I'm going. I'm going to ask for it to be out. Okay, okay, so why don't we? Why don't we do this one separate? Yes, since it doesn't seem there's consensus, and then we can do the other pieces. After so

1:57:20sorry, Mayor, I'm taking over you all my apologies and the motion on the table from councilmember. Fideli, seconded by Mayor Ludnik, is to.

1:57:35under the liability and belonging, develop the citywide Equity plan.

1:57:40including let's stop trimming the backup so initially it was hedged in and without

1:57:53think, and the motion made early on by Councilmember Fidela, that was seconded by Potomac may have been a bit premature, because you guys were still actively discussing it. So perhaps we did.

1:58:07If you withdraw the motion, we can start from scratch, and you can consider this last piece separately, or you can make a modification based on

1:58:16a review of the modifications that you guys have discussed.

1:58:21Okay, it may be easiest if you are okay with that great. Okay? So why don't we do the vision first? So per your discussion. What you guys had to

1:58:32seems to be consensus on is the city of El Cerrito is a welcoming community, committed to a high quality of life, with smiling businesses, public spaces, comma as well as diverse, cultural, educational, and recreational opportunities for everyone.

1:58:50So if there is a motion, and a second for that, we can consider that first thanks there, motion

1:58:57so moved. Second.

1:58:59I'll second, that in motion by Councilmember Weissenberg, second by Councilmember Quinto

1:59:07to call the vote, please all those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed? Aye, no, I don't know regular as well as

1:59:18I know we should. Look here, the main and

1:59:24not the editor. The motion I'm currently in the motion is okay. So the motion does carry with Neop voting? No.

1:59:37and then moving, moving forward to the second section, which is regarding community safety strategies. So there's 2 bullet points that have been modified, the first would be, and modified to read strength and Elsrito's overall disaster, preparedness, capabilities, resources, and tools, and ending that statement with respond to emergencies and disasters.

2:00:01and then modification of the second to last bullet to read, sustain, and enhance climate, adapted resilience, comma forest conservation activities, comma, and the wildfire prevention in the hillside. Natural area.

2:00:15Okay, is there a motion so moved? Second, okay. Motion by Mayor Potam, and second by Councillor Quinto. Can you please call the vote all those in favor please allow, aye, any opposed motion carries.

2:00:28and then the third consideration would be under livability and belonging the strategy revising, develop a citywide equity plan to also include

2:00:40equity analysis of all city council, agenda bills

2:00:45on all city council bills.

2:00:48Oh, okay, I mean, yeah. I mean, include equity analysis on all city council, agenda bills

2:00:57and

2:01:00I would love to have the actual considerations, the equivalent of what's on here for environmental, legal, and strategic. The word, consider

2:01:10equity considerations.

2:01:14And and again, I'm not rushing this, as the concern was here before a cart before the horse. I want to restate that we want this eventually. And Hrc. Whether you add Hrc. Review and recommendation or not, I think we just need to say we we want to move on this.

2:01:31Hey? There's an s-moosing after consideration and an equity considerations.

2:01:38including inequity or equity considerations. Yeah, you're right.

2:01:43Well, yes.

2:01:45good.

2:01:48Okay. Is there a motion? I will move back seconds.

2:01:55I'll second that. So there's a motion by Councilmember Schelling, second by myself. City clerk. Would you call the vote all those in favor, please say, aye, aye.

2:02:07those opposed. Nay, Martian gales. Okay. democracy in action. This is

2:02:19okay. Paul and Lisa. No. And then I would just recommend a clean and final resolution, final motion to adopt the resolution with the modifications that you just made. Those 3 motions on you have Paul and Lisa. No, on there.

2:02:35this will not become part of the oh, no, that's yes. This is just my notes for the minute. Sorry you guys are seeing it in action cause. I'm on this document. Sorry. Okay, so do we have a motion to approve the strategic plan with the amendments made that were approved by vote. Second, a motion by councilmember, second by councilmember. Pinto

2:03:00city clerk, please call, vote all those in favor, please say aye, aye, any opposed motion carries.

2:03:06hey? Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

2:03:11Okay. Our next item

2:03:17is study session on city board, commissions and committees. This is the continuation of the study session. The City Council started on September nineteenth, 2023, before Councilmember. Fideli and I provide our comments. The city clerk will provide a brief refresher of the recommendations from September, including some minor modifications made since they were last presented. City clerk. Can you please proceed? Thank you, Mayor.

2:03:46So this a quick, brief update as the Mayor mentioned the initial study session presenting the ad hoc recommendations, was presented to the City Council on September nineteenth. That study session was continued without council taking action due to meeting disruption. Following that meeting, we the ad hoc

2:04:07members and staff worked to solicit feedback directly from our active members, and met again a few times to review that feedback and have made a handful of

2:04:19Modifications which we're gonna go through. And they are shown and indicated in this document in strike through and underlying just for ease of reference.

2:04:29So, and I will be very brief on reminding of those recommendations made. So there was 4 areas that the study session focused on the first area related to communications between Council and advisory bodies. The first area of work, an advisory body work plan to develop a bi-annual work plan based on the fiscal year presented to the City Council on a adopted work plan no later than October first.

2:04:58and

2:05:00provided to the Council on consent is a receive and file that the Council can then pull and ask for a future discussion. Item on the modification here is that we would

2:05:11begin this process of a Biannual work plan with fiscal year 25 in order to give the advisory bodies time to facilitate that process, as some of them have not created a work plan in the past.

2:05:24and the other revision is just changing from, and an October first date for that to be completed to a July first. First first completion date in order to align with the fiscal year.

2:05:38The second piece, under this recommendation, related to annual accomplishments which would be part of the work plan, template. This would also cover July first of the

2:05:49prior fiscal year. This was another modification. It was previously presented as march for covering the prior calendar year. So those 2 components of the work plan have been aligned with one another for ease as well as the annual accomplishment will be on a fiscal year basis. So every 2 years there would be a work plan updated.

