Berkeley City Council Meeting Summary: July 7, 2026

Hello, good evening, everyone.

I am calling to order Berkeley City Council meeting today is Tuesday, July 7th, 2026, and it is 6 05 p.m.

Can we start off with a role, please?

Okay.

Uh Councilmember Kirserwani.

Here.

Oh, here.

Here you are.

All right.

And Councilmember Taplin.

Councilmember Taplin.

President.

Um Bartlett is absent.

Trago, present.

O'Keefe.

I'm here.

Blackaby.

Here.

Unapara.

Here.

Humbert present.

And Mary Ishi.

Here.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

So it tonight is the first uh city council meeting of the month, so I will read the land acknowledgement statement.

The city of Berkeley recognizes that the community we live in was built on the territory of Huchun, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people, the ancestors and descendants of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County.

This land was and continues to be of great importance to all of the Alone tribes and descendants of the Verona Band.

As we begin our meeting tonight, we acknowledge and honor the original inhabitants of Berkeley, the documented 5,000 year history of a vibrant community at the West Berkeley Shell Mound, and the Ohlone people who continue to reside in the East Bay.

We recognize that the Berkeley's residents have and continue to benefit from the use and occupation of this unceded stolen land since the city of Berkeley's incorporation in 1878.

As stewards of the laws regulating the city of Berkeley, it is not only vital that we recognize the history of this land, but also recognize that the Allone people are present members of Berkeley and other East Bay communities today.

The City of Berkeley will continue to build relationships with the Lijan tribe and to create meaningful actions that uphold the intention of this land acknowledgement.

So for this evening, uh we have two ceremonial matters.

One is an adjournment in memory uh for Carl Anthony, which was requested by Councilmember Traegub, and um he will read something in a minute.

And then also we have a presentation from Ryan Lau from AC Transit External, he's the AC Transit External Affairs representative.

So I'm gonna start us off with our German in memory and pass it over to Councilmember Trake.

And uh also I think that uh his grandson is here.

If you want to come up to the front here, um you can come up to the podium.

Thank you.

And anyone else who's here for the adjournment in memory.

Oh yeah.

Thank you, madam mayor.

Today we adjourn in memory of oh, today we adjourn in memory of Carl Anthony, a visionary architect, regional planner, author, educator, and one of the nation's pioneers of environmental justice.

Carl Anthony passed away on April 4th, 2026, at the age of 87, leaving behind the legacy that reshaped the way our country approaches environmental stewardship, equity, and community development.

Born in Philly, Carl studied architecture at Columbia University before making the Bay Area his home.

Berkeley became the center of his life's work, where he advanced the belief that every community deserves clean air, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, and meaningful opportunities to thrive.

As the founding director of urban habitat, Carl helped build one of the nation's leading organizations dedicated to environmental justice and equitable regional planning.

He later served as president of the Earth Island Institute, co-founded Breakthrough Communities, and brought together diverse leaders to address the challenges facing cities and regions throughout California.

Carl's influence on Berkeley was profound as president of the Berkeley Planning Commission.

He this was before we had chairs, we had presidents.

He championed thoughtful planning that reflected the needs of all residents and helped shape a more inclusive vision for the city's future.

At UC Berkeley, he inspired generations of students to examine the connections between race, place, and the environment, encouraging many of them to pursue lives of public service and civic leadership.

Through his writing, including the earth, the city, and the hitting narrative of race.

Carl challenged readers to think differently about the history of American cities and the importance of creating communities where everyone can succeed.

His ideas continue to guide policymakers, planners, educators, and community leaders across the country.

Carl Anthony's legacy lives on in the institutions he threatened.

He strengthened the students and advocates he mentored, and the countless lives he touched.

We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and all who were inspired by his remarkable life.

May he rest in power and may his enduring example continue to inspire future generations.

Thank you to the council for letting me say a few words about my grandfather.

My name is Mackay Sloane Anthony, and I am uh Carl Anthony's grandson.

Um, so Carl moved to Berkeley in the early 70s, where my father was born and where I was born and raised, just a little less than a mile from here, actually, next to San Pablo Park.

Um, and when I think about my grandfather, it can be very difficult to pick one achievement above all others to highlight from his long and fruitful life.

For one thing, he was the only African American student at the Columbia University School of Architecture when he first entered into the program in the 1960s.

He went on a tour of HBCUs in order to encourage African American students to enter the prestigious architecture program and successfully increased applications from black students.

He visited Spain and West Africa in order to study traditional African architecture.

He was an assistant professor of architecture at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.

He co-founded Urban Habitat, which sought to create more multicultural leadership within environmental justice programs.

He was a fellow at Harvard University and a published author.

The list goes on and on, but despite all these incredible achievements and awards, by and large, his biggest success is the legacy he left, which is carried through his son, Khalil Dok Anthony, his niece, Robin Anthony Kuyate, and their respective children, myself, Makai, and Robin's children, and Folly and Jasmine Kuyate.

It is because of my grandfather that my father is not afraid to express his strong sense of justice.

It is because of my grandfather that our generation has such a high standard of excellence and a desire to spread the change that Carl fought his whole life to see.

After a life of fighting for change and a better tomorrow, my grandfather, Carl Cokine Anthony, finally gets to rest and reconnect with his brother, Louis Edward Anthony Jr., their father, Louis Edward Anthony Sr., and their mother, Mildred Anthony.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for sharing um stories of your grandfather and his legacy, and thank you to Councilmember Traegov for requesting the adjournment in memory for this evening.

I will now invite Ryan up to present about AC Transit.

And I believe we have a presentation.

Wonderful.

And just so you know, for some reason, I think like one of them has to be on while the other one is or something.

You'll you'll see.

Okay.

I wanted to start.

Um, so good evening.

Uh, I'm Stephen Jones, Director of Legislative Affairs and Community Relations at AC Transit, and it's a real pleasure to be here today.

Thank you.

Uh, and to share with you the essential role that AC Transit plays in the everyday lives of people in the neighborhoods of Berkeley.

Um, alongside members of the AC Transit team, we'll also directly address the current budget challenges that, frankly, without a long-term solution, will impact the bus network that our cities depend on of every day.

But first, let's start with who we are.

Next slide, please.

The Alameda Contra Costa Transit District is not an agency of any East Bay City.

We are a special district serving 13 cities and eight unincorporated communities across Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

We span more than 364 square miles, carrying more than three million riders each month, and are governed by publicly elected board of directors.

Three out of four riders are people of color, and nearly two-thirds are low income, making AC Transit an essential lifeline for all the communities that we serve.

It is why, for more than sixty-five years, we've strategically operated bus facilities in Oakland, Emeryville, Hayward, and Richmond, keeping buses close to the communities that rely on them every day.

It's also why we're proud to have received the top honor as outstanding public transit transportation system in the United States in 2023.

Next slide.

Slide three.

So uh okay.

So being a top transit agency translates into 40 million rides uh every year.

So let's unpack that number.

That's more than 140,000 riders board on a typical weekday.

Weekends are even busier with more than 160,000 riders.

Each weekday, more than 9500 commuters rely on AC Transit to cross the bay.

And when school returns, at least 30,000 students will depend on us to get safely to and from class each day.

Riders recognize our affordability and our value, and the numbers prove it.

February, March, and April delivered our first three straight months of year-over-year ridership growth since the pandemic.

Next slide.

We're also a workforce first employer.

AC Transit supports more than 5,100 jobs across the East Bay.

More than half of those jobs are created outside our agency.

Together they generate over $604 million in annual wages, and they inject nearly one billion dollars into the East Bay economy every year.

Every bus we operate creates jobs, support supports local businesses, and strengthens our communities.

Next slide.

While fueling the East Bay economy, we're also cleaning the air.

For over a quarter century, AC Transit has led the nation in zero emission buses.

Today, our fleet of 58 zero emission buses are eliminating any tight tailpipe emissions from our streets.

That leadership earned AC Transit a 40 million dollar federal investment to launch the transit industry's first zero emission bus university, or ZebU.

Alongside Chabot College and the amalgamated transit union, local 192, ZebU will help our employees earn associate degrees while preparing the clean transit workforce of tomorrow.

Slide six.

We redesigned 104 bus lines last summer under our realign network, cutting travel times by up to 20 minutes.

And AI powered cameras mounted inside buses help keep bus lanes and bus stops clear, improving safety and reliability.

Next slide.

So let's put those numbers into perspective.

More than half earn less than $50,000 a year below the federal poverty level in one of the nation's most expensive regions.

Many are already struggling to afford the essentials like housing and transportation.

And that helps to explain why 65% of our riders are transit dependent.

So any service cuts would not be just an inconvenience.

So I'm now going to turn it over to my colleague Ryan Lau, who will share more about our deficit projections and potential impacts to service.

Next slide, please.

So you often hear the phrase good stewards of public dollars.

Simply put, it means that uh every we make every taxpayer dollar count.

And we know that when fares go unpaid, it doesn't just the cost just doesn't disappear.

It becomes a funding gap.

And that's why we launched uh this month the multi lingual fare required fare compliance uh campaign.

The message is simple.

Pay the fare protective bus line.

Also, a comprehensive state uh audit report found that the C transit syncs uh service well with East Bay uh other East Bay uh bus agencies.

Our collective real challenges are sustainable funding, not mismanagement.

What's more, a separate SB 63 review confirmed average annual savings of 33 million 33 million dollars uh since 2020.

The commitment to making every taxpayer dollar count is why we have earned a top-tier AA plus credit rating.

Next slide, please.

When the cost of running our bus network rises faster than the revenue supporting it, it results in a fiscal cliff.

What's behind it?

Federal pandemic relief is gone, regional sales tax revenue has flattened, and the fair revenue growth has slowed.

Fuel costs are up 28%, bus maintenance parts have increased 14%, and the cost of buying a new bus has surged 35%.

You can see it's lopsided and it's unsustainable.

Next slide, please.

But we are not standing idle.

Instead, we're taking action.

The last fiscal year alone, we've tightened our belt by 9 million dollars.

How do we do that?

We hired only for uh positions that are directly supporting service.

We've scaled back temporary staffing, uh saving roughly two million dollars annually.

We brought outside professional services in-house.

Uh we partnered with other agencies to purchase goods and services for less.

And we've even temporarily temporarily restructured payments to our pension plan to preserve cash.

We're making every dollar uh taxpayer dollar count.

Next slide, please.

And the dollars must count because AC Transit is uh projecting a 200 million dollar deficit over the next four years.

That translates to an annual funding gap of at least $50 million beginning in 2027.

Without long-term sustainable funding, service reductions of up to 16% become unavoidable, and so would the human impact.

Potential layoffs affecting as many as 300 employees.

As you can see, we're facing a looming service, workforce, and community crisis.

Next slide, please.

However, we have been thrown a lifeline.

It's not a permanent solution.

It's a state bridge loan, and it's exactly that.

A loan, not a bailout, and it must be repaid with interest.

AC transit share is $55 million, enough to close this year's budget gap and avoid service cuts today.

But next summer, the loan is gone, reserves are exhausted, and the funding challenges return.

That's why hope now rests with the Connect Bay Area Act or SB 63.

It's a measure that would ask five Bay Area counties to approve a 14-year half cent sales tax measure uh or one cent in San Francisco.

If approved, it would generate an estimated $980 million annually for Bayer buses, trains, and ferries.

AC Transit would receive approximately $52 million each year, helping to protect existing bus service and preventing layoffs.

Without long-term funding, our bus network remains at risk.

To show what that could mean for riders and our communities, I'd like to uh invite our planning team uh to provide an overview.

Next slide, please.

Thanks, Ryan.

Uh good evening.

I'm Robert Del Rosario, Director of Service Development and Planning at AC Transit.

In these uncertain financial times, our approach is simple.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

That's why we developed a worst-case scenario contingency service plan.

And it's just that a contingency and would only take effect if no new long-term funding is secured by December of this year.

If that happens, our priority is protecting as much service as possible.

The contingency plan preserves the real line routing network we launched last summer.

Its guiding principles are clear.

Minimize route eliminations, protect hours of service, and maintain frequent bus service where riders depend on it most.

Next slide, please.

So in the map here, you'll see these are the lines where we're showing some reduction either in frequency, span of service, or both frequency and span of service.

So the proposed contingency plan is designed to protect the most service for the greatest number of riders.

Its priority is preserving the backbone of the East Bay, what AC Transit calls the primary route network.

To achieve that, service reduction is our focus where ridership is lowest, minimizing impacts on the greatest number of riders.

The busiest bus lines and major travel corridors remain the highest priority.

Weekday service every 15 minutes or better is preserved on key corridors, including Telegraph, Broadway, San Pablo, and International.

Where reductions are necessary, the plan first reduces frequency to every 30 minutes or more rather than eliminating service altogether.

Most routes will continue operating daily from 6 a.m.

to 10 p.m., mainly access to maintaining access to work, school, health care, and other essential trips.

The strategy protects late evening service so riders still have reliable way home.

More than 90% of the bus network remains intact under the proposed plan.

Next slide, please.

The city's busiest corridors will continue to receive frequent reliable service.

Lines 1T, 6, 18, 51A, 51B, 52, 57, and the 72 suite of routes on some follow-up corridor would continue operating every 15 minutes or better on weekdays.

Most other Berkeley routes will continue operating from 6 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

with most buses arriving every 30 to 40 minutes on weekdays.

Service in the Hills would operate from 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

every 60 minutes on weekdays.

Next slide.

For trans base, service will be eliminated on weekends for line F, and peak period trips will be reduced for most other trans bay routes.

These include lines G, FS, and J, all traveling through Berkeley.

Next slide.

All nighter service would remain intact on lines 800, 801, and 851, but low ridership all nighter lines 802, 805, and 840 would be eliminated.

These routes would be offset by lines 40, 72, and 73, which are the daytime equivalents to these routes.

And those would begin service early at 4 a.m.

to serve the period with the highest overnight demand.

It's important to stress again that this plan would only take effect if no new long-term funding is secured by December of 2026.

Next slide.

Here's our timeline for um reviewing the plan, bringing it forward to our board for consideration.

I'll just touch on some of the the key dates.

We're uh expected to set a public hearing in August and then hold the public hearing um through our board of directors in October.

The key here is that we need to make a decision on a plan um by the end of the year.

Um so we'll see what happens with uh with election day, and then come the end of the year.

If uh we need to seek a long uh we were unable to secure long-term revenue, um, we will have to implement a plan that the board would decide on by the end of the year, and then we implement in June of uh 2027.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Steven to close us out.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks.

So, in closing, AC Transit wants to hear from Berkeley residents, and here's how uh we ask them to engage.

You can scan the QR code to learn more about our contingency service plan, and you can fill out the feedback form at that link.

Um, you can email us at planning at actransit.org, and as always, you can visit our website actransit.org to learn more.

So thank you so much for your time.

We are committed to keeping Berkeley and the East Bay moving with 40 million trips a year, connecting riders to jobs, schools, and essential services.

So thank you again so much for your time.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um, I really appreciate it.

I know it is very challenging, and um I thank you for bringing us the information.

It is really important for us to understand since there are so many riders, AC transit riders here in our city.

Um, I just want to check and see if any of my colleagues have questions.

And I'm sure also we can reach out if folks have other more detailed follow-up questions.

Um, I do just want to make sure that you send us these.

If you haven't already, you may have already sent it, but these surveys to um our emails so that we can also share them through our newsletters and get it out to the community.

Um, I'm also curious how you're interacting with UC Berkeley and and Berkeley City College, which are you know our two um colleges, universities in the city in terms of getting this out to them as well.

The survey.

Yeah, uh we will definitely work with them to make sure to push those out um to uh all of our communities, but you know, Berkeley is special, um so we'll make sure to um provide that to them.

Thank you.

Yeah, I know a lot of the students are gone for the summer, and uh many Berkeley City College students are you know commuters, so I want to make sure that they're able to take those surveys.

Um great, all right.

Well, thank you so much.

We'll follow up if we have any other questions.

Thank you for being here and for the presentation.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Okay, very good.

Thank you all.

Um, so now moving on to city manager comments.

No comments tonight, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do not see our city auditor, so and okay, so we'll now move on to public comment on non-agenda matters.

Okay, so this is public comment on items that are not on the agenda.

Um I'll pick five cards for in-person speakers and then we'll go to the first five hands raised on the Zoom.

Uh and everybody will have one minute each.

Okay.

So the five in-person speakers are Stephen Albert, Steve Tracy, Khadija McFall, Russell Bates, and Gina Rieger.

You can come up in any order.

Whoever's ready, come on up.

Come on up if you heard your name called.

Yeah.

I just want to talk about garbage.

This was distributed to us, and in my neighborhood, we try very hard to put our carts out in this order, but we live in a neighborhood where cars routinely move the carts back under the curb because they want parking spaces.

Even if you try to move the carts back in in the right position, you hang around and watch your garbage all morning.

There isn't even enough space to do it because there's so much demand for parking.

I'm describing the eleven hundred block of Addison Street.

I suspect there are other neighborhoods who have this problem too.

And my concern is that we have been told eventually we will have to pay a charge if we want our garbage to be picked up.

I think that's extremely unfair, and I hope you will take this into consideration and uh look at areas where there is great demand for uh parking.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Could you give her a card?

Thank you.

Okay.

Honorable mayor, council members.

Um I'm here once again to talk about what's going on in Palestine 48, uh especially in Gaza, the West Bank.

What's going on in Lebanon?

And congratulate uh the people of Iran for what they're doing to uh mitigate the damage that's being done by those on this entity in that area.

Also, Hezbollah is doing their share.

Uh wars need to stop.

Every war needs to stop, including this war going on there.

It's very, very discouraging for anybody who's a veteran of any war to see another war going on when we're getting killed and murdered, and it hurts a lot.

It makes me sick to my stomach, is going on.

Um please call for the city.

So I for the people of Palestine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Russell.

Good evening.

Affordable and uh inclusive are targets of the city housing program.

I'm going to review what you guys did in February, which was a win, both affordable and its inclusive housing.

Um that was built on Virginia Street.

2109 Virginia Street.

We had 18 units of the 55.

We're affordable, two categories.

Under current code, this project Patrick Kennedy's project qualified for 100% density bonus.

55 units became 110 units under current code.

Three stories under current code became eight stories under current code with the affordable housing on site, no trust fund, where it's designed to be affordable and inclusive.

We don't need upzoning.

We need more of the same.

Thanks so much.

Hi, I'm Gina Regar.

I'm going to cede my minute to Stephen Albert.

Two minutes.

I'm Dr.

Stephen Alpert.

On May 19th, Mayor Ishi interrupted by public comment remarks.

The First Amendment coalition advised that this was a violation of both the Brown Act and the First Amendment right to free speech.

For government code 54960, I forward a formal cease and desist letter requesting that henceforth the council will not interrupt public comment remarks by our speaker addressing statements or positions publicly made by individual council members.

City has until tomorrow, July 8th to provide this commitment, which must be approved by the council in an open session during a regular or special meeting as a separate agenda item.

Or I can and I will file legal action against the city as recommended by the First Amendment coalition.

That said, this council supports the false narrative that building market rate housing will readily produce affordable units.

Real data contradict this.

Housing data from nearby Emily refute this, and the Yimby supply side ideology that you support.

As reported this April on the Emirville Tatler, Emmaville went the Yimby way, now it has the most expensive rent in the East Bay.

Building more is supposed to bring cheaper rent.

What happened?

Despite massive building between 2020 and 2024, everyone had a 16.3% year-over-year increase in one bedroom rents, the largest in the Bay Area.

