>>> good evening, everyone,
and welcome to the regular session of
the martinez
city council. It is wednesday, december
10, and
it is 7:03 p.m. Please join me
for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the united states of america and to the republic
for which it stands one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all.
>> clerk, please call
the roll.
>> mayor brianne zorn? >>
present.
>> vice
mayor jay howard?
>> present. >> councilmember
greg young is currently absent?
>>
he is en route.
>> I've
been informed
he's en route. Councilmember satinder
malhi?
>> present. >>
councilmember debbie mckillop?
>>
present.
>> wonderful. Thank you so
much. All right. Tonight, we have
a fairly light agenda, so we
do
not have any presentations scheduled,
so we're going to go straight
into public comment. I did not receive
any public comment cards, but
if there is anyone in council chambers
this evening that would
like to speak on any item, now is
the time, and you're
welcomed to
come up to
the microphone. Come on up.
>> good evening. Sorry about my ugly
sweater today. We had a
holiday party at my workplace.
let's see. Well, while I'm here
today, I was kind of curious, based
on the agenda,
whether this would be the shortest
council meeting of martinez
history, so we'll see what happens,
but I'm
not going to hope matters. I
guess one thing on my mind is --oh,
I
might as well take my three minutes
to talk about my favorite
topic, which is housing, as we near
the end of the
year, get ready to
enter 2026. Obviously you guys are
still grappling with
issues around the unhoused. We all
know that. It's been a long-term challenge. And
I think, you know, the solutions
to that issue are complicated. But one
thing
we should all be striving to do is
prevent
more people from
becoming unhoused because we know
that once you become
unhoused, the challenges become deeper. And
we
know because of our housing crisis,
there are a
lot of people on the edge in our community
and communities up and down the
state, and really throughout the country. And
so, you know,
we're trying to make progress on this
on
our housing element. But the issue
with affordable housing is still not
the priority
I think it should be for this
city and this council. And the reason
it should be a top priority because
it is such a hard issue, it's such
a complicated issue, and that's why it
should be a bigger focus than say
your plans for the marina. I
really hope that like as
we go through 2026, one thing we could see
happen as hopefully some more housing
developments
come down the pike, is that
instead of
this kind of incremental approach,
where we have
a few affordable units here, a few there,
the bare
minimum of the 20%, to qualify
for the state bonuses
or what have you. That we really
try to find affordable housing developer
out there. There
are, and there are ones that have
done
big projects that are in the bay
area. And really set a goal of having an
all affordable project
in martinez. We need an all-affordable,
100% affordable low income, very low income
project
to really make a dent in
this problem. Other cities have done
it, whether they wanted
to or had to be dragged along. It
can be done. And
I think if we make it
a top priority, it can be done. This
is how
we're going to stop more
people from sliding into homelessness. There's
a great mpr
interview I heard on the way over
from
a homeless strategy expert with decades
of experience on
fresh air. Wrote a book called "placeless." I hope you
take the
time to listen to
the 40-minute interview because
he disspills a lot
of
myths about homelessness. Thank you.
>> thanks.
>> all right, is there anyone in the
audience that would like to speak
on public
comment right now?
>> for those attending virtually,
if
you'd like to make a comment,
please use the raise hand feature. I
have no hands.
>>
all right, let's move
on to the consent
calendar. So we have --staff has requested
that I pull item six, and I'd also
like to
pull item seven for the rest of the councilmembers,
any other items you'd like
to pull from the consent calendar,
one through seven? None, all right. Let's
go ahead --yeah, they're both common, I'll treat
them at the same time. I'll go ahead
and go to public comment
for items one through five. Anyone
in council chambers who would
like to make any comments on
that? All right. How about in the
virtual audience?
>>
please
use the
raise
hand feature. I have no hands.
>> all right. I'm
going to
go ahead and take the comments and
then
we'll vote at the end. Item six, mike,
would you like to speak
to that item, please?
>> yes, thank
you. On item six,
I just wanted to mention that
after we
had published the agenda, staff caught
a
missed cross reference to another
section. It's on page
14 of the policy section, 9.5, and
a couple of places in that
introductory paragraph, where it says
formal bidding would otherwise be required
under
this policy, but an exception is
being applied under section. It says
9.3.1. It actually
should be 9.4,
which is immediately the proceeding section. Then
the next sentence
later says the documentation must include
reference to the specific
section
category listed in section, and had
10.4, it should 9.4. We wanted to make everyone
aware of that, made the corrections, and
with
adoption, we'll make that clean up. So
it was a late catch, but we didn't
want to republish the whole
agenda because of a minor typo we
had in that section.
