Regular City Council Meeting April 7, 2026

0:00:12Hey, Mayor, we are ready to begin whenever you are.

0:00:19The April 7th Regular City Council meeting is now called to order at 6 p.m. Will the City Clerk please call roll? Mayor Kinto? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman? Here. Councilmember Quizlanis? Here. Councilmember Mojiyama? Here. Councilmember Weisinger?

0:00:35Councilmember Wysinger: Here.

0:00:36And just a quick note for the record, Councilmember Weisinger is participating under just cause exemption for a, illness or, other condition that prevents her from attending in person.

0:00:51Please join me in a Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence.

0:00:57I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

0:01:02And to the Republic.

0:01:03It stands, one nation, under God.

0:01:16Madam Clerk, please, provide instructions.

0:01:21Thank you, Mayor Kinto. We're very excited to be back in Council Chambers tonight. As you can see, we do have new technology in the room. I just wanted to take a quick moment to share with the public, which was part of what we put on our Notice Meeting agenda, that at this point in time, due to an unavoidable manufacturing defect in a key piece of our hardware, this meeting is not going to be broadcast or livestreamed online.

0:01:45What this means is just for a short period of time, those two,

0:01:50streaming options are not available to us, as well as we have static images available only for our cameras. Once we get that equipment in, we will be able to fully utilize all of the new equipment in the council chambers, and we tentatively expect to have that full system operational by our first meeting in May. But the meeting is being,

0:02:10live… it is available through Zoom, it is being recorded through Zoom, so we will still have an archive meeting after the event, and the public can still participate via Zoom.

0:02:19So with that, closed captions are also available by participating in Zoom. Meetings of the City Council are subject to the Brown Act and are held for the purpose of conducting city business. The Brown Act also ensures the public's right to be heard, and while Council is not able to respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action.

0:02:40For members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony, the Mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item. Public comments will be taken in person first, and virtually via Zoom. A request to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card or by selecting the raise hand feature on Zoom.

0:02:58in-person speakers will be called first. The Council's adopted Rules of Order and Procedure specify that public speakers address the City Council in an orderly and respectful manner, precede their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. That concludes my announcements. Thank you, Mayor.

0:03:14Okay, now I'd like to introduce City Manager Karen Picas. Karen.

0:03:19Thank you, Your Honor, and I would like to say the, welcome back, yes, to the City Council Chambers. It really does look like a sports bar now.

0:03:28I want to thank Holly Charlottie, our city clerk, and I see you, Eric Ng, our IT manager, for all of their… and their teams for a lot of really, really hard work. You see the screens, and that's nice.

0:03:43I already missed the owl, usually sitting right in front of me here, but there was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff in the walls and underneath here that really, makes a huge difference, so I just really want to thank them, and of course, the Council for supporting, our being able to do this. It's a big upgrade, not just for the City Council meetings, but for our Emergency Operations Center and for all the advisory bodies and events that we hold in this room.

0:04:08So, very excited. And at this point, I would like to call up, Fire Chief Saylor so that he can let you know of some very important fire safety, events happening.

0:04:24Oh, there we go. Okay.

0:04:26Good evening, Mayor and Councilmember. I'm Eric Silas, I'm your Fire Chief.

0:04:30the week of… this next coming week, on the 13th, the 15th, and the 17th, we plan on burning off the debris piles in the Hillside Natural Area.

0:04:38Now, I say plan because there's a series of safety checks that we do prior to us actually burning these off, and it is all evolved around the weather and the Air Resource Board. So if the weather changes, we'll have to reschedule, but right now, it looks like the weather is looking good, and that is our plan.

0:04:54Now, when we burn these piles off, we'll have crews on scene to make sure the fire doesn't spread, and we're reducing fuels in the natural hillside area so that we don't have any bigger fires when weather gets hotter and drier. We also notify fire dispatch that we're lighting these fires so that if somebody sees it and thinks it's a real fire and calls into 911,

0:05:13They get handed off to a dispatcher, and then they identify that we're already on scene, and those are the fires that are happening. So, over those days, the 13th, the 15th, the 17th, if you see smoke on the Hillside Natural Area, we don't have a lot of weather, you should see, nice, clean smoke rising up into the air. That is us burning off that fuel prior to fire season starting.

0:05:34Very much appreciate that.

0:05:37Any comments or questions? Go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem. So, I assume you'll close off access for some perimeter around there, and it'll be clearly signed? That's right. So.

0:05:48Where the trails will be going through, we'll be closing off parts of those trails, so you can't walk past those piles, but there's quite a few piles, so we have to assess each one and its location individually.

0:05:58Great, thank you.

0:05:59And we will also make sure that this is out on social media and Nixle as well. Yes.

0:06:05And with that, that's all I have, Your Honor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

0:06:10Any comments, or announcements from my colleagues here? Yes, Councilmember Motuyama.

0:06:17Thank you, Mayor. I just want to, let people know that the Best of El Cerrito nominations are being taken.

0:06:24for this year at bestofelCerrito.com, so if there's a local business that you would like to see, get recognition, please do, put in a nomination for that. And also, El Cerrito,

0:06:39Preschool co-op is having their Messy Art Day on Sunday, April the 19th, from 10 to 4 p.m. at Mosier and Ashbury. It's a free event, but you will need to register at ecpckids.com.

0:06:52That's good, very good, thank you. We'll go to Councilmember Weisiger online via Zoom.

0:06:58Councilmember Wysinger: Thank you so much, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you to the different congregations that invited us to join them this weekend for Resurrection Sunday weekend and Passover weekend. So, on Friday, we were with St. Peter's CME. Councilmember Motuyama and I were with St. Peter's CME for their Good Friday, breakfast, along with our supervisor, John Joya, our State Superintendent, Tony Thurman.

0:07:22our city manager, our El Cerrito PD, and a lot of, important luminaries, as well as, of course, the congregation and community members, so thank you to all who attended that. And then on Saturday, we were with the Temple Beth Hillel congregation for Passover Seder dinner. So that was myself and, Mayor Pro Tem Salzman and, Councilmember Cassanis, so it's always a wonderful time to join with

0:07:47them for Passover weekend, and then, of course, on Sunday, I was there with my home family at Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, technically in Richmond, but they also… the pastor's mother, and he also lives in El Cerrito, so we're always good to see them. Thank you so much, Councilmember Motayama, who brought up EC Cooperative's Messy Art Day. Unfortunately, I won't be able to participate this year, because I'll be at another event

0:08:12But I know that it will be great. On Saturday the 18th, Down Home Music will actually be celebrating Record Store Day, and some crazy person there asked me to DJ. So, the event itself is from 1pm to 5.30pm. I will be DJing from 1 to 2.30pm, which will be difficult, because who actually gets to play their vinyl records anymore? But I look forward to hopefully seeing some of you all

0:08:37there. I am complete, Mayor.

0:08:39Okay, thank you very much. Anyone else?

0:08:43Okay, I have a couple of announcements. Yesterday, I did attend the groundbreaking ribbon cutting for the new

0:08:52fast food restaurant on the corner of Cutting and San Pablo, and it was a great, opening for the newest Taco Bell in El Cerrito, and it will be a busy, busy location there.

0:09:07They're even open late at night and on weekends, so, we're gonna see moms going through the drive-thru, and, kids during the day, and after school, so it's a new destination for,

0:09:21El Cerritans and West County residents and folks getting at BART, getting back into their cars, or, just, catching up over a meal. So again, congratulations to the new owners at

0:09:33the new.

0:09:36the newest restaurant, which is the newest Taco Bell. And today, I also want to make an announcement to the El Cerrito Garden Club. They're having a planned sale on Sunday, April 19th, and that's from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library parking lot.

0:09:55at 6510 Stockton Avenue. They'll feature native plants, pollinator plants, blooming plants, succulents, worm juice, soil enhancement, then they will take cash, checks, and Venmo, so be there.

0:10:12Also, we are still actively seeking

0:10:15Applications for the Library Task Force.

0:10:18The deadline to apply is April 17th.

0:10:22Please visit the City website or contact the City Clerk for more information.

0:10:27For the first quarter of 2026, covering January to March

0:10:33I recognize El Suritan centenarians David Graeber, who turned 101 in January, Frank.

0:10:42Kang Herlini, who just turned 100 last month.

0:10:46and a mayoral certificate of recognition, will be presented. And, today we have a very special guest today, celebrating her 102nd birthday, and that was last month.

0:11:03We have the honor of having a centenarian

0:11:07Amazel Gibson here, and I wanted to say belated happy birthday, and I have a special recognition for your birthday, 102 years old.

0:11:17All weekend, I've been dealing with, my 91-year-old mom, who… she turned 91 on Saturday, and she was able to get out of the hospital. She's, she's,

0:11:28at home, but it's great to see our very active seniors in El Cerrito and West County, and I'm wondering if it would be okay if we take a group photo with her. So let's head over there. Maybe we can have the photo

0:11:44Over there, so, Councilmember Weisinger can be included in this.

0:13:17Mayor Quinto, I didn't request to speak for this, but I'm wondering if I could…

0:13:21Say a word for her birthday.

0:13:24I'm happy to be here as president of Rosie the Riveter Trust, and just wanted to say that Omazelle has been, a wonderful representative and participant

0:13:35With us and for us, and her daughter's been fabulous about, bringing her along to celebrate, not only Rosie the Riveter Day recently, but many other gatherings that we have.

0:13:47And we're very happy to have you in our community.

0:13:52Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

0:13:58Again, thank you for being here. It's an honor to have you join us this evening.

0:14:03Next is, oral communications to the public.

0:14:06Now 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 raised hand feature on Zoom, or dialing 9 if joining by phone.

0:14:26In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. Madam City Clerk, please proceed.

0:14:37Thank you, Mayor.

0:14:39Okay, we, we currently have 4 requests in person.

0:14:453 minutes.

0:14:51And then we do have one request online. Okay, so I'll, invite our first speaker up, Michael Cohen, followed by Bill Barish.

0:15:05Adrian.

0:15:06My name is Michael Cohen, I'm an El Cerrito resident.

0:15:09Good evening, Councilmembers.

0:15:12I'll just put it aside, almost 50 years ago, both my children attended ECBC.

0:15:18Recently, I tried to send a message to the city attorney. I understand he's not a city employee, but I was quite surprised to see that on the city website, there's no contact information. No phone number, no email, zilch.

0:15:34I know his function is to advise the Council about legal matters, but since the Council represents all his citizens, I think there ought to be a way to send him a message.

0:15:43I wanted to include them in March when I communicated with you two times about senior exemptions.

0:15:49I pointed out that no senior exemptions would actually be delivered by the post-parcel tax law.

0:15:55now called Measure C.

0:15:57I mentioned then the city attorney in a short ballot summary, and his much longer impartial analysis has suggested there were exemptions.

0:16:06The members of the Council didn't act when I asked that the incorrect language be removed.

0:16:13Let's remember that the Council should represent all the citizens.

0:16:18The council did not tell the attorney to correct the false information.

0:16:23So, did the attorney send a bill to the city for this work? I'm sure he did.

0:16:28But I'm not sure he actually read the initiative and researched the laws cited

0:16:34I've seen the attorney's analysis now for your agenda item later this… in this meeting, item 8A.

0:16:41He's basically agreed that an exemption would not actually be delivered by this initiative.

0:16:47And that if the Council desired, they could amend it, and he presented data and information regarding some scenarios.

0:16:55I wonder what legal research he has done.

0:16:58Actually, the Gonzalez-Dut-Megian Pettis Law does not exist.

0:17:04Go ahead, Google it, see what you find.

0:17:07The bottom line for me, and I am shocked by it, it appears to me that the council paid the city attorney to lie about what is contained in the measure, and those lies will deceive the voters.

0:17:21How is this going to help?

0:17:23Citizen trust in government.

0:17:28I have one item that's just another aside. I noticed on the City Council website that you post legal matters in a newspaper called the West County Times. You should note that the West County Times doesn't exist any longer and correct that, perhaps to the

0:17:46East Bay Times?

0:17:48Thank you.

0:17:50Our next… Our next speaker is Bill Barrage, followed by Michael Fisher.

0:18:01Good evening, everyone. I'm Bill Barrish.

0:18:04And I'm in El Cerio.

0:18:06I got curious over the last few days, and I thought.

0:18:10this issue of the Measure C discussions

0:18:14had to, result in some fairly interesting statistics. So I spent several days looking at all of the recordings of every City Council meeting since March the 1st of 2025 up through March the 31st of 2026.

0:18:32And I thought you might be interested in what I found.

0:18:36So that comprised 9 city council meetings, including a special meeting.

0:18:45There were 54 unique speakers.

0:18:50who generated 95 separate comments to Council.

0:18:54And obviously, that means some speakers spoke

0:19:01Multiple times, including sometimes multiple times in the same meeting.

0:19:05of the…

0:19:0795 comments that were generated. I'll take the smallest one first. These were the people who spoke and had, some alternative view or no position, particularly, on the… what became Measure C.

0:19:22There were 10 comments in that group.

0:19:26Comprising 10.53% of the comments total.

0:19:34In support of the measure.

0:19:37and or putting it on the June ballot.

0:19:41There were 39 comments that comprised 41.05%.

0:19:49And for those opposed, or who preferred the November ballot, That generated 46.

0:19:59Or 48.42%, and…

0:20:04for a math foe like me, I was surprised that those numbers did add up to exactly 100%.

0:20:10Now, the… Upshot of all this.

0:20:14is that, I think that you've seen that this has generated a lot of tension and discord within the city.

0:20:24And so what I would want to do is ask the Council to have A session, an open forum.

0:20:34Where all of these things could be aired In a less-than-civil war atmosphere.

0:20:45So, if you could bring a motion for that, and perhaps decide and set something up, I think that would actually be really helpful. Thank you.

0:20:54Our next speaker is Michael Fisher, followed by Darby Falkenstein.

0:21:01Mayor and Council Members, my name's Michael Fisher. I've lived in El Cerrito since 1998.

0:21:10And born and raised in the East Bay.

0:21:13Library Measure C is a great deal for El Cerrito.

0:21:18It's a great deal because the tax ends 30 years after bonds are issued.

0:21:24A length like most mortgages.

0:21:27It is a great deal.

0:21:29Because 10 years after the library opens, the tax rate reverts to a lower set cost only for paying off the bonds.

0:21:40It is a great deal.

0:21:42Because the money it raises can only be used for library purposes, with independent auditing to make sure that happens.

0:21:51And it is a great deal because the community will be actively involved in the where, what, and how of our library.

0:22:03The No campaign says they support libraries, but quote, just not this plan.

0:22:10But Measure C is merely a funding source.

0:22:14If you're pro-library, You have to be for it.

0:22:19They provide no path forward to renovating or replacing our current inadequate and seismically threatened library.

0:22:28They present no alternatives, but frankly now present scary-looking comic book-quality anti-tax rhetoric, including a picture of a wildfire.

0:22:43Really?

0:22:45They present no way to fund any proposal.

0:22:49They might want a library.

0:22:51But perhaps only if somebody else pays for it.

0:22:55Given the condition of our library, a no vote is a vote for no library.

0:23:03Doing nothing is not a safe option.

0:23:08Frankly, I also find reprehensible personal attacks and demonizing of both me and my fellow supporters of Measure C.

0:23:20Our motive is merely to provide an appropriate means of funding.

0:23:26Renovation or replacement of our dangerously inadequate library.

0:23:32This is El Cerrito, so if you disagree with us, Do so without being disagreeable.

0:23:40No threats, no personal attacks.

0:23:43We owe respect to each other.

0:23:46Thank you.

0:23:50Our next speaker is Darby Falkenstein, followed by Michelle Fideli.

0:23:59Hi, my name's Darby Falkenstein, as you mentioned. I've lived in El Cerrito for 55 years.

0:24:05This may be a surprise to you, but I'm going to talk about Measure C.

0:24:10And… Hopefully, Put some comments in on fiscal responsibility.

