Okay, if we're ready to begin whenever you are. Okay. Give us a second to let people sit down again.
The February 21st, 2020.
The February 21st, 2023 regular city council meeting is called to order at 604 p.m. Madam Clerk, please call roll.
Mayor Mocheyama, Mayor Pertem Rednick, council member Fidelie, council member Kinto, council member Weisinger, here we have a quorum.
Thank you. So please join me in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence.
The next item on the agenda is teleconference and public comment instructions from our city clerk.
Thank you, Mayor. This hybrid meeting provides an option to participate in person or via zoom.
Remote participants are asked to keep microphones muted whenever they are not speaking. If you're in person and logged in to zoom, please ensure the audio in zoom and on your device are muted to avoid any audio feedback.
Close captions are available by participating in the meeting via zoom.
For members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony, the mayor will announce the time for public comment on each applicable item.
In person requests will be heard first followed by remote requests to speak. In person requests are submitted to the city clerk by submitting by completing a speaker card.
Remote requests are submitted by selecting the hand icon and phone requests are submitted by dialing star nine.
Instructions are provided on the meeting agenda and will be displayed during each period of public comment.
Meetings of the City Council are subject to the Brown Act and are held for the purpose of conducting city business.
The adopted rules of order and procedures specify that public speakers address the city council in an orderly and respectful manner are asked to proceed comments with their name and city of residents and are asked to be respectful of time limits.
Policy prohibits yielding of time from one speaker to another.
Thank you, Mayor. That concludes my instructions.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. The next item on the agenda is council staff communications.
City manager, Karen Pinkos, do we have any staff communications.
Thank you, Your Honor. I just actually wanted to announce on behalf of the Abelson family to invite the community to attend a celebration of life for former mayor and council member Janet Abelson.
The Saturday February 25th, 2023 at 1 p.m. at the Elstrito Community Center, 7 007 Mosulene in Elstrito.
I look forward to seeing everyone there to be able to celebrate a very remarkable person.
That is all I have, Your Honor. Thank you.
Are there any announcements from any of the council members?
Yes, Mayor.
Sticking with the same theme.
Tomorrow February 22nd at the AC Transit meeting, there's going to be a proclamation for Janet Abelson's dedicated service, which truly impacted and shaped AC transit.
So I'd like to thank government relations manager Ryan Lau, as well as director beckles for the honor.
Hopefully, the honor they'll be voting on it as on consent for tomorrow's meeting.
Thank you. This is kind of an interesting one.
One of our biggest restaurants in town the macaroni grill has announced that tomorrow from 4 p.m. the closing will be community appreciation day.
And they will be serving free, free, spaghetti, and meatballs until closing time.
So anyone that wants to be appreciated and they want to appreciate us go to macaroni grill.
They're saying reservations are suggested.
Great.
We'll move on to mayoral announcements.
Today is Tibetanniere.
On behalf of the City of Elstrito, I would like to offer my Tashi Delac.
My good wishes to all the Tibetans in Elstrito in across the Bay Area and beyond for happy low-star Tibetanniere.
On Sunday March 5th from 10 to noon, please join the Elstrito Green Team City staff and other volunteers at Baxter Creek Gateway Park for a cleanup day.
I'll age as are welcome.
All participants must complete a volunteer registration form before working and where long pants, long sleeves and clothes to choose.
So they'll be meeting at Conlon Avenue and own bully Greenway at 10 a.m.
And RSVP is appreciated.
And then we also have a buy a break with a tax deductible donation initiative by the Elstrito Tennis Club.
And you can get more information about their plans to turn a grassy slope next to Arlington Park Center's courts into an assembly and viewing area.
And you can get more information on that at ectenusclub at gmail.com or ectenus.org slash tennis hyphen center.
Okay.
We also had a closed session today at 5 p.m.
And currently we have no reportable actions.
Also on February 9th we sent a letter in support of the expansion of the united against hate not in our town program.
Our next item is oral communications from the public.
Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda consent items and presentation items.
In person speakers can submit a speaker card to the city clerk and remote speakers should use the raise hand feature to request to speak.
Please remember to identify yourself in your city of residents of the beginning of your comments.
Madam city clerk, please proceed.
Thank you mayor.
We do have several speakers today and I will quickly announce that we did receive several written public comments for matters not on the agenda this evening by the advanced deadline these were posted online with supplemental materials and provided directly to the council members.
We received comments from Cordell Hinnler, Nick Zamarono, Gary Prost, Sue Duncan and Scott tipping and at this time I have six requests to speak.
And we'll do our in person request first.
Okay, our first tonight is our Miller followed by Gary Prost.
Good evening mayor.
Mayor Protem and council members.
One of the things I've done recently is I've resumed my pre-COVID walks on a green way.
I was startled not to see how many people are there but the new members in the population.
Most of them on a electric powered vehicle from a bike to a scooter to things that they just stand on or to electric skateboards.
Now that seems like a self-canceling phrase but they're there and they're going very quickly.
I don't know what the solution is but it seems to me that one of the things that you might want to have done to see if there's action needed to be taken to protect us self mobilized individuals.
As get some idea what is the speed that these people are traveling on because it seems to me and unavoidable that some not intentionally but are going to come in contact.
I just hope it's not without the young mothers pushing their young children in their strollers enjoying the walks like I do.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Gary Prost followed by Susan Duncan.
Our real mayor, council on Gary Prost live in El Serito and tonight I'm speaking on behalf of make El Serito fire safe.
Several of you have during our talks have mentioned that we should keep reminding you of things that we think are important.
So tonight I'm going to talk about vegetation management in the hillside natural area.
You know every year El Serito sets goals and priorities.
Two years ago council adopted a resolution stating that wild fire prevention is a top priority of the city.
Make El Serito fire safe would like you to continue to make fire safety a goal and priority in 2023.
So what does that mean?
Well it's our understanding that right now there's a fire resilience and forest conservation management plan in the works for HNA.
But it probably won't be finished for this fire season and maybe for two fire seasons.
In the meantime we all know that there's several mature eucalyptus groves that pose a city wide fire hazard.
As well in the past year or so for budget reasons or COVID reasons city hasn't cut grassy areas nor have we been able to get a crew to maintain the 100 foot buffer between the park and neighboring homes.
Right now as far as I know the only thing being done besides removing dead trees is we have volunteers who are pulling the French or Scotch broom.
Which is important and ultimately impactful but we would propose that the city also do the following which is remove tall grass twice each season renting goats if necessary.
Apply for measure x funds which are out there a couple a million dollars every year just for this purpose.
And try to start removing at least the small diameter eucalyptus trees.
And maintain the 100 foot buffer zone around the park by using any available crews, volunteers, goats whatever's appropriate.
These measures are not only consistent with the city resolution, but also support the Kensington, the El Srito Kensington wildfire action plan.
It was adopted by Council back in April of 2017.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Susan Duncan followed by Igor Trugad.
Good evening. Honorable Mayor City Council members and staff. I'm Sue Duncan, resident of El Srito and co founder of Make El Srito Fire Safe.
The city needs to improve its emergency communications with residents. This should include better and more widespread notification of red flag day warnings.
It should also provide resident emergency preparedness education to include why it is important and to educate residents about the wildfire hazards in and surrounding the entire city.
It should be emphasized that the wildfire threat is to the entire city due to windblown embers that can ignite homes and vegetation ahead of the fire.
We would like the city to pursue Measure X funds for funds and crews for vegetation management in H&A.
The city should also find out the process for homeowners to apply for the $2,000 home hardening grants and the other available grants through Measure X.
And then they need to publicize this information so the residents will know how to apply for these loans.
For your information, we think that there should be restricted parking on El Srito's narrow streets on red flag warning days to expedite any necessary evacuations.
Some municipalities across the state have successfully instituted such restrictions.
We are working with chief sailors to develop a pilot program that we hope can be implemented during the red flag days coming up this year. Thank you.
Thank you, and I expect you to be able to follow by Buddy Acasic.
Good evening, Mayor Mothoyama and members of the El Srito City Council.
My name is Igor Tregov, and today I come to you as a native of Kiev Ukraine.
On behalf of all Bay Area Ukrainians, and I'm joined by Natalia and Volodymyr Goschelik on Zoom right now.
Jacqueu, which means thank you in Ukrainian for reaffirming the city of El Salvador's solidarity
with the peace-loving people and the Democratic nation state indivisible that is fighting not just for the
right of its self-determination, but for the right of all Democratic nations across the world to be able to exist free of conflict and war.
I would like to invite you to several events that we are doing in commemoration of the one year anniversary of this latest phase of
Putin and the Kremlin's illegal and detestable invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, the 24th, we will be doing a flag raising ceremony at 4 p.m.
across from the Mandel Shivik old city hall. Importantly, across the street from 2134, M.O.K.J.
by the flagpole, then on Friday, we will be holding a performing art ceremony called an attempt to focus in support of Ukraine.
Friday, February 24th, 11 p.m. to 2 p.m. in San Francisco at Civic Center Plaza across from the San Francisco city hall.
We are also running a fundraiser right now. Funds will go to a variety of relief efforts. This is completely volunteer organized and 100% of the funds will go into Ukraine and our tax deductible.
I would like to invite you to please pass along board to your constituents.
We are going to be doing a number of these populations, including one by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors next week.
I would really like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for also being the first Israeli jurisdiction. This year, to re-affirm its solidarity with Ukrainians and Ukraine.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Buddy Acquisit, followed by and then we'll go to our remote speakers.
Good evening, my dear friends. I'm Buddy activist and I live in Hanna Gardens. I've been there for five years.
I've been led to believe bits and pieces that I've drawn my subjective perceptions of suggested to me that of the five on the days that I'm looking at you.
The mayor has the most power. You want to get anything done to go to the mayor.
And that scenario keeps changing as well at you. I think it's a good system.
And I don't know this, but Tesla Redneck knows it clearly.
I think when a mayor comes in, they have a golden and wonderful opportunity to put their stamp on the focus and the direction of the city of El Srito, California.
