City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's 07:00 and I'm going to order the City Council meeting senator City Council today is Monday May 18, and it's, like I said, 7PM. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. So at this point in time, if we could have I guess I'll do my announcement first. So today, we've got the swearing in of an appointee. It's under section 10 a.

I'd like to move it to the section four recognitions. If there are no concerns, seeing no concerns, we will make that adjustment to our agenda. And, let's see. The city of San Leandro conducts orderly meetings to fulfill its mandate. Discriminatory statements are conducted with potentially violate the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and or the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, California Appeal Code sections four zero three or four fifteen are per se disruptive meeting and will not be tolerated. Please see the city council handbook and city council meeting rules of decorum for more information. Madam clerk.

Thank you, mayor. For purposes of our roll call, vice mayor Vivero Swalton. Present. Council member James Aguilar.

Present.

Council member Victor Aguilar.

Present.

Thank you. Council member Fred Simon. Present. Council member Sue Bowen. Present. Thank you. Council member Dylan Bolt.

Here.

And mayor Gonzales.

Present.

Thank you. Now for our public comment announcement. If you would like to make a public comment during the meeting you can do so in person or via zoom. If you are present at the meeting, please complete a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk before the item is presented, then wait for public comment on that item to be called. If you wish to participate in public comment via Zoom, you can use the raise your hand tool when the item is called. During the public comment session, speakers will be invited to speak and will have a set time to share their comments. A countdown timer will appear for their convenience.

And when the time is up, the microphone will be muted. All raised hands outside of public comment will be lowered to avoid confusion. Once public comment is opened, hands may

be raised to speak. There will be a thirty minute window for public comments on items not on the agenda, which will take place under item seven, public comments as per the published agenda. After the time is up, the council will proceed with the rest of the meeting's agenda. If you have not had the opportunity to speak during the initial thirty minute period, there will be another chance to do so after item 12 city council reports.

So we did not have a closed session closed session today, so there is no item three to consider. For item number four, we've got our 10 a recognition, the motion to appoint Anne Rickson to the senior commission. We already took public comment during the nomination process. Are there any questions or follow ups on this item? Seeing none, I believe that we can move straight to a vote. So if you would please vote. Alright. Let me ask city attorney. Do we need a of, like, another motion in addition to the nomination that occurred before? Yes. We do. Okay. Can I please have a motion?

So moved.

And who was that? That's Councilmember Bowen, right? Yes. Thank you. Vice Mayor.

Second.

Okay. So we got a motion by Bowen, second by Vivitos Walton. Now please vote.

Council member Bowen, may we have your vote, please? Yes. Thank you. All votes are in, and the motion Motion carries successfully.

At this point in time, would we please move to the swearing in?

So if you could just raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I

please state your name. I Anne Rixon Do solemnly swear or affirm Do solemnly swear That I will support and defend That I will support and defend

The constitution of The United States.

The constitution of The United States.

And the constitution of the state of California

And the constitution of the state of California

Against all enemies

Against all enemies. Foreign and domestic Foreign and domestic.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance

I will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of The United States the constitution of The United States

and the constitution of the state of California

and the constitution of the state of California. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation. Without any mental reservation. Or purpose of evasion.

Or. Purpose of evasion

Purpose of evasion.

And that I will well and faithfully discharge

That I will well and faithfully discharge

The duties upon which I am about to enter.

The duty upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations.

Thank you.

And thank you, mayor and city council for confirming and then, voting me in. Thank you. I really am looking forward to helping the seniors of our city.

Okay. So now we are going to celebrate National Police Week. And we've got two recipients here today, Jose Sanchez and Ruth Canisal Villalobos. Did I say that right? Villalobos. Yes. Where are you? Are you in the back? You can't receive it back there. Come on up.

Welcome. Welcome. How are you guys? Doing well? Yes. Alright. Staying right here. Right here. Right here. Why you stand next

to Urkus?

Either way, however we wanna do this. There's so much going on here. I'm gonna give you guys a little bit of time to just very briefly introduce yourselves at the end and talk, you know, like thirty seconds. You don't need to panic, you know, but be mentally preparing. Okay?

Okay.

Yeah. Look at that smile. That's how you know everything is wonderful. Okay. So whereas in 1962, the United States Congress and the president designated May 15 the week of May 15 or May 15 as Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week in which it falls as National Police Week.

And whereas National Police Week honors police officers who have dedicated their lives to the service of humanity through public safety and to the 26,950 officers who have given their lives in service to this noble cause. And whereas everyday San Leander police officers work to protect our residents, to enforce laws, and to keep our community safe in accordance with core values of teamwork, integrity, professionalism, and service. And whereas, Santa Anita police officers are proud to serve and report for duty with knowledge of the dangers they may face and the sacrifices that they may be called upon to make. And whereas this week, we pay tribute to the plea to the police officers who protect and serve bravely in pursuit of a safe San Leandro. And whereas we locally take time specifically to remember and to honor three San Leandro police officers killed in the line of duty, Fred Haller, Donald Spingola, and Nels Daniel Daniel Niemi.

And whereas in honor of all the fallen officers and their families, US flags in the city of San Leandro should be flown at half staff during Peace Officers Memorial Day. Now therefore, I, Juan Gonzalez the third, mayor of the city of San Leandro, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as National Police Week in the city of San Leandro and encourage residents to encourage all residents to join the police department in honoring our three fallen officers by visiting the Public Safety Memorial located in front of the San Leandro Police Department. And to that, I'll just add very briefly that we did have some long riders come and visit our city. I think it was last week, the week before, traveling from across the state of California, but visiting us from other states, to really help us remember and bring tribute to those that have fallen in the line of duty. So very grateful for what they did in support of our city in particular.

But what I'd like to do is pass the mic to the two of you so that you can introduce yourselves, make it a little bit real. Thirty seconds. So you don't to do the whole biography and whatever year I was born, like two years ago or whenever that was. You know, just just feel free to just tell us a little bit about yourselves. You know, maybe you've completed some recent training, for example, hypothetically speaking, something like that. Hi, everybody. I'm Ruth. I've been I'm probably one

of the newest officers with San Leandro. I just finished the field training program and I just graduated the academy in December and I'm just happy to be serving the community.

Hi. My name is Jose. I've been with the city of San Leandro for two years. This was my past this past week was my two year mark here. I used to work at Oakland Police before this. Very happy to be in this community. I love the city. I love the community that we serve, and we're proud to be here.

At this point in time we will move to our consent calendar items. Was there any councilmember who would like to pull something from the consent calendar? If not, I will go to public comment on this item. Is there someone who would like to pull something from the consent calendar? So seeing no desire to pull any of the items from the consent calendar, we'll take public comment on this item. Do we have any?

Mayor, we have not received any comment cards, but we do have one hand raised online.

We are opening public comment in person and closing it accordingly. Seeing no commenters, we will move online to open public comment online.

Our online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.

Thank you, city clerk and good evening council members. I would like to call attention to item 5A of the consent calendar as an example of yet another consulting contract the city is about to lean into. I really wish that you all were taking a careful, a more careful look at these things. From what I can tell, this is a contract that may be worth up to $1,000,000 over a term of up to five years. So that would be about $200,000 a year on average in order to manage and administer what's it called workers' compensation.

So one question it raises in my mind is, is that a big problem in San Leandro? Like, do I know we have a large workforce, but are there a significant number of workers' compensation claims, more than one might expect? But the other idea that occurs to me, my sister used to do this kind of work and while it does require some specialization, it's, you know, not like you need an advanced degree. So positions like this, I just think like, couldn't we set up a desk in the city hall someplace in the finance department and allow someone to take care of that? Maybe there wouldn't be a lot of claims and maybe that would free up the person to do other kinds of work for the city while they employed by the city.

But I just think like, you know, we have problems like this that arise, and then we think, oh no, we don't have anything set up for that. And so then we just sort of like knee jerk automatically go and find the expert and pay that consulting fee, which I have to believe is more expensive than it needs to be. So thank you for your ongoing diligence. Diligence, and that's all I have.

Thank you. Mayor, there are no more hands raised online.

So we'll close public comment online, come back to the council if there's any discussion. If not, willing to accept a motion. Councilmember Victor Aguilar?

I'd like to move the consent calendar.

Okay. So I've got a motion by council member Aguilar and council Victor Aguilar, and I've got council member Volt next.

Second.

With a second from council member Volt. Seeing no further discussion, please vote.

Council member Bowen, may we have your vote? Yes. Thank you. All votes are in and the motion carries unanimously.

Okay. At this point in time, I do not believe we have any executive reports, so we'll move on to public comments. I'll pray for the public to comment on items that are not on our agenda but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council. How many comment cards have we received?

