Well, good evening. It's my welcome, welcome everyone to the
Arenda City Council. It's a real pleasure to see so many people here tonight. I know
that I guess the first day of school is tomorrow, right? So all the parents that
are here tonight, you don't have to worry about homework tonight. This is the last
night. Anyway, thank you everyone for being here tonight. I'd like to call to
order the meeting of the Arenda City Council for Tuesday, August 21st. And
And before, first of all, I'd like to turn to our clerk for the roll call, please.
Council Member Orr.
Here.
Council Member Gee.
Here.
Vice Mayor Miller.
Here.
Mayor Worth.
Here.
And note for the record that Council Member Phillips has an excused absence this evening.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And now I'd like to invite everyone to join together in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Thank you.
next item we had a closed session preceding this meeting and I would like
to confirm that we discussed the matters listed on the agenda and we took no
reportable action. So next item we move to the adoption of the agenda and is there
any are there any changes to the agenda? Madam Mayor there's no changes to the
I would like to point out however on item.
The first policy item, which has to do with gun safety, there is an attachment of a Lafayette
ordinance that is actually on the back table, I believe, and what was put in the packet itself
and was on the web originally was incorrect. The part of the ordinance that, or their code
that is correct is the part that requires a permit for gun dealers from the chief
of police and it talks about that in the staff report. I just want to make sure
folks know upfront that it's available in the back as well. I think if that's
correct to the city clerk. Terrific. So if there are no other if there are no
changes to the agenda I'd entertain a motion to adopt. I'll make a motion to
Okay.
Second?
I've moved in second.
Any further discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposition?
That agenda is adopted unanimously.
Before we proceed with the business items for tonight, I just wanted to go over our procedures tonight for our meeting.
First of all, I want to welcome everyone again for coming and participating in tonight's discussions.
And just to reiterate that we look forward to your participation.
If you would like to speak on any item before the council tonight,
either you can come forward at the public forum or if you would like to speak on a specific agenda item.
Please complete the yellow forms that are in the back table.
Bring it up to the little table here in the front.
And then I will call on you at the appropriate time.
We have a number of speakers tonight on the gun storage and safety issue so
So that we have the opportunity to hear from everybody, the comment period will be limited
to two minutes.
And the other thing is if you speak and you want to just agree with the person before you,
that's fine too.
You don't have to use all two minutes.
But we wanted to provide enough time so everybody has a chance to share their views.
And all the materials for what is on our agenda tonight are on the back table or
they are located in the Internet.
You can go to the city website and get those materials there.
If you would be so kind when you come forward to speak into the microphone, since we broadcast the meetings online.
And so we want to record everyone's comments.
And so we look forward to hearing from you and we'll begin the meeting.
So the first item is items for the good of the city.
And the first item we have, we have the incredible pleasure of honoring one of our, not even one
of, but the longest standing employee, Jenny Flores.
And many of you have seen the fine work that Jenny does, but she does it in our offices.
And she's absolutely incredible.
She was here really when the city began.
She has been a much beloved employee,
and we're thrilled that she's still staying.
So it's not a retirement.
This is just really a recognition of 30 years
of tremendous, tremendous contributions.
And former mayor of Abrams is here to honor her also
and to share a few remarks.
But I wanted to begin with the reading of the proclamation.
So, Jenny, would you mind coming forward to the podium
So we can I can present to you
to our city. So I would begin by, as a proclamation, recognizing Jenny Corris for three years in service.
So Jenny Corris joined the video reddit as an accountant for her on August 3rd and three years after the video reddit incorporated in 1985.
And whereas Jenny previously worked for Kaiser,
was in an account for corporations for 15 years as an account payable clerk, and...
Whereas Jenny was promoted to the accounting technician,
re-positioned in 2002, and primarily is in charge of the account stable function
for the city's financial department, and...
Whereas Jenny is the longest-serving employee of the city of Oregon ever.
And whereas Jenny is in love for her cheerful attitude and is always quick to smile and...
Where Jenny is probably taking part to work for the 6,000 times.
I can attest because we're passing by the report.
Yes,
Jenny, my family's service and what people were written is appreciated by everyone she worked with, and...
Where as Jenny has been with the city's reports, city managers, three ingress of the managers, and approximately 18 city council members,
And somehow not one of that could feel anything but affection and appreciation for work, for diligence, and our sense of humor that is a base of the foundation of our together.
Now, therefore, we have resolved Jenny Ford's order along in one of the services to the government that I hope she can use for service for many more years.
We
have one of the things that we have to get to you with and you were on this city before we even mentioned these.
So you want to say how many of us came to work 30 years ago?
Who wanted to make it?
We're going to be on this.
I'll be really quick because I'm going to give Jenny a ride to the bar station when this
is all over so she doesn't have to walk across town.
I'm here for all the former council members, so the honor of working with Jenny.
Nobody does a better job.
She's been loyal.
She's been wonderful. She's been in every building that we ever were lodged in. She was in the trailers
Jenny got to and Annie used to babysit the dogs when we were all having meetings. Jenny's an exceptional human being
I'm honored to be here tonight and I brought a little relic from Greg Wheatland's house
It's an antique sister city bag and an arinda bag for you. Shirley and I wanted you to have this. Thank you
Thank you.
Jenny, you don't have to say anything,
but if you'd like to, I'd like to invite you up
if you want to make any comments.
Don't want to put you on the spot, though.
If you want to just smile, that's fine, too.
Okay, great, great.
Well, you know, I've had the pleasure of knowing Jenny
for all those 30 years.
Before I was on the council, I spent a lot of time
over at City Hall with friends of the library
and Library Commission and I'll never forget one of the most wonderful moments was as you
recall Vice-President Mayor Abrams had a dog, she had a whip-it that went everywhere with
her Airtay was kind of like the unofficial city dog. And our planning staff member
at the time, now planning Director Drummond Buckley had also a dog that was called Bingo.
So Laura would come in and Bingo and Airtay would hang around at Jenny's office
And she just took care of the dogs where everybody else did their work.
And one day one of the auditors was there, and these dogs started chasing each other around the trailer.
And the auditor just looked and said, oh my gosh, what's going on here?
And Jenny just brought such life to our city staff, and you're just such a wonderful part of our city.
You've taken care of all of us, whether they're two legs or four legs,
And just done such a beautiful job of keeping our finances are always in such perfect shape all the the bills get paid and the
Checks balance so we just really wanted to say so thank you so much and
The fact that you're able to come from your home and take Bart and walk to work
I always see you walking walking from the Bart station and just just again want to thank you
be so very much for your absolutely incredible service to our community.
It is much appreciated and we just can't thank you enough, so thank you again.
That's terrific.
All right, and now with that, we will be moving on to our next item.
Go to the service, speaking, I guess this is a good segue when I talked about Jenny taking care of four legs.
We're now moving on to a report of the Contra Costa County Animal Services presentation.
Thank you, Mayor Wirth, members of the council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight. I'm Steve
Burdow. I am the public information officer for your Animal Services Agency, Contra Costa
Animal Services. I'd like to just start by, I heard, reference of an unofficial town dog.
And if you're ever ready to step that up to official or if the unofficial has moved
on, we've got you covered, okay?
So a few years ago, our new leadership, Director Beth Ward, Captain Andrea and myself, we started to meet with the city managers and police chiefs of all of the 18 cities that we contract with in Contra Costa County.
We contract with all the cities in Contra Costa County with the exception of the city of Antioch, which operates their own animal services agency.
And in doing that, we'd known that those had happened for a while, those meetings with the city managers and police chiefs periodically on and off.
But one thing that never happened was really having a regular presence at the councils to update the council members on the services we're providing to your city.
So we began a couple of years ago coming around once a year to the city councils.
This is after the meetings with the city manager and police chief.
And we just want to keep you up to date on what services we're providing to your city and how you're using us.
So, without further ado, just walk you through the foundation of our department, the composition.
Our Contracross Animal Services is comprised of essentially six divisions.
Field services, those are the officers you see in the field.
Shelter operations, they take care of the animals well in the shelter.
Medical services, those are our veterinarians, our RVTs, and our veterinary assistants.
Our clerical division, the people you talk to on the phones, or if you come in
and adopt a dog or license your animal at our counter.
Our volunteers, which we absolutely couldn't get by without,
we have over 250 volunteers who give their time or talent
every week, they perform really important tasks
like walking the dogs, socializing the cats,
running our lost and found division.
So very, very, we could not get by without our volunteers.
And our administration, which is our deputy director,
our deputy director, our captain,
in our administrative service officer, so on and so forth.
So I wanted to touch upon the services we provided
to the city of Arenda in calendar year 2017.
As you could see, deceased animal impounds
were our largest activity.
We did 169 of those.
We also had 140 stray animal impounds,
88 noise animal and inhumane ordinance investigations
as well as eight animal rescues
and five local agency assists.
One of the things that's different about Contra cost animal services compared to other animal welfare agencies in the state is that we are a law enforcement agency.
A lot of other counties will contract with the Humane Society or it will be part of the Sheriff's Department or like an Antioch part of the Police Department.
We are our own separate law enforcement agency and those days of the dog catcher and our officers going out and rounding up animals are a thing of the past.
what our officers are mostly doing these days are investigations into noise complaints,
inhumane complaints, fight investigations, so on and so forth.
It's something that our local fire departments, police departments and code enforcement departments
really appreciate because when you see those five local agency assists, those are when,
for instance, your police department may be serving a warrant at a resident's house
that they know has a potentially dangerous or dangerous animal at that residence.
In that case, what they typically do is they reach out to our officers, our lieutenant or
our sergeant will participate in the briefing prior to going out to serve the warrant.
Our officer will go in, subdue the animal so that you
Your guys could go in and do what they need to do. That's something that's unique. There's
only one other county in the state of California that operates like that. Equally important,
I think it's per, we contract with the 18 cities that we provide animal services for.
And that contract is set to renew every year at the turn of the fiscal year. And per
the contract, the rate, which is a per capita rate, is set to increase per the consumer
price index, the CPI from the prior year. The CPI from 2017 was 2.9% which resulted in a 17 cent per capita increase for the current fiscal year, so that's all you're going from $5.94 cents to $6.11 cents per capita for this year for animal services.
I'd be remiss not to mention that most Bay Area municipalities pay approximately, that figure is,
it's actually $11.80.
I think that was a prior figure in there, but Antioch pays $8.70,
but most of the Bay Area pays around $11.80 for their animal services.
I won't spend too much time on this.
This, in addition to the activities, one of the things that came out of the meetings
with the city managers and police chiefs this year was a new reporting structure.
We're moving from a monthly to a quarterly reporting structure, and hearing from the
city managers and police chiefs, they wanted to get some additional information to what
we had originally been providing.
This is one of those things.
They wanted to see which animals were coming out of the community, whether deceased
or alive.
So we put together this report as you could see we have everything from deer to bats to coyotes
foxes and rabbits here in Arundah the
Role the rural interface with open space here makes it a prime
Area for for deer to be in our community for coyotes
You'll even see things like mountain lions every now and again as long as they're not in the community during the daytime
It's not a problem. The other thing and this is something that is a
huge improvement for us in something that I'm very proud of and I know that our
police chiefs really are proud of is one thing as I said we're a law enforcement
agency and public safety agencies are generally garnered by by a performance
metric of response time. That's something that our department did not have
until this past March. Captain Andrea and our team got together they put
together a target response time, a priority listing of all of our
priority calls. This is everything from the priority ones being aggressive animal, impacting
an individual, whether it's attacking them or preventing them from going to where they
need to go, all the way down to priority fives, which are self-initiated calls by our officers.
So nobody called it in. Our officer sees something, a stray animal or a dead animal
on the road and they self-initiate the activity and pull it in. As you can see, we're
We're doing a very good job of meeting our priority ones.
That was the main thing.
And I will say that you may ask why is your priority one, two hour response time?
And I would say because all of our officers are dispatched out of our Martina's location.
Also we can't go code three like the officers can.
We can't flip on the lights and go around traffic.
We have to still obey traffic laws.
The one thing we can do is use the carpool lane so that delays our response time.
What we tell people is if you are in an immediate dangerous situation with an animal call 911
We're going to get the call anyways, but call 911 that way the closest first responder can respond
So this is something as you can see where we're absolutely hitting the mark with the priority ones
We expect to continue to improve on this the period that was
Captured here in this report
report was April 1st through July 31st of this year, because we just started the program
in mid-March, so we wanted to get a good three months of time to capture in this report.
And I'm happy to answer any questions you have later on that.
Finally, this is another thing, and I don't expect you to read that, this is just a
report that shows your city's usage compared to the usage of other cities in the county.
We did an exercise a couple of different ways this year, looking at the amounts our cities are paying,
the service levels they're using, as well as the population in the service area.
And what we found was, Arundel represents 1.8% of our total service area,
and you use about 1.7% of our total services.
That was pretty much consistent for all of the cities that we examined,
as well as the unincorporated county.
I mean, I think San Ramon was the only outlier about 2% above what their total usage was.
So that was something that a lot of city managers in particular asked for and we're happy to
provide in this new reporting structure.
Two very important policy updates.
We have a noisy animal ordinance passed.
The Orinda City Council adopted that ordinance on April 10th of this year.
That means that right now, if your residents are experiencing noise impacts, they could go right to our website.
We've also provided the link to your city, so they may have it on their website.
I haven't checked, I apologize.
And they could just file the noise complaint online.
It's a two-step process, and that changes it from the prior process,
which was basically a call investigation citation process, which the citations were never issued
because the calls would come in at 11 o'clock at night and it's a low priority call so our officers would get out there in two in the afternoon and nothing can be verified.
Both parties felt unserved and not heard. The new process basically on the second complaint automatically cites the party with the noisy animal and with the citation is a request for hearing which is the person who's being cited's ability to appeal that decision.
That brings both parties to the table, which was not happening in the first place.
We bring the neighbors together, and our goal is to mitigate, mediate a solution there.
Not necessarily be punitive with fines, but we want to make sure that both parties are talking to each other
and we can find a solution short of citation.
The other one was the rooster ordinance.
It doesn't really apply here in Orynda because I don't think you have any parcels designated A2,
which are agricultural, lots of five acres or larger.
Basically what this does was we were the only county
in California that didn't have a rooster
or an ordinance on the books,
so those people that engaged in the illicit activities
of cock fighting knew that Contra Costa County
was a safe haven.
Our officers now have a means to investigate
and develop probable cause, so we can go in and do those.
So I just wanted to update you on that as well.
I just put this up there
because everybody always asks is a municipal shelter what is your live release rate?
We do very good for a municipal shelter and we're one of the best in the Bay Area in the state.
Our overall live release rate is 83%. Our dog and cat live release rate is 87%.
Our dog live release rate is 92% and our cat live release rate is 82%.
Shortly saying, most of the animals, the majority of the animals that come into our shelter leave the shelter alive.
One of the reasons is because of our adoption programs. About three years ago we began implementing adoption promotions every single month,
where we'll have one to three promotions every single month.
We just had Clear the Shelter Day this past Saturday and adopted about 80 animals out to new loving homes, which we're proud of.
And really it's a matter of just opening the doors and thinking how creative can we be to find these animals' homes.
So briefly, our department at a glance, we take in about 10,500 animals.
We reunite about 20% of them with their owners.
We did about 3,500 public adoptions, another 2,600 adoptions to rescue groups or transfer partners,
other animal welfare groups in the community.
We returned 911 cats to the field.
and again for a municipal shelter that's unique. Not many shelters. Municipal shelters have a return to
field program. It's one of our biggest life-saving programs. At other shelters a lot of times those
cats are euthanized. We did over 2,000 low-cost vaccinations for residents of Contra Costa
County and over 5,000 low-cost spay and neuter surgeries and as I mentioned before those
those assists with police fire and code enforcement are something that's really special
to us, we did just under 600 of those.
Go back here, spend just a second on that.
This is a real benefit to our contract cities
because this saves everybody money.
Our pet retention program, one of the only pipelines
we have authority over to say, no,
we won't accept that animal or can't accept that animal
right now, our owner surrenders an adoption returns.
