Regular City Council Meeting December 3, 2024

0:00:00to Green hydrogen so really excited about that um and uh starting tomorrow I'll spend the next three days in Napa with uh the league of California cities uh um and uh we will have a a robust discussion on what we plan to do uh for 2025 especially dealing with uh the next

0:00:21two years of deficit years with the last two years of our governor thank you thank you and U because I also had my notes about the holiday display but I fill in the gaps of what wasn't said which is that it runs from December 14th this Saturday until or following

0:00:36Saturday to Thursday December 26 so you'll have ample time to visit and also when you're up there there are QR codes and donation boxes so if you can't go on to the website to donate and if you can't volunteer to help set up when you're there on site please be generous

0:00:50because it's a really wonderful community-led event um also the state of the city address is going to be on Tuesday December 17th at 5:00 p.m. and that's going to be kind of my last formal event so I'm really looking forward to it and since this is my last regular meeting I want to give a huge

0:01:08thank you to every single staff member we have a lot of Staff members here in the room whether you're in public works recreation community development elero PD or elero fire or in one of our smaller internal departments such as human resources Finance it city clerk

0:01:26City management and to our City attorney and to his Redwood Public Law team uh I really appreciate all of your hard work public service is quite visible but it often feels invisible so I see I see you um and just want to from the Bott of my heart share how much I appreciate all

0:01:42your hard work and with that I'm going to move on oh and I've got two more announcements um effective immediately which is a very strong word but starting right now um I'm formally disbanding the ad hoc committee compromised of myself and council member motoyama for our wall

0:01:58of fame recognition work or Wall of Fame program and then I want to remind residents that we are actively recruiting for upcoming 2025 term expirations and other existing vacancies for our city boards commissions and committees we have 40 plus opportunities to serve and there are many ways to give

0:02:17back to the community not just with the holiday display but if you want to help year round with keeping the city going and for more information please visit elrio.org commissions or contact our city clerk so with that I'm going to move on to oral Communications from the public now

0:02:34is the time for members who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda consent items and presentation items request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card public comments will be taken in person only please remember to identify yourself and

0:02:51your city of residence at the beginning of your comments city clerk please proceed thank you mayor our first Speaker tonight is Betsy Basher followed by Buddy aich hello council members I'm Betsy Basher I'm an elero resident and um I uh was talking to a lot of my neighbors during

0:03:16election season it was quite a pleasure and it was very interesting and I noticed that many of them said that they would really like to have more transparency in their City Affairs and on their city council um um and I noticed that in the uh League of Women Voters Forum uh in particular Rebecca

0:03:34Saltzman and uh William katsanis emphasized that that also was a goal of theirs now I am here tonight because I'm concerned that the city council passed a very large Consulting contract for Dixon resources unlimited um to develop a uh elero parking management action plan um

0:03:59I don't remember being in any public meeting or public hearing where the city even agreed to have uh a parking management plan this may have been done in private negotiations with Bart um but I I have requested to understand why there was no report um we've had Jared

0:04:20Mullen um who was hired by the city supposedly I believe in the beginning with the Grant and we have no report from Jared explaining all the work that he's done um which I think may be the basis for uh going forward with this contract but um I feel that that really

0:04:37should be available to Citizens and um I'm curious about why this is listed with no information on the consent calendar exempt from review pursuant to section 15262 of sea guidelines I'm not a lawyer so so I would appreciate more of an explanation of that and then I

0:04:56wanted to say I mean um the parking management plan has been mentioned several times informally and many people believe that it's going to be affecting every street and every parking place within a half mile of the BART station so I feel that before letting a $200,000

0:05:13contract you might want to actively contact people who live on Clayton Avenue or albamar Street or norvel Street or Everett Street or Richmond Street or Elm Street or Liberty Street or Lexington Street or Kerney Street Vermont Avenue Central Avenue all the way over to uh Stockton and then we have

0:05:36uh Ashbury pona parts of Ramona and kaloa so this really is a very important action that has been taken and I have requested getting a copy of the contract but I would also like to ask when the new city council comes in and with the existing members um who have voted for

0:05:56this or who may have been absent that that you would like to get public input from people who will be so directly affected I I should add I will also be affected as living in the Hills just above the station and councilman fidelli uh mentioned that but um thank you

0:06:15you're your time has ended our next speaker is Buddy aich did anybody have a a Time clock to see how long it took me to and I'm I got there rapidly tonight in the years to come it's going to take me a long time whatever that suggests it's been a while so I don't know if you guys

0:06:58remember me but uh I'm thinking about a name change how's buddy Senior Center yeah so that way when people come by the haunted Gardens where I live and they look Senior Center they oh that's where buddy lips I mean it's it's more than just a convenience and I want to congratulate

0:07:25Carolyn on what's ahead of for you and and for the the city of elero and and in closing Good Vibes mayor that concludes our request to speak all right thank you so much uh we're now going to move on to our presentations our first one is from the Bay Area Rapid Transit and we have uh

0:07:50Bradley Dunn here from Bart well I I'd like to start by thanking you all so much for having me for uh you know at the end of the year um to talk about bart and um we're really excited um to talk to you a little bit about our role of the region what Bart's doing to improve the writer

0:08:13experience some Elso specific things that we're excited about and then um the fun topic of Bart's finances um turn it on this oh I did not I did not follow instructions there we go so about a year ago Bart La launched our safe and clean plan to improve the rider experience and win back Riders um

0:08:49we really know that you know the pandemic changed a lot of people's travel patterns and to win Riders back we need to have safe reliable service Serv that meets the needs of riders so we've really focused on those three things um you know uh so first we've uh worked with our Police Department to

0:09:08double our uh police patrols on our trains and in our stations um we have seen that make a big difference for our Riders about a third more Riders on our Rider survey report seeing a security Personnel um on their trip um than before and that has led to a 15% decrease in time which we're really

0:09:27excited about I'm sorry to just pause you if you can please speak more into the microphone no one in Zoom can hear you if you move your head when you speak thank you I will try not to move my head um so uh yes so uh basically we've doubled our police presence on in our system

0:09:47which has Le led to about 15% lower crime this year compared to last year um we've improved our night and weekend service so that you'll no longer wait more than 20 minutes um for any train while we're providing service um which is really important for folks that are

0:10:02trying to go to cultural institutions you know a play a restaurant those kinds of things um because you know at the end of the night you're not going to be waiting 30 minutes on on a platform for Bart you know era when you can Uber take other kinds of Transportation you can

0:10:16drive um and then we've doubled the rate of deep cleaning um so we've been making we've made these improvements for about a year and we've seen you know a lot of progress September was our best month since the pandemic um it was also kind of driven in part by um the last a games

0:10:32and some big events but October you know remained strong and um you know we're really excited about the momentum that we're building um a big part of our you know momentum is our NextGen Fair Gates project um it it kind of goes into that improving Safety and Security and making

0:10:50people um you know feel safer on our system um so these are 7 foot Gates that have been installed in uh now 11 stations we had one finish up uh between the time I submitted this and now um and we're rolling really quickly these Gates improve accessibility and reliability um

0:11:09you might have seen many of our gates around the uh the system are held together literally by duct tape um because the gaskets aren't being made anymore um so these really bring us into um you know the modern you know kind of First World Transportation Systems that

0:11:24we think that the Bay Area deserves um and they do help ruce Fair evasion and people using the system um for things other than um what it's intended for um we've seen uh once we install these Gates an increase in exits um that's people tapping out with their Clipper

0:11:40card so for example at um Civic Center one of the hotspots that we have some challenges with um the week after or the Wednesday after we installed the gates we opened them on Monday on Wednesday we had 700 additional exits um compared to the week before and none of the other

0:11:57downtown stations saw that kind of bump so we're really seeing um you know people starting to see that they can't just hop the gates and starting to pay their fair share um which is important for a variety of reasons um we are really excited about our role um as a

0:12:14you know kind of the backbone of the regional transportation system um you know as we kind of look forward we have a you know a you know uh nearly 300,000 trips that are transferred between AC Transit and Bart um 90% of our regional trips use um Bart in some way so you

0:12:36know as we think about what it means moving forward in a post-pandemic world for our transportation system it's really important that we understand that those local operators um like AC Transit rely on those transfer trips um to connect people from Els Sero to other

0:12:52parts you know of the Bay Area um and so we really um are excited about you know if you look at the map two-thirds of those uh of the jobs in the Bay Area are uh within one bus ride or a 15minute walk from a BART station um and you know we really you know move that economy

0:13:13forward here in Els Sero we're excited to invest in transit oriented development we are so proud that you all got uh the asek grant $40 million to kind of move that project forward um we're very excited to break ground uh that uh on parcel a um the South parcel

0:13:31in 2025 and to move the elsio Del Norte station into the near-term work plan for our Transit oriented development program um that really puts you in the second kind of tier things that aren't being developed immediately but those next stations that we're going to get to and

0:13:50we're excited to continue the Deep um engagement and partnership that we've had with the city council and you know elero generally as uh we look to develop um Del Norte station in addition to the plaza Transit oriented development we also have an excit we're participating

0:14:07in an exciting Regional wave finding pilot at Del Norte station um so you all are one of two stations um that get the the full MTC Regional wave finding pilot um because of your role connecting um you know with AC Transit 580 bus to Marin County um with AC Transit with

0:14:27Bart with westcat um all of the service providers here so um this is going to be um kind of moving forward um and we just had an announcement that this is moving forward um and it's we're going to be survey you know MTC is going to be surveying folks to get feedback on these

0:14:45new and improved wayfinding um you know signage that will if successful here go throughout the Bay Area so um please do participate in those feedback sessions with MTC because your all's opinion really does have an outsized weight in the future of this wayfinding throughout

0:15:02the Bay Area you know our goal is to really improve that customer experience by making it easy for them to find where they need to go to find those connections um that we see can be a real deterrent to people taking Transit similarly we are uh have joined the regional discount program which can

0:15:21save folks um significant amounts of money um when Clipper 2.0 launches um next year as I said N9 out of 10 transfer trips include Bart um so Bart being a part of this program is really essential for its function um that means that when you take an AC Transit trip to

0:15:40a Bart trip um you're no longer penalized for changing um you know your your mode of transportation so uh there will be a $22.50 discount on your second mode of Transit um so for example if you're going from um CSU East Bay to Powell Street um you would pay your AC Transit

0:15:59fair but you would get a $2.50 deduction from your $5.90 B fair so for a student that's going to um you know that's going to calate East Bay that could um be about $1,250 um over a year at times of rising costs we think that this is really important um because we want more people

0:16:20to be using our transit system and you know we you know don't want people to think of a connection as being a a prohibitive um especially from a cost perspective we've also um want to make sure that Elser residents know about our discount programs ways that we can make

0:16:37it easier and cheaper for folks to travel on BART um so Clipper start is a uh lowincome discount program for folks earning up to% of the federal poverty limit um which is $664,000 about for a family of four um we also have a 50% discount for uh youth riders that

0:16:56discount increases to 62 and a half% for seniors and people with disabilities that have their Regional Transit card and we have a baypass program that is an Innovative uh pilot program through uh that we've partnered with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission

0:17:11to roll out to local businesses um that can buy Transit unlimited Transit passes kind of like a gym membership or um you know a health benefit um that they can share with their employees so if you know people that um own a business with uh you know 100 um or more employees um

0:17:30that would be interested in providing that please do get in touch um we you know uh can uh get them the information for how to join that program we're doing all these things to make it more affordable easier and more enjoyable to ride Bart um but the reality is we need a new funding model

0:17:48um pre pandemic we relied on over 60% of our you know relied on uh rer fairs for 60% of our Revenue um and you know what we saw during the pandemic is that agencies that have a basket of funds that don't just rely on one source of funding have done much better coming out

