Okay.

Here in Alameda, when the balcony's ready, we're all ready.

All right.

Um, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City of Alameda's City Council meeting for Tuesday, January 6th.

We've got to learn to say a new year, 2026.

Um, I would like to call this meeting to order, and we are going to start with um a roll call.

Um, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Uh Council Members Bowler.

Here.

Here, prior.

Here.

Here.

Uh, hopefully, Council Member Jones won't be here shortly.

Okay, great.

Um, so first up is the consent calendar.

These are routine items.

Actually, singular item that is routine, will be approved by one motion unless removed by a council member.

Madam Clerk, could you introduce that consent calendar item?

Yes, this is designating negotiators for the um labor item that we're going to go into closed session about.

So it's just designating the motion.

Thank you.

Um, do I have a motion and a second to approve consent calendar for the closed session?

It's been moved by Councilmember Bowler, second by Vice Mayor Prior.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That passes unanimously.

And we are about to oh no, we are about to take public comment on closed session items only.

Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment?

We do not.

Then we'll close public comment on closed session items and item.

Thank you.

All right, so um, I see we have all the relevant staff in the room.

So come on back, those who are involved in item four A, and to members of the public, we will be back before you at seven o'clock this same evening.

Thank you.

Okay, everyone, let's go.

Okay.

That comes over the room.

Hi everybody, we are just about to start on time.

I am really excited.

The council is just starting the new year off right.

I mean, we always did, but okay.

I look to the balcony.

Is anyone in the balcony?

There they are, two times.

I was worried for a minute, guys.

Um, all right.

Well, as we say, um, if the balcony is ready, we're all ready because they broadcast this.

Um, so welcome everyone to the city council meeting for the city of Alameda.

Tonight is Tuesday, January 6, 2026, and the council has returned from closed session, right on time.

Um, and I um would like to ask um, yes, ask the city clerk to please um uh report out any items that were uh any votes that were taken in closed session.

Great.

So um the item discussed was conference of label labor negotiators and uh staff provided information and council provided direction by five eyes.

Thank you, madam clerk, and with that I will adjourn the special closed session meeting, and I would like to um call to order the special successor agency to the community improvement commission meeting.

That is what used to be called the redevelopment agency, and there's a little bit of funds and property still there.

We will start with the um pledge of allegiance, and I would like to ask Councilman member Greg Bowler to please lead us in the pledge.

Join me in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to 300, which is a little bit of a C and Justice.

Thank you, Councilmember Bowler.

And um next we go to roll call, madam clerk.

Will you please call the roll?

Council members bowler.

Jensen.

Prior here, Mayor Ezy Ashka.

Here, five present.

Thank you.

And again, um this is the um the special uh successor agency meeting, and so we have um a consent calendar.

And um there um madam clerk.

When do we do close?

I mean, when do we do public comment on the yeah?

You can do it now.

There's none.

I can tell you there's none, so that's perfect.

It's called Lucy Goosey, but no, that's okay.

Okay, so there's no public comment, so we will just move on to the consent calendar.

These are routine items again, just on the successor agency meeting.

Um approved by one motion.

Let's remove by commissioners.

We're sitting as commissioners at this moment.

Madam Clerk, could you tell us what those items are?

This is the minutes and the um annual um uh uh annually the finance department brings the recognized obligation payment schedule called the ROPs to the commission for approval.

Thank you.

So do I have first of all any questions or comments from the council seeing hearing none?

Do I have a motion a second to approve the consent calendar for the successor agency?

I'd like to make a comment.

Council member days, I go for it.

I just uh want to uh thank city staff.

Um I had uh asked a question about the ROPs, particularly as it relates to um uh one of the um housing complexes, um, because apparently um the funds is a source of subsidy um for one of them, and it's gonna end in uh January of 2027.

But um but perhaps uh our assistant city manager can explain that even though that the this source of funding is gonna end in uh for that um uh affordable housing complex in the 2027.

There's still plans for Assistant City Manager Amy Wilkes.

Maybe we call on you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yes, as Councilmember Daysog indicated, so the ROPS um provides operating subsidy uh annually for independence plaza, which is affordable housing for seniors.

Um, and they have been they have known this was the expiration date for quite a while.

They've been planning for it, and so um uh I worked with them and we brought to council, what did I say?

Was October 2024?

Um, council approved um a public housing agreement with the housing authority, they were able to use that to apply for some HUD funding that is ongoing, and and they they did a what's called Faircloth Faircloth to Rad, and so that now will provide um the operating subsidy to replace what they know they're losing with the ROPs.

So they will continue.

Um the Housing Authority did a great job, and they will continue unimpeded with funding for their residents.

Great.

Well, thank you.

I just want to thank uh assistant city manager and city manager um for uh responding to the question.

Appreciate it.

That would be interim city manager, sir.

But yeah, thank you both, and thank you for that great information.

Um assistant city manager Woldridge.

We want to make the motion to approve the consent calendar, Councilmember Desog.

So move.

And who's seconding?

Seconded by Councilmember Pryor.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously.

So then we adjourn the special successor agency to the community improvement commission meeting, and I will call to order the regular city council meeting.

Roll call, madam clerk.

Well, has been noted by present.

Thank you.

Are there any agenda changes?

There are none.

Right.

Well, um there is a proclamation today.

Um it is a proclamation declaring January 19, 19, um, 192026 as Martin Luther King Junior Day.

And it is my pleasure to read the proclamation.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January to commemorate Dr.

King's January 15th birthday and his legacy of commitment to equality, justice, and nonviolent resistance.

Born January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

became a leading figure in the civil rights movement, championing desegregation, voting rights, and racial equality.

On August 28, 1963, Dr.

King delivered the iconic I Have a Dream speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom before a crowd of approximately 250,000 people.

Memorable passages from that speech include I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by who knows that in the audience, by the content of their character.

On December 10, 1964, in Oslo, Norway, Dr.

King accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient of that award.

Tragically, Dr.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to prepare for a march on behalf of Memphis's striking sanitation workers.

On July 11, 1977, President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded Dr.

King the presidential medal of freedom.

In 1981, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill making California one of the first states to establish Martin Luther King Junior Day as a state holiday.

Federal recognition followed in 1986, and in the year 2000, the holiday was officially observed in all 50 states to honor Dr.

King's vision and highlight the ongoing commitment needed to achieve his dream.

And on June 24, 2014, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Martin Luther King Jr.

and his wife Coretta Scott King were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the U.S.

Congress in recognition of their contributions to the nation on behalf of the civil rights movement.

In a speech he delivered in 1957, Dr.

King said, life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?

To answer that question and honor Dr.

King's global commitment to building a beloved community where injustice ends, violence is replaced by compassion, and love prevails.

Martin Luther King Junior Day is now observed with a day of service.

This Monday, January 19, Americans across the nation will volunteer at day of service events.

Of course, volunteer efforts don't need to be confined just to this holiday.

For as Dr.

King famously stated, the time is always right to do what is right.

Now, therefore, I, Marilyn Esse Ashcraft, Mayor of the City of Alameda, hereby proclaim January 19, 2026, Martin Luther King Junior Day in the City of Alameda and encourage all Alamedans to honor this day through acts of service, community building, and volunteerism, including the East Bay Regional Park District's volunteer projects at several Martin Luther King Jr.

shoreline locations in Oakland.

You can visit EBRPD.samaritan.com for more information and to register.

You can also just show up, I understand.

And you can learn more about Dr.

King's life and legacy from books at the main library's display celebrating Martin Luther King Junior Day.

Thank you, everyone.

Yes, of course, Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you.

Thank you for the proclamation.

I appreciate very much that we, this city and our country celebrates the legacy of Dr.

King.

And also thank you, Madame Mayor, for pointing out that anyone who wants to volunteer on Monday can do their volunteer work at East Bay Regional Parks.

Well, I appreciate the what we've done and what the country has done for Dr.

King.

I am also disappointed because you can go to our East Bay Regional Parks and volunteer, but what you can no longer do is go to a National Park Service Park and receive free entry, as you could until just recently, until the administration and the National Park Service eliminated free admission on Martin Luther King Jr.

Day.

And as NAACP president and CEO Derek Johnson recently stated, removing MLK Day and Juneteenth from the National Parks Calendar is more than petty politics.

It's an attack on the truth of this nation's history.

It's an attempt to erase the legacy of Dr.

King to minimize the story of emancipation and sideline the communities that have fought for generations to make America live up to his promise, as we just heard in the proclamation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And now we move on to oral communications, non-agenda items.

But before we take speakers, I want to just read the ground rules that I like to read before we get started on the meeting.

So it's great to see you all here tonight.

We are gathered for a business meeting.

The City Council is here to do the people's business, and it's lovely to see you, the people in the audience, and we know that there are people watching and listening as well.

But this is a business meeting.

It is not theater, it is not a sporting event, and therefore we do not applaud, we do not boo, cheer, jeer, hiss, wave, do the wave.

We don't do that.

We just do what you're doing.

We sit and respectfully listen to everyone when it's our turn to speak, and I hope some of you will speak.

We get up, we approach the microphone, make it your own.

I always say it moves to different um heights, and we speak until the timer goes off or before, and then we sit down.

And I remind people about this for a number of reasons.

One of them is that public speaking can be one of the most stressful things that people do.

A couple of us up here are lawyers.

We're used to being uh in public, arguing cases.

We're used to some contention, but not everybody is, nor should they need to be.

And so we want to make this as comfortable and welcoming a space as possible, because we want people to feel free to speak, and also because we're setting an example right here tonight.

We have children in the audience, which delights me to know in to see.

Hi, little people.

Um, and this is, you know, we are doing so much of what the council does, we're doing business now, but also into the future, planning our city's future, doing things that protect our community for them, for the next generation.

And I know some of them are listening at home.

It always pains me when people tell me, oh, when I hear that a particular speaker is about to speak, I mute the uh sound so my children don't hear anything bad.

We don't, you know, we try to avoid that sort of thing.

Anyway, let's make this a safe place to to speak, to listen, to be listened to.

If you have a sign, it's fine to hold them.

Those are your First Amendment rights, too.

I just ask that you don't hold signs that block people's view behind you.

Just up to your chin, is great unless you're in the very back row.

So with that, let's have a city council meeting and observe the first amendment.

So these are oral communications for items that are not on the agenda.

Speakers may address the council.

Um, for um, we allot 15 minutes now, and uh remaining speakers will have another uh opportunity to comment at the end of the regular agenda.

So, madam clerk.

Do we have um public speakers under item four?

We do.

Um we have six, so they'll get two minutes each, and we'll be right within the 15 minutes.

Uh the first up is Brian Kennedy, then Jackie Zipkin, then Rayla Graeber.

Great.

So, you heard your name, you know what order you're in.

We look forward to hearing from you.

All right.

Good evening.

Now, Brian Kennedy.

Um, this is a follow-up on a request that was done earlier to take down the anti-ICE garbage on Alameda's city website.

Um it's a horrible thing, it needs to come down.

Let's review briefly what out ice does.

ICE is the number one agency that combats the cartels child sex trafficking, they fight against that under Biden Harris, 300,000 plus little kids with child sex trafficked.

ICE so far has rescued 62,000 of them.

Why would we hinder that?

Uh Michelle, I'm told you were once a teacher, I would imagine you have a soft spot in your heart for kids.

That should be a good thing, I would think.

Isn't that a wonderful thing?

Let's back ice up on that.

Number two, the fentanyl, again, under the miserable Biden Harris administration.

200,000 people at least a year were killed.

ICE has cut that back.

That's another heroic thing.

Number three, you know what one of ICE's uh Greg State of Goals is?

Greg, no more angel families.

And we know what angel families are.

American families whose loved ones were killed by illegal aliens in sanctuary cities.

Madam Clerk, can you bring up the uh graphic, please?

This is Lake and Riley.

We all know what happened to her.

Little girl killed by an illegal alien who was released by two, two different sanctuary cities.

He attacked her, he tried to rape her, she fought for her life for 20 minutes.

He she fought them off, but he killed her.

ICE has dedicated themselves to round up a thousand criminal illegal aliens in honor of Lake and Riley.

They call it Operation Angel, in honor of angel families.

Is that not noble?

Is that not a noble good thing to side with Americans and angel families?

Why would Alamita make that tougher?

So you're gonna side with angel families.

Would you side with her mother who's sobbing every night over the loss of her of her daughter courtesy of people like Marilyn?

Why don't we side with ice?

Let's take that garbage off our website, side with America, side with angel families.

Next speaker, Jackie Zipkin, then Rayla Graeber, then Steve Bondy.

Welcome, Speaker Zipkin.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the city council.

My name is Jackie Zipkin, and I live on Bay Farm on Limerick Lane, very close to Tillman Park.

I'm here to speak in support of a request made by my mayor, my neighbor, Matt Riley Mahaney, at your December 16th meeting to improve the access and safety of the Kaufman Parkway adjacent to Tillman Park.

Tillman Park's a wonderful community asset.

It's widely used, and there's not a sunny weekend where there's not a birthday party or other celebration in the park.

Just last year, the seat the city completely remodeled the playground, making the park even more inviting for young kids.

However, the park does not have a parking lot.