So we're happy to have you Lisa.
And I'm looking forward to you putting your stamp.
Because I know you've got some, you know some stuff that your contemporaries are not as good as you.
At that particular, you do things really well in certain areas.
And I don't know, but I thought maybe one of those areas could be patching up this communication gap with all of your committees.
I don't know if you notice that they're all getting smaller.
And if you talk to any member of any one of those committees about the communication between them and you city hall, they're uncomfortable.
I'm willing to bet Lisa that you can fix it.
Not with one big sweep and all of a sudden it's fixed, but you have it in your consciousness.
You can evolve in such a way that things will be better.
I want them to be better for you.
Thank you.
Well, now go to our remote request to speak.
Cordell and learn you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.
Hey, hear me, Holly.
Yes, we can.
Yes, so good evening.
Mayor.
Council members and staff.
I am put out and I'm a rich and resident.
So I have a concern that I'm bringing forward to you.
If you recall at the December 20th meeting, uh, there was an item on the consent calendar regarding the installation of speed bumps.
The reason I'm bringing I'm bringing this for is because I haven't been getting a number of concerns from.
El Salvador High School and Price Lutheran Church.
Because our our concerns is like, you know, people have have continually speeding along as very avenue and it's become a real hazard.
About a few months back, a car accidentally hit an animal in front, uh, by the side of the church and it's getting, and it's going to be a concern.
So I have sent an email out to the public works director and requesting that these is beef need to be installed.
It has been two months.
I have not heard nothing.
So I'm asking that.
If something, if they could be like some installation of speed bumps, that would be very helpful because it's getting to be a problem because.
Especially in the daytime, people be continually speeding along as for it.
And the neighbors can't and people can't even go out, uh.
Without without, without, without all again, without all again hit.
So I'm asking if the council, like, you know, or the public works director can, like, you know, address this matter.
So I'll just leave it at that.
Thank you.
Mayor, that does conclude our request to speak.
Thank you, Madam Clerk.
The next item is adoption of the consent calendar, which includes the following items.
Approval of minutes.
Committee on Aging Appointment.
Urban Forest Committee Appointment recommendation.
Environmental Quality Committee.
Appointment recommendation.
Monthly disbursement and check register report for October 2022 through January 2023.
Proclamation recognizing February 24th.
As the day of Ukrainian solidarity in the city of El Serito.
Resolution opposing initiative number 21 dash 00421.
The California Business Roundtable Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act.
Authorized City Council and City Advisory Body Meetings to be held via teleconference,
pursuant to Assembly Bill 361.
Amendment to Consulting Services Agreement with Tri-Pepi Smith.
An cooperative agreement between the city and AC transit for design construction operations and
maintenance of the rapid corridors project.
Are there any requests from the by the council to pull items?
I'd like to pull item F.
Madam Mayor, I have two corrections to the minutes.
Okay.
So why don't we take the corrections to the minutes first?
Okay.
And also some corrections to the minutes.
I'm not sure if you caught the one correction.
Okay.
Did you talk to Holly about that already?
Yes.
Okay.
And I do have those if you'd like.
I can just read those into the record and then you can tell me if there's any additional one.
Thank you.
Okay.
So I have for 11.
15.
Item number three to correct the spelling of the one of Martin's name.
For 117 roll call would should be Mayor Motiama, not Mayor.
Prior Mayor Kinto.
On that same minute.
7A the last paragraph should read electric methods.
On 27 item 8A this one will just the request for this one is for the language for Mayor Motiama's
refusal to be to avoid any potential conflict versus due to a conflict of interest.
And I do have two more.
Okay.
And I have this by page 43.
Okay.
And it's in the regional liaison assignments.
That is west contour cost of transportation advisory committee, not commission.
Okay.
The rural advisory needs to be in there.
And also it should be appointed not reappointed to the CCTA.
We can add CCTA to that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Great.
So do I have a motion to approve.
All the items on consent other than item F.
I would so move.
Second.
The motion and the second.
Madam clerk.
All those in favor.
Please say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
Great.
So now we can go to item F.
Thank you.
Mayor.
I'd like to give opportunity for our guests who spoke during open comment.
If there's anything specifically when we did hear about some events that are coming up
also for your colleague who's on Zoom.
If there's any information that we can share about the importance of this proclamation.
I want to give you guys the floor for that.
And I also think that there's something a little extra as well.
Thank you so much.
Honored to speak before you speak before you twice today.
I actually wanted to if Madam clerk.
Is Natalia Goschelik still in the Zoom?
Maybe she can say a few words.
It's okay for ink or on the spot a little bit.
Natalia you can unmute and speak if you would like.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much for standing up with Ukraine.
It's so important for us, Ukrainian,
and I'm a Ukrainian here living in Berkeley and working at UC Berkeley.
And almost a year since this full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine has passed.
And throughout this year, we always felt this incredible support of the American community.
But it's also still very important to understand that people here in the American community,
people, our neighbors, they are supporting us and they understand why Ukraine matters
and why Ukraine is standing strong, and why Ukraine is fighting for democracy right now,
why it matters so much to show that we are for freedom and we are standing strong
for the whole democratic world. So thank you very much for doing this.
Thank you. And the events I mentioned, I will be providing them by email.
I think by later tonight, and what's certainly appreciate your spreading the word.
The fundraiser, we are about 60% a little, maybe more than that,
towards our preliminary $10,000 goal, and with your collective help and the generosity of El-Sawitans,
I am confident that we will be able to not just reach, but surpass that goal.
And that funding is split among a variety of causes and non-profits, all of them based in Ukraine,
providing not just needed supplies, medicine, food, but also resources like
psychological support for those returning from battle, for members of their family.
There are tens of thousands of wave Ukrainians fighting on the front lines right now.
Most of them were not professionally trained as soldiers. They are civilians who are
risking everything they know to fight for democracy. And this is an opportunity
when they return from the battlefield to provide them with needed resources as well.
As well as two members of their families. So please give generously. If you can, no amount is too big or too small. And again, it is a go fund me. And the short link is bit.ly slash rebuilding Ukraine. I think the R and the U are capitalized. Thank you very much again. And Slavo Krojini.
So is there any comments from council members? We do have a poll.
I just want to say if everyone wants the news today, the president was quite amazing and Poland and yesterday quite amazing in Kiev and Kiev.
So hopefully things will move in the right direction.
I want to say something as well. Igor, regarding all the work that you've done for your motherland.
Just appreciate that and know that council member rug egg will be heading off to Israel in late March.
And I know she will be meeting with a lot of folks from the motherland there in Ukraine who are there as refugees.
So contra Costa is on the forefront to have many of the refugees settle here in contra Costa County.
So we're looking forward to that.
Our congressman, John Garamende. Thank you for working with him. And I know he was there recently and so we're all working together to make sure that her country will have peace eventually.
So I appreciate all your work that you're doing and thank you for letting us read a message and know what they can do.
I'll just say one thing, Igor, you know that I appreciate you and I had a front row seat to see how much care and compassion and work you did to actually bring just this for your country.
And really being a leader here right out of Albany and El Salvador across the Bay Area.
A lot of people don't know that you're right here in our community and your presence was filled across the state and really in the Democratic Party as well.
So just from me to you, I'm appreciate you and I want my pleasure continuing the fight.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
We do have a proclamation for you and I would also want to like to let people know that we have been flying the Ukrainian flag in our city hall lobby this past year. So we stand with you.
Mayor Matiyama, I do need a vote to approve the proclamation.
Is there a motion to approve the second.
Okay, you have a motion in the second, Madam Clerk.
All those in favor.
Any opposed? Motion carries.
Thank you.
The next item is library study session.
I will be recusing myself from participating in this item.
My employer, community economics, ink is a nonprofit that advises regarding affordable housing finance and development.
Community economics is not advising saaha about the Plaza T.O.D. project and has no financial relationship to the project.
Nevertheless, to avoid any concerns, I will not be participating in this item.
I will pass it over to the mayor, and we'll return following this item.
Thank you, Mayor.
May we please have the staff report.
Good evening, council members.
I am Melanie Munster, community development director.
I am joined tonight by a team of people, including Don Marquez with group four.
Craig Hill with NHA, our financial advisor will provost from environmental services and assisting the city managers office in this.
As well as, Nick Wilder from Related California is on zoom and Rachel Factor from Bart is on zoom.
We'll remind you that at the end.
So I'm here tonight to introduce you really to the library at the else read a transitory and a development.
We are going to provide a background of a brief background on the project at the T.O.D.
to bring everybody kind of up to date on what's happening there and what the opportunity is.
I've been told I talk close to close to this.
So if Eric is giving you a signal, let me know.
And then I'll be passing it on to Don to really talk about how else the read-o has studied and come to the need for a new library.
What the library would feature in a modern library such as when we're talking about some of the costs and opportunities of pursuing the library at the transitory
and a development project.
And then Craig and I will talk about funding options.
And we will then welcome, we'll up to talk to you about next steps.
You'll see a few slides that have some flyers and you'll see a timeline that this project has been underway.
Depending on where you started but the one at the T.O.D. for a couple of years.
And we've done quite a bit of community outreach, both prior to the pandemic during the pandemic via zoom and pop up outside meetings.
And we'll continue to.
So just briefly, to look at the last decade, in or 20 years, in around 2002 decades, but who's counting?
So the city manager might be.
So back in really 2002 the city started looking at potential sites for the new library.
The library was already small and out of date.
So we started looking at potential new sites and partly to prepare for a state grant program.
The city council in 2013 confirmed that the library is a priority in your strategic plan.
And we continued over the next several years to do needs assessments update those needs assessments and keep trying to get ready for a potential library.
There was a site on school district land as many of you know that was looking very favorable.
And the city did bring a measure to the voters at that time we did not have a confirmed site.
And we also approached part at that time to look at the opportunities for potentially integrating it into a transitory and a development at the Bart Plaza station.
The ballot measure narrowly failed.
And then after that time, a new state legislation came about really encouraging and requiring, well, requiring cities to facilitate development on Bartone parcels.
