Regular City Council Meeting February 4, 2025

0:00:06The February 4th Regular City Council meeting is called to order at 6 Pm. Will the city clerk please call roll Mayor Weisinger, present mayor pro tem quinto here council member.

0:00:22Councilmember Ktsanes: Can't remember. Can you hear it?

0:00:35Councilmember Catsones. Can you hear us.

0:00:37Councilmember Ktsanes: I hear you now. Yes.

0:00:39Thank you. We're just taking roles. So we've established. You are with us. Council member Motoyama, your council member, Saltzman.

0:00:46We have a quorum.

0:00:47The 1st item on the agenda is consideration under A. B, 2449, city clerk. Do we have any requests?

0:00:54Thank you, Mayor, while council action is not required. Council member Kitsanis is participating tonight via zoom under the just cause. Exemption, exception under Ab. 2449, due to his remote participation. The city is also required to provide the opportunity for remote public comments at tonight's meeting. Therefore, any request to speak for each period of public comment tonight will also will include in-person and zoom requests to

0:01:19thank you. Mayor. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence.

0:01:27I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

0:01:31and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

0:01:43The next item on the agenda is teleconference and public comment. Instructions from our city clerk.

0:01:49Thank you, Mayor. This hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person, or via Zoom with closed captions. Available meetings of the city council are subject to the Brown act, and are held for the purpose of conducting city business. The Brown Act also ensures the public's right to be heard, and while city council is not able to respond to your comments directly your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action

0:02:11for members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony. The mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item. As mentioned for this meeting, only public comment will be taken both in person and remote. A request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk, or you can use the raise hand feature on Zoom.

0:02:29The Council's adopted rules of order and procedure specify that public speakers address the city council in an orderly and respectful manner.

0:02:36proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. Thank you, Mayor, that concludes my announcement. All right. The next item on the agenda is Council Staff Communications city manager, city assistant assistant City Manager. Do we have any staff communications? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm Alex or Logus, your assistant city manager. I just have a few announcements for tonight.

0:02:59First, st the Kensington Fire district is Hope is hosting an open house for the newly renovated Fire Station, 55. That will be held this Saturday, February 11.th From or February 8.th Excuse me from 12 to 3 o'clock at Station 55, located on 217 Arlington Avenue in Kensington.

0:03:20I want to personally thank our firefighters for all their esteemed patience during this effort as this has really been years in the making, I believe the groundbreaking was back in 2022 from what I remember. So it's been a long time

0:03:34yesterday the Arts and Culture Commission released a call for artists for the Public City Hall Gallery space. This is located on the second floor of City Hall. And this is the 1st time since 2019, we've actually had a call for artists for this space. So this is pretty exciting. This area provides space for local artists with the opportunity to showcase their artwork in a public setting. And if you like more information, you can go to

0:04:01L. Dash sherito.org slash gallery space.

0:04:05Speaking of our gallery space, our next art show starts tomorrow, and it is called the Art of African Dyspora in celebration of Black History month, and this exhibition is organized by our very own El Cerrito Hall of Fame, Inductee Pat Durham, and it will run from tomorrow all the way through March 31, st so I encourage all of you to check it out.

0:04:29and there'll also be a reception held on Thursday, February 27, th from 6 to 7 Pm. And we hope to see you all there.

0:04:37Last, but not least. I just have 2 quick reminders for registration or for recreation. Excuse me, registration for summer camp begins Tuesday, February 11, th from 9 Am. That is, for residents and for non residents. It starts at one Pm. If you have any questions you can go to L dash torito.org slash summer camp

0:05:01and then last. This is a reminder to purchase your tickets to the annual recreation crab feed fundraiser that's going to be held on Saturday, March 8th tickets sell out every year, so I encourage you to get your tickets right away. Madam Mayor knows this hasn't bought her ticket yet, so I feel very attacked. Madam Mayor needs to get on that then.

0:05:23and I do want to mention that all proceeds do benefit the David Hunter Scholarship Fund. So for more information, you can go to L. Dash cerrito.org slash, crab, feed. And with that, said Madam Mayor, that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you so much. Assistant city manager. Do any of my colleagues have any announcements.

0:05:42Mayor. I'm sorry, Council Member. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to call out that on Sunday, February 9, th the el Cerrito Historical Society is doing a talk at the Community Center at 3 Pm. On the history of indigenous peoples of the East Bay.

0:06:00and also

0:06:03because it's raining a lot for the parents that have kids. And you know, caregivers that have kids in baseball and other field sports. We do have a rain out. Noticed text notification system. You can sign up for that on the recreation website at on courts and play fields at the very bottom of the page. There's a a link that you can click to get that notification. So you don't have to try to figure that out.

0:06:30Thank you. Thank you. Any other colleagues.

0:06:34All right. So mayoral announcements.

0:06:37Oh, oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Casanas, I'm sorry. Do you have any announcements? Councilmember? Casanas.

0:06:45Councilmember Ktsanes: Do not know.

0:06:46Okay, thank you. Mayoral announcements. I am formally creating an ad hoc committee comprised of Council Member Motiyama, and myself, for the purpose of reviewing the City council, administrative policies, and review and rules of order and procedure for tonight's meeting, otherwise known as Zoom comments and our in-person comments.

0:07:06And one last announcement. That's very important to us here in the city, and I want to read a short statement about it

0:07:14in light of events and activities at the national level and with Federal immigration enforcement activities beginning to occur here in Contra Costa County as the mayor of El Cerrito. I want to reiterate along with the city manager, the city of El Cerrito's commitment to values of dignity, inclusivity, and respect for all individuals, regardless of ethnic or national origin, gender, identity.

0:07:37race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, age, disability, or immigration status.

0:07:45In March 2017, the city council affirmed these values by declaring El Cerrito as a sanctuary city. This was done by formally adopting a resolution that was developed by the Human Relations Commission, the City Manager's office and the Police Department, and based on feedback from the El Cerrito community.

0:08:04The city council at the time took action, knowing that fostering a relationship of trust, respect, and open communication between city officials and residents is essential to our mission of delivering public services and ensuring public safety for all members of our community.

0:08:21The city of El Cerrito has a long history of promoting inclusivity, diversity, dignity, and respect for all people.

0:08:28This can be seen in events and programs such as Martin Luther, King Day, Loving Day, pride, and Juneteenth.

0:08:36This can also be seen in initiatives like the not in our town, and El Cerrio stands united against hate campaign, challenging hate and prejudice in all forms.

0:08:46and of course, as we will here tonight. February, as we celebrate black History month here in El Cerrito.

0:08:52I want to assure our community now, as we did then, that the city of El Cerrito will not expend funds nor use its resources, including staff, to administer Federal immigration laws which are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government.

0:09:09As an organization, we must continue to be cautious and monitor any efforts by the Federal Government to withhold Federal funding. As a result of policies such as these.

0:09:19the city manager, city attorney, and staff will continue to closely watch as additional legislation, executive orders and litigation moves forward. But I want to be clear.

0:09:30The city is unequivocally committed to protecting and serving all residents, and that city officials and employees, including law enforcement officials will not take any direct action against any individual based on their actual or perceived immigration, status, religious affiliation.

0:09:49race, sex, ethnic or national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other historically disadvantaged category.

0:10:01The Sanctuary City resolution and policy is available on the city's website@www.el cerrito.org, and I encourage our residents to review it and please contact the city manager's office with any questions. This statement will be posted. There will also be posted on all of our social media channels, so that everyone knows that we will not be supporting anything that's going to be taking away rights from our residents here in El Cerrito.

0:10:28You can go ahead and play it.

0:10:31although we do not do this for claps. But we want everyone to know that even the people in our Chamber does support our stance.

0:10:38The next item on the agenda is oral communications from the public.

0:10:42Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda. Consent items and presentation items request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card or using the raise hand feature in zoom.

0:10:58Public comments will be taken via zoom and in person, for this meeting, only due to the remote participation of a Council member under Ab. 2449.

0:11:09Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Please proceed.

0:11:19Thank you, Mayor. At this time we have 5 requests to speak. I will start with our 1st speaker, Henry Pickard, followed by Garrett Brown.

0:11:32Hello, City Council. My name is Henry, and I'm an El Cerrito resident, and I live just on off Richmond Street, and I'm here because I've heard that many of my neighbors have come to recent meetings to voice opposition to the Richmond Complete Streets Project.

0:11:45So I wanted to provide you with some objective data.

0:11:48According to Uc. Berkeley researchers, cars and trucks hit about 25 pedestrians of cyclists a year in Contra Costa County.

0:11:56Think about that for a moment.

0:11:58If our if our county's drinking water was poisoning 25 people a year, it would be a crisis. If a children's toy killed 25 kids in our county. It would be a national news story.

0:12:09There's no way to look at the state of our current streets designs except as a complete failure.

0:12:15But it doesn't have to be this way. We have a large body of research showing that building protected bicycle infrastructure can dramatically improve outcomes. We can see this in European cities that have done this and improved safety outcomes by 200 to 300%.

0:12:30Our city enacted a complete streets policy to implement this, and we're finally about to take the 1st step forward on this with the Richmond Complete Streets Project.

0:12:39I'm a parent, and I want my daughter to be able to walk or bike to school safely without risking her life. And so I urge you, city council, to move forward on this and make this happen, build protected bicycle infrastructure on Richmond Street, and keep kids in our community safe. Thank you.

0:12:55Our next speaker is Garrett Brown, followed by Janet Byron.

0:13:00Yes, Hi, my name is Garrett Brown. I'm a 30 year resident of El Cerrito at Richmond, and Stockton actually wrote a letter to the members of the City Council in December, and thank you very much for the comments today regarding protecting immigrant neighbors in our community. The raids, of course, have already started thousands of families around the country have been broken up.

0:13:24including farm workers, construction laborers, home, clear home cleaners, home caregivers, etc.

0:13:31So there are a lot of people like that are vulnerable in El Cerrito as well. There I had a number of suggestions in my letter in December, but 3 things strike me as important that I think would be useful for the city done to consider, 1st of which is distributing that right to know know your rights information. The Attorney General here in California has issued

0:13:55excellent information with that regard in about half a dozen languages, I think, distributing that information to high school seniors, for example, high school students whose families probably include undocumented people, would be a very good idea.

0:14:11Secondly, as I mentioned December, I think there's lawyers in El Cerrito, a large number of lawyers, we should be looking for volunteers who are willing to sign on as the attorneys of record for identified immigrant families, so that when they're arrested by ice, they actually do have an attorney of record that they could call to protect themselves. So I think publicizing the volunteer network might be useful.

0:14:37Thirdly, I think that it would be useful in El Cerrito, like in other cities around the country or in the Bay area, to establish a rapid response network of citizens who are willing to come out to be called in the event of raids against

0:14:53individuals in El Cerrito, both to witness those so that they are actually witnesses for any illegal activities conducted by ice, but also to be available to assist families, including kids that are now abandoned by the police action in the United States.

0:15:10I think there are other ideas, undoubtedly, that could come from the community. I think there are community members that are very concerned about this issue. If the City Council was to issue a call or hold a public hearing, and how we can best protect our immigrant neighbors, I'm sure there would be an excellent response from people in elsewhere. Thank you.

0:15:33Our next speaker. Excuse me. Our next speaker is Janet Byron, followed by Carrie Schumann Schulman.

0:15:40Hello, City Council. I'm Janet Byron. I'm an El Cerrito Condominium, owner and co-chair of El Credo Richmond Annex Walk and Roll

0:15:49and West County Citizen representative on the Contra Costa Transportation, Authority's countywide bike and pedestrian advisory Committee.

