Okay.

All right.

Thank you everyone so much for your patience.

I'm calling to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council.

Folks, if you could quiet down, please.

Thank you.

It's uh June 23rd, 2026, 617 p.m.

Can you start us off with the role, please?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and before we start with role, I just want to let everyone know we've been advised by Councilmember Bartlett that he'll be participating remotely under the just cause exemption in the Brown Act.

So we're just gonna run through that script real quick with Council Member Bartlett.

Councilmember Bartlett is intending to participate in the meeting remotely pursuant to the Brown Act under the just cause justification.

A quorum of the council is participating in person at a single physical location that is identified on the agenda, open to the public within the boundaries of the agency and meets accessibility requirements.

This satisfies the requirements of the Brown Act.

Councilmember Bartlett has notified us of their need to participate remotely.

Councilmember Bartlett, please provide a general description of the circumstances relating to your need to appear remotely at this meeting.

You are reminded that you need not disclose any medical diagnosis, disability, or other confidential medical information.

Thank you.

Uh let's just call it a child care emergency.

Thank you, Councilmember Bartlett.

Um, please at this time disclose um whether there are any other individuals 18 years of age or older um present in the room at your remote location, and if so, the general nature of your relationship with such individuals.

Unfortunately, I'm the only adult here.

Thank you.

Um and Councilmember Bartlett, you're reminded that you must participate through both audio and visual technology.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

Um, and let's move on with the role.

Councilmember Kessarwani here.

Taplin.

Present.

Bartlett.

Here.

Thank you.

Tregab.

Present.

O'Keefe here.

Blackaby.

Here.

Muna Para here.

Humbert?

Present.

And Mayor Ishi here.

Okay.

All right.

So since it's tonight is a special meeting, we have only a couple of items on here.

So we have a supplemental that will be presented by staff.

And then Councilmember Kesserwani, if you could also present your supplemental.

And just so folks know what we'll do is I will also have some comments and then we'll move over to questions.

So if anyone has any questions for any of the supplementals or anything about the CAP or the budget, and then um we will take public comments and then we'll hear comments from the council members before voting.

So okay.

Would you like to take it away?

Markard or Dave.

Thank you, Mayor Ishi and Council members.

We have a very short presentation for you tonight.

So uh share screen.

Thank you very much.

Next slide, please.

Again, we're meeting a special council meeting tonight to adopt the proposed 27 and 28th biannual budget and the proposed five-year CIP.

Also to adopt the fiscal year 2027 annual appropriation ordinance.

This particular uh PowerPoint presentation is just to go over the changes since um last Tuesday's meeting, June 16th, 2026.

Next slide, please.

There were some changes that happened in the within a week that we presented um last Tuesday, and most of those were to capture uh first source and civic arts uh budget as well as our pass-through um business um district budget just to capture the projected revenue.

Next slide, please.

And the same thing for the expenditures, they were mostly to capture the civic arts and public arts and first source budget to reflect what is contributed from the capital projects that are eligible, as well as the pass-through budget of our business improvement districts.

Next slide, please.

Overall, this is a proposed all fund summary from the changes.

So what we are looking now, um, further any more changes after this presentation, is uh proposed budget of 918.1 million dollars of a 2027 budget with a revenue of 787.3 and fiscal year 2028 budget of 873.1 million dollars of expenditure and 789.6 million dollars of revenue.

Um, as I've already stated in the prior slide, the changes come from passed through business improvement district funds along with anticipated revenues approved by council in May and June of 2026, and changes also incorporates the appropriate budget for first source and public arts, as well as updates to the parks tax and measure FF based on the revised public arts and first source contributions.

Uh there is a sub as part of our supplemental two, there is a detailed explanation of the changes in the schedule of changes attachment.

There is no changes made to the general fund since the 616 meeting.

Next slide, please.

That concludes this very short presentation.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Um do you want to go ahead, Councilmember?

Sure.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

Um, thank you, Mr.

City Manager and Deputy City Manager and all of the department heads, Ms.

Dupaya, and um all of the other staff who have worked really hard uh to propose really painful reductions so that the budget before us tonight is balanced.

Um I I just want to share some opening thoughts that this has been among the most challenging budgets that I have faced on the council in my eight years of serving on this body, and unlike the budget of fiscal year 2021 when we had the global COVID-19 pandemic and a recession, in some ways, this budget is more dire because we are not in a recession.

Uh there isn't a reason to draw on our reserves, yet we face a structural deficit in which expenditures, particularly for position costs, are on track to consistently outpace revenues unless we reduce the size of our organization.

I want you all to know that I have spent countless hours over the last month, especially pouring over our budget to ensure that it reflects our values of fiscal sustainability, investment in basic services like street paving and protection of the most vulnerable.

I have seen the dedication of our city staff, and on a personal note, it really does pain me that this budget before us considers layoffs for certain individuals who will not be able to shift into vacant positions.

But I do want to thank our city manager and our HR director for the ongoing work to determine if uh folks can shift to a position that's vacant for which they are qualified for.

That is something I push very hard for, and um, I'm really pleased that we can do that.

So, you know, let me go into the proposed amendments that I have submitted, and and they're available online.

Uh first I I want to thank the mayor for her proposal, and what I'm proposing here is intended to be in addition to the mayor's proposal, and in working very closely with the city manager and listening to the feedback from uh the fire department and the concerns that have been raised about the elimination of positions.

I am proposing to use general fund sources to fund nine full-time equivalent positions in the fire department.

So you can I'm I'm referring to the exhibit one summary of the proposed recommendation.

It's gonna take me some time to get on get it onto the Zoom because I don't have a Zoom.

Okay, thank thank you, Councilmember Blackaby.

I want to thank actually Councilmember Blackaby and Councilmember Taplin for co-sponsoring this budget proposal.

So, so we have these general fund sources, and uh we are proposing to use those sources to fund five firefighters, three paramedics, and one fire inspector.

In regards to the fire inspector, I do want to note that that position approves.

They conduct inspections, permit reviews, and code enforcement services.

So to the extent that we have longer wait times for permit reviews, that would pose a detrimental impact to approving building permits for new housing developments in a timely manner.

And so I I think that is a very important position to propose funding.

We also have uh 50,000 from Councilmember Blackaby's district office budget that is going to fund Euclid Street Garbage Corral Design in his district.

So it's 50,000 in the first year and 25,000 in the second year.

And then finally, I I want to talk about this small sites allocation from the housing trust fund.

I am a strong supporter of affordable housing, but we are in a $30 million budget deficit that necessitates layoffs in a situation like that.

I think we have to be very smart about how we spend our scarce resources.

I want to note that the land trusts in recent years have received $8.2 million from the city of Berkeley to acquire properties.

I'm gonna say that again, they have received $8.2 million.

So what I am asking for is consideration for new affordable housing.

As my report notes, we have 1740 San Pablo Avenue, which is a blighted property at the corner of Delaware Street and San Pablo Avenue.

That's one example of where these funds could be used.

They are in need of two to four million dollars in local gap funding that will create 54 new units of below market rate affordable housing.

I just want to note that people who've already been displaced from our community, particularly the black population, they're not able to come here tonight and advocate for their interests.

That's why I'm here to advocate for people who can no longer afford to live in our community, please.

And I have been a champion for six years leading a community engagement process at the North Berkeley BART station to create more than 700 homes at that station, half of them affordable to low-income households.

Shh.

And we have a proposal for permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless people at that site.

85 new units, and they are doing all they can to secure their funding stack.

They just submitted a home key plus proposal, and they are in need of 3 million of local gap funding.

So I'm advocating for unsheltered homeless people in the city of Berkeley and in Alameda County, so that building can get built as soon as possible, and they can have a shot to come inside.

So I am for affordable housing.

I am for spending our scarce dollars in a smart way.

When we put our scarce housing trust fund monies into new affordable housing, you know, I I in this report, I need to explain to folks, because of the way affordable housing works, that those funds leverage state funds, federal low-income housing tax credits, and private investment at a rate of four dollars to one dollar.

So the $3.8 million that we're talking about for the housing trust fund, that creates 19 million dollars that can be invested in our community.

That is what I am fighting for, and then finally, I I take the issue of tenant protection very seriously.

I talked at the outset about protecting the most vulnerable.

This budget, despite all of the sacrifice that has been made, it still includes 800,000 in each year going to eviction defense center and East Bay Community Law Center to fund eviction defense.

And we have 200,000 in total, 100,000 each year going to flexible funds to help people stay housed.

And we have some of the strongest tenant protections in the state.

If your rent-controlled unit changes property, you don't get evicted in the city of Berkeley.

You have to have 10 specific just causes to get evicted.

So I just want people to understand all of that.

I want my colleagues to listen to what I'm saying about the use of scarce resources.

We had the former CEO of the tenderloin neighborhood development corporation writing to us telling us that the small sites is a very expensive investment.

On the list that Mr.

White has sent to us, the small site acquisition on Solano Avenue is asking for another $350,000 from the city to repair an elevator.

We have to think about those long-term costs that we are gonna be on the hook for, and whether we can actually take that on right now and forego $15 million of state funding and federal funding that this these monies could leverage.

So I want to close by noting that again, this budget is balanced, and I have every expectation that my colleagues and I tonight will find a way to pass a balanced budget.

And uh I want to thank you all for your time and giving me the opportunity to present this proposal.

All right, thank you, Councilmember.

Um Councilmember Barley, if you wouldn't or uh Blackby if you wouldn't mind removing it so I can put up mine, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

All right, all right.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you all so much for being here, and there are a hundred folks online as well.

Hello to you.

Um I'm sharing this, and I will go over it in a little bit more detail.

Um, for those of you that missed it, last week we had a city council meeting where we discussed the budget.

We had presented the uh proposal from the city manager as well as the CIP.

Sorry.

Oh, thank you.

Those are my notes.

Um give me a second.

Let me make sure.

Okay, all right.

Um we presented the CIP and I presented my budget last week.

Um, I want to reiterate again exactly what Council Member Kesslerwani said that we're in a $30 million structural deficit for the next two years.

And our revenues really are just not keeping paces with our expenses.

We've been kicking the can down the road, and we've really reached a dead end here.

We know that we need to make some hard decisions, and besides our deficit, something that I want to make sure folks really understand that's very important, is that there is significant uncertainty of this November's election.

Not only do we have both an infrastructure bond and a sales tax on the ballot this November locally, but there's a measure on the statewide ballot that could require a two-thirds vote for local special taxes, and also prohibit charter cities like Berkeley from collecting transfer taxes.

So keep in mind that if this ballot measure gets passed in November, we would lose an estimated $35 million in annual revenue on top of our existing structural deficit of 30 million dollars.

So we are in an incredibly dire situation.

And although there are efforts right now from the governor's office to remove this from the ballot, it's been up and down, and there's only two more days to figure out if that could change.

So again, we could end up having twice as much of money of loss this November.

And so my budget is based on the fact that we need to make hard decisions and make decisions based on knowing that we have more issues coming, millions of dollars worth.

For these reasons, we're being responsible in our recommendations with the goal of coming back early 2027 to do a mid-year review and be able to fully project how many positions and services we can bring back into the budget.

It's my belief that we can't make these decisions now without knowing what's going to happen in November, that we really need to wait to understand our financial situation in a better way.

We know that HR is doing everything they can to offer positions to people whose jobs are being eliminated, and again, I really want to thank our HR Director Janelle.

I can confirm also, so folks understand, because I know that fire positions are a big part of what we're talking about this evening, that there are three vacant fire positions, three paramedics and four paramedic supervisors, as well as other positions that are currently in the budget that can be filled with the additional revenue we can hopefully bring back remaining positions that we're talking about tonight.

I presented my recommendations last week, and today I'm presenting a modestly updated version of that.

Taking a look at Councilmember Kesserwani and Taplin and Blackabee's recommendations.

One is to allocate increased ambulance fees to cover 238,232 for FY27 for the no, I'm I'll I'll move it.

Yeah, for the one full-time fire inspector position, and to allocate the D6 office surplus funds of $50,000 for FY27 and $25,000 for FY28 for the Euclid garbage corral design, confirming also that the small sites allocation of $3.8 million is for FY27, and that if that money is not applied for in FY27, that any unallocated funds at the end of the fiscal year would return to the general pot of the housing trust fund.

And then also uh return for a mid-year budget review in early 2027, which is when we usually get our numbers for AA01 to assess revenue projections and make informed decisions on positions to be included in the FY28 budget.

You'll notice when I walk through it, or I'll show you, I'll scroll through it, that we have not recommended any positions for FY28, and that's specifically because we don't know what our financial situation will look like until after November.

And to me, it's important that we make fiscally cautious decisions right now while we have so much uncertainty.

And the assessment will include any revenue impacts resulting from local sales tax measure, bond measure, and other local state or federal policies that have changed.

So I'm gonna scroll through that.

Okay.

So you can see at the top here, all of these are funds that are special fund allocations.

These are not general funds.

This is funds for the uh downtown Berkeley revitalization projects, including Oxford for All, Car Free Telegraph, small sites, Sacred Rest Village of Love, and then general fund transfers, including the pitch project from Councilmember Humbert with funds from his office, and then the general fund expenses that I was talking about earlier, including the one Office of Economic Development full-time position, uh funding for Solano stroll, live free, uh DBA outreach worker, $38,000 of that, and then as I mentioned earlier, these were added the fire inspector position of $238,232, and the Euclid uh street garbage corral design, and the revenue fund transfers that we would be looking at to fund those positions and projects include salary savings from my office, $160,000, CAO non-personnel, CAO salary, that's the city attorney's office, sorry, salary savings, a VTO, city council catering, cannabis settlement funding, increased annual ambulance transport revenue, as I mentioned, which would fund the fire inspector position, and the Euclid Street Garbage Corral design.

Okay.

Additionally, in regards to the CIP, again, I know that that presentation was done at the last meeting, so folks have not been able to see that, but I really want to thank the work that public works, uh parks, IT, all City Stafford League, because our finance department I know is involved as well.

Um so thank you so much for all the work you did on the CIP plan.

And we're interested in ensuring that items that were identified for measure FF funding are in fact eligible.

And so for that reason, we'd like to move these four items to unfunded and pending, uh pending further review by staff and the safe streets oversight committee, which was the committee that was started uh with measure FF, and this is the streets measure FF, not the fire one.

Um, I didn't put it out.

Okay, so that so the different uh different pieces of the CIP that would move into unfunded and pending further review would be the citywide traffic signal master plan, which is on page 220 of the PDF, the transportation design guideline study, which is on page 224, transportation nexus study, which is on page 225, and the Vision Zero Plan phased implementation roadmap, which is on page 225, yes, Councilmember Humbert.

Yes, um, for purposes of discussion, I'd like to move the mayor's um budget.

Thank you.

Um, are there any questions on any of the budgets, the proposals, the CIP from council?

Oh, yes, Councilmember Taplin.

Councilmember Taplin, are you speaking?

Hello.

Oh, yeah, we can hear you now.

Thank you.

Uh and good evening.

Um, is there a way to compare what each is proposing with respect to the fire to her main positions?

Yeah, so we have added onto our budget funding for the fire inspector position just for FY27.

And that again, it was because we wanted to make sure we understood what our financial situation was going to be after November, so that we would be able to make decisions about other positions as well, not just FY28, but all of these positions that we're talking about.

