Special and Regular City Council Meeting September 15, 2026

0:00:12Pardon?

0:01:26Okay, good evening, everybody. The time is 610.

0:01:30The September 15, 2026 Regular City Council meeting is called to order at 6-10. City Clerk, please call roll. Mayor Kinto? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman?

0:01:42Councilmember Katzanes? Here. Councilmember Mochiyama? Here. Councilmember Weisinker? Here. We have a quorum.

0:01:49Please join me for the…

0:01:53Observation of the flag, and pledge of…

0:01:57I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God.

0:02:07Individuals with liberty and justice for all.

0:02:17Teleconference and public comment instructions. Thank you, Mayor. This hybrid meeting provides an opportunity 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.

0:02:33The Brown Act ensures the public's right to be heard, and while City Council may not be… may not respond to your comments directly, your comments will be heard prior to Council taking action.

0:02:43For 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 by phone.

0:02:59If in-person speakers will be called first. The Council's adopted Rules of Order and Procedures specify that public speakers address the City Council in an orderly and respectful manner, proceed their comments with their name and city of residence, and be respectful of time limits. Thank you, Mayor, that concludes my announcements. Thank you very much.

0:03:17Next item on the agenda, we have, City Manager Karen Princus. Go ahead, Karen.

0:03:23Thank you, Your Honor. I have a few announcements,

0:03:28First, I would like to say that we are excited to announce that the state just approved $13 million in funding to repave

0:03:36and improve San Pablo Avenue from the southern border all the way to cutting. This will include new asphalt, and a number of safety improvements, so I want to thank our council members and our community. You did a lot of advocating at the state level, with Caltrans advocating for this project, so we're very excited to see this break ground in early 2027.

0:03:58The Arts and Culture Commission would like me to announce that the call for artists to show your work at the El Cerrito City Hall Gallery Space, which is up on the second level overlooking the lobby, it closes this week, so get your application in at elcerrito.gov slash gallery space by Friday.

0:04:16We're starting our, we ask for everyone's patience and to pardon our dust, as year two of our five-year pavement maintenance plan has just kicked off.

0:04:25With the goal of bringing all of our pavement up to a good rating citywide. This year, the work is focused on 23 street segments around Potrero Avenue, so you've probably already seen some of them if you've been in that area. So, that's really exciting work that we're… is underway.

0:04:42We're excited to share that work is also underway reducing 8 acres of eucalyptus and fire fuels in the Hillside Natural Area, which is a project funded by the State Coastal Conservancy, and I don't know if

0:04:55If Will is in the audience, if he's posted, I saw a great video of a big ol' eucalyptus coming down today. It was very interesting. So please be aware that access will be limited, and trails will be closed around the Quarry Hill Eucalyptus Grove area while this work is being completed, and we're hopeful that this work will be done within 45 days.

0:05:14Also like to announce the Tri-City Safety Day will be on Saturday, September 19th. That'll be over in front of Lucky's. Come and see us in the county in Albany.

0:05:24and all of our fire trucks and police officers and police vehicles out to be able to work with the public. We'll have all sorts of really fun things to do, so please stop by at Lucky. It's, again, it's in front of Lucky's at El Cerrito Plaza.

0:05:39And I would also like to congratulate our finance team. Last but not least, we once again received the Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Budget Award. We're very proud of that, and again, thank you to our finance team and all of our departments for all of their work.

0:05:54On this year's budget document.

0:05:57That's all, thank you, Your Honor.

0:06:00Okay, thank you very much. Next is Council Communication. Who would like to start?

0:06:05Yes, go ahead.

0:06:08Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank the East Shore Alliance for having their soccer opening… season opening parade on August 30th. It was really fun, and there was really a nice turnout from the community. And I'll also… I'd like to take the opportunity to ask

0:06:24Anybody with ECYB, when our parade is coming back for that in March.

0:06:31Thank you.

0:06:33Anyone else?

0:06:37Okay, I have a few mayoral announcements.

0:06:42On August 20th?

0:06:44Aligned with the City Council's adaptive legislative platform, I am signed on a joint letter on behalf of the City Council in opposition of the forthcoming wildfire liability

0:06:56Reform packets that will limit public agency recovery.

0:07:01On August 21st, I signed revised letters of support for AB1903 and SB 1218 due to significant modifications to the legislation.

0:07:15On August 27th, I signed a letter to the governor encouraging his signature of SB1005 regarding authority of local agencies to round transactions to the nearest 5 cents. These letters are available on the city website.

0:07:32on the City Council page, under State Legislative platform.

0:07:39We also had a closed session earlier this evening. I have nothing to report on that.

0:07:46Next, we will go to oral communications to the public.

0:07:51The next item?

0:07:53Is that now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda.

0:08:00Consent 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 by joining by phone.

0:08:13In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. Madam City Clerk. Thank you, Mayor. I'll start… we have 3 requests to speak at this time. I'll go with our first speaker in person, Ann Aginosky, followed by Joshua Saunders.

0:08:39Good evening, all. I'm Ann Oginowski, a resident of El Cerrito for 27 years. Same place.

0:08:48I just have… A potpourri of, kind of, livability issues.

0:08:53I don't believe that any one of you is directly responsible for these, but I hope

0:08:59My concern will be conveyed.

0:09:02Trash cans.

0:09:03We've had two of the major trash cans on Central Avenue removed, the total innards.

0:09:10Unlike the expectation that therefore there will be no trash, there is trash. It is in bushes, it is in the gutters, it is in streets and yards and trees.

0:09:19And…

0:09:21I'm tired of picking it up and having no place to take it. I can't go out with a pail and gloves and grab her every time I leave my apartment to go to the plaza or the hardware store.

0:09:31I suggest

0:09:33when there is anything in the budget for trash cans, that they be replaced, and that they be modeled after the ones on Solano Avenue that are tamper-proof.

0:09:42Today, just on Stockton and San Pablo, right across from the El Cerrito Natural Grocery, public trash can with drywall can.

0:09:52baby carriage, food, and clothing scattered around. It's just not a pleasant sight.

0:10:01The other thing is kind of a… a recycling issue.

0:10:08The reciting center does not take microwaves.

0:10:11And previously, when they did.

0:10:13I would collect them if they were left in our neighborhood, and take them there.

0:10:17But I'm not willing to drive 9 miles to take a microwave that does not even… that I have not used.

0:10:23And I suggest it's easier for the recycling center to collect them and deliver them to the Pittsburgh center once a month, or whatever.

0:10:33Finally, Sidewalks. I'm beginning to wonder which is safer, sidewalks or streets. On sidewalks, they're uneven.

0:10:42I'm mauled by overhanging branches, cactus, quigs, what have you.

0:10:48And… bicyclist.

0:10:51scooters, skateboarders who come by without any warning. No signal, no left, right, or whatever. It's really, I've had some very close calls, because I don't… I don't hear them coming until they've zoomed past me with this much distance. So, just… I know that's…

0:11:11You know, how can you educate the public about being considerate? But… May it be so.

0:11:17Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Joshua Sanders, and then we'll go to our virtual request to speak.

0:11:24Good evening.

0:11:28Hi, my name is Joshua Saunders. I am a resident of El Cerrito since 1995, and I'm here

0:11:39to speak about, one of the things that our former speaker mentioned was scooters. I think I talked about this a few weeks ago, about them shooting on the Loney Greenway and not knowing,

0:11:52how close they were to me, or whether they were going to hit me or not. I am legally blind, although I have some vision.

0:11:58And, the main thing I wanted to bring to your attention was not only what I just mentioned, but the fact that

0:12:06in… I haven't so much seen this in El Cerrito, but I have seen it in Antioch, and I have seen it in Oakland and San Francisco, is scooters that are just kind of left on the sidewalk.

0:12:19Or left partially in the street. And having limited vision.

0:12:25I've come pretty close to stumbling over them and falling over them. I know people have

0:12:32who have less vision than I do, who have fallen and injured themselves, and so I would really like the Council to be aware of this issue, and make it so that in El Cerrito, we don't have

0:12:46these scooters abandoned, and more people injured. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, and we have a couple more in-person requests. So we'll go next to Janet Byron, followed by MJ Julie.

0:13:03Hello, I'm Janet Byron, I'm an El Cerrito resident, and I'm here to…

0:13:08Invite the entire El Cerrito community to a candidate forum sponsored by El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and El Cerrito Richmond Annex Walk and Roll.

0:13:18To hear candidates' views on walkability, safe streets, open space, And parks-related issues.

0:13:25The forum is on October 8th at the Veterans Hall at Stockton and Kearney. Doors open at 5 30. The forum starts at 6.

0:13:34And we will have free pizza and free child care. We have 4 out of the 6…

0:13:40Candidates confirmed at this time. We're hoping for all of them. All have been invited.

0:13:46And, we have flyers in the hallway.

0:13:49And we would just ask, you know, it's not required, but if people could register and let us know that you're planning

0:13:56to come so we can have enough pizza and childcare. Thank you. Thank you.

0:14:02And our next speaker is MJ Julie.

0:14:07City Council, El Cerrito residents, I'm MJ Geweli, and I live in El Cerrito on Richmond Street.

0:14:14in my many conversations that I've been having with, El Cerrito residents, I've learned a lot, and I want to echo some of the comments around safety on the Greenway.

0:14:25And just to follow up on my last comment from last month, it turns out we do have a speed limit. It is 15 miles per hour. The only thing is, we're not actually enforcing it, so we have lots of people who are going over the speed limit, and in violation of our own rules, and, being very dangerous, making the Greenway very dangerous. So I would encourage City Council to look into, how can we enforce the

0:14:50the law that we have around 15 miles per hour on the Greenway.

0:14:54Another thing that has come up in my conversation with people is that

0:14:58around our TOD, and at the El Cerrito Plaza BART, we… it's great that we have crosswalks that light up, and this is also the same for the Greenway, but, even though the crosswalks do light up, people will still drive

0:15:14Anyway, and that's really problematic in the… around the El Cerrito Plaza bar, because there's just so many pedestrians, so I'm wondering what can we do to encourage drivers to honor the… and respect the people who are using the crosswalk?

0:15:29And I guess one other thing I want to say along those lines is, with the Greenway specifically, I'm wondering if there are ways to, maybe… someone suggested this. He said that

0:15:40When he is using the greenway, it takes too… it can take too long for the lights to turn on, because, especially with bikes who are going very quickly, and with the sensors for the lights right at the sidewalk.

0:15:54The lights oftentimes do not come on until the person is already, like, at least a third of the way across the street.

0:16:01So, maybe,

0:16:03maybe some way to have the sensors trigger sooner, maybe that means moving them backward, but something so that they, are more effective. One thing I do want to say, just, that it has been working pretty well, is with the… I got feedback from a driver who said that he…

0:16:21didn't really like a lot of the development that was happening around Del Norte Park, because there were all these, like, barriers or obstructions on the road, and by that he meant, like, the raised curves and, the bike lanes and stuff like that.

0:16:36And, he thought that it just made driving harder.

0:16:39But my takeaway from that was that it's doing the job, people are driving more carefully. Unfortunately, yes, they are sometimes hitting a curb and injuring and damaging their cars, but I'm glad it's that and not someone getting hit by a car. That would be a lot worse. So, just some food for thought. Thank you.

0:16:57Oh, and today is National Voter Registration Day, so please make sure you register to vote. Thanks.

0:17:03Thank you, we'll go to our remote request to speak.

0:17:08Ira should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

0:17:14Ira Sharenow: Hi, Ira Sharenow, El Cerrito.

0:17:17First of all, I agree with the many speakers who spoke about pedestrian and bicycle safety. As pedestrian and bicyclists, I'm very concerned about the zooming of motor vehicles on the Greenway and elsewhere.

0:17:33Now, some other comments. On Nextdoor, a leader of the Know On Sea Committee suggested that the Library Foundation raise money to buy air conditioners for the library.

0:17:45I can't… I contacted the city manager's office.

0:17:48To find out if it was feasible to install air conditioners.

0:17:53I was stunned to find out that after 25 years, and probably a million dollars of taxpayer money spent.

0:18:00This has never been studied.

0:18:03Then the career bureaucrat recommended I submit my idea to the library task force, which is really a reconstituted version of the Committee for a Plaza Station Library.

0:18:15So he wanted the side that got 70% of the vote to ask for the approval of the side that got 30% of the vote.

0:18:23That seems upside down.

0:18:26Mayor Quinto encouraged people to not go to Nextdoor for city information.

0:18:31But the city does not have a platform for a free discussion of important issues.

0:18:38Then the service delivery study that the auditor recommended in 2021, and which was supposed to be finished a few months ago.

0:18:46But apparently, as best as I can tell, the city manager sat on the draft for 4 months.

0:18:53Then there is a delay in the parking study.

0:18:56Then there is the big delay on repairing Richmond Street.

0:18:59And the need… and the city needs to explain the bureaucratic switcheroo.

0:19:05Changing the contract with SGC from east-west lanes to Richmond Street, and also changing from fully protected bike lanes to just having painted bike lanes.

0:19:17I am expecting the Mayor and City Council to give management direction

0:19:22And hold it accountable, and also explain to community why you are handing out maximum performance-based pay increases.

0:19:30Thank you very much.

0:19:33Thank you, Mayor. That concludes our request to speak.

0:19:36Mayor, could I say something very briefly? Sure, go ahead, Mayor. We had a lot of comments about, speeds of various devices, and we're going to be talking about later in our agenda the local road safety plan, and I will have lots of comments on this issue, so I encourage those of you who care about that, we are going to be addressing that later tonight.

0:19:57Very good. All right, next we have a presentation, and that's at El Cerrito student's training and ready for success, and that's an EC STARS program. And we have Shandon Bassey, Human Resource Manager, to give us an update. Hi.

0:20:12Yes, good evening. Thank you so much. Again, Shannon Bassey, Human Resources Manager. We have a really fun presentation for you tonight. I'm pleased to present the 2026 EC Stars

0:20:24program, and we'll have our interns conduct that presentation in front of you tonight. I did want to just give a high-level overview of the program, just to inform everyone of all the great things that it entailed.

0:20:36This program is a long-standing relationship between the West Contra Costa Unified School District and the City. This is the ninth year of the program, so it's been successful for many years.

0:20:48The main purpose of the program is to connect high school students, to careers in local government and public service, and also give them exposure to a variety of career paths.

0:21:00These types of programs also strengthen the relationship between the city and our youth. They give them exposure to opportunities where youth can also find ways to connect with the community. And more specifically, it gives them real-world job experience.

0:21:18Professional skill building, and also a broader understanding of how local government works and operates, which was really nice to see all the interns really engaged in that way.

0:21:28Throughout the program, interns used and developed a lot of valuable skills, whether that was time management with getting to work on time, or meeting project deadlines. They learned administrative and organizational skills.

0:21:42Critical thinking and research, public speaking and presenting, which you'll see here tonight, and how to conduct themselves professionally in a variety of business meetings throughout the city.

0:21:54This also allows the city to diversify our talent pool by engaging the youth and exposing them to all of these opportunities, and most importantly, helps them pursue their high school career path and meet their career goals after high school.

0:22:11To kickstart this year, the city did meet with the school district staff, including the College and Career Department, along with the El Cerrito High School staff to design this internship, so a lot of thought and work went into how the program would operate.

0:22:29Earlier this spring, we had some former Gauchos attend a student orientation and gain some exposure for the students and help encourage them to apply. Those gauchos were Mayor Quinto, Recreation Director Chris Jones, and Officer Seppe.

0:22:46And the students really enjoyed engaging with those, gauchos, and just learning more about their career journey to, lead them to local government positions today.

0:22:56Just also some more information we… about the program. This year, we had 7 city departments participate, which I believe was our highest year of participation with the departments, and also 10 interns were placed.

0:23:10This program ran for approximately 6 to 7 weeks.

0:23:15And, the interns were paid a minimum wage rate, which is the El Cerrito minimum wage rate of $18.82 per hour.

0:23:23We held a very formal interview process, just like you would in the normal real world, and this gave first-time applicants a chance to practice their interview skills and prepare them for real-world opportunities.

0:23:37We put them through a real onboarding process with HR. They filled out their tax forms, employment forms, they obtained their work permits, signed real offer letters, and learned all the basics of starting a new job.

0:23:51At the end of the program, the interns each had a one-on-one session with

0:23:56Their coach, to help, provide some mentorship, and ultimately, providing guidance to connect them to what their career passion might be.

0:24:06And this also gave them critical feedback to help them succeed after this internship.

0:24:12So before we start the presentation, I did want to acknowledge that we do have some staff here from the West Contra Costa Unified School District in our audience here, and I'd like to call up our superintendent, Cheryl Cotton, to say a few words.

0:24:37Thank you, and… first off, congratulations. Job well done.

0:24:44Wow, Jenny.

0:24:47an opportunity like this is huge for a young person. I used to be a young person a long time ago.

0:24:55And those moments really matter. Having a chance to get a glimpse into what it looks like, what the real, kind of, working world looks like, what it looks like, feels like to be a professional.

0:25:09at such a young age is a wonderful opportunity and gives you… kind of tees you up for the rest of your life. So, I'm really proud of you guys that you persevered through that. You got up early and on time, you got to work on time, yes.

0:25:25Did all the things, had to manage office politics, yes, and then you got paid.

0:25:33Yeah, okay, that was excellent. So, I'm just, again, very proud of you, and I just want to say,

0:25:40First off, thank you, Mayor Kinto, Pro Mayor… Mayor Pro Tem Otayama, City Council members, West Contra Costa, and City staff. Jessica and Danny, thank you.

0:25:54For your work, also Shannon and Karen, Pinkos and Alexandra Origal, or…

0:26:03Help me. Or a locus. I'm gonna practice.

0:26:09This work means so much. I do also really appreciate West Contra Costa Unified School District's partnership with the City of El Cerrito. This partnership has allowed us to sustain a commitment to our kids.

0:26:24to our young people in this community, and preparing them for adulthood, preparing them for a professional life, and so I'm really excited about that.

0:26:34We recently adopted a new vision and mission for West Contra Costa Unified School District, rolling it out to you publicly today. Here we go.

0:26:42West Contra Costa Unified School District schools foster courageous scholars who create solutions that improve and enrich our community and the world.

0:26:52We actively welcome our students, families, and community into coherent, interconnected systems of support that care for the whole child, nurture every student's intellectual, social, and emotional growth. I just want to go back to this idea of courageous scholarship.

0:27:06You provided an opportunity. We provided an opportunity for our students to step out and be brave, to do something that's different.

0:27:16To use the skills that they've learned, both their interpersonal skills, but also their academic skills, to be successful in a working environment. And I just, again, really deeply appreciate that work.

0:27:29There are many opportunities that we have. Let's do a little commercial. Is that okay, Shannon?

0:27:34There are many opportunities that we have to support our youth.

0:27:38Athletics?

0:27:40counseling services, library services, all of those supports, again, help to foster those courageous scholars that we talked about. I just wanted to lift up that we do have on our ballot

0:27:54This year, Measure V. V as in victory.

0:27:59Measure V will be on the ballot… ballot. It's not a new parcel tax. It is an existing tax. This is the third iteration of this, and we are… are… are hopeful that

0:28:13this moves forward so that we're able to continue to support our students. This brings about $10 million in revenue to our schools.

0:28:22And we want to continue that work, but this is, another way that we support our students. So again, I just want to say thank you to the City of El Cerrito for this opportunity for our students. Congratulations again to our young people. I can't wait to see where this takes you. Thank you.

0:28:41Thank you very much. Superintendent Cheryl Collin.

0:28:51Thank you so much, and now we'll start the presentation.

