Okay, good evening, everyone.

Thank you very much for your patience.

Um, I am going to call to order the Berkeley City Council meeting.

Today's Tuesday, October 28th, 2025.

Clerk, could you please take the roll?

Okay, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Here.

Taplin, present.

Bartlett.

Is currently absent.

Trigum.

Okay.

Here.

Blackaby.

Here.

Luna Para.

Humbert, present, and Mary Ishi.

Here.

Okay.

Forum is present.

Okay.

Councilmember Bartlett is present.

Very good.

Thank you.

Okay, so given the number of items on our agenda tonight, we're not going to be able to get to item 32, which is the amendments to allow separate sale of ADUs.

So we're going to push that back to another meeting.

However, if anyone came here tonight to speak to that issue, you may still do so during that time when we would have taken that item, which will be at the end of our meeting agenda.

However, if you want to come back and speak about it at the future meeting when we actually are hearing the item, you can do that as well.

We'll have comment uh public comment at the meeting where we discuss this item as I just mentioned.

So thank you all very much for your understanding.

And just so I have a sense.

Who's here?

Okay.

Very good.

All right.

So we are going to move on to ceremonial matters.

We have one ceremonial matter for this evening.

It is a proclamation honoring women's breast cancer women's cancer resource center and celebrating breast cancer awareness month.

Do we have a representative here?

Oh, wonderful.

Please come up here.

Thank you.

All right.

So October is breast cancer awareness month, and WCRC does work in the East Bay to support women who are impacted by cancer.

They have been a longtime provider of holistic care to the Berkeley community.

And um, see, I'm going to read the proclamation.

Recognizing Women's Cancer Resource Center for October 2025, Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Whereas the Women's Cancer Resource Center, WCRC, founded in 1986 by a small group of women with cancer, began as a grassroots effort to support one another and advocate for change in the health care system and has grown into a trusted community organization serving thousands across Berkeley and the East Bay.

And whereas WCRC has built a strong foundation of care through free, culturally responsive services, including patient navigation, mental health support, wellness classes, transportation, and financial assistance, helping individuals access the resources they need during and after cancer treatment.

Its Berkeley office continues to be a welcoming space filled with warmth and compassion, where staff and volunteers meet people where they are, offering support that reflects the city's values of equity, inclusion, and community care.

And whereas WCRC's work centers those most impacted by cancer, low-income individuals, seniors, black African-American women and Latino women, and LGBTQ community members, ensuring that no one is left behind due to barriers of cost, culture, or access.

And whereas WCRC's leadership and innovative model of holistic care have earned national recognition and its partnerships with institutions like UCSF and Stanford have helped bridge gaps between medical systems and community needs.

And whereas in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, WCRC's ongoing commitment to supporting individuals affected by breast cancer is exemplified through its administration of the Faith Fancher Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, which for over two decades has provided direct financial assistance to low-income women and men undergoing treatment in Berkeley.

And whereas through its ongoing advocacy and programs like the Faith Fancher Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, WCRC continues to provide direct support to those undergoing treatment and remains a vital part of Berkeley's health and social service landscape.

Now, therefore be it resolved that I, Adina Ishi, mayor of the city of Berkeley, do hereby recognize the Women's Cancer Resource Center for all their hard work serving our community and celebrate October 2025 as Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Berkeley.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

We're deeply grateful to the City of Berkeley, the mayor, and the city council members for this recognition in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The Women's Cancer Resource Center got our start right here in Berkeley in a small apartment on Shattock Avenue in 1986.

And since then, we have grown to serve more than 30,000 women and caregivers impacted by cancer, including 7,300 Berkeley residents since 2012.

Our mission is to help our clients access the health information, care, and support necessary to have a higher quality of life throughout their cancer journey.

And 85% of our clients are female or gender expansive, 80% are low-income, seventy-six percent are over the age of 50, and 70% are black indigenous and people of color.

Breast cancer is experienced by half of our clients along with more than 50 other cancers.

Our diverse staff volunteers and board members represent the communities we serve.

Cultural humility is a guiding principle for our organization and informs how we listen, build trust, and respond to each person's unique experience.

We meet clients where they are at with compassion and respect, and we envision a future where all people can access equitable cancer information, care, and support.

We are proud to call Berkeley home, a city that has always stood for community.

Thank you for believing in us and for this opportunity tonight to share our mission with each of you, both online and in person.

Okay, so moving on, we have city manager comments.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I have one comment.

It's in relation to item number seven, which is the referral request to rescind incorrect information related to Turtle Island Monument from the Civic Arts Commission.

I alluded to this in agenda rules, but my request to you tonight from the city manager is to refer that item back to the city manager to assess the Civic Arts Commission recommendation and then report back to council.

Thank you.

So we need to take a vote to no, we don't need to take a vote to adjust that.

Be part of the action during the and is that any other comments?

That's all, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on to our auditors' comments.

All right, good evening.

Thank you so much.

Um, I'm just here to comment on a few of the information items.

These are audit follow-ups.

First, in January, our office released a follow-up report on the 2009 audit of city leases.

We found that many of the same issues still existed 16 years later, including the need for a clear lease management plan and an incomplete inventory of lease and license agreements.

This evening, Public Works submitted their first update on implementing our recommendations to council.

The department has reported that they have started work on many of the recommendations.

They now have someone in the role of real property administrator, and this staff member is working with an interdepartmental team to provide input to the city manager on a property management plan, which will help clarify the city's approach to lease management.

Additionally, the real property administrator is taking the lead on developing a complete central inventory of leases and licenses, and that includes useful information like contract numbers, the annual cost of living adjustments, hoping to see market rate increases, maintenance information.

Having a more complete inventory should allow the city to assess the costs and benefits of leasing and ensure the city does not lose track of its properties.

Two issues identified in our report.

Today I also learned that several leases were discussed at yesterday's meeting, and I'm glad to see that this is taking place to update those leases that have been holed over.

Second, um, I wanted to share that Public Works has implemented the final two recommendations related to our 2020 audit on Berkeley Street maintenance called Rocky Road, and that officially closes the audit.

So since that update, Berkeley residents have passed measure FF, a parcel tax expected to generate 15 million dollars annually for 14 years with a portion dedicated to street paving.

So thank you to Berkeley voters.

However, even with a combined increase of paving allocations from the general fund, zero waste fund, stormwater fund, this amount is still less than the estimated 42 million needed annually.

So I just wanted to set expectations that you know we have increased costs and with um deferred maintenance that does not quite get us to the PCI of 70.

But with this infusion of FF, we will see improvements overall on Berkeley streets.

Public Work staff has also continued to present updated revenue and PCI projections to council and really appreciate that report.

Finally, with Fleet, Public Works has continued to make progress on implementing recommendations from the 2021 audit on the fleet replacement fund.

Eleven of the 12 recommendations are partly implemented, and one is fully implemented.

As of May of this year, AssetWorks is the only system used by equipment maintenance division successfully phasing out funds, our old system of tracking this, thus implementing this recommendation.

Public Works Senior Management is currently reviewing a draft update of the equipment and vehicle replacement policy.

I cannot emphasize how important it is to have a policy that does this work, which includes several updates recommended in the audit.

I do want to note that replacement costs used to fund personnel, that still needs to be addressed.

And we point out in our audit that replacement fund should be used to fund vehicles and not other expenses that are not put into that fund for that purpose.

So I look forward to seeing progress on this.

Additionally, Public Works sent out a right sizing survey earlier this year to better understand the needs across the city going forward.

And so I just want to give public works a big round of applause for all of their work on all of these audits.

Thank you very much.

See you in the back, Terrence.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Madam City Auditor.

Moving on to public comment on non-agenda matters.

If you'd like to give public comment on non-agenda matters and you're participating remotely, now is time to raise your hand.

And I'll draw five names from the bin for in-person non-agenda comments, and each speaker will have one minute each.

There's lots of blank ones in here.

Okay.

So the five in-person speakers are Carol Morosvik, Betsy Morris, John Curl, Renee, and Susan L.

So you can come up in any order.

And you'll have one minute each.

I see my data.

Okay.

Carol, you've been given two minutes.

Okay, thank you.

At the last three by three meeting, the Berkeley Housing Authority Director stated it that it would be significant if the City of Berkeley enforced the source of income discrimination ordinance to house our low-income persons.

And that's consistent with an article from Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, which was written on October 27, 2025.

No, no, I'm sorry.

Which was written on anyway, it was October 2024 that they wrote it, uh, where they state homelessness is the result of the unaffordable housing market, which federal rent subsidies helped to address enforcement is necessary.

Uh this item came before council in March on March 9, 2021.

It was passed unanimously.

It was based on a homeless commission uh recommendation from 2019 to amend the source of income discrimination ordinance to establish administrative enforcement procedures.

Council passed it unanimously with a five-point recommendation which included drafting amendments for an administrative procedure to enforce the anti-discrimination.

Uh property rental ordinance has the source of income parallel to the fair chance ordinance, submit to council in 2022 a report reviewing the effectiveness of the source of income discrimination ordinance for first five years.

Um two other points, and also to refer to the four by four, the discussion of feasibility of enforcement of source of income uh alongside the fair chance ordinance based on the first and Hamless Commission's first in time standard recommendation.

None of this has happened in almost five years.

We need to have this happen.

And now, referring back again to uh the DREDF article, they state that uh Santa Monica is the only city.

Thank you, Dave.

Um I'm sorry, Carol, your time's up, but you feel free to send us an email and let us know the rest of the information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Come on up.

Hello, City Council, Mayor Ishii.

My name is Susan L.

I'm gonna give my minute to John Crowell in support of Turtle Island Monument, Lee and Marlene.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You will have two minutes.

I thought you just gave me her time.

So, uh, you know, we're speaking now because we were first we were on the uh action agenda, then move to the consent.

Now we're off the consent calendar.

So the item is still on consent.

The item is still on the consent calendar item seven.

Yeah.

Now is not the time to speak.

Not if you're just talking about Turtle Island, then that's still on consent.

Yes, we'll okay.

Uh let me ask a quick question though.

Lee and Marlene, the audit, the original audit 30 years ago, who were.

Wait, I'm sorry, can you can you bring this up?

Come on, can they speak on Zoom at that time?

They can people can speak on Zoom during that time.

Yes, okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, you will have one minute.

Yes, uh my wife uh has uh one minute too.

Her name is Liliana.

Well, she her card wasn't it wasn't picked, but mine was picked.

I wonder if I could get her a minute to she doesn't have a minute if the card wasn't picked.

Okay, yeah, sorry.

Unfortunately, yeah, yeah, since her card wasn't fixed.

She, you know, she doesn't have a minute to give you.

So you still have a minute, though.

Okay, uh, my name is Renee, and uh we have a big problem because uh most of our friends in the community where we live on District 4 and by Sacramento, we don't have the money to pay the taxes that you're charging, and we really don't get the services you say you're giving.

The city is really really bad shape.

The streets, everything, everything's a mess.

You can walk around my neighborhood, there's garbage everywhere.

And uh, well, it's basically like we hear all this stuff about uh you're you're doing all this and you guys give yourself uh prices and all that.

There's uh mutualism, and you know, but it's more like parasitism.

We got people with cancer, and nothing is being done.

You know, you guys decide, you take the money from the poor, and I don't know what you do.

I don't even know your salaries.

What was your wife's name?

Liliana.

Oh no, that's not the answer.

If you have um uh comments or questions about specific taxes or services, you you can reach out to um your council member or to my office.

So, thank you for your comment.

Okay, but just just thank you.

Uh I appreciate it.

And then Susan L is Susan L.

Those are an un here to support Lee and Marlene.

So, you're there for that as well.

Yes.

Okay, so uh we just had uh two speakers, so I'll pick another card.

Adam Stone and Bernardo Lopez.

Uh yeah, I'm actually I wanted to comment on the encryption for BPE, but that's on the agenda.

Okay, I'll sit down then.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hi everyone, I'm Bernardo Lopez, and I'm here to support Lee and Marlene.

Oh, okay.

So you'll speak later on the consent item.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry.

Uh anyone else on uh how about Paul Keiloha Blake and Moni Law.

Anyone else speak?

Are you speaking on non-agenda, Moni, or on the Turtle Island?

Okay.

Actually, Paul was gonna give me a lot of the yes, he has to be here.

Paul, are you here?

I don't, yeah, Paul's here.

Paul, do you do you want he's in the back?

Yeah, yes, it's probably comes on, but we tell that.

It's crazy.

Good evening, good evening, uh, my council member Trigoob in absence, and council member.

Oh, on the screen.

Hi, Igor.

Oh, there you are.

Um, and mayor and city manager and city attorney.

Um, just really quickly, I have a concern about somebody left their phone up here.

Um replacement of our vehicles for the city to be climate positive, and I saw a fleet of trucks go by the other day, and I don't know if the police have purchased another fleet of trucks and vehicles, but I don't know that we're meeting our green standards that we're seeking.

So that I'm I'm concerned about.

Um just yesterday I saw a new truck that I'd not seen in the fleet before, and I want to double down on the concern that Carol shared about income discrimination.

I speak to a lot of tenants who have section eight vouchers, but no landlord that will take their voucher, their mothers, they're disabled, they're elders, they're individuals with low income, and they can't find housing in Berkeley, even though they have a voucher to use for a landlord.

So we do need enforcement procedures to make that a meaningful law.

Thank you.

Thanks, Moni.

Thank you.

Following up with my earlier comments, uh referring to sorry, Paul, you're giving her your minute, you're giving Carol your minute.

Yes.

I'm sorry, I can't.

Paul, are you giving her your minute?

Yes, okay, yes, okay, thank you.

Okay, uh, the disability rights education defense fund article written on published on October 9, 2024, reads since uh uh additionally DREDUF uh attempted exchange with each of the municipalities with the source of income ordinances that reported no affirmative or enforcement efforts with largely disappointing results.

Only the cities of Alameda, Cortamadeira, and East Palo Alto responded to Dreadf, and have since agreed to take new affirmative steps to combat discrimination based on source of income in their communities.

The other municipalities contacted, including cities with large unhoused populations like Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego completely ignored Dread of Communications.

We really need to move ahead with what was passed in 2021, and this collaboration should the city should engage with the disability rights and thank you.

Thanks, Carol.

And and please do still send it over to my office because it's hard to capture everything in the comment.

Okay.

Moving to non-agenda comments from people participating remotely.

First is Janice Schroeder.

Thank you.

My comments address transparency, accountability, and the protection of the most vulnerable in our banking community.

I am very opposed to Chief Lewis's proposal to encrypt the last question.

Janice, I'm sorry, but we're actually that's uh an item that's on our agenda.

We're currently doing public comment on non-agenda matters.

So um you're welcome to give your comment later in our agenda tonight.

Thank you.

Next is Madeline Roberts Rich.

Hey guys, oh excuse me, my my young daughters here with me, in case you hear in the background.

Um I'm calling once again to ask you to explore ways that you can collaborate in a smarter fashion with the developers that are developing unprecedentedly high buildings on Jadis in the downtown.

Um it's really important that downtown SHATEC has access to nightlife entertainment amenities, primarily cinema.

I was there just this last Friday, and it's really really empty without any of the cinemas operating.

And there are ways you can collaborate with developers to get that done in a creative fashion.

I doesn't mean necessarily having a full-scale uh movie theater, but movie nights or some sort of um using public art funds towards being able to screen movies, using their uh I guess their park space, etc.

It's really really important that that gets done.

The retailers need it, the community needs it, it's in the downtown area plan, and I was very disappointed at what happened with the UA theater, in that negotiations weren't made with Patrick Kennedy to work he mitigated the impact of Madeline.

Thank you.

Thanks for your comment.

Next is Nathan Meisell.

Hello, Madam Mayor, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Skip the chase here.

Um, the city has a long history of slow-rolling public records requests.

Um, I'll speak specifically to the Berkeley Police Department as I know that best.

Um, I'll give you just one example.

Um, back on August 11th of 2023, I requested um any text messages um that related to public business um from the period of September of 2020 to November 2022.

Basically, the primary period of the tax message scandal, right?

Well, the city took four hundred and fifty days plus to respond to that request.

And at that point, they provided no additional text messages.

In fact, they had simply slow rolled for over a year simply to tell me that there were no disclosable records.

Please consider this story and a lot of others when you go to your other items today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Nathan.

Uh, next is uh caller with a phone number ending in two one one.

Hi, good evening.

So, our company manager Roy hand you some document.

Please read them and respond to us.

I'm requesting a meeting as soon as possible was mere easy.

The title just matter discuss it.

Donald Trump is having a hooking ball to the country.

He's doing all kind of illegal things, firing people, firing, closing all kinds of I mean he was taking money from the poor on Hungary to give it to his uh puppet masters, billionaires that have to stop.

Also, with the worst part of it, count one to ten, the world War III.

This man had uh uh nuclear football in his hand and his he is very vindictive very hateful the way you kill the way he was dead like I did with the fuel down the Caribbean he is a very very dangerous and very bad man.

Have a good evening I'd love to meet you sometimes good night.

Thank you.

Uh feel free to reach out there's um office hours that we have that we release um via our newsletter.

Next is um looks maybe uh like League of Women Voters USCT Swift.

Tizwift maybe and I love my town as I'm sure you do I want to call your attention though to the need to reform our system for building permits.

I became aware of the problem when I tried to replace a single bank of 31 year old clear story windows that we're leaking a simple like for like replacement $10,000 job and our permit request was returned five times for non-substantive revisions over about two months classic red tape.

My case is not unique and we need to improve the system efficient permitting is critical especially in our growing housing crisis San Francisco has recognized the problem and has begun what they call permit SF to revamp their permitting process and we can learn from them.

Thanks that thanks to I appreciate your comment and feel free to send us follow up if you have more comments.

And the last commenter is Marlene.

Yes, Marlene Watson I know we have our topic here but it's for the Civic Arts Commission action item and my specific comment is about the Did you I um so I think you have a comment that's on Turtle Island monument is that right?

Yes this is the parks and recs the part so I would have a comment on them too.

So that's actually a little bit later on our agenda um so if there's a piece of your comment that's on non-agenda matters feel free to share it otherwise we'll go to the next speaker.

Okay.

Last speaker is uh Zay.

Hello to the members of the body my name is Zay alo I'm um staff on staff with youth sphere artworks um and we have our headquarters there on Albatraz Avenue and I just want to commend all of the members for all of the really hard work that we're doing specifically for unsheltered residents and to specifically um continue to challenge us to disaggregate data specifically for transitional age youth whether we're talking interim shelters crisis response especially the changes that are happening to HMIS as regards the outreach modules um and I look forward to our executive director of the scheduling meeting with you um uh madam mayor sometime in the future and again thank you all so much for your work I know this issue is particularly challenging and it's something that matters a lot to all of you here that's why you're serving thank you again.

Thank you for your comment and uh look forward to to someone reaching out.

Okay that's 10.

So okay very good thank you everyone um I know it's confusing there's there's like different parts of the agenda and um okay so we are moving on to the consent calendar um so first thing I want to do is there is an urgency item um which actually sorry, I'm realizing I don't know if I have it right here.

It's in the sub two packet so we don't excuse me, one minute.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So the urgent item today, the reason that it's being submitted is for an emergency situation.

And so this item, uh limiting the use of city property and facilities for city purposes, constitute an emergency situation because of the imminent threats of the immigration enforcement activities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Last week on October 22nd, 2025, President Trump announced the operational surge of customs and border patrol, immigration and customs enforcement, and potentially the National Guard in and around a 40-mile radius of the city and county of San Francisco.

This of course includes Berkeley, which is within 22 miles of San Francisco, deep within the designated target area.

While the president announced the decision of the immediate threat of a surge in immigration enforcement in San Francisco on October 23rd, the ongoing threat looms over the region.

For this region, for this reason, it is urgent that the city of Berkeley designate open spaces and public parking lots be designated for the city purposes only and not for the staging of federal immigration operations.

Um this item, we need to vote for it to put it onto the agenda, yes.

That is correct.

So I'm gonna move that we add this item onto our consent calendar.

Okay, motion seconded to add the urgent item to the consent calendar.

Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes.

Taplin.

Yes, Bartlett, yes.

Yes, Blackabe, yes.

Lunapara, yes, Humbert, yes, and Mayor Ishi.

Yes.

Okay, the item is added to the agenda.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um, I would also like to vote to remove a vote to remove item 18 to action.

Um, we've received some concerns.

Sorry, and 18, just so folks know is the authorization to encrypt Berkeley Police Department radio uh primary radio channels, and I'd like to move that item to action.

Um, we've received some concerns from the community about the encryption item.

Councilmember Luna Para and I worked closely with Chief Lewis and our city manager to make sure that we balance transparency and access to public information with victim privacy, officer safety, and operational integrity.

Um we'd like to pull the item off the consent calendar in order for people to understand the work and the research if the chief has done to create the supplemental and address community's concerns.

So if if folks have seen that the chief wrote a supplemental and we want to give her an opportunity to um address it, all right.

I Sarah Tinker.

I'm happy to be a third to pull that to action.

