People who are um either logged in from home or here in person.

We're just waiting for a quorum.

We need one more person for a quorum, and then we will begin the meeting.

Okay, good evening, everyone.

We now have a quorum.

Um so we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order at approximately 6 05 in Lila.

Can you take the roll, please?

Of course.

Councilmember Asin Nielsen, excuse.

Councilmember Maramahoko, present.

Councilmember Roll.

Present.

Councilmember Stanley.

Oh, could you?

Here.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Cushman, excuse.

Chair Whitler.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right.

Thank you.

You can all stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance, please.

I pledge.

Okay.

The first part of our agenda is open for um public comments, so this is a chance for your any zoom members or people present to make any announcements or comments that they would like to make this evening.

Thank you very much.

The draft of the minutes.

They're not ready.

Okay, yeah.

They're not in the packet because they're not ready yet.

Oh okay.

Officer Pepsi, I was disappointed to hear that we don't have any statistics for this month.

Available.

And I think the last thing that I wanted to say was.

It'll be at Bruha Coffee.

So come and support local San Lorenzo Businesses, Network.

Plus Bruha has all kinds of great coffee and uh lots of good food.

Secondly, again, uh Mimi Dean is going to present on the uh Sky West open space slideshow.

It'll be right here in this room, February 23rd at 6 p.m.

Uh bring a friend.

I hope you can make it last time.

Last time we had about 50 or 60 people here.

It was pretty darn interesting.

Mimi is a great presenter.

Um so please come out and support these two events.

The flyers are over at the table.

Have a good meeting tonight.

Thank you.

Rolando.

Hello, it's always nice to see you in person.

I am Rolanda Gonzalez.

I'm a community affairs representative for East Bay MUD.

I'm here to make you aware of an insurance letter that ECAMUD.

And the insurance company is going to be sending out to all of its customers.

The East Payment Board of Directors approved an agreement allowing this insurance company called SLWA, which stands for uh the I lost my spot.

But it's an insurance company that uh basically insures water pipes in case of breakage, so you don't have to be spend thousands of dollars repairing um your waterline in case uh your pipes break.

So in uh July of 2025, they spent uh approved this, and they're as a result, they're gonna be getting a stipend from the company.

100% of that is going to go into the customer assistance program that East Payment has, which helps uh customers pay their bill if they haven't a problem paying their water bill.

So these insurance letters are going, are going out, and some people are wondering if they're legitimate, and I'm here to tell you that they are.

It is completely optional.

You can either enroll in them or just ignore them if you want to, but if you get any inquiries regarding this program, uh yes, it is legitimate, it is going out.

However, we want to make people aware that this is a uh optional insurance that they can uh uh undertake.

If there is um uh East MUD did not share any customer information with the insurance company, uh there was no exchange of data.

Uh the company, the insurance company obtained the mailing information from third-party resources.

Um, it is also important to understand that East Bay MUD does not manage this plan.

Any questions, enrollment, billing repairs or issues must be handled directly with the insurance company and not East Bay MUD.

Uh so I'm just here to let you know about this in case you get any questions or any residence for the areas that you represent uh about this letter.

It is legitimate, it is going out and it's completely 100% optional.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rolando.

Dale Silva.

Dale.

Speaking on item two.

Oh, sorry.

Keith Burrows.

As I filled out on my card, I'm speaking on behalf of law abiding citizens.

I think we have a few of them around.

Um, my comments are aimed at uh environmental health and code enforcement and for our supervisors to support this.

Uh since open flame cooking here in the street or on the sidewalk is a violation of your department.

I wanted to suggest bringing a fire extinguisher along with you and extinguishing whatever illegal fires that happen to be going on, in addition to confiscating food.

Um, I also think it would be a good idea to tell the egregious violator, and they're out there repeatedly, that the next time you catch them, you'll be confiscating their barbecue instead of just a cutting board or a pair of tongs.

If you don't have a truck, this is again for environmental health and and code enforcement.

If you don't have a truck or a van with a ramp, it's not in their budget, they don't have the equipment.

Rent one for a day.

Please put this, and I'm asking the municipal advisory council to please put this on a future agenda so environmental health and code enforcement can report on why they have not been able to stop someone from breaking their laws in plain sight six days a week for the last two or three years.

Drafting ordinance doesn't do any good if there are no teeth to enforce it.

Thank you.

Let me see if there are any online speakers.

There are no more public comments.

All right.

Nobody from online, huh?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, our next order of business then is these are the minutes from December 9th that we had tabled because we had a few questions, so they've been um modified for us.

So they're in our packets.

If anyone has any um questions, comments, uh modifications or a motion to approve as presented.

Anyone is it possible to ask just for a quick overview of what the modifications were?

Yeah.

Um I took in consideration, Councilmember Aston Nielsen's um comment about the QA.

Um I made it more general.

I'm hoping that will make it feel less um specific or too committal to what I had previously put.

Um, and then I made the small grammar correction that Chair Witler noted.

Um I did speak with um the clerk of the board regarding your comment, and um it actually went to more strict rules regarding my minutes and a memo will be coming out soon.

Um, but yeah, those were their changes that were made.

Ring the bell, right?

A memo's coming to us about minutes.

Yes, every everybody across the board.

Okay, anyone else?

Um I was just gonna ask maybe next time we can get a red line version that shows the changes.

Sure.

Thanks.

If there were to be modification requested, got that.

I motion to approve them.

As read as written.

Yes, the new version.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Is there a second?

A second.

Thank you.

Is there any any other discussion?

Okay.

Councilmember Asid Nielsen, excuse.

Councilmember Mara Mahoko?

Approved.

Councilman Roll.

Approve.

Councilmember Stanley.

Approve.

Vice Chair Cushman, excuse.

Chair Whitler.

Approve.

Motion passed.

Thank you.

All right, as some of you noted, we we just got an email um last night regarding item number one.

It says the zoning ordinance update for multifamily residential development standards.

And um, unfortunately, was the presenter had to be at another meeting.

It was a conflict with the Board of Supervisors meeting.

So we won't be um looking at that one tonight.

Hopefully, it's tentatively planned to be at our next meeting on March.