So users of the park park in the neighborhood along Kaufman Parkway and neighboring streets like mine.

Parking spaces are generally available.

The problem comes when families leave their cars and try to cross the street.

Despite the fact that there are curb cutouts indicating an implied crossing, there are no pedestrian crossing markers, and young children are forced to scurry across the street while their parents desperately try to make eye contact with distracted drivers.

Within the park, there's also a gate to Bay Farm School, and families are encouraged to use that gate rather than increasing traffic in front of the school.

And I'm terrified every day as I see kids walking to school across that street without a safe crossing.

As Mr.

Mahaney noted, there were two accidents in the past six months where cars flipped over right in this spot.

And the fact that there were no pedestrians at crossing at the time is a fortunate coincidence and one that the city cannot afford to roll the dice on again.

Parks need safe crossings to truly benefit the community.

And the good news is that this marking can be folded into the current paving project phase 43 without additional significant cost that would come with mobilizing a separate crew.

So I urge the council to direct staff to look at this crossing and incorporate it into the project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Rayleigh Graber, then Steve Bondy, then Donna Marie Farrow.

Welcome, Speaker Graber.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Many Bay Farm residents or residents have been complaining to the city council about the impending removal of one lane from McCartney, plus other changes.

And there's been many reasons for the objections.

One has come from a civic engineer, another from a professor.

You've gotten a lot of professionals who and non-professionals who have spoken against it.

He does not think, based upon the information I gave him and sent to him that it's a very good idea.

He knows the area very well, to reduce it to one lane.

Additionally, apparently, public works use 15 years to accrue their accident report.

That is not the norm to go back 15 years to 2009 and come forward to 2024.

That is not the norm.

And it's what can be termed as possible cherry picking.

So I'm just putting out there.

Besides the project itself, the authorization for this project is very concerning.

All other streets in Alameda that have been altered significantly have been authorized and approved.

Excuse me, not authorized, but approved by the city council.

The McCartney Project, this has not been done.

The project never came before the council.

We've been asking for it to become before the council, or else give a reason why it has not.

No one's provided a reason or a code or law or whatever it is.

In the absence of that, you have to assume that public works took it upon themselves to do the to do the work.

Um, and we don't think that's in the best interest of the residents.

Thank you so much.

Your time is up.

Our next speaker.

Uh, Steve Bondi, then Dan Donna Marie Farrow, then William Morrison.

All right.

Welcome, Speaker Bondi.

Steve Bondi, I'm a resident uh.

And sir, be sure to use the microphone.

That way you'll get on the record.

Thank you.

My brother told me this at my son's last wedding that I didn't speak enough.

I told him to shut up, but he's a brother.

Um the proposed changes at McCarthy to create uh a larger uh bike a bike lane ignores some of the needs of the community out there.

And too often I felt that the needs of the community out in Bay Farm have been seen more as a tax revenue basis than really concerns of people that are trying to have a community.

Um the additional bike lane will not help any bikers.

We've we've witnessed that there are few bikers on those lanes.

Uh, but the reduction of the lanes for traffic will only create more traffic, more strife, and more danger.

It breaks up a community that is trying to thrive out there.

It's not on the main island, it is out in Bayform, but there's still members of this community.

And I hope that you will take consideration of some of the other people that have spoken, and not create more worries about traffic.

And I think sometimes things are left best untouched because they work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, uh Donna Marie Farrow, then William Morrison, and then Maria Piper.

Good evening.

Welcome.

Good to see you again.

Of course, we see an Italian Buenos Aires.

Because my family came from Italy from Apicella, a little village.

Many of the men from one to another came to a place called Bay Farm Island.

Bay Farm Island was actually incorporated October 2nd, 1854, before my NONU and the rest of those men from Apicella came and those from Portugal.

My DNA is in Bay Farm Island.

My grandfather died of a heart attack November of 1961, and he still had soil in his mouth.

The place, BFI, is my father called it, Carlo.

Means the world to me.

I have placed all my energy in that community and love it with all my heart.

And it breaks my heart to think that we might be changing and repaving and not talking to the community.

Finding out what Bay Farm Islanders want.

I had no idea that this was happening.

And I was very confused when I saw the streets.

What's happening?

I know they're supposed to be repaving.

So I'm asking, please.

We are your constituents.

We love Alameda.

We love Bay Farm Island.

Have you listened to us?

And you talk to us together, so we can figure out what is best for Bay Farm Island.

And on top of that, there's that development possibility.

And if that happens, you'll you'll need two lanes.

Two lanes this way and two lanes that way.

As we say in Italian, Cheviamo Presto.

I'll see you soon.

Grazie Tanti Bonacera.

Good night.

Thank you, our next speaker.

William Morrison and Maria Piper.

Welcome, Speaker Morrison.

Thank you very much for my two minutes of fame once again.

Meeting you once again.

It's very interesting to listen to the speakers that came before me because they are addressing issues that I know you know I've talked to in in the past, which is that things happen and the public does not seem to be able to get the opportunity to participate.

This is a business meeting.

It's really between you and staff.

We are spectators.

That's all that happens.

One quick thing I did want to say, and it's a little like an apology.

It's for my own negligence in the past.

I brought to you recently my concerns over the fact that various changes in the fernside area in Old Tilden Way are going to eliminate or make it very difficult to maintain railway access into the island.

You're getting rid of the last set of railroad tracks in that area.

Like I said before, there are two types of inventory control, just in time or just in case.

If you tear it up, it's gone.

Well, unfortunately, it's torn torn up.

So that's kind of gone.

My bad for not at least addressing this to you.

The only other thing I want to say is right now there are efforts, you know, directed towards greenways.

I think you would be very worthwhile if you would stop and look at your north-south greenway in the east end and move it from Versailles to Pearl Street.

I just want to leave that with you since I only have two minutes of fame.

There we are once again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Maria Piper.

Welcome, Speaker Piper.

Good evening, Mayor Ashcraft and members of the City Council.

My name is Maria Piper.

I'm a Bay Farm resident of 12 years, current president of the Bay Farm PTSA and a board member at Bike Walk Alameda.

Much of what I'm sharing tonight has already been conveyed to you in two letters, one signed by more than 50 members of the Bay Farm PTA Bay Farm community, and one signed by Bike Walk Alameda.

I will say that's the Bay Farm school community, not the community as a whole.

I am here speaking for myself.

For over a decade, City Council and staff have prioritized safety through complete streets policy vision zero and the active transportation plan.

These policies recognize that street design shapes behavior.

And the phase 43 paving plan is not an experimental design, it's the implementation of adopted policy that prioritizes safety over vehicle throughput.

McCartney Road has seen the most significant design changes and also the most pushback, particularly related to ferry congestion.

The fact that the street has remained unstriped for months due to weather primarily has made the pushback worse, and the confusion has led some to question the plan itself and to attempt to relitigate it mid-implementation, hoping to prolong unsafe uh conditions.

And this matters because the McCartney Road is not just a ferry route, it's crossed daily by students going to and from Lincoln and Bay Farm School and people going to work.

The previous design did not work.

It encouraged speeding, and when combined with long crossings across McCartney, limited visibility, it created hazardous conditions for users of all types, and it resulted in a traffic death in 200 2023.

I understand some neighbors' concerns about their ability to get in and out of their neighborhood during peak times, but the city has already made the value decision that safety comes first.

And with today's heavier taller vehicles, slowing traffic through design is how we prevent serious injuries and deaths.

The inconvenience of a few extra minutes a day is worth the adjustment if it keeps kids and families safe.

Specifically with the Ogamba McCartney intersection changes have been made, and those um changes have resulted in the uh complex intersection being maintained.

So we encourage city council to station a mortgage and crossing guard at Ogenbah McCartney.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

That was the last speaker.

Okay, well, thank you, everyone.

And um then um we will move on to the consent calendar.

Um so these are routine items that are approved by one motion, unless council members remove items for discussion.

Any item removed from the consent calendar will be heard after the regular agenda items, and council members may speak for up to three minutes on the um on the consent calendar.

So, first of all, are there any consent calendar items that council wishes to pull?

Um you don't have to just a question.

I just wanted to say thank you for two things.

Give me a give me a minute to just because you don't have to um pull an item to ask questions about it or to thank people.

So that goes to my next question.

Are there any things the council would like to ask questions about or comment on?

Like, like thank yous, Councilmember Desod, how about you?

Yes, yes.

Yes, two items, 5D and 5i.

Okay.

You want to be more specific about who you're thanking and why?

Oh, uh just uh thanking staff for responding to questions that I had asked for 5D that has to do.

Should I go ahead and say, for 5D that has to do with the RFP?

And so the staff had informed me who were the other um uh entities and what was their bid amounts, and uh they provided an explanation as to why the one that was chosen um was superior to the other.

So I appreciated that.

Um in terms of five I, um staff gave uh explanation as to where money would be drawn from uh to fund the South Shore um um activity, the um South Shore um uh sea level rise um uh planning uh activity.

So I just wanted to appre uh express my appreciation to staff for um for responding to the question describing where the money would come from.

I appreciate that.

And what was the first item you were referencing, Councilmember?

Um item 5D.

DSN Doc.

Yes, and so I'll just tag on to what Councilmember Desag said.

I do think it is a good practice in staff reports when there has been an RFP and when there has been um more than one applicant, hopefully, um, that we we um include that information um in the in the staff reports.

It doesn't take a lot of time and space, but it just furthers transparency.

So thank you for raising that.

Councilmember Days.

Anything further?

No, um, but if we vote no one's things, do we say it now?

Hey, give me a minute on that.

I want to see if anybody else has any questions or comments, Councilmember Broller.

Um actually, yes, on 5D as well.

Uh-huh.

Thank you.

Um I too reached out to staff.

I do I too thank staff for um especially since I was um sort of a last minute um request.

I had a couple of just quick follow up questions if it's possible on 5D if someone wants to.

Sure.

Come on up and introduce yourself.

Mr.

Billing to make sure that microphone's up where you need it to be so we can hear you.

Thank you.

And you question, council member bowler.

Oh, thank you.

So just to confirm, it it looks like the um, and this speaks to what council member Daysog was asking too.

It looks like this particular um vendor came in about the same within maybe $25,000 of two other, and there was only one outlier that was subscribed a lot less money, but it had some significant problems with that bid.

Is that all fair to say what I just correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Is there anything more that you'd like to add about that selection or uh the selective vendor uh provided a very comprehensive uh proposal?

They addressed all of the elements that we had requested.

Um several others were hit and miss on uh with the replies and whatnot.

Uh the the other vendors that were just a touch lower uh excluded some of the um uh their uh maintenance services at some of our other facilities, so had they included those they could have come up a little bit more.

Yeah, um it it seems to me that the the heart of this in terms of um its benefit is public safety at the heart of it and in making sure that our employees are safe.

And I wonder though, in this implementation, is there some discretion?

There's not a lot of information here as to like which doors and which facility.

Not that I we would expect that, but one could imagine that exterior doors, it's more important for safety reasons.

If the city wants to find some cost saving here along the way in implementation, do you have the discretion in the department to kind of look at that and think about that?

We take direction from council uh on all matters.

Um one of our directions in addition to security was to get away from turnkeys altogether so that we could eliminate those basically from our inventory.

Um so there are, we can look at just uh maybe um prioritizing perimeter doors if we want to do customs cost savings, but again, as we understood, we wanted to do security as well as getting rid of keys altogether.

And I don't know I can only speak for myself, but I I do feel that if there's a some discretion and if the priority is put on the public safety side of it as opposed to just the I mean, of course the technology would be wonderful to have every door have it.

But um given the expense is quite high here.

That would be we also weighed in addition to perimeter doors.

Then there's wing doors, there's internal doors, there's off there's doors to get into office spaces that are shared.

So there's a little bit more than just any office door or restroom door and whatnot.

So we we did weigh a lot of these things, but we also took weighed our mandate to to increase security, but also to get away from keys altogether.

Okay, thank you so much.

I'm just gonna add um a little to that that I do appreciate your um observations, Councilmember Bowler.

Um, as a member of the council who possibly spends the most time in City Hall, but not as much time as our staff who work there every day.

Um I will say there is keen interest and there's a reason for it in providing security to us in the offices.

So costs savings are always welcome, but um there is a cost to not being able to work in a safe environment, and I I do um appreciate and I hear from staff when I'm in city hall.

So all of those factors would go into the consideration of any ultimate decision, and as Mr.

Billington noted, if you know we want to cut costs, it'll come back to the council, but we'll we'll certainly want to hear from different perspectives.

Oh, I could just offer one comment.

It's more of in humor.

You know how um people tend to say they got this keys to City Hall and they've got those big keys.

I guess the future is gonna be I've got the key card to City Hall.

Thanks.

Well, I sometimes get asked about keys to the city, and I've still haven't located them, so I don't know.

Maybe it's the key card to the city in the future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Um council members, any any other uh comments or questions, Vice Mayor Point?

Um I think I've asked something similar before, and I think the answer was that it's fine that it's fine, but I live on shoreline, so I just didn't know for five eye if I needed to recuse myself or because it seems to cover the entire island, but it it's the specific with Shoreline Drive, so I uh that's a city attorney question.

I think I know the answer, but let's hear it from him.

Mr.

