Okay, I'm gonna call this meeting to order and um let's get started with the pledge of allegiance and uh I'll ask uh council member Davis to lead us.

If you have any cover, please remove it.

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

Of course, it stands one nation under God.

Liberty and justice for all.

Okay.

Is my mic working?

I'll grab it and hold it.

Okay, roll call, please.

Councilmember Devini.

I'm here.

Councilmember Davis.

Present.

Councilmember Fiebig.

Councilmember Mota.

Present.

Councilmember Thomas.

Present.

Vice Chair Mulgrew.

Present.

Chair Moore.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Okay, we have two items on the agenda tonight.

Um and uh the next item it would be uh approval.

Well, let's go to public comment.

And um public comment is for anything that is not on the agenda this evening.

And uh what we'll ask you to do is approach the podium.

Uh don't mind telling us who you are.

And uh when you're done, if you could fill out a speaker card if you haven't done so already.

And um uh you'll have three minutes to speak.

So let's go ahead and get started with that.

I think I have a couple speaker cards here.

Um Terry DeVoi.

Thank you.

So I'm sure two months to go, talking about the uh traffic lights on the storage, and I brought these the literature and I've got copies of it.

I think four, two guys, at age one to count other works, and nothing's been done.

Likes are still people turning on the red, as long as I tried to turn left, and we read green light, we have to yield the box of cars.

Everybody agrees that it needs to have a no red, no turn on red, and uh a left arrow, signage wise, so once again, I'm requesting that something be done.

Can you put it on the agenda for next month and talk about it and vote on it?

Because the way it is right now, it's unacceptable.

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your handout.

And uh exact same document I gave you guys two months ago.

Thank you.

I will make sure it gets to the right people.

I even went down and saw our tuney and she was surprised that the done because we'll be following up.

Terry, everything we talk about needs to be in front of the microphone because it's all recorded.

Okay, and um are you finished with your uh presentation, Terry?

Thank you, sir.

Okay, uh next item on the person on the agenda is uh Jen Paps, Officer Paps.

Jen, we missed you last meeting.

I hope you were out making lots of arrests.

Uh unfortunately we had an emergency, so that's why I missed the meeting, but I do look, I'm just gonna hold it.

I do look forward to uh being on the agenda um whenever we can get that set up.

So I'll work with Ashley to see when I can come next.

Uh I'll just give you a quick update.

And sir, I will let the officers know regarding that intersection until the signage or whatever happens in the future changes, but for now we'll send some officers out there to hopefully get people to obey the traffic signals that are in place right now.

Uh so for September we were very busy.

We issued 296 traffic citations.

We arrested six DUI drivers.

There was one felony arrest, six misdemeanor arrests, and we had 19 injury crashes and 41 non-injury crashes, one stolen vehicle was recovered, as well as 22 vehicle storages.

Uh just some past events.

We're at the Castor Valley Unified School District walk and roll to school.

It was a great event to bring awareness to pedestrian safety as well as bicycle safety for our youth going to and from school.

Uh on September 23rd, we had a pedestrian enforcement out on Lake Chabot.

Uh we issued 35 citations in about two and a half hours.

That's not good.

We don't want to issue that many citations, but uh luckily we're able to bring attention to those violators who were not yielding to me, the pedestrian in the crosswalk.

Um let's see October 31st.

We have our uh memorial, excuse me, our holiday enforcement period, and that will be all night.

The focus will be on DUI drivers.

So you should never drive under the influence of alcohol.

But uh on Halloween, we're gonna have more units out there patrolling.

Uh upcoming events, we will be at ACSO's trunk retreat on Maddox Road from 6 to 8 p.m.

And that's on October 30th and on November 8th.

We will be participating in the Castor Valley Light Parade.

I just want to give everyone a heads up that Castor Valley Boulevard will be closed from Lake Chabot to Redwood pretty much all day.

So plan alternate routes.

Uh upcoming education on October 30th.

We have a start smart at our office there in Hayward from 6 to 8 p.m.

You can sign up online or call our office.

And uh safety tip October is pedestrian safety month.

So before stepping in front of a car, make eye contact with the driver and make sure they see you and that they plan on stopping and that they have time to stop.

For motorists, watch for people walking and people bicycling, obey all speed limits, avoid distraction, and know the laws regarding pedestrian right away.

As always, I'm taking traffic complaints.

Uh, you can email me at 345 reckless driving at chp.ca.gov or call our office during normal business hours at 510 489 1500 to get your complaint added to our traffic log.

Thank you.

Have a good meeting.

Thank you, Officer Pops.

And uh it would be great if you would hit that intersection that Terry spoke about.

We'd appreciate that.

Yes.

And um, we will get you on the agenda um the next month again for an opportunity to answer questions.

Doing fair view and castor valley?

Yes, all righty.

I look forward to it.

Have all your questions ready for me.

Thank you.

Okay, um, do we have anybody else that would like to um speak on public comment?

Well, we have one more ready.

Can you state your name and fill out a super card when you're Cheryl Eighthoven?

And so this is very timely here.

Um, this is what I was coming in to talk about also.

Um I might be um, this is my disclaimer.

I might be presenting some questions, but I know I will not receive any answers because I've been told before I won't get answers from the Mac.

Okay, and I because I know the questions are not that painful, but the answers are.

So this is Norbridge Strowbridge signal timing from the agenda of 9 15.

I have to ask why the road conversion was created as a highly complex movement of traffic.

The goal was to relieve congestion, but obviously has created more congestion because of the creation of a highly complex movement of traffic.

It just does not make sense.

Did the Mac have input on this highly complex design of traffic flow before it was done?

Um, interesting that the sheriff commented.

So I'm not sure what the sheriff said they would go there.

So is it gonna be another sting like the Redwood pedestrian that they can get a lot of tickets?

Are they gonna be ticketing for the people running the red lights and other infractions?

Because that's what's the chaos is been created there.

I also have one more question.

Would it be a conflict of interest for a Mac member to be endorsing incorporation in our Castro Valley?

Do we have any other speakers in the room that would like to speak on an item that's not on the agenda?

Do we have anybody online that would like to speak on?

Yes, we have an online speaker.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have three minutes.

Aren Gonzalez.

Uh, yes, uh just a quick comment.

Uh there is no video uh for the uh for this uh uh MAC reunion.

So I don't see any video.

Um for you guys.

That's it.

Just want to bring it to your attention.

We have no more speakers for online.

We have we have no more speakers.

No more speakers.

We have no more speakers.

Uh nobody else in the room.

I am gonna close the public portion of this uh part of the meeting and move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the code enforcement.

Um, I'm sorry, yeah, it's one one more second here.

Minutes from the last meeting.

I do not want to forget to get those uh I move to approve the uh September 15th minutes.

I'll second that.

Any discussion?

We'll call approval of nine fifteen minutes.

Councilmember Davis?

Aye.

Councilmember Davini.

Councilmember Feebig.

Aye.

Council Member Moda.

Aye.

Councilmember Thomas?

Yes.

Chair Vice Chair Mulgrew.

Aye.

Chair Moore.

Hi.

Minutes approved.

Thank you.

Now we can move on to the next item.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

Um code enforcement uh 2025 report and update for Castor Valley area, unincorporated Alameda County information item.

And uh Edward, I believe you're presenting.

Uh yes, uh good evening, uh Chair Moore and members of the Mac.

I'm here to tonight to give you a brief presentation on um code enforcement updates so far in 2025.

We got a couple more months to go.

I brought part of my team today.

I got uh Holly Felix, our code enforcement supervisor, and John Kranski, he primarily handles the Castro Valley area.

We've been uh really busy, especially in Castro Valley.

If you see uh for uh we only enforce in unincorporated county so far, uh we've uh I did this report uh ending October 6th is when I had to submit my uh PowerPoint to um TISA over there.

So uh 5095 uh up to October 6th, and in Castro Valley alone, it's 437 cases.

It's almost uh almost a third of that uh in uh castor valley area.

If you look at the months, uh obviously our busy busiest times is in the uh mid-mid of the year.

That's when a lot of the um uh overgrown weeds and stuff like that occur.

And we're primarily complaint-based dealing with neighborhood preservation ordinance and land uses, but we do a lot of proactive work, which uh we'll get to that um later on in the slides.

So uh this is just a quick snapshot of um the types of cases that we are uh getting in the Castro Valley area.

Uh we as we anticipate uh every year there's um a lot of overgrown vegetation cases, uh about 73, and we have about uh 63 related to trash uh and debris and miscellaneous items uh that are left out in front of properties mostly.

Uh others could be a lot of combination of different things that not specifically covered, but they are violations of the neighborhood preservation ordinance.

Uh 31 tobacco retailers uh cases were created for inspections.

Uh 24 tenant-related cases, uh, mostly dealing with habitability issues, uh complaints about you know um their rental units, parking limitations.

Uh a lot had to do with uh parking on unpaved surfaces, people like uh parking their cars or vehicles um on lawns or uh in areas where they're not supposed to.

Uh fences, walls, and hedges.

Uh we get a lot of grief about uh fences that are being built too tall, especially in the front.

And the bad thing is that when they call us, it's already built.

So then we have to uh deal with the pretty upset property owner that either has to modify it or take it down.

Uh so we have um in Castro Valley about 16 of those cases.

Uh third 13 related to trash and recycling.

Um people leaving out their trash containers when um it's only allowed 24 hours in the 24 hour in a seven-day period, including the day of their garbage pickup.

So uh mostly it's for educational purposes, we send them courtesy notices just to let them know about the ordinance before we uh do any citation.

Usually the courtesy courtesy notices work um when we send those out.

Uh tents and canopies.

Um, folks don't seem to understand that they can't uh put up tent and canopies uh for permanent purposes, especially in the front half of the lot.

So uh it takes a lot of convincing, but um we try to get voluntary compliance as much as we can, you know, inform the property owners that what the violations are, what the codes are, and let them know what they need to do to comply, and that's what we shoot for is to get voluntary compliance on all our cases.

Uh right-of-way obstructions, blocking sidewalks, especially with vegetation or uh things that are put out on the sidewalks, uh, conditional uses.

We do enforce zoning regulations, land use regulations.

If there's businesses that um are not meeting their conditions, we uh get to investigate it, review their conditions, and um make them aware of what they need to do to comply, and um, not very many only for those, mostly in businesses that we see this uh use permit, same thing uh related to uh use permits that are um either conditional use permit or administrative use permit, paving limitations, uh covered that already, and the list goes on with the more minor things that we see inoperable vehicles, graffiti, uh fire hazards, um vehicle repairs, uh illegal cannabis cultivation, recreational vehicles, garage conversions, uh yard regulation setbacks, collection boxes, um, and substandard buildings.

And then out of those cases in Castro Valley, um compliance rate is 156 out of the 437 have complied.

Uh 130 are closed.

We may investigate it, but we find that there wasn't a violations or at least to to a level that we could call it a violation uh on our uh ordinances, and 40 were closed and referred to another agency or department.

30 initial notices sent, uh 14 uh fines and fees sent.

Uh even though we close 156, uh some of those cases um have gone through fines and fees before they got closed.

I just didn't um uh wasn't able to get the tally on that 156 cases.

Uh 11 were closed for some uh for various reasons, and then um eight were closed for uh as non-actionable, eight are still in progress, uh seven uh were closed because we're we're not able to verify any uh violations at the site, and there's still seven complaints received.

These are statuses up to um October October 6.

So new cases were created.

There's five of those, four.

We're still monitoring.

Uh perhaps we um asked the property owner to obtain permits to correct violations, so we're monitoring progress of those um applications, and uh four, we have verified violations.

Three, we close as withdrawn.

Sometimes somebody will file a complaint and say, Oh, change my mind, I don't want to uh file a case.

Uh two, we send appointment letters, uh, two courtesy notices, and uh one 10-day notice to a property owner.

Next slide.

So, out of uh the cases throughout the county, uh, we did take cases to the West Border Zoning Adjustments.

Um we took 20 of them abatement cases, and three were uh appeals from property owners, and out of those three appeals, two two of them were denied.

Uh tobacco retailers were um suspended for one year for one year suspension.

So both of those were denied by the BCA, and one case was denied uh and the BCA upheld the um violation uh of no cargo containers in a residential district, and out of those uh abatement cases, property owners did comply, but we did obtain one warrant uh for uh to clean up the property, and out of out of the three appeals, all three of them were appealed to the board of supervisors, and those three appeals that went to the board of supervisors.

Um the one year suspension was upheld, and uh both of them were upheld by the the board of board of supervisors because this when I did this report, uh it didn't go yet because the report was before October 9, but it did go and they did upheld the decision to suspend this other retailer, and we'll be talking about that in a minute, and uh they also um decided to uh uphold the appeal.

Uh I mean deny the appeal of the property owner with a cargo container in Castro Valley on Garrison.

So, um again, in the Castro Valley area, set uh there were seven of them that went to the BCA, three of them were abated by the owner, one was cleaned by the county, uh, one was abated with uh permits, and one was abated uh and they paid the fines and fees, and again, the ones that appeal to the board of supervisor that was already um with um denied.

