Special City Council Meeting March 17, 2026

0:00:15Okay.

0:00:16Good evening, everyone. The March 17th Special City Council meeting is called to order at 6.01 p.m. Will the City Clerk please call the roll?

0:00:28Mayor Proten-Seltzman? Here. Councilmember Motuyama? Here. Councilmember Katsanis? Here. We do have a quorum with Mayor Kinto and Councilmember Weisinger absent.

0:00:38Thank you, and everyone, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance or a Moment of Silence.

0:01:07The next item on the agenda is Council and Staff Communications.

0:01:14Oh, sorry, teleconference and public comment instructions first that the City Clerk will read. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. 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's

0:01:32the City's business. The Brown Act also ensures the public's right to be heard, and while City Council is not generally… will not generally respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action.

0:01:44For members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony, the Mayor will announce the time for public comments on each applicable item. Public comments will be taken in person and virtually via Zoom. A request to speak can be submitted to the City Quick by completing a speaker card.

0:01:58by selecting the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9 if joining by phone. In-person speakers will be called first.

0:02:05The Council has adopted Rules of Order and Procedure, specify that public speakers address the City Council in an orderly and respectful manner, proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. These rules apply for both in-person attendees and those participating virtually. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. That concludes my announcements.

0:02:23Thank you. The next item on the agenda is Council and Staff Communications. Assistant City Manager, do we have any staff communications?

0:02:32Yes, I just have one, Mayor Pro Tem, and before I begin, I just want to let you know in advance that our City Manager, Karen Pincus, unfortunately, is unable to make it tonight. She caught a pretty bad bug.

0:02:45So, with that, I'll be giving the staff report out. I just have one item. I just wanted to remind everybody about the upcoming Community Budget Workshop that's going to be on Zoom, virtually.

0:02:56next Wednesday, March 25th, from 7 to 8 p.m.

0:03:00This is a follow-up meeting from our in-person community meeting held here on March 7th, and so we're really looking… we're really looking forward to the community joining us virtually. We will have our finance director and budget director on standby for any questions and answers the community has.

0:03:19Also, for more information about the Zoom link, as well as the budget process.

0:03:25please visit elcerito.gov slash budget process, and you can find more information about the meetings, as well as how to access this meeting. And last but not least, also don't forget to fill out the budget survey as well. There's a link

0:03:41on that site as well. With that, that concludes my report. Thank you.

0:03:45Thank you, and I just want to encourage all members of the public to consider going to that virtual workshop.

0:03:51Councilmember Cassanis and I went to the in-person one, and I've been to many dozens of budget presentations in my life at a lot of agencies, and this was one of the best, most easy-to-understand presentations. I highly recommend it for anybody who wants to know more about the budget and provide input.

0:04:09Are there any announcements from Council Members? Councilmember Motayama?

0:04:16I want to, let people know that the… on the 25th, at 9am in 2180 Milvia Street in Berkeley, we're going to have our next East Bay Wildfire Coalition of Governments meeting. They have been in our City Hall, but because we don't have our City Hall yet,

0:04:35The meeting will be held in Berkeley.

0:04:37And then the other thing is I just wanted to note that it's been 5 years since the COVID lockdown, so it's a 5-year anniversary of that, and

0:04:48I can see why people don't remember the 1918 pandemic, because it's like, it goes away, and I just wanted to go back and thank staff, particularly, and the city management team, because you guys really took it. You guys took the furloughs, you took the…

0:05:04Salary cuts and everything to get us through this. And, you know, and then public safety staff.

0:05:11all showed up.

0:05:13Even, you know, because they're frontline workers, and, you know, just the community pulled together, and I don't want to forget that, but I also want to just, acknowledge it and thank everyone, because

0:05:25The thing that was amazing to me was that

0:05:28people really came together in the community. So there was people performing in driveways, and there was a really cool drive-by

0:05:37performance at different spots around the city, and chalk art, and the window signs, and all of that. So,

0:05:46I know we'll forget about it soon, but I just wanted to say thank you.

0:05:50Thank you.

0:05:52Any other Councilmember announcements? I have a few. First is that the City Council Ad Hoc Committee that was formed to review and recommend Council policy revisions has concluded its work and is formally disbanded.

0:06:07And on March 5th, Mayor Quinto signed a total of 12 letters in support of the City's Community Funding Project request for fiscal year 2027.

0:06:17And finally, the City is now accepting applications for the new Library Task Force. I believe that just opened yesterday. The application is available on the City's website, and the deadline to apply is Friday, April 17th.

0:06:32And if you want any more information that you can't find on the website, please contact the City Clerk's Office, and please spread the word.

0:06:42Next, we're at item 4, oral communications from the public. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda, consent items, and presentation items. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card, using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing 9… sorry, star 9 if joining by phone.

0:07:06In-person requests will be taken first.

0:07:08Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments.

0:07:14City Clerk, please proceed.

0:07:17Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. We have two requests to speak in person and one virtual, so I'll

0:07:22Start with our in-person speakers.

0:07:26First, we have Michael Cohen, followed by Diana Brenner.

0:07:34Michael Cohen, El Cerrito resident.

0:07:37Early in March, I wrote a letter to the city regarding the ballot summary for the library tax.

0:07:42That letter was largely ignored. I apologize to the city attorney, his web… I couldn't find his web…

0:07:49His email on the website.

0:07:52On March 3rd, I stood here and asked you to correct the false language regarding a so-called senior exemption in the ballot summary for the library property tax. That request was also ignored. I explained then the measure does not actually provide a senior exemption. I refer you to my letter for the reasons.

0:08:12We know that generally, a citizen's initiative must appear as written by the citizens.

0:08:18But I do not believe that that gives those sponsors the right to deceive the public about the contents of the initiative when writing a summary.

0:08:27My request to correct the summary was ignored by the city.

0:08:32And the county registrar received the measure containing the false language in the summary section.

0:08:38I understand now that the Registrar has opened an inquiry and sent this back to the City of El Cerrito.

0:08:46Will the city approve this falsehood?

0:08:49Will the city be complicit in this deception? It's not often you get a second chance.

0:08:55The city knows the summary is false. They know it's false because the Council has been openly discussing adding a real senior exemption to this tax, and have scheduled a meeting about it.

0:09:08The initiative as submitted would deliver no senior exemption, and the summary falsely states that it would.

0:09:17Are you gonna fix this?

0:09:19I've also noticed that the city attorney has written an alleged impartial analysis for this initiative. It's not impartial. He's copied the words regarding the exemption from the initiative.

0:09:32And these words do not deliver a senior exemption.

0:09:36The initiative does show how a qualified person could apply for a loan, thereby placing a lien on their property. Are you going to fix this, too?

0:09:47I'm aware from your correspondence, Mr. Attorney, that you know this initiative does not deliver an exemption.

0:09:56I'm reasonably sure that the law does not allow a so-called impartial analysis to invent the results

0:10:04If an initiative were passed.

0:10:06The city and the city attorney are perpetrating a gross deception on the citizens of El Cerrito.

0:10:13Is that what you want to do?

0:10:15Thank you.

0:10:17Thank you. Our next speaker is Diane Brenner.

0:10:24Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, staff, and members of the public. I'm Diane Brenner from El Cerrito.

0:10:31I like libraries, and most of the books I read these days are from the library, but I do not support the present library tax initiative, and I have not supported any of the previous similar attempts to attack… to tax us.

0:10:44For an undefined, unplanned library project, there are several reasons.

0:10:49One is that in each case so far, what has been offered to us has been a version of, approve the tax, give us the money, and just trust us to figure out later what the library will be.

0:10:59I think there would be more support for it if there was a concrete, clear project that we could vote up or down. I'd say that's why this effort keeps losing, not because of analysis paralysis.

0:11:10This tax will cost us more than $90 million.

0:11:14If this initiative passes, that's how much El Cerrito will be paying, $90 million for a library that El Cerrito will never own. $90 million. But wait a minute, recently updated project cost estimates have ballooned to $37 million.

0:11:29If the tax generates $90 million and the project cost is $37 million, why should we be paying another $53 million?

0:11:37I would urge the public also not to be misled by any reference to this BART Plaza Station Library deal as being

0:11:46Like a condo. There will be no deed that El Cerrito can sell later if we want out. The land is owned by BART, the ground lease is owned by the developer, and the building is owned by the developer. El Cerrito pays $90 million plus a share of operating costs of the building, plus a one-year lease.

0:12:05And we will only own the furnishings, no deed to the space.

0:12:09As I have pointed out before, the revenue from this tax can be used to cover a variety of expenses that maybe do not belong in a 30-plus year financing deal. Is it smart financial management for project design costs, permitting, furniture, and litigation costs to be financed for 30 years?

0:12:28The first 10 years of supplemental operating expenses end after the first 10 years. Will that expense drop off the tax rate or continue for another 20 years anyway? There's no language in the initiative to address this.

0:12:41There are also legitimate questions as to whether a 20,000 square foot library is appropriate to El Cerrito's needs today and in the future. Keeping up with the Joneses, the Lafayettes, and the Walnut Creeks is not a good reason for a $90 million tax. Thank you.

0:12:57Thank you.

0:12:59Okay, I'll go to our remote request to speak.

0:13:04Ira share now, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:13:10Ira Sharenow: Irish Aranelle, El Cerrito.

0:13:13I suggest that the Council hold an interactive public forum where it explains the following.

0:13:20How can there simultaneously be $3.1 million in revenue and also a senior exemption?

0:13:28How the city is going to pay off the high-interest chunk bonds.

0:13:33How will Parcel C West get funding?

0:13:36What is the timeline, and what are the assumptions?

0:13:40Will Parcel C West need a $350,000 loan?

0:13:44If so, where will the city get money to pay off the loan?

0:13:49What services will be cut to pay for the library?

0:13:53If, by some chance, the library is actually built, which is very doubtful, What happens after 10 years?

0:14:00How can the general fund afford to pay the inflated operating expenses?

0:14:05Given the city is facing budgetary distress and is having difficulty paying for basic services, such as a new fire engine and a senior center.

0:14:16How can it be right to add to the city's financial burden?

0:14:21Is it true that there are 9 stalled housing projects?

0:14:26What does that say about the prospects of building Parcel C West?

0:14:31Where is the financial analysis by FAB and by the finance department?

0:14:37Thank you very much.

0:14:39Thank you. Thank you, Maya. That concludes a request to speak at this time.

0:14:44Thank you. We will now move on to item 6, the adoption of the consent calendar.

0:14:50This includes the following items.

0:14:55Item A, approval of minutes. Item B, Transgender Day of Visibility Proclamation. Item C, monthly disbursement and Check Register Report for February 2026.

0:15:07D, General Plan Annual Progress Report. E, a resolution authorizing a pro-housing incentive program application.

0:15:15F annual parcel assessment for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program and Drainage Maintenance Activities for Fiscal Year 2026-2027. And that is the full consent calendar.

0:15:30Are there any brief questions or requests by the Council to pull items off the consent calendar?

0:15:41Go ahead, Councilmember Montoyama.

0:15:43Questions on, item C?

0:15:46Oh.

0:15:47I have questions on item C.

0:15:50Okay. And item F…

0:15:57Anything else?

0:16:01Since they're just questions, should we hear those and then go forward with the motion on the full consent calendar? Yes, Mayor, and go ahead with your questions on C. Okay, thank you. So…

0:16:14I just have a couple of questions. What is the Country Club VISTA HOA, and why do we pay this?

0:16:21Does anyone… can anyone respond? Maybe Assistant City Manager?

0:16:31Yeah, excuse me.

0:16:33Let me wait till it gets up on my screen here. Yes, so I think you're referring, to the HOA item, that is on the check disbursement. So,

0:16:44Per a prior agreement with the HOA, the city actually pays for the PG&E utility expense for the street lighting, for several streets in that area.

0:16:56And so I wasn't able to get a full response from Public Works, but that's as much information as I could get now, but I could get back to you with additional information later.

0:17:07Thank you. You're welcome. And, my other question is on the…

0:17:12Pacific AV, how are we doing? Are we almost done with the AV upgrade?

0:17:18Thank you, Councilmember Motuyama. I am happy to report that we are on task and on time with the project. We are still expecting the project completion to happen by midweek next week, with the final programming, and then we are in the process of scheduling user end training for the following week, and we do expect our next council meeting to be held in that space.

0:17:40Great, thank you.

0:17:45And then on item, it's… Sure, go ahead, Councilmember Cassandra.

0:17:51forum.

0:17:52For Crystal and Claire, I have a question.

0:17:56it's not a specific item, but I want to just ask, one of the things that I saw looking through that were things that I…

0:18:01assume, probably correctly, that we're consulting fees. They said professional fees. And I'm wondering, is there any way to, in the future, not today, query this report to get a list of all the consulting fees, or some… any kind of subcategory like that?

0:18:16Crystal Reams, Finance Director. So unfortunately, the way this report is designed, it pulls the first invoice

0:18:24from a check. So it could be multiple checks that are on, or multiple invoices that are on the check. We can provide that information, it's just a much lengthier report, and it just pulls the description that is entered in on our AP side.

0:18:39Okay, I may follow up and discuss that more, but I wasn't expecting anything today, but just… Yes, I…

0:18:45I saw line items and kind of wondering, you know, they're obviously a piece of a whole, and kind of wanting to see the whole. Okay.

0:18:54Thank you.

0:18:55Item F.

0:18:57So, item 6F, the NPDS.

0:19:02I wanted to understand… well, I'll let you come to the podium first.

0:19:12Okay, so, I would like to understand, why we have this big differential between what the,

0:19:21Rates we charge, and then what it costs.

0:19:25And I know… I understand that it costs more now as the… the… Clean water standards are more…

0:19:32stringent, and we can't have any garbage in our streams at all, ever, which seems kind of a high bar. But who sets the maximum rate? And is there a plan to increase the maximum since 1993?

0:19:49Yes. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members, Christina Laird, Management Analyst in Public Works Department, and the City Stormwater Program Manager.

0:20:00So, the NPDS rates, as you mentioned, were established in the 90s, and the maximum rate was set at $38 at that… in that ordinance. In order for that ordinance to be revised and updated, it requires Prop 218 voter approval.

0:20:17Which is not a, you know, it's not a… it's a heavy lift.

0:20:22It's a very heavy lift, and as you mentioned, the costs for implementation are increasing as these new state mandates, unfunded state mandates are continuing to raise the bar.

0:20:35So in 2012, the Contra Costa Clean Water Program did put a ballot measure, on the tax roll. It did not pass.

0:20:45And so, the Clean Water Program has been exploring what another funding option would look like. It has been discussed, with the city managers, the PMAs of the county,

0:20:59And it's in the hands of the county. The regional approach has been discussed as being the best way to do this, so it's not like one city can do this on their own. It really does require regional support, and so doing a regional countywide ballot measure is going to take some time.

0:21:16Yeah.

0:21:19Thank you. I think we do have a lot of unfunded mandates that are starting to really

0:21:25be difficult to… to cover with the general funds. Thank you. Welcome.

0:21:31Okay, if there are no more questions, do we have a motion to approve the consent calendar? I'll move.

0:21:37Second. Second. Great. We have a motion and a second.

0:21:42All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with Mayor Kinto and Councilmember Weisinger absent.

0:21:52Thank you. We will now move on to item 7A, introduce an ordinance to adopt permanent outdoor dining and retail sales regulations.

0:22:04Can we please have the staff report?

0:22:45Thank you.

0:22:51Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman, Council Members. I'm Sean Moss, I'm the City's Planning Manager, and I'm here tonight with Diego Romero, the City's Associate Planner as well.

0:23:00And we are here to talk about the permanent outdoor dining and Retail Program.

0:23:14Oh, is it off?

0:23:15Alright, there we go.

0:23:22It was on.

0:23:26That's alright, we can sit there if we need to.

0:23:35There we go.

0:23:37All right, so, I'm gonna give you a little bit of, background and the timeline for this process, and then I'm going to turn it over to Diego, and he is going to walk you through a little bit more background, as well as the details of the ordinance.

0:23:51So, this effort really goes back to 2020, and really has its roots in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

0:24:01So at that time, I'm sure you all remember, on March 13, 2020, the city declared a local emergency.

0:24:09due to COVID-19. And shortly thereafter, the state and the county also issued shelter-in-place orders.

0:24:18A lot of different agencies were, you know, things were moving very rapidly at that time. Different agencies were trying to figure out how to respond to the changing conditions on the ground, and the best,

0:24:30the best health protocols that were in place at the time. So, for example, the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, or ABC, suspended many of their regulations at that time, and really eased their rules to allow businesses to do things like offer alcohol that could be picked up with a food order, things like that.

0:24:55So, similarly, the City Council in July of 2020, amended the local emergency

0:25:03To adopt a temporary outdoor dining and retail program at that time, and that was very much

0:25:10an acknowledgement of, as I said, changing conditions and the changing needs of businesses at that time, and the need to be able to respond and allow businesses to conduct a lot more activities outside, such as food pickup or queuing of customers and, you know, display of merchandise and sales outside, that kind of thing.

0:25:33So that temporary program was in place, and Diego will go through, the details of that temporary program. That was in place through the end of 2022.

0:25:45when the local emergency expired. So,

0:25:50In anticipation of the local emergency expiring, the Council on December 6, 2022, adopted an urgency ordinance that basically extended the temporary program.

0:26:03And that ordinance would have expired in December of 2024, but again, in November of 2024, the Council extended it indefinitely.

0:26:14And that was to allow staff time to develop this permanent program that is before you tonight.

0:26:19So, we started that effort in the fall of 2023.

0:26:23And commenced a process to develop the permanent program.

0:26:27And as part of the effort, community development staff coordinated an internal working group, which had representatives from the planning division, the Building Division, Engineering Division, Operations and Environmental Services Division, and the Fire Department.

0:26:43And the intent of that internal working group was, at first, to evaluate what was working well with the temporary program that was in place, and what regulations maybe needed to be modified a bit as part of the permanent program.

0:26:59And also during that process, staff conducted outreach and gathered feedback from other community stakeholders, including the business community and individual business owners.

0:27:09To ensure that the regulations that were drafted as part of this permanent program met the needs of local businesses and the types of activities that they wanted to conduct.

0:27:21And on December 4th, 2024, we convened a joint study session of the Planning Commission and the Economic Development Committee to review the draft ordinance. They provided feedback on that

0:27:35draft ordinance at that time. Staff took that feedback, incorporated it into the permanent ordinance, which is what is before you tonight.

0:27:45At their February 2026… February 18th, 2026 meeting, the Planning Commission reviewed this permanent ordinance that is before you tonight, and unanimously recommended that the City Council adopt it.

0:27:57So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Diego, who will walk you through, the details of the various programs that have been in place in the past, as well as, more importantly, the permanent program.

0:28:20Good evening. Like Sean said, my name is Diego Romero, I'm the Associate Planner in the Community Development Department.

0:28:27So, prior to COVID-19, the creation of the temporary outdoor dining retail program, outdoor dining in the public right-of-way was previously

0:28:37Regulated by our previous municipal code, or our current municipal code, which required an administrative use permit and administrative design review approval.

0:28:46Both applications required approval by the zoning administrator.

0:28:50The use permit approval was only valid for an initial 1-year period, and then applicants would need to renew after that.

0:28:57Outdoor retail sales that were conducted on a limited basis required a temporary use permit, and anything more than that would require a conditional use permit. So you can see, when COVID-19 happened, there's more than one reason to streamline some of these requirements.

0:29:16So, during COVID, this program was implemented to streamline a lot of these requirements. The temporary program allowed the following uses. The use of outdoor private property, such as sidewalks, plazas, private parking lots.

0:29:30The use of, public sidewalks?

0:29:34adjacent to public streets and building frontages, and then the use of public parking spaces, which were all parking on public streets that were not part of Caltrans right-of-way.

0:29:44As part of this program, applicants needed to adhere to the outdoor dining and retail program guidelines.

0:29:50which addressed requirements related to ADA compliance, clearances, temporary furnishings, food preparation, site maintenance, and fire and building code compliance. As long as all the application materials were provided, the permit was automatically approved with minimal review from city staff.

0:30:14So, the proposed permanent outdoor dining and Retail Program consists of two documents. There's the outdoor dining and Outdoor Retail Sales Ordinance, and the outdoor dining and Retail Program Guidelines.

0:30:25The ordinance establishes which uses will qualify for the program, the location requirements, the permit processes, and requires compliance with the program guidelines. Most of the operating standards for the program are contained within the outdoor seating and retail program guidelines, and the guidelines cover standards for furnishings.

0:30:45fixtures, operational standards, the complaint and terminations process, and the application submittal requirement. Both these documents were included in your packet tonight.