Shann.

Yeah, yes, uh, Madam Vice Mayor, because it is a road improvement project, the public generally exception applies, and you do not have to recuse.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

Then um, Madam Clerk, do we have speakers on the consent calendar?

We do not.

We'll close public comment on the consent calendar.

Any further comments, council?

Otherwise, I'm looking for a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.

I move that we approve the consent calendar.

It's been moved by Vice Mayor Pryor, seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

All those in favor, please signify by stating I.

Okay, I and then there's one no recorded from Councilmember Desog on item number.

Um 5 F and 5G, because in the past I did not support it, so just be consistent.

Okay, all right.

Well, they um that item passes unanimously with the two no's noted by councilmember Desak.

Okay, moving right along, we go to um our regular agenda items.

Oh, this is a nice one.

Madam Clerk.

Well, I mean, they're all nice.

What do I mean?

Um, Madam Clerk, would you introduce item seven A, please?

Yes, it's adoption of resolutions appointing Adrian Sancho as a member of the public art commission and Kevin Schools as a member of the mayor's economic development advisory panel.

Thank you.

And so um now I um I uh so yes, now um we have a resolution and we can do this we could do this by one vote to um approve these two appointments, and I think I told you a little bit about each one at the last meeting, and I think we'll hear from each of them.

So, first I need a motion and a second to um approve the appointment of Adrienne Sancho as a member of the public art commission and appointing Kevin Scholes as a member of the mayor's economic development advisory panel.

Okay, move by Councilmember Bowler, seconded by um Councilmember Daisock.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

And this is where come on up.

Do we have Mr.

Scholes?

Yes, I knew I saw you.

Come on up, both of you, because um this is where um I um I get to I we I I tell people I've got a pretty good track record of getting my appointments um approved, but that's because I have such great applicants to work with.

So now is the time for the city clerk to administer the oath of office.

And what I tell people when we're interviewing for boards and commissions is once you've raised your right hand and agreed to this oath, you are magically transformed from just a regular everyday citizen to a member, a voting member of this particular body, and we thank you for your service.

So madam clerk, take it away.

She speaks quickly, no?

Yeah, is that my goal?

Oh, it's not collector, sorry.

And I see from Base Resident Economic Development Department, Jackie Kelly Ia, who um interviewed with me for the public art commission opening and Ms.

Santa, Ms.

Santa, if we could start with you to tell us a little about yourself.

It's so nice to meet you in person as opposed to on a screen.

That's very great to meet you all in person.

Um thank you, Mayor Ashcraft and City Council, for appointing me to the public art commission.

I'm truly honored to have this opportunity as helping artists share their stories is something that brings me immense joy.

Through my own journey in the performing arts, be it music, um, dance or theater, I discovered my own identity and connected with diverse communities, gaining a deeper understanding of others' experiences.

In my role, I aim to champion projects that ignite conversations and foster connections across the island.

I'm excited to collaborate with local artists to ensure that Alameda's art not only reflects our city's rich history and our vibrant present, but also inspires us to envision our future.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you.

And this is your lovely family who joined you.

Hello, kiddos, and maybe spouse.

And thank you so much.

And I will just add, I think I said this earlier, but Miss Sancho is a UC Berkeley grad.

There's at least another one in the room, probably several.

She was in the Cal Marching Band, which I just think is so impressive.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

And Mr.

Scholes, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor, thank you for the nomination.

You know, Almanac in May will celebrate our 15th anniversary of being in a company and producing beer, and you know, our products can be found in every Safeway, Bevmo, Total Wine, Whole Foods throughout the state of California.

We're in Chase Center and Oracle Park and uh Dodger Stadium, um, you know, California Adventure, as you could find our beer as far as way as Japan.

Uh, but what we're most proud of is what we do here in the city of Alameda, and this month actually marks eight years that we've operated our business here in Alameda out of building 91 on the base, and you know what we're more proud of than anything we do, and we've won every prestigious beer medal uh that there is gold medals at World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival and half a dozen good food awards.

But if you show up to Almanac on a Saturday, it's not a typical craft beer crowd.

And what do I mean by that?

It's not all people that look and talk like I do as a craft beer nerd.

It really is a snapshot of the community, and it's it's young families, it's retired couples, it's uh member of the city staff, it is uh people coming from out of the area to visit.

I think Mayor mentioned uh last month we had over 400,000 visitors come to Building 91 in 2025.

And um Almanac becoming a community hub is at the forefront of what we do.

It guides us in making our decisions, is the most important part of our business candidly speaking.

So to have the privilege to serve on this board and help discuss the issues that are so important to businesses like Almanac around Alameda is a true honor.

So thank you again.

Look forward to working together.

And thank you for saying yes.

So I I am pleased to put together the mayor's economic development advisory panel, and we have representatives from different sectors, business sectors across the island.

And so Mr.

Scholes will be representing is the hospitality and food and beverage industry, and I just have to say, well, first of all, that sounds like a reason for a party, a 15th birthday party.

The fire chief was in the room.

I think he still isn't.

We can get that many candles on a big cake.

But it always makes me happy when I'm out at Allenby Point to go by Almanac and just see people out enjoying themselves.

And it's everything you just said with families with young children, dogs.

Did I mention dogs outside?

And just people having a good time.

I have friends who live through the tunnel who tell me, you know, we love to come over to Alameda because there's just such a great vibe at Almanac, and we love that.

So thank you for being such a strong contributing part of the community, but also hosting some pretty serious events.

The East Bay Economic Development Alliance had your Almanac hosted a Belgian delegation of Belgian both government and business representatives last year.

Was pretty impressive gathering, and it's just one of many out there.

So we're so glad you're here, and I look forward to more details about that birthday party.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, so then, and we do conduct serious business here too.

So we will move on to item 7B.

Madam Clerk, would you please introduce item 7B and then staff who are presenting on that?

Please come forward.

Recommendation to accept the final report on the road home, a five-year plan to prevent and respond to homelessness in Alameda.

Hello, hello.

All right, good evening.

Uh, Mayor Marilyn Ezyashcraft and members of City Council.

My name's Simone Falls.

I'm the manager of housing and human services division in the city manager's office.

In October 2021, the City Council adopted the Road Home Plan.

This plan is a five-year plan to prevent and respond to homelessness in Alameda.

The plan concluded in 2025, and so I'm here to give you a brief overview of what was accomplished over those years.

This program, this plan was developed originally by the community development department, and you will see through the process, the housing and human services division was born out of that process.

So before the strategic plan was developed, uh community development developed in needs assessment.

It included several stakeholders throughout the city of Alameda to inform the strategic plan that includes city departments as well as partners in the community and community members.

From this needs assessment, two critical points were identified.

The first point causes of housing instability and homelessness.

The second point, solutions.

From causes and causes of housing instability and homelessness, we see that there is a lack of affordable housing, high cost of living, discriminatory policies, and housing barriers for vulnerable populations.

Solutions that were identified include an increase in affordable housing, providing flexible financial resources, utilizing low barrier shelter, enhancing supportive services, expanding data collection to make informed decisions, ensuring sustainable funding, and improving coordination and collaboration.

So there are five points that came out of the road home plan.

This point provided a comprehensive comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of homelessness and help individuals and families avoid becoming homeless for the first time.

The second point, reducing chronic homelessness.

This point aim to provide long-term stable housing solutions and supportive services to help those experiencing chronic homelessness, break that cycle and maintain their permanent housing.

The third point, shortening time spent homeless.

This point focused on lowering providing low barrier housing, providing shelter and services.

The planned focus on quickly housing individuals and families, shortening their time being homeless.

The fourth point, addressing disparities for individuals experiencing homelessness.

This point address underlying barriers such as affordability, discrimination, and access to services utilizing countywide equity-centered efforts.

And the fifth point, decreasing returns to homelessness.

This point focused on eliminating recidivism and ensuring people have the services and support needed to maintain their housing.

So there are three goals that came out of the strategic plan.

I'll go over those three goals and briefly over a few of the results of those goals.

The first goal is to secure a housing future for all Alamedans.

Originally, the first step was Alameda adopted the Alameda General Plan in 2040, and the 2023 to 2031 housing element was adopted, developed and adopted as well.

Since 2021, we've built 82 home ownership and 182 rental units for the low and moderate income population.

And from efforts completed throughout the past five years, we expect to provide an additional 816 plus units before 2030.

Goal two, increase access to homeless emergency response services.

The city has opened four shelter programs that includes Dignity Village, emergency supportive housing, our day center program, and a one part-time seasonal winter shelter in partnership with Christ Episcopal Church.

Combined by the end of 2026, we will have 140 shelter beds directly funded and provided by the City of Alameda.

We've also initiated an outreach services and transition outreach and case management team.

We call them the engagement team.

So it's not only for homeless services, it's also provide support to house individuals to prevent homelessness.

We provide showers and hygiene three times a week through mobile showers and also with our partnership with the church.

When the new day centers develop later this year, we expect to have, we will have seven days showers and hygiene services, including laundry, seven days a week.

Goal three is to mobilize citywide response to homelessness.

In 2021, the CARES team was developed in partnership with the fire department.

That program is led by the fire department, and what's great about that program is it supports all residents of Alameda regardless of your income level or your housing status.

We also collaborate very closely with the community, with nonprofit partners, and with different department different departments in the cities.

So I have listed ARPD, APW, APD, BRED, AFD, and the library.

We partner closely with them on homeless services.

I also should mention we partner closely with Alan and Stephen with planning and building, specifically on below market rate units.

And we prioritize local funds as a match for our existing funding that we get from the federal, state, and county.

You saw on the previous slide, we've increased our shelter beds.

So we currently have 128 beds.

When the new day shelter is open, that will go up to 140.

We also fund Midway Shelter, which is a family, well, a women's and children's shelter here on the island.

We've expanded our flexible funding.

We have a so flex funds are funds that are available to support individuals in need, and they're not necessarily available for one use.

They're flexible in the sense that they're available to support unique individualized needs.

So we have a homeless fund and we have a prevention fund, and that could fund move-in costs, it could fund rental arrears, it could fund booths so people can go to work, things of that nature.

We've also strengthened our homeless response infrastructure, so all of our programs are using the HUD-mandated HMIS system, which is the homeless management information system.

Our engagement team has worked with the county, we're a limited access point, which means that we can directly enter people into the county's coordinated entry system, which is a major point for people to be connected to homeless resources.

We've also connected with the library, we have case management services at the library, and you all the city council approved a pilot program, and so we now have a social worker at the library as well.

That's going very well.

Excuse me, running out of breath.

Affordable housing.

So here on this slide, I'll focus on our partnership with Alameda Housing Authority.

I'll get to the BMR units on the next slide.

So we partner closely with Housing Authority.

This past year we supported funding for Lynette Corner for seniors and veterans.

We also supported funding for estuary one and two that's on the west end of the island here, and we continue to partner with Housing Authority and their efforts to develop affordable housing for our low-income residents here.

So here's a little data for you all to see.

That's average median income.

Typically, we break our low income housing down by three income categories, very low at 50% AMI, low at 80% AMI, and moderate at 120% AMI.

On the rental side, there is a fourth category for 60% AMI, and that's because there are a couple of unique facilities that AHA developed, and the income level was at 60%.

So housing and human services manages an array of funding.

We received a grant from Home Key, which is a state program that helped fund Dignity Village.

We also have ongoing federal funds such as the community development block grant, which you all I'm sure are familiar with, that helps to enhance the community here and support low-income residents.

We have home funding and HAP fundings.

We have state, federal, and county funding, along with the investments the city makes directly.

We will get further into the funding of HHS in a future report.

So that will become coming later.

And here's a little more data, 11 seconds left, so I don't know if we need to ask for maybe two minutes.

Oh, we can do that.

Council, I would propose that we grant Ms.

Falls five more minutes.

I need a motion second.

I need at least four votes, but I'll take five.

Who wants to make that motion?

Councilmember Bowler, seconded by Vice Mayor Prior, all those in favor of adding five minutes, signified by stating I, I, aye.

You have five more minutes.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

So this is some additional daylight data.

It highlights the people served through unhouse services.

So we've served over 1,000 individuals through our homeless services alone.

The Day Center has served over nearly 700 individuals.

Midway shelter, the women's and youth shelter has served 232.

We've served over 30 seniors and nearly 200 youth.

I want to read all the numbers.

This is also something I'm very proud of.

You can see there's been a jump in the exits from Dignity Village.

So you may recall that in 2024 we identified a new provider for Dignity Village.

So Operation Dignity has been working diligently to support households at that program site.

Last year they were able to transition 20 of their how their participants into permanent housing.

The data here for 2025 shows 19.

That's through November.

So through December, they have transitioned 22 individuals into permanent housing.

So this just gives an overview again of what the plan is.

I would like to share that housing and human services puts a lot of support and effort and dedication into supporting the low-income and homeless population here on the island.

We have made a lot of changes and strides throughout the last few years.

But housing and human services is more than homeless services.

We do social services, we do low income housing, we do residential rehab.

We do a lot of different things in our division, and we are working on developing a new strategic plan for the next five years, and that strategic plan will cover the entire division, versus the current plan, which focuses primarily on homeless services.

And I am available to take questions.

I hope I can answer them.

