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Segment 1

Mayor Wengraf, are you on the Zoom? Yes, I am.
And I believe Councilor Taplin is as well and we'll be requesting that we allow them to participate under AB 2449.
Recording in progress.
So all the all members are present.
And so let's begin.
Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, October 29, 2024 regular meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
The first item on the agenda is roll call.
If the City Clerk can please call the roll.
Okay, Councilmember Kesarwani.
Here.
Taplin.
Present.
Bartlett.
Here.
Tregub.
Present.
Councilmember Hahn is absent this evening.
Vice Mayor Wengraf.
Present.
Councilmember Lunaparra.
Here.
Humbert.
Present.
And Mayor Arreguin.
Present.
Okay.
Okay.
Councilor Taplin would like to participate tonight under the provisions of Assembly Bill 2449.
So Mr.
Clerk, let's do that procedure.
Okay.
Councilmember Taplin is participating remotely under the provisions of AB, the Brown Act as amended by AB 2449 under the emergency circumstances.
Exception.
A quorum of the Council is participating in person at the notice meeting location.
And Councilmember Taplin has notified the Council of his need to participate remotely.
Councilmember Taplin, please provide a general description of the circumstances relating to your need to appear remotely for this meeting.
I am still under the weather.
Okay.
And please disclose if there are any individuals 18 years of age or older present in the room from which you are participating.
There are none.
Okay.
And Councilmember Taplin will participate through both audio and visual technology.
And to allow Councilmember Taplin to use the emergency circumstances provision, the Council must vote to authorize that.
I move to allow Councilor Taplin to participate under AB 2449 for tonight's meeting.
Second.
Second by Traigub.
Roll call, please.
Councilmember Kessler-Wanning.
Yes.
Taplin.
Barclay.
Yes.
Traigub.
Aye.
Weingraf.
Yes.
Zafira.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mayor Erickson.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
So we'll now proceed to ceremonial matters.
Councilor Traigub, are you ready to present the proclamation? I am.
I would like to present a proclamation honoring the life and legacy of Al Weingrab.
Whereas Al Weingrab, born in 1943, was a pioneer and a passionate advocate for energy democracy, actively contributing to the formation and guidance of vital organizations, including the Local Clean Energy Alliance, the Reclaim Our Power Utility Justice Campaign, and the Energy Democracy Project, all of which strive for transformative reform in the energy system.
And whereas, throughout his life, and despite significant health challenges, Al stayed on the leading edge of the movement, becoming a highly knowledgeable spokesperson, authoring multiple influential articles, as well as his book, Energy Democracy, which highlights the necessity of equity within our energy systems.
And whereas, Al Weingrab dedicated his life to the pursuit of equity and energy justice, founding the California Alliance for Community Energy, and receiving recognition as a lifelong energy justice champion in April 2023, shortly before his passing.
And whereas, Al's extensive writings will be preserved at the UMass Amherst Robert S.
Cox Special Collections and University Archives, providing future generations with invaluable insights into his multifaceted activism, documenting over 50 years of dedication to labor, human rights, and climate justice movements.
Whereas, the establishment of the Al Weingrab Justice Fund will ensure that his work remains accessible to scholars, activists, and the public, facilitating the digitization of his writings and promoting engagement with his enduring contributions to social justice.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Berkeley City Council hereby honors and celebrates the life and legacy of Al Weingrab, recognizing his extraordinary commitment to justice, equity, and the democratization of energy systems, and pledges to continue his vital work in the spirit of his lifelong advocacy, signed October 29th, 2024.
I think we have Sandra here to accept this proclamation.
And I just wanted to thank the mayor for giving me the opportunity to do this, joining the city of Oakland that also did a proclamation.
Al was someone who inspired me to change my career to pursue a path towards energy, justice, and democracy in all of its forms, and really honored to be able to do this for Al and his family and friends today.
Presente.
Presente.
As you're going to physically hand the proclamation, just say that I also had the pleasure of working with Al.
I was Berkeley's first representative on East Bay Community Energy, now AVA Community Energy, and worked with Al in the creation of East Bay Community Energy, and then in the implementation of our local community energy provider.
And he was a very strong advocate for local development, for making sure that we ensure that there are community benefits, creating good, green, clean tech jobs, and local investment in our communities.
And I'm really grateful and appreciate his many contributions to the East Bay Community.
And I too want to just give praise to Al.
He was a great guy.
I served with him on a board, and he's the reason why equity was baked in from the beginning to East Bay Clean Energy, now known as AVA.
A wonderful person.
Great.
Thank you, Councilor Chayga, for doing this recognition tonight.
That completes our ceremonial matters, so we'll now go to City Manager comments.
No comments tonight, Mr.
Mayor.
Okay, thank you.
So I'd like to ask unanimous consent that we do a special public comment period for employee unions.
Hearing no objection, no to the action.
And so we're going to now provide five minutes to officially designated representatives of our City of Berkeley employee unions, and each union will have five minutes.
And so is there a representative for AFSCME Local 1? And then I'll ask if there's a representative for SEIU CSU PTRLA after that.
Thank you, Mr.
Mayor and City Council members.
Thank you for allowing me to be here today to speak for the member that I represent that's sitting behind me.
My name is Winston Ingram.
I'm AFSCME Council 57 PEU Local 1 president.
I'm here today because our members feel as though the district does recognize and understand that having a COLA that is reasonable or that is maybe even more than reasonable is definitely doable because the city has done that, but not to the disciplines that sits behind me, not to the members that sit behind me.