Okay, thank you very much.

So that item will be moved to action.

Okay, all right.

Do we have any council comments on consent?

Oh, okay.

Apparently our system's not working, but council member Blackaby.

I'll actually, I think Councilman Luna Par, you want to go first and I'll follow you.

I think you were you were you were beating me to the button.

So sure.

Um I want to start with some of the easier stuff.

Um I want to register a resounding yes vote for item two that affirms the staff preference for the Virginia bikeway.

I want to thank um city staff for this and for their work and for their recommendation.

Um I'd also like to contribute 200 to item 31.

Um, thank you, Councilmember Humbert.

And I love Halloween personally, so this is exciting.

Um item nine, um, I'd like to introduce additional language to the waiver for the sanctuary city um for the sanctuary city ordinance for our critical contract with Superior just to make sure we have the updated interaction information on their interactions with federal immigration departments, and I have the language that I'll pull up, and we've um shared with the city manager as well.

These red, this is the red language is the added um language to the contract, and I can read it into the record.

Um whereas for the purposes of this resolution, immigration authority means any person or agency engaging in efforts to investigate, enforce or assist in the investigation or enforcement of federal immigration law against natural persons, including but not limited to the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security or its component agencies, U.S.

immigration and customs enforcement, U.S.

customs and border protection or U.S.

citizenship and immigration services.

Whereas it is the understanding of the city council that Superior does not currently provide any immigration authority with data broker or extreme vetting services, as defined as in chapter 13.105.

And then at the end, be it further resolved by the council of the city of Berkeley that the city manager is directed to include in the contract with Superior a provision requiring Superion to notify the city in the event that it enters into a contract with immigration authority to provide data broker or extreme vetting services as defined in chapter 13.105, and be it further resolved by the council of the city of Berkeley that the city manager is directed to contract superior contact Superion by December 31st of each year during the duration of the contract to request that they affirm in writing that the following statement is true.

At the present moment, Superior does not currently provide any immigration authority with data with data broker or extreme vetting services as defined in chapter 13.105, provided that they have not previously notified the city that the Superior has entered into a contract with an immigration authority to provide data broker extreme vetting services.

Thank you.

Um can I just do you mind?

Yes, I did confer with Council Member Linapar, and those are fine.

Um, how does this work in terms like procedurally?

You just if you just email that to me, then when we process the resolution, we'll add the new language.

Okay.

Is there do we have to do a vote to include this?

No, it's just read into the record.

So it's cool.

Great.

Thank you.

As long as there's no opposition.

Yeah, there's no objection, great.

Okay.

I'm not seeing any right now.

So go ahead.

Okay, thank you.

Um finally, I also think that we should pull um item 28 from the consent calendar, given that there's a supplemental, and I think it warrants more discussion.

We support that.

Who's gonna make the same ask?

Uh, two.

Okay.

That will move on to action as well.

Um, all right, moving on.

I know I'm not sure if this is working now, but um I'm gonna go to Councilmember Blackaby since he had been trying to earlier.

Okay.

Uh thanks, madam mayor.

Um, first I want to thank you for adding the urgent item um limiting the use of city property and facilities for city purposes and bringing that tonight.

Um, very much support it.

It's consistent obviously with our sanctuary city status.

It's really the next step at kind of affirming and proactively taking action to um act on our values, and so I appreciate your bringing that.

I did note one.

Um, there's a clause.

We're in the amendment phase in the consent calendar, but in the there's a bit where it references county owned property that I think should be city owned property in the second bullet.

Um, so Mark, if you see that as well, on the policy or ordinance development draft administrative policy restricting the use of city-owned property instead of county owned property, since this is affects the city of Berkeley.

I'll keep going, but uh I I think it's just kind of a drafting issue, so I just wanted that to be clear in the process.

Um couple other pieces um um item four.

I think the city manager, Pew Redu and team for the letter to the Board of Supervisors um urging collaboration with the county on homelessness programs outside of Berkeley.

Um, you know, we need to be clear, and I know we've talked about it before in our given our budget situation, that we simply can't afford to provide the same level of support for our unhoused neighbors without county support full stop.

And so I think any communication to the county, I know the mayor's doing a lot of work at the at the at the working group level, but you know, we need their support.

We need their partnership as we're entering this sort of difficult budget period.

So I just want to thank the city manager and team for continuing to communicate and work with the county because we need access to the dollars that they've collected to help uh fund the programs that we do run.

Um question on item five, really quickly for the city manager, has nothing to do with in particular with the public art program strategic plan, but I know that you know we there are a number of budget requests that that we get that move on the consent calendar, and again, I think my question is more how do we are we are we triaging, how do we think about and triage some of these things?

Again, I support public art, I support doing a um doing a strategic plan for sort of the public art program in the city, but I also know that there are certain things we may need to triage.

I'm just curious how how you and the team you know advance some or are there some that we may kind of pause and delay and as we're heading again into this budget cycle.

How are you thinking about that?

Yeah, it's a great question, Councilmember.

Generally, what we'll do is we'll sit down with the group, whoever's the group in this case OED that wants to advance an initiative like this, and we'll look at both what's the rationale for advancing the initiative, and very specifically how is it funded?

Um in this case it's not funded with general fund, which is always like kind of the big thing for us right now.

Is we're looking at uh uh, as you all know, a very significant structural deficit.

So uh to the extent that um, you know, things that come up that are important and not funded through general fund, and there's this there's a resource stream for those, those are ones that we would be more likely to bring and bring forward and put on consent.

Thank thank you.

Um I know uh I appreciate that and um just encourage us all as we move forward.

We all have to use we'll have to use our own discretion as well in more of our quest.

So I just appreciate hearing about the process.

So thank you.

Um item 19.

Uh thanks to the chief and the police department for um the uh securing the Office of Transportation of Traffic Safety Grant to step up traffic enforcement here in Berkeley through September 2026, as we've seen too many incidents of traffic violence on our streets.

Uh you know, we've been in conversation.

I know a number of our colleagues have been in conversation with the department.

How can we do more on the enforcement front to make sure that um we are getting a handle on what's happening?

So again, I appreciate securing an additional revenue source that will help contribute to that effort.

Um, uh, thank you to Councilmember Luna Par for moving item 28.

I support that.

And then lastly, I'd like to add uh 250 dollars from my office budget towards the Russell Street Halloween festivities.

I think that's it.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you very much.

Councilmember Humbert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, and I want to thank you for bringing the urgency item as well.

It's critically important, and I really appreciate your diligent work on on pulling that together.

Um, first of all, I want to um comment on consent item two, which is a staff preference for the Virginia Street Bikeway.

Thank you, staff, for all your great work on this.

I know it's been a long process, but when balancing safety of pedestrians and cyclists against the loss of a handful of parking spaces, the choice is clear.

And each of the affected homes, as I understand it, has a driveway anyway.

So, so the cost-benefit analysis is is really clear to me, and you made the right decision, and I appreciate and affirm it.

Um let's see, this has gone to action.

Quickly go through my agenda here.

Um this has gone to action.

And I'm getting to the the renewal of the Elmwood bid for calendar year 2026, and that's consent item 29.

I'm really thrilled and pleased to renew the Elmwood business improvement district for another year.

Our Elmwood shopping area with the only remaining cinema in town, the Elmwood, aside from the Pacific Film Archive, of course, is a treasure.

There are now very few vacancies in the district, and we have a wonderful set of small merchants plying their trades along the charming this charming part of College Avenue.

They're good restaurants, really interesting shops, including your basic bird, Mrs.

Dalloway's bookstore, along with Andrew Hahn's lovely stationary store and a plethora of others.

And don't forget the great restaurants like my favorite Gordo's Takeria, um, Baker and Common, Nabalam, King Yin, Five Tacos, Donatos, and so many others.

I can't name them all.

We have a good little grocery store in Ashby right below college.

And the famous and beloved Dream Fluff Donuts.

Again, I can't name them all or I'd violate our time rules.

I don't want to do that.

On the council consent item uh number 31, which is my item, Russell Street Halloween festivities.

I'm donating a thousand dollars from my discretionary budget.

I wanted to say thank you to my colleagues so far who have contributed and the colleagues who will contribute to this year's festivities.

And I want to especially thank the Russell Street neighbors and the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association who have put this on each year and carry on this treasured Berkeley tradition.

It's a privilege to be able to support this event each year.

Um my chief of staff, Eric wanted me to say thank boo for this, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that.

So with respect to this event, let's here's hoping it never gives up the ghost.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, thank you.

Um moving on to Councilmember Bartlett.

Uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

And uh I want to thank you, uh, Councilmore Humber for bringing forward the Halloween festival in Russell Street.

Uh, always quite a good event.

And I urge everyone to attend.

Uh it's very crowded though.

You gotta really have sharp elbows to navigate it, yeah.

Not gonna lie.

Um, yeah, so $200 to um to support this event, uh item 31.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Kessarwani.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

I also want to thank you for your leadership on the urgency item, and um I'm I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of that item to limit the use of city property and facilities for city purposes, uh, given the um the ongoing threat we face from uh federal um immigration and customs enforcement.

And uh I also wanted to call attention to, as others have done, item two is a Virginia Street bikeway that will create an uninterrupted connection between the North Berkeley Bart station and the regionally significant Ohlone Greenway.

Um, and this is very important given the future development of the station and the reduction in parking spaces that we will have there.

Um we do need to make sure that it is safe and easy to access the station without needing to drive.

So that one is very important.

And I also others have not mentioned item number 24, which is um I don't want to rank order them, but it is also very important.

Um, this is the contract to do the Ohlone Greenway modernization and safety projects, so that the improvements that you see right now from the BART station to Virginia Gardens that have been done by BART, essentially those improvements of widening the greenway and adding lighting and improving the crossings of streets at Cedar Rose and all of the streets all the way up to the Albany border.

All of that work will be done through this contract for the Aloney Greenway Modernization and Safety Project.

So that is a huge undertaking.

I know our public work staff have been working for multiple years to do the conceptual design and get the feedback, and I did an item to get some additional funding that was needed, so um, so that's a very important item for us.

And then finally, I wanted to be recorded as donating a hundred dollars to the very essential Russell Street Halloween festivities, item number 31.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Taplin.

Thank you.

On item 31, I would like to be recorded as contributing to 150 dollars.

Okay, uh, thank you.

Councilmember Tracob.

Sorry.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um there are many items on this consent calendar that represent um many years of work on the part of staff and members of this council.

So I want to thank everyone for your fortitude.

Uh I would like to speak to um a few.

Uh I would like to first of all echo um others' appreciation to the mayor for the urgency item to limit the use of city property and facilities for city and county purposes.

On item four, uh, which is a letter um we are sending to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors regarding opportunities to collaborate with Alameda County on homelessness programs outside of Berkeley.

Uh this represents um just the latest uh phase, but certainly not the beginning nor the end of an effort to ensure um that we are looking at regional solutions to um to continue to um fight um homelessness uh in the region and that um no city in including Berkeley can do uh it alone and that this would ensure um that we continue to partner with the county to make sure that everyone in the region is doing its fair share, and I also want to thank the mayor for her leadership as the um chair of the mayor's task force on this issue.

Um, I'm getting um feedback that my audio is very low, so I will try to speak louder.

There we go.

Um apologies.

Uh item nine.

Uh I want to thank council member uh Luna Para for the um excellent additions uh on the waiver of Sanctuary City Contracting Ordinance with Superian LLC for fund software.

Uh and I feel much more comfortable uh voting for this item with those additions.

Um item I'm going to for time um move past some other items.

Um, but I wanted to give uh a hundred dollars out of my D13 account for uh the Russell Street Halloween festivities.

And let me just make sure I think um yeah, on the item 18.

No, um I also um just want to say um I on the issue of Turtle Island, um, which is on the consent calendar uh tonight with the amended recommendation.

Um I very much and I I think I speak for many, if not all of us, when I say I look forward to a resolution of this item um in the most expeditious uh matter possible.

We want to get this right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Councilmember O'Keefe.

Thank you.

Um just two things.

I'd like to thank uh Councilmember for moving uh item 28 to action.

Appreciate that.

And I would like to be recorded as donating $250 dollars to the Russell Street item 31, which is one of the two best Halloween celebrations in Berkeley.

Mariposa being the other one, District 5.

Um, and I also just I got a hot tip.

I I read the item, but I didn't, I'll be honest, I didn't read the resolution that it was attached to it.

And I bet some of you didn't either, but you should because it's very, very funny.

Good work, Councilmember Humbert.

Oh, it's Eric.

Good work, Eric.

Okay, thank you very much, everyone.

Um, I also want to vote voice my support for number two, uh, which is the Virginia Street Bikeway.

Thank you very much to staff.

I know that those those decisions can be really challenging, but I just want to affirm that I'm very supportive.

And uh thank Council Member Lunapara for number nine, as well as um give 250 dollars to number 31 for council member Humbert's items.

So thank you all very much for that.

Okay, moving on to public comment on consent calendar and information items only.

If you are here for consent calendar and information items, please come on up to the front.

Do you mind just clarifying if the polled items will be up right after or would they be like at the end of the polled items will be on action and they are gonna go in the order of hold on?

Scrolling down.

Um, they will be on the I uh order of number 18, which is the authorization to encrypt Berkeley Police Department primary radio channels, and then number 28, which is the remove pre-transfer transfer eligibility restriction of the transfer tax rebate for wildfire hardening, and then it will go to 33, which is telegraph multimodal corridor project conceptual design, and then if people are here and still have comments on number 32, even though it's been moved to another agenda, they may give their public comments for item number 32.

All right.

Come on up, and you will have one minute apiece.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is David White.

I'm not to be confused with a person who has the same name and works in the city offices.

Um, I gave you all a handout called the uh Peralta Hopkins death trap, otherwise known as the amendment uh item number 24.

You heard the council member mention Cedar and Rose.

She didn't mention Hopkins and Peralta because that's the most dangerous intersection I've ever seen after the changes.

I live on Peralta, I've ridden a bicycle since you had to have a license to put carry it on bar.

I said, How is this gonna make me safer?

If I want to get to the pickle, well in the path, there's two ways I can do it under this construction.

Both of those ways make it more dangerous for me to do it.

I could go straight down Peralta to the stop sign at Hopkins, but I have to go over a a raised walkway, and I have the bulb pushing me out in the traffic, the way I could go along the red line right now.

Thank you.

Thanks for your comment, and we will take a look at this.

Totally unsafe.

She should take it on the consent calendar.

Thank you very much.

Um Vice Mayor Humbert is gonna run the comment.

I'll be right back.

Uh, speaking to item four, it's important to know that uh this letter is at least in part triggered by the not the denial by the county for another motel conversion under measure uh W County Measure W funds, and uh this is this is that they chose quantity over quality.

Our motel conversions have been exemplary at providing unhoused persons a place to stay that works with them on permanent housing while providing them privacy and dignity, and we need to continue these motel conversions.

This is really frightening because our other motel current motel conversions.

We are in jeopardy after 2026.

We can't even sustain them with outside money, so we have to be getting county measure w money or other money to continue this excellent model.

Uh thank you.

Thank you.

Next.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Mignani.

I live at 1425 Virginia Street.

I want to speak to item two and ask that it be taken off of the consent calendar and put over for another meeting.

We just learned less than 24 hours ago that this was coming up tonight, and that you were going forward with the plan.

It's uh one of the people who would lose a parking place.

And there are already two bike lanes, one a hundred feet from my curb uh into the BART station that goes directly to the Allone uh crossway.

That's what it was built for.

And there's also on on Delaware.

So I'm really hoping you would look into this more seriously than you have, and give the a chance.

We didn't even have time to write to you about this item being on the agenda.

So I'm hoping it will not stay on the consent calendar, and it'll be put over for another meeting.

That's my request.

I'm sorry the mayor didn't get to hear it.

Um I've got still I'm I'm opposing an item two being on the consent calendar, Mayor.

Ishii and hoping that you will move it over to another meeting so that those of us who live on that street will actually have chance to continue the conversation.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Andrea Altular.

I live at 1417 Virginia Street, so I would be directly impacted by the proposed plan A.

I'm strongly against the proposal, both for the way it would impact my neighbors and me, especially those of us with disability, and for the fact that it's an unnecessary outlay of taxpayer dollars.

Having been a cyclist for many years of my life, I'm well aware of the risk of cycling, but there's very little evidence of the risk of cyclists on this small section of Virginia Street based on existing conditions and many years of observation.

I literally have lived in my house for 36 years, never seen a single bike accident or been told about one.

The traffic diverter and stop sign have been here for many years, slows traffic.

The evidence for the need to build this is very non-existent to my thinking, but very specifically for my family and my husband deals with physical disabilities and has a blue disabled parking placard.

Our driveway is quite narrow, and getting in and out of the car is getting increasingly difficult for him in the driveway.

We're eligible for a designated disabled spot in front of our house, but if the protected bike lane is there, he would be denied that.

And if we park in our across our driveway, which is it would it would negate the need for the bike lane.

So thanks for your comment.

Imagine you have yourself an comment.

Thank you.

Please, please don't do this.

I mean, now we I'm sorry, your time's finished.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kit.

I want to comment on the urgency item that's been added and also on nine.

Uh I really appreciate Councilmember Lunapara's uh changes to nine.

I think those are really good changes.

But in both cases, I you really need to not underestimate ICE and the uh border patrol and so forth desire to push whatever boundaries there are uh and not to act legally.

So I hope that what you come up with for in terms of defending city property is really strong, uh, that for instance would forbid armed officers to go into the public libraries.

Um there's no reason for really anyone to take weapons into the public library unless it's the police responding to an event that has happened in that library, um, and I should not be allowed to come in with weapons, even though it is a public space.

Um, and in terms of the superior, I hope that this is a temporary thing and that you will look at getting out of contract with them because of their connections with ICE.

You can't really count on them not reporting to the ICE folks.

Thanks, Kit.

Hi, I'm Halle Fraser.

I'm um it's about consent item number 27.

I yield my time to Marlene Watson.

Thank you.

Okay, you will have two minutes.

Hi, my name is Susan, and I'm yielding my time to Marlene Watson.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Bernardo Lopez.

I'm not hitting my time for Marlene Watson.

Okay.

Thank you.

That is three.

I'm John Currell.

I'm also speaking about the Turtle Island Monument.

Sorry, uh Marlene is in Alaska on where she's she's on on she's on phone or on line.

Okay, somewhere.

Okay.

So we'll just give her three minutes.

Okay, go ahead.

Um, Lisa Gregg, the other artists from the turtle Island Monument, I think, should be either online or on phone.

You know, we were so excited that uh we're finally doing this.

I personally have waited 30 years for this moment, over 30 years.

You know, back in 1991, we create Arlene and Lee and Marlene, two Native American people who were working on Indigenous People's Day, which we we brought to the world here, and this was part of what we were doing.

They proposed Turtle Island Monument.

The fountain had been broken for 30 years, and uh they proposed this beautiful vision of transforming that that the fountain into a monument for for Native people in America, which does not exist anywhere.

The city council at the time, the mayor and city council, and the entire city got behind it enthusiastically, and shortly after it was done, it got swept up into this landmarking of the entire downtown city.

And uh the artists uh for 30 years they've been waiting for this.

I'm so sorry, but your time is up.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here and your work.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Betsy Morris, and I want to speak to item 16 and thank Scott Ferris uh for bringing this.

I understand it is for youth build, and I want to fully support uh uh continuing our tradition of supporting young people to get into work by offering internships or short-term employment.

I note that there's another almost six million on the consent calendar in the form of grants or actual contracts that you'll be signing or agreeing to tonight.

Another six million with a variety of skilled uh contractors, uh tree arborists, landscaping.

I would like to suggest considering uh a one percent uh tax uh request of our contractors and grants that we receive go to youth employment.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks, Betsy.

Thank you.

Moni Law, uh Moni Law, resident of Berkeley, Cal grad class of 82 USF Law School and Globeers.

Um, I endorse what the prior speaker just spoke to.

The importance of youth is so urgent right now with them having a bleak future, many of them not thinking they have an opportunity for education, let alone a job.

They get job training skills and pay.

There is a skills training that were prior programs that used to exist in Berkeley.

We do have youth works, but it was underfunded, and they have thousands of youth apply for a couple hundred jobs.

We need more employment.

Secondly, I'd like to support the fact that we uh give cultural appreciation, not cultural awaiture, and we are on unceded aloney land, and we should respectively honor the talent, years of work and brilliance of Lee Sprague Sprague and Marlene Watson.

35 years of their work should be honored and uplifted and put in place.

Let's see a Turtle Island monument.

Thank you.

Thanks, Moni.

Okay.

Hello, good evening.

Um, my name is Ilana Auerbach, and I also um support a Turtle Island Monument.

Um in the Civic Center.

I want to thank you, Cecilia, for trying to adhere to our sanctuary city contracting ordinance and want to echo um the speaker who said, yes, let's get out of this.

Let's try and unwind this.

I know you couldn't find something immediately, but this is good language, and we should try someone else who does not and isn't at risk of uh doing business with ice.