Mayor, we have received 15 comment cards.

Okay. And then how many hands are raised online?

There are two hands raised online.

Perfect. Okay. Let's go ahead and begin in person.

Our first three in person speakers are Susan Gonzales, Dan Finley, and Mike Katz Lacabe.

And if speakers can be very efficient with their time and let you be standing like almost next to the other person so that we can get all 15 of you because we do have a thirty minute limit. And if you even wanna cut your comments short by ten seconds, then we can make sure that everybody that's at present will be able to speak and not have to wait until the end of the meeting. Okay? Thank you so much. Please proceed.

Okay. Mister mayor and, council members, my name is Susan Gonzales. I'm a longtime resident of San Leandro, and I am the assistant treasurer of the citizens for a safe and vibrant San Leandro. I know that we can all agree that the city of San Leandro is a very nice place to live. And you of any group also know that there are many streets and facilities that need improvement and city needs exceed our resources.

Our group is supporting a local citizen led bond measure to improve streets and infrastructure with public oversight. And I'm hoping that the City Council will work with us and support our endeavors. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Dan Finley, Mike Katz Lacabe, and Faye Clements.

Good evening, Mayor Gonzalez, Vice Mayor Viveros Walton, and council members. My name is Dan Finlay. I'm a resident of District 1. I'm here tonight about the 41 flock safety license plate cameras that council approved in April 2022. Since that vote, a great great deal has come to light and very little of it is good.

FLAC has been formally found in violation of state law in Illinois. The California Highway Patrol has issued a formal warning to FLAC for SB 34 noncompliance. San Francisco's own audit logs documented over 1,600,000 illegal out of state searches of its system, including searches explicitly tagged for ICE fugitive operations. A Texas sheriff's deputy used flock to track a woman who had a legal abortion in another state. Police officers in at least 14 documented cases have used these systems to stalk ex partners and strangers.

In January, a researcher showed dozens of flock cameras streaming live to the open Internet. Stolen flock pull police credentials have been found for sale on Russian cybercrime forums. Mountain View terminated unanimously after its own police chief said flock had, quote, absolutely failed. Santa Cruz and Los Altos Hills also canceled. A California class action suit is pending. Flock's own CEO has admitted the company didn't build the protections it promised. San Leandro has not published its Flock audit logs. We don't know who has searched our cameras or why. Earlier this month, I filed a public records act request seeking that information. I hope to get it soon.

I'm asking this council for a simple test in two parts. One, audit the cameras yourselves. Direct staff to show you in public exactly what the flock system has been used for since 2022. And if you don't like what you see, cancel the contract. Mountain View did. Santa Cruz did. Los Altos Hills did. San Leandro can too. I'd welcome the chance to meet with any of you on this.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Mike Katz Lacabe, Faye Clements, and Paul Welenkamp.

Well, couldn't have planned that better. This is Mike Katzlikabe. Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. I'm here tonight to draw your attention to some other issues regarding FLoC that you may not know. So first, FLoC's patent for analyzing the images captured by its cameras doesn't just include license plates and vehicle identifications.

The patent states that FLoC safety will use neural networks to identify and track humans and then filter them into searchable databases using a person's age, clothing type, gait, posture, gender, height, race, and weight. So the 86 cameras the city is currently paying for will be used to identify and track people, the data from those cameras is now being used to train Phlox product to identify and track people. Second, Phlox terms Phlox terms and conditions have changed to eliminate the statement, quote, Phlox does not own and shall not sell customer data. Yeah. They changed it.

The revised terms and conditions also grants flock flock, quote, a limited, non exclusive, royalty free, irrevocable, perpetual worldwide license to a, use and disclose customer data to provide flock services, and b, use customer data to support and improve Flock's products and services. That means Flock keeps the data when the contract ends and uses it however they want. Under the new terms, Flock's liability is capped at twelve months of fees. Even if Flock acts with gross negligence or willful misconduct. Maybe it's worth reconsidering whether this is a company that should be receiving money from the taxpayers of San Leandro.

On a completely unrelated subject, since I have a few seconds, I would also like the City Council to consider a moratorium or a complete ban on data centers in the City Of San Leandro. Data centers will compete with us, with the with the taxpayer residents of San Leandro in electricity and water and cause increased rates for all of us and obviously we can't afford it. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Faye Clements, Paul Willemkamp, and Catherine Lucerne.

Thank you, Clerk. Hi, Council. My name is Faye Clements, Mayor Wan. I'm here to implore the Council to figure out a way to open Lake Chabot Road for all of us. I live in Estadio Estates.

I don't think the fire is going to get me, but I do worry about 4,000 residents in Bayo Vista and countless others that want that road open. And I'm concerned that we're entertaining the wishes of staff in a minor portion of our population when we've got thousands whose lives might be at risk and an acute care hospital with hundreds of patients that can't mobilize. And I thank you for your service to our city and count on you to be with us. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Paul Welmcamp, Catherine Lucerne, and Margaret Horwitz.

Thank you. I'm here to speak about Lake Chabot Road or speak to it. And I'm really here to ask you, don't let the perfect be the enemy of good. There's a difference between fully rebuilding the road, which is a nice project and a nice long range goal, but very expensive, and simply doing what it takes to reopen the road now. What I'm gonna suggest is that it's important to find out now what whether the road can be reopened, after the current project, is finished.

If it can't be reopened, it's important to find out what it takes to reopen it, not to fully rebuild it, but simply to get it operating again. You don't have that information now. You can't make a good decision about the future of Lake Shebaugh Road without getting that information now. I want to point out that Alameda County fixed similar damage on the same road, their portion of the road, a similar slide within six months for $700,000 They did not rebuild that road. It's definitely not a perfect road.

I have spoken with the Alameda County Public Works Director. They maintain country roads quite all the time throughout Alameda County. And they don't maintain them by fully rebuilding them. They maintain them by doing what it takes to fix the road, maintaining it, and repairing it as needed. Know, Lake Shibbol Road has been critically important route since it was built one hundred and fifty years ago. Don't abandon it now because we can't afford to make it perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Catherine Lucerne, Margaret Horowitz, and Emily Grego.

Good evening, mayor and staff and elected officials. We really appreciate your time and your commitment to our city. I also support this measure for the new parcel tax that will bring a lot of funding for our city, which I know is needed for upkeep. And I will be one of the people out there trying to get signatures on this new proposal that's going out. But I also agree with Paul.

I would like you guys to really prioritize opening up Lake Chabot. And initially, I think it would be the geotechnical report to really see. Last night, I'm sure if you live in the city, you realize that windstorm that we had, it made me very, very nervous. And now to hear about this fire down in Simi Valley, we live in a very high fire danger. We back up those San Leandro Hills.

And many of my neighbors have done everything they can to try to keep our houses safe by clearing. I just got a new roof that's a Class A fire safety. Metal gates, we spent a lot of money, But we still feel unsafe. The other concern that I have is we got an email from AC Alert saying that there was going to be a county wide notification system for our emergency system, and San Leandro did not get that on May 12. I did inquire and I found out that the city had elected not to participate in that.

I don't know what the city has plans for emergency prep but I think it's really important. I was at that community meeting when we had the gas leakage in Luelling and Washington, and many of our community members did not get the proper messaging to evacuate. So I think it's really important that we have a way to let our community know when we have something that is very urgent. Our community has spent funds on doing our own report and we found out it can take one to two hours for us to get out of our neighborhood if there is an evacuation so thank you for your time

thank you the next three speakers are Margaret Horowitz Emily Grego, and Helen Cataldo.

I want to thank the city for opening the gate on Lake Chabot Road, which would allow cars to travel on it in case of an emergency. My husband and I have taken many steps to prepare our house and garden in case of fire. Having the optimum number of evacuation routes open is essential. I also empathize with residents on Astor and View, though I don't live there, where cars diverted from Lake Chabot Road contribute to dangerous conditions and road degradation on streets not designed for this amount of traffic. I support the citizens led initiative to repair Lake Chabot Road and to accomplish many other significant projects in San Leandro.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Emily Grego, Helen Cataldo, and Anne Cagewood.

Hello everybody. Good evening. I'm Emily Grego, President and CEO of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce. I'm here today to discuss the proposed business license tax revenue measure that's currently under consideration and to share concerns we are hearing from our businesses regarding both the substance of the proposal and the timeline being discussed. We recognize the proposal is still in development and there hasn't been a final decision made.

