Board of Education - Regular Meeting

and welcome to the Alb City Council meeting of January 20th, 2026. Thank you all for joining us. John, would you please read the land acknowledgement?

Yes. City of Albany recognize that we occupy the land originally protected by the Confederated villages of Leon. We acknowledge genocide that took place on these lands and must make strides to repay the moral debt that is owed to this indigenous people, specifically the Aloney tribe. We thank them for their contributions which have transformed our community and will continue to bring forth growth and unity. City of Albany commits to sustaining ongoing relationships with the tribe and together build a better future for all that now make this their home. Thank you. May we have roll call, please? Council member Jordan will be here soon. Council member Lopez here. Council member Mickey

here. Vice Mayor Hansen Romero here. Mayor McQuay

here. Yesterday we honored the legacy of Dr. for Martin Luther King Jr. Let us begin this evening by reflecting on his words from letter from Birmingham jail. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in in an inescapable network of mutuality hid in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. We have no close session this evening. So we'll move to ceremonial matters. have a certificate of recognition for Craig Bryant who is the recipient of the CMEA Bryant Holt Don Shimmer Band Educator Award for 2025 26.

Good evening everybody. Craig Bry Craig Bryant has served as the director of instrumental music at Albany High School since 2007. He leads a strong, diverse, and award-winning music program that is recognized for its musical excellence throughout the Bay Area. In addition to his work at Albany, Mr. Bryant is active in the Bay Area music education community. He was recognized as an NBC Sports Bay Area All-Star Teacher in 2018 and became a member of the Albany Education Foundation Hall of Fame in 2020. Mr. Bryant is a freelance trombonist in various bands and orchestras throughout the Bay Area. And I have to say I'm disappointed he didn't bring his trombone tonight, but can't have everything. So tonight we have a certificate of recognition. The Albany City Council commends Craig Bryant in recognition of your selection as the recipient of the CMEA Byron Holt Hoy Don Schumer Band Educator Award for 2526 and in appreciation for your outstanding contributions to music education in Albany.

Thank you very much. Congratulations.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, first I'll just say thank you very much. And um you know, we don't get into teaching for the uh the riches and accolades, but I will say it sure is nice to be recognized um not only by you folks here tonight, but by my community, the Albany music students and parents, music uh the music fund. And uh uh this past weekend, I was in Sacramento where we had the music education convention for all of California with about 2,000 other uh music teachers from all over. and just to be recognized and to share that uh professional development and the one-off conversations that you have uh sharing uh the job with your colleagues. So, I really appreciate it. Um I when I Peggy asked if I could be here tonight, I just said uh it's been almost 20 years teaching in Albany and uh it was really a perfect storm of uh a really supportive community uh parents and students that were just like uh at a place where it could really kind of blow up. um and somebody that was dangerous enough with three years exper or two years experience to be in charge and uh feel so fortunate to to live and work here. We have two kids in the school district and my wife and I uh moved here in 2017 and uh just uh want to say thank you to everybody here and my wonderful community in Albany. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

You are there any comments from council members? Mr. Brian, thank you for um teaching my son and taking him as far as he was willing to go in terms of practicing with viola about a decade ago. Um I came to appreciate you very much then and certainly think the award is well justified now. Thanks so much.

Thank you. really quick. I Albany High alumni and I spent most of my life there in the uh theater department, music area and I was always so grateful and thankful that we had that. So, thank you for continuing on with that and are lucky to have you. Thank you.

Are there any no public comments here? Are there any online? Uh yes. Uh this is Lucinda Young and I just want to give a big shout out and thank you to Mr. Bryant. I am one of hundreds if not thousands of parents who you made a huge difference in the life of our our kids in high school. My son, you might remember Kaden. He was a total pain, but you made a huge difference uh in his life and he's still blowing on the trumpet. Not as much as we'd like, but still some. So, thank you. And I am echoing, I'm sure, the gratitude of so many other parents out there.

Thank you for that. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Appreciate you. Thank you. And that brings us to the city manager report.