Uh the I am all for safe bikes, bicycle areas, and I I live right near there.

I ride my bike there all the time.

There's never there's no cars around.

There's no, there's generally I'm just uh the lone bike.

So I would really listen to the neighbors here and make sure emergency vehicles can get by.

Make sure you've done your due diligence, and does it make sense to spend however much?

I don't know how much you're spending on this.

But um take a look again, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think I have two minutes that are being yielded to me.

I see one, I see two.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh, members of the council.

Um, I'm speaking um in regard to action item uh I'm sorry, consent calendar item number four, a letter to Alameda County.

Board of Supervisors about opportunities to collaborate with Alameda County on homelessness programs outside of Berkeley.

I think that's a great idea.

I'm glad there's a letter going out.

What I want to say to you is that one of the collaborations that didn't work.

I'm sorry, we're about to enter into a new collaboration around emergency response because of the failure of the special care unit.

Alameda County is now going to be the provider in emergency response.

I I just want to say that I have served for six years as a mental health commissioner.

I have struggled and wrestled with this issue of provide getting care to people who need it in a timely manner.

Our city failed.

We failed.

That and and I would love an opportunity to really talk to you about why that special care unit failed.

The report that you got from RDA was absolutely flawed.

It did not get to the root cause.

One was the failure of the police department to cooperate with integrating the special care unit into the infrastructure of emergency response in our city.

They just just refused.

They don't want to cede any territory.

They don't want to cede one dollar of their budget to something that actually might work.

I'm disappointed, council members, because the Mental Health Commission is failing.

It is required by the state.

Councilmember Taplin never showed up.

Luna Parra came to a couple.

Kate Harrison came to one or two.

We can't get traction on these issues.

The mental health, and I'm not willing to give up any more of my time to sit for hours and hours and hours talking about things, researching them, creating proposals that go nowhere.

So I really want to ask you if you're gonna collaborate, you need some hands-on involvement.

I don't know who you guys imagine is doing that work, but it's not getting done.

The failure of the special care unit did not teach us any lessons.

What are we yielding from those millions of lost dollars and those lives that could have been improved or even saved with a proper emergency response?

And I would love to meet with you.

Other comments online.

Yes.

Uh so now we're going to public comments on consent and information items.

We're going to um people participating remotely.

So if you'd like to speak to a consent calendar item, of course, noting that item 18.

Um regarding the um police radios, that is on action.

So now is not the time to comment on that.

Also, item 28 regarding the transfer tax rebate has been moved to action.

So now is not the time to comment on that one either.

Um you'll have one minute, and the first speaker is Ben Gerhard Stein.

Hi everyone.

Um, this is Ben Gerhardstein with Walkbike Berkeley.

Um, good evening.

Um, Walkbike Berkeley strongly supports the two Aloney Greenway items that you're looking at tonight, item two, which provides standard width bike lanes and sidewalk also on Virginia Street connecting the Looney Greenway to North Berkeley BART.

And item 24, the construction contract for safety improvements on the Alone Greenway to the north of North Berkeley BART.

Yesterday we joined many of you in a celebratory ribbon cutting for the North Berkeley BART um pedestrian and bike improvements, and we're excited for you to approve these items tonight, which will connect and build on those investments that BART made.

Uh, we commend staff for the excellent planning work that went into the Loney Greenway plans uh that are going to construction.

Um, along with the Milvia Street bikeway, that was a top priority from our 2017 bicycle plan.

And so it's it's great to finally be getting to uh construction on that project.

Uh we're pleased with the staff recommendation for Virginia Avenue, um, prioritizing safe access for people walking and biking over preserving a few parking spots.

And your your time is uh is up, but thank you very much for very much.

Okay, next is George Littman.

Hi.

Uh I have uh Carrie Sanders here who is going to cede me her minute.

Um hi, I'm here, and I I would like to cede to George.

Thank you.

Two minutes, George.

Very good, thanks.

Um, I have uh would like to express my concerns about item nine.

Um, I agree with everything that Kit Stagnore said on the topic.

I'd like to clarify what this is really about.

This item grants a waiver for administrative and financial software from Superior, which is part of and has been absorbed by Center Square LLC.

This item was made necessary because the vendor is a public safety company that cannot declare it will not work with ICE.

I also appreciate the clarifications from Councilmember Luna Parra with new language for this item.

It is certain that the vendor will at some point work with ICE or other immigration agencies or national security security agencies, which will put our residents at risk and violate our new sanctuary ordinance.

From my background in IT project management, I know that replacing mission critical and complex software is a big job and could take years to accomplish.

If we depend on this vendor to declare they have begun contracting with immigration, we will likely be stuck with them for years into the future.

I've heard that the proposed contract extension is only for two years, and it appears from the wording of the item that uh uh that city management is looking for a different system.

If so, that's good news, and it gives the city a target of two years to replace the vendor.

It would be wise to speed up the replacement process and find a vendor outside of the public safety industry.

And just while I'm on this topic, I want to refer to the history of the nuclear-free Berkeley Act waiver that was granted to the vendor to a vendor 3M for their work with the public library some five to ten years ago.

The council made a wise decision at that point to give the library two years to find a suitable vendor, and the library was able to manage the switch in that time.

Let's get started on that now.

Thanks, George.

Ready, thank you.

Okay, next is Nathan Meisell.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Um, I just want to thank Council Maluna Para for her work on item nine in regards to the contract.

Um, certainly doing all we can to be aligned with our sanctuary city status.

Makes a lot of good sense.

Uh I'm supportive of the bike items as well.

And I believe I forget which item is the uh traffic enforcement contracts for the traffic bureau, but um, you know, speaking of that, the public records request I mentioned related directly to that type of work.

And it took again four to fifty days from the original requests on that the PAB put out for the bike team text messages to come up.

And that was a severe violation of the public records act.

And if the city's going to rely on public records for access to any other type of communications, it should definitely work on those response times thank you thank you okay next is Lisa Bullwinkle good evening everybody uh I'm Lisa Bullwinkle I'm on the art commission and I am the chair of the policy committee and I'm the one that put forth the resolution number or the referral number 27 concerning Turtle Island in the hope that we can have an incredibly beautiful art project in the center of our city that should have been there a long time ago and not live with a hole in the ground for the next 40 years.

So thank you for pushing this forward and I hope that when it comes back to you you'll rectify this mistake that the city made and um help these artists come to some healing thank you.

Thank you Lisa okay um next is Marlene and can you give me a sense of how many folks are left there's five more okay thank you this is Marlene Watson I'm a graduate of DC Berkeley College of Engineering a master's in architecture master's of civil engineering I just received the academy of distinguished alumni um inductee of class of 2024 um I started this project when I was a graduate student in a college of uh architecture at Berkeley and assisting and working with Lee on this project um we were contacted about three years ago by the Parks and rec and the civic arts departments um and it was capital funds with the state funds it was a capital project and an art project and we spent almost like two and a half to three years on this project you had the the native designers but we were sidelined we were not told and we never got our the city never got our consent to have another uh non native artist to take credit for our and get contracted and paid and a resolution um uh for this project and and as we met with them zoom meetings uh throughout all their time um and they kept saying that the state funds you know there was an urgency but you can't have uh capital funds with a capital project on a native uh design with native designers and the native uh community support to get the the funding for this project to continue after all these years and then go to bid as a non-native project and I try to say that for the three years uh to to Ferris and uh to Lavorne both of them and to the the whole design team they were well aware of it but yet they still made decisions to go forward to sideline Lee and I and try to say that we had an issue.

Well our issue was be was that we knew we were being undermined and behind our backs and the city council and the mayor had recognized this non-native artist all along and so that that part um wouldn't happen in any other project and 30 years of doing architectural engineering work in the native land, a native uh Indian country.

Um, I've never experienced that and it never came across that ever.

And for, you know, I grew up in Oakland um from the Bay Area.

All the natives in the community have known me and my family since since I was we're all you know transplanted from the the reservations to the boarding schools to Oakland.

And I was a structural engineer major at 16 years old at Berkeley.

And so, um I'm proud of what I've accomplished in life, and I'm uh proud to uh be still part of this project, and I appreciate that the Civic uh commission is bringing this forth as uh an action item, and this should have happened long time ago, and for us to be here to say that it needs to go back to the city manager, it's just on call for and so uh Lee and I uh need to have another contract to be able to um to continue this project according to the original design, and we need it to to uh the city to recognize what the wrongs they have done.

Marlene, thank you so much for your comment.

I appreciate it, and um thank you all for I know you gave her your minutes as well.

Okay.

Next is why we walk O May.

Should be able to unmute.

Oh, we can uh you can come back.

Uh next is uh caller with a phone number ending in 405 I drunk and not hurt uh three thanks one uh uh thing the Virginia should have time to tune in about what uh should happen.

24 hours no, really not the way our city should run and shame of the people who gave the residence only twenty-four hours.

Uh second uh bravo, all the council members who contributed to the Russell Halloween.

I thought what did our mayor said, no, be at El Mortal Celebrations because of anxiety of kidnapping by I by the fact uh canceled but Russell can continue.

That's all my question.

Thank you.

Okay, next is um Theo Gordon.

Uh hello, council.

Um, so there's a lot of great things on the agenda.

Um, I won't have time to support all of them.

Uh but I want to specifically say that I'm supportive of the urgency item.

Thank you for for picking that up.

Um, and then I wanted to specifically talk as well about item two, uh, say that I'm uh strongly in support of having a great bike lane.

We need mode shift, and that means prioritizing bikes and transit.

Um and this is a great place with bike lanes and transit right there.

Um every bike lane that we try to build has a few residents who oppose who support bike lanes in general, but for some reason this specific one because of their personal parking uh is a problem.

If we listen to every one of these groups of you know particular residents, we would never have built any bike lanes.

So thank you for keeping this on consent and following our existing city policies that prioritize mode shift and bike lanes and building this stuff faster.

Uh we need more concrete in the ground and less paperwork.

Okay.

Thank you, Theo.

Let's go back, try why we walk O May one more time.

You should be able to unmute.

Do you want to spell it?

How is it spelled?

I'm sorry.

W I W I I W A K O H M E.

There's, and you're unmuted.

I you should be able to.

Okay.

There you go.

Yes.

That's my uh indigenous name.

Yep.

I'm from the crane clan.

I'm from Gun Lake.

I'm speaking from the reservation here.

I just want to thank you for bringing this issue up.

It's been 35 years.

Just because a city appropriates our artwork to a non-native artist doesn't mean it's right.

The city needs strong protections in resolution form to protect future native artists and their rights from being appropriated.

I would also like to recommend that we have a truth and reconciliation committee.

That we can look at this in depth.

What has happened for the last 35 years should never have happened?

We've been gaslighted.

The harder we fight for our rights as artists, the more we're portrayed as being puppity.

So Berkeley should never find itself in this position again.

I'm hoping that we get to sit down through truth and reconciliation process.

That that's it.

That's the last speaker for um consent items.

Yes, the last uh consent and information item speaker.

I just really quickly someone asked about uh why we canceled Dia de los Muertos, and I just want to say that it was the organizers who canceled that event, um, because they didn't feel because there were people who said that they didn't feel safe.

And yeah, that was a a horrible thing, and it is really sad that we had to cancel that.

It was such a loss for the community.

Um, and you know, certainly has nothing to do with our our Halloween and our support of our of our Halloween celebration.

So thank you all.

Um council members, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda calendar?

So moved.

And just to be clear because there were a lot of things that changed, we took two things off of the consent calendar.

They moved on to action.

That was items just to do this again, item number.

Sorry.

So we can okay, sorry.

That was item 18, which was the authorization to encrypt Berkeley Police Department.

Sorry, folks, folks, folks, please.

Council members, please.

Uh that's 18, which is the authorization to encrypt Berkeley Police Department primary radio radio channels, 28, which was the remove the remove pre-transfer eligibility restriction of the transfer tax rebate for wildfire hardening.

So those two things are moved off onto action.

And then um we added an urgency item, and also uh there were some adjustments made by council member Lunapara to item number nine.

And the um the city managers, yes.

Request on item 27 to have it referred uh to the city manager to consider the commission's recommendation report back to the council.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and sorry, did someone make the motion?

No secondary.

And I seconded.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

To approve the consent calendar, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes, Taplin.

Yes, Bartlett, yes, Tregab.

I.

O'Keefe.

Yes.

Lackaby.

Yes.

Lunapara.

Yes.

Humbert.

Yes.

And Mayor Ishi.

Yes.

Okay, consent calendars approved.

Thank you.

So um folks, we have still a few items on our action calendar, but I'd like us to take a 10-minute break.

So we will take a 10 minute stretch break and be back at 7 57.

Recording stopped.

La procession, on est allé, on a eu la position, on a eu un contenu, on a eu un discussion, si on se pose, si on se rend, on se pose, on se pose, on Recording in progress.

I think it's one of the answers.

Okay.

Sorry.

Sorry about that, folks.

Let's call this meeting back to order.

All right.

We are moving on.

We have finished the consent calendar and we are moving on to action.

And as you know, we have more things on action now.

So we are gonna move on to item eighteen, which is authorization to encrypt Berkeley Police Department primary radio channels.

Um and I believe we have some questions for the chief.

So I think we should start there.

Oh, just sorry.

We have some questions for the chief.

Sorry, one moment.

Is that for me?

Yes.

Okay, give me a second.

Okay, thank you.

Um, first, um do you mind uh elaborating a little bit about some of the alternative approaches that you've explored and why you believe that they might not be feasible?

Sorry, and actually before that, could you just give us a little background like how we got here?

Thanks.

Yeah, that'd be great.

I actually maybe it'll uh I can cover some of the questions in advance.

So uh we're here tonight um to ask uh council's permission to encrypt our police department's uh primary channels.

And so as background, uh every law enforcement agency in both Alameda and Contra Costa County um shares uh technology and infrastructure.

For our police uh uh radio communications that allows us to share costs and also ensure interoperability for mutual aid um events.

So uh we brought this item forward tonight because of three really distinct changes of conditions um that um um made it important for us to make this request.

So first, um this month every single law enforcement agency in Alamina and Contra Costa County moved to encryption, except Berkeley.

Um this change was done to align with state and federal mandates as directed by the California DOJ, which required protection of uh personal identifying information and criminal justice information.

Um, to if we're not to be transmitted over an unencrypted or a public channel.

The second is we've had a number of documented cases where suspects are using live radio traffic via scanner apps to coordinate their responses to evade capture.

Um so what's highly concerning to me about that is that we've had three of those specific instances in the last month and a half.

We've got had several more over the last several years.

Um these have ranged from uh suspects involved in shootings, robberies, uh, commercial burglaries, uh, vehicle thefts, where they've either acknowledged or admitted in an interview that they uh were using a scanner app.

We've located the scanner app running, or we have evidence that during our investigation that um we can tell that they are monitoring our app.

Third, uh one of the workarounds of switching to an alternative channel.

Um so uh that's no longer feasible with our current staffing level in the communications center.

And additionally, it removes our ability to have everyone who's responding to an incident on a same operational channel at the same time, giving having the access to the full information that it's that's uh there.

Encryption addresses these concerns that have emerged um and become more prevalent recently.

We do understand that there's a level of access that's going to be lost by moving to encryption, and we want to continue to provide as much information as we can as quickly as we can that's accurate.

Um so we did look at a number of alternatives.

Um any option that didn't resolve the critical concerns that we raised weren't viable options for us, and this included setting a time delay on radio traffic or having a media encryption key, because that still led to PI and I or public uh personal identifying information being accessible publicly in violation of state and law mandates, as well as our broader privacy concerns.

Um we were, however, able to accommodate a number of uh uh options to ensure that we have ongoing transparency and as much information as possible, sharing as possible, at the same time we're we're doing that balance.

And um Arlo can talk through uh what those options are that we are going to be able to implement as we move this item forward.

Yeah, so we landed on their connected.

There you go.

Uh we landed on three measures.

Uh so first, the fire department radio channel will remain unencrypted.

Um, and that channel often carries uh timely information on critical incidents like fires uh and collisions.

Um second, the police department will maintain public access to information through our media releases, our Nixil alerts, um, our social media updates.

Um, and then finally, as we shared in our supplemental, uh, we intend to launch uh a near real-time call log on our transparency hub.

Uh this uh call log will pull information from the CAD system, that's our computer aided dispatch system, as calls come in and display that information uh including call type, so whether it's a disturbance or collision or a robbery, um, the time that that call came out, the source of the call, whether whether it was an emergency call to 911 or if it was a non-emergency call, um, the priority level.

So, for example, our uh priority level one is the higher priority level and we'll detail that.

Um, the progress status, was it a cold report?

Uh, is it an ongoing incident?

Did it occur just prior?

Um, and as well as uh a general location of the call.

Uh so this will be publicly available on the transparency hub.

Um already on the transparency hub, we uh update our calls for service data set on a daily basis.

Uh so this near real-time call log will bridge the gap from uh when a call comes out and when uh the current data set gets updated.

So I know this will be a different workflow for people that are accustomed to listening in on the radio channel, but we're excited to work with those users uh to iterate on this call log to make it as valuable as possible.

Um so I'm excited about the solution.

I I think it can be a win-win for public safety and transparency.

I just just to be clear, we we knew that this um that there were going to be concerns around transparency.

We took that into account.

Um it was important for me to balance that in light of the the real officer safety concerns that I had and the privacy rights of our community.

And so um, you know, uh it was a thoughtful process.

I appreciated the engagement from both the community and and council members around how we could find solutions that worked.

Um, and at this point, we'd be happy to answer any other specific questions if there are any.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um I know Councilmember Lenopara has some questions that came from the community, and so I'm gonna uh pass it over to her.

Thank you.

Um I guess the first question is the same.

Um, could you elaborate on some other alternative per approaches that you explore that other um jurisdictions might do, but and why you think they will might not be feasible?

Yeah, so for example, Burbank has a 30 minute delay.

Um any delay doesn't prevent the access to personal identifying information or criminal justice information, so that doesn't resolve that that state and federal mandate.

Um we looked at uh radio encryption key for the media or the media having their own radio.

Again, that doesn't resolve the the PI and I um and criminal justice information um uh solution.

Um and so uh, you know, the other solutions that were raised to us were having a call log.

So we looked very hard at what uh San Francisco had in place, what CHP has in place, um how other jurisdictions are communicating and whether they're communicating around that, um, and and then looked at uh options with the fire department uh channel with fire channel, you know, again to try and find as many ways as we can continue to provide um updated information in as near real time as possible.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate that.

Do you mind um clarifying the difference between PII and other types of identifying information that might still pose risks to individuals and why those need to be protected?

Yes, certainly.

So um uh PNI is a very specific thing.

It's it's the name, your birth date, so security number, identifying pieces of information.

Um, it's pretty clear on how that being publicly available could be problematic.

There's other pieces of privacy um and safety that affect the community based on information being out in a public way.

For example, um, if we have a witness or a victim that's reporting a crime, oftentimes we get their name and their phone number, and officers on their way to a scene are getting information about where the caller's calling from, what they're observing, um, what happens, some of the basic facts that an officer needs to respond safely.

So I don't think that individuals who are calling are clear that when they say those things to a dispatcher, knowing that the police are gonna come and help resolve something, that what they are saying might be in a publicly available forum if by anyone who's following that scanner app.

So that's what we're talking about a little bit about the safety and privacy.

If someone who is a suspect in a crime is able to use that scanner app and figure out who's the person that called on them or reported on them and then wants to do something about it, um that's concerning to me.

Thanks.

And sorry, I just want to comment for the folks who are standing up.

You're welcome to stand there, but just know that we've got a lot of questions.

So you might be standing for a while.

Um, so just want to make sure you know in case you need to sit.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, okay, thank you so much.

Um my next question is around the um supplemental that you brought forward.

Do you mind walking through how that information would be auto functionally auto-populated into the initial dispatch to the publication on the transparency hub and what that would look like?

Yeah, so um a call comes in, dispatchers immediately start entering in information into the CAD interface.

So what is the general call type, where is it occurring, and so on.

Um those fields that data gets transferred to uh an interim database every couple of minutes.

Um and then every night that data goes to uh a reporting database that's more stable.

And that reporting database is what we then pull and upload into the transparency hub uh currently.

So we're we're proposing for this real-time uh call log is to pull from that production database that's getting updated every couple of minutes and updating that information to to the transparency hub.

Thank you.

Um I am wondering if there's any steps that you think we could take to minimize the delay between when a call occurs and when the information is published on the transparency hub.

Yeah, um so we're we're balancing two things there.

One are our IT um limitations or abilities uh as well as the public safety um concerns.

Uh so we're we're working with IT to uh figure out how often we can run queries against that uh production database.

Um, and they're gonna be an important resource as we figure out how to optimize that refresh rate.

But we also want to consider uh the the public safety concerns if as a call comes in uh that information is gonna be available uh often before even an officer is dispatched to that call.

Uh so we do want to uh make sure there is some delay uh that we get officers on the scene handling a situation um before we're putting all the details out there on the transparency hub.

