Regular City Council Meeting March 18, 2025

0:00:00agenda is Council staff Communications city manager do we have any staff Communications yes we do thank you I'm Karen pinkis your city manager and I actually am going to ask two of our staff to come and provide some announcements to you tonight first I would like to call up fire chief Eric

0:00:19Sailors good evening mayor and Council I'm Eric saor your fire chief quick announcement tonight we have received our local Hazard or sorry our uh very high fire severity zone maps from calfire as they were required to publish a draft they did Issue them to us we

0:00:38have links to those drafts on our website if you go to the fire department main website you will see a link to those maps you can see calfire maps and you can see a map that was developed by the county with a slider so you can see the difference in the change in the maps

0:00:52some key dates on those Maps we have 120 days from the time they were published to review them and adopt them into uh adopt them via ordinance our deadline for that is 6:25 so our last council meeting for that will be 617 that gives us plenty of time to review the maps and

0:01:11then bring them back to you uh we will see a draft of what is called Zone zero hopefully on 323 uh Gavin news issued an executive order to calfire to come up with a draft for the rules on Zone zero hopefully that'll be published on 323 and then that will allow us to to make a

0:01:31well-informed and educated decision on if we need to make any adjustments to these maps and I need to just remind us those are Hazard maps not risk Maps they're based on hazard from fire coming from land that is controlled by the state coming into a local environment

0:01:47they're not necessarily a risk map end of my announcement do I have any questions can you explain uh we had a lot of questions from the public about the hillside Natural Area yes so some of our questions when we first got the maps why were the hillside Natural Area

0:02:02excluded because they were supposed to include threats coming from local area well their trigger point for local area threats was 200 Acres so you had to be larger than 200 acres and our Hillside Natural Area is 108 Acres so that's why they were excluded from the maps uh our

0:02:18other question the primary reason why why the Red Zone shrunk from its 2007 publication was because they were able to use local weather patterns whereas in 2007 they had to use average weather across the state they didn't have many local weather stations now they have

0:02:34local weather stations so they were able to use local weather to then model what the hazard looked like coming out of the state controlled area and that's why the Red Zone shrunk a quick question you mentioned making changes to the maps is there an appeal process or do you just

0:02:54unilaterally make those changes we allowed to make that change through local ordinance yes if we see the need okay thank you Chief and next I would like to call up our um Public Works management analyst Christina LA with a fun announcement thank you good evening

0:03:18mayor and Council my name is Christina Le management analysts in the Environmental Services Division of our public works department and I'm going to share some exciting news with you um the All streeto Recycling Center hosts food collection barrels year round at um at

0:03:32the recycling center and donates food to the food bank of Contra Costa in Solano County in February the city was invited to attend the food bakes um annual partner fundraiser at their Fairfield facility the recycling center has been donating food to the food bank for over

0:03:4810 years and have contributed to over 130,000 meals with all of our food donations last year alone the recycling center LED this program in food donations with 13,219 meals provided to community at the partner appreciation event staff accepted an award for 2024

0:04:10meal maker Champion for the most food collected in the category of food drive year round barrels at a single location the food Barrel program is a very important part of the food banks programs and provides one quarter of the food that is distributed each year it

0:04:28provides diversity variety and choice to the neighbors in need and is distributed through the food bank's Partnership of over 260 agencies including churches schools college campuses shelters and other organizations so community members can drop off food that is unopened non-

0:04:48perishable and within one year of expiration date to the two food collection barrels that are located by the battery recycling kiosk at the recycling center and so we want to thank the community for being a part of the hunger the hunger solution and this is the I'm happy to answer any

0:05:12questions council member um are all the donations uh from residents and not any businesses um anybody can drop off Foods it's mostly residents but businesses can come deliver non- perishable food as well thank you any other council members just thank you for all the work that you've

0:05:33done and galvanizing the community in this way and for the award we don't get to keep it at home though that'll be in the recycling center yes and thank you to our very generous Elso community and with that that concludes our staff announcements thank you your honor thank you so much

0:05:48any announcements from Council Members I um I have a couple um so just to as a reminder um we have a spring line step into spring line line dance on March 29th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the community center tickets are $10 uh we have Earth Day coming up on April 19th

0:06:09uh the list of sites to work at will come out on April 13th and then the same day April 19th the spring egg Splash will occur at the swim center from 10:00 a.m. and it's $12 per child and you have to pre-register so I hope nobody misses that if they are interested thank you

0:06:28any other council members and I'm got know what you're going to say um C mayor Pro we're going to get to that in just a moment um so first for mayoral announcements on March 10th I signed a letter of support of the city of Alban's Community Wildfire Grant applications um just a couple of

0:06:47reminders um um in addendum to what council member mama said and we're going to talk about this a little bit more later with one of our proclamations but on this Friday March the 21th is National Rosie the river day I won't go too much into that but as I said we're

0:07:00going to have a proclamation in regarding to that and we'll give you all the information regarding that and there was one more announcement Community announcement I can't remember what that was but I did want to take this um meril opportunity normally we talk about our

0:07:14ab20 I'm sorry 12:34 activities at the end of the meeting but I felt it was important that myself and mayor protim Kino gave this report at this time when I knew there would be more eyes and ears listening to us um as many of you know that we both went to the National League

0:07:30of cities on last week and generally the national league of cities is something where we go we speak to our Congressional members we speak to our state senators we advocate for needs in our communities we talk to other cities around the Nation about what they're

0:07:46doing as far as building infrastructure supporting businesses supporting education and all those things but this was and this is my third year going to the National League of cities this was the heaviest National League of cities that I've ever been to and I want to

0:08:00before I get into this further I want to remind people that this is a nonpartisan di the city council is nonpartisan National League of cities is nonpartisan um but a lot of the things that I heard and experienced on Capitol Hill last week was just abhorent and it's really

0:08:14really sad and I think that a lot of our community members need to hear um as a new member of our public the national league of cities Public Safety Committee we had several very important um presentations regarding Public Safety with some of the actually some of our

0:08:29Fire Chiefs peers actually talked about the needs that we have as far as making sure we're cutting red tape so that they can get the infrastructure and equipment that they need and right behind that we had a presentation from the assistant director of ice um who continued to tell

0:08:44us throughout his presentation what the administration was doing to protect the community members from illegal aliens and he continued to refer to them as aliens even as community members in the room spoke out and said that you could at least change your language and he

0:08:58refused to do that um several community members spoke up and started asking very important questions such as elero is a sanctuary City can you tell us the administrations stance on how they're going to deal with um cities who are not who do not what did he say he call said

0:09:14cities who do not participate or want to go along with our plan he said that he didn't have an answer for that but he actually continued to go through that in many different ways without saying things like we're going to strip funding we're going to lovey these different

0:09:28type of actions but he did state that there may be repercussions because he wanted to make sure that we knew that they were working in the interest of protecting the community from Aliens um someone said that they someone asked him if they had demographics on how many of the the cities that were

