City Council - Regular Meeting

And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all for being here. We will start with public forum, but before public forum, I'm gonna read a little statement as to how we run things here. Now is the time for public forum. This portion of the meeting is when members of the public can speak to the council on any item not on tonight's agenda.

If you would like to speak on a matter that is on the agenda, please reserve your comments for when that item is called. The purpose of public forum is to provide the public with an opportunity to be heard. However, if your comments do not address a topic that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or if your comments are disruptive, I will provide a warning. If the warning is not followed, I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. Each speaker is usually given to three minute three minutes.

This time may be adjusted at my discretion based on the number of speakers or number of items on the agenda. If you ask questions during public forum or during public comment with respect to an agenda item, those questions will not be answered during your allotted time. However, a member of the council may, at the conclusion of public comments, direct your questions to staff for a response. Pursuant to state law, the council may not discuss issues brought up at public forum, but council members or staff may provide brief responses to statements made. City clerk, do we have anyone, who's putting a card for public forum?

No. Madam vice mayor, we have no cards in the chambers and no hands online.

Okay. So we

will close public forum. On our agenda, we have a presentation from the California Department of Insurance, but I'm gonna ask my colleagues, if I can use my discretion, to first bring up our speaker from the Recreation Commission to go over that report. Okay. No objections to that. Thank you. Chris Hart, please take the podium. Make sure the green light is on.

It is on. Good evening. My name is Chris Hart, and I am on the Piedmont Recreation Commission. I'm here this evening to deliver our annual report pursuant to city code twenty five thirteen. I thought I'd begin with a little background and some of the process that we went through in preparing this.

It was at our November meeting that Director Putzer alerted us to the fact that we needed to do an annual report and apparently one had not been prepared in over ten years. So my first order of business is to apologize for that, but we did dutifully immediately appoint a subcommittee of our chair, Amir Varani, Rebecca Possumantier, and myself to prepare an annual report. You might ask yourself, why is it me here? And that's because the other two members of the subcommittee's terms expired on April 1. So I am the last man standing.

Our process was pretty simple. We created a a Google spreadsheet, not a collaborative document that we started preparing. We then discussed it at our meetings in January, and then adopted it at our March 18 meeting after a lot of discussion by our fellow commissioners. But let me begin where the report ends, and that's with the conclusion. I am happy to report that director Shelly Putzer and her staff are doing an amazing job.

This is something that the city of Piedmont can be very proud of. It is an absolute joy to sit on the commission and to hear all the accomplishments that they do day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out. The expansive programs continue to meet the ever evolving needs of our community. In fact, as we created started with the report, we created a list of all the gold stars that have been achieved during the year. And it became difficult for us to parse that down because for one reason and another, there's a reason to call out all of them.

But we did mention a couple of the highlights in our report. Eva Phelan and the Sidekicks Adaptive Program enters its fifth year, an absolutely inspiring program that has gained considerable notoriety and I know was recognized by this council. This year, we had the fourth Play Like a Girl event, which attracted a thousand participants and is only heading upwards. We also had our second annual adult expo, which was something that was started by commissioners Dick Carter and Lisa Gardner a year ago, and it introduces a lot of our adult community members to the various programs that target them. Schoolmates led by Katrina Morris remains a crown jewel of the PRDs program.

Schoolmates serves three twenty five families, which is 36% more than a year ago per site on average. We could spend hours singing the praises of Schoolmates, but I will just mention briefly the ever expansion of Camp Kaleidoscope and the new hangout for some of the older kids, which was adopted this year. Eight zero one once a month is in its second year, and that's a monthly program that is geared towards adults. And I, again, could drone on and on about the services that the rec department provides to the youth of this community and specifically to the Piedmont Middle School and providing the athletics. They do an absolutely amazing job and they don't get all the credit that they deserve.

We did note some observations in our report. We noted that groups that make a concerted effort to come to us every every month or or or make efforts to reach out to us seem to do better in the long run. It seems obvious, but we wanted to note that. We also wanted to note that some of the public private partnerships and we've seen this in the past where the pool and the Cory Reach Tennis Courts and Hampton Field and this past year was no exception. The new tot lot where leaned in and helped in the financing of that.

And also the batting cages up at Coaches Field, where the Piedmont Baseball Softball Foundation and along with a prospective Eagle Scout leaned in on that project that we're able to accomplish that. And because the 2513 asks us to make recommendations, we did make a couple of recommendations. The most notable one that you will see in the report addresses facilities. And I know that this is something that the city council is in the process of doing, so I really don't want to focus on that. And I would like to rather talk about some of the other recommendations that we made.

One was the adoption of a volunteer portal or some kind of accessible platform for community people to post volunteer wants and volunteer, you know, abilities to do. And that is something that we believe the Parks Commission mentioned in its annual report in 2024, and we echo those. The other recommendation we'd like to make is right now under twenty five thirteen, we have to deliver this report on or before May 1. We were hoping to align that more with the calendar. And in fact, at our next meeting, we're planning on appointing a subcommittee that is going to prepare this report for next year.

And so one suggestion might be to move up the date that the report is due to perhaps February. So that way, when we're done with the year, we'll enter January, prepare the report and move on from there. And looking forward, we look forward to the city's commemoration of our country's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary and obviously the new pool opening, but we also very much look forward to any comments and suggestions that you might have to the annual report. But just to underscore, it is really a it's an awesome commission to be on where we don't have to hear a criticism very often. It's a lot of attaboys.

And so with that, that's the annual report. Thank Anybody has any questions?

I think we will have questions and comments. It was I I think you noted I watched the on online, I watched the meeting, the last rec meeting, and you guys were meeting pretty regularly about once a month, the three of you. And a lot a lot of work was put into this, and it certainly shows. And the fact that it hadn't been done for ten years and you had to go back and rewind on achievements and things that you folks have accomplished over the past year. So thank you. I think we're all going to be saying that tonight because it is a tremendous report and a tremendous effort. We're appreciative. I think we'll everyone has can have an opportunity to speak, but I think we'll start with our liaison, our recreation liaison, Jen Long. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You're right. There was a lot of work and effort put into this report. I think you've summarized things very well.

I'll just highlight two themes that I think came out of the recommendations that the commission spent a lot of time thinking about. One was sort of our long term view as a council. There are certain themes that have come up for recreation around space and usage. I think you all know in the report that it was talking about sort of dedicated uses versus singular uses and also anticipating that, you know, our recreation needs continue to grow. They don't get they're not getting reduced.

