Regular City Council Meeting May 19, 2026

0:00:06Mayor ready to start when you are.

0:00:23Reporting in progress.

0:00:34Okay.

0:00:42The May 19th regular city council meeting is called to order at uh 601. Uh Madam City clerk, please call role.

0:00:51Mayor Kinto here.

0:00:53Mayor Proten Salsson here. Council member Kasanes here.

0:00:57Council member Modiama here.

0:00:59Council member Weisinger here.

0:01:01We have a quorum.

0:01:02Okay. Thank you. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence.

0:01:08I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

0:01:24Uh, madam city clerk um or assistant uh of uh city manager city. So assistant city manager. I will do the city clerk announcements. This hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person or via zoom with closed captioning available. Meetings of the city councelor are subject to the

0:01:48Brown Act and are held for the purpose of conducting city business. The Brown Act ensures the public's right to be heard. And while the city council may not respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to council taking action. For members of

0:02:02the 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 by selecting the raise hand feature on Zoom or by dialing star9 if calling in. In-person

0:02:20speakers will be called first. The council's adopted rules of order and procedure specify that public speakers address the city council in an orderly and respectful manner. Prece their comments with their name and city of residents and be respectful of time limits. Thank you, mayor.

0:02:38Thank you very much. Uh next we will go to city manager Karen Pinkos. Karen.

0:02:43All right. Thank you, your honor. Um I'd like to start off by saying happy National Public Works Week. Um this year's theme is rooted in service and powered by community which I think describes our public works department perfectly. Um the roots of service run deep in public works. We have propelled

0:03:00innovations that have helped our communities evolve into places where people can lead lives of purpose and possibility. And our public works crew works so hard. Some of it is very visible um that you see people in parks or doing landscaping or or all of the things that we are we oversee. And a lot

0:03:18of it is behind the scenes, some of the things you don't see, but they are amazing people. And I want to particularly thank our public works director, Ivette Ortiz, and her entire team for being amazing first responders.

0:03:31We love you, public works. And then secondly, I am speaking on behalf of the city clerk, though she is here via Zoom, but um we wanted to let the public know that we have received a lot of written comments in recent weeks, and we want to make sure that the city council has the

0:03:47ability to review those public comments in enough time for the meeting on Tuesday nights, but we also want to give people enough time to be able to submit those prior to the meeting. We currently have a deadline of submitting written comments by 2 PM. We are actually going

0:04:03to move that to 11 a.m. on the day of the meeting. That way at noon at least we can get any written comments that we've received out to the council and include them in the supplemental packet.

0:04:15That doesn't mean that if you submit comments after that they won't be seen.

0:04:18They just won't make the packet for that evening. So, we definitely encourage people to submit uh comments as soon as possible so that we can get those to the city council uh in advance of the meeting. Um again, anything that was received after the deadline will be

0:04:34posted online after the meeting. And if you have any questions, you can uh contact the city clerk. And with that, that's all I have, your honor. Thank you.

0:04:42Okay. Thank you, Karen. Um next, we'll uh here I will check to my left. Um, do you have any announcements?

0:04:52No for me and none for me.

0:04:54Uh, yes. Go ahead. Mayor Promp, are you going to announce the pride celebration? If not, then I will.

0:05:00Why not? Yeah.

0:05:00Okay. So, uh, the city of Elserto has been raising the pride flag for many years since 2013. Is that it? Um, and we will be doing it again on June 1st at 400 p.m. right here outside of City Hall. We're also adding adding another gathering after that just down the

0:05:18street at Castro Park. We're encouraging everyone, especially families, to come and gather in Castro Park um to celebrate Pride Month. So, I hope all of you will join us and spread the word.

0:05:31Great. Uh anything, Lisa?

0:05:35Thank you, Mayor. I just want to let people know that the Makers Fair is coming again. So that's June 7th from 12:00 to 4:00 at Hana Gardens which is next door to city hall. Thank you.

0:05:46Okay. Um I do not have any uh announcements right now but um I'll I'll speak uh towards the end of the meeting and give you my uh monthly update. Um so we have 9 minutes.

0:06:00It is 6:06. We have to wait 9 minutes.

0:06:04We must begin the public hearing at 6:15.

0:06:06Okay. So can we do other things? Can we do the con?

0:06:09Take public take public comment on items not on the agenda.

0:06:13Okay, let let's do that.

0:06:18We'll do public comment.

0:06:23We'll be at um item five, oral communications of the public.

0:06:27I believe mayor, you have some dialogue.

0:06:30Okay. The next item is public comment.

0:06:34Uh, now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda, consent items, and presentation items. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card using the raised hand feature on Zoom or dialing star9 if

0:06:53joining by phone. Inerson requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residents at the beginning of your comments. Uh, please proceed.

0:07:05Okay, we have one inerson speaker, Mike McDougall.

0:07:12Good evening. It's a much more intimate uh gathering than it was uh two weeks, and I hope you all have caught up on your sleeve from that uh meeting two weeks ago. um you have a recommendation from the FAB on the consent calendar and I wanted to be able to um answer any of

0:07:29your questions and also um provide a little bit of mine not not necessarily as a FAB member but um speaking to the topics that we covered um you'll see that there's a recommendation that we don't go below 26% in any of the projected years but what you probably don't see is that

0:07:47I made two motions before that. The motion that I made before that was that we don't go below 30% in any of the 10 years and I didn't get a second for that. I had two reasons for making that motion. One was to take the temperature of the fab and the other is I actually

0:08:01think that we should seriously consider that as a possibility. I made a second motion saying that we don't go below 28%. And that didn't get a second either. And what you're left with is what we finally were able to all agree on which was that we don't go below 26%

0:08:15in any of the future years. we were all um pretty unanimous around liking the idea of moving to planning for the future using internal service funds and you'll see that as a second motion that that was um uh much more things that we had consensus on. One of the other

0:08:32things I wanted to talk about with respect to the budget um it was scenario D from last week um was that it doesn't seem like the city council is taking the idea of not paying for extended library hours as a serious consideration. And I think that's fine, but I I did want to

0:08:51raise it because we do have Measure C coming up in the ballot which will pay for library hours if it passes, I believe. And if it doesn't pass, it's not unreasonable, given that we spent like $80,000 to move it forward in time to get the information about how people

0:09:08feel about, you know, having a library bond to take that as a little bit of a referendum on how the city feels um as a population about um inperson library services. So, um I I just think that maybe we should consider not extending the library hours knowing that C is

0:09:29coming and that one way or another will either have a city that supports library hours because it's in the measure or at least in some sense you could conclude that that the city as a whole doesn't support extended library hours as kind of a you know as a no vote on C. So, I

0:09:46just wanted to bring that to your attention.

0:09:48Thank you very much.

0:09:58We have one um Zoom speaker Ira Sher now and I will get him on here.

0:10:12Ira, can you hear us?

0:10:14Yes.

0:10:16Okay.

0:10:18Can you hear me?

0:10:21You're a little muted. We're going to try to raise you a bit.

0:10:25Can you start talking?

0:10:27Yes, I've been talking.

0:10:31Can you hear me?

0:10:32Yes, we can hear you.

0:10:33Great. Thank you. Council member Modiama wanted the city website to be the source of truth for parcel tax related costs.

0:10:43How much money has been spent on staff time related to the library project? How much has been spent on consultants?

0:10:51How much has been spent on lawyers?

0:10:54It turns out the city is anything but the source of truth. The Griffin ROM report is dated April 29, 2025, which is before signatures were gathered, but it was not released until January 2026, which is well after the signatures were submitted.

0:11:15How can anyone trust the city ever again?

0:11:19I would like to know who in government knew of the $37.2 million price tag but did not release it to the public. Also, will the developers need a $350,000 loan for parcel C West or have they given up on the project? We aren't hearing from the developers.

0:11:43Thank you very much.

0:11:45Thank you. Is that it with public comments?

0:11:50We actually have one in-person speaker and an additional one right now.

0:11:58Next speaker is Megan Stefen.

0:12:00I'm so sorry I'm a little late. I was commuting in and I got in.

0:12:04No, no worries at all.

0:12:05Yeah, you got in as quickly as Thank you for being here.

0:12:08Yeah. Um I'm Megan Stefen. Uh I live in El Certo. Um, and I've recently gotten more involved uh, and I'm sort of looking at uh, these meetings and um, I just wanted to before we get into things, I want to observe. I want to learn more. Um, but one thing that has

0:12:28come to my attention is that I just uh, living in the city, listening to people, talking to people, I think there is uh, just a lot of distrust. I would like describe the atmosphere among citizens, among like other parents that I speak to. Um, you know, as as low trust. Um,

0:12:49you know, you start a conversation and you say, "I'm going to meet you at the swim center at 1 p.m." and people say like, "I don't believe you. I don't think you'll go there." And I think we're seeing that a lot with Measure C.

0:13:00Um, and I wanted to come here tonight both to like observe what's actually happening so that I can help people who don't have time to come here to understand to like understand what's happening. Um but also just to like encourage both city council um and also city staff, you know, who really work

0:13:19here and devote, you know, full-time jobs to this to making sure that things are more accessible, making sure that things are more transparent. Um and that it's easy for people to learn for themselves, you know, what's going on.

0:13:35You know, why is the budget this way?

0:13:37Why will we be cutting services? you know, like why do we need a tax to fund a library? You know, like why are we approaching it in the ways that we're approaching it? Um I'm I'm like relatively new to Elserto.

0:13:50I moved here 5 years ago. Uh but the things that I see it just like it just appears that there's a lot of trust lost between the city and the people who live here. I don't know if that's new because of the way that Measure C has been rolled out and other things. Um, but

0:14:08this is a small place. Um, and I hope that we can sort of get to know each other better and, you know, get to a place where we can disagree and, you know, that disagreement doesn't mean that someone is bad. You can think someone is wrong without thinking they're evil. Um, so I just wanted to

0:14:25say that before we got deeply into the agenda. I'm sorry I didn't have time to read the whole packet. I know it's really long, but I'm looking forward to listening and learning. Thank you all.

0:14:33Thank you very much.

0:14:36Perfect timing.

0:14:42That concludes our public speakers.

0:14:44Thank you very much. The time is 6:15.

0:14:48And with that, we will go to our second public hearing on transition to districtbased elections. And we have our city attorney here. Go ahead, Sky.

0:15:00Thank you, Mr. Mayor and uh members of the council. I am Sky Woodruff, your city attorney. Um I'm going to uh start off with a presentation about um this uh district election process as I have for the past couple of meetings on this. Um I will hand it off to uh Paul Mitchell

0:15:18from redistricting partners to talk about the districtricting process. um will um have some um additional uh information to provide about um upcoming uh public engagement. And um then we we do have a request for um a few things that we'll sum up with some um some

0:15:37issues that we are hoping council will be able to um reach a decision about tonight um after hearing public comments um as part of the hearing. So with that um I will as I have for um each of these items um provide a little context that is um not contained on the slides

0:15:57themselves. Um I understand that council has now heard this a couple of times.

0:16:01Members of the public who have uh paid attention to each of these um meetings will have heard a version of this. But um in case members of the public are coming to this for the first time, I I feel like it's important based on the feedback from council to um touch on

0:16:15these items. Um what we're going to be talking about tonight is a is a change in the method by which city council members will be elected from the current process. Uh this is not a process that the that the city council itself has directed um to be undertaken. It is not

0:16:32something that is driven by staff. Um it's not even directly driven by state law. Uh it is driven by um an anonymous member of the Elserto community who um retained legal counsel and submitted a letter to the city alleging that under the California Voting Rights Act, uh the

0:16:49city's election process is resulting in what is um defined um in the California Voting Rights Act as racially polarized voting. Under the California Voting Rights Act, um if this is confirmed, uh the city is at significant legal risk um of having to pay substantial costs to a

0:17:08plaintiff attorney um if they are forced to litigate to compel the city to transition from its current atlarge election system to a district-based election system. Uh the city council um retained um redistricting partners to undertake an independent analysis to

0:17:25verify the statistical analysis that was provided by the anonymous residents um attorney and um determined that there is a stat statistical likelihood of racially polarized voting sufficient that that um the city council did need to take this threat seriously.

0:17:42Uh city council has very few choices in this in this situation. Um the um the fundamental choice that is in front of the council is to um retain the existing atlarge system um which as I said and we'll touch on a little bit can result in significant attorneys fees payments

0:18:00by the city. Um it can um transition to district elections and there's some options within that that we will talk about. Um there is some uh there some cities are trying other um election systems like rank choice voting or um single vote systems um but those do not

0:18:21provide legal protections to the city and would incur substantial um additional costs for the city that moving to district elections do not um incur. So with all of that in mind, the city council um opted to initiate the process for district-based elections.

0:18:37And if you can move to the next slide will so just covering again the basics of um the timeline um uh currently the city system is an atlarge system and there will be some more information about this so I won't get into it but I think people who are paying attention um

0:18:53and of course the city council members themselves understand what the system entails. Um every time somebody stands for election for city council um everyone in the city gets to vote for two or three candidates. Um, on March 17th, the city received the letter that

0:19:09I referred to, um, and, um, based on the analysis that I described, um, the council ultimately concluded that it would, um, opt to transition to district-based elections and adopted a resolution of intent declaring, um, its intention to do so on April 21st. that

0:19:26set forth that has started a process that we are in right now um of a series of public hearings that are mandated um and also an an a non-mandated public outreach process that is the city is undertaking to gather input from the public and provide information to them

0:19:42about this transition. The first public hearing was held on May 5th. Um a community workshop was held on May 12th and here we are on May 19th to hold the second public hearing.

0:19:56Uh, briefly touching on this again because there will be more information about it. Um, but as I mentioned, the California Voting Rights Act prohibits an atlarge election system that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its

0:20:11ability to influence the outcome of an election.

0:20:14um if racially polarized voting and dilution occurs, a violation's established and um the city is at risk of of of if it engages in litigation having to pay substantial attorneys fees to the prevailing plaintiff. Uh cities all over the state over the last 10 years have faced the same dilemma and

0:20:34almost all of them have opted to uh transition to district elections. There are now hundreds of cities across California that are using district elections where before they were also using an ATL large system. Uh there has been a there have been a number of of uh

0:20:50lawsuits where cities have attempted to defend themselves. Thus far, none have been successful. Uh there are still cases pending. Um there has been a recent change um in law at the federal level. There is legislation pending before the state legislature that may

0:21:05change the the voting rights act, but the city council has to move forward under the laws that exists today.

0:21:13So, um, as I mentioned, one of the one of the reasons that the city council opted to, um, begin this process is that the voting California voting rights act provides what's called a safe harbor.

0:21:24And what that safe harbor says is that if the city council within 45 days of receiving a letter like the one that I described adopts adopts a resolution of intention to transition to districts and then within 90 days after that um approves an ordinance and maps to

0:21:40transition to district elections, uh the city will limit its financial liability to a statutory amount of attorneys fees that is currently approximately 38 to $40,000.

0:21:53um if the city uh fails to uh complete the process within that safe harbor timeline um or challenge or attempts to uh defend itself against the allegations um that um cap on attorney's fees goes away and if the city ultimately lost that litigation, it would um be at risk

0:22:12of having to pay all of the attorney's fees for the plaintiff, which could run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars um because of timelines that are imposed by state law and the Contraosta uh county elections uh division, it was not possible to complete the safe harbor

0:22:29process um in time for the 2026 city council election. And so um uh the transition um that council will be contemplating will uh take place um in a um staggered manner so that um some dis some council seats will transition to districts in the 2028 election and others will transition in the 2030

0:22:52election.

0:22:54And with that I'm going to turn it over to Paul Mitchell with redistricting partners to um provide the city and the public with significantly more about this process.

0:23:10Thank you very much and thanks for having me here today. Um, this is the second public hearing. Again, this uh hearing, just like the first hearing, is an opportunity for the community to get up to speed with what is happening, for you to hear any input from the community

0:23:24about communities of interest. We aren't going to be looking at maps uh tonight, but the la next time you see me here, we will have draft maps and maps from the community. So, as was described already, the California Voting Rights Act is a law specifically looking at uh at large

0:23:42election systems and conversions to districted election systems. And uh as was mentioned, these lines will not be used in this most upcoming election.

0:23:52They'll be used in 2028 and 2030.

0:23:56What these districts help determine is who will vote for the council members and where the council members have to live in order to run for that office.

0:24:03They don't determine uh how the city provides services or uh which council member somebody has to go to or you know where you can have your movie in the park or something like that. That's all up to you as a council as a city as a whole.

0:24:20the uh at the core of it is the idea of equalizing population. And this is going to be something that that we'll see as we start to look at draft maps and something that the public is already learning uh having started drawing maps.

0:24:34So, while we're not going to look at maps, there are maps up on the the district or website where the community has started drawing. And as they're drawing maps, they're starting to learn like, oh, this equal population thing means that maybe I have to make compromises about how I draw these

0:24:49districts so that they're equally sized.

0:24:51That's important so that people have equal representation and also that idea of one person, one vote.

0:24:59There are things we're going to avoid in this process, namely gerrymandering uh in order to achieve any partisan outcome or to achieve uh any incumbent outcome like trying to draw a district so that uh a council member or somebody who wants to run for council gets their

0:25:19house in the district. None of that stuff's going to happen. And we're also going to uh not be drawing districts to try to advantage disadvantage racial groups.

0:25:29The criteria we're going to be using is from the Fair Maps Act. This looks at districts being equals sized, districts being contiguous, meaning that they're whole pieces. We're going to be focusing on maintaining communities of interest.

0:25:44On the mapping tool, you can not only draw districts, you can also draw just communities of interest and discuss them. The idea with communities of interest is that there might be some group that in the ATL large election system doesn't have much of a voice. And

0:26:01if they're situated in one part of the city, geographically located somewhere like say a renter community or an older community or a um a community of people who like to do uh I don't know some kind of handy work on their houses or sometimes we have areas of a city where

0:26:17there's just like no sidewalks, no street lights, things like that might be a community of interest, something they want to come to the council and and get action taken on. If you can draw a district where they're where the lines are drawn around that community in a way where it enhances

0:26:34their ability to have a voice before city government. That's the goal of the process. So, uh we will look to maintaining communities of interest.

0:26:44We'll draw try to draw lines that are easily identifiable following main streets and keeping neighborhoods together. And then also we'll keep districts compact. And in California law, compactness means that areas of population are drawn next to areas of nearby population. That you're not going

0:27:01and reaching far away population. You're trying to keep nearby populations together.

0:27:07We will not be considering incumbents or candidates or where they live. We will not be drawing to the advantage or disadvantage of political party. We will have a minimum set of hearings which is the five hearings plus we've already had one of our kind of optional workshop

0:27:21hearings. Um and then we're going to be having this information all up on the website and it's going to stay on the website uh for people to look at in the future.

0:27:30Now the mapping tool has been up and it's been getting some good activity with people going and drawing their own maps and their community of interest maps. Uh you can go to the youudrawthe lines.com and uh get to the elserto mapping tool. I do have to say that at

0:27:49this moment there's an outage on Google and so it's currently not up but it will be up later. I'm sure a lot of other sites are down. Uh this mapping tool allows you to go in and draw individual districts, shade them different colors.

0:28:05It's a real easy kind of paintbrush tool. And there's a video up on the city's website of our hearing from last week. Uh that that is a great thing for somebody to go watch if they're interested in drawing districts. It all should show you how easy it is to draw

0:28:19districts. I didn't draw any Elserto districts, but I went into City of Sonoma and I started drawing City of Sonoma districts to show how the tool works. So this tool allows you to draw districts to meet population. also allows you to look at the composition of

0:28:36those districts. It allows you to uh look at other people's maps and make a version of your own from their maps to kind of copy their maps and keep drawing. Um, and it also allows you when you save a map to either save it as a draft or save it as a public map or

0:28:53tweet it or email it and do other things, describe it. You can put your name on it, but you don't have to. All of that is within the tool. At the next hearing, all the maps that are drawn on this tool will be presented to you with a full PDF with all the data tables and

0:29:10everything for each of the publicly drawn maps in addition to three draft maps that we will draw as draft maps A, B, and C and have those be the the consultant maps. and any of those maps at the next hearing, you'll be able to start kind of going through and maybe

0:29:25trying to come to some kind of consensus about the kind of changes you might want to see to maps and also which maps probably are kind of in the in the family of maps you want to consider moving forward.

0:29:40Uh here's where we are in terms of the required five hearings. We're at the second public hearing. The third hearing is going to be the one where we get to see the maps. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions or wait until after discussion and take questions.

0:29:55And I'll just build on what you said, Paul, before we take questions. Um, let me pull up our our screen here.

0:30:18bear with me. All right. Thank you.

0:30:22Um yeah, so just to build on what Paul said, we remain focused on hearing from the community about what communities of interest really matter to them. Um where they think the boundaries ought to be.

0:30:30Um and so there is this very formal process that's been has been described the five public hearings, but we're supplementing that with uh community workshops. I tabled that bike to wherever day. Um we'll be meeting with seniors at the community center and so on. Um and really trying to hear from

0:30:44people, you know, whether it's a social group, ethnic group, racial group, language based group, or other community of interest that they think should have shared representation. Um you know, our demographer and us as city staff and certainly you all as council um would

0:30:57want that information. Um and so we had the first public hearing on May 5th, uh the public workshop on May 12th, and as mentioned, there's a recording on our website. Um this is the second public hearing and you know as we're talking about really the focus is on public

0:31:11input at this time. Um I do want to flag we'll start to get into it um later in this conversation. What we're looking for this evening is ultimately direction. Um it doesn't have to be made this evening or provided by city council but ideally direction on if we're going

0:31:26to move forward with the mapping process with four districts and an atlarge mayor or five districts and a rotating mayor.

0:31:32Um so we'll talk about that and I have some data to share. Um and then ultimately the demographer you know Paul Mitchell and his team will start working on maps. So if there's any guidance you all have this evening beyond just hearing from the community if there's

0:31:44initial sense you want to say from the dis on on how those first maps should be developed now is a good time to to state that. Um, and so I do want to also publicly invite uh anyone interested in this process to come to our community workshop on June 3rd at 6 p.m. That one

0:32:00will be in person right here at city hall um where Paul will be here as well and we can show people how to use that mapping tool. So maybe they're unfamiliar with the software or need a little assistance or don't want to watch the recording, they can just show up and

0:32:12we can walk them through that. Um, I also want to highlight we have paper versions. So, for members of the public or uh just to be aware, we have paper maps and you can actually just highlight which parts of town should be in one district and there's numbers to to show

0:32:25you what population lives in each census block and so you can make balance districts just with an oldfashioned paper map and we have that. Um I have a stack of them here tonight for anybody in the room that would like to do it uh just to get it done tonight. Um

0:32:38following that there'll be the the additional public hearings. public hearing three will where where you'll see the first maps developed by Paul and his team which will be based on many of the maps provided by uh and developed by members of the public and then moving

0:32:51forward in the process toward final maps which are adopted in July.

0:32:57So returning back to that conversation that we're setting up for this evening, I did want to just provide a quick updated slide on that poll we did uh that snap survey we did on PCO and leveraging those tools. Uh we ultimately got 600 responses. Um, and this is the

0:33:10one where we just quickly asked the community, what would you prefer? Four districts and an atlarge mayor or five districts? And so, just to emphasize here, it's an informal, unscientific poll. Um, we didn't do a lot of public education around it. We did inform

0:33:23people about the pros and cons, you know, so certainly there could be some differences after some community education, but it is just an indicator that that's helpful to look at. And what we did see from that is about 60% of respondents said they preferred four

0:33:37districts and a directly elected mayor and 25% of respondents said five districts. On the secondary question of if the city were to move to an atlarge mayor, directly elected mayor, what should the term length be? Uh the favorite was a little less clear, but we

0:33:53saw 42% uh reporting they would prefer 2 years and 34% uh stating four years.

0:34:01But we wanted to give you all some new data uh to inform this discussion. And so what we did is we just analyzed local Contraosta County data. Um so these are the 18 other cities and towns in Contraosta County uh showing that eight of them have district-based elections.

0:34:14So San Ramon, Martinez, Antioch, Brentwood, Richmond, Conquered, Oakley, and Pleasant Hill all have districts. Uh but you can see five of the eight have a district directly elected or at large mayor. Um set another way, three of the eight don't. Three of the eight have

0:34:29rotating mayors. And so what that tells me and just indicates is that different cities in the county are doing different things. There's no uniform one way to do it. Um it you know it's it's fairly split. Um what I'll note here is just an asterisk is that Penol has on their

0:34:44ballot for June 2nd their voters will be voting on if they want to move to a directly elected mayor and their their voters will also choose if that's the case if it'll be a two-year or four-year term. So that you know just to flag that they'll move somewhere else in this this

0:34:58table shortly um or or potentially um and then also on the term of mayor just to inform that conversation if it is a directly elected mayor with a different term uh that too isn't consistent across you know you can see San Ramon does two years uh four of the other communities do four years um so

0:35:17really that just provides backing that there's not one right way to do And just to conclude on community input, we like I said, we have um well, like was said, the we have a website up elto.gov/dists where all this information is available.