0:15:58I understand that you've been hearing from residents on Richmond Street who do not want to lose some street parking to include bike lanes north of Mosier.

0:16:07I want to quote from you directly from the Richmond Street Complete Streets website.

0:16:13This is a quote in 2,016, the city adopted an active transportation plan and a complete streets policy which call for creating safe, comfortable, and convenient transportation network that serves users of all modes and all abilities.

0:16:31It is the goal of the city to approach all street projects from basic maintenance to major makeovers. With these principles.

0:16:41In 1923, the city adopted the climate, action and adaptation plan.

0:16:46Half of El Cerrito's greenhouse gas emissions are from driving underscoring the need to create infrastructure that serves all modes and enables less driving.

0:16:57In 2024 the city completed public outreach for the local road safety plan. Nearly a thousand people responded to an online survey about road safety.

0:17:083 out of 4 respondents said they would walk or bike more if they felt safe, indicating unmet demand for infrastructure that serves all modes

0:17:19unquote.

0:17:21So bike lanes slowed down traffic and make streets 40% less dangerous for all users. That's cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians.

0:17:32Richmond Street carries 8,400 cars per day, putting it in the highest risk. Category for pedestrian and bike. Safety cars routinely travel over, well posted over well over posted speed limits.

0:17:47And let's see, the city's Park parking occupancy study showed that less than 40% of the street and virtually 0 on some blocks is currently being used for on street parking

0:18:00the ohlone, Greenway cannot be expected to meet all of the city's safe biking needs to get to useful destinations around town, including stores, schools, the community center and parks in the same way that one street cannot meet all of motorist needs.

0:18:18while the El Cerrito, el Cerrito Walk and Roll, believes that the currently proposed bike lanes should be protected.

0:18:25and they should extend further south on Richmond Street, including bike lanes, lanes, and the design plan is fully in keeping with numerous adopted council policies and city policies, and I urge the city to stay the course with these plans. Thank you.

0:18:41Our next speaker is Carrie Schulman, followed by Gaius Sonnatina.

0:18:49My name is Carrie Schulman, my spouse, and I live in El Cerrito for 15 years now, and we are now raising our 2 children, aged 12 and 10, in this community. I am here today to express my strong support of the addition of bike lanes on Richmond Street, due to the large Pg. And E. Substation on Schmidt Street, Richmond Street, provides the last relatively flat north-south route before the hills.

0:19:15This makes it critical route for accessing Korematsu Middle School, our community Center and the Cerrito Vista Park places that form the heart of El Cerrito.

0:19:25Some people may think that cyclists should just take the ohlone. Greenway, however, going down the Greenway and back up again, is much less direct. For example, for someone living on Mosier, just north of Richmond Street. The route to Korematsu, via Richmond Street is about a half mile, taking the ohlone. Greenway instead, essentially doubles that distance.

0:19:45While this might seem like a small difference to those driving cars, it has a real impact on people biking, especially kids, by commuting to school every day.

0:19:55Given that this is a key school route fully protected, bike lanes would have been ideal, however, achieving, that would require eliminating all parking on Richmond Street. Instead, the developers have taken a balanced approach, designing unprotected lanes while preserving half of the on-street parking. Their decision was informed by multiple parking surveys which showed that less than 40% of the available street parking is actually used.

0:20:22Additionally, they have held several meetings with residents and will be alternating which side of the street allows parking to accommodate community needs.

0:20:31It's important to remember that El Cerrito already requires every residence to have at least 2 off-street parking spaces. Our streets are a shared public resource that should be used efficiently, reserving space for unused parking at the expense of safe accessible bike infrastructure is not the best use of this valuable public space.

0:20:53I urge you to continue supporting the developers. Fair and balanced plan to add bike lanes to Richmond Street. Thank you very much.

0:21:02and our final speaker is Guy Sonatina.

0:21:09Hello, I'm Gaia. I've lived in El Cerrito for 6 years. I have 2 small children and

0:21:18really heavy on my heart. Right now is the loss of my 5 year old classmate in a traffic incident last week.

0:21:26and so this feels particularly pertinent because it keeps.

0:21:30bases safe for children and reduces traffic fatalities.

0:21:38creating streets that are safe and equitable, for everybody is really important, and goes along with.

0:21:45I think, El Cerritos

0:21:50grander hopes and dreams.

0:21:56Complete street project is called Complete Streets, and it needs to at least live up to that

0:22:04title and make the street safe and complete for all users.

0:22:11As mentioned a couple times before, the parking is less than half used, if and

0:22:29oh, my gosh! I'm sorry, folks!

0:22:34I would just really like to encourage the people who are in favor of keeping parking to think about what

0:22:43making this street safe and accessible for everybody would add to the community and think on a larger scale as opposed to what they're losing in the moment. Thank you.

0:22:54Thank you. And city city clerk before you sit down, Gaia.

0:22:59I'm so sorry to hear about your your child's classmate, and if you're comfortable. Please leave their information with our city clerk, if you're comfortable doing that, especially if they're residents here in El Cerrito.

0:23:11Thank you, mayor. So I am going to just announce one more time. If there's any remote speakers who wish to provide public comment now would be the time to use the raise hand feature to request to speak.

0:23:30Hey, Mayor, I am not seeing any hands, so that concludes our request to speak at this time. Thank you so much. The next item is recognition. I'm sorry. The next item is presentations. Can we have the presentation for all 3 proclamations of recognition?

0:23:50Oh, there's 3 should call them separately.

0:23:56We they are 2 separate items, Mayor. So this recognition is recognition of 2024 exemplary police employees. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I wouldn't want you to miss that part in the video.

0:24:10All right. Good evening, Mayor Weisinger and Council members. I'm Paul Keith, your chief of police.

0:24:16I'm here tonight to recognize some stars in our agency.

0:24:20So each year we select a volunteer, a professional staff member, and an officer of the year, and the process we go through is twofold. We seek nominations from our supervisory staff. We also seek nominations from an Awards committee. This formed of past award winners.

0:24:38This year we're going to talk about our

0:24:40recognition. I recognize first.st I'd like to invite a volunteer of the year at your Blacklock.

0:24:53I'd like to talk about our volunteers for a minute. Most of our volunteers have been through a community police academy that we hold, and we actually have 4 other volunteers in the audience today that I spotted. They're all back there in their blue volunteer shirts.

0:25:06They do a lot for our agency and for our community. They staff special events, they deploy on their own to do vacation home checks. They do work around the station. They really do a tremendous amount of work, you know. Sometimes I really wonder what the Department would be like. Without our volunteers there would be huge voids. I'd probably have to hire 3 or 4 people without their help.

0:25:28So let's talk about Atcha. Acha attended our Community Police Academy and became a volunteer in 2018, and she has been a fixture at police department events ever since.

0:25:38You can see her at our 4th of July festival, where Acha is amazing with our community's kids.

0:25:45You see her at our safety operations where she's helping educate our community on crime trends. He's at parades making sure that cars are stopping at intersections and doing traffic control.

0:25:56And she plays a role in training where she acts as a role player and provides logistical support for our staff.

0:26:02She doesn't only do our staff support. She also help her with appreciation events like bringing her delicious cooking to the police department and helping with holiday appreciation events. And if you don't know about Acha, she used to own a restaurant in town called Acha Thai. She is a fantastic cook, so we like really benefit from that. It's great.

0:26:24So over the years Aca has donated hundreds of hours of her time to police efforts to connect with our community, promote safety and support our community events.

0:26:34She's always a friendly face, putting in hard work in the background.

0:26:38and she doesn't always seek the limelight. But she's always a dependable, friendly, and generous person.

0:26:43so I really am happy to be up here thanking her for her dedication to her community and all of the help that you give us. Thank you very much. Asha

0:26:59optional.

0:27:01Okay, that's fine.

0:27:03Hold on. You gotta sit into the microphone. Yeah, use the microphone.

0:27:08You can pull it down to be here and receive this award. Thank you. Everyone, thank you.

0:27:18We know.

0:27:20Think closely.

0:27:22All right.

0:27:24Okay, next up. I'd like to invite Leslie Miranda to the front.

0:27:34But Leslie is a record specialist for the El Streeta Police Department. She was hired in 2022, and she quickly demonstrated her competence and intelligence.

0:27:43He's an efficient worker and a quick learner. He's 1 of those staff members that's always cool and always seems to know the solution to a challenge

0:27:51in her role. She provides community support with police reports, collisions, and other police problems, and on the internal side, she's responsible for making sure the reports are accurate. The data is complete.

0:28:03She has a great mind for details, and that helps her excel in her position.

0:28:07This year. In particular, Leslie had a standout performance so last year. Sorry last year in particular. Last year we had a fatal hit and run collision on San Pablo Avenue. It's a tragic event that resulted in the death of one of our community members. The detectives in the case identified a possible driver for the incident were only able to find a phone number to contact him.

0:28:27It's an additional complicating factor for the case. The suspect only spoke Spanish.

0:28:32so our detectives relied on Leslie to contact the suspect, question him and convince him to surrender at the police department because of her work translating and communicating, Leslie obtained incriminating statements, and convinced the suspect to surrender.

0:28:46After his surrender, Leslie continued to work with detectives to obtain information that was critical to the prosecution of the case. As a result the suspect was charged and convicted of felony hit and run in that case.

0:28:58and that's a lot of responsibility to take on as a professional staff member. But Leslie is a calm, cool professional, who can be relied upon in tense situations. We were very proud to have her as our professional staffer of the year. So thank you, Leslie.

0:29:21Good evening, Mayor Weisinger and members of the City Council. Thank you for this honor. I am truly humbled to be named. Professional staff of the year, being part of the police department, has been an incredible, fulfilling journey. It's not just a job, but a responsibility I take to heart. Every day I strive to serve this community with

0:29:41integrity, dedication, and respect for the people we protect and serve. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in this community with my background and bilingual abilities that allow me to connect with a range of residents.

0:29:56to make sure that everyone, regardless of their language or background, feels heard, and understood. The disability to serve in both English and Spanish, has been a tremendous asset, and I'm proud to contribute in this way.

0:30:07I also want to acknowledge my colleagues, who inspire me every day. This award is as much as a reflection of their support and teamwork as it is in my efforts, and I look forward to continuing to serve this community with the same commitment and passion that brought me here today. Thank you again for this incredible honor.

0:30:29Oh, gotta get a picture of him.

0:30:37Okay. Next, I'd like to invite up Officer James Rizzo.

0:30:46Well, he's not an officer anymore, but I'll get to that. So James was hired in 2023, and he spent last year showing us what he's made of.

0:30:54James is a dui arresting dynamo in El Cerrito.

0:30:58So, in fact, last year, if you were a drunk driver in El Cerrito. You know there's basically 3 situations. If you decide to drunk, drive to drink and drive you might make it home safely.

0:31:08you might crash into something and end up in the back of a police car or officer. Rizzo would see you driving, pull you over and take you to jail. He was responsible for about half of our duis last year over 30 drunk driving arrests on top of all of the other great police work that James did.

0:31:26And I want to talk about Dui police work for a moment because it really is important and can't be said enough

0:31:31drunk drivers can cause enormous damage to our communities. They hit infrastructure, knocking down street lights and traffic signals, and worse, they hit people.

0:31:41Last year I talked about a fatal hit and run incident, and in that case we believe the driver was intoxicated at the time of the crash.

0:31:49Now I can only imagine that if Officer Rizzo happened to be working that night there's a pretty good chance. He would have stopped that car before that person hit our community member.

