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Segment 1

All right.
Are we ready? Just making sure.
Good.
Okay.
All right.
Then I would like to call to order the Tuesday, March 11th, 2025 special meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
And I'd like to start with the roll, please.
Certainly.
Council member Kesarwani? Here.
Taplin? Present.
Bartlett? Is absent.
Tregub? Present.
O'Keefe? Present.
Blackabee? Here.
Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? Present by Zoom.
You might have to adjust the mic down for me.
It's so tall.
Hi, Madam Mayor and everyone here.
My name is Maria and I have a question first.
I came when I saw on the agenda it was about priorities for the city.
Is that correct? Or is it with regard to something in particular? Yes, but there are some details that might be helpful to know.
But go ahead.
The reason why I came is that, again, because I'm such an elder and I'm so disabled and because I happen to be a woman, I keep getting calls every day and I'm starting to cry from elder, disabled women not able to walk, hospitalized 12 times in the process of dying.
So I make it a point to very lovingly say that I am so deeply committed to this entire city.
Everyone here, there's no sides.
And I don't like to see people suffer so unnecessarily.
If I had a big enough home, I'd be taking people in.
I've been doing that my entire life.
And given that I've dealt with the people on the street directly, I know that it's not just a single item.
There's all sorts of components, which is why I'm on the Mental Health Commission.
We have a holistic capacity to deal with the reality of what people are physically, mentally, emotionally, traumatically, and then the stress of safety.
Please imagine what it would be like if you were out on the street in danger.
It's going to rain.
It's cold and you're hungry and you don't have a bathroom.
This, we can do better.
So I just constantly beseech the human beingness of all of us.
Thank you.
Thank you, Maria.
Any other comments here in person? Okay.
All right.
We have several speakers on Zoom.
The first of which is Haram James.
Haram, you should be able to speak.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I live in Palo Alto, went to school in Berkeley, have ties in both places.
Our city council is a group of committed Zionists.
They would not allow a public discussion on the topic of a ceasefire and certainly not a resolution that I hope this city will adopt to put on the agenda in the future.
I'm sorry, somebody else is also speaking, so that makes it difficult to hear.
This is supposed to be a comment on the item that's on our agenda, which is the RV process.
If you have a comment that's related to something else, you can bring it to the main city council meeting.
Okay.
I'll do that at six and I'll just stay on the line here.
So maybe I'll be at the first of the queue there, but let's have an open discussion on the genocide that's going on in Palestine and don't eviscerate our- The next speaker is Kelly Hammergan.
Kelly, you should be able to speak.
Okay.
Thank you.
I thought about coming in tonight to speak in person, but I didn't think what I had to say would make any difference with this council.
But I do want to express my disappointment on two measures that are being removed from consideration.
One is the Dark Skies Ordinance, and I don't think there's an understanding in this council of what a Dark Skies Ordinance is.
When this was presented to council, the presentation was quite disappointing.
But the first Dark Skies Ordinance from the city was in 1958 of Flagstaff, Arizona, and that was to allow citing of the universe.
But Dark Skies Ordinance now supports biodiversity.
And what seems to get lost is that in order to support biodiversity, we actually need dark skies because of the insects and animals that are active at night.
And all the bright light that we have in the cities disturbs the natural ecosystems and biodiversity.
It's also been found through research that birds, especially young birds on their first migration, are drawn to cities and land in cities where there's nothing for them to eat, to refresh, and makes the rest of their migrating journey.
And they will be attracted to the light in cities even when there are preserves nearby.
And so this is very disturbing that this is being lost.
And the other one that's being lost is pollinators and habitat.
When butterflies go away, will you ask what happened? I just don't think that any of you understand the importance of the urban setting.
Thank you.
Kelly, I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker is Cameron Wu.
Cameron, you should be able to unmute.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Council and the Mayor, for allowing me to speak.
My name is Cameron Wu.
I'm on the Civic Arts Commission and was recently voted to chair that commission.
I speak to you tonight as a Berkeley resident and concerned community member and also as a Civic Arts Commissioner in support of the items that the commission has approved to send to the Council in your referrals.
I'm writing to urge you to give a high ranking to the referrals we've made to the affordable housing for artists.