If I don't, then I will get back to you with the answer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Falls.

I was really excited to see the stats about Dignity Village.

Thank you for sharing that.

So council, any clarifying questions before we go to public comment, Madam Clerk, do we have public comment on this item?

Okay.

So any clarifying questions, Vice Mayor Pryor?

So through the five years, do we know like what, like statistically, how many people were unhoused?

Like in 2021.

And I know that people might come into the city, so it's not like I don't know, I don't know if it's it's wouldn't be an accurate, you know, uh assessment, but like what was the number 2021 versus now?

Um so I didn't include the pit count numbers actually.

I think I skipped that slide actually.

So I had a pit count slide.

Ms.

Falls, can you just take a minute to tell people who might not know?

What does that stand for?

So the pit count is the point in time count.

It is a here.

There we go.

Um the point in time count is a tool that the city of Alameda and jurisdictions around the country use to identify how many homeless people are in their city at on any given day or night.

It is a HUD-mandated activity that all jurisdictions must perform.

We in Alameda County conduct this count every other year.

Our count this year is January 22nd, um, 2026 at 5 a.m.

So we are seeking volunteers if anyone's interested.

We're also taking donations.

We like to pass out um things like socks and snacks and water to folks as we meet them out outdoors.

Uh, but the pit count is one way that we're able to identify how many people may be homeless in our city.

We count how many people are in the shelters on that night, and we also count how many people we identify on the street and we take a survey during that count.

Another way to identify um how many people are maybe homeless in Alameda is through the HMIS homeless management information system.

So another development that we um created in 2024 in partnership with our engagement team was our outreach program in HMIS.

So previously we weren't tracking outreach data in HMIS.

We had a contractor before that was tracking um data, and we had our homeless hotline that was tracking data, but now all of our contacts can be tracked inside this one database, so that helps us to collect that data and be able to see how many people we're touching uniquely through our outreach services.

We also will be able to track that we are now using C click fix, which is a regular city platform.

We will also be able to track how many contacts and referrals come in through C click fix.

Um do we is there a like a maybe like has it been reduced maybe by like 20%, or is it just hard to track because you've identified more?

I guess because the I because now I'm also thinking about people that might be staying in their cars, so maybe the number in 2021 won't be similar to 2020.

Like it's hard to compare because we're also using different data points, I guess.

Um but can we um guess if it's been declining or increasing?

So I would not necessarily point to the point in time count to determine if services are working or not, because there are different reasons why people are homeless, why people may be in Alameda.

Like you said, there are different data points that we may collect data in a better way and have more accurate results now.

Also, there are other reasons around the county where we may end up having more people here than we did before.

There are unfortunately funding cuts, as we all know.

There are a lot of federal changes.

There are also other programs and other cities that are closing.

So there are a lot of different factors that may impact how many people are here.

I would point more so to the data around who we're serving and how we're serving to show the efficacy of the work.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Any other clarifying questions?

Council Member Bowler.

Oh, I just want to thank you for this work.

I think this is really um phenomenal in terms of I mean Alameda has partners, it's not just the city, but really stands out as a model in this area.

Um is it something where you could probably get back to us and let us know?

Because I think the vice mayor asked what numbers you have, not just why would you have certain numbers or which ones would be useful.

Is there something you could get back to us on that?

Um so we have the point-in-time count reports in numbers in the report.

So those are should be in there, and then we can pull what current outreach data we have.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

If we've finished with clarifying questions, um Madam Clerk, let's go to public comment.

I think we only have two, so they will get three minutes each.

The first is John Brennan and then uh Mitch Bell.

Okay, welcome, speaker Brennan.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council members, John Brennan from the Almeda warming shelter, Christ Episcopal Church.

Um, first I want to thank you for the funding that this council has provided over the last several years.

The partnership of the 70 30 split between the city providing 70% funding for the emergency low area shelter and the church raising 30%.

Um I want to say that what you just heard is fundamentally a business-friendly strategy.

We just heard from Almanac Brewing.

Almanac depends on having employees.

Employees need places to live.

And employees, some of whom earn a little, some of them earn more.

They all need to be able to afford housing or transportation to the work that's gonna work.

So this housing strategy is fundamentally about making sure we have a thriving city.

It's also about making sure that we have a city of compassion that takes care of people who have through no fault of their own, or sometimes maybe a little fault of their own, but who of us is perfect, find themselves in the circumstances where they need support.

At the shelter, we tend to see people at the beginning and the end of the cycle, and by that I mean the end of the cycle because things have gotten broken and they lost a job, or they have a behavioral health problem and they no longer are earning enough money to pay rent, and so they're in the shelter, or they started out that way.

They never actually have a supportive family, and they are they have behavioral health issues, they have addiction issues, or they just have plain old life issues.

Um the things that for us is most impactful, is navigation and then supportive housing.

Navigation because the system is complex, it's well intentioned, but it's no matter no matter how you look at it, it's a very complex system to navigate.

And folks who are homeless, they don't have a consistent home, they may have a cell phone, or they may not have a cell may not have a cell phone.

So navigation is so critical.

And then once they've navigated to someplace, they need supportive housing either as a bridge or some folks will need supportive housing for their entire lives, and we should own up to that.

Um, and that's that's really gonna be the crux from what we see at the shelter is how we will reduce the numbers of people who need shelter.

Uh, our pastor uh Steve uh McHale uh always says we don't want to be in a growth business, but we want to have a business that serves everybody who needs what we have.

Showers, laundry, volunteer meals provided, and a warm, safe place to rest your head, and hopefully in the process, a community among unhoused people, because that's one of the great poverties of being unhoused is social connection.

So we can provide that, but navigation and then supportive housing so that we can have a thriving, compassionate community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Mitch Ball.

Welcome, Speaker Ball.

Hello.

First up, I want to say that I appreciate the work the city has done so thus far, eliminating parking minimums and adding density bonuses, which have enabled the production of below market rate units as well as market rate units, which both contribute to making housing more affordable.

However, despite this great work, we still need to do more.

As we can see, the homelessness count has nearly doubled.

The number one strategy listed in this report is to assess and use available public and private land for housing, which makes a lot of sense as the most significant contributor to homelessness is the simple fact that right now there are more people than there are homes.

As we've learned in previous agenda items involving inclusionary zoning, one housing developer, Pacific Development, they stated that beginning construction on their foundry housing project is currently not feasible with a $25 per square foot inLU fee, but would be at a $10 per square foot fee.

Reducing the inLU fee would allow them to build more units, but inLU fees are for funding housing for people who need it the most.

Alternatively, there are other parameters that factor into their financial feasibility models.

In other workshops, we've discussed the need for a new parcel tax, and taxes are one of these parameters.

As we can see with all the flooding recently, the city needs additional funding for things like sea level rise mitigation, but a floor plan area parcel tax would discourage housing development.

So this kind of parcel tax may actually be more equivalent to an additional four to five dollar square foot inLU fee in developer feasibility studies.

This is comparable to the requested $15 per square for reduction in inloop fees and may even be closer to a $15, may even be closer if a $15 per square foot reduction was an overstatement.

What this means is that a floor plan area parcel tax has a similar impact to housing construction feasibility as inloop fees.

However, this money could be collected not as a floor plan area parcel tax, but as a lot area parcel tax.

A lot of your parcel tax gets collected whether a developer decides to build new units or not, so would not make construction infeasible.

Instead, it would actually encourage large landowners to develop housing to extract more revenue from their land to match the cost of the tax.

If we want to use the most public land and private land we can for housing, we need to put in place the proper incentives and disincentives to produce housing as soon as possible.

This is the biggest problem our city faces, and so we need to be considering it with every decision we make as it is all connected.

To summarize, the number one counter to homelessness are homes.

So we probably shouldn't be taxing homes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

That was our last speaker.

Okay, with that we will close public comment on item 7B.

Um, Ms.

Falls, I did realize I had a couple questions I forgot to ask.

Um, so um for the first one had to do with the flex funds.

There was a slide that you presented about flex funds, and they're really important because they can sometimes be make the difference between somebody falling between the cracks because they you know can't pay a utility bill and the rent at the same time.

How does one access flex funds if they need them?

Um typically people are referred to flex funds through a case manager, so it may be one of our engagement specialists that could be a case manager with building futures or someone going to the day center.

We do have office hours at the library now, so there's a room that the library is provided on the second floor.

We're at the library on Wednesdays and Saturdays during business hours, so people can go there to check in with an engagement specialist, and the social worker is also in there Monday, I believe Monday through Friday.

Okay, that is outstanding, and I do see our communications director and legislative analyst Sarah Henry in the audience.

I think it would be lovely if we could get that information.

She's already ahead of me, but that um I did not know that we had um hours for the um the case worker to do um hours at the library on Wednesdays, you said okay.

Okay, Sarah will be in touch.

Thank you.

Um, and also speaking of case workers, I do believe that one of the things we were able to do with the little additional funding for the warming shelter this year is to have, do you want to finish my sentence?

What did we add this year?

So for the warming shelter, we um actually leverage some county funds in addition to our city funds for that program and the church's funds as well.

Uh we've added a case manager.

So typically there has not been a case manager, there's only been shelter staff.

Like we expect that the case manager will help people transition onto either longer term programs or to permanent housing through that support.

And then we've also added five additional beds with the county funds.

Thank you.

That's outstanding.

I um and I do want to say a huge thank you to Christ Episcopal Church who for however many years, is it eight years now?

Yeah.

Eight years has been been primarily the provider.

You know, the first ribbon cutting I ever did as a new mayor in my first term was the warming shelter.

I can I can visualize that now.

The late supervisor Wilmachan was there.

We're so pleased to be able to do that again with infusion of county funds.

Um, and it it is a huge game changer uh to have that case manager because of course people need a roof over their head and a safe place to sleep and and food, but to move on from where they are, they need that help of a case manager.

And sometimes it's a little help, sometimes it's a lot, but just it makes a huge difference.

And the I just want to go back to the dignity village, the success model.

Um, I again and I did see in the report pictures of myself at the ribbon cutting there, and and it it was astonishing how fast we put that all together because it was ARBA funds that we had, and we did modular.

I did modular construction, but as Amy remember, Miss Woldridge remembers that we had to change providers like midstream, um, but nonetheless, we did that in under a year, and to have 19 people one year and more than 20 the next transition move on from transitional housing to permanent housing roof over their head is no small feat.

And so that is that is something that we should be proud of at the same time.

I just want to say we can't rest on our laurels.

Um we are very fortunate to have a wonderful care team, to have the affiliation with Alamity Family Services, to have all the things that your department does, but nonetheless, um, we still we've picked all the low-hanging fruit.

If ever there was low-hanging fruit in this field, we still have those challenging cases, and they're going to take time and tenacity and patience and repetition and uh contact, and it's just we don't leave anyone by the wayside, so I just you know I will remind people of that.

We've had some great conversations recently.

Um, and then the other thing I wanted to ask you about if you know um do you do you have in the breakdown of our homeless population?

Do we have many any young people who have exited the foster care system?

So would and that is like how old are you when you exit the foster care system?

I think it's 18 or 24.

I think it's a little than you, but nonetheless, but is there any way we would know that?

I believe that's tracked in HMIS.

I can confirm, and we can pull that data for our shelters if it is available.

I and I think if I recall when we first opened Dignity Village, did we maybe have a couple of units that were set aside for that?

For transitional age youth, yeah, because we have some units set aside for that population.

Okay, because that's a really um, I just and you know many of you know I'm a former probation officer, and these are young people who um, you know, they were not on a level playing field when they started out in life, and so then, and sometimes they bounce from foster home to foster home, and then all of a sudden you reach a certain age and you're out on your own, and for anyone who's raised children, trust me, they're not ready to just be on their own, even from the best most supportive families.

So, this is a population that is overly represented in the um in the homeless population, and I'd like us to do whatever we can to help them.

Are there comments and questions?

Council Council Member Jensen.

Thank you for the report, Ms.

Falls and for the HHS staff.

I wasn't here in 2021 myself, but um on the city council, but I was paying attention definitely to the efforts to address this somewhat challenging issue.

And I also want to appreciate the partnerships that we have with the congregations, especially Christ Episcopal, to to do the emergency shelter work and to provide support and a place for that support.

I in the report itself, the the summary of the progress, it's very well laid out, and I I um uh see the points and the the support for goal two and goal three, and I can see what we've done to increase access to homeless emergency response services, things such as the partnerships, such as the work, the um Dignity Village.

Hopefully, uh I guess a question I have there, increasing access to homeless emergency response services.

Can you comment on when the uh wellness center will be coming online and how that will support the homeless the progress in especially in increasing access to homeless emergency services for uh older homeless persons?

Is that McKay that you're speaking of?

Yeah.

I don't have a definitive timeline for that project.

We have been meeting with um the agency pretty regularly, but I don't have a definitive timeline for when they will uh be ready to open or complete construction.

I'll just insert that I think there's some funding shortfalls that need to be worked through.

Right, and so once um hopefully those will be addressed and and they will be able to find the funds to provide those services, especially the respite services, but also the health care services for for um homeless unhoused seniors.

So that goal that will hopefully support goal two when that that um tremendous program eventually opens, which I have all confidence it will at some point, and um goal three to mobilize citywide response to homelessness.