We have requested additional data and clarification from staff including details regarding definitions, thresholds, exemptions, caps and multiple jurisdiction businesses however businesses are concerned that a decision on whether to place this measure on the ballot could occur within four weeks from today despite many critical implementation details still being undefined and insufficiently vetted. Businesses are concerned the potential financial impact could be substantial depending on how gross receipts are defined and applied. And we've reached out to our membership in recent days, And some of the comments that we have received include our license fee would go up 50% in this model. Our license fee would double if this increase were to pass. Wrong move to punish small businesses in town.

A small service based business with high expenses and a very small margin, this new structure would be a big hit to us. Unfair to large companies where the margins are small. An example is a grocery store, our grocery store. We respectfully urge the council not to move this revenue measure to the ballot. The proposal has not been yet sufficiently vetted. Many key implementation details remain unresolved, and the current timeline does not allow for the level of analysis and stakeholder engagement this issue requires. Advancing this proposal without clear without greater clarity and collaboration risks undermining our economic development progress and creating long term unintended consequences for our cities.

Thank you. Your time has elapsed. Our next three speakers are Helen Cataldo, Anne Kaywood, and Tonday Smith.

Good evening, council members and mayor. My name is Helen Contaldo, and I'm here to respectfully request that Lake Chabot be reopened to two weeks.

If you wouldn't mind just moving the mic a little bit to there.

Should I stand over?

Yeah. If you can just stand over just a little bit because we want no. No. No. No. The mic pointing at your mouth. There you go. And just step in just a little bit because we wanna be able to hear you online.

It's touching me almost.

There we go. Let's try that again.

Good evening, council members and mayor. My name is Helen Cotaldo. I'm here to respectfully request that Lake Chabot Road be reopened to two way traffic. I want to add my voice to my neighbors who have met difficulty in evacuating the area. I live on View Drive and I'm extremely nervous about fire danger, particularly being blocked in my driveway due to increased traffic from Lake Chapo Road being closed. I also support the citizen led local petition in support of funding much needed repairs for safer streets and emergency infrastructure, as well as parks and community facilities.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Ann Kaywood, Tonday Smith, and Kay Wu.

The timed evacuation study we commissioned for the Bay Of Vista neighborhood from researchers aligned with the UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies found that in several fire scenarios, it could take almost two hours for our entire community to evacuate in a best case. We also learned that if Lake Chabot Road is fully open to two way traffic, our most vulnerable population would have the chance to escape much faster. Almost 400 people will need more time to escape not just the fire, but deadly toxic smoke. Our census tract contains almost 900 people over the age of 70. In the Pacific Palisades fire, thirty people died from fire.

Another forty seven died from smoke inhalation. The average age was 77. We ask that you support opening this road as soon as possible and that you commit to the citizens led revenue measure to fix our dilapidated fire stations, our failing streets, Neptune Drive flood prevention, the Marina Community Center, the Casa Peralta, and other infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Tonday Smith, Key or Kay Wu, and Robert Caruso.

Good evening, mayor, council members, staff, neighbors. My name is Tonday Smith, and I am I live in Bayo Vista on the because the threat is real. But more than protecting my deck and my house, I want to protect my life and the lives of

my

neighbors. I did have the pleasure of Sunday going through our neighborhood collecting signatures for the measure. And while collecting the signatures, I want to tell you that we came in contact with several neighbors who would definitely require a lot of time to try to get out. One man's hands were so he was shaking so much that we had to like hold the form for him and let him prop himself up in order to be able to sign it. So he would need extra time.

We saw a lot of ramps. So it is a neighborhood where we need as much time as possible to be able to escape. So I encourage you to do whatever research you need to do, make whatever commitment you need to make to get the road opened. We appreciate your commitment and your time and your interest in helping preserve our lives. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Kay Wu, Robert Caruso, and Kat Walmon.

Good evening. My name is Kay Wu. I'm a resident of the Valle Vista community. I want to say that I emphatically concur with all of my neighbors. Our lives, our quality of our life, and, the safety of our lives have been significantly adversely impacted since the closure of Lake Chabot Road. We will continue to be impacted until the road is reopened. So I implore the city, please, to make it a priority to reopen the road for the benefit of our community. Thank you.

Thank you. The next three speakers are Robert Caruso, Kat Wilman, and Brian Lebo.

Good evening city council members and mayor Gonzales. My name is Robert Caruso, and I'm the owner of the John Benjamin Company. And my our company is a I'm a general contractor. I'm a project manager and a real estate developer. And in 2007, our company built eight townhouses at Superior And MacArthur MacArthur Boulevard in San Leandro.

And I'm really proud of that project. But at the time when we initiated that project, we paid a fee to the city of San Leandro to develop a roundabout in front of that that project. That was in 2007. And this nineteen years later, and I decided maybe I should come downtown here and find out what happened to that money, number one. And number two, what's the status of that project?

And that's not the only reason I'm here. I've got another reason I'm here. There's an ordinance here in San Leandro to do soft story development, soft story improvements on homes that are in danger of earthquake problems. And I tried in in in starting in the latter part of 02/2025 to get a list of those properties that are subject to that ordinance. And I've done numerous of the numerous projects in in San Francisco, numerous numerous soft storey projects in San Francisco.

And I would like to get my hands on that list of the properties that are subject to that ordinance here in San Leandro because I would like to have an opportunity to bid those projects. And for some reason, excuse me, I'm running up against a brick wall. For some reason, I cannot get that list, and I think that's public information. So thank you. And I I I wanna end, but I would like to have someone make a commitment to go find out what happened to that money for that roundabout. And then if I can somebody can point me in the direction of getting my hands on that list, I'd be very grateful. Thank you for your attention to this.

Thank you. The next two speakers are Kat Wilman and Brian Leibow.

Good evening. I am co chair for Citizens for a Safe and Vibrant San Leandro and it's going to be a wonderful measure that will fund many of the very badly needed projects that we have in the city. One of which of course is to repair and open Lake Chabot Road. Those of us in Bayo Vista spent most of late yesterday afternoon, last night and today fearing that there might be a fire. If you looked at the news, there's many fires.

I think down in Simi Valley, they had a fast moving brush fire. In one hour, I think it took over 184 acres. I may not be quite right on that, but it was very deadly. And they had to evacuate 23,000 citizens. We know from the week old timed evacuation study, which we are going to show you that there's going to be if Lake Shiboh Road is not open, there's going to be upwards of 400 residents, vulnerable residents that may be exposed to toxic fire exposure.

This means death to many people. We need you to make Lake Chabot Road a priority. We need you to show your intent that you want to repair and open Lake Shebaud Road and reject the idea that it can remain closed for just bikes and pedestrians. You can do this by ordering a geotechnical report. You've already got the funds to do this.

It's less than $100,000 and getting the actual cost analysis to fix the road. We don't even have that for the measure that we're taking to our residents right now asking them to sign the petition. This is critically important. Fire season is upon us and public safety is absolutely the most important thing that the City Council can take care of. So, it's in your hands. Please help us. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last speaker card is from Brian Lebo.

Good evening. We in Bay Bayo Vista have been living under the terrifying fear of wired wildfires for quite a while now. Our community is the only one in San Leandro that is rated high and very high fire danger. We come to meetings, we talk about it, but the city doesn't seem to hear us or it doesn't really register that it's a matter of life and death and not some hypotheticals in the future but could be tonight. Could have been last night.

There were four fires in the last twenty four hours. There was one in Altamont Pass, one in Fremont, one in well, I'll get to that. I can't remember. Oh, here we go. Alameda Creek, Altamont Pass, Norris Canyon, and one in Fremont.

Any fire in these windy conditions can ignite and travel. So we're not pretending in our fear about this. It's a real concern and it should be by the city council as well. So I'm here to request that the council get a resolution on the agenda as soon as possible. I think it should direct staff to declare unambiguously its intent to that the city council should state in this resolution its unambiguous intent to reopen this critical evacuation route ASAP and to direct staff to get a qualified geotech report on what Lake Chabot Road needs to make it drivable.

You already have funds in the budget for Lake Chabot Road to do that. So it won't cost anything and it won't reduce the general fund. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Mayor, that concludes our comment cards from in the room.

Okay. So we will close public comment in person. And how much time do we have left on our thirty minutes?

Five minutes and a few seconds.

Okay. So let us proceed with our first two that you had before. And if we have time, we'll continue.

Very well.

Our first online speaker is Alvaro Ramos.

Yes, hello mayor and council members. I'm calling in to join the flock. I speak to you as a concerned citizen to tell you to drop your contract with FLOC, F L O C K. Last time I checked we have hundreds of FLOC cameras in this city alone and thousands of FLAC cameras in the Bay Area and then thousands more FLAC cameras across the state of California. Automatic license plate readers have become a staple of policing across The United States and these cameras scan millions of license plates daily, giving police enormous unchecked power that violates the constitutional rights of the American people.

