Regular City Council Meeting August 18, 2026

0:00:11Okay, Mayor, whenever you are ready, we are ready to begin.

0:00:19Good evening. The time is 6-10. The City Council will now convene.

0:00:23the regular August 18th City Council meeting. City Clerk, please call roll.

0:00:29Thank you, Mayor Kincho? Yes.

0:00:32Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman?

0:00:34Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Cheer.

0:00:35Councilmember Katsanis? Here. Councilmember Wysinger?

0:00:39Councilmember Wysinger: Here.

0:00:40Councilmember Motuyama? Here. And just for the record tonight, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman is participating under the Just Cause exception for Contagious illness.

0:00:49And Councilmember Wysinger is participating under the Just Cause exemption for the Caregiving for a Family Member. Both Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem have required disclosures prior to each vote tonight, which will all be taken by roll call. Thank you, Mayor.

0:01:03Okay, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag or observation of a moment of silence.

0:01:10I pledge allegiance.

0:01:12Goodbye.

0:01:27Next, we'll have,

0:01:29teleconference and public comment instructions. Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor. This hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person or via Zoom with closed captions available. Meeting of the City Council are subject to the Brown Act and are held for the purpose of conducting city business.

0:01:45The Brown Act ensures the public's right to be heard, and while City Council may not respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action.

0:01:53For members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony, the Mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item. A request to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card, by selecting the raise hand feature on Zoom, or by dialing star 9 if calling in by phone. In-person speakers will be called first.

0:02:12The Council's adopted Rules of Order and Procedure specify that public speakers address the City Council in an orderly and respectful manner.

0:02:20Proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. Thank you, Mayor, that concludes my announcements.

0:02:27Next, we will go to, City Manager Karen Picas. Thank you, Your Honor. I do have several announcements tonight.

0:02:34So first and foremost, the city's local road safety plan, which is looking at traffic safety on our local street network. Our public draft is available on our website, and we are taking comments through August 21st, so coming right up, so please go to our website.

0:02:52You can even do local road safety plan in the search, and it will bring you to the traffic safety page, where you can review the draft and make comments. You can make comments on our website, or you can send an email, or you can even drop something written off to City Hall, if you like, by August 21st.

0:03:09Secondly, we have a El Cerrito Plaza parking management survey that is live, that is also on our website. If you… on our, homepage, there's the… the rotating,

0:03:21little animation there, you can click right on that. There's also a QR code. We're evaluating parking changes for the area around the El Cerrito Plaza BART station, so we're looking for input.

0:03:31We have put forth a couple of ideas. Nothing has been decided yet. We're trying to just come up with some ideas for people to comment on and think about, and it does allow for, you know, open comments for people to provide. So, you can visit parking.elCerrito.gov. The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

0:03:49And you could have the option of entering to win one of two $50 gift cards, so…

0:03:55I encourage everybody to, to do that.

0:03:58So, I wanted to announce that the Library Task Force's first meeting will be held on September 8th, 2026, on Tuesday, September 8th, here in the Council Chambers at City Hall. It is going to be a hybrid meeting, so if you can't attend in person, you can attend on Zoom. We will also be recording that, so…

0:04:16If you're interested in that, please, we invite you all to join us. And then, I would like to call up Chief Keith for an update on our favorite topic.

0:04:26The removal of flock cameras.

0:04:30Alright, good evening, Council. I'm Paul Keith, your Chief of Police.

0:04:34So as the City Manager said, I'm here to give you an update on FLC camera removal.

0:04:38So, initially, Flock indicated to us that they intended to have all of the cameras removed by today, August 18th.

0:04:46And I'm here to report that they are running behind schedule.

0:04:49So, in the last 2 weeks, we've been doing an in-person inventory, all the cameras in town, to see which cameras are still up on the poles, which ones have been removed.

0:04:59I have to say the process by which Flock notifies us is a little convoluted. We get a notice that this many cameras have work orders, but because we no longer have Flock accounts, we can't actually see the specifics of what those work orders entail. We just know that some amount of work is being done on this many cameras.

0:05:17So, as of yesterday, when we did our inventory, we found that 7 cameras had been removed, 33 still remained, and I learned, just before this meeting started, that between the time we did that last inventory and now, 3 more cameras have been removed.

0:05:31So right now, that's 10 cameras total.

0:05:34One thing I want to just put out there for the public is that during the inventory of cameras, our officer noted that of the remaining cameras, 9 of them had been vandalized in some form or another. So, our officers are conducting a criminal investigation into vandalism.

0:05:49As a reminder to the public, and maybe people who may be frustrated with flock, the cameras… we've been assured the cameras are no longer recording, our officers no longer have access to the cameras, and the officers in our neighboring jurisdictions do not eat them.

0:06:01So, for all intents and purposes, they're just a piece of inactive technology that still belongs to a company.

0:06:09So, please don't vandalize the cameras. We are investigating the incidents. We really don't want to have more of them get vandalized. There's really no point in it, because the cameras are all being removed anyway.

0:06:21So that is our update so far. We're at 10 cameras out of 40 that have been removed. We are basically committed to doing a weekly update each week to see, you know, how that number keeps moving. But as I said, even between yesterday and today, it was 3 more cameras that got removed.

0:06:37And I'll just add that,

0:06:40We are… believe me, we are just as frustrated as everyone else, and I…

0:06:45am very frustrated with the lack of service, but I do want to reiterate what the Chief said. I am sure I am preaching to the choir. I'm sure no one in this room and nobody watching would ever dream of vandalizing property that isn't theirs, but I'm just going to say this very publicly. Please, let's… we are, we want to make sure that they are abiding by the contract.

0:07:04And so we want to make sure that we're doing that too, and that we're not taking things into our own hands. Again, I understand people's frustration. I am frustrated as well. But we want to do this the right way, so we're just putting that public plea out there. Like I said, I'm sure no one would ever dream of doing that.

0:07:19And the other thing that we're going to do now is, because the work order was supposed to be today, as ending today, that I have instructed our code enforcement staff to start preparing violation letters, because they are in violation at this point, and so perhaps if us

0:07:35you know, calling attention to this in the media, and calling attention to this in public meetings won't work, perhaps some fines might. So we are going to initiate that process beginning tomorrow.

0:07:45So, again, I just, like I said, I know the community's upset, and I am too, and I just want to make sure that we're doing this the right way.

0:07:53we expect them to abide by the contract, and so that's what we want to do as well. But at the same time, the contract is expired, their property is up on our property, and it needs to go, and so we're going to force that issue. So I just wanted to let you all know that, and if anybody has any questions.

0:08:08you know, please contact me or the Chief, so we're… we're definitely…

0:08:12keeping an eye on this as close as possible, because, yeah, it's been too long. Okay, we have a hand up with, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman. Sure.

0:08:21Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Yeah, first, I want to thank the Chief and City Manager Pinkos. I know you both have put, and others have put a lot of time into getting Flock to just take the cameras down, and I really appreciate you staying on them. I know I've been asking for weekly updates. Given that we don't have another Council meeting for a while.

0:08:39How will we keep the community updated on the progress of the removal?

0:08:47Well, I do have a city manager's update that we… we're probably gonna put that out this week, so I could certainly… whatever, if we have an update in the next couple of days.

0:08:57And perhaps we could put something out either on social media or looking at Will. We can… we can find a way to try to do some sort of,

0:09:06interim update, if necessary. And I'll say that, doing a weekly inventory, it takes time, so it's staff time away from their other duties, so I wouldn't really want to commit to doing it more than every week, but we intend to do it again next Monday, and we can put out information following that to give an update to the community.

0:09:26Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Absolutely, and I understand how much time you have spent on this, and it's a shame that Block has forced you into that situation, so I'm sorry, and I wouldn't ask you to note more than weekly either. I just think it's important that when we do that, we then communicate that with the public. Really appreciate what you're doing on this, thank you.

0:09:43Absolutely. And then, did you want to announce one more thing? Oh, sure, just a, plug. We still have spaces available for our Community Police Academy that starts in mid-September. It's basically going to be a seven-session academy. Participants will learn all about the operations of the police department.

0:10:01Some of the highlights for people are the traffic enforcement section, where we have them using actual traffic enforcement equipment.

0:10:07As well as our Use of Force Simulator block, where we teach them the fundamentals of police use of force, put them in front of a use of force simulator, and they get to make real-world decisions with the same equipment that police officers have. So, if you or somebody you know is interested in a course like that, please have them go to the police department webpage, just type in Community Police Academy, it'll take you to the link with more information about the course.

0:10:32Thank you. Thank you, Chief, and thank you, Your Honor. That concludes my remarks. Okay, thank you, Karen Pincus. Next, we'll go to mayoral announcements and City Council announcements. Earlier today at 5 o'clock, we conducted interviews and made a couple appointments, for our boards and commissions.

0:10:50There is nothing to report on the last half hour, which was a closed session.

0:10:56I also want to, report that

0:11:00We did have a great,

0:11:03which I enjoy very much as, National Night Out. We had 45 block parties, and I want to say thank you to our residents, for, inviting us into your neighborhoods,

0:11:16I know the City Manager and Police Chief, joined me, and, enjoyed that, and enjoyed meeting, many of the new, families that have moved in, and, I just want to say to,

0:11:31our residents, we hear you loud and clear on the things that you've asked me to look at, and thank you for the responses on that. And more than 90% of residents in El Cerrito are very, very happy living here, and planting roots here, and living here.

0:11:51I'm meeting so many of, the longtime residents. Residents, when they move here, for the most part, they're here until the end, until they're, they're, senior.

0:12:02ages. So again, thank you to our residents for participating, and I hope we get to see, our new neighbors stepping up and,

0:12:11creating a block party on their neighborhoods. Because we don't have block cameras any longer, the importance of watching and working with your neighbors, especially when you'll be out on vacation or for the weekend.

0:12:26having them pick up your mail or your packages when you're not, there, starting a relationship with your new neighbors. It's so important. So I'll turn to my left and right if you have any, updates again.

0:12:40And I'm looking at, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman, do you have an update?

0:12:44Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: I just want to say happy first day of school to all the El Cerrito and West Contra Costa parents. I think we're the…

0:12:51latest school district in the East Bay to start, but we started today, and everybody's moving up a day, so it's an exciting day, and maybe, for some, a stressful day. So, you made it through the first day, congratulations.

0:13:08this is a question, perhaps to the city manager, maybe to the mayor. I've heard that number, 90% of the city residents. That suggests to me that you had at least the 90%

0:13:16response rate, or is it 90% of the respondents? What's… what's it measuring? That was in, our National Community Survey.

0:13:25And, I think the last… some of the last polling that we have done, so it would be, they're both scientifically, randomized surveys, so the calculation was 90%. So it would be, yeah, it would be of the respondents, but the respondents are…

0:13:38Meant to be a random sample of the community.

0:13:42So 90% of that sample Okay. Bye. Okay.

0:13:46Okay. And all of that is on the National Community Survey results, or on our website as well. Okay. I just, I've heard that number and kind of thought is that, you know, I couldn't fathom 100% of the community responding to it. Yeah, no, that would be great, but so it's a randomized sample, yes.

0:14:01Okay, thank you. Any other comments?

0:14:04Okay, next we go to oral communications from the public. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding

0:14:12matters not on the agenda, consent items and presentation items. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card, using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9 if joining by phone.

0:14:26In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence.

0:14:33the beginning of your comments. City Clerk, please proceed.

0:14:42Sorry, thank you, Mayor.

0:14:44Okay, so at this time here, we have, 11 requests to speak. Per the Council policy, 11 to 20… 20 speakers, can come with a reduction to 2 minutes. Did you want to implement the policy, or would you like to keep it at the 3 minutes? Let's keep it at the 3 minutes.

0:14:59Okay, perfect. So we'll start with our in-person request to speak, which…

0:15:05Starting with Mike McDougal, and followed by Sue Duncan.

0:15:13Hello, good evening. I'm Mike McDougall, I'm from El Cerrito. So I'm going to try to cover 3 items in my 2 minutes and 53 seconds. One is a thank you for National Light Out. I'm looking at you, Holly. Well done. And also to some other people in the police and fire.

0:15:32I wanted to talk about the monthly disbursement and check register. There was a little bit of a frustrated sidebar, last month, and I wanted to make a few comments about that. The monthly disbursement and check register is particularly important to me as a member of the FAB.

0:15:49And then, I'm actually looking at Councilmember Oksana's for this,

0:15:55And, and our, and our mayor.

0:15:57I would ask that we agendize for the next meeting, the findings, the partial findings, if they're only partial, of the ad hoc committee.

0:16:09On our boards and commissions.

0:16:13Now, and I'm gonna go back through those in my remaining 1 minute and 56 seconds in reverse order. So, you sort of inspired me, Councillor Cassanes, because I've seen you a couple of times now actually think that something was important enough to put

0:16:28on the agenda, even though you don't get to set the agenda, right? That's the mayor. And I'm looking at you, Mayor Kinto, because you just get to do that, and so either of the two of you could, like, satisfy my request in less than 30 seconds.

0:16:38So, I think I've cleared that. Okay.

0:16:43Now let's turn to, so…

0:16:48on the Finish Advisory Board, I'm the vice chair. So the Boards and Commission makes a little bit of a bridge to this next section. The,

0:16:57The monthly disbursement report and check register is… is sort of important to me. I sometimes go through it for hours, trying to, like, winnow small clues for how the city works. I'm not looking for, like, some felonious action. I'm just trying to understand, like, how do we do the thing that we do as a city?

