If the balcony is ready, we're all ready.

Okay, so good evening, everyone, and welcome to the city council meeting for the city of Alameda.

Tonight is Tuesday, March seventeenth, twenty twenty-six.

It's also St.

Patrick's Day, so happy Saint Patrick's Day.

And so we go on to number two.

Do we have any public comment on closed session items?

Oh, we have none.

Okay, then we close um item two and we move on to the closed session items.

Item singular, we will consider Madam Clerk.

Would you please introduce that item?

Yes, it's three A conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point nine A.

The case name is City of Alameda versus Green Wake Off Associates Inc.

The court is Alameda County Superior Court.

The case number is twenty-two CV zero one nine six four.

And with that, everyone associated with this particular item, come on back.

And to the members of the public, we intend to be back before you at seven o'clock this evening.

Okay.

All right.

I'm gonna ask everyone to please take your seats.

Thank you.

All right, and apologies for starting a little bit late, but closed session went a little bit longer.

So good evening, everyone, and welcome to the city council meeting for the City Vallamita.

Tonight is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026.

It's St.

Patrick's Day.

We're all Irish today.

Happy St.

Patrick's Day.

The City Council has just come back from closed session, and I would like to ask the city clerk Laura Weisiger to please report any action taken in closed session.

Thank you.

Um the item was uh existing litigation with Greenway Golf and staff provided information and council provided direction, uh which carries unanimously by four eyes with Vice Mayor Pryor absent.

Thank you for that.

And with that announcement, we will adjourn the special session, the closed session, and I will call the regular city council meeting to order.

It is still Tuesday, March 17th, 2026.

I would like to ask my colleague, Councilmember Tony Desog to please lead us in the pledge.

Please rise as you're able.

Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Desag.

And uh Madam Clerk, could we have the roll call, please?

Yes.

Council members bowler.

Here Desog.

Here.

Jensen.

Mayor Ezy Ashcraft.

Here for present and Vice Mayor Pryor is absent tonight.

Thank you.

The next item is agenda changes.

Do we have any agenda changes?

Councilmember Daysog.

Yes, um, I would like to postpone my council referral to the next regular city council agenda meeting when hopefully we have five um uh council members, which I expect we would.

Um that's what I would like to do.

Okay, and does that require a motion, City Attorney?

No.

We don't we we do not need to.

Okay.

Well, that's okay with me as the person running the meeting.

And I so but just for clarity, Madam Clerk, could you introduce uh please announce what item it is that we aren't going to hear tonight just in case anybody was here for that?

Yes, so it is item uh 10A under referrals and it's uh it was placed on the agenda by council member Daysog.

So it's the one about yep.

All right.

Thank you.

Um thank you for that.

Okay.

We didn't have any speakers on it, but remote people might have raised their hand, but yeah.

Great.

Okay, all right.

Well, thank you for that.

So then we move on to um is this where I do my state of the city, madam Kirk?

Um no, no, that's under 7A.

First of all, I'm the first question.

So then before we open, um uh so there are no proclamations, special orders of the day, because you get to listen to me do my state of the city shortly.

Um but before we go on to oral communications, I just want to um share the rules of conduct that we um observe in Alameda City Council meetings.

So I'd like to remind people that this is a business meeting, it's not theater, it's not a sporting event.

We are here to do the people's business, your business, and we do do so in an orderly fashion, which means there is no applause, boos, cheers, jeers, we don't do the wave.

We just sit and respectfully listen to fellow speakers.

If you are a speaker, we ask that you um respect the time and when the buzzer goes off, we ask that you stop talking or before the buzzer goes off.

I'm as good too.

And the reason I like to make these reminders is that we always want to maintain um the city council chambers as a safe place to speak.

This is again your house, the town square.

If you will, and I don't want anyone to not get up and speak because they're afraid someone might boo them or laugh or do something rude.

So we just treat people the way we'd like to be treated.

We speak when it's our turn, we listen.

I always say applaud in your heart.

It's okay to um hold up signs, that's your first amendment right, but unless you're in that very last row, please don't hold them up over your head where you might block someone's um view.

And I remind us of these rules, most meetings because um for many people public speaking is one of the most stressful things they ever do.

Not for those of us who spend a little time in the courtroom or maybe still do, but for most people it is, and yet I want people to feel comfortable to get up and speak.

And then oftentimes we have young people in the audience, and even though I don't see any kids here now, they might be watching at home.

We want to set a good civic example for them of what democracy should look like.

And so that's what we do.

It's not complicated.

And then I read this magic language, and then we never have to use it.

But Penal Code Section 403 states that it is a criminal offense for any person to, without authority of law, willfully disturb or break up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other than an assembly or meeting referred to in Penal Code Section 302 or Elections Code 18340.

First violations will receive a warning and continued violations will require additional action, which could include police intervention.

There I said it.

Now we can move on.

Madam Clerk, do we have speakers under oral communication non-agenda item?

We do.

We have two, so they got three minutes each.

The first is Catherine Schwartz, and the second is Kyle Sinkoff.

Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members.

My name is Catherine Schwartz, and I'm the CEO of Alameda Family Services.

I'm here to give you an important update about the Alameda High School Health Center.

The Alameda High School based the high school-based health center was founded in 1993 by AFS.

Historically, we partnered with Native American Health Center to provide the physical health services, while AFS provides mental health services.

Unfortunately, due to staffing shortages, the Native American Health Center has given notice, and as of April 10th, 2026, they will no longer be providing physical health services to students at the Alameda High School site.

Many students report that being able to access physical health care at the health center is the only opportunity they have to obtain services such as reproductive and sexual health care, wellness exams, sports physicals, immunizations, and many more.

The hundreds of Alameda High School students that we serve through this health center every year deserve to be able to continue receiving these critical services.

We have been aggressively pursuing new medical provider partnerships and are currently in conversation with Roots Community Clinic and La Familia.

They both have expressed strong interest in partnering.

However, due to uncertainty surrounding Medical reimbursement, which is one of the primary ways they get paid for services.

They are understandably hesitant to expand without first year bridge funding to mitigate their startup and reimbursement risks.

I am here tonight sharing this information with you to make sure you are fully aware of the impending health center closure.

Should we not find the first year bridge funding requested by our potential partners?

Please know that to secure the funding, we are casting a wide net among our longtime partners, including AUSD, the AC Board of Supervisors, and now this evening with you.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

I'm happy to follow up, follow up with any of you about ideas or next steps you might suggest.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Kyle Sinkoff.

Welcome, Speaker Sinkoff.

Great.

Good evening, everybody.

Happy St.

Patrick's Day.

My name is Kyle Sinkopf.

I am the director of school-based services for Alameda Family Services.

And my printer was broken.

So we are here today with AFS to make sure that the city council is aware of the potential loss of services to the 1900 students at Alameda High School for next school year.

Some quick stats.

About 200 students have served at the Alameda High School-based health center last year, totaling close to a thousand visits.

We currently are on track to significantly increase that number this school year, with currently we have 115 clients and almost 600 visits already by the end of December.

Demographics of the students served from our school-based health centers, 28% Latino, 26% Asian, 18% white, 15% black or African American, and 13% other.

30 to 40% of these students are MediCal eligible.

This year, 91% of medical visits at our school-based health center in Alameda High was for sexual and reproductive health.

By December of this school year, 755 students access safer sex supplies and other health products at our Alameda High Clinic, which wouldn't be available without our funding.

In Alameda so far this school year, we've had seven student pregnancies.

This is extremely high based on previous years and is an upward trend.

Many students access our health center for again reproductive in health services.

And in addition to our direct services, we also reach hundreds of students across our campus, reaching already hundreds by again the end of December into now.

We do campaigns and presentations in classrooms and on campus on mental health, sexual health, healthy relationships, alcohol and other drugs, nutrition and body image, and much more.

We also do one-to-one sexual education and do classroom presentations and our famous URL campaign on suicide prevention and awareness.

We thank you for your attention and consideration to the health and wellbeing of our Alameda High students.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

That was our last slide.

Oh, okay.

So we will close oral communication on non-agenda items, and we will move on to the consent calendar.

And these are routine items approved by one motion, unless council members remove an item for discussion and any removed items will be called after we finish the regular agenda.

And council members may speak for up to three minutes on the consent calendar.

So, first off, are there any items the council wants to pull from the consent calendar?

Okay.

Um seeing no hands raised.

Does council have any questions that they'd like to ask about any consent calendar items?

And that doesn't require pulling an item.

Seeing none.

Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers on consent calendar?

There are none.

Close public comment on the consent calendar.

Any council comments or perhaps a motion in a second to approve the consent calendar?

I have a motion by Councilmember Jensen, seconded by Councilmember Daysog.

Any discussion?

Seeing hearing none.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

The consent calendar is approved unanimously.

And now we move on to item 7A.

Item 7A is Mayor's State of the City Add.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you to everyone for being here.

So before I begin my state of the city address, I need to provide the following information required by Alameda's Sunshine Ordinance.

City Clerk Laura Weisinger reports that in 2025 only one sunshine ordinance complaint was filed, but it was incomplete, so no hearing was scheduled.

So on to the 2026 state of the city.

Looking back, it has been the honor of a lifetime and an incredible privilege to serve as mayor of this wonderful vibrant city for the past eight years.

And on the city council for six years before that.

This is a community where I grew up, returned to, and raised a family.

I have gotten to know so many of our amazing residents and business owners and work with the city staff, many of whom are in the room tonight.

Um, that is second to none.

It doesn't get any better than that.

This past January, I attended the U.S.

Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, D.C., and at one session, mayors were challenged to ask and answer two questions.

The first was what decisions are you making today that will positively impact people's lives in the future?

And when your mayoral term ends, how will your city be better because of what you did?

So as I deliver my last state of the city address, I want to start with the first question.

What decisions are you making today that will positively impact people's lives in the future?

And let me quickly add that no one, including mayors does anything by themselves.

As mayor, I have just one vote like the rest of the city council, and as I often say, with one vote, you can do absolutely nothing.

So I want to take a moment to recognize the current Alameda City Council and thank them for being my collaborators, my thought partners.

We don't always agree.

We have some lively debates, sometimes disagreements, but thoughtful debate is essential to good governance, and we are all working for the betterment of this community.

So thank you to my colleagues, Vice Mayor Michelle Pryor, who's away this evening, and council members Greg Bowler, Tony Daysog, and Tracy Jensen.

My priorities as mayor have been and continue to be the health and safety of all who live, work, visit, and play in Alameda.

Let's start with public safety, which encompasses making our streets safe for all, but especially the most vulnerable users, children, bicyclists, pedestrians, individuals with mobility issues, older adults.

In 2025, Alameda's Planning Building and Transportation Director Alan Ty and Public Works Director Aaron Smith worked to deliver major transportation and safety improvements, including the Central Avenue Safety Improvements Project, featuring Alameda's first roundabouts and a protected two-way cycle track, and to complete a protected two-way cycle track on Grand Street from Shoreline Drive to Otis Drive that will eventually continue north on Grand Street to Clement Avenue.

And these new protected cycle tracks provide safe travel routes for hundreds of Alameda school children every day, because in Alameda, 40% of students walk or ride their bikes to school every day, which supports good health and also our climate action goals by reducing automobile traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.

These projects, as well as the improvements to the Cross Alameda Trail, are among the reasons that Alameda was recently named a gold-level bicycle-friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists, a distinction held by just 32 cities across the country.

Credit for this honor goes to our hardworking working city staff, many of whom are here tonight, the city council for approving bike-friendly policies and projects, and our residents who made their voices heard, guided by advocacy groups like Bikewalk Alameda and CASA.

Hello, Ruth Abbey.

2025 also saw construction of our first neighborhood greenway on Pacific Avenue, where there were those sometimes controversial slow street barricades were replaced with traffic circles and speed humps to slow traffic.

