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Segment 1

All right, I am going to call the Berkeley City Council meeting to order.
Today is September 30, 2025.
Clerk, could you please take the roll? Certainly.
All right.
Council member Kesarwani? Here.
Taplin? Present.
Bartlett? Here.
Tregub? Present.
O'Keefe? Here.
Thank you.
Slackeby? Here.
Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? Present.
And Mary Ishii? Here.
All right.
We have a few ceremonial items this evening, beginning with our Indigenous People's Day.
I'm going to read this.
And folks, if you want to come up, if you're here for Indigenous People's Day, you're welcome to come up to the podium.
All right.
Celebrating Indigenous People's Day in Berkeley.
Whereas the year 2025 marks the 33rd anniversary celebration of Indigenous People's Day in the City of Berkeley in commemoration of 533 years of resistance and renewal of Native cultures in the face of political and cultural repression.
And whereas the Indigenous People's Day Committee, a community group of local Native people and others, have once again organized the annual celebration with an Indigenous People's Day Powwow and Indian Market in Martin Luther King Civic Center Park on Saturday, October 11th.
And whereas the Indigenous culture flourishing in Ohlone Territory since time immemorial was a sustainable, peaceful culture based on cooperation among neighbors, on respect for the land, and for all creatures living in it.
And this Indigenous culture was disrupted and destroyed in Ohlone Territory, Berkeley, as in almost all parts of this hemisphere, and yet it has survived.
And whereas the Indigenous People's Day Powwow and Indian Market has brought greater understanding to the people of Berkeley regarding Native cultures and the enormous contributions Native people have made and continue to make to world culture.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii, Mayor of the City of Berkeley, do hereby affirm that Monday, October 13th, 2025, should be celebrated as Indigenous People's Day in the City of Berkeley and encourage the public to attend the 33rd Annual Indigenous People's Day Powwow and Indian Market on Saturday, October 11th, from 10 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
in Martin Luther King Center Park.
Thanks.
Our member, Nona, is going to give the two-minute statement in support of the Powwow.
And thank you, Council and Mayor.
Good evening.
I'm very honored to be here on behalf of the Indigenous People's Days Committee.
We'll be hosting our 33rd Annual Powwow, and we really appreciate the acknowledgement for the Indigenous people and the original people of this land.
Thank you.
May I also add that it is a coming together of the people of the Eagle and the people of the Condor of North and South America, which was the inspiration for the creation of this Powwow.
So, we honor the tribes from North and South America.
I have an adjournment in memory for Dan Siegel, which was requested by Council Members Lunapara and Traigub.
So, I will allow Council Member Lunapara to read the proclamation.
Thank you so much.
Honoring the life and legacy of Dan Siegel.
Whereas Dan Siegel, a local progressive icon and path-breaking civil rights lawyer who fought for workers, unions, and human rights advocates over five years, over five decades of civil practice, died on July 2nd, 2025, in Oakland at the age of 79.
And whereas, born in the Bronx, Dan Siegel's life was shaped by his upbringing in a Long Island Jewish family, his commitment to the civil rights struggle, his marriage to fellow attorney and activist Ann Wales, and his family, including two sons and three grandchildren.
And whereas, after graduating from Hamilton College in 1967 with a degree in religious studies, he moved to Berkeley to attend law school.
He was inspired to become an attorney after being arrested in Mississippi while working with the Congress on Racial Equality, or CORE, to register voters.
He always remembered that it was a National Lawyers Guild attorney who got him out of jail.
And whereas, Dan met Ann in Berkeley in 1968.
Both played key roles in local movements to oppose the Vietnam War, support the civil rights movement, and oppose imperialism and fascism.
In 1969, Dan was elected as the president of UC Berkeley's student body, which would soon bring him into direct conflict with the state of California and Governor Ronald Reagan.
And whereas, after community members beautified a derelict UC-owned lot near campus into a people's park, UC fenced off the site.
On what would come to be known as Bloody Thursday, Dan urged thousands gathered in protest at Cal's Sproul Plaza to go down there and take the park.
As the crowd spontaneously headed down Telegraph Avenue, it was met by law enforcement officers firing shotguns and tear gas canisters, seriously injuring dozens, and killing a bystander.
That night, Reagan sent National Guard troops to enforce a curfew and ban on public assembly.
And whereas, the State Bar Association would ultimately use these events as a basis for denying him the right to practice law, it would take a historic California Supreme Court ruling in Siegel v.
Committee of Bar Examiners to affirm that participation in protest movements is not a sign of deficient moral character.
After winning the right to practice law, Dan went on to earn legal victories on behalf of thousands of plaintiffs seeking protection for their civil, labor, and First Amendment rights.
And whereas, Dan represented workers who built pipelines in Alaska, canned food in Watsonville, and repaired naval ships in San Diego.
He represented Occupy the Farm protesters who camped on state land during the Occupy movement, and he represented pro-Palestine activists who stopped the Bay Bridge traffic to raise attention on the war in Gaza.
Much of his work was pro bono, whether for unhoused people, students, prisoners, enlisted military personnel, or low-income workers.
And whereas, as Chief of Complex Litigation for the San Francisco City Attorney, Dan led the settlement of an employment discrimination case against the city's fire department, resulting in a consent decree that guaranteed affirmative action in hiring and promotions for women and people of color.
Dan and Anne together represented numerous university professors in discrimination and workplace retaliation suits.
In 2007, Dan won the two largest verdicts ever awarded in cases brought under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids sex discrimination and requires gender equity in higher education.
And whereas, Dan was elected to two terms on the Oakland School Board serving as president.
He served as chair of the Oakland Housing Authority, co-wrote Oakland's community policing law, and taught graduate courses at Mills College.
In 2014, Dan and Anne were honored by the San Francisco chapter of the National Warriors Guild as champions of justice, and cited as a big movement why social movements are a big reason why social movements are so strong in the Bay Area.
And whereas, Dan's final public appearance was a speech at the Oakland No King's Rally on June 14, 2025, when he exhorted the crowd filling Oscar Grant Plaza to oppose Donald Trump and the white supremacist movements backing his presidency.
And whereas, Dan and Anne were married in Oakland on August 1, 1975.
Records obtained pursuant to the Federal Open Information Act show an FBI informant attended their small wedding and reported it on their union.
They raised their son, Michael Siegel, in their East Oakland home of 48 years.
And whereas, Dan is survived by Anne, Michael, stepson Christopher Shear, grandchildren Ben, Malika, and Hamza, brothers David, Jonathan, and Jesse, and many loving family members and friends.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii, Mayor of the City of Berkeley, do hereby honor Dan Siegel for his lifelong dedication to peace, justice, and progressive values, and express our sincere gratitude, appreciation, and condolences on behalf of the countless people, both within the City of Berkeley and beyond, who live in a better, more just world as a result of his life and legacy of service and organizing.
Thank you, Councilmember.
I think, is his family here? Or perhaps online? Oh, someone online.
Did you want to say a few words? There is a hand raised.
We can ask if it is regarding the ceremonial item.
Caller with the number ending in 000, are you calling in to speak on the ceremonial item? Caller with the number ending 000, please unmute yourself if you'd like to speak to the ceremonial item.
Rose, they have to press numbers for that, right? I believe it's star six.
Star six.
Hi, beautiful early Americans, and what was..
Sorry, I'm sorry.
We were looking for a Dan Siegel's family, but perhaps they're not online right now.
I don't see any other hands raised.
Well, then I will just say thank you for reading that, and we will be adjourning in his honor.
An additional adjournment in memory is for Din Lee, and that was requested from our Councilmember from District 8, Councilmember Humbert, and he's requested that the adjournment in memory be a video and no speakers, so I think our City Clerk is going to..
Yeah, I have a couple comments ahead of the video to make, and I wonder if any other members of Mr.
Din Lee's family are present here in the chambers, and Nan Lee, his son, please come up.
Please come up.
We're going to endeavor to play your lovely short video, Mr.
Lee.
Tonight, the Berkeley City Council will be adjourning in memory of Din Lee, a beloved father and a remarkable man and member of our community.
I want to thank Mr.
Lee's family, and especially his son, Nan.
Am I pronouncing that correctly? Thank you for providing a beautiful video tribute we are privileged to share with all of you.
I watched it earlier more than once and found it deeply moving.
It hammers home what we lose in our community every time someone has lost to traffic violence.
For those in our community and in government who say we can't protect the safety of people walking and biking for this or that reason, I implore you to listen to the stories of people like Mr.
Lee and truly sit with the unbearable losses that are borne by our community day in and day out from needless traffic violence.
We must recommit to our Vision Zero principles so that one day our streets are no longer places where our community loses incredible people like Mr.
Lee.
To the Lee family, I am so sorry for your incalculable loss, and I'm so grateful to you for being here tonight, Mr.
Lee, and letting us all share in his memory your father's memory.
May his loving and adventurous spirit be an inspiration to all of us.
Thank you.
Let's see if we can get this that's played.
Din Le was more than my dad.
He was my companion, my teacher, my travel partner, my joy, and my anger.
He lived life with such quiet strength, such vibrance, and with such love that it's hard to imagine this world without him.
In the recent years, my dad started living in Berkeley so I could watch over him, but it felt like he was actually there to keep me company and not be alone.
My dad had a spirit like no other.
It was bigger than life.
He was gregarious, vibrant, friendly, always a great energy in the room, but behind his joy is a story of suffering, sacrifice, and resilience.
My father fled and went into hiding in the most southern tip of Vietnam when the war ended in 1975.
He was finally able to leave in 1981 and start a new life.
He came to America alone with nothing, no English, no money, but with hope to build a new life.
His quiet determination built the foundation of our lives.
Through it all, he never let us forget what truly mattered, family and his faith.
He died as one of the richest men I've ever known, not because of what he owned but because of how little he needed to be happy in life.
Dad, I promise you this.
We will carry your legacy in the way we love each other and in the way we live with courage, humility, and faith.
You are not gone.
You are with us in every step, every smile, every prayer.
We love you, Dad.
We always will.
All right.
The ceremonial items are both an important part and also sometimes just a really heartbreaking part of our job.
So thank you all for bringing these items forward to us.
We have city manager comments next.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I just have one comment and it's about item three on the agenda before you on the consent calendar, which is the acceptance of the Prop 47 Cohort 5 grant and execution of the related agreement.
So I just wanted to say quickly that this is, of all the items on the agenda, this is the one I'm most proud of tonight.