0:31:59So officers like James Rizzo, that take drink, driving enforcement seriously make a huge difference in our community. They literally save lives by taking dangerous people off the street

0:32:10on top of his commitment to safety. Officer Rizzo is a great all-around cop.

0:32:14He's calm and uses his brain and voice when he's in intense situations, and that's an incredible attribute for a cop to have

0:32:21so many times bringing down the temperature in the room

0:32:25activating the rational part of another person's brain can help take a critical incident and de-escalate it into something that results in fewer injuries and fewer bad outcomes. And he's really great at that. He's also a great investigator, and, in fact, in January of this year he started his New Year as a detective. So he's now Detective James Rizot.

0:32:50This last year officer Rizzo also was awarded with the ground pounder award. It's an award that's named in honor of William Zink, former officer at our department, that died in a car accident on his way into work.

0:33:02Officer Zink was a a real

0:33:08well ground pounder. I guess he was out there making arrests and doing all of the hard work on the street, taking dangerous people to jail, and every so often we give out the award to somebody who's had a similar performance last year James Rizzo was awarded the award for his tremendous performance in Duis.

0:33:29This isn't the only recognition that Detective Rizzo is going to be getting the Richmond Elks Club will also be honoring Detective Rizzo and other West County police officers at the Elks Club on February 19, th 2025, as part of their annual recognition of police work in West Contra Costa County.

0:33:46We are really proud of the tremendous work that officer, Rizzo put in last year. He's an incredible team member. He not only is he good at Duis, but he makes his team better in the process. He takes the time to take his coworkers aside, show them the tips and the tricks, and there are some tips and tricks, and figuring out how to do duis. He really he really is focused on making those around him better cops

0:34:12and had a phenomenal year last year. So we're really proud to have Detective James Rizzo as our officer of the year.

0:34:25Everyone. I'm grateful to be here and received officer of the year award, thanks to Madam Mayor and the City Council for always supporting us and our work in law enforcement. Thank you, Chief Keith, for being a great leader. It's a privilege to work under your guidance.

0:34:39Lieutenants Warlick and Caputo. Your training support has improved our workplace. I appreciate your guidance.

0:34:45Captain Warren, Sergeants Cooper, Hubs, Brosus, Wentworth, and Leone. Thank you for being great teammates. Your hard work in keeping the community safe is inspiring. Sergeant Tang, you've been a fantastic mentor, especially during weekend shifts. Your advice on patrolling and writing reports has been enormously helpful, and I'm thankful for your teaching.

0:35:04I also want to mention how our agency values ongoing training and makes us better officers and brings us closer to as it brings us closer as a team. I love coming to work every day. Finally, thanks everyone who here in the community we serve. Your trust helps us do our jobs. Well, I'm proud to be a part of this team and look forward to our similar community with dedication. Thank you.

0:35:31I also want to thank you for your commitment to recognizing our officers and employees. Hard work.

0:35:37Thank you so much for that presentation, Chief, and so now we'll go to Council comments. I'll start here on this end with Mayor pro tem quinto. Thank you.

0:35:48I want to say congratulations to

0:35:53the folks that are being honored there. to my my longtime friend, who I used to visit at your restaurant weekly. So know how much you're appreciated here in El Cerrito. You know your your preschool, your restaurant. You are super busy, but you take the time to come back to El Cerrito all the time so grateful to you and and to our police officer. Again. Thank you for

0:36:21All the work that you have done through the years and congratulations on becoming a detective, and to our records, clerk, now this is, truly

0:36:33an honor to see you up here being honored and amongst your peers here as well, and congratulations to you as well.

0:36:44Thank you. Councilmember, mottoyama.

0:36:47Thank you, Mayor. Congratulations, and really thank you all for your service to our community.

0:36:55volunteer group. I see you guys everywhere. So it's really wonderful that you guys are so active in the community. And you know.

0:37:05for the records, you know, those. It's

0:37:09it's really important work. You're part of the the process that makes everything go smoothly. So thank you for being really exemplary in that.

0:37:17And Detective Rizzo, I don't even understand. Like is 1,200 calls a lot because I was trying to. How much, how many calls does everybody get? Do you just get more calls.

0:37:32so congratulations, and thank you for for all your work.

0:37:38Councilmember

0:37:40congratulations, and thank you. All the work you do is so important and it's inspiring to see the focus of the department on making our streets safer, you know, addressing a hit and run which that was such a terrible tragedy, but showing that there are consequences, and that you you can't do that. And addressing Duis, which, of course, are dangerous, for everybody is is so important. I just got to go on a ride along last week and see the focus on

0:38:09traffic safety issues. And and seeing that is just very important. I know a lot of police departments don't

0:38:16put resources into that these days, and it is so important in keeping our residents safe. So thank you all for the work you do, and congratulations.

0:38:25and and I just want to reiterate what my colleagues have said. I've seen all of you so much out in the field. I want to 1st congratulate you, detective, on making detective. My my grandfather was a detective in Louisiana, and I know how much work that takes to, you know. Go up the ranks in that.

0:38:40and I also love hearing you tell about the officers in the department who have helped you along the way, who I know, you know by name, and so I know that you have good stock here in El Cerrito, Pd. That's really helping you along the way. I did not know that the owner or former owner of were part of our police department, so I mean for no other reason than that. But no, thank you for your service to the community.

0:39:03And, Leslie, I've seen you so many times. If I've as I've come into the department, and I just appreciate all of you so much so thank you. And it's an honor to present these presentation awards to you. But 1st

0:39:14do I have motion? Oh, I'm I'm sorry I keep forgetting. So do you have anything you like to raise.

0:39:23Councilmember Ktsanes: Yeah, I will keep my comments very brief for those who don't know I'm homesick, so I don't feel very well, but thank you to all 3 of you, and I absolutely appreciate the work you've done.

0:39:35and congratulate you on being rightfully recognized, and to to Aca. Having lived in Thailand for 7 years, I say to you.

0:39:43and for those of you who don't know it means Thank you very much.

0:39:48Thank you, councilmember.

0:39:50And now do I have a motion to approve all 3 proclamations? I'll move. I'll second all right. So I have a motion from Council Member Motiyama, and a second from Mayor pro tem quinto city clerk. Can you please call the vote? And just as a reminder Council. We do have to do roll call votes as we have a member that is remote. So Mayor Motiyama or I apologize. I'm following in your footsteps. Aye, mayor protem quinto

0:40:16councilmember mutiyama. Aye councilmember Saltzman, council member Gosanis.

0:40:21Councilmember Ktsanes: I.

0:40:22Motion carries all right. And now we're gonna take a picture. Yes, yes, ma'am, okay.

0:40:3049

0:40:43complementary prior.

0:41:45So they're pronounce

0:41:48and mayor before we continue just one small, quick point of order. Council Member Katsanis, our city attorney, just reminded me that you do need to disclose this statement about whether anyone is in the room with you prior to casting your vote when you are participating remotely. So if you could just confirm that for the proclamation vote, and then make sure we include that moving forward. Please.

0:42:08Councilmember Ktsanes: Okay, I don't have the language right in front of me. I did see it, but I can confirm that nobody else is in the room with me.

0:42:13Perfect, and that is exactly what we need you to say. Thank you so much, Canary. We may continue all right. The next item is recognition of 2024 firefighter of the year. Can we please have the presentation for the proclamation of recognition?

0:42:29Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I'm Eric. Sailors. Your fire chief.

0:42:33I'm here to present our firefighter of the year for 2024.

0:42:38Now the fires in Southern California have brought to surface what a hard and interesting job a firefighter can be.

0:42:45It's a career where anything can happen any day you can be called to a very challenging medical aid. You can be asked to belly your way into a burning house, or you can load up onto a rig and drive to Southern California and work for 14 days on a large wildfire.

0:43:04We have one member today that was voted by his colleagues to receive this award as a representation for the El Cerrito fire department, and I would like to introduce Engineer Anthony Dawson.

0:43:26So in this interesting career it takes 3 things to keep a firefighter alive on their 1st day of the job.

0:43:33It takes the right training, the right equipment, and a mentor.

0:43:38At any moment you can be asked to step into a burning building and try and figure out how to get into it and out of it alive.

0:43:45And since I've started here, and every interaction I've had with Engineer Dawson. He has stepped up and filled those 3 requirements for the firefighters around him. He has been engaged in making sure that we have the right equipment. He helped build our new engine engine 51, which is a tireless and thankless effort. But he did it for the right reasons, because he knew that engine would be in this city for 15 years, and his fellow firefighters would be riding on it, making sure that you're safe.

0:44:15In addition, every time we have had a training opportunity. He has stepped up and filled that gap.

0:44:23He has offered to train upcoming engineers and led our recent engineer Academy.

0:44:29where he stepped up on his own time to make sure that he trained young firefighters that want to be engineers so that they could operate the equipment properly

0:44:40and get our firefighters to and from fire safely operate the pump correctly.

0:44:46In addition to that, almost in an act of insanity who volunteered to be a drill instructor at our recent Academy.

0:44:54Now, the reason why I call that an act of insanity, because a lot of people think it's hard to be a student at the drill instruct at the Drill Academy. But it's actually much harder to be an instructor, because they are a series of 14 h days and running up and down stairs a lot, because every time the recruits go up the stairs you have to go up the stairs with them to track them and train them, and usually about the time you get into the Academy you realize you want to get out. But the commitment is there and you're stuck.

0:45:23But Engineer Dawson, did such a fantastic job at our last academy, which is a joint academy with Richmond fire.

0:45:31When Richmond was ready to start another academy, they came to me and said, I don't think we can do this without Dawson.

0:45:37We need him to help because he is such professional.

0:45:42He knows the job so well, and has been committed to this career that his knowledge and experience fill a gap that we don't know if we can do without him, and we need him to make sure that our firefighters are safe. And I'm so proud to say that because I know for certain it is true.

0:46:03Now our firefighter of the year is actually a vote by our firefighters in the fire service. You do nothing alone. Nobody survives this job by themselves, so I rely on his fellow coworkers.

0:46:16Tell me who the firefight of the year is. So we do a survey.

0:46:20We take votes, and there is a spot there for comments where you can put in comments of why you think this firefighter deserves this award so, to make him blush even further.

0:46:33I'm going to read some of the comments from his coworkers, people that have fought fire by his side, his entire career, and watched him develop into the amazing person he is.

0:46:46So

0:46:47pardon me, for sometimes the grammar will be perfect, but I'm going to read them as they were written. Anthony Dawson has dedicated time and effort into making this department better.

0:46:59He has worked tirelessly to improve the El Cerrito fire department from the Academy. The station projects, and it's always a pleasure to work with, and to be around

0:47:09along with being a pleasure to work with. Anthony Dawson took on the challenge of extracting at our most recent fire academy. He also put a great deal of time into designing and fabricating parts for the new fire engine, and finally, he is enthusiastic about making us train and making us better firefighters.

0:47:26Boston showed true dedication and mentorship to introducing our 3 new probationary firefighters to El Cerrito Fire department.

0:47:34He was the 1st step in ensuring the 3 probationary firefighters will be successful and survive their career.

0:47:42and is involved in a new academy and designing a new engine. 51. He is a great mentor.

0:47:48and finally, Dawson has been an excellent role model for the members of the El Cerrito Fire department, and continues to mentor the next generation of firefighters.

0:47:59I am so proud to present to you Engineer Dawson.

0:48:12Okay, that's embarrassing.

0:48:18Thank you. Mayor Weisinger, distinguished members of City council, City officials, chief my family.

0:48:26my fire family in the back, and lovely citizens of El Torito.