You may welcome back council for your first meeting of the year. I know that we're already off to a running start. So here we go. Uh quick update for you. A reminder that we have a citywide planning expo scheduled for this Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 at the community center. And specific topics for this expo will include uh further engagement on our active transportation plan which is already underway and looking for more engagement as well as our watershed management plan. And I really appreciate staff combining the two of these, especially I know it's been dry for a minute, but uh with the major storms we all experience, hopefully it's still timely enough that folks can bring their firsthand experiences during that wet weather to this planning session so we can really roll up our sleeves together and look for solutions going forward as we continue to uh improve city infrastructure. A reminder on um something that our senior center now does annually which I greatly appreciate. Our AARP Foundation tax aid at the senior center. This is a tax counselor on site at the senior center on Thursdays from 1 to 6 uh February 5th through April 19th. Very helpful um for those that may need assistance in filing taxes. I know how confusing it can be. Uh, and a recap on a teen service showcase. On January 11th at the community center, the Alama County Library and the city hosted a teen service showcase honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The event brought together teen service organizations to share their experiences of giving back in their communities. Thanks to our staff for putting that together. And the in coordination with the Rotary

Club of Albany on Saturday, February 7th from 10 to 11, Rotary Club of Albany is inviting the community to participate in a greenway cleanup. Goal of the event is to remove litter, help keep microlastics out of storm drains. Everyone is welcome to stop by and join in the cleanup. Also a reminder of our red cards and sanctuary city posters. They remain readily available at all city facilities and we have those in multiple languages with regard to the red cards. And also keep watch for a year in review which is currently underway by staff. We will aim to send out postcards on that citywide as well as post it to our website. It's basically a summary. can't can't make it too long, but we have had a lot of accomplishments. Basically, a high level summary of some of our most key progress together over the last year. That concludes my report. Thank you. Are there any council questions? Seeing none, are there any public comments, questions? Oh, I'm sorry. There is a hand raised. Hi. Um, this is Jean Woo. I just wondered since I've been reading about this new re rebate for multif family homes to get EV chargers whether that will be in the report. Would you like me to move to public or to um go to the city and that question answer that?

Um yeah, I'm not sure I fully understood the question. I understand the interest on EVs and I can reiterate that we will have a um report or summary on progress made to date. it is forthcoming um with our community development team and um confident that that will be uh before the council and through our uh climate action committee very soon. Thank you. That brings us to good of the city public comment persons desiring to address the city council on an item that is not on the agenda. Please note city policy limits each speaker to up to three minutes. Mayor may reduce the time limit per speaker depending upon the number of speakers. The Brown Act limits the council's ability to take and or discuss items that are not on the agenda. Therefore, such items may be referred to staff for comment or to a future agenda item. Comments that relate to items appearing later on the agenda will be taken up at that time. Mayor will announce when period for public comment is open on each agenda item. Ahead, please. I want to lead structure. 15 days.

Awareness. Only 72 properties are alerted about the project with the surroundings and total violations of all planning and zoning conditions building no setback and no residential parking. Nonetheless, the planning and zoning commission should have directed the build that the building's exterior be more compatible with the neighboring craftsman structures and failed to do so. A flyer prepared by a homeowner near the project was distributed to the greater community to alert them about 1600. During a single June 2022 meeting devoted to the project, 43 individuals both legitimate aesthetic and safety concerns. Vice Mayor Ted on the submitted emails. Mayor McCrae, then a council member, appropriately voiced disapproval of the project, calling it disappointing and requested continuous. Despite overwhelming community opposition, question regarding the city's application of density bonus and calls for continuous, the council approved the project of a single session without so much as approaching the applicants to consider any of the suggested medications. How many resist their concerns. One half of the Alman for Duo is no longer on the council. The remaining received the least number of votes cast positions. There is no legal reason for all from extending public notice. If the current council generally believes that only those new construction work is appropriate, then defend this practice. submit community

agenda item to all for extended inepth public discussion. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Public comment online. Go ahead. Ah, hi. Um, this is Gene Wu again, a longtime Albany resident, member of the ACAC. And I wanted to point out that even though the residential 30% tax credits for solar and battery have expired as of December 31st, 2025, they have not expired for nonprofits and commercial and municipal government. So there is a webinar coming up on the 22nd at 12 to 1 from a organization called CAC California Alliance for Community Energy. I did try to send that information out to staff and also to city council members. Um it does say the solar incentives are still alive who can still qualify and then how to qualify. And it's um probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the state. So really important to realize that there is a direct pay option. So if you're a public agency or a nonprofit, instead of getting a tax credit, you get paid by check. So I think this is really important and since we really do need a resilience hub and other kinds of things in the city of Albany, it would be helpful for someone who can go to this and attend or this Zoom conference and then bring it back to the city and city staff and utilize this information to be

able to maximize the amount of funding that's possible to get from the federal government as well as other potential sources. So that's my two cents. Thank you. I can send that information to anyone who's interested.

