Regular City Council Meeting April 21, 2026

0:00:04Okay, we're ready to begin whenever you are. Okay.

0:00:08Good evening, everybody.

0:00:10Today is, April 21st, 2026, special City Council meeting. The time is 6.03. Madam, City Clerk, please call roll. Thank you, Mayor, and just to clarify, this is the start of the regular City Council meeting. Mayor Kinto? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman?

0:00:29Councilmember Quetzanes? Here. Councilmember Mochiyama? Here. Councilmember Weisinger? Here. We have a quorum.

0:00:35Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

0:00:41I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

0:00:46And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

0:01:04Phantom City Clerk teleconference and public comment instructions.

0:01:08Thank you, Mayor. This hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person or via Zoom with closed captions available. As with our prior meeting, we are still meeting… waiting on one piece of equipment, so this meeting will not be livestreamed or broadcast on our website.

0:01:23But it will be recorded via 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 ensures the public's right to be heard, and while City Council may not respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action.

0:01:40For members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony, the Mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item. A request to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card.

0:01:51A request can be, done virtually by selecting the raise hand feature on Zoom, or by dialing star 9 if calling in. In-person speakers will be heard first. The Council's adopted Rules of Order and Procedure specify that public speakers address the City Council in an orderly and respectful manner.

0:02:08Proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits.

0:02:12Thank you, Mayor. That concludes my announcement. Okay, thank you very much. We'll go to, Council and Staff Communications, City Manager Karen Pickup.

0:02:26Thank you, Your Honor. I would actually like to call up Christina Laird to provide staff communications tonight.

0:02:37Okay, good evening, Mayor Kinto and Council members. Christina Laird, Acting Senior Management Analyst in the Public Works Department. Just wanted to give you a brief update on our Earth Day activities that's coming up this Saturday.

0:02:50So that we're excited to host,

0:02:53Work parties again this year, as we do every year, from 9am to 12. There'll be various work parties. I think we have 8 work parties throughout the city this year. Anyone can go join a work party. You can find the details on our website at elseerrito.gov slash earthday.

0:03:11And then additionally to work parties, we are having a prepare workshop at the community center.

0:03:18That will be from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday. And, we'll have repair coaches there, helping residents repair any kind of broken item. We have,

0:03:30And, coaches there for jewelry, for clothing, sewing, anything that needs mending, as well as your household goods and electronics.

0:03:37And we're gonna have the El Cerrito, the ECRU artist, the Creative Artists in Reuse. They'll be doing activities in the community center as well for the children, some crafts.

0:03:49And then, additionally, out in the outdoor patio space, we're gonna have a bunch of community organizations tabling. So some of the community groups include…

0:04:00Recycle More, our partners.

0:04:03As well as MCE, ECRA Walk and Roll, 511, I'm sorry, 511 couldn't make it. We'll have 350 Contra Costa, Citizens Climate Lobby, the, El Cerrito Garden Club,

0:04:19As well as Sustainable Contra Costa. And so, and the Urban Forest Committee will also be there. So we welcome anybody who would love to attend this event, and please share with your neighbors and your friends who want to attend, get some more information, or have anything repaired.

0:04:36Thank you.

0:04:37Thank you very much. And that's all I have, Your Honor. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Any, communications that you'd like to report here?

0:04:45I'll start on my lap.

0:04:48Am I right, Aaron?

0:04:50I just want to announce that,

0:04:54I did attend the San Francisco Climate Week over the weekend and had a chance to speak on electrification and what cities and counties are doing, and it was a local city's perspective. As mayor of El Cerrito, I was joined by

0:05:13Councilmember Igor Tregoop in Berkeley, as well as Councilmember Wang in Oakland.

0:05:20and our BART Board Director, Barnali Ghosh, as well as a county supervisor in Mendocino. So.

0:05:28stay tuned on the things that we'll be working on. As a member of the Air Board, we will be discussing, a lot of the things dealing with, the new rule changes that are coming up, so do attend our meeting. We're,

0:05:45live, via, Zoom.

0:05:49So if you look at the Bay Area Air District, you'll see the, schedule. We meet.

0:05:56On the first Wednesdays of the month, starting at 10 o'clock.

0:06:00And, next we will do, oral communications from the public.

0:06:06Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding

0:06:12matters not on the agenda, consent items, and presentation items. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing the speaker card using the raise hand feature on the Zoom, or dialing 9 if joining by phone. The person requests to be taken

0:06:30In-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.

0:06:39Thank you, Mayor. Before we begin, I just want to, let you know we have a total of 34 speakers signed up currently amongst all of our items tonight.

0:06:49That's not including any virtual speakers that may come up later. If the mayor would like to implement the council waterfall policy for, reducing speaker times, that is at your discretion. This item, we have 9 requests to speak. Most of the speakers are signed up for item 8A.

0:07:07The threshold to reduce from 3 minutes to 2 minutes is more than 11 speakers, and then down to 1 minute for over 21 speakers. So, if you could confirm what you would like to do for this item, where we currently have 9 speakers signed up to speak.

0:07:24Let's do, 2 minutes. Okay.

0:07:38Okay…

0:07:39All right, so with that, we will start with our request… our in-person request to speak, going first to Michael Fisher, followed by James Silvey.

0:07:54Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of the Council.

0:07:58My name is Michael Fisher, I live in El Cerrito, and I have lived for more than 82 years.

0:08:07I emphasize that to note that I am a senior.

0:08:11Maybe not quite as senior as our wonderful centenarian Plus, who we celebrated last meeting.

0:08:19But definitely a senior.

0:08:22Many of my fellow El Suritans working in support of Measure C are also seniors.

0:08:29I am one of the small group that wrote Measure C.

0:08:34I wanted an appropriate senior exemption.

0:08:38And we use the same language as other El Cerrito tax measures.

0:08:44For the first time for any such measures, opponents have raised an issue.

0:08:50And as noted, this issue has… This issue is…

0:08:57On the, consent agenda tonight.

0:09:02To provide for significant increases in eligibility for the exemption.

0:09:10It does make me worry that this item has come up.

0:09:16I'm glad the Council's going to fix it.

0:09:21The Council has the extension And it provides an increase in the senior exemption in three ways.

0:09:32One, The measure eliminates the tax for those qualifying, rather than postpones it.

0:09:40True.

0:09:41There is no requirement that the owner have at least a 40% equity in their property.

0:09:50And there is no requirement that the property not be subject to a reverse mortgage. Thank you for your comments.

0:09:59Our next speaker is James Silvey, followed by Charles Taylor.

0:10:08Hello, thank you for the opportunity to speak here.

0:10:11I'm commenting because I believe… oh, sorry, first name. James Silvey. I am a resident of El Cerrito.

0:10:19I'm commenting here today because I strongly believe that El Cerrito needs to invest in its future.

0:10:26We can't keep kicking the can down the road like we have in the past, and that's why I strongly support Measure C.

0:10:33Measure C is a clean, straightforward funding measure.

0:10:37The money raised by the measure is put into a special fund.

0:10:40And it can only go toward the library.

0:10:42If we want to renovate the library, build a new library, or even secure fund-matching grants, it starts with us building those funds first.

0:10:53My concern is that many folks believe that we should continue to wait instead.

0:10:58They claim that it's just this particular measure they don't support.

0:11:01But there are no alternative measures or proposals put forward by this group.

0:11:06There are no solid ideas on where the funding will come from if this measure doesn't pass.

0:11:12We'd be left waiting again, with no progress made.

0:11:16There's never gonna be a magic solution to the funding.

0:11:20The longer we wait, the more it's going to cost.

0:11:23Compare the cost of building anything now to the cost 10 years ago.

0:11:28We're only cheating ourselves and future generations if we delay this further than it already has been.

0:11:35If you support the library and want to invest in El Cerrito's future, I believe Measure C is the right way to do that.

0:11:42Thanks again for your time.

0:11:45Thank you. Our next speaker is Charles Taylor, followed by Barbara Lass.

0:11:54Good evening, Mayor Kinto.

0:11:57Mayor Pro Tem Salzman, and the rest of the Council.

0:12:01I'm Charles Taylor.

0:12:03One of the proponents of the initiative for an improved new library.

0:12:09with Measure C.

0:12:11I am a senior citizen.

0:12:14And have lived in El Cerrito for 42 years.

0:12:18My wife and I raised our daughters here. One of them lives in El Cerrito and has been active in civic affairs

0:12:26Since returning after college.

0:12:28I also have two grandchildren.

0:12:30in the city.

0:12:32I'm here to speak to you regarding the proposed exemption, senior exemption, for the El Cerrito Library tax proposal.

0:12:40When drafting the measure to fund an improved library and expanded operations, our intent…

0:12:48was to have elderly residents in El Cerrito who were in reduced health or circumstances have relief.

0:12:56From the full effect.

0:12:58Of the tax measure.

0:13:00I am glad today that the Council today is proceeding with the measure proposed in the packet. Thank you.

0:13:09Our next speaker is Barbara Last, followed by Eve Ma.

0:13:15Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Barbara Lass. I'm a resident of El Cerrito, and I've lived here for over 25 years. I'm here tonight to talk about El Cerrito Trail Trekkers. We are, an official non-profit under the umbrella of the El Cerrito Community Foundation.

0:13:33And we have tried in recent years, repeatedly, to work with the city on,

0:13:40trail improvement projects. We are, able to provide funds, we're able to provide volunteer labor. We would like to do things like improve the, trail in Tassahara Park, make it more passable.

0:13:54and safer. We would like to help Boy Scouts do Eagle Scout projects in which they work on the trails. We would like to have signs put up that mark where the trails are in the city so that people can use the wonderful public paths that we have. And these are just some of the things that we would like to do. We've met,

0:14:13continued resistance from city staff about, doing these things. There's one obstacle after another. We have to have liability waivers, which I understand are important. There are meetings, there are plans, there are specifications, we do those things, and then there's something else that we have to do. Boy Scouts, even Boy Scouts, have been denied the opportunity to do volunteer work

0:14:38for the city in cooperation with us. It seems as if the city does not want to work with its citizens who want to donate their time to these important things, such as our open space and our trails. And we really wish there was a way for us to move

0:14:57forward, on these, these kinds of volunteer projects. The words city and citizen are very closely related.

0:15:06It seems to us that citizens should be able to participate in improving their community. Thank you. Thank you.

0:15:13Thank you. Our next speaker is Eve Ma, followed by Bill Barish.

0:15:21Good evening, Mayor Quinto and El Cerrito City Council members.

0:15:26I am here… my name is Eve Ma. I am a resident of El Cerrito, and I'm here to talk about ducks. There is a rumor going around that there's a desire to get rid of the ducks. This rumor may or may not be true, but I just wanted the City Council to know that there are people in the city that love the ducks.

0:15:47And I got one sheet full, I could have gotten another sheet full, but I figured one sheet would get the point across, so I hope that we will not get rid of our ducks. And I'm talking about the ducks in Arlington Park. Thank you very much. Thank you.

0:16:04Our next speaker is Bill Barish, followed by Michael McDougal.

0:16:11Good evening. Mayor, Council, Bill Barish, I live in El Cerrito, still.

0:16:19the… resolution on the exemptions for Measure C.

0:16:25Seems to be… composed of… mostly air.

0:16:37the criteria… I'm reading from the draft of the resolution.

0:16:42Applicants are not required to apply for or participate in these programs in order to qualify for the exemption.

0:16:50I don't understand that wording.

0:16:53How would you… qualify to receive an exemption that you don't

0:17:03You can't… how would you… how would you apply to receive something that you

0:17:09might not qualify for it. There's… it's… it's very… poorly written, And it doesn't… express The fact that they're…

0:17:21Is really no exemption And that the Council Is trying to create something that the proponents didn't include.

0:17:39So that I would ask that you Step back from this.

0:17:45and figure out exactly what it is you're approving before you move forward. Thank you.

0:17:55Our next speaker is Michael McDougal, followed by Wade Huntley.

0:17:59Hello, my name is Michael McDougal. I live in El Cerrito. I'm also on your financial advisory board. The reason that I'm talking here is there's the annual,

0:18:09the quarterly fund report, is in the consent calendar, and one part of those funds is our Section 115 trust, which… wave at the people out in the

0:18:20internets. That's, the trust where we set aside money for, paying down our liability towards, retirement.

0:18:30Stuff.

0:18:32One of the things… and I've… I've read, as a part of your member of your financial advisory board, I've… I've read the ACVER quite closely, and I've also reviewed our comprehensive financial policy in the last year as part of our job on… on there. One thing that I expected to see in front of the Council relating to the 115 Trust.

0:18:50was, there's a waterfall when we have a, general fund surplus, when the expenditures in the general fund are less than the revenues in the general fund. And we did have that last year, which is fantastic, to the tune of $2.4 million. But I expected to see before the council a third of that going into the 115 trust.

0:19:09some time, and I just think it's been… been a while, and I was… I just wanted to light a fire under, either the city or maybe the City Council to see if we could get that agendized. So, since we did have a surplus, we should see an item where it comes before you to allocate into the 115 trust. So, thank you very much.

0:19:28Thank you.

0:19:29Our next speaker is Wade Huntley, followed by Sherry Drobner.

0:19:38Good evening. Thank you for entertaining our… all these comments. My name is Wade Huntley. I have been an El Cerrito resident for almost 27 years, and I am the co-president of the El Cerrito Trail Trackers. I'm here tonight to advocate on behalf of a healthier.

0:19:54And more productive relationship between the city and groups like ours.

0:19:59As you probably know, El Cerrito Trail Trekkers has been a non-profit organization in El Cerrito for over a decade, with a mission to sustain, improve, and utilize open space. You're probably very familiar with one of the signature achievements of this collaboration, which was the acquisition of the Madera Open Space added to the Hillside Natural Area, which is enjoyed by

0:20:22Residents and community members, every day.

0:20:27Recently, this engagement has become significantly more challenging.

0:20:31We've sought to undertake several projects that would be essentially financially, costless.

0:20:36to the city.

0:20:38Only to face delays and resistance, sometimes unexplained, sometimes for reasons that seem dubious.

0:20:44And these experiences, I believe, have raised doubts in the minds of many whether there remains a genuine positive will to take advantage of the ideas and energy that so many individuals in our community want to offer.

0:20:57Others here have addressed and will address some of these concerns. Barbara talked specifically about a couple of the projects. Some of these issues will be mentioned again in your discussions of the budget issues later in this meeting.

0:21:09So I would like to simply conclude on a somewhat broader note. Some believe that the only role for the public in governance is to show up for elections every once in a while, and otherwise let the city run the administration like a corporation. I believe that local governments can be more than that.

0:21:27That it can be a place to unleash the public spirit, and build a community.

0:21:32It turned…

0:21:34ourselves into a sum that is greater than the… than the addition of the… of the people who happen to live here. Thank you for your comments. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Sherry Dropner, and then we'll go to our virtual requests.

0:21:48Hi, my name's Sherry Dropner. I've been in El Cerrito for probably 27 years also.

0:21:54I just wanted to share information tonight. It's more of regional nature, but I think it has an impact for all of you up front in the diocese, and all of everyone behind me, and people on Zoom.

0:22:07I was at a meeting on Sunday with about 500 other folks, and it was a meeting to discuss our airport.

0:22:16The fact that our airport in Oakland is sending military weapons directly to Israel on a regular basis.

0:22:23And these are weapons that we actually are paying for with our tax dollars, as we painfully know. And we can do something about that, and we could do something about that individually, we could do something about that.

0:22:39Collectively, but I really want to make sure the people

0:22:42have the information, because once you have the information, you can't unhave it. You can decide what you want to do with it. So I'm hoping that people will do something with it.

0:22:53There is a campaign, it's called the Oakland People's Arms Embargo, and even though it says Oakland, it really is regional for all of us. Thank you. And, that's all I'd like to say tonight on this issue. Thank you.

0:23:08Okay, I'm just, briefly gonna ask the audience to please not have any audible agreement or disagreement so everyone feels comfortable sharing their, their comments tonight. I'm gonna go to our, virtual request to speak.

0:23:24I already should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:23:29ira: Irish Aranel, El Cerrito. Can you hear me?

0:23:33Yes, but barely. If you could try and speak up a little bit, please.

0:23:36ira: Okay, here is what I would like to see included if the city chooses to be transparent.

0:23:43Right now, I feel there's an extreme lack of transparency as it relates to the parcel tax proposal.

0:23:50Explain why the cost increased from $21 million to $37 million.

0:23:56Will building at the plaza still save $10 million?

0:24:00Release the data on potential revenue.

0:24:03clearly explain to the public that tax collections will begin in December 2026, and that there is no end date.

0:24:12The clock does not start until the bonds are sold, and the bonds may never be sold.

0:24:18Release the parking management plan.

0:24:21Given that the tax will likely not cover both bond payments and operating costs, explain which programs the Council intends to cut.

0:24:30Will you close a fire station, lay off police, or close the swim center?

0:24:36Also worth noting, the San Rafael language that forms the basis of El Cerrito's tax proposal specifically excludes paying city employees.

0:24:46That language is noticeably absent from Measure C.

0:24:50As far as I can tell, there are no published detailed plans on how parcel

0:24:55Sea West is going to be built.

0:24:58There cannot be a library in a non-existent building.

0:25:01Finally, I thank City Manager Karen Pincus for clearly stating at the February 19 Council meeting that the City has not done a seismic analysis of the current site. Has the city done due diligence for any site?

0:25:17need more transparency.

0:25:19Thank you.

0:25:23Okay, I'll go to our next request to speak.

0:25:26If you could please identify yourself for the record.

0:25:30You should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:25:37Together We Stand: Hi, yes, my name is Sevgi Fernandez, with Together We Stand.

0:25:44I am a lifelong resident of

0:25:50the City of El Cerrito,

0:25:53I am talking on Measure 8 today,

0:25:58My family has been a part of El Cerrito since the 50s. I come before you tonight

0:26:04Not only as a resident with deep roots here, but as someone whose family history understands firsthand

0:26:11The danger of surveillance when power is abused,

0:26:15My grandfather, Clark Kerr, was targeted by government forces during a time of political repression.

0:26:22My father, a member of the Black Panzer Party, is also targeted. And…

0:26:34We are living in a time when immigrant communities, activists, communities of color, and political dissenters are increasingly being monitored and targeted. The data collected by FLOC and these systems does not exist in a vacuum. Once it is gathered, it can be requested, shared, breached.

0:26:51Misused, or accessed by administrations whose values may not reflect the safety and dignity of all people.

0:26:58No city can guarantee permanent protection of that data, no contract.

0:27:03Can fully shield vulnerable residents from the risks that come with mass surveillance infrastructure.

0:27:09When you approve these systems, you are not just installing cameras, you're creating a pipeline of information that others may one day exploit.

0:27:17El Cerrito has long prided itself on being a thoughtful, Progressive, and community-centered.

0:27:24Place to live, and that means protecting residents before harm occurs.

0:27:28Not apologizing after it does.

0:27:31I ask you to consider who bears the greatest risk when surveillance expands. It's rarely the powerful.

0:27:37It's the undocumented family, the young activist, the black and brown resident, the person already living closest to the edge. Please choose trust over surveillance, accountability over fear, and community safety rooted in human connection, not mass monitoring. Thank you so much.

0:27:54comments?

0:27:55Mayor, that concludes our request to speak at this time. Okay, thank you very much.

0:28:01One thing I wanted to announce is that today I signed a mayoral proclamation in recognition of Tibetan Buddhist Lama Tepu Tolku, who many of you, remember. He used to work at the El Cedar Plaza, so congratulations on, Lama Tepu Tolku.

0:28:19For his retirement.

0:28:22I have a, proclamation that, I would like to announce now, and we will,

0:28:32do this,

0:28:34Now it's, needs to be voted on, item 6B, a proclamation for education and sharing. This, passed a pro… a motion to approve a proclamation to

0:28:47declaring March 29, 2026 as Education and Sharing Day in the City of El Cerrito to raise awareness and strengthen the education of our children. Do I have a motion to approve the revised proclamation that was provided with the supplemental materials?

0:29:06I'll move.

0:29:08Okay, I have a motion from Motiamo and a second by Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman. All in favor?

0:29:16Aye. Okay. I will vote yes as well. I'd like to invite up, Rabbi Yankee Bell to say a few words and accept the proclamation.

0:29:36Nice to see you.

0:29:37Good evening.

0:29:38Good evening.

0:29:39Thank you, Mayor and City Council members.

0:29:43I am Rabbi Yankee Bell, a citizen of El Cerrito.

0:29:47Alongside my wife, Sharni, we lead the Chabad Center, Chabad Lubilic, here in El Cerrito.

0:29:55Thank you for this, proclamation.

0:30:01the Education and Sharing Day is… goes back almost 5 decades to, it's been celebrated for each year by U.S. Congress and, heads of states and school districts and mayors all around… all around America.

0:30:17marking the Rebbe's Lubavish Rebbe, the Labavisha Rebbe's birthday,

0:30:23which falls out usually just a couple… falls out each year, a couple days before Passover, as Education and Sharing Day.

0:30:30The Rebbe was a global spiritual giant and leader.

0:30:37taught us about the importance… he spoke greatly about the importance of education, how it's not just about what we learn and what we know, but it's also about who we become, how we act.

0:30:48With today's world, education is often measured by knowledge and information and success and being able to get a career

0:30:58The true education goes deeper. It goes to… it goes to shaping our character, instilling… instilling values, and giving a person a sense of purpose and responsibility.

0:31:09just the last… the beginning of this month, we celebrated Passover, which celebrates freedom. Freedom from oppression, exodus.

0:31:18But, ultimately, freedom without… without guidance, and just… takes us nowhere.

0:31:24And a society can be free and lack direction, which is why we have another holiday, Jewish holiday, that comes up in the next month, which is Shavuot, when we receive the Torah, which is a…

0:31:35GPS for life, the guidance under God of how we can live in a healthy way in the world and be good people.

0:31:43So.

0:31:45Education is… is about creating a… giving a moral foundation with a clear sense of right and wrong, of responsibility, of purpose, and…

0:31:55Helping people discover their true value, that they have a mission.

0:31:59That they have the power to make a difference in the world, and this is something that the Rebbe, the Bhavish Rebbe, believe deeply in the potential of every individual, and every child, and every human being, that they carry their… something unique, something irreplaceable, and that something… something that only they can give to the world, each person, in their unique way.

0:32:17So, let this proclamation serve as a reminder that we can

0:32:22If we give our children, and all of those who we are leading, not only skills, but also a moral compass, we're preparing them to lead, to uplift, and to build a better world.

0:32:33And education has the power to really shape a world of goodness and kindness, which is what we're working towards.

0:32:39So may God bless all your efforts to make the city a brighter place, creating a brighter future for everyone in El Cerrito and beyond, and thank you for once again proclaiming this important, Education and Sharing Day.

0:32:56Thank you. We will, have a picture taken in front there.

0:33:00That's right.

0:34:07Okay, next, item 5 is, presentations, the El Cerrito Library Update and National Library Week, proclamation. We're going to receive and file an update

0:34:18from the El Cerrito Library and pass a motion to approve a proclamation declaring this week, April 19th at 25, 2026, as National Library Week in the City of El Cerrito, and encourage all residents to visit the library. We have Heidi Goldstein here.