Again, we live in a world where we know that inflation is upon us.
We know that.
Everybody recognizes that.
So we have to have our pay.
We have to have our COLAs reflect that because if inflation goes up, if it doesn't, it's diminished this amount.
This doesn't mean anything anymore or it starts to devalue it.
And then when you devalue people's pay or workers' pay, some, they feel devalued.
We talk about DEI, having diversity, quality, inclusivity.
I don't feel inclusive if I'm not getting the same thing as other disciplines that's around me that are getting.
That should trickle down to us as well.
And that's what we're asking.
And we're saying that also that, look, our pay is our pay, but most of us can't live in the city that we work in.
We can't even live in the cities that surround us.
We're getting further and further out.
So my quality of life is diminishing.
But the quality of service that our city is giving is not.
They won't do that.
They won't diminish or reduce the amount of services that they're getting this, giving the city.
I won't allow it and they won't allow it.
But the city has to recognize that.
They have, you have to.
Because if you don't, you're sending a message of don't be so good at what you do.
Even though they're going to continue to do it, but you're sending the wrong message here.
This is doable.
We can get to something that is fair.
Look, we say fair wages.
For me, I want a living wage because a fair wage is based on interpretation to me or how you feel.
A living wage is based on economics.
It's based on, you know, what is going on in our economy at the time.
And that's what we need to focus on because I know for a fact these people, these workers, these employees of yours behind me are hard workers and they love this city.
And they have a relationship with each and every one of you in this city of, we're invested too of not only who's here, we want to keep who's here.
We want to keep the people that's doing a great job for this city here, but we don't want them to go to San Francisco or our other cities, our neighboring cities.
We want to keep them here, but we also want to attract good talent or great talent here as well.
There's something in that.
That means something.
Longevity, that staying power, that we devalue that too quickly these days.
We like to seem to see turnover and want to have the same services rendered.
That's not a good formula.
That is a bad formula.
So I'm asking you today to again, maybe sharpen those pencils, oil up those adding machines and come up with a fair cola for your city employees.
Thank you.
My name is Amanda Montes and I'm a vice president for AFSCME Local 1 and I'm a proud member of our public works team and a proud resident of Berkeley.
We are making progress with Local 1's negotiations, but one of the things that we're having a problem with is that the city is still refusing to meet us on colas, on retroactive pay and in linking our salaries to CPI and AMI and we need that to be able to retain our staff and to attract our staff and employees.
We need that to be able to retain our staff and to attract our staff in a competitive ecosystem that we're living in right now.
The city surrounding us are definitely beating out the city of Berkeley in multiple ways and today to prove to you all that we are very serious in trying to get to yes with the city, we decided to withdraw two of our proposals, parental leave and our lactation policy and we have very serious hopes that this council will take both of those up as ordinances that the county of San Francisco has done and those are the ordinances that make San Francisco a more competitive employer, not only for just their city staff, but also for every single non-profit and for-profit employer of 50 or more people.
They have to follow the kind of ordinance that demonstrates that San Francisco is progressive and we need Berkeley to do the same thing.
Please demonstrate that you are a progressive place and I brought my daughter here today because she's the person who I was stuck in a closet lactating for with three other women at the same time in a closet that was converted into a lactation space in 2180 Milvia.
That is the same closet that is still there to this day that forces three or more women to be in the same place because that building only has one closet that's been converted to a lactation space and the city had the gall to tell us that we had to use our COLA funds to be able to retrofit our facilities in 2180 Milvia and that we had to pay for lactation spaces to be retrofitted in the city of Berkeley not only in 2180 Milvia, but also in 1947 Center Street which is another closet which is used by HR as a storage facility.
And the day that we were negotiating and presenting that as a joint proposal, our negotiating team brought the city back to that closet and showed them that there was, in fact, fruit snacks stashed in there for the next HR event that they were planning.
And women are expected to go in there and pump.
And we have a policy right now in the city that says you only have your break to do that.
That's 15 minutes to walk from whatever floor you're on down to where you need to be in your closet to find a refrigerator that is not nearby to stash those things there, to clean everything that you have and get back to your desk in 15 minutes which is far fewer time out of time that is medically necessary to exercise your rights as a parent in this city, as an employee and as a resident.
And so we ask you to please ensure that we did the right thing by taking those off of the table.
Help us to negotiate in good faith.
We withdrew those because we have faith in our council.
Show us that we were right.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay, I want to give SEIU 10 to 1, CSU PTRLA Time to present.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
My name is Jose Guerrero.
I am a worker at the Berkeley Public Library and I am on the board of CSU PTRLA.
CSU PTRLA and Local 1 are here in solidarity about the need for a fair contract for city workers.
We have been out of contracts since the end of June and have sought transparency and fairness in negotiations.
Berkeley's communities deserve quality services which means ensuring that workers' needs are met.
These contract negotiations are vital for ensuring recruitment, retention and conditions for workers are optimal for the crucial services we provide.
We are planners, parks workers, inspectors, health workers and, you know, do everything from caring for children to caring for the elderly.
These are the same workers that have had a 93% strike authorization vote with unprecedented participation among members.
Our workers feel disrespected with how negotiations are going.
We are part of this community even if we can't all afford to live in Berkeley.
Berkeley has a chance to lead this contract cycle by supporting for city workers what some in the city already have.
Help us ensure the people who make the city work can stay.
Now I'm going to pass things on to Jocelyn Goldsmith, the senator.
Good evening.
My name is Jocelyn.