Yes, thank you.

And the other apologies, Councilmember Taplet, I didn't know you're referring to this proposal.

So, the proposal that that we've put forward, it funds five firefighters, three paramedics, and one fire inspector.

And I do want to say, you know, to what the mayor is talking about as it relates to fiscal uncertainty.

I am also considering that.

I I have never been fiscally irresponsible in my time on the council, and I am aware of the transfer tax uncertainty that is out there.

You know, there's this possible ballot measure, there was some movement in Sacramento for a possible deal.

It's unclear if the deal is going to be accepted or not.

So I am aware of that multi-million dollar risk.

I'm also aware of other revenue sources.

So I'm taking all of that in totality when I'm proposing this.

And I I think it is a reasonable approach to do this now and not wait until November.

Thank you.

Questions, Councilmember Blackby?

Yeah, question on the mayor's proposal.

Um, one thing that we've considered in the Casawani Taplin Blackbee proposal on the fire side is that one way or the other, um, these services need to be provided.

Citizens expect fire safety, they deserve fire safety.

And whether we do it through full-time staff, or we do it through overtime of people who are currently um sworn and serving, uh, that time that service will be provided.

I think it's a more cost.

So have you considered what happens to overtime if we don't fund these positions?

Yes, and actually I think that um recently uh Mr.

David White has had given an answer about that as well, looking at um positions versus overtime.

So perhaps you can address that.

Sure, um I would say uh theoretically, if you look at uh what's proposed, you could argue that there's gonna be a reduction in overtime.

I think pragmatically, we wouldn't recommend any reductions in overtime because when we've observed the fire departments overtime over the past few years for various reasons, not no accusations to be offered, they've been going over their allocated overtime budget, and we see that trend continuing.

So hypothetically you could do it, but I think pragmatically we wouldn't recommend it because they're gonna need what they're allocated uh going into the next two fiscal years.

I guess my question is a topic we've kind of talked about with respect to police as well as fire, which is at the end of the day, we either have people in the sworn positions uh doing the job and potentially less overtime, or we have fewer people in sworn positions and potentially more overtime if there's some amount of service that needs to be provided.

So I guess my point of view on this is from the perspective of health and safety of people in those jobs.

Um it's sort of more prudent to have people in the full-time roles than have less people and then rely on the overtime where people are working extra shifts and putting themselves in, you know.

So I guess that's my my consideration is I don't know if this proposal is fully considering what happens if we don't fund these positions in terms of the overtime piece, not to mention the health care cost, mental health care costs and that kind of thing, and if we thought about that.

I mean, anyway, is there some like if we have fewer people in the full-time roles, we rely more on overtime.

Correct.

So with the with the fire department proposals in the council member Kesarwani's proposed the firefighter, so there's two differences.

The firefighters are filling in overtime shifts so that right if they're not um if they don't have those positions, uh someone's gonna have to cover the overtime when it occurs.

The paramedic positions are a little bit different because um they're not assigned to filling overtime rules, they actually have assigned to pieces of equipment.

Um, but again, we wouldn't um in terms of what the department needs for overtime, they're gonna they need everything that they're allocated, so there'd be no change in that um regardless of how this shakes out, okay.

Keep in mind that these positions that you're looking at have already been frozen for FY26.

So it's not that we're, you know, getting rid of more bodies.

Um, so as the deputy city manager said, the overtime would be the same.

So my proposal does consider that.

Okay, we'll come back to um during the comment period.

Okay, are there other questions?

Okay, so let's move on to public comment then.

If you have public comment on any of these pieces, um mayor, I apologize before we do public comment.

Um, I just wanted to point out that there's um revised material um from the city manager for the city council's consideration.

Um, and if the um, like to move forward with a motion to accept that if we could make yeah, if we could amend the motion to accept the sub three from the city staff.

Second, so do we need to make a motion to amend or just a friendly amend sufficient?

In order to consider it and fold it into the actual action of the council.

Yeah, um, we do need to vote to accept it for consideration.

We have a motion from Vice Mayor Tragub and a second from Councilmember Taplin.

So go ahead.

Yeah, okay.

Um, on the motion to accept the revised material, Councilmember Kesarwani.

Yes, Taplin.

All right, Bartlett?

Yes.

Traga?

I.

Oh, Keefe, yes.

Blackaby.

Yes.

Munapara.

Yes.

Humbert?

Yes.

And Mayor Ishi.

Yes.

It's accepted for consideration.

And if the maker and seconder of the um motion would like to include that in their motion, that they may do so.

Sure.

Yeah.

They're both okay with including that in their motion.

Okay.

It's acceptable to the mover in secondary.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Alright, we'll take public comment.

Thank you so much.

Come on up.

Oh, and so folks, just for those of you who are new to public comment, so when you come up, if you are taking minutes from someone else, if you could just organize that beforehand and let us know so we can put the right amount of time on the clock.

Okay, go ahead.

I have three colleagues willing to see time.

May I have four minutes.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

I'm Thomas Gregory.

I'm the chapter of SEIU Um C S E I U C S U P TRLA, speaking on behalf of our more than 500 members.

Under management's proposed budget, as amended by the mayor's June 17th amendments, our chapter is facing six layoffs as well as the elimination of many more vacancies.

These six folks to be laid off would c cost the city what less than one point two million dollars per fiscal year, and that's fully loaded with benefits, pensions, and everything.

And our chapter wants the city to fund these six jobs for one year through fiscal year twenty-seven, using one-time money if needed.

Our chapter understands and agrees that the city must stop relying on one-time monies to balance its budget year after year.

Um we don't need to end our addiction cold turkey in fiscal year 27.

And significantly, we aren't ending our addiction cold turkey and fiscal year 27.

Management's proposed budget with amendments is using 9.4 million in one-time money to fund 33 positions, mostly in fire and police and a couple in HHCS.

This money is being used to cover the 33 jobs through fiscal year 27 with the hope that the sales tax will pass in November and that the resulting revenue will pay for those 33 jobs beginning in fiscal year 28.

Of the 33 jobs that would be saved through fiscal year 27 with this 9.4 million, 18 are currently filled and 15 are currently vacant.

Our chapter feels that the city should use money to fund a filled position before it uses such money to fund a vacancy.

Unlike staff, vacancies cannot achieve any positive outcomes for constituents, and unlike staff, vacancies don't have mortgages to pay or family expenses to cover.

Of the 15 vacancies management's budget proposes to save using one-time money in fiscal year 27, the city could instead save only 12 of those vacancies rather than all 15, and there would still be enough in that 9.4 million pot to prevent our chapter's layoffs, all six of them for a year.

Alternatively, the city could support our chapter by adding a modest amount to that 9.4 million pot, namely 1.1 million dollars.

I'm not sure where that uh I'm not sure where the two million in Urswell flock money went, but that would be more than enough to do the trick.

Also, uh based on the last five years, we're expecting uh a fund a balance of about 30 million dollars to roll over from the current fiscal year, and there's a similar amount in the uh in the city's um uh stability reserve that's for a rainy day, and we would say that laying off workers is a rainy day, both for the workers and for the city and for our constituents.

You might uh folks might ask what's the point of buying one year of a reprieve for our members facing layoff.

Uh, it just seems to be kicking a part of the problem down the road, and perhaps that's true, but uh the community would get served well for another year.

Some staff members would be able to retain their livelihood for another year, and that's all good, but more importantly, that extra year would help the city uh ensure that no staff are shown the door due to due to a flawed austerity plan.

And our chapter believes that the current plan is flawed and that city city leadership needs another year to get the plan right.

Here are some examples of how the current austerity plan is f flawed.

We're losing uh behavioral health clinicians and community health workers that the city that the community expects that provide services the community expect and deserves.

We are eliminating positions with job duties that generate revenue, like f like uh grant writing and debt collection, and another example is the loss of the mobile crisis unit will just force police to provide and field those calls that previously would have gone to the mobile crisis unit, which might end up costing the money, costing the city money rather than saving the city money.

Uh as a six uh six twelve Daily Cal article quoted uh uh a department director is saying that that that that transfer to the police is an unintended consequences.

Our chapter is worried about that the ramifications of this austerity plan are not fully known and well thought out and we need to do it again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Nikia, but I will need two minutes because my co-worker will be receding her time to me.

Okay.

So uh good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Nikia Harris, and I'm a community health worker specialist here uh for the city of Berkeley with Black Infant Health and a proud member of SCIU 1021.

I understand that the city is facing uh difficult budget decisions, but I am asking you to reconsider the proposed layoffs that would eliminate positions like mine.

I may have less seniority than some of my colleagues, but the families I serve do not see me as a number on a budget spreadsheet.

They see me as someone they can call when they are struggling, overwhelmed, isolated or in need of support.

Every day I work directly with pregnant and parenting women, mothers, and help them navigate health care systems, access resources, address barriers to health births, and build the support networks they need to thrive.

I facilitate support groups, conduct outreach, connect family to services, and help mothers who often feel unseen and unheard.

When a mother is struggling with housing, food insecurities, stress, mental health challenges, or simply need someone to listen.

Community health workers are often the first people they turn to.

The work we do through Berkeley Black Infant Health is not just a program.

It is a part of Berkeley's commitment to addressing racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes.

Eliminating community health worker positions means fewer families receiving support, fewer mothers, fewer mothers connected to resources, fewer opportunities for prevention, and less capacity to serve those who need us most.

The cost of losing these services will be felt uh long after this budget cycle ends.

I ask that you look at alternatives, including the vacancy savings that has already been identified and preserved these critical public health positions with more thorough review of the impacts that can be conducted.

Please invest in the people who are investing in Berkeley families every day.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you.

Charlie Cole then, District 2.

Good evening, Mayor Ishii, City Council, Community Members.

As a full-time graduate student with multiple part-time jobs and community commitments.

Time is not a luxury, and Audrey Lord reminds me, there is poetry.

I have one minute to make a comment on something that stretches far beyond the capacity of 60 seconds.

I sat drafting comment for the city council's budget plan and rebuttal for an 11th hour pool to eviscerate small sites affordable housing funding.

I want to make clear funding.

I want to make clear pitting firefighters against the working class and the working class against the unhoused is class warfare.

You run small sites as grassroots people power project.

The federal government couldn't imagine this because they're too busy with AI and genocide.

Um one small sites sweeping voted for a vision within Berkeley City laments a legacy rooted in equity.

Is there this is where our tax dollars are meant to go?

So don't go over reaching into the people's pockets.

Listen to the recommended housing commission.

Follow the mayor's intuition, fund you run small sites.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening, council.

My name is Bryce Miller.

I am a former president of Telegraph for People, and I study city planning at UC Berkeley.

Um, first, I just want to thank the mayor and everyone who worked on the mayor's budget proposal.

I think it did a really good job balancing the budget, and I asked the entire council to back the mayor's budget proposal, um, specifically because of the car-free telegraph funding allocation.

Telegraph has the second highest pedestrian traffic in the East Bay.

It's also my favorite street to walk on.

I walk on it multiple times per day.

Pedestrians vastly outnumber cars on the road.

If you just take a look, but cars get most of the right-of-way space from a public safety perspective.

Every month pedestrians and cyclists are injured or killed by cars on Telegraph and in Southside.

So making telegraph a car free street is the right thing to do for public safety.

Cars are dangerous, inefficient, and polluting.

So please support the mayor's recommendation.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks.

I also have a minute given to me by Betsy Morris.

Good evening.

My name is Leah Simon Weisberg.

As many of you know, I have spent the last 25 years trying to address the housing affordability crisis.

What the proposal includes, particularly around small sites, is extremely uninformed.

There is a reason that you have none of the affordable housing.

The new production people here are supporting it.

You also, as much as I love Randy Shaw, he's a colleague of mine, he is a producer of affordable housing.

So the fact that he wants you to give money to him doesn't really mean that that justifies it.

As I've said many, many, many times, when you ask tenants where they would prefer to live in Berkeley, they will always say the land trusts.

I have never had someone come up to me and say, I can't wait till RCD's next project.

I can't wait to live there.

And part of the problem is that the land trusts provide an enormous amount of democracy and respect.

That is why there's almost nobody here from the city of Berkeley who lives here.

The only residents that are here are people fighting for the small sites.

Because we have neighbors who live there, we have teachers who've taught our children who are now retired who live in them.

The community of Berkeley lives there.

Please do not think that you are protecting tenants or because the tenants are saying fund this.

Please do not say that you are doing something around affordable housing because people, these products also leverage money.

It makes a huge difference.

That's why so many of your residents, and I'm in district two, why we are here fighting for it.

Thank you.

I have two other um, give me minutes.

Good evening, Mayor Ishi and City Council.

My name is Isabel Gaston, and I live in District 6.

I strongly support preserving the firefighter and paramedic positions that are under consideration for elimination.

There are few responsibilities more fundamental to city government than protecting the lives and safety of its residents.

Firefighters and paramedics are the people we depend on during the most critical moments of our lives.

When a home is on fire, a family member suffers a heart attack, a major bike collision occurs, a wildfire, an earthquake.

In those moments, every second matters.

The speed and effectiveness of Berkeley's emergency response can mean the difference between life and death.

These positions are not discretionary services.

Cutting nine positions will inevitably place greater strain on remaining personnel.

The impacts would be felt across every single council district and by residents of all ages, including seniors, people with disabilities, and those experiencing homelessness.

We are a densely populated city, vulnerable to earthquakes and wildfires, and frequent fires in homeless encampments, unfortunately.

Maintaining a fully staffed, highly trained emergency response system is not a luxury.

We are fortunate to have a fire department that is widely respected for its professionalism, expertise, and commitment to serving the community.

BFD has earned a reputation as among the finest emergency responders in the state of California.

Their dedication saves lives every day, often under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

With a budget of close to 800 million, I think the city can find 1.7 million to fund these positions, and that's exactly what Rashi, Terry, and Brent's proposal does.

I urge the council to vote tonight for preserving these nine positions.

We cannot afford to take this exceptional service for granted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I think I have an extra minute over here.

Yep, okay.

Hi, I'm Lisa Bullwinkle.

I am from District 3.

I am on the art commission, but tonight I'm speaking as a resident.

Uh departments were all asked to cut their budgets by 10%, and I would like you to consider how much you are asking civic arts to cut theirs, especially knowing that the arts are an income generator to the city.

Current budget cuts to civic arts include eliminating the leadership position and the reassignment of remaining staff responsibilities, which would limit the scope of arts programming.

This totals a loss of 288,000, more than 20% of the civic arts budget.

This should be more than enough to cover the 10% originally required of all departments.

However, Civic Arts is being asked to cut their budget even further by reducing the grant program another 10%.

Organizational grants are currently in the second year of a two-year cycle.

This is bad timing.

Festival grants have already taken a hit of more than $40,000 reduction during the last cycle from their prior level of $200,000.

If we do need to take any additional funding cuts, it would be preferable to cut the large pass-through funds that the council issues without any oversight of the art commission.

In future, we're considering asking that all pass-through funds, which are one-time fixes, should be allotted to the grants program to be distributed in a transparent and equitable manner.

Cutting 50% of these funds now from the affected organizations that are budgeted to receive them would give them time to adjust their budgets until the funds are correctly applied for and distributed through the grants program.

