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Segment 1

Okay, we can..
Hello, good evening everyone.
If you could please take your seats.
Mr.
Clerk, just let us know when you're ready.
Okay, we are ready.
Okay, I am calling to order the Tuesday, June 17, 2020..
Recording in progress.
...meeting.
Clerk, could you please take the roll? Okay, Councilmember Kesarwani is currently absent.
Councilmember Taplin? Present.
Is present.
Bartlett? Councilmember Bartlett is currently absent.
Councilmember Tregub? Present.
O'Keefe? Present.
Blackabay? Here.
Lunaparra? Here.
Humbert? Present.
And Mayor Ishii? Here.
Okay.
Okay, thank you.
Forum is present.
All right, so we have no ceremonial matters this evening, and so let's move on to City Manager comments.
And folks, I'm sorry, I can ask that folks be quiet please if you're out there.
Thank you.
Okay, did you have any comments? No, not tonight.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Okay, thank you very much.
Moving on to public comment on non-agenda matters.
Okay, so we will..
Folks, this is for public comment on non-agenda matters, meaning that it's for an item that's not on tonight's agenda.
Okay.
So, okay.
So, I'm sorry, unfortunately, you shouldn't be addressing the Council in that way, but you're welcome to speak to the City Clerk if you have any questions.
The agendas for tonight's meeting are on, of course, on the website and on the back table there as you come in.
So, we'll pick five names for people in person, and then we will go to the first five hands that are raised on the Zoom for non-agenda, and speakers will have one minute each.
Yes, that's on the agenda.
Okay.
Okay, so the five in-person non-agenda speakers are Gina Rieger, Matt Glazer, Lucia Hammond, and David Richer, and Susan.
Those are the..
So, if you line up on the side here, you can come up in any order.
Okay, and folks, just a reminder, this is for items not on tonight's agenda.
Go ahead and start whenever you're ready.
Hello.
Okay.
My name is Gina Rieger.
Council public hearings mock due process and participatory democracy.
After first reading of a new ordinance or amendment in which only the Council's proponents speak, you allow an individual stakeholder one minute to address you on issues of great importance to them.
There is no dialogue, but there should be.
We hear no discussion among you regarding the merits of what the public has said.
Then you proceed to vote.
I'm here to ask you to amend your hearing process.
Public hearings must provide a meaningful opportunity for public comment.
Allow us time to present information and be heard.
We believe you afford staff and consultants greater regard and deference than your well-informed, stakeholding constituents.
We don't want presidential orders here in Berkeley.
We want a voice.
I ask you to amend your hearing process.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Matt Glazer.
I've been a resident of Berkeley since 1998, lived on Delaware Street across from Maloney Park since 2008, just finished my 17th year teaching at Berkeley High School.
I live on the west end of the park by the softball fields, which is now across from the new restroom solution for the park, which is two porta potties on a residential street.
Last Monday at noon, I went outside with my 12-year-old son because he wanted to play soccer in Maloney Park, something we've done his entire life.
The first bench we walked by, there were two people actively shooting intravenous drugs.
We kept walking.
The second bench we walked by, there was a man comatose on the bench, fresh urine on the pavement.
We walked across the pavement.
We walked to the next block before deciding that today was not a safe day to play in Maloney Park on a Monday at noon.
The fact that this council has allowed this to get to this state is absolutely ridiculous.
You should be ashamed of yourself for not stopping this sooner and not keeping our public spaces clean and safe.
Thank you.
Folks, please, it's not your time to speak.
Folks, could you, if you have a question, you can speak to this gentleman over here.
Go ahead and speak to this gentleman here because we've got a non-agenda public comment.
Can the next speaker come up, please? Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Lucia Hammond, and I will be brief because there is not much to say.
The gentleman before me said shame on you.
I concur.
Shame on you for your negligence or lack of care or whatever else which I don't want to mention.
Now we have Maloney Park, but we have District 1 plagued by the mayhem of University Avenue, of Maloney Park now, of San Pablo.
Basically, what was not top-notch dwellings and play, but believable, pleasant.
Now they are disgusting, filled with danger, people pooping in front of you as you walk, people shooting in Maloney Park.
Maloney Park was cleaned not too long ago.
Now it's filthy again.
And as I said before, this is not just by neglect.
There has got to be some hidden agenda that I don't know, but I really wish that will make whoever runs District 1 and the City of Burkle tumble.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm here throughout the evening tonight, but I would like to ask the Council to consider a letter that we sent in over the weekend asking for a special meeting to consider the Zone Zero proposal.
Due to the level of interest that there is, we feel like it deserves to have a warranted meeting.
So this is something that's on the agenda? Yes, this is on the agenda.
I'm not talking to the part that's on the agenda.
I'm talking to ask for you to have a book at the beginning to put it as a special item.
I feel like it's a workaround because you're saying you're talking about an item that is on the agenda tonight.
So I understand what you're saying, but I disagree.
Can I ask a question, then? What is the procedure to request a special hearing for a subject? I know that you've requested a special hearing for a subject.
I know that you've requested to request a special hearing for a subject.
I know that you've requested a special hearing by writing a letter, and we are hearing these items tonight.
So you've requested it, and we're going to have it tonight.
We are going to have it tonight.
Thank you.
There will be enough time.
I will allow folks to speak, so thank you.
And last call for Susan.
I am just concerned about all the topics on this agenda that I'm really interested in, have investment in several, not financial, and am concerned about our new mayor and new council members, brand new this year, how you have time for you to settle into each of these topics and really immerse in it, and how we can have time to be with you on some of that, hear it and learn in the process.
So I just would hope that we could have, especially a couple of these are heavy duty items that seem like tonight isn't going to afford enough time.
Thank you.
Okay, so now if you are attending on Zoom and you would like to give public comment on an item that is not on the agenda, now is the time to raise your hand.
Okay, so we have two currently on the Zoom.
First is Madeline Roberts-Rich.
Hi there, it's Madeline calling again.
A lot of topics from public comment before me about matters pertaining to Ohlone Park and downtown Berkeley.
I, for one, am extremely passionate about making sure that Civic Center Park gets reopened with a sensible and homelessness encampment management policy, because that park is extremely critical for Berkeley High students, and having access to that park is extremely important.
So the fact that it's fenced off needs to change, and I'm anticipating that will be done this July.
But I'm calling again, per usual, just to call attention to the fact that I'm very disappointed in how you handled the granting the CEQA categorical exemption to 2274 Shattuck Avenue and demolishing the United Artists Theater.
This was very much against the law, because California state law, which the new housing laws defer to, by the way, say that categorical exemptions shall not be granted to historical resources that are on the California Register of Historic Places.
Thank you.
Sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
Okay, next is Arkin Tilt Architects.
Yes, hi.
Good evening.
My name is David Arkin.
I'm a business owner at 1101 8th Street.
For the past 22 years, we've had our business in this location adjacent to Cornices Creek, and I'll aim to keep this brief.
Prior to the pandemic, there were a handful of people lacking housing who frequently camped near our office, four blocks from the Harrison shelter.
One individual in particular was an ongoing nuisance.
He assaulted some workers at another business in our building, broke our front windows twice, and caused the building owners to put up fences and hire security.
Initially, we tried to help this individual and others, but after these sorts of episodes, kind of resigned ourselves to acceptance and patience, understanding that there are larger structural issues causing the increase in homelessness here and nationwide.
Though since then, the camping has become quite entrenched, especially at 8th and Harrison, and I know the city has taken steps on occasion to clean up.
Typically, we don't respond during public comment, but I'll just say you can reach out to our offices.
Okay, thank you.
I'll be speaking a little bit later on the pride item, but I just want to say thank you to the City Council and to the City of Berkeley in general for the amazing support that you've been giving Pacific Center lately in the assault that was experienced and the onslaught that we've been experiencing.
It is amazing to have public commitment to our cause and our community, and we couldn't be more happy and strengthened by your courageous support.
So, thank you.
So, recording stopped.
So, this an ousted so that customers template and keep the years okay now just text me if there's any audio okay folks we're gonna get back to the meeting thanks for your patience I don't know why but we are constantly having tech issues here I don't think it's anyone's fault just happens so I want to make an announcement on the fee hearings that we have tonight there are four public hearings for city fees that will not be heard this evening these four public hearings will take place on Tuesday June 24th at 4 o'clock p.m.
here at the boardroom again if you missed it the council will not take action on these items tonight the items will be rescheduled to June 24th at 4 o'clock p.m.
So the four hearings that are going to be continued are item 33, which is the fire permit and inspection fee schedule item 37, which is the selected Marina fee increases item 40, which is the new fee schedule for carry concealed weapon permits item 41 changes to select public works transportation permit fees since these hearings appeared on the agenda for tonight, the council will hear any comments for any speakers that wish to speak tonight.
However, be advised that the council will hear comments on the continued fee hearings at the end of the agenda.
That will be after the ember and fire code items are accepted.
So I think that there was a gentleman in the front who might have been here for the Marina item.
So you're welcome to wait to give public comment, but it will be after the fire hearing, which is what all of these folks are here for.
So I would recommend that if you want to, you know, not wait, then you're welcome to come back on the 24th when we'll be discussing this item.
So at this time, I moved to open the public.
So what I'm going to do though is I need to open the public hearings and then we'll actually speak about them and take action on them at the next meeting.
So at this time, I'm going to move to open the public hearings on items 33, 37, 40 and 41 and continue the hearings to Tuesday, June 24th at 4 p.m.
at the boardroom at 1231 Addison Street, which is right here.
Is there a second? Second.
Okay, and we've got folks online.
So can we take the roll, please, clerk? Okay, to continue those four fee hearing items.
Council member Kesarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trigub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mary Ishii? Yes.
Okay, those items are continued to next week.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
So moving on to the consent calendar.
Let me just double check something.
Do you folks have any comments? Oh, yes.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Council member Trigub had his little slide on first.
Go ahead, council member.
Thank you so much.
I wanted to thank my fellow co-conspirators or co-sponsors on items 29, relinquishing of council office budget funds for the Downtown Barclays Association's sixth annual Pride on the Plaza variety show, as well as item 21, relinquishment of the same for Berkeley's first Pride Fair hosted by the Pacific Center for Human Growth.
Very excited to host both of these events in downtown Berkeley.
Wanted to invite any of my colleagues who have some surplus funding available in their office budgets to contribute up to $500 for each of these.
I also wanted to note on item 30, which is a relinquishment of council office budget funds for the historical plaque project of the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum.
I wanted to just note that since we authored this item, it was brought to our attention actually yesterday when we were commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the tragic incident that led to well, it was a balcony collapse in downtown Berkeley that led to the tragic passing of seven young people.
And the Irish consul general was in attendance.
Some of the parents were in attendance.
It was brought to our attention that one of the plaques does need to be changed to include the name of someone that passed on sadly as a result of injuries incurred in the collapse, but following the issuance of the original plaque.
And so I wanted to just ask my colleagues if they do have additional surplus funding available to also consider giving some amount towards that item.
That is item number 30, so that that plaque can be rehabbed in addition to the others.
Thank you.
Oh, and I would like to give $500 to item 25.
Thank you.
Hey, thank you, Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I've got a few comments as to items 23A and 23B.
I'd like to abstain on 23A and and support 23B.
And what I want to understand, I think, from the city manager is that these items are on consent for purposes of taking no action on 23B.
Is that correct? That's correct, Council Member.
OK, thank you.
I really appreciate the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission's work on this.
It really is.
It's visionary, frankly, and I've had a number of conversations about it.
But the unfortunate reality is that our budget situation is dire overall and even more dire for the marina, given the potential costs of the process and the fact that we have no funding to actually realize any resulting plan.
I think we have to defer this for now, which I'm very sad about.
Council Member, if I could, just to clarify, I think we were saying the same thing, but my recommendation here is to adopt 23B and to not take action on 23B.
OK, yes.
I may have misspoken, but that's what I meant.
Item 25, which is relinquishment of council office budget funds and general funds for the Poet Laureate program for fiscal year 2026.
As I'm married to a poet, I think I'm obligated to contribute 250 bucks from the D8 office discretionary account to this Poet Laureate program.
And I'd like the record to reflect that.
Number 26, which is a resolution reaffirming our commitment to Vision Zero and transportation related plans and policies.
I'm really happy to support this item, and I want to also recognize that my predecessor, Council Member Droste, I want to recognize her for her efforts to support Vision Zero in Berkeley, including her unanimously passed 2018 item to adopt a Vision Zero framework.
She was a pioneer in this here.
She was spurred into action after meeting with the father of young Zachary Cruz, who tragically died at the intersection of Warring and Derby in 2007.
That intersection will finally be redesigned and reconstructed with long range development plan settlement money contributed by the university, and I'm really happy about that.
I'm glad we have this opportunity to recommit to Vision Zero.
I hope that our traffic engineering practices will reflect this going forward.
I'm going to be monitoring them to make sure that's the case.
I also want to recognize the beg button item.
This is a particular concern of certain people in my office, which also passed unanimously, but has unfortunately never been implemented with many new intersection signals continuing to require pedestrian activation, despite the long standing council directions, no activation by automobiles, but people on their feet.
It's critical that our decisions around our work on the roadways and intersections reflect Vision Zero principles.
And I'm excited to support this item for that reason.
Number twenty nine, which is relinquishment of council office budget funds for the downtown, downtown Berkeley Association's sixth annual Pride on the Plaza Variety Show.
I want to contribute two hundred and fifty dollars from our discretionary account and thirty, which is a relinquishment of council office budget funds for the historic plaque project.
I'd like to contribute two hundred and fifty dollars after council member Triga brought to my attention that the need for restoring the plaque, honoring the the Irish students who who so tragically died in that terrible incident so many years ago.
And finally, I'd like to contribute two hundred and fifty dollars from our discretionary account for the item number thirty one, which is the the Berkeley's first pride fair hosted by the Pacific Center for Human Growth.
Thank you.
That's it for me.
Thank you.
Council member Blackby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
Just a few items on the consent calendar.
First, thanks to council member Trager for adding me as a co-sponsor on item thirty one, which is the Berkeley's first pride fair, which is hard to believe.
It's our first, but hopefully the first of many.
So proud to co-sponsor that and contribute five hundred dollars.
And then on items twenty five, the poet laureate program items twenty nine, the pride in the plaza show and item 30, the project.
Please write our office down for two fifty for each of those items.
And then on item twenty eight, just want to thank council member Taplin for authoring the measure on the fire facility revenue piece.
I was proud to co-sponsor that.
That's it.
Thank you.
Yes.
OK.
Council member Luna Parra.
Thank you.
Do you can we clarify number twenty three again, which one we'd be voting on? Affirmatively, if we adopt the consent calendar.
Adopting twenty three B was the.
And taking no action on twenty three.
Correct.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
I'd like to give two hundred and fifty dollars from our discretionary account for item twenty five, the poet laureate program.
We're already down for two hundred dollars for the pride in the plaza item and one hundred fifty to item thirty one.
The Pacific Center Pride Fair.
And I'd like to appreciate the mayor and her staff for item.
Twenty six.
I'm glad that we're reiterating our vision zero initiative and priorities for safe and equitable streets.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Can I just clarify? Did you say twenty five for item twenty five? Two hundred and fifty dollars.
Yeah.
Because you're you're down, I think, is five hundred already.
Can I see? I just want to make sure.
Well, what's in the recommendation is an up to amount.
OK.
OK.
Apologies.
Yeah, I might be misremembering.
Thank you.
Thank you.
OK.
And then I know that council member O'Keefe and council member Taplin also were trying to be in the queue.
So I'm going to go council member O'Keefe and then Taplin.
Oh, thank you, Madam Mayor.
Can you guys hear me? Yes.
Loud.
OK, great.
Just making sure.
So just two things.
One is I would like to donate from my office.
Two hundred dollars to items.
Twenty five.
I'm a co-sponsor of that one.
So absolutely happy to donate to the poet laureate fund and items twenty nine and thirty one.
The two pride items sounds great.
And I'm.

