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Segment 1

Okay, good afternoon.
We're going to start this afternoon's special meeting of the Berkeley City Council and we're expected to be joined by council members Bartlett and case of wanting shortly.
Select a call to order this special meeting of the Berkeley City Council for Tuesday, July 30th, 2024 at 3 PM and ask the clerk to call the roll.
That's member Ronnie's absent council member tap 1 present.
Bartlett is absent.
Trigger present.
On when graph.
Present number present and Mary present.
Okay.
Okay, warm of the city council is present and so I'd like to ask colleagues that we reorder the agenda slightly.
City manager has asked that we go 1st to item 5.
this is a brief presentation of the community survey results and direction on a potential November 2024 arts and culture ballot measure as we have the.
The poll consultant who's going to be presenting on that item and after the conclusion of the presentation, we'll provide any direction.
Then we'll go to item 1, the initiative petition, creating a parcel tax for the purpose of funding repairs and improvements to street sidewalks, investing past the fix the streets and sidewalks measure.
Then we'll go to item to the safe streets measure.
Then I'd like to suggest we go to item 8, which is the alternative ballot measure from council member.
By large buildings, fossil fuel emissions tax ballot initiative.
Then we go to item 3, the initiative ordinance to adopt a special tax on national gas consumption and buildings 15,000 square feet or larger and then we'll.
Proceed with the balance of the agenda, but asking that we go to item 5 1st, and then we also move item 8 before item 3 as that's obviously tangential to our discussion about the initiative measure on the fossil fuels tax.
So, hearing objection, we'll reorder the agenda as such.
So, when I've got an item, 5 community survey results and direction on a potential November 2024 arts and culture ballot measure, I'll turn it over to the city manager.
Thank you so much.
Mr.
Mayor council and members of the public.
We have a brief presentation and Cardwell will start us off on that presentation and it is on the screen and she will be joined by late partners research.
Who conducted the survey for the city of Berkeley and go right ahead.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Mayor and council and.
I will be trying to flip through the slides here.
They're speaking on me.
Sorry.
Let me stop share real quick and try again.
And I'll just stay in this mode for now to make sure we can click through here without a problem here.
And so, just to introduce real quickly on June 14th, the council gave direction to proceed with the community survey regarding a potential.
Arts and culture about major and so this evening we have David Merman here who is going to walk you through the results of that survey.
And then afterwards, we'll be seeking some direction from the council on next steps.
And so with that, I'll pass it over to David.
Great, thank you.
Make sure you can all hear me.
We're talking here about the most recent community survey was conducted the last week of June.
And, as, you know, we did an earlier survey.
A month previous, where we look at various other revenue measures that could potentially appear on the ballot.
This was a specific survey focused on the question of different possible measures that could fund.
Arts in and supporting the arts organizations in the city.
Through various different types of revenue measures, and this is a, as we have done traditionally and consistently in the city of 500 likely voters from the voter file in the city of Berkeley representative demographically.
And so we're looking at the percentage of voters who are likely to turn out and vote in November of 2024 and otherwise of that electorate.
Those who are likely to turn out and vote in November of 2024 and the margin of error on these numbers plus or minus 4.4% for the totals.
So, potentially we did want to look just briefly of what some of the priorities were voters and we've changed the options of this question a few times this this time we asked specifically.
The city of Berkeley, which 1 or 2 would be the highest priority for you personally.
So people could pick up to 2 of these, so you see the numbers adding up to more than 100% for that reason.
And their choices were investments in affordable housing, rehousing and services for homelessness.
Deteriorating streets and sidewalks, trees and park maintenance, electrification of gas powered buildings.
Expanding programming at libraries and sustaining saving sustaining arts and culture with no other information, just those listed items, which were their top 2 priorities.
This is consistent with a similar questions we've asked before that those were affordable housing and homelessness as number 1 and 2 closely together as the top 2 priorities and then close behind those repairing streets and sidewalks.
Those are the 3 quite clear top priorities across the city and then well, below those, the remaining items maintenance, electrification, library programming and arts and culture.
And you see, those are not again doesn't mean they're not important, but just when people are asked to name 1 or 2 things, they most want to focus investment and it's housing homelessness and streets.
From there, we then tested a number of different elements of the potential, but different ways that the revenue could be.
Generated to support these arts and culture organizations.
So the 1st, when we tested is a parcel tax, and we did 2 versions of it called surge and no surge.
Just this was designed as either a consistent no surge is consistent 4 cents per square foot of improvements, generating 3.4Million dollars annually.
And it was described as funding, performing arts organizations, including downtown theaters and music, dance and theater organizations.
Should we adopt this parcel tax 4 cents per square foot? No surge consistent that number the surge version had an additional.
It was up to 6 cents per square foot for the 1st, 3 years, then going back to 4 cents per square foot after that.
So, more revenue in the short term, 5Million dollars annually, then then flattening out to 3.4Million with the 4 cents per square foot.
So we split sample that people heard it 2 different ways.
And the answer was that slightly less than a majority of voters said, I would vote.
Yes, on such a measure to increase the parcel attack was a little bit higher on the.
Yes, if it was a flat increase of 4 cents.
With no surge, that was 46% of the voters saying I would vote early.
Yes, on that measure 39% saying I would vote early.
No, and 14% undecided.
We have the surge where we go up and then back down again.
We're just to a lower increase after that that.
That version got a higher undecided.
You see that 24% of the voters who heard that were undecided.
They were perhaps a little more confused by it.
Because it had multiple levels, but the margin is fairly similar.
It was a little bit higher margin 43 to 33.
But actually a little bit lower.
Yes, because you have a higher undecided.
So the total yes vote on the search version was 43%.
And again, the total yes vote for a no search version was 46%.
Assuming this is a general attacks that require that is directed that requires a 2 thirds majority.
That's well, well, short of that 2 thirds threshold obviously.
So, from there, we then tested a transit occupancy tax and again, we did not explain what that is.
And I do think there's probably a lot of folks who don't know that that's essentially a hotel tax.
But this is the legal ballot language that would appear saying, you're calling it a transient occupancy tax, increasing that from 12% to 14%.
Generating an estimated 850,000 annually.
Um, et cetera to support programs to support the parts.
This tax also did not receive a majority.
Yes.
If you look at the next.
Slide here, it shows the vote 37% of likely voters said I would vote yes on that measure and equal 37% said I would vote early.
No.
And again, in this case, requiring only a 50% majority, it is nonetheless short of that and you do have 25% undecided.
So, theoretically, this version of the revenue measure, if the undecided voters split evenly, or a little bit better than evenly for the yes side, then this measure could in fact pass at an over 50% rate, but it would require the undecideds to break toward a yes vote.
And you do have a fairly large undecided there at 25%.
But that's how people are responding in the transit occupancy tax.
And then the 3rd, a version of a revenue measure that we tested was a sales tax and this is a shallow measure raising funds for general municipal purposes and visiting a 0.5% sales tax generating 920,000 dollars annually.
Supporting the arts panel of experts to recommend programs to support the arts.
Should that be adopted and this turned out to be the least popular of the 3 measures that we tested 29% said I would vote.
Yes.
On that half cent sales tax increase 47% said I would vote early.
No.
And 23% undecided in this case, that looks like a measure that would be very, very unlikely to pass, given that almost all the undecided veterans would have to decide to vote.
Yes.
In order for that to break through that 50% threshold.
So, those are 3 versions.
None of them obviously currently at the threshold they would need with the yes vote, but of the 3.
If the assuming that the parcel tax required a 2 thirds, that's pretty hard to reach that level.
And looks like it would fall short the transit occupancy tax is short of the 50% that it would need, but potentially could pass if you could if the undecided voters split evenly.
And then the sales tax looks fairly unpopular and more no votes than yes, which is not usually not an effective place for a tax measure to start.
We also tested informed ballots where we had arguments and we have done this, as, you know, whenever we've tested ballot measures, we wanted to see to simulate what would happen in the future.
We're trying to not predict the future, but model what could happen as voters here.
Information on both sides of these measures, and we tested a supporter and opponent statement and we've done this, of course, on other ballot measures that we've tested in previous surveys.
This 1, we argued in favor of an arts tax talking to giving people information now that they did not have.
When they were hearing the initial vote talking about Berkeley being at risk of losing its arts organizations, rescue funding is needed ongoing city support given the cost of sustaining performing arts nonprofits.
It's essential to rescue and sustain these institutions in downtown and every neighborhood find our commitment to arts and culture.
We have to support arts organizations when they need us most, or we could lose them.
And then the opposition statement, making arguments that are often made about revenue measures, saying the taxpayers are paying too much.
It's driving away residents and businesses.
The money has not been spent well for previous revenue measures and these specifically the arts organizations should be supported by their donors and audiences rather than all of us in Berkeley.
So, that was the negative messages attacking the measure saying, why should people heard these? Yes, and no arguments, and then we retested.
Each of the measures parcel tax, we see essentially stagnant.
Yes.
Vote the opposition vote when they heard that no message more of the undecided.
It's actually switched to a no vote.
Uh, than a yes vote, so you still are a few, you're still quite a bit short of the 2 3rd threshold, assuming that this parcel tax needs 2 3rds to pass for 47%.
Yes.
With a no search version.
That does still look a little stronger than the search version in terms of the yes vote.
The margin now is similar between the 2 and 4 points, but it is clearly still short of the 2 thirds and you would definitely need.
Uh, someone in this case, after those arguments, some of those no votes to move over in order to reach a 2 thirds.
Yes.
On that on that version of the measure.
We also tested the transit occupancy tax again.
You see.
A shifted, but in this case, a little bit of shift in both for both the guests and the now.
And remember, on the initial test of this 1, we said that you basically needed to win a little bit, you know, half or more of the undecideds and the undecideds are splitting still fairly evenly here.
It was tied now it's down 1 point, but it's still essentially tied.
As it was, and is still again, if there's undecided, it's continued to divide evenly.
You could see this reaching over 50% and passing for a transit occupancy tax.
It is certainly closer to the threshold than the other versions of the measures we tested here, but it's not there yet.
It's not over 50%.
So there would still be some effort needed on the yes side, presumably to deliver a message to to get this over the top.
That's where it where it tests after those arguments and then finally, the sales tax measure, which was quite unpopular initially remains unpopular after the.
Arguments are made, you do see some growth in both the yes and the no, but it's still well short of the 50% and that no vote now reaches 50, which means literally every undecided voter again with some margin 4% margin of error.
But.
A balance essentially, all the undecided voters would need to break toward a yes.
In this environment and again, a couple of caveats we are simulating equal arguments on both sides.
Yes or no, which is the tough.
Way to test these and make sure they're robust and can hold up under attack theoretically.
And in fact, in reality, in some previous election cycles, you have seen measures grow their guest vote beyond what we.
Measured initially, because there was more communication from the yes side and less on the no side.
It could happen here, but the problem is.
At least in the case of this tax, the sales tax, you've already got almost a majority.
Intending to vote now the other 2, you have more yes than no, but reaching the 2 3rd threshold is quite hard for the personal tax transit occupancy though.
It does look like it's at least plausible.
If, in fact, there was more communication on the yes side, you might expect that.
Yes, would continue to build votes there.
Potentially.
You got to win it over 50%, but it would be a close.
It doesn't look like it's a ceiling to victory.
So, that's that's our read on the data we have here.
And happy to take questions or get further analysis.
Thank you so much.
Mr.
Merman.
So, colleagues, I'm going to put a motion on the floor to dispose of this.
Unfortunately, the results of the survey showed that.
Any of these arts measures could not achieve 50, let alone 66.7% of the vote needed to pass.
And Councilor Han and Councilor Wengroth and I have been working with and Councilor Trager of a coalition of arts organizations in Berkeley on exploring a arts tax measure to help address the impending fiscal clip that many of these arts organizations face.
And also to increase our city's funding of the arts, including arts grants festivals, individual arts grants for artists.
And so the conclusion we've come to, given the results of the survey is that this year is not the year to move forward with this.
We are going to be working over the next 2 years to.
Work with stakeholders and put a measure together that may potentially go forward as an initiative and given that, I guess.
I don't know if we need do we need a motion if we're not going to provide direction to.
Pursue a measure.
Okay, so I move that.
The council does not pursue a arts tax measure this year.
Second.
Sadly, given the results of the survey, but with a commitment that will work over the next few years to bring something forward in 2026, because the need still exists.
Councilor Han.
Thank you just briefly, I want to thank city staff.
I want to thank the bolsters for turning this around very quickly.
I think we're all disappointed to see where things are at.
But I did want to acknowledge that our arts organizations are struggling that it is with a heavy heart, but this doesn't move forward this year because we do believe that there will be perhaps a few organizations that.
Become insolvent during this time, and I just would ask my colleagues in these interim years.
Well, the arts organizations are.
Organizing themselves and laying the groundwork for a successful measure in 26 that we remain open.
To the potential need to rescue some of these organizations on a 1 off basis as they come forward.
And we did 1 of some organizations that are really struggling right now, and I think we will be reaching out to them to see what we can do.
And I just, I think everyone, the mayor council member when graph and try good for their help in trying to move this forward and I'm prepared to vote.
Yes.
For the motion.
Thank you.
Council member Humbert yes, thank you.
Mr.
Mayor and I want to thank you and the other council members who've been working on this with you and also Mr.
Mermin for such an excellent polling effort.
I really want to see our venues and performance spaces and arts organizations survive and thrive.
I think it's really critical for Berkeley to have really vibrant performing arts district.
Um, if I thought a measure like this had a fighting chance.
I'd be inclined to put it on the ballot, but I don't think it does based on the community survey.
Um, it doesn't have been we've gone over the numbers.
It just doesn't look like any of these are are viable.
And my understanding is the performing arts folks aren't really interested in transient occupancy tax.
Which gets closest and I just don't think it makes sense to place it on the ballot and try.
For more general reasons, I'm putting too much before voters at 1 time.
Failing to show any restraint, it could cause a backlash that sinks other key ballot measures that we really want to see the voters have a have a good look at.
So, I hope we can find some creative funding sources.
Sounds like there's an effort going on and I really appreciate that and love that.
But for now, we need to hold off.
So, thank you very much.
Okay.
Councilor check him and then we'll take public comment and then let's vote on this because we got a long agenda.
Thank you so much.
I would be remiss if I didn't also extend my appreciation to the mayor and council member Han.
Thank you so much for bringing all of us together many early morning meetings and I echo council member as well.
So I echo everyone's commitment to work with arts organizations in the off years to see what we can do.
And with that, I will be reluctantly voting on this motion.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll take public comment just on item 5.
Community server results and direction on potential November 2024 arts culture ballot measure.
We'll take in person speakers 1st, then if you're on zoom, we'll take your comments thereafter.
I'm not sure that everybody knows what the transit.
A transient occupancy tax is.
So, perhaps it could have passed with a transient occupancy tax, but if this is not to move forward, can we look for some other ways administratively outside the ballot to.
Uh, assist these organizations, for example, I have spoken before about the actors ensemble company.
They received 6400 dollars and a grant a year from the city, but their fees for John Hinkle park.
Tripled so that they have to pay 8000 dollars for just those 2 productions in addition to all their other costs to the city.
And it seems like we can explore things like, in this case, a waiver of those fees for them to support them as all their costs are increasing.
Thank you and and the same for other companies look deeper at their budget where we can assist them in some way administratively.
Thank you.
Mr.
Yeah, very quickly understand your decision.
I want to urge you and the audience and listeners, please please go see a show here a concert.
Let's all be patrons.
We have a wonderful arts district.
Look at our website.
Look at, you know, visit Berkeley.
We have all these shows going on regularly.
Also, we had the front row festival on August 24th front row music and arts festival, the 3rd annual August 24th.
Thank you.
Mr.
Mayor Igor.
We'll see you all there.
Hope to see the rest of you.
It should be a wonderful celebration of the arts in downtown Berkeley.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any other in person speakers about will take public comment on zoom.
If you wish to speak on item 5, please raise your virtual hand.
Former counselor Davila followed by Jeffrey church.
Thank you.
So it's interesting because when I tried to put the ballot measure for the council member salaries increase.
Um, you know, y'all decided not to put it on that 1st year and it passed with quite a bit or a high percentage considering and now y'all have a good salary and you don't work that much.
And you prevent the public from speaking.
So, I think, like, you know, I'm 35 and I don't know the numbers, but I think I added up 57 and then if you need 61%, because there was 25% on decided and the 35 that was already committed and some of the ones that you could sway, it could pass.
But you also need to fund the black repertory group, because y'all been delinquent on giving them money and that needs to be addressed.
We're going to go to Jeffrey church and we are certainly letting everyone speak on every single item today.
So, Mr.
Church, please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon council members and our mayor.
My name is Jeffrey church and I am the president and CEO of visit Berkeley.
We are the destination marketing organization and we full heartedly support the city's mission to support our arts and cultural organizations as a marketing organization for the city.
It is our goal to help promote all of the cultural establishments within our city to make sure that both our visitors and locals alike are able to enjoy our shows.
We are advertising on the art trains right now to showcase our event calendar to direct people to be able to see a show and see what performing arts there are.
We also have our destination guide, which highlights the arts.
So, just please know that visit Berkeley is here at the city's disposal to support the arts as much as we can.
And we do hope that we can continue in marketing and helping raise revenue for the struggling businesses.
Thank you and continue on the great work.
Thank you so much.
See, no additional raise hands will call public comment on 5 want to thank Mr.
Merman and research partners and our staff for pulling this survey together on very short notice.
We provide a direction on June 14th, and they worked, I think, within a week to get it out in the field.
And once again, it's unfortunate the results have shown that we don't have the support needed to move this for this year, but we're committed to trying to continue to support our arts.
Organizations, and I second Mr caner, I think we can all support the arts by going and supporting the arts in our own capacity.
Over the next few years, while we're working on a permanent solution, so the motion is to provide direction to not place an arts measure on the ballot this year.
Is there any objection to all this being recorded? I, on the motion.
Objection that motion carries unanimously when I proceed to item 1 initiative petition ordinance, creating a parcel tax for the purpose of funding repairs and improvements to street sidewalks and pedestrian paths.
Friends, the fix the streets and sidewalks measure I move to places measure on the ballot.
And not designate members of the council to follow arguments.
The proponents can follow arguments or anyone if they so choose.
Move seconded by Bartlett.
Is there any comments from the council? If not, we'll take public comment on item.
1.
are there any in person speakers on a 1 on the fix the streets and sidewalks measure.
My name is Donna and I'm here today representing the fix the street down more.
Okay, my name is Donna tomorrow and I'm here today.
Oh, I should tell you I have somebody else seeking minutes to me.
Chris Hamilton.
Okay, can we start over? Thanks.
My name is Donna tomorrow.
You know that now and I'm here today representing the fix and streets.
The street fixed streets and sidewalks campaign.
We all, of course, expect that you will support safe streets and appoint someone to write a rebuttal to fix the streets and sidewalks for the voter pamphlet.
Everyone but council member home endorsed safe streets before signatures were even gathered.
And the measure had qualified for the ballot.
You had a safe streets, coauthor and campaigner, right? The official city letter requesting the section 9212 report evaluating the 2 measures safe streets hits up taxpayers for a lot more money.
And you will have control over how a very large portion of it will be spent.
What's not to like, from your standpoint, except of course, as you've just heard, we all know about taxpayer fatigue, just like we know about taxpayer disillusionment with city governance right now.
And we know that people want their streets and sidewalks fixed a whole lot more than they want a bunch of other stuff added to the roadways.
And most of all, we know that people don't actually understand why the roads haven't been kept up in the 1st place and why they have to tax themselves extra just to get a basic city service.
So, you could really do yourselves a favor and show the public you appreciate its willingness to chip in 1 more time that you are willing to show some restraint as council member Humbert just mentioned and that you aren't going to ask for more than you need to do.
The 1 thing, you know, they want, which is to have smooth pavement on the streets and trip free sidewalks.
You know, this because you hired a consultant to research it for you.
But what that would mean was, you do need to support fix the streets and sidewalks because after all, it does help dig us out of this terrible paving problem.
We're in by limiting itself to just fixing the streets and the sidewalks.
So, we encourage you not to oppose our measure and maybe even support it.
The fact that it costs taxpayers less might even leave a little room for the good hearted people who are willing to to be willing to support some other important ballot measures that you support.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other in person speakers and item 1? The fix the streets and sidewalks measure seeing now we'll go to zoom comments.
Please raise your virtual hand.
If you wish to speak on this item from a counselor Davila back to you.
Yeah, so, um, the streets were supposed to be.
You know, I don't understand why I mean, the 100,000.
Dollar infrastructure measure.
Didn't do that much.
Um, I'm curious as to.
How this will be spent will really be spent on streets and sidewalks.
The sidewalks are atrocious.
And I remember on council, they said the sidewalks would be all complete with.