0:17:16And so, I wanted, Mayor Kinto, like, maybe you could point some of your frustration not at your fellow counselors, for getting in the weeds, but at me. I think it deserves more than, than, than, you know, a minute and a half.

0:17:31I mean, I guess in the weeds is appropriate, since we were talking about, like, getting neighbors' new weeds to clear last week.

0:17:37But I… I personally appreciate it for two reasons. One is… is I have questions, and I can't ask… I can't ask Karen Pinco's,

0:17:45the answer to the questions. And so, when people come to you with questions about why something's on the check register, and then… and then Lisa carries that to the city council, like, it just makes me feel reassured that you have your eye on the ball.

0:17:59Right? And so, it might seem like, like, really niggling minutiae that's bogging us down, but, like, I love it. And so, I just wanted to say that. I've got 6 seconds left. I want to reiterate the thank you. Thank you very much to everyone who came to National Night Out.

0:18:13Our next speaker is Sue Duncan, followed by Rye Crawford.

0:18:21Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council. I'm Stu Duncan, resident of El Cerrito, and speaking this evening is President of the El Cerrito Fire City Council.

0:18:30The El Cerrito Fire Safe Council held a community meeting last Sunday at the Veterans Memorial Building on the topic of homeowners insurance. We thank the speakers, Joel Lotcher of United Policyholders, a nonprofit

0:18:43Formed after the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley fires, and Sharon Smith from the California Department of Insurance. We also want to thank El Cerrito Fire Marshal Beckman for his support, for attending, and for answering questions along with the two speakers.

0:18:59We were very pleased that 40 residents attended the meeting, were very engaged in the topic, and asked very relevant, important questions.

0:19:08A very big thank you also to Gary Prost and K Starkweather for arranging the event, for getting out the word.

0:19:15over various social media sites. Thank you also to the City for including an announcement in the City Manager's Report in Green Happenings.

0:19:23I want to remind everyone that the wildfire threat in El Cerrito and surrounding communities is not just a hill issue.

0:19:3160-90% of the structures ignited during a wildfire are ignited by the live embers that are blown ahead of the fire by the wind.

0:19:40The hills are where it might start, as a fire might come from Wildcat Canyon, but it is certainly not where it ends.

0:19:48If the hot, dry Diablo winds or any other winds of other seasons blow 50 miles per hour, the embers can be carried 2 miles ahead of the fire.

0:19:57I mapped the distance from the top of Terrace Drive, above the Arlington, to the Costco parking lot, 3.2 miles, not very far for wind-driven fire and the embers blowing ahead of it for them to be pushed down on all of El Cerrito.

0:20:14El Cerrito is a community that is at risk, along with the other communities from Richmond through at least Oakland, from the hills to the bay. Thank you.

0:20:24Our next speaker is Rye Crawford, followed by Chelsea Sparty.

0:20:31Bright Crawford from El Cerrito, and I just want to follow up on Manager Pincus's comment about how hard this has been to get any kind of

0:20:41response, and it's our responsibility, I feel like.

0:20:46Collectively to remember this process and not sign up with another company may… we may end up in the same position around surveillance and data collection.

0:20:58And so, also, there's a pledge that…

0:21:02We're asking people to sign, committing not to…

0:21:08sign up for surveillance in El Cerrito. We have nosurveillancePledge.com. Simple. NoSurveillancePledge.com.

0:21:18Thank you.

0:21:20Thank you. Our next speaker is Chelsea Sparty, followed by Brian Fogg.

0:21:27Good evening, Mayor, Council, and residents. My name is Chelsea Sparti, and I proudly live in El Cerrito.

0:21:34Neighbors, my husband and I chose to invest our lives and money into this community because we thought it was a beautiful and peaceful place.

0:21:43Although, we soon realize this community is very online and exceptionally lonely, instead of very outdoors and perpetually social.

0:21:52We have options. Choose wisely.

0:21:56Surveillance companies like Flock cannot be trusted, so those violation fines, I hope, are very steep.

0:22:03It's August 18th, y'all, and 24 cameras, at least, are still up.

0:22:09Block made out like a student on an all-nighter.

0:22:12The city needs to take action now, whether it's mylar bags over the cameras or unplugging their solar panel power source.

0:22:20Surveiling us, but especially our children.

0:22:23is abhorrent.

0:22:25This erodes trust. We're done waiting, and it's time to prove that residents CAN trust city staff.

0:22:32and this Council to follow through. I urge you to render those remaining 24 of 40 cameras visibly obsolete in the next 24 hours.

0:22:42On civility, the way I see it, we have three options on every agenda item that comes before our city. One, do nothing, pause action.

0:22:52That's self-explanatory. Two, complain, treat each other poorly and take no productive actions, or share ideas so late in the process as to be useless. Both residents and council members have done this.

0:23:07Our third collective option is to choose to be collaborative.

0:23:12Generous to each other, and to generate mutually beneficial solutions together. I'll say it again, collaborative, generous, and solutions-oriented.

0:23:22Shared leadership is the vision and the hope that I have for our city.

0:23:28I call on every single one of us to treat each other with the utmost respect, patience, and understanding.

0:23:36El Cerrito is only as wonderful as we all behave.

0:23:40Continue on the destructive path we're on now gets us much worse outcomes and deepens the state of chronic stress perpetuated in the limited community forums we have.

0:23:53Why pay thousands each month to live here?

0:23:56to fight?

0:23:59Durable plans of action for the common good take shared experience, tolerance, and optimism. Together, we make El Cerrito an attractive place to live. The alternative is to continue to rip each other to shreds.

0:24:12complicate issues, and repel possible renters, homebuyers, and shoppers. El Cerrito, treat your neighbors well, because boy, the alternative sounds like a Stephen King novel. Let's have peace once again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Brian Fogg, followed by Ryan Manicus.

0:24:36Okay, hello everyone, I'm back.

0:24:39I wanted to just mention a couple things about the flock story in the last couple of months since we had our big showdown here.

0:24:48This has turned into, like, a very national zeitgeist movement. John Oliver's television show did a segment on it, and many other municipalities are now following our lead. So, that's kind of a nice, confirmation that we made the right choice.

0:25:02With all due respect to the police chief, we do need to raise an issue about the cameras, namely that there is no way to validate that they're not still collecting data.

0:25:14What members of our coalition have seen, just walking around the neighborhood is that the cameras

0:25:19are not only still present, they're also still visibly active. So, what that means is

0:25:25When the car drives by the camera, at night, you can visibly see infrared LEDs that blink each time a car drives by.

0:25:32Now, of course, we raised this to various council members, who then raised it to the manager, who raised it to the Flock company, and Flock sent emails back, saying to the effect that

0:25:43the data's not being collected, so there's nothing to worry about. The cameras are effectively off, whatever that actually means, effectively off.

0:25:49And that the policy is that the data will not be shared with other cities.

0:25:53But it's really impossible for us to actually validate any of that. There's no technical way for us to validate that data's not being collected. And we have every visual indication that data is being collected. So without the cameras actually being physically removed or covered.

0:26:11There's truly no way to guarantee that they're not still collecting our data. Furthermore, as a company, they're incentivized to continue collecting it, because the data itself is inherently valuable.

0:26:22The data itself, if added to larger data sets, refines the data sets and gives more granularity to people's movements. And because there's also clauses in their contract that say that they can, you know, retain the data and resell it at their will, that opens them up to be incentivized to keep the cameras up as long as possible.

0:26:40And we've seen, based on their behavior, that that is what they're doing.

0:26:44And this has also been a pattern that's been seen in other municipalities that have tried to cancel their contracts with Flock.

0:26:50So, yeah, someone else said the fines. You know, if we… if we are at the vanguard of a movement of canceling flock, we could also be at the vanguard of a movement of making the fines as steep as possible. And if you are truly upset with them, just fine them to death if you can, you know? That would be great. We would really appreciate it.

0:27:09Yeah, the surveillance pledge, we wrote that up, we're gonna send it out to everybody. If you'd like to sign it, you're welcome to.

0:27:18We'll follow up over email with that later.

0:27:20And, yeah, that's about all I've got to say.

0:27:24Thank you for listening. Thank you.

0:27:27Our next speaker is Ryan Manicus, followed by Kate Bolton.

0:27:44Oh, perfect. That's so cool.

0:27:46Thanks so much. Good evening, or I'll wait for my time.

0:27:54Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Ryan Manriquez, and I'm a proud resident of El Cerrito, a wheelchair user, and someone who has dedicated their career to making transit and housing work better for everyone in the Bay Area.

0:28:07I'm here tonight because I am living in the gap between what our community says it values and what a disabled resident actually experiences on the ground.

0:28:15For the past 8 months, I've been working through a formal, reasonable accommodation process with management at Mayfair Station, a transit-oriented development right here in El Cerrito, steps away from the El Cerrito del Norte BART station.

0:28:29My request was simple. To have automatic door operators on the building entrance and my unit door, so that I can access my own home independently.

0:28:38And earlier this month, I finally received approval. But that approval came with a condition that I pay for it entirely out of pocket.

0:28:47I am an AmeriCorps service member and a recipient of Social Security and EBT.

0:28:52I do not have the financial resources to personally fund access to a building that every single resident at Mayfair Station walks through every day.

0:29:01I am being asked, as one disabled resident on a fixed income, to bear the cost of accessibility for our entire community. And that is wrong.

0:29:10And it is exactly the kind of barrier that drives disabled people out of transit-oriented neighborhoods, the very neighborhoods that we should be designing with us in mind.

0:29:20Because we know this, disabled people rely on public transit at disproportionately higher rates than the general population.

0:29:27And transit-oriented development only works if you can actually get in the building.

0:29:32Right now, we're investing hundreds of millions of dollars in housing next to BART stations, but we're not requiring that a wheelchair user can open the front door independently.

0:29:42That's not just an oversight, that's a choice. And it's a choice that this council has the power to change.

0:29:49El Cerrito has a rare and urgent opportunity to get this right. The El Cerrito Plaza TOD is under construction right now, with nearly 400 market rate units still in design pipeline.

0:30:00These decisions are being made today, but once the concrete is poured, it becomes exponentially harder and more expensive to retrofit that access that should have been there in the first place.

0:30:11And despite the threats facing my community right now across the country, I still believe in local government's ability to help people like me.

0:30:18And that's why I'm here tonight, instead of giving up.

0:30:21I'm calling on this Council and the Community Development Department to take actions on two fronts. First, I'm asking this Council and the Community Development Department to work directly with Mayfair Station's ownership to ensure that an automatic door operator is installed in our building's lobby entrance, at ownership's expense and not our community members.

0:30:41Mayfair Station is a transit-oriented development in our city, steps away from BART, and its residents deserve to be able to freely move in and out of the building on their own volition.

0:30:51This Council has a voice in how housing in our community operates, and I'm asking you to use it.

0:30:57Second?

0:30:58Thank you for your comments.oriented development within El Cerrito's jurisdiction. Embedded in our objective design standards and the Simpoplo Avenue-specific plan before the remaining phases of El Cerrito Plaza move forward. Mayfair Station has a chance to be part of the solution. El Cerrito Plaza has a chance to set the stage. Your time has ended. Thank you. Thank you.

0:31:26Our next speaker is Kate Bolton, followed by Josh Sanders.

0:31:37just… it just… yeah, it's wireless. You can just pick it up.

0:31:40Perfect, thank you.

0:31:43Perfect. Okay, you can go ahead and begin.

0:31:46Good evening! My name is Kate, and I've been a resident of El Cerrito longer than I'd like to admit. I am here tonight just to echo the concerns of my fellow, residents that flock is still up, and we don't know if they're still recording, even though they claim they don't.

0:32:02I trust them about as far as I can throw them, and I have a strained arm right now. I understand, too, if you don't want folks vandalizing things, one incentive to maybe get people to stop folks from vandalizing these cameras

0:32:16is to cover them. Multiple cities around the U.S. have done so, city councils have done so, all it takes is a Mylar dark bag to cover them with the solar panels.

0:32:28And if the, you know, the city is too broke to do that, I'd be more than happy to chip in a few bucks to pay for those bags. Also, I understand the city is trying to buy a fire truck. Go ahead and find the crap out of that billionaire organization known as Flock. We could get somebody to buy a fire truck.

0:32:45So that's my two cents. Also, I wanted to support my friend here with his quest to get some doors that are accessible to him as well. I understand his time ended short, so I just wanted to echo that sentiment too. Thank you for your time.

0:33:00Our next speaker is Josh Sanders, followed by Cindy McPherson.

0:33:10Hi, my name is Joshua Saunders, and I wanted to thank you to give me the opportunity to speak today. I've lived in El Cerrito since 1995, so that's a little bit of a while.

0:33:24And I'm here because I wanted to speak about a safety issue that's come to my attention. I am personally visually impaired.

0:33:32If I'm looking at you, I can see the shape of you from here. I can see your hair color and the shape of your face and stuff, but there's limitations in my vision. And I… and all this time that I've lived in El Cerrito, I commonly walk along the Ohlone Greenway halfway, and I like the environment and the peace of it.

0:33:52In the last year or so.

0:33:55I'll be walking along this path, and I'll hear this sound, and I'll see something just shoot past really fast, and it's these scooters that people are using, and they're just zipping along, and it's my understanding that there are no speed limits on the… in terms of the Ohlone Greenway.

0:34:15And I would appreciate you to consider putting, like, a 50-mile limit on that.

0:34:21And, limit the amount of speed, because with… with what I see and hear.