That's where I it seems to me in three a little more than three years on the city council that we've been very effective.

The mobilization of the response, both in partnership with through your leadership through leadership of um a city ma assistant city manager Wildridge and former city manager Jen Ott, I think that we are responding and we're partnering the things that you've some of the things you've mentioned, including um the office hours for uh at the library, including partnerships with that's in the report with with the care team and others, those are really important to uh to provide our response and to ensure that homeless individuals know that there are resources available and know where to find them.

So, but my my question or comment I guess is about goal one.

And I see in the report I I'm I'm I'm a little more pessimistic than the report is.

So in the report, I see that since 2021 there have been 264 uh units made available, both 182 affordable rentals as well as 82 for purchase housing, and these are in I believe probably they're almost entirely in new housing developments that have been built since 2021.

Is that correct?

Uh the units that we have listed for below market rate are all new developments, and then the affordable rentals, yes.

Well, and that's terrific.

That's um 264 units in about five years for the since 2021, four and a half years.

But uh the the um estimate is seems really optimistic to me.

So I'll I'll ask for your response about that.

The the report estimates that there'll be 816 to 875 new affordable units made available by 2029, and that's on page eight of the report.

And I'm um having worked with learned more about the number of homeless that that are being served, having um seen and been in the discussion, the recent discussions about inclusionary housing and seeing how how challenging that has been to both build the inclusionary affordable units as well as to rent, especially low and very low and moderate units.

So I'm just wondering how that goal is going to be reached in your opinion.

So that number doesn't come from just new developments through the city planning department.

A large amount of those units are through the housing authorities plan to create affordable housing.

We also have the reshape programs that were.

Yes, thank you.

Um great question, Councilmember Jensen.

Uh so I just looked up from staff uh emails.

The numbers include uh from estuary two, their projects haven't been built yet.

So they don't include Lynette 1, Lynette Corner, Estuary 1, they do include estuary two poplar, which is another housing authority project.

Um the additional north housing blocks, B C and D, Skyline, and Reshape as well.

And reshape is the largest one because that would be 324 units.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you for clarifying that.

And then my then my a related question and my my last um kind of suggestion or question or clarification is with all of these new units, hopefully, uh I'll be very excited as as I know that everyone working on this will be if we can get up to eight over 800 new units online.

But these new units are not just some at Lynette Corner and some in um in North Housing are available or more restricted to Alameda residents, unhoused residents.

But um, can you just explain briefly how those units are distributed and whether Alameda residents alameda unhoused um will have access or be prioritized at all?

Um so each housing unit depends on the funding plan and the agreements in place.

Some programs do go through coordinated entry, which prioritizes for Alameda prioritizes mid-county, which is Alameda, San Leandro, and Payword.

Um I know there are some programs that do have preference points for people that live in Alameda or work in Alameda or work for AUSD, Alameda Unified School District, and then we there is also a preference for reshape for folks that are already in those units to have a chance to move into the new units.

So it did it just depends on each property.

They each have their own funding plan with restrictions.

I understand.

Thank you for clarifying.

Other questions and other comments?

Council Member Bowler.

Thank you.

Um, Miss Falls, this is really helpful, and I I was looking back at the pit counts in the report, and I I was very helpful that you brought that up and distinguished it in terms of maybe it's lack of full efficacy in figuring out where we're at, where we're going, but is there also some good news there?

Because you you see in those from that five-year period that you know the combination of sheltered and unsheltered, um pit counts uh residents in 2019 was just over a little over 200, and then in 2024 was roughly 450.

But you also see so more than doubling, right?

But you also see that the sheltered portions of the pits counts go go up quite a bit.

Not quite double, but it's a pretty substantial increase.

And so is that some really good news?

Because it seems like the city really built capacity, really built extra capacity and was able, and just getting people sheltered, is not just about capacity.

I mean, that's a that's a challenge, right?

So do you see how would you explain that to us?

Do you see some good news in those numbers?

It's definitely positive to see an increase in individuals that are in shelter versus the number of individuals that are on the street.

So when it says shelter, that's the shelter actual shelter count of how many people are in a shelter bed.

And so seeing a higher number there and seeing the um street number uh street homelessness number decrease would be the goal.

Uh but it just you know it depends on circumstances.

There's so many factors that go into what may increase or decrease the count.

One thing that I did not mention for the pit count that's important for people to understand is HUD uses that number to determine the funding for the jurisdiction.

So we don't want a high count, of course, but we want the most accurate count as possible so that we get our uh percentage of the funding to continue the programs that we have here.

But definitely seeing a higher shelter count and lower street homelessness count is a goal.

Okay.

I'm just gonna take this opportunity for a PSA and public service announcement.

Um, everyone on the council, I hope you have signed up to, in fact, everyone on this dais.

Um count um the city clerk, she doesn't have to come in from Oakland.

But um, I hope you have signed up to volunteer for the pit count.

Yes, you get up right and early.

Well, it's not very bright, but um it is it's really um it's I think I've done it every year that we've done it, and it's just it's eye-opening.

And um uh when Ms.

Falls talks about all the different phases of homelessness and how people become homeless, and I mean, we guard confidentiality, but I will just say in broad strokes that when I was out two years ago, um, every woman that I spoke to who was sleeping and sheltered, had experienced domestic violence.

So it just points to the work we need to do on a number of different fronts.

Um, but anyway, I you know, the more volunteers we have, the more coverage we have across our census tracks.

So keep that in mind.

Um, others, council member Desak.

Well, thank you.

Um, I think the question I have is so we have the um the first uh report in 2021, and now five years later, where you roughly five years later, uh we have this report, which is dubbed the final report.

So I guess the question is beyond um kind of uh you know, articulating through this process what our system might be in terms of how people are intaked into the system and all the different kinds of programs that they uh could uh go through beyond using this kind of reporting system to kind of articulate uh uh system by which we you know help people um move from state of homelessness to hopefully permanent housing.

Um, beyond that, what about you know the goals that um are or the actions um that are a part of this?

What's gonna, you know, what what are staff's thoughts about continuing um, you know, tracking that?

And I'm asking that because when you look at the um both the 2021 report and then now the new report, and I appreciate the fact that you know the actions that we're describing 2021 are the same actions that are described in this report.

This report shows that of the 51 actions, 21, 28 have been completed, and 13 are ongoing.

Um, so that's 41 out of 51, you know, where there's you know um positive developments.

Um, one of the actions uh proved to be infeasible, and that had to do with um prioritizing displaced local residents of affordable housing, so that's probably not an action that we're gonna continue moving forward.

Another action has to do with aging in place, and the the notation says that that staff is continuing to do listening tours around you know how to help um elderly, and the third um act another action is forthcoming has to do with an emergency ordinance.

Um, so what that then leaves is kind of seven actions that are not complete that are not ongoing, um, that are kind of miscellaneous.

So um, you know, I you know what what's the thinking in terms of of tracking not just those seven miscellaneous actions, but continuing to track you know all the ongoing actions beyond you know uh adoption of this final report.

So the current plan is to create a new strategic plan.

So we have a needs assessment um process that's already scheduled that's set to start this month, and we will use this report and the results from this report to inform the new strategic plan, but we'll also do the needs assessment with our partners here in the city, our partners in the county and our nonprofit partners, you all here in this room, and we'll have a survey that goes out.

We have a full process to inform an updated strategic plan that we will feel is relevant for the next five years.

So there may be some goals that carry forward, but I would assume that there will also be some goals that fall off.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um, you know, I didn't support the uh the plan in 2021, but I didn't oppose that either.

Um and my concern then had to do with um what's now called low barrier um uh how um shelter.

Yeah, and you know, my concern at the time um was the housing first element um to it with for the listening audience, housing first is kind of you know this way of of providing um housing to those who are homeless, that doesn't you know condition um access to emergency housing um on you know um participating in specific programs.

Programs are made available, but they're not required.

Um you know, and that's still a concern of mine, um, but I think um the larger issue is just getting people housed, and so I think while that will be a continuing concern of mine, you know, the the fact that through this process, you know, we were able to you know uh build housing like Dignity Village and and do other uh kind of um programs.

I think that's more important than you know whatever's who you know my philosophical concerns about housing first.

So I appreciate um the work um the ongoing work um that that all of you guys are doing in terms of you know creating an articulated system by which those who are vulnerable or outright homeless can kind of move in a strategic articulated manner, hopefully to um uh state of permanent housing in the city of Alameda.

Thank you.

Um respond to the housing first.

So housing first I think has a negative stigma because at times it's not funded or implemented appropriately, but when it's funded appropriately and implemented appropriately, I believe that it does work because you want to get people in the door and you want to have the services available, they need to be efficient services, and once you build that relationship and have people in the door, that's when you're able to really connect with them and have them engage in that work that's unique to their needs, and then have them carry those skills into their permanent homes that they don't return to homelessness.

So I do think that it works, but it does have a negative stigma because the funding is not always provided to the level that it needs to be.

But I do believe here, especially with the new day center, we are fully funding that program.

It will have the hygiene services on site, which is critical.

I believe going to be very supportive to individuals, even though it is low barrier and doesn't require people to participate in services.

I think you.

Appreciate that.

And Vice Mayor Park.

Oh, I I just wanted to say comments.

I just want to say that what you do is is it's so important and it's so complex.

Um you have to do both the tracking and then the work itself helping um people in our community.

So uh I just want to say that to be having this conversation in this room, it's a blessing for us that we're in a position to help others, um, and so and and we should.

Um, and I'm I'm just so grateful that we can do this, and we're not like let's just build homes and then go back and forget about the problem.

There's other things like getting people through those humps, like with the grants for 1,500.

Um, you know, it's like like looking at it, what can we do to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place?

And so there's just so many different layers, and I just really appreciate all the effort and thoughtfulness.

And and obviously, this is years and a huge team of people.

Um, and it's just so great to see, um, because it's probably something that we're not going to solve in the next year or five years, it's it's a process, and so I think you guys are just doing amazing work.

Um, and then to um uh the mayor's point.

I um, you know, I one of my issues are just kids in general, they get out of high school or get out of college, a lot of them have to move back home because of housing, and I didn't even think like, oh, what a foster youth do, like they don't have that choice.

Um, so I I'm I'm really glad that there's space saved for them, but I would like just as a community, not just Alameda, but maybe the state of California or the United States, but like to really think about that in a in a bigger plan because um must feel pretty defeating um being that young person, um, to no fault of their own.

Um so I I'm just glad you brought that point up.

And thank you.

Thank you.

Um I will just add a couple more things.

Um I have long held the hope and aspiration that at some point out of Alameda Point, because we have a lot of space and some buildings that can be repurposed, that we could do a housing model with um for young people aging out of the foster care system, and I would love to have it adjacent to interwoven with housing for seniors because I think young people can always use a good grandparent in their life, and I mean it there could just be a nice synergy there.

So, you know, it's at some point in time the funding, the opportunities might become available, um, and I would would love to champion that model.

Um the um that I do want to say just to the point that has been made that you know we've just got to build more housing.

I don't disagree with a word of that, however, there are things that are just beyond our control, and it's not a cop-out, it is interest rates, it is um just so many the economy that is so uncertain right now.

We've got to get people willing to do um to do that construction, but um certainly we we need um we need more housing for especially the income levels that are most vulnerable.

And then I also wanted to note um, and this is an invitation to you, Miss Falls.

Um so I'm part of the Alameda County Mayors Conference, the 14 Mayors of Alameda County, their city managers and different key staff meet monthly and we take turns um at our different cities and in February, February 11th in Berkeley, and I know the interim city manager, Mr.

Paulitzer is going to join me, but uh there is a homelessness working group in Alameda's a part of it, and Ms.

Falls often accompanies me.

Our speaker that evening is Dr.

Margot Cushell from UCSF.

And for those who aren't familiar, Miss Falls is familiar with her, but she is the director of the UCSF Benioff homelessness and housing initiative.

She's a professor of medicine focusing on preventing and ending homelessness, particularly for older adults.

So I think we, you know, any time I've heard her speak, um, she just always she she does a lot of research and is always at the cutting edge of what are effective programs, what other communities are doing, and so um February 11th, mark that down.

I'd love to have you join us.

Um, and so this is when we're we're not voting, we're just accepting this report.

Is that correct?

Do you need to vote?

Is that it's recommendation to accept the final report?

Do we do a motion to accept it.

No, council should probably could accept report by vote.

It would be lovely to have a unanimous vote to accept this report.

You can make that motion, Councilor Desak, seconded by Vice Mayor Pryor.

Want a second?

All right, all those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

I that emotion um is uh passed unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All the good work.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to item seven.

Is it C C?

Yes.

All right.

Introduction of ordinance amending aluminum missile code by repealing chapter 22 streets and sidewalk article one streets section 22-3 repairs in its entirety and repealing and replacing chapter 22 streets and sidewalks, article two sidewalks, sections 22-18, repair of sidewalks and other works, and 22-20 specifications to amend the sidewalk repair procedures and make other technical amendments.

Introduction of ordinance amending municipal code section one-five point three, civil action enforcement of chapter one general to improve the city's collections process.