And as a little aside, I was grocery shopping Saturday morning and I ran into a resident.

She was wearing bike shorts, and we were commenting on what a nice day it was, and she said she'd just ridden across the city and she said, Do you know that Pacific Avenue is my favorite route to ride?

And I said, I am going to carry that back to City Hall.

So there I just did.

So these traffic circles speed humps, you will see more of them around the city.

And this is how we are making our streets safer for all users.

Our other unofficial traffic calming devices are those roving bands of wild turkeys you may have encountered, but they are harder to regulate.

Our residents and businesses all want and deserve to feel safe.

So let me share some progress we are making along those lines.

Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi proudly reports that 2025 marked the second of two consecutive years of double-digit crime reduction across all categories of crime, and these are significant percentage reductions, a 45% reduction in vehicle thefts, 15% reduction in larceny theft, 14% reduction in vandalism, and 11% reduction in burglaries, and this trend is continuing in 2026.

Traffic enforcement with an emphasis on dangerous driving also increased in 2025 by 91%, nearly doubling last year's statistics.

And this is another way we make our streets safe for all users.

Chief Joshi has also assigned police officers to our business districts, where they provide coverage seven days a week during peak hours.

Their presence has significantly decreased response times to calls for service from local businesses as we work to provide a safe environment for local businesses and their customers.

In 2025, AFD officially placed Fireboat Neptune into service after a year of training and preparation.

This vessel, which can pump more than 4,000 gallons of water per minute, will serve Alameda and our regional partners along the estuary and bay waters for years to come.

Phase one of the city's emergency water supply system was also placed into service in 2025, which will allow Fireboat Neptune to provide a sustained firefighting water supply in the event of a catastrophic failure of our municipal water system.

This will significantly enhance the city's maritime firefighting capability, disaster resilience, and overall community safety.

In 2026, the fire department will embark on a long overdue comprehensive strategic plan, including evaluation of the department's mission and long-term goals to chart its course for the next five to ten years and ensure alignment with evolving community needs.

Also in 2026, the Firefighter Memorial is anticipated to be completed at Fire Station 3 on Buena Vista Avenue to honor AFD members who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our community and ensure their legacy is never forgotten.

Finally, the CARE team completed its fourth year of service, responding to over 1,100 calls in 2025 that resulted in 767 direct care team client engagements.

This innovative mental health crisis response model is built on a strong partnership with Alameda Family Services.

We heard from a couple of their representatives a moment ago and other key stakeholders throughout the East Bay and continues to refine and strengthen its service delivery approach while helping set the standard for fire department-based mental health services in California.

The City Attorney's Office, led by City Attorney Ibn Shan, helps assure community safety and housing security.

For example, the public prosecution unit, headed by Chief Assistant City Attorney Julia Gonzalez, recently launched the Victim Services Program that, with funding from a state crisis intervention program grant, assists crime victims and witnesses by providing case management and support services throughout the often lengthy criminal justice process.

In 2025, the public rights team, co-led by rent program director Bill Chapin and Special Counsel Adam Rodinski, helped Alameda residents avoid becoming victims by responding to over 1,100 public inquiries regarding consumer protection, housing rights, and fair labor standards.

Last year, the rent program, another division of the city attorney's office, secured full rent control protection for 150 residential units at Admiral's Cove after prevailing in a landmark California Court of Appeals case.

The rent program also identified more than $500,000 in invalid rent payments that have now been refunded to the tenants who were overcharged.

And I always want to highlight that in this today's very expensive housing market that we find ourselves in in the Bay Area to have and residents are paying sometimes more than 50% of their income towards housing costs to have been overcharged a cumulative half a million dollars is huge.

And so huge kudos also to the city attorney's office for getting those funds refunded to the tenants.

Another important function of the rent program is educating landlords and tenants about their respective rights and obligations.

In 2025, rent program staff conducted 22 public workshops, responded to more than 9,000 inquiries from the public, and completed 47 mediations that reduced unnecessary conflict and litigation between landlords and tenants.

And supporting another vital function of the city attorney's office, the rent program and public rights team, will soon receive a 150,000 grant from the California Strategic Growth Council to support anti-displacement services that keep residents housed.

Finally, the Alameda City Attorney's Office received the American Bar Association's 2025 Hodson Award.

And this prestigious award is made to only one government or public sector law office in the entire nation each year.

And it is awarded for, and this comes from the award language, specific and extraordinary service by a government or public sector office.

In this case, the Alameda City Attorney's Office was recognized for acting with urgency and resolve to protect 50 families living in the Barn Hill Marina from imminent housing displacement after a new landlord sought to increase rents by as much as 178,000.

About 50% of the tenants were over the age of 65, and many were low-income or fixed income households and without the means to absorb such steep rent increases.

So in and then in November of 2024, the Alameda County Superior Court ruled fully in favor of the city in this case, imposing over $335,000 in penalties against the marina owners and issuing a permanent injunction to prevent further harassment of tenants.

The city's housing and human services division, under the direction of assistant city manager Amy Woldridge, helps keep Alameda residents housed with its in-house engagement team that connects unhoused individuals with service providers and works to prevent vulnerable individuals from becoming homeless.

This fall, the city will open a newly renovated and expanded day center and safe parking facility to provide critical first-line services for people who are unhoused, including emergency overnight shelter, meals, showers, laundry, and supportive services.

And the city also continues to provide funding to help local churches operate a seasonal warming shelter this year from December 3, 2025 until April 30th, 2026, because it doesn't usually get so warm at this time of the year.

In addition to a safe place to sleep overnight in new sleeping bags donated by REI, warming shelter guests are served a hot dinner and breakfast the next morning.

There is also a shower facility, ability to do laundry, and this year a case manager funded by the city to connect guests with needed services to help them find permanent housing.

Huge thanks to the members and clergy of Christ Episcopal Church for their generosity and to the many community volunteers who assist with the warming shelter, including a local Girl Scout troupe that designed the online form used to sign up to volunteer or provide meals.

As you can see, there is a strong volunteer spirit in the city of Alameda.

And I am proud that Alameda is doing its part to address the state's housing crisis.

Last month, Dr.

Margot Cuschell spoke to the mayors of Alameda County.

Dr.

Cuschell is a professor of medicine at UCSF and a practicing internist at SF General Hospital, who has done extensive research on the causes and consequences of homelessness, including on physical and mental health.

Did you know, for instance, that the fastest growing homeless population are individuals who first became unsheltered in their 50s?

Dr.

Kushel firmly believes, based on nationwide data, that homelessness is a housing problem that will be significantly reduced by providing more housing that is affordable.

She offers the state of West Virginia as an example, noting that West Virginia's population includes individuals who have mental health and substance abuse issues.

The opioid crisis is huge in West Virginia.

But nonetheless, there is very little homelessness in West Virginia because housing is cheaper there.

In January 2025, as a result of the policies the Alameda City Council approved to increase housing production and reduce barriers to housing construction, including streamlined permitting, the City of Alameda was designated a pro housing city by the California Department of Housing Community Housing and Community Development, or HCD.

And this designation provides more than bragging rights.

It offers Alameda exclusive access to certain grants and additional points for competitive housing, community development and infrastructure funding opportunities offered by HCD.

We have already received a $1 million grant as a result of this award.

So virtue is its own reward, but sometimes it comes with a monetary award.

Currently, we find ourselves in a slow housing market due to interest rates, so much market uncertainty given the global situation and other economic factors, which resulted in a relatively low number of building permits being issued in 2025.

According to planning building and transportation director Alan Ty, last year the city issued building permits for only 65 housing units, and 52 of those were ADUs or accessory dwelling units.

But nonetheless, these ADUs, which are smaller homes, help fill the need for housing that is affordable by design, further demonstrating our commitment to housing all Alamedans and living up to our pro-housing city designation.

And importantly, over the last few months, we have sold a dozen below market rate homes through a streamlined lottery process, which provides people with lower incomes the opportunity to build equity through home ownership.

I spoke earlier about safety improvements we are making to local streets, but because we are an island, water transit continues to be a popular commute option.

Bless you.

And think about that number if you will.

It represents cars that weren't on the roads.

And Woodstock, the little yellow water shuttle to and from West Alameda and Oakland's Jacklinden Square, carried over 125,000 riders last year, including those with bikes, strollers, and wheelchairs.

In early 2027, Woodstock's schedule will expand to help people travel on and off the island when construction work begins on the Posey tube for the Oakland Alameda Access Project.

The intermittent partial closure of the tubes, as well as the popularity of the ferry and Woodstocks estuary crossings, highlight the need for a bicycle pedestrian bridge across the estuary and engineered to accommodate emergency vehicles to expand access to and from West Alameda.

Last year's staff completed the project initiation document or the PID and are now working on the waterway study that will be completed by June 2027 and followed by preparation of environmental documents.

And somewhat ironically, just this afternoon, as I returned from Sacramento, so I've been in Sacramento all day with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

We're lobbying for state transportation and housing funding.

And I was returning from Sacramento on Amtrak, and the Alameda resident sat down right across the aisle and said, Hi, Mayor.

And then he leaned over and said, Mayor, we really need that bicycle pedestrian bridge across the estuary.

And I said, working on it, but anyway, that's what this resident said, and he is not alone in those thoughts.

And then as I highlight the health and safety of our residents, businesses, and visitors, I want to emphasize that all of our city departments contribute to keeping our community clean, safe, and healthy.

For example, over the past year, the public works department updated the sewer system management plan to ensure long-term system reliability and protection of public and environmental health.

Public Works Director Aaron Smith and city staff are also acutely aware of the need to prepare Alameda's aging infrastructure for flooding, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.

And to that end, Alameda voters may consider a bond measure this November to help fund unmet infrastructure needs.

And of course, parks are essential to community well-being, and Alameda is well resourced with parks and recreational opportunities.

Alameda Recreation Parks Director Justin Long proudly notes the anticipated completion of Estuary Park on the West End in late 2026.

That's this year, where five acres of vacant land are being transformed into a vibrant new public space to gather, play, and connect with an inclusive playground, pickleball and basketball courts, a dog park, picnic areas, and EV chargers.

When our new aquatic center, a long awaited investment, opens in late 2027, it will provide modern inclusive facilities for swimmers of all ages and abilities.

Libraries also support community well-being as well as literacy, lifelong education, and so much more.

Alameda Library Director Michael Eitner reports that there were more than 216,000 visits to the library across our three branches in the last fiscal year, with almost 760,000 items checked out.

Across Alameda's three library locations, there is now a story time every day of the week for children, parents, and caregivers to enjoy, including story hours in Spanish and Mandarin.

In the coming months, the library will launch a more user-friendly event calendar and online reservations for study rooms at the main library.

Library services have also expanded to meet community needs.

And in December 2025, we initiated a 12-month pilot program with a clinical social worker from Alameda Family Services who provides more than 30% who provides 30 hours of on-site support to library patrons at the main library, including I don't know how school teachers do it talking all day.

Um, including informal mental health support and referrals to case managers, housing, social services, non-emergency medical care, immigrant support, and domestic domestic violence prevention programs.

We don't wait for people to come to these services.

We are there for them at the library, which is just leveling the playing field because it is free and open to all.

And by expanding its facade improvement grant program to include crime crime prevention through environmental design improvements or SEPTED, RED helps increase the safety and security of local businesses.

This department also oversaw implementation of the two-year rise up Alameda pilot program that provided 150 low-income Alamedans with a guaranteed minimum income of 1,000 per month.

The program, which ended last December, resulted in demonstrated improvements to participants' social, emotional, and financial well-being.

These findings provide an important contribution to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the benefits of an unencumbered minimum income.

On the city's economic, our city's economic condition is also healthy, according to finance director Ross McCarthy, who proudly reports strong fund reserves that reflect careful stewardship and responsible financial planning.