0:09:44being targeted or how how many of the detainees were coming from countries that were black and brown presenting versus Caucasian presenting he didn't have the answer for that but you could tell that he knew what the implications was so it was a pretty traumatizing

0:09:58experience and standing and coming from a community like Elser in a state like California where we say that our value say that we support all the individuals um and I think that that was what contributed even right now I'm I'm going through an an anxious episode and I

0:10:14think it started last week with that and I was fortunate enough to forget to go to the General Session where our vice president spoke to the General Session and basically blamed our housing crisis again on illegal aliens um mayor Kino and I mayor Tim Kino and I went to

0:10:30Capitol Hill later on that week and it was the first time I ever sat down with our Congressional member and just saw General angst on his face um he delivered news to me that I have not even been able to share with our city team but it was not positive um and the

0:10:47idea that I remember stating that the idea that people are going to lose housing people are going to lose roads people are going to lose the ability for infrastructure I can say tell you right off we're talking so much about the hillside Natural Area we're going to

0:11:00lose funding to protect the hillside Natural Area and it's all based on people voting on hate and discussed versus actually protecting our cities and I I want people to understand the dire situation of what's happening I've never seen that many people on Capitol

0:11:16Hill and they were all coming to ask the same question will I get the funding I need to take care of my city and the answer to a lot of those people's questions was no um so I I just want a lot of folks to know that while we are fighting for the next it is going to be

0:11:30very dire for us to protect our elero values and still make sure that the city has what it needs we will continue to do what we can I know that our city will continue to work with our state legislators which was the advice that was given do as much as you can being in

0:11:44a city like California work with your state legislators to try and get the funding that you need for your communities but I want all of those out there who have so much to say about us not giving them what they want in our general budget there's going to be things that our community needs that

0:11:56we're not going to be able to give them that either so you need to practice a little bit more Grace with yourselves with your fellow community members and with our staff because this is going I've never seen anything like that and it's going it's going to be rough and I

0:12:09know mayor protim you were in a lot more room than I was and you wanted to add on to that yeah I I wanted to give you a report a residen report you know as as the first vice president of the league of California's City Statewide um I met with a lot of our members of Congress uh

0:12:29we met with representative celgard glav Dove L Rivas Laura fredman Mike Levan David valo John gend Pete agular Jim Costa Sam lucardo uh both our US Standard R ship and Padilla uh we met with FEMA uh we were in the FEMA office for over an hour pleading with them to

0:12:52uh let's keep female alive California depends on this uh everything is up in the air they want to gut everything uh they want to gut medical they um they're after our minority communities uh so what I recommend to our minority communities especially if you are a

0:13:12refugee or do not have your green card I would not uh fly outside of the country I would stay put um you know if you can afford an attorney I would get an immigration attorney right away to uh deal with your case um you know I noticed while I was at the airport uh

0:13:31they were uh uh taking more pictures of uh people of color uh than they were with other people so um this federal government is not going to be kind with the state of California uh they are there uh they are blaming I um had the displeasure of uh sitting um at the uh

0:13:55um in the group and and listening to our vice president Advance uh blaming everything on uh communities communities of color uh communities that are struggling the LGBT community people with disabilities seniors they do not stand for any of these communities this

0:14:16is a billionaire class that is in charge um you know I did speak to John gend who did say let your residents know the importance of um speaking out a peaceful protest of writing letters to the federal government to reach out to our red members of Congress here in

0:14:39California with the Gunning of uh medical and they plan to do this very soon if it hasn't done been done yet um this will affect so many minority communities and the poor and seniors here we uh the county built the uh the County clinic in the city of s Pablo because our um hospital that was there

0:15:02doctor's hospital um went bankrupt twice so this is to alleviate uh the emergency rooms in the area and to let uh immigrants and the poor and seniors who don't have regular Insurance to see uh a doctor to to get medical care with all of that um you know all of this is up in

0:15:25the air the courts are being very active in making sure that uh they they stop this this is a power grab we've seen this in the past in history um and just look at your US history from the last 100 years and we've seen this the 1930s in Europe uh this is a authoritarianism that uh they want to uh

0:15:49things are going sideways right now and I've never seen uh our members of Congress so worried and stressed out uh so um you know I'm letting residents know now that uh you know I please do not travel outside of the country for are uh people that are waiting for green

0:16:10cards for people that have green cards but have children or parents or relatives that uh don't have their green cards I would be very very careful in having them uh you know outside uh they they have immigration people going through uh hospitals going through the

0:16:28Federal ederal court system um picking up people that are just waiting in line in the DMV so I am not exaggerating this is what this is what uh we are seeing right now so um elero residents it's time to take care of one another and take care of each other our neighbors uh we have a very diverse

0:16:52Community uh with and everything is at stake so um just wanted to let you know now uh respectfully you know I know our council is nonpartisan we don't deal with things on the federal level but uh you know wanted to let you know I attended the um I'm part of the

0:17:10environmental policy for ntional League of cities basically they said most of the federal uh bills are not going to happen a lot of the um uh the things that I was uh able to get through earmarks uh for MCE and our uh communities dealing with solar and uh uh hardening our homes uh changing

0:17:35lowincome homes and and changing it over putting double windows there um you know that has all been pulled back uh this was promised this was given to us by Department of energy and uh and our members of Congress in the MCE area and uh now all of this are gone so if you

0:17:55think that uh this uh federal government is here for Califoria California they are not they are here to uh you know to get back at California I've never seen anything like this in my 60 years plus of of of living here as as an American and a proud US citizen uh but uh I I

0:18:15want all of our residents to know we need to protect our residents thank you yes and in our we spoke with both our Congress members and also Senator Padilla and Senator Senator Schiff and they are going to continue fighting as our our city staff will continue fighting but some of these things are

0:18:31going to take a long long time so I again we I just want us to continue to to practice Grace with each other and hold on to each other because cities like Els Sero are unfortunately going to have a hard time and on to happier things the next item on the agenda is

0:18:50oral Communications from the public now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda consent items and presentation items request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card

0:19:05public comments will be taken in person only please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments city clerk please proceed thank you mayor at this time we have 1 2 five six seven requests to speak can can we make the time two

0:19:21minutes per person please yes ma'am okay our our first uh speaker is Kathy Baka followed by Mark mpek and just as a reminder to those that are on remotely we are only taking um requests to speak in person two minutes yes ma'am the mayor did reduce the time to 2 minutes so you can begin

0:19:59your comments now hey I'm going to have to talk fast I'm Kathy Baka I live on Richmond Street my friend Marissa relies on ADA accommodations to visit me and uh and I wrote this in handwriting uh we need to have accommodations on Richmond Street on both sides of the