Segment 2

been five years well that didn't happen I don't even remember there was some push in some areas but you know although in some areas of the as I call them the affluent areas of Berkeley the sidewalks are beautiful they're pink they're not even the normal concrete colors so interesting and I hope that this if it if you decide to put it on the ballot it actually does something and free Palestine much okay we'll go next to Bryce hello this is Bryce Nesbitt I am a member of the community who has also sat for quite some years on the Public Works Commission which dealt with the issue of paving one of my projects within the Public Works Commission was the first draft of what became the current city paving policy what I have observed through that process is that the city has for various reasons paved quite inefficiently and focused on the wrong metrics for long-term cost savings the city has been working to hit the city essentially has done most of the repairs too late resulting in an overall greater cost and getting further and further behind of the two ballot measures the one that is more structured to long-term fixing the streets is this one the simpler lower cost one and I hope that citizens will recognize that at the ballot box and I hope that council will come to understand that it is the better of the two measures for the city at this juncture thank you see no additional raised hands the motion is to adopt resolutions to mean the measure without alterations of other people at the November 5th 2024 election second seconded by Bartlett yes and the proponents or opponents whoever they are in the community can file respective arguments if they so choose so is there any objection to the motion from councillors present here no objection the motion carries unanimously of those present item 2 initiative petition ordinance to establish a parcel tax to fund repairs and improvements to streets sidewalks and pedestrian paths the safe streets measure I move to adopt the resolution submitting a measure without alteration to a vote of the people at the November 5th 2024 election and I'm not proposing that we designate authors the proponents or opponents can file the arguments if they so choose seconded by Taplin thank you okay public comment on this item are there any in-person speakers please line up on the side of the room so whichever measure passes and hopefully one passes because the streets are really awful downtown Berkeley it's impossible almost to struggle across those streets in time for someone who has to navigate them who has limited mobility issues in terms whichever one passes the staff analysis was interesting because the staff analysis said regardless of which measure passes if they pass if it passes this won't be sufficient money to repair our streets at the level that they need to be repaired so I'm deeply concerned that the curb management plan referral that was done by fights I refer to the council suggests that once we have money for the streets that we take that out of this money because we need this money to repair the streets and that has to be our top priority the streets are in horrible condition thank you thank you next speaker please hello everyone my name is Brandon young I'm here to support the safe streets measure and I would just like to add that a this we are coalition of residents that represent both opponents previously of measure L as well as street safety advocates who have come together and written a measure that includes robust oversight and community engagement and processes so thank you for voting to put this on the ballot thank you thank you very much hello I'm Rebecca I'm also here on behalf of the safe streets campaign the safe streets initiative is a big step forward in tackling Berkeley's deteriorated and dangerous streets we're honored to have your support today and pleasing this measure on the ballot we believe that Berkeley voters deserve smooth safe and welcoming streets and we look forward to working with you to make that reality in November thank you hello I'm I'm really excited by some of the measures that you are going to be voting on tonight especially this safe streets initiative is a thoughtful and fiscally responsible plan to tackle both our infrastructure deficit and the crisis of physical safety in our in our transportation system there is another measure as we've heard that does some of those same things given the existence of the state streets initiative I'm won't be supporting it the problem is that if safe streets fails I do want the other one to succeed so because of these competing initiatives I as a voter cannot express my actual interest in the voting booth we know of a solution to this problem it's rank-choice voting it's one of my favorite things about how we do things here and I think council would be wise to consider applying that solution to this problem you can develop procedures to declare in meetings like this one that two measures are substantially similar enough to be in competition and thus it should be subject to a ranked choice vote thank you hello my name is Adina Ishii and I'm a resident of district 3 I'm just here to say I also support the safe streets measure and to thank you all so much for your support of it as well I'm someone who's been hit by a car on my bicycle and I know that safe streets are important not just repaving the streets but making sure those safety pieces are there as well so thank you so much for your support thank you very much are there any other in-person speakers yes Tony Nestor good afternoon I'm not sure as a taxpayer why we have to have citizens initiatives to do what city government should be doing on a regular basis which is to maintain the roadways you should come out of the general fund it should be organized by the Public Works Department helpfully directed by the Public Works Commission and there shouldn't even be a citizens initiative to do this it should come home to the general fund every year and we should have a plan for doing it so you know I have my choice I'm not going to discuss it right now but the whole idea of having a citizen initiative to do something that is the basic chore of the city is perplexing I think we should really look at that and maybe cut other things that we fund thank you okay are there any other in-person speakers on item two not we'll go to speakers on zoom Ben Gerhardt Stein good afternoon council Ben Gerhardt Stein I'm here on behalf of walk bike Berkeley our organization is proud to be part of the Berkeley citizens for safe streets coalition this is really a grassroots campaign the support of hundreds of volunteers and I think I'm really proud of the work that's happened and it's going to move this campaign forward the safe streets measure takes the right approach to updating Berkeley's deteriorating and unsafe streets it is regrettable that we're in this position of being hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole when it comes to street maintenance but that's where we're at and this is a the best solution to move that to move to move our goals forward of having a safety and smooth streets as noted in the city auditor and the staff reports on the streets measures the safe streets parcel tax will provide the city with more funding than the competing measure to address decades of deferred street and sidewalk maintenance and it also adds critical pedestrian and bicycle safety features recommended and adopted city plans so thank you for your strong support for the safe streets measure and for taking action today to put it on the ballot we look forward to working with you to pass this measure so the city can deliver smooth safe and green streets that advance Berkeley's mobility safety equity and climate goals thank you very much former counselor Davila and then anyone else after her please raise your virtual hand yeah it's interesting that people get raises of 84,000 94,000 and etc and you don't have enough money and it should be coming out of the general funding you shouldn't have to it should be part of your regular maintenance of city streets and sidewalks and you shouldn't have to put a measure that's a very good point and I just wonder where the money goes and why it's been like this I mean there's a street in District 2 that hasn't been paved in decades literally and that's like why is that's so ridiculous and just walking on the sidewalks yesterday in District 3 it was just like wow so many trip hazards for seniors for anyone okay we'll go to former councilmember Gordon Watson all right thank you mayor and council for letting me make a comment I just want to address a couple things and say yes I think that it's true it'd be nice if there had been substantial investments for decades past and we weren't in the situation we are but the streets have deteriorated and when they've deteriorated they cost 10 to 15 times more to fix up than when you maintain them and what I think this is trying what's trying to happen now the various citizens group and I'm disclosed that I was involved in the safe streets ones is make a sizable capital investment now to bring the streets up to good condition and then maintain them and which you will do it's like you would put this influx of capital now you will decrease your maintenance costs in the future and you may then be able to maintain them out of the general fund hopefully you will that was the goal I think of the safe streets initiative and I think it gets pretty close to that so I would rather than pessimistic and say well we didn't put enough money in the past there's lots of reasons for that it's prop 13 there were other priorities you know most of the general fund goes to fire and in police there's not too many places to cut so you've got to make this initial sizable investment and I think the safe streets does a better job in terms of getting the the average payment cost there you know the AP average PCI up so thank you very much thank you very much are there any other speakers on zoom on item two okay we'll close public comment I think mr.
was enacted summarize very correctly I think the challenge that we face which we had decades of deferred maintenance and even though we have we passed measure M which was not enough to be able to keep up with the the level of deterioration of our of our infrastructure even though we have made a sizable investment measure t1 even though the City Council's invested more general fund revenue than we have in decades we passed a policy several years ago to add an additional 8 million so we can maintain a certain investment in street maintenance it's not enough and we're dealing with a problem that frankly is decades in the making and we need a significant infusion of resources to be able to get our streets to a baseline level and then make the ongoing investment through our general fund contributions to maintain the street so they don't deteriorate we also have an opportunity to make sure that we can implement complete streets measures to make our streets safer for people that walk and bike people of ages modes and abilities so I just want to acknowledge the work that we have been doing the past few years that we need more resources sadly the voters didn't approve measure L last election I appreciate the community coming forward both efforts to put forward a solution and I'll go to counselor Kaplan next thank you very much I agree with the semester and former councilmember Wozniak public safety and infrastructure of course city functions there certainly might top priorities and I look forward to working my colleagues to refocus our priorities of the body and reform our finances thank you okay the motion is to place the measure on the ballot so any objection from members of the council present to that motion here no objection that motion carries unanimously okay colleagues I want to do a little bit more reordering so I want to go to item for the initiative petition initiative ordinance requiring the adoption minimum indoor air quality standards and then I want to go to item 6 and then I want to go to the fossil fuel measure items and then I want to go to the REM board measure so I know we have a number of people here to speak on the library measure we have people here to speak on the set of tax measure I want to make sure we get to their comments more promptly so unless there's any objection we will reorder the agenda as such item for initiative petition initiative ordinance requiring the adoption of minimum indoor air quality standards and city-owned and city lease buildings I make a motion to one adopt a resolution submitting the measure without alteration to a vote of the people at the November 5th 2024 general municipal election with one slight change the ballot question and let me show that it's very slight it's just adding the word new before after setting an indoor air quality standards just to clarify that these are new standards that would be promulgated if the voters do approve this measure so my motion incorporates that one very slight text change the ballot question which I'll provide to the clerk and city attorney and I'd like to designate myself and any other council members who are interested to file arguments in opposition to this measure that's my motion second councilmember vice mayor Weingraf yeah thank you I volunteer to help you with that okay but I also I'm curious to know if it's possible for us to put on the ballot measure the minimum cost to the city of doing this since that was identified in the report that we received from staff madam city attorney it is possible to explore having that information and impartial analysis so can we include that in the in the motion that's the city attorney's analysis so it's up to her to develop that to reflect the the contents of the measure and impartial manner I think that will be a suggestion to the city city attorney for her consideration okay sounds good okay and I'll just say on this you know we all want to make sure that our city buildings are safe for the people at work in our buildings and then the residents who come and access city services and we have taken steps in recent years to implement measures to improve air quality in our city buildings and the state has taken steps to pass air quality standards that are applicable to all workplaces in California what this measure does is it would implement a very specific and very restrictive set of air quality standards that we don't even know how much they're gonna cost to implement so the 92 12 report which was provided to the council is in our packet for this meeting staff wasn't even able to ascertain how much it would cost to do this they said at a minimum it will cost two to four million dollars just to do the studies to understand what HVAC systems air quality air filtration systems would have to put in we have historic buildings that requires a significant work and so you know this will be put on the ballot to go to the voters for them to decide I personally oppose this measure because I believe that this would put in place stringent unreasonable and measures that we don't even know the cost of how much would implement we're facing a we faced a budget deficit this year if we have to commit 50 million dollars to implement this measure what is that going to come at the expense of police street paving all the other things that mean as a city so it's unfortunate that the proponents did not come in good faith with the council to work with us to try to find a solution now we're at a point where this has to just be put to the voters I hope the people of Berkeley will understand that while this sounds good the effect of this is signing up for something that we don't even know how much it's gonna cost or what's gonna be involved to implement and when we there may be less expensive less onerous ways to try to solve the problem that's why I I'm gonna be offering the ballot arguments against this councilmember Humbert yes thank you mr.
mayor and I join in in your comments in full I'm gonna support option B because as written this carries substantial costs as the mayor's outlined that could have negative impacts on other city services and infrastructure projects it should therefore be up to the voters to decide if the requirements of this measure are their priority I don't think would be responsible for us to adopt this wholesale right now without consulting the voters thanks okay councilmember checkup that's my hot rather sorry thank you I just wanted to say that I I am I share the deep concern for transmission of illnesses I think in the workplace and an air quality in general with our terrible smoke events that we've had the last few years so I think you know I don't want to be presumptuous but I'm gonna make the assumption that my colleagues care about this as well the challenge here is the way in which this is being brought to us as a city imposing a standard that is far beyond what the state and other agencies impose and and how we would retrofit every single building that we own and lease our libraries our City Hall literally might have to be shut down for several years in order to do the kind of retrofitting and work and ductwork and and we don't know so it's not a responsible way to go about solving a real and worthwhile question and I just want to say that I'm very open to meeting with anybody who in particular our staff or our unions that have concerns about air quality and any other safety and health issue in the workplace so I don't want this council's position to be misinterpreted by the public or by the proponents as a lack of interest in having safe workplaces for for everyone who works in the city of Berkeley and for people who come and visit our public buildings I think we're all committed to that it's just this is a potentially a very high price tag a very short timeline many unknowns and no effort to come and explore with us what the various ways are that we might be able to accomplish this so just wanted to say that I do share the goal I am very concerned about this particular means of achieving it thank you I second that I think we share our commitment to doing everything we can to make our workplaces safer for our employees and for the public and we're open to sitting down with our labor representatives we're open to hearing from our employees we're open to hearing from our residents about things that we can do to make make it safer to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases and we are doing things but we can't have our hands tied to be subject to an unenforceable unworkable expensive standard that is going to significantly impact our city budget for years to come and make it difficult for us to be able to fund essential services that's I think the challenge counselor Bartlett thank you and yeah I'd like to just let the that the authors known the people behind it if it doesn't work out of the ballot there there is a way for us to reapproach this topic and have the the issue you're looking for the clean air adoption inside the buildings as part of a wholesale upgrade of all city facilities that we can actually do it do a more creative financing way to accomplish it but it would need more more elements to achieve it okay unless there any further comments we can open a public comment on item for the initiative ordinance requiring the adoption of minimum air indoor air quality standards and city owned and leased buildings are there any in-person speakers seeing them we'll go to speakers on zoom healthy black families followed by former council member was the act on item 4 okay former council member was the act did you wish to speak on item 4 this is public comment on item 4 only if you would like to speak to another item please lower your virtual hand okay former counselor dabble on item 4 yeah so air quality is very important I know it took y'all a week to come up with the mass during the first smoke that we encountered years ago while I was on council and the air quality and building is very important for your employees you need to step up and care about humanity we know that you're lacking in humanity when it comes to Gaza and the ceasefire and the killing and murder people by Israel but you need to like take value in your employees who keep you functioning on the day-to-day and and and do what they ask get the air quality fixed now inside the buildings to make sure that they can survive and thrive for the city of Berkeley while they're working thank you free Palestine okay no additional speakers on item 4 the motion is to submit the measure to the voters and to designate myself and vice mayor Weingrath to write arguments in opposition Julia Kato do you wish to speak on item 4 before we vote okay can you hear me yes you can hear me okay I just I don't understand is why we don't have some method of regularly checking health issue healthy prerequisites why we don't regularly check things like air quality and public buildings and why it's gone on so long and now it may continue to go along indefinitely because apparently health is not affordable for the employees here in Berkeley at this time and that is a position that I find difficult to comprehend thank you go next to George Littman mr.
Littman you should not be able to speak yes hello can you hear me yes yeah I think it's unfortunate that the council is going to oppose this measure I just I don't understand is why we don't have some method your live stream is in the background let's walk please prerequisites why we don't just give me a minute please air quality and public buildings and why it's gone on so long and now it may continue to go along indefinitely because yet the Littman's line open for some reason okay I'm gonna reactivate his line and hope that that works mr.
Littman you should not be able to speak yes hi you hear me now we can yes thank you just briefly I think it's very unfortunate the council is going to oppose this measure I just want to clarify a couple things the Union this is it's the Union has not been absent on this workers and the Union representatives have been imploring the council and staff to take this on so it's it's not correct and it's not helpful to say oh come and see us and maybe we'll work something out this has been under discussion for years and really this is a bottom-line thing it should be it should have been the city management that's initiated this it has not been it's been it's been the workers and community people who use the city buildings the fire stations the neighborhood centers the senior centers City Hall and everything that's not leadership and to say now that well you didn't come and ask us is not accurate and not helpful and and and the standard that you're describing is way too high untested inappropriate these are the national standards that came out the ashtray standards that came out from from the Biden administration working with scientists so we'll be talking about this over the next several months but let's let's be clear let's be honest and let's do what's right for the the workers and the community thanks Kelly hammer grant is our next speaker two things it is disappointing that we can't that you don't see that we can do this to protect our buildings and the other thing is because of the problem with activating and on activating people speaking that was unfortunate for Julia Kato that she kept coming through twice and I think if you blocked her you bumped her off to the system and she won't be able to comment on anything so maybe you could staff could check on that that's it thank you I miss Kato still on so well if there are issues we'll troubleshoot them Jocelyn Goldsmith the Senate hi can you hear me yes thanks mr.
mayor I am just speaking on behalf of myself as a Berkeley citizen as and as a worker I'm not speaking for the city of Berkeley and I guess not in I guess not necessarily in my capacity as the new cope coordinator for my chapter SEIU 10 to 1 CSU PTR like but speaking as a worker I I really urge you all to to really sit with this and just really consider that a lot of workers and community members.