0:18:08of the pandemic than um they did than single Source or largely single Source agencies um so Bart really needs to modernize our funding model to match with how other Transit agencies are funded um you know across the country and across the world there's a significantly higher um investment in Te

0:18:28You with tax dollars in operating um and you know we know that it is no longer Equitable especially in a post-pandemic world where two-thirds of our Riders are people of color 44% don't have uh a car and about a third make less than $50,000 a year increasing fairs on their backs

0:18:50to pay for the entire system that benefits all of us in the Bay Area isn't Equitable so we're looking at a new funding model um you know we often when we say we need new funding models to take into account what's going on we often hear that Bart isn't controlling

0:19:06its costs or that costs have continued to go up you know people are feeling the squeeze of inflation and what that does to you know family budgets but Bart has done a good job of controlling costs so we have some of the best cost efficiency in the nation which is the cost per

0:19:22Revenue mile um people don't really know that um you know and that our you know our budget deficit is you know less than as a percentage of our total deficit than other you know providers like the sfmta that runs mun and Cal Train um so really our costs have you know been

0:19:41slower than inflation you know since the pandemic and this budget crisis isn't due to the fact that we can't control our spending it's that we have really seen a change in work patterns that have meant that people just go less places um you know people stay home a lot more

0:19:59during the week and we don't have those commuters that are balancing out those fairs part like all Heavy rail has significant F fixed costs about 40% of our costs um you know vary based on our service two about 60% of our costs if you flip on the light switch to turn on

0:20:18the system those costs are there um which means that if we had to reduce service we can't cut our way out of this without it being absolutely devastating so so as you can see on the chart a 20% cut in um in operating costs would require a 65% cut in service a 30% uh

0:20:38cut in costs would require an 85% C cut in service because you're only cutting those you know variable costs when those fixed costs exist whether you turn you know whether you run lots of trains or whether you don't so we're looking for a stable funding source and we have been

0:20:55in cont you know conversations with MTC with other operators about trying to figure out what that means but what we know is that failure is unacceptable because it'd be cataclysmic for our local economy 60-minute train frequencies 9pm system closures lines of service um that would be eliminated no

0:21:15weekend service um that would be catastrophic changes to congestion in the Bay Area um you'd need three additional Lanes on the Bay Bridge to absorb all that additional traffic um we know that 80 is a total mess if you ever try to drive it between you know 2:30

0:21:34these days and like 7:00 at night um imagine how much worse it would get if all of those Bart Riders um became uh drivers all the businesses in Els Sero need employees to be able to get there to run it would spike costs because employees would need you know additional

0:21:53ways to you know would have to buy cars would have to take other means and people would just choose not to work in many places that um you know don't pay enough to deal with hours and hours of being in traffic that would be really devastating to cities like elero the Bay

0:22:09Area as a whole and so um you know it's uh kind of a little bit of a Grinchy uh end of the message but um you know I do really appreciate you all having us here um we are you know so grateful for the partnership of elero in the transit oriented development um and making sure

0:22:29you know that we are providing good service to your residents um so thank you so much for having me and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you for the informative presentation I appreciate it and start at our Bart alumni here at the end want to start with me yeah oh okay I that's probably

0:22:47because I as the most people know I spent more than a decade at Bart working in government Affairs some of the stuff that you do Bradley so I've learned firsthand what what Bart means to the Bay Area and to our economy every Community it really impacts those 27

0:23:03cities and the whole Bay Area um that as you say it all changed with covid um primarily as you say because of how Bart based its Financial uh plan as far as customers and it was what up to 70% of ridership has supported Bart um but now there is a fiscal cliff and it's very

0:23:25serious for all transit agencies in the Bay Area and as Gabe will learn and as the local cities and the county and NPC we're trying to find a fix to this and it's going to take BART being accountable to some of the concerns that a lot of people have had in the Bay Area um you

0:23:43know Bart is an open system a open transit system it can't be much better than the society it's in when the doors are open the society comes in and those those issues come into all of the BART cars but I've had my issues with Bart on safety and cleanliness but I've also

0:23:59seen them improve within the last six months I've taken a lot now and I go out to conquer in wallet Creek it's getting better it's cleaner I'm seeing cops walking down in the trains um and I think if in fact you're going to get a bond measure in the next two years or the state

0:24:21legislature is going to help you're going to have to be even cleaner and safer and uh I'm wishing you all the best of luck I see that progress happening but it's all about the voters when the voters and the people in our County uh learn and maybe the whole MTC area that you're getting better and

0:24:41you're proving it and we feel that we're going to fix that fiscal cliff so thank you for being here I get um I Echo what my colleague just mentioned um you know I was on the first Bart ride with mayor Barty and I was an elementary school I was a volunteer traffic monitor crossing a

0:25:03Fairmont School crossing San Pablo Avenue I don't see parents ever doing that again but uh yeah so being part of the original B and remembering that um and uh still seeing when I take BART I see so many people still using the gates uh at uh the Del Norte station and

0:25:23skipping out this has been three generations of people just skipping out not paying and it's uh better late than ever so I appreciate that um glad it's finally on board um you know they could have spent a lot less money if they had the turn styles that they have in the

0:25:38London Tube and in Tokyo so uh you know it's an expensive fix and uh um and I did mention earlier about uh uh State deficits and this incoming Administration on the federal level I don't see a bailout coming anytime soon so I hope in the future that your board directors will not play politics ever

0:26:00again and remember that their seats are nonpartisan and I was so frustrated through the years to see uh you know Oakland San Francisco bbard directors playing politics all the time and forgetting that 60% of writers are from kraasa County so I'm hoping that in the

0:26:19next uh with our new bbard directors they will stop playing politics and they will listen to people like myself who have had their lives threaten Bart uh who was a victim of a crime who've had my Volkswagen convertible broken into slth toop uh you know you name it I've

0:26:37been a part of crime a victim of crime in Bart since uh from the very beginning uh so I see a lot of things that need to be done continually but I'm hoping in the future that you will also look at Grand Jury reports and independent Auditors in the future instead of hiding

0:26:56that and keeping it away from the public so you know a lot of work needs to be done I support Bart uh you know i' you I've been part of I've been taking Bart from day one uh but no uh many of our residents have other options and are taking the other options because they're

0:27:12sick of being victims of crime they are sick of getting their car broken into uh I had the vice mayor of penol give me a call because his dad's car was broken into and then I find out for a police chief that uh uh they only have one License Plate Reader there it' be great

0:27:30to have license plate readers everywhere in the BART station and to see more of a police presence so I still see people smok and crack and and fenel and I saw someone when I was taking a Bart from uh San Francisco Airport someone that was actually uh you know putting a needle in

0:27:49his vein and that was disgusting I don't want our seniors uh to go through that and have to experience this and this is the real world and this is part of the Bay Area unfortunately so Public Safety always uh you know it it's frustrating when um the north part of the city gets

0:28:07the brunt of the crime uh we had two years ago an attempted rape on Friday afternoon 11:30 in the morning so these are things that we are serious about here in contracosta county and I hope with our new bbard directors with u my former colleagues from Dublin and

0:28:25Pleasant Hill um I'm looking for more prag atic nonpartisan leadership that's what we need regionally and hopefully you'll have to work with MTC and we're all part of MPC so you'll have to work with us and answer questions for that one thank you mayor proen yes hi

0:28:46Bradley um Bradley I could talk to you about bart all day long um I always credit the ELO rollers and strollers for inspiring me to get rid of my car so I spend a lot of time on BART so I have only a few questions but maybe I will to everyone at home Bradley is my chess

0:29:02partner but I don't you know play very often because he just beats me all the time so maybe I'll ask those questions to you later but a couple of questions that I have and I know that you gave a few numbers kind of a snapshot on where we are as far as what we're seeing in

0:29:17the data now that they have the new Fair Gates I know I saw the one at pal today of course Civic Center was one of the first Richmond has theirs um when do you think we'll be able to get more robust numbers about how that has how those Gates have affected how that ridership

0:29:32has gone up um and are is Bart already thinking about you know we talk about um car thefts there's always a way when we come up with a solution the thieves are coming up with a a new way of actually getting around that um and today at pal actually for the first time for those

0:29:48who've never been to the pal Street Station they also have now the I think there must be about six s foot dividers that they've put in the walkway between the gates and the the actual Stairway to the BART and that was the first time I saw someone actually jump one of those

0:30:02walls which I didn't think that they could but they found a way to do it so as Bart already looking into the ways that people are looking now to still jump the fair Gates um with those taller Gates and what when we see more numbers around it well thank you for the

0:30:16question as you said there are in um people with a lot of Ingenuity um that will try to um you know evade any kind of system that is put in place um that is why the fair gates are just one part of our security strategy um and increasing um you know police patrols um

0:30:38is a significant part of that security strategy as well um as we you know put more gates throughout the system we're going to have better understanding of how the gates are functioning um what we kind of have now is a toothpaste um kind of situation where if you squeeze it one

0:30:56end it comes out the other end um because we don't have you know Gates all throughout the system um you know I think that uh you know so we are trying to move very rapidly we've got 11 stations um in that we've done installs with um basically since July and we're

0:31:13going to have all 50 stations um finalized by the end of the year we're also going to look at those kind of other ways that people are aing um fairs but nothing is going to be 100% our goal is to really change the culture around Fair evasion um so that even if it's you

0:31:31know an 80% reduction in Fair evasion or a 50% reduction that really changes the expectation that many people have and you know look I I see it um it's frustrating right everybody wants to make sure that they're not the only one paying their fair share um and so you

0:31:51know we are um you know we we want people that are using the system for its intended purpose um um much like council member fideli said that we do reflect the region that we serve and the problems of the region that we serve are often you know pushed onto our transit

0:32:08systems and you know our transit systems often unlike counties and cities have some of the fewest resources to deal with um you know the the drug epidemic our Mental Health crisis our homelessness crisis um we need significant help from our cities and our counties um to solve those kinds of

0:32:26problems um before they get pushed onto Bart um but we you know are very hopeful and have seen encouraging preliminary data but as we get more and more stations we'll have a better idea of what that is the other thing is estimating Fair evasion has is always a little bit tricky in terms of you know

0:32:48when you're looking at it it changes the fair evasion um so all the kind of numbers are always going to be estimates um before the pandemic it was estimated about 25 milli million um that change you know does that change with a pandemic where people go less places

0:33:04does that change with the way the ridership changes we don't know um but we'll we're hopeful that this is going to be a first step in um kind of assisting the law enforcement presence in making this a you know a safer and more enjoyable cleaner ride yeah and just to let for the for the benefit of

0:33:22the public when we talk about fairy evasion I mean yes it is it is detrimental to the BART um bottom line but also it's a safety issue a lot of times when you have a lot of the young folks who are coming um in in varying fades in in groups and all different type of thing walking behind people

0:33:39which can be threatening so you have that um another question I had kind of to what council member fideli said it Bart is definitely more cleaner you can definitely tell that you all are taking a lot of time to do those deep cleans especially when you're since we're at a

0:33:52station that's one station away from Richmond you can definitely see that but one thing I've also started seeing a little bit more is the crisis intervention team versus just having um the BART police attending to a lot of our unhoused folks who are on our Bart

0:34:08um when you all are talking about your safety plan are you all thinking in terms of increasing that because I I do see them more but I think that there is an opportunity especially again as a station that's one station away from Richmond going into MacArthur going into

0:34:22San Francisco are we are we already talking in terms about how we can increase the presence of the intervention team to the The Crisis Intervention Specialists are really that third leg of our security strategy along with the fair Gates and along with um our increased police presence um they do

0:34:38wonderful work out in the system um you know sometimes the best answer to somebody's worst day isn't somebody with a badge and a gun um but is somebody that has um been trained in mental health and deescalation and how to connect people with services and how to

0:34:54get through to somebody that um is having that work day of their lives so um we are really excited about their presence on the system and their ability to be the eyes and ears of armed law enforcement and you know to make sure that we're allocating our armed law