Thank you.

Um in conversations with some community organizations, um there was a couple more, there are a couple more suggestions of things we could ideally add to um the short-term um transparency hub information, including, and I'm curious what you think about uh these additions, um, including it in specifically around collisions, um, the type of collision with parties involved, for example, whether it's vehicle and pedestrian, vehicle and cyclist, vehicle and vehicle, what what kind of collision it is, um, the status of individuals involved, um, and an update on an eventual update on the situation, such as like the level of response or the cause of collision.

Um, this is already done on the transparency hub, but the thought is that it would be more effective if centralized in this kind of initial.

Yeah, uh, so we are able to to add some features specifically around collisions and and we're in contact with and uh have a meeting set and are excited to work with uh groups like Walkbike Berkeley to make sure that this call log is um as valuable as possible to to them for their work.

Um we are limited by what information is available to dispatchers at the time the the call comes in, right?

Um as well as by what the CAD interface allows us to submit in a structured way.

Um, it and some of that information that you mentioned comes after the course of an investigation, uh which of course would not be available in real time.

Uh and that's exactly the information that we we share on the traffic page of the transparency up.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

Um definitely not expecting like the the information that you could have in the short term, basically.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And and we're excited to um you know figure out the best way to set up the call log to meet the the needs of um those groups.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Those are my questions.

Thank you, council member.

Um and other we're gonna do questions and then public comment and then council comments.

So um council member Humbert, did you have any questions?

I do have some questions.

Um I want to preface the questions.

Well, first of all, I want to thank Councilmember Luna Para for her good and probing questions and eliminated some of the questions I had on my list.

Um I'm favorable to this, I just want to preface that, especially with the supplemental, um, if cities around us are encrypted and we're not, we become a target for these organized criminal crews.

The first question I have is I understand that switching between an unencrypted channel for run-of-the-mill items and an encrypted channel for high security communications is not feasible given our current depleted dispatch staffing.

If we can staff up, you know, knock on wood, uh, can we look at this again?

Can we look at that possibility of toggling back and forth?

Well, and that's what I was trying to drive out a little bit.

So if you imagine um uh officers are responding to a scene, and you want every officer that responds to that scene to have um to be aware of everything that's important for that scene.

And um, if you have a piece of confidential information, you've either got everybody has to switch to that channel and then switch back.

That's challenging, or some people will switch to that channel that channel and get that information and others will not have it.

You know what I mean?

So it creates a breakdown.

Um any time you have to go to another channel to do work, you're missing what's happening on the primary channel, and you're also um potentially getting information that other people don't have.

So it's really not dependent upon um dispatch staffing levels.

If you have enough dispatchers and you were going to a priority call, you could move everyone over to that channel that was going to that call.

There's less operational awareness for officers going to maybe other calls to know whether they needed to break and go and assist on that.

But yes, technically, you you know what I mean.

If you had enough dispatchers, you can get that could be an option where you just moved everybody over to that.

And we'll do that sometimes on critical incidents.

We'll move to another channel.

So if, you know, um, I hope we we get up to full staffing.

Maybe we could take another look at that, you know, because anyway, that that would be at least something.

Um also, and and and I think I heard the answer to this, um, will you work with the community and press to enhance the call log data?

And it sounds like you've already answered that question.

You're willing to do that, you're already gonna meet as I understand it with walk bike Berkeley.

I think that's a great thing.

And you're meeting with the press, I hope, um, for for their ideas and what they need.

So, it's not just the call log.

I I want to continue conversations around how we can pass information um that's could that's a verified information in in ways that are more efficient and effective.

And certainly whenever we have a community safety issue, that's when you'll see a Nixel go out about an area, you know, um avoid an area or areas is cordoned off or something, or you know, a shelter-in-place kind of order, that's what Nixel's for.

Um, but there's absolutely space that we can step into to um improve our communications both with the media and our advocacy groups uh in light of what's happening here.

Okay, thank you.

Those were my questions.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um, going on to Councilmember Blackaby and then Councilmember Traeg up after.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Chief.

Thanks, Arlo, for being here.

I just also want to thank you for being willing to engage with us and members of the community.

Um, I know a number of us have been um throwing some ideas at you.

Uh and it was really important to me, and I think to many of us, that um if we're it, you know, look, we officer safety, community privacy, these things are paramount issues, and so we want to make sure that we do right by the folks who are who are there who are serving us.

But at the same time, if we are reducing transparency in one area, it was really important to me, and I know it's important to you, and we've been working on this to find how we can add more transparency in other ways.

So I appreciate that this feels like movement in that direction.

I don't want to thank you for that.

Um, on the log itself, um, so this is basically just gonna be kind of a feed of the CAD, right?

Are you envisioning any filters on it, or is it really gonna be pretty much the whole thing?

Yeah, so there will there will be um like if we won't publish any uh address information for sensitive call types, for example, okay.

Um so that there will be a few filters built in to protect potentially sensitive information.

Okay, uh, but otherwise it'll be uh uh a log of every call that comes in.

Okay, yeah, because uh just kind of putting it in context, it does feel like what we're talking about, you know, up until now, because folks have been able to monitor the radio, the kind of onus has been on um members of the media and members of the public to sort of find the information and do with it as they will.

But in a sense, this is gonna require a bit of a culture shift, and then that's too strong, but it's gonna it requires the department to be more proactive, because now we can't just rely on everyone having access to whatever data, we have to be proactive and making sure we're putting the data out there in the ways that's appropriate.

So again, I just thank you for already kind of making that shift, but just to comment that then it just it's gonna require I think everybody to just be that becomes an important consideration on a daily basis, and certainly when it comes to you know key emergency events.

Um we talk about what there I know there are already protocols now, but so we're talking about the day-to-day, you know, um log for key emergency events or community events.

Can you also talk about how that process works and are is there any enhancement we can do in terms of putting information out?

Uh press conferences, the Nixel alerts.

Like, how does that work?

Oh, yeah, so um uh and just one small point of clarification about um the call log locations.

We will be putting locations out where incidents are happening, but we won't be putting a specific address.

So it'd either be the block of or the closest intersection.

I just wanted to clarify that point real quick.

Um, and then so as far as um when we have a larger critical incident or event going on, um our RPIO is activated um around that.

Um, we'll often set a media staging point, or we'll become a primary point of contact, um, even if um it's an off-duty time, you know, weekend or or night, um, our watch commander will hand that responsibility over to the our press public information officer to have uh more regular updates.

It was not lost on me um in communications with council members about um the experience of someone who is um maybe on the outskirts or involved in a critical incident needing information and how and how they um can get regular updates.

And so I brought that back to our public information officer and our team to talk about um and our watch commander talk about how recognizing that important community need just to have more information, you know.

You know, we're always really worried about making sure it's verified information and and um good information, but just to let them know we're still working on getting verified information or to let them know things they can do to stay safe, or to give some reassurance that you know that was really helpful for me to hear, and certainly um it's something we're gonna start to implement.

Thank you, Chief.

Thanks, Arlong.

Thank you, Councilmember Trakeup.

Did you have questions?

I do.

Um, and I I before I ask my questions, I also want to echo what others have said.

I've appreciated my I and my um team have uh spoken with uh the chief on this matter and um just really appreciate your continued engagement with uh council and the community.

Um I just want to um make sure um there is a common understanding.

Um so can you just confirm um if um is it true that if we do not take action, um Berkeley will be the only jurisdiction in both Alameda County and Contra Costa to be um say in a different uh say using a different security protocol than um our neighboring jurisdictions, that's correct.

Okay, can you confirm um how um this work around um in supplemental to uh is it similar to or different than uh what the city and county of San Francisco is doing?

It's similar.

Okay.

And my last question without uh, you know, and you can go into whatever level of detail feels appropriate, um, but beyond um what you've already said about who would have access to this data now that would use have the potential to use it for nefarious means.

Um who else or which other agencies may potentially have access to information on an unsecured line?

Yeah, I think the question is if we don't encrypt who else might be listening.

Um, and you know, one of the things that struck me was uh last week when we were working on um a possible uh influx of National Guard personnel and and um additional immigration agencies, federal immigration agencies in our city, they too would have access to our scanner app.

Thank you, no further questions.

Thank you.

Um any other council members have questions.

Okay, I have just two real quick questions.

Um I know you said near real time, and you were saying minutes.

Can you just like do know or is it you're just not sure yet?

I just want to make sure I understand.

Uh yeah, like I said, we'll have to balance between those two priorities, but it'll it'll fall between um it'll be under 30 minutes.

Okay, under 30 minutes.

Okay.

That's good.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And then I think that maybe you mentioned also increasing Nixel alerts or different types of Nix alerts.

Could you speak to that more?

Because I know that that was something that you were interested at some point, Chief, to use Nixel alerts maybe a little differently.

Well, so we right now we use Nixel alerts for um, I think you've seen that missing persons, uh, a road closure, uh, avoid an area alerts.

Um, and so we certainly it's a balance, it's a balance between not over-reporting on a method of communication because when it's an emergency, we want people to know it's something important.

Um, but we do, but like I said, it's not lost on me that communicating more about a specific event might be helpful.

Um, so one option is we put a Nixel out at the start of an event, and we, you know, to sort out some way either through our social media channels or press officer where we're like, hey, if you're interested in keeping track of this event, here's the place to get information, or make sure you're following our Instagram or whatever, you know, whatever it is, so that we can communicate that more regularly.

Um, you know, um, and/or balancing not an overuse of Nixel, but knowing that's a first step to get communication with people.

That's great, that's very helpful.

Thank you, uh, both.

Okay, so we are gonna move on to public comment, and you will each have one minute.

Sorry, no, that was a long way.

I warned you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Hello.

Um, I just wanted to share a couple of things about encryption that concern me about this.

Um, encrypting police radio communications undermines community trust, transparency, and public safety.

First, it restricts our First Amendment right to observe and hold authorities accountable on an essential form of it is an essential form of community safety, especially in light of the promises made after the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor to increase accountability in Berkeley.

Um, open access to police activity allows residents to ensure that public safety systems are serving community fairly and effectively.

Police misconduct is a public health issue, particularly when many violent encounters stem from mental health calls where armed response often escalates rather than resolves crises.

Uh, I believe that true safety comes from community care and community observation is a vital part of that care.

Secondly, encrypting police radios blocks journalists and residents from receiving timely information about emergencies such as shootings, uh mental health crises, and protest response.

Thank you for your comments.

Thanks.

Yay!

Go ahead.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, I do have some yielded moments.

Uh one blake.

Are you still here?

Um I don't see him, but you'll have but you'll have three minutes.

Well, with all respect, I've got 35 years of trying to hold the Berkeley police accountable.

Do I get a one minute for every 10 years?

My name is Andrea Pritchon.

In 1990, I started Berkeley Cop Watch with others.

For 35 years, I've walked the streets of this town trying to hold these police accountable.

I've got hundreds, if not thousands of hours of directly monitoring police, because you know what?

Homeless people in this town, people with mental health disabilities, police misconduct happens to them all the time.

We've got the videos, we're happy to show them to you if given a forum, but under the proposed system that the chief has offered, we will merely be analyzing statistics.

Yes, we listen to the scanner, we go there, we document, ask Draco, ask the police accountability board that isn't here for some unknown reason.

How many complaints come from us?

Because we speak for those who can't speak.

We speak that if you turn this system into a was instead of a is that all that all that will be gone.

And the police can continue.

You guys have a little bubble that you live in.

I hope it's a good one.

But where is the community input?

How is it the chief gets to propose legislation on the very day that it gets voted on?

Where is our constituency?

Where's our community?

Where is the community of people who are directly affected by this?

The trend in this town is towards secrecy and digitization.

You've got drones, you want you want all kinds of of digital responses.

You want to close ranks.

How will you hold them accountable?

We are the only real accountability in this town.

And it's our videos on Instagram to let people know what's really going on.

And if you continue to just feed yourselves on the on the pre-digested summaries coming from the chief on the same day that you're taking a vote, you do a grave disservice.

Yes, Berkeley will be.

If we continue to have unencrypted channels, yes, we would be the only one.

And if everybody in this county turns fascist and collaborates with ICE, does that mean we'll do it too?

There was another time when Berkeley was the only one when Berkeley in 1973 was the only city in America that had civilian oversight.

That was a time when leaders led, not followed.

That they stood up and had a little courage.

What will you do for us?

How will you ensure that we get to directly observe police?

We can't watch them if we can't find them.

How will you help that part of the community?

This talk of community that you have behind closed doors, behind offices, or was that all happening in the chief's office?

Is that the community?

Thanks, Andrea.

Next speaker.

Come move up closer.

Yeah, so you can head straight to the next speaker.

Go ahead.

So out in the real world.

It's as if the police are not opaque enough, unaccountable enough, uncooperative enough already.

And that's not even um that's that's not even accounting for all the exemptions that they already have to use encryption.

And a lot of people are just wondering what the hell you people are thinking.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, I'm Glenn Turner from District 5.

And I'm actually shocked that all these other places are getting encryption, and it's only Berkeley that hasn't joined the club.

Because this crime is down.

If you look at things, if you actually look at some of the statistics, everything except arson is down.

So where is all this paranoia coming from?

We have been hyped up to a vigilance of dangers everywhere, but it's not.

And what's even more concerning is public record acts are not being observed and available.

I'd like to see body cams on all these police along as connected to these reports.

I want to see whether they're smothering some person with a mental illness, piling on, you know, somebody.

We we should be taking care of people, not just surveilling everybody constantly.

This has got to stop.

Thank you.

Thank you, Glenn.

Um, hello, council.

My name is Sherry, and I'm speaking as a UC Berkeley student, constituent of District A, and on behalf of Cop Watch Berkeley.

The encryption of these radio channels will negatively impact the community's access to information and reflect negatively on BPD in terms of necessary transparency and policing.

This will also prevent journalists from reporting critical breaking news in a timely manner to inform the community and will prevent organizations like Cop Watch Berkeley and any community member from monitoring public servants such as the police.

UC Berkeley also has an alert system called Warn Me, and it's under review for its advocacy.

Last year, when there's a shooting on the campus, they provided a very late and vague warning.

These new systems will always be slower and less effective.

This is just one example of how it benefits the community to have open police channels.

I urge you all to vote against.

Thank you.

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

Uh, my name is Audrey.

I'm a UC Berkeley student here.

Um, and I just want to talk about why we shouldn't approve the encryption of police channels.

Already the police department has the ability to encrypt communications.

You can see it in the writing of the item itself.

Sensitive information is gonna continue to be protected.

Another example I want to bring up is Palo Alto Police Department initially encrypted its data but opened it back up in 2022, and the PD in Palo Alto told Berkeley Scanner that they have not encountered major major problems as a result of this decision.

In 2021, the Berkeley City Council majorly voted to uphold the First Amendment and the spirit of transparency requiring unencrypted radio traffic in most cases.

But what has truly changed since then?

For many people, concerns about our constitutional rights and government secrecy has only increased.

Now is not the time to break Berkeley's reputation of transparency.

Important police radio channels and information are already encrypted.

We don't need to encrypt the public's last access to police radios.

Please do not approve the encryption of police.

Thank you.

I have a minute from Paul Blake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So just days, please, counsel.

Just days after ICE was deployed to our county.

You're going to cloak the police radio in secrecy.

This is the exact opposite of what we need in this moment of rooting of fascism and authoritarianism that's rooting getting rooted in our country.

What we need is courage and creativity.

Can I have your attention, y'all?

Everybody's on their phones.

Wow.

It's it's really hard when you thank you.

Uh, yes, you're listening, and and thank you, Mayor.

But courage and creativity following in silencing the radio channel because everyone around us is doing it is not the right reason to do it.

Capitulating to the demands of Jen Lewis is not the reason to do it.

Everything that comes before this council that has to do with public safety, that the that Jen Lewis may not be in agreement with.

Where does it go?

It goes to the public safety policy committee.

Everything goes there first.

How come this didn't go there first?

They didn't get to weigh in.

Where is our police accountability board?

We voted 85% of us.

We want police oversight.

We want transparency, we want accountability.

This is the exact opposite of what we want.

Where is the police accountability board?

They put out a press release, and they're saying at a minimum, send this to that public safety committee.

Engage in true community.

Don't talk to just walk bike Berkeley and the reporters.

What about Berkeley Cop Watch?

What about other community organizations?

Have you talked to Friends of Adeline?

Have you talked to where do we go?

Consider the homeless, all of the people that are supporting the far most vulnerable and marginalized people.

Have you talked to the undocumented community here?

I don't think so.

Send this to the police to the public safety committee.

Please follow your own footsteps.

Your time's up.

I understand.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members and Madam Mayor.

Um, my name is Tosh is about peace.

I've come to you many times before on various items involving public safety.

Um, I serve on the city uh Berkeley's disaster and fire safety commission and work in emergency medical services here in the Bay Area.

I'm here tonight to express deep concern about the proposal to remove public access to the Berkeley Police Department's radio scanner.

We should be fighting for transparency and accountability and community care, not whatever is going on here.

Um transparency in public safety communications is a cornerstone of accountability and community trust.

The scanner has long allowed residents, journalists, and volunteer responders to stay informed in real time, especially during critical incidents like fires, protests, or citywide emergencies when accurate information can literally save lives.

Removing the scanner would not make Berkeley safer, it would make our city less informed and more dependent on filtered delayed narratives.

Open access to police radio has been a hallmark of democratic oversight in Berkeley for decades.

If the concern is about privacy or operational security, there are far better solutions.

Thank you.

I'll send the rest of my comments.

I think it's a very good idea.

Come on, folks, I'm sorry.

We have to keep moving.

Let's go.

Next, please.

Hi, hello.

Uh, my name is Siriak McQueen.

I'm a UC Berkeley student, and I just wanted to be quick.

Uh 30 minutes is too long of time for too much harm and rest in peace to kill them more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You've heard me the rest of your time.

Yeah, I'll do it.

Can I do that?

Yeah.

Thank you for how much there was, but the remainder of his 30 seconds or whatever here.

Okay.

40 seconds.

And all right.

I don't think we can do 30 minutes, 30 increments, but I I'll keep track of it.

Go ahead.

Okay, Modi Law.

I have a minute from Elizabeth and Bryce.

Oh lovely.

Thank you very much.

So three minutes and 40 seconds.

Okay, got.

My name is Moni Law.

I was honored to be appointed by Mayor Jesse Ergine and the Fair and Impartial Policing Work Group.

And I appreciate some of the council members and people in this room that have worked on that issue.

Are we in a police state?

Or are we focusing on public safety?

Are we incorporating public way airwaves as a prior speaker said that importance?

Or are we having a secret society that we're developing?

Are we the only city that had no police dogs?

I know you're reading your phones, but I don't know.

Did you know there were no police dogs in the city of Berkeley due to Gus Newport, the mayor?

Did you know that we're the only city for a long time that did not have helicopters?

The idea of public safety is not to make quick decisions as we're doing here today.

This is half baked.

The public accountability board, which did pass by 84% of your community, voted to have a meaningful process in a police accountability board.

I had to file charges as a city employee, city resident, Cal graduate, after being bashed in the back by a police officer, and after that case on Black Lives Matter Day, when people got gassed and punched and a ma uh minister got bashed in the back and a elder got bashed in the neck and uh person got shot in the leg.

We filed a federal lawsuit.

Law versus City of Berkeley, I ended up having the named plaintiff by chance, and then as a result of that, they're supposed to be body worn cameras.

This again is not the right way to go in developing policy.

Did we look at, as the prior speaker said, other cities?

Did you as a body as the final decision maker on a very big decision take time to speak to primary stakeholders?

That's a general process when creating policy and new laws and new re regulations.

This is a problem more than a solution.

You should have taken attention to the Berkeley political that was the police accountability board.

I read their press release, I read their plea for sanity and review, and looking at this operationally, it is not the best course of action.

In fact, it's a dangerous one.

We will have less transparency, less accountability, more risk of this city, which is gonna be on fire with you all do know that we're like a target point for certain people, white supremacists who the FBI said is the number one risk to public harm.

Not others, but white nationalists are the number one public safety risk to this country.

People of color are at risk, immigrants are at risk, and we have to do more for more transparency, not less.

So I plead, I beg of you, I implore you, I urge you to put this decision after full review.

Thank you.

Thanks, Moni.

It seems that we should be advanced enough that to exclude private private information.

I understood those issues that the chief presented.

Uh and this is a difficult time, and so I present I was thinking, you know, are we by not encrypting?

Are we giving more information to ICE and federal agencies, or is that actually the last speaker speaking?

Do we need the information as a community because we're in such an odd time?

So I do think this merits uh further discussion into these issues, further deeper review of these issues before it's voted on.

Um, it's very difficult to actually for me to know where I land because of what I just said.

That this is an extremely difficult time, and there should be a way just to take out the private information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um other public comment in person.

Okay.

Let's move online, please.

Okay, so now is the time.

If you are on Zoom, we're doing public comment on item 18 regarding encryption of Berkeley Police Department primary radio channels.

So please raise your hand if you'd like to speak.