0:34:36Welcome, Heidi

0:34:50Thank you all! Hello, good evening.

0:34:55Thanks for having me again, and thank you to Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and the City Council. I am Heidi Goldstein. I am the Manager, Senior Community Library Manager here in the El Cerrito Library, part of the Contra Costa County Library System. Whoa, my chair just broke.

0:35:13Cool.

0:35:14Sorry.

0:35:16I fell down the trap door that sits here.

0:35:21And so, I'm here to talk to you about National Library Week, which is celebrated annually.

0:35:27And this week, we are celebrating, the valuable role that libraries, librarians, and library workers can play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.

0:35:41And as you can see here on this first slide, the total circulation is up 9% throughout Contra Costa County Library System.

0:35:51And you can see it's gone up quite a bit between 24… 2324 and 2425, and it continues to increase.

0:36:01Our digital circulation is something that really came upon us, the most, probably, during COVID, and it continues to increase as well.

0:36:10And it's due in large part to us bulking up that part of the collection throughout the whole system.

0:36:24Please hold.

0:37:35Thank you for your patience as we're working through how the new system works.

0:38:42And we're back, folks. Thank you very much for your patience.

0:38:48Okay, so… Next.

0:38:54So yes, we did bulk up our digital circulation, our digital collection, excuse me, and so that has increased up to 39%, which is pretty impressive. And if you haven't tried out an e-book or e-audiobook, I highly recommend it. It makes life much easier.

0:39:14And as you can see, physical visits to the library continue to rise. In person, we're up 10%. Virtually, we're up 2%.

0:39:23And as a reminder, you don't have to even live in Contra Costa County Library to get a library card, so we get all kinds of visits from all kinds of people all over the state.

0:39:39Okay, and here are our most popular books from 2025, the always popular Mo Willems with Should I Share My Ice Cream?

0:39:49To which the answer is always yes, I believe.

0:39:53the ever-so-popular Dogman series, Holly Jackson's Good Girl's Guide to Murder for the Teens, and Kristen Hanna with The Women.

0:40:05Another great, improvement that we've had is the… oops…

0:40:10I just lost my place. The Rolling Reader, which is an all-electric van that provides literacy services to children 0 to 5 years old in our most vulnerable communities.

0:40:23And in 2025, you can see they served 11,923 people, which is great. They just give away books freely.

0:40:36We also have some new digital services, and improved digital services.

0:40:42Sorry.

0:40:46So, Pebble Go Silence is specifically designed for K-2nd grade students.

0:40:53This platform engages young students with narrated text, animated highlighting, easy-to-read articles, games, and educational videos to teach them about math, engineering, technology, and life, earth, and space sciences as they learn to read.

0:41:09Excuse me.

0:41:11The library now also offers an expanded all-access subscription to the New York Times, which includes news, audio, cooking, games, sports coverage from The Athletic, and expert product reviews from Wirecutter.

0:41:25And then finally, we're going to be kicking out some new library notice… courtesy notices with Message B in January of 2027.

0:41:34And all notices will include graphics and book covers whenever possible. The subject lines will start with Contra Costa County Library, and there will be a due date reminder notice indicating your item's due date.

0:41:50For the summer of 2025, our Lunch at the Library undertakings, we gave away 13,914 summer meals, and this was available at the Antioch, Concord, Crockett, El Cerrito, El Sobronte, Pinole, Pruitt, Rodeo, and San Pablo libraries.

0:42:10Our annual summer reading program, as you can see.

0:42:14That we got to touch 9,050 participants of all ages, and so that was a really fun thing that we do every single year, and everyone should take part in it, because it's all good.

0:42:29We have, revamped our Community Languages webpage.

0:42:33We now have 9 collections of physical materials in languages other than English, Chinese, both traditional and simplified, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

0:42:48We've also added 3 new vendors to enhance and update the physical collection materials in Farsi, Vietnamese, Korean, and Russian.

0:42:58Sorry.

0:43:01Read… oh, sorry. Read Contra Costa, which is a county-wide undertaking that we have, September 2nd to November 8th of 2025. We read James by Percival Everett, and then we had an in-person conversation with the author in November.

0:43:20More than 800 community members attended the live and streaming program at Los Madanos College.

0:43:28And we have Tech Exchange, which is thanks to funding from the Measure X Innovation Fund. The library is partnering with Tech Exchange to provide drop-in tech support twice weekly.

0:43:40the Pittsburgh, San Pablo, and Walnut Creek Libraries. Tech Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to building digitally proficient communities throughout the Bay Area.

0:43:51This partnership delivers specialized tech support that extends beyond what library staff and volunteers can provide.

0:44:00El Cerrito Library celebrated its 76th year as a library in the Stockton Avenue location. During 2025, we had well over 200 programs for varying audiences, with nearly 5,000 attendees.

0:44:16You can see our numbers there. Adult programs, we had 90, teen programs, 32, school-age programs, 27, and preschool programs, 60. And overall, 229 programs.

0:44:31Not bad.

0:44:44Here I have some story time picks, and so this is story time with some of the fine folks from the El Cerrito Fire Department.

0:44:53The second one is a fun story time and performance by our own children's librarian, Terry Dix, and the cool cats who perform as part of Oak Town Jazz.

0:45:04Whoops, I just lost it all.

0:45:09And the third photo is our annual visit from the East Bay Vivarium, where lots of snakes and reptiles get to get up close to library patrons.

0:45:23On the left here, we have Making Fairy Houses, which is one of our Lunch at the Library crafts.

0:45:31In the middle, we have the celebrating… we celebrated the magical mashup of libraries, literacy, and wrestling.

0:45:39And this is happening again this summer on June 27th in the back parking lot. I highly recommend checking it out, it's extremely fun.

0:45:49And the last photo was our screen printing class that we had with Chris Granillo, and that is our aide, Marianne, showing her screen printing skills.

0:46:03Our Read to a Dog program has been consistently popular since we started it in 2017.

0:46:09All the dogs are therapy dogs certified by the Alliance for Therapy Dogs. They come into the library every other Tuesday at 5.

0:46:19And they also take part in library outreach at our local schools with our therapy dog friends. Pictured here

0:46:29Patty and Gracie, Gracie has recently passed on, and Mim and Zach at Fairmont Elementary.

0:46:38And now I am open for questions.

0:46:49Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for this presentation. It's always nice to get confirmation about how popular our library is, and…

0:46:59It always amazes me. I have a… just a couple of questions. One is about the tech exchange. Is it only certain places get it, or if we had bigger space, we could get it, or what is the tech exchange rules?

0:47:15Well, the rule… I'm not sure what the rules are exactly, but it was funded through a Measure X program, which I believe might have been,

0:47:24city, county-owned buildings at the time, is what the originators were. But it is true that if we had the room for it, we would have it.

0:47:35You know, without the funding, we would figure out a way to make it happen, because it would definitely be appreciated in our library.

0:47:43And my second question is, I know, I think the year before, we had closures because it was so hot in the library. Did we have any in this past 12 months?

0:47:54Not in 2025. We were able to stay open, the weather didn't… the temperature didn't quite rise up quite so high, but in 2024, we did have to close twice. But the last March heatwave was okay.

0:48:09I believe the Cal OSHA requirement is when it's over 82 degrees inside the building, and last year we just didn't quite make that 82, luckily.

0:48:22Thank you very much. Thank you.

0:48:26I don't have questions, just want to thank you for everything you do, and encourage anybody who doesn't visit the library regularly to go stop by, and Heidi's often there and can answer the questions you have, and the whole rest of the team there is great, too.

0:48:40Thank you. I echo, Michael.

0:48:45Me.

0:48:47Turn that off. Thank you very much. I echo what the Mayor Pro Chan just mentioned. Know that,

0:48:54I was at the, in the basement, where we, where you sell, and, and, you're letting residents, turn in books. Very much appreciate that, because,

0:49:05My home, we go back and forth there all the time, and

0:49:09dropping off books. My house is a small home with lots of bookcases, so I want to thank you for that, and do we still have the LGBT collection there? We absolutely do, and if you'll recall, when we started it in 2018, it was

0:49:27This is some library jargon here. It was one bay of a bookcase, and now it is two full sides of an entire

0:49:36aisle, entire stack, and it's for all ages, and it's… it's great. I'm so proud of it. Yeah, I very much appreciate that. I was at the opening when,

0:49:48That was, I guess that was 2018. Oh, 2018, yep. Appreciate that, and, I encourage our residents to, drop by the library, and, you will see, what is needed. We need a new

0:50:0321st Century Library, and, I'm excited that,

0:50:08There'll be a possibility if this is passed. So again, let the residents decide up or down if they want to do this, but I encourage our residents. We have a lot of new families that have moved here that are paying the maximum

0:50:25To live here. I just want to have, the…

0:50:30Books and the space, that the next generation of families had.

0:50:36are able to, use. I was able to use the library as a kid growing up down the street there on Lexington.

0:50:44And, this is what we want. This is what we want to leave for the next generation. And, I know many of you have grandkids. This is a city of families now, not just seniors. So, I want to make sure that, our residents know the importance of voting on June 1st on the library up or down. So, we're going to,

0:51:06see if we can approve this, and I have a proclamation for you. So, do I have a motion to approve the proclamation? Second. Okay, so I have a motion, a second. All in favor?

0:51:19Aye.

0:51:20Okay, motion passes. Okay, so…

0:51:23we'll get to have a picture with you, because you were not here last year. That's true.

0:52:27Okay, next we'll have adoption of the consent calendar.

0:52:32we have… A California Cities Week Proclamation, C, Monthly Disbursement and Check Register Report for March 2026.

0:52:442025-26, third quarter cash and investment report. E is measure C, Senior Exemptions on the Resolution of Clarification and intent.

0:52:54F.

0:52:56Senate Bill 1383, Memorandum of Understanding with the West Contra Costa Integrated Waste Management Authority. G, authorization for purchase of a 2026 Chevy Silverado EV, crew cab standard, truck.

0:53:14And H is to adopt landscape and lighting assessment for fiscal year 2026-27 and adopt resolution of intent to order improvements. Would anyone like to pull an item? Yes. I'd like us to,

0:53:31Pull Measure E, or number E, Measure C, senior exemption, and I have some questions on D.

0:53:38So you… I'm sorry, so that is E?

0:53:40Okay.

0:53:41Your questions were C, right? Or no? My questions were on D, the quarterly cash and investment report.

0:53:49Okay.

0:53:50Anyone else? Would anyone like to follow anything?

0:54:02See the register.

0:54:05See? Yeah. Okay.

0:54:07Let's go first to, did you have anything? Okay.

0:54:13Okay, we'll go to C first. Go ahead, Councilmember Keith.

0:54:18I had questions about a couple line item expenses. Sure. And, again, for the public's benefit.

0:54:25I mentioned this before, that we do get this in advance, and we do often go through our questions with the city manager, and I did this, so most of these that I had highlighted and questions about, I've already answered them. There are a few that I thought might be helpful just for other people to hear the answer as well, so I'm not going to go through all the ones I had questions about, but I will…

0:54:43Pick out a few.

0:54:47The first one that stood out to me, or one that I want to mention today, was $80,000

0:54:54for the Animal Control Services, it's number 95754 on the registry.

0:55:01And I was… I… We'll address it to the…

0:55:05to the city manager, but I expressed, you know, just kind of curiosity about what the cost was, and what was entailed in the cost, and what period of time, and as I understood it, it is for a quarterly fee paid to the county, and I will hand it off to the city manager to add more, or to whoever

0:55:21Please keep that's the case. I will actually hand it off to the police chief to explain our relationship with animal services. And before we start, I will say that I really appreciate your police officers, because we had a deer in front of our house that was mauled by a coyote, apparently, and they came over, and they held their nose, and pulled the carcass to the side of the road, and…

0:55:39Okay. Didn't seem to enjoy it, but they did their job. Okay, well, thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you for that.

0:55:44So I'm Paul Keith, your Chief of Police. Good evening, Councilmembers. So, we pay our Animal Control Services fees on a quarterly basis, so the $80,000 represents, coverage for that quarter.

0:55:58What the coverage includes is, basically, it helps, on a proportional basis, pay for animal control services in Contra Costa County. So, every city in the county, with the exception of Antioch.

0:56:11contracts with Contra Costa Animal Services for, responses due to animal bites, for stray domestic animals, for enforcement of, domestic animal ordinances. It helps cover adoption costs. Some of the,

0:56:29components of that fee also include kind of a true-up at the end of the year. So, if there are animals being adopted from El Cerrito, then they do try to rectify some of that, the revenues against the expenses. So, if they have more revenues than they estimated, there is supposed to be a true-up at the end of the agreement.

0:56:49Okay.

0:56:50And it is quite a bit of money. It is a lot of money to stand up your own animal services organization. So, compared to what it would cost for us to provide these services as a city, it is a deal. But it is still a lot of money for sometimes what feels like just a few responses. I think they had something

0:57:10You know, I saw the report, but I don't have it off the top of my head, but they do provide us with a quarterly report as well on what they came out to do. Okay, thank you. And while I have you up here, may I ask you another question? Sure. There were four line items for mileage and meal reimbursement for, I think, about a

0:57:285-week period, if I remember the dates right.

0:57:30And they were about $1,700 a piece, and I was just curious about that. I did get an answer, but I'll let you address it as well.

0:57:36So, I believe those are for our, four academy recruits that were attending the academy. So, because they have to commute to the academy, we pay them mileage consistent with the, IRS rate for, government services.

0:57:52It's to pay for them to commute to the academy, to subsidize their lunch as well at the academy, and to come home at the end of the day. But those, cease once they become police officers, now they're just normal folks like the rest of us commuting to work.

0:58:06Okay, and the last item that pertains to the police was a reimbursement to the City of Richmond for $72,000, which I understood was for the dispatch services. Is that a quarterly fee, or monthly fee, or how's that worked out? That is a monthly fee that we pay to the City of Richmond, so…

0:58:23Services overall, doing the math, come out to be about, I think, $850,000 to $860,000 this year. We pay on a monthly basis, it covers, all dispatching costs, so it covers the call center when people call 911, and it also covers their, coordination with our officers, get them to the scenes of crimes and

0:58:42all of those things. It also, covers after-hours services for our officers, so we have,

0:58:48a warrant that we've served, or a vehicle that we've towed. Richmond allows us to use their records, their records specialists to enter that information into the California law enforcement system. Okay, thank you. Sure.

0:59:02Any questions on C?

0:59:04Okay, Councilmember Mutayama. Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. So I have some questions on the third quarter cash and investment report.

0:59:25Good evening, Crystal Reams, Finance Director.

0:59:28Thank you.

0:59:30I… when looking at the presentation materials in the packet, you know, it was really referring to almost a different economic time, and

0:59:41are… you know.

0:59:43so I feel like the stuff that was presented to us from PFM was largely out of date.

0:59:52Can you also kind of go into detail on what we are investing in, and what the fees are?

0:59:58Yeah, so that was for, 2025. It was their, the year-end review, and then in the later half of the presentation, there was also, what's… what's happening currently, and where… where we're headed, and what they're looking out for. So it was all very detailed, outlined in there. But our… we are on a passively managed fund, so we're, no direct trading, no direct investments, and it's not directly managed.

1:00:23They charge us, .25% annually.

1:00:29For… and then we'd also have,

1:00:33Other trading fees that happen when they do buy and sell within the investments.

1:00:38But it's, yeah, all the indices are outlined in the moderately conservative, plan that the Council, had us move forward with.

1:00:49And is there a total return at this time?

1:00:52To date, on our… 115 Trust?

1:00:57To date, I do not have that off the top of my head, I apologize. I can definitely include that with, with the next, or I can pass it along to, City Manager, and she can pass it along as well. And I wanted to ask you a question that came up in public comment.

1:01:15you know, when do we do the waterfall? Is that based on the aquifer, or based on the close of the fiscal year, or…

1:01:24When does that happen? So, we did have a surplus, and I apologize, I don't have the, roll forward figure, for the purchase order roll forwards, at the top of my head, but, basically with the…

1:01:38successor agency, issue that we had. That would have been… that's a prior period correction, so it…

1:01:45Pretty much wiped out, any type of surplus that, that we had.

1:01:49Okay.

1:01:50I had a sinking feeling that that was the case, but thank you. Of course.

1:01:55Okay. I have questions as well. A question on that. Really, yeah. Yeah.

1:02:02I have questions also about the… The investment report, so…

1:02:10Do we… do we know the percentage return on the lathe, and is the lathe the same thing as the pooled investments California Treasurer?

1:02:19Yes, those are the meetings. So we do know them, 3.88? Yes, yeah, so it's all published on the, on LAFE's website, and it's included in the report what the return was for, March.

1:02:36Okay, yeah, I saw a… there's a quarterly number here that says 3.88, and it says, pooled investments, California State Treasurer, so I assume that was a leaf, but I wasn't sure. Yeah, it comes directly from… from the state's website. And then, sort of reiterating what you just said about the

1:02:51the waterfall. There's a graph that shows the, the… what was the title?

1:02:59contributions to the 115, I believe, and it…

1:03:03it levels off at the top, into the next time period. That's because of the lack of a pool… lack of a pool, I don't know, flow of funds into that.

1:03:11Yes, yeah, because we haven't made any additional contributions. Okay.

1:03:17And then…

1:03:26Okay, that's all, thank you.

1:03:28Okay, we'll go to, E, Measure C, Senior Exemption Resolution.

1:03:34Go ahead. Thank you. I had asked to pull it, but I can just ask my questions. So,

1:03:43There was language in the staff report about a requirement for at least some responsibility for payment of the ad valorem taxes, and does that need to be included in the language of the resolution?

1:04:00Because it didn't seem to be included there.

1:04:05I'm just pulling up the staff report to… Confirm what it says.

1:04:15I'll have one question.

1:04:16Brothers.

1:04:40Yeah, so that,

1:04:42That is actually part of the proposed ordinance, and so that would stay in place as a requirement under the ordinance. The resolution doesn't have to incorporate that since it's already built into a portion of Measure C.

1:05:00Okay, and so…

1:05:07I'm just gonna ask this because I think there's this huge misunderstanding about the senior exemption. Can you talk about,

1:05:18the qualifications for the state program are not related to qualifications for our Measure H and Measure C. Sure, sure, I'd be happy to do that.

1:05:32Measure H and the proposed Measure C, both refer… both include an exemption that states that.

1:05:41Someone who, qualifies to participate in one of two programs offered by the state for property tax relief.

1:05:51also qualify for an exemption from the city's tax. And the important words there are qualify to participate. It does… neither of the… neither of the ordinances says that somebody must actually participate in either of the two programs.

1:06:05So, one of the things that,

1:06:08we brought to Council, and that's incorporated into the proposed resolution is that, those two state programs represent,

1:06:18criteria that the city would use, to determine whether or not somebody could qualify for an exemption from the city's tax. So…

1:06:29it does not require that, a city resident who wants to be exempt from one of those two city taxes actually receive the benefit of the state programs. We read it as instructing the city

1:06:42Look to those state programs for criteria to evaluate whether or not somebody can qualify to be exempted from the city's tax.

1:06:50you don't have to look… they don't have to check whether or not they're actually participating. And so, when we took direction from Council, to craft a resolution that would express the City Council's intent in interpreting that, we tried to clarify that

1:07:05while Measure C incorporates those references to those two state programs, it will not be necessary for somebody to participate, actually get relief from the state under either of those two programs. Instead, the city will look to those two programs for criteria.

1:07:22And then, as stated in the resolution, you have actually directed that some of those criteria you will not look at. It will not matter… someone will be able to apply for and qualify for an exemption from the Measure C tax if it's approved.

1:07:36Even if they have a reverse mortgage on the property. But they would not be able to qualify under either of the two state programs, if that were true.

1:07:44So I hope that helps explain this. Thank you.

1:07:47Okay, thank you very much for that clarification. So,

1:07:52Now, do I have a motion to approve the consent file.

1:07:57I move to approve all the consent items that, except for B, which we already passed. I have a second?

1:08:04Second. Okay, we have a motion by… Second. Second. I didn't say it in the mic. By Weisinger. All in favor? Aye.

1:08:12Motion passes.

1:08:18So next, we have a public hearing, and that's an annual review and renewal of the military ordinance… equipment ordinance. Paul Keith, our Chief of Police, has a presentation.

1:08:31Huh.

1:08:35Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name's JT Warat, like.

1:08:39I'm a lieutenant with the police department, and I oversee our administrative and support division.

1:08:43I'm here tonight to request renewal of our military equipment ordinance.

1:08:47This ordinance was originally passed by Council in 2022.

1:08:51California state law requires that the City Council review the use of the military equipment report.

1:08:58The inventory of the military equipment held in the local police department, and renew the ordinance yearly.

1:09:05As part of our… as part of our renewal process.

1:09:09We publish our military equipment report for the year 2020-25,

1:09:14We published our new draft military equipment policy, and we published our military equipment inventory.

1:09:21All of these documents were posted to the El Cerrito Police Department website on February 19th, 2026.

1:09:30Some items to note, we are requesting one additional, drone to be purchased in this upcoming fiscal year, pending budget approval.

1:09:39Munitions will be replenished.

1:09:43Based on expenditures in training and deployments.

1:09:47And just generally speaking, replacement costs and maintenance costs have… More or less gone unchanged.

1:09:56California law requires we host one public meeting

1:10:00We actually hosted two. The first one occurred on March 2nd, 2026, and we… at that time, we presented to the Community Safety Committee.

1:10:09The second in the main public meeting was on March 30th, 2026.

1:10:15This meeting was publicized through Nixle, as well as on the city website.

1:10:19And it was published in 30 days in advance of the meeting.

1:10:24This meeting is an opportunity for the community members to come and express any complaints or concerns that they might have with military equipment, ask questions about military equipment, and just generally discuss the equipment and its use. Should be noted that no members did attend this meeting.

1:10:41So, we are requesting renewal of our existing military equipment ordinance.

1:10:46At this time, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to field any.

1:10:50Thank you very much. Do we have any questions? Councilmember… No, no, no, no, we'll start with you. Go ahead, Councilmember Mojayama. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Officer Warlick, for, your presentation.

1:11:05I have some questions, particularly about, the tear gas and other projectiles. So.

1:11:15Do we ever… have we ever used them in El Cerrito? And if we haven't, why do we need to train people to use them?

1:11:22And, has it… is it really effective?

1:11:29If you don't mind, I'm gonna step in to take this question.

1:11:32So, in my 25-year career, we've never used tear gas in El Cerrito.

1:11:38The reason that we retain a stock of tear gas is, well, I'll tell you my overall philosophy. So, I'm an Eagle Scout. I spent a lot of years in Boy Scouts. The Boy Scout motto was to be prepared.

1:11:51So, while we haven't used it in 25 years, that's a testament to the lack of civil unrest in our community.

1:11:58But there have been times in the history of the United States, within, you know, the decade of the 60s and 70s, where there has been wide-scale civil unrest. So we have tear gas available in the event that we had violent unrest in El Cerrito.