Um we want to talk about a little bit of our proactive programs.

Um next slide, please.

Just a reminder we do also uh enforce uh tobacco retail ordinance as well as issue tobacco licenses every year.

So for 2025, we have issued 70 licenses.

Uh we perform monitor, we do perform monitoring and compliance inspections up to two per year, and we've done 96 so far.

That's when um uh my team, um one or two members, sometimes we invite the sheriffs to go with us, and we're at the store inspecting all their products, making sure that they meet requirements of the tobacco retail license ordinance, pricing, packaging, um, they can't sell electronic smoking devices, so we're probably there, you know, um two hours uh with our team just to to look at all the stuff in the store and uh we've issued notices, eight retailers were cited, and uh eight of them aside from getting fines, um, as serving some suspension of you know uh different uh different levels, some are suspended 30 days, 90 days, and you already saw two were suspended for one year and recent activities.

Um, how do you want to speak about that one real quick?

We also did uh recent activity related to tobacco retail inspections.

Holly actually was part of that um effort.

Through me in that, she likes to do this to me.

Um so yes, we did a joint retail inspection with CDTFA, which is two minutes.

Yeah.

Sorry, I wasn't prepared.

I might have handed up yes, a little early.

Yeah, just yeah.

I can keep that six, slide six.

Okay.

Okay, on September 22nd, uh, we did a joint investigation with CDTFA, Alameda County Department of Public Health, and the Sheriff's Office.

We performed uh four location inspections.

We decided to do two teams because a property owner, business owner had two locations, so we wanted to hit both locations at the same time.

So in uh we had two teams.

During those investigations, we found 48 boxes of confiscated products at C D TFA confiscated.

They were not only flavored products, but there was cannabis for sale, um, electronic smoking devices, um, hidden menus that people can look at once they ask for flavored products, uh totaling over a hundred thousand dollars in products.

It was a huge confiscation.

Yeah, the I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but I think she was better out to speak to this because she was actually there, and they actually brought their team from Sacramento.

They they filled up two vans with uh the illegal products.

They would have filled up more, but they didn't have enough capacity.

But uh I think it's important to note that we are doing our job with this tobacco retail ordinance.

We are partnering with the state and local uh law enforcement, and uh some of these retailers that don't want to abide by the county laws were even um uh teeing it up to uh make referrals to the district attorney's office for criminal investigation and possible prosecution for that.

Do you want to say that?

Found everything.

Yeah, sure.

So just go back, just wanted to let you guys know.

Out of those four locations that we inspected that day, uh trophies was operating on a revoked tobacco retail license.

Five star in San Leandro was operating on a one-year suspended license, Lux gift shop here in Castro Valley is operating without a license, and then Gorilla Cloud, they were actually found to be in compliance that day.

So CDTFA, they confiscated a total of 48 boxes, um, trophies was assessed a 1,268 dollar fine and fee along with Lux.

It was the third violation, and uh five star, they received the same violation fee of 1,268.

Although they appealed to the board and the board of supervisors, did waive the $1,000 fine, but they did uphold the one year subs suspension.

Yeah, and what we're seeing now too is um there's some activities uh coming up with stores that are popping up to be uh gift shops, but they're um they're uh actually selling products that could be tobacco related.

So we're trying to evolve uh creating more partnerships, but it's like everything else.

If you don't keep on top of it, uh you're gonna fall behind.

So we're trying to stay ahead of it.

Uh next slide.

This just what we enforce with the tobacco.

I showed this to you guys early on too.

Next slide.

Same thing here.

Uh in terms of illegal cannabis, we haven't been that busy.

Usually we'll get these uh requests from the sheriff's office because they've already initiated their investigations on locations, especially in residential areas, related to illegal cannabis operations, and um so there have been three um uh actually let me back up.

So out of the cannabis uh compliance, we do uh inspect the ones that are licensed.

Uh we only have three retailers, two in Hayward and one in Livermore.

So we we also we perform the uh compliance monitoring.

They're probably due for their second one coming up uh in a month or so, and but they have been doing great.

The ones that have licenses, they've been doing great.

There's not a lot of issues, very minor if we find anything.

So they're doing good, but the illegal growth we had three so far in Castro Valley, actually four now.

Uh we just did one in Castro Valley last week in Holly.

Can talk about that a little bit.

Um, so out of those three, one was fined uh in Castro Valley, and we're monitoring because we've usually when we get there, they alter the electrical, they board up the windows, they put um exhaust systems, so we tell them nope, you gotta take all that out, you gotta go get your permit, and uh they also are have to pay the fines.

So once they get their permit, we monitor that until the inspector goes out there and checks off everything, and then we can close the case.

Uh, there's two in Castro Valley.

One is already in compliance, and one we're uh monitoring the permit.

Um, you and then the one you you had in Castro Valley.

Yeah, they have about 300 plants, yeah.

So we just did one um last week.

Yeah, today they had about 300 plants there, so yeah, we we rarely get complaints from neighborhoods about illegal growth, we usually get it from the sheriff's office.

Next slide, and then rental inspections.

Uh, we just um, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we respond to tenant complaints and we provide education resources and referrals if needed.

So the reactive rental inspection pilot program that ended December 31.

It was a two-year pilot program.

We did 142 cases with that, and uh we took the update to the board and um they've asked us to um we're still continuing our reactive system even without the pilot.

So, um, so far in 2025, we've had 97 cases, which is not a lot.

I mean, if you look at the average, it's less than 10 a month.

Um, and but in the Castro Valley area we have 24 so far, but uh the board did ask us to explore a proactive rental uh pilot for Terry Land, Ashland, maybe even consider Hayward acres.

Um it's in the works right now because HCD is trying to come up with a rent registry uh ordinance which will hopefully combine the rent rental inspection proactive rental inspection program, and I'll turn it over to Holly to talk about the sidewalk vending, so unpermitted vending in 2025 to date.

We have 17 inspections on private property, two of which has been in Castro Valley, 21 inspections in the right-of-way, um 14 in Castro Valley.

Um, for these inspections, I do coordinate the inspections with environmental health and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

So right now we've been providing support for environmental health because they are the confiscation team.

And environmental, I mean, the sheriff's office is there to help keep us safe.

Um we have patrolled two events, one was the Raoul Ranch Roadier Parade, and then the fall festival.

Uh the sidewalk vending ordinance updates.

So the second reading was on September 11th and adopted by the board.

It will be effective October 11th or was effective October 11th, 2025.

We have some discrete um amendments to provide a set fee of 273 dollars and a 30-day notice for public and future review revisions to the regulations, and that is set to be read.

Second reading.

The second reading on November 13th, and if it is adopted, that would be on December 13th.

Effective.

The hearing to adopt the regulations by the planning director is scheduled for November 18th.

We have ongoing education and outreach, and we intend to start permitting and doing enforcement at the beginning of the year.

It's US.

Yes.

Some other proactive enforcement that we do are alcohol inspections.

We perform jointly with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, approximately 200 a year.

We also enforce a smoke-free and multi-unit housing.

We coordinate with the Alameda County Department of Environmental Health as needed.

We also enforce the soil importing ordinance.

We currently have 11 cases, two in Castro Valley.

We also work on the independent living facilities, currently 15 cases, and that's a joint monitoring inspection with Alameda County Sheriff's Office Environmental Health.

And we currently monitor and perform inspections with ILHs on a monthly basis.

And then I'll pass it off to John about Creek Canyon.

Yeah, and I also wanted to uh John here to talk about a case that we had to obtain an inspection warrant.

Uh it's I know that there has been some um concerns with uh a location on Crow Canyon.

Uh so he'll talk about that.

Hello, John Kransky, Alamedican Code Enforcement.

So uh recently we were basically tasked with getting our first ever inspection warrant for the department.

Uh this is basically obtained when somebody says that we are not allowed to go on their property.

Um if they refuse us a couple times, we then have grounds to be able to go before the judge and we can say, hey, based off of facts and evidence that we've procured up to this point, we do need to go on this property by forcible entry if necessary.

Um so I ended up uh obtaining that you know inspection warrant and uh based off of the um the allegations essentially, we went to go determine kind of what the land was being used for and if it was an appropriate uh usage.

Uh we did co-uh collaborate.

I was able to get um uh the water quality control board on the warrant as well as the sheriff's office, as well as public works.

So we sent an entire team um up into that property to be able to verify what was going on.

Uh when we did get there, we saw many violations that we were able to verify.

Um, but it just goes to show that um we do very much take it seriously um what the land is being used for in Castro Valley, and we also want to make sure that everybody's safe in doing what they're doing, not only for us but for future generations.

Uh so we we were able to go there, verify and hopefully we can get the land put back to what it needs to be, and basically in compliance.

Um, I can't really say a lot about the actual case because we're still investigating, and it's one of those things where we have a lot of coordination left to do and a lot of work left to do, but um hopefully we don't have to do many more of these inspection warrants because it's uh you know when you tell somebody we are coming on your property, you know, it's one of those things where it's hard for them to take sometimes.

So uh any questions?

Okay, we'll get the questions later.

He doesn't do this much so uh yeah, it it really takes a lot of effort when we do something like this because you have to the inspector has to put his notes together and do the declaration and the warrant and county council reviews it and then we go and you know we submit it to the judge and and get the warrant.

So a lot of the alleged violations were um uh construction without permits and um contaminating the the creek building uh unapproved uh bridges bought, you know, on the air on the property, and just the general use of of the land, it's supposed to be zone ag and anything that doesn't fit in there is gonna be a violation again.

Like like John said, we can't really go into detail.

Maybe once we've issued the notice and uh we can give you more updates later on.

Uh Holly's here to speak about more proactive things, some highlights that we've done in 2025.

One of the highlighted locations I have is over in Cherryland.

Uh we conducted a joint investigation with the USDA regarding residents in Sherryland that was operating at a large scale, unlicensed Chinese market.

On April 15th, I conducted a site visit and with environmental health and USDA, and we confirmed that there was banned products that should have never been in the states.

They confiscated 2,230 pounds of illegally imported banned products.

On September 5th, we performed a second inspection with USDA and conducted another confiscation.

I do not have the amount that was confiscated, but it was a very large sum.

Uh we issued a fine fees for 711 dollars, and environmental health also issued a fine for two thousand dollars.

On October 14th, we performed a third inspection.

We confirmed the business is still operating.

They had no additional banned products, but we did issue a fine and fee of $961 for the continued operation and environmental health issued a second fine and fee for two thousand dollars.

Another site worth mentioning is an unpermitted home restaurant.

Code enforcement investigator reports of a residence operating a restaurant on Sundays on starage in Fairview.

On October on August 18, oh sorry, August 19th, we sent a courtesy notice notifying the owner of the unpermitted use on Oct August 24th.

John and I inspected on a Sunday to confirm activity.

There was no activity in process.

So we're currently monitoring the location for further uh further activity.

Sorry.

That's all I have for you.

Do you want to?

You already talked about this one, right?

So yeah, we already did that.

So we're good.

Okay.

Uh so just that's just to highlight some of the uh bigger things that we've done uh in the in 2025.

And uh so we we did talk about improved access that we were working on at the last time we were here early this year, and that's already in place.

We have that uh general code complaint line already established uh and our planning website, and we also have a way for the public to look into our permit portal to look at uh cases in the area or even wanna find out specifically what's going on with our code enforcement case and the access to main stars right there on the PowerPoint.

And next slide.

Uh just again to remind you, we're not just about um waiting for complaints to come in.

We are really uh we wanna try to be involved in the community.

We're really passionate about being part of the community.

Uh every event that's scheduled out there, uh we're there.

We we attend Easter things, we attend Halloween things, we attend night outs, we go to the uh uh fairs in Castro Valley, and and uh I don't know if they're gonna do one in in Ashland, but we usually go to that every year as well.

And uh we give our handouts in the library and all that stuff.

So that's what we're here for.

We want to try to um make sure that uh residents in Castro Valley know about our service and um make it easy for them to contact us if they need to.

That's just Holly's there, I'm there, John's there.

And uh that's the end of my presentation.

I'll take any questions you have.

Great.

If you could hold on here for a few minutes, what I'd like to do is go to public comment and then um we'll come back to the uh commission here for a comment and questions.

So um we'll take about public comment.

And if somewhere along the line, if there's a question that pops up, and you can address it.

So at the end be great, but um uh we won't address any comments during public comment.

So um do we have anybody online for this item?

Okay, I thought I had a speaker card here from Matt Turner.

Matt here.

Matt, we're gonna give you three minutes to comment on this particular item.

And um thank you.

Hey, good to see you all.

Uh, just really quickly.

Uh, wanted to say uh how much I appreciate the work these guys do.

Um, you know, we've we've got a lot going on in the unincorporated area.

And uh in particular, the group living facility work, something that's invisible to most folks and is really critical.

Supervisor Marley's office has done some some statewide leading edge work there, and uh these guys have been a big part of that.