0:24:17For example, let's say, Paul Keith comes to you and he needs a new police SUV.

0:24:24Don't happen to have the money right now.

0:24:26So… I got a good deal.

0:24:30I want to get it right now, it's only $35,000, and I got a new officer, and we want to put him behind the wheel.

0:24:37Okay, well then… Go ahead and get it, Paul.

0:24:41And we'll pay for it on time.

0:24:45And… At the end of the amortization of the loan, it's really going to cost $70,000.

0:24:53For that police utility vehicle.

0:24:58It appears that Measure C is doing the same thing, only transfer that to millions of dollars for the city and the citizens of El Cerrito.

0:25:08So, we have a lot of people that are in the city that

0:25:12Have high taxes to start with.

0:25:15And to have a forever increasing tax burden.

0:25:21On those residents is not the thing to do.

0:25:24I'm sure you've heard about all the other cities are getting libraries rebuilt and brand new libraries at zero cost to their resident taxpayers.

0:25:34So, if we could come up with a solution that is very similar to that.

0:25:38I don't think there'll be much pushback. The yard signs can go away. We can all be happy and enjoy a new library or a remodeled library in its present location.

0:25:50Thank you very much.

0:25:52Our next speaker is Michelle Fideli, followed by Ira Chernow.

0:25:59Good evening, Mayor Quinto and Council Members. Michelle Fidelli, and I've been a resident of El Cerrito since 1993. I just wanted to share, the website for the Yes on Measure C campaign for those people that have questions or are interested in more information.

0:26:17The website is anewelCerritolibrary.com, and on that page, we're adding materials on that, all the time, but on that page, you will find the ballot language and the proposed ordinance. You'll find a document of myths and facts where questions that have been proposed have been answered.

0:26:37You'll find information about, plans and background, and as has been discussed, there isn't just one plan in mind. There are, five… there were five options that were presented to Council, and as we understand, we're going to get the funding

0:26:53measure first, so that we can discuss those options, and then leave that to the Council to work out the details. And thank you in advance for… for all of that effort.

0:27:03On the website, people that are supportive could also request a lawn sign to share their support. There's a list of endorsements, both elected officials and,

0:27:14City Notables, as well as the many residents that have signed on. There's an opportunity to donate for those who would like to support the effort, and I just encourage everyone to become informed and to not, assume

0:27:30Don't assume from either side that, you know, rhetoric is the absolute. I encourage people to do their own research, and learn about the measure, and be… be prepared by Election Day. Thank you.

0:27:42Okay, then going to our remote request to speak.

0:27:50Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:27:54ira: Hi, Irish Aranel, El Cerrito.

0:27:58I request the City Council hold a town hall on Measure C with a genuine interchange between city officials and the community.

0:28:06Councilmember Modiyama wants the city website to be the source of truth.

0:28:12So far, it is failing.

0:28:15The city has provided no explanation for why the library costs exploded from $21 million, with an expected savings of $10 million to $37 million.

0:28:28There is no explanation for why Bitcoin is building a comparable library

0:28:34In affordable housing for $27 million, while securing $11.9 million in state and federal grants.

0:28:43Richmond, which borders El Cerrito, won a $9.7 million state grant to renovate its library.

0:28:50El Cerrillo never pursued any of this funding, and instead placed the entire burden on its own taxpayers.

0:28:58There is no explanation for how the city will cover the operating costs after year 10 if this library is ever actually built.

0:29:07I don't think a library will ever actually be built.

0:29:11The city has not made clear that this is a forever tax. The ballot language says 30 years after bonds are sold.

0:29:19But the bonds may not be sold for years, and may never be sold at all.

0:29:25We have no plans for Parcel C West.

0:29:28No answers on what happens if Parcel C fails to get funding.

0:29:34No disclosure of how much tax revenue will be consumed By planning fees and lawyers.

0:29:41And no answer to a simple question.

0:29:44What happens to this tax if the Jarvis Amendment passes in November?

0:29:50So many unanswered questions.

0:29:52So little transparency, as is so common in El Cerrito.

0:29:57The voters of El Cerrito deserve better.

0:30:00Thank you very much.

0:30:03Thank you, Mayor. That concludes our request to speak.

0:30:06Okay, great, thank you very much. Next, we'll go to adoption of the consent calendar.

0:30:13Let's see… we have, 8. Approval of minutes.

0:30:20B, adopt an ordinance for permanent outdoor dining and retail sales regulations. C, authorize annual report for landscaping and lighting assessment district for fiscal year 2026-27. D is the Earth Day Proclamation. E.

0:30:36Economic Development Committee appointment, and

0:30:41Would anyone like to pull anything?

0:30:44Yes, Councilmember Motayama.

0:30:47I have a question on item C, 6C.

0:30:52Anything else?

0:30:53That's it. Okay. Anyone else?

0:30:57Okay, let's go to C.

0:30:59Okay, I have a question regarding 6C. I would…

0:31:06I'll wait for staff to get to the lectern.

0:31:18So, I would like to know what happens. I noticed that we use some fund balance every year to cover the shortfall, because, the district… the assessment district doesn't actually

0:31:32generate enough revenue to cover the actual cost. So I want to know what happens when we run out of the fund balance. I mean, do we actually have to reduce the scope of the landscaping work? Or, you know.

0:31:45what happens, and then, you know, we are adding a lot of additional street lighting because of all the improvements, like at the Del Norte Station, along Richmond Street. So, how…

0:31:57Does that add to the maintenance cost that will be covered by…

0:32:02some of this money. Sure. Good evening, Council. Clerk Coleman, Budget and Financial Services Manager. I will defer the questions about signals and lighting to our Public Works Director so she can speak about those in more detail. I'm sorry, I'm new to this mic. Was that okay?

0:32:17Yeah, oop.

0:32:18These mics are much more sensitive, so you don't have to be near as close to them. Thank you so much. In terms of the LAD fund balance, so as you noted, Councilmember Modayama, the Landscape and Lighting District does not cover the full costs. It was originally passed in the 1980s, and you can imagine it's been 40 years, if you can believe it, it's been 40 years since the 1980s, and that doesn't go nearly as far as it used to.

0:32:40And so, as a result, many of those activities that once were included within the LAD fund are now included in the general fund instead. And so the fund balance is a little bit…

0:32:51complicated because it… the general fund is already subsidizing many of those activities, and so once that fund balance is completely used up, it'll ultimately be a decision of the city councils to either continue the same level of service using both general fund dollars, subsidizing LAD functions, and, my colleague, Public Works Director Ortiz also, reminded me that our, some of our streets and roads funds are also used for some of the light

0:33:16purposes as applicable. So a few of our different funds, general fund and special funds, support LAD activities. So once that fund balance is gone, it's ultimately the decision of the City Council whether to continue to subsidize or to decrease the rate of service that we provide.

0:33:30Thank you very much.

0:33:39Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers, Yvette Ortiz, the City's Public Works Director. I think, Claire Coleman covered it, in terms of the new lighting that's being installed as part of our transportation projects, because they're street lighting, they are covered by our,

0:33:55our transportation funds, notably SB1 and, Measure J and…

0:34:02Return to source from the county, and gas tax.

0:34:07So, is that the installation or the maintenance of the lights? So, the installation is, covered by mostly grants, and the operation and maintenance, including utility bills, and repairs and maintenance, is covered by the operating funds, which are those funds that I just mentioned.

0:34:24So they cover both, if they're needed.

0:34:27Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

0:34:32Do I have a motion to support, the consent calendar, A,

0:34:38through E. I will make that motion. Okay, we have a motion by…

0:34:46my colleague, William Cassonis, and, seconded by Councilmember Otiama. All in favor?

0:34:54Hi. And, we'll go to, the Zoom there.

0:35:00Apologies, Mayor, for this meeting, we do need to do all of our, votes by roll call, as Councilmember Weisinger is virtually, so I'm actually going to go ahead and call that vote. So, Mayor Quinto?

0:35:13Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman? Yes.

0:35:15Councilmember Quizanes? Yes. Councilmember Mochiyama? Yes. And Councilmember Weisinger?

0:35:21Councilmember Wysinger: I am alone, no one else is in the room, and I vote yes.

0:35:26Thank you, motion carries.

0:35:28Very good. Next, we'll go to Policy Matters.

0:35:32And, can we have a staff report on, the local road safety plan studies session?

0:36:05And for the staff in the room, you will all be very happy to know that moving forward, you will have access to presenter notes for presentations, just so you know.

0:36:42Okay, good evening, Councilmembers. My name is Jared Mullet, I'm the Transportation Program Manager here at the City, and I'm pleased to give you an update on the Local Road Safety Plan and get your input on a few key policy items. Jared, give yourself a little more distance, it's very sensitive. Okay.

0:37:00So diving in, the, outline for tonight's discussion is first looking at the national backdrop for road safety, looking at our road safety plan, and then, talking about next steps.

0:37:14So, the national backdrop. Unfortunately, road safety is a major issue in the United States. About 40,000 people die on U.S. roads every year.

0:37:25And this is after decades of improvement in this country. So, over the last 10 years or so, other rich nations have successfully reduced crashes by prioritizing safety for those outside the vehicle.

0:37:40As well as for those within. And that's really where we got most of our crash reductions. You know, starting in the 1970s, there was a big push to make cars themselves safer through, you know, new windshields, removing those buttons that impale people on the dashboards, things like that.

0:37:57But there's, there's still a need to think about people on the transportation network who are not in vehicles, and that is really where the United States has stalled.

0:38:08So, seeking to emulate successes in other countries, state and federal agencies are, requiring local agencies to adopt road safety plans, to remain competitive for transportation grants.

0:38:22And there's an emphasis on what they call the safe systems approach, which is in this diagram and this wheel on the slide here. And Vision Zero, the idea of eliminating and focusing on fatal and severe injury crashes.

0:38:38And the safe systems approach is based off of… or it's 6… has 6 principles and 5 objectives, so I'm just gonna read the principles here. They're around the ring, we'll touch on them again, so…

0:38:50Good to outline them now. So first, deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable. They're preventable, they're unacceptable. Two, humans make mistakes. Three, humans are vulnerable.

0:39:054. Responsibility is shared. 5. Safety is proactive, and six, redundancy is crucial.

0:39:13And then the five objectives here are the pieces of the pie, so it's safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and post-crash care.

0:39:23So as a city, our focus, our role to play is really around, safe speeds, and safe roads, and to some extent, post-crash care.

0:39:35And this really outlines how this is a systematic, so to speak, change in thinking around road safety. So, in the past, we used to think about just preventing all crashes. If you have any crash, then that's a sign of failure, but rather now, it's focusing on deaths and serious injuries. And that's speaking to human

0:39:55Humans make mistakes, there are going to be crashes, but it's about preventing the severity. So, if there is a crash, you get a tow truck instead of an ambulance.

0:40:04In the past, it was talk… we were looking at perfect human behavior, we… that's just not realistic. Control speeding, rather, speed is an important variable of this system, but we're looking at reducing kinetic energy. The faster you go, the more energy there is in a crash.

0:40:24And this focus on shared responsibility, that doesn't mean that individuals aren't responsible, but rather they're part of a system. So, us, as the city.

0:40:35We shape road design. We, make decisions about where crosswalks go, where traffic signals go, things like that. That does have a role to play in road safety.

0:40:46And then in the past, we would react just really based on crash history, but the systems approach is encouraging us to think proactively, preventing crashes before they happen.

0:40:57And you can think of this as, what they call the Swiss cheese model. The idea is you build layers of protection. So, here you have the, the, five objectives here. Safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, etc.

0:41:13And a fatal or serious injury crash only occurs when all layers fail. So you could have one layer fail, then you have the other layer to protect it.

0:41:22And this is nothing new, really. It's taking a page from, like, factory safety policies, airline safety. If you remember back in the 60s and 70s, flying, you know, crashes used to be a normal thing, and now flying is incredibly safe. You're more likely to

0:41:39Die or be seriously hurt in the taxicab on the way to the airport than you are on the plane.

0:41:46So looking at Vision Zero, which, the idea, again, is the idea of eliminating fatal and severe injury crashes, there's been a lot in the press in the United States here, and, it's really been branded as a failure in the media.

0:42:00But that doesn't tell the full, full truth, because there are some variables to success, which make it challenging, for a lot of cities. And it really boils down to city size. It's harder for bigger cities to achieve it, just because there's a lot more going on.

0:42:17Street design, has a huge variable, and that's a big challenge for a lot of cities, simply because streets have just not been built with other road users in mind. So that's maybe hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of miles of road that maybe needs to be reconstructed, and the challenge is just enormous. And then finally, community and political support. Huge, huge variable in any kind of public infrastructure.

0:42:42So I highlighted some articles here from a grand jury report in San Francisco criticizing

0:42:50the city's challenges around Vision Zero. But I also highlighted this, this post at the top from the New York Post. Frank Sinatra's New Jersey hometown sees traffic fatalities vanish thanks to political will and smart design, and that is from the New York Post.

0:43:07And that is in Hoboken, New Jersey. So that is the Vision Zero success story, mostly, so far in the United States.

0:43:15And Hoboken, New Jersey has had zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries going on 9 years now. And the city's small, it's compact, it doesn't have wide roads, so they have this urban fabric that's very favorable to achieving Vision Zero.

0:43:30But that's not the only example. Locally here in Fremont, just down the, down the BART line, down the Orange Line.

0:43:38they haven't achieved Vision Zero yet, but they've reduced traffic fatalities 45% since adopting a Vision Zero policy. So there's a way to make meaningful change through proactive and reactive decisions.

0:43:54Alright, well, shifting gears to, El Cerrito's Local Road Safety Plan.

0:44:01So, our road safety plan, did a crash record analysis, an equity analysis, included community outreach, and policy program, and countermeasure development.

0:44:12And here's a summary of where we've come from. So, we really started way back in fall 2023 with data collection. In 24 and 25, we worked on public outreach, countermeasure development, and we have an administrative draft plan.

0:44:27And right now, we want to get some input from you all on some key policy choices. This will inform the public draft in May, and then we're looking for Council adoption later in July.

0:44:42So, diving into the crashes, excuse me.

0:44:46We looked at 5 years of crash data from 2018 through 2022, and that's from SWITTERS, the statewide integrated traffic record system.

0:44:55And that's, includes crash-type data, metadata, location severity, and involved parties, among, among other, among other data. It's, it's very, it's very comprehensive.

0:45:07And the locations we looked at are all public roads in El Cerrito, except freeways, and that includes State Route 123, also known, of course, as San Pablo Avenue.

0:45:17At least south of Cutting Boulevard at State Route 123. And there were 104 minor injury crashes, and 1 fatal and 9 severe injury crashes, which, moving forward in this presentation, I'm going to refer to as KSI crashes, for… for simplicity.

0:45:35And we also looked at, since some time has elapsed, we have looked at, we did look at KSI crashes for 23 through 25 in a supplemental analysis. And again, we're focusing on those severe injury and fatalities because of the safe systems approach, and really looking at preventing those, focusing on those crashes.

0:45:56So now to look at the crash data, I just want to highlight some key terms I'll be referring to. So, in the road hierarchy, you'll see San Pablo Avenue and State Route 123 in particular coming up because of its Caltrans jurisdiction and ownership.

0:46:11Arterials, which are just main roads that carry through traffic at higher speeds. Destinations and activity centers, I think that's pretty self-explanatory, but areas around parks, community centers, transit corridors, etc.

0:46:27do come up. And I want to highlight disadvantaged communities here. So, what that means is basically census tracts that have a significant concentration of underserved populations, such as low-income households and people of color. They also include people with limited English proficiency, zero vehicle households, and other variables.

0:46:52And we used, data from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Now, they've done mapping for these, this region-wide, as well as the, USDOT, before it was removed.

0:47:08And I do want to highlight the census tracts. These disadvantaged communities are in purple here on the map.