We conducted another library workshop with group force.
This thing is just really looking at kind of trade offs associated with different sites and possible partnerships.
After doing that, we really started to hone in on the opportunity at the Bart station being our best opportunity.
And the city request Bart to include a potential library and to pursue development at the station.
In 2020 Bart issued a request for qualifications and requested developers.
Interested in developing the site to submit two site plans as a part of their qualifications.
One with the library and one without.
And since that time we have been pursuing planning at the transitory and a development site.
I'll tell you more about that project as we go forward.
During that time, we have been in front of council a couple of times and one of those times was to confirm that shared the shared goals and objectives between the city and Bart.
You can see the URLs at the bottom of the page where you can learn more and we provide a whole history of what's happened as we've been exploring this opportunity.
But some of the shared goals and objectives were to increase Bart ridership and this is really in support of the city's own greenhouse gas emission schools as well.
To really improve access around downtown through all modes for all modes people who drive walk bike take transit.
To really make sure that the site design enhanced and integrated the alone green way and really activates and makes an active downtown fair amount avenue.
I'm and finally in the reason we're here tonight of course is to look at options for integrating a public library as a part of the site.
And one of the other goals was to provide a good mix of housing.
We were here a couple of weeks ago talking to you about that but the site is about 47% affordable housing.
Below market rate and 53% market rate which has some great advantages for the city as well.
So just quickly you can see this is a proposed site plan.
For those that don't know what is transitory and a development which is often abbreviated as TOD.
It's a really compact higher mixed use meaning sometimes it'll have commercial and residential higher density development within walking distance of transit facilities.
This site that we're looking at is mostly owned by Bart it's a .3 acres and the proposed project will consist of about six buildings and more than an acre of new open shared open space.
The project will take multiple years obviously to plan and construct and I'll provide a schedule in a couple of slides.
And this project beautifully aligns with many adopted city city goals policies and standards.
The new library is proposed to be on the ground floor of one of the affordable housing projects and what we're calling personalcy west.
This project that corner is the one right across from Starbucks at Liberty and Fairmont.
The site provides a great opportunity to have good curb access to be adjacent to the planned public open space.
And we've worked closely as on we'll say more with the county library to make sure it meets both their operational needs as well as different library stakeholder groups.
As you'll hear later on the actual design of the inside of the library wouldn't really occur at a deep level until there was funding available.
Other community benefits in addition to improved transportation and transit access all around the station including on the city's roads.
And the housing are public open space like I've mentioned public art a new bike station a small commercial space and of course the library.
I'm in terms of schedule it's a big complex project that intersects with lots of state laws.
So we've talked before about the entitlement process but just to give the public an idea of what's upcoming.
As I showed earlier we've been doing a lot of pre planning.
Now the project is really beginning to move into its entitlement financing and construction phases.
There is a master plan as well as the parcel you saw what's called, let me see if I can go backwards.
parcel a south you'll hear me talk about in a moment because it's going to the DRB on Thursday.
The master plan will also be going to the DRB in the next several of months and then there will be a master plan entitled as well as parcel a south entitled parcel a south will be aiming to move forward first due to financing opportunities.
And then the remainder of the sites will then once there's a master plan which includes all the open space and access in the general kind of flow and feel of the site.
Each building will then move into construction and financing in its own phase.
If the city currently had 20 million dollars available to participate in building the library we could have gone in phase one for example.
But the developers worked with us and moved the library into phase three so that we have time to consider.
And look to how and proceed with raising the funds for the library portion of the project.
So again you can see the library in phase three.
I'm going to now pass it on to Dawn to talk to you about the need for a new library in the features of a new library.
Thank you Melanie. Good evening council members.
Dawn Marcus principle with group four.
As we look at the next slide we're going to talk about the needs assessment.
I don't think there's much argument on the need for new library.
Your building is quite old built in 48 renovated 1960 significantly undersized to serve your community.
Deficient and all current codes ADA compliance and really limits the ability to serve your community from seniors to teens to your collection size to technology dot dot dot dot dot dot.
So with that as we refresh the needs assessment that summarized on our next slide.
Which we will go to in a second.
It's basically a chart that looks at comparable communities.
And when we look at the comparable communities one of our benchmarks we use for library planning is square foot per capita.
If we look at the chart in front of you your current else read a library is on the bottom line.
And that is the current size of your facility your 2010 population the 2030 population projected out to 2040 and we look at their 2040 pop per square foot with your current library size.
We're kind of at the bottom of the chart point two to square foot per capita and we want to plan.
About 20 years out is good practice. When we looked at the recommendation of a 20,000 square foot library, which is in red, kind of in the middle of the chart, then we're able to get our square foot per capita up almost to 0.7, puts us kind of right in the middle of the chart, and these other comparable communities we're sharing are once about similar size and with newer facilities such as the pleasant hill library, which just opened this last year, and is very similar sized to what's being proposed.
Just for frame of reference. What is the modern library?
It is space for collections, for seniors, for adults. It has a chair for everyone is what we like to say, right?
As we go to the next slide, you know, the teens definitely are big users of current libraries.
A need for technology, maker spaces, incubator spaces, meeting room, group study spaces, and of course space for the friends of the library in last but not least for the children.
And this is all a really nice fit in that 20,000 square feet that's being recommended.
Additionally, I think many of us have realized, especially recently with the pandemic and other emergencies, that libraries can be much much more.
Cooling centers, warming centers, clean air centers. There really are first responders considered first responders.
There are reconnection locations after emergencies, providing Wi-Fi, technology, even available when libraries closed, and examples that the library can include to enhance that would be battery power backup or after hours public Wi-Fi.
The chart we're showing now is one we've worked on with your community through community outreach and engagement.
Really what's most important to you in a library and what's best practices for locating a library.
Our evaluation criteria is listed on the left and visibility access, economic impact, place-making quality of life, program synergy, timeline, land cost.
As we looked at other locations and previous analysis, we're able to identify those sites, but as we apply this criteria to your current TOD proposed project, you can see it ranks really well.
It really is a great location, great opportunity at this site for a library.
And I just want to reassure you. This will not be the first time it's done.
It's been done all over the country. Many, many places. It's a great for that synergy, for it to be adjacent to public transit.
Fruit Vale Library in Oakland is a good example. Other ones with housing, I've shown no ma here, and then also downtown Santa Cruz has been under design right now as well for a co-located library parking garage and housing.
We've developed a preliminary project budget really based on best practices.
It is comprehensive. It identifies all the costs that we can identify now and provides contingencies and allowances for those unknown costs.
There is a detailed budget on the next slide, but it includes hard cost, soft cost, FF and E-HING, good next slide. That's fine.
Enhancement allowances, project contingency, design contingency, as well as escalation.
So, pretty comprehensive cost, I think, you know, the really good news here.
When we look at the bottom line of $21.2 million at significantly lower than the budget for a standalone library, there's really efficiency of scale when you become part of a TOD project.
If you're looking at funding it with a geo bond, 20.4 million would be allowable to be funded.
Alternative funding would be half to be found for that 800,000.
Thank you. Thank you, Don.
So, with that I will invite Craig from NHA.
You can see this is a collaborative effort with many of us, and we'll start to talk about financing that we've explored and financing options.
So, we looked at several options, including the top ones, which include, of course, existing reserves and general fund.
We've explored developer financing and the parking benefit district.
As we all know, the existing reserves and general fund, there's a lot we're trying to do with those reserves, and so we really did not spend a lot of time in that one and look forward to seeing those reserves continue to grow for the city and be programmed.
In terms of developer financing, we did talk about this quite a bit with the developer and Bart.
And in any event, not only is it a big challenge to develop enough financing for the project themselves, the affordable housing and the market rate, but the city would still have to have the funds to pay off this financing.
So we still really came to where we still need some sort of new source of funds.
The parking benefit district, and this is one that really, the pandemic affected.
So prior to the pandemic, when the Bart stations were, the parking lots were all full, and a lot of those parkers would have been displaced onto the streets.
We were looking at that being a pretty significant, or potentially significant revenue generating operation.
But right now, with ridership levels being what they are, with work from home policies, this is an unknown.
And we have a lot of work to do in it, but it does not create the opportunity to finance the library.
We're still, we'll be back to you with different ways that that program can run.
We did, however, look into an enhanced infrastructure financing district.
And as you know, a council formed a subcommittee with council members.
Fidelay and at the time council member Motihama.
So we've been looking into an EIFD, which I'll tell you a little bit more about, as well as the state library grant program and ballot measure, which Craig will talk about.
So in terms of EIFD, this is a really exciting tool, and you're starting to see it talked about in other cities.
It's been, it's been an existence for some time, but was modified somewhat after redevelopment, went away.
It's a tax increment financing tool, which means that the base property tax that exists will continue to go to where it does now to the taxing entities, including mostly the city.
But like with redevelopment, that base gets frozen if you were to create a district and on the properties that you create a district, the additional tax increment.
The growth in tax could go into the special district.
That special district could then be utilized to pay for infrastructure needs, including a library, either on an as as it's raised basis.
And it can also be utilized for future bond financing separate than the general fund.
So this is an exciting tool, however, for this project, we don't wouldn't have enough EIFD revenues to participate in this project at this time.
One of the large sources of new tax revenues will be the 50% market rate at the part property, and that's one of the exciting things for both part.
This helps on all the projects that are developed as they will generate new property taxes to go into infrastructure.
If this if a city were to start a district, but also all of the other projects that we're seeing get developed.
Those new increments could also be generated, but it would take several years, especially in the current environment, to have enough revenues to do something like participate in the library at the schedule that we showed you.
Our conclusion on this one is that it's not it's not the tool for the library, however, we would love to return to city council and study EIFD as a potential for other infrastructure needs.
The building forward library infrastructure grant program is an exciting, over-subscribed grant program that the state is operating and in conversations with group four today.
She said that the library community and librarians are really loving the state to keep developing this program.
We did some of the letter of interest in December and we're expecting a call for full applications to come out any time now.
