City Council - Regular Meeting

Ready in the balcony, of course. They're always ready in the balcony. OK, the minute the clock, it's not really a clock striking anything.

It's the minute the iPad clock says it's 6 o'clock.

In less than a minute, we are going to start.

All right.

Not yet. It seems like it takes longer when you're watching, right?

When you're watching.

All right, it is now 6 o'clock. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City Council meeting for the City of Alameda. Tonight is Tuesday, June 16, 2026, and we are about to go into a special City Council meeting, a closed session. But we will start with the roll call, and so I would like to ask Assistant City Clerk Ashley Ziba if she would please call the roll. Council Member Stace, Bowler? Here. Faisal?

Here.

Pryor? Here. Mayor Eziashira? I'm also here, and that would be Vice Mayor Pryor. And so then, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment on the closed session items? We do not. All right. We will close public comment on the closed session items. And we are about to adjourn to closed session to consider just one item. Madam Clerk, would you please introduce that item?

3A is conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9A, case name Sean Gillian versus City of Alameda Court Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, case number ADJ20098155.

Thank you. And so at this time, the council and all the members of staff who are involved in this particular item will meet in room 391, just behind the dais here. And we have every intention of being back out before the public at 7 o'clock this evening. So see you then. Don't go far. All right. Thank you so much. Council, places, everyone. Are we ready in the balcony? What a question. They're always ready in the balcony. All right. If the balcony is ready, we're all ready. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the city council meeting for the city of Alameda. Tonight is Tuesday, June 16, 2026. And the council has recently returned from closed session. And I would like to ask our panelists Assistant or deputy city clerk? Assistant. Assistant city clerk Ashley Ziba to please announce action taken in closed session, if any.

This case involves a workers' compensation claim for cancer filed by Sean Gillian, a former employee of the fire department who served approximately 26 years with the city. Mr. Gillian passed away shortly after filing his claim. The council has authorized the city attorney to settle Mr. Gillian's claim in an amount not to exceed $200,000 by four eyes.

All right, and do you want to let us know who those votes were?

Four ayes, Councilmember Buller, Daszak, Vice Mayor Pryor, and Mayor Izzy Ashcroft.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Jensen was absent. I was absent, yeah.

I was in a closed session. I'm talking, actually. And thank you for. That courtesy. All right. So with that, we will adjourn the special closed session. And I will call to order the regular city council meeting. And I'd like to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member Daszak, would you lead us in the pledge?

Happy to. Please rise as you are able. Ready, begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Desaad. We have no proclamations or special orders of the day or announcements this evening. And then under agenda changes, the one change I will note is that we are eventually going to have a presentation by the Youth Advisory Board. They're the Youth Advisory Board of the Alameda Family Services. They're putting together a domestic violence prevention video. It's turning out to be a little more complicated a project than they anticipated. And they really want it to be perfect before they present it to the public. So soon, I think this summer, we will hear from the youth. So no presentation this evening. And so Madam Clerk, we're there. And if people could just silence their phones, the mayor would be much less distracted. Thank you. Madam Clerk, did you have any other agenda changes?

No agenda changes other than 3A will not be heard.

And that is, yeah, 3A, that is the, was to be the video. Okay, so with that, we will move on to oral communications. And this is for non-agenda items, so items that aren't on the agenda tonight. And speakers may address the council regarding any matter that's not on the agenda over which the council has jurisdiction. We take 15 minutes at the top of the agenda to hear all the non-agenda oral communications. If there's more speakers left at the end, there's another opportunity under Section 9 at the end of the regular calendar. You do have to be physically present in chambers to make oral communications on non-agenda items. So Madam Clerk, do we have any oral communications? We have two, so they'll each get three minutes. The first is Ralph Walker. Welcome, Speaker Walker.

Good afternoon. Good evening, I mean. My name is Coach Ralph Walker. I'm the founder and head coach at the Don Grant Alameda Youth Track Club. And I've been fighting for the youth at SNL's track. And me and Pascal Cadero's assistant secretary, she fell out with me. Every time she sees me, she disrespects me. She disrespected me real bad at a school board meeting. I got up and asked some gentleman when was the next school board meeting. And she was sitting over here. And she ran way over here and asked him, what did he ask you? That was the one I got to move away from. But she ran up behind me and said, are you leaving?

And so, Coach Walker, if I could just remind you, you need to talk about items that the council has jurisdiction over.

OK, but I'm just saying, if y'all can speak to her, y'all ain't got to do nothing but speak to her. Leave me alone. I'm telling you, because if I started protesting like I always was with my board, y'all ain't going to like it. And if I don't get to see a snail's track next year, it's because I even gave her advice how to get a bond measure on the ballot and get the city of Alameda, the residents, to pay for it. And she did it. And then they paid for it. And they're going to try to tell me I can't use it all of a sudden. I feel like I was used. And I've been on there ever since. I don't appreciate that. Y'all can speak to her and say, let me use it. I want to end this track stuff in Alameda where I started at. I grew up over here. I'm an Alameda long time back in the 60s with Don Grant. I want to end my track season. Don Grant wanted to put it to bed, whatever they say, next year. I want to stop. I don't want to go touch with them no more. When Alameda College was charging me $5,000 a season, I did it. And I can't afford it. Amy knows. Amy knows. She was there right with me. You know, I want to end my track career in January. If I don't, I'm telling you, it's going to be all bad. Not violent, but it's going to be nerve-racking. All right? I want to use the track. I've got the 100 black men in Bay Area. I can use their $25,000, $25,000, whatever insurance policy like I've been using ever since I started coaching in 2007. OK, so if y'all can help me, I appreciate it. I know y'all can't do nothing, but y'all can suggest, tell them, let me use the track. And that was wrong what they did, because she said, can't nobody in Alameda use Incidental's track. Residents, none of the residents, after they OK'd that bond measure for them to get a new stadium and a new track. Then it'll come out about, can't nobody use it. They should have said that before they voted on it. I was sneaky, and I was dirty. So whatever y'all can do, y'all be helping me out. Plus, y'all be helping the city out, because I'm about ready to go to the FBI and say she's been racially profiling me. like I did past in Berkeley.

OK?

So y'all help me out if y'all care about these kids. I'm a good coach. I'm a proven winner. I had one kid, he won the Junior Olympics 100 meters. And then he won the long jump. Look at that. And listen, look at me. And I'm coaching that good. I can coach kids like that. And I care about their grades and their afterlife, too. So it ain't just track.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Our next speaker. Joe Zimmerman. Welcome, Speaker Zimmerman. And I always say, make that microphone yours, whatever level you need.

OK. Good evening. Hi. To the City Council of Alameda. June is month of the most sacred heart of Jesus month. Yet I see no city flags flying for this special month for Catholics. There's only one private group flag that this city chooses to fly every June. So much for equity and inclusion. Only one ideology is allowed on our streets. The city should allow all private group flags or no private group flags. This council continues to privilege one ideology over all others. Interestingly enough, it is the ideology of deadly sin, pride. What does this ideology promote? It promotes teaching our children about deviant sexual acts. It teaches our children to chop off their genitals, to drug themselves up with sterilizing chemicals that will ruin their bodies and their health. It has legitimized the grooming of our children to a sexually deviant lifestyle, which used to be against the law. Now it is promoted on our streets. When will the city council and the city celebrate real families, a father, a mother, and their progeny, to create a cohesive family, community, and city, not this death cult ideology? Government streets are not private platforms. They're supposed to represent every resident equally, regardless of a person's background, identity, beliefs, or affiliations. Once a city starts selecting certain groups for special visibility on our flagpoles, it is no longer acting as a neutral public institution. Therefore, I request you remove these pride flags from our city streets. Thank you.

Thank you. And I will just note for the audience that what we have when we have oral communication whenever we're speaking is the practice of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech. And so while the city of Alameda does not share all the views that are espoused in these chambers, people are allowed to voice their opinions. And that is part of what makes this country special, that we have that freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of worship. But I will also direct people's attention to the banner that I'm looking straight at at the back of the room that's been hanging there for years that says, where everyone belongs. All right. That was our final comment. Okay. So with that we will close oral communication non-agenda items and we will move on to the consent calendar. These are routine items that are approved by one motion unless council members remove items for discussion. Removed items will be heard at the end of the regular agenda and council members may speak for up to three minutes on the consent calendar. So first of all, are there any items that the council wants to pull from the consent calendar? Looking left, looking right, seeing none. I know what you're going to say, but I'm not there yet. I've got a script. OK, so any questions that any council members want to ask? Because you can always ask a question about a consent calendar item without pulling it. Questions going once, going twice? OK, sold, no. OK, so then, Madam Clerk, I think you need to announce some hearings.

Yes, we have five. Now is the time for public comment for five public hearings. 5H is collection of the water quality and flood protection fees on the property tax bills and adoption of related resolution. 5I is a resolution ordering levy of assessments, maintenance assessment district 01-01 Marina Cove. 5J is a resolution dissolving zone 7. of the Island City Landscaping and Lighting District 84-2, 5K as a resolution ordering levy of assessments, Island City Landscaping and Lighting District 84-2, Zones 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8, and 5L is for comments on the summary report associated with the economic development subsidy for the Oakland Brutes in Seoul in an amount not to exceed $150,000 in support of a World Cup team at an Alameda facility during the World Cup tournament in summer 2026.

Thank you for that. And then I believe that two of my colleagues, maybe my colleagues to the right here. That's physically to the right, not necessarily ideologically. I believe, do we have some recusals? Yes. Council Member Bollard, let's start with you.

Thank you so much. Need to recuse myself from item 5E. And this is not for a legal reason. It's just to avoid appearance of conflict. I work at the district attorney's office. And item 5K, which is due to a possible conflict due to an investment in commercial property near Park Street. All right.

And how about you, Councilmember Desai?

I will recuse myself from 5K because my residence is right next to it.

the Webster landscape lighting district, okay, so just K for you, okay, all right and Mr. City attorney can they stay or should they?

As long as there's no comment and discussion I think they can stay in council can just take the part if there are comments and discussion then I would advise the councilman I'm quite sure they'll behave themselves, right?

OK. All right. So just bearing in mind the, and I know the clerk got that all down, the recusals from those combination of items. OK. So then do we have any speakers? We have one remote. OK. Corinne Kirschbaum. Welcome, Speaker Kirschbaum. Do we have a connection?

It's possible. She's unmuted. Hello?

She's unmuted. Hello? I don't know if I'm being heard. You're on mute.

You are. We can hear you.

I'm not physically there tonight because I'm not allowed to be there because of a temporary restraining order that the city clerk has decided to file against me. Violence? I have never shown one sign of violence. At the last town hall meeting right before public comment, the mayor again stated please treat others the way you want to be treated. and said we can all have respectful and civil conversations and i walked to the podium before my prepared commentary informed this council that another unhoused rescue 35 year old elijah has passed away City after the city you will bring the dollar not happen out and then you get from what I know that there is no. There is no visible reaction from Council and I continue to think I know that not one council member with what every member with the down right or do something else so I asked me on the question you may have moved about respect and so we're going to take you know what. And the council to. Obviously, you have proved me correct that they don't. My time expired. I may have said another sentence or two while gathering my things and leaving. I was later told an officer was ordered to write me a citation, even though officers said they did not want to. The following Monday, I was served with CR of the papers. I want to be very clear. I have never threatened or shown violence towards anyone.

You know, Ms. Kirschbaum, I'm going to stop you there, because this is oral communication on the consent calendar. And I'm having a hard time identifying which consent calendar item. you're referencing. Can you help us with that? Ms. Kirschbaum, is there a particular consent calendar item you wish to comment on? OK. Hearing no response and everything I heard up till now was not related to the consent calendar, we'll end that comment that was purportedly on the consent calendar. Do we have any further remote speakers? No. OK. With that, I will close public comment on the consent calendar. Okay, council, any comments from council on the consent calendar? Any consent calendar items? Okay, so what I'm looking for then is a motion to approve the consent calendar in a second, and we will note from the outset that Councilmember Boller will be recusing himself from items 5E and 5K, and Councilmember Dasog will be recusing himself from item 5K. All right. Motion? So moved. It's been moved by Vice Mayor Pryor, seconded by Council Member Daszak. All those in favor, please signify by stating aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That we approve the consent calendar with a unanimous motion. All right. Then we move on to the regular agenda items. Madam Clerk, would you please, oh, this is always a fun one. Would you please introduce the first item, item 7A?

7A is adoption of resolutions reappointing John Lipp and Jane Smith as members of Commission on Persons with Disabilities, reappointing Yatin Shastri as a member of the Golf Commission, and reappointing Elise Hunter as a member of the Public Utilities Board.

All right. And so with that, so do you have something to read? We need to approve it. Yeah. OK. Oh, we need to approve it, of course. Hello. It's like I've never done this before. in my eighth year as mayor okay so council we i mean we just heard the the resolutions we are so fortunate to have such great committed talented um community members volunteer their time to serve on these these various boards and commissions And I'm thrilled that some of our incumbents were willing to serve another term. So I need a motion to adopt the resolutions reappointing the individuals who the clerk introduced, and also a second.