We are mandated to take in all stray,
sick, potentially dangerous, dangerous,
under 12 weeks of age, unweaned,
and feral stray.
So when somebody comes to us with an animal
that they own, that they wanna surrender to the shelter,
we figured, how do we get that number down?
And what we did was we partnered
with Tony LaRusse's Animal Rescue Foundation.
We formed a program that provides up to $500
in direct assistance to people who are at risk
of surrendering their pets to help them keep them.
But it's also open residents up to the broad array
of resources and experience that both contra cost animal services and our have so in the
first two years the program is effectively cut the number of owner surrender animals
coming in coming into our shelter in half and that saves everybody money.
We have a lot of opportunities a lot of challenges our main opportunities are to increase low
cost spay and neuter vaccination programs in the county right now we're one of the
only games in town so we're looking to partner with local vets to have them either
to match our price or partner with us in some way, shape, or form so we can increase those services.
We have an environment right for collaboration, a hard-working, committed staff and volunteer corps
in support of an engaged community.
Our challenge is balancing the life-saving with length of staying quality of care.
As our live release rate goes up, we're holding animals longer,
and so we need to then the focus becomes quality of care.
How do we maintain a good experience for every animal in the shelter?
We need to update the processes and procedures, bring the apartment into the 21st century.
That's a big part of what the new noise complaint process was.
Let's get that out of our call center. Let's put it online.
We need to increase staffing, decrease the volume of animals, address our physical facility constraints,
and the continuous population growth, both two-legged and four-legged in the county here.
And before I close, I'd just like to offer you five easy steps to support your local shelter.
consider adoption as your first option, ensure your pets are licensed in microchip.
They have a much greater chance of being reunited with their owners if they become lost.
Volunteer at the Martinez or Pinole Shelter, whatever your time or talent, we have a role for you.
And sign up to take a tour of the Martinez or Pinole Shelter.
I'll also offer the council members, if you'd like to take a ride along with one of our officers in your beat area.
Well, I've had a number of city council members take us up on that and they all report
It's not what they thought it was and it's a very exciting day
So certainly would like to extend that invitation to each of you and follow us on social media
We have over 23,000 followers on Facebook or Twitter and Instagram
Counselor really active too. So it's a great way to communicate
so
With that I'll take any questions you have and also let you know that I brought as I mentioned
We're the only game in town for low cost vaccinations. So I brought you some vouchers VIP
pet care has partnered with us to match our rabies vaccination price, which is $6 that's
as cheap as you could get it. So I'd like to leave these with your city clerk to pass out to your
residents. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And also we have a we have a weekly
electronic news that are goes out to our community. So if you have any materials
that we could include in that, on occasion, we would love to get the word out about the work you do and the services.
And really appreciate the work and especially the work you've done to increase the lifespan of all the animals that come into your facility.
I know as you mentioned at the very beginning of your presentation, a lot of that depends on the huge volunteer support that you have from members of the communities from all around that come and help you do what you do.
So thank you.
I just wanted to find out if there are any council questions about your services or your report.
Okay. Well, again, thank you for being here tonight.
Thank you, ma'am.
We really appreciate the report.
And I think the format that you've developed makes it really easy to follow the work that you're doing.
So thank you again for your great work.
And I've been by the facility on my way to the solid waste place where you take the paint.
Right across the street.
You got your paints off out at the Central Sand Facility.
You can see the animal shelter.
So thank you again for your terrific work.
And I appreciate you coming tonight.
Appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you.
And before you leave, I just want
to say you could hear the applause in the audience.
I think that a huge part of your success
is the dedication of the staff, the professional and support
staff that are so committed to what you do.
So thank you again.
Thanks for being here tonight.
Okay now moving on to our next item we have the public forum and those are for
any items that are not on the agenda or if you can't stay for an item you can
speak to that item at this meeting I just have three speakers so again if you'd
like to speak on the public forum please fill out a form and bring it
forward and I'll call on you so the first person is Paula Reinman and she'll
to be followed by Sandy Gross.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity to speak.
I wanted to ask what the city of Arenda can do
to support those of us who live on Camino Pablo,
who are being routinely disturbed very, very early
in the morning by the East Bay Mud Soil Removal Project.
And I want to give a bit of background on it.
I also want to thank you, Amy,
for always responding to emails and calls on this.
I really appreciate it.
So
For those of you that don't know, East Bay Mud is doing a massive soil movement project from Breoneys to other locations originally out to Livermore now, most of the dumping is happening in Vallejo, but they're about to start in Livermore again.
And that creates a whole bunch of traffic on Camino Pablo.
We have been trying to get the traffic on Camino Pablo to start no later than 7 a.m. It is extremely noisy.
truck after truck after truck comes down that street.
East Bay Mud does not, they will start no later than 6.30 a.m.
And we'd like them to start at 7 a.m.
There's ordinances in Arundah around noise before 8 a.m.
And I have to imagine if my neighbors were complaining
that I was out there with a leaf blower every morning at 6.30 a.m.,
something would happen.
But in the meantime, there's 10, 20, 30, 40, sometimes 50 trucks rolling through there at 6.30 in the morning.
It's really disruptive.
And so we'd like the noise to start no earlier than 7 in the morning.
The trucks when they come through, when they come at 6.30 in the morning, are typically going really, really fast.
and because they're coming fast and they're empty and because they're
going fast they're even noisier and I also wonder if we couldn't have some
random police presence out there so that these the trucks know that if they
come really fast down that street and make the noise even worse than it
needs to be that there there will be consequences for them. So those are
the two things that we could really use help with. A group of neighbors has been working
with East Bay Mud really consistently. It started in May and it's going to happen through
November. So it's long. And it's a lot of noise, a lot of disruption. And I also have
to ask before I leave, Steve, I have called you once and emailed you twice over the
last two months and have never received the courtesy of a response. And I'm sorry that
that's the case. So anyway, we would love your help in East Bay Mudd because right now it feels
it feels to us like it's kind of the neighbors against East Bay Mudd and not much help from
the city.
Okay. Thank you Paula. You know Paula I wanted to have the staff provide some response
wants tonight, but I think Sandy is here too.
So Sandy are you going to speak on the same item and maybe if you'd like to speak?
You've got absolutely,
and then we can, then I'll ask our staff to provide some reply too, okay.
Whatever that fine lady just had to say, I agree totally and
I don't have anything else to add to that except that I too have made calls
calls to the city of Arenda and do not get return calls.
I do from the, I think it's the engineering department.
There's a lady there that does return my call, but the head of the engineering department
has notified her that I should be not calling East Bay Mud,
which I do all the time.
And in defense of East Bay Mud, although I'm not happy with what they're doing on the street,
they return their calls within the day.
Today, I called Katherine Horn, who's the head of the project or the public relations person for East Bay Mud for this area.
She returned my call today at 2 o'clock, and she's always doing that.
And from that standpoint, I know East Bay Mud doesn't always want to play with the city of Arenda.
That's what I hear from the city of Arenda.
But I think, you know, if you made a phone call and got together, maybe things could work out.
And the only other thing I have to say, it's a little different subject, but it's related.
I walk my dog and I just can't believe I'm here on a night that we're honoring or learning about dogs
and we're doing something way more important than our little thing with the guns tonight,
which I applaud for everybody that's here.
But I walked my dog a couple of days a week down to Wagner Ranch
and I can't tell you how many times
people run a red light. And it's like
it turns yellow and I'm standing there, I'm not going to go,
but I'm ready to go when it turns green for me and people go right through the red light.
And I think we've talked about this with Amy.
me, why can't you just put up a sign that says if you run a red light, you're the code,
whatever the code is, you're subject to a $395 fine or whatever it is, I think people
would stop running red lights if we just put up a sign like that. I just saw one yesterday
when I went over a bridge, I don't even remember where it was, but it was like $495.
It was a one-way bridge at Canyon.
The one-way bridge they have going when you go out of Maragia.
It was this morning, as a matter of fact.
It's $495 if they catch you going across the one-way bridge.
Of course, you're going to get killed anyway.
Thank you very much.
And I want to thank the City Council for all the work you do.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Sandy, thank you for your comments.
And I just wanted to turn to our staff
to see if you might provide any update information
on the issues that were raised just now.
So that would be great.
And I guess one of the things I'm hearing is that in the morning,
when these trucks are coming, they're empty.
So they're going fast and also making in a way probably more noise
then if they were loaded moving more slowly.
So I would appreciate hearing back from you
as you work with East Bay Mud to try to get them.
You know, we were surprised that this project came forward
even without notification of the city until the very end.
And so didn't have the opportunity to work with East Bay Mud
initially to set up a mitigation program to address this.
So, I just wanted to thank staff for continuing to work with them to try to move this time out and
deal with some of the other noise issues around the empty trucks.
Yes, I will be put back.
Okay, perfect.
Great, great.
Okay, thank you.
Our final speaker on the public forum is Daniel Dibichir.
Thank you Mayor Orrith, members of the council staff.
My name is Dan Dibichir, I'm a resident of Rinda.
I'd like to talk a little bit about AB 2924, the Bartland power grab.
As many people know, it's on the Senate floor for a floor vote.
And just the way I look at it, I think we're a little bit of a victim of NIMBYism.
Votes are being traded on that floor now for bills.
And since people don't have Bart in their backyards, then they can trade a vote on
AB 2923, the Bart bill.
So they can trade their vote for some other vote maybe on a bill that they're promoting.
So that's sort of horse trading that's going on.
That's the facts of life, that's the way things work in Sacramento.
So it's getting down to a point where our last gasp is going to be our ex-Honorable,
ex-Councilmember, but Honorable Steve Glazier, our Senate member.
Whatever green stamps he's got with Governor Brown, he's probably going to have to cash
in to get a veto on this bill.
because it looks like it's going to be on his desk for approval or signature.
A lot of things went on that are just unexplainable.
For example, we have a letter that you signed Amy to Senator Mike McGuire.
He's the senator from Marin County, very, very solid local control guy,
but he voted to put the bill out of the Senate Committee on Senate Governance and Finance.
He chairs that committee and it went out of his committee just sailed out the only two votes against it was the two Republicans
And but the thing I'd like to point out to you is even though you penned a letter and it was dated the 25th of June
The staff on his committee didn't list your letter as an opposition
They had city Lafayette, but the city render wasn't there and the list of opposition
So those sort of things are happening. So anyhow
Now get a hold of Victoria and get a hold of Sue and start biting Steve's leg.
Dean Youtu, and if he's got anything with the governor, we're probably going to need it to kill those things, so thank you very much.
Great, thank you for your comments.
I just wanted to note that as you can see in our agenda, we have an item on our consent calendar that
That includes the letter that Senator Glazer prepared with the input from all the cities,
all of us provided information to him included in the letter that he put together to really reflect the priorities of his district.
So he's working very hard in concert with all of us in the cities to try to defeat this bill.
And as you said, it's a challenge.
Okay, moving on, I have no other speakers in the public forum.
So next, I'd like to move to the consent calendar.
Are there any items that either members of the council or staff or members of the public would like to remove from the consent calendar?
Mayor, I would like to remove item G4, staying on the path of AB 2923.
Okay.
Great.
Okay.
Any other items?
Okay, if not, then I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar with the exception of item G4.
I move approval of items G1 through G3, G5 through G12.
Okay, is there a second?
Seconded.
Moved and seconded, any further discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposition?
That consent calendar is approved unanimously.
So now let's go back to item G4.
Yes Mayor, that is the item that just compiles all of the letters.
As you stated, the one from our state senator compiling the city's comments.
And as well as our city letter.
And I also had written a letter not on behalf of the city but just in my personal capacity as vice mayor.
are inviting the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to A Rinda.
And those were personal letters that went out to those senators,
those 11 senators on that committee.
And I just wanted to make the city council aware of that and
that invitation to those state senators to come and visit A Rinda and
see what we have done for affordable housing, as well as to see the processes we use here
to implement public decision in our decisions so that we don't move planning decisions on the BART property to the BART board.
And I just wanted to share that in the process of writing those letters and talking with our legislators,
it was very a heartwarming process. Although we weren't successful in stopping the bill at the Senate Appropriations Committee,
It was very heartwarming to see how the legislators who represent Arenda really got behind and supported us in lobbying the other members of the assembly and the Senate to try and stop this bill on behalf of Arenda.
And it was really a community effort and I see this going on well into the future because even if this bill does pass,
I don't think this fight is over and we will still be fighting this in the years to come.
So I just want to share that.
Thank you.
Any other comments?
Yeah.
Darlene?
Yeah.
I'd certainly like to thank everyone who did have the letters that were in here and certainly give a great deal of
Thanks to Senator Glazer for the compilation, which I thought was one of the best written letters.
One thing I would like to say is, and our speaker said it well, and
that is that as a community, we care about a lot of things together.
And while we, like all communities, sometimes have some disagreements,
I think the one thing that we do agree very vehemently on and
that this council has fully supported as many councils before us
is the concept of local control.
I think we all care about it very much
and we've all advocated for it.
And while how we implement that local control
may lead to a lot of different kinds of conversations
in Arendah, the reality is is we all care about
this community and I would certainly urge
our community to pay a lot of attention to this.
This one's very disturbing I think to a lot of us.
This is the third time we've had such a sort of major grab to thwart our local control.
And it would be the members of our community to really do everything they can with our legislators and
our governor in terms of expressing your opinion to them about this.
So I want to again thank Senator Glazer's office for doing such a good job on what's presented in here.
Yeah, I wanted to concur with those comments and thank also the League of California Cities
is very engaged in this.
We've been having daily calls with them and their legislative staff.
as Dan, I think, pointed out.
The world of Sacramento, and once you get to this last week, everything has to be done by the 30th, and there's a lot of negotiations going on, but, you know, and it's been, it's been really challenging because all the cities that have weighed in on this, we feel this is a very serious, you know, violation of, of, of the powers that are granted to local government by the local cities, by the, you know, the California Constitution.
institution and that local government and responsibility over land use is preeminent and it is so important.
So, as my colleagues have said, this is a fight that will continue.
There are bills this year and then we continue.
And again, I appreciate Senator Glazer and Assemblymember Baker who are both working hard, continue to do so on this bill.
So, and I think that the cities in Contra Costa County and
Alameda County have been working very well together to try to convey our concerns about this bill.
Both specific issues and the general focus of the bill.
So thank you for bringing that together and so people can see what we've been doing.
And so, as Dan mentioned, I think the end of the session we anticipate the vote on the floor will probably happen sometime this week.
I think all the bills need to be passed by the 30th, is that what you understand too?
So, yeah, and then they go to the governor's office.
So if people are interested in, obviously our representatives,
The people who are really going to hear from their constituents are opposing the bill and are working actively to do so.
And obviously we don't know where it's, if it passes it, then it would go to the governor's office, so
that's where letters in the next few weeks would be important to send once we know the staffs of the bill.
Okay, well that then will take a motion to adopt items G4.
I will make a motion to adopt the item G4.
Second.
Moved and seconded.
Any further discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposition?
That motion carries unanimously.
Okay.
Moving on now to our next item.
Our next item is public hearing.
And those are policy matters.
So let me just, moving on to the item is consider options regarding requests from
from citizens to adopt gun storage and gun sales ordinances.
So just to re-interred, this is the first time,
we have a process in our city council in Arenda
which is called Matters Initiated.
And so this item came to our council
on a Matters Initiated.
The citizens came before us several meetings ago,
requested that the city bring this forward
forward to the council for discussion, the council approved to do that and it's been
brought back to us. So tonight really is the purpose of this meeting is to hear public input,
have a discussion, and then direct, go back, you know, comments and direct to staff as
to what kinds of work that we would want the staff to do, because at this point there's
and very little staff work done on this particular issue.
So we look forward to hearing from your comments tonight.
What we'll do is first have the,
we'll have a staff introduction of the item.
It's contained in the staff report also,
but we'll have any additional staff comments.
And then we'll take public comment.
And as I mentioned, since there are so many speakers,
we'll each person will have two minutes
to share their comments.