However, Director McCarthy cautions that we must be clear-eyed in his words about forecasted structural budget deficits projected over the next few years.

This will require disciplined decision making and long-term solutions as we focus our resources on delivering high-quality core city services, public safety, infrastructure, and community programs while safeguarding our financial stability for the future.

IT or information technology department led by Demetrius Kagampon is modernizing city operations and strengthening our network infrastructure to ensure secure, reliable, and uninterrupted services for our community, while advancing innovation through a responsible AI pilot program and reinforcing our cybersecurity defenses to protect city systems and sensitive information.

Alameda is fortunate to own its own electric utility, Alameda Municipal Power, or AMP.

And under the leadership of General Manager Tim Haynes, who's with us tonight, AMP continues to provide reliable locally controlled electric service while maintaining some of the lowest rates in the Bay Area.

Over the past year, AMP advanced grid reliability and wildfire risk reduction efforts supported electrification initiatives and expanded customer programs that help residents and businesses transition to cleaner energy.

Moving forward, AMP will continue investing in infrastructure resiliency and technology to support Alameda's growing community and climate goals.

Impressively, community-wide emissions have dropped 29% since 2005, even as the city's population and number of local jobs has grown.

So we are well on track.

The city made other meaningful measurable progress toward its climate goals by updating the climate actions, climate action and resiliency plan or CARP, continuing the Alameda Youth Climate Ambassadors Program with high school environmental clubs, expanding access to public electric vehicle charging, including the city's first ever curbside EV chargers, growing the urban forest with volunteer tree plantings, and moving important sea level rise planning and resilience projects forward despite reductions in federal funding.

I am also pleased to announce that in 2025, Danielle Miller was recognized with the hidden hero of the Greenbelt Award by the Greenbelt Alliance for her leadership and vision in creating the Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee.

As you can see, Alameda is leading the way to creating a cleaner, safer, healthier city and region.

So these are the decisions that I help lead that I believe will positively impact people's lives into the future.

But all is not rosy.

I'm a realist, and I always say we talk about everything, the good and the bad, and the city does face some significant challenges, including the current political landscape.

As I drafted this address, and this was even a couple weeks earlier, but things have not gotten better.

The federal government is still partially shut down, specifically the Department of Homeland Security over Congress's inability to agree on appropriate guidelines and restrictions for federal agents conducting immigration enforcement.

So, how should cities respond to this sort of situation?

How should our city respond?

I believe that the path forward to counterabuse of government power lies with the courts.

To that end, the city attorney's office and I have signed on to a number of amicus briefs supporting the rights of states and local governments, including Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis, to govern without being subjected to the militarization of their streets or to be required to support federal civil immigration enforcement.

And we have the these cases that we've signed on do have an impressive track record.

The city has also joined other local jurisdictions in litigating against the federal government to protect local funding from unconstitutional conditions such as requiring use of local resources to support federal civil immigration enforcement, like in exchange for federal funding.

But when we speak of the federal government, we also need to remember that we face uncertainty around the Veterans Administration Clinic and Columbarium plan for Alameda Point.

Despite federal funds having been allocated for this project, fully allocated when Congresswoman Barber Lee represented us in Congress and in a previous administration, those plans were halted without notice or explanation to the city.

However, I, as well as our federal lobbyists and our federal representatives in Washington, D.C., joined by veterans organizations, continue to express opposition and seek to restore funding for this vital project.

But there are also reasons to celebrate.

The city is working with our business community to ensure Alameda is ready to make the Football Australia delegation and its tens of thousands of lively visiting fans feel right at home.

This will involve not just our restaurants and shopping districts, but also relationship building events for Alameda and Australia's tech and advanced manufacturing businesses.

We can't wait to welcome the Aussie's, and I can tell you from the delegation that visited Alameda recently, they are so much fun.

We're going to just transform Alameda into Little Sydney or something.

But now on to the second question, the mayors were asked to answer.

When your mayoral term ends, how will your city be better of what because of what you did?

And so here are the things I'm most proud of, and I've listed them in alphabetical order so as not to appear to favor one over the other from years of training as a mother of twins.

So starting at the top of the alphabet, the Alameda Food Bank's new forever home.

This is how Alameda is addressing food insecurity.

Alameda Point Collaborative, the new reshaped neighborhood will house formerly unhoused families, veterans, and domestic violence survivors out of Alameda Point.

Attitudes, I have seen in my almost eight years as mayor, remarkably changing attitudes toward homelessness.

When I when we first started, I mean, we've had homeless issues, but they've become more prominent over the years, certainly probably more during COVID.

And at first, the response I would get, the communications I would get from residents was make them go away, send them to Oakland.

I don't want to see them.

But our community over time, and our residents, our businesses, our nonprofits, have shown an incredible capacity for learning about the complex causes of homelessness and for responding with compassion.

And I am so I will make one warning, and this is my warning under the of the penal code section.

I have just read.

All right, you have an opportunity to be quiet and listen for the rest of the time I'm speaking.

Okay.

Um she needs to leave.

She needs to leave.

Right?

You're all about transparency.

We'll take a brief pause here.

Where's Joey Harrison now?

And as and um, this is a repeat of what occurred when I gave my um state of the city before the Alameda City Council.

And what I did explain to people then, and I'll repeat it now.

What you have just witnessed is one of the many faces of mental illness.

Um I am proud that our city offers many resources for those with these struggles.

For the most part, one has to avail themselves of them.

There are a few things that we can do without volunteer cooperation.

But it I want you to know those resources are here in our community.

So I was saying about the remarkable compassion that our residents have shown, residents, businesses, and nonprofits toward addressing homelessness.

Um the alphabet, the care team that I spoke of earlier, and then communication.

I say this often to city staff and my council colleagues.

You can't overcommunicate.

You may think you carried a message, tell it again.

It just takes many opportunities for for information to sink in, and it's so important that we are always communicating with our constituents.

Next down the alphabet is Dignity Village, 65 units of supportive transitional housing for unsheltered adults.

These units were built, their modular housing, they were built in just nine months back during COVID using American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds and funding from the city's general fund.

And thanks to assistant city manager Amy Woldridge, who was providing me information.

As I was coming back on the train from Sacramento, because I knew we had some up-to-date statistics.

I think you would all be pleased to know that from January 1st, 2025 until March 17, 2026, there were 30 exits from Dignity Village.

In other words, folks who had lived there, then moving on to what we refer to as positive thank you officer.

Um, what we refer what are referred to as positive housing destinations, including reunification with family in some cases, and to rental houses housing, both with and without subsidies.

These are success stories.

These are people who are able to be out to be housed on their own.

They can still seek supportive services, but those 30 space, those 30 exits represent spaces that then open up for another cohort of 30 folks to come in, and this has continued since Dignity Village opened during the pandemic.

Feed Alameda, this program used ARPA funds again during COVID and some of the city managers' budget, City Manager Eric Lovett at the time, to pre purchase nourishing meals for our unsheltered residents during the pandemic, which also helped local restaurants stay in business at a time when they could only be open for takeout and delivery.

The mayor's COVID-19 vaccine task force, Ruth Abbey, you were a member of that task force, so was communications director Sarah Henry.

Um I implemented it, but help with help from lots of folks in 2020, and we facilitated the first vaccine clinic ever that was um held in Alameda, and just because Ruth Abbey, who's amazing, is in the room.

She was working on developing a waiting list because we knew that we had 300 vaccines that could be given.

That's what the pharmacy we were working with told us.

But we also knew from reading the news that there are always a little more vaccine in a vial left over.

So we actually gave 319 vaccines that day, and these were all seniors.

And it was because Ruth Abbey was in the corner of the Mastics Senior Center with her earbuds in on the phone, calling people saying, Hey, you said you could be available at short notice to get a vaccine.

Can you get down here?

And we gave um were able to with the pharmacists who were doing the injections.

We didn't waste a single drop of vaccine.

But that is just it's people power.

It was uh it was amazing.

She does many more things too.

Um but we did so this helped also to lead to community education, the mayor's town hall Fridays at noon that helped keep our community healthy and informed.

Going down the Alphabet McKay Avenue and the wellness campus, this one hundred unit assisted living facility for frail elderly homeless individuals will open soon and include a medical clinic and respite care for again some of our most vulnerable unsheltered um residents, and then um residents taking responsibilities.

So in closing, I want to observe that we do not know what's around the next corner, and that's probably just as well.

But we do know that we have the capacity to meet any moment and the resiliency to rise to any occasion if we stay focused and engaged and do what we can from where we are with whatever resources we can muster.

Alamita, you have shown yourself to be more than equal to the challenge, and it has been my immense pleasure to serve as your mayor these past eight years.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Okay, we'll do the applause except and you know what?

As I look at this beautiful photo, I realize that if the city clerk doesn't touch me, I forget these things, but you know what?

It would be perfect.

We have a very nice video.

We we can play.

Um now you have done.

Why don't you tell the people?

So why don't we play the video?

And work for peanuts.

They were perhaps.

I'm not sure we got there again.

Thank you, everyone.

And now sure what I did with my agenda, but it's up here somewhere.

We've got one for you.

No, here it is.

It's on the floor.

Okay.

I was clearing the decks.

Okay.

So we now move on to item uh 7B.

Madam Clerk, would you introduce that item and then whoever's doing um 7B and would you please come on up and get ready?

Madam Clerk.

Recommendation to authorize the public orchestractor to install improvements to the Lincoln Avenue and Walnut Street intersection prohibiting through and left turn movements from Walnut Street.

In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, this action is categorically exempt from further environmental review.

Personal to SQL Guidelines Section 15301 existing facilities.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, Scott Wickstrom, City Engineer.

Tonight I'll be presenting on the Lincoln Walnut proposed diverter island.

A little bit of an agenda here because we are going to go back and forth a bit.

I'm going to talk a little bit about vision zero when we first adopted it in 2018, some improvements we did in 2020, additional vision zero actions, some work we did in 2025, and really what leads us to where we are tonight with this proposed diverter island.

It's based predominantly on the number of collisions and the severity of those collisions and the injuries that have occurred.

And with especial uh care towards our most vulnerable populations.

And where the red arrow is pointing is the Lincoln Walnut intersection.

It was identified as a high collision intersection back when we first uh adopted vision zero.

Something for this intersection.

So in 2020, we we we we uh did a pretty substantial improvement.

We basically took what was a four-lane road through this intersection, and we shifted the lane merge that existed to the east of the section further to the west, closer to Willow, uh made a road diet from four lane to three, uh, allowed for left turn dedicated left turn pockets on walnut, added a significant amount of red curb to improve visibility, some painted bulbouts, and some high visibility uh crosswalks.

Okay.

Talk a little bit more about vision zero as a whole.

Uh vision zero, we've done a lot of work in the city on vision zero.

We have a hundred and twenty million dollar investment in traffic safety.

Uh green is what's completed, roughly about 40 million.

Yellow is what's in construction right now between Central Avenue and Tilden Clement and some work out on the base, about additional 40 million.

And the blue represents stuff that's in design and coming in the next two to three years.

Again, the last 40 million for 120 million dollars total.

It's a big improvement that we made for our city.

Uh looking at intersections specifically, we had a data set that we're able to rank and identify the the top 75 uh intersections with respect to collisions.

And we've done safety improvements at 48 of those 75 intersections through combination of corridor projects, annual paving projects, some of the slow streets work we did, both in the commercial and the residential, and some targeted safety projects.

This is really just about uh collisions, disclosing data only.

And I was able to separate that data between the first period between 2009 and 2019, and the last four, a little bit over four and a half years between 2020 and October 2024.

And it's instructive to kind of look at what that shows us.

Overall, there was a 9% reduction in the collision rate throughout the city.

And those corridors that we've had road diets on, including Main Street, Otis, Park, and Webster Street, Park and Webster were the commercial slow streets that have been now memorialized from a four-lane road to it for a two-lane road.