And the reason is why is because what this item does is receive eight million dollars from the state in an attempt to help people who have substance abuse and or mental health issues and get arrested instead of going to jail, going to a hotel, and going to treatment.
And it's a program focused on people who are here in Berkeley.
This is step one of a two-step process.
The state recommended that we accept these grant funds as quickly as possible, which is why this is before you tonight on the consent calendar.
And then after accepting these funds, we would bring back a contract agreement with the operators of both the hotel and the program in a second action for you to accept those.
So I just wanted to just highlight that item that's on this agenda and I'll let you know I think it's a terrific item that we've received eight million dollars from the state to do something to help people with mental health and substance use issues avoid jail and actually get treatment in housing.
That's all.
Thank you very much.
And now I want to give some time to our city auditor who has some comments as well.
Thank you.
I was quite an emotional adjournment.
So I wanted to give an update on item 21.
This is on the police overtime audit recommendations update.
The audit was completed in 2022.
As a refresher, the main finding was that the Berkeley Police Department or BPD relied on overtime to achieve its staffing levels with officers backfilling for vacancies and their work for outside entities had tripled during 2020.
BPD has implemented recommendations including increasing transparency around their outside entities work, including developing procedures, and making this program accessible on their website.
Additionally, since the last update last year, the department has implemented two recommendations.
They have since incorporated recommendations from an outside consultant staffing analysis.
For example, BPD realigned the bike team under the Community Services Bureau and fully implemented the patrol community service officer program.
BPD now has three trained CSOs handling low-risk calls, freeing sworn officers for higher priority duties.
The department also incorporated recommendations from the staffing analysis into budgetary decision making and has stated they will use those recommendations.
For example, in 2026, they expanded the CSO program from 21 to 27 positions to supplement staffing.
According to the department, these steps are aimed to optimize resource allocation, enhance community service, and improve operational efficiency.
I just want to thank the department for implementing these recommendations and to the community for their interest and engagement on this audit.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate your comments this evening and it's good to have that update.
I'm glad to hear how our police department has adjusted in the updates that you had for us.
We will now take public comment on non-agenda matters.
If you would like to make a comment and you're on Zoom, please use the raise hand function or press star 9 if you are calling in.
Again, if you would like to provide public comment on non-agenda matters, now is the time to use the raise hand function.
Oh, I think someone in the audience is maybe trying to give..
Oh, and we have cards as well.
I just wanted to check to see the total number of speakers that we have as that dictates how much time is allotted.
So we have four cards for in-room speakers and one caller on Zoom.
So each speaker will be allotted two minutes.
The in-room speakers are Maria, Carol Morozovic, CK I believe, and Cheryl I believe.
And in no particular order, if your name was called, please come to the front and you have two minutes to speak.
Okay.
Last week when the Homeless Response Team session transpired, Council Member Chaplin talked about domestic violence, raised the domestic violence issue.
It is such an independent issue that requires such separate focus.
It's different from the general populations that we serve on homelessness and these agencies are greatly underfunded.
We in Berkeley only have one transition house, a budget house, which is doing an exceptional job and it's only for women with families.
Women who go through domestic violence, who experience this, cannot go into regular shelters.
It's not confidential.
The clients will talk.
It's not safe and it exacerbates all their stress.
Women who leave domestic violence situations generally do so after an average of seven times.
And it's not because they're weak.
It's because of the complexities, the financial complexities, the emotional complexities, the support complexities that they so very much need.
And I can give you three examples of women I've worked with which are not in Berkeley, not Berkeley specific.
There was an older woman that I assisted who was monolingual Spanish.
Her husband would make her sleep on blankets in the corner.
This is a much older woman and he would threaten her with a machete.
And that was among the many other abuses.
So when she finally decided to leave, she could not communicate with the outside world.
He was her bridge to the outside world.
So she ended up taking him back because he was bilingual.
Second, I assisted a woman who was a wife of a police sergeant.
She finally decided to leave.
He had broken her limbs, etc.
This had gone on for many years.
When she decided to leave and filed for divorce and filed for a restraining order on Christmas Eve, the five-year-old, and if I could just conclude this thought, the five-year-old, there were six children.
He killed her.
The five-year-old opened the door and killed her and himself.
Thank you.
And again, the in-room speakers are Maria, Cheryl, and CK.
It's quite the lead line to follow, battered women.
I've worked with many also.
But today, in terms of our government, we're all being battered and we have a Department of War and we have just incessant greed and exploitation and extraction, which is why I consistently, I hope you're not bored, try to speak to our common humanity and how it's either going to be everyone or no one.
Because if we keep fighting like this and keep competing like this, how can we make more and more money? With all the people that I helped die in hospitals and in my life, I never saw anyone take money with them.
Never once.
And the Farrows kind of proved that too.
So what I'm speaking to is from our former meeting, we are a tribal people.
We are a collective, cooperative people.
It's the only way we have gotten to here, but we have lost our way.
And so I just really fervently request that we all think of how creative and benevolent and humane humanity might become by just remembering that we're all in this together.
You know, I lived in a segregated community, a gated community for like four minutes.
It's not just me, it's we.
And can't we do this? Can't we get along like Rodney King tried to say? So anyway, bless all of us.
And oh, I just, people could be sheltered today with even minimal structures.
This is why I keep emphasizing the simple and the basic.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
So we have two minutes this evening.
Okay, great.
So we're outside banging our pots.
Pay attention to the starving children of Gaza and all the people in Gaza.
And it really sickens me that y'all just don't care about humanity.
And that's really sad because you're elected officials representing Berkeley.
You don't care.
You don't care.
And you're talking while they're supposed to be listening, doing everything else.
Y'all never look up.
But people are dying.
I believe if Berkeley would have done something a long time ago, maybe you could have stopped this.
But there's still time.
There's an arms embargo that you could do.
Arms embargo now.
You really need to think about these things.
Do you want to leave a legacy of the fucked up city council that you are right now, not caring about humanity? Excuse my language, but you know, there's no holding back now.
Millions of people are dying because of your inaction.
I really believe that if Berkeley would have done something, things might be different now.
But no, you don't.
You just look at me like I'm, I don't know.
But it's sad.
It's sad that you don't represent me, but you represent other people in Berkeley.
And that you don't care about humanity.
What that just wonder, wonder how you feel about yourself.
You must not love yourself that much either, which is really sad.
So love yourself and love your community.
Love your residents that elected you into office.
Do something.
Just don't sit there looking like a, I won't say.
Free Palestine, free Palestine, free Palestine.
Next speaker.
We have one more in room speaker.
The card says CK.
Go ahead and move the mic up so we can hear you better.
I want, my name is Ed, Ed Iskander, and I want to thank the Brooklyn City Council and in particular, Mayor Idina Ishii for the fine job, job that she's doing, doing an excellent job.
I've been in Berkeley all my life.
I was, I wasn't born here, but I've been here all my life.
And I went to school here.
I went to high school and college here.
I had an interaction.
I've never once felt compelled to attend a Berkeley City Council meeting.
This is the first time I've ever done it.
And I'm in my mid fifties.
I think you guys are doing a fantastic job.
I couldn't disagree more with the previous speaker and particularly Mary, she's doing an excellent job.
I've never once in all my life, I've lived here and been a student here and work here to feel absolutely compelled to come and talk to you people about one of the worst abuses I've ever seen.
And I don't have neither.
I don't have the time, nor is this the appropriate venue, but I'd like to set up a time to meet with both the appropriate district member, as well as a representative, a staff member of the mayor's office, if not with the mayor herself, something happened that was so egregious in nature that it contradicts not only the law, but the very fundamental ethos of Berkeley.
And I've never once come to a city council member.
I think it's so severe.
And I'm trying to meet with a council member, Igor Tregub, who I think is here today.
Hi, I'm the person who's been emailing you.
And I'd also like to meet if possible, if not with the mayor, at least with a staffer representative of the mayor's office.
I don't know if that'll be possible.
I don't want to take too much time because I know you guys are pretty busy and now's not the time, nor the appropriate place to divulge details.
But I think it would be something that would be of extreme interest and also certainly very germane within the purview of both the council member.

Segment 2

the Council member as well as the Mayor's office.
Can you direct me in that direction? Yeah, thank you.
I think my staff has actually just gone to get a card for you.
So thank you very much.
Please definitely reach out.
I appreciate you coming and letting us know about that.
Thank you.
Okay, and we have one more speaker on Zoom.
Speaker with the number, caller with the number ending in 2-1-1.
You should be able to unmute and you have two minutes.
Fascism took over Germany, Italy, Argentina, and so on.
It's taking weeks.
I have always been in company.
I could not fire people at all.
This man firing hundreds of thousands of people, he's destroying this beautiful country.
He's destroying it and we're all helpless.
We can't do anything about it.
We cannot do anything about it.
We need to speak out and go forward.
The other part, what is happening in Gaza, is a disgrace to humanity.
There's no reason to kill people because they are different religions.
There's no reason whatsoever to kill people.
Jews killing Muslims and Christians is no different than whites killing black or red Indians.
Well, thank you.
I look forward to meeting you sometime soon.
Have a good night.
Thank you.
That was our last speaker.
Okay, very good.
For the consent calendar, do any of my council members have comments? Council Member Bartlett's on the queue, but I think maybe when he comes back.
Oh, yes.
Yes, Council Member Taplin.
Yes, thank you very much Madam Mayor and good evening everyone.
I just have one comment on tonight's consent calendar.
It is a comment on item 14.
I would like to relinquish $500 from item 13 to the sacred rest drop-in center landline.
I'm sorry.
Could you say one more time the amount? $500.
$500.
Thank you.
Okay.
Oh, you're back.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
To the consent calendar, I just want to call a couple of things that really, I think, deserve attention.
Number seven, this is the contract for Easy Does It.
They're a wonderful organization by mobility for seniors and people who are disabled.
They've had some changes, some drama, and some issues, but I'm really glad that we're able to get them funded and up and up and at it again.
Thank you, Mr.
City Manager, for helping this one.
Thank you.
Very important group.
And then, item 12.
I want to expose my support for item 12.
This is the new California Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, and, you know, I guess it's refreshing to see some democratic strength and some energy to confront what's going on here.
I'm really happy to see it.
So, thank you, Councilor Good, for calling this out.
And then, lastly, item 11.
This is the Vice Mayor Taplin's item, the Recreation and Community Facility Improvement Measures.
Happy to be a co-sponsor of this item.
Facilities are being used by more and more people.
Falling apart.
Needs and needs to re-up and get the city from the next generation and also get more equity as certain parts of the city have more decaying.