And then we will close the public comment period
and then bring it back to the council for discussion.
So there will be no action tonight.
We will provide some direction to staff or
ask for clarification on issues, because we imagine that we will have a significant amount of comment tonight.
So we really appreciate everybody's participation this evening.
And so I'd like to turn first to our city manager who will provide an overview.
you introductory staff report and then we'll go into public ask questions if we
have any of his of him and then come back go back to out to the the public for
your comments. Madam Mayor and Council as you noted we're seeking direction
tonight on this on this item and we prepared a staff report as well as
There's numerous documents that have been provided
by members of the public, as well as a lot of emails.
This is a complicated issue, as I think everybody is aware.
And it's one that's controversial at the national level
and the state level, as well as the local level.
There's a lot of court decisions,
as well as legislation which have, um, they supersede the city's ability to,
municipality's ability to do certain, uh, do certain things.
Um, however, what we, uh, tried to suggest to you is four, um, options, um,
in the, in the report. The first option has to do with, um, trying to increase the publicity
on what the police department currently does in relation to gun safety and as well as to
continue to monitor state and federal legislation and court decisions to see if there's something
that occurs as time goes on that would make sense for the city to consider.
The second one is one where the city attorney would be directed to repair an ordinance
that would be similar to the one that Maraga adopted relating to gun safety.
And I made some comments on that, I won't, you know, go into detail because I think
folks are relatively familiar with the Maraga ordinance.
The third option is one that deals gun dealers and at the present time there are no gun dealers
in Arenda but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be one in the future.
The city of Lafayette a number of years ago initiated a process where if you want to
have a gun deal operation in in Lafayette you have to you have to get a permit
from the police department or from the police chief actually issued by the police
chief there's a certain amount of investigation and verification that occurs
to make sure they're complying with local laws and as well as federal and
state laws, and the permit is reviewed, permitee is reviewed periodically to make sure that
they stay in compliance. At the present time, you don't, we don't have a system like that.
So the third option would be to ask the city attorney to prepare an ordinance similar
what Lafayette has. The fourth option is one that would be far more aggressive
that would direct us to look at what cities that have been very aggressive on
this issue have done and that option if the council chooses to do it would
involve a lot of staff time, both on behalf of the police department, the city
administrative staff and the city attorney staff, and it would also subject the
city to a fair amount of risk in litigation from folks that want to see
these kinds of things constrained. Other cities, as you know, have far more
more significant budgets than you folks do and spending six-digit numbers on litigation
and on this kind of research isn't a challenge for them. For this city, it would be a significant
challenge. But if that's the council's direction, that's what obviously we'll do.
So, the police chief is here, Chief Nagle, if he may have some comments, if he wants or if he's available to answer questions from you as we go through this.
Great. Thank you, Steve. First, we'll start now. Are there any questions of the council at this point?
Okay, yes.
I too have a question.
And that is on Lafayette's ordinance that we have before us this evening on the yellow sheets.
That, it mentions at the beginning, it mentions that the police permit is in addition to section 6533 for a land use permit.
Does Lafayette also have the land use permit similar to that which is described that Pleasant
Hill had or is this a different land use permit?
Well, I don't know how closely those two land use ordinances are, but we don't believe
that we're not recommending that you folks should pursue that because the way that
First of all, you have to allow it in a reasonable way, and in a lot of those ordinances, the
way they attempt to do that is say that you can't, again, this is a zoning thing, you
cannot be within 500 feet of a school, you can't be within 500 feet of a church,
you
If you think about Arenda's particular situation,
you would end up in a very, very restrictive
and we think unconstitutional situation.
So we didn't recommend that you pursue that
because you would be, if you do option three,
they would have a permit from the police department
and the city attorney looks to me like she has a.
I have just one thing I wanted to say.
If you want to see what Lafayette has
in terms of their land use regulation,
it is an attachment to the staff report.
It's G.
And just to be clear, none of us,
like you say, this is a matter initiated,
so none of us has done a comprehensive analysis
of whether we could have a land use regulation
of gun retailers that would be constitutional.
I think that would take direction from council
for us to do the work
and significant analysis on staff's part.
Thank you.
No, that clarifies it.
Thank you very much.
Yes.
Council Member Chief?
Yeah.
If we could, I would like to ask Chief Nagel if he could give his view of having read the
state firearms attachment, if he could give us his interpretation of what the state requires
for gun storage and gun safety, reading this information, I would like to hear your explanation of what is currently required by the state.
Yes, Mayor Worth, council members, regarding the state, everything basically revolves around children.
If there are children present, going to be present, expected to be present,
the state says that the gun shall be locked and secured.
However, for the law to take effect, there are a number of steps
a child or someone who gets the gun needs to take
for that to come into effect.
One is take possession and two to use it.
So hypothetically, if a child gets the gun,
handles it and puts it down, we have not completed the requirements in the law.
Wait, can you explain that? I'm not quite understanding that point.
I believe, and if I'm wrong, I'll look, but the child has to use the gun, get the gun and use the gun for the owner to be held liable.
Can I offer maybe one other way to look at it which is that what the chief is
referring to is a penal code provision. So that's criminally punishing someone who
has improperly stored a gun. That's different from what I think is before
the council this evening is whether to have a local regulation which is more
of a civil approach requiring guns to be stored in a certain way.
Okay.
So the state focuses more on the penal side as opposed to the regulatory?
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
So, and the obvious follow-up is there is no state equivalent to the local regulation?
Well, I mean, there are those rules about when you purchase a gun there, yeah, exactly,
but no, then this is an area that is for local consideration.
Thank you.
All right.
Great.
Okay, good.
Thank you.
All right.
Any other questions?
Okay.
Then I look forward to hearing from everyone here tonight.
So I'm just going to call two or three people at a time, and if you wouldn't mind
lining up over there.
So.
First fall is Drayne Bianchi, followed by Christine Beverly.
Is that right? Did I pronounce
you wrong?
Good evening. I'm Diane Bianchi. I'm Diane. That's okay. It's the way I probably
would. Looks like an R. Okay. Sorry about that. That's all right. I'm a resident of
Rindon. I do support these ordinances. I'm also here again this evening as a board
member of the League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley to support it. It is an
in alignment with the National League's position on guns,
and we do support this ordinance.
I hope you will consider it.
Thank you.
Christine Veverie, and she'll be followed
by Jennifer Balducci.
Christine here?
Duncan Court?
The two.
Barry.
OK, great.
So Christine Barry, and I've been a 20-year resident
of Arundah.
And the Brady campaign shows that we
We have 4.6 million children that are in homes that have unsafely stored guns and we see
eight children a day that are injured or killed because of just accidental use of guns in
their home.
As a mom in this community I want to be able to feel that my kids are going to a
safe environment and that there isn't that risk.
I had a situation just recently in June where my in-laws, good friends, a pastor had his
gun, and this is in Atlanta, or in Georgia, but had his gun out kind of inadvertently.
His family came over and he was putting the gun away.
It went off and ricocheted off the fireplace, hit his daughter in the heart and she died
instantly in front of her two siblings and her parents and the past he killed
his daughter and that type of accidental you know activity and when
someone is actually a well-meaning gun owner needs to be avoided at all costs so
I hope you support this so that we can all feel safe in this community. Thank
you Christine. Thank you for your comments and Jennifer you'll be
followed by Robin Meeson.
Thank you.
Hi, Jennifer Balducci, 10-year resident
and mother of two, resident of Arundah.
Thank you for putting these two ordinance
on the agenda for tonight.
And I fully support the city drafting the two ordinances.
Reading your paperwork that was attached,
there are no gun dealers in Arundah yet,
so it's the perfect time to enact this ordinance,
to not allow gun sales in the future.
There wouldn't be seemingly any opposition to it.
Pleasant Hill had the lawsuit because there already was
a gun dealer that brought up the lawsuit.
And also they said it was a zoning issue,
so knowing that we could zone correctly,
include that in the ordinance.
And the safe storage, only San Francisco was sued
And they won, so no one else that's ever passed a safe gun ordinance has been sued, so I don't know the legal issues are as
scary as it's being made to see.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Meeson will be followed by Stephanie Dickerson.
Hi, I'm Robin Meeson.
I'm a Rindy resident and an Rindy pediatrician.
And I come representing myself as well as my other partners in my pediatric practice, and we wrote a letter together.
We stand for the health and well-being of children in our community.
Safe storage of firearms saves lives.
Unlocked guns lead to both unintentional gun injuries and intentional shootings.
Adolescent suicide risk is associated with the availability of firearms.
Teens experience strong emotions and can be impulsive and more likely to attempt suicide.
Access to a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide even in children without a psychiatric diagnosis.
The safest home for children and youth is one without a gun.
If there are guns in the home, evidence shows that the risk of
imagery or death is greatly reduced when they are stored,
unloaded, and locked with ammunition locked in a separate place.
I think a lot of times people talk about these issues like they
aren't arrenda issues.
Teen depression and suicide is an arrenda issue.
And as a pediatrician I feel very strongly that we should do
everything we can do as a community to help protect our children.
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Miesin. And Stephanie Dickerson will be followed by Jackie Moreau.
Hello. Thank you so much for your time this evening in your service to Aurendra.
My name is Stephanie Dickerson. I'm a Maraga resident.
I support the two gun safety ordinances and I strongly encourage you to draft them and pass them into law.
Sadly, we're seeing a high death toll in children.
89% of accidental shooting deaths among children occur in the home,
and most of these deaths are when children are playing with unsecured, loaded firearms.
We're also seeing deaths play out at school.
A recent Washington Post report was released in August of 2018,
and it basically looked at school shootings since 1999.
They looked at 145 school shootings.
80% of these children were the perpetrators of the crime and they got
the gun because their parents or relatives did not secure it properly.
Furthermore, there's no correlation between the socioeconomic status of an area
and the likelihood of a shooting. We can see this with Parkland and with Sandy Hook.
Our community is not immune just like their communities were not immune.
The approach of safe storage is a very modest ordinance.
It does not place any restrictions on owning guns.
It simply requires that people follow safe storage practices that are even taught at gun safety classes and you can even find it in that NRA handbook.
As someone who is from a family of gun owning farmers and hunters, I find these ordinance to be a very common sense approach to protecting the lives of children in our community.
I'd also like to close with, we have Allison Anderman here and she works for the Giffords Lost Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
She is a legal expert in this field and when I heard a lot of the city manager statements, they were flat out incorrect.
I would encourage you that if you have further questions to please ask a legal expert in this field. Thank you so much.
Okay, great. Stephanie, thank you. Jackie will be followed by Ellen Nelson.
Hello. Good evening. I was just going to come here and say I'm Jackie Moreau. I've been
a resident of Rinta for over 20 years and I support the garden ordinances, the ordinances
that are before you. That's what I was going to say. And Mr. Solomon, I am just completely
offended by your report and what you had to say. I am a victim of gun violence and
and I also have some personal friends
that have lost their child to suicide.
So I think had they had their guns secured,
that would not have happened.
So I implore you to please do everything you can
and be aggressive passing this ordinance.
Thank you.
Jackie, thank you for being here tonight.
Ellen and she'll be followed by John,
oh, Johnson, I'm going to guess, Greenwood Court, is that right?
Thank you. Thank you.
My name is Ellen Nelson. I've been in a Renda resident with my husband here since 1993.
And this is an issue that brought me for the first time, I think, to stand up at a podium like this.
So I do wanna take the opportunity to thank you all
for your service to our community.
We appreciate everything that you do
and know that you weigh the concerns of citizens
very, very carefully and do a lot of work.
So I just ask that you really carefully use
the collective brain power and I know you're all amazing
to really look deeply into this issue
and continue to listen to the citizens of this wonderful town, like you have.
And I know there's a lot of feeling about this. There's a lot of very intelligent people
that I know are addressing you tonight and have addressed you in letters and will continue to do so.
Just please weigh those. I'm in complete and total support of these two ordinances.
And I was lucky enough to have my two children go through the Arenda Schools, make it safely through.
It is a very different world than it was when we moved here in 1993.
And I think a lot of you I know have been here as long as I have them maybe longer.
It's a different world and we need to continue to move along with that world
and realized that, you know, what it was in 1993 and we didn't even think about things
like this, but I know that this is a progressive city and there's always been a leader in things
they've taken on.
And I would like to see us, Maraga beat us on this one in one respect.
And I would like to see us be a leader for other communities and continue to be what
Brenda has been in the reason that we moved here, all of us, and to protect all of our
citizens and our children.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And John will be followed by Melissa Griffiths.
Hi.
My name is John Johnson.
I'm a Brenda resident and I'm here to express my support for gun safety.
I too know it's a very difficult issue and I know that you're going to struggle
with it.
And I hope that you weigh it very carefully and move the ball forward.
Don't be afraid to take a stance, listen to us, listen to both sides, and make the right decision.
What's in your heart and in your head. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
And Melissa will be followed by Kathleen Stern. Thank you.
Good evening. My name is Melissa Griffiths.
I'm an Orinda citizen and a parent.
And like any parent, I take the safety of my children very seriously.
Because of this, this is my first time speaking at a forum like this,
I fully support the two gun safety ordinances before you.
According to the Giffords Law Center, more than 75% of guns
used in unintentional injuries of babies through 19-year-olds
were stored in the residence of a victim, a relative, or a friend.
73% of children aged 9 and under reported knowing the location of their parents' firearms
and 36% admitted that they'd handled the weapons, including many whose parents had reported
that children did not know the location of those firearms.
It's therefore unsurprising that 89% of accidental shooting deaths occur among children in
the home and that most of those deaths occur when children are playing with an unsecured
firearm in their parents' absence. These statistics are horrific. The practice of keeping firearms
locked, unloaded and storing ammunition in a locked location may assist in reducing
unintentional injuries in homes with children and teenagers. We need safe storage in
Please, Orinda City Council, move to draft the two gun safety audiences we have requested.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Melissa, and you will be followed by Kathleen Stern, who will then
be followed by Patrick Helm.
Thank you.
Hi.
Good evening.
My name is Carleen Stern.
And again, I wanted to say thank you so much for your time and dedication to the
City of Orinda and the residents that live here.
I'm a new resident of Orinda.
we moved here in January from San Francisco, like many others. And we chose Aranda specifically
when we decided to move to the East Bay. My husband grew up here, his family's still here,
and we wanted to raise our daughter here. It is a unique and special community.
It took us a while to get here, but we were finally here and we're excited to be part of
the community. And as a new member of this community, I wanted to express my support for
these two ordinances tonight. I am asking you as leaders of this community to take a look at
these ordinances, a lot of work has been done
by a lot of smart people on this issue
and I'm begging you to really take time
to understand the facts, understand the legal implications
and what really is going on and not the rhetoric
and make a reason decision.
There are a lot of people here tonight in support.
I'm one of them and we're asking you
to support the two ordinances requiring trigger locks
or gun safes and regulating dealers.
You know, it was mentioned earlier by Chief Nagle, California law does not go far enough
on this issue.
It is a reactive penal statute and we are looking for a proactive, affirmative way to
protect our children and our families.
So thank you very much for your time.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Carleen.
And Patrick will be followed by Kim Desmond.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
And I want to start off by saying that I want to thank the activists that are
here.
I appreciate the coordination they have.
I see they're all dressed up.
They have banners.
They're fighting for their cause.
And unfortunately, I have to disagree with them.
It'd be great to say that these ordinances are going to change anything.
But when I look at them, I think we all have the same goal,
which is we have children.
We care about children.
We want to protect them.
But if we pass a law, it should be substantive.
It should actually do something.
And in this case, as I look at these two laws,
a storage requirement, that I think is mostly unenforceable, except in odd circumstances
where you happen to run across, it appears to be symbolic. And likewise, passing a law
related to prohibition of gun dealers, instead of opposing sensible rules like Lafayette,
Zoning, and other...
The other unintended symbolism is that this can be interpreted as an act of hostility and
aggression to members of your own community that feels strongly about Second Amendment
rights.
So please, you know, make this consideration when you think about these ordinances.