We see significant reductions in the number of collisions.

Similarly, where intersection improvements have been made, we see nearly a 40% reduction in the number of collisions at these in at these intersections.

Those are the 48 of the 78 I was talking about.

Zooming in a little bit on the top 20 intersections, and I apologize this doesn't print out quite so clearly on this presentation.

But what we can do is we can compare collision rates in terms of the number of collisions per year in I'll say the first time period from 2020 through 2020 and the last four and a half years and look at the rates, and then we could look at a percent reduction on those rates.

Doing the math a little bit, you could also then compute collisions avoided, if you will, but what collisions didn't occur because of the improvements we made, and calculating that out, it's about 40 collisions over that time period, which is which is pretty impressive.

Highlighted in a few different things.

There's a couple areas where we had substantial reductions.

Main Street and Willie Stargil, Otis and Westline have seen an 80 and 100% reduction in collisions.

It's a massive increase.

Now keep in mind that Main Street, obviously, there was the main street ferry terminal that's now been largely replaced with the seaplane goon, but nonetheless, that's still an impressive data.

We also can identify areas where we need improvements still.

This is kind of where collisions have actually the rates have gone up a little bit.

So we have some areas in parking Clement and Park and Blanding, and we do have a plan to do some significant changes to the signal timing on those two intersections in the next couple weeks, which hopefully will make a difference in how that functions.

And then lastly, we stood up here at Lincoln Walnut, where it's still up at the very much near the top of the list, and uh the collision rate really hasn't gone down much.

It's gone down a measuredly 7% compared to the 9% citywide.

Okay, so coming back to the improvements that we did in 2025.

Unfortunately, in 2021, there was a pedestrian fatality, um led to additional flashing beacons being installed, shifting the lane merger further west, enhancing even more so the bull bouts.

But as I had mentioned, the collisions only reduce 7% on par, I'll say with the rest of the city.

And interestingly, when we start looking at the collision data that the police have, 30 of the 38 collisions that were in that data set were from broadsides.

And those are indicative of either a left turn across traffic or a through movement going through and get hit on the side.

And that's really what we see that we're trying to address.

We looked at a few different options.

Um Lincoln Walnut does not meet the uh the warrants for a stop sign.

It just does the walnut uh uh approach does not have the volume necessary to meet the warrants, uh, and it would be the only stop on a corridor that otherwise has traffic signals.

So we anticipate that there might be some low compliance, which would leads to other kind of complaints that we sometimes see.

Uh similarly, warrants for a traffic signal are actually more, I'll say severe or more need more traffic volumes.

Um, so it doesn't not meet the mat the warrants for that, and it's also very expensive at about $800,000 when you include both the design and the construction.

It's very expensive.

Uh years ago, there's discussion about a one-way couplet with either willow or oak, one way on either street, and there's different options about how that can play out.

That would have a much larger impact on the overall area, and it really doesn't address the broadside collisions because some people would still be driving through the Lincoln intersection.

And so, as we talked about it with our design consultants, um, we looked at a uh potential diverter island to prohibit the through and the left turn movement, which is really our best effort to limit the exposure to broadside collisions.

Uh here's a kind of diagrammatic picture of what that would look like.

It would be basically a concrete island or some form of island in the middle of the road that has a little shape like this that's been referred to at a couple of different things, a worm or fidget spin, right?

They're called.

Um it would also force basically drivers heading northbound on wallet to make a right, and drivers southbound on wallet to make a right as well onto Lincoln.

And that that's really the key thing here is it's a relatively inexpensive, not terribly invasive way that would prevent the through movements and hopefully limit those broadside uh collision exposure.

When we start looking at traffic volumes, these are from recent 2025 counts.

Um, this is the AM peak period.

Uh, there'd be 56 northbound movements that would be affected, people that were originally going through or making a left, that would be forced to make a right.

And in the southbound direction, there'd be about 32 movements that would be affected, uh, both the through and the right.

So uh that you know, so it's it does affect people.

Um, it will shift people over to the adjoining roads, either willow to the west or oak to the east.

We did at the same time we took traffic counts here, took traffic counts at both those intersections as well, with the plan and intention to go back and collect traffic counts after this would be installed if approved, uh, to understand what the diversion would be between these uh different uh uh adjoining streets.

So again, kind of summarizing this proposed diverter island would reduce exposure to broadside collisions, allow pedestrians and bicycles to continue to use Walnut Street so they'd be able to go north across the intersection using the uh rapid flashing beacon that was installed in 2025.

Um maintains the left turn movement.

Uh we did talk with FIRE about this.

Um, this is not uh Walnut Avenue is not a fire response route.

They do not take walnut to get to fires or or call service calls in other locations.

They only use Walnut when there's an actual call on Walnut Street.

So their likelihood of using this is very limited.

We would also design this diverter island in such a way that their larger vehicles could traverse it, albeit at a little bit slower speed.

Um it is a relatively inexpensive thing that we could do.

And if it would turn out to be successful over the next couple of years, we could make it more permanent with a larger Lincoln Marshall Pacific Corridor project, which is following uh with the plan construction in 2028.

Okay.

So uh okay, talked about that.

Um couple of things here.

General plan mobility element.

Obviously, we're attempting to eliminate fatality, severe injuries, sidewalks, crosswalks.

Um, that's one of the main goals within the uh the general plan.

Um we do have another element within the general plan that talks about Alameda Street grid, which is to uh attempting to maintain the character of Alameda by maintaining that street grid and maintaining those connections.

Um we feel that this is a relatively minor deviation from that in the name of safety, which is a higher goal that we're looking to achieve here.

Okay.

And so recommended action would be to authorize the public works director to install improvements to Lincoln Avenue and Walnut Street intersection, prohibiting through and after movements from Walnut Street.

Um this did go in front of the Transportation Commission earlier this year.

They were supportive of the approach, had several questions about details that we kind of talked through with them.

Um, but and then also asked that uh any data collected would come back to that body for review in in about a period of about six months' time.

And in a 20 seconds left, I have a video if we would allow this to play here.

But I actually have two videos.

We'll watch this first one here.

Yeah, yeah.

This came from uh uh ring doorbell cam footage from a neighbor.

Uh we are looking southbound, so Lincoln is in front of you, the police car just is heading southbound on wallet.

There's what's the clip.

I think the sound is not quite timing with the video, but the the red car was the one that came through there.

So and then there's one additional video here, and we can watch real quick.

And this just it's kind of helpful to watch the videos because it gives a sense of what we're trying to do.

It's a relatively low volume traffic here.

A car comes, you know, a couple cars, and then next thing you know, there's a collision.

Those are the kind of collisions, both the ones that we saw were basically through movements on walnut, that would be forced to make a right turn.

That would hopefully avoid those questions.

So go back and leave it here.

Available for any questions.

And I will note that David Parisi with Parametrics uh consulting is available on Zoom if we have any detailed questions.

Okay.

Um thank you for that.

Madam Kirk, do we have any public comment on this item?

We do not.

Okay, well, I'm gonna close public comment and open it.

I'm actually gonna lead off on this one.

Thank you.

Um just raise their hand right at you.

Okay, well, let's hear from the public first.

Okay.

Uh it's Jim Straylo.

Welcome, Speaker's Trello.

Good evening.

The city has a redesign plan for most of Lincoln Avenue.

The recommended design of Walnut Street is not consistent with the main design for Lincoln Avenue.

Having inconsistent street design creates chaos for drivers, which jeopardizes overall safety.

In the presentation you just saw, there were two crashes or accidents.

The drivers who caused the crashes should be the ones punished.

With the diverter island, you are penal penalizing law-abiding citizens by the acts of a few.

You are also penalizing residents along Walnut Street who desire to drive north or south along Walnut Street.

Only about three residences at the Transportation Commission said something must be done.

What about the other hundred nearby residences?

What I also learned at the Transportation Commission was that accident counts exclude medical emergencies.

I also argue that accident counts should exclude D UI, B UI, D W I BWI, driving or biking while impaired, because those accidents may occur anywhere throughout Alameda, regardless of the actual street or intersection.

The wisest discussion I heard at the Transportation Commission was maybe the drivers along Walnut thought that the drivers along Lincoln Avenue had to stop at the intersection.

Wow.

The first thing I would try to mitigate future crashes would be signage on Walnut Street.

Cross traffic does not stop, or cross traffic on Lincoln Avenue does not stop.

Please make that change now, not the recommended diverter island.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further speakers?

No, they're not.

Okay, this time we're really closing public comment.

So thank you for the presentation, Mr.

Worksroom.

And you know that we have worked on this and a lot of other things.

I very much appreciate City Engineer Scott Wickstrom, Transportation Manager Lisa Foster, because they've participated with me in many of the sessions, the follow-up session to the Mayor's Institute on Pedestrian Safety.

In one of the sessions that we had, and one of the consultants from back east somewhere was looking in real time at Google Maps at this intersection, looking at all this the statistics.

But what I want to just remind my colleagues is there's a cost.

It's hard to put a price tag on human life.

And I'm not saying that the city engineer doesn't think about this all the time.

But even in this staff report on page the bottom of page one and going into page two, it notes that the intersection, so Lincoln Avenue is primary east-west arterial.

Most of the primary intersections on Lincoln Avenue are controlled with traffic signals, including the adjacent intersections of Lincoln Walnut, Lincoln Oak, Lincoln Park, Lincoln and Park, not Lincoln Park, uh, and several others along the corridor as you go west.

The intersection at Walnut Street is the first non-signalized intersection for vehicles entering the corridor from either the Park Street Bridge or from Childen Way.

Right of way control is through a two-way stop sign with traffic stopped at Lincoln.

And it I and I understand the concept of warrants and that you need more of these near misses.

But you also showed us in that video, the first video, that there are near misses that wouldn't get if it hadn't been captured by the neighbors ring camera, we wouldn't know about it.

Although, and you probably know, I think the organization is called civics, like CIVX, and they were at the U.S.

Conference of Mayor's summer.

I have literature I'm going to share with you, Mr.

Wickstrom.

But what they're able to do, and it's using cell phone data, they actually can measure those near misses because they can tell when a vehicle has you know braked hard, there's a way that that that's done.

Because it's it's hard to quantify all the things that might have happened but didn't.

But the next time might lead to an accident.

So my ask of the council going forward, looking at future budgets, but not too far into the future, is we need to find the money for a signalized intersection.

I appreciate the design, the time you spent hours and hours with the neighbors and getting their input and feedback.

But this intersection, this stretch is dangerous because people pick up speed, they come off of the bridge, they come from Tilden Way, and there's not another another traffic control on Lincoln until you get to the one past Love Elementary, which would be You go from uh I think there's one at Willow, actually.

Well, it willow, and then you go all the way to Grand.

So it's a big deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Walnut to Willow.

But but there's one at Willow, but it's from the Park Street Bridge, you don't stop until there's a is that the is that the intersection after Walnut?

Going from, I'll say east to west.

Yeah.

Walnut willow and then chestnut.

Willow and chestnut both have traffic signals.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

My pitch is I think walnut should too.

I'm not gonna not support this because something is better than nothing, and I know a lot of thoughts gone into it, but I just think we're doing uh a lot of working around the problem.

Um comments, questions.

Uh council member Day Soc.

Uh yes, uh questions.

Um so uh I understand you've worked extensively uh with the residents um and neighbors.

Um can you tell us what their feeling it was or is with regard to four-way stop signs versus the what's being proposed now.

Can are you able to decipher what that what if they have any preference for that or not?

Their their overriding consideration was that we do something that limits the collisions, that limits the crashes, and and they from their standpoint appreciated the work that was done in 2020.

I think they really appreciated the uh flashing beacons that were recently added, because that does help a lot with the pedestrians getting across the street.

But there still have been collisions.