Hi, this is Katherine. I wanted to share that I attended a webinar today on SB121 general notification for some priority zones CPU designated in California. And I believe there's an opportunity to have a one two winning opportunity with uh the DOE funded pilot that we're already doing um awareness raising for getting people into Albany if there's an overlap between the three blocks selected for the DOE pilot for awareness raising and getting assessments foration next steps and then using the SP1221 um opportunity CPU to see if there's any utility funding or state funding or just getting it easier to have full blockification for um one of the blocks that's part of the program already for the DOE pilot. So, we may be able to go from just awareness raising to actually get entire block off the gas grid by combining those two programs at minimal or no cost to the city, which could be really a huge win because this matters for not just environmental reasons, but helping kids breathe cleaner air. Gas stood to one in eight asthma cases, uh which is pretty high. So helping kids bring cleaner air in Albany, lower income parts of Albany, um is really a great idea. Uh and encourage the city uh to have staff time and talk to the PUC or to talk be involved in the process with um whatever technical assistance is available. I think there's a program like BPRC or something like that um that is providing assistance for how to engage with CPU on that. There's also an all day webinars tomorrow and Thursday or in person at the CPC headquarters in San Francisco to if you're interested in more notification on this. So um encourage staff to take some time to look into that so we can get some lowcost or free uh clean air for our kids. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. This is Lucinda Young. um another Albany Climate Action Coalition member. Uh first I want to thank our new mayor, Mayor McQuade, for um rejoining the client mayors organization which um as uh some people are probably aware is uh has over 350 mayors which is dedicated to climate leadership um in their community. So thank you mayor. Um, also, um, at the city council meeting, one of the city council meetings LA meetings last month, public comment was made by an apartment renter who has an EV and she shared about the challenges of EV charging when you're a renter. Um, I have been asked by another apartment renter who has an EV, Susan Mashiamyama to read a statement to you about her challenges. Susan works evenings and she is unable to be here to speak on her behalf. So, I'm going to read her statement and I understand she is also sending an email to council. Uh, dear Albany City Council, I have been concerned about global warming for many years now. I was happy to hear you passed a climate emergency declaration last year and that our city has a climate action adaptation plan. With over one half of greenhouse gas emissions coming from transportation, mostly cars. I wanted to do my part and bought a used EV Bolt about two years ago with the help of federal and other incentives. It feels great not to have to buy and burn gas. And even though I'm an apartment renter, I thought I'd be able to manage charging. Charging my EV has been much more challenging and stressful than I expected. My apartment building doesn't have chargers, and the

landlords weren't interested in pursuing installation when I approached them. For me to install a charger myself would have required thousands of dollars, and there were logistical challenges, too. I was not permitted to use the household outlet in the communal laundry room. So, I have had to rely on public EV chargers. You're not supposed to charge my my I'm not supposed to charge my EV on a fast charger, a level three, on a regular basis because it degrades the battery. Instead, a level two charger is needed for routine charging. There used to be a blink level two public EV charger behind the post office which had reasonable rates which I was able to use. that's been gone for some time and I don't know what the plans are. There are no other level two public chargers in Albany. In addition to regular fast charging being hard on the battery, it's also usually a lot pricier than level one charging. The two EV chargers at the Toyota near the freeway are fast chargers. Great for travelers, but not for routine charging, and the rates are high. Um um I'll just I don't have time to read the rest. Thank you for your attention. and I look forward to moving forward to address the climate crisis together with better planning and action. I urge you to take steps to get level two public chargers installed in convenient locations at affordable charging rates and to encourage apartment building owners to install EV chargers for their renters.