And fewer resources for recreation as well.
So, I want to thank the Vice Mayor.
And while I'm at it, I want to just call the Vice Mayor again.
It's your last night serving as Vice Mayor.
And I know it's a thankless, thankless role.
And I want to say that you have served it nearly as good as anyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
No, as good as anyone.
Yes, thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Council Member Bockeby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I'll just say, maybe not as well as Vice Mayor Bartlett did, but pretty darn well.
Pretty darn well.
No, no, I'm just saying Vice Mayor Taplin relative to Vice Mayor Clark.
So, I just was commenting on the relative.
Relative.
Okay.
On a couple comments on the consent calendar.
First, I just wanted to highlight that item 1 is the second reading of the Sanctuary City Ordinance.
So, we're officially enacting that tonight.
And really proud of our city for doing that.
And proud to be a co-sponsor of it.
I just wanted to note, this is the official second reading tonight.
And it will go into effect.
So, thanks to everyone for that.
On item 3, just thank the City Manager for his comments about the $8 million grant item.
I do just, again, want to echo a couple of things here.
This is a no-match grant from the City.
It's a net positive $8 million to the City.
It helps implement Berkeley's CareBridge program, which is a post-arrest diversion and re-entry initiative for individuals and behavioral health needs.
So, just in terms of, as a City, when we're thinking about addressing our crisis with respect to homelessness, this is an important program and this funding will be well utilized to help us go at some of the root causes.
So, I just wanted to echo the appreciation for this grant.
Item 11, which Vice Mayor Taplin authored on the recreation facilities.
I was proud to co-sponsor that.
As Council Member Bartlett said, it's important that we do find funding sources to rehabilitate recreational community facilities.
And so, looking forward to that work.
Thank Council Member Tragoob for allowing me to co-sponsor the resolution supporting Prop 50.
Again, we all know how important this special election is in November.
With respect to control of the House of Representatives at the federal level, and California's role in redistricting.
So, thanks for authoring that measure.
Item 13, Council Member O'Keefe was asking, I would ask if I could be out as a co-sponsor on the Berkeley Arts Center Fall Dinner.
I would like to contribute up to $250 from my office account towards that.
Item 14, thank Council Member Lunapara for this item.
I would like to donate $250 from our office for that.
And also, on item 15, I wanted to thank Council Member Lunapara and her team for their leadership on this measure around addressing some of the concerns and problems we have with the micromobility program in Berkeley.
We do recognize that there is value in having micromobility devices in the city.
It's an important mode of transportation for many of our residents.
At the same time, we've seen a proliferation of misuse, bad parking, devices in the public right of way that affects people in my district, it affects people in most of our districts.
And so, Council Member Lunapara's item would help bring some of the fees for this program up to parity with other local communities, which would help us fund infrastructure to make this program more successful and reduce some of the strain on the rest of the city and on residents here.
So I wanted to thank Council Member Lunapara for her leadership on that.
And I was proud to co-sponsor that as well.
And then lastly, thank the City Auditor and the Berkeley Police Department for their work on item 21, which was the audit on overtime.
And I know the audit is nearly complete, but the CityGate report, which underlies a lot of the work that BPD continues to do, will continue to be implemented, so I look forward to future updates on the work and the progress we're making on implementing many of those recommendations.
And with that, I'm done.
Thanks.
Thank you, Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you.
I want to first express my sincere gratitude to Carrie Arredondo, who was instrumental in securing the $8 million of Proposition 47, Cohort 5 money.
Her stellar leadership and commitment to restorative justice is apparent, and we are so grateful.
Thank you to my colleagues who have donated to item 14, the Sacred Rest Drop-In Center.
This will help offset the cost of a landline phone, which the Center will use to allow unhoused individuals to connect with their loved ones and apply to jobs.
People currently use staff's personal cell phones for this, which is not sustainable.
So I respectfully ask that my colleagues join to support this service.
I would also like to give $200 to the Berkley Arts Center Community Dinner.
And adding on to what Council Member Blackabee was explaining about item 15, this is a referral to the City Manager's Office to amend the City's shared micromobility fee structure to bring our fees up to market rate and sustain an effective program by generating revenue for scooter and bike parking infrastructure.
As a Council, we received many complaints about improper scooter parking, and a study across five major U.S.
cities suggested that 75% of public complaints about shared micromobility programs are because of improperly parked vehicles.
And there's also data that suggests that building more parking infrastructure greatly reduces the rate of improper parking.
So we can retain what is valuable, which is this program that people use to get around our city, while also improving the challenges.
And I'm appreciative for the feedback and partnership from Council Members Trago, Blackabee, and Humber.
And I also want to thank Public Works Director Davis and Deputy Director Amiri and their team for the tremendous work they are doing to balance a safe and effective program moving forward.
And I'm very grateful for the seriousness with which you take this issue.
In addition to this referral, we'll also be collaborating with UC Berkley to coordinate outreach and engagement among residents.
This is just one part of the puzzle, and we have to address it holistically.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Council Member.
Moving on to Council Member Keefe.
Thank you, Mayor.
I want to speak about Item 13.
Thank you so much to my colleagues who have donated, and I encourage the rest of you to consider.
The Berkley Art Center, you guys, if you don't know it, is so special.
And I'm actually really delighted to have an opportunity to highlight it, because it's sort of like the best-kept secret of District 5.
It should not be a secret, because everybody should know about it.
It's in Live Oak Park.
There's the main part of Live Oak Park, and then across Walnut, there's this other smaller section that has this beautiful building that has this amazing art gallery space in it.
And it's been around since 1967.
They showcase local artists and curators, and I want to note that they also pay their artists and curators competitive wages, which is really unusual.
And they do just amazing work, different shows all the time, and it's also just a beautiful space.
So I'm really glad to take a moment to highlight their work and their existence and to support their community dinner, which is going to be October 16th, coming up at 6 p.m.
So thank you again for donating.
And, oh, and I also, speaking of donating, would like to give $250 to Item 14.
That sounds like a really wonderful program.
I'm happy to support it.
And those are all my comments.
Great.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I want to, you know, highlight Item 12.
It is critical that we all vote in favor of Proposition 50, and I really appreciate the work of Council Member Tragoob and his fellow council members who co-sponsored it to move this one forward.
13, I'd like to contribute $250 to the community dinner from our discretionary funds in District 8.
That sounds like a, I need to go over there and see this place.
I'm not sure I've ever been there.
I'll take you.
14, I'd like to contribute $250 from our discretionary budget to help the Sacred Rest Drop-In Center purchase and maintain a landline.
That sounds like it's very important.
And 15, I want to really commend Council Member Luna-Pottera's team, the council member herself and her aides, and her whole team who worked really hard on this.
It's a really good product, and I'm very proud to co-sponsor it.
I'm looking forward to seeing micro-mobility corrals and not the scooters littered around the sidewalk where we have to read about people with impaired sight trying to navigate through a tangle of them.
If they're in a corral near a red-curved crosswalk, that will be wonderful.
And thanks again.
This was really a great effort on the part of District 7.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Traga? Thank you so much.
I would like to contribute $100 from my G13 account towards items 13 and 14, and thank the authors for those items.
I would like to thank my colleagues for your support of item 12.
Because of the Brown Act, I could only add up to three other co-sponsors, but I was so heartened to hear so much interest and friends, this is really the best opportunity, the most immediate opportunity that we have to not only defend our democracy nationally, but we can do it in our very own backyards by talking to neighbors about the importance of passing Prop 50 this November.
I also wish to thank Vice Mayor Kaplan for his item 11, and it was an honor to co-sponsor this item since this also deals with several historic buildings that need a lot of love and a lot of maintenance in my district.
And lastly, I wish to also thank on item 15, Council Member Lunapara.
It's been a pleasure working with her office and with all of my co-sponsors, as well as with the Public Works Director.
And I just wanted to emphasize and echo what some have already mentioned.
This is not the end all, be all.
This is a very important step forward, but the work continues.
The work will continue until such time as I don't have to personally move micro-mobility devices that are maybe parked in the middle of the public right-of-way on my 15-minute walk to the office every day.
But I have seen a lot of improvement already, so I also want to thank the vendors, I think one of them may be listening in, for their collaboration and their willingness to say, yes, assess us the funding amount that needs to be assessed to make this happen.
And I want to thank Public Works as well.
We most recently met last week, and very exciting to see some of the infrastructure improvements that may be coming on that front.
And I know I said this was the last thing I was going to say, but I also wanted to echo Council Member Lunapara in thanking staff, and in particular, Carrie Arredondo, for item three, and I'm excited to see this move forward.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Kisarwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
I also want to chime in to thank Council Member Trager for his leadership on the resolution supporting California Proposition 50.
I wanted to be recorded as donating $100 to the Arts Center's Fall 2025 Community Dinner and $100 to the Sacred Rest Drop-in Center Landline.
And then finally, I also wanted to thank Council Member Lunapara for the item related to the shared micro-mobility program and hope that that can make a difference in making our sidewalks safer for pedestrians.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Council Member Toplin.
Thank you very much.
I misspoke when I said I only had one comment.
I wanted to thank my colleagues for their support of Item 11 as well as the Directors of Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront and Public Works for their close partnership, collaboration, and guidance.
And I wanted to relinquish $250 to the Berkeley Arts Center's Community Dinner, and I was wondering if there might be room to co-sponsor.
I believe I have space for one more, and it's yours.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay, Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
And I wanted to be sure to contribute from my D13 account $250 to the Berkeley Arts Center's fall dinner, Item 13.
And then also, Item 14, I'm also contributing $200 to the Sacred Rest Drop-in Center, their landline.
Thank you.
Okay, Council Member Nunopaya.
Thank you.
I also just wanted to thank Council Member Trago for the item on Prop 50, and thank you for allowing me to co-sponsor.
Thanks for your work.
Okay, so I would love to add myself to Item 14 and also to put $250 from our funds into that.
Thank you all so much for being here as well.
That is really an important service.
And I want to just say a few words about Item No.
3 as well.
Thank you, City Manager, for those comments.
And also, a big thank you as well to Carrie Arredondo who's gotten many shout-outs tonight.
Housing, homelessness, and public safety are some of my top priorities, and this three-year, $8 million grant is incredible.
The fact that our city is paying attention to opportunities and then taking advantage of those opportunities so that we can continue to serve our community is really important.
Berkeley Care Bridge will be dedicated to providing transitional housing with supportive services for folks who have been in and out of the justice system in the past three years.