One of the challenges with this funding source, however, is that it requires matching funds, and we don't have those matching funds right now.
So we'll still keep looking and seeing how when the call comes out, if there's something we can put together.
But we do hope there'll be future rounds and in talking with NHA today, if the city were to pursue a ballot measure and raise funds, we could still then have matching funds for future future rounds.
So it's still something to watch and we'll keep pursuing that, but it doesn't also look like it's the answer at this time.
So with that, I will pass it on to Craig Hill, the city's financial advisor.
Good to see you all again.
So as Melanie mentioned, there's a couple of different options that you have for potentially finding this project should have moved forward.
The way we look at it is really, it falls into two buckets.
What do you have internally? What resources does the city have? Does the general fund have surplus revenues that it could leverage to potentially raise the money?
The second one, as the city did a few years ago, is to go out to the community and ask for support.
There are two primary ways that the community can support this measure, either through the approval of a general obligation bond, or what we would call a special tax or a parcel tax.
And you hear that term a lot with school districts.
As you probably know, with general obligation bond still requires two thirds majority vote.
It is a very old financing structure that goes back over a hundred years and under state law.
It can only be used for bricks and mortar.
So as you saw from the earlier budget, there's pictures and furnishings and other components to this type of a project.
So if you were to do a geo bond, there would be a need to come up with a few other dollars or extra dollars to cover some of those costs.
It is a very simple tax that is based on a success value, not market value.
So anybody who owns property would be subject to a property tax bill and that would have what we call an ad valorem tax.
A special tax or a partial tax is kind of more of a customized tax.
We have a lot of discussions with councils about this because you may say, well, there's an equity issue.
We want all homeowners to pay the same regardless of whether they've been here for 30 years or they've been here for three days.
And so under a special tax or parcel tax, you may decide that you want to come up with a tax that could be on homes versus commercial.
So it could be parcel size, it could be building size, what it cannot be based on is value.
So you can't discriminate and say, well, we want a special tax that says, if you own a house over a million dollars, you know, you pay X that that isn't allowed under the formula.
The other benefit to a special tax is that it allows you to one fully fund the project, everything including the furnishings of pictures.
And you can also fund operational costs. So again, school districts use this as a way to enhance their their music programs or performing arts programs.
So it is a it is a tool that would allow you to raise a tax that could be used to fund certain projects.
In either case, because this is public support and there are it is tax dollars are being collected.
They can only be used for projects that the city effectively owns.
So you can't prepay rent with these proceeds, you can't really.
At least something other than, you know, you need to be paying for things that you really will own and I'll let that conversation go if there's any other questions.
Speaking more specifically to the general obligation bond structure, as I mentioned, it's a two thirds approval process, we would be issuing bonds after the county were to.
And those proceeds would then be available to be used on the project at any time.
We would not issue until we know that the project is viable.
And what Melanie was mentioning in terms of how this might go into place, it would be this could be a couple years even after the election.
So think of it as almost like a line of credit if the community supports it authorizes it.
If you ever matures that you can you can issue those bonds at any time in the future, so that's the good news.
They what they would effectively do is approve a dollar amount.
So obviously with time value, you know, it'll buy less and less over time.
I want to bring to everybody's attention that because it is based on assessed value, you typically would see a tax rate that would decrease over time as your community's values increase.
And that occurs for a couple reasons, right? It's it's either redevelopment additions to people's properties.
It's resale at current market value that always jumps to assess value.
You have a few or smaller infill projects that that add to undeveloped properties.
So as the base as your tax base grows, those that are still in their old homes will actually see a smaller tax rate.
So hence the graph, you see the blue line where it kind of decreases over time.
That's based on an assumption of, you know, the community growing approximately 2%.
As an estimate for a $20 million bond, and this is just us kind of giving you some some rough parameters, you can see that on a per hundred thousand dollar basis.
It's just at around $18.
We looked at the data for this city and you effectively have an average assessed value, not market value at around 575,000 for a single family detached homes.
So that gives you some indications of what the potential tax on average would look like over a 30 year period of time.
Finally looking at the comparison to a partial tax or a special tax, as you can see, again, same process for authorization or approval.
Going to the voters still requires two thirds.
You can, again, add program or operational costs into it, if you wish.
And as you can see, it's a, because it's a flat tax, it doesn't change over time, right?
This would, the, the mortgage or the debt service payment on the bonds would be level just like your, your mortgage on your house.
We did not assume any kind of an escalator on the operational side.
And in this case, you can see that we can either do it on a flat, like all parcels paid the same, regardless of whether they're a house or an apartment or a commercial building, that's what we would call a flat tax, or you could do it by a building square footage tax, and so somebody has a thousand square foot home would pay something to somebody had a two thousand square foot home, they'd pay twice as much.
Based on again, the data that we have, you have approximately a 1,700 square foot average home in town, and our estimates are shown at the bottom on what it would potentially be on an annual basis, again, not expecting it to change.
The only difference here from the GO bond we want to bring your attention is we broke it out into what we've called a project cost, right, and so that would be people supporting.
This would all be one measure, but they would be a component that would pay for the library itself, and if there was a decision to add the ability to enhance the operations or cover the costs of the of the library itself, you can see in this case it would it would it wait to about seven dollars a year in order to generate seven, two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year for services or programming.
So with that, I think I'd turn it back over to me.
Thank you so much Craig. So of course Craig and Donald will be here for question answer. I introduced as well comes up. I want to share also that Alison McKee, I forgot to share that the county librarian is also on zoom and available for questions and answers.
And with that I'll pass it to well.
Thank you, Melanie. Thank you, Craig. Good evening, City Council.
So as Craig outlined, a bond measure could be an effective mechanism to ride the funding needed to build a proposed library as part of the El Serito Plaza TOT project.
The timeline for developing a voter measure and when those funds would become available is also compatible with the TOT project timeline.
I shown on this slide and as Melanie mentioned, the development team is building out their plan facing for the project with this in mind and is including the library in face three of the project.
And one of the buildings planned for affordable housing.
To stay on track with the phasing of the project and include the library, it's anticipated that the city would need to make the firm financial commitment by summer 2024.
A ballot measure brought to the voters in spring of 24 would fit with this timeline.
So the site's shown here shows how the timing for the ballot measure would work in a little bit more detail.
The city council could provide direction to keep moving forward and staff would bring back a budget request to begin a community opinion process to develop language for the measure and to refine the financial analysis.
After that's completed, the city council would need to call for an election by early December in order to place the ballot, the measure on the ballot and marcher April.
If the measure is approved by the voters, we would then have the funds available in time to include the library in the TOT project.
And then after the measure is approved, that's also when we would initiate a robust community design process with stakeholders and an architect hired by the city to plan for and design for the interior of the library to meet the numerous community needs that have been identified.
And from then construction would begin as early as 2025.
Although an important note here is that since the library will be in an affordable housing building, that timeline could change depending on their financing.
Bringing up the Gantt chart again briefly, this shows how the ballot measure would fit in with the overall TOT project.
Pointing out again that the library would be included in phase three and that we'd intended complete a robust community engagement process and design process after the election in spring 24 if and once the measure is approved by the voters.
To touch with on community engagement again, there has been a significant amount of community engagement as part of the broader TOT process.
This has included BART's development of a Berkeley else reto corridor access plan, which is focused on how residents will get to Bart.
There have been also been surveys focused groups in virtual and in person meetings and of course there have also been city meetings including a joint design review board planning commission study session in September.
In terms of what's to come.
Melining touched on this but the design review board design review board will be doing an advisory review of parcel a south this Thursday.
The overall project master plan will be discussed at a joint design review board planning commission meeting and then each phase that is built will also then be discussed by the design review board.
As the buildings come come forward.
The city staff is also a formulating a public engagement process around the proposed parking program around the site and as I mentioned if the library is vended over closely with the community as we get into design.
And before concluding our presentation the last important thing to touch on is our five is financial considerations and potential impacts to the general fund.
Craig and Don talked about the cost of constructing the library and how we could pay for it with a ballot measure.
The additional non capital costs that a ballot measure would entail.
To be clear staff does not requesting action or approval of any of these expenditures this evening but we wanted to put them on your radar.
As potential costs in the future.
So first as mentioned if given direction to proceed staff will come back both with mid year budget adjustments if needed and with proposed expenditures in the FY24 budget to develop a ballot measure.
Conduct a survey refined draft language and complete the tax analysis.
We estimated this could cost $70,000 to $100,000 spread over two fiscal years.
If in November December the council decides to move forward with placing the measure on the ballot we estimate another 100,000 to 150,000 expenditures both to place the measure on the ballot and conduct adequate public information.
If from there the ballot measure is approved by the voters and notably if the measure is a general obligation fund that can only fund brick and mortar costs as Craig outlined then the city would also need to identify and estimate it $800,000 for furniture and related expenses.
And then lastly there would be ongoing costs of a new library that may need to be where funding may need to be identified.
So this includes the cost of extra hours so after opening the new library the city may want the facility to be open for the maximum number of hours.
The city currently pays about $60,000 for six extra hours as you know at the current library and our initial estimates put the number at an additional $250,000 to fund the maximum 16 hours in the new facility since it's three times as big and will require additional staff.
And we're working closely with the county to try and refine that estimate.
We'd also expect increased operation and maintenance costs for things like custodial services and facility maintenance in a larger and more technologically advanced building.
Those costs could be around 25,000 to 40,000 a year after the building opens which might not be till after 2028.
So again, staff is not requesting decisions on any of these expenditures now but we wanted to provide a comprehensive understanding of potential general general fund impacts if the city were to proceed with funding the library with a ballot measure.
And yeah, and to conclude, if the city council could provide direction to staff to start formally exploring a ballot measure to fund the proposed library as part of the else readoplas of BartheoD project.
If so, we would return with budget requests as needed to conduct a survey prepared draft ballot language and complete a financial analysis for city council to consider placing the measure on the ballot.
We'd also continue working with Bartheo development team to plan for the library as part of the site and we'd develop the parking program with the library in mind.