0:30:57So the… so the outdoor dining and Retail Program advances many of the city's goals and visions. So it advances the livability and belonging, goal of the strategic plan, various goals of the general plan,

0:31:10strategy of using cleaner energy for the Climate Action Adaptation Plan, as well as enlivening San Pablo Avenue as part of the San Pablo Avenue-specific plan.

0:31:29So, as mentioned previously, under the temporary program, there are three categories of outdoor dining and outdoor retail activities, which were dependent on the proposed location of the activity.

0:31:39Staff are proposing changes to the ordinance that would create a distinct process for outdoor uses based on whether the installation is readily removable or permanent, versus

0:31:50Based on the location. So if an applicant is proposing an installation that is not permanent and able to be removed without heavy equipment, then many of the same processes and requirements would apply as under the temporary program.

0:32:03The proposed process would still be a streamlined review of the materials to ensure compliance with the guidelines. If the applicant, however, is proposing installations that are permanent in nature, and not easily removed, or removable.

0:32:15then they would still need to meet many of the same requirements as the removable installations, with the additional requirement that a design review of some level, either Tier 1 or administrative, depending on the location, would be required. And if a permanent installation is proposed in the public right-of-way, an encroachment permit would also be required.

0:32:35Under the original temporary program, outdoor food preparation was originally prohibited, but staff received feedback from businesses that they would be interested in sponsoring temporary food flow pop-ups in front of their businesses, so as part of this, that would be allowed.

0:32:52As part of the proposed ordinance, outdoor dining and retail uses are allowed on properties containing an existing business and adjacent pedestrian areas of public right-of-way. These uses have to be operated in conjunction with an existing business. However, exceptions are allowed with an administrative use permit.

0:33:11The Planning Commission proposed one change to the ordinance as part of the recommendation.

0:33:16The ordinance proposes to automatically expire permits that are not utilized for a specific length of time. The period was originally at 90 days. The Commission recommended that it be increased to 180 days, acknowledging that some outdoor activities are seasonal or weather-dependent, and may be inactive for more than 90 days.

0:33:41Many of the standards found in the guidelines are similar to the standards that were found under the temporary program.

0:33:47The guidelines outline specific requirements that applicants would need to comply with, such as leaving adequate clearance for pedestrians, ADA compliance, fire safety standards, and sign requirements, just to name a few. I'm happy to go into more detail if you have any specific questions on these requirements.

0:34:03Some of the major changes, under the proposed guidelines are the allowance, the limits to the use of generators, to the… they're allowed to be used for 32 hours for every 30 calendar days, and the intent was to help lessen the impact of generators on the surrounding neighborhoods.

0:34:21Space heating, we are proposing to prohibit the use of gas space heating, but understand that there could be situations where this not… this might not be feasible, so there isn't, we would allow exceptions in those instances.

0:34:36The guidelines also establish what type of noise would be considered unnecessary noise when it comes to these uses.

0:34:42And as part of these guidelines, staff are proposing the creation of a complete process.

0:34:47If a report is submitted to the city, the city will independently confirm that the report can be substantiated. We would then contact the business, and they would have 15 days to correct the violation.

0:34:58If a second complaint is submitted and substantiated, the zoning administrator could then, take that business to a zoning administrator hearing to review the permit, or they could refer it to the Planning Commission.

0:35:15So, for a business to apply for a permit under this program, the applicant would need to submit a site plan, a pedestrian control plan if they're using the sidewalk, ABC approval if they're proposing to have alcohol consumption outside, a certificate of insurance, a hold harmless waiver.

0:35:31If they're using the public right-of-way, an acknowledgement of the various terms and conditions.

0:35:42So, in conclusion, I just want to say that this ordinance is the result of a lot of hard work that we have put into this.

0:35:51I just want to acknowledge all the work that Diego has done. He's spent a tremendous amount of time, working with, you know, amongst other departments, and drafting the ordinance. And I just want to, you know, thank all those other departments that have worked with us on this as well. You know, I named them all earlier.

0:36:08And just say, you know, we're very excited to be here tonight. I think this, you know, like I said, this ordinance is sort of rooted in the response to COVID-19, and it's…

0:36:19it's nice to be able to put that era behind us, yet still continue the success of that program in terms of allowing businesses to have outdoor activities that are also consistent with a variety of other city goals that Diego highlighted. So, you know, definitely want to continue allowing businesses to have, you know, to have outdoor activity along San Pablo Avenue.

0:36:44And our other public rights of way.

0:36:46And,

0:36:49Inasmuch as they are in alignment with other city goals and policies. So, thank you very much, Councilmembers, and we are available to answer any questions that you might have.

0:37:00Thanks so much. Can, are there any questions from the Council? Councilmember Motayama?

0:37:07Sorry to… Okay.

0:37:10I, I have two, two questions. One…

0:37:12How many businesses or vendors participate in the program now? And I imagine that number has changed through the COVID period, but roughly, what does the usage look like?

0:37:23So, we've had a total of 11 or 12 businesses that have applied under this program. Obviously, some of them were initially during COVID, so it was only during that time when they ceased to operate.

0:37:34But, I don't have the number for you, the exact current… that are currently operating, but it's about… it's been up to 12 since the inception. Okay, thank you. And my second question, I don't know if either of you have seen an email that was submitted by Howdy Gowdy. Have you seen that regarding the electrical generators?

0:37:53Not yet, but we're happy to address it if there's anything in particular. Well, I would…

0:37:59I'll let the Mayor decide, or Mayor Fortem decide, what she wants to do. I also think he's signed up to speak, so maybe we should hear from him first, and then we'll come back to the Council and can share in his own words. So go ahead, Councilmember Bocio. Thank you. Did we actually… did anyone actually use the,

0:38:18public right-of-way for… under those permits, because I don't remember anyone actually being in the street.

0:38:26Yeah, I believe there was, a restaurant that, was doing, like, food pickup activities, in the right-of-way. That's ended. They're, they're no longer doing that. Obviously, it was during the pandemic.

0:38:40Doesn't, isn't Little Hill, isn't there, who are the other shooters?

0:38:48I think, I think Little Hill, Little Hill Lounge, yeah, they, they have, pop-up events, and those happen in the public right-of-way as well.

0:38:56But they're in the sidewalk, but not in the street. Not in the street. Oh, are you asking about… Not in the street, yeah. Oh, in the street, yeah, sorry. I don't know that anyone… we may have had, like, curbside pickup and drop-off during the pandemic, but since then, I don't believe anyone has utilized the roadway. Because we don't have any of those, sort of, semi-permanent…

0:39:19parklet-type seating things in El Cerrito ever, right? No, and in fact, so… so one of the barriers to that is Caltrans right now. They… they have not a… they have very unclear rules about what, is allowed as far as parklets.

0:39:36And, so that's… that's an obstacle.

0:39:42Additionally, when the Planning Commission and the EDC reviewed the ordinance jointly, that was one of their feedbacks, is they had some concerns about… about safety, of parklets and other things, and so we actually, revised the ordinance to make it explicit that it didn't cover something like that. Now, that's not to say we might develop a parklet program in the future.

0:40:05But I think that would need to be a separate effort so that we could look very carefully at that issue, because they're… they're kind of separate issues associated with that.

0:40:13Okay, and then, I have questions about the…

0:40:18the electrical generators. I know that we'll… we have a speaker coming up, but

0:40:23Do we, in any way, prohibit the use of fossil fuel-consuming electrical generators?

0:40:31we… so this ordinance does not. So currently, what we… what we currently do for food trucks, we've been permitting food trucks through an administrative use permit process.

0:40:43And…

0:40:45through that process, whenever possible, and we've had a lot of success about this, but whenever possible, we require those food trucks to be connected to a permanent source of power. So, if they're on the same property as an existing business.

0:40:59Then we very strongly encourage them to, connect to that business, with permanent power.

0:41:07sometimes that's not always possible. We have, you know, we've… we've permitted food trucks on vacant lots when, permanent power is not always available, so… but it's rare. Usually, usually we can get them to do it.

0:41:22So what we've done through this ordinance is limit the duration at which a generator could be operating. And the intent of that is, you know, to acknowledge that, like, yeah, there will, you know, we have businesses that are interested in doing temporary food pop-ups, so that might only be for a few hours at a time.

0:41:42Right? And so, there are limitations right now on battery capacity for battery-type generators.

0:41:49And so, you know, we wanted to acknowledge that, and also cost of those types of systems, so we wanted to allow the flexibility of those types of pop-up events to use the type of power that was feasible for them, but we also didn't want to create a lot of noise issues, so we limited the duration that a generator could be operating to what we thought was a reasonable time frame.

0:42:14Thank you I may have some questions, but I'd like to go to public comment next.

0:42:21So the public hearing is now open. Now is the time for the members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card, using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9 if joining by phone.

0:42:40In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments. City Clerk, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. We have one request to speak on this item. Howdy Gowdy.

0:43:00Hi, good evening. Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers. My name is Howdy Gowdy, and I live in El Cerrito.

0:43:06So first of all, I want to thank the city for their work on, you know.

0:43:12Crafting a, continued work on allowing a, sort of…

0:43:18Easy and to implement and, flexible, you know, dining,

0:43:27opportunity in the, public right-of-way to make it, you know, more active, and I think it's a positive thing, so I'm very supportive of that. I also am very, happy to see that the,

0:43:40prohibit… prohibition on, fossil fuel-powered space heating is in here. That is an element, I think it was, you know, B… B1.6 in our, Climate Action Plan. I think it was…

0:43:55Slated for, you know, a longer,

0:43:59phase for implementation, so it's great to see it there now, and I'm very supportive of that.

0:44:05And it's fine that it's that way with an exception. So my main comment is on the electrical generator provision, which I think could be, modified to make it a little bit better in alignment with how the

0:44:20that fossil fuel, space heating is, presented in the policy because

0:44:29I think it's appropriate to start from a position of

0:44:32you know, prohibition, and then have an allowance if, you know, it's not feasible, and that's not how the generator one's being, written. I mean, it might be how it's implemented. I do appreciate the cities, obviously worked hard with, vendors to get them to plug in,

0:44:52Proactively, and I've seen that on, you know, I think the Lincoln food truck is a good example of that.

0:45:00And so I definitely appreciate that effort, but I think this language should… should likewise say that fossil fuel-based generators are prohibitive with

0:45:09you know, exceptions for cases that are not feasible. And I think it's also important to call out fossil fuel generators, because the way it's worded now, it just says genera… you know, electric generators. It's not very descriptive.

0:45:25And I think the way that some of these battery inverter systems are being sold, people call them generators, even though, you know, it's just because that's what they can replace, it's not what they are, necessarily. So anyway, I think it's good to be a little bit more specific.

0:45:42be proactively, you know, restricting something, and then providing the flexibility that's needed. I mean, I think the 32 hours out of 30 days is kind of a strange metric, given that

0:45:54you could run 8 hours a day for 4 days in a row if you're willing to not do it for another month. So, I just encourage you to revise that language. I did send an email with some suggestions… Thank you for your comments. Thanks.

0:46:08Thank you. That concludes our request to speak.

0:46:12Okay, it'd be, since a couple council members have brought it up and we've heard from the public, any thoughts on

0:46:19The specific language, and…

0:46:22Why it says just generator, not fossil fuel generator, and also the hours per month and all that.

0:46:29Sure, so the… to address the first point, so we were actually going to define generators, and then as we got into it, it became clear that a definition wasn't

0:46:43wasn't needed. I mean, the type of thing that we're talking about, I think, is a generator versus a battery, right? Something that actually generates power.

0:46:54Versus something that stores power.

0:46:57So, you know, when we got into actually trying to define it, we, you know, we just kind of got in this loop of going around and around and, ultimately decided it wasn't… it wasn't needed, that it was… that the terms themselves were self-explanatory.

0:47:12To the second point, I think, you know, I addressed that a bit.

0:47:18You know, what we were trying to do was… was to maintain flexibility for different types of events and different types of businesses, but still limit the number of hours in a… in a month. So, that would largely, I think, by…

0:47:34By the number of hours that we have chosen, it would limit something that was operating every night of the week, or most nights of the week.

0:47:45you know, so that would… that would still, you know, as I described, we… we encourage those types of

0:47:51businesses to have a permanent source of power that would still accomplish that goal, but would still allow for more temporary pop-up events that might be, you know, might be the same vendor a couple of times a month, might be different vendors at the same location a few times a month. You know, there's a lot of different scenarios, so we were trying to accommodate that and still limit the noise impacts, so just

0:48:16So it's targeted at pop-ups, essentially, because otherwise it's true, the hours don't really make sense for something more permanent. Right.

0:48:25Councilmember Katzanas?

0:48:28what I'd like to do is read the suggested language that Howdy Gaudi provided, and just sort of get your response to that. You have already, but just…

0:48:37To actually know what was proposed.

0:48:39So, would he… he was addressing point B7?

0:48:43The electrical generators is a subtopic. Heading.

0:48:46Use of fossil fuel-driven electric generators is prohibited.

0:48:51The zoning administrator may grant an exception for limited hours of operation with approval of an administrative use permit.

0:48:57If alternative solutions are shown to be infeasible on a financial or technical basis.

0:49:02and applicants minimize noise and air quality impacts to the surrounding neighborhood. So that was the… the edit that was proposed.

0:49:10Do you have a response to that, or a sense of, that's not gonna work, or that can work, or…

0:49:15You know, it's… if that's the… if the Council wants to go in that direction, I think we can propose, you know, we could…

0:49:24kind of… work with it. It's not too… I mean, I would say it's not…

0:49:29Too divergent from what we've proposed.

0:49:32I would say,

0:49:36you know, what we were trying to do, I mean, the intent of this ordinance is really to streamline processes, right? And so…

0:49:43you know, the… we've tried to really limit the need for administrative use permits, to very specific examples. So, like, for example, when, if there's an outdoor use that's proposed and it's not in conjunction with an existing business, that's one example of when an AUP would be required.

0:50:02So, the, the exception that we created for,

0:50:10what's the other one? Outdoor, the… the outdoor space heating, space heating, yeah.

0:50:15I don't think it… it doesn't specifically say an administrative use permit, right? So that might be kind of too cumbersome a process, you know, if we're trying to kind of make sure things are streamlined.

0:50:28Does that… does that make sense? Anything else you want me to comment on? That makes sense. I don't have a sense of what that administrative use permit

0:50:35process is, and I hear you say it's cumbersome, but I don't know from experience what it's like. Yeah, so there… I can kind of describe it. So, there… sometimes it involves a public hearing, sometimes it doesn't. That's kind of… either the ordinance specifies that, or it's at the discretion of the zoning administrator, so we try to, you know, not hold public hearings when something… when we know something is not going to be controversial, for example.

0:50:59But there are, you know, there would need to be findings made, so it does require some staff time. There is an additional cost for the applicant because, we have to recover, the cost of the city's, the city's costs for, that process.

0:51:16So there are findings that would need to be made. We usually do that in the form of a memo.

0:51:20And then, it gets… it gets approved, like I said, either in a hearing or… or not.

0:51:27Okay, thank you.

0:51:30Councilmember Montayama.

0:51:32Thank you. So, I do understand the intent of prohibiting fossil fuel fossil fuel fuels

0:51:45electrical generators, and I think the, you know, this ordinance took a really long time, and I think it's great. It's what we were hoping for, but I think the technology

0:51:56is changing faster than, you know, our ability to update ordinances. So, I think the idea of, you know.

0:52:05You know, some point in the future, say that these are prohibited, Or, you know.

0:52:13And at the discretion of the zoning administrator, you know, just like the space heaters would be good. I think when we first, had that discussion at Council about the space heaters.

0:52:27It was like, oh, those are too expensive.

0:52:29But there are now, sort of, cheaper ways to do it. And so I think that what I don't want to have happen is people just are using diesel generators with impunity, and there's no way to say, hey, there are cleaner alternatives. So I would rather put the cleaner alternative first.

0:52:49And then have some, you know.

0:52:52Easy way for you guys to say, well, you know, the…

0:52:57affordable generators don't exist, so up until they do, we can just say, not required, or something like that, you know. Is that possible to do?

0:53:07I think that would be possible to do. We could model it, like I said, after the…

0:53:12Space heater prohibition.

0:53:15Yes.

0:53:17We're gonna need the ordinance language.

0:53:21do you need some time to work on language? Because we have other items. You can always come back. I just don't want to… I want to be careful and make sure if we're going to make amendments to this, we do it in a thoughtful way, since there has been a lot of process already.

0:53:36So if you do need time, we could always, I believe, pause this and come back.

0:53:41Here we go.

0:53:42Skye, I, I have a question for you. So, in terms of the introduction of this ordinance versus approval, what kind of changes can be made? Like, how substantive of changes can be made between both introductions?

0:53:58No changes can be made between introduction and adoption. The ordinance has to be adopted as introduced. Council could introduce it and then make changes and then introduce it with modifications, so it would end up being a third meeting before it would be adopted.

0:54:16these are not changes to the ordinance so much as they're changes to the program guidelines. I think that we bifurcated those things originally because of this reason, so if we can

0:54:29Are we… can we change the program guidelines, without having

0:54:36redo the whole ordinance. Let me take a quick look.

0:54:52Yeah, that's a good point, and I'll just say, Sky, while you're looking at that, I think the…

0:54:58the way we drafted this was to allow the guidelines to be amended administratively, so I think that would be an option. We could just… we could amend them with a change to make the generator language similar to the space heating language.

0:55:16I'd like to make a motion. Can we hear from our attorney first?

0:55:21Let's wait to hear from our city attorney.

0:55:25And Mayor Pro Tem, while you're waiting for that, you do need a motion to close the public hearing. We did meet that step, so you can do that. I have a motion to close the public hearing. I'll move. Do we have a second? I'll second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with Mayor Kinto and Councilmember Weisinger absent.

0:55:44Got a question… I've got a question in turn. The… in section,

0:55:511920150B2, the outdoor dining and Retail Program guidelines are described as adopted by the City Council.

0:56:03But that is not the intent, right? See, the intent is for them to be created by staff, maintained by staff, updated as necessary, but not actually approved by Council as part of this ordinance? Correct. So I'd suggest that we remove the phrase, adopted by City Council.

0:56:21And… and so it would just… so that section would say, the establishment, operation, and maintenance of an outdoor dining or outdoor retail use shall come with all requirements and regulations contained in the outdoor dining and Retail Program guidelines most recently in effect.

0:56:35And then, since those are going to be not approved by Council, they're not part of the ordinance, so, Council could, introduce the ordinance tonight.

0:56:44staff would take the direction about the change to the guidelines, and those would be done administratively. But we could certainly bring back the updated version of the guidelines and include them for Council as part of action on the adoption of the ordinance.

0:56:59So, do you have a motion now? Yes. So, I would like to move… Approval of the…

0:57:06ordinance, with the changes as suggested by our city attorney, to take out the part where

0:57:16the… Program guidelines need to be approved by Council.

0:57:20And then also incorporating some, typos, which I sent to staff prior, and…

0:57:29And I also would like to, you know, with the direction to staff of looking into the fossil fuel

0:57:36Generators, that they should be prohibited.

0:57:40So… That makes sense. Just a question before we go to a second and a vote.

0:57:46this is looking into, but it's ultimately going to be up to staff, so if you, you know, hear from a pop-up that what's… like, how are you… be helpful to know how… what the interpretation of that is, and what is the balance between getting some new businesses in, and yeah.

0:58:01Yeah, we will revise the guidelines and bring that back to you with the second reading of the ordinance.

0:58:09With the adoption of the ordinance, we can include that as an attachment. But I also want to clarify what the City Attorney said. Making these changes, the next time this comes back will actually be a reintroduction of the ordinance, and then it will come back at the following meeting for adoption?

0:58:25No, I understood it, Councilmember Motayama introduced the ordinance with the change that I had read, with the understanding that staff would update the guidelines, and that the updated guidelines would be included in the packet, so that when the ordinance comes back, it would be available for Council to adopt the ordinance, but to see the guidelines as revised.

0:58:46So, do we have a second on the motion? We do not.

0:58:49I will second. Okay, and before we go to the vote, I just have a couple questions, one related to this.

0:58:55just, this brings up this larger issue about generators in our city, and I don't expect you to have this answer, but I'm just kind of putting this out there that I'd like to hear from staff about our policies on generators in general. We, I believe, allow them in at least one park. I don't know if they're allowed in other parks where you can get a permit to run, like, bouncy houses at Cerrito Vista.

0:59:19So is there gonna be any effort citywide, you know, especially if it's somewhere buried down in the Climate Action Plan, like.