I know it was quite complicated, and if a lot of you put a lot of effort into reading it, um hopefully just keep your notes because it will come back to us.

But for tonight, um that one is um gonna be continued till March.

All right, and uh so what we are considering tonight is the um review.

We're gonna review the addition of a fireworks and social host ordinance to the county of Alameda Municipal Code banning all fireworks in the unincorporated area.

So we have the a presenter here for that.

Good.

Do you like to step up?

Let me see.

Captain McMillan.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good to see all of you.

Glad to be back.

We have worked tirelessly with uh county council, the MACs.

Um taken advice from the Fairview Mac subcommittee on this issue, and uh we believe we are there.

It's uh been extensively reviewed at nauseum by county council.

Um there's a lot of words and a lot of pages, so for the sake of time, I can do my best at paraphrasing instead of just standing up here and reading if that's okay with everybody.

Did everybody get a copy of the uh proposal?

Okay, sorry.

Yes, uh, the the goal of tonight is to is for uh everyone um at the Mac to receive a draft copy of this, which has been approved by county council.

Please take the time to review it.

Um, we're on the road show now.

We have uh, I believe the Sonol Mac next week.

Uh and uh I believe Castro Valley.

I could be wrong.

I know it's it's in the PowerPoint.

Do I get the clicker?

I don't have the clicker with me, unfortunately.

But the board is supervising it today.

Okay, so really the goal of this is um to create a social host ordinance, which is gonna give us the ability, us as the sheriff's office, the ability to um work with the BZA and code enforcement to levy uh fines against property owners, leasees, renters, um occupants of different residences.

Go ahead and next slide.

You can continue.

We've been here before.

So do we want to talk about stats from last year, or do we want to get to the nuts and bolts?

Yeah, you can give us a few stats so we can't.

So we've expanded our our statistical data uh from the last uh presentation that we did.

This is from uh June 4th to July 6th of last year.

We're talking about total calls for service related to fireworks.

Um, obviously, all the little uh you know, marks on the map there are are the locations uh from for different calls for service related to suspected fireworks.

Um as you can see, that's that particular time of year for us is uh heavy call volume.

It takes a lot of uh resources to to deploy to investigate to try to find who the perpetrators are, and obviously it's indicative of uh public safety threat, right?

They're they're launching large-sized uh mortars, they caused a significant number of fires last fourth of July that we had to respond to and deploy resources to as well as Alco Fire.

Um, and let's be honest, uh the residents are fearful, especially those that live in the hills, the brushy hillsides of our community, and you know, pets don't like it either.

So we are excited to to finally maybe have a few more teeth, a few more tools in the toolbox, and we're looking forward to your comprehensive review and opinions on this matter.

Go ahead.

Yeah, so these are our different sectors at Ashland gets hammered Cherry Land.

Castor Valley has some significant hot spots.

I went to a lot of these calls for service myself last year.

Um I was talking to a gentleman behind me.

Um it's it's you know, as you know, it's uh pretty pretty significant the the number of uh we see and the number of calls for service that we go to.

So just Cherry Land alone in that time frame was 124 calls for service in that month.

Go ahead.

There's Castor Valley, fairly significant as you can see.

Continue.

And there we go up in sector four.

In fact, sector four, which is you know where Fairview is, had the least number of calls for service other than our Tri-Valley sector.

So usually the lower flatlands is has the most.

So continue.

644 total calls for service in that uh one month period.

Go on.

Okay, so we're calling this the fireworks and social hosts ordinance.

Obviously, it hasn't received a number yet.

Go ahead.

So the Sheriff's Office, we're gonna be taking control of this.

Um we own it, it's our baby.

So we're gonna be administering the provisions of the ordinance, and we'll have the authority to designate employees or other members of the public service agencies as enforcement officers uh to assist with enforcement and responsibilities.

Um hearing and appeals of ACSO orders shall be heard by a BZA.

Um, our options when we come upon folks lighting uh fireworks, whether they're illegal, safe, insane, whatever, we're gonna have some options in our toolbox.

We can give verbal warnings and basically adjust the call.

We can issue written citations for civil violations, issue notices and orders andor place individuals under arrest as well as criminal citations pursuant to any applicable laws or there you go.

See, I didn't I didn't want to get into just like reading this, right?

Go on.

But I like your style.

I like your style.

So when we go to these calls for service, basically, if we see ordinance being launched from someone's private property, most of the time they take off running.

They either run inside or they run away because they know it's illegal.

If we can determine where the property, what property those are being shot from, and we can capture that on our body warm camera or via our drone system, and we can identify a particular residence, we're gonna write a report.

Okay, we're gonna do an investigative report, conduct an investigation, talk to witnesses, take pictures, collect evidence, do anything we would do in any other type of criminal type investigation.

Go on.

I'm sorry, go back.

So that last line, there was a question uh from someone uh in the audience.

Um secondary evidence can also include photographic evidence, video evidence, and statements submitted uh to ACSO by residents.

So if a resident calls and says, hey, my neighbor's cracking off fireworks from their backyard, we still have to get there and on view that whether we make contact with someone or not, but if that resident has video surveillance and they want to provide a statement, we will take that, include that in our investigative report.

Make sense, go on.

So basically, this ordinance is gonna ban all fireworks, including safe insane.

I know there was some controversy whether or not safe insane was legal or illegal.

There are a couple of jurisdictions within Alameda County where it is legal, but uh for unincorporated area, it's gonna be completely illegal any type of fireworks.

Um anyone found in possession, manufacturing, selling, or offering dangerous fireworks and/or safe and sane, shall be subject to all the things I discussed below.

All of our options.

Warnings, we they could be arrested, they could be issued a citation, etc.

etc.

Continue.

Go on.

That was just for entertainment purposes.

Didn't want the audience falling asleep.

Can you go back to that slide?

I actually got a question.

We'll have to take questions, Michael, uh, during public comment for the item.

So just remember your question.

So this is where we get to into sort of the nuts and bolts of the social host uh aspect of this.

Um, any responsible party and or property owner to permit, allow or promote the discharge of any dangerous fireworks or safe insane fireworks, if they know or reasonably should know that an individual is discharging fireworks on his or her residential private property or discharge of the fireworks is directly associated to their property.