We'll also continue to conduct community engagement around the project and begin to develop public information around what's being proposed.
So if that city council that concludes our presentation, we're of course available for any questions.
I know the county librarian is on the call staff from the development team part as well as Brian from Godby Research.
If you have any more specific detailed questions about those topics. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the presentation and all the stakeholders who are involved who are on the call ready to help.
I'd like to open up for my colleagues if there's any questions.
Yes.
Thank you.
I'd like to speak to the county librarian.
Great.
Great. Let's see.
Allison, if you could raise your hand.
I don't see you on the call.
There we go.
Thank you.
Okay.
I, Allison.
Gabe Quinto, Council Member Quinto here. Good to see you.
I wanted to find out.
We haven't heard from you, but I wanted to check in with you and see what your take is on this on the county side of this idea.
We are fully in support of it.
It's a model that we are exploring in a couple other places.
Not exactly the same in terms of transit oriented development.
But we are in the very beginning phases of doing a mixed use development with affordable housing and remote income housing.
In Bay Point, library will be on the first floor.
Top, several floors will be housing.
The rest of the development will also be mixed use.
And there will be very close to Bart.
So this is a model that like Dawn mentioned has been implemented.
In the Bay area other library throughout the country and it's very successful and makes great sense.
That's great to hear.
And you and I have been to the Hercules library a few times where I had a chance to give a couple of presentations to the years.
And I wanted to find out your take looking at what the square feet is of Hercules.
So this particular library will be a little smaller is that correct?
I think it's pretty much about exactly the thing.
2020, 2021,000.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Good.
All right.
And so have you been able to discuss these plans with our two library committee members representing El Serita?
Yes.
They keep me very well informed of what's happening around this project.
And I know they're very much in favor of it as well.
Okay. That's that's great to hear.
I did speak to them many years ago about this idea.
So it's good to see that everybody is on board on this idea.
So thank you very, very much.
I should share also that just that.
The group for does we reach out occasionally.
And if we were to get as well mentioned into the interior design, it would be hand-in-hand with the library staff.
But at the site planning stage, we've also been working with them to make sure that, for example,
a book drop off.
And the staff's operational needs are considered at the site planning stage so that if it were to go into a vertical building that it would continue to be harmonious and planned ahead of time.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Quinto.
Council Member White.
Council Member Weissinger?
Sure.
Mine is a shorter question.
I'm not certain if that would be for you, Melanie, or for Will.
But I was looking at the comparison also, like Council Member Quinto.
And as you're, I saw that there's a significant boom projected in our population.
And is that in solidarity with our building so much housing along the corridor itself?
Because I'm looking at the different between elsewhere and Hark.
And we're comparable right now.
But it looks like we're expecting that we're going to be a big bigger and even still kind of fall short of their site.
That's what I like to look at it as it's really as exciting as it is.
And it's modern and so much larger and does all the things that group four mentioned.
But those numbers can from ABACs projections.
So yes, remember it's kind of a.
The process is multiple.
ABAC also projects numbers and what how population will grow and then assigns us our regional housing needs allocation.
So whereas the city was already planning housing to meet its own economic development and and diversity needs.
The ABAC also did assign us those numbers.
And so part of that has to do with proximity to jobs proximity to transit.
Availability of land although our land is as infill.
You know multifamily environment as opposed to all of hercules.
But so the population that we're looking at is both assigned to us and based on what's kind of naturally occurring.
And you're right though that the size of this library would keep us in this kind of in this modest in the middle of those cities.
We could probably get other cities to compare to as well.
But those were ones that I think we've often looked at in terms of places to visit as Don said places with similar population size.
So to that answer your question.
Yes, and then one other thing so and I just want to clarify this tonight we're being as basically for the upper down a whether or not we want to go forward with the ballot.
But we're I'm looking more of an analysis of what that is what that structure is going to be a never come later if we do give it an up right.
That's right.
Now is not whether you want to actually go forward with the ballot measures.
Whether you want to direct us to keep exploring and putting together the pieces of what that would look like to give you more information and potential voters and our community more information.
And as we'll slide show showed we'd be back in about September October with more information.
And then council would then make a decision about whether it wanted to place a ballot measure and then we'd enter into a different phase.
So it's letting us know like yes.
Keep keep going keep putting together the pieces and then the city managers office would be back with what some of those pieces are around polling would be really the next big piece.
All right, thank you.
Councilor Fiddelli.
Thank you.
Excited to be here tonight to hear this.
And my first question was going to be exactly the one that council member Wysinger asked about whether the growth has been factored into that 20,000.
And so I have some odds and ends questions here.
Now that you're all here, it's useful to go across the board here. In 2016, the proposal that we had that
did get on the ballot was $30 million. We didn't really have a venue. What was the square footage
that was estimated? Was there a square footage that was estimated and how did we get the $30 million
because is the $20 million lower cost because we're associated with the TOD property itself?
That's right. So the number that Don has shared with us is, and that we saw,
which has shared with us before we put together the budget was that the mixed use project
sharing some of the costs put to it about 60 to 80% of what a standalone would be.
Right, when you think about all the infrastructure that you're sharing, the mobilizing, some of the shared construction costs.
So before you could see also if we went back to that cost slide, I know at the time, the library was, I don't know if it would be,
was not quite as advanced as this one is in planning because this one's a part of a project with these with architects who are planning
if they cost savings to being associated with the Bart TOD project.
That's right, like 20 to 20 to 30%.
And that's right. So another thing to remember when you look at that cost slide, which I know the city manager was really excited about when we saw this,
was when we did just give you these numbers, the $22 million, that was also escalated to $22,000,
time frame. So that's not even in today's dollars that is in 2025 dollars when we would expect at the earliest to be able to go to construction.
And we did $30 million, of course, within $20,000.
Right.
And thank you for the discussion on the enhanced IFD project that took a lot of review and I appreciate that with Lisa and I dealing with that as well.
But I just want to make sure with the city in the future, if you do present us with an IFD proposal, library can be included in that as an option in the future for revenues that might come into the city.
Not for initial costs, but for other things.
That's right.
So all kinds of infrastructure could be included, including other enhancements of the library, depending on the timing.
So like I said, to enhance the library, should we need to do that?
Or all of our other infrastructure needs is what's nice about that.
Okay.
Don't we have, um, there is a amount of money associated with our existing library, is it like I keep hearing the amount.
Is it $800,000 or something or that correct?
That we could use or in some way, I don't see it registered here anywhere.
Where would that money go and what actually is that money?
Are you referring to like selling the current library property if?
I think yes, I think whatever.
In terms of ongoing costs, what we do know is that our costs would probably go up.
We are, you know, out of the public works department in maintaining the old building.
And there are costs that are rising because of deferred maintenance.
But really what we estimate in this larger building is that the costs would go up.
I'm talking about costs.
I'm talking about some assets that we have in the bank now based on the furniture, the stuff that we have in there that can be.
I don't think we've really calculated that like how weather could be reused or what, so we haven't.
Yeah, so we could look into that, but we haven't netted out.
I don't think when you were looking at costs, we haven't netted out whatever value would come.
I do think that there's some members in the public who might be speaking tonight about different efforts that are happening in terms of expanding collections and housing new collections and some exciting efforts.
So I think the friends of the library and others and things that they've started to develop at the current library.
They'd be able, of course, to enhance and expand in a new library.
What is the, as we all know, we're a city that's on the comeback financially here and doing pretty well, I think.
Moving forward, what do we have to do as far as getting our bond rating better?
I will call Craig to speak about that.
And what is that number and those nice easy questions to answer.
That could be a loaded question.
Well, loaded up.
So the city maintains effectively two different ratings, right?
There is a there is a rating that you would have for a general obligation bond, which is the underlying strength of your community that is based on.
Diversity of property types, all of that.
That is not you because you don't have a general obligation bond out there.
You have no debt that's truly supported by property tax revenues that that rating doesn't exist.
I think you're speaking to the city's general fund rating on the obligations that you have now.
And when we were involved in those transactions, the rating agency is laser focused, right?
On reserve levels, on structural deficits, on funded liabilities.
And so you are certainly on the right path now with your revenue enhancements, your ability to build the reserves.
You've got policies in place around building those reserves.
You're addressing your pension on funded liabilities.
All of that is going in the right direction.
The rating agencies will do surveillance.
So they will come in on their own time and ask specific questions, which can move the rating the easier way and we're not advocating for this right now.
But if you're looking to do a rating push for a rating increase, you have to have something for them to rate.
Meaning you would need to be doing a financing a general fund financing that they would actually apply the new rating to.
So it's it's best to kind of get all of this this homework done now.
And when they come in for a surveillance, which could be in late 23 or early 24, we're predicting that would be when you really show them.
Look what we've been able to do over the last two fiscal years.
Look what our 23 24 budget is.
And that starts to move the needle as you can imagine the rating agencies take their grades very seriously.
They don't like to move them around quickly.
So it is a momentum shift kind of approach where we just we need to show consistency that the city truly is year after year you know building or improving as opposed to having a blip.
Down or up right a one year ricochet doesn't give them a lot of confidence that they they know what the trend is.
And from your insight where we're at where we have to go it's a doable thing.
Absolutely. Thank you for that.
I have a ballot question.
If we do need to talk about ballots there are two types or maybe maybe more but one I keep hearing about the signature type.
Where we can get on with what's the advantage of using the signature process or just paying to get on the ballot.
So I'll do a very abbreviated version of a little bit of case law history related to the provisions of the California Constitution that we're added by prop to 18.
So those provisions state that there are two types of taxes general taxes and special taxes and special taxes require two thirds voter approval.
Either type of of tax that we're talking about would also require two thirds voter approval.
Several years ago the California Supreme Court issued a decision about procedural aspect of revenue measures that raised some questions about whether or not all of the rules for special taxes apply.
When a special tax gets on to the ballot through a voter sponsored initiative rather than being placed on the ballot by the city council on its own motion.
There were then several appellate court cases in which the appellate district that covers El Serito has held that a special tax that is on the ballot as a result of a voter sponsored initiative.