What's the point behind doing this, including exposing yourself to legal liability?
And I strongly encourage you to read the letter that's written by the NRA and CRPA lawyers to the town of Moraga
for some pretty deep legal insight into this.
I'd also like to encourage more education.
You know, in our schools, we realize as parents that our kids are going to run in situations where they have sex,
so we teach safe sex in schools.
And we just acknowledge, you know, I'm not disagreeing with the prior speaker, that children will run into firearms during their lifetimes.
But for some reason, even though we admit there is a potential for harm there, we haven't made an effort to educate them.
So I would support the police chief in any kind of education efforts in the community as well.
Patrick, thank you very much for your comments.
And Kim, you will be followed by Shannon Hedroni.
Thank you, welcome.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Kim Desmond.
I'm an Arenda resident and I am supportive of these two ordinances. I love living in
Arenda. I feel really lucky to be in this community but there's some irony that
before living here, before moving here, I spent 15 years living in San Francisco
and when I was in San Francisco, nothing that ever happened to me. In my
first year living in Arenda, my house was broken in two in the middle of the
day and one or more persons came in and took a number of valuable items and
I can only imagine if we had an unsecured firearm in our house, that
that unsecured firearm would have landed in the hands
of one or more criminals.
The other reason why I'm so passionate about this ordinance
is that I'm lucky enough to have a three-year-old daughter.
And like most three-year-olds,
she is full of energy and into everything.
And she wants to do everything herself.
So a common refrain in our house is,
mommy, I do it myself.
And I can only imagine if she came across
an unsecured firearm, she would treat it much
like she would when she finds my hairdryer
or my bike pump where she wants to try it out herself
and that would have potentially disastrous consequences.
A really good friend of mine in 2010
lost his three-year-old nephew when he came across
an unsecured firearm in his parents' house.
And now that I'm lucky enough to be a mom,
I can only see to you clearly how easily that could happen.
So thank you for taking the time to listen
and I really beg you to pass these ordinances.
Thank you.
Kim, thank you for your comments.
And Shannon, welcome.
And you'll be followed by Rebecca Bauer-Kahn.
Thank you.
Thank you mayor and city council members and staff for your service and for
considering this topic tonight. My name is Shannon Padrone, I live in
Arenda, I'm a working mother of three kids and I went on the way. I support both
ordinances. I'd like to comment about the topic of gun dealer regulations. A
dealer ordinance would impose reasonable regulations on gun sellers who
wish to operate in Arenda, including requiring dealers to sell out of commercial zones, not
in residential zones. Over 170 California jurisdictions have gone above and beyond state
law in their regulation of gun dealers, including the unincorporated areas of our county.
Several of the jurisdictions go further and require compliance with security requirements
and periodic law enforcement inspections. Gun dealers are a high value target for
criminals and crimes are on the rise. Between 2013 and 15, gun dealers are
reported a 36% increase in burglaries. I have some personal knowledge of gun
dealers being a target for criminal activity, given that my grandparents
operated a gun dealership out of their home in Denver, Colorado, and they also
owned a gun show there. They experienced burglaries and were
frequently threatened. One such burglary ended in a gang leader being shot. My
grandparents lived in constant fear of retaliation and drive-by shootings. When
I was a kid I worried about them and now I just can't believe the risk that
they put their neighbors.
We can prevent gun dealers from being our
neighbors with a reasonable ordinance keeping them out of our
neighborhoods out of residential zones. In response to some points raised by the
city manager's report, including that there are no gun dealers in Arundah,
just gonna go a little over, this would seem the ideal time to put in place
proactive regulations. The report noted that the city would know if someone
wanted to open up a business as a dealer would have to register, but
knowing about it doesn't provide compliance with safety regulations.
Lastly, in regards to Arundah not having its own police staff, the county
you shouldn't have a problem enforcing an ordinance for Orinda that it already enforces
in unincorporated areas of our county due to a law that prohibits home-based gun dealers
requires the gun dealers be located a minimum distance away from sensitive areas and requires
that the location will have adequate safe storage and security.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And Rebecca will be followed by Leslie Volk.
Hi.
Thank you, Mayor Worth and council members for considering this.
Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, I'm a window resident and mom of three children,
two of whom are in our public schools.
I also want to thank our public safety officers that are here tonight.
They work day in and day out to keep our community safe.
Their work is so important.
It's one of the reasons that I'm so happy to live here in our community.
And as a mother of young children, I want to say that although I do respect
the right of my neighbors and community members to bear arms and to have weapons,
I also know that it is incumbent upon us to keep our community safe.
And so with my children playing in households throughout this community, I want to know
that guns are stored safely.
I also want to know that if there is a theft of robbery in a home, that those guns will
not end up in the hands of people who will use them in ways that none of us want them
used.
So I thank you for considering this.
I ask that you move this forward.
I ask that we do the work that the city attorney has asked us to do to make sure
we can do this in a constitutional way.
and I thank you in advance for your support of this.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Rebecca Leslie will be followed by Ann Rohr.
Hello, my name is Leslie Volk.
I am an Orinda resident and I support the proposed
ordinances for safe storage of firearms
and the ordinance to regulate gun dealers in Orinda.
The federal and California laws do not go far enough
to encourage responsible gun storage
and change cultural norms so that firearms
are inaccessible to burglars
suicidal and homicidal teens and
innocent children. I greatly
appreciate the work by the
police that works with the
community to promote the
practice of safe gun ownership
and firearm safety at home.
Safe storage of firearms when
not in the use of is an
essential element of responsible
gun ownership and must in the
most effective way to prevent
firearm accidents, theft and
misuse. A safe storage
ordinance would provide an
essential expectation and
it is enforceable. Safe storage laws are enforceable just like any other law that regulates
conduct inside the home. The Orinda Police Department is contracted by the Contra Costa
Office of Sheriffs and it was noted in the staff report that it has not yet been discussed
with them. I assume that it will be discussed and it should also be noted that the Orinda
Polices are already enforcing state laws and Orinda specific ordinances. Why should
this a Rinda specific ordinance be any different. The enforceability of an
ordinance is also not its sole justification. We don't have seat belt
laws because we expect to ticket every single person who drives without a
seat belt. We know that laws can influence behavior. This law seeks to
establish a cultural norm much like fastening a seat belt when getting into
a car or fastening the child proof cap on a medicine cap. We don't do these
These things because we expect police to be watching us.
We do these things because we are responsible citizens.
But laws are in place to make sure that it is the standard norm.
If a state storage law can prevent unauthorized actists by one child or
prevent one gun from being stolen or sold into the criminal market because a gun owner followed the law, it is worth it.
These laws are already in place in numerous communities in California.
I request that Arenda join these other California jurisdictions and pass a comprehensive gun safety regulation to protect our children and citizens from the threat of gun violence.
Thank you.
Leslie, thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Anne, you'll be followed by Nicole Reeder.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Anne Rohr and I am a citizen of Arenda and have been for 10 years now.
I'm also a mother to two young children.
children. I love this community very much and I fully support the two gun safety ordinances
before you today. As in reference to safe storage, I'd like to talk a little bit about
a 2000, in year 2000 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that
of the homes with children and firearms, 55% were reported to have one or more firearms
arms in an unlocked place.
And 43% reported keeping guns without a trigger lock
in an unlocked place.
I grew up in a small town of Pacific Grove, California.
I was a senior in high school.
My boyfriend was in my driveway and was accidentally shot.
And he was fortunate enough to make it through that
after two months of in and out of the hospital.
I know what impact a accidental type of situation this can have on a community, on families,
and we have to do something to make sure that our kids are safe and that the access to guns
are kept that when they are kept in the home they are kept safely and this is very important to me.
I mean, PTSD is is real when an accident like this happens, whether the outcome is okay or not, and I just want I hope that you consider this in its importance for our kids to be kept safe.
And I appreciate your time tonight and I want to thank the officers that serve serve our community. Thank you.
Great and thank you for your comments and Nicole reader will be followed by Craig that that is.
Thank you. Mayor, council, city staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name
is Nicole Reeder and I'm a city resident. I have lived here for 18 years. And I was
going to begin by saying something else, but I thought I would like to address whether
this is a symbolic ordinance or not. And I think that it is not. There is a state
in this country, the state of Massachusetts, which does have a safe storage law.
No gun in the state of Massachusetts can be stored unless it is locked.
It can be loaded, but it needs to be locked or secured.
And in the state of Massachusetts, their youth suicide rate is very different than ours.
Guns are used on only 9% of youth suicides in the state of Massachusetts.
It's nationwide, it's 39%.
That's a big difference.
That is not symbolic.
And in Massachusetts, the overall suicide death rate
among youth is 35% below the national average.
That's something that can make a big difference here.
I know that the school district and parents
were worried about stressed out kids,
were worried about anxious kids and depressed kids.
Suicide has touched Rinda kids before
and making guns just a little bit less available is a place where we can make a real difference.
Unfortunately, in my life, when I was a teenager, my cousin's cousin killed herself
with a gun that was in the family's home. It was an impulse. She didn't plan it.
She was in a fight with her mom. She ran into the other room. She grabbed the gun and she was dead.
If that gun had been a little bit less accessible, she might not have died
And it broke that family apart, and I know that that's an opportunity that we can make a change right here in this city.
Safe storage can make a difference for us and it's up to us.
So thank you so much for your time, Craig.
Nicole, thank you for your comments.
And Craig, welcome.
Would you please give me the honor of pronouncing your last name so I don't.
I'm Craig Tejas.
Tejas, thank you.
Mayor, city council.
Welcome, thank you.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
I'm here in support of the safe storage measure.
When I was growing up in Michigan, rural Michigan,
I learned about guns, and I learned a couple things.
One was to shoot what you want to shoot,
and the other was to make sure that what you don't want shot doesn't get shot.
And a safe storage measure is a common sense measure
to make sure that guns are used the way they should be.
And we've heard from people coming up to this podium about the public health statistics.
I think the public health statistics are clear.
There's a public health reason to store guns safely.
And I encourage you to draft an ordinance that will do that for this community.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Courtney Bennett will be followed by Kelsey Wolfman.
Good evening.
Thank you for your time and service.
My name is Courtney Bennett.
I'm in a Rinda resident and a mom of three and I wanted to speak to the issues of cost.
The Giffords Law Center estimates that gun violence costs the American economy at least $229 billion annually,
including $8.6 billion in direct expenses, such as for emergency and medical care.
Gun violence costs more than $700 per American every year, more than the total economic cost of obesity
and almost as much as the annual price tag for the entire Medicaid program.
In my opinion, investing in gun violence prevention is a smart use of a rent-a-tax dollars.
And I ask that you please move forward to draft the two gun safety ordinances that
we have requested.
Thank you.
Great.
Courtney, thank you for your comments, and Kelsey Wolfman will be followed by Amy
McNamara.
At least I could pronounce that one correctly.
Okay.
Hi.
Thank you guys so much for your time and for your service to our community.
It is huge and it is greatly appreciated by all of us.
So I wanted to start with saying thank you.
My name is Kelsey Wolfman.
I'm an Orinda resident with three children here.
My husband was born and raised here.
And his family has been here for over 40 years.
There was no place we would live besides Orinda.
Thanks to his mother.
she wants us here forever but seriously so tonight I just want to let you know
I've personally been a witness to more than three acts of firearm violence in
my life including one incident when I was in high school at a friend's house and
my friend found his father's gun that was in a safe but the safe was not locked
and he got the gun out and pretended to shoot it at our other friend and in
the process shot the gun and blew a hole through his parents bed and missed my
friend by mere inches. It was traumatic. No one was actually shot. No one died. It
was not on the news. There were not candlelight vigils but it is something
that has lived with me and with everyone that was there for our entire
lives. I still think about it daily.
Had that gun been stored safely, that would not have
happened. He would not have been able to get his hand on it. Had he been able to get his
hand on it and there had been a lock on the trigger, he would not have been able to shoot
it or even pretend to shoot it. Because of that, I ask my children's parents, their
friends' parents often, do you have a gun in your home before I let my kids go to
and I'm shocked at how many guns there are in Arenda,
in homes with small children, and it is a lot.
I believe in the Constitution,
and I believe in the Second Amendment,
and I am a full supporter of it,
but I do not believe that these ordinances infringe
upon citizens' rights to bear arms
that simply give direction to gun owners
and ensure their safety and the safety of others
and their proximity by ensuring
their legally-obtained firearms
are safely secured when they are out of arms reach.
I fully support these ordinances
and I support all of those that have spoken before me
in support of these ordinances so far.
Thank you.
Great.
Kelsey, thank you.
Thank you for your comments
and Amy will be followed by David Libby.
Good evening, council.
I'm Amy McNamara.
I'm the associate superintendent
of administrative services
for the Aqalanis Union High School District.
And I'm here tonight really as an educator
who has spent 22 years working in urban schools
before I came out to Aukalani's.
And unfortunately, as a high school principal for a decade,
I've seen all too much of the devastating effects
of gun violence on young people
and the communities in which they live.
Working with high school teenagers for over 22 years
has taught me that teenage access to firearms
all too often comes with tragic and deadly consequences.
In Aukalines we are working very hard to improve the safety of our school communities and our
school campuses, the four high schools that we run, and we are addressing mental health in a
more comprehensive manner than we ever have before with a beautiful wellness center opened
for two days at Miramani High School, Urinerinda. I truly believe that the passage of the safe
storage ordinance, and gun dealer regulation will strengthen the efforts of our schools
to keep our most precious resource, our young people, safe.
And I thank you in advance for your support of it.
Great.
Amy, thank you.
Thank you very much.
And congratulations to having school back in session.
There was a long line at Lourdes today.
Everybody had their last ice cream before they had to go back to work.
Thank you.
David will be followed by Julie Rosseter.
Thank you.
Hi Mayor, thank you very much and thank you for your counsel for this evening for addressing this issue.
And thank you Chief Nagle for being here as well as your officers.
I actually came prepared with something to say but many of us have already said it.
I've even shared those stats that I was going to share.
I'm not here today as a city commissioner.
I'm here as a Rinda citizen.
My wife is here as well.
we've been here for nine years and we love Arenda and I also love being a city commissioner
and being of service to the public as I'm sure all of you have and this is just a terrific
opportunity for the mayor and the city council to really help make a difference in Arenda
as has had in Maraga and Lafayette and as far as helping us make this community more
safe so I just wanted to mention that my wife and I are both in support of these
ordinances.
Thank you.
Great.
David, thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
And Julie will be followed by Eleni Ayers.
Hi.
Thank you for having us here tonight.
Thank you.
I'm Julie Rossiter on the Irinda School Board, but I'm really here as an individual speaking
on my own behalf tonight.
And a lot of people have touched on a lot of things, and I don't want to repeat
what people have said, but this really does seem to me like a common sense ordinance
that would make people safer.
and it's what someone pointed out before about it being like this like a
seatbelt law it really is very similar to that are the police going to be going
into every home going into every car checking to make sure that you have
your safe storage that you have your seatbelt on no but you set a standard
and you tell people this is how you safely store something this is what you
do in this community to keep your gun safe in your home and then people
we'll start doing it and then everyone is doing it
and the community is safer as a result.
I also think this really dovetails nicely
in with a lot of what we're doing in the school district
with safety, school site safety, trainings,
you know, all the active shooter trainings
and things that we do there.
I really urge you to support these these ordinance.
I really do feel like it is a common sense.
And I also want to say one more thing, it could really, yes, I believe 10 cities in California
have passed safe storage ordinances.
You could be a leader on the forefront, really, to say to other communities, this is how everyone
should be doing this.
Just like the seatbelt law when it didn't exist, not everyone drove as safely and people
were more injured.
If you say to people, we're doing this in Arenda, we're doing this in Maraga, San Francisco is doing it, Oakland is doing it, soon other cities are doing it in the state and everyone is safer as a result.
Thank you.
Julie, thank you for your comments.
Thank you.
And Elena will be followed by Allison Anderman.
Hello, my name is Elena Ayers and I'm an Arenda resident.
I'm also a member of Safe Arenda, which is a group of over 250 Arenda residents.