0:20:23street from one end of the street to another and the reason is that it's kind and it's helpful it promotes friendship and it's the law uh sometimes folks think that the disabled are gaming the system if they just exercised they wouldn't need special treatment this is really unfair

0:20:46to those needing them Marissa caught polio when she was four back in the early 1950s maybe none of you were around then when polio spread across the country the polio virus attacked muscles doctors didn't know how it spread and the devastation polio brought was everywhere kids in Iron lungs braces

0:21:13or casts spending long stretches of their time in the hospital some died everyone my age knows someone who was affected Marissa was lucky she recovered with medical help she says she spent many summers in the hospital getting operations then so she wouldn't need to miss school that might

0:21:39have been her mother's decision um she went to college to do social work and I've lost my place uh she got lots of exercise she has a passion for dance she started dancing before she caught polio dreamed of dancing while she had her leg in a cast up to her hip thank you your time has

0:22:07ended this is the end of it yes your time has ended had I known I would have written shorter all right well thank thank you for your comments I I will our NE our next speaker is Mark mpect followed by Bill beish good evening Council my name is Mark mesel I am an elero resident and

0:22:32homeowner I want to express my concern about the Richmond Street redesign plan the homeowners and residents on Richmond Street will lose street parking for eight blocks today when driving to the community center at 11:30 a.m. the street parking looked to be at about 35%

0:22:52full from Blake Street to Moser the idea of a chicane bike and Automotive line for eight blocks will catch drivers off guard as they must navigate the curves the safety of the Straight Ahead design of Richmond Street will be lost and drivers and bike riders will be exposed to possible accident

0:23:15scenarios for eight blocks my concern for the planted tree bulb outs planting trees in the street a car will hit the trees possibly fatality would be the result let's plant trees in the sidewalk area we must be proud that the aloney greenway is in place for bikers and

0:23:37pedestrians to move safely from Elm to Fairmont Avenue let's save the money for the chicane lanes and the tree bulbs outs as it would be used towards police and fire Services I'm asking that you consider a redesign of Richmond Street plans and give the parking back to the

0:23:58Richmond Street residents thank you council members for listening our next speaker is Bill barish followed by Sarah hunt good evening Council mayor I'm Bill beish I'm a resident here I'm here with my colleague Arthur Clinton representing 350 Contra Costa um I'm looking at the general plan

0:24:28implementation which is on tonight's agenda and I was looking at chapter four The Community Development Design Land Use and in goal lu6 it notes that the city adopted an updated act uh climate action and adaptation plan last year um to achieve quote the Citywide goal of

0:24:48achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 and then a few paragraphs later it notes that the El Plaza to project includes uh sustainable initiatives including each building within the to will be fully electric with no connections to natural gas or installation of gas appliances to reduce

0:25:17long-term Reliance on fossil fuels um that dovetails with my previous presentation which is a suggestion for an ordinance that would be very cheap but would help immensely and that is to require all new buildings to have dovetailed gas and electric Junctions so

0:25:46that in the future anything that needs to be moved from gas to electricity would require nothing more than shutting off the gas at the Jun F and turning on the electricity that is a no cost or lowcost solution to reduce carbon emissions thank you our next speaker is Sarah hunt

0:26:11followed by Cleopatra dger good evening Council and mayor I'm Sarah hunt I am a West Contra Costa resident I live in Kensington and I'm hoping to move to elero soon um I want to briefly um U respond to what the council mentioned about Sanctuary States I'm a former immigration attorney I am a

0:26:37postc conviction relief attorney now and I represent uh a large immigrant population and I do hope the council continues to provide Sanctuary funding it is completely essential and the only thing that makes me uh help you know make my clients feel Empower to to

0:26:53believe in power and not panic so I do hope you continue that Sanctuary funding and thank you for your your words um I came here tonight to speak in favor of the Richmond Street plan and I fully support it I think we can go even further um I very much care about

0:27:08walkable cities and reducing environmental impact um you know I'm in my mid-30s when I grew up I barely had a cell phone now I see a lot of distracted teens I'm sure you all due to driving uh and so I think anything we can do to reduce the amount of cars on the road

0:27:25reduce parking encourage walking biking rolling I think all of those things are really important and will make elero a safer uh calmer and more Community focused place to live thank you for your time our next speaker is Cleopatra Den dger followed by ra rindra podal hi I'm

0:27:53Cleopatra I live in elero and I support making Street more biking and walking friendly because it's not the mom on the bike who's a danger to you it's the SUV that's barreling down Richmond Street I grew up in a small City in Sweden the city of Malmo there almost

0:28:15every street has a protected bik Ling and a dedicated pedestrian sidewalk when you want to go somewhere you have several choices you can drive you can walk you can bike all of these options feel safe and many people use all three ways to get around that includes an elderly woman who you

0:28:38might see biking to a bookstore or an 8-year-old kid biking to a friend's house having several safe ways to get around gives you a feeling of Freedom it adds to your quality of life and that elderly woman who biked to the bookstore the next day she might drive to the

0:28:57beach so I support building a protected bike lane on Richmond Street and on more streets after that having the bike lane uh be protected from Cars is really important speaking for myself if I don't feel very safe biking on a street uh I just won't bike on it kids and adults

0:29:19who are biking and walking in their neighborhood deserve to feel safe thank you our next speaker is Rah followed by Betty aich so good evening mayor and council member my name is rajendra Pell I'm El resident living since last N9 years internationally I'm micro Finance expert

0:29:45it is globally financial literacy and helping people to open small businesses and I'm sitting here idolist and I'm looking for any opportunity I could volunteer to the city and make the city like residents of the financing and basic education about how to um like

0:30:02diversify the income how to protect the fund of the insurance and how to make like investment strategy saving strategy for the like I'm just seeking for the opportunities basically I was not connected to the city my son was here intensive uh last year his name is

0:30:20aradya he told me maybe you could go and connect to the city help what I did in European Asian countries and that's that's I like to see that any collaboration we can do and I can help voluntarily just thank you so much for giving me this opportunity thank you and if you would like you can

0:30:38please see the clerk and she can direct you further thank you so much mayor thank you thank you thank you mayor and we did talk before so we have done that thank you uh our next speaker is Buddy aich good evening elrio city council and fellow citizens um this may come across

0:31:07as being simplistic and the reason why I think it might come across like that is because it is I just had this thought what's it like to be a city council person what's the mindset and and what occurred to me is that um there there must be a a mindset and a mandate I guess that's what I'm thinking

0:31:35and that the essential goal and motive to be a city council person in Elso California for example is to be who your your ultimate concern is it not the general welfare of the rent bank and file residents that live in the apartments and houses in the city of elero I've

0:32:05heard the council the U mayor protm for example refer to the city of elero as a bedroom community therefore my thinking is well your primary concern then needs to be the welfare of those residents in those bedrooms in those streets throughout elero California that's