Segment 3

to put a lot of time and energy into this.
We're all breathing the same air.
Our staff, the community members that we serve who are elderly, pregnant, newborns, people with disabilities, and our workers are, some of our workers are people with disabilities, elderly, pregnant, and medically vulnerable.
COVID's still here, so I'm just asking you to please consider.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other speakers on item four? Ilana, I'll ask if there are any other speakers on item four, please raise your virtual hand at this time.
Ilana Auerbach is our last raised hand.
Hi, I'm just joining.
I can actually listen to a little bit of the comments here.
And first, I just wanna make a comment that this meeting at 3 p.m., many, many people could not make this meeting.
So it's not inclusive and it limits democracy.
This could have been at a 6 p.m.
evening time slot, so more members of our community who work during the day have other responsibilities could weigh in.
With regard to this, you all, there's been a lot of effort to be an employer of choice.
And so if we're not willing, if you all are not willing to center our employees and our workers in these buildings to ensure that they have high quality clean air and support this measure, that seems to contradict wanting to attract people to come and work for our city and being an employer of choice.
So I really wanna encourage you to support this measure.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't see any other speakers.
I really appreciate Jocelyn's comments.
We absolutely take the issue of air quality very, very seriously.
But the issue is, can we afford a measure with unknown financial implications, upwards of tens of millions of dollars when we're having to balance multi-million dollar budget deficits? We heard the need to pave streets.
We heard the need to fund a whole bunch of city services.
I think there's a way that we can accomplish these goals, but without this more restrictive approach.
I wanna express my commitment.
I'm sure the city administration's commitment to work, to try to explore additional ways that we can improve safety and air quality in our buildings.
And we can work on that, regardless of whether this measure passes or not.
And I think we all take that commitment to safety very seriously.
So seeing no additional comments, the motion is to put the measure on the ballot, to designate myself and Vice Mayor Weingraf to file arguments in opposition.
Please call the roll.
Council Member Kasterwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trigub? Aye.
Han? Yes.
Weingraf? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Arrogate? Yes.
Okay, that motion carries.
As I described, we're gonna go to item six.
And so item six consists of four separate items, which we'll vote on separately as separate actions.
So item six, A, is a ballot measure, tax measure to reauthorize the general tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverage products.
Item six, B, ballot measure, tax measure to fund the Berkeley Public Library operations and services.
Item six, C, a ballot measure increase in the parks, trees, and landscaping maintenance tax.
And item six, D, is a ballot measure amending chapter 7.52 of the BMC to increase and extend the general real property transfer tax.
So we're gonna open up for public comment on all of those items.
We're gonna give two minutes per speaker.
So do you wanna talk about the library? So you can talk now.
If you wanna talk about the parks tax, you can talk now.
If you wanna talk about the sugary beverage tax, you can talk now.
If you wanna talk about measure P, you can talk now.
So I know we have a lot of people here to speak about all those items.
So we'll open up for public comment.
I want to address the real property transfer tax, measure P.
Obviously, I'm in favor of measure P and we need this money for our homeless services.
I am concerned if by removing the sunset clause, this would lose some folks, that there are voters out there who, and actually the opponents, I'm concerned the opponents also might promote this as they never intend to lessen homelessness.
They never intend to end homelessness.
They want this tax to be permanent.
Now, obviously we know that homelessness is still gonna exist in 10 years, but I'm concerned about the voter's perception and I'm concerned again, how this can be promoted as something negative that this is going on the ballot to indefinitely have homelessness as is.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Good afternoon, Dr.
Lynn Silver from the Public Health Institute, Mayor Arreguin, council members.
A decade ago, we stood here and asked this body to put the soda tax on the ballot.
We went door to door.
We heard the late Reverend Peoples speak of his son who died so young at, I think, 29.
Our town inspired and eight US cities followed.
Today, there are over 120 such taxes globally, most stronger than ours.
The evaluation research is clear.
They work.
Our team at PHI studied over 15 million checkouts to evaluate Berkeley's tax and we found a 10% reduction in sales of sugary drinks.
Self-reported consumption went down 20%.
Berkeley food sector jobs and sales tax revenue one year after the tax grew faster than other sectors.
We studied San Francisco too and consumption went down 35% after two years.
By keeping its promises to use tax revenue to fund school gardens, nutrition, water, and health equity work, you helped make sure that our drivers of health and equity are corrected.
Please help us keep what is working and perhaps get rid of the sunset clause if we can.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mayor Adeguin and city council members.
My name is Daniela Gonzalez, health and engagement manager at the Multicultural Institute.
In the timeframe of six years, we will have offered education and outreach related to SSP consumption risk, prevention resources, and health support where we have also created community-wide changes in people's attitude and behavior towards SSPs.
Throughout our programming, hundreds of Latinx families have become more motivated to reduce the amount of sugary drinks they consume.
They have learned about prevention resources to reduce the risk of diabetes and other health conditions correlated with SSP consumption.
And they have gained access to healthier food and health services through our programs.
I kindly ask the city council votes yes to place this SSP tax reauthorization on the November 5th to the 2024 ballot.
Thank you for your consideration and time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, city council and Mayor Regan.
My name is Luzma Cervantes and I'm the executive director of the Multicultural Institute.
And I too am here to ask you to please vote yes on the SSP tax reauthorization on the November ballot.
Thanks to Measure D and SSP tax program support, we have received funding for our health and nutrition, education and outreach activities since 2018.
Each year since then, we have been able to provide SSP related health condition awareness and prevention resources to hundreds of Spanish speaking Latinx families in the city of Berkeley.
It has also allowed our health activities to create policy and long-term systemic changes in our community that otherwise would not be possible.
We have seen the impact and collective change is happening.
So we ask you to please contribute to our community's wellbeing and vote to put it on the ballot.
Thank you for your time and support.
Thank you so much.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Linda Schacht and I am here to talk about the library tax measure.
I've been working to support the public library in Berkeley for 20 years.
I've been the chair and the emcee of the author's dinner at the public library every year for 22 years.
And I'm here to ask you to please put this measure on the ballot because the people of Berkeley love their libraries and they would like very much to be able to have the chance to vote to give it more support.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the library system is one of the jewels of our community and to see that it's in difficulty economically is distressing.
I don't mean that only the buildings are beautiful but what goes on inside them is equally beautiful.
Currently the library is, as I said, facing an economic deficit that needs to be rectified.
What's at stake are cuts in staff, fewer librarians, fewer hours for people and children to come to the library, valuable community programs, and importantly, literacy programs that help hundreds of people in Berkeley every year learn to read and write.
The ballot measure isn't about expanding the libraries.
It's about saving our 130 year old library system and setting it up to thrive in the future.
We know that people in Berkeley love their libraries and have supported them over and over again.
I urge you to put the measure on the November ballot.
That's the first step.
Let the voters of Berkeley express their love for their library once again.
Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr.
Mayor and council members.
My name is Amy Roth.
I'm currently serving as president of the Board of Library Trustees.
Previous, I've served on both since 2017 and before that, I served many years on the Friends of the Library Board and was president of that as well.
I'm especially proud to be here as a BOLT member and president because BOLT has done really great work in the last few years since the beginning of COVID and before including strategic planning, financial oversight that has led to recommending this ballot measure.
Although the library is funded through an existing special tax and approximately 99% of the funding base, this income source has not been adjusted in any substantive, excuse me, substantive, I got it that time, substantive way since it was passed more than 40 years ago apart from the annual adjustment for inflation that occurs.
It's time to dedicate sufficient funds to the library so that there are no service interruptions.
There's strong support for a new tax of 6 cents per square foot of residential building space with exemptions for low-income homeowners, which raises $5.6 million a year.
The library conducted its own thorough survey of 872 voters in March and the approval rating of the potential ballot measure when worded in a way that captured the need was 78.3%.
My service on BOLT has helped me to appreciate the deep love that our community has for the library and what matters to them.
I also have learned that to love the library is not enough by itself.
We're charged with maintaining service levels, preserving heavily used buildings, keeping our collection relevant and deep.
We must do all this while remaining fiscally responsible.
The ballot initiative is not about adding services, hours and staff, but preserving them.
The board of library trustees, thanks you for considering this ballot measure.
Thank you.
I'll now turn it over to Christine Staples.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Christine Staples.
I'm the current board president of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation.
The foundation gives grants to support innovation and extras beyond the basic operations.
While foundation contributions have made significant difference for the past 27 years, these dollars will never be enough to stave off the impending deficit, which puts everyday library operations at risk.
I am also a proud resident of West Berkeley.
It's extraordinary to me to realize that despite my having lived here for over 30 years, that's still 10 fewer years than it's been since funding was last raised, in support of our public libraries, 40 plus years.
That's how long it has been since we last had a library funding measure that passed in Berkeley.
This is really important to do today.
40 years is way too long to wait for more funding.
I urge you to support placing this measure on the November ballot.
Our library and public libraries are at a crucial point in its history, and we cannot allow this vitally important institution to go neglected.
It's very important to note that this measure is not intended to increase services, as the city survey stated.
It is to preserve existing services.
As was shared earlier, our libraries are facing a significant shortfall with deep service cuts, if they don't receive additional funding quickly.
Our library foundation is fantastic, but we simply cannot fill this looming budget shortfall by ourselves.
The measure would fund 5.6 millions per year, and it's coming at just the right time.
This presidential election, with incredibly high turnout, where one of the presumptive national nominees grew up two blocks from here.
She very likely used the restroom here.
She very likely used the West Branch.
I would bet on it.
Supporters are already rallying around our libraries to support this measure's passage.
We've already seen a citizens campaign group form the community.
We're ready to take more action, but first we need you to pass this measure for the November ballot.
So I know you have a lot to think about, a whole lot to think about, but I do hope that this is a priority consideration to go on the November ballot, and thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
I'm Diane Davenport, and I'm here because I was a librarian at the Berkeley Public Library when the original tax measure was passed in 1980.
That measure was a grassroots effort.
It was designed, funded, and won mainly by those of us who worked at the library.
We locked precincts.
We designed our own publicity.
We hung our own campaign signs by driving a pickup truck around town with a step ladder in the back of it.
Now the library is facing a very serious budget shortfall.
We need this tax measure on the ballot to maintain the hours, the staff, the materials, and the programs of our library.
I'm 80 now, and I no longer climb up ladders on the back of pickup trucks, but I do work hard.
I will be there campaigning.
You put it on the ballot, we'll get it passed.
Thank you.
Hello, I'm Kathy Brown.
I'm the current president of the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library.
On behalf of our organization, I'd like to encourage you to place this measure on the ballot that will help preserve and maintain our services and our staff.
The Friends of the Foundation do not fund salaries or benefits.
That comes out of the library's budget.
We're happy to fund things like programming and capital improvements, but it's the staff that really delivers these to the public.
And to recruit, retain, and promote our staff, I'd like to see this measure on the ballot.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Tian Li, and I have been a resident of Berkeley on and off for a total of more than 40 years.
And in all of those years, Berkeley's public libraries have been a constant presence.
In the 70s, when I was in second grader at Malcolm X, I skipped to story time in what is now the Terea Hall Pittman Branch.
In the 80s, when I was a junior high school student at Willard, I scoured the encyclopedias at the Claremont Branch to do research for my report.
And in the aughts, at the North Branch, I would check out Jodi Picoult for me and Captor Underpants for my son.
And later, my son and his friends would hang out after classes, let out at King at the North Branch Teen Room.
And most recently, my husband uses Libby to check out his Jodi Picoult books, while I check out transcriptions of jazz drum solos and books on making beaded jewelry at the main library.
Beyond the physical branches themselves, I have seen the impact of library programming at parks throughout the city and at Freighton Salvage as a volunteer keyboardist for the Storytime Band.
It is such an honor to play with Juan, Donovan, and Mr.
Michael, all of whom, by the way, are on the staff at the library.
I can attest firsthand to the fact that the Storytime Band has a huge following and brings joy of reading and making music to hundreds of kids in Berkeley and beyond.
This measure is crucial to maintaining all those wonderful and amazing things that I know the library for.
And I also want you to know that I, as the owner of a home in Berkeley, and my parents, as the owner of a really, really big house in Berkeley, and our neighbors are ready to vote in favor of this measure and write the bigger check come tax time to make sure that this beloved Berkeley Institute has the funds that it needs to continue to be the incredible resource that it is now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Erin McMahon Lyman.
I live in North Berkeley.
I'm a library supporter.
My kids are library supporters.
I mainly want to reiterate that this is not an expansion.
This is not an expansion of the library.
This is not an expansion of the library.
This is not something that we're adding new.
This ballot measure is needed to save our libraries, to preserve them, and to be able to continue to serve our community.
I urge you to place this on the ballot this November.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'm just here to ask you to please vote yes to place on the ballot the sugar, sweet, and beverage distributor tax reauthorization.
Berkeley has been a model for the rest of the country in doing this the right way.
It's a shame that there was a sunset, but you guys were first.
You didn't know how successful they would be.
This funding is really, really critical and really helps other cities as they're developing them.
Really try to fight to do the right thing and make sure that the money is being used to address diabetes disparities.
And, yeah, keep up the good work.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Adina Ishi.
I'm here to ask you to support the continuation of the soda tax and also to support our public libraries.
I grew up in public libraries as my mother was a library aide, and I know how important our public libraries are to closing the achievement gap with extracurricular activities and also summer programming.
I'm also a former sugar, sweet, and beverage product panel of experts commissioner and an organizer on the Oakland versus Big Soda and SF versus Big Soda campaigns.
And as a commissioner of the mayor's appointee, I got a chance to learn about the important work the soda tax has funded in our community from our beloved Berkeley Unified School District cooking and gardening programs and also funding water access and sugar, sweet, and beverage education in Berkeley.
So the soda tax works, and I hope you all will continue to support it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Hello, and good afternoon.
My name is Robbie Montoya.
I'm executive director with Dorothy Day House, and I would like to speak on the measure P.
As you all know, we have five programs.
Each one of our programs help people with shelter, mental health, addiction, health care connections, permanent housing support, food, showers, laundry.
We serve approximately 210 people, and we are solely reliant on measure P, solely.
We do our own fundraising to the tune of $500,000, and if we do not have measure P, how do we choose? How do we choose what programs we have to close and who has to tell those people in each program that we can no longer serve them? I want to just have you imagine a world without Dorothy Day House in it.
Just imagine that.
And the other nonprofits that rely on measure P.
Imagine a world where people will not be able to get their food.
The only meal that they may have for that day in the tune of 650 meals a day.
If we don't have services, we cannot make those meals.
We really need the support.
Like I said, we fundraise our own in a large amount, and we just simply can't do it on that.
We try, and we make $500,000 because we want a different type of shelter.
We want a different type of service, an effective one.
We don't believe in one model.
We believe in using the successes of each model and creating our own model, for lack of a better term.
And it works.
Some things worked in 1980.
We should use that.
And I've been doing this for a long time.
Yes, I'm going to say it.
44 years I've been working in social services, and I've seen some great successes.
And that's what we try to do at Dorothy Day, but we can't do it without your support.
We simply will go away, and nobody wants to see that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Howdy, folks.
David Flores here, District 2 resident and Executive Director of Berkeley Community Media.
And I just want to speak in support of getting measure P on the ballot.
Sounds like it does a lot more than just support the Dorothy Day House, but specifically, I was calling to say how much it supports the Dorothy Day House.
I'm working on a documentary right now about how the city of Berkeley addresses homelessness, and one of the huge parts of that is the Dorothy Day House.
They do so much with so little, and having those funds go away would just be hugely detrimental, in my opinion.
So just please do consider putting it on the ballot in October 24th, and we'll have the debut of that documentary, and I would invite all of y'all to come and view it at the David Brower Center.
That's it for me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jay Koleckian.
This is very strange for me.
Over the last 40 years, I've spoken at over 1,500 meetings within the city of Berkeley.
This is the first time I've ever spoken on this side of the mic, so you always remember your first time, and hopefully it's for a good cause.
So that's why I'm coming out today to encourage Council, I hope unanimously, to place the extension and the increase to Measure P on the upcoming ballot.
Since I've retired, I've been spending about 40 hours a week or so working both with the Eviction Defense Center as well as Dorothy Day House, and I can personally attest to you that this money, the money that is raised through Measure P and the money spent with at least both those organizations, and I'm confident with the other recipients of Measure P, is spent wisely and efficiently for the vital services that are much needed and we want to provide.
The measure as proposed will add stability for the nonprofits by making the funding permanent.
Every year we go through the budget situation and we're trying to figure out how long will something last that knowing that the money will be permanent will allow us to make longer term commitments.
It also adds fairness, particularly to new homeowners trying to enter the housing market.
And finally, it'll add some much needed revenue.
The progressive tier methodology will add several million dollars, hopefully, to areas that from the first presentation this evening, our voters say, are their priority.
So with that, since the measure is smarter, fairer, adds stability and revenue, I encourage you to place it on the ballot.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other in-person speakers? Yes.
Hi, John Keen or DBA.
I just want to urge your support to put this on the ballot measure P.
The work that Robbie Montoya and her team do at Dorothy Day House, the People Inside Housing, the Peaceful Adoptions, Bonita House, all these programs that are funded are so critical and important to the city and the quality of life getting people into care and services.
And also you co-fund half an FTE for homeless outreach in downtown Berkeley, which we really appreciate.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Afternoon, council, Joe Lister, Woodnot Palms.
I've been going up to the shelter at Martin Luther King, formerly Provo Park, a lot these last few mornings looking for a friend of mine that I was hoping we could get into these new Black Panther projects that opened up down on Wood Street.
It's not easy to find people that are both in the system and have mental problems.
So I've been up there a lot and I've just been so impressed how people come in and get breakfast from all directions.
And they're good breakfasts.
And when I do see my friend, she's very happy to have the services, the shelter.
And this is a function of the Catholic worker and Dorothy Day and if you have any doubts about how humanitarian and significant it is, a friend of mine who is part of the Catholic worker has been interviewed by the Vatican.
Dorothy Day is in the process of being beatified.
So let's get on the same train.
Thank you.
Are there any other in-person speakers? Okay, if not, we'll go to speakers on Zoom.
Our first speaker is Claudia.
The chair of the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission.
Thank you for considering placing an increase in the parks tax on the November ballot.
This initiative comes, as you well know, from the PRW Commission that I am honored to chair.
The unanimous vote of...

