[0:16] Okay. Hello, everyone. Good evening. I'm calling to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council today is Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025. Already, can you believe it? Clerk, could you please start with the roll? Okay. Councilmember Kester Wani. Here.

[0:32] Here.

[0:33] Dapplin.

[0:33] Here.

[0:34] Councilmember Bartlett is absent.

[0:37] Tregum.

[0:37] Present.

[0:38] Oki.

[0:40] Blackaby.

[0:41] Here.

[0:42] Moonapara is currently absent.

[0:44] Humber.

[0:45] Here.

[0:46] And Mayor Ishi.

[0:47] Here.

[0:47] Okay.

[0:47] Quorum is present.

[0:49] Very good.

[0:49] There is a supplemental on the dies here, folks.

[0:54] And we need to vote to add it.

[0:58] Is there a motion to do so?

[1:00] Okay.

[1:00] So moved.

[1:01] Second.

[1:02] Okay.

[1:03] And is there any objection?

[1:06] No.

[1:07] Okay.

[1:09] There's no objection and no objection.

[1:12] All right.

[1:13] Very good.

[1:13] Motion passes.

[1:14] Okay.

[1:14] We will add the supplemental.

[1:17] Very good.

[1:18] Okay.

[1:19] So on our action calendar, very exciting.

[1:23] So I'm very excited for this special session.

[1:26] Infrastructure is one of my top priorities.

[1:29] And it's something that we just don't get a chance to talk about enough.

[1:33] This isn't about just the streets and sidewalks.

[1:35] It's also about our sewers and storm drains, parks and playgrounds, pools and piers, old

[1:41] city hall and veterans building, places that really should be community gathering spaces that

[1:47] fill us with pride, but instead are decaying, unfortunately, before our eyes.

[1:52] We hear you to the many community members who regularly advocate for better infrastructure

[1:57] in one way or another. My council colleagues, and I know that this is an issue that impacts

[2:01] all of us. Upon taking office a year ago, I was well aware of the Vision 2050 framework

[2:06] for a sustainable and resilient infrastructure, passed in 2020. And it was also apparent that

[2:11] many things had changed since its passage. The elevated threat of wildfire and other climate

[2:16] related issues, the effects on the economy from the pandemic, the pandemic, shifts in federal

[2:21] policies on inflation and tariffs, the passage of measure FF for safe streets and sidewalks,

[2:26] just to name a few. Berkeley still has more than $1 billion, $1 billion with a B, an unfunded

[2:34] infrastructure needs, and our challenges from climate change, including sea level rise,

[2:38] are only increasing our needs. Due to these changes in the significant gap in resources,

[2:45] I reconvene the mayor's vision 2050 task force to update the report and refresh the recommendations.

[2:50] Well, yet, and Margot Schiller, both of whom have decades of experience in infrastructure,

[2:54] and I've worked for over a decade as volunteers,

[2:57] far over a decade, I should say,

[2:59] dedicated to improving Berkeley's infrastructure

[3:02] served as co-chairs, providing leadership and continuity

[3:05] along with many other former and current task force members.

[3:09] Many of whom are today.

[3:10] Thank you all for being here.

[3:12] The task force met several times during this year

[3:14] and produced a concise update to Vision 2050,

[3:17] which they're calling realize Vision 2050,

[3:21] and recommendations to address Berkeley's infrastructure.

[3:23] These recommendations are comprehensive and include considerations on integrated planning using new technologies, improving maintenance, providing new funding to address needs and better engagement with the public, something that matters a lot to me.

[3:38] They helped organize a very impressive team of resident experts and produce the important report in your packet tonight.

[3:44] So council members, I really just want to say first of all, thank you so much to this

[3:52] impressive team of experts for their work. Thank you all so much for being here and

[3:57] I'd really love if you could just stand so we can recognize and acknowledge you for all

[4:01] the work that you've been doing over this past year. So, Ray-Yep, Margot Schuler, Council

[4:05] Members Taplin and Traygub, Weldon Bradstreet, Karen Prolek, former council member Gordon

[4:11] John Wazviak, John Cainer, Sasha Constantine, Allison Levante, Sophia Scoda, Dan Linheim,

[4:17] Chris DeTernay, John Elliott, Kenny Chisoka, Christina Hill, and Larry Henry, if you could

[4:24] all stand, we want to acknowledge you.

[4:35] Thank you all so much, we really appreciate all the work that you do, Berkeley is filled

[4:41] with amazing residents who have so much knowledge and information, and it's really such a joy

[4:46] that we get a chance to pull together a bunch of experts to learn more from you.

[4:50] So thank you so much and I'll invite Margot and Ray to say a few words.

[5:02] Mayor Ishi and distinguished council members, my name is Ray Yepp.

[5:09] I had the privilege of co-chairing the original vision 2015 initiative back more than five

[5:17] years ago, along with Margot, my colleague here co-chairing that.

[5:23] I'd like to tell you that the second time around is way better than first time.

[5:30] And it's a privilege to have that opportunity to review what we've done and to make improvements.

[5:38] So here's at least three reasons why it's way better.

[5:42] Number one, the word realize.

[5:46] So we call it the Realize Vision 2050 Initiative, the Realize Vision 2050 Task Force.

[5:56] Realize means we're here to get things done.

[6:00] We're here to take action.

[6:02] And we follow that direction from Mayor Ishi.

[6:05] And so we're here to get things done.

[6:08] That's an important word.

[6:10] second reason, the report is only eight pages long. You only have to read eight pages, but those eight pages are golden.

[6:23] So we also took initiative to not prepare a very lengthy report, make it concise, make it actionable.

[6:30] So in those eight pages are five strategies along with goals, action items, and performance measures.

[6:41] You can get everything you need out of those eight pages.

[6:46] Third reason is we got it done in six months.

[6:50] We started in March and delivered the report in October.

[6:55] And so realize how urgent it is to address our infrastructure, we took that to heart and made it an urgent effort to work with such distinguished and qualified as members as these to get it done with some urgency and to deliver it in October that we did.

[7:15] We thank you for the opportunity, Mayor Issy, to serve on this task force.

[7:21] I thank Margul to be co-chair with myself, and I also thank the task force members, many of who are here, some who couldn't be here for their experience and their time and their dedication to the city of Berkeley.

[7:38] Appreciate it.

[7:43] I also want to thank you all and my colleagues and urge the city and the staff and the elected

[7:52] officials to really dig into those eight pages.

[7:56] Go back to the 2020 report for all the background information for those of you who weren't involved

[8:02] at that time and make that the basis of your upcoming really serious funding and policy

[8:09] and project decision making.

[8:12] And, again, integration with nature, integration with innovation, the climate is changing fast,

[8:19] and unless we change our infrastructure, we're going to be stuck with what we've got for

[8:22] the next 100 years, and it won't work.

[8:24] So looking forward to watch the changes.

[8:26] Thank you.

[8:32] Thank you, again, Ray and Margo, I really appreciate all of your work and your effort, and wrangling

[8:38] all the cats.

[8:40] It's always a big task to do that.

[8:43] So, and thank you all so much really appreciate it and I know you're looking forward to the next item so I'll move us over to item number two.

[8:53] I really also want to appreciate the great work that City staff do every day to maintain and improve our beloved community assets with the limited resources that they have.

[9:02] And I think one of the things that's most impressive and exciting about the City Manager's report is the leveraging with previous measures.

[9:10] T1, OU1, et cetera, and measure FF is also now being collected for street sidewalks and

[9:17] safety.

[9:17] So really just want to call that out and appreciate the city staff for doing the work

[9:22] of leveraging and also just for the voters for approving these items because again, infrastructure

[9:27] is something that we don't get a chance to talk about enough and this is really our opportunity

[9:31] to highlight and say look we've done all this great work and we also have a lot of need.

[9:37] So, I'm going to turn it over to our city manager and to our city staff.

[9:41] And I realize also I neglected to thank Terrence Davis, who also joined us for the last

[9:47] couple of meetings for our vision, our 2050 task force, so thank you very much for that

[9:51] as well.

[9:55] Thank you, Mayor Ishi.

[9:57] We have staff coming to the table now to go through a presentation for you.

[10:02] So, I think assistant to the city manager Herandondo is going to set up the presentation.

[10:11] So, I'll just start talking while she's getting it set up to say that.

[10:16] We're excited to be before you tonight.

[10:19] As was just mentioned in the previous item, there's a lot of different maintenance on infrastructure.

[10:23] There's a lot of needs for fixing, replacing, rebuilding, creating infrastructure in the city.

[10:32] And there has been a lot of good work that has been done in the past in that regard as well.

[10:37] So we want to acknowledge and honor that as well.

[10:40] You can go to the next slide.

[10:42] So I want to just I'll just walk you through a little bit of what the agenda is before you tonight.

[10:48] I won't read through all of this, but we will start off with more of that context and background.

[10:53] Talk a little bit about a potential community survey for which we've already done in RFP.

[10:58] And then a big part of this is looking at potential infrastructure items for your consideration

[11:08] in a potential $300 million general obligation bond.

[11:12] So you'll see in your packet that you have at the end a list of projects that fall into three buckets.

[11:19] One is critical infrastructure and other is public safety and the third is community facilities and quality of life.

[11:24] And we spent a lot of work as staff putting that together and our team will go through

[11:31] that.

[11:32] Finally, not finally, but we also will talk a little bit about the geobond analysis, both

[11:39] from the perspective.

[11:39] We'll look back on what a bond is.

[11:41] We'll go through potential tax rate implications.

[11:44] We'll talk through timelines and then leave you all with some questions to consider and

[11:48] we very much look forward to the discussion and direction from you all regarding this.

[11:53] We have a terrific group of staff who are going to present tonight.

[11:59] Deputy City Manager David White, Assistant to the City Manager, Kerry Haranando, our

[12:06] Parks Director Scott Ferris, several people will be online and that's Parks Director Scott

[12:11] Ferris, Public Works Director, Terence Davis, our Finance Director, Henry Oyakami, and our

[12:18] Fire Chief, David Sprague, as well as our municipal advisor from NHA Craig Hill.

[12:24] So all those folks are going to be online.

[12:25] They'll all have a piece of this presentation that I'll be available for questions at the end.

[12:29] And with that, I will hand it over to Deputy Senior Manager David White.

[12:34] Thank you, City Manager.

[12:35] And good evening, Mayor and City Council.

[12:37] As our City Manager mentioned, I'm David White, your Deputy City Manager.

[12:41] And as the Mayor well stated just a few moments ago, the city has significant unfunded infrastructure needs.

[12:46] more than a billion dollars, and today's discussion is all about setting the stage to

[12:51] seek your direction on moving forward to determine the feasibility in pursuing a revenue

[12:56] measure in 2026 to generate much-needed resources to invest in our infrastructure.

[13:02] More specifically as we move through this presentation, we will be discussing a variety of projects

[13:07] to apply to a general obligation bond in an amount up to $300 million.

[13:12] In the past, Berkeley voters have approved several bond measures and with those resources,

[13:17] the city has been able to modernize numerous facilities, increase the supply of affordable

[13:22] housing, address deferred maintenance needs, invest in street improvements and green infrastructure

[13:28] for more sustainable and resilient future, and overall improve the community's quality

[13:33] of life.

[13:34] We are going to definitely touch on all of this tonight at a high level.

[13:39] In addition to the bond measures that have been adopted, there have been several parcel

[13:43] taxes that have been adopted as well.

[13:45] Measure FF in 2020 and 2024, Measure P in 2018 and 2024, and an increase to the parks

[13:53] tax that was measure Y in 2024.

[13:56] And all these have enabled the city to strengthen its emergency response, expand programs and services

[14:02] to expand housing opportunities and address homelessness, maintain our cherished parks

[14:07] and open spaces and continue to make safety improvements to our road network and pedestrian

[14:13] paths to achieve our vision zero objectives.

[14:16] As we look to the future, we are cognizant that to address our infrastructure needs, we

[14:22] need a focused, coordinated approach, and the work of the Vision 2050 Task Force provides

[15:00] We await the potential for a bond measure in 2026.

[15:08] So how will we gather community input? As indicated in the staff report, we intend to launch a community engagement process in early 2026. And while the details are still being worked out, this will be an opportunity to hear about community priorities. In addition to that, we would like to implement one if not two community surveys that would be designed to gather the input of Berkeley voters. This slide in front of you provides some

[15:34] Some of the details, including trying to connect with 500 likely November 2026 voters.

[15:40] The survey itself would be designed to gauge voter sentiment about city services, and

[15:45] to understand the priorities and potential support for bond measure on the November 2026 ballot.

[15:52] Should the City Council authorize us to proceed?

[15:55] Once the survey is completed, we would return to City Council with the results over the survey.

[16:00] So,

[16:05] what have we done with the resources the voters have adopted in the past?

[16:08] This slide and the slide that follows highlights just some of the improvements that we,

[16:13] as a city, have been able to achieve with previous bond measures and partial taxes adopted

[16:18] by Berkeley voters.

[16:20] There is no way that we will be able to shine a light on all the projects, but this and

[16:26] the slide that follows provides a high-level overview of investments made throughout

[16:30] the totality of the community.

[16:32] This particular slide highlights the recently completed Willard Clubhouse upgrades to the Rose Garden,

[16:39] revitalized North Berkeley Senior Services Center, and new affordable housing opportunities.