So how are we as a council thinking about that? The other issue that was in the report that I think the commission has been trying to navigate is understanding what their charge is and how it relates to the larger vision of council and the city. And because there is no direct path between the two bodies, what can we, if anything, do to provide a framework that would better enable and empower them in the commission to do what they're charged to do? So those are the two big things, and we can kind of see what comes up and circle back. Can

I mention one thing? Because you used a word, the pathway, and I would be remissed. That was a comment, if you listen to that meeting, there were a number of commissioners that spoke of the frustration of a community member reaching out to them and saying, how does one get on your agenda? And they felt like they didn't say, well, there's three things, here's the way one does that. And so I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to supplement my statements with that.

We have other council members who want to speak?

Yes. I would plus one everything that was said. Thank you for reading the municipal code. Yes, I didn't realize that this was due every year. So that's on us.

But you for doing that. I think one thing in parallel too with all the gold stars that the Rec Commission and the Rec Department do is they all do all of these great accomplishments are done with the highest level of fiscal responsibility too. I mean the when we review the budget every year, this department really stands out because they do it with such responsibility and they perform at such a high level with such fiscal responsibility. It's really worth it really should be a model I think for other communities too. So along with all those gold stars, there's also the fiscal gold star too that I think needs to be called out.

So thanks.

Councilmember Plummet?

I don't really have any questions, but thank you for your work. I really appreciate it. I think the things that you highlighted in the report as being difficulties are all things that we are aware of on council as others have said. So it is nice to see the alignment there that we're not like in completely different camps. So yes, thank you for your continued work.

And I don't want you to the sense that I'm shying away from the recommendations that we had about the facilities and the spaces and all that. It's just I know that is a hot button topic for you that you're dealing with all the time. So I didn't want to dwell on it because I want this I'm more of a cheerleader type than anything else.

We appreciate that. Can we're just going to pivot for a minute? Do we have public comment on this before we come back for

are no speaker cards in the

chambers and no raised hands online.

Thank you. Then we'll close public comment. Okay. So this is not an action item and but but there are some things I think that we could discuss right now. Can Shelley, can you come up to the podium?

Or or do do you have in mind any ways that, you know, on this volunteer portal? It has come up with park commission as well. Are there any, you know, can we can we as the rec department or as the city package volunteer opportunities and post them online so that folks know you know, I I I feel like maybe because we're in the know, you're always looking for volunteers and always asking for volunteers, but clearly that message isn't permeating the greater community. So this this idea of a portal online is is maybe worth trying. Can you think of any volunteer opportunities where that would meet the needs of the park folks and the rec folks who are hearing from people that want to volunteer?

Yeah. And and this item came up before, I believe, maybe in our adult older adults report that the rec commission put together wanting there to be a more centralized location for volunteer opportunities. So in RAC, we took a few actions out of that, which is that we post volunteer opportunities in our activity guide. So each time that comes out, that has a whole page or a half page on those opportunities. I think there is a location on our website that does have volunteer opportunities.

I believe, Eka, you're extracting that from the things that we post. And so, there's a couple different ways, and I used to, and I have to get back to it, but in our rec commission meetings, announced, like, upcoming volunteer opportunities to commissioners. And so I I had planned when this came up with the with the annual report to reinstate that on our agendas to make people aware. So I think if we maybe we work on getting be able to look at the existing locations, maybe that would be helpful to the community.

That is the trick and getting people just get in the habit of gearing towards that. And I think all of us who have ever had a leadership job where we need volunteers don't ever wanna let someone go untapped if they're willing to work. So that's something that we can work on. Council members, the alignment of timing of the report seems like a pretty easy yes? I mean Correct? Okay.

So And I'll speak a little bit to that. I think the goal was that in in recognition that some of the items that come before rec and that the commission considers has financial implications. And so the idea is that if the report is done earlier, that it would align better with our budget, and it won't be an item that comes in April or you know? And we're right at the budget, and so it hasn't been fully considered as part of of our budget season.

That that's a really good point, and I think part of the conversation on, on how we get to agenda items and how we establish priorities always comes with the budget. That's when we have those conversations. So that is a that's a well taken, suggestion. And then, as far as the, there was a couple of things on space and scheduling for existing space and how to make expand space. Commissioner Hart and I both have served on the, school district city facilities task force.

So we are just in sync on that topic, and I think it's great that the rec commission I mean, we're all like minded on that, has coming forth with a lot of support on that topic because, as you know, it's taking a lot of conversations and still more conversations to be had. And that is something we're working out with all the all the facilities in town for every use. Do you wanna add anything to that?

I could add a lot, but no, I think you said it.

Yes. It's good that we're all on the same page.

Go ahead. Yes. And I think for our purposes, really what the commission is talking about without the specificity of necessarily the city and the schools is from a bigger perspective, we have, you know, a certain amount of basically dedicated space for single use activities. How are we thinking about that? How are we balancing that with multiuse?

Right? Because according to the code, we are aspiring to multiuse as much as we possibly can. The other piece of that is one of the issues they raised was, when is there really free play in some of our spaces? Right? So we have a lot of programmed activities, but not necessarily a lot of free play.

And we don't see that decreasing. As we think about Moraga and all of the things that are going to come from that development, how are we thinking about it? I don't know that we're gonna be able to answer the question tonight, but but I think it's important, and maybe it'll come up somewhat in the budget. But I think that's what the commission is looking for because they're saying, hey, we don't really have a rubric my word, not theirs or framework to say, hey, this is an activity that should have more support or this is an activity that should have less in this particular area versus this area. And so I think they're really looking for us to have some kind of guidance around that.

And I don't know if if you have any thoughts on maybe how that might come to pass.

I don't think yeah. I think it's I think that the report has a lot of good information in it and and, you know, things that can be improved immediately and other things you we have to chew on and process and, you know, go through our budget cycle and and council sets priorities that we will then go back to commissions and ask for help with in making come to fruition. So, again go ahead. Sorry.

Yeah. No. It sounded like you were getting close. But I have one item though too. There's one comment in there about I don't know if it's guidelines or help with somebody who comes up to the podium and wants to get something in agenda and because of the Brown Act, we're not talking I wonder if that's something maybe staff could help or legal could help with, well, how do you address that in all the commissions or maybe it's just how to be how to communicate that to people, say, more directly and consistently because I think that is inconsistent too.

And people who don't participate, they come in and talk and then it's it could seem sometimes that they're just getting the cold shoulder. So if there was maybe a better, more consistent process to help both commissioners and public on that process. And I think that could come from staff, right, because that's really a Brown Act issue, right?