Our council's fervor to build more market rate housing may produce a similar outcome in Berkeley without so much as addressing housing affordability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, now we'll go to the first five hands raised on Zoom.

First speaker is gander.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, how are you?

I want to thank uh the honorable mayor and the city council.

Um I've been here before.

There's an issue with the coffee shop, the behavior of the proprietor of a coffee shop on the corner of Shaddock Avenue in Kittridge.

I will not state his name for legal record.

I have now for almost a year been attempting to meet with appropriate uh city council members, particularly Igor Tregub, uh, under whose jurisdiction that that the location of that coffee shop uh falls, I believe, yeah, and that has been to no avail.

And it's it's really unfortunate because uh I I hold Mr.

Tragob, as well as all city council members in high esteem, and I want this matter uh approached in the uh an appropriate manner that this person should be actually, at the end of the day, should be banned from having any business in Berkeley.

And I have police records and video and audio, and thank you.

Thanks so much for your thanks for your comment.

Uh next is Alana Auerbach.

Hi there.

Uh Dr.

Hussam Abu Safia is a Palestinian pediatrician held in Israeli detention without charge since December 2024.

His life is now in imminent danger.

He was beaten so badly with hammers and batons that last Thursday his attorney almost didn't recognize him.

Barely breathing, struggling to sit upright with fresh injuries to his head, eyes, ears, and neck, and repeatedly on the verge of losing consciousness.

Dr.

Abu Safia said to his attorney, they brought me here to kill me.

I don't see myself surviving.

This is the end.

I urge you to make an emergency resolution demanding his immediate release.

Refer to the email I sent you today.

This council spends thousands of dollars every year commemorating the Nazi Holocaust.

Never again is often said at those events.

Silence isn't neutrality, it's complicity.

There's a growing global outcry for his release.

Will you use your voice and position to join that chorus?

Please, Alana, your time's up.

Next is Cheryl Davila, former council member.

In reference to what was just said by Alana.

Is urging the world leaders to secure his release before it's too late, saying, Dr.

Hussam Abu Safawi needs to be released now.

You need to save his life before it's too late.

Don't let down a heroic doctor.

Please act now.

That is a quote.

So what are you gonna do about it?

It's been over 555 days.

He's detained without charge.

It's sad that you all don't care about Palestinians.

You need to change your hearts.

Show some love for your community.

Pay freaking attention to when people are talking.

Get off your cell phones.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Del Aluna.

Yes, I wanted to suggest that the mayor's office call Mayor Momdani's office and asked for any guiding tips or uh advice or any like inspirations.

Because the mayor, um Donnie has been making just amazing goals and uh surpassing benchmarks in only six months.

It's truly remarkable.

And I think that you know, any city council, the body would look up to that in these remarkable changes.

And so I just wanted to suggest that City of Berkeley connect with uh in like a mentorship way to get maybe the top 10 tips for term making um headway in the problems that we have here in Berkeley.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the last speaker is uh Ted.

Ted Kemp.

Thank you very much.

Um my name is Ted Kempf.

As you said, I am uh the assistant director of Albany Berkeley Soccer Club.

And it's come to my attention that uh there's a couple city agenda items.

Uh one being uh a bike lane, a dedicated bike lane in Hopkins, um, which of course there's always need for bike lanes.

However, it runs right by uh Martin Luther King Junior Middle School, and it's a very active uh sports use area, and I'd be very concerned about the safety of families and children trying to cross the street and uh get into uh in and out of the field space, and so I would ask that uh we consider other actions.

Uh secondly, uh, as the assistant director uh Albany Berkeley Soccer Club with uh a census of over about 2,000 uh players.

Uh we have been frozen out of equitable space of use for uh city fields, and so I'd have to have to be thank you so much for your thanks for your comment.

Your time is up, but feel free to reach out about uh fields.

That's it.

That's the last um okay.

Thank you very much.

We are moving on to our consent calendar.

Um so I would like sorry union public comment.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Are there any unions here this evening?

I didn't see any.

Okay.

If there's any designated representatives of city unions on the zoom, now would be the time to speak, but uh I don't see any hands raised.

Okay, my apologies.

I didn't see any here in person.

So um okay, very good.

So um are there any comments on the consent calendar?

And actually, before we do that, um I wanted to move the waterfront specific plan, environmental review authorization, and near term priority adjustments, item number nine to consent.

Oh, councilmember taplin, did you have your hands raised?

Oh uh, yes, uh, thank you.

Um I I support that.

Um I raise my hand because I want to uh refer everyone's attention to the supplemental three, my office submitted.

Oh, thank you.

I don't think I um this one is just adding councilmerwani as a co-sponsor to item.

Oh, thank you.

I think they're passing something out now.

It's item eight on action.

Item eight.

It's the large vehicle parking on action.

Um, but we would need a motion and vote to accept this.

So I'm just okay.

I'd move to accept it.

Oh, second.

Can we take the vote on that, please?

Okay, to accept the revision from council member taplin on uh item number eight, large vehicle parking, council member Kessarwani.

Yes.

Taplin, I Bartlett, yes, Trago, aye.

O'Keefe, yeah.

Blackaby, yes, Munapara, yes, Humbert, yes, and Mary Ishii.

Yes, okay.

So I I had just said though, right before that, which is why I paused, that I wanted to move item number nine to the consent calendar.

So um I believe that we need unanimous consent of the entire council to do that.

So do we need to take a vote?

Okay, definitely.

Is there any opposition?

Is there any uh objection to moving it?

Okay, very good.

Okay, thanks.

Are there other comments?

From my councilmember colleagues, yes, councilmember Humbert.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.

I'm wondering also, and I don't know what council member um taplin thinks about this, but it occurs to me that maybe number eight could be moved to um the consent calendar as well, the large vehicle parking regulations and the public right of way.

Um it's a referral.

Um it doesn't change, it's not an ordinance or anything like that.

I would object to that.

You would okay, that's fine, okay.

And then I want to thank um uh Chief Sprague and the city manager's office for item number six and all of the work that went into that.

Um then um since nine is on the consent calendar, um I want to say that let's see.

No, excuse me, strike that.

No, I'm I'm good.

That's it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Backaby.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

Uh, just a couple of brief comments.

First, first I want to appreciate um both the work of the police department as well as the police accountability board in the review of the 2025 annual police equipment report.

Uh just appreciation that we've now consolidated two reports into one, which was one of the objectives of making the revisions earlier this year, while maintaining the Berkeley specific reporting requirements around deployment of less lethal, not just use, as well as use of handheld pepper spray.

So again, and I and if you look at the police accountability board's letter in supplemental two, I think they were also largely in support and appreciation of this consolidate report.

So thank you for that.

I also just note very briefly from the report that over the past year there's only 13 uses of less lethal tools and a total of 61 deployments where you might you know show something and not actually use it.

Some of those actual deployments are actually out of Berkeley.

Um and so I again I appreciate the detail in the report and also the fact that this continues to be a very um rare, um, which is as intended, uh rare use of these uh less lethal tools, but I appreciate the reporting um on them.

Uh the other item I want to comment on was item four of the revenue agreements.

Again, appreciation to the police chief and her team for seeking and obtaining these grants, uh, which provides $80,000 for crime suppression community safety initiatives and staffing of high impact community events.

Um, and so with that I'd uh be supporting the consent calendar.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else have comments?

Okay, very good.

Can we um go to any uh public comment on consent calendar and information items only, please?

And just as a reminder, we moved item nine to the consent calendar.

Anyone online?

Uh there's two hands raised.

This is for public comments on consent and information items, and also item nine, the waterfront specific plan.

The first speaker is Marilyn.

Madam Mayor and members of the city council, my name is Marilyn Cleveland.

I'm a resident of Berkeley and a member of the Berkeley Society of Friends and its racial justice action team.

I am concerned to see that City Council agenda item number five for the annual military equipment report required by state law does not appear to include the report from the police accountability board concerning its review of the report.

If that is changed since the materials that were provided, then I'm glad to hear that.

But the materials with the agenda report did not include it.

I also note that the report does not appear to comply with state law in several ways.

I ask that the council defer consideration of this report until the council in public have received the PAB comments concerning this report, and the report has been brought into compliance with state law, including AB 481.

Um, thank you for your consideration.

Um we have received materials from PAB, so um, yeah, the the uh police accountability board submitted um their letter after the agenda packet was published, and so it's in the supplemental communications packet, and it's also published with the um police department's item on the uh agenda website for this for this meeting.

Thank you.

Uh and next is Kelly.

Was it is item six still on action or was it moved?

That's a public hearing on action.

Okay, I'll save my comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Anyone else?

This is Cameron.

Hello, my name is Cameron Wool.

I'm a current president and a member of the Berkeley Art Commission.

But tonight I speak only on my behalf.

And I ask that the city council give item three on the consent calendar.

Serious consideration, pass item in order for an excess study, see if the fee for Well Guard may continue or be adjusted to make the inloof fee more affordable.

The current all or nothing situation is unpalatable.

100 thousands of dollars for public art are lost by developers utilizing this loophole.

Please help us support the arts.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Last um hand raised for consent and information items is Cheryl Daville, a former council member.

So the items from the police on their weapons inventory is really alarming.

The public should really be paying attention to all these um weapons that they have that they can use against your constituents of the city of Berkeley.

Um the residents of the city of Berkeley, um, they don't need all this quote unquote less than lethal single 40 millimeter launcher or less than metal lethal micor, 40 millimeter multi-launcher, or 40 millimeter rounds, or 300 FN or less than lethal FN 303 launcher, and associated FN rounds.

There's thousands and hundreds and thousands of all these different equipment and their ammunitions, rifles, um it's really really alarming.

And um, we're in the 47 era of fascism and authoritarianism, and you should be getting these weapons out of our police department to protect us from them.

Free Palestine, free yourselves from these isms that keep you in the way that you are.

Thank you.

Uh, one more hand, Wendy.

Wendy should be uh able to unmute.

Thank you.

Wendy Altson also with the Berkeley uh friends meeting.

And on number five, uh and going to the police accountability board, and then seeing the item on the agenda.

There's no mention in the item of the police accountability board review.

It wasn't filed by the police department or the city manager with the item originally, and uh it being made available only in the sec as late as the second supplemental, uh, when it's a required part of the process, uh, is not very helpful, at least to the public.

I don't know that it's helpful to you either.

Um, and I would just urge that uh your request or demand that's appropriate that both be filed together when this item comes before you each year.

This is an annual process, and the police accountability board's um information that they're communicating to you should be a part of the agenda item.

Thank you.

Just a note uh our police accountability board is made up of un you know of residents, and so they're not always able to send things, you know, as expeditiously as I know they would like to.

And so I just want to comment on the fact that um, as our city clerk said, when that letter was sent to us, it was added as supplemental materials, and so um, you know, we can't add something that hasn't been sent to us.

So I I do want to just thank the PAP for their report and um, you know, recognize that that these processes sometimes take a long time and that um you know that we did receive it, so thank you.

That that was the last comment.

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second, second, okay.

Can we take the roll on that, please?

Okay, to approve the consent calendar, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes, Taplin, aye, Bartlett, yes, Traegub, aye, O'Keefe, yes, Blackabi, yes, Luna Para.

Yes, Humbert, yes, and Mary Ishi.

Yes, okay, motion carries.

Okay, thank you very much.

We're moving on to the action calendar, and we're gonna start off with public hearings.

I don't know if there's a presentation on this one.

I'm number six, ambulance transport fee increase.

There's no presentation, Madam Mayor, but we do have personnel from the fire department here if there are questions.

Sounds good.

Are there any questions from my council colleagues?

No questions.

Is there any public comment on this item?

The number six, item number six, ambulance transport fee increase.

There's one.

One hand raised uh online.

Um that's Kelly.

Um, yes, thank you.

And I wanted to pose sort of a request to our chief Greg on this item for the future.

Uh I've been looking at today at uh the plans for the new Sutter Hospital in Emoryville at uh 5300.

I believe you pronounce the Street Sharon C-A-I-R-O-M.

And I would hope that at some point you could um do a presentation to us to council and the public on how transport um may change with the move with the move of acute services from uh Elta Bay to the new hospital, and how that might um impact say traffic on Adeline and what would probably be the new emergency route to this new location, as that may impact how we look at our streets in Berkeley.

So that's a request.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Kelly.

That's it.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um is there a motion to approve?

Close the sorry, uh, yes.

Is there a motion to close the public hearing?

Thank you.

I'll second that.

All right, can we take the roll on that, please?

Okay, to close public hearing, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes.

Bartlett, yes, Tregu, I okay, yes, Blackabee, yes, Luna Para.

Yes, Humber, yes, and Mary Ishi.

Yes.

Okay, all right, thank you very much.

Okay, we're now moving on to item number seven, memorandum of under.

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry.

Okay, sorry, is there a motion to approve?

I'll I'll move to approve and I will incorporate my comments, mistaken comments on the uh consent calendar, thanking the chief and um the city manager's office by reference here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Okay, can we take the roll, please?

Okay, to approve the uh ambulance transport fee increase.

Councilmember Kesarwani.

Yes.

Taplin, Bartlett, yes, Traegab, aye, O'Keefe, yes, Black Abyss.

Yes, Luna Para, Humbert, yes, and Mary Ishi.

Yes.

Okay, motion carries.

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, opening the public hearing for item number seven, memorandum of understanding, compendium 2026, agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private organizations.

Hi.

Welcome.

Good evening.

Uh no presentation, but happy to answer any questions if there's any questions.

Are there any questions from my council colleagues?

Yes, go ahead, Councilmember Shekup.

Thank you so much.

I just had a question.

I saw that there was a rescision with an MOU with uh B USD.

I was curious if you could provide additional information.

Yeah, sure.

So that MOU that was existing wasn't really even an MOU, it was just uh some basic agreements that uh are over a decade old.

Uh we've been in conversation with the superintendent over the last couple of years about how to start codifying that material.

Um as it's uh not how we operate currently with our SRO and interact with the school district, and it's such an old document.

I made the decision to remove it uh while we work through a more official uh policy to have with the school district.

Okay, other than that, just one to comment you on the depth and breadth of the report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Question from Council Member Backaby.

Yes, hi, thank you, and thanks, Chief Lewis and Mr.

Malmberg for being here.

I just wanted to ask a question, actually, two.

One is on the NCRIC MOU, which is number 3.12.

Um, I note that in the MOU, it explicitly prohibits the sharing of our ALPR and body worn camera data with the NCRIC.

I know there have been some recent news reports about San Francisco, and then so I just wanted to uh give you a chance to comment on how sort of our data relationship with NCR CRIC is different and and um more restrictive in terms of how we don't share that kind of sensitive data.

Yeah, thank you uh for that opportunity.

Uh absolutely I know there were some uh recent media stories um about sharing of information that was on the NICRIC platform, um, or access point uh around ALPR reading.

Um as I've shared with counsel before in our community.

Uh we do not share with NICRIC, we do not provide them ALPR information.

And um, if you recall last summer, uh we limited down the agencies we share to our local counties um and all those agencies that we share uh and cooperate with ALPR information, sign a waiver, um attesting that they will follow both our sanctuary city policies and state law um in order for them to be someone that we share information with.

Great.

No, I just want to appreciate that because it was sort of it is very explicit in that MOU.

It's not a general MOU.

We're very clear in terms of that maintaining that restriction on that data, and so I just I wanted to appreciate that and sort of doesn't allow us to get to a point that we saw with with San Francisco in in the recent news reports.

The other question I want to talk about real quickly was on the the SARs, the suspicious activity reports.

Um I noticed we issued 12 of those um last year, and most of those are with NICRIC as well.

Is that right?

Is that usually who we're I guess it could be other part of organization?

Exactly where those um uh reports go to, and just a little bit of information about how they work.

Um, and so what we know is that a single incident that happens in one location that seems relatively minor or small or a one off uh might be something that other jurisdictions are experiencing, might be a sign of a um a larger scale thing occurring or starting to occur, and so uh um a lot of that information then allows us to have a clearinghouse, and uh it's not that uh you go there and look at other departments SARS and then you make um take action upon it, but that allows a clearinghouse to look at all those things and say here's a pattern.

Um, and a perfect example is uh we um sometimes we'll get bomb threats that come in anonymous bomb threats that come in via email to a school.

Uh and um it might just say BHS, something like that.

Uh, and then we're able to communicate with NICRIC and they're like, yeah, you know, uh states states or uh school districts throughout the state throughout the country have been receiving this exact thing, and everybody that's BHS um is is seeing the same email address, and we're able to kind of determine that it's proves not so, right?

Or that it's a hoax email or something like that.

Um, and so without being able to provide these individualized events that occur in our city to that, um, we we uh wouldn't have that opportunity to understand, you know, a greater impact or what whether something might have uh validity or not.

Great.

Thank you.

Let's all ahead.

Thank you so much.

And I did just want to comment that the chief had sent an email about this to us, like immediately almost after this article came out about San Francisco, and that we were able to share it with our sanctuary city partners who are uh task force partners who are really concerned about this so thank you chief for sending that um and I did have a question as well did just want to check does anyone else have questions before I ask okay um I was wondering if you could clarify a relationship with the US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force just talk a little bit about what that looks like yeah of course um so if we're looking at working a uh local incident in our city and um we learned that the offender has fled to a jurisdiction in another state um in another area uh the U.S.

Marshals is a resource for us that we can let them know we have a uh authorized warrant from a judge um are you able to assist us with that um for example a case we had in Texas is a case that we worked with the U.S.

Marshall Service um and so there uh was a time when we had someone that worked on that task force and so if we had a local case they would provide resources and personnel to help us work that case um and then if uh there was a local case in another jurisdiction near us then that person could go and assist with that's a way you share resources and and uh personnel power um we currently don't have anybody that's participating in a task force with the US Marshals is that a capacity issue or is that just like we haven't picked a new person uh both okay just curious thank you yes and then um I'm also wondering so when we deploy mutual aid how do we ensure that other agencies are adhering to Berkeley's policies you know specifically around the use of force sanctuary city etc.

So when we're going to somewhere else to provide mutual aid or mutual aid is coming to us mutual aid is coming to us right um typically what you'll see is that uh all mutual aid is coordinated through the um county's mutual aid coordinator and uh when we have a need for mutual aid we will communicate with Alameda County Sheriff's Department and say we have this need in our city um then they come and arrive and resources arrive in our city uh and we would tell them certain things like hey here are specific policies and an example I can give you is if for a while Oakland had a very specific policy prohibiting ammunition.

When we would show up to check in for that mutual aid there they would say here's the prohibitions we have if you are coming and operating in the city of Oakland if you can't abide by that we can't we can't accept your services or we will give you a different task to do while you're in here so there were times when um uh we would respond and we would do uh a facility protection because we couldn't use tear gas um in a in a crowd control so it wasn't safe for us to deploy in that manner so we did a different task and activity so we would be checking with agencies that came to us you know do you have any issues complying with these specific things that are specific to Berkeley yes either um thank you we can't use your assistance or hey we're going to assign you to some task that doesn't put you in jeopardy of having to do that thing.

Thank you that's very helpful okay is there any public comment on this item we are on item number seven the memorandum of understanding compendium 2026 agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private organizations anybody online uh there are two hands raised uh online um first is uh Wendy thank you I'll Berkeley Friends committee I would just note that the chief did not answer the last question in terms of mutual aid coming to Berkeley um I note that the rate of 190 for the jail to process a UCPDE arrest especially if that includes either medical or transport to Santa Rita seems awfully low but my main point is with regard to this federal MOU that uh council member black bee raised that the language of ALPR is not um extended to all of the other data gathering cameras and information that you just approved, and it should be state all those different descriptions, you know, of community video and fixed cameras and first responder drones and all the other things that are planned to be in effect within this next year.