0:59:26What are we gonna do to try to bring, kind of.

0:59:29And I don't know, there might be other uses, too. That's just the one that comes to top of mind, and I did hear of a city up in Marin County, I can't remember which city, that they just retrofitted their parks, and now they ban the generators because they have electricity there for bouncy houses, so…

0:59:46I think that, to me, is more of a concern than a generator on a sidewalk. It's a generator in a park with a bunch of kids around, so if we're… I don't know, that, like, a couple times a month versus a generator every weekend in a very popular park, so I think we should weigh these things, and would hope staff would look at

1:00:05Everywhere else, we might be allowing generators today.

1:00:10And then I had another question, which is about food trucks, and just, like, how much of a burden it is to get the permits today, and if there's more we can do. Because outdoor dining is great, and I'm excited we're going to move forward with this, it seems like.

1:00:27But there isn't very much of it in El Cerrito.

1:00:30And I don't know how we can get more businesses to do it, but not even that many were doing it during COVID, which I can't imagine more incentive than during COVID. So it just might be the spaces aren't right, and it seems like a big opportunity for outdoor dining is actually through food trucks. We do have some of them.

1:00:49But I just wanted to know a little bit more about what the kind of administrative burden is for those businesses, and

1:00:56Is there more we need to do on that front?

1:00:59Yeah, I can comment on that. So, actually, within the last several years, we've actually kind of

1:01:06eased up on our, restrictions of food trucks and, kind of found a path forward for that. So,

1:01:15you know, we've permitted a handful of them, and you've probably seen, seen some of them. And this ordinance makes that process even easier. So actually, so food trucks now would be,

1:01:29would fall within this program, this streamlined process, if they were in conjunction with an existing business. So that's like, you know, if a bar wanted to have, you know, have a food truck, come in the evening, you know, like, similar to what the Hotsy Totsy does with the food truck that's there every night.

1:01:47That would be through this program.

1:01:50Similarly, if a food truck wanted to locate… we've had actually one food truck in the past located in the parking lot of a shopping center, say, and that was in, you know, in conjunction with the landlord's permission, or in conjunction with one of the businesses in the shopping center, that would be through this, through this streamlined process.

1:02:10So where they would continue to, require administrative use permits.

1:02:15Is, you know, if they were not in conjunction with an existing business, which

1:02:20A lot of times would be, like, if they were on a vacant property, or a property that didn't have a business on it. And the reason… the reason that's set up that way is, you know, through the streamlined process, we wanted to make sure there was kind of some oversight of these types of activities.

1:02:36When it's completely, you know, when it's a completely separate business on a vacant property, or a property that doesn't have an active use on it.

1:02:46We just… we want to be able to review them and make sure, you know, that they're going to be attractive for the city, and that they're going to be run well, and that the, you know, the operating standards are going to not… the operating characteristics are not going to cause impacts for the surrounding neighborhood, for example.

1:03:03Okay. Well, I know this is sort of separate from this, but I… something I'd like to look into in the future is

1:03:10Can we bring more food trucks to the places where there aren't already existing businesses? Because that's where they don't compete, and so we have, like, thousands of people who come to this

1:03:21you know, swim center and community center in Cerrito, Vista Park, that whole area. Some of our other parks have a whole ton of people who come, but there's no businesses for people to spend money on, and a lot of the folks are coming even from outside of El Cerrito, and they don't even have an opportunity to spend money here, and they're here summer for sports every weekend. So I think there's more that we can do. I'm excited we're moving forward on this, but I think there's more we can do to get creative.

1:03:46to generate some more revenue for our city and make our residents and visiting folks, you know, happier with their experience here, so…

1:03:56Thank you, and I'm actually… Ayesa Ashuri is messaging us as we're speaking, so I will, tell you also that the EDC is going to be undertaking some outreach, around this.

1:04:09And, trying to approach businesses that they, see could benefit from it, and we're going to be doing, a Chamber… a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce, soon as well. Great. Well, thank you. If there are no more questions, we can go to the vote. Hey, all those in favor, please say aye.

1:04:28Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with… Mayor Kinto and Councilmember Weissinger.

1:04:35Thank you.

1:04:36So next, we'll move on to policy matters. item 8A, the fiscal year 2026-27 and 2027-28 budget study session. Can we please have the staff report?

1:05:43Okay, good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members, Crystal Reams, Finance Director. I am standing in for our wonderful City Manager and our Budget Manager, so, I will give the… give the introduction.

1:05:56So, what we have for you this evening, the City Council Budget Study Sessions, this is our department presentations.

1:06:03This will be a high-level draft preview. Departments will be presenting their overview of their staffing, highlights and accomplishments from 25-26, and along with their work plan and focus for 26-27.

1:06:17We do not have, the numbers finalized yet, so we don't have any of the details, so again, this will be the high level, high level. We are continuing to focus on non-departmental special funds and our cab improvement, budget, implementation, so all those are still, still in progress.

1:06:37As a reminder, the, City's strategic plan is our… that's our guide for, the budget process, and departments use that to align, their work plans with the strategic plan, and the, detailed strategic plan 24, 2024 through 2029 can be found on the City's website.

1:06:58The main priorities are high-performing organization, community safety, environmental sustainability, livability and belonging, and infrastructure and amenities.

1:07:11With that, I will turn it over to our Assistant City Manager, Alex Orlogos.

1:07:16Thank you, Crystal.

1:07:18So I'll be going over the internal service departments with the help of our city clerk, as well as Finance Tricker. So, with city management, we really provide leadership and direction to all the departments in the city. We oversee the day-to-day operations of the department, and serve as a central liaison to the public.

1:07:39We also ensure the implementation of all of the policy directions that you provide us at City Council. Our core functions are the City Manager's Office itself.

1:07:51the City Clerk, Human Resources, and IT. Next slide.

1:07:57So here's just an overview of the staffing of city management. It's just 10FTs, spoiler alert. We have various position titles on the left-hand side there. Those are position titles that have been in existence, or positions that have been in existence.

1:08:15For the past, 5 fiscal years. But as you can see, there's 12

1:08:19Classifications here, but only 10 actual positions, in fiscal year 25-26.

1:08:28Next slide.

1:08:30So, just some highlights and recent accomplishments. With city management, you know, the general fund reserves are right now at 41% of the budget. That's as of mid-year. That is something that we are very proud here in Mountain El Cerrito. When I arrived in El Cerrito 7 years ago.

1:08:49The, reserves were zero.

1:08:51So, even though we have a lot more work to do, this is still something that we should be very, very proud of as a city.

1:08:58With respect to the National Community Survey that was issued in fall of 2025, we received a 90% rating of residents that said that El Cerrito was an excellent or good place to live, and that is above average nationally. We are also very proud of that.

1:09:18This year, also, we saw the implementation of the Quad City Core Team Partnership. This partnership has been… has been implemented for the last

1:09:29couple years, but this past year, this current fiscal year, we actually have had this partnership with West County Cities, which has been really important to us. So that's with Sam Pablo, Pinole, and Hercules, and you should be hearing more about this at the Municipal Services Corporation meeting on April 21st.

1:09:51Spoiler alert, we will be asking for reauthorization.

1:09:55Also, during this past year, we implemented our second legislative platform. The first legislative platform was implemented in 2025, and you all just approved the second legislative platform this past February that allowed us to position on 7 bills

1:10:15In the… in the last legislative year.

1:10:19We are also really proud about the federal earmarks that we've received. We have officially received $3.85 million in federal earmarks. Again, I say this with a large caveat that we haven't received this money yet.

1:10:33This money was just included in the federal budget by Congress, but the city administration

1:10:40Still has to go through a non-competitive grant process to receive those funds.

1:10:44Specifically, this includes $3 million for the Community Housing Works Affordable Housing Project at the old Taco Bell site, as well as $850,000 for the El Cerrito Plaza Transit-Oriented Development Complete Streets project.

1:11:03So, we are very extremely proud of that, and as you noted, Mayor Pro Tem, we did apply for another set of earmarks this year, actually, last… for this year, but we actually applied for them last week to our legislators. So, wish us luck on that.

1:11:21We also transitioned to .gov, and this was a really big deal for us. We did this last August, to comply with AB 1637, which required all cities and counties in California to transition to a .gov platform. The legislation requires this by 2029, and we were able to complete this in 2025.

1:11:45Regarding human resources, we filled 13 and a half vacancies since July 1st. We relaunched the EC Stars internship program with El Ceedo High School. We also, achieved 3-year contracts with both our fire union, as well as a, resolution for the management confidential group.

1:12:07We also implemented the requirements of SB553, which is the Workplace Violence Prevention Plan and Policy, and we have an interdepartmental working group, a policy, and a structure all put together for that implementation.

1:12:22We also did the classification and compensation study, which you all know about, and that took several years to do. And last but not least from HR, we did conduct a benefit audit, that was internally citywide.

1:12:36For city employees, to be able to ensure that city employees had the right beneficiaries on their insurance, which you can imagine, if that does not happen, that's a liability for the city.

1:12:47Next slide.

1:12:54Hello everyone, Holly Charlottie, the City Clerk. So briefly, just to kind of review some of the big accomplishments that the City Clerk's Division has been able to accomplish, there is only two. We are mighty and strong, but we are only two full-time employees.

1:13:09So any additional project on top of our regular work is always a huge undertaking. So, our biggest partnership with IT, this year is the current upgrades to our Emergency Operations Center, our Council Chambers, to improve our audio-video equipment, which will not only improve the ability to hold council meetings.

1:13:29that are more accessible and transparent for the public, it will be easier for staff to administer those meetings, so we're very excited and eager to get back into the Council Chambers this month.

1:13:38We also…

1:13:40completed the process to do the administrative and regulated process for the Citizen Initiative measure, which you all have heard a lot about this year, and is still in process with a election called for June. We're in the argument process right now, so we are nearing the end of that.

1:14:00But it's a huge undertaking getting through that process and making sure it was as transparent as possible. We also worked on implementation for SB707, which are substantial revisions to the Brown Act.

1:14:12That is a…

1:14:14component of the project for upgrading audio-video, as well as the Council policy updates that the City Council recently approved, and that is work that is going to continue moving forward, as all we have done so far at this point is done all of the required implementation, but there are still some implications that we do need to consider moving forward.

1:14:34We also, helped spearhead the administrative portion of the dissolution for the successor agency for the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency. That was a big partnership with not only finance, but community development to get that process taken care of.

1:14:51We continue to focus on reducing our off-site record storage, and we're able to get 13% reduction. That is one of the few costs associated with our records program that is ongoing, and the more we can digitize and get out of our off-site record storage, the more we can reduce that monthly cost.

1:15:09We also had a successful Contra Costa Mayors event that we hosted.

1:15:13And just a couple by the numbers, some of those day-to-day things that we are responsible for, and this is just really two-thirds of the year, but as of this presentation, we're at 237 public record requests, filled. We've held 97 public… sorry, 94 public meetings.

1:15:32That's all of our advisory body meetings and our city council meetings, and we've processed 44 advisory body applications, and with that comes the appointment process, the process to go through, make sure everyone is in compliance with all of the regulations, getting everyone onboarded, and participating in those advisory body meetings.

1:16:01Thank you, Holly.

1:16:02I'll just go through IT very quick. Obviously, as Holly stated, IT has been knee-deep in the audio-visual upgrades for the City Council Chambers, and hopefully this is our last meeting in Hanna Gardens.

1:16:15Secondly, IT also worked with getting satellite-based internet service for some of our major city sites. This was to really increase our resiliency regarding elect…

1:16:28Electric out… outages, as well as other unforeseen circumstances, like,

1:16:35cutting of copper wires, which have actually happened quite a bit in El Cerrito. So this really has been important for us to be able to make sure that our communications are stable during emergencies.

1:16:50Also, IT has worked with the private sector and some of our vendors in achieving cost savings. We just included the most major one up here, which was to consolidate both the Adobe software and the Microsoft software licensing to achieve 30% savings. And then lastly, also, IT has been busy in implementing network security improvements to increase our cybersecurity

1:17:14security.

1:17:16Next slide.

1:17:18So, for the next two, the next two fiscal years, our focus and work plan are really focused on a handful of things. First is really taking steps to right-size the budget and to reduce the city's structural deficit. We have a long road ahead. We have a lot of work to do, and so this is our number one priority.

1:17:38We also will be implementing the service delivery study recommendations. We are currently waiting for the draft report from the consultant. We expect that report any time now, and we'll be presenting that to the City Council this spring.

1:17:52Also, as you heard earlier, we will be working with the City Clerk's Office on implementing the Library Task Force, and we'll also be pursuing… continue to pursue grants and earmarks and… and monitoring state legislation.

1:18:08For IT, we will be,

1:18:11We will be maintaining critical IT support to really stand up the day-to-day operations of the city. In that photo right there is Eric Ging, our IT manager, as well as Luz, and she is a network security engineer. They are joined by Kevin, who works in police and fire, who really, the three of them.

1:18:34uphold all of IT for the whole city. So that right there is our server room, which is pretty amazing and yet scary. At the same time, all of those wires are a little bit scary for me. But really, it's just the three of them, and they do so much to be able to, give us as staff the ability to provide services for our community and to really stand up our day-to-day operations.

1:18:59So… so thank you, IT.

1:19:01And then last but not least, IT is going to be focusing on improving prevention and recovery technology for cybersecurity and resiliency. We've had a couple instances in the past regarding cybersecurity, and we take it very seriously, and so we have been investing in the last few years, on cybersecurity softwares, and also just

1:19:23Educating our staff about cyber… cyber attacks and behaviors, and the do's and don'ts of really operating on city servers and city computers.

1:19:37With that, I will give the mic to our City Clerk.

1:19:41So, looking ahead for the City Clerk's Office, we are already in the planning stages for preparing for our regular November City Council election.

1:19:51And partnering with the City Manager's Office to facilitate the Library Task Force.

1:19:56We are also gearing up to do some work with the new City Council Ad Hoc Committee for reviewing advisory bodies, and with that does come some discussion and focus on the remaining items for SB707 that need to be considered for implementation.

1:20:13Also tied to those last two items is looking at streamlining our agenda management process for our city advisory body. So we are looking and in the process of

1:20:24Consolidating all of our advisory bodies and meeting materials into the same system that we use for City Council, so that our users can go to one place to get all of the information available.

1:20:34That is a big undertaking on the back end, and a lot of administrative work.

1:20:39And then moving in… into our off-election year, the second fiscal year, we tend to switch our focus from election work to records work and focusing on our records program. So, continuing to look at ways that we can expand digitizing our physical records, getting information available electronically on our online records portal, so folks can self-serve on that, and then also looking at refining our administrative policies for the program areas that we're

1:21:04responsible for, and that does include a lot of our,

1:21:08Records policies and processes, our policies surrounding the agenda process, our internal processes for things like that.

1:21:17And then back to City Manager for HR.

1:21:19Okay, I'll wrap up a minute.

1:21:25I will wrap up administration, and then we'll go on to the finance department. So human resources in the next couple years will be focusing a lot on diversifying recruitment efforts and continuing efficiencies and automating processes.

1:21:39HR already in this fiscal year has really been actively working to diversify recruitments in a number of ways, in terms of participating in local job fairs, connecting with youth organizations and local colleges to post vacancies on their job boards, as well as reaching out to different organizations and doing presentations and so on and so forth. So, we're really excited to be continuing that work.

1:22:04work into the next two fiscal years. Also, we will be focusing on negotiating new contracts with the police and fire chiefs, as well as the Police Employees Association.

1:22:15And then also, we will be focusing on our risk management and updating our injury and illness prevention plan. That is a huge priority to us, as risk management is a huge priority to us.

1:22:28And then, last but not least, we will continue on supporting the Human Relations Commission and all their efforts and what they do for the city. They are focused on the education and communication of social justice.

1:22:44and equity initiatives in the city. So, as you know, they are the ones that run the MLK Parade every year, which is just such a cherished event here in the city. So, with that said, I will turn the microphone to Crystal Rams. Thank you. Hello again.

1:23:01So for the finance department, we support the financial and fiscal sustainability of the city, and we ensure that activities are performed, recorded, and presented in compliance with our professional, and ethical standards.

1:23:13Our core functions, budget, we produce the, biennial budget every two years. We do quarterly updates to Council. Treasury, cash management, we provide, monthly report or quarterly reports for, our Treasury as well.

1:23:29financial reporting, we're preparing our ACFR, annual comprehensive financial report. We also do a multitude of other, financial reports, state reports, state controller reports. There's probably about

1:23:4320 different, reports that we prepare annually, plus quarterly reports.

1:23:48Accounts payable, we process a weekly check run, along with, as always, emergency issue checks. Accounts receivable, processing all of the revenue receipts.

1:23:59Payroll, we process a bi-weekly payroll, and then a monthly payroll process. Purchasing, all of the per- all the city's purchasing functions, for tracking run through, run through our, financial system, and, debt… debt management.

1:24:18our department is pretty, pretty small. We have 6, 6 total. We have one vacancy right now. Our senior accountant position has been vacant since November, so, duties have kind of shifted around, and we're, helping… everybody's helping out to pitch in.

1:24:35the… that position has… we do have a conditional offer for that position, so I'm excited about that. Hopefully, our person starts in the end of April. That's our… those are our positions.

1:24:47Our recent highlights. Again, I said this at the Council Retreat, but I am really proud of us. For the first time in over 12 years, we, we submitted our ACRA, the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, on time.

1:24:59That is… that's a… that's a pretty big undertaking. and I should have added, with our staff, all but one of our staff members are new to the city within… under… under two years.

1:25:12So our payroll person has been here for 20 years, but otherwise, everybody else has been here less than me, and I've only been here about two and a half years, so…

1:25:21It's a pretty big accomplishment to be able to do these things on time with the staff that is still learning the ins and outs in the organization, and some of them are even new to governmental accounting, so there's a bit of a learning curve.

1:25:34We've implemented two new modules in our financial system. Our Enterprise Resource Planning System houses all of our financial, our HR, all of our information. It's a big priority for us to,

1:25:47Implement efficiencies, use the software to leverage, any of those efficiencies and workflows and things that we can do to save time and improve accuracy.

1:25:57We've completed the cost allocation plan and master fee study.

1:26:01And ongoing implementation of improved, budget book. So this year, we are working with Public Works to implement the CIP, the Capital Improvement Plan budget portion of our budget software. So it's a very big undertaking for our Public Works staff, so we appreciate them very much.

1:26:23For fiscal year 26, 27 and 27-28, our focus remains… remains the same as we have been, review and revise city policies and procedures related to finance. We want to make sure that all of our departments, are operating, consistently, under our policies and procedures.

1:26:43We're continuing to overhaul our ERP to, again, implement those efficiencies.

1:26:48We will be completing the citywide asset verification, and inventory. We'll use this to implement… fully implement. We have a capital asset module that, is not currently… we have it, it's not being used, so our goal is to fully implement that to help in our financial tracking.

1:27:05We're working hard this year to try and improve our payroll processing and auditing improvements, again, with as much automation as we can. And, we're working hard to develop cross-training plans and programs, being as that we are very small, we do need to help cover for vacations and leaves and things like that.

1:27:26With that, I will turn it over to our Recreation Department Director, Chris Jones.

1:27:36Thank you.

1:27:38Good evening, honorable Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members. I'm Chris Jones, the City's Recreation Director.

1:27:44The Recreation Department, as you probably know, runs a full range of services for people of all ages.

1:27:52Core functions include our adult programs and senior services, operations at our swim center, childcare and after-school programming, summer camps and enrichment classes.

1:28:04Park and facility rentals, programming, and planning, and we do a lot of that in coordination with the Public Works Department.

1:28:11Running special events.

1:28:13Volunteer programs and citywide custodial services.

1:28:18At all city buildings.

1:28:22There we go.

1:28:25The city has… the Recreation Department has, 20 full-time employees.

1:28:32Up from the pandemic, when we had 18. And actually, prior to the pandemic, we had 23 positions.

1:28:40These positions are mostly programming staff, as well as, 3 administrative staff and 5 custodians.

1:28:48And then barring a graphic from my friends in the community development department, I created a organization chart by function, so not necessarily by divisions, but how we're organized.

1:29:03So we have one supervisor that's in charge of aquatics and administration, who oversees the swim center, and then our administrative functions, such as customer service and registrations.

1:29:15We have one supervisor who oversees our community services function, which includes

1:29:21Youth programming, more on the contract, side of things, third-party contractors.

1:29:28Fitness, specialty classes and special events, as well as sports, both sports programming and, sports facility rentals.

1:29:38As well as our marketing functions, so our rec guide, our e-newsletter, social media, etc.