2:06:12and then every year there would be a complement accomplishment section updated that would also be provided to city council on consent, no changes for exceptions to this area. Same. Once there was a small Correction Civil Service Commission, not the Civil Service Board, as was previously in there

2:06:32and then the sample work plan was presented. There was also some feedback related to clarification for the resources needed column that was added and recommended by the ad hoc members, so they have clarified that to read funding and other resources requested

2:06:50throughout, and then just at the bottom here for the accomplishment section that would just change from calendar to fiscal year that would be Updated by July first. And this work, this is just an excerpt of a work plan. This would come back as part of what the Council would adopt should the Council take these recommendations tonight

2:07:10for recommendations. There was no modifications to this area, but this is just setting a process for recommendations to be within the scope of responsibility that the advisory body is responsible for, as well as being in line with the strategic plan, that those recommendations would come as a consent item on consent as a receive and file. If it was a recommendation that was not

2:07:35tied to their work plan, or the area of responsibility, those recommendations would be provided as public comment as they currently are now, to encourage that. The recommendations that come to city council are indeed related to what the advisory body is responsible for.

2:07:56and then some general modifications were were recommended. Restriction to not serving on more than one more than 2 advisory bodies at any given time with priority to those who are currently who are not currently serving on an advisory body reduction to the meeting frequency. This is not a change to the recommendation, but rather a clarification on the way that the recommendation was worded

2:08:20right. Now we currently have an ordinance in place that requires all of our advisory bodies to meet every month. This would reduce that minimum meeting requirement to once every 2 months that will allow those advisory bodies do that do not have a need to meet monthly the ability to do so because they would not be required per ordinance, so that that does not preclude those advisory bodies that need to meet more frequently than that to do so. If there is

2:08:50staff availability and consensus among the members of the advisory body.

2:08:56and then pre-meeting requirement attendance being strongly encouraged rather than required, as we realize that if we require it and we do not have a quorum, we have an issue getting having people qualified to be able to be appointed to those bodies, so no changes there either.

2:09:14And then the third area was related to a Public Safety Committee has been modified to reflect a Community Safety Committee to include

2:09:28a recommendation to determine if there's consensus for staff to develop a change to the Crime Prevention Committee into a Community Safety Committee which would include areas of fire, safety, community safety and crime prevention as well as emergency response.

2:09:45And finally, the fourth area was youth participation. So this is creating a little bit more guidance, a formal process in which advisory bodies have the ability to request youth participation on their advisory body. The city would be advertising that interest on their behalf, and they would have the ability to do an informal interview process for

2:10:09for youth in the city that either live in the city and are within high school range or attend El Cerrito High School, and this would be a non-voting youth member, and the primary reason for that, and the reason that the ad hoc left that as a non-voting member, despite some of the feedback they did receive from a few individuals is because there are some concerns about the validity of that vote. As there

2:10:34is some government code regulations that say an appointed official must be 18 years or older, so if we have a voting youth member, they would not.

2:10:44and they were appointed to that advisory body. They would not meet that intent. And if there's further clarification needed on that, or questions surrounding that, the city attorney can certainly provide some information on that, and with that I will hand it back over to our mayor.

2:11:02Hey? Thank you very much. I don't know. Councilmember, Fidel, if you'd like to start, you know I, Madam Mayor, if I if I could, I have some of the things I said will be a bit redundant, or I'd like to hear the public comment for it, and then make my statements after that. Okay, thank you. So I just want to remind

2:11:22everyone that you know

2:11:24councilmember Fideli and I have been meeting as a subcommittee since April, in order to take another look at our subcommittees and sort of refresh and update and hopefully streamline some things since we did this presentation back in September. We've had some more time to get feedback from the participants on the committees and advisory bodies. And so we've really thankful for those comments.

2:11:51and I think we've tried to incorporate as much as we. We felt that we could. And I think I really also want to thank our city clerk, Holly

2:12:05Charlie, for all her work is, I think it is not just us meeting, but it's also having our city clerk review requirements, our ordinances what we've done in the past, what you know, following up with all of our staff liaison. So there's been quite a lot of work done that that has been behind the scenes. So I want to really appreciate that.

2:12:28So okay.

2:12:33if it's if we can have, if you will give us the privilege to take public comment first, and we'll circle back around to council comment. Okay, so now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in person. Only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk, please proceed.

2:13:03Thank you, Mayor. We have 4 requests to speak on this item. So we'll start with Jim Belanus, followed by John Bascher.

2:13:21Here.

2:13:23Mayor pro temp, and City Council members. My name is Jean Dogas. I'm a El Cerrito resident. I'm here to talk to you about the proposed expansion of the Crime Prevention Committee to include Fire Safety Community Safety Crime prevention emergency response.

2:13:43I currently serve on 3 city groups.

2:13:492 of which are not really formal groups.

2:13:54one is, make El Cerrito fire safe.

2:13:57Another is the committee for New Library in Posa. And then third is the Crime Prevention Committee.

2:14:092 of those groups are really effective and productive.

2:14:13and one is not the one that's not is the City

2:14:18Committee on Crime Prevention.

2:14:22We've had a heck of a time getting members to participate on that committee. A few months ago we were down to 3 members.

2:14:33We're now up to 5 members.

2:14:36We had a meeting last night.

2:14:40and Councilman Quito was there as was a member of the

2:14:47police department.

2:14:49We didn't have a quorum.

2:14:51We just can't get anything done that way.

2:14:57Adding to the scope of the Cpc. I think, is going to make it even more difficult for the Cpc. To be effective.

2:15:07As I was thinking about this, I wondered. You know, am I being kind of short sighted here. I wonder what other cities are doing? So I looked at other cities. Maybe you've all done this as well.

2:15:21So Berkeley, I think, is about 5 times as large as we are.

2:15:26It has a disaster and fire Safety Committee.

2:15:31It oversees, proceeds of a special tax for emergency response and preparedness. We don't have a tax like that. So very narrow committee focus. I'll bet it's very effective.

2:15:47Oakland, which is what maybe 20 times our size. Something like that has an emergency management and disaster. Preparedness council again kind of narrowly refocus.

2:16:02Couldn't

2:16:03neither Berkeley or Oakland, you know, have anything near as broad as what's been proposed here.

2:16:09Richmond doesn't have anything similar to even what Oakland and Berkeley have.

2:16:17I don't see that we're going to be really effective in expanding the Crime Prevention Committee. I'd sent a letter in. You know previously that all the Council members have seen suggesting that the Crime Prevention Committee continue with a narrow focus. And I just want to reinforce that. I don't think we're going to be effective if we expand it more broadly. Thank you.

2:16:46Thank you. Our next speaker is John Bascher, followed by Howdy Gaudi?