Help us bring joy back into this community, especially during these dark times.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Claire Greensfelder.

I'm a homeowner in District 6, a member of the Berkeley Cultural Trust and executive director of the California Institute for Community Art and Nature.

Two points about the arts budget.

One, the position that was uh Jennifer Lovorn, who had been our coordinator, director, it's cut to set to be cut.

We requested it be frozen because there's a possibility in the future that there's funds to bring it back.

If it's cut, it will be much harder.

Second, as Lisa just referenced, the 83,000 dollar cut to civic grants, approximately about 100 grants are made.

That's about $830 per group.

This is not a huge savings for the city, but it's devastating to the groups that receive the money.

What do you think about the fact that $830, at least in our organization provides $800 honorariums to artists, puts money directly in their pockets for participating in events?

Artists are struggling right now, and we don't want to mirror what this happening at the federal level with the NEA and the NEH cutting grants to programs such as ours.

Please consider restoring the eighty two thousand dollars.

Thank you.

I'll speak for two minutes.

My John Butler.

Good evening, Council members and Mayor Ishi.

My name is Vinita Goel.

I'm a Berkeley resident and work for Full Spectrum Labs.

We are building economic power and economic democracy for communities so that they can build the muscle to defend public political democracy, especially in the current moment when our basic rights are being dismantled.

As we are witnessing today, precipitated with Councilmember Kesarani's proposal.

When a city wins a voter-approved measure, it needs to deliver on the approved allocation items to win voter trust and confidence, but to actually serve the community on the intended outcomes.

The city has lost over a thousand unsubsidized affordable homes since 2020.

Thousand more at risk in the next five years without sufficient resources to fund permanent affordable housing, displacement in the city is and will be inevitable.

Mayor issues allocation of two point five million to the small sites program in the upcoming budget is a crucial step in the right direction.

The city's dollars will not only unlock regional and state dollars, but also private and philanthropic capital needed for the acquisition of buildings and protection of residents who remain at risk.

We can't afford to conflate the city's preservation goals with those of production and protection.

We need the city's political will to fund permanent affordable housing now.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Should only need about three or four minutes, and I think I have enough time to yield behind me.

Oh, could you guys who's yielding?

Oh, three, you three.

Okay, Madam Mayor, City Council, City Manager.

My name is Stephen Gilman.

I'm the International Association of Firefighters 10th District Vice President.

I represent 57,112 firefighters in the proud states of Hawaii, California, Arizona, New Mexico, the Mariana Islands.

And today I'm here to talk about your firefighters.

Firefighters standing in this room behind me.

And today is more about a line item.

Today is more about a budget.

It's about whether a promise that the people of Berkeley had that was made by the city council.

Because the citizens of this city have already done the part, the heavy lifting.

They passed two sales tax initiatives.

They came back to the ballot twice with 74% of a budget.

The people of Berkeley reached into their own pocket, and they said fire protection and public safety are a priority, and we'll pay for it ourselves.

And they tax themselves in good faith.

Because they believed that when they called 911, their firefighters would be there because they trusted that this council would match their commitment with action.

And since their inception, both Measure FF and GG, that investment has added up to over a hundred million dollars in dedicated public safety tax revenue.

Over 100 million dollars that the voters of this city sent here, not for consultants, not for studies, not to paper over a structural deficit that this council let grow year after year, but for protection of their citizens on their worst day.

And for the men and women who respond day in and day out, they made a commitment.

They said that this department has the highest self-funding of any other department by passing those sales tax measures between the sales tax measures, your ambulance revenue, the fire marshal revenue.

It's about 42% of your fire department's entire budget.

That is unheard of.

I would guarantee you any city council, any city manager would be a static to have that type of funding behind their fire department.

And what I've heard today is promising.

What I've heard today is that this council has proposed nine of the bodies that you were considering cutting.

No station closure.

Thank you, Councilwoman Casawani.

If I have your name correct, I apologize for your proposal.

And I want to be clear to the public.

I just want to make sure firefighters are not against affordable housing.

Because I've heard a lot of groans about the proposed budget.

But I will guarantee you this everybody in this room, any citizen of Berkeley, that when they call 911, when they have a loved one who is in jeopardy, when they have a child who is choking, when their house is burning or their apartment is burning, and it could be the difference between losing one apartment or displacing an entire apartment building in families, that they are going to want a fully funded fire department.

Fully funded.

Something that they've done twice by passing those sale tax measures.

So the right decision for the people of Berkeley for local uh 1227, and they would be grateful for it, is for you to continue to fund these positions.

And I'm gonna be honest with you about what comes next, because a commitment made by this council in this chamber is only as good as the follow-through that comes after it.

And when you were talking about cutting engine four, the one that you considered shutting down that engine, who responded to 17 cardiac arrests.

Sorry, I got more time.

No, no, I'm sorry.

Your time is actually limited to four minutes.

So you've had your four minutes.

But someone else is welcome to finish where you left off.

Go ahead.

Good evening.

I'm John Bagler, and I've got uh four additional members back there.

So willing to use it.

We can only have four minutes total.

So you'll have your one minute.

I'll close mine.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

Um, as DVP Gilman uh stated, uh, when you were looking at closing station four, um, this is a very busy fire station.

This is a place that responded to multiple fires, multiple cardiac arrests, and multiple calls for assistance.

Um, things are always going to be hard.

Your budgets are always going to be difficult.

Um, and with that, I'm gonna go into my comments because they actually echo a lot of what DVP Gilman said.

And so, Madam Mayor, members of the city council, I rise today to strongly suggest that the council find another way to adopt a budget that does not include the discussed cuts to the fire department.

I was here in 1991 on a fire engine for multiple days and watched Berkeley and Oakland for uh Oakland burn.

And although it was early in my 36-year career, I never forgot it, nor have I ever seen fire behavior like that, and I've been on the biggest fires in California's history.

That was before the last 30 years of worsening climate change, population growth, and additional building into the wildland urban interface.

The firefighters support repaired streets.

We need to rapidly respond our fire apparatus on those roads to come to your homes and so we can do our jobs.

We are for affordable housing, not only for workforce, but for the members of this community, and we are for safe shelters, and we are the ones who will be responding to help those in need at every one of those locations.

As DVP Gilman said, this city and your council has gone to its voters multiple times, and the voters have let you know loud and clear just how much they value public safety.

Some of the frozen and proposed cut positions were specifically called out in that ballot language.

My guess is that every single elected official here wishes they could have had 70% voter support when you guys went to the ballot.

We all rely upon each other in times of emergency.

Now your public is replying relying upon you to fulfill its primary job of local government, which is protecting its citizens.

The mayor mentioned the taxpayer deception act, which is being put forth by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' groups.

Do not govern from a place of fear.

Trust that if, and that's a big if, it actually qualifies for November ballot, that the voters in California will defeat it handedly, knowing the damage proposes.

This is a fight that unifies us all.

Unions, the League of Cities, and every municipality in California.

Do not use it conveniently as a threat to justify any cuts.

These voters who will defeat it are the same folks who put you into office.

Put your faith into them like they have into you.

This is not just a budget or a spreadsheet.

It's not a math problem or political exercise.

This is a discussion about life safety and the ability for these firefighters to save lives on property.

Give them what they need to do their job.

It's a critically important job at that.

Not just now but in the future.

Thank you for your consideration.

Please do the right thing and fund all of the fire department positions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, are you all not speaking?

Oh, okay.

Who who's next?

Ah, thank you.

Who's speaking?

Well, first of all, setting one group against another like this is just really low.

Okay.

Um people who are struggling to stay in their homes, people in Berkeley who live here who are struggling to stay in their homes.

Should not be set against uh city workers.

Um, since the subject has been already brought up by someone else, I'd like to talk a little bit about taxation.

You keep passing regressive taxes, okay.

Why are you not looking at the people with the money and tax them instead of poor and working class people?

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Jane White.

Um District 5.

I'm a member of NSA and also work with SBS.

I'm not speaking officially for those organizations.

I'm speaking for myself.

I'm here to urge the support of what us voters voted in good faith to allocate the money for the small sites.

It just it it just keeps feeling like we're shifting sands and we vote for something and we all go and celebrate, and then all of a sudden what we have said has disappeared.

So I'm really uh urging we know that small sites is a proven tool for preserving affordable housing and preventing displacement, and it is the values that we in Berkeley supported and rallied again uh for.

Thank you, change.

Thanks.

Good evening.

Uh Janice Ching, District 3.

Uh, the issue with removing funds from the small sites project is trust.

Ten years ago, I voted for measure U1, just like 75% of the voters at Berkeley did, because I believe the funds would be used for affordable housing.

So this measure was advertised that way, and yet um it was put into the general fund.

And so that is an issue with all these tax measures that people are talking about.

So last year you voted to divert 2.5 million of U1 funds from this budget to balance the budget last year in 2025.

This year you're proposing another $3.5 million to take away from the small sites program.

This diminishes your credibility when you also adamantly state how much our city needs affordable housing and how much you want to see people housed.

Um the Kesawani um uh taplin Blackabee proposal does not guarantee that money to go.

Thank you, James, where it needs to go.

Thank you.

Good evening, the land council and community.

I have a firefighter, I'm a wannabe firefighter.

I practice law instead, but I want to be a firefighter.

Um, one of them I hear has a minute to thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

I also have my fellow SEIU 1021 member on the line, Christina Reya, who's succeeding Herman.

And some can someone else from FIRE give another minute so we don't have to find that person.

Thank you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

So I have three minutes.

My name is Moni Law, and I speak as a wannabe firefighter, a city employee, and a supporter of affordable housing.

And my position is that we can have all three.

We do not need to divide families against firefighters.

We do not have to opt for one or the other.

It is critical that our promises are kept.

GG and FF, firefighters supported it.

The community supported it.

We have to support them.

Small sites was approved by you one.

There is unity for urgent, urgent housing.

I go out on the streets as many of us do as community members and help unhoused families that we found in the rain on the corner.

And who else showed up?

The paramedics.

Blind Tony, who died recently, but was housed finally, was helped by the paramedics.

Also, children sleeping on sidewalks is unacceptable in the city of Berkeley.

How can that be?

Often we also look at no shelter during the winters, are available for families.

There is no shelter in Berkeley for families.

It's unacceptable and shocking to me.

Families include low-income workers, people with disabilities, seniors, and the small sites program is critical.

Please do not cut it.

Finally, I really want to thank Mayor Ishi for her efforts to emphasize the importance of credibility and consistency and effective governance.

Your proposal is strong and solid, and we can make room for everyone, including art and the joy of community festivals, etc.

So I also speak as a member of the Indigenous People's Powell Committee, but on the Juneteenth committee.

But I think Berkeley is special because we prioritize things such as culture, such as community, such as unity, such as diversity, such as housing people because they have the right to housing, such as employees who work hard and are very much putting their lives on the line often to help this make a better city.

So SEIU 1021 Union Strong, City of Berkeley Historic, and our being the first on Earth Day.

Last point in the fires that are to come because of climate change, more reason for the priority of fire department staff, as well as housing for people to not be in the outrageous climate actions that we're having recently with nowhere to go.

So we can't have blind Tonies on the street suffering for years, or families that I've met and housed and got housing for them with hotels.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Give them housing, not hotels.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Dustin Tranberg District 3.

Um Dustin Tranberg District 3.

I'm uh the uh proud son of a San Jose firefighter, and I'm here to speak in support of the small sites program.

The um small sites program helps transform uh rental housing from being fed to the sharks of the speculative market and helps transform it into self-funded resident managed housing uh that supports democracy in the city of Berkeley and prevents uh people from being kicked out of their homes.

Often people have been here for decades or their entire lives.

So I urge you to not put these two communities uh at war with each other.

Firefighters and equal housing can live together, and the city of Berkeley is the place for that to happen.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So I'm getting she's gonna give me her move.

Hi, so um, my name is Bridget, and I'm um actually a recipient of the small site.

I live at 2627 California Street.

If it had not been for the Bayer Community Land Trust, the small site, I wouldn't even be able to stand here and talk to you today because I would have been exempted out of out of Berkeley.

I would not have been able to afford to live here.

So I am here to represent, I'm also here to represent black people, people of color, and what's happening out there.

We it's hard.

Every of you, if you're on this board or you're the mayor, you're in anything, you don't understand how expensive it is to try to just make it every day.

And we just trying to keep a roof over our head.

We don't really want to try and you know do too much of anything else.

I hear an understanding about a proposal today about affordable housing and building it from the ground.

That can be, I don't understand why it can't be that and small sites.

That would even give Berkeley an overall built, you know, design of low income.

So and when sometimes things are built from the ground up, what they consider affordable is not affordable for the people that actually live there.

But if it's already there, it's preserved, and we want to preserve it, we want to improve it, we want to make it better.

It's hecka cheaper.

So I just want to say, please, please do not get rid of small sites.

It's people like me and and and those that cannot afford to do it.

And I and I work a decent job.

You know, I'm not dig diligent or whatever.

I just I'm just trying to keep a roof over my head.

And you know, and then as we get older and start getting to the point of retirement and stuff, trying to stay here and keep some sort of balance on the rents that we pay, small sites, low-income housing, it's the only way that that's going to happen.

So I just wanted to make sure that I you know get that to you and help you understand that it is important.

I know that the firefighters are important because without them, I'm I'm not gonna be, I want to be able to have them respond right away if something happens to me, like I think all the rest of you.

Thank you, Richard.

Thank you.

Hi there, Council and Mayor Ishi.

My name is Alan Kane.

I'm the executive director of the Slato Avenue Association.

I'm here to supplement the very short comments that were made in the midnight hour last week.

Um, I did want to express the Slato Avenue Association's sincere appreciation for the fact that everybody stepped up to the plate to help us produce the 50th Swattle Stroll.

We're 60, roughly 60 days away from the event.

So not only are we scrambling to produce this festival, we're also looking at ways to you know make sure that 2027 happens, um, and we're changing the ways that uh the adjusting the ways that we do our fundraising and that kind of thing.

But it's just fantastic that everybody stepped up to the plate.

Um, and we just can't express the our appreciation enough.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Jennifer Hanson Romero.

I'm actually vice mayor of Albany, and I wanted to come here and thank uh mayor and the rest of the city council for working so uh difficultly with this everything going on and so many decisions to make and so many things to do, and you know, Albany um, you know is uh part of Solano and so is Berkeley, part of Solano, and and the line goes very kind of staggered up and down.

So you have businesses that are in fact part of Berkeley, but are on Albany streets and sidewalks.

So it's so important for our partnership to be able to do this between our cities together combined to unify and be able to bring this 50th Solano stroll to uh to our people and surrounding people and all of the businesses, and hope for that economic uh wealth.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm a homeowner in um district three.

There was an issue at San Pablo Park Juneteenth, and my son was going to have a booth and serve some graduates before the weekend before City Berkeley called him and told him he couldn't do it.

When I walked around the corner and saw the chaos of San Pablo Park, you had someone get stabbed on Oregon and Park.

You had a teenager who was beat.

My family picked him up, cleaned him up.

They stole the shoes and his phone.

They put him on a lift all the way to east Park.

Sorry, is this related to the budget?

It's related to the budget because what I'm saying is that you guys need to either police stuff that goes on in San Pablo Park, it should have been caged up, fenced up.