0:32:30a grave and honorable place to be and uh as a person that's attempting to make my best contribution to the welfare of the city of ELO's residents I I wish you the best thank you very much thank you mayor that concludes our request to speak okay thank you so much the next item is

0:32:56adoption of the consent C calendar which includes the following items monthly dispersement and check registry report for February 2025 the Rosie the river WW2 National Historical Park's 25th anniversary Proclamation the annual progress report for the general plan and housing

0:33:18elements and the calendar year 2022 2023 Contra Costa Transportation Authority growth management compliance checklist list the elero Del Nordy Transit oriented development complete streets project city project number c414 Federal project number CML 5239 increase in contract change order

0:33:41approval Authority and the spending Authority for recreation instructor expected to exceed 45,000 for fy5 FY 2425 I and before we go to the items one addendum items number B has a repres resentative here to speak and receive the proclamation which will occur after

0:34:01adoption of the consent calendar now he and just a quick note that in the supplemental materials item C had a revised report that was provided and that is the version that that is being asked to be received and filed tonight thank you city clerk all right are there any brief

0:34:22questions or requests for Council to pull items off the consent I have comments and questions about C and D okay council member moama uh I have questions about b and c and e you said I'm sorry B CN e yes b c and e any under the the labeling of the prior agenda so

0:34:45oh okay I'm going to forget all of those I'm writing them down any from this side of the council e which is my my agenda Transit is that the mislabeled one h n none of them are mislabeled mayor it's just a reminder that there was a revised version of item C which is the

0:35:08annual progress report the report was revised and that was provided in supplemental materials okay and so we only had questions for C and D correct I have b c d and e okay all right so let's go ahead through with the the questions for Item B first okay thank you mayor I

0:35:28have a few questions about the check register thank you um I wanted to understand what the um MPA unmet liability deductible uh is of $ 4,869 I will pass that to our assistant city manager thank you thank you Crystal this is the city's deductible or what is called a self Insurance retention so

0:36:06it's an sir it's similar to the one that you may have for your auto insurance or home insurance and so that's the part in which the city is responsible for and then anything above a certain threshold the insurance would take over so this is an a payment and not like a an a sort of

0:36:23a secondary insurance payment correct okay thank you and then I had one other question about the check um register which is about the axon cameras I thought maybe those were the LPR cameras but I think they are not uh so the purchase uh for axon covers um a variety of uh products and sorry good

0:36:53evening I'm Paul Keith your chief of police uh so the axon contract covers bodyw warn cameras it covers taser devices it covers incar camera systems which do have an LPR component to them this is on our squad cars it also covers evidence storage digital evidence

0:37:10storage through evidence.com so those are the four big product categories that that axon contract covers this was approved I think back in November of 2024 I know it takes a while for what we approve and for it to actually get purchased and paid for so thank you it

0:37:27sure does thank you all right any other questions on B all right on to item C I believe both council member um Salman and council member mama had questions on that whichever want to go first sure just want to say one I really appreciated this and learned a lot as a

0:37:47new council member it was very thorough one thing that stood out was that in the Strategic plan that some of you adopted last year there was a priority set to update the general plan but it said multiple times in this document that no funding has been identified so I think it would be

0:38:08good for us to discuss at some point in the future what our plan is to make this possible I know it's a really big undertaking but we just like to hear more about that yes this actually is um I think one the one I'm looking at will the one item that was on the previous

0:38:26strategic plan that we were not able to complete it is an incredibly expensive undertaking there's no grant money available at least there hasn't been any grant money available at this time but we keep searching yes Sean to try to find some grant money it's a it's a it's

0:38:40a big process so what we have done though is obviously we have to update our housing element and when we just um every um periodically with that comes the safety element that we are upgrading right now as well we're in the process of that so we have done and with the S

0:38:56Pablo Avenue specific plan we actually did some revisions as well on top of the general plan am I getting that I'm sorry sometimes I don't speak planner language as well um so we have been adopting in in in pieces yeah um good evening Sean Moss uh planning manager um yeah as Karen

0:39:16pointed out we we have updated components of the general plan so as required we updated our housing element um if for the the cycle that started in 2023 um we're currently working on an update of the city's safety element we'll be required to update the transportation element in the coming

0:39:34years as well so you know when when when all of that's done we'll have about a third of an updated General plan at least um you know we would obviously love to do a more comprehensive General Plan update it does it takes a lot of money and a lot of time and it's not something that

0:39:53that grants are not typically available for so we continue to look for opportunities and um you know if the council wanted to to discuss uh ways to to fund that in the future we'd be we'd be happy to facilitate that I think it would be helpful at the minimum to get a

0:40:09ballpark on how much it would cost and how much time it would take so we you know know especially if it was a priority of the last strategic plan it wasn't done it's now priority in this strategic plan we're now almost a year in so I just want to make sure if we're

0:40:24going to keep prioritizing something we're going to work on doing it and I I completely understand this it's something that I I you know we discussed I remember with the council that this is something we we just want to make sure it's still there so that we are

0:40:36cognizant of it but yeah it could be half a million to a million dollars um it's it's it's a significant amount but we don't want to forget and we we want to make sure that if we do have the opportunity that it is a priority 1999 is a very long time ago at this point so

0:40:52um just worth thinking about that and yeah we'll probably continue to be required to update pieces and it's going to become you know Frankenstein document I don't know how useful that is to us so I think it's worth thinking about the other thing I had questions about and I

0:41:06did get answers from staff but I think it would be helpful to just shed light on this so anybody who read this could know I just as I read through the plans of all the various things City staff planned to do a lot of them said we're going to do this early in 20125 early

0:41:222025 spring 2025 and it seemed like a lot of work to me so could you just talk talk more about the plans for all these different pieces that are planned for 2025 yeah sure so there are different so all of all of the policies in our housing element have uh deadlines um and and and some are more

0:41:43um specific than others you know some some of the policies are are are ongoing things that we're going to keep doing for the eight-year housing element cycle others are things we're going to do once you know up update the zoning ordinance to do X um so we're hoping to for a lot of those

0:42:00shorter term things especially the things that require zoning amendments um we're what we're currently doing is trying to package those up um into a a scope that we can bring a consultant on board uh to work on and we we were originally hoping to kind of dovetail it

0:42:19as much with um MTC the Metropolitan Transportation commission's Transit oriented communities um requirements as possible so those are new requirements that are going into effect that that cities are going to have to comply with in order to be recipients of Transportation dollars that are

0:42:38available and a lot of that there there is some crossover between those Toc items and the things that we're required to do for the housing element so we were we were trying to combine those efforts as much as possible we just met actually with with MTC staff today or AAG staff

0:42:56today and and their timeline is not as fast as we're needing to move on the housing element things so we're we're going to need to at least to some degree bifurcate those two efforts and and move quicker on the housing element things in order to to satisfy the the deadlines that