2:16:55Well, good evening. My name's John Basher. I live in El Cerrito, and I'm the newest member of the Crime Prevention Committee.

2:17:04Yeah, as Jim said, we really struggle with our current charge like you said we didn't have a quorum last night. We actually had 4 members of the community, 2 of whom have applied to the committee. But we couldn't even interview them because we didn't have a quorum, and the 3 members who weren't there didn't

2:17:21inform anyone that they wouldn't be there. And so that was kind of a drag. But you know, on one of the slides it says that the Cpc develops and promotes crime prevention programs. No, we don't that we develop awareness of methods to prevent crimes. Yeah. And we advise the Council. And I think you know the answer to that one. We just. We're really struggling, and it's it's rather

2:17:44frustrating. I joined the committee, thinking that we could. You know, I'm a long time communications writer, editor and communications manager. And I thought, Okay, get this information out. And it's just I feel like one of those cartoon characters were running like that. Well, no, we're not running words. But then I looked up too. But we've never done any plans that we know of. There's been no reports.

2:18:09but I looked, you know, on the contra costof firefighters.org, and I read that our fire department already provides a full range of fire, prevention, fire, suppression, and advanced emergency services. And I also found the 41 page Emergency Operations Plan that was created last April 2,022 with help from Tetratec in Oakland. So we have a big, you know, emergency Operations plan. I don't know what this committee

2:18:33would do. We're just not qualified to do that, and I guess in the spirit of the last item, if you want to go to the slide that has what the 3 points we would do. The number 2 is community safety and crime prevention. Well, since the name of the committee is this Community safety Committee, we can eliminate 2 unnecessary 3 unnecessary words there, following

2:18:57Orwell's suggestion, always eliminate unnecessary words, and I do want to tell the chief I do have experience in evacuation, though when I was 5 we were living in a very rugged part of Southern California, and the fire was coming up the hill. My mom said.

2:19:12my brother and I grab one bag of toys each and get in the car. And we're going to grandma's. And we did it. And we we used the evacuation. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

2:19:24Thank you. Our next speaker is Howdy, Gowdy, followed by Robin Mitchell.

2:19:32Good evening, Mayor and council. My name is Saudi, and I live in. Elsrudo so sent a long-written comment. I won't be able to get to everything but quickly

2:19:43go over what I can, which is

2:19:46I think it's unfortunate to move to a 2 year work Plan cycle. I think if we're communicating with you about our plans, we should be doing it more frequently than 2 years, and it's also strange to separate the accomplishments and the work plan. We should just have one reporting once a year with both work, plan, and accomplishments, and I think the timing of that can be staggered to mix the different

2:20:13bodies. But you know you now have a resources piece on it that should precede your budget. I think if you need to know what resources are being requested before you can.

2:20:26Yeah, apply budgets to

2:20:28advisory boards. And then also, I think it should also precede the the staff work plans because, you know, it should help inform staff work plans and staff work plans should be made available to the public. So, as far as

2:20:45you know, accomplishments. We also used to do presentations to council, which I think were very effective. I learned a lot about other boards and commissions when I heard them, and I think they should be continued. And one idea I had that I think, might help with some of that recruitment and appreciation of

2:21:04volunteers is to maybe change the format a little bit, maybe have a once a year

2:21:12special council meeting, where all it is is boards reporting community groups reporting there could be, you know, a lot of information shared a lot of, you know.

2:21:23awareness and and appreciation of of volunteers, and I think you know some of the struggles that were being described in the

2:21:32Crime Prevention Committee. I mean, I'm I'm on the Eqc. I've been fortunate that, you know that's been a very well attended

2:21:43committee. We usually have more than 10, sometimes a full 15,

2:21:49but you know it is hard to keep people motivated and

2:21:56and enthused about being volunteers. And I think I know you're sort of focused on, you know, policies and how we you know, interact with the city. But really a big piece of what you need to be thinking of is this relationship and building. You know that

2:22:15you know the communication, but also just the, you know.

2:22:20the mutual, you know, relationship and goodwill and and appreciation, and and that will help with recruitment and and incentivize people. So I do want to mention. I support the expanded Community Safety

2:22:42Committee, and I think it should explicitly talk about disasters, because that is a community response activity. And

2:22:52thank you.

2:22:53The next final speaker is Robin Mitchell.

2:23:06My name is Robyn Mitchell. I'm an El Srido resident. I'm going to reiterate some of the things that have you said. But I'm on the Urban Forest Committee, and I was on the Park and Recreation Commission before that.

2:23:18And I do think the work plans are really important. I think they should be every year, and I think they should include accomplishments. That's what we've done in the past. It's just been a work plan with what you were wanting to do what you accomplished all in one thing. I think it makes so much more sense to do it that way than to separate them out.

2:23:36I agree about the annual presentation. Maybe in some other form it would be good. It is kind of a big deal to put one together, and so maybe it could be a little bit more casual, but still informative.

2:23:50And then this idea that

2:23:55the record, the the items from the advisory boards could be put on the consent calendar. I think that's a good idea, because right now it's just public comment.

2:24:04And so I was a little bit puzzled by the

2:24:07idea that the recommendations not in the work plan represented as public comment seems like they would would also be part of the

2:24:14consent calendar. And then the idea that there would be some sort of response from the city council about those things that are on the consent. Calendar. Excuse me.

2:24:26do think monthly meetings should be allowed, or whatever. Some of the committees don't want to meet every month, but if some of them do like Eq. And Urban Fourth, I think they should meet every month.

2:24:37they should be allowed to do that.

2:24:40Feel that it's weird that you would have youth participants that can vote. But their vote doesn't count. It's like, what kind of a weird thing is that? So? I think

2:24:50either they don't vote because they haven't gone through the training or they can vote because they've gone through the training. They have gone through the training. They said that it was okay, and they would do it, but it sounded like there was another constraint on that

2:25:04that holly you were saying. there's actually it's against the law to have

2:25:11people under 18 be on these committees, and I hadn't heard that before. The only constraint I heard before was just that they hadn't taken the training. So it seems like if they're willing to take the training and it's legal

2:25:23they should be allowed to vote so anyway. Thanks.

2:25:27Thank you. Thank you. That concludes a request to speak, Mayor. Hey?

2:25:32So are there any other council comments?