0:28:58And we will start with the City Clerk's Office, so we will welcome Connor up.

0:29:05Good evening, City Council and Mayor. Oh.

0:29:10And then you can maneuver yourself.

0:29:15Good evening, City Council and Mayor. My name is Connor Taniguchi, and I was the EC Stars intern for the City Clerk's Office.

0:29:24I'd first like to say that I am rather nervous, I'm sure we all are, but all the same, it is an honor to be able to go first and give a first impression of the interns.

0:29:36One of the first things I worked on, and it was multiple items, were posters regarding

0:29:46what's the word? Regarding, youth, recruitment in things like, volunteer opportunities, or boards, committees and commissions, as many of those often were low on members, and

0:30:02It was very important to kind of get the word out.

0:30:05I scanned, indexed many, many building permit records, as the interns before me have, done before.

0:30:13And I also redacted a lot of sensitive information, on documents and public record requests.

0:30:22I also got the honor to create a rough draft for the policy SB827, although I must admit, I did not get particularly far in that, but however, I still believe I had some form of impact on that.

0:30:38The training I underwent was the education on the Public Records Act, and in general, responding to records requests.

0:30:47And I was very lucky to, be an intern in a year where the voting process happened, so I was able to learn a lot about local elections, what city council members do, what mayors do, how people run for that.

0:31:03I learned how to digitize and organize documents, how to input things like metadata, general things that you simply won't find on the… find outside of school, you know, or you will find outside of school, please excuse me.

0:31:18And I learned many, community programs, such as Laserfiche, Microsoft Publisher, and Teams, all programs that are typically involved much more in the professional workspace.

0:31:32And I just want to say thank you to my mentors, Lena and Holly, so much, as well as every last person in City Hall, and everyone involved with the EC Stars intern process. Thank you.

0:32:00Good afternoon, City Council and Mayor. My name is Emmanuel Vasquez, and I intern for the City Manager's Office.

0:32:08Oh, fair.

0:32:09What did I do during this 7-week-long internship? I developed El Cerrito's new social media policy that will be working across all departments. I also created a lot of content and gathered a lot of footage around El Cerrito. I took a lot of pictures and videos of the ALLAN Greenway.

0:32:27the new EV chargers in the Recreational Center.

0:32:30and the pedestrian safety beacons. I also assisted during the pride flag raising ceremony, and drafted a poster for El Cerrito's 2026 October Arts Month event. I did not finish that, but I did make a lot of drafts.

0:32:45What did I learn during this internship? I learned how to be professional, how to manage my time efficiently, the importance of

0:32:53communication, and finally, how to follow style guides. Following style guides is something that helped me a lot outside of this. It transferred really well to high school. I'm a Media Academy Ed student, and I'm very focused on media, so it helped me a lot there.

0:33:08And finally, I want to say thank you so much to El Cerrito for giving me this wonderful opportunity, and thank you to everyone I met, and finally, thank you to Will Provost, my mentor.

0:33:40Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Marley Salcido, and this is my presentation on being part of the EC Stars internship in the Community Development Department.

0:33:52During my time working in the Community Development Department, I worked on new permits, business licenses, and scheduling rental housing inspections.

0:34:01The process of creating new permits for rental properties and updating the property and owner information ensures that the name and billing information is current and not of the previous owner of the property.

0:34:13I also sent out business licenses. Commercial business and residential rental properties are required to have a valid business license and pay the license tax.

0:34:23By scheduling rental housing inspections, I was able to schedule inspection appointments and create letters to send each property owner to notify them about their upcoming inspection.

0:34:40On my ride along, I'm sorry, I think I…

0:34:44skip my slide, but on my ride-along, I was able to see different examples of blighted properties, including some with no license and new developing housing.

0:34:55Also, I was able to see examples of overgrown vegetation and homes being rebuilt after accidents.

0:35:02I accompanied Steven as he updated properties in Central Square by documenting the state of the property by taking a picture.

0:35:10Code enforcement is essential to maintaining health and safety in our city's housing stock.

0:35:16I learned how to do data entry for the first time, and I was able to explore using platforms like Central Square, PSI, and Lightbox. I had previously never used these platforms before, so this was a learning moment for me.

0:35:29I also learned how important it is to be organized in long and multiple spreadsheets.

0:35:34This experience taught me how to navigate those spreadsheets.

0:35:38I was also able to gain communication skills through residential rental properties and business licenses by working on a living document.

0:35:47I was able to learn that code enforcement is reactive, and rental inspection is proactive.

0:35:52I was also able to learn about the different ways that the city handles properties that need maintenance.

0:35:58After going on my ride along, I'm able to notice a lot of things in my neighborhood that I previously didn't notice before.

0:36:08I've really enjoyed my experience being part of the EC Star internship, and I want to thank the City of El Cerrito for giving me this opportunity. I also want to thank my supervisors, Tony, Aisa, and Jen. I'm so thankful to have such kind mentors who could guide me. I truly have learned so much from this experience. Thank you.

0:36:27I'm kidding.

0:36:44Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Genevieve Nguyen, and I was interned for the Fire Department.

0:36:51Hello, City Council and Mayor. My name is Wesley Burnham. I was also an intern for the Fire Department in the South.

0:37:04Throughout the summer, we participated in various hands-on activities, as well as drills and discussions.

0:37:12So, on the fire side, we participated in a drill where

0:37:17I'm sorry, we participated in a mid-rise fire attack drill at the Allura Apartments, where we were in full turnout gear with our SCBAs, as well as a hose pack, and we climbed 6 flights of stairs, so that was pretty intense.

0:37:31Wesley has another activity where we did. We also took part in live water drills at the Richmond Fire Department and all local fire department training center.

0:37:43Yeah, they call it the tower, where we also climb a bunch of flights of stairs with hose packs on and blast water out the window while with SCBA gear on.

0:37:53And on the medical side, we learn basic as well as advanced life support skills, such as bandaging and splinting, as well as intubation of the patient.

0:38:03We also learn more professional-related skills, such as staying calm under pressure, time management, and the importance of respect.

0:38:15Through our time at the fire department, we… Wesley and I gained a better understanding of the responsibilities and skills required in the healthcare field, as we both are planning on pursuing careers down that path. We also strengthened our teamwork as well as communication skills through these hands-on activities.

0:38:36We built meaningful and long-lasting relationships with firefighters.

0:38:40And we learned a lot from their experience and advice.

0:38:43We also gained an important and deep understanding of what it means and looks like to be a first responder who is under pressure daily.

0:38:56Thank you so much to all of our mentors at the El Cerrito Fire Department and, the City of El Cerrito for providing this amazing opportunity.

0:39:04Thank you so much, we had an amazing time.

0:39:26Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Natalie Rosenfeld.

0:39:31Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Huya Lay, and me and Natalie interned at the El Cerrito Recycling Center this summer.

0:39:42For our assignment overview, we mainly collected various data relating to services and operations at the recycling center. This included pharmaceuticals, sharp bins, and styrofoam drop-offs, so medicine, basically, and also visitor and car counts, as well as phone log.

0:39:58data.

0:39:59We analyzed this data and presented information including patterns, insights, and observations that we collected while working there.

0:40:06Furthermore, we provided customer service on the phone at the front desk and outside in the yard.

0:40:14So, part of our training included, learning about the recycling operations, especially through tours and site visits, including the Republic Services recycling facility and their compost facility.

0:40:29We also learned about the policies and procedures of the Cerrito Recycling Center, and we also,

0:40:37We learned about their strategies on how to sort and recycle different materials.

0:40:42And as well as this, we also learned how to utilize Microsoft 365 and Excel, when it came to the data analysis portion of our assignment.

0:40:55For our skills, we learned lots of customer service, considering the bulk of our job was to help customers at the recycling center.

0:41:03We also built on our critical thinking skills, as a lot of the customer requests

0:41:07Were very specific, or out of the ordinary, which required a lot of thinking to help them with their specific needs.

0:41:15This also required a lot of collaboration and teamwork as to help with their situations.

0:41:20As well as analytics and presentation, which also required a lot of collaboration, considering we wanted to form our data in a very efficient way.

0:41:29On that topic, we learned how to, do data entry, which we used a lot of Microsoft 365 and Excel to,

0:41:40Put our data in and analyze it.

0:41:43Furthermore, we learned proper recycling industry practices.

0:41:49And I just want to add that, in retrospect, we probably should have added creativity as also a skill we learned, because a lot of, like, customer questions required very creative solutions.

0:42:01Alright, so on an average data collection day, we mainly guided customers on recycling their pharmaceuticals and needles.

0:42:10We noted the time, date, contents, and the residency of these customers.

0:42:15And aside from this, we also answered customer questions,

0:42:20Aside from just recycling medicine and needles, as well as, you know, recycling other items. And we also help the yard staff on days that the recycling center accepts styrofoam.

0:42:33On our data entry days, we entered data for our pharmaceutical and sharp bins, as well as styrofoam drop-off, and phone log data, and car data. And we put this all into Excel. From there, we sorted, defined, calculated, organized

0:42:49All of this raw data to put it into a better view, and to understand it more clearly as what numbers we were looking at.

0:42:56And…

0:42:57From there, we visualized it through graphs and charts to understand the bigger picture of, are people really utilizing the recycling center properly, and how productive it truly is?

0:43:08Which is very productive. And we presented this final data to the team through our presentation.

0:43:16Thank you for this opportunity from EC Stars, and we really enjoyed working with the City of El Cerrito.

0:43:22And we want to give a special thanks to our supervisors and mentors, Christina and Jaime, as well as all our colleagues at the Recycling Center for giving us such a warm and welcoming experience from day one.

0:43:36Thank you.

0:43:50Good evening, Councilmembers and Mayor. My name's Anand Chang, and I was the intern for the Engineering Department of Public Works.

0:44:02Here's my assignment overview. Starting off, I worked on the 2026 slurry steel project. Slurry steel is a protective coating to make roads safer and last longer.

0:44:12I helped develop the webpage, which helped inform residents with updates and background information.

0:44:18I also use GIS software to notify Residents.

0:44:24With, mailing lists?

0:44:26Gis software is a computer-based tool that lets you create

0:44:31manage and analyze maps linked to data. In this case, it was addresses.

0:44:36I also participated in the Del Norte Ribbon cutting. It was a two-year-long project with improvements to bike lanes, crosswalks, bus sporting islands, and traffic lands.

0:44:47Near the Donarte Park Station.

0:44:50It was focused on safer pedestrian and bike usage.

0:44:54I helped plan out the ceremony layout, which helped keep the speakers visible to all the spectators, and I also held the ribbon.

0:45:05I tagged along with the engineering staff to inspect construction work to make sure everything's up to code. I also…

0:45:13Went to project meetings to resolve some issues regarding some of the traffic lights in the Donarte project.

0:45:20And overall, I observed how people worked in the background to make sure our city was smooth and safe.

0:45:27Here's some skills I learned, the GIS software, some computer and administrative skills.

0:45:35Event planning and logistics, and records management. There were lots of papers related to old projects that could be destroyed.

0:45:42And also… further learned more about how public works Functioned and operate.

0:45:49Coming into this, I didn't really know too much about how public works worked, and definitely learned a lot.

0:45:58And also, finally, learned how to…

0:46:02Prioritization and time management skills. I had lots of tasks that had to be completed the same day, so I had to prioritize those instead of less important ones.

0:46:12I just want to say thank you for the opportunity. I enjoyed working in a professional environment, and it was a great chance to see what it's like to have a job.

0:46:21Big thanks to my mentor, Ashanti. She kept supporting me throughout the whole internship, and to my coworkers. I enjoyed talking to them throughout the day and learning new things.

0:46:48Good evening, City Council members and Mayor. I am Hermione Flores, and I was the intern at the Police Department.

0:46:58The assignment overview. I assisted with records such as

0:47:02citation, also known as tickets, filing reports, and a lot of paperwork. I also helped the evidence guy named Mark. We ran inventories, logged blood evidence, and peered old and closed case.

0:47:16items. We also did some lab runs, delivered evidence to be tested at the Contra Costa Crime Lab.

0:47:24we… I also did some ride-alongs.

0:47:27I experienced a lot of different things, and each ride along, every police officer is really different, but they were all so nice, and they all explained everything that I had to know. I…

0:47:39I witnessed a code… my very first ride-along, I witnessed a code 3, meaning lights and sirens. And on my fourth ride-along, there was a warrant arrest that I was a witness to.

0:47:54Training skills and learned. Learning community skills, working in team, and engaging with public and community. Learn key functions, operations of the police department. Learn how the police department supports and does a lot for the community.

0:48:10for everyone to be saved, learned data, record management, and processing virus police documents. I also went to

0:48:18dispatch, and I learned how much a dispatch does to answer non…

0:48:24non-emergency calls and emergency calls. And I also went to range, and I had the opportunity to shoot and watch officers and their shooting training. It was really fun. It was scary at first, but I really enjoyed it. I loved that experience.

0:48:37I also got a tour in the facility, including the records room, investigation room, the interview room, briefing room, the gel cell, the gel, and evidence storage, and I also did a gel expansion with a cadet there.

0:48:54I also had a pleasure to attend a special event known as the Mad Event. It's an… it's an organization

0:49:01That's Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It's a non-profit organization that

0:49:08Sorry. It's a non-profit organization dedicated to ending drunk drivers and supporting victims, where one of our officers, Cepi, received an award in recognizing him for outstanding work for DUI arrest.

0:49:23I want to say thank you so much to Sergeant Browsers and the whole El Cerrito Police Department that teach me and helped me through a lot of things, and that made me realize that this is a career that I want to follow in the future, and I'm really excited. Hopefully, next year, I will be returning as a cadet. Thank you.

0:49:57Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Members. I am not Aicha Torre. I am Chris Jones, the Recreation Director, filling in.

0:50:05Also, Aisha's mentor couldn't be here this evening because it's his wedding anniversary.

0:50:12So Aisha had a… gets to join the Recreation Department at a really fun time of year, the very first day of summer camp, with 4th of July being only 3 weeks away.

0:50:24And so, she jumped right in into helping with our camp.

0:50:30Operations, administrative tasks, some supervision of campers at lunch.

0:50:36Helping with event planning for the 4th of July, such as preparing and printing, signage and other materials, as well as providing day of support, to the vendors and city staff.

0:50:51She worked a lot, helping us with things that's hard for us to get to at this time of year, including

0:50:58printed materials, social media, newsletter creation, and our e-newsletter.

0:51:07And, she assisted with a variety of clerical duties in the office as well.

0:51:17Skills that she learned. How to navigate a professional environment with a team, time management.

0:51:23Advertising, all the things. How to use a cold laminator, which is, you know, an interesting technology. It doesn't involve electricity.

0:51:32As well as just, you know, learning the office environment and culture of what it takes to organize programs and events.

0:51:43Of course, if she were here, she would give her very big, heartfelt thanks to all the Recreation staff, especially her mentor.

0:51:51Recreation Supervisor Matteo Clark Hurley. Thank you.

0:52:02Well, that concludes the presentation, and thank you again to all of our interns, and congratulations for finishing your internship. We're all so proud of you. And I guess I'll just turn it over to any Council comments that you'd like to make. Okay, Council comments, I'll start to my left here with,

0:52:20Another former Goucher.

0:52:23That's my only comment, Doug Goudros.

0:52:32Go ahead.

0:52:34I want to say thank you so much to the interns, and, you know, I wish I could ask each and every one of you whether or not this experience has changed your view of what local government does.

0:52:46And I hope that maybe, at least some of you, it sounds like maybe one of you already has decided, but that you think about careers in civil service. I think, you know, you really can do a lot, and it really makes the community a lot better. So thank you so much for your enthusiasm and your time.

0:53:04Mayor Pro Tem. Agree with all that, and just want to say congratulations, and thank you.

0:53:10Yeah, and as the old gaucho here on this dais, I want to say congratulations to all of you. Hopefully, you, will, follow your heart and

0:53:23do well in school, and hopefully you'll be back here at the city of El Cerrito. Future mayor, future city manager, future police and fire chief,

0:53:33you know, the world is yours, and I look forward to seeing great things happening with all of you. So again, thank you for being here.

0:53:50Okay.

0:53:51Oh, yeah, let's do a quick picture with the group, and we'll have the council join us.

0:54:18Yes?

0:55:04I thought I was saying.

0:55:07Okay, perfect.

0:55:47Got my barcodes, should be okay.

0:56:17Okay, we're gonna go next to adoption of the consent calendar.

0:56:25We have A, approval of minutes, B, Hispanic Heritage Proclamation.

0:56:32C. Suicide Prevention Awareness Proclamation. D, the monthly disbursement and Check Register Report for August.

0:56:39E is the amendment for a city's classification plan. F is biannual Update of Agency Conflict of interest code. G, renewal of agreement with Mark 43, Inc, to provide computer-aided dispatch and records management software for an additional year in

0:56:59An amount not to exceed $57,000.

0:57:03H is a spending authority and contract amendment for Universal Building Services, I is a Halloween block party pilot program, and J is an agreement with Vermont Services, Inc. What name you want to like to, pull an item and discuss?

0:57:22I just want to make comments on items I and J.

0:57:27I… Can't just find out.

0:57:33Okay. I have a comment on item B.

0:57:37And I have a couple of questions on item D.

0:57:41And… I'd like to comment on…

0:57:47or a question on, G, the dispatch services.

0:57:52Okay, did you say D as well?

0:57:54D as in the monthly disbursement? Yes. Okay.

0:57:59I'm looking to my left. And I have a question about H.

0:58:05And…

0:58:06I guess this is the right way. I'd like to poll Jay, only because I'm gonna abstain from voting on it, because I haven't read the contract. It came this afternoon.

0:58:15Okay. So I don't… is that the appropriate approach, is to pull it? You can also just state when we vote on the consent calendar, that you abstain from that one item. Yes. I don't need to pull up that.

0:58:26Okay.

0:58:28Anything? Nope. Okay.

0:58:30First we'll start with, B.

0:58:33So, on the… pulling up the resolution itself,

0:58:39The resolution, points out that this is regarding citizens, and I would like to ask my colleagues if we can strike the word citizen from the resolution. If that's a motion, I'll second it.

0:58:54I'll move it. Okay.

0:58:56We have a motion by Motiamo and a second by the Mayor Prodem.

0:59:01All in favor to make that change? Aye. Aye.

0:59:05Any nays?

0:59:06Abstention. Okay, the change is approved. Thank you for catching that.

0:59:12Okay. Okay.

0:59:15Next.

0:59:16Okay, on,

0:59:18Item D, I would just like to have the staff just explain a few things, so could staff come up?

0:59:29This is the check register? This is the check register.

0:59:34I know I can't help myself.

0:59:36Okay, so I noticed that there were a lot of,

0:59:40Overtime meals. Can you, explain why they're all… why there's so many of them at once? Yeah, so that is for, the PEA MOU. They are entitled to meals if they work over a certain amount of hours over their normally scheduled shift, and for administrative ease, those are processed twice a year.

0:59:59Okay.

1:00:00So it's not just one short period, it's over the year. Half the year. Half the year, okay. And then,

1:00:09On the item 97136, we have an erroneous payment from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and can you explain what that is? So, that one was actually from Cal OES. It was a reimbursement, and they mistakenly sent it to us.

1:00:27Okay, and then on 97217 Peregrine, the $44,999,

1:00:36I was wondering if we actually have used the data analysis feature of that software?

1:00:49Good evening, Council. I'm Paul Keith, your Chief of Police.

1:00:52So we're currently in the process of onboarding staff with Peregrine, so we've had very little use, just because we're training the super users, and then the super users are training the staff. I think my training session is next week, so…

1:01:06soon, but we're in the process. And this is… this system doesn't share data with anybody, right? This is, like, just us.