A responsible party and or property owner who permits, allows, or promotes the discharge of dangerous fireworks or safe and sane fireworks at their residence or property under their possession makes them strictly liable for any violations of this ordinance.

No responsible party andor property owner shall aid or abet another person's violation of a provision of this chapter.

So, in other words, if someone is assisting and they're hosting a party and they're assisting somebody doing this, they are on the hook as well.

A host is not in violation, however, if a responsible party and/or property owner initiates contact with law enforcement to assist in removing any person from their property in order to comply with this chapter.

And if the request for assistance is made before any person contacts the law enforcement or fire officials to complain about the violation of this chapter.

Go on.

Sorry.

Sergeant Imperial likes to uh to make jokes and try to get people to laugh.

So this is an example of a citation that was created specifically for the enforcement of this order.

There's an area on the citation where if we identify, let's say, for example, there's a renter, we make contact with a renter or not, and there's also a property owner that we're able to identify.

We could actually put both parties on that citation.

That makes.

Okay, the citation process.

When an enforcement officer, i.e.

police officer, deputy sheriff, or code enforcement declares the fireworks social host ordinance violation, they will issue an administrative citation and a notice of violation letter within 30 calendar days of the violation to the responsible party or property owner.

If an enforcement officer is on scene, efforts may be made to identify the responsible party and property owner.

If the responsible party is identified, the enforcement officer shall determine if the responsible party is the property owner or a renter or lasee.

If the responsible party is a renter or leasee, efforts should be made to identify the property owner.

In other words, it's going to be an investigation, it's not just going to be a blanket, someone's shooting something off, and we're just gonna dive right into issuing an administrative citation.

We're gonna make efforts to make contact with people, identify who lives there, names, and date of birth, all their identifying information, and then determine if they're renting, leasing, etc.

In situations where the identified responsible party is a renter or leasee and the property owner has been identified, an administrative citation shall be issued, naming both the party, both the responsible parties and the property owner.

So in other words, the property owner is on the hook.

Continue.

If we're not able to identify the responsible party, or is enforcing this ordinance through report and observes techniques, the administrative citation shall be issued to the legal property owner and or legal occupants.

So how do we determine that?

Well, we go to the county assessor's office, determine who owns that property, and we will do an investigation as to how to contact those people and send it via mail, or try to contact them via phone.

The responsible party, property owner, andor legal occupants shall pay the violation only by check or money order payable to ACSO within 21 calendar days of the date the citation was issued.

Let's talk about some penalties.

When we were here last time, we talked a little bit about tools in the toolbox and how we can get some teeth to dissuade folks.

And one of the main ways is to hit them where it hurts the most, and that's the pocketbook.

First violation, 750 bucks.

1500 for the second, 2500 for the third.

No grace period for repeated violations by the same reponse by the same responsible parties and/or property owners, any subsequent violation, regardless of the amount of time between violations, will assess the fine to the next level fee not exceeding 2500 bucks.

Go ahead.

Okay.

If a payment is not received by the date listed on the citation, a second notification letter will be sent out to the legal property owner advising they'll be accountable for paying the unpaid fines and will have the right to appeal within 10 days, calendar days of the date listed on the notification letter, or the unpaid fines will be sent to the uh Alameda County Central Collections Agency.

All funds collected under this ordinance shall be retained by the County of Alameda in a separate account used exclusively to fund the enforcement and public education of this ordinance and related requirements.

And there's a request for appeal for an administrative hearing.

If somebody wants to appeal uh the administrative citation, they must file an appeal within 10 calendar days from the date of the administrative citation.

Um, by completing that uh request for administrative hearing form and return it to the sheriff's office, the BZA shall then conduct an administrative hearing within 45 calendar days from the date of that the appeal was filed.

Um I believe this was that much time because there was some concerns and uh about you know if a property owner is out of town and their renter was cracking off fireworks, or maybe they own multiple, you know, homes and they live far away.

You know, there's communicate could be communication issues, and we wanted to have enough time uh for for folks to to appeal and to deal with this type of uh situation.

So at the hearing, the BZA will hear and consider all relevant evidence, objections or protests, and shall receive testimony under oath relative to such alleged violations, and that includes our entire police report, photographic evidence, video evidence, etc.

The hearing may be continued from time to time.

Uh, the BZA's decision of any appeal may be sustained or determined to be unfounded.

The responsible party or property owner or legal occup occupant, excuse me, may appeal the BZA's findings uh to the uh county of Alameda by filing an appeal with the clerk of the Board of Supervisors within 10 calendar days of the BZA's decision.

The Board of Supervisors shall set a date, hear the appeal.

Uh the date will not be less than seven calendar days nor more than 45 calendar days from the date the appeal was filed.

Upon the conclusion of the hearing, the board of supervisors shall determine whether the responsible party and or legal occupant were in violation of this chapter.

If so, the resolute uh resolutions shall set forth the time within uh which the compliance shall be completed.

Any person aggrieved by uh an administration decision may file a petition for review uh within the Alameda County Superior Court.

Go ahead.

So here's where we're at now.

Uh roadshow number one.

It's good to be here.

Uh 210.

It's my oldest son's birthday today.

He's 20.

Pretty awesome.

Yeah.

Sorry, kid, I'm at the MAC meeting.

Uh we'll get together later.

Uh, and then we're going off to uh CV Mac, Synol, Fairview, so on.

So that's our our our uh that's our goal.

The fear is that there is going to be hopefully there's no delays.

The mission is to have this thing etched in stone and ready to roll out by the time 4th of July hits.

Uh so here we are.

So that's what we're seeking.

Please vote to recommend uh the BOS adopt the proposed draft ordinance.

Um I think that's all we got.

Very wordy.

My apologies for that.

Thank you.

But I hope it spells everything out.

Uh, a lot of work, a lot of time and effort.

Again, uh drafting county ordinances is not necessarily our uh in our wheelhouse, but we learned a lot through this prof uh, you know, this process.

So I thank everyone for being uh ultra patient with us.

Um it's been an interesting and fun experience, and uh please take the time to review it and uh let us know your feedback.