I think one of the things that we're actively trying to do is incorporate into our Brown Act training a segment about how to handle items that come up during public comment. And one thing we do offer to staff as liaisons in that setting is to offer up how to be helpful outside of the meeting to members of the public who come forward and have an interest. There are lots of ways that we can be supportive of topics not just in a commission setting but outside of a public meeting and sometimes that might be a more effective way to take up a topic of interest that might be outside of the work of the body. The body's work is often driven by the work plan and the work plan is often a function of the priorities that are established by the council's budget approval for the year.

And I'll add to what you're saying and I think we I think I've spoken to individual commission members about this, but it's also what we receive, right? You're out and about and somebody says, hey, this topic and how can I move it forward? And sometimes the answer is, hey. I'll get back to you or, hey. You should talk to this person about it.

And so there's some of that as well. So but but I think to your point, you know, it may be in the Brown Act training and just sort of a continuous helping the public to understand that agenda items are not not necessarily a product of the body per se, but a collaborative process that, you know, happens between staff and the bodies and community needs. They they do come from they're generated through a process there, you know, and it definitely is not in the meeting.

Anyone else? I'm only looking this way because you're kind of right.

Are there any do we have to go back for any of these, do we have to go back to the municipal code to make any modifications here?

The deadline of the report?

Deadlines or no, we don't? No. Okay.

Thank you.

Just because the code specifies the deadline of May and since the discussion has been around moving it up, that doesn't conflict with the May deadline.

We can make it early. You can exchange the code.

Perhaps it's a way

I mean, I think it's written as an honor before. So maybe you can interpret it as I'm giving you the heads up. It's coming before next year.

And you're assigning your committee already at your next meeting,

your subcommittee. Are

we anyone else? Final comments?

Yes. Just want to say thank you to you and the other commissioners. They are doing a great job of navigating the excitement that the community has for the great work that the recreation department is doing. And so there's a lot of enthusiasm. And so where there's a lot of enthusiasm can be a little bit you wanna be creative and sensitive to how you hold that for the community, but but, you know, I think you all very much see and hear what the needs are. So appreciate you and the other commissioners and the work department. Shelly, we see you back Thank

you. Anything you want to close with? Anything? No. I have a word. I Thank you.

Shelly is doing a fantastic job.

I think we can all agree with that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hopefully, the commissioners watch this segment and know that we appreciate it. I watched I watched you. Yeah. All the commissioners. Yeah. Alright. So we'll go on to our presentation from the California Department of Insurance. Please make sure the green light's on and start with your name.

Hi. My name is Sharon Smith. I'm an outreach analyst with the California Department of Insurance. So my job is to go out and do presentations like this. The main kind of thrust of what we're doing, I'm not sure if the presentation is showing on your end.

Not yet.

Okay. Main thrust of like what we've been doing recently is really talking about the legislative action that the commissioner has really been sponsoring and supporting. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the legislative actions that have already been approved in the last year or two, and then kind of look forward at what we are supporting this year as well as some resources from our department. I'm not sure how often you're getting maybe complaints or you know items coming up at meetings about insurance, but Piedmont is one of those areas like we can look at the fair plans data and residential insurance in ninety four thousand six hundred eleven which I think encompasses most of Piedmont is up 53% from last year And then the year before that, yes.

Would it be helpful if we hold for just a moment to get the slides yes,

yes. None of this is on the slides by the way. So Yeah. So, from 2024 to 2025, this is the most recent data from the fair plan. The there's an increase of 53% in the 94,611 area code.

That's 2,554 policies in just this zip code, which is that is significant. I've done a lot of these presentations most of the time. There's really big increases of maybe 150%, 200%, but there's usually really small numbers of like 100%, 200%. So we're seeing increases across urban areas and even in areas you wouldn't expect. But Piedmont, it seems like you've had a lot of fair plan use even the year prior to that. It was a 43% increase, but you had sixteen sixty six policies. So this is year after year we're seeing hundreds of policies being added. So I think this was a really good time to have a discussion about insurance here as you're

Maybe

not.

You can just go ahead and the next slide if it's not working. Yeah. That's my second slide. Okay. You could just do it. Thank you. So I think it's important to put, kind of the insurance crisis into context of, like, why it happened before we get into the things that the department has actually been doing to try to rectify this. And most of this is really climate change. I mean, there's a growing intensity and severity of climate events. You can see on the right side of the screen, those are the increase in billion dollar disasters.

So when they do happen, they are incredibly expensive. You could just look at what happened in in 2025 with Los Angeles. So this kind of growing intensity and severity of climate events, even if there's not as many or even if there's not many more, that's that's really driving this crisis. If you kind of couple this with historic inflation, so everything getting more expensive, meaning any homes, any any kind of rebuilding process, all of those things are getting more expensive. And then a thing that doesn't get talked about often is reinsurance.

So there's been a rising cost of reinsurance. Reinsurance is just insurance for insurance companies. I like to say everything that you buy, an insurance company also buys, and that includes insurance. So insurance companies, they look to really big global reinsurers. These are on, like, huge kind of worldwide basis. They're writing everywhere. As global catastrophes are getting more intense and more severe, reinsurance is getting more expensive. So all of these types of things are culminating into this crisis. Now we're seeing less private insurance options and more and more people having to turn to the fair plan. That's what I was talking about earlier, where we're seeing really big increases in 940 zip code.

And this is an issue because the fair plan is really, really bare bones. I don't know if you guys are on the fair plan but yeah it is it's just fire, smoke, internal explosion. There's also a pretty low limit if you have a home that's worth more than $3,000,000 you're not able to be insured under the fair plan for an additional cost of that. And it also is just a very, very expensive policy considering that these are all the highest risk properties in California are concentrated on the fair plan. So you're in a pool with the highest, most you know risky homes that's driving also driving up the cost of insurance.

So all of these things are kind of to say that we are we we've entered in a really kind of unprecedented times when it comes to climate change, when it comes to to insurance, and we were at a crossroads last year. And so what the Department of Insurance did was bring about the sustainable insurance strategy. You can go to the next slide. And this could be this was a whole presentation in and of itself was the sustainable insurance strategy. But the main kind of part of it that that insurance companies were really wanting, that homeowners were really wanting, was a way for insurers to actually take into account the mitigation that's being done on their homes.

So previously, before the sustainable insurance strategy, the way that insurers would set rates was looking at just the last twenty years of data. So they'd look at all of these awful wildfires we've had in California, say this looks pretty risky, we're going to drive up rates, and there wasn't really much in that to take into account home hardening, to take into account defensible space. So homeowners are like, why am I going to do this? If it doesn't matter for my insurance, I'm not going to address these things. And then insurers aren't able to to actually price risk appropriately because they're looking at the last twenty years of data.