1:01:13Right. It helps us with an analytical tool for the databases that we currently have. Basically lets us super use our own systems.

1:01:23It does have the capability to replicate counties' data sharing system, so we have a sharing agreement with other county agencies. It's a software package called ARIES, so there is that capability, but right now, we're just working on our own data.

1:01:39Okay, and… And this came up from the public. Why is the contract $44,999?

1:01:48Because I'm an aggressive negotiator. Okay.

1:01:52The original, starting position of Peregrine when we started this process was north of $80,000. This was some years ago. So over time, I've continued to give them downward pressure on their price. I think their most recent price was… I think it was $51,000?

1:02:09And I said, well, if you can get it under my…

1:02:12my city manager spending authority. That means you don't have to fly staff out to do presentations, you don't have to support the whole rollout. They were looking at having to put people up in hotel rooms. So, ultimately, they decided to move their price and get us a better price for the product.

1:02:29Thank you for explaining all of that. I think it's… it's good that we know that this is happening. So, our notice is in the check register, and I hope that it really does good things like reduce DUI.

1:02:42Me too.

1:02:44Thank you.

1:02:46Okay.

1:02:47Next. Mayor Pro Tem, did you… Sorry.

1:02:57So…

1:02:59So first, on, item I, the Halloween Block Party Pilot Program, I just wanted to thank our city manager and the other staff that have been involved in trying to figure this out. I first

1:03:12brought up this issue after last Halloween. Anybody who's gone out trick-or-treating or lives on Elm or Barrett or some of the other really busy trick-or-treating streets have seen

1:03:26the sidewalks get so crowded that people pour out onto the street, which is quite scary, and I had, as a new city council member at the time, had a lot of parents coming up to me on Elm Street saying, hey, can't we do something about this and not allow cars here on Halloween?

1:03:41So I asked Karen, can't we do that? And it took some time to figure out what we could do that was fair, and that wouldn't take too much staff time, and would be something that we could pull off. So they came up with the pilot program, which I think is a great idea.

1:03:56And I've gotten really great feedback since posting about it on social media over the weekend, so people are really excited. I did have one question that just came up since we met yesterday, Karen, which is people who are eager to apply, they want to know if we pass this tonight.

1:04:13when will applications open? We will try to get that out as soon as possible. I'll work with staff, and hopefully no later than next week. Great. Okay. I just want to thank, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman for this, because I think it's going to be really fun.

1:04:29Yeah, both fun and more safe. Like, what could be better than that? Both things we care about.

1:04:36And then on item J, also some good things to say. As a parent who uses our Recreation Department a lot, and signs up my kid for a lot of programs.

1:04:50The signing up is okay, but what is frustrating is what's called out in this, staff report, the… the part of the new software we're getting, which is that when you have to fill out all of the forms with your, like, emergency information, health information, all that, you have to do that, like, multiple times a year, because it's not…

1:05:10you know, consistent, and they're long forms, and once you start, you can't stop in the middle. So this new software is gonna make it so you don't have to do that, and it's gonna make it easier for staff, which I didn't even realize that they didn't have a quick and easy way to pull up that information. So I'm… just really appreciate that you're being innovative and trying to figure out the problems, both customer-facing and

1:05:33staff-facing, and I think this is a great solution.

1:05:36Okay.

1:05:37Yes. Okay, I have some questions going back to the check register.

1:05:41And just comments and observations. I wanna…

1:05:45ask about the June primary election measure C cost of $43,000. There's a lot said about it costing $80,000, so I'd like to

1:05:54Ask for clarification about that.

1:05:57I can speak to that, Councilmember. We get an estimate range, but from the cost per registered voter, we always budget at the top of that range, because we do not know the cost until we actually get the invoice from the county, and when the invoice came in, it was less than the

1:06:12maximum potential cost that it could be. Okay, that's good news, thank you.

1:06:17And then the next item, I don't know if this is possible today, but looking at some of the

1:06:22the… Costs associated with, redistricting.

1:06:26I was curious what the total cost is. I see legal fees divided a couple times, and just… I imagine there are other fees, demographer and statisticians, and all that, so I don't necessarily need a number, but I do want to request some sort of summary of what the whole process cost us.

1:06:43Is that a fair request? I don't need it now, but just… Yes, we can certainly get that. Okay. We are tracking that, yes, we certainly can come up with that. Some of the… some of the… we still are expecting some, invoices for fiscal year 27, is that correct?

1:06:58Right, so we don't have the total yet, but we can get that to you, for sure.

1:07:03Okay.

1:07:04And then I have a question about the purchase of a

1:07:07It says PD command vehicle, but I understand it's a fire department command vehicle.

1:07:11And my question is, I've seen this…

1:07:15before, where there have been vehicles that are associated with the police department, and there's later an outfitting charge. So when I saw that cost of $60,000, I assume that's sort of the bare minimum, bare-bones car, and then later, there'll be fees for whatever equipment goes on there. I'm just sort of curious, in ballpark range, what are we looking at additionally once the car is outfitted?

1:07:39Good evening, Mayor, Councilmember. I am Eric Saylor as your Fire Chief. You are correct, when we purchase the vehicle, it comes straight from the dealer with its package, and then we will adjust with radios and the Code 3 package.

1:07:51On the budget, it is up to $100,000, and it is typically about $40,000 worth of radios and Code 3 packages to get the vehicles outfitted.

1:08:01Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

1:08:05And then… That's it for the check registry. I have…

1:08:16comment about Jay, which I sort of mayo… made already, I…

1:08:20don't have a problem with it, but I feel like if we're gonna vote on a contract, that it's important that I see the contract and know what I'm voting on.

1:08:27And it did come in email this afternoon, and I just… I have not had time to read it, so I'm gonna abstain from voting on that one.

1:08:35And…

1:08:37with the letter G, the renewal of the Mark 43 contract. One thing that concerned me, and I gather it's not unusual, but there is a line in there that states

1:08:50This agreement has automatically renewed at a new rate, obligating the city to pay for the new rate.

1:08:55So when I read that.

1:08:56I immediately wondered what the new rate was, and what sets the new rate, and how's that determined, and I read…

1:09:02read through it… when I first spoke to the city manager, I had not read through it yet, all the fine print, but I've since read through the fine print, and I have not found an explanation

1:09:09about how the new rate is determined, and I'm worried about signing a contract

1:09:14That obligates us to pay an unknown new rate.

1:09:18And, you know, there's sort of a trust factor where we trust it's not going to be, you know, out of the ballpark, but it does concern me that that's not somehow delineated in the contract that the rate is subject to up to 5%, or whatever it is. So, just curious how… how you handle that?

1:09:37Good evening, Council. I'm Paul Keith, your police chief, and I'm back at the podium.

1:09:41So the company does provide us with the cost of renewal before the renewal period elapses, so our options are to either accept that it's going to auto-renew at the new rate, or to reject it and end the contract.

1:09:58Unfortunately, with software like this, this is, the software that's also run by the Richard Communications Center, so it, runs all of our computer-aided dispatching and our entire records management system, so to, to break away would be a challenge. It would have to be a decision that we made well before the renewal came up.

1:10:17The cost is determined by the company, and I can tell you they have been very good partners over the years. This is a company we've been in business since 2017. While their rates have risen, they've certainly risen at lower rates than a lot of their competitors.

1:10:31Okay. So, if I'm understanding correctly, even if you're in contract, and there's a rate increase from year to year, you have the ability to get out of that contract if you choose to? Prior to the renewal. So, we can exit the contract before it automatically renews. Okay.

1:10:48So, at this point now, if we wanted to exit the contract, we could send them a letter and say, we're not going to renew for next year, we want to renegotiate costs, and we could start that process. But otherwise, the contract does automatically renew. They tell us the new price for the next year in advance. Normally, this item would have been included in the

1:11:06Expenditure authorization for…

1:11:12vendors that are over $45,000. This one just got missed, that's why it's coming to you as a separate item, but normally it would be bundled with the other expenditure authorizations at budget time. Fortunately, we just missed it this year.

1:11:24Okay. Thank you.

1:11:26Thank you.

1:11:27Okay, do I have a motion, to approve?

1:11:32The… adoption of the consent calendar A through J.

1:11:39I move. Second.

1:11:41We have a motion by Mokiam and a second from the Mayor Pro Tem.

1:11:46And you are not voting on which one? On Jay. Okay. I will abstain from Jay.

1:11:51Okay.

1:11:53So, let's do, A through I first.

1:12:00Is that okay? That sounds good to me. Okay.

1:12:04All those in favor, you say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

1:12:08Motion carries, and that does include the correction, or the striking of the word from the commission on item B.

1:12:15Okay, and Jay, do I have a motion to support letter J?

1:12:20I'll move. Second. I have a motion by Mojayam and a second from the Mayor Pro Tem.

1:12:26City Clerk. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Abstain. Motion carries.

1:12:34Okay, good.

1:12:35Next we have, Policy Matters, and we'll go to the fourth quarter general fund budget update through June 30th, 2026.

1:12:50Fucking easy.

1:12:53M.

1:12:58Once you save it, let me… let me take control of the computer, okay?

1:13:02So just put a copy on the desktop real quick.

1:13:10Perfect, thank you.

1:13:39Right, yeah, All right, good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Claire Coleman, Budget and Financial Services Manager.

1:13:45I'm here this evening to give you an update on the fourth quarter performance, but really this is a fiscal year 25-26 overview of the general fund. As a reminder, and I will emphasize this several times this evening, these are the preliminary numbers. We are currently in the process of doing our

1:14:03audit. Crystal and our excellent finance team have been working very, very hard, in preparation for our auditors to come and conduct that audit in October.

1:14:11So, that is underway. These numbers will slightly change, but given the excellence of the finance and accounting team, I do expect that they will be quite close to the final actuals.

1:14:23Excuse me.

1:14:26So overall, the revenues exceeded budget by 3%, so we ended at 103% of revenues, which is $1.7 million above revenue in budget.

1:14:36Above what was budgeted for revenue. On the expenditure side, expenditures were at 99% of budget, so 1% below budget, which is $450,000 below budget. So in total, that was a net improvement over the budget of a little over $2 million.

1:14:53However, there had been a planned use of fund balance of over $3 million, and I'll talk about some of those amendments later in the presentation that were made. So as a result, the use of fund balance has come down to $1.1 million total for the fiscal year.

1:15:07So that is, expenditures were higher than revenues, but both revenues and expenditures ended the budget better than planned.

1:15:14In total, the ending total fund balance is $23 million. I will talk a lot more later in the presentation about, the breakdown of that into all the different types, and then the graphs that you're used to seeing of what the forecast looks like now with these new numbers.

1:15:29I guess you have to, excuse me,

1:15:31toddler brought something home from daycare. So on the revenue side, I'll talk about taxes in detail in the next slide, so I'll skip taxes, which ended in a strong position.

1:15:43And I'll skip to licenses and permits. We had, in particular, the higher revenues than budget were due to higher building permit activity. In the fines and forfeitures section, we had higher parking citation activity.

1:15:55So, all of… most of the revenues trended on budget, and I'm just going to highlight the areas where they were unusually high or unusually different from budget. Otherwise, most things were pretty consistent with what was budgeted.

1:16:05In the area of use of money and property, we had higher interest revenue. We had budgeted and expected that interest rates might start to come down. They did not. They continued to be relatively high. So that interest will change. So that's one piece that we do know that is going to change, which is that we haven't finished the allocation of interest across all applicable special funds.

1:16:25So currently a lot of our interest is sitting in the general fund. That interest income gets allocated across all of the city's funds based on what fund balances are held.

1:16:33Additionally, intergovernmental revenues were lower this year, and we got a lot of grants, but that's lower than budget, not lower than total, necessarily. But lower than budget, and that's due to the lower OES responses this year than in past years. So our fire department in particular had fewer incidents that they responded to on behalf of Cal OES as a part of our mutual aid system.

1:16:52On the charges for services side, there was lower planning division activity, so we had higher building division, lower planning division activity. So, same department, different divisions. And we also had some recreation facility closures for repairs. I believe the pool was the primary one over the past fiscal year.

1:17:08In other revenue, we had higher cannabis revenue, higher donations, and higher EV charging revenue than we've had in the past. So other is kind of a catch-all, but one of the funky, miscellaneous ones that you may see occasionally is actually the EV charging stations that we have at different parts of the city.

1:17:25On the taxes side, in general, property taxes were right on budget. The one area that was different was the timing of the successor agency dissolution. So, as you recall, there was a big process, if you remember redevelopment.

1:17:37getting dissolved in 2012, and then the successor agency, and all of the mess. We did our best to… about two and a half years ago, to estimate the timing of successor agency dissolution.

1:17:47We are one of the first cities in Contra Costa County to do this, so we were blazing a trail, the county was figuring out what was going on all at the same time, and so we were off by about 6 months. So now that we're getting the funds

1:17:58through the path that we expected, we are getting the amount of money that we are expecting as a result of successor agency dissolution. It's just 6 months later than we anticipated. And so the balance of those additional revenues, but then offset by the, we no longer get an admin allowance and some other things associated with the successor agency, it balances out to us being a little bit below budget on property taxes in total for the fiscal year, but we are now trending as we would have expected and as we anticipated

1:18:23years ago when we made this budget, it was just the timing was off by 6 months, because the solution just was 6 months slower than we expected.

1:18:31On the sales tax side, we were slightly below budget in total across the two categories. We have sales taxes, which, if you see the category sales taxes, separate from Measure R sales tax. The one above is the Bradley Burns 1% that every city in California gets.

1:18:48The Measure R sales tax is the locally adopted transactions and use tax, which is also 1%.

1:18:53So, you know, careful readers might wonder why two different 1% sales taxes are not identical amounts of revenue. And that is where you get into highly complex issues of citus, and when you buy a purchase online, who gets that money?

1:19:09And it depends on where the warehouse that holds the good is located, and where you buy the purchase. So some of this depends on a case called the wafer decision, and we don't have enough time for me to get into this, but if anybody wants to know, I have a great 11-page, overview of how this is calculated.

1:19:25It is very complicated, but basically, technically, we have two different types of 1% sales taxes, and so we get different amounts of revenue for each, based on whether it's an in-person sale or an online sale.

1:19:36So that's why those are different.

1:19:38On the franchise fee side, they were higher than budgeted. Energy rates continue to increase, and so franchise fees are impacted by energy rates in particular.

1:19:47And then business license taxes were ever so slightly higher, and that's just due to higher activity, also a little bit higher on the, late fees and penalties.

1:19:56And then utility taxes were higher in energy and higher in water than budgeted, also due to higher water and energy rates, but they were lower in the telecom than even budgeted. We've been decreasing that budget over time, and it was even lower than we had anticipated.

1:20:13On the other tax side, this is really negligible. It shows a 4,000… without the prior year, it's a little hard to see the contacts. It shows a…

1:20:214,600% increase over the prior year. That's because the prior year was $57.

1:20:27And so it looks like a gigantic increase, and percentage-wise, it is, and in dollar value, it's really negligible. That is the city's construction tax. So that is a pre-Proposition 13 legacy tax. We can't change it. We can't increase it. It's a tax per bedroom on new construction, and it is, like.

1:20:466 cents per bedroom or something really, really small. So it's a very small, it really depends on when new construction is built. Highly variable, and really low impact to the city's budget, but high impact when you're looking at a chart.

1:20:59On the revenue by department side, most departments were above budget in revenue, fire was under again due to that lower OES response needs this past year, and then Recreation was under due to the facility closure for repairs.

1:21:11So those are just the… it's the same, revenue information, it's just split up by each of the different departments. Non-departmental, of course, is the largest, that's where the bulk of the city's tax revenue is classified.

1:21:23Are there any questions before we move on from revenue?

1:21:25I would. Could you explain a little bit more about the resolution of the successor agency, and why, prior… just very simply, why prior to it being fully

1:21:35Dissolved.

1:21:36Did our… was our revenue less?

1:21:39Yes, so I will do my best. There are many experts who are paid a lot of money to know more about success or agency dissolution, because it is incredibly complex.

1:21:48To the best of my knowledge.

1:21:50when the successor agencies were formed, all of the counties in Contra Costa… all the cities in Contra Costa County with successor agencies had debt.

1:21:59held by those successor agencies. So we had those debt payments, and so the property tax associated with that, instead of going to the city's main property tax coffers, was put into a separate bucket at the county level, and then allocated to cities based on our debt obligations.

1:22:13as those debt obligations conclude, we stop getting that in the form of the successor agency property tax, and we start getting it in what's called residuals. And so over time, if you…

1:22:25for those of you who are around, I think it was about 2019, 2020,

1:22:29When I was back here in this room talking with you as a member of a different firm, we talked about a $2.6 million spike. And instead of it being a big hit of $2.6 million at dissolution, what instead we've seen is a slow increase in the residuals. So as we and all of our peers paid off that debt, we got more and more and more each year, gradually.

1:22:48Into our regular property tax, back to the 22 cents that we got on the dollar, rather than it being nothing, and then a big bump.

1:22:55And so, that's where we're starting… that's where now we see the full impact. So all of the property taxes in El Cerrito are now coming fully to the City of El Cerrito at the 22 cents. The full 22 cents is coming to El Cerrito. Previously, part of that 22 cents was getting reallocated among all of the successor agencies.

1:23:10through a complex process that I won't pretend to understand. Thank you. And I'll look to a city attorney and have him tell me if he thinks I got anything completely wrong.

1:23:16Appreciate it.

1:23:17So… we're back with all of our property taxes, redevelopment is no more, successor agency is no more, and we can all breathe a big sigh of relief.

1:23:28Any other questions on revenue?

1:23:30Alright, on the expenditure side, in general, expenditures were under budget, personnel ended

1:23:37Slightly above budget, and that was primarily due to higher overtime. There's some detail in the report, and I'm sure we can answer questions as well if you have questions about exactly why, but in general, it was due to either leaves or staff departures and vacancies and overtime that filled those gaps.

1:23:52The increase year over year, that 6% increase, that's due to negotiated salary increases, and then also benefit and medical cost increases as well.

1:24:01The most non-personnel categories were at or below budget, and that was due to lower purchases of supplies and equipment, lower vehicle and building maintenance services. In general, we try to keep personnel and non-personnel spending

1:24:13Not totally separate, because they aren't, but… but departments also track their personnel spending and know that if they think they have to come in higher on personnel, they also need to be thinking about coming in lower in other areas. They're very cognizant of that as well throughout

1:24:28Expenditures by department, overall administration, community development, public works, and Recreation all ended within their budget. Police and fire, again, were higher due to those overtime costs.

1:24:39And then non-departmental currently shows as ever so slightly over budget. That's just due to, an encumbrance in a journal entry that we're gonna adjust, so non-departmental will end virtually exactly on budget.

1:24:52Speaking of amendments, this is the list of amendments that were made by the City Council from budget adoption in June 2025, to the final budget at the end of June 2026. These were amendments that were approved, so the,

1:25:07Total expenditure increases were about $3.1 million, and so that was a planned use of fund balance. That was for things like the pool. That $1.1 million, unfortunately, got cut off on the slide. That was for the successor agency closeout. There was that very large additional cost that we had to clear from the city's books.

1:25:25And then there was the audio-visual improvements, and a few other items throughout the year, the districting and all those different things. So those were the, amendments that were approved by Council, so that's where it takes us from the original adopted budget to the amended, and then to the final preliminary actuals that we have this evening.