Thank you, Lucinda. Is there any response?

We completely hear the uh commentary and I can say again with confidence that our staff has been working on all of this um quite a bit recently and looking forward to that installation of charges going forward. That brings us to item seven, consent calendar. Consent calendar items are considered to be routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion by approval of the consent calendar. Staff recommendations will be adopted unless otherwise modified by the city council. There will be no separate discussion on these items unless a council member or member of the audience requests removal of the items from the consent calendar. So, is there are there any items to pull? I'm going to pull seven-7. Are there any public um Oh, great. Okay. 7-7 is the um comprehensive financial report. I just wanted to say thank you. You can stay there. I just wanted to say thank you for all the work that staff did on this. Congratulations for such a wonderful report. Congratulations for getting it to us in January. Words I don't think I've ever heard I've heard in January in the same sentence. Um anyway, congratulations. You did a an amazing job. Thank you. With that, I will accept a motion to um approve consent.

I'll move the consent calendar. I'll second that. May we have roll call, please? Council member Mickey, yes. Vice Mayor Hansen Romero, yes. Mayor Mccclelay, yes. Council member Jordan, yes. And council member Lopez. Yep. Motion carries. Okay, that brings us We have no no presentation. We have no public hearing. We have no unfinished business. Moving right along to new business. 11-1 local hazard mitigation plan update. May we have a staff report, please?

Good evening, mayor and council members. Um, so happy to be here. Happy New Year. This is our first uh meeting of the year. So, that's pretty exciting. Um, what we have before you tonight is um the local hazard mitigation plan update. And I also have um you'll see her right now Gene Iceberg who is the consultant for this project who will give a much more in-depth um review of this and then we will be available for questions both before and after of course. Um, so what we're recommending, just to kind of summarize a bit, is that staff um is requesting that the council provide us feedback on the updated um LHMP and authorize us to submit this to the office of emergency services and that will allow us to get feedback from them and to finish this project along with our safety element of the general plan which has to be also updated. Then once we receive those comments, we will come back to you for adoption for final adoption of the plan. So with that, I'm going to um allow Jean to present to us. She has a PowerPoint presentation and then we can of course answer any questions um after the presentation.

Okay. Thank you, Dina. And good evening, Mayor McUade and members of the council. Uh so again tonight we're talking about the local hazard mitigation plan or for short LHMP. This is a plan that identifies pre- disaster mitigation. So this is not about what happens uh in the event post- disaster but how to mitigate and prepare uh in advance. It's required by the federal government by the state government and it's required for eligibility for certain federal and state grants. Uh approval is required by both the federal emergency management agency FEMA as well as review and approval by the state office of emergency services cales. Jurisdictions are required to update these plans every 5 years. Uh so for Albany that means the 2018 plan is the one that's still in effect. So one of the key features is identifying hazards. uh we see similar set of hazards that were identified in 2018 but these have been evaluated differently um and certain hazards have been added including for public health emergency in light of our recent experience with the CO 19 pandemic. So just recapping what has happened so far. The bulk of community engagement for this plan happened in 2022 uh excuse me 2022 and 2023. And this included working with the climate action committee uh with theert uh groups uh and having review and feedback with the planning and zoning commission as well as a study session uh with the city council in March of 2023. Following that study session, staff revised the plan and submitted it to Cal Oes for review. Uh during that period, received feedback from Caloes and

revised the plan uh which is what you're seeing tonight. The next steps following your review tonight, we're not asking for uh consideration for adoption. This is uh simply the action would be to authorize staff to submit the draft to Calios for their review again and then we would come back to the council to consider adoption of the plan and at the same time revisions to the safety element to con confirm alignment between the two documents. And then at that point once the council has uh considered adoption of the plan and the safety element then the plan would be sent to Calos for approval and then for FEMA to FEMA for their approval. So the key revisions since you saw the plan now almost uh almost three years ago. So first at the time that staff submitted the plan to CO caloes it just so happened that FEMA had updated their guidelines and so a number of changes had to be made in response to that updated toolkit and policy guide uh issued by FEMA at the same time provided feedback to staff about changes to make in the plan and the key feedback was to reorganize and develop the risk assessment section. And that's this green box here to better organize and evaluate the locations where these hazards could exist. Is it a specific neighborhood or part of the city? Is it citywide? um to look at previous occurrences to assess future probability of each impact and then to discuss the vulnerability based on different types of structures effects on different populations and effects on the local economy. Other revisions included updated maps as you can imagine um as new data comes out