We're seeing climate events getting more intense and more severe. There was an incongruence with the way they were actually setting rates. And so what the sustainable insurance strategy did was implement forward looking models, and this is just one part of the sustainable insurance strategy was actually a suite of reforms, but it allowed for insurers to use catastrophe models. And these are every other state allowed it. We just had really kind of archaic regulations in California, so we're the last state to allow this, but allow them to use these models that they're able to look at the kind of topography of a place, the where your home is at, what kind of mitigation is being done at the parcel level, at the community level.

It takes those things into account to be able to appropriately price risk. And then the safer for wildfires framework, that was something that passed a couple years ago that a lot of homeowners don't know about as well, but this actually mandate that insurers offer premium discounts if you do certain wildfire mitigation actions. In the PDFs that I sent by email, there's more information about what exact mitigation efforts get you discounts. And then the last part of this was the California Safe Homes Grant Act. This was just passed.

It's kind of being reworked right now, so we don't know exactly what kind of grant structure is going to be there, but the main point of this slide was really to show what the Department of Insurance is doing to address wildfire risk, to address insurers actually accounting for the mitigation that's being done. And so a lot of what the last few years that the department has been is a lot of these types of legislation. And this is great, and I think it's important, and we're starting to see positive signs. We're starting to see insurers coming back and under the sustainable insurance strategy write different policies and use these catastrophe models. So we're seeing some positive shifts already.

But I think what Los Angeles, like the wildfire season last year, really highlighted was even if you had insurance, sometimes these insurers were not going to make good on their promises to actually pay out these claims. I think that's another issue, and I think this is what this suite of legislative actions we're pursuing this year are really meant to address. You can change the slide. So the first one is the, disaster recovery act. Oh, actually, the make it fair act.

We'll start with the fair plan. The make it fair act, the AB sixteen eighty. So this would mandate compliance with insurance commissioner recommendations. The insurance commissioner every year would come out with a list of different recommendations that he would give the fair plan, increase your staffing, make it easier for people to make payments online. Just a lot of different operational, kind of things that that the commissioner was requesting that the fair plan do.

This kind of fell on deaf ears. We didn't actually see any movement there. And then come the fires, they were completely overwhelmed by the amount of claims, by the amount of of kind of payments that they had to do. And so this would mandate that they're actually investing in the fair plan and making it better, for homeowners and better able to pay out claims in the event of a disaster. This would also impose fees for violations when they don't pay out claims, when they or mishandle claims, or underpay, or anything like that.

This would actually set penalties on insurers for that, and it would also mandate I actually I'm sorry, there's another one where they mandate restitution. This one it just imposed fees for violation. And then it also boosts accountability and consumer protection pathways by allowing for a clearinghouse program. Right now, you're on the fair plan, you really have to do the work of finding another insurer yourself and going and making the hundreds of calls to see if somebody's gonna take you. This would put the onus more on the fair plan.

They would auction off these policies to the private market who pays into this into the fair plan anyways. They'd say, which of these policies can you actually take off our books and switch it so that there's more people getting off of this this fair plan? The last part of the Make It Fair Act would make this like a comprehensive make the fair plan a comprehensive insurance policy like getting any other policy. You wouldn't have to get a difference in conditions to cover water damage or liability. This would be like any other insurance policy. That's really it for the Make It Fair Plan. I'll pause. Are there any questions so far?

Can I point out we have our chief Brannigan is on? He can pop in if he has something he wants to add at the appropriate time or wait till the end, whatever you two are comfortable with. He's fine for now.

Are you gonna Yeah. I can can make some comments at the end if you like.

Okay.

Perfect. Thank you.

The other big, reform that the commissioner is sponsoring is the disaster recovery reform act. This is s b eight seventy six. This would offer additional protections as in regards to insurance after a declared emergency. This would require insurers to have a disaster recovery plan for claims handling and processing, So they would actually need to have some sort of guidelines for how they're going to meet claims and meet deadlines. This would also double penalties on unfair claims practices.

So if they're wrongfully underpaying, if they're mishandling claims, there would be penalties for that, a double penalties for that. There are penalties now, but right kind of as they see it, they'll pay the penalty and then kind of chalk it up to the cost of doing business and continue whatever malpractice there is. So this would double the penalties as well as allow for policyholders to have restitution If there is some sort of mishandling of their claim, they're able to kind of the insurers would have to would be required to pay back those policyholders for any harm that they caused. There would also be a requirement for a five day status update whenever a new adjuster is assigned. I think this is probably the most common sense measure out of this bill.

But if you have ever dealt with any sort of loss, especially on a a big scale, like after a wildfire, insurers might bounce you around from adjuster to adjuster to adjuster. Right now, there's not any rules for when they're supposed to give you a status about your case, an update about your case. So this would require that anytime that there's a new adjuster that within five days they have to give you some sort of status update. This would also expand living expenses to a 100% of policy limits. Right now it's only about 60%, so this would whatever your coverage is in your claim you would actually get paid out that 100%.

And then it would expand upfront payments and pay and make them payable with interest if they're late. We see insurers underpay, take forever to pay, whatever that might be. This would again try to deter them from these doing these kind of similar mispractices over and over again. Next slide. The last bill I'll talk about oh, the disaster recovery.

There's two things from the disaster recovery reform act. The mandatory replacement cost option, this is a very important one because a lot of people don't actually know that they're under insured until after a loss. And a big reason that this happens is that you know you'll get your renewal every single year, you'll sign it and then kind of forget about it until the next year, and this happened for twenty plus years and you never actually look at what your coverage is. And insurers right now are not required to look at what the estimated replacement cost is. So what's the cost to rebuild your home?

They don't look at that every year. Sometimes, know, some really savvy kind of homeowners will ask is this up to date? But a lot of people expect that their insurer is doing this work and they actually aren't required to and they don't. So this would require them that every year they actually look at what the replacement cost is and give option to increase it. Doesn't mean that it's mandatory that it's going to increase every single time, but at least gives homeowners the option to have full coverage if they desire.

The Safer Rebuilding Standards is just one is meant to close a loophole that we've seen some insurers use after the wildfires in Los Angeles, Altadena, for example. It wasn't in a high fire severity zone. After the fires, Cal Fire maps were redrawn, they moved up into a higher severity zone. As the law stands right now, insurers are only going to cover those building code upgrades from the time of the loss. So homes that, you know, were just lost in these fires in in Altadena are not gonna be built to the highest fire standards because there's actually nothing in the the bills or statues that requires insurers to build them to those higher statues.