1:29:45And then we have another supervisor that's responsible for adult programs, senior services, and facilities. They oversee the enrichment classes and fitness classes for adults and seniors. Senior services, including our paratransit.

1:30:00our nutrition program, our lunch program that's operated in conjunction with the Contra Costa County.

1:30:06and presentations and special events.

1:30:10As well as our facilities, so both the custodians and, our indoor facility rentals.

1:30:18And then finally, our biggest area is our child care

1:30:22Which does both licensed and school-based aftercare programs. Our city clubhouses have licensed childcare, and then we have aftercare on the school campus, and those are

1:30:33Technically school-based programs, not licensed, as well as preschool-age programming, and then our summer camps that are staff-run, so we call those our traditional staff, camps.

1:30:48So, recent highlights, and accomplishments include increased senior socialization and programming, and we've done that in… with our senior social.

1:30:59times that are offered, 3 days per week. We've had over 1,100 drop-ins, since we started that program.

1:31:09We've had 300 people in our Coffee and Conversations, monthly presentations where city staff from different departments come and present on certain topics, and I believe, police, are the most recent ones to do that, and we're appreciative of their time.

1:31:26We've also worked with Meise on Wheels to offer some free programming, something that we don't really have a lot of anymore, classes, free classes.

1:31:35One of those bingo size recently ended due to funding, but we still have a balance class, that's operating in partnership with Meals on Wheels.

1:31:46we have expanded our holiday events in coordination with the West Contra Costa, Adult School Program. They have three, single-day,

1:31:58drop-in senior programs, and we worked with them on coordinating holiday events, which was well received and well attended, as well as we reintroduced our volunteer appreciation event last year.

1:32:13In terms of childcare and after-school programming, we really struggled since the pandemic to have consistent, staffing, and we relied a lot on,

1:32:25contract help, and this year, we've really been able to stabilize that. We've had, you know, with the Council's support in increasing our wages to be more competitive, our part-time wages to be more competitive.

1:32:39We've been able to really recruit high-quality candidates, retain them more often, and then honestly, you know, have a pool of folks

1:32:48When we need to recruit again, and that wasn't always the case in the past.

1:32:53And we've… and with that, we've increased our professional development. Our staff has spent a lot of time in this room, actually, working with,

1:33:03CalSAC on youth development, classroom management, those types of things that are really important in making sure that we offer high-quality and safe child care programs.

1:33:14And then, we're always looking to, improve our technology and customer service.

1:33:21Through automation, and, finding efficiencies. And last year, reintroduced the annual waiver, which basically means that somebody can sign a waiver once for the whole year, and they don't have to sign it over and over again, and with lots and lots of paper, and

1:33:37You know, appreciative to our city attorney for helping us implement that.

1:33:41But it's really been very helpful in, you know, getting more staff capacity and, you know, not burdening folks with having to fill out a piece of paper every time they show up for a class.

1:33:53And then we also introduced online ticket sales and guest checkout, meaning that pretty much anything we do now, we… so, like, special events, we have the right method of online registration for it, and we're not kind of co-opting

1:34:08our activity module for something it wasn't really designed to do. And then guest checkout, a lot of… a barrier to a lot of things was people don't want to make an account just for, you know, one crab feed ticket a year, and so now we have the ability for them to, check out as a guest.

1:34:31Crystal's blocking my access here.

1:34:33Okay,

1:34:36In terms of projects, we are fully in. I'm sure you've all seen the dust that kind of hangs over the community center the past week.

1:34:46The replaster project, the swim center, the lap pool, is well underway. They just started tiling, today, which is very exciting, because it means we're

1:34:58We're almost there.

1:35:00And then our parking lot has, that project, which is to improve accessibility.

1:35:06From the parking lot, path of travel to the community center, swim center gate.

1:35:11as well as install EV charging and bioretention facilities, has begun. We're in the second week, and we're in the demo phase, so it's a very messy phase, and there's a lot of detours and routes, and we certainly appreciate our customers' patience in navigating all of that.

1:35:32So that's a highlight. An accomplishment under projects would be working in coordination with Public Works and finance, honestly, for our pickleball court and, tennis center

1:35:44implementation. Those are two community, generated and funded projects and improvements to public amenities.

1:35:53In terms of the 4th of July, we had a few, firsts this past year. We raised almost $50,000 in sponsorships and donations.

1:36:03We had a visit from, Senator Adam Schiff, which was, unexpected…

1:36:08delightful surprise, and I think it went really well, and he was pleased. And working with the police department, we did a few enhancements to our security to, you know, help ensure safety of all the festival attendees.

1:36:25We also received, some awards.

1:36:29Best of Contra Costa County 2025 Parents Press Awards. We had one winner and 8 top 5. The winner was LEGO Camp.

1:36:39And top 5 was aquatic camps, STEM camps, art classes, enrichment and after-school programs, martial arts, science and technology programs, swim classes, and childcare facilities.

1:36:51We also… From the Chamber of Commerce received some Best of El Surio awards.

1:36:58Including Best Yoga Teacher, Best Swim Lessons, and Runner-up for Best Winter Camp and Best Teacher Educator Enrichment Camp. So…

1:37:08Very proud of our instructors and staff involved with those programs.

1:37:18Okay. In terms of focus, and work plan for the next two years.

1:37:24In coordination with the service delivery study, we really want to take a look at our… the Recreation Department structure, and evaluate, you know, are we really, positioning resources

1:37:38Or are there better… are there opportunities to allocate resources differently to increase efficiencies and also help with staff retention?

1:37:48You know, our core function is our programs that we offer, so we're always looking at ways to increase program participation.

1:37:55We want to ensure that our limited resources, both financial and program space, are, serving the most people possible and meeting community needs.

1:38:07Also helping to ensure a more stable, budget and cost recovery by maximizing, participation.

1:38:17You know, we'll continue to look at optimizing our customer experience and staff processes,

1:38:25We want to streamline our internal processes for staff, including using new technology wherever possible.

1:38:31We always need to keep up with updating our training manuals and our standard operating procedures to ensure that we're well equipped and have the knowledge and tools needed to provide exceptional service and maintain safety.

1:38:43And we want to explore online forms automation that integrates with the city's RecTrac registration software.

1:38:52you know, less time digging through papers, making sure that things are turned in. We want to automate that process to make sure we have the most accurate information, in case of an emergency, as soon as possible.

1:39:10We… one of the things that we're looking at, and it's a little up in the air right now, is that in terms of our… the Senior Nutrition Program, we were notified a few months… at the end of last year that, because of the big, beautiful bill at the federal level.

1:39:26Funding for the lunch program was going to be cut, and that we had to move to a cap of 25 participants.

1:39:36per day, and we're used to serving, 50 participants… 50 to 60 participants on Tuesdays, and 40 the rest of the day, so that would have been a big, cut.

1:39:47Since then, the county has said that they've shifted some things around, and we should be able to get through the rest of the year this year fine, but the future is a little uncertain. And so,

1:39:59We've… we've started a, campaign to… to ask if…

1:40:06One, if people are interested in donating or sponsoring lunches for seniors, they cost about $6.50 per lunch, so it's pretty reasonable. And of course, we're also telling our participants, you know, if you have the means to pay $6.50 for your

1:40:24lunch, or some of your lunches, you know, here's how you can do that. So, not a requirement, but just looking at ways

1:40:30Where we could try to prioritize those 25 spots, for those who really need it. So we're keeping a close eye on that, and based on, you know, what next fiscal year looks like from the county, we'll see if we have to really ramp those efforts up.

1:40:48We want to… we're always looking to expand our easy ride paratransit service. We want to purchase an electric van and hire additional drivers, to increase the number of available trips for seniors and individuals with disabilities.

1:41:04So we can meet the demand for accessible transportation in our community. We're really the only ones that can

1:41:11you know, operate more like Uber or a taxi, as opposed to,

1:41:17you know, so people can get to appointments, like, when they need to get to them, which is not always easy on, like, East Bay Paratransit or, other forms of public transit.

1:41:26Especially seniors.

1:41:30We want to, complete and launch our Recreation Department registration app. There's some

1:41:37examples of what it might look like. Here on the right, we've done all the work on our end, to get it… to launch it, and we're waiting for our vendor

1:41:46To work out everything with the Apple and Google platforms, and so hopefully we'll be able to announce that soon, but that should help.

1:41:55really, you know, finally, you know, get with the times where everybody really wants to, you know, is using their phone as their primary device for things like registering and shopping and stuff like that. Hopefully, this will help streamline and make that process easier for folks and more convenient.

1:42:14And then the,

1:42:17both the Park and Recreation Commission and the Committee on Aging, which, recreation staff are the liaison to, are really interested in assessing,

1:42:29the needs of our parks and recreation facilities, as well as community demand and desires. And actually, they're really interested in trying to

1:42:42brainstorm and problem-solve on, like, well, how can we do that? Not just, like, here's our demands and, you know, we'll see you later. So, it's kind of exciting to work with them on those initiatives, and hopefully they'll be, coming before you again soon to talk about that.

1:42:59And then, you know, with our older facilities, accessibility is always an issue, and so

1:43:07We'll continue to look for grants and other funding sources to address accessibility and deferred maintenance issues, so that we can serve residents of all abilities.

1:43:16And also, one thing that we're really keeping an eye on.

1:43:20is that with the school district's financial difficulties, their fiscal response plans, we want to make sure, you know, we operate programs at the schools from dismissal until 6 p.m. every day, and we're hoping that that relationship doesn't change as we're getting ready to enroll

1:43:40For next school year. And actually, just very recently, after this was produced, I was in a meeting with, Superintendent Cotton, and she indicated that they do not have plans to change the custodian's

1:43:54work hours, you know, because that would basically kind of trigger either you can't… the programs have to end when the custodian leaves, or you have to pay this custodian overtime to stay until 6, and so they don't have any plans right now to alter those schedules, which… which is… which is good news.

1:44:12And, that is what I have for the Recreation Department. Thank you.

1:44:18Public Works?

1:44:22Next, we have Public Works, Yvette Ortiz, Public Works Director.

1:44:29Oh, gosh.

1:44:31Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members, Yves Ortiz, the City's Public Works Director. I look forward to sharing some highlights about the Public Works Department.

1:44:40Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Okay.

1:44:42To start here, on this slide is our, department's mission and core functions. Really, our mission is to maintain and enhance a variety of city facilities.

1:44:54Infrastructure, landscapes, and also, implement environmental programs and integrated waste management programs.

1:45:04And our core functions, are split into a couple of different divisions, but it includes engineering, including permits and transportation. It includes capital improvement program planning and implementation, multimodal transportation systems, which I'll get into in a little bit.

1:45:21Maintenance, also, I'll expand on that in a little bit. Our curbside recycling collection, our integrated waste management programs, environmental programs, and a variety of public engagement,

1:45:35opportunities that we run. In addition, the Public Works Department is, emergency responders. You'll see our crew out there, our staff out there, responding to severe weather events. The rainy season is our busiest season, because our crew is out there responding at all hours of the night and on weekends, to severe weather, and also when there's traffic accidents and there's,

1:46:00Knockdowns or, of street lights or, street trees.

1:46:07Next slide.

1:46:10So, the department itself is broken down into two divisions. We have five staff in the engineering division, including myself, and a little bit over 23,

1:46:22staff in our Operations and Environmental Services Division. Operations and Environmental Services Division includes our maintenance functions, our environmental programs, and all the integrated waste management functions that I described.

1:46:38This past year, we actually filled 3 key vacancies in the department, and a few other part-time vacancies that we had as well, after some major, retirements in our department.

1:46:51And, we are curr- we currently have another, two key vacancies in the Operations and Environmental Services Division, including the manager and the maintenance supervisor, and one, vacancy in the engineering

1:47:06Division. As mentioned by a lot of the departments, we're all very lean, so when we have vacancies, it really does affect our service delivery.

1:47:16We are also continuing to evaluate the structure of the Operations and Environmental Services Division. As mentioned by Chris, our Recreation Director, we are looking at ways to increase effectiveness and staff retention by looking at,

1:47:32the structure of that division so that we can also, better focus on our facilities, our deferred maintenance, and environmental compliance, which continues to increase, as mentioned by Christina Leard earlier today.

1:47:48I did want to focus a little bit on our maintenance department. It's a team of seven, including 7 maintenance workers and 1 supervisor. The supervisor position has been vacant since December, so staff has been pitching in as much as possible to fill in the gaps.

1:48:05This team is pretty small and performs and manages a variety of maintenance and repairs for our parks, our buildings, our irrigation systems, our storm drain, our traffic signs and curb markings, illegal dumping and encampment cleanups, and also supplements routine work done by contractors.

1:48:25The city does use contractors to supplement the relatively small team, and these contractors do routine maintenance for landscapes, such as our parks, the Ohlone Greenway, building grounds, and streetscapes, like the streetscapes on Fairmont and San Pablo Avenue.

1:48:43These contractors also do tree pruning and tree removals, both in our streets and parks.

1:48:50And we have a contractor that does traffic signal and street lighting repair and maintenance.

1:48:57And we use a variety of contractors to do specialized work, such as,

1:49:04are servicing and repairing our underground storage tanks that fuel all our city vehicles, including the fire trucks and recycling trucks, and our generators, which are city hall and community center.

1:49:17and our HVAC system. So we use a variety of contractors to supplement the work that's done by our maintenance team.

1:49:24I also wanted to focus a little bit on transportation. It does, go back and forth between, there's a…

1:49:32a lot of functions within the Public Works Department, and more recent… more recently, it's been supplemented by work being done in the Community Development Department. Public Works focuses on transportation engineering and safety for all modes of travel, pedestrians, bicyclists.

1:49:50and, you know, vehicular travel, as well as transit. And then we also do ADA,

1:49:56And we manage our pavement, system, and we also do on-street parking evaluations. But, working closely over the last two to three years now with the Sustainable Transportation Program Manager, we've been doing more transportation planning and grants and collaboration across agencies.

1:50:16I did also, want to add that, I think I covered it all. 5, staff in engineering, 23 in, in operations and environmental services.

1:50:28Next slide.

1:50:30Just wanted to go over some of our, recent accomplishments over the last year plus.

1:50:36One of the biggest ones that our team is very proud of, and working closely with the fire department, we developed and brought to Council for Adoption the Hillside Natural Area Fire Resilience and Forest Conservation Management Plan.

1:50:51And then, in addition to that, we quickly applied for several grants and were successful in, securing a over $500,000 grant for the Coastal Conservancy grant… Conservancy program.

1:51:04That will be implementing what's known as the Albany-El Cerrito Wildfire Resilience Demonstration Project. It will include removal of

1:51:13Over 100, trees in the Hillside Natural Area, replanting, as well as demonstration projects over the community.

1:51:22We are proud that we applied and received the 2025 Platinum Spotlight Beacon Award from the Institute of Local Government for recognizing the city's reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

1:51:38And we also began implementation of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan that was adopted by Council in 2024. We established an internal working group, to implement the CAP.

1:51:50An online dashboard that's available to the public to see our progress with implementation, and also continuing to do,

1:51:59Robust public, outreach and engagement.

1:52:03We… one of the highlights was working with community groups, including the El Cerrito Richmond Annex Walk and Roll Group, City of Berkeley, and BART to, host the, Go, what was it? The Go Green Mobility, fair, last year.

1:52:22We also collaborated with Recycle More to secure a new regional post-collection agreement that goes through 2040. It was a significant lift. Worked really closely with Recycle More.

1:52:34We also implemented,

1:52:38initiatives that were funded by an SB1383 grant, that… which is for composting, I mean, organics recycling. This included ads at the two BART stations, ads on the, East Bay Sanitary Trucks.

1:52:52As well as, targeted public information to over 200 multifamily units regarding organics recycling, which can be more difficult in apartment buildings. And we also distributed over 100 food scrap pails.

1:53:09We, are… we're excited to launch a new routing software for our curbside recycling collection to improve our operations.

1:53:18And we also secured new contracts for e-waste to increase revenues at the recycling center. And we installed over 400, new dual trash can receptacles at parks. That was actually a priority in the Park and Rec Facilities Master Plan to help with trash and litter.

1:53:39at the parks?

1:53:40We expanded our red, flag, parking pilot program to include an additional street segment.

1:53:47Working also closely with the fire department, and we expanded our sidewalk shaving program to accelerated needed safety improvements. We removed over 500 tripping hazards at, like, 53 sites.

1:54:02Shaving is a cost-effective way of removing evening out displacements in the sidewalk, and so we are able to do more work with this type of treatment versus removal and replacement, which can be a lot more costly.

1:54:18We also, implemented the increased clean water program requirements. Every year, even if within the existing permit, there's increasing requirements every year within the term, and that included we had to develop an asset management plan.

1:54:34And also, outreach to private property owners regarding their requirements to capture trash on their private property. We were proud to achieve 100% trash reduction with the current… with the prior requirements that have now changed, effective July 1st.

1:54:52So now we have to do more to achieve 100% trash reduction, because they took away our credits for all the great volunteer work that's done by our residents to pick up trash. So we had to keep thinking of ways to meet those requirements.

1:55:10And, we updated our, couple of webpages to improve the information we're providing to the public, including our Urban Forest Program webpage and our Capital Improvement Program webpage, which is interactive, so the public can see where projects are happening within the city.

1:55:28Next slide.

1:55:31In terms of projects, we had several projects that were constructed, as Chris mentioned, the pickleball courts and the tennis plaza.

1:55:40We also repaired, the community center roof. You see the crane there on the slide. It was a big project. It's not the whole roof, it's a section of the roof, so there's still other needs, but we were able to do, some significant work there. We also repaired the significant,

1:55:58issues, on the Loney Greenway, on the block between Eureka and Stockton.

1:56:05And we completed a huge project, the 2025 street resurfacing project, which resurfaced the fifth of the street on the north end of town.

1:56:13And, also we did our 2025 access modification project, which included, installing new curb ramp ramps and removing and replacing sidewalks that were tripping hazards.

1:56:26And, as I mentioned, the Norte Complete Streets, major effort that we hope to celebrate, this spring with a ribbon cutting. As we communicated, there are some punch list items that are still being completed, but the majority of work is done.

1:56:44And we also did some urgent storm drain repair and maintenance projects, including sediment removal. We had

1:56:51major sediment accumulation, on Fairmont and Kearney, where, you know, we're collecting all the water from uphill, and it's a flat section, so sediment accumulates there. We, did, were able to do that, and do other repairs throughout town.

1:57:08And as shown here, we have several other major projects underway, including the Richmond Street Complete Streets project. We had extensive community outreach.

1:57:18And then the pool projects, as Chris mentioned, and working closely with the Community Development Department, we're working on the pet and pedestrian and bicycle improvements that are related to the

1:57:30El Cerrito Plaza Transit-Oriented Development.

1:57:34Next slide.

1:57:37Moving on to our focus for over the next two years, aligned with the strategic plan, we're hitting all the goals. Really, where our focus is to continue developing and delivering projects, programs, and plans that are currently underway.

1:57:54And also, just strengthening our foundation. As I mentioned, we've had staff vacancies, new staff, so we really… our foundation is recruiting staff, onboarding that staff, and training staff.

1:58:06We lot… with the retirements, just new staff that's not familiar with the city and our program, so there's a lot of training involved.

1:58:14Also, to increase our efficiency and effectiveness, we are looking at ways to procure,

1:58:21maintenance management software. Really, we don't… we have a software that's very clunky, and we are looking at ways to improve that software so we can more easily track work that's both internal and requested by the public.

1:58:38Assign those work orders, and a level of effort, as well as the condition of assets.

1:58:45And then working with finance, we are doing a lot of work on revamping our capital improvement program and long-range capital planning needs.

1:58:55We will continue to, work on and, complete the Public Fleet Zero Emission Vehicle Transition Plan. We got a Metropolitan Transportation Commission grant, to deliver that, and that's,

1:59:10will be completed in this next year, as well as the local road safety plan that's been in development for a couple years. We plan to bring that to Council for review of the high-level concepts and strategies at your first meeting in April.

1:59:26And then also, the update to our Storm Drain Master Plan.

1:59:31I mentioned we'll be, our… I mentioned the, Coastal Conservancy grant project. In addition, we are going to, be, making that pilot program into a permanent program for the red flag parking,

1:59:47parking program, and continuing to implement the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, the Phase 1 strategies.

1:59:56And, we'll move on to the second year of the 2026 resurfacing project. Our goal is to break ground on Richmond Street Complete Streets.

2:00:06And, and then continue to collaborate. We have a lot of strong collaborations with Caltrans, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, and the City of Richmond to deliver a variety of transportation projects.

2:00:21And,

2:00:23continue to, to implement clean water requirements and SB 1383, as well as working on, new permit requirements, like what is known as, MRP 4.0 for clean water.