1:12:12are members of our mobile field force, so we have a contingent of officers that participate with the county's Mutual Aid Mobile Field Force. They train rarely with tear gas, with the county.

1:12:25Do I ever anticipate in my career it being used? No, I don't. I think that it's, probably going to be a rare occurrence, but we do have people that have been trained in its use.

1:12:36When it comes to projectile-based weapons, these are sponge rounds and drag-stabilized beanbags. In 24 and 25, we didn't have any uses of those. We didn't use them, as in fire them at anybody.

1:12:50But we do have them as an alternative to lethal force in longer-range encounters with violent individuals. So…

1:12:59It is available as a tool for our officers. I believe that it's an important risk management component of our use of force options, because it does give officers a long-range alternative to using lethal force.

1:13:12I think that the fact that we haven't used it is a testament to our officers' use of de-escalation skills, and really working through taking the time in incidents involving people that present a lethal threat to officers, and not resorting to the use of them is a testament to their… the skills that they have.

1:13:29But once again, it's another,

1:13:32It's another element of being prepared for multiple potential, threats that we might face.

1:13:38And my last question is, why do you think we need more drones? We have, like, 6 drones. That's a lot of drones.

1:13:46We have 6 drones. So, two of the drones are interior drones, those are for clearing the inside of residence. Of the remaining 4 that we have currently, one is an old drone, it's…

1:13:59used as a training drone. We have one drone assigned to investigations, so they can have their own piece of equipment that's always ready for them, and we have two drones that are assigned to patrol.

1:14:08So this drone would go into that pool of exterior drones. Basically, it's always a good idea to have two drones on any given deployment, because there's a number of things that could knock a drone out of service. As an example, the first time we used an interior drone, it was during a

1:14:24Resolution of a home invasion robbery. We sent the interior drone into the house, and it was doing great, and then it got into the bathroom, and it hit the shower curtain, and the drone was out of commission.

1:14:33got tangled up in the shower curtain. At the time, we didn't have a second interior drone, so it was time to send the officers in, because we didn't have another tool to clear the inside of the house. But the same goes for exterior drones as well. A drone can hit a tree branch, it can hit part of a roof, it can hit power lines and get knocked out of the air, or it could suffer a mechanical failure.

1:14:52So, the main, intent behind this drone is to give us the possibility of having a little more depth in our deployments, making sure that we can regularly send two out when we're deploying a drone.

1:15:04I will also say, just to reiterate what the lieutenant said, this is pending the budget for these items. Now, that is yet to be presented to Council. If the budget in the upcoming fiscal year does not include enough funding for this drone, then it's not going to happen. It's just going to remain something that we'll continue to seek, but may not obtain.

1:15:24Great. Thank you very much.

1:15:26Okay, I gotta ask a question, regarding the drones. You know, with what's going on across the country and the federal government, and, are any of our drones made in China? And, are you to be forced to.

1:15:42get rid of the ones that, supposedly are from China, and, because of, what's happening on the federal level, dealing with, you know, drones made in China.

1:15:57So that is a very timely question. Yes, we do have drones that are made in China.

1:16:02They are continued to allow to fly under previous FAA authorization. So, what the FAA has determined is that no new drones can enter the United States, I believe, effective January of this year. So, all of our drones were…

1:16:17brought into the United States before that restriction went into place. At this point, it doesn't sound like there's going to be a grounding order for Chinese-made drones, so they're going to be able to continue to fly. However, getting new drones from China does not sound like it's going to be happening in the immediate future.

1:16:32One of the reasons why the drone this year has a higher price tag attached to it is that we're trying to spec the price as an American-made drone. So, the model that we specified, or similar, we're trying to kind of estimate the cost that an American-made drone would be. It's about…

1:16:51Well, it's about another $15,000 over the price of a Chinese-made drone, but that's Americans putting it together, so…

1:16:59Thank you for that. Mayor Pro Tem, go ahead.

1:17:02Just first, thank you for this report. I think it's great that… I know we have to do it, but it's great that we're transparent with the public and explain what all this equipment is. On the tear gas, I also hope you will never have to use it, but what are the policies, because you've made it sound like these have…

1:17:21nobody else… but people… other agencies are using tear gas in our country now, so it's good that we haven't had that situation, but I guess, what is the training about when you would potentially use it, and what the guardrails are on that?

1:17:37So, we do have a use of force policy that covers when we would use tear gas, and the training that they go through regularly typically involves violent resistance, so when people's lives are in danger, that's when they typically would deploy it.

1:17:52Property damage is another area where the Mutual Aid Mobile Field Force might, deploy it, depending on the circumstances.

1:18:00So, there's a lot that goes into, use of force during First Amendment protests. There's,

1:18:09announcements that have to be made to inform people present that this is an unlawful gathering. You have to provide for a manner of egress so people can leave the scene. You can't just surround people and then decide you're gonna tear gas them. So there are a lot of considerations that go into it. We, follow a…

1:18:25basically state guidelines on when we would use it. Like I said, it would be a rarity, and for us to use it, it would really have to involve violence. Otherwise, we're going to rely on a call out to the Mutual Aid Mobile Field Force for assistance.

1:18:40That is good to hear. Unfortunately, some of our neighboring cities in the past decade have not totally followed all those rules, and so sometimes the announcements have not been loud enough. I mean, when you're in a situation like this with a lot of people, not everybody heard. Sometimes people heard the announcement, but there was no way out, so…

1:18:58it's good to hear that you're… you're training on all of those things, and I… I hope we are able to find the funds for another drone, because they do seem effective, and when I've…

1:19:09when I first got on the council and got the tour, heard about, you know, how they were helpful to keep officers out of a situation where you could have to pull a weapon. Like, this is actually protecting

1:19:21both anybody who's involved and the officers, in terms of sending a drone in, the worst that can happen is the drone gets hurt instead of a person getting hurt, so I think

1:19:32it is a good way forward, and it does make sense to use them. I would much rather have a drone get hurt. And I also want to add, you know, you used a drone in my neighborhood.

1:19:43I guess it was last year or sometime, and I want to thank you for that, because,

1:19:47you know, you were protecting our residents, and, so… and this was the safest way to, take care of that situation. So again, thank you for,

1:19:59that. Let's go to Councilmember Weissinger. Yes, thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you, Chief, for that presentation. This is one of those presentations that I always think it can be very interesting, but I think it's also very important because a lot of people will look on the agenda and see that word, military, and wonder exactly what that is. This year, I did not hear the rumor that we have a tank, so I'm happy about that. I didn't…

1:20:24I didn't hear that this year. And thank you to Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember Motuayama, who did actually start the conversation about drones. One question that I had that I don't think that you've spoken to yet, or maybe

1:20:36you can expand on is how does our use of drones align with our current policy in oversight? And also, secondary, how is data on deployment and use of the equipment tracked and shared with the public?

1:20:50Okay, so I'm gonna cover the last part of it first. We put a drone log under the aerial operations page of the police department's webpage, so…

1:21:00Anybody interested in how and why we deploy our drones can go there to get at least a synopsis of why we use a drone. We include training on there, too, and one of the reasons why we include training is that there's a lot of drones that might be flying around L Street on any given day, so we want people to know that if they saw a drone on a particular day.

1:21:21If it's on our log, maybe it was us training, but then again, maybe it wasn't us at all. So it could have been a private party flying a drone. So we really want people to have a reference material, if they see a drone, to know whether or not it was a police drone.

1:21:33We also post our policy online, so if people want to know what the uses of the drones are, those are on there as well.

1:21:41Anytime we deploy a drone, it's always a two-person team. It's in connection, typically, with a law enforcement investigation. We do help neighboring agencies quite a bit, so, as it turns out,

1:21:53We seem to have drone availability a lot more frequently than the Richmond Police Department does, so we do about a drone deployment a month in support of the Richmond Police Department, typically involving a search of an area for a suspect that they're chasing. But we've also used it for missing people, we've used it for documenting evidence.

1:22:13I believe in both of the crashes involving pedestrians, we put our drones up to take aerial footage of the collision scene, the evidence on the ground, that sort of thing.

1:22:24Canada.

1:22:25About the deployment data, do we have that available, and is that something that the public is able to access?

1:22:33So the usage log, they are able to access. The data about deployments, not necessarily.

1:22:40We do retain footage for a 366-day period before it's deleted. Any footage from a drone deployment gets stored in our secure evidence, online evidence storage systems, evidence.com, run by the company Axon.

1:22:56So those elements are not available to the public, but when we use them is available.

1:23:03And we're always available to answer questions, too. If somebody says, why was there a drone in my neighborhood? If they call, we'll tell them. Thank you, Chief.

1:23:10Councilmember Quesamas. Okay, we will go to, public, we're gonna open the public, hearing and announce.

1:23:20The public hearing is now open. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card.

1:23:31Public comments will be taken in person only. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City Clerk, please proceed.

1:23:42Thank you, Mayor, and apologies, there was a typo in your script. We will take in-person and remote requests to speak on this hearing. Okay. We do have two, requests to speak. Can you confirm if you want to carry forward the 2-minute time limit, or if you want to revert to three? Wait, please. Okay.

1:24:08Okay, so we will go to… we don't have any in-person requests, so we'll go to our remote requests to speak, starting with Jason Martins. Jason, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:24:21Jason Martens (he/him): Hi, thank you for taking the time to listen to me. I'm a resident of Berkeley,

1:24:26And we have our own discussion happening right now about tear gas, and I just wanted to make sure everyone's aware tear gas is banned by the Geneva Convention for wartime use, so it's really shocking to me that we would consider

1:24:41using such a weapon against our own citizens. So I hope you reconsider that use, and I'm happy to hear that it hasn't been used frequently, but maybe it's time to consider that this is just not a thing that we want to consider using, period.

1:24:55Thank you.

1:24:57Thank you.

1:24:59Go to our next request to speak, which is Ira. Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:25:05ira: Yes, I wanted to speak on the library issue, and… but I was not allowed to speak.

1:25:11So, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give that speech now.

1:25:15With library usage in steep decline, please stop by our library and let our librarians know they are valued, even if relatively few people actually visit libraries to borrow physical books anymore.

1:25:30I stopped by the library today to wish our excellent staff A happy National Library Week.

1:25:37There were very few patrons there, as is so typical.

1:25:41Here are some statistics for Contra Costa Library System from the State Library website.

1:25:47I compared 2014 to the most current data on the state site, 2024, since the Measure C proposal is based on a 2014 needs analysis.

1:25:59Library visits.

1:26:002014?

1:26:024.1 million.

1:26:042024, $2.5 million. Change is a 40% deduction.

1:26:11visits per hour.

1:26:122014, 73 visits per hour.

1:26:162024, 42 visits per hour. The change? A 43% reduction.

1:26:22Now, there is one area where there was an increase.

1:26:25Total operating expenditures per borrower.

1:26:282014, $49.28.

1:26:332024, $122.65. That's a 149% increase.

1:26:41Now, I do have some El Cerrito-specific data, physical circulation.

1:26:47I only have 2016 And 2024. 2016, 156,573.

1:26:55And 2024, $121,247.

1:27:00That's a 29% reduction.

1:27:03For those who think Measure C will produce a new library.

1:27:06Please provide the following basic information.

1:27:10Where will the library be?

1:27:12When will the library be built?

1:27:15What services do you want to cut? Police?

1:27:18Fire. Swimming pool closure?

1:27:21The tax is not sufficient to pay for bond repayments and operating costs. What services do you want to cut?

1:27:28Thank you very much.

1:27:33Thank you.

1:27:36We'll go to our next request to speak, is David Hatton.

1:27:39David, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:27:53Are you… are you there, David?

1:27:56We're not hearing any audio from you.

1:28:03Okay, looks like there might be some challenges on the speaker's end we're not able to hear, and that is the last request to speak on this item, Mayor. Okay.

1:28:18So, do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

1:28:22Second. I have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem and a second by Councilmember Motayama. All in favor?

1:28:29Aye. Aye.

1:28:30Motion passes. Next we'll bring it to the Council. Any comments? Lasting comments?

1:28:41Okay.

1:28:42Do I have a motion to approve?

1:28:46Move approval?

1:28:47Do you have a second? Second.

1:28:49We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman and a second from Councilmember Motayama. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

1:28:58Any nays? Abstentions? Motion passes.

1:29:01Thank you very much.

1:29:03Next, we'll go to Policy Matters, and that is the flock safety agreement renewal.

1:29:10Maybe I have a staff report.

1:29:20Good evening, Mayor and Council. I have returned. I'm Paul Keith, your Chief of Police.

1:29:24So I'm here tonight, and I have a representative from Flock Safety also in the meeting. Her name is Katie Dauphine.

1:29:32The reason I'm here is to discuss the renewal of the Flock License Plate Reader Services Agreement.

1:29:38So, let's start off by talking about what is Flock?

1:29:41So we contract with a company called Flock Safety for the provision of license plate reader cameras in El Cerrito.

1:29:48In total, we have 40 cameras positioned around town, and they serve a dual purpose.

1:29:53First is that they act as an early warning system when a vehicle passes… sorry, the first is they act as an early warning system, and the second is they act as an investigative aid.

1:30:03As an early warning system, they check license plates on vehicles against state hot lists. So when a vehicle comes by, a camera, and it's a wanted vehicle or a stolen vehicle, it'll send an alert to our police officers notifying of the time

1:30:19the vehicle description, and the location the vehicle was seen. It gives our officers an opportunity to confirm the wanted nature of the vehicle, and also intercept the vehicle.

1:30:29As an investigative aid, these cameras take photographs of the rear of vehicles and retain those photographs for a period of 30 days.

1:30:38In the aftermath of a crime, it allows our investigators to obtain suspect vehicle information, to search for the vehicle using our license plate reader system.

1:30:48And ideally, identify a person of interest in the crime, or at least confirm whether a vehicle was involved in a crime.

1:30:57License plate reading cameras and power officers act on data and intelligence, and not punches and intuition.

1:31:03The system helps them target and identify vehicles that have been linked to crime with strong evidence.

1:31:08LPR systems increase the likelihood that officers are stopping the right car and the correct people.

1:31:14The item before you tonight is renewal of agreements with Block Safety.

1:31:19So, there are at least 3 alternatives before you tonight.

1:31:23The first alternative is to renew the existing agreement that we currently have with Flock.

1:31:29The second alternative is to decline to renew the existing agreement and enter into a new agreement with Flock.

1:31:35As has been added as a supplemental material to the meeting tonight.

1:31:41And the third alternative is to decline to renew the existing agreement, and also decline to enter into a new agreement.

1:31:48So first, let's talk about the existing agreement.

1:31:51Current agreement was signed in March of 2023. It was approved by City Council.

1:31:57The term began with the installation of our first camera on June 7th, 2023.

1:32:02The agreement runs for a term of 3 years and expires on June 6th of 2026.

1:32:08This agreement has a renewal clause, meaning they will auto-renewal for an additional 3-year term if the city has not indicated that they do not want to renew.

1:32:19Before 30 days before the expiration of the term.

1:32:23In other words, we need to tell Flock Safety if we do not want to renew before May 6, 2026, otherwise the agreement will automatically renew.

1:32:33Flock has provided us with new rates for the renewal of the existing agreement, and rates for a new agreement.

1:32:40These rates would be $105,000 annually, which is $1,500 more per year than the current agreement.

1:32:49Staff have also been working with Flock to put together a new agreement.

1:32:53In the event that the city does not want to move forward with an automatic renewal.

1:32:58Staff's focus in these negotiations has been on adding protections against unwanted sharing with federal or out-of-state agencies, or including language to penalize sharing.

1:33:10The current proposed agreement is the outcome of

1:33:15Coming up on 2 months of negotiation with Flock.

1:33:19It includes, as its most compelling feature.

1:33:23A $34,500 penalty if Flock shares data without our authorization.

1:33:30So the idea is that this penalty would serve as a strong disincentive to Flock to share with other law enforcement agencies that we do not approve of.

1:33:41The agreement also allows for termination in the event of a violation of law.

1:33:46However, another thing to think about is that the agreement also includes a survival clause. So, if we were to terminate the agreement, Block would still be bound by that penalty clause during the period that the cameras are still up in El Cerrito before they're taken down.

1:34:04So it does provide some additional coverage to us, or at least a penalty for sharing, should the sharing occur after an agreement is terminated.

1:34:14Now, the current agreement on the termination clause, we would still be obligated to pay for the agreement if we were to terminate the agreement. However, it allows us to terminate the agreement.

1:34:26Is this everything we asked for in agreement? No, it is not. But it is, a compromise that came as a result of back-and-forth negotiations with Flock.

1:34:39On March 10th, I held a meeting to talk to the public about, unauthorized access to our data.

1:34:48And, I also took as an opportunity to hear community concerns, in the hope that I could help voice some of those concerns tonight, and talk about ways that the police department has tried to address those concerns.

1:35:00So, on March 10th, we held a meeting.

1:35:03to hear concerns.

1:35:06So, first I'd like to talk about access to the system.

1:35:10So, flock safety and our own recent experience with this system, have demonstrated that the newest iteration of flock safety

1:35:17The program has increased protections against unwanted sharing.

1:35:21The system no longer allows California departments to opt-in to sharing with agencies outside of the state of California.

1:35:28Literally can't click a button to make that happen.

1:35:31It also includes disclaimers for users about authorized use of the system, identifying that the use of the system for immigration or reproductive enforcement is prohibited when you log in.

1:35:42We have confirmed that these settings now make it so that we cannot change settings to allow out-of-state access. There's no way for us to make that happen.

1:35:52In addition, the system also uses multi-factor authentication to increase data security.

1:35:59Other concerns were voiced by the public, relating to access, revolved around the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act of 1978, particularly Section 702 of that act.

1:36:12So this section allows for surveillance of foreign powers and foreign agents, typically involving investigations into international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

1:36:22Recent changes to the Act also allow for the use for the surveillance of lone wolf actors in the United States that might be acting in support of foreign terrorist organizations.

1:36:34The target of an investigation like this must be a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, or a lone wolf actor, as I described. And the surveillance has to be done to obtain foreign intelligence information.

1:36:47Some community members worry the federal government could use this act, FISA, to access El Strita license plate reader business records to target people inside the United States. This use of the act would really be outside of the scope of FISA,

1:37:01Additionally, when it comes to investigations into international or domestic terrorism, there's nothing in California law that prevents California law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal investigators on investigations into domestic criminal cases.

1:37:20Police departments all across California currently team up with the FBI and other federal agencies to investigate serious crimes.

1:37:26FBI, for example, had a case involving international or domestic terrorism that had a root in El Cerrito, then we would be there to assist with their investigation.

1:37:37Other community members shared concerns about physical hardware, and they helpfully pointed me to a video on YouTube. It's about a 43-minute video that describes how a person was able to circumvent some of the controls on a flock camera.

1:37:51I talked with Flock about that, and Flock is… and I have a member of Flock here, so I will admit that I am not the hardware guru of the entire world. But I had talked to Flock about, those,

1:38:04Methods of defeating security issues on flock cameras, and they believe that they've connected any… they've corrected any security issues, that would have been, possible through following the video.

1:38:17But one thing that is important to remember is that, flock cameras are physical installations, so these are cameras that are mounted 7 to 9 feet at poles around town.

1:38:27They, basically consist of a power supply, which is a solar panel, a cellular connection, a camera, and a processor. So, if a person were to steal or tamper with these units.

1:38:37there's a possibility they could put any of these components to use. They might be able to tap into the camera feed, much like they could with any other security camera installation, if someone came in and tampered with the cameras in and around the city hall.

1:38:51They could potentially, you know, reuse the components of those cameras, hijack feeds, or see what the camera's seeing through being there physically.

1:39:01But tampering with the camera does not allow a person to gain access to the license plate image database. So they may be able to see what the camera sees, they may be able to see processing happening at the site of the camera, but it doesn't allow them to access Flock's database. It just allows them to basically see what the camera's doing.

1:39:22But I also have somebody here from Flock to explain in detail if you need more detail.

1:39:27The committee also expressed concerns about audits. One of the ideas presented by committee members involved a third-party audit of system use.

1:39:37Something that might be included in a contract with Flock, or something that we might do on our own.

1:39:43Certainly auditing data is something that has been high on our radar ever since we found that some federal agencies had access to our data.

1:39:51So, one thing that's important to know is that after we turned on our account controls, we had two unauthorized accesses by federal agents. One was the U.S. Postal Service Investigations Unit.

1:40:04And the other was the Veterans Affairs Police Department for the Loma Linda Healthcare Systems.

1:40:10We have no evidence that any other federal or out-of-state agencies have been accessing our data since we had control over the account.

1:40:18We believe that those audit logs are accurate because they helped us detect the two federal agencies' access

1:40:26during our audits. So, they, detected what we intended for them to detect, unauthorized access to the system.

1:40:34To help respond to the public's concern about regular audits, we now post the… we posted all of our back audit logs from the initiation of the system to present.

1:40:44And we're also going to be posting monthly audits from this point forward, and importantly, conducting thorough monthly audits to make sure that the use of the system is in line with our permissions and authorizations.

1:40:58The system has been, in my opinion, very successful. I list 9 different cases in the report that I felt highlighted over the time we've had the system, some great, cases that were helped… that were solved with the help of the system.

1:41:13But there are some other kind of impacts of the system. One of them, I was looking at clearance rates, because I said, well, what are some other ways we might be able to see the impact of license plate reader systems? And I will say, I haven't used any kind of control agencies against this. I'm just looking at our data.

1:41:30So between 23, when we installed the cameras, and 2024, we had a 10% increase in our violent crime clearance rate. It's actually the highest our violent crime rate… clearance rate has been in 10 years. 31% of all violent crimes solved.

1:41:46Looking for it to go higher. This is a good start.

1:41:49We also had a 100% increase in our clearance rate for property crimes. 10% could be higher, we're working on that. We had a nice bump from 23 to 2024.

1:42:01We also experienced, and last year, in 2025, we experienced the lowest burglary rate we've had in 40 years, the lowest car theft rate we've had in 40 years, and the second lowest robbery rate we've had in 40 years.

1:42:12So, I want to reiterate the actions before you tonight.

1:42:17at least 3 of your options. There may be other options I haven't thought of as well. But, 3 of your options tonight. You can approve the renewal as is.

1:42:25You can decline the renewal and approve a new agreement as included in the packet, or you can decline the renewal and decline the new agreement.

1:42:33These cameras have been an excellent tool to give our officers accurate intelligence to investigate serious crimes in El Cerrito. We have not found any other modern tool that has had the same impact on our ability to solve crime.

1:42:45Particularly the crimes of robbery, burglary, vehicle theft, and hit-and-runs.

1:42:50I and my staff recommend declining to renew the existing agreement and approving the City Manager to enter into the new proposed agreement with Block Safety.

1:43:01Of course, I'm available to answer any questions that you might have.

1:43:05Thank you, Chief. We'll start to my left over here. Who would like to, ask to… Councilmember Cosanis, go ahead.

1:43:14Chief, thank you very much for your presentation, and thank you, too, for

1:43:20the March 10th information meeting with the community, I attended that, and thank you for taking note of the concerns that people had and addressing at least some of them, if not many of them.

1:43:30I just want to say.