0:35:11enforcement um resources effectively um so you know are we using um our armed services you know our armed police officers to address you know car Breakin or are we having them you know talk to somebody that you know is Sheltering on our system right we we want to make sure

0:35:30that we're prioritizing the crime that is best stopped by police officers you know with those police resources um so we are you know um much like everybody else in the Bay Area um short staffed on um you know both our PD side and our crisis intervention side um but we are

0:35:49hiring and trying to get as many um you know folks into those positions um and you know more resources was always helpful in in doing so um but we are really proud of the work that has been done um to kind of change some of the narrative on security situation and make

0:36:06things better is it perfect no is it um you know better than it was I think definitely um it's somebody that uses Civic Center as their home station for 38 years um and so that's um you know I think what we're looking for is progress and they've been very helpful in that my

0:36:24last question is a vanity question almost and but you kind of answered it when you talked about finding different funding models um and how a reduction in Rat um equals a reduction in service I was going to ask when we can look forward to earlier airport rides so

0:36:40those of us who love to go to the airport but I mean like I have a a 500 a.m. trip tomorrow I'm not going to be able to take the B but I guess until we fix that funding model problem we won't have any more of those correct I told you it was a vanity question well I'm

0:36:52I'm team red eye so um you know I I'm all about stopping at alaro burrito and going downstairs and taking Bart to um the the airport in the evening um but yes uh you know a lot of that is main you know our ability to maintain the system we have a 50-year-old system that

0:37:12um means that a lot of the things that we had and um you know took care of well um is reaching the end of their lives and so that requires you know significant maintenance um you know we are going to be you know continuing our project to replace switches in the heart

0:37:28of Downtown Oakland um at the beginning of the year um that you know connect all of our trains you know and move them between different lines so that really connects elero residents to the rest of the Bay Area that's going to require bus Bridges that's going to require

0:37:43inconvenience but those switches when they go out um that's a nightmare and a disaster so um it does require you know a little bit of patience and we do appreciate it but I'm sorry that we're not going to get you to the airport at 5:00 in the morning okay thank you Ry you're welcome thank

0:38:00you for having me council member Mama thank you mayor um thank you for the presentation it's really great to get these kind of periodic updates it's really helpful to let us know what's going on as well as the public um I think you answered my question but if you could please clarify for me um when

0:38:19the new Fair Gates will be installed in the two else redo stations so we are literally building the airplane as we fly this um and we are moving faster than any government construction project I've ever been a part of um which has meant that there has been lots of kind of variability on

0:38:36when those stations um are uh going to be um you know put into place they will all be done by the end of next year um and I think that um you know one thing that we are considering is the Clipper 2.0 technology and how you know when MTC rolls that out how do we integrate that

0:38:55with the fair Gates um so that we can install them with the minimal amount of disruption and with you know the maximum amount of getting them in quickly um so we are trying to move as quickly as possible um but we you know I don't have an actual date yet we um have been you

0:39:14know switching them up as we find you know engineering problems when you you know do you know the sonar under the um you know under the tile stations that were built 50 years ago you often find things that um you didn't expect to be there and so we're shifting and moving

0:39:29forward as quickly as possible so that we can um move really expeditiously on this because we know how important is the community and then um you mentioned the Clipper 2.0 does that mean new cards or just the software for the existing cards so um that does your Clipper card will

0:39:47work uh just fine but it will allow for a lot of new um kind of Technology on the back end that allows for things like discounts um you know that you can't do um and different kind of fair products that you can't do with the current technology um so that Regional transfer

0:40:05pilot the current technology doesn't allow us to say oh hey you took AC Transit before coming here we're going to charge you 250 less um and that's why we're we've been waiting for it um unfortunately MTC has delayed the Clipper 2.0 roll out for over a year so um we are um kind of waiting for that

0:40:24we're um very excited about that and that um that Regional pilot we think is going to add about 27,000 Regional Riders um across Systems Great and then my last question is um you know other than uh you know a bond uh to voters and 2026 what other plans do you have to

0:40:46address the fiscal cliff so it's unlikely we will do a bond um bonds are typically for Capital funding and um you know we don't have a capital funding I mean we would always use more money but um the real challenge that we have is on the operating side and um unlike you

0:41:07know systems in Europe or Asia that um don't kind of distinguish between operating and capital um we do here and so there are lots of restrictions on those Capital funds so we can't use those kinds of funds so for example we saved $400 million on our um new train

0:41:26carp procurement it cost $400 million less than we thought it would um which is great but that doesn't mean we can take that money and then put it into our operating budget and solve our you know our shortfall um so there are a variety of different taxes that would be

0:41:40considered whether that's um sales tax parcel tax payroll tax um you know those are all options that MTC and um you know the transit operators are discussing currently any non voter driven options Ian unfortunately not really in California right um you know our

0:42:05regulations around raising taxes um requires votes of the people um you know based on Prop 13 so um that means that we don't really have a um a well of money and um as uh you know several folks uh you know several council members have mentioned we are not um I don't expect large sums of money for

0:42:26Transit coming from the federal government um you know at at this time thank you very much and I do think that the trains are cleaner and I really appreciate the the the Innovative thinking that made the train shorter so that they would feel Fuller that that really has helped a lot in the feeling

0:42:45of safety so thank you and it saved $12 million so uh win-win win and um glad that you've experienced you know um better uh better service uh and cleanliness in my mayoral Ro role I tend to not bring in presentations just overall because I don't think it's always the

0:43:05best use of the time for both the public and the council but I think that this one is really important because there's so many Bart writers in El Sero and we really care about understanding what's happening to the system and the health of your system really is integral to the

0:43:19health of our community um so my question is kind of connected to the last question that council member moama asked which is in slide 10 and there's that Bart funding graph with the the gray representing what is uh labeled as financial assistance which we know means

0:43:35T that it's tax structures that it's helping to support it so it's not just coming from fairs I'm sure you don't have these numbers off the top of your head but a guesstimation is fine of what buckets of money does this represent so that represents a variety of um local

0:43:52measures um uh some in kraasa County some in Alam County some in Sano County um so you know agreements when Bart went to SFO you know um there is money coming from Sano County there's also money coming from um VTA and Santa Clara County for operating um those kinds the

0:44:13extension down um to baresa um so it's it's a variety of these smaller pools of money that um you know kind of go from across you know different jurisdictions each jurisdiction has different um kind of contributions to to that number um but again that's really you

0:44:33know the bulk of it is that 60% of fair Revenue that really drives um you know the the service so it's a patchwork of local funding how much of this is State funding how much of this is federal funding I don't know how much is federal funding um we do get transit assistance

0:44:53from the state and have gotten Transit assistance from the state that is is um you know through several of the state Transit assistance funds um some of that is like C and trade money and um you know a variety of different state sources but it's small in terms of the

0:45:10overall budget I think it's less than 10% I think it's in the realm of $40 million but I could get you those numbers um in terms of a breakdown the reason I ask it is because when community members read or hear on the news that you know budget's being cut for for Local transportation from the

0:45:28federal level from the state level I want our community members to know what does that actually reflect in the service so um I think it's just good data to have out there so that um people can be either assured or alarmed depending on the information and then in

0:45:42that next slide um where it talks about actual operating expenses per service hour I'm assuming that purple line refers to um the the kind of cost of in the costs with um inflation see there's a oh that's fine I I don't know what which purple line there's a CPI line

0:46:05that's purple so and so it's demonstrating that Bart's um operating expenditures per vehicle Revenue mile is quite low but it's one of those kind of statistical things where we just have a lot of miles in our system compared to some of the other systems so um it's an

0:46:22interesting graph but I think that kind of the context is that we just have more we have a really far expanding far-reaching system compared to some of the the uh counterparts in the nation definitely um you know we have 130 miles of track and you know station in you

0:46:39know 50 stations across the bay area um but you know if you look at some of the other services they um you know do provide you know kind of uh Regional you know Regional Rail rather than Subway type rail right um you know if you look at for example like the sfm ta and mun

0:46:58that's obviously you know much much shorter um but uh you know we there there I think that this graph is is good in showing that you know our costs are you know growing our costs per service hour are lower but our costs have also you know grown slower than these other

0:47:18providers as well um and I I would say that you know carrying people over long distances really has that big impact in people lives um because otherwise you're sitting in traffic on a freeway for for longer and that has that big impact um also when you look at like longer

0:47:38distances the climate impacts are significantly higher um for those rail trips so when you look at like Federal funding um for a lot of their new starts and their Grant programs um they really prioritize those longer trips because of the climate emissions that those trips

0:47:55you know carry so so I I there are other um kind of um you know graphs that show our cost controls um but you know this is you know inflation has been significant for you know in our industry and in every other industry since the pandemic and we are doing our best to

0:48:12try to control those costs um you know rather than letting them explode well really appreciate your time tonight thank you so much so much for having me um I if we have community members who have questions for you would you be open because we have we don't have time for

0:48:26the Q here it's just for the council but if there's anyone feel free to pull them outside contact information's in the presentation um so please do get in touch thank you so much appreciate it all right and with that we're going to move on to our next presentation

0:48:41which is the annual real property transfer tax presentation and I already have a question before the presentation even starts I noticed it's called the annual real property tax transport or presentation you said yes is it annual it will be annual it will be okay so this is the

0:49:00first annual inaugural first annual there was one a few years ago yes yes but now we realize it's something numbers but not numbers yeah so we'll say first annual can't have a first annual it can only be inaugural it can't have a first Ann annual is grammatically

0:49:18incorrect it can only be an inaugural it's a PE inaugural okay this is our inaugural for give inaugurations okay and then this one away last greetings mayor and council members I am Melanie minz your community development director um and I'm just going to give a brief introduction but

0:49:50then I am going to or to the item tonight to the presentation and then Cindy Lucas our interim assistant building official who interacts most with our building permits and with all of with each of the rebates actually will be giving um the short presentation um I know that some of you

0:50:07have asked questions and even internally with staff we talked about this um there's some items in the climate action plan um that were asked for that we're asking for some policy changes to the rptt um but that was not in the context of you actually receiving the

0:50:22information about what the what the rptt is doing so tonight we really are just giving the inaugural uh real property transfer tax rebate program report which is really just a very straightforward um outlining of uh what types of projects the rebate has funded and how much

0:50:38rebate has been um given back um and then uh we'll both be here to answer questions um that we might have pertaining to that but so this is just a straightforward uh report and of course if there's something that you want in the annual report that we don't share

0:50:53tonight that you want just as a regular piece of it um let us know and we can make note of that so with that I will turn it over to Cindy hello everyone hello city council um so I will be presenting the real property transfer tax rebate program annual report um like Melanie said I've

0:51:15been working with this program for about a year and a half now um so I was able to gather some great information um from previous reports or um presentations and also what I've worked on um so just to give a quick overview of the program um starting January 14th

0:51:372019 property sales in elero are subject to a real property transfer tax and that is equal to 1.2% of the sales price and within that ordinance uh there is a program um a rebate program for qualifying qualifying seismic and and energy and Water Conservation projects

0:52:00uh and the homeowners could be eligible for a rebate up to onethird of the property tax paid the work must be completed within one year of transfer uh exceptions are allowed meaning we do give some extensions uh in certain circumstances and the a list of qualifying improvements and the

0:52:22application can be found on uh the Elser website um and as we go forward just uh to keep in mind most of these projects uh do require building permits so that's kind of a component of it um and then moving on to some real property transfer tax statistics to date so this is from the

0:52:45Inception 2019 until um just recently when we started to create the presentation so the total amount of transfer tax collected since 2019 is about 25 million and that number came from Finance uh the total number of properties sold 362 the number of rebates requested

0:53:10approximately 93 and the total amount of rebates to date 386,000 uh which is about 1.5% of the total tax collected so um going through and adding up all the cost the cost of work for all these projects from the building permit valuation is about 1.6 million so there's basically two buckets