Those kids from other cities should not be allowed to tear up our park.

And I feel Berkeley police sat on the corner.

If you need more police, get more police.

They did nothing while those 15-year-olds, 14-year-olds tore up the park.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Angela, and I'm a resident of the 10 unit Addison Court Housing Cooperative just down the block.

I'm here tonight because I care deeply about keeping our communities whole.

Please reject the memo from Councilmember Casawani and accept the mayor's budget proposal, which allocates funding for small sites.

Rent stabilization and eviction for good cause do not fully protect tenants from displacement and for-profit properties.

Please preserve the culture, diversity, and don't put more of our neighbors onto the street.

My neighbors bought the building collectively 30 years ago, which was only possible due to the help from the Northern California Land Trust and the Housing Trust Fund dollars to bring the buildings up to code.

We help people save money due to low rents and support folks through job losses, complicated divorces, family and pet deaths, and transitioning due to declining health.

Our residents work and worked in Berkeley and downtown print shops and more.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

This supplemental is not about the best decision for the city.

Berkeley residents are appalled by the hubris and arrogance of city council members who think they know better than the public and can discard the will of the voters and democracy.

Who in the world would vote for a ballot measure by the city council, including on this November, knowing that we cannot trust the city council to follow the will of the voters and to disregard the will of the public.

Everybody supports firefires and firefighting.

It is shameful to pit firefighters against residents who insist that you honor the will of the voters.

Thanks for your comment.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Reverend Sophia DeWitt, uh Chief Program Officer at East Bay Housing Organizations, and I'm here to speak in favor of uh the mayor's budget proposal, which includes money for the small sites program.

EBHO, an affordable housing developer organization, member organization, under and our members recognize the need for a three Ps approach to our housing challenges.

That's production through new production, preservation through the small sites program, and tenant protections.

There is no conflict.

There was no conflict until last evening.

And there needs to be no conflict.

RCD, one of our member developers sent you a letter last week supporting small sites.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Amanda, and I'm here with Urban Habitat today to speak in support of the small sites acquisition program.

I just first want to point out how insidious this memo that was released last night was because we support the firefighters here today, and when I read the memo, I was like, okay, well, you know, if the money needs to go there, we're in a deficit, sure.

But then it says also delete 3.8 million dollars to preservation just because, and the housing advisory commission said, Oh, actually, the preservation is important.

That's where we want the money to go, but for some reason, because a few council members decide, well, actually we think it should be better in production.

That's how we're gonna do it, and we're just forget about the third P preservation, which as Sophia mentioned, is part of the three P's that the Bay Area has agreed upon as the way to get out of this housing crisis.

If we want to move forward together for a Bay Area for everyone, we need all three of those Ps.

Thank you, thank you.

Uh, Mayorishi and uh members of the city council.

My name is Asen NDI.

I'm a I'm executive director at the Northern California Land Trust.

I just want to say I stand with the firefighters of BFD.

Uh they responded to a fire at one of our properties last month.

They saved the lives of more than a dozen people.

So I I am actually outraged that we're having to come here and be printed against the work of these heroes.

And the other thing that I really just want to say is that we want the entire memo to be fully rejected, and we support the mayor's amendment for um for adoption.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Howard Manashi.

I'm resident at um in District 5 and wanted to offer my sincere gratitude and thanks to you, Mayor Ishi or Councilwoman O'Keefe and Wahida Mary and the city manager for supporting our McGee Avenue uh restructuring program that was being proposed as part of the CIP uh FY27.

And uh we appreciate that there are a lot of needs of similar streets in the city, but we appreciate all the support you've given us and hope for or hope that our council will approve it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Gail Alcock in District 2, and um yes, I agree that the small sites program is really critical, really crucial, not only for providing um preserving and upgrading buildings that we already have, but also to restore trust in the councils because your primary number one item on the top of the strategic plan is affordable housing, and that should be on the top of that plan, should be the people that have no houses and are Berkeley residents already.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, council.

My name is Louis Chico, and I live in district eight.

I'm a supporter of telegraph for people, and I want to thank Mayor Ishi for including the 1.3 million car-free telegraph designs in their proposed budget.

I'm asking you to follow through on the unanimous 22 decision to pedestrianized telegraph.

Telegraph is the second busiest uh district corridor in East Bay.

Yet pedestrians are given a fraction of the right of way.

Cyclists and pedestrians are repeatedly killed, injured, or even sent to the ambulance due to these uh cars.

Micking it car free supports vision zero, helps local businesses is through more foot traffic.

It critically he clears the streets for ambulances and fire crews, who so they can respond without fighting traffic.

So I'm asking you for the sake of all Berkeley citizens who thrive and live on telegraph, the most one of the most busy city uh uh intersections in Berkeley, please support this measure.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Matt Gustafson with the Bay Area Committee Land Trust, resident of District 2 in Berkeley.

Um, I just I'm I'm I want to stand in solidarity with firefighters and also city staff tonight.

I I'm can similarly outraged at the pitting that I feel like is totally unnecessary in the memo, which also includes a lot of misinformation about um recent changes in public policy and state and regional levels that recognize the importance of preservation of housing and um and dismisses the importance of preservation of existing affordable housing.

The $8.1 million of community land trust ignores hundreds of million dollars that's already been allocated to new construction of affordable housing, which also has access to other programs like County Measure W funding, tens of millions of dollars there and other places.

Uh there's also public funding coming down the pipeline.

I just want to say the memo isn't really about getting the most bang for your buck.

This is about totally eliminating preservation.

A budget without preservation for housing is a budget that doesn't believe low-income Berkeley residents deserve agency in their homes, don't deserve to remain in place or self-manage or self-government.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Kristen Limecooler, District One.

I'm here to express my concerns about eliminating the nine paramedic and firefighter positions.

I believe the decision to eliminate these positions is short-sighted and does not reflect a commitment to Berkeley's public safety.

In recent years, a dramatically changing climate, coupled with the devastating fires that destroyed over 10,000 homes in LA, have opened our eyes to the risk Berkeley faces in the event of a catastrophic fire storm.

We know that Tilden Park, while providing a green belt that we all enjoy, also poses a serious risk to not just the hills but our entire city below.

If the climate conditions and high velocity winds combined with a spark, we will need every single trained firefighter and paramedic defending our lives.

We also know that firefighters have responded to numerous fires near the freeway and railroad tracks that are sometimes a result of unsafe practices by unhoused people.

Our first responders are there to protect both the housed and unhoused, even when that is extremely challenging.

Thank you.

I have I have two additional minutes, one from Eric from the fire department and one from Lisa, who's in line.

On behalf of the homeless services panel of experts, I am Carol Morasovic, the chair.

Firefighters provide an essential service, and they provide it efficiently and equitably in Berkeley.

And I can testify to what happens when that is not applied.

When I was in my 20s, my parents had strokes five days apart.

I was with my father while my mother was in the hospital when he had a massive stroke.

And I it seemed like when I called, there were a lot of questions before the paramedic was dispatched.

I would lay, and it seemed as if there was a delay.

That they didn't dispatch until after I had answered all those questions because my parents lived in a black neighborhood.

And that's what happens when there's a lack of equity.

As to the small sites program, this is homelessness, homelessness prevention.

It is also an essential service.

Shelters, that is homelessness being addressed, is an essential service to this community.

Um we asked on the homeless services panel of experts if council would consider referring to staff to negotiate with the Motel conversions to reduce the price so that this that the shelter could be restored, the emergency shelter.

We still believe that can be done.

There are planned negotiations that staff is presenting already planning to do with the conversions, and we hope that we can save that emergency shelter.

Thank you for restoring the um the um downtown business district, a DBA worker.

I'm sorry you're all in this position because these are essential services.

You're clearly paying for the sins of your father because there has been waste in the past.

But we can not reduce these essential services again.

Again, housing and the small sites is important.

We shouldn't really be debating one against an hour.

The fire department is important.

Homelessness prevention is important.

We have to have all of this.

Um and we have to cut back on consultants.

We recommended that from the homeless parent all of experts, things have to be scrutinized a lot more carefully.

I've come to you over the years, often wondering where is all this money coming from.

We have to scrutinize everything carefully so that we preserve these essential services.

Thank you.

Thanks, Carol.

Does you have a public comment?

If you can't reach this mic up here, we can also uh move one over.

I think I reach it.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

I just want to thank the fire department and all the city workers.

I believe that they all deserve their fair pay.

Bible says a hired hand is worthy of their pay.

I live at 2747 San Pablo Avenue in Terry Taplin's district, and the building I live in is a relatively new building, and the fire alarm system doesn't work.

Berkeley Fire Department has showed up several times because the system doesn't work, it's malfunction, but I think the biggest problem we have is not cutting people's jobs out, it's oversight and accountability.

I believe that if city council and elected officials were held accountable for managing budgets, and if they did not, and it affected their pay, the outcome would definitely be different, and homeless people definitely need affordable housing.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a number of folks online.

All right, our first speaker is Makai Freeman.

Sorry, oh yeah.

Uh Makai, can you hear us?

You should be able to unmute.

All right, give me one moment.

Let me try one more time.

Okay, I just prompted you.

You should be able to speak.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, okay.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, good afternoon.

May you council numbers.

People are looking and taking note.

I am not representing an organization.

At this time, I'm speaking as a three years.

A resident Berkeley.

To live here.

Do you really have housing isn't like you have kicked down?

The can the fields had access to housing our sheets that I'm safe from me.

And then I'm trying to.

Who have some more countries?

Increase.

So now you're asking us to trust here.

We increase.

Money for taxes.

And bad measures.

Is false.

Narrative.

So choose between sci-fiers.

And has it.

I support the EC's.

Budget.

I ask you.

So show leadership.

Thanks, Makai.

Sorry.

Um, thank you, Makai.

Our next speaker on the budget is Mark Headland.

Mark, you should be able to unmute.

Thank you all for your hard work on a very difficult budget.

I was a member of the coordinating committee for 2024's Measure FF, the streets one, and I wanted to make a quick comment, speaking only for myself.

I agree with Mayor Ishi's proposed changes, moving selected items from Measure FF funds to unfunded for future consideration.

One of the frequent pieces of feedback we heard from voters about Measure FF was that they were concerned council would misallocate funds collected by this measure, which led to the measures of oversight committee, allowing that committee and staff to ensure all funds are in line with measure FF's text as Mayor Ishii has proposed would avoid those concerns.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

Alright, our next speaker on the budget is the caller with the number ending in 405.

You should be able to unmute.

Caller ending um with 405, you should be able to unmute um star six.

You should be able to unmute.

We will go ahead and come back to you.

Um our next speaker is Kelvin Ward.

Yes, good evening, uh Mayor Ishi, uh members of the city council.

Uh my name is Kilvin Ward, and uh serve as a regional organizer with Live Free California.

I wholeheartedly support uh Mayor Ishi's proposed budget, including the $200,000 we allocation to live freeze gun violence intervention and prevention program, which will help close the uh physical fiscal uh funding gap uh for 2027 and as someone who has worked in violence intervention and prevention for years.

I have seen firsthand how these programs save lives, interrupt cycles of violence, and create safer communities.

Community-based violence intervention is not an expense, it's an investment in public safety, healing, and hope.

I want to thank Mayor Ishii and each council member in advance for your support and urge you to approve this critical funding in the midst of all the difficult uh challenges that you have.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kelvin.

All right, our next speaker is Joel Myerson.

Hi, my name is Joel Myerson, District 1.

I'd like to address the entire council, but in particular, council members Cassarwani Blackby and Taplin, who introduced the supplemental motion.

Uh, measure U1 was passed by Berkeley voters by an overwhelming three to one majority.

In the ballot argument signed by former mayor Jesse Argine, he stated measure U1 is the real affordable housing measure.

Any of you council members think you can ignore the will of the voters and use the U1 money for something else.

Let me explain something.

We will never trust you again.

Why should we?

Why would you expect the voters to pass a $300 million dollar bond act and increase sales tax?

You have shown that any ballot measure, no matter how impressive this purpose sounds, any ballot measure that puts money into the general fund is a ballot measure that is ripe for misappropriation and abuse.

Please think about this before you vote.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Kathy Labriola.

Uh yes, actually.

My name is Rick Lewis.

I am using my partner's um connection.

I am opposed to the defunding of the small site program.

Councilmember Casawani mentioned earlier that uh a program that she was discussing would um help uh avoid displacement of residents from Berkeley.

The SSP program, in fact, prevents low-income residents from being displaced in the first place.

SSP offers a unique approach to providing affordable housing.

It preserves housing in the neighborhoods where residents have lived for years.

They have built community in their buildings, and they keep affordable housing in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

Other cities have adopted the SSP programs.

Berkeley must maintain its leadership in this area and fully fund the program.

Next speaker, Teresa Gonzalez.

Um, good evening, Mayor Ishi, Berkeley City Council and City Manager.

Um, my name is Teresa Gonzalez, and I'm speaking on behalf of Livery California and the Berkeley Gun Violence Intervention and Prevention Program.

First, thank you to Mary Ishi and the entire council uh for your leadership during an extraordinarily difficult budget season.

We are especially grateful to you all for identifying funding to save many critical services and programs, including the 200,000 to close our fiscal year 27 funding gap.

In 2024, Berkeley experienced three fatal shootings and five non-fatal shootings, eight people were shot.

The financial cost exceeded 13 million, but the human cost was even greater.

Lives loss, family shattered, children traumatized, entire communities left carrying the lifelong pain, and all Berkeley taxpayers ultimately bearing the cost.

In 2025, Berkeley experienced zero fatal shootings and zero non-fatal shootings.

Um that means youth and adults were who are most vulnerable to gun violence are alive today.

It means safer communities and stronger communities for all of Berkeley.

Thank you.

Thanks, Teresa.

Meryl Siegel is our next speaker.

Hi, thank you.

I'm here to support the small sites funding, and I'm also here to support democracy.

Democracy is alive when you see 75% of voters voting for ballot measure, and having that ballot measure stay intact.

You measure U1.

This is the second time it's been rated by our city council.

And this is a very important measure for affordable housing because with small sites housing, you have the housing now.

You have it right now.

You don't have to wait for it.

It's not gonna be a monstrosity in the community.

The people are living there, many are senior citizens and poor.

I I just can't even fathom why anyone would want to touch that money.

It is an essentially Berkeley-esque beautiful idea, and we need to preserve that.

Thank you.

Thanks, Maryland.

Heather Bromfield.

Good evening.

Um, is Heather Baumfield?

I am with Enterprise Community Partners in Redding, California.

Um, I'm also an East Bay resident.

Um, and um I'm commenting today on the supposed to cover two.

That's a 200,000 dollar emerging developer capacity building grant.

Enterprise gets to work with both large small and large mission-based developers in Berkeley in a variety of ways.

Uh, investigative provisioning projects for major grants and tax credits.

Capacity building grants are lifelines for small organizations who perform deeply necessary and difficult area replacement work in the Berkeley community.

We're grateful to Council Member Caserwani for citing Enterprises Research and MMOs, but I wanted to clarify a couple of things.

First, Enterprise is in support of all three P's of affordable housing, including production retention and preservation.

The memo cites our research stating that new construction leverages state and federal dollars and claims that preservation cannot.

This is untrue.