from the state from the city updating those maps and that data and then again aligning it with the FEMA guidelines. So some of the changes that you see are expanded analysis of vulnerable populations including uh people with disabilities, seniors and low-income households analyzing the effects of new construction. there's been a number of housing developments that have been um occupied and constructed since 2018. And then analyzing the effects of some of the new adopted policies, for example, the softtory ordinance and the recent forest management habitat restoration plan on Albany Hill. So, as mentioned, um the request tonight is asking the council to provide feedback on the plan and to authorize staff to submit the revised draft to Cal EOS. Um we have received public comment since publishing the staff report. Uh one public comment regarding storm water management with a number of ideas about how to increase green infrastructure, bio retention systems, ways to do this in a cost-effective way. Um, in general, policy ideas are are only in the local hazard mitigation plan to the extent that they've been adopted, that there's a program identified, and that they become part of the plan, and that they're identified for program implementation uh during the planning period. That concludes my presentation and I'm happy [clears throat] to answer any questions. Thank you.

Are there any questions from council? Thank you. I think there would be. Gee, shocking. I know. Um I apologize that I did not get around to sending these to staff beforehand, which is my usual practice. So, uh if um these understandably can't be answered in the moment, I I understand. Um has Alman applied for a FEMA hazard mitigation grant or is that like some sort of pass through funding that comes to the city? I am not aware that we have uh applied. Are you aware um Jean?

I don't think so. I haven't seen anything in my rather brief stay here, but um I haven't seen anything yet, but I can certainly look into it further if you'd like. Um Council Member Jordan, I guess I was just curious because this seems like a pretty substantial effort putting this together. And if I understood correctly from the staff report, the the reason to expend the resources, put it together was to be eligible for the grant at a very base level. That's the motivation. Um, and I wasn't aware that city had pursued such a grant before. I don't know if it will future, but

yeah, I think exactly that it's forward-looking. uh especially with all of the work we've done with disaster preparedness over the recent years, uh we've really picked up our efforts there and so being able to lock into that funding for future endeavors is where we're headed. Okay, great. Thank you. Um does FEMA mandate the use of the priority risk index method for the risk assessment? This is the you know,

so the The FEMA guidelines didn't prescribe the way that the risk assessment needed to be completed. It just needs to include those components I mentioned around identifying the location, the extent, um those previous occurrences, that future probability, but they don't prescribe what way that assessment needs to be conducted if I'm understanding your your question. Yeah. Okay. So that that was a choice then to use that particular method. That's correct.

Okay. Q. Um, are the scores resulting from the application of that method of particular import? In other words, or those risks that came out with a higher score, are the mitigation actions um associated with reducing that that risk going to be get priority for implementation? Wasn't clear to me the layout of the report. I mean, they were ordered. They were ordered kind of in the order of the scores, but it wasn't any statement one or the other. Just to be clear, I don't have an agenda one way or the other. I'm just asking to understand. Do you know if they are? Yeah,

it's a fair question. The the plan right now has not identified uh funding sources or priority programs based on the outcome of that risk assessment. It's simply a tool to identify what those potential risks are and um to organize the document in terms of uh laying out those programs and and mitigations to address those risks.

Thank you. And final question, um I thought there were mitigation actions in both part five, uh which is capabilities and part six, which is actions in summary. And so I was a little confused by that. Um so I presume those are all really in one are those all really in one pool of actions. I mean the ones under capabilities are kind of way more general than the ones that are in five which are more specific but the both tables the left column is headed mitigation actions. So trying to understand the relationship between those between those two.

Sure. I'm not sure I pull up question actually. So let me go. Yeah, that's fine. And uh again, I apologize. I wasn't able to send these over beforehand and so should conversation afterwards be warranted. I'm right always available for that. I don't know if they I I I don't know. Do you know Genie if that because I didn't look at it that way. I just looked at it as all of them are mitigation measures and not separating them out but I don't know if you've applied them differently Jeannie.