2:25:39Councilmember Kinto Holly, Charlie to our city clerk. I very much appreciate this presentation, and and with our special committee appreciate the work that you've done on this, we've talked for years about certain committees that have difficulties.

2:26:04even establishing a quorum. And it's been like that for many, many years, for public safety and for many other ones. Even our commissions, like HRC. Like the Arts Commission, very frustrating. For a small city of 26,000. We have more committees and and commissions than most cities. Our sides. We have more than Richmond.

2:26:30and that's very frustrating. And you know we are also looking at our budget and making sure that we stay fiscally responsible. I cannot tell you my frustration along with my members of the Crime Committee. When we show up our police liaison shows up, but yet we get no word from our current

2:26:57vice chair and chair not being there. So a big disconnect. We have had that sense. They've had this problem since Covid, and I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. So, in my personal opinion, I don't believe in adding more

2:27:16commissions and committees, we should be doing less. I do support the choice of committees meeting every 2 months, if they show, if they certainly desire, that they have every right to and for committees to, if they would like to

2:27:35meet every month. So be it. But no, we they have. They know the rules, and they know what is expected of them. They have taken ethics training, and I want to make sure that citywide we don't waste the time of our staff, our staff, as many of our staff work overtime, or the, you know, when they have to provide.

2:28:02Time and these extra hours, and you know, and people aren't taking advantage of it. So that's my personal opinion on this. I do not believe we need to add another.

2:28:15Public Safety Committee. We already have a citizen in charge of

2:28:23public safety, and that's our city manager, and that's what we pay big bucks for her to do. So adding, And you look at cities who have this committee, and it's been unfortunately, it's been a big mess.

2:28:39and nothing is getting done, and all we do is add fuel to the fire of social issues that we don't have a problem with in El Sabritas. So I wanted to let our city residents know about the importance, about participating and volunteering your time. We've always had that. And when I moved there in 2,001

2:29:03first thing I got was a phone call from Mayor Abelson, asking me if I'd be interested in volunteering my time, and that's how I started as

2:29:14former chair of Hrc. Back in the day we did approve having a student participate, and I don't know whatever happened to that, but it must have fell through the cracks. But I truly believe, when it comes to committees and commissions like the Human Relations Commission, that we should have someone that

2:29:37from our youth that would be interested. I do see cities that have youth in their commissions and committees, and we should look closely into that. So thank you. Mayor.

2:29:52Mirror, protocol page

2:29:55alright and pro tem. I get to my notes. So I, when it comes to the work plan and either annual or biannual work plan. I think it's really dependent on the activity of those actual. You know the Board's commissions committees. Some are a lot more active than others, so I would be comfortable with

2:30:18annually or bi-annually, and that that coming from the direction of the chair and of the committee itself that would make a lot of sense to me. I really appreciate the work that the subcommittee did to kind of tighten up the offerings. Also kind of to the point of councilmember, Quinto, is that we do have a lot of boards, committees, commissions, especially for the scale of it. And

2:30:41you know, we, you know, we know, you guys like, we know, you guys, we we communicate, we, we hear what you're doing. You, you attend meetings. It's

2:30:52there are a lot of community members in elsewhere who don't, and we have to be a lot better at either, providing more

2:31:01outlets for people to be able to plug in if should they want to. But also we have to be able to kind of temper. What is the the demand, and what is the return on investment of this, and I hear from the members of the Crime Prevention Committee, especially when you compare it to some of the community organizations that are outside of the city who are running in a really efficient way because they don't have to comply with the.

2:31:26They don't have to do the things that we have to. Here in a public setting. However, there are certain things that the city can be doing when it comes to disaster preparedness.

2:31:38that if we were to engage with communities, especially thinking about cert and thinking about having more work around neighborhood groups making neighborhood caches. This is the kind of thing that we can do as a city if there's community members who care about this. So then there's this other thing that I'm thinking of, which is.

2:31:59how do we get folks interested. but because right now, and I'm going to be really honest. And it's, you know. just it. Just maybe not so diplomatic. I'll try my best is that

2:32:10specifically with the Crime Prevention Committee. In the nearly 4 years I've been on council, there's been, with the exception of tabling events and a recent recent information campaign, the flyers that were made there really hasn't been anything coming from it. So when we think about and we, it's it's not just about the membership. It's also about the city, and it's about

2:32:33we have to give direction to a staff liaison to make sure that there's work coming out of it, so that ultimately the work comes to the council so that it's valuable. So it it definitely.

2:32:43you know, I

2:32:46I would

2:32:48think that trimming organ trimming these groups to make sure that we're actually getting use out of it is really important. But it definitely I'd love to hear from my colleagues, because I do think that we have to be realistic, which is our community members going to participate

2:33:04in our Board's committee's commissions. I also really appreciate the public comment from Mr. Gowdy about, how can we recognize our community volunteers, and what are the kind of events and structures that we can do so that the community feels that their work is valuable

2:33:22because we're community volunteers as well. We need to feel like the work is valuable.

2:33:29Councilman voicemail. I would only add to Mayor pro tems question about how do we get people more involved? And we had a community member.

2:33:40Speaking of the strategic plan at the Strategic Plan session. Who asked why people weren't getting more involved in building this strategic plan? Why, they weren't being a part of the work groups. And I would say the same thing, I said, then goes to the boards and commission, and people are not gonna like it, and I'm gonna stand on it firm for the next 3 and a half years El Cerrito wings to change its view of itself.

2:34:03That is why we added that word belonging into our mission and our vision. I talked to a lot of new residents in the city of El Cerrito who says that? Yes, it's affordable to live here, and yes, it is somewhat safe to live here, but they don't necessarily feel like they belong here. So every time that we say we don't have this type of problem. We don't do this in El Cido. This doesn't happen in El Cerrito. You're othering people who are experiencing that in El Cerrito.

2:34:28So maybe we do need to do a better job of taking a step back and talking, having serious conversations about the new people that are moving from the Berkeley's, from the Oaklands from the San Francisco. Yes, they are moving here because it's safer. But those issues have not necessarily gone away from them just because they're in El Cerrito. So if we're talking about safety, if we're talking about fire safety, we're talking about public safety, we need to be having more robust conversations about

2:34:53that, and then you will have more people who want to come to the table. Until then they will just live in this kind of safe city and go about their way, going to other cities to do their business up the rest of their days. So that's when I would add to that.