And the uh there's not specific language in there that says that uh we will not provide the information to the feds, you know, contrary to the sanctuary policy and state law, uh, in with regard to the First Amendment and immigration.

So I think all of those reasons mean that that those MOUs should be uh not approved tonight, but revised slightly before they come back to you.

The data sharing aspect of them, it's very concerning.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, uh the next is Marilyn.

Thank you.

My name is Marilyn Cleveland, and I'm a resident of Berkeley.

I'm here to express concern that the um agreement with the Berkeley, I'm sorry, with the Northern California Regional Information Center, NICRIC, um, one of the many federal fusion centers set up to create more surveillance and intelligence sharing among police agencies, um, can lead to um to problems with First Amendment activity and other um activities supported by the Bill of Rights.

That information can be shared from NICRIC with other federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, ICE, and other subgroups of the Department of Homeland Security.

We've already seen efforts to stifle free speech and other protected activities, including demonstrations on college campuses in 2025.

The Berkeley Police Department submitted multiple suspicious activity reports related to pro-Palestinian activity and other protected forms of free speech.

So please remove the agreement, Nick Rick, and obtain further information about which agreements may lead to violation of protected First Amendment actions before considering approval of this MoU compendium agreement.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marilyn.

I see no other comments.

Yes, thank you.

Um any comments from my council colleagues.

Um I'll just say thank you.

Thanks, Chief, for answering our questions and appreciate your answers uh previously to my questions and um uh also just the work that it takes to put this together because I I know there's a lot of work that's involved.

So thank you very much.

Yeah, I appreciate that our department does really care about you know other officers coming in and adhering to our policies.

So thank you.

That's very important to us.

Yes.

Sorry, thank you, Madam Mayor, and apologies.

I think the parliamentarian is on the foot.

Um so uh in just listening to some of the public comments.

I uh I had uh an additional question for the chief and a question for um maybe this is for the chief as well.

Um, I uh I really appreciated the way in which uh PD and the PAB work closely together on um the police equipment report.

I was wondering if you could describe the process, is um is the MOU compendium something that historically um the PAB reviews and if so um can you describe um the process uh that took place this year?

Um and I will wait for it for you.

Yeah, if you if you recall last year we had a robust discussion with the PAB, there were several um uh uh old MOUs or agreements that were in there.

There were like federal agreements that kind of describe the way you could interact with certain federal agencies, um, and uh we knew we weren't interacting with them in that way, but they were still in our book, and so we had a long conversation both with council and the PAB, and we were able to remove a lot of those from there, so it was very clear that those relationships didn't exist, the rescinders.

Um, this went to PAB, I think it was 33 days, something like that.

I don't remember the exact number of days, but it went to PAP very early for their first look at this.

In fact, there were a couple things they they um uh uh had questions about that we were able to answer and work through, so it was a collaborative process.

They discussed it at the I think at least two PAB meetings, um, if I'm not mistaken, and so that's a collaborative process.

Uh um they uh um were able to provide feedback both to us and to council if they so desired uh around the document.

Yeah, thank you.

I I do sixty days.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Um and I do recall last year, it was a very uh interactive process, so appreciate your clarifying.

Um can you also just um, you know, I think just um for the sake of um uh the public being informed speak to the relationship between these MOU compendiums and our um internal procedures around data sharing practices.

Yeah, of course, if I think I'm understanding the question correctly in light of the public comment, just to be clear, the policies that set forth both our uses, collection, sharing, um, retention periods are the guiding principles of our policies around every one of our technologies.

Um, and those would would be the things that would say when and what we would share and in what ways we share.

Um, those are those reflect reproductive rights, uh, um, immigration status, uh, the you know how we interact with federal partners, all of those things are built into every one of our use policies to very clearly state that we would not share in that manner.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh Councilmember Humbert.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you, Chief, and thank you, Arlo, for this this report, and thank you for answering all those questions so very clearly.

Thanks.

Okay.

Is there a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved.

A second.

Second.

Thank you.

Can we take the roll?

Okay, close public hearing.

Councilmember Kissarwani.

Yes.

Taplin.

Yes.

Bartlett.

Yes.

Trevor Burrus, I.

O'Keefe?

Yes.

Blackaby.

Yes.

Yes.

Humbert.

Yes.

And Mary Ishii.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Is there a motion to approve item number seven?

So moved.

Second.

Can we take the role now, please?

Okay.

Uh, to approve the uh memorandum of understanding compendium 2026 agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private organizations.

Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes.

Yes.

Uh Kaplan.

Bartlett.

Yes.

Trigger.

Aye.

O'Keefe.

Yes.

Blackaby.

Yes.

Luna Para.

Yes.

Humberts.

Yes.

And Mary Shi.

Yes.

Okay, motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Um, we're going to take a brief break between now and item number eight.

Just like 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Recording stopped.

Okay, sorry about that, everyone.

Thank you for your patience.

We are moving on to item number eight, which is the large vehicle parking regulations in the public right of way.

Yes, thank you very much, Madam Mayor, and good evening to everybody.

Over the years, indefinite recreational and abandoned vehicle parking in the public right of way has led to reported conflicts in the right of way, including reports ranging from impediments to deliver access, obstruction of sidewalks and roadways, debris acumenation, the disposal of waste in the city of Berkeley storm drains, dog attacks against commercial employees, and public health and safety hazards in the most extreme cases, including the recent outbreak of leptospherosis.

Recently, Bay Area cities, including San Jose, San Francisco, others in the region, and even Oakland have adopted a variety of stances toward the management of long-term large vehicle parking and hazard abatement in the right-of-way.

These approaches often pair parking restrictions and regulations with the establishment of large-scale safe parking where land and utilities are available, enabling intake for core unit services.

This item recommends the council do the following.

Refer the review of the BMC Chapter 12, Section 98 to ensure that the language authorizes the abatement of hazardous and abandoned vehicles in the right of way, clarify the definition of abandoned vehicle, and increases humanity discretion and the establishment of the maintenance high lines.

Refer the study of recent Bay Area legislation regarding the management of long-term large vehicle parking and have received policy and enforcement recommendations that are regionally consistent, aligned with the city of Berkeley of Environmental Housing and Transportation Priorities, reflective of the city's ability to enhance the impact and scale of its core unit alternative housing initiatives via participation in a countywide RV parking program or by joining a comparable program in a neighboring jurisdiction and which are operationally feasible.

Further, this item requests guidance and clarity on how the city's encampment revolution policy intersects with the BMC in the absence of shelter availability.

And lastly, this item refers to the refers the drafting refers to the city manager and city attorney the drafting of an ordinance amending BMC 718 to authorize city manager approval of contracts up to two hundred fifty thousand for the abatement of abandoned, dismantled, or inoperative vehicles pursuant to BMC 1298 040A.

With clarity and guidance provided by regional policy analysis and insight into the organization's operational capacity, the city and council can best determine how to core gain access to critical supportive health and housing services, abate hazards, and maintain the public right-of-way in alignment with our strategic plan goals without being overwhelmed by shifting legislative trends in the region.

I'm happy to do that now or after public comment, whichever is uh more preferable for the for the meta mayor.

Yeah, I think it would be helpful to know what changes you were looking at.

Okay, thank you very much.

I will share screen.

Are you all able to see what's see this?

You see my Google Doc.

We can see it.

So the first revision is the recommendation to D.

Um the final clause striking, including and replacing it.

You just make it a bit bigger, I'm sorry.

Oh, yes, of course, no problem.

Oops.

How is this?

Yeah, I think that's better.

Yeah.

So that clause at the end of that recommendation 2D clause will read as part of the study, include an examination of geographically targeted parking, but it's just a minor I had a uh sort of a gerrand there that needed to not be adjourned.

And then this is a surface level revision, and the I am trying to remove the underline from the hyperlink in the end of page two, beginning of page three, if that makes sense.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, um, are there any questions for my council colleagues?

Okay.

Um, is there any public comment on this item?

This is for public comment on item eight of large vehicle parking regulations.

So if you're on the zoom and you intend to comment on this item, please raise your hand at this time.

I'm gonna.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, this is another example of coming at a situation from the wrong end.

Um, the situation being that quite a number of people have uh been pushed out of their homes and have taken refuge in RVs with no other place to go.

Um, in addition, what do you have is uh the um in this proposal basically a tightening of the uh definitions of an abandoned vehicle and uh funding to enable the city to remove them without offering or actually providing uh an alternative and uh you have a distinct danger.

Thank you.

Thanks for your comment.

Hey, everybody.

Um thing I've noticed lately is that uh the empire is crumbling right now, the economic system is gonna be taking drastic nosedives coming up, and more and more people are going to be losing Medica, Medicaid, Cal Fresh, veterans' benefits, and that's gonna enable many people to wind up on the streets, and sometimes they'll be in RVs, and sometimes they'll need to be there.

And any party with a conscience, the law and older people, and I say older because a lot of your politics stink, uh, are trying to criminalize uh people who live in RVs, people who are on the street, unhouse people.

Uh you got to think of another way.

You gotta cut these people some slack.

Uh hurting them, criminalizing them is not gonna help.

Thank you.

Thanks, Roswell.

Thank you, Russell.

Can I get a couple minutes?

Cool, thank you.

Good evening.

This report acknowledges the health risks created by inadequate sanitation, yet the city has repeatedly failed to provide the infrastructure necessary to address those risks to then cite the resulting waste as justification for enforcement against unhoused people effectively transfers responsibility for a predictable outcome of the city's own inaction onto the population most affected by that inaction.

This report also repeatedly says Berkeley should balance enforcement with outreach, coordinated housing and housing first principles, and that any future policy should be operationally feasible and enhance alternative housing initiatives.

I want to point out an intersection that isn't discussed anywhere in this report.

The intersection between enforcement and the failures of our housing system itself.

Outreach workers told me that if I found an apartment before receiving a housing match, they could make a voucher happen.

Through my own advocacy, I found a landlord who offered me the vacant apartment next door to my best friend, is happy to accept my five dogs, and who actively advocated for me.

Then we discovered that the information I've been given was false.

The organizations involved don't actually have the authority they said they did.

As a result, an extraordinary housing opportunity is about to slip away.

This report asks staff to clarify how enforcement intersects with encampment policy, but you should also examine how enforcement intersects with the actual functioning of our housing system.

Because taking someone's RV is easy.

Replacing it with housing is the hard part.

It just moves them from the parking lane onto the sidewalk.

We've all witnessed the indignity that people living in tents experience.

Do you really think that it would be a better visual for all of us who currently live in vehicles to be relegated to tents on sidewalks?

If Berkeley expands its ability to remove large vehicles before fixing the disconnect between outreach workers, voucher programs, and available shelter, the enforcement will continue to outpace housing.

If we're serious about housing first, then the housing system has to work as well as the enforcement system does.

That is the only way, unless you plan on arresting us for being economically disadvantaged.

Just because the Supreme Court said that you can arrest people for being homeless doesn't mean you should.

They also overturned Will versus Wade, but I don't see any of us rushing to comply with that ruling.

Follow your conscience.

Treat others as you would want to be treated.

If the rules were suddenly reversed and you were at our mercy, do you think that we would treat you so cruelly?

Thank you.

Thank you, Amber.

Good evening, Council Mayor, staff, and community.

I have one minute that's being offered.

Thank you.

Uh Moni Law, my personal capacity.

Um, I'm very concerned, I'm very troubled, and I want to raise a few concerns.

We need house keys, not handcuffs on the poor people in Berkeley.

I walk by them every day.

I say good morning to them as I'm on my way to work, and I see that they're sleeping on the street, and I see they're in the cold, and I see that they have nowhere to go.

In this instance, we're asking them to shut down their RV vehicle, and I've actually had the pleasure of working with the prior speaker with the Tiny Home Project.

We're doing constructive action to get people housed, including youth.

Do we have a housing space for youth in Berkeley?

The answer is no.

Do we have women's housing?

The answer is no.

Do we have domestic violence?

Uh advocacy and housing for people who are being threatened with death by their intimate partner.

The answer is no.

Where are they to go?

That's my concern.

That quarter million dollars in subsection four of this item 250,000.

You could use for vouchers a thousand dollars a month times 12, multiply that by a number of people, and place an alternative in place of a jail cell or a park or a doorway to sleep in.

Last night I thought I was in a dystopian situation when I left work and there were more unhoused people on the street as the result of our homeless project, our program that was doing outreach being disbanded.

We're going the wrong direction in our solutions toward housing.

This is not the right way, and I would appreciate your constructive, compassionate and thinking approach to making a better approach to this.

I've lived in a motor home, but on the road for travel and vacations, and I was fortunate enough to do that.

These people are struggling on the street just to survive day to day, and we've got to find a better way and still keep the sanity, the security, the safety, the concerns for the water that could be addressed as well without putting people in further harm's way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Moni.

Carol Morasovic, I've been doing volunteer outreach around where uh the Dwight and the Grayson uh streets are, and I can say, as far as uh, there was an individual there, he had no outreach at all into the CES system for 12 years, and I was able to facilitate through the out uh the options encampment team housing for him, and he is successfully in that housing now.

I haven't been able to help Amber, and for the last four months, Amber has been so vigorously advocating has is the landlord, her prospective landlord has been calling all over the county saying where she can get the subsidy for Amber.

Amber has been homeless since she's 16 years old.

She's been 28 years out in the streets, basically in Berkeley, and um many of the people these people are all individuals, and I need one more minute for the where do we go people?

Okay, um, okay.

So um, the people are all individuals.

They're all different.

She is really trying to has really really tried to get this place.

She's found a place and she can't get in.

And she was first evaluated, assessed in 2022, and now again in 2025.

So if there was a spark parking lot, Amber would be in it.

These are most of these other individuals were there, would be in it.

Are there some people who are very difficult?

Absolutely.

And Amber is actually, I've been working with Amber for about a year now.

Here she's been tried to pull the Dwight area together.

Amber has been working with city staff on reporting abandoned vehicles that were put there by someone who lived in Vallejo.

And she's done it to her own detriment to the sense that she feared retaliation because her name was leaked as having reported it.

Amber has cleaned up the streets.

Thank you.

Is there any uh public comment online for item number eight, which is the large vehicle parking regulations in the public right of way?

I have two hands raised.

First is Beth Rossner.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

This is Beth Rossner, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, expressing support for item eight.

This proposal takes a balanced approach to a complex issue.

Long term and abandoned large vehicles in the public right of way can create health and safety concerns, limit access for customers and employees, and impact nearby businesses.

We appreciate that this item strengthens the city's ability to address these issues while also recognizing the importance of regional coordination, outreach, and alternative housing solutions.

We also support the focus on commercial and industrial areas where safe and reliable access is essential for business operations.

This is a practical measured approach that balances compassion with the need to protect public safety and support Berkeley's local economy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Beth.

Next is former council member Cheryl Davila.

Hold on.

So you should be ashamed of yourself, uh, as I call them the Marionette.

And um Roshi, you need to get off your freaking phone.

Stop lapping, because this shit is not fucking fun.

Cheryl, just like people's lives that you're messing with.

And I'm wondering if I can get some time from somebody in the room, an extra minute.

People are living on the street because you guys don't have a mental health department or a mobile crisis unit, or um services that go out and make relationships with people living on the street.

These commercial districts aren't even utilized as much as you think they are, and they're and and if you gave them the services like garbage pickup, shower programs, they could make or or tents or or nicer vehicles.

You could put money into that instead of evictions.

That's what you should be concentrating on the comment.

Your time is up.

As a reminder, if you can refer to the council as a whole in your public comments, are there any other comments?

Uh Christopher Kohler.

Hello.

Um, thank you.

Uh I'm one of those people that quite for years ago now had my uh overtaking truck taken from me, and that was regardless of what it moved on regular basis and so forth.

But um, it was really calling that then we didn't even have encampments.

Um, so that that was out of the question too.

Well, I've suggested at times is that uh I think there's some legacy or skill on how to get by, even in the hardest of circumstances, and I've advocated the some of those skills and some of those resources ought to be made available to people if you're gonna put them in the project model.

So I'd be happy to uh consult with and conclude with anybody about helping them do that.

Um, not just taking things away from them, leaving them unbelievable to their buy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think that was the final public comment on mine.

Last speaker, yeah.

Okay, I will go to Councilmember Humbert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um, I I appreciate Councilmember Taplin for bringing this item and adding me as a co-sponsor.

And I want to be really clear.

This item has to do with abandoned vehicles, not occupied ones.

They're real safety issues with abandoned RBs parked in the city rights of way with attendant trash surrounding them and rat populations in connection with some, as we've seen very recently.

This is a quality of life and public health and safety issue for the housed, the unhoused, and also the RV dwelling residents of Berkeley, and it deserves our significant attention, staff's significant attention and work towards resolving uh this complex set of issues.

And I think that council member taplin's item is a major step in this direction and it doesn't again have to do with occupied vehicles.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Taplin, your hand was raised, and then Councilmember Blackabee.

Yes, thank you very much, and thank you to all the speakers on the city has obligations to both maintain the public right-of-way and abate hazards, public safety and health hazards in the right of way, and facilitate access to homeless homelessness services.

And in order to do both, the city will need boundaries.

I share the community support for a safe parking site.

In order for us to have one, I do believe we are going to have to work with our neighboring jurisdictions to find real space and real infrastructure for us to be able to do that.

And of course, the requisite funding.

And with that, I move adoption of the item.

Second.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

I'll be brief.

I just want to thank Councilmember Taplin for bringing this item and I think he's a co-sponsor.

I'll say, as we've heard from speakers tonight, we know this is a complex issue.

There are a lot of facets to it.

This is not finished policy.

What it is is asking for staff to come back and look at all of the various permutations and find the sort of best solution that accommodates all of the issues and concerns that we're we're dealing with.

I'll also note that you know we do have a policy for abandoned vehicles on private property, but this is closing a gap where we don't have a similar definition for the public right-of-way.

So part of this is you know, in the city's domain in the public right-of-way, trying to bring some consistency um to that definition.

I also appreciate the effort to sort of find some regional consistency, so that again we're we're we're trying to work with our neighboring jurisdictions, we're trying to address environmental concerns, economic development concerns, and some very um important parts of our city, and that we're trying to do it in such a way that actually supports the transition of folks into supportive housing resources and and supportive services, and that if we can align this with that effort, that we'll be in a better position.

Um and lastly, I just say I also appreciate the sensitivity and thinking about this as uh targeted um in areas that need some attention and where there are environmental concerns in particular.

Um, and so again, this is not a final product, this is not a final answer.

This is asking staff to take consideration of all of these different elements, um, take a look at what our neighboring jurisdictions are doing, um, try and find some consistency in terms of our definition of abandoned vehicles in on private property and bringing that same definition the public right away, um, and find uh a way to move forward here.

So I appreciate the sensitivity that he that the council members brought to this item.

Proud to support it, and um thank you for the time.

Councilmember Cassarwani.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

I I also wanted to echo the thanks for councilmember taplin for uh bringing this item to us and for allowing me to be a co-sponsor of this item.

I do think it is an appropriate time to do what this referral is requesting, which is to look at what other Bay Area jurisdictions are doing around this issue.