[16:45] The next slide builds on the previous slide and demonstrates public safety enhancements

[16:50] and the work we have done to address homelessness with adopted parcel taxes.

[16:55] Also, a couple of green infrastructure projects that have been implemented are also noted for you.

[17:04] Given the city's infrastructure needs and that existing bond measures have largely been

[17:09] exhausted, we spend some time developing a proposal of projects for city council's consideration.

[17:15] These projects in detail are listed in the staff report as attachment 5.

[17:20] In developing the list of projects, we look to a number of criteria summarized on this slide,

[17:25] including public health and safety, community use and equity, as well as external funding

[17:31] funding opportunities which means that should a bond measure be successful, similar to

[17:35] all of our past work, we would look to leverage these resources and fund such that the investment

[17:41] in the community would likely exceed the $300 million raise to the proposed bond.

[17:47] Finally, it is worth noting that the criteria that we developed to develop this list of projects

[17:52] is harmonious with the Vision 2050 task force.

[17:58] What ultimately resulted from our work to develop a list of proposed projects for City Council

[18:02] consideration is a logical grouping of projects in the three categories.

[18:07] Community facilities and quality of life, public safety and critical infrastructure and accessibility.

[18:14] Each category roughly consists of numerous projects that roughly totals $100 million.

[18:19] And now I would like to transition to a more detailed discussion of each of the categories

[18:24] and the projects that are proposed.

[18:26] We're going to start with our Director of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Scott Ferris

[18:30] to discuss community facilities, then we'll transition to our fire chief who will discuss

[18:36] project proposed under the public safety category, and finally our director of public works

[18:41] Terrence Davis will discuss the project to comprise the critical infrastructure and accessibility

[18:45] category.

[19:04] Okay.

[19:05] We'll meet perhaps our director of public works is having some trouble connecting.

[19:09] So I'll just pick up from here and then transition to our fire chief.

[19:13] So in looking at these projects, what we tried to accomplish was really looking at a number

[19:18] of different important community investments.

[19:20] So as you can see on the slide for, you can go back to slides.

[19:24] Thank you.

[19:25] And first of all, we looked at upgrading our Frances Albuyer Community Center.

[19:30] This is a much needed improvement to this facility in our community.

[19:34] We looked at a high use pool, which is King Pool and Locker Room, and upgrade to the turf

[19:39] at Harrison Field, which is critical because this will allow the field to be used year-round,

[19:44] 365 days a year, as well as lighting and improvements to livo courts, simpablo sports field, as

[19:52] well as we hear overwhelmingly about the need for enhanced and increased number of dog parks

[19:57] throughout the city.

[19:59] And then there are also important park restroom upgrades throughout various parks throughout

[20:03] the city.

[20:04] In addition to that, we looked at upgrading our open spaces, as well as addressing a number

[20:09] of projects to address issues of resilience and sea level rise.

[20:13] And this slide highlights just some of the projects that we put into that bucket and

[20:16] category.

[20:18] The Adelaide Quarter Open Space Improvements, Aquatic Park, which would include improvements

[20:23] to DreamLine Park.

[20:27] Scott's on now.

[20:37] I

[20:41] can keep rolling.

[20:43] Yeah. As well as you can see a number of other improvements down in the marina. A couple

[20:49] of projects I want to point out that are specifically designed to address sea level rise, which

[20:54] is the Bay Trail Marina Boulevard, as well as University Avenue Bike Park, which we anticipate

[20:58] will be incredibly well received. And all the details of these projects are in the packet

[21:02] for council. So now we'll turn it over to our fire chief to talk about the public safety

[21:08] category. Good afternoon, Council and Mayor. Today, I want to briefly walk through the major

[21:14] capital projects proposed for the fire department. These projects are rooted in the city's comprehensive

[21:19] fire facilities master plan completed in 2023. That plan lays out the condition of all existing

[21:25] facilities and provides a city a long-term strategic roadmap for all the needed reinvestment in these

[21:32] critical pieces of infrastructure. Most of Berkeley's stations were built in

[21:37] the 60s and have received partial seismic upgrades in the 1990s. While those

[21:43] efforts were important at the time, our stations are now no longer meeting

[21:47] current health safety and operational standards. They're not designed for a

[21:52] modern emergency response system, nor for the demands placed on firefighters,

[21:56] parameters, paramedics, or the community.

[22:00] We now have conceptual designs for all our fire stations

[22:03] that was completed in the fire facilities master planning

[22:05] process.

[22:07] And the need to begin with these four projects

[22:09] is important as it's going to take approximately 10 to 20 years

[22:13] to complete all nine projects in the fire facilities master

[22:16] plan.

[22:17] This means every year we delay, we push

[22:20] the entire sequence of projects further into the future.

[22:23] So to review the four projects before you, fire

[22:26] station four at 1900 were in requires a complete rebuild. The fire, EMS, and

[22:33] community emergency response training center currently located at 9997

[22:36] Cedar Street is undersized, incapable of supporting modern training needs and in

[22:42] the middle of a residential neighborhood which is really problematic. The city's

[22:47] emergency communication center at 2,100 MLK that's our 911 dispatch center.

[22:55] It's

[22:56] dispatch operations and finally the firehouse at station six at 999 Cedar Street.

[23:03] You'll note that for both the training center and fire station six there's a note saying

[23:09] we hope to move this to the new fire headquarters facility and when the fire facilities master

[23:14] plan was complete, we didn't have that facility under construction so we're proposing that

[23:20] we do an analysis to actually modify and improve that facility and acquire the remaining third of that block to allow for both those facilities to exist there instead, which would then free up the Cedar Street facilities.

[23:37] So replacing these facilities is essential to ensuring that Berkeley Firefighters paramedics and dispatchers can continue to respond quickly, safely and effectively to the needs of our community.

[23:47] This bond would allow the city to complete four of nine critical infrastructure projects and we envision a second bond at some point in the future would allow us to complete the remaining five projects and I'll pass it off to Terrence.

[24:03] Thank

[24:06] you, Chief. Good late afternoon Mayor Council community. Terrence Davis director of public works and so in this last category or bucket as the deputy city manager indicated for these public works projects. We really focused on improvements to the civic center but also to accessibility to these kind of high use civic facilities.

[24:33] And so these are not only modernization, as I'll go through the list, but also really

[24:38] around accessibility and making critical improvements to activate some underused or

[24:45] poorly used facilities that don't have access because of their lack of modernization.

[24:52] So this first group is really what I would consider some of the first phase requirements

[24:59] of a civic center vision to really activate these three facilities that right now all lack adequate

[25:08] seismic upgrades. So the Modell-Sharag building, the Veterans Memorial Building, and then also MLK

[25:18] the Civic Center Annex, which is the building adjacent to 2180, used as a high-need, specific

[25:29] facility, also houses, our Permix Center, etc.

[25:34] And so these projects would be for just bringing these three sites into current seismic

[25:42] standard. They're all historic buildings and like that. So those resources would be used

[25:49] to bring those facilities into compliance. The second list here is, and there's some

[25:55] overlap between the facilities, but really modernization of these high use civic facilities.

[26:01] So again, 2180, which is obviously a key building for city business when, you know, holds council

[26:11] offices and other key city offices and that building frankly just the interior and the envelope

[26:18] of that building requires a modernization and some upgrades. Many folks who are occupants

[26:25] in that building know we've recently done some improvements around our water system and also

[26:31] around the paint and the facility so more of those facilities in terms of investing in the plumbing

[26:37] electrical and other building systems to really bring that system to standard.

[26:44] Excuse me, that building to standard. Similarly, the Public Safety Center has

[26:49] an aging facility, some of the finishes, some of the electrical HVAC of that facility also have

[26:57] been deferred for some time, and same case with the animal shelter, an aging facility that through

[27:05] of the years, we've just not made the adequate investments

[27:08] that we need.

[27:09] So there's quite a bit of deferred maintenance there,

[27:11] very similar in terms of drainage improvements,

[27:15] HVAC lighting, et cetera.

[27:18] So really just some modernizations

[27:20] to make those facilities,

[27:22] to bring them up to current standards

[27:25] and really make them the shining examples

[27:29] of our community service that we think is so important.

[27:33] So next is really focusing on our ADA and accessibility programs, two categories here.

[27:42] So these are, most of these projects come from either existing customer demands.

[27:48] So I'll talk about the 50-50 program second.

[27:51] But the ADA accessibility improvements, these are citywide improvements to civic facilities.

[27:57] and these are derived from the city's ADA transition plan and that consists of the city did a complete assessment of all of its facilities and right away through that process that did a very careful cataloging of all of the what we would call barriers and those are anything in the either right away or in our facilities that do not meet ADA standards.

[28:25] And so that deferred lists told us about $48 million of improvements that need to be made in our right away and also in our facilities to bring those facilities to ADA code and also just really improve and increase accessibility for all of our community members.

[28:44] members. The second is the city's 50-50 program, which is our partnership with community

[28:51] members and property owners who can do some cost share with the city to do repairs in

[28:58] front of their properties to bring to alleviating the trip fall for other disrepair in the sidewalks.

[29:07] And that program right now has a pretty significant backlog. The city, you know, has invested

[29:14] in that program over the years but through our CIP program but ultimately we haven't been able to

[29:20] keep up with the demand. There's quite a few that sit in queue now so there's very high demand but

[29:26] the city's match is not available to really accelerate that program and this is what we think is a

[29:32] very good way to make some very quick improvements throughout the city for a program that has demonstrated

[29:40] and success, but just unfortunately lacks all of the resources necessary to complete all of the projects.

[29:49] And with that, I'll turn it back to Deputy City Manager White.

[29:55] Thank you, Terrence. I appreciate it.

[29:57] And so now I want to talk about...

[30:00] The money side of things, how do we achieve these vision and these projects? And so as we've talked about on a couple occasions this evening, we want to talk about the opportunity to put a general obligation bond onto the November, 2026 ballot. And so with this slide really is trying to do at a high level. It's just really call out sort of the fundamentals of a geo bond and I know council is well familiar with this. I won't spend too much time on this, but just try to call out a few different of the bullet point.

[30:30] points on the slide that I think are particularly pertinent and relevant,

[30:33] particularly to the next slide that we'll get to in a moment.

[30:36] So first of all, the costs are based on the assessed value or property.

[30:41] Importantly, in order to pass a general obligation bond, it requires two thirds of voter approval,

[30:47] and they're typically repaid over about a 30-year time frame.

[30:51] What they can be used for is specific.

[30:53] They can be used for major capital improvements,

[30:56] And in the far right hand column of the slide in front of you, you can see a very high level list of the types of projects that a geo bond can support.

[31:06] And they cannot be used to support regular maintenance needs that we have as a city. They have to go into capital projects.

[31:13] So the next slide and what this slide is really designed to help us understand is what

[31:21] a proposed general obligation bond would mean for taxpayers with this following key assumption

[31:26] that we issue $100 million as issued every five years and that issue in commences in

[31:32] 2027 and this slide really does two things for you first it provides a historical view of

[31:40] tax rates associated with general obligation bonds previously approved, and secondly, it

[31:45] provides a prospective view of a proposed 300 million general obligation bond that we

[31:51] are discussing this evening when combined with bonds that have already been authorized.

[31:57] So when combined with existing authorizations, a new $300 million general obligation bond,

[32:03] Assuming, again, $100 million issued every five years, is estimated to require an average

[32:10] tax rate over 40 years of 0.0441% or roughly $44 for 100,000 MSS value.

[32:21] Based on the median SS value for home and Berkeley today, that would translate to an average

[32:26] tax rate of roughly $242 per year.

[32:30] I would also note the following.

[32:32] This figure indicates that the resulting projected average tax rate when combined with

[32:38] existing authorizations from 2027 to 2067 is less than the historical average tax rate

[32:46] from existing authorizations until they are anticipated to be paid off, and that's the time frame

[32:51] 1993 to 2056.

[32:55] Also, this figure demonstrates that the combined average tax rate for the new $300 million general obligation bond,

[33:02] plus existing authorizations, is less than the tax rate in the late 1990s in early 2000s when initial bonds were issued.

[33:11] All of this to say that what is being proposed is well within the range of historical tax rates that the Berkeley community has experienced.

[33:20] So lastly, I just want to talk about the timeline of what is in front of you.

[33:26] So tonight, obviously, we're here with the initial work session to get input and feedback

[33:30] from the council.

[33:32] In January of 2026, I mentioned we want to initiate and launch a community engagement

[33:37] process.

[33:38] And then depending upon the feedback we received tonight, we've held the site potentially

[33:42] coming back to the city council towards the end of January in another work session.

[33:46] and again, that's if needed and necessary.

[33:50] With the feedback we received tonight,

[33:51] our intention would be to start development

[33:54] of the community survey as soon as possible.

[33:56] If we can get the consultant on board,

[33:58] we'd start that in January

[33:59] because council may likely have to approve that contract,

[34:02] that work would begin in February.

[34:05] In March, we would like to come back to you

[34:07] with the first results of that initial survey.

[34:10] And then depending upon what are the results of that survey

[34:12] and the feedback we get from council,

[34:14] We could envision doing a second survey in April of 2026 and coming back to you in May with the results of that second survey and additional feedback from council and

[34:25] Assuming that all goes well. We'd be seeking specific council direction in June to start drafting ballot language. All of which has to get done and submitted to the county by no later than August 7th, 2026.