1:25:43On the fund balance side, oh…

1:25:47You know, I don't have the graph of…

1:25:50the fund balance chart, so I will have to pull that up in the staff report so we can see that if we'd like. On the fund balance side, we are expecting now to end the fiscal year at $23.2 total in reserves. That is…

1:26:0340% overall, but that includes the Section 115, the EDRF, and the unassigned reserve. If you just look at the EDRF, which is 13% in the policy, and the unassigned, which is at 22%, you get a total of 36, 35%, excuse me.

1:26:20So, that 22%, when we talk about the 17%, we talk about a lot of different percents. Now, the 13% in the EDRF, that's always the 13%. The Section 115, we don't typically talk about in terms of percent.

1:26:31It's a part of the general fund reserve, but it is reserved for pension costs. And then finally, you have the unassigned reserve, and that's the one we most typically talk about with that 17% number. As of the end of fiscal year 26, we anticipate being at 22% rather than 17, so an additional 5% above the policy level at this time.

1:26:48So that's $2.8 million, is that additional 5% above the policy amount? A total of, $12.6 million in the unassigned, fully

1:27:00non-EDRF, non-Section 115. Just to be clear, the 22% includes or does not include? Does not include the EDRF. The 115.

1:27:08does not include either. It does not include at all. Entirely separate, yeah. So the three pieces that we layer, the Section 115, EDRF, and then the additional 22, so that's how we get to the

1:27:1840% total overall. Okay. We did update the reserve level, so it's not included in the table on the slide. It is included in the staff report.

1:27:26Which is at the reserve level, the 17% calculation, that 22%, is based on the 27 expenditures, because now we have the fiscal year 27 expenditure budget, and so that is now what the reserve policy is based on.

1:27:41So in conclusion, revenues exceeded budget, and expenditures, ended below budget for the fiscal year. So the total general fund balance of 40% includes 13% for the EDRF, 22% for the unassigned fund balance, and then the Section 115 trust, which if you

1:27:55Add your numbers up, that's 5%.

1:27:57The final actual audit, the final audited actuals will be presented to the City Council, we expect, around December. The auditors are coming in October, and then it takes a little bit of time to get the final offer, which is the annual comprehensive financial report, which will come back to the City Council for presentation, by my excellent boss, Crystal Reams, we expect in December.

1:28:17January, excuse me, in January.

1:28:21Could you show us the charts in the staff report?

1:28:26Yes, is that?

1:28:27Because, I mean, I've looked at them, but I want the public to see them in case they haven't. Yeah, I'm so… I thought I had a slide on that. No problem. That's just slipped my mind, sorry about that. If there's a way to just pull it up, it's… it's in there.

1:28:44Right there, yeah, it's the agenda bill. Oh yeah, the Q4 update, sorry, my mistake, yeah.

1:28:51C.

1:28:56Sorry.

1:28:58I think I might have steered you off. It's very sensitive. Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry about that.

1:29:03It's… it's the very… or almost the very end. Yeah, it's the next one of it.

1:29:12Age 8 of 8.

1:29:22It's in this one? Yeah. Thank you.

1:29:36Beautiful.

1:29:46Here you go. Good.

1:29:48You just have to… Oh, thank you, Holly. …do it on that one. There you go.

1:29:57Alright.

1:29:58Alright, here we are. Let me see if I can zoom in a little, and we'll do one at a time.

1:30:02So this is the new projection. So if you recall, when the budget was adopted, the estimate was that the city would drop to, I believe, 16%, which is below the 17% reserve level. We now show that the city doesn't… we do not anticipate that the city will drop below that level, at any point in the projected forecast.

1:30:19That's just the impact of basically adding $2 million and shifting the whole graph upwards, is just starting with a larger fund balance.

1:30:26And then if you look at the next graph, this shows the total, reserve of all the three different types that I was talking about, so when I say the 40%, that's the total amount here at the top.

1:30:37So that's the combination of the EDRF, the 13%, with that 17% goal, which is the green area, and then the gray, which is the Section 115 trust. And this graph, as you can see, the model currently does estimate use of the Section 115 during the peak pension, but of course, that would be at the discretion of the City Council if that's

1:30:55What you choose to do at that time.

1:31:02Yes, comments. I have a question about the…

1:31:06sort of philosophy behind the reserve. Do you want to go first?

1:31:10Yes, I'd like to, just quickly.

1:31:13I think what's confusing to the public is when we use different percentages, so just to be super clear, when we had the budget discussion, and we were talking about dipping below, we had talked about dipping down to 29%, and the

1:31:31The Financial Advisory Board was recommending no less than 28.

1:31:36Right, so now what we're saying is that we never drop

1:31:40below 30%, given the projections at this time for the General Fund Reserve. So we've actually improved that situation so that we don't have to worry about going below our own

1:31:56Yeah, that's correct.

1:31:58require our own desired minimums, so… Okay, thank you.

1:32:04Yeah, I'm, you know, thinking back into the early discussions about what the reserve should be, I felt like there wasn't a lot of…

1:32:12in-depth analysis of what we need, it was more what was the bare minimum that we could be at. And I think we all accepted that 17 or so was a target that we could make, and it seemed reasonable. And as I've, you know, studied it more, what I'm realizing is that the numbers are all over the place. If you look at other cities, some are at, you know, 60%, some are below us, it's just all over the place.

1:32:32And my takeaway from it is that

1:32:34It's really a measure of what your risk factor is.

1:32:37And as I thought about it, you know, think about, you know, us in comparison to other cities, we actually have a fairly high risk

1:32:44exposure. You know, we're in a part of the country that has earthquakes.

1:32:49We have fires, obviously, in the hills as a potential. So I wonder if you feel like

1:32:55Does it make sense to revisit what's an appropriate reserve level? I mean, it may be exactly where we are, but it also, you know, just sort of, I don't know the right word is, philosophically, you know, is it the right choice, given what our risks are?

1:33:07are out there.

1:33:09And I believe that's part of the FAB's evaluation of the financial policies each year, and so if the FAB and the City Council choose to determine that the city's risk factors require a higher reserve level, and that policy changes, then that's something that we would

1:33:24adjust the way that we report on these things and talk about the decisions made. So it would really have to originate from FAB if there was some sort of discussion about… Not necessarily. The FAB has a duty to review the comprehensive financial policies each year, and they do, and they have.

1:33:41I have been here long enough to remember when our minimum policy was 10%.

1:33:48And that was it, just 10% unassigned fund balance. And the Council has increased that to not just 17% for the unassigned fund balance, but also setting aside an entirely separate, restricted part of the general fund

1:34:01for 13%, so there is a 30% total. Again, from way back when we started, it was, like, 10.

1:34:08And as the Kent Council knows.

1:34:11there were councils at the time that didn't even follow that policy. So, to me, this is… while the FAB can certainly opine and make recommendations, and they do, again, at least once a year, this is a City Council conversation, but I do think that

1:34:26at a… at a minimum 17% for unassigned, plus the 13% for EDRF,

1:34:32this council has certainly taken action to improve. I mean, that… again, just in my time here, that's a 20% increase.

1:34:39in reserves that this Council's action has taken. So, if the Council wanted to do that, certainly it can originate from the City Council itself. That is absolutely your call to amend… it's your policy, so if you wanted to amend that policy to increase any of those percentages, that is certainly

1:34:57you know, at the desire of the Council. And I'm not suggesting it should be, I'm just acknowledging that I… I'm not the expert, and I don't know. And I've studied it, and I just… after all my reading and looking at other cities, I just don't know where we, you know, where we fall. You're correct that different cities have different… different cities have different types of,

1:35:16there's no set, even if you go to the GFOA website, there's not… they don't even have a set percentage. I think they used to recommend percentages, but they don't recommend that anymore, necessarily a percentage. It's more along the lines of, you know, looking at our own general fund, and looking at our own expenditures, and what might be appropriate

1:35:35to the council, and I don't know if

1:35:38If you have a thought on that, Crystal. Yeah, Crystal Reams, Finance Director. You're exactly right. It's, analyzing what… what acceptable risk factors we have, and I think COVID was a really, really good example, and kind of what sparked this change of, like, it's not a set

1:35:53number, it's how much risk you have. And so, during COVID, when, you know, these large agencies that had huge tourism, that was a huge concentration of risk for them. For us, we have pretty stable

1:36:06even proven through COVID, the sales tax, so… We feel confident that any…

1:36:12any disasters or things that would happen, they… we have our emergency disaster relief fund, but if there were going to be major shifts to property tax or sales tax, we feel confident that we would have enough time to analyze that and form a recovery plan. Okay, I trust your judgment, but thank you.

1:36:30Mayor Protap, go ahead.

1:36:32Thank you for that context. I think it's really helpful. I was gonna also say, I think we have actually pretty diversified revenue, unlike some other cities, and it's not that they did anything wrong, it's just the nature of what our situation is. So that is helpful.

1:36:50But also, in a real catastrophic situation, I mean, I, you know, grew up in LA and lived, like, a mile from the Northridge earthquake epic epicenter.

1:37:01the city of LA didn't deal with all of that catastrophe on its own, like a real catastrophe, like a major earthquake, a major fire.

1:37:08we could have 100% reserve, and we probably still wouldn't have the amount of money to fully deal with… like, that is just the reality. That's why, until this current administration, we've had FEMA, and we've had lots of support at the state and federal level, and hopefully that will be reinstituted again, but I think that's the kind of knowledge that no city on its own can deal with a catastrophe like that. So I want to be balanced. I know we're not…

1:37:32kind of deciding this today, but I think that's worth thinking about. We should plan for

1:37:38maybe the… having enough money to… for the runway, and for dealing with the smaller things, even COVID, which was not a small thing, but it still wasn't like all our infrastructure was gone, to be ready for that, but knowing that in a really major thing, we're gonna need a lot of help.

1:37:55And that's just sort of what the situation is. I also just wanted to say, well, one, I'm really excited about this update. It's great news, so we're getting into a lot of details, but I just want to acknowledge, like.

1:38:09You know, I, in my day job, run a nonprofit. I've been working in nonprofits for pretty much my whole career, and I know it's very challenging to run a tight budget. That's what I've always dealt with, and to make sure you're coming in under budget when you need to, and I really appreciate the approach of the city over the last several years of ensuring that we don't only meet our budget, but wherever we can.

1:38:33We are very careful about the costs.

1:38:36And I… I think that's really important, and I think people just kind of assume it.

1:38:41But they shouldn't, because it's not always what other cities are able to do, and some of them have other challenges. But I think our staff is just, you all are very focused on making that happen, and so I want to acknowledge the great work

1:38:56to have this happen, year after year, we're often coming in under the already really tight expense budget that we approve. So thank you, and let's keep doing that when we can while still providing the services. And I think…

1:39:10Next calendar year, but still in this fiscal year, it would be, worth re-looking at the two-year budget and just seeing

1:39:19based on this, and based on whatever data we have on the current fiscal year, are there any changes we may need to make? Whether it's putting away more money into some fund, or…

1:39:31Paying for some capital expenses, which we know we have a lot of them that we'd like to pay for, or bringing back some of the things that we cut from the two-year budget. Anyway, I don't know what it looks like, but maybe that's a topic we could start discussing at the retreat, and then go from there through the spring to figure

1:39:47out, and maybe, depending how the year is going, we'll say we don't want to do anything, but I think it's worth

1:39:53Having sort of a discussion over multiple months about to figure that out.

1:39:59Councilmember Moto. Thank you.

1:40:02Thank you for the context. I think that sometimes we do get into, like, these percentage, you know, into the weeds, and somehow there's a negative number on a chart, and people think, oh, we're losing money somehow. So, to be super clear, we're doing really well.

1:40:20I think my concern about the size of the fundraiser is that it's important to have, you know, be risk-based.

1:40:31But it's also important that we, are able to do all the stuff that we want to do as a city, like fund the Internal Services Fund and the Internal Vehicle Fund, because I think

1:40:44you know, ultimately, making sure that that bucket is full, helps our general fund balance over the long term. And then.

1:40:53I guess, is it after the aquifer that we will look at what our, you know, quote-unquote surplus is to have it go through the waterfall? Because I would also like to make sure that we increase the 115, you know, in small increments as we go along. And so, when does that, you know, waterfall distribution time come?

1:41:13So, technically, we will not have a surplus. If we would like to…

1:41:18explore looking at the operating surplus, which would mean taking out, any of those one… the big one-times, because some of those asks that we had were ongoing. We could take a look at separating out, operating and looking at it as an operating surplus versus a year-end surplus.

1:41:37And doing a waterfall that way, but technically we have a deficit.

1:41:42Right, and so, however, and…

1:41:45And I think that that's also a good approach, too, but the Council, as you saw, we have 22%, which is 5% above the minimum, if the Council wanted to explore using

1:41:57The additional,

1:42:01discretionary, I think we've been calling it discretionary, that 5%, we've been calling discretionary, right? Because it's above the minimum. So if the council wanted to assign anything from that discretionary, part of the fund and contribute

1:42:16from our fund reserve to the 115 Trust, again, that is up to the City Council.

1:42:23And when… when would that be coming back to us as… as a time to have that discussion? Is that the retreat, or is it when… when we start the budget process for 2016? So, yeah, so we'll have, so our ACFR

1:42:36Knock on wood, nothing goes wrong, with… not with us, but, timing-wise, to have our financials issued, we should have them issued by December 31st. That's the deadline. So, we could be prepared to talk about that. We would have the number, at the retreat, but we won't be presenting the ACR probably until

1:42:56probably until January, usually the second meeting.

1:43:00Or February, yeah, so… so… I think that certainly it would be worth waiting until the Council receives the Act first, so you can have the full picture, plus it's the audited numbers of the full, financial statements, and then the Council could choose to put something on the agenda, if they desire.

1:43:18Okay, thank you. Sounds good, and thank you for mentioning,

1:43:22the 115 trust, the importance. If we do have any extra money, it should all be going to that.

1:43:29So let's go to, questions.

1:43:32You haven't had the question? I do. Okay, one more. I have a just… it actually is a request. When we do the charts about the actuals, the amended, could you add a column for the original budget? I find myself flipping back and going to old paperwork and trying to find it, and it'd just be a lot easier if it was there.

1:43:48Okay.

1:43:49Thank you. Great.

1:43:50Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9 if joining by phone.

1:44:04In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments.

1:44:12City Clerk, please proceed.

1:44:15Thank you, Mayor. We do not have any requests to speak on this item. Okay, not even online, then? Not online or in person. Okay, any final comments from the Council? I'll look to my right here first.

1:44:26Click to my left.

1:44:31I do. I have a question. It's hard for me to understand how… we're…

1:44:39how we have a deficit, I guess it's a million dollars, based on how much the… a deficit of a million, yet we're still above the 17%. Why would not…

1:44:48That money just had been applied to that deficit.

1:44:51What's making… what's holding more money in the reserves than would be necessary to not have a deficit? So, when we started the current fiscal year, we had significant reserves. I believe it was $24 million that we started with. Okay. I'm gonna pull this up. And so.

1:45:07we started significantly above the 17%, and then there were the planned… we call them planned uses of fund balance, because they're those one-time items, those large things like

1:45:16the council chambers, or the pool, or the successor agency dissolution, those are large amounts that were not in the operating budget. And so we… the council made that decision at the time that those were adopted to say, we are intending to use fund balance for these things. We are going to

1:45:35use the reserves, because we have to do these items. And so then, when we…

1:45:41if we didn't have those 3 million, we would have had a surplus, but then we had intended to use fund balance, if that makes sense? It can be very confusing, but that's how we end up with, still a deficit in the budget, very technically, even when we ended the year $2 million better than budgeted.

1:45:59In the… just another way to look at it is when the Council decided to use the reserve fund balance to pay for those things, it is not treated as revenue coming into the budget.

1:46:13Right? That's why it looks like a deficit. So if we said, okay, we're gonna pull $3 million out of our savings account, put it into our checking account, looks like it's an increase. We've got revenue in our checking account, but that's not how it's treated.

1:46:25Did I say that right? Thank you. Trying to explain it in a, non-accounting way.

1:46:32Okay, well, thank you for that. No action is needed. We're going to receive and file this, so thank you again. Next is an adaptation of local road safety plan, including a citywide Vision Zero policy, and we have Yvette Ortiz here for a presentation. Good evening.

1:47:08Good evening, Mayor.

1:47:10Council members?

1:47:12Yvette Ortiz, the City's Public Works Director.

1:47:15Tonight I'm here to talk about the local road safety plan, and I believe, joining us remotely is the consultant with Kittleson, Michael Loomis, who will be available to answer questions later this evening.

1:47:29Let's see… Michael Loomis?

1:47:36Just, this is a quick agenda of tonight's presentation, and I know you have other items, so I'll try to go quickly. And for starting with the background, plan development, process, the main components of the plan itself, and next steps.

1:47:56So, starting with the, the background, and our Sustainable Transportation Program Manager came to you back in April of this year to give you some of this background, so I'll go quickly through these. But just, why are we doing this?

1:48:13We're doing this because, nationally, we have $40,000… $40,000… why am I saying $1,000? 40,000, annual deaths in the U… in the U.S.

1:48:24And, and reductions in fatalities have stalled after After over a decade.

1:48:32Other wealthy nations are doing much better. They've reduced their crashes for prior… by prioritizing safety for people outside of vehicles. And so, look, here in the States, regional, state, and, federal agencies are seeking to, emulate that success.

1:48:52So, the purpose of our local road safety plan really is following the principles that have been established at a federal level, and it emphasizes a safe systems approach, as well as Vision Zero. Vision Zero meaning not eliminating all crashes, but eliminating fatal and serious injury collisions.

1:49:12This graphic here on the right demonstrates that safe systems approach, and it's worth kind of just going through the circle really quickly, because these themes carry through development and implementation of the plan.

1:49:27Death and serious injuries are unacceptable. Humans make mistakes, humans are vulnerable, responsibility is shared, safety is proactive, and redundancy is crucial.

1:49:39And then, another important point to note is that, both state

1:49:46regional and federal agencies are requiring adoption of local road safety plans to remain competitive for some of the larger transportation sources, including such agencies as the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

1:50:01In terms of the safe systems approach, there's five…

1:50:06systems that are being looked at. Safe roads, safe vehicle… safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds.

1:50:13Safe roads and post-crash care. And the city, has big roles to play in the, safe speeds and safe roads components.

1:50:23And this graphic here shows how these layers build upon each other, and a serious or fatal injury would occur if all of these layers failed.

1:50:37Moving on, Vision Zero elsewhere. I know that there's been a lot of reports out, there that,

1:50:46Vision Zero is a failure, and… and…

1:50:50And some large cities have struggled with their Vision Zero policies, like San Francisco, but those larger cities have a lot more challenges. They have a lot more going on. A lot of bigger roads, higher traffic volumes have,

1:51:06higher speeds, but success for Vision Zero.

1:51:10depends on some three key variables, city size, street design, and community and political support. And there have been cities that have been successful. One of the most notable ones is Hoboken, New Jersey. Since they adopted Division Zero, they've had 9 consecutive years of no fatalities.

1:51:28here locally in, City of Fremont, since adopting Vision Zero, they've reduced traffic, deaths by 45%.

1:51:37And then, we wouldn't be alone in adopting the Vision Zero here in the state or regionally. Caltrans has a Vision Zero policy, so that applies to San Pablo Avenue. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission does, the Contra Transportation Authority, and four other agencies here in Contra Costa.

1:51:59Moving on to the plan development process,

1:52:03The process is really data-driven, both by looking at, crash patterns and crash history, and doing an equity analysis, and also really closely tying that in with a community outreach and engagement process.

1:52:20And, as part of the plan, we're really focusing on developing implementable actions that we can focus on to get us, get us the biggest safety outcomes.