And with this funding, we'll be able to serve approximately 60 to 80 people a year.
This is a really tremendous opportunity to help individuals break the cycle of recidivism by providing stability and integrated services.
And we know there's not a one-size-fits-all solution to homelessness or recidivism.
While being unhoused is not the criteria for this program, we know that individuals who are in and out of the justice system often find themselves homeless or in unstable housing.
So Berkeley's leveraging every resource available to provide support to people in their journey towards safety, stability, and security in their lives, and I think we should really be celebrating that.
So thank you all again for your work there.
And I think that is the remainder of my comments.
Okay.
Very good.
Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? And public comment as well? Sorry, apologies.
Thank you.
Yes, is there public comment on information items or consent calendar only? Thank you.
Lots of good things on this agenda, but I am so excited by number three.
I heard a presentation last year from Red State, Indiana, where a county was doing exactly this.
They were working with persons that had had contact with the criminal justice system.
They were providing mental health and substance use and housing supports, and it was a really great support system.
And I kept thinking, how can a Red State, how can a county and a Red State be doing this and Berkeley can't be doing this and not Berkeley is going to be doing this? And this is such a substantial amount of money.
I am just so happy that Berkeley looked towards this.
We have to, the system, it can be so skewed, and this is to bring these issues together the way they need to be addressed, the way the persons need to be supported, the way the general community needs to be supported.
And this is such a great accomplishment that the city manager's office looked towards this grant and received this grant and I trust that the oversight will be good and it's just great.
And I have to add that this was so disrespectful to a young man honoring his father's death to have to hear this outside, to have to hear this disruption, and that's inhumanity.
Thank you, Carol.
Thank you for saying that.
Hello.
I'm excited to introduce myself as a new executive director at the Berkeley Art Center.
This small but mighty art center is located in Live Oak Park in North Berkeley and has been serving the neighborhood and local arts community for the past 58 years.
I'm honored to be at the center that continues to provide compelling arts exhibitions and public programs and supporting artists and cultural arts workers from diverse communities.
I'm looking forward to connecting with my neighbors and the Bay Area community and all of you here, come and visit.
As I settle in at the Berkeley Art Center, it's been almost two months so I'm still relatively new there but I have been part of the Berkeley Art Community for the last five years and actually I used to work at Kala where Council Member Topling I think we might have interacted at some point.
So it's also nice for me to be now in District 5 with Council Member O'Keefe but I'm inspired by our community and by the city's continuing support throughout the years.
Thank you for your support it makes our work more meaningful and relevant and I hope to see you at the community dinner.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm Tom Yamaguchi, District 2 and I'm a home care worker with the IHSS program I'm also a member of the Commission on Aging although I'm here speaking myself as an individual so I'd just like to thank you for your support through items 6 and 7 on the Go Go Grandparent and the Easy Does It these are really good, worthy services.
I also wanted to thank you for any support for Prop 50 my union CIU 2015 supports it several weeks ago we went out canvassing walking door to door for it and really gratifying to see the support.
I'm still waiting for my lawn sign but I'm happy to see all the signs that are going up at Berkeley and I see to reach out to see if I can get my sign up within the next few days.
Thanks.
Thanks Tom.
Thanks for coming.
Hello again and it's great to see that Carol got all excited about this thing that we actually accomplished.
I love to see it when she's happy because holistically we need to be this is where we can expand our horizon in terms of being holistic in all the things that we do in all the things that people need not just one.
Anyway, I'm really thankful for the Easy Does It because I have direct experience with how useful they are in health care, home care and repair.
It's pretty tough to get stranded on the street somewhere with a wheelchair that doesn't work.
So thank you for that.
And I also have major direct experience with the Sacred Rest and the Village of Love run by Ari in People's Park for years.
And I distributed tons of food to them and interacted with them in People's Park, etc.
It's really good to know where our money goes where direct experience can let you know so that it's not just going out there somewhere.
When I was doing construction I didn't make any money on my materials or my subs.
It's like cut it to where it needs to be and where it needs to go and Sacred Rest and Village of Love gets it done.
And I am so grateful to them and all of you.
Have a great evening.
I'm going to go now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello I'm Joey Harrison the Executive Director and founder of the Village of Love that operates the Sacred Rest drop-in center and I want to thank you so much for your comments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I want to thank you all so much for contributing.
Thank you Council Member a lot.
Berkeley is home for me.
I started doing outreach here when I first started here in Berkeley.
I went through options.
I'm also on the Board of Directors for options.
I operate the Sacred Rest but I started doing the work uptown, downtown, Berkeley, doing outreach and that's where I got started and years later started the Village of Love and we came back to Berkeley, back home and thank you all so much.
Thank you.
Are there comments online? Let me just confirm.
Okay we have one comment.
The caller with the number ending 000.
You may unmute.
Just as a reminder, these are comments specific to the consent calendar.
Yes.
Yes.
Consent item number one.
I'd like to mention immigrants built this country.
Beautiful country was built by immigrants.
Beside the beautiful Native Americans who did play a big role as well.
During the first administration almost one and a half million Americans died when Donald Trump called COVID-19 a hoax, a China virus, all kinds of garbage.
Also, the fact is the way mistreating all of these beautiful Mexican people, Latin people, brown people, it's disgusting.
I lived in the south in the 1960s where I saw black people treated badly.
I had no problem but I resented it.
I had many discussions with priests, with all kinds of people and they were all awful.
And we're seeing that all over again.
That has to stop.
By the way, watch your lettuce head go to $20.
Watch your everything these beautiful Mexican people play in our culture.
Skyrocket.
Never mind.
Money is dwindling in this country because this man is shutting down.

Segment 3

Country Down.
Thank you.
I wish you the best of luck.
And again, thank you very much and good night.
Thank you.
And that was our last speaker on the consent calendar.
Okay, very good.
I need to do a report out from our closed session.
The City Council directed the City Attorney to initiate an action.
Once the litigation is filed, the particulars shall be disclosed to any person upon inquiry unless to do so would jeopardize the City's ability to effectuate service or process on one or more unserved parties or jeopardize the City's ability to conclude existing settlement negotiations to its advantage.
Okay, thank you.
Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? I so move.
I second.
Okay, any opposition? Okay, consent calendar passes.
Thank you all very much.
Okay, it is 7.06.
I would like to move on to the action calendar and take item 16 and then take a brief break so that we can take 7 and 18 together and allow for some time for our Director of Police Accountability to get set up.
So here you are.
Very good.
Thank you very much.
So we are going to move on to item 16, changes to the planning and development fee schedule, and we have just a brief presentation.
Thank you, Mayor and Council.
I'm Aileen Pearson, Deputy Director of the Planning Department, and I'm here with Jim Bondi, Management Analyst from the Director's Office.
He's going to give a brief presentation, brief discussion, summary of what we're recommending, and then we'll both be here to answer questions.
Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council.
Item before you effectuates a fee structure for projects we think will be coming in starting November 1st under the new middle housing regulations you recently adopted.
There's also a handful of cost-neutral corrections and changes sprinkled in there.
The projects which come in after November 1st formerly would require a discretionary zoning process will now be able to be approved ministerially, and we are proposing a zoning certificate for middle housing with a fee of $2,000, which is the equivalent of about eight hours of staff time for the review of the zoning of these projects.
Our analysis looks like the on-balance fees will be about 50 to 75 percent less expensive for applicants than to propose the projects under the previous rules.
There's also a $500 neighborhood noticing fee the same way we do with ADU projects.
Happy to elaborate or answer any questions you might have.
Thank you.
I have a question here from Council Member Keserwani.
Yes, thank you very much.
Well, thank you for this item because I think it's great news that because we will have this buy-write streamlined program, we can lower the permit fees.
I was wondering, you know, with the fee, I think you said $2,000 for approximately eight hours of work.
If it's less work or more work, do you change the fee level? Is it, meaning, is it by the hour of the of the staff person or is it just this flat amount? It's a flat amount except for projects which are exceptionally complicated, in which case we have the right to invoice the applicant for additional hours that it may require.
It's really, it's hard to know what the staff time is going to look like.
We're going to look at it after a year with projects under our belt and come back to Council if we need to make a revision to those fees.
But the act of, these projects are a lot more complicated than these neighborhoods are used to seeing being approved on ministerially.
So it is going to take some time for staff to suss out the details of the projects, make sure it conforms to the objective standards.
We think eight hours is fair.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Are there other questions from my colleagues? Okay, in that case, I will take public comment on this item.
Any public comment? No hands raised on Zoom.
Very good.
Are there Council comments? It looks like Council Member Tradeoff.
I would like to move the staff recommendation.
May I get a motion to close the public hearing? Yes, motion to close the public hearing.
Is there any opposition to closing the public hearing? Okay, we have closed the public hearing.
Motion to approve staff recommendation.
Any other comments before we close? Okay, is there any opposition to this? Very good.
Then motion passes.
Thank you both so much for coming this evening and for being here to present.
Okay, sorry.
So I'm going to ask our Office of Director of Police Accountability to go ahead and start setting up and we are going to take a 10-minute break and then we'll take items 17 and 18 on our action calendar.
Thank you all.
Recording stopped.
Recording in progress.
Okay, oh, this mic still feels very loud.
All right, I'm going to call us back.
We are moving on to item 17.
Are you going to present on both at the same time? Yes, I can do that.
Okay, so items 17 and 18.
So 17 is the resolution calling on the California State Legislature to amend government code section on the California State Legislature to amend government code section 12519 to allow heads of civilian oversight agencies directly request investigative assistance from the Attorney General's office and the 18 is a resolution directing the city manager to work with the city attorney's office to establish a communications policy corresponding training and compliance mechanisms to ensure impartiality and neutrality during the pendency of an active personnel investigation.
Okay, go ahead.
Yes, good evening Mayor Ishii, members of Council, colleagues and members of the public.
Before I make the brief presentations on these two items, if I can just take a couple of minutes to address some things that came up as I was attempting to agendize this item.
This was the first time our office utilized the companion report tool or feature that's within the Commissioner's Manual and that is a feature that allows the city manager to create or produce a companion report when a Board of Commission submits a report to Council and that companion report could either provide additional information or it can conflict or it can be in agreement with whatever the Board and Commission.
So being that I have a dual role as the Secretary of the PAB, we utilize that feature to provide a companion report on the Downtown Task Force Policy Review.
So these items were already presented to Council through that companion report last year.
They have gone through the Public Safety Committee process and also through the full Council submission process.