Numbers DMN0004184 for the affordable housing for artists in response to AB812 implementation and cultural districts statutory standardization.
Also, number 4101, which represents the development of artists affordable housing certificate program.
I think we all agree that the diversity of arts in the be found in Berkeley is a major contributor to our community and contributes greatly to the city culturally and economically.
But because of the high price of living in Berkeley, artists are being forced out.
This impacts a widespread and felt particularly by artists of color and culture bearers from Berkeley's diverse communities.
So what do we do? We can all work towards affordable housing for artists and these referrals just do just that.
So please consider ranking them much higher than you have shown in the attachments.
Without your support, the effort to provide affordable housing for low-income artists in Berkeley will languish and not make it to the finish line.
I'm sorry, but your time is up.
Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker is Kelly DeWolf.
Kelly, you should be able to speak.
Hi, thank you, Mayor and members of Council.
I'm here as a Berkeley worker and I work in affordable housing.
And I just wanted to urge Council to reconsider removal of the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act item.
Not only has COPA been strongly advocated for from the community, but it is crucial for preserving affordable housing stock that exists in the city of Berkeley and for preventing displacement of low-income residents.
It has demonstrated significant community support.
And so I just urge Council to please honor the hard work and advocacy of community members and prioritize this item.
Thank you.
All right.
Our next speaker is Kim Anno.
Kim, you should be able to speak.
Good evening, City Council.
Thank you so much for the hard work that you do, especially in the dark times that we have.
I'm speaking about artists' affordable housing and the critical need for this kind of housing in Berkeley.
It is still illegal to build artists' affordable units on the ground floor.
And I just want to read a quote by a developer, Amir Massey.
He says, quote, in particular, allowing ground floor live-work units to satisfy the affordable housing requirements for new developments creates opportunities to activate the ground floor of buildings that might otherwise sit vacant for years.
So what I'm saying is, artists' affordable housing doesn't just benefit the desperate artists, but it also benefits developers.
The time is now.
We need to act on this measure.
We need to move the artists' affordable housing effort up.
And we've been working on it for 10 years in the Civic Arts Commission, of which now I'm a citizen and not a commissioner.
But I just wanted to let you know that now is really critical that we preserve the arts and cultural people who are arts workers and artists in the City of Berkeley.
And I yield back my time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Our next speaker is Sophia Dewitt.
Sophia, you should be able to speak.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council.
Please pardon.
I've been fighting a cold.
I'm here to speak against the removal of the Copa Topa item.
And I just want to remind Council that on page E29 in Appendix E of the City's approved housing element, under the section that relates to affirmatively furthering fair housing, the City has listed Copa or Topa as a high-priority action to deal with displacement, particularly of vulnerable communities, communities of color, and others.
And so because it is listed in that way in the housing element, even though it's not a full program, it's not as easy or as simple as just removing the item or deciding you don't want to prioritize it for referral.
It's part of something in the document that you said to the State that you were going to work on.
So in addition to the community advocacy for that item, I hope you will also remember that it's a key part of the housing element.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments online? There are.
Our next speaker is Jasmine Sose.
Jasmine, you should be able to speak.
Thank you.
Can you hear me? Yes.
You're a little quiet, but we can hear you.
Is it a little louder now? Yes.
Good evening, Mayor Ishii and Council members.
My name is Jasmine Sose, and I'm the board president of the Bay Area Community Land Trust and the program manager of the Community Economic Justice Clinic at the East Bay Community Law Center.
I come before you today to urge you to keep the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act as a priority for the city in 2025 and to also maintain a strong focus on the Equity for Black Berkeley Initiative.
These policies are vital to ensuring that our residents are not left behind, and they work together to support our community in the fight against displacement.
TOPA gives tenants the opportunity to collectively purchase their homes and preserve affordable housing in the face of an extractive and volatile market.
With home values rising at unsustainable rates, that's 53 in the last eight years alone, TOPA offers a crucial mechanism to keep long-time residents in their homes.
These are not just policies.
They are lifelines for those who are most vulnerable to being priced out in our neighborhoods, and we must prioritize protecting those tenants, not removing those vital protections, especially in the climate of rising housing costs and increased gentrification.