And rather than being placed on the ballot by the city council only requires 50% plus one to pass so just summarizing that.
If for this measure the city council decided based on a variety of factors you wanted to pursue the parcel tax approach and the city council adopted a resolution to put that before the voters.
That that measure would require two thirds yes votes to pass on the other hand if if members of the community wanted to circulate a petition to qualify an initiative to get the same parcel tax on to the ballot under those cases it would only require a simple majority.
However to complicate things a little bit and I see you're leaning forward for a question.
I need to revisit this but the measure that you voted to oppose earlier this evening that is going to be on the statewide ballot.
It's sponsored by the California roundtable would alter prop to 18 to take away the power of the voters through initiative to have a lower vote threshold.
So we don't know what the outcome of that is going to be at the statewide measure it won't be on the ballot until November 2024.
It is retro but I'm not sure if that aspect of it is retro.
It would be retroactive.
There I think it may be but there are aspects of the California roundtable initiative that are retroactive but they're retroactive for a certain period and I honestly don't remember sitting here whether or not this one is.
Or for how long in other words whether or not it would reach back to a.
To an initiative measure that was on the ballot in the spring of 2024.
It's it's very likely what I haven't I haven't even revisited that one.
Yeah the city manager seems fairly confident that that that that that aspect but the reason is that there's there's some things are retroactive in it and others are not so there's just a question about it.
But also we don't know whether or not it's going to pass and that and we also don't know whether or not the retroactivity provision would be upheld if challenged additionally.
Let's just take this this potential measure hypothetically if it passed in the spring of 2024 and city council approved the issuance of bonds in the summer of 2024 and those were issued and backed by by the revenue.
The retroactivity would imperil the the security that the that the city had provided so there'd be an additional legal complication to to any challenge to those bonds in terms of applying that retroactive provision of the statewide measure.
So I just don't just give you a ton of information I'm sure you have questions I'm happy to feel.
I could just sort of follow up with that that is why doing the opinion survey the voter community opinion survey is extremely important because we'll be able to gather data on what the temperature really is of the community and what we're looking at and.
If we're able to you know if it comes if the if the and Brian is on the call so he could probably answer this question of course in his from his perspective but this is exactly why we would want to really test the data and test the.
The feasibility of how each of the different types of taxes and what they meet the two thirds threshold and if we know we can meet the two thirds threshold and that's data we would bring to the council to have.
That deeper conversation as Melanie and will talk about later on this summer.
What is the number of signatures that the cities are set number of percentage what.
15% of registered voters based on the last gubernatorial election.
We're just under 18,000 registered voters the last time I checked.
I'll say that again 15% of that amount so it's about.
2600.
And I don't know Brian if you are on the call and you have any additional.
I think anything to add to this.
Yeah, thank you.
Karen I guess what I would add is I've got lots of cities talking about this right now.
So you're not the only one.
The survey will help you decide whether you need to take the risk as sky outline or whether you can go for the two thirds.
The measures whether they are bond or parcel tax the wording is substantially the same regardless of how it gets on the ballot.
So the survey will if we get 59% obviously that tells us that we may have to go to the initiative route if we get 75% that tells us we're more comfortable with the two thirds approach.
Okay, thank you.
There's a my question as I just want to say that in partnership with Barton this because there is state legislation that they can basically do anything they want on that lot that they own.
The good news I'm hearing around town is that people are very positive about housing, which is a great goal we have because we also will get a library in the deal.
Thank you very much.
And I'll let me just correct when it's actually 10% not 15% I.
So the 1800 approximately sounds better.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right, I have a few questions.
I have three questions to be exact.
So in surveying are the questions going to be granular enough so that we can have a sense.
To inform exactly how we would use the space I'm looking out and I'm seeing a lot of stakeholders in the community with very specific interest and what this library can bring to our community.
So is that a part of the surveying tool so beyond you know if we're going to be.
Investing in this, beyond taking the temperature of how acceptable this would be on the ballot. Is there any
about preference of how the space is being utilized?
The short answer is yes, the longer answer is the structure of the survey starts with sort of a very high level.
What are important issues in the city and how is the city doing? Then we do a ballot question.
Then we have a long list of features of the library, which are things that you are going to use.
The library for and the purpose of that is to rank those.
And that will tell you what's important to the voters and what's not important and that will help you with your planning.
From the voter perspective, it's not the entire population because we're interested in voters.
Then we test the long list of positive and negative argument.
Then we test the ballot question again, but we are getting that list of features and the priorities.
What is it that the voters want?
They want space for kids, programs. Do they want space for quiet reading or, you know, all those divided things?
And as we work with the city to draft the questionnaire, that's the input that we're looking for.
And then similarly, if I can build on that, we would be very interested.
So aside from the survey related to the ballot measure in terms of design and really what this library feels like and acts like and how it.
It becomes that multipurpose place that people envision.
There's a couple of pieces to that one.
We'd be making sure to share enough information, just general public information about all the potential within the space and with the needs assessment.
What did it envision and how the space could be organized and what it would need to accommodate.
We could do a variety of workshops to keep bringing people in.
And then of course, letting people know that yes, when we get into the if if this were to pass and we were in the design case, there would be a robust community process.
It's really to design it. It's really a shell that the budget envisioned with the developer that the shell would accommodate a library in the way that we envision, but then it gets really rich.
When we get past that, so we have to figure out how to make sure.
Just have to wait communication with the public.
I appreciate it that in the staff report, it directly called out the use of this building as a cooling center.
Air, you know, on high AQ I days because currently in El Serito, we provide no facilities for our community members to serve that purpose. So it's really important.
I hope my colleagues concur and the community concur as that we need to have a space available in El Serito for residents on hot days to be a cooling center and clean air on those high AQ I days.
Yeah, I think one of the pieces exciting is to think about a new modern facility going back also to council member.
Wisinger's question when you think about our, both our existing population with what you just said, but also our new population to have another.
Another facility, you know, this one's not new anymore.
But a new issue of facility, I'm really to really match what our communities needs are and to be designed in a flexible robust way.
So agreed.
One of my second question is, is the design costs, is there any opportunity for the design cost to be offset by the project and by the developer team and as because this is kind of a unique or not.
This wouldn't be a standalone building if we go in the direction of the library. How does it reduce the costs of design and kind of the soft cost budget projected.
Yeah, I'd have to go back to the slide and also Nick Wilder from Related, who's been a really strong partner with us is on the call, so he can be promoted to answer the question.
As well, so Nick, I might have you say a few words, but already the process that they've gone through to date to really plan the library on the site has been definitely the city has not contributed beyond all of our staff time.
Which has not been insignificant, but we have not, we've have a Pia Talk and I know I'm a lawyer, cool, so really excellent landscape architects and architects working on this and other architects that I'm, it's not the tip of my tongue right now.
But they've been working on it really, I think sharing the vision that the city has really seeing it as an exciting space to activate and really bring life to that to downtown and to the project.
So all of that has been shared. We haven't been participating in that design in this pre planning design and all of the access work and everything.
Similarly, Bart has gotten a number of grants to improve access. There's a lot of resources going in terms of the design itself.
Similarly, they have held going into vertical. I'm probably IT is probably telling me that I'm redlining again.
That they're holding going into vertical design. Yeah, we have this, let's see.
They're holding going into vertical design for their own affordable housing project until we know whether we're participating or not so that they know what ground floor is being, is being designed.
So I think Dawn might be getting on here to show you the way that the budget was built, but there are shared costs within the budget. Is that where you're looking at Dawn?
Yeah, you can use the podium to if you guys are out of chairs.
So just because the soft cost for a person, I'm sort of construction cost right now, and your construction cost is not.
So the shell is being done by the developer. And so you're right there saving about a third of your soft cost.
Because the developer is doing the mechanical system, the exterior of the building, the structural system, the foundation.
And so what the city would be paying for is the TI soft cost on the internal development of the project.
That makes sense? That actually does make sense. Thank you.
And also Nick, do you want to add anything to that? Is Nick right there?
I'll next on here.
Hi Nick.
Thank you for taking the time looking at the library today and last week as well for personal ASL.
In terms of how the project benefits from being in the larger development, one note is just all the master planning efforts
and design that's going on now.
Those are cost being born by the developer and not by the city to help design that library shell, the building that it's in.
And then, you know, foundation systems, mechanical systems, all of that sort of initial design work.
And then, in the end of the day, as we move further towards construction, design component of the library,
you know, the city would have their own architect for the shell and be coordinating closely with one of the architects for building as well.
But many of those sort of early benefits, for example, now before, you know, volunteers passed or things that those really benefit from being part of the larger project.
And similarly, Nick, right? So as they're designing the building to go vertical, we would have our architect making sure that their design was compatible with what the libraries needs were.
And the all the opportunities were being sought that it would be their architect team doing that heavy lift.
And like Nick just said with mechanical electrical plumbing type of things.
And ours would be kind of working with them to make sure that that was compatible and then we would take it from the outside in.
Excellent. Thank you. My third and final question is so if my colleagues and I tonight vote to explore this ballot measure.
We go through the process. We take it to spring 2024 and it comes short.
What would be the next steps.
That's a great question. So one of the things you'll see on the calendar is it does show on that Gantt chart.
March is when the election would be and it's not until Nick correct me if I'm wrong, but August is I believe when we have to say when we're in or out like they're moving forward without us.
The project as somebody else said, I think it was you Council Member Fudale the project due to a number of state laws and all the shared goals and the housing that it provides.
We'll move forward one way or another and so our option is really do we want to include a library as a part of it.
I guess between if it didn't pass we'd have between March and August to put our heads together and figure out is there some other way that we could do this.
And we'll continue exploring that even as we proceed as we were showing but that that's kind of my short answer.
And we might know more about what any I have to do then you know if we wanted we would call Nick and other lenders and but we'd see it as we were saying we really feel that there's some new monies from somewhere are needed to pay back any option that we were to if we were to try to find any other option.
Excellent. Thank you.
Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item.