The reason we're bringing them back for is because in those deliberations they didn't receive any specific attention or up and down vote on these and we believe that these are outstanding matters that deserve attention still.
And to bring it before you, we also utilize another feature in the Council procedures which is a feature I'll call the bypass feature.
I don't know if that's a proper name but essentially it's an opportunity for a charter officer to bring or request that the full Council review an agenda item not withstanding the rules and agenda committee.
So when I did present to the rules and agenda committee there was a request to withdraw and resubmit and or send it to committee.
The reason why I didn't believe that was appropriate is because we've had this issue lingering for a while and I thought it was ready for up and down vote for full Council.
There was also a concern that the PAB had not taken action on these items.
These items again this part of companion report they were presented to the PAB under the current city manager structure under the boards and commissions process.
There really isn't a mechanism that I'm aware of where a board and commission would then have to respond back to the city managers or the secretary's procedure but we did bring these companion report recommendations to the PAB so I just want to make sure that's acknowledged.
And then just one little concern too was that the reports were not included in the rules and agenda meeting packet.
We did submit them through the process.
We don't control that process.
We give the the record to the clerk and the clerk provides that packet.
I'm not.
Sorry do you want to include all the I just want to make sure you have time to present on the items themselves.
I know you're trying to give some background here but I just want to be conscious of the fact that I know you've told me you have a certain amount of time that you were planning on presenting for.
Yeah and I'm fine with that time.
I'm going to be brief.
I just want to make sure that we're on the same page in terms of the process that I haven't got here at the table.
But that was just the last item.
So I'll start with 17.
Please advance to the next slide.
And that's a resolution calling on the Legislature to amend government code 125-19.
So that is a government code that allows the Attorney General to provide formal opinions to specialized or specific offices around the state and specifically civilian oversight agencies are not included.
We do believe we are part of the ecosystem of public safety and we perfectly believe it might have been an oversight in terms of legislative intent to not include civil and oversight specifically.
I have tried to reach out and in our office communicate with other entities to include Attorney General.
We did request in some instances opinions but they haven't formed us because we're not one of the named entities that there's no responsibility on their end to provide us any support.
So if you advance to the next slide please.
Okay so these again these matters were brought forth the recent sort of case study where we saw the gap was in the downtown task force policy review.
And again we don't have to go indefinite I'm just contextualizing that that's where this sort of gap was where we identified it.
We saw that there was a need to get some legal interpretations on some matters that that may not be clear and obviously we have access to our city attorney's office.
But this particular feature that is provided by the state is I think unparalleled and I think it could be not only a good feature for us in Berkeley but for all civilian oversight across the state.
So I think we could be setting the stage for better police accountability around the state.
If you could please advance to the next slide.
Okay and again the current law 125-19 it limits who can receive these opinions.
So it's legislators, constitutional officers, county counsel, DA, sheriff, city attorneys who have prosecutorial duties.
But it doesn't name oversight directors or civilian oversight directors.
Next slide please.
So in that particular policy review there were some barriers to obtaining some critical information and it was a difference of opinion on law and how it was being interpreted.
We believe that the attorney general would be able to provide legal clarity on these contested issues and their offices has a lot of weight in terms of how these issues are interpreted.
Next slide please.
And I think providing more legal clarity is going to improve our public confidence and trust in our oversight outcomes.
Sometimes it is a messaging issue for us to try to tell community members why we could or could not do things in the complexities of the law, whether it be poll board, other government code sections, and why we were able to take action and not take action.
Next slide please.
Also we just highlighted in the resolution that there is a good entry point for us.
Our former mayor and now senator Jesse Adegin is the chair of the senate public safety committee.
I have not had any conversations since he left here, but I would like to think that this is something that could potentially get support.
We have that nexus there.
Next slide please.
I don't identify any fiscal impacts to this, but I will let council be the body that assesses whether that's accurate or not.
Next slide please.
So the resolution is included in the packet and is to essentially amend the government code to include civil and oversight heads.
So we're calling on the state legislature to amend that law.
And next slide, final slide please on this.
Okay, so in order for us to be effective, one of the principles that we echo in the field and make all the National Association of Civil and Oversight of Law Enforcement, we need to have teeth to be effective.
We do need legal clarity.
We have legal issues that get contested and are contested all the time.
And it's not just a Berkeley thing, other civil and oversight agencies around the state face these issues.
So I think we can all benefit as a community and ensure we have a robust public safety and accountability.
Do I, Madam Mayor, do I go to the next presentation or do you want to take it? Let's actually take some questions from this first.
Okay.
To the other questions from my colleagues.
Okay.
From Council Member Chaplin first.
Thanks.
Can you, so you have not been in touch with the Senator's office, is that correct? No, correct.
Thank you.
And then I was wondering if I may ask a question of the city attorney.
I'm trying to better understand the respective roles of the city attorney and the attorney general with respect to personnel investigations.
Absolutely.
So the attorney general does not have that type of capacity to give legal opinions on personnel issues.
Our office works with both the HR department and various other parties to provide advice.
And advice to ODPA and the PAB also falls under our portfolio under the charter.
So we are specifically designated as the legal advisors to the PAB and ODPA.
Thank you.
Those are my questions.
Yes.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you.
Following the vice mayor.
I was following the vice mayor here.
A question, so this is very interesting.
I'm wondering, is there any notes or like legislative notes in the drafting process or delivery process as to, you know, why they didn't include offices like yours in the drafting? I don't have that answer for you.
I don't know the legislative history or intent there.
To me, might have just been an oversight.
We are in a very few places in the actual government code that where they reference civilian oversight.
So it might be that's still developing within the code.
To hear, hear what they were thinking.
You know, you could reach out to them probably.
Thank you.
Council Member Blackabee.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
Thank you, Director, for being here.
In the item, just in the title of resolution, I noticed you're requesting investigative assistance from AG.
You talk about like, what do you have in mind there? What does that look like? In hindsight, that probably was a misnomer or not quite communicating what I thought it would be communicating.
In terms of investigative support, there are, again, areas where we reach, we have differences of opinion on what can legally be done, what's accessible.
And sometimes they haven't been contested in court proper.
And we, again, tap into our city attorney's office.
But the attorney general is uniquely positioned.
This is within their wheelhouse dealing with these matters.
And another point of their process is the transparency.
They put their legal opinions on their website.
So we have access to that.
And to give you an example of what investigative assistance could look like, one of the questions, opinion 80-807, it was asked, is the public safety officer's procedural Bill of Rights or POBAR applicable to sheriffs and police chiefs? So that was a question that was presented to that attorney general.
And they provided an opinion.
And now we all have access to that interpretation.
So that is the sort of legal assistance or investigative assistance that will allow us to move forward.
Okay.
Yeah, because I just noticed in 12-519, I know they can provide opinions on question of law, but there's, basically, they cannot provide any resolution of a factual dispute.
So anyway, so just that piece of it was, just felt like, did not, was not relevant under 12-519.
So that was one thing I just, I noted and observed in the process.
Other pieces of this, I noted in terms of the officers that are allowed to bring opinions under 12-519, they explicitly include constitutional officers, like the governor and lieutenant governor, they include state boards and commissions, they include the legislature.
But, you know, local bodies are excluded.
So like the city, Berkeley City Council cannot ask an opinion of the AG.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors can't ask an opinion of the AG under this.
So I think what I'm wrestling with is, you know, it seemed like they were pretty clear about state bodies versus local bodies.
They did give some, certainly gave some exceptions, district attorneys and prosecuting attorneys at the local level.
So anyway, that, that's the part I'm wrestling with is, it felt like they were very clear in terms of the intent that they were, they were trying to limit it to certain groups and not others, because we, for example, were explicitly excluded.
So one of the things I think I would wrestle with is like, you know, does it feel appropriate for Berkeley's Police Accountability Board to have this ability, but the city council or, for example, the County Board of Supervisors doesn't? I would say they note that the attorney general shall give the attorney general's opinion in writing to a city prosecuting attorney when requested upon any question of law relating to criminal matters.
In our city charter does have references to violations.
There could be criminal nature, misdemeanors, and this is, again, another concern of ours is sometimes we feel like there might be violations of the charter that potentially could be criminal in nature.
So I think that it does contemplate the, at least the city attorney at the local level having that access.
Okay.
And again, they've been pretty clear in this that like, again, they don't want to adjudicate local laws or local charter disputes.
I mean, again, I think that was pretty clear also in 12519.
I know there's some question about, you know, whether the state law, you know, how it applies when it may come in conflict with the local charter, but it, you know, I know like when it comes to adjudicating questions about the charter or questions about municipal ordinances, like they're like, we're not going to do that.
And that's, you know, the city attorney's function.
So anyway, so I just think there are a few of those questions to me that make it, you know, it feels less, it feels like a less clear ask based on the way this thing is designed.
And also the fact that under the charter, the PAB does have the ability to either go to the city attorney for legal advice, or if there's a conflict to bring an outside council.
So it does feel to me anyway, that it feels like there is a, there's a process for that under the charter.
And for a variety of reasons, this sort of AG opinion to me feels a little bit out of step with a, what the council can do itself, and also maybe the intent of section 12519.
So again, I'm not a lawyer, but just as I'm reading it and thinking through it and kind of considering the same things as you are.
So at least that's where I'm coming out on it.
Are there any examples, specific examples of a legal question that you would want to pose, that you feel like you couldn't get advice on through another mechanism? There are many.
Sometimes questions regarding access to records, in the scope of records, and there's differences of opinion there.
And it would be helpful to get more clarity there, because they, to our knowledge, have not been contested in the city.
The Attorney General would be, I think, a good entity to provide opinions on it.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, Mayor.
Thank you.
Council Member Humbert? Yeah, I don't really have any questions.
I have some comments.
Is that okay at this point? Let's wait to do that.
Okay.
That's okay.
Thank you.
And other questions from folks? I'm curious to know if you reached out to the Attorney General's office to have a conversation with them about this? No, that did not.
We did not do that, no.
And I didn't do that.
And I'm also curious that during this investigation, it seemed that you disagreed with our City Attorney's position on a particular matter.
I'm wondering if you've reached out through the City Attorney's office to attempt to get some support from the Attorney General's office.
I'm sorry.
I'm trying to track the question.
So currently, because our City Attorney could, to my understanding, reach out to the Attorney General, have you tried to get support from the Attorney General's office through any of the means that currently exist? As it related to this particular policy review? No, just generally.
We've reached out to different entities to include Attorney General.
So we have done that, yes.
So you have reached out to the Attorney General's office through these currently existing ways of connecting to ask for support? Not ask for support.