0:47:16So, our injury crashes, this is a map of those 100-plus all-injury crashes. They nearly all occurred at intersections. They're concentrated along arterial roadways, those major roads with the higher traffic volumes.

0:47:29And of these injury crashes, I want to say that 30% of all these crashes occur on San Pablo, despite, only 2% of the city road miles. So it's a very… San Pablo Avenue is a very important

0:47:41Corridor to, to, address for, for safety.

0:47:46And zooming into those KSI crashes, we had one fatality and 9 severe injuries. And what you're seeing here is half are in disadvantaged communities, a third are in San Pablo Avenue, 8 out of 10 are on arterial roadways, and most are bicyclists or pedestrians.

0:48:06And looking at that additional analysis, unfortunately, people do continue to die and get seriously injured on our roadways.

0:48:16bye.

0:48:16Repeating the same pattern, basically.

0:48:21And this is a look of the 7-year period.

0:48:27So I mentioned bicyclists and pedestrians are involved in most of those KSI crashes, so why is that? And it's simply because of kinetic energy. We touched on that a little earlier. The force of a crash is one when borne by the human body. Our human bodies just really can't take that much energy.

0:48:46And you can see here, there's a direct relationship in this chart between speed and crash severity, and whether or not someone is hurt or seriously injured. And it doesn't take much, so just going from 20 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour, there is a major difference in whether or not someone lives or dies who's hit by a driver in a vehicle.

0:49:06And then at 40 miles per hour, 85% of pedestrians or bicyclists, vulnerable road users, would die.

0:49:16So, looking at El Cerrito relative to the rest of the cities in our county, there's an interesting finding here.

0:49:24And I think this speaks to whether or not, you know, Vision Zero is really, like, an attainable goal for us. And we're actually the second densest city in Contra Costa County. The first densest city, is San Pablo, so that's the dot way at the upper right-hand corner of that chart.

0:49:40So we're about 2 times denser than the average Contra Costa County city, but we have two times fewer KSI crashes per capita.

0:49:49And looking at our road network, I think we've already got some great bones compared to our peer cities that have more challenges. And that's… our roads are, except for San Pablo Avenue and a handful of wide streets, we have slow, narrow streets with low traffic volumes, and that really sets us up for success.

0:50:08But that still means we have work to do.

0:50:13So shifting gears to public outreach, here's some of the methods we used to engage the community. It was really to promote this online questionnaire where we received over a thousand responses.

0:50:27And, we start out by asking folks, really, what are the primary road safety issues, in town? And this is a questionnaire that anyone could respond to, so it's not, like, a scientific survey, but,

0:50:39We did get a fair number of responses here.

0:50:44So, more than half of the respondents, selected distracted driving and vehicle speeds, as a top priority, and visibility and pedestrian safety all came in close and second.

0:50:56We also ask, trade-off questions, because that's always what transportation is about. You can't have everything.

0:51:03And so we asked, people what they… how much they would support these given, given changes. And strong support was the easier things, like closing sidewalk gaps, improving visibility.

0:51:17Enforcement by police officers. I was a little surprised to see physical changes to the road, like traffic calming scoring pretty highly here, a lot of interest in that. Interest in Vision Zero, less support, but still strong support for lower speed limits, speed camera enforcement.

0:51:34And then finally, the more challenging trade-off question is more space for walking and biking, even with some parking removal.

0:51:41And you can see here some of the concerns in the open response that, that came up several times, which is, Vision Zero is a gimmick, that it's failed, which is something that we, you know, we've seen in those articles.

0:51:56And this is just to recap the key findings.

0:52:01Basically, our… our…

0:52:03deaths and serious injuries, they're occurring on our major roads, they're mostly bicyclists and pedestrians, and they are occurring in our disadvantaged communities. But there's a lot of interest and support for potential solutions.

0:52:20So, shifting gears, some things we're considering, some, some solutions, is, first of all, Vision Zero, a commitment to eliminating fatal and severe injury crashes citywide by 2035.

0:52:34And we're looking at these emphasis areas, speed management, pedestrians and bicyclists, unsignalized intersections, and these, groups of solutions. So the network, I'll briefly touch on that, and then we can go into the policy questions.

0:52:52So this is our, priority network, that we developed based on the… primarily on the crash data. And, there's key focus areas, San Pablo Avenue, uptown… arterials in the uptown area around the Del Norte BART station.

0:53:08Same thing in downtown by the, El Cerrito Plaza BART station.

0:53:13And something that surprised me, but when I looked at the data, it made sense, Waldo Avenue.

0:53:21And this network is only 5% of the local road network, but it accounts for 72% of all injury crashes and 18 of the 21 KSI crashes.

0:53:34And, looking at our policies, it's basically grouped into speed and bikeways. These are the key ones we'd like your feedback on.

0:53:46And on speed, just a reminder of why, why speed is so important in thinking about, road safety. It's that kinetic energy in a crash. It's a more forceful crash, but drivers, your field of vision narrows the faster you go.

0:54:05You have longer stopper… stopping distance. I do want to say that speed is not marked as the primary factor in most of our crashes, but it's always a contributing factor. For example, if a driver hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and that pedestrian dies, and they were driving the speed limit.

0:54:23You know, excessive speed will not be marked as… most likely not be marked as the cause, but it definitely contributed to it, which is something that we, we want to pay attention to. It was also a top issue of public concern.

0:54:39So something… the first thing we're looking at is, contextual speed limits, with a goal of, setting a 25 mile per hour citywide maximum speed limit.

0:54:48And then looking at lower speed limits, depending on land use context, like on local streets and around schools. And the idea with this is it sets, consistent expectations and messages about speed across the city. And it's… as far as,

0:55:04road interventions go, it is a relatively scalable and quickly way to, improve, improve safety outcomes.

0:55:11And this would have to be done through a speed management strategy. There's many layers of state laws that still regulate and control what local agencies can do around speed, and we would also have to work closely with our public safety partners here across the street to make sure it aligns with their capacity.

0:55:30And we would also have to bring the final, final decisions to you for adoption and a resolution.

0:55:40The second part of the speed strategy that we'd be looking at is target speeds, which quite simply is design streets for the speed that we intend drivers to go.

0:55:52In the past, a lot of civil engineers would design roads for 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limit, and then everyone would drive 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limit, and then the speed limit would increase, and it was kind of this,

0:56:05never-ending circular logic of increased speed limits and worse crash outcomes. So instead, we want to just design streets for the speed we intend drivers to go, like the strategy we took on Richmond Street.

0:56:20And the final one we'd like you to consider is automated speed enforcement. So, automated speed enforcement is not currently allowed in California, except for 6 pilot cities, and we're not seeking to join that pilot. Rather, this is to help inform our legislative platform.

0:56:38I'd say the chances are good that,

0:56:41Because the results are strong, initial results for this pilot are strong. In San Francisco, there's a 72% reduction in speeding.

0:56:49on these streets. You know, it's likely to… it's likely that legislation will come before lawmakers to expand or change this, and we would like to be prepared with our legislative platform on that.

0:57:04And I do want to highlight here, this is this last bullet, that,

0:57:08This isn't intended to be a replacement for a police officer enforcement. Rather, it's just acknowledging that police officers can't be everywhere, and that there's design… serious design limitations on design on those higher-speed multi-lane roads.

0:57:26basically, you know, we're not going to start putting speed bumps on San Pablo Avenue, for example. So there's limits to the effectiveness of design on those types of roads.

0:57:39And then, shifting gears to bikeways, we're almost through here.

0:57:44So, bicyclists were involved in 4 of the 21 KSI crashes during that 7-year period. So we're not seeing bicyclists,

0:57:54really represented a tremendous amount in these crashes, but we're thinking proactively. We know that infill development will increase bicycling demand. It's city policy that we want new residents to

0:58:06and existing residents, but especially new residents, to bike and walk more. So, we're thinking ahead a little bit in that way, that it'd be a proactive as well as a reactive strategy.

0:58:18And this is revisiting some of the findings that we shared with you during the study session back in the summer for Richmond Street and the countywide, or the citywide,

0:58:28Complete Streets policies. So we're, we're looking to affirm Council's direction for implementation of, these bikeways, per the adopted plans and policies, with a focus on the, what we're calling the Backbone network. And these are existing bikeways.

0:58:46that, like Richmond, like those blocks of Richmond Street, are like a shared lane facility on a higher speed, higher volume road.

0:58:54And this shows basically what the changes would be. What's not shown is the, what we're calling the East-West Bikeway, which is in the southern part of the city, either on Central or Fairmont, because we, we need to do a planning study to figure out where that alignment would go.

0:59:12Just because to get to the Bay Trail and those connections, there's some pretty major right-of-way constraints that, it's…

0:59:20You have to do a planning study for before you can build anything.

0:59:25And finally, Vision Zero, this, this really caps it all off, is a commitment to eliminating fatal and severe injury crashes citywide by 2035.

0:59:36And we think it's attainable. It's not a hollow or even. It is aspirational, but it's not completely unattainable.

0:59:44Because we already have these small, low-speed, low-volume streets, except for a few key corridors that, if we apply sustained focus, we think it is possible. And it's not an unfunded mandate, either.

0:59:56We have a lot of grant money, we're fortunate to be very successful in winning grants for transportation projects, and here is just a snapshot of some of the money we've secured, which we can use to address these needs on key corridors.

1:00:12So, just wrapping up the next steps, and then I'll have a landing slide that will summarize what we were talking about.

1:00:20So we're looking for your feedback on these key policy areas now.

1:00:23And then, moving into the summer, we'll, release a public draft for a 30-day review. We'll have a public open house during the same time.

1:00:31And we'll incorporate that feedback, publish the final LRSP, and bring it back to you for adoption in July.

1:00:39And here is a summary of those policy… policy areas and the implementation takeaways.

1:00:48And I'm happy to answer any questions.

1:00:51Very good. We'll bring it back here to the Council. Any questions?

1:00:56Yes, Mayor Corte.

1:01:01First, thank you for this. I've been looking forward to it for quite some time. I know you've put a lot of work into it, and I appreciate how thoughtful your recommendations are moving forward.

1:01:13there's a few things that become clear here. One is we can't achieve Vision Zero without Caltrans coming more to the table, so that's going to be key, and I know you don't have control over that, but I think that's something we all need to keep in mind, and we've been working on that. We met with them in Sacramento,

1:01:32So, we just… we need more of that to achieve Vision Zero, because even if we were able to make all of the rest of our streets safe enough so nobody died.

1:01:44A lot of the deaths are happening on San Pablo, so we need that. And that's gonna be key outside of all of these other things.

1:01:52I wanted to talk about speed. I'm very excited to see that you're recommending changing San Pablo to be 25 miles per hour, which I think we've needed to do for a long time, because we know how a lot of drivers treat speed limits. It's not like they drive exactly at 30 miles per hour. They know they can go 5 or 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, and they're probably not going to get caught, and with the

1:02:16even if we got the automated speed enforcement, that only enforces if you're 11 miles per hour over. So on San Pablo, that would mean you're only getting a ticket if you're going 41 miles per hour or higher. So this is how drivers are treating speed limits. So I think going to 25 would

1:02:34absolutely make a difference. I'd really like to see us do more on the rest of the streets and go lower than 25, and it sounds like

1:02:44there's some figuring out to do. I know there's a complex set of what you said, state laws. There's some more opportunities around school zones, but there is also some other recent state legislation.

1:02:57around what you can do on non-arterials, which is a lot of our streets. I'd really like the default in El Cerrito to be 20,

1:03:05Anywhere we can do it.

1:03:07It is safer, it's what a lot of European cities and other cities around the world are doing, and as they've done it, and some of them have done this now for many, many years, they're actually… they're going to 30 kilometers per hour, which is, like, 18.5 miles per hour. They're seeing reduced fatalities, reduced crashes, reduced greenhouse gas emissions. People actually spend less on gas, because if you drive

1:03:32slower, it's more fuel efficient, but the most interesting thing I've seen is

1:03:37They're seeing it doesn't slow down traffic.

1:03:40because you're going more smoothly instead of a lot of stops and starts. So I think people think, oh, you reduce the speed limit, you go slower, but actually, overall, the network goes more smoothly. They're finding buses arriving more on time, they're finding deliveries happening more on time. So I think this is something we really need to look at closely and look at reducing speed limits, especially because of this

1:04:05graphic you showed us, which I've, of course, seen many times about the likelihood of somebody who's walking or biking dying if they get hit at 20 miles per hour versus 30 miles per hour. I mean, it is huge, 5% versus 45%. We just can't get to Vision Zero unless we

1:04:25Reduce the speeds quite a bit.

1:04:27On automated speed enforcement, I just want to mention this is something that the West Contra Costa Transportation Commission is looking at. Obviously, there's no authority now, but likely at one of our next meetings, we're going to have either San Francisco or Oakland, or maybe both the cities come present about their experience with the cameras and how it's been going.

1:04:50It seems likely that there'll be state legislation in the future to allow other cities to do it, so let's… let's look at that closely and see if it makes sense for us, but again.

1:05:00Only allows for people really, really speeding, so we need other ways to slow people down.

1:05:07And then some questions about the… the bikeways. How are you gonna make the decisions on whether to pursue, at least in these streets you've named, that it's either Class 2 or Class 4? What are… what are going to be the decision-making points?

1:05:23It'd be as part of the public outreach process, and I think a major change here is that's the baseline that we would start with in bringing to the community.

1:05:35In contrast with the Richmond Street project, for example, the baseline was… there was still, you know, no bike facility option as part of the potential universe of options.

1:05:49So… so that's… that would be a major change. it would help staff also focus on, you know, just scoping a project, what design options we're looking at, trade-offs, with… with parking and loading.

1:06:06like, for example, along Ashbury, you saw that on the map. That passes by the high school. We know there's a lot of curb activity needs there, likewise in any neighborhood, so that would be part of the outreach process.

1:06:19There's a lot of curb activities, but there's also a lot of kids biking into school that we want to keep safe, so it's like…

1:06:25Do we want convenient curb access, or do we want high school students to live? I mean, those are… those are the trade-offs, and so I think we need to be presenting that very clearly to people, and also being creative. There's a lot of side streets around there that already have a lot of drop-off activity, like, what can we do? Can we have some more 5-minute zones on some other streets? I mean, are there ways to mitigate it?

1:06:47part of what you did with Richmond by putting ADA spots on the perpendicular streets, so I think we need to get creative here to keep people safe.

1:06:55You put, you know, you have a slide in here about bikeways.

1:07:00What about for pedestrians? What are the… you know, you talk about some things to reduce speeds, but

1:07:06what else…

1:07:07is gonna be done along with all these other projects? Is it going to look similar to Richmond Street? What… what are you looking at to protect people who are walking, besides reducing speeds? So as per the public draft, LRSP will have specific recommendations, in the uptown, San Pablo Avenue, and downtown areas, and the way we're

1:07:28We're still working on it, but the way we're structuring it is in a package of proactive or reactive strategies, and… because for the reactive, we want to really make sure we're focused on

1:07:42You know, as a first step, potentially, what do we need to do to address the locations where people are being hurt or dying?

1:07:51And unfortunately, that is a lot of pedestrians, at crosswalks, at a few key crosswalks. They're primarily what we call the marked, uncontrolled crosswalks, where there is no,

1:08:05Traffic signal, or flashing beacon, or something like that.

1:08:09So it's really focusing on… on those, that that's going to be the top area of focus. And then we will also layer in the proactive, elements as well, which will be things like Richmond Street, continuing to expand pedestrian access, and

1:08:26Crosswalks and things like that.

1:08:29Great. And then just finally, I wanted to point out on the questionnaire.

1:08:34I know it's somewhat semantics, but I would… I would classify 75% or higher support as extremely strong support, and I would say 66% or higher is still very strong support. I mean, that we're getting 66% of people who are saying that it makes sense to have more space for walking and biking, even with some parking removal. We need to remember that as we move forward, because of

1:08:58Of course, every specific project that takes away any parking space will be controversial to some. But we have…

1:09:05Something that tells us that more than 66% of residents who filled out this survey think that that's an okay trade-off.