In person request to speak can be submit a speaker card to the city clerk and remote speakers can use the raise hand feature to request to speak.
Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residents at the beginning of your comments.
City Clerk please proceed.
Thank you Mayor Potem.
But at this time we have.
I apologize last my screen.
We have six requests to speak. We'll start with our in person comments first.
So first up is Al Miller followed by Tom Panis.
Hello again. I'm still while Miller. I'm still a resident of El Serito.
I'm submitting this public comment as the president of the El Serito library foundation.
The foundation was created in 2014 to increase community support and to raise funds to support a new library modern library 21st century library in El Serito.
The foundation strongly supports the library option being offered as part of the Bart TOD project at the Plaza Station.
At the size of 20,000 square feet it matches our library needs assessment.
The current planning indicates that creating a new library as part of the Bart TOD project as you heard earlier today.
We'll save the city up to ten million dollars over a stand alone site somewhere else.
If you could find somewhere else in the city of El Serito.
Thanks to the senate.
Excessive are.
San Pablo Avenue specific plan et cetera.
Several board members of the ELF are also members of a committee for a Plaza Station library known by its abbreviation of
C. Capital C for Capital PSL. Michael will be telling you more about this in a few minutes.
As we believe that participating in a broader community group supporting the library we can contribute more individually than just as a foundation.
Collectively we ask for your continued strong support for the new 21st century in the library for El Serito.
And for you to do whatever you can to ensure that you're able to say yes to the library option as part of the project at the Plaza Station. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Tom Panis followed by Michael Fisher.
I'd like to thank you for your vision and support for the TOD project that Bartis proposed for the El Serito Plaza Station.
The chair from the start of the big fan for the TOD project and the library as part of it.
And El Serito we talk a lot about place making Bartis here to develop month of the Plaza Station. Hopefully including a library will be a step in that direction.
I'd like to suggest that we a little more creative and truly do the right thing for pedestrian access to the site.
Visualize yourself in six or seven years sitting on a chair on the south side of the.
Excuse me.
On the south side of the TOD project looking towards El Serito Plaza.
Except you're not noticing traffic on Fairman Avenue because we've closed the block of Fairman Avenue, which is the city owns not part.
Between Liberty and Oak Street Busway.
Not only you're not looking at Fairman Avenue, but we're Fairman Avenue, Ray and you see a green space with two small rises on the end and a saddle in the middle.
Under this new landscape was a limited access tunnel with easy access to the Bart Plaza Station for AC transit buses and emergency vehicles.
And on that map you're looking at the little red lines, our tunnel portals and contour.
This allows people to walk between the shopping center and the TOD site including the library, the housing and Bart.
Without having to worry about traffic on Fairman Avenue, plus we replaced pavement with green space.
I want to say again that I live on Fairman Avenue, I live on Fairman Avenue for 45 years.
And I'm certainly clear what I'm suggesting will have impacts on traffic.
But as our goal to preserve the world that we have today, or as our goal to create a pedestrian family environment that we dream about.
I'm very much in favor of the latter.
So let's not squander this amazing opportunity to do some extraordinary place making as part of this TOD project.
Once in a lifetime opportunity I'm hoping we don't miss or dismiss out of hand.
Thank you for your time this evening. I'd like to thank all our presenters for their great work this evening.
Hi, apologies. We're having some challenges with our live feed.
The next speaker is Michael Fisher followed by Greg Lyman.
Thank you Mayor Prod Tam members of the council and fellow else's meetings.
My name is Michael Fisher.
I have both the privilege and responsibility of being El Serrido's library commissioner speaking as an individual tonight. The concept of a new library is strongly supported by our library community, which is large and engaged. We know that libraries are rightly one of the most beloved civic institutions. A new library in El Serrido is long overdue.
Our current library is too small, too old, almost as old as I am.
Built in the late 1940s, lacking as mayor pretend pointed out air conditioning filtering and heating.
It has no separate meeting rooms.
And yet, our library is the most popular of all county library branches in West County by a large amount.
A right-sized library of some 20,000 square feet is planned with meeting rooms accessible not only for libraries, but for children, for teens, for adults and for senior programs even when the library is closed.
The new library will be an important keystone to the vibrant downtown area it will be part of.
The possibility of this as part of the bark transitory and development that will be built in any event is a rare opportunity.
But the library will not happen by itself. We're grateful for the work done by Karen, by Melanie, by Will, and other city staff in bringing this to the forefront.
The library community stands ready to help ensure that the planning for this project that the financing for this project, public and private, as well as the planning will take place.
We have created a group, as Al mentioned, called the Committee for a Plaza Station Library, and we invite all to join us in whatever way you can help.
We're new, so we just have an email account.
The account is four Plaza Station Library at gmail.com.
That's the number four and the words, the words, Plaza Station Library all scrunch together at gmail.com.
Thank you, and we hope to see everyone involved.
Thank you. Our last in person speaker is Greg Lyman, and then we'll go to remote request to speak.
Good evening, Mayor Protem. Council members, it's a pleasure to be here.
So I remember I'm excited. It feels like we're going to actually move forward with a concrete step towards getting a library here in El Serito.
Again, Greg Lyman, El Serito resident, and I served for 12 years in your seats on the State Council pushing it for a library.
So I'm here to support a city owned library facility, as part of the Plaza Park Transit Oriented Development Project.
Please give direction to staff to immediately start the community opinion process, developing questions for the survey,
finding the tax analysis and moving forward with a ballot measure for the March 5th 2024 presidential election.
March 5th next year is a mere year away, and we have a lot of information to disseminate to in order to pass a funny and funny measure.
That means that you're decision about making an initiative ballot versus a ballot that you put on the ballot is actually probably going to happen over the summer,
which is why I'm encouraging you to make very strong recommendations tonight for staff to move forward.
I'm working in concert with other library supporters and will be part of the campaign advocating to support the ballot measure.
A successful campaign will require a small army of volunteers.
And I encourage everyone that's out there listening to email us at four Plaza Station at gmail.com, so that we can begin working with you to get the word out and build a strong robust campaign.
So we can have a library here in El Serito, a new modern library here in El Serito within the next five years.
Mayor Lyman, I can say mayor. Once mayor always a mayor, it was four Plaza Station library at gmail.
Yes. Okay, I want to clarify. Thank you.
Four Plaza Station library. Thanks.
Thank you. And just quickly before I go to our remote request to speak. I do want to share that we did receive written public comment for this item today from Stephen Price, Rachel Rose kind Charles Taylor, David Weinstein and Al Miller and those are posted with supplement to online.
And then we have three remote requests to speak. We'll go to our first speaker Dan Schillman. You should be able to unmute and begin your time now.
Hi everybody. Dan Schillman from El Serito. Thank you for allowing zoom participation while I'm out of town on school vacation week.
So yes, I would love to see a library as part of this transit oriented development.
Everybody I speak to feels this way every elected official that I've spoken to says they want this as well.
It's been this way for years, but there's always been this financing elephant in the room.
And so I'm glad we're talking about it now and getting ready to make some decisions.
I think it sounds like the ballot measure is is the primary option that I agree with some of the prior speakers that we should start this process now.
Let's no longer have this be an unknown with this project.
I can tell you that back in 2016 I had a three year old and a two year old back then I was a pretty low information voter back then.
And I voted no back then because the ballot measure had very high costs and very high ambiguity. There was no site, no plans, no no pictures.
And I can tell you if knowing what what's been put out there today and what could you put out there with a proper campaign.
I would have absolutely voted for it back then and I would certainly vote for it now.
So with all that being said I have two questions.
The first one leads to what the mayor pro terms question was about what if this doesn't work, is there a plan B.
Have we exhausted all the non ballot measure options might my worry is that we've known about this for many years now.
I think I would worry are we going to able to come up with a plan B the three months between a ballot measure and then when the development train is going to leave the station.
So that's one question second question is heard some talk about grants and matching funds and I'm just kind of interested to hear how the mechanics would work with that.
If a ballot measure were to pass, but then some sort of state or federal or you know grant funding.
Where to come through and maybe not all of the bond measure funds are needed anymore, what what happens in that scenario.
I'd be interested to understand that.
And a last comment is I I really like to.
Tom canus is suggestion about family I don't think that's a lovely idea.
Thank you very much.
Thank you our next.
Our next speaker is Rachel Rose kind Rachel you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.
Thank you.
My name is Rachel Rose kind I'm in on three to a resident small business owner educator and activist.
Most of contra costas district one library commissioner and vice chair of our new county library foundation of contra costa.
I believe that no other public institution educates and riches and gauges and resources its communities as expansively continuously and diffusively as public libraries.
And no other institution is as embedded and engaged to direct service in with and for community.
These beliefs of driven and been sustained over the course of my three decades worth of partnership with libraries around the country.
Libraries are truly equity and action spaces that champion accessibility challenge censorship preserve cultural memory.
A pulled the right to privacy and connect connect connect.
As opportunities own multipliers libraries transform individual lives and shape communities.
But multiplying libraries capacity to serve and catalyze opportunities means maximizing and optimizing its physical form.
The current library is just a few blocks from my home and holds a special place in my heart.
The time I visit I'm impressed by the energy and color the staff make the manifest and what is a dark dated next remove and it is space.
These dedicated professionals work in a building that is in dire need of repair renewal and reimagination and we can make this happen.
Libraries are spaces of and for many things on the civic level which brings us here tonight their spaces of community pride and belonging.
They are in effect love letters to the idea and practice of community itself.
Hope that the city the council and all parties involved in stewarding this project will meaningfully authentically and accountably engage all of the diverse individuals and populations that make up our wonderful city and county.
One of immigrants caregivers students and educators of young people adults and seniors.
Fresh stars and stalwarts of unhoused individuals and affluent homeowners of single parents and world and residents working to jobs.
So that the library can be a beacon and bridge to a city that reflects and respects its entire community.
And so we can assure true buy in on this project as we've lobby for funding viability and seek over approval if it goes that route.
Please do the robust and genuine outreach needed.