1:52:33Moving on, this is the timeline for the development of the plan. It started back in the fall of 2023, where we focused on data collection and identifying stakeholders. We moved on to 2024 and 25 with a public outreach effort.

1:52:48Developing potential, safety measures and an administrative draft plan.

1:52:55Part of that 2024-2025 effort was a…

1:52:59A questionnaire of where we had a large participation of over a thousand response… responses.

1:53:07And now, moving on to this year, as I mentioned, we came to Council back in April with a study session and asked for your feedback on some key, strategies related to speed management and,

1:53:20And, bikeway networks.

1:53:22And, at the end of July, we released the public draft. After incorporating the crash analysis, the public input, and your feedback, we developed the draft plan and released it, and, held a public open house in the middle of August, and then comments were due by, August 21st.

1:53:45A quick summary of the…

1:53:48of the crash locations here in El Cerrito. We had 4… over the last 8 years, we had 4 fatalities and 17 serious injuries. Most of those occurred on arterial roadways.

1:54:03And a third of those occurred on San Pablo Avenue. And then,

1:54:10the, the, you know, our vulnerable users, pedestrians and bicyclists, were, overrepresented, or most of those injuries, and severe injury and fatal collisions. And,

1:54:24You know, also more than half of those,

1:54:28crashes were in disadvantaged communities. And so we applied this equity lens, which is important because, we need to figure out if we have to have targeted solution for these disadvantaged communities.

1:54:40And they've been defined by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and prior, also the U.S. Department of Transportation, and they represent, communities that have, households with low income, people of color, people with disabilities, seniors.

1:55:00So, who are the vulnerable road users? They are bicyclists and pedestrians, and that has to do a lot with, you know, kinetic energy. So, the higher the speeds, the more kinetic energy, and if you're outside of a vehicle, it has, big, it worsens the severity of a crash.

1:55:17And you see here in this graphic that there's a big difference in terms of surviving a crash, between 20 miles per hour and 30 miles per hour.

1:55:30This slide just quickly summarizes the various events that, we had. We did have a working group that included, public safety, transit agencies, some, Caltrans, and local,

1:55:43City of Richmond, so we had a working group of public agencies, we had the questionnaire, we had three pop-up events, we presented to city boards and commissions, and I mentioned the last two bullets earlier.

1:55:58Just a few, highlights from the questionnaire, since we got such a big response. Most of the top safety concerns that were communicated to us were distracted driving and vehicle speeds.

1:56:12The second kind of tier was visibility, pedestrian safety, and intersections. Those are all interrelated, and just really just focus, highlight community concerns. Let's see,

1:56:26We also asked questions regarding what types of safety measures would be supported by the community, and there was strong support for the items you see here. Vision Zero, road changes to reduce driver speeds, police enforcement, and also support for creating more space for walking and biking.

1:56:46And, lower speed limits and automated speed enforcement.

1:56:51And I'll walk through the plan components.

1:56:55And, first, again, starting with Vision Zero. The goal is to eliminate all fatal and serious injury crashes.

1:57:03by 2035, and we do think this is achievable, in El Cerrito, given our roadway network. Most of our roads are narrower, lower volume, but we do have

1:57:15you know, corridors that we need to focus on, and I'll go through those. What we found as part of the process is that

1:57:24Most of the crash… in order to address most of those fatal and serious injury crashes, we need to focus on three areas. Speed management, pedestrian and bicyclists, and unsignalized intersections.

1:57:36Speed management, if you look at our crash data, speed itself is not the primary collision factor, but it was a top priority concern for our community, and it also was a contributing factor. Like, for example, if there's a collision where a pedestrian is hitting a crosswalk.

1:57:51And a driver is going to speed limit at 30 miles per hour, that's not… speed is not the primary collision factor, but because, you know.

1:58:00hitting a vulnerable user, and the impact of the crash does result in a severe injury. That's why speed is highlighted here.

1:58:12In terms of, the prioritized and focused solutions, three components, a high injury network, an action plan, and then priority locations and countermeasures.

1:58:25Before I get into those, there are some overarching goals that,

1:58:30drive the plan. We are, again, trying to achieve, Vision Zero on all city roads by 2035.

1:58:39This includes, you know, creating and maintaining opportunities for public comment.

1:58:44Collecting data about crashes and reporting out on the progresses that we're making.

1:58:55This graphic shows the high injury network. This required detailed analysis, again, driven by the crash data, where we're looking at the roads with the greatest safety needs.

1:59:07Both based on fatal and serious injuries, but for bicyclists and pedestrian collisions, we also added

1:59:15Minor collisions, so not severe, but minor, so to help us identify, the road network where we could also be more proactive and not just

1:59:25Reactive or responsive.

1:59:28And you see here, the high injury network is highlighted in red, and it represents 5% of our road, a network, but also…

1:59:37Contains 72% of our injury crashes.

1:59:42It helps us focus our resources on those roads with the greatest safety needs.

1:59:48And I mentioned this… these are our three emphasis, emphasis… emphasis areas,

1:59:55And, how they were identified.

1:59:59So the action plan includes,

2:00:0410, 10 kind of packages of actions, and they are… they include both responsive actions that address fatal and serious injury crash… crashes that have already occurred, and these are our highest priority locations. And it also includes,

2:00:21Proactive actions that seek to prevent fatal and serious injury crashes before they happen.

2:00:28So, I'll quickly go through… I'm going to be focusing on the actions that are

2:00:36Outlined in yellow, but…

2:00:38Also, I just want to quickly touch on the… some of the other ones. So Vision Zero, we talked about it. One of the key things is,

2:00:47Developing, or establishing a… an interdepartmental task force within the city that includes public works, community development,

2:00:59Public Safety and our city manager's Office to really meet regularly to talk through these issues.

2:01:05We'll also be focusing on…

2:01:09on, like I said earlier, reporting out on a regular basis. Our goal is… or the plan would involve reporting out to the community on the progress on the local road safety plan on an annual basis as part of the general plan progress report.

2:01:25That's, Action 1. Action two is really just systemizing, zero, the local road safety plan and Vision Zero into all, our projects in terms of design.

2:01:38And… and scoping. So we will be developing a checklist, so all staff can use that easily and implement these,

2:01:47The plan, and also, you know, regular training for staff.

2:01:54And, but so, moving on.

2:01:59Automated speed enforcement,

2:02:02Actually, the first five actions were both proactive and responsive actions, so they're addressing

2:02:09like I said, previous collisions and preventing future collisions. The second set of five actions are more…

2:02:17proactive. And in terms of automated speed enforcement, we would only look to that when all other measures fail, and also when it's allowed by state law. Currently, it's only permitted in 6 pilot cities, although it's been shown to be highly effective in its initial results.

2:02:37Intersection design guide. We'd be formalizing some of the quick build improvements that we've been implementing as part of our resurfacing projects, including the high-visibility crosswalk markings, the yield markings, the signage.

2:02:53The quick build, like, bulb outs, where we're adding the flexible posts, daylight hardening. We'd be creating an intersection design guide so that our city staff and consultants could easily apply those to all projects.

2:03:08In terms of safe routes to school, again, given our staff resources, we can't do it all, so we do lean on some other, programs that are offered by the county for safe routes to school. So we're going to continue to, you know, focus on doing regular coordination with them.

2:03:25We recently actually met with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

2:03:29Because, they've, have a project to map safe routes to schools for Harding and Fairmont, and they're going to be proposing improvements for, those,

2:03:40those schools, and coordinating with the schools themselves to seek input. So, we've met with the CCTA, and we're going to continue to do that.

2:03:51So now I'm going to get into more details on the actions that are more comprehensive and also generated more public comment during the review of the

2:04:02public draft. I know, the High Injury Network was really developed based on crash patterns.

2:04:11It's to focus our resources so that we can achieve that, 2035 Vision Zero.

2:04:19I think, you know, again, with our current resources and funding, we need to be able to, like, you know, focus actions and locations that are… that we can implement quickly.

2:04:30And so, this is the corridor, like I said, 72% of the crashes are occurring on these corridors. So the High Injury Network included all those other… those streets that I showed earlier, but we grouped them into four areas so that we can identify a set of nine

2:04:48A combination of, countermeasures from, nine countermeasures that could be implemented in these areas.

2:04:57So, are the… Oh, actually, going back.

2:05:01the feedback that we got, from the community on the priority locations is community wanted to see more locations added, more corridors added, including, the Loney Greenway, Arlington Boulevard, Colusa Avenue.

2:05:18And, some of those, some of the ALLANI Greenway locations that have been identified are the ones that have had the high…

2:05:27the, fatal and severe injury crashes. So, the Ohlone Greenway at Cutting and Central do include countermeasures to improve safety. They include, speed tables near the crossings at Cutting and Central, and also

2:05:47An engineering evaluation to look at the conflict points there and develop, like, identify the appropriate traffic control measures at those two intersections.

2:05:57And those are responsive, because that's where we've had collisions. That will help us… that will inform us in terms of what are the appropriate, strategies to use at other locations along the…

2:06:10ALLANI. In terms of Arlington, that didn't show up as, you know, a priority corridor, but we still have improvements planned along Arlington as part of our active transportation plan. That doesn't mean… so…

2:06:25implementing the local road safety plan doesn't mean we won't do other things. It's just in order to,

2:06:31achieve this Vision Zero, we also need to focus on… on… on… on these corridors. And yeah, we'll have to prioritize, given, you know, given our resources, we'll have to prioritize. But, I think

2:06:45In terms of meeting the goals of this plan and eliminating fatal and severe injuries, we did not expand the, the priority locations.

2:07:00In terms of, safety countermeasures, we, selected countermeasures that could be implemented within… quickly, within a few years, versus, you know.

2:07:10decades, so that we could achieve the 2035 goal. We're looking at economical, like, quick-build improvements that can be deployed as quickly as possible, so that we can achieve that goal. And this slide shows

2:07:26the nine, crash, countermeasures. There's speed humps on local streets, speed tables on, some collector streets and arterials. Very targeted, because they do impact transit vehicles and emergency response. Bicycle lanes, a road diet on a couple of streets.

2:07:45Crosswalk flashing beacons, new mid-block crosswalks, particularly on San Pablo, as well as a bundle of improvements at unsignalized and signalized intersections.

2:07:58Oh, going back, sorry. I should be looking at my notes, because I'm missing some points. Going back, the community did ask us to add more countermeasures, such as diverters, or traffic circles.

2:08:13Those are, you know.

2:08:17safety measures that are available, but again, those would require additional study, because traffic diverters, you'd have to look at the impacts on local street… on adjacent streets. So they require more public outreach, more evaluation, they take longer to,

2:08:34implement. So…

2:08:37We can still do those, but if we really want to… we really have chosen countermeasures that will

2:08:45Be quick to implement.

2:08:51Action… action floor we presented, about this back in April. This,

2:08:57Really, we didn't get… didn't get a public comment on this, but I just wanted to highlight that.

2:09:02We would be establishing…

2:09:04Using the latest speed setting authority, we would have to come back to City Council to establish a 25 mile per hour, statewide maximum speed limit. Most of our speeds are actually already a maximum of 25. There's just a couple of streets that are not. That's San Pablo Avenue and East Shore.

2:09:24So we would need to work with Caltrans on that.

2:09:27and also apply available state legislation. And then, but it's a… it's a goal, right? So we would… we would work towards, working with Caltrans and doing studies to establish those 25 mile per hour speed maximum. I know that,

2:09:46City of Amirabelle was one of the recent agencies to establish these, maximum speeds in their city. I've reached out to them to learn more about how we could streamline a process like this.

2:09:58But we could also lower the speeds depending on local contacts in your schools, for example.

2:10:06But it would be important, too, to, like, set speeds that are enforceable, that our traffic ports would, you know, uphold, that are consistent for a motorist, so that they know what to expect when driving across our city.

2:10:26And it's important, in terms of talking to the City of Emeringville, that we do those engineering and traffic surveys, at least at the beginning, to really help, you know, set the case for reducing some of these speed limits.

2:10:46Another action, again, we presented in April was, to design streets for the speed we intend drivers to go at. In the past.

2:10:56Actually, roads were designed for higher speeds than the posted speed limit, and that was to provide a margin of error for drivers, you know, but as we can see, if you do a margin of error for drivers, they'll drive faster, and when they drive faster, that has worse outcomes.

2:11:16What we heard from the community is that they wanted, More on local streets.

2:11:24So, because most of our severe, and fatal crashes are happening in our arterials, the local road safety plan focuses on those. But we heard from the community that they want to… us to reactivate our neighborhood traffic management program. And this is… so our,

2:11:43Our plan is… our plan is to update the program to streamline it for local streets, because right now it's staff at…

2:11:51time-intensive to do the process for that. So we want to streamline the process for local streets and speed humps, and then update the criteria to include crash history and equity considerations.

2:12:08the Backbone Black Bikeway Network. This is also another area that generated a lot of public comment, both in support and opposition.

2:12:20The intent of the Backbone Bikeway Network is really to address an increased demand for bicycling that will occur as, you know, the city, implements the,

2:12:32City goals of more transit-oriented development and encouraging more walking and biking for… to meet our climate action goals.

2:12:40So, this Backbone Bikeway Network, action is a proactive strategy to, build dedicated space for bicyclists, because, of course, to accommodate those additional people biking, but it is… it's also

2:12:55Bike lanes have been a proven safety countermeasure that improves safety for all modes, not just people bicycling. It can serve as a traffic calming, reducing distances that people have to cross.

2:13:09This would mean that on this, backbone bikeway network, we would repurpose about half of the on-street parking for, for the bike lane.

2:13:21And, we're also asking for the removal of parking on the backbone

2:13:30phone bikeway network, to be exempt from the city's parking removal appeal process.

2:13:37Parking removal appeal process was really set up for more, like, localized, improvements, and not corridor-level improvements.

2:13:46So it was really, cumbersome, but it would still… we would still maintain a public notice, outreach, and feedback process, because we would have to consider curb access for, for these,

2:13:59Homes, business, not businesses, homes and schools along these backbone bikeway network.

2:14:07for example, along, on… Inferting El Cerrito High School on Ashbury, we would have to work closely with the school, because there's buses that stop there, there's, so we'd have to, accommodate that.

2:14:21And again, this affirms, prior City Council direction for implementation of bikeways.

2:14:30The last, action that, you know, we had a lot of public comment on was e-bikes and powered mobilities, and we heard some of the public commenters earlier today. There's a lot of residents are concerned about

2:14:44the, you know, e-bikes or other, e-motos, e-motos on the Ohlone Greenway. We did update,

2:14:57Update, the action to include monitoring legislation to,

2:15:05regarding state standards on speed, power, age, and labeling, for eModos, because what some of the most recent research has found is that the safety risks aren't from the e-bikes, but they're from

2:15:19the, vehicles, these e-motors, that are not allowed to use bike lanes and bike paths.

2:15:25So it's not the e-bikes, the Class 1, 2, 3 that are the issues, it's the illegal vehicles on these bike paths. So it's not… we're not planning on discouraging it, but we are planning on monitoring and educating about, which bikes are allowed on the Greenway.

2:15:42I would say, that,

2:15:46you know, I was talking to the police department. I think someone earlier mentioned that there's a 15 mile per hour speed limit on the Ohlone.

2:15:54the city would have to establish a 15 mile per hour speed limit on the ALLANI, and we'll look at that as part of the crash analysis that we do on cutting and the Ohlone and Central and the Ohlone to see, you know, if we can get the data to establish a speed limit that would help the police department enforce a speed on the ALLANI.

2:16:17And we, of course, all these speed limits would have to come back to Council. This, Council adopts speed limits on paths.

2:16:25And on local roads.

2:16:29So, in all, we received over 200 comments from 47 individuals and organizations and public agencies on the public draft plan, and I just mentioned some of the major comment themes that we received from the community.

2:16:47We reviewed all the comments, we incorporated,

2:16:51the revisions I mentioned earlier. I may have missed some, so if you have questions for me, I'll cover them then. And then, just to clarify, we corrected typos, we improved the legibility of maps, and we added some of the elements I mentioned earlier.

2:17:07This is just a quick summary of our implementation, like, the level of effort and the timeline for implementation for various strategies. Some of the shorter-term, quicker, strategies are 1 to 2 years, 2 to 5, and then midterm and then long-term is 5 to 10 years.

2:17:27In terms of immediate next steps, we need to recruit for our Sustainable Transportation Program Manager position, which is currently vacant. It's a key part of being able to deliver some of these… a lot of these programs and projects.

2:17:42and, the Sustainable Transportation Program Manager supplements our small engineering staff.

2:17:48And they work really well together.

2:17:50Forming that interdepartmental task force, really, maintaining the collaborative partnerships we've,

2:17:59developed with Caltrans to improve safety on San Pablo Avenue, as our city manager, Pinkos mentioned earlier today. Continuing to work with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, they've really helped with the Safe Routes to School program.

2:18:14And then also quick build improvements, and we'll be mapping out additional implementation steps.

2:18:22So, the proposed action before Council tonight is, to consider adoption of the Local Road Safety Plan, including the Vision Zero policy.

2:18:33That concludes my presentation, thank you. I'm here to answer questions.

2:18:44Mayor, can you check your microphone? I'm not sure it's on.

2:18:49We'll start with Councilmember Motuyama. Go ahead.

2:18:52Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. It's a lot of information, but I think this is the right direction. It makes much more sense to prioritize humans rather than how fast cars can get through an intersection.

2:19:07I have a couple of questions. One is, there's in the maps on page 33, there's, all these streets that are actually in Richmond, Plumas, Huntington, Sacramento. Can you explain why those are included?

2:19:24Yeah, there is twofold. The first is, it's improving east-west bikeway connection across San Pablo Avenue, and we have a lot of offset intersections, so it's one name on the El Cerrito side, and the other

2:19:38on Richmond, we will include the street name on the El Cerrito side, like, the Mosier, is it Mosier or Huntington? But we'll include those connections, like Stockton, Sacramento, for example. We listed Sacramento and not Stockton, so we'll add that.

2:19:53The other… the second part of it is that the San Pablo Avenue-specific plan called for increasing mid-block crossings along San Pablo Avenue, and again, because of those offset intersections, we have those mid-block crossings,

2:20:07at those intersections with the Richmond Street, the Richmond, City of Richmond Streets.

2:20:13So, those are, you know, appropriately named. And, the sidewalk is actually in the city of El Cerrito, on that west side, but we'll have to work with Caltrans to implement any new mid-block crossings.

2:20:26Are those mid-block crossings included in the funding that we got for Caltrans at the scope?

2:20:35of making San Pal avenues, you know, safer from accountants? It doesn't include, new mid-block crossings, it includes, you know, upgrading existing marked crosswalks, include, there's a couple of crosswalks, so we'd be adding, like.

2:20:52rapid rectangular flashing beacons. So, the priority right now is to improve the existing crosswalks. We're applying for additional funds to create those mid-block crossings.

2:21:03Okay, and then,

2:21:06I had a question about the improvements on Central Avenue nearest the city limit. Are they going to be… I know that, you know, the Pierce Street left turn thing is going to completely get changed, and utilities will get undergrounded. Is the work that we would like to have done incorporated at all in that work?

2:21:27So, that's the I-80 Central Avenue Interchange Phase 2 Local Realignment Project, and it's being led by the City of Richmond. It's, nearly at 100%, and I know they're, they've

2:21:41identified use of all their budget, and so I can definitely reach out to them and see if there's some… some way that we can incorporate some, those, those elements, and perhaps, you know, they'd ask for some funding, and we can see if we could make that work.