0:43:14we've committed to in the housing element thank you may Mama thank you mayor um so I have apologies I'm getting over a cold and cunk Away me too as you can hear yes everybody's sick so on goal um PS4 there's a storm drainage Revenue Bond and I was wondering if this has been

0:43:37paid off and you could possibly rebond to cover so any npds overages which I know we're discussing in the latter part of the agenda I'm going to let our Public Works director answer that good evening mayor council members um so the storm dra bonds that were issued in 1993 were paid

0:44:01off in fiscal year 2014 and since then we've been using the the revenue um for operations maintenance and minor uh Capital uh repairs for our storm drain system including ones that we just recently completed uh there are significant Capital needs for our storm drain system

0:44:19and that's why we are updating our storm drain master plan uh and you approved some additional um budget for the consultant to complete that effort for us so there's needs throughout the city for both the storm drain infrastructure and clean water and during the uh item

0:44:34later on in the agenda tonight we'll talk about some of the funding options uh for um the uh clean water requirements so it is potential to rebond against this in income flow so that's something we're evaluating because um we are using for operations and maintenance as well so yeah we'll

0:44:55have to we're looking at um uh financing plan with that um available Revenue okay thank you thank you and then on goal H2 um this is a fire question um it sounded like that we were not considering any CommunityWide drills uh at this time and I was wondering uh if

0:45:17we could you know what is the status of potentially planning for Community Wide drills good evening it's me again the police chief uh so this year we don't have any Community drills planned yet but it doesn't mean we're not necessarily going to do it um we do have other planning

0:45:40that we're focusing on this year with getting our staff prepared for disasters so we're putting a lot of time and effort into that um whether or not another drill happens this year or on the following calendar year that's still kind of up in the air it does take a lot

0:45:52of staff to come together to make that happen so there's a lot of Staff components and then there's parts of it that we don't control which is the county side so I know that the county um I won't say that they're protective but they are very conservative when it comes to countywide

0:46:09drills and the use of the warning system for drills so there is a bit of negotiation that has to happen to make those things make those events occur as well I know we didn't have very good turnout on the evacuation drill but I think given kind of all the fires and

0:46:26and that have happened since then I think people will be much more interested in participating now so if we do it again I hope that's the case thank you thank you all right item D council member that was fman yes go ah um again thank you for this it was really helpful just having all of the

0:46:49stuff we're working on on the transportation side described um I wanted to see if you could update us more on the calr project to uh repave s Pablo there's obviously a lot of pedestrian concerns there with the hidden run that happened recently and can you just tell us more about where

0:47:10you're at with calr and thank you for you know trying to get The Pedestrian improvements there yes I thank you uh council member uh City staff is working with calr staff on that repaving project for S Pablo Avenue basically from the southern city limits to cutting Boulevard um the calr

0:47:31plans initially were focusing just on repaving but they reached out to us and asked us other pedestrian and bicycle improvements that we um were interested in and we did spend some time identifying various improvements along the corridor that's consistent with our

0:47:46s Pablo Avenue complete streets plan and um they explored those options but ultimately they said they they did not currently have uh sufficient funding to add those additional complet compl streets elements to their current project and so we're continuing to work

0:48:01with them on that to see if there's um including cppg our um advoc advocacy group um to help us see if there's we can find additional funding so that calr can Implement some of those complete streets element as part of their up upcoming Paving project thank you I

0:48:18think further we should also let both our legislators and the author of the bill that took many years to pass that legislated that calr actually must include complete streets elements in all of its projects um know that this is happening because they should be held

0:48:36accountable to follow state law which mandates that they actually can't just do repaving project they have to improve the streets for people biking and or walking and so I just want to make sure that you know it's not for us necessarily to hold them accountable but

0:48:52the state needs to be looking at this because it's very concerning that there shirking that responsibility and saying they don't have money when you look at the amount of money they're spending on highways it's a lot more than our repaving a street or you know upgrading

0:49:06of pedestrian Crossing so I I just hope we're engaging all of our state representatives about this because it's extremely concerning especially when we hazardous conditions right now uh for people biking and walking on S Pablo thank you item e was that council member cassan is okay

0:49:29go ahead we'll start with you Council yeah there I've noticed that there's a perception amongst some in the public that this request is a a spending increase that adds to the city's deficit and with that there's an accusation that it's being slipped in as a consent item

0:49:48to avoid Council discussion and review as I read this I read it differently I I read it as an it that's already been budgeted and that it's simply a request to provide the city manager with more spending authority over that amount I want to ask the city manager if I'm

0:50:05correct in my perception and then elaborate a little bit about what the difference is between a budg a spending Authority versus a budget increase certainly and yes you're correct um and if that can elaborate a little bit more on um on the actual uh item but the

0:50:21difference is that um what is budgeted what is requested from the count is the approved author approved amount that is budgeted that the council allows us to spend um in this case and IET can will explain this as well with change orders there are sometimes with these

0:50:41big large projects there are contingencies and there is the increase of the spending Authority even if it isn't an increase in the budget for this specific project like most capital projects they are funded um specifically and in this case this is is mostly grant

0:50:57funding this was not from the city's general fund so IET can you elaborate a little bit more on exactly what the change order means definitely um when Council awarded the Construction contract with gelot Brothers back in when was that December 2023 um they appr

0:51:13uh Council approved a the city manager to a to authorize change orders of about 10% of the contract value and at the same time we knew that this is a challenging in environment um because it's an older Urban environment with a lot of uh aging um uh uh unmarked utilities and so we did budget for

0:51:38additional contingencies as part of the current fiscal year budget and so we're asking Council now to authorize the city manager manager to increase the contract change order amount within the budgeted amount that Council has approved so it's just a contract Authority not increasing

0:51:54budget and um the additional budget is coming from Street uh uh funds that are restricted for Street purposes including measure a s sp1 and the transportation impact fees so it's not general fund at all thank you thank you I'm sorry um director I have one follow-up question on that so uh the

0:52:21existing additional funding measure a sp1 and the Tif funding was it previously allocated to anything else are we forgoing another project because we're using these funds or were they are these funds specifically for the project thank you um these funds were budgeted for this specific project

0:52:42as part of the biannual budget process and it does include uh pavement sidewalk uh all those things that those funds pay for so this is this is included in kind of your estimation of how much the change order budget would R realistically need to be when you set

0:53:02the budget for this project correct okay thank you any other questions from Council all right so do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar I move I'll second all right so moved by council member Mama seconded by council member casanis all in favor please say I

0:53:26I any opposed any exensions hly keeps giving me that look just motion carries and you're good to go oh look at that it's getting better and better we only in month three okay um so now we do have the Sarah Pritchard executive director will come up to receive the proclamation

0:53:47for the Rosie the river along with I'm sorry what are we calling you we're calling you the wife of former mayor um Paul fidelli Michelle fidelli who will come up to receive the rosie der rivor Proclamation council member miyama caught me almost forgetting Paul's name