1:09:13And so I know often, on any issue, not just on parking, we get a small subset of people coming to council meetings or sending emails. Not everybody has the time or energy or knows that something's on the agenda, so I think we need to keep this in mind, that we have very strong support for pretty much everything you put out there, so let's keep that in mind as we move forward. Thank you.

1:09:37Okay, we'll go to, Councilmember Cassanda's next.

1:09:41Thank you very much for the presentation, and…

1:09:44Thank you, Councilmember Salzman, for your… your commentary and points raised, and it's appreciated.

1:09:51I have… kind of going back to the issue that Councilmember Saltzman raised about pedestrian crossings, I think back

1:09:59last month, there was a city resident who invited us to go for a walk with him and his kids to school, and I took him up on that, and it was, you know, very apparent that there were huge risks coming from… he was on the other side of Carlson, crossing Carlson, and then San Pablo.

1:10:15And he expressed a lot of frustration about getting crosswalks and getting the city to do certain changes, and, you know, showed me where the risks were, and how the cars didn't stop, and all that.

1:10:26And I'm just… and you called it a reactive response, and I…

1:10:30So, my question is, how do we go about having that reactive response now? Prior to all of this being sorted out and laid out into a plan and implemented later.

1:10:41when there are people being hit now on Carlson and San Pablo, and… well, what is the mechanism for

1:10:48for example, a resident who walks their kids to school and sees that they can't safely cross Carlson.

1:10:54Great, great question. So…

1:10:57We're constantly improving, and at the most elemental level, we do have a webpage where anyone from the public can submit what's called a traffic request, called the Traffic Request Submittal, and…

1:11:12We look at those every week, so if there's something immediately that we can do with the resources we have, we do it. We have to put into a queue for, you know, our maintenance crews to address, but we do it.

1:11:29If it's something bigger, we have an annual street resurfacing project, so if it's a bigger request, we may have to throw it in into that project, and we're doing that right now. So, last year, we had the street resurfacing project in the north end of town. If you go along Barrett, you may have noticed that we systematically

1:11:54did some painted, sidewalk extensions at those funky kind of intersections that had really wide crosswalks. So, we narrowed that, installed high-visibility crosswalk markings, things like that. So we use our maintenance projects to do it as well.

1:12:13And then sometimes…

1:12:16The solution is just, it costs more than what we can do with a maintenance project, so…

1:12:23We… we look for grant money, we're negotiating, we're… we're working really hard. In fact, Councilmember Saltzman maybe saw our application to the WCAC, Subaru General Transportation Mitigation Program.

1:12:36to, install a pedestrian hybrid beacon at Waldo Avenue. So we…

1:12:43for things that exceed our maintenance budgets, we, you know, aggressively pursue grant money. So we're working hard.

1:12:51At, really, kind of, like, all levels of project implementation.

1:12:55Could you talk a little bit about San Pablo? What are the logistical difficulties with it being Caltrans? And, you know, if we envision a need. How…

1:13:06you know, obviously it's not just acting upon that need. How complicated is that, and what's the process like?

1:13:13So there's really working on Caltrans, in Caltrans right-of-way, which, reminder, it's, it's everything south of Cutting Boulevard on San Pablo Avenue, north of Cutting Boulevard, it's a city street, and then it's Cutting Boulevard to I-80.

1:13:27It's… it can either be city-led, or it can be Caltrans-led. If it's city-led, we have to come up with the money, and then we have to get a permit from Caltrans, and then we have to build it, like a city-led project.

1:13:42It's not impossible, but it is more challenging for us to deliver, simply because we still have to get a permit from Caltrans. You know, it can take a couple years from finding the money, to designing it, to getting the permit, to building it, to closing it out.

1:13:58So this is why we always try to leverage the Caltrans resources for them to deliver projects, which is why we worked so hard with them on the paving project, because it's, we can leverage their in-house design, project management resources to deliver a project, because we, you know, we have an engineering staff of 2 or 3, so

1:14:22for every, every hour we have to spend on San Babel Avenue, it's competing with an hour we could spend on a city-owned street, or a city facility, for that matter.

1:14:33So we always try to take those opportunities and leverage those opportunities when we can, but it is still more challenging than working on a city road.

1:14:45Okay, thank you. And lastly, what's happening on Waldo? Why Waldo?

1:14:51Great question. So, we took a look at it, it was really driven by the data. So there have been two severe injury crashes on Waldo between Ashbury and San Pablo Avenue.

1:15:03That really caught our attention, because on the map, it just looks like a local neighborhood street. But we used a big data analysis to evaluate vehicle speeds and origin destination.

1:15:18And route choice, and it looks like there's a number of people using it as kind of like an east-west connection from I-80 Carlson, kind of filtering eastbound through to the Hills areas, as well as the neighborhood.

1:15:35And then the 85th percentile speed was… was pretty high. It was upwards of 35 miles per hour. And if you look at the street, too, all this… all the stop signs, they're all side street stop control, so it's kind of a straight shot for drivers right now.

1:15:52Okay, one last question. One thing I always often think about going east-west is every time I cross the bar tracks in the Lonely Greenway, I wonder why isn't there a stop sign for cars?

1:16:03And I just… it just seems like a…

1:16:07I'm gonna use the word no-brainer, but I don't mean it that way. But it just… I just… that would be a very…

1:16:13seems to me a very easy intervention that would be very helpful. I mean, there are bicyclists and walkers, and, you know, quite frankly, bicyclists often don't stop at the stop sign, or don't slow down, or they slow down, but look, but they keep going.

1:16:25And I don't… I don't think it's reasonable to expect bikers to necessarily change their behavior when there's some… well, it's going to be hard for them to change their behavior, but there is something we can do by just simply put a stop sign there for cars. And I wonder why that doesn't happen.

1:16:40So there's a process for making a traffic control decision, like a stop sign or traffic signal, for the intersection of a road and a shared use path, like the Ohlone Greenway.

1:16:52So it's an engineering study, basically, that we would have to do. I do want to highlight, like, like, zooming out.

1:17:00Until, unfortunately, in 2023, I think there was a severe injury crash at Cutting and the Ohlone Greenway.

1:17:08But until that point, the last time there had been a severe injury crash on the Ohlone Greenway was in 2014. So there are injury crashes that are still happening at the intersections, but they are not…

1:17:23severe injury crashes, again, unfortunately, except for this one in 2023. And there have been no fatalities, at least as far back as I can look in the online record-keeping system.

1:17:35I think these are traffic, injuries and fatalities. So I think…

1:17:41doesn't mean that there isn't work to be done on the Ohlone Greenway, but I think we can kind of look at this and

1:17:47Think a little bit, this is…

1:17:49what Vision Zero starts to look like is that along Loney Greenway, where there's high concentrations of vulnerable road users, lots of bicyclists and pedestrians, we have strategically upgraded a lot of the crossings to reduce kinetic energy, reduce kinetic energy in crashes, to improve yielding, to slow speed.

1:18:15And, it's…

1:18:18We're seeing minor injury crashes. I mean, one of the dynamics I see is that, depending on the time of the day, the sun is in your eyes, and you're… if you're a driver, you're literally blinded. You can't see who's coming across.

1:18:29And I just want to be clear about what I said about bicyclists. I don't mean to be critical of bicyclists who don't stop. I think that we have to recognize, you know, that is a behavior that many bicyclists don't stop.

1:18:38I don't want the consequence of that to be they get killed, and I think… Given certain behaviors.

1:18:44We have to look at where the other interventions can be.

1:18:47And just not say, well, you're supposed to stop, and tough luck.

1:18:50Okay.

1:18:53Thank you. We'll go to, Councilmember Weisinker, and then Councilmember Motuyama.

1:18:59Councilmember Wysinger: Thank you so much for that, very thoughtful presentation. What I appreciate most about this plan is that it does shift us from thinking about the individual behaviors of the folks on the street, and really thinking about the way the system is designed. You know, if we continue to see the same type of outcomes over and over again, then we have to really look at how we've designed, our local roads, so I do definitely appreciate that. And looking at how

1:19:24many of the crashes are along San Pablo, and the network that's surrounding San Pablo, it really raises the questions of how we're coordinating beyond our city boundaries. I know living right here on San Pablo, I oftentimes think about how many folks are Zooming through Richmond with not as much enforcement as we have here in El Cerrito. And I know some people may push back on that, but again, I'm right here on the corner, and I see it every day.

1:19:48That corner right there on cutting in San Pablo, as I know as Councilmember Salzman talks a lot on her side of the city. I've seen that so many times, time and time again, that people are not really ready for the type of enforcement that we already have here in El Cerrito. But at the end of the day, it really goes… comes back to, really, we've said we want to design a city where everyone, no matter how you get across the city, is safe.

1:20:13So whether you're a biker, whether you are a walker, whether you are driving, we want to make sure that everyone is able to get across our city and through our city safely. So some of the questions that I have is, number one, you talked a bit about, already, the funding that you all were able to already secure, and now you've been pretty successful.

1:20:34Can you talk a little bit more about how this does position us to continue to competitively compete for state and federal funding? Are there any additional programs that you're going to be looking and targeting for next? And also, given that San Pablo is such a significant corridor for crashes, what does coordination, look like happening with Caltrans and other regional partners to address safety on that stretch?

1:21:02Yeah, great, great questions, thank you. So…

1:21:06Coordination and partnerships are essential, I feel like, in everything that El Cerrito does, given our size. And transportation is… it's just as true in transportation. So, on San Pablo Avenue, an example of, coordination and partnerships is, is with Caltrans, with their upcoming paving project, which…

1:21:26It was unfortunately delayed until 2028, we learned that earlier this month, following a CT… California Transportation Commission vote.

1:21:35But we worked with them to include flashing beacons at two crosswalks on San Pablo Avenue that don't have them right now, and also include safety lighting at all the intersections along the corridor.

1:21:51As well as high visibility signage and markings. That's… we wanted more, but that was what we could… we could do with the funding that was available.

1:22:01So it's making some incremental progress, with, with that project.

1:22:07And we also were, as I mentioned a little earlier, we're pursuing some additional funding. Now that that project is delayed, there's an opportunity to deliver some more crosswalk improvements if we can secure additional funding.

1:22:23Which we would then pass along to Caltrans to deliver on our behalf, freeing our capacity to manage other projects. So that's, in a nutshell, an example of how we can collaborate with Caltrans.

1:22:39I think you also mentioned, or were asking about other funding opportunities, and we're always looking at transportation funding opportunities. I think what we've…

1:22:52What we bump up against is our capacity to deliver them.

1:22:58So for every dollar we win, we have to think about the time that it spends for us to deliver the project and execute it successfully. And, so we have found ourselves starting to think about, you know.

1:23:13Passing… passing by some funding opportunities, because we have to execute the projects that we've already won, money for.

1:23:23Councilmember Wysinger: And one last question, do we have a prioritization framework for which intersections and corridors are getting addressed first, based on severity and frequencies of crashes?

1:23:36Yes, in the, in the public draft, you'll, you'll see specific, more specific locations, and specific, what we call countermeasures. So looking at the crash patterns and, and recommended strategies to address them.

1:23:55Councilmember Wysinger: Thank you so much, I am complete, Mayor.

1:23:59Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I think you've clearly hit a nerve with the Council, because we have so many questions on this thing.

1:24:09I do have a question to follow up with something you said about the east-west crossings. I think that that, you know, making those safe for pedestrians and bikes will, you know, make

1:24:24bike travel, pedestrian travel, much, much easier. But that seems to be in the future. When is that prioritized for? And you mentioned engineering studies and connection to the Bay Trail, but can't we do something in El Cerrito?

1:24:41So, so we've won about, $10 million for, what's called the East-West Bikeway right now. We're, we're going to rename it, but, we're, we're, we're, we're getting that project launched. We'll have more information soon.

1:24:59The challenges in those areas, there's just a web of high-speed, high-volume streets where the solutions are harder to implement.

1:25:10But I think what you'll see in the local road safety plan is some recommendations for, you know, some first steps, some easy… maybe not easy wins, but some things that could be accomplished sooner.

1:25:23For example, on Carlson Boulevard, there's some crosswalks there that are especially, vulnerable. So there's some incremental changes that we could do, before, kind of, the larger build-out, vision build-out.

1:25:40Thank you, Anne.

1:25:42I have a question that might be more, appropriate for the PD, for Chief Keith, but,

1:25:49It's about our… the adequacy of our current ticketing system.

1:25:56Do we need to have that kind of camera enforcement if we don't have it?

1:26:01Is it… Is it adequate for… for safety?

1:26:06As it stands.

1:26:09Chief Keith is not available tonight, but we'll see if,

1:26:13Lieutenant can introduce yourself? Dave Wentworth, Interim Lieutenant, Elsuited PD.

1:26:20I think that technology is great. I don't know if we have enough information to implement something like that. It'd be nice to see how these other cities are using it, what the actual impacts are.

1:26:32I believe for the police department, a good impact that we could make is increased traffic enforcement, and looking to staff more traffic positions.

1:26:42And, shift our focus towards,

1:26:45You know, more pedestrian-related collisions and bicycle-related collisions in the city.

1:26:51Okay, I know that we didn't have a traffic enforcement person for a period of time, partly due to the pandemic, but we have one person that does traffic enforcement now, or how many people do we have? We have one dedicated traffic enforcement officer.

1:27:09Okay, and so if we wanted to have greater coverage, you're saying that we need to have at least one other one, or two, or what is it?

1:27:18I think to have a greater impact would be a traffic sergeant.

1:27:22And another traffic officer, at least. So, A division of 3.

1:27:29Would be… would be ideal.

1:27:32Thank you. Thank you.

1:27:34Mayor Pro Tem, you had, one more question. Yes, but just to follow up on that, the Chief, when he presented

1:27:40at our last meeting, the meeting… whatever the meeting was on the budget by the departments, you know, he… he told us about how the increased focus on traffic enforcement has made a difference, and I just want to be clear to the public that it's not just one officer doing traffic enforcement, so maybe you could just talk about that, because I don't want the…

1:27:59our citizens to think that. Sure, we have one dedicated traffic enforcement officer, but all the officers that work for the Elsajo Police Department are trained in traffic enforcement.

1:28:09We did, have a campaign in January to focus on pedestrian-related collisions, and I think we did pretty well.

1:28:16We are now in April, and the

1:28:20distracted driving is the focus for April. We use the MTSB, different awareness campaigns throughout the year.

1:28:29And right now, it's distracted driving, so we're focusing on cell phone use, hands-free use. We even take it as far as looking for overly tinted windows, or tinted windshields, and stuff like that that would actually make it, make it hard for a driver to see.

1:28:44Thank you so much. And then just my one question I forgot to ask earlier. You'd mentioned that in the annual street resurfacing, you're finding opportunities to address some things that you see coming up.

1:28:59one, how do you decide what to do? And two, can you talk about what you did last year? I know there were a lot of improvements made along Barrett, there was one made at Liberty and Waldo, there are probably other ones that I haven't even noticed, but can you talk to us about what's happened and how you're gonna make those decisions moving forward?

1:29:18So it's, it's focusing on,

1:29:22primarily the arterial roads, because that's where we're, you know, seeing the more fatal severe crashes, and there's just higher vehicle speeds, higher volumes, so it's, upgrading crosswalks to meet current standards, replacing faded signs,

1:29:38And then also looking at the intersections, the… just in general. So, we've come up with a new, marking standard for intersections with arterial roads and minor streets to make, you know, stop lines more visible, more consistent, so…

1:29:54The old stop lines, used to kind of encourage drivers to

1:29:59push out beyond the kind of the crosswalk desire line. So we're… we're doing away with that and adopting a more standard approach.

1:30:09It's things like that. We're also doing universal, daylighting on arterials and approaches to arterials with, what we call daylighting hardening as well. That's what we're doing in the next, street.