0:35:34Uh you can fill out online community of interest forms. Those have been translated into Spanish and Chinese as has much of our public information. Um you can draw the communities of interest or suggested district boundaries uh either on the mapping tool or on paper

0:35:48maps. Um, and again, we are encouraging people to attend our community workshop on June 3rd and and stay up to date with the website. Um, so with that, I'll tee it back or hand it back to our city attorney to kind of tee up the conversation where we're hoping for the

0:36:01council direction as discussed.

0:36:05All right. Thank you all. So, um, in addition, so two main things is for tonight. one is um providing direction to Paul and his team about um about the criteria to consider for uh drawing the districts. Um that's a and after public hearing from the public about that. And

0:36:24the other is um this issue of whether to consider or whether to um direct that the the maps to be drawn um should have five districts which would result in a rotating mayor or four districts with a directly elected mayor. um the the term for the mayor if directly elected um can

0:36:43wait until um closer to the end of this process. But um as we've talked about at previous meetings, um while it's not absolutely necessary that you make the determination tonight about the number of districts, um if we move forward um with considering both as part of the

0:37:00process of of considering the maps, it increases the level of complexity significantly for council as it continues to make decisions. And so it will help the public to know um how many districts they should draw when they're drawing proposed maps and it will help

0:37:13the council um focus its attention on on the on the boundaries of the maps moving forward. If if um everybody understands whether they should be looking at four or five u so we are hoping to get that direction from council tonight. If you're not able to reach a decision um

0:37:28we will move forward with that complexity but uh but it is direction that we were hoping to get. Um, and with that, I think we're ready to move to, um, yeah, to uh, answer questions and then hear from the public.

0:37:43Okay. Um, let me, uh, look to my left here and, uh, you have some questions.

0:37:49Why don't you go ahead, council member?

0:37:51Okay. I'll ask a few now. I may have more later. Um, for our city attorney, I'm curious, in some instances, I see someone can hold on to their office and run for another office and other times they can't. What determines that? And how would that look for us if someone

0:38:06was on the council and wanted to run for mayor? Would they have to give up their seat to run in order to run or who decides that?

0:38:13Um well, uh no one so you don't no one would have to give up their seat to run for another seat. So two scenarios. Um, one is, uh, two general scenarios, although there are a number of combinations, but if we got to the 2028 election and, um, a council member had, um, uh, even had two

0:38:37years left on a term.

0:38:39Um, and the council decided to to have the directly elected mayor election as as part of the 2020 2020 2028 election.

0:38:48The council member with two years left on their term could choose to run for the directly elected mayor position. If elected, they would give up the remaining two years of their atlarge seat at the time that they assumed the office of mayor. Um the the the atlarge

0:39:05city council seat um with a remaining two years on term left would become vacant and the council would go through the statutory process to fill that vacancy which would typically be by appointment or by calling a special election. the person um who filled the vacancy would would most likely um serve

0:39:22out those remaining two years. Uh but the only thing that would cause that sitting council member to give up their existing seat is having been elected to the directly elected mayor. It's similar for um the situation with um uh the transition to the district. If a council

0:39:40member um had two years remaining in 2028 um and um they lived in one of the districts that was um uh on the ballot in 2028, they would then have to choose um either to serve out the remaining two years of their atlarge seat, at which point at the end of those two years,

0:39:59that office simply disappears.

0:40:02um or they could run for their district seat and if elected to the district seat um they would then have a new four-year term um for the district seat. The the atlarge seat would become vacant and that seat would have to be filled by by appointment or a special election and

0:40:19the person who filled the vacancy would serve out the those remaining two years.

0:40:23Okay. Thank you. Um I have a question for for Paul. You mentioned you'll produce I think three three maps and so one of my initial reactions is to feel like you're the most knowledgeable and impartial person in the room. I assume you don't live in Elfto that no

0:40:42okay and I I feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that as a council we decide for ourselves where our districts will be and there like you say there's juryanding jur jerrymandering possibilities. So I'm sort of thinking what's the most neutral way of doing it.

0:40:56So I definitely would take a great deal of interest in what maps you drew, but I realize particularly since you're not a resident of Elsarto, you know, you're relying on communities of interest as part of your mapping process. How do you as an outsider looking in, how do you

0:41:10determine what those communities of interest might be?

0:41:13So uh first off, I try to be as objective as possible. Um there are data that we can look at like um I've heard people talk in the last hearing about uh you know like an area where there's more dense housing, an area where there's more hillsides and homes are more spread apart. That can be

0:41:33objectively something that is a community of interest. Um there's very clear lines that we've seen just on the map of some major streets that can be utilized as ways to um help draw districts that are easily understood meeting that criteria. And then obviously trying to draw districts that

0:41:54meet equal population and are compact.

0:41:56So there's a a number of objective criteria. And then we also will be looking at the publicly drawn maps. And when you do start to put your eyes on the publicly drawn maps, you'll see like, wow, 80% of these publicly drawn maps have this one particular looking district.

0:42:12And sometimes a city has a physical geography in a way that the population is laid out that almost begs like this makes most sense to have a district here because it's a community of interest. It just happens to be the exact right size.

0:42:27And you'll see it repeated in map after map after map. And so what we'll do for the next hearing um and in providing three draft maps is we'll really kind of cheat a little bit off of the maps that have been submitted by the public. We might even identify which maps from the

0:42:44public we use to create our first three maps. And if we're doing four and five if we're in that position, we would have to do six. We'd do three of each kind.

0:42:55Um but hopefully that can be resolved so that we keep it simpler.

0:42:59Okay. And um lastly, I just want to encourage you when you do present your three or if it's six six um to be forceful with forceful with your own opinion to let us know why you know of the three which is your favorite and why and pros and cons of each one. I'm not

0:43:16sure what you're planning to do but don't be afraid of you know exercising your opinion.

0:43:22Absolutely.

0:43:24Or expressing your opinion. That's all.

0:43:28Okay. Thank you. Uh, any questions?

0:43:30We'll go to my right. Mayor Pro, do you know if people have submitted maps so far from the public and do you know how many?

0:43:38Eight or something like that maybe.

0:43:42Oh, great. I just tried to go to the site, but you said it wasn't.

0:43:45We were literally in the workshop and somebody submitted a map while we were in the middle of the workshop. So, yeah.

0:43:50Great. That's good to know.

0:43:53Any questions? Okay. Um, you know, I looked at the maps and uh and and I do see five districts already. Uh, one uh district meaning um you know and and this will be uh mostly renters and homeowners near San Pablo Avenue.

0:44:13Majority being uh uh renters. Um that that could be one district. Uh another district that um uh we can look at is five districts from uh the western uh borders all the way to the ridge. Um and and that can be spaced out and I see um uh our our busy streets as uh you the

0:44:43the borders. So, uh to me that's a a natural uh way of um creating a district. Uh but also you can look at uh schools and uh and neighborhoods where they have public schools and private schools and and you'll see how it is very diverse in different parts of uh the the city. So, um, yeah. So, I, yeah,

0:45:12it's a great exercise, but I'm going to tell you how frustrating it is to get this be one of the cities that are, uh, you know, we have this attorney that is going to every city in California. Uh, and they're making a lot of money from 483 cities. Uh, you know, to create

0:45:31this. It's a it's a big scam and a big shakeddown. I And, uh, everyone knows it. But uh uh and I know why we need to do this and I think it will be a pretty easy exercise. I uh was active at the last uh census that we did back in 2020 um and uh working with uh the League of

0:45:53Women Voters and other nonpartisan groups and uh it was um you know an exercise but they were able to do that with no problem. So, uh, my, um, problem now is dealing with because everything is so political now, what the governor did with Prop 50 and looking at, uh, um,

0:46:17you know, these gerrymandered districts, uh, just because we see Texas doing that, he wants to do the same. So, um I think we can deal with this in a creative way and uh we'll be able to have each I'm looking at five districts and uh and I think we can do that evenly. Um so you know um my question uh

0:46:45is with that and knowing that Elserto you know and uh we're basically it's one party rule here when you look at the census and you look at uh partisanship and and uh we have very few people on the other side uh as in from the Republican side. So, and this is what we

0:47:08see uh in the Bay Area generally. Um you know, I I believe we only have less than four or five uh elected members in Contraosta that are uh Republicans and the rest are Democrats. So, um you know, that that to me shows uh what would happen if we do this in a partisan way, and I certainly don't want

0:47:34to do that. So um yeah, so I I appreciate your um presentation and uh um I look forward to uh collaborating uh more with you on uh this map thing. And when we were dealing with the maps at the last census, it was uh um quite different because we were dealing with

0:47:56congressional districts um and before that we were dealing with uh assembly or state senate districts.

0:48:04So, um, you know, and then Elserto, we go back and forth with, are we going to be part of Alama County and have an Alama County leader or should we, uh, you know, see what we can do to, um, leave Alama County and be part of Contraosta County. That to me is a uh, a

0:48:24choice that I personally wanted because we just don't get uh, the leadership when it's coming from Alama County. they don't pay attention to contraosta. So um you know the the importance of doing this right and and I I truly believe with um so I'm saying all this because I

0:48:43want to make sure our residents um truly look at this and see what is at stake.

0:48:51Um it would just be horrible if we could created a district that would be uh the retail district from the El Certo Plaza to the Home Depot. uh that that would be wrong. I uh so um looking at what we what in my opinion it should be it just five equally based districts from east

0:49:15to west and and that you know we don't have uh minority communities all in one district. We are uh minority communities where we're in every district. So, um, you know, I personally didn't see what, uh, that attorney was saying when, um, we have such a small Latino community,

0:49:38less than 10%. Black community is like what, five or 6%, but we have a large Asian community at 30 plus percent. Uh, so, um, I think if we do it five ways, east to west, west to east, I I think it would be pretty much even. Uh, but I know with um there's a a district on the

0:50:02other side of the freeway that was um for the most part an African-American neighborhood back in the day when I was growing up, but it's quite quite diverse now and everyone lives in that neighborhood now. So, um you know, so um many ways we can do this. So, I just

0:50:19wanted to let our residents know what's at stake and for them to please speak on this and let us know uh what your preference is in the future. So, um let's see. Do you want to um shall we do a public hearing now? Are you guys ready for that? Okay.

0:50:40The public hearing is now open. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk completing a speaker card and using the raised hand feature on Zoom or dialing star9 if joining by

0:50:57phone. Inerson requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. Uh assistant office manager, city manager, go ahead.

0:51:13acting city clerk tonight. Uh we have three speakers, potentially four. Uh the first speaker is Sue Duncan, followed by Mike McDougall.

0:51:32Good evening.

0:51:33Good evening, honorable mayor, city council. My name is Sue Duncan. I'm a resident of El Certo and I am speaking as a private resident tonight. On the topic of creating districts to elect future city councils, I would like to see five districts with a rotation for

0:51:49mayor or each city council member would serve as mayor for one year. My reasons are as followed. If there are four districts with a city-wide elected mayor and that person turns out to be not quite what he or she presented during campaigns, the city would be stuck with

0:52:05a bad mayor for either two or four years. It seems that after a council member has served his after watching uh the city council meetings for seven years and seven and a half years now, it seems that after a council member has served his or her term as a mayor that

0:52:21that person has become more engaged with the council business after the term ends and has a better deeper understanding of the inner workings of the city.

0:52:31Every district would have their member serve as a mayor for a year as opposed to one district mayor for either two or four years. There is always the possibility that the mayor might be inclined to either on purpose or unconsciously favor his or her district.

0:52:46If this should occur, it would be better to have this occurrence for only one year. I know this is a bit of a pessimistic view, but unfortunately can be seen in today's politics. Thank you.

0:52:58Thank you.

0:53:01Next speaker is Mike McDougall, followed by Barbara Chan and Megan Stefen.

0:53:07Hi. I want to reiterate some things that I said last week, um, which is and and it's been borne out by just me walking around town. I was going to the actually to I forget it was like Walmart or something like that and somebody was pamphleteing and I had a conversation

0:53:21with them and I said, "Oh, hi. I'm Mike." So on and so forth. and he he uh said that he was a former council member and that he'd run unopposed. Uh which I think is is surprisingly common in a small town like this. One of the things that is going to be super challenging if

0:53:39we have five districts is to find five people who are interested, who have the time, who are talented. Um, and so I I I share the fears of our last speaker that we could get a terrible mayor, but I think we also have to leave open the possibility that we get a great mayor

0:53:57and they get better and better at it over four years. Um, you know, you can approach this in in a couple of different ways. Now, with respect to um having a big talent pool, one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is that um I do think that the um

0:54:14people who've been on the city council, who become mayor and who move back to being on the city council, are going to be better at their job. When I became a manager, I became a better employee afterwards. It's just very natural. One of the things that I I don't know enough

0:54:27state law and so I'm looking to sky for this is um if it's possible to offset the election of the mayor and the election of city council so that um perhaps city council over time you know this might be illegally a bit complicated but it'd be great if the mayor's race was separate from the city

0:54:47council race so that again I want to have a big pool of people if you run for mayor and you're not there it'd be great if on the odd year you could be on the city council, one of the four city councilors. Um, Rebecca, last week you talked a little bit about how, you know,

0:55:03this is a big job. And I think being a mayor would be even bigger a job. And I want to say that I fully support the idea that if we do move to a mayor to make it like more of a job, um, something that we would would pay more than the token amount that you all get

0:55:21for um, what you're doing. So, uh, I wanted to I wanted to just raise that as a possibility. We might have a professional mayor. Um, that said, I'm not going to resent anybody who votes for five districts. I think that there's I mean, I've been going back and forth.

0:55:37I'm speaking like I have a really, really strong opinion. I have a weak opinion, a weak preference for four because I think talent's going to be really important. But if any of you fe people want to stay closer to the current system with just five, I totally understand that and would support that

0:55:53as well. Thanks.

0:55:54Thank you.

0:55:58Next speaker is Barbara Chan followed by Megan Stefen.

0:56:08Good evening. Uh I'm Barbara Chan and I've lived in Ellto since 1987.

0:56:14Um, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to respond to the online survey. So I just came to say tonight that I am in favor of five districts with five rep representatives on the city council. And um I think that a rotating mayor serves our city best because it gives each

0:56:35council member an opportunity to serve as the lead of our city. It also prevents the concentration of power in one person over a period of time, whether it's two years or four years.

0:56:49Um, and I think, you know, we're a small town. We're not Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, or Richmond. Um, and we need to steward our tax dollars because we have so many competing priorities here that we need to spend money on. And I would hate to see that people running

0:57:07for office would have to go out and raise tons of money just to hold a seat um as a public servant. And I do believe that that in our town of 25 maybe going to 26 27,000 at some point in the near future that um sitting on the city council is still a public service and um

0:57:28should not be seen as um a jumping point for um money and power to some other opportunity. So thank you very much.

0:57:41Thank you.

0:57:42Thank you. The next speaker is Megan Stefen.

0:57:48Um, hi, I'm Megan Stefen. I live in El Certo. Uh, I wanted to say that, um, I hear the concerns of other folks about the talent pool even finding, uh, five people in each separate district who want to run. And I'm sure that I've missed something earlier, but um there

0:58:07seems to be some tension between not wanting to sort of lock in a mayor who we're not sure about, who would set the city agenda, and who maybe we would sort of have buyers remorse about. Um and then also being worried that it's hard to find people who would want to run for

0:58:24city council. Um and I know that there are such positions as at large council members. Um, and I wonder if the city has considered this at all, drawing four districts and then having one person run as at large. Um, and not having uh council member Saltzman or Mayor Prom

0:58:43Saltzman is making a face. So, I assume yes. Um, but I mean I think that might uh sort of be an option where we're not uh where we have sort of like a more flexible seat that doesn't come with any additional power. it just comes with more responsibility and more

0:59:00constituents. Um, and we can still have our sort of rotating mayor system that seems to be working just fine. Uh, I think when I look at this, um, I I hear what, um, was said a sort of like prelude that like we're being forced into this. It seems very complicated um,

0:59:19for a city of our size. It seems like a little unfortunate. And I think that if we can find a way to make it as simple as possible, you know, four districts, another council member that could come from any district, uh, and no changes in anyone's responsibility, no changes in

0:59:36anyone's power, like a similar thing where power rotates, uh, that might be a nice compromise if it's possible for, you know, the city attorney will say whether or not that's even possible.

0:59:47Thank you very much.

0:59:50Okay, that concludes our in-person speakers. We have one speaker on Zoom, Ira Share now. I will unmute you, Ira.

1:00:02Ira, can you hear us?

1:00:05Yes, I can hear you.

1:00:06Okay.

1:00:07Just a quick comment. I support having five council members because for two reasons. One, I'm concerned that we may get a better mayor. And second, I think council members like to be mayor. So without the option of being mayor, the people who run for council may not be of

1:00:27the same qualities we're currently getting. So for both reasons, concern about a uh poor mayor and uh lessening the interests of people running for the council, I support five council members as we have now. Thank you. And it's Irish Aronel Elser. I'm finished. Thank you.

1:00:49Thank you.

1:00:50Thank you. And that concludes our online speakers.

1:00:52Okay. Uh do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

1:00:56I'll move.

1:00:58Um a motion by Motama, second by Saltzman. All in favor?

1:01:02I.

1:01:04Any nays? Abstension. Motion passes. Uh so we'll bring it back here to uh council comments and discussion. We'll go to Mayor Prom.

1:01:15Um, first could Sky address the question which I also brought up early in the process. I asked the same thing. So, could you address that about that large district?

1:01:26Oh, yeah. The the California Voting Rights Act gives the city council two options. Five five districts or four districts with an atlarge mayor. There's simply no uh statutory uh option within the safe harbor provisions for four four districts and one atlarge district. Um,

1:01:46now that said, um, the because the city is a charter city, um, with a charter amendment, it would be possible to structure things that way, but the city would be outside of the safe harbor provisions if it did that. And there would have to be a separate vote on on

1:02:01um on amending the charter to create that uh process because right now the city charter says that the city will um follow the elections rules for an ATLAR for a general law city.

1:02:15Um, thank you. And then, uh, I have a comment about communities of interest. I think it's something worth looking at. I don't think you could keep them whole, but it's a group worth looking at, which is where the school lines fall, particularly for elementary schools

1:02:31since for high school and for um, middle school, it's much bigger. Um, but those are certainly existing communities of interest where sort of neighbors are already sort of planning around. So, I think that's worth looking at. And especially thinking about how we have sort of ridiculous lines for our

1:02:51city where Richmond annex is really in some ways more part of our city than they are part of Richmond. And they, you know, spend a lot of their time here.

1:02:59They go to school here. And so having a district that includes a lot of the Fairmont area, Fairmont Elementary, which includes Richmond Annex, I know again they're not part of El Certo, but I I think it is important to think of because they depend on us for after

1:03:14school services, things like that. So I think that is one area that's worth looking at.

1:03:21Okay. Do you have any comments or questions?

1:03:23Yes. Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you for all the presentations and the rep repetition is clearly good because I think we get different people every time and um to address the last speaker or this this second to last speaker about the timing on this. I think uh my

1:03:42understanding is that other cities have gotten like a year to do this. So we are trying to do this in a really compressed time frame and you know that is because we could not get an extension from the person who wants to sue us. Um so I think this is why we're it's it's

1:04:02there's a lot going on. So, um I think that, you know, I agreed that school district areas or elementary school catchment areas are a really good way to look at um a community that's already kind of in in place. Um I think five districts is the way to go. I think it's

1:04:21cleaner and I think the rotating mayor is, you know, part of what we do here and I think that would be great. I'm concerned that if we had a directly uh elected mayor that a lot of responsibility would devolve to that person so that you really had one sort of person doing a lot of stuff and four

1:04:44people that are not and I think that that kind of doesn't work out in the long term. So that's that's my comments.

1:04:52Okay. Uh go to my left. We'll start with council member.

1:04:56Yes. Thank you mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. I don't necessarily have too much of a strong preference between the five districts and the four. Um I do definitely agree with what Sue and a bunch of other folks have said as far as the the training

1:05:10ground of um being a mayor. I've heard it so much this year how much of a different council member I am after one year as being mayor because like I say all the time, anyone can get elected and represented representative government is having the opportunity to and taking the

1:05:26time to learn the position. And so I definitely do um understand and support that. I do know that sometimes people want to go with the will of what the survey said and the community definitely has said that they do want four um districts and a mayor, but I feel more

1:05:42stronger about the idea that if we did go to a directly elected mayor. I don't think it would serve us to have a two-year mayor. Um, and I I think that um, council member, I'm sorry, mayor pro Tim Salsman raised this at the last hearing, and I just want to bring it

1:05:55back that if we did have a directly elected mayor, that's definitely going to change the type of compensation that we would have for a mayor and for a mayor who essentially is just going to be a figurehead and an agenda setter. I don't want to minimize it, but I want to

1:06:09remind people that and some of the folks who filled out the survey may not understand just because we go to a directly elected mayor, there's still not going to be a a strong mayor. We will still be a city that has a mayor or city manager um b sort of um governance.

1:06:25So, you would look more to the way that Richmond is set up that has the excuse me um the districts and the mayor and and the way that you know the mayor does definitely go and represent the city and sets the agenda and has a certain amount of power but not necessarily a strong

1:06:40power and I think that maybe even in future um workshops I don't know if will if you all explain that I think it's definitely worth explaining that particular component to the community because many people don't understand the difference between mayor mayors and

1:06:56strong cities and weak mayors. They don't even understand the difference between a San Francisco that doesn't have council members, why they have board members and not council members.

1:07:03So, we have to remember that a lot of this is going to be teaching folks um local government in real time in the next 90 days. Um so, you know, I can go with the five districts, I can go with the four, but I think that as we're going along the way, we need to do as

1:07:17much um education as possible. I feel like there was one more point that I wanted to make in there and I don't recall what it is, but um I don't like I said, I don't have a very strong opinion on it, but I do definitely value the experience of having the f the five

1:07:31district mayors. I'm sorry, the five district Oh gosh, not five district mayors. Well, it would be five district mayors essentially.

1:07:39Yeah. So, yes, thank you. I'm complete.

1:07:42Okay. Uh council member, go ahead.

1:07:44Thank you. If you remember your other point, I'm happy to seed my time to you.

1:07:48Um, yeah, I I agree with almost everything that's been said here. Uh, even though you didn't have a strong opinion, council member Winger, you made a very convincing argument for the five districts. Um, yeah, I just re reiterate some of them. Um, I think it's definitely beneficial to have served as

1:08:04a council member before serving as mayor. It's, you know, it's a learning opportunity. I would be a little bit nervous about someone who's not not been on council who jumps into the ring by running for mayor right away. I think there's a risk that alluding to what council member

1:08:18Weissinger said that people don't understand the difference between a strong mayor and a weak mayor and a strong city manager and weak city manager and all that. And it may be that some of the people that are elected to mayor don't understand that. So I think it confuses the role a little bit to

1:08:33have one citywide elected person. Um I'd be worried about that. To to the point made about talent, I would argue that that's not necessarily true. that one of the things I found running for city council without a lot of money. I did a tremendous amount of walking through the

1:08:49city, which was difficult to do. It was difficult because I'm balancing my time with work. It's just a lot of ground to cover. If we have five districts, it's much easier to get to know the community that you're in and the neighbors that you live with and that, you know, your

1:09:02district. So, I think that actually makes it more accessible. One, because the cost would not be the same. you know, reaching out to 5,000 voters is much or 5,000 residents is much different than reaching out to 26,000 residents in terms of just mailing costs and flyers and walking and all that. Um,

1:09:19and so yeah, I just I think that actually you might attract more talent. It might be it might make it more accessible to have a smaller district available to you. Um, and that's all for me. Okay, I think my point and it is similar to what you said, council member Cassinis,

1:09:35is that I don't think that we should make our decision based on this idea that people will not want to run. I mean, it might not be in 2028. Um, it may be a few years down the road, but someone always rises up to run. It's always it's it's a thing. So, I think that we shouldn't include that in in

1:09:51whether we um whether people are going to run for districts and even the idea I mean my thoughts about whether or not Elserto voted for a directly elected mayor are a little different. I have more concerns about even though we've elected this this um very diverse um

1:10:09city council, directly elected mayor races are very different. I've said this, let me say this very carefully from this day as I've said this about other cities who may have directly elected mayors. It probably won't turn out the way that people think once they

1:10:22get an directly elected mayor just because of the way strategy and who actually can raise money. Raising money is very important. Um there's so many factors that goes into that. So, I personally have concerns about whether or not we would have a diverse pool of

1:10:38mayor applicants if we actually did go to a directly elected mayor here in El Certo.

1:10:44Yeah, I very very much appreciate uh what my colleagues uh mentioned. You have another state u go ahead.