And people are standing up to this. They've rejected these privatized utilities because FLAC, their sole purpose is profit driven surveillance that's blanketing our cities, our towns and communities. And, you know, this is a perfect example of government overreach. Flocked. So what I'll say, though, that the city of San Leandro needs to join the movement and say no more to automatic license plate readers and comment.

Thank you. The next speaker is Douglas Spaulding.

Thank you. San Leandro, we are giving Chicago a run for its money as the Windy City. And I don't refer to meteorological phenomenon, I refer to all my neighbors from Bayo Vista who are giving Chicago politicians a run for their money. I am appreciative of the We Go study. It gives a very clear plan for evacuation. I'm very thankful for my neighbors who have trimmed their yards. I did too. I spent, I don't know, $23,000 on arborist. I'm very thankful to PG and E that implements a PSPS under these kind of weather conditions. But the road has been closed for more than three years and the sky has not yet fallen.

We seem to have adapted and be able to adapt. Opening, reopening the road to vehicular traffic, especially to large trucks, is only going to accelerate its deterioration. If you want to be able to fight a fire, you need to leave Lake Chabot Road alone as an access route for our emergency vehicles. The difference between our half mile segment of Lake Chabot Road and other country roads is that it just so happens that this big thing called the Hayward Fault crosses the road right where the Bayo Vista Swim and Tennis Club is. There is no place to build the road stably.

It is a bunch like a pile, a kilometer of ground up rock, melange. There's no bedrock to sink your anchors into. And so consequently, we have a little piece of road that is exactly the same story that they have over on the peninsula, Dayvel Slide after more than a hundred years Caltrans gave up and they build a 500,000,000 tunnel to bypass it. And with my few remaining seconds, want to point out the Community Police Review Board is meeting this Wednesday at six. I invite everyone to come out. Unfortunately, CPRB has been handicapped in recent months because we don't have an at large member. So I request you properly vet and appoint someone a

Thank you, sir. Your time has elapsed. Our next well, mayor, there are two more hands raised online, and we have about a minute left.

Just pick one and then that's where we will end.

Alright. Our next online speaker is Arthur Johnson.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for giving me this time. I'll be brief. My name is Art Johnson. I live in the District 5 area.

I'm part of the Citizens for a Safe and Vibrant San Leandro committee, but I'm here to tell you a slightly different reason to support it. We're at risk losing the most important part of our history, Casa Peralta, the Historical House Museum on Estadillo. This museum tells a story of California and San Leandro for current and future generations, yet the doors have been closed for more than seven years now. So with this measure, we have an opportunity to move quickly to protect what remains of our history, including the Casa Peralta, while also addressing the other critical community needs as Lake Chabot, but more importantly, other roads, failing roads, building new firehouse, and investing in other essential infrastructure. I hope the city will support this effort and work alongside the community to help us move it forward.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay. So I will remind the public that we have a continuation of public comment after item 12 for those that have not already spoken and would like to. At this point in we will continue with the council's business and in particular we move to our public hearing. With respect to this public hearing, have assistant finance director Felicia Silva here to discuss various ordinances that we will potentially adopt.

Alright. Good evening, Mayor Gonzales and members of the council. Felicia Sova, assistant finance director here with the fiscal year twenty seven fee schedule update. And I will go back to the slide. This is a reminder that it's our annual update for our fee schedule.

We do come to you every year with a proposed, update to our fee schedule. And quick background on the authority for us to charge fees for services. We are looking at proposition 26 as well as California Government Code Section six thousand six fourteen. And, that allows us to recover our costs for, charging, fees as well as it limits us to making sure that, again, that we're not charging above our fees and that we are charging reasonable costs to recover the cost for those fees. Additional authority, we're looking at proposition two eighteen and that is related to our property related fees such as our wastewater fee.

And we also have other fees such as our development impact fees and that's set forth by government code section 66,625 also known as the mitigation fee act and that allows us to charge fees related to the impact of significant development on our infrastructure and certain findings are met, such as the need and the nexus to that activity and the need. Our update, just a quick reminder that last year we were in front of the City Council with a more significant update where we did a fee study and we were looking at the cost to provide services and bringing that up to date with our current business processes, etcetera. That starts as the base for our, fee schedule this year. We incorporate any, adjustments that are authorized by council throughout the year. We pull all of that together and that makes up the base for this proposed fee schedule in front of you tonight.

And then the next step is then we look at what are the appropriate adjustments to propose. We typically are looking at CPI for most of our fees and in particular looking at December over December. So year over year change between December 2024 and December 2025. We also look at the construction cost index for those fees that are related to construction activities and we're recommending 2.8 there. And then sometimes there are other parameters that we're looking at, when we're studying our fees, such as some fees that may be capped by state statute or other codes.

And then we also have some fees that we're looking at in terms of market alignment to making sure that we're staying within the market. With that, I'll also note that the revenue impact associated with the proposed fees that we're bringing in front of you tonight have been included in the fiscal year twenty twenty seven mid cycle budget that was approved by council on May 4. In addition to our fees, we also do annually bring forward three different taxes for proposed increases that are authorized by chapter two of our municipal code. One is the business license tax, emergency medical services tax, as well as

the

emergency communication systems access tax. Again, looking at a proposed 3% CPI increase. And with that, I will ask, city council to, consider a recommendation to adopt a resolution approving the amended master fee schedule for fiscal year twenty seven as well as adopt a resolution approving the amendment to ordinances, amending the, or yeah, amendment to ordinances to allow the CPI increase for business license tax, emergency medical services tax, and the emergency communications systems access tax.

Thank you for the presentation. At this point in time, I'll go to council members to see if there are any questions. Vice mayor, please.

Yes. I so this is specific. So one, appreciate all the work that went into the fee schedule. It went through finance committee. It has gone made the rounds.

But I did want to I was trying to recall our conversation because there was one specific fee that around block parties and the fee permit for block parties, and I believe it went from $31, and it's now at 125. And actually, at the over the weekend, I was at the I was at another neighborhood party in Estee Lauder States and neighbors from another neighborhood were there with friends and they were kind of just chatting about the increase from 31 to 125. So I just, I recall this coming up. We had a conversation about wanting to keep that as low as possible so as to encourage communities to have you know, be able to close the street, have their get together. I I can't recall where we left that off.

I don't remember if we left it at a hundred and twenty five or if we we did.

My my recollection and I'll kind of have you guys keep me honest here. My recollection is it had been higher than that, either two fifty or 500, some number that was higher. And then we had a discussion and said, well, can't we do something that we get that 31 may not really reflect anywhere near the cost, but can we come a little bit closer? And I see a head shake over there from Councilmember Victor Aguilar. Does that sound right? Of kind of how we ended up, for lack of a better word, compromising at something that was higher but not where it had originally started? But I'll kind of do you remember those discussions? That seems right. That is correct. Okay. So I think that's kind of how we got to where we are.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That's my only question on it, the rest of it. I was going through the license, through all of the fees and everything else kind of squared up with what I recall from our conversation, but that one I couldn't quite remember what our conversation was. Appreciate the clarification. I see the my time back to the chair.

Thank you. At this point in time, I'm not seeing anybody else in queue. So what I'm gonna do at this point in time is I am going to open the public hearing that we have on this. It is 07:55, and the public hearing is open. Do we have anyone who wishes to speak on this item?

Mayor, we've not received any comment cards. We do have one hand raised online.

Okay. So let us continue our hearing online, please.

Our first online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.

Hi, I'm the public and I'd like to be heard. Well, this is an interesting item. I gather that the deal is that the city without having to put it to a vote can increase these fees by a nominal amount according to CPI or some other criteria, which sounds good. If we haven't been doing in the past, we should certainly start doing that now. I do feel a bit you've indicated that the CPI you're referring to is 3%.

Are you sure it shouldn't be like 65% of CPI or three, well, no, that's just an inside joke. I would, my impression, because I did try to look through the fee schedule is that I think the fees are a little bit on the low side. And I would be interested to know if a comparison was done, like Stanley under fees versus Oakland versus Hayward versus other places to have more of a marker study. Your story about how you're setting the block party fee indicates to me that's more of a divining. I I don't think we should be subsidizing block parties if it costs more than that for the city to block off the street and provide a cleanup and whatnot.

We we should charge more. I, you know, a $125 to me is not too much. But my concern about this whole thing is if you raise the business license fee now in May and then we put on a revenue measure for November, does that mean people are to say, wait a minute, you're changing it up on us, you're already raising Unless your intention is to never put the business license fee on the November ballot. I think it is important. That is the revenue measure that I support.