0:48:31Thank you so much. It's an honor to receive this award

0:48:35when I think about what this award means. I think of the people that I've voted for in the past. People like Captain Brian Cesareck, Captain Tommy Wade.

0:48:46I've had to sit there with a piece of paper with 30 plus names on it, and think who has done the most for this department, and when I write down those names, or have in the past the things that come up

0:48:59that lead me to write them down, their hard work and their positive attitude and dedication to the department.

0:49:04and just to know that I'm considered with alongside those people. That's an honor to me.

0:49:12The best part about this recognition or this award is that it is voted for by my colleagues, my peers, my brothers in the firehouse, and

0:49:22that means the world to me.

0:49:27I do want to give some thanks number one to my family.

0:49:32Please stand up, get up!

0:49:44So the award says, firefighter of the year. It doesn't say dad of the year husband of the year.

0:49:50They have had to sacrifice a lot for me to be able to be here

0:49:54and to achieve my professional goals.

0:49:57Oh, thank you, thank you.

0:50:05secondly, to my crew.

0:50:09And I mean basically every member of the department, because at 1 point or another, in the last couple of years I've dragged each and every one of them in on some project I'm doing or some training I'm giving, and made them volunteer for

0:50:22for something to to help the department. So thank you. I wouldn't be here without you.

0:50:28Lastly, chief sailors, I'm lucky to work for you.

0:50:32You all are lucky to have him as the chief of your organization.

0:50:38When you come to chief sailors with a question or problem, or something that needs improvement.

0:50:44He doesn't say, Oh, we've never done that here before.

0:50:47He says we've never done that here before.

0:50:51How can we help you make this better? How can we help you figure out how to make it work

0:50:57instead of roadblocks. He helps you learn how to build bridges.

0:51:01Thank you for that, chief.

0:51:04And so once again, I'm extremely humbled and honored to receive this recognition today and thank you all.

0:51:21Mayor and Councillor, your firefighter of the year.

0:51:23Thank you so much, Chief, and so now I open up to council comments. I'll start at the end with Council Member Saltzman.

0:51:31Congratulations, Engineer Dawson, and and thank you also to your family. I think we can probably all relate a little bit about the sacrifices family has to make, so appreciate you loaning him to to the department and to the city and and the State. And thank you for everything you're doing to mentor others in the department that's so incredibly department important to make sure that we have a strong department, and can keep our folks safe. So thank you and congratulations.

0:52:01Councilmember Motiama. Thank you, Mayor. Congratulations and thank you for all the extra that you do. I think you know El Cerrito is great because of all the extra, and I really thank you for doing above and beyond your job to fix things to teach, to mentor, to care more about everybody in this town. So thank you so much.

0:52:26Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank you for your service through the years, and also you know. Thank your family.

0:52:36or they know it takes 2, and so grateful to your family as well, and thank you for saving lives and property up and down the State of California, especially here at El Cerrito and Kensington. Thank you.

0:52:52Councilmember Casanas.

0:52:54Councilmember Ktsanes: Yes, I want to echo what's been said, and thank Engineer Dawson for his service. I also want to congratulate him on this acknowledgement and recognition, and I can't see the whole room, but I was struck when he started to talk. He mentioned his fire family in the back of the room, and I put a big smile on my face, and I don't know exactly who's in your fire family, but that's wonderful to hear them referred to as family.

0:53:18Well, thank you so much, Engineer Dawson, and you know we here in the Council, we talk so much about improving our fire station, improving our trucks, and for me it's great to know who's actually putting the work into making sure we're getting the best truck. We're upgrading our station as much as we should, and all those things so congratulations, and I'm honored to honor you as the engineer of the year

0:53:40firefighter of the year. I'm so sorry.

0:53:45and now we shall take a picture after you. Oh, we have no proclamation on just the second council meeting. Okay, do I have a motion to approve the proclamation. So moved a second. Okay, so moved by Saltzman. And I heard councilmember Mutiyama as a second, do all in. I'm sorry. City clerk. Can you please call the vote Mayor Weisinger.

0:54:09Yes, Mayor Protemquinto, councilmember, mothiyama. Yes, councilmember, Saltzman, council member.

0:54:16Councilmember Ktsanes: Yes, and just a reminder to.

0:54:19and no yeah, and no, no one else. I'm alone. No one else is in the room with me.

0:54:23Thank you very much. Motion carries. Thank you. And now we shall take a picture.

0:55:20Let the family take a picture.

0:55:33Okay.

0:55:40thank you. You're welcome, right?

0:55:49All right. The next item is adoption of the consent calendar, which includes the following items, we do. I'm so sorry.

0:55:58Okay. The next item on the agenda is Contra Costa presentation.

0:56:12My eyes are getting used to this bit, Mister Frankie.

0:56:48Good evening, Mayor Weisinger and City Council members and staff.

0:56:56Thank you very much for having us here tonight to present to El Cerrito a 3 contra Costa counties

0:57:06behavioral health crisis intervention program.

0:57:11My name is Debbie Thomas. I am the Mental Health program manager for a 3 crisis services, and I will allow my colleague to introduce himself.

0:57:22Good evening, Mayor. Madam Mayor and council, members and staff and all of the community members.

0:57:31My name is Eric Jackson. I am substance. Use program supervisor for a 3, and I'm honored to be here.

0:57:46So the agenda here? Just very quickly. We will talk a little bit about the need of one moment. I don't want it. Can we get someone to close that door.

0:57:56Thank you. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. The agenda. We will talk about the need for this type of service in Contra Costa County, who we are. The history of a 3 miles hall crisis call center, emergency response division of a 3

0:58:16where we stand today, the multidisciplinary teams that make up our department, and then the level of response of our teams.

0:58:27So out of approximately 1.2 million residents around 200,000 people in Contra Costa County will need mental health services at some time.

0:58:36One in 5 adults experience, mental health challenges. The 3, rd most common ambulance call is for Behavioral health service

0:58:45and 6,300 more than 6,300 visits were made to our county hospital psych emergency services.

0:58:55We are a team of behavioral health professionals

0:58:59who are experts in mental health.

0:59:01substance, use counseling peer support and social needs.

0:59:10Miles hall was a 23 year old black man who was tragically killed by law enforcement. While suffering a severe mental health incident.

0:59:23After Meryl's death, his mother on Hall, advocated for the system-wide change

0:59:30to prevent unnecessary suffering and loss of life.

0:59:35and because of her efforts and the Miles Fall Foundation's efforts and the efforts of bringing the entire community together, not just county members, but the entire community of Contra Costa County. Today we have a 3, and it continues to refine and process and expand our partnerships. In Contra Costa county.

1:00:04We are the 4th arm of the emergency response system.

1:00:08I'm very proud to be here with law enforcement this evening and fire.

1:00:13and very proud to make. The statement of this is the service that we offer in Contra Costa County

1:00:26a little bit of what it looks like when you call for help.

1:00:29So there's a need.

1:00:31and you can call 2 1 1 you can call. You can call our number, which we will give you at the end of this presentation. The idea is that there is no wrong door in Contra Costa County. When there is a behavioral health crisis.

1:00:48When you call, you will have someone to talk to within a few seconds.

1:00:55The A 3 miles hall call center is where we work and where we take the calls.

1:01:01We'll get calls from law enforcement folks that have called 9 1 1,

1:01:06and we have a great partnership with law enforcement, where they will triage their call to determine whether or not. That call is something they should take or go to fire right or go to Amr.

1:01:19Now they will triage, and they have the option of transferring that call to a 3.

1:01:26So when you reach a 3, there'll be someone to respond there to actually listen to the crisis that you or a family member may be having.

1:01:36We will ask a series of questions to really get a clear snapshot.

1:01:41and in those questions we'll kind of determine what kind of level of response may be needed. Not every call is a field level response. Sometimes we're able to de-escalate over the phone and provide care and services that way.

1:01:59and then there's a place to go.

1:02:03Behavioral health wellness campus will be opening in a few months. We've been delayed for quite some time, but we're hoping that this will happen in 2025, about midsummer.

1:02:15There are community based services that we provide to the community. Once we have provided our services.

1:02:23Of course, there's the Regional

1:02:26Medical Center. If someone is meeting the criteria for an involuntary hold, psych emergency services, they'll receive care there.

1:02:36And the medical emergency departments would be involved in that as well depending on. If there are other co-occurring factors that are happening during that crisis.

1:02:49Eric will share with where we stand today with much privilege.

1:02:57I love working for a 3.

1:03:00One thing I've learned about mental health or substance use crisis is that it's a no respecter of persons.

1:03:07We've been in multi-million dollar mansions, and we've been under bridges.

1:03:12We have served the community where collegiate students and elementary students have suffered some kind of crisis that needed a response that contained. Compare

1:03:26Compassion, and and a and a loving response. And so a 3, anyone, anywhere, anytime.

1:03:35That's our mission. That's our focus. And that's what we get the privilege of doing.

1:03:40or the communities in Contra Costa County.

1:03:43I would like to say that

1:03:46el Cerrito, fire department and police have been wonderful partners with us at Amr services. When we come

1:03:54they partner with us, we partner with them, and it's been a great effort here. So I want to thank you for your police departments and your fire department.

1:04:04where we stand today. We're 24, 7.

1:04:08There's someone on the phone. (844) 844-5544. You will get an answer and have someone be able to talk to you.

1:04:18In 2,024 we had 20,173 calls.

1:04:23We had 3,764 teams dispatched for field visits into homes various communities and and issues to provide support and services.

1:04:36A law enforcement has requested in 2,024, 1,089 calls for services that we coordinated with them, where we co-responded and met with them prior to engaging a family or an issue to see how we could best

1:04:52or that population and that issue.

1:04:55We have a public dashboard available for updated information. The link is here. But if you just go to a 3 dashboard on a Google, you'll find out where we've been and what we've done.

1:05:08This is the dynamite part about it. We're a multidisciplinary team. I call it the orchestra we have interventionist people who can touch base with family and friends and concerned citizens on some of the services that are offered in mental health and substance use issues. Some people just want to know, how can I be of support to someone I care about.

1:05:31We have peer support specialists, those with lived experience. They have successfully and continue to manage any issues that they have, and they can share that with community members, family members, and those who may be experiencing a mental house, mental health or substance use issue.

1:05:51substance, use disorder, counselors, which is my pride and joy to go in and help someone lead someone out of darkness because substance use issues. They don't care. They'll take care they'll take it. Substance, use issues will take advantage of grief.

1:06:06Trauma of any form, and it doesn't ask it just intervene. It just intrudes. We have mental health clinicians that can come in and assess, and they're licensed to come in and provide the brief intervention model of therapy and get them connected.

1:06:23We have rns and nurses, nurse practitioners. So the professional. It's like a library. It's it's it's it's a wonderful orchestra of people. All of our calls are are designed in a response that one or the 2 of these team members go out for that special occasion. And that's the assessment.

1:06:44Our intervention are a level one could be a peer, support or substance, use counselor.

1:06:51A level. 2 response would be a mental health clinician, a nurse, and a peer, specialist or sud counselor. A level 3 response is a mental health clinician, or a nurse with a peer support sud with police standby. That means that we will debrief in with police before we engage with something so that we can best

1:07:13best serve that that issue that's happening

1:07:19providing hope

1:07:20providing timely appropriate behavioral health crisis service to anyone, anywhere, anytime in Contra Costa County. That is what we hope to do. Every call

1:07:348, 3 miles hall call Center (844) 844-5544. We really believe in our invested anyone anywhere, anytime.

1:07:44Thank you.