1:10:51Thank you, mayor. And uh I do agree I want to say that I do agree with uh the speaker Barbara Chan because we don't have a budget that is going to be good enough for a salaried mayor. I think that that concerns me cuz once the the mayor gets more everybody else wants

1:11:12more and it's just this kind of this is not what we do here. This is not that kind of town. And I think uh there's always that pressure to say, "Oh, well, the mayor needs an office. The mayor needs staff. The mayor needs a higher salary." You know, I mean, there's it

1:11:28just doesn't end. And I think I don't want to go down that road. And I I like to think that, you know, we get stipens, $621 before taxes, and you know, that probably isn't enough, but I think it's good enough for the kind of budget that we have.

1:11:47Thank you for that. Um and Barbara, thank you for your comments. Um one of the things I wanted to mention, um you know, for for many many years, this city has been very very insular. We've only had a couple of mayors that that went regional, uh and it's it's Mr. Barky and

1:12:03Mrs. Barky. Uh Janet did it a little bit, but uh you know, uh in transportation. So, with what I do as mayor and a council member here, I actually lose money doing what I'm doing as president of the League of Cities, uh, you know, the 13 big mayors are on my board, and I'm doing exactly what big

1:12:25city mayors are doing, and little Elsarita can do this. And I'm doing that for uh, Contraosta LFCO Commission, the first Elsaren since uh, Rich Barky. Uh, you know, Jane Barky was head of Abag.

1:12:40And it's great to see uh Lisa Motayyama on the executive committee of that and and housing committee and and to see my colleague the mayor prom uh taking the lead on transportation. So, um this is what makes uh being a council member and a mayor worthwhile because uh but it is

1:13:00a lot of work as you know there's a lot of times I can't attend a lot of these social things here because uh I'm going through meeting to meeting to meeting I'm flying to Ontario to meet with three divisions tomorrow. I was in San Diego uh with uh the heads of Janentech for

1:13:18their uh 50th anniversary. Uh and and these are things that I actually enjoyed doing giving a small city's perspective on what is happening statewide and and it's the little cities that can do these regional things. But I have to tell all of you, you have no staff helping you.

1:13:38Uh you make your own travel plans. Uh you don't have assistance. Um whereas uh the previous presidents of the league uh mayors of San Francisco and Sacramento, Los Angeles, Mayor Bradley, uh Alex Padilla who's a former president of the league, um they they always had a full

1:13:57staff helping them. Last year's president, she had a whole staff of people. I'm doing this just on my own.

1:14:04And it's very fulfilling because you get to do this and you need to make your mark on what happens statewide. And uh and and this is what I do on the airboard as well. So um I don't think anyone with a full-time job will be able to do that. It's a lot of work, a lot of

1:14:23traveling. I don't put in a lot of reimbursements because this is my way of giving back to the city. But an elected mayor, we do not have the funds for that. Uh we have sacrificed. I have sacrificed for 12 years now. All those years we should be making uh a larger

1:14:44stipen. But uh this council has made the sacrifice year after year after year.

1:14:50And uh we're getting a little tired about this because we are one of the lowest paid uh councils. Uh, and there was a state ruling where small cities we should be making $1,100.

1:15:03I know councils, uh, city councils at San Pablo, uh, they're getting that, but they're getting healthcare as well. We get, what do we get? You know, it's a lot of work. And a lot of our residents don't know what I do, but I'm telling you, it is a rewarding thing. If

1:15:21you want to do this, I encourage people to run. Um, but uh you're not going to get any help monetarily and and staff-wise. We have a skeleton staff. I appreciate uh the city clerk who helps me now and then, but uh uh it gets frustrating uh when uh you have to travel all the time and I travel a lot

1:15:42and uh so I want to let the audience know um you know why I do this and this is to give back to the city where I grew up in and that's Elserto. So, uh, I spoke to, for example, one of the small business owners that just opened a business here. Wanted to find out what

1:16:01what the vibe of Elserto was. And uh um and I you know I did tell him about what happened with Flock and uh you know with public safety always and this is why I'm a stickler and I disagreed with my colleagues is because uh of what I've experienced and of what uh my neighbors

1:16:22who got killed who were small business entrepreneurs and you never forget that.

1:16:27So, as mayor, you're you're the one I had to go there uh when I was a commissioner and I had to speak to the people uh who lost their spouse and uh you know, and that's part of the job. Uh a lot of the uh bad news that is happening. Uh you're responsible for that, too. So, I want to make sure that

1:16:48uh folks uh most of us have been mayor here before uh once before. So, I look forward to having everyone have a chance to be mayor. So, I truly believe the five district would be the best. If we had a little more money, uh I I would support that. But I um just want to let

1:17:06you know, look at the cities of Walnut Creek conquered successful cities like Elserto and and they take the lead just like we do regionally and statewide. uh they have no problem with uh not having a strong mayor and uh that is the problem that they've had in Oakland. So

1:17:27they're trying to change uh their uh uh you know their charter there. Uh San Francisco is trying to do the same thing. So uh I think what we have and what we'll deal with in the future will uh uh I prefer a five uh district council. So, I wanted to check with the

1:17:46uh city attorney. Do you have enough information for uh for you and for the demographer to uh um I I I think we ha I think I've heard um I think it would be helpful to have a motion on on the number of districts. I I think I don't want I think normally you know we do we we're okay with direct

1:18:08with with sort of taking direction informally but I think on this matter it would be helpful to have a motion on it.

1:18:14Um uh so we have it clear for the record and for the public.

1:18:17May I have May I have a motion then?

1:18:18I'll I'll move that we move forward with uh five districts and a rotating mayor.

1:18:23Second.

1:18:23Okay. You have a motion by the mayor Po Saltzman and second from council member Wisinger. All in favor?

1:18:29I.

1:18:31Uh Sky, do we have to do a roll call vote? We don't need a roll call, but just make sure there are no there are no nays or abstensions.

1:18:37Okay. Any nays? Extensions. Motion. I have a question. You mentioned rotating mayor. It it doesn't set the rotation in stone in any kind of way. It's just broadly speaking.

1:18:47The ro the rotation is council policy and that will not change. I think I I take the motion to be a statement about about current practice rather than a a legal obligation because that's not actually part of the voting rights act.

1:18:59Okay.

1:19:01Yeah.

1:19:03And then unless council has any other direction about about communities of interest or or map drawing, I think I don't that think we have what we need.

1:19:11Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

1:19:16Okay. Next we have uh oral communications from the public. The next time um now's the time for members.

1:19:24We actually already did item number five.

1:19:27Sorry.

1:19:28uh presentation with uh marine clean energy and we have uh Kiara Donado.

1:19:38Hey, good evening.

1:19:55Hi. Good evening everyone.

1:19:58Thank you, Mayor Quinto and Mayor uh members of the city council and city staff for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Kiara Donado. I'm the community development manager at MCE. I've been there for three years now and serve as a staff liaison um to

1:20:14public officials in Contraosta County.

1:20:17I'm glad to be here tonight to share some updates about MC's engagement efforts in the city of Elserto and discuss potential partnership opportunities to help the city meet their goals to reduce energy related greenhouse gas emissions. As a quick refresher, MC is a community choice

1:20:34aggregation program. We enable cities and counties to purchase clean renewable electricity on behalf of their residents, businesses, and municipal facilities. The city of Elserto is a member of MC's joint powers authority and we've been providing electric generation services and customer

1:20:52programs to the community since 2015.

1:20:57So I'd like to start with a brief introduction of what community choice in California is. MC established the very first community choice aggregation or CCA program in the state after state law was passed to make this a new type of energy provider possible. We are a

1:21:13not-for-profit public electricity provider serving customers in Contraessa County since 2013. And since our launch in 2010, CCAs have grown across the state with now over 25 agencies now serving over 15 million electric customers.

1:21:34How MC works. So to be better illustrate the MC model, um I have this visual here. Um you can see MC replaces PG&'s electric electric electricity generation service.

1:21:48Um so what that looks like is on the left is the customer whether at home or at your business you plug into um more renewable energy sources at home. You have cleaner air, more stable rates, more choice and local control. Um PG continues to be a partner that delivers

1:22:05the energy, maintains the lines and sends the bills to your home. And then on the farthest right, MC is buying and building clean and more renewable energy in our communities and throughout the state for you.

1:22:19And here you can see a little bit of MC's growth. So MC launched originally in Marin County in 2008 with a vision to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And by 2010, we began serving our first customers, setting the foundation for our growth. Today, we're proud to now

1:22:35serve 38 diverse member communities throughout the Bay Area, reflecting our commitment to expanding our reach and encouraging widespread adoption of renewable energy. And highlighted here, you can see Elserto when they joined in 2015.

1:22:54So, as I mentioned, MC is a notfor-profit and what that means is that MC is an agency that is not funded by tax dollars, but directly by the revenues from rateayers. Our structure as a joint powers authority creates local oversight and transparency through public board meetings. We are directly

1:23:11governed by elected officials from each of the 38 member jurisdictions that we serve.

1:23:17Each city, town, or county that MC serves appoints an elected official to represent their community. And our board meets monthly at public meetings to determine policy rate, programs, and administrative decisions for MCE.

1:23:31A quick thank you to Council Member Weissinger for serving on our board and Mayor Kinto, who served many years on our board as well. Thank you for your climate leadership and serving on our board of directors.

1:23:42Over the next couple of slides, we'll talk quickly about your energy options.

1:23:51So, with MCE, choices power. Before MCE, there was only one choice. Um, with MC, you now have a choice in whether you can choose to get your electric generation from PG&E or choose from MC's options.

1:24:07As you can see on the slide, MC offers two main service options as an alternate to PG&Es.

1:24:13We have our um 100% renewable deep green service. So that's made out of 100% renewable product from wind and solar.

1:24:21And then we have our default service. So when customers join MCE is our light green or 60% renewable default service.

1:24:29And as you can see um the alternate P Gen provides a 23% renewable product.

1:24:38So a little bit about understanding how MC's rate structure works. There are a few points to understand. MC rates are only for generation. So that means only where your energy comes from. We set our rates for electric electricity generation typically about once a year

1:24:54and all rates are reviewed publicly by MC's board of directors and improved in a voting meeting.

1:25:02Most recently, um, our board actually voted, effective April 1st of this year, to reduce our rates by 14%. And they also voted to implement a temporary bill credit. In addition, MC's board also approved an additional $10 million in funding for what we for a program that we call MC's

1:25:22Cares Credit. Um, this is a bill relief program for customers and small businesses providing up to a $20 uh a month bill credit. And this is on top of any customers who are eligible for the the care um programs that are available as statewide programs.

1:25:40We understand electricity bills in California are on the rise and MC knows families and businesses are feeling the impact.

1:25:50Here you can see a residential rate comparison.

1:25:54Um, in this example, a residential uh rate cost comparison, excuse me, based on the average uh residential usage in our service area, you will see the three options that we discussed previously broken down. So, we offer the 60% and 100% renewable options at competitive

1:26:13rates, or you can choose to stay with PG&'s 23% renewable service as well.

1:26:19Where you see the biggest difference is on the PG& fee lines. This charge is known as the power charge indifference adjustment or PCIA for short. This is an exit P an exit fee is from PG& who entered into energy contracts assuming they would be purchasing power for your

1:26:36community.

1:26:38And you also see across the board um the same charge for the PG electric delivery. So this is the charge to deliver over the lines.

1:26:49Now moving on to engagement um with the city of Elserto.

1:26:54I want to talk a little bit more about our community engagement here and how customers benefit for MC programs, rebates um and other benefits for Elserto. What this looks like is customer enrollment participation is actually at a 92% um deep green enrollment. So that 100%

1:27:15renewable product folks are enrolled at 11% um throughout the city. 13% are enrolled in our solar programs. 11% are on the care discount and 2% are using the medical baseline program.

1:27:32We're always trying to make sure that folks are know about the options and the programs that are available to them to have bill relief. So, whenever we're out in the community, um always bringing flyers, always speaking to folks, and making sure folks are aware what they're

1:27:46eligible for. On the right side, you'll see um community benefits. So, what that's looks like is EV rebates distributed up to $260,000.

1:27:57So, that's rebates back into folks who either purchase or lease an EV um EV or plug-in type of hybrid um vehicle. We've had over six EV ports installed using our EV charging rebate program and $21,000 backed um in that rebate program. And then separately for energy

1:28:17efficiency rebates, we've distributed over $244,000 um to customers for who use like our home energy savings program. So those are programs that do energy efficiency upgrades to your home. um and other programs available to lower the energy consumption and make sure you have

1:28:35safer, cleaner homes.

1:28:39Separately, some of our engagement efforts have look like local sponsorship. So that looks like Elsio's birthday celebration most recently, Elsio's Fourth of July celebration, and then also being members of the Chamber of Commerce. Um we're always looking for other ways in other community groups to

1:28:55engage with. So if you have any recommendations, please share. Um and then partnering with city staff. So Elserto city staff joins in our new quarterly contraosta staff working group um hosted um by myself and then joined by the other member communities in Contraosta County.

1:29:15And then just a quick review of um we have various customer programs available for both businesses and residents. Some of them are around the EV charging rebate program that I mentioned, which is up to um $4,500 in rebates for installing EV charging either at a

1:29:33workplace or multif family properties.

1:29:36We have energy efficiency and demand response programs available for businesses or other type of facilities to reduce energy during peak hours. And then we have strategic energy management programs to with behavioral changes that really help folks save money and

1:29:50conserve especially during the hot summer months that are coming up.

1:29:57And then I wanted to share um another exciting program that we're focusing on at MC. Um we're always looking for new technologies and moving into the future.

1:30:07So one of them is our virtual power plants. Um, a couple years ago in 2022, MC actually, uh, working with the California Energy Commission and a couple other partners and the Richmond were able to pilot a virtual power plant. So, what this looks like is what they call distributed energy resources.

1:30:27So, that looks like in a home um whether it has, you know, EV charging available in the garage, solar on top of the roof, a battery storage on the side, um, even the smart thermostat. So, making sure that all of these little energy resources now talk to each other through

1:30:43technology and giving um the ability to then power on or off or lower um when the grid is demanding more energy. So, what this does is not only help our grid conserve energy on days when it's needed more, but will also benefit um customers by giving them some sort of incentive.

1:31:03So, this program has now expanded into the rest of our service area. Um our team is proactively reaching out to customers who qualify or have these type of technologies and we're hoping to enroll customers throughout this year.

1:31:19So with that I will conclude my presentation um just by saying that MC is the first and longest running operating CCA in the state of California. We were built by energy customers for energy customers and we have set the standard for many other CCAs in operation today. We value envir

1:31:37environmental responsibility and care for our customers through our community model. Thank you so much and happy to take any questions.

1:31:46Great. Thank you Kira for a great presentation. Um you know I uh former vice chair uh I've been on the board since uh we joined uh MCE 2015. So uh it it's great to see what uh this group has evolved and uh since you are the first uh CCA I consider MCE clean energy to be

1:32:12uh the gold standard of CCAs and I've attended the CCA conferences. Uh uh we were able to deliver for MCE when I traveled out to Washington DC for earmarks uh with EV charging um working with the Department of Energy and then working with members of Congress that are uh

1:32:35part of the MCE uh area and uh uh it's a great group.

1:32:41One thing that um I noticed um is that we are having an all-time high of uh people that are late in paying their bills and so um uh can you tell us a little more about the care uh program and the other programs? Um you know it's times are getting tough with high energy

1:33:05bills. despite having a CCA, we are still paying the highest in electrical uh and gas um even with our CCAs. So um so uh please let us know uh about the the CARE program and other programs like that.

1:33:23Yeah. Um so the CARES is a California um program specifically available for throughout the state. So, um has a little different uh eligibility factors and it's based on the federal poverty income level. Um I do have flyers available in the next room for folks that actually list all the programs and

1:33:42the eligibility that's up to date. Um but I believe it's a certain percentage discount on the electricity portion of your bill. There's also Farah, which is the uh federal counterpart. um a different percentage so you can actually be enrolled in both. That applies to

1:33:57your electricity and the gas portion of your bill as well. Um quickly, the medical baseline program is specifically for customers who are eligible whether they have um medical equipment that needs to be plugged in or medications that need to be refrigerated. They get

1:34:13to use um allotted like a higher amount of energy but not charged for it and are also alerted if there's ever kind of um any power shut offs. so they have ample time to more, you know, better prepare themselves. So, these are programs that we hope people are aware of and enrolled

1:34:28and we're always promoting. Um, on top of that, the MC cares credit is just the program for MC customers. So, you can be a MC customer on Care Farah and then be applicable for the MC Cares credit, which was that $20 bill monthly bill credit on top of that. So, those

1:34:48are some of the things available. Um, but you did mention just being behind on bills. There's also the Areridge management program. So, this is for folks who are already behind, you know, and trying to catch up. It's a very difficult situation. So, we work with

1:35:04those customers to make sure they're enrolled in this program that MC offers to help them catch up. Um, there's certain other requirements to it that I'm happy to share with as well, but we're happy to work with customers on that as Thank you very much. One more question.

1:35:18um regarding um you know I have residents emailing me and asking uh about more EV chargers and uh they they always compare us to Richmond and uh but I've been telling them you know Richmond San Pablo uh they get most of the bad air uh coming in from refineries and the

1:35:39freeways and um and they do not consider Elserto be a challenge cities like that.

1:35:46So um you know cities like Berkeley and Elserto we have to pay all of this upfront while Richmond, San Pablo, North Richmond get they get all this for free and uh and we're using the equity lens on this because the majority of the residents can't afford to do any of

1:36:03this. So uh very much appreciate MCE for always looking at equity. Uh but um you know I'll I'll uh turn to my uh colleagues here to see if they have any questions.

1:36:17Okay, any questions? Uh, Lisa Motyama, council member Motyama, go ahead.

1:36:22Thank you, mayor, and thank you for the presentation. Um, I would like to understand about your distributive energy program a little bit better. So, you're saying that you make the homes more efficient and then there's some generation solar generation or something

1:36:38that then goes back into the grid or does that actually go to the neighborhood where all these homes are connected? Is it like a micro grid or is it more just you make extra and you return it to the grid which is kind of seems more similar to kind of just existing solar programs?

1:36:56Yeah. Um I think we're talking about the virtual power plant with the distributed energy resources. Um so essentially it's so think of of like an original power plant, right, for fossil fuels on the side of maybe the freeway locally here, right? Um turns on and off to generate

1:37:14energy when it's needed more. Instead of that, we have the virtual plant. So whether it's um to points you made like solar um across a parking lot you know in a city building or something at home someone just has maybe no solar but they have the EV charger with the battery. Um

1:37:31the idea is that the technologies are talking to each other so we can switch on and off by enrolling in this program when the grid does need it more. And yes, like if you have a battery at home, it would essentially like take some of that energy um and you would get compensated for

1:37:48that to a bit, but also and that that is actually more of like our solar programming. Um but for the other kind of resources, so you have now electric um heat pump water heaters and all of these smart technologies that talk, it's really about switching them on or off.

1:38:03Maybe folks, I know it's a lot cooler here than where I live in conquered. you know, we need a little bit more energy being more usable there. So, switching them off here, bring more energy to other areas and then that way we have more control and customers that are

1:38:17enrolled in that program that give us that permission are getting a little bit incentive as well.

1:38:22Thank you very much, Mayor.

1:38:26Couple questions, but first, thank you for everything you do. It's it's exciting what you've been able to do to make our energy so much greener um in in your whole service area, not just Elserto. What are you doing to educate folks about the transition to electric

1:38:42appliances like heat pumps and induction burners and things like that? Like for some people it's very popular, but I think for some people there's a big learning curve, including like in the industry to try to find the person in the company to install some of these

1:38:57things. So what resources are there for that?

1:39:00Yeah. Um first for our customers u we make available on our website um or through mailers to homes and also um email campaigns about um not only the programs that we have um for instance we have the home energy savings program mentioned this is for both homeowners

1:39:19and renters. So that's um free energy audits. Someone would walk you through, right? Because it really does help to have on-site in-person examples, walk you through your home um and have a list of things you can update. Um you'll have actually no cost upgrades for energy

1:39:35efficiency. I think it's like a certain amount that it thresholded meet. So little things like LED lights is just like a small example. Um but so one thing we do is the email campaigns on our website. We've created a rebate finder for folks. So, and available in

1:39:52multiple languages. You put in start with all your information, zip code, you know, your home income level, and it will pull MC programs, state programs, and any other partner programs that you're available for um that specific individual. Um we're out in the community tableabling um making sure

1:40:10we're doing either presentations with community based organizations so they understand as well. Um but really I think it also comes from just the general outreach partnership opportunities. I can think of another community here in Contra Costa County where we worked with um other agencies

1:40:27like um Aea which is the affordable energy association and Eden Housing on a specific building complex in one of the municipalities here. And um not only did we work on those, you know, upgrades, which is even making just um the lights that I mentioned, we were able to then

1:40:46sponsor giving all of the um excuse me, apartments there, some of those induction cooktops or actually stoves, which was a pretty big deal. Um we also work with sustainable contraosta and help them with their own program where they let people rent cooktops so folks

1:41:02in the community could actually try them and use them. you know, there's um different like cultures that use certain dishes or kind of things that are like, hey, I don't know if I can step away from the fire. So, definitely understand it's a transition, but I think it's

1:41:16about working together. And that's some of the ways we're trying to do that.

1:41:19That's great. And I I didn't know about that rental program. So, I'll look into that. Um the other question is about ebikes and transparency to the public.

1:41:28Everybody here knows, but I work at Bike East Bay and we work really closely with AVA Community Energy and have worked with MCE. Um, but just especially as uh the state pro rebate program for ebikes went away, it was wildly popular and terribly mismanaged. So, they decide

1:41:45instead of fixing it, just get rid of it. Um, there there aren't great rebates in Contraosta. The county has a tiny program that gives you a $150 rebate or if you're income qualified $300 rebate.

1:41:58That's not a lot of a rebate if you're trying to get a, you know, a pretty good quality ebike. And our neighboring group, AVA, has had a lot of success with their rebate program and some other parts around the state and the country have too. So, is that something you all

1:42:14have looked at? Is that something we can partner with with uh you on? And I know it's something I've heard from a lot of Elsto residents since we're so close to Alama County. They're hearing what Ava's doing. They get those online ads about it and they're like, "Well, why can't we

1:42:29have this, too?" It hasn't been something we've um we have received a lot of interest about it, especially most recently, I will say, maybe because of that um that funding change. Um it's not something we've considered right now. Um the way we've been supporting is

1:42:46just through sponsorship like programs like Bike East Bay or other folks. Um we just worked with um uh Bike to Wherever Day most recently. Um but I think what's important is to continue to share the interest. It's something that um I am happy to share back. I think there I

1:43:06have heard a lot about it actually across several municipalities around Contra Costa County. So, I I do think it's something in the future that we are happy to continue exploring and talking about.

1:43:16Great. Well, I think if there's anything we can do to help with that and potentially even try to siphon off some of that state money that still exists, but they just put into electric vehicle rebates because they didn't want to deal with managing the program. Maybe that's

1:43:28something some counties could go together and try to get access to. Thank you.

1:43:33Um Rebecca, um Mayor Prom, you mentioned about um uh heat pumps and all that. I I wanted to let our audience know as as a member of the Bay Area Air District Board, we're working together with our CCAs to make sure that uh we discuss this subject thoroughly. Uh so stay

1:43:53tuned. Um uh my airboard meetings are the first Wednesday starting uh of the month starting at 10:00 a.m. Uh we had a long long meeting the first uh Wednesday of this past month. Um and uh there was a paper that mentioned uh you know Trump and the federal government do not

1:44:12support what we're doing here. Uh they said no to uh offshore wind. Uh they said no to battery energy storage. They said no to uh uh solar and all that. So we're going back and forth and back and forth on this. But the Northern California Airbor, which represents the

1:44:32nine Bay Area counties, uh we're going to see what we can do uh despite what the Ninth Circuit Court uh decision on uh blocking Berkeley from banning gas.

1:44:44Uh my concern about that is uh on the federal side, ninth circuit court, they said no, this is illegal. Uh so uh we'll we'll have a robust discussion and I encourage uh uh residents who support or do not or do not support uh people who want to keep their gas and people that

1:45:04want to switch over to uh air pumps to um you know stay tuned. Uh I'll give updates regularly. Uh this is this is not a done deal. um the the district they gave us 2023 uh data on um electrification and they said close to 40% of Californians can't afford to do this. Um and and a lot of

1:45:30our mom and pop landlords would not be able to do it either. Uh but um you know one of the things that I said is to always use the equity lens on things that we do uh on the airboard because our gold standard of CCA uh CCA's Bin Clean Energy MCE clean energy they do

1:45:51that and uh so um appreciate uh uh you being here and and speaking about all that. this is uh the future and we will um have a final answer uh possibly in September. I did ask for a 2026 economic update and um I truly believe that things are worse off now than it was on

1:46:152023. So I do see more than half of California residents, 20 million would not be able to afford this. So the importance of uh working with our CCAs to get a discount if you would like to uh change over uh it has to be a choice.