So this would again close that loophole. So when you're rebuilding, you have to rebuild to those codes, which again, I think is also very common sense measure. I'll get to the last act. This is the Smoke Damage Recovery Act. This is SB seventeen ninety five. You might have heard a lot of headlines after the fires. A lot of homeowners were saying that their insurance companies were not covering their smoke damage claims for a variety of reasons. Some insurers were saying if we don't see smoke, if we don't smell smoke, we're not gonna cover it. They had really kind of arbitrary guidelines for smoke damage. Again, one of the reasons why this happened is we don't have any sort of uniform insurance claims handling process.

We don't even have a kind of science based health driven standards for inspection remediation of smoke damage homes. So this would establish these standards and in the meantime, those homeowners that are being forced to go back into unsafe conditions because,

you

know, some public health LA public health officials have tested positive for homes in that fire have tested positive for arsenic, lead, whatever that might be. And insurers are saying, go back to your home. They we're not covering those claims. In the meantime, homeowners can use whatever public health data, whatever, state or local, agency data that they get. They can bring that to their insurers and say, You cannot force me back into your into a home that's unsafe. So this is, again, providing immediate relief and in the future setting standards. So when there are these big conflagrations, because we expect to see more of these wildfires, we're prepared and we're making sure that insurers are actually going to cover these claims.

Next slide.

So a big kind of part of this in the call to action here is to support these bills. This QR code actually gets to you two letters of support. They're draft letters of support. Anyone can go on. You put your name. You could see who your assembly member is or your your, local legislator. We expect pushback. I mean, we've already kind of received pushback from the insurance industry because this holds them accountable for a lot of things that we've seen. So we really are urging, especially especially cities that have really big concentrations of the fair plan to try to put some something together to have some sort of letter of support. So, that gets you a draft letter of support.

I can also send the PDFs afterwards. And then I'll just close with a few just in Department of Insurance related resources. This is our consumer alerts. This is a really good resource. Anything that's coming out that's like insurance fraud related, any new legislation that's being passed, this is where it gets sent to.

Anybody can sign up here, and it's just a really good resource for keeping in touch with our department. And then the last slide is our statewide education series. So, we're seeing that there's a huge need for just education around insurance and just the level of financial literacy around insurance. So we're urging cities and municipalities to put this in their newsletter and to get the word out about these different types of resources. And it's not just residential insurance.

I've talked a lot about residential insurance today, but we regulate all lines of insurance at the department. So you see that reflected in our our education series. We have a health insurance webinar and a business webinar and as well as one about annuities as well. So that's really all I have today. I can definitely answer any questions you might have.

Are you sure that's all? Because that really wasn't It is very, very meaty. A lot to talk about. I'm sure council members are going to, have questions for you or comments, but can I go to our chief Brannigan and see if he wants to weigh in on any of these topics?

Hi. Thanks, madam vice mayor and council, and that was a great presentation. Thank you again for joining us today. A few things I wanna point out. One is in Piedmont, we see a lot of parallels with our community and those that were impacted by the fires in LA last year.

And I get phone calls occasionally from residents who've lost their insurance or need some kind of inspection to help with that. So anything we can do to help, we always encourage residents to give us a call. But, really, what is on the slide right now, this thing these engagement opportunities with the insurance commissioner's office is very important so that people can get direct help and assistance through the statewide office, which is a great resource to have. The other thing I wanna point out, and this is a question that the council has had and members of the public have had. In Piedmont, we self designated the wildland urban interface or we have adopted the wildland urban interface fire code, and that is separate from what insurance companies look at in in determining factors for insurability.

So what it can help with, though, is getting our whole community to a level of vegetation management and home hardening that reduces our overall, risk when insurance companies are considering that. So if we can, over time, improve our housing stock to be more wildfire, resilient or resistant as well as tend our vegetation in in a way that is is safer for everybody, that that will help in the bigger picture as they look at the whole community and our insurability. So I think that is what I wanted to comment. If have any questions for me, I'll be here as well.

Thank you. Council members.

Thank you. Yes. And, of course, my favorite topic that we were just talking about. But I think you mentioned something earlier in the slides about there being, I guess, benefits to home hardening and all these other things. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because this was a topic of concern around our designation and what does that do to yes.

Microphone please.

Sorry about that. The point that he was making previously about kind of the WUI Cal Fire Zone and the insurance issue is a really it's a question we get all the time. We do have a handout about that that really explains it. I think that would be a really good follow-up to send to your residents because it explains that, like, Cal Fire maps what what, you know, our fire departments use. That is for that's a resource that they use to basically figure out what exactly what kind of resources they should have in each place.

That is not meant for, like, financial fiscal decisions. And the kind of catastrophe modeling that insurers use is a lot more sophisticated than just what zone you're in for Cal Fire. They're like I said, they're using topography, they're using slope, but they're also looking at home hardening. So they're also looking at what roof you have, if you have a five foot defensible space, what kind of siding you have on your door, or what kind of siding you have on your your place, if you have enclosed eaves. We have something called the safer from wildfires act, which I mentioned and that was kind of a three part framework.

The first part was kind of ensuring or fortifying the home, that's the home itself like the the things I listed in closed eaves, roofs, all of that. That made you eligible for a certain level of discounts. The second part was the defensible space, making sure that sheds and outbuildings were at least 30 feet away. That was another set of discounts. The third one that's also really important, I'm not sure if you have, is Firewise communities.

So Firewise communities, fire risk reduction communities, those also are mandated to have discounts from insurers. So those are the ways that insurers are kind of looking at Home Harding is through this discount structure. And then largely because of the catastrophe modeling, and again, this is new, this was just passed last year, and we're just starting to see insurers be approved under this process. So right now, no insurers are using this catastrophe modeling. But in the future, these are the types of things they're taking into account.

The mitigation that's being done at the community level, if you're doing prescribed fires, if you're clearing vegetation, those are things that are going to be kind of encompassed in these models. What kind of mitigation you do on your home is going to be encompassed in these models. But I think what's really important is that they need to be done at the community level, and it's kind of why I stress the firewise communities, the fire risk reduction communities, because your home can be as hardened as ever, but if your neighbor and your other neighbor's home isn't, then those are the things that insurers are still looking at, and these catastrophe models are still going to take into account if you're not getting that kind of community level mitigation. And so, yeah, having that long term vision that this community level mitigation does improve insurability, I think is really important, but it's hard to get people to not see like I'm getting this bill and I'm getting non renewed, why should I have to get a new roof or whatever it might be, but it is it is in a long term project for sure.