2:00:37And I'll end there. Thank you so much.

2:00:41Thank you, and actually, before we go to the next department, we're gonna take, I don't know, like a 5-7 minute recess. Since there's only 3 of us here, we can't actually take any breaks without taking a recess, so we're gonna take a very short recess and then come back to the rest of the presentation.

2:08:15Okay, we will reconvene from our recess. Go ahead.

2:08:19Good evening, council members. I'm Paul Keith, your Chief of Police, here tonight to talk about the Police Department and what we've been up to in the last budget year, and going forward into the future.

2:08:29So to start off, I always like to reiterate our mission statement at the El Trideau Police Department. We protect our community, solve crime, and pursue justice. That being said, let's get going.

2:08:43Hmm, it worked, like, 2 seconds ago. Would you mind, moving us forward a slide? Oh, great, thanks, Crystal.

2:09:01All right, so, the department staffing is shown there on the right side of the screen. The authorized count for the police department has stayed pretty stable since, 2021. What's changed is how many positions we filled. So, right now, as of March of 2026,

2:09:18We have two full-time openings. One is for a senior record specialist, and the other's for a police officer. Just interviewed somebody for the police officer position today, so I'm pretty confident we're going to be up to full staffing by, ideally, May.

2:09:31So staffing is going very well at the police department.

2:09:35A couple little statistics snapshots. Calls for service were up just a touch last year, up 2%. Reports taken were down 1%.

2:09:43One of the big changes was moving violations, up 37%.

2:09:47We're gonna talk a bit more about why that is, but that is almost all attributed to the fact that we had a full-time traffic officer in 2025, and he just did a phenomenal amount of work. That's the equivalent of about 900 citations written.

2:10:02Parking violations were up a touch, up 6%. We would have expected them to be up higher, however, we had a key staff member get injured last year, and so he was out for about a quarter of the year. So that kind of impacted our ability to do parking enforcement around El Cerrito.

2:10:17Oh, it's working again. So some recent highlights and accomplishments. I know you still have three… two more presentations after me, so I'm going to try to move through quickly. Looking at significant cases from last year, we had a sexual assault that occurred on the Greenway last year near the Del Norte Bar station.

2:10:33Working together, our patrol division, Investigations Division, we're able to identify the suspect.

2:10:38Stay in touch with our victim, which was a challenge because she was an unhoused person. But we were able to bring the case together, get charges filed against the suspect, get him taken off the street. The case is still ongoing right now.

2:10:51We had a home invasion robbery last year. A couple of suspects entered one of our residents' homes, kind of held them in the house while they stole property from the building. The next day, our patrol division just put out a huge effort to identify a suspect vehicle in the case. They canvassed

2:11:09far and wide in the victim's neighborhood to identify a suspect vehicle. Using that information with the license plate readers, we were able to,

2:11:19figure out where that vehicle had traveled, both in El Cerrito and beyond. So, at the 48-hour mark, our detectives tracked the vehicle down to the city of Dixon, in part using Dixon's license plate reader system.

2:11:30They were able to go up to Dixon, begin a search in the city of Dixon, found the suspect in the vehicle 48 hours later, got a great outcome as a result. We got him in custody that day, and he's been charged with the crime.

2:11:43We also had some pretty significant, successes with our facial recognition software. Going very quickly, we had a residential burglary of a

2:11:51unoccupied house on Potrero. In that case, the suspect's full face was shown on the home surveillance system. So, we didn't have a lot of leads to go off of, but we used that face with our facial recognition system, developed a person of interest based off a record out of the state of Maine.

2:12:07Turned out there was a Maine newspaper article talking about how a Richmond man had been arrested for a crime in Maine.

2:12:13That was our suspect, as it turned out. We were able to use other elements of the case to be able to link him to the crime.

2:12:19We had a hate crime that happened at the beginning of this year over at our Chevron station, a portray on San Pablo Avenue. A suspect in that case used a racial slur, attacked the clerk, broke his nose. We had surveillance footage to go off in that case as well, suspect's face.

2:12:35We ran it through our system, came back with some matches out of North and South Carolina. Previously, I thought it was Chicago, but it was actually North and South Carolina. And using that information, we were able to link it back to a man who was originally from North and… from the Carolinas, but was in the Bay Area at the time.

2:12:52We were able to get some additional evidence linking to the crime. He was also charged with battery in that case.

2:12:57And last but not least, on the facial recognition successes, we had a case that we assisted the City of San Pablo with. One of their former mayors had their car burnt to the ground by an arsonist.

2:13:09They had a surveillance footage, picture of the guy, so we put it through the system, came back with a connection to a serial arsonist out of the Central Valley.

2:13:19Turns out that was the guy. He happened to be in the Bay Area and was just moving through lighting fires as he went. Wasn't a targeted arson, it just so happened to be the former mayor.

2:13:28So bad luck for him, I guess.

2:13:30One of the other cases I wanted to highlight from last year, this was a pretty significant incident for us.

2:13:36One of our supervisors was responding to a theft incident at the Ross store at the north end of town. As he approached the scene, he saw a suspicious vehicle. He got out of his patrol vehicle to approach that car, and the suspects had just fled Ross, entered that vehicle, and struck him with their vehicle as they fled the scene.

2:13:53Our supervisor was out, recovering from his injuries for a couple weeks. He's thankfully okay now. But our patrol officers and investigators working together were able to identify the suspect in that case. He fled that night, managed to make a getaway, but left his car nearby in the city of Richmond, so…

2:14:11We located his vehicle, and eventually located him and arrested him for the crime.

2:14:16But I highlight that because even though El Cerrito can feel safe, and it is a safe community, there are still violent acts that happen, and sometimes our staff members bear the brunt of those incidents.

2:14:28On the training side.

2:14:30We had our, post-audit for our mandated state training for the last two-year cycle. We passed that with 100% compliance.

2:14:39We also started a new training program last year called Policing the Teenage Brain. We've trained half the department last year, we're going to train the other half of the department this year. It's a really innovative nationwide training program, basically teaches officers communication skills for how to deal with teenagers. For those of us that have teenagers in our lives, we know how

2:14:58How helpful it could be to have some communication skills with them.

2:15:01Last year, we also rolled out, e-bikes. We bought two e-bikes last year. We used them on a couple patrol, couple evening patrols. One had kind of a notable deployment one night. We were attempting to track down some copper thieves that had been plaguing the BART path. Our officers were out.

2:15:17stopped a couple suspicious, fellows, ended up, one of them had, methamphetamine and a gun in his possession, so we were able to get the gun off the street. It was a…

2:15:26a, I think it was a ghost gun. So, positive outcome from that. We're talking about ways that we can get the e-bikes out, especially now that we're in a heat dome and the rain seems to be gone. We're, hoping to get some more deployments and

2:15:39As our staffing has increased, so has our flexibility on how we deploy.

2:15:44On the traffic safety front, I mentioned earlier we had a first full year of a traffic officer deployed this year. Had some great…

2:15:50enforcement outcomes from that. But on the negative side, we also had 2 fatal collisions in the last 6 months.

2:15:59Both of those investigations were able to leverage the skills and talents of some trained investigators in the department. There was a fatal collision on San Pablo at Waldo. Our investigators put together a very compelling case for the district attorney's office. They ended up filing vehicular manslaughter charges on the driver.

2:16:16We had another fatal collision, that was tragic, as well, on East Shore at Potrero.

2:16:22Our investigators worked together with, the California Highway Patrol. We did a full forensic analysis of the driver's vehicle, including a black box analysis to,

2:16:33help us determine the causes of the collision. In that case, it was just an unfortunate circumstance of a pedestrian stepping out onto the roadway directly in the path of an oncoming car. So, in that case, we don't believe that negligence on the driver was a component of the collision.

2:16:49Last year on the traffic safety front as well, we had a 33% increase in DUI arrests. So, yeah, 66 DUI arrests in 2024, 88 last year.

2:16:59And this year, I have to say, we're…

2:17:02At about 182% higher than we were last year. So, already this year so far, we've got…

2:17:10Already made 31 arrests this year. That's just through February. So our officers are really out there, on the lookout. Just a public safety announce… or a public service announcement for people in El Cerrito. Don't drink and drive. Some seriously motivated cops out there looking for drunk drivers.

2:17:28Okay, I want to talk about a couple of crime trends that we have been seeing. So, I'm going to call this slide static crime trends. The reason I call it static crime trends is because we've got some up and down variation, but no real…

2:17:42trend that we can identify, at least in my opinion, kind of going forward. So assault, these are crimes that, sometimes domestic violence assaults, sometimes people… two… the two wrong people finding each other on the street.

2:17:55Shoplifting continues to be a consistent problem for the City of El Cerrito, and we're going to talk about some plans we have for that in our future project. But I want you to consider, okay, both these crimes have stayed, you know, kind of within a range, but no real indication one direction or the other.

2:18:14On the other hand, we've got, three different crimes here that I would say are declining crime trends. So robbery is the second lowest it's been in 40 years, burglary is the second… the lowest it's been in 40 years, and same with vehicle theft. So kind of historically low levels for these three crimes.

2:18:32Something I'd like to point out is that orange bar, which represents the year 2023. That is the year we began installing license plate reading cameras in El Cerrito.

2:18:41And I would, posit to you that…

2:18:47License plate reader cameras have had a particular impact on these crimes. It's not solely responsible for the decline, but it certainly has contributed. The crimes of robbery, burglary, and vehicle theft all typically involve vehicles.

2:18:59Robbery suspects need a car to get away in. Burglary suspects need a vehicle to drive away with people's TVs, or Xboxes, or whatever they've stolen out of somebody's house. And the crime of vehicle theft kind of speaks for itself. It involves a car.

2:19:13On the other hand, the crimes of assault and shoplifting, while they sometimes involve a car, don't necessarily involve vehicles. As I said before, assaults are oftentimes, especially in this statistic, domestic violence incidents.

2:19:26Shoplifting cases may or may not involve vehicles. Sometimes people arrive on transit, sometimes people arrive on foot or bicycles. It just kind of depends on shoplifting. Sometimes what they're stealing is a small item that they can easily conceal on themselves, they don't need a vehicle to get away.

2:19:42So I would, say that license plate reader cameras have certainly helped us solve these crimes, and, may also be deterring people from coming to El Cerrito, knowing that there's an effective license plate reading system in place.

2:19:56All right, I'd like to talk about some technology initiatives as well that we have already deployed in El Cerrito. So the first category is license plate readers. I've talked a little bit about this recently. We had a public meeting on one of our license plate reader systems last week.

2:20:11But in El Cerrito, we have two different types of systems. First system's a static system. We have 40 cameras around town.

2:20:16They read license plates, take pictures of vehicles. We also have vehicle-based license plate reading systems, too. Our patrol vehicles all have license plate readers on them, functioning the same way as an early warning system, letting them know if they see a stolen car or want a car, and also serving as an investigative aid after a crime has occurred.

2:20:36It…

2:20:37is not out of the ordinary for a police vehicle to have captured a suspect vehicle either coming or leaving from a crime, so it kind of adds to the investigative tools available to our investigators, or the evidence available to our investigators. Our parking enforcement vehicles also use a license plate reader system. Their use of it is primarily to recover stolen vehicles.

2:20:56And also to enforce time zones in El Cerrita.

2:21:00We have some investigative aids that our detectives use. We have two different programs we use for cell phone forensics. First one is called Celebrate. It allows us to download and access evidence off of a phone, typically in connection with a search warrant.

2:21:13We also have another program called CellHawk. This played a big role in the homicide case we had, that we worked with together with Capitola Police. CellHawk basically is a visualization tool, so you can take cell phone location data.

2:21:26And create a visual of, like a vehicle in motion, all of the places that the vehicle traveled, hitting off various cell towers.

2:21:35gives you a really nice display of where a vehicle went, as opposed to trying to use all of the little data points, figuring out which cell tower got hit and which quadrant in a cell tower. Anyway, it's very helpful for presenting to a jury evidence in a case, especially something like a homicide.

2:21:54Our detectives also used facial recognition. I highlighted 3 of the cases earlier.

2:21:58On the patrol side, we, adopted an AI-assisted report writing program, last year called ABLE AI. Basically, it creates a first draft of a police report for our officers.

2:22:09We're… now we're studying what kind of impact this has on our overtime usage.

2:22:15Particularly as it relates to late calls, so when an officer gets a call later in the day, the time it takes them to write reports after their shift is over, we're looking to see if we can reduce that time through the use of this program to help them get a draft done quicker and be able to leave work.

2:22:32We also think it's gonna make our officers more effective and give them more uptime when they're out on the street.

2:22:38So we're in a one-year contract where we've got a full deployment on patrol, and we're going to evaluate the effectiveness of it. If we're not finding, time-saving results, it's something that, you know, we may or may not continue when it comes up again in December.

2:22:55I already talked about e-bikes. We're planning on getting more officers trained up in e-bikes and getting them out on the street.

2:23:01On the drone side, we have about 12 drone pilots now in the police department. We are getting increased use out of our drones. We have 2 indoor drones, we have 3 outdoor drones with 2 other outdoor drones ordered. The idea is that we get them out to each team, so each team has kind of wide availability.

2:23:21Some things that are interesting, Richmond has a drone as a first responder program, so…

2:23:26Conceptually, they would have a drone up during the middle of the week, flying and going to calls for service and helping direct officers in. But what we found is that they've had trouble keeping that staffed, and so our officers are out there actually helping Richmond quite a bit.

2:23:42With their drone needs, because we have more, drone pilots on duty than they typically have.

2:23:47So, that is kind of a…

2:23:50Another side effect of our pretty strong drone program

2:23:54Another example of how we've used drones in the lead-up to the Solano stroll.

2:24:00We helped the Albany Police Department by doing, basically, a pre-event overwatch of all the rooftops on Solano Avenue to make sure that there were people up there that tended to cause harm to participants, basically as a security precaution. So, another way that we've used drones in support of our neighbors.

2:24:17We also have a couple different camera systems that we use on patrol. We have both body-worn cameras that officers wear on their chest, and fleet cameras. So, cameras in the cars are designed so that when you activate your lighting equipment, the car starts recording and records what's happening.

2:24:34The reason I point that out is that, some of the systems that we have are kind of risk management tools. This is one of them. The body-worn camera helps us have valuable evidence with how our officers interact with people, the actions that they took on the street.

2:24:48The in-car camera helps us have evidence when we engage in some of those high-risk activities, like car stops or vehicle pursuits. Acts as a very significant record for what we did. Often, the recording systems we have prove that we did things correctly, and by the law, and by the book.

2:25:07When we find things that aren't done by the law and by the book, then we have, really good information on how to correct it, because we see how it,

2:25:16what needs to be improved. So that's one of the risk management components of our technology, particularly the fleet. It's one of the areas that our insurer, MPA, continually focuses on, to have good practices around vehicle pursuits.

2:25:33All right, next up I want to talk about some new concepts for the upcoming year and beyond. Not all of these things are… well, only one thing on there is free, really.

2:25:46So some of these things would take funding. Let's start off on refocusing on traffic safety. So, we're at a point where we're approaching full staff. One of the things that we have found with rebooting our traffic officer program is that,

2:26:02We don't feel that it's adequately supervised.

2:26:05We used to have, when we had a traffic unit, we had a traffic sergeant and a traffic officer. That was kind of the minimum staffing of the unit. And that traffic sergeant really provided good guidance and oversight for the program. The traffic sergeant was responsible for reviewing all collisions in the city.

2:26:23So we had one person with extreme expertise that could, both decide to cite people, could issue citations based off of primary collision factors.

2:26:33It also ensured that all of our collision products were high quality and up to our standards. The traffic sergeant would also organize, kind of, department-wide enforcement efforts, would organize traffic enforcement projects.

2:26:47Would be in charge of the second item, which is grant applications.

2:26:52In our concept for refocusing our traffic unit, we would, propose to change one of our traffic officers into a traffic sergeant position to add a traffic sergeant position. A traffic sergeant would be responsible for supervising a traffic officer, and our two CSOs as part of our overall traffic-related enforcement.

2:27:11The other thing that we think that it would, help provide to

2:27:15kind of the effectiveness of the city in general in the traffic arena is having a go-to police department expert that kind of lives and breathes traffic for public works projects as we look at how we're going to redesign roadways and what are some of the,

2:27:31Enforcement things we need to consider, as well as the education and engineering concerns.

2:27:37On grant applications, we applied for an Office of Traffic Safety grant this year. We asked for a number of items. We basically said, that's the wall, and we're gonna throw everything we can possibly imagine at the wall to see what we can get funded.

2:27:50A lot of what we're funding, we're asking for funding on is, pedestrian safety projects as well as,

2:27:57driving under the influence enforcement. So, we asked for funding for a DUI-dedicated officer that would do, dedicated DUI enforcement.

2:28:05And training. We asked for, money to help, put on some bicycle safety workshops, ideally with,

2:28:15organization like Bike East Bay.

2:28:17That's what we told the state, at least, so hopefully Bike East Bay is gonna be, willing to put on some more… some projects with us if we get funding for it. We, also asked for, funding for DUI checkpoints and bringing those back, and then,

2:28:32Kind of a number of other, smaller items of funding around, traffic safety education.

2:28:38Another thing that the, new traffic unit would do is really kind of be the spearhead for bicycle patrol in the town. We'd have them all cross-trained, have them, continue to put together bicycle team efforts and projects.

2:28:52Okay, so there's some money associated with this first item, refocusing on traffic safety. Advanced investigative tools, there's some more money associated with this. So, the product I have up there is Peregrine. So, this is a product that is in wide use across the county. A couple agencies don't have it. El Cerrito and Pinole.

2:29:11And Clayton. I think that's it.

2:29:13I think most of the rest of the county has Peregrine. Essentially, what this, software package does is it acts as, like, a super search engine. Gives you investigators and patrol officers kind of a one-stop shop for, researching suspects, researching crimes.

2:29:30It links to, all of the various records management systems that we use, kind of brings that all into a cohesive response so that officers can easily delve through multiple information sources

2:29:43To figure out how a suspect might be connected with a co-conspirator, how a victim might be associated with various suspects. It's a whole lot that I'm not gonna do a full presentation on tonight. The product itself costs about $52,000. It's not insignificant. It's a lot of money.

2:30:02One of the nice components of it is that it's,

2:30:06It's basically another, more effective system for information sharing in the county. If we had the platform, we'd be able to connect with our other partner agencies across Contra Costa and Alameda County.

2:30:19For a more seamless way of sharing information about the criminals and suspects that we're investigating together, mutually.

2:30:27Okay, so those are two things that are potentially on the menu for this upcoming year for consideration.

2:30:34Drones as a first responder is not in this upcoming year. I don't want to work on it in 2026, maybe a little bit in 2027. The idea here is that we would… we're working towards forming the groundwork for a regional collaboration on drones as a first responder.

2:30:49The program would look something like, in partnership with Richmond and San Pablo.

2:30:56We would share the costs of a civilian drone pilot position or two that would operate drones in support of police responses to give police officers

2:31:07timely intelligence on the calls that they're going to. We get a man with a gun call, as an example. The drone pilot would be able to fly a location and start giving officers important information about what's happening at the scene.

2:31:20The idea would be that we would share the cost of the program amongst two of our partner agencies.

2:31:26Typically, the program requires multiple drone nests, so drones can, you know, launch into the air to respond to crimes. So it would probably involve San Pablo and El Cerrito each having their own drone nests, Richmond having maybe 2 or 3.

2:31:44There's a lot of moving parts to even talking about the drone as a first responder program, because they're really still trying to get the tech dialed in for

2:31:53effective… non-manpower-intensive…

2:31:59deployments, so it's not quite there yet, but it's something I want you to have on your radar, because we might be talking more about it, doing some public meetings in probably late 2027.

2:32:09Our parking program's gonna see some changes this year. We're gonna be finished outfitting our parking enforcement… our second parking enforcement vehicle with, license plate reading cameras, so that we'll have two vehicles that can do time zone enforcement in town.

2:32:21We also anticipate some changes to how we do enforcement in town with the parking program, consultant work that's going on. So, we have, we've worked with the consultants to have an enforcement platform that's flexible, based on whichever style we go to, whether we have

2:32:39Virtual permitting, if we were to include

2:32:44Parking meters in town. Whichever way the city goes, we have two parking vehicles that are going to be equipped with all the technology they need to be able to do that type of enforcement.

2:32:55And on the training side, this one is mostly free.

2:32:59partially free.

2:33:00We are working with Georgetown Law to bring the Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement program to El Cerrito. This is another one of those items on the risk management side, so just kind of a tag in your head. It's a program that's supported by both Karma and MPA.