Segment 4

on the commission shows that your appointees believe that the PRW department truly needs and will make good use of these funds.
This will enable them to obtain more state and federal grants that depend on the local matching grant funds.
Also, as Berkeley leads the nation in many green initiatives, these funds could also be used to create a dedicated urban forest unit to build a much needed urban forest of native trees.
Not only can we work towards making the flatlands match the hills with an increase in canopy cover, we will be able to plant native trees that are more resilient and will allow insect and bird species to thrive.
Lastly, this will allow the maintenance of green spaces west of I-80 to be decoupled from the marina front and be covered instead by the parks tax, makes more sense.
For me who has been a long fervent advocate for Cesar Chavez Park, which as you all know, is the largest and probably most beloved park in all of Berkeley, I am confident that this increase in funding would lead to a vast improvements in the level of maintenance the park has long deserved.
While I understand the importance of not piling on the November ballot with too many well-intended measures, please consider keeping the parks tax initiative on the ballot.
I and many other park lovers will pledge to work hard to see that it gets a necessary two-thirds vote to succeed.
Thanks so much for your time.
Thank you very much.
Our next speaker is Laura Schmidt, followed by Karen Chinoy.
Hi, I'm Laura Schmidt, a professor in the UCSF School of Medicine, and I'm a Berkeley resident in District 6.
I'm here to urge you to support the soda tax reauthorization.
My lab at UCSF develops and tests new strategies for changing food environments to promote chronic disease prevention and health equity.
In 2009, I introduced the idea of taxing soda to Eric Marr and Scott Wiener, who were members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the time.
For the next seven years, I worked on as their scientific advisor on that soda tax.
Even so, after all that, I was still very, very proud that my hometown was the first in the nation to pass a tax.
Soda taxes are a robust strategy for preventing chronic disease and promoting equity in health.
A recent systematic review of 86 studies on taxation, found that on the whole, these taxes reduce soda consumption by 15 percent.
But I work with a team of folks at UCSF and UC Berkeley, and our recently published study in JAMA found that the Bay Area taxes have a 33 percent reduction in the volume of sugar-sweetened beverages purchased, compared to adjacent cities without taxes.
This is a huge win for public health, and should give you confidence that renewing Berkeley's tax is sound public policy.
Importantly, studies are now showing that these decreases in consumption are actually translating into direct health benefits.
A study last year showed that Oakland soda tax significantly lowered the risk of diabetes and unhealthy weight gain in pregnant mothers.
Studies of the Philadelphia and Seattle soda taxes have found that they reduce weight gain in children.
I thank you very much for your time, and I urge you to support the reauthorization.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Karen Chinoy, followed by Vivian Lopez.
Thank you, Mayor, City Council.
I'll keep this short.
Good afternoon.
My name is Karen Chinoy with the Bridge Association of Realtors.
I'd like to thank the Mayor, Vice Mayor, and others on council that reached out to us to discuss Measure P in the weeks leading up to this meeting.
The need to fund homelessness services is well taken.
But before we take a formal stance on the Measure P expansion, we are hopeful that staff's recommendation is not placed on the ballot, that some reasonable amendments are made, and that some other considerations we are keen to see agreement on are seen through.
Any decision to oppose, stay neutral, or support any measure being heard today, will be held until after the ballot is finalized.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Chinoy.
I sent you the amendments that reflect the things that we agreed upon, so check your e-mail, and we'll be accepting that after we complete public comment.
Vivian Lopez, followed by Rahima.
This is Dr.
Vivian Lopez.
I'm a long-term Berkeley resident, District 6, and I've had a pediatric dental practice in South Berkeley for the past 38 years.
Being in healthcare, and especially as a children's dentist, I'm really concerned about the harm caused by sugar-sweetened beverages.
They're the largest single source of added sugar in the American diet, and they play a huge role in tooth decay, and, of course, diabetes and obesity.
In the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as the American Heart Association, have officially endorsed soda taxes.
In Berkeley, the funds raised by the soda tax have been put to such good use in the public school gardening program, and by grassroots community organizations that have educated people about nutrition and health.
So this tax does a tremendous amount of good, and we all in Berkeley can be very proud of having passed it and having implemented it so well.
So I feel that it's extremely important that it continue, and I ask the city council members to please vote yes today to place the sugar-sweetened beverage tax reauthorization on the November 5th ballot.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate your time and consideration.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Rahima, followed by former Council Member Wozniak.
Rahima, you should now be able to speak.
Rahima, Healthy Black Families, please unmute yourself if you wish to speak.
There we go.
I was just talking away.
Nobody could hear me.
Thanks for that.
I'm the coordinator for the Thirsty for Change program at Healthy Black Families here in the city of Berkeley, and of course I'm here to urge yes on the re-implementation of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax.
Our program directly benefited from the sugar-sweetened beverage funding coming from the tax, which has been crucial, and our initiative is focusing on the harmful impacts of sugar-sweetened beverages and sugar in general.
Thanks to this tax, we've been able to educate hundreds of community members on a broad range of health topics, from the consumption of detrimental impact of sugar-sweetened beverages and the positive health impact of consuming fresh whole foods to the vital role of sugar-sweetened beverages in dental health and removing it from people's diets.
Since the sugar-sweetened beverage tax, it's enabled us to train water ambassadors who have been able to go into the community and provide even more presence and information about the sugar-sweetened beverages.
Thank you, Laura Smith, for bringing up the latest statistics.
Not only have we been working hard on those, but it's also the community.
This tax has not only funded us to do the work, it actually has fired up community members to do so as well.
Reimplementing the sugar-sweetened beverage tax is not just about addressing the issues of sugary drinks.
It's about investing in the overall health and future of our community, effectively lowering negative impacts of their overall consumption.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Next speaker is former Council Member Wozniak, followed by Martin Bork.
Thank you, Mayor and Council, for allowing me to speak in favor of putting a measure on the ballot to make a modest increase in the parks tax.
I want to just state that I've been involved with Parks and Waterfront Commission since 1997, when the first parks tax was a landscape tax at the time that was going to be basically abolished by Prop 218, and we put a measure on the ballot and passed it during the special election.
I served on the Council in 2014, when we did a modest increase in the parks tax, which did one really important thing, is that it set aside some money for capital and major maintenance.
And I want to first say that I support all the points that the Chair, the current Chair, stated earlier, but elaborate a little bit.
And one of the important things that having some additional funds for capital and maintenance, and one of the third of the increase in this current upgrade, or increase in the parks tax, would go toward having money available for major maintenance and capital, but particularly for grant funding.
The Department's been very good at basically leveraging city tax dollars and getting additional grant funding.
They get, on average, about a third of their budget a year in grant funding.
Over the last 20 years, two decades, they've gotten over $127 million in grant funding.
So this is something where we can leverage taxpayers' money by 4 to 5 to 1, and there's a shortage of money for the matching money.
You need some modest amount of matching money.
So that's part of what this increase would go for.
It would leverage taxpayers' dollars.
The second one is that due to the drought and the death of many city trees, which are aging, many of them were planted, you know, 50, 60, or even 100 years ago, there's a need to renew the urban forest.
It's important for climate change.
It's also important that we expand it and more coverage in West Berkeley for equity reasons where it helps cool the urban landscape.
And the city needs their permanent landscaping group that can also go out and get grants and increase the amount of trees we have.
We have an estimated of about 10,000 trees, spaces that we can plant more trees.
And the last part of that is that most of the trees we have now are not native, and an effort would be made.
It's very important to have native plants to get the right insects so the birds can feed on them and we have a healthy ecosystem.
The last point I would like to make is that you may not be aware that 40% of the city's parks are actually on the waterfront.
And we spend about 10% per acre on the waterfront parks as we do during the other city parks.
They're under-maintained.
They're deteriorating.
And as we heard from streets, as you let the infrastructure deteriorate over time, at some point, you have to spend a lot more money to bring the infrastructure back up to snuff.
And unfortunately, the Marina Fund, which in the past historically has funded these, is way underfunded.
It's in bankruptcy, and it's never going to be able to have the funds to basically, you know, bring the, you know, those waterfront parks up to their true potential.
And the last point.
Okay.
I love former Council Member Wozniak, but we want to be fair.
We need to get through a very extensive agenda.
I really appreciate your very thoughtful comments and your many years of service to the Parks Commission.
Okay, we're going to go to Martin Bork, followed by Blythe Young.
Hi, I'm Martin Bork, Ecology Center.
I want to start just by thanking the Mayor and Council Member Hahn for the extensive work that you have done in championing bringing this reauthorization of the soda tax to Council and hopefully to the ballot.
I would like to urge all the Council Members to unanimously support this measure as Council did in 2014 when the Ecology Center was an anchor organization for the Berkeley versus Big Soda campaign.
This soda tax has been groundbreaking and incredibly effective.
It's got to be one of the most efficient public health interventions that we have in Berkeley with just, you know, over a million dollars a year, the amount of public education and engagement with young people that happens as a result of this program is really astounding.
And you've heard some of that today as well as the research that backs up the impacts, the positive impacts of the tax.
So we hope you will put it on the ballot.
We have done some polling of our own that shows strong, very strong support from the residents of Berkeley, the voters of Berkeley.
And we want to see this programming and the tax continue into the future.
So we really appreciate the work that you all have put into it as well as the City Attorney's Office and other staff.
We know it's a lot to put these things forward and we really appreciate that and encourage Council to vote unanimously to support it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Blythe Young followed by former Councilor Davila.
Good afternoon, Council Members.
My name is Blythe Young.
I'm the Community Advocacy Director for the American Heart Association and I would ask for your support in placing the SOTA tax back on the ballot to renew it.
Your program has been wildly successful.
I was a proud Berkeley resident in 2014 when it passed and in the process of it passing.
And would love to see the tax continue.
I think there's a lot to be celebrated here and we've learned a lot of lessons over the years and we funded a lot of really great programs.
So just asking for your continued support.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to former Councilor Davila followed by Camille Rodriguez.
Former Councilor Davila, are you there? Please unmute yourself.
Sorry, I was on the phone.
Yeah, you know, it's like all these important things are on the ballot at 3 o'clock in the afternoon when not that many of your constituents who you say you care about are there to speak about these important topics.
It's so unfair and unjust and undemocratic.
And some of you all are going for a higher office, which you don't clearly care about humanity.
And, you know, you won't pass a resolution for a ceasefire.
And the things have gotten so extremely, extremely worse.
It's really sad.
And put all these things in the general, instead of putting it on the ballot, the general fund.
Because, you know, we don't have to vote for all these things and people shouldn't have to pay extra just to get all these things passed.
But I agree with the soda tax and keep that going.
Thank you.
Camille Rodriguez is our next speaker, followed by Aaron Dean.
Hi, my name is Camille Rodriguez.
I'm the director of programs at InSite Housing.
InSite Housing strongly supports the city of Berkeley staff recommendation for council to adopt a resolution to increase and extend the city's real property transfer tax, also known as Measure P, on the ballot at the November 5th, 2024 general municipal election.
Making this funding permanent adds much needed stability for organizations providing essential services to our unhoused and housing insecure neighbors.
InSite Housing has been a recipient of this funding, which has been used to support the purchase of Russell Street property, and most recently to support rehab for the Dwight Center.
Resulting in 32 permanent housing board and care beds for adults with severe mental health diagnoses, which includes 17 current beds at Russell Street and 15 new beds at Dwight Way.
Permanent housing for Forest Shelter Plus care residents, 62 interim housing beds, including 32 beds for women's shelters, 26 beds for veterans, and four beds through the Berkeley Rescue Program.
Thank you for your consideration and support of this measure.
Thank you very much.
We'll go next to Erin Deem, followed by Healthy Black Families.
Good afternoon, council.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Thank you.
This is Erin Deem.
I'm the vice chair of the Park, Trek, and Waterfront Commission, and I'm here to speak in putting on the ballot a modest increase of the parks tax.
Thank you for taking my comment.
I'll say that we on the commission have known that there have been significant budget shortfalls for many years, and frankly, we've really been grappling with trying to find a solution.
I'm really thrilled that we have this elegant and very affordable one, and I actually want to give a shout-out to former council member Wozniak for bringing this forward in their commission.
We unanimously supported this at our commission meeting last November, and not only would the tax raise additional funds that would help the Parks Department and Parks, Trek, and Waterfront Department address needs immediately, but as Mr.
Wozniak mentioned, that would also really help them with grant applications.
It's been very impressive actually hearing about all the different grant applications that they've been going for, and having additional funding will make it more likely that they can succeed as they will be able to leverage those funds.
The funds can be used down at the waterfront.
I think many of us know that there's been a bit of an inequity down there because the small marina fund has been tasked with paying for the upkeep of a lot of the park lands down there, and an increase in this parks tax can actually help us then shift the burden of that cost over to the parks tax, and that financial relief will actually help us make some of the best decisions possible for the future of the waterfront.
We all know there's a really big planning process happening down there.
For the urban forest, you know, when I very first joined the commission about seven years ago, I was really surprised that actually our city staff, our urban forestry staff, have to rely on soft money for actually to pay for the trees.
I was kind of shocked in a city the size of Berkeley.
So first I want to say kudos to the forestry staff for all their successful grant applications, and we do know that we need more trees.
It's very important to help address the inequities, historical inequities of the hills versus the flats.
We also know that urban heat is in our future.
Cities can sometimes be eight to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas, and so we do need more trees, and native trees that will support the birds, the bees, and the butterflies will provide many more benefits for our quality of life.
And then for the maintenance and capital liabilities, oh, am I over? Yes.
Okay.
I apologize.
Aquatic Park Tide Tube is very important.
Santa Fe Right-of-Way and the South Coast Seawall Replacement can be funded.
Thank you.
Apologies for going over.
We'll go next to Healthy Black Families, followed by Kelly Hammergren.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, council.
My name is Ayanna Davis, Deputy Executive Director at Healthy Black Families.
Which is located in District 3 and the resident of District 2.
I'm here to advocate for the reauthorization of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax, and no sunset on it this time for real.
And I'd like to just point out, as Laura said, that we have helped, the funding that goes to our community-based organizations that serve our most vulnerable and impacted, health-impacted community, has made great change in our communities, in the culture of how our communities eat and drink beverages, has promoted water, has promoted dental health, and in general, has done a lot of work that the Berkeley Health Department is not able to actually do on the ground in communities, including ensuring food security for our community and health equity education, sugar-sweetened beverage resistance and water promotion.
That said, we need to have continued funding.
We need funding, more complete and full funding for community work so there's no interruption.
We are facing Big Soda and they are changing the lives and the minds of another generation.
This is protracted work.
This is long-term work.
If we are going to undo the health inequities and protect the children and the youth of the next generations, this soda tax is imperative.
I'd like to add also that I was recently in Seattle and people knew the work of Healthy Black Families.
They knew about the soda tax.
They used our model to pass the tax in Seattle.
The same thing in Philadelphia.
Not only by doing this work, by having the staff impacting and changing the culture for our community, we are impacting change in culture for communities throughout the United States.
Pass the tax.
Also- Thank you very much.
I love librarians.
We do too.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to Kelly Hammergren, followed by the call within ending 293.
Thank you.
Last week I made you laugh.
Today I'm putting on my serious public health nurse cap.
This is from Nurse Kelly.
And Nurse Kelly tells you we need the sugar-sweetened beverage tax for healthy bodies.
We need the library parcel tax for healthy minds.
We need the parks tax for our own healthy bodies and minds, and we need it for healthy ecosystems and biodiversity.
And we need the major P tax for public health as the health and living conditions of the poorest and most vulnerable among us affects the health of all of us.
So I ask you to support all of it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go next to the caller with the number ending 293.
Please press star 6 to unmute your phone.
Good afternoon.
This is Omalalee Powell, former health commissioner for the city of Berkeley, and I wanted to support the extension of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax so that we are able to increase the number of people who prefer water to sugar-sweetened beverages because it's healthier.
I also wanted to say that we absolutely must fund the public libraries and, if at all possible, try to find some way to have them open at least partially on a Sunday.
They have had to close down on Sundays because of their funding cuts and their rising costs.
And so I think that partial tax for the public library is definitely right on the money.
And then the last one that I wanted to address was the transfer tax, and just say yes to that because it does assist with homelessness and support for homelessness.
And as a volunteer at Manor from Heaven Breakfast Program, a roof over their heads emergency to permanent housing in Oakland, we also serve Berkeley residents and we house children, parents with children in Berkeley, which is not something that is being funded currently by the city of Berkeley.
So we wanted to definitely say that that municipal code, that increase and extend that general real property transfer tax definitely needs to come into being.
Thank you so very much for your time.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other speakers on Zoom wishing to speak on item 6A, 6B, 6C, or 6D? Please raise your virtual hand if you would like to speak on item 6A, 6B, 6C, or 6D.
Seeing no additional raised hands, thank you all for coming today.
Thank you for all that you do for our community.
And we really appreciate your input as we're making these decisions today.
I'm going to now give the floor to our library director to present, and then it will be up, to the library director to present.
And then we'll have the, the council deliberate on these various different proposals.
Thank you, Mayor Stroud and members of the public for your input on the 6A tax measure.
I know that.
We've heard a lot today.
I do want to thank everyone who shared their comments from the community.
I also want to acknowledge that.
As you know, there are a lot of people that use and benefit from library services that I'm sure would not have been able to, to come at this time and speak to the importance of these services, just like.
I'm sure you all are.
I'm sure you all are.
I'm sure you all are able to access other services.
I do want to remind everyone very briefly.
I had an opportunity to speak with you on May 24th.
With respect to all of the work that the library has been putting in, in the past several years.
And I just want to acknowledge the staff and how hard everyone had worked to move through.
And, you know, we've had a lot of challenges in the past several years.
We've had a strategic planning process after seven years of not having a plan.
I'm reach normal staffing levels, which was challenging for a number of different city departments.
And, you know, I think.
What I'd like to talk about a little bit more today is the status of the libraries budget forecast, which is the budget for the next year.
And I'd like to talk about that.
First, I just want to acknowledge.
Um,.

