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Segment 1

Okay, yeah, we're recording.
Good evening, I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the Berkeley City Council for Tuesday, May 7th, 2024.
And the 1st order of business is roll call, I'd like to ask the city clerk to please call the roll.
Council member Casarwani? Here.
Kaplan? Present.
Bartlett? Present.
On? Present.
Weingraft? Present.
Lunapara? Here.
Humbert? Present.
And Mayor Arrogate? Present.
Okay.
Okay, a quorum of the city council is present.
Thank you very much.
So, as we begin our meeting tonight, I want to read our land acknowledgement statement, which is also posted in our council chambers.
The city of Berkeley recognizes that the community we live in is built on the territory of Kuchun, the ancestral, unceded land of the Chichen Itzikin Ohlone people, the ancestors and descendants of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County.
The slant was and continues to be of great importance to all of the Ohlone tribes and descendants of the Verona Band.
As we begin our meeting tonight, we acknowledge and honor the original inhabitants of Berkeley, the documented 5,000 year history of a vibrant community at the West Berkeley Shell Mound, and the Ohlone people who continue to reside here in the East Bay.
We recognize that Berkeley's residents have and continue to benefit from the use and occupation of this unceded stolen land since the city of Berkeley's incorporation in 1878.
And as stewards of the laws regulating the city of Berkeley, it's not only vital that we recognize the history of this land, but also recognize that the Ohlone people are present members of the Berkeley and other East Bay communities today.
The city of Berkeley will continue to build relationships with all Ohlone tribes to create meaningful actions to uphold the intention of this land acknowledgement.
So, with that, we'll move to, before we move to ceremonial matters, I just want to welcome everyone to the Berkeley City Council and to allow for full participation of all members of the community and to ensure that important city business is able to be completed.
We ask that attendees conduct themselves in an orderly manner and respect the rights of others participating in our meeting.
And please be aware that the City Council's rules of decorum, which we have copies of the physical rules for people to review and billboards summarizing the rules in the room, prohibit the disruption of the orderly conduct of our council meeting.
And a summary of these rules is available on the one page on the table near the rear of the boardroom.
I just want to just announce that disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to shouting, making disruptive noises, creating or participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn or in violation of applicable rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting or entering into or remaining in the area of the meeting room that is not open to the public or approaching the council dais without consent.
We ask that you observe these rules so that all members of the public may observe and participate fully in tonight's meeting.
We thank you for being here this evening.
So, with that, we'll proceed to ceremonial matters and the 1st order of business is the ceremonial swearing in of our new colleague council member Cecilia Luna Parra.
So.
So, I'd like to ask the city clerk if he can please administer the oath of office.
Okay.
I so see that Luna Parra.
Do solemnly swear or affirm.
That I will support and defend.
The Constitution of the United States.
And the Constitution of the state of California.
Against all enemies.
Foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance.
To the Constitution of the United States.
And the Constitution of the state of California.
That I take this obligation freely.
Without any mental reservation.
Or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge.
The duties upon which I'm about to enter.
Congratulations, so now I want to turn the floor over to our colleague council member Luna Parra.
Thank you so much and thank you for that.
Serving on the Berkeley city council and representing the South side neighborhood will be the honor of my life.
Thank you so much to my new colleagues and all of my family and friends and mentors and neighbors who helped me get to this moment.
I am so excited to be here representing my beloved district 7 community.
I made some comments earlier, but would like to reiterate them again.
I am grateful to be the 1st undergraduate student, the 1st Latina and the 1st queer woman of color to be elected to this body.
I promise to always remain accountable to my constituents and continue organizing alongside my community because this seat and this vote is ours and I will pledge time and time again to honor you with it.
My presence here is a testament to the power of students and young people in Berkeley and beyond a great example of this student power is the Gaza solidarity encampment at the Mario Savio steps on spiral Plaza.
In my time in the encampment over the past 2 weeks, I have again witnessed the beauty and solidarity and inclusivity of our campus community.
And it's important to remember that while students on campuses here in the Bay protests here on campuses in the Bay area.
Israel's bombs have reduced every university in Gaza to rebel as such.
I fully support my classmates demands in their encampment.
And I will do everything in my power to ensure that no city, county, or UC resources are used to arrest, suspend, evict, or otherwise punish nonviolent student protesters for exercising their right to protest in their encampment.
I will do everything in my power to ensure that no city, county, or UC resources are used to arrest, suspend, evict, or otherwise punish nonviolent student protesters for exercising their 1st amendment rights to free speech, nonviolent protest and collective assembly.
This past month, especially has shown that our generation is a force to be reckoned with that we are strong and imaginative and that we know that there is a future which within reach where we recognize our shared humanity and I have seen that we will not stop until we build the city and the future and which we wish to live.
As I begin my term on the city council, I promise to hold our history close as it guides us towards the material liberation of all people in our own backyards and internationally, because our freedom and joy is bound together.
Thank you so much for this responsibility and I will do everything in my power to be accessible to my community.
So feel free to email me and call me and come find me on campus and in the neighborhood.
And lastly, to all my classmates, as someone who also has a final exam tomorrow, I wish all of us the best of luck this week.
Congratulations to my fellow members of UC Berkeley's class of 2024.
I can't wait to see what all of us go on to achieve and I'm excited to get to work.
Thank you so much again.
Congratulations to our new colleague.
We look forward to working with you.
Congratulations in your election.
Appreciate the enthusiasm that we're sharing on her beginning of her term on the council, but just would like to ask as we proceed with the rest of the meeting for people to refrain from yelling or interrupting the meeting.
So, we can ensure that everyone has the right to be heard and participate in our meeting.
So, with that, we'd like to now adjourn our meeting in honor of 2 individuals.
The 1st former state superintendent public instruction, Delane Easton, who recently passed and she not only served our state as the superintendent public instruction.
And as a member of the state legislature, but was a lifelong activist for not just education, but also for social justice.
And so I'd like to ask that we adjourn our meeting in our honor.
And then last, lastly, we'd like to adjourn our meeting in honor of former conservation development commission chair and longtime Berkeley resident will Travis and I want to turn the floor over to vice mayor Waincraft.
Well, thank you very much.
It's with great sadness and I'm closing this city council meeting in memory of will Travis who passed away in late April.
Will had been living with Parkinson's disease for many years and in addition was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Will Travis and I served on the Berkeley planning commission together and it was during that time that we got to be colleagues and friends.
I learned so much from his wisdom and his sharp wit.
He was a joy to work with.
Trav, as he was known by friends has a long list of accomplishments in 1972.
he was a consultant on the 1st master plan for the East Bay regional park district.
For more than 20 years, he served in positions at the California coastal commission and in 1985, he was appointed deputy director of the San Francisco Bay conservation and development commission B.
C.
D.
C.
In 1995, he was appointed executive director of B.
C.
D.
C.
and under his leadership in 2011, B.
C.
D.
C.
became the nation's 1st state park commission.
And in 2011, B.
C.
D.
C.
became the nation's 1st state coastal management agency to adopt development regulations for addressing sea level rise in 2012, he served as a senior advisor to the Bay area joint policy committee, which coordinates the land use planning of 4 regional agencies.
In 2012, he was appointed director of the San Francisco Bay conservation and development commission and spearheaded the public acquisition of 10,000 acres of privately owned salt ponds along the northern shore of San Francisco Bay.
Those ponds have now been restored to coastal wetlands.
Here in Berkeley, he led a citizens committee in formulating the downtown plan and he initiated the effort to build housing on the North Berkeley Bartlett.
He was also the first person to be appointed director of the San Francisco Bay conservation and development commission and was the first person to present his gift and memoir on international adoption.
These are just a few of Travis accomplishments.
Travis was clever and funny and a lot of fun to be around.
We were also fortunate to have him here in Berkeley.
And I just want to say a few words of thanks to all of the people who have helped to educate and to all who had the privilege of knowing will Travis may his memory be a blessing for us all.
Thank you.
I had the privilege of serving with Mr.
Travis on the committee that we appointed by the committee that we appointed a decade ago to work to develop our downtown plan and former Mayor Bates appointed him to share that committee.
And he's been a great, great mentor to us, and he's helped get us successfully to, I think, with 21 members of that committee to get to agreement on a vision for the downtown and that's just 1 example of the many ways he's touched our city and made a made a real impact.
So, we, we honor his, his work and his legacy and like to ask for unanimous consent that we adjourn our meeting in his honor tonight as well.
Okay, we will proceed now to city manager comments.
Thank you Mr.
Mayor.
I'm going to be turning the presentation over to our deputy city manager latanya bellow who will introduce the team.
But I want to just take a moment to think council member Bartlett for his leadership as we report on the index.
Thank you.
Thank you madam city manager good evening.
Mayor and council.
Good evening.
My name is Bartlett and I'm the deputy city manager for the city of Sioux Falls and I'm here to be responsive to the to the response to the Mason Tillman associates finding and recommendations.
Related to the city's contracting processes.
I'm here to be responsive to the city's contracting processes.
On tonight with us is our diversity equity and inclusion officer expound.
We have individuals from many of the city departments.
That participated on our race and equity committee in a volunteer capacity and they are each on.
The city of Berkeley race and equity committee.
Was a diverse volunteer group of city of Berkeley employees.
Who were assembled together almost 4 years ago.
To address some various issues of race and equity.
That was identified within the city's internal processes and practices.
Mission statement of the committee.
Was the city of Berkeley race and equity committee.
Champions fair and equitable treatment of all by ensuring city of Berkeley internal processes, practices, policies and procedures are equitable for all city employees.
Vendors and contractors across all divisions and departments.
Next slide please.
The city recognize the breath and seriousness of the disparities that were identified by Mason Tillman associates to achieve equity in city contracting.
The city of Berkeley.
Recognize the capacity needed to address the problems that were identified.
The race and equity committee began convening in early 2022 to discuss and strategize ways in which to address the problem presented.
The city of Berkeley recognized the importance of the importance of race and gender in order to best deliver pragmatic and sustainable solutions.
Now, I'll turn this presentation over.
To Bob, who has led this work on the race and equity committee.
Next slide please.
In order to train all members of the city of Berkeley race and equity committee went through an intensive certification training with the city of open department of race equity.
The 4 module training included module 1 race equity 101 module to implicit bias and social power.
Module 3 inclusive engagement, accountability and local government and module for implementing equity.
This experience provided each committee member with the tools to read and understand the Bendix availability study through a race and gender lens to understand the team led a led the team lead.
We've led and created a Bendix organizer tool for the group to use to break down the availability study into sections to allow better reading for purpose.
Each member of the team then provided contributions regarding their specific section availability study to add to a report that we developed.
That we developed in order to solve each member of the team provided key takeaways and strata and suggested solutions for current and future address.
Next slide please.
The members of the race and equity team committee are from diverse racial, gender and cultural experiential backgrounds.
This collection of people provides an analysis of the problem from different vantage points, creating a unique perspective.
The race and equity committee report was divided into 3 subsections and which covered the legal authority.
And the authority, which is the city's procurement process on the states and the states qualification known as CBS laws for architectural engineering, environmental land surveying and construction.
And also the city's own codes, which are the codes, and we did some identification of the problems through the qualitative and quantitative data of the availability study.
So, we really dug in deep to understand the study and understand how the utilization of minority women on business enterprises and non minority male on business enterprises for prime contracts to the city ethnicity and gender were really looked at.
The identification of the problems were 1 of the last things that we did to address through a comprehensive plan.
So, now, thank you very much and I will turn over the other part of the presentation to my colleague and Emily.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Emily and I'm a clinician with Berkeley mental health and the family youth and children services division.
As part of the race and equity committee, we reviewed the past procurement process using the Bendix graphic.
To identify patterns of disparities and equities around race and gender.
The committee also provided new ideas and recommendations to help address these issues.
And in this process to identify patterns, we 1 investigate.
To navigate and 3, keep it going.
We'll share and explain about the action steps taken.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Emily.
Good evening.
My name is time.
I'm with the department.
Thank you so much for having me.
As part of the recommendations and to be in compliance with title 2 of the code of federal regulations.
The race and equity committee created a survey.
That will go out to all departments within the city to collect data that will inform our phase 2.
Now, this is a self assessment tool.
That will use to look at how the departments currently are processing contracts, the tools that they're using.
And the trainings that may that they may need.
We also evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the entities equal opportunity programs assess how our performance.
What how our performance has been when it comes to working with minorities and women owned business enterprises.
Looking at whether there's any process in place to reach out to the.
Is there any mechanism in place to give special attention to the end of these when we value bits.
And lastly, we invite our colleagues from the various departments to brainstorm with us.
On how the process.
The outreach effort and the vendor list maintenance can be improved.
The data that we gather in the survey will, like I said, inform the steps that we're taking in phase 2 as well as give us the opportunity to get alignment.
On the processes and tools used, for example.
We can streamline the processes for each type of contract to use only 1 method.
My colleague from general services.
We'll get, we'll be going over a tool that we've created to centralize the vendor list maintenance and repository.
Now, with that said, I'm going to try and control the mic over to.
Thank you.
I am general suite general services manager.
I was the lead staff.
Working with Mason Tillman during their research and analysis for their report.
Next slide in response to the findings of the Mason Tillman report.
We now have a new online vendor sign up form created with technology already in place at the city.
We are capturing race, gender and industry specific information about the vendors who sign up for bid notifications.
We have made contact with several Bay area professional associations for minority and woman owned business.
We are compiling the data from solicitations responses and awards for analysis.
Next slide please.
Historically, the city has used a page subscription program for potential vendors.
Where we collected only an email from interested firms, and then sent a blind email blast to inform them of bids and RFPs that were available.
Now, the info we collect follows the Mason Tillman report guidelines.
We collect race data.
Both on an aggregated and disaggregated basis, along with ethnicity.
We also include business location and gender of ownership.
Next slide.
We now have real time visibility to this data as vendors sign up.
The graphs are showing vendor information that is current all the way up through last week.
This data is new to the city.
We did not have this useful data when utilizing only the page subscription service for soliciting bids.
Next slide please.
Our committee located 11 professional associations, representing minority and woman owned businesses.
We have conducted outreach to each association and have contacts at each.
We are scheduling webinars with these associations on how to do business with the city of Berkeley.
We have done the same already once with the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.
Next slide.
Data is now available and we have begun to compile it for meaningful analysis.
Now we have a vendor count of firms that were part of any given solicitation.
We can drill down to those that are local, MBE, or WBE.
We know who we solicited, who responded, their demographics, and how to contact them for follow up.
Next slide.
Change is underway.
Our new vendor sign up list continues to grow.
This is a major driver for change.
Our connections with professional associations are growing, also driving this change.
The data from bid and RFP solicitations is starting to flow back to us for analysis, which will help us craft our ongoing research, our ongoing outreach, excuse me, to local minority and women owned firms.
And now I will pass it over to Roxana.
Thank you, Daryl.
My name is Roxana Andrade.
I work as the administrative secretary for the health, housing and community services department.
I would like to take a moment to celebrate the city's success.
AE3 is an MWBE awarded the contract to serve as an architectural design team for the African American Holistic Resource Center.
Please save the day on Monday, June 3rd, 2024 at 6pm.
AE3 will be presenting a conceptual design to the community.
Anchor has won the American Public Works Association for Northern California Project of the Year Award for their work.
This MWBE company has been selected for two city projects.
The Timber Pile Replacement Project and the Berkeley Marina Dredging Project.
These are not small contracts.
They're among the largest projects in the city.
Thank you.
Now, the next slide will be explained by Mr.
Rex Brown.
Rex Brown, are you there? I will take Mr.
Brown slides as the second step, the race and equity committee has identified and provided a methodology to achieve the proposed plan of action to ensure the municipal codes can be easily accessible and available to all.
The next slide will be explained by Mr.
Rex Brown.
The plan of action to ensure the municipal codes can be easily accessible and available to all.
Develop transparency and feedback at each phase of procurement process to those not selected.
Also data collection that needed to be updated and could be include can include the reason for rejection and the why or why not.
The next slide will be explained by Mr.
Rex Brown.
The plan of action to ensure the municipal codes can be easily accessible and available to all.
Conducting information, gathering and collecting.
This is just a small idea of a very large impact of some of the recent awards to the MWBE firms and we'd like to play.
The next slide will be explained by Mr.
Rex Brown.
Looks like the video did not play.
Our next slide will be explained by Mr.
Rex Brown.
The plan of action to ensure the municipal codes can be easily accessible and available to all, and it is an example of our success stories and it is out there on YouTube for all to see.
So I would like to thank this team for all of their work.
I'd like to thank them for how they collaborated and worked on this project together.
Thank you very much.
And I would like to thank you for your time.
And I will turn it back over to you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you very much.
I want to recognize a counselor Bartlett.
Thank you.
Madam deputy city manager.
Thank you.
Madam city manager.
Thank you.
The entire team who volunteered to the years deliver this project and.
It's very important to me.
This is the 1st.
Piece of legislation I authored and passed.
And I want to say thank you to all of you for your hard work.
I want to say thank you to all of you because this is super important.
Earlier in the day, the 4 o'clock session, we talked at length about the funding issues for nonprofits and our and our needs.
And I mentioned the tension and the interplay between poverty management on the 1 hand, which is overwhelming and the burgeoning wealth creation.
So, I want to say thank you to all of you for your hard work.
And it's a coincidence.
It's not been Bartlett's Berkeley inclusion and diversity index index, not not bend X.
It's a coincidence.
Yeah, should be a bendix.
But the.
So, I want to say thank you to all of you for your hard work.
I found that it was very difficult for locally on businesses and people of color and women to win city contracts and our contracts are immense and they're voluminous.
And then coming up tonight, we're going to discuss we actually won't discuss probably, but many of the items on here are contracts have been awarded.
So, we wanted to counteract that and bring democracy into our money to create wealth creation and also do smart fiscal policy because local dollars are utilized here.
So, a small business is put put to work for our local dollars in a large multinational or someone outside of the city.
So, I'm very excited about this.