0:34:27I am personally convinced that sooner or later, someone's not going to pay attention, and I'm going to end up

0:34:32in the hospital somewhere, and that's just not something I wanted to have to think about, so I'd really appreciate it if this would be taken seriously, and I appreciate your time and your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Cindy McPherson, and then we'll go to a remote request to speak.

0:34:52Good evening, my name is Cindy McPherson. I live in El Cerrito. I'm also here out of concern about the flock cameras and surveillance.

0:35:03And I also do want to thank the city staff that have already done the work to end the contract and to make the work orders and are doing the follow-up, but we have acknowledged flock is not delivered. We've actually also had residents on foot traveling the route of all the cameras in order to observe the status.

0:35:23So, I echo the ask to please bag the cameras. It's not vandalism to them to cover them up with a dark plastic bag. It doesn't tamper with them or damage the hardware. And this is something other municipalities have done, as a way to deal with flocks not delivering on their own commitments.

0:35:41And the other thing I want to echo is this, letting you know that El Cerrito residents who are concerned about surveillance are asking all the current

0:35:51City Council members, as well as potential future ones, to sign our no surveillance pledge, and we mentioned that we've put up a website

0:36:01Thank you, Rai. Literally, the words are nosurveillancePledge.com. And there are many residents here who feel that this is an important assurance that we want from our elected, so I invite you to visit it and sign it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

0:36:18Okay, we'll go to our re…

0:36:21Did you want to speak? Oh, I'm sorry. We have one more in person, Rebecca Kinney?

0:36:26Good evening. Hi, Rebecca Kenny, El Cerrito. First, I wanted to thank the team that put together the video explanation on the Hawk Light, both Will Provost and everyone behind the scenes.

0:36:37That said, I was a little alarmed that one segment included a limit line violation, and so whoever is editing clips, please feel careful of that in the future.

0:36:45The second thing is I'm also here about Flock. I went on a short little 6-hour walk yesterday to check every camera location so I can verify the chief's count. I did see that there were 7 that were taken out and down. I saw 31 still up, and there were 2 that I needed rechecked by someone who was local to the neighborhood because they were kind of sneaky.

0:37:04The pattern of what was taken down was somewhat random. There was some times where there was a single, tiny little median, and one camera was taken down.

0:37:13But the other one was still up, which is an odd choice on Fox's part. I am glad to know, though, that the police department will be doing that, check in the future to spare me a little bit of work and to spare my legs.

0:37:26That said, the fact that the cameras, so many of them are still up, shows that Clock… that Flock clearly lies. They had the capacity to bring someone all the way from the other side of the country, for less than 24 hours to talk to the council, but somehow they can't take a few cameras down and follow their own deadline that they set for themselves.

0:37:45I, for one, don't believe that they can be tested, that the cameras are actually off and not recording anything. If they're lying about when they'll take them down.

0:37:55How do we know that they are not lying about this, too?

0:37:57For the peace of mind of residents, I'd like to ask that the remaining cameras be covered until they are removed. If that can be with mylar bags, to block any possible infrared signals, that would be fantastic, but if those are not handy, just black trash bags would be great as well. Thank you. Thank you.

0:38:16Thank you. And our last in person, Mary Ann Jubilee.

0:38:24Amazing. City Council, fellow El Cerritans, I'm Mary Ann DeWili, and I live in El Cerrito as well.

0:38:30My comment here is about National Night Out, which I was very grateful for. We ended up having one on our block, and there were about 40 people in attendance, in and out throughout the evening, including some people who had no idea what they were coming across. They were just walking by, and we invited them over, and then we met them, and it was awesome.

0:38:48I, I also want to thank, Rebecca for coming in and, showing up. So really great to have, the City Council representation at these events, I feel.

0:39:01Something that I think could be better is, we had our event in full swing around 7pm, and someone still drove by that squeezed onto the street. This was Richmond Street. They… and they weren't slowing down. I think they were… they seemed to be going at least 10 miles per hour, and our party is, you know, like, at least 30 people at this point.

0:39:24And they still drove by, and it was quite unsafe, in my opinion, very close to us, and…

0:39:29I was very disappointed to see that, we… that people were still very…

0:39:35People could see that there were lots of people around, we were having a party, this was a joyous thing, and they still insisted on driving through.

0:39:43There were some people who drove past the barriers that we set up on either block, and they still wanted to drive by, even though we told them that we're having this party. And I told them, like, there's… you could go one block away, go one block over, and drive right down those streets, and carry on like nothing ever happened, so…

0:40:02I wonder, like, if there's… if there's anything else we could do, maybe we can get more, street barriers, because I only… we only had, like, 2 barriers on each side. I think maybe for certain streets, we should have, like, 3 or 4 barriers on each side, is my recommendation.

0:40:19But thank you again for making that, the National Night Out happen, because it was such a success, and everyone really liked it.

0:40:26I guess I just want to say, as a person who works on digital accessibility, I want to shout out, and, second, I guess, or third, Ryan's comment about, the door in his building, I think the TOD is a great opportunity for El Cerrito to really demonstrate, being inclusive to, especially with people with disabilities, because TOD really, enables people with disabilities to live independently.

0:40:51I will also say shout out to Josh about his comment. So, I'm hard of hearing, and I wear hearing aids, and I do have to agree, even though I ride a bicycle, I would be very supportive of a 15 mph speed limit on the Loney Greenway. This is coming from someone who rides a bike, and that's because as someone who's hard of hearing, I…

0:41:10There are many times where people are coming by really fast next to me.

0:41:14And I'm afraid that they'll run into me, I have no idea that they're coming up until they're right behind me. And if people can go a lot slower, say, at 15 miles per hour, I would feel a lot safer. I know there are some cyclists, myself included, who would like to go…

0:41:30All right, we're done, thanks. Thank you for your comments. Okay, we'll go to our virtual request to speak, starting with Hing.

0:41:39Hank, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:41:46Check it again… Hey, Hank, you want to try again?

0:42:01Okay, Hank, we're not hearing you on this side. I'm gonna go to our next request, and then we'll come back and try you one more time.

0:42:07We'll go to Megan.

0:42:09Megan, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:42:14megan: Hi all, thank you. This is Megan Stepan. I live in El Cerrito. Thank you to Chief Keith and City Manager Pinkos for putting pressure on Flock. It sounds like it's been very annoying. And I just want to reiterate what some folks said before me. This experience really shows

0:42:31how unreliable Block is, and how expensive it is, not just to pay a private company like this to be in charge of critical data infrastructure for our city, but also to hold them accountable.

0:42:45This is something that I hope that we don't repeat, and I think that it's a reason for us to invest the time, maybe on the Public Safety Committee, in creating a policy that would govern how we make decisions about which of these contracts we should go into, and which of them we shouldn't.

0:43:03I also wanted to ask for the city to please bag the cameras until they are down. I do think this is the kind of thing that could take a lot less staff time than, you know, basically checking flock's work and following them around the city, and go a long way to improve the environment of low trust that we have in the city.

0:43:21For current City Council members and any candidates who are present, I also wanted to alert you to that opportunity to publicly affirm your opposition to warrantless surveillance. You can sign the pledge at nosurveillancepledge.com.

0:43:36While I hope many of you oppose warrantless surveillance on principle, you don't need to oppose it for the right reasons. You can join us, because this is also becoming the popular position, and I genuinely think, for those of you who are running, openly declaring your opposition to mass surveillance will make you more electable.

0:43:53So even for those of you who are political opportunists… opportunists, please, there are good reasons to sign.

0:43:59Separately, I just wanted to thank the City Clerk and Mayor Quinto for explaining the boundaries and rules around public comment at the top of the meeting. This is the kind of education that I think, can help folks understand what they can expect from the City in these forums, and rebuild trust by managing those expectations.

0:44:20Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about how the city does public engagement. I held my Heal the Hill event a few weeks ago. Thank you, Councilmember Kitsanas, for coming to that, and to everything. Thank you for always showing up. And I just wanted to say, it's clear that there's a lot of appetite for people to talk with each other.

0:44:39about the city, and also to talk back to the city. I've spent a lot of time over the past 4 weeks talking to residents, and I think the prevailing mood right now is confusion.

0:44:50woundedness and anger. I'm surprised to hear that 90% number, too. And I hope it's true. I hope that the people I'm talking to are outliers.

0:45:00I want to offer my help to organize more ways for the city to have more frequent, casual forums for public engagement. So please reach out to me if you have ideas, if there's a standing committee I should join, I want to serve.

0:45:18Thank you.

0:45:19Okay, we're gonna return back to Hank.

0:45:23Hank, do you want to try again, see if we can get your audio?

0:45:27Hank: Can you… can you hear me?

0:45:29Yes, we can hear you.

0:45:30Hank: Oh, thank goodness.

0:45:31Start your time now.

0:45:33Hank: Alright, I'm Hank, born and raised in El Cerrito. I'd just like to remind, City Council that, our police chief did stand in front of them several months ago, saying that the cameras would be down in a couple of weeks.

0:45:51And it's been 73 days since the contract with Flux ended.

0:45:57And the only assurance we have that the cameras are off is just because they say we… they're off.

0:46:04In the 73 days leading up to El Cerrito Police taking administrative control of the cameras, there were over 172,000 searches performed of our cameras by out-of-state and federal agencies.

0:46:20At this time tomorrow, that number will be 175,000 searches.

0:46:26I'd also like to point out that the workforce hours that the police detectives now have to spend tracking down residents who were fed up being surveilled all could have been easily avoided with some trash bags and a ladder.

0:46:43thank you for your time.

0:46:46Thank you, and Mayor, that concludes our request to speak.

0:46:49Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Next, we'll go to presentations, and we have a presentation

0:46:56From, the Bay Area Rapid Transit.

0:46:59the Alternative Service Plan presentation. We have, BARC Director Barnali Ghosh here, but we also have staff member

0:47:08The Principal Government and Community Relations Rep for BARC, Henry Simons.

0:47:19Where do you want me to be? Here?

0:47:21It's wherever you're comfortable. I think we had set you up here with the clicker, if you prefer, or if you want to… Okay.

0:47:30And then just give me a quick second, I need to… Good evening.

0:47:48Okay.

0:47:49Okay, you can go ahead and begin when you're ready.

0:47:53Okay, thank you.

0:47:55Hi everyone, I'm Bernali Ghosh. I am the Board Director for District 3, which includes El Cerrito, and grateful to be here to be able to give you an update on a system that serves El Cerrito greatly.

0:48:12So today, I'm going to talk a little bit about, where we are generally, sort of the status of BART, how things have changed since the pandemic, and what to expect going forward, and I'm happy to take questions after that.

0:48:26So, this is a defining year, not just for BART, but for the Bay Area.

0:48:32And I want to begin by just highlighting some of the things that, if you take BART, you hopefully have noticed. That we have a system that's safer, cleaner, easier to use than ever before. And this is because during the pandemic, we did have a lot of challenges with that, and as people started coming back.

0:48:49Bart focused on service being more reliable, more frequent, and, more clean.

0:48:57And we've done this through a variety of strategies. One of the most visible strategies that you might have seen are the next generation fare gates. These have been an absolute game changer. They've reduced fare evasion.

0:49:08and they're helping deter unwanted behavior on the system. One of the biggest outcomes we've seen have been that the hours spent on maintenance within the paid area has reduced significantly.

0:49:20And early indications show that bot revenue growing by about $10 million annually through reduced fare evasion. There are also new infrastructure, which makes our stations look better. Another strategy has been to have more of our police officers ride the trains along with the police officers. We also have transit ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists.

0:49:42So we can respond to the problem with the appropriate solution.

0:49:46And this visible presence plus the gates has really helped reduce, actual crime. So our overall crime rate plummeted 41% in 2025,

0:49:57That's 41% in 2025 compared with the previous year. And along with, actual safety, there have also been issues with the perception of safety.

0:50:07A big part of that is making sure our systems and our stations are clean. We are running all new Fleet of the Future trains, you know, if you've been riding bot for a while, like I have, we don't have the cushioned seats anymore. Some people do miss them. I'll say I do like that our

0:50:23trains are easier to clean, but we've also doubled the rate of cleaning, so that is what you're seeing. And customers or riders have noticed nearly 9 out of our 10 riders are satisfied with our service.

0:50:35We're also trying to make BART easier for riders to use. Tap and Ride has been a huge success.

0:50:42You know, other parts of the world already have it, but I'm glad that we here now in the Bay do have it, and BART was the first system to implement it. And what that is, is that you can use your bank card

0:50:54a debit card, credit card to just tap. It's great for occasional riders, you don't have to sort of futz around to get a Clipper card if you don't want to. It's also great for out-of-town visitors to use. Transfers work on-the-bank cards.

0:51:08So it's been a great benefit, especially with the big events that we have, where we had a lot of people here from out of town. We made it really easy for them

0:51:18To use that. Now, along with that, we also want to make sure that our, frequent riders, those who rely on BART, have a way to use it where it's not so hard on their pocketbook. So, Clipper Start provides 50% mean space discount to riders making less than 200% of the federal poverty line.

0:51:37Henry, who's here with me, is always happy to send you more information if you have constituents, or folks that you know of who could benefit, from this program.

0:51:49We're also installing LED lights. I know I was with many of you at the event where Congressman Garamendi recently secured $500,000 in federal funding to replace lighting at three stations in his district, which includes El Cerrito Plaza. And this lighting is another way for BART to save on our energy costs and also make our straight stations

0:52:10Feels safer and just more pleasant.

0:52:12We continue to work with other transit agencies, like AC Transit, to align our schedules. This has been something that's been happening since the pandemic. They do a big sync every six months when new schedules come out. We did have a new schedule come out, I think it was…

0:52:30Can't remember this week or last week.