1:43:32I expressed this at the last council meeting, I requested

1:43:35to have, a study session on this issue. And the reason is.

1:43:39And I've been on the council a year and a half, and I think

1:43:41this is the most consequential item that's come before us, for me. And I look at it that way because I know it's contentious, I know there are two sides.

1:43:51But at the core, it is asking people to agree to give… give up some of their civil liberties. And we do that every day. We do it in different ways, and there are times when, you know, people's comfort with that level… comfort with that is across the spectrum. There are people who are extreme on either end, and most people are somewhere in the middle.

1:44:10I don't feel informed to take a vote on it. I've read and read, I've talked to people, I've sat in your information sessions, I've sat in another information session with the Public Safety Committee.

1:44:22And I just… I feel very strongly still that we need to get more information. I appreciate that you're here, I appreciate that the representative from Flock is here.

1:44:31But what I see missing is any representation from the groups of people who are concerned about civil liberties and have that perspective. I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong, I just feel incomplete in terms of the information I've gotten.

1:44:45And it really bothers me that we would, you know… I've been told that, okay, we've already done this before, this is a renewal of a contract that happened 3 years ago, and I appreciate that it's not on the consent calendar, I think initially that was a possibility.

1:44:58But I wasn't here 3 years ago, so I haven't been… you know, I didn't have that kind of in-depth

1:45:03education about it. And I've tried to get that education on my own.

1:45:08I don't… you know, I still feel…

1:45:11that I'm not there. So I just want to let you know that I appreciate your work on it, absolutely. I understand the value to you.

1:45:18But I also understand there's another perspective that we've not heard that I think we deserve to ourselves, whatever our position is going to end up being, to have heard that perspective. And I'll leave it at that. That's where I stand.

1:45:30Understand.

1:45:34Thank you so much for your presentation.

1:45:38Chief, and, you know, this is definitely an important issue. I understand all the questions that have been raised around privacy, and they are very serious. They're very serious issues.

1:45:50You know, I know that there's been a lot of information about who did or didn't access the system, which, whoever it was, it's very important, and very serious that it was accessed. I understand that the people who did access it was only

1:46:06the postal service, and, you know, it concerns me that there are people out there saying that it was directly the FBI. You know, that's always a big thing for me, is I want people to have accurate information. El Cerrito is definitely one of those cities where we're very active and engaged, especially in national issues. We're not always as active and engaged in what's actually happening in El Cerrito, so that's a concern for me. But also, what I did in my research on the issue is I wanted to

1:46:31listen to the perspectives of cities who've already had their conversation, cities like Richmond, cities like Oakland, who have actually, had this presentation. I wanted to really listen to… I'll be very honest and transparent. I want to listen to the perspectives of council members who represent the folks who I represent, you know, Black women, queer women, queer people, and kind of a nod to our soon-to-be conversation

1:46:56Later on in the agenda.

1:46:58I live in the area where the majority of the cameras are. I live right on the avenue in the place not only where the majority of the cameras are, but where we're going to be building more housing for, low-income communities, POC communities, young families.

1:47:14I think, though, that while I have a lot of questions, I don't… I'm not gonna ask those questions tonight, because I am appreciative that there were other options that were given to us, but the downside of having a working council is I got those updated options at noon, and I was working. So I've read them.

1:47:33Unfortunately, sometimes supplemental information comes later, and we don't have time to read it, and this is a very important issue that we're going to be going over, so if it becomes the will of the Council to delay this item, as long as… the concern I have is I don't want us to be in a situation like they were in Richmond, where their cameras are off, so if we decide that we don't want to vote on this tonight, does that

1:47:53turn off the cameras. I don't want to be in that situation.

1:47:56So no, it won't turn off the cameras. Just as an example, the next council meeting, May 5th.

1:48:04We'll bring us down to the wire, but…

1:48:07will give us time to say we don't want to renew in the event. And making a decision not to renew means that the cameras will stay on through the natural term of the agreement, so through June 6th. Because I think there were a lot of questions about what the accountability measures would be, what the new,

1:48:25I love the fact that we are going to be making sure that we're at least making them pay if they do actually access the cameras when they're not supposed to, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't think that we have enough of the information, and now we have additional options to consider. I just don't feel comfortable voting up or down tonight. I don't feel comfortable renewing tonight.

1:48:44So… And, just for those listening at home who maybe didn't read the packet.

1:48:49Our negotiations with Flock continue through the weekend, so for the new proposed agreement, we've got our legal review completed yesterday, so we attached it today and sent it to Council, but, it really was going on all during the process of putting this agenda item together and through the weekend. And then, to be clear, that's not an up or down yay or nay. I don't want anyone to leave out of here saying, you know, this is…

1:49:14This is the road towards a down or an up.

1:49:17But I think that this does require a little bit more thoughtfulness and a few more questions than the one that I even had today, and I'm just not ready to do that right now.

1:49:25With that, I am complete, Mayor.

1:49:27Let's go to Councilmember Gautiana.

1:49:30Okay?

1:49:31Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief, for,

1:49:36going into this really thorough presentation, and I really…

1:49:40appreciate the new, agreement that you've negotiated. And, you know, I do agree with Councilmember Weisinger. I think, you know, I would like to have the public have a chance to read how different this new agreement is from the past one.

1:49:56So, I do have a bunch of questions. I think they're mostly to the flock representative.

1:50:04So, should I just… Go… okay. Sure. Okay, so…

1:50:12Katie, can you further describe the advanced optional features in our, order form.

1:50:20Or a contract.

1:50:22They are convoy analysis, multi-geo search, visual search, cradle point integration for automatic vehicle location, and common plate analysis.

1:50:37Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): I can defer to, Chief Keith on that, but I believe it's enhancements in our ALPR software.

1:50:43So I… I can't answer those questions.

1:50:46So, I'm gonna just kind of walk through each of those items. So, the convoy search mode basically allows a user to enter a license plate.

1:50:55And the system will see what other vehicles it recognized in the vicinity of that vehicle. The idea is, if you have multiple vehicles traveling to the path of a crime, it may give you some investigative leads as to who else was a co-conspirator in the crime.

1:51:09How it might be used, you can, well, there's one incident in El Cerrito where we had a burglary of a cigarette shop. I can't remember if they arrived in Convoy, but we did have two different vehicles. We identified the second vehicle, lookout vehicle, through our flock system.

1:51:25But you can also think about the jewelry store robbery in San Ramon, where there was multiple vehicles that traveled to this jewelry store in San Ramon, did a big, takeover robbery at the store. That feature would be used for cases like that.

1:51:38Multi-geo search. I have to say, I was kind of trying to figure out how I would use this one, but basically it allows you to look for a plate that appeared in more than one location. So you can specify a number of different camera locations and say, I want you to search these camera locations for this plate, as opposed to doing a normal search where you put a plate in there and it gives you every location.

1:51:58So, you would specify locations that the vehicle passed by.

1:52:02A visual search, I mean, thank you for this. I'm not a normal, regular user of the system, so I had to jump in and figure out what some of these things did. A visual search allows you to take a photograph of a car.

1:52:14upload into the system, and it'll do a visual analysis of that image and try to locate that in the database. So, if you give it a white Honda Accord, it's going to try to find that particular white Honda Accord through its database of images.

1:52:28Cradle Point is an automatic vehicle locating application. We don't currently use it. While it might be available to it, we just don't use it. It basically tracks our own fleet's location, through the Flock app, so we can see, kind of, live time where our vehicles are going.

1:52:44And common plate analysis refers to the core functionality of the system. It allows you to put into a license plate, search for it.

1:52:50So that's kind of a summary of those.

1:52:54Okay, thank you. My next question is, have there been any instances of hacking into our system since it's web-based?

1:53:04So, no instances that we know of of hacking into our system.

1:53:08I will let Flock answer whether or not they feel that their system has ever been hacked.

1:53:14Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): Thank you, Chief. Our system has never been hacked. We are aware of the videos that are circulating on social media, TikTok and YouTube, and we take the claims that were made in those videos very seriously, and so once we saw those, we immediately sprung into action to partner with trusted agencies like the Miami-Dade Electronics Crimes Task Force.

1:53:32to go through the claims that were made in this video, examine our hardware to see if they're true, and they found, through, video testimony, that none of the claims in these videos about hacking are true. In addition, because we know that it is a constant battle with cybersecurity, we've implemented, and deployed Sitecode, which is a tool that scans all of our source code for security issues.

1:53:52We also are on offensive testing, and we've engaged with the, Bishop Fox, which is a premier security firm, to conduct full-stack penetration testing and be proactive about fixing, and finding potential weaknesses in our system. That's a long story, just to say that, no, we have not been hacked.

1:54:09So, I know in the current agreement, hacking is considered force majeure, and I did see that in the new agreement, it's not there anymore. So, what was your… if the system is so good, why would you include that as force majeure?

1:54:29Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): I believe it's, and I can defer to Chief Keith, because he's been directly involved with these negotiations, but it's, I believe, just a goodwill on our side, just to say that we do take these offenses very seriously, and so, just to show that we do believe in our product, and we believe that security is top of mind, that we want to ensure that that does not happen in these systems.

1:54:45Okay, thank you.

1:54:50Have we ever been notified by Flock of any use of the data as part of a legal requirement from a third party?

1:54:58No. Okay, and…

1:55:01What safeguards have you implemented since CalMatters found data sharing with Homeland Security and Border Patrol in LA, Orange County, and San Diego in June of last year?

1:55:14Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): I'm so sorry, my internet broke up. Can you repeat the question?

1:55:17Okay, so there was an article in CalMatters, they found data sharing with Homeland Security, Border Patrol in Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego in June of 2025. So…

1:55:32What have you done since then, so that doesn't happen?

1:55:35Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): Yeah, so we've worked directly with agencies to ensure that there's no, you know, automatic opt-in to these things. We give the agency 100% control, and there's no default setting that says, okay, you're automatically opted into all these federal sharing programs. The agency themselves have to decide what agencies and federal programs to opt into. For example, in the El Salido Transparency Portal, you can see that you are opted into the Amber Alerts.

1:55:59But no other federal sharing programs. And so, we rely on the agency because they're the ones that directly know what agencies they want to partner with, what they're legally allowed to partner with, and the community values to ensure that doesn't happen.

1:56:11So… so how did that happen in the first place?

1:56:15Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): I can talk to our technical team on that. I just believe that it was more, it's… it's ever-evolving about how the users are using the agencies are using the product, and so, we believe it might have just been an oversight, but again, I can get more technical information from our team if that's helpful.

1:56:33So, basically, it would be bad actors sharing the data.

1:56:36Themselves, from these, entities, okay? And… My last question is.

1:56:46in the… and this is probably a Chief Keith question, is the aggregated data provision still included in the new agreement? I couldn't see that.

1:56:54If it was there. Oh, I'd have to…

1:56:57do my read-through of it. I don't remember seeing it in there. Okay. It was in the original agreement, though. Yes, I did see that. So I did… I didn't… do not remember seeing it in the new agreement. Okay.

1:57:09Great. Yeah, so I…

1:57:14I do think that we do need time for, like, the rest of the Council to get a chance to read in detail the new agreement, and like I said, I would like the public to have a chance to read that as well. And, you know, I want to thank you and your staff for really pushing on all these things that are really important for us.

1:57:34I understand, thank you. And thank you, Katie.

1:57:39Katie Dauphinais (FLOCK): Thank you.

1:57:39Next is, the mayor part-time.

1:57:41Thank you. First, just want to thank you, Chief, and anybody at the City who worked on the revised agreement. You did make some important progress, and it sounds like you put a lot of work into that, so I really appreciate that you listen to the community, and we're trying to improve the agreement. That said, I, like many of the other council members, I also work, and I

1:58:04I read your memo, but I could not read the whole new agreement, the new contract, so I'm not prepared to vote on this tonight, and would propose we bring this back on

1:58:16May 5th, but when we bring it back, I'd like to see there to be more options, so I'd like you to do some more negotiating with Flock.

1:58:27I haven't read it yet, but based on your memo, I don't think I'm gonna be comfortable with it, because, like you said, you didn't get everything you wanted, and then, you know, I'm glad to see that there would be repercussions for unauthorized sharing.

1:58:43But the problem with this is, is the penalty does not apply to what are called lawful processes, emergencies, or regulatory compulsion.

1:58:52And we know that our federal government currently is not to be trusted. We know that Donald Trump does not believe in the rule of law, and very…

1:59:02unfortunately, and maybe slightly more surprising, the Supreme Court doesn't either. So these things could change in the next 3 years. So if we get into this 3-year contract, a few months in, they could just change things, and all of a sudden, it's lawful for them. We've… we're out of the money. Even if we decide and vote to turn off the agreement, we still paid all the money. They keep it. They don't have to pay any penalty, because all of this

1:59:27All of a sudden is lawful.

1:59:29So, it just doesn't…

1:59:31It doesn't really have any teeth, how it's written right now. Under another administration, maybe I'd feel like it had more teeth.

1:59:38But currently, it just… it doesn't. And again, I'm not faulting you, like, I feel like you really tried and are trying to make this better, but it… it doesn't make me feel comfortable under the current situation we're in, which is very different than situations we've been in in the past many years.

1:59:57I'd like to see you come back on the 5th with some more options, which would have to be negotiated with Flock. Either some… some more teeth to this, or if you can't do that within a couple weeks, because I get you've been working on this for 2 months, and this is where you've gotten.

2:00:13some alternate options of some shorter-term options, so…

2:00:19I hear from you that you think the flock cameras have been really effective. It's hard to know what's causation just because crime's been going down everywhere, but your clearance rates have gone up, so that's not nothing, and I'm hearing that, and I saw the specific cases you pointed out in the agenda bill.

2:00:37So I'd like to have some options when we come back on May 5th.

2:00:41To have a shorter-term contract, like 6 months, or 3 months, or something, that would then give us an opportunity

2:00:48two, if we wanted to go forward after that short term to negotiate a stronger agreement. I also know there are some other cities that… I know Richmond and Oakland have already approved their contracts, but Berkeley is in the midst of trying to figure this out, probably

2:01:04lots of cities around the country are in similar situations, and maybe some of these bigger cities that have more staffing capacity will figure something out, either with Flock or another vendor. I just want to keep some options open so we're not stuck for 3 years with Flock in a situation that is uncomfortable for our residents, and that might become

2:01:25terrorizing to our residents if federal law changes, which we sadly have very little control over right now. So is that something you'd be comfortable going offline in the next couple weeks and trying to negotiate with Flock some shorter-term options that could be considered?

2:01:42I will do my best with that. I will say that the current agreement did benefit from different cities' negotiations with WAC, so…

2:01:50We were trying to kind of get alignment with what Richmond had negotiated.

2:01:55Knowing that they had just gone through this process. So, we will see what kind of flexibility we have on different terms.

2:02:01Let's see what we can do.

2:02:03Thank you. And I'll see what else, you know, Block is on the call, and they see that, you know, maybe it's a hard sell, so they may be more willing to move on some of the other

2:02:12provisions that we offered. Well, I can just say to the public and flock that I would be very surprised if, come March 5th, I was able to vote to approve a 3-year agreement, so maybe that will be some motivation. I don't know where the other council members are, but I just… I think we need something with more teeth if we're gonna go through with a long-term agreement, or we need something short-term that, again, doesn't have the cameras turned off.

2:02:37For a few months, doesn't have some experiment with what that means.

2:02:42let's figure out a way we can move forward, see what other options there are, either with Flock or another company. So yeah, I'd like to see this come back, and I look forward to hearing from all the members of the public tonight, and I've read many of your comments you sent in, but some of them were sent to us quite late this afternoon, so I've skimmed them, but we'll read them after this meeting.

2:03:02Okay, we'll go back to,

2:03:04Councilmember Watson? Yes, one of my questions I do want to go ahead and ask, and as I said, I listened to some of the other council meetings, and one of the things that Councilmember Robinson in Richmond said that really stuck out to me is that we're being asked to put trust in flock

2:03:20But Flock didn't… I mean, these breaches apparently happened in 2023 when we first rolled out, and were just discovered when the city discovered them, and that creates a huge amount of distrust.

2:03:32In the institution, it makes it very hard to vote yes, because it's, you know, it's like when you tell your child, yeah, you didn't tell me you did what you did, you just got caught.

2:03:44So, I think that that's the concern for me, is why did that happen? How do we ensure that if something does happen, which we're trying to make sure it doesn't, but if that does happen, that flock will be up front with us and say, this is what happened, this is how we're going to fix it.

2:03:59And the second question I have is for our city attorney. I don't know if this would be relevant or not, but there has been some… some conversation about other jurisdictions where they have faced risk. Has the city attorney actually looked into potential risk if we did go further and faced exposure? So if we could first answer the question about why it took so long for us to find out about the breaches, and then we can come back to the city attorney.

2:04:23Well, I can say, internally to the department, our early use of the audit system was really focused on our own officers' behavior.

2:04:31So, we were looking at why do our officers use the system? Are they valid reasons? What reasons are they putting in there? Do we need more detail? It was things like that. So we really looked at our own officers' behavior. We… while we did do…

2:04:45network audits from time to time, they're only a snapshot in time, so from that point on, we're not looking back, you know, years, we're looking at, like, the present month, and what kind of use there's been in the present… use in the present month.

2:04:56So that was one of the reasons why we missed the incidents involving the Veteran Affairs Police, because it was two different days and two different searches in one month, and we just… Well, I'm not even talking about you, Chief, but did Flock know this back then and not tell us? That's my question.

2:05:13Do we know that? That's a good question, yeah. Okay.

2:05:16See, the fact that… I don't know that they knew. I don't know that they knew that we had the U.S. Postal Service and the Veterans Affairs Police Departments looking at our data. I think that we were the ones who brought that revelation forward. When it comes to the access prior to when we took admin control of the system.

2:05:35It's clear Flock did know that

2:05:38early settings in the system allowed for wide viewing prior to agencies setting up their own restrictions. This is one of the things that they tried to correct early on.

2:05:47Thank you, Chief. And City Attorney, have we looked into any possible risk

2:05:52We have. The primary risk to the city from exposure of data would result from an intentional sharing of data in violation of state law. Inadvertent exposure

2:06:04is not particularly… is potentially actionable, but it's not a significant source of risk, at least not in addition to any other exposure of city data that would result from inadvertent exposure of data that the city's holding. It would be the same risk that already exists. The significant one is there are state laws that prohibit the intentional sharing of the data that's in the database, and if

2:06:28Somebody with access to it on the city side.

2:06:31intentionally shared it with a recipient who was not entitled to receive that data under state law, that would be the primary risk to the city. Thank you, Mayor. But just to add on, while we

2:06:43can't…

2:06:44We can't, always prevent things, it would be a violation of the city's internal policies, its personnel policies, there would be risk to the individual, so…

2:06:56There are rules already in place to, significantly inhibit somebody from intending to be that kind of bad actor.

2:07:04Thank you. Mayor and please.

2:07:06Thank you very much. Chief, I appreciate the, the conversation, and also, I was not able to look at the supplemental,

2:07:15emails and letters, so I look forward to looking at that. I'm hoping we can look into continuing this until the May 5th meeting. But, you know, I wanted to let, folks know, our residents especially,

2:07:30You know, the data proves and shows that crime has gone down with the cities, that have, flocked.

2:07:40So, again, that includes El Cerrito. And, know that, we've always had one of the highest property crime rates in all of Contra Costa County. Chief, can you let us know how much property crime has gone down?

2:07:54Since using the cameras.

2:07:57Okay, well, now you've got me,

2:07:59On the spot with the actual number.

2:08:02I don't remember that off the top of my head, but it's gone down a significant amount, year over year, from 23, 24 to 25. Each year, we've had declines in overall property crimes.

2:08:13And the same goes for the other cities that have flock as well. And,

2:08:19you know, I was at Climate Week with my colleagues from Oakland and Berkeley, and they're dealing with the same thing. But they also know the importance of having public safety to deter crime.

2:08:33know that in our largest city here in the East Bay, their corporations are not in downtown yet.

2:08:40The corporations refused to move back to the city of Oakland, and they're in Contra Costa County and Tri-Valley.

2:08:48the importance of making sure our cities have public safety so their corporations can return. If they don't have it, they're going to stay in San Ramon and Tri-Valley, so just wanted to point that out.

2:09:03with our city next door, they have defunded the police twice, tried to do it a third time. This affects cities like El Cerrito, and

2:09:11I and, Councilman Cassanis, you mentioned about surveillance. I live in a neighborhood where we had, deaths. We've had, people shot in armed robberies, dead.

2:09:25One was a neighbor that lived on Mana that owned, the Indian restaurant near the Vietnamese restaurant there in Mira Vista.

2:09:35The other was when I first moved here, I think it was 2002 or 2003, when the owner, the husband of the Red Onion, when he was shot dead, and, the… and his worker

2:09:48was… was hurt, and had to go to the hospital. There was also

2:09:53a young Asian man working the night shift at the gas station who was killed. Another one was a drive-by shooting on Mira Vista Avenue on the north side of town. So, know that every shot

2:10:07And every store, every restaurant, every medical office here in El Cerrito has surveillance, and I thank the previous councils for doing that. This has dropped killings, and dropped killings,

2:10:22To an all-time low, and… and…

2:10:26products like flock. It may not be perfect, but it is deterring crime.

2:10:31The last thing I want is to, follow what some of my other cities did here and purchase armed tanks. We are certainly not going to do that, and… but I want to make sure that, we are transparent at everything that we do, so I do support the continuance of this, to the May 5th meeting. I also wanted to say, Chief, thank you,

2:10:55Now, who in our city has access to the FLAC data? Does IT have that?

2:11:02access to the FLOC database is through our police officers, so system administrator is a police employee as well.

2:11:08Okay, and they have access, and they can audit.

2:11:13If, that is needed to have either a third party or, someone from the city to audit

2:11:21The data, is that correct?

2:11:23So we do do audits internally to the police department. The data does contain law enforcement sensitive information when you do a raw audit of it, so we do have to be careful of who we allow access to the raw data.

2:11:37So, for now, we use a law enforcement officer for that. Okay, I very much appreciate that. So, you know, know that public safety, we have a new generation of young families that have moved here, and they moved here paying over, you know, more than most cities. Our homes are unavailable.

2:11:56Because they're too expensive. So, a lot of families have moved here from bigger cities because they know the importance of El Cerrito, maintaining a pro-public safety stance on everything, and that includes tech.

2:12:13And tech helps because we're getting less of our residents hurt, and we're having less police officers getting injured or killed. So, we have to have an equal balance on things, so I look forward to listening to

2:12:29open comment and to listening from our residents here on what they have to say during this matter, so…

2:12:36Let's go to open comment time. Now 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.

2:12:49or dialing 9 if joining by phone. In-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.

2:13:00Thank you, Mayor. We currently have 27 requests to speak on this item. Would you like to utilize the time reduction waterfall in the Council policy for 21 to 30 speakers and reduce the time to 1 minute per speaker? Sure, 1 minute.

2:13:37May I ask you to consider 2 minutes, Mayor?

2:13:41Okay.

2:13:47Okay.