Um I will say there was a we'll say a recent spate of collisions where there's three in a relatively short period that we're all kind of informed about.

Um and they're frustrated, they want something done, right?

Um I go back to when you start talking about stop signs, and this comes back to warrants.

Um, you know, we do get complaints from time to time from areas elsewhere in the city about how people are not stopping at at stop signs and that they're that there's concerns about that and what can be done to stop and and a lot of that comes down to it's a human behavior thing.

If if it's you're regularly going down this road and there's not traffic on the side street, it tends to be human nature to do sometimes call it a California stop where you come and you roll and you roll through.

So that is one of the reasons why um we do have the idea of having stop sign warrants so that we're not unjustly putting stop signs out there that lead to poor compliance.

Um but back to your question.

Neighbors, they they m overwhelmingly wanted to see something done.

Okay.

Okay.

Um let's see.

So I I I hear you know your comments regarding um low compliance if um if four-way stop signs are placed.

But I think what I also just heard you say right now is at least they slow down to do a California role.

Is that that that is correct?

That would be the form of noncompliance.

Yeah, and and it's in in a lot of ways what gets to be troubling is it's an inappropriate use of a right-of-way control to achieve traffic calming, right?

Yes, people are slowing down from 25 or 30 or 35 miles an hour down to five, maybe 10 miles an hour.

That is traffic calming.

But what you're doing is you're basically putting people in a position that they're basically not following the law at that point, that they're not, and and it's and it's not really the kind of behavior that we want to encourage.

So it does have the effect of traffic calming, but it's an inappropriate mechanism to achieve that.

So one of the um purposes of state warrants, as I understand it, one of the purposes of state warrants as I understand it, is that is so that the drivers have a uniform experience from one city to the other.

Um so that in the decision to install signage, whether it's yield signs, stop signs, um, ought not to be so dramatically different from one place to another.

I uh is that's what I understand the purpose of the state warrants are.

Um but it is completely possible, is it not, that given the level of of accidents happening here and um and and the fact that there was you know uh uh fatality here that did, you know, um uh what was a tremendous concerns.

I mean, might that uh have other cities um kind of like decided not to go with the state warrants?

Well, there there is an actual warrant that does factor in collisions, um and it's basically looking at a collision period of of five collisions that are susceptible to correction or missing the term, but susceptible to avoidance by the installation of a stop sign, right?

So um it would be in this case five broadside collisions that occurred in in a in a calendar year, and that's where we look back and while 38 seems to be a big number over 15 years, it's averaging about 2.3 per year and closer to about two per year, that would be broadside, so it's it's not quite at that level.

It's it's it's a lot um from our standpoint from a cities of our size and our goal for vision zero and our general plan goals to reduce fatalities.

Yeah, it it and injuries, yeah, it's we want to address it, but it falls below what that normal threshold would be for sure.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Other council comments, questions?

Councilmember Jensen?

Thank you.

Um I've also heard from neighbors, and I just wanted to um follow up on a question asked by uh Councilmember Daysog, I think it was about um your outreach to neighbors and um whether there are neighbors that are opposed to this.

Um I have not heard any that would be opposed to this.

My other question is uh where has this been used?

This type of I don't believe it's been used in Alameda but is there anywhere else in L meter or locally that this sort of diverter has been put in place?

There haven't been any in Alameda so this would be a first I'm going to ask if you could promote uh David Breesey.

Okay.

Yeah if you could bring him up the screen he can talk through a couple examples where this has been used in uh nearby cities in the Bay area.

Good evening Mayor and council members um should oh there you are I have a very strange uh video shouldn't it be green at St.

Patrick's Day I think it's better now.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Yeah we are promoting the um use of the diverter island and again I'm sorry for the video I'm exactly sure what's going on.

So actually I'll just turn it off to not annoy you.

But yes these islands are used there are several used throughout the Bay Area.

There's also been many that have been used um throughout the Western U.S.

exactly for the reasons that your uh city engineer has discussed really to reduce the potential for uh the types of collisions the broadside collisions that are occurring at this intersection um the raise feature that we have sketched out and has been implemented uh successfully in many places uh again has shown a uh big reduction in those types of collisions and I also want to state that um you know installing unwarranted signals or stop signs can really cause unnecessary traffic delays and um increase rear end collisions that um don't occur today along Lincoln but could uh as people are not you know seeing traffic on the side street uh increase driver frustration and leading to signal or stop sign disobedience um these can also disrupt traffic flow and increase overall intersection congestion and can lead to vehicles taking less appropriate routes so as Scott mentioned the signal stop sign is generally used for right-of-way control and that is something that um uh you know again not necessarily needed at this intersection and we are recommending use of the Berta Island and monitoring it and Scott I think it's like six to twelve months correctly correct and then seeing uh how successful it may be at that time thank you and uh in your experience um uh David or uh City Engineer or David Parisian is there any evidence that this has any impact on the the traffic um the through traffic the traffic on Lincoln in this case this yeah yeah it would not have any uh interruption to through traffic thank you uh any from you council member bowler uh nothing okay well I would just say I would be hard pressed to oppose something that has our consultant Mr.

Preesey who's worked on a number of roadway projects with us um is recommending it's been through the Transportation Commission and we do have um correspondence from neighbors who are in favor so you know we we have heard from some neighbors um so I would see no reason not to um recommend to approve this recommendation to authorize public works directory to install Councilmember Desagrons thank you just follow up question and let me precipice it by saying I I seem I don't see any reason to oppose this but I just want to make sure that you know for that we make this decision with our eyes wide open so one of the issues that I want to talk about or ask about is is not the through traffic on Lincoln but you know are we analyzing you know what are the effects on say willow um will we do have we quantified or have estimates as to what amount of traffic that might be that would have gone down one it will instead go down willow um and also does the presence of the of the stop sign kind of ameliorate should there be more of traffic going down willow as a result of this does the presence of the stop sign kind of at least you know provide some semblance of safety two separate questions all right yeah the the we are collect we did collect baseline data uh in 2025 late 2025 uh at both uh all three intersections right so willow and lincoln walnut and lincoln oak and lincoln and we intend to collect data after six months after construction after people have kind of become accustomed to it um and and review those numbers and look at what those counts are uh looking at the the the data counts that I showed on the screen you know there's a certain number that are going to be verted to the west southbound or diverted to the west north on divert to the east it's almost about a net wash um we don't anticipate significant changes in volumes uh on on willow but we are collecting data just to be able to analyze that and review that um and again with the larger Lincoln Marshall Pacific project coming in a couple years uh we will have an opportunity to if there isn't a a a a reason to make a change we'll have that opportunity to do that with that larger project uh in your second question was about if we would put a stop sign there given that that willow does have a uh a stoplight it does it should there be more

We don't anticipate significant changes in volumes on Willow, but we are collecting data just to be able to analyze that and review that.

And again, with the larger Lincoln Marshall Pacific project coming in a couple years, we will have an opportunity to, if there isn't a a reason to make a change, we'll have that opportunity to do that with that larger project.

And your second question was about if we would put a stop sign there.

No, no, no, no.

Given that that Willow does have a stoplight signal.

It does.

Should there be more traffic diverted to Willow?

Does the fact that there's a traffic signal there, you know, you know, for those who are concerned about, oh, now you've got to divert the problem to there.

Should the fact the fact the presence of uh of the traffic lights ameliorate that concern?

Yes, that is that is was very deliberate in our thought process that in diverting traffic from walnut, you're either going to oak, which is a signalized intersection, or you're going to Willow, which is a signalized intersection, which you have a little more opportunity and safety to uh to make those maneuvers.

And with the Lincoln Marshall Pacific Project, the intention is to add a uh protected left turn phase at those intersections, which would further improve the safety at those intersections, both uh willow and and oak.

Thank you.

Okay, so what I am looking for is um a motion to recommend authorization to recommend to authorize public works director to install the improvements we've heard about tonight.

Who'd like to make that?

Councilmember Dayside moves and Councilmember Bowler seconds.

Any further discussion seeing none?

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Okay, next step is um item 7C.

Madam Thank you.

Madam Clerk, would you please introduce um uh item seven C and is this the one where we need so council, before the city clerk introduces this item, we um they would like to have 15 minutes.

There's just a lot of detail in this.

So I need a motion um approved by all of us to add 10 minutes, to add five minutes to the 10 minute staff time.

Okay, again, moved by councilmember Day Sach, seconded by Councilmember Bowler.

All those in favor of adding another just five minutes, really.

Um I stating aye.

I that also passes unanimously.

Um, Madam Clerk, please introduce the item and come on up, folks who are presenting.

Recommendation to accept the 2025 annual reports on the Alameda 2024 General Plan Housing Element, Transportation Choices Plan, Vision Zero Action Plan, Climate Action and Resilience Resiliency Plan, and Climate Adaption Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation is Plan.

Sequidermination.

Acceptance of the annual reports of statutory exempt from environmental review pursuance to SECO Guidelines Section 15061B3.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, Allen Ty Planning Building Transportation Director.

So tonight um our team will be presenting to you the city's 2025 annual reports.

Um this would be a tag team presentation.

Joining me tonight is uh planner Tristan Swear, uh transportation planning manager Lisa Foster and Danielle Miller, our sustainability and resilience manager.

Also want to take a moment to acknowledge our colleagues in the public works department, uh Director Aaron Smith and City Engineer Scott Wickstrom, whose teams contributed to our annual reports.

Um before we dive into the general plan housing element report, I'd like to briefly highlight some of the amazing work our department staff has done in the past year, particularly on customer service permitting and code enforcement.

In 2025, the team handled over 8500 phone calls.

These are phone calls for our mainline, not including uh calls to our personal extensions, as well as over 21,000 emails.

Um we also supported over 32 public meetings across five hearing bodies and more than 40 additional community meetings and events.

And really, this reflects our department and our staff's commitment to being responsive to the community and um having ongoing public outreach.

Operationally, we processed over 4500 permits this year, uh last year, with about 68% issued as express permits, which are issued within one to three days.

The industry standards, roughly a 70 to 30 percent split, with the 30 percent being projects that do require the full plan check review.

Um and the 45 permits is actually a dip in our annual average, which is roughly about 6,000 permits.

We also completed more than 30,000 inspections.

Our eight building inspectors performed 30,000 inspections.

99% of those were conducted same day upon requests.

So these metrics really um reflect our department's uh commitment to um efficiency and high service levels.

Last year we introduced the express permits program.

Um looking ahead, we are further wanting to refine our permit process.

In 2026, we plan to roll out our instant permits track so that uh our permitting process will be in three clear categories.

This is in response to our outreach with the community and hearing the business community's needs for having faster service.

Instant permits would be for simple, like for like work.

Express permits would be for projects requiring minor plan review and standard permits for the full plan check.

Um we think this structure will better align us with the review time and the turnarounds that are expected.

And to support these service enhancements, we uh our department will plan to bring budget proposals in the next budget cycle.

Uh on code enforcement.

Um, we've been understaffed in 2025 uh primarily with two code enforcement officers, but the mighty team of two construct uh conducted over a thousand inspections and responded to over 500 cases.

Uh in 2025, we were also successfully, we've successfully launched um three programs, including sidewalk vending enforcement, uh tobacco business enforcement, as well as holding property owners with long vacant properties accountable for property maintenance.

Um good news is uh we expect to fill the third senior build uh senior code enforcement officer position by the end of this month.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to Star Planner Tristan Swear to give the general plan housing element update.

Thank you, um Director Ty and welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, esteemed council members.

I appreciate your time this evening.

Uh my name is Tristan Swear.

I work in planning and I wanted to cover with you folks some of the updates to our general plan uh and housing element uh updates for the year 2025.

Uh being mindful of the time, I'll try to make this brief.

Um, but certainly if you have any questions, happy to follow up on those.

Um a little bit of context first.