Yeah I I mean I it's I I hear you. It's maybe a nuance distinction. Part five, capabilities, is about ongoing actions that the city um including emergency response personnel have identified to mitigate those impacts and the mitigations. There is a lot of somewhat redundancy between the two um sections because you also have that mitigation action. um it is presented as an action plan in part six. The idea being that there's timelines associated with those mitigations, funding sources identified. Um so I would call that more of an action plan as opposed to just the responsibilities and of different departments within the city. Yes, you're right. There is some redundancy between the two sections. Thank you.

Those are my questions. Mayor,

any other council questions? See none, we'll go to public comment. Is there any public to speak? No. No public comment. I'll bring it back for council um comments. I do have one brief comment on page 112. It refers to um advocating to keep Alterbates Hospital open or something similar to that. I think we should change the language to reflect the new setter hospital plan and I'll leave it to you to

Yes, we we did see that comment. I'm sorry we didn't uh say that in our presentation, but we are changing that. Thank you for catching that.

Thank you. And with no other Thank you, mayor. Um, so I asked about the priority risk index because I I do risk assessment professionally, so I had concern about it, but if it's not of import, then go any further further with that. Um, uh, let's see under capabilities in the all hazard section. Um, well actually you just addressed that. I had that note about altabates as well. Um, in the mitigation section, um, I would ask that an action be included or considered to be included to extend the mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance to duplex and single residence buildings that are rented. So because this plan could extend through 2033 president of the prior plan which went for seven years um that will this plan would be in position for number of years that is beyond the current retrofit program. Um and I think any residences that are rented should be retrofit because it's business proposition. Um and so they should be made life safe at least. um under fire a neighbor of mine brought it to my attention that they had um 3/4 inch water service believe no actually was 58 I think maybe half I can't remember but they built a whole new house on their property which pretty rare in Albany um because they had a their existing house was in the back and they were going to have to upgrade their fire service. They're going to have to replace it, which is going to be usually expensive. And uh I think the fire department tipped them. Well, there's an alternative approach, which is having on-site tank and then having a pump that feeds the fire sprinkler system for a set amount

of time with a set amount of pressure from that tank. Um I have a great interest in promoting that and maybe even making that mandatory because it has the benefit of providing systems of water that are distributed throughout the city. um which could be beneficial if uh there is a you know an urban firestorm of some consequence um for the the fire department if those can be registered in some way for the fire department to actually have a supply of water that is in various places around the city. Um, under severe weather, there's a mention that one of the the 2018 mitigation actions was to work with the county to expand capacity and publicized warming and cooling centers. And the status is listed as ongoing as of 2025. Um, I'm not aware of where the county schooling centers are in this area and I don't know if the city is active in this, but I would like to see an action where the city is going to have a cooling and warming center in one of its facilities or open one of its facilities for that purpose. Um, so we're not necessarily relying solely on the county. Um I mean the county doesn't have any facilities other than veterans building and uh I don't know that that actually has HVAC vision to be a warming and cooling center. Um and you know there's other issues with that building. So, um on flooding, um I think there was an action item to require, um mitigations by development. Um but I think would also be worthy to recognize that the city itself and I think this is an action item that is happening anyway, so it might as well be in there. Um an action item for city to be including greenwater infrastructure in its in its uh maintenance program. So oftentimes

like on Marin Avenue the phase one I think it was I can't lose track of what it was called but the the phase always between Cornell and key route put in um green water infrastructure green infrastructure treating storm water. So the city is already doing that to some extent. So I think that should be recognized and uh uplifted in the plan if possible and I can send all these comments in writing as well afterwards. I would love them in writing. I've taken some notes, but I want to make sure we we can actually look at them again. Thank you. Right on. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

If I may, I do want to note with those um member Jordan, we will do our best to articulate those and thank you for sending it over. I I will uh recommend that they are in the framing of work with partners, consider feasibility of language like that just because we have a few unknowns with some of those. Any last comments from council?