Uh, this issue also um intersects with state limitations we have found in addressing the issue of RVs on the public right of way in my district, and so I think we do need to take an exhaustive review and see uh what can be done, and I I do just want to also remind us of of all the work that has gone into this issue in this city.

Um, since I have been a council member, we have had a safe RV parking site, and then we um we transitioned into I think uh what is a what I think is a more effective model which is on second street in my district from Cedar um going north we um implemented what's called an RV buyback program where we compensated people for their RV and because we received a state encampment resolution grant we were able to master lease a motel and offer people transitional housing and that was very successful in take up and uh we we even had the report that was done by the UCSF professor outlining the successes of that model which uh mayor Lurie in San Francisco also adopted after we were successful here my understanding is you know the city of Berkeley was one of the cities that San Francisco looked to when they developed their RV ordinance um and so you know I I I just want to say that we have done a lot of work around supporting people who are marginally housed in an RV and I hope we can continue to do that work and I think this referral is also very important to to look at what other jurisdictions are doing and see how we can continue to advance um our rules and regulations around this.

So thank you very much council member taplin and I I'm looking forward to voting.

Thank you.

Not sure if there are any other comments no okay um so I'm skeptical that this item will accomplish what it intends to we already have parking requirements now and the challenge has been enforcement and I support enforcing our current parking laws especially for abandoned vehicles that aren't people's homes um we don't often have the people power to enforce these regulations and so while there are a few cities nearby that are passing new laws to address the RV parking issues there isn't evidence right now that they are working and you know as council member castwani just stated um there are RV by our RV buyback program was successful in offering in offering opportunities um which and also um the R V buyback program was successful and as was stated there was a really great study that was done by Dr.

Margo Cushell who also spoke to us at the Alamina County mayor's conference to talk about the success of the RV buyback program and how effective it is in moving people from their vehicles into housing and we need to continue to offer strategies like that and interim housing opportunities um just a note that the cities that are passing new laws to address RV parking um their new policies are oftentimes connected to safe parking sites which we don't have currently and so you know for these reasons I'm going to be voting no on this item did you have any comments um madam mayor frame or not sure we can see my I think okay go ahead you can go first oh I just wanted to say I appreciate the mayor's skepticism however what this item is asking for is for the city attorney and the city manager to analyze the regional policy shifts and provide recommendations for potential actions council can choose to or not take but I do think that we should make these decisions I think our policy choices should be guided by analysis and insight and not what this item is asking for.

And I do think that if someone abandons a vehicle that's not being used for shelter on a Berkeley street we should be able to remove it.

Thank you.

Absolutely and I guess my point was just that we already have laws that are policies that allow us to remove abandoned vehicles from the street and since we know that is that that is incorrect the BMC does not allow us to do that.

Council member if I can finish my statement.

So the other the other piece that I was saying is that we already know that the RV buyback program has been successful.

And so my point was that I think it's more worthwhile of our staff time to focus on implementing policies and programs that we know are effective.

One of the recommendations is asking us to look into how we can partner with neighbor jurisdictions is standing to stand up a larger, more stable regional safe parking site.

And uh go ahead, Councilmember Lapara.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank the author for bringing this forward and thinking this through.

I worry that we're that we're putting the the wrong thing first.

Um I appreciate the sentiment of the of the item, and I don't agree that it should be something that our staff should be focusing on at the moment.

That's it, thanks.

Thank you.

And and additionally, we also have evidence that shows that these parking sites are questionable in their effectiveness, and we know from having a safe parking site at Grayson Street that it was not as effective in getting people out of their RVs and into homes.

So since we already have that evidence, I again I just feel that this is not something that we need to have staff time used for.

But um, there's already a motion on the floor, so if we could take the role on that, please.

Okay, this is to approve the um item eight as written by the author with the minor wording change to uh recommendation two D.

On the motion, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes.

Taplin, yes, Bartlett, yes.

O'Keefe, yes, Blackaby, yes, Lunapara.

No, Humbert, Mayor Ishii, no, okay.

Motion carries.

Okay, we are moving on to item number nine.

Oh no, we are not because we moved it to consent.

We're moving on to item number 10, which is the five-year street rehabilitation and measure FF plans for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.

So I will ask staff to come up and present.

All right, good evening, Mayor, Council members Wahida Mary, interim director of public works.

Tonight, staff is presenting an integrated and transparent five-year implementation framework.

This plan maintains the city's core paving program, begins delivery of measure FF, which we are delighted about, coordinates with safety, ADA, stormwater and utility work, and preserves flexibility for biannual updates as conditions, funding, and project schedules evolve.

With me tonight uh are Terrence Salonga to my right, our supervising civil engineer.

Online, we have Maruj Madhavin, our measure FF principal program manager, and just behind us, we have the public works uh Calvary, which started with Pajemon, our city engineer, Candace Almendral, our measure FF program manager, and last but not least, our pavement engineering consultant Jewel Ryrie.

With that said, I'm gonna hand it over to Terrence to kick off the presentation and then we'll field questions as they come in.

Thank you, Heed.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council.

I'm Terrence Alonga, supervising civil engineer in public works, where I oversee the streets program.

I'm joined tonight on Zoom, as we had mentioned by my colleague Manoj Madavan, the Measure FF principal program manager.

Tonight we're presenting two companion plans covering fiscal years 2027 through 2031.

I will walk through the five-year street rehab plan.

Manoj will present the measure FF plan, and at the conclusion, staff will ask council to adopt both.

To begin with context of the network, the city maintains 213 center line miles of streets.

As of the end of 2025.

The citywide payment condition index or PCI was 57, which the industry classifies as at risk.

The network's replacement value was approximately 1.2 billion dollars, and the 2024 pavement management program update measured the deferred maintenance backlog at over 330 million dollars.

What these figures reflect more than anything is that the cost of repairing a street rises substantially the longer the repair waits.

This chart is a typical pavement deterioration curve.

It plots the condition of the street over its life with pavement condition on the vertical axis and aging years along the horizontal.

The colored bands represent condition categories from good at the top to failed at the bottom, and the call-outs identify the treatment appropriate to each.

As the curve shows, the newly paved streets hold its condition for many years before it drops off steeply.

The cost multiplier shown are approximate, but the relationship between them is what's important.

So a crack seal or other preventative maintenance applied while a street is still in good condition in the green band represents our baseline cost.

Left untreated, the street falls into the yellow band where surface seal costs roughly 10 times as much.

Continue to ignore a street and it falls into the orange band where an overlay costs on the order of 20 times the baseline cost.

And once the street is failed into the red band, the only remaining option is full reconstruction at roughly 40 times the cost of the original baseline cost.

Given those escalating costs, the central question of pavement management is how to keep streets from declining in the first place.

The baseline program applies critical point management, often summarized as right treatment right time, which means we target streets near the bottom of the condition tier and treat them before they fall into the next more expensive tier.

Treating streets at that point in their life cycle is where each pavement dollar delivers the most important life across the network.

However, an approach built on cost efficiency means streets already in poor condition can wait a long time for their turn, and those streets can remain in a condition that carry real impacts for the residents who live on them.

Both needs are legitimate, and the city is addressing them through two complementary programs, the street rehab plan and measure FF, which Minoj will discuss later in this presentation.

So, how does critical point management become an actual list of streets?

Street selection rests on two inputs, condition data and the pavement policy.

On the condition data, the city inspects the entire network every other year, and each street receives a PCA score from zero to 100.

That data is fed into Street Saver, the pavement management software developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

And with street savers staff input the dollar amount and the proprietary optimization algorithm, which simulates the critical point management approach, produces an initial list of streets.

This initial list of streets is shaped by the second input, the pavement policy, which council adopted in January 2022.

The policy directs how staff refine our lists to align with city's broader goals, including prioritizing streets that overlap with the equity zone, the bikeway network bus routes, while also maximizing efficiency through contiguity, which means keeping adjacent street segments together where possible and ensuring compliance with dig once through coordination with utility and capital projects.

Resulting list of streets is what makes up the plan we're presenting to you tonight.

Before turning to the new plan, a brief word on what the prior plan delivered.

Between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, the program averaged roughly two to three centerline miles per year.

Once the current FY26 project is complete, the FY24-28 plan will have delivered 29.2 centerline miles over three fiscal years, roughly a fourfold increase, thanks in large part to the additional general fund support Council provided through its 2022 referral.

After completion of this year's FY 26 pavement project, the projected PCI will be 61.6 in the equity zone and 59.3 for the rest of the city.

Both improvements with the equity zone tracking ahead of the citywide average consistent with the policy's direction.

Approximately 43% of that mileage was on bikeways, 39% in the equity zone, 39% on bus routes, and 21% on high injury streets.

Delivered alongside 338 ADA curb ramp upgrades.

Turning to the fiscal year 27 to 31 street rehab plan.

This map shows the plan color-coded by fiscal year.

It covers over 350 street segments and approximately 55% of line miles, representing 88.6 million dollars over five years, distributed across the entire city and funded through the city's ongoing revenue sources independent of Measure FF.

For this fiscal year 27 to 31 plan, here's a snapshot of what we're delivering by category.

Bikeway streets account for 44% of the plan's mileage and 51% of its cost.

Bus routes account for roughly a quarter of the mileage and 30% of the cost.

High injury streets represent 23% of mileage and 26% of cost in the equity zone, which the policy directs to reach a PCI of 70 sooner than the rest of the city accounts for about a fifth of the mileage and nearly a third of the cost.

A concentrated investment relative to equity zone share of mileage in the network.

Taken together, the street rehab plan advances the city's other adopted plans, including the Vision Zero Action Plan, the bike plan, and the pedestrian plan consistent with the pavement policy goals.

In terms of budget, the city will have 96.3 million dollars in total available funds over the next five years.

Five million of that is set aside for storm drain improvements necessitated by paving projects, typically old shallow pipes, also known as cross culverts that must be replaced during paving, which leaves $91.3 million available for paving.

The largest contribution is the CIP fund for the 2022 council referral, which provides $8.5 million in fiscal year 2027 and escalates with inflation each year thereafter.

The plan programs $88.6 million worth of paving, which maintains a roughly two to three percent reserved to ensure against volatility in global oil markets as asphalt is a petroleum byproduct.

Next, I want to spend some time on several major corridors, each of which staff considered carefully when developing this plan, and each of which involves coordination with a separate city process.

I'll also note up front that deferral from this five-year plan does not remove a street from consideration entirely.

The plan is updated on a two-year cycle, and each of these corridors will be reevaluated as part of the next update.

Claremont Avenue was programmed for 2027 in the prior plan and is deferred in this one.

A fatal collision on the corridor in 2025 prompted the city to pause the repay and consider vision zero safety elements and interim measures are underway through a quick build project with rapid flashing beacons and procurement at Claremont and Eaton.

The city is also coordinating closely with the Alameda County Flood Control District on its stormwater bypass project, projected to begin by the end of 2026.

The project will trench the Claremont Roadway to install over 4,000 linear feet of large diameter storm drain pipe between Tanglewood and Mystick Street with completion estimated in 2031.

Having ahead of that work would conflict with the city's Dig One's policy.

Pausing pavement would also allow staff to evaluate the efficacy of the newly installed Vision Zero safety elements and complete the Measure FF funded corridor study, currently programmed at 350K in fiscal year 2027, which will set the streets' long-term direction.

Telegraph Avenue between Bankopt and Dwight was a 2023 holdover in the prior plan.

It is deferred in this current plan.

The corridor has been the subject of pedestrianization proposals for years.

Most recently, the 1.325 million dollar referral council approved in January for car-free telegraph.

Additionally, the telegraph multi-mort multimodal corridor study funded at 1.349 million dollars is underway on the corridor south of Dwight with staff pursuing grants towards construction.

A standard repay would be premature until the city settles the corridor's future configuration, as a car limited configuration would carry substantially less heavy vehicle traffic, calling for a lighter pavement design.

Additionally, at a PCI of 33, telegraph already requires a heavy treatment, so deferral would not add meaningful cost.

Oxford Street and its contiguous fault and segment were programmed for 2028 in the prior plan and are deferred here.

Council initially approved a 400K budget referral for Oxford for All in June 2025 and amended it to uh amended it in December 2025 to 2.5 million dollars in SOSIP funding for design and construction.

The fiscal year 2731 CIP also allocates 900K in UC settlement funds and 1 million dollars in Measure FF to advance the Oxford for All project.

Staff are deferring the repave until the project's construction timeline is clear, at which points it will be reevaluated for a future plan.

Additionally, with pavement condition in the 60s and 70s, deferral will not drop the corridor into a more expensive treatment year.

Hopkins Street was a 2023 holdover from the prior plan and is program in this plan for fiscal year 2028.

The corridors I just described are deferred because funded studies and projects are actively reshaping those streets.

Hopkins has no such separately funded project and its pavement condition is what drives its inclusion.

The plan carries Hopkins and standard paving costs at 6.8 million dollars, which from the rehab of the corridor needs, regardless of any additional improvements cancel may direct, and it is structured to accommodate whatever direction council sets.

No one to address it directly because staff had received requests to hold the repaid until a cycle track study can be completed.

The 2026 bike plan includes a cycle track study for Hearst as a tier two lower priority recommendation.

Currently, that study is neither funded nor is it in the public works work plan.

Hurst measured a PCI 58 in 2024, which is near the bottom of its condition tier.

Today, the street qualifies for heavy maintenance treatment for an estimated $500,000.

If paving is deferred for the several years of study and construction would require, the pavement costs alone escalates to an estimated 1.3 million dollars, nearly three times today's cost.

Programming the pavement in fiscal year 2027 protects the city's investment and it does not preclude future bikeway improvements, should cancel direct and fund them.

So that is the streets program and the measure FF program complement each other.

On the left is the five-year street rehabilitation plan, which amounts to approximately 88.6 million dollars over five years from ongoing revenues selected through Street Savers weighted effectiveness ratio, which buys the most pavement life per dollar across the network.

It's the right treatment right time approach I described earlier, prioritizing streets at the optimal point on the deterioration curve, and it is the it is governed by the pavement policy council adopted in 2022 because at optimization favorite streets at the optimal point of the curve, it tends to deprioritize streets that have already failed.

Those long deferred streets are where Measure FF comes in, and for that side of the slide, I will hand it to Manosh.

Thank you so much, Harons.

Respected Madam Mayor and Council members.

My name is Manoj Madowin, and I am the principal program manager for Measure F F.

In the next 10 minutes, you will hear about how Measure FF complements the five-year street rehab program.

I will also brief you about some of the projects in the full project list that has been provided as an attachment to the staff report.

This should help demonstrate how we are working as a team between different divisions within public works to implement design and construction ready projects along with street pavement.

To start with, Measure FF represents approximately 40 million dollars in street investments over the next five years from the voter of the parcel tax.

And it's directed at a different part of the network by design.

The ballot language is explicit that the intent of the measure is to allow long deferred repairs to be made so that streets are acceptable and safe within 13 years, ideally with no streets below a PCI of 50.

Those are precisely the streets that are cost effectiveness optimization tends to deprioritize.

Measure FF is additive to baseline spending with its own candidate list and its own oversight from the C Street Citizens Oversight Committee or SSCSE.

Measure FF, as you know, includes three other project types besides the streets projects.

They are categorized as sidewalks, safety, and environmental enhancements.

Before we move into presenting some of the project selected, I thought it was important to remind all of us of the exact ballot measure language based on which this program is being administered.

Next slide, please.

First off, let's talk about the four goals for Measure FF, which are presented on this slide, and are to raise citywide PCI to 70, which is rated as good.

Ideally with no streets having a PCI under 50.

Eliminate backlog of damaged sidewalks and pedestrian paths.

Significantly reduce or eliminate fatal or severe traffic crashes, and achieve goals in line with current best practices, ensuring accessibility, sustainability, and resiliency towards benefits for the entire Berkeley community.

Next slide, please.

The measure states that the approximate 15 million per year proceeds should be allocated as follows.

60% for streets and sidewalks of which roughly one quarter will be for sidewalks and pedestrian plats until the backlog is eliminated.

30% will be for safety improvements, and 10% shall include environmental enhancements, any required fees to the county, and any permitted usage as per section 7, 1110, which we will discuss in the next slide.

Next slide, please.

The funding limitations listed in the ballot measure are proceeds of the tax may be used to pay or reimburse the city for actual verifiable costs to city staff when they're performing work, including city auditor staff time.

Proceeds of the tax may be used to pay or reimburse the city for the cost of updating the transportation element of the gender plan and the public works project delivery process once every 10 years.

Proceeds of the tax may be used for public art consistent with the section governing these expenditures, and proceeds of the tax may not be used to fund bicycle-specific safety improvements on Hopkins Street between McGee and Gilman.

Next slide, please.

Now let's talk about how we evaluated projects for this election based on language from the measure.

City staff ensured that every project that was selected was consistent with at least one of the city of Berkeley plans and policies.

And usually each project complied with more than one of these policies.

Every project which includes street repair, repaving or reconstruction will be implementing safety improvements concurrently through sidewalk improvements to remediate identified accessibility violations in compliance with public right-of-way guidelines, as well as include any feasible transportation safety projects.

Every project that includes safety improvements are consistent with at least one, if not several of these five City of Berkeley plans and priorities, which are vision zero, pedestrian plan, bicycle plan, complete streets, and the safe routes to school.

In addition, the measure also asks us to consider 17 additional plans and policies in identifying and evaluating projects.

In short, this measure is extremely complicated and to complicated to implement, and city staff evaluated all selected projects extensively to meet these requirements.

The next few slides will talk about what kind of projects can be identified into the four distinct measure funding buckets for this measure.

Next slide, please.

Starting with street and sidewalk projects that are designed to restore and upgrade the physical integrity and functionality, including all features as required by applicable law.

This language is specifically important as we use some of these funds in order to implement green infrastructure requirements to comply with federal and state water quality laws.

Safety improvements is by far the most extensively defined set of projects within this measure.

Safety improvements shall mean improvements to sidewalks, streets, and highways designed to reduce collisions, injuries, and fatalities.

They can include measures recommended by manuals published by the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the Federal Highway Administration, or similar.

Next slide, please.

Safety improvements shall also include improvements to emergency vehicle access, which may be traffic signal controls.

These improvements can also be traffic calming measures designed to reduce vehicle speeds.

Next slide, please.

Environmental enhancement projects are the last bucket of project types and may include green infrastructure, permeable surfaces, use of native plants and tree plantings, as well as community spaces, benches, and bus shelters.

Now that we've seen what kind of projects may fall within the four project types, let's start looking at the selected projects for Measure FF.

Next slide, please.

Next click, thank you, Terrence.

Trends already showed you this map of five-year paving plan projects.

This next one, if you click again, we'll show you the selected Measure FF projects, which are over 50 street segments and over nine center line miles of anticipated heavy rehab at six proposed project areas, which are based heavily on community input.

Next click, please.

Combined, that is over 400 street segments and nearly 65 center line miles of paving over the next five years, covering all council districts of Berkeley.

Next slide, please.

In addition, Measure FF also has selected over 20 transportation safety projects as well as green infrastructure compliance projects, keeping in mind the goals established by the ballot measure.

The table here shows the funding allocations towards each category across each year, and as you can see, the total fall in line with the compliance rates of 60, 30, and 10 percent that are to be met by the end of the measure's life cycle.

The next couple slides will demonstrate how the projects are ensuring we're being efficient with cost and mobilization while also meeting the requirements to implement safety projects concurrently with street saving projects.

Next slide, please.

One of the proposed projects is the Cedar McGee rehab project, which includes approximately 1.4 miles of street segments along Cedar, McGee, Wine, Josephine, Yola, and Buena.