I would like to thank the city staff for preparing an informative report in preparation for tonight's discussion
The staff report presents four options for consideration by city council
We request that the city council direct the staff to proceed with options two and three as outlined in the report
Drafting a safe storage ordinance and a dealership regulation ordinance that work for the city of Arundah
We are not requesting option four
The city staff report identifies some concerns regarding drafting and enacting these two ordinances.
We respectfully request that the city council consider the points being made tonight by our members and supporters as these concerns are addressed.
In November 2016, over 74% of voters across Orinda voted in favor of Proposition 63, the comprehensive statewide gun violence prevention legislation that regulates ammunition sales and bans large capacity magazines.
The majority of Orindans support common sense gun safety measures.
City Council we request that you please take the next step in directing the city attorney to draft the safe storage and dealership ordinances. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments and Allison will be followed by Lisa or takes.
Good evening. I'm Allison Anderman, a Maraga resident and managing attorney at Giffords Law Center to prevent gun violence.
I'm here to speak in support of safe storage that ensures that miners, burglars, and others
are unable to access unattended guns and an ordinance to regulate gun dealers who wish to sell guns
in your community, either from their tucked away homes or commercial storefronts.
Despite claims by the gun lobby, safe storage ordinances do not violate the Second Amendment
because they do not prevent gun owners from keeping accessible loaded guns for self-defense.
They only prohibit owners from leaving guns unattended where they can fall into the hands of unauthorized users
such as the homicidal 20-year-old who took his mother's guns and used them to kill her,
21st graders, and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut.
The former Stockton mayor also left his guns unsecured.
They were stolen and used to kill a 13-year-old boy in front of his father.
All of the courts that have reviewed safe storage laws have found them to be consistent with the Second Amendment.
San Francisco was the first jurisdiction in California to enact safe storage.
The gun lobby sued the city, lost in the trial court, lost in the Ninth Circuit,
and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
After San Francisco enacted its law, nine other jurisdictions in California have enacted
safe storage laws, and none have been sued.
Maraga, not sued, was also worried by a gun lobby lawsuit.
So Giverts Law Center secured Ferella Braun and Martell,
a prestigious litigation firm to defend the town pro bono,
we pledge the same support to Arenda.
Ordinances that regulate dealers are also constitutional
and in effect around the country.
Although the gun lobby has challenged a few of these
ordinances, the cases were highly faxed specific
and Arenda's unlikely to find itself
in the similar circumstances.
Because there are numerous examples of both ordinances
in California and Giffords Law Center is happy
to provide free drafting assistance as we have
with countless other local, state and federal laws,
The city is unlikely to incur significant expenses in drafting if it utilizes those resources, almost finished.
The bigger cost of the city will come if it fails to take modest reasonable steps to prevent the types of foreseeable gun tragedies that are all too common in the United States today.
And I would be happy to answer any questions about these if I have more than two minutes, and I'd be very happy to work with the city attorney.
Thank you very much.
Great, Alison.
Thank you very much for your comments.
and Lisa will be followed by Ryan Pedroni.
My name's Lisa Ozaida.
Thank you.
I assume it's me.
So I have four kids, three of whom are in the Arenda Schools.
I'm sorry, Lisa, would you mind starting together with a little noise?
Of course.
Thank you.
My name is Lisa Ozaida.
I have four kids, three of whom are in the Arenda Schools.
And I support both gun ordinances that are before you today.
As discussed, California does have a safe storage law.
However, it doesn't go far enough, and it shouldn't be a reason for an action by this council.
The California law does require that gun owners keep any loaded firearm in a place that he or she reasonably believes would prevent a child from accessing it.
However, it's unclear what that means, and the statute does not provide sufficient instruction or protection.
at least 10 communities in California, including San Francisco, Oakland, and
Maraga have determined that California law does not go far enough and have passed
safe storage ordinances like the one that is before you today. This is a
measure that is properly subject to local control and is not preempted by the
state. I request that this City Council follow the lead of our neighboring
cities and to take all the reasonable measures necessary to pass a safe
storage ordinance in Arenda. Thank you. Thank you very much Lisa for your comments
and Ryan and you'll be followed by Stacy Krinks. Thank you Mayor and City
Council members. My name is Ryan Pugneroni and I'm a resident of Arenda
and father of three young children and one on the way. While growing up in
Oakland I lost too many friends and classmates to gun violence. A concern
I'd like to address is one heard from gun owners who want to get to get
their guns quickly for self-defense in the event of a home invasion.
Safe storage does not prevent quick access to guns.
A safe storage ordinance only regulates unattended guns.
It would not prevent a gun owner from carrying a loaded gun in their home.
Portable lock boxes with simplex or biometric locks store handguns
so that they can be with an easy reach on counters, tables, or nightstands,
often more quickly accessed than guns hidden away.
Users of simplex locks report that they can retrieve a loaded weapon in just two to three seconds.
A publication of the NRA describes this type of lockbox as providing a good combination of security and quick access.
Biometric lockboxes provide immediate access with the owner's fingerprint.
Further, in 2014, the NRA sued the city and county of San Francisco claiming its safe storage law,
which required handguns kept in a residence to be stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock
when not carried, violated the Second Amendment.
The Ninth Circuit Court...
Court of Appeal affirmed the district court's ruling, deciding that the law did not significantly
burden the right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense because guns stored safely
can be accessed in a manner of seconds, and there was a significant government interest
in reducing gun-related injuries and deaths resulting from unlocked handguns in the home.
Thank you.
Ryan, thank you for your comments.
And Stacey, welcome, and you'll be followed by Chris Neal.
Thank you. I'm Stacey Krinks, and I am an arena resident.
I did grow up in Southern California, and my dad was a fire chief.
Very safety-minded. He drove us around all the time in the back of his pickup truck,
my little sister and me. My mom was a kindergarten teacher,
also very safety-minded. We rolled around in the back of her station wagon playing Barbies
on long, hard journeys. I'm sure my parents were aware
that it was probably safer to put us in car seats or were seatbelts, but it wasn't the
law and so we didn't do it.
I'm actually really excited to be standing here and alive because a lot of kids died
in car accidents in the 70s.
So many that we started passing car seat laws and many people have mentioned that it's
similar to this issue.
It took a long time for the United States to pass car seat laws in all 50 states.
it was years and there were people that said that seatbelts and car seats were
an infringement of personal freedom or that they could never be enforced and
yet the CDC today says that 15,000 lives are saved in this country each year
because of restraint laws. When we have a public health epidemic in this
country we want to change behavior we pass laws we don't just educate.
Education alone is not enough, Mr. Solomon.
As much as I appreciate that the Arenda police and Chief Nangle are available to show people who raise their hands by the way and ask for help, which I wouldn't argue is perhaps the natiest folks in our community.
Option one is not enough. We need to pass laws and then educate.
There will always be people who choose to not wear seatbelts.
I choose life for myself, for my three daughters, for my city.
If we can prevent one accidental gun death, any investment we would make in research and drafting these ordinances would be well worth it.
We are the beginning of the wave, as many have mentioned.
Many communities who have far fewer resources and far greater need than Arenda would follow us and we can together change behavior and save lives.
Please, I urge you to draft these ordinances.
Thank you.
Great.
Sissy, thank you for your comments.
Chris will be followed by Dan de Beshear.
Good evening, council members.
Chris Neal here.
As the, our city manager said earlier, this is an extremely complicated, complex project
and it's very, very emotional.
I know people that have been through some kind of a tragedy, like some have discussed today.
You know, they want to fix it. I mean, we can't have this again, and I certainly understand that.
So, I also understand with some reasonable familiarity with the subject, there's no fast, quick answers.
I agree with what the person just said, that education alone is not enough.
But I think education is a really good starting point.
And I think there's an awful lot of commentary going on right now with people that frankly
don't have a clue about what they're talking about.
Some people don't even have any idea what the rights are in the Constitution, the
You know, I respect our Constitution.
I respect the Bill of Rights.
And we've got to work within that and solve the problem.
I'm all for gun safety.
I'm all for, you know, boxes that help,
that don't interfere with access to the guns.
But what we've done so far in Maraga,
and I have in front of me here the amended approved
by Maraga.
And I wish some of the people in the audience would read it because some of the comments that I've heard they haven't even read it
And it's this is section 2 chapter 9.12 added to title 9 of the municipal code of Maraga
And it's actually section 451 on your packet
And can I have another minute or two please?
If you just want to wrap up
Okay, so in this page, it has what the definitions are for homes.
Now, you'll be surprised that a parked car with a person in it is a home.
If he's, you know, if he's living out of his home, that's considered a home.
That's his residence. Residence is the word.
Okay, there's all kinds of other things here. Motels, hotels, whatever.
That can be a residence.
Okay, now the regulation of firearm storage, 9.12.020, says no person shall keep any firearm
within a residence, residence as defined above, owned or controlled by that person unless
the firearm is stored in a lockable container or is disabled with a gun lock, and by the
way anyone that's bought a gun in the last 15 years knows you have to have a gun lock
and that comes with a gun, that has been approved by the California Department
of Justice, period. That is the regulation. That's what it is.
Now, okay, that's fine, but underneath that, okay, sorry, underneath that it says,
exceptions to firearm storage regulation. The firearm storage regulation set forth
in this chapter shall not apply in the following circumstances.
The firearm is carried on the person, or is in the immediate control of the individual.
All right?
That's the law that you've passed in Maraga.
All right?
So everyone's saying, well, we agree with it.
Well, that's what you're agreeing with.
Thank you.
And you're also, there's nothing in this law that is new that has not been preempted
by state law.
Okay?
And this subject has been worked to death.
My last point is, please get yourself educated.
Study this stuff.
We're all wanted solutions.
We all want a safe neighborhood.
Education isn't very important.
Thank you.
Chris, thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
And now, Dan de Beshear.
Thank you, Mayor Worth, the council.
My name is Dan de Beshear.
I wrote a note to the council that's covered
on the yellow sheets, page 21.
A lot of moms here are concerned about the safety of their kids.
I'm a dad too, a granddad, and I'm concerned about the safety of kids, my kids particularly.
And all I can say is if you have guns at home, you better keep them secured
and out of touch of any kids, either your own or those that come into the house.
That's gun safety sense.
Okay, now, the issue is nobody disagrees with the objective of all the speakers
and so forth, or most all of them, the issues, how do we get here?
And let me go through a couple of practical things for the audience that the council has to consider.
Whether you like it or not, the gun ownership is a protected class of citizens.
It's not like a seat belt. Gun ownership is protected by the Constitution.
Okay, now if you write an ordinance and you put burdens on that right of ownership,
or whatever the Constitution occurs,
then you may be in violation of that constitutional right or class.
What the city has to be concerned about is if we write an ordinance,
it's got to be something material, it's got to really do something.
Is it something that we can't do by education?
Because if we do write the ordinance and we are dealing with a protected class,
then there's a potential of liability, financial liability.
Let's say a person couldn't access his firearm in a timely manner in a home invasion and
as a result was seriously injured or fatality as a result of that.
That could be construed as the city placed a burden on that homeowner in defense of his
house and he could sue.
It's a federal suit.
Whether the suit has any merit or not, the city's got to face the suit.
Every night the city or every council meeting, the city meets an hour ahead to listen to lawsuits.
So the issue here is whether or not we're going to put a law on the books that has any material meeting
that's going to keep the council out of hot water in the city out of hot water from a financial standpoint.
That's my point. Thank you.
Dan, thank you. Thank you for your comments.
Linda C. Welcome.
And Linda will be followed by Stuart House.
Good evening.
I'm a 19-year resident of Arenda, and I'm here because I would like Arenda children to be a protected class, so sorry, I can't help myself.
So I think most of us here are discussing this issue because we want to feel safe, but we may differ on how to get there.
I'm here to express my desire that the City Council pass the proposed safe storage and gun dealer regulations.
If we choose not to pursue what can be done here to promote safe storage, how will we feel if some troubled youth, for example,
manages to get their hands on an improperly stored weapon and God forbid does harm, potential enormous harm to our community?
are we really willing to hide behind the statement that it's just too hard to
proceed even though our Lamarinda neighbors are getting it done we feel I
feel that our city can benefit from the example that our neighbors in Lamarinda
have provided for us and then regarding the dealer regulations yet yes it is
true, I hope, that there is no current proposal to start selling firearms here, but as a few
others have commented that for that potential small business person now is the perfect time
to address the issue before a gun dealer may have invested any time or money in the effort.
And I think that I speak for the majority of the rendens that we do not want to become
notorious is that little town that people go to to buy guns. I think most of us
can agree we would be preferred to be known as the town with a safe
environment and terrific schools. Thank you for your consideration. Linda, thank
you very much for your comments and you'll be following
Stuart House will be our final speaker so if anybody else would like to
speak on this topic please come bring forward a yellow slip. The Stuart
You'll be followed by Corey Hunt.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Honorable counsel and our city manager and Chief Nagel.
People I've all worked with.
I work for the Arundah Union School District,
but I'm here today as a citizen of 14 years in Arundah.
And I wanted to address one aspect of this.
All my sentiments have already been expressed
by those who support the two ordinances, so I don't need to repeat what everyone has said.
I wanted to address one small aspect of those who oppose it, which is that it is unenforceable.
And I did a little Google research here and found there was a study done in the year
2000 that looked up, why do people obey laws?
And the answer, according to Smith and Markey, social psychologists, was that, you know, there's a large number of people who obey laws because they respect the law.
So the seat belt example is a pretty good one, but there's another group of people who are nudged by the fact that they may be fine or there's some consequence to not obeying it.
And there's a significant number of people who respond to what they term as an activated social norm.
So, in the case of horrendous, most horrendous are law abiding, with the possible exception
of those speeders and people who run stop signs.
But for the most part, citizens in horrendous are law abiding.
So these social psychologists have said that if laws are enacted that people will be
motivated to follow the law based on the social norm.
Great.
Stuart, thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Corey?
Corey Hunt.
Welcome.
Hello, Mayor and council members.
My name is Corey Hunt and I've lived here on an office since 1974.
I grew up and then came back for 14 years.
so I support these ordinances and any any preventions of gun violence. I am having
survived being held hostage at Cal all night and watching friends shot and
killed by a schizophrenic man with many guns. I can't believe how that horrifying
experience has become commonplace. It is our duty to protect our children as much
as possible.
According to the Giffords Law Center, the impact of gun violence on kids is staggering, since Columbine alone more than 150,000 minors have been shot in the United States.
Additionally, 150,000 students in at least 170 elementary, middle, and high school have experienced school shootings.
Nearly 60% of all high school students report fear of mass shooting at their school or in their community.
nearly 40 percent of children exposed to a shooting will develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
Guns are now the third leading cause of death for all Americans under age 18.
Please, City Council, move forward in drafting these two.
Thank you.
Thank you, Corey. Thank you for being here tonight.
And I want to thank everyone for your comments tonight.
Are there any other people here tonight that would like to speak on this item?
If not, then I'll close the public comment period and bring it back to the council for discussion and any direction to staff.
Who would like to begin?
Do we have any further follow-up from staff?
Yeah.
Are there any follow-up questions?
I've got a couple, so you go ahead if you want to lead on.
I was more just in general, wasn't sure if staff had any follow-up after hearing public comment, but if none.
The one question that I would be curious to know, you don't have the answer now, Chief Nagle,
maybe something that we could get at a future meeting which is just, you know, we contract with the county
and we don't have our own police services, you work for us, Vice-Fersa.
I would be curious to know an opinion from the county on how they see this,
both as it commingles or meshes with state law,
but also just more general high-level opining on efficacy
see and use of this ordinance, obviously while Maraga does not contract with you, but how
you would see this meshing them within our other ordinances and, you know, I'm certainly
not an expert on gun safety nor am I on how this could be, how this would be overseen.
So I would be curious to get more information from the Sheriff's Department on how they
would see this ordinance being enacted?
Yes, you're right.
This is not like Moraga.
We do contract with the Sheriff's Office.
So it is complicated.
My concern are my officers.