I want to affirm my support for the Equity for Black Berkeley Initiative as well and say that we cannot afford to backtrack now.
These are policies that support our residents, protect our communities, and give our neighbors a fighting chance in the face of displacement.
We must bulk up on protections, not strip them away, and these policies work hand-in-hand to do just that.
Please keep TOPA and the Equity for Black Berkeley Initiative on the table and make them priorities for 2025.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Our next speaker is Avery Arbaugh.
Avery, you should be able to speak.
Hello.
Can everyone hear me? Yes.
Hi.
I apologize if there's any background noise.
I'm currently in transit to the meeting you're at right now.
My name's Avery.
I'm a board member of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, and the Berkeley Tenants Union, and the head of the Berkeley Tenant Organizing Task Force.
I'm here today to speak in favor of COPA slash TOPA and against its removal from the list of important pieces of legislation that we can devote our resources to, largely because it has a proven track record elsewhere of making housing more affordable and equitable for the residents of the cities with similar proposals implemented.
In Berkeley, I want to bring to your guys' attention two success stories of tenant ownership of housing.
The Ninth Street Cooperatives, which were founded by a tenants union who bought the property off of the landlord in 1978, and the Solano Avenue Cooperatives, which were able to more recently buy housing from their landlords.
I think now, especially with the success of Measure BB and the ability for tenants to organize in a more effective way than they have in decades, we need to be looking into the opportunities that these kinds of programs offer to tenants who want permanent affordability and community management of their housing.
I encourage you to support COPA slash TOPA and oppose its removal today, and I thank you very much, Mayor and Council Members, for your time.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
I just want to check how many more folks, because I also see that we have another person here.
That was our last speaker on Zoom.
Okay.
Yeah, you can come up to the podium.
Thank you.
Good evening, Berkeley Mayor and City Council.
My name is Vinita Gol.
I'm an independent writer.
My first response to removing COPA TOPA study referral from and by the City Council was that it was a harsh move, and then I found my reaction characterized in this New York Times op-ed from the weekend.
The answer to a politics of scarcity is a politics of abundance, a politics that asks what is it that people really need, and then organizes government to make sure there is enough of it.
The piece argues that sometimes the government has to get out of the way, and sometimes it has to take a central role, creating markets or organizing resources for risky technologies that do not yet exist.
In the ongoing chaos unfolding in D.C., the writer remarks that it is important to prove the superiority of our own political movement.
If liberals do not want Americans to turn to the false promise of strongmen, they need to offer the fruits of effective government.
I would add that an effective government in Berkeley should, for one, also question who the city they are building is ultimately serving, and I'm reminded yet again of the words of a friend.
Should our systems only favor people who have capital, whether they are part of the community or not? Please do not remove the COPA TOPA referral from the process tonight.
Thanks for your consideration.
Thank you for your comments.
Are there any other public comments? It appears as though that is our last speaker.
Okay, thank you very much.
Do we have a presentation from our city clerk? Yes, thank you, Mayor.
My name is Mark Newmanville.
I'm the city clerk for the City of Berkeley, and we just have a very short presentation on this item.
So this is part one of the reweighted range voting process that we use for prioritizing the referrals to the city manager from the city council, and today in the presentation, I'll just give a very brief overview of RRV.
Like I said, it stands for reweighted range voting.
Then the council will have a chance to review the items that were marked or sort of nominated for removal from the referral list, and then I'll describe the action that's requested from the council today.
So reweighted range voting, also known as RRV, is a system where each council member rates every referral on the list from zero to five, zero being the lowest level of support and five being the highest level of support, using our ServiceNow online portal.
There's no limit to the scores that a council member can give.
As far as repeat scores, you can get everything a five, everything a zero, any mix thereof.
After this meeting, when we've decided on which referrals are going to be removed from the list, then the raw scores will all be tallied in the algorithm, and there will be a top priority, the referral that received the highest score.
Then for the remaining referrals, after the first one is identified as number one, for the remaining referrals, the scores are reweighted based on how much influence each council member has used up in their voting to that point, and the process keeps repeating itself after the second priority is assigned, third priority is assigned, fourth, and all the way down the list.
So that's a very short description of how the process actually works.