Segment 2

I'm a big fan of the Bindex.
I've been a big fan of this very happy for the Bendex to be manifest after 7.3 5 years.
And I do I want to say thank you to all of you.
I mean it's you and you're saying to you your employees and then you volunteer at your own job.
To do more.
And you know I want to recognize you and commend you on behalf of my colleagues and myself and the people in this community that want to achieve their dreams and start a business and engage the city.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you to our city manager's office and to the staff team for their work on this initiative and I'm sure we all would appreciate a copy of the presentation.
And thank you councilor Bartlett for your leadership on this work as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I'd like to ask unanimous consent that we reorder the public comment to first take public comment from employee unions and then we'll go to public comment on non-agenda matters.
Is there any objection in objection of the action.
OK.
So the first meeting of each month we do have a public comment period that's reserved for officially designated representatives of community services.
So we do have a public comment period that's reserved for the unions that would like to speak tonight.
SCIU community services unit and PTRLA and local one.
So whoever is the designated representative for SCIU community services unit part time recreation leaders please come forward and you have five minutes.
Sure.
Local one like to speak tonight.
OK.
What's the name of the person.
Julie Heath.
OK.
All right.
Julia.
You should now be able to speak.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Honorable mayor and council city manager staff and community members.
My name is Julia Heath.
I serve as both your recycling and recycling manager for SCIU community services.
Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening.
First I would like to acknowledge and thank city manager Ridley Williams for the many years of service she has offered the city of Berkeley and to offer congratulations on the new professional challenges and opportunities she will pursue and undoubtedly succeed in after her transition.
Local one would like to acknowledge and thank city manager Ridley Williams and city council to identify the best potential candidates available to provide excellent services to the residents business owners and workers students and visitors and staff to this great city of Berkeley.
Though I have only been here a short time.
Every interaction I've had with the city manager has emphasized the importance of building relationships with students and staff and I appreciate the opportunity to share my personal experiences with you and the power of building relationships.
That is why as the local one president, I have worked to build an unwavering partnership with SCIU CSU PTR LA.
In the process of getting to know the leadership team and members of both local one and SCIU CSU PTR LA, I have come to understand that as city leaders, we need to make sure that we are engaging in coordinated bargaining.
For these reasons, I respectfully request that the mayor and council support local one and SCIU CSU PTR LA in coming to the table to engage in coordinated bargaining that is recognized by the public employee relations board under its decisions regarding the Gilroy unified school district and the county board of education.
I also request that the mayor and council support local one and SCIU CSU PTR LA in making this a public and transparent meeting format possible so that members of our leadership team who manage programs outside of city limits are able to participate and so that our membership is able to better understand the ability of their leadership team to uplift their specific issues when bargaining .
Again, please allow the city of Berkeley's union leadership teams to be included in the recruitment process for a new city manager and please support us in our request to engage in coordinated, inclusive, equitable, and transparent bargaining processes.
I yield my remaining time to my vice president, Amanda Montes.
Thank you.
Good evening, honorable mayor, council, city manager, staff, and community members.
My name is Amanda Montes and I serve as a senior management analyst in public works and I'm a vice president for local one, which as you know, represents our city's management, professional, and engineering staff.
I'm speaking this evening on the city's refusal to negotiate in a coordinated and open manner.
We intend to bargain openly and negotiate in a coordinated and open manner.
We have come tonight with an invitation for council and our community members to join us in that process.
Open bargaining is how we show that when we negotiate, we have nothing to hide from this body, our coworkers, and Berkeley's residents.
As city workers, we serve the public and will be bargaining with their needs in mind.
Our community cannot afford to play negotiating games with public safety and vital services.
Local one and SEIU 1021 CSU PTRLA began submitting requests to the city to meet an open coordinated bargaining in March.
To this date, there have been three refusals by the city to engage in open coordinated bargaining with our unions.
By bargaining together, your unions would be saving the city time and money in the bargaining process, as well as increasing workforce confidence and fairness and transparency.
With joint open bargaining, staff would have surety that both they and their managers receive the same benefits and considerations.
Managers would be better able to understand how the city's rules apply to themselves and those they manage.
We all have the same basic needs that must be met for us to retain our colleagues.
We all want to stay in Berkeley, serving this community.
Please help us to do that.
Thank you for your time this evening.
Thank you for your comments.
I'd now like to turn the floor over to SEIU Community Services Unit part-time recreation leaders.
Hello.
Hi.
Oh, thank you.
All right.
Thanks.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening.
My name is David Guerrero.
I am a library worker and the chapter treasurer for CSU PTRLA.
I am also part of the contract bargaining team, and that is the matter on which, the first matter on which I'd like to speak tonight.
As my co-workers and I set down nearly $3.5 million of legal firepower, the amount approved by the city of Berkeley is approximately $3.5 million.
I'd like to share with you a brief summary of the process in that process.
Open bargaining is how we show that when we negotiate, we have nothing to hide from this body, from our co-workers, and from Berkeley's communities.
As city workers, we serve the public, and when we bargain, we have in mind the public we serve.
Our request to bargain openly does not mean that we do not want to bargain openly.
Our request to bargain contains a monopoly of inaccuracies and falsehoods, including a citation to a section of MRU that does not exist, as well as a blatant misreading of California government code section 3505.
Such falsifications are inappropriate ways to begin negotiations and are detrimental to both sides.
I would also like to speak on the impact of open bargaining on the safety and well-being of our community.
Open bargaining has been used by many organizations and in connection with the American Rescue Plan Act.
However, management has instead crafted hero pay around one class of workers, seemingly carving out and excluding hundreds of other workers.
This is deeply shameful and shows disregard for the safety and well-being of our community.
The city has failed to meet the city's hero criteria.
Supported kids and after school programs, staffed dangerously underventilated offices and administered tests and vaccines.
The city has failed to confirm hero pay amounts and when it will be received by workers and has failed to meet and confer in good faith.
It has also failed to respond to salary adjustments made possible through the ARPA bailout.
The city has increased salary since 2020 92 and 93% and the city managers increased 32%.
Salary adjustments made possible through the ARPA bailout that is being denied in the form of hero pay to workers.
I will now pass things along to one of our union members who will be speaking on behalf of a position of the local.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Sarah.
I work in Berkeley in public health.
Incidentally, I'm also a Jewish American.
I am speaking on the position of local SCIU 1021.
I want to remind you that in December, our local passed the resolution for cease fire, humanitarian aid and end to the occupation of Palestine.
Part of this resolution is to protect workers from retaliation for speaking out on this.
So far, seven months in the Berkeley City Council's refusal to even take up discussion of this in a special meeting is out of alignment with our local's position and the excuse that it's not a local issue does not work here.
I want to remind you that this is not a local issue for labor.
In the Berkeley Unified School Districts, we have teachers, staff, superintendents being subjected to McCarthyist repression and harassment.
We have a targeting of our ethnic studies program.
Tomorrow at Old City Hall at 4 p.m., there will be a rally in support of the teachers.
1021 members for Palestine protesting the horrific assault on Rafa.
Even after a ceasefire was on the table, we have our Gaza Solidarity Encampment where students are upholding the UC Berkeley and Berkeley legacy of anti-war protests, but do we want to see another UCLA here in Berkeley? UAW 4811 is filing unfair labor practice against the UC system and will be voting to authorize voting on a strike authorization next week.
Directly because of this violence and repression affecting their members.
Berkeley City Council's failure to address what is now the mainstream position in most of our local neighboring cities has created a climate where extremists are given license to bully, intimidate, and dox workers in schools and universities.
Can I just have like 30 minutes? You can just please finish your thought, sir.
Please don't interrupt.
I'm almost done, Mr.
Mayor.
Will we as city workers face the same harassment? We're certainly taking a risk standing up here and saying who we are.
Already, many city workers, including myself, were subjected to a hateful, racist, Islamophobic email that went out to hundreds of workers.
We brought this to the attention of the city manager.
Our chapter did.
I'm sorry.
Unfortunately, a month has passed and we haven't heard back.
This has been reported to the Council on Islamic Affairs.
From a union standpoint, that really can be considered a hostile work environment.
Therefore, it is the position of SEIU Local 10-2-1 that the Berkeley City Council must draft, agendize, and pass a resolution for, at the very least, ceasefire.
Thank you.
It's okay.
As I had said as we began this public comment period, I will ask the city manager to take action.
Disruptive behavior includes shouting, making disruptive noises, participating in a physical disturbance, interrupting speakers.
Those individuals that do engage in that disruptive behavior, I will ask them to come to order.
If people do not continue to cooperate, we will have to take action to restore order.
Let's be able to proceed tonight to let the city manager know.
Thank you.
I will now proceed to Mr.
Bates's public comment by employee unions.
Mr.
Bates, you are out of order.
If you continue to disrupt the meeting, we will have to remove you from the room.
I would like to ask staff or the Sergeant of Arms to please speak to Mr.
Bates.
I have asked him to come to order.
He has continued to disrupt the meeting.
I would like to ask the other individual who is yelling.
Please stop interrupting the meeting.
I will have to ask the staff and Sergeant of Arms to ask you to cease such behavior.
If you continue, we will have to ask you to leave the meeting.
I am speaking.
You do not have the floor, sir.
You are not allowed to stand in the aisle for the speaker's queue.
Sir, please.
Please stop interrupting the meeting.
You are out of order.
Cease fire now.
Stop the genocide.
Stop the genocide.
I was arrested on April 15th as a legal observer, observing people standing up for Palestine, wanting to end the genocide.
Stop the genocide.
Cease fire now.
We are going to take a recess and ask the members of the public who are continuing to disrupt the meeting to please cease such disruptive behavior so we can proceed with the rest of our business.
I ask people with signs to please move to the back of the room.
Thank you.
Cease fire now.
Show some courage.
Genocide, genocide, genocide.
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Segment 3