Segment 2

I'd be happy to donate also $250 to the item 30, Councilmember Tregub's item, so I think that's all of them.
And then the only thing I want to say other than that is I really want to thank the author and co-sponsors of item 26.
My district, District 5, has unfortunately lost two people to traffic violence in the last year, Elise Lusk and Ben Brown.
I wanted to say their names and just really say this is a very personal, very important issue for me.
Public safety is my number one focus and traffic safety is a huge, important part of it.
And I'm just so grateful to have a chance to reaffirm our commitment to this great vision.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Councilmember Taplin? Thank you and good evening, Madam Mayor and everyone.
On item 25, I would like to relinquish $500.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay, moving here, back here, Councilmember Bartlett? Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I'd like to, item 200, as a former poet, $200 for my D13 account for the Poet Laureate program.
Item 29, $200 as well.
I love a good variety show.
Item 30, $200 for the plaque at the Balcony Collapse.
Thanks for remembering that.
We actually had a cafe inside that building and saw the water rain down inside there every time it rained.
Really unfortunate lack of a surprise.
Item 31, $200 for the Pride Fair downtown.
Good programming there.
And 27, I want to call out Councilmember Kesarwani and the Mayor for helping us out here.
But Councilmember Kesarwani worked on years for this, years on this thing.
It's a parking benefit district where it captures some of the parking revenue and puts it back into the local business community.
And after years of trying to work it out, we decided we could actually just take the money and give it to the business district.
So I want to thank Councilmember Kesarwani for landing with us.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Councilmember Kesarwani? Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
I wanted to make donations to the four items that are requesting donations.
So item 25 for the Poet Laureate Stipend Program, I'd like to donate $100.
For the Pride Variety Show, I'd like to donate $100.
For the plaque, I'd like to donate $100.
That's item 30.
And then item 31, I think it's the first Pride Fair, I'd like to be recorded as donating $100.
And I just want to acknowledge that this is Pride Month.
And as we see, for whatever reason, corporate sponsors pull back from investing in celebrating these parades and celebrating pride.
I just want to thank Councilmember Tragoob for making sure that we do our part to recognize how important this month is to so many in our community.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So just a couple notes for me on item 26.
I think there is a paragraph that is duplicated.
So just want to it's just a typo.
So would like to note that for folks.
I want to thank everyone for relinquishing their funds for the Poet Laureate Program.
I wanted to make sure that that we had enough funds to give to our Poet Laureate, future Poet Laureate.
And I would like to add myself down for number 29 for $500 as well as 30 for 200 item 30 for $250.
And that is it for me.
OK, thanks, folks.
So now I'd like to open up for comments on the consent and item consent or information items only, please.
See a couple of folks walking up.
Good evening, Council.
John Kainer, Downtown Berkeley Association.
I first on item one, just want to thank you for the the consent calendar approval for our annual assessments.
We do that each year.
Also, thank you for your support, Eleanor.
And I want to thank you for the support for Pride on the Plaza Friday show.
All the postcards in the back.
It's on Saturday.
It's going to be really, really fun.
It's family friendly.
It's really important to get the community out.
We need to support our pride and our joy and have fun.
And I might just add, mark your calendars for the 16th.
It was mentioned the Civic Center, but it's on the 16th.
And this is a first time event for them.
We're partnering with them.
And we're really thrilled to have the Civic Center downtown after I've been on a telegraph for many, many years.
And it's a great organization.
So we now have two twin pride events, which is really magnificent.
So frame frame our summer.
And thank you all very much.
And I'll leave postcards in the back if anybody wants to pick up.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And just to clarify, it's August 16th, August 6th.
You just said the 16th.
So I just wanted to clarify.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah.
Unless our Firefox Allen, CEO Pacific Center for Human Growth.
And I just wanted to thank you all for your support of Pacific Center's first ever street fair for pride.
Downtown Berkeley.
I hope to see everyone there.
And I just want to say we really couldn't have gotten to where we are, honestly, without the support of Councilmember Trego.
Has been by our side since the gate since day one and has been a stalwart support.
And so many of the of the city council and Mayor Ishii, thank you for showing up, too.
It's been amazing to have all of you on the team producing this event.
Downtown Berkeley Association.
Visit Berkeley.
We really wouldn't be where we are without all of the support.
And I think it's really going to be phenomenal.
And I can't wait to do this with the community and for the community.
And it is, as so many have said, so important now more than ever.
Our theme is queer joy.
And so we we invite you to come be joyful with us.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Anyone online? Three speakers again, this is for items that are not I'm sorry that are on the consent calendar only consent and information calendar items only.
First one is Maury.
Last name Herman.
Maury Herman.
Sorry, I was raising my hand earlier when there was no sound and we couldn't hear you because I'm not on the screen.
I couldn't wave my hands and say, hey, we can't hear you.
I think Shoshana covered it for us.
We can hear you now.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Next is Claudia Kaczynski.
Yeah, thanks.
I have a few words to say about item 23 B.
And I think it's important to note that.
The city has this conceptual plan.
For Cesar Chavez park and that there's been changes made.
In that item, which were actually pleased the parks commission because it calls for diverting.
The waterfront specific plan to repair the stock, which can tell you how happy that makes many people in the marina at the parks commission meeting.
When the item came up when the stock was closed, we had so many people with their paddles with all their gear urging the city to fix it.
So now we have a way of doing that.
So, thank you very much.
And I have to sneak in the fact that for the marina fees on the 24th.
I'm sorry, but thank you.
You can come back and speak about the marina fees on the 24th.
Okay.
Next is Anne Harlow.
Good evening.
I'm president of the board of the Berkeley historical society and museum, and I came tonight to encourage you all to send a little money our way as part of consent agenda item 30.
I didn't realize you'd be announcing your relinquishments before I spoke.
So now I can thank seven of you for your generosity.
The Berkeley historical project plaques are all over town, presumably in each of your districts.
So maybe some more can can chime in taking over the project in 2023 was a natural addition to the other work that we do.
Each plaque costs at least $1,000 to produce, and there are two that currently need to be replaced.
We do appreciate this support from the city.
We also supplement the physical plaques with a website Berkeley plaques.org, which includes additional text and pictures for each plaque, plus dozens of what we call a plaques that exist only on that website.
And of course we produce temporary exhibits on Berkeley history.
I hope everyone listening will visit our museum now and then, and also our website.
Okay, thanks.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is Cameron Wu.
Hello, my name is Cameron Wu.
As the chair of the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission.
I wish to thank the city council for the support of the Poet Laureate program.
The potential funding of the Poet Laureate program shows a serious commitment to the literary arts of Berkeley, a tradition that goes back generations.
This poetry program touches all ages, including a vibrant poetry program in our schools, plus public readings throughout the year.
Thank you all.
Much appreciated.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Last speaker is Alex Knox.
Hi, Mayor, City Council, Alex Knox, Executive Director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District here just here to thank you for your support and speaking on the Telegraph Business Improvement District Annual Report and Renewal.
I want to just quickly highlight too that the district has played an active role in implementing and enhancing social and crisis response services in the South side.
In particular, this year, our Telegraph ambassadors continue to exceed service levels that are now mental health first aid certified.
Expanding their direct assistance to those in crisis.
I'm also pleased to support that many of our ambassadors have come to us through different reentry programs and have achieved great personal growth and achievement.
We have also experienced some difficult business closures so far this year due to a range of different reasons, but our district economy is showing several strengths still.
The substantial new development pipeline we have, along with thriving retail businesses, are a sign of strength and we thank you for your support.
Thanks.
Was that the final? That is the final speaker.
Okay.
All right.
At this time, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar.
So moved.
Second.
All right.
Clerk, can you please take the roll? Okay.
To approve the consent calendar, Council Member Keserwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traigub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you so much, folks.
All right.
We're moving on to the action calendar.
So these are public hearings.
And just a reminder, folks, that items 33, 37, 40 and 41 are moved to June 24th.
And so we will be going to item 32, which is the ambulance transport and first responder fee increase.
And Mr.
City Manager, do you want to introduce? Sure.
We don't actually have any presentations.
So if any council members have questions, we're happy to receive those.
Chief Sprague is here also.
Sure.
I think we need to actually can I can just open the public hearing for all of these.
Right, Mark? Let me just do that first.
So let's open the public hearings for items 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39 and 42, which are the ones that we're hearing this evening.
And I will see if there are any questions about that from any of the council members.
I do not see any.
So I will take public comment on item 32, which is the ambulance transport and first responder fee increase.
Anybody know why? No one just raised their hand.
See.
Can can Bukowski.
Can you should be able to unmute? Well, can you hear me? Yes.
One question.
I think the fee for an ambulance transport is something like two thousand dollars.
What would this increase in fee make that charge? We don't answer questions during your public comment period, but you please conclude your comments.
OK, I was just concerned about the high cost of ambulance service.
Just want to express my comment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
OK.
Any other public comment on this? That is all.
OK.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing for item 32? OK.
Motion by Humbert.
A second from council member Bartlett.
OK.
To close the public hearing.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
OK.
Public hearing is closed.
OK, thank you.
Any other comments from folks? OK.
Motion to adopt.
Yeah, I think that.
Sorry, clerk.
Just a motion to adopt the resolution for the ambulance transport.
First is an is an order.
I still move.
Second.
Can you take the roll again? OK.
Sorry, folks, you're going to have to hear the roll like 20 times.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Trego.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Luna Parra.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mary she.
Yes.
OK.
OK.
Now, again, we're skipping 33.
We're moving to 34.
So that's for the public health.
Sorry.
Fees.
Public health.
Berkeley High School Health Center services.
And we've already opened the public hearing for this.
So I will see if there is a presentation.
No presentation, Madam Mayor.
Director Gilman is on the line if people have questions.
Sure.
Does anyone have any questions? OK.
In that case, are there any is there any public comment on this item? Anyone online? No, no online speakers.
OK.
All right.
I move we close the public hearing.
Thank you.
Second.
All right.
Clerk.
Close the public hearing.
Councilor Casarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Trego.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Luna Parra.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mary she.
Yes.
Public hearing is closed.
OK.
Are there any comments from our council members? Yes.
OK.
Council member Trega.
I think you're I have a motion.
OK.
No comments from anyone else.
OK.
I move the new fee scheduled as proposed by staff.
Second.
Can you take the role, please? Clerk.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Trego.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Luna Parra.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
Mary she.
Yes.
OK.
OK.
Thanks, folks.
We are moving on to item number 35.
So this is the housing trust fund and small sites program fees.
We've already opened the public hearing for this.
Is there a presentation? There's no presentation, but happy to take questions.
OK.
Any questions? OK.
Any comments from the public on this one? Anyone online? No speakers online.
OK.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing? I still move.
Second.
OK.
To close the public hearing.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Trego.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Luna Parra.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
Mary she.
Yes.
OK.
Public hearing is closed.
OK.
Any council comments on this one? No.
OK.
You want to make a motion? I actually have a comment on this one.
Yeah.
I I just wanted to just in transparency.
Note we we did receive a letter of concern around this item from two members.
But, you know, sorry, that's the next item.
So I will make the motion for this one.
OK.
Second.
OK.
To approve the housing trust fund small sites program fees.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Trego.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Luna Parra.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mary she.
Yes.
Yes.
Items approved.
OK.
We are moving on to item 36, which is the affordable housing compliance review fee.
Again, we've already opened the public hearing for this matter.
Is there a presentation from staff? No, there's not.
OK.
Any questions from council members? OK.
Any public comment on this one? No.
Did you have a question? I'm sorry.
No.
OK.
Are there is there any public comment on this item? Looks like we have one hand raised here.
Daniel Brownson.
That refers to the fee that developers have to pay if they don't put affordable housing units in there.
OK.
Is there anything in new construction just to.
To confirm.
We don't usually respond during public comment.
Right.
I'm just.
Is that what if that's what that is, then I think the fee charged to developers should be higher because too many developers are choosing to just pay the fee instead of actually putting in the affordable housing units that we want, which indicates that it needs to be higher.
OK.
Is there another comment online? No, that that is all.
OK.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing? I so move.
A second.
OK.
OK, to close the public hearing.
Council member Casarwani.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Mayor Ishii.
Yes.
OK.
OK, thank you.
Council comments.
Is this the one you wanted to comment on? Go ahead.
Council member.
Briefly.
I wanted to acknowledge that we did receive a letter of concern from to.
We partner.
I want to thank staff for their prompt response when I forwarded the question and just wanted to uplift, even though the costs are going up.
And that's just a reflection of our challenging fiscal position and that it does cost increasing staff time to do this.
Overall, the estimate is that all of these fees will increase the development budget by less than 0.5%, most likely between 0.2 and 0.3%, which we don't anticipate will jeopardize the project's visibility on affordable housing projects.
And I also wanted to highlight that some of these.
They're not really revenues, but some of the additional funding would then take the pressure off of funding sources like measure you won, which, of course, would make it more feasible to fund actual projects out of such funding sources.
So I, I don't love to vote for fee increases on nonprofit housing developers, but in this case, I think staff has done a great job of balancing needs with current realities and will be supporting this.
Thank you, council member.
Are there any other council member comments on this? Thank you.
Let's see, is there a motion? I'll entertain a motion to approve move to adopt the second.
Okay, to approve the fees council member.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, that item is approved.
Okay, thank you very much.
I'm 37 we're skipping for this evening to moving on to the 24th.
So we'll be moving on to item 38 which has changed this to selected recreation facilities and camps program fees.
Okay, great.
Any questions from council members.
Yes, council member.
Thank you.
Thank you, madam mayor.
Yeah.
I'm glad for an opportunity to speak about this item is I have very complicated feelings about it.
Is this a question.
Oh, we're only doing questions now.
Yes.
Oh, I do have a question.
Actually, thank you for correcting me.
Is it for parks director Ferris I wondering if there are any plans you can speak to, to increase free access to adventure playground.
Yeah, we're at this point we've been talking to staff and community members.
So we are looking at potential.
1 day a week during the summer, we're open for 10 weeks during the summer, we're open Monday through Sunday and so we're looking at 1 day a week during the summer, and then 1 day a month.
And so we have yet to finish that process, we're going to do some focus groups in the fall fee won't be implemented for adventure playground until probably January at the earliest.
And so we're going to do some focus groups in the fall to see what works best for the community.
Thank you so much.
So just to clarify, you're not promising but you're imagining something like free on Tuesdays.
During the summer.
Correct.
And then, you know, during the school year, we're open just weekends, Saturday and Sunday.
So we'll find 1 day a month that is works for everybody.
Great, thank you so much.
Appreciate that clarity.
Thank you.
Council member.
Do you have a question? Yes, thank you.
I have 3.
2 or 3 questions.
What is the actual cost to run these programs and maintain these public amenities? At the Marina council member tap on, are you referring to adventure playground? Yes, so adventure playground is staffed.
Either 3 or 4 employees, and there's about 20,000 dollars and.
Supplies and services that go along with it.
So, during the school year, like I said, we're open on weekends during the summer for 10 weeks.
The total cost.
Is somewhere between 140 and 150,000 dollars.
Thank you.
And what is the funding source of the city uses to.
The Marina fund.
And that would be the same funds that maintained the Marina security staff that we had to lay off.
Correct.
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
And what was when.
When the, well, this is this is unrelated unrelated.
Never mind.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Any other questions from council members.
Okay, is there any public comment on this item? Yes, go ahead and come up.
Hi, Steve Tracy.
I live on.
Following my questions actually about 37, so I think.
That's open for discussion.
No, I'm sorry.
We're not talking about.
I'm 37 right now.
We're talking about.
I'm 38, which is the changes to selected recreation facilities and camp program fees earlier.
You opened.
The fee increases, even though they're being tabled, and we said, right.
Right.
Well, so what we said was that we will move those items and take any public comments for them after the fire items that are this evening.
So you're welcome to come back on the 24th, or you can wait until after the fire items are heard.
Got it.
Thank you.
All right.
Any other comments on this item.
Anyone online.
No.
Okay.
Very good.
So, is there a motion to close the public hearing? I so move.
Okay.
Okay, to close the public hearing council member.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Segment 3

Humbert.
Yes.
And Mary Ishii.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Are there any comments on this one? Oh, many comments.
Okay.
I'm going to go with the two folks that are online first.
I'm not sure exactly whose hand was up first, but I'm going to go Councilmember Taplin, and then Councilmember O'Keefe, and then come in person.
Thank you very much.
I just wanted to say that I really feel for the people who have grown accustomed to the free parking at the marina and the subsidized programs that we've maintained there.
And that's something that I've definitely benefited from and enjoyed throughout my life.
But I do want to underscore how real the budget crisis is.
It's great that we've been able to provide all these things for free.
That doesn't mean that there is no cost to the city.
The double tree, the loss of revenue from the double tree is essentially what forced us to lay off marina staff and caused us to defund the marina, the waterfront specific plan, which was a plan that we were trying to create to turn the fiscal situation around.
And we had to defund that to cover the cost of repairs to the east swim docks, which had fallen into disrepair due to our inability to maintain marina infrastructure over time.
So I did just want to share that with the room and with the community.
I'll be sending out a communication to my newsletter list later this week, and I'll have more to say on this probably until we fix this problem.
But I did want to point out the very real material costs and the material impacts of our fiscal crisis, which isn't going to go away unless we make very difficult decisions.
And from this point forward, our decisions will become no easier.
I think tonight or at this point, our decision is between charging user fees and continuing to try to fund these programs over and against the deficit.
But in the future, the question becomes whether we even have these programs or amenities at all.
So I hope that we as a city can do the hard work to course correct now before it's too late and we're out of options.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member.
Council Member O'Keefe.
Thank you.
So as I started to say before, I have really mixed strong feelings about this item.
I want to start with the positive, which is I'm actually very excited.
I think it's great to increase the fee to afterschool programs because A, it should absolutely preserve access and B, hopefully should be able to expand access to those programs.
And that's something that I've been asking for and wanting for a long time and even co-sponsored an item with Council Member Taplin earlier.
So that's wonderful.
I really hope that we can, with this moderate reasonable fee increase, actually be able to expand access to afterschool programs.
However, Adventure Playground, it's very emotional for me.
I just want to take this opportunity to say that it is, I believe, I was going to say one of, but I think the most wonderful, magical, and precious thing in our city.
I love it so much.
It is such a gift and a blessing that we have this.
And the idea that access would be limited to it in any way, it just feels very wrong to me.
That said, I agree with Council Member Taplin and I appreciate you articulating the budget crisis reality so well just now so I don't have to.
I want to, you know, say no, no, no, Adventure Playground free forever, but I don't have an idea to get another $150,000 to cover the cost.
And I tried.
So I do support the item.
I really appreciate the compromise that Director Farris is moving towards of keeping it free one day a week.
That makes it much more comfortable for me.
I think that's a good compromise given the realities that we're working with.
So I hope that that ends up being the policy, free one day a month during the school year and one day a week during the summer.
And with that, I can happily vote for this item, which I will be doing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member.
Council Member Lockerbie? Yes, I just want to thank Council Member Taplin and Council Member Roehlke for their comments and say that as someone who's looking forward to taking my kids to Tuolumne camp this weekend, I'm proud to move to adopt item 38.
Second.
Okay.
Push the wrong button.
Yeah, I just want to make a brief comment to say I feel similarly that it is sad that we have to charge for Adventure Playground, but I do know that Director Farris and his staff have been doing really everything they can to make this feasible.
And, you know, I'm hopeful that if our marina fund is thriving in the future and we're able to offer this for free, that maybe we'll be able to remove the fees so that folks could be there.
I know that this is such a special, special Berkeley place, and I know you all feel the same way.
So just know, folks, that this is a challenging decision for us.
But I am really excited about the increase in fees for after-school programs.
Actually, one of the parents who had a child in the after-school program came and said, I'd like to increase more slots.
And she said, I'd be even willing to have an increase so that more people could join.
And I think that that's really what we're doing here, because unfortunately in our country, we're not able to support the kind of after-school programs that I think all children should have access to.
So I know we're doing our absolute best here in the city of Berkeley to increase access for as many students as possible.
So I just really want to say thank you to the staff.
I know that this was a tough one as well.
And okay.
With that, there is a motion.
Could you take your roll, please? Yes.
Council Member Casarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traygub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mary Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Item is approved.
Okay.
We are moving on to item 39, changes to the planning and development fee schedule.
Again, we've already opened the public hearing.
Is there a presentation on this one? There's not, Madam Mayor, but Director Klein is here if there's questions.
Okay.
Excellent.
Are there any questions from Council? Okay.
Seeing none, I will move on to public comment.
Are there any public comments on this item? There's one online commenter, Daniel Brownson.
I mean, if you're having trouble with the budget, you could just cut the police department budget.
That's where most of the city money, well, maybe not most, but the biggest part of the city money is going.
Are you going to speak to item 39? We're talking about changes to the planning and development fee schedule.
Okay.
Okay, then.
Is anyone else trying to speak to this item? No other hands raised.
Okay.
Thank you.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.
Second.
Clerk, can you take the roll, please? Council Member Huffman? Yes.
Council Member Katz? Yes.
Council Member Leibowitz? Yes.
Council Member Leibowitz? Yes.
Council Member Leibowitz? Yes.
Council Member Kastorwani? Yes.
Taplin? To close the public hearing, Council Member Taplin.
Oh, I think he's..
Council Member Taplin? Oh, maybe he can't hear us.
The sound is working.
I can hear you.
Oh.
Council Member Taplin, we're taking the roll to close the public hearing on item 39.
Can we skip him and come back? Okay.
Okay.
Council Member Bartlett? Yes.
Tragub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
Mayor Ishii? Yes.
And Council Member Taplin? Yes.
Yes, to close the public hearing.
Okay.
Great.
All right.
Thank you.
Council comments on this one? Item 39? Okay.
Is there a motion? Move we adopt item 39.
Second.
Clerk? Okay.
Council Member Kastorwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Tragub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
So we are not discussing items 40, which is the new fee schedule for carry concealed weapons permit or 41, which is the changes to select public works transportation permit fees this evening.
So we will be skipping over to them and I'm sure you all will be grateful to hear we're on our very last one.
Item 42, which is the levy and collection of fiscal year 2026 street lighting assessments.
Okay.
Is there a presentation? There's not, Madam Mayor.
Director Davis is available though.
Very good.
Are there any questions from folks? Okay.
In that case, is there any public comment on this item? Anyone online? No hands.
Oh, we have a hand raised.
Cheryl Davila, former council member.
Interesting.
This meeting is going to end quite early.
It looks like.
Yeah, I don't really have anything to say besides that.
But actually, I do, because there's a genocide going on.
Actually, I do, because there's a genocide going on and it's really sad that you all don't care about that.
And then I also wanted to talk about PFAS.
Okay.
All right.
I think that person was not speaking to item 42.
Is there anyone speaking on item 42, which is the levy and collection of fiscal year 2026 street lighting assessments? I move we close the public hearing.
Okay.
Second.
Second.
Second.
Okay.
Close the public hearing.
Council member Keserwani.
Yes.
Kaplan.
Council member Kaplan to close the public hearing on item 42.
All right.
Council member Bartlett.
Yes.
Council member Bartlett to close the public hearing on item 42.
Yes.
Council member Bartlett to close the public hearing on item 42.
Yes.
Tregev is absent.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackabay.
Yes.
Lunapara.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
Mayor Ishii.
Yes.
And then Council member Kaplan, we're taking a roll to close the public hearing on item 42.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
Very good.
Any council comments on this item? Is there a motion? I so move.
Second.
Okay.
Very good.
Can you take the roll, please, clerk? Okay.
To adopt the item for street light assessments, council member Keserwani.
Yes.
Kaplan.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Tregev is absent.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackabay.
Yes.
Lunapara.
Yes.
Humbert.
Yes.
And Mayor Ishii.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
And so just to clarify, I just meant that we were finished with all the fees.
So we still obviously have another item coming up.
But we are going to take a break because it's been an hour.
Before we break, I would like to have my vote recorded as an aye.
Oh.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
We are going to take a let's give us a 10-minute break.
We're going to take a 10-minute break before item 43.
And we will be back after that.
Thank you.
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Segment 4