I think it's telling, in the public comments that the speakers made very clear that the proposed revenue I'm sorry, the proposed parcel tax is tied directly to the priority of reopening Lake Chabot Road, speaker after speaker after speaker. Whereas if we had money from a business license fee, you the council members could support the priorities the public works department has already determined.

Thank you, sir. Your time has elapsed. Mayor, there are no more hands raised online.

Okay. It is $7.58, and I am closing the public hearing. At this point in time, we come back to council members for discussion or commentary or motion. So first but first, let's begin with any discussion or commentary because, certainly, I have something I'd like to say, but I'm I would defer to my colleagues first. Okay. Seeing no commentary from my colleagues, I'll just quickly offer a couple of things. First, I think it's a questioncomment because I think I'm pretty sure I know the answer. Fees, as to be distinguished from taxes, fees are cost recovery as a cap.

So most fees are those that are governed, for example, under Proposition 26 as well as, government code, what was sixty six thousand.

Okay. So the majority of what we're going see on the schedules that were presented to the public are cost recovery?

They are. And even those that are governed by, for example, Proposition two eighteen, based on a, you know, cost to deliver service model.

So my comment that goes with that is I think that it's pretty exciting Mhmm. That our fees would be lower than other areas because that means that our costs are either lower or that we've chosen not to do full cost recovery for the benefit of the That

would that would be accurate to say.

Okay. I think just more broadly, I believe we have done these CPI increases at least the last two or three years, and probably before that. But this is there's nothing out of the ordinary in us following up to make sure that as costs increase, business taxes and the like reflect those increased costs as permitted by the ordinance, correct?

That is correct. The more consistent we are with the revenue recovery for the cost to deliver service, then the better our overall revenue picture is. That helps across the board.

Okay. Well, thank you again for all the work that you guys have done in preparing and to the the finance committee for all the work that was I think if I remember correctly from we covered a variety of few schedules over an extended number of meetings.

Yeah. And so as I mentioned, the base for the 2027 fee study our fee schedule update was based on the 2026 study that we did. And every so often we do need to look at our business processes and the cost to deliver service to make sure that we are looking at that and then looking at the fee that we're proposing so that we can cover those costs. So that was last year, 2026. That becomes then the base for the fee study and then we apply inflation or, again, there are other indices or considerations. So thank you for all

the work you've done. Thank you for the finance committee for the work that you did at this point in time. I am open to a motion. Vice mayor.

I would like to make a motion to approve the resolution up. Adopt a resolution approving the amended Masters fee schedule for fiscal year twenty six or for fiscal year twenty seven and adopt a resolution approving the amendments to the ordinance for the following taxes, business license tax, emergency medical services, and emergency communication systems access tax.

And I will accept your would like to as an you are making that motion and coming to councilmember James a killer.

There I'd like to second that motion

perfect we have further discussion on this item seeing none please vote.

Councilmember Bowen, may we have your vote? Yes. Thank you.

We do not have presentations today under item nine and for ten eight.

Sorry. You have to

read out the vote. Yes.

All votes are in. And apologies. I cleared the vote, but the motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. We do not have any presentations today and under 10 a that got moved to section four on our agenda. So we've got our second action item, and that is the first reading of an ordinance with respect to the approval and renewal of military equipment, funding, etcetera, as stated in the agenda. At this point in time, we have acting chief police acting chief of police Luis Torres, here, I believe. Are you back there? There you are. Well, please come forward. We'll make that mic nice and tall for you.

Good evening, mayor, city council, city manager, members of the public. My name is Luis Torres, and I still refer to myself as assistant police chief. Tonight, I'll be presenting our 2025 annual report on the use of military equipment. This will include an overview of the assembly bill, definitions and categories, what we have, how we've used it, any concerns, or policy violations, what if anything we're asking for this year and the outcome of our presentation to the CPRB, the Community Police Review Board. Lastly, we're asking you to once again approve our policy and renew the ordinance.

As you are more than likely aware, this law was enacted in 2021 to increase transparency and oversight around certain types of law enforcement equipment. It requires you, our counsel, to approve any acquisition and continued use of such equipment. And it mandates an annual report like this one covering usage concerns and any policy violations. There are 15 defined categories of which we have equipment in nine of those categories depicted here, highlighted here. I will go into a little more detail in the next several slides, but I will add that none of this equipment was obtained directly from the military.

These next two next two slides have the categories broken down with a specific equipment. Category one is a tactical robot and unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone. And I'll show pictures of some of these items. Category two and three is our armored vehicle that can have a battery ram attached to it. Category five are our two command posts.

Category seven is our newly acquired kinetic breaching tools. Category 10, these are rifles and accompanied ammunition. Our bean bag shotgun and 40 millimeter launcher fall under both categories eleven and fourteen. And category 12 is our diversionary devices and chemical agents, also known as flash banks on those diversionary devices. So here's a photo of some of our equipment.

The upper left is our drone. The middle top is the tackle robot. It's basically an RC car with a camera on it. To the right upper is our some of our diversion devices less lethal and some gas. And then bottom is our vehicles.

So our our, hostage negotiation vehicle on the left, our medevac in the middle, and our command post in the far right. Next, I'll cover an overview of our usage and non training settings for the calendar year 2025. Our drone our drones were used or deployed 65 times in 2025. Most commonly, it was used for warrant services, searching for suspects, missing persons, and scene documentation. The armored vehicle was used 19 times in tactical situations compared to 21 times last year or the previous year, excuse me.

The deployments were for barricaded suspects and armed incidents as well as warrant service. It was also displayed at four community events. The hostage negotiations command vehicle was used three times primarily for warrant service operations. Less lethal tools were used in limited targeted situations. The beanbag shotgun was deployed five times with 17 rounds used.

Four out of the five times, the beanbag shotgun was used to disable a camera or to break a window. One instance, it was used at an individual who had fired a firearm at an officer. Diversion devices were used twice during warrant service, and these tools provide alternatives to higher levels of use of force. As of this evening, we have not received any email or phone call complaints regarding our equipment, and there were no noted policy violations. In 2025, we acquired two Aardvark Kinetic Breaching Tools, which we spoke about here last year and were approved to purchase.

These tools provide a safer, more controlled method of forced entry when necessary. And as a result of purchasing these breaching tools, we've removed several older breaching shotguns and associated rounds from our inventory. This reflects the transition to more modern, safer and controlled breaching tools. And for 2026, we are not requesting any new equipment at this time, our current inventory meets our operational needs. On April 15, we held a community meeting during the community police review board meeting, and the board had no recommendation regarding the presentation or updated inventory list.

And finally, our website is, on our website is a current policy and inventory as well as the draft policy and inventory that's attached to this agenda. The only update to the policy itself is just a change in dates. Our ask tonight is to approve is free to approve and renew our military equipment, funding, acquisition, and use policy, which includes an updated inventory list of the items that were added and removed this past calendar year. And with that, mayor, I'm open to any questions.

Thank you for your presentation. So we will begin questions with vice mayor.

Thank you for the presentation. I just have a question regarding the deployments. Are based on when we when Salliendra PD deploys some of these assets, the city council gets a kind of a notification. And I'm just wondering how many you don't have to give me exact numbers, but proportions of how many of these were used in Salendera versus in mutual aid, where we get a request from a neighboring jurisdiction to use one of our police assets for aiding whatever it is that they're doing in another city. What is the proportion of, for example, just in general for unmanned aerial vehicles, we have 65 deployments.

How many of them happen in San Leandro versus in mutual aid situations?

I would say a vast majority of them are are in San Leandro because most agencies have drones already similar with our our vehicle, our our medevac. A majority of them are here. It is a regional asset partnered with Fremont Police Department. Oftentimes, they will pick up the vehicle to use it. We'll notify counsel, but that wouldn't necessarily be a deployment for us since they're the ones taking the vehicle to their operation.

Mhmm.

And can you tell me a little bit between the difference of the medevac armored vehicle versus the mobile hostage negotiations command vehicle?

So the medevac is a ballistic rated vehicle to safely bring our officers closer to a situation, whereas the command posts are far away from the incident itself, it's a location or a vehicle in which our staff can can navigate a situation safely. We used to have dispatchers in there and our on scene incident commander.

Okay. Those are all my questions. I cede my time back to the chair.

Thank you. We'll go to council member Bolt next.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I see on all these categories there's the expected lifespan. A lot of them are in the five to fifteen or somewhere in the 20. When it comes to the weapons, what's deteriorating that we're saying, okay, we're gonna lose this in five years or fifteen years. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, it's usually manufacturer recommendations. Also, if we're talking about a firearm, it's how many rounds have gone through it and some of it is just maintenance. So for example, a couple of years ago we replaced they were called uppers of certain rifles. We didn't get all new rifles, we just replaced the parts. So part of that is the maintenance piece of it.