I also note that Berkeley is making front page news on these issues, which is not what we want our community to be known for.
I want to thank the city council for not taking sides or passing a resolution that further divides our community.
I know that there are a lot of people here who share that position with me.
I'd like to ask them to stand up if you believe that the city.
Please stand up if you believe that we should not be passing a resolution that is dividing our community.
I commend for its insistence on civility.
Thank you.
Let's not interrupt speakers, please.
Okay.
Ma'am, please stop interrupting the meeting.
Mr.
Clark, who are the remaining speakers whose names are selected? Michael J and Ruth.
Michael J and Ruth.
Okay.
I'd like to remain with my time to Andrea.
I'm Andrea, a 46-year resident of Berkeley.
I also would like to thank the council for concentrating on issues, which are day-to-day life issues for people living here.
Our streets, our safety, the things that make it safe to be here in Berkeley and not getting involved in an extremely divisive resolution which will have no effect on what's going on, six or 7,000 miles away.
I also observed the Holocaust commemoration on Sunday, and thank the committees that worked on it as well as the council that authorized it.
There is no positive side of the city council walking into this morass of the real division between people in Berkeley, that just want to go on with their lives, and those demanding a ceasefire.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As we continue with the public comment, I'd like to ask those members of the public in the audience to please don't talk over speakers, or interrupt speakers, or let people be heard.
Yes.
Hi, I'm Ruth, and I live in Berkeley.
I have a daughter who's graduating from Berkeley High.
I have a son who lives in Israel, and sometimes I feel more scared for my daughter here in Berkeley, and going off to college than my son, because I just feel more and more hate, and so I wanted to thank you for staying local and working on local issues.
I've heard people next to me working on really positive things that they wanted to speak out, so I feel guilty because they had really good things to say about other local people who need help here.
Thank you.
This is Dory, if I still have time.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sorry, I'm a little nervous.
Okay.
We'll go to five speakers on Zoom now.
David Shirey.
Hi.
I support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
I do not support a ceasefire resolution, and I certainly don't support the undemocratic disruptions to our city's public life that we have been subject to here at council since the war began.
The most important thing right now is what is happening in Gaza and stopping the mass killing and bringing the hostages home.
That said, we can't ignore what's happening in our own country and communities.
Right now, we're seeing students all over the country standing up for what they believe is right.
There are students up at Cal camping out, making demands that I don't necessarily agree with, but that are peaceful and political and non-violent in nature.
It seems that both the administration and the students are handling this well, and no one is making the kinds of catastrophic mistakes that we have seen university admins make around the country.
I think the city should make it clear to the university that we do not and will not support any crackdowns, any aggressive police action, or attempt to use force to break up the camp.
We should communicate through every possible channel to make it clear to the university that we expect them to act with the same wisdom and restraint that we have seen from council and others.
Thank you.
As we proceed with the remaining speakers, once again, we'd like to ask those in the audience to please not speak or interrupt.
The speaker, some members of the public can hear the public comments.
We appreciate you being here tonight.
We'll go next to Ziv.
Ziv, you should now be able to speak.
Hey.
I'm so happy to see that this is an improved version of the city council meeting in terms of order and decorum.
But nonetheless, I come up here every once in a while and clarify.
My problem is not that you have opinions on Gaza or whatever it is.
My problem is when people interrupt the flow of democracy, as is unfortunately still happening right now.
It's not your issues that we have a problem with.
It's the fact that you're acting like thugs that we have a problem with.
Be civil, be peaceful.
The ways of peace are peaceful.
That's it.
We're going to keep doing this over and over and over again until you guys learn how to be civilized, members of a democratic state.
Thank you.
I thank the council.
Thank your patience and thank you guys for doing this job.
I don't know where you dig up all the patience that you have for us.
Thank you again.
Very much.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Aiden Hill.
Good evening, former Councilor Davila.
Thank you for joining us tonight.
If you can let us continue with public comment respectfully.
Okay.
Could the Sergeant of Arms or Staff please speak with Ms.
Davila about ensuring that we're not having interruptions in the meeting? I'm ready when you all are.
Aiden, we'll get back to you in one second.
Once again, we'd ask that members of the public, once again, not interrupt as we're proceeding public comment.
That's not that much to ask.
So once again, if people cannot speak, interrupt, so we can proceed with public comment, we want to be able to continue to hear what people have to say.
Okay.
We'll go back to Aiden Hill.
Aiden Hill, you should now be able to speak.
Thank you.
To our cherished Berkeley residents, my friends, my neighbors, as an unwavering advocate for international human rights and alumni of UC Berkeley, I feel obligated to speak up today for peace, not only in Berkeley, but all throughout the world.
Though I'm prevented from serving as your council member by ongoing barriers to ballot access, I firmly stand for a collective voice of 10% of both our city and District 7's population that is important yet regularly erased and ignored in our town.
Students, instructors, staff, and alumni around the world face serious consequences for daring to speak out against the widespread injustices that affect our daily lives, from ongoing violence in Haiti to blood and minerals in Congo, the city of Berkeley needs to recognize the significant ramifications of our collective judgments.
Today, I urge this council to pass a resolution reaffirming our steadfast commitment to peace and the sanctity of life for all, regardless of their nationality or religion, and demanding an immediate ceasefire for Palestine.
Let's begin by taking responsibility with firm conviction and uncompromising compassion.
Let us strive to live up to Berkeley's core principles of fairness and humanity in whatever we do today.
Let's make sure Berkeley is a sanctuary in every meaningful way that we do, not just in name.
Thank you.
Okay, we're gonna go next to JD.
JD, you should not be able to speak.
JD? JD, please unmute yourself if you would like to speak to an item not on the agenda.
Okay, we'll go to Ani, A-N-I.
Hi, council.
Good to see you again.
I hope you enjoyed your recess.
So it's very, I'm very proud to see Cecilia being sworn in today in the concierge.
I am just now returning from a very inspiring event that was put on at the, showcasing the Berkeley Unified School District's Liberated Ethnic Studies.
And I just wanna say that city council, you have put teachers in a very endangered space by not speaking on this.
And mayor, I was shocked to hear you utter the words Gaza and Rafa today.
So, you know, more of that I think will help to bring about an actual ceasefire in Gaza and also to protect the teachers and the students who are learning the truth.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, we're gonna go to Paola Laverde, our last speaker on Zoom.
Paola, are you there? Paola Laverde? Last call for Paola Laverde.
Okay.
Can you hear me now? Thank you very much.
Can you hear me now? You can hear you, yes, thank you.
Okay, great, thank you.
I will give my minute to Nagin Mossad.
Okay.
In the room and coming forward, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Today, Rafa is in a state of siege.
While it is being bombed and more and more innocent women and children are being lost to Zionist aggression, the Settler Colonial Project has thus far taken 35,000 innocent people's lives and we are complicit in this crime.
I'm sorry, let's restart the clock.
More with Councilor Davila.
The only person that's allowed to be up here to speak is Nagin.
It's okay.
Your name was not selected.
Of course, I need.
We need to enforce the rules fairly for everyone.
I'm okay with her.
No, that's not okay.
So Ms.
Davila, if you can please sit down.
Nagin is the only person whose name was called to speak and she has the floor.
She's hurting me and she's not hurting you.
But we're not making an exception for anyone here.
Once again, if you can please continue with public comment.
Allowed a couple to stand here together.
No, no.
The only person that's allowed to please be up here and speak is Nagin.
Jessie, do you see how unfair you are? And racist.
This is a fascist state right here.
Jennifer, Jessie.
Ms.
Davila, your car wasn't selected.
Please don't interrupt the meeting.
It does matter, actually.
It does.
Okay, we're gonna take a break.
I'd like to ask that if our staff can please talk to those that are interrupting the meeting to cease the disruption.
Ms.
Davila, your car wasn't selected.
Nagin is the person.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
I'd like to ask if people can please stop disrupting the meeting so we could proceed with public comment.
Recording stopped.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
We're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break.
Recording in progress.
Okay, we're going to reconvene.
And obviously continue with the public comment.
You know, our rules do prescribe that.
The person at the podium is the person who name was called, or whose time was yielded.
And so just going forward, that will be how we implement the policy, the, the rule procedure.
I make an exception here.
But, but going forward to future meetings, we will have the speaker, the person whose name was called or time yielded be the person here at the podium.
So please, please proceed and thank you for your patience.
Okay, so I'll just take back.
I'll start where I left off.
35,000 innocent people have been murdered and we, in this city are complicit in this crime because why we have not stopped.
Tried to stop our funding called for a cease fire, not divested in any way showed any reaction to the death of this many innocent people and it all goes hand in hand with the way that some of our.
Public officials are being funded for their campaigns.
I will read to you some of max donations from Jesse arrogance fund and most of the blitzky founding owner and CEO of the blitzky property, which is owned by the city of New York.
And the city of New York is a city that has a lot of commercial properties, which specializes in acquisition and operation of high quality commercial projects.
Jordan Moses these are max donations 5500 catalysts acquires multifamily housing units and converts them into giant high rises.
These are the people that are colonializing Berkeley.
And I'm just going to read to you the beautiful description.
This is what's continuing to happen here in Berkeley and you're complicit, but you haven't done anything and you're taking their money.
Okay.
Let's let's wrap up public comment on non agenda matters.
Thank you for everyone who came tonight for your comments.
We are going to proceed to the consent calendar at this time.
You have to address that.
I'm sorry.
Listen, you just read out a bunch of Jewish names.
They weren't lobbyists for a pack or something like that or.
I mean, they were just, they were just Jewish people.
Yeah, what.
Okay.
Okay, let's now move to the consent calendar.
And I'd like to ask 1st, the city manager, if she has any comments on the consent calendar.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor and counsel, no comments on consent this evening.
Wasn't there amendments the fire code that had to be made.
There are hold on.
Yes, there are.
Okay.
So, we'll get to that shortly.
While we're sort of pulling that up, I'd like to address the consent calendar 1st.
And 1st, on item 11, this is the ballot measure increase in the city's appropriation limit again limit.
We need to designate authors to file the ballot arguments.
So, I'd like to designate myself and any other council members that like to work with me on the ballot argument for the game limit the appropriations limit.
Councilor, okay, any other we can 1 more person council member.
Councilor Bartlett, I think that's 4, so we can only have 4 correct.
Yeah, less than a quorum so by adopting item 11.
So, we haven't gotten to public comment yet.
So, if you want to take a seat, we'll get we'll get to it very shortly by adopting item 11, the council's here by designating the mayor.
Council members, Humbert Bartlett and Han to author ballot arguments to support that measure.
Okay, well.
I'm not addressing that at this time.
Okay.
I want to address now item number 34.
And 35, and I support both of these items item 34 supporting the fire department.
To fund a program to program manager to position this from the disaster and fire safety commission and item 35.
You said measure of that funding to support understory mitigation.
My reading of this is that these are budget referrals essentially.
Items 34 and 35 correct.
Item 35, I'm sorry.
Well, I, I worked with the fire and disaster commission on this item item.
35 will be will come out of measure at that funds.
Okay, and these will all be budget referrals that you will consider as a budget and finance policy.
Okay.
Yes.
So we'll appropriate the money in June.
And we'll be appropriating the money as part of the budget process.
So, yes, this will be part of the budget process, but I support moving forward with these 2 items just want to just clarify that we'll be appropriating the money as part of the budget and Mr on item 34, just to clarify I have a sub 1 that is a formal budget referral for the actual amount, which is, I believe, 285,000, maybe 265,000 because the item from the commission didn't actually specify the amount so we now have that and it's 265,000.
So, um, I'd like to ask the council if we can adopt the supplemental item from counselor for item 34, but they understand 34 and 35 are also budget referrals.
Um, and.
I have a number of budget referrals on our agenda.
Item 58, this is an item from the.
Agenda rules committee, we reviewed.
Recommendations from the open government commission around sort of public access, transparency, meeting procedures and public comment.
And we have put forward a recommendation on proposing some changes to our procedures and public comment rules.
And so this item asks that we refer to the city manager to review and to bring back any amendments to the rules of procedure to implement these changes.
I wanted to ask the council if there was any objection and moving item 58 to consent.
From the council.
Okay, so, you know, I think we should continue and I object.
Okay, so you want to discuss item 58? Okay, that will stay on the.
Action calendar as the council is proceeding with our discussion of the consent calendar.
I would just like to ask.
Those in the audience, please not yell or interrupt the meeting so we can proceed with our business.
Um, so, okay.
Okay, those are and oh, and there's an amendment that we have to reach the record right on.
Item 19.
Item 19 and also an amendment that we have to read.
On item.
41, so on item 19, let me go with that 1st.
Thank you, Mr.
mayor on item 19.
this is the modification and adoption of Berkeley fire code, local amendments and incorporation with California intervening code adoption cycle amendments based on the 2022 California fire code.
So, 1st, to be consistent with the change from fire area to area, why, why comma section for 912.3.1 general.
The word fire should be deleted from wild land urban interface fire area on line 2 of the section and D.
D.
D.
D.
section for 912.6.
Tracer bullets tracer charges rockets and model aircraft.
The word fire should be deleted from again the wild land urban interface fire area on line 6 of the section.
And 2nd, table for 902.1 has a sentence immediately after the tab, which reads fire zone.
1.
Is declared as a very high fire has its severity zone and wild land urban interface area.
It should actually read fire zone.
2 is declared.
As a very high fire zone severity zone and while in urban interface area.
And staff are here to answer any questions that you may have.
Those are all the changes for that.
I am.
Okay, so this is an injection.
We'll prove that on item 19.
I can set up with those amendments and then to item 41.
This is the relationship non-discrimination ordinance, which I want to just thank councilman for bringing this forward.
There are just a few minor amendments that need to be made.
To be number subsection 1322.0408 and remove the existing provision and 1322.0408 or regarding educational institutions.
So I just want to share screen to show these amendments.
The clerk has a copy of these amendments, so be striking this.
This number here number for remembering this accordingly as for.
And then a corresponding amendment here under.
Subsection B, and those encompass the amendments that I believe the city attorney and counselor are requesting that we make.
So, unless there's an objection, we'll provide them 41.
I can send with those amendments.
Okay, those are all my comments.
Thank you.
I'm not sure I have my request on.
But I will go ahead.
Excuse me, so I wanted to just call attention to item 21.
And I just want to thank the city manager for moving that forward.
It's, it's extremely important and I'm really happy to see that.
That.
We are walking in.
Staff who are going to be able to.
Move that project forward.
I had wanted also to move.
Item 58 to consent, but I think that was.
Attempted, but not.

Segment 4

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get that.
I'm not sure that I've achieved.
I just wanted to.
Well I have something I'll do when I'm 57 is called up and that will be the appropriate time.
So that's all for me.
Thank you.
Councilmember Luna par.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
The consent calendar.
I first want to thank councilmember Kaplan for introducing some critical items and request to be added as a co-sponsor for items 4142 and 43 if there's still room to do so.
Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you.
I would also like to contribute to the consent calendar.
I will also be abstaining from item 9 as I was not present at these meetings.
I'm also concerned about item 39 for a few different reasons.
First I am hesitant to make any decisions about the downtown while there's no current councilmember in district 4 to represent the area and the most can impacted I'm also concerned about increased public safety.
I have not received a written statement from a CLU of northern California's written statement to Council.
While surveillance has increased in many communities public safety has not on the contrary surveillance systems often make people less safe especially for groups that have historically been in the government's crosshairs.
For these reasons I will be abstaining on this item and also intend to oppose its inclusion in the final budget process.
I finally want to thank councilmember for the opportunity to speak to this item.
I know that I have recently been subject to entirely preventable traffic violence.
So let's prevent it.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
We'll go next to councilmember Castellani.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Mayor.
We have a lot of budget referrals before us tonight.
Many of these are worthy of consideration and I know our budget staff is continuing to refine our budget projections.