2:35:07Thank you.

2:35:09councilmember Fideli.

2:35:12Yes, thank you. I I am looking very forward, as I think the mayor is to moving this package of proposals forward so that we can begin 2024,

2:35:25with a new blue mare

2:35:27and new goals. After a long time of covid, which has really put a dent in our efforts

2:35:35on our advisory. But bodies, it's it's hurt. Our advisory bodies and part of the goal that we had here. I think the number one goal was communication

2:35:46with the council to our advisor bodies. Number 2. Goal is to get more people to sign up

2:35:53to get involved. And I think there are some things in this package that will will do this. I just want to address that. you know, on changing the scope of a certain committee. We've heard what it failed, where it is how it hasn't done anything. So let's keep it the same.

2:36:12Now we, you know, let's let's get some other issues and topics in there, so other people will come and join and

2:36:19reach out. And you know everyone doesn't have to do everything. But to have a continuing record of not being very productive doesn't mean we need to continue with the same thing.

2:36:28So I just want to go through a few things a few general themes about. Why, I think this package is a good package, and then go through the changes which Lisa and I listen to Staff.

2:36:40We listened to the comments coming in. We had a couple meetings where the public addressed us, and we were hoping again that this meeting would be a public involvement meeting, and changes were made to tighten this up. So one thing I wanted to ask the clerk about is the the concept of

2:36:58the achievements, and the work plan will be in the same document. Isn't that correct? But it's mistaken that it's not

2:37:06my apologies. Yes, that was one modification that was missed in the staff report that one of the modifications is to align the accomplishments to the fiscal year. Along with the workplan, everything would be updated by July first. Every 2 years would be the work plan, and every year would be the accomplishment section of the workplan. So a workplan and accomplishments. And when members volunteer their time.

2:37:36the workplan is something that meets Ruby

2:37:40to be done, and and we will enjoy hearing about the work, plan, and accomplishments. My, in my view, before the the Council here let let me just begin by saying, II believe this. This group of

2:37:52changes will allow for better communication between committees, commissions, and the city council, and I think, again, that's one of the main reasons we undertook this subcommittee. The mayor established that

2:38:04changes will prioritize and be clear on the importance of the work plans. It's the center of being on one of these commissions and committees is the work plan. It will focus advisory body members with a clearer purpose, and the goals that need to be reached, and this will help council

2:38:20and staff goals in the city as well. We can work with council with the work plan. The Council will know there's a work plan that we can have involvement with. I believe there'll be greater flexibility on meeting requirements, and that that will also be better for staff scheduling and their needs. So you know, it's 2 sides. Staffing has to come at night and spend time here, and and volunteers need to come as well.

2:38:44and if if implemented, I believe these changes will encourage greater participation from residents on the Advisory Board because of more flexibility, not needing to attend various meetings before being interviewed. And those types of things. Ii do again wanna comment on some of the changes that we did in this from the last, the September discussion that we had here involving the tour work plan, we changed the starting date to be a fiscal year 2025,

2:39:13and that will allow funding requests to the council and to the staff to be made and determined

2:39:21prior to their accomplishments, as I said, will be included at the same time of the work plan involving the meeting frequency, the advisory body shall meet no less than once every 2 months. So obviously the flexibility of working more starting out with more meetings can happen, will happen. Everything will be more fluid and flexible on that front, and involving a larger scope, I believe, on the Crime Prevention Committee will and call to Community Safety Committee.

2:39:50we'll bring in new oversight responsibilities and new residents to come, be a participant in here. There is. No, you know. Maybe someone doesn't like to be involved with the city, but there is no place for disaster. Drills, as I mentioned earlier tonight, and and fire issues to to be taken up in in toto involving a non member. I think the changes.

2:40:18Advertisement is good, and it's a similar model to the to our school district. They have a student member who who votes.

2:40:26but it's not counted in the total count there. So I believe we need to get these changes into our municipal coach. So we can, as I said, get to our post covid public input active again and appreciate. I love the comments about appreciating. We do have an appreciation dinner for our volunteers, but we need to do more because we rely on these advisory bodies, they give us ideas and consultation.

2:40:53and I think this even allows council members to go to advisory bodies to seek their support for efforts that we do so. I want to just say thank you to the Mayor, and thank you for counsel for listening.

2:41:07I have a quick legal question.

2:41:09May I approach him? Thank you so for municipalities that have municipal voting at 16, because I know that, Berkeley, you can vote at 16. Would that impact vote?

2:41:23I'm trying to think around this, the State with 1816. Alright. So the 2 are actually unrelated. But I but I do understand. But it's a it's a very fair question. And actually the youth voting is still being litigated. So whether or not the final outcome is going to be about whether or not cities can ultimately allow that, or school districts can allow that is

2:41:46to be determined. The issue in this case is that Section 1020 of the Government code states that somebody who holds what's referred to as a civil office

2:41:58must be at least 18 years of age. It does not define civil office. There are several court opinions and Attorney General's opinions that have analyzed submissions mostly about the the that provision of the Government code also requires somebody who holds civil office to be a citizen and that's

2:42:17than most of what the analysis has been about.

2:42:20But you can take some of the principles that that the courts and the Attorney General have laid out in their analyses. And basically what they've said is that a civil office is one that among other things, exercises some of the sovereign power of the Government agency where they hold office.

2:42:39and the Attorney General has said that it doesn't matter whether or not it's a substantial amount of sovereign authority or an insubstantial amount. They're exercising some of it.

2:42:52Many of some of our advisory bodies are true advisory

2:42:57and so it might actually be possible for a youth member to participate and have their vote count. But, for example, the planning Commission actually approves projects, certifies SQL. Documents, exercises real power. Similarly, the Design Review Board, the Arts and Culture Commission selects public art projects. If you go down you can find

2:43:21among the functions of them. Many of them are not purely advisory, and so my concern was that. than do that very fine analysis to try to figure out. Well, can you make a a youth member on any of them? A full voting member? It it'd be better to just say, let's have them participate. Let them vote to express an advisory opinion about this, so that it can be recorded as a vote similar to what happens with the school districts, but not counted, so that their participation is pure, is purely advisory, and not an exercise of of city power.

2:43:53or what also struck me as potentially unfair that youth on some advisory bodies might be allowed to have their votes counted, and others not, seemed better to treat all of them equally.