Preservation can leverage regional and state funding and small sites projects and other jurisdictions, recently in leverage funding from BAP, but execute six projects or sorry, multiple projects.

Second, just earlier this week, our assembly member Buffy Wick and now speaking there.

Heather, I'm sorry, your time's up.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mia Garden.

Hello.

Oh, yes, we hear you.

Sorry, I was fumbling for the mute.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Mia and I'm the board president for Telegraph for People.

I would like to thank the council and Mary Ishii for including funding for car free telegraph designs in the mayor's budget proposal.

I respectfully ask the council to support the mayor's proposed budget and follow through with previous council president in prioritizing the pedestrianization of Telegraph Avenue.

As a student at UC Berkeley, living on Southside was the first time I ever experienced living in a walkable area.

The proposal to pedestrianized telegraph is the exact kind of policy that not only preserves a special part of our city but also follows through with the city's vision zero goal of promoting pedestrian safety.

With so many pedestrians, cyclists, micromobility users uh comprising an overwhelming majority of Southside residents and traffic violence being ever present, we must approach this issue as what it truly is as one of public safety.

Keeping the mayor's proposal and funding the city to pedestrianized telegraph avenue is a vital step that the council can take to reduce these preventable deaths and injuries.

Please vote to support the mayor's budget proposal and fund car free telegraph.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mia.

Dorothea Dorenz.

Good evening.

Hi, I support the uh proposal that Terry Chaplin and Kishalani and Dacobi has uh given to us.

And the reason is it's not that I don't care about small sites and people being housed.

Actually, I care very much about the future of housing in this city because it will supply us with more housing for people.

The fact that the measure for small sites was passed in 2014, doesn't take into account the major changes that have gone down around the city being forced to create 9,000 new residences in our city.

The picture has changed enormously, and so we have to be flexible and find more housing for more people, not take away housing, but find more housing.

And the idea that this proposal figures out how to keep the firemen hired is very, very important.

So I'm asking you to look into the thanks for your comment.

All right, Della Luna, you're up next.

Yes, thank you.

I wanted to speak in support of bringing in the more housing.

Well, one I want to say it's I think the fire departments and the nine hirings um is just critical.

Like that should not even be a question.

So I appreciate the council members that went through effort to bring those positions back.

My reasoning behind that is just those firefighters, those positions could help any resident in Berkeley at any time.

So the value that it presents to all of us, whether small sites, affordable housing, or uh in the hills, you know, it benefits all of us, even the potentiality that it could save our lives.

But I'm in support of the larger housing projects being built, and I know, well, not just generally speaking, but in this case, because I know that there are people waiting for the right to return, and I don't think the small sites actually create a funnel for new people or people to return into Berkeley because people are already in those homes, generally speaking.

Um, and then they're also very expensive.

Small sites have been very expensive.

Thank you, Vidella.

Our next speaker is Paula Senhoi.

Thank you.

Um, good evening, everyone.

Uh, city council members and UHE and community members.

Um, my name is Paul Seenhoy, and I am uh from District Five.

So I'm here in I'm here to speak as a resident of um the small sites um allocated funds that uh Bay Area Community Land Trust were able to uh acquire.

Um and I am basically here to um in support of that and also in support of the mayor's proposal.

Um of course the the firemen are very very important for our community as well as that again.

I don't agree with um having hearing the community talk about putting us or pinning us against the the very important fire community um the fireman commun uh people that need um those spaces that need to be filled basically is a very essential very essential um necessity for our city to like function correctly because they are like our first line of pence when anything happens.

Basically, if we're calling the fire department or 911, they will be the first ones to come.

They are heroes.

Thank you, Paula.

Thanks for your next speaker is April Victoria King.

Good evening, Mayor Ishii and Council members.

I'm a district three resident at the Stewart Street Co-op.

As a music educator, artist, mother and Berkeley resident, I'm deeply grateful to have affordable housing in an environment where my family is valued rooted and protected from displacement.

As Stewart Street, we're members of a forming co-op who have agency, responsibility, and a voice in the place we get to call home.

My family's story should not be considered lucky or exceptional in Berkeley.

What the small sites program makes possible is permanent affordability, resident power, and preservation of Berkeley's neighborhoods.

I implore the city council to continue to support the small sites program while supporting everything our city needs.

Berkeley is one of the best cities in the world, and we have a duty to keep leading as an example in an inclusive, thriving community.

I want to thank Mayor Ishii and the council members supporting small sites, and I urge the full council to protect measure you one's purpose and fund small sites program in this budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi.

Berkeley neighborhoods, you should be able to unmute.

Oh hi, um, this is Sergeant Christopher Prohl.

I'm I'm not I'm representing only myself.

Um I do want to notice note that last year um I had a serious bike accident and the wonderful EMTs from station three on Russell Street, who I really appreciate, uh helped I had serious facial injuries, and I'm thinking thanks to them I was able to get to Highland Hospital and get treated.

So I I'm very grateful to the personal experience to the emergency services, the fire department of the city of Berkeley.

That said, I'm here today to support the mayor's supplemental.

I do not support pitting emergency public safety positions against a measure that was passed by the voters by 75% 10 years ago to provide for much needed affordable housing in Berkeley.

I urge you to not repeat what happened last year where when this funding was raided um and and to um leave measure you alone and not take money from that fund.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, call in user one.

You should be able to unmute.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hi.

Um, my name is Bernadette.

I'm a Berkeley resident.

So I've been in Berkeley for about 40 years.

Um I'm actually appalled that we're being asked to choose between uh firefighters or affordable housing or the small size program.

Um I know that we can do better as Berkeley.

Um, the city council members, uh, I I would like for you all to come up with something that's the win-win situation, which is thoroughly um doable, that we don't have to worry about if somebody has an emergency.

We know someone who had an epulmonary embolism that had to be carried down the stairs by the firefighters.

If they had not shown up, that person will not be alive today.

We know people personally who have also been having to call the ambulance because of other illnesses.

We can't be uh talking about losing our housing or having safety.

Like while we put in safety again.

Thank you.

Um, so much for your comment.

Sorry, your your time is up.

All right, our next speaker is 1000 Tita Martinak.

Hello.

Good evening.

I'm a resident of District 3, and I'm also um a commissioner of the Berkeley Rent Board that's speaking here on my own behalf.

Uh I would like to incorporate by reference what others have said tonight in support of the small sites program.

And we'd also like to add the following.

What kind of mind devices a budgetary supplemental pitting vulnerable people in dire need of uh remaining in their homes against the fire department that we all love and need.

The rationale that small sites program doesn't take advantage of federal uh funding flies into the face of massive uncertainty in regard to everything coming down from DC at this time.

We cannot and should not base our budgetary decisions on any federal monies.

This has happened at the time when the senior population of the state of California is facing exponentially.

I'm sorry, your time is up, but thank you for your comment.

Thank you, Ida.

Our next speaker is Cheryl Davila, former council member.

Yeah, so it's interesting and sad that you would put an item in that's gonna take money away from the not well, not good to have a bond issue on the ballot and use the money that so they can you have already received for something else that it wasn't intended to do.

That's not cool.

That's like that's that's really really bad.

And you should have given Mackay more time.

Um, and um, also you need to fund mental health.

I I went I was out and about as I am in Berkeley often, and people that work for the city come up to me and tell me all the crap that goes on in the city.

And it's not good.

Like, why are you funding the police department so much money?

You could get take away some of that money and on mental health in the hall your time is out.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alfred Twitter.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Um, thank you, everyone.

Thank you to the mayor and council members supporting the small sites.

This is a great program, it keeps housing affordable, and it also modernizes and makes it safer and more accessible.

The first small sites project, which was on Stewart a few years ago, it turned a vacant building nobody was living in and added a wheelchair ramp, made other upgrades, and created new housing.

It also saves tenants for in current buildings, the expense of moving and preserves their community relationships and their state money coming.

SB 1091, which Senator Arrage is a co-author, passed the Senate, and also passed assembly housing committee, where every Democrat voted for it, including our assembly member Puffy Wiggs.

And finally, also want to put in a word for the telegraph car free.

That's been a long time coming and with thousands more living in South Side.

It's long overdue.

Thank you.

Thanks, Alfred.

All right.

Next up is Sloan.

So you should be able to speak.

My name is Sloan, and I'm with Live Free.

I wholeheartedly support the mayor's proposed budget, including the 200,000 reallocation of Left Free's gun violence intervention and prevention program, which will close our funding gap for the fiscal year of 2027.

This work is deeply personal to me.

I have seen first-handed the impact that violence has on individuals, families, and entire communities.

And I've also witnessed the power of a community-based intervention, healing, and support to transform lives.

We thank the mayor, mayor Easy and all the council members in advance for your support of our program and your commitment to our community safety.

Your investment helps ensure that life-saving work can continue reaching those who need it most.

Thank you all for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Sam.

All right, Kelly's iPad.

You're next.

Okay.

Um as I go through City Council agendas, meeting after meeting.

I see speech spending on consent, rarely questioned.

It is as if we have endless unquestioned spending until we get to the budget process, then we are in a crisis.

This round is put the fire department as a sacrificial lamb to balance the budget.

The proposal to use U1 funds puts the integrity of the ballot measures to question.

As an example given earlier of how new housing is superior to preserving existing housing through small sites.

The BART housing still has not broken ground, and this started in 2018.

San Jose makes their program of buying up existing small sites the centerpiece of creating affordable housing.

There is something wrong with this whole process.

We need to preserve our firefighters, paramedics, and small sites program and look at our oversight and accountability.

Thank you, Kelly.

Justin Pitcher, Recreation Program.

Here you need I should have uh three minutes.

One from Rebecca Webb from the 10 to 1 clerical chapter, one from Chanelie Gallagher, local one, and one from Jordan Reimer, local 1227.

Um sorry, give us a minute.

Just a second.

There in the room.

Oh, Rebecca's here.

Rebecca in the room.

Yeah, they're all in the room.

And I'm sorry, who was the third person?

Jordan Reamer, local 1227.

Got it.

All right, thank you.

Good evening, Audible Mayor and members of the city council.

I'm Justin Pitcher and the president of Public Employees Union Local One Asked Me.

I would elect to join you in person this evening, but I'm currently supporting camp operations at Berkeley Tualamy camp.

I just spoke to you during the first reading of the budget, and I'm here tonight as you work to bring a budget over the finish line.

I'm grateful for the partnership with City Manager Bootenhagen, human resources director Rodriguez, and the many contributors that got us to where we are in right sizing our budget.

And we are grateful for the roles that we've been able to tentatively find for our impacted members.

But that doesn't make tonight's decisions any easier to swallow for our membership.

Tonight I stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters across all of our bargaining units.

Well, we all fulfill different needs.

We live by the one city, one team mantra, and the elimination of any one position tonight will have a rippling effect on the services we render to our community.

We understand how we got here and the need to be fiscally responsible and the uncertainty of the future.

Furthermore, we support the proposals for the preservation of fire services and Berkeley proposed this evening.

But we urge you to bring your commitment to the street trauma prevention program that you expressed during the first budget reading back to the table in your final adopted budget.

Public safety is not just those in uniform providing essential services.

It is also the programs that are administered administered by our small but mighty non-sworn members within the public safety departments.

I will reiterate again tonight that programs with pending grant applications for long-term funding should not be eliminated in a short-sighted action.

In closing, I don't envy the job that you have to do this evening.

No one final adopted budget will fulfill all of the needs of our community, nor will it ensure that all of our members of the city team will be able to feed their families post-layoff.

As the uncertainty of the future becomes known, you have the commitment of public employees union local one asked me to reach ammo amicable solutions for a stable future service model.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Rifree, California.

Yes, hello.

Um, I believe Deborah Gorman's on and he's gonna see her minute to me.

May I get that name one more time, please?

I see Deborah Gore.

Yes, Deborah Gore.

Yes, okay.

It's uh purple square, kind of near the bottom.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Hello and good evening, Mayor Ishii and Council.

My name is Santhina, and I'm here to speak on behalf of Liff Free California and support the mayor's budget recommendation to use 200,000 from the general fund to support LIFRI's community gun violence prevention and intervention program.

Although I'm not on the ground myself doing the hard work, I see the impact and importance.

How our team provides support to parents, children, and community members who have lost the loved ones.

They get calls at 1, 2 a.m.

without hesitancy around location with victims and families offering support, resources, and a shoulder to cry on, checking in with victims and families, creating lifelong friendships and trust within the community, and not just after a tragedy happens, but the prevention work.

Going to parks and canvasing schools during the day, making sure kids are in class, being part of after-school programs, and giving rides after football practices, providing training to community members on how to de-escalate conflict and support their families and neighbors.

And these are things they were already doing 10, 15, 20 years before Live Free because it is important to them.

And I'm not only here in a professional manner but also personal.

I'm a victim of gun violence myself, and although those two instances happened almost 15 years ago, they still affect me to this day.

Not only physically but emotionally and mentally.

These programs are a necessity and not a luxury.

And I'm proud to be a part of this organization.

I want to thank you all in advance for supporting the free and protecting Berkeley.

Long live Todd Walker.

Thanks for your comment and for sharing your story.

Next speaker is Moni.

Hi, this is Moni Gongo Patai.

I'm a resident of district one.

Um I would urge the city council um to keep measure one U1 small sites funds for the purpose that voters intended consistent with Mayor Ishi's recommendation.

Um the supplemental proposal itself enumerates the successful projects achieved through the measure one fund U1 funds.

Reallocating small site funds that voters overwhelmingly supported for a second time erodes the public trust and shifts funds away from guaranteed applications for affordable housing and homelessness services.

Some of which we've heard today, and ignores the recommendation of the city's own housing experts on the housing advisory commission.

While the concern for underfunded new affordable housing projects may be valid, the proposed reallocation suggests a false conflict between.

Thanks.

All right, Catherine Day.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

My name's Katherine Day.

I live in District 8.

Uh I'm calling in to support Mayor Ishi's proposal proposed budget.

Um, I'm here to stand for the small sites program and for affordable housing for uh keeping faith for the voters by um honoring the promises made to the voters with the U1 measure.

Uh I'm in support of preserving housing.

I currently live in a dilapidated uh apartment building with another educator, with a student, with a um with a museum worker, and we live the reality of the dilapidated housing, um, which needs which needs preserving, which needs renaming, which needs renovating.

And so prevent displacement before it happens.

Absolutely.

And please do not claw back.3 million for the keeper.

Thank you.

All right.

Next speaker is Linda Olivenbaum.

Hello, good evening.

Uh, I urge you not to reallocate measure U1 funding to fill gaps in the upcoming city budget.

Measure U1 was passed overwhelmingly by Berkeley voters to support truly affordable housing, and that is the only purpose for which its funds should be used.

Reallocating its funding only increases the skepticism and distrust among voters who see it as a vaping switch by the council.

Providing funding towards purchasing existing affordable housing is cost effective, keeps people in their homes, and preserves the income diversity that still exists in Berkeley, even though this diversity is under severe strain.

Please keep the small sites funding in the city budget.

Thank you.

Thanks, Linda.

Leo Goldberg.

Hi, good afternoon or good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name's Leo Goldberg.

I'm born and raised Berkeley.

I research gentrification and displacement strategies.

And programs like small sites are the best way of addressing displacement pressures, both in Berkeley and elsewhere.