Make it easier for the public to comment on the different portions of Item 43, because there is Notice 43 A, B, and C on the agenda.
We are combining the public comment period.
This means that you may speak to any or all of the issues during your turn.
That way you don't have to wait for each item to speak about it.
You can talk about all three of them.
And each speaker will be allocated one and a half minutes to address the topics they wish to speak on.
If you wish to cede your time, you can do that.
So up to three people can give one person time, which would be a total of six minutes.
So you can figure that out quietly amongst yourselves.
And let's see.
And just what I would say, because just for ease of making this happen, because it can be quite complex from the staff side of things, I'd like to ask that if you are here in person, you can give your time to somebody here in person.
And similarly, if you are online, you can give time to somebody who is online.
I hope that that's clear.
And of course, the person has to be present to yield.
Right.
The person has to be present.
So you need to identify yourself.
So what I would recommend is either you can bring your people who are giving you time up with you, and then they can just give me a wave.
I think that that's probably easiest.
And if you can't stand for long periods of time, then you can you can point to the person and they can get me away from their seats.
All right.
So just another thing to keep in mind.
So we have presentations for 43 A, B and C, and that is going to happen first.
So just to clarify, folks, I know I know you're trying to work it out, but maybe work it out outside if you're going to be talking, because I want to make sure that we can hear from from the presentations.
OK.
All right.
So we are going to open the public hearing for item 43, which is 43, A, B and C.
And we're going to hear a presentation first from our chief.
So I'm going to pass it over to you.
Good evening, Mayor, Council of community members.
I'm here with Chief Winokur tonight to present on 43 A and B.
Before I start, I've got supplemental up on the screen for 43 A.
And I'd like to read into the record to minor changes that staff found after submission.
They're highlighted on the screen.
I'll give them to you later, Mr.
Clerk.
But the last sentence of this paragraph strategically strike removing managing vegetation near residences.
Structures in this area will help prevent or mitigate wildfire emergencies.
And the last sentence of the last paragraph, a number of local agencies have rapidly adopted new strike home hardening insert vegetation management ordinances in response to this emergency.
Right.
And for presentation.
So presenting on Ember tonight.
First, 43 A, which are modifications to the fire code, adopting the fire code with local amendments.
Before we dive into zone zero, just a little bit of history.
Where did where did where are we going? And when when is what these actions taking effect? So if adopted tonight, the fire code, this specific section of the fire code would become effective January 1st of next year.
That means that inspections would start in about May of next year.
And any enforcement action, if there is any, would start in the months following the two areas that would be impacted by zone zero are panoramic mitigation area.
Down here on the screen, the bottom area and the grizzly peak mitigation area, which you can see is outlined by the red line on the screen.
Oh, how do we change? You can't see it.
Can we change the Mr.
city clerk? Can we move where the council members are or minimize them or something? You'll notice that the grizzly peak mitigation area represents about half of the Cal fire.
Very high fire hazard severity zone, which is the lighter red shading surrounding it.
Note that in twenty twenty nine, if the state adopts zone zero into the California fire code, the entire very high fire hazard severity zone will we will be required to enforce on zero in the entire very high zone identified in pink.
I'm going to turn it over to Chief Winokur for the rest of this section.
Chief evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council.
Just to clarify, what we're talking about was zone zero.
It's the area within five feet of a structure or an appurtenance, which is a code term for anything that's attached to a structure.
So wooden deck, as an example, if it's attached to the structure, it's considered a part of the structure and zone zero would extend around the structure and any appurtenances.
It does not apply to projections, which is another fire code term, which are things that extend from the house that are greater than four feet above the ground.
So if you would have, say, a second floor deck or or something or porch on the second floor, if it's greater than four feet, that would not be the measurement from which zone zero begins.
There's been a lot of discussion around that.
So it's really the point at which the structure meets the ground five feet from that point.
More measured horizontally or the distance measured from an appurtenance, which is an attached deck.
So just to clarify the area that we're discussing within that area, the proposed amendment to the fire code would prohibit in ground vegetation or combustible mulch in in that area near the home.
This is also referred to as the home ignition zone.
It would further require that any combustible fences or gates that are within five feet of the structure, but that specific portion of the fencer gate that is attached to the structure that makes contact with the structure would also require replacement so that it would eliminate the continuous fuel pathway that a fence or a fence and gate combination provide.
Of note, parallel fences that run within five feet of the structure, but do not make contact with the structure would be exempt from this in accordance with the pending regulations before the Board of Forestry that that will very likely make their way into the final state regulation.
Furthermore, no wood or combustible items such as patio furniture or anything of that nature or metal furniture with combustible cushions could be left within five feet of the structure on a high fire danger day.
So they would be permissible in other days, but on those days you would need to be moved.
And similarly, there would be provisions for potted plants that could be in noncombustible pots that could be moved.
So making a compromise so that there are items that represent a risk to the home or risk of ignition.
However, because they are movable in nature, they would be allowed to remain there on those days that that were not subject to high fire zones or fire danger.
And then further, trees that are outside of the zone, if those branches encroach into the area, they would need to be trimmed so that we eliminate the material that could bring fire to the home.
With the understanding that ignitions in this area and fire carrying into Zone Zero, a very, very small amount of fire can cause the ignition and subsequent destruction of a home because of its proximity.
So in this case, distance becomes shielding.
And so that a very small amount of fire right next to a house can have a catastrophic outcome.
Next slide, please.
There's been a lot of discussion about mature and or scenic trees.
Very specifically, mature and scenic trees are not subject to any Zone Zero prohibition unless they are dead, dying or have dead or dying material, in which case the dead or dying material need to be removed, but the tree would not.
Of note, that second requirement, the removal of dead or dying material, has been in existing state law for decades and is not a particularly new requirement.
The picture taken here from the Berkeley Hills is an example of a home where the trees are compliant with the proposed Zone Zero amendment.
In fact, the trees in this case, because of the shading they provide and the fact that they inhibit the growth of ground fuels, are a far better option than many of the alternatives that would naturally spring into place were those trees to be removed.
So keeping an intact tree canopy in place is an excellent way to reduce the transition of that area to lighter, flashier fuels and be more likely to carry fire.
Of note, however, these trees have been limbed up in a manner that has eliminated ladder fuels and has brought the canopy above the roof line of the house so that the house is not threatened by the tree that could become ignited were that canopy to have horizontal continuity to the ground or ladder fuels.
As noted there, there's no recommendation for removal of mature trees, and there's a lot of reasons that mature trees should be maintained, one of which is fire safety.
Next slide, please.
And to clarify, because certainly there's been some either misunderstanding or confusion or uncertainty on this topic, so to be crystal clear, structural changes to homes are subject to the building code and are only required when a home has a permit-requiring event such as new construction or a major remodel classified as new construction by the building code official, at which point existing state law around the implementation of Chapter 7A ember-resistant construction features would require that a home that was being retrofitted or rebuilt would have to incorporate these elements.
However, there's nothing about a Zone 0 requirement that would affect home hardening.
There are a number of home hardening recommendations that are not required that complement work done in Zone 0 and in Zone 1 where they have an ensemble approach, the defensible space to reduce the presence of combustible vegetation or other materials around a home, and home hardening taken together are very effective.
However, as a matter of existing law, changes to a home can only be required at such time as there's a permit-required event.
Secondly, as mentioned before, decks are considered part of the structure.
They're an appurtenance to the structure.
So the fact that a deck is made of wood does not prohibit it from being in that space.
It just extends Zone 0 from around the deck.
And if that deck is less than four feet from the ground, it would be recommended that it be enclosed and there would be no combustible storage allowed underneath the deck that is less than four feet.
No removal of mature trees, as previously mentioned.
No removal of existing parallel fences, as previously mentioned.
And no removal of trees beyond five feet from a structure.
So there's simply no requirement for denuding the hills of the trees that provide many benefits.
As has been noted, there are gaps in the current science and the current observations that support the recommendations that are driving Zone 0.
As Dr.
Quarles, who has spoken to this group previously, referenced, the recommendation for Zone 0 goes back to the early 90s, specifically 1991, when the University of Nevada, Reno was referring to as Zone A.
Different name, same concept.
Combustible material next to homes contributes to structural loss.
Field studies conducted by the National Institute for Science and Technology and FSRI, which is a component of Underwriters Laboratory and NFPA, and testing conducted by the University of Nevada, Reno, University of California Extension, and IBHS, result in the best practice recommendation for the removal of combustible material.
I would note, though, that the observation and the field studies come with some specific limitations.
And those specific limitations have to do with the absence of pre-fire sub-meter ground-based data collection to say with confidence what was there before the fire began.
Thing one.
Thing two is we do not have an unblinking eye, specifically low-Earth orbit satellites or very low-Earth orbit satellites that are able to watch a fire spread one structure to a structure to the next in real time so that the edge-node combinations are fully understood, which then post-fire reconstruction study would allow a better understanding of what was there before, what was the manner in which fire spread between the edges and nodes and reconstruct that afterwards.
And the result of that, as Alex Marangides from NIST and others have pointed out, that there can be some very confounding outcomes where there appears to be a series of events that caused a home to survive that may have not had anything to do with their condition.
It may have had to do with firefighter interventions.
There may have been a firefighter with an engine and a hose who was applying water at the time that home was exposed to fire, meaning it survived, but the conditions that are left after the fact could be misconstrued to suggest that it survived based on passive measures when, in fact, it was an active intervention.
So there are very real limitations both for and against Zone Zero with regard to the current observations because of technical limitations.
I would like to be very clear about that, and I'm not aware of any studies that have borne out the discussion about either trees as ember catchers, vegetation, irrigated or non-irrigated near homes that can protect the home from fire, and specifically what would be the threshold and the combination of species and irrigations that would allow near-home plants to protect a home or whether they would contribute to its potential damage or destruction.
So there are very real limitations to what we have done now.
So a discussion about what can be done to achieve Zone Zero and to balance the many needs that we have on and around our homes to include making them livable spaces that we want to be in but also to make them passively durable and capable of surviving exposure to fire.
And one of those is doing things such as moving the walkways, the sitting areas, the hardscape that many yards and spaces around our homes already have, moving them closer to the structure, and then shifting the vegetation away from Zone Zero into Zone One or Zone Two where there are ample opportunities to have a yard or a space that is full of plantings and vegetation and other features that don't represent a risk to the home because we have created greater separation.
And really this is about adaptation.
Our homes and our community were laid out without consideration for the natural phenomenon of fire.
And in a fire-dependent landscape such as the one we are in, lack of adaptation means we continue to rely on the industrialized exclusion of fire from the landscape.
And I think the results of the last 10 years or so have borne out that we appear to be at the end of the line in which we can rely on continued-to-fire exclusion to protect our communities and adaptation so that the homes themselves are capable of receiving the inevitable and beneficial fire that is a feature, not a bug, of our landscape is a prudent path forward.
So one of the discussions here about the – I'm sorry, back one.
And just pointing out here that when these plants and trees and so forth are maintained properly, they not only can maintain the sense of place, but they can contribute to fire resiliency.
And so really this is about adaptation and taking the things that we have now and modifying them, adapting them so that we can fit into the natural landscape which features fire as a regular and recurring element.
So I would just say that we don't know what future research will bring.
We know that there will be more research and as technical means come online.
The first firesat observation platform was launched in April.
More will be coming online.
There will be more data in the future years.
There will be more study.
This is a relatively new field with regard to urban fire, specifically starting in 2017 with the North Bay fires and the string of urban fires we have seen since then.
Enormous resources are pouring into this space.
A great deal of research is being pointed out that.
And in time, we will know more.
However, what we know now from both research, observation, and I would say as a firefighter, firefighter experience and observation during fires is that homes that have defensible space and specifically homes that have zone zero are more likely to survive.
And if zone zero defensible space is coupled with home hardening retrofits, specifically a class A roof covering or assembly that the vast majority of homes in Berkeley already have, retrofits of vents with ember-resistant models that the fire department is giving away through a grant program, gutter guards and noncombustible fencing or class A fencing within the last five feet of the structure, that combination, that ensemble of mitigations is highly effective at not only protecting the home from ignition but setting conditions for firefighters to be very effective.
And as our fire growth curve rises, it gives time, because homes will ignite more slowly with these measures, it gives time for the regional firefighting response to outpace the fire spread.
So put simply, more firefighters than fire at those critical points equals no vegetative transition to urban fire, which was certainly the outcome we saw in Los Angeles, where there was more fire than firefighters at the critical time.
We believe this is the best way that we know how to reduce the risk that the city of Berkeley posed and certainly has experienced in 1923 and portions of the city experienced in 1991.
There is nothing about the current state that makes it less likely that that would happen.
We believe this is a prudent way to bend the curve on our risk when the inevitable future fire occurs.
All right, moving on to 43B, adoption of the CAL FIRE map and additional areas designated as the city of Berkeley fire hazard severity zone.
So this is an independent but related item, which is moving through the process driven by the state.
A couple of facts about the fire hazard severity zones.
First of all, this was actually born out of the 1991 fire in Oakland, Berkeley, promulgated at the state by then Assemblymember Bates.
The maps do not require modification, structural modification, to existing structures unless they are going through a remodel, which is classified by the building official as a rebuild.
So these maps do not trigger modifications to existing homes.
They are primarily focused on where defensible space work will be required.
They do impose Chapter 7A on new construction within two of the zones.
Also, what's become some misinformation that's commonly spreading is that these maps are going to be used by insurance companies to change premiums or drop policyholders.
There's a quote there from the insurance commissioner.
These maps are not used by the insurance industry in any way.
They have much more sophisticated maps, cap models that analyze risk and which they use to set rates and determine where they're going to write coverage.
So fire hazard severity zone history in Berkeley.
I'll walk everybody through this map.
So what we're looking at is, and let me say, we are required by state law to designate or adopt at minimum the areas identified as fire hazard severity zones by the state.
We are required to do that by next week.
Berkeley has historically, and every municipality has, the ability to designate a larger area so we can be more restrictive.
We cannot be less restrictive than the state.
So Berkeley has historically designated a much larger area as the highest fire hazard severity zone, very high.
That's indicated on the map, which is the current very high zone in orange.
So the biggest orange boundary is the current very high fire hazard severity zone.
That zone has been in existence since the early 90s.
And within that zone, Chapter 7A applies to new construction or substantial remodels, and defensible space is required.
So you can see the three, the red, the orange, and the yellow farther up.
Those are the current CAL FIRE identified fire hazard severity zones.
Red is very high.
Orange is moderate.
And yellow is high.
We are required at minimum to adopt these maps.
And we are not proposing to extend the very high beyond what CAL FIRE has identified.
So in essence, we are shrinking and downgrading the majority of the hills from very high, but we are proposing to keep it at high.
Within high, there are no defensible space requirements.
Only the Chapter 7A requirements for new construction apply.
What do we use to designate additional areas as fire hazard severity zones? A variety of factors that CAL FIRE does not consider.
Local conditions that include local knowledge about structure, age, construction, how dense structures are, how far apart structures are from one another.
Local fire history.
Challenges with the evacuation and existing road network.
And, of course, we look at fire pathway modeling.
All of that is represented on this map, which is very busy and confusing.
So what are we proposing in 2025? What are you voting on tonight? Essentially adopting the CAL FIRE maps and adopting the one area that we are proposing to designate as very high, that the state did not.
So I'll walk you through the map again.
Again, the orange is the current very high fire hazard severity zone.
The pink is the proposed high fire hazard severity zone that we're proposing to bring down the hill, but not as far as the current very high.
The red is the 2025 CAL FIRE very high fire hazard severity zone, which we are required to designate and adopt.
And the lighter red pink down at the bottom is the only area that we're proposing to also designate as very high, which is the panoramic hill neighborhood.
I'll close with a general comment about both of these.
This is really the first item.
So as your chief, I'm charged with developing recommendations for fire code amendments that are grounded in the best available research and our current understanding of wildfire risk.
Take the responsibility really seriously.
And I do have to say it would be much easier to have not done this and ignore it and just let things continue on and see what the state does.
I met my limit in January of not feeling comfortable bringing this forward.
We know this is best practice.
We've known it's best practice for years and we have not brought it forward because we knew how contentious it was going to be.
But as many of you know, January was just the most recent one of these wildfires has transitioned to urban structure structure spread, which is just perfect to watch, horrific to be a part of, horrific to respond to.
And as a resident, just life life altering.
So we're constantly learning.
Fire science is evolving.
As Chief Winokur said, our knowledge and so is our knowledge of how to best protect the community.
And how long do we wait? When is the right time to act? You know, again, for us, we feel like it's now.
In Berkeley, we've experienced a significant wildfire in the hills on average every 20 years.
It's now been 34 years since 1991.
From our perspective, the clock is not paused.
It's ticking.
At the same time, to all the members of the community who are expressed, have expressed concern and opposition, I hear you.
We have already made a number of modifications and appreciate the many thoughtful comments, feedback, concerns, suggestions on ways to improve the ordinance.
And as black as council member Blackabee's item, I think demonstrates were willing, interested and looking forward to engaging with ongoing with the community and ongoing dialogue in the months ahead.
Tonight is not a final step.
It's part of an evolving process.
We're listening.
We fully intend to amend, incorporate what we learn in the in the process, the community process that council member Blackabee has proposed before into the fire code amendment.
Before we come back to council for the triennial fire code update in the fall.
With that, I'll end and open to any questions.
Thank you.
I want to make sure.
Do we want to take questions now or would you like to.
Yeah, go ahead and why don't you do the presentation for 43C and then we'll do questions altogether.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is about item 43C, which I authored as a compliment to 43A and 43B, which are the maps and the fire code amendments.
I want to thank Mayor Ishii and council member O'Keefe for joining me and co-sponsoring me in this item.
These changes come from substantial input that we've gathered from residents in more than a dozen committee, community, neighborhood and one on one meetings we've had about Ember since January, as well as the many emails and phone calls we've received.
As you recall, a few weeks ago, I asked to push back final consideration of Ember until tonight in order to schedule two additional workshops, one on Zoom and one in person, which engaged hundreds, if not more than a thousand residents.
We did more neighborhood and small group meetings and many other one on one household consultations.
Chief Arnold and I spent a couple of weekends at Station 7 meeting with neighbors and answering questions, which I thought were very productive and interesting conversations.
I appreciate the community engagement on this really important effort, because together we're going to make our city more wildfire resilient and reduce the chance that an Ember storm will ignite homes.
Together, we can be stronger and safer.
The biggest resource we have in wildfire prevention and in the event of a fire is each other working together to make our properties more fire safe, making sure neighbors are aware of imminent fire danger and helping each other evacuate.
So if a fire comes, BFD is best positioned to protect us, save our homes and neighborhoods.
We need to work together.
So my item directs the fire department to do a number of things in response to this feedback to make further changes to improve the proposal, including one, ensuring that the focus is on education, support and guidance for neighbors, not citations and penalties.
We're also assembling more than a million dollars and counting and grant funds for zone zero vegetation management available to neighbors age 65 plus and or below median income, as well as a transfer tax credit with additional financial support on the way.
We're providing neighbors plenty of time to begin work at least 12 months before inspections begin and even more time to continue improving before after those inspections happen.
We have asked and directed the department to ensure that the ordinance will allow the staging of work to support implementation of zone zero and address the cost of compliance without triggering citations.
We are providing support, and we've heard this loud and clear.
And Chief Winokur mentioned a little bit for home hardening.
In addition to vegetation management, we know vegetation management alone won't solve this problem.
That's why the department, again, is offering free wire mesh to screen vents and cover gutters, establishing a relationship with a local nonprofit to accept donations to support home hardening efforts and improving the transfer tax credit.
So funds are more accessible to more residents more quickly.
I've asked the department to create a working group of BFD staff and neighbors to conduct a more detailed review of the vegetation management section of the code.
There are a lot of details in there that need to be adapted to our environment.
What plants at what distances and what heights are acceptable and making that work for Berkeley? That's very much a part of the ongoing public process that we're asking for.
We're clarifying the modification and appeals process that residents can use if completing the work would result in the taking of endangered, rare, threatened plant or animal species or significant erosion and sedimentation.
We are identifying and training local landscapers and contractors who can assist neighbors in meeting the new zone zero defensible space standards.
And we are open and it's in the item that we're asking the department to come back and revisit our standards prior to implementation if the state changes their requirements in the months ahead.
Right now, what we're asking for is completely consistent with what the draft regulations are from the state of California.
Lastly, we're removing archaic language about misdemeanors.
People identified that language.
We agree.
It's been in the code for a while.
It doesn't need to be there.
Again, it's not intended to be punitive.
We should remove it.
We're clarifying that work about mature trees, including live oaks, should be protected.
We're requiring the department to report back to the council at least twice a year about the work of our regional partners to encourage more coordination and communication on all of these joint efforts.
So there's a lot here that we've tried to listen, be responsive and direct the department to accommodate in the item that I've written.
Lastly, I want to say that we know that many of you, many of us up here care deeply about the environment, our neighborhoods and how decisions are made in our city.
That's why I want to speak directly about why this is so urgent and how it has been thoroughly reviewed under state law.
The risk is real and it's growing.
Wildfires are no longer rare seasonal events.