2:44:03Thank you. hey? So

2:44:08again, thank you. Everyone for your comments, and the public, and all the advisory and committee and commission members, you know. I think the whole goal

2:44:20for me in in starting out this this ad hoc committee is to make sure that

2:44:27the best way to value the work of our volunteers is really to make sure that the work of the volunteers is really connected to the work of the city, and that is, we had our discussion about the strategic plan. The reason to have a work plan is to make sure that it is in alignment with our strategic plan, so that you can see that there's a place in the strategic plan for all the work that the advisory bodies are doing.

2:44:54and that connection is really important because it makes the work valuable to move forward all the work of the city.

2:45:02So that's kind of the the overarching reason to to do this kind of re-look at what we're trying to do and the work plan. As you know, we we have long discussions about how do we have a plan and then get it before you know the city in time to incorporate into the budget, and there's no matter. When we started

2:45:26it wasn't quite right. That's why we have a 2 year. We're suggesting a 2 year plan so that you can come up with a plan and look at what you need, and then have that together so that you are ready whenever the budget cycle is there, and you still have enough runway in that plan to implement, to to use that budget request or resource or staff request, and to try to get that work done. So

2:45:50there was no easy. There's no magic wait in which the plan is there it gets into the budget, and then everything is fine. So that's kind of the idea of why a 2 Year Plan would be good. And yeah, this is, these are volunteer advisory bodies. So you may have people that transition in and out while this plan is going. So 2 years also gives a little bit more room

2:46:14to maintain some continuity

2:46:18regarding the voting or non voting of a youth member. When I was raised on to the Hrc. I was really really impressed by the youth member that was present. And you don't have to have your vote counted to have your thoughts and ideas counted.

2:46:37and that's where, you know, there was a lot of deference given to what our youth member was talking about, and how that youth member was really integrated into the committee, and you know I think it was a good experience.

2:46:52I was looking for the Youth Member to kind of see if there was a description of that in our city staff work, and that youth member has gone on to do really great things and often references their participation in the Hrc. As something really important to them. And so I think that

2:47:10my understanding from our city attorney is that you know he has explained that part. He's also explained to me that you can't make people under 18 do binding actions because they're not supposed to.

2:47:24So I think that the non-votingness is more of a technicality like, I said. when this read, number functions well within that committee structure, it is their ideas and their recommendations that get.

2:47:43you know, really taken into consideration very strongly, so I think that they will feel valued and heard, and it will enhance our community structure even without an official tally vote.

2:47:58So regarding the

2:48:01Community Safety Committee, you know. I think the more I hear my colleagues and the public, I'm more inclined to say, maybe, that this committee doesn't need to be here.

2:48:16and I am wondering if that is the the better. You know this is, this has been a searching

2:48:24for ways and make things better, and

2:48:27I think that maybe that may be the better thing. So I think there's like a groundswell of demand. For, you know, Crime Prevention Committee or a community Safety Committee. We'll hear it, and we can always implement that. But I'm not hearing that. So I just want to put that out there as an as an option as well. So

2:48:54yeah, so yes. Regarding your point on that can really

2:49:03Covid is is the number one thing that

2:49:08and it changed everything and and many of our new residents have purchased these homes at an all time high. So both spouses have to work. And that's part of the reason why, we're not getting any new people volunteering and the high expense of living here in the Bay Area, but know that with what the work

2:49:31that the Crime Prevention Committee does. It's so important. And this is, you know, I set up a neighborhood watch program years ago in my neighborhood, and it

2:49:43to be very, very successful. And and this is because we had a lot of crowd in our neighborhood a lot of time. Are up from our city next door spreading over to the north side of El Cerrito. And it's always been like that. But hopefully, with the tech that we've added in public safety that that will help deter and catch crimes in the future. But there's a lot of things I know that our residents are would be very interested in

2:50:18making sure that if people are interested, if our residents are interested in setting up a neighborhood watch program, that's part of the main things that this committee does.

2:50:29And and I know with what's going on in the Bay area and the high crime rate, El Ceri is still being the second highest property crime rate of the 19 cities in Contra Costa. I think there is a need to add neighborhood watch programs and and to introduce new neighbors with established neighbors that have been here

2:50:53for a long time, and and to create new relationships with your neighbors for the betterment of our neighborhood. Thank you. I have a technical question then given that I would like to ask our chief of police to come up here for a second.

2:51:15Good evening, Mayor.

2:51:17Thank you, Chief, so

2:51:20I'm a new resident. I want to know if there's a neighborhood watch. Do I go to the Crime Prevention Committee, or do I call up the police department? And do you then facilitate

2:51:30creating a neighborhood watch?

2:51:33Actually, I would say that the best place to start would be your own neighborhood. So neighborhood watch groups are block based for the most part. So talking to neighbors would be the best way to determine whether or not there's an active neighborhood watch group. Some groups are less formal than others. So

2:51:50that's what I would recommend to a new resident. So there, there's not a formal requirement for the request to go through crime prevention. There isn't, however, for people seeking to set up a neighborhood Wash group. The Crime Prevention Committee is a great resource for that.

2:52:06So they kind of go through the basics of how to set one up and get one going. But it's not necessarily the repository for every neighborhood watch group that's going on, and to get kind of formal recognition for a neighborhood watch group. We do provide, you know, things like signage and help with that, too.

2:52:25And. like neighbors, first neighbors first.

2:52:30and then in terms of sort of staff time. You know how much.

2:52:36Who goes who Staff's Crime Prevention Committee. So our detective sergeant is our staff liaison, so they, you know, create the agenda with the chairperson's assistance they post it, they type up the minutes, and then they attend the meetings and then help with, you know other projects that the Crime Prevention Committee may have going on.

2:53:00How much time do they spend each month? I would say. You know, we're talking probably about 8 h or so between minute generation attending the meetings. Agendas.

2:53:12Okay, thank you. Sure.

2:53:15Let's see Mayor protem. I also argue to for the same point of getting to know your neighbors and the importance of it. I think that disaster preparedness centers that in a way that

2:53:29is less so. Crime prevention, the challenges, and even in my own neighborhood we experienced it where someone posted on someone's brother came to visit and was walking their dog. He's African, American, and everyone was posting who is the stranger in the neighborhood, and that's the concern that I have about focusing on crime prevention.