1:46:33We cannot force residents to do this. So uh and I know many of our residents in Elserto Kensington are doing this already uh and changing over to heat pumps. Um also know Pioneer they extended the nuclear plant for 20 more years. uh so really you know this will

1:46:51complement with what we're doing but we really do not have the energy for data centers AI centers and all that so uh we look at the Arizona where uh they want to close their data centers because they're running out of water there so uh it's you know I appreciate you being

1:47:09here and and representing MCE that was one of my favorite uh uh regional boards to belong to the meetings are getting a little too long for my taste and uh uh and you have people um a lot of infighting right now but uh Contraosta we take the lead in everything and uh uh

1:47:29so I'm proud of our mayors and council members who participate with MCE we have an office in conquer as well uh and uh it it uh um know that I appreciate your leadership and and look forward to having you give us an update at least once a year that would help. Okay. Thank

1:47:47you very much.

1:47:50Okay, next we'll go to adoption of the consent calendar.

1:48:02Okay, we have a uh pride month proclamation, b monthly distur dispersement and check register report.

1:48:11Uh c financial advisory board recommendation. Uh we also have here chair David Carll uh who uh should be available for questions. Uh D is amended and restated contraosta clean water program agreement.

1:48:28E group program inspection activities uh agreement between the city west county wastewater and contraosta county flood control and water conservation district.

1:48:39Would anyone like to pull uh anything for discussion? Yes.

1:48:45I'd like to pull item C just because I'd like to hear from the FAB chair.

1:48:50Okay.

1:48:50I just have questions on um B, D, and E.

1:48:55And I would also agree uh I would like to hear from Chair Carl on the FAB recommendation.

1:49:01Okay, let's go with their questions first. Okay. So on item D, the NPDES, um can you tell me who is our management committee representative and what is the admin cost that the county uh is taking as overhead for that oversight?

1:49:22My concern is always, you know, when other agencies charge us admin fees, I'm always worried that that, you know, that it could be very high and that we have no ability to, uh, manage that. So, good evening, uh, mayor and council members. Christina Lair, management

1:49:40analyst with the public works department. I'm sorry, I just missed the very beginning of your question as I was walking over. Who is the management committee representative and what is the percentage of admin costs that the county is taking?

1:49:53Um yes, thank you for your question. Um I am currently the management committee representative and uh Steven Prey and Iet Ortiz are my alternates if I'm unable to attend. The admin costs are 2% and also about a 1.8% for the auditor's costs.

1:50:13Thank you very much. And then on item E for the group program inspection, um I'd like to uh get some comment on the old uh agreement. It looked like there was a cap on costs, but the new agreement does not have a cost. And um you know, again, who reviews that and

1:50:38approves that for the city? And you know, how does that work?

1:50:43Um yes, thank you for your question. So the prior agreement um did have that cap and the cap has been taken out of this new agreement. Um in prior years the inspection agency has had to do more than the um budgeted inspections.

1:51:01Typically we have about 44 inspections per fiscal year. And um last year they had to perform about 60 or more inspections because there were enforcement actions required to that.

1:51:12So, we do work directly um as I am the management committee representative. I work directly with West County Wastewater and the Clean Water Program staff to go over the inspection list. Um we also remove closed businesses so they don't inspect closed businesses. Um

1:51:31and so the cap has been it will be uh determined and negotiated with staff.

1:51:38And do we only we pay our proportional share of the inspections or is it kind of a blanket charge over all participants?

1:51:49So if there's like 10 inspections in Elseria, we're only charged the cost for the 10.

1:51:54That is correct. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

1:51:59Okay. You had one question uh the same question with uh Mayor Prom. Why don't you go ahead? Oh, I'd like to um have um Chair Carell come up and just talk about the FAB recommendation. And I do want to thank the FAB for giving us a benchmark.

1:52:19I think that's very helpful to have one, you know, regardless of where it lays. I think it's really important for us to have that benchmark.

1:52:27David.

1:52:28Hi, good evening. David Carell, chair of the financial advisory board. Couple items that we want to just highlight.

1:52:34The first that we thought is really critical is one that staff has taken up under guidance is the creation of the internal service fund. We think it's really important that that is funded um as you're thinking about the different options and it is in in most of them. Uh

1:52:48we think it's best to be funded at the full amount about 890,000. That's a lot.

1:52:53But what we're doing again when we created that internal service fund is taking away all those one-time costs and we're spreading them over the life of the the item. So example, a firetruck is not going to cost us a million dollars.

1:53:05Next time it'll cost us $50,000 over 20 years and we'll be spreading that cost out, right? So there's a a little bit of a amount that we need to start anteing into the fund and it's important that we start that now to avoid those bigger expenses that are coming later on. So

1:53:19that's our first recommendation.

1:53:22Um the other item is there was some discussion um about whether or not we should go below the 30% goal which is composed of the EDRF at 13% and the general fund recommendation at 17%. All of the plans show us going below that 30% threshold um that recommended 30%.

1:53:43We think it's important as we've recommended before is not just to dip below it but actually to think about how we restore it. Um our vice chair has come up before the council a few months ago and was really talking about what are your priorities. You're going to

1:53:56have to make cuts to some things over the next couple weeks. Um as you finalize your budget, what are your priorities and as you get below that 30% threshold, which again we're trying to give you some leeway so that you can do that, but how do you get it back above and and

1:54:10kind of get us back onto a solid ground?

1:54:13Um, and some of the ways that we discussed in the FAB, we didn't put into the recommendation, but we think that staff can work with their departments to sharpen their pencils a little bit more than what we're seeing here. And so, we encourage you all to work with the city

1:54:24manager, work with staff and really go line by line through the four scenarios or the two that they're going to come back with, but you know, that that split between B and C that they're going to come back with, we think there's a lot more opportunity to cut. And so rather

1:54:36than thinking about cutting the lighting uh which is going to save you $5,000, really looking at some of the bigger ticket items that are going to save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that's really where we should be going back and pushing staff to find ways to

1:54:48cut expenses and not just taking away some things that um you know are are a couple thousand dollars here and there that aren't really going to add up to sizable budget cuts.

1:55:01Okay. Mayor Prom, you had a question regarding that? No, I just wanted to hear the presentation from the F. So, I've heard that. Go ahead.

1:55:11Thank you. I have a followup for you. I noticed um there were even with the 26% recommendation, there were looks to me that there were two no votes.

1:55:20And I'm always curious when I see no votes wanting to know you what the rationale was and what the or any kind of descent. I'm curious, you know, what Yeah. Um what drives it.

1:55:30You were a yes, right? I think I think you were a yes. I think both of you.

1:55:34Yeah. Okay. Uh I think the discussion was whether or not we should propose anything because did we have a good basis for going deciding on 30% versus 20? The recommendation is 30%. Right?

1:55:46Composed of the EDRF at 13%. And a general fund reserve of 17% which is supposed to cover a couple months of expenses in a bad economic climate.

1:55:56We there was debate about whether or not what the right recommended level is that you could dip below that. you know, do we recommend 28%, 26%, 20%, we didn't really have uh enough time to debate the merits of each of those, but we got enough consensus to at least come with

1:56:1226% which gives you a little bit of room to dip below the 30% um and try to get this budget to a good place.

1:56:21And when you say dip below, am I correct in assuming you mean dip below and not replenish? It strikes me that the book of the fund is to be able to dip but come back.

1:56:32Yes. So, uh the recommendation is 30%.

1:56:35Um by recommending that you that's our recommendation. I mean that that if you had to you know uh that's what the fab fab would came to you I think a month ago or two months ago actually saying you should raise that um and that was turned down which is fine. So we're

1:56:50trying to have you be more fiscally conservative. Um the debate was what's the right amount you should be able to dip below that 30% guideline to make your budget happen. Um we settled on 26%.

1:57:04I think there's debate about whether or not that's the perfect number, whether that's the right number, but we did want to at least give you a little bit of cushion to try to aim towards. But yes, the goal is if you have to dip below.

1:57:14And the problem is that it's a two-year budget cycle, but you're going to dip below and come out after your two years.

1:57:20So really trying to get you all to think about not just the next two years, but what's that pathway to bring it back kind of as we've seen in the macroeconomy? What's that soft landing that'll get us back down and kind of restore inflation and uh job growth here

1:57:35in the US at large? Kind of same thing here. How do we get you to a soft landing where we're not cutting too much? Everyone still is enjoying great services that the city provides. We're not going into budget deficits. We're not having to take on debt. Um but we

1:57:47can come back to that 30% threshold.

1:57:50Okay. Thank you.

1:57:52Uh, Council Member Weisinger. Um, yes.

1:57:54Go ahead.

1:57:54So, um, I just want to ask you to clarify when you say 30%, that is what our fiscal policy says and your recommendation this evening is the 26%.

1:58:06To our goal is to always get to the our goal, right? And that is the so again I break it into two components, right? The 13% EDRF emergency disaster relief fund. The 17% is a recommendation. We've tried to put in stronger language to make it more than just a recommendation. Um, so there's

1:58:25nothing that says you have to keep it 17%. Um, we've been targeting 30% which is that 13% EDRF, 17% general fund reserve.

1:58:36For the purposes of making this budget and what staff has presented to you, you're going to dip below that 30%. So, we're trying to give you that grace and that that leeway to know that you're going to dip below 30%.

1:58:49But try not to have you draw it down too far.

1:58:53Yeah, I appreciate that because we never want to be in in running a foul of our own policies. So, that's really important. Thank you.

1:59:02Okay, so we're done discussing uh everything. Would I I'd like to Did you have questions?

1:59:08Are we done with the consent? I'd like to discuss B. Sure.

1:59:13Um, so I this is kind of a a request and I I think that we can continue this discussion later, but I want to just say that when I look at the the check register, there are, you know, individual questions I have about this expense or that expense. And the one thing I feel like I'm I'm kind of

1:59:35missing is sometimes the big picture.

1:59:38And I I I start to notice the same sort of headlines coming back or the same item areas coming back over and over again. And I you I say, "Well, wasn't that there last month or wasn't that there two months ago?" And I I feel like I I don't I don't I get so into the

1:59:56weeds of individual checks or individual expenses that I don't have a sense of what the the bigger picture is. So what I'd like to ask again we can we can further this discussion later but I'd like to ask about the feasibility of sometime some some kind of report that

2:00:09targets the big expense areas and some kind of synopsis of them of where we stand. For example um if there's a major capital improvement that takes time and there's going to be expenses over you know whatever it is six months or more it doesn't do me a lot of good to to focus

2:00:25on one month when I know there were other expenses last month and a month before that a month. So it's helpful to me to see where are we [ __ ] cumulative and where are we going. Um the same thing is true for some of the street the complete streets projects. You know I

2:00:39see an a significant expense one month but I remember there was something last month too and just sort of getting a big a better sense of what the big picture is. Um you a couple more examples. One is, you know, when there are um tempor temporary staff hired to fill vacancies

2:00:56to to get a sense of, you know, what those vacancies are over time, what those expenses are over time, and then with that, you know, what are the overtime expenses that may be resulting from those vacancies. Again, so not not focusing on the one-time check that was

2:01:10written that's on the ledger, but more how does that check fit fit into the bigger picture. And you know, a big one for me are are the consultants. You know, I see a lot of consultant fees and I've had discussions with the city manager about this before and I understand it. I I I

2:01:27they're absolutely necessary. Um but I look at them and I don't really get a sense of how they fit in long term. And so what I'd like to have some kind of report that says, okay, maybe year to date or the last, you know, trail and 12 months, you know, what have we spent on this particular

2:01:46big project or what are what are our consultant fees look like for the last calendar year or the last quarter, you know, some some other metric other than a simple check payment for one month or one quarter, what whatever the ledger is. Does that make sense? And I don't

2:02:03I'm not asking for a commitment now. I would just like to have a further discussion about it to hear from you what's feasible, what's not, what's too complicated, what makes sense because this is just sort of me speaking from the top of my head not really knowing

2:02:15what makes sense. So I'd like to hear your expertise as well and as well as uh city manager Cameron Pick.

2:02:21Yes, thank you. So, um, the purpose of having the monthly check register is it's a best practice for, um, for agencies to be able to make sure that they're providing that as is, as as a, um, as a report. It's it's a receive and file report to the city council so that

2:02:39they can they can essentially have a have an eye on what is happening. But the the basis behind the check register is the policies that are set by the council. And so the budget is the number one document that you will receive that will outline a lot of what we spend our

2:03:01money on. And if it's over $45,000, it will come to the city council for approval. So I understand that it's not it may seem halfaphazard but the monthly check register is the end result of the policies that are already passed by the city council. So one of the things we

2:03:19can do and that we will do is that as we're going through we are updating for example RCIP. We've talked a lot about updating RCIP and we can certainly do you know frequent updates on certain projects the way that we are doing right now for the general fund update for

2:03:36example. Um, but I would just, you know, the the check register while it's it's, you know, it can ask some questions and and shed some light on some of the on some of what the city is doing, you know, just as a it's it's not meant for I mean, it's the end result as opposed

2:03:52to the beginning result. So, and and many of these things have been years in the making, like a lot of these CIP projects or the complete streets projects that you've seen that maybe you weren't on the council to approve yourself because you've only been here since 24, but that were approved by

2:04:07councils prior to. So, continuing, we'll continue to update the council in various ways on various projects at the request of the council. Um but providing like a like a report update on what we're spending. That's not traditionally um what we would what we would provide

2:04:22to the council because again that it's the policy setting that that the council starts at the beginning of that process.

2:04:29I hope that makes sense.

2:04:30Yeah. The difficulty I have is that you know we're in a position now of having to sort of give direction towards the budget and I feel like I don't have a firm sense of what we're actually doing. And you I remember there was a time when we had monthly financials and that would

2:04:46provide the information. A time when we had quarterly financials that would even provide the information, but we're not getting either of those now. So in the absence of those, it's not on this meeting.

2:04:56Okay, fair. Um but but I just feel like I'm relying on individual expenditures to try to paint this picture and it's it's not I guess you know the consultants are a good example for me because I I I see it and I don't really understand cumulative what we're spending. I

2:05:16understand the need for it generally speaking. I I've spoken to you about the complexity of certain decision-m and the need to bring in experts and I agree with that. I acknowledge that. But if I'm going to look at something and try to give some sort of budget direction

2:05:28towards it, I need to be able to see what are we actually spending on these things.

2:05:36This is tricky. It's just Yeah, I don't know the solution.

2:05:38Yeah, I I mean other than providing I mean we do provide a general fund quarterly update. We do try to provide I know that the during this whole budget process, the departments came and and spoke to all of the council about um all of the things that they're doing. So, I

2:05:52mean, if there are questions on specific projects, we're we're happy to answer them. Um, but the cumulative spending we is pre it's pre-approved. It's approved by the city council. So, any spending that we do through the check register is is in the budget.

2:06:12So, it's already it's it's the end, not the beginning. I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.

2:06:18um we we only spend we're only allowed to spend what the council approves in the budget.

2:06:26But you know for me you putting forth ideas about the budget and prioritizing the budget it's helpful to me to know again lack of a better term the bigger picture. you know what what are all these expenditures cumulatively going towards and if we're asked to prioritize certain things to to

2:06:46know more than just the onetime monthly expense but um again I I can't think of a better term other than big picture so all right okay uh council member Mote on that thank you mayor um I do have a couple of questions on check register items um they're mostly for the chief chief Keith

2:07:08Is he still here?

2:07:10Okay. And I do want to um address something that you said, Council Member Katsanis. I think you know the check register is just checks.

2:07:23The costs of these contracts, the big contracts, we get them. We they come to us and we're reviewing the totality of the big contracts. I think what is difficult to understand is like you know the complete streets program there might be 17 different parties in that project

2:07:41and the CIP total is what it's going towards but it doesn't matter to us if we know that Gelotti this month is only billing for $900,000 and then the prior month they've build us for 250. I mean that's it's just the progress of the work and so really that CIP the bigger

2:08:00picture is there. I think we're lucky that, you know, that we've gotten to the place where we can get the check register, you know, every, you know, every month because we didn't before.

2:08:10And I think sometimes when we get lots of little tiny details, it throws us all off because it's like, well, wow, what's this? What's this $700, you know, uniform thing? And it's really, it just the memo line says, well, it's uniforms for not just one person, but it's

2:08:25multiple people. So I think this is the level of detail that I think is throwing off the big picture and I think we need to just go back to you know let's the IP and the budget because it's all set there and it's going towards that. So I I you know I wanted to mention you

2:08:42know with the questions that are being asked. I appreciate it if my colleagues would check in with the city manager before the meeting. I don't want to be going back and forth and back and forth all the time. This is getting old. I want our meetings to be precise and I

2:08:57you know so let's deal what we have to deal with and uh those questions can be asked before the meeting uh when you meet with the city manager weekly.

2:09:08Okay. Uh we'll go to the mayor program.

2:09:10Do you had a question?

2:09:11Okay. Good.

2:09:12Can I ask my questions for the chief? Um thank you. on the check register. I noticed that we paid for um drones and this does this complete like the four drones we're supposed to have. Is this the the last part of that or these additional drones or replacement drones

2:09:31or what are these?

2:09:33Good evening. I'm Paul Keith, your chief of police. Uh the drone purchases that we made in this check register are related to the drone authorizations from the military equipment ordinance from last year.

2:09:45Okay. So there there's not new additional drones in this under this check.

2:09:51I believe this is the last of our cycle of purchases related to the military equipment ordinance from last year.

2:09:57Okay. And then um I did see that we did we were purchasing or paid the licensing fee for facial recognition software. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

2:10:08What that's what that's doing?

2:10:11Our vendor is Clear View AI. I gave presentations to council on its use at your council workshop in January as well as during my budget presentation in March. Um, and as I talked about then, it's a uh program that allows us to search publicly available images on the

2:10:27internet in order to identify suspects in criminal cases.

2:10:32So that that's not going into our LPR data or any kind of proprietary data.

2:10:38This is just stuff that's available broadly on the internet, right? It's us searching a private database owned by Clear View AI. So, we're not um we don't have a database of our own associated with the software.

2:10:50We're basically using the database that they've collected of publicly available images from essentially all over the world on the internet.

2:10:58And do we have a process like we did for uh like the use of the drone where people have to log in that they're using this software? We do. We have a pretty comprehensive policy on how people should access the system. It's only for trained operators. Uh it's modeled after

2:11:15the Detroit Police Department policy. Um so it's kind of a best practices policy essentially. Uh every time we use it, it's a log the system logs it and there's also a process that has to be filled with paperwork.

2:11:29Okay, great. Thank you very much.

2:11:30Sure. Okay. Um, so do I have a motion to approve uh the consent file a move?

2:11:38Okay.

2:11:39Uh, we have a motion by motion and a second from the mayor prom. Uh, all those in favor say I.

2:11:46I.

2:11:47Any nays? Absention. Motion passes. Um, one thing I wanted to mention regarding Elserto's uh, Pride Month. Uh we truly are the first um majority LGBTQ uh council in Northern California. It's never happened in San Francisco, never happened in Oakland, but first here in

2:12:09Elsaro. And uh we have a a coworker that's sitting on the back there. And uh uh I just want to say thank you for your service. I'd like to get a photo with the council and and our colleague uh uh Eddie in the back to uh join us for a photo to uh celebrate uh June.

2:12:30Then you want to give an opportunity to speak?

2:12:32Yeah, of course. Eddie, would you like to speak? Uh, I'm here for a different Well, I know, but you're you're you're here and you're a community member and I would like to invite you if you'd like to get a picture with the council and say uh he has turned bright red. I don't think

2:12:48he wants to.

2:12:49Okay. If you don't want to, that's fine.

2:12:51But, uh, can I wanted to find out from Will. Will can you take a photo of us for this and we'll send it to the papers.

2:13:01In this case, you can take Oh, yes, please. Yeah, we'll we'll do it from here. We'll do it from here.

2:13:06I don't I don't like my pants or my shoes today. So, Nintendo taking pictures.

2:13:28Okay, thank you very much.

2:13:32Okay, next we will do a public hearing, annual public hearing on vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts. We have staff report Good evening, uh, mayor and city council. My name is Shannon Bassie. I'm the human resources manager. Uh, before you, we have a public hearing. Um it's a

2:14:39receive and file report regarding a um uh legal update for AB 2561, a presentation on the status of the city of Elserto's uh 2025 vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts.

2:15:00Again, this uh presentation is to provide you data on vacancy rates and recruitment and retention efforts.

2:15:12And to start us off, a little background. Uh, this is the second year that we are bringing this presentation forward. Uh, the new law took effect January 1st, 2025.

2:15:22And AB2561 requires public agencies, including the city of Elserto, to hold at least one public hearing per year uh to discuss vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts. Uh this presentation is for information purposes only and um discusses the uh parameters that that

2:15:41law set for sets forth to share with the public and city council.

2:15:46Um, a major driving force between before the law uh put forth was that the legislature had concerns over vacancies in local government and that they were causing a significant problem with heavier workloads in the workforce um and burnout and increased turnover um

2:16:05and vacancies negatively affecting service delivery. So that's why um this law became in effect and raising more awareness around vacancies and you will expect to see this uh report um annually moving forward.

2:16:24Okay. So just to recap our workforce um currently uh with this report in January 1st of 2025 we had 163.8 FTE for full-time positions. This is excluding the five council member positions. And at the end of 2025, we ended with 165.3 full-time um position. So FTE and that

2:16:49chart there has it uh broken down by bargaining group. So um the police employees association pea has a total of 43 FTE. Um the SEIU service employees international union local 1021 has 47.5 FTE. Our management confidential employee group has a total of 34.8 FTE.

2:17:11Uh United professional firefighters local 1230 has 31 FTE and our um last union there public safety management association also known as PSMA has 9 FTE.

2:17:27And this is a very high level overview of what all of our departments um do dayto-day and the services that they provide to the city. Um, so this is just a reviewed reminder that um, we do have a lot of staff citywide that are providing uh, great service delivery to

2:17:42the community and um, without our staff we wouldn't be able to provide these services.

2:17:53And this next chart here uh is vacancy information for the calendar year 2025 that's broken down um by each month and the different uh ways that a vacancy was created. Um so you can see each month there there's the vacancy data uh logged by um separations, new hires caused by

2:18:16promotions and there's also a running uh total of the FTE by month. Um and you can see when you uh approved the new FTE within the budget uh last midyear that increased the total FTE citywide. Um just some highlights here with this chart. So the average number of

2:18:34vacancies each month did result in 10%.

2:18:37The highest that we saw was 11% and then the lowest month had 8%.

2:18:49And now moving on to uh the vacancy percentage by bargaining group. So, um, we did have SEIU, the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 come in, um, at the highest ranking, which was 16%. Um, this was due to the front counter, uh, currently being, uh,

2:19:09contracted out at the moment with, um, contracted staff while the service delivery study is underway. Um, and then following we had the police employees association pea at 13%. Our management confidential employee unit came in at 5% and our United Professional Firefighters

2:19:27Local 1230 came in at 4% and then lastly public safety management association uh PSMA came in at 3%.

2:19:37And I did just want to note on that last slide that according to the law there is a threshold of 20% which um serves as a concerning threshold. So as you can see from the numbers uh we did not uh meet 20%. So um that was good news for us.

2:19:58This flowchart represents the recruitment process that's conducted um with all of our city departments. uh and HR involved in all those recruitments.

2:20:07So it does start with a vacancy that's approved and a requisition that's submitted to HR. Then a recruitment is opened. Uh we post on various sites and uh get the word out that we are hiring.

2:20:20Next is the testing interview stage um and the screening process. Uh next is the eligibility list is established from that interview and we send that to the department uh hiring manager. Next is the contingent offer background process, which can take a varying amount of uh

2:20:38days to complete depending if it's a sworn or nonsworn position. Sworn typically are a little bit longer of a background process. And then lastly, uh the formal offer and the start date are is established and the hiring manager will move to the orientation to get the

2:20:54person started.

2:20:57Here is uh more statistics and information for uh as part of this report process.

2:21:05So looking back on 2025, we did have 24.5 uh vacancies that HR worked on for the calendar year, we were able to fill 14 of those vacancies. Um and of those 14 uh or representing those 14 and the number of vacancies that were um recruited for, we filled two on an

2:21:25existing eligibility list, which are super helpful. Um if you already have a list, you can appoint someone rather quickly instead of going back to the beginning. Um we opened up 17 new recruitments to fill these vacancies and eight of those were through promotional

2:21:41recruitment. So that was really great to see that we were promoting within and on average it did take 47.5 days to fill um the job vacancies. So you could imagine that number sometimes with certain positions is lower but if it's a harder fill harder to fill position then it

2:21:59will take a greater number of days. So that's the average.

2:22:06And looking back on uh year 2025, we did identify some hiring issues. A lot of these are similar from last year. Um so in our number one obstacle does remain competitive salaries. We are in a competitive job market. Um and uh when we are making job offers, it it is

2:22:25expected of candidates that they receive top pay. So that just remains a um a obstacle that we have to navigate. Um but we're always looking at our salaries and our classifications to see what's uh what we can do to stay within market.

2:22:42And uh in 2025 we also completed the uh classification and compensation um study which did highlight some areas where we needed to provide market adjustments. So that was helpful with bringing those um salaries in a competitive range. Also, another obstacle that we saw is

2:23:00candidates not understanding exactly where they're at in the process and that it can take some time to go through the different steps. Um, so that was a challenge that we're um communicating to applicants more about timeline. And then lastly, there were challenges in the

2:23:15pre-employment or background process.