And just to kind of thank you for that, Claire, you know dig a little deeper on that. I guess I would analogize and you tell me if

this is a

correct one to upgrading your electrical and all of that. I mean the insurance companies are very clear about asking you about those things. So is this sort of trying to socialize insurers to extend those asks to these types of,

Okay. I don't think it's a big ask either. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Institute of Business of Home Safety. It's called IBHS. It is the insurers kind of kind of think tank almost. They come out with a lot of information. They have this huge warehouse in in South Carolina, and they build homes and like set them on fire to see what kind of mitigation is being done on them and what works best for those. This is something that's led by the insurance industry. So they are very much committed to getting that kind of wildfire mitigation and all that stuff and it makes sense. This is something that hurts their bottom line when they have a ton of losses. So they are again invested in the mitigation aspect and the science behind that.

Thank you. Can I just follow-up? What did you mean it's not a big ask? It seems you said it's not a big ask or it's not a big I mean it seems to me for homeowners it's a big ask to have

Oh for insurers to have the mitigation because they're they're very aligned on the mitigation. No for homeowners it absolutely is. Sorry to sorry to yeah no I want to clarify.

Wiring and fuse boxes and your roof and yeah.

No for insurers to mandate these discounts and things like that because it is very aligned with what they want. They want homeowners to be mitigating their homes and things. Yeah.

Council members, Mr. Ramsey, do have anything?

Yeah. Thank you. That was a lot of information.

Yeah.

That was well presented too. Could you tell us where are these bills in the process right now?

Yeah, they've all been introduced at this point and they've already been assigned to committees. The first one's going to be heard on the eighth, I believe. That's the smoke dam no. The, disaster recovery act is just gonna be heard on the eighth. The one after that is the eighteenth. So we're trying to get as many letters in as possible before that, but understand it's a it's a quick turnaround time. But they're all assigned to committees. They haven't been killed yet. But that's kind of where we're at

in the process.

What do you bet on the odds?

I think that's a hard question. Mean, most of these bills don't end up as they were written anyways. Think that's to be expected. I think there's going be some parts that are going to be a lot easier. I think the Smoke Damage Recovery Act, I think there's enough push like there's a huge push and thrust for that to be passed. I think that's going be a lot easier personally I think than mandating they pay restitution and doubling penalties. Think those ones are going to be a little bit harder, but we'll see.

That was an unfair question.

I have one question about like enforcement or auditing. Didn't talk about that at all. I'm wondering if the onus is totally on the insured, on the individuals, or if there's something

In what regards to the enforcement?

So you're talking about double penalties or whatever. Like does the consumer need to be savvy about these laws and contact their insurance company and say, you've done me wrong.

These are all through consumer complaints. Our department is at the core a consumer protection agency. We receive these claims yes, were as the department receives these claims. This is how a lot of these bills were drafted is from the consumer complaints from what we saw. We saw the gaps in legislation, we saw where we're not able to act as a department and that's where they come from. And so, yeah.

And then so if somebody complains about something with a particular insurance company or agency and then you are aware that there's something that's not in compliance with the law, you can then work with that insurance company and then affect all of the consumers that use that?

Essentially, yeah because we do have the authority to regulate those insurers in California. So anybody doing admitted business in California we are the regulatory body that would do that. So yeah if there were like with State Farm for example, after the fires there were thousands of unfair claims practices for a huge kind of variety of reasons. And so the commissioner started a market conduct exam, so it basically opened up their books, you got to see all the claims details and it opened up a larger investigative process. So those are the kinds of ways that we're able to enforce and monitor these things.

Thank you.

Okay. So to the balance of again, know, which a lot of these things do make sense. The I mean one of the things that came out of I'm not sure which fire now but like people were all the insurers were like we're not insuring anybody in California anymore. Do you all have a sense of you know if this legislation any of it passes how are we going to continue to basically get home insurance?

Yes, I think that that's what the kind of introductory bills that I was talking about we're really aiming to do because the issues weren't I mean partially regulations and our outdated regulations around Prop 103. I think that's a big issue that insurers had and so the sustainable insurance strategy like I was saying it wasn't just catastrophe modeling, it allowed them to incorporate reinsurance into their rates, it allowed them to expand writing. They have to have some commitments to write more in high wildfire areas if they want to use these models. So there were some things that were legislative actions that have already been taken to address some of the availability issue. And like I said, we're starting to see positive signs.

I think that the kind of bigger issue we're getting it's like okay let's say you have insurance and then the time comes free to use it and they don't pay out claims, they take forever. I think that's just as much of an issue. So I think that that's it's I totally understand your point. I think it's just addressing a kind of different part of this. Yes. Thank you.

You have several attorneys up here, so I think we're all curious as to when insurance pays and doesn't Yes. We're going go to public comment in a minute, but I did have a couple of questions. So if these legislative updates get through Mhmm. Whatever version, does that automatically mean that folks who are on the fair plan are updated with the new benefits, or do they have to go back and

It depends on if you have if you have a claim. Most of the time, they're not retroactive. So, like, the people who are in, like

Claim before their past. I got it.

Yeah. But but Afterwards.

Yeah. Afterwards. Yes. Or automatic. Okay. Then also has League of California City's waiting on this? Or

No. I don't believe so. I think that one of our our supervisors was speaking at one of their events soon, but I don't think they have a full Not yet. Yeah, not yet.

Because they're a good resource.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Can we go to public comment and then we'll come back to counsel?

There are no speaker cards in the chambers and there's no hands raised online.

Okay. Then we will close public comment. Council members, do you have anything else for our speaker?

Just a thank you. I mean, obviously, this is an incredibly important issue for everyone. And so thank you for the work that you all do to, you know, try to have people have some level of peace of mind that if something does happen that they're there, they can rebuild their lives.

And also with some level of understanding. It's a very complicated topic. So I hope that we can get out we have the screen on of when these statewide education series. Hopefully we can get that in our local newspapers. I

have a flyer, so I'll send that PDF

We have a great communications director here, so we can get that information out. Does anyone else have anything before we go off this side? I

would like to applaud Sharon's efforts to reach out to cities of all sizes. When we received the contact, we were so excited to have the chance to sit down with her and learn much more about this topic because we are contacted so frequently about this subject matter. Think between Chief Brannigan and I we've got dozens of contacts relative to this subject and resident concerns about either being dropped or related matters that we now have a wonderful resource. And so when we explored ways that we could get the information out to our residents and found that she's located right here in the immediate vicinity. We seized on the moment to have her here in chambers.

So thank you so much for Absolutely. Yeah.

And and the the line of communication is open. So if you do have, you know, residents wanting to get information, we do webinars, we do presentations, all this is my job. So just feel free to reach out. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you very much. Okay. All right. We will go on to our consent calendar. We have three items on consent. Does anyone wanna remove anything from consent? Do I have a motion to move consent from council member Long? Second? Second. Second. So let's take a vote. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Consent calendar is moved. Now we'll go on to our regular agenda items. And since we, already do we need public comment on consent?