If we're serious about maintaining our racial and economic diversity, we need to maintain funding for small sites and capacity building funding for groups that use small sites.

So I urge the council to maintain funding for the program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Stephen Barton.

Hello, I'm Dr.

Steven Barton, former housing director for the city of Berkeley, now retired.

I want to speak in favor of the small sites program and capacity building for preservation organizations.

Yesterday, the Governor of California announced that there will be a multi-billion dollar bond measure for affordable housing that will include $500 million for preservation.

So there will be matching funds.

But if you defund Berkeley's preservation program, Berkeley will not be able to access that funding.

Second, anybody who thinks that rent stabilization and good cause for eviction despite all our protections is enough to protect tenants when a new landlord comes in and decides that they want to push people out is not paying attention to what is actually happening in the city of Berkeley.

And of course, eventually people do move out.

And if they have been Stephen, sorry, your your time's up.

Thanks for your comment.

All right, next up, Grayson Savoy.

Yes.

And one of the founding members of Telegraph People speaking in support of Mayor Ishi's supplemental budget.

I want to thank the mayor and council for recommending over 1.3 million dollars in funding to study and design a car for Telegraph Avenue in Southside.

Today Telegraph is failing to reach full potential.

Telegraph is an ideal location for pedestrianization, the second busiest pedestrian area in the East Bay at the foot of the world's best public university in a neighborhood where the vast majority of residents do not own a car.

Yet the current design of the roadway does not reflect the mobility needs of residents or support the city of Berkeley's climate traffic safety or equity goals.

A new roadway is long overdue.

Today pedestrians bump shoulders on crowded sidewalks, buses stall behind double parked cars, and visitors dangerously traverse through noisy, smelly, and uninviting public realm.

A pedestrian telegraph will not only make it safer for all road users to move around, it will reinvigorate the street, turning the historic heart of Berkeley into a world-class destination for decades, plans to explore carpet telegraph of Coming God, getting passed on or forgotten.

Thank you.

Thanks, Reason.

Next is Bach.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah.

Hi, my name is DeBond Banks, and I'm in support of the mayor's proposed budget, which includes a reallocation to live free for gun bodies, intervention and prevention program and a matter of 200k, which will close our funding gap for physical year of 2027.

We give Mayor Ishi and the council members in advance.

We thank Mayor Easy and the council members in advance for your vote support of our program.

And my personal story that's tied to this uh this vote in support is I am a um affected by gun violence and with last year's budget, it has now enabled uh a place like live free to employ me to help me and my family and present prevent uh recidivism.

I do not want to return back to prison um with a job like this.

This has really helped me and my family uh get back on the right track, and so I am a major support of it.

Thanks, Hawk.

Thanks for your comment.

Thank you.

Next up is Tim Frank.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Terrific.

Thank you very much.

So my name is Tim Frank, and I am representing the uh building and construction trades council of Alameda County.

Uh we supported uh measure U1 and um uh I participated in the committee that wrote and uh manage the ballot measure committee uh campaign to promote that uh uh that uh uh measure, and we're really proud of the projects that have been funded by it, including the uh uh the project on Berkeley Way for uh formerly homeless uh and um uh people at risk of homelessness.

It's uh managed by the Berkeley Food and Housing Project, paid for by uh substantially by U1 funding, but also leveraged with uh a variety of other state um local and federal funding.

And at this point, there is still more funding available to leverage that kind of work that do construction work.

Thank you.

There is for the small site.

Thank you.

Your time's up.

Thank you.

Next up is Jeff.

Hello, thank you very much.

Uh, my name is Jeffrey Melcher, 1139 Addison Street.

Um, you can hear me, right?

I can't quite hear you, Jeff, but you've got 49 seconds left.

I'll speak up.

I want to say um district two.

I'm gonna say thanks, Stephen Martin.

I support mayor's budget.

Uh one was voter approved.

Um, I'm curious how it's even legal to move that money and refund it into different places.

Um, but I support the small sites funding project as well.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ken Trell Killens.

Good evening.

Um, Kim Trail Killers from Live Free.

Uh, we're here in support of the mayor's allocation of 200,000 uh to close our funding gap for fiscal year 2027.

Um, I'm here to represent on behalf of the marginalized community, uh, those who are the voiceless as a part of this conversation, those who are trying to uh stabilize their lives after traumatic experiences to the young people that we work with that are not yet involved in um issues of violence or gangs or anything of that nature.

But we're doing intervention work to try to prevent them uh from entering to systems um that frankly don't care about them.

I speak on behalf of individuals who I met with yesterday in Santa Rita jail um who are returning to their community in Berkeley after serving their time and looking to re-establish themselves as as productive citizens.

We provide that pathway, we provide the important work that makes that happen, and we represent on behalf of everyone who is voiceless in this moment.

We really want the support of the uh council um in support of the mayor's allocation in support of the mayor's budget, and we want to continue to do this work on behalf of sorry, your your time is up, but thank you for your comment.

Cameron Wu, you're next.

Hello, I'm Cameron Wu, and I'm a member of resident of uh Berkeley and a regiment of District Two.

I'm a member of the Civic Arts Commission, but I'm here tonight speaking only myself.

I would ask the mayor and consider freezing position with the chief officer of cultural affairs in the civic arts department and those extraordinary skills that come with it, and not a limiting position and those very unique skills.

Thank you for your time and your dedication.

Thank you, Cameron.

Hi, um, I'm speaking on behalf of Live Free.

We wholeheartedly support the mayor's proposed budget, which includes a reallocation to live free the gun violence intervention and prevention program in the amount of two hundred eight thousand, which will close our funding gap in the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven.

We give thanks to Mayor Ishi and all council members in advance to your vote and supports our program.

I am a mother um healing from my son being killed.

Um, has been there to support me and my four daughters and grandson a hundred percent along the way.

Without them, I don't know what I would have done.

Um there's like a lot of things that people do not know about.

And they open the, you know, avenues for people to get knowledge on what to do, how to go about it.

Um I just recently was at San Pablo Park Saturday, seeing over two thousand kids um at an unprovoked um meetup that's not.

Sorry, your time is up, but thank you for your comment.

Next is Good Brother Network.

Hello, Mayor Ishi.

Uh, my name is Londell Porter.

I'm an implementation specialist with Live Free California.

I'm in fourth part of the uh budget for reallocation for our program and keep saving lives in the city of Berkeley.

Uh, I see my time in thank you.

Thank you.

All right, and one more time, um, caller ending with the number 405.

Hi, I'm Jeff and I heard, uh homeowner in Berkeley.

I've got turning in to say no flock and no child.

We have to find that better way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, those are all the callers that are online.

We're gonna take a 15-minute break and come back.

All right, man, All right.

Oh.

Oh.

Recording in progress.

Okay.

Hi everyone, we're back in session.

Thank you very much for your patience.

I really appreciate the time.

I'm gonna make a friendly amendment to uh the motion that's on the floor, um, a few different things.

One, um the downtown Berkeley revitalization project.

Let me put this up actually on the screen.

The downtown Berkeley revitalization project.

There it is.

Um the amount should actually be two point eight, and that's because a hundred thousand dollars is already going to it's already set aside for this, so it's just a a numbers, a number being incorrect.

Um, additionally, I'd like to make a friendly amendment to include the five firefighter three paramedic positions on here with funding, oh, as well as the inspector position.

Oh, that was already on there, and um that would come from the increased annual ambulance transport revenue, as well as a position from the city clerk's office, which is currently vacant, and that would prevent us from using any U1 funding, and um there was additional general fund revenue, which is not part of U1, just to be clear, and that would also go towards those positions.

Um, so that's my friendly amendment, accepted seconded.

So I also just want to make it clear that I'm very concerned about making this decision, that I'm really worried about our financial situation in November, and I understand that this decision is gonna make some folks really upset because there are many positions that are being cut in the city, and I recognize that we've had conversations with some of the other unions and folks who are will be upset by this decision, and I really just want to say I'm sorry.

Um, so this is the current motion that's on the floor, and I want to allow my council colleagues to make comments now, starting with Council Member Cassarwani.

Uh thank you very much, madam mayor, for uh those amendments.

I um I want to thank all of the public commenters, and um, you know, I I know there's a lot of uh varying views, and I was listening to all of you, and I do just want to clarify this issue of U1, this measure U1 funding that we heard a lot about in public comment.

It was passed by voters in 2016, and it is a general fund tax, meaning it can be used for any general purpose.

I think about the language of the ballot measure and how it was can't, you know, sold so to speak to the voters.

And so if we go back to that language, we see that the ballot language stated that the funding would be used for quote,000 that is proposed to increase affordable housing and protect Berkeley residents from Measure U1 funding that is general fund to be used for this so-called I'm saying so-called because it's a little bit of a vague term, but this capacity building for small developers, this is not increasing affordable housing, and it is not protecting Berkeley residents from homelessness.

Capacity building for small developers involves funding for staff development to increase technical knowledge and skills, and there's other uh tasks or activities that can be funded.

It's all about staff development for a developer.

So I just want to say if we're gonna follow the letter of the of the measure and what it said and try to stick to that, we have not stuck to that, and we can't stick to that when we have a 30 million dollar deficit.

I did lead the effort last time to redirect 1.4 million dollars of general fund revenue that happened to come from Measure U1 to deal with the deficit.

So nothing that I proposed was bad governance or in bad faith.

I think what I did was exactly what the measure is intended to do.

It is a general fund tax.

So I did say that we would use 200,000 from that measure to help fund the fire inspector.

Uh, but I I I am fine with, and I was gonna propose this before the mayor did to take that off the table because if people feel like they don't want to use measure U1 for fire positions, that's fine with me.

You know, I want to work in the spirit of compromise to land this tonight.

So that's fine.

I think that I am a little bit nervous about taking from the assistant city clerk position because what I proposed did not take from another department to fund positions in the fire department, and that was very intentional.

So I would actually propose that we not do that, and that we use the increase ambulance response revenue instead and keep that position in the city clerk's office because that city clerk's office has not added positions, but their workload has increased.

So I'm just stating that now, and then I also want to propose.

So that would be my alteration.

I I'm gonna make a substitute motion.

So that's a piece of the substitute motion, and then on small sites, I didn't hear any give on that.

I want to propose a compromise as it relates to small sites.

I hear that people want to invest in this model.

So I want to offer that we leave the two and a half million that has already been put out to bid for small sites for that purpose.

I am not convinced that that isn't enough funding to do an acquisition.

Mr.

White, can you update us on the inquiries that have been made as it relates to that RFP?

My understanding is there are parties that are looking at this funding and are trying to see if they can make use of it.

Council member, I think um housing community services manager Margot Ernst is online and could speak to that with a little bit more detail.

Okay, can we have her do that?

Yes.

Hello, good evening.

Um mayor and members of the council.

Sorry, I'm trying to turn my camera on.

Yeah, I'm I'm happy to answer the question to the best of my ability.

Um we from what we understand, there are um certainly both land trusts.

I think are seeking andor pursuing properties.

The one that I'm aware of is a property that um is about 23 units and would require more funding than the 2.5 million.

Okay, all right.

So there's still an exploration.

Do we know when is the deadline for that for respondents to submit for that RFP?

I mean, it's just open, it it can just stay open.

We would just need to make sure we have the funding still, you know, carrying forward in the budget.

Oh, but it would it could stay open.

It could stay open.

Okay, if if there is a possibility of acquiring properties as small as five units, up to 25 units, I I believe that that two and a half million could be viable.

And so I I want to propose that that can stay with small sites, but that this 1.3 million that is unallocated in the housing trust fund remain there for new affordable housing.

So with that, I'd like to make a substitute motion that builds on everything the mayor just proposed with the amendments, with the exception of taking off the assistant city clerk.

And actually, I can share screen to show this.

Hang on, let me.

So just to be clear, so you want to stay, you want to keep the U1 funding in here.

No, let me share my screen and show my substitute motion.

Okay, so can you all see that?

I can make it bigger.

Is that good?

Yep.

Okay.

So yeah, we it if if folks are interested in not having U1 be used as a funding source, I have struck in stricken that out.

Um, but I I don't support taking from the city clerk's office.

I I have talked to city manager, and we have we will likely be receiving more increased ambulance transport revenue.

So I just put the 200,000 there.

It doesn't change any of the totals.

So that allows us to continue to fund those nine.0 positions, and then this the compromise on small sites appears below that we would keep the 2.5 million, and uh leave the 1.3 million in the housing trust fund.

And uh so that is my substitute motion for the budget.

Second.

So if there is an additional $200,000 in the ambulance fund, Mr.

City Manager, then I would also like to make a friendly amendment to ours to have that funding instead of the city clerk's position.

Accepted.

Second or accept.

So the only difference here would be that in yours you would be taking money from small sites.

Is that correct, Councilmember?

Yes, I I want to keep 1.3 million in the housing trust fund.

And and I thank you for accepting all of the other proposals I've put forward.

Okay, so there's a second and a motion.

Do we want to have discussion on this or should we just keep it on?

Okay, so um councilmember Blackaby.

Uh thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, uh in the understatement of the year, um, I do uh want to acknowledge that we all know this is a difficult budget.

Um we all know it reflects really hard decisions that will have real impacts on residents on staff, on real people.

Uh I want to thank all of our labor partners for their advocacy leading up to tonight uh for their outreach for being here tonight.

Uh I want to thank city staff for all the hard work in getting us to this point.

I want to thank the public for being here.

I want to thank the mayor for her draft and her updated um proposal.

I want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Castarwani, for her supplemental.

Um to address our structural deficit and put the city on a sustainable path.

We know we need to make significant reductions, including the loss of valued staff positions and the elimination of unfilled positions.

I'm both proud of the work we have done, but also extremely mindful of the sacrifices that these decisions require.

We've made substantial progress, but our work is not finished.

Looking ahead as we've discussed tonight, we know we may face significant additional challenges if local funding measures fail or if state and federal funding is reduced.

I remain committed to finding creative ways to strengthen our finances, especially on the top line, the revenue side, uh approving efficiency and supporting economic growth.

I'm hopeful that a stronger local economy will help generate the revenue growth we need in the years ahead.

And I'll say kind of by way of state sidebar, just a conversation I had today.

Just today I was meeting with a high tech company, a clean tech company, uh, a startup that's considering locating here in Berkeley because they want to be part of the ecosystem and all of the innovation that's happening here in Berkeley.

And I think as a city council as a city, um, we need to be doing more of that.

We need to be bringing these sort of businesses to Berkeley.

That's a way of generating revenue without increasing fees or taxes at all.

It's moving more economic output through the pipeline.

And I think there's a lot of opportunity to do more of that, and I'm excited by that prospect.

On the discussion we've been having about the supplemental, I want to be really clear that, you know, we've heard a lot about pitting fire versus small sites or fire versus versus housing.

And that's that's a false choice.

That is not what's happening here tonight.

We're working on two separate issues in one budget at the same time in different parts of the budget.

We're talking about how to optimize what we're doing in the housing trust fund.

We're talking about optimizing what we're doing in the general fund.

I think, and then council member Kessarwani, Councilmember Taplin, I think most of us think we deserve and can provide robust public safety services to all residents, police and fire.

And we can do that out of the general fund.

We've identified ways of doing that better.

And I also think we can look for the biggest bang for the proverbial buck on affordable housing.