2:23:17And for each position, it can look a little different, whether that's a drug screening or um any other requirements that are needed for uh certain positions.

2:23:32So, as I explained, we were able to apply several of the salary market adjustments through the study results.

2:23:39Um, that was really helpful to remain competitive. We increased communication with candidates. We now add a timeline to our job postings to ensure that it's transparent upfront that uh the interview date will take place on this date and that we're uh c meeting certain

2:23:54milestones to help uh again uh increase communication to candidates. Um, we also in working with the communications team in the city manager's office, uh, worked on, um, employer branding and highlighting some videos of the city and are now linking those to our job

2:24:13postings to just raise awareness on the great work that our staff do. Um, we also engaged the community through several job fairs. So, that was really great to participate in and overall just more awareness of the city's great um salary and benefit package. Um our total

2:24:31benefit package is is really great for our employees and provides a lot of um great benefits. So, we're always trying to highlight that in our job postings.

2:24:43Here are some other uh goals and strategies that HR worked on and developed over the last uh year. again really wanting to connect and network with the community. Um we expanded our network by attending job fairs. We're now partnering with community colleges and you'll see that in a slide in a

2:25:01minute. Um working with trade schools um and just expanding our professional networks to get the word out on our job openings. Uh we are continuously working to streamline the recruitment process.

2:25:14We want to get the number of days to fill a job down um so that candidates are able to um receive their job offer sooner and that departments are staffed uh quicker to fill that vacancy. Um we're always monitoring salary and benefit offerings to be competitive and

2:25:32stay within the market. So we'll continue to do that and uh working with departments to also train and develop uh within. So, um, we're always trying to increase, uh, the skills within our current workforce so that we can promote from within.

2:25:51And here is a little snapshot of some of the partners that we worked with um, in the community over the last year, attending several job fairs, one with the Workforce Development Board of Contraosta County, also with Richmond Youthworks. That was a great one to

2:26:06attend. And that's that picture of me and Officer Chan there. Um, and just as a reminder, Officer Chand is our officer of the year. So, um, that was really great to spend the day with him, um, out there recruiting with the youth. And then, as you can see there from several

2:26:22of the locals, these are just a few partners that we worked with, but some of the job uh, boards that we're working with um, post to hundreds of different uh, networks. So that's just a little bit of an idea of the um partners that we have in our recruitment process.

2:26:42Here's another snapshot of some data. Um again, number of vacancies created by new budgeted positions was 1.5.

2:26:51Um number of vacancies created through internal promotion was six. So again, that reflects that higher number of the eight that we promoted previously that I mentioned. Uh number of vacancies created by an internal transfer was uh zero. Number of vacancies created by

2:27:06retirements was six. Uh number of vacancies created by involuntary separation totaled two. And then number of vacancies created by uh voluntary separation such as like a resignation resulted at nine.

2:27:25And that concludes the report and data for 2025. So, I'm open to any questions if you have any.

2:27:31Thank you very much for the presentation. Uh, we'll bring it back here to my colleagues. I'm looking to the left here. Any questions to my right? Mayor Potm, I just Are are we going to ask the different units to present because I saw in this supplemental that there's a

2:27:48presentation from SEIU. So, I guess I'd like to hold my questions until after that.

2:27:52Yes. The mayor has to open the public meeting first.

2:27:56Any questions?

2:27:57Public hearing.

2:27:59Okay.

2:28:00All right. Thank you for your time.

2:28:01Thank you very much.

2:28:07So, we can do uh the public.

2:28:11Yes, you can uh open the public hearing now.

2:28:14Okay.

2:28:16So, we do have a public hearing now open. Before we go to the general public, our uh unions have an opportunity to address the city council on this item. Do we have any unions present who wish to speak?

2:28:33Yes, I believe we have one union uh SEIU uh and our colleague will be coming up to present. Eddie Nodell, management assistant in public works.

2:28:52That's to advance the line.

2:28:54Okay. Thank you.

2:28:56Good evening.

2:28:57Uh good evening, mayor. Good evening, Mayor Prom. Good evening, city council, uh city staff, and members of the public. My name is Eddie Nodal. I am the chapter president for SEIU 10:11 here for Inel Cerrito. I also am a management assistant in the maintenance division uh

2:29:12out of the courtyard. Um, I'd like to thank Shannon for inviting us to present and um, we'll go ahead and start the presentation.

2:29:24Okay. What is AB 2561?

2:29:27Uh, annual reporting. It's public agencies must present vacancy status at a public hearing before the governing body at least once per fiscal year prior to budget adoption.

2:29:39Uh, re uh, recruitment and retention.

2:29:41Agencies must report on recruitment and retention efforts and identify policies or procedures that present uh that present obstacles in hiring.

2:29:53There is a 20% threshold in vacancies exceeding 20% of authorized positions in a bargaining unit. Additional data must be provided. Total vacancies, applicants, hiring timeline, and compensation opportunities. As you heard Shannon um let us um inform you we are at 16% in

2:30:12SEIU. Um so we do not meet that 20%. Um union union presentation right we are rec recognized employee organizations are entitled to present at the same public hearing alongside the agency's report.

2:30:29So SEIU 1021 and Elserto there are 58 uh total members. We are full-time and part-time employees combined. Uh we are 10% of our members live in Elserto. Uh we have eight work locations across the city. So our members work at city hall, the recycling center, corporation yard,

2:30:51the community center, three child care sites at various clubouses, and one preschool.

2:31:00Okay. So, now we're going to address uh community development vacancies. Uh we have two vacant building inspectors, uh one plan checker vacant vacancy, and two permit technician vacancies. So, a total of five in community development. Uh many of these positions um there was um

2:31:21a resignation, a retirement, two retirements I believe in, um um for those positions, a community development and build building services. So there's a vacancy um consultant impact. Consultant turnover creates pressure on staff to spend significant time on training of

2:31:44systems and pro um processes. Consultant turnover can disrupt project management workflow, multi-year or large-scale um building permits. Learning uh city services and resources takes time.

2:31:59Permit technicians permit technicians engage with every visitor at city hall to provide customer service. They are um the face of the city. They are our front um counter staff. Reliance on market availability for skilled workers makes this city's quality of service delivery

2:32:16uh vulnerable.

2:32:18Uh from FTEEs to um which are full-time employees to vacancies. Since 2002, the division has had staffed 15 plus consultant permit technicians and seven and seven building inspectors.

2:32:33City management communicated that there would be a recruitment for building division staff once the building official was hired. After the building official was hired, city management communicated that they were waiting for the results of the service delivery study which still there is no report.

2:32:53In recreation, we have an administrative assistant 2 position vacant for a total of one that is in their community center office.

2:33:03And there's also one custodial vacancy in um which is also under the umbrella of um the uh recreation department.

2:33:14So recreation and custodial services at the community center management assist there was a management assistant laid off during the early years of the pandemic of the pandemic. Duties were absorbed by the existing administrative assistants and managers.

2:33:30a manager position was eliminated in the community center. Those duties were distribute were uh distri redistributed to remaining managers.

2:33:40Uh there was uh restructuring with a third administrative clerk added after the senior center um the Midtown Activity Center closed. Um but there has been going there has been ongoing retention issues with three turnovers.

2:33:56senior programs moved to the community center, increasing in-person visits and um already to a busy busy phones and email volume there in that office. For custodial services, we have one vacant custodial position. The previous ratio was five full-time um custodians and three part-time

2:34:18custodians. The current ratio is four full-time um custodians and two part-time custodians.

2:34:26The city has contract contracted out custodial services at city buildings since the pandemic.

2:34:34Members recommended members recommend filling vacancies rather than using outside contractors.

2:34:41So our key concerns and recommendations are cons our concerns are unfilled vacancies increase workload on existing employees leading to burnout and turnover.

2:34:53Outsourcing custodial work undercuts bargaining unit positions and it's less and is less efficient.

2:35:00Retention issues signal potential problems with compensation or morale and working conditions.

2:35:08service deliveries uh to Elser service delivery to Elserto residents is impacted by chronic understaffing.

2:35:15Our recommendations are to fill all five community development vacancies to restore capacity, fill the custodial vacancy and discontinue contracted custodial services, address retention issues in the administrative clerk position at the community center. Uh we also want to

2:35:35note it's challenging to make informed recommendations without ser without the service delivery study. Management sees these management sees these documents before any of the bargaining units.

2:35:47So this is stronger together SEIU 1021 local 1021 representing 58 members across the city of Elserto committed to quality public services and fair working conditions. Um, in closing, I would like to thank uh, Jen Bright, my colleague Jen Bright for creating this PowerPoint

2:36:06presentation. And I also want to thank the chapter leadership for their input and and our members for um, helping us put put together this um, presentation.

2:36:17And that concludes uh, my presentation.

2:36:19Thank you, Eddie. Thank you very much for the presentation. Um, we'll turn it here to my council and I'll looking here to my right. Any questions, comments? Guess go ahead, Mayor Prom.

2:36:34Just first, thank you for both the presentations. Um, I I just saw Oh, sorry. Do we need to go to the public first? I'm hearing Karen.

2:36:44Is there is there additional public comment?

2:36:48There is, but the council can, according to what Holly gave me, the council can provide comment before that.

2:36:54Okay. Either way, um I didn't receive this presentation till this afternoon and didn't read it till I was on Bart on my way back to Elserto.

2:37:04So, I haven't had a lot of time to process and haven't had any time to talk to uh anybody else about it or talk to you about it. But, um thank you for kind of detailing the situation. It'd be good to know if there's any feedback on it and sort of what we're doing, when the

2:37:22service delivery study is coming, what the plans are for some of these vacant positions. I'm not sure who wants to answer that. So, the service delivery study is still in draft form. We are actually going to be meeting with the consultant in couple weeks. Um, as the

2:37:37council knows, we've sort of been sidetracked staff-wise with districtricting and trying to put some things together for the budget. Um and we had uh we were down a staff member ourselves uh for a few months. So um the service delivery study has been delayed but uh we will be reviewing that with

2:37:54the consultant and uh bringing that back once uh we I have a very preliminary draft that is not complete and so we'll be working with the consultant on that and at this point that is where we're at with that study. Anything else as far as the vacancies we have uh continued

2:38:11forward as Shannon described in her presentation. Um, do you have a time estimate on the service delivery study?

2:38:18I'll be meeting with the consultant in a couple of weeks and I'll know better then.

2:38:22Can you share with the council at that point what the new estimate is since it seems like a I mean it's not just this but a lot hinges on that and so it would be helpful to know when we might be able to see it.

2:38:35I can't promise you a date right now but No, I'm not asking you to promise me a date. I'm saying in two weeks when you meet, can you then give us an estimate?

2:38:43I'll do my best. That's what I'm asking.

2:38:45I'll do my best. We certainly want to wrap this up as much as everyone else does.

2:38:48Sure. And I'm aware and I'm aware none of us saw the districtricting coming and that has taken up immense staff time.

2:38:54None of us wanted that. We could have worked on a lot. So, I get it. Um, but I I do think it's important we just communicate even if there's a delay, just communicate how long. So, it's not just up in the air. So is the plan it it seem and again I haven't had the kind of

2:39:09time to process this and talk to folks but so are some of these positions going to be held vacant indefinitely until we have that or and it seems like some of them it's just recruiting problems. So could it'd be helpful to know a breakdown on these vacant positions and

2:39:26and what what the service delivery impacts and what it does not.

2:39:30Sure. And when we complete that with when we work through that and have a a really a once the draft is is more finalized, we will have a better position to do that. I just simply can't that's not sorry that's not what I'm asking. Maybe I was unclear. I'm saying

2:39:46which of these positions are we that are vacant are we actively recruiting for and which of them are being held indefinitely until we have the service delivery study. That was my question.

2:39:56Not the what will the service delivery study suggest? I know you don't know that yet.

2:40:02Hello again. Uh so I did jot down some numbers of where we're currently at. The purpose of this presentation was a look back for 2025.

2:40:10So um as of today we do have 12 total vacancies. Five of those are in community development department as Eddie has outlined. We have zero in finance, two in public works, uh two in PD, uh zero in fire, zero in the city manager's office, and three in recreation. Um we are actively

2:40:34recruiting for the two in public works, um and recreation, we are recruiting for one. So, some parts of those vacancies do rely on the service delivery study to outline how we move forward.

2:40:56And h how are we can ask this to when we get to the budget item, so maybe I'll just hold it, but I'll just say it now and it can be answered later. How are we um treating this in the upcoming two-year budget without So, are we assuming these positions? Are we not?

2:41:13And if you want to wait till the budget presentation, that's fine, too.

2:41:21Um, typically in the budget, we budget for all vacancies. Um, so we budget full staffing costs for all vacancies unless there's a proposed change in staffing.

2:41:29So any vacant positions will be fully budgeted um unless the budget proposes to change those positions.

2:41:35Okay. So at this point, even though we don't have the service delivery study, we're just budgeting for those. That could change, but we're at least setting aside the funds.

2:41:44Um, yes, assuming that they will be filled.

2:41:46Yes. Unless there are other changes made to the budget, unless staffing changes, we budget for all we budget for all basically budgeted positions, which includes all vacancies.

2:41:55But the estimates you've put forward so far includes that.

2:41:58Yes.

2:41:58Okay. That is really helpful to know.

2:42:00And just my final comment is um or I guess just two things. One is a request for the next time you bring this presentation forward. And I know this is still a somewhat new process. It'd be helpful to have year-over-year comparisons to see are we doing better, are we doing worse, where we're at. Um,

2:42:16I do think on the amount of days per hiring, we probably are better than almost any other government agency. I mean, that number floored me. Like that is better than a lot of private sector jobs. Like that's actually very quick to hire. So, I think that part is good. It

2:42:30sounds like some of the problems are when do we start hiring? Not in the like how long does it take to fill once we have a position open. So, it' be helpful to see year-over-year. And then just my final comment is even though it doesn't hit the 20% threshold, 16% isn't that

2:42:47far from 20%. Especially considering how few employees there are in SEIU in Elsaro. It just takes a couple more folks and then we're at 20%. So, I just want to make sure we keep our eye on especially any unit that is getting close to the 20% and not feeling like,

2:43:04well, we're not at 20% so we're okay.

2:43:07Um, if we're if we're getting closer, then I think that's where we need to keep a special eye on it and figure out what we're going to do to make sure we don't hit 20% next time. So th those are my comments. Thank you.

2:43:19Thank you.

2:43:20Uh, Council Member Mo, do you have any questions?

2:43:25Thank you, Mayor. Um, I wanted to understand a little bit about the janitorial ratios. When were they reduced? that was in the pandemic from the five and three to four and two that was in um we did have a part-time layoff during the um reductions during the financial

2:43:46issues that part-time position was brought back though and restored. So I don't know if we've had a recent reduction.

2:43:54Okay. Or maybe Mr. You can I do remember that we did have a retire I mean a departure someone resigned and I don't believe that position was ever filled and speaking with uh recreation um director Chris Jones he did tell us that last year we we had two vacancies and so

2:44:13they did hire one last year so we we still believe we are at at one vacancy in the custodial department.

2:44:20Okay. So that would be one FT full-time person or one Okay, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong.

2:44:26Okay.

2:44:27So, are we are we budgeting then or holding five janitorial full-time and three part-time?

2:44:36Correct. We're we're still, as Claire explained, holding those positions in the budget. They are full-time benefited pos budgeted positions. uh whether they're contracted out or filled by city staff is where you're seeing that breakdown.

2:44:50Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

2:44:53Okay. Uh Council Member Cons.

2:44:55Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um I would just kind of along the same lines of what's budgeted and what's not. It would be helpful to me to see not only the number of FTEEs are filled or not filled, but to know what the cost would be to fill them. if

2:45:12you have three openings, what what does that mean financially? And I say that because we are in the budget season.

2:45:16We're looking at, you know, what's where cuts can be or can't be and just to understand what are the implications of having a position unfilled. Is it, you know, are we looking at another $100,000 when it is filled or are we not? You know, just that that information means

2:45:30more to me than one FTE or two FTEEs.

2:45:34I think that would be more in the budget development process. Um this is a look back of last year. So definitely it's not current year data. Um this year next well this time next year we'll have a look back on 2026. But I think what you're looking for might be coming up in

2:45:52the next presentation but I'm not entirely sure.

2:45:56Okay. Yeah. I'm just looking for what what is the significance of having a position filled in terms of the finances.

2:46:03So okay that's all. Thank you.

2:46:08I want to say Eddie, thank you for the presentation. Um, I know this council has worked very hard uh after COVID and after those difficult years and we were able to do the the comp study uh which brought up uh SEAU to a better place and we delivered and we recognize that I mean we all have

2:46:29PTSD from those pandemics where we had layoffs and um furls. Um, so with Karen's leadership and with uh the council's leadership, we were able to get out of that hole. Yeah. So, yes, we we we do want to give you your flowers for that.

2:46:43Yeah. Thank you for that. I work my butt off on that. So, know that uh uh we appreciate our partners at labor and uh um and and that's why we did that. So, hopefully with the service presentation that will come up in the future, uh we'll be able to rightsize our budget.

2:47:01um you know looking at and I'm giving I'm putting on my Cal City Cities president hat now on we have cities the majority of cities their budgets are going sideways uh as well as a county uh the county if they don't pass that uh uh tax in the June election they will be $1

2:47:20billion in the hole and they will have to lay off a lot of employees San Francisco they let go of 500 employees Berkeley they'll be uh making about a hundred uh layoffs. Elserita, we are good because we had a head start on right sizing our budget. So now we look

2:47:40forward to uh continue working uh with you. I'm hoping we don't make any layoffs in the future, but the importance and I'm looking at the city manager now. Uh the importance of rightsizing this budget. Um we said that uh we would stick with 30% and now we're at 26. I want to make sure that we

2:48:01continue to rights this budget. Um, and when we have this budget presentation, um, I don't want it to get any lower because this is not acceptable. I want to make sure and I gave my word to the residents of Elserto rightsize this budget and uh, not go back to the old

2:48:20ways of not making a dent on the 115 trust. Uh, that is not acceptable. I know cities that are smaller than Elserto that had 30% reserves, 40% reserves and uh uh and we can do a lot better. So the the importance of making sure that uh uh we're not playing around

2:48:42with this and we prove to our residents who um depend on what we're doing and with SEIU uh the importance of doing this right uh with um I want to make sure that public safety uh is covered at all times. They don't have the tech anymore. We're going to have more crimes uh believe it or

2:49:02not. And and this will happen. Um, and I hope my colleagues realize what they said at the last council meeting. Uh, you know, and I'm looking at my police chief. We will have more crimes here. I don't want to go back to the old days where, uh, you know, it's crime after

2:49:19crime after crime. But I want to thank our police chief for letting us know about, uh, the, um, catalytic theft uh, that was uh, uh, done in San Francisco in large large numbers. They were found at the Elserto Plaza because of the cameras. We're not going to have these

2:49:38cameras anymore. Uh and uh and our police officers uh are going to have less safety along with our residents.

2:49:48So, I want to make sure that we're aware of that and we see the whole picture about rightsizing this budget. Um uh so any other comments?

2:49:56I have a comment.

2:49:57Okay, go ahead.

2:49:58Go. I see you're wearing your gotcho green car here with Carolyn.

2:50:03Absolutely. And we're going to we're going to see if SEIU our Elsto high grads will have uh green shirts as well.

2:50:09Those are Elto colors. So part of your leadership, thank you for the presentation.

2:50:14I I'm not going to interrupt continuing council comments, but I do want to remind council that the uh public hearing is still open and there may be other public comments on this item.

2:50:23Yes, I'm getting to that now. So, um, the public hearing is now open. Before we go to the general, uh, public comment. Oh, right. Now's the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Requests to speak can be submitted

2:50:42to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in person only. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. Okay, I need assistant Alexander Olgas, assistant to the city manager and assistant city manager.

2:51:02Please proceed.

2:51:03Thank you. We have one inperson speaker, Michael McDougall, 8A, excuse me, fee study is 8B, by the way. That's okay. Okay. So, we have no uh inerson speakers and I believe I saw one Zoom speaker here.

2:51:27Okay.

2:51:27Ira share now. Ira, I will unmute you now.

2:51:34Ira, can you hear us?

2:51:37Yes. Is it just 2:15? And we'll take that one.

2:51:41Oh, let me Thank you, Ira. You can continue.

2:51:44Thank you. Okay. It's Ira Shower now. El Certo. First, uh, I would like to thank Council Member Katanis for raising concerns on the checks in public instead of doing it out of public view. I think it's important that these sorts of issues be covered in public. So, thanks

2:52:01again, Council Member Cassand. Now, to this issue, the these are my recommendations.

2:52:07Reduce the number of senior managers.

2:52:11Require a 40hour work week.

2:52:14Reduce the length of the winter vacation.

2:52:18Reduce the amount of out of town travel that senior managers engage in. Reduce credit card purchases for free meals on the taxpayers's dime.

2:52:30Thank you very much.

2:52:35That concludes our public speakers.

2:52:37Okay.

2:52:37Thank you very much. Um, we have a motion to close the public hearing.

2:52:42I'll move.

2:52:44Okay, we have a motion by Motama, second by Saltzman. All in favor?

2:52:49I I nays. Abstension. Motion passes. Um, so now we will go to council comments. Who would like to start?

2:53:00Yes.

2:53:01Okay. I just want to uh thank our HR manager. I did not realize until I saw this report about how much recruitment work you're really doing. So, I do appreciate that. Thank you.

2:53:16Anyone else?

2:53:21Um, so do I have a motion to approve?

2:53:26So, moved.

2:53:28There's nothing. Okay, we're we're just going to file this.

2:53:32That's correct. Good. Uh, well, thank you very much for that. So, we'll next go to Master the master fee. Uh 67 public hearing and approval of fiscal year 26 27 master fee schedule. We have a staff report.

2:54:02All right. Good evening Mayor and council. Clerk Hullman, budget and financial services manager. Um I'm here with you this evening on a couple of items. First will be the master fee schedule and then we're talk we'll talk about the budget a bit later. Um the city council is required to adopt a

2:54:16master fee schedule annually by the city's municipal code. So each year staff present updates typically around this time in miday. Um so the new updates are presented to you this evening. Um we did a full cost allocation plan and master fees study last year. If you recall, you may

2:54:31remember the presentation by I believe Tony Thrasher from Will Dan was the one who gave that presentation that went over the cost allocation plan and fee study in detail. So this year is last year was the first year of that fee study. But that fee study had actually

2:54:46been based on the budget data created 2 years ago when we last did the bienial budget. And so if you're comparing last two years ago's budget process and all of the different costs in that budget, you'll recall that there are some significant changes to this 2-year

2:55:00budget, especially in we had our classification and compensation study.

2:55:04We redid um we have new bargaining agreements with most of our labor groups since then. We have insurance costs that have escalated very very rapidly. And so um the reason that many of those fees have increased substantially is entirely due to our budget. So, our costs, our

2:55:19master fee schedule uh presented before you this evening is based on the fiscal year 2627 draft budget. Now, it doesn't include the potential changes before the council this evening, but most of those actually wouldn't directly impact our fees. Most of those would remain

2:55:32consistent. So, these fees are accurate.

2:55:35They are our best estimates and best representation of staff's belief of the cost to providing these services. So, all of those were using the new cost allocation plan, the new fee study that was done for us, and that's how we got the new fees for you this evening.

2:55:47um you can see the hourly rates and so you can even compare those from last year's to see how those changed. But I just want to reiterate the reason that those went up quite as much this year versus the prior was due to the difference in the data. Um because the

2:56:00prior year's fee schedule was based on slightly older data and this is based on really the most accurate most recent information that we have available. Um, I won't touch on too many of the specifics, but I do want to bring one of the things to the council's attention,

2:56:12which is one of the largest increases in what might look like a fee, but it's actually an exemption threshold. So, that's in the city's business license tax. Now, the business license tax is very technically not a fee, of course, it is a tax, and it is increased by CPI

2:56:28per the city's municipal code on an annual basis. One of the components of that tax is an exemption from the tax for businesses who make below a certain amount each year. um staff noticed that uh they brought to finances attention that that hadn't been updated in quite

2:56:41some time. So, we made sure to update that. And so, the change from the $8,300 that is in the municipal code to the $15,000 and something fee that is presented to you, not fee, excuse me, threshold that is presented to you this evening is the CPI from 2002 when that was adopted

2:56:57until now. So, that's the reason for that very significant change. Um, not that many businesses who get a business license would qualify for that exemption because it's $15,000. You can't make more than $15,000. But if you make less than that in El Certo and you have a

2:57:13business license, you are exempt from paying the tax. Now, businesses will still have to get a business license, but they will be exempted from paying a tax. So, um, we have some small recreation instructors, for example, who might qualify, but in general, it's a

2:57:25pretty small percentage of our businesses who we think will be affected by this adjustment. Um but it it benefits businesses. There's no additional cost. Um so that's my presentation for this evening. Staff recommends that you um adopt the new fee schedule. And uh one final note is that

2:57:39these proposed fees are included in the um proposed draft budget. Um and so they were already incorporated in staff's numbers for the next two fiscal years.