Segment 5

In the passing year, the danger grows closer to home.
Our department, the folks that we have hired and trust to protect us, have identified a serious wildfire risk in the Berkeley Hills, driven by our climate, terrain, and vegetation.
We cannot afford to wait for a disaster to take action.
This ordinance is a legal and necessary emergency measure.
State law allows cities to move swiftly to prevent emergencies, and the EMBER ordinance falls squarely within that category.
The city has determined, based on legal guidance and expert assessment, that this action is exempt from CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, because it is, one, necessary to prevent or mitigate a wildfire emergency.
Two, it's designed to protect national resources and public safety.
And three, it's focused on fuel management only near structures with strict safeguards in place.
This is not about avoiding environmental review.
It's about using the right tools already built into the law for urgent life-saving action.
Please stop.
Actually, there shouldn't have been a five-minute timer, because he's presenting on an item, so it's not his comment period.
So I'm sorry.
Go ahead, Councilmember.
Last thing I'll say is, look, wildfires cause far more environmental damage than preventative fuel reduction ever could.
By taking careful, targeted steps now, like clearing flammable materials within close proximity to homes, we reduce the risk of catastrophic damage to habitat, air quality, and public health.
We are not alone in this work.
Other communities across California have adopted similar measures based on the same exemptions.
Courts have upheld them.
The urgency we face is not unique, but the responsibility to act is ours.
We hear you.
We are with you.
We understand concerns about the process, the pace, and precedent.
Please know this action is not taken lightly.
The city will continue to revisit the effect and efficacy of the ordinance in the near future, as detailed in this item.
That report back and constant feedback is critical.
This action that we're about to take tonight is rooted in science, in the law, and in a deep commitment to preserving life, property, and our natural surroundings.
We welcome everyone's voices and everyone's partnership as we move forward together, safely, responsibly, and with the clarity that this moment demands.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hey, hey, folks.
Hey, excuse me.
You are welcome to clap, but you cannot boo.
That's very rude.
That's very rude.
You have a right to free speech, but you know what? You are not allowed to interrupt our sessions.
So that is actually something that's a rule here, a part of procedure.
So I'd like to ask that you be respectful.
And I also want to say my apologies because that was my fault.
I should have let you know about him not having five minutes because it was an item.
So that was on me.
I just want to make sure that's clear.
Okay.
So we will now take questions from council.
Did you have a council member, Treg, did you have questions? That could be in 43A, B, or C.
Thank you so much.
I have three questions.
I think they're all for the chief, the first one.
Can you go back? I think this was slide two or three.
It was the different fire severity zone maps and the second presentation.
Yeah.
What is that yellow belt? The red, orange, and yellow belts are the areas that were identified by CAL FIRE as the very high, moderate, and low zones.
Sorry, very high, high, and moderate zone.
So red is very high.
Orange is moderate.
Yellow is, did I get it wrong? I'm sorry.
Red is very high.
Orange is high.
And yellow is moderate.
Sorry about that.
So we are required by law to adopt those three maps.
We have extended the high down to farther west, but not as far west as the current very high zone.
So that yellow, what looks like a belt almost, it's actually in between? According to CAL FIRE, is there basically? It's a belt of moderate, which in the LRA, there's no requirements within that zone.
So it doesn't have requirement to build structures to 7A.
It doesn't have any defensible space requirements.
It's got more meaning in the state responsibility area, but not in the local responsibility area.
Okay.
Thank you.
So the questions that I think are more pertinent to this.
And by the way, I feel that this was really well reasoned.
So I just wanted to get clarity on two things.
Page 23 of the draft ordinance.
It mentions.
Oops.
Sorry.
Let me go to the right.
Yeah.
So this is for zone one.
If there are multiple structures, such as a shed, hot tub, and play set, ensure these structures are spaced at least 10 feet apart.
And at most three of these structures.
Can you clarify if that applies to new structures? Or if if there are existing structures that say a hot tub, which I imagine is pretty formally planted in.
Would that need to be removed or adjusted? Are you are you referring to this exception right here that I'm highlighting? I am referring to.
This would be page 23, sorry, page 26 of 36.
To see.
Yeah, you're the one at the bottom.
The one that starts with if there are multiple structures such as a shed.
Yeah, so it's new construction existing.
If a shed is greater than 120 square feet, it requires a permit less than 120 square feet does not require a permit.
If there was a shed there, a shed is a structure that which is built constructed in code language.
It particularly if they were grouped, but under any circumstances, this shed would require to be zone zero clearance around it.
It would be recommended that then to be retrofitted to achieve the same fire resistive benefits of primary dwelling unit or a house.
As we think of it, the fire does not distinguish between a large dwelling unit and a small shed.
Understanding that there are very real limitations with the placement of sheds on small urban lots, such as dominate in the city of Berkeley, and that the laws are written with large rural lot lots of two acres or more where there is room to locate sheds and outbuildings and so forth in the outer perimeter of the of the parcel.
If you took that same methodology in the city of Berkeley, some parcels would not have enough room to locate them.
Or if they did locating in a house in zone two to one house, maybe zone one for the next house, which defeats the purpose because there's a network effect to fire spread.
So to answer your specific question, it would not require the removal of existing sheds.
It would limit the construction of new sheds and so forth.
And existing sheds would require the same zone zero clearance as a dwelling unit.
And you said something about zone zero.
So can I just confirm if you have a similar condition in zone zero? Would that also be if it's already constructed? That would be a recommendation, but not a requirement.
The other way around, sir, that zone zero would be a requirement.
Vegetation is essentially is retroactive.
Changes to the structure, though, can only occur when there's a permit requiring event.
So it would be a recommendation that after or in conjunction with the completion of zone zero around the shed is specifically the vents would be retrofitted so that the shed would have a degree of ember resistance as well.
Sorry.
So just to clarify, zone zero existing construction of structure recommended or required required required for hardening.
So that's where they would need to physically potentially move the structure.
I'm sorry.
Zone zero around the structure, folks would require me.
I have the floor.
Thank you.
Zone zero would be required to be cleared around the structure, but the structure would not have to be removed if the structure was within five feet of a dwelling unit or another structure.
The zone zeros overlap and then you start to treat them for zone zero purposes as an agglomeration or as a single structure, because the space around in the inner interior spaces between them would all fall within five feet of a structure required.
Be clear.
OK, thank you for clarifying that.
And my only other question is, this is this the first slide deck, the slide titled Zone Zero and trees.
First bullet point, mature scenic trees are OK.
Is it mature and or is it mature or scenic? And how is that defined? Yes, sir.
That's that's a code language specifically from CEQA having to do with mature scenic that is open to interpretation.
The interpretation we have taken is mature trees.
So if the tree is grown, if a tree is not yet grown, there are different provisions for an immature tree that is not yet grown to maturity or a different standard applies during that growth period.
And depending on the type of tree, there would be, you know, there would be an objective standard in quite a number.
How old the tree is or it's whether or not it's still growing.
So maturity being it is reached its mature height.
Got it.
Thank you so much.
Those for all my questions.
Thank you, council member.
Are there other questions from council members? Oh, I can't see folks online.
Just do any of the council members online have any questions? I'm OK.
Thank you.
Anyone else here? OK, so before we move on, I just want to say that in our council rules of procedure, there is a section called procedural matters.
And under that section, section B is decorum.
And it says no person shall disrupt the orderly council, the orderly conduct of the council meeting.
Prohibitive disruptive behavior includes, but is not limited to shouting, making disruptive noises such as boos or hisses, creating or participating in a physical disturbance, speaking out of turn or in violation of applicable rules.
Just like that.
That's a hiss.
Not allowed under decorum rules, preventing or attempting to prevent others who have the floor from speaking, preventing others from observing the meeting, entering into it or remaining in an area of the meeting room that is not open to the public or approaching the council dies without consent.
So I just want to make sure folks are clear that you that means you can't speak out of turn, boo or hiss.
I'm asking that you be respectful.
We really need to allow for folks to be able to speak.
And if that kind of behavior continues on, then we will take another council break.
I'd rather not do that.
I'd rather us keep moving forward in a productive manner.
All right.
So thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Now we will take public comments on 43 A, B and C.
So we're going to start with folks in this room.
Good evening.
My name is Greg Murphy, and I serve as the chair of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission.
And I want to point out, as I'm sure you all know, is that the commission has unanimously twice recommended that the council approve the ordinances.
As a individual, as a citizen, as a resident of the Berkeley Hills, I strongly support measures 43 A, B and C.
And you will hear several reasons to oppose this measure.
And some I'm very sympathetic to.
Some, frankly, I find spurious.
But clearly, a huge challenge is finding ways to help defray the cost and undo hardship on a small number of homeowners.
Councilmember Blackaby has already identified some possible financial incentives.
I know that the council, the DSC, is going to continue to seek further financial resources.
However, you should not delay approving this measure tonight.
As Shakespeare wrote, if not now, yet it will be.
The readiness is all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
760 Wildcat Canyon.
I recently took a drive through Palisades, and I would rather deal with the vagaries and imperfections of the proposal than the devastating aftermath of a wildfire.
I think that this could become a victim of the striving for perfect and throwing away the good if the council does not approve this.
I, for one, feel like the Berkeley Hills is a very unique environment, swaddled in nature, that a group of firefighters is trying to help us continue to live there.
Why not embrace their efforts, their expertise, their patience and their diligence? They're only trying to help us.
That's all they're trying to do.
And let's work with them so that we can continue to enjoy our unique environment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Are you coming up? You can come up.
You don't need to wait for me to tell you.
Thank you.
A couple of other people have given me their minutes also.
So I think I actually need all of them.
Anyway, I'm on the board of the University of California Botanical Garden up in Strawberry Creek, and I'm also the author of the Timber Press Guide to Succulent Plants of the World.
So I know something about plants.
And while I agree with – okay, we all know that there's a constant risk of wildfire.
That's that – you know, to deny that would just be insane.
A lot of the – and to me, home-hardening, as Deputy Chief Winograd said, is probably – is one of the very best things you can do.
I have actually replaced all my eaves with cement board, which is expensive.
It's worth it.
But what I do want to talk about is plants a little bit because I – most simply, you can divide plants into four groups.
One is what I call pyrophytic or pyrophytes, which are plants that need fire for their seeds to germinate.
This includes a lot of native California plants.
Obviously, not a good idea to have anywhere near your house.
Circus, which is actually fire-resistant tree, the red bug, western red bug, has seeds that are pyrophytic.
It's something to think about.
Then there are plants that are just flammable, which include a large number of plants, ranging from – a lot of conifers are very flammable and can send embers burning out.
And if it were up to me, you wouldn't be able – you wouldn't be allowed to plant new Monterey pines and such like that.
Then there are plants that are fire-resistant, some of which are natives.
There's this toyone and Catalina cherry primus lioni.
And they will burn, but they won't really spread a fire much.
And finally, there are plants that are fire-suppressive.
And fire-suppressive, the most common one is camellias.
I don't particularly like camellias, but they're around houses.
And they will be more suppressive of fire than having no planting there at all.
There are other plants that are fire-suppressive.
Sago palms, Cycus revoluta, common cycad is also fire-suppressive.
Its fronds will char.
They won't burn.
The plant that's – the caudex, the base of the plant, will not catch fire, and it will not heat up particularly.
Finally, obviously, succulents are fire-suppressive.
Again, they will char.
They may be killed, but they will not catch fire.
You won't see a cactus or a big aloe in flames.
It may kill the plant, but it will not spread, and it will not do damage.
So I think that people should be aware of these kind of plants.
Also, the Kensington Fire Department and the Anaheim.
So I think he actually had a little bit more time than was given to him.
He had three minutes on the clock, but I think he could have had more given his time.
Well, almost done.
So just the Kensington Fire Department has a good guide of plants that they recommend and that they disapprove of.
And the city of Anaheim has a really impressive list of plants that they – from small, ground-cover plants up to trees.
Again, that they approve of as fire-resistant or that they disapprove of as fire-hazardous.
And it would be well worth everybody's while to look at those things.
So Anaheim and Kensington Fire Departments respectively.
And that's basically about it.
Just remember that suppressive plants near or within that five-foot thing are not going to make it more dangerous.
And also things like tank vermilions, which are basically a living vase.
I have some that can hold four or five gallons of water inside them, are quite fire-suppressive too, obviously.
So anyway, but I am going to move a couple of plants away from closer to the house, some European fan palms, because they're not fire – they're not terrible, but they're – yeah, it's a good idea.
So that's just about what I have to say.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Just to make it easier for you, I know this is confusing.
If one person is speaking, it's one and a half.
If two, it's three.
If it's three, it's four and a half minutes.
And if it's the total of four, it's six, six minutes.
So hopefully that will make it easier.
Okay.
So is anyone else ceding time to you, sir? I think she is.
I'm sorry.
Who is that? Okay.
Oh, okay.
So you have a total of six minutes then, three people.
I can't talk that long.
Okay.
Well, it's yours if you want it.
They gave it to you, so go for it.
I'm going to use notes a little bit because otherwise I'll forget.
I'm Peter Weiner.
I live in Buena Vista Way.
I'm Councilman Blackabee's supporter and resident, and I support 43C, which I'm going to talk about in a minute.
I've been a lawyer for over 50 years.
I've lived in Berkeley for 55 years.
I've lived in the Hills for 44 years at the same address.
I've written over 20 California environmental laws on behalf when I was special assistant to the governor.
I've litigated CEQA for 40 years.
I've represented Berkeley pro bono in the CEQA challenge to Station 7, the firehouse, when it was being proposed, and it was litigated by a discomforted resident.
I love the fire department.
The firefighters have been wonderful to me.
However, 43C, as an example, if I read it, if I understand Councilman Blackabee correctly, says that we should revisit which plants should be allowed and which plants should not.
That's nice, but the horse is out of the barn, and we already will have an ordinance, and people will want to take action to comply with it or fight it or whatever.
You've heard the person before me.
You've seen Dr.
Longhorst's letter.
This is an issue that has not been resolved as to which plants should be banned and which should not, within five feet or within 30 feet.
We know about eucalyptus.
We know about gum trees.
What we don't know is about camellias, for example.
I just learned about it.
We need to learn, before we put it in a coercive ordinance that requires people to do things.
Getting back to 43A, Councilman Tragoob raised the issue, and we had it on the screen, of which fire zones are which.
And the truth is that but for this ordinance, many of the areas that were very high fire zone or high fire zone would now be moderate, according to Cal Fire maps.
But as the chief said, and Assistant Chief Whitaker, you are now making them high.
That's not good for anyone, and I don't care what the insurance commissioner said.
My insurance was canceled.
I talked to the insurance companies.
I know that they look at these issues, and they told me they did, because I said I was going to complain to the insurance commissioner, and they said, no, we're going after what Berkeley says.
So this has meaning for people.
We don't need to zone people to put them in high fire areas when Cal Fire doesn't.
I know we have local knowledge, but in 1923 there was a fire, and what was recommended? Plant eucalyptus trees.
So we can look back and say we're not always right on these things.
So number one, I would say, please, don't adopt the new map that's in 43A.
Go with the Cal Fire map.
That's accurate, and it works.
If the state wants to change it, change it.
Number two, the zone zero regs, I'm told that your regs in this ordinance are consistent with those of the draft of the state.
That's true, but the State Board of Forestry had a meeting yesterday, June 16th, and at that meeting the Board of Forestry expressed reservations as to whether to adopt those zone zero regulations and said they wanted to look further as to which plants are good, which plants are not.
The city of L.A.
has exempted oak trees.
We're not.
The picture that was shown on 43A, the picture of mature trees, was redwoods or pines.
I think they were redwoods.
Whatever it was, all I can say is they don't have branches low down.
Oak trees do.
A lot of trees do.
And when you're building on a hill, that oak tree may come up to your window and may not go above the house because it's planted lower down.
So for gosh sakes, let's not take out all the mature trees that we do love because they're within five feet of a house.
To say that mature trees are exempted in this ordinance is not true.
They're exempted to the extent that they are more than five feet from the house and more than ten feet above the ridgeline.
That's not an exemption for many people for many trees.
So I understand we want to do something, but I think this needs to be rewritten and finely tuned in order to be ready for prime time.
At the moment, Berkeley wants to be first.
I understand that's nice, but it's not always best.
You received a letter from Richard Ilgen, who's a former city attorney in Oakland, who knows about these things.
He noticed some of the sloppiness in the drafting.
He noticed that there is not a CEQA exemption here, and he said why.
I don't need to repeat all that.
All I can say is this is not a rinda.
This is not like the rinda ordinance, and it begs for a CEQA lawsuit.
So I really want to protect our neighborhoods.
I live in the hills.
I've lived in the hills since 1981.
I think there is a high fire danger all over California because of climate change, and what I do in my day job is try to fight climate change, so I'm very well aware of it.
But this ordinance, going before the state does its job, before it considers the evidence before it, before Los Angeles, even with Palisades, does something that's in an ordinance that's effective and enforceable, I think this is not ready for prime time.
So I would ask you to revisit it.
I would prefer that we wait for the state, but at least please consider the evidence before you, not just the evidence presented by the fire department.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker.
Okay, you're a minute and a half, so you'll have three.
Okay, thank you.
Good evening, council members.
I live on Wildcat Canyon Road.
I support strong wildfire safety.
A few key points.
Eight of the 20 top most destructive wildfires in California were caused by utility lines, not by defensible space violations.
The fire department for the largest regional park in the United States operates 7 a.m.
to 5 p.m.
That is our East Bay Regional Park.
They don't even have a 24-7 fire fire crew.
So if I see a fire at 5 or 5 p.m., I'll be sent to a dispatcher.
No one is required to respond after regular business hours.
My questions for councils.
If Ember starts in January 2026, will the city wait to enforce Ember until after the state finalizes its zone zero guidance instead of rushing ahead with inconsistent rules like you saw? Second question.
Will public landowners like UC Berkeley, East Bay Regional Park be held at the same vegetation standards as homeowners with compliance plan? Deadline also set for January 2026.
Will the city secure and disclose agreements with both private and public insurers, including Fairplan, showing that Ember compliance will actually reduce or stabilize premiums before January 2026? Will the city release a full cost benefit analysis of Ember and commit obtaining it annually before January 2026? I welcome Assistant Fire Chief Dave Winokur.
But my question is, Chief Winokur holds multiple publicly documented roles that intersects with Ember.
He co-founded a company called Xyloplan Risk, which is a for-profit fire analytics company selling wildfire risk maps to agencies.
He is also a co-founding advisor to Zone Haven, now owned by Genesis, which sells wildfire softwares.
He is a Hoover Institute fellow researching wildfire policy and insurance pricing.
These roles don't imply any wrongdoings, but they do raise serious questions about procurement integrity and transparency.
Will the city publish Chief Winokur's full business affiliations and adopt formal recusal rules for Ember-related decisions by January 2026?.