0:54:06it's been three months good evening here I am standing all on my own wearing my polka dots I'm Michelle fidelli I'm the board president for Rosie the Riveter trust and very happy to be with all of you tonight mayor and council members um uh just wanted to say that the trust very

0:54:25proudly supports the diverse stories that are being told um at our nearby um National Park Rosie the Riveter World war2 Homefront National Historical Park um hope everyone will visit the visitor center on the Richmond Waterfront and just wanted to say that um Els Sero has

0:54:47uh a lot of stories to share here not only for the men and women who went off um to serve during World War II um also for the people that stayed behind the men and women who stayed behind uh to work on the home front for the many people that move to our communities and

0:55:05nearby communities to work in the Kaiser shipyards uh and also we have many Japanese stories from families who were interned whose um property was either uh left alone or was taken away very important stories and they are shared um monthly uh at the visitor Center um

0:55:27wonderful films and speakers and so hope everyone will visit hi mayor and council members Sarah Pritchard here and I'm just so pleased for us to receive this proclamation in the um wonderful time of this 25th anniversary marking the park and and really citing the stories that um Michelle fidelli our

0:55:52board president has shared with us and I want to introduce you to come to the visitor centers and all Elso residents this um on our website Rosie the river.org we have a number of events and I hope you all receive this this card with a QR card so you can see our events

0:56:12but this Friday is Rosie the Riveter day and we are asking all people to come sign our declaration that this is our 25th anniversary we are very excited to be bringing back the rosie rally on Saturday June 7th this is something that we haven't done since covid um and then

0:56:32of course any way that you want to engage and get involved in um this wonderful and very very positive part of our American history we welcome you thank you so much all right any council members would like to make comment first we'll start at the end we'll start with council

0:56:52member cman just wanted to thank you both for coming and thank you and your whole team for the work you do especially now I know there has been probably things you don't want to comment on but federal tax against your facility and a lot of national facilities um and so thank you

0:57:12for getting through that and still being there every day and anything we can do to support you through this really challenging time please let us know thank you well thank you so much for coming and thank you for all the work you do with the Rosie the River Museum it's it's such a wonderful

0:57:30facility and keeping those stories alive is more important now than ever um I would like to point out that the foreign Sedition Act that was invoked to send people Venezuelans to El Salvador as gang members um that was the same act that was invoked to incarcerate Japanese

0:57:51Americans 120,000 people mostly American citizens in into internment camps uh so that is the through line they're using the same arguments to do terrible things and it's really important to remember what happened in the past in order to you know prevent it from happening in

0:58:10the future and it already is so the these all all these things don't happen in isolation we have to understand and remember and thank you for keeping those stories going mayor yeah thank you for being here um I've attended a lot of the the fundraisers and dinners through the

0:58:29years and when I look at you Michelle it reminds me of uh you know the the previous mayors that have been involved like uh mayor Barky and and Leticia Moore is still very active uh with uh uh Rosie the river but uh you know we've always had an Elser presence there on

0:58:47the board and with the work that's done at that National Park um you know I'm also I was reminded about that today so um know that a lot of the Asian-American communities that are here in elero and West county is because of World War II and uh another reason why we have the

0:59:07most Nobel Prize winners in Els Serita Pest and present it's because of the refugees who had to leave Europe before and during and after World War II uh that had made their home here and worked at Lawrence Livermore and UC Berkeley many of my teachers were part of the war

0:59:24effort from Elser High a lot of them were uh refugees coming out of World War II uh who were held in captive uh just because uh they were Jewish so uh the the important things to remember here um and and you do that every day by um uh the work that you do with um our

0:59:46national park and we actually have two national parks in Contra Costa uh we have uh the W here in uh Richmond uh with Rosie the river but also there's a national park at uh Port CH Port Chicago as well um that's the um I believe they changed it to the Thurman National Park

1:00:07is that is that thir Good Marshall th Good Marshall yeah so um residents we have two and uh a lot of folks don't even know that so uh it's it's good to uh visit and remember history and uh grateful to the two of you for uh making sure we will always remember for what

1:00:26happened in the past so it doesn't repeat again thank you well I want I do want to also thank you all for the work that you do and and kind of similar to what um council member and may potim said the through line here and I I had here for I swearing in my great grandmother who's

1:00:4490 years old she came here when she was a young girl and my great aunt and my great grandmother both work at the ship yards and I I sometimes very sad that they all passed away before people started really recognizing the rich history of of Rosies but we know that so

1:00:58many of our African-American folks came here to escape Jim Crow South and they worked in those same shipyards so just thank you all for recognizing you know the ones that have passed away and the ones who are still here here and kicking with us we we definitely appreciate you

1:01:11and now we get to take a picture you I just wanted to add every Friday morning one of our Rosies um speaks in The Visitor Center um and shares her story of of being a teenager and leaving home and taking a bus across the country country um to work in the war effort and

1:01:29it's really incredible to hear that um and then also to add uh on the national front um two local Rangers um did lose their jobs because they were probationary of course they did thank you so much all right the next item is the next item is public hearings I'm sorry P yes policy matters I'm sorry

1:02:55sorry can we please have the staff report no public hearing praise the Lord I item a I have two oh okay I'm sorry the staff report on item a disolution of the ELO pension board thank you council member mulama that's why you sit next to me uh thank you mayor councel uh I'm

1:03:19skot Woodruff your City attorney I'm just uh quickly bringing up my notes for this item um so before you tonight is um uh proposed ordinance to amend chapter 3.20 of the Elso Municipal Code uh to dissolve the pension board um this is because um the current status of the uh

1:03:43related Elso pension fund is essentially inactive and I'll go through a little history and and explanation about this um so in 1947 um the city created its own pension fund for civil Serv service employees um that provided retirement benefits for the employees who were

1:04:00eligible to be enrolled in in the system um as part of that under state law that existed at the time that has um been amended since then uh the city council also formed um an employees pension board uh to oversee the plan and the fund and appointed the city council

1:04:18members to serve as the members of the board uh by 1958 the city began the process of um impl implementing um uh transition to the California Public Employees Retirement System typically referred to as cpers um this is uh actually the largest public pension system in the country um it is um uh a

1:04:41this A A system that most uh city employees throughout the state are enrolled in um and so uh the idea was that rather than continue to have um employees enrolled in the city's own much smaller plan that the city would transition those employees into Calpers and then in going forward um future

1:05:02employees who are eligible would also be enrolled in Calpers however um once that process was completed there were still employees of the city who had um earned and continued to earn pension benefits under the city's own plan um at a certain point in time all of those

1:05:18employees retired from service but they um continued to live and so they continued to be eligible to receive benefits um as of May of 2023 um there were no remaining retirees who were eligible to receive benefits from the pension plan all the funds in the plan had been dispersed um there