Okay. And then there was another one and I lost it because I was searching through. But, basically, it was a collapsible m 16. I don't know. I forget how you guys call it, but it was a collapsible rifle that the the the Motor officers?

Yeah. So those are those are probably the ones that are motorcycle officers.

Yeah. Motorcycle Yes.

Carrying their they wouldn't be able to have long ones so they have a collapsible stock on it so that it can fit on their motorcycle.

It fits on the motorcycle. Correct. And then lastly, when going back to the timeframe, lifespan, would it be possible for us to see in here, expected lifespan is twenty years, we're in year two or we're in year three in the future? That, because some of these are like the vehicles that are, I assume are extremely expensive, but it would give us the opportunity to take a look and understand what may be coming up, what you guys may be needing in ten years or in five years. Because a lot of them say five to fifteen, but we don't really know where that is.

So maybe in the future, there's no rules against that, letting us know where each one of these are in that mark and that way we can.

Prepare. I believe some of them had do have days of purchase, but you're right. Not all of them do.

Oh, that okay.

Yeah. Well, yeah. Lieutenant Robert Lieutenant Robertson will be more than happy to update that list for us.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member James Aguilar.

Hi. Thank you. I have a couple of questions with relation to data. I I love data, and I love to see whether or not the use of the equipment actually supports public safety outcomes. So my question my first question is, is there any data recorded, whether it be internal or or public, that shows equipment improving safety outcomes? Like like, what kind of data actually tracks whether or not successful there was a successful deployment or otherwise?

So the in use of our whether it's a kinetic weapon, so use of force report is conducted on it. And that would actually I'll go to the injury portion. So we do document whether an injury was a result of the incident, whether to an officer or to an individual. The second piece for the safe outcomes of it. Do after every incident, we do have a report that is that is generated so we can we can certainly moving forward, compile that and kind of give, you know, successful outcomes versus a non successful outcome? Sure.

Yeah, I would love to see that. I'm also really interested in because I'm I'm in the data. I think the data tells stories and I think the data shows patterns. And so do you also track any kind of geographic or neighborhood based data on where said equipment is deployed?

We have the information in those reports, but as far as I plot it on the map, don't have that. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, good. And then I could just out of curiosity, in your best judgment, do you think that the use of tactical equipment deployment is increasing as compared to other years? Or where do you think that that usage is at?

On one of them for the let's see which one was it that we went? It's remained, I'll say, steady. Okay. We did go down two usages on the armored vehicle. Last year, we used it 21 times. This or in '24, we used it 21 times. Last year, we used it 19 times. With our drones I believe it did go slightly up but not a significant amount.

Okay.

Ideally we would want to with the drones we would probably want to increase that number because we use it for interior searches as well instead of sitting an officer in or using a can, which we don't have canines, but utilizing that interior drone to search a particular area for safety purposes of the officers and the individuals inside.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate your responses. That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. So at this point in time, I've got three questions that I don't think have been covered. Two questions, one of them you covered at the very end. Do we audit, internal audit for policy violations?

Yes, so every usage in a use of force incident does get reviewed internally in addition to the independent police auditor would review those as well.

So if I'm understanding that correctly, so we had 19 deployments, and we'll just pick this one in particular, we had 19 deployments. Would each of those be reviewed or only if it resulted resulted in some sort of gunfire or some

sort of It would be reviewed if it was So there's an after action report that is conducted these operations here. And if there was a use of force, then that would be an additional layer of review that is conducted.

And in that case, I guess what I ultimately care about is consistency with whatever policy we have in place. As part of that after action report, is there an assessment of consistency with policy, or does that only happen periodically?

I would say more periodically than not. In some of the situations, for example, on a community event, we wouldn't there'd be no review of it. For the use of a of a armored vehicle, it's typically run through our chain of command. So at this point, would be Captain Khan that would get a call to to seek the approval of the of the usage of the medevac itself. So we get that approval. He'll get a rundown of exactly what's occurring and then give a yay or nay. If it's a quickly evolving situation, it would be deployment and then notification.

Thank you. Does the IPA do an independent spot check?

No. Okay.

The the medevac, there was a question about Fremont, and I wasn't quite sure about the answer. So these 17 deployments are exclusively in the City Of San Leandro?

Those deployments are San Leandro personnel utilizing the Medevac vehicle. And a majority of those were in town. I can probably get you the number before the meeting's over. I have it here on

my phone.

I think my curiosity goes to the question, because I know that we partner with Fremont specifically. So if we're sharing it, does that mean that they will send officers here to get it, or do we drive it down for

a Most of the time they come up to pick up the vehicle. So if they come and pick up the vehicle and utilize it, they report it under AB 41. If for whatever reason they would call us because they couldn't get it, then we would report it because we're now we're taking the vehicle down there and we're with the vehicle itself. So it'd be us deploying that vehicle. Perfect.

Thank you. I think that's all I've got in terms of questions. So it'd be a good time, Madam Clerk, for public comment on this item.

Mayor, we have not received any comment cards, but we do have one hand raised online.

Okay. So we have open public comment in person. Seeing no cards, we are closing public comment in person, and we're moving online to open public comment.

And we have no, no hands raised online.

So we are closing public comment in person. At this point in time, come back to council members for any commentary. And if there is none, we can move to a motion. So I'll just look for any commentary. I'm not seeing any raised hands. So I'm open to a motion. Council member Volt.

I'd like to move this

item. Okay.

And to basically approve staff's recommendation. Correct? Okay, thank you and then customer that are you there.

I will second.

So then motion comes from our boat with second customer that regular seeing no further discussion, let's vote on the motion.

Council member Bowen, may we have your vote? Yes. Thank you. All votes are in and the motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. So for item number 11, I do believe we have one request to schedule a future agenda item. And so I will give the chair give the floor not the chair. I'll give the floor to our vice mayor.

Thank you. I submitted a request for a fruit future agenda item to reaffirm the city council's intent to rehabilitate and reopen Lake Chabot Road for community safety, connectivity, and infrastructure resilience to just provide a little bit of context in terms of process. This is a resolution that would reaffirm the city council's intent on the long term future of Lake Sheba Road. Lake Sheba Road is part of our capital investment plan. It has been closed now for more than three years, and, city staff is currently undertaking some repairs on two of the four slides that are currently that were the result of a winter storm three years ago.

This particular resolution I'm request it that it be scheduled for the July city council meeting. So that we have some time to meet with the Bay Of Vista community and hear a little bit about the evacuation study that the neighborhood commissioned paid for and co managed with the consultant from UC Berkeley that helped create this evacuation study. Again, this would just clarify the intent of the city council on the future of Lake Shepell Road. I think it provides clarity, one, to future councils and to future staff. And also, it also provides clarity on the city council and the city's position so that we're able to go and work with our county and our state partners and even our federal partners to fundraise, essentially grant funds to be able to get a plan in place to actually reopen the road.

The first step would be a geotechnical report. However, this resolution is purely reaffirming the city council's intent on the long term future of the road. I'll pause there and see if there are any questions.

So we'll begin with council member Bolt for questions, please.

I guess my question would be to staff. Aren't we already in that position and working to open the road? I thought the goal was to open the road and that's why we've done these. We've gone down this path already.

I will begin with city manager on that.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Councilman Booth. That is my understanding as well.

Guess to the vice mayor now, so the goal of this item would be to reiterate what staff is already suggesting to us.

Thank you for that clarifying question. It would reaffirm our position and be explicit about the city council's long term goal of reopening this road. It would explicitly it would be explicit that that is our goal. I think right now, again, in our goal in making the implicit explicit, that's that's this is a manifestation of that.

Okay. And then lastly, I'll just say this. My only problem with this is the money. If we're saying we don't have no money and we can't fix this because the price it's at, I don't wanna put us in a position where we're doing something ahead of

So I do need you to form a question because we're not allowed to really discuss because it's not a genetized. Right?

Let's play Jeopardy. So

No. I already said it. So that's where I'm at. Okay.

Thank you for your patience. I saw you came out of queue. I was going to comment.

To make it a question.

Allow me to ask you some questions.

Thank you.

Seeing as that we've got city staff commitment to open the road, that is an explicit statement. Okay. That's why I wanted to let me come back to the city manager to understand what is explicit. Nothing that is implicit, I want to know the explicit. Please proceed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Boldt asked me if it was my understanding that the council wanted to open Lake Shebault Road, and my answer is yes. That is my understanding is that that is the council's goal. Not that I, because I cannot. That would be illegal if I, Janelle Cameron, your city manager, went and opened Lake Shebault Road without your explicit direction to do so. So there's a difference there.