This project will be started in FY 2027 with a budget of about 4.7 million dollars and result in repave surfaces in the identified project area.

We will also be concurrently addressing safety by constructed sidewalk improvements that will address identified public right of layer related ADA violations.

Next slide, please.

Another proposed project is the ShatterCard Street Rehab Project, which complies with several city plans and policies, as you can see on the slide, and will be taking into account some proximal projects as well as implementing the Shadakwad pedestrian crossing refuge transportation safety project to deliver a comprehensive project that repaves 1.5 miles while addressing over 700 reported ADA violations.

Next slide, please.

To really illustrate what we're hearing from community members, I want to share two examples of these long deferred streets that FF is targeting.

You'll see comments from communications to staff.

On the left is McGee Avenue between Cedar and Rose.

Mickey had a measured PCI of 10 in 2024, likely in the single digits today, last paved in 1992.

On the right is Ward Street between Fulton and Elsewhere.

Ward had a measured PCI of 12 in 2024, again, likely in the single digits today.

Also last paved in 1992.

Both of these streets have been selected for paving in the next five years under Measure FF program.

They're exactly the long deferred repairs the ballot measure describes.

We presented the entire project list to SSCOC last month and have heard and addressed every concern raised so far.

When council passed the budget last month, the all these projects were included.

Council also took action to move four of the transportation safety projects to an unfunded list pending further action, which we will discuss in the next slide.

Next slide, please.

These are those four projects and the next steps towards how we're proceeding, which includes staff working with the city attorney's office for legal interpretation.

Per the council direction, staff will also bring these projects back to SSCOC along with the city attorney's feedback.

After these steps, we will return to council for consideration of feedback and recommendations.

Now we'll hand the mic back to Terrence to take us through how both these programs affect the overall pavement condition index for Berkeley.

During plan development, staff examined whether directing all of the funding, including Measure F through the same critical point management method as a five-year street rehab plan would produce a substantially better citywide outcome than street selection based on targeting long deferred streets.

This graph compares both approaches by projecting PCI over a 12-year period through 2038.

Both lines assume the same total funding.

The only difference is how the Measure FF streets are chosen.

Selected by the same method as a street rehab plan, citywide PCI reaches 63 by 2038.

Directed at long deferred streets, consistent with a ballot measure, it reaches 62.

The citywide outcome is not materially different, which means the city can deliver, um, sorry, can deliver on the ballots ballot measure stated intent at essentially no cost to the citywide trajectory.

Neither line reaches a PCI of 70, and the next slide addresses what reaching 70 would require.

The middle blue line adds measure FF, and together the programs improve citywide PCI to approximately 62 by 2038 as shown in the previous slide.

The top red line shows what reaching a PCI of 70, the level that industry characterized as good would require an additional eight million dollars per year on average, approximately 37.6 million dollars through year 12 and roughly 25 million dollars per year thereafter to maintain a PCI of 70.

Combined programs do not reach 70, but they are the difference between a declining trajectory and an improving one.

And to close, staff requests that the city council adopt a resolution adopting the five-year street rehabilitation plan and measure FF plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.

Thank you.

Happy to take questions.

Thank you all so much.

Um are there any questions for my council colleagues?

Oh, starting with uh Council Member Taplin.

Uh thank you very much.

Um we've received this presentation number of times of fights, and so I appreciate the opportunity to see it again and ask more questions.

I'm wondering if we can as I understand the TIC made a recommendation that the South did not recommend.

I'm wondering if South can speak to the rationale.

Yeah, the TIC recommended that we include Claremont, Oxford, and Telegraph, and I believe we addressed that during the presentation, but to recap, um, each of those are going along their separate city processes.

There are um they are budgeted for uh design and construction for um Oxford for all.

Telegraph is budgeted for uh design for yeah, long-range development.

Long range development, and I believe Claremont uh we're complying with the big ones policy there because of the conflict with the Alameda County Flood Control District Project, which starts by the end of the year.

Uh, in parallel to that, we are uh we have just installed quick build safety elements, which we are evaluating currently, and there's going to be a um complete street setting done in the next few years.

I can add for Claremont Council members, so also part of the proposal for measure FF under fiscal year 27.

As we met with the community members regarding the flood control project, we were very clear that although we are following our policy, coordinating closely, we're not gonna wait till the flood control project is done.

We are initiating uh our assessment as a fiscal year 27 once it gets adopted.

They'll also give us an opportunity to be able to study the quick build that's already gone in there that I've been communicating with council member Humbert uh a few weeks here and there, and it's taking shape, so it gives us a good opportunity to study what we've implemented to be able to fine-tune the design for permitted infrastructure, and that's part of the fiscal year 27.

Thank you very much.

Um, so you mentioned that these streets are on a separate parallel city process.

Can you illuminate or rather reilluminate for the public and the council what that process is and walk us through what that process looks like?

Well, typically you have streets that get a street repave, and you have these other streets that call for more of a complete street style uh project, which is more involved.

It typically takes a more involved public input process.

The delivery timeline for a complete street project is a minimum three three years, three to five years.

Um I think, for example, South Side was 10 years at the extreme end.

Um for a standard repave, I mean, we can kick off a design in uh June of one year and have it in construction June of the next year.

So it's a very shortened timeline.

Um that's why the paving plan typically only programs streets that we know we're gonna pave in the next one or two years.

Um anything beyond that, we want to make sure that we are valuable if we evaluate it in the next five-year plan cycle.

Um that's kind of why these are these are floating out there.

And and for these three streets, like I said, deferring them now doesn't mean we'd be uh never gonna pay them.

We'll we'll reevaluate them in the next five-year plan cycle in two years.

Thank you very much.

And so if these streets require um a level of treatment that is um so extensive as to require any public engagement process and additional infrastructural resources, I'm just wondering.

Can we see the can we see the draft map again?

Sorry, should have I should have pulled request that that'd be pulled up earlier.

This one and this is no the um the five-year uh let's see which happens is I believe that may have been the on the slide 21 that has more information.

No, it's this one.

Thank you very much.

Um yeah, I mean, I'm just wondering because this is a very long extensive segment of Hopkins, and I imagine that's more than just a surface or resurfacing.

So I'm wondering why that's on the schedule, whereas the after the previous streets we mentioned are not.

Sure, I can take that question, council member.

As we presented in fights and many other um opportunities to explain this, that the the whole um intent of carrying Hopkins on this is to carry over the funds, as I've explained in previous presentations, that we know Hopkins is not just gonna get asphalt that uh council is reviewing.

And once uh staff gets direction as far as what infrastructure, what multimodal features will go into that corridor, then that's what we'll activate.

Uh, we didn't want to put in uh other corridors, other streets uh that would not really move forward to uh again be transparent with the community, but as we discussed during the fights, the plan is to even once this goes to solicitation is to be able to advertise it to the contractors to indicate that this is a whole.

So once we get clear direction from council as far as what features uh will go with the Hopkins design, we will pull that and it'll be in a separate standalone contract that will be more appropriate to the complete streets corridor projects that we have aligned under measure F.

Uh, thank you.

That's a little um I think I understand what you're saying.

I I think it's challenging for the community and the public.

It's it's it is a little opaque to have one set of uh criteria and processes, another set of criteria and processes, be evaluating a draft document that includes a street that is being uh included as a as a placeholder, and then maybe if things go a certain way, it will then be put into a separate track, even though we would be adopting a five-year plan that included that street on this track.

I'm just having a lot of trouble thinking through how I'm going to communicate that um to the public.

Um I think if we if we adopt a draft plan, people are going to assume that the streets on that plan are the streets that we've will be moving forward with.

And then I imagine there would be some confusion and frustration where that list of streets or those um that schedule projects be changed after adoption.

Um, yes, council more, you're absolutely correct, and that's why we don't want to substitute a number of streets under the $6 million allocation for Hopkins, and then that does not occur.

So, and to your point, that's the whole intent is to be able to identify that this is for Hopkins, but be very clear up front that this is not just for pavement and asphalt, it's a carryover of the funds, and then it'll be separated into a more complete streets or multimodal corridor approach initiative, whatever the direction is from council.

So I agree with you.

Yes, that's the main reason why we didn't want to put a handful of other streets that would occupy the six million and it would never occur.

Cause that would be again to your point a frustrating uh event for the community members who actually live on that street.

Thank you for that.

Um, those are my questions.

I'll have more to say in the second round, but um I appreciate having a chance uh to question this.

Absolutely.

And again, if you have any community engagement sessions, we'll be happy to support you and be able to explain our rationale and take feedback.

Thank you.

Um, I'm gonna go council member Bartlett and then Tragov and then Blackaby is online.

Thank you for uh for this this diligent work.

We've met numerous times about this, and I'm really impressed with um how you've woven together um all these disparate uh interests here.

And so I'm curious though, uh, because it appears as if the plan is it's a five-year plan, but really it's good for two years, honestly, right?

Yes, and so and so you know, one of my one of my streets, um Stuart between McGee, between MLK and Sacramento, um, they're incredibly non-plussed because they were on the list, and now they're not, and their street um is a gravel road, right?

Um, and so I I guess I'm curious, um, you know, what can I communicate to them as to you know they're on their list for years, right?

We did this years ago, right?

And uh, so what can I tell them uh about relief for their street that's damaging their cars and their bikes and causing accidents and whatnot?

And then I guess the second question would be um uh the other neighbors too are fearful now uh that they'll be removed.

The ones that made it onto the list are for fearful they'll be removed as well.

Um I can communicate them as well that they'll they'll stay on this list past 2028.

Sure, and we understand the frustration, council member, and as you mentioned, I've been in community meetings with those residents, community members that have a valid point, they pay their taxes, but their streets get kicked out, you know, and some streets as to Terrence's presentation have you know has PCI of single digits, we understand.

And as I've communicated some of um as I've emailed some of our community members, the good news is this is why I think as Manuj and our team members mentioned that measure FF complements our baseline uh public works five year payment rehabilitation, what that means in the perspective I've used in the language is the 360 lines where it complements where originally if we kept the baseline policy, those streets would very likely get kicked out.

But the way Measure FF has been written, and I appreciate Manoj going through the verbatim, you know, black and white letter by letter that the ballot measure says we have programmed it where those streets who which have been deferred and deferred and referred have a real fighting chance to actually get repaved.

So although it's unfortunate for Stuart, I do feel it is positive that Measure FF is in place, and whether Stuart or other segments or Ward Avenue that also have you know low PCI and would not meet the criteria, really have a good opportunity now to be able to be carried on with Measure FF.

If it's not through this round, it could be very real through the next opportunity.

So again, that's what I would recommend you share.

But this is the best of both worlds.

So and that's how staff diligently has programmed and drafted it so that way we're not looking at just what specific aspects of our network.

This gives us an opportunity to be able to implement benefits, reconstruct, improvement, safety, to be out the city's network as a whole, and not just target it.

And again, as I've offered to Councilmember Taplin and you know this very well, you and I have been in many of these meetings.

We'll be happy to support you if there are community meetings.

I would love for our team to show up, express and go into details as far as those opportunities because we hear them.

I'm the first advocate as you know.

If you're paying your taxes, this gives an opportunity for everyone to be able to benefit and not get skipped for decades and decades.

Thank you.

And some some neighbors are uh interested in pursuing self-help.

And so is there um uh any guidance on that front you could you could offer?

Can you go a little bit deeper as far as self-help?

They're prepared to hire a paper and pave it themselves.

We'll be happy to work with them through the city attorney's office and city manager's office to see what that looks like.

Uh, I know that we have a long list of unincorporated streets that our city man city engineer behind me, and I have met with council member uh Blackaby that were incorporating a framework and a policy, and again, we'll be more than happy to look at what that looks like, but again, we can do that from a technical perspective.

I'll look on my colleagues from the city attorney's office, city managers for direction and and guidance.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Traegab.

Uh thank you so much.

So advanced warning, I do have a number of questions.

Um, I'm gonna get the recorder out.

I'll I'll cover as many as I can in my time.

Um I note that the majority of FF streets uh tend to be uh east-west travel.

Can you speak to whether that was intentional?

I don't believe it was intentional.

Um can you speak to uh if or how uh schools or other um sensitive um areas of interest were considered in developing these two plans?

Yeah, when we select our streets, one of the things we look at is the equity zone.

We prioritize streets within that equity zone by adding a score.

So what we're seeing is that our street selection reflects that our mileage and our paving dollars as a uh comparison to their actual share of total mileage is uh essentially a concentrated investment in those areas.

On table one C of the report, it seems that there is kind of a lumpiness in um the allocation for each year between streets and sidewalks, it's about 10 million one year, eight million the next.

Um can you just in general talk about how you're thinking through the funding allocation projections?

You see, for some other categories, there's a drop-off in within different categories.

That's the measure F F table.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

So I'll start and I'll hand it over to Manu.

So Measure F F is a bit unique as far as our revenue.

Um, as you might know, the cash flow varies uh for fiscal year 26.

It includes about 18 months worth of revenue that's been collected since January of 2025.

So that gives us approximately 22.5 million dollars to kick news off.

Um with that, I'm gonna hand over Manuj if you want to go into the details as far as the table.

Um, yeah, I think that basically explains it, Rahid.

I think you know, we also talked about some of the complications that we have to take into account when we're um administrating measure I have the funding buckets specifically of the 60, 30, and 10, um, 60% being for streets and sidewalks, and then that again is split up into a 45 and 15 uh bucket.

So we're taking all of that into account as well in the map when we're actually like calculating um all these numbers across the five years.

And it is very complicated to actually get a project complete, like when we select streets or sidewalks to actually ensure that we are going and mobilizing at the exact same locations, um, and also meet these funding requirements.

Um, that's basically why you're seeing some what you call lumpiness, but it's actually really well thought out in terms of like trying to meet these all these requirements for me.

And the cash flow.

We don't want to spend more than what we actually get yearly.

Sounds fairly reasonable.

Thank you.

Uh, my next two questions cover points raised in uh the letter uh we received on this past Thursday from Rock Bike Barkley.

Um first question is uh what would be the implications of combining FF funding with other paving funds to align paving efforts and allow for an integrated citywide paving plan in the matter suggested by Walkbike Barkley in their letter?

Yeah, I believe when we in our second to last slide, or might have been third to last slide, we cover what the trajectories might look like if we use measure FF funds as basically an extension of the street rehab plan.

Um we reach a PCI of 63 by 2038 versus 62 if we were to go with our current approach, which is a long deferred streets.

And um to reiterate, we don't believe that's a material difference.

We believe the benefit that we see from alleviating the impacts to some of these uh community members that live on these streets or travel on these streets is is worth it as a trade-off.

And this gives us an opportunity to be able to service streets like Stuart and other uh corridors and segments that have been skipped for 20 30 years.

Thank you.

Um what coordination is this plan making uh with the newly adopted bike plan?

So whenever we select streets, we are looking at how it overlaps with our bike network, and specifically with the proposed and existing bike networks in the bike plan.

And similar to the equity zone, we're prioritizing those streets when we select them, we're giving them a boost in its prioritization.

Um, and then uh to add to that, once we move forward with the design of those projects, we're coordinating with our transportation colleagues to implement some of these safety measures that are uh recommended in the bike plan.

Things like traffic calming, uh traffic circles, things that improve things for bike users.

Thank you.

Um are there any corridors?

Um, I mean, you've touched on a few, so um, are there any other corridors where uh resurfacing is intentionally being paired with vision zero improvement?

Not intentionally.

Um we do overweight our children collectors, that's where we see most of our um high injury streets.

Um, so we don't necessarily prioritize based on Vision Zero, but we do implement uh recommendations made through the vision zero action plan.

Um that is that is our goal to act as an implementation vehicle.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Um actually I'm almost done with my questions.

If a street deteriorates significantly during the five-year period but is not currently scheduled for rehabilitation.

My district has a few of them.

I think that's true for every district.

Um, what process exists to um get it on the program and/or move it up?

And actually, specifically, um, would the answer change if utility work or nearby construction activity causes unexpected damage to adjacent the task?

I would say two things.

I would say first off, if possible, I would call through one one to ensure that the road is made safe immediately in terms of trying to get it on the pavement plan.

I would recommend that they reach out to the council members and advocate for the street.

Um that was something we would consider as part of the measure FF process.

The Street Rehab program is kind of independent of the input we receive for community, it's based on our pavement policy, it's based on condition.

Um so it's not as sensitive to the community input as measure if is currently.

Additionally, if I can add one more thing for measure FF, is we are supposed to go um and do outreach with the community once every three years, which will start next year.

So we're supposed to go to three different parts of Berkeley and talk about the next set of projects that are actually being evaluated and selected and you know get input as well.

Uh thank you.

And I um I look forward to um just get receiving more information at the appropriate time about the next outreach process.

Um do we have established processes for two-way communication with agencies and utilities such as East Bay MUD and PGME to ensure that planned street work infrastructure projects and multi-year plans are shared with us well in advance.

Yeah, we have a quarterly coordination meeting with PGE, ATT, all of the telecom separately.

We have a quarterly meeting with EBMUD where we share our projects.

Um we've recently gained access to PGE's GIS maps that show their capital projects, so we get a live update whenever they ship schedules.

So it is something we are actively coordinating with, and we're also getting that information through GIS.

Thank you.

What if anything has caused delays to plan implementation in the past and what can be done to minimize those delays in the future?

I'd say the major delay is in the procurement process, either contract execution and um we often see bid protest holding up the protest the process.

Um typically you'll have a low bidder and then the second low bidder who just misses out on winning the project, will try to intervene and win that project by filing a bid protest that can set the project back.

I mean the contract back anywhere from four to six weeks, even longer that potentially delays it into the wet weather season.

I mean, we want to target anywhere from late summer to to early fall in order to get the best optimal weather for for paving.

Um so right now those are the that's the main risk I see now.

And for reference, we just had a recent for fiscal year twenty-six contract.

We experienced exactly what Tennis was mentioning, and thanks to our city attorney's office, we're working through those logistics.

Sorry, can you repeat that last part?

I mentioned that uh per tenance's feedback, we're actually going through the same bid protest issue with the fiscal year 26 package that we'll work with the city attorney's office to be able to resolve and move forward.

So again, it happens more than we'd like, but it's a process that has to be played out and thanks to our city attorney's office, we try to maneuver it as swiftly as we can.

Uh thank you so much.

And my final question, um, so I do understand um and appreciate the thought that has well gone into this whole presentation and um it's no secret.

I have been uh advocating for Oxford for all.

I understand why it's currently not in the plan because it's on a parallel track, no pun intended.

Um if for whatever reason there is a delay in um implementation of uh that separate process, um, can you speak to uh what consideration can be given to at a future point uh putting Oxford back on the plan?

And I think that's probably uh I will ask the same question for the other two um initiatives that were mentioned as moving on a separate trajectory.

Sure, I can start.

I I think we already have um Oxford for all, not um under Oxford complete streets under Measure FF for fiscal year 2030 or 31.

Uh which one is it?

30 or 3130, I believe, but I am checking, sorry.

So to your point, council member.

If SOSA doesn't come through for um Oxford for all, that would be the next opportunity for staff to grab it and hopefully move into design in a more comprehensive corridor complete streets approach.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Bacabe, and then Council Member Kessarwani.

Great.

Uh, you know, I think uh you know, I mean, Mr.

Salonga.

All right, Councilmember Bakabi, we can't hear you very well.

Hello, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you better.

Sorry, okay.

Thanks, man.

I wanted to thank uh interim director Amiri, uh, Mr.