Those two things are doable.

They are not in competition with one another.

As a matter of fact, we're not taking money from housing.

On the contrary, what council member Kesarwani and others have proposed is trying to get the most out of those limited resources.

As a matter of fact, we don't want to spend less on affordable housing.

We want to spend more.

If you consider the dollars that we're talking about putting on the table and the match from state and federal funding, we're proposing spending more on affordable housing here in Berkeley in the Kessarwani proposal.

And I want to be clear about that.

So I appreciate everything that the land trusts are doing, the small sites are doing.

The residents in those properties are benefiting from that impressive work.

But we do have limited funds across the board, and we need to decide how best to scale these limited resources.

So here is the choice that Councilmember Kessarwani is offering.

We can preserve a smaller number of existing units.

And I again I think that's valuable, but I'm just saying this is the choice.

Or creating, adding, and developing a larger number of new units with the same money.

That's the choice that's being presented.

That's the choice that's being presented.

You can disagree with that, but that's the policy decision.

That's a policy discussion.

This is not pitting one against the other.

This is saying that's a policy choice for the council and for this community.

We want to preserve housing with those $3.8 million or now the 1.3 million dollars, or do we want to match that money and use that to provide more affordable housing?

The council will vote, we'll decide, but that's the choice.

It's not saying we want a less affordable housing, it's how do we provide as much affordable housing as we can.

On the public safety front, as a representative of District 6, it's the highest uh area of fire risk in the city, as we all know.

Nothing is more important to me than public safety.

Um, after we went through the whole debate and discussion about Ember, and we're asking residents in district six and across the city to do their part to provide fire safety.

We need to make sure the city's doing their part.

That's why I appreciate what the mayor's has has offered.

You can have one of my minutes.

I appreciate that.

And almost done.

I appreciate the fact that we're stepping up on that because if we're asking residents to do their part, the city needs to do their part and provide the kind of public service we need, the kind of fire safety that we need.

Um I wish we could have done a little bit more on both the police and the fire side, but I'm comfortable that like we've we've done a lot, and depending on how revenues trend in the months ahead, we can come back and look at that again.

So, anyway, I I appreciate the discussion.

Um, I just wanted to clarify a little bit about how I think some of us are thinking about this up here, and it's not it's not about not caring about affordable housing, it's like what do we what do we think is the best choice to get more affordable housing here?

That's really the question.

Uh, and it's not pitting one against the other, it's not pitting fire against housing.

It's saying how can we get more public safety and what's the best use of those limited dollars to get the most affordable housing we can.

Uh so with that, I appreciate um Councilmember Kessarwani's proposal, I support uh the supplemental.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Trakeb.

I'm just sorry, just so you know, Vice Mayor Trakeb, Councilmember Humbert, Councilmember Taplin, and then Councilmember Lynopara.

Because just so the folks online know I can still see you.

And then Councilmember Bartlett after.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

The last several months have been nothing short of heart wrenching for so many of us.

And I want to extend my sincere gratitude to city administration, to my colleagues, to our mayor, to the city manager, to Deputy White, budget manager Dupaya and their team, and all city staff and labor partners for approaching this budget early on with transparency, honesty, and integrity worthy of the city we serve.

It has been and will continue to be some of the most difficult times through which to lead the city, and the only way we can do it is together.

I also want to thank all of our community partners, uh, residents and the public for doing the work in our community for all of their input.

We all understand how much these decisions affect you and your neighbors.

Thank you for your grace, understanding, sacrifice, and collaboration.

I will continue to look under every rock and in every corner to save our staff positions and to support our community, our arts and culture, and our many community partners.

And I know I'm not the only one on this diet, so I think we all share that sentiment.

Uh, tonight I want to speak directly to the preservation of affordable housing.

In my time working towards a Barkley we can all call home, including serving eight years on the rent board, helping craft measure U1, and serving as chair of the measure or oversight committee.

I've learned that affordable housing policy truly needs to be built around all three Ps: production, protection, preservation.

Each addresses a different part of the housing puzzle and serves a different different members of our community.

Berkeley has invested heavily in production.

Measure all alone committed 135 million dollars towards new affordable housing, including um 7.5 million uh towards 1740 San Pablo, which was cited earlier by Councilmember Kesarwani, and which I strongly continue to support funding.

New construction alone, however, is not enough and should not be our only metric.

Preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing.

Um preservation of naturally curing affordable housing is critically important, especially to help vulnerable residents remain housed and connected to their communities.

Alarmingly, Barkley's naturally occurring affordable housing is disappearing faster than we are replacing it.

Since 2020, the city has lost roughly 1,000 unsubsidized affordable homes.

Of the approximately 7600 affordable units that remain, an estimated 1,200 are at risk of loss within the next five years.

So I can also tell you that even in Berkeley, with some of the strongest tenant protections in California, displacement still happens, and it happens more frequently than we may realize.

And those most at risk tend to be seniors, families, women, and folks of color.

Funding small sites to measure U1 was specifically designed to supplement the city's efforts to keep our neighbors here in their houses, rooted here in this community.

The small sites program preserves affordability within months, not years.

Right now, community land trust have identified approximately five million dollars in acquisition opportunities, including for 28 units in west and southwest Barkley, and if unfunded, once these naturally affordable units are lost, they are effectively gone forever.

We should recognize that the availability of state and federal matching funds has become increasingly uncertain and competitive.

While leveraging outside resources is important, we should also note that some construction projects can wait for future funding that may never materialize.

In conclusion, I want to say that when voters supported our housing measures, they understood affordable housing to mean both creating new units and also preserving existing affordable units and keeping vulnerable residents in the communities they already call home.

Measure all of our major investment in production.

Measure U1 is our opportunity to strengthen the oft-overlooked Ford P of preservation.

These strategies should not be pitted against one another.

Our goal must be to use every effective tool available to keep Berkeley neighbors housed.

I need 20 more seconds to finish.

You can have 20 seconds of council member Keith.

Thank you.

And preserve the diverse community we all value.

Truly, both are needed for all three P's are needed for Barkley, we could all call home.

The mayor's budget does just that.

Unfortunately, and while I appreciate all the efforts to compromise, uh, like last year, we're down to that last piece.

And with deep respect to the author and the co-sponsors, I uh am unable to support the substitute motion because I believe that it falls short of crafting that careful balance.

I will be supporting the mayor's motion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

All right.

Um in our order, we have again Councilmember Humbert, then Taplin, then Lunapara, then Bartlett.

And then O'Keefe.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I want to say, first of all, thank you to everyone who's commented and sent us emails.

Everyone who's coming here tonight, sent us you know tons and tons of emails.

I've tried to read everyone.

I I want to say thank you to all of our city staff, and especially the finance department and the city manager's office, all of our department heads, and so many others for their ongoing work on this complicated, you know, to put it very mildly, difficult budget.

I also want to thank Mayor Ishi, her chief of staff, and all of her staff for their work on the budget, and really it was a whole lot of work, and for including me as part of the mayor's brown act circle.

I do want to thank as well, Council Members Kessarwani, Taplin, and Blackabee for offering their supplemental.

I think we all share in the goal in making sure that our first responders, be they firefighters, paramedics, or police, have the resources and tools they need to keep Berkeley safe and deliver the level of services that residents expect.

Candidly, I see merit, you know, things things are moving very quickly here tonight.

I see merit, I saw merit in in both of the motions.

Um, to the Mayor's great credit, um.

Um I do want to say the following thing that I've said way too many times recently.

Um I sound like a broken record, but I've mediated hundreds of cases in my career, and the thing that I come back to over and over again is is my definition of a good result and a good result in a in a very difficult disputed situation is when both sides or all sides in that in that dispute are leave, are able to reach rapprochement, are somewhat unhappy with the result but willing to live with it and move forward.

And I think that's where we're we're heading tonight.

Um I also want to say the following.

Um and I want to be really clear because this is true.

No one has done more to bring affordable and supportive housing to her own district than Councilmember Kesarwani.

Literally, hundreds of people in Berkeley have roofs over their heads because of her.

Saying that she's engaged in some kind of class warfare um is frankly garbage.

I mean, it just makes no sense at all.

It's just ridiculous false hyperbole.

I also want to say that I agree with Rashi philosophically on affordable housing in general, but I'm willing to compromise to give the land trusts a chance for the projects that are in the pipeline.

Um, you know, I I also want to say that that I think that you know, I would join in council member Blackaby's comments that really a more effective way of uh putting roofs over people's heads is by leveraging um our affordable housing dollars, other than through the small sites program.

But what I'm hearing lately, and I heard this from one of the um uh representatives of the land trust is that maybe the the um the uh the housing bond coming down the pike, hopefully it'll pass, will help leverage small site monies too.

So, you know that that would be great if that happens.

Um those are my comments for now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um we are moving on to Councilmember Taplin online.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Um I too wish to underscore the severe difficulty with which we make tonight's decision.

I also believe that this is only the beginning.

We will need to treat every dollar in every program with scrutiny in order to correct course and right size the organization.

The city has an obligation to provide core critical services, including public safety.

There would have been no way for me to support a budget that eliminated so many fire positions.

I appreciate everyone's work to minimize the cuts.

Regarding affordable housing, the trust fund supports a variety of affordable housing projects, so there should be some flexibility to make the most sound choice for limited resources.

And for that reason, I will be supporting the substitute motion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Lunapara, thank you.

This is without a doubt the hardest part of this job.

My staff and I have worked tirelessly to identify other ways to sustainably balance the budget that limits layoffs and keeps necessary services intact.

And I know that the city manager, the mayor, and each council member on this dais has done the same.

Ultimately, the budgetary decisions that have prioritized one-time funding for continuous services, patched anticipated deficit with unsustainable revenues, and bypass established council processes have brought us to this moment.

Throughout this process, my goals have remained steady, protect as many filled union jobs as possible while balancing the critical need for emergency services, comprehensive public safety, and sustainably balance the budget so future managed city managers, councils, and city workers are not faced with this impossible task.

This whole process has forced us to examine how we approach budgeting and has given us an opportunity to reflect on where we have fallen short.

Past decisions have shifted the responsibility for making these heartbreaking and nearly impossible decisions onto the city manager's team while asking our employees to bear the heaviest burden through layoffs and service reductions.

And I'm not suggesting that we control every variable.

There are certainly economic and financial conditions beyond our influence.

But we do have a responsibility moving forward to make difficult policy choices, set clearer priorities, and create a more sustainable framework for the future.

If we fail to do that, we will continue to place staff in an untenable position and force our workforce and community to absorb the consequences.

I believe this council has really stepped up to the plate.

We do not take city workers for granted, and we recognize the weight of navigating comp competing priorities with limited resources.

We are no longer comfortable with funding ongoing projects with one-time dollars.

We are mindful of the actual labor required to implement our policy intentions, and we respect that true democracy and meaningful change do not happen overnight.

I want to thank the mayor for her leadership.

You've been dealt a really difficult hand, and you faced it head on.

I want to thank the mayor and her brown act circle for making the study and design of a car-free telegraph a priority.

This idea has been discussed since the 1960s, and it remains one of the most important opportunities for creating a more sustainable people-centered city.

It is near and dear to my heart, and what got me excited about and energized to join civic life in Berkeley.

By investing in this effort, we're sending a clear message that our city values the people who walk, bike, roll, and rely on public transit to move around our city.

It shows that we're committed to designing streets with them in mind, not as an afterthought.

It also shows respect for the council's established planning and ranking process and a willingness to follow through in the community centered democratic vision.

It was created to advance.

This is a first step to a long process, and I'm so excited to see it progress.

I also want to thank the mayor for prioritizing the sacred rest job and center.

It's an extremely important fixture in Southside and enables homeless folks to rest, store their belongings, and get connected to local and regional services.

It has been really important for me this year to develop items and identify priorities that do not require general fund money, and I'm grateful that that is an evident goal of this budget.

On small sites, I we received many emails saying that we should fund firefighter positions over the allocated small sites funding, and I I want to clear that up again.

I am deeply in support of new dense affordable housing, and I am not under the false assumption that it is not that it is the only way to solve our affordability crisis.

If preservation was not an important part of the puzzle, organizations fighting to address the housing crisis, like ECA for everyone and EPO, major affordable housing developers and regional partners would not support preservation funding, which they do.

This consensus reflects a clear understanding that preservation must be part of our housing strategy, and one that I think makes sense to go after because we ultimately need an all of the above approach.

And developing new housing at the moment is unfortunately incredibly expensive.

I also want to clarify where this money for small sites is coming from.

We have 2.5 million that we would be carrying over from the allocation last year, and the mayor and her Barnack circle are also proposing an additional 1.3 million from the housing trust fund.

If that's what the council decides, as of right now, there's still another 1.4 million dollars in the housing trust trust fund.

Overall, I support the main motion, and I'm very grateful for everybody's work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We are moving online to Councilmember Bartlett.

Okay, thank you.

And uh, you know, I I for one too want to thank everyone for your work.

Uh this is tremendous.

The the level of scrutiny you had to apply uh to our complex city operations and all the facets of it.

I know it's hard.

You put a lot of time into this, all of you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

From the city side and my colleagues on the budget committee side.

Uh thank you again.

And uh and I do want to speak to um the the accusations as well.

You know, I think Council Gusserwani, I know her really well, uh, long-time friend and colleague, and you know, she believes she's doing the right thing for a community, and um and that that is valuable, and it's nothing but distrust is just something you may not agree with, that's all.

Um, so for what I'm really excited, you know, the the elements of the mayor's budget, um, about both budgets that uh I'm happy about here this this is latest interpretations of it.

Um makes me happy because you see, I swore an oath uh quite some time ago to defend the week.

And this budget does just that.

The first responders, they're there, front line for the people.

And all the all the times we work with people and worked out our health programs.

We created the the health equity plan, we created the SCU.

Uh it was all about these people on the ground and fire interacting with them and police as well.

And so police are gonna come to this later, I think, after the after this, after this moment, but uh so so getting those jobs set up is important, important.

And then the small sites initiative.

You know, the city was decidedly anti-housing, as you all know for many decades.

And part of the part of the way the that we succeeded in moving the needle and getting people to accept a new consensus of housing production and new housing and legalizing housing.

Uh there's an 18-month-long threat series throughout the region to come with a framework that we everyone could get into, buy into.

And that framework is the council advice meritor good mentioned uh the three Ps.

Produce, preserve, protect.

So we're producing a lot.

I know.

Right here in my district, we have tons and tons of affordable housing, all new.

Um, preserve, come to that, protect.

We we passed the strongest tenant protections in the country, and now preserve this.

This is the small sites initiative, and I'm very proud of it because I've seen it work.

My district was the first church housing version of this thing in the country, and it was amazing.

People uh were were trying to be gone, had nowhere to go.

Now they're here.

I know they're building in California, the people are again are so happy, and they're f they have roots here, they're from here.

It won't be a new family that you don't know in seven years trying to get in.

These are people who have existing connections to the community now, and so capturing these uh, you know, this this land value um and land trust.

I think it's very valuable and it's an important part of three Ps.

And this is the most underutilized P too, by the way.

Um, and so a balanced out portfolio has the three P's in full effect.

Um, and also a display and the displacement strategy must incorporate the second P preservation.