2:33:16It is focused on developing programs for law enforcement so that officers are equipped psychologically to intervene in the event that they see misconduct or excessive uses of force.

2:33:28The trainer part of it is funded by Georgetown Law, so our trainers get trained for free.

2:33:35From there, training the whole department are some costs that we have to absorb, but typically our strategy each year is to bring a new training concept that we start incorporating into our,

2:33:47annual, training with our officers. So this will be that training for 26 to 27.

2:33:55All right, so our kind of focus and work plan over the next two years is to continue to focus on those crimes we've already seen a big decline in. We want to keep driving down robbery, burglary, and vehicle theft. And we're going to talk about shoplifting, too, and some strategies we have on that, and the community engagement section here.

2:34:12On the traffic safety front, in the current year, we're planning on, bringing back, kind of, some of the high…

2:34:19visibility enforcement programs, like Click It or Ticket, Distracted Driving Month, so you're gonna see social media pushes associated with that, as well as our officers out there doing targeted enforcement operations for those enforcement months.

2:34:33On the staff development side, we… in 2024 and 2025, over those 2 years, we hired 17 new staff members. Now, not all of them became permanent staff members, some of them didn't make it through the training process.

2:34:47But that is a lot of new staff to train up in the basics of how to be El Cerrito employees or El Cerrito police officers. So, our big focus for the next two years is bringing them fully up to speed, along with all the supervisors and promotions that we've made in that period as well, to…

2:35:03Get everybody the training they need and the experiences they need to thrive.

2:35:08On the community engagement side, this year we're bringing back our Community Police Academy.

2:35:12In the past, it has been a really fantastic source for volunteers at the police department, and it's also just been a great avenue for our community members to learn more about how the police department works. So, it's a cost-free experience for our residents. We typically have about 20 people that take the course. Takes place over about 6 weeks, one day a week for

2:35:34For over 6 weeks.

2:35:35We've gotten really great rave reviews about it in the past. Hey, Alex Oralogas is one of the previous attendees.

2:35:43The other thing that we're in the early planning stages for is putting together a retail police academy. So, the concept is to bring loss prevention agents and store managers together with police investigators.

2:35:59To work out ways that we can better collaborate on some of those persistent shoplifting problems where they've got repeat people. Basically, an opportunity for our investigators to share what our expectations are when we arrive at the scene.

2:36:12what the store expectations are of the police, and then also share some strategies on how to deal with these, with people that come in repeatedly in repeated theft problems, so that we can more effectively support our retailers. So, we haven't fully locked into the name yet, something like the Retailer Academy.

2:36:29But we're early on in the planning on that.

2:36:32And the last one is technology adoption. We've, on that technology page, I listed a lot of different tech.

2:36:37So one of the things we really want to focus on in the next two years is really making the most out of that, from the patrol, non-sward side, all the way up through investigations and command staff, to really

2:36:49make sure we're using it to its highest capacity. If we do adopt a new technology like Peregrine, then that, there will be a… definitely a ramp up to the use of that, but that's another tool that we really want to have our officers make the most out of as a way to

2:37:04really… Kind of expand our staff power and our impact in the community.

2:37:10All right, I believe that's my last slide. I would like to invite up Dr. Eric Sailors from the El Credito Fire Department.

2:37:24Thank you.

2:37:28Good evening, Councilmembers. I'm Eric Saylor as your Fire Chief.

2:37:35The fire department focuses on saving

2:37:38lives, property, and the environment. When we respond to events, those are the things that we focus on, because lives are the most valuable.

2:37:45That is what most of our training and all of our equipment revolve around.

2:37:49Our goal was to get to you on time, and to maintain a very fast response time.

2:37:54Typically, when somebody stops breathing, they will lose about 2 million brain cells a minute. So our goal is to get there in an emergency in less than 6 minutes. Typically, this fire department holds an average for CO3 emergencies of less than 5 minutes, which is where we'd like to hold it.

2:38:13Our core functions revolve around fire suppression, emergency medical response.

2:38:17prevention and inspections, our vegetation management, our public outreach, those are a little bit of a mouth word, but when I talk about fire suppression, I really want you to think about some of the recent fires we've had and what was saved versus what was lost.

2:38:29So, on a standard residential fire, we'll typically save about $8 million in just property value, just by getting there in a timely manner. On these large two fires we've had, we'll save over

2:38:40over $12 million. So we typically have a return on investment just on fire suppression of over 200% of the fire department on each year, just on the properties that's saved. And it doesn't include the lives that we get out of the building at the time.

2:38:53Next slide, please.

2:38:55Is this working, or have we given up on it?

2:38:59Let's see. Oh, no, okay.

2:39:02Alright, I like it.

2:39:06So, over the last year, we've made some huge accomplishments.

2:39:10Improving the fire department and getting it modernized.

2:39:13So we continue to keep our response times down. That is making sure that all of our fire engines are positioned in the right place. We are constantly training, but when we do, we are shifting engines around to make sure that we always have one up on the hill so that we can get to places quickly. We're also constantly working with our neighbors so that if we do have a big training event, someone will come into our area and cover for us, so that we always have an engine ready to go.

2:39:36We continue to train on all of our upcoming environment changes and all of our building changes. So, what we know we have in El Cerrito is just continuing high-density buildings, and buildings change significantly after four stories. They become an entirely different problem.

2:39:54Then after 8, they become an entirely different problem that is much more complicated. So, this agency has been training around those increased structures, including a

2:40:05a month-long drill in Sacramento, a high-rise drill, looking at how high-rise fires are fought, integrating in with those crews, learning how to do advanced maneuvers that is beyond just a standard house fire.

2:40:16And bringing that information back, and continuing to have training here.

2:40:21In addition, we are always improving the way that we manage our apartment fires. Our most recent apartment fire was a very hard fire to fight. It was the center hallway apartment where the fire breached the door and got into the hallway very quickly. Our crews did a phenomenal job tactically, and as a result, invited neighboring fire departments to come over and see what we did, and they spent a lot of time with us.

2:40:42Learning how we've updated our tactics, our hose, our nozzles.

2:40:46So that we're effective, and they're actually learning from us to see how they can continue to be effective.

2:40:53While we were fighting these, new fires, and the last fire in that center hallway apartment was started by an e-mobility device, which is a lithium-ion battery, we're also seeing an increase in car fires that are EV batteries, and those release a lot of poisonous gases. This is an environmental change for our firefighters.

2:41:10It is… there are two types of gases that get released. They soak into our skin very quickly. We have a hard time getting them out of our turnouts.

2:41:17So, as a result, we are increasing our cancer monitoring and making sure that our firefighters stay safe. If we can catch cancer in Stage 1, opposed to actually seeing symptoms in stage 4, we'll have a much better chance of treating that and saving one of our firefighters' lives.

2:41:36In addition to these expanded incidents, we have been teaching what's called Command College every Wednesday. So I'm one of the few registered instructors in the state of California that teach expanding incidents.

2:41:46I brought that knowledge and skill set back to this agency, and every Wednesday, we've been going through large events so that our upcoming captains, our current captains, and our battalion chiefs have

2:41:56better understanding of how to manage large expanding events. Events that they may never see in their experience in real life, but is a high possibility of happening here in El Cerrito, whether it's a landslide, an earthquake, or a wildfire. So every Wednesday, we've been going through what we call Command College, so they know how to handle these expanding events.

2:42:14and get ahead of it. And I can tell you now, I teach all over the country.

2:42:18And you have some of the best trained battalion chiefs and captains here to handle those large events because of this continuous, ongoing development that they've been willing to participate in.

2:42:30And with all that training, we've had some very good, successful promotional exams recently. We just promoted another captain, and then we had another very good, successful promotional exam.

2:42:40One of the most important things an agency can do is promote the right people.

2:42:44And that happens through effective testing and evaluating them and training them. And over the last year, we've been very successful with that. We just promoted Captain Dawson. He's going to be a huge asset to this agency. And we just, completed our captain's test and have a great list of candidates for any additional vacancies that we come up with.

2:43:03We've also made some huge upgrades in technology. So, the federal government just changed their requirements on how we report all of our fires. It's been something that we've been working on for 2 years in the background. I've been kind of talking about it. It's been actually a heavy lift in the background. We just passed that finish line in February.

2:43:22But it was going from what was called INFERS, which was developed in the 1970s, to what is now called NIRIS, which just got rolled out. So all of our

2:43:30Federal mandates for reporting is done. It was a long, hard trail, but we've crossed that finish line.

2:43:38And along with that, we've also picked up a new piece of software so that we can improve our inspections.

2:43:44For the last 20 years, we've been doing our weed abatement and property inspections on paper, and we wanted to get that digitalized so that we can recall it and actually produce reports for the residents. This is going to help us with

2:43:57more complicated inspections that come with Zone Zero when that gets implemented. So that software is currently being purchased, it's been configured, and we are starting to implement it now.

2:44:10And along with that, we are also always looking at improving our standard operating guidelines. That's a little bit of a mouthful.

2:44:17But what that is, is that is guidance for our firefighters on what to do in events that they don't necessarily see. So, we have published guidelines on how to deal with electric car fires, which is an entirely new problem for them. We've also published guidelines on how to deal with evacuations.

2:44:33and possible leave early warnings if we have severe weather. These are all guidelines that are on the bleeding edge of the fire service to make sure that we are ahead of these events coming up.

2:44:44Alright.

2:44:45I'm gonna try this on my own.

2:44:48Alright.

2:44:55So…

2:44:56One of our greatest threats in this community, obviously, is wildfire, and it is something that we are always prepared for, but very rarely face. And…

2:45:06Being prepared for it, we are always doing targeting… targeted vegetation management, trying to reduce that risk, keep weeds and, trees off of property lines so that if a fire does start on our natural hillside area, it doesn't climb into the canopy and easily spread into the trees.

2:45:23We're always trying to maintain barriers around our fence lines.

2:45:27And we are constantly interacting with the citizens that live along those areas so that they can help us not only maintain their properties, but also

2:45:36identify anything that may be happening in the Hillside Natural Area that we can help prevent. So, our fire marshal has made a concerted effort over the last year to work with the community. You see some photos of him here out walking with some of our more engaged members that actually go into the Hillside Natural Area and pull certain weeds.

2:45:54gather them up. We have some burn piles that are ready to burn at the end of this month, and that is us making an effort to try and maintain that so that we have reduced risk from wildfire starting in the hillside natural area.

2:46:08We are also constantly working with our neighbors, because we are… we are tied together with Richmond and Berkeley, whether they're a different city or a different county, because of the common terrain that we occupy, and that affects us when it comes to evacuations or notifications for red flag days.

2:46:26So, we've established an agreement with our neighboring agencies. If we do have alerts or extreme weather, we're in immediate contact with each other and constantly feeding information back and forth, because if somebody initiates evacuations, we want the other one to know, because it's going to impact each other.

2:46:41We're also working on, guidance if we want to issue a leave early warning, that we do it together, so that we are not getting one ahead of the other, and impacting those streets. We know from evacuation studies that it's probably going to back up from I-80 up into the hills.

2:47:00And we want to be coordinated with our neighbors, and that is something we've been working on for 3 years now. We've got a good understanding now of our neighboring agencies, and we've got what happens in Alameda County, tied pretty closely to what happens in Contra Costa County now, just through these communication lines.

2:47:18Alright.

2:47:27So… What we're looking for in our next year is

2:47:32We've already dealt with our major pieces of equipment, our Type 1 fire engines.

2:47:37So, the City of El Cerrito fields two Type 1 fire engines. Those are our most expensive assets. One has already been replaced, one has been ordered. Our next goal is to deal with our small vehicle fleet. This is just deferred maintenance that has stacked up over the last five years. We have some vehicles that are running that have over 300,000 miles on them, and we spent a ton of money keeping them going.

2:47:57We have had a plan for over a year now. I can tell you exactly when the vehicles should be phased out, and now we're just getting aligned with our finance department to make sure that we're going to replace them in a timely manner. But the plan has been established and analyzed, and I can tell you exactly what vehicles need to be replaced now as a priority one.

2:48:16And hopefully we'll be able to establish, if the funds are there, to establish an ongoing cycle, so we don't get caught into this again, where we're spending more money on a vehicle than the vehicle's worth.

2:48:30We're going to continue to expand our vegetation analysis and software through the hillside.

2:48:38Zone Zero is going to offer a lot of challenges for every agency that has to face it, mostly because we don't have the rights to walk onto people's property and walk around their home, even though the requirements say that you're supposed to have 5 feet of non-combustible.

2:48:51A lot of that can be met with community engagement and some software, and that is our goal. I'd say in the state, we are one of the leading agencies of tackling this problem, and hopefully next year, we'll be ahead of everybody else with community engagement and the ability to actually

2:49:07get somewhere with Zone Zero without having to walk around someone's house.

2:49:12by just noticing them and working with their neighbors. So that is our goal the next year, is to continue those vegetation management tools.

2:49:23We are still looking at enhancing our red flag parking days, as you already heard from Public Works, and that has been a partnership for a while. And a lot of that comes through community engagement and just educating the community to understand it's not necessarily about them being able to evacuate as much as about… it's about us being able to get into the hillside quickly.

2:49:40It's about us driving up the hill and not hitting a roadblock or a plugged street because someone's trying to come down.

2:49:47We're going to continue our leadership training and continue our command college so that our upcoming captains will be trained and be able to become battalion chiefs, and

2:49:59We have… we are constantly monitoring our budget to see what we need and what we don't need, so that we can tailor it down as much as possible to right-size the fire department to try and get as much value out of every dollar that you invest in us as possible.

2:50:14That is the end of my report.

2:50:17Thank you.

2:50:22Next, we have Community Development, Melanie Mintz.

2:50:26that I need to be tutored on here? Or is it just straightforward?

2:50:31Hi, I am last.

2:50:35A little lore is that I used to go first, we used to go alphabetical, but then mine would go on long, and recreation would have to go too quick. So now I'm gonna try to be quick and be brief.

2:50:47As you know, Aisa Shuri, our Housing and Economic Development Program Manager, and Sean Moss are still here as well, and so in questions and answers, if you have anything about their programs, there's a lot of details. There's been…

2:51:00I think I looked up over 150 housing laws in the past 3 years, about 50 a year.

2:51:06Trying to solve, the way that cities approach housing. So, they're involved in a lot.

2:51:13So in community development, we deliver services and programs in particular that ensure a safe, livable, and resilient built environment. One of the key differences, of course, like, when you think of public works, is they are maintaining all of our public spaces.

2:51:30through various city funding sources. In the Community Development Department, we have a very high percent cost recovery, but we also have a lot of non-cost recovery functions, and maybe I'll touch upon some of those. But interestingly, they are not

2:51:45what we own in community development. So we try to regulate, incentivize, and make things happen, but they're not on places that are actually ours often, especially in planning.

2:51:56So our core functions include planning. In some cities, this would be an advanced planning and a current planning department, but we just have three in that department. Building, which is, of course, where our, making sure that we have safe buildings. We work a lot with fire. We coordinate closely with fire in doing plan check and, issuing permits.

2:52:15Our neighborhood preservation program is our code enforcement program. That's actually just one mighty person running that whole program, which includes our residential rental inspection program and our code enforcement program, and they coordinate both across departments.

2:52:31Affordable housing and economic development are also a one-person shop, but we do like to, you know, all of our, all of our divisions work closely together, and especially on economic development. I think almost everything we touch, we all think about economic development.

2:52:46We have some administrative functions up at the front counter. All three staff up at the front counter, when you walk in, are community development staff.

2:52:54One of them is working on things like business licenses, parking permits, and Rent Registry, when Council created Rent Registry several years ago. The other two are building staff, handling building permits, which we do about 1,300 a year. That's a…

2:53:09That's permits issued, so of course there's lots of questions that lead up to every permit. And then, admin. I think that Holly talked about the number of public records requests, and I know that consistently community development gets

2:53:22the vast majority of those.

2:53:26So as Chris mentioned, I was kind of dividing things by function. On the left, we call it kind of housing, admin, economic development, just because it's not building and planning, so it was… it's everything else.

2:53:38Sustainable transportation planning position, which, the Public Works Director talked about, used to be here, but it really is overseen now by planning. And similarly, actually, our Neighborhood Preservation Code Enforcement Officer is overseen by our Housing and Economic Development person. So this is just kind of functional more than it is by division.

2:53:57We do have, 15 total staff in all these different programs, just one administrative staff person supporting all the programs.

2:54:05And everybody else is pretty topic-specific, and have to work pretty autonomously, like I said. Am I talking loud?

2:54:14So, to keep moving, I could say a lot about each of these, but I will keep moving. So, highlights this year recent, these numbers kind of sometimes are looking at just the last year, sometimes at the last two years. But despite a big slowdown, obviously, in the general market rate environment.

2:54:32We did complete 84 new housing units this year. So that was both 70… well, we're almost done with one, so 70 of them are Allura, the Mayfair Affordable Housing. 14 were a very long-awaited 1717 Elm Street.

2:54:46With a couple inclusionary, plus the historic house. There's only one single family, which is pretty common that we, you know, where do we build those?

2:54:54So often they're going to be these multifamily environments.

2:54:57I know a lot of you were at the groundbreaking for the next 70 units. It's pretty remarkable for a city our size. I have, just two inspectors. Oh, go back, actually. So, in, in building, I have two inspectors, two

2:55:11two permit techs, a building official, and a plan checker. So there's five in there. So those two inspectors are inspecting everything you see in town. There's about 4,000 inspections a year.

2:55:22And right now, those positions are largely contracted out.

2:55:27For a variety of reasons, it's working quite well for us right now. But the…

2:55:32senior inspector who inspected the 70 units that are about to be completed is also starting now the modular units, and what's interesting about that is they're different technologies, right, than he's able to go back, and we're really lucky to have him. It's going very quickly at Parcel A South. They are pouring foundations this week.

2:55:51And by spring, you'll have people living there, whereas right now, the new housing units at Allura are about to start being marketed. They just leased a space on the avenue to start their marketing, so it's pretty amazing. There's a lot of new people going to be living in town.

2:56:06And then Project Kickstart, I'm happy to say, you know, you guys, it was creative, we tried something, and I'm happy to report that yesterday, one,

2:56:15an application was submitted. Yesterday was the deadline for the first application, and that's 6501 Fairmont. So that's pretty exciting. Also, going back to the fact that we don't often get new home ownership opportunities, they did submit for 16 townhomes.

2:56:29And those 16 townhomes, in an innovative way, because they're on Fairmont, would also have some commercial ground floor, because that's what we, that's what our plans call for. And interesting, obviously, from a property tax standpoint, those are interesting. Those are 16 individually sold properties for real property transfer tax, and they're home ownership opportunities. We don't always have 16 come up at once.

2:56:48As a reminder, Elm Street had intended to, be condo, but a lot of those things… a lot right now, because condo prices are down, they're waiting, but we do find that townhomes, like at El Dorado townhomes, are actually still selling really well. So just, I think it's nice that we'll have a…

2:57:04a variety of housing types. They do have 2 years, I think it's 24 months from yesterday, to pull that permit, so we're glad to have received it, but the market will still determine what happens next.

2:57:15This number 13, Ayesa and I went over a few different ways, but we do have, several new brick-and-mortar businesses, and… or fixed places, what we call those. We actually have,

2:57:29353 new business licenses, were issued this year, and 2,100 are renewed. So it's surprising for a small town, actually, how many businesses there are.

2:57:40The fixed place ones sometimes include professional office, so they could be new businesses that you… or if you think of even Sola Salon, or different things, but some of the fixed place ones that we did, welcome this year are Security Public Storage, AutoZone.

2:57:55A couple small, mudworks expanded. Obviously, Magangwa opened.

2:58:01And I could, probably… let's see, who else? Oh, a couple studios that had been, vacant for a long time, like the fencing Studio that just opened, and the sports therapy on, Stockman, so a variety when you actually, end up looking around. I think some of you have heard there's several

2:58:18businesses that are looking at the Barnes & Noble, and we do hear from Regency that the Joann's

2:58:23Configuration is a bit challenging, but these things just take a while.

2:58:29I just mentioned that we have 2,000 renewals every year of business licenses, and we're happy this year that our… we did that 100% digitally. So we usually send out all those notices, that's postage, that's paper, and this year we did convert to 100% digital. Of course, there's some people who are not comfortable with digital, so we make ourselves very available, in that case, but… so that was, something that we'd been working on for quite some time.