Appreciate your time.

I think we might have some feedback for you.

Okay, pretty soon.

I just have one question before I open it up to the board, because I'm just I try to play devil's advocate sometimes because it sounded pretty complete.

Yeah, but when you say the owner of a property, my mind thinks that Alameda County might be the owner of a lot of properties because most of these are going to be in streets or courts or or hard.

So what would they be cited?

Nah, we're just gonna let that slide.

No.

Um yeah, that was an interesting conversation that came up, and I uh I don't think we've responded to any calls for service on any of those properties, but it doesn't mean it can't happen.

But I'm I'm open to any kind of feedback as well.

Yeah, okay.

I know that's just one of the first things that goes through my mind because I just think of the streets around me and all the fireworks I see in the in the street the next morning.

Well, I wouldn't that's that's owned by the people, right?

So unless they're launching fireworks off the roof of one of our county buildings, I think you know, I think we're gonna be okay.

Yeah, uh, but the the issue of like hard there's hard parks uh all over our jurisdiction and and uh you know occasionally a nefarious activity happens on uh in those, but hard does have their own ordinance uh for fireworks, and they recall they respond to calls for service on their in their jurisdiction.

We'll assist them because they don't have any sworn officers, but you know, if we catch them then we will rely on the penal code.

Oh, that's good to know.

Okay, any board members, Elizabeth.

I see you're reaching for your mic.

Well, my one of them I have two questions.

One was similar, and then I live um near Caltrans property, and I notice it a lot there, and so it's not technically in the street, right?

But nobody's there in the looking for my CHP partner over here, he left.

Um and then like if it's something like an apartment, I also live near like a whole big street of apartments, and they'll just do it in the middle, so like yeah.

And I'll say, Oh, I don't live here, you know.

I don't know, it seems like there's big groups.

I mean, I live up high, and I can uh like you say I see them below me, but I can't see exactly where they are.

Sure, you know, so yeah, those discussions were had.

Um there's uh apartments that we respond to for fireworks, like Kentwood Village, um, you know, the big apartment complexes.

We're gonna go and we're gonna try to ascertain um who's involved.

If we can detain someone, then that's that's easy.

We'll deal with that subject and we'll deal with the ordinance uh the the fireworks ordinance.

Um I think that we have a lot of discretion here.

I think if someone if there's a group of juveniles shooting off fireworks in the middle of an apartment complex, I don't know if it's gonna be fair or wise or just to just levy some sort of administrative fine on the you know the owner of the complex, right?

But if someone is shooting something off of a balcony that poses a public safety threat, uh, you know, and we can identify an exact apartment or we can identify an exact property.

I think that gives us an avenue into that investigation and we can go from there.

I think every call for service is gonna be different, but these we have had these discussions.

Um that's why.

Well, one of the reasons I've never called is because you know it's at night and it's there, but you can't see exactly which street, you know.

Sure.

But uh my other question was like when, you know, again, my mail goes to Hayward.

I mean, you go into the city of Hayward, it says, Hey word, it's zero tolerance, don't do it.

Are we gonna have any similar signs?

So that's well, we put signs out now.

Okay, so all unincorporated.

Yeah, and then we'll do public service announcements as well online social media posts, all that stuff.

Okay, we'll do press release the whole the whole nine yards.

Yeah.

Uh first congratulations.

Uh I remember months ago we were saying we want to see this as soon as possible, as soon as possible, and that can be hard to achieve sometimes, but you guys lived up to it, so well done.

Uh and it's nice to be the first people to see this.

So that's exciting.

Uh so a couple of questions.

Uh maybe I just misread it, but uh as it relates to the property owner and then a renter, for example.

It sounds like both might be liable.

In that instance.

Is it a singular fine that then they would have to determine the distribution of, or is it one per person?

One per.

Okay.

Uh and then the grace period, I'm just thinking worst case scenario.

So if somebody is at that fourth level of joy, then it just means potentially is that indefinite that for the rest of their lives?

What is it tied to the individual?

Grace period in regards to the 2,500 not to exceed, it says there will be no grace period after that point, right?

It's their fourth one.

And so that's okay.

If you've got it as a child, tough luck, you know, I mean, right, but probably not a child, but okay.

Um, then why check or money order only?

You said a check or money order only.

Um, I know the answer to this, and I I think it's because we don't have the technology.

It's Alameda County.

That sounds like it might become administratively challenging over time.

Sure.

That that would be something we could adapt to.

Uh yeah, I would suggest because it could be a great revenue generator of, you know, kind of potential for the county, but you wouldn't want to track that so much.

Um then also with the BOS being the one to uh review appeals.

I'm just curious, uh, what do you think that additional um time allocation and labor might be to them in the long run?

To the BOS?

Yeah, for the appeal process.

I don't know.

Okay.

Um why and this is just me, I'm curious.

Uh why are they the group determined to be?

That was the recommendation by county council.

I see.

Okay.

Okay.

And how many appeals do you think?

This is speculative.

I know you're not gonna know, but I'm just wondering, we don't okay.

I can't throw any numbers out.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

For sure, they okay, all right.

But we're gonna come out swinging.

No, reasonable, and and that's why I'm just wondering if the board of supervisors is prepared for that, but that's for them to determine, I suppose.

Hopefully it doesn't get there.

Okay, thank you.

Or that's okay.

Lieutenant Corey, he's he's my sidekick.

There was a question that was answered, I just want to make sure that that um that it's answered appropriately.

I think you asked about the citation and the double fine.

Like they're both that's actually not how it's gonna work.

So the the reason the property owner and the tenants information is on there is sometimes it's a minor that may be doing the fireworks, right?

And and by putting both names on there, it gives the property owner the the legal notice, the notification that this happened, right?

That we cited your tenant and they're still getting it in the mail.

So that's why both both individuals' names would be on there.

So is it a sing is it a singular fine then?

It's gonna be a singular fine.

I see.

With the person who is who is perpetrating the actual, we say they'll technically probably be the primary listed, but the secondary would be the owner, and if okay, okay.

I must have been thinking of a different scenario.

We ran a million scenarios through.

So I mean, I'm not averse to either one, but it's just helpful to have context to it, and it seems quite reasonable.