>>
right. Thank you so much. Appreciate
it. Okay,
item seven, I just requested to pull that
because this is the request that came out
of the council comments
at the end of the
last meeting, requesting $2,000 to be donated. $1,000
to food bank of contra costa
and solano, and then $1,000 to loaves
and fishes. Thank you
for putting that on the consent calendar. I
just
wanted to clarify, the expectation of
this was to help out during the holiday
season, and I just wanted to ask what the
process would be for getting the checks
in the hands
of those two organizations.
>> yes. So
starting tomorrow morning, I'm
going to contact those organizations,
and just -- typically what finance
likes to see
is an invoicing of the city to complete
the transaction. I'll
tell them what this
is for. These organizations we supported sometimes
through our community grant process,
and even in those situations where
council approved a
donation or a grant of some sort. They
send
over just a very simple request or
invoice type of form for $1,000 each, and then
we'll work to expedite the checks
for those two parties.
>> okay, if
you
could communicate out to the council when
that's going out, that would
be appreciated.
>> absolutely, will
do.
>> any other
comments from council
on six or seven? No? Okay. All right, so
I'll bring that
up to public comment for items six or
seven. Any comments on
that part of the consent calendar? All
right,
how about the virtual audience? Any
comments on
consent calendar items six or seven?
>>
please
use the raise hand feature. I have
no hands.
>>
all right, I'll bring it back to council
for a
motion for all items, please.
>> I'd
like to make a
motion that we pass consent calendar items
one through seven. Is
that correct?
>> correct. >> second. >>
all in favor --
actually, roll call vote, please?
>> mayor
brianne zorn?
>> yes. >> vice
mayor jay
howard?
>> yes. >> councilmember
satinder malhi?
>>
yes.
>> councilmember debbie mckillop? >>
aye.
>> and councilmember greg is currently
absent for this
vote. Motion passes, all ayes.
>>
great, thank you. All right, we are
going
to be racing to see if we can get the meeting
done before greg is
able to get here. [ laughter ] it's
the direction
this is going. So general business
items, there is none
on the calendar this evening. Public
hearing items,
there's none on the agenda. Next item
is comments from the chief
of police.
>> for chief white. I
have no updates at this time.
>>
thank you. Does anyone have
any questions for captain sal? No. All
right, next, city manager comments and
updates.
>> the next
two fridays, so this upcoming friday,
december 12, and then the subsequent
friday, december 19, which are
the last two fridays that will be
open
to the public of this calendar year. We
are
going to have city hall open, and
all the counters open with the exception
of the building permit
counter for the reason the department
has asked to
have those two afternoons dedicated
for staff to
really focus on the backlog of building permits
that
they have in the que already. We'll
have some signage posted to allow
people to know
those particular windows, just friday afternoon,
1:00 to 4:30 p.m., the
building permit counter will be closed
because they are desperately trying
to get through the backlog of people that
already have,
that are already in the queue, waiting for
their building applications to be
processed. So just want to
give an update on that.
>> and can
you just also speak to the schedule
for
city hall in general for
the holidays?
>> sure, sure. City
hall
is going to be
closed from essentially noon on christmas
eve, december 24, and all
the way through until friday, january
2. What I have to figure out too is a
lot of
people are largely going to still
be out
until monday, january 5, and take
a vacation day on that friday. So
we'll have to check with staff to
see who will actually be here. I
expect it will be not anywhere near
a full
crew on that first friday, january
2, but city
hall is scheduled to be
open that friday.
>> hold on one second. Oh,
hi. I'm just going to pull
up the january 2 as a friday,
and then how about the
26th will not be closed?
>> the entire
time from
half day, so noon on christmas eve, all
the
way through until january
2.
>> okay, great. Thank you. All
right. Any questions
for
our city manager
this evening? All right. Seeing none,
our
next item is appointments to commissions and/or
agencies. This is adopting a
resolution to appoint our vice mayor
for next year. Will you
be speaking to this item?
>> I
was going to defer to
you since it's your appointment.
>>
absolutely. So every
year about this time, we appoint
the next person in line, the next
councilmember in line to
be the vice mayor. I am recommending
that we appoint councilmember satinder malhi
as vice mayor
from december 11 through december
9. Does
anyone have any
questions or comments on
this item? All right. I'm going to
open this up. Any
public comment on
this item? How about in the virtual audience,
please?
>>
please
use the raise hand feature. I
have no hands.
>> all right. Then
back to
my
colleagues for
a motion, please.
>>
I move that
we
appoint councilmember malhi to vice mayor,
effective december --
>> 11. >> december
11.
>> I will gladly
second that.
>> all right, roll call
vote, please?
>>
mayor brianne zorn?
>>
yes.
>> vice mayor jay
howard for the last
motion?
>> yes. >> councilmember satinder malhi? >>
yes. [ laughter ]
>>
I was becoming concerned.
>>
councilmember greg young?
>> yes. >>
councilmember
debbie mckillop?
>> aye. >> motion
passes. All ayes.
>> congratulations. >>
congratulations.