[34:37] 26. We obviously would like to get this done within the timeframes that Council meet.

[34:42] So July 28 would be the last meeting of Council when we would seek final adoption, if necessary.

[34:49] So that's the totality of our presentation for you this evening. We're certainly available

[34:54] looking forward to the discussion and questions from Council. In this next slide, we did prepare

[34:59] some specific questions that we would like to garner feedback on. So the first question

[35:05] is whether or not we should proceed with a community survey, we would like Council

[35:08] feedback on that and certainly any input and feedback of what should be in that survey

[35:13] that we may not be including at the moment.

[35:16] And then as it pertains to the specific geobahn, a number of very specific questions that

[35:20] we can come back to, does the City Council wish to explore a bond measure for infrastructure

[35:24] improvements? If so, a City Council supportive of evaluating an amount up to $300 million

[35:30] dollars for inclusion in the survey. Are there any additional projects that staff should

[35:35] evaluate and consider adding to the proposed list of projects? And then on the flip side,

[35:41] are there any projects that should be removed from the proposed list? So with that, I'll turn

[35:45] it back to you, Mayor. Thank you very much. What I want to do is start

[35:50] with questions from council and then do public comments and then have us come back for council

[35:56] comments as well. And thank you and then I'll ask you probably to pull up that slide again

[36:00] and so we can make sure we answer those questions.

[36:02] Thank you so much for to staff,

[36:05] for just all of your work on putting this together.

[36:08] I really appreciate it,

[36:09] and I'm gonna see if any of my council colleagues

[36:12] have questions.

[36:18] Yes, council member Humbert.

[36:23] Well, thank you Madam Mayor.

[36:24] It's hard to believe I'm the first one to click.

[36:29] Really, I just have one question in it,

[36:31] and I have a number of comments,

[36:32] But I just have one question about the community's survey.

[36:37] Would any thought be given to asking the community about a range of amounts?

[36:45] In other words, we're talking here about 300 million would it make sense to ask the community

[36:50] about lower amounts or even higher amounts?

[36:53] It absolutely would and that would be part of the process because we'd want to understand

[36:58] and voter support is at that level and then understand because it could be that there

[37:04] isn't support and we'd want to understand what the threshold is lower.

[37:07] If there's direction to look higher, we could do that as well.

[37:13] Okay.

[37:14] Questions next from Council Member Blackaby.

[37:16] Thanks, Madam Mayor and thanks to the staff for putting out this wonderful presentation

[37:20] and to the Vision 2050 team as well for coming with the framework that helps us evaluate

[37:24] this.

[37:26] A couple of questions.

[37:27] One is just stepping back one more level and the mayor referenced it earlier which

[37:31] is we've got this billion dollar plus infrastructure backlog that's accumulated over time and I like a lot of the benchmarking in here about the tax rate.

[37:40] What I'm interested is how do we kind of benchmark the $1 billion goal for a city of our size? And I know it's impractical impossible.

[37:49] We would never drive that to zero. It doesn't make sense to spend and drive our infrastructure backlog to zero.

[37:55] But one other kind of at least reference point for me in terms of how big the bond should

[38:00] be or this and the next bond is what's our goal for what we want to take our backlog

[38:04] down to and is that the right way to think about it?

[38:09] It's the way I'm thinking about it, but is that the right way we should think about it?

[38:12] Because if we do this $300 million bond, we've got a billion dollar infrastructure backlog

[38:18] Now, you know, we'll accrue more infrastructure over that time period.

[38:23] So, you know, is there a way to think about that benchmark that the other cities?

[38:27] What should the goal be?

[38:29] I know it's a kind of a big question, but it's something I'm kind of wrestling with as I'm thinking about this.

[38:33] I would like to see if our public work structure has any thoughts on that one, Terrence.

[38:41] Yeah, it's a, it, Councilmember, it's a great question.

[38:44] Certainly, we can benchmark in terms of looking at other municipalities in terms of what they're

[38:51] general backlog or unfunded liabilities are and see kind of where we compare and use that as a

[38:58] metric. I don't know that we can pursue investments in capital in that way directly in that part

[39:08] of the problem will continue to run into is that billion dollar number as we it's very difficult

[39:14] for us to project out into the out years given all the variability around construction pricing

[39:20] and materials pricing and prioritizations that shift.

[39:25] So I think it'd be very difficult

[39:27] to chase that into the future.

[39:30] I do believe that the strategy

[39:33] we're taking around kind of prioritization

[39:35] of categories of projects is important

[39:38] and then measuring that over time.

[39:41] And we can certainly kind of try to project out

[39:45] beyond a five-year look or beyond even a seven-year look,

[39:48] But if we try to get too far out, I think that that number becomes very kind of amorphous

[39:55] and very difficult, in my experience for us to really make it real.

[40:00] So we would just be pursuing this number that's kind of floating out there and been morphing

[40:06] and changing and very difficult to predict.

[40:10] Okay.

[40:11] I appreciate that.

[40:12] And then I think I tend to agree that the more tangible projects anyway are the things

[40:16] that are going to make voters stand up and say,

[40:19] hey, this is something worth doing or not.

[40:21] It's not, you know, people don't vote based on getting a billion,

[40:25] down to 800 million, like that doesn't inspire much participation.

[40:29] But it is an interesting context.

[40:31] At least, I think it may give voters some confidence

[40:33] that we are on the right track or that we have kind of a,

[40:36] this fits into sort of a big picture strategy

[40:38] or that how we kind of shape up with, you know,

[40:40] are we a little bit behind or a little bit ahead

[40:42] in terms of these sort of obligations.

[40:44] So anyway, I know we don't have necessarily the answer tonight, but I would love to continue that part of the conversation at some point.

[40:50] I don't think that's the big driver, but I'm interested in that.

[40:54] And the second thing on the tax rate, the bond analysis, and I see Gordon and the audience, and we had a similar conversation of this over a coffee a few weeks ago.

[41:02] But looking at the total kind of annual payment, and let me see what, I don't know what slide that is, but the chart that had all the years.

[41:12] I note that this is basically talking about the debt service piece to the taxpayer and

[41:24] looking at how if we add the $300 million of bonds in five-year tranches, what this

[41:31] will do to the average tax rate, which is useful, I did find in the staff report when we looked

[41:38] that the total tax bill to be really instructive,

[41:43] because I do think that most people,

[41:45] at least the folks I talk to, in my district

[41:48] about these sorts of issues,

[41:50] don't necessarily discern between the debt service part

[41:53] versus the parcel tax part,

[41:55] versus the school districts part,

[41:56] versus the county's part.

[41:57] They just look at the total number at the bottom.

[42:00] And so I do think that like this does tell us

[42:05] that we probably under leveraged our bond capacity over time, so there's more room.

[42:12] But I'll say I think most voters won't just think about it from this perspective, because

[42:17] one thing this probably doesn't show maybe is what has actually happened with parcel taxes

[42:22] since the 90s until now, which in my presumption not seeing the data is probably have more parcel

[42:27] taxes now than we did back then.

[42:30] So, anyway, so I just, again, I also would love to see some of this that looks at the

[42:36] total kind of average tax payment for a resident and also a business for that matter over

[42:44] time.

[42:44] Because, again, I just think that context is going to be really useful as we try and communicate

[42:49] this.

[42:51] Anyway, that's, I think that's it for my questions now.

[42:53] Thank you.

[42:54] Okay.

[42:54] Thank you.

[42:56] Thank you. I have two questions. I'm curious if these surveys typically include the other measures

[43:02] that are likely or confirmed to be on the ballot, measures that are not proposed by Council

[43:08] like voter initiatives or regional measures to kind of gauge voter fatigue?

[43:13] It would, it is not standard that we would include other tax measures, whether they're citizen

[43:20] related to be on our community survey, but it would be very typical if there were other

[43:25] measures that the council wanted to advance that we would include those as well in the

[43:29] community survey.

[43:30] I guess I met more questions such as if this, if these are the things on the ballot, would

[43:35] you still vote for this bond measure?

[43:39] You know, when you frame it that way, I do think that's something I'd want to bring back

[43:42] to our consultant because I think it is important that we want to explore whether or not the cumulative

[43:48] of effective measures that we were aware of could impact someone's ability to vote on something,

[43:52] so that's feedback I would want to bring back to the consultant to see how we could integrate that.

[43:57] Okay, great. Thank you. And my other question is about Old City Hall. I might have missed it,

[44:02] but I didn't see it on the list of projects, and I'm curious if there's a reason why or if I just missed

[44:07] it. Which one? Old City Hall. So that did show up on there. It's only a piece of the project,

[44:14] which is where we refer to the Modell-Shire Act building where we're talking about investing in seismic improvements into that facility.

[44:23] Okay, thank you.

[44:26] Okay, Councilmember Trayga.

[44:32] Thank you so much.

[44:35] I think some of the questions I had may have been partially answered.

[44:43] I wanted to ask this in a different way.

[44:48] So I appreciate your historical representation

[44:54] of the projected average tax rate.

[45:00] Shared with the council, as well, of certain properties having a property tax rate that seemed to increase pretty dramatically. And it turned out that BCEPT and I think measure FF and one more were partially responsible for those increases.

[45:27] There were some decreases as well.

[45:33] So my question is, is there an opportunity for the benefit of the council and maybe

[45:43] the public as well to do a representation of the overall basis and not just the bonding

[46:06] I was wondering if it was demarcated, even just to city and BUSD-based bonds in parcel

[46:20] taxes.

[46:21] That is something that could be calculated as a historical average.

[46:25] So what we can do, I want to bring it back to the team, but I think what we can do is in, as Councilmember Black will be noted, in the staff report, we did an analysis looking at the total tax bill.

[46:38] So I think what we could hypothetically do is, you know, assuming all else equal with partial taxes and we could see what we could make assumptions around the school district and their indebtedness, but we could model out if these additional bonds were added.

[46:52] how would that impact the total tax, but I think that's also why I was asked previously.

[46:57] I do believe that is something that we could make a set of assumptions and we could produce

[47:01] that and provide that information to the council when you're evaluating this request.

[47:06] I think that would be very valuable. My other question, well my other two, one was the

[47:16] Within the priorities that were stated, was that basically how you got to the $300 million or were there further priorities within my

[47:40] question is basically is, is what was presented around the

[47:50] community facilities and quality of life, public safety and critical infrastructure and accessibility.

[47:56] Were those the types of projects that rose to the top as priorities or were there for

[48:04] their prioritization that could be done within that list or needed to be done to get to the 300 million?

[48:16] I'll add a couple of things to answer to your question, so those are the elements before

[48:23] you were also looked at in regards to the potential for them to have other funding associated

[48:29] with them, the geographic dispersion throughout the city, health life safety concerns, so we

[48:41] We did use some of those envisioned criteria in coming up with the total group that we

[48:48] put before you and it could definitely could be changed if you all have, if there's projects

[48:54] and that's one of the things we'd like to hear from you, if there's infrastructure that

[48:58] you don't see on here that you feel like would be important to include or if there's something

[49:01] I hear where you feel like maybe not, it'd be good for us to get that direction and thought

[49:07] from the council.

[49:08] So, thank you.

[49:10] And then my last question was on the 50-50 sidewalk repair program.

[49:17] What is the current backlog, I think somewhere I've heard two and a half to three years?

[49:28] Is it that?

[49:29] Is it longer?

[49:30] Public Works Director Davis can open on this more, but I will say that when we started going

[49:35] through this exercise of putting this all together, we had a lower amount for the backlog

[49:40] for 50-50.

[49:41] And then we decided that, you know what, it's officially important that why don't we

[49:44] just put the entire backlog on here so that if we were to fund this, and correct me if

[49:49] I'm wrong, director Davis, if we were to fund the 50-50 program at the amount that we put

[49:54] in here, that would cover the existing backlog.

[49:57] Now, how long that would take is a different question, but from a thousand cents perspective.

[50:02] And I'm sure director Davis can add a little bit more to that.

[50:04] Yes, City Manager. That is correct. So that what's represented there is the fun will entire amount. I do have both our city engineer and deputy director should be in the room as well who can give you the specifics on the backlog amount.

[50:23] I don't want to misspeak, but I know that somebody either on the panel or why he may have that specific number.

[50:45] Good evening, everyone, we're here to meet your deputy director for public works.

[50:49] Currently, we have approximately 1,100 locations that have been logged into Director Davis' feedback.

[50:58] The SMA that we provided would bring us fully compliant or remediated the issues up to 2025.

[51:06] And that will clear out all of the backlogs and bring our sidewalks back to in the state of good repair, ADA compliant and so forth and so forth.

[51:19] Thank you.

[51:23] So you're okay. So moving on to Councilmember Kaplan.

[51:28] Thank you Madam Aaron. Thank you.

[51:29] Senator Routin-Higgin, Director Sprague, Davis and Ferris, Deputy Director White, Deputy Director

[51:36] Amiri and Kari and everybody.

[51:41] I just have one question.

[51:45] Will we be including the City's unions in our community engagement?

[51:54] In our community engagement as we move forward through this process?

[51:57] Yes.

[51:58] Yes, we will.

[51:59] Our intention is to have a pretty robust community process, which would include talking

[52:02] with our labor partners as well.

[52:05] Wonderful.

[52:05] Thank you so much.