We are represented and defended by county council,
the Sheriff's Office, the county.
When we follow federal law, state law, and department
government policy we are defended and protected against violations.
There is an argument that's been made that we've read that this is a violation of the Constitution.
I can't put my officers in that position for they're not defended.
They're subject to civil penalties.
So there are a lot of questions that need to be answered going forward.
And are any of the other contract cities or Contra Castle County and other
Incorporated areas where the Sheriff's Department has jurisdiction. Do any of the others have safe
storage ordinances? No, and I've brought this up in my manager's meetings that I have with the Sheriff's office
Just at the surface level that this is coming and no no one has done this. So again, I'm not exactly sure where this
But that would be an important part of this information that I would certainly want to see before we move too further far forward with this.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Yep.
Councilmember G. Can I ask a follow up question to that chief?
Of course.
When you say that I understand what you said you're represented by council that as long as you're within all of the laws of all of those jurisdictions you're protected by them.
So is what you're saying is that your concern would be enforcing this ordinance?
I'm concerned that it would be interpreted as a
violation of someone's constitutional rights
Okay, so I second amendment. Yeah, I understand what you're saying there in terms of the city. I guess I'm
And the action is the officers. So that's a question. I have is what's the expectation of
of us and going forward
What do you want us to do? How far are we investigating? Are we asking questions?
Okay.
So it's questions that would have to be answered?
Yes.
Vice
Mayor Miller, anything?
I just have a question that was asked.
I can keep going if you'd like.
Sure.
Please do.
Changing subjects slightly to the gun sales.
This one may be directed to our city manager or city attorney.
I mean, can you talk a little bit about the difference
of the two pieces that we saw in our packet?
So the original piece in the staff report,
I read it's really a zoning ordinance
where a gun sales critter cannot be located,
much like where a multi-family housing or a school,
it's all, it's a zoning question.
And then the piece that's in the yellow
that came is really about permit issuance,
or almost again, I would say, and this is going to be too thin of a word,
but almost akin to a business license.
If you meet a certain set of requirements, you can be provided with a permit to sell firearms.
I think I'm reading that correctly, but can you just talk about the, again,
the two and then how those play for one another?
And maybe it's possible, you guys, I know this is the first time we're talking
about this tonight, so you also can say, we don't know.
We included them for information only.
But I, so those seem like two specifically different things and so I would be curious to know, one, how they overlap and two, if they can be broken apart or if you would have an opinion of whether or not, you know, one should be done over the other or, or it's required that you would do both.
I have not spent a lot of time studying Lafayette's ordinance. I know that it dates to the 90s. I know that there was litigation. I saw that a piece was then deleted following the litigation.
And I understand that there was a change in state law, so I know that the Lafayette situation
is quite complicated and that it will take some study to figure out if the council wants
to follow Lafayette lead, what exactly does that entail?
So I guess part of my answer is I need more time to be able to answer, but I think at
a very high level, I think you have properly read what Lafayette has on its books.
it has elements of zoning and then sort of even in a separate section of the code
has this police chief issued permit.
And so one is a permit to be able to do it
right that would be what was in our yellow but as a piece of that it's that
you're doing it within I think if I was reading it correctly in order to
establish the permit or the permission to do it and to issue this permit it
has to be in an area which it's zoned
per the other zoning regulations.
So they tie together.
Could the, I think I know the answer to this,
but could one be, they could be done
with one without the other, right?
It doesn't have to have a zoning piece tied to it.
It could purely be a police issued permit
and you could remove language about zoning.
I think through careful drafting,
I think that that's probably the case.
Okay.
Any other questions for this point? Okay. Vice Miller.
Okay. So I wanted to follow up on a
couple of things.
One of the speakers mentioned that obviously San Francisco was engaged in
litigation and you know this is one of the real things that the city of Arenda would face is
that we have subtle resources, unlike City and County of San Francisco have full legal
departments and it is a challenge for any small community.
So any decision we make, we do it very carefully in terms of recognizing that we have limited
resources.
You mentioned that, you know, one of the speakers was provided some helpful information
in terms of the history of the San Francisco litigation, where that is.
And I guess, and then following that 10 other cities I guess in California have adopted the gun storage ordinance
Would it be possible to get I noticed in reading the materials that the city of Tiberon or the town of Tiberon has a gun storage?
Ordinance and
Would it be possible to get the information as to what other cities?
Had those local gun ordinances and
And to try to understand if there are nuances of them, you know, that would be, you know,
helpful for us to understand in terms of any kind of ordinance that we might pursue.
Absolutely. We could gather that information and bring it back.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.
Well, just hanging on to that, I mean, what was striking me was I would just be interested beyond that
specific one just to know the list of the other nine where they have been adopted.
I'd like to know where those other communities are.
Right.
I believe we might be able to get that this evening because I was able to acquire that
from the conference law center.
You know what, actually, I think if we have staff, have several things.
One is to have the names of the cities but also the language of the ordinances so
So that our staff can look through them and see because obviously we've seen the Maraga ordinance, we've seen the Maraga comments.
One of the other challenges, and I guess to recognize that this has not been vetted by staff.
Normally, we would have an extensive staff report on analysis of the particular issue.
Tonight, staff really put together materials and brought it to us for our review and we'll be replying back to staff.
But I guess on the issue of the registration, it seemed to me that in the issue of the Pleasant Hill case where they were in litigation and had to settle for a significant amount.
Now, is the issue about gun registration restrictions that it's not permissible for a municipality to effectively ban gun sales,
that there has to be a reasonable accommodation in terms of actually conducting the business so that the limitations you can't,
you know, have to be structured so that there actually is some place to have a gun dealership but that there can be limits.
Can you just talk maybe generally about that?
This is like tobacco ordinances.
What I'm going to say now is what I learned from reading the Western Cities Magazine article
in this month's issue, which everybody I'm sure read it as well, it was legal notes
about what cities can do in terms of regulating from the zoning perspective.
My understanding is there is no case out there deciding that specific issue.
could you ban sales all together in your city?
But the advice, as I understood,
it was that there is significant legal risk
associated with a total ban.
So the question is, and what a total ban could be
either a total ban, just saying that there is no business
like this allowed, but the other challenge
with an ordinance say, you take an ordinance like Lafayette
where you have a much larger commercial district,
you have much more, or even Pleasant Hill,
where there are a lot bigger industrial commercial spaces
where you could identify in a community like Arenda,
where you have parks and preschools
and residential neighborhoods and schools,
it becomes very challenging to fulfill the law,
but still provide some kind of restrictions.
I think what you're saying-
Because the topography does not help.
You would need to do an analysis to make sure that you don't effectively produce a total ban through the application of, let's say,
radiuses around different kinds of uses. And we haven't done that analysis, but that is definitely something you'd want to do.
Okay, okay, okay. So I'm just trying to think, I'd really like to turn to staff, and again, this is the first time this has come
for the Council, so you have, this is the first opportunity, I guess the other issue
we've talked about, you know,
litigation risk with, you know, various types of ordinances,
whether it's gun safety or other things, is it possible to kind of come back to us
with information about, you know, the, say, I mean, when I heard people talk this evening,
People talked about both ordinances, but if I, you know, looking at my notes and looking at where people really were speaking most passionately,
it was really about the home gun storage.
So I'm just wondering if it might be helpful to get more information about, from a legal standpoint,
what the kinds of protections that a local municipality would have in terms of looking at specifically the gun storage ordinances.
I mean, it's interesting to see, for example, how technology has changed.
One of the speakers talked about the thumb activated like these, you know, phones we have
that are instantaneous.
So, you know, it would be helpful to get that information too.
In terms of what kind of legal framework exists for that kind of ordinance?
I'll just add that we've obviously received a tremendous amount of correspondence on this item,
which we have both in our immediate packet as well as I'm sure we've all,
the stuff that's included in our staff packet and what we've received over the last couple of weeks.
and so that I think that the message that we've heard is clear and I don't think
anyone would not be for safer more I'll just say that safer environments for
for our children and for our community in general. I just want to make sure that
whatever it is that we do that we have a policy in place that is doesn't put
the city with an undue amount of risk whether that be through legal or financial both sides
of it and obviously the two often are tied together but then the second piece is that
we have the if we were to go down this route that it's an ordinance that can be supported
not just by our community and even the council but our partnership with the sheriff's
I mean, I think this is a critical piece that it's made slightly more complicated here as
a contract city.
And so it's just obviously important to me that we have that sort of communication and
dialogue back with the Sheriff's Office that anything that we look at forward, I think
has to be well reviewed and accepted and adopted and appreciated and everyone has
to be on the same page about this, this can't be,
there's a lot of talk about whether or not
that this is effective, whether it can be enforced
or if it's just,
I forget the word that was used,
I'm sorry, but if it was just used in principle,
but regardless, we have to be able to have
our law enforcement stand behind it,
who's our kind of number one line of defense here,
so that sort of communication and conversation is important.
I don't know if I had some other notes and then passed the, again, safety part of this.
Oh, and I think the other piece of that analysis also that would be helpful, also, or chief,
would be some further clarification for me between the state ordinance, which I understand
is different as a criminal piece versus legislation that we would write, but some more sort
of fine grain understanding of how the two would overlap or not and what's provided by
one that would not be provided by the other. I understand all the intention behind what's
been presented in front of us this evening and what was adopted in Maraga. I just want
to have a better understanding of how those two work together. Again, I don't think anyone
is not for a safer environment, a safer community. We just have to make sure that these
things work for everyone.
I think one of the things that follow up on council member or comments that would be very helpful would be of identifying the 10 cities that have passed this, which ones of them do any of them contract for police services, as opposed to have their own.
I think it would be important to have that piece of information.
I would just like to recognize everybody being here tonight and it's very heartwarming sitting
up here and seeing so many of our neighbors show up on this issue that is obviously of
such great concern in our community hearing that eight children are killed every day in
the country due to gun violence.
It's obviously something that everybody cares about and wants to do and what I'm hearing
is we want to do that too in a way that we can do successfully.
And I'm also interested in how we can, I appreciate Council Member Orr raising the issue.
Are you in a position with having a police services contracted by a separate agency
and how that inner agency is at play here because if the county hasn't adopted the
same safe storage ordinance the county sheriff's officers would be acting
outside of their purview of the Orinda ordinance as county officers and it's it
just adds a layer of as has been said by the other council members who've
already spoken a layer of nuance to an already really complicated question
And I'm also curious if there already is a civil penalty.
And I would like to understand that better too.
And I was in trying to understand what we could do
that would be effective.
I reviewed in the packet the November 8th, 2017 letter
from to the Maraga City Council by the attorneys
working on behalf of the NRA,
which said that it was not permitted because it was preempted by state law,
which already had rules on the civil side here.
And that was under 1A paragraph two.
And so to understand, and I guess for purposes of understanding option one,
suggested by the city manager whereby we would work with the where one of the
options was where we could work with state legislators to work on state
legislation because I guess I'm trying to understand why this is being brought
at the city level and not at the state level like seat belt laws you know I
think the analogy to Massachusetts was a very very powerful one and how how
how much Massachusetts has been able to lower their rates of deaths by guns among youth.
And certainly that has been the case throughout the country with the seat belt laws.
And that was done on a statewide basis and at this point I don't think we can name a state that doesn't have a seat belt law.
So I don't want to foreclose our work on that in that direction just because we tend to be very successful in this community at effecting change on the statewide basis.
Council Member Orr.
I know you all are going to be going to,
I don't think you can do a long list.
Yeah.
And you all will be going to Long Beach shortly
to meet with our lead.
I guess the other part that I'd be curious to know about is
whether and if the league is actively working
on anything there at the state level
to your point, Council Member Miller,
if there's anything active on the states,
on the league slate,
And if they see anything moving forward further, at a state level, that would be above and beyond what's currently recoded as law would be another one.
We often lean, as a small municipality, we often lean heavily on the league and their leadership on these items.
Yeah, you know, I think it'd be helpful at this data arena.
I know that, of course, this is an issue that's high priority.
Our representatives, and I know that Senator Skinner
authored a number of the state laws around gun ordinances
that have been recently enacted.
So, her office might be a resource, too,
in terms of some of those issues about how the local
and the state might work together.
So I think it sounds like where we are is that we want staff to come back when I'm hearing you.
We've identified a number of questions that have come up from the speakers,
that have come up from the research and our own, you know, reviewing the packet,
and then come back to us so that we can make some, you know, decisions about what direction we want to do.
So, you know, I hear there's, again, hearing the comments tonight,
might there seem to be a lot of priority placed on really safe storage where children are present.
But I've also heard comments of wanting to try to do something like
Lafayette did in the way of regulating gun dealership.
And again, I think it'll be helpful if this information comes back to us.
and then the council can review that information.
It'll be included in the packet.
And then I assume that it'll be coming back to us
as soon as staff can pull that information together.
And the other thing I think that would be really helpful
for staff to identify as you're going through this,
if you see other information
that I think would be helpful for us,
and for this discussion to include that,
Obviously we've identified some questions and clarifications, but I think it'd be also helpful if you might if there are other issues
Whether it's you know what these other ordinances are looking like or other issues that you know
The city attorneys on the League of California cities lists serve and in those kinds of resources that we have that would be helpful
Okay, so again, I want to thank everybody for coming tonight for your
participation, and we will look forward to the continued discussion.
Again, all of our meetings are noticed, but we do have a system.
So if you sign up for the City Council notification system, we will send out emails to you,
so you'll get the notice of when this agenda will be back on the City Council agenda.
So thank you again, and thank to all of you who offered to provide additional information
to our staff and council, and so please, if you would like to provide additional information,
send any letters, it's always really helpful to get the correspondence, and we appreciate that, so thank you, thank you again.
Okay, let's take a ten minute break, and then we'll reconvene.
And a very believable approach.
Good.
Okay,
good evening.
We'll reconvene our meeting and our next item on the agenda is I2,
which is to receive revised art and public places policy and public artwork funding agreement.
Okay,
Todd, turn it over to you, sir.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Council members for the record, Todd Trimble, Parks and Recreation Director.
Just quickly, if I can, just tell you how I thought I would proceed.
I'm going to briefly go through the report, talk about the policy.
We've got a couple of APPC members here to talk, to speak briefly
about their report and then I'll come back and review that as well. If you have any questions
for them or if you'd like to do it differently, that's fine too. We were, the committee and
staff were before you back in January providing what was really the first official update on
the public art program since it started about 10 years before. I think everybody
Everybody agreed that the program had been incredibly successful.
The community members had done a fantastic job, but the environment through those years
was starting to change and questions surrounded what would be in store and how things would
look in the next 10 years, which is where we're at now.
At the January meeting, the council decided to postpone adopting revisions to the
policy and the funding agreement to allow time for staff in the committee to continue
working on the revisions and the recommendations so but staff did hear
from council that that evening giving direction to reduce among other some of
the points to reduce staff time that was been spent on the program to not
commit city funds on acquiring art and to turn and to attempt to determine a
clear longer term plan so since that meeting the city manager the city
Attorney, Recreation Supervisor Sheena-Walman-Meiner and myself had met with committee...
City members, APPC members on many occasions, and I think we accomplished a lot, particularly
relating to creating efficiencies and reducing staff time, one of the directions that you had.
One significant step was suggesting that the city manager take on all the actions appropriate
to administer the program consistent with the policy. That, as you can understand, would
We eliminate a lot of staff reports and the staff time related to those, whether it's
Sheena or myself, OSA, everybody that's involved, Sherry and Steve, on doing those.
All the staff reports, we would seek a council approval for the loans and the extensions.
Also OSA and Sheena developed fillable uniform documents, which again would, excuse me,
We avoid the need for attorney review each time, again saving more time, so it was anticipated
that these efficiencies and hopefully creating these efficiencies would even allow staff some
time to direct more time to the web page, which is also vital for the program.
From our perspective, we feel that the policy revisions that are in place are going
to lead the programs and the committee members, excuse me, lead the APPC program and the committee
members towards another great, I don't know whose water this is, but I'm going to drink
it.