0:52:32But the yellow and red lines are now spaced 10 minutes apart from San Francisco, so folks are getting on there. The biggest benefit of that is reducing crowding on trains. So the train schedule is more even, then folks are not rushing to get on the first one. You know there's going to be a train 10 minutes later instead of it being, like, 13 and 7, or something like that. So this gives

0:52:55riders the option to take, the yellow line, and transfer at 19th Street to a Richmond train.

0:53:01Or they can take the direct red line train later. And like I said, it helps distribute riders and prevent crowding.

0:53:09We're also excited to be partnering with the city on the TODs, but it's not just a transit system that runs through your city, we want to become more integrated into the city, and a big part of that is by building TODs.

0:53:23And in April, nearly 7,000 bot trips ended in El Cerrito on the average weekday, which is the third highest city in the East Bay after Oakland and Berkeley.

0:53:33So it makes a lot of sense that we are building TOD on El Cerrito Plaza, where 70 units of family affordable housing are now under construction. The overall project includes 743 units, a new public plaza, and BART also secured a $24 million tourist state grant to help build bike and pedestrian improvements, a transit center.

0:53:56and a bought rider parking garage with the El Cerrito Plaza Unity.

0:53:59We want to make it easy for folks who, want to get there in ways other than driving, but there is also still parking for those who have to drive or want to drive.

0:54:09We're excited to make it even easier to live or get to BART in El Cerrito. Again, I was with some of you at the El Cerrito Complete Streets Improvement Project ribbon Cutting, which BART contributed $1.5 million in funding for the project through our Safe Routes to BART grant.

0:54:28What you might have heard in the news a lot, I hope, or if you've paid attention, is about the November 2026 regional transit measure.

0:54:36So this will be on our ballots in November. This regional transit measure is the solution that has been put forward by the state to fix the deficit that all of our transit agencies are in.

0:54:52And what this, tax measure does, is it's a five-county sales tax measure, which in itself is kind of incredible to have five counties and to really have a regional effort

0:55:04To solve the issues that have come up, because of historic underfunding of transit, but also because of the impacts of COVID that we are still facing.

0:55:14So this, tax measure would be 0.5% sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Santa Clara, 1% in San Francisco, an expected $980 million in annual revenue to prevent major service cuts to Bart Muni.

0:55:29AC Transit, Caltrain, and also local agencies, small bus services like WestCat, for example, which we know serves

0:55:36West County.

0:55:38It does include several oversight provisions, including additional independent financial review of BART and other agencies to make sure that our tax dollars are being spent well.

0:55:49I do want to dig a little bit more into how we ended up here, and a big reason for this is that remote work has changed how Bay Area residents live, work, and travel. Before the pandemic, before COVID, BART depended on fares to pay about 71% of service.

0:56:08That's almost…

0:56:10more than any other transit agency. It's almost unheard of to have that much revenue come from riders. But what that meant during the pandemic is that total ridership went down, and now, today, we're serving almost the same number of people, they're just taking part fewer times a week.

0:56:27At the same time, we're seeing more people take it to go to a concert, so we're, you know, so BART has worked to respond to how people are using BART today, but it is leaving us with our fare revenue being down $300 to $400 million compared to pre-pandemic forecasts, and fares today are paying only for 32% of our costs.

0:56:49So BART faces deficits over $370 million per year, beginning in the fiscal year 2027.

0:56:56And though we need to continue our… to grow our ridership and control costs, that's not enough, because BART's going to need a new funding model that is similar to how transit is supported elsewhere.

0:57:08BART's operations are some of the most efficient. We have the lowest operating cost per passenger mile, when compared to peer transit agencies.

0:57:17We run efficiently despite the Bay Area costs that are 10% higher than other U.S. cities served by heavy rail, and our operating costs are growing below inflation at the slowest rate of peer agencies.

0:57:30So we at BART have been doing everything we can to manage costs, and it's not just before the… because of the pandemic. This is something that BART has had to do for many years, just because of historic underfunding of public transit agencies.

0:57:44We and other agencies did undergo an accountability review, a financial efficiency review, as part of the regional transportation funding measure, and that Phase 1 of that was completed in the spring.

0:57:59And through that review, it showed that VOT has taken significant actions to reduce our costs and increase revenue. Between 2019 and 2025, we reduced operating costs by more than $516 million.

0:58:13So service reductions, workforce controls, and operational efficiencies, save $549 million in capital costs by better managing project costs.

0:58:23Doing deferrals, and then investments to reduce future costs and improve reimbursements.

0:58:29And we brought in an additional $99 million in increased revenues through fare increases, new fare products, and parking leases.

0:58:36And Henry has this BART funding overview, which is this purple document that talks in much detail about the work we've been doing now, but also over the years. For example, BART moved to its new headquarters, which is a smaller footprint, to save money. So it's something that we've been doing

0:58:55Consistently, it's just that the deficit is too large to overcome.

0:59:02We agreed and, forwarded, sorry, adopted all these recommendations as the Board of Directors to continue to enhance our revenue and reduce costs even further.

0:59:14But like I said, the deficit we have right now, it's the result of a historic pandemic, and therefore is a historic deficit.

0:59:22Now, going forward in FY27, we are able to maintain current levels of service.

0:59:30And that assumes that the regional transit measure will pass.

0:59:35Now, we will continue to make cuts because it will not fix our entire deficit. We hope to get about $310 million annually, but that still leaves us with a deficit. But we are committed to doing that through operating shortfalls and not through service cuts.

0:59:53it's really important to us that when… if people choose to vote for transit, that we're not taking away, transit soon after. So, so we're looking at,

1:00:05lesser spending, and I've already sort of tried to find, you know, cuts from the elimination of vacancies, for example, in our staff.

1:00:16That being said, sometimes you hear people say, hey, you need to right-size part.

1:00:22And if we don't get the funding, from the transit measure, if the transit measure doesn't pass.

1:00:29We would have to right-size it, and that's what this alternative service plan is about. This is what it would look like.

1:00:37So…

1:00:38If the measure does not pass, and the new revenue source is not identified, we as the board initially have approved an alternative service plan. The first of these steps to close our budget deficit would happen in January 2027. And we feel like we needed to give our staff direction for what would happen.

1:00:56If that money did not come in.

1:00:59And what that looks like is closing, service at 9pm.

1:01:03And much of this is looking at, you know, are we making money or are we losing money? So it's… a lot of these decisions are based on that. So it costs part more money, to run after 9pm, and so that was one of the first things that go away.

1:01:18We would run only 3-line service, only yellow, blue, and orange lines. Train frequencies would be reduced to every 30 minutes. Again, we didn't do an hour, because at an hour frequency, we would start losing riders, where we would, again, make less money, so the 30-minute frequency was what was found to be

1:01:37what would maintain that balance of revenue and costs?

1:01:42We would need to close up to 15 stations or line segments beginning in January 2027. Fairs and parking fees could increase by up to 50%.

1:01:56And we would also be forced to lay off approximately 1,200 employees, and significantly reduce support services like leasing services that our riders have been asking for.

1:02:09Without this new revenue, the plan is likely not sustainable, because it relies on the use of one-time funds, even with cuts.

1:02:18And at some point, it would become impossible for us to run safely or legally without available resources, and we would have to stop passenger service.

1:02:29This is really serious. I'm up here talking to you, but I feel quite emotional about the idea that we might have a Bay Area without BART. As an immigrant, this is something I used when I moved here as someone who didn't drive. This is how I got to my first internship.

1:02:45In San Francisco. And, you know, BART keeps getting better, more affordable. We have B-Pass, where if I was a student at UC then, even going to that internship would be so much more affordable and cheaper.

1:02:58If we are at that position where we might have to close part, we are going to continue to engage and advocate and educate the public to explore all funding options. But this is a serious issue, this is an outcome of a historic pandemic, and like I said, we have a historic deficit.

1:03:17That being said.

1:03:20We are happy that riders have been coming back. FY26 closed on a high note with June ridership. This shattered post-pandemic records. This was driven by major events, concerts, and games.

1:03:34In June 2026, ridership was 18.6% higher than June 2025, and FY26 ridership was 13% above the previous year.

1:03:46And what this shows is that riders are coming back, they're just not coming back as fast as we would need them to to close the deficit.

1:03:54And it also shows that when major events come to the Bay Area, BART and the region's public transit network are ready to meet the moment, and that you cannot possibly have big events in the Bay Area, without our public transit systems. And all of that is connected to economic recovery.

1:04:12And the health of our communities.

1:04:15We are, with the surge in ridership, along with the schedule changes, we're also running longer trains during peak commute, which we hope will also reduce crowding on the trains.

1:04:28and,

1:04:30If you haven't taken part, I'm always happy to take a ride with someone, so please do reach out. That's my information, compliments, complaints, everything is welcome.

1:04:40And I will stop there for any questions. Okay, great. Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll, go to my right here with, Councilmember Motayama as a question for you. Thank you so much,

1:04:53Cornali, for this presentation, it was really bleak when I saw it in the packet, and,

1:05:02I did not realize that potentially our Richmond line would be one of the… one of the lines to go. If the Richmond line is removed, what happens to the stations in El Cerrito?

1:05:17So, there would still be service, it would just not be two lines, from what I remember, but…

1:05:25I think the bigger question, though, is not which station's gonna close, or how, you know, how… which line is gonna close, because I think…

1:05:35Ultimately, what we're seeing right now is a service that's working.

1:05:41For the numbers that we have wanting to ride transit.

1:05:45Of course, we could have more frequency. We don't have the frequency that we had for the pandemic.

1:05:51But… Generally, if you reduce service to that extent, where you have you know.

1:05:58the line going away. With the stations that might be closed, our staff are looking at, you know, how does it get boarded up? How does it get secured?

1:06:07it's going to cost us money to also secure the stations, because it's infrastructure that needs to be protected. So those are details that STAP is looking at, but I think the bigger picture, what I want to leave you with is

1:06:22Every cut that we make is going to reduce ridership.

1:06:27And with reduced ridership is reduced revenue, which will make it even harder for the transit system to operate.

1:06:34We are still trying to see if we can make it work, but it's extremely hard for fixed rail to make it work.

1:06:41One of the things that has happened is AC Transit has also done what they call their contingency plan, and some of the conversations that BART and AC Transit are having are, when BART service is not running, if BART's closing at 9pm, can they run more trans-based service?

1:06:56But it costs everybody money, right? But the agencies are working as each agency puts out their contingency plan. We were the first to do that, because we are the backbone, and our schedule and the decisions we make impact other agencies, so now AC Transit's done it, Caltrain has done it, so…

1:07:13We're all trying to make sure there is coverage.

1:07:17But that's…

1:07:19for me, just kind of a stopgap, and essentially, I feel like we're gonna keep losing riders, because it's not gonna be good enough.

1:07:26Even as our freeways get more congested, we're gonna keep riding… losing riders, and

1:07:34we will get updates from staff about what the nitty-gritty or the details that you're asking for look for, probably later on. I hope that kind of answers. Yeah, that does. I also…

1:07:46I know this not to be the case, but…

1:07:49recently, we had a lot of conversation around the El Cerrito Plaza TOD, that if BART were to go bankrupt, that the project would stop. So, can you just confirm that even if BART went bankrupt, the

1:08:06TOD development can still move forward, and it will be still under the agreements that we have.

1:08:13Yes, a lot of people are concerned about what happens to the TOD. It won't be transit-oriented anymore.

1:08:20And that's unfortunate, because that's the best way we have to, you know, get… to increase our ridership, right? So for BARD, it's our longer-term strategy. But BART is not paying for any of this from our pockets. It's the developers who are working on getting grants from the state,

1:08:37And that is a multi-year project. The grants we're getting today, you will see, you know, 2 years out, 3 years out.

1:08:44If our public transit recovers.

1:08:47that will help get money for the future. It's not an ideal situation, but in the near future,

1:08:56The housing is sort of on its own track.

1:08:59So to speak, and they will continue to ask for grants. Now, it might make them less competitive in some cases.

1:09:07Possibly, if we don't have functioning transit.

1:09:10But right now, we're not seeing that. These, lead times are very long, and so the housing is on its own track for funding and construction.

1:09:20Thank you very much. Thank you.

1:09:22Go to, Councilmember Cassanis. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your presentation. I learned a great deal from it, and

1:09:30I know there's some,

1:09:33uncertainty about it, so I just want to state for the record that I absolutely support the transit-oriented developments that are happening at BART.

1:09:38I also want to share with you a concern that's been expressed many times to me by residents who use BART, and I have my own personal experience with it, too.

1:09:47With the development of the housing, some of the lots that people have been using for parking are being taken away, and there's been a lot of concern about

1:09:55People who don't live near BART,

1:09:57what their access to BART is. At the same time, a lot of the AC Transit feeds that go to BART are also being cut back.

1:10:03my son realized that I takes BART… takes the AC transit down to BART stations, and has to wait longer, and walk more often.

1:10:09And I've actually gone down to BART

1:10:12to take part into San Francisco, and not found a parking spot, and I happen to have a parking spot in San Francisco, so I kind of throw my arms up in the air and say, okay, well, I don't want to drive in, but…

1:10:22I can, so I will.

1:10:24So, and I know there's a…

1:10:25You know, obviously, a kind of give and take, or…

1:10:28gift battles the two. And I'm curious about what kind of analysis has been made about the loss of parking and how that affects ridership. And not only ridership, public support for BART. If people perceive that the BART station is not accessible to them because, for whatever reason, they're not going to take the BART, sorry, the bus there.