[52:07] Thank you.

[52:08] Councilmember Kessar-Wani.

[52:09] Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

[52:11] Thank you, Deputy City Manager White, for the presentation.

[52:14] Thank you to the Vision 2050 task force for being here.

[52:20] And for all of your work over many years.

[52:23] And thank you to the Mayor for reconvening that group and having this time to talk about infrastructure.

[52:30] So, I just wanted to, well, first, I know this is a question time, but I did want to just second something council member Humbert had said about looking at a range.

[52:39] So, I am in support of the community survey. I guess we're going to do those comments later. So, let me just say that I thought a range was important.

[52:48] And, you know, I appreciate getting all of the possible projects that could be funded.

[52:58] Obviously, I assume we can't fund all of them for 300 million.

[53:01] So I think what would be helpful moving forward, and I can say this as a question is, you know,

[53:06] what are the highest priorities for repair?

[53:09] For streets, we know that the longer we wait, the greater the cost is, because you have

[53:15] to fully rebuild the street.

[53:17] So I'm wondering is there anything here that, you know, the longer we wait, the more costly it is or, you know, there's a safety or health risk to the community, I was thinking maybe of some of the climate resiliency work.

[53:31] So I think that would be helpful moving forward to get a sense of what should we be prioritizing of this long list.

[53:38] And then on, I know Sidewalk, the 50-50 Sidewalk program is mentioned and I do want us to be careful.

[53:46] I have a question because I know MeasureFF provides funding for Sidewalks at 15% and I was just

[53:52] looking at the language there on our website. It says 15% for Sidewalks and pedestrian paths

[53:58] until the backlog of damaged Sidewalks and pedestrian paths is eliminated. So I just want to be careful here.

[54:06] I'm worried about putting sidewalks in here again when the voters just approved a significant

[54:12] parcel tax that were the big piece of it being sidewalks.

[54:16] I think we need to calculate, you know, how much are we going to get from that?

[54:20] How much will that go towards sidewalks?

[54:22] And is there any left over that we want to fund through this?

[54:25] And I'm kind of inclined to just not do it because we already did something focused on

[54:31] streets and sidewalks.

[54:32] But I think it's still worth the analysis.

[54:33] And so I did have a question sort of what if we had thought about that when we put sidewalks in here that is it because we still believe that there's a need beyond the FF funding.

[54:48] Although for director Davis you want to comment on that.

[54:53] Yes, Councilmember, we thought about that and did contemplate that there's some overlap

[54:57] and we were very careful in proposing these projects with measure FF funding, having

[55:04] not been even deployed yet and really having that resource for our streets and sidewalks.

[55:11] I will say that measure FF funding by formula is fairly limited and so and we also have other

[55:22] accessibility and sidewalk improvement projects that we'd like to do around the city so this

[55:26] would be another force multiplier but certainly if it was the council's prerogative to move away from

[55:35] 50-50 and just focus on other ADA barrier removers that are not currently funded.

[55:41] We could certainly do that if that was the desire or it was an interest in kind of taking

[55:48] a look at what measure FF projected over the next few years would actually be able to accomplish

[55:54] in terms of funding that backlog, but as you know, there's quite a bit of pressure on

[55:59] measure FF already as we contemplate the first, you know, a couple rounds of projects.

[56:03] and so it's very unlikely that with the entirety of measure FSI,

[56:10] while funding dedicated to 50-50,

[56:13] we'd be very limited in doing other safety projects,

[56:16] or making other improvements.

[56:18] Okay, I understand.

[56:21] So I think that we may want to flush that out more

[56:25] and get an understanding of how much can be done

[56:28] on the 50-50 program with the measure FF funding.

[56:32] and then it sounds like you're talking about sidewalks

[56:36] but some specific ADA upgrades.

[56:39] So maybe that is slightly different.

[56:40] So I don't want to take it off the table

[56:42] because I do think sidewalks are something everyone uses

[56:45] and it's very important to have them be walkable.

[56:50] People use walkers, they use mobility assistance devices

[56:54] and they can't navigate our sidewalks right now

[56:57] because they're so bumpy.

[56:58] So I think it's important, I think we need to just be clear about what it is we want to do with this versus FF.

[57:04] So that's why I wanted to ask that.

[57:06] And then I think Council Member Trigger was getting into this issue.

[57:09] And as was Council Member Black, the concept of how much is this really going to cost?

[57:14] I know it's complicated because there's certain older bonds that are expiring.

[57:20] And so you're saying, when you say $44 per $100,000 of property value,

[57:27] value, that's everything, right? That would be this bond plus all the other bonds, right?

[57:35] Correct. That would be the average over about a 40-year timeframe.

[57:41] Okay. So, in California, we've been asking this, I think we have to think in the survey,

[57:48] I assume we're trying to get at voters willingness to pay, right?

[57:53] And so I think we need to be careful because this actually could be a lot right to I mean because of 1.5 million dollar home value median home value.

[58:03] So this is over 500 dollars right for that that sounds like a lot but.

[58:08] But I don't know if there's any way for us to think about well how much is this if we don't do this in the absence of this like sort of what is the incremental cost of this.

[58:19] maybe that's what we would ask the voters. I know we have time to develop the question,

[58:22] but I think we just need to clarify a bit. I don't know how we've done this question in the past,

[58:29] because I know we've pulled for bonds in the past. I'm not sure how exactly we get at the incremental cost

[58:36] of this one. I'll have to take a look because we have, as you said, we have surveyed this in the past,

[58:42] so I'll take a look at that in terms of how we've talked about that incremental cost.

[58:46] Okay, because I think that's probably, that's how I would think about it, you know, as somebody who gets the privilege of paying that bill, so I think maybe that would make sense, so I just wanted to ask you, but for our purposes, okay, so you're saying, and I think that I want to thank you for that chart, as I had asked for us to have something like that, because it puts it in context of sort of where we are, and where we have historically been with paying down

[59:18] the bond. So that's all I have in terms of questions. I kind of veered into comments. So thank

[59:22] you very much.

[59:26] Just so we're clear, I want to make sure I use something about $500 counts

[59:30] a member. And then I think that you would say something about $242 or something. I just

[59:36] want to make sure I'm understanding the amount that voters might have to pay for, homeowners

[59:42] might have to pay for.

[1:00:00] Before I home, so the assess value will range from folks who've gone to home for many, many years and have a low basis to someone who just bought a home. So obviously the actual amount will vary widely based on what is someone's actual assess value. The figure I quote it was just based on looking at the median assess value for the totality of the city. And what was that 550,000? 550,000.

[1:00:25] That's the media.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:28] All right.

[1:00:30] Got it.

[1:00:31] Okay.

[1:00:32] Thank you.

[1:00:33] Now, I appreciate the numbers.

[1:00:35] I know.

[1:00:36] Gosh.

[1:00:36] I don't have.

[1:00:38] Anyway.

[1:00:40] So I have some questions.

[1:00:42] I know everyone's now thinking about their property text bill.

[1:00:46] Could you speak a little bit more about the community engagement that you're hoping to do in January?

[1:00:51] So we have not fully developed it, but we've talked about wanting to speak to specific commissions, and so, like I said, we just haven't fully put all the meat on the bones yet, but in essence, we want to try to do some engagement, use our commissions and try to just get out there and hear from the community outside of a survey.

[1:01:11] What are their perspectives on these proposals to projects, et cetera?

[1:01:15] Got it. Okay, great. And could we also make sure that the RFP gets the firms?

[1:01:22] I know you said it's already been out. Does the RFP have the firms?

[1:01:29] Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what's written here. I'm going to skip that question.

[1:01:35] I'm wondering, I think I'm feeling really nervous about the timeline.

[1:01:39] I'm just knowing that things aren't going to be finalized until quite late into 2026, and so I'm wondering if it's possible for Council to give direction to move forward on an agreement with a firm but then come back for retroactive approval, which I know we sometimes do with things that happened during the break.

[1:02:02] I think we can do a contract with the survey firm in the interim that would allow us to do that. It might have to be a smaller contract and we'd have to come back to you later to get council authority to increase it, but yes, we could do that.

[1:02:26] Okay.

[1:02:27] And in fact, that would be fantastic if we could do that.

[1:02:30] Yeah, that would be great because I think the later we, you know, get a firm, the later

[1:02:33] we get the poll, the later, you know, all this stuff happens.

[1:02:36] So that's great.

[1:02:37] Thank you very much.

[1:02:38] And I think that this question here is around if we've asked these, in the RFP if the firms

[1:02:46] have experience on resiliency and climate change related surveys?

[1:02:57] No, we didn't ask that specifically, we just asked for their totality of experience

[1:03:02] doing community surveys, but we didn't focus on the one any particular topic.

[1:03:10] Okay, and then the other thing is some of the council members brought up the question for me

[1:03:14] about how many of these projects, 300 million, will cover.

[1:03:19] I just want to make sure I understand that.

[1:03:21] Well, the total number of projects we have listed is,

[1:03:28] it's got to be more than 31.

[1:03:30] I mean, I think the key point is the total number of projects listed

[1:03:32] equals about 300 million.

[1:03:34] So this is the full group that we're talking about.

[1:03:37] It's a little lower than 300 million, but that's essentially the group that we're talking about.

[1:03:40] Great. I just want to make sure everybody understands that,

[1:03:43] because I think that's important, because I think this is actually the short list, not the long list of projects.

[1:03:49] So, great, thank you very much for that. Any other questions? Oh, Council Member Blackambe, you have followed?

[1:03:56] One last one, and it was spurred by your question. And I noticed in the Vision 25th Report, there was a question about whether this is a 2026 or 2028 kind of decision.

[1:04:05] Obviously, the sooner we do it, the sooner we have the bonds, the sooner we can start making investments in infrastructure, but it could be some considerations for what's the best ballot,

[1:04:13] what's the best electorate kind of all that.

[1:04:15] What's, you know, if you thought about the timing

[1:04:17] and what's driving the 2026 in particular?

[1:04:22] Mostly the huge backlog of infrastructure needs

[1:04:28] and wanting to get on that two years sooner.

[1:04:30] And I will add some other considerations again to mind.

[1:04:34] So as we talked about measure T1,

[1:04:37] we're gonna do our final issuance of that

[1:04:39] in early next year, and those projects are already called for.

[1:04:44] So basically at this point in time we have other than measure FF, we have very little

[1:04:50] new resources coming into our infrastructure.

[1:04:53] So we're also just trying to be thoughtful about we want to keep reinvesting in our infrastructure

[1:04:58] because I think that the point was made before the more we delay, the more things deteriorate,

[1:05:04] the streets example was used, that's very similar for buildings.

[1:05:07] So, we're trying to think about with all of our existing measures coming to an end, this would provide an opportunity to keep that machine going and keep us invested.

[1:05:18] Like the last thing I would add to that is that things become more expensive, so two years from now it's just going to be more expensive.

[1:05:24] Yeah, makes sense.

[1:05:25] I guess the survey will also help be a guide, because if the feedback is folks are not ready, then we get the message.

[1:05:32] I mean, so again, I know we'll be open and receptive to that because I mean, getting to 67% is a high bar in any election, and so, anyway, so I know most of the time you're driven by that we need the resources to start doing the capital investment, and I appreciate that.

[1:05:48] But I also assume we'll be sensitive to what we hear from the public.

[1:05:52] Thank you. Councilmember Trigger, did you have a follow-up question?

[1:05:58] Yeah, on survey development, is that something that typically goes to the council just in

[1:06:07] terms of wetting the questions, or do you just move forward with the questions?

[1:06:15] I think we would just move forward with the questions once we got the direction from you.

[1:06:18] Okay, then just because this is my first time going through this particular development of potential bond measure.

[1:06:31] I wanted to ask is in the survey, how typical is it to provide some contextual questions around do you feel that the city is moving in the right or the wrong direction?

[1:06:48] direction or do you feel better off now than you were five years ago or things like that?

[1:06:57] It's very typical for us to ask some contextual questions like that in the survey.

[1:07:02] Okay, thank you.

[1:07:04] Okay, great.

[1:07:06] Thank you so much.

[1:07:06] I'm going to open up for public comment and then we'll come back to council comments.

[1:07:11] Is there any public comment?

[1:07:12] We'd love to hear what you folks think about this project, et cetera.

[1:07:19] I'm trying to get a sense of if anyone else is going to speak, but I think you can have

[1:07:28] two minutes because it looks like we've got time for it.

[1:07:31] So go ahead, two minutes.

[1:07:36] Mayor Issy and council members, I recall standing in front of the city council in 2022 when

[1:07:46] a similar discussion was held on a revenue measure.

[1:07:49] I want to bring to your attention that a number of pertinent information was presented

[1:07:57] by staff at that time to counsel that are relevant and may be helpful to you now.

[1:08:03] One in particular was staff presented an acid management program to you.

[1:08:10] This is a life cycle maintenance management program that would help keep that billion dollars

[1:08:18] at a billion dollars or going down.

[1:08:21] So maintaining facilities is as important as fixing them.

[1:08:28] So that document was brought to Council in 2022.

[1:08:34] And another document that was important was a program plan.

[1:08:39] And that was brought in, I believe it was in May of 2022.

[1:08:43] That information is all still available and relevant to your discussion.

[1:08:48] A program plan is looking at everything that you're trying to deal with.

[1:08:54] How do you maintain it?