I I have one. It's super minor. Uh under part five of mitigation strategy and action plan on page 122 uh for hazard uh for flooding and tsunami it states partner with UC village to install to install tsunami evacuation signage and provide tsunami risk information to UC village residents. That's great. Amazing. Um I but I think just so it's absolutely clear on who's uh where communication should be running through. Um I think UC Village should be swapped out with UC Berkeley. Um in the past UC Village staff used to be the one that could make the calls and uh call the shots on what happens uh in in that area. Um but there has been changes in uh leadership and consolidation of uh how information flows from campus to the UC village resident. Um I know because I live there. Um but uh I think if we're talking about a risk in something like this, it the the potentiality of information not getting where it needs to go to. if you're talking to uh someone who we think is the point person at the UC village who then has to go up several lines of command just for it to then finally get back to the residents. So just a little thing but I think it's a big big impact.

Okay. And with that I believe you uh city clerk there are some hands raised. I think we may have missed them earlier. I think there were two.

Thank you. Uh this is Lucinda Young and I just have a minor uh observation comment that I wanted to make. Maybe not so minor, but I I did look at uh there was a comparison done by the California Office of Emergency Services between the previous uh FEMA planning guide and the changes that were made by the Trump administration to the current guide. And I think it's just uh worth noting that um the new guide deletes every single reference to climate, including the previous requirement that all plans have to include the effects of climate change. That's um says weather patterns, average temperature, and sea level. All that is now gone from the current plan. In addition, the guide, the new guide deletes the previous requirement that nonprofits that support underserved communities and socially vulnerable populations have to be involved in planning. Now, every reference to underserved communities and socially vulnerable populations is gone. So, I I think it's just noteworthy, and I appreciate uh staff continuing to include the climate risk in our uh in our plan even though it's no longer required. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

This is Katherine. I agree with Lucinda's assessment that we should be including climate and um low-income community consultations or nonprofit input on the emergency planning because they're the ones most impacted by climate um emergencies. And I want to thank the council for declaring climate emergency. appreciate that and hope that we can um come up with some crossf functional uh approaches to um preparing for emergencies which could include biiobased infrastructure like rain gardens and biosailes to reduce the need for larger pipes um for water that um for rainstorms that would be at a peak capacity. Certainly we definitely need to upgrade our our pipes and infrastructure. It's an important part of our city planning, but want to make sure that we're including the perspective of um people in the e ecology sector or in the parks and rec kind of department and not only in engineering so we can have the best of both engineered and bio approaches to our water management. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Hi, this is Gene Woo again and I think this is an optimal opportunity to input into this plan the need for a resilience hub in the city of Albany that can provide both communication services um a resource center, cooling and heating center, evacuation services, water, food, etc. uh in case of a dire and a citywide emergency because those things can happen and may happen without any type of forewarning and so we're very vulnerable because the other services that are available in this area are specifically for other communities. So, I think Albany should be able to put together a reasonably actionable plan that within the time frame of this plan could produce a a qualified and fully functional resilience hub. And the Albany Community Center would be an optimal place to put it. or you could make two or three. But depending on the funding sources, that would be my goal would be to have at least one fully functional and operational community services center that can function in terms of a complete disaster. Um, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Okay. So, with that, we have given you some direction to go forward. Um, believe we're ready to authorize staff to submit.

I just had a a response to one of the comments. Um, yeah, I too appreciated that the staff kept climate change um in the document and equity. Uh, I will note from my my work um at Lawrence Brookkeley National Laboratory that having that in there could hurt the city in terms of getting grant money over the next few years. Uh, but given again this plan exist potentially to 2033. I really appreciate staff sticking with reality there. Thank you,

Mayor. I had a question for Council Member Jordan. Sorry. Um I'm just going back to the mantra that things are always more complicated than they seem. Uh and thinking a little bit about your recommendations and trying to understand were you phrasing your recommendations as um mitigation uh to explore the option of and then some of the things that you listed are you saying we should include those as we're doing those? Sorry I just I just want to verify that it's that's fine. I I mean whatever whatever staff's direction is I would say and I believe the city manager gave appropriate perfect fuzification of what I was saying

again things are I agree with the gist of many of the things you said and my mind started spinning a lot on low well wait a minute so as long as it's coming back to us at some point for a discussion yes absolutely I and in support with the recommendations of exploration of those topics staff, do you have what you need? I believe we do. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for being here tonight. Thank you. Do you need a specific I don't think we need a vote. Do we? No, I don't I don't believe so. I think I I see the direction. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you, Jean. I appreciate all the work that you've done on this. Thank you, Jean. Okay, that brings us to item 12, council subcommittee reports. Members, council member reports on appointed representation representation of Albany and other meetings and events. I'm looking to my left. John, do you have anything?