2:21:56Okay, that would be great. And then also,

2:22:01If we have a 15 mile per hour speed limit on the greenway, why is it that we can't enforce it without having it come back to Council?

2:22:10we don't have a 50 mile per hour on the… at least the city's Loney Greenway. There may be a speed limit maybe on other portions of the Greenway in Berkeley, but there is no established speed limit.

2:22:23We are, the state allows us to establish a speed limit of 15 or 20 miles per hour, but we would have to pass a resolution to do so. And in order for a speed limit to be enforceable, we need to do a study so that, again, it's, police can

2:22:39defend it when they go to traffic court. Okay, because my understanding is, like, a Class 3 electric bike can go, like, 28 miles an hour, so that's…

2:22:48Very fast, so it exceeds even the street

2:22:52you know, the car speed limit that we're talking about of 25 miles an hour. So that's…

2:22:58really concerning. And then, if we can do that.

2:23:03I think, you know, Councilmember Saltzman and I were talking about the

2:23:09bike police. It seems like we really need to have more patrol on the Greenway to just keep it safe, and, you know, I hope that maybe we can get a report on that.

2:23:20At some point.

2:23:23And on how that is going, because we did purchase the bikes.

2:23:28Is there…

2:23:35Good evening, Captain Caputo with the Elshito Police. Is the specific question about what enforcement has occurred on the Elite, or what specifically are you looking for?

2:23:44Has there been any enforcement on the Greenway, and how have you incorporated the e-bikes for police in that enforcement? So we have two e-bikes right now that are for police use, and we also have some, I call them analog bikes, you know, non-electric bikes.

2:24:01I've probably logged the most amount of miles and hours on our e-bikes. A lot of that has been on the Ohlone Greenway, but also on other areas of El Cerrito.

2:24:11There's been some education that we've conducted while we're out there, looking for some specific areas that people have complained about

2:24:21Which is mostly sort of rude, discourteous.

2:24:24Behavior by bicyclists, e-bikes, and also analog bikes.

2:24:30So, yeah, we are out there. You may not see us very often, but we're out there doing it.

2:24:36About… about how often are you guys out there?

2:24:39It depends on what we have going on in the city, and during the summertime, we were out there more often because the weather is nicer. I'll tell you that as it starts to get a lot colder, I'll probably be out there a lot less.

2:24:52We're also looking to do some more training with our police officers, get them to some of the bicycle schools that are available. There are not a lot of them in the state, but we are looking to put some more officers into the bicycle training program.

2:25:05Well, I would imagine if you're bicycling a lot, you would be warmer.

2:25:08So, I hope that even if it gets to be the middle of winter, that, you know, we'll see you out there more often. It's when you stop is when it gets cold, yeah. Don't stop. There you go. Can I ask a follow-up question? Yes, go. So you don't have to come up and down. Thank you for that.

2:25:26I've been getting some complaints, particularly from parents, mostly of young children, who commute on the Greenway to Fairmont Elementary.

2:25:36So, I don't know if you've done any of your education efforts around drop-off pickup time, but I would highly recommend that. It can… I used to do that commute with my daughter on the Greenway, and it gets really congested with a variety of people, including young kids, moving slowly.

2:25:54parents with their kids on their e-bikes moving more quickly, and then other people just trying to commute and kind of navigate the space. So, I think especially at the school times, that would be a great time.

2:26:06And it would make you really visible, or any of the other officers really visible, and make people feel like we're doing something to address the situation.

2:26:16That's generally what we like to do, so in the morning time, during the drop-off times, we'll go on the ALLANI Greenway, which is the high activity point for the commuters and, you know, kids going to school.

2:26:27And then we'll usually choose a school to go to at that time for the drop-off, be very highly visible, also to the motorists. One of my pet peeves is drivers who stop in the middle of the roadway to let their children out, so they… they won't usually have an education or enforcement opportunity.

2:26:44So we do take advantage of that, and then also in the afternoons during the, the pickups.

2:26:51Thank you. Okay, we'll go to Councilmember Weisinger. Yes, thank you so much for this event, and it's, you know, reading the report and hearing the data. Can you hear me with this mask on, or do I need to… okay. You know, it's always concerning when we have this data that's telling us that

2:27:10People are getting hurt and or dying on our streets, and we still have to defend

2:27:15creating infrastructure that protects lives, and I just wanted to say that out loud, because I think some people need to continuously hear that. They look at the bulb outs on saying, why do we have this, and why do we have that?

2:27:26Because even though you don't see it, people are getting hurt in our streets. So I just wanted to first say that. So thank you for giving us the data so that we know that.

2:27:35But I did have a couple of questions. The first is that we… we recently had, and I don't know if it's still open or not.

2:27:42We have people putting in their comments about, our upcoming parking management. Is this in any way going to work together? Is it something completely separate? How do those things co-mingle in how we're trying to change our streets?

2:27:59For sure. We'll be working closely with the city manager's office, who's leading the parking management, plan, on… it's coordinating the concepts that are developed there as part of the, any parking removal or curb access,

2:28:15Changes that are made as part of the bike boom.

2:28:18Backbone Bikeway Network. Okay, and then my other question is, I know that part of the plan is that Will continues to have updates as part of the general plan updates. What are some of the markers that we should be looking for to make sure that we are getting towards Vision Zero? You mentioned

2:28:35cities like San Francisco. I mean, I was working for city and county when they had that unfortunate accident in Whispertail, and that was at their 10-year mark, and showing that they were still having fatalities. So what are some of the things that we should be looking for every year, just to say we're getting to where we're trying to go?

2:28:51Yeah, I think we'll be reporting out on the different actions and the…

2:28:56And what we've done under those actions, and we can also provide the crash data at the same time. Okay, and then my final question, and this is something, like, we actually brought this up, or no, we didn't bring it up to Assemblymember Wicks, she brought it up to us.

2:29:10when we were in Sacramento, and this is something that's been kind of on my heart as a person who used to drive all the time. I still don't have a car, but when I did have a car.

2:29:17I drove a lot, I used Apple Maps, I used Waze.

2:29:21And we were talking about how, now that we're creating these new plans, people are always finding ways to cut through. I got a letter from a

2:29:29constituent, I think he's on Everett, and he was talking about how he's just outside of the Waldo plan, and how so many people cut through those areas, and how it makes it so much dangerous for kids. So is that something that we're also considering? I know you guys can't control Apple Max on ways, and I brought up the assembly member, because she said that's something that's something that's become passionate to her, so I'm sure we'll probably see something from her in the future.

2:29:53But are those cut through something that we're considering as well as when we're putting together our Vision Zero plan?

2:29:59it's definitely something that we can reach out to these companies on. I know that we… when we were doing the Norte Complete Streets project, when we changed the

2:30:09northbound left turn lanes on San Pablo to cutting from 2 to 1. We reached out to Google and Apple to change their, you know, their direction, because they would say, use the two left

2:30:20No, you gotta change that to just one left turn lane. So we have reached out, they have made changes in the past. I don't… I'll have to look into, you know, are there…

2:30:31changes that they make for a local street, I don't know if anybody else knows, no?

2:30:35Yeah, I think that that was just a big concern, is that as we're updating our local traffic management, there's always people who are looking… we're talking about kids… people dropping off their kids, looking for the fastest way to get to school, the fastest way to get to work, and it always… it changes in real time all the time. So I just want to continue to keep that on the front of our mind, that is… as often as we can change, people are also going to change, so we want to make sure we're following

2:30:58Those trends, and again, protecting as many lives as we can.

2:31:03Thank you. Thank you.

2:31:06Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very informative, and clearly a lot of work has been done, a lot of thought put into it.

2:31:12I have…

2:31:14perhaps not surprisingly, some concerns. I want to express them. And, you know, full disclosure, some of this is… triggers… triggers me in the sense of what we went through with Richmond Street, and concerns that grew out of that.

2:31:24And that primary concern is not so much about the logistics of what goes where, but how the community is engaged.

2:31:31And one of the things I noticed is that you gave the next steps, and there were, I don't know, a dozen or so next steps. Not a single one of them said, engage the community. None of them had any kind of outreach. And we know from Richmond Street that a lot was done, a lot of meetings were held, a lot of presentations were held, but it wasn't really until people felt that it was in their backyard that they

2:31:50You know, they took action, or they spoke up, or they became aware of what was happening.

2:31:53And I don't think that's… that's their fault. I mean, that's just the nature of how residents deal with city government. Unless it's happening on your street, you don't really pay attention, and then when it does, perhaps it's too late.

2:32:03So I'm concerned about, you know, what…

2:32:05I mean, I heard you say lots of outreach to community now. What… what can we do to avoid that happening again, where people… I think, legitimately, we're… were angry

2:32:16with Richmond Street, because they didn't feel like… they didn't feel like they were heard. They didn't feel like the City Council heard them. We actually took no action whatsoever on it. You know, I made a motion to consider some other alternatives and didn't get a second. So people walked away feeling like Council just advocated and said, we're not involved.

2:32:31And, you know, you said this is following affirming council direction. Well, that direction… the same thing was said about Richmond Street, and that direction came, well, more than a decade before. So it certainly didn't come formally from this council.

2:32:45So I am concerned, you know, again, it's more of a process. It's not criticizing anything that's on the map or any plans, it's just how do you

2:32:52Get the community engaged, and if it's, you know, headed that way, they buy into it.

2:32:57And what, I guess, to that end, what lessons were learned?

2:33:02Yeah, no, def… thank you for that question. A couple, things, first, definitely a goal of the plan is,

2:33:10public outreach and engagement. I didn't mention it in the next steps, because the next steps, right away on some of these bigger bikeway projects, because those are proactive, proactive strategies. We're going to be… our first focus is the responsive,

2:33:27action was 1 through 5, and so I was really focusing on 1 through 5 as the immediate next steps.

2:33:33But secondly, I want to say that, we are, we are, there's an example project, like, for example, one of the questions that we got during the, public, comments, open house is, why don't you have, Central or Fairmont or San Pablo on the

2:33:52Backbone by white.

2:33:53network. And the reason we didn't show it initially was because there's separate planning efforts for those, because there's a lot more trade-off, more traffic,

2:34:03on those major corridors, Central Fairmont, known as the East-West Bikeways, and

2:34:08Crosstown Connect, we're just embarking on the outreach for that. That's going to be a one-year process, where the first step is to get input from the public on a couple of different alignments for the East-West Bikeway that serves

2:34:23the El Cerrito Plaza BART station to, the Bay Trail, and the first step is really just getting initial thoughts from the public about the destinations they want to go to, concerns or preferences.

2:34:39on routes, and then we've come back to the, to community two additional times. We're doing a direct mailer to all the residents and businesses in that area in the next few weeks, again, leading them to a survey. So, we're involving the public really early on.

2:34:56And we're gonna meet with them throughout the process to get additional feedback.

2:35:01My concern is that even when you do that, we'll see what's here and what we vote on today, and say, well, you already made your decision.

2:35:08And I just want to avoid that. I mean, I want it to really be a democratic process where people's voices are heard, and not people to feel like, well, it's just…

2:35:16they already made their mind up, and they have to go through this… just go through the motions. I really, you know, that's my concern.

2:35:22Nob.

2:35:24A couple other questions. You mentioned the difference between 20 miles per hour and 25 miles per hour, and used the term enforceable. Is the consensus that 20 mile per hour speed limit is not enforceable? Is that why it's not on the table as a…

2:35:36A city street limit.

2:35:39So it is on the table. We're just saying maximum on all streets in the city of Ulster would be 25. We would then, depending on context, maybe local streets or streets near schools, we could go lower, but we'd have to do an engineering study to just, you know, validate, the speed limit, and then

2:35:58So that…

2:35:59that can be used by our police department when they have to go to traffic court. So it's not that it's not, it's just that we need to do some additional steps to establish that speed limit.

2:36:10Okay, I think my… my last question is, what… if adopted, what will…

2:36:18Two points. One first point is.

2:36:23It disturbed me when I heard the proposal to remove the parking…

2:36:28Appeal process, the removal… appealing the removal of parking.

2:36:32But I just feel like, again, that it's…

2:36:35it sends the wrong message to the community. It's basically saying we're not going to allow you to be heard. If you object to it, you can't appeal. So that makes me feel really uncomfortable, and I suspect that if the rules are rolling and this is in motion, most appeals won't, if not all, won't be successful, but to just take it off the table just doesn't feel right to me.

2:36:52The second part, and this is more important to me, is trying to understand what the role of Council is going forward, because you're looking back at Richmond Street.

2:37:03we were constantly told, and I don't think there was much objection to it other than for me, that Council really didn't have a role. That it was already decided 10 years before, and you're just implementing what Council, you know.

2:37:15dictated 10 years before, and you said the same thing, that we're… we're affirming what Council did direction before. So, again, I feel like we're not really in the picture, it's affirming something from a decade ago. So, it worries me that when it comes down to whatever street it is, and people are upset that this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen, they're gonna, you know, lose 80% of their parking or whatever on that block.

2:37:33What role can Council have if this is adopted?

2:37:37Well, the roles right now, you know, if you have

2:37:41Propose… if you disagree with the Backbone Bikeway Network, you could not approve it. You could ask us to remove it from the plan.

2:37:48If you don't agree with exempting the bikeway network from the appeal process, you could vote to not… to keep it. So right now is the opportunity for Council to provide that decision. So once it passes, or if it passes, presumably it will, but once it passes.

2:38:07Then we're not involved in… individual…

2:38:11designs, or, you know, this street, or that street, or… I mean, I mean, the same way as Richmond, essentially.

2:38:16Well, right now is an opportunity to, you know, for Council to

2:38:20To provide a direction, or if you want to provide a different direction.

2:38:26This is the… this is the time in terms of both the appeal process, or,

2:38:32The direction of providing more dedicated space for bicyclists.

2:38:37Well, my… this would be on my last comment. My preference would be to have con… the direction be that Council is involved

2:38:44Throughout the process.

2:38:47Okay.

2:38:49Thank you. Okay.

2:38:52let's do,

2:38:55Oh, do you have something else? That's… I want to move the… I want to make sure that we've been spending all the time. You said you wanted me to wait, because I had comments, not questions. Everybody else has made comments. Afterwards, after public… Okay.

2:39:09I have several, and I don't want to be cut off at that point.

2:39:13No. Yeah, we agreed that we were… we'll do comment when we do comment. So we're going to do public comment now. Now's the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item.

2:39:24Requests 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. In-person requests will be taken first. Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments. City Clerk, please proceed.

2:39:43In Kimir, we have…

2:39:46About 5 requests to speak at this time, so I'll start with our first speaker, Steve Price, followed by Janet Byron.

2:39:58Thank you, Steve Price. I've lived in El Cerrill since the mid-1980s.

2:40:03I want to, actually express my appreciation for Jarrett Mullen's good work that he's done in town for his thoughtful and knowledgeable work, for the city's transportation program management.

2:40:18And hope that he has success in his future work and endeavors.

2:40:23And my hope is that the city's able to find a similarly qualified person to replace him.

2:40:31I read the city resolution adopting the Local Road Safety Plan with a provision for a Vision Zero policy, and I think it's very good.

2:40:38It lays out the arguments very clearly.

2:40:41Although the Vision Zero statements are statements of intent, and there's no guarantee that we'll achieve the Vision Zero goals.

2:40:50It's essentially a change… it's calling for a change in mindset, from the past, where traffic flow

2:40:58Was a supreme intent, more important than preventing injury or death on our streets.

2:41:05This goal of traffic flow before all else.

2:41:09Has led, in our society to wider streets, higher posted speed limits, which also lead to urban avenues treated as freeway

2:41:17traffic relief routes, kind of like what we have with San Pablo Avenue.

2:41:23Demoing pedestrian safety, parents worrying about their children being outside.

2:41:29Everything's spreading out further and further apart.

2:41:33And shop local campaigns, having to…

2:41:36Practically beg motorists to patronize businesses closer to home.

2:41:41And by the way, the data doesn't show that driving any faster actually significantly saves time for motorists.

2:41:49So, the local road safety plan and Vision Zero is not just about the safety of people walking and bicycling, by the way. It may be beyond the scope of the local road safety plan to address travel distances.

2:42:03But it is also important that we, as a community, travel shorter distances to fulfill daily needs.

2:42:11Including reducing vehicle miles traveled by cars.

2:42:15Is it really necessary to drive

2:42:19Four cities away to go to your favorite hair salon, when we have so many in our own community.

2:42:25So too much driving just keeps vehicles on the street for longer periods, thus increasing traffic and making streets less safe.

2:42:34But nevertheless, I strongly support the Local Road Safety Plan and Vision Zero policy.

2:42:40And, I also think that on the Greenway, we just need signage, you know, to remind people that there's speed limits, and to travel, stay on the right, pass on the left, simple things like that, which are not out there right now.

2:42:55Thank you.

2:42:56Thank you. Our next speaker is Janet Byron, followed by Jerry Figoni.

2:43:03Hello, I'm Janet Byron. I'm an El Cerrito resident, and I'm with El Cerrito Richmond Annex Walk and Roll. There's a letter in your supplemental packet from El Cerrito Richmond Attics Walk and Roll on the local road safety plan, so I just wanted to draw that to your attention.

2:43:20And start by saying that, we're grateful for Jarrett Mullen, El Cerrito's first sustainable transportation program manager.

2:43:29And while we're sad to see that Jared is moving on to a new opportunity, we're pleased that the commission… that the position is going to be quickly, refilled.

2:43:39I was also interested to see that El Cerrito is forming an internal interdepartmental transportation task force

2:43:47And I would urge the city to also start a community transportation task force

2:43:53committee or a commission to provide transparency and a public avenue for community review and input on transportation-related projects, and I think that would address some of the concerns that,

2:44:06Councilmember Cassanis has raised.

2:44:09El Cerrito Richmond Annex Walk and Roll strongly supports the local road safety plan and Vision Zero policy, and we urge you to adopt it tonight. The plan is not perfect, but it does provide a much-needed roadmap for safe streets improvements in the coming years.

2:44:26At the same time, El Cerrito's active transportation plan has not been updated since 2016.

2:44:34Bike East Bay recommends that cities update their active transportation plans every 5 years or so to remain relevant and provide support for competitive infrastructure grant applications.

2:44:46There have been a lot of changes, in the transportation landscape in the past decade. There are bigger cars and trucks.

2:44:52The popularity of e-bikes and e-cargo bikes, and also in the last few years, we're seeing the e-motos, and also the uptick in severe and fatal pedestrian fatalities,

2:45:04So we would strongly request that the City commit to updating its active transportation plan with full community input in the next two years.

2:45:14And then finally, in the last… just the last few years, we've seen the arrival of inexpensive, very fast e-motos. Everyone in town has seen increasing numbers of children and adults zipping along the Ohlone Greenway, where motorized high-speed, two-wheeled vehicles are not allowed.

2:45:32The plan you're… you're adopting tonight takes a wait-and-see, what the state of California decides to do approach to eModos, but the city could be doing a number of things right now

2:45:44Such as posting bigger and better signage on the ALLANI Greenway about motorized vehicles. The signs are really small, and they're little white signs. You can't see them. And enforcing and adopting a 15-mile speed limit.

2:45:59We urge the City to take these common sense actions as soon as possible before someone gets hurt. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jerry Fagoni, followed by Rebecca Kenney.

2:46:18Hi, Jerry Fogoni, been here most of the time since 1946.

2:46:24So I know my city, I was… I did hear the word Colusa mentioned, so… I'm not gonna…

2:46:32get on that too hard, but I think that I liked the report, read everything in it, went all the way through it.

2:46:39then realized that when Colusa Avenue didn't make a bike-bone bikeway.

2:46:45I was wondering, there's a flaw here, are there other flaws?