2:13:48We will go… we will start with our in-person request to speak. That'll give our online requesters an opportunity to raise their hand, which I'm already seeing an increase there. So we'll go with our first speaker is Catherine Kimsey, followed by Rye Crawford.

2:14:05Good evening. All right, good evening. My name is Katherine Kimsey, I go by Rin, and I live at the Del Norte Place Apartments in El Cerrito.

2:14:12I think I may have been scooped, because it turns out the police chief has a whole other plan, but I'm here to ask you not to vote to renew the contract with Flock tonight. And I think…

2:14:22I'm gonna ask, for the time for us to review this alleged new contract. I can't say I'm excited, but…

2:14:31I wanted to point out, respectfully, that there isn't actually any proof that Flock has reduced crime in El Cerrito. The most recent public information that I could find was from 2024. We are in the midst of a worldwide crime drop.

2:14:45And finally, I just want to ask, please review the lawsuits that I sent to you, because I don't think the city attorney has fully emphasized the risk to the city. Do not vote to renew tonight. Do not subject El Cerrito to unnecessary legal risk for no provable reason. Thank you.

2:15:02Our next speaker is Rye Crawford, followed by Cindy McPherson.

2:15:10I really appreciate that people are not just rushing to judgment on this.

2:15:16I feel the issues surrounding the clock surveillance cameras go far beyond

2:15:23You know, and the data collected go far beyond.

2:15:26Stolen cars, and missing persons, and… Involve serious issues of…

2:15:34the security of our citizens, our city, potentially. And that flock has

2:15:41Responsibility to be able to show to us.

2:15:45How that will be respected.

2:15:50And we don't have that right now.

2:15:53And just saying, like, I'm not sure.

2:15:56It's not enough.

2:15:58We need to be sure.

2:16:00Thank you.

2:16:02Our next speaker is Cindy McPherson, followed by Talia Davido.

2:16:11Hi, my name is Cindy McPherson, and I'm a resident of El Cerrito, and I'm here to ask you tonight

2:16:17to, do not vote to renew the flock contract. We are a sanctuary city, and I'm very much appreciative that the Council and the police department uphold that.

2:16:27However, under FISA, it is possible that a federal subpoena could override any of those boundaries or settings that El Cerrito, the police department, Flock, or even the Amazon web servers claim to have.

2:16:40El Cerrito's flock data could be subpoenaed without El Cerrito even knowing. Cost. At least one court has held that flock camera data are subject to public record requests, which, you know, can be costly to respond to.

2:16:55You all have worked so hard to put the city on firm financial footing, and this technology opens us up to expenses that will undermine that.

2:17:05Don't put our city's financial stability at risk. And trust, you heard that the cameras are easily hackable. Thank you for your comments. Please give the public safety issue more consideration. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Talia Davido, followed by Sandy Davis.

2:17:22Hi, I'm Talia Davidau, I live on Stockton, I'm here as your neighbor, urging you not to renew El Cerrito's contract with Flock.

2:17:30Right now, when so much feels out of our control nationally, what you do locally really matters.

2:17:36Renewing this contract puts our community at risk, our data, our privacy, and the trust we place in you. This company has already shown it cannot keep our information safe or within our control, and once that data is out there, it's out there, potentially accessible to federal agencies in ways we can't even see.

2:17:53This directly conflicts with our values as a sanctuary city. Values that mean something. They mean we do everything we can to keep our neighbors safe.

2:18:02Especially our most marginalized neighbors, who data shows are targeted disproportionately by flock surveillance.

2:18:08As a sanctuary city, we must act with additional caution in relation to the federal government right now, given its lawlessness and vindictiveness.

2:18:16Please don't vote to renew this contract, slow this down, listen to your constituents, and make a decision that truly protects this community. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sandy Davis, followed by Laura Paulin.

2:18:34Good evening. Hello, my name is Sandy Davis. I'm also an El Cerrito resident.

2:18:38And I'd like to echo the concerns raised by others tonight about the risks to the privacy and safety of members of our community that is posed by our partnership with Block.

2:18:47That are largely beyond the control of our city and our police department.

2:18:52I'm asking you to vote not to renew today so the City Council has more time to look into these concerns, which it seems like you are all inclined to do. Thank you for your time.

2:19:01Our next speaker is Laura Paulin, followed by Joanna Lauren-Shrenk.

2:19:08Hello. I'm Laura Palin. I'm a resident of El Cerrito.

2:19:14I'm a retired middle school math teacher.

2:19:16I strongly urge you, the City Council, not to renew.

2:19:21the flock contract.

2:19:23I understand the flock technology is a tool for bringing lawbreakers to justice.

2:19:29And I appreciate feeling safe in El Cerrito.

2:19:32But this is an issue of trust.

2:19:35We're in a time when I do trust our…

2:19:38El Cerrito Police. I trust Chief Keith.

2:19:43But… beyond that, I don't have trust.

2:19:47And I don't feel like this is a time

2:19:50When we can… we kind of, unfortunately, have to give up our safety.

2:19:55Because we don't trust Beyond our own little wonderful community here.

2:20:01Thank you.

2:20:03Our next speaker is Joanna Lawrence-Schrenk, followed by Eric Lawrence Schrenk.

2:20:13Good evening, city leaders. My name is Reverend Joanna Lawrence Schenk. I'm a resident of El Cerrito. I'm a pastor at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco, and I have congregants who live in this lovely city. I'm particularly concerned about how flock surveillance betrays our cherished commitment to being a sanctuary city.

2:20:31Flock endangers the safety of our non-citizen neighbors, as well as anyone who supports them or speaks out against the federal government's illegal policies of terror and detainment. Because FLOC shares data with the federal government, there is only the thinnest of barriers to ICE's acquisition of such data.

2:20:49Undoubtedly, Flock's AI-enhanced ability to gather and analyze such data facilitates and makes more efficient overreaches of power. El Cerrito is a sanctuary city, and I'm grateful that Chief Keith affirms that our police does not collaborate with ICE. However, due to Flock's data sharing and untrustworthy practices, ECPD sadly cannot ensure that our data

2:21:13And our community will be safe. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Eric Lawrence Schenk, followed by Tom Parks.

2:21:22Eric Lorenshank, I'm a resident of El Cerrita. I'm a teacher at Middle College High School and chair of the science department there.

2:21:31I want to say that I resonated with the wise words of the council today, along with the mayor, and

2:21:40As a person who's also very deeply concerned with the safety of our citizens, I do 1…

2:21:48A way for us to be able to keep everyone safe.

2:21:52But I also, at this time, don't feel like it would be best for us to renew the contract.

2:21:59I would like to see an independent investigator.

2:22:02Give us some more information. Not…

2:22:05from just Flock's perspective, or the department's perspective, because their vested interests will lead them to

2:22:13conclusions that are favorable to them. I always like to hear more information about this and what we're getting into. Thank you.

2:22:20Our next speaker is Tom Parks, followed by Destry Miller.

2:22:27Hi, Tom Parks, 23 a year resident of El Cerrito. So, amendment number 4, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

2:22:40And no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation.

2:22:46And particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

2:22:51flock.

2:22:52As a mass surveillance system, by design.

2:22:55Is a con… is a fundamental contradiction.

2:23:00to the Fourth Amendment.

2:23:02and directly confronts the First Amendment.

2:23:05the citizens, the people, the community of El Cerrito's right to peaceably assemble.

2:23:12Mass surveillance isn't a joke.

2:23:15Particularly when we have a Pentagon led by

2:23:19Somebody that apparently is a joke.

2:23:22And when we have a, you know.

2:23:26a president that would like to use and has used troops in the streets. Thank you for your comments.

2:23:32Our next speaker is Destry Miller, followed by Rashi.

2:23:40Hello, Councilmembers. My name is Adestry Miller. I've been a resident of El Cerrito for over 10 years. I… my major concern about Flock is that the… what the Councilmember had mentioned about the federal subpoenas being changed, that made it lawful.

2:23:59Gathering information there for whatever purpose,

2:24:04And for that reason, I would hope that the city does not renew the flock, Subscription there.

2:24:13Our next speaker is Rashi, followed by Stephanie Singer.

2:24:20Hi, my name is Roshi Surjanye, I've been a resident of El Cerrito for over 10 years, and I want to urge you to follow the money, and see who funded Flock, and why.

2:24:33the top two funders of Flock that took it from a

2:24:37You know, $300 million company to over…

2:24:41$500 million company, where Peter Thiel, And… Mark Anderson.

2:24:49These are the two advisors to the present president, and they took the profile of this company and raised it and made it a major contender

2:25:00In the, intelligence market.

2:25:03I urge you to look at that. This is absolutely in line with Project 2025.

2:25:11And if you haven't seen the reviews about Project 2025, Please do.

2:25:17It concerns all of us, the safety of all of us. Today, it's immigrants. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is Stephanie Singer, followed by Jay Geronimo.

2:25:32Stephanie Singer, I've been a resident of El Cerrito for a little over a year now. My professional life has been concerned for the last decade and a half with cybersecurity for election systems. There are a lot of parallels here.

2:25:49a decade ago, most voters in this country were voting on electronic voting machines. We were assured that they were safe. The people who sold them to us assured us that they were safe, that they had done all these security checks. You cannot trust the vendor

2:26:07to be your source of truth on how secure something is. The other thing I know from my experience is that security is a goal. You never attain security. Security is a process. So.

2:26:22get independent information, not from the vendors, as good as they are, they don't bite the hand that feeds them.

2:26:29So, thank you very much for your service.

2:26:33Our next speaker is Jay Geronimo, followed by Bill Barish.

2:26:39Hi, my name's Jiggy Geronimo. I live near Castro Park with my husband and my 1 and 3-year-old, and I know that you all really care about the safety of our community. I do, too. I have two really little kids.

2:26:50But I really want us to interrogate what safety means in the year 2026 in El Cerrito. The idea of mass surveillance by the federal government, the same federal government that is kidnapping both immigrants and citizens alike, does not make me feel safe. It's actually terrifying to me. The chief also mentioned that they work with the government on investigating domestic terrorism. The government has now classified anyone that disagrees with them as domestic terrorists.

2:27:14So the idea that our data might not be shared, I find to be very, unbelievable. They've already accessed our data, and

2:27:23I know that a lot of the residents here are deeply uncomfortable with this. We put together a letter that you all received that got 150 signatures in under 24 hours. So, people here in El Cerrito are really, really concerned about this, and I'm really heartened to hear that you all are going to be doing more investigating into this issue, but we're relying on you to keep us safe, so…

2:27:45Our next speaker is Bill Barish, followed by Tora Feldmenstern.

2:27:50Bill Barish, El Cerrito.

2:27:52You should have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with Flock. Not as a tool, not as a company. As a tool, it's nothing but a surveillance system, and as a company, it's a known bad actor that routinely breaks rules on giving its information to people who are not authorized to have it.

2:28:11Flock is a, as somebody pointed out, a member of the surveillance community.

2:28:17It is not something that any self-respecting community that aspires to be democratic should have anything to do with. And I will tell you, as a 20-year veteran of the tech industry.

2:28:32that the owner of the code can flip any switch they want without your knowledge to provide any data that they want to anyone they want. Thank you.

2:28:46Our next speaker is Tora Feldman Stern, followed by Sue Hansen.

2:28:51Good evening, City Council. My name is Toba Feldman-Stern, and I'm a local resident of El Cerrito. Thank you for your time and attention. I live in North El Cerrito with my wife and 3-year-old, and I'm one of those, families who paid a lot of money to live here. I've been here 10 years, and, just…

2:29:07of value, and I… I am so happy to have the privilege of paying that money to live in a place like this.

2:29:13with all of you. This is… this is an amazing, incredible gift to have.

2:29:20These people, us. Which includes our neighbors, who may, like, in a second be taken away from us.

2:29:29Because a company like this is profiting from taking those people away from us. It was designed

2:29:36It was designed to put money in the hands of billionaires. More money.

2:29:41Just because… just because they can disappear people. And I hear that, yes, lives have been saved by these cameras in a few instances, but that's not what they were designed for, and that's not…

2:29:52That is absolutely not what your comments are after. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sue Hansen, followed by Nakisha Koss.

2:30:06I'm sorry?

2:30:09Okay, so our next speaker is Nakisha Koss, followed by Yoku.

2:30:13Yoko?

2:30:16My name is Nakisha, I live in El Cerrito with my 8-year-old daughter just up the hill from Del Norte Bart, and we also, we love this community.

2:30:24It does not matter what the parameters ECPD sets. It doesn't matter if we're only sharing to the 322 California municipalities who currently have access to our data. It doesn't matter if Lock somehow manages to create a system that works exactly and only as expected.

2:30:44As long as El Cerrito has a contract with Flock, its surveillance is readily available to federal agencies, including ICE, through the… through FISA, which is the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.

2:30:56FISA courts authorize warrants to collect information without any public record. Such a warrant would be served to Flock, or its data cloud, server. Our El Cerrito would,

2:31:08would not be informed. This issue is not how secure ECPD thinks our data is. Our community in a sanctuary city, within a sanctuary state… Thank you for your comments. …is at risk. Our next speaker is…

2:31:21Yuko, followed by Kate Bolton-Schmuckler.

2:31:27Hi, I'm Yuko. I've lived almost 15 years in El Cerrito. Please do not renew our Flock contract or accept any new agreements, and now is the right time to cut ties with this private AI surveillance company and any similar technologies and companies. Mountain View City Council unanimously voted to terminate its contract with Flock.

2:31:47when we contracted with FLOC in 2023, not many of us really knew what it was or understood the true dangers. And 3 years later, the government is relying on similar and related surveillance tech, and ISIS kidnapped countless immigrant citizens.

2:32:02repressed…

2:32:03Our government has repressed students and other protesters, and we can't say now that we don't know what this leads to. Our PD's audit

2:32:11found that two federal agencies accessed or flocked cameras without the knowledge of ECPD, and this is not an isolated incident. We constantly hear similar reports around California and around the country. And, council members, you pledged after Trump is re-elected that

2:32:26You reconfirmed that we are a sanctuary City, so one important… Thank you for your comments. …that you can take is to reject

2:32:32Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Kate Bolton-Schmuckler, followed by Timothy Keller.

2:32:39Hello, I'm Kate Boltage-Spunkler, I've been a resident of El Cerrito since rent was $750 a month for a one-bedroom, and… Loma Prieta happened.

2:32:47I would rather get robbed multiple times than have my neighbors get kidnapped by a fascist organization that is funded by ICE.

2:32:55And that's just where I stand. I, you know, yeah, nothing is perfect, we can't ever guarantee safety, but right now, we are living in fascist times, and we are a so-called sanctuary city, so I am strongly encouraging you to not renew this contract with ICE. Cops will find a way to still fight crime. Thank you.

2:33:13Thank you. Our next, just a reminder for the audience, please note audible disruption. Our next speaker is Timothy Keller, followed by Brian Fogg.

2:33:23I'm, Timothy Keller, I'm born and raised in El Cerrito, and I gotta say, it's kinda nice having company for once.

2:33:31I'm just wanting to, thank City Council for asking the right questions, finally, and, especially about bad actors, because no matter what you do, as long as you're able to search these… the camera network, you're gonna be able to use it.

2:33:47for… Bad stuff. I forgot my notes.

2:33:52And, yeah, we… we should… we shouldn't have these, we shouldn't have had them in the first place, and it's…

2:33:59I mean… In their first patent, Flock describes itself as

2:34:05A surveillance system that might take pictures.

2:34:09Of cars with license plates in them.

2:34:12like… We shouldn't have had it.

2:34:17Our next speaker is Brian Fogg, followed by Miguel Gravel.

2:34:26Hello, I'm a third-generation resident of El Cerrito. I'm lucky enough to live in a house that my grandfather built in 1950. I wanted to give you a quick briefing on a few federal laws. Under the Cloud Act, enacted in 2018, federal law enforcement can compel any U.S. company

2:34:42to produce data they possess, including data held on behalf of the local police department. Under FISA, intelligence agencies can obtain the same data through secret court order, and the company is legally prohibited from disclosing that the order exists. Not to you, or the city.

2:34:58Under national security letters codified in 1986, expanded under the Patriot Act, the FBI can demand subscriber data with no court involvement at all, again, with mandatory gag orders attached. I've prepared quite a long briefing for anyone who'd like to read it.

2:35:13And, you know, we don't need that many votes to overturn this, so I suggest that we organize a little bit. I'll be collecting emails. We only need to oust a couple people off the council to get what we want. We could start with the guy who only gives us one minute to speak.

2:35:28Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Miguel Gravel, followed by Raya Long.

2:35:38Thank you.

2:35:40I strongly urge the city to permanently discontinue the flock cameras due to the risk to El Ciritans and anybody who passes through our city. At the hands of a radically far-right and increasingly fascist government.

2:35:54Flot cameras share data with over 100 federal agencies, which matters as Trump moves to criminalize people where Democrats

2:36:04for celebrating LGBTQ pride, standing up against illegal policies of immigration enforcement, or even going to No Kings protests.

2:36:13The info captured in flock cameras about such people could lead to them being placed on domestic terrorist lists, prohibited from being flying on commercial airlines, costly court battles, and potential imprisonment or disappearance.

2:36:26No $450 penalty to flock a $8.4 billion company will stop them from giving information to what they want to give.

2:36:34And…

2:36:36It is naive to think that any of us would be safe from the federal government using FLOX data. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Our next speaker is Raya Long, followed by Arielle Gold.

2:36:48Council members, we are told… oh, I'm Rhea, live in El Cerrito for 13 years. We are told that the 40 cameras are for public safety and only capture license plates. This is a half-truth.

2:36:59The Safe Flock only photographs places like saying a smartphone only makes calls. It ignores… it uses AI fingerprinting that tracks vehicle color and unique markings and wide-angle lenses that capture the faces of drivers and bystanders. This isn't a plate reader, it is a pattern of life tracker feeding directly into federal dragnets. Advanced tech, as queried by Councilmember Motayama, shows this and the need for public discourse, or no public discourse, just on

2:37:24do it at all. The other thing we were told that I want to address is that there is a $450 penalty for unauthorized data sharing, but let's be honest, Flock Safety is an $8.4 billion corporation. To them, $450 is the price of a mid-range office chair in less than 0.5% of our total budget, of $313,000, whatever we discussed.

2:37:45Yeah, keep negotiating that, please. Oh, shoot. Thank you for your comment.

2:37:51Our next speaker is Ariel Gold, followed by Leah Carroll.

2:37:58Good evening, my name's Arielle Gold, and I'm a resident in El Cerrito.

2:38:01I want to thank Chief Keith for pursuing additional safeguards.

2:38:05But a fine for unauthorized access doesn't undo a privacy violation.

2:38:12Once ICE has located a neighbor, that can't be undone.

2:38:16Chief Keith himself confirmed federal agencies have accessed flock data without El Cerrito Police ever being notified.

2:38:24I hear the mayor on crime deterrence, and I want a safe community.

2:38:28But we don't have proof that flock is the reason crime has gone down.

2:38:32And we don't adopt every tool that might reduce crime, like curfews.

2:38:38The question is whether mass tracking of every resident shared with 322 agencies and no warrant required is a price our most vulnerable neighbors should pay.

2:38:50Finally, if the new agreement was added today, this vote should not happen tonight. The public deserves time to read it. Please vote no. Thank you.

2:38:58Our next speaker is Leah Carroll, followed by Kamel… Mutiani?

2:39:05I'm Leah Carroll, El Cerrito resident since 2000,

2:39:09And, please vote not to renew this.

2:39:13We cannot trust the federal government right now. There's ample evidence of that.

2:39:20Ice has killed nonviolent protesters.

2:39:25They're completely out of control.

2:39:27We cannot trust the federal government to do the right thing with our data, and Flock cannot be trusted to not share

2:39:37the flock data with the federal government, so we shouldn't do this. Thanks.

2:39:43Our next speaker is Kamal Mutiano, followed… and then we'll go to our virtual request to speak.

2:39:51Hi, this is Kamo Motialu, resident of El Cerrito for about 23 years, a former administrative law judge. What I want to comment on is, essentially.

2:40:03You're looking for facts and evidence to make your…

2:40:06decision, and it's apparent that you don't have that information.

2:40:10What I'm calling for for you to do, is to issue an information request, get a signed attestation from FLOC. It's going to take longer than

2:40:19making that decision on May 5th, right?

2:40:22Because to me, based on the information I've received here, you're not going to get the information you need to make a valid, reasonable decision.

2:40:32And I think you also have to look at legal risk as well. So I really urge you to work with all stakeholders to figure out what that process is, because I don't believe

2:40:43We need to have something signed, a written attestation from Flock.

2:40:48Questions, answers, before you make a decision.

2:40:51Thanks. Thank you for your comments. We have one additional in-person request, Sherry Dropner, and then we'll go to our remote requests.

2:41:00Okay, this will be quick. I'm Sherry Dropner. I just want to, first of all, say I'm very grateful to the community behind me, who's given forth such incredible, important information for all of you.

2:41:13I want to thank all of you for not just running in and making a decision on this. I also want to just add, someone mentioned about Mountain View. They didn't think about more options, they didn't think about a contract. They absolutely stopped

2:41:29the contract, and it was a solid vote across the board for the City Council. And the mayor said, public safety must be grounded in community trust, and the program did not reflect community priorities. And I think we see that in this evening. Thank you.

2:41:47Okay, we're going to go to our remote request to speak, starting with Jason Martins. Jason, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:41:55Jason Martens (he/him): Hi, thank you. I'm a resident of Berkeley, and I've been working on our own flock contract there. I did want to read something from the Brennan Center for Justice about the FISA court.

2:42:08and how it operates. They say, although the surveillance may only be targeted at foreigners abroad, it inevitably sweets in large amounts of Americans' phone calls, texts, and emails.

2:42:18Congress and the FISA Court have attempted to limit the government's access to these communications, but the government has engaged in widespread violations of those limits. To give just a few examples.

2:42:28The FBI has conducted warrantless searches of Section 702 acquired information to access communications of Black Lives Matter protesters, U.S. government officials, journalists, political commentators, and 19,000 donors to a single congressional campaign.

2:42:46So whatever the contracts and restrictions are that we think we have in place, it's not enough to prevent access to this data. We shouldn't collect it in the first place. Thank you.

2:42:59Our next speaker is Peter. Peter, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:43:05peter: Hi, thank you. Peter Bernhardt, resident of Albany, where we're also tracking this particular issue.

2:43:12A lot's been said. I'm just going to cover a couple technical issues. First, if you go to the transparency Portal, which I would invite all your council members to do, you'll find that, actually, data is shared with over a thousand agencies across the state of California.

2:43:26Every individual in each of those agencies represents a vector of risk, and systems like this are primarily, fallible to humans.

2:43:37In my years of software development, that's the thing I would say, everything works fine until people get involved.

2:43:42And you've got far too many people with access to this to begin with. You can fix that today.

2:43:46Also, you're also… Flock also devolves security responsibility to the communities, so you have to do your own auditing. They could add a feature to their system that would provide alerts to flag unauthorized access, access from agencies that shouldn't be looking at their data, but they don't do that, because they want you to do it.

2:44:06And they hope that things will be forgotten, overlooked, as they were in Mountain View until they were.