1:05:37were no further obligations that we could identify um of the of the plan or the fund uh so we did wait for a while to ensure that there would be no no additional claims that were unanticipated on the fund uh but at this point in time um City staff um are confident that they that enough time has

1:05:56elapsed that there will be no remaining claims and as I stated there are no funds uh uh that are still available within the fund to to pay for any liabilities um with that in mind um what we what we what we found when we started looking into this is that there is a

1:06:13provision of state law um that came into effect after the city had established the plan that says that uh once the plan's established even though it can be done with just an action of the city council that the fund to be dissolved um requires a vote of City voters um but

1:06:32that's not true for amendments to the ordinance um and our view on this is after doing as much research was as is possible is that um as long as the fund still exists um but is inactive because of the conditions that I'd previously described um the city council has the

1:06:51legal authority to amend the municipal code to in essence dissolve the the pension board because there's no further regulatory activity for it to engage in um the city's the fund would continue to exist but it would have no uh money in it it would have no obligations um and

1:07:08the pension board and this but significantly for the staff there would be no further obligation to um audit the fund uh or or for the board to perform any of the other activities that were required for it um as long as the the fund was active um and so uh the fund

1:07:26would exist because we can't dissolve it without voter approval but we can basically wrap up the Affairs of the pension board leave the fund in place but basically discontinue any of the activities of the board itself so what we've done is draft a um an ordinance

1:07:43that would amend sections 3.2 0.030 and 060 of the municipal code uh to um eliminate the pension board um thereby eliminating the requirement to hire an actuary do auditing um hold meetings or any of the other activities that the board is required by Statute and the ordinance to perform um I'm

1:08:08happy to take questions but the recommendation before you is to um wave for the reading and introduce by title the the ordinance that's before the council all right are there any questions from the council no questions from the council all right now is the time for memb of

1:08:25the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card public comments will be taken in person only please remember to identify yourself in your city of residence at the beginning

1:08:39of your comments city clerk please proceed we do not have any requests to speak mayor okay thank you so much um One Last Call no council comments all right do I have a motion to introduce the by title and wave any further reading of an ordinance to amend and restate elero Municipal Code chapter

1:08:583.20 to dissolve the pension board due to the inactive status of pension so moved all right so I heard mayor protim Kino um to move and council member um mulama to Second um I have a motion C Kirk will you please call the role or just all in faor please say I all those

1:09:20in favor please say I I I any opposed motion carries thank you very much next item annual parcel assessment for the national pollutant discharge elimination System Program and drainage maintenance activities for fiscal year 2526 can we please have the staff report

1:09:55then have the long great good evening mayor and council members um my name is Christina leair management analyst in the operations and environmental services division of our public works department and tonight I'm going to be talking about our annual parcel assessment for the national

1:10:14pollutant discharge elimination System Program and drainage maintenance activities for fiscal year 2025 26 the proposed action this evening is to adopt a resolution establishing the annual parcel assessment for the national pollutant discharge elimination system or npds program and drainage

1:10:33maintenance activities at the current rate of $38 per equivalent runoff unit or eru and authorizing the con um the Contra Casta County flood control and Water Conservation District to adopt the storm water utility area or sua levies based on set amount for fiscal year 2025

1:10:5426 um a little bit of background the 1987 uh the federal Water Pollution Control Act or the Clean Water Act um was implemented requiring all jurisdictions in the United States to be responsible for ensuring compliance with the national pollutant discharge elimination

1:11:15system or the npds program San Francisco Bay Regional water quality control board or the water board regulates the discharge of storm water runoff from the municipal separate storm sewer systems or ms4 draining into the San Francisco Bay through a municipal Regional permit

1:11:36called the MRP this MRP covers Alam contracosta Santa Clara and Santa Mato counties as well as the cities of Fairfield cisson and valo in Contra Casta County the contracosta Clean Water program coordinates Regional compliance and collaborates on programing components of

1:11:56the MRP the Clean Water program is comprised of Contra Casta County it's 19 Incorporated cities and towns and the county flood control and Water Conservation District elito n PDS compliance activities are funded through a combination of of funds um the primary funding is from the storm water uh the

1:12:21countywide storm water utility area or sua assessment funds additional funding is provided from measure J J storm funds and additional funding subsidized from the general fund additional funding sources are currently being explored by the Clean Water program the sua levied by the county

1:12:42funds a variety of activities for clean water in the member jurisdictions as well as activities at the countywide level the sua assessments are calculated through determining equivalent runoff units or erus and an eru reflects the amount of impervious or paved surface of

1:13:05a given parcel impervious surfaces result in a storm water runoff into the storm drain system which could potentially carry pollutants into the bay and into the groundwater residential lots in elero uh between 5,000 and 20,000 Square fet in size are assigned one um one unit one

1:13:26eru industrial or commercial Parcels with paved parking or other impervious service areas are assigned to or more erus depending on their size and um classification for example shopping centers are assigned 12 um runoff units the storm water utility assessment was established in 1993 and the city's

1:13:53assessment at that time was $14 per eru the city's current rate of $38 was approved by the city council in fiscal year 20042 2005 $38 is the maximum that it can be assessed in elero per the countywide ordinance and all municipalities in the region have reached their maximum rates

1:14:16allowed in fiscal year 2526 the county estimates that the Els ceritos rate of 38 thou uh $38 will generate $421,500 for compliance approximately $90,000 is allocated for regional compliance programs through the Clean Water program and approximately $332,000 is allocated specifically for

1:14:42elero to fund our local compliance activities the implementation of the municipal Regional permit is currently governed by the the permit of MRP 3.0 this permit became effective July 1st 2022 and runs through June 30th 2027 the permit includes costly mandates relating to construction site controls

1:15:09and green infrastructure public Outreach and education and lots of Municipal operations um some examples include tracking homeless encampments monitoring illicit discharges and illegal dumping um develop asset management programs for the city to um Monitor and manage our

1:15:30assets our storm water assets um there's also a requirement for large privately owned parking lots to install and maintain trash capture devices we also need to maintain the target of um to achieve our 100% trash load reduction goals and many other practices operating procedures Citywide

1:15:50including collaboration with the fire department to manage discharges of water and foam used in emergency firefighting dis um firefighting applications the city is currently meeting our compliance goals and meeting um working to meet the requirements of this new

1:16:11permit the city has been able to meet our trash load reduction requirements in previous years however the new permit eliminates credit for Source control policies for example our single-use plastic bag band our food wear um ordinance and our many volunteer cleanup

1:16:29activities throughout the city this causes the city to fall below the required trash load reduction goal um because we lose approximately 10% of our credits through these activities to maintain compliance the city is going to be required to pursue an ordinance which will have a

1:16:47requirement for privately owned parking lots or private land drainage areas or plas that generate moderate high or very high trash levels and drain into the storm drain inlets uh to install and maintain trash capture devices Additionally the city will need to investigate and procure software for