The process from the legislative point of view, the council submits referrals to the agenda process, the council adopts the referral, the city manager has the authority to categorize the referral as long-term, short-term, or urgent.
We add the long-term referrals to the list for this RRV prioritization process.
The short-term referrals, those are started, work on those is started right away.
Then council has their annual process for scoring the long-term list using RRV, and then that gives the city manager a final ranked list of the council priorities for the referrals.
And then when staff completes a referral, it's reported back to the city council, either through an item on the city council agenda or perhaps through an op agenda memo, which are also posted on the website.
So in the agenda packet, attachment one shows the raw scores for each referral that was assigned by each of the council members and the mayor, where no rating is assigned, the default, the score defaults to zero.
In attachment two, those are the referrals that were nominated to be removed from the list, and then attachment three has some very brief summary data on the referrals that have been adopted and in various stages of the process to date.
From 2014 to 2024, there were 557 city council referrals to the city manager, 299 of those are long-term, 154 were short-term, and another 104 originated from commissions but were referred to the city manager.
In that time, city staff has completed 145 long-term referrals and 134 short-term referrals and 62 commission referrals.
So that leaves a number still pending of 76 long-term referrals, 15 short-term referrals, and 31 commission referrals.
So there's been a lot in and a lot out over the past 10 years, and it's reflected there in that summary data.
So the action for this meeting is to review the list of referrals marked for removal and to vote on which referrals the full council would actually like to remove from the list.
Then, to direct staff to run the RRV algorithm, and then that will enable me to present the final ranked list back to you on March 25th for adoption.
And that is the presentation.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have some questions but I want to open it up to the rest of council to see if anyone else has questions or comments.
Okay, yes, Council Member Lunaparra.
Thank you.
I have one question.
How was each referral that was marked for removal, how was it decided whether or not it was marked for removal? So when each council member and the mayor went into the ServiceNow portal, any council member or the mayor could check the box to nominate any referral to be on the list to be removed.
So that's how it got on the marked for removal list.
So if any one council member marked an item as for removal, that means that it automatically on the list for removal? Yes.
Okay, thank you.
A follow-up question to that, and then if that's okay, Council Member Tracob, since it's connected, if we don't want an item to be removed, we can have that conversation here.
Can you just tell us a little bit about what that process looks like, just to make sure we're all on the same page? Sure.
So it sort of depends on the council and how much unanimity there is in what should be removed.
It could be, you know, a motion could be to remove all of these except for A, B, and C, or something like that.
If there's certain referrals that have a lot of disagreement, you could have maybe an individual vote on each one of those as to whether or not to remove them.
I would not recommend doing individual motions and votes on all 20 of them.
Hopefully there's at least a group that the council agrees could be removed, so it might be easier to vote on some certain exceptions or outliers separately.
Thank you, that's helpful.
Council Member Tracob.
Yeah, thank you.
This may be a question to ask later in the process.
It is on a specific item, and I think this would be to the City Manager.
Is this the appropriate time, or should I wait? City Manager? Yeah, I'm open for questions, but we'll see what it is.
Maybe there's a better time for it, I don't know.
Yeah, why don't you go ahead and ask your question, and we'll have a better sense.
Yeah, this is on item 3807, Pollinators and Habitat, which was one of the 20 items flagged for removal.
I don't know if Jordan is on the line or available, but just wanted to see if staff could provide an update on the extent to which this item may have already been implemented through other mechanisms.
Yeah, I would need to talk to staff about to what extent this item might have been integrated into some work.
I know that some of the adopt-a-spot work has happened with pollinator gardens in different parts of the City.
I don't know.
Yeah.
The Planning Director might have some additional information about that.
Yeah, and that's not something that's been in Planning and Development's work plan.
No, it would be Parks.
Yeah.
I know there's been some previous work on like bee-friendly landscapes and things like that, but it may not be specifically related to this referral.
Thank you.
And something else I just want to make sure is clear to folks is that these are not all the items that the City is working on generally, that there are many, many more things that the City is working on.
These are just things that have not been started yet.
Is that correct? That's correct, yeah.
So the referral is on this list.
No work has been started on these specific referrals.