[1:08:55] How do you prioritize it?

[1:08:57] How do you sequence it?

[1:08:58] Because what you're dealing with is just kind of like the short list.

[1:09:02] There's a longer list.

[1:09:03] How do you deal with longer lists?

[1:09:05] So the program plan made a first task at that

[1:09:09] And also tried to address the question of the organizational requirements that you might

[1:09:15] need to implement the program.

[1:09:17] So I think there's more to the discussion that could happen that you're having right

[1:09:22] now, and some of these passwords in 2022 would be helpful in that context.

[1:09:29] Thank you.

[1:09:34] Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[1:09:36] So I'm wearing my hat as coordinator for Community for Cultural Civic Center,

[1:09:42] DBA, and neighbor, three blocks from the park and the Civic Center.

[1:09:48] I just want to say, you know, the renovation of the Civic Center Park,

[1:09:52] I think everyone has recognized as a tremendous success.

[1:09:57] And it's laying the groundwork for renovating the entire Civic Center and

[1:10:00] what is possible.

[1:10:02] And we need and want to continue this.

[1:10:04] I want to thank Eleanor, I want to thank parents and his staff for their great work.

[1:10:10] I also wanted to remember that we, I think only three of you were here.

[1:10:14] In March 22nd, 2022, we presented an innovative seismic study.

[1:10:20] The CCC paid $14,000 public works, paid $14,000.

[1:10:25] We've got a low-bonal proposal that showed we could drop the cost of the seismic renovation

[1:10:31] by 51 to 54%.

[1:10:35] So we've done an incredible job already showing how we can do this affordably.

[1:10:39] We really need this money in the budget so we can get the FEMA grant.

[1:10:43] We need to have the match.

[1:10:45] So let's build on our success, let's realize, I know it's a challenging budget situation,

[1:10:52] but I really appreciate it in the last, but I think some great foundational works have been

[1:10:56] done that the community can build upon.

[1:10:58] Thank you so much.

[1:11:00] Thank you, John.

[1:11:01] I

[1:11:08] want to thank the Council for taking up this and listening to what Mayor's task force

[1:11:15] has proposed.

[1:11:16] We have a big problem around infrastructure on a long term, and as they say in the long

[1:11:21] term, everybody dies, but there's always other people.

[1:11:24] There's going to still be people in Berkeley, okay?

[1:11:27] So we need the infrastructure.

[1:11:29] We need to invest in it because it costs more to delay these things.

[1:11:33] And there are, I would say, there's a great example of how to do bonds right, and that's the Berkeley Unified School District.

[1:11:43] Every 12, 10 or 12 years that go out for a large bond like you're doing now, they list the projects you're going to do.

[1:11:51] And in 2020, the voters passed a $380 million authorization for the school district.

[1:11:56] They don't, or Berkeley, the city tends to go out with a lot of little projects, and they go out every other year or something like that.

[1:12:04] And I think it's really important to set up a model like the school district.

[1:12:08] School district has less infrastructure that is responsible for than the city does.

[1:12:13] But it issues, it has $300 million of outstanding bonds, where the city has $200.

[1:12:18] So somehow they're doing a better job at dealing with their infrastructure problems, and the city does.

[1:12:23] and we could learn a lot by studying,

[1:12:26] consulting with them and how they do that.

[1:12:28] The other thing I would say is that there's some good news

[1:12:32] in this person in the staff report,

[1:12:34] particularly the leverage that they got with T1.

[1:12:38] They got 80%, well, they got a $300 million bond

[1:12:41] and 80%, that's another couple hundred million dollars

[1:12:43] and that helps, but if you don't have the money,

[1:12:47] you don't get the leverage.

[1:12:49] And in fact, for the housing,

[1:12:50] the leverage was even much better, it was like 400%.

[1:12:53] And so the city should celebrate, this is a good thing, I did a good job there, they were able to leverage taxpayer dollars and so we should try to do the same thing and hopefully we can do as well or better in the future.

[1:13:07] The last thing I would like to just say is that the city's done a great job.

[1:13:12] Sorry, does someone want to give him a minute?

[1:13:14] Just a minute.

[1:13:14] The, the, someone will get, you've got another minute, go ahead.

[1:13:18] Okay, the last thing I would say is that the city's done a great job on solar, building up solar capacity.

[1:13:26] They've done a really poor job on wind.

[1:13:28] And if you look in the report, there's a great picture in there from the, the Vision 2050 showing.

[1:13:35] There's this huge wind power that comes through the Golden Gate and it's directed exactly straight out the Berkeley Marina.

[1:13:41] Yeah.

[1:13:41] We should put some windmills down there, okay?

[1:13:44] Because sometimes when the sun doesn't shine, the wind blows very hard.

[1:13:48] So thank you.

[1:13:49] Thank you.

[1:13:50] I

[1:14:02] almost need a ladder to pull that thing down.

[1:14:04] Oh my God.

[1:14:06] All right.

[1:14:07] So I give great thanks for all of you.

[1:14:09] I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and enjoy your holiday the next month.

[1:14:15] I'm really thrilled that you're focusing on infrastructure.

[1:14:19] I really tried to prevent harm and I've worked on projects where they didn't want to do

[1:14:27] a $300 roof leak and $30,000 later.

[1:15:00] I think it's behind it and you wouldn't know. I worked on a project upon the spruce street. The entire house was folding, collapsing. The hill behind it was sliding. The pipes, the sewer lines, the water lines were breaking. It's like things were changing and was hukif, things to get more expensive if you defer maintenance. And the gentleman who said,

[1:15:29] and it's much better to maintain things.

[1:15:32] I mean, I do periodic checks all the time

[1:15:36] because it's so much more cost-effective

[1:15:38] than that brings me to the sidewalks.

[1:15:40] And I do have an extra minute

[1:15:42] from my friend back there.

[1:15:45] He'll raise his hand, I'm sure.

[1:15:46] Okay, look, I've found in a bunch of times

[1:15:50] I'm already in kind of rickety shape.

[1:15:53] One more fall that I'm starting to cry.

[1:15:56] It might do me in.

[1:15:58] Therefore, I get down on my knees and I grind sidewalks.

[1:16:02] I go to the transportation department and say, how can I find out what you all use for

[1:16:11] grout, that white, cementitious, non-concrete thing that you can just level off the sidewalk?

[1:16:19] Or what about the asphalt that you use for speed bumps?

[1:16:22] Well, they tell me that she has an extra minute, Ros.

[1:16:25] Thank you, you know, they give me the name of the materials and of course, you know, I'd have to buy

[1:16:31] truckloads of it, but I'm literally, I got spray paint in my car. It's like it released alert people.

[1:16:39] Okay, so prevent harm.

[1:16:44] Thank you for everything that you have been doing. A lot of the streets have been striped painted,

[1:16:49] so that at least people know where to turn, but speed bumps.

[1:16:52] they're not getting repainted and you know I'm just about losing my head almost rolls off my neck

[1:17:00] if I hit it too fast because I don't see it.

[1:17:05] Yeah so and the fire department good god

[1:17:12] buildings I've seismically retrofitted things because again you don't want them to collapse but the

[1:17:19] ambulances and the paramedics and the fire engines need to be able to travel.

[1:17:26] We have idiotic, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful, traffic lights.

[1:17:33] We have two way streets, there are only one way, barely.

[1:17:38] It's like we've got to get prepared for when people need medical help instead of having

[1:17:46] the literally leave town, move out of the country because they know the ambulance wouldn't

[1:17:51] get to them in time, it's like okay so infrastructure is definitely quality of life like we should

[1:17:59] be, I will stay alive, we should not have to get injured, we should help each other out and I really

[1:18:05] appreciate everything that you're doing and again I sincerely hope you have a great,

[1:18:10] It's a great holiday given that this is the last meeting.

[1:18:13] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1:18:14] Bye.

[1:18:15] Thanks, Freya.

[1:18:21] Hello.

[1:18:21] It was for the council.

[1:18:22] Thank you very much for everything you do.

[1:18:23] I think this is my first time here.

[1:18:25] My name is Sophia Scota.

[1:18:26] And in my day job, I work for all of you at East Bay Mad is the finance director.

[1:18:30] Thank you for paying your water bills.

[1:18:32] So I did want to say, thank you for your focus on infrastructure here today.

[1:18:36] That's also what we are doing at East Bay Mad.

[1:18:38] And I wanted to say, I hope that you'll consider as you look at how you're going forward with

[1:18:42] this important infrastructure fund and the bond funding, looking at parcel taxes as

[1:18:47] well as Geobons.

[1:18:49] Geobons, one of you brought up a $1.5 million average sale price today, so a Geobon puts

[1:18:56] the burden of the infrastructure on young families rather than more evenly across the community.

[1:19:01] So just kind of looking at those considerations and there are things that can be done to

[1:19:05] kind of bracket around maybe parcel size or square footage or things like that that could

[1:19:10] be a parcel tax but the geobahn on a 550 median assessed value means that one part of

[1:19:19] the voter base is getting a significant benefit. I think it makes a lot of sense for things

[1:19:24] like schools where again that nexus is closer with who's paying and who's receiving the benefit

[1:19:29] but perhaps a parcel tax could make sense. Thank you very much.

[1:19:33] Thank you. Are there folks online?

[1:19:37] No hands are currently raised, but this is the time to provide public comments on the discussion regarding potential ballot measures.

[1:19:46] So if you're participating online and you'd like to speak, please raise your hand.

[1:19:57] Okay, but there are no speakers.

[1:20:00] Okay, very good, we'll go back to Council for Council comments then starting with Councilmember Dapplin.

[1:20:06] Thank you very much and please allow me to first express my gratitude to Mary E. Sheep for allowing me the opportunity to serve on the task force.

[1:20:14] It was an honor to work with you and Councilor Teghub and Ray and Margo and everybody and like the mayor, I also have a great love and

[1:20:25] passion for infrastructure and it was one of the first things I began to think about when I entered my life as a public servant in this way.

[1:20:33] I strongly support moving forward with the survey and with the exploration of the number

[1:20:40] of 26 bond up to 300 million. I'm not interested in the personal tax for capital. I would like

[1:20:46] for the survey to pull fire projects separately and also the larger set together, just to see if

[1:20:53] that changes or is different. And I do think it will be important for us to avoid the shortfalls

[1:21:01] of measure L, namely a high-dollar amount combined with an ill-defined scope of improvements.

[1:21:07] And to that effect, what makes sense to me is to create clear nexus around immediate safety

[1:21:13] consideration, disaster and climate resiliency and recreational equity.

[1:21:18] And to list off projects, I feel like exemplify that among the current lists for immediate safety

[1:21:24] the Frances Altbrier, the South Coast Seawall replacement,

[1:21:28] the veterans building, model Shregg Old City Hall,

[1:21:31] the 5050 Sidewalk program backlog,

[1:21:33] the MLK Civic Center Annex, fire stations 4 and 6,

[1:21:38] the police fire remastered dispatch center remodel,

[1:21:41] the Harrison Street fire training facility,

[1:21:43] and then the disaster and climate resiliency category,

[1:21:46] the Marineville Vardt sea level rise and betrayal project,

[1:21:49] fire stations 1, 2, 3, 5, 7,

[1:21:51] and in their recreational equity category,

[1:21:55] aquatic park improvements, Harrison Park,

[1:21:57] Asperger Field Conversion,

[1:22:00] I align corridor open spaces,

[1:22:02] King Pool, a Sam Pablo Park Sports Field irrigation drainage,

[1:22:07] the University of Avenue Bike Park,

[1:22:09] and the city wide dog parks.

[1:22:14] And I have a lot more time,

[1:22:16] I thought I would, but when I just closed by saying,

[1:22:18] I do think it will be important to engage

[1:22:20] as wide of a sample of the community as possible,

[1:22:24] including our labor partners, the commissions,

[1:22:28] the neighborhood groups, our community groups,

[1:22:32] and I want to just offer any support

[1:22:35] that my office can provide, and I know it will be tough

[1:22:42] to give in to people, but I'm proud of what we've done,

[1:22:45] And I'm willing to fight and knock on every single door and make every single phone call.

[1:22:52] Despite my millennial aversion to phone, I can text for sure, yeah.

[1:23:00] But I say I believe in the city, I believe in our staff, I believe in our community.

[1:23:06] And having heard from my constituents and people throughout the city for years about a number of these projects,

[1:23:13] I am fully committed to seeing these over, over the finish line, if it takes one cycle, if it takes 10 cycles, I feel like I have to see the stuff done.

[1:23:23] Thank you.

[1:23:25] Thank you, Councilmember Humbert.

[1:23:29] Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[1:23:31] And I want to, there are two items on the agenda this afternoon.

[1:23:36] I guess we're almost into the evening.

[1:23:39] And so I want to address the first one more fully maybe.

[1:23:43] I want to thank Vigorous, thanks to the Mayor's Vision 2050 task force for the report

[1:23:54] and the Mayor for reconvening the task force.

[1:23:57] I haven't had time to review the report in detail.

[1:24:00] I know Ray says it's only eight or 12 pages, but it's their tremendous number of appendices

[1:24:07] attached.

[1:24:08] And I want to spend some time with it.

[1:24:09] I appreciate all the work that went into it and the contribution of time and thought by

[1:24:16] luminaries such as Ray Yepp and Margot Schuller and Larry Henry and all of you there sitting

[1:24:25] out there in the seats.