1:10:46it's a risk. So I'm just curious of… and also I heard you mention the parking garage structure at El Cerrito Plaza. Could you talk a little bit more about what that is, and how many

1:10:56spots, I guess is the right term.

1:11:03I don't have the exact details of…

1:11:06all of the parking spots, and we will try and get that. It is on our website, along with the details, but I will say, thank you for flagging that. It's probably the most common question we get, is what's happening to our parking.

1:11:20It's a valid question.

1:11:24However, I think what Port has done, and this is something I've been following

1:11:29I've been on the board board for a year and a half now, but I was, you know, in Berkeley, on the Transportation Commission, on the Planning Commission, so I have a little more familiarity with it. Of course, we also have Director Saltzman who could probably answer this as well as me or better, so I will look to her if she wants to add something.

1:11:45But we have taken a real holistic view and an informed data-based view.

1:11:50to how to approach this. And planning, as you know, it's not a perfect science, right? It's not like we do this, this will happen, but based on the goals of the region, based on the goals of the city, based on board's goals, based on funder goals, it is…

1:12:07the package that comes in front of you when it comes to TOD, and then also what is possible, right?

1:12:13So, Bart did, I used to remember it, I think it was, like, called BCAP.

1:12:20It did a corridor study.

1:12:23And I think it was from Richmond all the way to Berkeley, or at least El Cerrito all the way to Berkeley, and they looked at each of the board stations to study how people got there.

1:12:33And what they found is there were people walking and biking, and also there were people who were driving to part who lived within the radius that they would walk and bike if we had safer walking-biking infrastructure.

1:12:47And that is why we have spent, as BART, not just money on our system, but that we are supporting

1:12:55Complete Streets projects around our stations. Because there is a segment of our community that would prefer not to drive, who be forced to drive because they don't feel safe getting to our stations any other way.

1:13:08However, there are people who would still drive, and that's why you have the parking structure, right? So it will have the right amount of spaces needed.

1:13:16Another strategy that we've been using at our board stations, and this is sometimes counterintuitive, is to make sure that the amount we're charging for parking

1:13:26Is to create, availability.

1:13:31So… These days at board stations, parking's free after 3 PM.

1:13:36Because we don't see the lots get full after 3 p.m, so why charge people, right? So, you might not have to pay anything.

1:13:44If there isn't demand. But if there is demand, like in our Walnut Creek station, we increase the fares, and that is mainly to ensure that there is parking availability, that people aren't using it just to store their car, right?

1:13:57I have sometimes used the North Berkeley station after 3 p.m. to go to something in the city and come back. I haven't had to pay a dime, right? But if it was getting packed, and I did the same thing, that would not be fair, right, to the people who actually might want to use it.

1:14:12For a shorter trip. So we're using all these kind of strategies to make it easier for people who need to park and park, but also to make sure that those who can walk or bike are able to do that.

1:14:25I hope you talk to AC Transit about their frequency. I've been a AC Transit rider longer than I've been a BART rider, honestly.

1:14:32And it is challenging. That being said, they are in a similar situation

1:14:38With funding, they have just, in my opinion, chosen to make some cuts before.

1:14:44the measure and what strategy has been to make our system the best it can be. So our deficits look a little different. On our WCTAC meetings, I know Director Saltzman and I are always complaining about the 7 line, which runs once an hour. Where I lived was a two-bus.

1:15:02corridor. Now, it's pretty much a one-bus corridor, because a bus that runs once an hour

1:15:07Serves a very small population.

1:15:10So I completely agree with you, and we need to make it easier for different other micromobility, right? If you're not biking, are there Veos? Are there, you know, some people who can't afford it might choose to take an Uber and Lyft?

1:15:22Do we have, like, loading zones for things like that? That's not something I'm promoting, I'm just very aware of, like, the practical challenges of that.

1:15:31and…

1:15:32In my role, I will continue to ask AC Transit to improve connections to our board stations, because without that, it doesn't really work.

1:15:41Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And it was the 7 line that had him playing. Yes.

1:15:46In fact, I have asked them if, when we all get our funding, the measure passes, I'm like, can you go back to before and bring, you know, improve some of these frequencies? Because it's no fun for people to support transit and not have

1:16:01some of the cuts we've made come back. Like, I hope Bart would do the same as we get more riders back. And I hope more people take it, because we do look at ridership, and if the 7 is not being used enough, that's when they choose to cut it, so…

1:16:13Thank you very much. Thank you.

1:16:15I wanted to point out that our TOD developments at,

1:16:22Del Norte, a lot of them still have their cars, and they've been parking in the lot for free. Do you have any comment on that? Are you gonna start charging them? Are you going to work with the Mayfair building and their residents? So.

1:16:35They can have a safe place to park, and BART can make some money off this, because really, BART has done nothing about that.

1:16:46I mean, my personal opinion is parking should not be free. At the same time, I think it's…

1:16:52I look at paying for parking as a resource management tool, and not a way for revenue.

1:16:58So, if it comes to a point where we… what riders need to park in those stations, we would need to come up with some kind of agreement. I don't know what it's now currently, so I don't want to over-speak, but, you know, it does frustrate me that even I live in Berkeley, in downtown Berkeley, there are private lots that are empty.

1:17:16After hours that could be used for parking for theatergoers, or something like that, and we just need to make better use of these resources so that we have parking for those who need it at the right time.

1:17:27So, but I will… I will ask our staff about what the current status is, and… Yeah, because that lot… there's a little part of the lot that's right across the street on… on…

1:17:36I think that's Kearney Street, and the lot is full, and most of the residents are from the Mayfair and the Affordable Housing Project. So, you know, providing parking for the residents, you know, since parking is available.

1:17:52But, I agree with you, this should not be free.

1:17:55and residents in my area, they did not support, the Mayfair project because they were concerned about, parking in front of their homes on Junction Avenue and the other streets surrounding. So, I'm glad you're going to look at that. Thank you. And as a person who still continues

1:18:15To, to take BART. I took BART, and I was on the first BART ride, from Fairmont School, and the very first BART ride when I was on sixth, sixth grade. So, I've been taking BART since a kid, and many of our residents

1:18:29also have been taking BART from the beginning, and so it's great to see the improvements. I know I've been checking in with the mayors, and appreciate you checking in with the mayors in Contra Costa County.

1:18:42all of us support, the, BART. And I'm looking at my residents now, the people watching. You think I-80 is crowded now. Wait till, if this, does not pass?

1:18:56We will have gridlock on the 80 and San Pablo Avenue day and night, and especially on weekends. So, but, you know, I'm just warning you now, we're going to have 14 tax measures

1:19:09on the ballot in November. And if you're going to vote yes on anything, this is the one that is going to affect, everyone here in the city of El Cerrito and surrounding areas.

1:19:22So we must get this, you know, looking at West County and the history of West County and El Cerrito, we have always supported

1:19:33all of the transit measures. The problem is the other side of the hill, they don't vote like us. Have you and the BART staff been reaching out to folks on the other side of the hill that believe they're paying way too many taxes right now?

1:19:52I'll just say that all of us board directors have been out in our districts making as many presentations to whoever will listen, because I think the one thing that's important for us is that nobody says that, oh, I didn't know.

1:20:04I didn't hear about it. There's a lot going on, and for people, there's a lot of different crises that people are dealing with, so we're trying to do our best, make sure people hear early.

1:20:14And, I think what I would ask of y'all, as y'all are in the Contra Costa space, is, you know, to look at something like this funding

1:20:23Overview, because we've been asked to right-size, we've been asked, what are you doing to save money? And we've been consistently working on it.

1:20:30And like I said, this is… the alternative service plan is what rightsizing looks like, and that is not fair, to our region or to our riders, right? So, we could use your help in communicating more some of the savings that part has already made

1:20:46And why we're running the service that we're running. If we were just to do it based on how much money we're making, I don't think that's a mandate for a public transit agency. It's to provide good, effective, efficient service. No, thank you. I know, Leo Pro Tem is there, here online. Did you want to… do you have any questions, or you'd like to make a statement?

1:21:06Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: I have a couple comments. Don't have a lot of questions. I've seen our Director Ghosh make this presentation before and asked my questions there, and of course was at BART a long time, so I'm very familiar with the crisis that it's facing, and I just want to emphasize.

1:21:23I think maybe Bart's not saying as bad as it will get, because nobody's sure, but the likelihood is after the first year of cuts, or the second year of cuts.

1:21:36that BART will have to figure out how to wind down service and have kind of a managed decline of BART. I mean, that is what we are facing, is the end of BART if this measure doesn't pass, or if some other funding at the same level isn't identified. And I think that's hard for BART as an agency to say, because…

1:21:56They don't know for sure, but that's… if you look at the numbers and how much ridership they're gonna lose every time they cut service, and they're talking about doubling fares.

1:22:06And in closing stations, it's just gonna go into this transit doom loop where all of a sudden you don't have revenue to even keep base-level service

1:22:18going. So, it would be catastrophic for El Cerrito with our two BART stations, and with, you know, us being the third most popular city in the East Bay for riders, so we just need to make sure that future doesn't come.

1:22:32So thank you for making this presentation and making it clear what's at stake. And then I did just want to…

1:22:40say something about access, because I was the BART director for El Cerrito back when the Berkeley-El Cerrito Corridor Access Plan was completed. That was something that BART got grant funding for and worked very closely with Berkeley and El Cerrito, all the way from Ashby to Del Norte BART, acknowledging that there were the three TOD projects planned at Ashby, North Berkeley, and El Cerrito Plaza, and probably

1:23:05in the future, Del Norte, which is now starting discussions.

1:23:08To look at, you know, how…

1:23:11BART was gonna accommodate people who drove at the time.

1:23:15it's a little bit different now than it was when that study was completed. There's a lot less parking demand than there was back then, so the study was at, you know, peak ridership and peak parking when all those lots were filling up really early in the morning, which is not happening today, because of the pandemic and because of loss of ridership. But still, so the numbers are modeled off kind of the worst-case scenario in terms of accommodating that many numbers

1:23:40of cars. But…

1:23:43I encourage everybody on the Council to look at that study. Maybe you looked at it, some of you, when it came out years ago, but it has a lot of solutions, and some of those solutions are things that the city is now working on implementing. One of those solutions was this parking management plan that our city manager brought up earlier this evening to ensure that people who need to drive to the station and don't have any other option

1:24:08have some place to park. Even if it's not at the smaller parking structure that's going to be built, then it's on the streets surrounding the station, which

1:24:16pre-pandemic and even today, there's a lot of people already parking on El Cerrito streets that are, parking on the streets where it's free to park, and then walking in the few blocks to the station, because they don't want to pay for parking. So it's really a matter of managing that parking, so that people aren't able to park for free and need to pay for the parking, and making sure we can manage the demand, and ensuring that some people who are driving

1:24:41Short distances, and maybe have other options take up those other options, like biking and walking, or getting dropped off.

1:24:48or transit, and to Councilmember Katsana, absolutely agree about the transit service. You'll remember when AC Transit came to give a similar presentation, I definitely said, right after this measure passes, we need to look at increasing service in El Cerrito, and I will be championing that next year, hopefully, if this measure passes. So, thank you again for coming, this evening, and for just expressing

1:25:13how dire a situation it is, certainly with you to ensure BART has a healthy future.

1:25:21I want to, thank you for that, Mayor Pro Tem. I want to check with, Councilmember Wysinger and see if she has any questions or comments.

1:25:30Councilmember Wysinger has stepped away from the computer at the moment. I just want to make sure. Okay, I want to thank you for this presentation. One last question. Have you had a chance to, do a presentation at the Contra Costa Mayor's Conference?

1:25:45I don't think we have.

1:25:47I think you should, then. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. To have the 19 mayors and the county supervisors

1:25:54there, the importance of, making sure that everyone knows what's at stake, especially here in Contra Costa.

1:26:02Because the largest ridership is coming from this county. 60% of riders are coming from Contra Costa County. So I appreciate your leadership and listening to Contra Costa residents about what matters the most for our riders.

1:26:18We weren't getting that before, but I appreciate you now, because you are listening to us. If you, definitely, check in, with the Contra Costa Mayor's Conference, I'm sure they'll make room for you to speak. So, thank you. Thank you, Mayor Kinto, always for your support. I know we've been going city to city.

1:26:36And I think there was a presentation to the supervisors, but it makes sense to ask to see if it, you know, it would emphasize the message and…

1:26:45allow transit advocates to support it. So, thank you all for listening. I know our city clerk, who,

1:26:53works on the agenda with me for the West County Mayor's Conference. We'll make sure that we can see if we can invite you for a future, presentation. That would be amazing. That makes it so much sense. Thank you. Thank you.

1:27:06Okay, next, we have El Cerrito Fire Safe Council.

1:27:12And we have Chief Eric Sailors.

1:27:26Oh, one sec, give me sec- one second to get the technology set up for you.

1:27:38Hit the…

1:27:40Give me one second, and the microphone is not on, but I need to get the technology set up really quick.

1:27:47Can you all right? You're fine. Thank you for being here. Sure.

1:27:53Sorry, give me one second. I'm actually controlling that computer, Gary, if you can just give me one second. I'm controlling it from over here.

1:28:00I cannot read your hat until you sat this close, now I can read it. I've been wondering, what does this say?

1:28:11Sorry, we're still working on some of the kinks when we have virtual council members on the call. It's a little bit harder for our typical process.

1:28:19Just screen share.

1:28:30Okay, now you can go ahead and you can control with the mouse to do your slides.