So moved.

All right. It's been moved by Council Member Daszak, seconded by Council Member Boehler. All those in favor, please signify by stating aye. Aye. All right. And no no's or no abstentions, correct? All right, that passes unanimously. All right, on with the show. So three of them could not make it tonight. But we do have John Lipp, who is a member of the Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Some of you may know and remember John from being the longtime executive director of the Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter. I gave him about five minutes after he stepped down, retired from that position, right? Maybe five days, but not much more, and called him and said, have I got a position for you? And I am so grateful that you said yes, John. So thank you, and welcome back.

Thank you very much.

So now this is just taking the oath of office again. I will.

Thank you so much.

And Sean, would you like to say a few words about your position on this commission?

I would indeed. And first of all, Mayor Ashcraft, Vice Mayor Pryor, Council Members Daszak, Bowler, Jensen, staff, I just want to thank you all very much. It's a real honor to continue serving alongside my fellow commissioners. It's a wonderful group of people. And I'm grateful to provide my perspective as both a member of, a resident of the city of Alameda and somebody who is personally living how to live the disability, challenging disability in many new ways every single day. I really wanted to take my time to acknowledge the city staff, especially Lillian Jewell, our amazing city's ADA coordinator. She supports our commission. She provides invaluable expertise. and thoughtful guidance to help ensure that we all can make the biggest impact possible as commissioners. And we are very grateful for that. And I also want to thank all the city staff and department heads who have actively sought out our perspectives on issues such as housing, transportation, code enforcement, sidewalks, and other efforts to make Alameda more accessible for all of us. No city is perfect. But our staff and our elected officials are committed to removing barriers and creating a community that is more accessible for all of us. And for that, I'm very grateful to continue serving. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for those eloquent words and also for sharing your lived experience with the commission and thereby the greater city. So you're making it, as you noted, a more accessible city for all, for people of all different abilities. So thank you for that. We all belong here. We do. We sure do. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. Thank you. And you know what? I just got word that one of our reappointed commissioners, and that would be Elise Hunter from the Public Utilities Board, is actually joining us. She's not on camera, but she's joining us remote. And do we have her on the line now? Yes, we do. Hi. Would you like to say a few words about your service on the Public Utilities Board?

I would. Thank you so much.

Thank you for saying yes to reappointment.

Thank you. I just wanted to first of all thank the mayor and the council members for the reappointment and the opportunity to continue to serve the Public Utilities Board of Alameda Municipal Power. It's been a real honor and a pleasure to serve alongside my fellow commissioners who are very knowledgeable and thoughtful and of course the very talented and dedicated AMP staff here at Alameda. And it has really been so interesting and so fulfilling to have this position and continue to maintain a portfolio of 100% clean power to serve Alamedans. to strive to keep our rates affordable, which can be challenging in these economic conditions, and to offer customer programs that are equitable and well-suited that can serve all Alamedans. And those goals are not just one-time actions. They require constant work and focus, much of which is shouldered by AMP staff. And it has just been a real privilege to have this position and continue onward. So thank you again for the opportunity. And I really, really appreciate being able to do this for my community.

Thank you. And we appreciate you. And Ms. Hunter has actual professional expertise and background in solar, I believe. Is that correct?

Yes. Solar and energy storage.

Right. Very important. Thank you so much. Thank you. And, you know, I'm just going to tag on to Commissioner, or Board Member, actually, Hunter's comments, because earlier this month, Alameda received an award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors. We were recognized... We were the first place award winners for cities of 100,000 or less population. We received the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Award, and it was specifically for our city's citywide equitable decarbonization program, spearheaded by the amazing Danielle Mueller, our sustainability and resilience coordinator, but working in coordination with AMP, and there's general manager Tim Haines in the audience. And this is to make sure that Everyone can avail themselves of electrification, not just homeowners, not just folks who happen to have an electric vehicle. But we have rebates or grants for used EVs. If you are a renter and you live someplace without a charger to recharge your vehicle, we're doing curbside. chargers, just a whole host of things that you can find out more about on AMP's website. But anyway, it was a very proud moment to accept the award. And then for the rest of the weekend that I was in Long Beach for the conference, to have mayors from around the country come up and say, thank you for that inspiration. We want to do something like you're doing. But we've got a little head start because we have An electric, municipally owned electric utility that's been around since 1857, Mr. Haynes? Something like that? Thereabouts. Thereabouts. Anyway, just after, not too long after the gold rush. So anyway, thank you for all that. Okay, back to our regular programming. So now we move on to item 7B. And Madam Clerk, would you please introduce that item?

public hearing to consider introduction of an ordinance amending the Alameda Marina Master Plan to modify the affordable housing requirement for phase three of Alameda Marina Master Plan to decrease the required number of affordable units. The environmental effects of the proposed project were considered and disclosed in the Alameda Marina Master Plan Environmental Impact Report State Clearinghouse number 2016102064 and the Alameda General Plan 2040 Environmental Impact Report State Clearinghouse Number two zero two one zero three zero five six three no further environmental reviews required under the California Environmental Quality Act Thank you and welcome and tell us about yourself yourself

Thank you, esteemed mayor, council members. I very much appreciate your time this evening. My name is Tristan Sweer. I'm a planner two, staff level planner here in our planning division. And I am here to introduce to you folks an item before you, which is an amendment to the existing Alameda Marina master plan regarding their affordable housing requirements. So let me just provide a little bit of context first before we dig in. A friendly reminder, our Alameda Marina project is a mixed-use project with quite a few housing units located on the northern waterfront area. It's phased and Two of the three residential phases have either been completed or are substantially underway. That is, you'll see the launch, which is, of course, the major multifamily development and, of course, the townhomes, which are a series of attached residential units to the east of that. And in between the two is the third and final residential phase, which is the foundry. a large apartment building that is currently working its way through the building permit process. Just a little more context. The city originally had approved this back in 2018 and approved an amendment to the master plan affecting the total number of units in 2023. This amendment before you is regarding changes to the city's inclusionary housing requirements and how they can be reflected in this project. So the Amendment, which was approved by council earlier this month, as I'm sure you folks all recall, added more options to the inclusionary housing requirements so that projects that can't otherwise find a way to pencil can meet their obligation to include affordable housing in a variety of different ways rather than in sort of just one breakdown of affordable units. During the process, I'm sure the council recalls developers were very interested in how this might apply to their projects. And so now we're seeing the first sort of result of that, which is a developer coming forward and trying to avail themselves of those new regulations. So the developer is requesting to comply with the 8% very low requirement. It doesn't change the total number of overall units, but will modify the number of affordable units in the project. Ultimately, this, as we understand it, is required for the project to move forward. And so we received the recommendation from the planning board to adopt an ordinance, or rather to recommend that the city council adopt an ordinance to modify the master plan to comply with the new inclusionary housing requirements and allow the project to proceed with its building permit. So at that time, excuse me, at this time, the staff's recommendation is to introduce the ordinance amending the Alameda Marina Master Plan to have their affordable housing requirements reflect the newly adopted ordinance, which will take effect early next month. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Council, do we have any clarifying questions before we go on to public comment? Council Member Jensen, would that be your hand up? Council Member Jensen.

Can you explain how the 8% inclusionary very low income requirement reflects the initial ordinance that established that at least 15% there would be 15% low, very low, and moderate income units for new developments in Alameda?

I'm not sure I understand the question. You're asking how it complies with the new ordinance or the old ordinance?

Well, there was a requirement several years ago before I joined the city council that projects of more than five units would be required to have at least 15% inclusionary. And so can you explain how this relates to that requirement?

Sure, yeah. So this is the inclusionary housing, excuse me, the inclusionary requirement that was approved by council earlier this month modified that very percentage. And so the initial two phases of the project were entitled and at least in the case of RAP 8, constructed under that 15% threshold. Now that those two are either substantially under construction or have already been constructed and occupied, this final portion is being considered independently to comply with this new requirement at the 8% threshold.

And can you comment on how the 8% threshold will be established in the future, or whether that can be amended and is expected to be amended to further reduce the inclusionary housing options or requirements?

The expectation is that there would be no further amendments to this master plan. And then for other projects going forward, they would have the option to comply with one of the three pathways available to them for inclusionary housing. So in some cases, 8%, in some cases, other breakdowns based on the ordinance that we adopted earlier this month.

And that was going to be my last question. Thank you. Compliance would be 8% very low income, which is not the mix that was initially established. It could have been different inclusionary mixes. But with this change, it would be 8% very low income in this particular project or in a different project that a developer would choose this option.

I would say this phase, but otherwise, yes. That is exactly correct, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other clarifying questions, council? Let's go to public comment. Madam Clerk? Sean Murphy? Welcome, Speaker Murphy.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, city council members, Sean Murphy, Alameda Marina Pacific Development. We appreciate all the hard work that the city council has done over the past year that studied the importance of affordable housing across the island. Last month's unanimous approval by the planning board for this amendment, it's an acknowledgment together with, of course, the city council's work for the critical housing shortage that we have on the island. And it sets a path forward so that new housing can get built. We delivered the launch project in 2023, which consisted of 368 units. And this was the first phase of that Alameda Marina master plan. We've secured all the necessary entitlements and are in the final plan check phase, fourth round of review for the building department. And this will be the last vertical phase for the master plan, which is called the Foundry Project, or also RAPB. The project includes a total of 259 units and one live work unit. The foundry is not a typical infill project. It includes a significant development of the important bay trail, public open space, environmental remediation of both fee simple and tide land, deep soil stabilization, sea level rise protection, adjacent commercial core parking lot, and important public open space. We plan to build the project utilizing the option three, which is the 8% very low. It will deliver 21 important very low housing units, which are in desperate need today. That is a shift from the moderate units that this island is still struggling to occupy. So the proposed master plan amendment brings consistency with the recent city council unanimous approval. Foundry is truly shovel-ready. All of the financing is in place, and we're committed to building this important housing project. We appreciate the city's partnership so that we can add important housing to the island. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker. We have one remote, Corinne Kirschbaum. Welcome, Speaker Kirschbaum.

Hello. Hello.

And that's not the first time.

This is not the first time that she has excluded me from meetings. You don't want to hear the truth. And the truth is that you are covering up millions and millions and millions of dollars.

OK, Ms. Kirschbaum, once again, I need to remind you that this is not oral communication, non-agenda items. This is a specific agenda item. And specifically, we are discussing an ordinance to amend the Alameda Marina master plan. And so your comments need to be confined to that topic and that topic alone to be able to continue your speaking time. Are you able to do that?

Yeah, I am. But it doesn't give you any direction on this to when to do it. And she shouldn't take my name.

I'm afraid I didn't understand the last sentence. Ms. Kirschbaum, was there anything you wanted to say about this Alameda Marina master plan amendment, proposed amendment?

I don't need to say anything. Am I muted again?

All right. I find those comments non-responsive to this particular item. So we'll end that particular comment. Are there any other public comments, Madam Clerk? That was our last comment. All right. So I am actually going to lead off the comments. on this proposed amendment. And first, I want to thank Mr. Sean Murphy and Alameda Marina for all the work you have done, because it is indeed a housing project, but it's much more than that. And some of us, I think Councilmember De Saad, you and I were on the council when we approved the master plan, I believe. It isn't just multifamily housing. It's also commercial and maritime space, commercial and maritime commercial space, shoreline open space, a 530-slip marina, and a lot of work that was done to provide protection from sea level rise to not only that project but the surrounding neighborhoods. And so I'm as big a housing advocate as anyone on this council. I serve on the League of California Cities Housing Community and Economic Development Policy Committee. And we spend a lot of time talking about this. So the way I see this, and of course, council did just earlier this month unanimously approve the change to the inclusionary housing ordinance. But our goal has to be to get this housing built. If we are putting forward expectations that developers can't meet because of circumstances beyond their control, we're not serving anyone's best interest. We're not getting that housing built. We're not housing people who need homes. And you're absolutely correct, and the council determined that too. When we do these ordinances, it's at a point in time, and we draw from all the available data we have. But nothing is fixed in time, and things change. Economic circumstances change. I'm not sure we could have predicted where some of the places we've come to recently. But the fact of the matter remains that that moderate category is actually being served with other even market rate units that are affordable by design, but yet we have this need for the very low-income units, and that's what's being presented here today. So I think this is a very reasonable proposal, and I am certainly prepared to support it, but I would love to hear from my other colleagues. Council Member Dessau, Council Member Bowler, anything from either of you?

I don't really have much to say other than to express how excited I am about Alameda kind of reclaiming that part of the shoreline. Several weeks ago, for example, there was an event along Grand Street, where Grand Street meets the estuary. an event put together by, I think, the outfit called Two Marys. And it was a great activated spot. It was wonderful to see so many people there. And I think this kind of a project, bringing more people along to that area, is going to make that part of Alameda even more exciting. So this is just an important phase of an ongoing project. So we certainly support it and wish you the best of luck.