[1:24:28] I do really appreciate the emphasis on permeable infrastructure and life cycle maintenance which

[1:24:34] both Mr. Yap and Ms. Schuller have emphasized over many years, really critical, critically

[1:24:43] important things. I think the challenge we now face is determining how to translate

[1:24:47] the report and its broad recommendations into concrete actions in the context of highly

[1:24:52] constrained resources. The report discusses what criteria we might use to prioritize projects,

[1:25:00] but it seems a hard work of identifying those priorities and potentially having to leave

[1:25:04] some projects to a future time wise ahead of us and actually we're dealing with that I think

[1:25:09] with the bond and again thank you all for all this good work. With respect to item number two,

[1:25:19] I want to thank the city manager and all of our city staff and David White for their incredible

[1:25:26] work on this effort and this report. The information is helpful, thorough and very well presented.

[1:25:32] I especially appreciate the graphs of tax rates over time as other folks have mentioned.

[1:25:37] And I'm very heartened by the timelines presented for developing these potential ballot measures.

[1:25:43] We're really ahead of the game compared to what happened in 2022, for example.

[1:25:49] You know, there was then really a rush for the finish, but this time if we can stick to these timelines

[1:25:55] or even accelerate them as the mayor has suggested.

[1:25:59] I think we're well positioned to have more deliberative discussions and submit our ballot

[1:26:03] language well ahead of the deadline, knock on wood.

[1:26:07] I think the list of projects is a great start, a really good list, but, and I agree with

[1:26:12] about 80 or 90 percent of it, I mean, I personally am really excited to see the 50-50 sidewalk

[1:26:19] repair program listed.

[1:26:21] The backlog for this program shows how valued and successful it is, and having previously

[1:26:28] Actually myself put forward budget referrals to get it fully funded.

[1:26:32] I'd be thrilled to see the 50-50 program get fully funded by a general obligation bond

[1:26:37] taking into account the concerns of council member Kessar Wani about how we dovetail that

[1:26:44] with FF.

[1:26:46] I'd also like to see, not necessarily on this list, I'd like to see bus shelters.

[1:26:51] I think those are really important.

[1:26:53] and other transit improvements as we move from an auto-focused city to one that walks and

[1:27:03] bikes and takes transit. I have to say, and people might not be very happy with this,

[1:27:09] I'm less enthusiastic about including the seismic retrofits of the Modal Shurek and Veterans

[1:27:15] building on this list. I strongly support having downtown projects on the

[1:27:21] interest, but I also want a better future for these buildings and I do, but candidly

[1:27:26] I'm not convinced the currently envisioned uses for the buildings are the way forward

[1:27:32] or justify the level of investment necessary to put them back into top shape.

[1:27:37] Looking at the projected costs for these projects, it strikes me that at the very least it would

[1:27:42] eat up a disproportionate share of the $300 million.

[1:27:45] dollars. Right now we're struggling to keep our existing well-established cultural

[1:27:50] uses of float. We've already seen the closure of the jazz conservatory in the Aurora

[1:27:55] Theater, investing significant funds to create more arts spaces at a time when we're

[1:28:01] having trouble keeping our existing ones filled is not fiscally wise. And I think most Berkeley

[1:28:07] residents have other facilities that would be higher priorities. I went to the Berkeley

[1:28:13] We wrapped the other night and it was about a third full and I think that we ought to be

[1:28:18] focusing on keeping the Berkeley rep in business rather than creating new art spaces.

[1:28:27] That said, if staff and my colleagues feel it's important to pull on those projects, I

[1:28:32] wouldn't object because if we're going to keep old City Hall and veterans in the running,

[1:28:36] I do think it's important that we get a sense of where they fall in the priority list of

[1:28:41] Berkeley residents.

[1:28:42] Again, thank you a lot, you know, tons of thanks for all the hard work that went into

[1:28:46] this.

[1:28:46] Thank you.

[1:28:47] Thank you, Councilmember.

[1:28:49] Moving on to Councilmember Blackbeat.

[1:28:53] Thanks, Madam Mayor.

[1:28:54] And just again, add my thanks to you for reconvening the task force, Demargo and Ray and the whole team

[1:28:59] for participating and for the city staff for all the hard work that's gone into bringing us

[1:29:03] to this point.

[1:29:04] I'm excited that we are kind of on the cusp of moving forward with kind of a major investment

[1:29:10] and Berkeley's infrastructure, we need to do it, we know we need to do it.

[1:29:16] It's just a question of sort of how, when, how much, and what's involved.

[1:29:21] But I think we have a lot to work with here.

[1:29:24] So to work kind of very quickly through the questions that you left with us,

[1:29:28] totally support moving forward with the survey.

[1:29:31] As council member Luna Parra mentioned, I am interested as part of that research,

[1:29:35] making sure we look at this potential measure in the context of other things that are likely

[1:29:40] going to be on the ballot, we already know that the arts parcel tax may very well be on the ballot.

[1:29:45] Maybe there's a local transit measure as well as a regional transit measure, potentially a

[1:29:49] regional housing measure. So again, I just putting the context of what we're asking for up against

[1:29:56] the other things that may also be on the ballot, I just think makes sense.

[1:30:00] There, but it might be interesting to look at fire separate from parks and waterfront separate from public works and just understand where people's heads are at with respect to those. I'd also say if part of the survey is I know in previous years we've gotten some public feedback on the types of infrastructure projects that people support. We should again ask and just make sure that what we are putting in the package kind of ranks highly on what we

[1:30:29] here in the survey and just be ready to adjust the list if what we're hearing from the survey

[1:30:35] guides us in a slightly different direction. I know we will be, but you know, I just, I want the

[1:30:39] data to kind of be our guide as we go forward. On the size, it's Council Member Humbert mentioned.

[1:30:49] I think looking at a 300 million, it feels like it's not too hot, not too cold, just right. I mean,

[1:30:53] it feels okay, but looking at a range, maybe it's a little bit less, maybe it's a little bit more

[1:30:59] based on the survey, but also on some of these other benchmarks that we were talking about earlier,

[1:31:05] what should we be, what do we need to be investing to at least stay at parity if not actually

[1:31:10] make a dent in the $1 billion kind of backlog? That should be kind of one of the macro guides that

[1:31:17] helps us inform the size. And then on a micro level, I think, again looking at the average tax payment

[1:31:23] of a resident and a business, and maybe by the way, it's not just the median, but also what does it

[1:31:29] look like at the 70th percentile or 90th percentile because we'll get a wide range of this.

[1:31:34] So I think all of those sorts of things, both at the macro level as well as the individual

[1:31:39] resident kind of tax piece, should inform the size.

[1:31:45] But at first blush, 300 million seems a little about right, but again we might look more

[1:31:51] or less depending on what we learn and how we benchmark ourselves.

[1:31:56] One other piece I would encourage us to test in the research is leaning into sort of the

[1:32:04] oversight and kind of the spending management and just the responsibility part you've given

[1:32:09] a lot of really useful information already on how previous bond dollars have been invested

[1:32:15] in the results and I think really taking some pride in that and pushing hard on the fact

[1:32:21] that we are responsible stewards and will continue to be responsible stewards and baked into the bond itself is what's the oversight function look like and what is sort of the management function look like just to show taxpayers that we will continue to be responsible and effective with the money that they're good enough to share with us.

[1:32:42] I think the list of projects for now I was very comfortable I like the range of what was in it but again be open to adjusting based on what we hear and what we learn.

[1:32:52] Yeah, and I think that's, that's where I got back.

[1:32:55] Again, I appreciate this opportunity to participate, to hear from members of the public and to move forward because I think, again, this is an important step for the city.

[1:33:07] We know we have a lot of work to do, and I look forward to embarking on this journey, so thank you.

[1:33:12] Thank you, Council Member O'Keefe.

[1:33:16] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:33:18] First, I just want to echo, I think everyone else has had a chance to say this.

[1:33:20] I want to echo the thanks for all the hard work that's gone into both of these items.

[1:33:25] And also, thanks in advance for all the work that's coming, because this is a huge undertaking.

[1:33:31] But it's also, it's really worthwhile.

[1:33:33] This is one of the most impactful things that any of us may work on if it happens.

[1:33:39] So, good job and thanks in advance.

[1:33:45] Just to providing the polling, I just want to echo the suggestions that have been made

[1:33:49] that we really are careful to make sure we get information about how people feel

[1:33:54] about additional taxes in the totality of everything that's happening.

[1:33:58] I know that's already been said, but I think that's a really, really important lesson.

[1:34:02] And, you know, I wasn't around for measure L, but whatever lessons there are to learn

[1:34:07] from that, I'm sure we'll learn and act on those because I think, yeah, I really hope this

[1:34:13] works out. So that's my only comment about that. In terms of the project, I

[1:34:18] agree this is a great list. A lot of I appreciate the sort of spread of

[1:34:23] different different kinds of infrastructure in different ways that it could

[1:34:27] improve people's lives, you know, from safety to quality of life to see

[1:34:33] level rise. A lot of really good projects. The only suggestion I have that's

[1:34:40] sort of more categorical that I have some specific examples is I'd like to see some

[1:34:44] more like placemaking kinds of projects. It's easy to overlook it because it's creating

[1:34:53] something new as opposed to refurbishing, but there are a lot of places in our city. I'll

[1:35:00] give you two examples from district five because that's my area. There's a lot of areas

[1:35:04] where there's sort of like nothing and there could be something and that's a category

[1:35:09] that I want to make sure we don't overlook.

[1:35:12] And one example is, my predecessor,

[1:35:15] formal accountant of Erhan,

[1:35:17] has submitted, I think, twice a budget referral

[1:35:20] to redesign the top of Slano.

[1:35:23] And, you know, Slano up there,

[1:35:25] it's a stupidly wide street.

[1:35:27] You know, it's not a high traffic area.

[1:35:30] Cars don't need so much space.

[1:35:32] And that whole area could be redesigned

[1:35:34] to be a really lovely pedestrian plaza

[1:35:36] that would really enhance the area

[1:35:37] and the experience of every single person enjoying that.

[1:35:41] And I'm actually going to resubmit that budget referral again,

[1:35:45] and that there's maybe like a glimmer of hope

[1:35:47] that maybe one day it could happen.

[1:35:49] I think things like that shouldn't be overlooked.

[1:35:53] And then another example also in District 5 is that that weird

[1:35:57] like triple street area on Shaddick at Rose next to the CVS,

[1:36:03] if you guys know what I'm talking about,

[1:36:04] where the farmers market is, like what is that?

[1:36:06] Why are we using our space that way?

[1:36:09] That could be a place for people to stand and sit and lie down maybe and really enjoy it.

[1:36:16] There's no reason for that there to be three different streets.

[1:36:20] There's probably a lot of examples of that around the city, but I want to make sure we kind of think about creating as opposed to just making fixing.

[1:36:31] Those are my comments.

[1:36:31] Oh, I'm sorry, Alex will come if I don't say, we also need bathrooms at Indian Rock Park.

[1:36:38] There's actually quite a bit of demand for that, so throw that on the list.

[1:36:42] Thank you.

[1:36:43] Thank you.

[1:36:44] And actually, could I have you pull up the questions that you have for us?

[1:36:47] I realize we don't have those up.

[1:36:50] Councilmember Traca?

[1:36:54] Thank you, Madame Mayor.

[1:36:56] The benefit of going fifth is a lot of what I was going to say has already been said.

[1:37:03] and in more eloquently than I would have said it.

[1:37:09] I wanted to just touch on some, a few points.

[1:37:13] First of all, I would be remiss in also not expressing my gratitude to the mayor for

[1:37:20] pointing me to the task force to Council Member Tafflin for co-convening it and for way

[1:37:29] and Margo for spearheading it so ably and I did skim the report and have

[1:37:39] confirmed that all the changes that my chief of staff who I also want to

[1:37:45] thank for for participation in the task force have been incorporated and it's a

[1:37:51] really good document and I think the most important piece that I really wanted

[1:37:58] to call out, because so many times this is not the case, but in this case, there was an

[1:38:07] informative statement by staff that what is being proposed as this potential bond matter

[1:38:14] is in alignment with Vision 2050. I think that's really important, that gives me a lot

[1:38:21] of confidence that this really is a plan that is more than just a concept. It is actually

[1:38:32] also going to be implementable. It is not going to be gathering dust on a shelf like

[1:38:38] so many plans, unfortunately, do. And I do want to, I appreciated all the public comments.

[1:38:48] I wanted to appreciate what Ray said about documents that past councils looked at, that

[1:39:00] guided past councils and that can also guide our council as we embark upon this process.

[1:39:08] And I can say the same thing about measure L. I think we're all better off for measure

[1:39:17] L having been attempted, and I just want to voice my appreciation to the past Mayor and

[1:39:26] Council for also having the vision around that.

[1:39:33] It has already been said, so I'm just going to put a finer point on it is important in

[1:39:45] the polling to look at, yes, definitely what is the Goldilocks range? Is it 300 million? Is it

[1:39:53] something more or less? But also really trying to get at how pervasive the it all adds up argument

[1:40:03] is because I certainly have constituents that are feeling it and I am empathetic to

[1:40:16] homeowners, particularly newer homeowners that have felt the weight of tax increases and other property assessment increases on their property tax increases on their bills.