We have no speaker cards in the chambers and no raised hands online.

Why? I guess everyone must be on spring break. Okay. So we will go on to our regular agenda. We have two items left because we moved the very important recreation commissions report to the beginning. So now we are on we've got director Jackson with us to talk about the first. We're considering the first reading of ordinance seven ninety one and s amending for amendments and resolution to amend chapter two of the Piedmont design guidelines related to story pole certifications. Take it away, Kevin.

Hi. Good evening. Vice Mayor McCarthy and council members Long, Ramsey and Plumier. Sometimes events happen, circumstances come along that bring your attention to certain aspects of the code and provisions that help clarify and so on. And so that's where we are tonight.

The long awaited story pole conversation.

Yeah. All right, so, all right. There we are. The little pop ups get in the way of the tools. Hold on, slideshow.

Okay. All right. So there's the introduction slide. There's three little changes. Two to the city code chapter 17, the zoning ordinance.

One is about what regulations are in effect for permit. And so currently it's at the point of decision, which is a bit odd. It doesn't really give applicants a clear idea of what code is going to be in effect because the decision date, particularly for staff levels, aren't always at a specific time, whereas the Planning Commission is on a regular agenda. So the proposed change is to update and to lock in the regulations at the time of an application is deemed complete. And this is really brings it in line with best practices and clarity.

The second one for the zoning ordinance is to put a definitive time of day for as a deadline for the submission of an appeal. Currently, it's just the tenth day after a decision is made, which is up to midnight. And with our electronic submissions, this makes it clear when that cutoff deadline is. And then thirdly, to the design guidelines, it would be a revision regarding the submission due time of a store pull verification, and this really the US Postal Service has really started playing around with the times that they collect from the mailboxes around us. And then also even then when it's postmarked.

And so in order to get an application for Planning Commission on the agenda, we need to deem it complete fourteen days in advance. And in the past couple of decades, we've been able to receive those verifications by noon on that same day and get the item on the agenda and notices in the mail by the end of the day. But with changes with the post office are doing right and left, we think it's a better practice for those verifications to come in on the Friday before seventeen days in advance so that we can receive that, deem it complete, get it on the agenda and prepare the notices to get in the mail even in an early postal collection time on that Monday. And so that's it. So really, we're recommending conducting a first reading for the ordinance seven ninety one for the two amendments to the zoning ordinance, and then adopt a resolution attachment B, which would amend chapter two of the design guidelines.

And I'm just going to ask for clarity. What I'm hearing you say is that these changes are now required. We've been doing it a certain way for quite some time, but now they're required because of the change in the postal service

and

the online posting of information.

That's what prompted you.

We're just adding clarity to already existing regulations.

We're trying to provide clarity and improve service. Thank

you. Council members, do you have questions?

I have one. So on the code change for what regulation is in effect, I mean, so this changes the planning only to when it's deemed approved?

Is that No, from that. So it's only the planning permits, and currently in Chapter 17, it is what code is in effect the date the decision is made, And we're changing that to what code is in effect the date the application is deemed complete.

Deemed complete, right. So is that the same as a building permit application or is that when submitted?

That's when submitted.

Is there a reason it's different? Should we make them the same?

The reason it's different is because the planning applications are tend to be incomplete for can be incomplete for a long time. That really depends on the applicant's ability and willingness to respond to a list of incomplete notices and get that in. And we want the application to be compliant with reasonably with the most update code. And so the reason we've zeroed in on the data seem complete, that's also some language you see in some state legislation and government code. And so it aligns with that.

Okay. But no changes to the building permit?

Changes to Okay. The building That's it. And that building code changes much more rarely than the zoning ordinance.

Got it. Interesting. Anyone else?

And I can you confirm, I watched this, the planning commission discussed this and they had they said send it to counsel. They had no

No. They are totally aware of what's going on.

And we're full steam ahead on

these Okay.

So that was the first reading. So what do you what are we required to do? Oh, public oh, let's ask for public comment. I'm gonna get a little tattoo right here. Can we go to public comment? Where are people tonight speaking on this matter?

There are no cards in the chambers and no raised hands on line.

Let it be known that I asked. Okay. So what do we need to do? This was the first reading. We

So, really, at the top of the staff report under recommendation, whoever makes a motion could

Okay. Who would like to make

a motion?

Mister Ramsey?

I'll do that. Recommend that we approve the introduction and first reading of the ordinance presented also number two, adopt the attached resolution attachment B amending chapter two of the Piedmont design guidelines to update the deadline for story polls.

Second. Second by Council Member Long. Let's go to a

vote. Aye.

Motion passed.

Thank you very much.

And now we will invite the police chief to come on down and talk to us about the military equipment annual report. A lot of heady stuff tonight.

Hello. Hello.

Good evening.

Welcome.

Thank you, madam vice mayor and counsel, for having me. One second. So good evening. So this is thank you for the opportunity to to share with staff. I don't know if my presentation is on here, but I believe yeah, it's okay.

I believe everyone has it in their hands. Just wanted to go over the report for this year as most of you all know in 2021 California passed a law stating that police department shall share or present all of the militarized equipment that they have and in 2022 the piedmont city council approved the ordinance and so this is an opportunity for us to share or for myself to share with you all all of the any deployments as it were or complaints associated with our equipment from 01/01/2025 through 12/31/2025. For those in the space that are unaware of what militarized equipment is can we go to the to page three? For those that are aware, military equipment, includes unmanned remotely piloted aircraft or drones, MRAPs or vehicles that are armored emergency rescue vehicles, some call them bearcats armored vehicles. I can go through a number of them but I' stick to what we have and so here at the police department we currently have 11 rifles that are assigned to our patrol rifle program and two forty millimeter less lethal kinetic energy launchers and so they are flexible batons.

And so the way in which these pieces of these tools are used in the city of Piedmont, well, for one, let me get into deployments. We haven't utilized any of these tools in the last year and we have never used the 40 millimeter since we've had them and I believe it's been eight years we've never utilized them. But one of the reasons why we would possibly use them are for less for crowd control situations but situations where an individual is armed with a weapon whether that's a blunt instrument or an edge weapon and we are attempting to use and they're obviously resisting and non compliant and we are attempting to detain or control the individual without using any sort of deadly force options. And so we're attempting to utilize a less lethal option in order to gain control over the individual. Our patrol rifles can be used for a number of situations in the event that there was an active shooter somewhere in town or at one of our schools, God forbid, or when we are attempting to stop, detain, or arrest an individual that may be armed with a firearm, that may be armed with something more than a handgun so armed with a rifle or an assault weapon an individual that is either hiding barricaded or refusing to come out of a residence or structure when we're conducting either a yard or building search for an individual suspected of committing a violent crime.