Salonga, and Mr.

Modavan for all their work.

And as much dealing with all of us as we advocate for the projects in our districts, uh, I know that there's a lot to balance here.

And later in my remarks, I will be doing more of that advocacy, so fair warning, but I really appreciate um all the effort that's gotten us to that point.

Um, just a few questions for clarification purposes.

Um the criteria for prioritizing kind of what gets resources first, second and third, that's really something that's set that's a policy decision that's set by council, right?

You're you're pretty much just you're carrying out and fulfilling that vision, but the prioritization and kind of the you know the order and the criteria, um you're really kind of taking that direction from council and making the best plan given that input.

Is that fair to say?

Correct.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is it possible offline?

Not now, but could you share, you know, over the next kind of period of months and as we head into this cycle?

I'd love to sort of just go deeper into how the criteria work and is it possible just to sort of get like the you know how that process works and all the criteria?

I know there's a lot.

There's kind of all the various plans that you talked about.

There's the um there's the equity zone piece of this.

Um, but to the extent that if we want to reprioritize or bump something up or something down, would it be possible for us to just see that so we could spend a little time as a as a body looking at that and then making assignments as needed?

Not a problem.

Okay, great.

Um appreciate also the thought that you went into with kind of the core rehabilitation plan as separate from measure f and kind of applying two different lenses to it.

I thought that's a really smart way of kind of doing the um, you know, how do you maximize pavement life per dollar by focusing at that optimal point in the deterioration curve, doing that with the core budget, and then with Measure F F, you're focusing dollars on streets at the bottom of the curve and trying to sort of lift everything back up.

Is it possible to flip back a couple of charts where you just look at the Measure F F kind of map?

Is that possible in the presentation?

We're pulling it up now.

Okay, thanks.

My question here is almost there.

Just the FF chart.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, sorry about that.

Yeah, just the FF chart.

Just the FF chart, okay.

Yeah.

This is now coming back into my um district six.

Okay.

So district six advocacy.

So my question on FF.

So, you know, we have like other districts, we have a lot of streets with sub PCI um 50.

Um, and in my remarks later, I've been kind of crunching some data.

I know that we don't have any streets currently in the five-year plan that are scheduled to be funded by FF.

Is that because our streets aren't also part of another one of those citywide plans like the bike plan or like the Vision Zero plan?

So I think there was like multiple things happening here that gets a project onto the FF list.

It's not just PCI below 50, but it's PCI 50 uh or below plus some other factor.

So my my question is, you know, I think you know, district seven's in this boat, district eight is in this boat, district four is even in this boat.

Of how do we get more of those sub-50 PCI streets onto the Measure FF plan if the intent is to pave streets sub of sub PCI 50?

Oh, I'll start Minosh.

I know this is a Measure FF question, but um currently there is no payment policy for Measure FF, which states we have to, you know, advance these other city plans.

Um like Minogue stated in his in his presentation, it's uh relying upon community input.

And in subsequent years, we plan to hold community meetings to to gather more community input and uh boost some of these long deferred streets up in our plan.

Okay, that sounds good.

I'm gonna come back to some of my remarks later, but again, this is all not to take away at all from the great work that you've done.

And I am super excited.

Just I I think the public should also know we're talking about paving sixty-five miles of streets over the next five years, which is double what we did over the previous five years.

So we're gonna be paving twice as many streets over the next five years as we did the previous five, which is a huge accomplishment.

A lot of the discussion debate is just about how we prioritize those scarce dollars.

But there's no question this is going to make a huge impact, a huge positive impact, quality of transportation, quality of life, safety uh in the city.

And so I just wanted to thank you for doing all this work, even while we continue to um harass you about the particular prioritization details.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Casarwani.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.

Um, and I I want to thank um interim director Amiri, Mr.

Salonga, and Mr.

Madhavan for the presentation, and um this is just such a tremendous improvement.

I know I talk a lot about where we were, you know, at the at the start of my council tenure, where we had um a budget that was requiring us to not invest enough in our street paving, and it would lead us to a pavement condition on average that was lower at the end of the five year period than higher.

And so to see where we are now with the baseline funding that's over 80 million, and then the measure FF funding that adds over 40, I think it's 42.1 million.

Um, you know, this is just really exciting.

And I do want to say, as I am moving around our city already, I'm seeing the um result of council's action previously to add in the eight and a half million more from general fund, you know, the the capital improvement plan funding for streets.

I'm seeing um streets in in all over the city in district six and district one and and elsewhere that that are getting the treatment that they need.

So I just want to appreciate that.

And um, I I think Councilmember Blackby already talked about what I wanted to highlight, which is this use of what what you call in the report the weighted effectiveness ratio um to rank streets uh by the, I believe it's the pavement life gained per dollar spend and using this, you know, quote unquote critical point management strategy to target streets right before they drop into a more extra expensive treatment tier.

So I I think that's really great because I I think you showed that um that cost curve that when we wait and we prolong the treatment, it can cost I think it's eight X than what it would otherwise cost if we do the treatment earlier.

So I I want to express support for that.

I think that makes a lot of sense, and then to have Measure FF come in and address the deferred maintenance, address the streets that need the full reconstruction.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

And I I do um think that, you know, and looking at the map of what is going to be done by six, you know, I I see or not by six by measure F F, I do see Council Member Blackaby's point, you know, certain districts are not receiving the benefit with with what we're proposing here, and so um I know we have more time with FF, and so I know and I know there are other streets in need, so I I think hopefully we we can um sort of spread the love there and and get to more streets that are below 50 pavement condition um as that measure continues to provide us resources and I do want to thank the public for supporting that item and thank the advocates who you know collected signatures for that um so we can actually get to a place as as our as director may was explaining you know where we can see a citywide average pavement condition that's in the 60s so um so yeah I'm just really pleased to see where we are I also wanted to you know because I was here when we developed the policies that you're now implementing around the equity zone and I just want to say that I I think that that's really important because before we had this equity zone we were doing the exact same street miles in each district and and as we know you know when you are exactly equal you end up not being equitable and so you know we we had our auditor put out our Rocky Road streets audit that showed in fact when we do an equal number of streets in each district and we underinvest overall we were seeing the pavement condition going down by a greater number in the equity zone than in other zones because the equity zone does get heavier truck truck traffic and greater use so I think it you know I I you know it's it's really satisfying to see to see us effectuate that that concept of trying to allocate these dollars equitably um and so so I I wanted to express my appreciation for that I I hear from my colleagues I know everyone I know I know not every street is getting what it deserves on I I see those emails as well you know the frustration of people and and so I I just want to reassure the public that um we do have these resources now and so I I do hope and expect that streets that need to get the the reconstruction will be able to get it over the the 14 years that we have measure FF in place.

So thank you again for this presentation and um looking forward to seeing us spend these dollars thank you yeah council member humber did you have a question um no madam mayor I I really just have comments so I'll wait.

Sure.

So I think there are a couple things that I'm trying to understand now that we've passed the budget um on the major corridor status slide which is slide eleven I'm sorry I know we keep coming back to this so I hear what you're saying about that they're deferred but I think what I'm struggling with is that a couple of things it says that this the telegraph multimodal corridor study is underway and that 1.349 million dollars that's funding that already is towards that the 1.325 is from the longers development plan that was part of the adopted uh plan.

The 1.349 that's below it that's the next multimodal corridor study south of Dwight that's that's the telegraph multimodal city yeah that one is a separate project from the segment we're looking at for using that just being there to show how much of the quarter is going to change in the next few years.

Okay the the telegraph multimodals from Dwight going towards Oakland border.

So we're getting into final design that's fully funded and then the Carfy telegraph is again going towards uh Bancroft and this that point the second the this 1.325 though for car free telegraph budget referral in January 27 was the referral but then at council we approved funding from the LRDP.

Correct.

It's just it's not, it's just not listed on here, is that right?

Yeah, that yeah, maybe we we forgot to update that.

Yeah, my apologies.

Okay, no, that's okay.

I just want to make sure that's somewhere it's confirmed that that exists.

And and I guess what I'm also trying to understand is you know why this, why telegraph and oxford are being deferred if we set aside funding for them in the LRDP and SOSIP.

I believe that funding is for the preliminary phases of the projects.

It doesn't fund paving.

Um, like I said, that for projects like this, complete street studies, we're looking at a three to five year horizon.

Yeah, I guess it's in two years when when we know more about the direction of where these projects are going to take, we can reevaluate them for inclusion in the five-year plan, but at the current state, it seems like it's too far out to include.

I see.

I guess I guess I'm just confused by the slide.

And I think maybe in future years, yeah, it would just it would just be helpful in future presentations.

I think to state like where it's at, because I think one of the things that gets very confusing to folks is like, okay, it's all right.

I get it's not being actually paved in the current five-year plan, and also I think somewhere it would be helpful to show that um it's sort of in process with this you know the study that's being done, just so we can understand that better.

Um, got it.

Thank you.

Okay, all right.

I think that was my only question.

Is there public comment on this?

We are on item number 10, which is the five-year street rehabilitation and measure FF plans for fiscal years 2027 through 2031.

I think there's a couple of folks that are online.

First is Charles Siegel, I'm sorry to see whether I have two minutes or more than two minutes.

So I'm speaking on behalf of Walkers, and I'd like to ask you to add a funding for a uh Hearst Avenue complete street study.

And um, you know, Hurst are you between between California and Milvia, as you can see, street study, complete street study corridor and the bike plan.

Normally when the street is paved, the complete street study is done first, but in this case, as we see it's deteriorating quickly and we have to pave it in 2027, or else the cost of paved it will go way up.

But it's also possible to do the complete street study afterwards, and whatever improvements in safety we can make, we could do it retrofits after the paving.

And I think the way to do that, my specific ask is that you know staff said they have to come back with four issues for spending, which are of dubiously validated.

And I'd like to ask the council when we come back with those four items, ask them also to come back with an estimate of the cost of a hearst avenue uh complete street study.

And the reason her view is important is because it's the final link in the old loadie line.

We've improved the old loading greenway in northwest of the Bard station.

We're going to approve it to the barge station.

That doesn't do much good if you get through the barge station, and you just have a dangerous stretch of first street.

And this would actually complete the Oloaded Greenway as a major regional facility leading all the way from city to the north to downtown Berkeley and the campus.

So please do include that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next is Kelly.

Uh can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Yes, all right.

Um, so I've been listening all night, and of course, listening to this and spending my day immersed and looking at Hopkins and the bicycle plans since 2017.

And when I walk around the city, I don't see people using the bicycle infrastructure to any real degree.

And we paid 367,451 for the update of the bicycle plan, and we did not get a bicycle count to show how things are being utilized, how this infrastructure is being utilized, and we don't have a baseline for the next infrastructure of how all this spending on bicycle infrastructure is being utilized from 2026 forward.

And it just seems like Walkbike Berkeley is running the city, and South Berkeley is getting screwed again with um a street that is gravel and isn't being fixed.

And we're putting all this energy into Hopkins where there are multiples of problems.

So I would um I appreciate what is being done on trying to put a five-year plan together and recognizing how staff are being pressured.

Um I really think that some of this needs to be reevaluated, especially when it comes to Hopkins, and I understand that's gonna come to us on the 28th, and it's not ready.

So I'm running out of time, but I could talk a lot more.

Thanks, Kelly.

Councilmember Humber, you have questions you have comments.

Yes, I do, Madam Mayor.

Um, you know, there has been you know some amount of discussion about sort of siloing the the FF paving funds versus the other um, you know, the five-year general five-year paving plan.

And you know, I understand you know, we're we're we're dealing here with sort of not an embarrassment of riches, but m many more resources than we had before.

Um, and that's a wonderful thing, and I think this was a rational way to handle it.

I know there probably are other ways to handle it, but but um I'd echo council member Kessarwani's comments and and I think Councilmember Blackaby's comments if if he said this.

I hope he did that, you know, this kind of this kind of allocation makes sense.

So I wanted to make that point.

Um I want to thank Public Works Interim Director Rahid Amiri for all his work and Mr.

Salonga, Mr.

Maudavan, and and their staff for a huge lift here.

It's really hard and complex work that went into the five-year paving plan and measure FF plan for these fiscal years.

Um I'd like to also thank the Transportation Infrastructure Commission for its input.

Um, these plans are gonna make our city streets and sidewalks and bike and pedestrian facilities much better and much safer.

And you know, and so I'm really happy about all this, and I'm really happy that you know hopefully we're gonna move forward um with this uh with this program.

Um I appreciate the confirmation um by Mr.

Salonga, I think it was at the traffic signal study and certain technology related infrastructure items and the transportation nexus study, which council directed be moved to the unfunded need category or removed in this item from the spending plan um pending further review by staff, um, so the attorney's office, the FF Oversight Commission, and then ultimately back to council.

And um, you know, for a belt and suspenders approach, I'm gonna maybe later uh add um some language to the to the um the resolution that kind of nails those things down, but but I really do want to thank I want to thank staff for all this really good work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um comments from Councilmember Taplin?

Uh thank you.

I would like to also thank Public Works and and everyone, and i i'm really proud of uh our equity zone policy and very proud of council's general fund commitment to to paving i want to thank council member caserani for her leadership on that um uh there are a lot there are a lot of things in this draft plan that i really appreciate i i continue to grapple with the concept of adopting a five year plan that we know will change really soon um uh it feels it uh it's it feels so I like like um I know that we adopt the five year plan in in that segment of time and I know that things can change I would prefer having a clear view of the final product we would be ultimately adopting um uh and I recognize we don't have that and I I am I do want to be cognizant of our need to get things out to bid in a manageable timeline for anything to move forward um uh but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge my unresolved questions and concerns around the discrepancy between the way Hopkins and the other complete streets are being treated um that is creating a uh kind of confusion I am struggling to to think through towards potential clarifications for my for my constituents um but yeah I just wanted to share that for now.

Councilmember Backaby thanks madam mayor um and again just to thank the public works staff for all their great work um the transportation infrastructure committee um for their review of this as well um I and I'm play proud to support this plan it's gonna you know move the city forward measurably um I do want to share a couple of things just for consideration for next time just as we're kind of coming back um in the in the next two years this is based on my own kind of number crunching from the plan um and just to kind of put this all in context about how this is gonna kind of play out across the city um again we there's 213 miles of pavement as we've talked about across the city centerline miles we're gonna touch 65 miles which is amazing over the next five years which leaves about 138 miles untreated um this is how it sort of breaks out by district which again is not the only view but again I'm not being a good advocate for district six if I don't at least take a look at this so I just want to at least acknowledge the fact that in D6 we represent about 17% of the total street miles in the city um we're getting 12% of the treatment over the next five years uh it's the biggest disparity in terms of you know we're 17% of the miles and 12% of the treatment and particular what's left over after the five year plan is we have the most uh street miles of sub-50 and sub-30 PCI streets in the city by a fair margin so my concern about again how we're allocating FF dollars is all from this perspective like my district has a lot of streets in poor condition like many of us do but we're gonna have the most streets in poor condition uh relative to other districts in the city we also are a part of the the of the city where in many places we don't have sidewalks so this the the quality of the street is the quality of the sidewalk for many residents in district six so again I I'm fully supportive uh we're taking an unleashing an an enormous amount of paving and safety improvements in the city and I'm very very pleased about that that is really great news we all use in district six we all use resources and and transportation uh infrastructure in all parts of the city.

So we're gonna appreciate having stuff done that's downtown.

We're gonna appreciate things that are done in North Berkeley.

We're gonna appreciate all of this investment that's happening all across the city.

But I do think as we move forward and come back again in a couple of years, I just think we need to narrow a few of these gaps because I feel like you know we I think we need to see more of these benefits more quickly as we move forward.

But again, this is not to minimize staff's work.

Staff is follow following the policy uh directions of the council and they're making the best use of those scarce resources.

So I totally appreciate that.

I just think we may need to look at some policy adjustments just to make sure that we're we're treating all parts of the city fairly as we move forward.

But again, I'm proud to support the overall plan and look forward to uh the results that come from this.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Tregub.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Um I'd like to first thank the public works department for their incredible work on this item.

Uh, in particular, Acting Director Amiri, Mr.

Solonga, and Mr.

Madavan.

The annual increase in miles plan for rehabilitation truly demonstrates the department's commitment to improving conditions citywide into the long-term maintenance of our street infrastructure.

Um minor fluctuations in um percentage spent per mile in each district, notwithstanding.

I'm also glad to see that we're coordinating the five-year street rehabilitation plan with Measure FF funding, and I really appreciate your uh explanation around the methodology used for each of this.

I think that's going to be very helpful as I um attempt to explain this to my constituents.

Um, and together, uh, this truly allows for sidewalk and pedestrian path accessibility improvements, safety projects, and environmental enhancements.

I am I'm I'm so proud of the work that has already been done uh in my district.

It's uh these are streets I walk by every day on my way to City Hall.

Um, and I know that that will uh accelerate uh with F.

Um and um I appreciate the public works is uh doing a lot to incorporate utility coordination, dig once, opportunities, vision zero, priorities, uh, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, AD and ProVAC accessibility and stormwater requirements as they do this work.

Uh as a city continues to solicit input from all segments of the community, uh it will be important that due attention is given to soliciting and closely considering the input of differently abled community members, such as those who are blind or deaf as they create the plan since by the time it's fully sculpted out, uh it is often too late.

Um, just responding to uh a few communications that we received and comments that have been made.

Um, I uh I'm very open to continuing to uh revisit or to revisiting um the ordering of um funding uh within the first uh corridor between California and MLK.

While it is um not in my district, many of my constituents do use um that particular um corridor to be able to bike.

And uh I think there is an inter uh and I have used it as well, and there is an interest in making sure that um uh when they do uh when we when I do um if we're able to transit it safely.

Um I look forward to continued collaboration with staff uh around future community engagement opportunities in general uh as well as in my district.

Um I want to note that this process is just the beginning.

Uh and uh as well, I look forward to continuing our longstanding partnership to effectuate our Oxford for All referral.

Um, and with that, um I would am very excited to support this plan.

Council Member Linopara.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you for for being here today.

I I um share a lot of the concerns that Councilmember Taplin laid out.

Um I really I really wish that all of these streets were on one list and they were all in the five-year paving plan together.

Um I don't think it makes sense to treat Hopkins complete street as any different from any of the other complete streets.

I think they should all be on the five-year paving plan together.

Um I've said that it fights too, and it's also what I'm disappointed that that's also what TIC recommended, and it was not incorporated into this version.

Um I know that we need to pass this tonight.

Um, and I'm I'm happy to do that, but I also think that we need to come back soon and revisit it because I think that it this system makes it much more complicated, and it's also a new system.

The previous complete streets treatments that we've done, including Milvia and the Southside streets, were on the paving plan and received paving plan dollars to do the asphalt piece in addition to transportation dollars from other sources.

Um I don't think we should be siloing the pots of money like that.

Um, as we wrote um and and put forward measure FF.

The goal was to was to enhance the amount that the city had to fund these projects and to fund this paving and to do it in a way that was um that was aligned with our other plans and aligned with our priorities of safe streets.

And I this approach was not what was envisioned, and I I it's not the way that I think we should do it, and I hope that we can come back and address those issues.

Thanks.

Thank you, Vice Mayor O'Keefe.

That's right, Vice Mayor.

I keep forgetting.

So um, yeah, I just I want to echo the thanks.

I want to give my own thanks to all of you.

Um, acting director Amiri, um, Mr.

Smanga, uh, Mr.

Um Madavan.

Um, thank you so much, and all of your people you work with.