1:07:46Thank you so much. And I'll start with our council members. First, st about any comments or questions that you have starting with Mayor pro tem quinto. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say, thank you. This is something that all the mayors in Contra Costa have been working on for years. When I chaired the Contra Costa Mayors Conference, it was the city of Walnut Creek and their mayor that said, Hey, we need to do something

1:08:11to see this come into fruition now, and to see it in all of Contra Costa County, including our 19 cities. In such a short time. It this is something that was truly truly needed.

1:08:27So you know, I'm I'm grateful to the work that you are doing, currently doing.

1:08:33We have seen, and I have dealt with interventions in this city.

1:08:39With some of our seniors and and people that I know personally. So Know that.

1:08:48you know it, no one is excluded when it comes to this type of intervention and mental health crisis.

1:08:57My family has gone through that

1:09:00I had a a brother-in-law that committed suicide, and my partner couldn't deal with

1:09:09the death of his parents, and and started drinking. And it it just goes on and on. You know, on my street where I live dealing with these interventions through all the different families that have had to deal with this since I lived there since 2,001 this is truly a a service that

1:09:37that was deeply needed. So I congratulate you for getting to this level, and know that we did. All of the cities and the county of Contra Costa did win an award at Cal cities for the service. So

1:09:56it's something that is countywide. And and I owe the success to to both of you again. Thank you.

1:10:05Thank you so much. Council Member Motyama.

1:10:08Thank you so much for the presentation, and thank you for coming to share about a 3 with us. Because, I think, one of the things that's really important is to get the word out

1:10:19the community. I did have a chance to go around the dashboard, and it was really interesting to see that we had a hundred 3 calls here in El Cerrito. And looking through the data that that's you know, the

1:10:33all the those calls of are people that were stably housed. So there's not, I think there's, you know, a lot of confusion between Core and a 3, and how? How? Which you know a 3 must be for homeless people. It's like, no, these are 2 different things.

1:10:50So I think that that was, you know, an interesting statistic to know about El Cerrito, and I also was really impressed by the 15 second, wait time to talk to somebody. That's way better than almost any place you can call for service. So that is quite amazing.

1:11:08So I want to thank you. And I hope that the service is available. I know that mental health and behavioral health is a a huge issue in our community.

1:11:18from everyone, from, you know, youth to seniors. And it does like you said, it doesn't matter. You know your economic status or anything you know, mental health is a is a big, important thing. So thank you so much.

1:11:33Thank you. Councilmember Salzman.

1:11:35thank you so much for the work you do. Of course you know the death of Miles Hall was a tragedy, and that should never happen that you're having a mental health crisis and you end up getting killed because of it. And so I think, having the appropriate response is so important. And I think we're all indebted to the advocacy of his mother, Tom Hall. To to make this happen and to call for it.

1:11:58Can you talk to me us a little bit more about how it actually works. So somebody calls 911 if they're calling from El Cerrito goes through the Richmond dispatch. How does the person getting that call make the decision about when to route somebody to your services?

1:12:16Yeah, that's a great question. So we've had lots of meetings with law enforcement to help kind of create and kind of co-create what a behavioral health triage would need to look like, so that the 911 dispatchers know whether or not this is appropriate for a 3,

1:12:36and so they will ask a series of questions, and then we'll actually transfer that call to us, or call us with that person's information.

1:12:47and then we will call that person back, depending on the acuity of the situation. Sometimes the calls that we get from law enforcement are very brief. And it's just someone's kind of having a crisis. Here's the address. And then we just go. And in those cases law enforcement is responding with us, so we have very little information. But when law enforcement does have information, from, say, a loved one who has called.

1:13:14Then we will call that loved one back.

1:13:17Get a sense of how acute, how intense the situation is.

1:13:21and then we will ask our triage questions to really get kind of a snapshot of pulling of what this crisis looks like in this moment

1:13:29also allows us to have some time to check the history

1:13:35in terms of any behavioral health services they may have had in the past, or they're currently having.

1:13:41And so we try to get a really well rounded picture in terms of that individual

1:13:48and based on the presentation. If that person is providing, is actually presenting with certain symptomology, then we will make that determination as to whether it's level one level 2 or level 3,

1:14:02and then we send a team out. If it's a level 2 or 3. It's gonna have a nurse or a clinician who's actually authorized to do the assessment for an involuntary hold.

1:14:15And

1:14:16the peer or substance use disorder counselor. It may be more appropriate to have one or the other depending on the presentation person may also have a substance, use disorder history. So we always have 2 team members out in the field, at least 2

1:14:35and we do our work. We do our assessment. Yeah.

1:14:40thank you. And then one other question it. You're you're serving all sorts of types of people. But we we, of course, know that people who are unhoused that can sometimes lead to having a mental health crisis or substance abuse from becoming unhoused. And so how much are you interfacing with like poor teams with shelters?

1:15:03How how does that all work together. Yeah, we work very closely with core when we're providing services to individuals who are experiencing homelessness or unhoused.

1:15:15And as long as we have a location, we know where to go, we provide services as well to individuals who are unhoused. Sometimes we will do that in a co-response with core. Sometimes we will make that connection during the visit or after the visit just depends on

1:15:34the needs of that individual. Sometimes it's already an individual who is connected to core. We do. We work very, very closely with them. Great? Well again. Thank you so much for your work.

1:15:47We also, after after every visit. Do a follow up 3 days.

1:15:54best case scenario. We'll get it done within 48 h. But within 3 days we're gonna follow up to make sure that if there were any resources or any barriers to those resources were encountered, we'll send a team out to help cross those bridges and and fill those gaps, and that gives us time to collaborate with any partner that may be identified and needed. And then we can do a warm hand off. Not a drop.

1:16:20a warm handoff. We want to connect people to the supports and services, and sometimes we have to, you know, be really diligent. But that's our that's definitely our mission to make sure that it's a warm handoff.

1:16:32Thank you so much.

1:16:34Councilmember Casanas.

1:16:36Councilmember Ktsanes: Yes, thank you both for your presentation. It was hugely informative.

1:16:42and I think it goes without saying that your work that you do is incredibly important and lifesaving.

1:16:48and I am tremendously appreciative of it. I thank you, too, for your not only your presentation, but the your addressing, particularly Councilman Saltzman's questions. I learned a great deal from that. Those answers as well

1:17:00again. Thank you for that. I?

1:17:05yeah, I'll leave it at that. Your work is just hugely important, and I'm tremendously grateful for it. I appreciate, too, that this came through questions and comments from council members as well, that mental health issues and substance abuse issues are not confined to one particular socioeconomic group. It impacts the whole.

1:17:24the whole range, the whole rainbow. And thank you for acknowledging that as well. That's important. I think the work that you do and the way that you present the work you do also very importantly helps reduce the stigma around mental health issues. And I,

1:17:37it's equally important, that's all for me.

1:17:43Thank you, Council member, and I just want to say, you know, number one, when I 1st came onto council, or whether I was running to come onto council. It was the Miles Halls Foundation was one of the organizations that that greatly supported me and wanted to have someone who was an advocate on the Council and just for the community members, and especially because we're in Black History month. I just want to kind of wrap in context how important the work that you all are doing.

1:18:09I mentioned when the Law Enforcement officers are left, and my grandfather was a detective when we lived in Louisiana. But when he came to California the second or 3rd time he was working at Cat Rice groceries. Our family store down on 5th and Barrett, and they were organically his himself.

1:18:24Other black men in the community men from around the churches were themselves doing the work that we now have a team to do. They were going around, you know, seeing who was having mental health breakdowns, who was having substance abuse issues problem, trying to get them into stable housing if they weren't already trying to connect them into services, as you all are doing now. So for me to see that you all are doing this in the county is supporting it.

1:18:48It's great to have grassroots effort, but the fact that our county has really entrusted you all with this is very important to me, and I thank you all for the work that you're doing, and my my only one question that I have, because Council Member

1:19:00kind of hit on what I was saying, as far as how the numbers reinforce that not everyone that you all have to serve are people who are not in stable housing. All types of people are having problems with substance, abuse, mental health issues. But I know that you mentioned that you all are going to be having an actual place to go, and that you're hoping that it opens in summer, but that it should have been opened a little bit sooner. What has been kind of the hold up with that

1:19:25construction.

1:19:27Oh, okay, you know very much. You know these sorts of things. When it was a a building that had been had existed and used for other purposes. And so

1:19:40they came into remodel. And then you just run into things when you start breaking down walls and all the things.

1:19:47Okay, well, we look forward to seeing it

1:19:49hopefully in summer, as you said. Yes, and I forgot to. If I can have one more moment Eric and I brought some a 3 swag, so we have posters in English and Spanish, and we have wallet cards and brochures that we brought to share with the community. So

1:20:10thank you. Thank you for that, and thank you for your presentation.

1:20:14Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you

1:20:21all right. The next item is adoption of the Consent calendar, which includes the following

1:20:29Black History Month proclamation. I'm sorry. Item, a black history month, proclamation, and item B, 2024. Meeting report for boards, commissions and committees.

1:20:41Are there any brief questions or requests by the Council to pull items off the consent calendar.

1:20:49I am actually going to go ahead and pull item A from the calendar.

1:20:55Now bear with me, because this is the 1st time I've done this, so make sure I'm putting doing this right and just to clarify you certainly can adopt the consent, monitor in one motion and still speak to one of the items. So unless you want to make a change to the item, you do not have to physically pull it. Okay? Well, then, we will go to

1:21:16the motion to approve. Do I have a motion to the approve via consent calendar so moved alright. So.

1:21:24thank you.

1:21:26Mayor Weisinger, we need to vote. Oh, I was just making sure I heard somebody, but that might have been William on the oh, yeah, no. Sorry I apologize. I heard a second from Councilmember Saltzman. Yes, so I had a move by Motiyama, correct move by Quinto, and second by Salzman.

1:21:44So can you please call the vote Mayor Weisinger? Yes, mayor potem, quinto, councilmember, Motyama. Yes, councilmember, Saltzman.

1:21:51council member Thomas.

1:21:53Councilmember Ktsanes: Yes.

1:21:54And no one is in the room with you currently.

1:21:56Councilmember Ktsanes: And no one is in the room with me. Currently.

1:21:58Thank you. Motion carried

1:21:59all right. And so before we go into the second item or to the next item, I did want to just make a statement about Black History month. Normally, I would actually write out a statement for Black History Month, but we were a bit busy as a staff this week talking about our Sanctuary city.

1:22:14Item, which actually led me into why I wanted to pull the item from the agenda. Because we are seeing so much that's going on on the Federal level, where

1:22:23so many identities are being either erased or stripped away, having their rights stripped away. And I remember my 1st year on the Council. I actually did make a very long speech, because at the time the Council was flying the Black Lives Matter flag, and I wanted us to change it to the the black right? I forgot what it's called the Pan African flag.

1:22:45This mayor thing is really really hard. But in that speech I did talk about how, when you fly, just the black lives matter flag, you are actually reducing black experience to death, and how Black History Month was actually created to celebrate history, to celebrate the present, and actually to celebrate the future.

1:23:03So I just wanted to reiterate that here in El Cerrito that we are continuing to strive to actually highlight our black history, all the other identities that we didn't mention in our sanctuary cities, and in a time where we are seeing we may see in the future. People try and take that out of our schools. People try and say that it's illegal for us to talk about the history. If you've been here.

1:23:24you know that I talk about my family's history in West County ad nauseum, because, as I told one of my my cousins this weekend. Once we stopped telling the story. Someone's gonna forget that we were here, and it's important for our family to remember that we came here in the forties

1:23:39to avoid the racism and basically persecution of the Jim Crow South. We came here for an opportunity to actually have a chance to build a better life and to live free in what we thought was going to be in the California sun. So I just wanted to say and reiterate again that for black history we celebrate black history, because, if not, we might have children who will forget that it happened.