Thank you. How about you, Council Member Bullard?

Yeah, I just echo my fellow council members, Mayor and Councilmember Daszak. I just think that the project, and congratulations, it's been a long road, I know, but these multiple uses and the environmental infrastructure and the recreational use coupled with really taking care of some important needs on housing. We have a lot of work to do still, but this is an important step, especially in this moment in time when there's so much constraint from the economics to make this happen. So I'm in support of the plan.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Pryor.

Yes, I was going to say I agree with everything the three of you had said. I'm very excited about this. And I viewed the space, and it's beautiful. And it's really heartening that people that are going to qualify under a very low income get to share this space because it's you know, it's just sending a message, a vital message to these families, you know, that they're important and that they matter. And the amenities are amazing. And I just, I like the trend of how we are doing housing for people, like without the stigma of segregation or you know, these clusters that we had done like 50 years ago. So I'm just so, it's a beautiful building, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Jensen?

No, I have no comments. I will support this.

Great. So then what I am looking for is, and then, oh, I do have from staff just one clarifying question. I think that I read that the Oh, it's the case of the freezing iPad. By memory, there's a 30-day statute of limitations. Is that on the ordinance, the modified ordinance that we passed? Explain just the mechanics of that.

So if I'm understanding correctly, your concern is about sort of the effective date of these various things and how they overlap? Yeah.

Exactly.

So as I understand it, the city council did their second reading and adoption of the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Amendments on the 2nd. Therefore, that will take effect a month from that day, 30 days later. Likewise, this ordinance will still need to be read a second time before the council. And then upon adoption, it will be It takes effect in 30 days, which, of course, will be outside of the effective date of the Inclusionary Housing Amendments.

Yes, exactly. I've got my pages to move. So it is indeed what you were saying, that any decision by the council to approve the requested decrease, which I think we're going to get unanimously, is dependent on the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Amendments becoming effective after completion of the 30-day statute of limitations. Is that 30 days from? July 2nd or whatever 30 days from July 2nd is the effective date of the ordinance okay all right that's all I wanted to know thank you all right so what I'm looking for counsel is the approval of the introduction of this ordinance amending the Alameda marina master plan to modify the affordable housing requirement for phase 3 as detailed in your staff reports who will make that motion So it's been moved by Councilmember Daszak, seconded by Councilmember Bowler. Any further comments, discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor please signify by stating aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That's unanimous. Thank you so much. And thank you to staff who worked so hard on this too and for keeping us informed. All right, we are moving right along to item 7C. Oh, and Madam Clerk, before you, why don't you introduce it and then talk about housekeeping, okay?

Introduction of ordinance amending Alameda Municipal Code Article 15, rent control limitations on evictions and relocation payments to certain displaced tenants to prohibit the use of ratio utility billing systems for utility charges and providing a process for landlords to receive a one-time utility adjustment for rent. The staff has requested 15 minutes for the presentation.

Yeah. Counsel, you've read this staff report, so you know there's a lot going on here. And so normally a staff report is 10 minutes, but Mr. Chapin has requested 15. What I need is a motion, a second, and then at least four affirmative votes. Five would be better to give him the requested 15 minutes. Who will make that motion?

May I do a recusal first?

Oh, sorry, sorry. You have a recusal.

Yeah, I just need to recuse myself because I do have currently a financial interest in some residential rental properties. Okay.

Thank you for that reminder. Okay, we'll wait just a minute. Did you have a question?

Oh, no, I was just going to move that we allot 15 minutes for that presentation.

Thank you. That's been moved by Vice Mayor Pryor, seconded by... If we could move things along, that'd be great. Council Member Daszak, seconds. OK. All those in favor. And I do need this one to be unanimous, because it's four votes that it takes. All those in favor, please signify by stating aye. Aye. OK. That was four. Hello. Welcome. And go ahead and introduce yourself.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Bill Chapin, Director of the Alameda Rent Program. Also representing the Rent Program here tonight is Ryan Halpern, Management Analyst, who, among other things, really took a lead in some of the outreach that we did on this item. Tonight, I am presenting a proposal that would amend the city's rent ordinance to change the regulations concerning how landlords are permitted to charge tenants for utilities. In many ways, the ideal situation for a rental property when it comes to utilities is that each unit is separately metered to measure the tenant's usage. And then the tenant pays the exact cost for that usage directly to the utility provider or to the landlord. Here in Alameda, where we have a lot of properties that were later split into rental units or were just constructed prior to it becoming common practice to meter units separately, that is not always the case. When there is one master meter for an entire rental property, many landlords simply include the utilities with the rent. Other landlords establish a flat monthly fee for utilities that is separate from the rent. And still other landlords use a system to allocate the utility bill to each rental unit using some sort of estimate. This is known as a ratio utility billing system, or RUBS. And it means that the tenant's utility payments are going to vary month to month. Now, this could be managed by a third party vendor using factors like square footage of the unit or the number of occupants. Or for smaller landlords, they may simply take the utility bill and then divide it equally among the units. In general, the proposal staff that is bringing you tonight will not affect landlords who are using methods A, B, and C here, only methods D and E. Staff tried to research just how common each of these methods is, but unfortunately there are few good sources of data on this. It varies based on utility too. For example, we know it's much more common for electric to be separately metered than water. Based on staff's everyday interactions with the public and feedback from our stakeholder outreach on this issue, it's safe to say that the largest rental complexes in the city tend to use third-party RUBS billing services, and it is less common for mom-and-pop landlords to allocate charges for utilities that are not separately metered. Currently, the rent ordinance allows landlords to charge utility fees, including the use of rubs. Now, the rent ordinance does prohibit landlords from taking a utility that has always been included in the rent and then suddenly beginning to charge a fee for it. This is called unbundling. But as long as it is established in the original rental agreement as a fee that is separate from the rent, then that fee is not subject to the rent ordinance's limitations on rent increases. When staff looked at other jurisdictions in California that have rent control, what we found is that this makes Alameda an outlier. Many jurisdictions, when they first established rent control, defined rent broadly to include all regular payments to the landlord, inclusive of utility fees. Those that did not have generally taken steps in recent years to prohibit landlords from charging fees for utilities that are not separately metered, and that would include San Jose in 2018, Mountain View in 2023, and Berkeley in 2024. There's also a proposed ban for Los Angeles that's currently in committee referral. So why have jurisdictions been enacting these bans? A big concern is making sure that utility fees are not being used as an end run around the limits on rent increases. Rent caps are pretty straightforward. The current rent is X. It can only increase by Y percent. But really, utilities are often more of a gray area. Now, there may be violations of state law if a landlord increases a tenant's utility fee suddenly by $50, and that's not tied to a corresponding increase in utility costs. But depending on the exact wording in the rental agreement, we as the Alameda Rent Program may not be able to do anything about it because it may not actually be prohibited by the rent ordinance. We do know that things like this are happening. At the state level, the Attorney General last year announced a settlement with a large property management company, Mission Rock. The AG said Mission Rock, quote unquote, misused utility fees to impose illegal rent increases in violation of state law. RUBS, in general, often have a problem with transparency and confusing allocation formulas. How we often see this play out at the local level is a tenant will check their utility charges and see that they have suddenly increased dramatically. They will go to the property manager to ask them why, and the property manager replies that, hey, utilities are all handled by this third-party vendor. The tenants try to email the third party vendor. They receive no reply. And so they come to the rent program. We, as the rent program, are obligated to conduct an investigation. But these are highly complex cases involving utility charges across dozens of rental units. It can be difficult to obtain documentation. Once obtained, the documentation, it's often difficult to make sense of how the utilities are being allocated and whether that lines up or not with what is in the tenant's lease. To give an idea of the scope of this, looking at our records, we identified 64 unique tenant inquiries about the validity of utility fees pretty much since the COVID moratorium ended. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. These tenants come from properties where more than 3,000 other tenants could be affected by the same utility billing issues, again, because RUBS are most common at some of the large rental complexes. Just one example involves a 34-unit property. We had a pair of tenants come to us reporting that their monthly utility bills had suddenly increased to exactly $200 per month after a new RUBS provider took over. One tenant provided bills showing that her charge for sewer utilities had quadrupled with no explanation. After opening an investigation, we found several tenants who appear to have been charged for utilities that are identified in the lease as the landlord's responsibility. Staff has devoted, frankly, a ton of time to this investigation, and while we are approaching a resolution, it is still ongoing after 16 months. And that is with a property manager who, in my opinion, has been relatively cooperative. So just giving an idea of the complexity of these investigations. Another example involves a family with two children that was renting out one unit in a fourplex. Their lease stated that the tenant was to pay a proportional share of utilities. What that meant in practice was that the landlord allocated utility charges based on the number of people per household. But then the other three units were vacated as the landlord began some major renovations. So utilities started being divided among fewer and fewer people. The family's average PG&E bill tripled year over year, including one bill for the month of January alone that was more than $1,300. And again, this investigation is ongoing, but it's not entirely clear that any of this is prohibited by the rent ordinance because the lease identifies utility fees as separate from the rent. Staff's research and outreach on this issue has involved analysis of other jurisdictions' policies, interviews with staff in Berkeley and Mountain View, three community workshops, and an online survey with total participation by more than 100 community members. The survey presented three different policy options. Option A would continue to allow use of RUBS with measures to improve transparency by, for example, requiring disclosure of allocation formulas or utility bills. Option B is similar to the approach taken by Berkeley, in which RUBS is gradually phased out by banning its use for new tenancies only. And option C is similar to the approach taken by Mountain View, which involved a ban on all utility fees unless separately metered, with a process to provide landlords that are currently using RUBS with a one-time rent adjustment. Preferences were fairly evenly split between option A and option C. You probably won't be surprised to learn that landlords tended to support option A, tenants tended to support option C, although there was some crossover from across the aisle in both cases. There was, however, very little support for option B. Another 18% did not support any of these three options, and that included both people who thought all three options went too far and those who thought none of the options went far enough. Staff's recommendation most closely follows option C, and it includes several elements. The first is a ban on fees or charges for utilities without a separate meter. For tenancies that currently are charged such a fee, the landlord may continue to do so until they have completed the rent adjustment petition process. The petition process would require landlords to submit documentation showing the average monthly utility charges over the past 12 months. The tenant's rent would be adjusted by that average, plus an additional adjustment for inflation. As a check against unreasonable utility charges, the average would be compared to the monthly utility allowances that are published by the housing authority of the city of Alameda. These allowances estimate reasonable monthly expenses associated with different types of utilities. Then there would be a staggered window for landlords to submit petitions. Larger properties would go first and would have an eight-month window to file, followed by mid-sized properties, and then the smallest properties with two to four units would not need to file until 17 to 24 months after the petition process starts. Once approved, the landlord would then have a deadline to impose the adjustment and to stop using rubs. Tenants who can show that the utility adjustment was not consistent with their rental agreement, in other words, for example, if the calculation was based on a utility that was supposed to be included with their rent, could file their own petition. This would be handled using the existing process for downward rent adjustments with independent hearing officers that are able to issue binding decisions. And then finally, to encourage the installation of submeters, the existing policy for capital improvement plans would be amended to confirm that such a project would qualify for a pass-through, meaning landlords would be able to recover the cost over long periods of time with maximum caps in place, the same as they would for installing a new roof or other electrical and plumbing projects. The only difference is that for submeters only, the process would be available to properties of all sizes. Most capital improvement, the properties with 25 or more units are not eligible. And the thinking behind this is that RUBS is common among these larger rental properties. The process would involve reviewing thousands of submissions, which we do not think we can be accomplished by the rent program's current staffing levels. We're therefore proposing to hire two temporary part-time technicians for the duration of the petition process. We do believe that the operational cost savings and, if necessary, the existing fund balance is sufficient to cover these staffing costs. So ideally, the one-time utility adjustment petition process should yield results where most landlords, at least initially, are continuing to collect the same amount each month from tenants as they are currently. During staff's outreach efforts, we frankly heard fewer concerns about utilities than we did about other costs, especially rising insurance rates. Insurance costs are already way up, the landlord said, and this proposal asked them to take on additional risk of future utility rate increases. Our answer to that has been that the rent ordinance already has an existing procedure in place to address situations where landlords are experiencing significant cost increases, and that would be fair return petitions. If the landlord can demonstrate that their net operating income is not keeping pace with inflation, they have a constitutional right to an upward rent adjustment. If council adopts this ordinance, it will change some of the fundamental assumptions about utility expenses when calculating net operating income. Staff will need to do a comprehensive review of our current petition form, but we'll undertake that. We could also look at streamlining the form while still providing hearing officers with the level of information that they need to make their decisions. And also potentially scheduling special workshops in order to answer landlords' questions about this process. We also heard concerns that the policy is not consistent with the city's conservation and sustainability goals. The issue is that RUBS is already an estimate that is not tied to tenants' actual usage. If a tenant on a RUBS, for example, takes steps to significantly reduce their water or electrical usage, that savings is going to be spread across every rental unit, and that tenant's only going to see marginal cost savings. That's why we are encouraging separate submeters through the capital improvement process. So in summary, staff recommends that you introduce the proposed ordinance to update the city's rent control laws to better regulate utility charges, banning fees for utilities that are not separately metered, and providing a process for landlords to receive a one-time rent adjustment. And I'll be glad to answer questions that you have.