2:44:12Our next speaker is Hope Dixon.

2:44:14Hope you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:44:19Hope Dixon (She/They): Hi, thank you for hearing me. Can you hear me okay?

2:44:22We can't… can you speak up, please?

2:44:25Hope Dixon (She/They): Hello, can you hear me okay?

2:44:27David, that's better, go ahead and begin.

2:44:29Hope Dixon (She/They): Thank you, I appreciate it. My name is Hope Dixon, I'm an educator at the local community college as a basic needs coordinator. I have to say, just like as an LGBT community member in West Contra Costa.

2:44:42I'm pretty terrified these days of what's happening in our community, and these flaw cameras terrify me. I know my friends and I are just kind of planning for the worst.

2:44:52Our immigrant communities, they need and care and matter, and they make a difference, and so we… we can do better.

2:45:00I know you're up against some hard decisions right now, but I hope that you can, like, take a long look at that beautiful community in front of you, because they are amazing, and they said some great things, and really listen to your constituents, and I hope that you can vote no this evening. Thank you so much for your time.

2:45:18Okay, our next speaker is Jane Hood. Jane, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:45:24Jane Hood: Hi, my name is Jane. I am an El Cerrito resident, and I, like everyone else, I'm calling for you to not renew the flock contract.

2:45:33I want to specifically point out what a previous speaker mentioned, that this is not just a license plate reader. They have advanced AI capabilities, which are basically designed to track people. It is not just about a car, it is about the person driving the car, and what locations they've been to. The police chief mentioned that this can track

2:45:54a car in multiple locations, so that might be multiple sensitive locations that the driver visits, like a health clinic, a protest, a meeting, their job, their home. So I'm against any, expansion of this program or continuation of it, and I was just personally unimpressed by the answers that the flock representative gave tonight on many of the City Council's good questions.

2:46:17Our next speaker is WB.

2:46:22If you could please identify your name for the record, and you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:46:28WB: Hi, I'm Nina.

2:46:29I, take, client meetings in El Cerrito, shop in El Cerrito, and I want to let everyone know I've worked in tech for 10 years with the brightest minds in cybersecurity, working for the largest tech companies, who will tell you no amount of amendments, contracts, SOC 2 audits can keep this data safe from hackers. Additionally, in Oakland.

2:46:52There is a missing woman named Amy Hillard. There are 21 flock cameras within a 1.3 mile radius of where she was last seen.

2:46:59This presentation has stated that

2:47:01This technology is used for public safety and help with missing persons cases, so… so where's Amy Hillard? How has this technology not found her… helped find her in the city of Oakland?

2:47:11Last, I want to speak to the police officers in the room. From my experience, the implementation of automation and AI technology has always led to a loss of jobs. This tech will absolutely be used later to justify not hiring more police officers, because they have the tech that can do the job, quote-unquote, more efficiently. Thank you.

2:47:28Thank you for your comments. Mayor, that concludes our request to speak on this item. Okay, very good. We'll bring it back to the Council. I just want to let our residents know and our audience know here that we heard you loud and clear. Any final thoughts? We'll start over here to my left.

2:47:43I want to go ahead and make a motion that we continue this item to further discussion, and even possibly a study session on it, if possible, for the… what was it, the May 5th meeting that we said that it had to be?

2:47:54So that's… I think that's the only thing left to be said. Can I ask if you'd be open to an amendment on the motion to… to ask for… I mean, I don't…

2:48:04I mean, we could make it a study session slash vote, but it sounds like we have to make some level of decision on May 5th, just based on the deadline. My request, and I think it'd be fine to have, sort of, study session, like, where we could have more of a conversation, though we, I think, have had a good conversation tonight. But my main amendment is to ask for some more options to be brought back, not

2:48:28just the 3-year option, if that is possible, and I know, I mean, if Flock says no, then we'll just have to vote up or down, so it's sort of up to them if they want to play ball or not, but if the Chief could attempt that.

2:48:42I'm okay with that amendment. Do we need to specify how many options?

2:48:46Or just more options? I just… what I want to see, and I think I said this pretty clearly before, is some shorter-term options, so that we could then have some time to either negotiate a better contract or figure out another solution.

2:49:02Because I do understand that the department

2:49:05does depend on these cameras right now, and I understand it would be challenging to all of a sudden have them turned off.

2:49:12I also don't think that this is a good solution, but I want to figure out some interim, because I can understand that probably much of the council would not be comfortable just turning them off right away. So I'd like some other options. If there aren't, I'll…

2:49:28you know, probably vote against that. I would add that amendment, and also if there's any information about other vendors, just so that we have everything on the table that is available to us.

2:49:39I will… I'm okay with that amendment. Do you still want to second that, Councilmember? I'll second that, but can I also add a small amendment? I would like Flock to send someone that can answer the question. Yeah, oh, yes!

2:49:52That… that… I don't know if that district… should we put that in the… in the IDL? Yeah. Or can we just direct… say… say, Chief, have a better representative? Yes. I just want to make sure we have both sides, though. We've talked a lot about FLOC and their representation. I would also like someone like the American Civil Liberties… Civil Liberties Union to come.

2:50:11They're welcome to come. This is an open meeting, and they have been here in the past, so, so, they're welcome to speak and open comment, but if we want to do a study session… That's… that was going to be in my question to the city manager, city attorney. If we do a study session, can we also include the vote?

2:50:30I believe that, first of all, you don't need to make a motion to continue the item. That could be just a Council direction to continue the item, first and foremost. But secondly, and we're certainly hearing your direction, and we're taking notes for that,

2:50:46A study session implies that there is no vote, that usually we have a study session that is a

2:50:52a conversation, a discussion, and provides direction to staff. This would be… continuing this item means it would continue to be a policy discussion, and then, again, there would be… because we have a deadline in order to either… to give Flock, notice if we're not going to renew this contract.

2:51:11we would need to have a decision by the City Council on the 5th. So I do propose that we continue the item. I suspect, Councilmember, that someone will probably show up from the ACLU. You don't think so? I don't think that a minute gives them an opportunity to…

2:51:26go into the complexities of this issue. Can I clarify something on public comment? My understanding is if we do, especially if an expert speaker shows up who's a public speaker, we could ask questions of them, is that correct?

2:51:41And I guess that would be up to the mayor, somewhat.

2:51:45Yeah, the, the…

2:51:49it's not Council policy to ask questions of speakers, but the mayor does have discretion to grant additional time to anybody that the Council feels they'd like to hear more. So you're telling us if we want to talk to the ACLU, we all need to do it individually, because we can't ask them any questions if they come and speak here? The public comment policy is for the public to be able to address the Council, not

2:52:13for… Or questions from the Council.

2:52:17Is there any… That's not how everybody treats it. I mean, that's the part where we ask questions of public commenters all the time, so it's not the rule of law that requires that. I'm not suggesting it's a law, I'm just saying that's council policy.

2:52:30I'm thinking in my mind, is there any other… I don't know another mechanism… and I'm speaking like I'm the mayor, I'm not the mayor anymore. One thing, know the importance of what we're discussing, and I'm, let's table this, and we will deal with this at the next meeting.

2:52:47We have a deadline on May, May 6th, so,

2:52:52our May 5th meeting, we'll be able to discuss it. So, let's, so I support tabling this for the next council meeting.

2:53:03Are you guys good with that?

2:53:04I'm okay with that. Okay. Is there anything that you need?

2:53:08Well, there was a motion on the floor, so even if we heard it all, I… I mean, the motion was for us to continue the item, but we apparently don't need a motion to continue the item.

2:53:20If the attorney agrees, I think we have sufficient direction from the City Council to bring this back on May 5th to continue the discussion. We should clarify that you're withdrawing the motion. And the seconder was agreeable to that, okay. I would like to make a motion, then, to invite the ACLU to come as part of our study session.

2:53:38Not a slit session.

2:53:40That's not a discussion. We're… this is a council meeting that will… Oh, that's my motion. But they're welcome to join us. They… as an ACLU member, they're welcome to join us. So,

2:53:51And they have attended these meetings in the past, and I look forward to having them back. I would like to make a motion to invite them to make a presentation.

2:54:03I'll second that motion.

2:54:05But again, not as part of a study session, because I understand it can't be a study session. So let's, city attorney.

2:54:19I mean, if the City Council would like to have, would like to… if the Council as a whole would like to have, somebody from a particular body come to speak on this item and give them additional time beyond the… whatever the amount of time that's allotted for public speakers, City Council has the authority to do that. This is important, so I will support this for May 5th, and

2:54:43We'll go from there.

2:54:46So there's a motion on the floor. Yes.

2:54:50No, we don't need one.

2:54:51So, Councilmember, are you okay with that and withdrawing your motion? I'm really moderating like I'm the mayor. I don't understand. There's a motion on the floor.

2:55:00to invite the ACLU to do a presentation? Is that the understanding? And it was seconded?

2:55:09Correct? So, either the council will vote, I… I mean, I think… I believe that in this case, staff, because this is not typical council policy, I believe staff would benefit from the direction of a vote.

2:55:24And you seconded that? No. Okay, all in favor?

2:55:27Aye. Aye.

2:55:30Any… any opposed?

2:55:33Motion carries. So, Bob, we will continue this on… our main meeting. Thank you.

2:55:39Next, we'll go to… fiscal year 2026-27, and fiscal year 27-28 biannual. A couple minute recess.

2:55:50It's true.

2:55:52We're requesting a bio break for 5 minutes. Make it 10 minutes.

2:55:59Or for a while longer.

3:06:33I just want to make sure it didn't help. I bet my teeth are all black here.

3:06:42Okay, it's, 9-10, we're gonna start now.

3:06:46We have the fiscal year 2026-27, and fiscal year 2027-28 Biannual budget study session. And we have,

3:06:58Claire, and we have Crystal here. Welcome.

3:07:01Hello, good evening, Mayor and Council. Claire Coleman, Budget and Financial Services Manager. I'm new to this microphone. Is this volume okay? All right, and I promise I will try to speak a little slower.

3:07:13So, this evening, we are going to be talking about the biennial budget. So, we are in the midst of the biennial budget development process. So, to begin with, I want to give a brief reminder and overview of where we are in the process currently. So, if you recall, in January, we had the Council Priority Setting Retreat.

3:07:32And then we also have had the budget survey and community workshops and the department head presentations. So right now, we have been in the data gathering, and then now in the context-setting portion of this budget process. So first, we had the department head presentations to provide the context of what departments do, what city services we provide, to underpin the understanding of what this budget does, and all of the services that it provides for the community.

3:07:57This evening, my presentation will focus on the greater context for this budget. So, again, looking at, where we're going to be looking at the feedback that we've received in our community outreach work.

3:08:08We will be looking at some revenue and expenditure numbers, so early… not really early trends, these are the underlying budget estimates and the major expenditures that the city doesn't necessarily have control over at this time.

3:08:21And then…

3:08:22Later on in the process, on May 5th, I'm going to return to you. So this is the first of five meetings in a row where you're gonna get to hang out with me for a lot of time talking about the budget, so I hope we're in for a good time, or at least some good discussions. So on May 5th, in 2 weeks, I will be back talking with you, and that will be the second study session.

3:08:41At that meeting, we're going to be discussing actual budget scenarios. So we're going to come with different possible scenarios of ways to balance the budget. There are a few different ways that the Council can consider based on different priorities that have been expressed over time.

3:08:53Based on that discussion, we will either then develop the budget book for the June 2nd meeting, or we would potentially come back again for discussion on May 19th.

3:09:03But also on May 19th, I will be back either way, because we will also be reviewing and discussing the master fee schedule for adoption.

3:09:10The master fee schedule does impact the fiscal year 26-27 budget, but it's also based on the fiscal 26-27 budget, so we really kind of need the basis of some of those numbers to be able to even develop those master fee schedule, those master fee estimates.

3:09:25Then, on June 2nd, the City Council will review the draft budget book, so we will have the full budget book for review. Our dream goal, if we can possibly do it, is to get it to you before Memorial Day weekend, but given the number of other… given the number of meetings and things, it may get pushed to a week later. But our goal is to get that to you as early as possible, to review the draft budget book.

3:09:44for the June 2nd meeting, and then come back one… two weeks later for what we hope will be the formal and official adoption of the budget book, and that's adoption of the two-year budget, but as a reminder, we do legally adopt the appropriation limit on an annual basis.

3:10:00So that's where we've been, that's where we're going. As I noted this evening, we're going to talk about public engagement results.

3:10:05revenue and expenditure trends, and some information, some preliminary capital information, capital improvement program budget information. We've been working really hard on some improvements to our capital improvement program and our capital improvement program budget document.

3:10:21I'm going to call that CIP moving forward, just because it's a bit of a mouthful, but we're really excited to start rolling out some of those CIP document, improvements, especially in the way that we communicate CIP to the public.

3:10:32So first, public engagement results.

3:10:35So we did two primary things. We did a budget survey that was online and available to the public, and then we did two different budget workshops, which were the same content, but held in two different mediums. So first, on the budget survey, it was open from January 16th through March 31st. It had 173 respondents, 96% of whom self-reported as living in El Cerrito.

3:10:55We don't have a way to verify that, and we trust people to tell us honestly. There were 4 primary questions that looked at the investment levels of 16 core city services.

3:11:05Top 3 budget priorities for the next 2 years. There was an activity where respondents could allocate points across different infrastructure categories, and then there was an opportunity for open-ended comments.

3:11:17This is a very large, list, because as you can imagine, 16 services, there were a lot of different things to choose from. The ones at the bottom actually received the highest amount of points. So those are open space and trails, parks and facilities, fire safety and wildfire, economic development, and business. So those are the top four vote-getters, and those are the ones that both received either needs or investment at a very high, high frequency.

3:11:40or received needs less investment at a low frequency. So those are the ones that were considered either in a good place or needed more investment, overwhelmingly so.

3:11:49Very few, as you can see, were marked as needing less investment. So I think in general, resident, or at least survey respondents, believe that these services are important and should either receive the same amount or more investment.

3:12:02This is question number one. Question number two looked at the most important needs for the city in the next two-year budget. The top three in this case were parks and facility maintenance, fire safety and wildlife prevention, economic development, and business support. As you can see, there's a theme among many of these respondent… responses.

3:12:22Next, there was an alloc… this was the allocation activity where residents allocated 10 votes across different core areas, so they could allocate multiple votes for certain categories if they wanted.

3:12:32So this is the weighted result. This is the average number of votes that respondents gave to each of these categories. So, by far, number one was parks and Recreation facilities, so that received an average of 2.87 votes per respondent.

3:12:46Followed by streets and transportation with 2.21 average votes per respondent.

3:12:51I do think stormwater management is a little tough one in my experience with other public agencies and with peers at other agencies. Things like stormwater and sewer are often lowest priority until they overflow, and then you realize that, oh, shoot, those are pretty important. Just because one that works well, you don't… you don't notice it. But that was the lowest priority, is stormwater management, and then other capital investments, which I know can be a little hard to vote for when it's that nebulous.

3:13:16So these were overall themes from comments and feedback. As you can see, these are the same core themes that you've seen through the other responses. We received a wide variety of different types of comments, but in order to summarize them for this presentation, I just, I put them into some key theme areas. So you see wildfire prevention, public safety, both police and fire.

3:13:35Parks and Recreation.

3:13:37Roads, sidewalks, and traffic, tree maintenance, economic development and business support. And then we did hear a lot about concerns about fiscal sustainability of the city.

3:13:46For the budget workshops, we held two workshops. One was in person on March 7th, which had 11 attendees, plus two council members. And then we had a virtual workshop on March 25th, 2026, which three people came to, which was,

3:14:00It was all right, so it was in the evening on a Wednesday, and I know people are very busy, and we also did note that it would be recorded and published, so the recording is available on the City's website. The respondent… the attendees who we started with were not the same attendees who we ended with.

3:14:14which I won't take personally, but we ended up not doing the survey activities because it just wasn't enough people for us to get good data and anonymize it well. But I do have the results to present from the in-person workshop on March 7th.

3:14:28In these two workshops, it was both a review of city finances and a review of some of the core city services. And then we did two activities, one which was a survey to consider different trade-offs, and the other was a prioritization activity of core service areas, pretty similar to that points allocation activity that was a part of the online survey.

3:14:48I do want to note for both of these, we do our best to publicize these opportunities. We publicize them on social media, we put them in the city manager's newsletter, we put them out in every… in all of the different mediums, on posts or physical posters around the city.

3:15:03That being said, we only receive the feedback that we receive, and we know that there are sometimes groups and people who may not be represented, or certain groups who are very active and engaged who we may be more represented than typically would be representative of the full city population. So this is not necessarily a statistically significant sampling.

3:15:21But it is valuable feedback, in my opinion, to present to the Council about what residents' preferences and priorities are at this time. But I do want to note that this is not considered statistically significant from a data analysis and data science and surveying

3:15:37polling perspective.

3:15:40So for the workshop survey, we asked four questions. So the first was, if expenditures continue to grow faster than revenues, and infrastructure continues to deteriorate, which should be prioritized first? Maintaining current services and deferring maintenance, or beginning addressing the backlog, even if it requires service reductions? I…

3:15:57We asked some pretty tough questions of our workshop respondents, and in this case, it was over… it was unanimous that the city should begin addressing the backlog of deferred maintenance, even if it requires service reductions.

3:16:08The second question is, with rising costs, should the City prioritize preserving service levels, even if reserves decline, or preserving… or protecting financial stability, even if service levels must adjust? Not unanimous this time, but there was a majority in favor of protecting financial stability.

3:16:23For the third question, if reserves fell below policy targets due to rising costs, should the city restore reserves before expanding services, or restoring services, or keep lower reserves in order to maintain services? Again, not unanimous, but a majority voted for A, which is restoring reserves first.

3:16:39And then finally, if the city identifies one-time funding, how would respondents prefer it to be used? And this had a mixed group, and there was one person who voted for two.

3:16:48But typically, the most popular response was addressing one-time infrastructure or capital needs only, with some voting for saving in reserves, and a few also voting for, temporarily supporting ongoing services.

3:17:02Moving on to revenues and expenditures. These are the estimates, for the

3:17:08upcoming budgets. We have completed our revenue estimates, and so these… some of these things are going to be included in the presentation on May 5th as well.

3:17:17First, I want to note some of the economic conditions. We are in an uncertain economy. Seems like every time we make a budget, it's an uncertain economy for about the past 6 years. It's been a pretty wild ride. As you can imagine if you've read the paper recently.

3:17:31there's a lot going on, and there's a lot that we really don't know. We have international conflicts that are really wrecking havoc on both financial markets, but also commodities markets. We have a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and litigation surrounding those.

3:17:43We have a very complex interest rate environment, we have potentially a new Fed chair, and some big unknowns regarding that.

3:17:50We have some consumer confidence issues where there's just a lot of insecurity and uncertainty around where the economy is going right now. And you can see that in the financial markets. March was a very down year. For example, in the S&P 500, you see it was very down, and then in April, it has predominantly rebounded, and then it was down a bit today. So we're just on a little bit of a financial rollercoaster right now.

3:18:09Inflation is stabilizing relative to a few years ago, but inflation is still significantly impacting costs, especially in areas where we may have locked into contracts, and those contracts are now expiring and up for renegotiation.

3:18:21We also have some volatile and costly insurance markets, and I'll speak more to insurance in a moment.

3:18:28Here in El Cerrito, El Cerrito has a very stable and a very diverse tax base. When you've seen the graph of… I don't have it for you today, but the graph of where El Cerrito's revenues come from, especially in the general fund, it's a rainbow, and it's a very, mixed rainbow, and we're very lucky. Many of our peers are very concentrated in one area, and the diversity of our revenues gives us more stability, than we might otherwise have.

3:18:50Many of our taxes are received on a lag. For example, property taxes are on an 18-month lag, so that somewhat insulates us, like many of our peers, from recessionary impacts immediately, and gives us a bit of runway if something were to happen.

3:19:02Currently we are seeing steady real estate markets, and over the past few years since I've been here, sales taxes in El Cerrito have either been outperforming or meeting state sales tax trends.

3:19:13Like I mentioned, we are somewhat insulated because we have a very, stable revenue base. Property taxes are 34% of our general fund.

3:19:21But both equity markets and other financial markets, like commodity markets, impact a lot of different things in the community, so things like discretionary spending.

3:19:30Property transfer taxes, if interest rates significantly change, property markets and real estate markets are significantly impacted by that. Equity markets and other financial markets affect CalPERS returns and our pension liabilities, and so there are all kinds of different ways that these volatile markets might impact city finances over time, so there are things that we consider

3:19:48But we also have to be careful about finding the balance between considering this potential volatility while also doing the best we can, because at some point, we have to create a budget. So we have to do the best budget that we can right now with the information that we have available.

3:20:03So on the tax side, property taxes, we use HDL, which is… oh, it stands for, I think, Hindelater Delamas, but we always call them HDL. There's two different pieces. There's actually a property tax company, and then an all the other taxes company, but we just refer to them as HDL, and they're our expert consultants on sales tax, utility taxes, and property taxes. So they provide our expert forecasts for many of these revenue areas.

3:20:26We are currently expecting a 5% annual increase in property taxes over the next 2 years. Excuse me, that's a 5% annual increase, so it's not 5% over 2 years, it's 5% each year.

3:20:37And that's the result of both the 2% increase allowable under Proposition 13, and the significant increases that we see from properties when they are sold and reassessed at the new valuation.

3:20:48We did complete the successor… the dissolution of the successor agency to the redevelopment agency this year. We are very excited about that. We expect to start to see those financial impacts in the coming fiscal year.

3:21:00We, on the property transfer tax side, we are currently expecting to see a 6% increase, in next fiscal year over the current year budget, and that's because we are currently outperforming the current year budget. So that's not a 6% increase over actuals, but a 6% increase over budget.

3:21:17Another piece is that we would expect to see a 3% increase in fiscal 28 over 27. Property transfer tax is one of our most volatile revenue sources, so this is one of the ones that we track very carefully, but is one of the more difficult ones to forecast two years out.

3:21:32Our business license and operations tax is very stable. It has a small annual increase per the city's municipal code, but has very low volatility in that tax revenue side.

3:21:42On the sales taxes, we are expecting our Bradley Burns, which is our 1% sales tax that we get that every single city in California gets. We're expecting that to increase by 5% in fiscal 27, and 2.6% in fiscal 28.

3:21:55The 2.6% is for all forms of transactions and use tax or sales tax, which is… TUT is transactions and use tax, which is a form of sales tax. A question might be, why are these different? Why would the Bradley Burns 1%

3:22:09sales tax be different than the locally adopted transactions and use taxes, and I will not bore you with the conversation about CITUS and whether something's in-state versus out of state when you buy it online, and which warehouse it's located, and all of those fun things, but the skinny of it all is that they're a little bit different, and so they behave a little differently, and because we have HDL's expert forecasts, we're able to get a little more granularity in our forecasting.

3:22:31On the utility tax side.

3:22:33We're expecting 5% increase in energy costs next year in energy as electric and gas. And that is a result of a couple of pieces. That's both PG&E's rate structure changes, which we're expected to balance out for the most part, but then they also received approval from the CPUC to allocate about $1.6 billion across, their ratepayers for wildfire costs. We are also seeing some major volatility and shakeups in the natural gas.