1:24:02We celebrate black present. Because if not, we'll have people, older people who don't recognize the important things that our youth are doing right here today, and we separate. We celebrate black futures because black futures are the future, that they're the ones that are going to continue the culture that are going to push our history forward

1:24:21happy black history month to all.

1:24:23That is the end of my speech.

1:24:26All right onto our next item.

1:24:32The next item is policy matters. Item A, which is the

1:24:40Fy. 2024, 25, second quarter general fund budget Quarterly. Update through December 2024.

1:24:48Can we please have the staff report?

1:24:51Yep, Lisa and Gabe didn't warn me. This is hard.

1:24:56really hard. You got the facilities.

1:25:00I'm sweating.

1:25:10Okay.

1:25:16it's very similar. So we're we're finance. We're not. We're not creative. There's no creativity to our presentations.

1:25:26Okay.

1:25:34okay, good evening, Mayor. Members of the Council, crystal reams, finance director. The 1st item, I have 2 for you. 1st item, tonight we have is the second quarter general fund update.

1:25:49Okay? In addition to the agenda bill and the update that was provided in the council agenda packet. I just have a brief presentation I did want to point out. There's a few typos in the update in the general fund budget update it references. The period which would be 1124 to 1231, 24, not 25,

1:26:10working in 2 years. Here. So I apologize for that. And then also, I realize I did not update measure. R to now reflect, measure. G, so I've updated that. So you guys will see that in the next the next update.

1:26:21So 1st I will start with revenues. Are again. We call out the measure G separately. Our real property transfer tax through the cash basis of accounting is 1,142, 8 0, 6,

1:26:36just some key things to update use of money and property reflects interest, income charges and rental charges.

1:26:45And then, oh, can't see the notes on this one.

1:26:49Hmm, the intergovern intergovernmental revenue. Would be in between a

1:26:57I'm sorry would be grants things like that. Other revenues. Our cannabis revenues in there, and other financing sources

1:27:06would be for I lost my notes on that. It's not showing. I apologize.

1:27:12Wanted to point that out

1:27:14moving on to revenue. So for the second quarter property tax is received in 2 large

1:27:23installments, which would be December and April. So we have our 1st installment in here. Which we are at 6.2, which is 38%, and which is fairly close to how we were at second quarter of fiscal year 24

1:27:36sales tax is on a 2 month lag. So only 4 months of sales tax is represented.

1:27:42and the real property transfer tax. So on the cash basis, as I said, it's the 1.1 million, the December portion of the tax for 313,983 is received in January. If we were to include that, that would put us right about 49

1:27:59so it's actually 17% higher than second quarter of last fiscal year, which was kind of anticipated. With the interest rates that had dropped a little bit. So we we were happy to see that. But again, that's 1 that is fairly unpredictable. So we we monitor that one pretty closely.

1:28:16Oh, I'm sorry. Here's my note. The other revenue is our cannabis, and then other financing sources would be transfers.

1:28:24And we're right in line. Total, 44% was the total for this quarter. It was 43% for second quarter of fiscal year 22. So again, in totality, we're right on average.

1:28:39moving on to expenditures.

1:28:45the city adopted a general fund expenditure budget of 51.3 million. There have been 994,907 amendments approved by Council so far, and I will outline those on the next slide. But that brings the total amended budget thus far to 52.3 million

1:29:02for expenditures. We're trending again right in line with 24 second quarter, and we're right up 51%

1:29:10as a reminder. We did prepay the Ual this year. But, unlike the majority of this report, we're doing recording on a cash basis. To not skew the results a whole lot and really inflate everybody's personnel budget. We did treat that as an accrual basis, and we recorded it as a prepaid. So each month we're allocating that just to keep our percentages in line. So it doesn't over inflate the personnel portion, because that was that was just under 7 million. So that was a big one.

1:29:38We also prepaid the general liability premium for the year, which we do, that every year. Another change that we had for this year we in the past had split up the workers Comp Premium, which is about a million dollars. We did prepay that entire amount this year. That 1 $500,000 difference was not not material enough to result in a change. So we did go ahead and leave that as a cash basis.

1:30:03As you know, personnel does make up the majority of our general fund budget at 73%. And we do have a pretty low vacancy rate at 8.5 5%. It was just over 9% last quarter. So slowly filling vacancies.

1:30:20Okay, next. So this is new. And we thought this one was really important. Because we are keeping Midyear separate from this update, we wanted to give you a picture of where we currently stand

1:30:33and take into consideration everything that has already been approved by council, and we wanted to take into consideration the new general fund reserve goal of 17%. So since we have closed, or since we've officially closed 24 and we had our our updated fund balance of 22.8 million.

1:30:52I just went through the calculation of how we in the Finance office would figure out, how much, how much do we actually have that is discretionary? And so we would reduce that by the Edrf of 9 million or section 1, 15, we have just over 1.3 million non spendable. That is, expect prepaid expenses and inventories. So I did leave that calculation the same for the projection for

1:31:20the the next year, because it really doesn't change materially. So it's a good. It was a good estimate.

1:31:26So, taking that, I got our unrestricted fund balance of 12.3 million, and then, if we take our current projected deficit of 960,000. So, as I said, there was 994,000 in already approved budget amendments. We had the fiscal year 24 Po. Roll forward, which was just over 600,000. We had the Seiu contract settlement, which was just over 36,000, the pea and the Psma contract settlements for 354,000

1:31:56with the original surplus. So our original budget document showed a surplus. So, of course, that would reduce our our deficit to actually 960,009, 55.

1:32:07So, taking that that give that would give us a projected total fiscal year 25 ending fund balance

1:32:13of 21.9 million. Then I would reduce by the Edrf. Of 9 million the section 115 of 1.3, again keeping the same 126,000 for non-spendable, which would give us a total projected fiscal year 25 ending fund balance, unrestricted of 11.4.

1:32:29We would then take the 26 projected proposed expenditures of 53.7 million, and applying the new 17% reserve goal. We would want to keep a reserve about 9.1 million.

1:32:42So just take the difference between the 11.4 and the 9.1 would give us a projected discretionary of 2.2 million, almost 2.3

1:32:55in. Total revenues are at 44%. Budget expenditures are at 51, and our fund balance in total is 41 project, 41% total projected

1:33:0611.4 in the unrestricted and 2.3 in discretionary.

1:33:11and with that I'm available for any questions.

1:33:14All right. Are there any questions from the Council?

1:33:19Yes.

1:33:20I looked. I looked both ways before I landed on Council Member. It's okay. Thank you, Mayor. So thank you for the presentation. And I really appreciate the extra table about the general fund. It's really helpful to see kind of where the numbers are coming from. Just this is, and this is a totally nitty, picky thing. But on that chart, you know. It looks like you just kind of add and subtract all the way down. But there's that 17 calculation.

1:33:47and the 9 million total that is kind of deducted, so wouldn't it be.

1:33:52you know, 17. The total of the general expenses should maybe not be in that column, and just be a note and then have the negative 9 million, so that you can see how exactly you get to that 2.9 million. I can definitely tweak that I had to use my calculator

1:34:14double check. No, of course I will totally take that into consideration. I just wanted I wanted to make sure that everybody knew where where I was getting the numbers from. So. But I can. I will work on that one. Okay? And then I had a question about the franchise tax? What exactly is that? And why is it so low?

1:34:32Yes, okay. So the franchise tax? It's actually a fee. And so we are actually going to look into that a little bit more and make sure that we are truly classifying that correctly. But a franchise fee is a payment to a municipality from a company as rent or tool for the use of the streets as a right of way of a municipality. The city receives franchise revenues from a cable company and from a solid waste company.

1:35:00Our current rate with our solid waste company is 15% and 5% for cable.

1:35:06The cable rate is set in the city's municipal code and 14 point

1:35:1112.0 5 0 the solid waste rate was set by an agreement in 2014, and it is available in a staff report that we can forward if if necessary. But it's paid on a

1:35:25trimester basis. And so that one's just timing. But we only have 2 2 vendors. So we're pretty confident that they're pretty pretty steady. Okay, that's great. And then I know it's only like

1:35:39a million or $500,000. Why is the workers Comp, not allocated monthly? Because doesn't that skew cost to the beginning of the year? Then?

1:35:48Because it was only 500,000, and it's split among the various departments. It honestly, wasn't material enough for us to change the change. The way the the 7 million was would have been a pretty big hit. So okay.

1:36:01great. Thank you very much before I asked, did I? Oh, did you have one? Okay, go ahead.

1:36:08Councilmember. Sauceman.

1:36:10Yeah, thank you for this. And the additional slides were really helpful at understanding this. With the section 1, 15. Trust. I see that it's you know where it's at right now and then, where it's projected is the same. Isn't that invested? And so are you. Just? Is that conservative? But we, I assume we expect it to move right? Yeah, no, we

1:36:35hopefully expect the goal. The goal is for that to make money. But I I just don't have that. And so for the calculation purpose, it wouldn't have changed the number whether I increased it or decreased it. It's still going to be removed, of course. Yeah, I I guess that would be helpful for me to know about kind of the history of how it's done and what we project. It will do in the future, and maybe helpful to communicate with an asterisk or something that that's not like the actual number. But I understand it doesn't change the calculations. It just seemed like

1:37:04it's not gonna be exactly the same whether it goes up or down. Something's gonna happen with it.

1:37:11And then, you know, I I'm not going to get too much into it. But you know, when we do get to the the Midyear decisions, I just I think it's important to consider

1:37:22all the unknowns at this point, and all the things at risk. And to just be really careful. So 2 million dollars sounds great. But like, we just don't know what we have so little control of what's gonna happen at the Federal and State level. So I just think we should be thoughtful when we get to that decision point. Thank you.

1:37:42All right, councilmember Quinto. Sorry, Mayor. Pro-tem quinto. Thank you. I wanted to mention that

1:37:50real estate transfer tax. And even though we don't have a huge housing stock of homes for sale. It truly does show that El Cerrito continues to be a desirable place to live, and people are over bidding

1:38:08every time even these fixer uppers of So we're we're grateful to

1:38:14the new generation of families moving in here, but they're the lucky ones that can afford to move here. But I want to reiterate the importance. We see cities around us going through the financial cliff.

1:38:28If we see transit agencies going through the same thing.

1:38:32El Cerrito, we're doing fine because we had a head start in because we were State audited. So I just want to say, Thank you for putting all this out and knowing that the next 2 years are going to be difficult for El Cerrito as well as all cities in California. We need to stay fiscally responsible

1:38:56at all times. And we're not gonna spend especially the next 2 years. So that's that's where I stand on this. We have to be especially frugal

1:39:08and not overspend when it comes to surviving the next couple of years. So. Thank you for the presentation. Of course.

1:39:17Councilmember Casanas.

1:39:19Councilmember Ktsanes: Yeah, thank you. Just sort of for

1:39:24transparency purposes. And just be clear. I do have a lot of questions, both less so about this, but more so about the actor that I have been compiling, and my intention had been to meet with Crystal and share them with her 1st and go through them and discuss them.

1:39:39and I still intend to do that. I have not been able to do that because I'm not feeling well.

1:39:44So rather than monopolize this meeting with all these questions that she's not heard before. I'm gonna not do that now. But I will come back, and Crystal has responded to an email and made herself available. And I will meet with her. And mostly it's for my educational purposes to go through some things line by line and ask questions, and I will do that, and then I will make that available to anyone who wants to see it. I'll take notes and share them.