1:30:24Resurfacing batch, where basically it's putting in the daylighting zone, the state law daylighting zone, but then blocking it off or marking it off with delineators, so…

1:30:35Drivers can't, are discouraged from taking the corner at higher speeds.

1:30:40And we just do it comprehensively, so it's… that's our kind of, like, baseline approach. If the street's in the resurfacing batch of streets, then we do it.

1:30:51Great, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. One thing that's been on my mind is just being mindful of the last two fatalities that we had. One on East Shore Boulevard, the other one was on Waldo.

1:31:08And,

1:31:09And I'm wondering, you know, AB 2147 was passed back in 2023, and that law, changed jaywalking, and making jaywalking

1:31:23okay for everybody. Now I'm seeing a lot of people crossing San Pablo Avenue and basically crossing where there's no crosswalk. And that's a highway, mind you, as well, and a state highway. Do you see any difference with,

1:31:43Phil Ting's law in effect? Are we having more fatalities and more accidents because the jaywalking, law is, is law now?

1:31:55Well, looking at the fatal and severe injury crashes that I presented, I can think of at least

1:32:03Well, there is the East Shore crash, and then there is… there was a death at Avila and San Pablo, where a pedestrian was crossing between marked crosswalks.

1:32:12And, in those scenarios, the blocks are just really long, between marked, uncontrolled crosswalks. And at the Avala one, unfortunately, in our specific plan, it's actually identified as a location for, hey, we need a crosswalk here because the block is so long.

1:32:29Likewise, on East Shore Boulevard, I want to say it's almost 1,000 feet between marked, crosswalks. So I think, at least with the crashes that we're seeing here, you know, it seems to be an indicator of demand for

1:32:48Crosswalks at locations where we've identified a need.

1:32:53Okay, I'm also reminded that, the four of us, you did not attend, but, the four of us attended, with, the city manager.

1:33:05We did attend a meeting with Caltrans, and we did request more funding for the avenue, so fingers crossed, hopefully, that will happen. You know, I do support more tech, if possible, to make sure

1:33:21that becomes a deterrent in slowing down traffic, and we do see, and I have talked to, the different mayors that are working… that are experimenting on that project.

1:33:34And, folks in San Francisco love that, and I'm reminded that it's a 70… 68% or a 72%

1:33:41positive, ratings on.

1:33:46you know, the red light cameras and cameras on busy intersections. I'm hoping, and we did speak to Caltrans about this, about possibly putting that on there. One thing that I'm concerned about is with

1:34:00San Pablo Avenue being a highway, and when there is a SIG alert on the freeway, on I-80 and 580, all the traffic is moved to San Pablo Avenue. What's your take on that, and do you see that

1:34:18as a, a problem in the future with, when we decide to do, and, and work on, Grand Zero.

1:34:30So your question was if, if there's an incident on the 580 or 80 and it diverts the traffic onto San Pablo Avenue, what… That's gonna cause a lot of delays if we are going 20 miles an hour. Yeah, well, the capacity, the…

1:34:50the kind of demand to the… or the traffic kind of flow and the speed… speed curve shows that when you reach capacity, you're probably going 20 miles per hour anyway. But in those scenarios, I think we're really going to be looking at that closely with,

1:35:08this new, San Pablo Avenue Safety and Access Study that the CCTA just kicked off, that's gonna go for the next, year or so, that's gonna be looking at multimodal improvements on San Pablo Avenue in Richmond, San Pablo, and El Cerrito, including potential bus rapid transit and transit lanes.

1:35:26So… so that's… that will definitely be an opportunity to… to think about kind of that relief valve scenario.

1:35:33Yeah, and just,

1:35:36reminded me about when I was 6 or 7, and off my training wheels and riding a two-wheeler bike, I did get hit by a car, near the Waldo intersection, and it's the two buildings were the Bossa Nova

1:35:53building is, and a car came out of the parking lot and just hit me. My car… my bike was, hit, and… and I fell, and… and I almost landed on the.

1:36:06on the person's car. So, yeah, I definitely support making sure where we have these blind

1:36:15their driveways that, we look at that as well, because we do have,

1:36:22This is a city of seniors and a city of young families, so the importance of supporting everyone, especially.

1:36:31those demographics. So, you know, I appreciate that. Let's go to, public comment.

1:36:38Now is the time for 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 9 if joining by phone.

1:36:51In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and city of residence at the beginning of your comments. Madam City Clerk, please proceed.

1:37:01Thank you, Mayor. We have 3 requests to speak. I'll start with our in-person request from Janet Byron, followed by our first online request, Irish Share Now.

1:37:13Hello, I'm Janet Byron. I'm an El Cerrito resident. I'm on the coordinating committee of El Cerrito-Richmond Annex Walk and Roll, a local group advocating for safer streets. We have about 500… more than 500 people on our email newsletter list, so we… we feel like we have a lot of,

1:37:34support from the community. Jared's presentation shows that very high percentages of El Cerrito residents want to see slower, safer streets. Hundreds of local residents have signed petitions calling for traffic calming in their neighborhoods.

1:37:51El Cerrito has an active transportation plan and a San Pablo Avenue-specific plan.

1:37:57We have a complete streets policy. Soon we will have a local road safety plan, and maybe a Vision Zero policy.

1:38:06What we also need to do is stop planning and start implementing.

1:38:10The community wants lower speed limits, more traffic enforcement, and traffic calming in all neighborhoods than on San Pablo Avenue.

1:38:19We need to provide safe routes to school. We have two studies now showing all the ways that we can make,

1:38:27make… Make it safer for students to travel to school.

1:38:33We need a comprehensive citywide traffic calming strategy, transparent,

1:38:41Traffic calming measures we need and want more of include squared-off curbs, speed bumps, crosswalks, pedestrian-activated beacons and stoplights, green paint.

1:38:52bollards.

1:38:53Protected intersections and bike lanes.

1:38:57more seconds for pedestrians to cross the street on San Pablo.

1:39:03Pedestrian scrambles. We need stop lines… stop signs.

1:39:07Everything and anything El Cerrito Public Works can do to slow down cars and make our streets safer for walkers and rollers as soon as possible.

1:39:17What can El Cerrito Public Works do right now?

1:39:21What quick-build projects are possible to implement in the coming months?

1:39:26We need to move as quickly as possible from planning to implementation before more people die or get seriously… or get injured, not even severely, but just injured, simply trying to walk or bike on our streets.

1:39:41I have a couple more seconds, so I also want to say that good things are worth paying for, and I am very excited to pay for a new library.

1:39:49When the Measure C passes in June. Thank you.

1:39:53Thank you.

1:39:54Excuse me, I'm gonna go to our online request to speak. We'll first hear from Ira Schere now, and then we'll go to Steven Price.

1:40:02Everybody should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:40:09ira: Irish Aranelle, El Cerrito.

1:40:12I am concerned that city management has been non-responsive when I ask about safety on the Ohlone Greenway.

1:40:19I am also concerned that management has refused to provide information on how bike lanes on Richmond Street will be funded.

1:40:27The pavement condition index is in free fall, even though there's a street repair tax. The city needs to do better. I walk across Waldo all the time. It is very dangerous at night.

1:40:41I think we need an explanation of how the Parcel A South money is going to be used for east-west bike lanes.

1:40:48As opposed to Richmond Street.

1:40:51The crux of the problem is the lack of communication and the lack of transparency from the city management.

1:40:58Finally, when is the parking study going to be released?

1:41:02Thank you very much.

1:41:05Okay, and our next request to speak is Steven Price.

1:41:11Steven, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:41:14Steve Price: Okay, my name is Steve Price, I live in El Cerrillo. Yeah, so,

1:41:20as Jarrett's presentation showed, the faster cars go, the more deadly they become. And they are going to become even more deadly because cars are getting electrified, and as they get electrified, they're going to be heavier, so there's going to be more kinetic energy.

1:41:39That impacts pedestrians and bicycles when they get hit by an electric car. So we're going to see the fatality rates get worse, unfortunately.

1:41:47something else that Jared said was four-lane, boulevards, like San Pavil Avenue, really

1:41:56a design won't make that much difference in terms of safety. That may be true, but I think we have to bear in mind that there's been a lot of discussion, a lot of studying about the future of San Pabel Avenue.

1:42:11Such that it might include, bike lanes and, dedicated transit lanes. So that would change this four-lane, well, actually, it's a seven, seven lanes dedicated to the automobile, two travel lanes, four travel lanes.

1:42:27two parking lanes and single turn lanes. So, it could be a very different street in the future, and so that design change of suddenly, incorporating these other modes of travel, and it would change the safety of the street, and probably make it much safer. And by the way.

1:42:47A lot of these streets are dangerous because much of the accidents

1:42:52car on car occur when cars are changing lanes. More lanes you have, the more chances of that happening.

1:43:00And then also, Rebecca was correct in that,

1:43:07If you do a search for speed versus throughput, graphs on the internet, on, on streets, you'll see a sideways parabola, line parabola, with, throughput on the axis and speed on the y-axis.

1:43:26And the faster you go, the more throughput you have, up until about 25, 30 miles per hour. And then suddenly it abruptly turns down, and if you're going.

1:43:3730, 40, 50 miles an hour, you're getting significant reductions in throughput. So, slow is good for throughput. So, going down to 25 miles per hour, would be probably a good thing, just in terms of handling throughput. And I think that's probably all I have to say.

1:43:57Thank you very much.

1:43:59Thank you for your comments. Our next virtual request to speak is Michael Cohen.

1:44:06Michael, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:44:11michaelcoan: Okay, I wanted to mention something about the corner of Waldo and Moser. I have noticed when I use Google Maps to go somewhere.

1:44:21Like, I go down Stockton, and maybe I'm gonna go over to Highway 80,

1:44:27Google Maps. It tells me on Google Maps

1:44:31to make a right turn on Richmond, and then a left turn on Waldo. So Google Maps, somehow, is sending a lot of traffic to go down Waldo, so that one can get across San Pablo Avenue, and then make a right turn

1:44:48on one of those streets to Carlson, and then get to Highway 80.

1:44:53That's all I have to say.

1:44:56Thank you for your comments. We'll go back to… we have one additional in-person request to speak, Barbara Chan.

1:45:19Good evening. I'm Barbara Chan, I live in Alta Vista Drive since 1987, and I really appreciated, Jared's presentation this evening because

1:45:30In January 2008, I was struck out of the pedestrian crosswalk at, Eunice in Richmond, and,

1:45:40After that, very difficult accident, actually.

1:45:47I still suffer from a lot of, physical challenges,

1:45:52my attorney's staff went and video recorded drivers along that part of Richmond, and even though there's a speed bump there, a lot of drivers drive faster than 25 miles an hour. They're clocked at 30 and 35.

1:46:09That's one point I want to make. The other thing is that, because I live off of Arlington, I, at least once or twice a week, I have to come,

1:46:21from the south end of town through, on Arlington, going north, and…

1:46:29Not infrequently, people pass me on the double yellow line on Arlington. One week, that happened three times, and by my speedometer.

1:46:41Those people were driving faster than 25 miles, and I clocked one motorcycle driver, going at 45. I have brought that, concern to

1:46:54Our police chief and asked him to put radars up there, and, and,

1:47:01Whatever you call those, the equipment, you know, that can track…

1:47:06log how fast people are driving, and I think we need more done on Arlington as well. Thank you.

1:47:14Thank you. Mayor, that concludes our request to speak on this item. Okay, well, final comments, I'll start right here with, Councilmember Cassaux. Yep, thank you. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of things that were said just now. First of all, I found the

1:47:26comment about Google, fascinating, and I think about times that Google takes me down paths I wouldn't have normally gone, but Google identifies it as an open road and says, go that way. I think… I don't know how you avoid that, but that seems to be…

1:47:38a serious issue. But my question is.

1:47:41I think it was Ira who asked about the parking study. I've been curious about that, too. Just want to ask you, is there a timeline for the…

1:47:47completion and release of the parking study? Yeah, we're working on it. The goal is to start outreach in the summer. It's just taken a little bit longer to get all the existing conditions.

1:48:01inputs in place, because it's looking comprehensively, not just at, at data, but, at, our organizational structure and so forth. So is it fair to assume the fall as a release date?

1:48:17I'm not gonna hold you to it, but I'm sort of curious. My mind… We'll, we'll have, we'll have more, more information soon. Okay.

1:48:25Thank you. Okay, we'll go to, Councilmember Weiser. Any, final thoughts, comments?

1:48:31Councilmember Wysinger: Yes, I was actually just going to, in response to the online comment, and

1:48:37to what Councilmember Cassanis said, we actually, when we had the chance to meet with our assembly member, I felt a few weeks ago, she talked a bit about this, and as someone who used to drive professionally for a living, I've seen this ramp up in the tech community, the issues that we are now having on our arterial streets because of things like Google Maps and Waze. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems that we're having

1:49:01with traffic calming are as a result of the same apps that are making… are meant to make our lives a little bit easier when our driving. So I'm looking forward to possibly working, or hopefully working with her in what she's saying, that she wants to really start working with the tech companies on a legislative level about how do we

1:49:21How do we put some bills and languages together to actually making sure that these apps that are, again, trying to make our lives easier are not making our local cities' lives harder in the way that we are enforcing and designing our streets? So I look forward to that, but I just wanted to kick that in, that people are finally starting to take notice

1:49:43On how that is affecting our local communities, and how can we mitigate that?

1:49:48Okay, Mayor Pro Tem.

1:49:51I just wanted to…

1:49:54Second, the comment about Arlington, and I've had the same thing happen on many streets in El Cerrito, where it's a, you know, one lane in each direction, and another driver passes me up very illegally and dangerously because they want to speed. So that's a problem everywhere, but Arlington is a big speed problem, and it's similar to San Pablo and Richmond, too, where people are coming through from various other cities.

1:50:18Definitely not El Cerrito drivers, people just trying to get through quickly, get around traffic, don't want to go on 80, go Arlington to get all the way to Oakland or further, wherever their jobs are.

1:50:31And there's a school there on Arlington, and I know the city's working on some specific things right around Madera, with the crossing there, which is quite treacherous, and you have, you know, hundreds of students crossing there every day. But I do think

1:50:45Arlington is an important place, and I don't know when that's up for street resurfacing, but when it is, I hope you will look very closely at it, even though it's not coming up on the priority here, it is a critical street. I also think a lot more people would walk on Arlington if it was safer. Feels pretty treacherous now if you have to cross at all.

1:51:07And so I'm guessing part of the reason we don't have as many injuries and crashes there with pedestrians is because

1:51:13people feel too afraid to do those crossings, so they're just hopping in their car instead. So I think we could get more people biking and walking there if it was safer.

1:51:23It would be good to think about these streets where maybe the reason we don't have these high-injury crashes is because people are too scared to walk and bike today.

1:51:37Thank you,

1:51:40One of the things that I would like to see, and it's been touched on, is that slower speed. We did have a program of the El Cerrito pace car at 25 miles an hour. It would be nice to bring something like that back.

1:51:55One of the things I know is in Albany, everybody locally seems to know that their speed limit is 25 miles an hour.

1:52:04And so if you want to go fast, you're not going to drive through Albany. And I think we need to get to that place where people know that if you want to drive through El Cerrito, it's gonna…

1:52:13cost you time, so you should stay on the highway or take major arterials, and I think that would be really helpful. Also, I think the… I know it's…

1:52:24there could be different speed limits around certain areas, and that makes sense, but I think from a…

1:52:32driving perspective, and kind of a public understanding perspective, it seems like it would be much easier to have one speed limit for the entire city, and just enforce that.

1:52:44So, if it needs to be 20, it needs to be 20.

1:52:47But just one speed limit, and then that's our speed limit.

1:52:53So that's… those are my closing thoughts. Thank you. Okay. I just want to say thank you for the great presentation. It was very, very thorough.