I'm a public health worker and COPE coordinator for our chapter.
I'm just going to speak off the cuff.
First of all, hearing Amanda speak about her experience pumping in a closet, I actually had tears in my eyes and felt like my stress hormones rising as somebody who supports and advocates for lactating people here in Berkeley.
It made me feel sick.
This council just two weeks ago, I think, presented a proclamation recognizing August as Breastfeeding Chestfeeding Month.
And so by doing that, I'm here to hold you accountable to that.
We need that ordinance and we need our ordinance to be as good or better as San Francisco's.
And another area where I'm here to hold this council accountable is on Palestine and making a statement about the genocide.
Our local has passed a ceasefire resolution in December, divestment resolution in July.
Our executive board has just moved to the next step on our divestment and they are preparing to actually pull our funds out of private prisons, fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing.
Part of our resolutions is that we need to strongly urge elected officials to follow our lead and again, hold you accountable.
It is unacceptable that it has been over a year and there's been no movement of this.
This is falling, falling, falling further behind as we are moving farther and farther ahead.
And we're not going to stop demanding that you say something and do something over a year into a genocide.
I'll pass it on to my next sibling.
Thank you.
My sibling asked me to do a math problem like Congress member Kate, Katie.
So the rent's too high, but imagine this.
So we're going to do some math, you know how she does with Congress.
So on average your one bedroom is $2100.
On a cheap eating budget, maybe $200 for food.
Miscellaneous, you have to buy toilet paper and other things.
Utilities for $40 to $100.
Gas if you have a car.
All these expenses add up.
So what have the COLA's been? What do you think? Let's look at that, shall we? Workers in 2021 received a 3% COLA.
Council and Mayor 64%.
2022.
What did the workers receive for a cost of living adjustment? 3%.
What did the Council and Mayor receive in 2022? 5%.
2023 workers 1%.
2023 Council and Mayor 13.8%.
And we are now waiting to hopefully negotiate a contract to catch up on COLA's.
We are so far behind that as many of the people here that work for the city that can't afford to live here, I'm one of the few lucky ones.
I think we're less than 5%.
I'd love to see the study.
How many, to the city manager perhaps, study how many of the employees here actually live in Berkeley.
Raise your hand.
A handful, literally six or seven.
And they're commuting from long distances and time away from their family.
They have cost of living needs, but the cost of living needs are not being met.
Please pursue a fair living wage as was stated, which includes COLA's.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Emma Coleman and I am a Berkeley resident and City of Berkeley employee.
I work at the Public Library.
So I have just a message from the contract negotiation team.
Oh, sorry.
Several of you are asking for our votes right now.
We are asking for rent money.
We're asking for money to feed our kids.
We're asking for the same dental coverage as our managers.
We're asking for first aid certificates for child care providers so that they can give Berkeley kids more than a band-aid for cuts and scrapes.
And we ask that you stand with Berkeley workers in our fight for a fair contract.
Many of you run on being pro-labor.
Now is the time to stand up as leaders so that workers can get back to work and continue providing the services that we come out every day to do.
That's it.
Thank you.
Are there any other representatives of any other bargaining units here? Okay, I just want to thank all of our incredible city employees for being here today.
And we are hearing what you're saying.
So we'll proceed now to public comment on non-agenda matters.
We'll select five in-person speakers.
We'll go to five speakers on Zoom.
This is to address anything not on tonight's published agenda.
While the clerk is selecting cards, if you're on Zoom and wish to speak to an item on the agenda, please raise your virtual hand at this time to be added to the speaker's queue.
Once again, if you're on Zoom and wish to speak to an item on the agenda, please raise your hand.
Okay, we have Jeff Jensen, Ron Nevels, Gordon Gilmore, Ilana A., and Taylor Lancelot.
Come up in any order.
Okay, your name was selected.
Please come forward.
And as you approach the podium, if you can please state your name for the record.
And it's not given that we have one.
It's given that we have a lot of speakers.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
My name is Jeff Jensen with the Building and Safety Division of the Planning Department, and I'm going to cede my time to Stacey Rutherford.
Hello, my name is Stacey Rutherford.
I'm a homeowner in Berkeley and an Associate Civil Engineer in the Capital Projects Division for the Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront Department.
I've been working in the city for a little over two and a half years.
When I first joined, my team was fully staffed.
That only lasted for a couple of months, and since then, my team has been understaffed and at some times, it was only me and my supervisor.
It's been difficult to hire and retain staff.
No one is on the eligible hire list.
Our work is fun and exciting, but engineers like to do their research and they see other cities have a more competitive package.
As an employee and homeowner, I'm here in support of a fair contract and equity studies for engineers to help hire and retain.
As a homeowner, I'm struggling to vote because there are a lot of measures which would bring great improvements to our city, but I'm worried there will be no staff to execute any of it.
Please support a fair contract so we can hire and retain the staff to do the work our city needs.
Thank you.
I'm Ron Nevels in the engineering division and I cede my time to Nicole Adams.
Good evening.
My name is Nicole Adams.
I work in the transportation division in public works.
Today, I would just like to share the difficulties of being understaffed as we have four now on board consultants to help us improve and continue on with our ongoing programs.
One of those are traffic calming that has been on cue for the past year now and we now have four consultants to help us keep that going.
It should not be that way.
We should have enough engineers to keep these projects going to improve our city.
Additionally, as I've been here with the city of Berkeley, I have seen people hired at the same time as me who leave for better high paying opportunities in nearby cities.
It should not be that way.