And that's a good clarification that it is your current understanding that it is the direction of the Council, that vision here is to open the road. That's what we're working towards, to opening the road. Very well. But I do want to come back to Councilmember Boldt just to clarify that I didn't misstate your question. Would you please proceed?

Yes, I apologize. Maybe I confused everything. My question is, is the two staff isn't it our goal on the staff side? Are we are we gonna separate staff and city council? I thought it was always the goal, not just by city council, but by staff because of prior communication from city council to staff was that our goal was to open it the whole way and and I'll interject into that.

Our only problem with that was during a fire, emergency response wanted it closed if it wasn't gonna be completely open two ways. So that's why we said, okay, let's close

it I'm going to focus you on a question.

Well, that's the question. But I want to be clear on what I'm asking. We were told by parts of our staff that we want to keep it closed so we have access. So I'm asking is the goal from staff to completely open the road at some point? Not just what we've said to staff, but staff is working in that manner today.

Okay. So I'm taking that question. I think it's very clearly stated. We've had a statement from our city manager of what she believes the council wants. And I think your second question is, is that what staff is in fact working towards? Correct?

Yes, that's correct. Okay.

City manager, please.

So the last time we were in this room on this item, the decision from the council, because that is who we take our direction from, this council, is to continue the work, which we have money, which is slides one and four, I believe, and that is what we are doing right now. And at that point we said when staff completes the work on January we will be back in front of Council with where the status of the road is at that time. It has also been made very clear every day that road moves. So the status of it at the beginning of the project, the status of it, it will be different. And so we will need to know where it stands at that point to then come to the council and ask council for its direction on what would you like us to do with the road depending on whatever condition it is at that point.

Thank you.

Okay. So I will go to Councilmember Victor Aguilar.

Thank you, Mayor. So my question is, so your vice mayor recommending that we pass a resolution to explicitly say that we are prioritizing Lake Chabot Road as one of our projects and advocating for funding?

Thank you for that question. No. It is not prioritizing Lake Shebauch Road. It's just reaffirming our intent, our overall long term goal for that road, which is to reopen it. Prioritization means that it would be above all the other projects.

And at this time, like council member Bolt mentioned, we don't have the funds to be able to do that. So it's not about prioritizing that over all the other projects. It's just reaffirming our overall direction to the city manager who then in turns directs her staff on the the council's intent for this the the long term intent of this road, which is to reopen it both ways.

And my question to staff is this resolution, will this go to our next planning session, or is this going to be prioritized and put in on agenda for July like Vice Mayor had mentioned?

So I will go to City Manager.

My understanding is that the vice mayor is requesting that this be an emergency referral and it comes to the July oh, I got it open now. July City Council meeting.

And for an emergency referral, what's the voting threshold for that?

I'll go to City Attorney for that. I believe it is five out of seven. And he said that's correct.

Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions.

Council member James Aguilar.

Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna try not to be repetitive, but my question, vice mayor, is with the context of all that has happened over the course of the last three years, can you reiterate why it is important for a written reaffirmation of our commitment? What's the line of importance for that reaffirmation?

Thank you. Thank you for that question. So to clarify, there are portions of this project that remain unfunded through our capital improvement plan, but not the whole road. There are just the slides that are included in it. So there are currently there's so there's four slides.

Two of them we have some funding from a federal agency to address two out of the four slides. The other two slides remain unfunded. In exploratory conversations with our intergovernmental partners, whether they're county and state, there are some documents and or studies that need to be completed, like a full geotechnical report of the road so that we're able to pursue grant funding. And so this particular resolution, again, makes it explicit that this is our goal is to reopen it both ways. Me in partnership with the with the Bay Of Vista community folks, with the Bay of Vista Association, I am looking at other sources of funding through some philanthropic organizations that work on resilience and fire safety to be able to fund this geotech report to so that we're able to get a clear picture of what really what's happening under the road.

We think we know. There are experts who think they know, but we haven't actually done a full geotechnical report on, the portion of the road that is, under the jurisdiction of the city of San Leandro. Is there anything in the question that I did not answer that you would like to get clarified? Okay.

Thank you. So, I'm gonna go to Council Member Bowen next online.

Thank you, mayor. A few questions. Can you clarify? I know that there is a request from the vice mayor for this to be an emergency referral, but what is actually the criteria for an emergency referral, and would this constitute one that meets that threshold?

I will come to city attorney on that.

Thank you, council member Bowen. From the city council member handbook, page 16, and I'll just read verbatim. Items referred by counsel as urgent matters shall be prioritized ahead of the of other already established priorities and will impact staff's progress on other high priority projects. An urgent referral must meet the following criteria and be defined as part of the referral. The criteria for urgency is defined as an action necessary to immediately preserve the life, health, and safety of the community, or failure to respond in an expeditious manner could result in harmful legislation legislative or financial consequences for the city.

No discussion is allowed on the nature of the urgency, so an urgent referral requires a two thirds vote, which is a five members of the council to move forward with the urgency referral. Okay.

And then my second question is around what affirmation means, and I think some of the other council members, were trying to dig into it. But in your, last answer to council member James Aguilar, you said, you know, in the future, looking for a councilman or vice mayor, looking for funding or an affirmation around being able to find ways to pay for, the other slides that have not been currently allocated with funding that's not been currently allocated. We've I think the current funding, the 4 point something million dollars, includes federal highway funds. So we're definitely looking for ways to pay for it. But is there an expectation that the council affirming this one road would mean that we would be spending directing staff to be able to find specific funding for this project over another project?

I'm sorry. Is that that is a question directed to the vice mayor, or were you looking for the city manager to answer that question?

Both. What what would this mean, this resolution mean?

Thank thank you. So I'm going to go to vice mayor first.

Thank you for that question, council member Boboan. So, in terms of my response to council member James Aguilar, I specifically referred to looking for philanthropic partners to fund the geo tech report. Two out of the four slides remain unfunded but are included in the capital improvement plan in terms of long term investment from the city. In terms of the second part of the question, the resolution is not written yet. This is a request to the resolution will come before the council should my colleagues agree to hear this resolution in a July meeting.

And the reason for the urgency is because this does in fact relate directly to the health and safety of the neighbors of the Bay Of Vista neighborhood. We are currently at the beginning of fire season which, it has been made clear by the windstorm that we had last night and this

apologize because by our policy board policy, we can't discuss the basis for urgency. Thank you. Apologies. But that's what we've agreed to. Other questions, councilmember Bowen.

I don't wanna end up having more discussion, so I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. The question that I have is, as you're contemplating the resolution, it appears to be exclusively focused on commitment. Are you anticipating that that resolution will also have a funding commitment? Or is this purely a commitment, absent funding?

If I could put a financial commitment that would not impact the general fund, that would either reappropriate existing funds from the project, That's what I would like to propose if it doesn't have any impact to the general fund. That would be my first that that if I were to be able to choose, that would be my priority number one. But if that is not possible, just affirming that that is that it that it is a council's intent to rehabilitate and reopen Lake Chabot Road to traffic both ways.

Okay. So at this point in time, don't think there's any further discussion. So what I'd like to do is we have to take this in two pieces, urgency first, and then if it meets the urgency criteria according to the council members, then we'll move to the second part of that, is working to agendize it. And if either of those fail, we can then have a further discussion on what we might do next at another meeting. So let's begin with a question. I do need a motion that this would be agendized as urgent.

I would like to make a motion to agendize as an urgent item.

Do we have a second? Councilmember James Aguilar.

I'll second the vice mayor's motion.

So we got a motion by our vice mayor with a second from councilor James Aguilar. Any further discussion? I guess we can't discuss that item so my apologies for even asking the question. At this point in time please vote.

Council member Bowen, may we have your vote?

No. Thank you.

The motion carries with five yes votes and two no votes. One moment while that comes into view. With our yes votes coming from council member Simon Victor Aguilar James Aguilar and vice mayor of the various Walton and no votes from council member Bolt and Councilmember Bowen.

And my vote?

And yes from the mayor. Thank you.

At this point in time we go to the second question whether given the urgency and I do want to go back to it because I did have my question. I really want to focus on the funding piece because I'm trying to avoid a and I don't mean this pejoratively, but a statement that has no teeth, that has no consequence because we can make statements. But is the objective of the motion to get funding of some type?

Yes. Okay. May I clarify that?

You may.

Specifically to fund the full geotech report for that road so that we're able to actually get some estimates on the repair.

Okay. Thank you. Further discussions on that item? So one moment, please, and I'll come right to you, Council Member Boldt. So actually, I'm going to unmute your mic so that you can begin.