Um and third, I just want to I just want to call out again um the uh the need to do uh so we're gonna have to really rework everything as we go forward.

And one thing I just want to put out there now, as this before years ago, it may be time uh to explore uh Henry George model taxation, and that's uh that's a public value uh creation uh benefit value.

So that's something we can discuss later, but I want to get that conversation going right now because uh this is not sustainable with um with our desires and our needs.

But to that effect, I'm supporting the mayor's motion.

Uh thank you very much for all your work.

Thank you, council member.

Um moving on to Councilmember Keefe.

Thank you.

Um, first um, I want to express um just a couple small things to be in, and then I'll talk about the big issues.

Uh, I want to express some gratitude that the Salon of Stroll and some very important district five infrastructure projects are slated to be funded.

Um, I want to thank Alan Kane and um Vice Mayor Jennifer Hanson Romell of Albany for working with me on the stroll issue and um a number of my constituents for working with me on the um infrastructure issues, and of course, city staff that supported all of that.

Um regarding small sites, um I'll be supporting the mayor's motion.

Um I understand the arguments made against this allocation that the funding's not optimal.

I I get that.

I think I think this is a situation where the argument is maybe more or less technically accurate if you look at it certain way, but in order to do that, you really have to ignore some of the unquantifiable benefits of a program like this, which includes keeping communities intact, you cannot put a price on that, and also shielding people from the life-altering trauma of being displaced.

So I actually think it's okay to pay a little more for those intangible benefits that can make a world of difference to the people affected.

And I'm glad that we have a diverse um portfolio of affordable housing strategies because you have to do all of it, PPP, and everyone already talked about that.

But I am happy to support um including this and continuing to support this particular strategy for those reasons.

Um regarding the fire positions.

Um, I'm so glad we figured out a way to fund those.

Oh my god.

Um I represent one of the three um real fire risk uh districts, and you know, and I represent the district that will stand to lose a fire station if the um God forbid the sales tax doesn't pass.

I'm a person whose children have had medical emergencies, and I have two octogenarian parents living in Berkeley, extremely far from any emergency room.

Um, all is to say I really love the firefighters, not just for myself and my family, but for the important essential and often backbreaking work they do um that our entire community benefits from every day, whether they realize it or not.

So I well, I feel really good, really good, so good about restoring these fire positions.

I do want to just name I have some reservations.

I'm I'm voting for it, but I I have some reservations um about uh equity because I know that there are other types of positions that you're not choosing to restore.

I just really wanted to name that.

Specifically, I know our police officers um took a lot of cuts and haven't gotten anything back in this.

Um, to some extent, uh I think the inequity is is to some extent justified because a lot of this extra funding came from the ambulance services, which is a strong nexus with the firefighters work, but but not all of it, and so um, but I also know that these cutting these positions really it has a very specific devastating effect on our firefighters.

Um I've heard this directly from them uh that it really forces them to work a huge amount of mandatory overtime, which is just unsustainable in that kind of work, and so it feels good to um to be able to give back some of that, but I do want to make a request of council and actually a personal promise that I will um keep that when we do come back in early 2027 for the mid-year budget review, um, which will hopefully include revenue from our newly passed sales tax and also our transfer tax income will be untouched.

Um, I really hope we can look again at some of those public safety positions and and other positions that are being cut.

Because I we're not the this work is not complete tonight.

This is what we're doing right now tonight.

This is the most um this is the best thing to do right now, but it's this work is not done, and we need to revisit that to feel good about this process.

So that's that's my um my one caveat.

Um, but for tonight, I think this is gonna have to be good enough.

Um, I really want to thank all my council colleagues and city staff, especially our budget team, our city manager, and our deputy city manager.

Um, and I really lastly I want to thank the mayor for um just really amazing leadership navigating us through really difficult waters with integrity and honesty and really good communication.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, council member.

Um council member Blackerby, did you have something you wanted to add?

I had a technical amendment actually and uh consultation with staff um on the provision for the Euclid Street improvement um in 28.

We'd listed it as a uh surplus fund relinquishment.

Uh, what staff says is we consider that a reduction in our office budget up from the beginning.

So it's a slight tweet.

It's still the 25k, but it's a reduction in our budget as opposed to a later relinquishment.

Um so my ask would be a friendly amendment to both the substitute amendment makers as well as the primary motion makers to make that friendly amendment.

It's just a characterization of what we do with the 25k, how we consider it.

Yes, okay.

And Councilman Kesserwani on the substitute.

Do you accept the friendly amendment?

It's basically considering the 25k and 28 to be a reduction in our office budget from the beginning as opposed to a later relinquishment request from staff.

Just how we consider it.

Yeah, it's all this like we're it's the same numbers.

Yeah, what's going on?

Clerk, are you?

Okay, okay.

Great, thank you.

That's it.

Okay, thank you.

Um, okay, popping back to Councilmember Humbert.

Yeah, I I want to join in in the final set of comments that um uh council member O'Keefe just made, and I I want to join in the promise that that she made.

Um I think it's really critical that when we come back mid-year that we look at what we can do for our other, you know, our other unions, um our police union, our police department, and um uh local one and SCIU.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh back to Councilmember Kesserwani.

Um yes, thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

So, you know, I I just um I want to thank you again for um helping us reach a consensus here and and um feel very comfortable with where we are, and um with the small sites funding, I did want to ask.

This is something I had been contemplating uh with the city manager, maybe Ms.

Ernst, if she's still there, she can advise.

Um my understanding is typically these acquisitions happen within a year.

Um I did want to ensure that we had some protection if the acquisition did not occur within a period of 36 months, that the funds would be returned to the city, and I want to ask if we can Ms.

Ernst has any input on that, and if uh I want to anyhow, let me let me pause there and see if she can advise.

Um yes, if I could clarify, you mean 36 months from the time that uh we've approved this uh uh specific project.

Yes, so from the time of of providing the funding of that, um it because I I don't know which project is going to be awarded these funds and what their full need would be.

And I and I do want to acknowledge, I didn't acknowledge this.

It is accurate that there are, there could be some sources of matching funds, right?

There's measure W at the county level, there's a possibility of this state affordable housing bond.

I think the reality is those are limited resources that are very competitive.

And so that is why it I I'm concerned if our funds are sort of sitting there and not able to be fully used.

I don't think that has happened traditionally, but in the event that it does, um I I wanted to provide this direction around 36 months, which is three you know, three years to draw down those matching funds.

Yeah, I think that that seems reasonable.

I would say that in most cases when once funds an application has been approved for funding, and just to clarify, we don't actually disperse the money until the acquisition goes through.

But um, once once we've approved an application over the counter through the NOFA, uh it would, it's usually much quicker than a year that the acquisition would happen.

So three years is certainly Yeah.

If it hasn't happened in three years, I mean it wouldn't then something's gone wrong, and we would want to we would want to pull that that award back, yes.

Okay.

So I just want to, and maybe this is something you would have already done.

I because I uh you know, I haven't reviewed these contracts in detail, but I just want to give you that direction so it's clear that that um that there's a 30 there's you know up to 36 months to to conduct the acquisition.

Is that clear enough?

Oh yes, yes, sure.

Okay, so so that's uh an amendment I'm adding to the substitute motion.

I'm wondering if the mayor, or it's not the mayor, it's Mr.

Humbert who's the motion maker for the main motion.

Sorry, what are you asking for?

I'm I'm asking who do I ask to for to consider this as a friendly amendment to the main motion as well.

You are asking both um council members Humbert and Vice Mayor Trakeup.

Okay, so um council member Hubbard, are you amenable to adding this language around small sites funding that the acquisition needs to take place within 36 months of receiving the funds from the city?

And if not, you know, the the expectation is that those funds are returned to the city.

I guess I would want to find that with the mayor since it is truly your question.

Okay, you can turn your mic on too.

Yeah, sorry.

Well, also the vice mayor would have to accept it as well.

So, right, but I I will I want your response.

Yeah, I mean, it would be good to know if 36 months was gonna be enough time from when the okay, yeah.

All right, sounds like that's okay.

Okay, yes.

Okay, okay, wonderful.

I I think yeah, I don't expect it to be an issue, but I just want to make sure we have that assurance.

So thank you very much.

Okay, um, Councilmember Chaplin, did you have your hand raised?

Uh yes, thank you.

I I wanted to uh chime in response to council members O'Keefe and Humbert, and um I I am in agreement.

I would offer that whatever diligence and prudence we apply to our efforts to restore other positions um in our mid-year review, be also applied to our evaluation of the programs we support and the public funds that we gift.

I think those two efforts are continuous and mutually beneficial.

Thank you.

Okay, alright, so um I did just want to make a few comments about small sites, but then I really would like us to vote.

Um, so as we've said, and as many folks have already said, preservation is an important part of the equation.

The money for new buildings can be leveraged because there is more funding available for new housing.

And as we heard, there's also some opportunities coming up for these projects to be to leverage funds as well.

Um the cost per unit for homes that are preserved is lower from the Berkeley site article that was published yesterday.

According to data from our city, the three buildings acquired through the small sites program cost $459,000 per unit to buy and rehabilitate on average, less than half the cost of recently recent newly built affordable developments Berkeley has funded, which has averaged $930,000 per unit.

New housing takes many years and does nothing to keep people in the neighborhoods and communities they live in now.

We really need both types, preserved and new.

As I said already, I am very disappointed that we weren't able to find additional funding.

I know there are a number of folks who won't be able to continue working in the city, although we are working to offer those folks positions as well.

And I did want to especially comment on the fact that I really appreciate BPAS and you recognize that this will feel painful, especially to our police department.

I want to thank staff very much for all the work that they've been doing.

Both our finance director and deputy city manager, city manager, my chief of staff and also my chief of policy have been meeting weekly.

I have been talking to our city manager about this budget since I was elected.

And so although I am definitely relieved for us to be able to take this vote tonight, I am definitely want to acknowledge just the sacrifice and the time and energy that's gone into this, both from city staff and my staff and all of us here on the DIES.

As has been said, these are not easy decisions, and none of us got elected so we could cut positions.

We've been doing a lot of work around tourism, encouraging the development in downtown to move forward, and also helping to keep a lot of the startups that are at UC Berkeley in our city locally so that they continue to grow and stay here.

And so just know folks that cutting during budgets isn't the only solution.

We really need to be working on revenue generation, and that that takes time.

So we are very focused on that.

I know my council members agree with me on this as well, and we will continue to keep an eye on November's elections to see how that this is going to impact our budget so that we can move forward and continue to make responsible decisions.

That is really important to me.

Okay, so uh there is a motion that's on the floor.

Oh, Councilmember Kiss Ronnie, did you have something else?

Yes, I I just I have to clarify that the numbers you cite in the Berkeley site article, uh, the unit per unit cost for Berkeley for each unit of the small sites, it's 286,000 compared to the new buildings, it's only 209,000.

I just I think the facts matter, and we are creating new units with less money with the new affordable housing.

Thank you.

Okay, um, so there is a substitute motion that's on the floor.

Councilmember Kesserwani's substitute motion.

So could we take the role on that, please?

Okay.

So on the substitute motion, so I'm just gonna go through it.

Please indulge me.

Um the substitute motion is everything from the main motion with a few um differences.

So it's to adopt the staff recommendation that includes the revised material from the city manager supplemental two, the revised material from the city manager that was accepted at the meeting, further revised by the mayor's uh amended proposal that she went through on the floor, including the four projects that were reclassified in the CIP, retaining the assistant city clerk position and using the additional 200,000 from the ambulance transport revenue.

Um, clarifying that the twenty five thousand in fiscal year twenty eight for the Euclid Street Project is a reduction from the office budgets rather than relinquishments, and adding um the provision of the small sites language that the acquisition needs to take place within thirty six months.

Um, and then the main difference being that for small sites retaining the 2.5 million for small sites and retaining the one point three million in the housing trust fund.

Thank you.

That was very, very well said.

Yes, all right.

So we're voting on the substitute motion.

Council member Casarani.

Oh, yes.

Bartlett?

No.

No.

Oh, Keith?

No.

Blackaby?

Yes.

No.

Abstain.

Mayor Ishii.

No.

Motion fails.

All right, on the main motion.

Councilmember Kessarwani?

Yes.

Bartlett?

Yes.

Trigob?

Aye.

Oh.

Keith?

Yes.

Blackaby?

Yes.

Luna Parra.

Yes.

Humbert?

Yes.

And Mayor Ishii.

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

So, Mr.

City Manager, could you speak to what happens for this item number two here?

This FY twenty twenty-seven annual appropriations ordinance.

Mark Car will Mark I can just say a little bit about it and then we'll turn it back over.

So would it be possible to take a quick five minute break?

I think we have to, so thank you.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I thought it was a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit more.

Oh no, it's a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a lot of the things.

Um testing.

Here we go.

Okay, we're back.

Thank you all so much.

Recording in progress.

We are moving on to item number two, which is the FY27 annual appropriations ordinance.

And I will pass it over to Marikar, please.

Thank you.

The recommendation will change as follows.

So the current gross appropriation was nine hundred eighteen million eighty thousand seven hundred eighty two dollars.

The change will be three million five hundred fifteen thousand three hundred thirty-four with a new revised uh gross appropriation for fiscal year twenty twenty-seven to be nine hundred twenty-one thousand five hundred and ninety-six thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars, and that captures new appropriation for the downtown Berkeley revitalization project, so sit fund, small sites, one point three million, sacred rest village of love fund one forty seven, um, at the hundred thousand, the OED community development project coordinator, general fund, um, fire positions and the CIP reduction of measure F F projects fund one sixty six at one point six five million dollars, the net appropriation was seven hundred ninety-two million three hundred seventy-two thousand five hundred thirty-three, the change to that is three million four hundred fifty-six thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, with a new net appropriations of seven hundred ninety-five thousand eight hundred twenty-nine dollars and three hundred thirty-two dollars.

And um that concludes the revision of the annual fiscal year twenty-seven annual appropriation ordinance.

Thank you very much.

Is there a motion to approve?

Moved as amended.

And I'll second and say you're amazing.

Thank you very much.

Okay, can we take the role on that, please?

All right, including the materials in the sub two and further.

Sorry, yeah, do we need to public comment on that?

Oh, sorry, we were all jumping the gun.

Any public comment on this item?

Um, okay.

Okay, I see no commenters on this item.

All right.

Okay.

I assume that you all don't have any comments.

Okay, great.

In that case, can you take the role, please?

Sure thing.

Including the revised material from the city manager in the sub two and further revised on the floor at the meeting.

Um council member Kesserwani.

Yes.

Yes.

Bartlett.

Uh Councilmember Bartlett on item two, annual appropriations ordinance.

We'll come back.

Yes.

Oh, great.

Thank you.

Aye.

O'Keefe?

Yes.

Blackaby?

Yes.

Bonapara?

Yes.

Humbert?

Yes.

Mayor Ishii.

Yes.

All right.

Motion passes.

Can we get a motion to adjourn, please?

So moved.

Second.

Can we take the role on that?

To adjourn.

Councilmember Kesserwani?

Yes.

Taplin.

Bartlett?

Yes.

Traga?

Aye.

O'Keefe?

Yes.

Blackaby?

Yes.

Bunapara.

Yes.

Humbert?

Yes.

Mayor Ishii.

Yes.

We are adjourned.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Recording stopped.