2:57:48Thank you very much. Um I'm looking to my left. Any questions?

2:57:53I'll just make a comment. Okay. I I know that one of the fees I learned that was reduced was the tree planting fee.

2:57:58Yes.

2:57:59And I just want to thank you for that. I know I I sit on the urban forest committee and have for the last two years and there's been a lot of discussion about that and concerns that if the fee is high, people are less inclined to adhere to city guidelines and they'll act on their own and just

2:58:12plant whatever they want to plant. But if the fee is more accessible, then they'll follow the guidelines and rules and help us all out. So, thank you for that.

2:58:19Absolutely.

2:58:21Okay. I'm looking here. U may prom.

2:58:25Yeah, I too wanted to comment on the tree planting fees, which is one of the most consistent complaints I get about how high they are. So, I'm really glad we are going to reduce them. I do wonder if it's enough to incentivize people cuz I've heard from people, well, now it's

2:58:40outrageous. No way I'm going to do it.

2:58:42Which clearly nobody's doing it, but they're like, but it was really high before, too. So, it's it's one of those things that's like not necessary to do.

2:58:50So, if your budget is a little bit tight, you're probably just going to forego it. And we want more trees. And we want to make sure people do it the right way and don't just decide, well, that's too expensive. I could probably get away with just planting this tree

2:59:04and then they plant the wrong tree or they plant it wrong and then we have bigger problems down the road. So, I'm still going to vote for this tonight, but what I would request and when we make the motion or I can make the motion is that um sometime in advance of the

2:59:20next time we set this. So, I don't know if that's in a year, a month or two ahead of time if we could have some information on how it's going on the street tree planting and are we having an uptake or do we still have a problem?

2:59:34because if we still are not having people go through this process, then I think we have a problem we need to address and we need to decide if we need to subsidize that more. So, that's what I'd like to see ahead of time because I mean once it comes to us, there's just

2:59:49not really time to do that much. Um, and then I did have one other question and it was about the swim center and I had asked this in from Karen yesterday, but I haven't I don't think I've received the information. I I don't I haven't done a survey of all the swim facilities

3:00:07around us. So, it says that we are high, but like how much higher? So, I I guess I'm trying to know is a is reducing it by a dollar for residents going to make a difference and also is increasing it by a dollar for people who don't live here going to just make it so out of

3:00:23reach that we then lose and like I don't have a good enough sense of what we're compared to. So, can you help me with that?

3:00:30Yes. Thank you. I'm Chris Jones, uh your recreation director, and thank you for this question. So, um a little background is that our drop in fees at the swim center really haven't raised uh been risen in uh 5 years or so. We went from $7 to eight year uh $8 for the fitness drop in

3:00:50about 5 years ago. And we only charge one rate. Um, and so what we've what we've encountered and then so for example to compare to other cities, Albany currently charges $750. Uh, Richmond charges $7 for residents and $8.75 for non-residents. And Berkeley charges $7 for residents and $8 for

3:01:14non-residents. So um, by not so you know, we don't want to get too far out of market because folks could easily just go somewhere else, right? and we certainly don't want Elsto residents to pay, you know, it's more affordable to go to a neighboring pool. Um, but

3:01:30keeping those drop in fees uh flat means that um we're not able to move the margin on like our passes for example because um you know like the example I gave was you know $8 time 15 swims is $120. when you when you layer in the non-resident search charge um that that

3:01:55makes it um it makes it go over $120. So you couldn't we can't increase the amount um the pass fees without like coming coming up with a fee that doesn't make sense.

3:02:08So, we are trying So, we thought we would experiment with introducing a non-resident rate for fitness swim. Um, and and they would pay $9. Residents would continue to pay $8. And then we're able to move the needle a little bit on the the passes and going up to $9 for

3:02:27non-residents would be the highest.

3:02:29Richmond is $8.75, but we don't think it's too we don't think it's excessive.

3:02:34Yeah, that's that's helpful. I just didn't know. And it looks like maybe other council members got the information, but I did get it. So that's that's why I just wanted to know. Um, okay, that sounds good. And then my final thing is just related to what I wanted to come back on the um street

3:02:52tree planting. It'd be helpful to know if there other and I don't need to know this tonight, but ahead of when we do this next time, are there other fees that really people aren't paying which indicate like we're way out of market?

3:03:04And then that means either people aren't doing important things or they're doing them illegal. Um, which people will do if the fees are too high. People do illegal work on their homes all the time, things like that. But I just want to make sure this isn't for Chris, but I

3:03:18just want to make sure that we're we're setting these fees. I understand our costs are going way up, but we have to have a balance here. So, especially as our costs keep going up and the fees keep going up, I just want to make sure we're not go getting so far out of the zone that we're essentially

3:03:38incentivizing people to do illegal work.

3:03:40So, yeah, absolutely. And it's it's a balanced staff always are evaluating.

3:03:44So, a number of the fees there are new subsidies that are proposed, but there are a significant number of fees that already have subsidies. And many of the so generally the fees that we recommend to the city council for subsidy are either um we generally it's policy to

3:03:58charge full cost recovery unless there is a health and safety benefit. So like a building permit that people or electrical permits you want to make sure people are getting those um or if there's a community benefit of some kind of um we want to support certain groups

3:04:12of people or certain types of incentivize certain types of activity like planting trees. So those are the primary circumstances where council has um recommended subsidies. We can always do more. It does there is that balance of cost recovery, but it is something

3:04:25that staff are always evaluating and looking at activity rates, safety, understanding how do we balance our costs with the community benefits.

3:04:33And I think just next time it would be helpful if you share that internal conversation at this meeting publicly so we see and so the public sees kind of what that balance is.

3:04:42Absolutely.

3:04:43Thank you, Council Member Motama. Thank you, mayor, and thank you for the presentation. Um, I want to say that I really appreciated the format this year. It was so much easier to understand the the changes and I it was really heartening to see that we are doing cost recovery with most

3:05:02items. Um, can you talk a little bit about the ADU fee because that's also we're incentivizing people to reduce that fee in order to encourage people to make their ADUs legal. Right.

3:05:16I will defer to our community development director. I would just make a note. Finance facilitates this process, but we have many expert departments who know a lot more about these than I do.

3:05:25Uh, good evening, council members.

3:05:26Melanie Mintz, your community development director. And kind of akin to what council member Saltzman was saying, we found that when it was all put on, it was going to jump the the cost quite a bit and it is something that we are wanting to encourage. We have not had anybody take advantage of

3:05:41the amnesty program, but there are that means unpermitted structures out there that we would like to bring into the program. So we wanted to keep it a modest a modest increase. I guess how broadly has that amnesty been announced or Yeah, I think we can promote it a little

3:05:59bit more. I mean, we do have it on our web pages and we've put it in the e-news. It's a there's some it's kind of a complicated program that was created at the state level and there's some intersections that are difficult. So, I know that our building official is

3:06:12talking to a lot of people about it. Um there's uh Sky might be able the city attorney might be able to jump in. and I haven't looked at it in a while, but one of the there's different uh pathways to compliance and one of them sort of gets you time to make sure that the basic

3:06:28life safety items are addressed. And of course, as we all know, parking and different ADU laws went away and that was part of the reason potentially that people didn't get permits before. So, the zoning piece is easier. Um, but what we can't tell is if somebody did come

3:06:43and go through one compliance method, what does it require of them in 5 years?

3:06:46So there's some complications.

3:06:49Um so we're still working through that, but I know she is having a lot of active conversations with people considering um it and we could promote it more. We were waiting to promote it more until we could kind of tease out some of those more um complicated pieces,

3:07:03but we look forward we would love to get them done.

3:07:07Thank you very much.

3:07:07Thank you.

3:07:08Okay. Any anyone else? Okay, we will open the public hearing and the public hearing is now open. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item. Request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a

3:07:25speaker card. Public comments will be taken in person only. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments.

3:07:38Okay.

3:07:38Do we have any speakers? Yes, we have one inerson speaker, Michael McDougall.

3:07:48Hello again. I'm both happy and sorry to be in front of you so much tonight. Um uh so I have um so thank you and I really appreciated a chance to go through the master fee schedule. The first time I started paying attention to city business, this whole thing blew

3:08:02past me before I realized the bits and pieces that one really needs to pay attention to. and this is one of the ones that I really appreciate. Okay, so I'd ask I've got like two quick asks for the council tonight. One relates to trees as you've mentioned earlier and

3:08:17actually this goes to another comment um another one relates to process and policy. So, with respect to the trees, um, uh, the fee used to be less than $60 and we put it to $533 as part of the, um, study before and we're, if I'm reading it right, we're about to cut it to half,

3:08:42which is, I think, $294.

3:08:45And I think that you should make a motion to just bring that to something less than $100. It's not going to affect the budget that much. we've had no uptake. Um, and so like why don't we trial that one with a relatively low fee as opposed to triing it with a relatively high fee. So I think you

3:09:02should just do that by motion tonight and see how it turns out. We'll look at it again in a year and just find out how many people took you up on it. The other thing that uh I would have is um a policy ask. So I reviewed the master fee schedule and the related documents. I

3:09:17was trying to pull together what our policy as a city was around what we would and wouldn't subsidize. Um, and it's sort of scattered all around. And my ask would be that you make a motion to um have a policy document that goes with the master fee schedule sort of on

3:09:34the website somewhere that um that sort of lines out what we are subsidizing in the master fees and our and our rationale behind that. Um I will note that um on line 121 of the master fee schedule it looks like we actually have a negative subsidy and I don't think we

3:09:52are allowed to have um above cost charges. So um I think we want to take another look at some of the things in here. I I mean I did look at this quite closely. Um and if you have time I'd like um to suggest that the council ask staff about what capabilities our fee

3:10:11management software provides. I think it's useful from a budgeting point of view to have a sense um of scale for the number of times fees for our city services um have been requested by our residents. So if we could um maybe if it's possible I think it would be very

3:10:26very helpful to have some overall notion maybe rounded to the nearest 10 of how many times those fees have actually been done in the city as we review a document like this. That's all for me. Thank you.

3:10:44That concludes our public speakers.

3:10:46Okay. Uh we don't have anyone online.

3:10:48We do not.

3:10:49Very good. Thank you very much. Um so do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

3:10:55So moved.

3:10:56Second.

3:10:57Okay. We have a motion by the mayor prom and second by Weisinger. All in favor?

3:11:01I.

3:11:02Any naysay? Motion passes. Uh, so NE um, council comments. I'm gonna look to my left first. Any comments? We'll go here to Mayor Padam Salsman.

3:11:16It'd be helpful to know um cuz I thought of that too. Like maybe we should make it really really low. But then I did wonder would we have so much uptake that we wouldn't have the staffing to to address that and would we need to hire more people or get a consultant? So, if

3:11:33it was like $50, I know I'd put in a tree in front of my house. I assume a lot of people would. So, I don't know who can answer that, but that would be helpful to know probably would be. Okay, that's good evening.

3:11:53Good evening, mayor, council members.

3:11:55Iette Ortiz, your public works director.

3:11:58Um, can you repeat the question? And I know it's about step if we set the fee for uh the tree planting fee the to do it on your own it would be 50 and then it'd be higher for you know people getting the city to do it. What do we have the staff to actually do that

3:12:18if we had a huge uptake? We we currently have a program manager uh you met you met before Steven Prey who is our urban forest program manager and he does evaluate these requests and u works um with our engineering staff to issue permits but it's primarily on him and he

3:12:36does have other responsibilities. Um a big project coming up is the Hillside Natural Area uh fire resilience project and um he has clean water responsibilities. So, um I can ask him to um come up and maybe discuss how many permits we previously got with the lower rate if he has that

3:12:58information available.

3:13:06Hi, good evening. I am your environmental programs manager and uh urban forest program manager. Um Steven Prey. So yeah, two years ago the uh I'm just going off memory here. The fee to for a a person to plant up to three trees in the ride of way uh was around just under $60. I think it was 50 and

3:13:32some change. And um you know the the staff time that is required for that as well is pretty involved just to um to help the uh to locate the planting site which needs to be a certain distance from utilities and and from driveways um and to select the species. So the

3:13:53staff there is some staff involvement with that. So, um, we've really only have had in the almost 15 years that I've been here and 12 years that we've had this program, we've only had less than a handful of people at that $50 per one to three trees take advantage of it.

3:14:17The city would plant a tree in the last two years ago uh fee schedule cycle for around $360 and we had roughly 10 a year and that's the city does everything. The city well the con we have a contractor do the work but we still have to uh somebody has to go out site the tree select the species

3:14:40and then uh get the tree buy the purchase the tree and get it in the ground. So, I'm hoping that answers your question.

3:14:47That does and makes me less concerned and more interested in reducing at least the the fee for if the property owner does it on their own. I think we we have to be more careful for hiring outside contractor on the fee for actually doing the work. So, I I don't know if council

3:15:04would be open to reducing the fee more.

3:15:07I think 50 is a pretty big reduction, but I don't know, 100, 150, I feel like that would put it in reach for more people. When you're charging $300, I think people think twice or three times and maybe don't do it.

3:15:20Yes. Go ahead.

3:15:21I have a I have a question about that. I noticed in the um discussion that it's not just digging a hole and putting a tree in. It's also like the bladder and all that stuff, too. So there's like an actual material cost. How much do those tree bladders cost?

3:15:45All told the the tree bladders to answer your question directly is um and thanks for the question is around when we buy them in bulk they're around 20 $25 a piece. The total um materials cost outside of the labor is around uh two depending on the species 200 to 225.

3:16:09Okay. So, so it's the cost of the tree itself that's expensive.

3:16:14It's actually the cost of the labor. The labor.

3:16:16So again, that's the upper reach is 200 225 for the materials cost. That includes the stakes, the mulch, uh any soil amendments, the tree, uh the bladder, etc.

3:16:30Okay. So, we would best definitely be subsidizing it if we was that the the 350 cost. This is the city doing all that stuff. So, the individual does it. They wouldn't be doing any of that, right? Or do you if they get come in for a permit, do you say here's the stakes and here's the

3:16:52bladder and go for it?

3:16:54We don't provide the stakes or the bladder in that case. We just provide the permit to uh for them to plant the tree.

3:17:02But it does require inspection of the tree uh both before and after planting.

3:17:07There's certain um standard that uh nursery tree quality is um important standard that it must follow.

3:17:15Okay. So these are not skinny little trees. These are like substantial 15gallon trees that will be 15 gallon is the standard. Yeah. Yeah.

3:17:24Okay.

3:17:24Yeah. Some are a little skinnier than others.

3:17:27Thank you.

3:17:29Okay. Are we finished with comments?

3:17:33I mean I I'll make a motion, but I'd love at least some head nods. Is anybody open to that? If not, I won't bother making the motion to do something like 100 or 150 just again for if the property owner plants it for themselves, not touching the 698 for if the city

3:17:48does it.

3:17:49I would second that.

3:17:51Okay. Well, at least I think if we have a motion by and sorry and just to be clear, the the motion includes what I said before, which is to direct staff to also return next year in advance of us setting the fee schedule to give an update both on the tree planting fees and like how

3:18:08that's going and also to share more on the deliberations that are made and and how the decisions are made about what we subsidize, what we don't. Just sharing what's behind that. So that is my motion.

3:18:22What is the dollar amount of the fee?

3:18:24Okay, we have a sorry the dollar amount of the fee is 150 is my motion.

3:18:29Thank you.

3:18:30And again that's just for if the property owner is planting not touching if the city is doing it.

3:18:36Okay. I have a motion and a second. All in favor?

3:18:40I I uh getting abstension. Motion passes.

3:18:46Thank you very much.

3:18:48Thank you. And and just to confirm that was also for the whole fee schedule as well, just with that one amendment. Yes.

3:18:53Sorry if that wasn't clear. I just wanted to make sure I got that right.

3:18:56Okay. So now we are still Okay, I'm going to let you do that ruin this system.

3:19:20We're still not there. Okay.

3:19:23Okay. Next is policy matters and that is uh fiscal year 2026 27 and 27 28 budget study session number three. May I have a report please?

3:20:06Good evening. Good evening again, Mayor and Council. Claire Coleman, budget and financial services manager. Um, I'm here again with you this evening to talk about the fiscal year 2026 27 and fiscal 2027 28 bianual budget. This is our third study session to talk about budget

3:20:23balancing scenarios. Um, and our goal this evening is to get um what we hope will be um semifinal direction from you on how to proceed so that we can uh try to aim our our aim is to get you a budget a draft budget book on Friday this week. Um and so um if we get that

3:20:40direction from you this evening, we should hopefully be able to meet that timeline. So you have Memorial Day weekend. Um, and that would really be a full week and a half before the June 2nd meeting where you'll consider it for more detailed review. Um, after that

3:20:51June 2nd meeting, you would have still the opportunity to provide feedback for any adjustments or edits in advance of what we hope will be uh a June 19th formal budget adoption.

3:21:03So, as we begin this evening, excuse me, I'm fig um there have been a few changes since you last saw the budget numbers on May 5th. Um we try not to change the numbers this late in the process but unfortunately sometimes things are out of our control. Um so a few things that have changed. Uh we did

3:21:22adjust the scenarios based on your feedback at the May 5th meeting. Um so we'll talk about that briefly um in a moment. I mean um we also updated the cost allocation plan uh based on the master fee schedule that you just adopted. And so the primary impact to the budget because we did make some uh

3:21:40initial estimates for the revenue side already. Um but one of the primary impacts is the re revisions to the allocations among funds particularly the overhead um that's allocated to the special revenue and enterprise funds.

3:21:53Um another change that we made was we decided to pull the SCBA the self-contained breathing apparatuses. um those had been originally in the operating budget, but those are very large onetime expense. And so right now, because we don't have a sign uh a substantial set aside for those, we

3:22:13wanted to pull those out as a onetime expense in the same way that we are doing for the fire engine. Um some of our capital um spending and and vehicle replacement is already done on an annual basis through the the operating budget, but this one was unusual. So, we wanted

3:22:27to call that out separately and so we are doing so now in these scenarios. Um, we also got another insurance update uh one that's not in our favor unfortunately and so that was a 3% increase to our um general liability workers comp and other forms of insurance through our uh municipal

3:22:43pooling authority which is our insurance JPA. Uh that was an increase of just over $100,000 unfortunately to um all funds but primarily impacting the general fund. Uh so we also um had have some adjustments in the scenarios to the timing of the set aides to the internal

3:23:05service fund for the fire engine. And I I'll talk about that a little bit more because I think it it can seem confusing. The goal is to smooth the impacts of these large one-time purchases so that we make sustainable ongoing budget changes, but we don't have very large fluctuations from one

3:23:24year to the next.

3:23:27So a little bit about internal service funds. Um this uh it is a new concept for many people and so we want to be very clear about how they work. It's basically a set aside for a known need and you set aside the funds over time and then when you need to replace it the

3:23:44fund goes down and then you start setting aside again for that replacement. So I use the SCBAs as an example. This was this is on a hypothetical 10-year time frame.

3:23:52Typically, SCBAs are often on a 15-year replacement schedule, but for the sake of the visual, this is a 10-year. And so, you can see the city would be setting aside that annual contribution.

3:24:02The the orange line is the total fund balance. And then those vertical gray lines are the replacement years. So, you have the replacement, you build up the reserve, you replace it, that goes down, and you build it up again. So, our long-term goal with these ISFs, these

3:24:15internal service funds, is to have a planning process for our major equipment and vehicle replacement and for certain forms of capital to make sure that we can plan and set aside funds for the long-term replacement. Um, we want to be totally transparent. There is a limit to

3:24:31how much we can do this and how much is prudent. There are certain types of capital um where it is reasonable and realistic to consider bonding instead.

3:24:38Things like the city hall debt. So there are places where kind of like a mortgage, you don't typically buy a house in all cash. Congratulations to people who can, but most of us have a mortgage and we pay that off over time.

3:24:48And it's not considered a responsible debt. You're building equity and and you find those things over time. So it's there are certain types of expenses in ISFs, fire engines, vehicles, major equipment. Another one that we talk about is police radios and that and that

3:25:01replacement coming up. So setting aside funds for expenses that we know are coming and that we have recurring over time. Um, one of our goals in the finance department, um, after this budget cycle is to actually create a formal, a more formal policy for our internal service funds. Part of it is

3:25:18the nerdy accounting side that Crystal and I get excited about is what are the practices that you use? What kind of schedules do you do? Do you do a flatline? Do you do a an escalated cost?

3:25:28It's the ways that we approach it. But I think it will be very helpful to have a formal administrative policy for how we approach our internal service funds and start creating those lists of schedules and determining how much we want to set aside and how much we can afford to set

3:25:40aside over time. Um so we have uh it does say balances grow with investment earnings. That is correct. But I do want to be clear that this is not um like a an aggressive in interest rate that we would expect to get. We invest city funds um looking for safety, liquidity

3:25:59and return in that order. So safety is the most important um and then liquidity of our ability to spend it and then some element of return and with some of these funds we can worry a little bit less about liquidity but that is our primary goal. So we won't see crazy investment

3:26:12returns but they will grow over time.

3:26:17Um council member Katanis, last meeting you had asked about the Howard Jarvis initiative. Um, and so I wanted to uh provide a little bit more information about that if that's of interest. Um, it would be extremely significant for the city if it were to pass. Right now there are many

3:26:35many ongoing negotiations and the legislature um has until June 25th um to get a resolution through legislative action and negotiations for the proponents to potentially withdraw. This has happened at least three times in the last decade with this specific type of

3:26:53initiative with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. There was one um I let's see if I can remember I think it was 4 to 6 years ago that was a soda tax was the one at the time Berkeley had a new soda tax. Big soda was pretty mad about it and they were bankrolling the

3:27:07Howard Jarvis initiative that would prohibit all forms of soda taxes and I think they threw in some really nasty things of I don't know undermining local government in 15 different ways on our revenues. um that was resolved through legislative action. And so at this time

3:27:21with this budget cycle, it's not we don't believe that it is prudent to budget for this potential loss um because it not only has to go through the legislative cycle, it then also has to get approved by the voters and there have already been pretty significant groups in opposition. Um the I sit on

3:27:37the um revenue and taxation committee with council member Modiama and there was a presentation um last month from the professional firefighters association um which is obviously a very influential um group and many local government organizations and advocates I

3:27:50think would come out against this because of the pretty significant the the enormously significant impacts to city services. So uh we take this very seriously. Um and should it become official, we will absolutely take immediate and very um quick action to make immediate changes

3:28:10and then to make a very deliberate and thoughtful process of how the city would need to change. Um but we at this time are not making those changes or proposing any changes because there is a very real likelihood that it would not come to pass. Um did I miss anything

3:28:25assistant city manager or Lucas?

3:28:26I don't believe you did. also um also as an a potential is is that something also could be included as part of a budget trailer bill out of the governor's office. And so really there's just way too much in the air right now to be able to to budget for that anticipation.

3:28:49So before we get to the overall citywide budget, um as is the annual practice for um we would like the city council to do a brief review of your own budget. Um another option would be that if you want to discuss potential changes to your budget with the other solutions, that is

3:29:06also an option if you want to have that conversation all at the same time. Um but we do want to make sure that staff get council approval and direction regarding your division budget. Um, this graph is quite small. Um, it is an attachment, but I actually think I can

3:29:21Yeah, I can zoom in here. It's a little fuzzy, but I I can zoom in here if you would like to discuss that now. Um, but I also know that um several of the potential changes to your division budget are included in the scenarios.

3:29:34So, if you'd rather I'll I'll look to you, Mayor Kinto, if you'd rather discuss now or included the solutions.

3:29:39We can we can do this now. Um, one thing I would like to say, uh, to our residents, um, uh, this council, okay, has sacrifice for many, many years getting underpaid. I want to make sure if we rightsize this, every department has to do the same thing. I'm actually

3:30:02getting a little tired of getting less than uh, what most cities are getting.

3:30:08the importance of par you know parody within the 19 cities of contraosta is important. So you know this is a sacrifice uh for all of us and we have moms and uh here that are trying to do their best here and we had a very good uh colleague who left the council because of our low stipens and the state

3:30:34of California fixed that last year. We should be making $1,100 a month for this stipen. And what are we getting? So, I just want to make sure if we're going to spread this out where I want every department to do the same. This is not right. This is my third term. And to see

3:30:52good people leave the council uh because we are the ones that are making the sacrifice time and time again. That's not acceptable. So, I'm calling this out now. You look at what my colleagues in the other 19 cities are making. We are truly one of the lowest paid in Northern

3:31:11California. And I want to make sure that the city manager knows where I stand on this. As president of the League of California Cities, I look at what other cities stipens are. We're we're one of the lowest. So I want to look at par with the other cities. uh you have San

3:31:31Pablo, you have Polol, you know, you have all these cities making more than us and that is not right. We work hours.