Um I did want to say, however, though, they're um uh these guys could use all the support they could get from our supervisors and from folks on various Macs about increasing the budget and giving them the ability to work uh you know around the week.

Um they they can only do so much, they do a tremendous amount with the resources and staffing they have, which is you know, like I said, big fan, uh appreciate what they do.

Um there are things that that pop up and I wanted to mention one real quick for you guys.

I don't know if it's it's come to your attention, but uh at uh uh on Grove Way, um uh 2597 Grove Way, there is a uh unpermitted daycare that's been established with illegal signage, and they blocked the sidewalk with signs and uh with for parking and painted the curb.

And I reported that to public works a month ago, and they're like, yeah, we're looking into it, maybe we'll do something.

And uh they haven't done anything.

So uh just wanted to put that on everybody's radar.

Um and uh and then also um uh with the um uh planning department and CDA.

Uh, you know, these guys can only do what what uh it's sort of like with the DA.

If the DA is not going to prosecute something, the cops aren't gonna enforce it.

And so uh pushing higher up on certain things.

Uh it'd be really nice to get backing from from our agencies uh to help these guys be able to uh actually enforce the law.

Um there was a case a while back where an apartment building paved over all of their frontage to add additional parking lot uh space in violation of the neighborhood preservation ordinance.

These guys did their level best.

The guy was kind of a squirrely lawyer who owned the property.

Um, but um uh ultimately uh he was successful in in thwarting enforcement because it wasn't something that that higher ups were were interested in pursuing and and the neighborhood suffers.

Um, and it's not because these guys aren't doing everything they can do.

Um, lot of lot of love for these guys, and uh that's that's my time.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

Turner.

Uh do we have any other speakers in the room for this item?

Do we have anybody online for this item?

Yes, you may.

Don't forget to fill out a speaker card when you're done though.

Okay, um, so Cheryl Lythoven, and I was just wondering if um you go looking at massage parlors.

Okay, was that included?

Anything there?

Okay, yeah, I'd heard one time that SWAT arrived on Castro Valley Boulevard to get one place.

I don't know if you were involved with that, but thank you for looking at that.

Thank you.

We have everybody online.

I have an online speaker.

Caller, you're on the line.

You have three minutes, Kelly.

Yeah, um it seems like the they're not, there's a lot of uh cargo containers that are popping up across the uh rural agricultural zones.

They're being used.

Cargo containers are used for storage.

They they're uh uh used for for all kinds of things, but I think that um under uh agricultural zoning, um you can't use them as as kind of temporary buildings or whatever without getting a uh special permit.

And also the same thing with as we've just heard with somebody paving over uh their front lawn in a city out there in the rural areas with the encouragement, advice and encouragement of uh the Board of Zoning Adjustment or uh with the advice and encouragement of the of the uh code enforcement, um, you know, they're paving over uh pieces of lots, you know, some acreage um gets uh, you know, chip-sealed asphalt, whatever slurry, whatever they call it, um, in order to build uh automobile storage areas so that uh you know classic antique cars or inoperable cars or junk yard junk cars or some kind of vehicles get stored out there and uh the the attitude is among county uh employees that if as long as you can just put it on um uh an inflammable, non-burnable, non-flammable surface, but like by paving over the the countryside, then um then it's fine because you know that asphalt is never gonna burn.

So that's really safe.

Uh and everything will be fine.

Um, of course, there is there is a a thought about, you know, uh storm water runoff and all that, but that doesn't really cross over cross, does it?

It's not really top of mind for our county officials, thanks.

Thank you.

Anyone in the room would like to speak on this item.

Do we have any other speakers online?

There's online.

And go to the council, and we'll start down here with uh council member Fiebert.

I can't believe how much cigarettes are nowadays.

Eight or nine dollars a pack?

Man, oh man.

I was wondering that it was a carton.

I'm like, no, it's this one little thing.

Yeah.

Anyway, no, no questions.

Thank you.

Great job.

Thank you.

Councilmember Davis.

Thank you.

And I like uh compliment you all for your extended efforts and your code enforcement.

And I completely understand uh Mr.

Turner's um comments that we need to support and and push the higher ups to give you that support.

Um, and it's really encouraging to hear that the vending ordinance on the public property will actually start being enforced the first of the year.

My my only question is that my understanding that the our favorite corner here with the vendor that they're parking in the Safeway parking lot, I thought Safeway filed uh a complaint so that you could rem you know enforce their using their private property to facilitate their um uh pop-up at the uh corner.

That is correct.

They do have um documented in place with the sheriff's office for trespassing, but they have to call to enforce it.

Okay.

Every time the van's there, like I saw they were just setting up, we cannot call it in.

We've even talked to the managers of Safeway, they do not want to be involved.

Okay, that's so it's the members of the public need to make the uh uh Safeway managers aware that we're concerned about that.

And uh in fact again, the other action, if they do, a lot of times they'll just move down the street to be in the BART parking lot.

And if they're using the BART parking lot, um, does that require BART to also file a similar complaint to have on files for enforcement?

I've already spoken with BART police managers, they are all aware of that vendor, and they're making sure they're not on BART property.

That's why they have not really relocated back to BART.

Great.

And then of course, you know, when we do enact uh and are enforcing the the new street vendor's license or uh um ordinance, um are you without additional budget, are you gonna be able to provide enforcement for the off hours?

So uh right now, because it's not time to for the budget, we're trying to see how things go.

Once this ordinance is uh comes into effect.

We're gonna be out there um doing heavy education efforts, inform them.

There's a new ordinance now, these are the things you need to do to be compliant or have a uh a business that's gonna be allowed by the county, and then we'll see how things develop from there.

Maybe it will simmer down, maybe if if the activity rises to a point where we really need more staff to cover nights and weekends because we're covering it now.

Uh John's been going out mostly on the evenings and we've done uh weekend events already.

Um, so it's uh let's wait and see kind of thing first.

Um, and that's how that's how we're gonna move forward.

Very good.

I encourage the more the more the better as far as uh I'm concerned.

Uh that concludes my uh questions and comments.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Thomas.

Thank you.

And you guys have been back every month, you know, answering our questions, and we were frustrated last time.

Thank you for the great work.

Um, again, but going back to street vendor on uh you know on safe at parking lot.

It's not, you know, they might have tasty food, you know, whatever is going on is good, but uh thing is it's not good, but they're not permitted.

Um, other businesses are complaining when you do enforcement in their legal business, and you say this is wrong, this is wrong, they need insurance, they don't need permits, they need to fix all that.

And they're saying when I walk in there, what are you doing about the people out on the corner right there on uh Redwood Road?

Um, we say we have discussed it, we're working on it, but they're not happy because you know they're making money and they're you know walking away from the situation in the evening.

Um, so it's kind of frustrating.

You see, you understand what I'm saying?

So um that's for my first point.

The second thing is that we talked about vegan enforcement.

We need a you need a big budget to get vegan uh more people to do the vegan enforcement because I see pop-ups there, the street vendors on Saturdays and Sundays more than during the week because they know you're working during the week.

Uh weekends, you know, I see a couple more people up there with empanada stand or uh some other stuff going on.

Um, so it is um I don't know what to tell the businesses.

I'm a little bit other the licensed businesses, I don't know what to tell them.

You know, just no, it's gonna happen soon.

It's gonna happen soon.

That's where I'm responding.

The third thing is uh, you know, the miners um, you know, are you the decoy operations?

Is that happening consist consistently?

I'm concerned for our miners that they're vaping.

They got all the vaping, um what you call that electronic smoking devices.

Um it is in our schools, it isn't being passed around.

So where are they getting from?

Or is it okay to buy electronic devices from CVS or do they allow that?

Or uh so day coy operations, are those happening consistently?

That's my third.

Uh, and then the fourth one is uh Holly talked about 273 dollars, right?

Is that yearly, or uh how do you charge that?

Is that monthly?

That's annually.

Annually, okay.

Okay, and uh all right, that's that's all I have.

Thank you, Councilmember Davini.

Thank you for our priority.

How's that?

All right.

Um thanks for three things for your uh presentation tonight uh for uh attending our uh public meetings and then uh Ed for meeting with me uh in in August.

I I appreciated that.

Uh not surprisingly, I'm gonna talk about sidewalk bending as well.

Everybody's talking about sidewalk vending, and I disagree with your statement where you said that you guys are taking care of it now.

Uh member Davis asked specifically about resources.

It's not getting taken care of now.

Um, member Tojo talked about the feedback that we get as council members from the community, and the two things that I hear the most about are some crazy public works improvements um that are not improvements, and then the sidewalk vending.

And I'm at the age where I'm sensitive about about being considered to be impotent, but we're completely impotent in at all enforcing this.

You closing down, they're open the very next night.

You close them down, they're open the same night.

Yes.

Everybody knows it.

So we say we're gonna start enforcing the beginning of the year.

How?

How?

You have the authority right now to close them down.

So how are we gonna enforce it?

You don't have the budget, you don't have the people, you don't have nighttime uh workers.

Um every single day they're out there, kind of laughing at us.

So, what is the game plan for real enforcement or is this not a priority?

I know it's a priority of Supervisor Miley.

I've heard them in meeting after meeting after meeting.

You've heard it from three of us tonight.

You heard every single meeting that we come, and it's kind of embarrassing for me to sit on the Mac and to have people ask me about this and say, I don't know, I don't know.

We're looking into it.

They're changing the policy.

This has been a really, really long slog.

We have a good ordinance right now.

I've congratulated you multiple times for that for the uh the the evolution of the ordinance from the beginning to the final.

You have some serious fining authority, particularly for repeat fines.

I think it gets up to a thousand dollars uh an event uh for for repeat uh uh uh uh fines.

I mean, you do that five nights in a row, somebody's gonna close down.

Um, but but this this whole process is governed by state law.

The first state law was 2018, the second state law was 2021, and we still don't have a sidewalk vending ordinance.

So, how are we gonna enforce it?

And that's that's that's the summation of my uh comments.

Thank you.

Councilman Mota?

Hi, thank you for your good work.

Appreciate it.

Um, yeah, my question is kind of piggybacking off of what he just said is like what's the plan, right?

Um, where we're what do you envision in what the plan is to enforce the street vending food, you know.

Um, I definitely want to hear, even if you don't have the budget, I still want to know like what do you what is gonna happen, right?

But we definitely want to get something going sooner than later.

But yeah, that's all I have.

But thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Mulgrave.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Ed and Holly and John for your good work on behalf of the community.

Much appreciated.

Um, and I'm sorry if I was distracted when you were going through the uh violation subtype.

Um the other category, the third one down, 37 items.

Can you give me a little sense of what's inside that 37?

Yeah, unfortunately, I I could have had the opportunity to pull those cases and see what they were related to, but a lot of times it's related to a blight issue that might not be um specifically categorized in the neighborhood preservation ordinance, but we consider it because we are the experts uh officers, and if we consider it a blight condition, then we'll note it note it as such, and it falls under uh other category.

It would could be in that uh scenario.

Yeah, sure.

John Kransky Alameda County Code Enforcement.

So I'm the one that goes through and puts all these categories down essentially.

Some of the others might be, since we don't have uh in the system, it might not say there might not be a box to check for for there's a rooster on the property, and so it's just it's sometimes it's just random things like that that I come across that there's just nothing within our system to put to put down.

Uh but in that case I'd refer to you know, animal control, or it might be um um banana peels, you know, something like that that just we don't have anything in the system for.

So that's typically what I mark down whenever I come across something like that as other.

Very good.

Thanks, John.

Um, I don't know if you can if you can say that, but on slide 12, you said there were two soil importing complaints um can you say who those soil importing complaints were filed against or who was the uh offending party so there's one on I believe it's center street um they brought in uh a bunch of soil in order to be able to kind of fill their front yard so that way it was more uh leveled unfortunately you can't do that uh so we are in the process of of trying to you know get them to remove that and then there was another one that uh I believe it was on jamison or I believe I believe that was it but um he had brought on a bunch of dirt uh and it was from down the street he was doing construction da da da uh he ended up removing that dirt and putting it back on the property that it came from thank you I was just uh mostly curious if um the miller road site was one of those complaints I guess not all right thank you um and following on my peers' uh questions how many additional head count will you be asking for for the next fiscal year to enforce this I mean you I'm sure you've had business plans and projections just you know what are we looking at in terms of adding uh what would be your ideal department size to manage the increase in work that's going to happen as a result of the sidewalk vending uh that's a little tough tough to answer right now I I think that um we have uh currently five investigators that cover the entire unincorporated county a supervisor and a manager and I have a uh dedicated support staff for for all the um admin work you know clerical support basically uh I would love to start with additional two personnel to to help with uh the the um uh overflow activities um covering um you know potentially the the weekends and sidewalk bending uh more proactive work would be would be ideal to start with and like I said the sidewalk bending could be a lot of work could be work that can be managed minimally sure but would it's a wait and see kind of thing because there's no definitive uh you know some cities that we talked to uh we did arrange a meeting with other cities in the in the county Oakland Primont Berkeley um Hayward um there they're everybody's having a tough time with this uh it's not just us um I'm sure other cities in California they're they're kind of shackled by what the state's given them right so we're just trying to cope with uh time place and matter is what we're trying to do.