3:22:58markets right now that are expected to last for at least 18 months to 2 years. Now, granted, those are not immediately passed on to consumers, because PG&E has to go through the CPUC, but we want to be realistic about the ways that some of these utility markets are moving.

3:23:11So that's our expectation on electric and gas. Water is a lot easier because East Bay Mud tells us. So we're estimating 7% because that's the approved rate, and then in the second year, we estimate about 6.5%, because that's the average of the past few years of East Bay Mud rate changes. We are expecting a decrease of 5% in telecom, which is consistent with trends over the past,

3:23:32probably 5 to 10 years as cable cutting continues. There is some new litigation in the streaming world that we are paying attention to, but we are not engaging in until there's a little bit more settled case law.

3:23:45Hotel taxes are a really insignificant source of revenue for El Cerrito. They're very, very small. We don't have very many taxes. We are not Anaheim, who has, I think, $50 million a year, at least. I think it's $150 million in hotel taxes annually, so it's a small revenue source for us. We pay attention to it, but it's pretty minor.

3:24:04On the non-tax side, as I mentioned, on May 19th, I will be bringing with some of my colleagues, bringing a master fee schedule to the City Council for consideration for adoption. Most of these fees are limited to cost recovery basis. We have our updated cost allocation plan and master fee study completed last year with the consultant firm Will Dan.

3:24:23Some of these increases are based on inflation or other estimates, if they are not limited to actual cost recovery.

3:24:30On the fines and forfeitures side, we're seeing some steady and increasing revenue from fines and forfeitures due to higher enforcement activity by the police department in particular, and then I believe they were also getting through a backlog that they've had over the past few years, in the last year or two, so they've been clearing out that backlog.

3:24:47On the grants side, we budget for grants if they are confirmed and we know that they are real. Until we are absolutely certain of them, we don't budget for them. We bring them back to Council when they are awarded and certain.

3:24:58We do have some very significant grants, especially in the transportation side, some pretty big grants and state subventions over the next couple of years that we can mention in the CIP section. And then on the cannabis side, statewide trends are currently showing a contracting cannabis market. There's a lot of still pressures from the illicit market, a lot of pressures from various forms of regulatory fees and taxation.

3:25:20But there's also a possible shift in the cannabis market if it is rescheduled from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 at the federal level, which would have some significant impacts to business operations, especially on the banking side.

3:25:31So we'll see what happens with that. I believe it's been fast-tracked at the federal level, but, we don't know exactly when or how that will go.

3:25:40On the expenditure side, personnel is the largest part of the city expenditures. We always say people are services. It's the firefighters who come, it's the police officers who come to an incident, it's the staff who review the permits, so people are the services that we provide as a city, overwhelmingly.

3:25:58One of the largest contributors to our current expenditure trends are new labor agreements. Those have been adopted and approved by the City Council over the past couple of years. Those include cost of building adjustments of 3 to 3.5%, depending on the unit.

3:26:12There are also market adjustments for 16 different position classifications, between 3% and 10.25% over the two years. So that's not 10.25% annually, but that's across the two years, and that's based on the classification and compensation study for positions that were found to be significantly below market rate.

3:26:29For the most part, the largest percentage increases are in SEIU, and so those are… in… within the city's labor agreements, you can see exactly what percentages are changing if you want to see the detail.

3:26:40We also have some new one-time or increased benefits, depending on the bargaining unit. I will note that the PEA, the Police Employees Association, contract expires on June 30th, and so that is currently in the process of beginning negotiations, but if those are not completed before budget adoption, there may be consideration of budget amendments shortly after the budget is adopted, just based on the timing of the negotiations.

3:27:03One of the largest contributors to personal cost increases, other than our labor agreements, are medical benefits. Our healthcare… our health cost increases, in particular, we expect to go up about 9%, which is very high. It is consistent with what we're seeing with peers. It's not unique to us, but it is,

3:27:22We're not the only ones with the problem, but we do have the problem, which is that medical costs are increasing very, very quickly. Dental costs are increasing, but at a slower rate. And the medical benefits, both medical and dental, are fully paid by the city for all full-time employees and their dependents.

3:27:39On the CalPERS side, on the pension side. So, this is a slightly different graph than you may have seen before. This is the current, pension estimates based on the 2024 report that was published, and that's the most recent one that's available. The new one will come out at the end of September for the 2025 year.

3:27:56What you can see in this UAL, which is the blue section, is that we are getting pretty close to what I'll call peak UAL. We expect that to be around 2032, although that could shift depending on market returns, but we're getting to the point where our pension costs will start to decline, and that's the result of the shift from Classic to PEPRA members. That little bump in the out year, I always thought that was really weird. It's because there was a…

3:28:20It's niche. There was an exceptionally good year, and if you remember that CalPERS schedules are like… it's like if you had a different mortgage every year, and they're layered on top of each other. When the really, really good one goes away, the pension cost spikes really quickly. So it's a little bit counterintuitive that when the really good one expires, it goes up, but that's why you have that spike out in

3:28:4020… I think that's 2040…

3:28:42That was from a really good year, about 4 years ago, that's go… that's leaving our books, so to speak.

3:28:50If you want to talk in more detail about that, I'm always available, but, for now, this is the current graph, and you can see that the normal cost, which is what the city pays for current employees, stays quite steady and then increases just ever so slightly in the out years, but our UAL comes dramatically down after about 6 years.

3:29:07The city does have a Section 115 trust, which the Council has established and funded. It currently has about $3 million, which, you read about, at… for this meeting, and Director Rehm spoke about earlier. And then again, staff evaluate prepaying our UAL, and for those, it's on the slide, but the UAL is the unfunded actuarial liability.

3:29:27So that's a huge piece of our pension cost. So we evaluate prepaying that in a lump sum at the beginning of each fiscal year for about a 3.3% savings rate.

3:29:37Which is a really good rate. We would potentially see some of that if we kept the money in the bank, but typically prepaying is the safest and best deal.

3:29:48Insurance.

3:29:49insurance markets are bananas, and our incredible assistant city manager sits on the board of MPA, and I know we've talked a lot with you about insurance. Our insurance costs are skyrocketing, and they continue to skyrocket. We are currently expecting an increase of 12% in our insurance costs, which is about half a million dollars. In the past,

3:30:118 years, 9 years, you can see that our insurance costs have gone from just over half a million dollars in the insurance premiums, not including workers' compensation, they've gone from just over half a million dollars to $3 million from 2021 to 2028.

3:30:27our revenues have not grown that fast, and so it is just a massive, massive cost that cities are having to deal with these days. Insurance markets are…

3:30:36really, really difficult. And so, we are doing our best to estimate for this.

3:30:41it's just an enormous cost. And excuse me, I said… I said 12%. It's actually 19% in fiscal 27, and it's 12%. We hope that things will stabilize in 2028. We think it's reasonable. I've got… I had a discussion with staff from MPA, they're risk analysts, that 12% is a realistic

3:30:59possibility, but it is really difficult for us to forecast this.

3:31:05workers' compensation is more moderated, but it is still a very large expense. The change in allocation methodology, that's a staff change at El Cerrito, that's not an MPA insurance change. That is that we have shifted slightly how we allocate workers' compensation. We previously did it where we allocated the same exact amount per FTE. Now we're working with MPA to weight it based on the prorated safety

3:31:28So we're weighting safety higher, because typically the workers' compensation costs and insurance are higher, because it's… they're much more physical jobs, so they often have higher burdens in that respect. And so we're weighting those costs slightly differently to… with safety versus miscellaneous, and then allocated on an employee basis.

3:31:45I just want to clarify that allocation on an employee basis has no relationship to the individual's actual worker compensation. That's entirely separate.

3:31:53So that's, again, that's internal city budgeting, but not related to MPA costs.

3:31:59Other major expenditures, I mentioned international conflict. I'm sure many of you who have cars that take gas have seen this lately, that gas prices are also upside down. Staff currently estimate that if

3:32:10the current conflict were to continue for all of the next fiscal year, it would be at least $85,000 additional cost for fuel for the city. We are currently budgeting for a portion of that, but with a hope

3:32:22That maybe peace will be achieved, and maybe a ceasefire will hold, for many more reasons other than just our fuel costs.

3:32:31The city also does piggyback on state contracts for fuel costs, so some of those are up for renegotiation around January 1st, so there's some potential impacts as well.

3:32:40On the professional services side.

3:32:43Chief Keith spoke about animal services briefly earlier. We also have our dispatch services. We have dispatch services provided through a contract with the City of Richmond. That contract ends at the end of fiscal 27, and so it will be renegotiated, and so we've budgeted for some of those cost increases, but there's some uncertainty with that contract as well.

3:33:02On the utility cost side, we budgeted similarly with our utility revenues, so the nice thing about having utility tax consultants is they provide really excellent analysis of utility markets, and so we can also use that on our cost estimate side.

3:33:15We do have slightly lower natural gas costs than others because of the amount of our energy bills that are for street lights. So, we have a lot more electrical-specific and a little bit less gas than, for example, a typical home might have.

3:33:28Finally, we have revised some of the ways that we do overhead allocations, primarily because we now have the cost allocation and master fee study that's been updated. So the new cost allocation plan has allowed us to review the way that our cost allocations have been done with our special revenue funds and our enterprise fund.

3:33:48So it increases the accuracy of overhead costs, some of which haven't been updated in quite some time.

3:33:54Do we want to pause and ask questions about that section before we go on to CIP? Should we just keep going? I know we have another item this evening, too, so I know it's a long meeting. Let's keep going. Alright, so a little bit about the CIP. So, about the process. So, to begin the process, departments and public works identify needs and they submit projects. And then all of those projects are reviewed by Public Works staff. So, for example, the police department might say.

3:34:18we need this infrastructure improvement on the Public Safety Building. Public Works reviews all of the different projects that are submitted, and they, identify… they prioritize them, and they prioritize based on a variety of things, including urgency and functionality, health and safety.

3:34:33alignment with Council priorities, and then funding availability and time constraints. So sometimes projects are higher because there may be grant funding and other projects that might be high priority, but we have no funding source, might have to wait. Then Finance and Public Works work together to analyze funding and staff availability for the projects to make sure that the CIP, plan is realistic.

3:34:54And then finally, the CIP is recommended and to the Council for review and approval.

3:34:59One thing that is new this time, I mentioned a new budgeting software. We've been using ClearGov for a few years for the city's budget book to provide a nicer, kind of more online and transparent system. We are now also using their capital budgeting module to have a more streamlined process, but to also provide more detail and more information. So we have project sheets for each project, where you can see a little map of where it is, and you can see all the details and all the information, and then a bunch of different visuals

3:35:24That'll provide different ways to see, what's happening in the city's capital program.

3:35:30Is there some of the funding sources that are supporting our capital projects? The Capital Improvement Fund. Now, these are mostly funds that were previously allocated by the City Council as where you would have them budgeted in the Capital Improvement Fund, because the Capital Improvement Fund doesn't have its own funding sources inherently. So, for example, you have the Del Norte Complete Streets project. If that has been, you know, let's say the Council allocated $8 million for the project, but not all of it was expended in the

3:35:54first year, then you would budget out of the capital improvement fund in the second year. So it was originally maybe general fund or grant, it was put into the capital improvement fund. Now those funds are housed there as the project is being worked on, and so that's why you budget it out of that fund.

3:36:07Yeah.

3:36:09So, then we also have local grants, we have state grants. Some of the big ones are ASIC, I'm gonna say all these acronyms incorrectly, but we have a lot of transit, especially transit-oriented grants right now. We have some federal earmarks that we, I think, are

3:36:23hoping will, potentially come, and I believe we've received some in the past. And we also have Measure A Street Improvement Funds, Measure J storm drain funds.

3:36:32SB1, which is a form of gas tax fund, we have general fund contributions. IWM has one small capital project this budget cycle currently in the proposal, and then occasionally we have donations that support capital projects.

3:36:47This is an overview of…

3:36:49the CIP funds in each year. As you can see, state grants are really big in the first year, and in the second year, Measure A, street improvement is the largest source. The reason we don't have any more of the CIP fund, the capital improvement fund, in the first year is because presumably those projects are then being budgeted out of those other funds. So when we do the formal adoption of the second year of the budget for fiscal 27-28,

3:37:13We might expect to see some projects that are being budgeted in the Capital Improvement Fund, because they're very large, longer-term projects that are still in progress.

3:37:20On the preliminary CIP, this is just another way to look at it. You can see, the different funds that these are a part of. I think sometimes it's a little easier to see in this format. So again, state grants, capital improvement in the first year, and then measure A street improvement, and still some state grants in the second year.

3:37:35Now, this could all change, especially if we receive more grants, if there are other projects that end up getting a different prioritization, but this is the current preliminary CIP.

3:37:43The project list, we have a large number of projects. I won't read all of them, but I'll just give us a moment to look at this. And I believe we have Director Ortiz

3:37:54No? No, she's not, just kidding, she's not here. But we have a detailed list of all of the projects, and I encourage anyone, this is included in the Council materials, if you want to look through the list of projects, we will also have a much more robust and detailed budget document for the CIP once that is ultimately presented and published.

3:38:15So that's all I have for you today. Do you have any questions?

3:38:19Okay.

3:38:20Let's… we'll start over… over with, Councilmember Cassavis. Thank you.

3:38:24Thank you very much, Claire. I have just one question. I… you mentioned early on the real estate property transfer tax, and I'm just wondering if there are any projections being made, and given the possibility that the tax gets outlawed statewide.

3:38:41We are tracking that very closely. If that happens…

3:38:48it would be 8-9% of our general fund. And so, if the real property transfer tax does go away.

3:38:55We would come back to the City Council and do a very different budget process mid-year. We really, really hope that doesn't happen. It would be very, very…

3:39:05difficult for us to provide the high level of service that we want to for the community. Okay, I just want… I ask just to make sure it's on your radar. It sounds like it is. Yeah, we have a lot of convers… I… I try not to, think about it too much, because it keeps me up at night, and, you know, try not to doomsday too much, but yeah, it would be really bad. Okay, thank you.

3:39:24We'll go to Mayor Pro Tem.

3:39:26just wanted to say something on that, which is, of course, this was a big thing we talked to our legislators about when we were in Sacramento, what was that, a month, two ago, whenever that was. And it… I think that it sounds like…

3:39:40things might not be so bad, and hopefully… they definitely hurt us, and…

3:39:46hopefully we're not gonna get caught up in it. So I felt a lot better after those meetings than I felt going in. So yeah, the city's very much on top of it. And I… although I have lots of questions about the budget, I'm gonna hold them, because we're gonna have future presentations, and I don't want us to get to the 11 p.m. cutoff.

3:40:06Yes, Councilmember.

3:40:08Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your really

3:40:11concise presentation, and that's a lot of stuff to get through, and it was very clear. I have a question about the CIP, and, kind of going through this and hearing some of the public comment this evening.

3:40:26You know, there's, you know, there's a big component of oversight in labor by the city.

3:40:32for each project. Is that calculated in this new software program?

3:40:37Do you mean, like, city staff time spent on the project? Typically, we don't track staff time on individual projects unless there is a reason, potentially, grant reimbursement, that we would track actual hours. Otherwise, typically, we don't track staff time on a project basis. Okay, because I think…

3:40:53The… there's a, you know, common misunderstanding, but that, you know.

3:40:59things happen if it's, like, donated money and donated activity, that there's no relationship to staff time, but I think that's the… that's kind of where the…

3:41:11Our pinch point is, is that we… some things we have money for, but we don't have staff for, and it's like, how do we measure that, and how do we…

3:41:20express that in our… in our budget. And one of the core ways is through the prioritize… the project prioritization process, which is that, Director Ortiz and her team

3:41:31create a CIP that is…

3:41:34to the best of their abilities, realistic to their staff's availability to make those things happen. And so what happens if other projects come in or other grants come in, those things that had been prioritized based on their staff and workload may have to get shifted down. So if there's… even if it's just a small thing.

3:41:51there is a plan, and we never have enough people to get everything done, and so there's always going to be more work than we have people for, and so even small things that come in, it necessarily shifts the rest of the project on the list. So the goal is to get a comprehensive CIP and capital program, knowing that things happen.

3:42:08But that allows staff to plan their workload and plan their time,

3:42:13because of that exact dynamic that we… we simply can't do anything. Like, these giant… can't do everything, excuse me, these giant grants, you know, big transportation grants are so fantastic, but they do take a lot of staff time to administer, so even… nothing is free. There's no free money. Everything has some level of cost and balancing act for staff.

3:42:32Thank you very much. Yeah, I just want to say thank you for the presentation. Looking at what we're dealing with, and I have talked to mayors up and down the state, you know, compared to,

3:42:46a lot of the cities near us, we're doing quite fine. We don't have these million-dollar deficits that… multi-million dollar deficits that our closer cities here have.

3:42:56And we have cities close to bankruptcy that are having difficulties, and they will be making their government smaller. We're not even at that level yet, so we have…

3:43:07Had a head start on,

3:43:09getting our house together and in order, so, just know how much we appreciate your leadership and, and just, more transparency and just letting us know what we need to do. So…

3:43:22A couple of things that, that, I know our city manager is working on. We're one of 27 cities that do have the real estate transfer tax. We are concerned because there are groups that want to get rid of that, and, so know that,

3:43:39We're working regionally and statewide to make sure

3:43:42the other cities and leaders support us, and especially there in Sacramento. Let's go to open comment right now. Now's the time for members of the public to wish to provide public comments on this item. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card.

3:44:00In person, we've possibly taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City Clerk.

3:44:09Do we have any comments?

3:44:12Sorry, we do have a couple requests to speak, I just… we're still trying to figure out the logistics of screen sharing and seeing visually in the room, and I can't get the speaker timer to display in the room, so,

3:44:26We just have two requests to speak, so I will do the timer here, and I will just call out when the time has extended, or has expired. 3 minutes, okay.

3:44:38So, our in-person request to speak is Janet Byron. You want to go ahead and come on up?

3:44:45It is 3 minutes.

3:44:48I'm… I'm Janet Byron, I'm an El Cerrito resident.

3:44:52I'm speaking today on behalf of Brian Richmond, co-president of the El Cerrito Trail Trackers.

3:44:58And myself, Avis Kadrone, and David Giorke, members of the Trail Trekkers Public Paths Committee.

3:45:04Earlier today, we provided a detailed letter, which should have been included in your packet.

3:45:10El Cerrito's 60 developed paths are treasured community connectors linking neighborhood parks, schools, and transit, and they are also important for evacuation purposes.

3:45:21Currently, none of the 60 paths in El Cerrito have signs, and many of these paths are in need of handrails or other repairs.

3:45:29TrailTrekkers has identified 12 undeveloped paths on public rights-of-way.

3:45:34Which we have offered to develop into passable paths at our own expense and with volunteer labor.

3:45:42The City Manager and Public Works Director have shared with us that staff time

3:45:47can only be allocated to public paths if they are included as a priority in the capital improvement program budget.

3:45:56the budget process, Provides the opportunity to make path improvements a high-priority, low-cost investment.

3:46:04One that strengthens community safety and access without competing with major capital projects.

3:46:12First, we request a one-time allocation of $38,000 for public path signage.

3:46:19This number was estimated by Planning Manager Sean Moss.

3:46:23Public Works Director, Yvette Ortiz, and Sustainable Transportation Program Manager Jarrett Mullen.

3:46:30Of that, about $25,000 would be for labor and materials.

3:46:36With the remainder for planning and design work.

3:46:39We also request that the CIP budget include a line item for public path rights-of-way at $50,000 per year.

3:46:48To be allocated for staff time, labor, and materials.

3:46:53We recommend that the staff time be allocated for the Public Works Director to coordinate with El Cerrito Trail Trekkers on building undeveloped paths

3:47:03And assessing current needs for handrails, concrete repair, treads, and other improvements.

3:47:09Finally, we request that the CIP budget include a line item of $25,000 per year for the management of the hillside natural area.

3:47:20To include staff time, labor, and materials, which would include trail design and repair.

3:47:26Non-native species removal and other management needs.

3:47:30Thank you.

3:47:33Okay, and then we have one request… virtual request to speak. Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

3:47:45ira: Irish Arenel, El Cerrito.

3:47:48When it comes to budget issues and tax measures, I am concerned about the lack of transparency.

3:47:54ira: I want to use Measure A, the 2008 pothole repair sales tax, as a concrete example of what inadequate oversight looks like over time.

3:48:05The Citizen Oversight Committee meets approximately twice a year for about an hour each time.

3:48:11The ordinance, Chapter 4.60.150 parens A,

3:48:16states clearly that no revenues may be spent on department administrator salaries. At the committee's first meeting in January 2009, staff confirmed that interpretation, and the committee voted 5-0 to affirm it.

3:48:31By November 2011, staff was telling the committee that the Public Works Director could be billed to the fund.

3:48:39By fiscal year 2018-19, over $91,000 in non-capital personnel costs were being charged annually to a fund restricted to street repair.

3:48:50At its September 2020 meeting, the committee voted to change its own standing rule from requiring members, quote, shall, unquote, review source documents and vendor invoices to, quote, may, unquote, review them.

3:49:05They formally weakened their own oversight.

3:49:08Meanwhile, El Cerrito's Pavement Conditioning Index dropped PCI, dropped from 85 in 2016 to 65 today.

3:49:18While the fund collected roughly $26 million in dedicated sales tax.

3:49:24No one on the Council or the Oversight Committee has offered a public explanation for that decline.

3:49:30I think residents deserve one.

3:49:33We need more transparency.

3:49:35We also need more transparency on the Richmond Street bike lanes. How are they being paid for?

3:49:41Given what was really, asked for on the, from the, from the,

3:49:51ira: Growth Council, A, Parcel A, grant. Thank you very much.

3:50:01Mayor, that concludes our request to speak for this item.

3:50:10to… It's just a… okay, there's not… we don't have… Definitely.

3:50:22Okay, we don't have to do a motion on that, so we'll go to the next one. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Next, we're going to go to transition from at-large to district-based elections for City Council, beginning with the November 28

3:50:382028 general municipal Election.

3:50:55No, I didn't.

3:50:56I'm sleeping a plane.

3:50:58You can hide.

3:51:00Okay, Skype.

3:51:09Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to you and the City Council. I'm Sky Woodruff, your City Attorney. First, I'm going to try to find the correct distance from the microphone to reduce the feedback. We'll see how that goes.

3:51:23I also wanted to, before launching into the presentation as outlined in the slides, I thought I might begin with a few initial comments about this item.

3:51:37So, I think for any… for the Council and for any members of the public who've already read the written report, it's seen the City Manager's update, read the attached letter to the report, you'll understand that the item before Council right now is consideration of adoption of a resolution of intention that would initiate the process of converting the City Council's elections from

3:51:59Current elections, which are called at-large, to…

3:52:02Elections by district, where the city would be divided into city council districts, and council members would be elected, by each of those districts, and would be required to be residents within those districts.

3:52:17This is not a process that's being proposed by staff, as a staff-driven process, it's not something that the Council has prioritized and asked to be brought forward. This is directly the result of a threat of litigation under the California Voting Rights Act.