2:58:54We did receive 64 planning applications. A lot of those are small. We're not very busy with big new development, as we know, because of the market rate. We did, however, get two building remedy… two builders remedy projects, both in the 70-unit, the… the Kearney

2:59:10Previously entitled projects at Kearney and South McNevin, next to Burger King. And then we also got an application, a large application, for 200 units at the former Taco Bell site.

2:59:21In terms of those new brick-and-mortar businesses, excitingly, also not counted in that is, 3 new businesses at the ground floor of Mayfair that have all, are all…

2:59:32two have pulled building permits, and one will be pulling a building permit soon. And then, of course, the Taco Bell is changing hands and going very quickly.

2:59:39Also in planning this year, we completed the safety element, and as you know, are working on, zoning updates required by the housing element.

2:59:47Also, in terms of economic development, you can see this picture. We also… a lot of our businesses are home occupations and creative businesses, and so this very popular twice-a-year Maker's Fair really brings community down here, here in this space and on the street, and hopefully supports those businesses, and maybe some of them someday will launch kind of a collective El Cerrito type of business with their crafts.

3:00:11We, as you know, did the triennial building code update, and then actually have 6 years before we have to do it again. To date, we've issued 887 building permits, 176 solar permits.

3:00:23And that's on track to be the 1,300 that we did last year.

3:00:27Going back to this one, when I said new housing completed, that did, that's 84+. 14 ADUs were completed, and 8 new ADU permits were issued this year. A couple of those 14 ADUs were actually, in multifamily at Mill & Lumber, where garages were converted to housing, which is what the law also permits in

3:00:47On multifamily properties.

3:00:50As the Public Works Director mentioned, we kind of now, share some transportation and sustain… Transportation and sustainable transportation planning.

3:00:59Responsibilities. She went over some of them, but a couple others that happened this year was the Parking Management Action Plan. This position was created just a couple of years ago, in part to anticipate the various changes that are happening through the new state laws, reduced parking, and increased need for multimodal transportation.

3:01:17And parking. We didn't have anybody really, studying and running a parking program. And so the Parking Management Action Plan this year, that position worked on existing conditions, and in the summer, we'll begin doing outreach. The goal of that is by the time that the market rate development, or the majority of the main

3:01:36El Cerrito Plaza BART parking lot, by the time that that starts to not be available for parking, that we have something in place. So that's the timing of that.

3:01:43Also completed the Local Road Safety Plan administrative draft, which is going to be coming out soon.

3:01:49the art pavement pilot project, so kind of going small, big. This position is our WCTAC, staff representative, and has also, as you know, been working very hard to try to, get Caltrans to implement safety improvements, and is also seeking,

3:02:07our funding to do some, even if Caltrans doesn't. And then something that's been asked for for a long time is bike racks at the plaza, as well, and I hope that that kind of keeps happening on other private property. We've tried to install them both on public and private property, and I'm really happy to see that WC Tech and CCTA stepping up to provide some of that funding.

3:02:27Going forward over the next couple of years, and as you all know, this will be someone other than me working on these things, so when you do have questions, as we move forward through the budget process, I will have staff to kind of really be, just, carrying all this forward, and, a hiring process is happening.

3:02:47Some key things, to keep your eyes out for is we are really going to figure out… need to figure out our local funding source for affordable housing. It's usually a pretty small amount that leverages many millions of dollars, but it's a critical pre-development amount. So that'll be a conversation.

3:03:03Our residential rental inspection program, which was adopted, I think, in the 90s, has kind of been intermittent in the past.

3:03:09And this year, we did bring in, we had reclassified our neighborhood preservation officer to be a program manager, and then we're able to bring in somebody on a part-time basis, and we've done 250 inspections this year after often doing

3:03:24under a couple dozen at most, more just on a request basis. So we look forward to continuing to do that and continuing to create, safe rentals. As we've heard, there were,

3:03:35you know, I don't know if they would have been, but there were a couple fires this year, so multifamily inspections are really… all rental inspections are really important, and this takes a lot of coordination in our business license process. We also need to find those that don't have business licenses and rent.

3:03:51We'd like to create a graffiti mitigation program, working both with public works, and private property, just to make it a very proactive, quick process. Just doing code enforcement, people often feel victimized, they don't know how to fix it, and so we want to create a more proactive program.

3:04:06We make ourselves very available to small businesses, reach out proactively to help them through the county process, our own processes.

3:04:14You've heard about the Transit-Oriented Communities, program. That actually is now… compliance will not be required until July 27, but it's still quite a bit of work. I think keeping our eyes out on how well that really relates to the market is going to be a continuous thing that we need to do.

3:04:30We are doing, ordinance updates. We'd like to bring… I don't… it wasn't in here, but we are right now working on renewing STIS. Planning is working on renewing the second cannabis permit.

3:04:43And, council members have asked us to update the ordinance to potentially allow a third, and so we'll be working on that, as well as, updating our delivery process.

3:04:53Some of you have asked about short-term rental policy, being able to coordinate maybe with the data collection. Our short-term rental policies out of date? And so we do want to get to that. So we want to do cannabis first, and then short-term rental policy.

3:05:07Some of you know that BART also has identified Del Norte for planning for, for the next round of development, and our housing element also identifies it as an opportunity site. So probably this summer, we will start,

3:05:21Staff will start working on that with BART. We've met with them many times. And then, just like with the plaza, we'd be coming to you with, to establish… go into the community, and then Council to establish goals and objectives for that project.

3:05:33You've heard a bit about sustainable transportation planning. In admin, one of the things now that the successor agency is dissolved, there are… there are…

3:05:43things all over the city related to the redevelopment agency. So the city clerk and the community development department are going to work hard on trying to get those files purged and saved and done what they need to be done with.

3:05:57We've, like we mentioned, Public Records Act requests are quite time-consuming, so we're continuously trying to

3:06:04Scan, we try to budget for, scan, categorize, and make that as self-service as possible.

3:06:10And then, of course, we're always looking for and managing grants.

3:06:15And I think that… Is it for me. Thank you.

3:06:23Okay, thank you, all of our department heads. Very informative.

3:06:26So next steps. As Assistant City Manager Alex Orlogis said earlier, we are going to be doing a virtual, budget presentation on March 25th.

3:06:38Our budget and financial services manager, Claire Coleman, will be heading that up. Like, Pro Tem, Selfman said, it was a really, really great, presentation, so we are… we're happy to put that on again.

3:06:51April 21st, we will have Council Study Session. May 5th, another Council Study Session and the Master Fee Schedule Consideration. June 2nd, we hope to have the proposed budget review, and then final adoption on June 16th.

3:07:06So that concludes our presentation. Any questions? Thank you. I'm sure there will be questions and comments, so I first just want to see if we have any members of the public that want to speak. Do we have any requests? We do have a couple of requests, so we can certainly go to that.

3:07:26And then just…

3:07:28For those that are on the call, now is the time to raise your hand if you would like to speak, if you're remote, or submit a speaker card up here at the front.

3:07:44Okay, we'll start with our in-person request, Michael McDougal.

3:07:52Hello, Council neighbors, and I'm really happy to have all of the heads of department here, because I don't usually get that sort of an opportunity.

3:08:01I just want to say, I'm Michael McDougal, I'm from El Cerrito, I'm also the vice chair of your financial advisory board.

3:08:07I really appreciate the people who pulled this together.

3:08:12And it feels like the sort of right early-stage discussion. It's very narrative and all of those things.

3:08:20And… It's useful.

3:08:24And as we head into it, though, I wanted to have both the council and the people here from the department sort of get some of my priorities, which is, as we move to the next phase.

3:08:37I want to make sure that we're not sort of purely additive on the stuff that we're doing as we're doing this budget. I really,

3:08:44want us to be doing prioritization and trade-offs, and I want you to know that there's, like, people in the… in the community who are actually really interested in this hundred… hundreds of pages budget document. I will be reading it very carefully. And…

3:09:00one core idea that I want to put forward is that we should be hopefully making a distinction between sort of additive commitments. Every time we add some new commitment or some shiny new thing, that that's an ongoing budget thing. But I'm also, at the same time, really a fan of building capacity.

3:09:19So one of the things that I really hope that we can do is focus on things like staff retention, like keeping, like, really important knowledge with us. You know, I'm really sorry that some of the people are leaving, and I'm also sort of excited that we have a lot of new people in the police department. And so the more expertise that we can have

3:09:38the better.

3:09:40And one part of that that I hope that we can budget for is enough, sort of, departmental slack

3:09:45For people to…

3:09:48be able… we're… the world is going to be very crazy over the next 5 years, and I think that people working in government and working for El Cerrito are going to need a little bit of capacity to adjust to that.

3:10:00And to work on our, sort of, our technical debt and the deferred maintenance that we've gone on. And so I really want us to, I think, focus on keeping our capacity high without necessarily doing a whole lot of new things.

3:10:15Wow, I've got a lot of notes here, but it's a really long night. I just want you all to make really hard trade-offs when this budget comes through. It's important to me that we don't, that we… that we make hard choices, and so I want to encourage everyone here to participate in that. Thank you.

3:10:31Thank you. Thank you, and I'll go to a remote request to speak. Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

3:10:41Ira Sharenow: Hi, Irish Sharon now, El Cerrito.

3:10:44I am concerned the city is not addressing multiple risks.

3:10:48If the tax measure passes, inflation may drive up construction costs, and interest rates may rise.

3:10:55How will the city pay for the library?

3:10:57What is the plan to cut services in order to build a vanity library?

3:11:03If the stock market falls, how will the city make CalPERS payments?

3:11:08The cap and invest auctions are performing poorly.

3:11:12So what is the plan to build Parcel C West?

3:11:15If the Jarvis Amendment passes, and the city loses its transfer tax, how will the city make up the revenue, especially if the city is paying off bonds?

3:11:27What is the long-range plan to pay for operating costs at the library after 10 years?

3:11:32Or even at the start, given the problematic revenue stream.

3:11:37And there's been a big problem in terms of Public Records Act requests, and the city not responding to my request for information on that revenue stream. That's very unfortunate.

3:11:49What happens if the macroeconomy goes bad and there is a recession?

3:11:54The tax proposal shifts a great deal of risk from the developer to the taxpayers.

3:12:00What happens if the bonds are sold and the project collapses?

3:12:04How is the city addressing the BART crisis?

3:12:07How is the city going to pay

3:12:11for bike lanes on Richmond Street. I am concerned about the lack of transparency.

3:12:17Whoops, I think I have one more thing here.

3:12:20Nope, that's it.

3:12:22So, thank you very much.

3:12:24Thank you. Thank you, that concludes our request to speak, Mayor Pro Tem. Okay, I'll go to my fellow Council members.

3:12:32Councilmember Motiamo.

3:12:35Thank you. I have a bunch of questions, I should have written more of them down, but I just have a question for the

3:12:45For, police chief?

3:13:00Okay. I'm ready. So, do we have a vehicle pursuit ordinance?

3:13:07That's part of, you know, you mentioned it in passing, but do we have one that sort of defines where we stop, or that we don't chase after cars really fast?

3:13:20Yes, we have a vehicle pursuit policy that is compliant with California state law.

3:13:26Okay, but there's not a… just an El Cerrito one?

3:13:30The language is the same?

3:13:33Well, our policy manual is drafted by a team of attorneys that we contract with called Lexapool.

3:13:39So, our policy is based on best practices from the policing profession, so that is the model for our policy. It's pretty much the,

3:13:50standard policy for just about every police department in California. Would you mind sharing it with us? I was actually going to ask about this, too, because

3:13:58really bad story came out of Oakland today. It's an old story, but new things surfaced about it. Go look it up. Anyway, they've had a lot of problems with pursuits where people have died, in those pursuits, so it'd be helpful for us to see the actual policy. It's, actually online. Our whole policy manual is online on the El Cerrito Police Department website, so…

3:14:18Anybody that wants to see it, if you type in El Cerrito Police Department Policy Manual, it should take you to the website link, and then you just type in, you know, in your

3:14:26Ctrl-F, Pursuit policy, and it should bring it up.

3:14:32And,

3:14:34with the DUIs, do you also map out where you are catching people? Is it associated with, like.

3:14:42Drinking at local establishments, or just…

3:14:46People are just drinking everywhere, or how does… how… how are you seeing this? Because it's such a big problem here?

3:14:53If we were to map it out, it would mostly be San Pablo Avenue, but just as an example, on, was it Sunday, I think? Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, somebody crashed into their neighbor's front yard because they were drunk trying to get to their own house, so they almost made it home, but crashed into the wrong front yard, I guess, so…

3:15:12It can happen anywhere in town, but some of the places where you might imagine it would happen, routes like Arlington, Richmond Street, San Pablo Avenue.

3:15:22That's where we typically find drunk drivers.

3:15:26Okay, and then about the Peregrine system, if we implement that, do we get to not implement… is… are there systems we can get rid of? Because that's…

3:15:37more comprehensive? It's really more of a full source multiplier, making our existing staff more effective.

3:15:44than it is eliminating other systems. Just as a kind of comparison, our current records management and CAD system, those two systems combined, that costs us about $50,000 a year. So this system is a…

3:15:59System that makes it easier to search the data in those systems as well as others, but it costs about the same amount of money for core systems that we need to operate.

3:16:08Okay, and it just seems like with that Peregrine system, and the license plate readers, and the facial recognition, and the drones, and the cell phone pinging, that there is sort of this complete net over all of us of kind of surveillance? Is that…

3:16:25Is that fair to say? And then that's kind of modern policing, or, you know… No, I would say it's not fair to say. Our ability to access cell phone records is based off of

3:16:37warrants, so these are warrants signed by a judge. They're also very specific to the purpose of the investigation. We can't, for example, just

3:16:45Get a warrant that says, gives us all the information about every cell phone dat… every cell phone in El Cerrito. No judge would ever sign that warrant. Has to be very specific to the circumstances of the crime we're investigating.

3:16:56The same with analyzing a cell phone for evidence. It's specific to the cell phone of the suspect in the case. We can't just take anybody's cell phone off the street and look into it.

3:17:07There's been a lot of case law in the last decade in particular that really protects cell phone data, and there's a high threshold for being able to access it.

3:17:15So there's a lot of tests that go into that.

3:17:18So I would say, not necessarily, in my opinion.

3:17:22Thank you.

3:17:24jump in, I just have one question for the Chief, just so he doesn't have to keep coming up and down. The AI-assisted report writing, what are the… and I'm glad to hear that you're kind of just testing it out to see if it's even…

3:17:36worth it, but what are the controls to make sure the end product is good in case the initial product out of AI is not accurate or problematic in some way?

3:17:47Well, so the number one final control is that the police officers and supervisors have to have a product that is accurate for the case that was investigated.

3:17:55But there are some elements in the system, both because of changes in California law, but also things we were already doing. So, California law requires that we save the initial draft.

3:18:08It's kind of a question in the prosecutorial and law enforcement realm how that first draft might be used in a court proceeding, but we do maintain that first draft created by the AI system.

3:18:22The initial draft will also contain intentional errors in the narrative that officers have to find and change before they can bring that narrative into our report writing system.

3:18:34So, there'll be some intentionally false statements. Some of them are more fantastical, maybe they're gonna say, you know, a unicorn showed up at the scene.

3:18:42But, they're basically elements to make sure that a police officer is actually reading the narrative and, you know, being… paying close enough attention to identify those things.

3:18:52So that's another element that's built into the system. The other thing we have is that all of these narratives, our police officers also record all of the incidents. In fact, the AI-based reporting system is based off of the body-worn camera recording, so there are fallback pieces of evidence we can rely on as well.

3:19:12Thank you.

3:19:15I can sit in the front row in case another question comes up. I'm good, thank you.

3:19:23Do you have other questions of other departments?

3:19:26No, I think those… the rest of them are pretty straightforward. Okay, I… I have some other questions.

3:19:32I actually have a lot of questions, but I'm gonna… gonna limit, given the time. Melanie… oh yeah, you're so sorry, I can't see you behind the… the podium.

3:19:44So…

3:19:45You talked about Project Kickstart, and you said one had applied, and this was, like, the deadline, so then, do the others not qualify? I'm not sure I understood. Yeah, so there were two different categories.

3:19:58Partly because we did know that this project in particular was looking at reapplying. So, one category was if you were just using your existing… remember, it was this Project Kickstart at that time. You could pick it up and decide something different in the future, but obviously there'll be a lot of looking at how do we move… get things back to feasibility. If it was…

3:20:18the application that we already had, you had 16 months from September when that was adopted. So we… those were in touch with them a little. They're intermittently trying, but those are by January that they would need to pull their building permit. Remember, all of those are almost ready.

3:20:34So that's… I thought they had more time, I just wanted to make sure. And then for the other one was if you did submit within, I guess it's 6 months, are we on the 6 months of that moment?

3:20:45Then that… that new pro… that could be a new application, and that new application has, 24 months.

3:20:52from that new application date to pull a bill, because they need time to actually get entitled, re-entitled, to submit their building permits, and to pull that building permit. And then that one also, just as a little bit of an aside, it did get the inclusionary, so we don't know. They're working to make sure, you know, to try to get a feasible project. That one still does have that inclusionary waiver, which would be a lovely, if they moved forward, a lovely source of funding for the next

3:21:17round.

3:21:18And then… but the, other, the TIF and the STIMP were not waived from that one. So it was really just the inclusionary and the timing.

3:21:26Okay, thank you. And then…

3:21:30something that I've been looking into, and I'd like the city to think about pursuing, you mentioned that there are, like, no condo projects going in, and that's not just in El Cerrito, it's everywhere. It's a state problem, and there's several state bills addressing the many problems, which I won't get into about why nobody's building. I actually just learned last week that

3:21:50our state has the fewest condos being built of any state, including Hawaii. Like, tiny states are building more condos than us because of our laws, but there is something that we could do to get more condos built, which is there's a new law

3:22:06AB 1033 that allows cities to allow ADUs to be

3:22:14sold as condos, but the city has to opt in and pass an ordinance, and so as far as I know, the only city in Contra Costa that has done it is Martinez. Lots of other cities in the state have done it as well, but it seems… we do… ADUs are being built here. This might incentivize more ADUs.

3:22:31They also involve sales, that's revenue for the city, it's more homes, it's homes people could buy. It seems like win-win-win. It would take some staff time up front, but it seems, like, very worthwhile and a thing we could do to

3:22:44kickstart more homes. So, would love to see us consider, you know, moving forward with that, look at, you know, what the potential is there, because I think it could be really helpful to the city.

3:22:56Yeah, and that's… I mean, what's interesting… I mean, so we could look at that. I know you're probably seeing Sean's face behind me, but we could look at that if it could happen with some of our updates that we're doing now, and how it relates to SB9, and…

3:23:08or the ADU laws that could then be sold, and I think the City of Berkeley did that as well, right? I think that they ended up moving forward on that?

3:23:17I think so. But it does seem like it kind of creates a different type of condo, right? Which is a kind of a cottage. Yeah.

3:23:26Great. That was all I had for you, and then Yvette,

3:23:32Have some questions, let me just get to this.

3:23:36Sorry, it's a big presentation.

3:23:41So, something you didn't talk about, and I know you talked about so much, but I was a little bit surprised. There's been a lot of great things you all have done in conjunction with the…

3:23:52street resurfacing, you haven't just resurfaced streets, you've found some opportunities for some, like, maybe small things to make streets safer, and I wondered if you could talk about that, like.

3:24:03what you did on Barrett, which I finally just saw this week, and…

3:24:06the little thing you did at Liberty and Waldo, and there's probably lots of other intersections I don't even know about, so maybe you could just talk to us about how you're finding those opportunities, and also, do you plan to continue doing that? Have you identified what might happen in the next couple of years? Yeah, no, thank you.

3:24:24We are, as part of our resurfacing project,

3:24:28trying to do some quick build safety improvements. Quick-build meaning, you know, pavement markers, flexible delineators, to really, focus on slowing down vehicles or highlighting pedestrian crossings.

3:24:43So, we're adding, like, edge lines to narrow the lanes to encourage, speeds to,

3:24:50calmer speeds. We're at intersections, we're actually adding flexible delineators, either at the corners or in the center line of the street, to, again, calm… calm vehicle speeds by narrowing the road, and also, allowing pedestrians to be more visible at those intersections.

3:25:09We, have done that, along some of our major corridors, like Barrett, where the speeds tend to be higher and more vehicles

3:25:18And we're also doing it at some of the intersections that have really wide curb returns. Again, narrowing the roadway. And it's an inexpensive way to do some quick

3:25:31safety improvements. And so we are, similarly doing the same for this 2026 resurfacing project.

3:25:40In addition to these quick builds, we're doing the daylighting, we're painting the red curbs along collectors and arterials, and we're also, focusing on

3:25:51on the, local street approaches to San Pablo Avenue.