Yes but it it in aside from that right now the only thing they need to have if they're selling food which seems to be the largest problem we have they need a permit from the environmental health right so under the food code that's when they can actually um uh enforce food safety it's not because they're not just because they're bending on the sidewalk but is it's the food that they're selling safe sure so that's the reason why they're able to confiscate the food right the ordinance that I'm bringing up I'm limited to fines and fees I can't confiscate understand okay um yeah and the reason for asking is as we try to advocate for you to be able to do your job um in a way that benefits the community we're gonna get asked that question.

Yes.

What do they need?

What do they need?

And so I would encourage you to you know have that to us, have it ready so that we can take it forward on your behalf when we have the opportunity.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Um and then my last question, I'm sorry.

Um the timing on on this.

The Board of Supervisors heard a second reading in September, and then went back, and October 9.

October 9th, the ordinance is effective nine days ago.

Um what's what is happening on the 13th and the 18th of November?

Uh so after the main ordinance was adopted, uh, we introduced discrete amendments to uh set the fee, the permit fee of 273.

Plus, um there was a concern about notification requirements if there's any changes to the regulations, that the original ordinances 10 days notification, the public wanted 30 days, so we had to amend that to give uh the public 30 days announcement if there's any changes to the regulations, and even inform the Mac chairs about it.

So I I recently just um sent out uh notification for the adopting the regulations uh for November uh 18.

So that's the first adoption, and then any revisions after that would have to follow those notification requirements.

So you again, pardon pardon my ignorance, but we can have an ordinance approved and enforced, and then amend it through the planning director as as we uh so the ordinance is separate from the regulations, thank you.

Yeah, so uh we didn't want any changes to the regulations be brought in front of the board because that's kind of like will delay things and uh especially if they're just minor changes.

Thank you.

So ordinances there, it's set, it's approved, changes to time, place, and manner under regulations, they'll just be handled and adopted by CDA.

That's all my questions, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you very much, Ed, Holly, and John.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I have a couple of questions.

Um on page five, you mentioned Castro Valley under the um grow operations.

There was one find, and then you're monitoring the permit.

Who issued a permit to grow in Castro Valley?

No, that's the sorry.

I mentioned that they need a permit to correct.

Let's say they did elect, you know, dangerous electrical, and and they put exhaust systems, they call it boarded up windows, so we tell them to get building permits to correct all that stuff.

So okay, so we don't have a grow operation permitted in Castro Valley, it's not allowed in residential uh okay.

I just want to make sure because it's a worded that differently.

Said monitoring permit.

I just said whoa, um, yeah, okay.

Um thank you for being here, uh, by the way.

Um you guys have a very very tough job because you're really somewhat law enforcement, and yet you're somewhat planning department.

Yep, and we get frustrated because we see that you know the codes, but you really don't have the resources to enforce them.

And I, as another council member mentioned, think this would be a good venue for you to kind of share what your needs are in with the public here so that we can be advocates for helping increase your department size if that's necessary, and also um, and you know, I'm just a little concerned.

I hear what's going on with the street vendor, and particularly the food vendor, and if the violations were a restaurant, you you'd shut them down tomorrow.

I mean, there'd be no no different no offense or buts about it, but yet we have street vendors on the street selling food.

Are you getting the cooperation you need from environmental health?

Yes or no?

Uh we're we're partnering with them because um they're again they're they have the authority to confiscate or even shut down uh food operator.

We can't do that, so we are providing support like Holly says, um, organizing the joint inspections and all that stuff.

But they have the authority to do that.

So I completely understand, and I've asked you several times about the street vendors, and you can't get environmental health out to get them shut down because they're selling food.

So it might understand here in public, we are you are not getting the support we need, and particularly with these street vendors for environmental health.

Well, maybe you should invite them to come to one of your meetings.

So make an answer to a question because they cover countywide, not just unincorporated.

They support Berkeley, Hayward, whoever has an ordinance.

And if their issue is a resource related, then that you might be able to help them with that too.

Okay.

I'm I'm just concerned that we've talked about these street vendors now for months and months and months.

You go to San Ramon, Danville, Alamo, Pleasanton.

I don't see any street vendors on the street corners.

Yeah.

Selling food.

And I get this feeling because we're the unincorporated area.

We're not getting the respect that we should be getting.

And my concern is: would your department allocate someone specifically to Castro Valley who happens to be 66,000 people strong and I think 17 square miles of property?

Is that a possibility?

For just sidewalk vending, you mean?

Or someone that is specifically assigned to Castro Valley to handle code compliance issues.

That's John right here.

Okay, so we need to talk to John about the street vendor down the street.

Yeah.

So I've I've personally been on many, many different task teams essentially that have have gone out, we've confiscated hundreds of pounds of food.

And it's from environmental health, the main thing for them is we can get people out, you know, but it's it's their budget.

They just, you know, they they unfortunately they've got a team of a bunch of people, but they can't keep taking the team out every single night.

Um, and that's a hard part.

Yeah, it's it's it's a hard one because we you're right.

We can go out there, we can take their food, but they're just gonna buy more.

Um, so it's a it's an uphill battle that we're we're really fighting, and I've I've been out there, you know, taking confiscating food with these environmental health people, and and it's yeah.

Well, I I don't want to argue with you about this, but I tell you if Officer Paps would have told me we gave way too many tickets and we're not gonna come back and do them because we're tired of writing them.

We keep we keep getting speeders, and we just you know, I mean, that's not I'm sorry, but you know, we're getting a lot of complaints from our community about this, and we're expected to do something about it.

So I'm just gonna ask you guys, tell me what we need to do from this committee to help you get this done.

Is it environmental health or is where's it where's the issue lie?

Because it needs to stop.

Yeah, uh, so right now I think the most effective um thing that the county is doing is the confiscation.

Unfortunately, it's not happening frequently enough, and that's not my department.

So perhaps uh conversation with them would be helpful to see if that can improve.

Um I also I was actually interviewed by the Casco Valley Forum a while ago, and I did make a statement letting the public know the first thing you look for when you're buying food from a street vendor is their permit.

If they don't have a permit, that then you have a choice to patronize or not, right?

So if there's less people patronizing these people that they don't have permits, they might go somewhere else.

Okay, um we'll reach out to maybe our supervisor and let him know that um you possibly would need some help from environmental health on this issue.

Yeah, we have been going out in teams with them, so yes.

Okay, well, thank you and the group for coming.

It's a tough deal to get up there.

Um I don't envy your job.

You know, it's really tough.

You know, I often feel like what you're doing is more like dealing with family disputes, and that's a very dangerous area.

So thank you for coming and thank you for what you guys are doing out there, and we'll do our best to get you some more help.

Yeah, and and I just wanted to add th one more thing.

It's about uh if they're setting up on private property, we have an easier time enforcing that because we make the owner of the property responsible for the activity.

Sometimes they say, Oh, I didn't know it's happening at night.

I don't even know that was happening.

But it it puts them on alert to make sure that they know what's happening on their property.

So we've been successful with private property enforcement with vendor setting up there.

Okay, well, we just want to clean up that corner.

They leave a mess there all the time.

It's unfair.

So thank you.

Okay, um, I'm gonna go ahead and close this item and we're gonna move on to the next item, which is the unincorporated budget and put process.

And I think Claudia's gonna lead us in that.

And this really leads into what you're working on, I'm sure.

Hi, I'm Claudia Albano, deputy chief of staff for supervisor Miley.

I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to what we're gonna do right now, because I think our office thinks that MACs and communities in the unincorporated area, both rural and urban, need a way to comment on a yearly basis, what your priorities are for service and for budget.

The fact that you have to talk to code enforcement um in an ad hoc manner and not in a systemized way every year regarding your needs, we think it needs to be improved.

So, what you're about to see tonight, if you could change the go through tonight, if you could next slide.

Tonight you'll be participating in a process to gather input from unincorporated community members, both urban and rural, into Alameda County's unincorporated budget.

This process is the next step in developing an annual efficient yet thorough way for unincorporated communities to communicate with Alameda County about the services they receive and their budget priorities, so that you won't have to do what you just did now.

To participate in this process tonight, all you need is your lived experience as a resident and as a Castro Valley Mac member.

No prior budget knowledge is necessary.

This is a slide that represents the process we've been going through.

The first bucket represents two community meetings we had, one for the urban area on September 18th, and one for the rural communities on September 23rd.

The next box in darker greenish turquoise that represents the MACs that we have gone to.

Um we've gone to the Fairview, the Eden Mac, the SNOMAC, and to you tonight, Castro Valley Mac.

And then in November, we're going to be compiling and analyzing the data we that we collected from the six charrettes that we've had, and we're going to be presenting the findings in December on December 3rd at a joint meeting of all the MACs and the Synol CAC, as well as the tra as well as the unincorporated services committee of the board.

Because we want to make recommendations about how to institutionalize a way for you as community representatives and the community at large to be able to communicate with the county about what your budget priorities are, what your priorities are, and what needs to be funded or changed.

So that's the purpose of why we're doing this whole process.

Next slide.

So there's only uh tonight's meeting, you can see highlighted there in blue as the meeting we have tonight, and then the next one that I hope that you will attend on December 3rd, because that will be with a rubber meets the road.

Okay, next slide.

So the instructions for those of you that are virtual is that after the MAC members have completed this exercise that I'm gonna be able to, I'm gonna take them through, you'll have the opportunity to provide your input.

This will happen before the Mac deliberates and or takes action.

So we're gonna go through the process, people will have a chance to provide input, and then you can deliberate and take action if you like.

The time given to speakers is at the discretion of the chair, Mr.

Mulgrew.

I mean, no, Mr.

Moore.

And uh a survey is also going to be sent out to community members in late October that will supplement this process.

So, you know, you could have your um say at public comment, but you can also fill out a survey and the public can fill out a survey as well.

So we'll be sending that out to next slide.

So here's the first question.

You've been given some sticky paper, and you'll notice one side is sticky and the other side isn't.

You've been given two sheets.

We've decided that since there's so many of you, we only really we have to make this a little bit shorter, the process a little bit shorter.

So we're only going to give you two sticky sheets for this first question instead of three.

And what I'd like you to do is what are two major issues in the world that you think that touch the Castro Valley community today.

What are the macro level things going on in the world that you think have an effect on people's lives today?

And I would like you to write no more than two issues per person, one issue per sticky, write big, and use as few words as possible.

It doesn't matter what color you use.

Mr.

Chair, may I ask you a question?

Thank you.

Um this exercise is valuable, it's good, and to me, it's just a little bit assumptive that that we're all in line with the process.

I'm just wondering if we're going to have a chance to ask the presenters questions about the process as it was outlined in the letter we received as part of the agenda, and if we are able to if we'll be able to comment on that letter at some point, absolutely.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair.

If I may ask a question, I don't understand the question.

And if someone could um perhaps give me some enlightenment, some examples of what might be.

I'll give you an example.

Um people would say that if they believe in climate change, that climate change is affecting their community today.

We heard this in the rural area.

Matter of fact, it came up as an example.

They said climate change is making us more susceptible to fire and flooding, and it's a global issue, but it's affecting us here in our community.

Somebody might say, you know what?

Prices, food prices are really high.

That is a national issue that's going on today, and it's affecting us in our community.

There can be issues, but you know what?

If you don't have an answer for it, you don't have to do it.

It's okay.

We have one other question, and you know, so it's not mandatory that you can think of a macro level issue that is affecting your community today, or you personally.

And so please be specific as possible, write big, one item per sheet, and as few words as possible.

Sorry, can you go to the next slide?

Okay, go back.

If you could go back, that would be great.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Okay.

So good.

There's scissors.

One issue per sheet, yeah.

Because we're gonna be moving them around.

It's okay.

We're gonna cut them and yeah, we have to.

The stickies don't stick to you.

If you're done, I'll take uh your we get them all.

Yep, got them all.

All right, so let's let's start on this end.

We have over-regulation, safety, road repairs, polarization of ideologies between socialists and capitalists, infrastructure improvements, lighting, cost of living, rapid increase, little or no respect for business, bureaucratic inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, traffic flow, safety concerns, enforce the penal code, housing, homelessness, mental health, substance abuse, growing divide between economic classes.

So let's take these really big macro level level issues first.

Who wrote this one about Bill?

Can you talk about why you you uh you wrote that?

What do you see?

Um I see people who are struggling to manage rents, food.

I see folks who are at the opposite end of that.

IT billionaires and and such, and um it seems as if we have lost our middle class.

Did the rest of you agree with that?

Yep, see that right.

Um, did you also write this cost of living?

No, no, who wrote this?

Is that you, Tojo?

Okay.

What did you what do you see?

Rapid increase, cost of living.

What do you think?

As you said before?

You know, the prices are increasing.