Segment 6

Amber does not look like fire safety, it looks like political cover.
If this council can enforce strict guidelines for homeowners, but not for insurers, parks, or your own appointees, then Amber isn't about risk, it's about shifting blame.
Thank you.
Three minutes for this person.
Good evening.
I'm speaking tonight because Amber raises serious legal concerns.
I'm glad to see that there is a city attorney here tonight.
It constitutes a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment, forcing residents to destroy long-standing structures, landscaping, and fences, all without any compensation.
This will violate the constitutional rights of over a thousand homeowners in the first tranche alone.
It also has a disparate impact on the elderly and on disabled residents, many of whom lived on fixed incomes and will not be able to comply.
The idea that there's money that's going to show up at some point is utterly ridiculous in our political climate and with the economics of this city, and we know it.
In fact, the city targeted the most elderly population in Berkeley to pilot this sloppy, radical taking.
Under the California Disabled Persons Act, federal civil rights laws including the Fair Housing Act, Title VI, and the ADA, this type of disproportionate burden is illegal.
I submitted a public records request asking the city, and it would have had time to do it by now, to have done what they've done to invest our tax monies that have been earmarked for infrastructure projects in wildfire mitigation received over decades, like maintenance of the hill's water system, undergrounding of wires, clearing public fire engine egress and exit routes, and preparing for the safe evacuation of disabled residents.
Instead of responding timely, the city notified me on Friday that it was delaying its response until one business day after this meeting.
Utter ledger domain.
Utter shiftiness.
Meanwhile, the city has also claimed an exemption from CEQA, though have produced no NOE.
And the fact is that the asserted exemptions apply only to isolated projects, not to a sweeping citywide program that imposes mandatory physical changes on almost 10,000 homes by the time that it's done.
It is legally inadequate.
And as for, I'm going to speak for a moment to the crowd.
For the people that are here that are listening, this is a dangerous precedent for all of you, whether you live in the hills or not.
The city is asserting that if there is a compelling public interest like fire safety, they can simply turn your private property into public infrastructure and then make you pay for it.
Today, it's turning hillside homes into a fire break for the public.
Tomorrow, it could be homeowners in the flatlands being told there is a public interest in preventing violent crime.
So the city will take an easement on all lots of a certain size, and you will be required to purchase and install ring cameras that the police will use.
Or maybe they will take an easement on your property and say dealing with homelessness is a public safety issue.
So they're going to take the easement.
You'll be required to buy a tiny home and put it onto that property and provide it for someone to live in.
This precedent is incredibly dangerous because that is the legal theory.
And it's very compelling to a city that has run their finances into the ground with vanity projects.
We have a state that is with people who are far more educated at this than you.
In the words of Kendrick Lamar, be humble, sit down, wait for the states.
Hi.
Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the city council.
My name is Caroline Wynette.
I live in the Berkeley Hills along with two additional members of my family, my sister, my daughter and my brother.
I represent these three homes tonight in support of Ember.
There are a lot of arguments around should we do it now, what should we do? But for me it boils down to several incontrovertible realities.
The first, we all know that a firestorm is inevitable.
It's not a question of if, it's a question of when.
It could happen tomorrow, a year, ten years, but it will happen.
By definition, a firestorm is something that even the best fire department, as our Berkeley Fire Department, is absolutely wonderful, but nobody could contain it.
It will consume part or all of the Berkeley Hills.
Second, during this firestorm, while it rages through, the escape routes we know are inadequate.
They will not evacuate us safely.
They will not evacuate us quickly enough, and some of us will be left behind.
And when the smoke and the rubble are the only things that are left after the fire has died down, it is these men and women of the Berkeley Fire Department that will be first upon the scene.
And they will inevitably and tragically find residents who were unable to escape in the rubble.
You can take steps tonight to reduce the impact, the horrific potential impact of this.
I urge your vote for Ember.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
My name is Dara Scher.
I live on Grizzly Peak.
I've lived there for over 30 years.
I want to thank the fire department and the council for this very thoughtful proposal.
I'm strongly in support of Ember.
I also appreciate the numerous extra hearings and meetings and opportunities for people to engage that have been provided over the last several months.
I want to say that as I was sitting here getting ready to speak, came a news article that there is a major fire burning in East San Jose, 100 acres, and people evacuating.
This is not a hypothetical scenario.
We had Paradise, we had the Oakland fire, we have what's happening in L.A., and now we have another fire in San Jose.
We cannot wait for this date because fires don't wait.
And this ordinance may not be perfect.
It may need some tweaking, but it is better to act now to protect our homes, to preserve our insurance, than to wait for some unknown.
This ordinance is balanced, is based on good science, and I, for one, do not want to lose my home or my insurance, and I want to say I'm strongly supportive of this, and thank you to the council and the fire department for all of their efforts.
And by the way, I'm a civil rights lawyer for 40 years doing disability law, and I don't believe the allegations of discrimination.
Thank you.
Folks, please allow me to lead the meeting.
Thank you for your comment.
Okay, you have a minute and a half from someone in the audience.
Thank you very much.
I attended the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection meeting yesterday in Sacramento, and I want to say that the level of confidence in Berkeley about Zone Zero is very different from the tone in that room.
I was encouraged by the thoughtful approach and the inclusive attitude that the board members had and their desire to find a way to achieve balance in their recommendations.
They realized that small lots are a complicated issue in many parts of California.
They're aware that there's broad concern about trees and vegetation.
They stressed several times the importance of the three-year rollout to continue to make adjustments.
They even had a big debate over the meaning of the word combustible, both about artificial turf and vegetation.
And they're even considering having Zone Zero only apply to new construction at first.
I spoke to the committee members and the head of CAL FIRE afterwards and explained I'd be at this vote today and asked them that Berkeley would be passing basically their draft language and beginning to enforce it next May.
And their reaction to the members and the CAL FIRE chief, they responded with the exact same words, oh, wow.
Jay Lopez, one of the board members, told me that there are many more steps to this process.
After their recommendation, I'll go to the finance department, then back to the Board of Fire.
His main message for Berkeley is, and I quote, be cautious because things might change.
It is very hard to backpedal.
Alicia Goldsworthy is another committee member with a background as a botanist.
She says there's nothing more difficult than what they're doing, which is to try to seek a balance between real personal freedoms and potential community safety.
They stress that Zone Zero must not be punitive and must rest on education.
The crisis is not one of vegetation.
It is the fact that there are too many homes that were built too close together.
Her message to Berkeley is simple.
And again, I quote, before you freak out, don't cut down any trees.
Berkeley should seek balance.
Let's not rush into enacting something too strict for our built environment, where it is the proximity of older structures that is the real danger, not the vegetation.
Taking rushed actions which will harm the environment and not deliver significant protections from fire is bad policy.
So those are my comments on 43A.
Briefly, I feel like 43C is insufficient because the changes should be in the code itself before it is approved.
Promising to make changes after the fact is not enough to keep us from enacting a law that people will want to comply with and cause damage to our beautiful area.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council.
I'm Tom Francis.
I live basically in Zone Zero up in Bistamont.
I'm kind of going to echo what one of the previous commenters said, which is I certainly hope that you don't pass the ordinance, but I'm supportive of Part C that Councilmember Blackbee wrote.
And I'll tell you why.
It's because if you pass this, we definitely need an implementation plan.
Now, there's a couple of concerns I have about that particular issue.
I'm a civil engineer.
I work for a water agency.
I used to work for East Bay Mud.
I work with a lot of city managers in my role.
I do not believe you have the ability, City Manager, to develop a thorough and complete implementation plan by September.
There is a lot of elements to consider relative to implementing EMBERS.
I would think that you'd need at least six months to do it.
I don't know how thorough this will be.
Secondly, I also think that there needs to be a balance of stakeholders, and I also think those stakeholders should be from Zone Zero.
If you're going to include stakeholders as part of this, I think some of the people clapping should be on it.
I'd be happy to be on it.
It needs to have different voices, even if they're hard to hear.
I develop stakeholder groups.
A lot of people I don't want on my stakeholders, but they're part of my groups because I know I'll hear from them otherwise.
So from that perspective, I just want to say I do appreciate that you're listening to some real stressful things tonight, and I'll just close it at that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I, too, volunteer for the working group.
I'm a stakeholder up in the hills.
And Chief Sprague, you had some new wording tonight prefacing this whole section, and I finally put on my glasses and knew that you were talking and missed it.
So is that available tonight? Is there a printout somewhere, or can we show it on the screen later or something? I'd love to read it.
So the problem for me on this particular, both 43A and 43B, the wording in the new fire code has on page, well, I won't even cite the page.
It's deep in there, but it's got lined out section for appeals.
They have lined out having an appeals board.
So if we have any residents, citizens, if you're up there and you have some verdict of what the code is and interpretation, if you try to appeal in this particular wording of the fire code, it comes to the city council to decide.
New city council, new mayor.
And if there's some kinds of questions about that, it can go over to the fire officer, which I would think is fire department.
It wasn't specified.
And if there's still some question, it comes back to the city council, and that's final.
But originally, before this rewording, it has an actual board, and it didn't look like it was elected.
It looked like it was appointed, but at least that's sort of a little bit more objective.
Already there's a lot of bonding here on putting this through right now.
The problem, another problem for me right now is that we happen to know Ph.D.
fire.
Sorry, your time is up.
Camellias on brick walls.
Sorry, is someone going to give your minute and a half? Okay, this woman here with the hat is giving you another minute and a half.
We've got old growth camellias.
They're 90 years old, and so they're mature.
They want to be above the roof.
We try and keep them down because the leaves come into the gutters.
And they are fire suppressant, and that's in a lot of the science.
And our Ph.D.
fire scientist friends, one's in Alaska right now, in Texas, UCLA, and UW, finishing third book up there.
The problem when we just do all or nothing and strip out by, I guess, December 31st, January 1, strip out what already cools a three-dimensional space and encourages structures being retained.
Of course, we're going to have brick behind them.
But if we do that and then something more is thought about, all these amendments that might roll in, and we've already taken out old growth for five feet all around.
It just isn't smart.
I would like this body to think in terms of other specialists getting asked and looking at things.
The last thing I want to say is I'm on no social media, so I don't know what's going on next door and all of that.
But I am a talker and a listener.
That's been my profession.
What I've picked up from these public meetings and what I've been hearing in the community since I got informed in May is that there are four big infrastructure areas here I'm concerned about for our community and for you.
I've been hearing stuff about lawsuits.
I've been hearing stuff about recalls.
I've been hearing stuff about taxpayer reports.
Sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks.
Hi, my name is Alastair Singler.
I've lived in Grizzly Peak for 27 years.
So first of all, I was interested to hear Assistant Chief Winokur's presentation tonight because I was amazed how many caveats and maybes showed up tonight.
Those have not been present in the Gung Ho presentations in previous discussions on this topic.
So it's good that maybe there's more caveats, but nobody seems to be acting on them.
So also I was looking at the new draft by Council Member Blackaby and Council Member Keefe.
So one thing I chased up was the supposed $1 million worth of funding.
It explicitly excludes any large and small diameter tree removal, any replacing of combustible fencing gates or arbors, and any hardscaping whatsoever.
Those are the big ticket items.
They are specifically excluded from the financial assistance that's currently available.
Another point I'd like to make is that at various of these workshops and other discussions, Council Member Blackaby has talked about putting a cap on the amount that homeowners are required to spend.
The fire department estimates that we can all get by with $3,000 to $5,000.
So you said at some point that you would put a cap of $3,000 to $5,000 at least per year on what you're requiring residents to spend, and I haven't seen that in the updated draft.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, your time's up.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Okay.
There's a couple people who are ceding time to me.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Welcome.
I'm the Richard Ilge, Mr.
Weiner was referring to, who was a former deputy city attorney who supervised the Code Enforcement Fire and Nuisance Department for the city attorney's office.
And I've litigated, I've written legislation for code enforcement, and I've enforced the codes.
I think there's no reason I can see at this point, and nobody's explained to me why you need to go forward tonight.
There's no cogent reason.
You have time.
This isn't going to be enforced for almost a year, so you've got plenty of time to make it right so you can actually get more support from the community, because right now you lack significant support in the community.
You've got a lot of people who are really concerned about this and what it's likely to do, and you need to fix it now before you go and adopt it.
And I think that's important, because if you're going to have people, if you're going to have the fire department inspecting when inspect houses and people say, well, no, I'm not going to let you have my property.
And the fire department says, well, I have to go and get warrants.
I've gotten warrants, and they're required by law.
The pesky little law that gets in the way is the fourth amendment of the Constitution.
And they're troublesome to get, and they're difficult to get, and they're costly to get.
So I think what you want to do is you want to get people to actually participate and actually approve this.
Now, I'm glad to see someone finally mention CEQA.
Thank you, Councilman Black.
Somebody finally mentioned it.
It's wrong, but I'm glad you mentioned it.
The big concern here is not what happens on an individual property.
The big concern was CEQA, and it's in the guidelines.
It says it does not apply if there are cumulative impacts or unusual conditions on the environment.
You have 850 homes in the first tranche of this.
You have thousands more in the others.
That's how you measure cumulative impact.
You have to look at all of that.
There's been no study.
CEQA wasn't mentioned by anybody up here or the fire department or the city attorney or city manager until tonight, the first time we've heard from someone about CEQA.
And you need to do that analysis, otherwise you potentially leave what you've done vulnerable.
And there are significant impacts to look at.
You're going to have erosion.
You're going to have water running off.
We already had two major mudslides in the hills already.
We know about sliding conditions.
We've had to put in retaining walls and other measures, drainage, to prevent that from happening.
That's not one of the costs you're talking about with everybody here, because a lot of people may have to do that also to prevent water from running out.
And those of you who don't live in the Riverside District, not in the hills, that's all coming your way.
That's all coming down the hill, and it's coming into Lake Anza, and it's coming to the bay.
And you need to figure out a way of addressing that before you move forward.
Now, I've made written comments about the appeals process.
It's pretty much a sham.
It's one of the most ridiculous processes I've seen since I've been writing legislation, frankly.
You're given less than 10 days to respond to a violation, and it's going to the city council.
How many of you actually want to hear it, hear these appeals? And you can elect not to hear them without even a hearing, as opposed to this going for a board.
And I'm not even sure under state law you can do that.
For example, a code enforcement hearing, you get 21 days to respond to a code enforcement violation.
Why should the fire violations be treated any differently than code violations? They shouldn't be.
So I think you need to really think about all of what you're doing here, because people don't know about the cost of this.
People are throwing out various costs.
Well, it's going to be $2,000, maybe $3,000 to $5,000.
This is in the tens of thousands of dollars for many people.
It's a lot of money, and you haven't got analysis.
The only analysis you've got is how it's going to impact new housing.
How many new houses are going to get built in the hills? How many is that going to impact? It's not.
for average people out there with their homes, for seniors and others, who are going to have to pay for all these improvements.
Be honest with them.
Be open with them.
Tell them this is going to be costly, and then try and find the money to do it.
And you can't figure out how much money you're going to need until you've actually looked how many people need it and how much money they're going to have to spend.
Thank you.
No, no, I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
I'm being very strict with the comments.
Yes.
Thank you.
Let's put the vote off.
One person is giving you another minute and a half.
That is your third person.
I'm not sure that I really need it.
I did want to say more or less in closing, look, it is not weakness to put this vote off.
To put this vote off is showing you that you have strength, that you want to respect the community, that you want to respect the people who have issues with this.
I like a lot of what Councilmember Blackley put in his resolution, but it needs to be worked on first.
It needs to be in anything before you adopt it.
Not wait, not adopt something that people know are unhappy, know is flawed, and go forward with it.
And it's not weakness to put this vote off.
It's a sign of leadership and wisdom and commitment to the community to put this off and do it when you've got more people on board and we've got an ordinance that people can respect and people will feel good about because right now a lot of people don't feel good about this.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
I want to say it's painfully obvious, judging by the looks of disgust on many of your faces while people are up here talking about it, especially the mayor and Mr.
Blackley, which I'm really disappointed since I voted for you, that they're not being heard with an open mind.
It's like your dismissive body language, your lack of engagement, make it clear, the looks on your face, Mayor, like you right now, that no matter what happens tonight, you've already made your decision.
You're going to move forward with the vote the way you want it and maybe any backdoor agreements you got with the fire department now that we're hearing.
You've already made up your minds, the voices of your constituents, the people that elected you that you represent don't matter to you at all.
It's just a formality.
This process right now is a formality.
But if you're determined to push Ember through, regardless of public concern, then at the very least we demand accountability for the safety assurances, like a comprehensive emergency escape plan in case of a wildfire for residents living in the hills.
So they deserve, they all deserve to know they have a way to get out of there.
Additionally, we need to have an independent report verifying the aging water infrastructure in the hills that is capable of handling the pressure and the volume needed in case there is a large fire up there.
If you're going to green light Ember, then put it in writing that you guarantee that the water pipes can handle the load when it matters most.
That's it.
We're not yet.
I have a horrible headache, so you'll excuse me if I'm not smiling, but I am listening.
I'm here.
I'm listening.
I want to hear your comments.
We are taking them seriously.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
My name is Chris Solomon.
I live on Grizzly Peak.
I've been there 35 years in Berkeley for 50 some.
I'm here to support all three of these items that are before you tonight.
And I want to make sure that, you know, you that for all of us, whether we support or don't, this is this.
It's painful.
You know, we've got plantings in our yard that are going on 70 years old and shaping and changing will be difficult.
You know, and we're not looking forward to it.
And, yes, the proposals and are there.
They're not perfect.
You know, and I think the woman before said, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
And but I think that there are forces larger than ours, and that is climate change.
And that is unfortunate.
It's a reality.
And it is accelerating the risk of wildfire.
It's accelerating the risk of ember fire.
And then in turn, it's accelerating the risk of structure fires, which can lead to conflagration that puts all of Berkeley at risk.
Moving now, moving ahead seems proportionate to the urgency of climate change and also to the magnitude of the risk that we face.
So I applaud all of you on the council, particularly Councilman Blackaby.
And I particularly want to call out our fire department for their leadership and their support and their insight.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Henry DeNiro, Berkeley Fire Safe Council.
We have recommended passage of this twice in writing.
We urge you to pass it tonight.
We have a year to make any adjustments to it.
Waiting another six months or a year or two years for the state to get its act together would be a tragic mistake.
I toured tragic Altadena last Saturday, an area two thirds the size of Berkeley burned.
Several clusters of properties had all the trees intact, but the houses were gone as they were plucked out by helicopter.
The only way this could happen would be embers getting inside or vegetation burning against the house.
There was no wall of fire and these were not structure to structure fires.
They were too far spaced.
The trees were not burned.
There were also examples of individual houses and groups that did not burn.
These properties were tidy.
I can't tell you they had screened their gutters, but they didn't have a lot of vegetation next to the house.
We need to remove the vegetation close to our homes and screen our vents and gutters, assuming we already have a class A roof.
And yes, the eucalyptus groves among us that are exquisitely evolved to cast massive amounts of embers into the wind need to be dealt with as well.
Thank you.
Oh, I'm going to give me another person.
OK, so again, we're not doomed, but we have a lot of work to do and we will need help.
And hopefully in the next few months we will have time to garner more help.
I'll say one more thing.
We have one of the world's leading experts in fire science at UC Berkeley, Professor Michael Goldner.
He's opined extensively on the various articles that have been written and published in the L.A.
Times.
People who have testified at the Board of Forestry, various sources.
He agrees with this assessment.
We need to remove the vegetation from against the houses.
We need to harden the homes, primarily screening events and gutters.
And he agrees that the eucalyptus groves are a problem.
And yes, they're a problem in the park, but we can't make them clean them up or remove them.
They are spending money there.
We have to take care of our own city first.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Isabel Gaston.
I live across the street from Tilden Park on Wildcat Canyon Road.
This is the front line of the front line.
Tonight, I would like to thank all of you for working so hard on this complex issue.