Ask for clarity.
But again, this is a case where we're trying to get some support.
So you have reached out to the Attorney General's office to include Attorney General.
Not ask for support.
Ask for clarity.
But again, this particular tool that would allow for legal opinions, it is not, they specifically told us that one was sort of a way to see if this would entertain a legal opinion or provide one for us.
And they specifically told us we're not one of the public comments since there are no more questions.
Is there any public comment? There are no hands raised on Zoom.
Okay, we'll move on to Council comments then.
Council Member Humbert, would you like to go first? Sure, thank you Madam Mayor.
I'll be, I'll try to be brief and I'll probably be blunt.
I'm very reluctant to support approaches that increase potential for internal conflicts within city governments, this city government, and the State Attorney General.
The increased staff time and legal costs associated with proliferating such conflicts should give us pause.
This is especially true when avenues already exist to bring various issues for investigation to the attention of the Attorney General, our State Attorney General.
I'm also concerned that the content of this item is inconsistent with and even perhaps misrepresented by its summary.
The recommendation section reads, adopt a resolution calling on the California State Legislature to amend Government Code Section 12519 to allow heads of civilian oversight agencies to directly request investigative assistance.
You know, as Council Member Blackaby mentioned, the statute, and I am a lawyer and I've read the statute, and the statute doesn't have anything to do with investigative assistance.
It's a statute that allows certain governmental, certain members of government and prosecuting attorneys and city attorneys to ask for legal opinions.
It's a process that has existed under California law for a long, long time, but this is not a statute that already provides, that the Attorney General will provide investigative assistance upon request, so it doesn't really have anything to do with that.
But the summary section then launches into a discussion of a specific ODPA companion report and the set of recommendations contained in that companion report.
Then we have the resolution which references the companion report but ultimately takes no action specific to it.
The companion report is also included as an attachment.
Intentional or not, this altogether creates a sense of ambiguity about what this item is trying to achieve.
Are we advocating for legislation? Are we being asked to sign off on some sort of admission or approval regarding this companion report? Are we endorsing the companion report's recommendations? They seem to be, this all seems to be a repeat of the same confusion faced previously when the DPA attached this report to another item that ultimately failed to clarify whatever it was, whether it was being presented purely for information or for some sort of action.
I want to say these questions could potentially have been resolved had the Director of Police Accountability agreed to the request of the Agenda and Rules Committee and extended the professional courtesy of having this item, as well as the following item 18, go through the Council's policy subcommittee process.
Instead, the Director chose to exercise his prerogative, and he has that, to bring this this and item 18 directly to Council.
I can't support this or the following item, and so I'll be voting no on the item or to take no action.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Chaplin.
Thank you very much, and thanks for being here.
I'm not going to be as eloquent as my colleagues here, but you know, I think what Council Member Blackabee said is pretty clear, as well as Council Member Humbert, and I heard a couple things.
So it sounds like you made a request to the AG, which was declined.
There are disagreements with the City Attorney around broker matters, but I understand that, but sometimes it is disappointing to hear what we don't want to hear.
A couple things process-wise, I am concerned that there has not been communication or contact with the Senator or any other member of the Legislature.
I think what makes our relationship with the State so useful is being able to leverage the ability to reach out and work on things together so that we are moving in tandem.
I recognize that this.

Segment 4

This resolution is perhaps an attempt to do that in one particular way.
I do think that these kinds of efforts will be more successful if that early outreach, that early engagement with the State Ledge might be another thing to consider moving forward.
Thank you.
Council member Tregub? Thank you.
I have a question for Council member Blackaby, actually, as the chair of the Public Safety Committee.
I understand that the agenda committee discussion also included the possibility of sending the item to committee.
I don't know if you feel comfortable answering this on the dais, but how would you personally feel about this item moving to your committee? Procedurally, that's certainly appropriate.
I mean, I think, given some of the concerns that have been raised, I'm not sure how many of them are solvable.
But certainly from a procedural standpoint, we'd be happy and willing to hear it.
Any other comments? Okay.
Other comments from Council members? Yes.
So, it appears as if this is a foray into legislating that you're taking.
It's a tricky game that we do.
We think things through a lot, and we network, and we work it out, and we compromise, and we land on something.
So, I mean, I, for one, don't feel that I even understand this enough to even vote on this.
But what are the implications, right? What were they thinking when they wrote this? City attorney, does this implicate staff issues and labor unions, things like that? These are issues that I would need to be unpacked for me to digest and understand before voting on this.
So, this is the kind of thing that you would want to take through a subcommittee meeting.
And trust me, I've been in office for, what, nine years now.
I still go through the process, and I get torn apart in the reassemble, right? If I can take it, you can take it, too.
So, that's my suggestion to you is you work on this and figure out what exactly you're trying to move forward and how it serves the interests of the city.
Thank you.
I'd like to make a motion that we take no action on this item.
Second.
Should we take the roll? Let's take the roll.
On the motion, Council Member Casarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Tracob? Pass.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Lackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Abstain.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Council Member Tracob? Aye.
Okay, thank you.
Would you like to present 18? Yes, please.
We're on slide..
Next slide, please.
Okay.
So, this one, again, is part of the same package of recommendations out of the companion report.
This one, our concern here was that there was some communications messaging being put out by the city, different departments that created confusion.
We also see that there's still a current gap that needs to, in my opinion and review, be addressed if we want to have credibility while we're having these critical incident reviews and investigations.
So, the resolution here, it is internal.
It is for council to direct the city manager and the city attorney to work together to create a communications policy, develop training for city officials, and build compliance mechanisms regarding communications during dependency of investigations.
Next slide, please.
Okay.
So, again, same report, but specifically I'll just hone in on some of the early messaging that was made on this, because I think the context matters here.
But the city manager at the time sent an email to council and indicated that the allegations were disturbing, but said that there was no reason to pause the chief's appointment at the time.
So, I think that that, from my investigative perspective, could be very problematic.
If they are disturbing, you should pause it.
Those emails became public.
So, now we're navigating an investigation policy review with potential questions about impartiality and bias and prejudgment on the facts.
Next slide, please.
Currently, there's no formal city policy that we were able to identify that specifically spoke to this issue.
We believe that it was premature, ambiguous statements, prejudice in investigations, eroding public trust, and potential due process concerns.
Next slide, please.
Next slide, please.
A more live example of this just happened within the last week.
The Daily Cal ran a story indicating that we were going to have this conversation.
A city spokesperson indicated that we are not aware of any findings of wrongdoing that came out of that investigation.
And those text messages are public.
And we, I think, all agree that many of them were either racist, inappropriate, or just not demonstrating the values that we have here as a city.
And that one could say they objectively violate either city imposed values.
So, there's a lot of confusion there that was undermining trust when we have these sort of statements being put out by the city apparatus.
Next slide, please.
So, the idea here, again, is to just have consistency in principle communication.
And also, it gives the public an opportunity to have an expectation of what will be said, what won't be said during these sort of investigations.
It avoids mixed messages.
And it protects the integrity of the investigations, the fair treatment of the individuals, both the accused and the accusers, the city's reputation for accountability.
Next slide, please.
We drew from potential guidance in the State Bar of California Rule 3.6 and also the U.S.
DOJ internal fair standards that speak to and both emphasize the neutrality and integrity of the public face in process of an investigation.
Next slide, please.
For fiscal impacts, there will be staff time.
We're happy to provide any support that the two entities may need, any opinions or any particular research or best practices that we can assist in.
We didn't particularly write that in in the resolution.
We wanted to respect the city managers and the city attorney's purview, but we're happy to be a resource if necessary.
Next slide, please.
So again, it's to draft the communications policy that addresses investigations of this nature.
What can be said will be said, develop and implement training for city staff and create compliance mechanisms when there's deviation from those established protocols and then have counsel review and approve the set policy.
And again, I think this is a gap that I believe still exists.
Next slide, please.
Which is why we also brought it forth for council's consideration to ensure that moving forward, we don't have any of these issues resurface.
Thank you.
Okay, council member, you have questions to start with.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm curious why this is written as a resolution instead of as a referral.
No particular reason other than there's no particular reason.
It could have been a referral.
Okay.
Council member tackling.
Thank you very much.
I have a couple of questions.
I have a question for each of the charter officers.
What did the investigation have to do with the chief's appointment? And why would the city manager's communication to council member regarding a matter under a purview that being the appointment of the chief impact a third party investigation? What was the question? Sorry.
What did the investigation have to do with the chief's appointment? And why would the city manager's communication to council members regarding a matter under our purview that purview being the appointment of the police chief impact a third party investigation? Okay, so the history there was that on the eve of the comfort, the chief.
She was the interim chief at the time.
And this allegations surface on the eve of her appointment.
And the former employee of the city officers should doubt he emailed the city Council.
And she was the interim chief at the time.
And raise concerns about activity of And she was the interim chief at the time.
And what we wish you look at it and I received those e-mails And she was the interim chief at the time.
And that she didn't do anything so he was at the time not interim chief.
And she was the interim chief at the time.
And that she didn't do anything so he was at the time not interim chief.
And that she didn't do anything so he was at the time not interim chief.
And that she didn't do anything.
And that she didn't do anything.
And she was not qualified to be a permanent chief because she had prior knowledge of these.
Actions by this downtown task force and she did nothing about it.
And I'm asking how that would And I'm asking how that would And I'm asking how that would implicate the 3rd party implicate the 3rd party investigation which we didn't authorize until after this e-mail was sent.
So I think that the point was that the allegations were reserving.
But also by the person that we're going to name as chief police permit.
And when the communications.
By the city manager we're saying that the allegations was reserving but yet saying.
We will investigate this but go ahead and a point anyway that this was a live investigation.
And go ahead and a point this person if we're taking this.
These allegations against him seriously that was the chief being investigated.
At the time that's what the city manager indicated that they were looking to all the allegations brought forth in the e-mails by the former officer.
That these allegations were reserving.
But it was it was there a live investigation of the time of the publication that not surrounding this now.
But it was it was there a live investigation of the time of the daily publication that that surrounding this now.
Then thank you my next question is for the same address the attorney the city not currently have impartial impartiality and neutrality or other anti bias policies protocols or mechanisms in place to protect the integrity of an investigation when it's happening and to protect you know the person's presumed innocent while this going through this investigation.
So I'm going to pass it over to you.
Would it be possible to elaborate.
Yeah.
I mean it so there's there's personal rules the state law.
There's the impartiality guidelines that the city has.
There are a lot of guardrails that are put in place.