And that was a great time management, Mr. Chabon, with 29 seconds to spare. Thank you for that report. Council, do we have any clarifying questions for Mr. Chabon before we go to public comment? Council Member Jensen?

Thank you. What does it take to file a fair return petition?

So there is a form that is available on the Rent Program website or in the lobby at City Hall West, or we can provide it to you. It is an extensive form. The purpose of the form is to try to document a rental property's total net income and total cost and expenses, to document the... the net operating income in both a base year and the current year, and then compare that to the cost of inflation. Hearing officers have some discretion in a fair return petition hearing. But the general assumption is that they will use this concept of maintenance of net operating income and look at the calculation of net operating income compared to changes in inflation to see if the landlord is still getting the same income that they were before rent control regulations took place compared to what they're receiving now.

So a landlord's income isn't allowed to increase year to year, the rate of income. They have to have a baseline income that has to stay the same?

In order to be approved for an upward rent adjustment, the landlord has to show that their net operating income is increasing at a rate that's less than inflation over that time period.

And so with regard to the fair return petition, there's no way for a landlord to, whether or not if they've included the utility costs into the base rent, there's no way to come forward and just say, well, PG&E or East Bay MUD or some utility increased the rate that I'm paying, and so I'd like to be adjusted. They have to do the fair return petition and go to the hearing officer in order to get that adjustment.

Right. So if we're talking about, if we are talking about a upward rent adjustment after this process has happened where the utility costs have been rolled into the rent and after that's been done, utility rates increase, the landlord looks at their bottom line and finds that their net operating income has been impacted by the rising utility rates, they would have to do a full fair return petition that documents their complete net income and complete expenses. But the entire idea behind it would be to demonstrate that these utility costs have affected that calculation, and therefore they're entitled to an additional upward rent adjustment.

So with, oh, I'm sorry.

I just want to briefly add to Mr. Chapin's very well reasoned answer, which is that when a landlord, if the council adopts the ordinance, the landlord will have essentially a fundamental two choices, which is to either to do a roll-in or to implement separate metering. And so a landlord could choose to implement separate metering and pass through those costs as capital improvement costs. And if the landlord does that, then all of the utility increases will be absorbed by the tenants in the future. And so that is another way for the landlord to protect themselves from future utility increases.

Thank you for that.

And capital improvement costs can be passed through by any landlord in Alameda? Or didn't we restrict the landlords that could roll in capital improvement costs and get

Right, so when council approved changes to the capital improvement policy in 2023, I believe, a policy decision was made to limit that option only to properties that have fewer than 25 rental units. We are making an exception to that cap in this case. And only in the case of installation of separate submeters, that would be available to properties of all sizes.

And so my final question is about going back to if they roll in the utilities after REBS is eliminated, if it's eliminated and landlords roll the utilities into the base rent, then the next year, for example, regardless of what happens with the utilities, the landlord would just be able to raise base rent by the AGA. Is that correct? That's correct. And so the landlord would have no option to increase rent if they had a rent increase over the year or at the beginning of the following year to increase further than the AGA unless they did a fair return. That is correct. OK, thank you.

Any other clarifying questions, council?

Yes. So let's see. There were apparently 64 RUBS-related inquiries by tenants over four years. Is that correct?

Just with the context that those 64 inquiries included, other utility inquiries may not necessarily have specifically been about RUBS, but they were about the validity of utility charges that the tenant was paying.

But 64 would be the maximum number. And that's over a four-year period. So if we're going to average it out, that's roughly 16 per year, if we're going to average it out. OK. So in terms of the number of discrete, broad number of rental units employing the RUBS approach, I think the staff report says our estimate is something like 14% of the rental units.

With the caveat that I would say I do not have high confidence in that percentage. It's based on the survey that we conducted, which was important for us to gauge, certainly, what general sentiment there was, but it is a A small sample size compared to the total number of rental units in the city.

OK. And the staff report, if I'm correct, doesn't include an estimate on the cost associated with metering. Is that correct? So what would be the average cost to purchase the equipment and then the labor to put it in?

Yeah, that's correct. Our understanding is that that can frequently be very expensive, several tens of thousands of dollars, obviously depending on the size. the property, whether you're talking about electric versus talking about water. I'm sure there are large differences there. But our assumption is that it is a very large expense, which, again, is why we saw it as a good candidate for the capital improvement program. Okay.

Thank you.

I'll offer you. OK. Any questions from you?

No, thank you. I think that you're very thorough.

All right. Well, let's go to public comment then. Thank you. Have a seat.

We currently have two speakers, so they'll each get three minutes.

The first is Jennifer Rizzo. Welcome, Speaker Rizzo.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Jennifer Rizzo, and I'm with the California Apartment Association, a nonprofit trade association representing rental housing providers in Alameda. CAA respectfully urges you to reject the ban on the ratio utility billing systems, or RUBS. For many older apartment buildings, RUBS is one of the few practical tools available to allocate shared utility costs. It provides a connection between consumption and cost and encourages residents to conserve water and energy, report leaks, and use resources more responsibly. This is a significant policy change, yet Alameda has not conducted the analysis necessary to understand its consequences. the city staff have not analyzed the likely impacts on rent, on the operating costs, housing operations, or older apartment communities that cannot feasibly be individually sub-metered. And it has not evaluated what would happen to water consumption if RUBs were eliminated. The staff report also states there was an increasing number of complaints, renter complaints. But when the report provided the actual number of renters that contacted them regarding the RUBS, the contacts averaged less than 1% of renters over the last three-year period. Characterizing that as an increasing renter complaints is a little misleading. Less than 1% of renters contacting the city with a question or concern does not justify an outright ban. What is also concerning is the staff report highlights neighboring jurisdictions, including San Jose, that have banned RUBS. But it leaves out an important part of the story. A recent analysis of approximately 4,000 apartment units in San Jose found that the median water consumption increased by 10% to 12% after RUBS ban took effect. And the study concluded that the ordinance likely played a major role in that increase and that higher water usage persisted throughout 2024. And as a result, San Jose is now reconsidering its policy right now. In this year's budget message, the mayor directed staff to return with recommendations to align the city's policy with the HUD guidelines that allow proportional utility billing in master meter buildings. specifically citing concerns that the current prohibition discourages conservation and drives up utility costs. CAA supports transparency. Residents should clearly understand how utility charges are calculated and allotted, but transparency standards are very different from an outright prohibition. We respectfully ask the council to reject the rub bans and instead pursue a data-driven process that includes not only stakeholder input, but a full evaluation of the impacts.

And your time is up. Thank you so much. Our next speaker, Timothy Hilton. Welcome, Speaker Hilton.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, council members and city employees for giving me the opportunity to speak. Since I'm the only renter speaking on this, I guess I will speak on behalf of all renters of Alameda. I represent a renter of a unit of 41 units. And while I do appreciate our fellow speakers push towards transparency. I would say that a lot of the current billing systems that exist for transparency don't show you as an individual renter that's using RUBS what the total cost is to the total, like the breakdown of each thing. As an example, I will show you my renter's billing here. which is not very large. But I will tell you that my rent is $2,550. All my rub charges come back about a month or two from behind my current rent. And it just says, includes utility charge or trash, online prepayment. Doesn't say, doesn't give any kind of breakdown. In order to get the breakdown, I have to contact the property management company and say, hey, can you please provide me the breakdown and the formula for RUBS? They have not provided it. So eventually, I will be talking to this individual over here, Mr. Shen. hopefully with 40 of my fellow renters, to say, you know, we have these charges every month which have not fluctuated, even though our tenancy has fluctuated. I know that there was a period that there were three units that were not rented for three months, which would make our RUBS payment go up, right, because there's less to divide it amongst the tenants. But it stayed the same. And then last month, actually this month, our property management company went to the option of putting external caps on all the outside exterior water faucets. And that's so people can't wash their cars, because that would raise the water charges. So there's a lot of mistrust with our property management company about, hey, you're taking these steps, but washing our car is not prohibited in the lease. But yet our rates aren't going up when they should be going up, and they're not going down So there's a little bit of mistrust there about what is called transparency. So while I do appreciate the other speaker's period of transparency, I'm hoping that we are the black sheep, and I'm suspecting that we are not, in Alameda when it comes to organized rental units above 25. And I would request that you pass option C, which is the abandonment of RUBS, to give more power back to renters under rent controls. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers?

That was our final.

Oh, OK. Tell you what, apparently you didn't have it. No, no, come on up. Come on up. We are user friendly here. You didn't have a chance to fill out a speaker slip, but you could do it after you speak. How's that? OK, so come on up to the microphone. And you've got, is it three minutes, Ms. Ashley? OK, welcome.

I'd be happy to fill that out after the meeting. Good evening. I'm not here to talk about rent. This is going to be a hard genre change.

OK, wait a minute. Let's just be clear on what we're doing. We are here to talk about this particular item, what to do about this ratio utility billing system. Is that what you want to speak about?

No, ma'am. I was looking at the minutes, and I thought this portion was

You want to talk about something that's not on the agenda? You're in luck. You're in luck. You just have to wait for a little bit. So right now, we're on item 7C. And then we'll have item 8. And then we'll have item 9, which is the second bite of the apple on oral communications, non-agenda items. And so you know what you can do in the meantime? You can fill out as see Ms. Rosalinda here. And she met Rosalinda, and she will Yeah. You can take it on back to your seat and all is good. Any other speakers on item 7C? That was our final comment. All right. Then we will close public comment on item 7C. And I want to thank staff for doing the deep dive into this complicated topic. I'm not sure where we're going to all come out at the end because with with councilmember bowler absent We're either going to have three to one or two to two or four that I have no idea but I am going to state that For me this is a matter of fundamental fairness and It is also a matter of, and we want to be fair to everyone, including the landlords, of course. But what we don't want, and it was noted in the staff report, is for this system to be used as an end run around our very carefully constructed and modified a bit over the years rent control ordinance. that protects tenants, and really it protects landlords as well. And one of the notes that I made in my margins while Mr. Chapin was talking was that Alameda's rent program, because it provides education for both landlords and tenants, has actually helped reduce housing insecurity and, for some, homelessness by making tenants aware of what their rights are. But also, I firmly believe the majority of landlords want to do the right thing. And so this is a way that we have educational forums specifically for landlords on various topics, and they're well attended the city attorney's office for the last as many years as I can remember, presents an all-day fair housing symposium with lots of great guest speakers. And so from an environmental perspective, I really don't understand the assertions about the city of San Jose, but I'm friends with the mayor and another council member, and we talk often, so I'll just get it directly from them. It does seem to me that if you knew what you were paying for your particular utility and you didn't want to pay so much or you wanted to be a better steward of the environment, that would certainly be the motivation you needed to keep track of that. And the other thing is I know we've heard that only 64 complaints so far, but one of the things that occurred to me is now that there is a spotlight, if you will, shown on this system, I think, and the press, our local press, I'm sure, will cover it, I think more renters will become aware and we might drive some more business to Mr. Chapin's department. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that we are keeping people housed. I mean, we just talked about on the Alameda Marina item that we heard just before this, we talked about the fact that there's need for rental units at the very low, the absolute lowest income level that is recognized by the government. There's a need for that. We've got to keep people housed. And if they're paying more than they should be, then that's just adding to their rent burden. And I do also want to note that we do have this capital improvement plan. It's not something I supported because it essentially tells tenants you have to pay 50% of certain costs that you're laying a new roof. that a tenant, as a tenant, once they leave, will never accrue the benefit of that. So now, apparently, they would even be paying for half the cost of a separate meter. And I would think that for most landlords, that really would be the ideal system. The tenant's going to pay for half of it, and then the landlord's not going to have to pay for any of the utility. that's being metered. So I am prepared to support this, but let's see what others think. Vice Mayor Pryor?