Um, as I'm sure many of you are aware, the uh housing element cycle is an eight-year planning cycle during which the city is required to um account for enough land to uh accommodate the arena or regional housing needs allocation.

Um in sort of doing so, we prepare annual reports for HCD and LCI that track the application volume, that is the number of applications for new housing units received, uh issued building permit volumes uh for those same housing units, and of course, final building construction that is certificates of occupancy issued for those housing units, meaning they're ready to be uh filled.

Um, in addition to that, we also do an update on the programs, the 22 programs listed in the housing element, um, which I'll get into a little bit later.

Um the table in front of you is sort of uh the headline numbers for issued housing units uh in the year 2025 with a comparison to the year 2024 with some uh additional separation for income categories.

Um you'll notice that there's a significant decrease in the number of issued permits in the year 2025.

While this does reflect larger macroeconomic conditions um associated with the slowdown in housing production, um it's also worth noting that small excuse me, small scale housing projects such as ADU construction has remained strong and is on track to meet our goals uh for housing uh production.

Um it's also worth noting that the reduced applications uh excuse me, the reduced uh building permits issued in 2025 is a function of the reduced applications received in the year prior, 2024.

Um it's worth noting that the number of applications received last year in 2025, um, 143 uh is a significant increase from the 80 received in 2024.

So we're hoping to see a small, if not market increase uh in the number of building permits issued next year.

Um to the program implementation.

Um, so as previously mentioned, um, the city has 22 housing element programs that it monitors uh updates uh and makes progress on annually.

Um we've provided some examples from specific programs here that we're really proud of from work done in the past year.

Um I'll uh note that the pivot from the first time uh home buyer program to focus on uh members of the community who are our most vulnerable who require the um assistance with um feed restricted affordability.

Um I think that pivot towards that focus has been uh uh a huge improvement.

Um then um there are a number of other housing element programs um with updates in 2025 in the exhibit provided.

Um certainly happy to dig into any of those.

Generally speaking, the programs are designed to both facilitate new housing but also to preserve and maintain our existing housing stock and of course provide support to those most vulnerable members of the community who need help accessing that housing.

And then finally, I'll just note that the city is working on a number of updates to the zoning ordinance, including our ADU ordinance, short-term rentals, our inclusionary housing, many of these uh topics I'm sure the council's aware of, but we'll continue to do work on those in uh 2026 to bring them before the council.

Um with that, thank you very much for your time.

And I appreciate uh, you know, if you have any questions, happy to help answer those.

Um I will hand this off to Daniel Miller for our sustainability portion.

Thank you.

Welcome, Ms.

Mueller.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and Danielle Miller, Sustainability and Resilience Manager.

Um you see here the CARP targets.

I think you're well familiar with them.

As the mayor mentioned, we are on track to meet those targets for 2030.

Of course, as we get farther and farther, it's going to get harder and harder to get those emission reductions.

They're going to be the more difficult emission reductions.

Um we really want to stay on track and continue our progress.

Um we have been meeting our goals, and we've hit some of our key metrics already.

You can see on the left the 2020 or the 29% overall reduction.

We're almost at our goal of 70 miles of bikeways by 2030.

We're really close to our target of 12% electric vehicles in Alameda.

Uh we've um just about met our goal for uh water use for per household water use consumption, and we have um I think exceeded our goal of 12% reduction of natural gas emissions or natural gas usage uh by 2030.

So we've got lots of work to do, but we are also really making some amazing progress.

Um you can find all of the metrics that are in CARP on our really great dashboard, um, the website right there.

Um, so we did a lot of things in 2025.

Um, I'm not gonna go through them.

Um, but we're as continuing to make progress and really working hard to work with the community and other departments to um to make progress where we can.

Um in 2026, we're looking to update our um greenhouse gas inventory.

We're deploying more public chargers, uh, looking at new um local requirements for heat pumps when we replace air conditioners.

We're gonna have our home electrification fair this year will be combined with the bike festival on May 2nd.

So we're really excited to um have some new audiences at the electrification fair.

And then, of course, Public Works has completed the Zero Waste Implementation Plan and is looking to adopt the urban forest plan.

On sea level rise adaptation, as you also know, we've made a lot of progress and are really advancing um quite a bit of work in this area.

In 2026, we're going to be developing our shoreline adaptation plan.

We're going to be advancing the Bay Farm Island project and continuing to look for more grants for our estuary and south shore adaptation projects.

And of course, with CASA, Greenbelt, and our other partners really continuing our robust community engagement process.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Lisa for Transportation.

Yes, moving right along.

Thank you.

Whoops, what happened to the timer?

There it is.

Okay.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members.

I'm Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager.

Uh, the transportation annual report shows the city's progress on the safety active transportation, transportation choices and equity goals set in our city council adopted transportation plans.

And it does represent the work of multiple departments, but largely the transportation planners in the planning building and transportation department and the engineers in public works.

I'll highlight a few of the numbers from 2025, which was another banner year.

We built 1.5 miles of all ages and abilities bikeways, um, repaired sidewalk trip hazards at over 8,000 locations, and improved safety at 79 intersections, and the seniors and people with disabilities participating in our free bus pass program, took um 225,000 plus rides last year, which is a lot of mobility for a city paratransit funded program.

I um we agree with the mayor that two of the highlights from 2025 were the opening of the uh Pacific Avenue first segment of our neighborhood greenway, and the substantial project progress construction constructing the Central Avenue project.

I also wanted to highlight we had a successful annual bike festival last year, um, always a fun event.

We drew hundreds of participants for education and fun activities, and this year it will be on May 2nd at Ruby Bridges.

Uh hope everybody can make it.

And then looking forward to 2026 this year.

We have a lot of projects in the planning and design phases, including Starjill Avenue, Complete Streets, Pacific Avenue and Wilmachan intersection improvements, and neighborhood greenways planning, wooden bridge, both thinking through interim and long-term replacement planning, water shuttle long-term planning, and Lincoln Marshall Pacific in the design phase.

We are continuing to have a lot of construction this year, including completing the uh four-mile cross-alameda trail.

This is the year we are slated to be done after many phases with the Clement Tilden Project under construction and the Clement Avenue extension at Olone to Grand.

Oakland Alameda Access Project is, of course, under construction in the Webster tube this year.

And we are anticipating completing the Slow Street to Neighborhood Greenway conversions on Versailles, San Jose Ave, and the remainder of Pacific and near-term improvements on Fernside West of High.

Um, but they do when they're complete, represent major investments in the safety and quality of life for Alamedans.

And now I will pass to Director Ty.

Thank you, Lisa.

So the staff recommendation for tonight is simply for the council to accept our report and give any direction you have on our work plans.

Otherwise, as the next step, the general plan housing element and report exhibit is submitted to the state of California development of housing community development.

And lastly, I really just want to take an opportunity to recognize all of the professional staff in our entire planning building and transportation department.

Although the work that you see today is really a result of all of their hard work and effort and dedication, and I am personally very, very proud to be working alongside this talented team.

Thank you.

It's a nice photo.

Thank you, Judge.

Thank you.

Manclerk, do we have public comment on this item?

We do.

We have two.

All right, let's have our public comment first.

The first is in person.

Uh, Ruth Abbey.

Welcome, Speaker Abbey.

Uh Ruth Abbey from Community Action for Sustainable Alameda.

I came here tonight, of course, to speak to this item, but I was delighted to hear the State of the City address and to reflect on the past year and the past eight years of accomplishments, primarily around the transportation, planning, and uh climate and resilience.

And I would have to say, looking back on these past eight years, oh my gosh, so much has been accomplished.

But I'm here tonight to support the work that's been uh done this past year and to look forward to the next year work plan.

And I just wanted to ask the city council, the city manager that it is so important to invest in these projects and particularly to invest in the future projects that will be coming up.

The mayor made reference to the potential infrastructure plan.

And of course, we need to show skin in the game when it comes to potential future federal funding or state funding.

Where we need a lot of support, I think, is to invest in our staff capacity to take on these new projects.

Um many of you may be familiar with um you know our wonderful colleague Gail Payne, who for many years was a project manager in transportation and was lent to us, I say us, because we've worked so closely with Gail on the adaptation projects this last several years, and she was amazing, and we lost her to Richmond, so I'm very very envious.

Well, that position, which of course was in transportation but lent to climate, really needs to be fully funded.

And so if there is a mid-cycle application for more staff support for this area, I would really want to encourage the city manager and the city council to consider that.

And um to think about our future when we are successful in getting more infrastructure projects and getting more um grants and other things that we are investing in the project management capacity of both in planning and in public works, who already have full-time jobs and are already repairing our streets as we heard, and everything else, the the sewers, et cetera.

Um, we will need to invest in more staff capacity to do these projects that are really critically needed for the future of Alameda.

Not maybe next year, not maybe two years from now, but 10 and 20 and 25 years, we need to honor that investment.

So, whatever short-term, medium-term, long-term investment that the city council can eke out.

I very much appreciate uh you supporting that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, we now have two remote.

The first is Jim Strelo.

Welcome to Speaker's JLow.

Good evening.

If uh injuries in Alameda are lower than California and the county, why is Vision Zero such a priority here?

Uh vision zero cannot eliminate DUI, BUI, DWI, BWI, you know, while impaired.

Your stats include DUIs, where stats should exclude such numbers because those accidents could occur anywhere regardless of the street or intersection involved.

Regarding the parking meter program, I find the displays at night are practically unreadable.

Vision zero should include year-round education spoken in all representative languages spoken most around the island.

Safe route to schools education misses about 95% of residents and visitors to Alameda.

My personal vehicle preferences to avoid as many intersections with the dedicated bike signal left or right turns.

That is traffic diversion.

I wonder how many other drivers do the same.

As a bicyclist at such bike signalized intersections, I follow behind a vehicle on the street so as not to intentionally trigger a bike signal.

When you install speed humps, your track record on Versailles is to not inform residents impacted by such in front of their own house who have to listen to the sounds of vehicles going over those speed humps all night long.

The city of Oakland has a resident veto power while Alameda does not.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Michael Sullivan.

Welcome, Speaker Sullivan.

Oh hold on, sorry, it's not.

Are you there?

It's not letting me remote.

Shoot.

It's not letting me let oh wait, there we go.

There we go.

We found him.

Okay.

I think he's got a hi there.

Hi.

Hi.

Yeah, so I'm a longtime homeowner in Alameda, and I recently moved into a new Victorian house.

I've just completed a DIY electrification project and a seismic upgrade and worked extensively with both the building and planning departments to complete these.

And I just want to take an opportunity to give out a shout out to both departments.

And everyone I've engaged with has been great to work with.

They provided a lot of support to help me understand the permit process and the building codes and made it easier to successfully complete the project in a code compliant way.

I also appreciated the electrification fair last year to get information needed for both projects.

So I just wanted to say thanks to everyone on these teams for the help on this.

Oh, thank you.

Our next speaker.

That was our last speaker.

And then we're in the chambers.

No.

Okay.

Well, we will close public comment.

Thank you, everybody.

Great team effort on that presentation.

Why don't we start on my left this time?

Councilmember Jensen, did you have any questions or comments you wanted to make?

Um yeah, I have a question.

Thank you for the presentation and the reports.

I these are really important for me as a council member as well as for the community to learn what is going on in terms, especially in terms of housing development, um, in terms of whether and how we're meeting the requirements of the regional housing needs assessment.

My question, my first question before I comment further on that, is um with regard to the transportation uh to uh Ms.

Foster.

And I just wanted to we heard earlier about the uh diverter project that isn't in the report because it wasn't approved until tonight.

But will that be part of the future transportation program?

And and we'll hear more about that next year.

Is that planned to be done before before the plan renews in 2026?

You want to come up to City Engineer Wickstrom?

Are you asking whether it'll be in our next annual report reflected in it?

I'm asking what the schedule is.

Oh and apologies, I should have asked that during your presentation.