To protect the integrity of an investigation.
And to protect the integrity of the person's presumed innocent while this is going through this investigation and it's not something that's commented on.
I wanted to confirm that.
What Paul also mentioned is enshrined in case law and.
Due process doctrines that mandate.
The city being during the course of a personnel investigation, it's taken very seriously and there are guard rails to.
To protect the integrity of an investigation.
So, judging.
Back to the issue of the investigation that happened related to the texting issue.
A third party, a completely neutral third party.
Investigator was brought on by my office separately from the city manager's office.
And so, when the city manager removed her from that brought in an independent investigator.
One of the main investigators was actually a former federal prosecutor that the path.
Members that the.
The then chair of the pad had recommended.
So it was a very kind of clean, thoughtful process.
Thank you very much.
And then.
I have a question.
If you're preventing the three charter officers from.
Communicating to clarify these things, to review these things together.
Why would counsel you to give.
Direction to the city manager for this to occur.
No, there's no, there's nothing precluding us from talking about these things.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, we're happy and open to talk about issues.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have three questions.
Two of them for the director.
Thank you for your presentation.
Did the.
As a body weigh in on this recommendation before it being.
It was presented to them.
So they were given the.
This resolution and the.
We're given the opportunity to send any materials and or to, to make it a vote one way or another.
They took no action.
They took no action.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
So I have a question.
This item with.
Staff before it being.
To the council.
To which staff, the city manager, the city attorney.
Yes.
We did have a conversation with the city attorney.
Before went to rules and agenda.
And we're going through that process.
Thank you.
Can I ask a follow up question to that? Of course.
Yeah.
I'm curious.
What did that conversation involve? They will.
The city attorney's office wanted to get more understanding of what the sort of end outcome was here.
And then we talked about the possibility.
Are there any other avenues of law that they, they indicated that sort of play into these things? And also what it looks like in terms of litigation context.
Versus the administrative investigative context that we deal with.
And then we talked about the possibility.
Are there any other avenues.
Okay.
Thank you.
Apologies.
Go ahead.
Council member.
No, that was helpful.
Thank you.
I have one question for.
The city manager.
It says under fiscal impacts that it will primarily require staff time within the city manager's office.
And I'm just wondering if there was any discussion.
In any discussions to the extent that this was discussed.
Was there a discussion of.
Staff time and budgetary implications.
If we were to move forward with this tonight.
The council member.
It wasn't discussed with me.
Thank you.
No further questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Just a few questions on kind of.
Timeline and process of 2022.
And I'll just note.
I did serve on the path.
This was.
This particular incident was before my service.
The report was published while I was still on the path.
So I had some overlap at the end, but not certainly at the beginning.
So one, one question is around sort of the communication from the city manager.
To the city manager.
I agree.
Like, like there should be no appearance of putting thumbs on the scale or prejudging investigation.
That's why I think what the city attorney mentioned of having a third party investigation was really important and appropriate because.
It's outside of the chain of command.
There's someone else looking at the fact and basis and coming back with, with recommendations.
But.
She did not make a public statement at that point.
Right.
Yeah.
Even the email should now is that this may become public.
So I think there was a recognition for that.
But certainly at the time it was like it was.
Because again, the con I was not on the council.
I've had some conversations with council member.
Refresh myself.
The timeline, but.
You know, this is a point when.
We had a vacancy in the police chief role.
And I think, you know, so the council was faced with a choice, right.
Of like, do we move forward or not move forward? The city manager.
You know, gave kind of her recommendation based on what she had seen to date.
But it certainly didn't affect the commencement of the investigation didn't affect the completion of the investigation.
You know, if the investigation came back with recommendations that said, Hey, the police chief really screwed up and was aware of all of this.
I think the city council very likely would have made a different decision down the road.
And we were still would have been within our rights to do that.
But from the presumption of innocence perspective, right? I mean, these are allegations that were not substantiated.
The city manager had done an initial look.
Granted to your point in the memo, she didn't do a full investigation of her own.
It was just one day between when the allegations were received and when this communication came to council.
But she had some initial inquiries.
Presumption of innocence on the chief, the sense that we needed to hire a police chief, probably some question as to whether the interim chief would have stuck around if we'd left her hanging out there like this for a while.
So there are a lot of factors at play here.
And I think the appropriateness of having a third party doing the investigation, reaching a conclusion on the investigation, coming back to the council and the council is still having an ability to make a decision at the completion of that investigation does feel appropriate.
Also doesn't feel like we were prejudging the results of it because the whole investigation was allowed to proceed.
Did the PAB, I'm trying to do the PAB in terms of its report, making a determination of sort of the chief's involvement, awareness of while she was a captain, you know, at the, at the end of this, what was the PAB's perspective on that question? That wasn't the scope of the policy review.
So that would have been more appropriate for a personnel investigation.
Okay.
Okay.
So I, you know, so I, I, I understand and I agree with the intent in terms of not prejudging investigations and having the appearance that everything is done legitimately.
I do think the city acted, look, there were, like I said, multiple factors at play here.
And so it feels like what was done was appropriate.
And by the way, it doesn't happen all the time.
Most personnel investigations don't involve right.
The potential that you're going to be moving forward, need and move forward on a, on a, on, on hiring a new police chief.
So anyway, it felt like the investigation was allowed to continue.
The personnel process moved as it needed to.
There's a presumption of innocence with respect to the person we're hiring as a police chief, and that could always have been revisited down the road if the investigation had gone a different way.
Anyway, so I guess it's not a question.
It's just a ramble, but I'll have some more comments a little bit later.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Do you have any other examples of commentary that would, you find suspect or should apply to this, this policy you envision? There were some recent statements regarding an officer involved shooting.
The district attorney has recently indicated that they will not charge any of the officers.
But even in that assessment, they indicated that they made no assessment, or they made no conclusions about policy, internal policy violations.
But yet in the local reporting of that, it indicated that the city's position is that there's no wrongdoing.
And again, this is where the area, where we spoke with the city attorney's office, the statements that can be made in that context when there's litigation involved are different from the administrative investigation context.
Obviously the city would want to mitigate any concerns in terms of liability from the litigation perspective, but also just navigating what that means for the internal investigations when there are internal investigations.
Our office is required to toll investigations when there's criminal litigation or civil litigation.
So we're technically still have officer involved shootings under our review that are being told.
Sorry, can you just restate what was the statement and contraposed to the fact that it was based on? That the city's position was it denies any wrongdoing in those officer involved shootings.
And that, again, that's a position that might be appropriate for a litigation perspective, but there's still active administrative investigations.
And we just don't know whether there were any procedural missteps in those officer involved shootings from the policy perspective.
Okay.
But so was, I'm sorry, was the statement made during the PAB investigation of the event or after it was complete? Well, it's still pending.
It's being told right now.
So there's a, there's a active investigation that is being told and these statements are coming out while there's a tolling of these investigations.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
So I guess Mr.
city manager, well, what's your, your read on that this, this scenario? Well, again, we're not commenting on a specifics of an investigation.
Okay.
So we say there's no wrongdoing.
There's no wrongdoing.
It means there's, you're not talking about the investigation that's happening.
I'm not talking about any specifics related to the, to the investigation that's ongoing.
I just don't understand.
I'm sorry.
I don't understand.
So I guess the statement, there's no wrongdoing.
So then we've concluded our, our, our investigation.
There's no out, there's no wrongdoing and the PAB is free to conduct theirs.
I see.
I see.
So, so the C manager is referring to an internal investigation by the, yeah, the DA found that there was no wrongdoing.
I see.
Okay.
And so they're, they're commenting on their own investigation as to your investigation.
Is that what's happening here? Yeah.
And just, I'm not sure that the DA indicated there was no wrongdoing.
I think they indicated they weren't going to charge the officers and they specifically said that they didn't make no conclusions about the policy.
And so I think that has implications.
That's where our arena is.
There's a personnel investigation that is going to assess whether there was a violation of policy.
So for the city as a whole, to make that statement while we're trying to investigate through our administrative process, I think that's where my concern in terms of the conflict of impartiality and potential prejudgments are being made.
Okay.
Thank you.
The DA found that there were no grounds to charge the officers.
Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, if there was something that had been, if there had been wrongdoing, my assumption, my expectation would be that our district attorney would file charges.
So I think it's important to say that.
Are there other questions? Okay.
And is there public comment on this matter? Emily Ragusa from the Berkley scanner.
I will say just this is a complicated issue and I do think it really highlights the challenge of these different bodies.
I covered, I'm a reporter.
I've covered these cases, a lot of policing cases.
And I do recall with the texting, the city completed its investigation.
And I do recall that there was a, there was a public comment on this matter.
I do recall with the texting, the city completed its investigation and did briefly comment on it.
And then the, the PAB investigation was maybe a year or more.
I don't quote me on that, but it took much longer to finish.
So then I think that creates a problem for the public too, in terms of transparency.
And I'm not blaming anyone.
There were a lot of administrative issues and challenges to get all the records and everything, but I'm just saying, had there been no comment from the city for, you know, a year or more, then that really raises its own issue.
And we have this independent body that was, you know, but it's also has to work within the city structure.
I think these are really challenging issues, which is why there's still no regs, you know, permanent regs.
And it's just, these are really important things for the city to figure out.
But I don't think limiting the city's ability to comment is the answer because that really creates a whole other can of worms from the transparency perspective.
Thank you.
Thank you, Carol.
Yeah.
At the risk of offending the police accountability board, because I really believe the police accountability board is very important.
It should exist.
I think they need more training because I've listened to both of these items, number 17 and 18, maybe they need to have more training to put together more persuasive recommendations with more facts.
So they can give you a harder time because in the first case in this, in 17, I was thinking the same thing.
Why didn't they do more research? Why didn't they contact the attorney general's office, et cetera? It seems like all of that could have been done.
But I don't know.
Contact the attorney general's office, et cetera.
It seems like all of that could have been done and they could have made it perhaps a more persuasive argument.
And this a new situation is second situation rather than 18.
I never heard that there was a direct connection, substantial connection that the police chief had to the texting.
And so I'm hearing this tonight.
I agree with Emily.

Segment 5

I just want to say that there should be, the city manager should be able to comment when they're comfortable commenting, and they shouldn't be restrained from doing that because that creates additional transparency issues.
But it seems like there are a lot of facts missing here, and there's speculation, and the Police Accountability Board maybe needs to have more training before they bring recommendations at this level, so that they bring something more substantive here for you to consider and debate.
Thank you.