Wearing my activist hat, I would also like to urge you to advocate more of the housing units to be a portioned as very low income rather than just for low market rate.
Given the high dollar threshold for low income in the MR qualification and country custom.
We need housing that is truly affordable for all the people who are entitled to safe and secure housing.
But for too many reasons to renew more right here book historical and present day do not have access to the same resources as other current residents and those moving here from other cities.
I look forward to contributing to bringing this project to fruition and I thank you for your time and support of this project.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Howdy Gaudy.
Howdy should be able to unmute and begin your time now.
Thank you.
Mayor Patzen and council members.
My name is Howdy Gaudy and I live in El Serito.
So first of all, I fully support the integration of library into the Plaza TOT.
And I appreciate all of the efforts of all the parties concerned to keep this alive and moving forward.
It's a very complicated logistical problem and I appreciate everyone's efforts on.
So it's also good news that there are substantial savings associated with this integration and I think there should be some reflection on leveraging that savings to make it an even more vibrant.
Project I mean the.
You know some of the comments both in person and written have.
Really been talking about the interaction of the library with the rest of the surrounding environment and at a time when you know the site plan is.
You know it's been out there but it's getting more and more solidified I think we need to be making sure that how the library interacts with the surroundings is is really as.
Optimal as it can be and meets the potential we only really get this unique opportunity you know once in you know 50 plus years so.
And we should really make sure we're making the best use of the opportunity and looking at how the site plan is currently laid out.
Yes, there's a nice integration to you know the street side Plaza area but that's one facade of this library footprint.
The other facade are really pretty uninspiring you know one side is the the bus.
Drive way one side is a you know service alley with very little amenity and the other is is completely well off so.
I worry that you know day lighting deep into the space will be compromised because of this particular layout and I think we're not necessarily going to be able to support as much innovative amenities and programming as we might otherwise if we're a little bit more visionary about this in the future so.
Rather than just taking what the developer can give us for an envelope and working on the interior I think we need to be more.
Imagine a tip about.
Bringing amenities that are uniquely inspiring for the library to this the shell of the building and the site plan and I hope you will consider doing that thank you.
Our next speaker is Rachelle W. Rachelle you should be able to unmute and begin your time now.
My name is Rachelle Wheeler. I'm a resident of El Serito. Good evening, Mayan Proten, council members, and thank you to staff for all your work on this effort.
I'm sorry, Mr. Presentation, although I did review the slides over the weekend. I have a couple of questions, which may have been addressed already, but I'm thinking about this from coming to this from a point of strong support.
And I'm incredibly supportive of the transitory and to development and the idea of placing a library within it and definitely the cost savings of that are incredibly appealing for finally making this switch or this this idea of any library much more feasible than it has been.
My questions kind of relate also to kind of thinking about this as a homeowner and voter who would be looking at.
Potentially paying for this.
And I guess I would like to one note that the city had never to find as much possible grant funding and other funding available as possible.
And that they would continue to do that and I guess I would.
Like to see the council strongly direct staff to continue applying for all possible grants and I'm also curious as the previous speaker stated on how that would work with the bond or assessment measure and if there was a grant that did come in.
Secondly, I'm sure this has been explored in the past, but I'm not familiar with it is just the fact that this is a county library and that this library I know.
Because of people I know including my mother who live in Richmond annexed that a lot of people outside of El Serito use this library I just looked at the map of where the libraries are in the county and I see the Richmond library is very far away from the Serito Plaza library so I assume that you know it is used by many people enrichment and I wonder if there is thoughts on how.
That constituency or the county could help contribute towards making this new library a reality. Thank you very much.
Thank you. May I pretend that does conclude a request to speak thank you madam city clerk and thank you to all the public comment it was all appreciated and received.
I like to open up for council comments.
I call you. Yes, council number quintet.
Thank you for that the row presentation and it's great to see everyone on board on this and as someone who was part of the team to get the library record and years ago.
We have done our homework and to see this happening now and I'm in full support of this and I hope you know our residents that are here watching and listening will know that this is something that this community needs.
And and want so we have a whole new generation of young families here along with a group a large group of seniors both will be able to use and so yes I'm in full support of this and I'm thinking about that cocktail party I attended with Patrick Carney.
The lead architect that seven systems to the whole but you can see the pink triangle up on the hill gay pride and June and and his responsibility for adding to the close to the bar stations back in the day.
What this idea over having cocktails at Dave Weinstein's house so thank you Dave Weinstein and for having that cocktail party and having us meet over drinks and just talk about the future of ulcerado and coming into.
For wishing and and it's an exciting time we have a lot of homework to do and I know that this council is will be committed and making sure we do our homework and we get things done by August so that that's where I stand thank you anything else.
Yes council member Fidelie yes thank you I'm very excited as I said about being here tonight.
One of the good things about libraries and why they're so important is that everyone can build their own personal relationship to them and I have mine I grew up in Richmond and my mom took me to the Richmond library every Wednesday morning.
And I continue that on Saturdays with my two daughters and then library routines continue to be created and last throughout school college and professional life for most people I'd like to say.
And I'm here tonight to say that I'm so excited that we may be closer to allowing our residents to build their own new relationships to a new safe full service library and resource center within our city limits it's a very exciting time and there's a lot of work that goes on behind.
What we're hearing tonight with staff and is how he said it's very complicated mix of actions that have to happen.
It's taken us several years and several hurdles to get to this good place, but by no means is it a done deal as we've heard there's work to do and that's why it's logical to move forward tonight with further planning, polling and reviewing financial options now.
Our last major effort raised issues concerning a lack of a venue and cost projections and hopefully we've learned from that and we've corrected those issues.
It is our responsibility this city to finance this much needed library and it's our responsibility to get our our financial house in order so that our residents and our voters will agree that it's time to take up this goal.
In earnest and I'm optimistic about that a new library can be a part of our bustling city center and an open space in downtown El Serito with community events that actually bring in money financing to our city so that can be part of it doesn't that sound nice things are lining up.
With the supportive council before us a supportive board supportive and hardworking library and city staff and the constant push and support from our residents.
Plaza neighbors and library stakeholders here tonight like the library foundation and friends of the library we've moved forward.
So let's move forward let's get our community more involved about what our needs may be and build an library that we can be proud of so each of us can build our own unique and important relationship.
And finally I just want to say that in Sunday's New York Times in the book review section they had a couple pages with pictures about modern libraries.
And I just want to read the final paragraph they had with all the pictures of people enjoying and sitting in spaces in reading and this is there's several paragraphs I'm just reading the last one it says we all know the books connect us that language has quiet power.
To see the concentration curiosity and peace on faces lit by words is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt in a time rife with shadows libraries are the beating hearts of our communities.
What we borrow from them.
Pales in comparison to what we get in return.
Let's move forward.
Thank you.
That was so well said.
I almost cried.
I want to share.
I'm personally a really heavy user of our else read of libraries.
I raised my daughter in this library.
I want to send a special thank you to Heidi Goldstein and her staff because I know what it is that they are dealing with with this facility and we owe it to the whole entire community to really bring them a modern library.
Also all the speakers so elegantly spoke of civic enrichment in the importance of this space and I think it just credits libraries and library people are a very specific group who understand the positive impacts of libraries and how library librarians themselves are the first responders for learning and education and it doesn't matter where you are in life, whether you are a baby being read story time.
You're a senior looking for enrichment and community if you're looking for a job if you're looking for the bathroom.
We want to be able to provide those facilities and again I keep bringing home the concept of we need cooling centers.
We need a high your a QI level spaces for people and I would open up to my colleagues if there's a motion to provide staff direction on exploring a ballot measure.
I'd like to make a motion mayor put in to move forward with the ballot measure.
If I count some number twice in there.
I'm just going to clarify at this point we're not ready to actually move forward with the measure.
But we are ready to take your direction to support with with gathering more information to bring back to council to decide whether or not to move forward and in what form.
Yes all those things that sky just is.
I heard it was moved by Weissinger and seconded by Fidelie.
Thank you all those in favor please say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries with council.
Mayor.
Muchy on maps it.
Will someone be paging her to.
I sent her to excellent.
She's there just had a back home.
She's got a call in.
I'll just go grab her.
Thank you everyone for attending.
This is great.
And at home too.
Thank you staff.
Thank you council members and public for all your comments and questions.
The next item is council local and regional liaison assignments.
Are there any council reports?
Yes.
The next item is council local and regional liaison assignments.
Are there any council reports?
Yes, I have two items.
On February 9th at the recycled more meeting, I was named chair.
Which means that El Serito has the chair position for our two JPAs with myself and council member Fidelie.
With recycled more integrated waste management authority and wick tack for transportation.
Go El Serito.
Thank you.
And secondly, I met with members of El Serito fire safe the other day.
I was really fantastic to have that conversation into here.
Priorities on the community and to hear word of collaboration with the El Serito fire department.
And looking forward to hearing what our community members are doing in the name of fire safety.
So thank you.
I want to report that.
I'll be leaving on Thursday to for the Cal City Board meetings.
Also on my Marine Clean Energy Board meeting.
I was appointed.
It was a close race.
But I was appointed vice chair.
So the first El Serito to be vice chair of Marine Clean Energy.
So chair will be El Serito's president from the City of Pittsburgh.
Great.
Thank you.
Okay.
This let you know what I've been up to on February 9th.
I attended the East Bay Economic Development Alliance Executive Committee meeting.
On February 11th.
I attended the ribbon cutting for Cape Queen's Alon and their grant opening over in El Serito Plaza.
On February 14th.
I went to the EQC meeting as liaison and gave them an update on what council has been working on.
On February 16th.
I attended the A bag executive board as alternate.
And they had a long discussion on how they're going to do or hybrid meetings.
And their approach will be to have regional hubs.
On February 19th.
I spoke at the day of remembrance for executive order 906.
And Japanese internment at the Rosie the Riveter will board to you home front National Park.
Okay.
And now it is now 815 and we are adjourned.
The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting is Tuesday March 7th, 2023 at 6 p.m.
Thank you.