Public hearing takes our adoption resolution amending master fee resolution number one two one nine one to add a fee for a formal hearing with a hearing officer regarding sidewalk repair costs owed to the city, and recommendation to adopt a collections policy.

All right, all right.

Um welcome.

Come on up and and uh please introduce yourself.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Carlos Figueroa, I'm the revenue manager in the finance department.

Mr.

Figueira, I think you want to raise that microphone a little higher so we can hear you better.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Uh, tonight I'll provide a brief high-level overview of the proposed collection policy uh covering why it's needed and how it works.

Uh, at its core, this policy is about clarity, consistency, and fairness in how the city manages unpaid accounts across all departments.

Uh while staff already make good efforts to collect unpaid balances.

The city does not currently have a single formal policy guiding this work.

Adopting a collections policy would create a clear and consistent process.

Ensure accounts are handled fairly and transparently, and keep us aligned with best practices used by other cities.

With a few improvements, staff estimate this policy could help recover approximately five hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year that is already owed to the city.

The policy is built around a few key principles.

First, it prioritizes voluntary compliance.

Most people will resolve their balance when expectations are clear and communication is consistent.

Second, it establishes a step-by-step process applied citywide, which gives the public multiple opportunities to resolve their account before any escalation occurs.

At a high level, the process is pretty straightforward.

It begins with an invoice and a standard 30-day payment period.

If a payment is not received, a reminder notice is sent, providing additional time to resolve the balance.

Only after these steps would an account move to the centralized collection unit or CCU, where further notices would be issued.

This is where most accounts are resolved during the collections process.

Enforcement actions are considered only after all prior steps have been exhausted.

Think of it kind of like a last resort option.

Why it's needed.

Well, as of last fiscal year, the city had over 1.4 million in outstanding unpaid receivables across multiple programs.

This policy is not intended to be punitive.

Its purpose is to ensure revenue owed to the city is collected promptly and responsibly.

And this is important because as bills age, they become significantly harder to collect.

After about six months, the likelihood of recovery drops significantly.

This policy helps the city act earlier and more consistently, allowing accounts to be resolved in a balanced way without waiting too long.

Most Bay Area cities already have formal collections policies and frameworks in place to address delinquent revenues.

The proposed policy brings Alameda in line with those standard practices while preserving flexibility for our community.

For example, if someone cannot pay in full, payment plans may be available upon request.

Hardship policies and appeals processes remain in place.

In summary, this proposed collections policy would help the city recover funds that are already owed and might otherwise be lost.

Apply a standard transparent process aligned with widely accepted best practices, ensure equitable enforcement while preserving flexibility and potentially recovering up to $550,000 per year.

Staff believe this policy strikes the right balance for our community, and we respectfully recommend your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Figueroa, and welcome Director Smith.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council.

Excuse me, my voice.

Happy to be here this evening.

I'll be presenting.

I'm the public works director, sorry, Aaron Smith.

I'll be presenting on the sidewalk repair program portion of the presentation this evening.

Also with me tonight is our ADA coordinator Lillian Jewell, and can be available for questions that may come up.

Hi Lillian.

Before I get well, tonight's uh item council is considering in addition to the collections policy and the ordinance proposed by my colleague Carlos.

Uh part of the item tonight includes introduction of an ordinance amending sections of the Alameda Municipal Code related to sidewalk repair procedures.

Before I get into the specific of the repair program and ordinance, I wanted to just take a moment to highlight the importance and value of sidewalks in Alameda.

Many of us use sidewalks on a daily basis, as they're an essential role in city life.

As public spaces, they can activate streets socially and economically as conduits for pedestrian movement.

They enhance connectivity and mobility, and as such, it is essential that our sidewalks are safe, accessible, and well maintained.

Although the adjacent property owner bears primary responsibility for sidewalk and condition, per California state law, the city has had a long-standing practice of repairing and incurring the cost of sidewalk damage by street trees.

Our existing program consists of three components.

Temporary pairs, which are also it's also known as concrete cutting, removal and replacement of sidewalk that's damaged by street trees, and for other damage that is property owner responsibility, notifying those owners of their responsibility.

We historically used to do temporary repairs just to tripping hazards that were caused by street trees.

The photograph here on the right shows what a temporary repair looks like.

It's a very cost-effective and quick way to reduce a tripping hazard.

We recently expanded our temporary repair program to include all tripping hazards, not just those caused by Street Tree.

So that saves property owners time and money.

Excuse me, and is property owner responsibility.

In that pilot, when we notice an owner, we now offer them the opportunity to voluntarily elect the option for the city to do the work and have us invoice them.

The idea behind that is to reduce uh the barriers to compliance and make things as feasible as possible.

The new pilot program also offers financial assistance from full partial coverage depending upon demonstrated hardship.

I'm sorry, we offer financial assistance when hardship is demonstrated.

So far, we have an over 70% participation rate in those that are noticed are participating to have the city do the work.

In regards to our pilot program enforcement, in order to reduce city liability and prevent public injury, if a property owner does not respond to multiple repair notices, we are now proceeding with the repair to eliminate the hazard in invoicing the property owner.

To date, many owners, even though they haven't self-elected to participate in the program upon receiving an invoice, they pay for it, which is great.

In other cases, owners remain non-responsive and invoices remain unpaid.

The proposed ordinance tonight does several things.

It codifies the city's authority to establish and administer a program like the pilot program, where the city can perform sidewalk works under a voluntary agreement and seek reimbursement.

It codifies our ability to offer financial assistance at multiple points in the process, our authority to offer payment plans, also our authority to initiate a collections process that my colleague Carlos just went over.

And in addition, for properties still delinquent after collections, the proposed ordinance allows but does not require the city to issue a notice of special assessment for the repair cost.

This authority is already granted in state law, however, the ordinance details a clear process.

I will be proposing a revised staff recommendation that actually removes this particular portion of the ordinance, and I'll explain that more in a later slide.

Early data from our pilot program is promising.

As noted, we had 70% of properties elect to have the city do the work.

I wanted to also highlight, although not on this slide, that 8% of properties that have been noticed have received some form of financial aid.

And all in total of accounts that have been invoiced, only six right now remain delinquent.

So we suggest implementing the pilot for at least another year and returning to council with more robust program metrics, lessons learned, and recommendations regarding long-term continuation of the program.

I'm gonna go really quick because I have 20 seconds.

So the original will give you more time if you need it.

Let's do a question.

What would you like?

I really just need a minute and a half talks.

We'll give her five.

Who will make a motion for five?

I move that we give five more minutes.

And Councilman Jensen will second.

Okay, we have a motion, we have a second.

All those in favor signify by stating aye.

Aye.

You just added five minutes to your time.

I appreciate that.

I'll be quick.

Um, the recommendation in the staff report currently is to adopt both ordinances as presented and the collections policy.

Since then, with further reflection and discussion, what staff is now proposing is that council adopt the civil action ordinance as proposed and direct staff to implement a one-year collections pilot program for delinquent sidewalk accounts with no liens.

We can return to council when we're doing our overall report out on the pilot program, and at that time speak specifically to how the collections portion of that is going through just using the collections process.

So, what that means for the action that council will take tonight is to approve the civil action ordinance, direct staff to revise the collections policy to remove reference to liens as they relate to sidewalks, direct staff to revise the proposed sidewalk ordinance to remove reference to special assessments or property liens.

Those terms are used interchangeably.

And then, although not noted here, a minor point, there's also a resolution in your packet this evening.

If we aren't moving forward with the lien process, we do not need to be adopting the ordinance.

Excuse me, the resolution, as that resolution is putting forth a fee for a public hearing that would be exercised as part of the lien process.

So that wouldn't be needed at this time.

If we pursue a revised ordinance at some later time after we report out in a year, we can always add that back in.

Hope that's clear.

I'm happy to summarize that again since that was a lot in terms of the action, but I'm also here for questions.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

And thank you very much for the proposed amendments and changes.

I can support that, I believe.

Um but um can you just clarify when you say we'll move the civil action forward?

I just had that table up for a minute, specifically.

Okay, there's the ordinance on the civil action.

So the civil action is um tell us what the civil action includes.

Um I'll actually have my colleague Carlos as the finance departments the lead for that ordinance.

Okay.

And I do see there's there's a separate ordinance, but you just want to briefly go over what the civil action would include.

Uh sure, the civil action enforcement one-five point three.

Uh-huh.

Uh we would be adding uh bullet point C.

Uh it says the city attorney may authorize any legal action to collect debts due to the city and the amounts up to and including the jurisdictional limits of a limited civil case under California state law.

Um this was recommended by the city attorney to uh give us uh the authority to uh proceed with collection activity, but as stated by Aaron Smith would would not include liens.

Thank you.

And so maybe we will turn to the city attorney's office.

Is that you, Mr.

Shen or Mr.

Aslania?

I'm happy to answer that part of the question.

Okay, um, so I actually do have a question about so this is this is the ability to bring an action in small claims court.

In limited civil cases, which is essentially cases under $25,000.

Okay.

Well, in the staff report um on page two, just before the side rock repair program section says to ensure the city's legal authority aligns with the new policy.

Staff is proposing an ordinance amendment to AMC Section 1-5.3 that would allow the city to pursue legal action in small claims court to recover delinquent revenues, etc.

Is that correct?

It could be.

So small claims actions are essentially up to about $10,000.

And so it's both small claims and limited civil in civil case.

So my question with regards to small claims court actions is I've done a little bit of practice in small claims court.

Well, I haven't, because small claims court um doesn't allow attorneys to participate, does it?

That's exactly right.

So this ordinance.

I believe finance staff would be actually taking the lead if it was small claims court, but we would give give advice.

Uh Madam Mayor, you're a correct attorneys cannot appear in small claims court.

But we would advise our finance staff and prepare them and work with them so that they can then competently appear on behalf of the city.

Okay.

I think just having spoken from um once being a practicing attorney and sitting in a small claims courtroom, hoping that my client would say the right things when asked.

But it's but the I have no um questions or concerns about the finance department staff.

Okay, got that, and then um let's see.

Um I do um appreciate collection efforts, and I see from the background section of the staff report that we have um 1.4 million dollars in unpaid receivables, and approximately 660,000 linked to the general fund, but nonetheless, we would be pursuing just about all of that, right?

Madam Mayor, my understanding is that um on larger items, we would um I think this this ordinance allows staff to streamline the sort of the smaller ones where there is lots of them uh on the larger collection items where it clearly exceeds jurisdictional limits, staff still intends to come to you to brief you in closed session.

This allows staff to proceed in small collections items, such as you know, something for you know three thousand dollars to not clog up your closed session uh agenda.

Got it.

And it looks like the largest um dollar amount of unpaid um fees or collections is the rent program uh yes and so director chapin has shared that with you uh a few months ago we think that most of those have to do with um landlords that have not uh reported um as to whether or not they're actually in the business so I you know my suspicion is that these numbers are overstated because when landlords exit the rental housing business they don't report while in our registry it's still showing that they're owing us registration fees what we need to do and what I've asked director chapin to do is to actually and go through the very laborious process of verifying that landlords have actually exited the rental housing business so while it's showing this very large number I my understanding is that that number is actually incredibly overstated.

Okay well less money going back to the city there but okay no we want to be accurate um okay um those are my clarifying questions other clarifying questions before we go to public comment Madam Clerk do we have public comment um any clarifying questions counsel council member desok well thank you um just uh a few questions so there's like uh I think the number is 170 or so um examples do we have a sense as to what the typical um cost is um for for those 170 uh that's a good question um council member daysog um I understand you're referring to uh when we send a letter to property owners for sidewalk that they're responsible for repairing we include a table um that is a cost estimate in a not to exceed amount we are essentially passing through our contractor cost we don't add in any administrative costs that's a decision we made as part of the pilot program and would be reporting out to you whether we agree it makes sense to continue staff investing staff time to leverage uh additional sidewalk work but we do have um the table um in there and that would be the cost of quantities related to sidewalk removal replace it if involves curb it really runs the gamut from it invoices as small as 250 if it's just a couple of 25 square foot panels of sidewalk to I've seen ones over 8,000 if you're a corner lot um and a lot of square footage so it it really does run the gamut but there are a lot of small ones where it's just a couple of flags of concrete.

And will when it comes to tripping hazards will we only pursue tripping hazard work where I think there's a legal definition as to how high a tripping hazard is or is it if it's I whatever the is it three inches high?

No it's uh a quarter inch or higher considered at um and yes so we will cut the word we use we will cut anything greater than a quarter inch that is cuttable there is an upper limit typically if that uplift is more than two inch you won't be able to cut the concrete at a slope that's 88 compliant.

So the range we can deploy our concrete cutting is about a quarter inch to two inch okay and we get a lot done I don't think I might have overlooked it I was rushing for time but just in the last year and a half since we expanded that temporary repair program where we're cutting everything we've done four removed 14,000 tripping hazards so it's quick it's cost effective we can get a lot done.

It doesn't deal with the underlying issue like if the tree route is uplifting the sidewalk it's going to continue to uplift the sidewalk but it buys time and extends the life of the concrete okay so um the key thing though is it sounds like with the cost being in a in a table that the homeowner um uh that that there's transparency with regard to the cost.

So that where we we have a system that guards against, say, a person who kind of like, you know, they thought like could they could do it for $800, but now they have to do it for $1,400.