1:53:01One of the things that I'm excited about is that our legislators, they have a slew of new legislation for e-bikes. We're seeing a lot of e-bikes, and the drivers out of control.

1:53:15speeding down the Ohlone Greenway and terrorizing our seniors and folks walking down the street and jogging there, so you will see.

1:53:24a lot of it, this year. We will also have more legislation on.

1:53:31Slowing things down, and

1:53:34With, our future of, EVs and heavier cars, they're going to see more damage earlier on our highways and our streets, so we need to be proactive in the future of,

1:53:47how are we gonna pay for all this? And, we see I-80 full of potholes already, and it was just resurfaced. And they were… and they finally finished the,

1:53:57patching the big holes that they have there along Richmond.

1:54:03the Richmond and, Pinole parts. So, yeah, stay tuned on that, and, again, thank you for your presentation. Do… do we need a motion to support, the,

1:54:16staff direction.

1:54:19Or…

1:54:21We do not, but I would ask Jared if you feel that you have been given appropriate direction for what you are asking for.

1:54:30I think I received appropriate direction. All right, then I think we're good to go, Your Honor, thank you. Very good. And I know that the City Manager, myself, and our colleagues here, my colleagues here, we have contacts for Caltrans District 4,

1:54:45And, they gave us word, their word, that they will work with us to make sure, San Pablo Avenue, Route 123 will be safer in the future. So they heard us loud and clear. So, again, thank you. Next, is the library tax exemption.

1:55:04study session.

1:55:06Can we as, can we please have a staff report on that?

1:55:11Yes, I'm gonna… testing out this new microphone as well. Is it okay if I'm about this far away, sir? Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and

1:55:20Members of the Council, I am Sky Woodruff, your City Attorney. I am presenting tonight because I took a significant role in preparing the report because there's a lot of legal interpretation to be done in providing this report. I do want to thank Aisha Shuri for working with a consultant to obtain the demographic and housing data that's included in the report, and to Holly and Alex for their help in putting it together as well.

1:55:46So jumping right in,

1:55:54See if… there we go.

1:55:56Oh.

1:55:57So on, March 3rd, City Council, asked for this study session to,

1:56:05have an opportunity to receive more information about the exemptions that are included in Measure C and the options for potential additional exemptions if Council was interested in implementing those. Measure C does contain an exemption,

1:56:22It states, in part, that, and I think what the exemption that is probably most relevant to this discussion is the one that is quoted here on the slide, and it states that a property will be exempt if one of the owners qualifies for participation in either or both of two programs that are listed in that provision of the ordinance.

1:56:45One of them, the Gonzalez, Duke, Maggie, and Petra Senior Citizen Property Tax Assistance Law, is not currently being implemented because the state has not provided funding for it. The Senior Citizen Property Tax Postponement law is in effect and has existing criteria.

1:57:01That can be used for, reference for the exemption that is included in Measure C. And I want to emphasize, and did on the slide, that it states that one of the owners must qualify for participation, not that they must actually participate in the program.

1:57:20This language, is substantially the same as is in the current, parks special tax, and was in the swim center special tax, and was carried forward when that was renewed. I know there's been some question about, the application of that exemption. City staff have

1:57:39reviewed the files to the extent that they can, and found that no one has ever actually applied for this exemption for the swim center or the parks tax. If the city received an application, it would process it, but,

1:57:52having been City Attorney for quite a while, been aware of this as a possibility, I have always interpreted this language to mean that somebody would have to meet the criteria of one of these programs, not that they would actually have to participate.

1:58:07There are a number of criteria, but I've just listed two of the ones that I think are the most important, and that is that,

1:58:13the participant must be at least 62 years of age, or blind, or disabled, and have an annual household income of $55,181 or less. So, there are, again, there are other factors, but those are the ones that are probably the most relevant for this exemption. This is written into the ordinance.

1:58:32If Measure C passes in June, this will be implemented. If the City will set up an application… a process for receiving applications. If there are applications, the City will process them.

1:58:44But as I will discuss later on, one of the things that is an option for the Council is to, if there are questions in the Council's mind about whether or not one has to participate in, the Senior Citizen Property Tax Postponement law, or simply meet the

1:58:59criteria to qualify to participate, that is an option for Council, and I'll cover the provisions of the ordinance that provide that authority.

1:59:12Can you go to the next slide? I think it's, not quite working. Can you turn it on?

1:59:16It's on this side.

1:59:21Oh, now it's on.

1:59:23Okay, thank you. Alright, great. So,

1:59:28Next, I just want to turn to what is built into the ordinance that would authorize the City Council to adopt additional, exemptions if it wanted to. The primary provision is one that states the City Council may enact

1:59:41any other amendments, including but not limited to, amendments necessary to implement or administer the special tax. So, to me, this is clear authority, for the City Council to amend the ordinance to add additional exemptions if it chooses to.

1:59:57There are some limits on that authority, however. These limits are both in the ordinance and in the California Constitution. These are provisions that were originally added by Proposition 218 and left in place when those were amended by Proposition 26, and they are that, Council can't

2:00:14tax someone who is exempt according to the express terms of Measure C.

2:00:19City Council can't amend the Measure C to tax beyond the rates that are authorized in the measure, and Council can't extend the term of the tax beyond the automatic sunset that's included. The measure also states that, that Council may not,

2:00:36adopt amendments that would frustrate the purpose of Measure C, and I would say that the two primary purposes are finance a new library and pay for 10 years of the city's cost of operating the library after it has opened. So.

2:00:52Any amendment that would frustrate those purposes is potentially prohibited by the… even though the ordinance provides authority for a council to adopt additional exemptions, those exemptions cannot frustrate the purposes of the measure.

2:01:06Additionally, the tax states that, as we went over when we presented the 9212 report, the ordinance has two different ways of limiting the taxes that Council can ultimately impose annually.

2:01:22But it also says that City Council may, by resolution, increase or decrease the rate of the special tax below those limits.

2:01:30An exemption is, in effect, a decision to, set the tax rate at zero for a class of taxpayers, and so I would take this as additional authority for the City Council to adopt,

2:01:44Exemptions, as long as those are below the maximums, which they would be by definition, since the rate would be zero.

2:01:51Finally, coming back to Council's ability to clarify things regarding the exemption that is built into the ordinance, the ordinance states that the Council may, by resolution, interpret the ordinance for purposes of clarifying any vagueness or ambiguity.

2:02:09So to me, that would include clarifying whether an applicant for an exemption must actually participate in one of those two-state programs, or if it's sufficient for them to meet the qualifications. Also other clarifications that could potentially expand the scope of the exemption somewhat, but not narrow them.

2:02:27I just wanted to stress again that, there are these limits on Council's ability to, adopt the exemptions.

2:02:37in addition to the ones that are in the Constitution, they can't frustrate the purposes of the measure, which to me would include exempting so many properties that it would basically be unable to fund the construction of a new library or finance 10 years of library services by the city.

2:02:57With that said, the Council has a lot of options. It could clarify… just clarify the ambiguities, it could adopt an age-based exemption, it could add an income-based exemption.

2:03:10It could add an exemption based on both age and income.

2:03:14For any of these options, it could also layer disability into them, since the one exemption that is built into the ordinance includes not just individuals over the age of 62, but also individuals who are blind or disabled.

2:03:28And then the city does have, a scholarship program for participation in recreation programs, and we just included those in the report for Council to consider because it's an existing program.

2:03:42Here, I've included a table that tries to summarize the various options that were presented in the report.

2:03:49So what I looked at is, what is the nature of the exemption? What criteria could be used, how many households would potentially be eligible to participate?

2:04:00And, and then what would be the potential revenue impacts? So if… and this is all based on the data that is… was included in the report. I do have those on separate slides, so I can pull them up if Council is interested in looking at those.

2:04:15But if Council adopted, an age-only exemption, that exempted a household, if at least one of the owners was at least 62 years… 60 years of age, that would… that would make 3,271 households eligible.

2:04:32If all of them applied and were granted exemptions, that would reduce revenue by just over a million dollars, which is about 32… about a third of all overall revenue and half of the owner-occupied revenue.

2:04:46And I used 60 years of age because that's just the bands of age that we received from the consultant for demographic data.

2:04:55If Council instead wanted to look at an income-only exemption, if it exempted households with income less than $50,000, that would

2:05:04to be 673 households, which would reduce revenue by about, $222,000. And I should say that what I… when I'm coming up with these numbers, because if you'll recall from the 9212 report.

2:05:18The city's financial advisor, calculated that the average parcel would pay $331 in the first year, so I just used those numbers to create

2:05:26Create this table.

2:05:28If the income-only exemption, were for households of $75,000 or less, that would be 1,187 households. Potential revenue loss would be $393,000 almost, which would be 12.4% of all revenue.

2:05:45So, coming to age and income together, the consultants were not able to, find a data source in the time available to… that included,

2:05:55Household data by age and income, and also differentiate it between

2:06:02owner-occupied households and renter households. All they could provide us was combined owner-occupied and renter.

2:06:09I included the data because I wanted Council to be able to at least consider this. We could make some… we could speculate about what the impacts of such an exemption would be. So I just provided a few different, scenarios, in the report.

2:06:25Councilmember Motayama asked a good question, which I've clarified here in the report, and I'll get to that.

2:06:31So, let's say that Council adopted an age and income exemption for households where at least one owner was at least 65 years of age, and household income was less than $50,000.

2:06:44So we know that there are 881 households in El Cerrito that, would meet those criteria. We don't know whether or not they are owner-occupied or renters.

2:06:53We do know from the income data that there are 673 households that are owner-occupied and have income less than $50,000. So, we could infer that probably the age and income-based exemption would have fewer households than 673.

2:07:11I didn't include that in the report just because I didn't want to, make that inference and make it… make it something where I couldn't say with certainty. All I knew for certain was, we know that there are 881,

2:07:22That would result in a loss of about $291,000 of revenue, which is about 9.2%. $673 would be 223, almost, 7%.

2:07:34And then if you increase… use the same factors, but then increase the annual income to a household income of less than $75,000, the numbers jump up to a maximum of just over $1,300.

2:07:47If you're using the, all households, if you use the income number from above, it drops down to $1,187.

2:07:57But in either case, you're looking at over $400,000 or almost $400,000 in revenue reduction, which is between 12.4% and 13.7% of revenue anticipated in the first year. So that's a summary of some options that we identified for Council and the potential impacts of them. I'll leave this slide up if a reference, and as I said.

2:08:20I did include slides that have the data tables from the report, so I can pull any of those up if Council is interested in reviewing those. Okay, thanks, Sky. We'll start over here to my right.

2:08:31Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Sky, for this presentation. I know that you were able to pull this together very quickly.

2:08:41Is there, a basis for the…

2:08:46HRA, income level, the $55,000 812.

2:08:54What is that? That number is, actually established in the Revenue and Taxation Code provisions that… that set that law. That is actually, although that's not the HRA, that is the, the Senior Citizens Tax Exemption Law, I forget the exact name, but that's in the Revenue and Taxation Code.

2:09:11they set a number, and then it adjusts annually, basically by a CPI factor.

2:09:17So that we wouldn't have to, like, figure it out every year, we can just look it up, and that it will automatically factor inflation in. Exactly, and as long as the program remains in effect, the finance tax board will adjust the number, and we'll just be able to look to them for… to do the adjustment. Okay.

2:09:35I think, you know, just to clarify what you said about the people that have

2:09:43You know, not applied for this exemption under… for the pool, and

2:09:52So, I just want to make sure that it's not that nobody

2:09:57qualified, it's just that nobody applied. As far as the staff has been able to identify, and they did actually search records, there is no record of anyone having applied.

2:10:11if someone had applied, I believe that, that the way the city would have, interpreted and evaluated the application.

2:10:21And again, similar wording in the swim center tax and the parks tax is… would have looked at the criteria in the state programs and said, these are the criteria for qualification for this exemption, we don't care whether or not you actually participate in the program, we just look at those criteria.

2:10:39Okay. But we've never had an opportunity to do so because no one has applied as far as we can tell.

2:10:44Okay, and…

2:10:53Sorry, I'm losing track of my… my question. I'm… yeah, it's getting late for me. So…

2:11:03the age and income-based exemption total revenue loss of $281,000 is greater than the income-based exemption of $222,763, so…

2:11:18Can you explain that again? Or was that what you were trying to get at when you saw the chart? I'm happy to explain it again. So, when I put together the report, all we knew was there were 881 households

2:11:32With one owner who is at least 60… or one occupant who is at least 65 years of age, and there is a household income of less than $50,000.

2:11:43I… what I said is, well, we know that number. I know… we know that the… that if every… if the council adopted that exemption, and just said, those are the two criteria, and everyone… every household in El Cerrito that meets those two criteria applied.

2:11:58We know that the total number of households would be less than 881, because some of those are renters, and they would not qualify, they're not subject to the tax. I didn't want to speculate about the number, so I just quoted that and tried to explain in the report. This is the theoretical maximum, we know it would be less. I think you asked… you made a very good point, which is, well, since it's the same income threshold as you've identified for the income

2:12:22only exemption idea, isn't really the maximum $673, and that's… and I think that's…

2:12:30we… I think that's a very fair inference. I just didn't want to make it in the report, but I've included it here because I think it's a very fair question. We still know that 670… if we make that inference, 673 would still be the maximum. We know that there… that reality is that there are fewer households than that because that 673

2:12:50Also probably includes renters.

2:12:53Thank you for clarifying that. And then, in terms of, kind of, administrative time, you know, City Manager, what do you think

2:13:03You know, in terms of… Doing this annually.

2:13:07Sure, and I think there's, another thing that's important to understand with this exemption, even as it currently is written. This is a… this is not an automatic exemption. It needs to be applied for, and it needs to be applied for every year. So, for example, if someone, you know, lost their job or something, I mean, they could maybe be…

2:13:29you know, eligible one year and maybe not the next. So, we know that even this

2:13:34I think it's great that we are kind of looking at what the, I guess, worst case scenario might be, if you will, as far as if every single person eligible, to the extent that we know, it's kind of impossible to know what that actually means, because even if there are, at the very max, you know, 1,300 people

2:13:52that apply for this, or that are eligible, they may or may not apply, no matter how much we broadly advertise it. That's just the reality of it. As far as administrative, we have certainly

2:14:06at this point, because there is not… there hasn't been anyone that has applied, we don't have a specific application created at this point. We certainly could easily do that. We do have technology, particularly when it comes to things like our business licenses, or our rental inspection program, where we would be able to leverage something like that.

2:14:29An online form, or a form that someone could come in and fill out easily, to be able to manage that.

2:14:37It's… again, it's really hard to save, depending on how many people would actually want to take advantage of this, but if it was a large amount, we would look to something hopefully technologically available to us that we could, either with our current software, we would look to something else, through

2:14:54you know, any, any of, any other cities that, that may do things like this. I will say that

2:15:01We do accept applications for the David Hunter Scholarship, so we do… you know, this isn't completely foreign to us to be able to handle some of these things administratively. I think the answer would depend on volume.

2:15:13And at this point, again, if someone wanted to qualify for the programs that are in… currently in Measure H, at this point, if they sent a letter or an email to me or to the finance department inquiring, we would… we would be able to work on that criteria. But it could be something easy, like.

2:15:32upload, documentation to this website, and we could review it, and… would it take staff time? Yes. But I think that we could probably, depending on volume, easily

2:15:45use technology to try to reduce that burden. And my last question is about.

2:15:50income of the individual versus the income… total income of the household. So this…

2:15:57The way that we're looking at this is

2:16:00The person who is 65 years or older

2:16:04It's just one member of an entire household in…

2:16:08determining the eligibility, you're looking at the income of the entire household. That's correct. The way that we would implement the exemption that is built into Measure C is that one member of the household who is an owner of the property would need to be at least 62 years of age.

2:16:28And household income would have to be less than that $55,100

2:16:33threshold. So, we'd look at household, we'd look at…

2:16:38Age of one of the owners, but we would look at household income.