2:53:49If we're focusing neighbor, knowing your neighbors is incredibly important in a disaster. But also, if there is indeed someone going and breaking in in cars.

2:54:00you can know, hey? I'm gonna call, you know

2:54:02Mr. Whoever Ms, whoever down the street, and that's how you know your neighbors bye.

2:54:11Councilmember Fideli. So

2:54:17a couple things I'm saying. Every every city deserves to be unique to itself and develop its own committees and commissions, and to compare ourselves to others. It doesn't make much sense to me other than you know our needs. I believe

2:54:31there is a rising interest in the crime. I agree with Gabe on this, and and there is a place right now for people to go and talk about it and come up with non police ways to prevent crime. It's a great place I'm just wanting to hear since

2:54:46Tim. This was her idea many, many months ago, to proceed on this, and whether she's still in favor of adding these community safety things in, because I haven't heard any of the motions on this package, and I think we want to talk about moving this package. But this is a key key component of this. That's what I'm thinking.

2:55:05Mayor pro tem. Thank you so much, Mayor.

2:55:10if to your point.

2:55:13Why do we have the Crime Prevention Committee if it is disbanded? And if we have a listening session with the community, members of what does the community want from this focusing. Of course, we can kind of give a

2:55:26more narrow view of what what could be done but finding out, because a lot of this is community-led. So we can say what it is that we want. But unless there's people who are actually doing it, so my interest would be to. And I'm saying this very respectfully, because we have 2 members here. And I really respect you guys a lot to disband the Crime Prevention Committee

2:55:51and instead have a community listening session where we can really envision what would be the right approach to community safety and involvement from the community with the city.

2:56:03So so the goal wasn't to have those other issues which you expressed assigned somewhere for people to come and talk about them that that's gone away from your goals right now. It hasn't gone away, but I just want to make sure dealing with it. Then we're taking. If we disband the crime convention because we weren't adding a committee. We were just adding to the crime prevention. So that's okay with you. I just want to make sure about that for me, it's more.

2:56:27What's the best use of our staff time? What's the best use of community time? So we're clearly seeing that this one specific area has not been a good use of our time. So how can we work to engage and understand what the community wants?

2:56:43And then also we know what it is that we want here. We really, we want a safer community. We want folks to be able to parlay with the city because we do have, you know, firesafe with Cara. We have these organizations that are able to work outside the city. We we interact, we facilitate, we do all that. But we don't have a centralized space where, if we're wanting to do

2:57:07cert groups thinking about caches thinking about strategic communication city-wide, we don't have that. And if we can find out from folks what they're interested in that would be helpful.

2:57:19I would I would not be in charge here, Madam Hare, but subcommittee. I just wanted to talk about moving the whole package unless there was a motion from someone to to get rid of this

2:57:34subcommittee. But I also wanted to talk about a commitment from someone, me included. Next year, maybe the ex mayor, maybe staff, to go around and be scheduled to these advisory boards and see how this package is working because I believe there's hits and misses in this package. We don't know how it's going to work. We've done our darndest to come up with ways to get more people attracted to come and do this.

2:57:59and to deal with other council members wishes and to expand, or whatever. So it's a package with a lot of ideas. Some may not work, and I'm willing to go around and and get that feedback next year, and here and come back to the to the Council with those further tightening up and changes. But I haven't heard any other motion about any other item in this package

2:58:21other than this getting rid of this committee, and I don't know if that is a motion or not.

2:58:25if I may, just to clarify the action that we're requesting tonight is a direction to Staff regarding these recommendations so that we can go back and create the legislation for you, so that you can consider that at a future meeting. So implementation of these, it's still several months away. So it may take a little bit more time in order to basic approval, to go forward with these is what I'm talking about.

2:58:53So do you have a motion. man for 10? Would you like to make a motion? Is there any. Is there a motion on the floor to move this package of recommendations? Forward? I see everybody on their phones go ahead. So

2:59:10I think I prevention before prior to joining the Council. I do think we need to have a community listening session where we talk about. I mean, we have a committee. But are we preventing crime

2:59:35like are we at? Are we actually putting forward processes? Are we actually talking about what the, what the crime in our city is, and how do we prevent it? And if we're not doing that, then maybe it is. It is time to talk about whether this is a commission we need right now.

2:59:52I agree with you, Mayor protem.

2:59:57So that's a motion to vote on the map. Specific item. So let me make a suggestion. I suggest that we move the package and separate out

3:00:11crime prevention and

3:00:14look a motion on that separately.

3:00:17I move to move the package. With the exception of the last item, the Safety Committee. Second, okay. We have a motion from Mayor Protem Ludnik, and a second from Council Member Weissinger, City clerk. Please call vote all those in favor, please say any opposed motion carries opposed motion carries without having a separate motion. Okay, yeah, I agree with that.

3:00:44And just to clarify. So motion carries with councilmember Quinto voting. No. hey?

3:00:50So is that, does anyone have a motion they would like to put forward regarding Community Safety Committee or Crime Prevention Committee.

3:01:04Alderman.

3:01:05but I mean any and I'm gonna look to the members, because, you know.

3:01:12I want to make sure that

3:01:16should we choose to eliminate this committee. It is not out of a lack of care for crime prevention. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. We want to make sure that we're empowering

3:01:30the city to be able to be really strategic about our work. So I'm going to make a motion. And then also in, I would want to make sure that we're doing

3:01:40active outreach to the community. If we could host some sort of listening session around envisioning community safety in El Cerrito.

3:01:57Is that a motion so moved?

3:02:00What I'm asking you is I moving? Yes, I'm moving to disband the Crime Prevention Committee to disband? Okay?

3:02:09Second, okay, there is a motion by Mayor Protem, Ludnik, and a second by Councilmember Weisinger to disband the Crime Prevention Committee. All those in favor, please say aye, any post

3:02:24Russian carries with councilmember Fideli and councilmember Kintero voting is gonna abstain.

3:02:29but I can't. No, if you abstain, you can certainly abstain. But for the present-voting rules. An abstention would be a reason on the motion.

3:02:43Okay. so I will. I will vote. Yes.

3:02:48it would be because I you know this is this is our first step. I think if there's strong feeling in the community I would like to hear it. I would like people to then step up and say.