Yeah, I am definitely prepared to support this. I don't think there's going to be a perfect solution. So I think option C is, at this moment, the best solution. But I want to draw attention to the word, because both speakers talked about transparency, and it's also here in option A, talks about it. Transparency, were that easy, it would be being done right now. And it's not. So that's why I think we need to go with option C. I don't think it's to any fault of the landlord. But it's uncomfortable when you're being charged and you don't know why and for how much. And I learned that you're being charged for something two months later. I mean, we tend not to do business like that when we go to the store, or you just know what you're paying for. And you know, like, oh, I need to spend less. Yeah, so that's it. I could ramble on about this, but I think The transparency is, for me, the biggest issue of why I am supporting this ban. And then I also think the rollout is very, it seems very fair to everybody to get all your ducks in a row so no one's scrambling. And then there is a process, like if for some odd reason the water bill goes up 50%. And I think the landlord would easily be able to prove that, because I think that would be shocking and would be a news story. But I think the way it's rolled out is to give predictability, especially to a renter. I mean, a lot of renters are one paycheck from being homeless. So I think to have predictability in your bills is, at the very least, gives people peace of mind, but also a real tangible way to pay their bills. And I would assume this is not the norm, that these are shocking examples. But if your bill goes up $200 a month, that's $2,400 a year. That's a lot of money for some families. And I'm sorry, that $1,000? I really hope that's the only person in Alameda that this has happened to. But I mean, that person, I feel terrible for them. I'm sorry, that's like half your rent. Anyway, so I support this. Thank you.

All right. Who wants to go next? Council Member Dixon? Happy to.

Just briefly, I do think the Alameda renter deserves transparency when it comes to the costs that they're bearing. And because of that, I think that's where the focus should be. on making sure that we have a RUBS system that is more transparent than what's in place now. I think that's the challenge before us, is to have the workshops to figure out how can we make the information more readily available to the renters who are ultimately paying the bill. So the focus, I believe, should be on making the RUBS regime more transparent. And I think that's what the renters definitely would like to see, is more transparent. They want to know what they're paying for. So I totally support that. We are contemplating significant changes to our rental regime when the data shows that, on average, so far only 16 a year have come to the rent office. I'm not convinced that 16 concerns about how their utilities are being charged, I'm not convinced that that rises to the level of doing a wholesale change to the regime. But it's clearly, though, that one of the changes that the renters desire is at least just making it more transparent. And I think that's where the focus should lie. So that's my hope is that we come back and figure that discussion, figure that part out. So thank you.

So Councilmember Daszak, I have a question for you.

I don't know. I'm not a renter.

No, but it's about what you just said. How would you go about making the REB system more transparent? That's why we have our staff to help us figure that out. Councilmember Daszak, we do have council rules of conduct, which is that we take turns and finish speaking before someone else starts speaking. So what I was saying was you said, I was taking notes, that we should have a more transparent REB system that we currently have. But we also heard from our staff and from the renter who spoke that these third party billers are actually the ones who are handling the billing. They are hard to reach for renters, even for staff. Mr. Chapin cited a case that has been ongoing for 16 months, even with a relatively cooperative property manager. So how exactly would you suggest that we go about making the REBS system more transparent when the city, am I correct, Mr. City Attorney, we don't have any control over third party billers, is that correct?

We currently do not.

Is there some way we could?

We have not been able to. No, not that we're aware of.

Yeah, well, I think the answer to your question is I would definitely rely on the guidance from our staff and our legal staff and from the rental community especially. apartment association as well. You're welcome to attend. But I think it's worth the time to make sure that we measure twice before we cut once. I think that's absolutely important. Because again, like I'm saying, we're making tremendous policy over basically 16 concerns a year on average. And we're making policy, as indicated earlier, based upon a lack of understanding of the costs associated. It's not even in our staff report, costs associated with implementing the equipment as well as the labor that's required. So I do think the renters definitely require more transparency in how their utilities, how they're being billed with regard to the utilities. And I think that's where the focus is. And like I said to your question, I turn to staff to do more analysis and come back to us.

Actually, I'm going to call on the city attorney, who I think might want to add something to this discussion.

Yeah. Counsel, I just wanted to share a brief...

You've got a leg cramp. OK. Walk if you need to or whatever. Keep talking.

Yes. I just want to share just a little, just remind the council on the 16 unit point, which is that I think Director Chapin showed a nice graphic, which is that oftentimes we receive one complaint in a building with 100 units. And so just because one person comes to us and say this is a problem, All of the 99 colleagues are experiencing exactly the same problem. And so when you look at it, it's really more like 3,200 units are experiencing it.

That's hard to say, though, until they come forward. Council Member Daszak, that's the second time I've had to ask you not to talk over someone. Could we not make it a third time? Sure. OK, just hang on. Finish your sentence, Mr. City Attorney.

Yes, I'm done. So my point is we're really looking at possibly effects of up to 3,200 units that are being impacted by the current system.

All right. And Mr. Chapin, if you could come back and just help us understand, do you see any way that we could make the REB system more transparent?

Sure, so again once we completed our outreach we talked about it among staff looked at all the feedback We got and we decided to focus on this option C There are we think some good options out there that provide some local ordinances that have been passed. Los Angeles, for example, while their proposal does include a RUBS ban, it also includes some additional transparency requirements at the local level that could be a good model to look at. But again, staff did not focus on that once we made the decision that we wanted to endorse the option C. Can you tell us about what LA was proposing?

If you give us a moment, we might be able to... Yeah, work on that if you will. Council Member Desai, were you done with your comments? No, that's it. Thank you. Council Member Jensen, why don't we go to you and then we'll hear back from staff.

Just to follow up on the last comment, the 3,200 units. So is that an estimate, that there may be 3,200 units that are having REBs implemented or unfairly implemented?

Yes, council member. So we basically are extrapolating that. For example, my example is that if one tenant complains in a 100-unit building, There's no reason to believe that the other 99 units are not being affected because rubs are being implemented in a very similar way across the building. And so, yes, we are extrapolating.

Is there any way to be more precise?

Without expending extreme amounts of resources. I mean, we'd have to start trying to literally physically contact tenants and...

That would be an extreme use of resources when a landlord gets a aga every year when the landlord submits their rent amount I annually correct what does that just automatic do they have to submit any paperwork or any documentation or any information about tenants or Occupancy if a landlord chooses to increase rent they would have to file with the rent program to inform us what the rent increases and

And so that's part of the annual registration process.

And so that amount would be reviewed using staff resources?

Yes, and to some extent algorithmic resources as well.

But it would be burdensome to ask the landlord how they distribute utilities or whether they have a separate meter?

It's currently not part of the registration process for the landlord to report RUB's information.

I understand that. But it is part of the registration process for the landlord to report how many units they have, to report the rent that they're charging, to report if units are vacant, et cetera, correct?

Come on back, Mr. Chairman.

So the registration requirements currently are to report the current rent and whether a unit is tenant-occupied or vacant or owner-occupied. Other requirements in the annual list? For new tenancies, there is a requirement to report which housing services are included with rent, which couldn't, among the options to select our utilities.

So there is some data that is collected on new tenancies, whether utilities is included with base rent currently?

That is correct, right? Yes.

So would you say that new tenants would have more information? We just talked about 3,200 units, but new tenants would tend to have more information about whether they are being charged RUBS, or whether it's included in their base rent, or how they're being charged for utilities.

Well, ideally, every tenant would have a good understanding of exactly what their rental agreement is. To be honest, often we find that tenants just frankly don't have a good understanding of it. Oftentimes, there is no written lease. And again, I know it's hard to believe, but it is not uncommon that there's just been a verbal agreement to pay this over the years. So there's a wide range, I guess.

Thank you. No, I think I misstated my question. Actually, to what the staff pointed out, that new tenancies have information available about housing services, including whether utilities are included in the base rent. So my question is that new tenants would understand if they were being charged or if their utilities were included in the lease amount.

Well, so one of the things that the rent program does every year after annual registration closes is we send an advisory letter to tenants that reports, among other things, what the landlord reported to us during registration. Those letters, they include...

If Mr. Halperin would like to come up and answer some of these questions, you can do that. Just please introduce yourself from the outset. Hi.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name's Ryan Halpern, analyst with the rent program. So we don't, every year, send out that letter that includes what the housing services reported, because under the current rent ordinance, this rarely comes up when there is an unbundling case, meaning this was the tenant's obligations in their rental agreement. Now they're being charged for a utility that was supposed to be paid. with their base rent. So that's why we asked for that initial registration. But that initial registration for the tenancy isn't going to tell us if there is a RUB system and how the RUB system works. We don't have that kind of data.

And is there an annual letter? Or has there ever been any case where the rent program has sent out a letter to all tenants?

Yeah. Yeah, each year we do send out a rent ceiling notification advisory to every fully regulated unit.

And so to the point earlier, I can see that we don't have all the data, but it wouldn't be completely out of the realm to send a letter to tenants asking if they knew at least how they were paying utilities or if they were aware if their utilities was included in their base rent.

So it would certainly be possible for us to include an insert with this annual mailing that, for example, requested participation in a survey to provide that information. What type of response we would get with that, I'm not sure, but we have included inserts with that letter before with additional information. I don't know if we've had one that included a request.

Well, certainly. And I understand the issue here. And I understand from the earlier speaker, the tenant speaker, that if REBS is used, and it would be obvious to a tenant if there is a vacant unit, and all of a sudden their utility costs increase by 1 fifth or 1 fourth, depending on how many units are in the building. So those would be certainly things that should not be happening. And I don't understand how a landlord could justify that I don't know, I know a number of landlords, but I don't understand how they would just automatically reallocate when the utility fees, the utility costs are going down with a vacant unit. So you raise this, this has been raised as a problem using this example. And so I just feel like there's not quite enough information about how often that happens or if it's a real problem. On the other hand, 54 complaints is a lot of complaints. So that's major. You know, again, on the other hand, we have had a lot of concerns from landlords that's been sent suggesting that this is just another way that will reduce their ability to provide housing in Alameda. So I agree with Mayor Ashcroft that expanding housing options is a priority. And keeping tenants housed is huge. And we have to do that. And I think the rent program does a tremendous and terrific job with that. But I share the concerns that I've heard from landlords, too, that just getting rid of this possibility to use rubs, it may be necessary. And I'm not saying it shouldn't happen. We haven't gotten the data, or personally, I'll speak for myself. I haven't gotten the data that the REBS ban won't impact available housing, that landlords won't be impacted to a degree where they might not provide housing. And just the numbers of tenants impacted isn't persuasive at this time. And I think Council Member Dasek suggested that maybe it would be an option to return to do a little bit more research. Did I hear that correctly, Council Member?

Yeah, the focus of the research for me is coming up with some model where we address the transparency question.

The transparency of the number and the- What's on their bills?

I think that's what I heard.

If I may, speaking to what some of the things that are in Los Angeles' proposal, there are disclosure requirements for clear written disclosure of billing methods, itemized breakdown of charges, etc. Clearly explaining the calculation methodology. Clearly stating administrative fees, which is an issue that I did not get into either in the staff report or in the presentation, but is another common complaint about RUBS, that there are hidden administrative fees that can go up at any time. Clearly stating the frequency of the billing. providing access to master meter billing statements, a dispute resolution process. So those are some of the items that are in Los Angeles's ordinance that is under consideration.

Thank you for that. And is that ordinance something? I mean, I don't think that that's what is being recommended tonight.

No.

But that would be, if that were being recommended, if there were more safeguards and more disclosure, that would be something that I would like to certainly get that information. I think that would be preferable to having more information for me from what we are being recommended tonight.

And I'm going to call on the city attorney first, and then I'll go to you, Vice Mayor. City Attorney Shen.

Yes, I think when we were talking about the disclosure requirements, one of the concerns we had, at least I have, is that just because you get to disclose the fees doesn't mean you don't get to charge them. And so one possibility is that a landlord can just disclose massive fees and then charge them and still comply with the ordinance, and that result will— It is better than nondisclosure, but it does not solve the fundamental problem that that tenant is paying higher rent.

Thank you. And I think Vice Mayor Pryor has had her hand up. Are you done for now, Councilwoman Jensen? Continue if you want.

Thank you. In the presentation, you just mentioned Los Angeles. In the presentation, you mentioned that there may be alternatives. I think it was in reference to fair return petition alternatives, such as having a streamlined petition for insurance or for utilities, perhaps. But I think what you just what you just shared about the disclosure requirements in Los Angeles are another alternative, I think, that I would like to hear more about before I would support this.

And to be clear, Los Angeles doesn't have an ordinance. It's under consideration. So there's no track record to it. Vice Mayor Pryor.

You know, we had voted earlier on the for very low income housing. And I think we all four voted for this. And I think we have, as a council, supported renter protections. It's very clear that the renter protections are incomplete. And my priority is to keep people housed. My priority is not to ensure people make a giant return on their investment. I think that is a luxury. And I do not have any, like, adversity to any landlord, but there's a housing crisis. So I don't fear that they're not going to be able to fill their homes. I don't. I don't fear for them. But I fear for the 53% of renters we have on this island. And 64, if you look at the thing, it is the tip of the iceberg. And when is it going to be, oh, 200 people are now homeless, so now we're going to do something. I mean, I don't mind waiting to get more information, but... What are we waiting for? We are in a housing crisis. And what is really expensive is keeping people in their homes. I said this earlier. If we were transparent, we'd be doing it. It'd be happening. And it's not happening. And I would imagine over 95%, maybe 99% of landlords are really fair and good people. In the meantime, there are bad actors. There are people that are exploiting renters, because where are renters going to go? It is the most expensive place to live between San Francisco and San Jose. So renters don't have a lot of options. And again, the renter protections are not complete. This fills a gap. It's imperfect. But I think it's what we need to do. We need to do it now. Because I don't want to wait for 500 complaints. I think 64 is like, oh, you know what? Let's not make it worse. Let's do something today.