0:53:38there's the energy projects and then there's the seismic projects and I'll talk about both separately um starting with energy uh I'll just describe the type of work and then um we can talk about how many projects uh were submitted for that type of work um starting with the water heater upgrades

0:53:5782% AFU are better um AFU stands for annual fuel utilization efficiency uh we've had about total of nine of those projects um eight were tankless and uh one heat pump so the tank list would be gas very quick question is this for this previous year not the 2019 to date this is total okay

0:54:26yeah for everything um we have doors and window upgrades uh we have about eight of those projects um we do ask for a u factor of 32 or better um that's that's basically how well a window or door insulates and is able to um prevent heat from escaping um and we do have another category high

0:54:52efficiency built-in appliances we had three of those projects um cost of work about 36,000 uh we had a wall in attic insulation we had two of those projects and re roof or or the cool roof category uh we had nine of those and um just to add to the re-roofing um the Els elero

0:55:16has passed an ordinance that all roofs um if you're replacing 50% or more of the roof it needs to be a class a roof which is is um you know the highest fire resistance material um so one more page of the Energy rebates um replace older natural gas Heating units with high efficiency units

0:55:4280% are better we had about five of those um most of those were gas to gas um replace old natural gas and I'm sorry there's a a word missing there it's replaced old natural gas or electric heating and cooling with heat pumps uh we had five heat pumps permanently installed electric

0:56:05vehicle charging stations we have five uh installation of solar electric or solar thermal systems we had a total of 14 of those all electric no thermal and then just to sum up um the last two slides uh we had about a total of 60 rebates Al together for energy uh the total cost of work for

0:56:28the Energy rebates was 74349 and the total rebates given was 2,280 and um second category seismic we have this is just one slide we have approved and permitted seismic strengthening uh uh per plan set a and 38 people took advantage of that so that was a big chunk of the seismic um a

0:56:59replacement repair Foundation two and the installation of a Shear or BRAC wall was two um so finally to sum it up there's approximately 42 total rebates for seismic we have uh total cost of work 882 490,000 and the rebates were 1885 891 and that is it so we'll take

0:57:26questions if you have to start in the side of the room this time do you have any questions councilman Mama thank you mayor so um I know that this is about to date um can you tell me what we plan to do to incorporate those climate action and adaptation plan recommendations so that

0:57:48moving forward the rebates would reflect be more in alignment and reflect the the recommendations that's right so there was a recommendation and I think it was action item 14 I don't have it in front of me right now but um it was a it had a combination of recommendations one of

0:58:05those was to eliminate providing rebate for anything gas related and you can see that I believe there were eight water heater upgrades and five um uh um heater if more efficient heaters over the five years so 13 um and there then it Alo it said to eliminate rebates for gas and then it also said to

0:58:30consider other items such as Wildfire hardening um battery storage um and some some several other items um because the way that the measure and the ordinance were written we would have to update the ordinance to be able to incorporate um any changes um and we have discussed

0:58:49that if we did update the ordinance we would probably include a measure whereby council could create further updates by resolution and the City attorney can correct me if I stated that wrong but just to make that a little bit of an easier process so that we're not opening

0:59:02up the ordinance every time um and some of those other items we thought would be better to bring back to a study session uh the gas uh elimination is a pretty straightforward one um some of the other ones if you expanded eligibility for example you would have some budget imple

0:59:18implications you'd also potentially as Cindy mentioned all of the items that we currently uh give rebates for required building permits some of those would not um how would you know how would we administer those so we felt um in addition to talking about it just as a

0:59:31work plan item um that we could also discuss whether a study session um but instead of just coming back with that picking one piece of that recommendation we wanted to have a broader conversation and I have a question to follow up with uh city manager is that is the appropriate place for that our

0:59:50Council Retreat to add it to a work plan or I just want to not drop the ball on moving moving this forward absolutely um yes and when we uh the city council will be having a retreat on February 1st to discuss yes staff's work plan and various um uh components of of our kind

1:00:09of kicking the year off with the city council and so in discussing our our staff work plan that is absolutely something that we will be um addressing during that Retreat thank you any questions questions um yeah thank you for that uh presentation um you know as a member of the airboard um

1:00:30you know carb the the state airboard district um they are looking at a lot of things and and the South Coast uh Air Board as well they're taking the lead and a lot of things that my board the BMA board will be listening to um so I ask my uh our residents to stay tuned on

1:00:49that because we will probably have to make uh a lot of changes if these plans go through so um you know I I um you know it's it's a presentation for now uh but no because of the uh courts saying no to the Berkeley decision in electrification things are still in this

1:01:10gray area so uh hoping we could have more discussions on that so uh you know I'll I'll definitely fill you in once uh we decide on what we're going to do uh but I do see it as the future um and I see no problem with uh uh electrification our city did work on this when you look at uh uh at the crust

1:01:31of our Hill and and to see the town homes all that is electrification there's nothing there's no gas in there because that's right on the earthquake Vault so there's nothing new uh but I do see that as a future because you look at uh homes and earthquakes through the

1:01:47years and uh its natural gas explosions that cause all the fires during all the earthquakes that we've had recently so um yeah uh so I do like what uh uh you presented because it shows um you the importance of updating our homes we have an older home stock but we we are still

1:02:08considered a desirable place to live um and uh and that's great and they want to invest and put uh Roots here in the city so uh you know thank you for you know including this uh on the presentation because uh new residents will be investing and espe on the braon bolt I'm

1:02:27seeing a lot of Neighbors in my area um looking at that and and uh so yeah it's all good so thank you for all the work that you've done regarding this councilman fidelli thank you um yeah I think that this is a great success story for elero I think measure V which made

1:02:47us a charter City that moved us toward this tax program not only helps our budget number one helped us through the financial problems but going forward is improving our housing stock in our city it's a great program and when I talk to realtors in the city you're our partners

1:03:03in this they did not complain about this they were neutral when measure V was going through and now every house that's sold it helps our city or helps the owner of the house make it a better house so it's a great success story just a couple questions when we first passed

1:03:20this in 2019 I believe that water conservation was one of the things includ what's what's the status of that so it's still available there it's available just that's not what things that people can Cho and is there this is what I wanted to get to is what is the

1:03:35process of someone asking to do this can you give us the is there a is there a book that says here are the things in water conservation here are the things in energy easy for our residents to see um what we created so in the ordinance itself it referred to a couple

1:03:53specific types of things um both in seismic or other um other improvements that would be deemed um to make the house more resistant during an earthquake more safe um could be approved by the building official otherwise it referred to some tables in the building code um which are pretty

1:04:10it's a it's a pretty dense book um the building code and so our building official did create just a checklist to let people know what types of things would be um allowed to be approved a handy pamphlet or something it's a handy onepage handout that's on our on the web

1:04:24page idea for for yeah we find as you can see mostly 38 that so the earthquake program and interestingly right now Bayan I think the homeowner program just uh ended recently and they're going to be uh reinvigorating it hopefully and I think brace and bolt is not happening now so

1:04:41this is actually a really significant source and I thought what was interesting in what Cindy presented was just how much investment it did Leverage kind of as you're mentioning council member fidelli that you know homeowners when they do something like a seismic

1:04:52retrofit also have to have a lot of matching funds uh with it so water conservation just uh well a tankless water heater uh could would be one of those examp as long as our residents know yeah so we we do have information on our web page that does say the types of projects and if

1:05:09somebody wanted to do something different they could ask we'd have to at this point it would have to match what the ordinance um permitted but we do try to make it more accessible yeah I just think it should be out there in the hallway right for people to pick up um

1:05:21last question is a a lot of talk one of those items you mentioned may be that will be discussed in the in the workshop fire prevention efforts that was included in writing because I I'm hearing about it our folks are talking about options to Abate you know prevent

1:05:39fire issues and the move is toward closer to the house to be cleaned up is that part of the list that that will be discussed it's it would be part of the study session it is not a part of any current it's not currently allowed however as uh as Cindy mentioned the the

1:05:56nice thing is those nine roofs that did get upgraded to be a cool roof so which is an Energy Efficiency measure it also did upgrade them to be more fire um resistance I'm hoping the new city council will consider that going forward that would be a great step to at least

1:06:08be added for the conversation um also congratulations again I mean as as um you know we got 25 million bucks and we only spent out 300 386,000 that makes that you know improves the housing in our city so at 100 homes uh to that's right the 93 it's about a quarter and a quarter of the homes that

1:06:32were paid for about a quarter asked for some kind of rebate and still wasn't that expensive to us so the program is working let's toot our horn on this thank you very much yeah it's funny because I have that same 25% metric um that it is it is a sign of success and while I think the rptt has

1:06:53helped our budget significantly it's been one of the big pieces that has helped the city recover from the economic condition the very dire one that it was in previously um it's I would like to see that number increase I think that it should be a goal ideally for the new Council that it's 50% and

1:07:12while again we really appreciate these funds that are coming in in the ordinance it's only a third so two-thirds of that money would still help the general fund uh but I do want to make sure that we're thinking about how we we can make that homeowners and these new folks who are coming into town

1:07:29are able to utilize These funds to make their houses more energy efficient and more fire safe um and then in that 1.5% again you know it's it would I hate to see that number go higher but it I also really want to see that number go higher I want more money to be able to be paid

1:07:46out my question was around the number just so if 362 properties were sold the total number of rebates requ re ested was a 93 I just kind of crunched the numbers that that means that 60 properties based on your Energy rebates applied and then for the seismic it's 38 or Pro 42 total so I I

1:08:13don't know if those numbers are correct as far as this 93 total or that's accurate I mean that's you're right you're right that our numbers need to be reviewed there so it' be 102 oh so it's even better it's even higher than the 25% yes than yes and and hopefully it's changing every day for

1:08:33the better that's right even this is a month old and we've signed a few I know I've signed at least like three or four five since then you're holding your microphone so if you want to jump in it's fine a clarifying question so uh I would presume that some of these

1:08:47homeowners can do multiple projects so is it 93 house 93 home sales utilize the rebate and not so many so much focusing on the number of projects because one building could have both energy and seismic yeah I don't know if we looked at it in the individual that way but one

1:09:06of the things that um we would still want to update that we didn't when we started this program we didn't set up our database necessarily to collect info in a certain way and many of these projects were combined in a building permit with other improvements that they

1:09:21were doing in their home so Cindy had to kind of go through and look through our so going forward again as I was saying since this is our inaugural first annual or um we will with the comments that you've said today and maybe they come out of the study session we'll also try

1:09:36to kind of set up our data collection system so that it's not as as manual and we can just kind of query it um but it's often combined and so I don't know if we looked for any that did both but as you can see us almost any project that's allowed does require some additional investment

1:09:53and so it might have been on the bill building permit but not necessarily they couldn't have used the rebate for too many usually more than one thing and I I appreciate council member Fidel's suggestion about it being in the the city hall Lobby for folks but also

1:10:08engaging the realitor community so that they have something that they can specifically hand to folks would be incredibly helpful also the storytelling element of it if they community members who've had success and are willing to share that story in a way that then we

1:10:24can Market essentially so it could be a great sub project or I've heard task force for the economic development committee to take this on um also they can work with eqc on this for how we can get this out there because I think that um we're really lucky in Els Sero that

1:10:40we have a lot of folks who want to move here and it's a great way to show that we care and we have the benefit of um potentially uh fire safety Energy Efficiency all of the above and we can share often those new homeowners will call us to try to find Rec on their

1:10:55homes or to ask other questions so we can also just um I can just remind staff to remind them that they that they know about this program thank you so much for the presentation appreciate it thank you council members all right moving right along to move to our adoption of the consent

1:11:14calendar uh we have the following items item a approve the 2025 regular meeting schedule for city council Item B board's Commission committee work plans and or accomplishments and you were submitted the economic development committee's fiscal year 2324 accomplishments spending Authority for