City of Berkeley is the example.
We want people to look at us and see the improvements in everything we're doing.
So, that's all I'd like to share is just the fact that people have been leaving quicker than I have been here for the year and a half.
Hi, my name is Gordon Gilmore.
Can you all hear me all right? I'm speaking as a part of the Berkeley Homeless Union, one of the co-founders.
And I'm going to keep this short because I want to see the rest of my time.
One of the where do we go as primary demands at this point in regard to the process encampments that are being set up throughout town is that you enter into dialogue with the Berkeley Homeless Union.
We can be reached at berkeley.homeless.union at gmail.com.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Thank you.
The rest of my time goes to Stacey.
Hi there.
I'm Ilana Auerbach and I am going to cede my time to Stacey Smith.
And please accept the union's demands, the worker unions, the unhoused unions.
Good evening, council.
I'm a little rusty at this, but I want to give it a shot.
So about two months ago, I was in a hotel room for about a month binging on Bloomberg and they have a new tagline, Context Changes Everything.
And so about this new thing with the governor and the homeless sweeps and things like that, just have a couple of thoughts.
And I was thinking about the 24 billion that the legislature put up, took to the governor and said, we want to figure out what happened because in learning theory, the quicker the feedback, the quicker the learning.
If you don't get feedback about what you've done wrong or right, then you don't learn and you're not able to progress.
So then the governor said, no, no, no, no.
Let's not learn about what happened with the 24 billion.
So then he says, here's some money, do the sweeps.
The context won't allow us to really do the job that we need to do if we don't know what happened with the money.
Even though Supreme Court says, yes, do it.
It doesn't mean you have to do it.
I think this provides an opportunity for us to learn what happened, what we learned, what went wrong so then we could come together and then move forward.
Thank you.
Hello, I'm Taylor Lancelot.
I work for the Parks Rec Waterfront Division.
I'm going to cede my time to Adrian Murray.
Hello, counsel.
I'm a long-term employee.
People who are getting a little bit less lately.
Been here over 20 years.
I've seen the economy go up and go down.
What I have seen, which I did not see before, is we have places, we have employment opportunities which go out.
The last two we've had, we've had one person apply for these jobs.
The union has shown equity studies.
The city managers put it into question.
They're still reviewing it.
The reality is people are going to other cities.
Do we have equity studies? Hard facts.

Segment 2

is what's happening.
People live far away.
They can go somewhere else.
They can get better.
We just want to compete with other cities.
Berkeley used to do.
When I started here, we were at the front of things.
Now we don't have time.
Council members work hard.
We look at new bond measures being floated, more work.
Who's going to do that work? We're going to do that work.
We will do it and we will do our best, but we don't, we need something better than that.
We need to be equal with other people.
You need to respect us.
We're working hard.
Give us a chance and just bring us up to what other people are doing.
That's all we're asking.
Thank you.
Okay.
We'll now go to the three raised hands on Zoom.
Mr.
Clerk, you select two additional in-person speakers.
There's only three Zoom speakers.
Okay.
Blair Beekman, please go ahead.
Hi, Blair Beekman.
I guess I just wanted to thank you again for the 3.30 special meeting we had on re-imagined issues.
You had a lot of foresight after the events of George Floyd issues to want to introduce the re-imagined process to the community of Berkeley.
It was kind of awe-inspiring in a way.
It really invited all of the community to really address our issues of our time, what we have to really be working on.
I think you kind of tried to do the same thing after October 7th events.
There was a lot of clamor on the importance of proclamations that we need to make to Israel and to the war going on in the Mideast at this time.
But Berkeley tried to settle down and ask questions about accountability with their own public safety practices at the time.
That was a remarkable step.
You asked the community, what are we doing with our tech? What are we doing with our public safety? How can that be a more accountable process? We ended up working on some surveillance things a bit.
That's really important.
You guys took a great step.
As we work on peace at the local level, then we can ask the larger questions of a dialogue for the future of this nation and this earth, basically.
Good luck in continuing openness and accountability at the local level.
That builds peace.
Then we ask the questions of the world, can you work towards these good goals as well? That builds our good to each other.
Thank you.
Our next speaker, the Zoom name is iPhone.
iPhone, you should not be able to speak.
Good evening.
My name is Monica Jones and I am the chair of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission.
I just want to convey some challenges that we've been having serving on the commission.
In our attempts to advise the council specifically, we have invited department heads, city staff and service providers to come to meetings, share training protocols and expenditures.
We haven't gotten a lot of responses.
Sometimes people send letters in lieu of showing up in person.
That limits what information we can get from them.
I believe that the city should host public workshops specific to the department budgets, because that's a big issue with what people want to know where the money is being spent at.
Also, host a no-cost grant workshop for the public.
These are things I participated in in other cities that I've lived in.
I've been in Berkeley since 2014 and I've served on the Labor Commission and now the Mental Health Commission.
My observation is the city appears to be unstable in that there have been departures of top administrators, city council resignations and high vacancies in the mental health agency specifically.
We serve because we care and one thing that would help bring our membership numbers up is if we could have the option, like the city council does, to participate via Zoom.
That's the end of my comment.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is a caller with the number 211.
Please press star six to unmute.
Hi.
Thank you very much.
I was happy to see you all tonight.
I couldn't keep in the meeting, so I'm just talking on Zoom.
Really, we have to be all concerned about the deaths of all of these hundreds of kids, children, women and men, innocent, civilians in Gaza.
It is not fair.
We have no choice what part in the health will come to this world.