I
don't think Mark touched it, so that's good.
We think that these revisions are going to lead the program and the members on another
good successful long run.
One suggestion, excuse me, two, let me try it again, I think, to
ensure appropriate checks
and balances was for the committee to present a report each year, outlining their goals
and reporting on the progress, so it's about time for me to turn it over to Rich.
We'll let our chair come up.
Give you a break for a minute.
You don't need to die here.
No, that's fine.
Well,
maybe I'll just, first of all, I want to tell you that we had, we met as Todd said,
numerous times with members of the committee.
And it was actually a real pleasure to work with them.
It was a very collaborative effort.
And there was a lot of give and take and a lot of effort to understand where we thought
the council and the city were and where they were.
And so I'll just mention a couple of things in the policy.
And again, this was a collaborative effort.
It changed so much that we didn't redline this because there wasn't really any way to do it.
Section six is the one that Todd mentioned about the city manager authority, and the intent there is that the committee would make an annual report and tell you what they're hoping to accomplish.
They would do that in February, and as long as then what they do is in performance with what they told the council they would do, the city manager could approve it.
If it's beyond that, it would have to come to the council.
There was a lot of discussion in the past about article number
seven, the insurance.
And where we have ended up on that is that each piece would
only be insured up to $5,000.
And if there's a catastrophic event,
the total amount would be $5,000 and if there is any any claim or damage the
first $5,000 in any year would come from money that is held by the Parks and
Recreation Foundation on behalf of of this of this program.
So what I would
also point out to you this is on page 505 and 506 this is the committee's report
and they're going to make some comments and hopefully Todd will have his voice
back soon but that on page 505 they wrote down their current list of owned
art, the current list of owned art and the totals and then they have it by
site and they have potential additions and you can see there are 22 and I think
council member or in particular may comments about it I don't really know
where we're going with this and I'm not trying to speak for him he's tough to
speak for but but a number of you express concern about you know not
really knowing what was happening so that so they they made it I mean this is a
young man's effort here that they did and then on the very next page on five
or six they they tried to outline where they think they are today and what they
would get done the balance of this of this year so let's Todd has something
else yeah I think we would get rich and Susan whoever would like to speak
an opportunity. Rich was. I'm telling you you're planning to speak.
I'm Rich Thompson,
chair of the APPC and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the staff and my
own fellow members for the amount of time put in to re-graph our policy.
We
statement of where we intend to go and one of the aspects of this is addressing
weed things specifically calcium and ores comments back in January where he
essentially was saying you know what is this thing where's it going what about
you know, please, please, please make some definitive statements. And so we did. And the,
I'll characterize it as being very aggressive, very forward-looking, and anticipating the
fact we really don't know what the future holds. So we designed a playground that is
large and and all the things that might possibly happen can happen in this
playground. We don't predict that the playground will be fully populated or
any particular thing will happen and the way we why we argue this way is that we
don't want to come back in short periods of time and have to redo a policy
all over again. We want it to be flexible. So a key part in our mind is the fact that
we, every year, come to you with an annual report that has two parts. It has what we've
accomplished, what were the goals, what we accomplished, where are we now, and how do
we see the near term, near term being the next 12 months, because we can see that
for our head. And anyway, that's how we address Councilman Orr's questions. Now, in terms of
the other important issues for the city, it's already been talked about conserving staff
time. The agreement, the new policy, is peppered with individual things that will
reduce staff time.
That's always going to be an ongoing effort. You just, in a
good business management, you just can't take your eye off what it costs
you to carry out a program. But we think one of the key issues or key ways
to keep costs low is to streamline the approval process and for that we
hardly recommend that City Manager be the one to deal with us on a day-to-day
basis and so we can go get quick answers get things done faster things get
done the cheaper they get. So that's why we're advocating for that. And really
that's about it.
We think that as far as the council and their oversight of the
program, you're going to be the ones that approve the annual report and
plan. If this thing is going in the direction that you don't feel
comfortable with, you don't accept a report. That's the control.
That's really about it.
I think most everything has been said as factual about the contents of the new policy. Thank
you.
I think that's, you know, what, following up on what Rich said and what we said earlier
was, you know, the success of this program for the first 10 years, and we've come
we feel with the policy to take us the next ten years with the flexibility and the opportunity for
the members to do some of these things with the control and the changes that Rich alluded to,
which was giving the city manager more ability to oversee the program within the policy,
streamlines some other aspects and be efficient as possible. So what I would
ask you to look at too is the committee's report. If you see, you know, we
would look at the various, Steve alluded to it already, you know, 22
piece, you know, 22 potential future sites. What do you think about that
number, some of the liabilities and the individual values, pieces that
They identify on the second page.
Are you comfortable with those numbers?
Again, Rich kind of alluded to, again,
there's something that would come back on a regular basis,
be able to report what we did the year before, what
they foresee coming up in the near future,
and we could adjust and modify even at that time.
So or if there's anything specific that
sticks out to you within the policy,
we can definitely address those now.
And our goal is to still try to move forward
and see if we can get not only the policy, but the funding agreement and the application approved.
Great.
Thank you. Thank you to both of you for your work on this and our committee.
Susan here. Thank you for being part of that. Susan Mountner here.
And so, and Casey, I know who provides a lot of the support to Rich.
great thank you so much for your work on this new the recommendations so one to
start with council to see if there are any questions that councillors have
or G or councillor vice mayor Miller just one very brief question okay there's a
number of future sites that were noted here and it was curious about the one
for just the one down in the Plaza because it seems like it's pretty full of
Wonderful art, and I was just curious where that one site was. I
have the list here and you're asking about which
The one that's down in the community center Plaza. It looked like there's one more site
The library Plaza I apologize the library Plaza, correct
One
has two and one has one.
You know, I'm going to speak to this for the moment because I can't quite figure this out myself.
I think Council Member Miller is referring to the library plaza.
The Heggy Plaza?
No, not the Heggy Plaza.
The library plaza, I see that clearly.
I can speak to that.
The community center area.
Oh, I'm just speaking about the library plaza.
I'm sorry the question is what are the potential what are the two sites yeah yeah the trellis
area that borders the street okay okay got it and there'd be two one piece there now and
there there are at least four or more we think if all four were populated it would look like
a you know just a line of soldiers or something so we don't intend to populate them all understood
I said, okay, thank you very much.
Great, well thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Is there any public comment on this item?
Okay, if not, then we'll bring it back
to the council for a decision.
Council Member Orr, discussion.
I'm happy to lead off.
I feel like I have to correct the record
as if I'm a person somehow against art in public places.
I don't want it to come off that way.
in fact I want to make sure that I become your biggest supporter and maybe in a few
months from now I'll pick up a new job and I can help you move artwork around.
I also should point out that Mr. Thompson wrote me a very nice
Are our last time correct that came from you? Yes, which I did not respond to, but it was
incredibly thoughtful and I knew right then that this group was on the right path. This
is an incredible document and I think really starts to set a groundwork forward and I wouldn't
even comment on whether or not 60 or 50 or 70 are the right places because I trust that
you all are thinking about this from a bigger standpoint.
And I also suspect that you would probably never imagine
that all six of these have art in them at the same time,
but that you want to make sure that you have the framework
and the field as you described it
to place these and move them around.
So I'm really, I'm thrilled with what is in front of us.
I like it a lot.
There's a couple of comments that I'll make.
And first, on kind of maybe a little bit silly or facetious,
I'm a little bit sad to see that City Manager is taking this all on
because one of my great joys was getting the packet
to see the artwork that was, you know,
oh, this is what's coming, this is what's going,
and this is the artist's bio, and we could read about it.
And, you know, my daughter would say,
what about this one?
I'd say, oh, I know who that is, you know?
Oh, we can tell the story, but we'll get this annually.
And so I look forward to continuing to see that
because seeing those artworks is a joy.
And Steve, good luck and enjoy that new position.
But here's my one piece of commentary or criticism
and this is gonna come as no surprise to anyone,
which is that I'm gonna continue to believe
that owning the city owning artwork should be should
be for cases that are
above and beyond and have super special circumstances surrounding it for why we
would purchase this piece of art. What what I so loved about this program when
first conceived, is it 10 years ago now?
That seems crazy to me, was that it was continuously rotating
and we saw these art pieces changing throughout town.
And the idea that we would start to own these,
I know that what becomes problematic for me is that
at some point we have to start storing them.
At some point there is a maintenance obligation.
At some point there is a curatorial sort of bin that needs to happen to understand how
and why people store artwork and then, you know, how do we catalog these and how do we
assess their value and while you all do an amazing job of doing all that, I'm not
sure that I want you spending any more time acting as conservators past really shepherding
this what I think is an amazing program.
So the one, the one criticism or the one kind of request that I would like to make or that I would at least ask my colleagues to entertain is I think on packet page 501 under the city manager's authority on letter D that acquiring city owned art is recommended by the APPC that that not be a city manager decision but that is when this would come back to council.
Now, I can already tell you, I suspect that this council will just readily approve it,
assuming that the funding is there.
I would continue to probably disagree with my colleagues, but I think that when we get
to the point of actually purchasing artwork, that is to me a point where I would like
these things to come back to council.
And, in fact, I would really prefer that the agreement is page 507 and the recitals.
I would really even like to remove the language about purchasing artwork in the second whereas
that the policy authorizes the city to acquire artwork for public display through leases,
loans, leases and loans of artwork and remove the donations and purchase of artwork.
If somehow there wanted to be language in here that somehow kept this open that said under super special circumstances by which every person in the community has come out suggesting that we purchased this piece and it's a great deal of bargain, again being a little bit facetious.
If staff thought that there was a way to craft something that at least left the door open,
I would be fine with that, but I would like to remove the donation and purchase of artwork
from kind of the given language that this is the APPC's practice.
Again, I may be the only outlier here, and I should probably just keep quiet at this point
because so much of this work is really fantastic, and this is a document that I was really hoping for.
where you all have done a great deal of work.
And I thank City Manager Solomon and Todd and Sheena
for working through this and getting us to where it says,
because I think that this is a great form
for other people to be able to,
you know, for your,
but the people who follow behind you as well,
that there's a roadmap now here for them to work on.
But that would be my only suggestion,
is remove the language about purchase of artwork.
I think it actually says, and the committee agreed to this, is that the city would not
commit any money to purchasing in the art world.
The way that I think even, so that is going to limit that already.
And maybe that needs to be in the actual policy or resolution itself, because I don't see it there actually.
But the way I think, and unless the committee members correct me, most of the art has been acquired, at least in recent years, is the artist has given it to us,
which is still the same problem that Candace talked about.
So it may be that what this should say
is if the city is going to inquire
under whatever circumstance it should come to the council.
Yeah, and for me again, this is about
a longer term, longer range question.
It's not about the capital cost of the artwork
because I do understand that the majority of the pieces
have been donated or, you know, there's been some small
undervalued fee or price that we pay for them.
And I can understand all the good reasons
for the ones that we've done.
My question of this, again, is about a long-term thing.
You know, if we become in a position of saying
that I forget the ratios that you guys looked at,
potentials here, 50, let's say it's 50-50, of purchase versus loan artwork. At some point
of 60, that's now 30 potential artworks. It seems to me someone should have some vision
about what that purchase is. Are we collecting only California art? Are we collecting California
art by women? Are we collecting California art by a rendent? I mean, to me it's about
having, when we start down this road of acquiring artwork, it shouldn't, this is
just my opinion, but it becomes this ad hoc nature that ten years from now no one
on this council or on the APPC are going to understand or know why these pieces have been
purchased or how we should display them or why they should be displayed and
again it gets back to this kind of conservatorship. I mean I don't want
to overstate the kind of museum example,
but when you own collections of artwork,
someone needs to care and attend them.
And it's not about polishing them or cleaning them
or making sure that they're in proper
climate-controlled environments.
It's about having a rational reason and a story
behind how that artwork is collected and kept.
So, and there's, again,
sometimes it's not even just about cost.
We could say, oh, these are all steel
and they're just gonna be parked out in Todd's backyard
behind a community center, and it doesn't cost us anything, but to me it just becomes
a kind of an ad hoc collection that doesn't have a further story or sort of lineage behind.
That's the part that I'm just always cautious to.
Okay, any other comments?
I wanted to ask some clarity, if I could, about from our art and public places leaders
about how, if we pursue, if we were to make a change in the policy where we really were
trying to get away from acquiring the art on a permanent basis or a semi-permanent
basis, we didn't want any donations, we didn't want to purchase it, we really were looking
for those loans and what is the other. Loans and leases. How that would affect your ability
to acquire pieces? Yeah, the terrible trade-off is the fact that
the purchase art doesn't cost anything to get and it doesn't cost anything to maintain.
we just don't we just don't maintain it when I say nothing I mean just a very
small amount on the other hand a very active bringing in new art keeping it
for two or three four years and cycling the back out is where all the staff
time is spent and so one of the terrible trade-offs is if we cut back
staff time. We impact the ability to bring in new art and so that was we tried
to strike a balance here you know in terms of just just the numbers. If you
have say 25 pieces of londard and if they cycle every four years you know
where you can do the math.
That's how many new pieces we have to bring in.
New contracts, visits to artists to convince them
to loan us their art, and so on.
It's just a lot of work, not just for staff,
but for the committee members themselves.
So anyway, that's the dilemma we face.
Is that we're kind of filling up these spaces
and then would not, those pieces would be there
in perpetuity essentially, the foreseeable future.
You know, I share the same uncomfortability
with Councilman Orr.
I, first of all, we don't have a theme.
We're not trying to, we happen to be collecting
California art because it's close by
and we happen to collect mostly abstract because
it's where the non-controversial art is and by the time you go through our
criteria you window down the the types of art that you can that you can collect.
It has to be safe, it has to be secure, it has to be all these things so we can't
go out and be and if we wanted to we couldn't go out and be theme-oriented. Now
I also am uneasy about the collection of things that don't change.
That's not my preferred way to be.
I don't think we're there.
And I think that the committee and the council has to keep a sharp eye
to make sure we're just not, you know, a museum.
and there's some tricks we could pull and that is move things around. I mean
some distance for example we've got the gardens that are coming on there could be
creative spaces we identified some of them where we could move things and you
can get a sort of newness that way but at the end of the day if you have too
too many things in your garage, they just become things.
And so the beauty of owning is the fact
you can elect to dispose.
In fact, we are discussing right now a piece that's
up near the back right outside.
It's the measure of a man.
And we think it's kind of run its course.
and we've never disposed of anything and now we're coming to you rips with how
do you do that do you get it do you have a raffle you find an engineering school
because it is a micrometer so anyway we're dealing with that but but agree we
We don't want to be a graveyard for art.
Thank you very much.
I guess.
So, Darlene, do you have a question?
I don't have a question.
So I just, Rich, I just want to thank you for clarifying,
because I know this program was originally
intended to be kind of a loan program.
Of course, that's what we could afford.
But second of all, that idea of changing exhibits.
And I know we all have our favorites
that we're really happy to have permanently that are there.
You know, the entrance pieces of the community center,
the frog or the various things that the community came forward
said we want to keep that.
So let me ask on that point of.
Thank you very much.
You know, art collectors also, as you said, loan, purchase, sell art. So does this policy
provide us with the ability to do that? Yes. To sell, to sell art, also to dispose of it?
Well, if they own something, they can sell it. Yeah. Yeah. And on that point, when we
accept a gift, which tends to be how we acquire it, we make very clear to the get-tore that
Is it your intention that this be here forever?
And if it is, we won't accept it.
Great, great. So that's one of the conditions to having the flexibility
of say we wanted to, you know,
shift the collection or whatever. We have that option.
To the extent there might be some feelings hurt among the local community,
we will write letters, we will
we're just not going to take action without a context.
So I know that the bear was on loan, so now if people miss the bear, they can go to Lafayette and see the bear.
We've gotten two reactions. Thank goodness it's gone.
Where is it?
And where did the bear go?
Maybe the Cal football team's fortunes will be better with the bear and Lafayette.
The Cal people have been very quiet.
We never heard any, thank you for having the bear or the Samford people saying now that it's gone, thank you for that.