1:28:37Great.

1:28:38So… Mayor Quinto, Council, I'm Gary Prost.

1:28:42with the El Cerrito Fire Safe Council.

1:28:45Thank you for the opportunity to present or review the results.

1:28:49bar… Evacuation Route Vegetation Mitigation Grant.

1:28:54as I mentioned in front of Council exactly a year ago, we got this grant.

1:29:01from the California Fire Foundation.

1:29:05With money provided by PG&E.

1:29:09The purpose was to clear vegetation along evacuation routes at the YLAN-urban interface, so that means the ridge top, basically.

1:29:19The focus was on Rifle Range, Club View, and Vista Roads.

1:29:25So… We were… the only…

1:29:33grant that was awarded in all of Contra Costa and Alameda County, so we're kind of proud of that.

1:29:39A subcommittee, of the Fire Safe Council.

1:29:43Consisting of Jim Dolgonis, Kay Starkweather, and myself.

1:29:47Got awarded… wrote up and got awarded this $15,000 grant.

1:29:53Along with, battalion Chief Beckman, we identified 16 properties that needed mitigation.

1:30:0212 properties were actually mitigated.

1:30:05Because… We didn't have that much money, just $15,000.

1:30:10Grant was awarded in August.

1:30:14It was completed in March.

1:30:16It's completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

1:30:20I think it's important to mention

1:30:24that it takes a tremendous amount of volunteer time. We figured we… between the three of us, we spent over 400 man-hours

1:30:33Monitoring and progressing this grant.

1:30:38Another observation was many residents probably could have afforded to do some of this work themselves, but they wanted somebody to take charge.

1:30:49So, when we set this up, They were glad to participate.

1:30:54Actually, when we were done, some expected us to do more.

1:30:58So… In that sense, it was a success.

1:31:04Okay.

1:31:05So this shows the area that the project, was. It's within the dotted line.

1:31:13It included the area from Arlington to Rifle Range.

1:31:17And extended up into… Into Richmond.

1:31:21the Vista Heights condos. So there's hundreds of homes here.

1:31:25We targeted roadside fuel reduction within 5 feet of the roads.

1:31:30Again, Rifle Range, VISTA, and Club View are highlighted in yellow, and the two stars indicate that for all of this area.

1:31:37These are the only two exit points, so it's critical that people be able to get out if there's a big fire coming up Wildcat Canyon.

1:31:50Okay, so to repeat, it was awarded in August, it was $15,000.

1:31:56Fire Marshal Beckman helped us identify 16 properties. 15 homeowners responded, but work progressed only on 12 due to limited budget.

1:32:07The work was done by Heavenly Tree Service of Concord.

1:32:12I want to shout out to Eduardo and Diana Martinez, the owners of the company. They worked with us on the price. They worked 7 days a week when necessary. They followed the El Cerrito noise ordinance and quit on time every day. They cleaned up afterwards, and they were a pleasure to work with.

1:32:30So I just wanted to mention that.

1:32:33The process that we went through

1:32:36Was first, with the fire department, we identified properties that needed work.

1:32:41We wrote up a scope of work for each property.

1:32:45We gave out an invitation to participate to the homeowners.

1:32:49We got an expression of interest from the homeowners. We contracted 5 tree companies. Only 3 responded, but we did a walkthrough with each of them.

1:33:00We got bids, and we selected a tree service company based on the best combination of work and cost.

1:33:08We let the homeowners know the timing.

1:33:11We got them to sign a waiver.

1:33:13We got contributions from two of the homeowners to help out.

1:33:17We had at least two of our volunteers present to not only supervise the work, but interface with residents who would come by asking questions during the two weeks the work went on.

1:33:31Afterwards, we did a final walkthrough.

1:33:34And prepared a summary report.

1:33:37So now I'd just like to go through a couple of before and after photos of some of the work that was done very quickly. So this is a property on the corner of Wildcat and Rifle Range, where we removed two Monterey pines that were within 5 feet of the street, and we trimmed the oak canopy up to 14 feet above Rifle Range.

1:34:02See, this is on Vista Road.

1:34:06I don't know if you can see it on the left-hand slide, but there's a power pole there.

1:34:13We contacted PG&E to remove these trees and the ladder fuels and cut back the eucalyptus.

1:34:22They said that it met all of their safety requirements for being at least 4 feet away from a live wire, so we went ahead and did it ourselves.

1:34:31Removed 5 trees, 3 pines, and 2 redwoods, the latter fuels, and we removed a large overhanging limb from the eucalyptus. It was over the power line.

1:34:49Can we… There we go.

1:34:53Okay, lots of junipers, lots of properties had junipers right up alongside the road. The owners were agreeable to having those removed, so we did that.

1:35:05And this is on, Club View.

1:35:08This was our big tree.

1:35:10It's a 120-foot eucalyptus.

1:35:13It was on the property line between two different properties.

1:35:18Also, two Monterey Pines, right next to the road.

1:35:21We, at this point in our project, only had $2,000 left, and it was a $9,000 tree to take out.

1:35:29We leveraged our $2,000 to get contributions from the two property owners, each contributing $3,250, and we got

1:35:39Heavenly to reduce the price by $500, so we were able to take that tree out.

1:35:48So, just to summarize the takeaways.

1:35:53It is possible, with a small grant, to get community buy-in and get some work done.

1:35:59In addition to the $6,500 contributed by these two properties.

1:36:05Four homeowners took advantage of Heavenly being there on-site, and contracted by themselves to have more work done, mostly around their homes.

1:36:14In addition, the Country Club and the Park Summit Homeowners Association

1:36:21Decided not to go with us, but they contracted their own contractors to come in and do the work that we had recommended.

1:36:28So… Big thank you to El Cerrito Fire Department, Chief Beckman for his assistance.

1:36:35It was an amazing amount of help.

1:36:39In order to get homeowner buy-in, to have the fire department behind us, and it gave our work a lot more credibility.

1:36:46And just to summarize, conclude, we're going to continue to try to apply for these grants and try to help the community any way we can. Thank you.

1:36:57Very much appreciate the presentation.

1:37:00I wanted to find out if any of my colleagues here in the dais would like… would have any questions. Go ahead, Councilmember Ward, yeah.

1:37:08Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. You know, you guys are so impressive that you are just volunteers, and you get so much done, and I don't think people understand how many hours you guys put in to not just

1:37:23grants and doing the work, but also informing people. So I just want to say thank you.

1:37:29Thank you.

1:37:30Let's go over to, the Zoom. Mayor Fotem or, Councilmember Motayama, do you have any comments or questions?

1:37:37Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you and wow. I mean, it's really… compared to the grants the city sometimes gets for these issues, it's a small amount of money, and you did a lot, and I just really appreciate the

1:37:52all the hours you put in, because without those volunteer hours, this couldn't have happened, and I think it is a model for everybody else in our city to think about what they can do on their own properties, so thank you.

1:38:07I personally want to say thank you. I remember the tours that I've taken with all of you, when Kay drove me all through that area.

1:38:17Several years ago, and again, you gave… also gave me a tour of that area, but also the Wildwood, property. Very much appreciate that. Question regarding the Wildwood property, with all the eucalyptus trees, has that, been taken care of?

1:38:36No. Okay. But we're… We're always looking for sources of grants that we can

1:38:45Maybe start… make a… make a start at it.

1:38:48Very much appreciate the volunteers with that. You have, you know, kept your neighborhood safe by doing all this work, and I'm sure your neighbors very much appreciate it. I know the City of El Cerrito and our fire department appreciate it as well.

1:39:04So again, thank you for that. I know we're going to celebrate, later as well, and I just want to say congratulations on all your work. Thank you.

1:39:15Go ahead. Lisa has one more thing.

1:39:19I have one more question. Do you guys have a website that people can go to to get additional information? Yes.

1:39:25Is it a Cerrito?

1:39:31El CerritoFiresafecouncil.org, I believe. Okay.

1:39:35El Cerrito Fire Safe Council.

1:39:38dot org. Yes. Okay, thank you. You bet.

1:39:44Thanks again. Next, we'll go to adoption of the consent calendar. We have, A, advisory body youth member and a service reflection. B, monthly disbursement and check register report for July 2026.

1:40:01C, Amendment to Joint Exercise Powers, agreement forming the West County

1:40:06Integrated West Management Authority. D, authorization to enter a purchase agreement with Gladstone Inc. for 26 trash recycling cans. E, agreement with, Powers Forestry.

1:40:20for the Hillside Natural Area Quarry Hill Fire Fuel Reduction Project, F authorization to enter into a general service plan agreement with NOR Systems for swim center maintenance and on-call service, and with chemicals.

1:40:37Do I have a motion to approve, or do you have some questions, or would you like to pull anything? We'll go to my right here.

1:40:45I have a couple of questions on the 6B Check Register and 6F, the NOR Systems contract, and I'd just also like to make a comment about 6A.

1:40:586A?

1:41:01Yeah, I just have a comment about the website that you mentioned. I looked for it just now on my laptop, and it's actually El CerritoFiresafe.org. No, no council.

1:41:12I'm looking at the Zoom meeting. Do you have anything that you would like to pull?

1:41:17Okay, we'll go back to Councilmember Sotiana.

1:41:21I just want to say thank you to the youth member of the EQC, the Environmental Quality Committee, and I'm sad that that person can't be here, to get our thanks in person, but, you know, it's always great to see,

1:41:37you know, people that are younger stepping up to do things in our city, and hopefully, participating on the EQC helped them get into college. So, thank you very much.

1:41:51I'll go ahead and beat.

1:41:53Okay, on 6B, I have a few questions. So, on check items 96775, GovClarity SW license for $24,950, what is Gov…

1:42:09GovClarity.

1:42:13Good evening, Councilmembers, Mayor and Council. My name is Claire Coleman, I'm the Budget and Financial Services Manager, but I am actually going to pass this one to my colleague, Eric Ng, who's our IT Manager.

1:42:23Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Mary King, your IT Manager. So, the Gulf Clarity is the GIS system that the city currently uses to manage the geospatial data, but this is the, I would say, limited version. We are looking to upgrade

1:42:40to the ESRI, the gold standard of GIS data. In this fiscal year, your council has already approved the budget and the additional funding for that, so this should be the last payment we make today.

1:42:53So, so this $24,000 is to get to that gold standard? No. This is to…

1:42:59let the city keep having a GIS database to use, the platform to use, until we move. So, within this time frame, this renewal that we had just paid for, that we will use that time to move us to the gold standards.

1:43:14Okay, thank you. Thank you.

1:43:17Okay, on check 96815 for the Dell laptops for $58,104, this seems to be over the City Manager's authorization limit.

1:43:28How did it come to Council before? So this one came to the City Council, it was for last fiscal year, so it was actually in June 2025 when the Council adopted the resolution for spending authority over $45,000, similar to the one that you just did this past June.

1:43:45A year prior, the City Council approved $100,000 with Dell for those laptops.

1:43:50I spoke with Eric earlier. That actually wasn't in the June this year, and that's because the city, has now caught up with all of our, or most of our laptop expected needs, and so we do not anticipate that level of spending with Dell in the next couple of years. Thank you.

1:44:04And, last check, 96992 MPA annual premium. Is this our insurance? Yes, it is. Okay, seeing a check for $3,800,000 was kind of alarming, so I just wanted to know what that was. Yes, we, watched that one carefully in the bank.

1:44:23Again, next one. Okay, I have a question on 6F, the NOR Systems contract.

1:44:31Reading the materials, it seems like the contract only covers one year, but the costs that we are approving are higher. And, you know, are we getting into a multi-year contract, and are those costs that were shown fixed as we move forward?

1:44:48So, I may defer some of this to my colleague, Chris Jones, who I believe is on Zoom, but one thing I want to flag for the City Council is, as a part of our ongoing transparency efforts, one thing that we want to do is

1:45:00highlight, or at least clarify the total cost associated with a multi-year contract. So in the past, we typically would have said $105,000,

1:45:09for 4 years, every year. And instead of just saying $105,000 every year for 4 years, we actually are trying to say $420,000, to make it very clear that not only is Council authorizing those expenditures each year.

1:45:21budget, if the Council also adopts an associated budget, but also to be very clear and transparent about the total costs and the total, contract costs that's associated with the action.

1:45:34And in…

1:45:34I was gonna say, I don't know if Chris is there, but in this case, in June, the City Council did approve spending authority in the amount of $105,000.

1:45:43This now is the contract that encapsulates that spending authority, it is not in addition to. So it encapsulates the spending authority, and now it's a four-year agreement that will renew each year, and as Claire said, as budget is available, or passed by… approved by the City Council, then we will continue to move forward with that.

1:46:02And we did that to make sure that, as Claire said, to encapsulate that the agreement now matches the spending authority. We had a time constraint to make sure that authority was granted so that we could continue with NOR while we were negotiating the contract.

1:46:19And, thank you also for including Exhibit A in the supplemental materials. I think some…

1:46:26members of the public were concerned that the Exhibit A was attached.

1:46:32Okay, great. Do I have a motion? Thanks, Chris.

1:46:36I'm sorry, did anyone have a comment?

1:46:39No, Chris was available, who are any other questions. Okay, good. Good to see you, Chris.

1:46:44I'll move the consent calendar.

1:46:47Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Second.

1:46:48Okay, we have a motion by…

1:46:51Motion is second by Mayor Pro Tem.

1:46:56Absolutely, Clerk, go ahead. Thank you, Mayor Kinto? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman?

1:47:01Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: No one is in the room with me, and I vote yes.