3:31:39I don't even have a life anymore because I'm spending too much time on uh these matters all the time where we are getting the short end of this time and time again. So in the future, I want to make sure that people who would like to run in the future, I want to make sure

3:31:56that women and minorities have a chance.

3:31:59you know, they cannot survive on this.

3:32:01I'm losing money time and time again just on dry cleaning, you know, with all the things that I do here. So, uh, I just want to make sure that our residents know the importance of parody with the 19 cities in Contraosta County.

3:32:16Uh, you look at our next door in Richmond and I do a lot more work than that council does combined and that is not acceptable, you know. So, I'm looking at staff now. This is not fair and I need your help on this, please.

3:32:33So, thank you. Let's uh start over here with Mayor Prom.

3:32:39So, well, I agree we are underpaid. I don't think in this budget we have a way to address that, but I would like to see us address it in the future. But I did have um questions about a couple things.

3:32:50One is the Tom Bates JPA for the the field for people who don't know what that is. I was a little surprised at how much that is and so it would be helpful to know and I don't except I know about the field. I don't know what we get out of that so that would be helpful to

3:33:07know.

3:33:09Yes, go ahead.

3:33:10I I'm the city rep on the JPA. Um it is to make sure that the fields are in good condition. they are, you know, used really extensively by all the different groups including El Certo sports teams, uh, like the soccer players. Um, and so that's 15,000 has been the dues for many many years. So

3:33:34they haven't gone up. Um, you know, we are really lery as Elsidens to increase that fee, but that's, you know, that's the field maintenance. Um they also got some grants to uh um do the bathrooms and some other stuff there. And you know it's really even though it's only 15,000 it's us Richmond

3:34:00uh Emeryville, Albany and Berkeley. And this is, you know, the city of Berkeley had been subsidizing uh our part of our dues or like what we owe them for the cost uh because they had a parks bond measure and that is running out. So, you know, we're we're lucky that it hasn't changed. um they

3:34:25had let us know that they were not happy about continuing to subsidize it, but that's what it c um you know they they pay for the utilities because it's a lighted field, the maintenance of those fields. They have those special fake grass stuff with the cork in it

3:34:43that has to be maintained over time, clean the bathrooms, make sure the parking lots are clean and you know all that stuff. and they also project manage all the improvements for that. So that is that is our portion.

3:34:57Thank you. I mean none of that the costs are not surprising to me. I guess I just don't understand and we don't need to get into this tonight but I I would like more information and I'd like us to think about this in the future. Like Berkeley isn't paying for the

3:35:13maintenance of our fields and their residents use our fields too. I mean and our residents use Richmond field. We all all the residents use fields in lots of cities. So I guess I don't fully understand why this one is so different that we pay for it every year. A pretty

3:35:28substantial amount. So I don't know. Again, I don't want to I think we could talk about this for an hour. Given the hour tonight, I don't want to talk about it, but I would like this to come back for us to assess. I don't know our commitment. Could we ever get out of it? I don't know. But it just

3:35:45doesn't it doesn't seem equitable honestly. Um and I'd like to know more and figure out what our options are if there are any.

3:35:54Yes. In and you had asked the question yesterday when we spoke um council member and or mayor Po, I'm sorry. And I worked with our recreation director to start to do some research into that. Um what it would what what do we gain by being a part of the JPA? What would we

3:36:10lose if we were not a part of the JPA?

3:36:12So absolutely we will we will do some more research and we can provide some some better answers once we have some information.

3:36:20Okay. Cuz I mean when you look at all these other you know dues except for like a bag which is kind of high but obviously we need to be a part of a bag.

3:36:28All these other ones are like a couple thousand and so that this one is the highest. It's just it is clearly not the place we're getting the most uh impact to our city and it costs a lot more than all the other ones that are bringing us a lot of positive impact. The other

3:36:43thing I wanted to comment on on here is the council retreat facilitator and I talked to Karen about this. Um I think we should think about scaling this down, not getting rid of it, but is there some scaled down option where we we're not paying a lower rate but getting less

3:37:01hours? So there's an extensive process ahead of time where the facilitator interviews all of us. Maybe instead there's a survey and we just have to fill it out and if you don't fill it out, you don't get input. Maybe there's some scale down options. Um I can tell

3:37:15you even at BAR at a much bigger agency, we didn't we didn't pay for that many hours for a facilitator. It was just for somebody at the actual meeting. So I think there's a lot of ways to do it.

3:37:26And if we're looking for places to cut to not have to make some of these harder cuts to essential services, that is not an essential service. So I think if we can come back with some options about how to get some cuts there, but still keep a facilitator, I would like to see

3:37:43that.

3:37:44Yeah. One thing I wanted to mention with uh the Tom Bates JPA uh Rich is Richmond, they're still part of it.

3:37:52Okay. So, um I know they're doing a lot of improvements with brand new restrooms and uh more fields, but they will they're also going to be installing pickle ball.

3:38:04Uh so, um you know, these are things I want to and and we have paid for this big time and I I was a member I was part of that committee for many years. um the importance of uh making sure that uh we negotiate with the city of Berkeley uh on that and you know Richmond they never

3:38:25attended the meetings. So and then they complain afterwards why is this so expensive? So, I just want to make sure that um we see the big picture uh with the pickle ball courts um and the new parking lot and uh and you'll see all the changes when you uh drive down 80 or

3:38:45you drive down East Shore uh that little road over there. Um so, a a lot of improvements, a lot of uh my neighbors are part of that soccer group that plays there all the time, you know, and and that is sufficient. I do not believe we need to put a soccer field at the

3:39:04baseball field at uh uh you know we we already paying $15,000 uh the soccer fields are there so uh and it's available for all residents so I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows about that. Anyone else?

3:39:21Um, the only thing that I was going to add, mayor, and it's very quickly I'm not going to say a whole lot about it, but I think that I wanted to invite the public. I know sometimes our meetings go late and you don't get to stay here and listen to the 12, what is it? AB1234,

3:39:36whichever that report out that we do, and we talk about when we've gone to Cal City's meetings and we've gone to East Bay Division meetings and we've gone to National League of Cities meetings because I see a lot of chatter online a lot about why do they do these things

3:39:48and they only go for photo ops and why did they go to Sacramento? Yeah. Um, it will be so lovely if if it was so easy for us to get money and infrastructure and things done by simply sitting at the desk every day and just filling out simple grants and they just come to us

3:40:03by thinking about it. But unfortunately, a lot of the things that we have to do either it's by by relationships where we've met folks who we talk about different ways that we can bring new infrastructure into our city or it does come by us having to go to legislatores.

3:40:19Sometimes it does have to do with us going to Sacramento. Um, you know, the best way to talk to our congress member, yes, he has an office here in the district, but the best way to actually lobby for earmarks in those federal budgets is actually to go to the office

3:40:34where he and his legislative analysts are. They're not in the district office.

3:40:38So, I encourage I mean I don't you know it's always good for people to be critical and question how certain things are being spent, but I want people to think a little bit um deeper about what those those what what happens at those type of events because I know that's

3:40:53going to be the first thing someone is going to say, well, why do they need to go to Cal Cities? We're not a big city like San Francisco, so we don't we don't do our it's it's not always felt the same when we advocate for things like for myself on public policy or council

3:41:09member Motyama in housing if it's just Elsto alone. We build these coalitions and relationships across our state and across our nation so that we can advocate but also come up with best practices for the type of um cities that we are. So, I just wanted to kind of

3:41:25address that because I know that there's going to be chatter about those things and I do think that they are very important relationships that we are building on a continuous basis to address those things here in our cities.

3:41:37Thank you for that. Um, yes.

3:41:38Thank you. I want to chime in on the council retreat. I um the first one that I attended I thought was valuable. I'd just been elected and I felt it was good for as you mentioned relationships. I thought it was good for relationship building amongst us. I was actually a

3:41:51little bit surprised that we did it the next year. So, I'd like to just throw out the possibility of having it every two years instead of every year. Have it whenever we have elections. And presumably many times there will be new people coming on board with those

3:42:03elections. And it's an opportunity to get to know one another in a less formal setting and get on the same page. And again, I don't I didn't feel like I I do think it's very expensive. I I would hope that it could be done in house. Um but I also don't think it needs to be

3:42:20done every single year.

3:42:22Yes.

3:42:23Thank you, mayor. Um, I would like to um propose that we do have a $1,000 per council member cut for the travel budget. And a part of it is that we need to to take a haircut because everybody else is. But also I would like to suggest that maybe we can roll over the travel funds so that we

3:42:46can plan ahead and say well I have you know I won't spend any this year but there's something important coming next year that I would like to do. So I think that that you know cutting it a thousand and per person and then you know rolling it over um you know so we can we all can

3:43:01plan ahead and uh kind of meet our needs through kind of the budget process. So, I know that you're we close everything out at the end of the fiscal year, but I think that might be a good compromise.

3:43:19Yep. Thank you for that. Um, and I also agree about the facilitator.

3:43:24I think that it's a it's really nice to have, but it's a nice to have.

3:43:29Yeah, I agree with that in Yes. So, traditionally when we roll, sorry, I was just conferring with finance director Crystal Rees here. Um, traditionally when we roll forward funds from one fiscal year to the next, they are tied to either a capital project or to a purchase order that has been

3:43:50incomplete. So, typically most operating expenses, if the funding is not used, it reverts to fund balance. In the circumstance like you're talking about, council member Modyama, what we would do, it would simply be a budget amendment through council action. So effectively, you would just be saying,

3:44:05"I didn't use it all last year. We're just going to increase the budget and basically use fund balance." So we currently already do that process through purchase orders. We say, "We had planned to do this. We didn't spend it very clearly. It's attached to this vehicle that we haven't received, for

3:44:18example." Um, and so it's a very clear one. So in this case, it would just be a budget amendment uh without a purchase order, but that's absolutely something the council could do. we would likely bring it to the city council along with the purchase order roll forward just to

3:44:30keep things co uh consistent. I'd say I could also suggest that um some members tend to um maybe and it fluctuates through different years. Some members may travel more than other members and they may not use their full aotment. Um they could the council could also choose to distribute that se in a

3:44:50different way as well. So, it also again I I think rolling it over unlike with a purchase order or or a capital project um would simply be an additional budget amendment that could be um agreed upon by the city council. If there was something that came up in the next year

3:45:08that you knew that you were going to need more than X amount of money to travel with, then that request could be made at the budget process.

3:45:16Okay. Now, I agree with that. Um, looking at uh my travel, all of my travel is paid by um uh Cal Cities uh as president and then past president next year. They'll pay for everything. Uh LFCO, they pay for my travel. The airboard, they pay for all my travel.

3:45:34So, um uh so that's why I'm rolling over my travel year after year. But um you know, if anyone needs any travel funds and you ran out, uh check in with me.

3:45:47I'd be more than happy to roll some of mine over uh to make sure you are able to make your trips, but what I've done in the past with I'm sorry, mayor. It would not be a rollover in the traditional way. It would need to be agreed upon by a vote of the city council.

3:46:02Yes. Exactly. So, um the travel that I've done for like other trips, I've used my campaign money and and that's what you use your campaign money for.

3:46:14So, uh, um, so just know in the future if you're running out of money, do a fundraiser.

3:46:21So, uh, thank you.

3:46:23Yeah. All right. Anyone else would like to comment?

3:46:34So, it sound Yes. So, it sounds like um we have a proposal to decrease the council travel budget by $1,000 per member. Is that correct? All right. Um, are there any other proposals for changes to this at this time?

3:46:49I'll I'll just throw out a number for the retreat facilitator. I would uh say that we reduce it by about 2/3 to $6,000 each year, which hopefully would be enough to at least have somebody facilitate the actual meeting.

3:47:08I think that we could make that work.

3:47:09Yes, I would support that as well.

3:47:12Can I I would like to to consider uh Council Member Katanis' idea of just doing it every two years when there's new council members. I think we can all read our strategic plan and know what we're doing.

3:47:26I I do want to mention we have a new mayor every year. So that is one thing and two just new things come up. I don't know. I I've gotten very used to the retreat. I did it for 12 years at BART.

3:47:37It was just always a really good reason.

3:47:38It's like the only opportunity where we actually get to like talk about things in a somewhat open-ended way, which we probably could use more of. So, I don't I really value having it even if we just nyx the facilitator and have staff do it. I think it's very valuable to have

3:47:53every year.

3:47:54I was just going to add that yes, usually this is uh the mayor's whoever the new mayor is that year is who I can who I confer with on the retreat and what the retreat theme will be and and and you know, things of that nature. I can certainly tell you from a staff

3:48:09perspective, it has been extremely valuable and incredibly important for us um because it essentially sets the theme in the work plan for the year. So from a staff perspective, I certainly would uh and again I agree. I think that we could either make a facilitator work for less

3:48:25or we could do it with staff if necessary. But I certainly would um from a staff perspective, it is an incredibly important um day for us. Can can I just throw off this one that I think it's a little bit of what coun I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tim Salsman said when we talked

3:48:40about the extra hours for the interviews. I mean, I'm known for really hating the interviews, but I also think that when we go to council retreat, we spend most of our time with the facilitator regurgitating to us what was in the interviews and we don't actually

3:48:56talk to each other. It's her telling us what each one of us said when we can actually be in a retreat having the conversation together. So, if that actually reduced the amount that we're paying by just nixing that preart, I hate that prepart. It's so stupid. I really dislike it. If that reduced the

3:49:14amount that we're paying the facilitator, I would absolutely be open to that as well.

3:49:24Are there any other changes proposed for the council's budget aside from what we will discuss briefly in the scenarios?

3:49:31Have we reached a consensus about the retreat? Is it So, I just want to give a friendly reminder that this item is about the whole budget and not just the council budget. We still have public comment. I know there's a motion on the I don't know if it was technically on the floor.

3:49:47I think you're just talking I I believe that if there has been a proposal on the floor, but as what we will do because again there's no action necessarily being taken at this. This is more of, you know, the discussion with the council and that we will come back and

3:50:02put all of these into the budget. If there are the reductions that have been proposed, then we will put those into the budget if those are the reductions that the council would agree on.

3:50:11Okay.

3:50:12Thank you, Alex.

3:50:13Okay, good. We'll go to public comment now if that's okay.

3:50:16So, after the We are still um Oh, we're still on this.

3:50:22We've been talking about this all night.

3:50:23There's a couple. We're not done.

3:50:25Yeah, we So, that was the council's division budget. So, thank you. we have our direction on that. Thank you for that. Um we now have the the rest of the citywide budget to consider. Um most of the sim uh the scenarios are substantially similar. So um these are

3:50:39the primary components that are included in all of the scenarios. I'm going to move quickly because I know we have a lot of things to get to. I just want to double check my notes before I do that.

3:50:51Yes. So these are the similarities. So these are the things that are included in all of the scenarios. Um, as a reminder to council members, but also members of the public, there is an attachment that details every single line in each of the scenarios and every

3:51:03single thing that is proposed. So, I encourage anyone to to read through that for the full detail. Um, but I want to emphasize the core differences between what is what we're calling B+ and C plus. So, both of these are different than what you saw last time. Um the

3:51:17lowest level reserve for fiscal year 27 and 28 of any of these scenarios and again not including the changes just proposed by council is either 29% lowest or 30 lowest. Um in scenario C++ the lowest projected would be 29.7%.

3:51:34I know that rounds up to 30 but our policy is over 30 and that's technically under. So I wanted to be very transparent about that. Um the lowest projected total reserve level for the scenario B+ is 28% so below the 30% but pretty close. Um and both of these are

3:51:52above the fab recommended level of 26%.

3:51:55Um the service cuts um in these scenarios B and C was 500 per member. Um the council have already directed us to pursue the 1,000 which is in scenario C plus. Um, scenario B+ includes a 40% decrease in general fund contribution to the Fourth of July event. C++ is the

3:52:12full elimination of the general fund contribution to that event. Um, scenario B+ includes a small decrease to landscape maintenance services. That's $15,000 annually. That's different from what was originally in the prior scenarios, which was 10,000 in the first

3:52:27year, 30,000 in the second. This is just 15,000 both years. Um and I believe that's out of uh about 650,000 total landscape maintenance budget. Um the landscape maintenance in scenario C plus is 105,000 which is uh quite substantial. Last meeting on May 5th um multiple council members expressed uh

3:52:50concerns with decreasing the landscape maintenance budget. Um, unfortunately in scenario C++ there there really aren't that many other options available to get that above 30% in both of the budgeted fiscal years. Um, an comparable cost alternative would be the library hours.

3:53:08And so that is something that the council could also discuss. That is also approximately $100,000 per year. Um, so those are the primary differences. I also want to note C++ includes eliminating grant writing and lobbying um which I believe the council members have expressed hesitation about as well.

3:53:23Um and it would cancel the easy stars high school internship program. So those are the primary differences. Um oh just to clarify it would cancel it in the second year.

3:53:34Yes, not in not in the second year of the budget, not the current year because we already have everyone lined up and I'm not interested in breaking a 17-year-old's heart. Um 16. Oh no. So this is the summary of both of these scenarios. Um as you will note the one-time expenses

3:53:51have shifted. So we are putting like I mentioned earlier we are frontloading more of that contribution and that will help us smooth. So that allows us to have the fund balance change um in scenario B plus to be consistent across years as opposed to a very large surplus

3:54:05in one year and a very large deficit in the other. Um we believe that this is a balanced and sustainable operating budget with uh thoughtful and intentional uses of one-time fund balance. Um both of these onetime expenses are things that we are going to incorporate into our long-term

3:54:21internal service fund contributions moving forward. But as is noted in the staff report and has been noted before, due to the city's financial crisis in 2019, the city has been unable to make substantial contributions to an internal service fund in the past. This budget

3:54:35really makes meaningful changes and allows us to start setting aside those funds moving forward. But because we don't have that $2 million today, we do need to use one-time funds because we aren't able to make those cuts out of the operating budget without very

3:54:47significantly decreasing services to the community. Um, so these are our two recommendations. Uh, those two graphs are not actually the same graph. They are different graphs even though they look quite similar. Um, they are the correct representation of each of those

3:55:01and both does include use of the section 115 trust. It's currently modeled to begin um use of that trust when as we approach peak of the UI which begins in the next two-year budget. Um so with that I hope um happy to answer any questions.

3:55:14Okay, any questions? I'm looking to my left first to my right. Mayor Prom.

3:55:21Okay.

3:55:24So, with what has been talked about already with cutting the facilitator some and cutting the uh council travel budget more, it doesn't seem like we'd need to cut that mo much more to put back the landscape maintenance in and still get to the same ultimate number and res reserve level as

3:55:45is in B+. So 15.

3:55:51Oh, it's a it's not quite there, but it's it's like within a few thousand.

3:55:55Yeah. So I I guess I'd like to see what other council members like to say, but I'd really like to get that landscape maintenance back looking at this paragraph in the report about the impacts. Like they still are big impacts. And I just, you know, I told the city manager this when I met with

3:56:12her yesterday. When I got to BART, right before I got there, they had balanced their budget by cutting a bunch of maintenance positions. And then again during the pandemic, we had a hiring freeze. And so that impacted a lot of maintenance positions. And it took years

3:56:28to get out of that both times. Like right now, BART's finally getting out of that. And the public notices anything that has to do with maintenance, the public notices that almost first. And so I just I really if there's any way to not make cuts there, I really don't want

3:56:45to make cuts there, especially knowing that we have some vacant positions and it would be hard to kind of backfill that. So my proposal, unless there are other proposals from people, would just to make up that 2500 or 3,000 or whatever it is by just a slightly bigger cut to

3:57:03the 4th of July. It's not a huge cut at that point. I will commit. I will go out and raise that money. Like I can raise $3,000 each year for Fourth of July.

3:57:13Hopefully other council members can too, but that is not an insurmountable hurdle. So that would be my recommendation unless somebody has a better idea about how to find a few thousand.

3:57:23Yes. Go ahead, council member.

3:57:25No, you can come back to Yeah.

3:57:27Thank you. Um I think that I agree about the maintenance. I think that people in our city really love using all the parks and you know they expect them to be in good condition. They do need constant work to keep them nice. Um I am going to propose I did this like back in 2020 and people

3:57:48wanted to recall me. But I will say I think we should consider reducing the library hours because that is a significant amount of money. It's $100,000. all the other stuff like getting rid of like the Christmas lights or the holiday lights on for $5,000. I mean, that's really sad. I mean, why

3:58:06would we do that? But then, you know, we could just do some bigger things and really take care of, you know, getting us back into balance. So, I would propose that.

3:58:21I'm shocked.

3:58:25Any comments?

3:58:25It's it's extra. We do get 40 hours a week from the county and that will continue. So I don't think that this is something that we can continue to do.

3:58:40So I don't I don't hate it.

3:58:46I think I'm shocked because I remember the I remember the bruises you took last time.

3:58:52I'm I'm here for it. Yeah.

3:58:54I don't hate it because it's not forever and we said that we wanted to write the ship even if we needed to start in these first two three years and then scale back up or or whatever we were able to do. I think it sounds really harsh giving what's going on with, you know,

3:59:16the the ballot measure that's on um the ballot and people will take it and twist it in in 50 different ways and not really understanding that this is actually something that's going to help us down the road should we get a new library. We need to once we get there, we do need to be in a

3:59:36position where if we have a new library and it's great and everybody wants to come, we are in a position to say let's have more hours then. So, I don't hate it. I I I can see why people would get mad at you. I don't remember that. I probably blocked it out, but um I know

3:59:54you didn't block it out, but I can and and I can see why it might be hard for people to hear that right now because they just hear library and they intend shoot up. But I can see the long the long play and it is we said that this is what we were going to do. We were we

4:00:08were shooting for long-term stability.

4:00:10So I don't I don't hate it, council member.

4:00:13Yeah. Uh yes, I do hate it. Probably not surprisingly.

4:00:21I mean the the extra hours we provide, it's not just about the total cumulative hours. It's about allowing working people and families to go to the library. I mean, those additional evening hours are so important. I I just I think it would be devastating to our

4:00:40community. Um, and I I don't think it makes sense. Might we need to do it someday? Yes, we might. But like I think we found other solutions that still get us to in a better place than the FAB recommendations that still get us to investing in the funds so that in the

4:00:57future we can pay for these capital expenses. Um I I I don't think we're there. If we were in a worse budget crisis, I probably could be convinced um because you just have to do things like that. But I don't think we're in that situation. I think the B+ with some

4:01:15tweaks is a really smart financial decision and a good decision for supporting the services that people depend on. Um but they'll have real impacts. It'll mean for some people that they just can't visit the library anymore. It's not just like, oh, it's bonus hours, but for some people will

4:01:33mean they they cannot use the library anymore.

4:01:37Okay, go ahead. I mean, it strikes me when we're talking about the library hours, we're not really talking about the hours. We're talking about the staff that are necessary to maintain those hours. And going back to our prior presentation about staffing reports, you

4:01:50know, I asked about the cost of, you know, several openings and what that means in terms of expenditures.

4:01:56And I I feel like we're automatically deciding, well, if we're going to cut staff, it's going to be the library staff. And and I think that that's maybe that's where we arrive, but we haven't really had a thorough discussion or analysis or comparison of what it means

4:02:09to cut other staff instead, such as some of the staff positions that are not filled right now. I would feel much more comfortable if we seriously looked at those and weighed them against the library and against each other.

4:02:22I just want to make sure I clarify. So the library staff are not employees of the city, they are employees of the county. And so a library when we pay their the um the amount we pay for library hours, what they do use that for staffing, but we they're not employees of the city.

4:02:41The li we essentially contract with the county to provide library services. We own the building and we perform maintenance on the building, but the hours that we pay for include the staffing, but they are employed by the county. Just want to be clear.

4:02:57Am I correct in assuming that the the cost savings largely comes from not paying them the extra hour for the extra hours that we would correct? So, I believe we have 40 46 hours that are supplied by the county.

4:03:1246 40 um we we provide the extra 6 to 8 hours. We can only provide that extra 6 to 8 hours because of the size of our library. And what they do base the cost on is how they staff it. So, however they have a manager and however many, you know, full-time and part-time staff

4:03:33that um that that they when we tell them each year, yes, we're going to buy these extra hours, then that's how they budget their own staffing.

4:03:44So, um if we were to not do library hours, then they would cut back on their own staffing. So, it would impact the library staff. However, they are not employees of the city. I just want to make sure that that is clear. And and mind you with um the deficit if the

4:04:02sales tax does not is not voted in June 2nd, they would have to let go of people and they have their list already of uh departments that they would make smaller and uh we should uh carefully uh watch that because if they do let go of uh uh you know because all departments are

4:04:23going to have cuts with a billion dollar deficit. That's what San Francisco is dealing with. So when you saw how many employees they got uh that got print slips recently. So uh you know we have to be mindful of what happens uh in on the June 2nd and if uh it doesn't pass

4:04:43uh you know we have to uh uh yeah look at that closely and then uh let's revisit that after June 2nd and after the cuts that they make. I'm I'm sure it will pass here in West County. I'm just not sure it will pass on the other parts of the county.

4:05:06Is that the Oh, no. That was Council Mama's comments.