The person who did it shouldn't that.

Thank you.

Yep.

Megan.

Thanks.

Um, I guess you answered some of my my initial question about public property.

Um and if if there were fireworks put off on public property, and I don't know, I guess it's a case by case situation.

Sure.

I kind of wanted to know a little bit about um your investigation.

I mean, I think I think some of the language in here talked about if a property owner knew or should have known, and I mean that seems kind of subjective, and so I mean, and I don't know that much really at all how um internal investigations go when it comes to this type of thing.

So do you have to have a conclusive investigation in order to issue a citation?

Yeah, uh basically probable cause.

Okay.

We would have to on view it, we would have to have some sort of evidence, uh, whether video, uh dash cam, whatever, body warm camera video, drone footage, um, the actual evidence of fireworks, whether they've been exploded or they're not, um, contacting people, getting names, identifying people, somehow creating the nexus to the property that it's in front of.

Most of the time these things are in the middle of the street.

Sometimes we get lucky and they're coming out of a backyard or on a driveway or something of that nature.

So, um, we would go through all those steps.

We we would do a thorough investigation.

And so it's unlikely for a citation to be issued on the spot.

It depends.

There's a ton of different scenarios.

Okay.

So in theory, then one of your deputy.

If we issued a citation on the spot, that means we made contact with somebody that we on viewed doing this, and that would be a penal code criminal citation.

I think this is more geared toward we haven't necessarily, we can't or haven't made contact with someone, but we have enough evidence to show that that these fireworks were being lit off on somebody's private property and we have conclusive evidence of that.

Now it's a matter of investigating well who owns the property, who lives there, maybe we'll knock on a door, maybe we'll make contact with someone.

Maybe someone confesses cooperates with us.

Um it's gonna be a case by case basis for sure.

And so um I guess then if you have people doing investigations, are you deputies doing investigations?

If they were not able to issue a citation on the spot, do you have the administrative bandwidth to thoroughly investigate, you know, all of these potentially and then draw a conclusion based on the facts that you found?

Yes.

I I think so.

I think in certain circumstances, I think we do.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um and then BZA is the appeal, and then it's a second line of appealing the BZA's decision with the board of supervisors.

Does BZA do this type of administrative um hearing for other I don't even know what?

I believe they do because there's other other types of fines that they levy administrative fines.

Uh code enforcement does.

Okay.

Um does the Board of Supervisors do this type of appeal or okay.

I'm that's shocking to me.

Right?

Again, we've learned a lot through this process, right?

Um, and then the citations are gonna be mailed or emailed, mailed.

Only yeah.

Probably, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, and then it'll be or in person.

Or issued in person.

Okay.

Depending on the circumstances.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

I mean, I just want to I'm sorry, Ray.

I just want to add a little follow-up on what Megan was asking.

If you get there, if there's any fireworks visible or anybody who's left holding them, you will confiscate them right then though, right?

So they don't get to play them, set the rest of them off the rest of the evening, right?

Uh can you say that again?

I'm sorry.

When you get there, when you when you get a call and you get to someplace where people either were or had been setting off fireworks, if there's any out visible, you will confiscate them at that moment, right?

Absolutely.

Okay, good.

Okay, Ray.

Um, Diane, can I start by asking Megan?

Which what part is shocking to you?

Like I was following the QA, but that's just like that.

And I guess a clarifying question, is it the full board of supervisors that hears an appeal and not like a subcommittee of the board of supervisors that would hear an appeal?

Right.

That's uh the current process.

So if somebody does appeal the BZA's decision, it will go to the full board of supervisors.

That's the current process.

And is it like an evidentiary hearing?

Or what does that look like?

Yeah, so probably Ed at Code Enforcement who's in the audience tonight could probably speak on that um a little bit more, but it does.

We do have that uh tobacco retailer's license is the last one I can think of that came to the Board of Supervisors.

Okay.

And then to answer Ray's question, the thing that is very shocking to me is that the board of supervisors is the full governing body of the entire county of Alameda would be the body chosen to be the second line, I guess, of due process for an appeal of this type of nature.

It's for appeals from the BZA.

From the BZA, it's like superior court.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, still that's that's surprising to me to hear.

Um, thank you.

Thanks for answering my question.

Um, Captain, thank you for being here.

I'm gonna ask you to come back and I'll explain why as I go through my questions.

Uh a lot of which have been answered.

With the authority that you now have, uh what's the key change that's different than what you had previously if this ordinance goes into effect?

Because we'll be able to levy administrative fines to property owners, whether or not we make an arrest, or actually physically uh see someone doing this, as long as we can identify that fireworks are coming from a specific property, we'll and we have the evidence of that we'll be able to get the ball rolling on this process.

Okay, thank you for explaining.

Yeah, this also allows us to in uh take enforcement action on safe and sane fireworks.

Which is what we weren't able to do before that clarifies it because before which is dangerous.

That's under the 1267 uh health and safety code.

Got it.

And maybe just for my next question, where are safe insane fireworks legal in Alameda County?

Uh I believe it's Newark and Dublin, correct?

Yeah.

And okay, and Union City.

In a scenario where.

So I live in Cherry Land.

A lot of the fireworks that I think are happening around me are fired off of roads, and I see that from the evidence the next day.

In scenarios where that's happened, and there are certain neighborhoods that have a lot of home cameras, will homeowners be able to submit that as your, I think you called it secondary evidence.

Yes.

Okay.

And then with the civil penalty amounts, just in terms of the actual dollar amounts, how does that compare to other maybe jurisdictions in Alameda County?

Uh and I'm just looking for rough order of magnitude.

Is this on par?

Is it higher?

Is it lower?

I believe that that discussion was had and and it is on par with other jurisdictions.

Okay.

Okay.

And then when I looked at your timeline, um I know you're aiming for 4th of July, as you said you would when you were last in front of us.

But I also assume this will be in effect 365, right?

New Year's sports celebrations.

Okay, wonderful.

You mentioned PSAs, which is great.

And that's my first reason to invite you back, is if we can be part of getting the word out, we usually have like a public comments period before each Mac meeting, closer to the time, by all means.