Both sides have been quiet.
Well that's good and again it's really wonderful to see, particularly the children being exposed to the art in the plaza and around the city.
So it's just great.
So okay well if there are any other comments we'll bring it back any other public comments we'll
Close the public comment bring it just bring it back to council for discussion
Okay
Also
second paragraph, they say in that report what they specifically plan to do in
calendar year 2018 that they would return one piece of loan to our to acquire
three new pieces loaned are formalized the paperwork on the donation of two
pieces and etc there so the I guess my point would be is that's what the city
manager would be limited to okay if they wanted to do anything more than that that
would have to come to the council so so you would see this every year that's the
idea okay and but as I think you folks know the way it is now almost
everything comes to you and it becomes this pretty large bureaucratic process that Sheena
here ends up having to manage and it ended up I think when she was hired it was almost
to the point where it was it just wasn't being managed at all. So you know again you folks
can not want to do it, but I certainly don't know what city manager would be running around out of control.
Okay. Well, thank you. So it sounds like you've gotten feedback from the council enough direction to be able to come back.
Great. Well, again, Rich, Susan, Casey, too. Thank you. Thank you very much for your leadership on this committee.
You've helped create an asset that our community just really enjoys.
So thank you.
Thank you very much, and thank you to staff.
Thanks to our park and rec staff who just do such a great job of managing this.
And thank you for sticking around until 10 o'clock.
Yeah, I know, sorry.
Thank you.
Good, take care.
Thank you.
Okay, I3, and Stuart is still here, so thank you for sticking around too.
So our next item, I3, is the proposed agreement with the Arenda Union School District for the scheduling and maintenance of the sports field at the five district schools.
So here we are the night before school starts, right?
Everybody's coming back tomorrow, so this is Stuart's last free and easy night.
Knowing him though, he's been working all summer to get those facilities in good shape, so thank you very much.
And I'd like to turn back to staff for the report.
Stewart is definitely making the most of his last evening here.
But as you alluded to, Adam Mayer, Director of Facilities and Maintenance,
Stewart House of the School District is here to provide any feedback.
If there are any questions, we brought this item to you earlier this year.
we requested authorization to enter into discussions with the district to talk about this topic,
which was approached months earlier when the district approached us to explore the possibility
of the city maintaining and scheduling the six athletic fields at the five union district
schools.
In recent years, the fields haven't been maintained at a level that the district
or the users prefer due to a staff reduction there at the district, and both the city
City and the district have an interest in providing an improved resource, an improved
recreational resource for both the district students and the community.
And as such we developed a draft agreement in which we would, which would work much like
the existing agreement with the Wagner gym where we would, the schools would have use
of those facilities during the school day and the city would have the ability to
use those during non-school hours, after school, weekend, summers, and to use them or to rent
them.
Incidentally, the three main uses of the schools we're very – of the school field fields
we're very familiar with already, the Rinda Baseball Association, Lomond Soccer Club,
and I think the third biggest user would be our own department, our Parks and Rec
programs.
So, the agreement was discussed at a school board meeting at their regular meeting
meeting this month which occurred last week.
We're going to be meeting with the district again later this week to discuss some questions that their board members brought up.
We'll do the same with any points that you have.
We're looking again not for an approval.
We're looking to get some feedback and any questions you may have.
We'll discuss some other items that have arisen.
A few things that have come up would be, and we talked to Stuart about this before we move forward,
would be a full assessment of the irrigation system that's currently in place.
The city attorney made some good points about really making sure we clarify the areas of
responsibilities in each field and that we make those specific.
We need to amend and approve our landscape contractor, MCE's contract.
So a few things to do still before we come back and ask you for a recommendation to
authorize the city manager to enter into this agreement.
So,
you know, when you have a copy of the draft agreement,
we, if there's any specific questions,
I kind of just briefly outlined it,
but we do think it's something that, again,
would provide improvement to,
I think we would have the ability
to improve these resources.
Again, the biggest user of these resources
of course is going to be the students.
But we would have the ability to continue to use them for our community in a variety of methods.
We would hope that we'd see an increase in the use, but we'll have to wait and see how capacity.
So there's no question that there's some unknown factors in this, but
we're looking at it still as a mutually beneficial arrangement.
So I'd be happy to answer some questions.
Sheena's here to answer questions and of course Stuart is as well.
Okay, great, Todd and Stuart, thank you again for sticking through a long meeting to be here with us tonight.
So first of all, are there any questions of staff?
Okay, let me just turn to the public comment, see if there's any public comment on this item.
Okay, if not, we will, you're part of the presentation, so we don't have a public comment.
So yes, Stuart, it would be great if you would like to come up and
And just provide some perspective in terms of the district.
Well, first and foremost, I would like to thank very much the collaborative spirit that we've had
working together with your city manager, Steve Solomon and Todd Trimble.
It's been amazing that the meetings we held with the superintendent and
myself trying to hash out some of these fine points of how we do this.
In a general statement, you know, we have the same user groups and we have a lot of sports enthusiasts among our parents and kids and our fields over the years have been deteriorating.
And some large measure is because we have one gardener to take care of all of the schools that got like 20 acres of land.
And, you know, sometimes he's had extended absences for reasons of vacations and all of that taking together how overwhelming it is for him, even though he does a good job, little by little they've been degenerating.
We put in a new field at Glorietta, the lower field,
and we saw it stressing out this summer, much to my fear,
because we put a lot of money into trying to resurrect that field,
and I was greatly afraid it was going to go like the rest of them.
So, we think this collaboration with the city where the city assumes responsibility will not only allow all of our fields to eventually come back to a state which can be enjoyed by all the rendens and their children, but in our school children as well.
But we also think that it will afford us an opportunity to have our gardener pay attention
to the grounds around the school and improve their general appearance so that what I call curb appeal
will be able to do some real planting around the schools and kind of make them a little more presentable.
We sometimes have overgrowth of weeds and the poor plants.
We do have their suffering, so little hedge clipping could work.
So in general, I think this collaboration in future would do a lot for the whole city,
for our sports users, for the school district, for the kids, for parents who are soccer moms.
I love that phrase.
So it's something I think it would be a great step forward for all of us.
Well Stuart, thank you so much for working with our city staff, you and the superintendent.
We really appreciate your leadership and willingness to sit down with the city and say,
how can we create a win-win arrangement for the whole community?
Like the Wagner Ranch Gym, it's a great model of shared space, shared facility that's worked out really beautifully.
can I say an additional word I'd really like to come in the city for a lot of
things that we're doing in collaboration lately Larry's staff at
Public Works in their project at the Wagner Ranch to deal with that that
erosion under the road police chief Nagel was at our assembly of all of the
staff for the events of schools on Monday and and gave us a training on active
shooters. We just had a number of wonderful collaborations with the city in
the last year or so, particularly since Steve has gotten on board. So I think
that's it's been a real blessing for for the school district. Our new
superintendent is also proactive in reaching out to the city and that's been
a real benefit to everybody and we're looking we're hoping that the city will
also support us in the effort for our bond measure that's coming up in
November.
Thank you. Is there any other public comment? If not we will close
public comment and return back to the council for you is this the final report
for us to adopt or is this just the preliminary and I know that the school
district the school board has a subcommittee that's doing a little bit
more work on this so I assume a final agreement will come back to us so let's
is there any further feedback from just like to just express my thanks to
the school district working so well with the city on this project and it really is wonderful
for everybody we've heard so much about the shortage of the field space and I'm very confident
that this plan will create more interest in using the school district's fields in order
to provide the needed generation of funds to bring these up to a better level for everyone
and so the gardener at the schools can.
If I can add one other comment.
The fact that the city will then be
able to rotate fields
and, you know, be able to control over all the fields
and remember that gives us a chance for all of the fields
to get some of the more red.
Good point.
Yeah, I just want to thank all of you. You've done a really, really excellent job and Amy used
the phrase that I kept thinking as I was going over all this, this is really a win-win for
the community. So I look forward to it. My days of standing on all of the fields and
are ended with kids are over, but I have to admit that it's a very, very important part
of our community, and I just want to commend all of you for putting this together. I'm
very supportive of it moving forward.
I support it. I mean, I think that my time here in working with Parks and Rec, and particularly
when we were going through the numbers at Wilder, learned that sports fields in this community
are like lanes on a freeway. You just can't build enough of them to fill up. So the
the more that we can do to make them more useful.
Thank you to Steve and Todd for digging into this and
our partners with the school district for figuring out, it's fantastic.
I think it's great, and I would completely concur.
I think that also the strength of this agreement is that not only will it provide it,
but we'll be able to put the resources into those fields to maintain them the way they should be.
It provides a financial model that is, I think will be a sustainable model in terms of
The fees that will cover the cost of maintenance will increase the cost of maintenance and it will really enable the school district to focus its resources on the instructional programs that are so
important to the district and I think that that is a great win.
And it is a challenge with the school district,
with these buildings and facilities
that are as old as they are.
They have a lifespan,
and it's probably one of the biggest challenges
for school districts where you wanna focus
on the operational, the instructional resources,
and yet the physical plant continues
to build the ravages of time.
So it's really, I think this is a great model
for us to be doing and working together.
And we have been so fortunate to have the agreement with the school district for the Wagner Ranch gym.
It really was a wonderful thing having that land,
having the school district open to developing that gym on that site.
And so thank you, so thank you very much.
So it sounds like you've got enthusiastic support for this and really look forward to working with the school district.
And I really also want to thank our city manager and the superintendent that really have set
the tone in terms of collaboration and Todd and Stewart get to take the agreements and
put them together and really from a practical standpoint know what works.
And I think the comment that Stewart that you made about being able to schedule both
the use and the maintenance of the field is a real advantage to hear.
So thank you all.
So good.
So that'll come back to both boards, council and the board in the near future so we can implement it.
Terrific.
Okay, great.
Thank you very much.
And have a good first day of school.
So kids are all just as excited as you are, right?
Okay, our next item is council member reports.
Are there any council member reports?
All right, then we will turn to our city manager's report.
Well, Larry's come up.
I have one thing other than what he's going to mention,
and that's that we are the council.
I can't remember which meeting now,
but at the last meeting when you talked about the private streets,
it was a motion made for us to return
so that you could give direction about the policy.
And we're going to try to do that either on September 4, but I don't know if we'll make
that because it's literally two weeks away and whatever we write we want to have distributed.
But anyway, it would be on the first meeting in October if it misses that because I think
Councilmember Miller is not going to be here on the 17th and it's conceivable that
but the mayor might not be here.
So we're gonna try to have a light meeting on the 17th.
Mr. Thiggs.
Good evening, everyone.
So real quick, I wanted to provide an update
to the council regarding the vegetation management
along the minor road corridor.
There was some handouts included in your packet tonight.
I'm not gonna go through line by line,
but in general I wanted to say it was a very successful project.
It was a good partnership between the City of Arundah and PG&E specifically
with quite a bit of assistance with the Muraga-Arundah Fire District.
I think given the amount of tree trimming and removal along this border,
which was about 86 trees being trimmed,
24 being removed. Some relatively small removals but you can see in one of these pictures one
tree which was already dead was a quite a large oak tree. We received actually very little negative
feedback on the project which was good I think.
There was a lot of benefit of us coming to the
Council introducing the idea, having another item
about the closure of the road, and then utilizing
social media and our own weekly newsletter
to get the word out.
And then it being before school started,
I think it was very helpful.
So I think the closure between nine to five
and the work was actually completed
within four days as opposed to the five.
So I think it was very successful
And I think we received good feedback that I think generally which my initial thought was that there would be some potential negative feedback about the amount of vegetation management being done would cause concerns.
But I think most folks in the community understood the importance of the trimming back and the requirements relative to the electrical distribution line.
So those are kind of key things.
And I think we learned a lot of good steps in that process
that we want to utilize in the next PG&E project
that they're going to be trimming, which I
wanted to inform the council about.
This is probably going to be kind of different visibility
on the next few pages.
We're made aware that the PG&E transmission line,
vegetation management group is now approaching us. It's separate than the
minor road but they do work together. There are the high voltage transmission
lines that go through downtown over Arenda Way and there's an aerial map which
has some yellow dots on it. One through six are six Sycamore trees, all mature
trees that are either fully underneath the transmission lines or partially based
on the latest revised requirement for vertical clearance between vegetation
and the transmission lines it's 25 feet. That would severely cut the tops off
of all these trees. So PG&E is proposing that the trees be fully
removed, otherwise the trees after their cut would either probably die or look very interesting.
The seventh yellow dot on that map is actually trimming around the actual tower. There's
a pine and a oak tree. So those will not be removed, but there's quite a bit of vegetation
at the base. You'll probably see the tower a little bit more because it's sort of covered
up probably the first eight to nine feet from the bottom given how much vegetation is there.
Number seven is actually on private property, but one through six are within the public
right away. Those are probably trees that were planted as part of the street skateboard
work that was done. Staff is right now, and there's specific pictures of the
sycamore trees.
Given the regulation and the easements that PG&E has over these
trees and their requirements, I think our best approach is to try to work
with PG&E and mitigate for the loss of the trees. Our hope is to get some
and contribution to potentially replanting smaller trees
that don't grow within that 25 foot clearance zone.
It might be relatively good timing
given we have our streetscape project
gonna be looking at this entire quarter on
and those trees are removed.
We can look at how those are replanted
or maybe even relocated a bit to avoid the power lines.
But that is something that I believe is going to be difficult.
There's quite a bit of shade provided by these trees,
and there is an aesthetic look that will be impacted.
Our intention is to provide public notification,
either through the same approach as we did with Minor Road.
It's obviously not going to have a traffic impact,
but generally speaking, PG&E is looking to remove these trees
trees in the next two to four months is their time frame.
They are open to having some discussion of how those trees are mitigated for, but that
is what our staff approach is, and I'm working with the planning director as well in regards
with the streetscape plan, so it's kind of a report on the vegetation management
that's going on in Arundah, and I don't know if you had any questions, I'm more
than happy to answer them.
Great. Thank you. Thank you, Larry. Are there any questions for staff?
I have one.
Yeah, Darlene?
Larry, I assume that the removal is all on PG&E, right? They're happy to pay for the removal.
Correct.
Okay. Terrific. Is there any public comment on this item?
Okay. Well, this is actually information, but is there any, so just, I guess this is really information at this point, just for us,
in terms of this is what's happening, as you indicated, that the laws around the clearances are.
Given that we don't have much of an audience tonight, I would imagine, I mean, we understand the high visibility nature of these trees.
And we expect feedback, but we want to let the council know our approach is to work with PG and mitigate the costs.
given that even if they trimmed it less,
they would constantly be trimming these trees to meet.
Obviously PG&E has been heightened more on their clearance,
and so I don't think we should be in the position to fight their clearance requirements.
I think we can work with them.
So, yeah, and these are obviously safety considerations
and important ones.
So I guess as you're suggesting, what you'd be doing is working with them to try to find some kind of alternative replacement tree that was, for example, similar that was done in the triangle.
The tree that was, again, above, underneath those high voltage transmission powers, that was replaced by the newer trees that will have a life size that will be much smaller than the Sycamore.
Yeah, and I think the probably the initial approach from staff perspective is to try to get a monetary mitigation
Because we don't know we don't want to plan something that we're going to be working on a streetscape plan anyway
So that is kind of our initial
Okay, great. Well again, we appreciate PG knee working with the city of Arundah and and also with the Maraga Rinda fire district on the minor road
project, so not only does it provide clearance for the wires, but also for the emergency vehicles that need to travel that important corridor.
So thank you very much.
And I noticed that we got an email or two from residents who appreciated the signage and the detour and how well it worked.
So it was nice to receive that compliment from community members that were traveling different ways.
So thank you very much for managing that.
Okay.
Great.
Well, if there are any other items, okay.
Then are there any matters initiated?
Okay.
If not then our council member is adjourned to our next regular city council meeting, which will be on Tuesday on September 4th.
That's right after Labor Day, so we'll be back at it.
So thank you very much.
Thank you very much.