I'm just going to follow on to that and say that I believe our staff. I believe they're conscientious. I believe the statistics we saw in this report. I would think we're all shocked by people just getting round numbers. Oh, your utility was $200 a month, and then the $1,000 a month. That's pretty shocking. I think, too, that the majority of landlords are reputable and want to do the right thing. I think this RUBS system does provide the temptation to make up for feeling that you're not getting enough income from your rent to cover the expenses. And that is not what it's intended for. People should be responsible for paying their own utilities. That's reasonable. If we need to revisit the rent ordinance at some time to see, you know, are we protecting landlords, maybe small landlords enough, that's something separate and apart from what we're talking about now. I, too, believe that the 64... renters we've heard from so far are the tip of the iceberg. But are we saying to them, yeah, whatever. I mean, yeah, it's kind of a travesty, but you're just 64. I don't think so. I think we put in place a system that protects everyone, including the reputable landlords. If they'd like to separately meter, there is a process for doing it over time with 50% contribution from the tenants. And it is asking a lot of renters, for example, to go around and survey how many vacant units are in this building. Because maybe if you're in a small building, but not if you're in a large building, I can't imagine you'd know that. But again, I think this is a very reasonable solution for a problem that is significant and that is threatening the housing security of our renters. So I would love us all to give some long, hard consideration. I mean, we can always ask for more data, more data. But I found myself wondering, so 64 reported cases isn't enough. Is 128, or did you need 640? Is there a right number, or is it more the principle that we're addressing?

Councillor Jensen? Very good points. I appreciate that. And if it was 64 out of 100, that would be incredible. That would be terrible. But we don't know if it's 64 out of 5,400. I mean, not having the data is what, without knowing how pervasive RUBS is, It's really challenging to say to our landlords, all landlords in Alameda that are using it, that you can no longer use it. And I appreciate your point, too, about the point that Vice Mayor Pryor made about tenants being displaced. And I would ask how many tenants have been evicted or whose rent went up. a lot, I guess, or they had to pay a great share of utilities, which they weren't expecting because of rubs. So can you give an example of that, how that would impact someone's ability to remain housed?

So, Councilmember, I'll share sort of an anecdotal reason why it's hard to get that number. If you recall a different rent control case, which is the Carmel Partners case that we litigated all the way to the Court of Appeal. In that case, there were many, many tenants who received rent increases and simply left. They don't tell us. why they're leaving. They just look at the bill and they say, you know what, I can't afford it and I go. And so we only found out about it because of very individualized complaints. And when we went back and looked and saw, oh my gosh, there's a lot of people who were affected by this. And so that's the difficulty in collecting data about tenants unable to afford things and leave, is that they don't report to us. And there's really no way to capture that data. They just move on. And we don't know where they've moved on to, just like in the Carmel case.

Council Member Desai.

Just to summarize my view on this, I do think that the emphasis should be on making the utility billing process more transparent to renters. And where the revelation of such information unearths egregious situations, then following that, we amend the larger rent ordinance. But I think that's what you do is first you gather that information. And you can only gather that information by having a more transparent system. So that's where I think that's the first place that we need to throw our energies at. So I don't know. I could go on and on. But I think that's what the renters really deserve is a more transparent utility billing process. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I I'm not, actually, I'd like to talk a little bit more, and I've got 37 seconds, so I would appreciate, and we can all have, let's take five minutes more. Move. OK, got a motion. Second. Second. Motion by Dave Slug, seconded by Jensen. All those in favor, signify by stating aye. Aye. OK. I think that transparency is always good. However, an egregious practice is an egregious practice even if it's fully disclosed. I mean, should a tenant really have to pay a user's fee on top of their utility, because that's what's being charged by these third party billers. And again, how do you compel a third party biller to be more transparent and cooperative when our rent program staff hasn't closed a case that they've been working on for 16 months? and trying to go after this. So we have certain things we have jurisdiction over but other things that we don't. And as far as, again, the number, going back to what our city attorney has pointed out a couple of times, If we hear a report and see it documented from a tenant in a 100-unit building, it is fair to assume or really to accept that that entire building is under that system and everyone's having those issues. And I will also remind us that People live really busy lives. And that's probably why a lot of renters aren't here today. People have jobs and families and sometimes more than one job to pay the rent and long commutes and kids to get to school and get the homework done and get to bed and all those good things. So there's a lot of reasons that the numbers might not be as high as whatever the magic number might be. But are we really content to let that continue? Or do we think we could come up with a system that benefits all? I mean, what would be the harm of making sure that people are really only paying for the utilities that they use? It just seems like a matter of fundamental fairness and fairly simple and straightforward. That's a rhetorical question, but I'd love to get a discussion going. Because I honestly think our hearts are in the right places. I think we could come to an agreement. But what's the worry that's holding us back? I've been doing this an awful long time. And we can always ask for more data, more stats, more facts. But the problem is there. It's in front of us. And as the vice mayor eloquently noted, people are housing insecure now. And I agree with the city attorney. I run into people all the time who tell me we moved away from here because we just couldn't afford the rent. are people who tell me, we wish we could live here, but we just can't afford the rent in Alameda. And so I mean, landlords are entitled to a fair return on their investment. They are not entitled to charge more than the utilities a tenant is using. And that's what this is trying to correct.

Vice Mayor Park? Also, I mean inherently property increases without any effort from any of us. So I think that there's going to be a lot more recovery time if we need to go back and make an adjustment on this. I think that the landlords would be able to withstand some recovery time if we need to revisit this. I don't think the reverse is true for the renters. And I think that most landlords are fair and want to be fair. And so I think that this is a reasonable ask.

Anyone want to say something else? Because at some point, we need to take a vote, and it's either going to pass or fail.

When does this go into effect? So the ordinance that we have presented for you would, the ban on

charges for utilities that are not separately metered would go into effect 30 days after final approval of the second reading of the ordinance. But that would not affect tenancies that are currently under a RUBS. That would be able to continue until the petition process starts. We purposely did not build a specific start date of the petition process into the ordinance to give us flexibility to make sure that we have hired the people necessary in order to implement it and that we have all the necessary forms, we've done the necessary outreach. So in terms of when that petition process starts, there's some flexibility. But for new tenancies, that ban on rubs takes place 30 days after the ordinance is passed.

So for any vacant unit, RUBS would be in place immediately and a new tenancy. Correct. And for other units, like the ones that we've been discussing, those tenants that are going to be evicted that we've discussed, those tenants that are paying exorbitant fees because they're being allocated for other units where those units are vacant, those RUBS will continue.

The ordinance that we have presented imagines that the current system for existing tenancies is able to continue until that petition is filed.

And can you explain again to me the petition filing process and what the timing and the process?

Yes. So again, it's a staggered window. So larger properties would be filing first. They have an eight-month window to file documentation showing what the average utility charges were to the tenant. Staff reviews that and then confirms that the rent can be increased by that average once the landlord is notified that staff has purchased. processed their petition. They then have a deadline by which they need to impose that rent adjustment. And then as soon as the rent adjustment is imposed, they are no longer able to continue charging for the utilities.

Let me slip in a question about what you just said, Mr. Chapin. Is the reason that you would be starting with the largest properties first in order to provide protection to the greatest number of tenants?

It would be to address the properties that are most likely using RUBS. And then with the idea also that smaller landlords may need more time to get their documentation in order.

So just by reasoning, larger buildings would have more tenants than, say, a medium or a small building?

So the way that we have designed these three tiers or these three windows, there's actually a relatively equal number of rental units in each of these. But because these practices are more common at the larger properties, we would imagine once you get to the smaller properties, there will probably be fewer landlords that are filing for the adjustment.

So this petition process would be providing information and data that is not available at this point right now.

about the use of RUBS and about I mean that's correct we would at the end of this petition process we would have a much clearer idea of how many properties are using RUBS and what those what those average charges for tenants was and can you tell me those tiers again it's greater than 54 sorry just a moment here Mr. Halpern, do you have that information handy?

Yes, so we would be going with, what we proposed in the staff report was properties with 16 or more rental units. That would be the first phase of the petition process. Properties with five to 15 units, that would be phase two. And then two to four units.

OK. You know, this is great information. I think it was as we talked and we heard the comments from the council, and I appreciate that it's not going into effect immediately, I think. So no one, unfortunately, I guess what some of the concerns among tenants are that they are going to, these tenants are going to have to continue to be under rubs and potentially be not able to afford housing. until the first phase is finished, so for a year or so or even longer, in units of less than 16, in multi-unit buildings of less than 16. So those renters won't be protected by this ordinance, at least for some time.

There would not be for existing tenants. In smaller units, we'd be likely looking at a window of two years before they would see a change in the billing practices. Again, we have, this was in part informed by our discussions with the city of Mountain View that has gone through a similar process. They were very clear with us that this is a large undertaking that requires that sort of a time window in order to do it correctly.

Okay, then I think that... that if my suggestion or I'll make a motion and we'll see how that goes. So I move that we approve the recommendation and add direction to staff to provide the options for fair return petitions to streamline as suggested earlier to streamline fair return petitions for substantial utility rate increases as well as substantial insurance increases.

Mr. City Attorney, is that within the scope of the ? Yes.

Staff earlier indicated our own willingness to do that. And it is within. And we would be happy to take that direction to ensure that the fair return process is simple enough so that landlords can file if necessary.

OK, because I actually would like a little more clarification about what that means, the streamlining. I'm heartened that Council Member Jensen seems to be getting on board to support the proposed amendment to the ordinance. But what would the streamlining of the petition process look like?

Well, again, we do want to make sure that the hearing officers still receive enough information that they can make an informed decision about overall maintenance of net operating income. So that does mean that the landlord does need to provide us with comprehensive information about the income that they get. and categories of expenses. I do think there's room for improvement in the form to make it more clear about what types of income and what types of expenses they need to provide in order for the hearing officer to have that information. The form as it is right now leaves a lot of it up to the landlord, honestly, to make their own case for why they are deserving of a fair return adjustment. But I think through a combination of revisions to the form and again more More education and outreach to the landlord community to explain to them what this process involves What a hearing officer is going to be looking for and making their determination could open up that process to more landlords if they legitimately are having an issue with the maintenance of their net operating income. Now, that being said, what we find with fair return is that because our ordinance allows a landlord, when a unit becomes vacant, to reset the rent at whatever it is that they want, When there is turnover in a rental unit, you're much less likely that the landlord's margin might decrease by a few percentage points each year. But then when there is a vacancy, it suddenly can jump up to over where it was before. And then it begins slightly decreasing again. And so when you find over the years that you have that sort of turnover, It's frankly, it's rather difficult to prove that there is a need for an upward adjustment in order to maintain that net operating income once the landlords, at least our assumption by staff, is that is in large part the reason that we see not so many of these petitions is because it is likely not all that common that there is a problem maintaining net operating income, despite what landlords assume. Once they dig down into the numbers, they find that they just don't have the basis for that. But that being said, I think there is room for improvement in the form and for education and outreach to the community to explain the process.

And can you look to other jurisdictions what they're doing on the petition process and forms they might use?

Absolutely.

So I always say we don't need to reinvent the wheel. OK. Back to you, Council Member Jensen. Thank you.

And I appreciate that. I appreciate the fair return, and I appreciate that landlords can recoup much of any losses that may be associated with cost of living increases that aren't part of the AGA or other things with when a tenant leaves. But smaller landlords, it's a little more challenging. Smaller landlords that have stable tenancies that don't tend to move, when the utilities increase, insurance increases, when there are increases in economic costs or other things, that it's going to cost the landlord more and they won't be able to adjust the AGA. They can have the whole entire AGA, but it still may not be enough. And so what I was asking and what I would suggest in my motion, I would like to to say, if I could articulate it, would be to have a more specific process. Since we are talking about RUBs and we're talking about utilities, I would like for the fair return petition or the fair return process to be more specific. And this may not be happening elsewhere, or it may be happening elsewhere. And that would be good to know. But my motion is to approve the ordinance that's been recommended. to an addition and have a direction to staff that there be a utility-specific or utility and insurance-specific fair return process or paperwork that's less burdensome, as you say, or more streamlined or however you would put that.

Help us, city attorney, just stay on the straight and narrow.

Yes. My understanding of the motion is that the council would like to form as user friendly as possible. And we totally get that. And we are completely with you on making sure it's user friendly. And we're completely with you on ensuring that if the council directs us to do it, in fact, even if the council didn't, we currently conduct a number of community outreach workshops on a monthly basis. And we can dedicate some of them to this very topic of fair return so that landlords are well-educated. I think we hear the council loud and clear. You want the process as simple as possible so that people don't have to hire lawyers to do it. And we're here to help.