Segment 5

In case it hasn't been fully addressed by all of the different people who already spoke today, what the proposed ballot measure is about is really maintaining our current level of service.
It is not about an expansion of either hours or programs and that really needs to be underlined because I think that because there was a question that was used in a more recent survey, addressing an expansion of service.
Um, I just need to be clear that that's not what this is about and the decision that you have before you is about maintaining our current level of service.
A number of speakers spoke to the library's funding.
We are fortunate to have a library tax fund that was established in the 80s.
It is 99% of our revenue.
Basically, it funds the library.
We're not a general fund department and it is true that apart from annual inflationary increases, the fundamental tax structure that supports the library hasn't changed since the 80s.
We haven't had that opportunity to come back and request the funding until now.
But over the past several years, as we've assessed our financial forecast, and our board of library trustees has been focused and organized, organized enough to really focus on this, it's very clear that we need to do something about this now and that that represents responsible fiscal management of the organization.
I also just want to underline something that others have spoken to already, but this is very important.
75% of our projected 2025 budget.
Is for staff, right? It's the staff that drive library service.
It's the staff that drive programs.
It's the staff that drive open hours.
It's also the staff that drive all of the important things that happen behind the scenes in terms of making sure that our collections are robust and meeting the needs of the community.
And it's very clear that this measure is about people.
It's about the people that use the library.
It's about the community and it is also about the people that staff the library.
We are not talking about nice to have right now.
We're talking about the people who are actually working for the library at this moment and needing to preserve the staffing level that we have.
I shared this graphic with you a few months ago.
This continues to be true.
Basically, as we've assessed our financial status, it's very clear that the library is approaching a deficit position.
This will happen over the next several years.
We'll have a budget shortfall where expenditures will outpace revenue and we no longer will have a fund balance that we would be able to access to basically address the difference.
What this graphic doesn't incorporate is what we know to be expansions and expenses that are going to be occurring over the next year.
This graphic doesn't include, for example, the known increases to medical packages that we know we're going to need to be adding as well as PERS.
So, that just means that we can expect this to be more dramatic.
Now, of course, this is going to occur the actual shortfall in a few years, but we will begin to have to institute cuts now in order to ensure that we are fiscally solvent in 4 years or whenever this precisely occurs.
We're not in a position to wait until the shortfall actually occurs, and we will begin addressing that now.
Fortunately, our Board of Library Trustees, I think, has played an important leadership role in making this recommendation to the Council that we identify a new source of funding.
So, we have a budget shortfall that we address this by basically adding a limited tax of 6 cents per square feet for residential dwellings, 9 cents per square feet for industrial commercial properties that would raise an estimated 5.6 million annually and this would allow us basically to address what we're seeing as the gap with our approaching deficit.
As some of our community advocates addressed earlier.
The library coordinated a very thorough survey of voters in March of 2024, and I was able to speak with some of you individually about, I think, these very exciting results.
One of the things that we heard from the community was that 87% of people surveyed, which was over 870 people representing all Council districts and again, representing the demographic diversity of Berkeley, 87% of people were either satisfied or very satisfied with library services.
And I think that's a testament to, again, the staff that support the service every day.
The other thing that I want to emphasize is that when people had an opportunity, the people surveyed to actually understand what's at stake and understand that this is about maintaining our current level of services.
Even after the people surveyed were informed about the potential for there to be other tax measures on the ballot for for other very important causes.
I believe is 87.3% of those surveyed were still strongly in favor of this, this perspective tax measure.
And I think I think it's important to emphasize that that.
Yes, we have very strong community support and I also want to say that people who are surveyed, even without hearing from other community members.
We're we're very positive about this perspective tax measure.
In closing, I just want to emphasize again, if we don't have the opportunity to take this to voters.
So, if this doesn't go on the ballot.
Or if the ballot measure were to fail, we would begin to institute hiring freezes.
We would also begin to analyze how how to reduce service.
And that would result likely in impacting our workforce, because there really isn't any other way when 75% of your budget is staffing to recoup some kind of savings.
We would also need to defer large scale projects.
We've heard a lot about the importance of air quality and safety in the workplace.
We have an HVAC replacement project coming up that will cost likely over 2Million dollars.
These are the types of things that we need this money to invest in.
If we are able to have this opportunity to take this measure to voters, we will be able to maintain our current staffing levels.
And that does include Sunday hours.
We're currently in the process of trying to restore Sunday hours.
That will allow us to address needs around our technology infrastructure.
So there are certain things that that are funded through the city's IT and then certain things that we need to do independently.
For example, our website, we would be able to work on some of these deferred maintenance projects that we know are really important, both to the staff and members of the public that are using our facilities.
And we would also be able to begin to address, I think, some of the more aspirational goals of our strategic plan.
So, in closing, I really urge you to please vote yes to place this on the ballot in order to maintain our current level of library services and staffing.
Thank you.
Thank you so very much.
Okay, colleagues, here's I'd like to proceed.
1st, I had provided council and copies are available in the back, a sub 3 submission for item 6D, the ballot measure amending chapter 7.52 of the BMC to increase and extend the general real property transfer tax.
We have had numerous conversations as was referenced in public comment with the bridge Association of realtors staff and other stakeholders and we are putting forward to substantive revisions and let me just pull up this up.
For our consideration this evening, if we decide to take action on this, so the 1st would be including specific dollar thresholds for each increment at the 67th percentile 80th percentile and 95th percentile.
These numeric thresholds would be adjusted annually to ensure that they remain reflective of these percentiles, but could not be adjusted below 1.6Million respectively, respectively.
1.9Million or 3Million respect respectively.
And then, lastly, delaying the effective date of any increases that this measure would authorize to January 1st, 2027 to provide time for market conditions to improve.
And so I'd like to move to accept this revised material for consideration.
2nd.
This requires a 2, 3rd vote so the city clerk can please call the roll.
Council member.
Yes.
Yes.
Bartlett yes, I.
On yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Okay, the materials before us, so we have to go through several of these ballot measures before we get to measure P.
so I think that will give us all time to review it.
I'm happy to walk through again when you get to the measure P item.
Okay, let's go 1 by 1 because we got to vote separately in each 1, 6, a ballot measure tax measure to authorize general tax on the distribution of sugar, sweet and beverage products.
I strongly support putting this on the ballot and I'll move to submit the item to the voters to adopt the resolution to designate myself council member Han and any other council members who are so inclined to draft the arguments in favor of the measure.
2nd, because you want to work on it.
Okay.
Yes, please.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm 2nd and I know you have.
Councilor tapping you want to speak on this? Yeah.
Okay.
We're going to go 1 by 1 councilor Han on the sugary beverage tax.
I know you want to make some amendments to the ballot question.
Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you to all who came and to the ecology center and all the advocates who have made this so successful over the years.
This measure is a victim of its own success.
We have significantly less soda consumption and therefore we are getting less money.
Um, but the money funds, the programs that teach young people about nutrition.
That results in less consumption, so it's a very unusual situation.
I would very much have liked to be able to increase this tax, but there are some, some circumstances about the interaction between this.
Um, and and some action taken at the state that make it such that we are only removing the sunset date and we are keeping everything exactly the same.
And so we are simply extending the same tax into the future at another time.
I think we, as a council are going to have to be looking at how we can ensure that funding for things like gardening programs and our schools and the nutrition and health programs that the measure with sugary beverage tax funds can continue to be funded as our success.
Dwindles the income I, but for now, I'm really excited that we're going to remove the sunset and keep this.
Same identical measure going forward.
We, some of the advocates had asked for some changes in the ballot language and I wanted to thank the city attorney's office for carefully vetting the proposal and.
The city attorney will herself verify that what I am reading in is acceptable to our legal counsel and I'm hoping that we can substitute this for the ballot language and I will read it in.
Okay, thank you.
So shall the measure to remove the current January 1, 2027 expiration date and extend until ended by voters.
The general tax on the distribution of sugary drinks and sweeteners paid by distributors at the rate of 1 cent per fluid ounce previously approved by voters in 2014 with exceptions for small retailers, more products and debut formula raising approximately 1.15 million per year for general government use be adopted.
And that is 65 words and.
I think it's either myself or.
Okay, you're the 2nd.
Okay, so I accept that as a friendly amendment to adopt that revised about question and just to confirm, I think for our colleagues.
Yes, to confirm I had a chance to review carefully and the language is.
Okay, so I accept that as a friendly amendment to adopt that revised about question and just to confirm I had a chance to review carefully and the language is.
Thank you and it's 65 words.
So it's well under the limit.
Okay.
Thank you.
You're the 2nd or so you're I accept the friendly amendment.
Okay.
And I look forward to helping get this important measure passed.
And I think it's a really successful measure that's produced a lot of really good results for kids and adults in this city.
So, thanks a lot.
Okay, thank you and before we vote, I want to just thank Martin Bork and the whole coalition that helped get measured past who came to myself and councilor Han a few months ago and brought to our attention that this tax is going to pass and that we need to extend it.
So, I'm very appreciative of the work that's been done and I'm very appreciative of the conversations that have been recipients of some of the grant funds and the impact they're making and reducing sugar beverage consumption and improving overall health.
And my hope is that someday the state will rescind that preemption that was passed.
I certainly intend to push for that.
And I think this is a really important step to continue the important work we've done to improve our community health.
Thank you.
And with that, I will move the motion to place the measure on the ballot and designate the council members to file arguments in favor.
Any objection here, an objection that motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll now proceed to item 6, be the ballot measure tax measure to fund Berkeley public library operations and services and I move that we adopt a resolution place in the attached special parcel tax measure for library operations and services on the ballot for the November 5th, 2024 general municipal election and designates any council members to file arguments in favor of the motion.
Are there any other council members that are on the call? I do not see any council members who so indicate to file the arguments in favor of the measure.
2nd, 2nd, by advice, mayor wind graph.
Who would like to file arguments or should we leave that to the libraries? Oh, I would like to counselor who represents on the board of library trustees.
Yes.
And then maybe work with the library trustees members and community leaders on this.
Okay, I'll work with them.
There's a lot of great minds and good writers.
Okay, colleagues, any discussion on this item.
Okay, if not, the motion is to place the proposed library tax measure on the ballot.
Is there any objection to all the council members here being recorded as I on the motion.
Hearing the objection that motion carries unanimously, so the measures on the ballot.
Okay, when I proceed to item 6, see the ballot measure increase in the parks tax.
And council member.
Sure, thank you.
I like to thank everyone who came to give testimony today.
Especially the members of the libraries and parks communities.
After the defeat of measure, I resolved to help this council rebuild public trust by focusing our priorities and core city functions and essential services, a modest parks and parks tax increase.
We'll use an existing revenue stream to meet an existing need.
Having grown up here in West Berkeley, I am nothing if not a product of Berkeley's libraries and parks.
When I was in preschool, my mother would take me to the West branch every weekend to check out the same 3 books about the statue of liberty.
King Arthur and trains.
And I spent every summer of my childhood birthday camp, and on the waterfront, I am fortunate and grateful to have more or less the same life bird watching aquatic park sailing and paddling at the marina and using the interlibrary loan system to read letters and translation of obscure Italian Renaissance humanists.
People move to Berkeley.
From all over the world, and people are drawn to Berkeley politics for all sorts of mysterious reasons.
But for me.
But for me, it is my pride, my passion and my honor to live my life in service to and stewardship of Berkeley's parks, camps and waterfront.
Thank you.
And would you like to make a motion? Yes, I, uh, I move that we, um.
At the parks tax increase to the ballot and designate myself as author of the arguments.
Thank you.
Did you wish to speak? Okay.
Council member Humbert.
Yes, thank you.
Mr.
Mayor.
I'm in very strong support of this modest increase in the parks tax.
I'm grateful to director Ferris.
Our park staff, our public parks, recreation, waterfront commissioners.
I'm really grateful.
I wish I could read my own notes.
This is really terrible.
Anyway, I really appreciate the work that council member Taplin has done on this.
It's just critical that we that we raise this additional amount of money to to bring our parks up to up to standard.
And I'm really enthusiastic.
So.
I will be voting.
Yes.
Council member Hunt.
I guess, thank you very much.
I wanted to ask if I might also be able to help with the ballot argument.
That would be amenable.
Yes, very much so.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Well, in the mayor's absence, I guess I will say that.
Our libraries and our parks are part of what makes the city so great.
Our libraries and our parks are perhaps the most democratic.
Institutions that exist our public libraries, our public parks.
For the people, and so it is really.
Really important to me that we proceed with these taxes and that we get.
Our residents to support it.
Thank you.
So, um, does anybody want to be recognized as objecting to putting the oh, sorry.
I can't see that.
Yeah.
Council member.
No objection.
Quite the opposite.
I just, I wanted to see if there's any room to join in on the library, the library measure with a customer Han.
I would be delighted to have some help.
Oh, great.
But I think we already passed that, but maybe we can make another motion just to add you.
Sure.
Okay.
After we do this 1, okay, so.
The help with the library item.
Okay.
Do we need to move to reconsider to add him.
You can just do a new just do a new motion.
Because that could be a separate from speak now or forever hold your piece who wants to work on the library argument Bartlett.
Okay, so I make a motion to.
And then the prior action to designate council members, Han and Bartlett to work with the community leaders and drafting the arguments in favor of the library tax.
2nd.
Okay, is there any objection to that motion here? No objection that cares.
Thank you.
Okay, and then we're ready to put the parks.
Okay.
Council member.
You were in the queue.
Yes.
Yeah, no, I, I, I remembered what my scrawled comments, but I couldn't read just a moment ago about about parts meant and what I wanted to do was.
Express my gratitude to form a council member was the act for all of the information that he provided in his comments.
I was really grateful and they were very helpful.
Thank you.
Okay, the motion by counselor top and 2nd by Mr.
clerk.
Councilman Luna para.
Okay.
It's to.
Adopt a resolution placing the attachment measure to increase the parks, trees and landscaping maintenance tax.
On the November, 20, November, 5th, 2024 general municipal election ballot and to designate counselor Kaplan and.
Anyone else that's number Han Han council member Humbert.
To file arguments in favor of the measure.
Okay, what's this any further discussion is there any objection to also be reported as I on that motion.
Hearing no objection that motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay.
Now, on to item 60.
And let me begin by.
Thanking council member Han for her work with me on this over the last several weeks and we have been in communication with a representative of the bridge association and realtors to hear their input.
And I'm just going to go through a couple of things that we've heard from members of the council that we're concerned about because, as we recall, when we last discussed this on June, 14th, you know, one of the concerns that was raised was how will this extension or increase of the transfer tax and transfer taxes.
A tax that not everyone pays, unlike a parcel tax, which is on your property tax bill, but it's at the time you sell or transfer your property.
How will this impact property sales in Berkeley, you know, the cost of single family homes in our city continues to increase and we want to make sure that while we desperately need these resources for general municipal services that we also balance that with.
You know, making sure that we can make Berkeley a more affordable place for people to buy single family homes.
So, we have reached out to the bridge association because I've had multiple conversations with them and the amendments that I.
Put forward this evening, and then I'll read again reflect input that we had heard directly from the realtors.
I think reflect some consensus around an approach around the measure tax and just to put this in context to 2018.
We put on the ballot a time limited tax of 10 years to increase the property transfer tax by 1%.
For a total of 2 and a half percent for properties over 1 and a half million dollars and part of that tax, it was a progressive tax.
We recalculated the threshold based on the median.
Of single family homes in Berkeley, so as the cost of homes increased the median change so that we're not taxing properties at lower or median costs and that has generated.
I think 56Million dollars over the last 6 years, which we have made the decision to directly invest with the input of the measure P homeless services panel of experts in.
Finding a wide array of services to to reduce it and homelessness.
And I'm proud that this year, the point in time to count the every 2 year homeless count we do show that Berkeley saw a 45% reduction.
In unsheltered homelessness, and since measure P was adopted and over 50% decrease in unsheltered homelessness, that is probably the most successful.
I think results that we've seen in probably any city in Alameda County, while the county's homelessness rates have increased our neighboring city of Oakland's rates have increased and that's a direct result of the over 30 programs that we've been able to fund through the measure P transfer tax, including our homeless response team that directly responds to issues around problematic encampments and works do intensive outreach to connect people to shelter and permanent supportive housing.
While we're addressing dangerous unsafe encampments on our streets, we want to continue to support and increase our management of problematic encampments and make sure we have a safer place for people to live in permanent housing, dignified living conditions.
It includes our many of our congregate and non congregate shelters, providing housing subsidies, public health services, mental health services, street outreach.
And I think this tax has been a direct contributor to Berkeley's success in reducing unsheltered homeless.
We got a report a few weeks ago, if we all recall, that said that if we're going to reach our goal of reducing homelessness in Berkeley, we need to address 1, the imminent fiscal cliff when this measure P tax expires and 2, we need to look at increasing resources and with the state and potentially federal government decreasing its investment in addressing homelessness.
Berkeley needs to step up and we need to, we need to double down on our efforts to to end the humanitarian crisis of homelessness in our streets.
This is not only good for those people who are who are sadly the victims of our housing and economic crisis who are living on the streets.
It's good for our businesses.
It's good for our residents.
It's good for improving the health and safety of our community.
And so we have been exploring for several weeks, an increase in the measure P tax and the approach that we decided to explore is a tiered increase rather than a cost support flat increase to tier the increase on the higher value properties.
But 1 of the things I heard from my colleagues and from stakeholders was making sure that we.
What they're careful at those thresholds that we don't.
Make it harder for people to buy properties in Berkeley and so I strongly, strongly urge my colleagues to support moving this forward.
And the reason 1 of the questions I've been asked is why do this now? Well, the reason we need to do this now is 1, all those 30 plus programs that I talked about some of whom you heard from tonight.
That do incredible work serving our neediest people in our community.
If we don't have a plan, those services are going to close and we're going to see more people living on our streets.
So, we need the time to be able to budget and to expand those services.
And so it makes sense to do this now, but also we need to build on our success.
The 45% reduction that we've seen in addressing and reducing unsheltered homelessness.
And so I think this is absolutely critical and I hope to have the opportunity as your mayor and somebody who has been working since I came into office to reduce and homelessness in Berkeley to be able to put this on the ballot and work to campaign to get this passed.
So, I really call on my colleagues to support moving this forward this year.
I will do the heavy lifting and run the campaign, but polling showed that we had over 60% voter support for this.
And I'm confident that if this moves forward that we can be successful and we can.