I just want to make a few general points.
First of all I want to make clear that the requests will likely far exceed available funding.
For item number 48 on the Solano stroll I just want to note that I received an estimate for the cost of the in-kind services from staff which was valued at $69,500 for external non-waivable costs.
And that will be something that the budget committee will need to consider.
Second, I want to make clear that we do not support vulnerable members of our community.
However, I'm concerned whenever we award funding without the benefit of a request for proposal process.
An RFP process as was just concluded by the health housing and community services department is important because it gives all organizations an equal opportunity to compete in an open, transparent process.
Whenever possible, I believe that the RFP process should be used in a way that is consistent with the general funding decisions.
I do want to note that there are a number of items tonight that are seeking to make a direct allocation to an organization without an RFP process.
And I've done this in the past as well.
While also trying to place new RFP processes in place so that we can move away from this practice in the future.
And I just felt compelled to make that point.
I also want to note that this item was requested over two years for the small sites program.
I think that the small sites program is valuable when tenants are at imminent risk of displacement.
However, this item caught my attention because of the large dollar amount being requested over two years.
When I asked staff about this item, I learned a number of details that I would like to enter into the public record.
Such a large reservation for small sites is not a good place to start.
I learned that HHS does not currently have enough funding requests to support projects with existing reservations that may require additional funding to compete for state funds, or three, provide operating support for projects serving extremely low income and or homeless households, and four, support our existing and aging portfolio of projects that need additional funding.
I also learned that HHS does not currently have enough staff to manage three to four small sites program projects per year, which is what item 46 contemplates.
Each project requires significant oversight and technical assistance.
Finally, there is concern about a single organization's ability to take on more than one small sites project at a time, and it appears that this referral is not appropriate.
I do not wish to comment on this item.
It is my personal view that this item should not proceed to the budget process, and I would respectfully like to be recorded as abstaining.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay, we're going to go next to Councillor Humbert.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
I just have a few comments.
First of all, I want to thank the mayor and chief Sprague for spearheading the effort to create this position for a street trauma prevention program.
This is incredibly important, and I'm thrilled that the fire department, street safety advocates, and the commission have come together in recognizing that traffic collisions and injuries are one of the greatest threats to health and safety that exist in our city.
This program saves resources and reduces trauma for first responders who have to go to horrific accident scenes.
I'm really excited about this program, which would mark true progress in our city toward Vision Zero, and I can't thank advocates and staff enough for their work on this.
As to item 41, which is relationship nondiscrimination authored by Councilmember Taplin, I'm thrilled to be co-sponsoring this item.
It's an important civil rights measure prohibiting relationship and family structure discrimination, so I'm really thrilled about that.
I'm also thrilled to be co-sponsoring item 43, which is Councilmember Taplin's Vision Zero rapid response on bike boulevards, et cetera.
We need to do everything we can to reach Vision Zero, which is our goal.
I'd like to contribute $100 to the Sylvia Mendez spring cultural celebration from my office account.
And finally, I'd like to note that I'm abstaining on the small sites and Solano stroll budget items.
I receive, like Councilmember Kesarwani, some information today on these items and think they may need some revisions to be made.
There's a problem with managing very large allocation that may put pressure on our ability to leverage state and federal funds and to do 100% affordable housing projects.
There's also a problem with our staff's ability to manage a large number of small projects and likely a problem with the land trust's ability to do that as well.
With respect to the Solano stroll budget, I'm concerned that the way the item characterizes that support may conflict with other policies about paying third-party vendors.
For that reason, I'm open to support it if it is rejiggered to be a budget referral with a direct payment so it can be considered as part of the budget.
Those are my comments.
Thanks a lot.
» Okay.
Thank you.
» Thank you.
» Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
» Thank you.
» Thank you.
» Thank you.
» Thank you.
» Thank you.
» Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you, my colleagues for contributing to the Sylvia Mendez spring affair.
Wonderful event.
I'm going to call it out.
I also want to highlight that we need to communicate these and deliver some plans because we know from our study that the aging population in Berkeley is in need of much more support than they're getting now.
We need to plan for the increasing numbers.
This plan covers housing economics, transportation, health and wellness and social justice.
We need to make good use of measure FF funds from the disaster and fire safety commission to get at the eucalyptus issue in the city.
We all know these are highly combustive plants that's controversial, but they need to go, honestly.
There's no place for them in the fire zones.
It spreads so rapidly.
Thank you all so much.
I'm going to let the commissioners take a look at this.
They've done great work.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Hahn.
Thank you.
I failed to make a grant to item 44, the Sylvia Mendez celebration.
I would like to give $500 from my office budget for that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
With respect to the Solano Avenue item, city manager informed me that the cost of the enhanced security measures are actually presented in her own budget.
And so they're not here because they're already on a budget line that is coming before budget and finance.
The Solano Avenue event is a community event that is held every single day.
Hundreds of thousands of people attend every year.
Almost every city department has a booth as well as virtually every single not-for-profit organization that operates in the city, whether it is providing youth services, music, theater.
Pretty much it is a community event.
The Solano Avenue event is actually a community event that is going on in their community.
The city has sponsored this for over 50 years and has provided in-kind services for over 50 years.
My understanding is that there are because of the kinds of pernicious threats that we now have to take into account.
We are having to deploy to make sure that road vehicles are not driven into our fares, costs a little more than the security measures that we were able to use in happier times.
So I just want to be very clear that I did have a conversation with the mayor about this.
The mayor has not had in the past because of the unfortunate security environment that we are in now.
This request is actually the grant request is half of what was put forward in previous years when this fair was coming out of the pandemic years.
This grant request is actually the grant request is half of what was put forward in previous years when this fair was coming out of the pandemic years.
Which by the way is produced by volunteers.
Primarily for the benefit of the community.
I also want to say a few words about social housing and small sites.
As you can see on the screen, this is a housing scheme.
And land trust and the kind of small sites housing is extremely important as one element of our affordability landscape in Berkeley.
It allows us to purchase existing housing, often in the form of affordable housing.
This is a way to take older housing stock and make it permanently affordable.
It happens to also be possible to do some of the units at moderate and 80% and 100% of AMI, which is the workforce housing that we're looking for that tends to not be affordable.
So this is a way to preserve and protect the existing affordable housing we have.
And I want to thank councilmembers Bartlett and Taplin for co-sponsoring this.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Vice Mayor Wengraf.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'd like to be recorded as donating $150 to the community.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Bartlett.
I just forgot to ask Councilmember Taplin if there's room on item 42.
This is funding for the Berkeley Junior jackets.
Yes, and thank you very much for your support.
Oh, great.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm going to ask a question.
If we're asking if we want to.
Right.
You don't have to.
You don't have to.
Designate members of the council to file arguments on the initiative ordinance prohibiting concentrated animal feeding operations, I would imagine that those would be in opposition to the measure because the ordinance prohibiting concentrated animal feeding operations.
Okay, I I'm not necessarily recommending that we do that and I'm certainly not going to do that but any member of the public if we don't select members of the council this evening can come forward and do so if they so choose.
So unless anyone wants to volunteer themselves.
Anyone the public can do that do that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Item 33 yes that is correct this is from the commission on aging.
So that a is from the commission.
And B is from staff and which encompasses three of the four recommendations.
I guess the distinction is that we have to move one.
I'm not sure if that's correct.
We have to move one.
Yeah.
Vice Mayor Wenger.
Is it a motion.
Well, we have to decide.
I would suggest that that we go with the city manager's recommendation.
And referring it to all of to to the relevant commission's transportation housing advisory commission and budget and finance will give us the greatest input.
And that makes total sense.
Yeah, I think the city managers recommendation 33 would actually affect the the the various commissions to implement specific policies and programs so they would actually effectuate the the the recommendations in spirit of what the commission's requesting so I recommend that we approve 33 beyond consent and hearing no objection that'll be the action.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have a comment on the consent calendar.
And can I get a show of hands how many members the public would like to speak to a consent item.
So we're going to allocate a minute per speaker.
Can those on zoom who wish to speak, raise your hand.
Thank you.
Okay.
And miss our buck.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening.
My name is Donna our buck and I'm running to be our next district for city council member.
I hope to join you on the diet soon.
Number 22 and 26 the specialized care unit we need to fully staff this and have it be 24 7.
While I've been knocking doors I spoke with a neighbor who applied.
She's very qualified never heard back.
We need more funding for them.
Number 39 surveillance cameras.
No, we don't need more surveillance cameras in the right of way.
Let's subsidize if they're small businesses that want cameras inside their private business.
Let's have the city stuff use that money to subsidize those cameras.
So then, if there's crime, we can catch it on camera.
Yes, to the relationship nondiscrimination ordinance number 42, even more money for the junior school district.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number 33 be leaves out.
I just social participation and civic engagement for the older folks enhanced neighborhood cohesion and social connectedness.
So number four, that feels really really important.
Thank you.
Oh, it's supposed to get out of here.
I would like to support all of the items on the consent form.
I would like to support all of the items on the consent form.
Many of the residents are losing their fire insurance, which makes it impossible to sell your house if you want to.
So all of these things like the use of the measure F, and the new position in the fire department and taking down eucalyptus please take them down as well as supporting item 52.
That's the funding for the I was I was amazed and I was shocked how well it was done.
And it was a credit to the city and the people involved.
Thank you.
Can I can I get your last 18 seconds.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, number 54 great finally time to move forward with the hybrid Commission meetings thank you council member went graph for this budget referral committee is important planning committee number 47 guess we heard about food insecurity earlier thank you for this item number 41 we should always fight discrimination number 23 options anything options needs more money hopefully now that we're going to have a a behavioral health services department that includes SUD there will be even more money going towards options and it would be good to have the encampment wellness team by options begin to move forward it's almost been a year since they've been selected as the provider number 22 and with number no objection to RDA gain the money but under a Harrison item number 22 and number no objection to RDA gain the money but under a Harrison item two years ago there was key measure key monies of $100,000 directed for a analysis of the whole crisis response team and we never heard back from it that's $100,000 that could have gone to and in addition to that report that's delaying the you center also the thank you okay so you can either go that way or you can go this way just so people know you can loop around or go that way when you leave the podium hi my name is Julia Moss and I'm here tonight to voice my strong support for items 34 and 43 I want to thank council member Taplin for authoring this report.
I also want to thank council members for item 43 and for council members Humbert and Luna para for co-sponsoring.
This is in direct response to 2 collisions in the month of February at the intersection of Heights and 7th.
The first one involved my family.
My husband and 3 year-old were commuting to preschool by bicycle as they do every morning when a driver hit them.
The second collision involved a pedestrian who was seriously injured when a car hit her as she crossed the street in the crosswalk.
These collisions and the lasting trauma they cause are preventable through safer street design.
With this budget referral and the adoption of Oakland's bike route implementation guide this problematic intersection as well as many others could be made safer before any more of us have to endure the tragedy and trauma of traffic violence.
Thank you.
Good evening, mayor and council.
Great to see you up here, Cecilia.
My name is Nalani Fixler.
I am here this evening as the chair of the transportation and infrastructure commission here to express our strong support for item 34.
The commission unanimously supports the disaster and fire safety commission's request to fund a $10 million program manager to position.
We believe this position is critical to allowing the fire department to engage with Vision Zero implementation and to reduce fatal and severe crashes on our city roads as Julia mentioned.
We ask that the council support this initiative that will allow the fire department to become increasingly engaged with discussions surrounding traffic safety thus recognizing the role of the fire department not only as a fire department but as a fire department as well.
Thank you.
In my personal capacity, thank you, council member Teplin for offering item 41, the relationship discrimination ordinance and standing up for non-monogamous folks such as myself.
Thank you.
I am Desmond Lyon from district one.
I first want to speak to consent calendar items 16 through 19, 34, 35 and 49 relating to fire protection in our city.
I want to commend the fire department for studying how to bring our department up to speed with changing environmental conditions and taller buildings and how to support the health and equipment needs of current firefighters and emergency responders and how to recruit new members that we need as well.
Just this weekend, firefighters arrived promptly when part of a tree fell down and crushed a car across the street from my house and the fire department was able to rescue the car.
I don't know whose car it was.
I also want to speak to item 52, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It was also my first time and I found it very moving, especially council members Hans and Wengreth's words about their families and I think this is really wonderful.
I wish we could find a way to publicize it more widely and I encourage you to support the budget.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for the meeting tonight and its decorum and that I was able to hear so much interesting discussion about things that are important in our city.
Just for your information, there were 300 people who were watching on Sunday.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, council member Lunapara.
My name is Daniel McChesney-Young and I'm the program manager for the Berkeley farmers markets.
I'm here today to speak in support of item 47.
Every year Market Match provides fresh fruits and vegetables to people in need in our community.
In 2023, over $311,000 were spent in CalFresh and Market Match combined at our three farmers markets.
The number of fresh fruits and vegetables in the program is more than 55% from 2019 and represents 623,000 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Numbers like these are a perfect indicator as to why this program is such a vital safety net and I cannot adequately sum up the joy of biting into a perfect farmers market peach, which I also want to be accessible to everyone.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to making available healthy local foods to those residents who are most at risk.
Thank you for your time.
Hi, my name is Ella Rose.
I was born and raised in Berkeley, still live in Berkeley.
I'm also a vendor for a farm at CalFresh and Market Match.
The CalFresh and Market Match program is integral to the community of the farmers market.
It's what keeps the markets accessible for lower income residents and therefore a more diverse and inclusive space.
I really don't want to see the market become a place only for the wealthiest shoppers.
The farmers market is not just an outdoor grocery store.
It's a community space that people can come together and share their knowledge and experiences.
It should not be a privilege to enjoy the market and its many health benefits.
Thank you so much.
Good evening.
I'm Alice Green from District 2.
I eat more vegetables because of the Market Match and I'm thriving as an 82 year old because of my diet a lot.
So I don't have to think about what vegetables to eat that are local.
There it is at the farmers market.
I can just abandon eat vegetables and fruits.
So I look forward to the $15 that I get at every farmers market and I go there more often because of the Market Match program.
I love to be at the farmers market.
I mean, just my love for it is better for my health and it's like a party and I see friends there.
It's a wonderful social event and I have relationships with vendors.
It's fun.
Thank you.
Hello.
I'm here to give support to the farmers market.
I'm a senior citizen on a fixed income and the Market Match program is a real lifesaver for myself and my family.