2:16:42Thank you. Okay, we'll go to Councilmember Cassanda. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions.

2:16:51Going back to the criteria of the 62 years old, or blind, or disabled, and income.

2:16:57Am I understanding correctly that the Council has the option of maybe directing it towards not having to be a combined… all of those? We could just single out age or single out income? Is that accurate?

2:17:11The exemption that is built into the ordinance would have to remain in place. You cannot nullify that, but the Council could say, in addition to that.

2:17:22anybody who is a homeowner and has household income of less than $50,000 will also be exempt. There will obviously be some overlap between the two, but it would be treated as a separate exemption in addition to the one that's built into the ordinance. Okay, thank you. And then, when the Gonzalesian

2:17:42Don't you call it?

2:17:44law, I guess, came about

2:17:46And I started hearing that it wasn't funded, and I started wondering what that meant.

2:17:49And I… one of the questions I had, and I think I know the answer, is that

2:17:53When it was funded, if it was implemented.

2:17:58if, say, the city was having… using that as a criteria, and someone was in that program, we would have been reimbursed for that lost revenue. Is that accurate?

2:18:07I… so I…

2:18:09Probably, yes. So, if the… but I don't know for sure, because we don't… I didn't take an incredibly deep dive into how the program was implemented at the time, but as I understood it, and hopefully I'm getting this correct, it was basically… unlike the, the other

2:18:27law, which basically, exempts from the payment of property tax. The other program was a tax reimbursement.

2:18:34And so, as long as the city's parcel tax, the Measure C tax, was encompassed within the state's definition of parcel tax, somebody would have… the state would have reimbursed them for the tax…

2:18:48for the tax that they paid. So they would have paid the tax, and then they would have gotten reimbursed for it. So, theoretically, if it was funded, and someone applied, and actually went… applied to that program, and was accepted into that program, we could be reimbursed? Yes. Okay.

2:19:03If it exists again. If it exists. Yes. If it was funded again in the future, that's correct. Okay. And if it's a law and it's simply not funded.

2:19:12Does that just negate the law? The law… the statute still exists. I don't… again, I didn't… I didn't look into the minutiae of how this all came about, but, at some point in time.

2:19:24The program existed and was funded by the legislature, and then at some legislative cycle, the legislature stopped providing the funding for it, and so the law remains in effect. As far as I know, it has not been repealed. There is simply no…

2:19:38funding available to the state division that would have… would have provided the… would have operated the program and provided the reimbursement.

2:19:45Okay.

2:19:46I don't remember exactly where it is, but somewhere in your write-up and in the ordinance, there's mention of no…

2:19:53None of the revenue from the bond sale can go towards staff costs.

2:19:58Is there a distinction between

2:20:02something that causes staff to use their time, as the City Manager was talking about, the staff hours to…

2:20:10To coordinate the exemptions.

2:20:13And something that actually

2:20:16taxes staff costs. Does that make sense? You know, I'm thinking that… Right. Maybe you're not having to pay staff

2:20:25because of something directly, but you're indirectly having to use staff hours, and is there a distinction between that? There… we would… but it would not be funded by any of the Measure C funds. So, staff would be perhaps increasing their hours or increasing their work, but it would not… no staff, administrative staff, city staff.

2:20:45would be able to be funded by this measure. So the measure funding would go into a completely separate fund. It would not be allowed to reimburse the general fund for any of staff's time. It could be used to pay for

2:21:03the library hours, which is, in effect, the county's staff, so I also want to make sure that there's a distinction there.

2:21:10That the county only pays for a baseline of hours, any additional hours.

2:21:16we pay for. Right now, we are currently paying for it out of our general fund. We… if there's money available this way, we could use this funding to pay for those additional library hours, or any of the additional maintenance costs, as the measure describes for the first 10 years.

2:21:35And I just… I just add that, also one of the provisions of Measure C is that, as part of the city's annual audit, the auditors must,

2:21:44do a separate report on the money into that special fund and money out of that special fund, that would go to a Citizens Oversight Committee, and that would… and that report would detail whether or not any of the funding came out of the special fund and into the general fund to reimburse for administration salaries. Yeah, and that would appear each year in an annual comprehensive financial fund. Even if someone's hours are redirected towards that, that's not

2:22:09considered funding of it then. Correct. We can't… we could not use any of this library

2:22:17restricted funding to be able to reimburse any city staff costs of any… I mean, that's forbidden. So, it's just like with, our other parcel taxes that are restricted, we are not allowed to do that either. So, anything that's paid… any staff that are… that when we're… when we are paid.

2:22:34It… each of our paychecks, if you will, or any of our budget line items are very clear about which funds pay for salaries, and this would not have any city salaries, attached to it, nor would it be allowed to be transferred into the general fund for reimbursement of staff.

2:22:52That would be completely forbidden.

2:22:54Okay, thank you. And I've… The concern, and I want to make sure I understand it correctly, in the…

2:23:02Doing a write-up.

2:23:03The city attorney's write-up,

2:23:06page 76, for what it's worth, 76 of the agenda packet. I'll read the sentence. It says.

2:23:12Council may not eliminate or modify the exemptions expressly stated in the measure such that qualifying property owners would pay tax or additional tax. And I interpret that to mean that it can't be modified in such a way

2:23:26That it shifts the burden, in a sense, and raises other people's taxes.

2:23:30Yes, so there's a… well, actually, it means two things. It means that, and I would say it means something in addition. So, one way to look at it is, the exemption says that, an owner who is over 62 and under the income threshold pays zero tax.

2:23:47the council can't modify the exemption to say, well, they pay half the tax. So that's one of the ways that the city cannot modify it. But additionally, as we talked about during the,

2:23:59when Council received the 9212 report, there are two provisions of the ordinance that limit the tax rates. One is there's just a cap, and that inflates annually, and then additionally, Council cannot set rates annually

2:24:14At amounts that would result in revenue that exceeds 115% of the costs to pay for debt service and the authorized uses of the revenue.

2:24:27So, those are ultimately the caps on the rate.

2:24:31If Council grants an exemption to… a new exemption to one set of property owners, it can't then try to make up the revenue from other taxpayers who are not exempt if the rates would go over those caps. So… so what I don't understand is what…

2:24:51What if the cap isn't an issue? What if you're below the cap?

2:24:55And so you're not pushing the 17 cents, you're not pushing the 115%.

2:25:02And you have a… you have a certain need for funds to pay back the bonds.

2:25:07It seems to me that, you know, say it's a pie, and you have 100 participants in the pie, everyone's gonna have equal share, and then suddenly you have

2:25:14you know, 95 people in the pie, everyone's piece of the pie that they have to contribute does go up. It seems like it's… in my mind, it seems impossible to give an exemption without that

2:25:23Rolling over to be, you know, maybe a minimal, but some impact on the other

2:25:27people who are paying the tax, in order to get what you need. Yes, so if Council determined that in any year they were going to go… so let's say, for example, in any given year, the 115% was always below the 17 cents, to use your example.

2:25:44And Council was always going to set rates to the 115%, so the maximum that they possibly could. And an additional exemption was reducing revenue to some degree. Council does have the ability to set the rates to go up to the 115%,

2:26:04But that's… you could look at that as increasing rates for some because of the exemption for others. I think that's a fair way to look at it. Another way to look at it is council's just always taxing those who are subject to the tax to ensure that there's 115% of the revenue that's necessary.

2:26:21And I would even go further as to say that if we…

2:26:26We would… again, this would have to depend on

2:26:30When we received applications, and learning if there was, you know, how many there may or may not be, depending on when we actually go out for the bonds, that we would have to calculate all of that within

2:26:47we would calculate all of that ahead of time, because to your point, if we're taking out a mortgage, essentially, to build a building, we need to make sure that we're making that minimum payment. And so, in order to do that, I think that we would…

2:27:01You know, we would… we would try to account for that before we went out for the bond, so that we wouldn't ever come to…

2:27:08I mean, the last thing we would want is to go, oh my gosh, we're not going to have enough money to pay our payment. We would never put ourselves into that position. We would do that at the outset, and we would calculate any of those scenarios to begin with.

2:27:22My question isn't based out of a concern of hitting the top and not having enough money, it's more, if I understand that language, to be that you can't have an exemption that increases the tax on someone else, it just seems like that's what an exemption does. Well, let me take a different example, then. Let's say that,

2:27:39Let's say that the debt service plus the, plus the cost of library services was, in every year, well below the 115% cap.

2:27:51As long as it… Other than paying the debt service.

2:27:56Council has flexibility to say, we're not going to increase the rates on others to be able to finance the exemption. You could just say, we're just going to have to

2:28:06Use general fund dollars to pay for library services, rather than that.

2:28:10But not an obligation to, though, right? It's a choice. It's a choice, other than the debt service. Once the bonds are issued, you gotta generate enough revenue to pay for that, plus an additional percentage that the

2:28:22trustees will build into the bond documents to ensure that there's sufficient buffer. But other than that, it… Council has options to

2:28:32Generate less than the maximum amount of revenue, and thereby not increase rates for other owners, because it has basically created a new exemption.

2:28:40Okay. It is a choice for the Council. Okay. But there are, of course, consequences for those choices. Okay, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman. And then, Councilmember Weisinger.

2:28:52Thank you for asking about that, and just to clarify a little bit further, so this is about us establishing new exemptions, but the exemption that's already in there, it's already in there, so this doesn't apply. We still have the cap that's there, no matter what. Correct. Just wanted to clarify that.

2:29:09I think most of my questions have been answered already, thanks to my colleagues for asking so many great questions.

2:29:16I am inclined at this point, and I know we're not voting tonight, but we're, you know, potentially going to bring it back, I think we should clarify the included exemption, because there is…

2:29:27a lot of mistrust and misinformation out there, and I think we should just clarify that whatever is going on with these state programs, it doesn't matter, this is gonna be our process, we're gonna go to what we think

2:29:40It says in the measure, even if these state programs are defunct, and we should make it very clear that it's based on, you know, the age, or being blind or disabled, and having a certain income. So I think we should just make that super clear so people know exactly what they're voting on. So that's where I'm inclined to go at this point.

2:30:01Okay, Councilmember Weisinger.

2:30:07Councilmember Wysinger: Yes, I actually didn't have any major comments similar to what Councilmember Salzman said. My colleagues have covered a lot of it, especially the question about

2:30:18the…

2:30:20people who have been approved versus people who have applied. So thank you so much for that, Sky. And yes, I'm complete.

2:30:33Yeah, go ahead. I just want to make one quick follow-up to Councilman Saltzman's request. I think it would also be helpful to clarify what qualifying means.

2:30:41And to make it clear that it's qualifying in the eyes of the city and not of those programs. Yes, I think if that was the direction from Council, we'd come back with a resolution basically saying… expressing the policy of the Council to interpret

2:30:54This existing exemption to state that the city will treat an applicant as qualifying for an exemption from the city's tax if they meet these criteria that are set out in the state law.

2:31:06Okay, good. Now we'll go to open comment. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item.

2:31:13Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Click by completing a speaker card, using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing 9 if joining by phone.

2:31:23In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments. Madam City Clerk, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. Still getting used to the… We have 5 requests to speak at this time, so we'll start with our in-person requests. Susan…

2:31:44Obayashti, followed by Bill Barrish.

2:31:53Good evening. Good evening. My name's Susan Obayashi, and I, live in El Cerrito.

2:32:00Wanted to speak about the wording of Measure C, regarding this, tax exemption for senior citizens. The way it is currently presented in the measure is absolutely misleading.

2:32:17Because of the one fund, which is un… has been unfunded since 2010.

2:32:25And that the other… exemption is only a postponement of the tax. It's not an…

2:32:35Erasure of the tax for that

2:32:38person who qualifies. There'll be a lien placed against that person's property, to be collected when the owner no longer resides there, or refinances, or sells.

2:32:53I think misleading the residents of El Cerrito continues to destroy the trust we have in our city management and government.

2:33:03And then I do have a question. If the City Council were to make the resolutions about any, or some, or all of the exemptions that were presented by Mr. Woodruff this evening.

2:33:22How long is the resolution good for?

2:33:26Is it good for that tax year?

2:33:30a calendar year? Would it have to be re-voted on every time?

2:33:37like, every year by City Council, or when new City Council members are elected.

2:33:43Okay, thank you for your time.

2:33:45Thank you.

2:33:46Our next speaker is Bill Barrage, followed by Michael Fisher.

2:33:53Good evening again.

2:33:56A couple of quick questions. So, if more property owners were to qualify for the

2:34:03exemptions, whether the stated exemptions in the initiative, or the ones that Council creates, or whatever that happens to be, then the initiative allows for,

2:34:16That would be allowable without disrupting the goal of the measure.

2:34:22how would the city determine the winners and losers of the exemption? Is this a coin flip or, you know, time frame? What's the criteria here?

2:34:34And the second question is, Have you looked at those application,

2:34:42papers and the renewal processes for any of the proposed exemptions, to understand and determine why no one has ever applied for any of them, from the previous Measure H.

2:34:59If you haven't looked into that, there must be something going on that we haven't heard about, and I think it would be incredibly important for voters to know about this before they went to the polls. And

2:35:15it's a daylighting of information that is currently under wraps, and so I would encourage the city attorney to look at those and

2:35:26decide and determine what is it that is keeping people from going ahead to apply for those exemptions. There must be something about them that makes it particularly difficult

2:35:39and unattractive. So, those are the things that I think we need to determine as well, as, on top of, what Ms. Zobayashi just said. Thank you.

2:35:51Our next speaker is Michael Fisher, followed by Michelle Fideli.

2:35:58Good evening again. I'm Michael Fisher. I've lived in El Cerrito since 1998.

2:36:04It's good to see the City Attorney's report stating that the Council may provide for a senior exemption beyond what is written in Measure C.

2:36:16That's one of the people involved in the drafting of that measure.

2:36:20my intent despite what I think others sometimes imply.

2:36:28Was to have an appropriate exemption.

2:36:32As a volunteer on policy matters with AARP,

2:36:37I know there are seniors who struggle with expenses, And that appropriate senior exemptions

2:36:45The one way these needs can be addressed.

2:36:49That's what we intended.

2:36:52The decisions on senior exemptions Involves complex balancing between relief to those seniors most needing it.

2:37:03And ensuring that the funding provided by the tax is sufficient.

2:37:09That is why we have a city council and a city administration, and I trust the decision to them.

2:37:17Thank you.

2:37:19Our next speaker is Michelle Fidelli, and then we'll go to our online request for Irish here now.

2:37:24Good evening, Michelle Fideli again, El Cerrito. I just wanted to say I appreciate all of the questions tonight. I think that will…

2:37:31I would say help us, help you all, clarify, the measure and, and, make it fair. I just, in looking at the chart that we had up with the, the percentages and the dollar amounts.

2:37:45Just wanted to suggest that you give yourselves another option, so instead of reaching $50,000 or $75,000, and it's an absolute zero.

2:37:54perhaps after some number, it's graduated. So, maybe after $50,000, the next set, instead of getting a zero exemption, maybe it is…

2:38:0450% or something else, so that,

2:38:07You know, someone's not missing the opportunity by $1, or,

2:38:13or get it going up to the $75,000 limit, we're not, losing so much. Just to give yourself, some options.

2:38:21And just wanted to say for anyone else that has additional questions on Measure C after, this evening, I neglected to mention that there are 8 sessions planned for Q&A. It's open to anyone who would like to ask. It's, they're listed

2:38:366 online, and 2 in person, listed on the website, and newElSevitolibrary.com under events. Thank you.

2:38:46Thank you. And then we'll go to our online request to speak.

2:38:52Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:38:56ira: Irish Aaronel El Cerrito.

2:38:59The city attorney, Sky Woodruff, does not work for the city. His firm, Redwood Public Law, is hired on a contract basis at rates of $363 to $442 per hour, from what I could tell.