Segment 6

continue to build on the good work that we've been doing, which is a model for cities throughout the state of California.
Just to briefly summarize the amendments, and thank you for indulging me.
Once again, Council Member Hahn and I are proposing two substantive revisions to the proposed measure based on conversations with stakeholders and city staff.
One, include specific dollar thresholds for each tier, each increment.
These numeric thresholds will be adjusted annually to ensure that they remain reflective of these percentiles.
They cannot be adjusted below $1.6 million, respectively, or $1.9 million, or $3 million.
It's one of the concerns we heard is market conditions fluctuate.
Are these increased taxes going to be taxing median properties? That's why we wanted to make sure that we not only adjust these thresholds annually to reflect these percentiles, but have a minimum floor.
As noted here, these are the rates.
Then secondly, based on concerns we've heard, to delay the application of the increases until January 1st, 2027.
That will also give the city time to work with our measure P panel of experts to come up with an expenditure plan for how we're going to be able to fund the wide array of needs and services, and to potentially augment those resources if this tax were to pass.
It gives us some time to plan, to come up with a thoughtful plan with community input, and then implement that plan when the tax is affected.
But also giving people who are buying homes in Berkeley a little bit of relief during these current economic times, when interest rates are increasing, when people are getting dropped from insurance coverage, and when it's much more difficult for people to buy properties in the city.
People can plan.
It's not just going to happen overnight.
People can plan for this increase by having this lead-in.
I guess I'd like to make a motion for purposes of discussion, to put this measure on the ballot, to opt the resolution, the revised resolution, putting the measure on the ballot to reflect the amended version in sub 3.
This is the amended ballot question.
Shall the measure effective January 1st, 2027, setting the existing general tax on transfers of real property at 2.5% of a property's value for properties of 1.6 million or higher, and increasing the rate from 2.5% to 3% for properties valued 1.9 million or higher, and 3% to 3.5% for properties valued 3 million or higher, adjusted annually for increases in value, removing the January 1st, 2029 expiration date, and generating an estimated 2 to 4 million annually of additional revenue until repealed, be adopted.
Then, Council Member Hahn and anyone else who'd like to join as the authors of the ballot arguments.
I second.
I thought you were done.
Thank you.
You're recognized, Council Member Hahn.
Well, thank you very much, Mayor Adegin.
The conversations that we've been able to have over the last few weeks, I think have really made this better.
I just also wanted to note that the starting point for these conversations is what we heard here from our colleagues.
Our colleagues said they wanted something tiered.
Our colleagues expressed some concern for market conditions.
Our colleagues were very clear that they did not want us to be placing the surtax on transactions in the middle, and wanted the surtax to continue to be concentrated on the higher value transactions.
So I just wanted to say that we really did try to take into account all the concerns that were raised here.
And one of the features of the original Measure P is this first-in-time mechanism to reset the threshold for where the threshold of transactions upon which the surtax is placed.
Other communities do not reset every year.
They set fixed thresholds, and of course, as real estate values go up, those thresholds catch transactions further and further down the sort of average or median scale.
And so they really are, in a way, regressive.
And the beauty of what we did with Measure P is by resetting every year, it's not perfect, but it is the closest possible realistic approximation of the top one-third of transactions in Berkeley, and that moves with the market.
So we are not going to be in a position where, over time, the average transaction is subject to this tax.
In adding the extra tiers, we built in that same recalculation every year.
So each tier recalculates.
So it's the 67th percentile recalculates, the 80th percentile recalculates, and the 95th percentile recalculates every year.
The floors are such that if the market were to go down, which most of us in our lifetime haven't seen, but it could happen, there's a backstop.
And so that's what we're trying to do with Measure P is, again, to ensure this is a guarantee that average sales will not be subject to this surtax.
So we really tried hard to build in a number of mechanisms to ensure that this will always be on the top percentages of transactions.
That pretty much kind of explains for our colleagues and for the public why this is coming together in this way.
And I second all the mayor's comments about the success.
Measure P is the reason why.
We have been able to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 45 percent.
We have been able to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 45 percent.
We have been able to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 45 percent.
We have done many other things that came into help, but without this measure, we would not have this success.
And when we're talking about property values, and let me tell you that my purpose in ending homelessness is to end the human suffering.
It's not an unintended consequence, but certainly a real one.
And so, you know, yes, this taxes some real estate transactions, but it lifts all boats in terms of relieving human suffering, but it also lifts all boats in terms of relieving human suffering, but it also lifts all boats in terms of relieving human suffering, and catastrophe of homelessness, and also improving property values.
So I think everyone wins here.
And I'm really looking forward to having the support of my colleagues.
Thank you.
Hang out for a little bit longer.
We're not there yet.
So, yeah, you can stretch, you can chill there, but okay, we'll go to Vice Mayor Weingraf.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I'm very, very much in support of Measure P.
I think it's been an extremely successful program.
I have two questions.
I'm not sure I understand this.
You're setting the threshold at 1.6 million in sale value.
Does that threshold change over time? Or is it always, well, the authors, I'm looking at the authors.
Or is the 1.6 a constant? Thank you for that question.
And it is a little confusing.
So, let me just say that the current Measure P.
When it was passed in 2018.
1.5 million was the actual transaction.
At the 70 at the 67th percentile.
What we did is we said, we'll start.
At the actual 67th percentile.
And then every year we will readjust based on.
Real data, we will recalculate the 67th percentile.
If the value goes up.
To 1.6, 1.7, 1.8.
We will go up, but we will never go below 1.5.
So, that's what we did.
And that's how the time measure P was set.
Is it 1.5 or is it.
So now we are importing that to this year.
And we get actual numbers from.
Henry in finance.
We have the actual 67th percentile this year.
And that is 1.6.
So, that's how the time measure P is adjusted.
Up if it goes up and what time of year is the adjustment made? The way the adjustment works is that.
At the end of a year, so let's say in a calendar, November, December.
Our staff looks at all recorded real estate sales.
And they look back at that.
And they look at the full year.
The reason why they don't look from December 31 is because the data is not available.
So, already this formula already exists and we're not changing it.
They have a 1 year look back and they recalculate.
What was the median? Where is the 67th percentile? So, that's how it's going to be done using the exact same formula.
And again, it is not a perfect.
Rendition of of of the coming year.
But it is as close as you can get.
Okay, so it's it is actually the threshold.
The base threshold is actually variable.
The base threshold reflects the 67th, 80th and 95th percentiles.
So, the floor, the minimum it can go is.
Is what the, what the, what the percentiles are this year, but they will be adjusted accordingly and they may increase.
Okay.
Yeah.
And this refers to all property, both commercial and residential.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, because I don't so that top 5%.
So, if you look at the top 5% from 95 to 100, a lot of that is commercial.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then my other question is about the removal of the sunset.
So, this is a tax and perpetuity.
Unless the future councils decide to undo it.
So, what are your thoughts on that? Well, we would like to end unsheltered and all homelessness, but.
There is a reality that given the lack of a safety net in the United States.
It's likely that people will continue to lose their housing.
Our hope is that by maintaining the types of services we have.
I mean, we could optimistically hope that the United States would enact a level of security and safety net that would mean we would never have people losing their housing again.
And many developed countries have that, but I guess maybe we're not expecting that.
So we're expecting that we're going to have to have that robust local apparatus to ensure that in the future.
Even if we don't have unsheltered homelessness, that we have enough services and facilities to ensure that if someone does become unhoused, so we don't hit the street.
I'm asking these questions is because I, I'm not aware if that was pulled.
And I'm wondering if it was about a sunset or no sunset.
Yeah.
About it was pulled without a sunset.
It was pulled without a sunset.
It was pulled without a sunset.
Okay.
All right.
That's good.
My other question is that this is a general fund tax.
And I don't see anything in the, in the.
In the write up about how is it determined how much goes to measure P.
Another 1, so this tax is measure P, the money that comes from it.
It's the increase.
The increase above 1 and a half percent is the measure P tax that goes to our general fund.
1 of the things that we did in 2018 was to create this homeless services.
Panel of experts, which advises us on the allocation of general fund revenue.
For homeless services, and we make as a council.
The decision, the legislative decision about how to budget these funds.
Okay.
So it's no different than what we do currently.
That's my that was my question because I want it to be clear to people that this increase.
Is going to measure P to be used for.
Homeless purposes, so I, I just feel like that's not.
There's there's not enough clarity and why, you know, because this is a general tax.
It's a general, it's a general tax be used for any municipal can, but I think our, our practice, I think we have demonstrated.
Over the past 6 years that we have honored the intent and the spirit of of the measure.
And we have not spent that money on our salaries or on street paving or all these, but we've, we have made the decision to spend it.
Directly on homeless services, and I hope and I expect.
And that that that this council and future councils will continue to honor that commitment.
If this measure were to pass.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Councilor trigger.
Thank you.
So, I was out to campaign vigorously in 2018, but the original measure P, and we have seen.
Real tangible results over the past 6 years and how the proceeds from this tax have greatly reduced.
Homelessness, including unsheltered homelessness, there is much more work, much more work left to be done.
Much of the homelessness and mental health crisis situations are concentrated in my district and you just heard from some of the services that are also housed in my district.
That would, this would allow them to continue to do really important work.
I also appreciate the, the work of the mayor and council member fun to collaborate with stakeholders and negotiate a measure that is.
Aggressive, you know, as a, I don't as an aspiring homeowner, I'll be it probably 1 that will never own a home on a council salary.
I support the ability of, you know, other aspiring homeowners to be able to actually afford something and to make sure that those who are in a position to pay.
Their fair share are able to do so, and that that goes towards these much needed services.
And so I monitor to support this extension and wanted to ask.
The mayor or council member Han, if they would be open to my being 1 of the designees.
Yes, I'm open to it.
So that's 3 and then Bartlett's 4.
Okay, anything else counselor trigger.
Okay, council member.
Thank you very much.
Mr.
Mayor.
So I think council member when graphs questions clarified and and council member Han and Mr.
Mayor, your packet clarified.
So, I'm going to ask a question on the ballot language, but I'll just repeat just to be certain.
So it's the top 67th percentile in terms of transactions that will be subject to the higher rate or 1.6Million, whichever is greater.
So, yes, your point, if housing prices collapse and it will never affect properties that are below 1.6Million.
Okay.
So that's good to clarify that.
Maybe this question is is for the city attorney, because it, it does reference the numbers, the dollar amounts for today's 67th percentile, 80th percentile and 95th percentile.
So, I just wanted to make sure that that wouldn't cause any issue and implementing it the way we intend with my quick review of the resolution.
I didn't see the percentiles noted anywhere else.
So, I just wanted to ask about that.
I think we're, I'd refer you to section 7.52040.
Okay.
Oh, you're referring to the city attorney.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Are you talking about the ballot question or the ordinance? So, well, yeah, the way that the ballot question is phrased.
For the ordinance, it just references 1.6Million, 1.9Million, 3Million.
I don't recall how we did it in 2016.
if we needed to put in the percentile.
Also, so that it was clear to the voters as well as city staff that that's what's intended.
I just wanted to clarify that I actually asked that same question.
Are you looking at the new language? Okay, good.
Yeah.
Because I asked the same question of the city attorney's office earlier today and was able to get them to add in the adjusted annually for increases in value.
Clause, I, I, oh, okay.
I did have the same question Council Member Keserwani and that was the best I was able to.
Get in terms of clarifying that that is.
Would be adjusted up in the future.
And just to clarify the ballot question does not need to have the percentiles.
It doesn't have to be so specific and because we're using the percentiles.
The values of the percentiles of today that is adequate.
Okay.
That's all I wanted to clarify.
And then I also was just curious.
We're estimating an additional 2Million to 4Million.
Okay.
Because I know we've raised up more than that.
That's the additional.
Okay.
All right.
That's all I have.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Luna Parra.
Thank you.
Measure of P funds have enabled the crucial development of permanent supportive housing of ongoing shelter operations of distributions of basic care services and meals every single day.
Our neighbors who have been historically and institutionally disenfranchised deserve the care, compassion and shelter that this funding facilitates.
And continuing to do this work require a significant investment from our city.
That is all I wanted to say, and I support measure P and I support this expansion.
Thank you.
Councilor, do you have any additional comments? Yeah, you know what? I forgot to mention something that is also helpful.
I think.
We have put in language, and we are adding language that actually delays the application of the new measure for 2 years.
Until 27, and the reason for that is that we know that the, and it's down at the bottom of the cover page, the reason is because we know that the, with the interest rate environment that we're in right now, the real estate industry is having a little bit of trouble with.
Kind of volume of sales, and we believe that in 2 years, given what the feds have indicated that they're moving towards.
Reducing interest rates, we are a couple more years ahead in terms of coming out of the economic shock of the pandemic.
So while this would be approved.
It would not go into effect until 2027 and I forgot to mention that and that is a way that's like a little safety valve.
To take into consideration the current climate around real estate transactions.
Thank you.
Council member Bartlett.
Thank you.
I think she worked on this too.
Really smart.
I think it cushions us.
References the crisis and insurance we're facing now in Berkeley and other parts of California, the homeowners, the economic shock around taxes and everything else.
And but I will say this measure P has been super effective and I remember the sort of the preliminary ideas that kind of spurred us to action was at a community meeting and a certain person's objecting to the city's use of inclusionary fees.
To fund affordable housing, and the person stood up and said, well, if you want to pay for affordable housing, then you pay for it.
And then sure enough, we came up with measure P, and now we pay for it and with it with great, great results.
And I would say this myself.
My office has worked with 2 different jurisdictions in the Midwest.
About how to implement a similar measure to great success over there as well.
Not as great.
This is the best that I've seen, but still nonetheless very good.
Very optimistic about its growth in the future while leaving room for starter homes, which will be priced beneath this effective rate, which we should get into very soon.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions or comments? The most, if not, the motion is to approve the revised resolution and ballot measure tax and supplemental packet 3 for the proposed increase in extension of the general real property transfer tax and to designate myself on Bartlett and.
Trigger to work on the arguments in favor.
If the city clerk can please call the roll.
Yes, I remember.
Yes.
Jacqueline yes, Bartlett.
Yes.
Trigger.
I.
On yes, 1 graph.
Yes.
Yes, number.
Yes.
And Mary.
Yes.
That motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
Okay.
As I had described previously, we're going to go now to item 8.
And before we do that, it is 6 or 7 PM.
We will not begin the regular city council meeting as.
As I had previously advertised, because we are still in our special meeting on November ballot measures.
I don't anticipate that we'll begin the 6 o'clock meeting for probably an hour or 2.
so if you are here for anything on our 6 o'clock meeting, you're welcome to stay and.
Or you're welcome to come back, but I just want to just give a time check to everyone.
We're still on our special meeting.
So we'll go to item 8 alternative ballot measure language to large buildings, fossil fuel emissions tax ballot initiative.
This was being submitted by council and track up.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for allowing me to bring an alternative ballot measure to the large buildings, fossil fuel emissions, tax ballot initiative that will be discussing immediately after this.
I sincerely.
And especially my staff that has done the brunt of the work on this, I really appreciate the graciousness and help you extend it to us during a very intense negotiation process that still continues as well as the process of drafting and filing this language.
Today, we're simply asking you to share your initial perspectives on these amendments before you and to allow this item to be continued to the August 5th special council meeting.
Basically, we're asking you to allow us to continue doing more work.
I just wanted to.
Summarize, because I'm sure everyone has had a chance to read the entire 30 page report and supplemental items between last now last night and now.
So I just wanted to.
Stamina wise that.
Due to the initiative.
Petition that was submitted.
And certified by the registrar as being sufficient on May 28.
Or since then, many members of the community communicated to us that the measure as written.
Could have a possible and in fact, likely detrimental impact on their business and operational viability.
In response to our community, my office and I decided to work with the authors of the ballot initiative and a number of other stakeholders representing different sectors, including the building trades to craft a measure that could be impactful and also protect our community from unintended negative consequences.
We had, as you can imagine, an excruciatingly short time to put this measure before you.
I did not think that this would be the 1st item I would be introducing at council and yet we did and.
Intend to continue doing this work because of my and my staff's deep commitment to environmental justice to our labor siblings and to our vibrant nonprofit and business communities.
And, of course, to the residents of our beautiful city.
In this short period of time, and probably 25 hours of negotiation and counting, we were able to accomplish a lot and we are very aware that there's still a significant number of things that need to be done.
When working on a measure of this complexity and impact, we always want to have meaningful collaboration with our city staff and all impacted stakeholders.
We also want to keep in mind how local measures impact our overall environmental efforts within the city, the Bay area, the state and beyond.
We might not be the largest city in the nation, nor even in the county.
But we definitely are our leader in a progressive environmental policy setting and we have a reputation to upkeep.
As many of you know, efforts to make a meaningful and swift move to the carbon-free Berkeley of tomorrow are not new, and we share the urgency that many of you feel to mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change, including through the decarbonization of its buildings.
And this measure is attempting to ignite even more urgency and highlight the importance of these efforts.
With that, let me.