And speaking of the workshops that you've done, I actually remember running into some folks leaving City Hall when there was a workshop on the REBs. And it was, as I understand, very well attended. So that's a good thing.

Can I second? Yeah, second the motion.

And then also, I'm wondering, do we need to, since REBs will still exist for a little while, do we need to be asking about that in the rent registry as one of the questions?

We can certainly take that direction and figure out a way to make that part of the registration requirements.

Is that complicated?

We would need to talk to the vendor for the online registry portal for them to update.

And I didn't mean to make that part of the motion, just staff direction to also look into it.

Well, thank you. And I'll take that within the motion as well. And I'd also add to the motion that staff come back after phase one with information, although not to slow it down, but just to provide information about the extent to which RUBS is being used and the extent to which it is impacting tenancies and landlords.

All right, we've had a motion by Councilmember Jensen, seconded by Vice Mayor Pryor. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by stating aye. Aye.

Opposed? Opposed.

The motion carries three to one. Good job, everyone. Thank you so much, Mr. Chabon, Mr. Halperin, Mr. Shen. Okay, everybody, we've been working this for a while. It is 9.13. We usually don't go more than two hours without a break. It's 9.13. Let's be back at 9.30. Everybody back in your seats at 9.30. Okay.

You can run and get coffee.

Okay, and this meeting is called back to order I would like to call the next item Actually, everyone needs to sit in their places madam clerk. Would you please introduce our next item? Item 8 is city manager communications city manager Pulitzer Do you have communications for us?

Only madam mayor. I only have one item and you'll appreciate this but I'm very excited that our hometown Succaroos won their first match versus Turkey and That does a lot for our community. Obviously, we're excited for Team Australia big match coming up on Friday versus USA and But congratulations to City of Alameda.

Interim City Manager Pulitzer, do you have divided loyalties when it comes to the US versus Australia game?

I think I win on both occasions. But I'm excited that they won game one. So we're way ahead of what was predicted.

He has some Australian background. Yeah, no, it's very exciting. Thank you. OK, so then we move on to item nine, which is oral communications non-agenda items.

We currently have three speakers. The first is Timothy Hilton.

Welcome, Mr. Hilton.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members, and city employees. It's somewhat of a related topic off the previous agenda item. council members know that a lot of our renters are not even aware of where our rent control office is or our renters' offices. Like, I did not become myself aware of the issues that I had at our property until we got a letter from in someone else's name in our unit and so just for awareness the Letters that do go out to the renters go to who has ever registered on that that unit If they do not update the registration It will not project the current renter so my suggestion is is that we should read you know to this resident or current occupant and That would give the current occupant the legal authority to actually open that letter if it's not them. So I did open the letter, even though it wasn't addressed to me. But that's how I found out there was an issue. Also, in my experience, so we're trying to organize our 40 units. We have about 15%. I'm basically doing the job of like, an advocate for the rent control office, telling our tenants going door to door, saying, hey, here's the paperwork. Come to our meetings and stuff like that. We found out through this process that our landlord and the property management person did register everyone except for me and one other unit that moved in in two years, but didn't pay their registration fees, which means If you register and you don't pay your fees, you're not authorized to raise the rent for any unit. which is fair because they have to basically go through the checks through the city to say, hey, we are asking for permission to raise rent, and this is to help cover the cost of the city to go through that process. But I would just like to advocate for more public awareness somehow to reach out to the renters about the services for rent control, no matter if it's a multi-state no multi-story building or multi-complex building or not, and also that a lot of renters are afraid to rock the boat. I got pissed off, excuse my language, about a single issue. And that caused me to go down there and start finding out more and more information about what was actually already available to me. But a lot of renters are going to say, hey, I like my conditions. I don't want to risk it. Or if I go down to the city, maybe they raise my rent some more. So that's all I just wanted to go about is kind of the current status of the rent control situation.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker, Alex Carrera. Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

And go ahead and make that microphone right where you need it.

Yes, ma'am. Once again, good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, city employees. I'm here to gather or attempt to gather some information about the multiple gay pride flags that the city of Alameda is flying throughout the town on public live posts and deliver my comments on the matter. Council, request to know if these flags were donated or if taxpayer dollars were used to procure these gay pride flags? I'm assuming it's in the practice that y'all don't respond to these comments.

So it's called public comment for a reason. It's not called question and answer. So you have your allotted time to make public comment.

I would like to know, were city employees tasked with installing these? My tax dollars are part of this expenditure to do this, to fly these flags. As a taxpayer paying citizen, as a tax paying citizen of this municipality, I disagree with this. And I want to raise my voice against this, the flying of these flags. Flying these flags is an overt and explicit endorsement of a lifestyle that many people who live here do not agree with. Why is the city government in the practice of displaying symbols of an ideological group? I firmly believe that the city has overstepped in choosing to display these symbols. I want to be clear. My protest of this action and practice would exist for any political or ideological symbols displayed by the city government. At the very least, I urge the council to consider reducing the amount of gay pride flags being flown on Park and Webster streets. This is anecdotal, but I counted over 20 flags driving down Park Street alone. I think the sheer number of flags detracts from our town's appearance. I urge you to drive down Park Street and ask yourself if this is excessive. I think you will agree with me. I hope you will try to see my point of view. I know this is an uphill battle protesting this, but I think this is wrong, and I will protest it nonetheless. Thank you. Have a nice night.

Thank you. And I will just add that as we celebrate the 250th year anniversary of the founding of our nation, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution, we celebrate the First Amendment as well. Our next speaker? GABRIELLE DUNCAN- Welcome, Speaker Duncan.

Hello, council. My name is Gabriel Duncan. I'm the founder and director of the Alameda Native History Project. And I just wanted to mention that we're having an acorn processing workshop at the main library on this Sunday. We had a capacity for 40 people, but we have already got all 40 people, so we are going to extend the capacity to another 20 people. So feel free to come by on Sunday. Come check this out. We're going to show people three different ways to process acorns in your home using stuff you can find in your own kitchen. This is the final event that we are offering as part of our Public Arts Commission grant, which ran from 2025 to 2026. We're getting in just under the wire, because that grant period ends at the end of June. So here we are. Come by. This is probably the most popular workshop that we do. and I would love to see any and all of you there. Oh, that's right. That's right. The event is this Sunday, June 21st, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., and it's happening in the big room. I don't know what the name of it is.

The Stafford Room in the main library across the street. Exactly.

Thank you. Thank you at the Stafford Room. Anyway, hope to see you there. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker?

We do have a hand raised remotely, but this section is only for in-person comment.

That is true. So no one else in person? No other speakers. All right. All right. With that, we will close public oral communications non-agenda item. And then we move on to item 10, council referrals. And Madam Clerk, would you introduce that item, please? sorry this is well um this is a council referral um from council members i'm just laughing because again my ipad freezes at all the wrong times but that's why i have a paper copy so i can overcome this okay so um this is um you can introduce it and then i'll call on the council member If you would.

Consider providing direction to staff about amending the Alameda Museum agreement to add requirements related to historical settlements and civilizations and development of an indigenous program in partnership with local organizations representing indigenous people. This item was placed on the agenda at the request of Council Member Jensen.

All right. And so let me call on Council Member Jensen.

Yes, thank you. This referral is a follow up to something that we discussed as part of the strategic plan and something that I would like to have returned to the council. During the discussion of the strategic plan, the Alameda Museum was discussed briefly. And this was the initial strategic plan in 2023. And so I have been awaiting. some presentation from the Alameda Museum to include the display and archiving of objects of indigenous peoples that were in Alameda. And that has not happened. I think that there are also some state law requirements that this would be happening. I've spoken briefly to Assistant City Manager Wildridge about this. And so I'm bringing this referral forward to have this information presented to council so that we can move forward any direction that might be necessary.

Thank you. And Assistant City Manager Wooldridge, would you like to add anything to that?

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. I'd be happy to. So the library director, Marlon Romero, has been coordinating with the museum, and I have as well. And we are happy to work with them to bring a presentation to city council. overall on what they're doing, to update you so you know what's going on, since we do have a contract with the museum for their services, and specifically to also give an update on efforts they have made with local tribes. They do have artifacts that they inherited from quite a while ago. I'm getting the exact timeline, so I don't want to misquote. But at some point in the somewhat recent past, they did reach out to multiple tribes per state law regarding repatriation of those artifacts. And they've been following the process. They are working with the Leishon Ohlone tribe right now, as that is the only tribe that responded to them. And so they are working through repatriation and also working with them to create an educational display at the library in coordination with them so it's culturally appropriate. So they can come talk in more detail about that and give you a presentation on their efforts.

And what sort of timeline? And by the way, is Mr. Romero the new library director or still interim? He is acting library director. Okay. And do you have a time frame for when that might happen?

I have not finalized a specific time with them. We'll see if we can get it at the second meeting of July. I'll need to look at the agenda, too, and see how full it is. If not, it would be in September.

OK. All right. And Council Member Jensen, does that satisfy your needs?

Yes.

Thank you. Well, that was easy. So then do we, Mr. Chen, do we just need to give? Madam Mayor. Do we need to? Yes. Oh, and I should ask, are there any public comments? Thank you. Yes, we do have one. Gabriel Duncan. Is this how staff makes us look good or not so inept? Welcome back, Speaker Duncan. Hi.

Hi, thank you. Hi, I'm Gabriel Duncan. I'm the founder of the Alameda Native History Project. I've been working on researching and presenting the indigenous history of Alameda since 2019, putting in a considerable amount of effort to get in touch with the Muwekma Ohlone tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. I did have something prepared. I do support moving forward this proposal or referral. But I think specifically one of the things that just came up for me is that since these are technically city-owned artifacts, you have a contract to store them with somebody, but they belong to the city. I think that there should be a more public process for going through the creation of an exhibit showing Alameda history. since Alameda was founded in the mid-1800s, that we've had a large number of very diverse people make contributions to creating the city that we know and love today. And that it is not just the voices, lived experiences, and contributions of indigenous people who are missing from the Alameda Museum. And I think it's incredibly important to include everybody who had a hand in this history of this island. And it would do us the best service possible to be able to engage all of the residents of this city to come up with something together that can represent us as an island. West Alameda was a marsh that was diked up by Chinese laborers. And that's the reason that we have the shape of the city as it was when the army base was there. On the site of the so-called Sather Shell Mounds was one of the biggest farms in Alameda. And it was a Chinese-owned farm. And despite enormous pressure and a lot of bad things that were done to that farmer, he still fed the entire island. These are stories that aren't shared, but these are great bounties that the city has. And these contributions all deserve to see the light of day, not just indigenous ones as well. And I think that when we look to certain tribes that we need to do our best to publicly call out to all tribes that want to do this and not only focus on one group of people's story. Thank you.

Thank you. Was that all? Okay. So we'll close public comment on item 10A. And do we need more than giving staff direction, Mr. Chen?

I think the council is free to give staff direction right now if the council chooses, or if you're satisfied with the staff's report, you can stand on the staff's report and allow staff to come back based on the report.

Well, it sounds like Ms. Wooldridge and Mr. Romero are working together quite expeditiously to bring something forward to us. So I am satisfied with that direction, but bringer of the council referral, how about you?

That addresses my referral, and I want to appreciate the comments, public comments as well. And so hopefully when this comes back, we'll have an opportunity to ask or obtain information about other contributors to our community in the past.

Okay. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Moving on. Item 11 is council communications. So council member Desai, what about you?

On Thursday, June 11th, I attended the enlisted personnel of the quarter at Coast Guard Island, as well as recognition of the civilian employee of the quarter at Coast Guard Island. So that was very nice. And Commanding Officer Captain Braddock informed me that I guess he will be moving on to a new position, but although he'll still be in the region.

He'll be in the region.

And then after that, we just kind of informally met with the AC Transit people. We'll reschedule that meeting, but we got to hear informally some concerns raised by residents regarding bus availability. So that was nice to hear. But we will have that meeting again, I believe, in July. um so that was nice and then on um saturday attended the unity fest at chochenyo park that was very nice um and so that was uh you know the stuff that i did thank you um how about you councilmember bowler um i just i believe this is um interim city manager adam pulitzer's final council meeting if i

understand the counting of dates correctly. So I just wanted to take a minute and just say how much I really appreciated your stewardship of the city for the last several months plus and how much I enjoyed getting to know you and how much I think we benefited from your leadership and your your prior experience, not just your prior experience in the other cities and everything you brought to that perspective, but just your willingness to take the extra time to get to know people in Alameda and really take an interest in this place. And it really made a difference. We appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Pryor. I was going to talk about, well, and I will, all the things that I had done. But I also want to say it was really great having you here, Adam Pulitzer, as our interim city manager. It seems very seamless. It seems like you've been here forever. You're just a great communicator and just very calmly confident. I love that. It's just very reassuring. That's the word. And then I was going to say, these are things I've been able to do. It's so great. I went to a swearing in on the 9th for four new officers and the APT. And somebody that's going to do the dispatch. The person that's the 911 operator, she has a formal. Title and I'm sorry, but it was great This place was full And it was just it was wonderful And then on the 10th, I went to the mayor's conference Amy and I are sorry assistant City manager Wooldridge and I went it was in Piedmont The pool is beautiful. They have the this So like in the seating area on top of that, they have these solar panels, these little squares. And it looks very decorative. And it's so functional. So many families were there. They only have five parking spots for bikes, though.