Uh we currently have 13 raised hands.

First is Ricky.

Yeah, hi.

Thanks for calling on me.

I feel that this matter needs more time and should not be voted on tonight.

It does not make sense to me to count on the police department itself to ensure you, the city council, and the mayor that they have exhausted all alternatives.

Why should we trust that assessment?

The city needs outside assessment, and the police accountability board should be involved, and other groups like cop watch and other community groups.

Someone gave a great list.

Aylana gave a great list.

I'll just tell you, I was a witness to incredible police brutality by the Berkeley police at Eighth and Harrison against an unhoused man after five minutes.

He could no longer walk, and they had to carry him and shove him headfirst into the backseat of a police car.

I had my video camera.

I t I taped the whole thing and I submitted it and filed a complaint.

We have to be able to keep our eyes on what the Berkeley City comment.

Next is Nathan Meisell.

Oh, sorry, Mark, I forgot to ask.

How many comments are there?

14.

14.

Okay.

Oh.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

This is Nathan Myzel.

Um, as you know, I was a PAB member, I was a mayor's task force for impartial policing member.

I was the chair of the reimagining public safety task force.

Um, this is not transparency.

Um, all of y'all up there already know this.

Um, the PAB has not even seen this proposal, and yet somehow it's going to become finalized policy.

This is a huge policy change, and you have completely disregarded the accountability body made up of members, you nominated and confirmed.

So don't really understand that.

Um, I know you're not gonna listen to me.

That's not really news these days on public safety issues.

We've gone back on so many of our commitments we made in 2020 and 2021.

I'll just say go ahead and read um Ms.

Ragusso's op-ed, you know, while you're up there on your phone, some of y'all.

Um, it's very clear this is gonna lead to more workload, not less, because there will be more public records requests, including from me, probably on the daily, to get the bright public records.

Hopefully, you plan to comply with state law and not make me wait hundreds and hundreds of days.

Thank you.

Uh next is Daniel Brownson.

Um, yeah, I also join the chorus of uh people asking you not to approve this encryption.

Um, especially as how um text gate is still unresolved.

Um, and we're talking about giving Berkeley police uh another means of communication that uh they can hold conversations that they know we wouldn't want them to be having on because the you know of the comments they may be making about our community members.

Um, and in my mind, this makes us more vulnerable, not less to ICE and other uh fascist bodies getting a hold of our community members' information because due to the lack of transparency, uh, there's little to stop Berkeley police from inviting them in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is David Scheer.

Uh hi.

Um I will start by saying that I respect what Chief Lewis and the BPD are trying to do tonight.

My my job at work is all about protecting personal information and avoiding the harm that can come from unwarranted disclosure.

So I get it.

Um I have to say that this does feel rushed, and I think that we should just hit hit the brakes on it.

Um and we should send it to the relevant policy committee.

Um I'm not saying never, but we should take the time to develop solutions to the issues of public oversight that a lot of folks have brought up tonight.

We we can't find those solutions if we don't take the time to look at them.

Um that said, I appreciate what uh BPD is trying to do with the near real-time log and the transparency hub.

Um that's good.

It's not it's not good enough.

Um the transparency hub is kind of kind of useful, um, but there are huge gaps.

So thank you.

Next is Mark Headland.

Hi, I'm a district resident.

I just wanted to speak briefly against encryption.

I endorsed David Shearer's comments earlier.

Um I'm part of Walkberg Berkeley and part of the group that's worked with Emily Ragusso and other journalists to monitor traffic and try and get better reporting out of it.

I think that you can see the quality of Emily's work um shows some of the benefits that have come from that.

I know that she thinks it's important and as a result, I do too.

I would also say to Chief Lewis, um for the case of uh Juan uh Kong who was killed at Virginia in San Pablo on his bike.

I called the public information officer again and again and again asking for information about that case and never even got a call back.

I think if the police are going to be the ones metering out this information, they need to commit to actually engaging with the public and responding to queries from the public.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, next is Ben Gerhardstein.

All right.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Alright, sorry about that.

Uh hi again, Council Ben Gearhardtstein Vlogbreak Berkeley.

So um BPD's scanner transmissions have really been critical to us in informing and focusing advocacy efforts for street safety throughout Berkeley.

Um the public scanner has allowed us to monitor incidents in real time and gain more details than would be available otherwise.

And uh with the assistance of local journalists, we have been uh really able to increase awareness of these issues to the broader community.

Uh so we appreciate BPD's proposed call for service log.

We think that's a good starting place if we're moving toward encryption, but it doesn't fulfill our needs entirely.

Um as you've heard from others, information about traffic collisions that have helped us in the past includes uh things like the parties evolved, very crashes, status of victims and responsible party.

Um and so we look forward to continued dialogue with BPD um on this issue in the hopes that we can maintain some of that information in the log or in other forums um to help us with this advocacy efforts.

Thank you.

Next is Jordan.

Hi, council members.

Um I am speaking today in strong opposition to BPD's proposal to encrypt these scanners.

Um there are a myriad of reasons that have been explained by many people as to why we need to keep these scanners unencrypted from disaster preparedness to police accountability.

Um and I'd like to speak to one of the points made by BPD, which this idea that they are somehow protecting the privacy of vulnerable individuals by encrypting this scanner.

I don't know if any of you guys have spent time listening to the scanner.

I have been listening to the scanner for years.

I've never heard information that is compromising of a vulnerable in individual.

So I simply don't buy this line of logic.

Um and when you have somebody like Nathan Meisell, who was the chair of the reimagining public safety task force telling you very clearly that we are unable to get clear information from the police department.

We are not getting timely responses to our PRAs.

This tells you the department has a pattern uh of a lack of accountability and the lack of transparency, and this encryption is just part of that pattern.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next is Avi Simon.

Hi, yes, I I'd like to speak in opposition to this move to encrypt the scanner alongside so many other people who have spoken already today.

I've been a member of Berkeley Cop Watch since 2021.

And in that time we've worked with scores of members of the community from undergrads at UC Berkeley to even a Berkeley High School student and so many others to teach them about their right to watch the police and monitor police activity and training a generation of people to push back against the constant tide of secrecy coming from all law enforcement agencies, period.

And the scanner is an essential part of this work.

And we really just have to appeal to you, the civilian oversight of our of our city, our voice, and say please, please keep this critical resource available to us.

You know, the the cops are never gonna agree that this is a sense.

Thank you, Abby.

Thanks for your comment.

Next is Paola La Verde.

Yes, good uh evening, uh mayor and city council members, Paula, district five.

This is a very Trumpian move.

Um, as a former broadcast journalist, and I spent a lot of time in my career as a journalist listening to the scanner, and I listen to the scanner in Berkeley quite often.

Um, this is a way to silence the voices.

This is a way to um uh disable the community's ability to monitor the police.

They the chief uh blame two issues.

I guess two weeks ago, we had six robberies in one hour, um, one by campus and one on uh Shadow uh on university.

I think it's not that they were listening to scanners, it's probably because we have such a man shortage or personnel shortage.

That's the problem that we really have.

And this is trying to cover that problem with you know hiding hiding uh the information.

There's not a lot of information that goes out there.

So, and I think it's very Trumpian.

So, all the city council members who claim to be progressives, and you're voting on this.

You're not uh, uh next is Daryl Owens.

Hello, council.

Um, I would like to put things in perspective, honestly.

Um, Berkeley police, compared to Oakland and other jurisdictions, generally do a pretty good job when it comes to case closures, relatively.

They are generally pretty responsive when you call them, especially compared to other jurisdictions like Oakland.

So I'm not entirely sure to blame the recent robberies on the lack of encryption just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I want to support the police doing good job at case closures, but the scanner allows for so many people to be engaged in our democracy.

I mean, there's so many hit and runs, injuries, deaths, fires that I would not have known about because we had the scanner, and there is no public information outlet that's good at telling people what's going on in their city absent the scanner.

No offense to the police department, no police department anywhere is good at this telling people what's going on.

The scanner's the best you have.

So, yes, a lot of police are encrypting their scanners.

There's not an iota of research backing up why this is the case.

Most criminal thanks, Daryl.

Your time's up.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh next is Frank.

I'm gonna be repeating a lot of what other people have already said because no one this evening has spoken in support at all.

Not a single person has spoken in support aside from the police themselves.

NISC Nixel alerts are not an equivalent to having a transparent public police scanner.

Nixel alerts come out late, are lacking much detail, and are written by the police.

And this oh, I'm sorry, I'm like losing it.

That we're doing this again and again and again.

You're constantly just doing whatever the police ask of you and ignoring what the police accountability board recommends to you, ignoring what the public recommends to you.

This policy, like, I only learned that this vote is happening 20 minutes ago, and I know I'm not the only person in the city that would like to have more time spent discussing this policy and reviewing this policy before it just goes to a vote.

If you're saying your staff is too constrained to deal with having a public scanner, that is illogical because you're just adding on more work they're gonna have to do with these public records requests that are gonna come in.

Your comment, your time is up.

Uh, next is Neil Eggbert.

Yes, good evening, mayor, council, and community members.

My name is Neil Eggbert, and I'm here on behalf of the Berkeley Police Association as their president.

Nearly every major city and law enforcement agency has moved from open radio transmissions to secure encrypted communications.

This is not a new idea.

It's now the standard that we see around the area.

The reasons are clear to protect sensitive information, safeguard victims and witnesses, and most importantly, ensure our officers' safety.

Open radio channels expose critical operational details to suspects, criminals, and anyone who wishes to do harm in our community.

Victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or other crimes have no idea that their names, addresses, injuries, or locations could be broadcast over the air.

Even delayed broadcasts still release this information without their consent, putting them at risk and discouraging others from coming forward.

This does isn't just about privacy, it's about their safety and trust in law enforcement.

Our officers also face real immediate danger.

Suspects have and can listen to open radio channels to gain tactical advantages, evade arrest, or even target officers.

Encryption allows us to communicate freely and respond effectively without tipping off those who enter our city to our resolution.

Next is uh Sam Spielman.

Hi, yeah, my name is Sam Spielman.

I've been a Berkeley police officer for 22 years.

I want to speak on behalf of the victims, witnesses, and callers who share their private information with the police.

When someone calls 911, they share their personal details, names, addresses, medical issues, mental health problems, and sometimes what happened to them.

This information is very sensitive and important for their safety.

But most of this private information is broadcast live over open police radios where anyone nearby with a scanner app, like an abuser, a suspect, or a curious neighbor, can hear it.

This puts survivors and witnesses at more risk.

Encryption isn't about hiding things from the public, it's about protecting the people who trust us enough to speak up.

Victim needs victims need to know that their private details won't be broadcast or listened to somebody by somebody who wants to hurt them.

More police agencies across the country are using encryption to keep victims safe.

Berkeley should do the same.

We ask the council to stand with the victims and witnesses and citizens of Berkeley and protect their private.

Thanks, Sam.

Sorry, your time's up.

Okay.

Next is Dora the Explorer.

Dora, go ahead.

Hey, Madam Mayor and Council, it's Todd Andrew.

I'm may use your first names once in a while because I know you personally, but um the timing on this is really, really bad.

And I kind of wonder, even given the needs for victim uh and caller and police officer, public safety officer safety.

Isn't there a better way to handle this?

Isn't there a technological operational way to handle this that doesn't put the public in the dark?

And yes, there's delayed, but I'm talking about real time.

We have ICE potentially invading soon, National Guard, who knows.

Um, I'm a big fan of the BPD, and you all know that I am.

Use of force record is good.

Discrepancies are decent, clearance records decent.

But can we please come up with another solution other than full encryption?

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Next is uh caller phone number ending in four-five three.

Should be able to unmute.

Hi everyone, Josh Kayatana, chair of Berkeley Police Accountability Board.

I did not hear of this item from the department until after it was put on the concerned calendar.

And we as a board have not been able to consider and provide the council with its recommendations because of last that the department told the board.

They were still deciding whether to switch to encrypted radios.

The PABF or the department collaboratively work with the board before making proposals to council that impact police transparency and accountability like this one.

Right now, the department is not required to inform us of a policy change until after that has happened.

So we think the council and the public would benefit from when the PAB is able to provide its input, which should not happen here, but happened for example with the surveillance item a few months ago.

If we wait until after a policy is approved, inertia sets in.

It's difficult to stop a process that has already started, especially here.

We ask for a referral from the council to provide additional information on this proposed policy change.

Thank you.

Thanks, Josh.

Next is Theo Gordon.

Uh hello, council members.

Um, I just mostly wanted to reiterate the comments from David Shear, Mark Headland, and Daryl Owens.

I also wanted to take specific issue with the idea of using Nix alerts um to replace some of the work that the scanner does.

Nixalerts are for broadcasting public emergencies for people who are otherwise tuned out.

Uh, it's not for oversight.

Um, and if we use Nixel as a replacement for the scanner, people will turn out from Nixel alerts, and that will be a big problem during earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, etc.

Uh, if we do go forward, we should find a way to retain all call recordings and allow uh citizen oversight groups to review original recordings uh as well as just members of the public should have access to redacted recordings upon request.

Uh thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um next is Kelly Hammergren.

Um thank you.

I was not expecting to comment, but this is my comment.

Um, I'm hearing people asking for more time and review, who I would have expected to be fully supportive of encryption.

And that tells me that um you really shouldn't be passing this tonight.

You really should take time and put it through uh committees, which would be the normal process uh for this council to put it through the uh public safety committee of the council and to put it put it to the police accountability board.

Um I don't see that if you vote for this tonight that you will ever go backwards and decide that it was not the best decision.

So um, I do support everyone else who has asked you to give us more time.

Thanks.

Thanks, Kelly.

Your time's up.

Okay.

That was the last speaker.

Um, we had one more hand pop up.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Andres Bejarano.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, and community members.

Uh, my name is Andrés Vejarano, and I'm currently a detective sergeant at the Berkeley Police Department.

I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the victims and witnesses who I work with on a daily basis.

Some have suggested delaying police radio broadcasts to balance transparency.

That is not enough.

Even delayed information exposes victims, witnesses, and officers to risk.

Suspects can still track locations, piece together details, and act upon them.

Victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or other violent crimes trust us to keep their information private.

A delay does not protect them, it only postpones the danger and can discourage people from seeking help.

Officers face those same threats.

Encryption allows secure real-time communication without putting anyone at risk.

I urge the council to protect our community, our victims, and our officers by supporting encrypted police communications.

Thank you.

Okay, and we have one more.

This last call for public comments on Zoom for the police radio encryption.

We have uh Graham's iPhone.

Good evening, Mayor Council members.

My name is Graham Shivis.

I'm an officer with the Berkeley Police Department.

I'm here to speak about why encrypting our police radio communications is essential for officer safety.

Every day we respond to unpredictable and dangerous situations, relying on our radios to share critical information and coordinate effectively.

Right now, open channels allow anyone, including suspects to listen and putting officers at risk.

Across the country, incidents have shown that criminals can use this information to ambush officers.

Encryption allows us to communicate securely and tactically, keeping officers safe without compromising our mission.

Transparent transparency remains essential, but should come through reports, press releases, and community updates, not by broadcasting sensitive information in real time.

Many agencies nationwide have already made this change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

That's it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Starting with we're gonna go to council comments starting with Council Member Taplin.

Thank you.

Um Chief Lewis, earlier in the uh during the presentation, you mentioned that there are state and federal requirements.

I was wondering if you could elaborate on what those are.

Yes, sure.

So um there's the uh CGIS, which is the federal agency federal uh protection of confidential criminal justice information, so your record uh basically information.

And then there's the P I and I, uh, which is personal identifying information, um, and state mandate is that you don't broadcast that kind of information on the air.

Uh, thank you.

Um, I did want to address a few questions that came up.

Um, and this is just purely a clerical clarification.

Mr.

Clerk, can you confirm when agenda items are published?

Uh agenda items on a uh regular meeting agenda are published 12 days before the meeting.

Uh thank you very much.

And then uh people were asking why this came to council as opposed to going to committee.

Um this item came from the CMA editor's office, and as a charter officer, charter officers are allowed to place things on the agenda.

Um I want to clarify that.

And um I do want to appreciate the work that you and your team, Chief Lewis, as well as my colleagues that address some of the concerns that we uh heard tonight.

And for the purpose of discussion, I will move adoption of the supplemental second.

Um thank you.

Councilmember Humbert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

And as is probably clear, I support this item.

The proposal with the supplemental supplemental material provides a means to keep the press in the loop, maybe not perfectly, but without giving um police banned using bad guys and gals, the news that BPD is on the way, giving them time to flee, or heaven forbid, set up an ambush.

Um compellingly to me, and I think I said this before.

If cities around us are encrypted, and they are, and we are not, we become, you know, a target for these organized criminal crews.

And we know that they're out there and they are victimizing our businesses and our residents.

So I I will be supporting this item.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other council comments?

Oh, Councilmember Keefe.

Go ahead.

Oh, okay.

Sure.

Councilmember Treka.

Uh, thank you so much.

Um, I want to confirm that you can hear me.

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I would like to appreciate uh members of the community for speaking out.

Um, and uh, you know, I just want to say off the jump, I do not take your concerns lightly or half-heartedly.

Um, and this is why our office and um several other council offices, um, at least, um, have been in conversation with the chief.

Um, and I felt much more comfortable um following those conversations when um supplemental 2 came out because uh our question was um, is there something that could be a middle ground here?

Um it sounds like what um is being proposed is uh equivalent to the city and county of San Francisco, which is um our closest neighbor that allows um for a middle ground that could work.

Uh I um I do not take concerns about um abandoning transparency lightly at all.

Um and I have my entire um lived experience and career to prove it.

Um however we are in not normal times, and over the last few days we have seen what can happen um when we are at the mercy of an administration, a federal administration that clearly does not seem to regard um our rights whatsoever, so not only um is to me the safety of um community members to be um protected from those who seek to come to our city and engage in crimes, I am also very concerned about putting our residents at a heightened risk from actors and agencies who are directed to basically ignore or go against our rights, and for all of those reasons, while I understand that this is not going to be something that is broadly supported by everyone in our community, I cannot in good conscience um vote in a way that in my estimation would subject our community to our a heightened risk.

Um with that said, um I think the council has a very robust public safety committee.

I appreciate the work of the um Berkeley Police Accountability uh board, and um I I welcome any other proposals, and understand that there will be continuing conversations and engagement with the community and would support um any other ways in which we can get this right.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um Councilmember O'Keefe.

Thank you.

I wasn't quite ready, so I let Igor jump in.

Um, yeah, I actually uh one or two speakers said, you know, have do any of you even listen to the police skinner?

I actually did for a long time.

It was kind of like a little hobby of mine.

And one time I was listening to it in my kitchen and I actually heard that my neighbor's house was on fire, and I ran over there and I got there right when the police got, I started when the fire department got there, and I'm glad I didn't get there before because I don't know if I would have gone in.

Um, but anyway, that was an exciting moment.

I um I've really enjoyed it.

I think it's fascinating.

Uh I like to know what's going on.

And so if any of you are in that situation, I understand.

And I'll be honest, I was really torn when I learned about this because it's not just for entertainment, it's obviously it does play a really important role in accountability and oversight in press coverage, which is excellent.

Thank you, Emily.

Um so this encryption move will be a big loss.

I really want to acknowledge that, and I I was really torn when I first learned about it.

I want to say I really appreciate the supplement.

I think that's um I think it's it's a great idea.

I think it'll really it won't be the same, but I think it's the best you can do.

And I want to say I was torn because I this is clearly important.

It's very clear to me.

Yeah, I believe that this information being broadcast publicly really can undermine the effectiveness of the police.

And that's a concern to me.

And I I just that plus the fact that it is actually required by state law, it's sort of I have to I have to support this.

And I'm just saying I'm I'm actually really glad that you're able to offer something and and um uh something instead and so I am gonna vote for this uh with supplement, but I just I want to say one more thing.

I heard some of the speakers talk about what's going on with our federal government and the law enforcement at that level and how awful it is.

And you're not wrong, it's awful, it's terrifying.

But I really want to caution people not to conflate that situation with our police.

It's all law enforcement, yes, and it and it's scary, law enforcement can be scary, and when they aren't obeying the law, it's really scary.

But just because the federal law enforcement is not respecting the law, that doesn't mean that that's what's happening with our local police.

I personally believe that our police department has earned our trust.

And so, yes, police accountability is important.

Yes, we have that, I support that, but I just really want to caution people to be clear in your minds who the real bad guys are when you're speaking in a hyperbolic way.

Because I I just I really want to emphasize that our police are not fascists, they're not behaving in a fascist way.

They respect and obey the law completely.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Uh councilmember Kessarwani.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

Um, thank you, Chief Lewis and Arlo for the presentation.

I know um multiple people have said this, and um we heard from the public, you know, comments as if this was sort of a discretionary choice.

So, you know, I, you know, the the first two whereas clauses of this resolution, they note that uh the California Department of Justice issued an information bulletin requiring encryption of all criminal justice information and personally identifiable information transmitted over radio systems, and this is consistent with the FBI security policy.