2:46:49And so adopting it tonight might be premature.

2:46:53Where some changes need to be made while we can make them, because we might not be able to make them after that.

2:47:00But I would argue that, Colusa Avenue is the second busiest bikeway in the city next to Ohlone.

2:47:09It's… I live on Colusa. In the mornings and in the evenings, we're packed full of bikes going back and forth. I mean, it's… it's amazing. I love it.

2:47:18But, they need… it needs to be a safer street. And if some of you can imagine, people come from Navalier to Avis to Colusa, they come down Stockton, they come down Terrace and all that. Some go

2:47:32Seaview, and empty onto Colusa there, but it's one of our few streets. San Pavil Avenue's the other, and the Ohlone Greenway, goes all the way to Berkeley.

2:47:43And people who are going into the upper half of Berkeley to work, or to various schools, or whatever, they're using Colus Avenue.

2:47:50So, I think some real attention needs to be given there.

2:47:54So you mentioned the GPS and Waze and all that. Thank you.

2:48:02Ride with Lyft or Uber or somebody from out of town.

2:48:07And you come down Mosier, you make a left, and you take a right on that little teeny street, which is Plumas.

2:48:15Now, you know, they made it one way, but it's still tiny. And two blocks down is the street that's wide, that's made for two ways.

2:48:24Same thing if you come down… Stockton.

2:48:28GPS will turn left, this is going to Highway 80, of course, and then turn right on that little street behind El Cerrito Natural Grocers.

2:48:36should be 2 blocks over where Eureka meets

2:48:41Sacramento, is it, or Columbia, whichever. Yeah, because that's the wide street made for that.

2:48:46So, once again, you know, there's some things that need to be done, Meeting wording a report, but…

2:48:53Anyway, it's my take. I came here primarily to talk about Colusa Avenue.

2:49:00But I would have to say the first half of this city council meeting was so much fun with all those young people, and opportunity and education, wow.

2:49:09and Hispanic Proclamation. My Spanish ancestors came to the East Bay in 1771, so I appreciate the recognition that you didn't know I was getting.

2:49:21Thank you for your comments. More studies about where bicycles really ride, and we need to make it safe for them. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rebecca Kenney, followed by Joshua Sanders.

2:49:35Hi, so I was irresponsible. Rebecca Kenny, El Cerrito, I was irresponsible and did not actually read the plan ahead of time and did not make comments on it, so I was not originally going to speak up, but…

2:49:47I saw Central on there, and I saw Carlson on there, and went, I need to hype those up, because those are frightening streets.

2:49:55And so it's sort of awkward to work on them, I know, because that involves some coordination with Richmond. But, like, crossing Carlson, crossing Central, that is always frightening. The intersection of Carlson and Central, even though there is a light there, is still terrifying to cross.

2:50:14And I hang out a lot with my neighbors who live in the Richmond Annex, and many of them have small kids, and I'm sure that they would love to have it be safer to cross Carlson and safer to cross, San Pablo when they're on their way to school here in El Cerrito. Thank you.

2:50:31Our next speaker is Joshua Sanders, followed by MG Julie.

2:50:37Hi, my name is Joshua Saunders. I've been living here in El Cerrito since the 1995, and the main reason I'm speaking here again has to do with the same thing I was talking about before.

2:50:56I appreciate, that someone previously brought up the idea of signage and more clear signage.

2:51:03Along the ALLANI Greenway, and the possibility of establishing a…

2:51:10speed limit. One question I do have is that someone previously said that the main problem with scooters and e-bikes and so forth along the… were from illegal devices and stuff like that. I can't determine what's legal and what isn't legal in terms of a device.

2:51:29But all I can say is that we need to make sure that people aren't injured when something's zipping by, like a rocket going past you. And I take the ALLANI Greenway to the plaza pretty much every single day of my life, so…

2:51:43Thank you.

2:51:46And our final speaker on this item is MJ Julie.

2:51:52I really like this local road safety plan in general, and I strongly encourage City Council to approve it.

2:52:00I just have a couple comments,

2:52:05we need to have some… I've heard from official people that we do have a speed limit on the greenways, and now I'm hearing that we don't have, but in any case, I think we need to… if we don't have one, let's make sure we get one. I really think we do need to, and

2:52:22We have to, because if we're just saying that bike lanes are allowed… there are e-bikes are allowed, then that means we're letting… we're allowing 28 mile per hour, speeds on the Greenway, because that's what happens with a Class 3, e-bike.

2:52:36So I… that would be… I think that's, like, a priority, especially as we see more and more people using the Greenway.

2:52:44And then the other thing I want to say is, I saw this mentioned very briefly on the presentation, but I think we need to, enforce daylighting, that daylighting

2:52:54a lot better, just because, we do have a lot of really short blocks, and I know parking is really tough here in our… in some neighborhoods, but,

2:53:05there's a lot of corners where it's really hard to see people, where drivers have a really hard time seeing people, and the pedestrians are at corners. Daylighting, enforcing daylighting, the daylighting law would really help with that.

2:53:22For the streets where we don't have bulb-outs, and there's many streets where we don't have bulb-outs.

2:53:27Another thing I would like to say is I think we have a law, and I might be making this up, but I think there's something around, like, bushes not being too tall around, the corners, and I think along, like, street corners, and I think we can also enforce that as well to improve visibility of, cross traffic.

2:53:45So, I think we have a lot of stuff in the books, we just need to enforce them. And I say that like it's super easy, but I think, we have stuff today, and I would really like to see us

2:53:57follow these things. In addition to, you know, coming up with more ideas to improve our streets, let's use what we have in the books already. Thanks.

2:54:09That concludes our request to speak at this time. Okay, we're coming back to the Council. Now we can start.

2:54:15on, comments, and we'll start with the Mayor Pro Tem.

2:54:18Thank you.

2:54:19Okay. First, just want to say overall, I think this is fantastic. There's a lot of exciting things in here. I think it's focused on what we can do relatively quickly to actually make a difference.

2:54:33and both save lives and reduce conflicts. So overall, I think the plan is fantastic and appreciated all the outreach and public input.

2:54:44The one action item that I really just don't think goes far enough, this isn't going to stop me from voting for the plan, but I just want to challenge us to be less wishy-washy on this, is Action Item 4, which I've talked to you about this event, before, but

2:54:59you know, yes, it will be great to bring San Pablo down to 25 miles per hour, but we almost already have 25 miles per hour citywide speed limit.

2:55:09And it is too fast. I mean, one of the first things you showed us in your presentation was the difference between people going 20 miles and 30 miles per hour. And if somebody hits me in their car going 30 miles per hour, I'm a lot like… more likely to die or have a serious injury than if they're going 20.

2:55:27And 15 does even better.

2:55:29And so there is this new state law, and I appreciate that you talked to Emeryville about it, but they have reduced most of their streets to 20 or 50 miles per hour throughout the city. They still do have some streets that are 25 miles per hour. Those are, like, their arterials and things like that.

2:55:47So we have a model to do it. They were able to do it, I think, within less than a year of the law passing. That was really fast. Maybe we can't do that.

2:55:55But it didn't… it wasn't this long, drawn-out process that took ages to do in there.

2:56:01just… they're a small city like we are, so this isn't San Francisco or Oakland. So I really think we need to lean into that and figure that out. Because why are we restricting bikes on the Greenway to 15 miles per hour and saying cars can go 25? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, if I get hit by an e-bike on the Greenway.

2:56:19I'm not very likely to die. If I get hit by a car going 30 because it's 25 miles per hour and they're all driving 30,

2:56:27I am likely to die, especially if it's a giant SUV, so these… I don't know. I think we need to get our priorities in line of what actually deals with safety and make sure that they make sense together. So, I really want to see us try to figure out how to reduce some speed limits, especially

2:56:45On the… most of our streets are neighborhood streets.

2:56:48Most of the traffic on those streets is people who are diverting around other traffic.

2:56:55I'd say 90% of the traffic on my block is from people who are flying through and not going anywhere near my block. They are trying to divert, around the light at Richmond and Mosier, and say they go on my street, that has no light.

2:57:12And they just don't want to be backed up at that one light, and they're just flying through.

2:57:17And that doesn't make any sense. And that's my block as an example, but we have a lot of blocks like this in El Cerrito that have kids on them, that would love to be able to, like, play outside, but it's not safe. So I just… I really think we need to do better on the speed limits.

2:57:33And, at the same time, set the speed limits and do the things like speed humps and these neighborhood gateways, and a lot of the really fantastic things that you've set out in the plan. So I'll stop on the speed limits now and talk about a few other things.

2:57:48I really think we need to do more, and thank you, Councilmember Motayama, for bringing this up, to deal with the illegal emotos. And they are illegal all the way, even if they're not in a bike lane, unless people have a motorcycle license, which almost none of them do. So they are just flat illegal. The problem is they're being sold as legal e-bikes. I mean, some of the advertising online is horrifying.

2:58:12They had, like, back-to-school specials and encouraged parents to get them for their kids.

2:58:16Some of these go, like, 40 miles per hour or faster, so that's terrible. Luckily, there's a state bill that passed and is on the governor's desk.

2:58:26that would address some of the accountability and put it on the manufacturers and vendors. But outside of that, I think we need to do more to do education to the parents, to the people riding these, and it's not just on the Greenway. I walk on Richmond a lot.

2:58:41just in the past few months, I've seen an explosion of them on Richmond, and I assume it's happening on a lot of other streets, too. So, we need to get the word out, and we need to, do some enforcement, because they're just flat-out illegal devices, and I think they're creating a backlash against e-bikes.

2:59:00So I want to see us do more on that.

2:59:03And then just beyond this plan, I understand this plan can't do everything. It's about something very specific. But I do think we need another plan, whether it's updating the active transportation plan or something else, to figure out how we're going to get more people biking and walking to address climate change.

2:59:22And that's gonna take more than just ending fatalities, which, of course, is extremely important and we must do. But we also have to make it safe, convenient, easy to get around, and that means not just dealing with the most deadly intersections, but having these connected networks.

2:59:37So, we need to go beyond this plan and figure out what is next beyond it to actually get people incentivized to not just bike on the Greenway and not put

2:59:47Mix the fastest and the slowest people there, but have some other safe places they can go so we can kind of spread people out and have less conflicts.

2:59:56And then I just wanted to reflect on a couple other things that folks said tonight.

3:00:02Assemblymember Wicks,

3:00:05she actually had a bill that originally was to, like, ban some of that behavior, the cut-through traffic, that was on the maps. She changed it to a study bill, and it got signed today.

3:00:17I forgot the number, but it requires a study to look at how these, like, Google Maps and Waze and all these are doing it, and to kind of figure out next steps to recommend. So…

3:00:29We should thank her for that and see where that goes.

3:00:32And then Colusa, I agree, we need to work on it. I think it is complex, because it's… even if we made our portion of it perfect, there's the Kensington portion, there's the Berkeley portion, so I think

3:00:47whether that's in this plan or not, I do think it would be worthwhile to start conversations with the county and with Berkeley.

3:00:54I don't… Berkeley just passed a new bike plan. I honestly… I didn't read every detail of it. I don't know if Colouse is in there, but it'd be worth, like, at least looking at what the other places are doing. This is in the county-wide bike plan. I don't know, but it's complicated, because it involves the three places and two different counties.

3:01:11But I think it's worth at least just starting those conversations and kind of figuring that out. And then, I just wanted to see, Yvette, if you could… we had some comments on daylighting, and if you could share what's the plans, because I know you have plans and how that's going to be done over the next few years.

3:01:28Yes, as part of our street resurfacing project, we're installing the red curb,

3:01:35on arterials that are being resurfaced. And so that's the current, plan. And in some places, we're also hardening the daylighting by adding posts, because what

3:01:49has been found is that when you're dilating curve, people are turning more quickly, and so that's also a safety concern. So, on some of our busier intersections, pedestrian intersections, we're hardening with those vertical posts.

3:02:06And then I understand there's also been some cases where people have made requests about non-arterials, and you've been responsive to that, so if people know of particular intersections that are very problematic, they can

3:02:18put that request in, correct? Yes, they can submit it online or call or email the Public Works Engineering Division, and we will evaluate. We can do that. Great, thank you. Thank you.

3:02:33Okay, I'll make just a brief comment. I think there's a great deal of

3:02:37of content in here that's excellent, and I appreciate that.

3:02:40Unfortunately, I can't support it because I think that I am concerned about community engagement, and I think that one of the ways, the most obvious way that the community does engage is through the council.

3:02:52And if we don't have a role, you know, going forward with this, I think it's… it's going to lead to the same…

3:02:59acrimony that happened with Richmond Street. I think we need to be involved, and

3:03:05I also think, along the same lines, that the community needs You know, an appeal process.

3:03:11That should not be taken away, and…

3:03:13I just think that those two things, they can change, and if we choose to change it, that's great, I would support it. But based on those two concerns, I would vote no.

3:03:23And I feel sad about that, because I think a lot of really wonderful work has been done, and good thought.

3:03:28But I'm trying to avoid… Problems later.

3:03:32Thank you.

3:03:37Thank you, and again, thank you for all your detailed understanding of this, that you just can just answer all these questions coming at you, so I really appreciate all that.

3:03:50you know, going back to Councilmember Kassanis' point, we had a thousand people respond to this plan. Did anybody that responded… did anybody that responded have a concern with the appeal being removed for parking?

3:04:11So, as part of the Backbone Bikeway Network Commons, we did get people, like I mentioned earlier, people

3:04:18in support of expanding the network, and people opposed, to the network, because they were concerned about the loss of parking. So we did get community, input on both sides of the issue. But not specifically against the,

3:04:36eliminate the appeal. I can't… I can't tell you, I don't… I don't. Okay. No.

3:04:43And, it feels like…

3:04:50One of the difficulties of community outreach is that once, no matter how

3:04:55much outreach we do, someone else is gonna wake up and say, I didn't know about this, because maybe they moved here recently, and they missed the prior outreach. So I… I think a thousand people responding to this plan is pretty…

3:05:11enormous, because we don't usually get more than, like, 200 comments on anything, so I feel like there's a lot of engagement on this. And, you know, I think, we need to make things safer. I mean.

3:05:27You know, we…

3:05:29A long, long time ago, when you were not director, you know, we… our street came here and said, you know, it's too many cars, it's too dangerous to cross the street.

3:05:39And, you know, there was a lot of discussion, we came to council, we had

3:05:46angry neighbors up the street on Seaview going, you're gonna take years off of our lives because now we have to go around. But ultimately, you know, I think people appreciate My Street because it's wide and quiet, and lots of bicyclists use it.

3:06:01The residents appreciate it, I can cross the street without getting hit by a car, going left without looking, and so…

3:06:08You know, just one street was qualitatively really good for my end of town.

3:06:14So I imagine if we can do all these things in this plan, that people will realize how… how…

3:06:21unsafe things have been, but we've just taken it for granted that that's the way it is. And so, I'm really happy to,

3:06:30recommend that we approve this plan. I appreciate all the work that went into it. I appreciate all the people that commented on this plan, and I look forward to more parts of the city being walkable and safe. Thank you.

3:06:44I just have a few words, final thoughts on this. You know, one of the worst laws that, I did not like that passed in Sacramento was, Assemblymember Phil Ting's bill.

3:06:58making sure that jaywalking is legal now. Ever since that bill passed, I've seen, like, an uptick on people jaywalking and getting hit.

3:07:09And we see that on San Pablo Avenue often, with residents just trampling over our fresh, planted, median, there on San Pablo Avenue, and people, you know, just walking all over it and bringing strollers there and shopping.

3:07:27strollers and everything there, and that is not acceptable either. So, definitely support the changes that you plan on doing there, but we do need full participation from our residents. So, I agree with you on that, and I agree with a lot of things that,

3:07:46the Mayor Pro Tem said, and also with Councilmember, Motayama, and with, Councilmember Weisinger on this.

3:07:55growing up in El Cerrito, and being hit by a car when I was in elementary school.

3:08:01right in front, right now there's a, Brazilian…

3:08:07Company that, that is in front of that.

3:08:10next to Waldo Lane. There used to be a dry cleaners there that's a long-time empty lot. So, I got hit. My bicycle got trashed, and I got a little bruised up, but, you know.

3:08:25But what would happen if, that was on a busier street? I wouldn't be around, so, I,

3:08:34say this, because I've been a victim of

3:08:37Getting hit by a car on San Pablo Avenue, riding a bike. So I want to make sure that this next generation, along with our seniors, have every opportunity to walk and bike and,

3:08:51and go, walk into these areas that are now just difficult to maneuver, such as Central Avenue. I just have a final question on Central Avenue. Do they plan on making

3:09:07Central Avenue to have permanent bicycle lanes and to reduce it by one lane.

3:09:14each way.

3:09:16we're currently evaluating alignments. We did, so that's… we're seeking input. It's really a difficult puzzle, because that street is really high volume,

3:09:28And so, I think the traffic volumes are above $20,000, which make a road diet in that segment difficult. But we are looking at alternative alignments, just south of Central Avenue, as well as on Fairmont, but…

3:09:44Yeah, and I'm working with the City of Richmond on potential alignments through, Pacific East Mall. Okay, very good.

3:09:53So thank you for that. Would anyone like to make a motion?

3:10:00I'll move approval. I'll second.

3:10:02Okay, we have a motion by the Mayor Pro Tem, and second by, Councilmember Motiamo Gramsey.

3:10:10All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

3:10:14Okay.

3:10:15Any abstentions?

3:10:17Motion carries. Okay, thank you for that. Next, we will go to, throw forward a budget for incomplete purchase orders and projects.

3:10:27from… 2025, 26 will go… We have Claire Coleman back.

3:10:36Good evening, Mayor and Council. Claire Coleman again, your Budget and Financial Services Manager. This one, my presentation is relatively brief.

3:10:46But a brief overview of how purchase orders work. Throughout the fiscal year, departments are required to set up a purchase order for any single purchase over $5,000, and departments often will set up purchase orders, for a specific scope of work with a contract or a project, or they'll set up a purchase order for,

3:11:06let's say, tracking a large amount of purchases with a specific vendor. So it's one of the ways we track our purchasing, but one of the major things is it also sets aside money. It's what we call an encumbrance. So it's the way that we set aside money that we intend to use for a specific purpose, and that's setting aside the budget for future expense.

3:11:24What happens is that at the end of the fiscal year, all of those purchase orders expire unless they are ruled forward to a future year. And that is also the budget that goes with those things. So it's saying, let's say I have… I want to purchase a vehicle, I create a purchase order in

3:11:41April.

3:11:42If the vehicle is not received until August, even though I had the budget in April, I set aside the budget, I never spent the budget, it's set aside on this purchase order. If we don't receive the vehicle until August, our accounting rules require that that purchase be accounted for in the subsequent fiscal year.

3:12:00So the timing of June 30th inherently means that there are just some purchase orders that were incomplete by way… if… whether that's a project that was started in June for a capital project, whether that's an expense that was planned in a prior fiscal year and just for some timing reason or another was not completed.

3:12:15So this purchase order roll forward is a list of all of the purchase orders throughout the city that staff recommend rolling forward to the next fiscal year. And what that means is saying, we did not spend these funds in the prior fiscal year, we have them set aside.

3:12:30And staff are requesting authority to spend those funds in the subsequent fiscal year.

3:12:35So the money is available, it's in our fund balances, and so it will be spent in the next fiscal year. We can't spend it in the last fiscal year because either the work hasn't been done yet, or the goods have not been received yet.

3:12:47So, in sum, there's a total of about $2.5 million of purchase orders citywide for Roll Forward. The vast majority of those are related to capital projects. This is one of the ways that we roll forward and that we're tracking the major capital projects throughout the city.