1:40:07I do have a couple very small questions here about this. The second quarter report here is it? Am I correct in the assumption is that there's no additional contribution to the section 1 15. This year.

1:40:21Nothing has been approved by council, yet.

1:40:23Councilmember Ktsanes: Okay? And then just

1:40:25sort of figure out where money goes and comes, there's a projected discretionary amount of 2.2 million at the end, if everything else stays the same, and there are additional expense requests, and that discretionary money is used and maybe used. More than that, where would that come from? Would it come out of is the 1st place that would be pulled out of the 17% reserve

1:40:49bucket, assuming no other changes. Yeah.

1:40:52Yeah. Assuming no other changes. The to keep our 17% reserve would leave us with that 9.1 if we were to spend any more than the 2.2 million that would come. That would reduce the 17% reserve goal.

1:41:08Councilmember Ktsanes: Unless there were additions in income or whatnot. But yes, okay, I will leave it at that. And Crystal. Thank you for responding to

1:41:14Karen's sort

1:41:17email about my behalf, asking if you would even, and I will get back to you with some dates and times, probably next week, just because of how lousy I'm feeling this week.

1:41:26That's perfect.

1:41:27Councilmember Ktsanes: Alright. Thank you.

1:41:29Thank you, councilmember and I I didn't have as many comments because my peers had so many great comments and questions. My question actually has been answered. It was with as Council member, Motiyama said, just the readability making sure where things are going and being plugged in. I know some community members had questions about. Well, where did this money go? How did this

1:41:49amount go up? So you you answered that I want to thank you for that, because that's the majority of what we've been hearing from community members. So thank you for that. I also want to reiterate what Mayor Protem Quinto said. As far as the real property transfer tax which is really boosting us right now, and really our cannabis dispensary. So the the forethought of our

1:42:09our previous councils, who approved those dispensaries, and I look forward into the future of possibly opening up for another one. I know that's something that we've been discussing. We discussed it openly at our retreat. So I'm not saying anything that I should not say. I look forward to trying to put that into process so that we can open that up and bring more revenue into our city.

1:42:30And this is a no action receiving file, correct Holly.

1:42:36that is correct. But we do need to provide an opportunity for public comment. Yes, because I skipped. Step 3. Okay. Now, this is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card or using the raise hand feature in zoom. Public comments will be taken via Zoom and in person for this meeting, only due to the remote participation of a council member under Ab. 2449.

1:43:04Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk, please proceed.

1:43:12We do not have any requests, Mayor.

1:43:15Thank you very much, and thank you, Crystal, for your presentation.

1:43:20But you're next again. So the next item, the next item is the 2023 24 annual comprehensive financial report.

1:43:30Can we please have the staff report? Sure? Yeah. Share screen.

1:43:41First, st was the Public Safety Show. Now it's the crystal show. It's great. Everything's awesome. I feel like the turnout's a little less.

1:43:49Okay, my feelings are hurt.

1:44:01Okay, perfect.

1:44:05Okay? Again.

1:44:07Good evening. Crystal reams. Finance director. And here with me tonight, virtually, is our our auditor, Sheldon Siobhan, Cpa. Managing partner and founder of Siobhan and associates Llp.

1:44:18And as I'm sure you all recall we presented the results of our audit at the last council meeting on January 21.st

1:44:25At that time we unfortunately did not have a version of our act for ready for for public viewing. But since then we have finalized our act for our annual comprehensive financial report.

1:44:36We've presented the Acfr to the Fab, the Financial Advisory Board at their meeting on January 28.th We've also submitted our Acfr. To Gfoa. The Government Finance Officers Association for consideration of their certificate of achievement award for financial reporting. And we have posted the Acfr to the city's website.

1:45:01So with that, I pulled just a few slides from the Mdna portion, the management, discussion, and analysis portion of the report. Just to kind of highlight, a few things of of where we ended up. But this was really to give you an opportunity to ask questions about the act for to our auditor or to myself. So

1:45:21the 1st table that I pulled is the table number one, the government wide statement of net position. This is the government wide, which is an accrual basis of accounting. So that is going to have our long term assets, our long term liabilities, things that are not presented in the fund financial statements. So this has a comparison of 2324 for both governmental activities and business type activities.

1:45:48I also pulled table number 2, which is the statement of changes in net position for the government wide accounts. Again, it presents presents a comparison from 2324 for governmental and business type activities. This is for the revenues and expenditures. And again, this is the long term focus. So it's an accrual basis of accounting.

1:46:10I also pulled Table 3, which is from our fund financial statements. This is our governmental funds. Governmental funds have a near term measurement focus. So it's a modified accrual basis. So we don't have any long term assets, or we don't have any long term liabilities on these.

1:46:27and this is our revenues and expenditures

1:46:31for all of our major funds and our non-major funds for the governmental funds.

1:46:38And then I also just pulled a brief summary of the General Fund Budget versus actuals. The only thing I do want to note here is that this picture does not include the transfers in and out, so that that's how we would get to our deficit of 250,000. So that is not included in this in this slide.

1:47:00But with that I would like to open it up to questions.

1:47:05All right. Are there any questions from the Council? I'll start at the end with Council Member Saltzman?

1:47:12No questions. Okay. Councilmember Motiama.

1:47:15I have a number of questions.

1:47:18So brace yourself. I have my water. Okay. So

1:47:27you know, I wanted to thank Staff because I did send a bunch of questions to you and for your responses. So I did call out a number of typos. So I will not talk about that. And hopefully, that all my questions made sense. So,

1:47:47I realize in my notes, I use the page numbers, not of the

1:47:53document, but of how it reads when you look at it online. So apologies on that.

1:48:03so one of the things

1:48:05just for the public is that you know, one of the the ways of looking at the act, for that's really helpful is to really look at the data in the back, the supplemental information. There's

1:48:17a glossary of terms. There's a lot of tables, a lot of information, and in a way that's a little bit easier, I think, just to look at the numbers. So you know, I appreciate the Mdna, which is the management and what was the d. 4. Management, discussion and analysis, management, discussion and analysis, which is more of a a narrative and summary format.

1:48:40But I think going into the numbers which is at the very end, is is helpful for me.

1:48:47So just

1:48:49there are some places in the document I'm gonna go to now. I have to figure out how to get to the document

1:48:56here.

1:48:59Sorry, you know.

1:49:04Pull up the advert.

1:49:06And then on page

1:49:1185, there's a total of 12,000,001, 41, 2, 99. And I was wondering how you get to that total.

1:49:22Okay, so on page 85. So actually, this, this was an error. And so we we will need to correct that. That number is the net difference between the projected and actual earnings on plan investments. The subsequent contributions should be 9,000,345, 473 and this comes directly from our Gatsby 68 reports that are prepared by Foster and Foster to outline our pension portion for Gatsby purposes.

1:49:53Thank you for that. And then on page 86,

1:50:00there's a little chart.

1:50:04talking about what happens. Mrs. Me.

1:50:09In 2029.

1:50:12And so I just was wondering if that meant, You know. And this is regarding our pension right?

1:50:21That we don't, that we are caught up after 2029. Why is it blank

1:50:26so? No, this is the deferred inflows and outflows and Sheldon, if you want to jump in and help me explain this because I I never get this right. But it's amortized over over a 5 year period.

1:50:40But, Sheldon, you're on mute.

1:50:43Sheldon Chavan (Independent Auditor): And on, mute.

1:50:45There you go. Sorry about that. What was the report? Page number the Rip school right.

1:50:50Number is 76.

1:50:51Sheldon Chavan (Independent Auditor): 76, thank you.

1:50:59Yeah. The net deferred outflows and resources.

1:51:02Sheldon Chavan (Independent Auditor): Okay, yeah. So so it's interesting that we report those 5 years when there's no numbers there. Right? It's a technicality that we're required to report 5 years if it's 0 or not.

1:51:14So what this is is that when you have the actual actuarial reports done, they're a year behind the audit fiscal year. And so, because of that, every year you have these deferrals and those deferrals are amortized over a certain period, depending on the actuarial reports or preset years based on accounting standards. And so what has happened is those deferrals are all used up by 2028,

1:51:40and that's what you're seeing here.

1:51:42Okay.

1:51:43So it's not a reflection of of reality. It's just a accounting convention.

1:51:48Sheldon Chavan (Independent Auditor): It's accounting convention. Yes.

1:51:51Okay?

1:51:52And on note 10,

1:51:56we have a government crime policy in our insurance. And I was wondering if this is what pays for, you know, sort of personnel related settlement costs.

1:52:07I can answer that question. So we have crime insurance but it does not cover personnel liability like harassment. That's another type of insurance that we have. This insurance is actually for illegal acts. By employees that are on the job. Examples could be things like dishonesty or theft, or fraud. I can tell you at all my time. Here we have never had to utilize this coverage. That's a great thing. And I I haven't heard in

1:52:36decades we have so

1:52:38great. And then I understand we're we might be expecting a big increase in insurance. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes, so we are expecting a larger increase than what we were anticipating in the second year of the 2 year. Budget. So it's for fiscal year 26.

1:52:57That estimate will be available when we present the mid cycle budget in June. We're still working with our insurance carriers on estimates, but we have received a a very preliminary one. I do. Wanna I do wanna say that. You know we're we. The mid cycle budget is coming in June.

1:53:17Midyear is coming in March, and that is specific to this fiscal year. But these increases would hit next fiscal year. Okay, but the the there's no question that it's gonna be more expensive. It's gonna be more expensive, and most likely significantly. Okay. And that's something that is

1:53:38I heard a presentation from our insurance carriers last week. So it is very much across the board, and and some of it is all cerrito specific as well.

1:53:50Great. And then on page 1, 23

1:53:55for my my page 123. There is the Municipal Municipal Services Corporation Fund, and the numbers are so small like is, where where is the cannabis community benefits funds. So the cannabis that that is the portion that is for the community benefit. I believe that it's just 1%. The rest of the cannabis funds are in the general fund.

1:54:18and this has

1:54:20been paid out to core, or that's that's why I guess I can't reconcile. There's not enough coming in to pay core, and there's very little so kind of how does that work?

1:54:35So at this time we actually haven't received an invoice for the count from the county for core

1:54:41we actually just signed a contract with them in November. But we. But they haven't build the city yet. So that's as much as I know. Okay, yeah.

1:54:51right?

1:54:53And on table? 7. What is Richmond retirement? And why is it in our

1:55:02so table? 7. That is a table listing the city's direct and overlapping property tax rates for the last 10 years. That's this. Information is provided by Hdl, so I I will have to reach out to them, because I have

1:55:17no idea what that is. It was a 1 time thing in, I believe, 2012, or 2020, 14 and so I I'll have to reach out to them to get the exact clarification of what that is.

1:55:29Okay? And then,

1:55:33my last question is on table 14. You know we have Barnes and Noble as a major employer, and I was wondering if there's any, you know

1:55:42news on what will replace that.

1:55:46Yes, so luckily, we do have our community development staff that are in a close contact with the regency who owns the Plaza do we have any actual information? We only know that there's still an active discussions with several businesses who are interested in the vacancy. But as soon as we find out we will let you know. Thank you thanks for responding to my questions. Of course.

1:56:11Mayor. Pro tem. No questions. Council Member Quinto. I'm sorry, Council Member Casanas. I'm sorry.

1:56:17Councilmember Ktsanes: I'll just reiterate what I said before. I do have lots of questions. I have the audit marked up and yellowed and underlined, and questions in the margin and all that, but I would. I would really like to organize them and present them

1:56:32to Crystal in advanced, and then sit down and talk about them, so I will not pose them now in the future I hope to, as Lisa has done, get my questions out early and give them a chance to research and come back to me, and then I can raise some of them in council as well. But I won't do that now. I will! I will pass.