Um, you know, people can't afford regular, you know, uh regular stuff like milk, um uh buying eggs, regular groceries, you know, it's just going up the roof.

So that's why I wrote what I wrote.

So the rent, also the rent, you know, rent, uh, yeah.

As a national standard, Castro Valley is a 36% higher cost of living than the national average.

Really?

36% higher.

Yes.

We definitely see that in got cas gas prices, too, don't we see that?

Well, you have the highest gas prices.

What you're saying, you know, is that these are kind of very related.

People can't afford their groceries, they can't afford their gas, they can't afford their rent, probably affects the number of jobs we have, and so it creates and affects this growing divide we have between between classes.

Um, what about this one?

Polarization of ideologies between socialists and capitalists.

Okay.

All right, let's put that up here.

Talk about that a little bit.

Uh it's pretty, I mean, with what's going on in in this country, um, the democratic socialists with what's going on in the UK and uh France and other countries, there's a very strong movement away from, let's call it democratic capitalism toward socialism.

And I think it's it's something that we can't ignore.

And how do you think do you do you think it relates to these other things that have been said the divide between economic classes or the cost of living?

How does it play into that?

I think it relates to Maslow's hierarchy.

People will do what they do to stay fed and warm and then move up the pyramid.

Okay.

And if you anybody else want to make a comment about how these might relate or affect each other, Dan?

I'm not sure how they relate and might affect, but uh an added disadvantage of the polarization is the amount of dishonesty on all sides of arguments nowadays.

It means the polarization just can't come together.

When when you look at how this country was so divided over something like uh uh COVID, and nobody can trust anybody, and it the polarization just seems to be pushing further and further apart, and the BS factor is just growing by multitudes on both sides of the equation.

So it might make it very difficult if you want to discuss issues relating to class and the cost of living.

If you can't touch uh trust the conversation or the process, it makes it really difficult to find good solutions, right?

So let's look at some of these other things.

The bureaucratic inefficiency and ineffectiveness, what I mean by that is inefficiency is that they spend too much and take too long, and then ineffectiveness means they fix something that ain't broke or they don't fix anything at all.

So you are you talking locally or you're talking nationally, internationally?

I'm talking all levels.

Yeah, from county up to state to to federal, and perhaps it gets much worse as you go higher up the ladder.

Yeah, maybe maybe the county's the best, but there's still issues with uh uh being inefficient, spending way too much and taking way too long, and then ineffective the the wrong answer to the uh to the problem.

So maybe it also makes it difficult to find solutions that people uh can all agree on and work together on, especially if they don't trust each other and it's not working, and then the society's getting more and more divided between two tiers, kind of rich and poor.

Huh?

Interesting.

All right.

Um let's look at overregulation.

Is that really uh part of the bureaucratic inefficiency, or is that a subset or something completely different?

I I opened a business in Texas, a water plant, it took me uh seven days to open a plant, and um it would take me seven years here, and it it's just amazing, and it costs me $35 for um a permit.

So um, you know, uh, you know, um it's just the old saying, you know, the more regulation you make without some common sense behind it and and the unintended consequences is very, very dangerous.

And it if you don't look at just what's going on in this Bay Area, but look at what's going on in California with people fleeing businesses that are gonna hurt us because there's a tax-paying businesses.

It's um very concerning to me.

Do you see this over regulation playing out in Castor Valley?

Well, uh absolutely.

I think um, well, you take the trucking industry in a in a whole uh carb, like uh California Air Resources Board has made a bloody fortune being spent on small trucking companies, closing down uh anybody with some of this equipment, and then they don't realize that the fire department needs new equipment, it's gotta meet the new regulations, they gotta go buy it, and it hurts your tax dollars.

So instead of, you know, and but yet when you talk to the folks who doing the smog checks, they're saying these vehicles are passing, but the regulation doesn't allow them.

So, when we got too many bureaucrats running things and not people that have been in the business running it, and they're overregulating it and making it difficult for the rest of the working people to start a new business or get a business, keep it going.

Bill, I see you nodding your head.

And I I I happen to know a little bit about it.

I've been in several businesses across the nation.

I do agree with Chair Moore that as government expands, um, it's just a birth process, the regulation expands, and and that leads to uh increased taxation, which is a redistribution of wealth, which is part and parcel of the socialist process.

I see.

So and then this one, little or no respect for business.

That seems to be a part and parcel of this this thinking here.

That is completely my thinking.

Um being a in the private sector all my life, you know, 40 or 50 years in the grocery business, drilling water wells, owning a water plant, uh, owning a clothing operation in Hawaii.

I um I can just tell you that um California is very, very difficult in this Bay Area, is even more difficult.

Go get a business license or go get something and see how long it takes to get it here.

Go to building permit and see how long it takes to get it here.

Um it is unbelievably restrictive, and there's little or no respect for the businesses in this and um and that's why they're leaving.

Yeah, right.

So some of these things like traffic flow, Claudia.

Uh, can I just add something to that?

Sure.

So I'll just give you an example about the opening of a business, beer barren.

Tried to come to Cashavali, and I talked to the owner because I go down in Pleasanton to have one, and he said that it's so easy to open up a business in Pleasanton compared to Cashavali, because it's under one roof.

It's on a Dublin, Pleasanton, San Ramon.

You can walk walk into the city office under one roof.

The process is so easy.

Here, like uh Chair Moore said, there's a lot of bureaucrats, you gotta go to different offices.

It's not an easy process.

They give you a hard time.

So beer barren was supposed to open here, they backed off.

They said, you know, I talked to them and he said, I can't do it here.

It's not easy.

So we have to, that's my point.

I mean, it's it's tough to open up something, and obviously it's tough in California, but then in Cashville Valley, unincorporated areas is way tougher.

It's tougher.

So how things like um infrastructure concerns, traffic flow, housing, homelessness, you know, Dan, you wrote these things, housing, homelessness.

Do you think they fit into this uh this equation here?

When you look at housing, before you put a shovel in the ground in Alameda County, you'll probably spend seventy or eighty thousand dollars on the permitting and design process.

Yeah.

And you don't think that affects the housing?

Yeah, right.

And we were our own worst enemies with all the regulation that we put on some of the building.

I mean, you'd have more buildings if people could afford to build them.

Yeah, so I think housing uh uh concerns relate more to uh the bureaucra the bureaucracy, the overregulation, lack of respect for business than it necessarily does with homelessness.

That's why I put two different items there, homelessness perhaps being uh uh uh mental health and substance abuse uh uh issues as opposed to housing, unaffordability, and uh a nearly impossible process to build anything here.

Okay, and say a little bit, yeah, it's good.

Say a little bit about why you put homelessness up as a macro big issue.

I mean, it's pretty much everywhere, and we're just it's it's there in plain sight, and we're ignoring it.

Uh-huh.

I mean, we're we're uncomfortable with it, and it's it's uh uh an easy thing to complain about, and you know what, it almost does belong with the bureaucracy.

Seems like the more dollars we throw at it, the worst it gets, the more it grows.

So inefficiency, I just haven't seen a good uh program uh uh nationwide, statewide, or or countywide.

Uh and I might be wrong.

I'm I'm I'm not an expert on it, just my my casual observation.

Seems like the more dollars that get thrown at homelessness, the the worse the situation becomes.

So again, the the wrong answer to the to the issue.

And maybe it does go back to some of these fundamental issues that if we have difficulty talking to each other, trusting each other, it makes it difficult to work out solutions.

So if you took the dollars spent on homelessness last year, you could have probably put them in each house.

I mean, it really seriously, it's a very sad situation, but the amount of money that we have thrown into the homeless project because of some poor leadership.

Um, you know, didn't see where to where the best way to go with it is, you know, I mean, because at the end of the day, this is all about the buck stop somewhere.

Right.

Okay, and we're empowering people to lead us in that right direction, and they're not doing anything with it.

Yeah, so there's a lot of frustration.

I'm really sensing a lot of frustration.

Angelia, you haven't said a word.

What are you thinking?

I agree.

I definitely think um the I wrote the traffic flow repairs, things like that, infrastructure, um, is a big concern.

Um, we definitely need uh enforcement, improvement.

Um, along with the other topics up there as well, but I think um infrastructure is uh pretty important on my on my scale as well.

Safety.

Great.

And Ray, what about you?

I'm really challenged by this whole process, understanding why we're looking at a macro level when we're really dealing with specific items in the budget for this Alameda County.

And I'm have you ever have you ever seen the Alameda County budget for the unincorporated area?

It doesn't have nuts and bolts in it either.

That's why we're doing this project.

You haven't seen it.

And have you ever had input into the Alameda County budget in a macro level, a micro level that affects line by line for the unincorporated area?

You have not.

It doesn't exist.

And so, so actually, I would just ask you to hang on, we're not done with the process yet.

The next question, which you're gonna put on the board, goes to the micro level.

So can you bring up uh so this is to get your get your mind thinking and your juices flowing?

And now I want you to ask this question.

They've given you uh two sheets.

What would you change or improve about the services you receive from Alameda County?

The things Alameda County has jurisdiction over.

So this is sort of the micro level where the rubber meets the road question.

And we're giving you uh, how many sheets do we give for this three?

We're giving you three, write big, no more, one issue per sticky, as few words as possible.

Do you need more sticky?

Two more?

Okay.

Anybody else need another sheet?

You have three.

Yeah, don't.

I know, but we can't move them around like this.

Is that everybody?

Okay.

Let's look at what we have here.

Respect actions taken by Max.

Improve process of public services.

Eliminate the ridiculous duplication of efforts.

Don't waste resources.

Allocate correctly, local leadership, lower property tax, accountability, lack of departmental accountability to the public, have Castor Valley involved in public work.

Streamline permit process, code enforcement, make it real, safe environment, better roads and repairs to them.

Ease resolutions to give permits to repair roads, better education, much simpler application process for new business owners, unwillingness of board of supervisors, CAO, to fire discipline, poor performance, results, action, timeline.

So you see any overlap there?

All right.

Let's start.

Seeing where you see the overlap.

How about eliminate the ridiculous duplication of efforts?

Who wrote that one?

All right, Bill.

What are you talking about?

It was brought up a little earlier in terms of homelessness.

We had a presentation from the ACSO who said this is what we do.

We end up giving them a pamphlet that says these are the services that are available.

And then we had a department, I think it was public health that came in after that and said here's what we do.

We give them a pamphlet that says these are the services available.

There's not a lot of integrated effort in terms of solving problems.

There seems to be effort at working with other departments to talk about solving problems.

To solve problems across departments, across departments.

So is there anything else that's kind of like that?

Results, action, timeline.

Who wrote that?

Is that speaking to the same thing that Bill is?

I don't confuse effort with results.

And if you were gonna pick a few agencies that you've dealt with in your experience, would you want to be more specific?

You were here tonight.

I know, but I want you to say it, not me.

I'd be more compliance.

Um and it's not necessarily their fault.

I don't know if it's a resource uh they have uh environmental health okay um uh I would say the to some extent the planning department and the timeline it takes to get something done.

Can we read those back again?

Yeah, code enforcement, environmental health, and planning department.

I'm afraid that these are recorded.

I might to the extent that it's to time, yeah.

Um I I wrote results because I I'm a firm believer, and you know, don't confuse effort, I mean, don't confuse effort with results.

Uh-huh.

And we have a lot of people talking about stuff, uh huh.

And it just doesn't get done.

Okay.

And when you look at environmental health and planning, yes, code compliance.

If the gentleman was here tonight, if he needed more help, okay, tell us.

Right.

Okay.

I would add public works to that too.

Public works.

Say a little bit more about planning department.

Um it it's people you talk to say it's a nightmare to get through our planning department.

And it's maybe it's because we've overregulated it.

I'm not quite sure.

But and maybe it it and once again it goes back to that leadership question over there.

You know, uh in some of these departments and accountability.

So that's where you talked about.

Leadership, I'm talking about local leadership is why do because well, I know why, but we're in in Castro Valley, but yet Berkeley, Oakland, and all the other areas vote on issues that are impacted by Castro Valley.

Why aren't we local?

Why does Berkeley get to say what goes on here?

Why does Fremont get to say we don't vote on what goes on in Fremont?

I don't vote on what goes on in Berkeley.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

So it sounds like we need more leadership.

We need better leadership, better leadership, better leaders, directed leadership to really an eliminate some of these problems that affect people's real lives, like the permitting process, like this code enforcement work that you just had at the before me, environmental health, planning department.

These processes are inhibiting businesses from coming into the area, and they're frustrating people about solving problems.

That seems like a core message that I'm picking up.

Is that right?

I can't speak to the core, but it certainly is to my core.

Okay.

Ray, what about you?

Well, I one of the things that sort of ties into that is the um we at Mac get involved in a number of issues and we make specific recommendations, and there are have been a number of times that uh a um a director of a department just blows it off.

Uh-huh.

And so my question in the past is why are we sitting here in the first place?

Is this just something to appease the public?

And then they can say, Well, they met with the public, and this was the uh the direction that was given.