3:25:56So that, we're adding some of these quick-build features, so people turning right, from San Pablo onto the local street will do it more slowly, because we have heard concerns about pedestrians walking along San Pablo, facing those quick-turning vehicles, and so we're adding, some of those quick-built features as part of that.

3:26:16coming up project. Great, thank you so much. Any other questions before we move on?

3:26:22Okay, well, we don't, have a vote on this item, so we can move on to the next item.

3:26:29Which is item 8B, Amendments to the City Comprehensive Financial Policies, and can we please have the staff report?

3:26:39Yes.

3:26:40Crystal Reams, Finance Director.

3:26:42I will not.

3:26:45for you and read this entire thing, because I'm sure everybody is tired. But we have before you, consider, the Financial Advisory Board's recommendation, or recommended changes to the City of El Cerrito's Comprehensive Financial Policies, and adopt a resolution to revise the policies to include grammatical and minor language edits.

3:27:03So the FAB is tasked with reviewing the comprehensive financial policy on an annual basis, and it is… the goal… the goal is to maintain the city's financial stability in order, to continually, adapt to local, regional, and national economic changes.

3:27:23so, they reviewed it on December 18th.

3:27:28And they made,

3:27:31a number of grammatical errors, typos, corrections, but then there was also a recommendation to, section 3.2 of, which is in regards to the city's reserve policy, the general fund reserve policy, and

3:27:50this is similar to an edit that has been proposed by the Financial Advisory Board, before, but the substantive change would be to make it a policy versus a goal, and, so the…

3:28:06I will read the…

3:28:11So the current language in Section 3.2, it is a goal of the City to maintain an unrestricted general fund operating

3:28:18reserve of 17% of projected general fund operating expenditures in each fiscal year. The City Council may adopt a deficit budget if the projected reserve does not go below 10% in any year of the five-year budget forecast. Should the general fund reserve fall below 10%

3:28:35Each budget year, the City will adopt a plan to restore the reserve percentage, to 17%.

3:28:42the proposed language that the FAB had,

3:28:46provided was, it is a policy of the City to maintain an unrestricted general fund operating reserve of 17% of projected general fund operating expenditures in each fiscal year. The City Council may adopt a deficit budget

3:28:58Should the projected general fund reserve fall below 17% in any year of the five-year budget forecast, the City will adopt a plan in the next budget cycle to restore the reserve percentage

3:29:09to 17%.

3:29:12The staff recommends that the city does not change the current language, Section 3.2. As I had mentioned before, this has been brought up previously, and it was the City Council's intentional decision to use the word goal to convey the ideal level of general fund reserves, yet allows for flexibility. The restrictiveness of the word, that it's

3:29:37Policy could be… it could cause unintended consequences.

3:29:46Any questions?

3:29:47Thank you. So, yeah, if there are Council questions, we'll ask them now, and then we'll go to public comment, and then any further comments. So, Councilmember Kassano. Thank you. Thank you, too.

3:30:00If it was presented or passed as a policy.

3:30:04How difficult would it be to change it

3:30:07At a certain point, if we had a particularly bad year and you had to dip into them.

3:30:12Is it just a matter of coming before Council again and saying, we're not going to make the 17%?

3:30:17Can there be a waiver?

3:30:19Or is it more something more cumbersome than that to get around something that stayed as policy?

3:30:23I believe it would just have to come… it would have to come back to Council, and Council could…

3:30:27Change it.

3:30:28Via this same process that we're doing. Or just give a waiver for that year, or whatever, yeah.

3:30:32Okay.

3:30:34I mean, I agree that if it was set in stone and there wasn't a way around it, it could be, you know, very problematic. But if it's just Council taking a vote, then…

3:30:43I think Steph's… staff's main concern with the volatility in the market right now, and not allowing the flexibility, it could potentially, damage our bond ratings, like, there are unintended consequences that could

3:30:56If… if by chance we did need to, go below our reserves, and we have this as a policy, it could have unintended consequences.

3:31:06Any other questions before we go to public comment?

3:31:09Okay, then we'll go to public comment. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I do have a couple requests to speak, but I'm actually gonna invite our FAB Chair up first.

3:31:19Since you just submitted a card, to speak, so that you can… Share your feedback.

3:31:26Just for point of order, am I responding as an individual citizen, or am I invited up as a member of the FAB? However you were wanting to speak, so just, if you could just state your intention, that way the Council knows if you're speaking in your personal capacity, or if you're speaking as the FAB chair. Thank you for that clarification.

3:31:44Sure. I will, speak in my capacity as the FAB Chair.

3:31:49and the…

3:31:50policy language doesn't tie your hands in any way during the year. You can still dip below. I think there's a mis…

3:31:58conception, and that your hands are being tied. It says that if you dip below in any future year, you have to make a plan to come back. If you dip below it.

3:32:08there's already a policy that says we want to keep a 17% reserve. That's the policy that already exists. What we're saying is if you dip below it in some future year, you gotta find a way to correct it. And so it's not tying your hands in any way. Staff, I don't know if we want to…

3:32:23Talk about it, or if you think that's wrong, but that was…

3:32:27I think I'm… something I wanted to correct on… this policy, and… a goal… doesn't…

3:32:36have any teeth, and policy, ideally, is something that, again, you can stand behind, not just for yourselves, but for the future, and really what we're trying to do as the FAB is protect the future financial health of El Cerrito.

3:32:50And…

3:32:51again, it doesn't tie you to any set amount, it really is about coming up with a plan if you were to dip below in a future year. So,

3:33:02where, I guess, as the chair, and I'll speak for FAB, because we all voted for it, we are disappointed that it got changed back to a goal rather than a policy.

3:33:13Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, and I'll go to, to our next speakers, Michael McDougal, and then we'll go to our online requests.

3:33:22So, hi, I'm Mike McDougal, I'm your Vice Chair. And I wanted to say that I support the city's position on this. I… I was part of the subcommittee that went over the document, and actually the… I originally came up with, like, 4 edits, or word changes, and I actually spent, like, an hour and a half trying to correct

3:33:41you'll find that there's a Section B in there that's changed, a Section 9.3. I spent, like, an hour and a half going back through documents, trying to find out where the B crept in.

3:33:50But I actually think that the document as it stands is a good one, and I voted against all of the edits because we started to change Section 3.2, which I think is fine.

3:34:04Thank you. Okay, and then, apologies, we do have one more in-person request to speak, so I'll invite Kimberly White up, and then we'll go to our remote speaker.

3:34:32Hello, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council members. I'm here as an individual.

3:34:38And I am also a financial advisory board.

3:34:41I'm sorry. So, I am here to say that I do agree with our chairperson, and that, you know, this is an annual requirement that we go through the financial, the comprehensive financial policies.

3:35:00And one of the things that is very concerning by not adopting this as a policy is that the language that stands right now is the same language that was in the Comprehensive Financial Policy when we

3:35:16depleted our reserves and went below into… had a negative general fund balance. And it was also the same policy that was in place

3:35:26when we had to get those TAM loans. So, it makes sense to try to strengthen our policy so that we can have a better outcome than we've had in the past. So, I'm hoping that you will,

3:35:42And I'm hoping that the City Council will adopt the FAP recommendations. Thank you.

3:35:48Thank you. Thank you, and then we'll go to our remote request to speak.

3:35:54Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

3:35:58Ira Sharenow: Irish Aranelle, El Cerrito.

3:36:00Fab needs to take on the important issues.

3:36:04The city seems to be pushing hard for the voters to approve a massive tax hike.

3:36:09For the possibility that there might be a vanity library.

3:36:14I am wondering why the Financial Advisory Board is not addressing the risks associated with this proposal before it is too late.

3:36:23The 2016 precedent is that FAB addressed the library-related tax measure.

3:36:30from an August 8, 2016 newspaper article.

3:36:34The City Council ignored a recommendation from its financial advisory board when it approved ballot language for a bond measure to build a new library that failed to mention that the measure is a tax.

3:36:48The Financial Advisory Board reviewed the proposed language for the November ballot at its July 12 meeting and voted 3-1 to ask staff members present

3:36:58Including Assistant City Manager Karen Pincus.

3:37:01to include the language, quote, that it was a tax on real estate, unquote, said Advisory Board Chair Rich Barty.

3:37:10The situation appears similar.

3:37:12to one that occurred in 2014, when a Times editorial criticized El Cerrito officials for running, quote, a deceptive campaign, unquote, for Measure R, which increased the city's sales tax to the top rate in the state.

3:37:28According to the editorial quote, documents and emails obtained through the State Public Records Act revealed that the city deliberately downplayed in the 75-word ballot language that Measure R would increase a pre-existing tax as well as extend it.

3:37:46Quote, what the city was trying to

3:37:51I'm sorry, what the city was trying to do is mislead the voters, unquote, he said. The big issue was the doubling of the tax, and they never said so.

3:38:01It would have been the same number of words to tell the truth.

3:38:05And then, in the same article, we have this…

3:38:09Lyman said the city is now considering a lot along San Pablo Avenue to the north of the city's public safety building, and is talking with one or two property owners about other sites.

3:38:22Thank you very much.

3:38:25Thank you. Mayor Pretend that concludes our request to speak.

3:38:27Thank you.

3:38:29I'll now go to Council comments and or questions.

3:38:35Councilmember Notiama?

3:38:38Thank you,

3:38:41staff for the presentation, and also to the FAB members for all your consideration of the plan.

3:38:48My concern with having a policy that we know we cannot meet

3:38:58Puts us in violation of our own policies.

3:39:01I think that there are a number of times when we're applying for things like grants, you know, they're pro forma questions. Are you in alignment with all your policies? We would say, actually, no.

3:39:12Would that make us not competitive for a grant? Yes. So, I think that that is my concern. So, we already know, because we've been doing our 5-year projections, that we are going to dip below the 17%.

3:39:26And we know why. And, you know, with the, you know, we are planning for the unfunded liability, we put in the 115 trust, we sized it to cover that gap, so we are being responsible in doing these things,

3:39:43And I think that, you know, we would do these things anyways, you know, before,

3:39:52reserves start to dip very low. So…

3:39:55I think it's… it's different from the times of 2016 or whatever, when, you know, people were just disregarding the plant. So it wouldn't have mattered if it said policy, or the law of God, or whatever, the…

3:40:12the…

3:40:13Council actions were disregarding that plan anyways. So I think we are being very good about looking at this language, but again, I don't want us to adopt language that puts us in violation of it pretty quickly.

3:40:28We know we can't just have… you know, we have a plan to… to keep it… get it back to 17%. There should not be a requirement that every year we need to say, well, we're going to get it back to 17%.

3:40:41So, because these solutions are, more than one year.

3:40:47They're pretty big issues that we've already discussed, and I think, there's some other things that I was, like to see in the financial plan that are not there. And I think,

3:41:02FAB member,

3:41:04Kimberly White mentioned TRANS. So, I think, you know, one of the things that I found to be really problematic when I first started on Council in 2020 is that we had the TRAN, which is the Temporary Revenue Anticipation Note.

3:41:21And that note was getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year, higher and higher interest, and, you know, it was covering up for a lot of budgetary issues.

3:41:33So…

3:41:34you know, I would rather see something like in Section 9.3 to require notification of counsel prior to any issuance of any trans.

3:41:43Because that way we know

3:41:46something's really wrong with our cache management that we all of a sudden need to go back to a tram. I think that would be a really good flashing red light for us to know what's going on.

3:41:58But I think, again, kind of…

3:42:01I appreciate the fab saying, well, we want you to do it for real. We are trying.

3:42:06it's not for lack of reviewing it, it's not for lack of trying, so I think that this is,

3:42:14basically… Punishing us for things that happened in the past that we are really…

3:42:22working hard not to happen again. So, I think it's… you're punishing the wrong group in this, language, and so I would really like to support staff, and I would like to have Council consider that language about the

3:42:41Do you have any comments, or I can… I can go.

3:42:47I think we land in the same place, but I don't agree with everything you just said. I actually want us to see in the next several years, stick to the 17%, even if we have to make the hard decisions.

3:43:00Might we end one year with 16.5? Yeah, and I think that's, you know, that wouldn't be the end of the world. But I don't want us… I don't… I will not approve a budget that gets us way lower than 17%. I think we need to have it. I still think the goal policy language… I know of other cities locally that have policies, and they still have gone below their policy, so I'm not… I don't know, I feel like it's semantics.

3:43:25The part of this I'm actually more concerned about is that, you know, we'll…

3:43:30say we did have something catastrophic, and we had to go below the 17%, and I'm not talking about what we're projecting in the next 5 years, and we'll just say, oh, well, we can't do it, but, like, if something really bad happened, and

3:43:42FEMA wasn't paying us back for things, and whatever, something catastrophic. There's no way in the next budget cycle we're gonna get to 17%. I mean, that would take a miracle. So if something is that bad, I just don't… it doesn't seem really realistic.

3:43:56Reserves are there so that when something goes wrong, you can use them. If they sit there forever and you never use them, maybe you're just really lucky, or you're just not being strategic. The point of reserves is

3:44:09is so that if there's something unplanned that is really catastrophic, you have money to deal with that instead of laying off staff and cutting services. So, we should be able to use them at some point. Again, not what we're projecting in the next couple of years, and I don't… I don't think we should tie the hand of a future council if they have something like that.

3:44:31Again, policy or goal, policy can be changed, but the idea that we're saying, you all of a sudden have to turn around in the next year, figure it out, and get yourself back over to 70%.

3:44:41I just don't think that's realistic, and it's not how reserves work. And I say this having been on the BART board, where we did have a catastrophic crisis, and we still didn't touch our reserves, because we knew we needed it for what they're gonna need it next year if the measure doesn't pass. And so those reserves have still not been touched

3:45:00To this day, so, like, that is my thinking, is, like, you really don't touch the reserves unless you need them, but then they are there, so for BART, if the measure doesn't pass, one of the first things they'll do is start tapping into those reserves. They're there.

3:45:13But that's because you might need them. Something really bad like that might happen, so…

3:45:18I don't know, that's my philosophy on reserves.

3:45:22Thank you. I, you know, Adam, I…

3:45:26I appreciate both your perspectives, and actually agree with you.

3:45:31I do… I'm bothered by the willingness that we as city management, as a council, have to

3:45:40dip below 70% now, you know, our projections, and it bothers me that there is not a greater focus on cost saving. There's a lot of talk about where we can get more revenue, where we can get more revenue, but very little talk about where can we actually have some savings. And that bothers me, and I feel like that's, as a council.

3:45:57I think that's our responsibility to push that.

3:46:00But I do agree that reserves are there to be dropped below whatever threshold there are in an event of an emergency. Unfortunately.

3:46:09we are projecting a dip at a period that is actually kind of a high point for us. It's not… you know, we're not entering an emergency. We haven't seen the worst of an economic recycle yet. We may have that coming in a year or two, you know, depending what happens with

3:46:23inertia in Congress, and a war, and all that. So I think that, you know, there's very, very real possibility that revenue will

3:46:31The revenue stream will decline, and we'll have to dip into them.

3:46:34But I don't think the solution is to…

3:46:38Say, you know, make it a policy not to.

3:46:41Because that's exactly what a reserve is for, is to be able to dip below.

3:46:47I do want to make note that in the next two… And I just want to say, I understand that it's not a tight policy in the sense you can't dip below.

3:46:54But I do think, you know, the point about grants, and whether you're following policy, and I think that's…

3:46:59sort of semantics, I guess, but it's… it's true.

3:47:05Excuse me, Councilmember, just wanted to make note of a couple items. Okay, I don't see it as being restrictive.

3:47:12I see it as just not realistic.

3:47:16That's all.

3:47:18Sorry for the interruption, just a couple things. One, in the next two-year budget, you will be seeing proposals for cost reductions. That is something that the City Council will be seeing, so I really just want to make sure we… I clarify that. The second thing is, is that

3:47:34for the proposal that Councilmember Modayama put forward, it's something that we can put in here, although inherently, a TRAN would require Council approval.

3:47:44So it's up to you whether you want to make that motion or not, but either way, Council approval is required to issue a TRAN, and I hope we never, ever get to that spot ever again. I'm allergic to that word.

3:47:56And the councils at the time did approve those, correct? Correct. Okay, that was my understanding. It's a form of borrowing that can't be done without city council approval. There's no… there would be no way for the staff to do it without that. Nobody would… nobody… no lender effectively would… would…

3:48:13Provide the city with that much money without approval from the legislative body.

3:48:19Okay, do we have a motion?

3:48:24I move to accept the,

3:48:29The financial plan as, proposed by staff.

3:48:35Oh, I'll second it.

3:48:37Just, sorry, just to clarify, that's to adopt the proposed resolution, the amendments to the financial policy? Okay.

3:48:46All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with Mayor Kinto and Councilmember Weisinger absent.

3:48:54Okay, and now we will move on to item 9, which is City Council Local and Regional Liaison Assignments. Anything to report? Okay,

3:49:03I have a few.

3:49:05I usually don't write them all down, but this time I did, so…

3:49:09On Saturday, March 7th, I went to the budget meeting that was here in Anna Gardens with Councilmember… Mayor Pro Tem.

3:49:17Salisman, I agree, it was excellent. I'm a little sad that it's not happening again, but I guess there's a virtual online version of it.

3:49:24Monday, March 9th, attended the Urban Forest Committee.

3:49:29Thursday, March 10th, discussion with Police Chief Keith here in this room regarding the flock system?

3:49:37That was fascinating and very productive in a large crowd.

3:49:41I'm…

3:49:42Wednesday, March 11th, the Marin Clean Energy… I did a Marin Clean Energy, I guess, alternate board member training that was

3:49:52a 4-hour Zoom call. It was quite interesting. In the very beginning, everyone had their cameras on, and by the time it was over, everyone had their cameras off.

3:50:00Except me, I kept it on. Thursday, March 12th, other council members might remember there was a letter sent to us by a resident who invited us to walk with him and his kids to school, and I took him up on it.

3:50:13And it was fascinating. This person had two kids, one of whom was in a wheelchair. He lived on, sort of, the flat side of San Pablo, the other side. We crossed Carlson, sort of as it curves in towards where… as it curves towards San Pablo.

3:50:28car after car after car did not stop as we stood into… stood in the crosswalk. And actually, he… this parent had me sit in the wheelchair to just get the perspective of being down low and trying to cross the street, and could not see a thing. Sometimes a car would stop in the first lane, but the lane behind them, they would zip right through, and

3:50:46Obviously, if you were a child, or someone visually impaired by being low to the ground, you would not have seen that car.

3:50:53And then we crossed over San Pablo, and it was similar obstacles, where people making right turns on red, and going into what I thought was a parking lane, a driving lane.

3:51:03And lots of kids crossing the street at their own hazard.

3:51:06And we continued on down to Harding, and then came back home, and it was… it was revealing. I mean, it's… things…

3:51:11Everything from walking down the sidewalk and it not being…

3:51:14ADA accessible to a wheelchair because of cars parked over the sidewalk, and plants in the way, and…

3:51:20Other things. So, it was a very informative morning.

3:51:24Nice way to get to know a resident as well.

3:51:27Thursday… the same Thursday, I went to the West Contra Costa Integrated Waste Management, which is Recycle More.

3:51:34Which is, joint Powers Authority for El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, San Pablo… I might have missed a city.

3:51:46I agreed there to join a subcommittee to try to decipher their financial audit reports, and that's coming up.

3:51:53Monday… last Monday, I attended the Economic Development Committee here. There are plans about

3:51:59the food bingo, the restaurant bingo they did last year, and maybe doing sort of a mini version at the 4th of July, based on the vendors that are there.

3:52:07So that was enjoyable as well.

3:52:09And that is it for me.

3:52:13Okay, on March 5th, I attended the groundbreaking for Parcel A, which was a really nice day, and really exciting that we're started on the El Credito Plaza TOD.

3:52:26On March 9th, I participated in the lobby day with, our,

3:52:33lobbyists, to advocate for El Cerrito, and I think it went really well. We got a really good response from Caltrans, to hopefully move forward the San Pablo Avenue, safety improvement plan.

3:52:49On March 11th, I attended the ABAG Housing Committee, and also in the same day, I attended the 25th Anniversary Elks Club Law Enforcement Dinner, honoring Detective Nirjan Chonds, our Officer of the Year.

3:53:07I also attended the budget workshop, the lobby day, and the groundbreaking, and then additionally, I attended the planning commission meeting, which was fun because they've appointed their first ever youth commissioner. It's great to see some of our commissions doing that.

3:53:25With that, we are adjourned, and the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting is Tuesday, April 7th, 2026, at 6 p.m, and if all goes according to plan, we'll be back in the City Council Chambers.