So that is why this item is coming before us because of these um information bulletins, these requirements from the state.

Um and I I think that I want to thank the chief for this supplemental.

I want to thank uh my colleagues who engaged with our police department to uh make sure that we could have some level of transparency that's more immediate than the calls for service data set um that can be accessed by the public.

Um, Chief, I I wanted to ask you, I know this resolution it talks about the um the items that you can provide.

So it includes the um let's see, what does it say here?

The the general type of call, nearest intersection or block level address of the call for service and the time that the call was received.

Is there anything else um that you are exploring that you could possibly add to this data that you can tell us about at this time?

I know I know that work is ongoing with the community.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh, we're looking at adding uh including the priority level of the call.

So is it a high level uh high priority level calls or lower priority level call?

Um is it in regards to an ongoing incident or um a cold report of an incident that occurred uh long ago or just prior?

Um and so we're we're looking at adding those additional uh pieces of detail that help inform the community of of the nature of the incident.

Okay, and maybe a good way to think of it is um we have to pull from existing tables or existing cells of information, and so we have to consider whether that cell might have confidential information or not, right?

And whether it jeopardizes safety in any way to include that, and if it doesn't, then it's the possibility exists for us to include it.

Um right, but if it's not already captured in that manner in that initial CAD report, then we wouldn't be able to put it into the call log because it doesn't exist or isn't captured at that moment.

Right, okay.

So I'm obviously we can't um pull in data that we're not already collecting in a systematic way.

A perfect example is um, because I know that this is one of the questions is uh uh who's the who's at fault in the collision.

So the initial CAD screen where they're in the dispatchers entering the information does not have a place to put that where we could then grab it and put it on the initial call log.

However, once we get that the uh collision report is completed, then we're able to have that information on the transparency hub that provides what that with the who's at fault in the collision.

Okay, and and I don't know if you know this all offhand, but would a member of the public be able to sort of connect that collision report with that call for service as some kind of identifying code or detail to be able to do that once that is all posted.

Like, if they're aware of a collision that occurred, would they be able to find it on the log?

Yeah, if they have the the time and the general location, then that'll appear and it'll be apparent.

Okay, okay.

So it sounds like you know that it's gonna be a different method.

It's not going to, it's not gonna have the personally identifiable information that's currently available, but it's um it's going to be something that will um allow the public to be able to monitor uh what's going on, and um so I feel satisfied with that, and uh I'm prepared to support this item.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um, Councilmember Blackaby.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um I just say at the outset, like so many issues um that come to the city council.

We're being asked to balance two um sometimes conflicting but important issues.

Uh we see this on housing policy, we see this uh in so many other areas.

And in this case, it happens to be community safety and transparency.

Um look, if all we cared about was transparency, um, then absolutely you know, we should keep um we should keep the existing system, we should keep the existing framework where the scanner is publicly available, but that's not the only interest.

You know, we also do have a public safety interest.

So we have an interest to keep our members of the public safe, we have an interest to keep members of the police department safe.

So the question is how do you draw that line?

How do you find the proper balance?

Um, I will say that I think one of the primary responsibilities that we all have as elected officials is keeping the community safe.

Um, and I take that very seriously on fire, on police, on crime, on whatever.

Um, and so it is important to me that we do find the right balance.

I'll also just comment um that on the timing, um, to some extent the move by the county really did force our hand on timing.

Um, you know, I I think we'd all prefer that hey, we knew a year ahead of time that this was coming and that we had more time to prepare and maybe more time to you know do a thorough kind of look and analysis at all of the options and exhaust them.

But the force, the fact is we're sort of in a situation where now we are the outlier, every other jurisdiction in our county and also Contra Costa County have made this move.

And we're the outlier.

Um, and how long do we want to be, would we want to be the outlier from a public safety perspective?

And that that is of some concern to me.

Um, I also uh echo some like colleagues' comments, like uh, you know, uh oversight's vitally important.

We do have a good police department, but oversight's important.

Um, showing confidence and trust in the people who wear the badge and keep us safe is important.

We already face recruiting and retention challenges with our department.

Uh, you know, putting our officers in a position where they feel more exposed and they feel not supported by this council and by our community has other longer-term impacts, and I I I we don't want to go down that path.

We already have a challenging enough environment.

Um, and we do believe in the leadership of our department, we do believe in the people who serve us, and we should show that, and I think this is a way that we do show that.

All that being said, I agree that oversight is important.

I've always been a believer in oversight.

I've participated in the oversight process.

Um, I think it's important that as this process unfolds, we continue to get the feedback.

Um, we'll be getting the feedback from the community.

I would encourage the police accountability board to do policy work on this, to work with Arlo and the team.

Um, we have plenty of examples where they are reviewing policy.

They're gonna be looking at the drone policy.

Um, this is another example where they can provide sort of community input and feedback, and we can refine this and course correct as we go.

Um, you know, and if there are other mechanisms beyond this weblog, let's let's find them, you know.

But I think this is the best we could find at this point to move forward and move forward in a way that didn't keep folks entirely in the dark once we started to encrypt the communications.

So, in terms of wrestling with all these issues, I come out on in favor of this policy.

I really want to thank the chief.

I want to thank Arlo.

I think I want to thank the community for this engagement.

No one's ever gonna be fully satisfied as we kind of move forward, but I do think in the balance of equities here to me, to this particular council member, this feels like um an appropriate balance uh that supports the public safety, you know, needs of our community and also helps to provide some transparency, um, even while realizing that we are you know taking some other pieces of this away.

So, to me it does strike the right balance, and I'll be supporting it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lunapara.

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna be very honest about where I'm at.

Um I think I came into this meeting after having worked very closely with the chief and her team to come up with an alternative that is a compromise um between what the community was asking and what the police department initially put forward.

And I want to so sincerely thank the chief and her team for working with us on that um in good faith.

And so I came in expecting to know that there was gonna be opposition to the item to support this item with the supplemental.

And at the same time, I am hearing people from people who we worked with on this item from all over um the political Berkeley political spectrum, um, saying that they don't feel like their needs are being addressed.

And so, and this is disappointing to hear also for myself because we were not able to come to a place where people can um feel that their needs are being addressed.

Um I also really I, you know, that encryption was going to happen at one point or another.

The question is about what we're gonna do to um address some of the issues that come with that, some of the issues that the transparency, the lack of or that the effects that would have on transparency.

Um we have a memo from the attorney general of California that says that we have to encrypt eventually.

Um, and I think it is really important to protect the information of the people who call in.

And like I said, I'm also hearing that people don't feel that that that that there are still steps missing here.

Um I do think that this item should not have been on consent originally.

I think that it should have gone to the public safety committee.

I understand the concerns around delaying this and how Berkeley would be the only um jurisdiction, and I I also don't want that.

I think there are ways that we could have gone through a more rigorous process while focusing on getting this to council quickly.

I think that the PAB should have been involved before this came to council as well, and they should have gotten the chance to give their full opinion.

Um I'm being I'm being, you know, I'm I'm this is both of these things are going on in my head at the same time, and so I'm trying to be like as honest about this, um, because that would not have and I want to also really thank everyone who came out here because my thought process would not have been as compliment as as uh complicated as it is if it wasn't for the public.

Um I think I support because we have to encrypt, and I I really think that the um the chief and her team were really committed to finding a compromise.

I I ultimately agree with this item and hope that we can continue to work for work to improve some of this.

Um the some of the questions that people have.

I hope that the police department can also meet with Cop Watch and make sure that we're addressing some of the things that they um would like to see.

But I do have concerns about how the process went went, and I think that seeing so many so much opposition from the community confirm that in a way that I didn't realize before.

Um I guess I just wanted to say that and I think that this is a very complicated piece, and I think um it deserves complicated thoughts.

Um yeah, that's that's what I have right now.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um Councilmember Bartlett.

Oh, thank you, madam mayor.

Um, and you know, not to beleaguer the the points made by my colleagues, uh, pretty much all I would say everything they said essentially.

Um, but you know, I I definitely um have full support of transparency um and and the fourth amendment and the ability to um to watch the watchmen.

Um however, yeah, I did a I did a you know really informal straw poll among uh my constituents um around this topic, just talking to people, and I heard a couple of stories that sort of gave me pause and um and kind of re you know reoriented my stance on this topic because as much as I'm uh for the global the global effort to achieve uh civil justice.

I'm also acutely um here for victims.

I am a I represent victims and they need more respect.

Um and so in this instance I had a a business that was uh subjected to a few a series of robberies um of increasing they became increasingly violent and uh people were hurt and they were using um the can the scanner, this device, this app.

So they had they had warning and they um they were able to um really get away with uh some pretty uh terrifying stuff.

And the other one was more of a heartbreaking one.

Um a constituent uh went through some problems and um uh her family called on her and to get support from our people, and um the someone listening to the the device, the scanner app uh wrote her name up on social media, uh horrifically embarrassed her and shamed her.

Um really really sad.

So you know uh I'm moved by the uh by all the arguments here, and um, but you know there's something something to protecting people uh and their privacy um is kind of is here with me, and also of course um not allowing people to strategize uh to commit harm on our residents.

Um the San Francisco measure as Council Merchargott mentioned seems like it seems like a fairly uh good compromise, and I think the city manager's supplemental um gets at that.

And that being said, I do think that uh I think the police accountability board uh will automatically weigh on this, right?

At a certain time frame, they can.

Okay, yeah, so 30 minutes of uh 30 minutes, sorry, 30 days of implementation.

Apologies, it's better.

30 minutes, and we have to do it tonight, but it's set that clock.

Um, yeah, so so I I think as everything, there is room to dig into it and perfect and make it better, and we have lots of um agencies and agents to undertake that work going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I do really appreciate what you brought up about suspects because that's the point.

One of the points that I wanted to bring up as well.

Um, also people who are accused, their information is on their description, their name.

I I think that that also I find problematic.

Um, I do appreciate people bringing up um, especially sharing personal information of of victims.

Um that is particularly concerning to me, and unfortunately, we are in um a time in history where people are specifically attacking police officers, and so I do think officer safety is something that I'm concerned about.

Um I I also share Council Member Linopara's feelings.

We had a lot of conversations about this, and so I do really want the public to understand that um, you know, we had many conversations that we spoke with the chief, that we spoke with our city manager, um, and and really what came out of this was the chief supplement.

Um, and I I really do want to thank the chief for all the work that went into this because um not only is it just that we came to you, you also said, I want to make sure that we're being as transparent as possible.

Like I'm gonna figure out how to make that work, and you know, you took the initiative, so I really appreciate that that I really appreciate the partnership there.

Um, and I also know that like I hear what folks are saying some concerns they have.

I have just like a couple more quick questions.

Um, one is will the recordings be saved.

Um, and would the would they potentially be able to be shared without the personal information?

So recordings are saved for a period of two years.

Obviously, if they're pulled as evidence of a particular critical incident or call or the part of the evidentiary uh piece of the of the case, they'd be pulled and held according to that uh retention period.

And as far as um sharing information back out about the recordings, obviously um when we have to pull recordings, we pull recordings regularly and provide them to the PAB and the and the DPA is part of their uh complaint processes.

Uh um pulling them out, those go unredacted.

But if we were going to release for some reason publicly, we would have to ensure that they were redacted to imagine the uh staff burden on on pulling off through all of those.

Um so we would be looking to the government code to guide us on public records acts request around that and also maintaining privacy and understanding the workload of pulling all those records.

Thank you.

And also, when uh would the encryption happen compared to this this data system, this transparency system that we're talking about.

I want to just make sure that that they're gonna be closely tied.

Yeah, so we'll have to schedule the uh process of getting encrypted.

Uh we've been told that that could happen relatively quickly.

Uh but uh and we've already prepared to roll out the lock, the call logs, so they would be contemporaneous.

Oh, that's great.

That's great.

That's really important.

I want to make sure that that's the case.

And um, I also want to appreciate that you're going to continue to work with community organizations to make this system as transparent as possible.

And um, thank you also both for being here and taking the time to go over this with us and answer all of our questions.

So um, okay, any other council comments?

Okay, we already have a motion on the floor, so um, let's take the roll, please.

Okay, uh, to approve item 18, including the item in the supplemental from uh the city manager, council member Kessarwani.

Yes, Taplin, yes, Bartlett, yes, Trego, I, O'Keefe, yes, Blackaby, yes, Unapara.

With sincere appreciation, all of your work and everything we did together.

No.

Umbert?

Yes, and Mayor Ishi.

Yes, okay, motion carries.

Thank you.

So, what about the PAB?

You are killing the PAB.

After the fact policy making is a move point.

You're killing that's what you're killing the accountability.

All you guys are have uh two more items left, but we are gonna take a 10-minute break.

Thank you.

Give the whole city a break.

Seriously, you just washed your hands of it.

You put your head in the sand and you don't have to look at police brutality.

You don't have to deal with it.

You care about victims, but not victims of police brutality.

What about Draco?

What about the unhoused people?

You don't give a whoop.

You know what?

I cannot get my council member to meet with me.

I can't give any of these.

We can't get in the conversation.

So, I think we have a lot of technology now.

Okay, so can I do that?

Okay, no, no, I'm just trying to do it.

No, that's what you gave me to the other one.

So I'd like to go back to the afternoon.

Oh, I'm not saying it's not a reasonable problem.

We sit there and have a debate.

Hello.

Oh, there we are.

Okay.

Hi, folks.

Sorry about the delay.

Thank you very much for waiting.

Thank you so much staff for waiting.

Um, okay, so we are moving on to item 28, which was pulled off the consent calendar.

And um, that is the remove pre-transfer eligibility restriction of the transfer tax rebate for wildfire hardening.

And, um, I am going to remind folks that it is ten.

Oh, six PM and we have two items left.

So my request is that folks are brief and concise with their comments this the rest of this evening so that we can get through it all.

Okay.

Uh, I did send the city council a note uh earlier today that uh summarizes the uh material that's that's in your packet.

So we uh we currently have uh the city currently has a transfer tax rebate program uh that is intended to encourage additional home hardening investments, which is a very important effort to complement the the Ember program, uh, to keep our community safer from wildfire.

Uh, what one reason why the commission advanced this proposal is uh to address uh a concerning uh perverse incentive that uh discourages early action.

What's really important in this moment, we we saw the the tragic wildfires in the Los Angeles region.

Uh, we we've seen uh similar tragedies happen in Lahaina, Hawaii, and what we need to see is it incentives that promote early action.

And the current structure of the transfer tax rebate, uh, by way by the way of only allowing the rebate when uh it's it's done within one year of the transfer or one year after the transfer, it's encouraging someone to just defer that action to to wait to to take that very important home hardening action uh to encourage public safety.

So that's the reason why this uh item is in front of you.

Uh through the committee process, that uh proposal to remove the uh the the uh the one year provision is now uh extended to five years.

Uh I think that's a good start.

Uh, I do encourage um, you know, because of the concerns about discouraging early action, that the council keep a close look at this as the public safety committee continues to study additional tools uh to promote home hardening uh because we will need additional financial tools and perhaps an improvement to this tool.

Um but more importantly, we need this tool to be up and running with the Ember program about to take effect uh uh early next year.

Uh and what what this item does is it makes some very important technical corrections right now uh that the city staff need direction to finalize the application and actually get it um able to reach homeowners.

Uh so uh so taking action uh at this meeting is is critical to be able to have uh an actual program that that's that's working on the ground.

Um with that uh we we looked at one other additional element that's in the council member supplemental uh that uh adds a definition of uh woody woody veg uh Woody Brush.

Uh that that's important because we are not expecting um our our uh residents in in the uh the fire zone area to uh go to the tool library and get a chainsaw.

I don't even know if the tool library has those.

Uh we we want to make sure that uh we are not uh putting unreasonable, insurmountable burdens uh when we're achieving home hardening.

So uh that's one type of uh definition of vegetation that needed to be included for removal.

And I want to thank uh council member Blackaby uh for working with council members Humbert and O'Keefe in uh adopting that language that that uh I worked on with uh Chief Sprigg um to uh to confirm would would be workable uh on a technical level.

Um so with that I'll I'll uh yield to uh the chief's comments and uh any other questions from the city council.

No comments.

We worked with uh the commission and um city manager's office and council member Blackby to bring forward what's in front of you, and uh we support the commission's recommendations.

Thank you.

Um are there any questions from folks?

Okay, I'm gonna go to public comment.

Is there any public comment?

Okay, actually, I know you all are just make your way.

Oh okay, go ahead.

Go ahead and give your public comment.

And then I do want to let um I do want to let Councilmember Brackabee present a supplemental as well.

Yeah, of course.

I'll try to keep it brief and concise.

Hi, so my name's Elizabeth Thomas.

I'm an urban studies student at UC Berkeley.

I'm the external affairs director for Telegraph for people, and I'm also from San Leandro, so I know just about how important this issue is in the East Bay.

So I definitely support this incentive to um like to incentivize home hardening.

However, I also encourage the city council to um keep keep the cap for um the three million dollar um home sales.

You know, we're in a um like a fiscal crisis here in the city.

You have um, like uh watch what sorry, it's late.

Um, so we have a hiring freeze, and I think that trying to um like reduce revenue by um saying that oh, even though you sold your house for three million or more, you know, we're still going to continue this rebate program, you're losing money.

Programs like this cost money, it costs staff, and if you're having a hiring freeze, you're acknowledging that there's this disconnect between um money and revenue, and like, you know, if we're going to incentivize this, and I think that that's an excellent thing.

I think we also need to acknowledge some of the city's financial realities.

So um, again, thank you.

And yeah, so definitely this is great, but also, you know, we're Berkeley, you know, let's, you know, maybe not have tax breaks for the wealthy all the time.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Council, my name is Bryce Miller.

I'm a UC Berkeley student.

I'm in Telegraph for People, and I'm a voter in District 4.

Um, I want to second what Elizabeth said.

Um, I I really support this bill.

Um, home hardening is really important, but we cannot be um having tax breaks for homes that are worth more than three million dollars.

Those people can afford to pay for these things themselves.

Um, and there's so many other things that the city could use uh this million plus dollars for like bus lanes and bike lanes.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I'll keep it really brief.

I'm in support of the original rebate, but I oppose the supplement and saying this as a person who's helping his parents in District 8 uh take care of a lot of uh Ember stuff right now.

And I'm happy to also help in other places.

Uh so yeah, please, yeah.

We people with three million people who can buy a house for three million dollars can afford that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other public comment online.

Uh this is for item 28, transfer tax rebate.

There's uh no hands raised online.

Nope, none.

Okay, all right.

Pass it up.

I'll be fast.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, want to thank Commissioner Katz for his work on this and and and working on the language, as well as uh Greg Murphy's the chair of the disaster and fire safety committees, my uh appointee to that commission, and for the fire department for working uh on this language.

Um just a few comments.

I I think you know the non-controvers controversial piece is the Woody Brush edition, which again that the fire department also supports.

It's the idea that if you've got this um, you know, stuff that does require more work, more mechanical uh attention, uh that's more like a home hardening exercise than uh you know, removing mulch or something that requires more annual maintenance.

This is sort of a permanent change.

Well, that's more akin to home hardening.

So I think it should fit.

Um on the cap, uh, again, I understand and I respect um people's point of view on the cap.

What I'll say is, you know, this is not uh a giveaway back to the pockets of people who can afford it.

This is money that goes directly to contractors who do home hardening on people's homes.

This money goes to actually not just home hardened but neighborhood harden an area that we need to protect.

Not just for that neighborhood, but for the rest of the city.

There is a community interest in getting this right, and any incentive that makes sure that you know, look, we're asking homeowners to do a lot with Ember.

We all heard this in June.

I hear this every day, right?

As we all know, we're asking people to do a lot and change a lot and bear a lot of this burden in district six and some in district eight, and we're willing to do that, but I think the incentives and support from the rest of the community to acknowledge that people are being asked to make changes is necessary, and I think it's fair.

Um we have an existing seismic retrofit program in Berkeley that provides the same incentive, it's half a percent of the 1.5% total uh transfer tax.

We are incentivizing people again to do the right thing and strengthen their home.

I would argue that what we're doing with home hardening provides even more neighborhood benefit than seismic, right?

Seismic rebate is about protecting my home, making sure my home doesn't fall down.

And yes, there are things like making sure it doesn't spark a natural gas leak, and that can have impacts, but given our our narrow structure separation distances in the hills, each home that's hardened gives further uh resiliency to the overall neighborhood.

So there is a community interest in getting this right.

Guess what?

The seismic rebate has no cap.

There's no cap on the seismic rebate.

I could buy a five million dollar house and my seismic rebate is the full 0.5%.

We're just asking for the same consideration here on home hardening that we already give to seismic because again, it it plays as much, if not more, neighborhood benefit than seismic does.

Um the last thing I think I'll just suggest is that um the staff report, by the way, this came through the public safety committee.

We're supportive of the item.

The the ask of staff was to come back with some options for consideration on the cap.

We had not committed to a cap, so we did not pass a cap through the committee.

