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Segment 1

Welcome to the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council of Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024.
Okay.
Council member Kesarwani is absent.
Council member Taplin? Present.
Bartlett? Here.
Tregub? Present.
Hahn? Here.
Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? Present.
And Acting Mayor Wengraf? Present.
Okay.
Okay, first order of business, we have two ceremonial items this evening.
And Council member Humbert, would you like to start off? Yes, I would love to.
And this is a proclamation by the City of Berkeley honoring and celebrating John Muir Elementary.
And I'm gonna..
Absolutely.
Whereas, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes outstanding elementary, middle, and high schools based on their overall high academic achievement, or success in closing the achievement gap among diverse groups of students.
And, whereas being declared a National Blue Ribbon School is the highest level of recognition that a school can receive from the federal government, and whereas John Muir Elementary has been declared, for the second time in its history, and that's parenthetical, a 2024 National Blue Ribbon School, and whereas this distinction was earned through the hard work and dedication of Principal Jeremy Paco Ferland, John Muir faculty and staff, John Muir parents and PTA members, and whereas Berkeley Unified School District BUSD Superintendent Enikia Ford-Morthell, BUSD school board members, and BUSD staff are instrumental to the success of John Muir Elementary in all Berkeley schools, and whereas the faculty, staff, parents, and students of John Muir Elementary, as well as the BUSD Superintendent, school board members, and BUSD staff deserve recognition for their outstanding achievement, therefore, be it resolved that I, Susan Wengraff, Mayor of the City of Berkeley, do hereby declare December 3rd, 2024 to be John Muir Elementary Day.
And I have the proclamation to present to Principal Ferland.
Thank you right you want to have some pictures taken so can I stand with you all um we'd like to hear so we really want to thank you for um honoring john muir tonight with this award it really really means a lot to us and this is not all of our staff this is just a small number of classroom teachers special educators and literacy coaches and specialists that we have out at john you're working to support our kids here in berkeley and we could not be more proud to be members of the berkeley unified school district the first school district to voluntarily desegregate and to be able to deliver excellent education to our kids here in berkeley and i want to talk to you just a little bit about what led us to this award um last year around february we were nominated based on our outstanding academic achievement and this team wrote a nearly 40 page application after we were invited to apply and they really looked at the whole school and how we really educate the whole child they looked at our pe program they looked at our outdoor education program they looked at our intervention programs our deaf and hard of hearing programs our special education programs they looked at our music programs everything that makes berkeley special and unique and they really said wow you are amazing what you're able to offer at your school in berkeley and the kind of achievement that you're able to get for your students john muir is one of 33 schools in all of california that was awarded this award and one out of 356 schools in the whole united states so it's a pretty amazing a pretty amazing honor and just to talk a little bit about where we came from the pandemic to now because that was such a dark time for all of us particularly in education but our student achievement rose nearly 20 percentage points from the pandemic to now in reading and nearly eight percentage points in math and right now john muir is outscoring the state average by about 30 percentage points in reading and by about 30 percentage points in math so there's some very significant achievement happening at john muir and throughout all of the schools in berkeley and you all should be really proud to be our city council and we really appreciate you really appreciate your support appreciate the support of all of the berkeley voters that pass our b-set measure even though the majority of those voters don't have children in school it really means a lot to us thank you so much thank you for this recognition we're gonna frame it in our front office and have a wonderful evening thank you okay we have one more proclamation and this proclamation is probably the best kept secret in district six in the 32 years that i have been involved in representing district six i have not received a single complaint about newbridge foundation and you may not know what newbridge foundation is but the gentleman coming to the microphone is costa macarcus and i have a proclamation for him and sylvia ritchie and newbridge foundation which i will read now whereas costa macarcus was born in thessaloniki greece in 1937 and after surviving world war ii at the age of 12 emigrated to new york where he later attended college and then worked with the un as a liaison officer in cyprus and whereas when costa returned to new york he became addicted to heroin and ultimately landed across the country in berkeley where he entered a rehabilitation program at the newbridge foundation successfully graduating from the program and whereas in 1984 costa macarcus became the ceo of newbridge foundation and started his collaboration with sylvia ritchie coo a licensed social worker who begun working at newbridge foundation as a volunteer in 1979 sylvia has developed groundbreaking programs for women in recovery together their collective vision has made newbridge foundation what it is today and whereas newbridge foundation is in district 6 and has 93 residential beds and 88 transitional beds and has provided treatment to tens of thousands of individuals with drug and alcohol addiction and those battling co-occurring disorders including specialized programs for active duty personnel and veterans and members of the lgbtq plus community and whereas newbridge foundation contracts with many school districts including berkeley oakland and emeryville as well as the alameda county behavioral health department and federal agencies and whereas newbridge foundation is celebrated as one of america's best addiction treatment centers and whereas costa and sylvia have worked tirelessly for decades to develop and strengthen newbridge foundation's rehabilitation and recovery programs now therefore be it resolved that i susan wingrath acting mayor of the city of berkeley do hereby celebrate newbridge foundation and thank customer caucus and sylvia ritchie for their vision leadership and lifelong dedication to helping those who are struggling with addiction i want to thank the city council for this extraordinary acknowledgement um am i being can you hear me yes yes you can thank you sorry anyway um we started out um serving um in um all kinds of uh individuals way back uh in the vietnam war era in which um america's endless wars produced a series of very uh horrifying um results in the lives and futures of many of the service individuals who serve there not to mention the catastrophe of the civilian populations we quote unquote liberated or attempted to liberate in any case we started with agent orange with the vietnamese experience among a lot of our veterans we went on to the various other wars that we were engaged in um and to this day we're serving um the all the armed forces the va um and um well that's one part of our of our mission the other part of course is what we've been serving the community of berkeley and east bay for some for the same period of time and when uh we measure the um the benefits that one individual who goes through the program and has managed to put their lives together again uh when we measure that and then we measure their wives their children their husbands and fathers we see a a cascading effect of impact so over the years i would say that we served tens of thousands of east bay uh community members and their families um it's something it's something that's it thank you so much for your acknowledgement all right all right so okay now we'll move on to the consent calendar and we have one item on the consent calendar and we will take public comment now on that item it's the memorandum of understanding the seiu local 10 21 csu ptr la so anybody in the in the room who would like to comment on this item okay so now i'll go to zoom and i see one hand up uh joseph leisner all right joseph i'm sorry yes can you hear me yes i i did not want to comment on that item i thought there was uh going to be comment on i mean a public comment on an item that's not on the agenda i was waiting for that that's six o'clock that's at six o'clock this is a special meeting and we only take public comment on items on the agenda is that right yes yeah thank you okay we'll we'll see you at six thank you okay so item number one um we're being asked to adopt a resolution uh is there a staff presentation or anything on this no okay i'll open it up for discussion from the dais yes yes sophie i want to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation i'm really excited that we were able to close this contract and really pleased that um berkeley's workers will be getting the raises they deserve second okay any discussion okay seeing none mr clerk please call the roll okay um council member taplin yes bartlett yes traigub aye on yes lunapara yes humber yes and acting mayor weintraub yes okay that motion carries okay then i'll entertain the motion to adjourn i so move second roll call please okay uh tap council member taplin yes bartlett yes traigub aye on yes lunapara yes humbert yes and acting mayor weintraub yes okay okay thank you 5 30 meeting is adjourned and this special meeting is adjourned the time is six.