When City staff starts working on a referral, it gets converted to a project in service now, and that's on a separate list that is not subject to the prioritization process because we've already started working on it.
Great.
Thank you.
I just want to make sure that folks understand because this process generally can be confusing for some people.
So thank you.
Other comments or questions? I'm sorry, Council Member Humbert, I didn't see your hand there.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
I'm still kind of wrestling with how to do this in an elegant way without voting on each one individually, which I think would be very cumbersome and inelegant.
And I do sort of like the idea of someone bringing a motion to eliminate each of the items with certain exceptions.
And if that's the case, if that's the way we want to do it, I have a motion that could be subject to friendly amendments, but I have a motion that I could make in that regard.
I think that would be great, actually, Council Member Humbert, because it'll give us an opportunity to have something to work off of.
And then also, I see that we've got a couple of other comments as well.
And if I could just jump in for one quick second.
So the attachment 2, that's the referral is marked for removal, that in the agenda item, that is sorted by a meeting date from the most recent meeting date back to the farthest previous.
So that might be the easiest way to refer to an item by the title and then by the meeting date, that would probably be the easiest way to find it on the list.
Right, as opposed to reading out the whole number.
I think that's a good idea.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Council Member Humbert.
Pardon, I should have taken down my hand.
But what I can say is I have a list in front of me, but it doesn't have the meeting date.
So it would be hard for me to make a motion referencing.

Segment 2

The meeting day.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
In that case, perhaps maybe we should go through some of these other comments in case someone else has a motion they'd like to bring.
Is that all right? Council member Humbert? Sure.
Okay, let's move on to Council member Lunaparra then please.
Thank you.
I don't have.
A motion, but I wanted to talk about the public bank East Bay viability study, which is from April 11th, 2023.
This is something that the friends of the public bank have been working on and will not be possible to implement until we have a new presidential administration.
I don't know if there's any way that we could kind of put a pause on this items that it's not on any list, but it's not necessarily entirely removed until.
There's until it's even possible to get a public bank done.
So, so I think that my understanding the FDIC doesn't let us start a public bank right now.
Sorry.
Can you say that? Sorry? Yeah, the FDIC at the federal level won't let us start a public bank right now under the current presidential administration.
Okay, council member, if you have a comment, you can, you're, you're welcome to press your button.
I just want to make sure also, it's clear that if an item is on there and it's even if it's ranked as a 0, it'll still stay on the list.
Yes, so perhaps that addresses your concern.
Yes.
If it's, if it's removed, it's.
It's removed could always be reintroduced at a future date.
But if it's.
It stays on the list, it will come back on next year's list to be.
Scored and ranked.
Thank you.
That's helpful.
Does that answer your question too? Yeah, thank you.
Okay.
And council member, I've got a few comments on here and I do would love to us to have a motion on.
I may have a motion subject to amendments.
Although the dates part, I'm going to do a global search.
So bear with me or do this, whatever works.
I move that we keep and do not remove.
The following items item 4197 topa copa and.
Bear with me for 1 moment while I search for the date.
930 2024 is the date.
Item 4188.
This is the city density bonus.
Referral from the planning commission from.
2530 2017.
Amendments to be on C23, C2 to short term rentals.
Dated July 9th, 2024.
Berkeley green new deal, environmental justice and workforce.
Dated 12, 3, 2024.
The hard hats referral dated.
May 2nd, 2023.
Almost done Berkeley food utility and access resiliency measure dated June 27th, 2023.
And I think until we get a clear answer for as to whether.
That this referral has been completed, I think it would be prudent to also keep.
As not flagged for removal pollinators and habitat.
Dated 924, 2019 and then the motion would include removal of all other items, including 1 of my items from a commission.
So, if I get your motion correctly, so you are.
I would like to remove all the items except for the ones that you listed is that correct? Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
And.
Is there a 2nd, a 2nd from council member Bartlett? So, the next person who's on our list here is council member.
Oh, good.
It was saying 1 and then it was saying 32.
So, I'm glad I was actually in the queue.
Thank you.
Council member for making that motion.
It's good.
I'm a good person to follow you.
I want to just articulate my orientation towards this process, which is.
So, like, none of these referrals are bad or evil.