1:11:34recreation instructor expected to exceed 45,000 for fiscal year 2425 Amendment to the city's classification plan resolutions impending implementing measure G transaction and use tax um item F adoption adopt a resolution approving an amendment to an existing contract between the City and

1:11:55trb and Associates anyone would like to pull an item or have comments on an item yes thank you mayor I have comments uh or questions on 7A 7B 7D 7e and 7f sure you don't want see in there just so that we can have a comments on all all right any anything anything e

1:12:23just a comment yeah or right e comment then have a comment on D so let's start with a um I know that um this would take some additional work but before we just approve the calendar I was wondering if there's any concerns about starting uh at 6 for any of the council members uh

1:12:44so particularly our incoming mayor to say I don't have any um issues with starting ex I think that changing the start time is something if we're going to change it we should probably discuss it when the new council is set um as far as the calendar itself I don't have any

1:13:01real concerns that can't be taken care of in the moment but I I definitely see what you're saying I know that was a challenge for me this year um it may be a challenge for some of our new council members but I think that we should have that discussion with them when they're

1:13:13seated thank you all right and now Item B um I just wanted to uh looking at the economic development committee's accomplishments they're great but I just just wanted to know uh how much coordination there is between the economic development committee and the Chamber of Commerce for example is there

1:13:33like what is that partnership because it was not reference I do see Aisa if you'd like to answer that AAA is back from the part is she not she was at the mechanics mixer for a moment but now you're there you're such you're everywhere that's how we collaborate IA shy housing and economic

1:13:51development manager um par me for being on Zoom I wasend the mechanics and um Elso chamber mixer um yes absolutely um actually one of the seats on the economic development committee um includes the chamber representative that's currently Mark foni um and in addition the chamber manager um who is

1:14:10transitioning to a new role um the chamber manager has um attended our meetings on a quarterly basis so there's often um a lot of synergy and collaboration um with the economic development committee um more specifically as you saw we have the inaugural makers Fair last winter we'll

1:14:26have the next one um this upcoming Sunday and also just with the shop local um campaign um to spotlighting some of our local businesses so yes it's something that we definitely um feel like it's a very collaborative partnership um especially since a lot of our um chamber board members and members

1:14:44are elrio businesses as well a quick question while you're still on here um I see that it's all accomplishments that have been completed on the work plan and nothing that's upcoming on the work plan can you give a little uh gist of what is upcoming on their work

1:14:59plan yeah um in terms of upcoming items on the work plan um we hope to actually adopt those at the next meeting um one of the things um that the EDC is looking to do um is to actually bring back um like a taste um the world flavors of elero and do like a bingo type of thing

1:15:18where we visit all of the various um different um Cuisines that we have in the city and then perhaps including um maybe some local wine places or other breweries that we can include um and it would be in somewhat a form of like a bingo card um and then there would be

1:15:36some incentives as well once you complete those and um so yeah we're working on all of that currently and we will look forward to bringing back the work plan to you guys early in the new year as well thank you I'd like to mention something sure thank you mayor um uh Aisha I'm just so proud to see uh

1:15:55our chamber and so many new entrepreneurs and new businesses opening up a lot of new restaurants um residents we have at least 30% of our rest uh residents get to stay home and work at home and it's great to you know see at lunchtime you know many of our restaurants uh uh yeah with a with a

1:16:14great lunch menu and and people visiting in the middle of the day um and they just want to get out of the house for lunchtime and and uh uh and they're out there so um one of of the uh things I would like to see Aisha in the future is for our chamber to reach out to uh the

1:16:31new businesses especially the Asian-American businesses many of them are not members of uh the chamber and I would love for them uh to be members of the chamber uh we see in penol and Hercules and and Elsa Bronte chambers that many of them belong to those chambers so um know that I'll do what I

1:16:51can as a volunteer to to to help out and uh recruiting uh our new businesses to join our Els Serita chamber um I agree we certainly have a diversity of businesses in elero especially um with our Cuisine like we literally do not need to leave the city have have a little bit of flavor from

1:17:13everywhere um but yeah that is something I will definitely as I do serve on the chamber board as a secretary that we'll um collaborate more on together and um thinking more of creative Outreach strategies um because it looks different for different business types thank you

1:17:29all right thank you any other questions on that item Council Mama nope all right thank you so much all right so we have now item D Amendment to the city's classification plan oh hello hi hi chair how are you thanks for joining I did not see oh it's Jane yeah oh oh you're still

1:18:05muted you thank you for unmuting me it wouldn't cooperate everybody hi thank you for joining us chair yeah sorry sorry for the delay my computer was completely uncooperative so here I am that's okay I think we had our questions answered by um by um Aisha sh is there any other

1:18:30questions or maybe uh the chair would like to highlight some of the work plan as a preview of of what's upcoming uh yeah Isa can you tell me what you cover so I can not repeat she talked about um from what would be in the future uh the around the world's of bingo passport of tastings of

1:18:59all the different elero Cuisines and uh bringing back that event yeah right so we were talking about doing some sort of bingo card and it's kind of in the works as to how we're going to finalize it but we do have some uh thoughts of speaking to vendors getting gift cards having them

1:19:20complete the bingo card and I don't know lately I thought it might be fun to make them complete the entire bingo card so they get to go lots of different places um so that was that's that's the one in the works then we are also looking to um sponsor the makers fairs there's a

1:19:43witer one and summer one um and then the elero stop local campaign as well and continue to spruce up the website well uh the city council very much appreciates all the work of the economic development committee we know this is your volunteer time so thank you so much

1:20:03for creating an environment for Els Sero where we can Thrive economically and that businesses are doing well and that people really have a sense of place so thank you so much it's my pleasure the only other thing that is potentially on the agenda is the um Castro Park pickall courts

1:20:21they're in the works of getting resurfaced and should that ever finally happen with the school board then we're looking to do some sort of event um as as personally an a pickleball player I have my paddle waiting thank you so much all right have a good evening everybody all

1:20:40right we're going to move on to item D the amendment to the city's classification plan question I think I I marked that accidentally I meant uh e well okay well for D I have that on there I just I want to share we are coming to the end of a very long City class and comp study and

1:20:57this are kind of of the last bits and this one was particularly one pointing out that we have a human resources analyst who has and she's here in the room I'm just going to embarrass her a little bit and call her out has done an incredible incredible job of carrying

1:21:13this huge project and so um it feels very good to have this job be converted into a manager role so um I look forward to all that you're going to do in this manager role all right and item e yes uh thank you um first off I do want to say thank you to all the residents of elero for passing measure G

1:21:36I think that's uh we're very fortunate that that happens I think you know we've heard about cities like Pleasanton where they have not been able to pass a sales tax measure and are expecting to see 20% Cuts in services and staff there so I think um you know I think that that

1:21:56was a great thing I my question is regarding the resolution for examination uh in sections three it talks about uh selection of hinder hinder lighter um and HDL so you know I don't remember that contract coming before us and I just want to understand is that a contract expansion or what that is so

1:22:20good evening mayor and city council uh my name is Will Provost your assistant to the city manager um and I supported since I kind of spearheaded our our measure G public information I supported in terms of these items that have to get to the California Department of tax and

1:22:33fee Administration to implement measure G um so one of the things that we have to do with the California Department of tax and fee Administration is confirm who can see our sales tax records because they're highly confidential um and so we assign City staff that are

1:22:46authorized and any Consultants that we use to monitor the trends for sales tax um and inform us and even audit and find new revenues um so HDL we've actually been using for many years and this is really just a continuation of our existing relationship with them okay so this is not a new scope of

1:23:04work it is not and it's very it's fairly small too um we expect to spend you know around 105,000 a year for this work okay and so this since this we are extending measure G this is just it's more of a formality than anything with the cdtfa I see our City attorney going to the

1:23:21microphone just to elaborate on the point that um HDL already is authorized to examine vure measure v um plus general sales tax um plus plus uh streets and Roads numbers um although G is a continuation of measure R um the cdtfa um wants reauthorization for any uh City staff and any Consultants to

1:23:50examine the measure G uh financials and so um um as will said this is mostly a formality to to um provide the requisite documentation that cdtfa desires thank you sure all right and now we have item F no I I oh e oh sorry paron me council member fidelli problem

1:24:12I just wanted to also congratulate the people of elero because they are a very smart populous uh be uh because they're smart because they know if they want a full ser city which is what this is for a small City you have to pay for those things and they're willing to vote and put

1:24:32their pocketbook to making this a full service City we mentioned measure V we mentioned measure H with about the swimming pool and now we're continuing this uh not starting a new one and I think added with this this city council and how Frugal we've been over the last

1:24:47three years it's a good combo and we should be very proud of what we did in this city so congratulations Els Sero I I wanted to concur with that and and uh to our residents who have supported uh the tax measure um yeah this is eight what 80% of our what 81% wow uh so that

1:25:10is huge and uh uh so our residents uh know and and they know what not to read with all the the stuff and the nonsense that we see on uh blogs and on uh social network uh they know that then that's why our residents support uh supported this I want to say thank you to our

1:25:29residents in elero for not reading the garbage on next door and uh these blogs that belong to I don't know who but uh you know it's it's um we're tired of this and uh the truth is out if we had our newspaper reporter this would be reported and uh so again thank you to

1:25:47our residents and our voters right item F okay um in the resolution it says that on call Building Services Agreements are largely covered by development related fees and also by so uh salary savings and I just wanted to understand better what largely meant and what percentage of the cost is

1:26:13covered um greetings the um Building Division as you know does about a th000 permits per year um and the direct costs associated with those are able to be cost recovered but all of the other work the rptt the updating the building code the doing the training the

1:26:32answering questions none of that has a fee associated with it and so we don't um the revenues for the Building Services cover the services of those direct we don't have a way of tracking exactly by our um um the others so um I've talked to finance and we can see

1:26:52when we're doing the user fee study and then we might be starting to allocate revenues differently but at this point the revenues are aggregated and the expenses are aggregated um so I would venture 70 to 80% but um I would have to I wouldn't be able to have the data to

1:27:06support that okay so the Consultants do not just building permit review but they do general staff work around R so they're doing all all of the staff work right now and whether it's staff or Consultants it's both Direct Services that have a cost recovery associated

1:27:22with it and a lot of Serv that don't have a cost risk recovery thank you for the clarification I always thought that those particular Consultants were only doing that fee covered work so there's two types so um and right now we're actually um Uber efficient I would say

1:27:40because even the Consultants that were're using that would normally be just filling a staff position that normally could just do our residential happen to also have the skills to be doing for example or multif family but in the past if we needed to use someone to do a multif family or large

1:27:53commercial inspect ction you're right that was a direct service or when it's a plan check that's a direct service but they're also performing staff roles um such as building code update trainings Etc okay thank you right there are no more questions I'll entertain a motion on the consent

1:28:10calendar I would move them move by fidelli second seconded by we singer all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries all right thank you so much all right here comes the fun part public hearing uh proposed Eastbay sanitary garbage and organic waste collection and

1:28:29postcollection rates in Integrated Waste Management fees effective January 1 2025 able just mik's a little closer oh push there's a button on theas light not even on okay great how this um my name is Amilia Timbers I'm ELO's new oesd manager and I'm you say the full acronym what that means oh yes

1:29:37that's smart um operations and environmental services division manager which is responsible for our um maintenance group our Recycling Group and our environmental programs I am two months in so I've brought brought a panel of experts with me uh to support this presentation so

1:29:57I'd like to introduce gu Schultz who is former elero staff and principal now at um his consultant firm R3 which helps us analyze our rates gu could you wave your hand and um Mark fagoni president and CEO at Eastbay sanitary R Haller IET Ortiz our Public Works director