>> yeah, congratulations, satinder
malhi.
>> satinder malhi. >> thank
you. Thank you, colleagues.
>> so
I very much
appreciate having the rotating vice
mayors, so every --
every year we -- whenever there is
a
number two required for a meeting
or whatever, I was
trying to engage the vice mayor. And
as everybody
knows, a quorum is three people on
council, so it is
really helpful to have a default council
member that I can go to. So
the vice mayor, I
look forward to working with councilmember
malhi for this upcoming year
for all the activities I'm sure will
come our way. Next,
subcommittee and outside agency reports. We only
have one on the
agenda, the franchise and public infrastructure
from november 24. Would any of
you all like
to report out on that?
>> yes. So
we discussed maintaining a tree board,
a department having a community
tree ordinance, spending at least
$2 per
capita on urban forestry,
and celebrating arbor day. In my notes
from that
day, we spoke
about a budget of $193,000. And that
we were very
excited about next year's arbor day. We
would
like to invite the girl scouts, the
sea scouts, the boy scouts, junior high
and
college park high
school to participate in the arbor
day. And that
I had assurances from staff that we
would
have bubblers on
all of the new trees. That's
about it.
>>
all right, excellent. Any
other subcommittee report outs that
we may not
have listed or any outside agency
report outs that
anyone would
like to report out on? No? Councilmember
malhi, I know
that you attended a meeting for
me a few weeks ago. I didn't --I didn't
ask
for a report out, but is there anything
that
you would like to share this evening? I'm
not sure if
any decisions were made that evening
that
you wanted to share?
>> no, madam
mayor,
there were no
decisions. There was an extensive discussion
on
various items on the agenda. More
having
to do with
process than actual substance. I would
submit, but I believe those issues
will hopefully be dealt
with at future meetings, but nothing
substantive to report
out. Thank you.
>> great, thank you. All right,
well, in that
thing, the only thing to update
is updates from city council. Councilmember
malhi, do you
want to stay off mute, and
you can start?
>> yes, thank you very
much, colleagues, for placing your trust
in me and for the vice mayor
appointment. I'm very
humbled and honored. As I mentioned
now, our former vice mayor, howard,
with great power comes great responsibility. So
I just
wanted to follow in his
footsteps, and follow the great example
that he paved for me, so
thank you very much. I wanted to very
quickly
let you know, I recently had the opportunity
to
--oh, did I freeze?
>> yes, but
we can
still hear you. Go ahead.
>> I did want
to just share that I had
an opportunity to
address the view homeowners association board,
which is
a residential neighborhood located
off of sweetwater drive
it in district three. So I wanted
to thank them
for inviting me, providing me the opportunity
to
provide some timely city updates,
along with some district updates. But
I
also wanted to give a special shout
out
to sergeant king with the martinez
police department
who also joined me at that
meeting, providing a
very informative presentation on some traffic
safety mitigation efforts
that are taking place in and around
the area of sweetwater
drive, which
I think was very well received by members of
the board, so
thank you, sergeant king. And then
lastly, just wanted to give a special
shout to our parks
and rec staff
and all the community volunteers and
staff out there
who helped make
for another fantastic holiday parade. So thank
you all.
>> yeah, that
was a very fun parade. So vice
mayor howard for another couple of
hours, would you
like to be the next report?
>> sure,
sure, sure. It's been an honor
to be the vice mayor. And looking
forward to
next year with vice
mayor malhi taking over. I did want
to mention that
we did a check
presentation this evening, and the
hometown hero mural is going
to be off and running. After
speaking to the artist, I would like
to invite
everybody and their children, specifically to
come
down and help out. It is 220 feet,
so there would be a lot to do. They
will
do some wall preps first. Everybody
is excited
to get things going and get
that mural off and running. I did
get a lot of rave
reviews about the christmas parade, although
I wasn't able
to attend. I heard
it was
magical, so that's wonderful.
>> do
you have any updates?
>> I
just wanted to
echo the comments about a wonderful parade
last
week, and I just wanted to
thank the staff for all
of your
support. Also, I want to recognize
staff and
been seeing the new trees going up
in
the community, and that is
just so cool and exciting. And so
thank you all
for your efforts in
bringing all of
our trees and getting those planted. The
last
piece is --and I may have mentioned
it at the last meeting,
but we're
in the holiday season, and unfortunately
this is a season of frauds
and scams, so just making
sure people are staying vigilant as
we
do a lot
of holiday shopping online and virtual,
just to be
careful. This is kind of bleeding
into my day
job, but it's --it's a
huge issue with fraud and scams, so check
and verify,
check
and verify because it's pretty serious. It
also
really impacts our elder and senior
communities. So let's just stay vigilant, protect
your
information, know the sites that you're
going to and just making
sure you're protecting all of your
data,
so that's all
I've got.