No problem.

Uh our intention is to get this constructed in 2026.

So I have a task order waiting pending on tonight's vote by council approval to execute and get our design complete with the intention of getting that installed in 2026.

And um, we didn't really hear much uh this may be for you or from Ms.

Foster as well, um, about the the speed hump policy that was I that was developed or or was discussed at least by the Transportation Commission.

So I'd like to hear if that is part of this report or if that will be coming separately and how that's progressing.

Oh, yeah, that's uh thank you for the question.

That's uh it's something we're working on behind the scenes.

Uh Susie Hofstetter, who was here maybe up, um uh is working extensively with us on that.

We are finalizing the last bit of the policy.

We took it to the Transportation Commission to receive their feedback.

Uh we are looking at how we're looking at scoring potential applications and locations.

Uh we do have a street safety capital project uh that council has funded for the last several cycles.

Um and we are at this point looking to earmark 150,000 specifically for speed humps throughout the city.

And we believe that would be up to about 10 installations.

Great.

Yeah, and those would be intended to be installed uh this year.

Okay, thank you.

My next question is for Mr.

Ty or for housing with regard to the housing um presentation.

And again, this is something that's been discussed and it continues to be discussed with uh in the planning board as well as um among the city council.

And my question is with regards to the last chart that was shown uh showing the uh how well we're meeting the the RENA goals.

And it looks as though, well, I say we, but how well our um city developers and builders are meeting the arena goals because of course we've made it available and made it easier, but whether or not they're able to build due to the economy.

Thank you for your your comments on that, as well as from staff.

But my question is with regard to the the um allocation of especially of what we're allocated by the state and what we're doing for very low, low and moderate and uh market rate housing.

What what I would like to know is since we're not able to meet these goals, whether, and we've discussed this before, whether you could comment and update on how those ratios might be changed to support either more or less market rate, more or less as we've discussed moderate and improve housing for low, especially for low income.

Yes, thank you for that question, Councilmember Jensen.

So um I guess to put in perspective, uh our current arena achievement is roughly 12 percent of the entire goal.

That's actually not very different from other cities within Alameda County, say for the City of Dublin, which has been really building out their tracked housing.

Um regarding the uh inclusionary housing ratios, um staff is almost ready to bring to our planning board a draft inclusionary housing ordinance update that will include uh a variety of options to meet the inclusionary requirement.

Currently it is 15 percent broken down by 447, very low, low, and moderate.

And so our proposed table, which received council direction on last year, um, includes some flexibility to try to achieve the same costs for the developer, but give different scenarios for compliance.

So hopefully that offers some more flexibility, but this is really a broader and challenging problem.

Um developer costs are not solely attributed to the city of Alameda.

There are many other factors, labor, construction costs, uh other agencies charging fees.

So it is a policy question for council is how much does the city want to take on that responsibility and obligation to solve this larger market problem?

Definitely we have a slice of the pie, but um what are those trade-offs?

So we hope to um bring that ordinance to council after receiving planning board recommendation planning to come before you in May.

Thank you, Director Tyle.

Look forward to that.

And um, I also wanted to thank you for the um earlier in in the on the agenda we we had two consent items, and one of which was the round four Pro Housing Incentive program grant funds, which I know you and your staff were working to um to get those funds into Alameda so we can do what we do with the Alameda Housing Authority to build more housing.

And um I'll say the other one was for MTC funding for Willie Starge.

So I just want to end by pointing out that staff's working very hard, although we don't have the funds here in our general fund or our other um available funds.

We're doing what we can to improve streets and build housing with the funds that are available from the state and the county and other agencies.

So thank you for that, and thanks for the reports.

Thank you.

Don't go away, Mr.

Ty.

Um I was um looking at email earlier and as I was returning on the train, and I did see um an email from Senator Artigien's office or communications.

Do you want to just because this is definitely related to housing and um an issue that came to our attention last year?

Do you want to just talk about what I'm talking about?

I think you know.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so uh the staff work on the housing side is in our housing element programs are beyond just looking at the housing production numbers.

There are a number of programs and staff.

There are a number of programs and staff, our staff is also engaged in advocacy work and the specific situation here is uh working with the Senator's office to Senator Ergin's office to uh explore opportunities where there could be further refinements in the state law, and specifically we're looking at the state density bonus law and ways to protect uh important community assets like grocery stores from being displaced by potential housing development, but also at the same time looking at ways where uh there's opportunity to clean up existing state legislation so that there is better clarity and consistency um between existing laws and many of the new bills that have been passed in recent years.

So that advocacy work is also part of um PBT's work plan.

Which I really appreciated um Senator Argin does a quarterly check-in with us.

And um time when he came down not too long ago in person, we went out for coffee and I asked Mr.

Ty to join us.

And so he explained the situation that we were encountering at the Harbor Bay Landing shopping center.

And so, you know, we explained that we're all for density bonus, but not for creating food deserts.

Um and so anyway, I think that this is knock on wood, this is the legislative season and this bill is underway, but we wanted to make sure that there was a revision about this in this bill that the senator is sponsoring with the League of California Cities, I might add, to make some needed assessments, uh amendments to the density bonus um bonus law.

And Senator Artigan does chair the Senate housing committee this year, so we're we're pretty well positioned.

But anyway, thank you for all your help on that.

Um let's go down the list.

Uh Council Member Bowler, anything you wanted to say?

Uh just briefly.

I just want to thank um Dr.

Ty and the other city staff that presented tonight.

Um it's very helpful to get kind of a quick overview of these really important areas for the city.

And I think that um what you see in the in the uh the vision here is um you know some really strong efforts, some really um impressive accomplishments in a very difficult terrain, right?

We're dealing we're talking with um you know concepts like the the arena, the regional housing needs allocation, and and trying to get to some really difficult goals that um are gonna require some more structural thinking and in terms of how do we get through the economy, how do we how do we do things in other areas too, like with vision zero, just trying to get to the most effective outcomes.

There was just talk in your presentation about um the customer service elements of a lot of the work, which are which are terrific.

I mean, we really uh have a really dedicated city staff and we're making great strides there.

And what we have to, I think going forward focus on is also how do we constantly look at ways to improve our effectiveness and really get to a new level where we make some hard decisions and you know we may at some point have more funds to do certain things better, but we all may also have difficult more difficult times.

So I think it's really important to always keep the perspective of um the effectiveness towards our overall goals and planning.

Um but I but I really do appreciate this update today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Desak?

Uh yes.

Um mostly an observation.

So the arena um regional housing needs assessment, I believe, or allocation, is an eight-year period from 2023 to 2031.

So mathematically, we are 25 percent into the eight-year period, i.e.

two years over have two you know year data accounting years have passed relative to the total of eight.

So the word 25 percent into the um uh arena period, um, but the amount of housing production that we've done is 12 percent of our goal.

So that that 12 percent versus 25 percent kind of is an indication that we're s we're behind the rate, the pace at which we should really be building housing, all things being equal, we should be 25 percent of of our goal with regard to housing production.

Um but while we are off um uh our um uh pace, while we're off the pace at which we should be building housing for good reason, given the economy and given the um interest rates, et cetera.

Um inflation, especially cost of construction.

Um while we are off the pace of construction for this eight-year period, when you combine this period with the previous eight-year period, which I think was 2015-2022, in the previous eight-year period, we actually produced more housing than what we were slated to build.

So couldn't one say that, hey, you know, all things media equal.

We're we're still, you know, we for this period uh we might be off, but in the two periods combined, you know, we we we haven't done that bad of a job, I think.

It's just an observation.

Um that's my observation.

It's kind of a nonverbal question.

We don't get we don't get bonus points though for having produced more housing in the previous that is correct.

We do not get credit for for the extra housing units, although it is factored into setting the next arena target.

Okay.

Council member, if I could just offer one quick point.

Uh another way to look at our arena progress is because the uh responsibility to build housing is not on the city.

You can take a look at what or how many units we have actually approved, meaning how many units have we have uh of housing that we've uh facilitated for the developer to actually pull a building permit.

And for that, we have I think believe over 2,000 units in the pipeline ready for the developer to pull building permits on.

So from that perspective, I think we're almost halfway through our 5,353 arena.

Okay.

Yeah.

City is not really the barrier.

It is really the macroeconomics.

Yeah, for sure.

And and I will just say the problem we are trying to solve for is of course um the housing crisis that is um exists throughout our state.

And our city has done a very good job with you know what we're able to do.

Um but what I will also say there there are efforts to get more money out of the state, which is a little tough because it's the budget deficit, we think.

Um we'll know more in May.

And and also just some of what we're lobbying for on behalf of MTC is more funding for housing because transportation and housing are very, very related um and go together.

But um and and these oh okay.

That is the sign that we need to take a break.

But before you sit down, um Director Chai, the there was some reference to the short-term rental ordinance, and I know that there is actually legislation that the um League of California cities brought.

We just need to sign on to that as I as I recall, and I know I've said this before before the staff, we need to get it on the agenda soon because we want it in place before the FIFA 2026 when we're getting all the visitors because it will assure that anyone who is renting their um whether it's hotels but also just Airbnbs and VRBOs and whatnot, that they're registered, that we're getting the fees, and that and and so I know this takes a little time, but here we are, our last meeting in March.

Do we have a date that that you're aware of when that's coming back to the council?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, my understanding is it's we're taking a two-pronged approach.

Our finance department is taking the lead on uh that part of the ordinance, which uh entails more of the uh business receipts and auditing side.

Uh the planning department is handling the regulatory approach, and that is an ordinance that we will um be teeing up later on.

But I believe it's in the the finance department has uh I've seen a draft, but okay, and there's city clerk who knows all things about our agendas.

What's up?

It's currently slated for April 21st.

Well, that sounds awesome.

Okay, but first reading and then second reading.

Okay, okay.

That sounds thank you.

Thank you for that.

And then my second observation, and no, you can sit down and nobody needs to even get up, is um I just wanted to share with uh Danielle Miller is here, Tim Haynes is here.

I do a quarterly check-in with the Alameda Housing Authority, so Executive Director Vanessa Cooper and several of her staff, and they were updating me on renovations to housing authority properties, um uh Independence Plaza and B.

Diamond, and they were talking about new roofs that were going on, and I said, roofs, so when you do new roofs, do you do solar panels on the roofs?

Because you know, this is a way to um help you know lower your energy bills and be more environmentally friendly.

I'm told that on Independence Plaza, that's really complicated series of roofs of yours.

But anyway, uh but they also are doing things like when appliances, water heaters, and whatnot come to the end of their heating units, come to the end of their useful life, they're replaced.

So I said, you know, we have such great resources in Alameda, and I did drop your names, but if you could maybe reach out um also to um Vanessa Cooper and um the Sylvia Martinez and the and the others that that um and I can send an email with contact information.

I just think it would be great when we can get those institutional users on board to um uh um get you know make their structures as environmentally friendly as possible.

So um we don't do we need a vote on this, yes, Council Marie.

I um through the chat.

I have one more question, actually.

Yes, go ahead.

Um thank you.

It's actually for um and you reminded me of it, it's for um Director Mueller regarding the um uh I just wanted to know, and it may be for PBT in general as well, but I wanted to know if we if and what we're doing to um outreach in the community.

I understand that in 2027, less than a year from now, that gas water heaters and um gas heaters will not be able to be in installed.

You won't be able to replace a gas um heater or water heater.

So I wonder if we're doing any outreach and if that's part of the plan to include outreach in the community.

Yes, thanks for bringing that up.

The um air district has rules that are going into effect uh starting in 2027 where uh you would not be allowed to purchase a gas uh water heater, and then in 2029, you would not be able to purchase a gas furnace.

Those rules are being uh reviewed by the air district um coming up, and I'm part of a kind of regional working group that's talking about outreach strategies and how we can educate the community.