Segment 5

and probably thousands of others like me.
I want to thank you for accommodating the farmer's markets the way you have, and I'm asking you to please support item 47 because it's much needed, and it's serving the community in a way that really is immeasurable.
Please give it some support.
I know that four of you already have, and thank you for your support.
Thank you.
Good evening, and thank you, Honorable City Council and Mr.
Mayor.
My name is Becca Prager, and I currently serve as the board chair of the Ecology Center.
I urge you to save Market Match in Berkeley, which provides people with the ability to afford fresh, local, delicious fruits and vegetables.
In my career as a social worker, I work with individuals and families who rely on Market Match for their access to the wonderful foods at our farmer's markets.
Thank you for your consideration.
Good evening, City Council, Mr.
Mayor, staff.
Martin Bork, I'm the executive director of the Ecology Center.
Since 2003, we've been making the farmer's markets in Berkeley and across the state more accessible to low-income shoppers.
We started by inventing the system by which you can use electronic benefits transfer, the EBT card at farmer's markets, and sharing that with markets across the state.
Today, nearly two-thirds of markets in the state of California are accessible to EBT shoppers as a result of this.
Since 2012, we've been also operating Market Match, which matches CalFresh benefits for low-income shoppers at farmer's markets.
We do that program in the three Berkeley farmer's markets, but we're also the agency that oversees the statewide program offering this service at 293 markets across the state.
Last year, the program put out 19 million statewide, and nearly 38 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables.
I really hope you will support this, not just tonight, but in the Budget and Finance Committee, and make sure this program continues here in Berkeley.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor, Council members.
My name is Matt Gustafson.
I'm a Berkeley resident in District 4.
Tonight, I'm speaking on behalf of the Bay Area Community Land Trust to express our appreciation and support for item number 46, the budget referral request to fund the Small Sites Program and BACLT's Capacity Funding Grant, co-sponsored by Council members Han, Taplin, and Bartlett.
We really appreciate the city's continued commitment to these strategies to prevent the displacement of our long-time residents, especially in our BIPOC communities in Berkeley.
Since 2020, in the last four years, Berkeley has lost over 750 homes affordable to low-income households, and with another 1,000 at risk of being lost in the next two to three years.
Preserving these homes is urgent and critical.
BACLT is the only organization in Berkeley that's doing this work right now.
It's critical that we continue to fund the work in the Small Sites Program.
BACLT and the Housing Department are hiring up for this work, and so there is staffing to carry it forward.
We just want to thank you again, and respectfully urge you all to support item number 46.
Thank you.
I'm Barbara Schick, a resident of District 5.
With age, often comes experience and wisdom, and these things are desperately needed here, across our country, and across the world.
I'm very happy to see that you're considering an age-friendly action plan.
I also want to thank you for funding the Holocaust Remembrance Day Program.
Mayor, I was very, very touched by your introduction, how you felt the pain of people, and how you were trying to make people understand and be peaceful.
In past years, the Armenian Holocaust was also included.
Maybe this coming year, that could also happen.
Thank you so much.
Hello, I'm Dave Dorshaw.
I live in District 3, and I want to speak in favor of item 41, that is the ordinance that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of family structure and relationship structure, specifically for people in polyamorous relationships, or consensually non-monogamous relationships.
I want to point out that this is now seven years since we've opened the discussion with the city council members on this, seven years to discuss all the potential problems and work them out.
No matter what happens with the vote tonight, I want to make it clear that nobody can ever accuse Berkeley of having made a hasty, rash, or impulsive decision about this.
Thank you very much, and I urge you all, respectfully urge you all to vote in favor of this ordinance.
Thank you very much.
Before my time starts, I'd just like to say that I do have some lengthy comments, so I will e-mail council if my time goes over.
In accordance with recommendation number 5 and 6 from Berkeley Fire Departments and CityGate Standards of Coverage Report, I come to you today in support of item number 17, 19, 34, 35, and 39 on tonight's agenda.
Item number 17 would specifically allow the city to apply for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to hire nine additional firefighters to help the city meet NFPA's 1710 standard for the organization and deployment of fire suppression, operations, emergency medical operations, and special operations to the public by career fire departments.
Additionally, item number 49 would have adopted grant $120,000 per year for new fire reserve program which would create more opportunities for people like myself to get engaged in the fire service and create more opportunities for advancement in this very important field.
Accomplishing this goal would allow the city and by extension, the Berkeley Fire Department to minimize the city's impact from a massive wildfire threat due to the ongoing inaction toward anthropogenically and exponentially increasing crisis.
I urge the council to approve this and all other fire department items before you this evening.
This is not just a fire department issue.
With the city on the brink of potentially losing Alta Bates Hospital as a hospital close by, we must continue to fund a healthy and fire safe Berkeley.
Items number 22, 23, 25, 26 address these other issues which I urge you to act on as well.
We cannot afford inaction on the ever increasing wildfire threat.
We have too many threats at the moment.
While the fire department has been fast-tracking a lot of new hiring in the department, it is not enough.
I will email the rest of my comments to the council as I'm over time.
Thank you.
Hello.
Good evening.
My name is Karuna Jagger.
I'm a long-time Berkeley resident, more than 20 of which I've spent in District 2.
Changing pace, I'm here to comment on item 50 and I want to particularly thank councilors.
I don't know why I'm losing my words, but council members Han and Weingraf for co-sponsoring the resolution in support of the campaign for a safe and healthy California.
I come to this issue as a long-time breast cancer activist.
I ran a breast cancer watchdog for more than 10 years and we worked on the environmental root causes that are driving the breast cancer epidemic, the cancer epidemic, and a whole host of other diseases and disorders linked to fossil fuels at every stage of production.
Here in California, drillers produce within feet of homes, schools.
After more than 10 years of advocacy, we finally got this law passed, SB 1137, and what did the big oil do? They went and spent- Oh my goodness.
Well, there we go.
We know that resolutions are important and it's a first step in encouraging everyone to vote on November 5th, to keep the law, to keep SB 1137.
Thank you.
Good evening.
You had a six-week vacation.
It never happened before.
Interesting that maybe you were campaigning for yourselves and others during that time.
I don't know, but that's egregious that you got six weeks.
Cecilia, good luck and thank you for wearing a keffiyeh through Palestine.
The farmers market I've been going to for decades, and they should open the San Pablo Park market again.
I just asked Martin, but he said that they weren't making any money, but that's not true because they would sell out of stuff all the time.
I'm not sure what that's about.
Really, if you want to do crime prevention and invest in the community and our youth, you need to fund more money to the jackets.
He's doing an amazing job.
$6,000 isn't enough and you should be more equitable in a way that you distribute funds and have that be something that you care about, if you really care about the youth of the city.
I hope you're going to remember the Holocaust of the genocide that's going on right now.
It's interesting that you're talking about discrimination, except you showed your racism earlier this evening.
No to item 39 because we don't need any more surveillance.
Thank you.
Free Palestine.
Hi, my name is Camden, and we're talking about agenda item 42.
I'm 10 years old from the Berkley Junior Jackets, and I live in Berkley in District 2.
Berkley Junior Jackets is more than football.
Berkley Junior Jackets teaches me leadership, brotherhood, teamwork, cultural skills, respect for myself and others.
I get to volunteer, learn entrepreneurship.
I volunteer at the snack bar, gate, and I'm a junior coach.
Those two men is a mentorship program.
They teach us how to tie a tie, stay off the streets, and grades are important.
Help keep us safe and off the streets.
Please support our program.
Thank you.
How are you doing to the council members and the city managers? My name is Lorenzo Grayson.
I'm the president of Berkley Junior Jackets.
I am speaking to the agenda item number 42 regarding funding for Berkley Junior Jackets.
I am here to ask city council members to vote in favor of funding Berkley Junior Jackets for the next two years at 150,000 per year.
The Junior Jackets isn't just about football and cheer.
It is a violent prevention program, an intervention program, mentoring, leadership program, and development for black and brown youth.
It is ran by people who share black culture and understand black experiences.
There's nowhere like this program for black and brown kids and families in Berkley.
It is one of a kind and it makes a huge positive difference in our community.
Thank you.
I'm Robert Walker, business president, student of my name.
What I'd like to talk about strongest to all.
We didn't know that, but actually had four stores in Berkley and one in San Francisco and one of them in Solano, right at the Alameda.
So I was part, very effective part, of the strongest role.
We have to do everything we can to support it.
But funny story, very quickly, that time I owned a Rolls Royce.
So me and my ex-wife, we used to ride in it and everybody.
You know, it just was a great time.
Not like now.
Berkley was a beautiful city.
What I like to say, because we have such big advertising budget, $2-3 million a year advertising, everybody knew it.
Until today, everybody knows it.
So we're getting 10, 20 people every day.
That's really, I'm pretty unhappy with the city.
Today us, we say we'll pay you in advance, we'll do whatever.
I can't rent anywhere else.
You know, David Roig was a poor man when I was big.
So why don't I want to rent? Because I don't want to give him my money.
He already has half of my money.
The last thing I'd like to say, we're willing to pay for one year.
That location is great for us, it's great for the city.
Not only that, it will bring big tax money to the city because we are a great advertiser.
Thank you, I'm really good to see you.
Very much, okay? Thank you again.
Let us walk.
Remember, the Rolls Royce was a very beautiful car.
But you know something? Let me give you a secret.
I hated it.
I like German cars.
The car after that I bought was a BMW 3.0 S.
You know how much it was? It was the most expensive car, I drove the four motor at that time, in the 70 something.
You know how much it was? 11,000.
11,000.
Now the most expensive BMW, it's half a million.
Let's live together, we're family.
We're really family, family, family.
We've been in Berkeley over 60 years.
I cannot believe it.
Never mind the time I spent at Cal.
Thank you, I hope you enjoyed the article I wrote today about a message from Eden.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Hello, my name is Maiwana Jones and I am here for agenda item 42 and I am in district two.
You heard from my son Camden earlier.
And I just want to support the Junior Jackets.
We've lived, my family has owned property in Berkeley for over 80 years and I would love to see my tax dollars back at work.
I decided to join the board because of, not because of football and cheer because I don't know anything about that, but it's more of a mentorship.
And it's really part of my purpose, which is to be service driven and to let young black boys and girls know that there's more to life than what they see on the streets.
We're 100% volunteers.
We all work full-time jobs.
We're putting our own money into the program to make sure the kids have healthy snacks, activities, they're safe.
We practice about five to six days a week.
So during the time that a lot of crimes are prevented, we're on the field.
So thank you so much and I want you to make sure that you support us, thanks.
Thank you very much.
Hello, my name is Reverend Angela Jernigan and I am a chaplain and advisor for the Berkeley Junior Jackets.
I wanna thank Terry Chaplin and Ben Bartlett for authoring this request for a budget item.
I'm speaking on item number 42.
I wanted to say two things about it.
One, Berkeley Junior Jackets is the city's largest violence prevention and intervention program in the city.
They serve 150 African-American youth per year.
It's completely volunteer run and doing incredible work among the population that is most likely to be engaged in gang and gun violence.
They do this completely as volunteers.
The reason we have never applied for an RFP or through the RFP process is because of the administrative barrier, many of them to undergoing that process.
I sat down with the head of the youth equity program and Lorenzo Grayson, she actively discouraged us from applying because we didn't have the capacity.
This is a capacity building grant so that we can access funding in other ways in the future.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Mayor Alreguen and members, my name is Mike Wilson.
I'm a former firefighter paramedic and member of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission.
On behalf of the commission, I wanna thank you for your support of item 34, a request with the support of the department to fund a program manager to position in the department to build a street trauma prevention program.
As Council Member Humbert noted, street trauma is an unfolding disaster in Berkeley.
Every year on average, we have 694 residents injured in collisions while walking, riding in a vehicle or cycling.
Five of those people lose their lives.
This program represents a groundbreaking expansion of the department's mission to include prevention alongside its traditional response function.
And I can tell you it is unique in the California Fire Service.
The Berkeley Fire Department understands the power of prevention.
There are two people injured in fires each year in our city.
And I'm proud that Berkeley is gonna be directing similar attention to preventing street trauma.
Thanks very much again for your support.
Good evening, Honorable Mayor, esteemed Council Members.
My name is Rebecca Grove.
I'm the Executive Director of Waterside Workshops.
I'm here in support of item 40, an emergency recovery grant.
Thank you to Terry Taplin for authoring this item.
We are tenants of the City of Berkeley at the Berkeley Aquatic Park.
We've been there since 2007.
We're a youth job development program.
With summer camps and year-round programs, we engage over 300 young people ages 13 to 24.
We employ between 75 and 80, 18 to 24-year-olds in our beloved bike shop, Street Level Cycles.
And we have suffered greatly from the construction on Boulevard Drive.
It has affected our retail business negatively.
And so that we request this emergency grant.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Arguin and Council Members.
I'm Patrina Alexander.
I'm the Board President of Waterside Workshops.
And I'm grateful to Terry Taplin, who authored the requests for the funding that Rebecca Grove just spoke to.
Waterside Workshop, I was a former educator, special educator, and Waterside Workshops is a place that I found for my students who needed vocational training.
And we talk about reducing homelessness, supporting youth, violence prevention and reduction, and mental health.
Waterside Workshops provides all of that.
In addition, in case any of you may not be aware, Waterside Workshops also was the recipient of a grant that it helped the city to execute in regards to its e-bikes program.
So we hope that the historical memory you have of our organization and how it supported the city and what it does for youth helps you to vote in the affirmative for this program to recover the monies that we need.
Thank you.
Hello, Council Members, and congratulations to the new Council Member, Lunapara.
My name is Theo Gordon, speaking individually for all of the other fire department items, but here as a member of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, speaking in favor of item 34 to fund street trauma prevention.
The matter at hand is not about whether Vision Zero is good policy, Vision Zero is Berkeley City policy.
The matter is whether that policy is going to actually improve the safety on our streets.
There are streets and intersections that we know are unsafe.
We had awful tragedies earlier this year on streets that have been well-documented as being unsafe.
And those are streets the fire department has to respond to over and over again.
It's a huge burden on our system.
When it comes to housing and fire safety, we would never allow that kind of repeat strategy to happen.
We require sprinklers, we require all sorts of other preventative measures.
The fire department can do that same preventative work on street safety, so please fund this program.
It'll ensure that the fire has a seat at the table on future road projects that we can advocate for street safety and incident load.
Thank you.
She was full of conversation until now, so.
Hi, my name is Reginald Best.
This is my grandbaby, Samaya Best.
I'm speaking on item 42, the Berkeley Junior Jackets Cheer.
I've been in Berkeley for 29 years, from Florida to here, lived in the California, Northern California Land Trust Program.
I raised two kids, and now I'm doing my grand, raising my grandbaby from three months to nine years old.
And cheer has really helped her a lot.
She went out one, it's by chance, actually, she went on a play date and came back.
In the midweek, she said, Papa, don't forget, I got chilly to practice on Wednesday.
What, where did that come from? So she went, they let her practice with her friend, and she liked it ever since.
So last year, she was on the team.
This year, we're fighting to be funded to keep the girls and the football team on with scholarships to keep them going.
So please, support the Junior Jackets so we can keep those kids doing something positive.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Good evening, Council Members.
Congratulations, and welcome.
Council Member Lunapar, my name is Brett Chamberlain.
I'm the Executive Director of the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Nonmonogamy.
Here to thank the Council for their support for the item 41, the ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of family or relationship structure, particularly the bill's author, Council Member Taplin, co-sponsors, Vice Mayor Wingraff, and Council Member Humbert.
This very important bill ensures that family and relationships in Berkeley are respected and protected, regardless of their structure.
It's a very important step towards embracing the evolving understanding of families and relationships, both in Berkeley and across the country.
So this really important measure positions Berkeley at the front of this growing movement, and I'm very grateful for the Council's support.
Thank you.
Dr.
Lily Lamboy.
Hi there, I'm Dr.
Lily Lamboy.
I am the founder of the Modern Family Institute, which researches evolving family and relationship structures, and I'm here to speak on Agenda Item 41.
I'm also a resident of District 5, and so last time I was here, I spoke a little bit about the data, the research to support why this matters.
Today, I want to speak about why this matters to me as a citizen of Berkeley.
I have been a resident of District 5, and so last time I was here, I spoke a little bit about why this matters to me as a citizen of Berkeley.
I have been in a loving, consensually non-monogamous relationship with my husband, who's here, for the last five years since we got married.
And I also, we own and operate an eight-person cooperative home, where we live with close friends who we consider to be our chosen family.
We take each other to the hospital when we are sick, we know each other's families, we celebrate our holidays together, and this has been an extraordinary opening of my heart and my soul and my way of living and loving.
And as a resident, it just brings me great pride to be a leader and to know that my city cares about folks and all the many folks who are living and loving in diversity.
Thank you.
Hi, I would like to speak about Subject 42.
I've been with the Berkeley Junior Jackets since they started in the beginning.
I have five kids that participate in the program and they've changed.
My husband actually coaches for them, too, and I help run the organization, so I would ask you guys to support us so we can fund more kids that cannot pay for the program.
Thank you, guys.
Good evening, council members.
Mr.
Taplin, thank you for having this opportunity available for us and Cecilia, congratulations to you on your opportunity being up on the board.
I'm representing Berkeley Junior Jackets.
As a member, I've been with them since the beginning.
You heard from my wife, you heard from my player, my president, and my bishop, and now you're going to hear from me.
And to be honest with you, they've asked, everybody's asked that's been up here, and I'm not going to ask, I'm going to demand that you guys do something about it.
You guys have been selected, you guys have been obviously the ones to make the decisions and make the things happen and put it moving forward.
So I'm demanding that you guys make this happen for the Berkeley Junior Jackets and those who came up here asking for help and representation and whoever else they're asking for.
Please support the youth, support Berkeley.
You guys are here to represent Berkeley and be a part of Berkeley and stand and speak for Berkeley.
So please help us out, help all of us out that are up here asking for what we need.
And thank you.
And this is Gordon Gilmore.
Can you hear me all right? Hi, my name is Gordon Gilmore.
Can you hear me all right? All right.
Well, I have a point of order I want to discuss when we get to action item 58, but for now, I'll reserve my comments to action item, or consent calendar item 50.
Speaking of the safe and healthy California, the people have planted a garden at the white triangle, which was actually supposed to be opened as a public park.
Chuck P.
Herrick Peace and Freedom Memorial Park based on actions of former council member.
And I think that a good way to campaign for a safe and healthy California is to let a thousand parks bloom.
There's an irrigation system already installed in that space.
We could open, get that going to get the plants growing.
And I've contacted EB Mud, have yet to hear anything from them, but figured I'd put in a word with y'all.
Let a thousand parks bloom.
Mr.
Mayor and City Council, Council Member Lunapara.
I'm so excited for you.
First, I wanted to say thank you for all of the good, honestly, great work in terms of the federal referrals.
There's so many positive things worth talking about.
I'm 22, I'm 26.
I look forward to us pushing forward with our SCU and getting to full staffing.
I fully support the items around improving our traffic safety, pedestrian safety, which is much needed.
And I want to definitely shout out to Junior Jackets and all their work and Council Member Taplin for sponsoring that.
I had the honor of being there earlier in the fall and they're giving away bikes and it was a beautiful event.
I built community from it and I'm not the intended target.
So I know how much good work they have to be doing with the youth.
I hope we can push forward with that.
And then very briefly, you know, I have to touch on the issues I've been having in terms of public records in our city as it pertains to the police department.
Very briefly, I have put out three requests in terms of text messages.
This is all around the issue.
We all remember there being a big scandal about racist text messages.
We get to the bottom of it and the city manager promised us a transparent investigation.
Well, currently the city is claiming that the department over a seven and a half year period had no text messages to disclose except one conversation from February 29th, 2024.