So the cost is whatever is the cost of the table.

Correct.

And that amount is a not to exceed amount that's in the table.

So great.

Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions?

Okay, madam Quick, let's go to public comment, please.

We have two.

William Morrison and then Mitchell Ball.

Welcome, Speaker Morrison.

Thank you again for your time.

This time I'm not necessarily representing myself as much as the Fernsey Home Association.

I would like to once again say hello to Aaron because she actually visited our board meeting at one point in time, and we were well informed into the uh efforts of uh sidewalk uh cutting as far as that goes.

Uh, the main thing I have a question in is looking at what is written and I saw within the agenda uh two quick very quick comments.

One is very quickly, section 22-20-1 is duplicated.

One is for sidewalk repair, the other one is for abandoned driveways, and it uses the same section number.

So that's a typo that you might want to look at.

Okay.

Other than that, the only thing I'm concerned about, and Aaron did bring it up to some extent, is uh the fernside area is particularly uh shall we say, um, affected by city-owned trees and sidewalks.

And in fact, mayor, I know you've seen it, and so you know what it's like there.

That's been there for a good while.

And we actually have talked about it for a number of number of times.

So, from that viewpoint, my major concern is I do not see anything in here which, shall we say, uh eliminates or um does not apply to city owned trees and sidewalk damage damage.

So I would like for you to be certain I can't do it, but you can't, that that's at least looked at from that viewpoint, so that I think the city would not like to want to go in and complete reinforce everything at this time on city owned trees.

So that's the only other thing I wanted to talk about.

I don't see it in there.

If it's in another section, that's good, but I'm not sure it's not, you know, it's not there.

The way it's written listed right now, it makes it sound like if the state says the sidewall needs repairing, then we're gonna make sure it gets repaired.

You know, so that's kind of where we are.

Um, other than that, um, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Mitchell Ball.

Welcome, Speaker Ball.

Sidewalk repair is important as not everyone owns a car or a bike, and pedestrians still need to get around.

It's additionally doubly important for many of those with disabilities who have additional difficulties safely traveling over poorly maintained sidewalks.

So I'm happy that Adamada municipal government is focusing on improving collections compliance for sidewalk repair and has taken on repairs for sidewalk damage caused by city trees and sidewalk damage that can be solved with temporary repairs.

However, I have to admit that when I first started to read about this item, I was a little confused as I had never considered that sidewalk maintenance could be a property owner's responsibility.

Where I used to live in Ontario and Nova Scotia, property owners were responsible for snow and ice removal, but municipalities were responsible for maintenance.

But yes, here in California, state law determines property owners have primary responsibility for sidewalk maintenance.

Despite this being precedent, I see a couple of issues with the system.

When cities are directly responsible for passive travel, the passive travel tends to be better maintained as the system has less points of failure.

If even 5% of property owners shirk the responsibility, this leads to significant gaps in the network.

We don't take root this risk with road maintenance, so why can't sidewalks be given the same degree of care?

I'm glad that the city will go ahead and repair a sidewalk if a property owner ignores multiple notices, but that's still a meaningful period of time with poor maintenance.

The share of responsibility is also not equitable.

Corner lots have at minimum twice as much sidewalk, but the owners do not walk twice as much.

Sidewalks are not made for immediate property owners, they are shared by the entire community.

Lastly, I have to question how much city resources are spent sending invoices and engaging in the collections process.

City staff are quite hardworking, and I feel there could be better uses of their time and effort.

Improving collections has been suggested to increase city revenue by $500,000 dollars, but I think this council members should also be asking what dollar equivalent is spent in city staff work hours on engaging with property owners regarding sidewalk maintenance.

The easiest way to reduce uncollected debts is to not issue them in the first place.

Well, I support the improvements recommended here.

I believe long term the city should take a step further and follow Albany's lead.

In 2024, Albany passed a parcel tax to fund sidewalk repair for the city.

Well, the responsibility of property owners is not completely removed.

Albany identifies the sidewalks and most needed repair every year, repairs these at no cost to the property owner.

Best yet, this is a lot area parcel tax, not a floor plan one, at a very low cost of 1.7 cents per square foot lot area.

If Alamedo wants to put an infrastructure parcel tax on the ballot this year, why not include sidewalk maintenance with the rest of transportation infrastructure for relatively little additional cost?

Due to improved efficiency, this inclusion would ultimately save voters money, would probably be pretty popular at the ballot box.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

That was our last speaker.

And none online.

None online.

All right.

Well, with that, we will close public comment on item 7C.

And we will go to council deliberation.

Councilmember Bowler.

No, okay.

I'm just trying to read that expression.

Um, let's see if I wanted to.

Oh, so I'm just gonna say something about um I I do understand that it's state law that um uh property owners are responsible for street trees, even if the city um planted them.

I sure don't agree with that.

Um so I do see that that um the city has a long-standing practice of repairing sidewalk damage by street trees.

That does seem appropriate since it was the city who planted the tree and um chose the tree, most cases.

I mean, I think there's a pallet homeowners can choose from.

Did you want to say something, city attorney?

Uh yes, Madam Mayor, based on our litigation experience, courts have generally assigned street tree responsibilities strict uh squarely on the city and have not uh applied it to property owners.

Okay, well that's that's um good to know.

Um, so uh of course we all want safe sidewalks.

Um, Ms.

Smith, I think the program is working really well.

I mean, has it even been in place a year yet?

No, it hasn't even been in place a year.

And and it, you know, any time you introduce something new, there's an education period, there's time for people to get used to it.

So I think we're doing really well.

And you know, your staff, the folks you work with on making the changes that you um you articulated at the beginning of your report to not include the the property lien.

Because I just felt that that was just going too far, and without the underlying data, again, I I think that it was um an inspired uh concept, and I think it's being well run and managed, and I would just look for the trajectory to improve as far as the um the success of collection rates.

So um, I'm sure ready to support the amended proposal.

Other council members want to weigh in.

Anybody want to make a motion?

Vice Mayor Pryor.

Yeah, I was gonna say I also support the uh revised uh recommendation.

Um, I mean, mostly, you know, it's fair, it's equitable because we have, you know, I think 80% of homeowners are already complying.

Um it's not fair to them if we don't do some sort of enforcement because they're shelling out their own money, and then they're also shelling out their own tax dollars to pay for their neighbors that didn't.

So they're they're actually paying more.

Um, so I I do think it's fair it's equitable, and I also like that we are giving people opportunities to, you know, for payment plans because yeah, not everyone just has an extra three thousand dollars.

Um, if they're living, you know, been in their home for 30 years and are living off of Social Security.

Like, yeah, it's they, you know, I respect that they would need time, and I I think it's appropriate to give them payment plans.

Um, and I'm glad that the city is going out and making sidewalk repairs and uh replacing uh sidewalks as needed because it does improve accessibility and safety.

So I I do support the this.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, and again, I don't think anyone, I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I would imagine we all want safe sidewalks and the ADA accessibility is really important.

We need to maintain our streets and roadways for all users.

Um but I do think that um public works has come upon a great plan.

So essentially what we're being asked to do this evening is to just introduce the one ordinance on the civil action, correct?

Okay, and we don't need to adopt a resolution, so just the one ordinance.

So, council, that's um well, you can see it in the attachments.

Come on up.

Did you want to tell us something else?

Just wanted to add if it was you weren't already tracking, um, and then it's to direct yes, okay.

Did I jump in?

Yeah, go ahead.

Uh, direct um staff.

You would be approving the collections policy with directed revisions to remove liens related to sidewalks so that that can also get adopted tonight.

And then you are directing staff to revise the sidewalk ordinance to remove reference to the special assessment process, and we would given that's fairly substantial change, we'll come back with a new introduction of the revised ordinance.

Thank you for that clarification.

So just um approving the civil action ordinance and then directing staff to come back with the revised um sidewalk ordinance and wait, there was one.

And adopting the collections policy with directed revisions to remove reference to sidewalk liens.

What she said, does anyone want to make a motion?

I'll make a message.

Clarification, uh, are we going to suggest that staff um review the policy and come back at some future time to identify whether the absence of liens is uh having it the effect of the absence of liens?

Yes, so that was part of the revised recommendation and an important part that we will do, we'll continue our pilot program because I agree it's great, um and when we come back to just report generally on that pilot program in a year, which will mean it's been in existence for about two years.

We'll also report on the this year coming ahead of doing the collections only portion that's now authorized under the collections policy that you'll be approving this evening.

Thank you.

So would you like to move that?

Draw I make that motion.

Okay, we've got a motion by council member Jensen, seconded by second by um by Vice Mayor Pryor.

Um, comment, Councilmember Desig, yes.

Before we vote, just want to make a comment and express my appreciation to public works director Aaron Smith for uh her uh detailed response to my question regarding uh transparency in terms of you know the homeowner knowing what the cost will be ahead of time.

So I really appreciate that, and I appreciate that we have that system in place.

So thank you.

I want to tag on an appreciation to Director Smith, and I tell her this often, but you really are the gold standard of communication, not just to me and other electeds that I ask questions that are probably kind of obtuse, but I get these great answers that are not talking down, but just so well stated, and I see your correspondence to um to residents, and you you do that same thing.

I've seen you in meetings, and you just have that gift of very effective communication you represent as well.

So thank you.

Really appreciate the affirmation.

I appreciate you.

So we've had a motion, it's been seconded.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Is that five eyes?

Five eyes.

Okay, maybe say it audibly.

Okay, that passes unanimously.

Thank and thank you so much, all the staff who um contributed to this.

Okay, council, we have been going a little over two hours, and we've got a couple more things to go.

So we're gonna take a break.

It's nine, almost 9.15.

We'll be back at nine twenty-five, so we're ready back in your seats at nine twenty five.

Thank you.

Okay, okay.

All right, all right.

Are we ready in the balcony?

They're always ready in the balcony.

All right.

Welcome back, everyone.

It is still Tuesday, January 6th, 2026, still the Alameda City Council meeting.

And we're moving on to item 7D.

Madam Clerk, would you please introduce that item?

Introductional ordinance authorizing the interim city manager to execute a new 36 month lease and two three-year renewal options with Roads Property Holdings LLC, a California limited liability company doing business as CSI mini storage for buildings 338, 608, and 608 AC, totaling approximately 70,989 of rentable square feet plus associated land and parking located at 50 and 51 West Hornet Avenue in Alameda Point.

This action is categorically exempt from further environmental review.

Welcome, good evening.

Thank you.

Happy new year.

Why don't you introduce yourself?

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members.

My name is Alicia Strauk.

I am a base reuse manager here with the City of Alameda.

And I am here today to present our staff recommendation that council consider authorizing a new lease with for a term of three years, and it's with a current tenant, Rhodes Property Holdings, but they do business as CSI Mini Storage.

So as I mentioned, the facility is located in Alameda Point and it is within the enterprise district.

CSI Mini Storage occupies an area that was also previously used by the Navy when the base was in operation for similar storage purposes.

CSI Mini Storage is a is one of the two mini storage operations that we have at Alameda Point right now.

And while we understand storage uses are not a desired long-term use for the premises, the interim use does continue to generate lease revenue.

And the short-term nature of the new lease agreement that's proposed tonight will not interfere with the city's plans for future redevelopment in the enterprise district, with of course more job generating job intensive uses.

So CSI Mini Storage has been a tenant of the cities in good standing for many years.

As I mentioned, it provides active occupancy and it also provides some security for the area.

And this is really important to us while we diligently work towards a vision for redevelopment in the enterprise district.

So the negotiated lease agreement uses the city's new template lease document.

It does include a nine and a quarter percent increase in base rent from the current month to month agreement with this tenant.

The tenant is responsible for all utilities, taxes, fees, and that includes their contributions to the Alameda Transportation Management Association.

The lease will provide some needed revenues to Alameda Point to the Alameda Point Fund, exceeding $2.6 million over the initial three-year term of the lease.

Given our strategic priorities for redevelopment in the enterprise district, we were very careful to negotiate in a right to terminate with six months prior notice, and that's going to offer flexibility for the city and also for the tenant.

So, given the information provided, staff ask that council consider a motion for the authorization of the interim city manager to execute this lease.

And that concludes my presentation.

I have a couple questions.

What did you say the initial percentage rent increases?

Whoops, what happened?

Sorry.

No, we put it away.

Oh, okay.

Oh, perfect.

I'm sorry, Mayor.

Could you repeat your question for me?

I got a little.

Sure.

Wait, no, that's okay.

What did you say the um the initial rent increase percentage would be?

Uh nine and a quarter percent.

So at the bottom, maybe I'm reading something wrong.

At the bottom of the dis the bottom of page one under discussion, um, it says the new lease with CSI includes an adjustment to bring the monthly rent to market rate, etc.

etc.

This represents an increase of approximately 8.5% from the monthly rent under the current month to month tenancy.

Did I misunderstand that?

Yes, that might be my error.

I went back through and I looked at our rent roll this last month and verified it, and it is a nine and a quarter percent.

I apologize for that air, and I appreciate that you're that's okay.

So it's 9.5, not 8.5.

Um that's good, it sounds like more lease revenue.

But my more significant question, this probably predates your time in the city, um, is under background.