Please take advantage of that channel.

And then there isn't anything here about what comes next, assuming this gets implemented.

I hope, I assume, but I just want to ask you explicitly, will we continue to review and revise and update and hopefully improve the ordinance just in terms of findings and how it's actually working in real life?

Well, I think our our vision or our initial mission is to get it approved.

Uh and then implement what has been approved, and then we'll come back.

Usually we'll do a presentation uh after the fourth of July, usually our it's at the sheriff's advisory.

I don't know if we'll do any of the Macs, but um we could certainly come back with statistical data.

Sorry to information.

You don't do any of the Macs, at least ours, and please please come back.

That that's it.

Our please.

First sheriff's advisory after Fourth of July is always related to fireworks and public safety and all that.

And we we bring forth our statistical data, all that information.

Okay.

Um and I'm hoping that we'll have some information regarding this.

But our first, you know, our first mission is to get this pushed through.

Understood.

But I think I'm hearing you say secondary or tertiary mission, we'll come back.

Yeah, there will be a review and and we'll evaluate gaps uh if there are any.

I if you know we gotta define success, right?

You know, like is this successful?

And obviously there's gonna be a period of time where if we do start issuing these citations and fines and keeping up with that process, we'll have some some information and data after that.

Probably within a few months after the Fourth of July.

Okay, makes sense.

And then you said you're pretty new at this.

Is this the first ordinance Alameda County Sheriff's Office is written?

Uh no, we we wrote one years ago for um I think it was a social host or ordinance regarding loud parties and/or like alcohol, something like that.

Yeah.

Thanks, don't recall.

Okay, thank you.

That's what I've heard.

Thanks, Diane.

Warum?

Is it gonna work?

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh so I want to say first of all, that education uh around this ordinance is important to me.

Uh I think one of the best ways of of success around this ordinance is going to be education of the public.

And so I'm curious, um what uh how how we're how we will be approaching education.

That would be my first question.

Well, like I indicated before, we're gonna put out a public service announcement.

Probably do a press release.

I think that would be uh a good idea to do, get it out on the media on on the news, um, social media platforms, obviously signage um around the county.

And one of the key components, I think, of making this work, especially in uh apartment complexes.

There are a lot of renters and uh in unincorporated areas, especially in the Ashland area, um, is the cooperation of the uh the housing providers, the um the homeowner groups and the apartment owner groups.

Um have has there been dialogue between your office and those folks?

No.

Wow, okay.

Uh, you know, I I just feel like um the cooperation between uh the crafters of the ordinance and the housing provider community is very important because they're gonna they're gonna be on the hook first of all.

I don't think they want their people on the hook.

So you would hope that there would be some conversation at some point.

Um and then in terms of the enforcement piece, I'm pretty um balanced, and I think that um it sounds like uh your office is um got a plan for enforcement.

I think that's also another key to this is how it's involved enforced and uh what goes into that.

I'm pretty uh uh pretty satisfied with that part.

Um I'm also interested in hearing the results of how it's doing uh after a time after the 4th of July makes sense to me.

Um perhaps we would get some data, as you said, and some um more clues into how things are going.

I I would say that you know, I I'm a renter myself, and in the apartment complex that I live in, there's around the 4th of July and in other times of the year, there's definitely fireworks going off in my complex.

And so I'm very curious how we're going to be capturing, you know, apartment complexes that might have a hundred or two hundred units.

Um you're gonna need the managers of these apartment complexes to interact with the tenants, and and so I I do think that uh uh we're gonna need different levels of education, and that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm I'm glad you raised that question, Warren, because I was thinking the same thing as how how we communicate it to everyone.

Churches, I'm thinking of all the open spaces where people go to set off the ones that sound like we're in the middle of a war half the times, and I can hear them, but I can't see them, but I know they're like a you know, the school over here and a church over there where people can just go into the parking lots and and essentially set things off.

So thanks for that question, Warren.

Um, the other thing I'm just wondering is, do you see?

I didn't even know how to put this, but I hope will you put as much effort into somehow being proactive so that people don't have the fireworks too shoot off on on um the fourth of July or New Year's, you know, to to keep them from entering into people's garages.

Sure.

Yeah, we we typically start just before uh Memorial Day, like the week leading up, things start ramping up.

Our property crimes uh unit, uh Sergeant Imperial and his folks uh are instrumental in, and I know we I think we gave a presentation on that aspect of it last time we were here, um, undercover operations and stings.

Um they get hundreds of pounds of these things, hundreds and hundreds, and a lot of it's sold online, so we have to, you know, set things up.

So we dedicate ton of time and resources into proactivity.

We also rely on patrol.

You know, that time of year we're going to call for service.

If they see something, they're gonna call investigations, we'll do a search warrant, gather uh gather up those fireworks as well.

So we start our proactive enforcement in May, and then we shift gears leading up almost to the day of 4th of July, and then we kind of shift into reactive uh enforcement.

We come out and we supplement patrol with additional units.

Patrol has their priority calls for service, and then we go around and we deal with all the fireworks stuff.

And with this, I think it's gonna give us a little bit more leverage along with the public service announcements, you know, and and hopefully the word will get out.

And I think that we'll see an impact over the next couple of years, especially if people start uh receiving fines, right?

Um, that are that are this heavy.

So I'm I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic and uh looking forward to uh um, you know, paneling business this year.

Well, I'm pretty sure that most residents are be grateful to you for putting this together and don't go too far because we're gonna have um public comment and we'll try to um notate a questions that the public might have, sure, and then have you come back up and address them.

No problem.

Okay, thank you.

Um so do we have oh, I'm sorry.

Hi, sorry, I had one more question.

Um regarding the language, talking about the grace period.

There will be no grace period for repeated violations by the same responsible party and our property owners.

That implies that there is a grace period somewhere else in the ordinance, and I don't see a grace period, so why would we say that there will be no grace period for repeated violations?

There's never a grace period mentioned anywhere.

Interesting, you know what I mean?

So I think and maybe you can John help me out here, but I think it's if we go to a call for service and we identify that this property is a problem property, and then it we go back again, right?

And we go back a third time, we're just gonna keep yeah.