Like, there's not 1 of them that I think, like, oh, my God, we have to get rid of that.
It's terrible.
These are all things that passed counsel.
So.
I'm of the opinion that any 1 of these.
That are slated for removal that somebody wants to speak up for I'm fine with.
If that makes sense, like, I just I don't feel like I want to go against somebody who feels strongly if they want to keep it because they're all.
You know, some of them kind of annoy me or whatever, but I think, you know, these, this is these were passed in a democratic process.
And so I'm happy to support the motion, but that's 1 of their articulate.
That is 1 way of looking at it.
Like, somebody wants it.
Let's keep it.
It's fine.
Okay.
Thank you.
I see that.
I know that council member Humbert has his hand up.
I don't know when it came up because council member has also been waiting.
So, if we could take council member and then council member Bartlett and then council member Humbert, our little parliamentarian over here is not keeping track right now.
So it's up to me.
Go ahead.
Council member.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
Madam mayor.
And thank you, Mr.
city clerk for the presentation and thank you to my colleagues for taking the time to indulge this somewhat arcane ranking process.
And I, I actually, I just want to level set and say, the reason that we have to do this process is because the city clerk, as he noted, what was it over 500 referrals? I mean, to have that many work requests of our city staff is untenable and it's very concerning because it speaks to a lack of prioritization.
And so what we are trying to do here is to have key priorities so that our planning department, our public works department, some of our most impacted departments, you know, think about public works.
We had 2 people die on our streets recently, so I want to give these departments.
The clear direction they need to know what this council.
And hence, the city prioritizes, so I actually think it's important to remove as many of these items that were nominated for removal as possible.
I'm also looking at how many points.
These items got respectfully council member, I think some of the ones you're proposing to keep got very few points.
So, you know, I can't support that motion.
So I'm going to put forward a substitute motion.
To remove everything except 3 from the removal list and I don't have it by dates or numbers where we can pull those out.
So the 3 I proposed to keep are the.
The up zoning associated with hard hats.
The, the no right turn on red.
And the prioritizing pedestrians at intersections, you'll notice those are about housing, creating more homes in our downtown where they should be.
And protecting pedestrians and bicyclists on our streets, and I think those are 2 really high priorities and I just don't think it's practical or reasonable to keep some of these things here that are just honestly not going to happen.
So that's my motion.
2nd, thank you.
Okay.
Council member Bartlett.
Oh, thank you.
My, my, my, my question is regarding the.
The farm proposal, so this was the only item referred to tears in a row.
And it seems as if it should be removed since the only 1 on their plate and it addresses.
You got development and food resilience, a new vision for it, which we see happening more and more as tariffs.
The, the, the images called forth in the language of the item are coming true.
So, I think it shouldn't be too much of a lift.
To just execute some of the, the calls in the item.
Okay, council member Humber did you have your hand up earlier? I did madam mayor.
I was going to make the motion that council member.
I guess our 1, he just made that's why I seconded it smart minds think alike.
Okay.
It was that did you have any that was it? Okay.
That's it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Council member Taplin and then council member trick up.
I'm going to reserve myself a spot as well at the end of that.
Thank you.
I just have 1 process question.
So, for for an item that is a commissioner for all if an item on this list is currently unscheduled at a commission.
What would happen to that item were to be flagged for removal? Oh, well, I think we would, we would inform the commission.
That the council has has removed it from this.
From from this list for prioritization so.
Yeah, but that would not preclude 1 of us or several of us from reintroducing.
An item I would correct.
Yeah, anything that's removed from this list could be.
Reintroduced revised, you know, down the line.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Council member take up.
Yeah, thank you.
So, this is my 1st time doing this process, but kind of my standard for removing something is 1.
If it has been overcome by events to if the substance of the work has already been done 3, if it is not able to be implemented as written, which 1 of that commission item from 11 years ago, it has been probably ranks highly on all 3 of them, which is why I'm flagging my own item for removal from 11 years ago.
Um, I, um.
I appreciate council member point.
I too very much care about, uh.
Pedestrian safety and safe infrastructure.
Um, I just want to note that.
I think the, um, I appreciate this process because.
The, like, our prioritization will determine the rankings and if something is not a high priority, then it will just not get done on this year's work plan.