Um there's going to be some discussion at the air district about whether those rules need to be revised if they if we're ready for implementation.

Um I believe we are.

Um, but there's going to be some discussion about that um at the air district meetings later this spring.

Um, and we're collaborating about how to um to get the word out to the community about those rules coming and just about electrification in general, the affordability, the cost, the health benefits, the environmental benefits, and so forth.

Um of course, we're doing our home electrification fair again, working closely with AMP, who's doing a lot of outreach.

We have information on our website.

Uh the building department is getting out, building division is getting out a lot of information when people pull permits.

Um I think we have a strategy we're pulling together kind of um to to refine that and and make sure we're as well coordinated as possible before those rules go into effect.

Great.

Well, that's good to know.

Thank you for the update.

Thank you.

And then Madam Group, do we need to vote on this?

You can vote to accept the report.

Okay, let's let's vote to accept this because it's a great report.

Councilmember Jensen, would you like to make that motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the report.

Who would like to second?

Councilmember Bowler will second.

All those in favor signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That passes unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Great work.

Normally we've been going more than two hours.

Apologies, especially to the staff that is broadcasting this meeting and all that.

But rather than call a break, I think our next two items are fairly fast because I have a little bit of bad news that the city attorney is for the council that the city attorney is going to share.

Thank you, everybody.

Good to see you.

Yes, Mr.

Shannon.

Yes, Council with great apologies.

Um asking that we return to closed session to discuss our one closed session item.

We have one more thing to discuss with you, and it is time sensitive.

And but I do promise we'll be really fast.

And my point about the break is I will give us all a quick break after before we go back into the closed session because we do need to get up and move around.

Okay, let's move on to item seven.

Where are we?

D.

Yes.

All right.

Um Madam Clerk, would you introduce that while um uh miss are you doing both items?

Yeah, okay, come on up.

Um do you want to just sort of meld them into if go for it?

Yeah, we're happy to do it.

I think you're reading my mind because I never finished the sentence.

Let's have the city clerk engineer.

Is that okay?

Um, absolutely.

Yeah, great.

Okay, so 7D is adoption resolution approving a letter of understanding between the Alameda Police Officers Association and the City of Alameda, and 7E is adoption of resolution approving letter of understanding between the International Association of Firefighters Local 689 and the City of Alameda.

And my understanding is the HR director is gonna give a quick presentation on both of them together, and the council can then take two separate votes.

We love quick presentations.

Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council.

Uh my name is Noelle White, HR director here at the City of Alameda, and uh presenting both 7D and 7E for your consideration today.

Um so as you are aware, we are a CalPERS contracting agency, which means that we must comply with a variety of laws and regulations as it pertains to pensionable compensation and how we report it and how that's reflected in our memorandums of understanding.

Um following several um compliance reviews conducted by CalPERS, there were several items identified by CalPERS specifically for our police officers association as well as our international um association of firefighters that weren't meeting those regulations um within that language those items identified being holiday pay retention um career development incentive program for IFF which they view as education incentive as well as acting pay or they they call it temporary upgrade pay so um these have triggered our obligation to meet and confer uh to resolve some of these issues with our bargaining units and has resulted in these letters of understanding to revise that language um this is purely clarifying um specifying adding language uh for example with the holiday pay adding language to show that that compensation is in recognition of staff who are required to work uh without regard to the holiday and really defining what those holidays are um so we've met with both groups and they have agreed to the revisions um as set forth in the the letters of understanding thank you for that and so um are there any public comments on this item madam clerk uh one Jay Garfinkel okay welcome speaker Garfinkel remote right evening um that it would have been helpful if the explanation we just received had been included in the agenda material uh because what it looked like was like a teenager coming to the parent and saying I need a bonus for this or I need an upgrade in my pay for that and the father or mother saying okay fine but that's not what's happening here so I'm not clear on who uh made the uh determination as to how much uh would be given I'm not clear of whether this affects the budget at all is it just a rewording and without any change in what's being uh paid uh I I'm concerned about the process there was there was no transparency uh given I'm not against the budget uh uh against the bonuses I'm not against the adjustments that are being suggested for the fire department presumably this is being shared at a public meeting because of wanting to uh have some transparency in what's going on behind the scenes so that's all I'm asking it would have been nice uh to let us know exactly what's going on thank you thank you and just for the public clarification this is public comment not QA um was there any further public comment madam okay we will close public comment on item 7 EMD and E.

And um council any clarifying questions or comments for our um HR director how about a motion and this as I understand from the city training city clerk we can make a motion to adopt both resolutions the um letter of understanding between both the Alameda Police Officers Association and the city and IAFF local 689 and the city who's ready to make a motion it's made um moved by councilmember Jensen seconded by councilmember bowler all those in favor please signify by stating aye aye no opposed no abstentions that passes unanimously for to nothing because council member prior is um away this evening all right thank you we move on to city count city manager communications interim city manager Adam Politzer anything from you thank you mayor no items to report thank you okay and any further oral communications not agenda item there's a book closed um number nine our council referral for this evening has been moved to April 7th right yes 7th and with that um council communications just remember we're going back into closed session does anyone want to say anything or save it for next time or yeah I do okay I along I along with uh council member Jensen um visited um Lincoln Middle School last Thursday uh to uh listen to um uh presentations made by a number of of middle school students uh regarding uh certain civic projects that they would like to pursue um and uh frankly many of them were were quite exciting um it was really fun to hear especially uh a team came up with the idea of of um reusing t-shirts in as grocery bags um so it was great to hear their pitch on the various civic type of projects that that they would love to pursue all right yeah um council member bowler um I don't have anything thank you okay uh councilmer Jensen thank you um you'll have to bear with me for a few minutes because I've been pretty busy since our last council meeting on March 3rd and I want to share some great community activities that are going on on Wednesday March 4th I joined the downtown Alameda Business Association for the opening of Park Street's newest business the ballpark sports bar really fun place great food and drink the next morning March 5th I attended the Bay Conservation and development meeting to learn about local efforts to address rising sea level and then we got to Friday

Thank you.

Um you'll have to bear with me for a few minutes because I've been pretty busy since our last council meeting on March 3rd, and I want to share some great community activities that are going on.

On Wednesday, March 4th, I joined the downtown Alameda Business Association for the opening of Park Street's newest business, the ballpark sports bar.

A really fun place, great food and drink.

The next morning, March 5th, I attended the Bay Conservation and Development meeting to learn about local efforts to address rising sea level.

And then we got to Friday, and Councilmember Bowler and I hung out together a little bit together at the same table at the annual Rotary Club Lobster Feed, which raised more than 11,000 for local nonprofit organizations.

Thank you, Rotary.

I was up bright and early on Saturday, March 7th, and rode my bike, like the mayor always does.

I rode my bike to Rittler Park for the Alameda Little League opening ceremonies, and it was very tough judging those team banners, but we picked a few to get the pizzas.

Monday uh March 9th, Councilmembers Daysag and Bowler and I joined Alameda Public Works and Transportation staff for a celebration of Bay Farm School where parents, teachers, and students showed their support for the nearby roadway improvements.

Thank you, Alameda Public Works.

Mastic Senior Center's art exhibition opening reception was on Tuesday the 10th.

And it was back to Mastic the next day to serve food and hang out with members during the community champions lunch.

After lunch on Wednesday, Alameda Police Captain McMullen came to Mastic to share information about APD's outstanding efforts to keep our community safe.

And Wednesday also happened to be the day that APD did a joint agency traffic crackdown when, according to Captain McMullen, there were almost 300 citations issued.

Slow down people.

Thursday, March 12th, Councilmember Desog mentioned that we participated in a unique and enthusiastic civic action presentations by Lincoln Middle School eighth grade students.

Those kids have some big projects, and a lot of them are going to benefit our community.

So that was really fun.

Also on Thursday, as I do twice a month, I chaired the Alameda County Stopwest Board meeting, developing and supporting environmental programs that make our community more resilient.

On Saturday, March 14th, the annual Friends of the Library volunteer recognition event was held.

It was really lovely way to celebrate the programs and services that the library offers thanks to dedicated volunteers, volunteers like Karen Butter.

And it was also bittersweet for me to represent the city in recognizing the contributions of outgoing library director Michael Eitner.

So just to end my story and my week, last Sunday was at Temple Israel where I joined a number of community members for the first session of A Taste of Judaism, which will, according to the class description, quote, pack a millennia of Jewish knowledge into just three short sessions.

So I'll let you know what I learned.

Thank you.

So then I'll go next.

The day after our last um council meeting on March the 4th, I was asked to attend a press conference in Oakland for the release of the first tranche of Measure W funds.

There was a litigation prolonged litigation that kept us from getting these well-needed funds.

And for Alameda, I believe Dignity Village is the was that the Measure W funds.

You did a little blurb for me.

Because we all spoke about the projects.

No, it was it's the wellness center, actually.

We're using Measure W funds towards the wellness center helping close some of those funding gaps.

And so several of the mayors, Mayor Lee and myself, and then the mayors from Livermore, and I want to say Union City and County Supervisors all spoke as well as recipients.

And then last week on March the 10th, I attended the Alameda Police Department swearing in for two lateral officers with come with lots of great experience.

The next day at noon, I attended Alameda Kiwana's Hope of America Awards, which is outstanding eighth grade students across schools across the island who've been nominated by their teachers or principals.

And that evening, um also on March 11th, I was invited to uh speak to, and I presented certificates to Cub Scout Pack 1015 at the Blue and Gold celebration, which is the highest rank, the blue and gold is the highest rank that um no, it's the arrow of light, I guess, that you receive as a Cub Scout before you move on to Scouting, and of course, scouting is now both boys and girls.

And scouting is very active in our city.

A lot of cities have a challenge supporting scout troops because it's just hard for parents.

They're busy, they don't have the time.

In Alameda, we have busy parents, but man, do they multitask um PAC 1015 has a hundred and nineteen kids who are members, which is much bigger.

It was big when my son was a member there, but it's even bigger.

Um, and then on uh March 13th, Friday the 13th, last Friday afternoon.

I was honored to be invited to the swearing-in ceremony for a new Alameda County Superior Court judge.

I had never met her, but I had um a couple years ago um uh appointed her husband to the Recreation Parks Commission, and so Kathleen Vermezen Radies is the newest Alameda Court um uh judge, and it turns out that the judge who was spraying her in is also an Alameda Court, uh Alameda resident.

So we have uh lots of lots of judges, they were telling me lots of judges in Alameda, and then on May the 16th, with I I mean March the 16th, which I think was yesterday, it's already been a busy week.

I attended an excellent um webinar that the governor's office had invited mayors to, it was an overview of care courts.

This newish program, even though it's administered by counties, cities have a role to play.

And then today, as I mentioned earlier, I was on a 6:30 train to Sacramento to join um some of my MTC colleagues for lobbying um members of the state legislature, and I will be on a 6:30 a.m.

train in the morning for day two.

Most of the team is staying over in Sacramento, but a couple of us had council meetings we had to come back to.

So here I am.

So um with that, I'm going to adjourn the city.

Well, no, I'm not adjourning the city council meeting.

What am I doing?

Yeah, you're adjourning this regular meeting and reconvening the okay.

We're adjourning the regular meeting and reconvening our meeting.

It is 9 34.

Could everybody please be back in 10 minutes by 10 44 or 9 44 or 9 45?

But let's take a quick 10-minute break.

Thank you, everyone, and find your way home safely.

Okay, see you.

All right, who's there?

They'll give their thumbs up.

They're ready.

All right.

We're gonna let you go on the balcony very soon.

Thank you, guys.

Good work.

Um right.

We are back, and um council has just returned from our resumed closed session.

And Madam Clerk, would you please report the action if any taken in that closed session?

Um staff have written information and council provided direction, uh, which carried unanimously by Fortnite.

All right, thank you.

And now the meeting is officially adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.