I find that, I mean, it's really challenging when you have individuals who say, Well, we don't have to listen to you, you're just an advisory board.

So that's why you wrote this one about respect to actions taken by the Macs.

Like what is your role?

Why are we here if you're not going to listen to us?

And do you ever get feedback about why or why not they take rec your recommendations?

Well, that's a good point is that we don't, and we find out through just inquiries as to projects and what status of projects that we initiate, not the departments to update us as to actions that we've taken.

Uh-huh.

Uh but the um uh so that's you know, the real thing is we're operating in the dark a lot of the times, and you know, people look at the Mac as powerful board of making decisions within the community.

We're just an advisory body, yeah, yeah.

So is that where the lack of departmental accountability to the public comes in?

Yes, and the accountability as a whole, yes.

Well, I don't know.

Accountability for me also is when you're get you're in a charge of a department, and you don't do the job you are responsible for doing, and maybe the guidelines are not clear enough for the department head, but they need to move on in the real world out there that we work in every day as a business we're accountable, or we don't pay our rent at night.

Right, right.

So you want more accountability, more direct action, more um, more respect, it sounds like it's deeper than that.

It's deeper than that.

Say more, go ahead.

I was gonna say the improvement of the public service process is in line with the permit process, streamlining things, making things simple easier for folks to obtain a business to apply for things.

Um then streamlining it like we were saying, it's processes that work for other cities.

Why not?

Why don't they work here?

Why?

Why?

And you know, maybe because it's because it's unincorporated, is it a larger scale than a city?

I don't know.

Don't waste resources.

The residents, the the residents of the unincorporated county are shareholders in a corporation called Alameda County.

They pay for those shares with their lives, right?

Yeah.

Um the organizations that face the public do not treat them as shareholders.

Okay, and and in an organization where profits return on the investment that I give Alameda County with my life, um, if I as an employee don't produce and add to that, I'm gone.

Right.

I'm gone.

The bureaucracy, as has been said, is is stoltifying.

And there has to be a direct link between what an employee feels when they come to work and how they feel when they leave about what they've done for the people they work for.

So it sounds like there's a disconnect between the worker for the county and feeling that they have uh that they're working for the public and they owe the public uh a good day's work and to be accountable to them.

Okay, good.

All right, it's a pretty general statement, but I will say that my experience is with a lot of the folks that work in the county, they're very dedicated to their jobs and really I don't want to send that message from the okay.

Okay, but but but there's some nuance here.

So if everybody is you know pretty much doing a good job, what's going on here?

Look back into the leadership.

Ah Bill, what are you gonna say?

Which focuses internally as opposed to externally.

So an internal You can only exp inspect, you can only expect what you inspect.

And there's not enough people out there.

Inspecting inspecting, right?

Any comments over here?

You're not just wanna, I just want to add there's you know, the gentleman came in and talked about the traffic burger island, we talked about it for the last couple of months, right?

Where is the disconnect?

Something is not going through, right?

Or, you know, uh is anybody come in and inspecting it, you know, who who who's doing it, who who's looking at it?

We cannot go out there.

Right.

And I feel bad for him.

I mean, you know, he he's done it, send it to us, we talk to the staff, public works.

You want to know where the buck stops.

Yeah, exactly.

And who's gonna get you results?

Yeah.

I get ya.

So where does lower property tax and if you want to pay lower property tax, but you want more code enforcement officers?

Where does this come in?

See, I wrote that.

Did you write that?

Yeah, I said because every time you go, uh every election comes up, there's a parcel tax.

Yeah, and where is that going to?

You know, who who's and it come goes back to accountability, right?

Okay.

Parcel tax, you get all that money.

You know, who who makes the decision where the money's going to?

Yeah, it's good.

You know, so it's really it's really part of accountability.

You pay the taxes, what is it going for?

Is it being used well?

Is it being efficient?

Efficiency will lead to better spending of property taxes and not require bond issues and and everything like that every time we turn around for something.

So we have a few more over here, and I want to see how these work in.

This said safe environments, better education, better education, better roads and recovery.

Unwillingness, a board of supervisors, CAO to folks.

That's goes back to this whole accountability and respect.

Okay, I put that over there.

Have Castor Valley involved in public work.

Is that you mean what is it?

Oh, can I buy an S, please?

Public Works.

Oh, public works.

Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you.

So say a little bit more about that.

Is it Oh, that's I I can say a whole lot about that.

We've we've had three or four or five different public works uh uh improvements to Castor Valley that have been horrible and with no involvement from this body or this board, uh, you know, whether whether it's uh uh bike lanes or whether it's hamburger island, uh uh, whether it's it's it's lane narrowing efforts with bulbouts and islands that have already caused multiple accidents on on Redwood Road and James Avenue.

Um we have no say here, yet we get all the complaints.

Yeah.

And we're close, and we're closest to the proper decision in knowing what's best for this community.

We're not traffic planners, we're not public works experts, but we have common sense, and yeah, despite having a driver's license, I'm still not a traffic expert, but but uh again, four or five or six improvements, real money being spent that that's to the detriment of our town.

It'd be better if they didn't do anything than what they're doing, and we have no input.

So it's really it's about input.

We did a lot of input on Crow Canyon Road, one of the most deadliest roads in in Alameda County.

Yeah, and we got 13 million dollars, and there's an argument as to whether public works got it or or whether uh the assembly got it.

But we had uh yeah, this was like five years ago.

We had we had a big picture.

Matt Turner worked on that with me.

We I showed up late for the photograph, but he's photographed with a thirteen million dollar check for for for safety for safety improvements.

Did you end up with any improvements to Crow Canyon Road?

No, not in not in the safety realm.

Not in the safe.

That's actually not true.

There were some improvements with some feedback uh uh monitors on that that did your speed limit.

That that was before we raised the 13 million dollars.

And I don't care if it was Bill Quirk that did it, who claims ownership, or if it was our own uh public works department, but that's just another issue that this body is, I'm sorry to use the word again, but is impotent to make any changes.

We just have to sit here and watch it.

I see.

So the example of um, even when they come to present in front of us and they're we're giving, they're giving the information, we ask specific questions, right?

I've felt a lot of the times that this questions are not getting answered.

They're at a very high level.

We want specific data.

We want analytics, and what we get is oh, there's no complaints, um, no phone calls this week.

So everything's working fine for Burger Island.

Everything is fine, and you know, there's there we got no calls.

So that's our that's how we are deciding if it's working or not.

So it doesn't make sense to me.

So it sounds like they're not paying, they're not taking you seriously.

You're not getting the feedback, answers to the questions that you want to feel that it's worth your time to sit here as a body, and when your opinions aren't really valued, in your opinion.

All right.

Not me, I will be here.

I'm too stubborn to give up.

I yeah, I know you, Chuck, and and that is true.

That is true.

See, uh, I just want to add, you know, even court enforcement was your end.

You talked about it.

Yeah, we talked about this street vendors for the past six months, yeah.

They're still there.

Right.

Two years, yeah.

They're still there.

Yeah, no, that's I mean, yeah.

Not paying taxes, and I've heard that this guy runs it from Sacramento, and he sends all these vendors out, and he makes a lot of money, and all these businesses, all these poor businesses, they're paying the taxes and doing everything right.

Hey, so uh, they're not listening to us.

Yeah, that's just what I feel.

You know, we talked about it.

I know it's it's been a couple of years, but six black past six months they've been here.

Hey, what are you doing about it?

What are you doing about it?

How many times do we have to?

We listen to the community.

We are the we are the reps for the community, and they come and ask us, what are you doing with that?

They don't have do they have permits now.

People think that is legal to do that, and it's not.

I hear you, so interesting.

Okay.

Let's just deal with these better education.

No, education is relevant to our society, but it's not something the county has jurisdiction over.

Just want to be sure you know that.

Go ahead, Ray.

If you're looking at education as purely an academic environment, that is correct.

However, it's also better education as far as if we're talking traffic safety, enforcement, that sort of thing.

Okay, it's it's educating people as to the proper way of uh that they should be doing it within our society.

Got it, got it.

Thank you for that.

How about better roads and this one repairs?

That where would you put this one?

Infrastructure, with the state.

If you driven on 580 or 680 lately, yeah.

Yeah, be at false teeth, they would fall out.

Safe environment.

What do you mean by that?

Did you write this one?

And who wrote this safe environment?

Did you mean like uh for kids or what would you be for us?

Uh uh.

Safe environment.

You know, people want to you know be able to move around the community and feel safe.

So safe environment.

Okay.

You know, when you're looking at this, it's just amazing that so much of this is so similar, you know.

If someone wants to build a house, you pay a lot of money, you put in a lot of time, and you have to go through a lot of frustration to deal with all the different organizations.

If you want to start a business, same thing.

You gotta, you know, open a restaurant.

You sometimes it might take a year to get a fire person out there to pass your tests.

So you're sitting around for half a year or a year just to get things rolling.

I mean, there's a lot of frustration with a lot of different individual people, even being in this board and in this room, you hear it over and over again, you know, that things don't move along properly.

And it's not like we don't have the money because, you know, we're the richest state, you know.

You know, we we collect so much taxes, and Chuck made a good point.

Maybe that won't continue, but uh we we collect so much tax and revenue that why can't we iron out and remove some of these regulations?

Why can't it we make it easier for people to do things?

And why can't we streamline the process in the meantime?

Perhaps take in more money and have better systems.

If they were sitting in front of you right here right now, it's is it is it that you know, make things work, Ray.

Go ahead.

You look like you're about to yes, and I go sort of uh echoing his thought is that when you look at regulations, so many regulations are made for the exception rather than the rule, yeah, and it eliminates an individual's ability to use common sense to try to solve a problem because now they have a law here, and especially the challenges within public organizations, is which I spent 45 years in, uh, is uh, you know, when you good staff tends to leave and goes into the private sector, you're bringing in younger staff, newer staff that are green, and all they are taught are is what is black and white rather than there's a whole lot of gray out there, and and that is the way to can really facilitate uh how things can improve, is giving those people the authorization to use some common sense.

Right.

If we have one rule for every rule you make, you've got to take two off with maybe 20 years from now, we would probably be we'd probably be back where we need to be.

At the end of the day, I race a car, and I will tell you that what the NHRA does is they come along and they say, You're guys are going too fast, we're gonna slow you down, we're gonna regulate what you can do in the car.

They're real smart guys figure out how to go better, but they spend a lot of money doing it, and what it does is it puts the guys that don't have the money out of because they can't, they they don't have the resources to do it.

Right, government's the same way right now.

We just keep passing more and more rules, and then the the guy that's struggling to build a house that had you know 500,000 dollars to build it now is about 800,000.

It's crazy.

And but we're just regulating the small guy out, the big guy's got nothing but money.

It's the same way with any other business activity.

So, would your message?

Sorry, Ray, go ahead.

Yeah, it gets back to it is looking at some of our ordinances and seeing whether they're still applicable or not.

A prime example is when I worked for the city in Santa Monica in the 80s.

There was still an ordinance on the rule on the books that it was illegal to tether your mule in your front yard.

And um, not a big agricultural area.

Um, and so we don't go back and look what doesn't make sense anymore and eliminate those.

Uh-huh.

Right.

So if the board was here and you were gonna sum it up, what you want from them.

I mean, sometimes we've met with Max, and there's like, you know, I don't know, six or eight individual categories around public works or what they want from the fire department, or you know, but yours is very philosophical.

I mean, you're specific about code enforcement and public works and streamline the permit process.

But what I think I'm hearing is that you're pissed off, you're frustrated that the county and the leadership is not taking more responsibility to make this system work better, more efficiently, and spending your money wisely.

Bingo.

I hope you guys got that because I don't know that I could repeat it again.

Hang on a second, you've got public comment after when this is done.

So this is this is really the end of the process.

This is what we are going to take back and summarize and integrate with, and you're not alone, I have to tell you, you're not the only group that has talked about this kind of frustration, and we're going to make recommendations on what needs to be done to create more of this feedback loop between the community and the county agencies because it affects the budget at the end of the day.

What you care about gets funded.

Maybe you do need more code enforcement officers.

Maybe there does need to be some educated of the community on this or that.

But I think that's why we're starting with what you care about.

And that's why we can't talk about numbers, because first of all, we don't have access to numbers, and I think that would be doing it sort of backwards in a way.

So this go ahead.

I would just say the the absence of accountability and strong leadership is the strongest argument for cityhood.

Oh, there you go.

Look at you guys, did you bring them along?

No, no.

I don't I don't know them.

You don't.

Great.

No, but really, it is either the county needs to get accountable and deliver, or we'll do it ourselves.

We're gonna say, do it ourselves.

Yeah, great.

So, um, I was gonna ask you, you know, to what would you tell the board of supervisors?

How would you summarize this?

I think we've done that.

I think we've got the spirit of that.

Do you think we've got the spirit of that?

You'll get a chance to see it again.

Um, I hope this is an incentive to come to the meeting on December 3rd, the Big Mac, because if if we I guarantee you that we will be making recommendations to come up with a input process like this and a feedback loop that we can institutionalize because I think that's a big thing that's been missing for the unincorporated communities.