Segment 7

with a special thanks to my council member Brent Blackaby, to Mayor Ishii, Council members O'Keefe and Council member Humbert.
I also wish to thank the Berkeley Fire Department for their brilliant leadership on wildfire mitigation, and especially Chief Sprague for spearheading EMBER in our community.
Tonight you will take a vote that could define your political careers.
It is a historical moment for Berkeley.
None of the naysayers have come up with a credible alternative tonight to EMBER, but they do a superb job in recycling unscientific complaints that have been addressed many times over.
Tomorrow morning will be a new day in Berkeley.
We either start work on Zone Zero in earnest, or we spend the next few years until the state's law goes into effect, praying that our beautiful city won't burn down every time the wind gusts, the humidity drops, and the temperatures soar.
I'm sorry, your time's up.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council.
My name is Steve Roby.
I live on Wildcat Canyon across from the Selby Trailhead.
I'm a strong supporter of EMBER because the science is sound.
Wildfire due to climate change is a real threat to Berkeley.
We've known this for decades.
I believe we can protect our homes and the city of Berkeley from wildfire, but only if EMBER passes and time is of the essence.
And I'm very disappointed with the disinformation campaign on Nextdoor.
EMBER is the answer.
Please vote yes.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Ruth Aaron Krantz.
I live at 968 Keeler Avenue.
And when a system has a major catastrophic failure, engineers say it wasn't one thing that went wrong.
It was many, many things.
Our fire department is asking the council and the community to take action to prevent a devastating fire and loss of life.
After the fire comes, there'll be a postmortem.
Lack of access to homeowner's insurance, East Bay Regional Park District's historic poor fire management practices, PG&E's lack of investment in undergrounding, Cal Fire being slow to act on Newsom's direction for stricter fire regulations will all be discussed ad nauseum.
Pacific Palisades and Altadena wish they had the guidance that our fire department is giving our city.
Please be proactive.
Thank you.
Thank you.
She's yielding to me, so.
Sure.
Three minutes.
My name's Eric Weaver.
I live on Kristen Road.
I've lived there for more than 30 years.
I think there's a few aspects of reality on the ground that we need to talk about here.
The opponents talk about water-filled plants, well-maintained yards.
I walk my dog every day in that neighborhood.
Eighty percent of the yards are overgrown, poorly maintained, full of dead weeds, full of leaves.
That's reality number one.
Reality number two, in the 30 years I've lived there, there have been four major fire incidents that I personally have observed.
On South Park, there was a fire, and it required 50 firefighters in a helicopter transporting water from Lake Anza to put it out.
There was an incident last year at Inspiration Point.
I was riding my bike back there.
There was 20 fire vehicles from Cal Fire there.
There was a wire down at the merry-go-round.
It's only because neighbors smelled the smoke and reported to the fire department that that was dealt with.
And then, of course, everyone knows that there was a fire on Summit that only by a miracle was put out.
We're living on borrowed time here.
The third thing that is important to keep in mind is that the city has been asking for voluntary compliance with fire-safe yard practices since 2009.
The last time I spoke here, I talked about our Earthquake Safety Committee.
We got a memo from the city in 2009 telling us we needed to work on defensible space.
People have had more than 15 years to voluntarily work on defensible space.
I'll admit I didn't pay any attention to it either, but I am now.
Finally, all of these catastrophic arguments about landslides and everything, we're talking about five feet around the houses.
People talk about stripping yards bare, scraping yards bare.
That's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about five feet around houses.
It's a very limited but very sensible and science-supported proposal.
The city needs to take these steps not only for the people who live in our neighborhood but for the whole city because the fire that starts in Tilden and blows through our neighborhood will end up down in downtown Berkeley.
So it's in the benefit of everyone in this city that all three of these items be passed tonight.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Hi.
Good evening.
My name is Bronya Feldman.
I live on Keeler Avenue, and I'm a strong proponent of ember.
I live in a wood-shingled house.
I don't have the money to change the siding.
I'm working on defensible space.
That does make sense to me.
The science makes sense to me, and global warming is something that I believe is actually happening.
I don't want to end up like the Pacific Palisades or Altadena, and I see this as an extremely critical thing to saving my home if it can be saved.
And I support ember.
Please vote for that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let me just check in with council.
How are you all doing? Because I was hoping to get through the rest of the in-person comments before taking another break.
Is that okay? Okay.
All right.
Thanks.
Hi.
My name is Janice Morota.
Berkeley is my hometown.
I live in a flat.
My sister lives in Pasadena.
She did the kind of home hardening that is being suggested in the embers program.
She even had the vents that actually, when they got heated, they melted closed.
Her house is standing, except for the window on the side next to her neighbor's, whose house burnt to the ground.
On the other side of him, where they also took care of home hardening, and she cleared out the vegetation.
It's not a big yard, but she did it.
Those two houses are fine, but the one in between is now a toxic waste dump, and the Army Corps of Engineers is going to clean that up.
This is prevention.
It's always better to prevent rather than to try to clean up after the fact.
Anyway, I do think that the burden of the financials required are unfairly.
You're saving my house as well as your own, and I know that it's expensive to do this, and I would like us to try to do whatever we can to share that financial risk, but I think there's no question we have to do this.
It's just common sense.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening, council members.
My name is Meg Sedlak.
I've lived in the Berkeley Hills for over 30 years.
I love the proximity to the park, my neighbors, the fog, the community.
We've heard a lot tonight about EMER, a lot of really good science, and one of the things that seems to be a sticking point is the changes that it will require, and I appreciate how difficult the changes can be.
I myself have struggled with this.
As the gentleman said before, for years we've heard about home hardening and zone zero, and truth be told, I was in a little bit of a denial mode until about three years ago when my brother, who lives in the hills of San Jose, was evacuated from his house.
A fire burned within 100 feet of his house.
Cal Fire did an amazing job of protecting the house and the structure remains, but that was for me a wake-up call and really made me realize that I needed to do something.
So it scared me, both for my brother and his family, as well as recognizing that the San Jose Hills are very similar to the Berkeley Hills here.
So in talking to him, Councilman O'Blackabee, the incredible Berkeley Fire Department, and reading the scientific literature, I realized that we can do something to keep ourselves safe and to continue to live in the place that we love.
The wildfire science has proven that if we harden our homes and implement zone zero, we can continue to live in the wildfire urban interface.
But we need to make the changes now.
I strongly encourage the Council to adopt EMBER, and I'd like to thank all of you for all your hard work.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
My name is David Sedlak.
I live in Grizzly Peak, and I've lived here for over 30 years.
I want to, first of all, express my appreciation to BFD and Councilman Blackabee for their hard work on this program.
I've waited for 30 years to take a high-speed rail to Southern California.
I've waited for 20 years for it to become us to solve the housing problem so my kids could afford to live in California.
I don't think I should wait for the state to figure out how to make the EMBER program or zone zero work.
I've seen what the state's good at and what the state's not good at.
I respect my neighbors and their desire to get it right by thinking about what kinds of plants we should grow, be allowed to grow near our homes, but I live in the practical world, and I don't think that our fire department inspectors or anyone else is going to be going and looking at microscopic levels of detail at what kinds of plants people are growing near their homes.
I think they're going to rely upon citizens to do this, and it's going to require us to take some maybe not-so-surgical approaches to this and to take a more pragmatic view.
And we all have heard tonight, and we know the science, that if we clear out the area within five feet of our homes, we're going to drastically reduce the risk, and that's what you have to do in a time of an emergency.
So thank you for your hard work.
Thank you for EMBER, and let's go forward, Berkeley.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Jean-Luc Lameronde.
I live on Grizzly Peak, and I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity here to express our concerns about the EMBER proposal.
I have to admit that for me, frankly, whoops, moving the podium here, I'm a bit puzzled why a city which is looking at a $27 million deficit would want to continue to squander time, resources, and money on a proposal that will more likely than not mirror 95 percent of the proposal which the state is currently in the process of formulating.
So my request to you is let us wait for the state.
The state has the resources.
The state has the know-how.
I suspect they have more know-how than our fire department here, okay? So, again, let us wait for the state.
And I think more importantly, let us adopt what the state is proposing, which is a three-year compliance period, okay? I think it's criminal that we are asking Berkeley residents up in the hills to go ahead within a matter of 12 months, contact contractors, okay? It's going to be a handful, particularly if you want to install metal fences, metal gates.
I'm almost at the end here.
Please, wait for the state.
Go for it.
Thank you.
Yeah, sorry.
Thanks for your comment.
I'm Susan Nunez-Fadley, and I'm with the Tamil Paius FireWise community in Fire Zone 2.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to extend my thanks to the fire department.
I am a supporter of this program, and I'm hoping that these measures aren't subject to death by a thousand cuts.
But what I hope you'll consider, because you've had a lot of the science in front of you, I hope you consider the potential for it to build a stronger community.
People right now may not agree, but the principle of building community is what drives FireWise, and I know it works.
And what I see in this ember is an opportunity for people to work together, supported by the city, to preserve the green character of our community and of our neighborhoods while mitigating the risks to our individual homes.
Because we need the neighborhoods to be, what, 80 to 85 percent compliant, which means we have to find ways to work together.
And if we do, we have a good chance of preventing what happened to Lahaina and Altadena and the Palisades.
So I urge you to support these measures.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm a resident of Grizzly Peak Boulevard, and so I'm well aware of the dangers that the wildfire urban interface poses for our neighborhood and, frankly, for the entire city of Berkeley and beyond.
I wanted to bring to your attention the fact that I'm an active member of the Creston FireWise group, and one of the measures our group has taken is to commit to helping our neighbors with these mitigation measures.
We recognize that not all of our neighbors are in a position to undertake this work, and so we're committed to helping our neighbors.
And so that is one response to some of the comments that have been made.
Another is that I expect and I've heard from the council that you are committed to additional measures because vegetation management isn't the only step that needs to be taken.
Clearly, we've heard about home hardening measures that I hope will be implemented at some point.
Issues around parking and evacuation are key components to a wildfire mitigation plan, as well as calling other agencies, East Bay Mud, the park district, to do their part in taking care of the problem.
So I support, Amber.
Thank you very much for your work.
Thank you.
Thank you.
What the last two women said is a reason not to do, Amber.
You've got to contact all these other agencies.
Tilden is the fire break, not the homes up in the hills.
And we've got to work together.
So let's do that from the ground.
Let's start before April 15th when you guys voted the first time without knowing a whole lot about this.
I'm not the eloquent guy in the room.
Chief Sprague and I have been here for three generations, but now there's a new cowboy in town.
You're going to charge people to use Adventure Playground to pay for a new assistant chief's salary? We don't need a new chief.
We got a good one.
How about promoting from within? So who have you heard from? I'm not the eloquent one.
David Richer went to Sacramento yesterday.
There are 276 plants that Anaheim thinks are good near a house.
Peter Weiner spoke pretty eloquently about CEQA.
I hope you're listening.
Richard Ilgen.
Yeah.
I'm not letting anybody inspect my property.
Go get a warrant.
Thank you.
Please.
It's me again.
And I'm going to speak to the process because I think the process has been awful and sloppy.
I'm not saying hard work has not been done by some people.
But I went to the workshop on May 27th.
There was no one in that workshop panel speaking to pause or to address research that is equivocal or anything.
It was straight out, we're giving you this information.
Then we each got one minute to speak.
Once again, one minute to speak.
And then the meeting was interrupted to hear from three homeowners.
I feel this has been a farce.
I'm a former public interest lawyer as well.
And I'm really, really appalled.
I'm ashamed that this is what is going on in Berkeley.
Okay.
You have heard from so many knowledgeable people this evening who are questioning things.
We're not naysayers.
We're just saying do the right thing and do it the right way.
And you're not doing it that way.
Even you, Ms.
Mayer, when time is up, you say sorry to the people speaking for Ember, but not for people like me.
Go listen to your comments.
Hear what you said earlier about sort of approving this tonight.
I feel you walked in here from the get-go going to rubber stamp this.
And you don't want that to be your legacy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi.
My name is Michel Twetty.
I'm the CEO of HelpBerkeley.org.
A lot of people have covered many points already, and I'm going to focus my remarks on a certain number of issues that have been mentioned by other speakers.
One of the speakers discussed high humidity plants and their protective effect.
Weirdly, I received a message from Professor Goldner, who was mentioned by Henry De Niro during this hearing when he's discussing higher moisture content plants.
He writes, exposures in dense urban neighborhoods house-to-house under high winds like Berkeley would be high enough to vaporize moisture in plants in seconds and ignite them.
So I'm sorry, but this is totally contradicting what the botanical person was talking about.
David Richer discussed the fact that he attended the workshop, the Zone Zero workshop at the State yesterday.
In fact, an associate of mine and I have been attending every single workshop all the way through between the two of us.
Among all of these workshops, every single wildfire scientist but one has supported the strict interpretation of Zone Zero, and every single firefighting unit that has been providing testimony in these workshops has also supported a strict interpretation of Zone Zero.
So I'm really sorry, but I get a very different impression of the Zone Zero workshops and what they think about Zone Zero.
In 2020, the day of the shelter-in-place order, my neighbors and I got together and put together a nonprofit that gathered more than 400 volunteers that distributed hundreds of thousands of free meals across Berkeley.
Weirdly, we thought it was going to be a three-month process.
We're still at it.
We're still distributing 10,000 to 15,000 meals per year, many of which are the people who are in these neighborhoods there.
Last summer, we organized again around fire, many of the same people.
We organized a fire-wise neighborhood that in April put together a massive cleanup, all volunteer, all self-financed, where we cleared about 250 linear yards of Grizzly Peak all the way up to Creston.
So we can do a lot without your help, but there's a couple of things we can't do.
We cannot get the 80 to 85 percent coverage that we need to be able to get the safety effect from EMBER, and we also can't get the enforcement capability that BFD has, and for that, we need you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you for listening.
My name is Margaret Cullen.
I've been in communication with a number of you.
What I've noticed is that the dissent has fallen on deaf ears, that the degree to which any concessions are made are performative and not substantive, that I was delighted that Assistant Chief Winokur mentioned tonight that the science is, in fact, inconclusive and coming in all the time.
And for this, so many people in the state feel it's worth waiting to get more information.
I'm unclear about the expertise of this council that seems to have the hubris to be so reckless to move forward when data is coming in weekly that is analyzing the consequences of the fires in Southern California that had a profound impact.
Those communities are waiting for the analysis that is coming in in real time.
The data that we're working from is extrapolation, and none of it, as Assistant Chief Winokur said clearly tonight, actually models our community, Berkeley Hills, our marine layer, without home hardening, just Zone Zero alone.
Please don't be reckless.
There is too much at stake.
Thank you.
Folks, I just want to be clear about who's left to speak.
Is it just the two of you? Okay, sure.
Could you just raise your hand just so I could get a sense? Just you don't have to stand.
I just want to understand who's left.
So that's 1, 2, 3, 4 after you.
Is that right? Oh, and 5.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's 5.
2 or just 1.
Just 1.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Hi, my name is the end track.
I live in the proposal for and I am here to to support fully the proposal.
I was watching all the fire news over the years, and one of the things that just didn't make sense to me when I see people sort of fighting the fire, and they will show images right with the fire in the background and firefighters kind of hosing these little vegetation on the ground.
And I'm like, what are they doing? Why aren't they fighting that big fire? Until I learned and I have been trying to study what it is that I can do, because I want to feel a sense of agency, a sense of control over what I can do to mitigate the fire risk.
And so I have learned about the risk of the little vegetation.
I have even done things in my garden because I have garden for 24 years in the home that I've lived in the idea of succulents.
So I've been planting succulents and then trying to light the top of it.
It doesn't work.
But if you go underneath where the dried leaves are, it lights up.
And that is the danger of having vegetation near your home.
Those things will ignite.
And so, you know, the science is clear.
It's clear to me.
Please don't wait.
If you wait, our homes will burn.
My insurance is already canceled.
My neighbor's insurance are canceled.
And so I sorry.
Thank you.
Sure.
Contrary to what the preceding speaker said, I believe that the science is by no means clear.
And the discussion of fire suppressive plants today would give you some indication that the EMBER proposals are not based on the best available science.
Furthermore, don't you see the glaring contradiction between 43C, which allows for discussion of what vegetation is appropriate, and 43A, which would mandate complete removal of vegetation? And contrary to what Goldner has said, regarding vegetation, people with ornamental bushes do not let them dry out.
And it would be absolutely incredible for them to dry out as quickly as Goldner has said.
It's ridiculous.
There's considerable evidence from the suburban Sydney fires that fire resistant, in particular fire suppressive plants, can have a protective effect.
And you should consider the relative flammability of the dwellings themselves relative to the plants that surround them.
When you have fire suppressive plants that are adjacent to highly flammable dwellings, such as those with cedar shingles, I live in one, it would be a grave mistake to force removal of the fire suppressive plants.
It would make the dwelling far more vulnerable to fire.
Thank you.
Sorry, your time's up.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Folks, just to be clear, so who is it that's giving time? Okay, thank you.
How long does that give me? Four minutes.
Okay.
All right.
We've heard a lot of people talking about the fire agencies and fire officials agreeing that Zone Zero, as it's described in EMBR, is what we need to do to protect our homes.
I have a statement from Don McKenzie.
He's a fire scientist.
He sent this by email June 15th regarding the EMBR agenda at the city council meeting tonight.
He has a PhD in wildfire modeling from University of Washington.
He's a research fire ecologist with the U.S.
Forest Service from 2001 to 2018.
He's an affiliate faculty at the University of Washington, 2002 to present.
So I just want you to know this is not something that everyone agrees about.
And that's why the state I was at that meeting as well.
That's why they're having these discussions and very thoughtful, very respectful meeting yesterday.
It was quite lovely.
But anyway, went to Sacramento, had a good time with David.
But anyway, this is what he has to say.
In a typical residential area, removing all vegetation from the perimeter of a house is a crime.

Segment 8

Today we are going to be discussing the importance of fire resistance.
The diameter and perimeter of a structure actually reduces fire resistance.
This may seem counterintuitive because we think of all vegetation as being flammable.
Some widely cited standards were developed for the wild land urban interface, otherwise known as the WUI.
Dwellings that are interspersed in vegetation, often very flammable vegetation, like California Chaparral.
Such standards should not be extrapolated to urban residential areas.
For example, the Berkeley Hills east of Grizzly Peak.
In those areas, suitable vegetation can increase fire resistance for two reasons.
First, deciduous broadleaf trees and shrubs have high foliar moisture, even in dry weather, which will damp fire intensity.
Second, this three-dimensional space of reduced intensity slows fire spread, even more so in the worst fire weather.
A further observation that I have is that by far, the most important action to impede fire spread in residential areas is to modify structures.
And we've all talked about that.
We all agree on that.
We can all agree on that.
In the various ways that can make them fire resistant.
Respectfully submitted, Don McKenzie.
So that's the point I want to bring to you, and that's the point we've been trying to bring to you.
And I'm going to give you a little bit of a description of Brent Blackabee, because he said, Rhonda, stop going on next door and come to a meeting.
I came.
I came in good faith.
I showed up.
And what I found is that I felt pretty alone.
But there were a few folks, George, you know, there are a few folks out there, And we want to know more.
And we're not sure that there's not more information out there that you should be considering.
And then we went back and we've done homework, homework, homework, homework.
I know more about this than I've known about a lot of things, because I've been eating, sleeping, breathing ember.
And it's because I do care about my community.
And I was accused of not caring about my home because I was a renter.
This was by the Firewise community.
How does that build community? I was a Girl Scout.
I was a Brownie.
I was a Girl Scout leader.
I was a lobbyist for the Girl Scouts.
That wet wood does not burn very well.
It just doesn't.
So I don't want to be accused of not caring about my community.
I don't want to be accused of not caring about fire.
I don't want to be accused of any of those things because I have questions.
And I'm challenging you to do your homework like we have.
Thanks.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
I'm sorry, the person who.
The lady on the feather and the two in the green.
OK, so that's so that's the total time.
Six minutes.
So that you can have that.
He's at the maximum already.
So that's six minutes.
OK, go ahead.
So thank you.
Thank you for the passive aggressive tone as well.
Alliance for Practical Fire Solutions Community of 472 members.
At the State of Fire Forestry meeting, a different tone and nuance approach was reached.
Archie from L.A.
said we're not looking at gates.
It's a liability issue.
I'm glad that so much time was given to a person who worked for who was a former insurance company lobbyist and a person associated with the Hoover Institute, an institute that has staffed presidential jobs from Nixon to Trump.
What we are witnessing here is not policy leadership.
It's a breakdown of public trust.
You read from a prepared statement, so will I.
The amber proposal that it stands reflects a failed policy model previously rejected, now being pushed here with new ones and lacking full equity without new ones.
We're not speaking hypothetically.
The final impact on rate increase, dose of fixed incomes and new homeowners is tangible.
A price tag of thirty nine hundred dollars to five thousand per household does not pass muster.
We offer solutions, workable, reasonable and community minded, even a way out of potential legal implications.
We ask for a pause for a special meeting.
Those requests were ignored just as it took some of you multiple attempts before in responding to meeting requests.
In one meeting we were told the only way to have compliance is to have the punitive aspect in the proposal.
I have never heard a politician in Berkeley ever say that in order to comply with an honors mandate, citizens need to know there are consequences to their freedom if they disregard it.
Quote unquote.
You insulted us by saying you're just mourning your plans as if you could encapsulate in a dismissive narrative the breadth of our concerns.
You insulted us by saying we are just misinformed as if the capacity to analyze data and facts was beyond our measure.
Instead, the process of rigged from the start.
Public rooms were nearly bypassed, only reinstated after community pressure.
Public comment was curtailed.
We submitted formal legal opinions from an environmental firm, a former city attorney that wrote fire codes, and a former California deputy attorney general.
Scientific concerns were weighed off despite 150 plus pages of peer review studies.
You said show us the science.
We did.
You said show us community concern.
We did.
Let's not digress.
This is our final request for a tie-in and recommendations in line with the state a fully funded mitigation fund, your tax option, I'm not up to you to implement.
An already established appeal process, less inclusive than the one you have.
A community-led advisory committee prior to the vote.
Simple, responsible, achievable, and yet you refuse to hold the process.
You push forward a substantive compromise and ignore the very people you represent.
There was once a city council that understood the value of challenging staff reports with independent research, devil advocacy, contrarians.
We identified the CEQA legal concern.
We provided the zone zero counter studies.
Gosh, we even did the community outreach for you when you were not going to do it.
And still you march on.
And still you march on.
It's a stubbornness, a desire to create legacy legislation, whatever it is.
It's problematic.
And it's worse, it's bad governance.
My family and I moved to Berkeley over 20 years ago.
And found in Berkeley a city that championed openness, democracy, and participation.
What's happening now is the opposite of that.
It is painful to witness and experience.
It's personal.
And it is a betrayal of the very values that brought us here.
Thank you.
Do the right thing.
Wait for the state.
I'm sorry, Council Member, I think someone else, I think there's one more gentleman that's actually before you.
Go ahead, you were first.
Please, come on up.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Hello.
I'm Stephan Snyder.
I live in Park Hills, Sierra Club member, which I recently learned is a strongly endorsed member.
Wanted to give a quick shout out about this and this.
This is great stuff.
So I'm generally in support of EMBER.
I've gone back and forth some.
I've been reading a lot of the objections.
Trying to find substance in them.
Unfortunately, in most of it, I just haven't been able to.
I've seen things misquoted and misreferenced.
A lot of what I see here, though, is 43C is that I almost hear wait for the state embedded in here.
Because it's basically saying there's a body for a process to incorporate everything the state Department of Forestry is going to do between now and the end of the year, which will be incorporated into all of this.
So that's great.
So that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Okay.
Our final in-person comment is going to be from former council member.
And then we will take a break and then we'll take comments online.
So just folks, if you are online, if you could just raise your hands, it'll give me a better sense of how much time things will take.
That would be just very helpful.
And go ahead.
Hi, everybody.
It's nice to see you.
So residents have claimed that EMBER and implementation of Zone 0 is draconian, coercive.
Reckless and irresponsible.
I have a different opinion.
I see it as a significant step towards protecting lives, preserving housing and saving the natural environment.
I see it as a wise and strong forward looking public policy.
Yes, it will require adjustments and investments.
It will require flexibility.
But this is what adaptation is.
This is what resilience requires.
So please, tonight, support EMBER.
Please support Council Member Blackabee's modifications in 43C.
And especially to Council Member Blackabee for your courageous leadership on this issue.
Thank you.
OK, folks, we are going to take a I'm going to give us a 15 minute break because we've been sitting for quite a number of hours.
And then we'll come back and take online comment.
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Okay, folks.
I'm calling us back to order, please.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Okay.
Recording in progress.
All right, we are coming back together.
So we are moving into our online comment on items 43 A, B, and C.
And so if you are interested in making a comment on one of these items, or all of them at the same time is fine, you please raise your hand.
And I will let our city clerk help me out with this.
Okay.
The first online comment here we have is Nigel guest.
Let's see.
We can hear you now.
Okay.
I just can't see myself.
I'm just, my name is Nigel gas.
Yes.
I'm just addressing item 43.
Okay.
So, first off, I'm referring to the April 15th fire department's report.
Plus.
The recent comments from the assistant fire chief.
Nowhere in any of this.
Have I heard the suggestion of creating fire breaks between wildland and residences.
That doesn't seem like a big problem to me, but it does seem like a problem to me.
I live on panoramic hill.
The upper residential part of the hill.
Is is in the city of Oakland and will not be subject to this or any similarly stringent ordinance affecting residences.
You can see that by referring to the Oakland fire code.
No wildfire is going to approach my house from the city of Berkeley.
So, why is the city of Oakland not coordinating with Oakland in drafting this ordinance? Again, why is that? As for the ordinance itself.
I'm quoting from the latest published version, which is my six, although I realized that this has been amended.
I have one major issue.
Section one Oh 4.1.
Three.
I'm sorry.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Next is.
Speaker's name is iPad too.
We can hear you.
Okay.
I'm under no illusions about climate change.
Also.
Cancer and chemo to attend in person.
This is so crucial.
I have to do what I can.
There are many problems with Ember.
I haven't heard before.
Okay.
I mean, it's own federal vegetation management.
Almost useless.
In the Palisades kind of fire stunts.
It's like mandating meat pads.
For a motorcycle race.
Maybe.
Exactly.
Ember leaders.
The state building codes.
Okay.