It could be the one going right now.
All of us have to do the best we can to ask peace.
Also, what is happening is not good for Israel.
Israel now has the lowest point as a nation in history.
Netanyahu was going to go to prison and he said his whole thing.
The whole thing was a fraud.
October 7th was an inside job by Netanyahu and the idiots of Hamas went along with him, not knowing the public.
As far as Berkeley, a great town, I've been in Berkeley for 60 years and we should all of us do the best we can to make it even greater.
The business in hand, we need everybody to show that as the article I gave you today, good article from Duverc about our business.
Let us support it.
Let's support all of the small business in Berkeley.
Let us show to the whole Bay Area, who are a great town, great business, business support.
Thank you.
Have a very good night.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Okay.
Our last speakers in person are Adrian Mary.
Adrian Mary here.
Okay.
Sure.
You're welcome to.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Adrian Mary, Engineering Department.
Again, talking about hard facts, the 33% union looked at that.
We gave our numbers.
I've seen the economy go up and down over my 20 years here with the city of Berkeley, but over this last five years, I have struggled.
It shouldn't be like that.
I like working here.
I like working for the people.
I think I do a very good job.
All my colleagues do a great job.
That 33%, we've given you evidence that shows that's how far behind we are.
Don't just give us a low amount.
Try to get us back up again.
That's what we're doing.
We're giving you some real information and we're presenting it to the city manager's office and it's just being rebutted.
What else can we do other than show you hard figures? Again, I'll come back to this thing with bond measures.
Our Office of Engineering and Transportation, we've increased with T1 the amount of work we're going to do by two or three times.
We have the same amount of staff.
We need more staff.
We're not going to be able to attract them.
I know you understand this.
You're out there serving your public.
They want these things.
We want to deliver it, but to be able to do it, we need to build a strong team.
We've got some great, great people.
We've got a lot of young, great people.
I want to keep them.
Thank you.
I'm going to address some of the items that the Commission on the Status of Women has brought forward that are still not being addressed.
First, the public safety escorts passed by you unanimously with great enthusiasm and it was going to be in the budget is Tier 2.
Hopefully, it'll move up to Tier 1.
Public safety for women is important.
The Sex Trafficking Task Force, it was referred in the Agenda Committee to Health, Life, Enrichment in June and it has not been addressed at any meeting.
It wasn't addressed at the July meeting.
The September one was canceled because of recess.
October was Indigenous Peoples Day.
November is Veterans Day.
And so, this issue is not being addressed as it should be.
It is a problem in Berkeley.
SB 1343, the report that we sent in, has still gone unaddressed for seven months, hasn't had a companion report for staff.
I addressed, I will conclude shortly, I addressed domestic violence, gender-based violence earlier.
The staff is coming up with their conclusions that are not incorporating what the community is saying and what the domestic violence is saying.
And last, I want to finish is we will have something coming to you on housing, which has never been more timely, that was actually passed a few months ago, but things don't seem to be moving forward anywhere.
And that is that homeowners that are likely to be exploited, which are older homeowners, particularly women and also minorities, need education provided by the city to protect them from exploitation by appraisers, speculators, and mortgage lenders, etc.
Something that's very prevalent happening, and this is really timely at this point when these new housing proposals are coming forward.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay, that completes public comment on non-agent matters.
Thank you all for coming tonight.
We do need to proceed to the consent calendar, and let me make some suggested changes to the consent calendar.
Items 21, 22, and 23 all came out of policy committee, and I'd like to suggest that we move item 21 A and B, 22 A and B, and 23 to the consent calendar to approve the policy committee recommendation.
Is there any objection to that? I hear no objection.
Items 21 A and B, 22 A and B, and 23 will now be on the consent calendar.
If you wish to speak to those items, we'll take your comments.
We get to the consent calendar, and it's mainly, you know, referring some of these concepts to various policy committees in the budget process so they can be further considered.
Thank you, colleagues.
Okay, Councilor Taplin.
Thank you.
On item 20, I would like to be recorded as contributing $500.
Thank you.
I was wondering if the vice mayor had room to add me as a co-sponsor.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, and those are my comments.
Vice Mayor Weingraf.
Yes, thank you.
Well, I hope everybody had an opportunity to listen to the song about our rose garden.
I put a link into the item, and it's a lot of fun to listen to.
This request is for funds to help Alexis Hart, who's a native-born Berkeleyan, finish up a short film about the rose garden, which, as many of you know, was a product of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, and this short film is part of a larger project about WPA projects around the country, but Berkeley is very, very fortunate to have several WPA projects right here at home, so I will be donating $500 to this effort.
They're very close to their budget to getting the money they need to complete it, and I encourage those of you who are here tonight to also make donations, and those are my comments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilor Schoenke? I thank you so much.
I would like to contribute $100 from my discretionary account towards Vice Mayor Wancraft's item 20, and I wanted to maybe ask the mayor for input or others, but around item 23, could we possibly move it to consent with the policy committee's recommendation? That was what I asked unanimous consent for.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought it was 2021.
So I'm assuming you're okay with that? Yes, I am more than okay with that.
Thank you.
All right, Council Member Humbert, then Lunapar, then Bartlett.
Yes, thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
I would also like to contribute some money, $500, from my district discretionary account for the important documentary film described in item 20, Your Rose Garden.
Really interesting to learn, and I didn't know this, that The Rose Garden was a WPA project, and I'm just a huge admirer of the work of the WPA.