[1:40:32] But also it is important to try to quantify as best we can.

[1:40:36] What is the cost of delaying it further?

[1:40:41] And that gets me into a point I wanted to make, and this is one area where I'm going to

[1:40:48] depart with much respect to my colleague, Council Member Hamburg.

[1:40:54] I believe that we have the

[1:40:59] lotation and the seismic

[1:41:02] the seismic improvements of

[1:41:06] buildings like Modell-Shirack and

[1:41:10] the veterans memorial building are

[1:41:14] hugely important to me, to my

[1:41:18] constituents, and I think to the

[1:41:20] Berkeley community because these

[1:41:23] These buildings are the foundation and cornerstone of a city's democracy, frankly.

[1:41:33] And so how we are able to maintain them is going to be important and is going to reflect

[1:41:41] of how we feel as a community about what we value.

[1:41:47] So, I want to at least get that pulled, and I will say I wish that we had been able

[1:41:54] to start that, had measure L passed, there were reasons it didn't,

[1:42:01] we would be on our

[1:42:02] way.

[1:42:04] And I will, I have a 30 second comment about sidewalks, I understand Council Member Kessir

[1:42:13] one is point and I would support whatever gets us to closing out the back lock on the 50-50

[1:42:23] sidewalk improvements. This is a top five area we hear from from our constituents. I myself

[1:42:30] have tripped and fallen on our sidewalks, so I certainly appreciate how important it is to me

[1:42:41] as an able-bodied person who has the privilege to get up and especially to those who are not.

[1:42:49] So thank you so much and I look forward to supporting this process as it continues.

[1:42:54] Thank you, Council Member Bartlett.

[1:42:58] Thank you, Madam Mayor. And thank you finance team and the infrastructure team for putting

[1:43:04] this together and doing the work on this. I know it was a lot of work and thanks to the city staff

[1:43:08] for a point together in terms of omnivus wide reaching effort here.

[1:43:14] And I do support the litany of elements within here, by and large, very wholeheartedly.

[1:43:23] I think we should do a survey, and I know our service in the past have been really well

[1:43:27] done.

[1:43:27] We have some good people in our arsenal.

[1:43:30] We're good to work them again.

[1:43:31] You know, so looking at the list of elements here and being cognizant of the fiscal pressures

[1:43:39] that our taxpayers are confronted with right now in the current economy, you know, when

[1:43:49] the one that failed measure L, it passed in my district, but I remember when I was advocating

[1:43:54] for it, talking to people, I could feel the reticence, I could feel the, like I was treating

[1:43:59] a personal favor for them before it felt like. And of course it did fail. I passed my

[1:44:05] district, of course. But it was not easy. I went out there a lot. So I feel there's a

[1:44:12] lot of competing elements here mentioned in Councilmember. Black have been mentioned

[1:44:17] as well as other measures. So think about that. In terms of persuading people to sort of

[1:44:25] the trigger on yet another debt load for their families.

[1:45:00] Of the really serving the future as opposed to the purely maintenance style language, because

[1:45:06] that's less exciting for people. And so, in the, to that instance, you know, which makes me

[1:45:12] think about the Civic Center projects, it looks like they're total close to $50 million

[1:45:18] of the, of the 300. And it seems like the, the, the, the, the seismic retrofitting of the

[1:45:28] buildings is great. It's necessary. However, is that the fun on use of those buildings?

[1:45:35] And this is wrapped up in a larger conversation around the Civic Center in total.

[1:45:41] Like what is the new Civic Center going to look like? Will it have a water fountain like we have up there in the hills?

[1:45:45] Like we want, like I want. Will they have these new buildings and other theater, all et cetera?

[1:45:51] There's a vision for the Civic Center that I think demands its own sort of special finance district.

[1:45:58] And so these buildings within it will probably need to change or evolve or be retrofit to suit a new purpose which would be better off to just break that off into its own finance district.

[1:46:12] There are many, many forms of increment districts available to us now, they're very flexible.

[1:46:18] We deployed one in Adelaide corridor for the development there, the EIFT, worked on

[1:46:24] so well with the Jordan Planning Department.

[1:46:27] That's my suggestion there.

[1:46:28] To free up $50 million to make the sidewalks better everywhere for everyone, and whatever

[1:46:35] else we need to do.

[1:46:36] And also embracing the coming hospital shortage, understand we're going to be losing significant

[1:46:46] amounts of Medicaid funding, Medicare funding.

[1:46:49] So we're going to have a dearth of people without access to health care.

[1:46:54] And these will be ordinary seniors that live in our district, people with conditions.

[1:47:00] And so it would be interesting to think about embracing sort of an evolution of the senior

[1:47:04] center model to be a place where people can get care as well.

[1:47:08] We have three of them, four of them?

[1:47:10] How many do we have?

[1:47:11] Three?

[1:47:12] Senior Centers?

[1:47:13] Two?

[1:47:14] Just two?

[1:47:15] Okay.

[1:47:15] We need three.

[1:47:17] So, you can envision a scenario in which this extra $50 million that comes out of the Civic

[1:47:24] Center goes into making the South Senior Center and the North Senior Center and the future

[1:47:29] third one somewhere into a real place where seniors can go and get care.

[1:47:34] And get treated and there's all these new forms.

[1:47:37] We explored this over at our building and university.

[1:47:40] That's my suggestion and that's more, I think, more exciting for people because it spells out a future vision of the city that takes us to another level.

[1:47:49] And of course, it always be reminding us of this, Mr. City Manager, you know, you were there.

[1:47:55] 2017 we passed the Berkeley Inclusion and Diversity Index, some called the Bendex, not my nickname.

[1:48:02] And this is a supplier diversity program that has a stand legal muster and its purpose

[1:48:08] is to help us partner with new companies and new developers and new entities when we

[1:48:14] do these massive expenditures.

[1:48:18] And so rather than going with the same firms we use with this $300 million, let's get new

[1:48:23] people in new local businesses, women on businesses, people on business who have been shut out

[1:48:28] the last decades.

[1:48:29] So, that's really important.

[1:48:32] Thank you.

[1:48:33] Thank you, Councilmember.

[1:48:34] Councilmember Kester Wani.

[1:48:36] Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

[1:48:38] Thank you again, Deputy City Manager.

[1:48:42] So, in terms of comments, so I think this, I already made this clear, but I'll just repeat myself.

[1:48:46] So, I think we should proceed with a community survey.

[1:48:50] I generally think that the list of projects is reasonable, and you know, I've been thinking about it more as hearing other folks talk.

[1:48:58] I'm thinking about, you know, what we expect in November, 2026, there will be a number of revenue

[1:49:05] measures. I think one important one will be the sales tax increase for public transit. I know

[1:49:14] there's talk about other ones. We've heard about signatures being gathered for the arts

[1:49:19] in Berkeley. And so I think we just need to be careful on the amount. I know I had our express

[1:49:27] I think I'm more interested in testing for lower amounts actually, then going higher because

[1:49:33] I'm thinking about the totality, but of course, you know, in the survey, we have the option

[1:49:37] to do various things, and so I just wanted to make that clear that I think we may need

[1:49:43] to look at something lower, and in terms of exploring something lower, obviously, we will

[1:49:48] be guided by the results of that survey, but I just wanted to note, you know, and I was

[1:49:55] I was remiss earlier when I asked about prioritization because I do want to acknowledge the tables towards the end of the report where there is some prioritization, you have the department priority and you have whether the project is an immediate safety consideration.

[1:50:10] And so I think others have talked about polling fire facilities separately.

[1:50:14] I want to I think fire facilities and there's a couple there are a couple of others that are considered an immediate safety consideration.

[1:50:23] So I think maybe we could pull on those and I think that would bring us to a lesser dollar amount.

[1:50:30] Because I think we need to be just really clear with the voters on what the need is and why it's necessary.

[1:50:38] I think, you know, someone who was here for measure L and that was, you know, it's hard

[1:50:44] to say not successful because it did get far greater than a majority.

[1:50:48] It needed two-thirds and that was what was difficult.

[1:50:51] Measure FF came back as a citizens initiative and was targeted for streets and sidewalks

[1:50:58] and was successful.

[1:50:59] I don't believe it got, well, I don't want to, I need to check on how much it got.

[1:51:03] I don't know if it cleared two-thirds.

[1:51:06] So it also didn't clear two thirds.

[1:51:08] So I think we're talking about a very tough threshold with two thirds, trying to get two thirds.

[1:51:14] So I think we need to be very targeted with it, and I think we can test for that with the survey.

[1:51:21] So I just want to encourage us to do that.

[1:51:24] And one way we might want to break out, one way we might want to sort of test a subset of this is with that perhaps with that safety consideration

[1:51:33] And see what the public is feeling about that because I think there's the revenue measures

[1:51:39] that will be on the ballot.

[1:51:40] But there's also just the general economic climate, which I think is very tough for people

[1:51:46] right now.

[1:51:47] So I think we need to be sensitive to all of that.

[1:51:50] And let me see if there's anything else here.

[1:51:54] No, I don't have anything that I think should be just completely removed.

[1:51:58] I just want to reiterate.

[1:52:00] I think what I'm looking for is just like a better understanding of how much we can do on the sidewalks with measure FF and then what's remaining and I know we talked about ADA upgrades.

[1:52:10] I think it's just getting a little bit more understanding offline from staff about what we're talking about there would be helpful for me.

[1:52:20] and that's all. Thank you very much. I appreciate that we're having this discussion, that we're having it quite early so that we can not be rushed next year when we have to do a lot more work if we're going to put this on the ballot. So thank you very much.

[1:52:36] Paula, she's for laughing. I'm just like, oh, I feel like we need to do a sooner. But

[1:52:41] I appreciate your comments. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Littleparah.

[1:52:46] Thank you. And I want to also thank everyone involved in all the work on this. I know it's

[1:52:51] plentiful and dense and I'm very appreciative. Along with my colleagues, I think that we

[1:52:55] should proceed with the survey. I would love to see a two-year survey as well with numbers

[1:53:00] below and above 300 million. And I only have a couple things to add.

[1:53:04] I wanted to mention the success of the telegraph and chaining public restroom,

[1:53:08] partly funded by T1, and would love to see the inclusion of more public

[1:53:11] restroom projects like that in the survey and the measure.

[1:53:15] And I also agree with Council Member Humbert that we should be prioritizing

[1:53:19] the 50-50 sidewalk program and Council Member Trigger that we should be prioritizing,

[1:53:22] the 50-50 sidewalk program.

[1:53:25] I also wanted to add that our office has been thinking through and working

[1:53:29] with AC transit on a possible parcel tax revenue to raise funds for AC transit lines and infrastructure

[1:53:35] and Berkeley specifically and hoping to restore some of the Berkeley lines cut during the pandemic

[1:53:41] and in real line as well as to improve frequency on high ridership lines. I wouldn't want this to

[1:53:47] impede on our other priorities so I would love to add some questions around this on our survey.

[1:53:52] We're still working through the numbers and we'll continue to work with staff on that but I'm hoping

[1:53:56] that we couldn't include some guidance around including this measure idea in our motion.

[1:54:01] Thanks.

[1:54:02] Thank you.

[1:54:03] Any other comments from council members?

[1:54:06] Okay.

[1:54:06] I have a number of comments, so I apologize in advance.

[1:54:10] But first of all, I'm just curious if you could just address Sophia's question earlier about

[1:54:14] why we're recommending a bond versus a parcel tax?

[1:54:22] So, with the parcel tax, that could be used for a wider rate of uses like maintenance,

[1:54:30] but we would have to ultimately bond against, so we can only bond against the revenue that

[1:54:35] comes in, so it's a bit constrained in that way.

[1:54:38] So, once we go with the parcel tax, let's say it generates revenues of $8 million, where

[1:54:44] we reach a cap in terms of how it's weak and bonkers, that will create the ceiling for

[1:54:48] at service, so the bond doesn't provide us with that opportunity, but we can come back

[1:54:52] and flesh that out more for you as well.

[1:54:55] Thank you.

[1:54:56] And then also, I know a bunch of council members have brought up concerns around funding

[1:55:05] for the veterans building and the old city hall, and I'm wondering if you could just speak

[1:55:10] to why now we're looking at this around the seismic retrofitting for those buildings.

[1:55:16] So a couple of reasons, there was one reference letter that we have proactively applied for a

[1:55:23] themagrant that does require a city match to that, so it would be very timely if there's

[1:55:29] an item that were supported by the council and Berkeley voters to be able to support that

[1:55:33] mission. We have a long standing vision for that area of the city and its core to, you

[1:55:39] know, supporting downtown revitalization. So, you know, we're very attuned to the need

[1:55:44] to continue to reinvest in that part of the city as well, so that also was part of our thinking as well.