But I do have a question that I need to ask my attorney here on the side. Thank you for your patience while we work through some of the logistics here. Councilmember Boldt.

I want to go back to the question you just asked because I heard one thing and then I heard a response. Your question as I heard it was, are we looking for funding? If that's correct, then the answer was yes, funding for the geotechnical report. But to me, that seems like we're going to go into our general fund money to fund the geotechnical.

But now we're getting into a discussion. All that she is saying is that her as she drafts her resolution, it will include an element with respect to funding. And that's all that I was trying to get clarification on.

My question then is, is it outside funding or is it internal funding?

Hold on just a second.

That's a question.

So I'm relying on my parliamentarian. So my apologies if you're in disagreement with the parliamentarian. Okay. So at this point in time, any other questions? Did you wanna did you have something else?

Yes. Like, the council has voted that this is urgency is an urgency item. And now you are just going back to what you said. When do you schedule this item? The council is still within bounds to just talk logistics about when it plans to schedule this item without having a full blown discussion about the merits or the merits of the topic. So it's about discussion of when do you wanna schedule this.

May I just ask a scheduling question?

Yes, please.

So just to clarify, the council is on summer recess for the month of August. Is that correct?

Correct.

So, I will be absent the first meeting of July, for the fourth of July holiday. And so I would like to propose that it be on the second meeting of that is not a work session of July.

So to be at our second July meeting, that is a regularly scheduled meeting, which I believe July.

The second meeting of July is the thirteenth. The third meeting is the twentieth. As I look at the schedule right now, it's really light. So if I may ask the vice mayor, are you okay with either the thirteenth or the twentieth? And I work that out as we get closer to the date just so that we don't call a meeting for only one item if there's not enough to have both of those meetings as we get closer. It's May, so there's lots of time for these agendas to change, but there really isn't much there today.

I I am okay with the both of those dates.

Thank you very much. Okay.

Okay. So just clarifying the process piece. So it will be it will come forward on either the, thirteenth or the twentieth. It's that time to shoot this. Right?

Thirteenth or thirteenth through the twentieth or the twentieth for a full discussion at that point in time. Okay. So at this point in time, I think we have some clarity up here, and we're going to proceed as is. And if there's any additional clarification required, and I I can certainly myself push this item with the prerogatives that I have as the mayor under the authorities granted me under the charter. But I think we're fine.

I think we can all reach agreement given the votes we've seen or enough of us reach agreement that we will have a discussion on this in July. That being said,

we're going

move to item Sorry. My hand

was up, mayor. Online.

I know. But my question what what is Oh. Hold on hold on just a second.

Okay.

Let let we're going to give you the floor. Please proceed.

Yeah, I just had a quick this this this discussion is about the scheduling of the item, correct?

The court

was to put the referral on as an urgent referral. So and this is the first time we've actually passed an urgent referral since we passed this new policy two years ago. So this is our first urgent that oh, have we had another one since? Oh, anyway. So with an urgent referral, should it not I mean, I guess I'm I'm confused as to the urgency of it and then kinda working through what's like, if it's urgent, should we not schedule it for, like, the next meeting that we can versus having a discussion about when it's convenient for different folks on schedule? Just just trying to understand what urgent means in this case.

So we're gonna check right now very quickly, with city attorney because I know that I don't have a copy of the handbook handy. Is there anything that talks about this precise scheduling?

It does not. But, again, what I read earlier from page 16 is that an urgency referral must meet the following criteria. We describe this criteria. So action necessary to immediately preserve the life, health, and safety of the community or failure to respond in an expeditious manner could result in harmful legislative or financial consequences for the city. There's no statement about any scheduling.

If it's not an urgent referral, then council requests for for future items shall be added to the city council priority list to be prioritized at a subsequent city council planning retreat or session. So there's no vote for a referral. It just automatically goes to the priority setting session or planning retreat unless it's an urgency referral which return which requires a vote. But there's no defined time that that urgency referral has to be scheduled to be heard. It just does go ahead as an item for discussion before any of the prior before a priority session or for sorry. Retreat or a priority setting session.

Understood. So it's it's not time bound, but it does come ahead of any other scheduled staff work or agendized item?

According to how according to how this, the handbook reads, is that items referred by council as urgent matters shall be prioritized ahead of other already established priorities and will impact staff's progress on other high priority projects.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So I think at this point in time, we're done with item 11. Moving to item number 12, are there reports that council members would like to make? Beginning with council member James Aguilar.

Alright. Thank you, mayor. Just wanna point out a couple of meetings I've had with city staff. I took a couple of meetings specifically to take tours of city facilities like the wastewater treatment plant with doctor Morehouse. And I'm not gonna lie. We're we're really great brain, brain partners talking about science and how it all works. And so that was a really fantastic tour and meeting. And I also met with director Simons at the library, took a tour of the library, learned a little bit more than I think, the everyday citizen knows about the library, and I really appreciated that. I'm looking forward so for going ahead, I'm looking forward to attending the Youth Voices public reading event this Thursday at the library. I think that's really neat and really cool.

So I can't wait to see what the kids got for us. I'm also looking forward to meeting with Congresswoman Simon at the end of the month on the thirty first with other East Bay electeds to talk shop, but also to build a support network for new electeds and new appointed officials as well. And that is all I have for council reports. Thank you, mayor.

Going to vice mayor.

Thank

you. Just, attended the STD Neighborhood Association's barbecue this weekend. It was lovely and a well attended event. And, mayor, I don't know if you are planning to address this, but I I would like to request a moment of silence for those who were killed in the mosque shooting in the city of San Diego. I don't know if you're already planning on doing this, but I I if if so, I would like to add my request to hold a moment of silence for the victims of, the shooting in the mosque in the city of San Diego. Those are all my comments. I cede my time back to the chair.

Council member Victor Aguilar.

Thank you, mayor. On Wednesday, May 13, I attended the one thousand one hundred and forty seventh meeting of the Alameda County Muscular Abatement, board of trustees. We introduced a new trustee, Dawn McCune, who is representing the county at large for Alameda County, and returning trustee Lisa Rasler, who is representing the City Of Oakland. We approved the final budget for the fiscal year. We also had a presentation of the preliminary aginaries report for fiscal years twenty six-twenty seven.

We also discussed that we have no new detections of the invasive mosquito Aedes aegypti, which were made by ACMAN operations by their lab. There was one crow found in New York that tested positive for West Nile virus, but no mosquitoes were positive for the month. Extensive monitoring for both invasive mosquitoes and mosquitoes that can vector West Nile virus will be the focus of ACMAD's efforts in the months to come. Request for service received from the public in April totaled 116, well below the ten year average for the month. And that concludes my report. Thank you.

Seeing none no others, I will go very quickly. Had the opportunity to attend this video, the state's neighborhood association event. It was a beautiful day. So many families, young, old, everybody's running around having a good time. So very grateful for the invitation and just glad to see community coming together.

It was also nice to see visitors from other cities coming in to celebrate. Attended the library appreciate volunteer appreciation event luncheon that was on Friday. Another great event highlighting 99 adult volunteers that support our library system here in the city of San Leandro with a variety of programs, especially touching with the folks that volunteer helping others learn how to read. I represent the city of San Leandro on the AVA community board of directors. And as part of that, attended the CalCCA meeting in Sacramento where all the Community Choice aggregators are coming together to work on policy advocacy.

And in particular, one of the things that's high on the agenda is transparency. One of the key drivers to the cost of electricity is the what's called the PCIA. It's basically a kind of a make whole charge to PG and E as it's represented by PG and E, but it's very opaque. And what we see is big swings in this number that's supposed to be a very symbol for people to understand, but it's in fact just opaque and not transparent. So we're working with the legislature to help bring clarity and transparency because we, as CCAs, believe that there may be an opportunity there to help drive electricity costs down.

I also had the honor of attending a gathering from around the Bay Area of folks from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. I had the opportunity to spend time with a consul general of Indonesia and Singapore here in our own Marina Community Center. Probably 200, two twenty attendees, all sorts of beautiful cultural expressions. And to have all that happening here in San Leandro, and I asked, why San Leandro? The answer was simple.

Location, location, location, and your staff was really easy to work with. And so when I think of our staff making our facilities available and that we're able to bring the Bay Area and highlight our city in a positive way where people are having a great time and they're saying, like, wow, this is a great place. This is a great place. That's that's brand building also. So thank you for all that supported that effort in particular. And the last thing that I'll identify is that I spent time, with the Citizens led, initiative on Saturday. A number of council members showed up. You haven't mentioned it, so I won't call you out by name. But thank you for joining to