Carol, with all due respect, we did give him an opportunity to come and to have us work on it more before, and he chose to bring it here this evening, so I have more comments about that, but I want to allow for the rest of public comment if there's anyone online.
We have one speaker online, Della Luna, you should be able to unmute yourself and speak.
Yeah, can you hear me? All right? Yes, I think that this is a good idea.
And I understand that it would be nice.
If there was, if it was more robust, but I don't feel like what people are saying in opposition as if you're somehow restricting the city manager or other city staff from speaking when you're not the city manager could still make statements.
But the statement could be, there's a pending investigation from the Police Accountability Board, you know, so the city manager and other staff can still talk, but they shouldn't be saying things.
We found no evidence of wrongdoing or saying the statements that were brought up.
We're actually very clearly swaying or making, taking aside or clearing anyone of wrongdoing.
And so when someone like the city manager makes a statement like that, it does come across to the public as if that's the official city's perspective.
And so I think that's what the piece that we haven't spoken to is what it looks like when the city manager does make statements like that.
And is the city manager speaking for the city of Berkeley or not? You know, is it that just what the city manager thought in that moment when they saw what the district attorney said, but my point is that I think that it wouldn't be restricting the staff.
They could still speak, but they just have to be more careful with what they say and because they understand the impact that it has when the public reads that and then it would also be acknowledging that there's different parts of the city, which we talk about all the time.
But this is like, actually acknowledging that when you make a broad statement like that, then you're actually taking away the power from another part of the city that's already functioning or independent body, you know, so that's it.
Check.
Thank you.
That was our only raised hand on zoom.
Okay.
Comments from council, starting with council member tap on.
Thank you.
I'm going to try to speak frankly and briefly and warmly or kindly, at least, but, you know, just having having, you know.
Gone through these kinds of items and conversations a few times.
Now, I feel like there is a pattern here, right? Some people don't like the findings of the investigation.
Some people don't like the appointment of the police chief, and then we have to keep re litigating each over and over again.
And I don't think that's the best way to model this kind of configuration that we have here.
Yes, we have independent parts of the city.
Yes, we are all charter officers and that comes with the understanding.
We have to work together to achieve our collective goal.
It doesn't make sense that David cowl would be unable to publish something about a closed investigation in the year 2025.
It doesn't make sense that the city manager would not be able to give an opinion about a higher to the city council.
It doesn't make sense that the city manager would not be able to give an opinion about a higher to the city council through internal communications, whether or not they whether or not they get period and I, you know, I, there's a lot that I expect from this body from having an office and there is so much potential that we have here in this town and I really look forward to the day where we can really put that to use and really get some substantive.
Material things accomplished.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Black.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Madam Mayor.
And thanks again, director for being here.
I want to pick up where councilmember Taplin left off.
I, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Taplin.
I am a former member of the PAB, as we mentioned before, I believe wholeheartedly in the value of police oversight.
We have a great police department because we have great leadership.
We have great officers and we have a great oversight function to make sure that the entire process continues to work.
And I believe that.
And most cities envy, I think, the structure we have, maybe not all of the way it works necessarily every day, but the fact that we have a great department and we have we have public confidence in the department and we have a process for addressing concerns and problems, whether on the personnel side or on the policy side.
So, especially when that oversight function is focused and targeted on the key goals, which is assuring accountability and personnel complaints, as well as commending officers that do good work.
That's part of the PAB's role, providing meaningful feedback on potential policy changes, which continues to happen, weighing in on the proposed BPT budget, which board member Wilson and I did a couple of years ago.
That's all part of the charter and those are all useful functions.
And as Council Member Taplin mentioned, Vice Mayor Taplin, there's so much good work still to be done in these coming months, just right immediately ahead of us.
There's standing up the new early intervention system, which I think is supposed to go online in Q4 and the PAB and the Department of Working hand in hand on that.
And that's an important mechanism to ensure, again, trust and credibility, identifying problem officers before they become problems.
Which, again, we can really lead on.
We've had a discussion up here, a robust discussion about concerns and questions about flock cameras.
I, again, believe in the value of surveillance, but are there better vendors? Are there other technology options? That's a whole area that is great potential to be investigated.
We would, I think, all be very interested if there was another vendor to look at another vendor.
That's an area that is ripe for further work, timely work.
Council Member Vice Mayor Taplin just introduced a new policy on drone usage, which is going to come to the Public Safety Committee in the coming weeks.
And I expect that will be a several month process of reviewing and considering how do we use them? What are the limits that are appropriate there? There's so much work that we can do together on that.
And finally, we just drafted an item that's coming to Council in the next couple of weeks, which is, you know, it's been a four year process to just try and enact the permanent regulations with the PAB.
This is a multi, this is not blaming or pointing a finger at anybody, but between the City, between the Department, between the Police Association, between the PAB, it's a complex negotiation, but it's been four years that we've been operating with interim regulations, not permanent regulations.
And we need to bring that to a conclusion.
So there are so many things, as Vice Mayor Taplin mentioned, that, like, where I think the PAB's role is really critical and really vital and could play an important, provide an important voice in these conversations.
And I really hope that that's where we can sort of get to, because I think we welcome that participation in that healthy debate and discussion.
So I know we'll move forward and dispense, we'll kind of reach a decision on how we want to move forward with item 18.
But I hope we can move past these and then get back to the substantive work where the PAB can really add a ton of value.
And I hope they will.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you.
You know, I also served on the forerunner to the PAB, the Police Review Commission.
It, of course, was less robust.
It was less independent.
We didn't have an executive like yourself.
However, we did work.
We did great work.
We, you know, we, I was there after the first, the first riots or dangerous protests hit the South Side in Shattuck after the young man was murdered.
And St.
Louis and his name.
And so, you know, we reviewed thousands of hours of tapes of footage and we come up with new rules around crowd control and so much stand today.
And it was very incredible.
It was an incredible process.
Learned a lot.
So, but looking back on that era, my colleagues and I on that board, we were so diligently focused on combing through that material and doing our best to create some new rules or some process to make it easier to be safe in Berkeley.
And so I think that you, in particular, are faced with a bit of an existential crisis.
As we heard tonight, we're unpacking this statement.
The city has investigation that we rely on and you have yours and, you know, argue with us or you're not separate.
What's the deal? Who can, who speaks to what? When? I think that they'll become more clear to you when you finish the task on your plate.
Because, you know, it appears as if you're, we're in danger of sort of splitting our mind and focusing on too many things that set the task at hand, which is really accomplish the task before you.
And I want to say, again, I want to echo my comment, my colleague, Mr.
Black of these comments, your work is super important.
You know, it's been 50 years of police, civil and police oversight in the city of Berkeley.
I think one of the, one of the oldest in the country.
And as a result of our sustained attention and your sustained attention, we now have the best data around, our pullover data, use of force data.
This, this police force has rapidly, you know, in years of term has dramatically changed and evolved its practices to be much more fair, much more resolutely aligned with the Constitution.
And so your work's important to keep that going and keep us growing.
So I admonish you to please, you know, for these items, let's, let's take it to the commission.
Let's unpack it, like, for instance, determine if the city manager does have a policy around around commenting on on civil and civil affairs of employees and whatnot.
And the city attorney mentioned as well, maybe you could discuss that at the committee and see where that light tied into it.
And if it doesn't work, I mean, you can make your own comment once you're once you have finished your investigation.
But I think right now you're better off focusing on getting through step one.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are there other comments from my council members? Okay, I want to make a motion, but let me just have some, I have some comments.
First, I want to make, I want to first say I'm really disappointed that this came the way that it did.
I find it incredibly frustrating, given that I know my colleagues and I were really trying to do that work, as Carol said, of coaching you on how to bring something that could be successful forward.
And I have found time and time again that even if we offer support and try to help to to change the way that the things are being brought forward so that they can be successful, it just feels like that you're in constant opposition with what we're recommending to you.
And it's not because we don't want to be supportive of the work that you do, because I do feel like that's how it's being taken.
I want to make sure it's clear that I have been very supportive of the work of PAB.
I'm very supportive of your office.
I want to see you be successful and bringing things without the collaboration and communication with the relevant city staff is just not the way to move forward.
So, I really want to express my disappointment in the way that this came forward.
It's also really interesting to me that no one from PAB came to speak in support of this tonight.
I think that that's worth mentioning.
And I want to say that I wanted to move this forward because I do think it is important that that communication is clear that we are clear about what is allowed and not allowed to say.
And so with my item, I'm moving to refer the item 18 to the to the city attorney's office with direction to prepare a memorandum to staff and council addressing the applicable legal doctrines related to due process, pending investigations and other related matters.
And let's take the role.
On the recommendation, I'm sorry, on the motion, I just ask, can you just repeat it just because it was a couple of components.
Sure, so basically, the idea is that there are already things that exist and so the memorandum would be it's a direction to the city attorney's office to prepare a memorandum to staff and council addressing the applicable legal doctrines related to due process, pending investigations and other related matters.
Okay, so it's not asking for any new policy, but just restating existing policy exactly a memo with the current policies that exist that dictate this issue.
Thank you.
Thank you for the clarification.
On the motion council member Casawani yes.
Tapeline yes.
Bartlett yes.
Trayco hi.
O'Keefe yes.
Blackaby yes.
Unipar yes.
Humbert yes.
Mary she yes.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for your presentation.
We have you have a response.
I appreciate the feedback.
I've been here 3 years.
I've been consistently asking for performance evaluations.
So to be publicly given a performance evaluation like this your expression of your disappointment with me.
I don't think it's appropriate and I think we should have a closed session conversation if there's other concerns about my performance, but I do appreciate this conversation that we're having here and what the expectation of council is, but I just want to note that I think it's important for our office to be able to perform to the expectations of council is to have clear direction metrics and conversation about where we are on performance.
So I appreciate the feedback.
And as I have let you know via email that we are working on getting consultants to do evaluations of all of our charter officers.
So that will be coming.
All right.
Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda? There are no hands raised on Zoom.
Is there a motion? Oh, sorry.
Did you have a public comment? No.
Regular public comment on anything not on the agenda.
Okay.
Greetings, Madam Mayor and greetings, council members and greetings to the public.
I just wanted to know if there's any programs out there where a single homeless individual can like set up his tent like in the backyard or something like that if they're quiet and clean.
I'm not aware of any of those programs that currently exist, but it's a good idea if anyone's got a backyard that they're open to that.
Thank you.
Okay.
Is there a motion to adjourn? Second.
Any opposition? Okay.
Meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.
Recording stopped.