So there we have a policy that governs the use of these weapons, but more than that we also have use of force policy which governs when and which you can deploy certain weapons. And so those are covered under our 300 policies three zero one and then also our 700 policy for military equipment. Our staff undergoes training annually on the 40 millimeter and so that is a part of our california post our peace officer standards and training continued professional training which is conducted annually. Our patrol rifle program those officers and sergeants train quarterly and so they qualify with those weapons or with

those

tools quarterly on a four to eight hour training. It was a part of a ten hour qualification course, but four hours dedicated to the patrol rifles. Just kind of to get into talking about uses of force and one of the ways that we someone may ask how do you know you didn't have any uses of force or any complaints And so every time that there's force used at the organization, it's reviewed by the on duty watch commander or the sergeant of the of that that particular individual. It then goes to our use of force coordinator, sergeant David Cutler, who reviews, that incident, reviewing the the the crime report, the body worn camera footage, the interview of the individual who was detained or force was used upon. It's then submitted to our captain of police and then finally reviewed by myself.

And so that is the oversight mechanism built into our force. There's a minimal fiscal impact of these weapons. They've been purchased and there's a between a 25 to $50 upkeep year over year for training and the like. Pretty much sums up our hopefully there's another one barricaded outside with it, but that sums up the presentation on military equipment for 2025.

Thank you.

Councilmembers?

I

think you answered all my questions already. Thank you for that. I had one thing that occurred to me is we've had these for did you say eight years? Is there a process for making sure that we have, like, the technology is up to date and there isn't, like, some better option or is there a process?

Yes. So there's like there's a fifteen year shelf life on the 40 millimeter but the weapon system that we currently have for given what we need here in the city, think that this is the best option and obviously there is a there we're nearing budget season and so there is use of force coordinator and the captain are constantly looking at what tools they are that are out there and we are as a team evaluating what best fits our community.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Can I ask what do you think or what do you believe prompted the State of California to want to have these annual reports? Like why did they want to know this information?

Agencies were purchasing weapons from the military surplus following various conflicts overseas and police departments throughout the country were buying tools that I think some deemed were unnecessary for municipal law enforcement. And so this is just to check on what it is that agencies are purchasing and also sharing with our communities the tools that we have. And so at my previous organization there, we had what we call an ERV or an emergency rescue vehicle. And there were a number of community members that were that had an idea they considered it or talked about it as a tank. And so at the time I was serving as the the tactical commander, which is some people may call a SWAT commander.

I was training serving as tactical commander of our SWAT team. And so I had an opportunity to interface with our council at the time. So Lauren Taylor and others that were in East Oakland and there was a large event that he held at Eastmont Mall. And so through conversations with he and I, giving him an opportunity to see the the the vehicle and talk about its capabilities and what it actually serves as. We had the opportunity to bring that our emergency rescue vehicle to this event.

And so community could come in and children can see it and we and we can can field questions about what it is and so I think the state of California is just along those same lines giving an opportunity for community to understand what it is that police agencies have in their toolbox. Is this something that we as a community want or police departments to have and so to engage in conversations around it.

Thank you. It's also I appreciate the transparency of what's available and what's being used. Can we go to public comment?

There are no cards in the chambers and no raised hands online.

And we will close public comment. Anything else from council members? No. And what is our action required? We're just you don't have to vote on this. We just receive it and say thank you.

Thank And so there is an action item Oh. Which is to so the acceptance of the report doesn't require an action, but the Renewal. Renewal of the ordinance does.

Okay. So may I have a motion that we renew the ordinance? Move. And a second? Second. And a vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. You. Okay. Take the rest of the night off. That is the end of our regular agenda. So we unless you have anything you wanna add? No? Can we move on to announcements, reports from council members, future agenda items? Sure.

I'll follow-up the topic with the April we've COP on the Block program. We already had one on Warfield, April 4. There'll be another one at San Carlos on April 7, another on Mountain on April 16, one on Estates, April 24, and King, April 29. And again, for those community members who aren't familiar, Cop on the Block is our program where officers come to a particular block and just get to know who you are and you get to interact with them, ask questions, and it's just a get to know you when there isn't anything on the table or at stake except, you know, being neighborly.

And it's it's a very well received program. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Anything else from you? No. That's it. Thank you so much. Mister Ramsey?

So Earth and Arbor Day return Thursday, April 23, 03:30 to 05:30, and it's a kid friendly event. And this year, the East Bay Children And Nature Organization is going to host some nature themed play stations around. I think that's new this year. And there will also be a nature sing along event. So this should not be missed.

You going be holding rehearsals for

But my favorite is still I don't know, these two might become my favorite. But my favorite is the Public Works big trucks. That's a lot of fun. You can climb on the big well, kids can climb.

Follow me, guys.

Also, the heritage trees will be announced at the Earth Arbor Day. And the Park Commission meeting is Thursday this week. It's rescheduled.

Thank you.

Okay. And

maybe one of you is gonna talk about it. How could I forget? The pool?

Are you opening? The big opening. Planning to talk about that? That no. Should definitely talk about your recognition. Okay. Unless Shelly wants

to. 08:10, is Friday, we have our ribbon cutting.

We are closely monitoring the weather Okay. For our ribbon cutting. Okay. Because rain is anticipated.

They have umbrellas.

It's a very large RSVP list.

You mean there's a rain delay?

Possible? Maybe for the ribbon cutting.

For the ribbon cutting but not for opening unless there's thunder and light ening. Okay. In which case we cannot safely open. Okay.

Okay. And opening is the next day, April 11. So come one, come all. Work with this universe to make this happen. So please, community, come out. It it's gonna be tons of fun and just thank everybody. Recognition again and and the city the city as a whole. Right? I mean, it is truly a team effort to get us to this opening day.

A celebration of patience and completion.

Yes. Perseverance. Perseverance. So let's go. Always with perseverance. Ms. Pliny?

I have a couple of announcements. One is a reminder that the design and sustainability awards gala is happening on April 15 at 6PM. That's in the community Health. Center. I always get the names of these buildings wrong.

And it's an opportunity for community members to learn more about the projects that selected for recognition, which are all very interesting. It's worth going for sure. You get to also meet the contractors and design professionals. And then the second announcement I have is that Stop Waste, which is our county waste management organization, is hosting a compost 101 class, Turn Food Scraps Into Rich Garden Soil, and that is on this Saturday, April 11 from twelve to two at Merritt College. And you can learn more at stopwaste.org. Thank you.

That's it for us. Okay. So this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.