1:56:51Greatly appreciated.

1:56:52Thank you. Councilmember Casanas.

1:56:55and I have no questions. So now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card or using the raise hand feature on zoom. Public comments will be taken via Zoom and in person for this meeting, only due to the remote participation of a council member under Ab. 2449. Please remember to identify yourself in your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk, please proceed.

1:57:21We have no request to speak on this item. Either, Mayor.

1:57:25Thank you so much, and thank you, Crystal, for your presentation, and thank you, Sheldon, for your work and presentation as well. Thank you very much.

1:57:32Sheldon Chavan (Independent Auditor): Appreciate it. Thank you.

1:57:34All right. The next item is city council, local and regional liaison appointments.

1:57:41So I'll go ahead and start. I'll start on this end with. I'll start with Mayor pro tem. To give Councilmember Salzman time to come back. So, Mayor pro tem. Do you have any updates? I do thank you, Mayor.

1:57:53last week. 1st of all, I want to say thank you to Council Member Motoyama for taking my place at the House cities new mayor's training. I was sick so still getting over it. But but thank you. So many new elected officials up and down the State of California, and I know they appreciated you speaking there.

1:58:21I did attend an all day retreat for the Bakhmad Air Board where we discussed a lot of things. And we had a lot of community involvement with members of communities that live in challenged areas where there is a lot of pollution where there are refineries and where there is a lot of industry.

1:58:48So we heard a lot of the speakers. A lot of them are asking for having one or 2 community members be a part of the Board of Bachman. So we will discuss that further the next day. A couple of days afterwards we had this explosion at the Martinez refinery, and

1:59:13as a member of the air board. We don't take these things lightly. So it is being investigated as we speak with contra costa health, and they're taking the lead on that. So myself. Supervisor Ken Carlson, Supervisor John Joya and Vice Mayor Dion Adams. We both all 4 of us represent Contra Costa and the Air Board.

1:59:40We want to make sure that these accidents are investigated thoroughly, and it will be, and it currently is on Monday I did attend the Mce Executive Committee and met with the new members, and we have a lot of new elected officials that will be representing Moran, clean energy, Mce. And look forward to collaborating with all of them.

2:00:07We'll be working closely with the air board, but we'll also be collaborating with our leaders in Sacramento to push what we would like to do in California. We look at climate change and climate change is truly happening, and that's why we saw the fires and the Santa Ana winds blowing time and time again when I lived down there it was only for a couple of months. Now we're dealing with

2:00:36Santa Ana wins all throughout the year. So but we need to deal with this, and

2:00:43the air board would like to look at electrification and so look forward to working on that with them.

2:00:53It's it's important that we deal with

2:00:58decarbonization. And we need to get to 2045 faster.

2:01:04That's my report. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council member Motiyama. Do you have any assignment updates? Yes, thank you. Since I was sick and missed the prior Council meeting. I will

2:01:16include the stuff that happened since we last met in December. So on January 13th I swore in the new Board members of the El Credo, Chamber of Commerce. Here in the City Hall

2:01:28on January 16, th I attended the swearing in of our new police officers. And it was really, you know, always a really great moment to see the diversity of our police force. And that, it really does reflect our community. On also, on January 16th I attended the Abag Executive Committee meeting, where I serve as the Mayor, Contra Costa County Mayors

2:01:54Conference, representative, and we had a presentation on Plan Bay Area 2050 plus

2:02:03and the transportation plan that goes along with it. There have been a lot of community outreach already to gather comments. And further community outreach will occur this summer. So it's a really important big plan for the region.

2:02:18On the 20th I attended the Mlk Day parade, and also presided over the swearing in of new board members for the Japanese American Citizens League. On January 28th I attended the Fab as liaison from the council, introduced myself, and also had an opportunity to hear the presentation on the act, for from the auditor

2:02:40and as council member or mayor pro tem quinto mentioned. I was I subbed in for him at the Cal city's new mayors and council members training down in Garden Grove, and did a presentation on City Manager Council relations, and I think it was a really well attended, and it was really lively and entertaining. So that was a great chance to

2:03:06to show off our city manager and also to meet many new Council members. Thank you.

2:03:12Thank you. Councilmember Saltzman, do you have any assignment updates. Yes, just for clarification. Should we just be talking about our assignment? Should I talk about? I didn't bring a list of all the things, but I can next time. So I just want to know what is the tradition here of what to report. Go ahead

2:03:31there. There is a legal requirement that maybe our city attorney can explain what it is we're supposed to report.

2:03:38So the legal requirement is to report on any event that you attended for which you received reimbursement or payment on by the city.

2:03:49The tradition is perhaps broader than that. Maybe it was never intended to be broader than that. But that's the way it. That is the way the tradition has evolved.

2:03:58Thank you. It might make sense to be clear to the public to update that name of the agenda item. Then, since it's not just about our appointment, so I will come more prepared next time. But the only thing I did that that I will be reimbursed for is attending the League of Cities, new Council members, and Mayors Academy with

2:04:19most of you, which was fantastic up in Sacramento and then, in terms of my appointments, I attended the

2:04:28Wic tech meeting on the 24th and the

2:04:34the only real action item we had on there. We ended up not voting on. So there's not that much to report, but we did elect a new chair and vice chair, and we elected pinole Mayor Cameron Society as the new chair, and I was elected as the vice chair with tech

2:04:51but yes, now that

2:04:53additions I will come with a more complete. I've done lots of city, related things in the past couple of weeks, so I'll bring up further report next time.

2:05:01and just for the public certification. And our new council members, we we do have on the agenda under this item that it's an opportunity for the Council to communicate regarding local and regional liaison assignments. So that list that we announced on 1 21 as well as committee reports for our city boards, commissions, and committees, and then any required reporting under Ab. 1, 2, 3, 4,

2:05:25councilmember Casanas.

2:05:27Councilmember Ktsanes: Yeah, thank you.

2:05:29As Council Member Saltzman indicated, she attended the League of Cities. New mayors and council members retreat in Sacramento. I did the same with Mayor Weissinger as well, and Councilmember mayor pro tem

2:05:45quinto, and city manager Pinkos. I had a chance to to hear their presentation sort of the Northern California version of what Councilmember Motyama did down South. It was excellent. The whole meeting was excellent. It was a great opportunity to get to know what I've called my neighbors. Those people who are in elected positions in Albany and Richmond, Hercules, and thereabouts.

2:06:06and the workshops as well, were were very beneficial

2:06:10for regional bodies. I did attend the West County

2:06:15Integrated waste management authority. Also known recycle more Board meeting. I believe it was last Thursday. There were several new board members. As a result of the fall elections it was not a particularly heavy agenda. They are in the midst of searching for a new executive director. So there's a little bit of talk about that. But they're very early in that search. I think the hopeful timeline is that by summer midsummer they will have hired someone. But right now they're sending out requests and notifications of the opening and

2:06:45soliciting candidates, and I will leave it at that.

2:06:50Thank you so much. Council Member Casanas. As for myself, I did as some of my Council peers.

2:06:57State, attend the new mayors and new Council Members Conference, which is always a great time to get together with our Cal cities folks, and we got to see Mayor Kotem, Quinto, and our city manager do a wonderful presentation on relationships between council members and city managers.

2:07:14Of course, this past weekend we had the Council Member retreat for those of you in the public who were able to join us. We thank you. We had some really great conversations about where we have come from as a city council, and really what our priorities are, and what we would like to see going forward. You know what are our priorities, even within our specific plans that have already been established.

2:07:35Just a few days ago I met with our public Information officer. Will provost as well as our city manager here in pinkos. We all met with the East Bay regional parks, with our representative there from the parks that we were talking about there.

2:07:49their master plan, and how that actually works with our work here in El Cerrito. We don't do as much work as we would like to do with the regional parks, because, of course we have the large hillside area which is actually managed by the city, but we wanted to talk more about how we can or how they can support us, or we can support them

2:08:05with Wildcat Canyon and the other areas within the city that they do support.

2:08:10and also in regards to liaison appointments. It is my pleasure to announce that I was appointed to the National League of Cities Small Cities Council.

2:08:20as well as the National League of Cities Public Safety Committee. I'm very excited to serve in both capacities because it's really working with our national partners to talk about how we're crafting legislation that we're going to be advocating, for at the Federal level, for small cities, of course, the larger cities always get a lot of the shine, but a lot of the work is done between the small cities that are going to be talking about, especially as we said earlier.

2:08:44the federal things that are going to be done is going to be the lot, the small cities that are going to be doing a lot of the work, whether it's protecting our communities, whether it's working on wildfires, whether it's just general funding that we need here in the small cities level, and I was excited to see some of the folks from from my hometown in Louisiana who are actually on those councils that I'll be, I'll be serving with. So I look forward to bringing those reports back to the city, and also explain more about why I'm at the National League of Cities. Now, I actually have a counseling committee to be on.

2:09:14So, having said that

2:09:18before we adjourn. I would like to adjourn this in the memory of. And I'm going to actually let you announce this memory and adjournment Council Quinto because I knew of this community member. But you actually knew them and worked with them more.

2:09:37He didn't know that I was gonna ask him to do that, everyone

2:09:43and this is regarding

2:09:48rep and film Lawson, who passed away on Monday.

2:09:54January 27, th 2025,

2:09:58he was appointed pastor to the El Cerrito Methodist Church in the 19 seventies, as well as

2:10:12being the son of Reverend James M. Lawson and Philane cover Lawson.

2:10:23He was president of the Lexington Conference and participated in core desegregation, nonviolent Direct Action under leadership of Bayard Ruskin and George Houser in Washington, DC.

2:10:39His ministry began in intergroup relations in Toledo, Ohio, from 64 to 68

2:10:47he served as an organizer with clergy concerned for Vietnam. During the Vietnam war with Reverend Fernandez, and he assisted in the Black Methodist Church renewal. In 1968

2:11:03he was appointed the 1st black pastor of the El Cerrito, United Methodist Church and 1st United Methodist Church in Vallejo, and served under the Northern California Ecumenical Council as Secretary and President

2:11:18responsible for resettling thousands of Central American refugees, and he was an organizer with the Interfaith coalition for immigrant rights throughout the State of California, and was appointed to Easter Hill, United Methodist Church in Richmond from 1992 to 1993. So again, Reverend Lawson served as adjunct Professor at Star King school of Ministry in Berkeley.

2:11:48He was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology by Star King School of Ministry. Phil is married, was married to Joanne Lawson has 2 daughters, Joyce, Rene and Kelly Gilbert.

2:12:04There will be a service on at Easter Hill, United Methodist Church

2:12:12on February 27, th 2025 at 11 Am. And that is on cutting Boulevard in Richmond.

2:12:20Thank you so much, Mayor pro tem. And actually, one last thing I didn't say in my announcement. I want to thank the kindergartners at Harding Elementary School, which I spoke to a couple of weeks ago. Who sent me these packets for my birthday, and it's clear that it was an assignment that they did, because it's so well put together. I won't show it on the camera, but I mean they all drew me pictures of birthday cakes and cupcakes. So thank you, Harding. Elementary school. I do love you all very much.

2:12:45and with that

2:12:47it is now time, and it is now 8, 13, and we are adjourned. The next regularly scheduled city Council meeting is Tuesday, February 18, th 2025 at 6 Pm.

2:12:59Oh, I made it.

2:13:01Councilmember Ktsanes: Thank you, Mayor.