[1:55:50] Thank you. I appreciate you covering that. So first, I want to say about this. Yes,

[1:55:56] absolutely. I think we should proceed with the community survey. Thank you all so much for

[1:56:00] doing the work to get us here. I also want to acknowledge what some of my colleagues have brought up

[1:56:05] about the tax burden, that there are many people who are struggling financially and are concerned about

[1:56:11] an additional cost. And at the same time, I also want to acknowledge that in the graph

[1:56:17] that we showed earlier, that actually, you know, as bonds kind of expire, there are

[1:56:23] opportunities there for us to sort of replace them as opposed to just thinking of this as

[1:56:28] like we're asking for more and more, actually, you know, it kind of reaches the equilibrium

[1:56:33] at some point. I want to address also what my colleagues are saying about measure L-L

[1:56:38] measure L because I understand that there's some nervousness around that and I acknowledge

[1:56:46] that for some folks it might be kind of sore and I get that and I also have a lot of faith

[1:56:52] that our Council is really united on focusing on this issue of infrastructure. I think this

[1:56:57] Council is like very pro infrastructure and cares a lot about these different things and I think

[1:57:02] that our community has shown that they also care about infrastructure and that these

[1:57:08] These projects here have the themes, you know, community facilities and quality of life,

[1:57:12] public safety and critical infrastructure and accessibility.

[1:57:15] And I think that these are things that people can get really excited about.

[1:57:19] And then I also want to acknowledge something I was said about FF.

[1:57:23] I know that maybe it didn't get a full two-thirds, but just keep in mind that there was also

[1:57:28] an opposing measure, so that might be something to keep in mind if you're a little bit concerned

[1:57:32] about the amount of votes received there.

[1:57:38] I want to also encourage us to be thinking a little bit more broadly

[1:57:43] when we're talking about this poll.

[1:57:45] I think it is still important to include the 50-50 program

[1:57:48] in the polling and I agree with my colleagues about thinking

[1:57:52] about a range here.

[1:57:53] I really want to make sure that we're bonding as fully as we can

[1:57:58] because I also think even though there's some nervousness,

[1:58:01] we don't want to just leave money on the table. The purpose of doing this poll is so that we can see

[1:58:05] what people's level of comfortability is, right? So, and I think similar to what council member

[1:58:10] Blackbeard was saying, you know, we're talking about following the numbers here, right? So it's not

[1:58:16] that, you know, we're going to do this poll and we're going to say, oh, people are really concerned,

[1:58:19] let's just do it anyway, right? I mean, we're going to use this as information to figure out how

[1:58:24] comfortable are people, how high can we go? And I'm saying this is someone who recognizes and

[1:58:29] You don't want to talk about being newer homeowners, I'm a newer homeowner and I understand

[1:58:35] that that means that we'll have higher tax bill.

[1:58:39] I also want to just again say the importance, the importance here of having this so that

[1:58:46] we can leverage these funds, keeping in mind that, okay, if we are able to get this $300

[1:58:51] million, that I know that our staff is awesome and they're looking for grants and opportunities

[1:58:56] to be constantly leveraging.

[1:58:58] I know that Carrie, you've done an excellent job of that, so just to call you out and say,

[1:59:02] you know, I know you and others on staff have done that already.

[1:59:04] So we really want to have these funds available so that we can take advantage of the leveraging.

[1:59:11] And just in my general feedback, let's see, I'm also supportive of this amount.

[1:59:17] We talked about the range.

[1:59:19] And in terms of the projects, I really appreciate this theme, this idea of themes.

[1:59:23] I think these are really essential themes to just general Berkeley lifestyle, really a dog

[1:59:30] person, so I'm excited about the dog parks.

[1:59:34] Let's see, plus one to making sure we're considering the impact of other taxes on

[1:59:38] a potential bond, which I know is brought up many times.

[1:59:42] I'm also interested in knowing how strongly voters in the survey feel about projects that prioritize

[1:59:48] has adapting to climate change and resilience.

[1:59:52] And again, just going back briefly to the model,

[1:59:55] Sherick, the old city hall building and the veterans building.

[1:59:58] There's just really so much opportunity.

[2:00:00] Committee here that I think is really exciting. I know many people have complaints in me about the downtown. These are really central buildings in our downtown and two buildings that are completely underutilized. Really could just be a home for arts and culture and entertainment. And then just, you know, with the respect I want to say that, you know, given that there are current struggles in the art community, I think that's why we as a city should be prioritized.

[2:00:29] a home for that. That's really stable. Knowing that some folks might lose their physical

[2:00:34] home in terms of their performing arts spaces but still need a home to do their performances.

[2:00:40] And we really don't have facilities that are large enough in our city to have larger scale

[2:00:45] events. The veterans building really was that space.

[2:00:52] Oh, and you're just keeping in mind that there really is a safety risk. We have Berkeley

[2:00:57] community media that's actually in there right now. We used to have our winter shelter there,

[2:01:03] right now our winter shelter is somewhere else. So these are all opportunities that are missed by

[2:01:07] not having these buildings have, you know, be seismically retrofitted. I want to ask, let's see,

[2:01:17] voters. Oh, I'm interested. I understand what people are saying about separating out, but I really

[2:01:24] want to advise against that. I do think that it's stronger. I don't feel that these things

[2:01:31] are far enough apart from each other, that they shouldn't be included together. And I actually

[2:01:36] think thinking of this as infrastructure as a whole, as one issue, is really going to make

[2:01:41] the bond stronger. I think separating out fire, of course, fire is going to be successful no matter

[2:01:47] what, but I do think that having these things together will help to unify this as a singular issue

[2:01:52] of infrastructure in our city and I want to make sure that the city manager knows that

[2:01:58] I support moving forward with a contract to start the survey process and potentially

[2:02:02] get it out in January and come back to council to just approve that retroactively so that

[2:02:09] we can move forward with our timeline.

[2:02:11] I know this is earlier than normal and at the same time I want to make sure we have enough time

[2:02:15] because it's going to be important that we get community buy-in and that we talk to people

[2:02:19] when we start moving forward with this process.

[2:02:22] And then I also think it's really important

[2:02:23] to incorporate questions about accountability

[2:02:26] and oversight as part of the questions.

[2:02:28] I know that we haven't pulled as well about that

[2:02:32] in the past, so I really wanna make sure

[2:02:33] that we're clear with our residents and the voters,

[2:02:38] that we're gonna have strong accountability

[2:02:40] and oversight measures.

[2:02:42] So, okay, thank you for bearing with me.

[2:02:44] I know there was a lot of comments.

[2:02:45] I really appreciate you all have been steeped

[2:02:47] in this for like last year.

[2:02:48] So thank you all so much for your time and for everyone, for being here, coming from the vision 2050, realizing vision 2050 task force, and thank you so much for staff to just the presentation and all the work you've put into this.

[2:03:03] Okay, great.

[2:03:04] Do you need, you don't need anything else, you're good, right?

[2:03:07] I think we are with, but I do have one question.

[2:03:11] The general feedback is all in line with the report, and I think we're all good with that.

[2:03:16] The one question I wanted to ask Council Member Louis Pares, is you raised the potential for polling also on parcel tax support increased AC transit routes.

[2:03:26] And I wasn't totally clear, so I wanted to just talk here your collective feedback, but from you first about like, is that something you were wanting to have be like a separate poll that we start working on right away.

[2:03:37] or bring back more information to the January 20 meeting and then give us direction then I just

[2:03:43] want to get a little bit more clarity on that. Yeah I have no I don't if this is not the best place

[2:03:49] to add it we definitely don't have to add it now because the item asked Council to bring forward

[2:03:55] other measures that we were thinking about I just I thought that I would be a good idea to bring it up

[2:03:59] now but I'm also happy to workshop it more if that's if that's easier for staff depending on what

[2:04:08] the rest of my colleagues think?

[2:04:09] I would say what's most important to me

[2:04:11] is that this doesn't delay our poll.

[2:04:14] So I would say like, you know,

[2:04:16] if everything's ready to go and you've got all the pieces,

[2:04:19] I'm personally okay with including it.

[2:04:21] I just want to make sure it doesn't delay anything.

[2:04:24] That's where I'm at.

[2:04:25] And I think it's also a question of how deep the dive is.

[2:04:28] It's one thing, this sort of,

[2:04:29] it's one measure among other things

[2:04:30] that could be on the ballot.

[2:04:31] But as we know, when we go,

[2:04:33] when we're testing our infrastructure piece,

[2:04:35] we're going to go very deep into the components

[2:04:36] and maybe sports sample various pieces of it.

[2:04:39] And we probably can't in a 15 minute survey

[2:04:42] do the same level of detail on another topic.

[2:04:45] So I think it'd be more just sort of maybe kind of a thumb

[2:04:47] in the wind kind of a,

[2:04:49] in terms of how it's doing relative to our infrastructure thing.

[2:04:52] And whether it clutters the ballot in a way

[2:04:55] that would make ours more vulnerable.

[2:04:57] Anyway, that's my perspective.

[2:04:59] Yeah, I feel similarly as like a one or two question insert.

[2:05:04] Okay. I think that's fine. If it's just a couple of questions to test the waters on that,

[2:05:10] that seems reasonable. If it's a deeper thing, then that's a different poll. But yeah,

[2:05:15] that's the helping. Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you, Councilmember Trigger.

[2:05:20] Yeah, and I definitely support the intent here and would also support testing the waters. I just,

[2:05:29] I want to just plead for some caution to, you know, if it's in the context of other potential ballot measures or priorities, including saving the arts, and that campaign has conducted its own internal problem.

[2:05:49] but it's I just don't want us to go down the road of doing something for one

[2:06:00] particular potential measure that is not this one at the in the absence of

[2:06:09] doing it for general priorities that are additional to these.

[2:06:17] Thank you. Council Member Bartlett.

[2:06:20] Thank you. It's going to say, regarding customer Louis Pannas, as part of his idea, I'd rather than I would suggest

[2:06:26] that you could take a lot of time to come back with this, just include a transit component to this infrastructure

[2:06:33] piece. And that's that. This is bus shelters, bus plasas, bus elements. It's a transit column for consideration

[2:06:42] in this milieu, because it fits.

[2:06:46] I don't know if we will want it, but it fits thematically.

[2:06:50] I think we're just talking about

[2:06:51] something larger scale, is that right?

[2:06:56] Yeah, I mean infrastructure is part of the idea,

[2:06:59] but it is a larger concept of bringing back the lines

[2:07:04] that were removed during the pandemic

[2:07:08] and increasing frequency on highly used routes

[2:07:12] which I don't think necessarily would or should fit into this bond, especially because it has the opportunity to

[2:07:19] to tank it which I don't want that to happen.

[2:07:23] Oh, I see you're suggesting we fund another jurisdictions business.

[2:07:28] It would be a very very specifically to the city of Berkeley in lines that only cover the city of Berkeley.

[2:07:35] I can't improve council member humbers.

[2:07:37] Sorry.

[2:07:38] All right, Council Member Humbert?

[2:07:40] Yeah, just kind of following up on what Council Member Bartlett was just discussing.

[2:07:47] I think it does make sense to add a transit and pedestrian realm improvements element to our polling.

[2:07:56] You know, bus shelters, things like that, making transit easier and safer and more enjoyable.

[2:08:04] I'm thinking about the transit, Plaza, downtown, Berkeley, surrounding the BART station, it's a wonderful, it was a wonderful improvement.

[2:08:14] I think that would fit in as another infrastructure element, and I think this should remain focused on infrastructure.

[2:08:25] So those are my thoughts, thanks.

[2:08:28] Yeah, Councilmember Chaplin.

[2:08:29] I do just want to point out that we have been discussing facilities that are

[2:08:38] identified in current existing plans and that these are projects that have

[2:08:44] advanced to some degree through their completion process. So I am a little

[2:08:51] a little reticent to pull on potential theoretical projects that staff has not contemplated or

[2:09:03] presented.

[2:09:11] Yeah.

[2:09:12] Yeah.

[2:09:14] Yeah.

[2:09:16] I see what you're saying, yeah, so that these other items have been part of a process and

[2:09:21] included before so you're concerned about including them. I would agree with that.

[2:09:27] I think it is important that we take into account the work that was done to prioritize

[2:09:33] these current items and I appreciate your comment. I don't do you have clarity around.

[2:09:40] I mean, I still have a little bit of measure L regret around including both housing and

[2:09:47] infrastructure and one big poll and one big measure. I know that's not what's being proposed

[2:09:51] but I'm just saying that I do have that that said I think we could work with the polling

[2:09:58] firm that gets selected to say hey we are curious about transit do you feel like adding

[2:10:03] a couple of transit questions to this survey would throw things off or put people off in

[2:10:07] a way that influences the rest of the survey negatively or do you think it's fine to ask

[2:10:11] a couple of transit questions if they say yeah we think that's fine then it sounds to me

[2:10:16] like you all would be open to that being a part of it and if they say it seems like a separate

[2:10:21] thing we could come back to you and tell you that and you could give us further

[2:10:23] direction. Since this is Council Member Lennon-Paris's situation, I'm going to let her go first.

[2:10:29] Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, I think we might be getting a little confused here because there's two

[2:10:34] different things that we're talking about. The transit measure is an, the idea is an entirely

[2:10:40] separate thing from the bond versus the idea of bringing in transit infrastructure into the bond.

[2:10:47] So I just wanted to clarify that we're talking about two different pieces here.

[2:10:52] Yeah, and I think given what you're just, you've just said, Paul, I would be inclined since we don't actually have anything in front of us right now, I think it would probably make sense to move forward with this survey without including anything about this AC transit potential measure just because I feel like it would be easier if we had more clarity around what it looked like to figure out if it made sense to include it or not.

[2:11:17] And since we don't have that, I think it's better to see if we can address that separately.

[2:11:21] But I'm open to having that conversation.

Special City Council Meeting - 4:00 p.m.

Agenda

Transcript