This this is so much work.

And I actually I want to start by saying that I as somebody who um spends a lot of time thinking about algorithms.

I'm just really in awe of what a complicated algorithm you've been implementing, and and that's exactly what it is.

It's um this is a you you're required due to the nature of the you know tax dollars and um equity to be as methodical as possible to create to be as equitable as possible, and there's just so many factors that go into it and so much so many considerations, and I I really want to appreciate that and just you know it's not perfect, and obviously not everyone's happy, and I acknowledge the comments of some of my colleagues are valid.

Um, but that said, uh you guys did a really good job on a really really difficult problem, and I just I really appreciate it.

Um and I specifically want to thank you just from a district five perspective, which is my perspective.

Um, I want to really thank you for adding um, including McGee and uh Shaddock North of Vine are two small segments uh that are really really in desperate need of paving uh in my district, and those are, I believe, covered by FF.

And then of course, I have to mention uh thank you very much.

I I'm very grateful that Hopkins is um being identified as um a street that will be paved in 28.

Um it's you know, been often on the paving plan for quite some time.

It is in terrible shape.

It is a major street, it's probably the worst major street in the city, and it's and it has major safety problems.

So I'm just so grateful that it is getting um finally getting getting paved.

And of course, we will talk about the um specifics of that in a few weeks.

So I'm not gonna I do want to say one thing about that, though, it's about this and about that.

I wanna invite my colleagues right now, while we're sort of looking at this paving plan situation in its totality.

I think we should all just really appreciate how unforgivably zero sum this is.

Every single street that's on here is another street that's not on here.

Every dollar we spend is not getting spent somewhere else where it's needed.

And I want us to think about that because in a few weeks when we look at Hopkins Street, we are going to choose between a treatment that is either unbelievably expensive or a treatment that is twice as expensive as the unbelievably expensive treatment.

So just, you know, I'm not gonna go into that more.

We're gonna do that next, you know, in two weeks, but I just this is every dollar counts, and let's be really careful and smart with how we spend these dollars because it's a very difficult problem to solve.

And thanks again.

Thank you, Councilmember Humbert.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.

And I mentioned before that I um I'd like to make a motion um and and add some language to the staff recommendation in the resolution.

Um I'd like to add uh a whereas clause, one whereas clause, and one therefore clause to the resolution.

Um, and otherwise move the staff recommendation.

Um, whereas at its June 23rd, 2026 meeting, council identified the traffic signal master plan, transportation fiber optic network, and traffic signal modernization project, and transportation nexus study is unfunded needs requiring further review by the safe street citizens, citizen oversight committee SSCOC in Prince, and City Council.

Therefore, it'd be resolved that the Berkeley City Council directs staff to note the traffic signal master plan, transportation fiber optic network, traffic signal modernization project, and transportation nexus study are preliminary measure FF safety projects and are subject to subsequent review and approval by the Safe Streets Citizen Oversight Committee SSCOC and the City Council.

And otherwise, I'd like to with these these slight amendments uh move the item pursuant to the staff recommendation.

Council member and maybe staff also, just to confirm, that would mean that just as we agreed to or we discussed at the CIP conversation that those pieces would go to the Measure F F committee and they would take a look at it, and then if approved, it would be added on to the correct.

And then if it passes that review, then we would present it to the oversight.

Great.

Sorry, may I interrupt and just say that the four projects that Council Member Humbert just mentioned?

There's one that's slightly off.

Um we're talking about the Vision Zero Action Plan update based implementation rule.

That was unfunded.

Oh, right, we yeah, that too.

I'm sorry.

So there are four.

There's a fifth one you mentioned, which is not on that list.

So the fifth one as well, that was the transportation design element that as part of the CIP, that was also asked for for the review.

So just so they're actually five, not four.

There are only four.

You mentioned uh another one right now, council member that is not on that unfunded project list.

That was passed during budget.

We'll share the slide on the I can see the slide.

Is that the transportation fiber optic network?

Correct.

I think that's the one that you mentioned that is actually not unfunded.

Okay.

I I would like to to make this five then, and and that should likewise be unfunded and subject to the same process as the other four.

Sorry, I'm just checking the slide.

I just I think just for clarity, I think we can just say the same same ones that we talked about at the CIP conversation.

Right, but I think we did talk about the fiber optic network at the CIA.

Sure, that's fine.

I just want to make sure that we're all set up to you.

Okay, all right, very good.

Um, what's the what's being added?

Is the transportation fiber optic network.

Well, that's to the to the list that's on page twenty-six of the slide deck.

Is anything changing in the whereas or the resolve clause that you would?

Yes, I guess to add just those just um which one did I miss the visions the vision zero.

Should be in the in the motion.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, I I also just want to add my thanks so much to city staff.

There's just so much work that goes into this, and I understand how complicated this is, and we have so many miles of streets to go through.

So I I really just want to appreciate all of you for the work that you've that you've done to put this together and to present it to us this evening.

Um, and I know you've also had to present it in many different iterations to many different bodies, so thank you for that as well.

Um, and of course, thank you to the public work staff who actually do the implementation and and work to to make this happen.

So, you know, one of my policy priority areas is infrastructure, and I know that our street sidewalks infrastructure are really need of a lot of care and and work, and um, really happy to see the supportive measure FF funds that are being used to address the backlog of low PCI streets as well as implementing green infrastructure projects and also just generally happy to see um us doing so much work towards making Berkeley a safer place, especially looking at ADA improvements, repaving streets and repairing sidewalks, uh bike lanes, etc.

All these complete street projects.

Thank you for all of that work.

Um and just to to the public, I really want to remind everyone that we have nearly two billion dollars in unfunded infrastructure needs, and that's really why we put this infrastructure bond on the ballot for November because there's so much need that we still have as a city, and um, you know, that that bond would really help out, especially with the sidewalk repair.

We've been talking about the 5050 program, which is such a long backlog, um, and other pedestrian safety improvements.

So I just want to thank you all again for the work and remind us, even though we've got lots to do, um, we're making good progress, so thank you all very much.

Um, so I think there is a seconder.

Was there a secondary for your motion?

I will sound very good.

Okay, can we take uh roll, please?

Okay, to adopt the um five-year street rehabilitation plan and the measure FF five-year CIP plan, uh adding the whereas clause and the resolve clause.

Um introduced by Castlemar Humbert with the addition of the vision zero phased implementation roadmap into both of those um new clauses in the resolution.

Uh so on that motion, council member Kesserwani.

Yes, Taplin, Bartlett, yes, Trago.

Hi O'Keefe, yes, Blackaby, yes, Munapara, yes, Humbert, yes, and Mary Ishii.

Yes, okay, motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Saf.

Okay, so yes, I know.

Um, so um we are now moving on to item A.

I'm gonna give us five minutes to do a little shift over so um our staff can circle out and rent rent board staff can come up.

Um so we'll we will be back in five ish minutes.

Um, recording stopped.

Oh, you can do it.

Recording in progress.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you again for your patience.

I know it's it's getting late, so or late for us.

Um, all right, we're on item A: placing an ordinance amending the rent stabilization ordinance on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot, which was continued from June 30th, 2026.

And um, I am gonna pass it over to Council Member Linopar.

Thank you.

Um, I have a presentation if it's okay to pull it up.

Also, um, I'm sick and not feeling great, so apologies for any issues.

You don't need to apologize for being sick and feeling great.

Thank you.

Okay, um good evening.

As the co-chair of the 4x4, I am presenting the rent stabilization ordinance amendments introduced by the rent board.

The rent stabilization ordinance was passed by voters in 1980, which means that any changes to the ordinance must be approved by the voters.

Since the Berkeley Tenant Protection and Right to Organize Act was passed in 2024, we have seen several issues and needs for revision pop up, and these amendments are meant to clean up the ordinance and address these.

The revisions needed include typos, clarifications, and inefficiencies, an avenue for fee waivers for 501c3 nonprofits, a change to the known removal of rights provision, a cap on banked and annual general adjustment rent increases on fully covered units to match protections for partially covered units, and lowering the right to organized threshold from 10 or more units to five or more units to align with other policies.

Sorry, my notes are um these revisions passed by the rent board and the four by four joint task force committee on housing unanimously, and in consultation with the Berkeley Property Owners Association, we have submitted supplemental material to address their concerns, and this presentation matches that material.

We also have been in close communication with the city attorney's office and thank them thoroughly for their collaboration.

These changes can be very complicated, so I'm trying to go through them one by one to make them as comprehensible as possible.

In the city of Berkeley, if a landlord chooses not to increase rent on a rent controlled tenant, the annual general adjustments may compound.

These banked rent increases can add up indefinitely for fully covered units.

Prohibiting over a 10% increase in a given year.

To clarify, this means that landlords did not lose banked AGAs, but may not necessarily impose them all in one year.

Originally, we had tied this percent to any changes in state law, but we removed that section in the spirit of compromise and predictability for small landlords.

With the new tenant right to organize provision of the rent stabilization movements, we have come across two issues.

There has been a situation where a qualified building with a property management company forms a tenant association, and then the property management company is disbanded in an attempt to thwart the recognized unit union.

We have clarified, thank you.

We have clarified that a tenant association remains valid after a property management company no longer manages the property.

Additionally, organizers have found that 10 plus units is an arbitrary number for the threshold for tenant associations, and lowering the threshold to five plus units better aligns with the goal of the provision to exempt small landlords.

Currently, tenants may face, and this is the no rights of removal changes.

Um, a current issue is that tenants may face the unexpected loss of protections in the middle of their tenancy.

This is most common during a turnover in ownership where the new landlord is looking to maximize profits.

This change means that sitting tenants are protected and will continue to enjoy rent control and eviction protections, with exemptions applying as normal to future tenancies as long as the unit continues to meet requirements for exemption.

On the nonprofits piece, um the current problem is that the 2024 RSO changes, nonprofit units are fully covered by the rent stabilization ordinance, and their tenants enjoy some of the services of the rent board.

However, inadvertently, this has created a large financial burden for nonprofit housing providers who now must pay the full fees.

Therefore, these changes would authorize the rent board to adopt regulations to waive or reduce fees for fully covered nonprofit units while ensuring affordable housing tenants can continue to enjoy rent board services.

There are a list of um a long list of typos, language clarifications, and relatively non-substantive edits.

Some of the sections of the amendments correct typographic errors, which are highlighted in red here.

These sections in blue address current inefficiencies and streamline deadline changes to better align with rent board practices.

Oh, I'm missing one of them.

And then the sections in orange are clarifications and non-substantive edits, including clarifying definitions, striking obsolete sections, removing outdated requirements, and allowing new developments to include rent stabilized units if agreed by both the city and the developer.

In the Humbert Kessarwani supplemental, the authors brought up a potential misunderstanding of what is meant uh by replacement units in the rent stabilization ordinance.

To clarify, and with no substantive change, I would like to replace the existing language with design designated as replacement units in a housing development project as defined in SB 330 to the motion to this following section.

And I can bring this back up also if that's um helpful later.

Um I'm happy to answer any questions, and rent board staff are here to respond as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um it might be helpful actually if uh council member Kessarwani or Humbert, if you wanted to present I I know that there have been some maybe changes.

Sure, thank you, madam mayor.

And yes, it's been a moving target.

I want to thank council members Lunapara and Terry Gobin, you may she for bringing this item forward.

I want to thank the rent board and you know for all of you for all the hard work of making the fixes uh and improving clarity.

I especially want to thank Councilmember Lunapara and her staff who have been thinking really deeply about these issues, and from what I've seen in the supplementals and the presentation, are working extremely hard to be fair to both sides, tenants and landlords, and build consensus.

I was very pleased to note that after I submitted our own supplemental yesterday, Councilmember Lunapara had also submitted the supplemental which addressed really my biggest substantive issue with the proposal, which was golden duplexes, they're out of it and I appreciate it.

Well, I agree that even mom and pop landlords with golden duplexes should, as a matter of good practice, be providing notices to their tenants of the special provisions governing golden duplexes.

So tenants know what the rights are.

I wasn't not prepared to accept a remedy that brought such units under the jurisdiction of the rent board.

I recognize there are students and others who may not be fully aware of tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities and how these are affected by different housing types, but I don't think that would have been solved well by creating situations where soured tenant landlord relationships drag on.

I think that increased outreach and education by the rent board is the way to go.

And this is now moot given council members' supplementals.

So I'm very glad that we're moving toward consensus.

As far as the question of waiving fees for nonprofits, Councilmember Kessarwani and I in our supplemental, thought it would be cleaner just to exempt nonprofits.

But as and you know, I think as long as we can adjust the language to make it even more clear that regs and the resulting waivers would be standards-based and non-discretionary, I could support that, and I understand there may be some particular nuances that I wasn't aware of having to do with the language.

Um in that regard.

With regard to our language and our supplemental about SP 330 projects, at least for me, uh I'm not sure whether it's uh uh satisfactory to Councilmember Kessarwani, but for me that it I think Councilmember Lunapara has addressed this and more cleanly than I did my supplemental.

So um uh you know I think I'm fine with that version under subsection B1.

Um, I think the city attorney asked uh about this as well, and I wonder if the city attorney believes this resolves any minor ambiguity that may have existed, uh the version that uh council member Lunapara just read.

Is that your okay?

It has your imprimatur on it.

Is that right?

Thank you, Madam City Attorney.

So those are my comments for now.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Casarwani, did you have a question or a comment?

Yes, I I had some um questions, and I I do want to uh um do all the same thank yous that council member Humbert has done.

Um thank you uh to the authors uh of this proposal, and I I've looked at um your latest supplemental, and so it sounds like that the golden duplex issue is now moot.

I I just I I is far is Mr.

Brown the um the uh legal representative for the rent board on the call to answer questions, Matt Brown.

They're here in the room.

Yeah, yes.

Oh, okay, wonderful.

Well, I oh I'm sorry, I couldn't see who's at the table.

So thank you to the representatives at the table as well.

Okay, I see.

I see you now.

I didn't see you before.

So um, so I I just want to make sure I I understand.

Um there's there's two paragraphs.

I just want to get clarity of my understanding of the intent of them.

So when I'm I'm in the um Councilmember Luna Pata um sub 2, the 28 page PDF, and I'm on page nine of the PDF and page two of the proposed ordinance changes, and it shows this um, you know, this language around as set forth in California civil code section 1954.52B.

And I was um, you know, tracking all of those code references, and it looks like it it relates to single-family homes that may be.

Oh, okay, no.

So can can somebody at the table just explain in layperson's language that um that paragraph.

Happily, um Sally Albert Chair of the Board.

Um, 1954.52B is the only section of state law I can cite by memory.

Um, it's been my little pet project for the past six years now.

Um essentially, this is a provision of Costa Hawkins that allows for a landlord or developer and a city or other public agency to agree by contract to allow a new what would otherwise be exempt from rent control as new construction or single-family home to be covered, but only by contract.

So, what this section does is if the city so it is so it is about single family homes in some regard, but but but also other other types of housing.

Yeah, so this same section is okay.

Okay, that's what I thought.

So I just wanted to confirm my understanding.

Um, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, uh, Mr.

Albert.

I I just uh I was just trying to get it.

So, it was just gonna clarify that it the it only allows the city to create such a program.

It doesn't direct anything to be created.

So if the city were to decide to create some kind of incentive program giving some kind of you know density bonus or real financial interest in exchange for the application of rent control, it would be allowed, but it wouldn't provide for that to be created.

Okay, so um so is it fair to say this this paragraph doesn't have any current implication then?

Okay, then okay.

So it is anticipating some future possibility that doesn't I guess what I would say is that there are some circumstances very narrowly where Zab has a uh ex in exchange for some kind of zoning variance, and uh Council Member Trigum, I know has voted on some of these himself, um, where ZAB has an exchange for a zoning variance required that the develop the landlord or developer agree to the application of rent control, and in previous instances where that has occurred, those properties have benefited from kind of fake rent control where they have the rules of rent control, but none of the services of the board because they're not technically allowed under our rules.

And so what this would allow would be if the landlord were you know wanted to agree to it in exchange for some kind of zoning variant, those one-off circumstances could come under the ordinance, and then it would also enable the council to create some kind of density program or other program to do that on a larger scale.

Okay, all right.

So that was one of the paragraphs I want to understand.

So it looks like it appears twice, and it's the same thing, right?

So it it that it's it's on page two of the ordinance and then page three.

So um, so I'm gonna go on, and so there was one other thing I just wanted to talk through, which was so this is page five of the ordinance or page 12 of 28 of the PDF.

So the paragraph D around no removal of rights previously established, um, so this is saying no exemption articulated in subsection C shall apply when the current tenancy commenced prior to the date of the the date the unit met all elements of the exemption, this subsection shall not apply to any rental unit deemed exempt prior to November 3rd, 2026.

Um I guess um, so after a lot of sort of thinking this through my sense here, um, well, maybe maybe I'll have Mr.

Brown just confirm if if some if so this is related to any two-unit situation, right?

So it could be a a main unit and an ADU or a golden duplex, right?

It's sort of like when you have a two-unit situation that's exempt, because uh the property owner is on site, um, it seems like so basically I was trying to understand the implications of this paragraph for the two-unit exempt situation.

So I guess to use uh an example, a main unit, like you know, you know, a main house and an ADU, and let's say it it starts as exempt because the property owner lives in one of the two units and has rented out the other unit, and and then if you have a situation where that property owner moves abroad for a year, let's say a sabbatical, um, can you just clarify, Mr.

Brown?

Does that tenant who remains there who started the tenancy when the property owner was living there, that tenant remains exempt, correct?

Or you could you just, you know, you can tell me if I'm wrong there.

Good evening, Councilmember Cassarwani.

Uh, thank you for the questions.

I I I think it's important to distinguish a little bit between the two scenarios that you pose, the one being golden duplex, in which you have to answer two questions yes in order for the exemption to attach.

Um, the first question being, was there an owner principally occupying any unit on the property on December 31st, 1979?

And the second, is there a current um 50% owner principally occupying the unit?

And if you can answer yes to both of those questions, then yes, um the other unit that's occupied by a tenancy would be completely exempt from any provision of the ordinance, including just cause of action protections.

The second um uh scenario that you uh uh asked about is one in which um which is clearly defined in the ordinance where there is a single family home with a principal unit and an ADU which was built um after 1980, um and that in that situation there is a golden duplex like exemption.

However, in the event that the owner moves out of let's say the principal unit and the uh tenant remains, the tenant would not be rent controlled because that's a newer unit, so it would be partially covered by the ordinance anyway.

So in the situation um that is proposed um by the board and adopted by the four by four uh in front of you today, the um uh the tenants uh that start out in a non-fully exempt situation would retain whatever rights they had in that situation in the event that an owner moved in when they were not there before.

And just to clarify to your point, the based on the language of that when the tenancy commenced, right?

It's only for those tenancies that at the inception of the tenancy, the tenant was exempt partially, had some number of rights.

So if a tenant is moving into a fully exempt situation, then there's a disruption in that exemption because the owner moves out, but then the owner returns, this section would not apply.

So that the exemption would reapply to that tenant, and the there would not be rent or eviction control.

And that was something we had a similar question from um the Berkeley Properties Owner Association, and we uh gave them clarifying language or email as well to that effect.

It was unstable, but I you know I'm still here listening.

So okay, so it sounds like right.

So I I guess Mr.

Brown, so there's actually like three different permutations of this.

There's the golden duplex situation that you described and you gave an answer to.

There's the ADU situation, um, I I guess like an older ADU, but pre-1980 where there's partially exempted.