3:13:03And that's everything from the streets projects, the pool, all of that. There is a total of $69,891 in the general fund.

3:13:13Of that 7… almost $70,000, $50,000 is for districting costs. So the vast majority is just for the timing of districting costs. If that work was done in July and August, it has to be counted for in fiscal 27. So…

3:13:26In sum, we recommend rolling forward these purchase orders. I can answer any questions about specific ones, and my colleagues are also here if there are any questions about specific purchase orders, but we recommend rolling this forward because in every single circumstance, it was either a department or a fund that was under budget because they had reserved these funds for the purchase orders.

3:13:46Okay, very good. Who would like to start here? Any questions?

3:13:51Any questions? Go ahead. It's not really a question, I just want to ask you just to confirm something, that my understanding is that most of these items

3:13:59Or items that are…

3:14:00being paid for out of special funds. That's correct. I think that's an important distinction to know, that's not just tacking on to the general fund. No, the only amount that would be an increase to the general fund is the $69,891.

3:14:13And if you look at the, bill full list on the, I believe, the third page of the agenda bill, there's a full list of all the projects. The primary one is the districting costs, which is the one at the very top. That's the primary component of the general fund.

3:14:25And the other ones, there are a couple of little projects that have small amounts in the general fund here and there, but overall, it's just the districting. Thank you.

3:14:32Okay,

3:14:33Now's the time for members of the public who wish to, provide public comments on this item. Requests to speak can be submitted to the City Clerk by completing a speaker card using the raise hand feature on Zoom, or dialing star 9 if joining by phone. In-person requests will be taken first.

3:14:51Please remember to identify yourself and your City of Residence at the beginning of your comments. City Clerk, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. We do not have any requests to speak on this item. Okay, now we'll do comments. We'll start with, I just want to move approval. Okay.

3:15:06I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by the Mayor Pro Tem, and a second by Councilmember Motiona. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, thank you for that. Next, we'll go to…

3:15:20D, the El Cerrito Swim Center Grant Acceptance and Design Amendment. Chris Jones.

3:15:46Good evening.

3:15:48Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers, I'm Chris Jones, your Recreation Director.

3:15:54with, some good news, and hopefully I'll deliver it in a short amount of time, but please feel free to, stop me if you have any questions.

3:16:08Okay, all yours. Alright, thank you.

3:16:11So tonight, before your… for your consideration, there are two, items. One is to accept a community development block grant.

3:16:20That was awarded to the city by Contra Costa County.

3:16:24Using, federal funds that were awarded to them for this purpose.

3:16:27And then also to, approve a design agreement amendment.

3:16:34For a couple change orders related to previous swim center work, as well as to phase this… this grant work, that we'll be discussing.

3:16:47So, I'm sure you all remember going back several meetings to May 2025, Started with a big.

3:16:54bubble of plaster that appeared in the, Emory G.weed III.

3:16:59war.

3:17:00In February of last year, we hired Rogers, Stringer, and McClelland to evaluate, the issue and come back with a scope of work for repairs.

3:17:12This came back that not only

3:17:15Did we have the immediate need to replaster the pool, but also we had, ADA

3:17:22Other requirements that needed attending to, such as deck replacement.

3:17:26And ADA, path of travel, other ADA issues inside the swim center, outside the swim center, in the parking lot.

3:17:34As well as the opportunity to install, EV charging, and then fulfill some,

3:17:41Water cleaning requirements.

3:17:44And so, that was the original scope, that was presented to Council. The engineer's estimate at that time was over $4 million.

3:17:52For both,

3:17:55budget and timing issues. We started to phase the project. One, we wanted to phase the pool replaster so that we could get it to construction as quickly as possible in the low season.

3:18:09And then, and then Phase 2, which was also approved by the Council, was the parking lot, work.

3:18:17That started later because it was less disruptive. And then Phase 3 is… was the remaining work, that is, in our capital improvement program, but is unfunded at this time, and that was the deck replacement, and the interior swim center work.

3:18:34Since then, we've received a grant from the Community Block Development Grant for $200,000, which requires a $50,000 sitting match, and that is specifically for a portion of Phase 3 that's mostly related to ADA improvements in the locker rooms.

3:18:54It also includes, some additional gates and bringing gates up into compliance with ADA.

3:19:01So that when we eventually get to the balance of the work, they'll be in place and ready to go.

3:19:08So action, number one is to authorize execution of an agreement with the county.

3:19:16That includes the, you know, standard reporting and compliance requirements.

3:19:20For $200,000, and then to amend the budget to receive and then spend $200,000.

3:19:27As well as, approving the $50,000 city match.

3:19:31Which would be funded by funds that are left over from Phases 1 and 2 of the project.

3:19:38And you can see, a small, or a condensed scope here. Half of the… half of the project is construction costs.

3:19:50Followed by, contractor costs, such as overhead and profit.

3:19:53Soft costs for design, and construction management, and then a escalation contingency of about 25%.

3:20:02And that is a higher, contingency amount, but we were kind of… Contra Costa originally authorized $150,000 for this project. They had some leftover money, so they gave us… bought that total up to $200,000, and urged us to…

3:20:20make sure, you know, to have enough money in case costs, rose, basically. So, we do have a healthy contingency here, and if for some reason,

3:20:30When you have a successful bid and it comes in under, we do have, possible

3:20:35adult of some additional exterior work that we could, possibly achieve with these funds.

3:20:44The second item before you is to approve an amendment with,

3:20:49RS&M, Rogers, Springer, and McClellan, the designers of this project.

3:20:54The amendment to their contract would be to extend it through this fiscal year, and to, increase their not-to-exceed amount by $34,500.

3:21:06Which, includes, one, a change order.

3:21:11The… a change order related to the original scope of Phase 2, which was they identified an additional area outside the swim center, the walkway that kind of goes from the swim center entrance to the

3:21:25Portola Drive, that needs to… that needs to be evaluated, and designed to ADA standards, so that's what that $11,000 purchase order, change order is related to. The $18,000,

3:21:39Change order is related to further phasing this project, so they have to do

3:21:43you know, now a third set of construction documents, a third set of, you know, permit review and everything like that. That cost is a little over… is almost $19,000, and then a contingency of almost $5,000 related to both those items.

3:21:59And, just as you approved in the last item.

3:22:04We have a rollover of their design budget.

3:22:08Of $43,000, which is related to… when they were first hired, they were hired to do the full scope.

3:22:15But when we started phasing the project, they focused on the funded phases, and we told them, you know, to wait on the unfunded until the end, and so that's what this

3:22:26represents. They were contracted to design the full scope of the project, and this purchase order

3:22:34rollover, allows them to do that. So…

3:22:39you would be approving about $35,000 in a contract amendment, but the total not to exceed amount for this fiscal year for RS&M would be, almost $77,000.

3:22:53What's the bottom line? The bottom line is that, we accept a grant and add $200,000, in revenue and expense to this year's

3:23:04budget?

3:23:05We use unused funds that were previously authorized for this project of $50,000 from the CIP fund balance.

3:23:13As the city's match.

3:23:15And we spend no more than 70… a little less than $77,000, with the designer this year.

3:23:22And, net new city funds needed, is $0.

3:23:27And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

3:23:31Any question?

3:23:34Any questions?

3:23:36Yes. I have a question, but I have a feeling that it's more of a Claire Coleman question. So, in the purchase order rollover that we just approved.

3:23:47It's $180,000, that's, 400 that's rolling over, but only $76,792.40 is for the architect's agreement? Is that…

3:24:01Yeah, there's also… there's also money rolling over to pay the marking lot contractor for work that the… for closeout, because the project has been on hold until some

3:24:13handrails and guardrails were fabricated, and they should be actually installed next week, and then we could start closeout and final payments with that. So it's a combination of both. But so that's… it's all inclusive in that?

3:24:25rollover that we did, just to make sure. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

3:24:30Let's go to public comment.

3:24:33Just briefly, for those that are online, now would be the time to raise your hand if you wish to provide public comments on this item.

3:24:43And I am not seeing any requests, Mayor, side of my… here in the audience.

3:24:49Okay.

3:24:52We'll bring it back. Any last comments?

3:24:56Would anyone like to make a motion? I'll move. I'll second.

3:25:01Okay, we have a motion by Motion and a second by Costanos. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

3:25:09Motion carries.

3:25:10Thank you.

3:25:11I hope we get the slide back eventually.

3:25:15We're working… we're chipping away at that amount. Next, we'll go to E, which is the League of California Cities 2026 Annual Conference Resolutions.

3:25:26Thank you, Mayor. This… just briefly, this item is to allow the City Council to discuss the proposed resolution packet that member cities will be voting… will be asked to vote on at the upcoming annual conference for the League of California Cities, and provide direction to the City's voting delegate on how to vote on behalf of the City.

3:25:45Councilmember Weisinger is the 2026 designated voting delegate, and the alternate is Councilmember Katsanis, who is no longer going to be attending. So the Council may also choose to assign a different alternate… alternate to vote on behalf of the City, and the full resolution packet is in the Council packet this evening.

3:26:02Okay.

3:26:03Who would like to volunteer?

3:26:06Okay.

3:26:08Okay, Juan, let's have the Mayor Pro Tem,

3:26:10Can you beat back up? Is that okay?

3:26:19Okay. We'll have the Mayor Pro Tem be,

3:26:21the alternate. Noted, I'll pass that along to Cal Cities.

3:26:26Okay. Is there anything else we need to do in that one? You do need to give direction to voting delegate on whether to vote in favor or against the post.

3:26:37There… there is… Yeah.

3:26:42I don't want to… you're about to say something, so go ahead, I'd like to be next in line. There will… City Manager, you…

3:26:51read the resolution. That will be on there. Why don't you explain to

3:26:59I can give it a shot. I believe that, in the packet, and again, this is,

3:27:05This is… is completely a,

3:27:09Sorry about that, too close.

3:27:12This is a resolution that has been put forward for the consideration of the membership by

3:27:18certain member cities that have signed on to the packet. The CAL Cities staff did, I think, a pretty detailed analysis of the report.

3:27:26Generally speaking, it looks like a resolution… it's a resolution to call for a working group to consider a state constitutional amendment or other form of initiative to ensure final local authority over housing and land use decisions.

3:27:41City of Marietta, I believe, has took the lead on this. It was signed on by several other cities, as is required for these types of resolutions.

3:27:50at this… certainly this is a discussion for the Council if they choose to support it or not. I think that the staff did a very good job as far as looking at what the impacts could be.

3:28:03I think a consideration for this council, or for any of the cities, should be, the, financial impact that this could possibly have on Cal City's,

3:28:13as I'm also a board member on the CalCities Board, and so that is certainly one of the things, when I was reviewing this, that I was, I would be concerned about. Just like in our own budgets, you know, there's always, you know, any action requires a reaction, and that reaction would clearly be a fiscal impact to Cal Cities, so I think that that is worth considering, in this discussion.

3:28:38I think we should vote no on this. Even putting the actual policy aside, which I don't happen to agree with the policy, but even if I did, I think the staff did a really good job

3:28:50in a…

3:28:51very, level-headed way of explaining why this is next to impossible. They didn't say that, but if you read it, I mean, I'll just read this… this sentence. A constitutional revision is a multi-step process blending legislative consensus

3:29:07voter support, and on occasion, a constitutional convention. There is no way to get the legislature to agree on something that would take away their authority. So it's kind of dead on arrival, and then there's the cost, but I don't even think you get to those big costs, because you can't even get the legislature to agree on it. This is why there's so rarely any constitutional amendments or even any real energy behind

3:29:32serious energy behind considering them. So, I just… I think if Cal Cities wants to pursue some of these things, they need to figure out a different way, and this is not the way to go, and staff has explained that without saying that.

3:29:47I think it's pretty clear.

3:29:50Yes.

3:29:53Yeah, I agree. I don't… we definitely should… I recommend a no vote on this, and in part because there is some history with this. The… this… a group of people did try to do this

3:30:06A few years ago, and it was, done in a way that didn't allow for prior discussion like this.

3:30:14And so… and that one failed already. The other thing is that,

3:30:20Like, this is… there's no need for an additional subcommittee, because this is something that the Housing and Community and Economic Development Policy Committee can discuss. I mean, that's the appropriate place for this discussion, and it has happened already, that discussion, to say.

3:30:38you know, there's no way that Cal Cities has $100 million to run a constitutional amendment campaign. So, on a number of fronts, I think this is really not, something that's gonna work. It's not something that needs to happen.

3:30:53has a venue for it to be discussed. The discussion is great. They can… housing… HCED can take this issue up again and talk about it forever, but I think there's no need to go through this resolution, and I definitely recommend no. Okay, thank you very much.

3:31:10Yes. I absolutely agree. I think I read it as an anti-housing initiative cloaked as local control, and it

3:31:19it reminded me of growing up in the South, and people talking about states' rights, and it had nothing to do with states' rights, and this has nothing to do with local control.

3:31:26So I absolutely oppose it.

3:31:30I would like to thank my colleagues for just affirming what I already felt about this measure, and it's similar to what Councilmember Cassanda said, the first thing that I heard when I'm thinking about people who want local… who want to take control from the state.

3:31:46to make sure that they have local control over housing is basically them saying they're upset about the state mandating them building more housing. Well, we are anti that here in El Cerrito, so that's…

3:31:58I mean, you know, I was thinking about some of the cities that are… that wrote this bill, and they're completely the opposite in their ideas about building housing. When we… you know, we have to… we talk about local control all the time at Cal Cities and National League of Cities, but we

3:32:13as cities such as El Cerrito have to sometimes put the brakes on that, and understand what some of the people who normally stand with us are using that, as Councilmember Cassanda said, as a tool to weaponize against people. So, in short, thank you.

3:32:28I will vote no. Okay, good. Do we have to vote on that, though? Yeah, but before that, do we have any public comment?

3:32:35Are there any requests by members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item? Now would be the time to raise your hand.

3:32:43I am seeing none, Mayor, and I don't think a formal vote is required, it was just to give direction to the voting delegate, which I believe you have all done. Well, as president of the League, I didn't want to influence anyone, so,

3:32:54Yeah, thank you for your, your decision on this. So, next we'll go to, City Council Local and Regional Liaison Assignments. Who would like to go first?

3:33:05Mayor Pro Tem.

3:33:06I attended the Contra Costa Mayor's Conference on the 3rd, along with, Councilmember Motayama.

3:33:15And then last week, I attended the first library task force meeting.

3:33:20Which I think was a really fantastic meeting. There's video of it for anybody who wants to watch it. Obviously we didn't… there wasn't a lot accomplished, because it was the first meeting, a lot of history provided, a lot of really good questions asked by the task force members. They're all very engaged, so I look forward to what comes out of that.

3:33:39And then on Wednesday evening, the 9th, I attended the, Human Relations Commission.

3:33:45Meeting.

3:33:47Everything?

3:33:48Yes.

3:33:49So, on August the 20th, I attended the ABAG Executive Committee, which we installed a new president and vice president, and we previewed the preparation for Plan Bay Area 2060, which will have new greenhouse gas emissions targets and revised

3:34:06California Air Board Guidelines, so the timing

3:34:09And the timing of the planning is aligned with the seventh cycle of the regional housing needs, allocation process. And then…

3:34:18As, Mayor Pro Tem said, I attended the Mayor's Conference on the 3rd of September, and we got a presentation about St. Mary's College that was very interesting.

3:34:29On September 4th, I attended the Richmond El Cerrito Fire Department's Joint Fire Academy gradu- graduation, and I would like to extend my further congratulations to Firefighters Zachary Hamilton and Collin Ellsworth.

3:34:46Academy sounded really grueling, and… Having a 50%

3:34:52rate of dropout is pretty amazing. So, that… the fact that they got through that

3:34:58process is pretty, pretty commendable. And on September 9th, I attended the ABAC Housing Committee, and we discussed potentials for changes to legislation to generate additional revenue for the Bay Area Housing Finance Agency to increase housing production in the nine-county Bay Area.

3:35:16Thank you for that. I… a couple of things I need to report out. I did… by the way, thank you for attending the Mayor's Conference for me. I was at, the Amazon headquarters in East Palo Alto.

3:35:30As president of the league, I spoke, before, a caucus event with the Women's Caucus.

3:35:38the LGBT and the API caucuses together, where we honored three individuals

3:35:46Trailblazers and their communities, that is, the honorable, Betty Duong, who is a county supervisor in Santa Clara County, an LGB activist from

3:36:01mainland China, who, immigrated here, and, and other LGBT…

3:36:09Individual who, will be running for,

3:36:15I believe, Board of Education in the Peninsula. So, good, following, a good crowd there. Great to run into and see, so many of our elected officials in the Peninsula and, Santa Clara County. So, I attended two air board meetings,

3:36:35I don't know if you read the papers lately, but the air district where I am a board member, we did find

3:36:43Valero.

3:36:44for $82 million. We're giving $40 million to the City of Benicia.

3:36:51$10 million of that will go to the public schools there. The schools will get

3:36:56heat pumps and air cleaners in their schools. The, $30 million of that will go to

3:37:04the city of Benicia, to, work on cleaner air in the area there.

3:37:13That is because 10 years of lies, fortunately, from Valero, and not telling the truth on, particulate matter that, in the last 10 years. So they were fine. They, decided to close their refinery, they're moving out.

3:37:31And a lot of jobs in Solano County are gone now.

3:37:37There were, over a thousand employees, and within the 1,000 employees, employees that, work in other companies that, support the refinery, the Jelly Belly factory is gone.

3:37:53And they're gonna make their jelly beans in Wisconsin instead, and the beer factory is gone, and also, they thought that they would land

3:38:04ship repairs in Vallejo, but they chose Portland, Oregon instead. So, that's not a done deal yet. And, our Congressman Garamende

3:38:14We'll continue to work on, making sure if we can get jobs back in Solano County. My main thing is to make sure this does not spread in Contra Costa County.

3:38:26We need to keep our refineries, and despite what the cardboard says, oil is going to be here for a long, long time. People still need to fly. So, you know, politics and ideology is getting in the way.

3:38:42from doing the right thing. 70% of our oil is being refined in Asia. If California was still in business in oil production and refining, we would have lower prices now.

3:38:55So this poor Band-Aid fix is a Band-Aid fix, and I'm hoping that the new governor that's coming in will have more of a balanced approach on everything.

3:39:06Californians are paying the highest prices on airfares within California, and you know, so I wanted to let

3:39:15residents in El Cerrito know what is in store. One more thing, we're dealing with appliance rules changes, and we will vote on that the day after Election Day. So,

3:39:28you know, I,

3:39:30I'm looking at this very closely because they gave us 2023 data where it says that 38% of Californians would never be able to afford this. In El Cerrito, where we have a

3:39:43older home… older homes here, many of our homes, are still using, the… the glass fuse still. So, for many homes here, it will be a very expensive

3:39:57fix.

3:39:58So I'm hoping that residents will look, will, attend and view my meetings online. We meet the first Wednesday of the month, and it's the Bay Area Air District. Go to that website and you'll, see

3:40:14I want to make sure if we do this, and we support this, that grants are available to residents, and especially communities of color and low income. This is not fair when

3:40:27You know, most Californians are hurting right now. I would say more than 50% of Californians will not be able to make this change. So, it's a bad time to do it, plus

3:40:39The federal government is not supporting any of the things we're doing here in California, so, stay tuned. So, that's my, report.

3:40:48The next meeting, will be on… October… Is that 9th?

3:40:56Thanks.

3:40:57October 6th, so we are adjourned. The time is 9.50. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Have a good night.