Segment 7

Just walk you through the process of how we arrived at the amendments before you.
We have been meeting with city staff.
We read the section 90 to 12 report and.
I, I would venture to say that the thrust of our amendments to the initiative had everything to do with addressing those sections.
We have just trying to have as many conversations as we possibly can have on a very short time frame with representatives from the business and labor community in particular as well as others.
We have had multiple working meetings with activists and authors of the initiative and had preliminary conversations with the city attorney and other staff and have submitted the measure for our city.
Attorneys review and feedback.
So, right now, what the revised language does is the following it prevents or mitigates the immediate fiscal impact on our city.
It provides additional time to incorporate significant upfront expenditures associated with implementing this measure into the mid cycle budget amendments and or the next 2 year budget.
It provides funding for significant admissions reductions while putting strong protections against this placement of Berkeley residents, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
It provides major tax relief compared to the initiative as written for Berkeley nonprofit organizations, building owners who lease to nonprofits and others.
As long as providing extra protections to the life sciences, industrial cluster, which includes laboratory, medical and pharmaceutical uses.
We include a phased in approach to the tax collection, providing substantial tax relief to building owners who want to retrofit in the 1st, few years after the ordinance takes effect and takes advantage of the significant reduced tax rates.
We strive to provide significantly more authority to the city council and discretion to staff to reduce and or suspend the tax for certain categories of building owners.
The language does push out the due date for tax collection to September 30th from February 28th.
That was a direct that came as a direct result of our conversations with staff.
It expands anti displacement protections for nonprofits, businesses, and other organizations and bolsters overall anti displacement efforts to mitigate the impacts of this tax.
The language aims to strengthen labor protections and benefits to financial allocations to direct install programs and other programs with prevailing wages, taking full advantage of the inflation reduction act, other state and federal grants and 0% loans.
And again, just to emphasize, we actually use the boards prevailing wages in the in the revised document.
We aim to ensure that all buildings subject to the tax will qualify for the funds generated by the tax so that they can avail themselves of the benefits as well.
While ensuring that the city council has the authority to address natural as well as human made disasters and utility and supply chain failures that are beyond local control.
Um, and lastly, um, we.
Aspire to align definitions with existing Berkeley municipal code and those used by staff.
Uh, there are.
2 notable matters that remain to be discussed still and I remain committed.
Should we have the votes tonight to continue the discussion? Um, the 1st, 1 deals with the possibility of removing or reducing the 6% tax escalator.
Uh, and secondly, delaying or reducing tax and conferences for individual building owners who are not able to do the work due to factors outside of their control.
In a recommendation, we acknowledge that significant progress and negotiations has been made over a very short period of time.
Uh, we do request additional time to finalize, uh, these remaining negotiating topics, uh.
And also want to acknowledge that this will also give us the time to ensure that.
Certain sections, uh, the section, which allocates the revenues to specified purposes, uh, will be, uh.
Fine tuned the, um, just like the general, um, tax we just put on the ballot.
Uh, this is the main thrust behind this is to make it a general tax measure.
You 1 was the language that, uh, we looked at in particular.
So, um, with that, um, I'm happy to answer any questions and again, um.
Thank you for your consideration and thank all the stakeholders that have been spending many hours in negotiations with us and many more that have been in conversation.
And we, um, with your support, uh, pledge to continue having.
More conversations, thank you.
I would recommend that we go to public comment on item 8 and that item once again is entitled alternative ballot language.
For the large buildings, fossil fuel emissions tax ballot initiative.
We're going to take public comment on this now, and then we'll get to the actual.
Initiative tax measure thereafter.
We'll go 1st in person speakers John can or downtown Berkeley association.
This is a well intended measure.
We all in Berkeley want to reduce our carbon emissions.
For example, my husband and I just finished building all electric solar.
We have an E.
V.
we're a net positive now.
But sadly, this ballot measure is misguided unreasonable and punitive that will excessively burden over 650 nonprofits, hospitals, churches, schools, apartment buildings, grocery stores, merchants and small businesses.
By almost tripling their natural gas rates on January 1st, 2025, 56 days after the measure, if it passes the impact on our nonprofits are emerging from the impact on our nonprofits and emerging pandemic is devastating.
For example, impact the YMCA is almost 200,000 dollars per year and 70,000 for the Berkeley rep that are struggling now to stay alive.
And as you will hear from Beth Ross and impact on our local businesses will be devastating also forcing them to leave Berkeley and now we have a 90 to 12 report.
The state's residential tenants will be impacted also.
And finally, we have a letter from the David Brower center and executive director of grid lab stating this measure is bad policy and probably not effective in achieving climate action goals.
While we applaud council member effort to afford to compromise this measure, we believe it is too little too late.
We need to focus on a well, informed process, engaging advocates, nonprofits, local businesses, environmental and grid experts, counseling staff on a new measure next year or 2026 achieves the goals of significantly reducing carbon emissions as well as protecting the viability of our nonprofit and business community.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Once again, this is public comment on item 8, the alternative ballot measure submitted by councilman trigger.
Yes, good evening.
My name is Tim Frank and I'm representing the building trades of Alameda county and I want to note that we appreciate we were invited by council member to help craft an alternative to the measure that the, the initiative measure that you'll be discussing later.
The initiative measure does something that we would like to see done, which is taxing fossil fuels to provide funding for programs that use our members to provide decarbonization services.
But it's way too extreme it's poorly thought out and is riddled with errors and so when when council member asked us if we'd be willing to work with the authors of that to try and fix the problems with it, which means making it a much more measured bill and fixing the errors that are in it we said we would be happy to do that and we remain willing to contribute to that effort.
We have no idea of whether we can get to success on that, but we would note that we would only want the council to take action putting an alternative on the measure if the initiative measure were withdrawn and our ideal solution would be 1, where the authors of the initiative measure actually withdraw that and allow us the time to actually have a proper stakeholder engagement process over the next 2 years and come back with something that's.
Really well thought out, which we think that would be exciting to do, but in the moment, we are willing to continue trying to negotiate the terms of this and we'll see where this goes.
So, we thank you for your time and thank you to a council member for attempting to provide an opportunity to eliminate some of the, I mean, we would love to see if we didn't have to actually carry this out a battle at the ballot.
But if we're, if that's what's necessary, we'll make sure that Berkeley is protected.
Next speaker, please.
Good evening.
Mayor and council.
I am money law resident of Berkeley and thankful to my council member council member.
I am 1 of those authors as well as activists who were part of the drafting and with all due respect 2 years.
The way it's too late, most of you probably heard.
This is the hottest day on Earth and the history of the planet.
This last week, and we don't have the time.
Earth is literally on fire, so.
I do believe we can reach a compromise, but I have a statement to read.
Oh, 1.
Minute was given to me by Carol mustard.
I have another statement.
From this, it was my personal capacity.
I'm speaking again as a resident.
And I'm reading from Jocelyn goldsmith to Santa, who's our new cope coordinator for Berkeley 1021.
And she sits as follows as you.
1021 are strong supporters of the large buildings fossil fuel emissions tax.
We're open to council placing an alternative measure on the ballot.
In addition to the citizens measure, giving voters a choice about how aggressively we should tackle the climate emergency and to weigh potential trade offs.
Our climate is in crisis in the city urgently needs a credible and funded pathway to 0 emissions bold and equitable action as exemplified by the large buildings.
Emissions tax is necessary.
The measure as qualified.
Provides homeowners and renters.
Read that closely with funds and support to electrify their buildings helps also the unions and the workers and labor while also uplifting the building trades and public sector workers.
It also prioritizes environmental justice important point, as we have a lot of displacement and gentrification from black people being disappeared from Berkeley as well as brown people and West and South Berkeley neighborhoods that have historically been disproportionately polluted.
As we know, and we're specifically some of the speakers that have talked with the group that is negotiating a compromise are greening the church.
Are you familiar with Reverend Ambrose Carol? If not read about greening the church also center for freedom, faith and justice Michael Smith and our Carol.
Not with the group of people redrafting this and making some suggestions as we wait for the final form.
Hope says from the union of the alternative measure to take shape.
We urge the council.
Please to adopt the boldest possible version and then proceed to allow both measures to proceed on the ballot.
This would provide the voters an opportunity to weigh these concerns in a democratic way.
How quickly and vigorously we address the climate emergency.
Thank you very much.
And time is of the essence.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any other in-person speakers and item 8 that will go to speakers on zoom Jonathan Ackerman, followed by Rebecca Frankie.
And once again, this public comment on item 8, the alternative proposal by council member.
Jonathan Ackerman, you should not be able to speak.
Jonathan Ackerman, we cannot hear you.
I will come back to you.
Rebecca Frankie.
Good evening.
My name is Rebecca Frankie, a resident of district 1 and I'm here today as co chair of the Sierra club, San Francisco Bay chapters, energy and climate committee.
As this alternative measure to the large buildings, fossil fuel emissions tax measure is shaped.
We should not lose sight of the fact that the city declared a climate emergency 6 years ago.
Yet, we have not been able to make headway in reducing building emissions.
In fact, they've increased from the largest buildings.
Time is not on our side.
We need to have a stable funding stream, which ensures that building electrification can be scaled to reach all of Berkeley's communities equitably.
Over the next 20 years, this includes aiding residents to comply with regulations of the Bay area air quality management district, which phase out natural gas furnaces and water heaters beginning in 2027.
It's essential that we pass a significant measure this fall and if additional exemptions are to be granted and a phase in extended, they should be considered carefully.
Otherwise, we risk further slowing the transition to which Berkeley is committed, but lagging.
We need to do more better and faster in eliminating greenhouse gas pollutants, which harm everyone, including the owners and employees of the businesses, which call Berkeley home.
Thank you.
Thank you back to Jonathan Ackerman and you should not be able to speak.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Great.
Hi, my name's Jonathan Ackerman and I'd like to cede my time to Brianna McGuire.
Okay.
Well, on additional additional time to Brianna.
Thank you.
Okay, and Brianna, you should not be able to speak.
Wonderful.
Hi, folks.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment.
My name is Brianna McGuire and chair of the ECC, but I'm commenting in a personal capacity.
As many speakers have noted, the climate crisis is significantly worsening and costing folks in Berkeley right now.
The mayor, in fact, mentioned that many folks are being dropped from insurance and some of that is due to climate risk.
It will only get more expensive to address this.
Our existing policy is not currently driving emissions down and we're not currently on track to meet our climate goals and buildings, which are 43% of city emissions.
We need to raise money to make structural change and decarbonize as soon as possible, which is mentioned in our report.
As a result of these urgent needs, I'm supportive of council, allowing the process to play out until August 5th, and I'm in favor of hopefully placing the alternate large buildings emissions tax on the ballot as well as the original.
Presenting Berkeley residents with options to address the climate crisis will help our city select the best path forward.
The original measure would raise, as I found out tonight, approximately the city library budget, about $26M per year to help decarbonize buildings.
Berkeley needs about $1B to decarbonize all of our buildings.
The alternate measure stipulates a 5 or 7-year phase-in of the tax, which will allow many businesses and nonprofits more time to take steps to decarbonize or reduce gas use to lessen their burden.
I will briefly point out that many businesses in Berkeley do show that their gas usage varies by up to 50% per year in the public data provided by BASO.
I took this data from 2022 and 2023, so this was after the bulk of the pandemic had passed.
So, it does look like for some buildings, there are possibilities for reductions today without significant lead-in time needed.
But again, that doesn't apply to some others.
Because of that slower phase-in, we may not have the money needed to equitably comply with upcoming BACMA regulations in 2027 and 2029, which require installation of certain NOx-free appliances.
The 9212 report does note that there is a $20,000 to $30,000 gap between what incentives are available to homeowners to decarbonize and what homeowners are actually paying.
So, lower funding in the interim may reduce the rate of decarb in some homes.
As a union member and worker representative, I'm always concerned about provisions that reduce worker power.
The alternate measure as a general tax can't fully guarantee the same worker protections as the original ballot measure for city workers.
And I do know that this is of concern to folks, and I hope that Council takes steps to prevent contracting out such that the funding of the alternate measure can be placed on a ballot.
I also finally hope that some aspects of the existing measure, for example, the extensive renter protections, anti-displacement language, and the ability of those who pay the tax to access the funds to decarbonize, and finally, the 6% year-over-year escalator remain in the mix.
I'll state that 5% to 6% increases are common in federal carbon tax proposals, and I do not see why Berkeley policy should be more conservative than federal Democratic Party policy.
I am eager to see where this process ends up, and I hope that Council is supportive of allowing this process to play out until August 5th and supportive of the alternate measure.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment.
Our next speaker is Kelly Hammergren, followed by Emily Winston.
We're running out of time to change our ways and to address climate.
According to Copernicus, the European system, we have been at 1.6 centigrade above on temperature rise for the last 12 months.
We don't have time.
We have to change, and I like Moni's suggestion to have both of these measures on the ballot.
So that's all I have to say.
You know, the future looks really scary if we don't act.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Emily Winston.
Hi, so I'm the owner of Boy Chick Bagels, and I wrote an email letter to the Council about the original ballot measure.
After I wrote that, I saw this kind of modified version, and I want to address that, that scaling things in a little slower is not going to help.
It doesn't, it seems like no one has spoken to anyone in industry.
My factory is running largely on natural gas.
I just made that $5 million investment to move into the city of Berkeley.
It cannot be converted very easily, and I've spoken to Barry of Fieldwork Brewing.
I think no one else has really gotten the news on this yet.
This will drive, even with a slower ramp up, this will drive all of industrial business out of the city and just move elsewhere.
This is just, it does not work for industrial processes to just flip a switch and change to electrification, and I'm not any kind of climate change denier or any such thing.
But this is just very pragmatic.
Businesses will not be able to function with either of these initiatives put into action.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Our next speaker is Beth Rosner, followed by Barry Brayden.
Good afternoon, Council.
This is Beth Rosner from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.
I'd like to thank Council Member Tregub and his staff for working on an alternative ballot measure.
But legislation of this magnitude requires extensive stakeholder engagement with impacted businesses, religious institutions, nonprofits, PG&E, and the community, and should not be rushed onto the 2024 ballot.
I have many more comments, but I'm going to save those for the original ballot measure discussion.
So thank you for your time on this one.
Okay, we'll go next to Barry Brayden.
Hi, Mayor, can you hear me today? Yes, we can.
Oh, awesome.
So thank you.
This is my second time talking to the Council in 2 days, and I appreciate the opportunity.
And I have to echo what John Koehner and Emily said.
You know, this is a lofty goal, and I appreciate Council Member Tregub's efforts on this.
But, you know, if something like this passes, as Emily says, there's no room for industry in Berkeley to survive.
This measure all by itself would cost my small business $90,000 more a year.
And the fact is, as I said yesterday on the call, I've already moved 12 jobs out of Berkeley in the month of June, and this measure would cause me to move another 9 to 12 jobs out of Berkeley, which as a totality would be about $2 million worth of payroll lost to the City of Berkeley.
Now, I have it easier than Emily does.
I can go make beer somewhere else very easily, and I already do, as a matter of fact.
But, you know, I want to be in Berkeley.
This is our home.
We've been here for 10 years.
We love the community.
We love the city.
But it doesn't seem like Council and the city love us very much as small business people.
So, I just think that if something like this passes, we're probably not going to be able to stay here any longer.
So, I just wanted to make that statement, and I appreciate the time.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thank you.
Esme Denko is our next speaker.
Thank you.
I'm also waiting to comment on the original proposition.
My name is Emeshev from Berkeley Bowl.
So, mirroring kind of like bagels and beer there as well.
But we appreciate the alternative measure.
There are some significant issues that are not addressed and need to be further investigated before putting either measure on the ballot.
So, again, we just ask for more time.
And same, we know that the planet is on fire.
However, you know, we're talking of businesses and us transitioning to cleaner energy, if that's available to us.
And I will comment on the next one as well.
Thank you.
Seeing no additional speakers, we'll bring it back to the Council.
And I'm just going to hand it over to Council Member Humbert.
Yes.
Thanks again, Mr.
Mayor.
And I really appreciate all the hard work Council Member Trigub and his staff put into this.
Having said that, I'm not prepared to support putting a Council version of this measure on the ballot, either today or even or next week.
Next week's not enough time.
We are obligated, obviously, to either adopt or place on the ballot the version that has collected sufficient signatures.
But pushing a rushed alternative created under pressure generated by the original would be a disservice to voters and create a false impression that Council has fully vetted and supports whatever alternative we put forward.
But we haven't had sufficient time to analyze and vet this alternative, and we won't have had sufficient time a week from now.
We purposely pushed our consideration of the ballot measures to this meeting and a recess period meeting next week to ensure that we and staff have had adequate time for reporting and analysis.
But that's not going to happen with this alternative.
There's no 9212 report that's been generated, and I'm sure one can't be in the meantime.
A week's time during what's supposed to be Council recess is not remotely adequate for rigorous evaluation of any alternative.
So for this reason, I will support placing the original on the ballot because we're legally mandated to do that, but I will not support any alternative.
Thank you.
Council Member Taplin.
Thank you very much, and Council Member Trager, thank you for your work and the work of your office.
I recognize the spirit of conciliation that you are attempting to bring to this on this measure and the discourse unfolding from whence.
I do have some questions.
When did the language post, when did we get this? Supplemental to yesterday.
Yesterday, okay.
Forgive me if I've been able to review the amendments.
You are forgiven.
All right, I bet.
How much will this cost field work? All right, let me make sure I heard your question.
How much will this cost field work? Oh, field work.
So because of the intense time pressures, you know, as others have said, we've had two weeks to simply try to negotiate changes starting with the initiative.
I have not had the time and staff has not had the time to analyze impact to field work specifically or individual businesses.
I will note, and I may have forgotten to mention that in the summary, this does move the threshold for non-profits from $1 million operating budget to $100 million.
I'm not familiar with the operating budgets of non-profits.
So you don't have the numbers for field work.
I imagine same goes for Boychik or Ashby Lumber.
Let's say I'm a manufacturer who makes cell therapies to treat Parkinson's or acute care hospital.
How much would it cost me? Yeah, well, there are exemptions that we put into the life sciences, industrial clusters specifically.
So there are in, well, I would say additional protections for laboratory, medical and pharmaceutical uses.
And that was negotiated in part by the in part by the building trades who have reached out to Bayer and others, is my understanding.
We can bring Tim Plank back here if there's specific questions about that.
And let's say multifamily buildings, residential buildings along our commercial corridors.
Yeah, so this is, again, because, you know, I would say that even in the 90 to 12 report,.