Um, so if there's anything else you want to add, now be the time to do it, because otherwise we can go to the I would just like to say at the end of this, will there be some sort of a survey on how well this worked out or we did?

Yeah, matter of fact, you know, we're sort of beta testing this as we go.

We've changed questions, we've you know, we've done it differently different as tweaked it as we go because you know, you gotta learn from what you do, right?

Because as companies want to get better, they're always sending out I agree.

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

How do we do it better?

I think people need to be evaluated.

I think bureaucrats and offices need to be evaluated, you know, along those lines.

How the public feels they're doing their job, you know.

Anyway, um, I don't want to uh preach, but where's the big Mac meeting?

Um I don't think that we know the location yet, do we, Ashley?

San Lorenzo Library, San Lorenzo Library.

Yeah, you'll be getting a notice, notice about it.

So um so we're gonna go to public comment now.

Uh I am chair, I have uh one quick comment if I can.

Uh and Claudia, thank you for this uh letter dated uh September 9th.

I think it's a great start, but that's not what we did tonight.

Um, we did one small part of this, which is yeah, but but I'm inviting you, and I'm hoping that we can get back to some of the themes that you have in this letter, the themes being how can we have unincorporated services better represented?

Should there be another division?

I can see pros and cons with that, whether it's adds to the bureaucracy or not.

When are we gonna get a chance to address those issues instead of saying what we want in the budget, determine if we're gonna be part of the budgeting process or not?

So, whole different question, and that's what I thought tonight's agenda was all about, not coming up with a wish list of what we want considered.

When it comes right down to it, if you're involved in the budget process, that's how you set your priorities.

But you don't have a budget process, I agree.

So that's what we're trying to come up with.

And this is what this is hinting at.

Your letters hinting at that.

All right, so Supervisor Miley's office and our allies have a camp two campaigns going on.

One is to create a budget input process.

We're trying to figure out what that is gonna be.

We're trying to convince the supervisors of what it could be with community input, back and forth, trial and error.

I mean, I've already done one input process, Tona and I did before the pandemic, which was a disaster.

So this is our second time at it.

We're trying to the other one is around should we have some kind of Office of Unincorporated Communities to hold, help hold agencies accountable, and coordinate the different municipal serving agencies and the safety networks?

So there are two different things.

They're two different things.

One might work, one might not, they might go forward, but we're not con we're not putting them together because they may not be this, you know.

One's not necessarily dependent on the other.

So the question of an Office of Unincorporated Services, that's taking been taking up separately.

I did make a presentation to the Transportation and Planning Commission, two-week committee of the board two weeks ago, and that will move forward to the board for more discussion and and perhaps a scoping of what that could look like, because it shouldn't probably be a regular department.

You're just creating an extra layer of bureaucracy, and that's not what this is about.

You don't want another office here, we want to perhaps based on what you're telling us.

What would its function be?

Is it is its function to help agencies collaborate?

Because there are municipal serving agencies, and they don't they can talk to each other, they talk to each other, but there's no one there to facilitate that collaboration necessarily.

Is that something that office could do?

Well, it would be great if this community elected the people that uh or made the decisions with some of the budget.

What I'm concerned about is like once again, Berkeley, Fremont, all the cities vote on what goes on in Castro Valley, and we don't vote on anything that goes on in their cities, and it seems to me that there's a disconnect there, whether it's we're a city or not, but we are somewhat of a municipality, and we should have our local bond issues or local things that's a specific issue that you would think someone should have taken up.

I answered that question or figured that out.

Where does that question live right now?

That question lives nowhere.

There is no natural home for someone whose job it is to answer that question, and what we're trying to do is to figure out for the unincorporated communities, whether Castro Valley's in it as an unincorporated community or out of any future, the unincorporated communities need a function, I think, are office space that will help you not have these same problems over and over here, fix them for me.

How is that different though than us right here?

We go to the board, we tell them something that went on, we need it, and it doesn't go.

I mean, there's many different ways that could give it the power it lacks today.

You know, and I'm speaking for myself.

How about just empowering the Mac a little bit more with some BZA responsibility and some ideas that when we do pass them forward, that they're respected, and uh and and given that way to approach it is the max more and more power and authority.

That's another way to approach it, and we're absolutely open to those kinds of ideas.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, but what we know right now, yeah, is that that cat is doing its job, right?

No, I I completely disagree.

We agree with that.

Uh, you know, I'm it's not like I'm for you know one particular way or another.

I want to explore with you and the other communities in the unincorporated area about how to make it better.

Well, one of the ways for sure is you created a Mac in Livermore, you have one in Sinnol, yeah, you have local governors within the group.

Listen to them.

Then let's start with that.

Okay, that means you have to have the power to be listened to.

But when you go before the board, you if you don't have three votes for something, hey, you're done.

Well, but that's true of anything, right?

I mean, that's true of any group.

Right.

But what I what our interest is, and I I want I'm hoping that you all understand our intention is to improve from what you have now.

We don't have a monopoly on the answer.

Right.

And we're gonna make some recommendations based on what you've told us, and they're gonna be up for debate.

And that's where that's where we're at, right?

And that's one of the challenges that we have in the unincorporated area.

We have two supervisors that basically have all the unincorporated area and three supervisors that have zero and vote, and that way um they don't care one way or the other how a tax measure in the county comes out because it isn't going to affect them.

Um, and perhaps maybe it's changing the law that taxes in the unincorporated areas are just voted by those people in the unincorporated areas, right?

That's right.

That could be one approach, plus other things.

So we're gonna take this all back, and I would like to send it back to you now for public comment.

And once public comment is done and you come to deliberate, I am hoping it's only my hope, it's up to you, that you would make a motion that this is the feedback that you want to send forth from this Mac, you know, to um this budget input process about the things that you care about.

Okay, um, thank you, Claudia.

Um, what we're gonna do now uh it would be to open us for public comment.

Uh if you're in the room and you would like to speak on this item, uh we'll give you three minutes at the podium and speak into the microphone, fill out a speaker card when you're done.

I do have one here currently.

We'll go back and forth between the uh online folks and what's in the room, okay.

So um I have one speaker card here.

So would you have anybody online?

How many speakers we have online?

Just one.

Okay, great.

Let's go ahead and go with the one speaker online, and then when that speaker's done, Matt Turner, I have a card from you.

Thank you.

So go ahead.

Kelly, you're on the line.

You have three minutes.

Hi.

Um I'd like to go down a little uh list of several uh misconceptions and uh false beliefs and uh uh myths that have been uh brought up today.

Um is that the county supervisors that they represent you in the unincorporated area, you know, the the District 4 has the most unincorporated residents.

It represents 78% of the unincorporated area is in district four.

But uh district four is only a small part of uh, I mean, uh the unincorporated residents are only a small part of uh district four, which means that uh only 36% of district four is unincorporated.

So district four, uh if you go by the number of constituents, it's gonna worry more about the incorporated uh uh constituents than they're unincorporated.

So that's kind of a fact of life fact of life.

Um another one is this idea that the county administrator has any authority over department heads, you know, that that came up on somebody had that idea and they actually wrote it down on their suggestions, and they were expecting the county administrator to go out and you know uh get the and and exert some kind of authority over department heads.

They have the administrator had no authority over department heads.

Some of these departments are self-funding, they get their own funding from state grants, federal uh um uh federal grants or fees and permits, so they don't even depend on them for for their for their to get their uh budget revenue.

Um this the county administrator has no direct authority, no direct reports in the department heads, every single department head reports where to the board of supervisors, but uh the county administrator is not in the loop directly, and then uh then there was this idea that you don't that the unincorporated residents or you so member of this board doesn't vote in Fremont.

Well, you know, a form of corporate speech is uh money, and you know, money is is uh political speech in America, and uh it turns out that in some of the recent most recent elections in Fremont, uh I didn't uh contribute any money, but some of the unincorporated uh political committees contributed large sums of money to uh City of Fremont elections.

So probably people that are sitting here on the unincorporated area have more say about what goes on in Fremont than I do.

And I live in Fremont, but I'm only one vote, and you can put a get a lot of votes in and get a lot of attention, get a lot of uh uh listening time if you pump in a lot, write a big check.

Write a big check, I promise you.

Uh in fact, I I I'll speak for the politicians in Fremont.

If you could send more money to the to help support the politicians at Fremont, I'm sure they'd be very grateful, very grateful to you in the unincorporated area.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Matt Turner.

All right.

Um a lot of great comments tonight.

Uh I didn't see anything that I disagreed with and a lot that I wanted to clap even louder for from y'all.

Uh really appreciate those things.

Um, you know, uh, Chair Moore brought up something really important.

Uh, and you know, having been on the inside of the machine myself, I can say, you know, that the uh the difference between good effort and good results uh can be very big.

Uh and and you don't want to be too hard on people who are putting forth good efforts, but at some point the accountability has to hit and it will never hit.

Uh you know, a county is uh is an arm of the state whose primary responsibility is to deliver social services.

Municipal services are a distant second, and that is what cities are for.

They provide local elected accountability and redress of grievances.

And it seems to me we're trying to invent some, you know, something that's already in existence.

It's as if we were to say, if only there were a way to get across the ocean.

Could we invent a swimming machine or something?

You know, we have boats.

We have boats, and in this case, the boat that can save us from the flood of of uh you know expletives here is is a city.

Um we would have local accountability.

We would actually have a budget that we had authority over, not as we wouldn't have to go on, you know, bended knee with hat in hand begging for the things that we deserve, that we pay for, that we don't get and will never get if we aren't in charge of ourselves.

Um right now we we have people voting for you know, on like it's been mentioned many times.

Um, you know, uh when we have the utility users tax come up, it's voted on by the entire county, but only we pay it.

That's taxation without representation or underrepresentation.

Uh, and even when we you know getting back to that effort thing, you know, um Supervisor Miley works harder than any elected official I have ever known in my life.

He is a good man who does his best.

This machine is not the machine to provide municipal services.

And and if we try to make it one, it will be an awkward fit at best, and we will never get the best results.

Um, couple of comments that that you brought up that, especially um uh council member Thomas uh about about ease of opening a business.

Um, you know, exhibit A is the Cho family walking away from Lake Shabot public market.

That was a beloved bit place of business, served a uh a very underserved commercial district when I was on the MAC and and many other members of this community fought hard to make sure that that place stayed as a uh commercial property against you know many who were seeking to turn it into housing and a church and other things when that was a real need in that community.

And the Cho family risked financial ruin to jump through all the flaming hoops that the county put up, and and despite all you know odds and the seven tasks of Hercules, they did it, but they aren't willing to do it again because this place does not welcome businesses.

It it damages them, it disrespects them and harms them.

And uh, you know, I think you know all of this process is a good process.

It it shines a light on things that need to have light shed on them, but ultimately, if we're gonna make real change, we need to have local accountability.

And the only way, you know, we uh as a planning czar, somebody else like that can't fire people who aren't doing a good job or rewrite laws.

Only we can do that if we become a city.

Thanks.

Peter Rosen.

Hi, I'm sorry I got here late.

I had my own meeting, but um a lot of you know that how I feel about this.

I echo Matt's comments and I and I echo a lot of what I heard from from you uh people.

I think the biggest thing that I've been preaching for the longest time, and Claudia can attest to that is accountability.

Uh when I went through all the Eli process, I think that is how I you talked about education.

That was how I learned how the county worked, and I've told a lot of people if we understand how Alameda County works and doesn't work, it's a piece of cake to understand how a city works because the the rules that are in place here don't always work, and they don't always go in a straight path.

As Matt mentioned, it's a harder challenge to do business in this town, it's a harder challenge to um uh people people do things in spite of the county, not because of the county.

And I think that whatever ends up happening, I think that we need to also reiterate to staff because I I've been in this room for multiple times, whether it's the specific plan or whether it was the vet hospital or whether it's Burger Island or any of these things, each of these things ahead of time, people in this room pointed out the problems before they happened, and they were shined on by the county staff.

They went ahead and did things anyway.

And I think at a certain point in time, there needs to be some legitimacy granted to the people that are on the Mac or in the community.

The role of the Mac is to be the voice of the community to the board of supervisors, and if they're not listened to, I heard a term, a word tonight that I think sums it all up.

Dan, you're the first person that I heard say that is impotent.

That's the deal right now.

Is I think that there's I don't have the full solution other than maybe going back to staff and telling them over and over and over, listen to the Mac.

Listen to the community, don't blow us off.

Uh, whether it's traffic patterns, whether it's anticipating some of these things, I've heard them ahead of time.

I mean, the arena numbers, every time there's something that happens, um, it's it's actually anticipated.

We we're not stupid.

There's enough people in this room that are smart.

We have a traffic consultant, we have real estate people that have been on the Mac, we have attorneys, we have, you know, developers, we've had all these people that have direct real world experience.

And if they're ignored by county staff just because they it it becomes a performative gesture when they're here, and so there's a reputation that Castor Valley has about attracting business that it's tougher to do business here, and I think the largest reason why is because of staff.