1:30:24and Christina lared our management analyst three almost everyone is here for me okay so let me advance the slides here here we go so here's just a little agenda for what we're going to discuss tonight and that is uh the annual rate setting for East Bay sanitary and

1:30:50Integrated Waste Management rates and so the action we're requesting just to keep it in your mind as you go through this uh presentation is to adopt the resolutions establishing 2025 rates for um the city so our waste rates are set annually and they're pretty complicated um so

1:31:17just as a summary for anyone who might be watching that's not familiar with this yet um yeah very familiar um Perhaps Perhaps tired of it but uh the Integrated Waste Management fee uh pays for our curbside recycling service our recycling center operations as well as our kind of

1:31:41compliance related to solid waste that the city completes the second element of our um rate structure is the Eastbay sanitary rates which fund our garbage inorganic waste hauling curbside collection and then thirdly um the post collection fee funds our vendors who

1:32:04take our waste and process it which is uh mainly recycl more and Republic so these are you'll see in the incoming slides because these are the main three elements of most of our rates here so the short story on the 2025 rates is that we tried to keep it under 5% while allowing a little bit of wiggle

1:32:31room there to um set savings aside for electric vehicles in the future so trying to keep rates low but also meeting the needs of um compliance and operations and you have a more uh detailed chart in the staff report but this is the 2025 residential rate summary

1:32:54and here you can see the three different elements of the rates the EBS collection fee the post collection fee and the iwm fee you've got the 25 2025 total the 2024 total and then the monthly change so as you can see it's pretty modest across the board in terms of monthly

1:33:15change here we have the commercial equivalent and again we try to keep the change is under 5% so probably the more exciting part of this presentation uh elero must Electrify its Fleet under the uh California air resources board Advanced Clean fleets rule um and that's perfect timing

1:33:48because uh Zer emission waste vehicles are just becoming available um in fact Republic Service launched its first EV uh Solid Waste um Fleet in Louisville last month and unfortunately their um technology is proprietary it's uh co-developed between uh the truck company and Republic so

1:34:12it's unavailable to customers right now but happily um the city of San Pablo is a customer and their new franchise agreement includes deployment of I think five vehicles I might have to check but um in so they will be deploying in 2025 and that is just a wonderful opportunity

1:34:33for us to see how it goes and to learn from their experience um before Els Sero I was the environmental and sustainability planning manager at the San Maro County Transit District and that's relevant because I supported the transition for Cal Train which is Rail and stamp trains

1:34:59which is bus from diesel to Electric so I happen to have some helpful expertise and a at the moment that elero is electrifying um and to that end uh I think it's really wonderful that um we're able to kind of beta test uh these Technologies by observing how they go

1:35:23with our peers in s Pablo for example um something I observed happening at uh at Sam trans the bus fleet is there's a real urgency and temptation to be a first mover and get the technology as soon as we can and deploy it but what we found after getting a pilot Fleet of

1:35:44buses is that everything went wrong just anything that could did and it's now it led to a lot of litigation and a lot of delays of their electrification program ultimately um sunk costs stranded costs and they had to go with a different vendor in the end so it's really lovely let somebody

1:36:06else Work Work Out The Kinks while the market settles um the market the technology standardizes um mechanics increase their expertise in these Technologies and there's less risk to kind of jump into so so our approach is to wait it out and while we're doing that um we'll be

1:36:30developing our own electrification transition plan which we've received uh a grant to develop funding emission uh zero emission vehicles um must be easier for a company like Republic Services because their market cap is $62 billion at Els Sero we are going to save up so uh each

1:36:56of these vehicles is about a million dollars today and the amount of um money in the proposed rates for 2025 we have here will set aside about a little over 300,000 um per year so after three years we should be able to afford a electric vehicle our Fleet is five and we may

1:37:17need to figure out what the spare ratio is um and then even when we can afford it uh it will perhaps be a delayed procurement timeline it's been very uh time intensive to get these vehicles on the road uh six six to 18 months sometimes just the production is really

1:37:36backed up because everyone's trying to comply with the laws um happily so um yeah that's the plan and I think it's it gives us a perfect amount of time to observe the market and our peers and also do our own planning which we need to do any way to establish the

1:37:55infrastructure to charge these vehicles when we get them ask yes a quick question from council member fidelli no no problem just you have a lot to go so what is the grant we got uh we got a we got a planning Grant with uh MTC to help um model our electric demand

1:38:17uh help us translate that demand into what kind of infrastructure we're going to need to develop and then plan for how to the project for that infrastructure developing it where it'll go what kind of um Power resources we may need to add in in that area um and and you're going to tell us how in this

1:38:40plan overall plan we are contributing to this fund for electric vehicles sorry we adding in in this package that we're approving tonight possibly we're adding additional funding to right you're gonna explain that you're going to explain it okay so um on this current uh slide in in bullet two

1:39:04here every year we'll generate about 300,000 330,000 extra extra dollars dollars that we will allocate to Future vehicle funding so that'll accumulate and after three years we will have uh enough to get one electric vehicle which will be great any other questions no

1:39:27thanks so now we're moving on to recent accomplishments um we are implementing holler hero which is going to which is software we're partnering with EBAs sanitar on and this will really I think help uh improve the Synergy between our two organizations and improve operations

1:39:48for our curbside um program one of my favorite things I've learned since I've been here is we are the top location for food donations to the Solano and Contra Costa County uh food bank love that we've increased compost giveaways and we've been awarded these two grants that

1:40:04we're now uh working on implementing and what we're looking forward to in the next year is a new postcollection agreement we will hopefully have negotiated by this time next year um as we've mentioned the dev transition planning um uh continued 1383 implementation that's Organics um

1:40:29Organics collection and then also we're hoping to get a new FTE to support uh operations at the recycling center and the ongoing mounting compliance obligations that we have there and again requested Council actions is just to adopt these resolutions um and establish our rates

1:40:51for 2025 thank you so much and let me know if I can help with any questions all right so first we're going to start with questions before we open the public hearing so there's not comments but questions if want any questions yes yes and Mr fagoni are you GNA come up to

1:41:09the platform if you don't mind new employee I just thought I would ask an old um so the last couple years you've taken on new tasks for the city one of them being the multi building efforts as far as um waste is there any update on those are are we any issues that are concerning no there are

1:41:34no issues I mean we have added tremendously to our free cleanups pardon me um they have in they have increased substantially so the the residents are getting substantially more Service uh for the increase rates that we are paying uh everything else financially is playing out perfectly the

1:41:58cost of the carts uh the swap out for the color change that the state mandated that's all um playing out financially and everything is working so um there were no technical issues in the multi-dwelling collection at all or no no I mean that's between the the residents and the managers I mean

1:42:18they're getting the material separated the only the only difficulty I've had or we've had is uh a lot of some of the new construction is asking for compactors and those containers are very heavy and they have been a difficult particularly with the Mayfair project we've had some

1:42:32issues servicing that container um and we've swapped out wheels we're trying to work with the with the apartment owner to get it uh corrected and uh but like I said we're managing great and and and finally I just wanted to say um I'm not up here much longer but I want to thank

1:42:49you for everything you everything you do for the city well thank you this is the Italian crying here yeah there you go you know what that's like you know you're at any whether it's the chamber July 4th Holiday Lights you're always there thank you happy happy to do

1:43:07it question yeah thank you mayor I'm good to see you and and great to see gu and great to see you at the dog park the other day and uh uh yeah one thing I wanted to uh ask regarding 1383 is um our are residents being corrected I still see Neighbors not that don't know the

1:43:29rules about the recycling so I mean yes it's an ongoing educational effort uh we are conducting our random samples uh per the prescription by of 1383 uh I think the contamination in in what I'm hearing from my people is it's it's pretty good there are people don't a lot

1:43:52of people just they get caught up in their day-to-day and they're putting stuff in the easy place but I think by and large the city of Elo does a very good job of separating their material already yeah and with these new enforcement uh aspects of 1383 in place it's only going to get better that's

1:44:09fantastic and and looking at the the the future have have you looked at um hydrogen trucks that's my hope that's that's what I'm hoping for because I personally I have a hard time believing that electric is is our solution uh I think hydrogen is the way and as soon as

1:44:28it becomes available as a fuel um I mean there's yeah I I have my own personal opinion about electric trucks but I'm I'm I'm hoping that hydrogen is is what what comes and saves the day no I am too so thank you for all that any questions on this side questions I do have a

1:44:46question um it's more about the electric vehicles so um so I I POS them to to staff here um so it says in in the report that the costs of operating zero emission vehicles are significantly greater and I was wondering you know I think you mean that the cost of purchasing is really high right I I was

1:45:13wondering on what basis that you were saying that the operations of these vehicles is higher so kind know what is it that you mean by that yeah the the should should have read the um cost of procuring the vehicles is higher the over and that makes the overall cost of

1:45:31operating them higher um they're about twice the cost of internal combustion trucks um but I will say um because of year-over-year increases with pg& um rates operating electric vehicles is also becoming quite costly um at Cal train for example just speaking from

1:45:58experience uh it'll be electricity will soon be their top cost organizationally and um it's it's pretty intimidating the amount of money that uh electric power is going to cost all our operators um I but generally we're going to be looking to see um how s Pablo does

1:46:23and other peers that are uh deploying trucks to see what the actual costs are I mean something I've definitely found is we don't know how these vehicles run till we run them so getting vehicle miles traveled getting some miles under our belt um will help the companies hone

1:46:41the product but also will help us understand can this truck go up a hill full and not completely deplete its battery I mean that's an example of a type of problem we use ran into with buses um do we need spares uh in case the battery runs out and versus how long

1:47:00it takes to charge while charging it so there's all these questions to figure out that will all Impact cost and that is unknown until we start running them does the MTC Grant allow for looking at uh hydrogen as well or is that solely for electric electrification um I'm going to calling

1:47:23a my expert Witnesses here I um don't know off the top of my head I certainly Al am interested in hydrogen it solves many of the problems that um come with electricity uh it requires having twice the infrastructure of course um depending where you get your hydrogen

1:47:45and it is about 60% the um carbon footprint of diesel in unless you're using green hydrogen so um there there's a lot to say about it and I'm certainly interested in pursuing it and I think we should analyze it whether or not it's included another Grant which I can

1:48:03follow up on our grant is uh specifically for local public Fleet electrification thank you and Mr foni is the cost of a hydrogen vehicle and an electrical electric garbage truck about the same so that the money that we're putting away in this proposed budget be

1:48:23sufficient to to meet either need if if if I understand it correctly the hydrogen trucks are on par with electric and the infrastructure to support electric I think the costs are fairly similar but one other thing I'd like to add is what I'm my the last conversation

1:48:40I had with peers in my industry the electric trucks that they are seeing were getting about 60% of the payload in a day relative to a conventional internal combustion so that technology may have improved uh maybe it's up to two-thirds but still that's substantial I mean that's you're

1:49:01talking about buying two trucks at a million dollars compared to one truck at $400,000 so the rate payers need to be aware it's going to be a substantial increase in rates when this shift takes place substantial um there are a lot of incentives for hydrogen that are um not

1:49:20yet matched by Electric okay thank you very much all right and with that the public hearing is now open now is time for the members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item are there any public comments on this item here in the chambers I do not have any cards

1:49:39mayor all right thank you so much all right do I have a motion to close the public hearing I'll move all right move by motoyama I'll second seconded by Quinto all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries all right any Council comments before we move

1:49:55on Council comments sure yeah um just know how much uh you know dealing with 1383 and the huge changes that were made um I tip my hat off to you so uh great job um it's frustrating when you hear what other cities are dealing with and they can't even uh recycle properly so

1:50:16Els serito is ah head of the game and I'm just so proud to see our residents for the most part the majority of them are uh just doing this and and um you know so stay tuned and and watch my airboard meetings because you will see more changes in the future when it comes