The cap came through the staff process and they've added it, but so I I it it is worthy of a conversation because the committee didn't approve the cap itself.

Um if you'll note the way that the cap is currently written, it's a hard cap that basically says if you sell your home for two point nine nine million, you get the rebate.

If you sell your house for 3.001 million, you get zero.

And so I I also just think that the structure of that cap is is fundamentally unfair and kind of works against the if it's good enough for the 2.999 million dollar homeowner, it's good enough for the 3.001.

So anyway, so I just think there's structural things with respect to the cap as well.

So respectfully, I again I understand the concerns, I understand the budgetary situation that we're in, but we are also in a fire emergency.

We're also trying to encourage people to do everything they can to protect themselves and all of us, all of us down the hill.

So I think it's worthy of our consideration as a council to do this bit like we're already doing for seismic and extend it to to home hardening as as it currently exists.

So appreciate folks' consideration.

Thank you.

Councilmember uh Taplin.

Uh, thank you very much, and and thank you to uh Commissioner Katz and Chief Sprague and Council Member Blackabee.

Um quick question.

Uh the seismic retro sorry, seismic uh rebate program.

Uh what is the what's like the area that that applies to?

Is that citywide or is that like it's it's citywide, okay.

That is citywide citywide.

Yeah, I think that's um that's notable.

Um, there are three issues I'm I'm having with the idea of removing the cap.

One is uh the potential revenue loss.

It would be helpful to see um uh uh what funds would be impacted were we to apply this um uncapped exemption if it's if it's the transfer tax, I want to see what we what programs would be impacted and how and what what degree um uh I think that it's both true that we are in a fiscal crisis and that we have uh a very serious vulnerability to wildfire.

Um those are both true.

For me, uh, you know, I'm hearing from a lot of my residents and from residents in other flatland neighborhoods about the burden they're facing paying our taxes.

It would be very difficult for me to exempt one part of town from taxes while the entirety of my district and the districts that neighbor my district would continue to pay those taxes.

Um that's not to take away from the importance of providing incentives and and assistance to people who are who are making these necessary changes to their properties.

Um, and I would welcome and would support further measures to provide that assistance, but I cannot I cannot support a tax exemption for homes over three million dollars, or add three million dollars.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember O'Keefe, and then we'll go to Council Member Trakeup.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Councilmember Blackabee for um for this item and for uh for the supplement and for um allowing me to co-sponsor, which I'm happy to do.

And um Backup did a good job summarizing the arguments.

I really want to emphasize one argument in favor of the supplement of removing the cap that really convinced me because I agree with you, Councilmember Taplin, and I agree with a lot of the commenters.

You're absolutely right.

This is we this is we're in a fiscal crisis and we're giving tax breaks to who.

I mean, it's it's a lot to ask, but there's one there's one orientation that makes it clear to me that this is the right policy, and that's what are we trying to do with our home hardening efforts and with Ember.

What is the purpose of it?

We're trying to achieve something like herd immunity with our neighborhoods, our fire prone neighborhoods.

Um and so that person's home is protected.

That's actually not how it works.

The neighborhood, and Chief Sprague can come.

If I get this wrong, please tell me.

But my my sense is that if 80% or something of the homes have been fireproofed or have been hardened and have zone zero compliant, then the whole neighborhood is very, very protected.

And if 70% or 60% have done it, there's still some protection, but it's a lot, it's a lot less.

So the name of the game with all of this is to maximize compliance.

And that is like what are we doing if we're not maximizing compliance?

And so to me, this is one more way to bring in a few more houses, which really could make the difference.

And that argument for me is why I not just don't just uh support the supplement, but actually wanted to co-sponsor it.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Councilmember Traeger.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Uh yeah, I um uh I appreciate um all of uh Councilmember Blackaby's uh work on this and in all transparency, I too am conflicted on the uh the waiver um of the three million dollar threshold.

Um I I do understand the benefits of it, and I understand that um if we don't um get compliance at the end of the day, that just puts uh all residents not just those whether they can afford to make those fire hardening improvements or not.

Um it makes everyone um more at risk um to being impacted by an out-of-control fire.

So I get that, and I am also having trouble squaring that when, for instance, um we have a referral that has been kind of in referral purgatory around um a transfer tax exemption for 100% affordable housing properties, um, and understandably um there have been questions about fiscal impacts.

I I believe that they're far more minor than um what the impacts might be to the city here.

Um, and I understand it in some way, these are apples and oranges, but I just wanted to provide an illustrative example of why I'm really struggling with it, and I'm wondering if um council member Blackaby um might be open to creating some kind of um provision where maybe in the first X number of years, yes, we can um incentivize this by providing no cap, but um at some point um there will be a phasing out, um, and a reverting back to some kind of threshold, whether it's three million dollars or something else.

Okay, thank you, Councilmember Humbert.

I'm up, thank you, madam mayor.

Um yeah, I was privileged um and happy to to to be a co-sponsor of the the sub- my primary concern with the the the the item um itself is is the cap and in the cap is like a cliff.

Um and you know, uh as council member uh blackby pointed out, um, if it's two point you know nine nine nine nine million dollars you get the credit if it's three point zero zero one um million you don't and that just seems to me to be screwy and unfair um there may be a room here for a compromise you know I'm uh co-sponsor of the the um the SUP but but I do see it I would see it potential for some kind of a of a compromise um where for example you just didn't get credit uh over three million dollars if you sold a 10 million dollar house you don't get credit for the difference between three and and ten I'm just throwing that out there um uh so anyway um and I really find council member Blackaby's comments and council member Keefs comments to be really compelling especially the the the the argument about herd immunity um it it's really true and um and I don't want to elaborate on that because they both have spoken so eloquently but but I'm I'm on board with with those arguments thank you thank you council member Bartlett oh thank you question I guess I'm not up on the um the evolution of the item has this already gone to the budget committee it has right okay and are these are these issues that that we grappled with there the cap is new the cap was something we asked for okay okay yeah again it's uh yeah I I understand the number does seem kind of arbitrary as you mentioned there but of course you know um it's difficult to to ask uh our constituents who are complaining about the tax bill all the time um so they have to shoulder it but the rich guys don't I mean that's the shorthand is how it's how it sounds uh because that's how it is right so it's a yeah it's a difficult issue I'm I'm not compelled to um support it at this point.

Thank you Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes thank you very much madam mayor and thank you council member blackaby for the supplemental I uh do appreciate the rationale and I think that oh okay okay so what was particularly compelling to me um in what you said and I think Councilmember O'Keefe said this as well is that this really is a communal effort and so we want to incentivize everyone in the fire zones to make these home hardening improvements and I think I am I think Councilmember Humbert may have said this it is a little uh annoying that there is a a cliff of you know when you're at 2,999,999 you get the full benefit um and then not you know when you're one cent higher so I when I saw your supplemental council member blackaby I did uh want to look at the data in terms of how many home sales are over three million and and what is the revenue loss for the city if we were to pursue the cap and we were given some data I'm gonna attempt to just explain the math of because I just want the council to know how much this might cost so in the data that we got we were told that the total sales over the last seven years um equaled six hundred and seven million uh roughly um over seven years if you divide that number by seven and you do one point five percent of it that's the the uh amount sort of that that you you work from and then it's a third of that for the transfer tax so I'll just show so 60751850 divided by the seven years, so that's eighty six or eighty seven million reduce it to the one and a half percent that's one point three million.

If everybody who bought a home for more than three million does the full rebate, which is unlikely.

So this is a max um you would get 33 percent of one point three million.

So at a max, this would cost four hundred thirty thousand now that's assuming the past is representative of the future and sales fluctuate, but this is an order of magnitude as to how much it would cost.

And I I also explored, you know, what if we just held everybody to three million?

Meaning regardless of how much your home sold for 10 million, 7 million, if we just held everybody to the 3 million amount, would that yield any significant savings?

And if you do that math, so there was 146 sales that exceeded 3 million in seven years.

If you divide that by seven, that's about 21 home sales a year.

If you just multiply that by 3 million, reduce it to the one and a half percent and take a third of that, you're at like 309,000.

So so just to let you know so the staff proposal obviously has zero cost for homes over three million.

Um if we did this sort of compromise thing, the max would be 300,000 order of magnitude.

Councilmember Blackaby's proposal is 430,000.

I just wanted to put that out there for the council's consideration.

It's tough because the deficit that we were advised about at the budget and finance committee the other day is 25 million.

So it feels stressful to add a cost in, and that's an annual cost, because we we then we increase our problem that we have to solve.

So we have to think about well, what are we going to reduce then to cover this and then the rest of the 25 million?

So I think I think um this is not something I'm totally against, um, but it's I feel like it's tough to do it right now with the budget situation we're in.

So that's kind of where I'm at right now.

And I think we've heard from everyone, but um I'm interested to hear hear from the rest of my colleagues on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A couple of us left.

Go ahead.

Yeah, and I look and I just look at and I understand Snifty.

Uh again, I also just want to remind us this is not cash that's going back.

This is not a welcome to Berkeley, here's some money kind of thing.

This is going to harden homes.

This is money that's invested in the community to strengthen the community.

So I just so I just want people to also think this isn't like taking 300,000 just lighting on fire.

This is $300,000, it's going to remove Woody budgetation in your homes.

This is this is fixing roofs, this is fixing siding, this is fixing fences that intersect the houses, all the stuff that we know works.

So again, is that worth $300,000 investment?

I mean, that's a policy choice, but I I just want people to be accurate about what it is and what it's not.

This is not a giveaway that's again.

If we don't do this, many people will not do the work.

Yeah, so thank you.

All right, Councilmember Luna Para.

Thank you.

I want to bring up um something that has been brought up in in budget discussions in the past, um, especially given our deficit at the moment.

If we remove this cap, this is 400,000 that is gonna come from somewhere.

Like, what are we gonna cut to get this 400,000?

And is that gonna end up being child care for people who who rely on it?

Like what are we what are we willing to trade for this?

Because that is, is it gonna be staff members that we have to lay off?

That these are all considerations that we have to take into consideration when we're when we're giving this money back.

Um, I also want to talk a little bit about the argument that I think um that I think is is compelling around um uh making sure that that enough people do this that the fires do stop.

And I also think that we have been open and clearly interested in supporting requirements for everyone in the community to adopt it and to provide financial assistance to those who need it.

Um the these this would be financial assistance for people who do not need it.

Um I just don't think that that's reasonable.

Um I do I want to thank everyone who's who's worked on this.

Um I do think that the original item is really important, um, and I'm glad that we're working on it.

I just don't think that the supplemental aligns with our city priorities, and I really do want to hear like I I want to hear what we would be willing to give up.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um so councilmembers taplin and O'Keefe have indicated they're interested in speaking um so I'm gonna go back to them.

So starting with council member taplin.

Uh thank you I just wanted to point out that the policy committee recommendation includes along with the request of staff to submit an amendment ordinance the inclusion of analysis and options for an eligibility cap based on home value.

So to me it sounds like the committee gave uh a recommendation that would allow for options to be returned so I don't think that this conversation necessarily will end if we don't vote for the supplemental but I do think that the analysis and the options are gonna be important for us to have before we agree to uh for for us to consider alongside this question of whether to um whether to exempt homes in excess of 300 million dollars in value.

Three million no no it's okay where does it end right sorry council member.

Thank you I pressed the button because I have an answer to the question of what are we getting for this money like how do we weigh it?

What are we giving up?

We're thinking about how much money the city would lose if we had a catastrophic Pacific Palisades level wildfire in the hills how much money would we lose as a city if you want to put it in financial terms.

Now the chances of that are small but mathematically if you make it slightly smaller you are actually saving money in a probabilistic sense.

But I really want you to think there's there is a we are protecting our city's revenue by maximizing the number of homes that are hardened because we are lowering the chances of a catastrophic wildfire which would have devastating financial consequences.

Thank you Councilmember Lunopara you have something else you wanted to add yeah I also wanted to add that um when we when um homes do home hardening that also increases the value of their property maybe not by as much as the the rebate would be but um it there is an incentive also for homeowners to do that.

And I also I appreciate that answer and I think I think you're right in a in a larger sense but we sort of are going to have to make policy decisions.

We're still gonna have to adopt a budget next year.

Okay other comments oh sorry council member traika um no problem um so it is 1 38 a.m where I'm at I am doing my best to do um math as quickly as council member Kesarwani um uh I do not want to hold this important item up um so if there was a vote on it I would request that we sever out the portion that removes the cap um and uh I I would be interested in having additional discussion because I um I understand that it's not as simple as um uh basic dollars and cents conversation, but I don't know if uh three million dollars is the right number.

Um, I would be open in looking at options that include a sunset.

Maybe we can incentivize getting to that hard mentality over the course of a few years after implementation, and then phase it down or out.

I just don't know um what that means right now in terms of dollars and cents.

Councilmember, maybe I can ask a question of our city manager of how that three million dollars uh number came to be.

That might be helpful for Councilmember Taplin and Trey Gub's questions.

Um it's two times the median, and it aligns with measure W's three million dollars at the top tax rate of measure w.

So there is a an ease of implementation given that that those numbers or no, it's just more it's more like double the median, felt like a lot.

I don't know.

Yeah, okay, councilmember Bartlett.

Thank you.

I mean, these are interesting points.

Councilman's Councilman Luna Power brought up the home value being in um enhanced by the home hardening.

Um, you know, my colleague next to me, Mr.

Humbert talked about a compromise.

This seems like the addition of this this um new element.

I mean, do you want to go back to the committee and think of some some um ideas around this?

No.

Okay, sorry, I haven't gotten a chance to speak yet.

So I would like to speak and then we can come back to this.

I'm sorry, I'm reaching the out point of the hour where I'm starting to raise my voice.

So all right, so yeah, I just want to say we did discuss this at budget and finance, and I wanna tell you all that this morning that council members Kesserwani and Blackaby and I received reports on the dismal state of the marina fund and the parking fund.

Like we are talking about a 28 million dollars at least structural deficit.

And I have told people that I cannot in good faith support us losing any more money, period.

Like I just think that that is something we need to have a conversation about.

It's just it's tough.

I hear you.

We have all been incredibly supportive of the fire work of Ember, of home hardening.

We are trying to find other ways, just want to make sure folks understand this is not the only way that we are supporting people in their homes.

So we we are considering the trade-offs here.

That's what we're talking about, and I wanna address the cutoff argument.

That's just how policies work.

There is a cutoff, it sucks.

I'm sorry, like I know it's challenging to figure out what the right number is, but three million dollars as a home for me is is a lot.

So many people in our city can't even afford to buy a home.

So we're talking about people who can afford to buy three million dollar home, or in the next five years they're gonna sell their home, and it will be three million dollars.

So I think we need to think about that.

Um we just really uh to me, I cannot in good faith subsidize multi-million dollar homes.

I uh people who own them.

Um even this item in general, like I actually thought that the cap should have been lower.

So I was willing to go up to three million dollars.

So the fact that we're even talking about this for me, uh I'm telling you, I'm sorry, I know I've reached a late hour, so like I said, losing my cool, but um that that's really hard for me.

And we just we need to remember that all of these decisions matter.

We are talking about very likely having to lay people off.

So when we're talking about trade-offs, like this is what we need to be thinking about.

Um, and just to make sure it's clear, I'm not arguing that we don't need to maximize compliance.

I'm arguing that we shouldn't be subsidizing those who can afford a three million dollar house.

So that's where I'm at.

I'm happy to take more comments, but also we have no motion on the floor, so um, council member who's next.

Councilmember Blackaby.

Yeah, I'd like to I guess propose um uh an amended motion.

Um so let me share.

I just happen to have some other language in my back pocket.

So let me uh just a moment here.

Uh so um this language basically fixes the what Mark described as the cliff.

Um where if you're at 3.001, you get nothing, and if you're at 2.999, you get something.

So the way this reads is up to one third of the tax imposed shall be rebated, expenses shall be rebated on a dollar for dollar basis for property sales value up to three million, no additional transfer tax shall be repeated for incremental sales value in excess of three million, and then we review that number every year to make sure that it represents the 95th percentile.

Um so we're willing to, I'm I'm willing in the spirit of kind of a compromise to sort of say great uh we will take home values of more than three million off the table, but every house up to three million gets the full value of the tax credit.

And if you have more than three million, you're limited at three million.

So that would be my um, so my compromise would be to include the woody vegetation and this cap instead of the current staff cap.

That's my motion.

Second.

Okay, I'm gonna make a motion for the original staff report, but include the the part about the I forgot the language of the I've been calling it shrub shrubbery.

Yes, of the woody vegetation.

So including the woody vegetation, but keeping the cap the way that it was before.

So there are now two, there's a motion and a substitute motion on the floor, but I need a second.

I will second.

Just to clarify, are you moving the original with the policy recommendation?

Policy committee recommendation.

Yes, exactly, but the addition of the Woody.

What did we just say?

I'm sorry.

Woody vegetation, thank you.

Okay.

Wonderful, I second.

Okay, all right.

Going back to the order.

So council member Kessarwani.

Yes, I I wanted to um can I do the city clerk propose a friendly amendment to both motions?

Okay, so uh the what I'd like to do, so in in reviewing this item today, we realized that it wasn't necessarily clear that the one-third is based on the base transfer tax percentage of 1.5%.

It's very clear that the seismic rebate only applies to uh the 1.5%, and we have language on that in the Berkeley Municipal Code.

Uh, we don't have it for this uh uh home hardening rebate.

So I wanted to propose in the first paragraph L1 in the last sentence, the last clause that it would read shall not exceed the maximum of one third of the base 1.5 percent transfer tax paid per property.

Yeah, is that that's that's good for me.

And then um Councilmember Blackaby, is that acceptable to you as well?

Okay, okay, and our seconders.

Okay, great.

Okay, so that is in there, all right.

Thank you very much.

Okay, um, moving on.

Councilmember Taplin is next, then council member Trap back to you.

That was just uh to make a session motion.

Okay, happened.

Thank you.

All right, Councilmember Tracker.

Did you have a yeah?

I um I mean if well or do you want to this is a question may this might be about both motions.

I I just wanted to see if we could um originally I was raising my hand to see um ask if we could wait for um this new amendment to the city manager for analysis about the feasibility of how this could be enforced and um staffed the costs of staff time associated with enforcement.

Um so I would still be interested in, you know, um uh I I understand the policy um issues here.

I I think we would benefit from more analysis and what whichever motion passes.

I hope we can uh bring this back um for further discussion at a later point.

Um but I guess uh that said um I will be for now supporting the um the substitute.

Okay, so getting more information about after.

Yes, okay, all right.

So we are voting on the substitute motion, which has uh council member Kessarwani's change um the original staff report, including the cap, and adding the woody vegetation onto there.

So we're gonna take a first take a vote on the substitute.

And and the new language at the the end.

Yes, that was Council Member Kessarwani's addition change.

Uh just so I have it on in case we get to the main motion, um Councilmember Blackby, Councilmember Kessarwani's new edition is just added to what you have on the screen.

That's right.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, on the substitute motion, the original language in the item plus the um Woody Vegetation and uh Council Member Kessarwani's amendment uh on the motion, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Can I suggest something?

Um with with this substitute motion, and I guess I guess um maybe I don't think we need to make any change here, but I just want to say for the record that if the substitute motion passes, Councilmember Blackaby could still do a budget referral, perhaps.

Um that because I I think what what's giving me pause right now is to incur greater costs without the budget picture.

Um so I just wanted to note that um that it could still be considered as part of the budget process.

I guess that would require changing this ordinance, um which could happen.

Okay, that's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

On the substitute motion, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes.

Taplin.

Yes, Bartlett.

Yes, Tragab.

I.

O'Keefe.

Abstain.

Blackaby.

No.

Lunapara.

Yes.

Humbert?

No.

And Mary Ishi.

Yes.

Okay, that motion carries.

So the item is concluded.

Okay, we we need to extend time.

Thank you.

Uh no, it's 10 50.

I thought our time.

Is it at 11?

Or is that the 11.11.

Sorry.

Okay.

All right.

So I'm just trying to think about how much time this item might take.

Uh, let's extend to 1145 just to be safe, and then we won't have to do it twice.

How's that?

So moves.

All right.

Second.

Very good.

Can you take the roll, please, Clerk?

Okay, to extend to 1145.

Quick public.

Council member Kessarwani.

So, 1145.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

Taplin to extend.

Yes.

Bartlett.

Yes.

Tragob.

I.

O'Keefe.

Yes.

Blackaby.

Yes.

Unapara.

Yes.

Humbert.

Yes.

And Mary Ishi.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Mark, for being our time watcher.

Appreciate you.

Okay.

So we are moving on to item 33, telegraph multimodal corridor project conceptual design.

And presentation.

Presentation.

Yes.

All right.

Hi.

Thank you so much for waiting.

I so appreciate you.

Um I'm going to pass the floor to you.

All right.

We'll get right to it as Elliot logs in here.

But good evening.

Last item of the night.

So we do have a short presentation for you here.

So with me, I just want to introduce a team that's at the table, and we also have some other folks in the room, but we have Elliot Schwimmer, who's our senior transportation planner, and then that is Wozniak, who is with uh our consultant team who's a director of engineering.