Segment 6

And I've asked and now the response is there are none others the P a B asked back in November 2022 that any records related to the investigation would be kept apparently the police officers have no other text messages at all I'll be clear not any publicly disclosable that doesn't make any sense respectfully that to me says these text messages went somewhere and I won't go to overtime and we just scroll really quickly quickly I'm sorry scrolling I'm scrolling scrolling but I'm five more seconds I know I don't waste your time really disappointed this.
Okay.
I'm back in 2017 folks for my text messages I found them that quickly but somehow BPD cannot locate a single message, dealing with public business from the entire bike team for some after period, except the conversation on February 29 of this year, there was something seriously wrong.
There is something we have to understand and get to the bottom of, we need to understand where these messages with how is possible they could have no other messages.
And I really hope that's something we can do I will send a letter to the city attorney to get that happen.
I'll send a letter to y'all to get that to happen, but this investigation simply did not cover anything close to transparency.
The main element was the text messages, and we never got the text messages.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Kit Sagan or I live in district three, and I want to speak as everybody else has in support of of 42 the Berkeley junior jackets, and also in support of item 45, the healthy black families.
They do amazing work in South Berkeley and our communities and really for the city as a whole and I really appreciate that and I'm glad to see them on your support for them is on consent.
Thank you.
Good evening, everyone.
My name is Rhea cotton Landry and I'm speaking on item 42.
I am actually a real estate broker but in my spare time, I've decided to coach the five six and seven year olds at the Berkeley junior jackets.
So, I'm going to start off by saying that I'm an empty nester.
I was once a Berkeley cougar when I was young, and I understand the importance of community and what this organization can bring to community.
So, I'm going to start off by saying that I'm an empty nester.
I was once a Berkeley cougar when I was young, and I understand the importance of community and what this organization can bring to community.
And if you have any questions, I'm here in the audience.
If you want to present any.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is I'm here.
On consent number 40 water side workshop.
My wife is actually the chair of the, of the board.
We've worked with water side for a long time.
We know that it helps young people in the community.
They, we know that it provides good services to the community that have been heavily impacted by the construction there and they need your assistance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there any other in person speakers on the consent calendar.
Okay, we'll now go to public comment on the consent calendar.
And the last race hand I see on zoom is Whitney sparks.
That's the last person we are going to call on.
So, I apologize Nelson G Nelson, we are cutting it off that.
When he sparks.
Okay, Phyllis work.
Hello.
Can you hear me.
Yes.
Hi, thank you.
I'm talking on a number of items.
First I'm talking as a member of the aging commission on items, 33 A and B.
And I just want to emphasize that this is to revive a plan that was approved in 2018.
Very extensively studied, and now needs some serious financial support.
The aging services division is understaffed, they've set out a few positions that need to be up.
And I will say that the number of people in Berkeley who are aging has doubled in the last 10 years and will double again, at least.
And I would also like to support the street trauma prevention program as a way of maintaining possibility of aging in place because we all are going to be walking.
And as we get older, we walk more.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ben Gerhardt Stein.
Good evening.
This has been Garrett sign with Berkeley.
I'm here to underscore our organization strong support for item, 34 supplemental one referring funds for a new program manager to position the fire department.
And item 43 visions air rapid response on bicycle boulevards on item, 34, we want to commend the disaster and fire safety commission for developing what's really an innovative proposal around street trauma prevention.
And we're excited that Chief Sprague has full wholeheartedly embraced it.
And we really need the Berkeley Fire Department centrally involved in both preventing and responding to street trauma, this will help to get us there.
On item 43 it's important that Berkeley established clear guidance for bicycle boulevard implementation to make it easier for staff to deliver life saving common sense traffic calming measures on these streets as part of repaving and other capital projects.
Oakland has done so and it's really been helpful there.
There's this item also includes a modest budget referral for preventing additional traffic violence on some of the nights.
Thanks for moving this forward.
Thank you Ben.
Okay, we're going to go next to Benjamin fry by john caner.
Thank you counsel for your patience and ensuring time for this public discussion.
I'm impressed with all of your patients here.
I'm calling into voice my support for item 34 and 43, the funding for fire department program manager and the vision zero rapid response for bicycle boulevards.
With the recent death of jogger on Marin severe injury of cyclist leg on San Pablo to instance of cars sitting people at seventh and Heinz intersection within weeks of each other.
We are not making enough progress against our visions or goals in the city.
Both items 34 and 43 will help ensure that city is able to design and implement safety improvements faster and help protect Berkeley and of all ages.
Thank you and I appreciate your support.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to john keener.
Yes, thank you.
Mr.
Mayor and counsel.
1st, I want to thank the mayor for your budget referral to replenish the business damage mitigation fund.
And then also thank council members when graph and Holland for the budget referral for the civic center plan to bring that forward.
Thank you.
And in particular, I want to thank council member tap on for the safe city connect downtown Berkeley pilot program safe city connect is a terrific company that has deployed a 1000 cameras in San Francisco.
They have 200 in Oakland, and the Oakland city council's approved another 500,000 for all out there.
It is a fast, responsive rollout.
It is a buys by ACLU privacy standards.
It's been fully vetted it.
We need our merchants, our customers, our patrons and bar plaza and the arts district people going in and out of art need to feel safe.
It will discourage crime help prosecute crimes.
It's network based for quick and and an average camera cost after implementation is $3000 per site.
So, thank you so much.
Okay, our next speaker is Jen followed by Chris.
Hi, my name is Jen and I'm a resident in Berkeley and I'm speaking item number 26 and really I want to express my appreciation for the specialized care unit.
I had an incident at the end of April where an individual pulled a construction saw horse from the curb across the bottom of the steps leading up to my unit and took up residence on the stoop of the steps and was not violent, but was very agitated in their body.
And after a while, remove their shoes and either fell asleep or passed out on the stoop and was not responsive to my inquiries about whether they were okay or not.
And I was so grateful in that moment to have an alternative to calling the police.
I called the specialized care unit.
They came out and they were really, really wonderful.
They took care of the situation.
Everything stayed really calm.
They were so compassionate and they treated this person, not as an obstacle to be removed or a problem to be solved, but as a human being in a really difficult period of their life.
These are the kind of services I want to see and I really hope that the city continues to fund them and expand the services so much.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to Chris shell followed by Charles Siegel.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Mayor and city council.
My name is Chris shelves.
I'm a South Berkeley resident and director of housing justice at urban habitat.
I've also been honored to serve our city as a former Berkeley planning commissioner and currently I'm on the Berkeley housing authority board and I want to speak tonight in support of items.
45 and 46, the budget referrals for healthy black families to continue their important work, advancing our city.
Black families to continue their important work, advancing equity for black Berkeley, and ensuring the development of Ashby part and in South Berkeley repair past harms to build a thriving black community as well as the referral for the city small site acquisition program and grant to support capacity building for our local community land trust.
We know we need both both abundant new affordable housing construction, especially at our part stations and investment to stabilize our current residents through small sites acquisitions, which can be deployed much faster than new construction and at one third of the cost.
So, I am pleased to see both of these budget referrals and hope that they move forward.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next to Charles Segal followed by Kelly hamburger.
Hello.
I would like to speak in favor of item 43 and particularly the funding for safety improvements at seven and Hines.
You know there were two collisions there recently one of them somebody took the turn so quickly that they plowed in going the opposite direction of traffic cloud into a pedestrian who was cross setting across burgers severe injuries.
And there are simple ways of dealing with that simple ways of modifying the could be intersection to prevent people from driving in such a crazy way.
I would like to speak in favor of items 34 fire prevention fire department travel prevention and it's no sort of like preventive medical care you want to be able to get to the hospital quickly if you have a heart attack but you also want to live in a healthy way, so that you're less likely to get a heart attack.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Kelly hamburger and followed by Igor trigger.
Thank you.
Thank you.
On item 14, how did we end up not spending $400,000 and giving it back.
I'm number 34 disaster and fire safety commission.
I was present at that meeting during the vote, and the discussion is was with street trauma should also be broader to have better representation of the fire department across the city.
Since we tend to work in silos, and the fire department is not always brought in early when decisions are being made a number 39 the surveillance cameras.
We probably have reports back on the cameras that have already been approved to give the city the effectiveness of those cameras before we spend money on more.
I understand we all love sports and teamwork and the benefits of building teams, but it's always concerned me as a nurse, and the prevention of CTE chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Are we protecting the young people from these injuries.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Followed by more joy is the name of the speaker.
Thank you so much, Mayor and members of the council and welcome Councilmember Luna power.
Congratulations.
I would like to speak in support of a number of consent items, I only have a minute though so I would like to uplift items 34 and 43.
The really two sides of the same coin.
is an innovative way to move towards our vision zero goals and prevent street trauma.
At the same time, in part caused by traffic violence.
I also support the mayor's effort to help compensate small businesses that are impacted by vandalism in the downtown and all over Berkeley.
I also support item 50 resolution in support of the campaign for a safe and healthy California, and soon, the California Democratic Party will be joining you in support as well.
And appreciate all of the items on the consent calendar.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, our next speaker is the name more joy.
Hi, I want to thank all of you for your service to the city.
I to support most of the things on the consent calendar but I specifically want to encourage us to support the market match from the farmer's market program because everything that was missing tonight that wants to be done that needs to be done that everybody likes to have happen.
Every single one of us need a healthy body and food is number one.
So I hope that this encourages all to support the market match program and help feed the people who need it the most.
Some of the people who need it the most in the city.
And again, thank you for your service.
And with more joy you was there something else you want to add.
Okay, we'll go next to Whitney sparks.
Can you hear me.
Yes.
Okay.
I would like to say that first, I had to leave the in person meeting because my child and I did not feel safe at the meeting.
Can you still hear me.
Okay.
Because of the increased amount of police presence there.
I would like to know what consequences you expect to take for like clapping.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I want to let you know that everyone knows that police are violent by now because we've seen it across campuses.
And we're actually listening to your constituents.
When we're calling for nonviolence, we're calling for peace and we're calling for a ceasefire.
I am appalled at what I saw today at city council and what my child was witnessed and the fear that he felt in city council like a government space compared to at the camps on campus.
You know, with a bunch of peace loving students calling for peace.
It's just really radical to see this and the fact of the creeping fascism that's happening.
No one 39 knows increased surveillance.
Yes, for the junior jackets.
And what is the deal with 14 you don't take money from on house people and give it back to an institution that is actively funding and supporting genocide.
That's ridiculous.
So, yeah, I'm really appalled by the way that you treated black women and black mothers today at city council and that's a that's a very slippery slope.
I hope that you learn from this and do better the city council chambers should be a safe place for all ages and all races and ethnicities and right now it definitely is not and that's on you.
I agree with that.
And we'll be on your responsibility for calling for peace and calm.
Okay, see no additional race hands that closes public comment on the consent calendar and counselor tap them.
He's not here.
Council on will go to you next week from to come back.
Thank you.
I just asked I had just asked the city attorney about item 39, whether those cameras would be subject to the city's surveillance ordinance.
And my understanding is that it would not.
And I'm not ready to support surveillance that isn't subject to our surveillance ordinance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I, first, I'm adding a counselor to item 41.
Thank you so much for your support of this critical safety item.
43, 43.
Yes.
Sorry.
That critical safety item.
And I wanted to thank everyone who came out tonight to speak for the.
For the work that you all do.
I appreciate the work that you all do, including the.
The hats and your jackets.
These 2 organizations are so close to my heart.
It's because of the work that you all do that I am able to sit up here.
Today and.
I was so floored by all the overwhelming support that was coming in.
Through the inbox and the phone calls.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I will say, you know, an item on the cameras.
This is a referral I did.
From having met with downtown stakeholders the day after the former counselor resigned.
I have my own district.
We have enough of our own problems.
I don't need to do a bunch of extra referrals.
I don't need to do a bunch of referrals.
I don't need to do a bunch of referrals.
I don't need to do a bunch of referrals.
So, as much as you concern, I will always respond.
And in closing, you know.
I am incredibly proud of all the organizations we support.
We heard tonight.
How challenging it is to sustain that funding.
And if you grow our tax base, we can fund more programs.
So, I want, and I look forward to work with my colleagues moving forward on that in particular.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And that concludes our discussion.
That we have made.
It's part of our discussion this evening.
Seconded by vice mayor.
Unless there's any further discussion.
Please call the roll.
On the consent calendar.
Oh, yes.
Well, yeah.
We don't need to call the wall since all members are present.
So.
Okay.
Is there any objection to approving the consent, the remainder of the consent calendar? No objection now to the action.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
We'll stop proceed to item 57.
The readoption.
Of the Berkeley building codes, including local amendments to the 2022 California building standards code.
This is from the department of planning and development.
Good evening.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor and council members.
I'd like to welcome to the meeting.
Sarah Gomez, assistant building official.
Jeff Jensen.
Green green building program manager, Kurt Hurley and our manager of the office of energy and sustainable development.
Sarah Moore.
I'll ask Kurt to go ahead and bring up the slide deck while I give a quick introduction of this item.
Okay.
So as you can see from the slide deck, the building code, the majority of these local amendments are read adoption of local amendments.
Already been approved.
In November, 2022.
And or in prior building code cycles, there is one significant new reach code.
That we are recommending that would advance the city's goals and leadership on climate action.
And building electrification.
So with that introduction.
And good evening, mayor and members of council.
I'm pleased this evening to present.
On the 2022 building standards code.
With mid cycle supplements.
First, the code adoption process.
In California that's driven.
By the publication each three years.
Of new building standards codes.
The state law.
Requires local building.
Local governments to enforce those latest codes standards.
In our city.
There are amendments specific to Berkeley, which went into effect.
January of last year.
The state supplement becomes law.
July 1st of this year.
And because of its impacts requires the readoption.
Of the state's new building standards code.
There are also amendments.
Those amendments include increased fire resilience in our wildland urban interface.
Particularly in the Eastern portions of our city.
Motion activated shutoff valves and public right-of-way access.
Pertaining to the green code.
There are three provisions.
Increased construction and demolition waste diversion.
Low carbon concrete.
The state's mid cycle supplement.
Requires local government to enforce those provisions.
That's going to be in effect.
And staff recommends their readoption.
Next we arrive.
At the sixth point.
The electric vehicle charging.
This is an example of the state's mid cycle supplement.
Passing beyond Berkeley's own reach code in effect.
Staff recommends those provisions be adopted without amendment.
The state's mid cycle supplement.
Requires EV charging infrastructure elsewhere in the project.
If a parking lift is specified.
Is recommended for readoption.
And finally.
Are greater requirements for new non-residential buildings.
Is recommended for readoption.
Hey, Kurt, I'm going to, I'm going to.
Interrupt you for a second because the slides aren't actually showing up.
So.
Can you see the slides now? All right.
Can you see the slides now? Okay.
I think we're here.
Go ahead, Kurt.
Okay.
So I'm excited to now introduce the Sarah Knox amendment.
Proposed by staff.
To our Cal green code.
This would be effective from July 24th.
Through December of next year, along with other amendments.
And staff would have the opportunity to decide to readopt that in the next code cycle.
It is justified by local conditions.
And it would be effective from December of next year.
Up to 85 deaths.
And over $800 million.
And health impacts annually in the San Francisco Bay area are contributed to by Knox emissions.
Next slide, please.
The what is Knox Knox is shorthand.
For air pollution.
It's a combination of NO and N O two.
The most relevant nitrogen oxides for air pollution.
The negative impacts of Knox have been known of for years, even decades.
They include impacts to the environment.
Acid rain.
Smog.
Contributions to climate change.
And impacts to building occupants, including asthma.
Next slide, please.
Staff's proposal.
Would amend Cal green and create a higher standard.
New buildings would be required.
To have Knox.
Zero Knox appliances in six categories.
Equipment use.
Space heating.
Space ventilation, water heating, cooking.
Clothes drying and lighting equipment.
The building would be required to have zero Knox appliances.
Once a zero Knox structure is created.
It remains so for its lifetime.
Including future additions and alterations.
Staff has included two exceptions pertaining to two new building types.
One for manufacturing.
And one for industrial processes.
That exception pertains to the primary use of those buildings and not the secondary use of those buildings.
Next slide, please.
I'd like to cover the.
Precedents for the zero Knox staff proposed amended to Cal green.
They are considerable.
To begin Berkeley zero Knox amendment builds.
On Los Altos Hills.
First of the kind ordinance adopted earlier this year.
It does so by including residential and non-residential occupancies.
The California air resources board.
And the California community management district back meds, appliance regulation, nine.
Rules four and six.
Which requires zero Knox.
The meeting appliance.
Two categories.
However, the first of those provisions.
Does not become effective.
Until January of 2027.
Staff's proposed ordinance would lead far in advance of that.
It's also noted.
That at the state level, The California air resources board would be required to implement regulations statewide.
Next to the federal clean air act, which establishes air quality standards.
To protect public health and welfare by regulating emissions.
Equipment, which does emit Knox contributes to three of those six federally regulated air pollutants.
Those being articulate matter.
The California air resources board.
And the California community management district.
Significantly just the 25th of last month.
The federal EPA announced new source performance standards.
These will result in tens of thousands of tons.
Reduction reduced emissions in Knox.
For my nation's electric power plants.