Segment 9

update that, quote, Berkeley requires owners of certain building types to retrofit their properties to make them safer in case of an earthquake, unquote.
This mandate does not require transfer of ownership or major remodeling.
Members focus on defensible space and not hardening.
This is wrongheaded and deadly foolish.
So pass mandatory home hardening first.
Pass with financial assistance just as earthquake retrofit mandate did.
Fence screens are cheap.
Pass it before passing EMBER or EMBER is worthless.
Until Berkeley mandates essential and primary home hardening, not just secondary defensible space.
I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is Janice Thomas.
Hello, hello.
I'm reminded of 9-11.
There was a terrible attack on our country.
The World Trade Center was attacked, and there was a massive outcry.
The government had to do something, and in the rush to judgment, they bombed Iraq.
Only Barbara Lee voted nay.
What I heard tonight was that it sounds almost like an envoy went down to L.A.
to look at different parts of L.A., and I just wondered, has anyone visited and walked around Panama Kill? I would love to walk with you.
I would love to walk with the fire chief, the WUI chief, anybody from the fire department, and I would like you to see, for example, at the hairpin turns where there are cars, or there are houses parked within the elbow of the turn, and how exposed these houses will be.
Some of them are almost five feet from the street.
The road was built in 19- I mean, sorry, in 1888.
This is a neighborhood that I'm a general manager of, and I'm a resident of, and I'm a resident of this neighborhood.
I'm just in shock, honestly, that there wasn't an initial study to look at geological impacts, such as the erosion people have talked about, and landscapes.
Check out your records in the planning department about our neighborhood and landscape, our landslides, and also historic district impacts.
Sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Carol Davila, former council member.
Thank you.
So, how much time do I have? You have a minute.
You should show the clock, because we can't see, you know, what our time is.
So, you know, there's no defensible space in the flatlands, and it's not required.
And with the zoning proposal changes, or the changes that you're proposing for zoning in R1 and R2, and this missing middle, what I might not want to curse online, but, you know, the BS of that.
It's just going to create more of a fire hazard, because there won't be any defensible space between buildings, no green space, no nothing.
And if the state is going to be, if this is coming before the state and they'll be making a decision, I think it would be wise to wait.
But it's also, I mean, I understand why you want to do this, but I just also understand how much green is needed in order to mitigate climate change and take in some of the carbon and all these things.
So, for people to get rid of trees and things that are going to do that, you know, plants, that's a lot and it costs a lot of money.
So, it's interesting.
So, I think more time and actually research is needed.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is Jeff Lomax.
Thank you, Mayor and Council.
This is regarding item C.
So, the proposed transfer tax credit is well intended, but I would submit it's misguided.
There are fundamental feasibility concerns that have not been addressed.
And more importantly, incentives should be closely tied to financial decisions they aim to influence, not dependent on some future home sale that residents may never want to pursue.
So, I'd really urge the Council to consider a more immediate and effective alternative.
Provide annual rebates of Measure FF parcel tax up to some capped amount, say $3,000, to residents who undertake eligible wildfire mitigation actions.
These activities directly support Measure FF's stated goals, and such a rebate program would empower residents to act with real, timely incentives at no additional cost to the City.
This model mirrors the proven success of tax credits used to encourage adoption of solar and battery technologies and should seriously be considered in place of an uncertain and delayed transfer tax credit.
And by the way, this has been a really good hearing.
So, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is Nancy Gillette.
Good evening.
My name is Nancy Gillette.
I'm on the board of the Berkeley FireSafe Council, and I'm a retired forest service researcher.
I have a PhD in forest science from UC Berkeley.
I give my wholehearted support to EMBER, which was also endorsed by the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, the Berkeley FireSafe Council, the Berkeley Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, and the Berkeley FireWise community leaders along the Grizzly Peak Ridge, which is home to Berkeley's highest fire severity zone.
As a forestry professional, I've evaluated the science behind the Zone Zero from researchers focusing on WUI fires, and it clearly shows that home hardening, along with removing flammable materials, especially nearest our homes, gives real protection from EMBER attack.
Much information cited by the anti-EMBER citizens comes from a landscaping background rather than fire science, and it's really been greatly misrepresented on social media.
We all wish we could keep all of our beloved plants, but keeping the status quo is really just wishful thinking.
I urge the Council to trust the fire experts and support EMBER.
There's too much at stake to wait for the state.
I also want to thank Council members Blackaby, Humbert, and O'Keeffe for their extensive outreach and inclusion, and for our amazing fire department, which is at the vanguard of Bay Area Fire Experts.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is a phone number ending in 2-1-1.
Press star 6 to unmute.
We can hear you.
Press star 6 to unmute.
Phone number – yeah, there you go.
Okay.
Yeah, I have to give you a bit of history.
I lived in Euclid Avenue for decades.
History was, of course, present in Oakland Fire.
About 3,000 homes were destroyed in Oakland Fire.
Seventy-plus people were killed by the fire.
Then in 1923, Berkeley had a massive fire, massive fire.
It burned all the way from the hills all the way to Grove Street, which is in Berkeley now.
We have to be very careful.
The fact is we live in a fire zone, and we really have to be extremely careful.
By the way, Berkeley Fire Department played a big role in saving Berkeley from Oakland Fire.
They really did when the fire approached the Claremont Hotel.
I give all my thanks, all my appreciation.
Thank you, and have a good night.
Thank you.
Clerk, could you just give me a sense of how many hands are raised still? We have 10 hands raised still.
Thank you.
Next is Nancy Rader.
Good evening.
Yes, my name is Nancy Rader.
I'm a member of the Berkeley Fire Safe Council, which strongly supports the EMBR because the science clearly supports Zone Zero as part of a three-pronged strategy that also includes home hardening and removing hazardous vegetation.
EMBR is one leg of that three-legged stool that will meaningfully reduce the risk of our city burning down.
The city is working on all three, and the Fire Safe Council will continue to work with the Fire Department to achieve all three.
Many of the concerns I've heard tonight are overblown, based on misinformation, or show no concern for addressing the very real fire risk that we face.
Frankly, I'm reminded tonight of the modern crowd.
My home is already nearly compliant with EMBR because I got the memo watching California neighborhoods burn down year after year since 2016.
We thinned out our overgrown vegetation, replaced the climbing rose bush with ceramics, planted native flowers that are now buzzing with bees, and guess what? It looks a lot better now.
Neighbors, please recognize that climate change requires all of us to reimagine our yards, to retain our insurance, and protect our homes.
Let's be creative, not intransigent.
Fire Department, thank you.
Council Member Blackaby, thank you.
City Council, please adopt EMBR tonight to protect us all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Daniel Brownson.
And you rich people up in the hills sure are something.
Don't you know that your homes will be the first to burn? Was that the remainder of your comment? Okay, thank you for your comment.
Moving on.
All right, next is Cindy Simon-Rosenthal.
I should be able to unmute Cindy.
California neighborhoods burn down year after year since 2016.
We thinned out our overgrown vegetation, replaced the climbing rose bush with ceramics, planted native flowers that are now buzzing with bees, and guess what? It looks a lot better now.
Neighbors, please recognize that climate change requires all of us to reimagine our yards, to retain our insurance, and protect our homes.
Let's be creative, not intransigent.
Fire Department, thank you.
Council Member Blackaby, thank you.
City Council, please adopt EMBR tonight to protect us all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Interesting.
No, I think it's the same person, same voice, same comment.
Yeah, same cadence.
Okay, next is a phone number ending in 072.
Press star six to unmute.
Phone number, and there you go.
All right, cool.
Okay, so I just, I guess I wanted to respond to previous comments.
People who are against EMBR, they're not against fire safety.
I think we're asking for more thoughtful, evidence-based policy.
And then I guess my question would be, if it's so truly urgent that we cannot wait for the state, then why aren't fire lanes and evacuation routes being cleared, treated with the same urgency as EMBR? And then, oh sorry, I have some echo, but that's it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next is Susie Bailey.
Hi.
I have lived in Berkeley my entire life, and it's a long one now.
I've lived on the upper part of the hills for more than 70 years, and in our house on Muir Way for 57 years.
And I want to talk about the wind, because I don't think much has been said about that.
Our house is situated so Our house is situated so that the second story bedroom experiences the full force of the diablo winds that blow in the fall.
We look across at a eucalyptus grove in Tilden.
The wind slams against the side of our house, and it is beyond scary to think what could happen, not just to us, but to the entire city, if there were a fire in Tilden.
Those eucalyptus trees is where the EMBRs will come from, and probably also flaming pieces of bark.
I can't begin to tell you how scary it is to be in our bedroom and feel the force of that wind.
That's what's going to bring the fire to Berkeley, and that has been no, really no comment about that.
That's what happened in Pacific Palisades, and I watched it most of the night because I have a friend that lived there and her house burned.
Also, can we lean on the Park District to at least staff their fire departments for 24 hours a day? Your time is up, but thank you so much for your comment.
Next is Ken Bukowski.
Hi, I'm a former mayor of Emoryville.
First, I think you need to have a joint task force with the city of Oakland, because Berkeley isn't going to stand alone.
You need both cities to work together, and then secondly, I think you should join the county fire department.
I was instrumental in getting Emoryville to become the part of the county, and I think it'd be good for Berkeley and Oakland to do the same.
You have more resources available, and you'll save money.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, next we have Michael Goldhaber.
Pardon me, I'm here with my wife Karen, so I would like to have three minutes.
I want to say that I was originally extremely much taken with the apparent science provided by Ember, enough so that I had a tree cut down and other things done according with the plans of the fire safety zone.
But really, the problem is we are in a fire zone because of Tilden, and Tilden has planted a huge number of trees over the past 100 years.
Before that, it was quite barren, so we have to reconsider what our environment should be in the event as a result of global warming.
We in the zone near Tilden should not take the responsibility to redo our part of the house, our part of the city to provide a buffer.
It is Tilden that should be doing it primarily, and one has to think of all sorts of possible ways that that could be done.
There's no indication particularly that a fire will suddenly occur within the next year or two.
We have some time to reconsider and to be much more careful in how we go about doing things, given that the real danger is from the park, and the park doesn't have to be the way it is.
It has to be reconfigured, it has to be rethought, and there is a possibility also of imaginative solutions such as 50 or 100 foot tall screens blocking between the city and the park that would prevent embers from coming through.
They could be possibly put into place just in the case of high fire danger, so there are lots of possibilities that haven't even been considered.
Meanwhile, many people have barely five or ten feet on the sides of their houses, even up here in the hills, so they would be denuded of all plants, which would be a tremendous loss of aesthetic pleasure to them, and also of actual natural value.
None of that has been sufficiently considered in my view.
This is being rushed through with no need for such sudden urgency, simply because there was a fire in LA, and so I think Council Member Blackaby has moved much too fast and has not taken in careful criticism.
Sensibly, this plan should not be adopted today, and much further thought is needed.
There is time, there's no need to believe that after 100 years of no fire here, there will suddenly be one in the next year or two.
That simply does not make sense in terms of probabilities.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Gio.
Can you give us an update? Okay, thank you.
I strongly support fire safety measures, but I can't support Council's approval of the ember ordinance as proposed today.
Council's proposal to pass a legally problematic ember ordinance now with vague, non-binding recommendations to amend it later is irresponsible.
Council should recognize that it owes the highest duty of care to Berkeley residents to get ember right in the first place.
Why? As a law, ember is unprecedented.
It's far beyond a big ask, as Council Members have described it.
My neighbors and I can be charged with misdemeanor crimes and subjected to criminal and civil penalties and fees and fines and liens simply based on our address.
Responsible Council would not excuse a poorly designed criminal law with a wink and a nod to its discriminatory enforcement and its discretionary enforcement, particularly when so many of the ember provisions are also vague or hard to understand, and the cost of complying with ember can be formidable.
Finally, it's clear that many of my neighbors are exasperated with the City's largely dismissive attitude towards clarifying ember.
Neighbors have talked about legal action.
A CEQA lawsuit looks likely.
Ember is void for vagueness.
Ember is a regulatory taking.
Ember is discriminatory.
It violates equal protection.
I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thank you for your comment.
Next is Steven.
Hi, can you guys hear me? Yes.
Yes.
Oh, great.
Yeah, so I was at the meeting back in May where the Fire Department, you know, nicely answered a lot of questions for folks.
In that discussion, however, I think the Chief Fire, the Chief of Fire, I don't know what his name is, he even sort of hand-waved around the Zone 1, Zone 2 requirements.
Not part of ember, everybody's talking about Zone 0, but on a holistic scale, Zone 1 and Zone 2 make absolutely no sense, cutting down massive numbers of trees, and the Fire Department was like, oh yeah, that doesn't make sense for this space.
I mean, that would actually increase the risk of fire.
We need the shade from the trees.
What I'd ask you to think about is, if the other parts of defensible space are obviously counterintuitive, like they are actually making things worse, cutting down trees, increasing the amount of open, dry, arid land, accumulation of dry vegetation that can, while rapidly speed up wind-driven grass fires, then you have to think Zone 0 probably similarly is poorly informed, and the science is just really not there.
The evidence that has been generated was generated in like a shed, and you know, they've, oh well, we had a concrete walls, and we had a concrete house, and all this stuff, versus like a home that was basically like doused in gasoline, and they're like, oh well, all the plants near our thing, it lit the whole place on fire.
Zone 0 is a terrible plan.
Also, you shouldn't do criminal charges on people just because they don't want to cut down their trees.
Thank you.
Sorry, your time is up.
Um, that, that is it.
Okay, I'm sorry, were you saying something, Council Member? Oh, is there Cindy Rosenthal? Oh, well, we activated her previously, but.
Oh, perhaps she wasn't able.
Yeah, Cindy Simon-Rosenthal did have her hand up.
Cindy Simon-Rosenthal.
Uh, dry vegetation that can, uh, wild, uh, rapidly, uh, speed up, uh, driven.
I don't know why that's happening.
Yeah, there's something off with.
That's kind of freaky.
Zoom feed.
Okay, sorry, um, I'm sorry to the, to that person.
Um, does anyone have any questions before we, um, have a, make a motion to close the public hearing? I just want to make sure.
Okay, I move to close the public hearing.
Okay.
Second.
All right.
Okay, to close the public hearing, Council Member Kastarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traygo? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
We're now moving on to Council Comments.
Um, Council Member Blackabay.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Um, after the catastrophic fires in L.A.
County, our Fire Chief brought forward the Ember Proposal based on hard fire science to reduce the chances of similar tragedy taking place in our community.
The essence of the proposal, as we've talked about tonight, is Zone Zero, the creation of a non-flammable area zero to five feet around homes.
This zone has been shown to prevent flying embers, like we'd see from a wildfire in Tilden Park, from igniting houses and metastasizing into a windblown structure-to-structure conflagration.
The state legislature passed Zone Zero in 2020.
Implementation was delayed, but the science is solid, as is the backing from CAL FIRE and the state legislature.
Governor Newsom has since directed that the work to finalize Zone Zero regulations be completed by the end of this year.
Additionally, on March 1st, he issued a proclamation of a state of emergency due to catastrophic wildfire risk in California.
The very best scientific evidence from studies, experiments, and post-wildfire analysis tells us that Zone Zero, in conjunction with home hardening like screening attic vents and covering gutters, can have a significant impact in preventing an ember storm from turning into an urban conflagration.
This is not in dispute.
We're not rushing here.
This science was known before 2020 when the legislature passed AB 3074, but it takes courage and hard work to implement Zone Zero.
Of course we love our beautiful home landscapes.
Of course it is sad to see them go.
My family and I live in the Grizzly Peak mitigation area, as are many of the neighbors who've spoken here tonight on both sides of this issue so eloquently.
We're going to be doing this work.
Larry and I and our kids are already talking about the steps we need to take, which bushes to move, which lemon trees to trim, how to move our front path from the center of the yard over to alongside the house, the fence segments and gates that need to be replaced.
I acknowledge this is not easy, but climate change is real.
With hotter temperatures, stronger winds and episodes of drought, the probability of catastrophic fire increases.
Berkeley has had a serious fire on average every 20 years since 1905.
Our last fire, as the chief has told us, was over 33 years ago.
We're 10 years overdue.
Waiting to implement ember has real, real-life implications.
We need to get started.
We can't do this overnight, so the sooner we start, the sooner we reach the critical mass of participation we need to start providing neighborhood-wide benefits.
I want to thank the fire department, Chief Sprague, Chief Winokur, Chief Arnold, who unfortunately had another assignment tonight, for all their hard work crafting and refining the ember proposal, for participating in this public process.
It's been a tremendous amount of work, and their expertise has been critical to this effort.
I want to thank former Vice Mayor Wendegraff for her long leadership and all of her work and advocacy on fire safety, and personally for her support, her advice, and her friendship.
I want to thank some of the many groups that have endorsed ember, as we've heard tonight, the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, Berkeley Fire Safe Council, that's doing amazing work, the Berkeley Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, the Berkeley Firewise community leaders along Grizzly Peak Ridge, who are also doing amazing work in their own neighborhoods, and also Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who chairs the East Bay Wildfire Coalition.
I also want to thank everyone who participated in the ember discussions, both supporters and critics alike.
I hope people will see some of their critiques addressed in the item that Mayor Ishii, Council Member O'Keefe, and I have introduced to strengthen ember.
Even if you disagree with the final product, I want you to know that your criticism has been useful.
It's been constructive.
It's helped all of us to push and refine our thinking.
It's helped hold a mirror up to the proposal to see where we could improve it and make sure that it truly reflects the needs of our community.
And I hope and expect that you will continue to hold us and me accountable moving forward.
I also want to take a few more minutes to address other concerns expressed in this debate tonight.
First one we've heard, wait for the science.
Science is always evolving.
It will always improve with time.
Will it be better in six months? Yes.
Will the science be better in a year or two or five or ten? Absolutely.
But with the urgency of the risk that's hanging over us, we also have an urgent need to act, to start the transition that will take some time, but will get us to a better and safer place in the months ahead.
I believe the time is now to put our stake in the ground, to set the goal, and start moving forward.
And then, as Council Member Wendgraf and others have said, adapt and adjust as we continue to learn more along the way.
Why move now? Fire season's upon us.
We actually can have some marginal impact in the short term, but knock wood, if we can make it through this fire season, I'm most encouraged by the fact that we have 12 months until the next fire season.
We have time to make a significant dent between now and then and be much more prepared.
Further delay of three months or six months means we won't make much progress for at least two fire seasons, if not three.
And that does not meet the urgency of this moment.
On the public process concern, this is not the end of the public process.
There is a lot of process.
We will have more process.
We've talked about the working group on vegetation.
The fire department will be back with their implementation plan.
We will have additional fire code changes to review this fall.
We will be talking about financing.
There are many more checkpoints to go.
This is a conversation, it's a dialogue that will continue if we're going to be successful.
On the economics, we've talked a bit about the $1 million grant fund.
We know that's just the beginning to help residents who are age 65 plus and or have need more financial assistance.