And then I I was sort of thinking more of these, like really new ADUs.

I guess they're post- is it post-2018 that they're fully exempt based on that value.

Pre-19 pre-1980 um accessory units would not be considered ADUs under the way that they're defined in the ordinance because they exist as of 1980, and they would be considered uh a duplex.

A newly constructed ADU is exempt if there is an owner inoccupancy in one of the units.

Right, right.

So and and Mr.

Alpert, I I think the newly constructed I I believe that that date is based on a different ballot measure.

I believe it's um, you know, the November 2018 date, I believe, right?

So okay, so that this is a little more complicated than I initially thought.

So it maybe there's there's four different types of two unit situations with varying levels of exemption, perhaps, but you're saying what this language is essentially saying is whatever you started out with is what you keep, um, regardless of a change in situation of whether the property owner is there or not.

I guess the golden duplex is a little nuanced and different, though.

Essentially, correct, yeah.

If if you started out as a controlled or a partially covered tenancy and an owner moves in, then your right to a controlled or partially covered um tenancy is not removed.

If in the event you do not start out that way, but they're a transient occupancy by um a principal owner, um, then or rather principal uh occupancy by a 50% owner, um, then those uh units can go in and out of exemption.

If the the exemption rather the coverage only attaches based on what the unit commenced at, okay, council member.

Your time is up, so does someone want to give her some of their time?

Uh council member Humbert will okay.

I I have one one additional question on this point.

This is my this is my only set of questions, mayor.

I don't have further questions.

Um, so the um is this representing this paragraph D is it clarifying sort of your existing interpretation, or is it a new policy, and primarily it's designed to protect tenants when there's a change in ownership ownership.

So currently uh the situation that we've seen um is for example, take a golden duplex where you have a golden eligible property, so it's a duplex that would be a golden duplex if it was owner occupied, but both units are being rented.

Both tenants have rent control and eviction control.

A new owner purchases the property, they can own or move and evict one of the tenants, that tenant gets relocation benefits, they get you know protections, the owner moves in, suddenly the second tenant is stripped of all rights because the new owner makes it a golden duplex.

And so the two tenants are treated differently for arbitrary reasons.

So this is particularly designed to protect that kind of situation.

So the okay, okay, and then uh this is my last question about this.

Can you help me understand this after November 3rd thing?

So are are you planning to treat tenancies?

You're sort of even is this gonna be like prospective?

Like you're so you're you're basically like as tenancies commence after November 3rd, this is going to kick in.

Is that what you're intending here?

And so if somebody does this owner move in that you just described before November 3rd, that that other tenant is going to lose their rights.

We're not particularly worried about that situation.

The design of the date there is not to change the status quo for a landlord tenant relationship that already exists.

So say you had uh, you know, someone who moved into a golden duplex, they did have protections, then they lost those protections because the landlord moved into the other unit.

We're not going to now impose protections on the landlord, it's only going forward that once people know that these rules so this is uh designed to make sure that everyone understands.

Okay, thank you.

I'll thank you.

Are there other questions?

Is there any public comment on this item?

We are on item A placing an ordinance amending the rent stabilization ordinance on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot.

So, okay, if you want to let someone go before you if you need some time, are you ready?

Okay.

Okay, yeah, I'm Terry Garritz and I'm a golden duplex owner, and I want to thank you for deciding to withdraw the language on the golden duplex, but I want to press upon you how overall this increased regulation and modifying the rent stabilization ordinance every two years is crazy making.

It makes possible new landlords who I like to call housing providers very likely to enter the rental market.

We don't have enough housing, stop restricting it with increased regulations.

Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Angela Kavanaugh with satellite affordable housing associates.

We have almost 1200 affordable units in the city of Berkeley, and we'd support uh the amendment as written by council member Lunavara, and just appreciate all the work and consideration that the council has done and the rent board too.

They were great to work with this whole time, and we think that meets the uh it meets a good balance in preserving tenants' rights and as well as um helping us to maintain our well-needed services at our buildings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, council.

I'm Courtney Powell.

I'm the policy manager at resources for community development here again to support the cleanup amendments to the rent stabilization ordinance on the November ballot, and particularly the amendment that Angela talked about uh regarding the rent board fees for nonprofit affordable housing providers.

Um we're in support of the original language that Councilmember Luna Parra proposed.

We really appreciated working with the rent board with the four by four with the city council to come to this proposed solution that balances legal considerations with tenants' rights with the needs of affordable housing providers.

And so we are really grateful for all the work that's been done and look forward to hopefully seeing this on the November ballot for the voters to decide.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Carol Morasovic.

Um pleased about the changes in terms of the golden duplex, that the exemption remains and how the nuances were addressed here uh today.

Uh we need to be focusing on uh larger multi-unit buildings and not small landlords that only have a few and of which there's only a few golden duplexes in the community anyway, or a small number.

Uh second, I believe that the discretionary nature of waiving the fees for nonprofits should stand, because there may be a situation where they're out of compliance and you want to be able to have that leverage.

For example, the elevator ordinance, many, some nonprofits reportedly uh have not been in compliance with that, has have also some uh market rate buildings.

Um, last I want to say that in terms of the voluntary uh agreement uh uh, uh thank you.

In terms of the voluntary agreement with um uh uh that would developers would be able to enter into it seems as if there should be clearer language on that in terms of the incentives, so that it's more transparent.

It's it's the language as is seems very convoluted.

It's really not clear what's being proposed here, and it seems for the voters to fairly consider it, it should be clear what an incentive program could be for transparency purposes.

Thank you.

Thanks, Carol.

Um, I think there are a few folks online.

Yes, first speaker is Karen Shinoy.

I'm going to simple grasses in a minute.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was like, I think you're standing for a reason.

Okay, there you go.

All right, two minutes.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, uh, Krista.

Good evening, council.

Um, I just have to say the irony here is hard to ignore.

We're being told that nonprofit landlords need an exemption from rent stabilization uh board fees because they can't simply raise rents to absorb those costs.

In other words, the rent board is acknowledging that these fees and regulations increase rents across the city.

This is further proof that the constant tightening of Berkeley's rent stabilization ordinance is little more than lip service to the problem of housing affordability.

This measure is an admission that rent control increases rents.

The result isn't greater affordability, it actually limits available housing to only the wealthiest of tenants.

Now we appreciate the willingness to remove the proposed changes to the golden duplex exemption that would have harmed seniors and longtime homeowners who live alongside their tenants.

But one problem remains that's section 13.76.050.

Every time this council tinkers with exemptions and puts something on the ballot, it sends yet another message to homeowners.

Don't build that ADU, don't create that duplex, don't invest in more housing because the rules can change after you've already made the investment.

You can streamline permits and pass zoning reform all you want, but none of it matters if homeowners don't trust that the rules they build under today will still exist tomorrow.

Please remove section 13.76.050 and move this measure forward without these unnecessary amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kieran.

Next is Tony Mester.

Um, good evening.

I'm the owner of a golden duplex.

I used to be a landlady, um, when they start uh started to threaten when the rent board started to threaten my exemption, I went out of business.

I stopped renting.

And I think that's what a lot of people will do when rent control um becomes so onerous and so complicated that members of the city council, like um council member Kessawani, who I uh think is a very smart lady, gets very confused by it.

I I acknowledge, I acknowledge Raj, your confusion.

Believe me, it is such a pain to um try to figure out what the rent board is going to do next.

But wherever you have exemptions, that's fine.

Make more exemptions, more exemptions means more housing.

That's basically the bottom line.

People will build when they're exempt from rent control.

Period.

Full stop.

Thanks, Tony.

Uh, next is Stefan Elgstrand.

Hi, uh good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Uh, this is Stefan Elkström, Ramp Bowl Commissioner.

Good to be back at the council meeting, even though I'm just here virtually.

Um, I wanted just to provide some additional uh background as to how we uh got here um yeah you know before this item went to the fall by fall, the full rent board, there was an ad hoc committee which I served on to develop this measure.

You know, we we really went into the weeds, and you know, I wanted to have a proposal that provided a a faultful and balanced approach that incorporates the best practices and builds upon measure BB that was approved by uh Berkeley votes um back in 2024.

I just wanted to um say that I appreciate the the inputs of the council and stakeholders to further refine this measure and I think we'll get into a very good place.

So I hope that you will uh place this uh um this item on the on the ballot and to let the uh voters have the final say on this uh thank you and uh have good evening thank you nice to hear your voice Stefan uh next speaker is Sophia DeWitt Hello uh mayor and council members uh Reverend Sophia DeWitt uh Chief Program Officer with MO here to support uh councilwoman Luna para's um uh memo and hope that you will put um these changes uh to the uh rent ordinance on the ballot uh particularly uh those that um provide an exemption for affordable housing providers uh to the rent board fees um and uh we appreciate the work that um the committee and the four by four and the rent board did with uh stakeholders uh to put this approach forward and thanks so much for your work thank you very much i think that was our final comment do i have any comments from my council colleagues oh i do council member jacob thank you madam mayor i would like to appreciate council member lunaparra and her staff uh the rent board and the four by four for all of their the work that has gone into this item i also want to acknowledge the thoughtful efforts uh to address stakeholder feedback and the item that is in front of us tonight to be very clear incorporates changes that have been made in close collaboration with uh advocates uh stakeholders including uh both the renter community and the Berkeley property owners association um these comments have been reflected in the updated language as a former rent board commissioner and current member of the four by four committee I feel strongly that this ballot measure if placed on the ballot by the council and adopted by voters this November would modernize the administration of the rent ordinance by the rent board such as to allowance for paperless billing increase the number of renters who could avail themselves of the right to organize and enhance transparency provided to prospective renters.

I was particularly pleased to support language providing the rent board with discretion to waive or reduce fees for residential properties leased or controlled by non-profit affordable housing providers.

And to be very clear um uh given some of the uh public comments that have been made um this is something that I felt very strongly about uh when it came to nonprofit housing providers because these nonprofits already provide an important public service to the community and tend to already be under stringent federal requirements to provide an affordable habitable place for renters to live so they are already regulated and so the point was to ensure that as they are already regulated um that those fees uh be used for uh to address habitability concerns and make sure uh the renters have a hospitable, habitable place to live there that is affordable um the provision related to sb 340 addresses an ambiguity that I faced many times as a former member of the zoning adjustments board.

I believe my colleague, Council member O'Keefe, was in a similar vote um uh uh I am supportive of changes that have been made in consultation with the BPOA to remove uh noticing requirements uh related to uh the treatment of related to golden duplexes or housing types that map onto the golden duplex framework.

Looking ahead, though, I encourage us as a city to prioritize education and outreach on that point.

Uh this is something the noticing piece is something for which I have advocated since 2018, and I will continue to do so.

Uh this is a topic that would benefit from clear guidance and will help property owners as well as interests understand their rights under the law.

Um, and I look forward to still seeing how such a noticing provision could be incorporated into the ordinance, or at the minimum, how we could support a consorted educational efforts, perhaps along the lines of what the BPOA already provides in its model uh lease, and perhaps that framework could be used to uh provide that same information uh to those who currently um do not have access to it.

I also just really want to appreciate how um just the careful deliberate way in which um we have um this provision has made it uh continue to make it has continue to make it easier to subdivide um ATUs where appropriate uh to create new housing opportunities while ensuring that sitting tenants can avail themselves of the same rights with which they started.

And with that, uh I will um make a motion to support the council member Lunapara um item, which I'm about to call sponsor.

Thank you.

A second from Council Member Bartlett.

Okay, um, I'm so sorry, I think I just accidentally hit reset, but I believe that council member Humbert was next on the queue.

Did you have comments?

No, I don't.

Okay.

Did anyone else have comments?

Okay.

All right, very good.

There's a motion, there's a second, no other comments.

Can we?

Oh, do you have comments?

Sorry, can I just ask that we incorporate the language that I brought forward in the presentation because that was not in our supplemental about the replacement units, yes, as incorporated in the presentation made on the dies tonight.

And also, that go in the ordinance.

You'll you'll have a citation as to exactly where that thank you.

And that's okay with you, Councilmember Bartlett as well as the secondary.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Okay, all right.

Well, I do just want to thank you very much so much for all of your work.

Um, I know that this was a lot to go through, and um I really do appreciate you meeting with folks, especially those who have reached out and and you know, coming to a place where where um, you know, we could agree on things.

Uh, I also see, sorry, Councilmember Black if you have his hands up.

I want to thank Council Member Lunapara and the Red Board team for bringing this forward.

Um, I share some of the feedback we've heard from the community tonight.

Like, you know, I do want to get to a point where I hope we can all be encouraging um folks to come into the market.

I do worry that we, as we continue to make changes and amend um uh the rent stabilization um the ordinance that the continued changes do create some instability, um, and I think we need to do a better job of encouraging small landlords, many of whom live in district six to come into the market, and there needs to be more education, more outreach, and we need to sort of be building bridges and not sort of dividing the tenant and landlord um relationship.

So, again, I I support this measure mostly because it addresses a really important loophole on the nonprofit side.

This was a real issue and a real challenge that needed to be addressed, but I do think we all need to do a better job of trying to make this a place where people should want to be marketing small units to tenants.

We have a housing crisis in this city, and we need to protect current tenants.

We also need to protect future tenants.

Part of protecting future tenants is making sure we have more supply of rental housing on the market, which is also supporting people who who have housing are just not currently putting on the market.

So again, I I I hope we can do more of that as well.

That's something I'm committed to in the months ahead.

I hear it all the time from people in my district.

We need to do a better job of of encouraging that kind of activity and not penalizing that kind of activity.

But again, I support this measure.

I want to thank Councilmember Lutamara and Councilmember Traegum for helping to try and thread the needle here.

Thank you.

Um yes, so just thanking Council Member Lunopara, the Rent Board, and Rent Board staff, our city attorney's office, her staff.

Um I know we've talked to a lot of different folks over the past, I can't remember now, couple weeks or so.

Um, but yeah, just want to say that these cleanup items are necessary, and um I support them going to voters for approval.

And I'm also very supportive of the waiver option for the 501c3 nonprofits providing affordable housing.

Thank you all so much for being here and speaking um in support of this as well.

Um these cleanup items and clarifications will be beneficial to tenants as well as to landlords.

So thank you all very much.

And with that, let's take the vote.

Um, and then did you want to designate nope?

Sorry, Councilmember Linoparra wants to see it.

So sorry.

I just um I I realized I just wanted to thank my colleagues, the rent board folks at the rent board, the city attorney's office, and the folks at BPOA who all put in a lot of effort into getting this done.

And so I just really want to thank everyone, and I'm happy to um volunteer for the to write the um the ballot argument.

Sorry, council member taplin.

Did you have a question or a uh I'll be supporting the motion, but I wanted to just um sort of reflect back.

I'm hearing I'm hearing a lot of folks or I'm hearing folks say that you know us returning to the voters over two years is um disruptive, and I'm recognizing the need to be doing that now to clean up some mistakes from the from the last cycle, and I'm wondering whether we can avoid the need for continuous cleanups and successive iterations of this measure by taking more time to do a deeper, wider, more comprehensive review of the ordinance involving the various stakeholders, so that when we do go back next time.

I mean the report has done that, but I'm thinking about like and replicating the the process that created the original measure in the 80s, like a big massive citywide process that involves all of us.

So that we when we do these measures, we can do them in less frequently.

Nope.

I'm sorry, I can't hear anything.

So if I'm so sorry, no, no, no.

You do did you want to take the roll?

Do you want to designate the authors to write the argument in favor?

Yes, I think that um council member Linopara has already offered to assist with that.

Is anyone else?

Want to join?

Yes.

Okay, um, Councilmember Drake up will join.

And I am happy to join as well, even though I imagine that you have something in mind already.

Okay, thank you very much.

That's what I was asking about, Mark.

Okay, okay.

Um so on the motion to place the measure on the ballot as written in um the supplemental from Councilmember Luna Para, including the uh changes to the resolution and the ballot question and the text of the measure with the further amendment regarding uh replacement units, um, and to designate Councilmember Lunaparra, Councilmember Tregum and Mayor Ishi to author the argument in favor.

Uh on that motion, Councilmember Kessarwani.

Yes, Taplin, Bartlett, yes.

Traga, aye, O'Keefe, yes, Blackaby, yes, Luna Para.

Yes, Humber, yes, and Mayor Ishi.

Yes, okay, motion carries.

All right, motion carries.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Um, okay, so now moving on to public comment for items not listed on the agenda.

Is there any other public comment this evening?

So I always hope that we can find common ground on issues and a council member chaplin.

I I want to advise you that um Amber Whitson had uh contacted city staff last week.

She she generally copies me on emails that she sends out about um a person who has moved in recently who has brought in unscrupulous people and has blocked the sidewalks with stolen bicycles, and she was unfortunately advised that she should just call the police when she says this happened, but for an unhoused person to do that, they're very physically vulnerable, and that's why she's going to the city and saying, can you do something about this so that I don't my name doesn't have to be involved?

Um, and I also wanted to add, um uh again showing how there is common ground here and uh you are aligned on some matters, and um uh uh on uh unrelated matter.

She texted me.

Harrison is horrible.

I hope they don't bring their shit here.

So I just wanted you to know that you are do have common ground.

Uh Amber was uh at the Spark lot on Grayson, but she didn't receive she was housing assessed, but almost four years later, she doesn't have housing.

And for her, if she were able to secure the apartment that the landlord prospective landlord promised her for months ago, but is now put out on the market.

Um, it would be cheaper than the cost of being in a motel at a time that our motel conversions are in jeopardy anyway, and may not lead to permanent housing.

This that would be a lower cost for her if only someone could facilitate it through the system.

Thank you.

Thanks, Carol.

I think there's one person online.

It's just uh, uh somebody listed as Zoom user.

All right, it's me.

Oh, it's Moni Law.

I just wanted to invite everyone, this a closure here for the fact that we have a landlord's welcome and a huge workshop with all of the organizations that service property owners in Berkeley being hosted at the Berkeley rent board offices in two weeks' time.

So check out your social media, and we will be there providing information and guidance and all the clarity that people have been talking about the last few minutes on this last item.

So landlords workshop uh opening with all the groups that are there in one space from room to room, and they will be able to interact and get a lot of education about how things go and to be encouraged to enter that marketplace to provide housing if they have not started to do so.

So I just want to make sure everybody puts that on their calendar.

I believe it's July 22nd, yeah, Wednesday.

Um, and it's from 10 to 11:30, I believe.

But check your uh Instagram, your Facebook, yes, our website, all the details are there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

One more with uh caller with a phone number ending in 211.

Hi, uh good evening.

So our measures are too out of town.

That's why we would not be able to connect with you today.

But what we're doing all of us have to worry about first of all is the global warming.

It's an awful situation.

I mean, break to sixty two years, never been to cold in the summer.

We have so there's a problem with a lot of the sleep in the it's cold as well in Europe.

You will know, but also we have a mother from the white house, who is totally breaking all rules.

Well, or rules.

Pretty worried about, not myself.

I don't care.

My family, your family, everybody else.

Anyway, I will love to hear from you soon.

And you have my number.

Thank you.

That's all.

Okay.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second.

Can we take the role on that, please?

Um.

Who who second or okay.

Uh to adjourn the meeting, Councilmember Cassarwani.

Gone.

Uh Councilmember Chaplin.

Yes.

Bartlett.

Yes.

Dragon.

I.

O'Keefe.

Blackaby.

Yes.

Lunapara.

Yes.

Humber.

Yes.

And Mary Ishii.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Meeting is adjourned.