Um, so the um audit and fiscal sustainability subcommittee met and as part of 77 was our our essentially our charge for the last meeting. Uh I attended two C's events. One on housing bills. Uh I'm going to apologize because I uh was pulled out of that meeting several times. Uh I expect I will be getting an update uh next Friday when the housing economic development um committee of Cal Cities uh meets and so I will make sure to uh bring back to council a report on all the bills that are under consideration. Um I was able is that today? Yes. Attend Call City's roundt on ebikes. Uh and I believe there were a couple other council members that were intense on that. Um and uh that I believe that is that is everything that I have attended. No major reports on my end. Unfortunately, I was uh quite under the weather for most of the winter. Um I will say of highlight though is that I have formally fired my chief of staff. He's done. I I can relate with you. I've still don't have my whole voice back. So yeah, I haven't attended anything. U yeah I attended uh the PPLC meeting of the Ali County Transportation Commission. Um nothing particularly know whether to report there and the Alam County MS District meeting and elected new new leadership um on that body. Um

also had a presentation regarding um yeah this agency is amazing. to do research that was on a journal paper published by one of the now scientists there because that's one of the requirements to become a vector scientist is publishing in the peer-reviewed literature and uh he presented on the use of PCR technology to um assay species type and actually determined that they could assay species type from what's called environmental DNA. So this is DNA that is not actually still in the organism, it's just in the environment. Um, and so they had these water traps that they use and so they were able to identify 80s egypti DNA in one of their water traps. Um, even though the mosquito neither the larae nor the adults or eggs or anything were there. So it's pretty impressive work. Um, they're going to be presenting that at a variety of conferences because it's a big advance for the for the field.

Thank you. Um, I attended a meeting with Assembly Member Wixs. Um, I was invited to speak at with the at the Alb Kuanas Club meeting was at the chamber. I'm actually make sure I think Jennifer, you were there, weren't you?

Um, I attended the county library board. Um, attended the library youth day of service housing authority had a um budget audit or budget negotiation meeting. Attended the mayor's mayor's conference last week in Fremont. I sat in on a law enforcement training to combat anti-semitism where we had several of our officers also there. It was a national call and I was at the Pedmont Martin Luther King Jr. celebration yesterday. I also was at the ebike webinar this morning. So future agenda items well on the last time I should mention I was in the ebike seminar as well. I tried to look to see who else was there. Um, I noticed John was there herself, so I apologize.

Tried not to say anything that might cause problems from a Brown Act perspective. [laughter] When I saw you, I was like, "Oops."

Any agenda items online people? One. Okay. Sorry. [snorts and clears throat] Uh yes, this is Lucinda Young. Uh again, Albany Climate Action Coalition and I understand Berkeley as of the beginning of the year just passed an emission savings ordinance known as BESO. I imagine some of you are familiar with it. And I don't have all the various details, but in in short, it requires certain energy efficiency at the time of sale of residential buildings. They're starting with just smaller residential buildings that have one or two units. Um they have, I understand, this has been in the works for quite some time. I would like to see Albany explore a similar ordinance. uh we need to have some way to reach uh improve the energy efficiency of our buildings. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Um I have a potential another item. Um so years ago I I brought to the council um recommended action of waving red fees for electrification. So it's for transitioning gas firing appliances to electrical appliances. And uh I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the time, maybe because it wasn't in the air as much then, to wave permit fees for installing EV chargers and for installing um solar PV and and now we also have battery backup. So I will write something up and bring that as a recommendation.

Great. Thank you. Okay. um upcoming announcements, upcoming city meetings, climate action committee meets tomorrow. Um other things are on the website and with that are adjourned. 759 Peggy Peggy 759. Not bad.