Segment 10

I appreciate the commenter Jeff Lomax talking about the home hardening transfer tax credit.
I agree that we need to make it more actionable and make the money available now, and not just down the road when you sell your home.
We are in the process, the Public Safety Commission, sorry, Public Safety Policy Committee, of reviewing and looking at other options, securing those, and introducing those in the coming weeks.
This is crucial, I agree, this is crucial to getting this right.
On vegetation in Zone 0, I want to appreciate the science that's been shared with us.
I got the email with 150 pages of science.
I agree, and I've seen many studies that affirm the value of fire-resistant vegetation and trees in defensible space zones 30 and 100 feet away from homes.
I have not seen, to my knowledge, any studies that show positive or at least neutral value of that vegetation in Zone 0.
The margin for error on fire-resistant vegetation is very different 10 feet, 30 feet, or 100 feet from the home.
You have much higher risk in Zone 0, since under the right weather and wind conditions, plants can ignite.
We don't have a margin for error in Zone 0, and that's why I think we're being prudent in terms of what the fire department's recommending.
If the state changes their regulations, we can revisit ours.
We have the space to do that in the timeline, even while we start the education and guidance process this summer.
On home hardening, we do want to do home hardening, too.
Totally agree.
Vegetation management alone is only part of the solution.
We are encouraging that.
The fire department is encouraging that.
They're providing free mesh and gutter guards to help do it.
We've asked that as part of the implementation plan, that be communicated clearly and encouraged and incentivized alongside the vegetation management work that we're asking people to do.
As we've heard before, the building code does not permit us to mandate it, but we want to make sure that it's communicated clearly and is part of the package that comes to homeowners over the coming months.
Lastly, on regional partners, we agree.
Regional partners need to do more.
One of the things that my item does is require the department to report back to council at least twice annually with updates on the work that our partners are doing to foster more communication and collaboration.
In addition, Council Member O'Keefe, in the sunset looks great, serves on the East Bay Wildfire Coalition.
She's coordinating with partners.
I recently participated in a roundtable organized by Senator Grayson in Contra Costa County with colleagues in Oakland, Orinda, Moraga and other regional agencies.
We have to do more of that coordination, and we will.
That's very important to this solution.
On the misdemeanor point, just to be clear, we're moving the misdemeanor language from the code.
We don't want to criminalize this process.
We want to make this an education and participatory process.
So all set on balance.
I believe the time is right to move forward.
There's too much at stake to wait.
It's time to put our stake in the ground, set our goal and chart a course to meet it, and we can continue to adjust and refine as we move forward.
This is a journey that we have to take together.
Collective action is needed to meet the moment and address this threat.
The sooner we start, the sooner we will gain the broad participation we need to make our homes safer, make our neighborhoods safer and make our community safer.
So let's take that next step tonight, and let's look back next year and be glad that we did.
With that, I'd like to make a motion, three-part motion, that we adopt the fire code amendments in Item 43A, that we adopt the CAL FIRE map, the local Berkeley map in 43B, and that we also adopt the three-part referral in 43C.
Second.
Thank you.
Councilmember Lunapara.
Sorry, Councilmember O'Keefe, you're coming quite loud.
That's why we were all shocked.
Go ahead, Councilmember.
Thank you.
And I first want to say that I really, that I deeply appreciate the work of the fire department, the city manager, the fire chief and your entire team.
This work and diligent community outreach also would not have been possible without the work of Councilmember Blackabay and Mayor Ishii and their teams.
I continue to support these proposals, and I don't think there's much more that I can add that hasn't already been said.
But I do want to mention that I think there is something really philosophically beautiful in work like this.
Even though we are facing a symptom of existential climate threats and wildfires, our community will come together to protect the whole city by addressing and minimizing danger near our homes.
We will fortify not only the areas most vulnerable to wildfires, but also prevent those vulnerable areas from becoming tinder for a fire that we can no longer protect ourselves from.
In summary, a large or small group of us can sacrifice a small part of our lives and collectively put in the work and energy to ameliorate devastation in the rest of the city.
That kind of thought is fundamental in building and enhancing community and collectivism, and I'm proud to represent a city that is willing to champion those values.
Our team in the District 7 office has been gathering information and putting together a plan to help the group living housing, including cooperatives, fraternities, and sororities, and apartment buildings in the south side section of Zone 0 to comply with EMBER.
It's vital that all of us do our part, and I look forward to partnering with Councilmember Humber and the Fire Department and my constituents on this critical life-saving work.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Councilmember O'Keefe? Thanks.
I changed the settings on my microphone.
Am I still really loud? Kind of, but that's okay.
Sorry.
Okay.
It was already at the very wide end, so I'm not sure, but I'll try not to shout.
Thank you very much.
I am happy to support both the EMBER fire code amendments, as I did previously, as well as the supplemental item, of which I am a co-sponsor.
I want to acknowledge how much anger and fear there is in the community, and I understand the reasons for it well.
It's a big thing to change the rules in a way that has substantial impact on people's lives.
I promise you, I would not do this if I didn't genuinely believe it was in the strongest, best interest of our community.
The role we're all in up here carries a tremendous responsibility to ensure that our citizens and our homes are as safe as possible.
And this is no small order in a city built on an active earthquake fault, perched on the edge of the wildland-urban interface on the business end of the Diablo-Winds-Each Fault.
I feel this tremendous responsibility, and I carry it with extreme care and thoughtfulness.
I firmly believe, after talking to experts and looking at alternatives for many, many months now, that moving in this direction is the right thing to do for our city, and for all of you, especially those of you in the Hills, which by the way includes my own parents.
Furthermore, I feel it's important that we pass it tonight, and not wait.
Climate change is here, and it's getting worse and not better.
There could be a wildfire event later this summer or fall, and unfortunately it's not realistic to make these changes before then.
But I believe that if we pass this, and just as importantly, take these new regulations seriously, and have sufficient community buy-in to fully implement them, we could go into the 2026 fire season with the best protection available to us at this time.
Waiting puts us at greater risk, and I am a no to choosing greater risk.
I know that we're asking a lot.
I know this will mean a huge transformation for many homes and for neighborhoods in the very high fire zones.
I see that.
And we're doing what we can to mitigate that impact, both financial and logistical, and we'll continue to do more.
And I hope this implement represents a strong first step in that process.
I also know that this alone will not protect our neighborhoods from destruction.
That is not the correct analysis.
Think of this more like mandating seatbelts.
Will a seatbelt guarantee you won't be injured in a car accident? No.
There's drunk drivers.
There's all kinds of things out of your control.
But it is an excellent safety intervention, and the government was right to mandate it many decades ago, even though people did not like that.
It was the right thing to do.
We kept people safe.
In sum, I understand the concerns, but I'm sorry.
I am here to make the tough calls to keep my community safe.
And the call I'm making tonight is to adopt these measures.
Lastly, I really want to thank Councilmember Blackabee for his strong and honestly inspirational leadership on this issue.
Brent, you and I have been on council for the exact same amount of time.
I was trying to remember who was sworn in first.
I can't.
We'll say it.
And I've already learned so much from you.
It's been a real honor to play a supporting role on this project with you, and I just want to give you the loudest and strongest possible shout out for all the hard work that you've done.
And I also want to thank our fire department leadership, Chief Sprague, Arnold, and Whitaker, who I know understand all too well the weight of responsibility to protect the community.
So I'll be supporting the item.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Sorry.
Can we go back to five minutes? I was just giving.
Thank you.
Councilmember Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I want to thank you first.
Thank you to the fire department for your Herculean.
Am I saying that right? Herculean efforts to keep Berkeley residents and neighborhoods safe.
Chief Sprague, Arnold, and Whitaker, and your staff.
Despite the disagreements we've heard here in this room, I really think all of us share the goal of making sure we are prepared for wildfires and that we need to take steps to prevent them from becoming urban conflagrations.
We have a wonderful fire department.
I'm really grateful.
I also want to thank Councilmember Blackaby and his staff for their tireless efforts on this proposal and all their work to engage the community, which has been really substantial.
Councilmember Blackaby's performance in this regard, I agree with Councilmember O'Keefe, has been inspirational.
Thank you.
I also want to thank Councilmember Blackaby's predecessor, Councilmember Wengraf, for all of her work on fire safety.
She set the stage.
I think that taking more time to hear people's thoughts and concerns was the right thing to do, and I believe that Councilmember Blackaby's item substantively addresses key aspects of the feedback we've received and creates a process for further review and revision.
I appreciate that.
I made my pitch in favor of the department's ember measure during its first reading, and I remain firmly in support of it.
The science is clear.
To me, Zone Zero is an effective way to help limit or at least slow the spread of ember-induced fire to give the fire department a chance to intervene.
I've looked over the articles and studies sent to us by those who are generally opposed to Zone Zero requirements.
While there may be specific instances with the appearance of vegetation having a protective effect down in the fire zones, the weight of evidence remains that removing vegetation within the first five feet of structures is the superior option overall and much more reliably prevents structure ignition.
To make another seatbelt analogy, just because there are some instances where someone was not wearing a seatbelt but was thrown clear with that injury does not mean it is a good idea generally to forego wearing seatbelts.
We've seen the devastation wrought by such fires as our climate rapidly warms, maybe exponentially.
We saw it several years ago in Santa Rosa in the Tubbs Fire, where embers blew way ahead of the main firestorm across 101 and ignited houses.
We saw it in Maui with so many tragic deaths and the utter destruction of so many homes.
Just this January, the Eaton Fire in Altadena killed, I think, at least 18 people and destroyed 9,000-plus buildings.
The Palisade Fire killed 12 people and destroyed 6,000-plus buildings.
This likely will be our future if we don't take strong and substantive steps to prevent it.
I know these are difficult and potentially significant changes, but the weight of the evidence that I've seen and the potential consequences in my mind compel us to act in the highest risk areas of Berkeley and to act there first.
As drastic as this may seem, the fact that we are constraining the application of these requirements to such a limited area at this time means we're actually taking a more incremental approach than we otherwise could or perhaps should.
I intend to support all three of these items tonight and look forward to working with the Fire Department, the City Manager's Office, and my fellow Councilmembers and the eventual Review Committee to fine-tune these requirements and move forward with public education, implementation, and support for the homeowners who need it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Just taking a look at the clock, it's 10.50, so I'd like to see if there's a motion to extend our meeting until 11.30 just to give us buffer.
So moved.
Okay, thank you.
Could you take the roll, please, Clerk? To extend the meeting to 11.30, Councilmember Kesarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trago? Yes.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humber? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to Councilmember Trago.
Thank you.
Like all before me, I first would like to thank our fire chiefs and our fire department for engaging in months of meetings with us and the community, sharing this proposal, iterating it, receiving feedback, iterating it some more.
I would like to applaud in the strongest terms Councilmember Blackabay and his staff for their incredible diligence and commitment to making sure every voice is heard.
Councilmember, you truly went above and beyond.
And I was just looking at one of the appendices in 43C, the sheer number of public engagement processes has been second to none compared to anything I've ever seen from this or previous councils.
Truly, kudos.
And I would like to also thank former Councilmember Susan Van Graff for her incredible leadership over many years to help us get to the point where we are tonight.
The amendments offered today clearly reflect and address many of the concerns that our District 4 team and I have heard.
And as Councilmember Blackabay said, there is more work to do.
I've heard suggestions to increase the appeal time, to look at rebates and potentially use Measure FF, the fire version of it, not the infrastructure version of it.
And given what we've seen so far, I know that that iterative, very collaborative process of community and stakeholder engagement will continue.
As an engineer, I believe in science.
To me, all the evidence presented in support of this legislation is very convincing.
Defensible space, home hardening, removing vegetation.
AMBER helps us get on its way to doing all of this.
I spent almost 13 years in the nuclear safety field.
When I had questions about fire progression, I would consult with experts, the fire protection engineers and the first responders.
Nothing has scared me more than seeing footage of fire progression, wildfire progression.
And this is exactly what AMBER seeks to mitigate and shield us against.
I also think a lot about a formative experience in my youth when I was living just below some hills and a fire came within 150 feet of our home.
I think about when I visited the town of Paradise after everything was burned, thinking about the eerie images.
It will never leave my memory.
And I think about in January, traveling down to Southern California to hear a forum for elected officials around wildfire mitigation.
A panel that included a colleague of mine on a school board who lived in Pasadena who lost his home.
He urged us at that meeting to act and to act soon.
And tonight, I intend to do exactly that by voting in support of this proposal along with Council Member Blackerby's proposed amendments.
In a few months, we can reassess and see how it's working and what may need to be adjusted.
But the time to act is now, and I look forward to doing so today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Right away, first of all, I want to thank Chief Sprague and the team for incredible work.
And of course, my colleague, Council Member Blackerby.
Amazing, diligent work.
I guess this is what you're talking about, these meetings you had up there, what was going on.
Well, I should have been there for you.
I'm sorry.
And the mayor, thank you so much as well.
And Council Member O'Keefe.
And Council Member Wingraff, good to see you, former vice mayor.
The original former vice mayor.
That's Wingraff.
Good to see you.
You know, I do want to say this to the neighbors who showed up.
I definitely, absolutely was impressed by your conviction.
I learned a lot from what you said.
And your data points were persuasive and informative.
And also, it's good to see you come out.
I like to see people engaged in the process of the city.
Anything that gets you out the house, I support.
I will say this.
You know, and it's been said before throughout the night, this night, in terms of perfection versus moving things forward.
You know, a good friend of mine lost his house in the L.A.
fire recently.
And a few friends, but one close friend.
And his house was engulfed by his neighbor's house, which was surrounded with lots of shrubbery.
And much of what we're envisioning here tonight, problematic growth near his house, between his house.
And eventually the wind blew the whole house onto his house, essentially.
And it became just a fireball and got out with him and his wife, their lives, essentially.
So, I mean, that being said, you know, as much as we'd like to get this right, I don't see in good conscience how we could gamble with your lives, anyone else's, by voting to delay.
What essentially is a common sense measure.
And to that end, though, I do pledge to support you and help you as our community comes together to figure this out.
And the additive points, how do you pay for it? How do you do the home hardening? How can we engage the East Bay Regional Parks District to thin out some of that jungle right next to you? I give my support.
And I thank you for coming.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember.
Oh.
Thanks.
Yes.
Yeah.
Vice Mayor.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you to the public commenters who shared their their opinions with us tonight.
And thank you to Councilmember Blackaby for your leadership on this.
I know what it is to lead on a tough issue for your district.
So I want to recognize that.
Also, I want to recognize Councilmember O'Keefe and our mayor and former Councilmember Wengraf.
I know you were all involved in these meetings to engage the public and, you know, answer legitimate questions about how people can adapt to this.
This threat that we face.
And so I want to thank you all.
And I especially want to recognize our fire chief and all and all of the members of our fire department to, you know, we could have sort of buried our heads in the sand after what happened in L.A.
But instead, we took this very courageous step to think about how we could be a more resilient community and be prepared, not if this happens to us, but when it does.
Right.
We know that this is going to happen eventually.
So we need to be prepared.
And I want to appreciate everyone who shared.
And I just want to recognize I think Councilmember Lunabata spoke to this.
You know, there's it's really a beautiful thing to see, you know, homeowners who know that they will be personally impacted, saying they are in support of this, that they want to make this sacrifice and that we are all going to benefit because of it.
There will be a collective benefit for our whole city.
You know, none of us on this dais we we represent our little districts, different areas of the city, but none of us wants to see any part of our city face the kind of devastation and destruction that we have seen just now, basically time and time again because of our changing climate.
So so I think this is very important.
We don't want to look back and say what we could have done and what we should have done.
You know, we need to do those things as promptly as possible.
And and I appreciate what what I'm hearing about, you know, continuing to iterate and improve and look for ways for us to help homeowners, because I think that's all important if we're going to proceed on this together.
So I'm ready to vote and thank you all again so much.
Council member tackling.
Thank you.
It's all been said, but I wanted to join my remarks and and.
Concur with the force said, and I really wanted to commend customer Blackaby for tackling a major issue.
Right out the gate, and really thank him and his office staff for their diligence and hard work responding to thousands of emails.
Holding countless town halls, really responding to all the questions, concerns and criticisms and incorporating.
Incorporating all the feedback, and I want to thank our fire department, our fire chief and his team and also the mayor and I.
Want to acknowledge that this isn't just something that affects the hills.
I think it's the responsibility of all of us to take this issue seriously and combat wildfire.
And I'm ready to vote.
Thank you.
I just have some comments before we take our vote.
I want to say that we can't be afraid to take action because an issue is contentious, especially when lives are at risk.
This isn't about being 1st.
We're fighting for this because we believe in the Ember plan because we are listening to our experts.
Our fire department are our experts on this issue, and we're listening to our cities, our city attorney's office, our current city attorney who we trust.
We trust in their analyses and their interpretation of the law.
We trust the science that you're bringing to us and the hard work that you've done.
So I want to thank you to the chief to fire department to council member Blackaby for your leadership.
I have really seen him bend over backwards and do everything really put a lot of himself into trying to make this work and to make sure folks feel comfortable and heard.
I really just respect that.
It just it means a lot when you take the time, even when people are yelling and screaming at you to listen.
And so I just really want to thank you for that and your leadership and your staff, your amazing staff who has done so much work.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Also, of course, the council member O'Keeffe and to Humbert as well for working with us to answer questions and address concerns with the fire department.
Thank you all.
This is really a community effort.
I just want to emphasize that here.
Even at the end of the vote today, we're still a community and we need to be able to work together on this.
So I want to appreciate everyone who's engaged with us at these different events.
I want to thank everyone who came out, those who agree and those also who disagreed.
I want to thank the fire safe council, fire wise communities, neighbors, everyone who's already implementing zone zero and home hardening measures on their properties.
And just for folks that are still concerned, I really do hear you.
I hear your concerns.
And we have really tried to take them into account, especially in council member Blackabee's item that I'm also co-sponsoring.
I just want to briefly address CEQA concerns because I know that a few folks have brought that up.
The city has reviewed Ember and the interplay between this action and environmental laws.
We're confident in the city council's determination that Ember is exempt from CEQA.
When an action is determined to be exempt from CEQA, no environmental review is required.
We're sensitive to the voices in the community and the concerns about how Ember will impact the environment and believe that this action is protective of the environment, not detrimental to it.
This ordinance is not about evading environmental review.
It's about using the right tools already built into the law to help mitigate the impacts of catastrophic fires.
To reiterate, this is an action necessary to prevent or mitigate an emergency and is exempt from CEQA.
I also want to just say this is a both-and, not-an-or issue.
Of course, we want our neighboring cities and neighboring jurisdictions to do more.
We are working on that 100%.
It would be ridiculous if we were just doing this ourselves and not including those around us.
This is 100% a regional issue.
And I really want to also address the concerns around affordability.
We're working on securing this funding.
We've already got some funding that's available.
You've already heard Council Member Blackaby speak to this.
I don't want to go into it too much.
But I just want to say also that my office is absolutely committed to supporting people in doing this work.
We've talked about Berkeley Corps.
Some of you may have heard that we're working on an effort to combine all of these different groups that are already doing great work and having us be better coordinated so that we can work together to mitigate these issues and these concerns.
We are one community at the end of the day.
And I just want to thank you all so much.
I really appreciate you taking the time.
So, all right.
And with that, thank you.
And with that, City Clerk, if you could take the roll, please.
Okay.
To approve Item 43A with the amendments from the City Attorney's Office, the supplemental material from the City Attorney's Office, and also the revisions that the Chief had laid out earlier.
And then also Item 43B, the CAL FIRE map.
And Item 43C, the EMBER implementation plan from Council Member Blackaby.
We will call the roll.

Segment 11

Councilmember Kesarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Very proudly, yes.
Bartlett? What was that motion again? Just kidding, just kidding.
It was way too long.
Yes.
Councilmember Tregub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Aye.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunaparra? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Okay, so I just want to check and see if anyone here had come to speak to the items that we're moving to the 24th, because I want to give folks time to speak to those items.
That was, okay, sorry, let me go back to my notes here.
Those are items 33, 37, 40, or 41, the fire permit inspection fees, selected marina fee increases, concealed carry fee schedule, or the public works transportation permit fees.
Anyone here to speak to that? Anyone online? No.
Okay, and is there any non-agenda public comment remaining? There's no raised hands.
Okay, well, in that case, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Second.
Okay, to adjourn the meeting, Councilmember Kesarwani? Yes.
Councilmember Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Tregub? No, just kidding, aye.
O'Keefe? Councilmember O'Keefe, to adjourn? Yes.
Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunaparra? Yes.
Humbert? Aye.
Yes.
Wonderful.
Thank you all.
Thank you so much.
Mahalo, everybody.
Thank you.
Councilmember O'Keefe, enjoy your vacation.
Thanks, everyone.