For bikes?

For bikes. Only five. I was like, this can't be right. Yeah, but it was a beautiful and just well used. I really enjoyed it. It was really nice. And on the 12th, oh, Councilmember Jensen and I were at the chamber leadership graduation. That is really great. I don't know if all of you have been to there, but they do these great projects. And just what they get to experience through the city, all the people they meet, and all the ins and outs of our wonderful town. It was really cool. I was like, I want to do this.

Yeah, I felt the same way.

And then, oh, and the Unity Festival. And then I had the privilege to speak at the Unity Festival. Really wonderful performers. And my friend was part of... She's a dance instructor. She does soul line dancing at Rhythmix. So she got to perform, and I go to her class, so I got to jump in with them, and that was super fun. So dancing with Michelle at Rhythmix. Anyway, it was a really great, fun week. Anyway, and Adam, really going to miss you.

Likewise for me too, by the way.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Jensen.

I'll also appreciate Interim City Manager Pulitzer for his leadership, communication skills, and really especially for how quickly you learned about the unique needs of this unique city. So thank you for that, and thank you for always being available. Really appreciate it. And as to what I've been doing, as Vice Mayor Pryor mentioned, I attended the Chamber of Leadership graduation and the Unity Fest, which was very festive, and 92 decibels, but no complaints, I guess, from what I understand. Those drummers were pretty loud. And the next day was the Alameda Wellness Festival at Alameda Point at Radium Runway. It was yoga and therapy and massage and individual wellness. And I was the speaker. It was really, really fabulous. And this will be the first year. And I understand Kaiser is going to sponsor it next year. So this is something that we're going to be doing for a long time that I look forward to. Also at the Chamber of Commerce last week was the Economic Summit with all of the The tech and life science companies that are part of the chamber, there are probably about 20 or 30 companies there to talk about what Alameda is doing for them, what they need. We had Dwayne Dahlman and other leaders from AMP were there. And it was really a good event. And I think city staff and I certainly learned a lot about what is going on with tech and life sciences in Alameda and what they need and what they're contributing. So that's what I've been doing. But now I want to talk about other things that have been happening in Alameda. Last Sunday, 3,000 households across Alameda lost power for three hours. The cause? A single metallic coated balloon hitting high voltage lines. And that balloon's message? Congrats, grad. Well, there were lots of graduates. Unfortunately, only one metallic balloon hit the power lines. But it didn't have to happen. Six months ago, I brought forward to the city council a proposal to ban the sale and distribution of Mylar balloons in Alameda. This proposal was supported by Alameda Municipal Power staff with a presentation showing that each year, an average of 11 Mylar balloons knock out power to at least 200 customers. The Mylar balloon released on Sunday resulted in an outage impacting more than 3,000 customers for more than three hours, for several hours. And some of those customers faced discomfort or perhaps even hardship because they couldn't use their medical equipment or prepare their meals. Because some members of the council did not want to impact local sales of mylar balloons and others were content to wait for a potential statewide ban seven years from now in 2031, there are no consequences to the release of that mylar balloon. And I think that despite not agreeing on the opportunity to stop the sales of mylar balloons, everybody on this dais can agree that Alameda Power will go out again and again and again because of mylar balloons. There is a cost to recover and repair the grid, and that cost is covered by rate payers in Alameda. According to the December staff report, each time a balloon shorts AMP's high voltage lines, the baseline cost for responding to the outage and restoring power is $25,000. Although the costs have not been calculated by AMP for last Sunday's outage, it's likely that that impact will cost much, much more than $25,000. These costs aren't covered by insurance or by some reserve in the city or an Alameda municipal power. They're covered by rate payers who pay future rates that are higher than they pay now. My council colleagues decided not to adopt a Mylar balloon ban because despite the potential to cause outages, balloons are part of the fun of life. And it wouldn't matter anyway because people would just go to other cities to buy balloons. I disagree with that logic. In fact, the evidence in cities like Glendale and Hermosa Beach and Encinitas shows that metallic balloon bands reduce outages. Not only do balloon bands reduce the impact on utility users, mylar balloon bands reduce the impact on wildlife, especially on sea mammals and birds who ingest balloons or become entangled in balloon strings. So state assembly bill, as we discussed, mandates the elimination of metallic balloon sales by 2031. But that is cold comfort to the thousands of Alameda families who sat in the dark last Sunday. And given that the past outages from Mylar balloons are about 11 a year, so there will be about 75 more outages over the next seven years. So Alameda rate payers will be absorbing this cost between now and then. As provided in the December staff report, there are many California cities that have eliminated mylar balloon sales. Alameda is not without models to follow, and I think we should. Glendale prohibits the selling of mylar balloons, defined as metallic balloons made of electrically conductive materials, whether or not they're inflated with helium. Hermosa Beach has gone even further, banning the possession of balloons. And Encinitas and Laguna Beach have joined them with the encouragement and support of Southern California Edison and environmental advocates. So the problem of metallic balloon power outages and environmental impacts are not unique to Alameda, but Alameda's failure to act when we had the chance is unique. So early next month, I will be submitting a referral to ask the city council to reconsider the ban on metallic balloons to protect our residents and businesses from random outages. And to be sure, it may impact one or two or three businesses that sell metallic balloons. And that would be a consequence that I would be willing to accept. to protect local wildlife and protect our power grid. Let's acknowledge and respond to city staff recommendations rather than waiting seven years for a statewide ban to go into full effect. Alamedans cannot and should not have to wait until 2031 while ratepayers foot the bill for outage after preventable outage. The congrats grad balloon that darkened 3,000 homes last Sunday is as clear a message as this council should need. And finally, on another note, since I have a couple minutes left, we will celebrate Juneteenth on Friday, the federal holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when we finally reached the last enslaved people in Texas that the Civil War had ended and they were free. The news reached those Texans more than two months after the war's end and nearly two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. At a moment when the federal government is moving to eliminate civil rights protections and erase the spirit of inclusion that has always made this country great, I hope we'll each take time on Friday to reflect on the diversity of opinion, culture, and ideas that make Alameda so special. And that's my report. Thank you.

And I'll go last, but I'll start with the Mylar balloon issue, because I actually looked up the minutes from that meeting. You didn't mention this, council member, but I'm sure you remember that I seconded your motion. I supported you. I think part of the problem was this is a body, I say this all the time, that we each have one vote. As mayor, I have one vote. With one vote, I can do absolutely nothing. In fact, with two votes, I can do, or you can do, or any of us can do absolutely nothing. We have to be willing to collaborate, to sometimes compromise. Sometimes we don't get everything we want. As I recall from just going back and reading the minutes, that there were questions of the, there was, because you wanted to ban the use of mylar balloons and there was questions about enforcement and how would that be done and would it require extra staff or would it be complaint driven. It was a wide ranging discussion. Council Member Bowler asked if you would consider an amendment to the ordinance to exempt certain smaller businesses. You wouldn't. And so sometimes that is what it takes to get the three votes we need to move things along. And so, but, you know, we're all a work in progress. I was pleased that earlier today you came around to a position that I hadn't anticipated you would on amending the rent ordinance to address the rubbs. So we are all a work in progress. I think we need more understanding, a little bit of grace, trying to see things from other people's perspectives at least as much and probably more than we need lectures. But it was frustrating because I was in that zone. Although I do have to say, we did solar panels on our roof last year. And so only part of my house lost power. So kudos to AMP for having that program that helped get us on board. Anyway, I actually want to share a little good news. So I was in Washington, DC last week for a very busy week. I was with the Alameda County Transportation Commission, which I'm the vice chair of. We were very busy, but I also had meetings on behalf of our city, got to meet really briefly with Congresswoman Latifah Simon. But she'll be back as the honorary grand marshal of our 4th of July parade. But while I just sort of starting from the end, on Friday last week, which was the 12th, I was just telling the assistant city manager this, I remotely joined my MTC. So I represent the 14 cities of Alameda County on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. And so I did those five policy committee meetings remotely. And one of the meetings that I attended is the Joint Planning Committee of MTC and ABAC. ABAC is the Association of Bay Area Governments, so nine counties, 101 cities. And there were PCA grants, which stands for Priority Conservation Area Grants. And as with any grant application, this program was oversubscribed. They had committed to doing two awards in each county, each of the nine counties. Guess which city was one of the ones? I didn't come to tell you about San Leandro. But yes. Now, let me just caveat by saying this was our committee meeting. We will meet the full commission Next, maybe two weeks from Wednesday, or a week, I can't remember, soon, later this month, the city of Alameda was awarded $500,000 for the wooden bridge replacement feasibility study. And I think you all know what I'm talking about, that bridge that connects the pedestrian bay farm bridge to the bike trail. And I think Assistant City Manager Wildred, you said, so that'll help, that $500,000 will help with... more than just feasibility, because there is more. Just go ahead and chime in.

Yes. Public Works Director Erin Smith is taking on this project as a public works project. And this will actually supplement the funding already allocated by city council in next year's fiscal budget. And we will be able to do not only the, rather than a feasibility, we're shifting Well, I think this will be for a feasibility study to really look at what our future long-term options are What I was referencing is that what we're doing next year is in addition. We will be doing an actual Design for the short term how we can get the bridge to last the next 10 to 15 years While we work on the long-term replacement so we will have the design of that and we'll be able to move forward with that project and look for funding and confirm how we will fund that with a essentially reconstruction of the existing firming shoring up the existing bridge while we do the feasibility study for the long-term options

And as I mentioned to Assistant City Manager Wildridge, off the record, I have some other ideas for funding. But we're not going to go into those now, because I don't want to count chickens before they hatch. And again, this was a policy vote. It would be highly unusual for the full commission not to follow this recommendation. But it's also a reflection on our staff and what a good job they do putting together a competitive application for this board. This is half a million dollars, and that's really huge. And I mentioned earlier at the top of the agenda that I had accepted this climate award from the US Conference of Mayors on behalf of the city. But it also came with a $15,000 grant that we could award to a nonprofit in the community doing work in the sustainability space. So I reached out to Danielle Mueller, because she was instrumental. I helped write the application a little bit, but it was mostly her work. But we brainstormed. And she suggested, and I love the idea, that the West End Arts District, which had brought, I think it might still be on display, these wonderful ocean photographs that are over right behind Dewar. And I never remember the numbers of the building. But anyway, they are getting $15,000 that will help them continue their work. And that's because Walmart, the Walmart Corporation, for 20 years has partnered with the US Conference of Mayors to support these awards. And also, it was a little bit unusual, but the two cities that won, we were in the small category, that cities of 100,000 or under, because you have to have at least 30,000 population to even be a member of the US Conference of Mayors. But in the large city category, the city of Fresno won for amazing work Tim Haynes, you might know about the work they're doing with solar panels and battery storage, because Fresno, they've got all this open space, but also storing the electricity in the batteries. But everyone is so envious, because I talked about it in my acceptance speech, of the electric utility we have in electric rates that are 45% lower than PG&E. So anyway, let's see, going back over, yes, so I was the day after our last council meeting on Wednesday, June the 3rd, and I think most of the council were there, maybe not Council Member Daszak, but we welcomed the Australian Socceroos to the Roots Oakland Roots, Oakland Soul, beautiful training facility out at Harbor Bay Business Park. And David Halbert, who's the president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, and I all made welcoming remarks. And then it was kind of fun. I was interviewed by a gaggle of press from Australia. You could have translated for me. interim city manager. They were fun. And then I flew down to Long Beach the next day for US Conference of Mayors. And Danielle Mueller got to go with me. And she flew down and back in a day. But I stayed for the conference. We got to hear from some very impressive mayors around the country, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry and DC Mayor, well, now outgoing DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. But just a really good conference. And then that Sunday morning after the conference ended, I flew to D.C., and it was pretty much nonstop meetings. We have fabulous federal lobbyists in D.C., really impressed with all the meetings they set up and then the meetings with Alameda County Transportation Commission. And now we're back. And if people don't know, this Friday, I think from noon to 3, there is a watch party at the Alameda Theater to watch the Australia versus US soccer game. come out and root for both sides, because really we do have to have kind of divided loyalty. We're hosts to the Socceroos, and we're the USA. So we can do it all. Anyway, good, productive meeting. Thank you, everybody, for all your work. And with that, I believe we've covered. Have I covered everything? I have. Can I adjourn the meeting? Ashley says I can. With that, the meeting is adjourned at 10, 12 p.m. Good night, everybody. Travel home safely. Thank you.