Segment 8

There was insufficient time for even staff to analyze the specific cost, and they mentioned that in the report, it certainly would have been impossible for us to analyze it, other than to just do our best to reduce the impact to as many impacted stakeholders as much as possible while keeping the majority of the benefits from the funds generated from the stocks.
So, speaking of stakeholders, in my office, we've been looking at, we've been comparing our property tax revenues across areas of the city.
My district pulls a lot of weight.
Which industrial stakeholders did you consult? So, it was the representatives.
You know what, I would like, if possible, because we, our office was engaged with drafting this measure, and we have deputized Tim Frank to speak with other stakeholders.
Would it be possible for Tim to come up? I'll take my questions for Tim offline.
All right, well, I'll save the rest of my questions.
I will say in closing that 60% of our emissions come from our transportation sector.
I would love to see something that would allow us to electrify freight along I-80.
I would love to see something that would allow us to expand our EV charging infrastructure for the public.
The word just transition gets used a lot.
We hear the word environmental justice a lot.
If we're not investing in the public infrastructure requisite to move our largest jobs producers and revenue generators off of fossil fuels, we're not making a just transition.
We're just targeting sectors.
Thank you.
Vice Mayor Weingrath.
Thank you.
Council Member Trigub, I want to thank you so much for your effort to try to come up with a decent proposal to put on the ballot.
I really, really do appreciate the effort.
That said, I tried to understand what you were proposing and I really didn't have enough time to figure it out.
And in the absence of the 9212 report that we have for the citizens initiative, I feel like it's not ready for prime time.
And I would like to encourage you to bring something back in 2026 that addresses this problem so that we really get it right and we don't punish our businesses in the process and our nonprofits.
So I can't support putting this on right now.
But as I said, I really do appreciate your efforts.
Thank you.
Can I go to the other councilors that haven't spoken? Then we'll come back to you.
Council Member Bartlett.
I just wanted to also thank you, Council Member Trigub.
Great effort and I've been in your seat before.
And, you know, I appreciate your ambition and your attempt to really marshal some more workable, this expansive.
You know, but this was something that gathered signatures.
So they think they have they have this right.
This is just they have it.
And to rework it is really difficult, especially without their consent.
But I really appreciate what you did and I know you're an expert in the field and look forward to working with you on the next evolution of your concepts.
Thank you.
Council Member Hahn.
Yeah, I actually had a question.
Council Member Trigub, did the proponents say they would withdraw the other one? Is that the idea here that this would take the place of it? There has been discussions, but so far.
They have been discussions and I think the proponents comments tonight speak for themselves.
Okay, so we could be in a position to have.
2 measures.
The proponents have, I believe, until.
August 9th to withdraw is that correct? Madam city attorney.
I, if this gets the 5 votes to move forward, so we can continue talking.
My intention is to make a decision.
Before August 5th, based on my understanding of commitment towards having a single measure, not 2 measures.
I see.
Okay.
And just building on some of the questions that council member had, I am curious if.
Quite frankly, it was very difficult to understand the costs.
2 buildings of the measure that is.
You know, that that gathered signatures.
Do you have any have you done any.
Any costing and comparison of how yours would land.
And has that been.
Sort of shared and discussed with property owners who would be subject to the tax.
Yeah, very generally, it's not something that I would feel comfortable putting in a report and I appreciate the staff's issued a 90 to 12 report.
Um, and even with the extensive research provided by staff, they go, they say up front that it is challenging to come up with specific costs on such a short timeline.
Okay, so we don't, you don't, you're not sure and with the exemptions that you've.
Proposed here for nonprofits and, um.
I guess you said a certain certain industry groups.
Is it where and who else would be caught.
In the different exemptions, so all nonprofits, including C3, C4, C6 is basically any type of nonprofit.
As defined by the tax code, additional protections for life sciences.
Large buildings, including laboratory, medical.
And pharmaceutical uses, and then we are.
There is a broad exemption if there is an.
Act of God, or force mature what we are now negotiating and I wish I could say that we have reached agreement, but we haven't would be around.
The ability of individual.
Uh, you know, property owners to be able to make upgrades if, um.
Hampered by, uh, situations beyond their control.
That could be the need, for instance, to require to build an extra transformer because they're the last on the block to electrify, or it could be, um, you know, the unavailability of parts and this is what we are.
Um, we were down to the last 2 issues to discuss, but those happen to be the 2 issues to discuss.
Okay, and are you when you say you're discussing, um.
You mentioned, I guess the proponents obviously.
Um, the trades, um, what about the, I mean, have you talked with there? Have you talked with biotech? Have you talked with, um, you know, the people who own the Broward center and, um.
Our new people who have built the new.
Apartment buildings in the last 20 years who were being required to put in gas infrastructure at the time, because it was viewed as cleaner.
Are you are those people in the conversations as well? I'm really trying to get a sense.
With with all these good ideas and, um.
Consultation are we getting towards something that.
That all affected parties would be amenable to.
Or is it just a, you know, more thoughtful version of, um.
But still an advocacy and advocate driven vision.
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, from my perspective, um.
Uh, and there was at the beginning of the negotiation, a fundamental question that needed to be answered.
Um, is there time to start from scratch and given just a timeline? There wasn't again.
This was not our measure.
And so we ended up starting from what was submitted and trying our best to go category by category exemption by exemption.
Or, um, you know, other forms of relief indirectly.
We have had conversations with many of the groups you mentioned.
Obviously, if there was more time, uh, uh, you know, I'm committed to continuing our outreach.
This is really like.
Um, our office has been working around the clock for the last 2 weeks on this.
We have, um, and I, um.
I do not take this lightly.
I think it's an important question.
Uh, it's an important issue to try to tackle.
Um, so I would.
Welcome the opportunity to continue the discussion.
Uh, should there not be 5 votes tonight to move it forward? Uh, I also welcome the opportunity to continue in the off cycle, having, uh, those conversations.
Okay, well, let me just say that, um, obviously, um, we all want to find a way to transition.
Our existing buildings to all electric, especially now that we have 100% renewable electricity, and most of Berkeley is already built and so most buildings in Berkeley are not going to be new.
Um, and so I think it's a really, it's a really challenging question.
How do we do that? It's imperative if we are going to meet our climate action goals.
Not just for commercial buildings, but also for.
Smaller residential, everyone's going to have to figure out how to get.
To electric, um.
Just as a, as a, as my own self as a homeowner, I have as my person appliances and vehicles and things have have reached the end of their useful life.
I've electrified everything.
And I, I can say that it's so much more complicated and expensive than you imagine when you embark on this good work, even on a very micro level.
Right? Obviously, that's nothing compared to a large building.
And I am very committed to finding a path for us to make this transition.
I am concerned about the measure that is on the ballot, not because it isn't doing the right thing it is, but because I'm not sure it's the right way to get there.
And I guess I'm not 100% sure that right.
But you've been so diligently trying to put together.
I'm not sure that that will get us there either.
I am open to a little bit more time, but I don't see a lot of appetite on the dias.
And so I'm a little worried, but if we give you the time, you're going to spend another week and you might not be successful a week from now, but I will say that.
I'm willing, I'm personally willing to give you the time.
I, I'm just not sure if you want it.
So, you know, I think we all want this goal.
I, again, I don't want to speak for my colleagues here, but everybody wants us to figure out.
How we get everyone to electrify I just don't know if it's before us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I appreciate my colleague council members efforts to craft a compromise measure and I support referring his job to the city attorney for further development in ahead of our meeting next week.
I do have some questions and concerns, but I feel comfortable voting to continue this and delve into them next Monday, especially after conversations with key labor stakeholders.
This is all to say that I really appreciate the work has put into this compromise measure and I support providing direction to staff to continue it.
Thank you.
So, unless there's a motion.
There will be no action on this, so.
If he wants to make a motion, I will move the item.
So, okay, I may 2nd, by little par any additional discussion.
Yeah, council member.
Yeah, and, you know, I really do respect the effort.
For me, another big thing is, you know, we've some of us have been working on these measures for for the past 2 years.
You know, we all take this seriously.
I really relish the chance to evaluate and think thoroughly and I feel like I did not have that chance tonight.
I want us all to really.
If these things are so important, as we, as we know, they are, I.
I hope that we can all, you know, prioritize the work to get everyone where we need to be to land things on time.
So that we're not.
Getting getting proponents and opponents to do deals behind the scenes, withdraw, withdraw 5 days before the deadline.
Okay, unless there's any further discussion.
What can call the role in the motion to.
Thank you very much.
Mr.
Mayor.
I'll just briefly touch on this.
I, I, I have some serious concerns about the citizen initiative measure.
I, I want to thank and appreciate council member for the work on item number 8.
For this alternative, I also just didn't have time to delve into the details of the supplemental.
And so, for that reason, I, I think that it's just not realistic at this point to proceed with the alternative.
That's all I have at this time.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And before you vote, I also really appreciate the work that you've done to try to find a way to reach a green.
I wish that we had.
Confirmation today from the proponents that they were going to withdraw.
But I do want to acknowledge all the hard work that you've done in moving this forward and if, for whatever reason, you know, this, this measure doesn't pass.
I hope we can start after the election to begin the work of bringing stakeholders together to find a path forward.
This does not negate the very important climate work.
The city of Berkeley is currently engaged in and will continue to be engaged in to advance our goals towards electrification and transitioning off fossil fuels.
So, if we can please call the roll on item 8.
Okay, my motion is to the recommendation and supplemental to.
Yeah, which is to have this come back, right? Yeah, yeah, to come come back on August 5th and I will just stay to it, but I can have your indulgence.
I am.
Also, kind of going to be in a position to make a decision before August 5th.
Whether this is ready to go on the ballot by then, so I'm going to be really I appreciate.
The stakeholders who have been meeting and I would like to ask.
Really, the, the parties in it, you know, the, I think the drafters of the initiative, thank you for negotiating in good faith and.
I will be ultimately making a decision.
You know, on August 5th, based on whether.
We will be in a position to vote on a single ballot measure or 2.
Mr.
Clark, can you please receive the motion? So the, the motion is to adopt the recommendation and supplemental packet number 2, which is to, you know, in part, direct the city manager to provide.
Um, legal administrative amendments, a writer resolution submitting the alternative ballot measure.
Large billions fossil fuel emissions tax to go to the people on November 5th.
To be considered at the special council meeting on August 5th, 2024.
okay.
That is the motion and if you can please call the wall now on the motion council member.
No.
Tablin no Bartlett no.
I on yes.
When graph no, yes.
Number no, you're arguing I abstain.
Okay, that motion fails.
Okay.
That motion fails briefly.
So before we go to.
Item 3 colleagues in the interest of time and to ensure that we have adequate time for public comment and discussion.
I'd like to make a motion to continue item 7, placing the Berkeley tenant protection and right to organize act on the special Monday, August 5th agenda.
That's my motion.
Is there a 2nd to continue that.
2nd, so the motion is to continue that item to our special meeting on August 5th.
That will be the only item on our agenda on August 5th.
And I think that'll provide us more time to have discussions with parties.
And to come prepared to take up this very important issue and to hear from the community about this important issue and thank everyone who's been here waiting to take this up.
But I think, in the interest of time, given that we have a 6 o'clock meeting that we're already late for that, we should calendar this for Monday, August 5th.
That's the motion.
Please call the wall.
Council member yes.
Yes.
Bartlett yes, I.
On yes, 1 graph.
Yes.
Yes, number.
Yes.
And Mary.
Yes.
Okay, our last item now that we have continue that matter is item 3 initiative petition initiative ordinance to adopt a special tax on natural gas consumption in buildings at 15,000 square feet or larger.
I move.
That we adopt a resolution submitting the measure without alteration to a vote of the people.
At the November 5th, 2024 general municipal election and leave it to the parties to submit ballot arguments, but the council would not be sending arguments.
2nd.
That's my motion.
Is there a 2nd, 2nd, 2nd by Humbert.
Thank you.
Okay.
Public comment on this item.
We'd like to start.
Public comment.
Yes, thank you.
Once again, I'm Tim Frank representing the Alameda County building trades.
1 of the reasons we came to the table.
To try and negotiate something here is that the petition measure was extreme riddled with errors and we thought a real threat to Berkeley to its business community to a community.
That's been very good to us the imposition of a tax that is for many players as much as a 200% tax on the underlying item is a pretty extreme number.
You add the 6% escalator to that, and it just gets more extreme year by year by year.
In addition, the protections for folks that we know.
Almost all of us want to protect the nonprofit community.
You look at the 921 to report and it basically says that the protection for the nonprofits would help exactly.
No 1.
so this is either.
Bad faith or incompetence, we don't know which it doesn't really matter.
The fact matters.
It's not good policy and we are dedicated to the idea of coming up with good policy and it would welcome the opportunity to actually have a longer discussion that actually has proper stakeholder input.
It's a very complicated issue, and it's something that we really want to see done.
Right? Because frankly, the building trades have a large role to play in decarbonization.
It's fundamentally construction work, and the city of Berkeley is a place where we think that we can create programs that will utilize our members, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't cannibalize the business community.
That's just killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and that's just inappropriate and so we will be opposing this measure as aggressively as we can and working in concert with a variety of other stakeholders and trying to make sure that we have an opportunity to have a longer discussion about doing it.
Right? Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Are there any other in person speakers on 3, the initiative ordinance to adopt a special tax on natural gas consumption? If not, we'll go to speakers on zoom Beth Rossner followed by Jonathan Ackerman.
Yes, hello again this is Beth Rossner from the Berkeley chamber.
As you know, we're also very concerned about the large building fossil fuel tax ballot measure.
Berkeley's nonprofits and businesses are eager to fight climate change by transitioning from natural gas to electrification.
But this measure is a dramatic unsustainable building tax on hundreds of Berkeley nonprofits and small businesses, costing them tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars almost immediately.
We've heard from organizations like the Brower Center, Berkeley Playhouse and Berkeley Rep, who are already financially precarious coming out of COVID.
Converting to other energy sources requires capital that many just do not have.
We've heard from the Berkeley Bowl and Boychick Bagels that the technology doesn't yet even exist to accommodate some of their needs.
While businesses like Fieldwork Brewing have brewing equipment built to run on natural gas and it's not possible to retrofit.
And even Grid Lab has stated that moving off of gas takes time and significant investment in new equipment.
Large buildings can't simply install new capital intensive retrofits overnight.
And the PG&E often needs several years to install an upgraded power drop.
We've also heard from small businesses like Core Show, who as a tenant in a large building with a triple net lease, the cost of the tax will simply be passed on to them, forcing them to make difficult decisions.
And the impact on medical facilities like Kaiser and Alta Bates will be tremendous.
Retrofitting existing facilities would be cost prohibitive and require major construction.
And could lead to difficult decisions regarding staffing resources and may ultimately impact patient care.
All this on top of the potential repercussions for tenants residing in these large buildings.
The City's own 9212 report determined that the measure may harm tenants and could cause displacement or higher rental costs for future tenants.
I urge Council to oppose this measure and we plan to vigorously oppose it in the coming months.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Jonathan Ackerman, followed by Rebecca Franke.
Hello, my name is Jonathan Ackerman.
I'm a Berkeley resident and I'd like to cede my time to Brandon McGuire.
Okay, we'll add 1.55 to Brandon's time.
And we'll go to Brandon McGuire.
Hi there folks.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment.
I'm supportive of Council placing this tax on the ballot.
Berkeley voters deserve to determine if this is the type of action they want to take.
Frankly, this raises the level of funding we need to even have a chance of satisfying our climate goals.
Waiting to take action sure is possible, but we will continue to need a significant amount of money.
This will have to come from somewhere.
Our City's ability to implement policy like the gas ban in the future may be impacted by things like the fall of Chevron deference in an uncertain regulatory environment.
So a carbon tax may be 1 of the most resilient ways to reduce carbon emissions and improve health outcomes.
I recognize that addressing the climate crisis and meeting goals will be a difficult task, but they again will only become more expensive the longer that we wait.
I did not write this measure.
I'm just a person who's interested in decarbonization.
And so I'd like to comment on a few aspects of the 9212 report that I believe bear highlighting.
Overall, I think this report does not provide a total picture to evaluate the measure and overemphasizes certain costs.
Inside, references to the social cost of carbon and other contextual information are brief and only some figures are cited.
Many of the figures cited are more conservative than many democratic policy solutions.
There are almost no references to the health benefits of cutting out gas and the lives saved by reducing gas pollution.
Additionally, I have some questions about some conclusions.
The 9212 report says there are no non-profits held by the exemptions.
By my research, there are at least 7, including the Magnus Museum Foundation, Finnish Hall, and others.
I'm very confused about how they calculated that.
That is obviously low, but it's not zero.
I also have other questions about numbers they've arrived at, but what I want to dig into is some framing in the report.
The report cites many percentages without context and without accounting for base rates, and I believe that it does distort some conclusions.
I'll make some examples here.
On page 20, the report states that hospital profit margins are currently 1.1% across California and are depressed relative to pre-pandemic levels, leaving aside the implication that addressing the climate crisis should wait until every other problem has been solved.
The 1.1% profit margin is on a massive amount of revenue.
For example, the two separate Kaiser non-profits that own Kaiser facilities in Berkeley have a combined revenue of over $100 billion and combined assets of $53 billion.
That does not include the value of their buildings.
I'm just not sure that the cost of paying their tax amount would be a single doctor's salary, and I just don't know if paying that tax to decarbonize buildings for low-income people is that inconsistent with their mission or endangers their bottom line, especially when it will directly benefit people's health.
The base rate fallacy extends beyond wealthy entities to other business entities.
A business with what sounds like a low, say, 1% profit margin may be burdened by this tax.
They also may not.
It's just not clear to us because it depends on the base quantity, the 1% refers to.
Any entity that would like to more fully inform Berkeley residents about profitability so we can determine the actual fiscal impacts would frankly be very welcomed by me so that I can understand this better.
But citing percentages or raw numbers without context risks misinforming residents about impact.
Other examples of this framing include on the impacts to city section on pages 27 and 28.
There, we erroneously assert that the 10% set aside will not be enough for implementation, but we do not acknowledge that comparable because apparently comparable cities use higher proportions on implementation.
But we do not acknowledge that those comparable cities have much lower budgets that require that higher percent on page 29.
we state that 8% of the city's general fund is from business licensing fees without specifying how much of that revenue is from businesses in the only 600 buildings subject to this tax.
It makes it appear that the measure will evaporate 8% from the general fund immediately.
So, all in all, I believe that in the 9212 report, there is reporting a percentages without context that does not clarify the cost or feasibility of this measure to voters and was a missed opportunity to inform folks.
Finally, I do want to highlight that again, there is a huge shortfall between D carb incentives and the actual amount that homeowners are paying, especially low income homeowners.
This lack of funding and the difficulty of navigating existing incentives and Bachman rules that are upcoming that require the near term installation of emission free appliances demonstrate that.

Segment 9

we need to raise funding to fill these gaps.
This measure may be aggressive, but the climate crisis is more aggressive.
The citizens of Berkeley deserve to determine if this is the measure to take action on.
Okay, Rebecca Franke followed by Meryl Siegel on item three.
Hi, my name is Rebecca Franke, and I'm co-chair of the Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapters Energy and Climate Committee.
As a city, we've made a commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2045 or sooner.
According to the city's Climate Action Plan and Resilience Update of December, 2023, this would require an additional 75% reduction of greenhouse gases.
Since we have some 15,000 low to moderate income residential buildings in Berkeley out of a total of around 27,000, and gas use in commercial and residential buildings is the second largest source of emissions, that's 43% of the city's greenhouse gases, we have a lot to do within a shrinking window.
Whenever we move, whenever we decide to move, there will be challenges.
Cities across the country are trying to figure out how to deal with existing housing stock.
How to cover Berkeley over the next 20 years won't be without its bumps.
But if we get started soon, our effort can serve as a model for other cities, including the hard challenges we face and the compromises we make.
And as well, there will be constraints on resources, including building a high road workforce.
But the best way to begin addressing those issues is to pass a measure this fall, so that the city sends a signal to PG&E, to unions, to Berkeley residents and businesses, that the city is serious about meeting its commitments.
And by doing so, we provide residents and business person alike with the ability to begin factoring this climate mitigation action into their planning.
On the one hand, the Just Transition Fund for helping residents and businesses to fight climate change and improve their quality of life.
And on the other hand, the tax on significant users of natural gas.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, our next speaker is Meryl Siegel, followed by Nagin.
Yes, I wanna thank the city for these ambitious plans to really think about the future and the children who are the stakeholders of the future.
I'm surprised that the city..
We need a better policy to engage businesses in the city so that city actions, which are good and just and important, are not suddenly surprises for the very businesses that are icons in our city.
Boychick Bagels is a new icon.
Our older icons are Acme and other bakeries throughout the city.
So I really ask the city to think about policy of how we engage all our businesses so that everybody thinks about what's going on and how it will affect them.
So that's one plea I had today.
On the second, on the issue of climate change, because I do think about the future, there's some low-hanging fruit.
And the low-hanging fruit has to do with transportation in the city.
For example, Berkeley Unified School District, most of their buses are diesel-fueled.
There's diesel-fueled buses that AC Transit is running up and down Cedar Street, for example, that are empty most of the time.
Now, this might not be such a sexy issue for council people, but it is a real issue for people in the flats.
We can also be thinking also about trains and the diesel fuel used in trains.
So with that said, and I know I'm not alone on this, people want to make big changes, but transportation is one of the places where we can start to be advocates.
So the buses and the trains are big issues.
And then just, I don't know about you, I have one more thing to say.
Many people are driving their cars and letting their cars run without turning off the engine.
Now, this might seem trivial, but it's not.
It's subject for us, we need to move on.
Our next speaker is Nagin, followed by Barry Braden.
Good evening, council.
I'm a small business owner, and I am interested in understanding why you guys are so concerned about biotech and Bayer.
Big corporations like that, they can flip the bill for something like this, versus I think you should be more concerned about something like a small healthcare clinic that doesn't make any profit year after year, because the reimbursements from these big corporations are very low for small businesses.
And if you're a clinic like mine, we don't see a lot of profit because the reimbursements from the big healthcare organizations are so low to us.
These kind of inconsistency in equity between the big businesses that should be flipping the big bills, the big corporate players, and how they're the ones mostly considered tonight is concerning to me.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Barry Braden, followed by Amici Dinko.
Please forgive my pronunciation.
Hello again, council.
I've been enjoying this back and forth for the last hour about this.
I think I'd like to address council member Taplin's question about how much this costs field work.
We spend about $5,200 a month on natural gas or $62,000 a year.
This tax would add an additional $90,000 on top of what we already pay, which are pretty high rates for our utilities.
And I think at the end of the day, we haven't been included as a stakeholder.
No one's come to Emily at Boychik or myself or Jeff Morgan at Covenant and asked us, you know, how we feel about this.
We would love to be involved in the discussion.
Again, if this happens, we'll just move our production somewhere else.
It's just a fait accompli.
But the city has to decide what it wants to be.
Does it want a manufacturing base? Does it want businesses like field work and Boychik and Covenant and all the other businesses that have helped revitalize West Berkeley? And if the answer is no, great, tell us, we'll move on.
But in the meantime, you know, we're gonna work with all the interested parties on our side to vigorously oppose this initiative.
So I thank you very much.
Thank you.
We'll go next to MEC Benko, followed by former Councillor Dablow.
Thank you, Mesha.
Again, back from Berkeley Bowl.
So again, I'm focusing on that.
We are also a local independent business.
And as much as we appreciate the intent behind the measure, but we really do feel like the execution needs more thought and a better strategy that doesn't penalize Berkeley businesses.
And as we heard from many this evening, I think it just this proposition doesn't give us an opportunity and opportunity for the hundreds of affected businesses to transition, which includes nonprofits.
It includes, again, smaller businesses than us as well.
And it just sets us up for failure.
And it just sets us up for failure.
And it is an immensely and a very complex effort that this would mean for us, which needs time, resources, and frankly, just not realistic.
And with the timeline, you know, January 1st is here.
And we understand what its purpose and objective and what it's trying to accomplish with the transition to all electric.
However, this is not the path or avenue we should be taking.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to former Councilor Dablow on item three.
Thank you.
Yes, the Berkeley City Council passed the Climate Emergency Declaration under my leadership and the Fossil Fuel Free Resolution.
And I don't know what y'all are doing, but it doesn't seem like you're doing much to address the climate catastrophe which we're facing.
And I agree with Nagin's point about caring more for multi-billion dollar corporations.
That one of which BEAR is also Monsanto, who puts GMOs and chemicals and everything else out into the planet that destroys us.
So I don't, I don't, I'm not for or against this measure.
I haven't read it, but it's just interesting how, what your priorities are.
And that is really disturbing, but we all know that it seems there's a lot of collusion and corruption between developers, realtors, some businesses in Berkeley get away with everything.
Free Palestine, Free People's Park and praying for a Zionist Free Berkeley City Council.
Thank you.
Okay, on item three, Rick Auerbach on item three.
Yes, hello, can you hear me? Yes.
I've been monitoring the meeting.
I'm speaking here representing WEBAKE, Berkeley Arts and Industry Council.
And, you know, I've been very involved and was one of the coauthors of the West Berkeley plan.
And that plan has stood up to time, you know, the test of time pretty well, because we did an incredibly inclusive outreach to the community to decide what the future of West Berkeley should look like.
And we believe that's because, that is why that plan is still in place, you know, almost 50 years later and mostly intact.
It seems like this, there's probably about 150 manufacturers in West Berkeley employing, you know, in the whole industrial space, there's over 8,000 jobs.
And a lot of these jobs are open to BIPOC people of color, people without advanced education.
These jobs are a really major component of Berkeley's ethnic and economic diversity.
And to be putting, you know, this incredible undue pressure onto these companies and these jobs seems unnecessary.
It seems like stepping back and creating a inclusive committee that really does the needed outreach to the industrial owners and have them sit down and really find a path forward that makes sense because everyone does want to reduce emissions.
And there's probably a whole panoply of measures that can do this, you know, between changing from gas to electric, solar panels, maybe wind, there's all kinds of things that can be done.
But I think, you know, to do this successfully and something that can really point to, what other cities can point to as a successful effort in the future, you really need community buy-in and the buy-in of the sector that you're affecting.
And I think Berkeley has the capacity to do this.
It's done it before and then other cities can look to Berkeley and wow, look how they transitioned to, you know, less emissions and the targeted emissions.
It can be done, but I don't think this is the way to do it.
Thank you.
Okay, I don't see any other raised hands.
So the motion is to adopt a resolution submitting the measure, the initiative ordinance to adopt a special tax on natural gas consumption in buildings of 15,000 square feet or larger to submit that measure without alteration to a vote of the people at the November 5th, 2024 general municipal election.
Is there any objection to all the council members being recorded as aye on that motion to submit the ballot measure? Hearing no objection, that motion carries unanimously.
Okay, I move to adjourn the 3 p.m.
special meeting.
Second.
Is there any objection to the motion? Hearing no objection, that meeting is adjourned.
Okay, we've been meeting since three o'clock.
We have to take a 15 minute captioner break before we go to the six o'clock regular meeting.
So thank you for waiting patiently.
We'll be back soon.
And then we'll begin the six o'clock regular meeting.
Recording stopped.