And so those two will kind of handle the presentation today and answer questions at the conclusion.

So once you're ready, Elliot, we'll get started.

Thanks, Terrence.

Or a panelist.

Um raise your hand.

Uh so you I don't think I have a link actually.

Just so I can find you on the or what name are you under?

Um I'm on the stream, actually.

Sorry.

Can you I need the um zoom link?

Oops.

Oh, you need a zoom link.

Okay.

Um let's see.

Sorry.

Uh all right.

Well, I'm gonna need your um might be easiest if you went to the online agenda and joined from the public uh I'm gonna need the email address.

Um, it's left.

What yeah, what's the easy?

If I join from the stream, no.

Uh well, there's an online agenda.

Yeah, just go to the uh just Google here.

It's right there.

Zoom in.

There we go.

Yeah.

Okay, you can add.

Okay.

Okay.

Turn this one off.

Sorry about that.

Thank you for your patience.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

I'm Elliot Schwimmer, senior transportation planner.

Happy to be with you discussing the Telegraph Multimodal Corridor Project tonight.

I'll try to go fast.

So the recommendation in front of you is to adopt a resolution approving the recommended conceptual design of the telegraph multimodal corridor project, and direct the city manager to direct staff to proceed with detailed engineering and design of the project.

In this presentation, we'll review existing conditions and analysis, review the concept design selection process, summarize stakeholder feedback, survey results, discuss the recommended conceptual design, which is concept three B, and discuss next steps.

So the project is Telegraph Avenue.

It's from Dwight Way to Wolsey Street or the Oakland border, it's about point eight five miles.

The project is consistent and implements the following city and AC transit plans, the 2016 major corridor study, and from AC Transit, 2017 Bike Plan, 2020 Vision Zero Action Plan, 2020 Pedestrian Plan, 2023 Transit First Policy Implementation Plan, and the 2025 bike plan update, which is a draft.

Summary of existing conditions, line six operates on the corridor.

It's the third highest ridership line in Berkeley.

It has 12-minute headways, 4600 daily riders overall.

For walking or pedestrians, there are long crossing distances.

The curb to curb width is 68 to 74 feet.

The two parking lanes, four travel lanes, recently updated 88 cobra amps throughout the corridor.

For bicycling, there are fading and deteriorating conventional bike lanes.

They are narrow, located within the door zone.

People frequently are right seen riding in general traffic lanes.

Regarding parking, there are 183 public spaces on telegraph with a 58% utilization.

And then for the off-corridor utilization, there are 577 public spaces on side streets within a one-block walk of telegraph.

Utilization on off corridor is 62%.

And then regarding Vision Zero, between 2013 and 2025, there are 21 severe injuries and 107 minor injuries within the Willard Neighborhood Association, met with Teline of public meetings in 2022.

In 2024, met with fights, also conducted door-to-door business outreach.

And then in 2025, this year, we met two more times with fights, met with the commission on Disability and the Transportation and Infrastructure commission twice, had a public meeting, met with T-bit again, and here we are today.

So a summary of stakeholder feedback.

So AC Transit and UC Berkeley favor maximum transit benefits, so concepts one or two.

Walkbike Berkeley supports staff's recommendation and a full closure of the Dwight Triangle.

The Telegraph Business Improvement District supports staff's recommendation and supports studying a full closure of the Dwight Triangle slip lane.

The public survey results, which had over 500 responses, favor pedestrian and bike safety improvements.

And the chart on the right is one response from the survey shows that 54% of respondents favor concept design three.

At the public meeting, there were questions around parallel bike boulevards.

There were concerns around removing left turns under concepts one and two.

Return to the TIC with options for closing the Dwight Triangle, and return to them at a later date with specific intersection and bus stop designs to review.

So this slide focuses on fire department feedback.

So we met with the fire department three times to solicit feedback.

The fire marshal expressed support for concept three.

Concepts one, two, and three were presented in that June meeting.

That was before we developed concept three B that fire marshal said it would be more intuitive for users and consistent with the Oakland street design.

Also emphasize potential for the center turn lane to be clear for emergency vehicles.

They also clarified their access requirements, which are that fire apparatus can get within 15 to 30 feet of a building with an unobstructed street width minimum of 26 feet in your buildings 30 feet or taller, maintain left turns at Webster for access to Alta Bates, and maintain access at Derby and Stewart Street for fire apparatus.

We'll be looked at in more detail during detailed engineering.

They were that traffic calming devices in the center turn lane should be designed to permit emergency vehicles to pass through them.

We talked about mountable raised bikeway buffers versus paint only buffers.

They asked for parking enforcement of the center turn lane, including on weekends to make sure it's clear, and they expressed that they do not support closure of the Dwight Triangle slip line.

Past research on the impacts of biking, walking, and other road safety infrastructure has found little to no causal impact of these types of changes on business employment revenue and turnover, and that bike lanes can provide positive economic impact.

We conducted door-to-door business outreach in October 2024, contacted 62 businesses.

Purpose of outreach was to understand commercial loading needs.

And we learned that most businesses receive deliveries two to three times per week.

Some businesses have off-street loading, but many receive deliveries from vehicles loading on Telegraph Avenue.

Some businesses oppose to bike lanes, others support them.

But we learned that there is a need for loading on telegraph.

We, as I mentioned earlier, we also undertook focused outreach to with the disability community.

We presented to the commission on disability in June, specifically regarding this project, and we've also had ongoing conversations with them with the community regarding accessible complete streets design considerations.

In our June meeting, we heard that it's difficult to deploy and operate wheelchair ramps and protected bike lanes.

One commissioner prefers ADA spaces on side streets.

They said the project should incorporate accessible pedestrian signals, concerned about construction impacts on accessibility, suggest evaluating past projects and implementing lessons learned for future projects.

They had general feedback regarding our project delivery process, that accessibility should be integrated into the early planning and development and scoping of projects, that the city should consult an ADA expert with experience designing cycle tracks for accessibility.

Regarding protected bikeways.

They have to travel long distances in wheelchairs to get to the nearest ramp.

That they said they're not necessarily legible to visually impaired persons.

They can't predict when a bike will be there, and that streets have gotten less accessible for visually impaired people over time due to quiet or silent EVs, silent bikes.

There's uncertainty as to whether bikers will yield to them when they enter the street.

For zero waste, that's a public works department.

We walked the corridor with zero waste supervisors.

They said that maintaining existing driveways ensure zero waste operators can access dumpsters.

The plastic carts can be serviced through the bike and floating parking lanes.

They express concerns about floating parking lanes, increasing the distance between the curb and the truck.

So moving on to the initial concept schematics.

These slides are admittedly hard to read, but the green represents bike lanes, blue is parking and loading, gray is vehicle travel lanes, and red is our bus only lanes.

The initial concept one had two has two travel lanes in each direction, one general purpose lane, one transit right turn, and driveway access lane, also known as a business access and transit lane or a bat lane.

Concept one maximizes parking by limiting left turn pockets.

It would eliminate left turns at 13 of 15 intersections.

Concept two is similar to concept one, has two travel lanes in each direction, more left turn pockets and opportunities, instead of just Webster and Ashby.

Under concept one, it would also allow left turns at Stewart and Parker Street, but making other trade-offs, like reducing parking and loading or removing floating transit stops.

It would eliminate 11 of 15 left turns.

And then initial concept three is a continuation of the Oakland design on telegraph.

Important context is that Oakland has approved a road design or a lane reduction from four to three lanes from downtown Oakland all the way to the Berkeley border.

Oakland's project is anticipated to be part of existing conditions by the time Berkeley's project is constructed.

And the initial concept three reduces travel lanes to one in each direction, maximizes left turn pockets and opportunities, and includes a continuous center turn lane.

Since the public outreach process for these initial concepts, we developed a revised concept, concept 3B, that we feel is a compromise between what we've heard from the public and the feedback we've received from AC Transit.

This slide shows that compromise or recommended concept 3B.

We developed this because we identified that most of the transit delay under concept three was occurring near Ashby.

So with targeted transit improvements around Ashby, we could eliminate most of the transit delay.

This option includes transit priority elements from Webster to Russell Street, or about three blocks.

That includes bat lanes and queue jumps to allow the bus to re-enter traffic ahead of the other vehicles.

Otherwise, this concept is the same as the initial concept three.

This slide shows a plan view of the ward to organ segment under concept 3B.

This concept, except for around Ashby, mirrors the design features of Oakland's Telegraph Complete Streets projects for consistent user experience along the entire route.

This design includes a class four bike lane, floating parking, lane loading, bus boarding islands, one travel lane in each direction in a center turn lane.

In this segment, concept 3B looks similar to concepts one and two for three blocks between Webster and Russell in order to mitigate most of the transit delay, which we occurs as a result of congestion at the Ashby telegraph intersection.

So even with these transit improvements, we still forecast that concept 3B will delay transit by up to 10%.

But we will be looking closely at opportunities to refine the alternative to minimize transit impacts during detailed engineering.

So there are a number of strategies that we are looking at to reduce or eliminate this transit delay, such as permissive left turn signalization at Ashby Avenue instead of protected phasing, could maintain the bat lane beyond Webster or Russell, perhaps to Stewart, could extend left turn lanes, can tweak single timing at other intersections.

All these things will be looked at during the later phases.

Next slide.

So left turn impacts.

So every concept will impact left turns off the corridor.

Concept one would maintain two left turn opportunities at Ashby and Webster.

Concept two would maintain four left turn opportunities, Ashby, Webster, Stewart, and Parker.

Concept three would maintain all left turns except at Derby, Russell, and Woolsey, which are the bike boulevards where left turns would be prevented or prohibited under all concepts.

And concept three B would maintain all left turns except for at the three bike boulevards and at Howe Street.

The map on the right shows how someone who lives near Derby and Ellsworth, for example, would be impacted by the left turn prohibition at Derby Street under concept one.

Due to a number of other diverters in the area, in particular along Ashby, they would have to take a pretty circuitous route to access the neighborhood west of Telegraph.

So this slide shows the estimated impact to parking revenue from each of the concepts.

Parking revenue in 2024 along the corridor was about 188,000.

Average revenue per space was around $1,000.

Concepts one and two would eliminate between 43 and 52% of the parking on the corridor and would result in between 81 to 98,000 in lost revenue.

This assumes that the spaces are occupied 100% of the time, so this can be considered a worst-case scenario or most conservative.

Concepts three and three B would remove far fewer parking spaces than concepts one or two, but would still result in a net loss of parking overall and would likely reduce parking fund revenue by about $30,000 annually.

This is a snapshot based on the current level of design, but we expect these numbers to continue changing as we get into detailed engineering and we further refine the design.

So here's an evaluation matrix that compares the concepts at a high level.

We did a quantitative evaluation, but this summarizes the results of the quantitative evaluation.

Each concept design was ranked based on its ability to meet project goals.

Public feedback was also incorporated into the scoring.

We determined that concept three B scored highest among all concepts.

Now, as you can see on this chart, existing conditions does not accomplish any of the project goals.

Concepts one and two accomplish most of the project goals, but would substantially decrease the amount of parking and loading.

Concept three accomplishes most of the project goals, but would substantially increase transit travel times.

Concept three B accomplishes most of the project goals, accomplishes all the project goals and mitigates concepts three's impact on transit travel times for the most part.

So why is concept three B the recommended concept design?

Again, we identified that Ashby contributes over half of the increase in vehicle travel time and 84% of the increased transit travel time.

This led us to believe we could eliminate most or all of that transit delay with targeted transit improvements around Ashby rather than a dedicated transit right of way the entire corridor.

Concept three B prioritize prioritizes Vision Zero because it results in slower vehicle speeds compared to concepts one and two, has shorter pedestrian crossing distances because there would be only three lanes of traffic to cross instead of four or five lanes under concepts one and two.

It would make left turns more predictable because it includes left turn pockets where left turns are allowed.

We also had reservations about the likelihood of the public to comply with the left turn prohibitions under concepts one and two because most intersections into those concepts where left turns would be prohibited, lack diverters except at the bike boulevards.

So left turns would be prevented using signage only.

And we think there's a possibility that drivers who are used to making left turns onto their streets for decades would continue making those turning movements illegally, creating unsafe conditions.

Concept 3B maintains most parking and loading, is consistent with telegraph business improvement district input, lines with fire department feedback, responds to the public survey preference, and is consistent with the Oakland design.

So specifically regarding the Dwight Triangle, we looked at three options and determined that all are feasible.

Option one closes the slip lane to vehicle traffic and creates new open space, potentially in partnership with adjacent businesses.

This option requires changes to realign the geometry of the intersection to make the turning movement work for larger vehicles, turning southbound onto telegraph.

It also requires turning the northbound approach on telegraph into a two-way street or one lane in each direction, which reduces road capacity.

Option two would keep the slip lane open to all, but would add a raised crosswalk to improve pedestrian safety.

Option three would keep the slip lane open to all with save costs by not raising the crosswalk but would improve safety for bicyclists by adding a bike lane through the slip lane.

Option one would add about 15 seconds of additional delay for northbound vehicles, including transit vehicles.

The full closure or option one would be the safest option for pedestrians and bicyclists.

I should add um that the fire department does not support closing the slip lane, but walk bike Berkeley, Telegraph Business Improvement District, and AC Transit are all interested in closing the slip lane.

I also want to clarify that the item in front of you does not make a recommendation regarding the Dwight Triangle slip lane.

However, having an understanding of council's vision for this slip lane would help us determine how to best incorporate it into the larger concept design.

We heard from fights that the committee would like it closed.

Um we also heard from the TIC that they are interested in closing the slip lane.

All concept designs, concepts one, two, three, or three B could accommodate a full closure of the Dwight Triangle slip lane.

So schedule and next steps.

That has been done to date.

Once council approves a concept design, the project will advance to detailed engineering, where there will be further outreach to public and technical stakeholders.

We have some remaining grant funding under the current phase to finish up concept design development.

And earlier this year, we won an Alameda County Transportation Commission grant to fund detailed engineering through 100% plans.

But you want to be clear that construction is not yet funded.

That is the final slide.

So thank you for your time.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much because you also gave us our 9 a.m.

presentation, and here we are uh over 12 hours later.

Um so thank you.

Um, all right, so clarifying questions from folks.

I uh, yes.

Uh council member Lunapara.

Thank you.

I actually have a couple questions for the fire department.

Thank you so much.

Um I want to clarify some of the what are mainly one of the positions.

Um, my question is around.

I guess it I'm I'm like trying to think through it.

If there is no bus lane and there are there's one lane going in each direction, um, why is that preferred by the fire department than having a dedicated bus lane, especially given that that one lane would have transit stopping and probably causing traffic behind it.

Um why is that preferable over having a bus lane that the fire department could utilize to get through telegraph?

Our experience with dedicated bus lanes is that oftentimes they're occupied by other vehicles.

Um delivery drivers picking up food, dropping off food.

Um, so oftentimes the bus lane is not actually available for emergency response.

Uh we've experienced that on uh a lot of the builds that have happened recently.

Um I'm not sure how significant of a preference that is.

I think we can go either way, but that's the that's the context and reason behind it.

I get that makes sense.

Um, I guess the what I'm thinking through is I'm picturing um concept 3B, which is similar to the Oakland design.

Um, and when the when the bus stops, all the cars stop behind it, and so then it kind of creates this the this block on both sides of the street, and so theoretically the fire truck couldn't get by at all.

Um, having maybe possibly more.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Um yeah, I think that that's the question I have right now.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Taplin.

Uh thank you.

I I have two questions.

Um during the presentation you said that uh the report doesn't factor in the data from uh AC transit's uh transit priority improvements.

Uh is that something that can be um um reported or shared with council as you uh move into the next phase of the project uh yeah just to clarify that so our the analysis that we did did factor in the improvements that AC Transit is doing, um, but it's not taking credit for those.

So we're not coming in and saying that the transit travel times are gonna improve as a result of this other project.

Um the analysis is only looking at the geometric changes that are being proposed here and not taking credit for AC transit's work that they're already doing on the corridor.

Uh thank you so much.

Um and uh the the TIC is recommending that uh staff continue to work with AC Transit to um uh increase bus travel time.

Um and you sorry.

Decrease bus travel time.

Thank you.

Um and you did mention some uh improvements that you've identified.

Can you um restate those please?

Um yeah, so the analysis that we've done to date has really been a high level sensitivity analysis looking at the concepts.

So while our analysis right now says that oh, there could be about a 10% increase in travel time along the corridor, we haven't gone through that next phase of detailed design and refinement.

Um that can really help us hone in those numbers, and we think that there are a number of opportunities there to improve travel times.

Um one of them is just looking at the signals along the corridor and seeing if there's opportunities allocate more green time along telegraph as opposed to the side streets and look for additional opportunities for signal coordination to help the bus move move farther along.

Um we also know that the second most congested intersection um in terms of delay on telegraph is the one at Stewart.

So as Elliot mentioned, there are opportunities potentially to look at maybe extending that transit lane a little bit farther forward and look at how improvements at at Stewart specifically around signal timing or maybe a lane in one direction or the other um can help improve the the transit travel time as well.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Uh moving on to Councilmember Humbert.

Yes, thank you, madam mayor, and actually most of my the questions I had have already been asked and answered.

So I just want to confirm um that this design matches the design, essentially matches the design of the Oakland improvements that will end at Woolsey, right at the at the Oakland city border, Oakland Berkeley city border.

Is that correct?

That's correct until you get to Webster, and then you have a business.

Right, and then there's a little bit of but if we if we put in a you know options one or two, that would be, you know, for all traffic, including the buses, sort of a radical change right at the Berkeley border from the Oakland design to a new Berkeley design, is that correct?

Yeah, yeah.

So I I see some real virtue in in the design being consistent, reasonably consistent all the way from Temascal to to Dwight.

So anyway, that's those are really the questions, only the questions that I had.

Thank you.

Um we have two more questions from our councilmember Tragub and O'Keefe.

So if folks want to start lining up for public comment, go ahead and start making your way over there.

Okay, Councilmember O'Keefe.

Thank you.

Um I apologize in advance if you did cover this clearly.

I'm very tired, but I'm curious how did you incorporate the uh feedback from the disability community?

Um we we will continue to well, so that their feedback was specific to the design considerations that will be understood and and further refined during detail and engineering and design.

But one one item that they asked for and said one member of the commission asked for blue zones on side streets, and so that's something that we can look at at the corner, putting the ADA spaces on side streets so that they can deploy the ramp onto the sidewalk as opposed to into the bike lane.

Okay, thank you.

And you said the rest of these will be addressed when the more detailed engineering is correct.

Analysis done, okay.

And then my second question is so I understand it's not um the Oakland, the plans for the Oakland part of Telegraph that borders Berkeley is not not done yet, but the um Temascal is completed.

Will this look like what Temascal looks like?

Is that what are the differences between this and that?

That's accurate.

Um, from Woolsey to Webster, it would look similar to Temascal, and then potentially north of Russell, it would look similar to Temascal.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Tregab.

Uh yeah, thank you.

Um moving uh kind of teeing off um Councilmember Keep's question on um feedback from the disability community.

Um, did uh can you just confirm did the commission on disabilities um state a preference for one option over another, or were these general comments that are potentially applicable to any of the options?

They were they didn't express any preference for an option, and they are general they were general comments that apply to this project as well as any other streets, or complete streets project in the city.

Okay, uh and then can you provide um any more detail about the projected timeline for the um design and engineering phase um as it pertains to uh really figuring out how to mitigate the um 10% increase in travel time for buses and option 3b um and further engagement with the disabilities community?

I can um we intend to continue refining this this 3B over the the immediate future after as soon as council approves a concept design, we'll refine it to try to um eliminate the transit delay.

Um the detailed engineering will take that refined concept into the detailed phases.

Um is there anything you wanted to add on detailed?

Well, you feel free to jump in, and then as far as the disability community um feedback goes, we will continue working with them as part of this project and other projects, including the bike plan, um, to understand how we can I listed some some of the ways we we are incorporating their feedback and it's on the slide.

Um we will continue to to work with them to address those concerns.

Okay, thank you.

And then my my last question, and this is just maybe you can confirm.

Um, is it safe to say that 10% increase in travel time for option 3b represents um some built-in conservatism that does not take credit for mitigations that may already exist um and on top of it you will be exploring further mitigations?

Uh yes, that is correct.

We're not the the 10% increase in travel time is not taking into account the AC Transit Rapid Corridor project that is being implemented right now, and does not include any of the additional mitigations that the project team will continue to look at.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Bartlett.

Thank you, madam Mayor.

I was a question regarding the um the uh the off-corridor utilization, um 62 percent.

So these are the adjacent streets, right?

Just off of Telegraph.

Um, I remember now just anecdotally just in my own memory.

Uh do you know how many of those those adjacent blocks uh do this currently have RPP?

Most, if not all.

They do, right?

And under those rules, I'm putting uh can short-term parkers utilize those blocks.

For two hours, hours.

Two hours, right?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.