Um, I, I would be very open, however.
To amend my motion to include the 2 items that were not listed on my, uh.
In my motion, I don't have the item numbers or dates, but it was the no, right turn on the web and pedestrian on intersections.
If I understood correctly, and I would be very open to that.
Okay, I had reserved myself a spot, but I do want to hear from council member black.
We also again.
Sorry.
Our parliamentarian system is not working right now.
So.
Yeah, just try to give me a wave and I'll add you to our list.
I'll be fast.
Apologies to my colleagues.
I clearly went to a institution of higher learning with rampant grade inflation because you'll notice that.
A lot of my, I felt bad to rank anything as a 0.
so anyway, so I, but I generally support where customer is on this.
I think I think is a little bit better.
I think it also gives us more opportunity in the months ahead to establish the priorities and the referrals that we want based on what's currently where the issues that are currently facing the city and making sure that those get a priority.
So, again, I'm sympathetic to all the arguments and discussions here, but I do agree that I think, you know, leaner may be better.
I support the items that customer testimony added.
I also appreciated counselor Bartlett's argument on the farm item since I think that might be the only item on the list that's marked for deletion and similarly, if their queue is relatively small and not jammed up by a bunch of other items, including it back on the keep list, I'd be willing to support.
So again, I'll take that as a friendly amendment to my motion to accept.
I believe it is Berkeley food utility and access resilience measure.
It's the 2023 June.
27.
Yes.
Okay.
So I have 4 now for keeping right with that item.
And I think council member Bartlett, you had wanted that 1.
I'm just noting that I'm adding the farm.
Item to my, my 4 for keeping.
Thank you.
Okay.
That was my comment, but I appreciate the discussion and and thanks to colleagues.
And I second that friendly amendment.
Okay, so I.
Would like to just make a couple of comments.
1 is that.
1 of the reasons why I had ranked the hard hats for removal was because after I'd spoken with staff, they had said that this was kind of made moot by the state level legislation.
And so that's why I had.
Had marked that 1 for removal, not because it's not important, but just because it would be accomplished by the state level.
And then the other thing I was going to ask was for the Berkeley green new deal council member.
Sorry, councilman Chaplin, if you wouldn't mind just speaking briefly, if there was anything you felt that that needed to stay.
I think that's a great point.
I think that's a great point.
I think that's a great point.
I think that's a great point.
And oh, and also that I do really feel that we should keep Topa and Copa on here as well.
So, go ahead.
Councilor, I know there's a lot of people out there, but if you could just keep it down just a little bit, because if you want to speak outside, that's totally fine.
I would not have a problem.
Making that recommendation to the EC to return recommendations to staff for to develop a workforce of all to oppose a workforce development board as part of the adoption of our environmental justice elements because that is ultimately a referral that would terminate in an action relative to the adoption of the elements.
I would not have a problem.
I would not have a problem.
I would not have a problem.
I would not have a problem with my adoption of the element via supplemental once it comes back to council.
Okay.
So you're okay with the items removal.
I just wanted to come.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
So, you know, I'm wondering if council member would be open to a friendly amendment of including Topa Copa on there and then that would make 5 items to be removed from the removal list.
Okay, are there any other comments? Do you want to do you want to speak more to any reasoning behind that? Yes, I can speak to that.
You know, this has been a policy that has been under consideration for maybe 7 or 80 years and the council has opportunity has had opportunity to consider it and has not taken it the last time the council considered this.
So, I, I don't see why we would change it.
I think the council did not consider it.
They chickened out and just did a referral.
That's why it's back on here.
I think we need to just be clear with the community that the support is not there for this idea.
So that's why I can't accept the Topa proposal.
Thank you Council member.
I would like to ask about the, um, the, um, the Kopa, or I guess now the Kopa item ranked quite highly on the list.
Um, and so that's another reason I agree with the mayor about, um, retaining that.
Uh, and I would be willing to withdraw my motion to make a new substitute motion that includes, um.
Um, all of them are included.
Sure.
So if I can, um, what I heard, and I'm so sorry, we don't have all of these items listed clearly, but it's the, um, hard hats, the no right turn on red.