2:39:13My estimate, and is only an estimate, is that between the attorney and the economic consulting firm Strategic Economics, this single agenda item likely costs taxpayers $8,000 to $12,000.

2:39:27I was able to reproduce the data in the study in one hour with the help of Claude, which charges, $20 a month.

2:39:36Now, here is an extremely important point that needs to be emphasized.

2:39:41The numbers in the report are not counts, they're not exact numbers. Instead, they are estimates. That is a critical difference.

2:39:50And with estimates come plausible ranges.

2:39:54In this case, the Census Bureau is very wide ranges, so the data

2:40:00as presented, is essentially useless for the purpose of policy. By the way, the census data is available free online for anyone who actually knows how to use it.

2:40:11I point out that the City Clerk refused to provide the data that determined the possible revenue, so that number is open to question.

2:40:20The City has also failed to provide information on the average cost

2:40:25or the average amount, the average cost to the taxpayer. The current numbers are significantly different than previous numbers provided by the city, so every number is open to question.

2:40:37I suggest the Council also consider the exemptions in the West Contra Costa Unified School District parcel tax, which is far more generous than anything you're considering.

2:40:48I suggest that the Council look at the Livable El Cerrita article on how staff can get paid with Measure C funding, thus contradicting what the City Manager just said.

2:41:00I thought this was settled months ago, so I think everything is open to question, and I think you need much better information, more clarity, and I think the city needs to have a public forum in which the Council engages with the public and stops stonewalling them.

2:41:19Thank you very much.

2:41:23Mayor, that concludes our request to speak on this item.

2:41:26Thank you very much. We'll bring it back to the Council. Any, final thoughts? Any more instructions you'd like to give, Councilmember Motiyama? Thank you, Mayor. I think, you know, I really would like to, to see, us staying with the… the…

2:41:44qualifications of the tax postponement law, not that it would be a postponement, it would be an exemption, but I think that, you know, somebody thought about all these things, and it's already there.

2:41:57And I think that those are all pretty reasonable things, like not having a reverse mortgage, having a household income that's set at $55,181 or less, have 40% equity in the property. I mean, those are all things that, you know, have clearly been worked out.

2:42:14as appropriate to determine that there is an exemption, so I would like us to… to kind of

2:42:21keep that in mind as kind of the template. I think, you know, once, you know, as one of the members of the public mentioned, you know.

2:42:30you know, who's gonna be the winners and losers? I think that that's, really not…

2:42:37what this exemption is about. I think it's… it's really, you know, for…

2:42:43fixed-income seniors for whom that this tax may be a hardship. So, I want to not lose track of what we're trying to do, and huge is something that's been tested. Thank you.

2:42:58We'll go here to Mayor Pro Tem.

2:43:01Did you have it?

2:43:02Okay, any other… Yeah, I want to… thank you. I want to follow up on something that

2:43:07Councilmember Montyama mentioned, with the 40% equity and reverse mortgage criteria, what I saw in that was because it was a deferral, and they wanted to get paid back, that was a way to make sure that that borrower had the resources to pay it back. But if we're genuinely doing

2:43:24an exemption, we're not getting paid back, so it strikes me that that… the reverse mortgage clause and the 40% equity clause doesn't… shouldn't apply. I think that that's up to Council. I think that you could… you could…

2:43:37For the purposes of implementation of the exemption that is in the ordinance, since this would broaden the exemption rather than narrow it, you could… you could eliminate those additional factors and condense it down to.

2:43:51member of the… one of the owners is at least 62, and the household income is no more than… than the… whatever the amount is that's calculated by the FTB using the statute, currently $55,181.

2:44:05The other factors, I think, are relevant to the postponement law, but not necessarily relevant to the city's implementation of an exemption, and so if Council were okay with dispensing with those other factors, and ultimately you wanted to give the direction to,

2:44:22Adopt a resolution, we could just excise those and say that the exemption would be available to anybody just based on the age and income factors.

2:44:32And is… just to the city manager and yourself, is the time to have a resolution towards that now, or does it come later, if it passes, and deal with it then, or what… what's… what's optimal?

2:44:43I mean, I imagine it really requires more thought, so it's not piecemeal.

2:44:47Correct. If, based on direction tonight, we could adopt… we could bring back a resolution at the next City Council meeting. I think I heard a couple council members talking about wanting to have clarity for

2:45:00For, you know, the voters, if you will.

2:45:04again, knowing that this isn't a city-written ordinance, so we are interpreting, right? So being able to interpret the way we did in the 9212 impact report, for example, and with this type of resolution, I think it would at least

2:45:20provide the intent of the Council. I will also say that, you know, and I did hear a question about what that resolution would mean. Resolutions are legislation of the City Council. They are in effect until they are repealed by the Council, so as long as this resolution is passed by the City Council.

2:45:40it stays in effect as long as the Council intends to keep it there. You could override it, you could repeal it, but once it's passed, it is the legislation of the city. Thank you for clarifying that.

2:45:53Okay, Councilmember Weissinger, do you have any, final Okay, yeah.

2:46:00Do you have any final, comments or instructions?

2:46:06Councilmember Wysinger: No, I am complete.

2:46:08Okay, thank you. We'll go to Mayor Pro Tem.

2:46:12Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Katsanas, for bringing that up. I think that's a fair point, and I would be in favor of striking those two parts, the 40% equity and not having a reverse mortgage. I also think it would reduce the burden on staff.

2:46:29Because if you have, you know, like, 5 different documents, at least, that you have to confirm and make sure they're valid documents, that's a lot more work. So the fewer things, and I think the other qualifications are much more significant in identifying. I mean, you might not have 40% equity because you are in financial problems, and those are the people we're trying to help.

2:46:51So, I, yeah, I, I think…

2:46:54for a lot of reasons, I'm okay with striking those, and would like to see a version come back with those,

2:47:02struck from it. The other thing I just want to mention

2:47:06Yes, a city council in the future could change what we approve, but our staff and our attorney have already told us that almost no matter what the council does, the staff is going to interpret it at least in this way. Maybe then those parts that we have struck, if we strike them, would come back.

2:47:24But the income, the age, that is what you would go on, not based on whether the state law was happening or not, correct? Correct. So, kind of doesn't matter what a future city council does, you would still interpret it that way, and so I just want to make sure, because again, there's been so much confusion.

2:47:44so many different stories about this measure, so I just want to make sure we're clear when we vote on this next time that this is what the Council intends, but a future council can't get rid of the exemption. And so I just… I want to make that super clear to people as they go out and decide how to vote on this measure.

2:48:04No, I completely agree with, Councilmember Cassanis and the Mayor Pro Tem, on striking the two points. So I wanted to check with, City Manager and City Attorney,

2:48:17Do you have enough instructions? Do we have to…

2:48:21vote on this, or… What I've heard is a consensus from Council to bring back a resolution that would articulate the policy of Council to clarify that the exemption that is already included in Measure C

2:48:37Does not require participation in either of the two state programs that are identified, that instead, the city will be using the criteria of those, but deleting the criteria that… that… for the,

2:48:51for the senior citizen property tax postponement law that would require at least 40% equity and not having a reverse mortgage, those would be deleted, so the… the only criteria that Council would be using from that program are that one of the owners must be at least 62 years of age, blind, or disabled.

2:49:09that they… that they own the property as their principal place of residence, and that they have a total household income of $55,181 or less, but we'll… that's the current amount we'd roll in the criteria. So basically, it would be Council's policy that… that that would be sufficient

2:49:26to qualify for the… an exemption from the Measure C tax.

2:49:32And that would be the resolution that we brought back. Okay, very good. Thank you very much.

2:49:37Yep, thank you. Okay.

2:49:39Next, we will go to city, local, and regional liaison assignments. Who would like to start?

2:49:48Excellent.

2:49:50You left the right, right to left town.

2:49:52Okay.

2:49:54So, on March 18th, I attended the ABAG Lobby Day in Sacramento,

2:50:01And then on March 19th, I attended the ABEC Executive Board meeting, where we finalized Plan Bay Area 2050+. On March 23rd, I attended the Arts and Culture Commission, where they discussed pending mini-grant applications.

2:50:16In coordination with the Human Relations Commission on United Against Hate Week.

2:50:21On March 25th, I attended the East Bay Wildfire Coalition of Governments meeting, and we had an update on pending wildfire-related legislation. On March 26th, I attended the Cal Cities Policy Committee meeting on revenue and taxation.

2:50:36And on April 3rd, I attended, as Councilmember Weisinger mentioned, the St. Peter Simi Good Friday Breakfast with excellent speeches by both

2:50:47Councilmember Carolyn Weisinger, and our Chief Paul Keith.

2:50:52Okay, very good. We'll go to, Councilmember Weisinger next.

2:50:56Councilmember Wysinger: Yes, thank you so much, Mayor. From November… I'm sorry, March 14th to 19th, I did attend the National League of Cities, where I was able to, represent El Cerrito on the Public Safety Committee, where we did lots of important work in regards to the national platform

2:51:16On immigration, and how enforcement or guard… protecting our sanctuary cities shows up in the national platform.

2:51:26I was also able to be a part of the small cities conversation there, where we were sharing ideas with each other about how we are… how we are building more housing, such as we're doing here in El Salarito, but also furthering economic development along with building that housing. And also in our… our Rio Council, where we were talking about how we promote civility

2:51:50I'm in these trying times.

2:51:52in our council chambers, amongst our council members, and also with the public, so we had a great week of policy making, and also, of course, meeting with our Congress member, John Garamendi, who didn't get to meet with us very long. He was doing important meetings regarding foreign affairs there on the Hill, but we always appreciate him for taking, at least attempting to take the opportunity to speak with his local legislators.

2:52:17I did also attend the Cal Cities meeting, such as Councilmember Motayama. I'm actually on the Public Safety Committee, so we, heard many different items, such as, going forward, how we are going to be working on speed enforcement, like we talked today, how we… one of the things that you spoke about, Mayor, about how we as cities are going to, adapt to the amount of e-bikes

2:52:40That are in our cities, and how that correlates to speed, policy whether we would or would not support legislation in regards to things like, sex trafficking in certain areas, protecting folks who are not a part of those unfortunate activities, making sure that we're just making equitable decisions in the public safety space.

2:53:03I am complete!

2:53:07Okay.

2:53:09Councilmember Somn. Okay.

2:53:10you know, I'm going to veer off course a little bit. I just want to express a request, I guess. I… one of the things I found in my first year on the council is that it's a little bit tricky to navigate the process for getting things on the agenda, and I want to request something, and I'll just do it informally with the mayor here and the city manager here.

2:53:28In two weeks, we're gonna have a presentation from the police chief around the flock cameras.

2:53:34And I would like to have that

2:53:37Take the shape of a study session.

2:53:39I have a lot of questions, a lot… I've done a lot of reading, I've spoken to lots of residents, and I… I just… the more I learn, the more questions I have, so I very much would like to have a format that allows

2:53:51full information, and just to be full transparent, I would like someone to be invited from the American Civil Liberties Union who could also speak from their perspective.

2:54:01I know that the police chief will speak, I know that he has a representative from Flock coming as well, and I think for a more balanced assessment, that would be very helpful. So I don't quite know the process to officially request that on the agenda, but I want to just express that desire.

2:54:15I don't want to necessarily make a motion towards that, but just express my desire.

2:54:20As far as liaisons and committees and all that,

2:54:25March 9th, and I might be going back too far, I was on the Urban Forest Committee, we met. On the 12th of March, West Contra Costa County Integrated Waste Management Authority had their regular meeting.

2:54:36I am on a subcommittee there to go over their finances and their audits, and we're meeting for a second time on that.

2:54:43I attended No Kings, I don't know if that counts, on Saturday the 28th of March. I did the Passover Sedar.

2:54:50on last Friday, the 4th, the community safety meeting, which actually had a presentation from Chief Winworth.

2:54:58Lieutenant Winworth, right? Last… last night, the 4th?

2:55:03And I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Town.

2:55:09I just want to say, I actually don't know the process when it's brought to a council meeting, but if that… the request needs a second, I would second it. I think more discussion on flock would be very helpful.

2:55:22On March 20th, I attended the Advisory Body Ad Hoc Committee meeting, which I assume our mayor will talk about. On March 21st, I attended the Crab Feed, which I believe was the biggest ever, and I would love to know how much it raised, so I hope we will get a report on that.

2:55:39On March 27th, I attended, the

2:55:43West Contra Costa Transportation Commission meeting, and we had a great update on the Richmond Ferry.

2:55:50On April 2nd, I attended the Mayor's Conference, the Contra Costa Mayor's Conference, where there was a presentation on, how to prevent and address human trafficking, especially in relation to the, World Cup, but just in general as well.

2:56:08And on April 4th, I attended the Community Passover Seder at Temple Beth Hallelu.

2:56:14Okay, thank you.

2:56:15Let's see, I did attend a, a working meeting with the Mayor Pro Tem and with City Manager Karen Pincus.

2:56:24on,

2:56:25things that you need to work on, like, boards and commissions. So, we will continue on this, this ad hoc committee, and look forward to collaborating more with, the Mayor Pro Tem and the City Manager on that.

2:56:39Also, I did attend the, National League of Cities, and as president of the League of Cities, it was a busy week, meeting with leaders,

2:56:52from across the country. I'm meeting with, members of our, Congress here in, California. I…

2:57:01personally met with, our two U.S. Senators, our, Congress, man, Garamende, as well as, Congressman,

2:57:13Levin in San Diego, Congressman Aguilar in, the eastern part of LA County. I did meet with,

2:57:25Congressman,

2:57:27who is now an Independent. He was a Republican, but he switched to an Independent, and that is con…

2:57:34Congressman Kiley. And Congressman Kiley,

2:57:39Plans to run for another seat in another district.

2:57:43And he has been very, vocal.

2:57:48about, what's going on with our high prices and energy. We do pay the highest prices on electricity, and as well as airfares, and as well as, price per gallon. And these prices that we see now

2:58:05is because of the war. But if we lose our refineries, and if our refineries decide to leave California.

2:58:15We will have even higher prices. So, I just want to make sure that our residents here know that this is not because of

2:58:25what's going on in California, and, it is truly because of the war in the Middle East. But if CARB gets their way in making sure that

2:58:37You know, they… our businesses are not able… our industry here in Contra Costa is not able to do their job. Our refineries will leave, and we will have higher prices because of that. The only places that can refine our greater crude is in Asia. South Korea.

2:58:56Congressman Garamende mentioned the Philippines. It could be even Vietnam, and it could be in India, and possibly Malaysia. And to have our oil

2:59:08refined and brought across the world as a waste of energy. We do this the cleanest, safest way here in Contra Costa County. We have two refineries that already left. Valero is leaving the end of the month.

2:59:24we have a shortage of, fuel. This was… this transition that I support, just transition, was not to replace one or the other. There is no other way to travel by plane. So, you know, we still need jet fuel.

2:59:42You know, I know we have more people, purchasing EVs, but we need to use the equity lens on everything that I do on the air board, and what our council members do on MCE and the other transportation boards, is to use equity on everything that we do, so we don't leave the middle class, down, working class and the poor.

3:00:05And, have them supper.

3:00:07We already have, people suffering with $10 a gallon, in the Central Coast and in rural areas. This is not acceptable. So, I will be, speaking at San Francisco's Climate Week on the 19th. I look forward to, giving my opinion as board member representing

3:00:27El Cerrito and Contra Costa on the air board, and his former, vice chair as MCE. We will talk about this just transition, but we need both. I can't tell you how disappointing it is to see an airplane ticket cost over $500 for a round-trip ticket to Santa Barbara, or

3:00:48Orange County. That is not acceptable.

3:00:50And, we're, we're seeing this, and,

3:00:54A lot of people are not going… are not going to go on vacation in the summer. We are all suffering because of this. So, that is, my update. The next, City Council meeting will be on…

3:01:10On the… what is it? 28th. 21st. On the 28th? 21st. 21st of this month, starting at 6 o'clock. Thank you for joining us, and have a good night.