The Berkeley City Council met on July 30, 2024, at 6:00 PM in a hybrid format. The meeting included urgent appointments, a consent calendar with numerous routine approvals, a detailed audit report on restaurant inspections, and a contested zoning appeal regarding the Fantasy Records Building. The meeting was extended twice (to 11:15 PM and then 11:30 PM) to accommodate discussion.
Okay, as the city council members are rejoining us, um, I want to just uh make an announcement prior to convening our uh city council meeting. I want to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Berkeley City Council to allow for full participation by all the members of the community, and to ensure that important business is able to be completed. We ask that all attendees conduct themselves in an orderly manner and respect the rights of others participating in this meeting. Please be aware that the city council's rules of decorum prohibit the disruption of the orderly conduct of the city council meeting. The summary of these rules is available in the one-page handout on the table in the rear of the boardroom. Disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to shouting, making disruptive noises, creating or participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn or in violation of applicable rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting, entering into or remaining in an area of the meeting room that is not open to the public, or approaching the council dais without consent. We ask that you observe these rules so that all members of the public may observe and participate in tonight's meeting, and we thank you for joining us tonight. So I'd now like to call to order the regular meeting of the Berkeley City Council for Tuesday, July 30th, 2024, in the first order of businesses roll call. The city clerk can please call the role. Okay. Uh councilmember Kissarwani. Here. Chaplin Bartlett is currently absent. Trigum, currently absent on present. When OPara here. Umbert present. Mayor Aragine present. And I see Councilmember Barnett. Thank you. Okay, moving now to ceremonial matters. I want to turn the floor over to our city auditor who will be making a presentation on the proposed audit plan for uh 2025. Okay. Um, Madam City Audit. Okay. Can you hear me now? Awesome. Thank you so much. Um, and good evening, and thanks for this opportunity to present our audit plan for fiscal year 2025. This plan outlines the key areas of focus for my office for the coming year, including completing ongoing work, new audits and initiatives, and our continued efforts to ensure transparency, accountability, and effective governance. Okay. This evening I will cover our audit selection process, our accomplishments from the previous plan year, and planned audits and engagements for this year. I'll also provide an update on the whistleblower program. To develop our audit plan, we gather input from stakeholders to prioritize audits that address Berkeley's most critical needs. We gather audit ideas from community members, elected officials, department staff, and city management. We assess past audits and Berkeley specific risks. We analyze findings from other government audits to anticipate emerging issues. When prioritizing audits, we take into consideration many factors, including perception of risks to the city identified by management, city council, and community feedback, economic factors like potential financial impact, organizational changes such as management or information systems, and the length of time since the last audit in an area. We also consider staff capacity or a small office, have limited resources to conduct audits compared to larger cities. Finally, we consider audits that can advance our values, including integrity, independence, impact, and equity. This approach ensures a comprehensive responsive audit plan aligned with Berkeley's governance needs. This plan builds on accomplishments from the previous year. In fiscal 24, we released an audit of Measure FF. Management agreed with our recommendations to strengthen reporting for measure FF spending and improve internal processes for the hiring of retirees in the fire department. We also made significant progress establishing our whistleblower program. The council amended Berkeley's municipal code to authorize our office to establish this program. We also contracted with a third-party hotline for confidential reporting on fraud waste and abuse by city officials. We also followed up on recommendations from previous audits to ensure departments stay accountable for their corrective action plans. Between September 22 and May 2024, 30 of our recommendations were fully implemented across seven departments. I really want to thank management for their efforts in completing these audit recommendations. As of July 2024, there are 62 open recommendations from nine audits across seven departments.