>> thank you. >> well, first
off, I just wanted to thank the city
staff as
others have for
the amazing light parade, the children's light
parade was amazing. We had a new
route, so that was fun. There were
so many people downtown, taking advantage
of the new vantage points
on both sides of
the road. I guess we went down ward
and came
up main. There were a lot of people. It's a
lot of work to
do that, so I want to thank everyone
and for all the people that came out and
celebrated
and were a part of the parade. A lot
of our community came out and
celebrated together for the holidays,
so thank you to
all the people
that donated their time, their energy,
financial, candy, all that
to make it
a wonderful event for our children. And then also,
I
wanted to thank the carpenters as
jay said earlier tonight, the
carpenters and local 152 donated
$20,000 to the joe dimaggio hometown
hero organization to do the mural downtown. And
so
that was quite a contribution, and
I'm
really grateful for their donation. The
artist was
there, as well as members of the
organization, so it was a
really nice brutal ceremony and $20,000 goes
a
long way, so that was a great donation. So
thank you
to them for
all their support. And then want to
congratulate satinder
for, you know, stepping up to be vice
mayor for the year. I look
forward to seeing all the fun things
you're going to do because next
year
is a special year. It's 105th anniversary, so
a lot of things in
stored for that. So looking
forward for all
those adventures. And then lastly,
there's a santa beer crawl
this saturday, so beware, there will
be lots of santas out there roaming
the streets. A lot of drunk santas
out there. So
if you want to partake in that, have
fun. If you just want to
go down there and check out all the crazy
santas, you
can do that too. So do a little
shopping and remember parking is free. So
you
can go down and park and do
some shopping for the holidays. That's it.
>> thank you. That's a great reminder
about the santa crawl. All
right, so I
have a couple of items. Today, city
manager and I took a tour
of the boys and girls club. They had
a merger with some other clubs,
a couple of months ago now, and so
we got an opportunity to meet
some of the new leadership. And so now
the club spans about 100
miles to the south bay, which is really,
really great. We
had a really great tour,
so that was excellent. Thank you again
for
the holiday frolic. I have gotten
nothing, but positive feedback about
the new route, so I just wanted to request
that
we go ahead and stick with that for
next year. I think
that's one of those things that when
we do it again next year, you'll see
it there is probably even a few less people
on main and
more people on ward. I think it's
going to work out great, yeah.
>>
can I just
add to that one piece of feedback
that the
team told me was the campbell theater was
operating
during the parade. And so there was,
in case you hear anything. We noted,
and
they're actually going to be attending
next week for their
routine visit, so they might bring
it up there, but it's noted for
next year to just make sure we
coordinate with them.
>> okay, great. I
appreciate that. So I think
people had provided me feedback
that they didn't totally believe that
ward was actually a part of the parade. Then
when they
saw it was going down, people were
kind of migrating over. But that said,
I think it
would be a great opportunity for next year
to expand
the holiday frolic back to have a
few holiday frolic activities
before the parade, as we've done
in years past. That's something
that's really important to me. Wanted
to formally
make that request. I think that having
holiday frolic activity in the plaza
is even more supported now that we would
have a
parade route
around both sides. Let's see. I
have one additional request. I appreciate
jay mentioning
the trees. I appreciate you mentioning
the trees. We are going
to be working quite a
bit next year on finishing up the
150th tree plantings, then doing media
improvements. I think we're going
to find in a handful of
months that the cal trans operated
off
ramps off the freeway, very much are
going
to be eyesores because everything that
we've touched looks great. So I
would like to request that we
look into getting an encroachment
appointment from cal trans
to make some improvements to our offramps, if cal trans
isn't
going to do it by us asking, I think
we
can get an encroachment permit. I'll
follow up
with maybe joe, mike, see if
we can get something going
with them for next year. And then
lastly in addition to the santa crawl
on saturday,
we have our lighted boat parade on friday,
and there is a lighted bike parade
as well. If you've
got kids that would like to decorate
their bikes
and ride around town, you can meet in the
afternoon, and they will be doing
that. They are actually taking their bike
parade down to the marina, so it
corresponds
to the boat parade. There will be
both kayaks and canoes,
as well as fully operational boats
that
have slips in the marina that will all
be participating. Come down and check
it out from our new beautiful
fishing pier. We'll also have the
jazz band from
the martinez junior high performing,
and then there
will be hot chocolate that donations will
help contribute to the band, and santa
will also be there to visit. So
we've got a nice event going on friday
afternoon. I
encourage everyone to join us. All
right, that's everything from me. Anyone
else on staff have
any final announcements that didn't get
covered this evening? None? All right. So
with that, our next
meeting is actually next week. Normally
we meet
every other week. I want to remind
everyone, it will be
on the 17th. I anticipate
it being a rather long meeting,
opposite to this evening. So in that
case, this
meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.