There's no grace period between the first and the second, or the second and the third, or the third and the fourth.

That's right.

So I guess the point of saying that is just to say that there is no amount of time that matters.

It can be the next day.

Is that the point of saying that there's no grace period?

It's confusing to just say there's no grace period because there was never a grace period granted, I guess.

Gotcha.

That's my feedback.

Think about it.

Perfect.

Refer that to county council.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, thanks, Megan.

Um, do we have any speaker cards on this?

Yes, Michael Moore.

Um could you pull up the slides, please?

The first one with um the people setting off fireworks.

Michael, we're not gonna put up the slides.

You can uh point to the page.

This is individuals using fireworks.

Doesn't have a number.

This was the one that you said I have a chance to pull it up.

So which which slide number is it?

There are no numbers on it.

So it goes one, two, three, four.

I have no idea.

There's no numbers on my sheet.

Okay.

Well, if you want to ask your question, the slide.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

It's the attention getter.

I think it's 14.

Um, you can see the three very attractive young people using their sparklers to put out USA.

This is the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence.

So I suspect there's going to be lots of fireworks.

Um would that be a violation?

Yes.

Good.

So each of the three children involved would get the fine.

Is that correct?

Or would you just find the three of them?

Um, if you want to state all of your question, they'll answer afterwards so that you don't run down your time.

Okay.

The picture that's next to it with the kid setting off unsuccessfully, a large device.

He is clearly a juvenile.

Um, all right.

Last year, how many people did you investigate for fireworks?

Um, how many of those resulted in convictions of any kind?

That would be one.

If there are 744 different reports from last year, it's reasonable, I think, to assume that there will be somewhere similar to that next year or this year.

Um how much of how what percentage of those do you expect to be able to accommodate?

The next question is do you have an drones?

Sorry, your time is up, and we have to be fair for everyone.

Thank you for an open dialogue.

Uh Randy Walkie.

I'll just say I'm in support of the ordinance.

Uh, it's got to be really tough on the sheriff's department trying to, you know, regulate the fireworks.

People hate them.

Uh, they're crazy with the the ones that blow off, they look like Disneyland.

I totally get it.

Um, so I I am in favor of it for unincorporated Alameda County.

However, I will say I'm a little bummed because I remember a time where you could do safe and sane, and I was a little kid, and it was a long time ago, but we would have a bucket of water, and you know, you would do the fireworks, and then you would have some cake, and it was a nice gathering of our neighbors.

We had like three different houses that we're really close with.

So uh for me, I'm just sad that it has to be so heavily regulated now, but I get it because the fireworks are crazy.

I mean, I almost had a rocket hit me one time a couple years ago.

Um, but I will just also say it's kind of a bummer also that we don't have like you know, a drone show somewhere at a park where people can go and and watch something kind of fun or a gathering.

I think Mica State does do something in the afternoon, but when I lived in Stanislas, even um the collets there would do fireworks.

I'm not sure if they do it anymore.

Um so anyway, we are where we are, and it we are in a high density area.

So anyway, I support this ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dale Silva.

Thank you.

I'm I'm uh I am Dale Silva.

I'm speaking as an individual and not as a member of any commission that I'm on.

I'm one of the early encouragers, and there were many of this ordinance, and I want to thank Camp Captain McMillian McMillan for his leadership for pulling this together when he inherited the project.

There were lots of loose ends, you're familiar with some of them.

And he put it together, and that was uh uh five-star performance, I thought.

So I'm excited.

I think a lot of us are excited, and I would encourage you to support it.

The two main pillars of it, as you've heard, are social hosts, property owner responsibility, the the idea, which I think is a sound one, is that it's easier to identify a property than it is to identify a perpetrator.

So and the second pillar would seem to me is empowering residents to say to file a report and have the report being accepted as being legitimate and worthy of pursuit, is that I think there was fireworks over such and such address.

You saw the graphic with all the dots and all the calls for service last time.

They can't be everywhere.

And they summed it up, I think, really well on a flyer they distributed before um last fourth of July.

Citations can be issued for fireworks activity on a property witnessed by a police officer, firefighter, code enforcement personnel, or reported by a member of the public and confirmed, importantly, and confirmed by the jurisdiction.

So I would encourage you to vote for it.

Thank you.

Keith Burrows.

Years ago when we uh when we created the uh Board of Zoning Adjustments.

Um what was happening is uh uh violators uh would uh appeal to the Board of Supervisors and bring some new evidence with them, and uh got a lot of their uh a lot of their uh appeals, uh got a lot of their decisions reversed.

Uh subsequent to that, uh we created uh the what's called a soft remand uh for the Board of Supervisors.

So if something comes from the BZA that is appealed to the board of supervisors, if there is any new evidence, it's to be remanded back to the BZA rather than have uh rather than have it uh uh decided by the Board of Supervisors.

So I just wanted to mention that's uh that's also a part of the process that most people don't know about.

Thank you.

Let me check for online participants.

There are no more speakers.

All right, no more speakers.

So public comment is um closed.

And let's see, Captain McMillan, where'd you go?

I just uh I just wanted to follow up with what um I think one of the speakers was asking about you did say that multiple people could receive fines though, right?

I mean, like in the picture, if there's a crowd, you you could also cite people who are participating by watching, right?

No, no, just setting off or using correct.

Okay, and then um do you investigate very often in the past?

Have you investigated and then I don't know, prosecuted or did you didn't really have me personally?

No, I just meant I think Michael was um was asking about the number of calls that you got from years prior.

Were those investigated then too, or were they just kind of shut down in the moment, or how were these processed?

Well, we investigated what we could, right?

Okay, um, I believe a gentleman behind me was asking for some statistical data, which we have.

I don't have it present with me, so I don't want to speculate on the numbers.

Um, but we presented it at the sheriff's advisory uh last year.

So we did make a significant number of arrests.

We confiscated a significant amount of uh ordinance.

Um I can get those numbers if someone needs it.

Yeah, okay.

I just wanted to follow up a little bit.

All right, does the board have anything else?

Yeah, uh we can do some research on that.

Yeah, but that's out of our hands.

Okay, that was uh in answer to any convictions.