1:47:04Thank you. Councilmember Quizales? Yes. Councilmember Mochiyama? Yes. Councilmember Wysinger?

1:47:10Councilmember Wysinger: My grandmother is in the room with me right now, and I vote yes.

1:47:14Thank you. Motion carries. Okay, very good.

1:47:16Thank you. Next, we'll go to Policy Matters. A is the adoption of Memorandum of Understanding between the City of El Cerrito and the El Cerrito Public Safety Management Association. We have a presentation with Shannon Bassey.

1:47:31Good evening.

1:47:33Good evening.

1:47:35Mayor and City Council, my name is Shannon Bassey, Human Resources Manager. I have before you a request to adopt a resolution to modify salaries, benefits, and conditions of employees for the City's Public Safety Management Association Bargaining Unit.

1:47:52Specific… it's also known as PSMA for short. Specifically tonight, we're discussing the, Police Chief Unit and the Fire Chief Unit.

1:48:02This resolution also includes an amendment to the City's salary schedule and appropriating additional funds from the General Fund for increased salary costs to do with this resolution and request.

1:48:17And I'll… it's, all outlined in the agenda item, but I will, highlight the… some summary of the changes that were proposed in this agreement for the Fire Chief and the Police Chief. Both agreements will be effective July 1st, 2025.

1:48:33Through June 30th, 2030.

1:48:37Regarding salary, so we did, overhaul the salary, schedule, and so we aim to eliminate the control point system.

1:48:46This was done by establishing a clear bottom and a top.

1:48:51Step, and those bottom and top step figures were determined, based on market data that was gathered. Part of the results from the classification and compensation study

1:49:03That was done and finalized back in February of 2024. This was compared with our comparative agencies, and we applied those market adjustments to the salary grade ranges themselves to bring the grades up to a reasonable market value.

1:49:20So that salary chart is in Exhibit C, and also in the drafts of the MOUs for each of the police chief and the fire chief.

1:49:29with those proposed new salary grade ranges. I did want to note that the salary grade ranges include a 3% COLA, which is a cost of living adjustment, but also includes approximately a 2.4% market adjustment through that study that was done.

1:49:45So that we could bring, again, those salary grades up to market value. To be extra clear, the market adjustment was not applied to the incumbent, or it's not being proposed here tonight, but rather just the salary range itself.

1:49:59Furthermore, on the salary note, so just to be, clear that there was, for each fiscal year of the contract, for the… both the police chief and the fire chief.

1:50:09It states that they shall receive a 3% salary increase, cost of living adjustment, also known as a COLA,

1:50:16And then lastly, effective the first full pay period, at the start of the MOU, July 2025, the Fire Chief's education incentive shall be increased from 5.5% to 7.5% in recognition of his doctorate degree.

1:50:34There were, many details outlined in the agenda item, regarding the financial considerations, but just to highlight, this resolution is asking for additional appropriation, authority from the general fund assigned balance for fiscal year 26-27 in the amount of $71,643.

1:50:53This amount includes both the increased costs associated from fiscal year 2026, but also from 25 to 2025-2026 fiscal year, due to the timing of this proposed, new contract.

1:51:09The increased costs associated with fiscal year 28 and 29 and 29-30 will be incorporated in the upcoming biannual budget process and formally adopted by City Council, in fiscal year 28 and 29.

1:51:26Also, I did want to remind everyone that, having said that, the financial considerations, it's important to note that any agreement, with, to do with fire, Kensington does pay a third of all personnel costs, so that would be applied here as well with any personnel, costs.

1:51:45And then lastly, I'd like to thank PSMA, especially Chief Sailors and Chief Keith.

1:51:50For their leadership, and also a successful negotiation process with the city. And that concludes my report, and I'm available for any questions. Okay, very good. Thank you for the presentation. I'll go to my left here with Councilmember Pisces. Okay, thank you very much for the presentation. I have a few questions.

1:52:08I thought I heard you say… it was…

1:52:13It was not… it was for the position and not the incumbent?

1:52:17Meaning, to me, means it's a position, but not specific to the particular person in the… in the position, is that right? Did you mean the market adjustment reference? Yeah. Yes, so part of building the new salary schedule, we didn't want to eliminate the control point system, since that's been very, confusing in the past.

1:52:35So, part of that process was establishing new salary grades, and that first year of the salary grade chart, you'll see that, there's a new bottom and a top step.

1:52:45That was done by giving a 3% COLA, and then also building in a 2.4 market adjustment into the salary grade itself. But it's not an automatic market adjustment to the incumbent.

1:52:58Okay, so maybe there's someone else in the position, they would still follow this schedule, is that right? That would be the established salary grade range for the classification. Okay. We only have one incumbent in each classification. Right.

1:53:11Okay, I ask because in the Memorandum of Understanding, it says.

1:53:15it would have no legal force if the chief ceases to be the police chief, so I just kind of was wondering

1:53:21if I'm misunderstanding.

1:53:23It's not a big issue to me, I just thought I read it differently and had a different conversation, and thought… I was trying to figure out whether it's specific to particular people or to the position.

1:53:31But it sounds like you're saying it's to the position, not the person.

1:53:36Does that make sense? Just the market adjustments? Well, yeah, when I heard it, I didn't hear it as just the market adjustment, but if that's all it's applying to, then yes, but I'm not… Yes, it… the salary schedule that's being created would be for the classification.

1:53:52That is correct. What we are paying each incumbent would be per the contract, based on the salary that they receive. So they can't… So, second agreement over it? Yeah. Okay.

1:54:01All right, thank you. And then, really, my biggest question is… is about the…

1:54:06the financing of it. There's several mentions of

1:54:12The funds coming out of the general… general fund unassigned balance.

1:54:16So… from my perspective, when I think about the availability of funds, I think of

1:54:23revenue and expenses. And going into the next year, revenue ex…

1:54:28Expenses, excuse me, expenses do exceed revenue.

1:54:32And that… I'm not making any kind of adjustments for one-time expenses or anything, I'm just flatly looking at expenses and flatly looking at revenue. So I don't see… I don't understand what the general fund unassigned balance is for the future years if we're looking at, actually, a deficit for that year.

1:54:48I have our budget and financial services manager here to help with some of the finance questions. Okay.

1:54:56I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. Can you… So, when it says…

1:55:02Appropriating additional funds from the general fund unassigned balance for 26-27.

1:55:09I'm looking at… thinking about the budget that we pass.

1:55:13And simply looking at revenue and expenses.

1:55:16there was more… slightly more expenses than revenue, and certain things were taken out, and we debated that. But just flat out, how much revenue is coming in, what are our expenses? Revenue was not as high as expenses, by a little.

1:55:29So, when it says here, pulling from the general fund unassigned balance.

1:55:34I'm… my initial assumption is that means whatever additional revenue you have beyond expenses, but maybe I'm wrong. In this case, it's a synonym for reserves.

1:55:43It means reserves. Yes. So the salary increase would be paid for by pulling from reserves. Yeah, the unassigned general fund balance is just a different phrase of fearful of. Yes. Okay. Do you see a conflict with that? Ultimately, it's the Council's decision of

1:55:59Of how you… directs the city to spend the budget. Okay. Well,

1:56:05you know, that's… to me, that's huge. I mean, I have no objection to…

1:56:09the salary increase, but I have an objection to paying for it from the reserves. So my perspective and my

1:56:16I guess my philosophy is that you make a cut somewhere else in order to accommodate the increase. And it's not…

1:56:22And I'm not criticizing the increase, I'm criticizing not funding it.

1:56:26I would add that part of this, part of, part of those, the $71,000 is, I was trying to look Claire through one of the… what you and I had talked about earlier. Because this is a retroactive,

1:56:43there's retroactive payment back to when the contract expires, so what had been budgeted for last year wasn't fully included. So, if that is the case, then it

1:56:55you know, if we end the year without spending that money, the only place for it to go is the General Fund Reserve. So, in effect, a lot of this is a reappropriation of budget that might have happened from last year. There are increases, because

1:57:08some of the percentage pays, like longevity or education, does depend on the salary, so there is a slight increase, so I'm not saying that there isn't, but

1:57:18But some of this is because of the retroactivity that we would pay back because this… of when the contract expired.

1:57:25What would be the feasibility of changing the language that doesn't state that it's coming from the reserves?

1:57:32It… well, it would be an appropriation of adding to the spending authority, and that is unless you wanted to bring

1:57:39the funding from another source, but there would not be another source to bring the funding from. So, you know, again, if this money isn't spent, it would go into General Fund Reserve.

1:57:50It's…

1:57:51So it's essentially being reappropriated. I'm sorry if I'm not making sense. There's… it's general fund money, it would go back into the general fund if it's not spent. So that's what the reserve is for. So there's no way to pay for it without pulling from reserves?

1:58:06Is that what you're saying? I don't see any other funding source that we would be able to pay for these salaries.

1:58:12Okay, and then just… The obvious that reserves are already dipping below the minimum that's been mandated.

1:58:19Okay.

1:58:21Let me just be fully transparent, I have absolutely no objection to the pay increase. I have an objection to not making a cut somewhere else to make room for it.

1:58:28And it's hard for me to support it when you're dipping into reserves to pay it.

1:58:33Okay.

1:58:35Okay, we'll go next to, Mayor, to Councilmember Motown.

1:58:40Thank you, and… Thank you, Shannon, for the… the explanations. I think that the… there's…

1:58:49these MOUs are very complicated, and so it takes us a little bit to kind of understand. When you talk about the retroactivity to 25, does that mean we don't adjust the books of 25, we just take it out of 26?

1:59:07the expenses must be recognized when they occur. And so, while this covers the period of the last fiscal year, the expense actually occurs when it is paid out, and that's when we account for it. And so, while about, I'm gonna get the number wrong, I think about $25,000

1:59:23Is effectively for last fiscal year, because it is paid out in the current fiscal year, it is from the current fiscal year's budget.

1:59:30Yeah.

1:59:33Okay, so,

1:59:36I have another question, which I don't know is… it's not really a financial one, but on… in the MOU, it's 2.4 in the police MOU, and the… I think it's 2.3 in the fire MOU about the

1:59:50vehicle allowance, and why we do not have… I want to know why we do not have any requirement for, like, an electric or sustainable, more environmentally friendly vehicle.

2:00:03Yes, and I see the section that you're referring to. So that was not part of the negotiated process with these particular negotiated items in this session.

2:00:15It would need to be negotiated.

2:00:17However, the vehicles that are being used were the ones that have been approved by the City Council, and per our policy, we do bring hybrids or EVs if we can, if they're feasible and they're allowable, or to be used,

2:00:30in ways that public safety is able to use them, so we do follow that policy, as we do with all of our vehicles, as you know. So, if that is the direction, perhaps, for the next negotiations, we can keep that in mind.

2:00:43Thank you.

2:00:44And I have… Back to the financial question.

2:00:48May I, may I please have our budget manager back at the podium, or the lectern?

2:00:58Because this is retroactive, and because we have some additional costs,

2:01:05At what point do you do the analysis for, like, the trending of the general fund?

2:01:13When… do we hold all these things to, like, mid-year, and then it's adjusted?

2:01:20And what… how do you account for it?

2:01:23Going forwards in a way that we can see it.

2:01:27I can run the forecast virtually anytime, preferably with a little bit of notice, so I can make sure that it's accurate.

2:01:33But… if the Council makes any change in budgetary authority in the General Fund, I will update the model

2:01:41after that action is made. And that's to ensure that the long-range forecast is consistent with the most recent and most current version of the general fund adopted budget.

2:01:52Can I add that in the past, this might have been something that we may not have brought to the Council as it happened?

2:02:01We might have waited until mid-year and made adjustments at that time, looking at where we were trending, which we have tried to get away from. We have actually tried to come to the Council and be very open. Okay, this is going to cost this much extra. We want to be able to increase the authority so that by the time we get to mid-year, we're not bringing you

2:02:19a whole lot of different transactions that need to be reconciled, if you will. And so, this is, I mean, I can understand the concern about, you know, oh, it looks like we're dipping into reserves.

2:02:31The other, you know.

2:02:34by the time we get to mid-year, we would be able to trend those expenses. We could see, perhaps, we might not need all of this to be appropriated.

2:02:43So, we keep an eye on that, but we have taken the step in recent years, and I have to, you know, give, really good shout-outs to our finance team, who we've worked with, to bring this to the Council as we go, as opposed to waiting for mid-year and doing all of these

2:02:56transactions at once and kind of seeing where we're trending. So, at the next meeting, we will be bringing you, the general fund update for the soft close of the fourth quarter.

2:03:06For the last fiscal year, which is… is trending really well, we're doing really well. And you'll be able… we'll… we'll update everything, so at the next meeting, we'll be able to show you, the most re… the most up-to-date projections, including all of this.

2:03:21I hope that there will be an update to the trending, and maybe just before and after, so we can compare. I know that we have other labor negotiations coming, so I just want us to be very, very, very careful about how much

2:03:37We can dive into the general fund reserve, because it's not… it is… these are ongoing costs. They're not one-time costs, so it's… it's a concern.

2:03:47So…

2:03:49Okay, and I just want to say thank you to Chief Keat and Chief Sailors. You guys are doing a great job. This is not about you, this is about the budget. Thank you.

2:03:58Here we go.

2:03:59I'm looking at, the screen right now,

2:04:04Mayor Pro Tem or, Councilmember Wysinger, do you have any questions?

