City of Emeryville as Successor Agency to the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency - Regular Meeting

The time is 07:15. This is a regular meeting of the city city of Emeryville as successor agency to the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency. Madam clerk, the role.

Councilmember Priforce? Here. Councilmember Solomon? Here. Councilmember Welch? Here. Vice mayor Carr? Present. And mayor Mora?

Here. I'll now entertain a approval of the final agenda. Members, is there a motion?

I Motion to approve. I will motion.

We have a motion and a second. Madam clerk, the roll.

Council member Pryvors?

Aye.

Council member Solomon? Aye. Council member Welch? Aye. Vice mayor Carr? Aye. And mayor Mora?

Aye. Now is the time for ex parte communications. Members, do you have any ex parte communications to report? Seeing and hearing none, we'll now move to public comment for the consent agenda and items not on the agenda. Are there members of the public who would like to make public comment for the consent agenda or items not on the agenda? And just a reminder, this is this meeting is precedes the regular city council meeting. You can come to the podium. You'll have two minutes.

Good evening. I'm Ellie Friedman. I'm a registered nurse and work in the med surg department, medical surgical department at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley. I'm also a union member of the California Nurses Association, and I'm here to speak about Sutter Health's recently announced plans for a $1,000,000,000 complex in Emeryville. Sutter needs to be transparent and engage all impacted stakeholders such as patients, their employees, and the greater community that will be affected.

Sutter has not been transparent with us and has provided us very little information. In February, Sutter held two short discussions for staff about the expansion. Each were thirty minutes long and a brief five minute q and a session, hardly enough time for nurses and other employees to get into the practical details about how the expansion impacts health care services. Nurses, community members, and elected officials have been in a multiyear fight to stop Sutter from closing down, Alta Bates, and to keep acute health care services in Berkeley. What will happen to the Ashby campus?

Sutter has not provided information about this. Sutter has an obligation to retrofit the Alta Bates Ashby campus hospital in Berkeley, which they have been delaying for years. Could Sutter be attempting to avoid their obligations to retrofit with these new plans? Emeryville residents needs services too. We want to raise awareness that Sutter has shown itself not to be a good community partner time and time again in a Berkeley in Berkeley and throughout the East Bay.

Local electives such as yourselves and your constituents deserve to have real community input and deserve more than superficial statements and platitudes from Sutter, which have become all too familiar with us. The East Bay continues to face and struggle with enough services and our health care desert, especially with the closures of Doctors Medical Center, so it is critical that we all work together. Nurses will all be using the power of our union to Thank

you for your comment. Thank you. Welcome. You'll have two minutes.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Rita Flores. I am a surgical technician at Mission Bernal Campus in San Francisco. I'm also an SEIU UHW union member.

I am here tonight to express concern because, in my experience, Sutter Health has lost sight of its values. At my campus, Mission Bernal, Sutter Health closed down our labor and delivery department permanently, not living up to the agreements with the city of San Francisco, affecting the whole community, patients, labor and delivery technicians, and nurses. Sutter causing so much uncertainty and not living up to their values of serving working people in the Mission District. In re recent years, Sutter executives have engaged in a pattern of closing down services in poor communities of color and focusing the resources on wealthier areas, betraying their nonprofit values. Bottom line, the community needs Sutter Health to return to its core values of providing great patient care for Northern California's most vulnerable communities.

The people that voted for you are depending on you to hold Sutter to these standards. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment.

Welcome. Hi. My name is Doug Jones. I'm a political organizer for SEIU UnitedHealthcare Workers, a statewide union of over 110,000 workers. And I used to work hospital.

I worked at Sutter Eaton Medical Center for twenty five years. And one of the things that happened in the rebuild that Sutter Health made of the Castro Valley Hospital is that they made that hospital 50 beds smaller. And one of the units that was eliminated in the rebuild was a 20 bed inpatient psych unit. I think we can all see and US City Council members are made accountable to the untreated mental illness which is in the East Bay and throughout our neighborhoods. One of the things that is creating that accountability that you're facing more and more often is the fact that private sector providers like Sutter Health are abandoning behavioral health, abandoning labor and delivery and other services that are very important safety net services for the community.