There's some really cool buildings in Teton too, so thank you, and let's see if I have anything else.
I think that's it.
Thank you.
Council Member Lunapar.
Thank you.
I would like to contribute $150 to Vice Mayor Wancraft's item 20.
Thank you for bringing that to our attention, and I also want to thank staff for all the work that you do, and I want to thank SEIU and 1021 and Local 1 for sharing your stories and perspectives here today.
You make our city run, and you deserve better.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you.
I'd like to contribute $350 to The Rose Garden item 20.
My parents were married there, so make it $500, and that's it.
Thank you.
Council Member Kastelwani.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Mayor.
I wanted to just note that I'm really pleased that we can award the $400,000 for addressing food insecurity in Berkeley to the Berkeley Food Network.
This was an item I had put forward, and I'm pleased to see the results of that, that we have a recipient of those RFP funds, and then I also wanted to just note the Housing Trust Fund recommendations for the Berkeley Unified School District Workforce Housing Project in District 1, which we are very pleased to see and look forward to breaking ground on for teacher housing, as well as the St.
Paul Terrace Project, and I will also like to donate $100 to The Rose Garden film, item number 20.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Any other comments on the consent calendar? Okay, the consent calendar is as published, except that we're moving item 21 A and B from the Commission on Aging, Achieve the Goals of the 2018 Berkeley Age-Friendly Action Plan, moving that to the consent calendar to approve the policy committee recommendation, which is, so for the item, well, to the City Manager for evaluation of the Age-Friendly Action Plan and their recommendations.
Item 22 A and B is on consent as well, and item 23 is on consent, and that is referring that to the FY26 budget process, so there is no action calendar.
So we'll start with any in-person speakers on the consent calendar.
Please come forward.
So it seems interesting how every time the meetings keeps getting shorter and shorter with your salaries and your increased COLAs.
You need to give fair contracts to your employees, honor your employees, respect your employees, and do fair funding for the Black Repertory Theater.
You know, that's, you need to give them the money that you owe them.
Lactating employee ordinance, come on, now that is so pathetic that you do that to your employees.
I can't even believe it, and you should have participatory budgeting, and Jovanca for State Senate, and we know that the current person running against Jovanca has rolled back eviction protections, has allowed rent hikes, refused to bargain in good faith with City employees.
They just testified to that.
That's a true fact, and no on the recall for Pamela Price.
Thank you.
Hi, good evening.
Ilana Auerbach.
Thank you so much for the money for the Berkeley Food Network, and we need more than food.
We need shelter.
We need a sanctioned encampment.
There are encampments, there are people, thousands of, one thousand people who live on our streets, and the tents are popping up everywhere.
As you all can see, Ohlone Park, which I'm grateful for that these people have tents now.
So we need to be able to create a sanctioned encampment where they can get their basic needs met, and we need to make sure that there's a lot of hate that's being spewed at our unhoused neighbors.
So you all need to know about that, and it needs to stop, because public safety includes our unhoused neighbors, okay.
There was one, oh, the public safety also includes you all reviewing the Police Accountability Board's TechSkate report and recommendations from last July.
Yes, Rashi, you will please agendize and schedule a meeting for that report.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker, please.
Mayor, Council, City Manager, staff.
Hello, my name is Andrew Crispin.
I'm the Executive Director at the Berkeley Food Network.
I am here to speak on item number five of the consent calendar.
Berkeley Food Network is happy to have been the recipient of this contract to address food insecurity in Berkeley.
We are delighted to be working with the City to take a systematic approach to addressing food insecurity and resolving it once for all.
Last year, we provided over two million pounds of food to residents in the East Bay, of which 2,400 of those households were Berkeley households.
This contract will allow us to expand our mobile pantry network, deepen our partnerships with organizations, and ensure the community has access to food.
So thank you all so much.
We're looking forward to getting to work.
Thank you.
Hello, Mayor, Council, City staff.
My name is Pam Gray and I'm the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors at the Berkeley Food Network, and we're very grateful for the City contract authorizing us to provide food assistance to very low and low-income households.
There's so much that this contract is going to enable us to do to expand our distributions, but because the age-friendly plan has been on your agenda for this evening, I want to briefly highlight just a couple items that will be expanded or increased because of this contract, specifically for the seniors whom we serve.
We'll be increasing the frequency of our neighborhood pantries at the four senior housing facilities, low-income housing facilities that we serve.
We'll be expanding the number of our home deliveries for seniors who are unable to come to our pantries for any kind of mobility or transportation limitations, and we're going to be able to operate a priority shopping window at our 9th Street Pantry for seniors who won't be able to make it in line.
So again, thank you so much for this contract.
We're incredibly grateful for your support.
Hi there.
My name is Alexis Hart.
I'm the filmmaker for the Rose Garden film, and I just wanted to just shout out to Susan, thank you for your support, and to all of you for hearing this item.
Rose Garden, I did grow up in Berkeley.
I went to Berkeley High, and my son's there now.
We've gone and explored the parks, and the Rose Garden has always loomed large in my life.
So I just wanted to tell you how important this film is to me, and I think it's a film Berkeley will be proud of.
This is the fourth short film I've made with the same director.
We've got our stuff in Tribeca, and we work lean and mean.
This is a $23,000 budget, so not a blockbuster, and I think our hope is that the film inspires other filmmakers and storytellers and musicians around the country to shine a spotlight on other New Deal projects in their neighborhoods.
In fact, we see it as the first in a series for which we think we can probably raise NEA or NEH money.
Let's start here.