Um, pedestrians at intersections food item, and then Topa Kopa.
Yeah, I would be that that will be my new motion.
If there's a 2nd, oh, and then clean your deal.
Oh, even if you look out to me, unless council member Kaplan feels that it should not be on the list.
I think what council member Toplin had said earlier was that he was fine with reintroducing it later.
Okay.
And so, um, that's fine.
That just those 5 items then.
Okay, is there a 2nd or 2nd, we, we have a main motion and a substitute.
Sorry.
Say again.
We have a main motion and a substitute motion pending.
He had also removed my main, he withdrew his initial.
Motion and substitutes well.
If he withdraws the main motion, then the substitute motion that doesn't automatically become the main motion.
It's just.
His new item is, his new motion is new motion.
Sorry.
His new motion is now.
The motion, the main motion again.
Okay.
Could you repeat your I'm sorry.
Sorry.
So the question is, I think, can you repeat what your new motion would be? And if you'd like help with that, I'm happy to help with that as well.
Yes.
Let me see if I have it.
Madam mayor, no, I turn on the land pedestrian on intersections.
Hard hats and.
And the farm, the farm bill, the farm item.
So, okay, and council member Luna para.
Thank you.
I want to do 1 friendly amendment.
For the telegraph density bonus referral, it's from meeting from the 2017.
May 30th meeting, it's a city density bonus for the telegraph Avenue commercial district to generate in lieu fees that could be used to build housing for homeless and extremely low income residents and also provide a density bonus for new housing.
And this is something that in our conversations with staff, they were excited to work on.
So, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Do you accept that from? Yes, I accept.
All second.
Okay, so council you accept that.
I'm sorry.
Yes, yeah, I think we don't need a sorry for that.
I'm sorry about that.
So, you know, obviously, I have strong opinions about this, but I didn't realize your new offer that is.
That has greatly reduced the number that you're keeping, even though it has and madam mayor I know I rejected it from you, but I don't think it's worth fighting over this.
We're very close.
And so I'd like to withdraw my substitute motion.
Okay.
So then the motion on the table, it only is removing the hard hats, no right turn on red pedestrians at intersections, food item, Copa, Topa, and density bonus removing from the removal list.
Is that correct? Is everyone clear on that? That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 items for re, inclusion.
Thank you.
So taking them off that removal list.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
How are we feeling? Okay, so we.
Sorry, do you want to say something else? Remember? I just want to just say for everyone that just because these items are being removed from the list of items slide for removal does not mean that they will.
They will be removed from the list of items.
So I think that's a really good point.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think that that's a really good point.
And yeah, just generally anything on this list.
I think folks need to have realistic expectations that we only can accomplish what we have the funding and the people and the resources for so I think that that's a really good point and I really just want to thank everyone for your willingness to be flexible here I know it's kind of a chunky process and I'm really grateful for everyone's input here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mark, if you could just clarify.
So so we kept we're keeping these 6 or so.
So you'll just look at how they scored and put them into the ranking that you're going to do tomorrow.
Is that how it will work? Yes, I mean, they all nothing has nothing has been removed yet.
Yeah, in in in the service now portal.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the total number of items that are on the list.
So if you look at the total number of items out of the 14 that are being removed.
Those those are off the list and do not factor in to the final ranked list.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
So I think that's also important as well in terms of things we might be keeping that we didn't necessarily rank highly that will show up and you do tomorrow.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
So, is there a motion to approve.
Just to confirm so this is approving the removal of the referrals as amended and also directing the city manager to run the ranking algorithm.
Yes, I do think we should put them all together.
Yes, I will incorporate that into the motion.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right.
So, on the motion council member.
Are there any other members I'm seeing no more twice.
Yes.
Great.
Excellent.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Martini she.
Yes.
Well, thank you all so much.
Yeah, I think that's worth it.
All right.
Thank you.
All I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Is there a motion? Wait.
No, we need to keep it open because no, we do need a motion to adjourn.
Thank you so much.
Okay, if there's no office, then we are going to call the.
Oh, that's right.
We have council member online.
Thank you.
So sorry.
Please take the role and we will be taking a 20 minute break.
Okay.
Okay, to adjourn council member cancer one.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.