And I and I really wish that whatever happens on any of this stuff, staff gets a memo once a week until they start realizing that they need to maybe use the resources that are available that actually would save money and make it easier for them to do their jobs in a successful manner because there is no metric for success for them.

There's there's all these performative gestures that they do that make it tougher.

So thanks for having this talk.

Thank you.

Do we have anybody online?

Yeah, no additional speakers.

Do we have any of the speakers in the room?

Okay, I am going to go ahead and close public portion.

And um, I am gonna go to the council for comments.

So this is, I I did put it on here as an action item because um I I hate things to come to us and you ask us for input, and we don't give you any action.

So um, the idea is if you don't feel there's an action item here, that's fine.

I'm okay with that.

But I want to ask you to take a hard look at what what we talked about, and is there anything in this that you know you need some clarity on you want to make a comment about?

And then if it's something that um you feel strongly enough, then let's make it an action item and move forward with it.

So I'm gonna start with Dan Devini this tonight.

Um, and ask Dan for his feedback.

Well, I'm certainly not gonna come up with a motion.

Um my feedback.

Well, the thing the things I'm taking away from this is is Claudia would like uh, and I agree with you.

I love action items because it really says this is what we stand for, and this is what we want, and I think that's appropriate.

And I think what uh uh Claudia is looking for is uh is a short list of our specific recommendations.

Um, and so a couple that would be on on my short list would be to have the Castor Valley Mac, uh involved in public work decisions as they relate to Castor Valley, very similar to the presentation that we had from Brian uh Foster.

Uh, that would be one of my personal recommendations.

Uh the other thing would probably be compulsory mental health and and drug intervention uh programs.

Um those are two things that I think would benefit uh Castor Valley.

Okay.

Uh let's go to our chair.

Um, Casimo Romoto.

Um, excuse me, thank you for that exercise.

Um, I hope we see some process around that and get some options there.

Um, I think coming newly into the Mac and sitting here and kind of trying to learn and figure things out.

There's a lot of things that are not consistent.

There are a lot of things that um are the accountability is huge.

No one has the accountability to um enforce certain things that we actually need as a city.

We're taking comments from the public, and we really want to get answers.

We want them addressed in the most efficient and effective way, and be able to have a productive conversation and have feedback to the public on their things that are are concerning.

And um, being new here, it's like we don't get that.

I see that there's a huge disconnect.

And um, hopefully, going forward into the new year, we'll have some more um, be more collaborative in what go to the board of supervisors.

Um, we get feedback, we get the actual, you know, information that we need.

Um, so um I think that's where I'll my feedback for this process, and hopefully it changes soon.

So that's all I thank you.

Thank you.

Um, move down to um um council member.

Um wake up.

My turn, sorry, it's just writing notes.

Sorry.

I thought we were coming down that way a different way.

So um I just wrote a note and we we had talked about this.

I mentioned it briefly too, just ease of rest, you know, perhaps easing restrictions somehow, some way, you know, for development.

You know, I'm in real estate, so development's an important thing that spurs an economy, does well, creates new tax dollars, um, creates new neighborhoods or a new house or something like that.

But if you can make it easier for people to actually build one, make it streamlined, maybe have a system or a better system that works better.

I mean, I just closed a very expensive, very beautiful custom home, and we moved the buyer in, and it's like, oops, county and fire missed something.

Oh, should we turn off their water?

Should we kick them out of their new home?

I mean, what should we do?

And it was like finger pointing.

Well, it's his fault.

No, it's their fault.

And it's just like that shouldn't happen.

You know, that's that's not good.

So, same with restaurants.

I have clients opening, you know, open a restaurant.

It was uh the the new restaurant that just opened in town Sunday at brunch, and I was with the client that you know we've done some real estate stuff with, and they opened several restaurants, and they said the Castor Valley one that they opened took them uh almost a year to get a fire inspector out there to look at it.

And it wasn't it took a year to come have one inspection, but they would come out and walk through the door and they'd find a violation or something that wasn't quite right, and they say you need to fix that.

And it's like, well, can we look at the rest of the building?

Nope, fix that, and I'll look at the rest of the building.

We leave, I'll see you in six weeks.

That's as soon as I can come see you.

Six weeks later, they come back, and they go, Okay, great, you fix that, walk 10 more feet.

Oh, that's wrong right over there.

Okay, can we look at the rest of the building?

Nope, you got to fix that, and I'll come back.

See you in six weeks.

Six weeks later.

I mean, thing probably takes an hour to fix, comes back.

Okay, and that happened eight times, eight different times to go through the building.

Finally, they made it through the whole building and had an approval.

So, but that took about a year, just shy of a year.

So that's not a streamlined system.

That's not fast.

Like everyone wants fast nowadays, you know.

You know, you watch these TV programs, they build a house in a week.

But um, I don't know if that's true or not.

But I I think better systems, um, and that's it.

You know, if we did that, that would spur.

I think that would help our economic local economy and uh it sure make people feel less frustrated.

Councilmore Davis, Mr.

Chair, thank you.

I think um a lot of great ideas up there, and I don't want to separate out a single one.

So I'm gonna move that we endorse all the uh comments and uh recommendations that have uh are posted on that board and have those uh forwarded to what is the most appropriate body, the board of supervisors or December jointly, they'd be forwarded to the December 3rd joint Mac.

Consumer Davis, if we can wait on a motion till we give um Thomas an opportunity, we'll come back to you for that.

Okay, I'm just trying to save some time.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I agree with uh my co-counsel, Mr.

Phoebe.

Um, I talked about it streamlining the new businesses coming to Castro Valley, especially Casavelli.

Um, it is a long process.

I've heard complaints many times that you know we're going to Dublin or we're going to San Ramon.

This is everything is under one roof.

They can go from one inspector, one office to the next office, and they get it done in three days here.

Like he talked about, takes a year, and there's a whole bunch of offices, they all play games.

Um, so that needs to stop.

And whatever is on there is more of a local control.

And I'm not saying it is a city or whatever, we gotta get it done.

We need to get more control, or or as Chuck said, um, it could be more power to the Mac, you know.

Um, but either way, it's a good town to still live in.

Um, it's a great town, and we all the education is good, the schools are good, but we need to have more of a local control, and that needs to happen.

Money to come back to Cash Valley.

So uh I agree with all that, and uh but I'll I'll support the motion.

Uh Vice Chair Morgar.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thanks to Claudia and team for being here and for doing this with energy and style.

Um, two things really, three things.

Um, the first being what has been talked about in terms of accountability.

I would love to see a formal identification of where the buck stops in terms of making sure that agencies and departments look at the world through the through the filter of what does this do to the people who live in the unincorporated area?

Um, personnel, duplication.

You know, there needs to be someone who stands up and says, I am responsible.

You know, you voted for me, or I'm the chief administrator.

I whatever.

Um I need to see that because we don't we don't have it.

We just don't, and I don't know how we can have a process without that being um written in stone.

Second of all, a lot of talk about um permits and you know what I call the business prevention process here in Alameda County.

Um, when I worked at the Chamber of Commerce in 2013, it was an issue then, um, and it's an issue now.

Um, and it's worse.

After all the money that's been thrown at it and all the effort and all the good people that have been uh assigned to it, it.

It's worse.

Somebody has to be accountable for that.

Um, and I'm gonna go take that business theme and go into the budget justice coalition.

Um, the footnote in the letter that was sent out.

Um there's no business interests represented that I can see.

I mean, maybe it's there, but um, where are the businesses?

Where's the chamber of commerce?

Where's the rotary club that Supervisor Miley just donated to?

Where are the agricultural interests um in the budget justice coalition?

It seems to be um a narrowly defined but robustly filled group of of urban advocates.

Um I'd like to see some effort put toward maybe modifying that a little bit.

Um I'll leave it at that.

And I support uh all the comments that were made tonight and thank my peers for their thoughtful input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um is uh Vice Chair Mulgrade talked about the business entity.

I made a lot of notes here, and it was about the difficulty of operating a business in this county, business licenses, county fees, uh building costs.

I mean, all these things, um, they're all driven from our leadership.

Um, and you know, it would be really nice if our leadership would look and say, you know what, we have a multiple group of councils here.

Um why don't we start listening to them a little bit about some of the problems we have and taking some action on it?

Um, I think it's very frustrating to see that list there because it is so true, but yet there's so many wonderful people that work in the different departments in the county that are gonna look at this and say, man, we just got slammed.

Our sheriff's department, I mean, every time they come here, they're doing a terrific job.

Our fire department is doing a terrific job.

I really don't like to make it 100,000 they're gonna spend on art when we could use it according to this for something else, but that wasn't them, that was the art commission and our supervisors for allowing two percent to be spent there, so but either way it goes.

You know, we we're very blessed with a very good program here to where we can have an opportunity to have this conversation, and I I would uh definitely support it.

Um I really think that one of the first things they could do immediately is to recognize the Mac, and particularly this Mac is because it's 66,000 people in our community.

Give us BCA authority, and and so when we do pass something, it goes forward when we have an election and it impacts this community.

Only this community should be allowed to vote on it.

I mean, that's how you get self-governance, but when you allow everybody else to vote on issues that impact this community, that's not a good deal.

So I don't know how we would put that in there, but I really would like to see something about uh self-governance be really truly self-governance.

It's our community.

Um anyway, uh you started on a motion and um I'm done, and thank you for bringing this to us.

I was a little concerned about where it was gonna go, but um, yeah, I would uh I move that we uh endorse the concerns, ideas, and recommendations that have been prepared this evening, and have those forwarded to the December 3rd Big Mac meeting, and unincorporated services.

I second that motion.

Any further discussion?

Okay, we roll call, please.

Aye.

Councilmember Devini.

Councilmember Feebig.

Aye.

Councilmember Mota.

Hi.

Councilmember Thomas.

Aye.

Vice Chair Mulder.

Aye.

Chair Moore.

Aye.

Approved.

Thank you.

This item is now closed.

And let's see, we'll move on to the chair's reports.

Um just one quick question.

We have a date for the uh lighted parade.

It's on Saturday, November 8th.

It is November 8th.

Before Veterans Day.

Boy, that's pretty quick.

Two weeks.

Okay, um, do we have any council comments or I do?

Okay.

Yes, and this is an issue that um council member Davini brought up before in regards to uh Redwood and James.

And um I drive that on a regular basis, and also being a traffic engineer, I have some concerns about it.

Uh the transitions uh for the lanes do not appear to be of adequate length.

Uh when they blacked out the old pavement markings and put in the new pavement markings, they didn't put any raised delineators with the new pavement markings.

So when it's rainy or late at night, it looks like there are two stripes out there rather than one.

And and it can be confusing to a driver to uh figure out how to drive.

There's no signing on the island to actually say, hey, you should go right of this island instead of over it, or there are no reflective markings on the approaches to the islands.

Uh it looks like they're gonna be putting in some what they call rapid flashing beacons for pedestrian use there.

That one in the median is going to be knocked down on a regular basis.

I can but so I would like the public works department to look at these and see if they can make the necessary corrections.

If you'll just give me your notes on that, I will make sure that uh I get to us the public works and um thank you.

And we'll see if we can get um public works back for some comments.

Quickly, um, I just want to wish Tona a happy birthday.

Um thank you for all your support and kindness.

Thank you, Tojo.

Appreciate it.

Uh, Chuck, two two quick comments.

Uh, first of all, I would be remiss if we didn't have a shout out for Supervisor Miley.

He really went to bat for us uh at the Board of Supervisors meeting uh as it relates to the old library, uh over and beyond the call of duty in his conviction of of that remaining a community asset.

Uh and I I very much appreciate that.

Uh and then and the next thing, Chuck, is is uh as a gentle prod.

We had a recommendation by uh citizen Brian Foster to come up with some of the things I've been asking for here tonight, and that's more involvement from the Castor Valley citizens on public works.

If we could somehow get that agendized, I think that'd be fantastic and either decide that we want to promote some idea along those lines or not promote it.

Uh in the meantime, it's sitting in the back of my mind that there's a lot of things that uh uh that we should be talking about uh as it relates to public works.

Thank you.

One more.

Thank you.

Um I've had three three citizens contact me regarding um stops.

Bus stops, uh and bus stops being used as restroom facilities to the dismay of the neighbors and businesses, and I think you know, we've we've had many presentations on uh the state of bus stops, but I think it's time to think it's time to bring it back up again and and discuss it.

Yeah, I think we need probably to get somebody from AC Transit as well as somebody for public works because um it's one of those deals where it actually goes beyond that as that the AC Transit does not put out the bus benches.

Yeah, no, an advertiser does that, and it's their property, not AC Transit nor Public Works.

So well, whoever's getting the money for advertising is responsible for it.

So let's just find out who it is and we'll get them here.

Okay.

Clear channel.

Okay.

Anything else?

That's it.

Nothing else.

Okay.

Um we have any um staff report comments?

No staff?

Nothing for me, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Meeting.