Segment 7

would place Berkeley in a leadership position in a convergence of policy at many levels to regulate this pollutant.
Next slide, please.
I'd like to cover briefly two alternatives which staff also consider.
The first alternative would be the zero NOx amendment to Calgary, but including a non-residential commercial kitchen exception.
However, this would still have negative health impacts for workers in kitchens.
The second alternative, a single margin.
This is an energy reach code that still allows new construction buildings to emit NOx provided they reach higher energy performance standards and reduce their source energy budget.
We can see it would have a lower benefit both for the environment and for the health of the occupancy buildings.
It additionally would be more difficult both to implement and to administer.
Next slide, please.
In consideration of this, staff's recommendation is to adopt without amendment, the ordinance repealing and re-adopting Berkeley's 2022 building standards, Title 19, with the California mid-cycle supplements discussed, along with staff's proposed amendments.
Also, acquired by state laws of resolution for findings of local, climatic, geological, and topographical conditions, which justify those more stringent regulations.
Next slide, please.
It's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
This evening, we have an opportunity for us.
Thank you.
Assuming that completes the staff presentation, we can open it up for public comment on item 57, the re-adoption of the Berkeley building codes and local amendments.
Are there any in-person speakers? Seeing none, we'll go to speakers on Zoom.
If you'd like to address item 57, please raise your hand.
Bryce? Bryce Nesbitt? Okay.
It sounds like your Zoom's not working.
We'll go to the second Bryce.
Bryce, are you there? Let's try again.
This is Bryce Nesbitt.
That's great.
But given that we have less than, yeah.
Audio check.
One second.
Given that we have less than 10 speakers, two minutes.
Okay.
Uh-oh, we just lost Bryce.
While we wait for Bryce to come back, we'll go to Linda Hutchins-Knowles.
Good evening.
My name is Linda Hutchins-Knowles, and I'm one of the co-leaders of the EV Charging for All Coalition, speaking tonight in my personal capacity.
I sent you an email earlier today, hope you had a chance to read it, urging you to direct staff to make technical corrections to the code so that it's practical for mechanical parking lift facilities to comply.
Our goal with the EV Charging for All Coalition is to bring equal access to EV charging for everyone, including multifamily residents assigned a parking lift spot.
I understand that the amendments you're considering will result in a problematic eight-foot minimum width for certain parking, and I urge you to reject the notion that wider parking is necessary anywhere at any time.
Parking lifts provide AD-compliant parking in surface stalls, not in the parking lifts.
The parking lifts are not compatible with ADA needs, and so the requirement to make all automated stalls apply for ADA requirements is impractical and will defeat the purpose of having parking lifts, which is to minimize space.
This would not only fail to aid people with disabilities, but also effectively prohibit the use of automatic parking altogether.
This requirement is too stringent and does not benefit anyone.
Please reconsider and remove that requirement for the parking lifts.
Thank you for your leadership on all things decarbonization.
My city of San Jose has also moved to remove parking lift exemptions, and we would really appreciate you to take the same step to continue to set the example for other cities around the country.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go back to Bryce Nesbitt.
Okay, audio check here a second time.
We hear you loud and clear.
Excellent.
So I'll have two comments, first on NOx and then on EV charging.
On NOx, just a note for city council in case you didn't catch it, the NOx ban is similar.
It's an effective reintroduction of the gas ban for which the restaurant industry is really not ready, and I urge staff to consider achieving the same result of protection of cooks and kitchen staff using ventilation requirements.
Second, I, like Linda, am a member of the EV charging for all coalition, though I'm speaking in my personal capacity, and I'm urging council's direct staff to make a technical correction to the code, which has been discussed with the principals here, including Mr.
Lopez.
There were two letters submitted to staff from parking industry experts, one from Berkeley-based Klaus Industries and one from a nationally known chair of the American Parking Association and a parking designer on a technical issue, which Linda mentioned, about how parking stall widths are being affected by Berkeley's amendment.
The goal of the EV charging for all coalition is to bring equal access to EV charging for everyone, including multifamily residents who are assigned a parking lift spot.
And the technical issue with the code as proposed is Berkeley is being stricter than state code by removing the parking lift exemption, but then bringing in an ADA and a width requirement that's undesirable.
In essence, parking lifts only work when you store cars as compactly as possible, and why Berkeley would be mandating wider parking spots for bigger SUVs, I don't know.
This is a technical correction, and I hope that it gets handled at the staff level, but that council should direct staff to resolve this issue to everybody's satisfaction.
We all agree on the end result.
Let's just get there.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Are there any other speakers on Zoom who would like to address item 57, the re-adoption of the Berkeley building codes, including local amendments? If so, please raise your hand.
I don't see any additional speakers on this item, so it's not in order for council to discuss the item, and we would like to start the discussion.
Seems like there's the amendments to conform to the changes to the building code, and then there's the question of how we regulate emissions.
Councilor Humphreys? Yes.
Thank you.
First of all, I just wanted to say that I filed a little supplemental on this item about parking lifts and handicapped spaces.
I did that because I had information from people in the community that there might be a different way of approaching these particular issues.
I subsequently was able to have a very productive conversation with staff who looked back at the provisions that they have in place.
It looks like they are achieving the same goal, but through a different avenue.
I would like to withdraw my supplemental from consideration, and I'm happy to support staff's rendition of this.
I do want to thank the members of the public who came to me with this specific micro concern.
I just want to assure folks that by putting it forward, it resulted in a very good deep dive into these questions, and I'm satisfied with where we landed.
On the other questions, I reached out to FIRE about this, and I think they had some changes, and those were read in earlier.
Is that correct? Yeah, that was to the FIRE code.
That was to the FIRE code.
I thought there might have been some comments on this, unless I was confused and they were talking about the FIRE code.
But I don't know if the city manager, were there any issues raised by FIRE? I just wanted to make sure I had clarity on that.
Thank you, Council Member.
There were no issues raised by FIRE that have been brought to my attention, but they are here this evening, and should you need to reach out to me when we're on the Zoom link.
Oh, okay.
Well, I guess maybe I would like to just confirm that.
Okay.
Thank you.
I do believe Dory and or Chief Sprague is available for comments.
I'll go ahead.
This is Dory too.
I just wanted to make sure I had clarity on the FIRE code.
And FIRE did not have any comments on the building code.
Our minor corrections were addressed before the consent calendar vote for the FIRE code.
Okay.
Great.
I just wanted to make sure.
I think I might have crossed signals about where the issues were.
I'm not seeing anything, but that must have been cleared up.
I see a yes.
Okay.
So, I mean, I think that what staff has put forward here in terms of the amendments, and obviously, I'm sorry, preserving certain more stringent local amendments that Berkeley has previously adopted and adopting the mid-cycle supplements makes a lot of sense.
It looks like on the cover sheet here, those first three bullet points, retaining Berkeley's more stringent adopted wildland urban interface area elements, the light straw clay construction, the local amendments with respect to gas shutoff valves and fuel gas piping, and then the modified amendments to the green building standards for EV charging.
I'm very comfortable adopting those as presented today.
The NOx amendments, first of all, I just want to say that I strongly support clean and healthy air, indoor air quality, and I know this is something that various agencies are looking at how they can address indoor air quality.
But I think that these elements might benefit from being considered in a committee.
I wanted to suggest that maybe those elements not be adopted tonight, but that we refer them to the health life committee, since this is about health issues and the health impacts of indoor air quality.
This is a fairly novel approach that has only been adopted in one of the jurisdiction, Los Altos Hills, which is not a big metropolis.
There, it only applies to residential, and here we are looking to extend this to commercial.
I think it's just worth a conversation since this is a cutting edge policy for us to vet it ourselves, and make sure that the council fully understands what the mechanisms are that would apply, and how this dovetails with other efforts in the city to improve air quality and deal with the emissions from fossil fuels.
That is my idea of how we might proceed with what we have before us.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Taking out that particular amendment, and what you're saying is referring it to policy committee, so we can have more discussion of it.
There's two options.
There's this that's being recognized staff, and there was another option, the single margin reach code, which has been also adopted by other jurisdictions.
That was also talked about, but not ultimately recommended by staff.
Yeah, it would be better.
I think it would be helpful for council to understand what the two different paths are, and how they differ.
My understanding is that more jurisdictions have adopted single margin source energy code amendments.
I am assuming that if staff is proposing the zero NOx, that they feel that it is a better path, but I think that council should have the benefit of better understanding what the differences are and why we might pursue one versus the other.
I think some larger jurisdictions have done the single margin source energy code.
Of course, support the goal, just wanting to be thoughtful and thorough in terms of council's understanding.
I don't believe this was in response to a referral, and I commend our planning staff for taking the initiative.
I just think that the council hasn't really had an opportunity to consider all the options and fully understand this since it is cutting edge.
That's my recommendation.
Thank you.
Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you, Council Member Hahn, for your comments.
Really interesting.
I'm thinking about them carefully.
I want to thank planning staff and the city attorney's office for their really incredible work on these proposals.
I've spent some time with them.
You've had to incorporate feedback from a lot of stakeholders and thread multiple needles.
I appreciate all the effort and expertise, really amazing expertise you brought to bear on this item.
I wrestled with what I thought would be the right approach.
I think the science is clear, not debatable, that we need to part ways with gas, or maybe I shouldn't say gas, with carbon emitting and NOx emitting appliances.
They're bad for the climate and even worse for human health.
On the other hand, we know that many people regard gas use as integral to commercial cooking, at least for now.
Then there's also the reality that we're a small city that has to make tough choices about how we use our resources.
This was thrown into sharp relief for me this week with the city manager's planned departure.
Between this and our extremely tight budget, I'm going to make sure that we're focusing on low-hanging fruit and getting the best bang for our buck.
For that reason, I'm inclined to support an alternative tonight that would regulate air pollution from appliances, but create a carve-out specifically for restaurants.
That's, I think, called Alternative 1 under the NOx section.
I want to be very clear.
I reject the idea that protecting the health of children and restaurant workers, and these ideas have been floated, is somehow racist because this or that cuisine needs a certain type of stove.
People all over the world make home-cooked meals in their native cuisines using electric appliances.
With very limited exceptions, the latest electric induction technologies are perfectly capable of meeting the needs of diverse cuisines and cooking practices.
The science shows a significant proportion of childhood asthma comes from gas stove use, and that the impacts are particularly pronounced for kids of color.
Saying that it is racist to protect these kids and kitchen workers from asthma and other health impacts is really, I think, cynical.
At the same time, our city faces numerous other threats to public health and our climate.
Air pollution from cars and the direct threat of traffic violence are just two things that represent, I think, more immediate and significant threats to our health and safety than air quality in commercial kitchens.
Like it or not, every dollar or staff hour spent on this portion of the regulations is one that could go toward other efforts to keep us healthy and safe.
For that reason, I would be in favor with some reluctance to support a compromise measure that creates an exemption for ground-level commercial kitchens.
I want to be clear, though, that I hope and expect that we'll strongly enforce our rules around ventilation requirements and related admissions, requiring scrubbers where we can, certainly.
I certainly urge the development community and restaurants to earnestly examine induction alternatives to gas appliances.
The technology is rapidly developing.
There are even induction ranges specifically designed for walks, and I want such options to be seriously considered.
Although this goes beyond the proposed regulations before us, I'd also like to encourage staff, our city commissions, and council subcommittees to examine the option of incentives for non-gas appliances in restaurants.
I think such an incentives-based approach could go a long way to showcasing these new technologies and spearheading their broader adoption.
Those are my comments.
Thank you.
Vice Mayor Weingarten.
Thank you.
Thank you to planning staff for all the work on this.
There's a lot in here that is about the high-fire hazard fire zone.
We just passed the fire code, and I just want to make sure that the definitions are the same in both documents.
Because this is pretty technical stuff.
Some of it is determined by the state, some of it is determined by Berkeley, and we have an expanded definition of the WUI, the wild land urban interface in the fire code.
Can you, David, maybe explain to me what the process was, and is the building code in sync with the fire code? Yes.
I met with Steve Riggs, the fire marshal, and we made sure that we coordinated our changes to the building code to match the fire code.
The definition changes were made, there was section numbers that were changed, and the amendments that we had adopted before were reintroduced into this ordinance.
Okay.
Thank you.
Is 712A underground utility connections, is that a new code requirement? No, that's a re-adoption.
Does that reference ADUs, new ADUs? Do they have to provide laterals? Even for undergrounding? Let's see.
I just lost this.
For the undergrounding, that is for new connections only, which is very uncommon in ADUs.
For newly constructed ADUs, would this apply? It's only for new utility connections.
Most of the times, ADUs do not require new utility connections.
The existing utility connections on the property are adequate, and then just add either a meter or bring it over to the, if it's a detached ADU, to the detached ADU.
But undergrounding is not required, and the provision itself is really not undergrounding the utilities.
It's just providing an underground conduit for future undergrounding.
I understand.
I'm curious about the reason for the requirement, because given recent decisions by the CPUC, there is not going to be any undergrounding.
I'm just wondering where this came from? I would have to check.
I don't know the exact reasoning.
I'd have to go back several code cycles to find out, but I could definitely find out for you.
Well, it could be that it was added at a time when we were very hopeful about undergrounding.
That's very possible.
But unfortunately, it doesn't look very hopeful right now based on the CPUC and PG&E.
Thank you for that.
The automatic fire sprinkler systems that are referenced, you referenced Fire Code Section 903.2.24.
Is that a new requirement for Zone 3? No.
That requirement has been in our municipal code several code cycles already.
Okay.
Great.
Thanks very much.
We do need to take an action.
I have to say I am inclined to agree with Council Member Han's approach, which is to not adopt something and exempt something in particular, but to look more comprehensively at the various alternatives and to have that come back to us so we can take an action on this.
I think we should move forward with something, but I want to make sure that we think through the various options.
That's my inclination, but certainly I'd like to hear my colleagues' comments.
Councilor Lunapar? Thank you.
I am very excited to support this item and would like to see it passed as recommended by staff.
I have seen this in its process at the Environment and Climate Commission and I'm excited to see it move forward today.
We need a bold, swift, and just transition from fossil fuels and ensuring our construction is built in an environmentally sustainable manner, and this does just that.
I want to especially thank city staff in planning and development for working so diligently on this ordinance, especially on their work in mitigating adverse impacts.
I am proud to be in a city that is a leader in spearheading solutions such as these, and would like to see our city take this bold step to respond to the effects of climate change that are disproportionately affecting our working class and residents of color, which include our restaurant workers.
Thank you.
Councilor Hahn? Thank you.
I just want to reiterate that the goal of improving indoor air quality is a goal that I share very strongly, but there are obviously more than one way to do that.
I think Council Member Humbert raised a bunch of other questions that I really think point to the fact that it would be good to have this conversation in a council committee, and where all of these ideas can be considered.
I would like to make a motion to adopt a first reading of the ordinance, repealing and re-enacting the Berkeley Building, residential, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, energy, and green building standing codes with all of the proposed amendments except those that relate to the NOx elements, and that we also adopt the resolution setting forth findings of local conditions that justify more stringent regulations minus the findings that may have applied only to the NOx code, and that we refer the NOx emission standards to the Health Life Enrichment Committee for review, and to return that to the city council with a recommendation.
I'll just say that I think the work that we've been doing these past six years to regulate emissions because of the very harmful health effects that has on people that live in, particularly in residential context, but obviously impacts people that work in a commercial context too, that this is a really serious issue and we need to put some standards in place.
I look forward to seeing the outcome if that is what we decide to do, of the committee's input on this.
I'll go to Councilor Kisilori.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Mayor.
I think it's reasonable for the council to spend a bit more time deliberating on the NOx emissions issue.
I want to thank staff for all of their work on this, but also acknowledge that this particular approach hasn't received significant community input, if I understand correctly.
I also think it's worth considering the most legally defensible way to go about this, just given the history and what we've attempted to do, and I think we'd have an opportunity to do that if the health committee took this on.
As a member of that committee, I'm happy to do that work.
I don't have any other issues on this item.
Mr.
Klein, I understand you do have some time pressure in terms of adopting these amendments, but the NOx piece in particular can wait, correct? That is correct, Council Member Kisilori.
We do recommend.