So thank you for your support, and I look forward to sharing with you all.
Good evening.
Paul Kealoha Blake, an activist.
I'm here tonight to address a letter that was sent to the council from the Friends of Ohlone.
We currently, through Where Do We Go, have an encampment, protest encampment at that site, and basically they outlined for us what was permissible in that park.
As a longtime resident of Berkeley, I was there when it was just plain dirt, and I'm not very appreciative of being told and not asked or addressed at all regarding use of the park.
The park was formerly known as People's Access.
The park is named Ohlone Access.
Ohlone Park, a displaced population.
Thank you.
A displaced population, and we're addressing displaced people, and I'm urging all of you to take a stand on this and address our homelessness.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Andrea Henson.
I'm Executive Director at Where Do We Go.
I want to talk about item 11.
So we should be seeing at least 50 to 75 port-a-potties around the city.
That's super important because we put in several everywhere we go, and they get filled up within one or two days.
So sanitation is very important, which reminds me of the poor behavior of our fellow community members in Berkeley.
I want to apologize to the Councilmember who recently had a town hall where they were very hostile toward her.
As I've been sleeping at different encampments, I want to let everyone know about the hatred that is being spewed out at the homeless community.
I have seen people honking, screaming, yelling at different homeless individuals, in particular on Bancroft and 4th.
Those are some of the worst comments that are coming out at night at 3, 4 in the morning.
They're honking their horns, telling them they don't belong.
And so you might see that.
But the same hostility that you're feeling, we're all feeling it.
If something is happening in Berkeley, let us stand against hate because that's what Berkeley is.
Thank you.
Number 13, that's a privilege for some, but others can't even access it because the cost is prohibitive.
So thank you for providing that.
Also, it's important on the park number, I think it's 12.
Yes, that Ohlone and indigenous people are part of that process.
And I know there's a long process that's been going about the Turtle Island Monument.
But as you execute a contract, I'd also like us to be mindful about diversity and hiring the bin decks that used to be referred to as when you look at the minority hiring, and there was an actual box at the bottom of the form.
And a person who is doing the RFP can look for actively look for women owned and minority owned businesses, black, brown and indigenous.
Let's make sure we do that.
And I don't know that that's built in.
So ensure it.
And yes, more protection for the homeless and respect.
Jesus wants us to love each other and hate each other.
Thank you.
I'd have to refresh myself on the date.
But it was either it was around 19 2019 2020 that council did accept on consent to add hate against the homeless hate incidents, hate crimes to be documented in the same fashion has other hate crimes and it does.
Apparently council unanimously thought it narrated being documented.
So and so hopefully when it is documentable, that is being done along with the other BPD data on hate.
2nd, the issue came up of the porta potties.
I guess it was within 11 or bathrooms around the city.
And this issue is actually coming before the commissioner has asked for it to be placed on the homeless panel of experts agenda.
It's not.
I know the city is doing some things with porta potties and with bathrooms.
Are we following up on the whole plan that was passed several years ago? There was some plan that we had studies and we had focus groups about bathrooms in the city because we need to follow up with that and see where that's at right now.
Thank you for the Berkeley food network.
$400,000.
It's extremely important for people with a fixed income.
It's extremely important for people with a fixed income.
It's extremely important for people with a fixed income.
When you're walking up just with one minute and so many I thought to come into your head, you have to focus on housing.
I think housing is a word that probably should be reconsidered to be even used because it's such a tenuous process.
You see developers, you see what they go through.
Right.
So when we talk now we're talking senior housing and homeless housing and this housing and that housing and so housing now has been been shared with everyone.
Teacher housing, law enforcement housing.
I think we really should pay attention to how we're using it, how realistic it is.
And if we come together, we can have a realistic conversation about.

Segment 3

about what do we do next to get from where we're trying to go, where we are now, to where we need to be.
And by the way, when the public safety conversation, I think the housing situation maps directly to that.
Where do we need to go? And where are we now? One of your officers here knows that the city of Sunnyvale, six months out of the year, the officers are police.
The other six months, they're firefighters.
Just food for thought.
Thank you.
Are there any other in-person speakers? If not, we'll go to speakers on Zoom.
Our first speaker is Andrea Pritchett, followed by Kit Saganor.
Hi, thank you.
Well, relative to all the expenditures that are outlined in the consent calendar, I just want to echo what the chair of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission had to say.
Monica Jones brought to your attention some of the challenges.
I want to really focus on the special care unit.
In almost all the campaign literature I see, everybody's talking about how much they want the specialized care unit to be 24-7.
It's not.
It has been 13 months since the specialized care unit first hit the streets.
But it is not providing 24-hour, seven days a week care.
We've had a number of setbacks.
The head of the Department of Health, Housing, and Community Services, Scott Gilman, said, yes, we should dissolve the steering committee and put oversight of the SCU under the Mental Health Commission, which I think is a fine idea.
Some of the challenges are that not only has it failed to launch, we have lost leadership.
The project manager, Katie Hahn, is no longer there.
Bonita House has had a lot of turnover.
We still have an issue where we're not getting calls to the specialized care unit.
The 911 dispatch is not sending calls to the special care unit.
So we're spending money to pay people to sleep overnight because they're not getting calls throughout the night.
It's not providing the service that we told the people of Berkeley it would serve.
I'm also very concerned about the future of this project.
If we don't have a project manager, who is mapping out the future funding of this project? Is this project designed to fail? Because that's what it looks like from here.
And we need some hands-on involvement from those of you who put the special care unit on your campaign literature.