3:52:32Many cities, across California have attempted to fight these similar demand letters. So far, none of them have won.

3:52:42None have won. There is still pending litigation, which might produce a different result, but so far, cities are batting zero. And they have all paid significant attorney's fees to the plaintiff's attorney at the conclusion of that litigation.

3:52:57And that's because the CVRA, I will use that acronym throughout the presentation.

3:53:02Provides for attorney's fees for a plaintiff that sends a demand to transition to district elections and, ultimately prevails on the issue.

3:53:11Since about 2016, the legislature has capped those fees, and I will talk some more about that, but only if a city that receives a demand letter stays within the Safe Harbor timelines that I will also be discussing.

3:53:25Roughly 6% of California cities, use district-based elections prior to the adoption of the CVRA. As of 2025, that's increased to more than 44%.

3:53:37And that's a direct result, I think many believe, of the state's guarantee that just by sending a letter, sometimes with a statistical analysis attached, sometimes not, will entitle an attorney to what is currently about $38,000 to $40,000.

3:53:53And more, much more, if the city chooses to fight that transition.

3:53:58Unfortunately, the Safe Harbor timeline is extremely condensed. We had 45 days from the receipt of the letter to bring this resolution to you for consideration, and after… if Council adopts it tonight, you'll have 90 days to complete the process of

3:54:15Adopting an ordinance to… of approving an ordinance to, to, adopt a district map and set a schedule for transitioning.

3:54:26My office attempted to negotiate, extensions that are allowed by statute so that there would be a more thoughtful process that could engage the community on this topic and attempt to ensure that people had a

3:54:39thorough understanding, and Council had a reasonable amount of time to consider it.

3:54:44The anonymous El Cerrito resident, who is the potential plaintiff in this case, refused to grant any extensions. And so as a risk mitigation measure to the city to limit attorney's fees to the extent possible, we're bringing this resolution forward to you tonight.

3:54:59So, with those initial comments out of the way, I will launch into this presentation so that Council and the public understands the context for what's being proposed.

3:55:08The overview will expand… here's an overview of what we'll be talking about. I'll expand some on the background, provide an overview of the relevant law, talk about, what this phrase, racially polarized Voting. I will use another acronym, which is RPV, which is racially polarized Voting.

3:55:27Talk some about district-based elections, and then talk some more about the timeline and the action that's being proposed.

3:55:34As I mentioned, the city currently uses an at-large election system.

3:55:38Whereby every… every two years there's a council election, some years there are two seats up for elections, sometimes there are three. Members of the public get to vote for each of those seats, and, if there are three people running.

3:55:57For two seats, you get to vote twice, and, the person who gets the most votes wins for each of those seats. So,

3:56:07It's more complicated than that, but I think everybody kind of understands how council elections currently run. We received this demand letter on March 17th.

3:56:15And it included a claim, with a statistical analysis attached that included some identifiable flaws, which I will come back to, but the letter claimed that the city's at-large election system

3:56:31is racially polarized and therefore violates the CVRA. It demanded that the city transition to district-based elections because of that.

3:56:41So the California Voting Rights Act, prohibits an at-large election system that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election. And forgive me for reading this, but I want to just get the wording correct. A violation is established if racially polarized voting and dilution occurs in elections

3:57:04or other matters submitted to the voters. What does that mean? If a statistical analysis, that uses indirect measures of racial voting determines that a,

3:57:18And a block of voters identified by race consistently votes together, and that they are either unable to elect their candidate of choice, or to influence the outcome of the election in favor of their

3:57:31of their candidate of choice. That analysis, constitutes racially polarized voting, and

3:57:38And is the basis for a claim of a violation of the CVRA. As I mentioned, cities all over the state have received similar letters, challenging their election systems. There has been litigation, and none of them have won.

3:57:54part of the reason that they have not won, to emphasize this point again, is that the statistical threshold for the establishment of, RPV, is highly tilted in favor of plaintiffs. And where there is,

3:58:11conflicting statistical data. The case law essentially directs the, court

3:58:18to, favor the statistical analysis that concludes that there is RPV. So, to put that differently, if a plaintiff shows up with an expert statistician and demographer who says there is RPV, and a city shows up in court with an expert with the same credentials who ran their own analysis and says there isn't.

3:58:38And there is not conclusive, evidence one way or the other. Case law, pushes the court in the direction of ruling that there is RPV, and that's a violation of the CVRA, and the city has to make a change to its election system.

3:58:57As I mentioned, the way that the CVRA has structured this process provides what's referred to as a safe harbor process, which requires the city that receives a letter to,

3:59:13adopt a resolution of its intent to transition to districts within 45 days of receiving the letter, and after the adoption of that resolution, to establish a district-based election system within 90 days.

3:59:27If a city follows that Safe Harbor timeline,

3:59:31which I, as I mentioned, can be extended with the agreement of the potential plaintiff and their attorney. But if the city ultimately sticks with it.

3:59:41The statute caps attorneys' fees, at what is now between $38,000 and $40,000.

3:59:52I think that leads to some fair questions about, you know, what is an RPV analysis? So, and what did the city do in response to having received this letter? My office, retained,

4:00:05a nationally recognized statistician demographer to do an independent review of elections in El Cerrito, both city council and other votes, to provide an independent analysis of whether or not there is racially polarized voting.

4:00:21They reviewed the local and statewide elections, analyzed voting patterns, used several different statistical methods, but ultimately concluded

4:00:32that there is a statistical possibility of RPV related to Latino voters in local elections and statewide general elections. So this is a statistician demographer that my office retained on behalf of the city, did an independent analysis, and reached a similar conclusion

4:00:49Not exactly the same, interestingly, and this is, this goes to the flaws that are in the statistical analysis that was attached to the letter, that, for example, mischaracterized one of the… the outcome of one of the City Council's elections.

4:01:03But the city's own statistician verified the statistical possibility of RPV related to Latino voters.

4:01:11With that in hand, and there is a summary of that analysis, attached to the staff report, the choices between… for the City Council are… are fairly narrow.

4:01:26One is to move forward with district elections. And, as I mentioned at the beginning, what district elections look like is that the city would be divided into several city council districts.

4:01:38Council candidates would have to reside within the district to be elected, and voters within the district would vote only for the city council candidates within their own district. There is a slight var… so one… there are a couple of variations. One is to have,

4:01:55five council districts. Another is to have four council districts with a directly elected mayor who is elected at large.

4:02:05These are… these are questions that… that Council will have to address as it goes through this process.

4:02:11The timeline for district-based elections to stay within the safe harbor, is to, is to

4:02:24Sorry, that's actually on the next slide. Just to address the information that's on this slide.

4:02:30We did look, because this was actually the initial demand, at whether or not it would be possible to transition to district elections in 2026, so this upcoming city council elections.

4:02:42Pursuant to the elections code, and we confirmed this with the county, maps would have to be provided by July 1 of this year. We concluded that was not possible.

4:02:52And so the resolution that the, that is before the Council would initiate a process to begin the transition with the 2028 Council election and conclude with the 2030 Council elections to maintain staggered elections.

4:03:08Here's the timeline that I wanted to discuss to stay within the safe harbor provisions. Between, April 22nd and July 21st, the City Council will have to conduct at least 5 public hearings.

4:03:21approve an ordinance that includes a district map and a schedule for the transition to district elections. There will be, as I mentioned, there will be at least 5 public hearings. City Council can schedule more, but the time frame is compressed. But we have built out an initial timeline that leaves, sometime in April, late June for additional meetings, and the ultimate

4:03:44process again… conclusion again would be to transition it for the November 2028 and November 2030 elections.

4:03:52Before moving on to, the items for consideration, because I know that there have been questions from Council, there has also been some public comment about this, including in the packet, which is, are there any alternatives to transitioning to district-based elections?

4:04:08So, there is some case law that, suggests that, that

4:04:14It… in instances in which there is racially polarized voting, district elections may not be… actually be a solution, and may not be the only solution.

4:04:23There are other voting systems that have been devised and used in other circumstances. I think many people will be at least passingly familiar with ranked choice voting. There are a number of jurisdictions in Alameda County that use ranked choice voting, including the City of Albany right next door.

4:04:41There are other… there are other systems, and the City of San Luis Obispo is in the process of, transitioning to, a limited voting system.

4:04:51that they have an agreement with the potential plaintiff, in their case to allow them to, to attempt this system to, as a means of addressing RPV.

4:05:03There are a couple of important considerations, both legal and, budgetary. The legal consideration is that, as of right now, the California Voting Rights Act provides a safe harbor only for the transition to, district elections. And so.

4:05:21Any of the cities that… any city that moves to an alternative voting system may have an agreement with a single plaintiff that they will not initiate litigation if the city moves to that alternative system, but that does not prevent another plaintiff

4:05:36from filing an independent action to say that ranked choice voting, for example, did not solve the problem, and that the city's election system is still resulting in RPV.

4:05:48So that is… whereas, if a city transitions to district-based elections, it is immunized from further, allegations under the California Voting Rights Act that the city's voting system is resulting in racially polarized voting.

4:06:02That's the legal issue… consideration. The budgetary consideration, is that no jurisdiction in Contra Costa County

4:06:11has yet transitioned to an alternative voting system, including ranked choice voting. We have conferred with the Contra Costa Elections Division, and they have told us that the first jurisdiction that chooses to transition to Ranked Choice Voting

4:06:27We'll have to pay $170,000, to pay for the cost of implementing that system.

4:06:34After that, they will have to pay $70,000 a year, as an annual license cost.

4:06:40and then each time that there's a general municipal election, that jurisdiction will have to pay $100,000 to $120,000 that's in addition to the standard cost of conducting an at-large election. So again.

4:06:54$170,000 one time.

4:06:57$70,000 annually, $100,000 to $120,000 each general election that is in addition to the two… the standard cost that the city pays. This is different from Alameda County. Because they have multiple jurisdictions, the cost of acquiring the necessary systems has already been paid for. The annual license cost is split among multiple

4:07:22jurisdictions. The additional costs are split among those jurisdictions,

4:07:27basically the first entity, public agency in Contra Costa County that chooses to move to Ranked Choice Voting is going to be responsible for these costs, and they will only begin to be allocated once additional jurisdictions move to RCV. So there's a significant financial cost to moving in addition to the legal risks.

4:07:49With all of that said, the recommendation before Council tonight, is to adopt the resolution of Intention to transition to districts beginning with the 2028 general election. The resolution authorizes my office to execute agreements with,

4:08:06a demographer, it will be the same one who did the RPV analysis.

4:08:10For consultant work and software services necessary to transition to districts. That includes providing the city with a mapping tool that will allow members of the public to themselves propose different district maps that can be considered as part of the public hearing process.

4:08:26The resolution would also amend the 25-26 budget to appropriate funds necessary for those expenses. And with that, I'm available for questions.

4:08:36care.

4:08:37I'll look to my right over here. Any questions?

4:08:41right over here.

4:08:43Okay, we have no questions. Any, public comment?

4:08:47Yes, Mary, we do have some requests for public comment on this item. I have… 5 requests to speak.

4:08:56Okay.

4:09:19Okay… I'll go to… our first request is Elise Mills.

4:09:28Louis still here?

4:09:31Okay, we'll go to our next request, Janet Byron.

4:09:34Okay? Bill Barrish?

4:09:39Michael McDougal?

4:09:43Hello, I'm Michael McDougall, I'm a resident of El Cerrito, I'm also on your financial advisory board.

4:09:49the… I don't love this, I don't think any of you love this, but I also think it's a relatively straightforward choice, and I recommend that you vote to adopt this.

4:09:59I've started thinking a little bit about, what it will take to run for City Council, not for myself, but for anyone. So there's some practical things that I think that you should direct the person who's starting to make our maps. We're on a very short timeline. But one thing that I think would make sense is to try not to split along streets. The natural

4:10:18inclination of people when they're drawing these maps is to divide things by streets, and that's a little bit odd when you're actually walking door-to-door to knock on people and ask them to vote. You know, we're gonna have maybe

4:10:305,000 people per district who are voters, and so I ask you to draw these maps through backyards and across streets, and there's some other considerations about staying away from future gerrymandering to just try to make the districts convex.

4:10:48So, those would be a couple of thoughts that I have in general as we're going into this. So, anyway, I'm sorry that we're faced with this hard decision, but I think it's a straightforward one.

4:10:58Thank you. Thank you. Our next request is Jeffrey Wright.

4:11:06Jeffrey, sorry you had to wait till, 10-15, but, it is what it is. So, good evening to you, Mayor Quinto, and members of the City Council.

4:11:17I don't have an issue with this from the standpoint of risk management and the city attorney and the council.

4:11:23Having to make a decision from a risk management perspective.

4:11:30But this has become somewhat of a legal cottage industry.

4:11:35We saw this was the West Contra Costa Unified School District.

4:11:39We saw it also with the city of Richmond. But what I will say is here in the city of El Cerrito, I believe we have a very unique set of circumstances, being a small community, and if you look at the very composition of our city council right now.

4:11:56So I would be one to really question

4:11:59The merits of what's taking place from a legal point of view.

4:12:05I don't want to use the word money grab.

4:12:08But I'll use the word money grab from the standpoint of what is transpiring.

4:12:16So I would like to offer a suggestion

4:12:20to the City Council and the staff.

4:12:23Do what you have to do from the standpoint of risk mitigation.

4:12:29So it doesn't put us in a position where we have to spend an inordinate amount of money

4:12:34But also, I would like to see this city council not just knuckle under, And roll over.

4:12:44We have to play defense right now.

4:12:47But because of the nature of what's going on, I'd like to see two things happen.

4:12:52One.

4:12:54I think some things need to happen on the legislative level as it pertains to the California Voting Rights Act, which Governor Gray Davis signed in 2002.

4:13:05In 2016, the Safe Harbor component was included.

4:13:09So I think maybe something needs to happen from a legislative point of view to take the financial incentive out of it for those who seek to do this just purely to profit on it.

4:13:21And the other thing I think we should do as a community, as a city council.

4:13:27It's just that, let it be well known

4:13:30What the composition of our council is, the diversity in this community, and almost shame those

4:13:37Who would come forward.

4:13:40on a money grab, especially when, in my estimation, it doesn't apply here in the city of El Cerrito. I did look at the statistics, and I know it's a tough statistical game, but I think we ought to flip the script and put them on defense.

4:13:56Thank you.

4:13:58Mayor, that concludes our request to speak on this item. Okay, any final thoughts? I'll start over here.

4:14:05How about over here? Councilmember Martiano.

4:14:08Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

4:14:12City Attorney for the presentation, and…

4:14:17Yeah, we are being held over a barrel on this one, and my biggest concern going to districts is that, you know, we'll be, you know, balkanized so that there's not

4:14:31an approach where we are really thinking about what's good for the entire city. We'll have, you know.

4:14:38Every district kind of… acting for itself, and I think we're too small for that, and I really,

4:14:47very disappointed that a resident of El Cerrito would choose to do this to us, because it's going to be very expensive just to do the mapping anyways, not just, you know, legal fees and, you know, if there is litigation, but, you know.

4:15:03I think that the fact that we have to amend our budget so that 11th hour, we have to, you know, schedule a zillion extra meetings to make this happen. We need to get, you know, track people down and get input for this at a time of year where people are generally pretty busy.

4:15:20So I think that this is just,

4:15:25really horrible, and I wish we could sue.

4:15:31And I know we can't, so I will…

4:15:34Grip my teeth. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, go ahead.

4:15:38Absolutely agree with all of that,

4:15:42it's… we don't really have a choice, because we don't have the funds to… to back up going to court over this, and we know everybody else is lost, and we probably would too. But it's… it's a little bit…

4:15:55Ironic, because the intention of the law was to, you know, protect voting rights.

4:16:02And ultimately, we're… we're gonna end up having probably less competitive elections. We're probably gonna have a lot of elections that aren't… don't have any competition. If you look at the last several elections, in our last election when we were up, you know, there were…

4:16:203 seats open, and only 5 candidates, so if there'd been 3 districts, at least one of those districts would have been uncontested, and maybe 2 of them would have been uncontested, so we're gonna see more. It's actually gonna give voters

4:16:36fewer choices, and I don't know if this El Cerrito resident really thought through what they were doing, but it's gonna mean

4:16:43There's just gonna be people who can stay on the council forever with no accountability, which is the reality when you have systems like this in such a small city, because to find multiple people within 5,000 people that want to be on the city council is… it might be…

4:16:59tougher than this person thinks. So, it's very unfortunate. I wish we didn't have to do it, and I…

4:17:05I especially agree. It's very disheartening that they weren't willing to allow us to actually take the time to do

4:17:12a thorough process, and to our residents, who are now going to be forced to peer interested in this, to come to a whole bunch of hearings in a very short period of time, and to tune in very quickly, I am very sorry. I wish we didn't have to do it this way, and could take

4:17:27our time and do it the right way, but it is what it is. We're being forced to do it, and so…

4:17:32If you're ready for a motion, I'll move the item. Sure, I just want to say, I completely agree with my colleagues on what you just mentioned.

4:17:42Jeffrey Wright, former president of our chamber, I hear you, and I wish we could do something. We do not have the funds to sue. I would love to do that. Maybe we can talk to our Attorney General about attorneys taking advantage of

4:18:00And making bogus, accusations like this when, I truly believe that,

4:18:08you look at the… our body of our council, and you look at, when we get to, when we have to change this to district elections, we won't have this diversity, what we have now, district, you know, citywide. So.

4:18:25This is something that I'm very, very concerned about. They were talking about Latino.

4:18:30you know, in Latinos in our community, which is very small compared to other communities, next to us. We do have a large Asian American population, so our demographics is very similar to

4:18:47the Walnut Creeks and La Morindas and, and, Danvilles and San Ramones. And, so,

4:18:57truly, I do not believe this pertains to El Cerrito, but I see that, someone's trying to, shake us down for funds. So… One thing to add to that. Yeah, just a second when I'm done. I would just… I'm not done yet. So, so one of the things I want to make sure is that,

4:19:16You know, we,

4:19:18We need to let the press know about this, and we need to get the word out, that communities like ours are being threatened.

4:19:27by these bogus lawsuits, by, and they don't have, the guts to even tell us who this resident is. So, the resident who is probably watching us here in this room or on TV, you're gonna make things worse for, the city, and I'm,

4:19:45Sorry that, you're playing dirty politics like this, so… Go ahead.

4:19:50Well, thank you, Mayor. The only thing that I was gonna say, I was gonna encourage those that are watching, and especially those who haven't already read the letter, which is a part of the presentation in the packet, I want you to definitely go back and read it, because it referenced specifically the race in 2022, and I'm not just saying this because I was elected in 2022. However.

4:20:12it is notable that it talks… it points to that particular election that elected a out-Asian-American man to the council and elected the first Black lesbian man in the history of our state. It's using that particular race

4:20:26to try and create this issue in a city where actually the majority of voters, as it says in its own letter, are non-Hispanic.

4:20:34white voters. So the fact that those non-Hispanic white voters elected an out Asian man and a Black lesbian woman, it's incensing. I do… what I do think is gonna happen in this process, we are going to see a lot of things from a lot of parts of our community that are gonna be very uncomfortable. But I do encourage people to go back and read the letter. I do second what the mayor said as far as

4:20:58speaking out and speaking to the present. Thank you, Jeffrey Wright, for bringing that up, because just because we can't sue doesn't mean we don't have the power to actually make the issue widely known and make people actually pay attention to what's happening in a city like El Cerrito.

4:21:13Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve?

4:21:16Second. Okay, we have a motion by, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman, and second by, Councilmember Motayama. All in favor?

4:21:24Aye. Aye. Any nays, abstention, motion passes. Thank you. So next is,

4:21:32regional boards, do I have any updates?

4:21:37Yes, go ahead.

4:21:39Go to the Urban Forest Committee… sorry, Urban Forest Committee on April 13th.

4:21:45The Economic Development Committee meeting was canceled this month.

4:21:48Went to the West County Integrated Waste Management Recycle More meeting on April 19th. I'm also part of a subcommittee there that's met two more times to…

4:21:56Establish financial controls, and review the audit, and financial record keeping.

4:22:02And I continue to have my meetings with constituents. I typically have them on the first and third Saturdays of the month at El Cerrito Natural Foods. However, this last month or so, I've done them more often than that, and often once on Sunday, and then often on other Saturdays.

4:22:17And if anybody wants to meet, feel free to send me an email, and I'll send you a calendar invite and sign you up.

4:22:23Thank you.

4:22:24I'll give my update real fast. I did attend, the stationary source meeting for the

4:22:31Bay Area Air District.

4:22:34I'm hoping residents will attend my meeting coming up, the first Wednesday of May, where we will deal with, the nine Bay Area counties. We'll be dealing with,

4:22:48rule changes and rule updates dealing with electrification. So, you know, this is what we need to do, and we need to get to lower GHDs. And I did speak about that at the last, at the San Francisco

4:23:05Climate Week. But I also want to say we do pay the highest rates when it comes to gasoline and electrical costs. It's going to be even higher if CARB gets their way. They're not… they're being anti-business right now. If our refineries leave in Contra Costa, Contra Costa is in trouble.

4:23:24And we get a lot of tax dollars from,

4:23:28our industry. And, what they're trying to do is, make,

4:23:34refining, done elsewhere, like in Asia. And we all know what's going on in the Middle East. We know what's going on and what could be done in Asia, where we still have the same enemies. They're playing war games right now in the Taiwan Straits. So this is a national security issue. We do need to have our oil

4:23:56refined here in California, where we do this the safest, cleanest way. And, I was getting debates by ideologues, and I know these ideologues love

4:24:07to go on vacation and drive their giant SUVs, but the truth is, most people are hurting right now with the high cost of energy. As President of the League of Cities, our stance for the League is cities demand affordable energy prices. And I know getting to solar will get us there, but this was never to get rid of big oil.

4:24:30Never. So people still need to fly. You know, we don't want to take long bus rides again, like in the past. So I did speak at Climate Week. Tomorrow, we'll be, heading out and driving out. They're taking the train to Sacramento. I'll be there all this week. I'm doing a gubernatorial

4:24:49panel with, Javier Becerra, with Antonio Villagosa, with Tony Thurman, and, possibly,

4:24:59the candidate named Hilton. So, we'll see how that goes. So, a lot of work to do in the Assembly, and we'll be lobbying

4:25:09The executive committee will be lobbying with leadership on both sides, and I know my colleagues here in the Council will be meeting with, our assembly members and senators in the area, so that's my update. Any updates from you? Okay. Thank you, Mayor. I'll go really fast. On April 8th, I attended the ABAC Housing Committee meeting. We had a… we are going to be convening

4:25:34stakeholders for BAFA, the Bay Area Housing Finance Agencies.

4:25:38potential bond in 2028. On April 10th, I attended the meeting with staff, with CAL FIRE to build relationships and to prepare to apply for the next grant cycle. And on April 13, I attended the closed session special council meeting. Thank you.

4:25:54Okay, we are adjourned at, 1028. Our next City Council meeting will be on March, May 5th, 6 p.m. Thank you.