2:04:09Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: I don't have any questions. I just want to note, and I don't want to get into a long back and forth, but I would just encourage Councilmember Kutzanis, there's been a few items that have come to us over the past few months where we've had lots of discussions over a long time, and then we get to the end, and you feel like you want to see the things offset. I just think it would be

2:04:29More helpful to bring those things up earlier, because then we could have time to have some consideration about

2:04:35you know, entertaining any ideas you have of how to offset costs, which I would be open to exploring, and I think others might be open to exploring, too. So, just encourage you, next time, early on in the process, when we know we have an expense coming to

2:04:49Think about what you might want to propose where we have some savings, or make some cuts, and we can have those discussions.

2:04:56I… I appreciate that feedback, and I will just go on record that I am not going to support deficit spending. We have to make choices, and we have to approach it that way, that we're… you know, we have options on the table, and I don't manage the city finances, so I can't go in and micromanage and say, cut this and cut that, but I can say, just as a matter of

2:05:16Fiscal prudence, that if we're going to spend more one place, we have to spend less somewhere else, and that's not been our habit.

2:05:23Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: And we have the say on the budget. I mean, the city manager implements the budget that we approve, but we are the ones who approve the budget. So, if you have ideas for ways to offset these costs, I think it's incumbent upon us to either bring those ideas up, or to ask

2:05:39the city's management to bring those up. But again, much earlier in the process so we can Fair though.

2:05:45I'm being very consistent. I voted against the budget as well, for the exact same reason.

2:05:48So, okay, I appreciate the feedback.

2:05:52Councilmember Wysinger, do you have any, questions? Okay.

2:06:00Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item. The request to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card, using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9, if joining by phone.

2:06:15In-person bequests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments. Madam City Clerk, please proceed.

2:06:25Thank you, Mayor. We do have one request to speak. Let me just pull up the timer…

2:06:31Oop, we checked those.

2:06:53Okay, so we'll go to Megan. Megan, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

2:06:59megan: Thank you so much, I'm Megan Steffen, I live in El Cerrito,

2:07:04I thought this was a really interesting and helpful discussion. Councilmember Kitsanez and Councilmember Montoyama and Councilmember, Saltzman, thank you all for asking these questions and, like, having this conversation in public.

2:07:23I also…

2:07:25Councilmember Kitzanes, I think we've talked about this, but maybe I can put, like, the feedback a different way, which is that, I understand that you have been very consistent in being against deficit spending.

2:07:40And something that I have heard a lot of in the last 4 weeks is that we want, you know, citizens in El Cerrito want best-in-class services for everything.

2:07:50And they want it to cost nothing. And these things aren't possible, and I think there's something similar that I'm sort of picking up in this conversation, which is that, like, we want to have, like, amazing employees, but we don't want

2:08:06to have to cut anything. And I think to be against deficit spending, you must also be pro-cutting something. And pro-cutting something concrete.

2:08:17you know, like, making hard choices. I do think that in terms of the city's history of low trust, and perhaps the history of some of the people on the dais right now, there could be more transparency. I think, like, if there was a way to dig a little bit deeper into the numbers, and if…

2:08:35the city manager were open to sharing more of the books with folks. I think that would go a long way in terms of helping people have a constructive conversation about what we would want to cut in order to keep

2:08:49Like our amazing employees, and improve the services that we think really need to be best in class.

2:08:55But…

2:08:57saying that we're just against deficit spending without making a concrete choice about where we're going to shift from is really hard, and I think that's… that's the ask, Councilmember Kitsan, is to be able to say, you know, like, I want to keep paying for our amazing fire chiefs in order to do that.

2:09:18you know, we need to cut from somewhere else. There were a lot of, like, hard cuts that I think people talked about during the budget.

2:09:25Oh, I'm so sorry. Anyway, so that's… that's the spirit that I would offer. Thank you all, though, really, for having this conversation, and, like, I think I know how the boat is gonna go, and I'm so sorry, and I… Thank you so much.

2:09:42Thank you, Meg.

2:09:44Thank you, Mayor. That concludes our request to speak. Okay, we'll break it back here to the Council. Any last thoughts?

2:09:53Speaking. Yeah.

2:09:55I appreciate the feedback. I…

2:09:58I did have a discussion about this with the city manager earlier. I did not understand it then to be

2:10:04pulling from reserves, it wasn't presented that way, and, you know, it was clear to me from this discussion now, and I appreciate

2:10:11Claire, and how direct, and…

2:10:14honest, she was, and that's part of my decision-making process, and I don't have the ability to go into the budget. I mean, I haven't… I've… I mean, to that end, I have asked for significantly more financial information, and…

2:10:28don't get it, so it's not… I'm not… and it's not my role. It's not my role to go in and micromanage and say, cut this, cut that. If we're given choices, we can vote them, and we'll… the outcome will be wherever the council decides the outcome is, in terms of

2:10:41A lot of budgetary items that, you know, I've been on the other side. I've been the one vote who's said no, largely for that reason, that it put us into a deficit.

2:10:49But… Yeah.

2:10:52I do hear the feedback.

2:10:55Go ahead, Councilmember Motown. So, I think… when we…

2:11:00Where we do this discussion is in the budget, and as a council, we agreed that what is important for this coming year is that we put money aside

2:11:12For some future, you know, capital needs, and vehicle needs, and service needs, and we cannot do that.

2:11:21if you wanted to take the $71,000 out of the existing budget. But that was a discussion we had. This is what we prioritized. We prioritized doing that to get back on track. So, I think it, you know.

2:11:36we're giving conflicting direction to staff by saying, well, what are you going to cut? Well, we should have talked about that back before the end of June. So.

2:11:48I think we… we had these big discussions, we had to make different choices, we made the choice,

2:11:57you know, to fund the fire engine and these future reserves. So, it's…

2:12:04Future reserve, current reserve, it's just money, the same money.

2:12:09But I think, you know, the thinking behind it is really our policy decision to approve the budget in June.

2:12:19Okay, we'll next go to Councilmember Wysinger. Go ahead.

2:12:22Councilmember Wysinger: I just wanted to say very quick, this is why it's so important to pay attention through the entire budget process.

2:12:30I'm gonna push back a little bit on the idea that we don't see what's in the budget. We do see everything that's in each department's budget, because the departments present their budgets. There are steps that we get to before we get to June. And if we're just waiting to pay attention until the actual day that we approve the budget, yes, there's gonna be things that be missed. So I would encourage everyone next year, if you have the opportunity to

2:12:55go through the budget process. That's why there's a whole process.

2:12:59And that's all that I wanted to say, because I don't want anyone leaving out of here and saying that they couldn't see the things that the departments had in their… in their budgets, or the things that we're spending on. There's the department head presentations, there's the entire budget book, it's all there laid out, but there's a process for a reason, and as Councilmember Motoyama said, that's why those things should be brought up during the budget process.

2:13:21I'm complete.

2:13:23Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, do you have any,

2:13:27last thoughts, or questions, or comments. We'll go right back to Councilmember… The last point… thank you. The last point I will point out is that

2:13:36A portion of this expense is beyond what was budgeted.

2:13:41So it's not fair to say we agreed to this in the budget. We made certain assumptions, and it was budgeted a certain amount, and now we're above that, which is fine, but if we're going to push it beyond what the budget was, we have to make a cut somewhere else.

2:13:52We don't have, so we're not… probably not going to, but personally, I believe we should. We have that obligation.

2:13:58I'll leave it at that.

2:14:01Would anyone like to make a motion?

2:14:04Do we have to make a motion to close the public hearing?

2:14:09So I'll move to approve, the MOUs for the chiefs.

2:14:16Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: That can't…

2:14:17Okay, we have a motion by Motayama, a second by Saltzman, Madam City Clerk.

2:14:21Mayor Kinto? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman?

2:14:24Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: No one is in the room with me, and I vote yes.

2:14:28Councilmember… Councilmember Catanis?

2:14:30Nope.

2:14:31Councilmember Bonsaiama?

2:14:32Yes. Councilmember Wysinger?

2:14:36Councilmember Wysinger: My grandmother is in the room with me, and I vote yes.

2:14:40Thank you, motion carries.

2:14:41Again, thank you for the presentation, very much appreciated. Next, we'll go to, City Council Local and Regional Liaison Assignments. Would anyone like to, give an update?

2:14:56Yes, go ahead.

2:14:58On July the 22nd, I attended the East Bay Wildfire Coalition of Governments meeting in Oakland, where our chief sailors talked about the pilot no parking on high-fire danger days,

2:15:12program that we have, and that went very, really well, so I want to thank you, Chief, for that. I did attend National Night Out, and went to a number of parties, and I think it was a, you know, again, thank you to staff for organizing that, and

2:15:27On August 12th, I attended the ABAC Housing Committee, where we're looking at,

2:15:33Sustainable, loan products for more housing opportunities.

2:15:38Thank you. Thank you. We'll go to Councilmember Wysinger.

2:15:42Councilmember Wysinger: Thank you so much, Mayor. Just a few weeks ago, and I apologize, as I have a lot going on here, I don't have the date, but we did close out our public safety committee for the League of California Cities, so we've closed out our public safety year. We did the recap of the legislations that we did weigh in on, or did give recommendations to the board on, and where those were, so I'm very proud of the year that we had.

2:16:05It's a little bit difficult, you know, we know that our East Bay contingent were a little bit more liberal than a lot of… some of our other cohorts, so I just want to thank my other East Bay cohorts, the folks there in Dublin and Fremont who served with me on the Public Safety Committee. Hopefully, we'll get an opportunity to serve again next year together and continue to push towards public safety legislation that supports our community.

2:16:29We did actually have our bi-monthly meeting of the REAL Council, also for the National League of Cities, as we get prepared for the convention in November. So, thank you to both of those committees for a good closeout of the year.

2:16:45Next, we'll go to Mayor Pro Tem.

2:16:48Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman: Thank you. On July 24th, I attended the West Contra Costa Transportation Commission meeting, where we got presentations from AC Transit, just like the one we had had at our City Council, and discussed some other items. On July 25th, I went to the El Cerrito Vigil, which was part of a national vigil

2:17:12for people who've been murdered by ICE.

2:17:14Thanks to the folks who organized that. It was a really powerful event, and very peaceful. And on August 4th, I attended National Night Out, which continues to be one of my favorite days of the year in El Cerrito, and my, block, for the first time, I didn't organize it, but one of my neighbors organized National Night Out, I think, for the first time in our block's history, and it was really fun. It's just such a

2:17:38great time for people to get out and meet neighbors, and for kids to just be kids in the street and not have to worry about getting hit by a car. So I heard a lot from folks, both at my neighborhood National Night Out and the other ones I visited about the need to slow cars down, so I'm very excited about what we're doing with the local road safety plan, and I did attend the open house for that last week.

2:18:01I also, on August 10th, attended a rally and lobby day up in Sacramento, to undo the major cuts to transit and affordable housing that, the governor and, the card board have put in,

2:18:20Giving kickbacks to the oil companies and taking this money away from transit and affordable housing that could have really big impacts.

2:18:27on El Cerrito, I'm happy to say our Senator, Jesse Aragin, is at the forefront of leading on this to get that money back. I actually ran into him on Capitol Corridor, on the train, on the way up there, and he spoke at the rally, so we have good representation there. And then on August 10th, virtually, I also attended our ad hoc committee meeting on advisory bodies. I think that's it.

2:18:54Lastly, I will, let folks know about my schedule. I did attend,

2:19:02the Contra Costa Mayor's Conference, where we had great presentation, there in the City of Oakley. I did attend

2:19:11The…

2:19:15Cal Cities, I flew down to, the South San Joaquin Valley to Fresno, and I met with mayors in that area. That area is going through difficult times right now with the foreclosure prices, with job losses.

2:19:32They can barely pay for, the high energy prices going on there, so…

2:19:39They've asked me to be in touch with them, and I encourage them to meet with their legislators there.

2:19:50more often, and to let them know about the difficulties and what is going on down in the Central Valley. There are a lot of job losses there. Farms are closing.

2:20:01difficult times ahead with these small rural towns. And a lot of times, Sacramento does not listen to the Central Valley and these small rural towns. This is the same thing that I heard from cities in the North Coast.

2:20:16So, you know, I'm hoping that, we will, work together. We are strong together as cities when, we are supporting each other. So, look forward to, the end of my term as president of the League of California Cities, and look forward to our convention next month.

2:20:36I also attended the LAFCO meeting, where we did, have a discussion, on the annexation of some properties

2:20:46on, with the City of, Clayton.

2:20:51Clayton, the city of Clayton, decided, they have… they're not in the position to look at any type of annexations.

2:20:58Right now, they are a small town. They're aware of, city budgets going sideways right now, with… because of what's going on in Washington, which is trickling down to the state of California.

2:21:11Sprinkling down to the counties, And it's happening here in El Cerrito as well. So,

2:21:17The county, as I said, they have a $1 billion deficit because the sales tax was not passed. So, difficult times ahead.

2:21:27for the majority of cities and counties in California, stay tuned. El Cerrito, we are in a better place, because we have had a head start in getting our house to order. I know, with Councilmember Cassanis.

2:21:40It's, not at the place where we should be yet, but we are working on it. We have, again.

2:21:48Our, place, financially is in a much, much better place than it was when we were state audited. So I thank staff, the city manager, and

2:22:00Our employees here, but also our volunteers.

2:22:04Who, support the City Council. Again, we are…

2:22:10The next City Council meeting will be on…

2:22:15September 15th at 6 p.m, so I look forward to, meeting with everyone then. Have a good night, everybody. The time is 8.33.

2:22:26Meeting is adjourned.

2:22:28Councilmember Wysinger: Good night.

2:22:29Good night, everybody.