3:03:00Gosh, dog! We need that current Prevention committee, and I am ready to show up and participate. So I think this is a good. This is this is a clearing call to participate, or if there isn't one, I think it's 8 that you know we can

3:03:17direct staff time elsewhere.

3:03:21Take this direction as bringing legislation for the Council to act on to actually serve. If there are members of the public who are interested

3:03:33ideally Council, they'll have an opportunity to do. So as the legislation comes forward. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification.

3:03:43Okay. Oh, that was a little bit more exciting than I thought it was. Gonna be

3:03:51okay. Can't assume anything. Can you? Assignments?

3:04:00Are there? Ap. Council reports?

3:04:04Councilman Quito? Okay, thank you. Mayor. I wanted to report that city manager and I attended the Leo California City's meetings down in Cal calls about San Diego County. I wanted to report

3:04:21what we decided on, on, what our main points, and and our vision is going to be for 2024, and the number one thing that mayors and councilmembers and our board of directors, wanting to work on was to improve public safety in California communities.

3:04:41And I'm going to read this because this is what we decided on. A spike in retail theft, violence, fashion grabs, robberies, fentanyl deaths.

3:04:51illicit drug use, and back to back. Natural disasters as well as strained social services are creating challenges beyond the capacity of local governments, how cities will partner with the State to advance solutions, to help reduce crime, increase emergency service capacity, and provide more support to those residents struggling with substance, abuse.

3:05:16work with the legislator, the governor and allies to craft craft, legislation that will reform. Prop. 47. While avoiding a return to the days of mass incarceration. The second was to

3:05:34expand investments, to prevent and reduce homelessness and increase the supply of affordable housing.

3:05:40California cities are doing much more than ever to get residents off the streets and into safe stable and affordable housing. However, the homelessness crisis is the world's fifth largest in the world's fifth largest economy continues unabated fuel, in part by the lack of affordable housing. Cal cities is calling on the State to provide

3:06:05funding to bolster local effects, to support individuals, experiencing or at risk of homelessness as well as strengthened state and local partnerships, to improve access to wraparound services, including mental health and substance, use treatment. Calc. Cities also supports ongoing, funding for cities to jumpstart the construction of

3:06:29housing while ensuring cities, retain local decision, making and flexibility to achieve community and state housing goals. and

3:06:40another one. and this, we thought would disappear. But this came in as high on the list was to strengthen climate change, resiliency, and disaster preparedness. The threat of climate change is no less. During tough economic times the State needs to accelerate its efforts to prepare, reduce, and adapt to the ever-changing risks posed by climate change, especially in vulnerable

3:07:07and unresourced communities. These risks include wildfires, flooding drought, and other extreme weather events and cal cities will pursue funding strategies, including potentially a bond that provides cities with the necessary resources to improve community and infrastructure resiliencies, and we will also seek to advance partnership with State and Federal agencies to strengthen

3:07:34essential infrastructure, including modernizing the State's water supply and energy grid. And this one continues to be the next one. We had it in last years, and that is that cities want safeguard. Local revenues and bolster local economic development cities are this engine of the State economy with a looming State budget deficit, which is now at 58 million

3:08:04dollars. It is critical to handle counter efforts by the State and corporations to erode and skim local revenue. Calc. City supports increasing local revenue streams for local governments, and opposes any effort to reduce or eliminate existing funding to cities. So we have

3:08:25fight for next year, and that is to fight the 2024 ballot measure that represents an existential threat to local control. And it's a California business, roundtable measure, and that would put at risk billions of dollars for essential local services. So calcity supports this supports legislation that will fund a State local partnership

3:08:49to advance economic development in uncertain fiscal times. So you look at what we spoke about today and what is in the plan for next year. So know that we play an important part. All cities in California on what our leaders in Sacramento are doing and what they're not doing.

3:09:12And they haven't been working with cities when it came to public safety. So I'll be speaking at a committee called the local

3:09:24Little Hoover Commission. I'll be speaking on the Fourteenth, and testifying on with the help of our police, chief and city manager and staff, to provide information on what small cities are going through with the prop. 37. And the laws that have enabled this lawlessness that we see in the State of California. We've seen the

3:09:49gration in Oakland and San Francisco. We see it next door in Richmond, and that's why we see crime spreading over here in El Cerrito, and we need to put a stop to this. So I look forward to working with all the city councils and mayors, and we have a full year ahead and look forward to working with my colleagues here on the city level to make sure we do the right thing for cities and advocating for cities.

3:10:13Thank you.

3:10:16Councilmember Weissenner. Yes, while II did not get to join Councilmember Kento and and city Manager Ken Pinkos, at the National League of Cities in Atlanta. I did manage to get erected to the LGBT caucus. And so I'm a new board member of the LGBT caucus at the National League of Cities.

3:10:33Don't know how that happened, but it did

3:10:36so that's the report.

3:10:40I'm here. Brochem. Yes, on Saturday, myself and the mayor had the pleasure of attending the Elsrido pancake breakfast and city staff and volunteers did a really incredible job. The kids from all the after-school programs, Carol, which was very sweet, and it was an excellent event. And then on Sunday I attended Temple Bethill's Hanuk affair, and it was a really nice showing of the West County Jewish community.

3:11:11Hmm.

3:11:12Councillor Bevan Fidelis. Yes, the Mo. That this Council passed the Wildfire Prevention Coordination Group.

3:11:20past Oakland, Richmond joined, Oakland joined, and Berkeley joined. And I'm looking forward to that coming before this council in the future to also.

3:11:32But if we didn't enjoy

3:11:34that, so, thank you.

3:11:37Great. I just want to report that, you know, we had our last subcommittee ad hoc subcommittee on advisory bodies, meeting on November the 20 ninth, and on December the second, as Mayor Protem said, I attended the Elstrado holiday pancake breakfast, and it was really nice to see so many families, and just the sheer giddiness of the event. It was really, really.

3:12:01really fun. It was really well done by Staff.

3:12:04and I think no sausage anymore. I heard bacon scramble Bay. Oh, sausage! Okay, in orange juice from Saint Mary's and El Srab. It's it was very nice to have it back so.

3:12:26and on that happy note

3:12:29the time is now 9, 12, and we are adjourned the next regularly scheduled Sneak Council meeting is Tuesday, December nineteenth, 2023 at 6 PM. For our happy holidays. And our reorganization is already

3:12:46nets.

3:12:48Everybody's right. Yeah.