1:50:32to uh hydrogen uh when it comes to uh dealing with uh uh all that and then some and and uh we have a project going on in Republic Services and uh uh they have been working with the staff at the airboard to uh just you know move forward this um a lot of the stuff is

1:50:54stuck right now in permitting and as a news board member of permitting we want to do the right thing and uh Unfortunately they don't have enough Personnel to uh come out and and check on these things it's such new technology and uh so this is new for them as well so I ask our residents to

1:51:14be patient a lot of these EVS are these pine the sky ideas that when we're seeing huge recalls on EV is cars and and uh heavy duty trucks we're looking at the disintegration of our roads our interstates faster you look at the I80 pothole City now because of our uh the

1:51:35EVS that are taking over our roads so hopefully we will uh you know the state legislature in California will uh uh do the right thing and get good legislation so we can get more funding for our roads and do the right thing whether it's going to be hydrogen or EVS but I see

1:51:52both as a solution not one to take over the other any comments all right um thank you I really appreciate we still have to vote we haven't voted yet so that's okay that's okay um great job for your first time presenting to us I really appreciate it um when it comes to S

1:52:12Pablo's project please keep watching it carefully because they do have Hills in s Pablo surprisingly enough but they're not like ours and you know and it's not just the you know driving with a full truck it's also the the arm use over and over I forget what that technical term is for

1:52:29the arm that does the lifting so we know there's a lot of components to it um appreciate that staff has listened to our Direction which we gave last year around really thinking about how we're supporting um our recycling program and that we really want to do what is the

1:52:44most environmentally friendly not just of the collecting of recycling but how we're doing our operations so really appreciate you guys taking that feedback and incorporating it and again we want the best outcomes also when it comes to compliance and as we're getting closer

1:52:58to that uh postcollection agreement uh there's so many moving parts so I acknowledge and appreciate all this complexity because um we have to put elero first in a lot of these discussions because that's what we are tasked with doing here is making sure that it is going well so again thank you

1:53:17so much appreciate it so with that I'll take I'll entertain a motion on this item actually I one more thing for entertain appreciate you guys keeping the rates below 5% that was kind of my magic number I had in mind we know inflation is happening we know these operating

1:53:34costs are getting so much heavier so um I appreciate all the analysis that was done to make sure that we're keeping our rates reasonable because all of us are also residents of Elser we're paying these same rates and I I feel the pain when writing out those checks these are

1:53:50hard checks to write out especially for folks on fixed income so recognizing that um we are planning for the future and doing what we can also trying to absorb those operating costs but keeping them still again below like once things go above 5% is really when you start to

1:54:06feel a pinch so thank you for trying to keep that below all right and with that now I'll entertain the motion and mayor with regard to the motion just one clarification is that we did change things a little bit procedurally this year um there's one hearing but there

1:54:20are two resolutions one for the EBAs sanitary rates and postcollection rates and one for the iwm fees thank you for that appreciate from our City attorney so do I have a motion to approve the two resolutions all right do I have a second second all right so it's moved by Quinto

1:54:34and seconded by fidelli all those in favor please say I I opposed motion carries all right thank you so much all right now we're going on to our policy matters we're going to start with item 9A adopt a resolution approving an agreement between the city of Elo and

1:54:51the ELO police employees Association pea to modify language on salaries benefits conditions of employment and creating a new memorandum of understanding also known as anou good evening mayor and city council uh my name is Shannon Bassie um I work in human resources and uh thank you for

1:55:16the kind words earlier uh newly appointed as the HR manager so um happily thank you great job thank you um and yes the class in comp study was a labor of love so thank you um so tonight before you um I have a request to adopt um the random of understanding to modify

1:55:38salaries benefits and conditions of employees for the city's employ uh police employees Association bargaining unit um currently this bargaining unit has 43.7 um approved budgeted positions um they are governed by theou they are approved by which is approved by city

1:55:56council positions in this group generally include police officers police corporals police sergeants um and other uh police non-sworn staff such as record uh specialist um I'd like to share some of the major highlights of the proposed agreement with pea the agreement will be

1:56:16in effect uh will be effective July 1st 2024 through June 30th 2026 six so 2-year um agreement this agreement includes um a 4.25% salary increase effective July 2024 um in addition effective July 2025 the city will establish a step seven for sworn personnel and Advance those who

1:56:41are on step six to step seven on a phased approach based on their anniversary date um similar for the non-sworn side the city will establish a step six and um Advance those on step five to step six again through the phased approach based on anniversary date um there was also one market adjustment

1:57:03that was uh agreed upon which was uh Based on data through the classification and compensation study this was for the police record supervisor um and is a total of 6.2% over the course of the 2-year agreement um the Pea and the city ALS also um agreed to make increases to

1:57:26the retire health savings account uh for both the city and the employees contribution um January 2025 the city will uh increase their contribution by $75 per payroll and then again increase their contribution by $75 in January of 2026 um similar the employees agreed to

1:57:47increase their contributions by $37.50 per payroll in January 2025 and then again $37.50 in January 2026 um lastly there was a change um recommended for the uh cash andl payment so that was um agreed to be capped at $350 per month um starting in December of 2025 um or later so any newly hired

1:58:18employees or employees who change their plans um in closing I'd like to thank the police employees Association for their leadership um and engaging in a successful uh negotiation process with the city uh with that said that concludes my report um and I'm available

1:58:33for any questions are there I me look to this section first any questions from the council is that a I I did identify a number of typos but I think those have already been taken care of all right any questions on this side um one of the reasons why we might not have any questions I don't have any

1:58:54either is that um these have been in discussion in close session so a lot of those questions are asked at that time so Now's the Time for any members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item now is your time do we have any I do not all right thank you

1:59:09so much all right any Council comments before we move on yes um I do have a comment that applies to both 9A and 9B about the financial considerations as pointed out in the agenda Bill and uh both 9A and 9B are uh have calls on the general fund uh for the fiscal year

1:59:342025 and so I was wondering if there was some totaling of both and so that we can get the Fuller picture of how much is being requested from the general fund I know we had uh $6 million from last year that was a savings but I don't think that that is intended to be a kind of

1:59:53you know slush fund to cover things but so I just want to have a comprehensive understanding of where we are with the general funds uh for both these items I can wait till 9A 9B are passed or however you want to work these out I can just answer it all once um sorry excuse

2:00:09me so I did have our budget manager Claire Coleman prepare a basic schedule of what we know we've already committed to and so we've already committed to the PO roll forward of 64 4, 623 which will be reflected as an assigned um fund balance when AER is completed we have

2:00:29the SEIU contract um which is 36621 adding the Pea of 268 and the psma of 865 brings us to just under a million 99615 thank you very much right back to comments any comments all right do I have a motion to approve so moved moved by we singer I'll second seconded by motoyama all those in

2:01:05favor please say I I any opposed motion carries thank you so much right St right up here for Item B which is Adopt a resolution approving an agreement between the city of Elo and the Public Safety Management Association also known as psma to modify language on salaries

2:01:24benefits conditions of employment and creating a new memorandum of understanding yes thank you so um again Shannon bassi um HR manager with human resources for the city of Elo um this uh request for to adopt this resolution is to modify again salaries benefits and

2:01:43conditions of employees for the city's Public Safety Management Association uh barning unit which is also known as psma for short um currently this bargaining unit has nine F uh fully budgeted positions within psma again governed by the which is approved by city council um

2:02:02positions within psma include the Fire Chief Fire battalion chief police chief police captain police Lieutenant classifications um specifically this uh mandum of coverage will um be covering the Fire battalion chief classification Fire battalion chief paramedic

2:02:20classification police captain and police lieutenants um some highlights with this agreement uh will be that the agreement will be in effect from July 1 2024 to June 30th 2027 so a three-year agreement um it will include a 4.25% salary increase um effective July

2:02:422024 a 3% salary increase effective July 2025 and again a 3% salary increase effective July 2026 um there were some Market adjustments with this um agreement as well so in July 2025 police lieutenants and police captain will receive a 2% Market adjustment um and the Fire battalion

2:03:04chief will also receive an adjustment at 3% and then July 2026 um the Fire battalion chief classification and um the Fire battalion chief paramedic classification will receive a 3% Market adjustment again these adjustments were in line with the class in comp study and

2:03:23were uh recommendations um so with that I'd like to also thank the Public Safety Management Association for uh their leadership and engaging in a successful negotiations with the city um and again I'm available for questions with this item any questions from the

2:03:40council thenone I guess um I just wanted to check in on the use of the term uh bonus because I know that it was struck from the pea agreement and does you know bonus signify something different than additional pay so yes thank you so that was um a typo and was supposed to be uh

2:04:03stricken out for um all areas where it said bonus in that first part of the longevity payment um when we are moving to a bi-weekly payment schedule uh according to kelper reporting that is no longer a bonus it's just a uh payment so that's uh will be corrected when we

2:04:21finalize the official mou and so that counts as part of the purs yes salary for purs it is reported to pers yes and they're uh pers is very specific on the way that we code pay okay thank you very much no problem thank you it was a helpful question all right now is time for members of the

2:04:41public who wish to provide public comment on this item are there any members of the public who wish to provide comments on this item I do not have any requests mayor none thank you so much um I will entertain a motion make a comment oh yes sure comments yes um I I

2:04:57wanted to say to um Shannon um thank you uh you you know with the negotiations and uh uh with our uh Partners in labor it was so important to do that study I'm proud that we did this uh you know where we're seeing other cities that would like to do the same thing um because

2:05:16it's so important to make sure we keep uh our talented staff so um again thank you for doing that uh looking at uh what we were able to accomplish with uh sciu 1021 and uh our police and fire uh all of our partners in labor um know that with the new residents coming in they're

2:05:37moving in from cities that uh forgot what their main responsibilities are and that is Public Safety fire and police so that's why they're moving here and that's why they are the lucky ones who already owned homes uh and and they're able to afford to move here and this is

2:05:54what they would like and this is what they were requested a safer City we have this here in elero uh and I'm proud of that so I'm proud of this Council that was able to change the ways and not play uh politics ever again uh on this Council and just do the right thing that

2:06:13is good government so again thank you for that any other comments on this item all right I'll entertain a motion I'll do that all right moved by Quinto second seconded by we singer all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries right thank you so much

2:06:31on to our final policy item item C adopt a resolution to approve a third amendment to the city manager's employment agreement we have a staff report from our City attorney Sky Woodruff it is my pleasure to deliver the staff report this evening um so uh the city manager

2:06:50Karen pinkis was appointed in 2018 um the her employment agreement with the city has been amended twice um and there have been also been um I think two addendums um and the term is currently set to expire at the end of this calendar year uh in light of that the city council appointed an ad hoc

2:07:08subcommittee of Mayor rednick and council member Kinto to negotiate uh potential amendments to the employment agreement um including an extension of the term um as part of that process the city council conducted a facilitated performance evaluation of Miss Pink's

2:07:24performance um in the role um and the ad hoc uh subcommittee um met many times with Miss pinkas to discuss uh both performance and contract term issues um the subcommittee then brought that all back to the council um and as part of the discussions about the amendments to

2:07:41the employment agreement Council considered a number of factors that I think are important to to bring to light um as part of the presentation although these are also reflected in the written staff report uh one of them is is that one item that Council considered um is compensation

2:07:56for city managers in Contra Casta County and around the Bay Area uh Miss Pink's current base pay and total compensation are significantly below the median for city managers in Contra Costa County um we've we have October 2024 data um and that was presented to the council and

2:08:14the ad hoc subcommittee and that was taken into account in considering what's being proposed this evening uh as has been already mentioned um earlier this year coffin Associates completed a a classification and compensation study uh for all employees of the city um and

2:08:29that reflect um and as you um uh took care of tonight during uh the um uh the consent calendar you wrapped up the process of making classification changes there have also been compensation adjustments as a result of that study and all of that information was considered in um uh in the the proposed