Segment 8

that council proceed this evening with adoption of the remainder of the local amendments.
I understand council member Hans motion to do that.
So we have a version of the ordinance that we will bring back for second reading.
It effectively strips the references to the no knocks policy and reach codes.
And yeah, that's right.
There's not really specific time pressure related to the consideration of the reach codes for no knocks.
And we will appreciate the opportunity to support city council's deliberation on that and conduct more outreach on that consideration.
Okay, thank you very much.
That's all I have at this time.
Okay, I just wanna clarify, does the staff have clarity on the Han motion that we're separating out those amendments relating to the knocks emission standard or referring those to the health and life enrichment committee and that we be adopting all the elements of the staff recommendation? We do, we do.
Thank you, Mayor Arreguin.
I also wanted to, and if you'll allow me to share screen, I wanted to note for city council that staff have prepared in anticipation of council possibly choosing to go this route, staff have prepared a modified resolution that amends some of the whereas clauses and also amends some of the references to the local climatic and geographical and geological and topographical conditions that I wanted to put on screen here, the amended whereas clause and the deletion lower in the resolution for the provisions to a reference to provisions to refer zero knocks emission buildings here and then here as well on page nine, deletion of these final two bullets in one of the whereas, one of the resolve clauses.
So I wanted to draw council's attention to that modified resolution that will reflect your action this evening.
So those amendments are part of the motion.
Thank you.
I trust staff to pick through the various elements and actually really want to express appreciation for that.
Thank you.
Councilor Bartlett.
Thank you.
I want to thank staff for bringing us this thought out, really well thought out and reasoned proposal.
And I must say this is the second time I've supported it now.
However, I am moved by sort of the new angles brought forth by Councilor Humbert and also Councilor Kasarwani in terms of hearing more from legal about how to hedge our legal risk here and in terms of costs and things like that, knowing what's happened last couple of years to us.
And as a member of the health committee, the health life and Richmond, California committee, and equity, as a member, I'm excited to, if it comes across our plates to dig into it and really unpack it.
So I think with the amount of information to consume at this hour of this volume, I don't feel comfortable just passing it tonight.
And there's a health and life enrichment committee meeting on Thursday, May 16th.
So, okay.
There is a motion on the floor.
I'd like to ask, are there any additional questions or comments from council members on this item? If not, if the clerk can please call the roll.
Okay, Council Member Kasarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
On.
Yes.
Wengraff.
Yes.
Munapara.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mayor Arrogan.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay, that motion carries.
Our last time was item 58.
And this was a recommendation that we brought from our agenda and rules committee to specifically implement specific recommendations from the Open Government Commission.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Open Government Commission for their very thoughtful work.
We had asked them to look at our meeting procedures and public comment rules.
And they spent a number of months taking public input and going back and listening to our comments and coming up, I think, a thoughtful set of recommendations that we discussed, I think, at two meetings of our agenda and rules committee to implement.
And I just want to just highlight several of them that gave me an opportunity to share screen.
So the first was to continue our public comment remotely via video conference.
I think we all agree that there's a lot of benefit to people being able to speak through video conference.
Technically, our rules do not require that we have to take public comment through video conference.
We're doing that because we want to expand public participation.
To enable live transcription, committee board and commission meetings with the video conference component, we asked that we begin to phase in the implementation of that for boards and commissions, starting with the quasi judicial boards, limit council member initial comments on consent and action items to five minutes per person and to enforce this rule.
So colleagues, if we adopt this, you'll notice that that's gonna be our rule.
So, and I think the intent is to make sure that we can allow for a brief initial discussion so that we can go to public comment and then save our more in-depth discussion for after we hear from the public.
Four, start the consent calendar with an acknowledgement that consent items are important and should pass without prolonged discussion.
So once again, a consent calendar is a consent calendar.
If we wanna discuss something, we gotta move to the action calendar.
Amend the rules of procedure to add the following language.
If three or more council members object to a consent item by expressing their intent to abstain or vote no, that item should be moved from consent to action.
And I agree.
I think that if majority of the council is going to reject an item, clearly that warrants discussion.
Acknowledge and verbally summarize comments received via email, that's just not technically practical.
So we are not recommending that we do that, but we do have supplemental packet.
We do, we have the opportunity to review the comments from the public.
We receive many emails about issues that come to us on a daily basis.
And that's our responsibility as members of the council to review public comments.
Consider the use of Brooklyn considers more frequently.
Endeavor, key word endeavor, to inform attendees of the approximate time for high interest items.
And that we'll do our best to do that really is obviously contingent on how long discussion of previous items occur.
And that if we are getting late, that we try that we postpone items.
If we need to postpone items earlier in the agenda, rather than having people wait for hours, and then at 1030, we postpone an item.
That's disrespectful to the public and to staff as well.
We'll have to wait until we take up those items.
Require the city manager and staff publish the supporting materials for agenda items.
We had an extensive discussion of this at our agenda rules committee, and it's just not practical given the deadlines for staff to submit items.
So we said, respectfully, we disagree with that, but we appreciate the suggestion to amend the rules that, as stated here, consent items will be moved to the action calendar if requested by three or more council members.
And we'll continue that practice.
We'll schedule meetings with fewer items.
Actions may be reordered at the discretion of the chair.
There were some items that commission thought warranted further consideration and research.
B1, schedule more meetings with fewer items.
We want to endeavor to do that.
And certainly when we have controversial items, we schedule special meetings just on those items, and we'll continue that practice.
And with respect to departmental presentations, we're looking to have them to try to have a ballpark of 20 minutes for departmental presentations.
Obviously today's presentation on the community agency allocation, that was substantially longer than 20 minutes, but it's really just, that should be a goal.
Obviously there are items that do require that we have more extensive information presented.
And obviously in those instances, it will exceed 20 minutes.
And we're looking to have special meetings on a different day from regular meetings or schedule special meetings that are stopped 15 minutes before the posted time of a regular meeting.
Our comment was for staff presentations where no action is requested, so work sessions.
Limit council comments to five minutes to enable the meeting to adjourn on time.
Also prove an adjournment of 15 minutes before the posted time of a regular council meeting with the option to extend by two-thirds vote.
Strongly urge a supplemental materials be submitted earlier.
We want that to be referred to the agenda committee for further discussion, because we need to take into consideration, this idea and what is a reasonable amount of time for things to actually be submitted.
Obviously there are situations where we get new information, we're working with staff on amendments.
We want to ensure flexibility so that things can be submitted before the meeting at a later date if we need additional time.
So we need to balance the idea of giving the public more time to review something, but also giving flexibility to ensure that we can amend material before the meeting.
There was a proposal to provide 90 seconds rather than one minute.
We respectfully said no to that.
We also said that we would like to provide a 30-minute wait after the meeting, provide a webpage link for transcriptions.
We said to take no action on that, provide virtual access to board and commission meetings.
This is, I think, a good thing we should try to work towards, but it really depends on technology and implementation.
Councilor Weingraf has an item that we just, we're going to, I think we approved, to allow our boards and commissions to be able to be conducted in a hybrid format.
And so we need to purchase the equipment.
We need to train staff.
We need to implement this.
There are things that need to be taken into consideration, but it's certainly a worthy goal and something we should try to achieve.
And we need to make sure that our facilities have the resources to implement this as well.
So those are the comments and recommendations that we have made.
The goal of this would be to refer this to the city manager to review these recommendations and to bring back any amendments to the rules of procedure.
So there'll be a separate action that we have to take at a future council meeting to implement any changes.
And so with that, I move adoption of item 58.
Second.
Okay, let's now take public comment.
Thank you.
I'm Kit Saganor and I'm pleased to stand before you as the chair of the Open Government Commission.
And I appreciate Mr.
Mayor, your praise for our work.
We did indeed do due diligence on this.
We did review the work that the council did a year ago in March.
And we took additional public comment.
People came to our meetings to talk to us about what they wanted to see.
And this is based on what came out basically from that and over the summer.
So if we were doing this today, some other things have happened in public comment that we might've taken into consideration, but the recommendations that we basically made last fall, I think we still stand behind.
We're particularly pleased with one in particular that the committee has recommended.
And that one is the one that has to do with, I lost my place here, amending the rules of procedure that if three or more council members have indicated that they're objecting to a council item to move it to action and not have something fail off of consent.
During the past 12 months, there were a couple of items, one having to do with the discharge of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and another having to do with the chess club where things were on consent.
And the folks who supported those thought, oh, it's on consent, it's going to pass, and then it failed without going to action.
And that was both confusing and dismaying to members of the public.
One that you have decided not to look into at this point, but which we hope that you will consider for the future has to do with materials for agenda items from all sources, including the staff and city manager, as well as from council members to be published sufficiently in advance of the meeting so that people actually know what's in it.
There have been a number of cases where things came through from the city that were a big surprise when it finally came out to council with very little time for people to respond to that.
I think that would actually benefit members of the council as well as the public to have more advanced understanding of what's going to be happening with those items.
But we really do appreciate your considering this.
Thank you so much.
Gordon, back again.
There we go.
Last time I was here, I told you that you ought to have put a ceasefire resolution as an action item on the agenda, or you could have had a special meeting, just as Jocelyn said.
Y'all decided adamantly to reject that possibility.
Mayor Ardeguin giving a speech to the JCRC is saying that the ceasefire resolution will never see the table for discussion.
When what you needed was an open and honest conversation about your reasons for not putting a ceasefire resolution on the table for discussion.
If they're benign enough to be beyond a reproach in your opinion, such a conversation wouldn't be an issue.
And hear out the members of our community who are calling for a ceasefire.
As you've clearly demonstrated that parliamentary procedure will not reflect a true democracy by rejecting such a conversation, using proceduralism to enforce oligarchic authoritarianism.
You've given the people no choice, but to speak up and defend their interests through direct action.
Hence what you call disruptions to civil proceedings of city council.
Hence the encampment on Cal campus.
All of this is due to your refusal to have an open and honest conversation, hardening your hearts to the voice of the people.
Thank you.
The item before us is item 58.
So we welcome comments on item 58.
Sir, did you wish to speak? Do you have a comment, sir? Okay.
Okay, we'll take speakers on Zoom.
We'll take comments on item 58.
Bryce.
Okay, hello Mayor.
Perhaps, this is Bryce Nesbitt.
Perhaps public comment on the consent calendar could be limited to opposition to items.
Now at first that may seem crazy, but indeed that's how it works for council members.
If nobody speaks up on an item, it passes.
So many of the things on consent simply pass after public comment with no additional conversation.
You could change the rules.
So in that rare case where after public comment, an item is pulled out and put on action or a motion is passed to withdraw the item, that then you open up public comment on it.
And I'm not making this suggestion to reduce public input, but rather to increase it.
So much time is spent with people speaking in favor of consent items that are going to pass anyway, that perhaps reorganizing in this way will allow people to have more substantive comments on the things that really need discussion.
What this doesn't do is satisfy people's urge to support things that are important to them, but perhaps some form of non-binding straw poll or raise the hand thing could be used to scratch that itch and let people show their support visually for an item without coming up one by one to the DS and speaking on the item.
So again, that would be perhaps public comment on the consent calendar could be limited to opposition to the item only.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to former Councilor Dablow followed by Kelly Hamilton.
Thank you.
Yeah, changing the rules.
It's interesting that you do that.
You know, like back in the day when I first got on council, the public would be able to talk about it three times and then it would get pulled off consent.
Why don't you go back to that? That would be more democratic, just, and really allow the community and the constituents that you're supposed to represent an opportunity to speak on items and pull them from consent when they feel it's necessary.
Why don't you go back to that? You know, and then also it seems like you're just, like, what time is the meeting supposed to end? Like, why does it have to end at a specific time? It makes no sense.
And why is the clock paused? That's interesting.
I'm playing games here and then you didn't allow me to have all that time, but whatever.
But, you know, why can't the people be more involved in the process and stop dominating and controlling? Now that you've gotten a salary increase, you limit the time of everything except mostly the time that you're working.
So now if you end the meeting at 11 and how you disrespectfully, rudely changed the time that people could talk to, one minute or 30 seconds that one week, really, that's not democratic.
It's not what we want in our elected officials.
It's not what we need in an elected official.
And hopefully none of y'all will be elected again.
So I don't know what's going on with the clock, but it seems to be having issues.
Thank you and have a blessed day and free Palestine.
Kelly Hamburger and followed by Janice Ching.
Okay, thank you.
I really appreciate the work that's been done on this.
Thank you to the Open Government Commission.
And I have a few comments here.
The Disability Commission, commissioners joined by Zoom.
I believe that's because of the lawsuit, but the public is not provided the Zoom link and cannot log in on Zoom.
We have commissioned meetings that are already being conducted in conference rooms that are fully equipped for hybrid meetings, yet the equipment is not used when it could be.
And I think that's a big disappointment.
The Disaster and Fire Safety Commission and the Zero Waste Commission, both of those commissions are conducted in rooms with large, large screens that would be perfect for having hybrid meetings and yet those meetings are not hybrid.
So I don't think the shortage of equipment is really as great as portrayed.
We have a lot of existing equipment that could already be used to have hybrid commission meetings.
And I would hope that we would move forward on that.
As far as the saving the transcript and the captioner's record, I'd just like to mention that at the bottom of every one of my activist calendars, the summary of city meetings, for those of you who receive it, at the bottom are the instructions for saving transcripts and also how to set up Zoom so transcripts are available.
I also have the link there of how to convert YouTube into a readable transcript.
The transcripts aren't perfect, they're voice recognition, but they certainly are very helpful.
So those are my comments.
Thank you.
Thank you, we'll go next to Janice Ching.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
I also serve on the Open Government Commission along with Chair Saganor, and I wanna thank the Agenda and Rules Committee for their thoughtful consideration of our recommendations and for the time that you guys are spending on doing this tonight.
We do think that the hybrid form is necessary and our commission specifically is trying to work on that because we do meet in a room with the technology.
So to Kelly's point, that is something that could be implemented sooner rather than later.
And also, as far as the length of meetings, that was one of the goals of some of our recommendations is to make meetings flow more succinctly because members of the public complained to us that meetings go so long that families with children were not able to participate and they wanted to have more certainty as to when an item was coming up.
So we do appreciate the time spent on this and hope to continue to work with you to tweak this item as needed.
So thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Okay, I don't see any additional raised hands on item 58.
Councilor Lunapar, I just wanna go to you if you have any questions or comments.
Yeah, I just have one quick question.
I'm interested to know who will be doing the administrative work of fulfilling the recommendations if we know, just, okay.
Thank you.
Yeah, generally, I first wanted to say thank you, Mr.
Mayor, for the explanation.
My goal in keeping this on action is so that the public could receive that thorough explanation of the changes and so that they had the ability to weigh in and share their thoughts.
And so with that, I'm happy that many of these changes will make it easier to participate in our meetings.
I also wanna thank the Open Government Commission for recommending these changes.
They represent a commitment to ensuring that this body moves diligently and efficiently and equitably.
And I look forward to adopting these recommendations to allow more community members to participate in our decision-making processes.
I particularly wanna point out recommendation number eight, which seeks to inform attendees of approximate time for high-interest items.
And this issue comes up frequently with my constituency, many of whom are students, and it's important to be able to estimate when items are heard by council to ensure that they can best manage their very full schedules.
And in the past years, as a student organizer, many of us ran into similar issues as working and parenting Berkeley residents, because when our meetings ran hours long before we reached the contentious item, we lost the perspective of many who were unable to wait the entire evening.
By having a predictable schedule, I hope this alleviates some of the frustration many of our constituents have expressed when waiting to give public comment.
I want to encourage people of all ages to be engaged in our public municipal processes, but we have to make sure that our procedures are set up so it's realistic for them to be able to do so.
And I think that this is a great step ensuring that it is more available to them.
And I'm thankful for the process that has led to this.
Moving forward, I would like to explore the implementation of a sort of reminder system to notify interested residents when the council has actively begun discussing an interested item.
Thank you so much.
Those are my comments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
To your question, it really depends.
For the most part, many of this is going to be the city clerk department and the presiding officer.
He raised his hand and that's why.
But some, you know, the technological aspects, I know IT is looking into the technology.
You know, if we are going to implement, and I strongly support implementing hybrid meetings for boards and commissions too, the meeting facilities are equipped to enable hybrid participation.
So there are going to be a number of people involved, from the clerk to the presiding officer to each board and commission secretary.
But a lot of this, I think, is going to be, particularly on the administrative side, the clerk department.
Sorry, Mark, but thank you.
It's all in the spirit of transparency.
And we really benefited from their input in our committee's discussion on some of these recommendations as well.
So I agree with you.
I think these are important steps forward.
Thank you.
Okay.
Casper? Yes, thank you.
And I want to thank you, Mayor, for pulling all this together.
It was a lot.
And I had the opportunity on Agenda and Rules to be engaged in the discussion around this several times.
And I'm very happy with where things landed.
I wanted to just raise two things.
First of all, I think we had talked, and it's not part of this, about just doing voice recordings, Clerk Inmanville, of the key commissions, the planning commission, I think, the land use ones.
Is that moving forward just independently? Just to, didn't we talk about having sort of inexpensive recording equipment? Well, it was discussed at Agenda and Rules, but it has not been referred to staff from the full council or through the city manager's office as a policy direction.
Quasi-judicial bodies, where there are quasi-judicial actions, I believe, require that there be a recording.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
I can confirm with the secretary, I mean, Zab meets here, so obviously.
Planning, when the HAC has a code appeal, they have to record the.
I guess, could, I'm just wondering if maybe it would be helpful to just add that, that we want it.
Well, it's in the item.
Oh, okay, I'm sorry.
Number two.
I'm sorry.
But I think,.

Segment 9

only apply to all committee board and commission meetings, which conduct their meetings through a video conference also for the city manager to record all our board and commission meetings and post the recordings on the city web page, and employing the recording of meetings, start first with the quasi-judicial meetings, then move to commissions.
Okay.
I had forgotten about where it was, so it's in there.
Great.
My other question was, a little while ago we approved the idea of having essentially two sets of public comment.
One at the beginning of the meeting and then a second round of public comment on each item when the item came up.
I'm wondering, have we tried? We did.
It was pretty awkward and challenging.
My question is, with all these other improvements, should we maybe repeal that? Well, that's not before us today.
Okay.
We're on this go.
That will be something to discuss at a future point.
All right.
Well, maybe we can take that up in agenda because it seems like with all of these improvements that me maybe was trying to get to some of the same challenges through a different mechanism, but we haven't found to be that.
Yeah.
I actually think there's an easier way to do that, which is just say, we're going to take any public comments on the action calendar at this time, but people can wait till we get to the respective item.
People have to leave early, they can comment at the beginning as one catch-all.
Then if they want to wait, they can wait till later, but instead it was like, we're going to take public comment on item 1, we're going to take public comment on item 2.
It just was not really feasible to implement from a practical perspective.
Right.
We understand the intent and maybe there's a way to retool it to be workable.
Okay.
If it's beyond the scope today, I thought of it as part of the rules of procedure and order around how we conduct our meetings, but happy to just bring that up at agenda and see what we're going to do with it.
That's it.
Thank you.
Do you need a motion? There's a motion on the floor.
Okay.
Then let's vote.
Unless there's someone else, then we can.
If we can please call the roll.
Okay.
On item 58, to adopt the policy committee recommendation, Council Member Kisarwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Phan? Yes.
Lengraff? Yes.
Lunaphara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Argy? Yes.
Okay.
The motion carries.
That completes our business.
We'll take any public comments on non-agenda matters from anyone who has not previously spoken, and we'll take questions from anyone who has not previously spoken, and we'll wait patiently.
Thank you.
My name is Dan Leverton.
I'm a Berkeley resident since 2002.
I'm in Council Member Rashi Kisarwani's district.
I'm here to advocate for the bike park that was funded $200,000 back in 2022, and went through a series of community meetings and workshops ending in late 2023 with a final design.
And at that point, it was seeking additional funding to go through formal engineering and construction.
It stalled out for lack of input.
I am a high school mountain bike coach.
I volunteer for everything cycling in the city and would like to see more bike infrastructure, especially more infrastructure geared towards the kids, so that we can start with more people having a safe place to learn, to ride, to play, to bring their parents out.
We have a new over-crossing at Gilman.
It will be live very soon.
Traffic is going to increase.
I think it would be a very good choice to also increase the cycling infrastructure and attractions at the marina, where the marina is also undergoing a rather major potential makeover.
To demonstrate interest, I started a petition.
I went down to the Bayshore Festival.
I went to the bike race on Hurston-Ohlone and handed out, you know, signatures and had parents with their kids take a look, like, hey, have you heard about this? Have you seen these design pictures? And, you know, there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the bike park.
Of course, I acknowledge that funding is tight, but I have 500 signatures so far, mostly from Berkeley residents.
The petition is still growing.
I can't really keep track of it.
I did submit my petition statement, the petition signatures, you know, a copy of the survey last evening to the city council.
I have printed out for each of you and highlighted your constituents that have actively supported by saying yes to the petition, and many of them are now sending you emails at my request to continue to advocate for this program.
If you have some funding this year in this budget cycle so the grant writing can start.
I have six volunteers that are ready to start writing grants, but they need matching money to work with.
So if there's something that can be put forward, we can perhaps get additional funding, build half the park, and work more in a subsequent budget year.
That's it.
Here for the kids.
Thank you.
I'm going to leave these things first.
Are there any other in-person speakers? Now we'll go to former Councilor Daville, who did not previously speak on non-agenda matters.
Yeah, so a bike park.
That's something that I brought up when I was on council, and I had designs made too.
That was something that was considered to be done when they were redoing the marina, but that didn't happen.
So I hope that happens because that's something that a lot of people did like and want.
And I just also wanted to say that, you know, we're in a genocide.
It's really, really, really, really taxing on not only the Palestinians in Gaza that are being murdered, but on your constituents and on the people that live in Berkeley who have lost members of their families in Gaza.
It's just really, really terrible.
And it's just really, really sad.
And I pray for y'all, because all except for one that I know of, all y'all are Zionistic, genocidal council members.
Thank you, Council Member Cecilia, for wearing a keffiyeh and for honoring the Palestinians on your first night of being a councilwoman in the city of Berkeley.
Watch out because Zionists are no joke.
And your colleagues, you know, will smile on your face and could stab you in the back, as well as some of the staff.
I know some of the people that lied to me are no longer with the city, thankfully.
So maybe y'all have a better chance.
But we need to really, really pray for our Zionistic, genocidal city council and pray that they change their Zionistic, genocidal ways.
And stop hiding behind Zionists and having so many of them in the room, because they really put out a lot of hate.
And it's really sad.
And stop hiding from the people of Berkeley, because they elected you.
And you should honor, honor the positions that you're in and the people that you're supposed to represent and let their voices be heard.
And stop.
Berkeley Unified School District does not have 500 police in the room.
And they have more than the number of people in the room.
Thank you.
Okay, I move to adjourn.
Second.
Is there any objection? Hearing no objection, we are adjourned.
Thank you.