Okay.

All right.

Uh any other questions from the board?

I do have one just because this comes up with every topic we cover properly.

Um, as it relates to your education, uh, can we just ask if it's not already consideration that it be in multiple languages?

Because we do have people who speak different languages.

So that's how many?

Multiple languages.

Well, uh, that maybe at least the top two or three additional uh languages in the area.

Uh, I believe it's uh Spanish and Takal, I want to say, or Mandarin, I think are the ones that are very heavy in this area, just so that um they can also be aware of it.

Okay, it's Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin.

Okay.

Okay.

And don't stop very don't exclude Tagalog, like include that as well.

That's why I asked how many.

I don't want to exclude anybody.

I'm gonna go true.

I thought it was I thought Tagal was there and Cantonese was lower down.

And close captioned.

Uh that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah, sorry, just just to be clear.

Um Cantonese can be fourth.

Tagalog can be third, like, just as long as you're them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's a lot.

Thank you very much for your presentation for all your work on this.

But I do want to respond to the gentleman behind me regarding um the slide that was uh inserted as an attention getter uh to to make people laugh, um, and not to uh use it as uh insulting.

Um we have this wonderful tool in our toolbox uh called discretion.

We also have the ability to educate people on public safety.

So we often run into children that are messing around with sparklers, uh, and we do use our discretion and we you do take those as opportunities to educate and talk to the parents about what's going on.

I think it's obvious what our goal is, and we're gonna be focused on large-scale ordinance uh that cause fires and disrupt our community.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, I think it's the um the board's task is to um make a motion.

I think they ask us that we recommend the approval of this ordinance as it's presented, unless we had any particular amendments, Ray.

Yeah, I thought we also had the option of suggesting amendments.

We do.

So I'd love to maybe start there to see if there are any amendments.

Can we do both approval with any amendments and see if there are any suggested amendments?

Well, we can do it either way.

Do you have a something that you wanted to request?

Can I motion to approve it the way it is?

You can.

Okay, that's what I'm doing.

All right.

So Elizabeth has made a motion to um approve it as presented.

I'll second that.

All right, thank you, Warren.

And Warren seconded that.

Oh, yeah, I'll second that.

Thank you.

All right, is there any other discussion?

Okay, I've seen no discussion then.

Do you take a roll call vote?

Councilmember Asin Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Mara Mahoko.

Yes.

Councilmember Roll.

Yes.

Councilmember Stanley?

Yes.

Vice Chair Cushman.

Yes.

Vice Chair Cushman said yes.

Chair Whitler.

Yes.

Motion passed.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you all for your participation.

And that's all our agenda items so tonight.

So next is the chair's report, and don't really have a report at this time.

Um are there any council announcements, comments, or reports?

Um, yes.

Um, sorry, uh Ashley's uh counterpart, sorry.

Celine, sorry, I forgot your name, Celine.

Any update on translation, the county policy on translation?

Yeah, so if you subscribe to our newsletter, we actually sent it out on in December.

Uh a board letter that was brought forward by Supervisor Elise uh Marquez and also Supervisor Tam that re that received unanimous approval.

Um, and that is uh they made meaningful strides in language access and inclusive communication, and our office gathered data on translation interpretation services and work closely with Asian health services to improve accessibility across county department, a particularly productive meeting with Chinese for effort of action, CAA focus on combating disinformation on social media and underscore the importance of community education, regulatory accountability and targeted outreach.

And that unanimous approval was to affirm Alameda County's commitment to language access for all residents regardless of immigration status.

Direct the county administration office prepare to prepare one year language access utilization report and recommend strategies to improve awareness and usage of language access services.

And then in the next Eden area Mac we're looking forward to present and kind of like you guys a tutorial of how to do the language access and everything is already online, but you just have to go online where you see the agenda and then everything is already translatable and it's enabled by Google Translate.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If somebody like myself is not signed up to the newsletter, how can we retroactively get that information?

Yeah, so it's also available on our um Alameda County District 3 website.

If you go on the TAP das newsletter, you can see all the newsletters that we have sent out.

Thank you.

And we have also posted on social media too.

If you're on social media, you would also see on our page.

The newsletters come out pretty frequently.

Thank you for your all your work on the translation stuff.

Thank you.

Um anything else from the council members?

I actually have one quick question.

Flip it on here.

Okay.

I lost track of the uh one of our committees, the economic development committee.

Um we I'm not even sure who's on it anymore.

So perhaps it's something we can re-look at because I I know we were looking at it a couple six months ago, and I don't know where it's at.

So perhaps we can re-look at it and figure that out.

Yes, thank you.

We do have some subcommittees that I kind of um was reminding myself that I should keep track of better too.

Right, anything else from us?

Um, Taylor.

Sorry, I guess I do have something just because I tried to join the Zoom today and it really did not work well.

I don't know.

Maybe it was just my phone, Apple updates, they're fun.

Um, but the hyperlink wasn't working, and I had to copy and paste.

And uh when I did that, even the audio wasn't working.

So I was just wondering if maybe we can double check that it is accessible.

Um previously it used to be a hyperlink and it doesn't seem to be anymore.

Sure.

Question Did you try to click on it on the agenda or the telecommercing guidelines?

I tried both.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um any um staff announcements, comments, or reports.

I think you have something for us, don't you, Ashley?

Uh well, we kind of covered it.

Um there will be a uh change to the minutes will all be action minutes across all Macs.

Uh we are waiting for the memo from uh the clerk's office to come out.

So as soon as we get more information, we will uh give it to all of the Macs and the SUNOL CAC.

So until we get that memo, more to come.

So, thank you.

What does that what are action minutes?

What does that mean?

So the minutes will reflect actions only.

They'll they'll be more standardized the way I understand it, and they're working with a way to standardize them across all Macs.

So some of them won't they'll just be more similar and more um, they'll be more consistent over all Macs, um, and they will be action minutes.

The video is serves as the um transcription.

That's the word I'm looking for.

So the video is always available, but the minutes will be action only minutes.

Okay.

Please look at the video for more detail and to hear the full discussion.

All right.

Um, I guess that's it for this evening, unless anybody objects, we can adjourn at 7 20.