We note that roads property holdings LLC, um doing business as CSI Mini Storage, um, has operated its current location since 2005.

Lease was renewed in 2015 for a three-year term that expired in November of 2018, and CSI has remained a month to month tenant.

Um if I understand this correctly, it was a month to month tenant paying the same rate rental rate that it paid in 2018.

Is that correct?

If you know, I don't want to speculate.

That's okay.

I don't know the answer to that.

Um, and well, presumably somewhere we have rent rolls or that information, but then the larger question, and again, not directed to you personally, Ms.

Drought, because you weren't here then, but why did it take seven years for this lease to come to the city?

Because we just heard a lot of information in the previous um item agenda item about what uncollected debt is costing the city, and so I'm just concerned that for seven years we didn't take another look at this, and I'm also concerned that are there other leases like they're out that and uh out there, and what are we doing about that?

So anybody who would like to address those um questions, um I would welcome some information.

Well, I my director is here, but I'm happy to share what it what I have to the best of my knowledge.

Please let's start.

So we have a few occupancies that are kind of these holding tenancies, like they're not what we want the future use to be, but they're definitely keeping the space occupied.

And what we've learned is vacant space attracts issues.

Occupied space is great.

So I think what my predecessors were working through is you had a lease expire in 2018.

Um I think they were probably working through a lot of other leases that we have, and then I think the pandemic probably hit.

There was a changeover in staff in base reuse that I think slowed our process down, and I can assure you we are checking the rent roll every month.

We have an understanding of all of our leases and are working through these month-to-month ones now to address them.

Um the mini storage sites, so CSI and our other operator that is month to month as well right now.

Our goal to bring them up into a lease is so that we can have an agreement with them about what's going to happen when we're able to redevelop the enterprise district and have some assurances that they understand this is a use for right now, not for the future.

So are you inferring that the other mini storage tenant is also um a lease that hasn't been revisited for a while?

Yes, and so our goal was to work through this one with CSI Mini Storage, get a base rent negotiated and then move forward with the other the other one and clean that up as well.

Okay, well, I'm glad to hear that.

And what about others say we only have two mini storage tenants?

Are there other tenants out there that um haven't had their leases reviewed for years?

Um they we have reviewed all of our leases.

There are a few other tenancies that you're gonna see us come through for new leases on that maybe have expired a couple months ago, but these are kind of our longest outstanding.

A couple months doesn't give me heartburn um eight years does, seven years does.

I appreciate it.

Just because we've, you know, we we need to um just make sure we're collecting all the revenue that's due to the city because we don't know what the economy is gonna look like tomorrow, next year down the road.

So, okay, well, thank you.

That's that's helpful.

Now let me see if there was anything else.

Um again, I I want to say don't mean to be John Latzi, and I really appreciate that this work is being undertaken.

Um, as a clarifying questions, council?

Yes, Councilor Wadesa?

Um, I just want to confirm it's uh it's in here, but oftentimes when renewal options are included in the lease, oftentimes it's a renewal option at the uh exercise or discretion of the tenant.

Um but in this case, my con I just want to confirm if I'm reading it correctly.

Under the 2.2 option to renew part A, the last sentence says the city manager is authorized to negotiate in and execute an amendment to this lease and any other documents necessary to effectuate the renewal option.

So when they seek to renew, should they, then it's the city manager who then negotiates.

Does that, and maybe this is also a legal question, um, does that mean that um that it's automatically, even though the city manager uh negotiates, or within that negotiation, are there some um uh things that that the city manager or staff could raise that that are different from whatever.

I mean, so um so what we try to do with these renewals is make it that the renewal is something that can be handled by the city manager because we've already had the lease authorized by city council.

So if in three years they decide they want to renew, they would come to us and say they want to renew.

We would make sure they're in good standing.

We would also probably look at what our future plans are for the enterprise district, and if we feel like the three-year renewal option is workable for us, we would work with the city manager to let them know what the new base rent would be and the terms are in the lease, and then we would execute a renewal to do that.

It would not come back to city council at that point, but we always have that six month right to terminate, and so we can exercise that at year two of that renewal if that's what we needed to do.

Okay, or maybe a more specific way of asking the question, and perhaps this is for the city attorney too, that when they seek to pull the renewal trigger, and the city manager is authorized to negotiate that renewal, the parameter are the parameters of the negotiation set in sentences prior to that last sentence, meaning the parameters is so long as they're not in default or so long as they're in good standing.

So it's almost automatic.

That's a question.

It is almost automatic, and if you go to 2.2 C, it describes how the renewal-based rent will be set.

Okay, all right.

Um so that I mean I'm not gonna call that disappointing because I think the key thing though is that we've got the I appreciate the um the 2.3 the early termination rate um uh and how that that that the insertion of that um because I think this is an area where where we want to think about our longer term options, and after so many decades, I think it's time to begin to think about our longer term options, and what's kind of exciting me about that is you know, when we did our tour, you know, there was the possibility of uh, you know, not specifically at this area, but but you know, closer to um the um uh that that beach area, um the you know, housing or or or something possibilities, so so it's I think the long short is is we could putting in instruments like 2.3 that allows us to you know pivot um so that we could move forward with uh a mixed use enterprise uh zone development is good to see 2.3.

Any of that was a question.

Uh and senior turn, did you want to add anything?

I agree with what uh what was shared with the council that while we do not have uh significant flexibility in how to structure the renewal, we can terminate with a six months notice.

Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions before we go to public comment?

There's no there is no public comment, okay.

Um so council member Des.

I you could keep going if you wanted to make any speaker.

Okay, all right.

Um we've had a motion by Councilmember Desuk, seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, um I'll just add that I am excited to know that we're gonna do more of these um uh updated leases and uh collecting more lease revenue.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Any opposed that you um motion passes unanimously.

All right, um, then excuse me, then we move on to um city manager communications.

Interim City Manager Adam Politzer.

Thank you, Mayor, and uh council members.

I'll keep my comments quick and and really just focus on this past weekend storm and and the response from city staff.

Um, you know, on uh New Year's Eve and and going all the way into January 4th, Sunday, January 4th.

We had king tides and storm related weather, and as you saw throughout the Bay Area, there's various levels of flooding and damage uh to homes and property.

I want to um recognize uh Chief uh Luby and uh Public Works Director uh Aaron Smith for their leadership uh during uh the storms.

Uh we had uh teams call with um almost all the department heads uh Friday morning and Saturday morning to make sure that our communication with each other, with the uh recreation and park staff, the library in case we needed to open up a warming center or charging center if we lost power working um with AMP, um, but really the great work uh of our uh men and women that serve the city and in public works and uh our fire department as well as our um police officers with the police department.

So uh just wanted to recognize uh their good work and and uh thankful um that um they were prepared, they were trained, and uh and and we obviously with the work that happened in advance to the storm, the work that happened during the storm, and then the cleanup after the storms uh Alameda uh came out of this in good shape compared to some of our other neighboring baside communities.

Uh thank you, madam mayor.

Any other uh questions from council?

Happy to ask that uh answer that uh concludes my report.

Thank you for that.

Um Madam Quick, do we have any things unless staff wants to ask wants to speak under oral communications non-agenda items?

And we have no council referrals.

So then we move on to item 11, which is council communications.

Um why don't we start?

Am I right with council member Daysag?

Anything?

Nope.

Nope, okay.

How about you, Councilmember Bowler?

Nope.

Nope.

Um, I've got a couple, but I'll go on to Vice Mayor Pryor.

Anything for you?

Um, I was just gonna say I went to uh my second manora lighting uh South Shore Center on the 17th.

That was great.

Um and I was gonna say I had a long wonderful vacation, and I want to thank city staff because I did check my phone and my email, like oh my god, the storm is crazy, something happened.

And I was like, oh, I got no emails.

So thank you all for working so hard because I got zero emails about the storm.

So thank you.

And uh Councilmember Jensen.

Yes, um, and thank you to my colleagues for giving me all their time, seeding me all their time.

I actually do have uh on Sunday, I had the opportunity to walk three miles with more than 20 community members, including current and former Alameda Public Safety Forces.

It was a walk to raise awareness and visibility around the first responder and military suicide risks, and it was it was interesting and and great to talk to people from throughout the the region about this this issue and challenge.

And as we walk through Alameda, well protected by Alameda Police Officers, thank you.

We um I felt privileged to walk and talk without considering the challenges and the and the dangers of street crossings in Alameda.

And that brings me to my primary issue that I want to share tonight.

And that's the data related to vehicle conditions, collisions with pedestrians and bicycles and scooters.

And I brought this up at the last meeting, but I have more information now.

So Lara, thank you for showing my chart here.

Oh over the holiday, I had the opportunity to review all of APD's 2025 reports of collisions.

And here's some of the findings.

So the issue really is that there are a lot of collisions.

There's 72 collisions in 2025.

And you can see from this chart, we're in the month, at least in 2025, where the most collisions happened.

This was about 25% of all the collisions happened in, well, not quite 25%.

I think it was 10, 12%, 13% happened in January.

Or excuse me, 14%.

And also in 2025, there were um these were all collisions.

All of these numbers are pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooters.

And I have much more detailed information thanks to APD.

And I'll take this opportunity to thank APD and all of our public safety first responders because they respond to these reports.

And sometimes it's it takes a lot of um, it takes a lot of of time, it takes a lot of support, and it they they're very considerate when they respond to these collisions, and and often I have to say, unfortunately, often probably um 15 to 20 percent of the time the people who were involved in these collisions with the vehicle are transported to a local hospital.

So I'm just gonna give you the numbers now.

28 of the collisions involve vehicles and bicycles, 28 out of 72.

Seven involved vehicles and scooters, three involved, excuse me, 31 of those of the 72 were vehicles hitting pedestrians, and actually 21 of the 21% of the pedestrians were hit in a crosswalk.

So as I was walking through Alameda, I was thinking about this.

I was thinking about how how unfortunately how dangerous sometimes it can be to be a pedestrian or a bicyclist in Alameda.

And so what I I want to also just share finally the three intersections that had two or more collisions in 2025, and those were Central and Park Street, Alpizado Parkway and Wilmachenway, and Webster and Lincoln.

So there are also some sites on Bay Farm Island that that had at least one and sometimes two collisions, and we have to be more careful.

We have to look at this data.

I want to thank APD and AFD again, but this is dangerous.

This is dangerous to walk to bike and to scooter around Alameda.

We shouldn't have 72 collisions between vehicles and automo between automobiles or other vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooters in a place where our speed limit is 25 miles an hour.

So let's let's work on this.

Let's work a little a little bit harder to um make next make this year better than 2025.

And finally, this information is available on my website, Tracy Jensen.com.

Thank you.

That's my report.

Thank you.

And um, for my report, I will note that on um the December the 17th, I was also at the Minora Lighting with Vice Mayor Pryor and her mom, who was here from LA, and then Saturday um uh December the 20th, I helped um Alameda fire local 689 with their very robust toy distribution um out at their training center at Alameda Point on December 21st, which was a Sunday.

Um Chabad of Alameda decided to do it was both a celebration of the last day of Hanukkah, but also a remembrance of the awful mass shooting um at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia at Bondi Beach.

And so um I was they invited me and I was able to attend, and not only that, I really appreciated interim city manager Adam Pulitzer reaching out to APD to be able to provide security that the Chabad um organization requested.

And I also want to give a shout out to our interim city manager, also the city attorney's office, both uh city attorney uh Ivan Shannon and uh also assistant city attorney Lennis Lanian, who were very helpful and very instrumental in getting public works safety um features in place at the new Central Avenue roundabouts just before or maybe as the rains were starting to come down because um we do have new roundabouts on a busy thoroughfare and um they they needed those safety um features added and I was amazed and impressed with the speed with which that was done, but it was um it didn't happen on its own.

So thank you to all of you for for your involvement.

Um Squeaky Wheel does get the grease.

Okay, and then we're gonna move on now to item 11A, which is mayor's nomination for appointment to the golf commission.

We're still interviewing candidates for um the historic advisory board.

We've had a lot of interest in that um board, but for the um golf commission, I am happy to nominate um Yatin Shastri, who is um has been um golfing since he was nine years old.

He was inspired to begin golfing after watching Tiger Woods win the US Open, and um he's also the father of a 17-month-old um which says he says has impacted his score a bit and not for the better, but you know he'll he'll get back to it.

Um he um wants to uh just uh make sure that uh the golf course is is well used by all of our residents and of all ages, and um I think you will enjoy um meeting him.

I'm always inspired by all the great applicants we have for our boards and commissions.

So um you will get to um well we in the next council meeting, we of course vote on the nomination, and um presuming you did what you did tonight, then he will be sworn in and you'll get to to meet him in person.

I will get to meet him in person too because I do these these interviews um with whoever staffs that particular board of commission, but we do them remotely.

So that's my nomination.

And with that, oh my goodness, it's not even 10 o'clock.

Um thank you, council.

We got a lot done, and I want to say it was all unanimous votes, is that correct?

Yeah, so uh maybe we're off here.

I'm knocking on wood, and maybe we're just off to a great start.

I hope so for 2026.

Um thank you, everyone.

Thank you, staff, great job, and um travel home safely.

Good night.