1:17:08Asset Management again the action we are seeking this evening is for Council to adopt the resolution establishing the annual partial assessment for the national pollutant discharge elimination system program and drainage maintenance activities at the current rate of $38

1:17:29per equivalent runoff unit and authorizing the Contra Costa County flood control and Water Conservation District to adopt storm water utility area levies based on the set amount for fiscal year 2025 26 I'm happy to answer any questions questions from the council Lisa oh

1:17:55she was trying to defer that's why I did thought you said no you I I want to um ask the question so I know that the program costs more than the revenue that we get from this program and it seems like this is one of many programs where we have revenues that don't increase

1:18:14over time so our revenues are flat but the costs continue to increase um so gu you know what are our options to reduce the burden on the general fund because it's only going to increase over time yeah the countywide program has been working with the city managers and

1:18:33Consultants they've done quite a bit of research assessing options um different different types of taxes that can be made um observing other jurisdictions um what what they have done what has passed there was a ballot measure in 2012 that did not pass it was a countywide measure

1:18:52um although Elso residents did pass it it didn't meet the 2/3 uh majority vote that was required to pass so the program is exploring a different type of Avenue to to secure funds and and who makes that $38 cap is that a national cap it's set by the countywide ordinance that was

1:19:12created when the sua was adopted I I'll just add that um it's essentially a a pre- propop 218 charge and um once the provisions of prop 218 went into effect um any in because it did not include an automatic um inflationary adjuster um any increase to the amount would require either voter or

1:19:35property owner approval um such as was attempted in the 2012 measure thank you any other questions all right now is the time for members of the public who wish to speak to provide public comments regarding this item request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by

1:19:53completing a speaker card public comments will be taken in person only please remember to identify yourself in your city of residence at the beginning of your comments city clerk please proceed we do not have any requests for this item either mayor all right thank

1:20:07you so much do I have a motion to approve this item second all right so I have a motion moved by council member San and seconded by council member mul mulama all in favor please say I I I any opposed any extensions so the vot passes thank you so much Dad thank you the next item is city council local

1:20:31and Regional liaison assignments are there any Council reports all right mayor Port um I um earlier in the month I did attend um as Vice chair of marine clean energy uh I attended the executive committee meeting as well as uh the technical committee um and uh I do plan to attend the board

1:20:55meeting on Thursday um last month I did attend the first senior committee meeting look forward to attending uh uh this week and look forward to uh uh meeting with our senior population and let them know what is uh going on and uh what they plan to do in the federal

1:21:13government um I did I did forget that they plan on uh uh looking into Social Security as well so this is uh something that will affect all people with disab abilities in our senior population so uh so um I will be uh speaking to them uh this week and uh as a member of the air

1:21:34board uh we did attend the our monthly board meeting um I look forward to uh working with um County uh leaders and dealing with uh the fire and explosion um at the Martinez Refinery um I know 350.org has been looking at that and uh as a member of the airboard um

1:21:58it's up to carb and our um we're looking at a third party uh that is investigating this um and uh we have uh been with carb and with leadership of John Joya we have been uh finding these refineries who are um you know uh uh not uh you with these uh explosions that

1:22:22should that should have never happened uh and with the findings um they will make sure that there will be more checks and balances so this will never happen again so um knowing that there was a f with uh uh the refinery in um benisha uh carb find them $82 million and that will

1:22:43go to community benefits for the city of bisha so uh looking forward to uh uh working with um uh the refinery and and the folks in the county uh to uh find out the reasons why this happened and we'll get to the bottom of this thank you any other reports council member

1:23:04very quickly I attended the urban Forest committee meeting last week on Monday there they had a tree planting plan for Friday that was postponed due to the weather they're also working on their work plan for the year I also attended meeting of recycl more and the big

1:23:22movement there is that they're in the midst of hiring a new executive director and they had 12 qualified candidates that have been now narrowed down to five council member sasman um early in the month I attended the mayor's the Contra Costa mayor's conference in Lafayette um I also

1:23:40attended the crab feed which the elero crab feed which was a lot of fun and a great fundraiser uh last week I went to the Environmental Quality committee meeting which I'm the liaison for um and then this weekend I know a few of us went to the elero preschool Cooperative messy

1:23:59art day which was a lot of fun and I went in my Council role but then afterwards came back in my mother role and my my daughter went and had quite a lot of fun and got quite messy um on um March 12th I attended the abag housing committee meeting where we discussed the potential for another

1:24:21Regional uh measure in 2028 to uh raise funds for affordable housing throughout the 9 County Bay Area um so one of the discussions is that there is the transit funding cliff and so uh 2026 is likely when that Transit Bond will move forward so we don't want to compete with that um but it's really

1:24:44important in order to be able to address housing issues in the Bay Area that there is an additional funding source that we also got a presentation on the doorway program so if you are looking for housing in um certain parts of the Bay Area uh you can go to the doorway

1:25:04and apply you know to affordable housing opportunities in the region including Sano which is being Incorporated and Alam County so hopefully that will kind of spread to all nine counties so that people looking for affordable housing can uh find it through one phone based

1:25:26mobile app so that is what I did and I also did attend the messy art day and got a nice tour and really enjoyed seeing people having a lot of fun all right and and also um as council member um San mentioned on March 7th I did attend the contraer mayor's conference um and as we discussed

1:25:47council member Kento and I attended the national league of cities I went directly from the crab feed and just landed in DC was the longest longest uh Transit ever in life um but some of the positive things that did happen there I was um also my first meeting as in the

1:26:04small cities caucus where we talked a lot about some of the successes of what our cities have done using funds like our arpa funds and everything to build infrastructure and how we can collaborate with each other um to do more and build more infrastructure in our cities um and also as a board member

1:26:20or Executive Board member of the lgbtq caucus we talked about what we as a caucus can do to continue to advocate for lgbtq communities so I'll be bringing some of those items back to our human resources department to see what we have already have on the books such

1:26:36as we had our Sanctuary cities that's already on the books what's already on the books and what we can also Implement as a council to make sure that we are supporting our lgbtq community members um I did also attend the Messi art day and I'm looking forward to seeing them

1:26:49and having uh being able to celebrate them 85 years they're coming up on so we're going to be be celebrating them in Council coming up soon and also and this I'm I'm mentioning this because it may happen before we actually have the next council meeting we're starting to have

1:27:04welcome more of our businesses into our city so we're going to be doing ribbon cuting finally at the Security Pacific Storage um over on eastshore and Great Clips which I can't remember where Great Clips is going to be coming in on but I'm looking forward to a lot of ripping

1:27:18cuting and walkinging more businesses into our city and also a special shout out to our legislative partner Dean who did help us prepare for the national league of cities and with that it is now 7:36 and we are adjourned the next regularly scheduled city council meeting

1:27:37is Tuesday April the 1st April Fool's Day maybe it won't happen no it will happen at 6 pm thank you so much everyone