2:08:52amendments to miss Pink's employment agreement reflecting um the current state of compensation um throughout the organization um and then although there are multiple factors the last one that I'll mention is just the current market for public agency Executives around the

2:09:06pay area um Council considered uh what that looks like right now um so as a result of all those considerations um the ad hoc committee has recommending um the Third Amendment to the employment agreement that is part of the packet uh to uh highlight a few of the the

2:09:22significant Provisions uh the term would be extended for 5 years um so it would go through 2029 um effective January 1 2025 uh there would be an adjustment to base salary to $ 2,782 monthly um the uh there there was previously a provision in the contract that um stated that Miss Pink's base pay

2:09:49would be adjusted um by the same amount that Council adjust the um management and um confidential employees um that was uh basically voluntarily given up by Miss Pinkus during um the the uh the most difficult periods of of the financial um issues that the city was

2:10:09addressing um the this contract would restore that provision so if um effect of July 1 Council were to adjust the compensation for um management and confidential Miss Pink is is base pay would be adjusted by the same amount and then additionally uh the contract calls

2:10:26for a 4% adjustment to base salary effect of July 1 2025 um there are some other Provisions like a 3% a $300 monthly contribution to an Employee Retirement health savings account and a and a city contribution to a 457 deferred compensation account up to the maximum allowed um with these

2:10:47changes uh Miss pink' base pay would still be below the Medan in Contra Costa County um it's difficult to sort of take a a whole compensation view on things because every city manager's contract throughout the county and throughout the Bay Area is very unique um and I'm sorry

2:11:05for saying very unique I'll just retract that and say unique um the point being that that um if you take all aspects of compensation this contract would would by July move miss pinkas you know effectively to median but but base pay would remain below median um so with

2:11:23that I'll turn it back over to the ad hoc committee they may have some additional um comments I'm happy to take questions uh but before you tonight is a resolution to approve the Third Amendment to the employment agreement um does my partner on the ad hoc committee

2:11:36have anything to say on this item um yeah um you know I I wanted to say to uh our city manager pinkas um you appreciate you working with us on uh creative ways to uh uh get you at the median and uh and you certainly deserve that and then some uh you you have turned the city around um and uh um I

2:12:02cannot tell you um you from the things that we have worked on since you started in 2018 to find the real truth of what really has gone on in this city years of politics and uh uh and uh just doing that and and to see good government finally in the city on every level

2:12:22you know it's um as as the vice president of Cal cities you know it this is uh something that I am proud of to all the 483 cities in California they look at our city when it comes to good government and what we were able to accomplish from a city on the Edge from

2:12:42being uh you know we thought we were doing fine and then finding the truth from the state auditor and implementing exactly what uh the auditor asked us to do this is a a huge huge accomplishment and I know we will uh uh get news real soon and uh of uh what what will happen

2:13:04and uh and I see good things ahead for our city in the future so again Ken pus thank you um I really want to highlight that in this process we were very data driven even before before this process for contract negotiation started uh we thought more about how we're doing

2:13:27performance evaluations how we are outlining what our specific tasks are for goals objectives how it is that a city manager who asks for you know the the analogies always used you the CEO an executive for an organization who's writing police fire uh planning how all

2:13:46we're coming together and making sure that we are outlining our specific goals and I'm really proud of the fact that these goals that we've been outlining and that we've baked in um performance evaluations when that was not done before in the past now we're doing it

2:14:02and I think it's really important that we're highlighting it and that you have accomplished these that we are very clear about what the objectives are and that it's getting done I also appreciate that it is a very reasonable move to the media it's the median of the county so

2:14:17not even in the region you know there's huge disparity there are city managers in some parts of Silicon Valley who are making about twice what this is being proposed there are some really significant so while the class and comp study and we've been talking about it at

2:14:33nauseum but what it did was it made it so that staff in the organization community members in the public when they're always saying this person's paid too much this person's not paid enough I'm not we have the data to support it and the the nice thing about when it

2:14:48comes to city manager contracts is that's all public so we know what this is so we know what we're doing right now is moving you to the median and anyone who thinks otherwise cuz you know there's many people who are always going to have their their opinions but the

2:15:01reality is is to recruit a city manager with the kind of experience that we have here in house in elero would cost a lot more than what it is that we're looking to on this budget and what the salary requirements would be for a city manager who is qualified to run this city would

2:15:19be a lot more than this so I'm I am a bargain hunter and I think that it's important that we really think about what it is that we're investing in and also um I do want to highlight that um we have tied a lot of this to Performance evaluations into continuing that performance

2:15:37evaluation because this is about continuous Improvement and making sure that we're being really Mindful and can be flexible and you've demonstrated flexibility in the past how you know we are now seeing this when it could have been done we did a contract extension

2:15:52where we kept salary flat and um I think it's really important that we and and my colleagues see that um this was a very thoughtful process um and and I have have I'm open to any questions from colleagues if anyone has any questions not questions the comments um first we'll do public

2:16:13comment and then we'll take comments are there any comments from members of the public on this item I do not have any cards mayor all right um so comments from mayor proo Senter yes I just want to say I mean we've all spoken so highly of Karen and we've done it in a very

2:16:29nice eloquent way but I think in certain times you need to say things plainly um I I thank you Scot for that very comprehensive staff report because it's very important there is this misinformation and rhetoric out in our community that our city manager is already one of the highest paid city

2:16:46managers in the region and that is not only is it a flat out lie but you got you need to understand that our city manager and I don't give these type of compliments you know willy-nilly our city manager is a literal superstar in the city manager community and the fact

2:17:02that she is paid so low Karen Pingas could go anywhere like mayor just said she can go anywhere and make so much more money but she is so committed to the work that she has done here in no serito she's committed to the staff that she has worked with when the city was

2:17:16going through rough times and she talked to them about you know keeping their salaries or what they were they were also not making and she did not complain about it and we are in the position to do better for her and also to the point that mayor made just now there is a city

2:17:32manager crisis going on in our region you look at what happened in Berkeley which then rolled over to what happened in Emeryville and they're still let me not talk about their stuff for my diets but that is a crisis in our community and still our city manager has stuck

2:17:47with us and I think that she deserves this I think that people need to really do a lot more more information and learning about what a city manager does and also really look like mayor said at the staff report and at the contract because again she deserves a whole lot

2:18:02more than she is getting and we appreciate what she's done um and we're going to talk about this a lot more with our others um staff so many people really work to make sure that the city got through this hard time before I even got here a lot of that was due to Karen

2:18:17and as a proud member of if PT pte local 21 we always say you don't balance your budget on the backs of your workers so I will never do that to any of my workers I appreciate you Karen any comments it's it's hard to go after that for sure but uh I think the uh I think when

2:18:42things are going well it's really easy to forget how hard things were in the past and the kinds of sacrifices that we asked from you and from staff and I think uh you know maybe in some point in the past you were the highest paid city manager in the region but it's clearly

2:19:03by data we know that you're not and I think there's a couple of things one is you know you've you've worked here for 22 years and so uh I think you know Els Serita really well you've really stuck with this city and you know you've grown your career with uh El Sero so I really

2:19:22appreciate that because I think continuity is really important um I appreciate that you want to have a contract of five years because that really shows like you said to uh us that you are committed to staying here but also shows staff that you're their leader and you're here um so I

2:19:40appreciate that as well I think you know you've done a great job it's a thankless job in a lot of ways because I think that there's a lot of criticism pointed your way that is not necessarily have anything to do with you um but I think that's uh part of the job and I

2:19:59appreciate that uh and I appreciate the kind of leadership that you show the staff and you know when you see people like our HR manager who was able to come in and then move up and really show great growth in leadership that's a sign of your leadership um so I think we are

2:20:21getting is mayor says a good deal uh and I think that this is important for people to uh to you know we talk about it a little bit but no one sees you know you you know when we go to a conference and people see our city manager they know we have you know we have this gold star Stellar city manager

2:20:44that's you know really punching way above her weight for us as a small town so you know Karen Co was president of the international City Managers Association she is asked to speak in foreign countries they pay her to fly out and tell them how to run cities in for not ELO's dollar not ELO's dollar

2:21:04just to clarify but you know I think that that but nobody you know in the public really sees that aspect of your work and so many you know every single city manager in our County comes and like you know basically just tells us how great Karen is she's mentored many

2:21:24of them she knows everyone she helps people you know work through their issues for their cities so we really have somebody special here and you know we don't really spend a lot of time saying how great you are because you know we're all asking you lots of questions you know from the days and

2:21:42behind the scenes of you know we we do do our homework we do ask questions some of the questions don't make it out here because they're just kind of clarifying questions but you know we are pretty hard on Karen she has five bosses so uh given all those things I think it's you

2:21:58know this is a contract that I think is very fair uh more than fair to us and hopefully fair to you thank you comments yeah I I support this item and I'm just for brevity I'm G to say that I'm going to save my comments about Karen for my goodbye speech on the 17th okay okay so all

2:22:21come back in a couple weeks and I'm going to take the mayoral privilege of moving this item I will second that I heard it from okay I I heard it from uh mayor proam we singer all those in favor please say I I any opposed motion carries all right so next is city council local Regional liazon

2:22:44assignments I know we had a short week and holiday so I don't know if anyone had any meetings at that short um I just had one that I was not able to report on last time because I was out sick um I attended the uh November 14th uh abag executive board meeting um at

2:23:02that time they told us uh about the commitment from the the Bay Area Housing Finance Agency to continue to do uh lending work and uh strategically moving themselves forward so we can hope to uh get more support from them for our affordable housing and other housing

2:23:20efforts um also that uh MTC grants um will be forthcoming in the a total of $20 million so that hopefully we can also uh get some of those dollars for Els Sero um and if staff has any questions for me about that I can let them know uh plan Bay Area 2050 plus and Transit 2050 plus

2:23:43are coming uh so those are region-wide plans and the summer uh is when the community engagement will start start um and uh hopefully we'll have some uh something to contribute to that as well thank you any other announcements yes um tomorrow I'll be uh driving up to Napa

2:24:03for Cal City's meetings and I'll be meeting with the executive committee of uh the County's version of Cal cities which is seesac and I'll be speaking to them on the importance of working closer together we're concerned with uh uh the difficult times uh in the next couple of

2:24:21years with the state of California and their uh deficits the next couple of years we want to make sure that we work with them closely when it comes to uh the new Administration on the federal level to make sure we continue with the funding that we get for homelessness and

2:24:38for housing so such important things that uh NLC we did not for the national league of cities uh we are prepared to stick with our plan with uh uh you know keeping our original plan despite the new Administration and we'll reach out to them in in March but uh we will uh I

2:24:58look forward to uh working with the new Administration and uh many of them are from local government are uh new senators and State Assembly members so I believe we'll have a better chance in working with people and having our own senators and assembly members work with

2:25:15Cal cities for now on any announcements yes um actually no announcements of events but I just wanted to say I got today in the mail the new winter spring wreck guide from the city which is glorious but speaking of goodbyes you and me May are already gone from the council list on just no

2:25:35way yes can burn William and the others the new life goes on life goes on wow no one's in replacement all right um so before I'm going to be adjourning this meeting in honor of one of our ELO Cent centenarians philis Cobb who is the mother of um Ricky Cobb who serves on

2:26:03our community Safety Committee uh when council member fidelli was mayor he got to give the um for her 100th birthday 100 yes she was 100 uh she recently passed at 103 so um Wanted lady in the world so so sweet so um in her honor we're going to for Phyllis Cobb uh we

2:26:23are adjourned it is now 8:34 and um our next meeting is Tuesday or well the next regular meeting is Tuesday January 21st at 6 PM um however on December 17th we are having our state of the city at 5:00 pm and 6 PM we are having our reorganization where we're saying

2:26:44goodbye to myself and Council Mur fidelli and welcoming uh William casanis and Rebecca Salzman as our new council members thank you so much thank you mayor yes Ma