I think you owe it to us to actually follow through.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Kit Saganor, followed by Blair Beekman.
Thank you very much.
This is Kit Saganor.
I'm the chair of the Open Government Commission.
The Open Government Commission has asked me to address you on agenda item number two.
Just a little background.
There's lots of different aspects to what you're doing here for the city council's rules of procedure and order.
But one of the threads is that there were issues that arose with public comment.
And back in March of 23, there was a wonderful council meeting at which you considered some changes.
There were lots of suggestions coming from council members and from members of the public.
And at that meeting, city council referred all the suggestions that were not immediately adopted to open government.
And we worked on these.
We also had people come to our meetings with public comment on various aspects of how public comment could be made better.
And in September, a year ago, we made a set of recommendations to you.
Last spring, the Agenda and Rules Policy Committee considered our recommendations and made some recommendations about our recommendations.
And that went to city council in just past June, at which point city council said what basically endorsed what Agenda and Rules Policy Committee had thought were good recommendations from us.
But since then, a lot of those ended up on the cutting room floor.
So I understand that this is going to be an ongoing thing, but I've been asked to voice our disappointment that most of our suggestions did end up on the cutting room floor, at least for now.
And just to let you know that this is on our work plan, that we will continue to look both at the areas that you had originally asked us to look at, but also at other aspects of your procedures that do affect open government and affect the public's access to information or would affect the public's ability to communicate with you.
So thank you very much for hearing us, and you will hear from us again in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our next speaker is Blair Beekman, followed by Kelly.
Hi, I'm Blair Beekman.
I tried to speak on this item a few weeks ago.
I didn't offer my words very well, so I'm going to try again tonight.
I think Item 22A, Measure P, Allocations for Fiscal Year 2025-26, that's going to be put on consent if I'm correct.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
But if it is, to go on, I just wanted to offer that thank you.
I think you are trying to, with Governor Newsom's recent homeless decrees, Berkeley is trying to work on their issues.
I've been living in San Diego the past few years now, but I still try to attend San Jose and Oakland and Berkeley City Council meetings sometimes.
And San Diego, they started some homeless encampments or restraining order things a few years ago.
Not restraining order, but ordinance issues.
It kind of set a standard and a tone that other Bay Area cities have been following, and it's not good.
And so I like what you're doing in Berkeley.
I think we've seen the worst of what Newsom's ideas have offered.
I think we're trying to come up from that now.
Good luck how we can continue that good work and really improve what we've been lacking the past few years.
And thank you for your effort.
Our next speaker is Kelly, followed by Lucky Thomas.
Hi, thank you.
Can you hear me okay? Because my computer kind of went to the spinning wheel.
On item 15, on the railroad crossing, I understand that this is just a pass through for the city financing, but there's nothing on that item that tells us what the safety measures are going to be.
And these two entrances to the parking lot, there's around 950 parking spaces.
And so I think it's in the community interest to know what the safety plan is, because it's not, you can't decipher what the safety plan is from the two diagrams that come with item 15.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll go next to Lucky Thomas, followed by Glenn Turner.
Good evening, Council, Mayor, and I would like to, I'm Lucky Thomas, and I'm a trustee at St.
Paul AME Church in Berkeley.
And just wanted to thank you for the support that you've shown for our 50-unit affordable project with Community Housing Development Corporation.
And also I would like to thank our Council Member, Ben Bartlett, for his support.
I know it can't be done without all of the Council's involvement, but that's all I want to say is just thank you very much for your support.
Thank you, sir.
Glenn Turner.
Okay.
I'm the Vice Chair of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission, and I'm very concerned about how we handle our people, the needs that we are told we should be looking at.
Our commission should be advising how things are handled on mental health things, and now the, you know, issues are now going to be under our purview.
We've been handed a specialized care unit is now under our review.
So we've got a big, large number of things that we need to be looking at.
And I get the 30% lack of staffing from every single place in the city.
Unfortunately, we're still losing leadership, but one thing this loss of leadership might allow us is to get new leadership that would actually start addressing in a much more fundamental way with community townhouses, with, you know, town halls where we can speak out and brainstorm ways to deal with some of these huge issues.
Our Berkeley City College could be a place where we could get people.
We could get people by changing some of the rulings about how staffing is, what requirements are for certain staff things.
We could be looking at the loosening up some of the red tape that's tied up our city.
And the other thing I'm especially concerned about is the fact that now we're unhousing house campers who've had tents and so on.
Now they're being moved out of the spaces they were, and this is just before the rainy season.
So this is just the beginning.
And so I think hats off to Ohlone Park, Annex, a place where people can go to get some shelter and some food, some care, and we should be looking at what communities can do.
Perhaps there's some, I heard about some sort of community special service bureau.
I don't know what that is, but we need to have more communities.
All right.
Are there any other attendees on Zoom wishing to speak on the consent calendar? I don't see any additional raised hands.
So it's now in order for the council to vote on the consent calendar move.
The consent calendar is amended.
Second.
Okay.
Any discussion? Vice Mayor Weingarten, you had your hand up, right? I just seconded your motion.
So city clerk can call the roll on the consent calendar.
Councilmember Casarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traigum? Aye.
Khan is absent.
Weingraf? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Errington? Yes.
Okay.
The consent calendar is approved and moved to suspend the rules and adjourn.
Please call the roll.
Councilmember Casarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traigum? Aye.
Weingraf? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Errington? Yes.
Thank you.
We're adjourned.
Recording stopped.