So as Sutter Health starts moving this project through, it's going to be really important to remember that we just went through a pandemic where we literally did not have enough beds for the community. And during the period of time in which this hospital is functional, it's very likely that we're going to have our next big earthquake. It's going to be necessary that this hospital be able to take an unusual amount of patients for when patients get sick or we have that disaster. So it's important that at minimum that the hospital that's built in Emeryville be at least the same size as the current hospital in Berkeley and that it has a broad set of safety net services, not just the lucrative services that Sutter typically wants to operate. Thank you for considering this, and looking forward to continuing to engage with you on this.

Thank you. Welcome. You have two minutes.

Thank Good evening. My name is Andrew Chang. I'm a labor representative for the California Nurses Association. I represent the nurses and also the the tech workers at ABSMC. So I'm here to really follow-up on what my colleagues have already spoken to, but really to emphasize a couple additional things.

As the last speaker just mentioned, we are very concerned about the availability and the community's access to OB and labor and delivery services. We're in the process, you know, advocates and health care workers across the state are in the process of trying to pass legislation that would say that OB and labor and delivery services are required, right, for all health for all hospitals because we're seeing too many cases where hospitals are closing down these needed services. And this impacts, not surprisingly, low income, working class communities of color as we just saw at Saint Rose Hospital in Hayward where, you know, now that community does not have access to those services. Right? And I'm the labor representative over there and supported those workers to fight back against that process.

So we really want to make sure that nothing happens there. To close out, we are asking city city council to help facilitate a fair, transparent process with all stakeholders. We hope that you will help hold that are accountable to protecting our patients, communities, including the dedicated nurses and health care workers that you're gonna hear from today and for a long time moving forward. Right? And this includes at minimum, one, providing at least the same quality and access of care for all East Bay communities as right now as, you know, as opposed to at the end of whatever project is gonna happen.

Two, committing that no health care workers will be displaced and all these good union jobs stay in the East Bay. That's very important, obviously, for Emeryville residents and for the whole East Bay. Third, you know, there's too many examples where employers have done this, moved the hospital five miles down the road just to try to eliminate the union.

So Thank you for your comment.

Happen. Thank you.

Welcome. You have two minutes.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Kiana Smith. I'm gonna change the tone a little bit. I'm the assistant to the CEO of Spoil Boutique, and we would just like everyone to join us, on June 14 for the Bay Area Black Fashion Expo at Bay Street Shopping Center in Emeryville. In celebration of Juneteenth, this incredible event highlights and honors the Bay Area's tremendous talent in the fashion industry and in the beauty industry.

It is featuring over a 100 black owned vendors that will be there from twelve to seven. We'll have a fashion show at 2PM. We'll have a full day of live music, live performances, best dress contests, raffle giveaways, and so much more. So we would like, you know, to invite everyone in the community and all of you to come and enjoy the event on June 14. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Seeing none, next we move to the consent calendar. Members, do we have a motion on the consent calendar?

Motion to approve. Second.

Madam clerk, the roll.

Councilmember Pryforst.

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon. Aye. Councilmember Welch. Aye. Vice mayor Carr. Aye. Mayor Mora.

Aye.

Motion carries.

We have one action item, and I'd like to note that this action item is it represents the same budget information that we saw last meeting. So I'd like to see if the council is amenable to waiving presentation. The presentation is waived. Members, are there any questions on this item? Seeing no questions, we'll now take public comment on this item.

Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on the resolution of the City Council of the City of Emeryville, to appropriate $39,000,000 into the successor agency's fiscal year budget? Seeing no members of the public, I'll bring this back to counsel. Do we have a motion or discussion?

Council member oh, sorry. Mayor Mora, are we on the successor agency regular meeting?

Yes. Item action item 7.1.

Alright. My apologies. I I cannot make that motion because it's not on my, on on the Unless there's some technical issue, I'm not seeing it on my, my yeah. It's not this is this is it for today. Right?

I'll defer to my colleagues to make the motion. I move approval, approval of item 7.1.

I'll second. Madam Clerk, we have a motion and a second.

Councilmember Pryforis? Aye. Councilmember Solomon? Aye. Councilmember Welch? Aye. Vice mayor Carr?

I'll have to abstain because I don't have that item. And mayor Mora?

Aye.

Motion carries.

The time is 07:27. This meeting is adjourned.