4:05:10Okay.

4:05:11Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, looking at the B+ scenario, and I know we're like tinkering a little bit with it, but you know, it's a it's a couple hundred,000 in fund balance. you know, it's really hard to get those couple hundred,000 back and I am really loathed

4:05:30to to eat away at it. Um, you know, we're supposed to have when we when we talked about this, you know, in the in the time that I've been here, it was about having a waterfall so that we have enough money left over at the end of the year to allocate to the 115 trust and

4:05:52grow that some more. You know, keep refunding, you know, the 17% fund balance. um you know EDRF the number of you know the amount of EDRF should increase as our budget increases right so it's not just a flat amount it needs to increase and so if we can't do those things um I am concerned that we

4:06:16will well we're we're eating our seed corn as they say so I I I don't I really am concerned about that part more than I'm concerned about nice extra Council member, are you are you um supporting B or C right now?

4:06:37I I support B+ because I think C++ is like really, you know, basically punitive in a level of of cutting, but I want to supplement B+ so that the fund balance change is not as aggressive as it is or I considered aggressive right now.

4:06:57Okay.

4:06:59I will just offer and I brought this up at the last meeting even though I I also don't love this. I'd be much more okay with us cancelling EC stars than cancelling the library hours. That is a nice to have. It is important. A lot of these things we're cutting are

4:07:16important, but I just don't think it's as core. I know it doesn't add up to as much money, but if you're looking for additional things to save some money, I think that's something that at some point, if the budget continues to be challenging, we're going to have to

4:07:29budge cut at some point. And anytime we cut it, we can't cut it for two more years. So, no, I would agree on that. We look at uh the changes that we may have to do um after June 2nd. So, um you know, that should be on the list as well.

4:07:48Well, I I did initially have a question about and I'll go ahead and ask the question first um to the staff. What do what does our um oh our reserve levels look like or how does it compare to peer cities that are going through similar challenges like the insurance challenges? I know you

4:08:06already um addressed the the Howard Jarvis, so we'll kind of put that to the side, but some of them have the same the same things that they are actually addressing as well. So, how do our reserve levels compare to those um peer cities and how they're navigating those

4:08:20same challenges?

4:08:23So, I don't know. Um I I unfortunately have not looked at that data. Um I would encourage us to especially focus on our own circumstance. Um primarily and and this is something I I talked about in a budget workshop as well this this cycle.

4:08:42um we can fall into some traps comparing ourselves to our neighbors because ultimately we have different service profiles. We also have different risk profiles. If you think about I used to work for the city of San Rafale, they have a whole neighborhood that floods

4:08:53constantly. So their risk profile from that flooding is different from perhaps our fire risk that may be larger. You know, there's different I live in Santa Rosa. The whole city burns all the time.

4:09:04So there's, you know, there's different there's different risk profiles by every city. And so our reserves are really should be tailored to to us and our needs as Elserto of of what are the services and what do we need to know that we are secure and there are cities

4:09:19who have a 10% reserve but if they're almost entirely property taxes and they have virtually no natural disaster risk that actually may be sufficient for them for us probably not given our risk profile. So understanding kind of our unique circumstances, I'd encourage us

4:09:33to focus a little more on ourselves. Um just given that my mantra is a little bit of different cities are different.

4:09:41Well, and so I am a pretty strong C plus. I kind of have the flip of council member Motyama. I believe that EC stars is very important. I navigate the the Elsto High School community all the time and I'm talking to students every day who either want to be an elected office

4:09:57or who want to actually work in in city administration. I get approached by students who've been interns here and just have had interactions with the city. But at the same time, I'm not as concerned because I think that and I encourage the staff to consider the fact

4:10:13that I think ECARS is something that if we don't fund it in the budget, there are ways to actually continue funding. I want to change the language around it and say we're not canceling EC stars.

4:10:24There are other organizations in the Bay Area. If you all need to be connected with them, I can do that. Um whether it's through nonprofit organizations who have grants, whether it's through corporate dollars, we can find money for EC Stars. I just want to I want to make

4:10:36sure that we're staying here though. I don't want anybody saying EC Stars is not important. EC Stars is incredibly important to those kids. I talk to them every day. I feel the same way about the Fourth of July. I mean, of course, we know I come from a city event

4:10:49background. The amount that we give to Fourth of July is actually unheard of for other cities who have much larger events. So, I trust and believe that we can actually raise more money to um give to the 4th of July. Um, I still say I know, you know, and I probably Council

4:11:06Member Motama can say this because she's not she's not not running for office this year, but I I don't completely hate that idea. I think that we said that we were going to make hard decisions. Um, and if it comes to pass, I'm not saying that I'm going to make a motion for that, but if that

4:11:23comes to pass, I just want to for me, I'm keeping my mind open about the hard decisions that we have to make because we have said for the last couple years that we were going to go through the year we said it was going to be this year that we were going to have to make

4:11:35these hard decisions so that we can go into the future and actually not just survive, but to rightsize. We keep using that phrase, right sizing. right sizing means that for a time you can't have this thing so that you can have it later on down the road. So that's I'm leaning

4:11:51towards the the C++ but I'm um looking forward to hearing what the rest of the council has to say.

4:11:58I just want to note that that was not me about this EC stars program that was Oh did I say Myama? I'm sorry.

4:12:07Yeah. So is there is a predict do we have more of a We have public comment. Just as a reminder, now's the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item. Requests this week can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card using the

4:12:35raise hand feature on Zoom or dialing star9 if joining by phone. Inperson requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence beginning of your at the beginning of your comments.

4:12:50Alex, mayor, we have two in-person speakers.

4:12:53The first speaker is Megan Stefen, followed by John Stashic.

4:13:03Hi everyone again. I'm still Megan Stefen and I still live in El Certo. Um, I really appreciate the tough decisions that you all are making. Um, I did want to echo what Mayor Prom Saltzman said and say, you know, I moved here for the parks. Um, I do think they're they're

4:13:22very obvious. You know, a lot of the people who don't have time to show up to council meetings are out there in the parks all the time. Um, you know, that said, I understand that like everything is on the chopping block. I, you know, I hear the pain about the stipend and, you

4:13:38know, the travel fees and like I get that everyone is tightening every belt.

4:13:43Um, but I did want to speak up and say like if you cut the landscape maintenance, you should expect to hear about it. I think that's something that people will call in about. It'll be very noisy and that's a tough one. Um, I also wanted I'm so sorry to do this to you

4:14:00all. Um, but I also did want to ask about the library in the context of measure C. Um, and this is like maybe just me being a little bit confused, but like in the spirit of my first comment, um, which is about like trust and transparency and really understanding

4:14:17what this measure will mean with regard to like a lot of the problems that we were seeing in the budget. um you know like if measure C doesn't pass, I would love to hear from council members about and even city staff like how will you read it? How will you interpret it? Like

4:14:37is are we looking at measure C as a public referendum on support for funding things like the extra library hours?

4:14:46Like do we see a connection there or is it simply about the ballot measure that's there? Um, like I'm I'm interested this especially because I think a lot of the discourse in the city is that if you are voting no, you are still pro the library. But a risk that I

4:15:04hear and you know sort of circulating in the room and throughout the city is that if measure C doesn't pass, but in fact, you know, a majority of voters like do like the library, do value the hours, but have decided to vote no on C for other reasons. are they putting those

4:15:23services at risk? Um, and so perhaps a little bit off topic, but related to the budget, I would just love to know, you know, if measure C doesn't pass, does that make you more inclined to cut the li additional library hours that we are funding? Thank you.

4:15:42Next speaker is John Stashic.

4:15:46John Stashic, Elsero.

4:15:50One of the things you can cut right now are these Christmas lights. I have been involved with these Christmas lights.

4:15:56They just don't seem to go away for years. And when I started be becoming involved with Christmas lights, I was the guy that uh led the fundraising effort.

4:16:09Not a dime came from the city of Elserto. We used the city trees and we appreciated that. And I had people say, "Well, get the city to put you." No way.

4:16:19We had them all contributed. It contributions came from individuals and private businesses along the avenue. And if I recall, and I don't have figures anymore, I threw them all out. But I even had enough money to play to pay for a beer bus at that brewery down there.

4:16:35So, it was all raised without city involvement. Now, somehow the city got on the hook for five or 6 thousand bucks now to do Christmas lights. And I I don't know who was responsible for that, but it might have been the Chamber of Commerce. I don't know. But when I was involved, the

4:16:56chamber didn't even pay for it. It was all donated. All donated. And it wasn't a hard sell. I just went up and down that block. And hey, people were in and they liked their name on the banner. So, you can get rid of that one quickly and go back to private donations.

4:17:15Thank you.

4:17:17We have one additional inperson speaker, David Carell.

4:17:21Okay.

4:17:25David Carell, resident of El Certo. I think when you look at this, you've been presented a little bit of a false choice. um and you're making decisions on uh a subset of the information, I think you really need to go back and look at the options that were presented last

4:17:42council meeting, the ABCD plans, and there were a number of things that were not recommended that are really expensive and have high dollar to them, and you've not been shared them. So, what the false choice here is that staff has presented a subset of those things

4:17:55that they've made you fight over $5,000 for tree lighting or, you know, $10,000 for this. And that's not going to get you to the budget, right? The library hours, all of that. Like, you really need to be thinking at a broader picture and not just sitting here, you're you

4:18:10should be getting council, sorry, you should be getting staff, city manager, department chairs to really put pen to paper and really take another look at this. I know time is tight, but again, you're fighting over scraps that aren't going to add up to anything really

4:18:24sizable and make a dent in our budget.

4:18:26And so, how do we get you to have a broader picture about things like I'll give you a couple $400,000 by having folks put 5% of their premium, pay 5% of the premiums. That's a big swing that is very normal. I know Caroline, sorry, excuse me, Carolyn, uh, Pro Bay or Prom,

4:18:46you're shaking your head there. You know, I think it's very reasonable, um, in today's day and age to pay partial premiums or four dependent premiums. Um, that $400,000 will save you your library. It will save you a bunch of other things that are your pet projects

4:19:01that you want to keep maintaining here.

4:19:03So, um, I think you need to look beyond what's been put in front of you because there are many more options on the table to consider.

4:19:10Thank you.

4:19:12Mayor, we have one imper or one Zoom speaker, Ira Sher now.

4:19:21Ira, can you hear us?

4:19:24Yes. Thank you, Iris Sharon Elserto.

4:19:28Well, I wasn't expecting to say this, but thank you. Thank you very much to Council Member Modiama. I think she recognizes there's been a significant drop off in library usage both in terms of uh borrowing of physical books and in foot traffic and this is well long

4:19:46overdue to reduce often there are very actually almost most of the time there are very few people in the library and uh it's very smart idea to reduce the library hours uh thank you for that proposal I hope the council will follow through on So, I have some additional comments. How

4:20:06did Griffin get a million-doll contract without council approval?

4:20:12I have they're the ones that came up with the $ 37.2 million estimate for the library that's not going to be built and uh you know, we really need to look into that. I have listened to the budget presentation. However, I did not see any accounting for library costs and I had

4:20:30several questions that required direct answers. I thought the city manager said she would present a library budget to the council. I could not find it that that that would be what she would spend on measure C before the construction which might not happen for 10 years. If

4:20:50the measure C tax revenue provides proves insufficient, which programs will be cut from the general fund to pay the bonds and cover operating costs? The public deserves a clear answer before voting on this measure. I have reviewed recent city credit card expenditures

4:21:09which sometimes exceed $90,000 per month. I have serious concerns about oversight. Where is the oversight for these expenditures? As the financial advisory board reviewed the city city's credit card policy, I want to h highlight specific charges that are difficult to justify as city business.

4:21:31The following transactions appeared on city credit card statements. June 2025, Chuck Cheese in Concord, California, $1,7247.

4:21:45November 2025, Easy Cater Sweet Green, $92743.

4:21:53September 2025, Mountain Mike's Pizza, $32,1.37.

4:22:02They're a big favorite amongst Elserto employees. January 2025, Johnny Donuts, Lafayette, California, $160.35.

4:22:14There are many donut purchases over the last 16 months. Thank you. I hope this council will look at these extra expenditures that are unnecessary. Thank you very much.

4:22:29That concludes public comment.

4:22:31Okay.

4:22:35Who would like to give staff direction or make a motion?

4:22:41Do we need a motion for this or just direction? Is it just direction would be helpful just so we make sure that the budget we bring on June 2nd is one that you will um Yeah.

4:22:52Okay. So, um I would like to see the impact of the elimination of the library hours as a B++ or B minus or whatever interim name that you give it. But I just want to see what that uh does to the fund balance change. So, I would like to, you know, and all the other things that we talked

4:23:16about previously to be included. So if it doesn't make a material difference and then it doesn't matter, but if it does significantly impact things going forward, that would be great to know.

4:23:29Effectively, um if the city council were to not reduce landscape maintenance, but were to reduce library hours, that would effectively be scenario C. So, the the fund balance impacts it it um based on the other things that have been uh removed like eliminating gray writing,

4:23:45it wouldn't be quite at the fully balanced because if you recall, it was it's $3,000. So, it's just on a hair.

4:23:50So, it'll be under um but it would be very close to scenario C plus. So, I think the the fiscal impacts of that full amount would be effectively that scenario. Okay.

4:24:09I mean, we know we know what the impacts are. So, I'm I guess I don't understand.

4:24:13I I still support B+ with the tweaks that we've talked about. I I just do want to address something that was said by a public commenter. In the last meeting, staff, I think, did an amazing job showing us all the things they did ahead of even coming to us to cut things

4:24:32and then presented literally every possibility, including some things that would only be possible if we bargain them with our labor partners, which we don't know what the outcome of those things would be because they have to be bargained. So, it's a pretty risky thing to hinge your

4:24:48whole budget off of that without doing that bargaining first, even if you thought it was a good idea. But, so it's just it's frustrating to hear somebody who knows who's paying attention say that the staff isn't presenting that cuz you very clearly did in that marathon

4:25:03meeting two weeks ago. And I really appreciated that. And I think several of us commented that we appreciated that long list that showed us all the really horrible things that you weren't recommending because they are so horrible. Any of us could have said, "No, that one's not so horrible." and

4:25:18put it forward. But none of us did. And we did have that conversation. We're not having it tonight because the council, I think unanimously said, "We want to see some different versions of BNC. Go do that." And that's what staff did. So, we had the opportunity. We looked at

4:25:33everything. We are now refining and we'll continue to refine. But I just want to make sure anybody who's watching this meeting knows that if you want to see that part, just go back to the last meeting. It's all there.

4:25:50The only question that I had about I know that um council member Marotim mentioned scenario B, but it looks like going back cuz I was a C plus so or a C, but it looks like some of the things that we mentioned here today from the de are things that are appearing in C. So

4:26:09we talked about and and I don't know if these are just the differences. I mean, scenario B has a decrease in city council travel for for only 500 where I think that we said that we were going to decrease it by one. That's scenario C.

4:26:22We talked about the elim cancelling EC stars. That's that's scenario C.

4:26:28Um the only thing that we we talked about eliminating the general fund contribution to Fourth of July. That's scenario C.

4:26:35I did not propose. ISO just cut a couple more thousand to get us to that 15,000 that to not do the uh decrease in the landscaping. So I I don't know. It's semantics. I think it's closer to scenario B, but it's true. It does pull some things from C.

4:26:50It pulls some things from both of them.

4:26:52And I'll be honest, it's so small it's hard for me to put them all together.

4:26:54So maybe Could I So I'll um if I could read I'll read the three ones that I already have that appear to have consensus. And please tell me if I have misunderstood.

4:27:04Um, so I have 1,000 cut for council travel per member. So that's a total $5,000. Decreasing the retreat facilitator to $6,000 per year. So that's about a 10,000 $11,000 cut um in fis in each year. Um and then keeping the landscape maintenance, which would add 15,000 to the budget. And then the

4:27:22the primary areas at this point based on what we've heard so far, it sounds like there's no interest in grant writing or lobbying and in changing that. Um, so understanding that the big the big one at this point really is um I I understand landscape maintenance is not

4:27:37something that council members are interested in. It's library or no library, 4th of July, no Fourth of July.

4:27:44Those are the two really big ones that I haven't yet heard consensus. Otherwise, I think we have the direction we need to move forward.

4:27:49I would like to go back to my my prior um statement about the staff vacancies and explore what it means to not fill those. So we I don't we are budgeting for staff vacancies. So about there's about $600,000 in vacancy savings already built into the budget and that's based on historic vacancy

4:28:06rate of between 8 and 12% annually by the city. But we know that many of those positions are backfilled using um whether it's overtime hours especially in our public safety departments. So we can't budget for the full amount of vacancy savings. So we we create our

4:28:21personnel budget based on the actual costs for all positions recognizing that we won't know exactly what those vacancies are throughout the year. So we don't vacant we don't budget the vacancies in specific departments unless there's a known intention to keep those

4:28:35positions vacant which would be freezing those vacancies. Otherwise we budget at full staffing and then we do a citywide vacancy savings rate.

4:28:43So if you were to freeze those vacancies or essentially eliminate those positions how does that change the scenario?

4:28:48Yes. Is this is that absorbed the 10% or is it No. So, so one of the budget scenarios in the very very long list included um kind of a description of the freezing. I will caveat that there may be duplication if we were to just freeze them. There may be duplication with the

4:29:04existing salary savings. So, there's a number of reasons why that wasn't recommended. The main reason is that freezing the vacancies has very large operational impacts, but it doesn't change our staffing in an intentional way. It doesn't change the programs we provide, doesn't change the

4:29:20services. And so the sta the demands on staff and the demands on on time remain the same. So if you freeze the vacancies, especially in in perpetuity for a long period of time, then you're going to have turnover. You're going to have a lot of issues as as my colleague

4:29:35um Eddie was saying earlier, you you start to have real challenges with providing the same level of services without those staff. And so if the council wants to look at staffing, I would recommend more intentional approaches to that rather than freezing vacancies, which can have very strong

4:29:52impacts, but it's not intentional changes, if that makes sense.

4:29:55I I I propose taking that look in a more intentional way.

4:30:00I want to just make sure I have this correct. So, we're doing this tonight because the intention is to be able to have a budget book by Thursday. Correct.

4:30:09Friday, please.

4:30:10Friday. Okay.

4:30:13I mean, I think that we've we've given direction on what we would like to see, but they are again from the two different scenarios and I just don't think that you're especially again, I can't it's too much and too small and I don't think that we're going to get to

4:30:29one particular consensus tonight. It doesn't sound like what is the I I want to say drop dead date, but I mean I know we want to have it by Friday. It doesn't look like it's going to happen. So, what is the next step? We will have a budget book to you by Friday.

4:30:44Oh, okay. So tonight, what I think what Claire was describing, what we were hearing, I think the the big ticket items that have been discussed tonight for Fourth of July and library, if there is no consensus on that, then we're just going to move forward with including

4:31:01those the way they are, unless you tell us otherwise because we can make what we will do is we will put all of this into our into our budget document and you will take a look at it holistically.

4:31:14Um, unless you're unless you're telling me tonight you should make sure you go cut the library hours or you should make sure you go cut the Yeah. I mean, we I I just I I just we want to be able to to give the council enough time. The document is over 300 pages. We want to make sure

4:31:35that we give you more than a week to be able to review it. We give it to the FAB at the same time that we give it to the council. We want to be able to do a presentation on June 2nd with you having look had enough time to look at the document and be able to discuss it. So

4:31:50we if if you can't decide on those things tonight, then we're just going to go forward and we'll bring we'll bring you the budget and you can talk about some of that stuff and make make other decisions and provide us further direction unless you come to a consensus

4:32:04tonight.

4:32:04Okay. I mean my I I I think and my colleagues can say what they but I think that that's a direction because otherwise we are just sitting here looking back and forth at each other and nothing is moving forward and now can you tell it's getting late and I'm just

4:32:17like I got to it's time to go.

4:32:22I need to be at the airport at 5 in the morning. So So do do you have that direction you would like? there's no consensus on library hours and and we want to keep that in the budget and keep um it sounds like about 50% of the Fourth of July general fund contribution. Then we have

4:32:39the direction we need to bring the budget forward on Friday.

4:32:43Okay. Yeah.

4:32:44Just a reminder, there are two budget hearings. So, this isn't the last time that you're going to be hearing this item, but I want to make sure all of us know what may happen uh after the June 2nd and that may change everything. So uh and then again where we we will have in

4:33:04November 15 to 20 more tax measures. So uh I don't see a lot of those passing.

4:33:11So uh um so I want to make sure that we uh are prepared for what may happen and the stuff that I've been hearing on a statewide level is not good. Uh so uh we have two more years of what's going on in the federal government and uh you know and and they're they're not

4:33:31supporting anything that we're doing here. So we will have difficult times dealing with this present administration and that's why the state has uh deficits and the county has deficits. So things may change. And also to tag on to what the assistant city manager also

4:33:50reminded as far as the budget hearings, the city council can amend the budget any time. We tend to do it. We do the big planning budget process for the 2-year budget. We bring you a mid-year budget, but at any time we can be flexible. If there is a policy decision

4:34:08that this council makes, you do not have to make it tonight. You don't have to make it by July 1st. you have the authority and the ability to amend the budget at any time and we can be responsive when necessary when it comes to things like federal or state level or

4:34:24or ballot measures or what have you. We have shown that we can be pretty nimble and pretty flexible when we have to. So we I just want to make sure that the council and the public understand that while this is a major budget process, the budget is a living document. It does

4:34:38it is not at all set in stone. We are constantly adapting and amending throughout the year.

4:34:44Okay. Okay. Thank you very much for uh this discussion. Appreciate it. Uh next we'll go to city council local and general uh regional leazison on assignments. Who would like to go first?

4:34:55May um I went to a lot of events but I won't detail them all. The the most important thing is I went to the um 2-day Contraosta Transportation Authority workshop last week where they invited not just their board but their alternates which I am one and also all the members of the various RTPCs the

4:35:17regional bodies for people who don't know the lingo um and it was about developing a transportation expenditure plan also about potential governance changes there was a lot there so if anybody body's interested in hearing more, I'm happy to talk to you offline.

4:35:33But I think this is going to be a process that we're all going to need to be involved in as the county figures out what a potential transportation funding measure could look like. It will have big impacts on us.

4:35:46Okay. Thank you. Who would like to go next?

4:35:49Go ahead.

4:35:50Thank you, mayor. Um, I just want to report out that I attended the Tom Bates JPA meeting on May the 6th and that we did get a budget which I will pass on to staff. Um, I just want to let people know that the construction for the pickle ball courts is going to start

4:36:06this summer and will be completed in a year. So, I know pickle ball is really important to people. On May 7th, I attended the mayor's conference in Arinda. And on May 13th, I attended the Abeck Housing Committee where we are working towards bringing a regional bond

4:36:23forward in 2028.

4:36:25Okay. Who would like to go next?

4:36:27Yeah. Do you have anything? Okay. Uh, a couple of things. Uh, I'll be flying to uh Ontario of all places. Uh, to uh meet with three divisions at the convention center in Ontario. uh that uh area is uh um they're dealing with warehouse issues and uh a foreclosure crisis and uh uh

4:36:52it's very divided over there. So I'll I'll give you an update uh when I get back. Um, I did I was in San Diego last week for the 50th anniversary of Janentech and uh their plans for the future and that includes the Bay Area and uh the life sciences uh their plans for expanding from uh

4:37:16Berkeley all the way to Davis. So, um, you know, it didn't really pan out yet.

4:37:22And they did give some pink slips, uh, there and they did, uh, pink slips here in Vakavville and in South Cities. So, we shall see what's going on. The federal government is not supporting a lot of that. Um, you know, so, uh, I'm not sure where that will go. Um yeah, so

4:37:41I will um I attended the as chair of LAFCO, I attended uh uh a meeting last Wednesday. Uh and I also attended uh two air district board meetings. I want to make sure our residents know if they would like to speak uh yay or nay on uh the appliance rules and that is

4:38:03changing. they they would like to uh get rid of natural gas and uh have residents in the nine Bay Area counties uh change over to heat pumps. Um I personally don't agree with that. Uh more than 50% of Californians wouldn't be able to afford this anyway and with what's

4:38:21happening on the federal level, we're not going to get any ear marks. So I support giving it a choice for residents in the nine Bay Area counties and not have it mandatory. Um, I'm still in talks and working with the mayors in California uh to uh get our domestic uh

4:38:40uh petroleum up and running again. If we still had that um we would have lower prices. Uh so we do pay the highest in airfares now uh the highest in uh diesel, the highest in gasoline and electrical electric prices and that is including with our CCAs. So in my opinion, we need to make some uh uh

4:39:07changes on the cardboard and uh we'll see what the new governor will do, but I'm not supporting a lot of the changes that uh this current group is doing.

4:39:16folks are in trouble, folks are struggling, and uh we need to think about uh all residents, not just the wealthy in Silicon Valley and uh San Monteo County. And uh the the next meeting will be uh June 2nd. I look forward to uh having everyone attend.

4:39:34Thank you for joining us. Good night.