OpenCityCouncil

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Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

Councilmember Terry Kesarwani, Cecilia Lunaparra, Mark Humbert, Cecilia Lunaparra, Mark Humbert, Cecilia Lunaparra, Cecilia Lunaparra, Jesse Arreguin, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Mark Humbert, Cecilia Lunaparra, Mark Humbert, Cecilia Lunaparra, Mark Humbert, Jesse Arreguin, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Jesse Arreguin, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Jessie Lunaparra, Mark Humbert, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Jesse Arreguin, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Jesse Arreguin, Mark Humbert, Terry Taplin, Jesse Arreguin, Walker Aberaud, Sara Baizer, Jesse Taplin, Aleks Nashault, Sara Baizer, Warren Bam experiência, Marc Bomary, Russell Bell, Kerry Pratt, Stephen Strachan, Mark Rowe, Fulton Dunne, Nathan endless.
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Segment 5

I'd like to start by saying that I don't know that fire staff in the collaborative relationship that we have with BW have specifically denied the installation of traffic control devices.
There's a collaborative effort that tries to solve the problem when a design comes through that doesn't meet the fire department standards, where there's concerns.
So I'd like to start by saying that I don't know that fire staff in the collaborative relationship that we have with BW have specifically denied the installation of traffic control devices.
So I'd like to start by saying that I don't know that fire staff in the collaborative relationship that we have with BW have specifically denied the installation of traffic control devices.
I watched that play out in my neighborhood, so thank you for that.
So appendix C states where a fire hydrant is located on a fire apparatus road, the minimum road width shall be 26 feet.
Can you speak to the, I mean, my apologies for, you did respond to a lot of this already, but can you restate the operational basis for each scenario and why this is necessary for apparatus responding to fire? Yeah, the two major categories that we see in Berkeley are 20 feet adjacent to a fire hydrant.
And then when buildings reach a certain height, so generally over three stories or around 30 feet, that's called out in appendix D.
There's also a provision in appendix D that has to do with high pile storage, which we don't really have that situation in Berkeley happen that often.
That would be another scenario that would come into play.
Thank you.
And my last two questions are pretty similar, so I'll just sort of ask a combined version of it.
But as you stated, 503 and appendix C were adopted in 2008.
And despite that, several traffic calming, bike pedestrian facility and other roadway projects have been completed.
Can you speak to the collaborative process that does take place regarding each project? And similarly, in some of the communications, the council leading up to tonight, there seem to be at times an intimation that by repealing 503 and appendix C, the department would no longer play a role in determining roadway changes.
Can you elucidate how projects would be evaluated were we to repeal those? Yeah, so first the design review process that's managed by Public Works Transportation.
So they're really the experts on that process, but I can speak from our experience as a stakeholder in that process.
So when a when a transportation project is proposed, actually, it starts off almost always meeting most of our standards, because the transportation engineers are familiar with what we're looking for, what AC Transit's looking for, what Public Works Refuse is looking for.
So usually the initial designs are pretty close to compliant with all those standards.
But there's a series of designs that come to fire and other stakeholders through that design review process.
And comments are there's either discussion and comments given and then written feedback from us to Public Works on a summary document in that conversation and what we would like to see modified in order for that project to move forward.
The engineers make revisions and then the next iteration of that design comes back to all the stakeholders and additional comments are made if necessary.
So on and so forth.
I think that happens about three times for each project.
And then and then the project moves forward to implementation.
The second part of your question.
So if 503 and Appendix D were removed, what would that process look like? It's really a question for Public Works, but my assumption is one, the process would look largely similar.
Primarily because we would still have the responsibility to enforce that minimum roadway width that's found in CCR Title 19.
And because there's not that I can think of times where we have said you cannot build that traffic control device.
I don't think that relationship would largely largely change its collaborative.
We work together to get projects through as they're as they're proposed and dropped into the process.
Answer your questions.
Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Councilmember Bartlett.
Oh, thank you.
And, of course, again, as always, thank you for excellent work.
You are definitely the preeminent public safety people in our region around fire for sure.
Thank you.
And so this upgrade and this this I guess the adaptation, the people are kind of surprised why the change is happening now.
Right.
And I understand there's the fire chief is involved with the fire marshals involved with incorporating state law.
And there's other issues like that.
Is that what's happening? This is no change from how the code has been adopted in previous years.
This language has been included since 2008.
If there's a specific situation you're talking about, I could maybe respond to that.
OK, yeah, I'm talking about the I guess real let's get cut to the quick here.
Juneteenth.
OK, so what are these changes mean for Juneteenth? It's not a change, but what we did request during this special events process was, well, one staff from multiple departments are concerned about the safety of participants of that event in its current location.
They, you know, there was a request to have the event move several blocks.
Obviously, there is a lot of displeasure with that.
And the conversation we had recently with the city manager and the mayor was that that event can continue to move forward as long as they provide a fire lane as they did this year, which is a minimum of 20 feet to provide access if an emergency occurs in the event or in buildings adjacent to the event.
OK, so again, thank you.
So the fire lane that that they provided last year, I didn't notice it.
I guess it's OK to continue.
They're here.
OK, well, thank you.
We'll follow up later.
Thank you.
Any other questions? OK, public comment on this item.
Sorry, mayor, I have questions.
Oh, yes.
Sorry.
You have questions.
Apologies.
Go ahead.
Council member.
Thank you.
And thank you to the fire department for being willing to answer questions.
Thank you.
First, can you clarify if the 26 foot clear with adjacent to hydrants and appendix D applies to just right next to the hydrant or the whole street? Yeah, 20 feet on each side of hydrant.
How does BFD determine if a traffic calming device will delay response to the degree that BFD would not approve it? Or what is the fire department's general approach to those conversations? Generally, these come in the form of an entire project design.
So we evaluate the whole project in its totality.
But generally speaking to kind of specifically answer your question from prior testing we've done where we're running fire apparatus over primarily speed ups, different, different designs.
We know that they generally add about 10 seconds per device to the response just because the trucks have to slow down, obviously.
So that's a general answer.
And we're doing a specific analysis right now to try to have a more broad idea based on all the different TCDs that are on the menu to understand what are the impacts of all those different devices.
So we can be a little more specific and actually have some more scientific data than just running apparatus with a stopwatch over these different devices.
So that is hopefully going to be done sometime in 26.
Okay, thank you so much.
Also, I have a question about what counts as a mountable barrier or flex post that is considered as part of the minimum width requirement.
Does BFD consider areas separated by these barriers as clear width for the purposes of determining whether a street meets minimum width requirements? And if there's a policy or practice, is it documented somewhere? There's not a policy or practice on this, but generally, you're correct.
It would largely be dependent on what type of barrier it is.
And but also there could be a number of other factors that would be specific to each project.
So one example is, is the roadway that these are being installed in a primary response route that's used multiple times a day for emergency response and is crossing the barrier something that would be necessary on many of those responses because traffic in the travel lanes couldn't pull over due to parked cars or other other immovable obstructions.
And if that were the case, that might be something we would not consider.
But if it's on a not a primary response route and the primary purpose of that space would be to during a fire event or another complex emergency where vehicles are infrequently using that space for deployment of outriggers.
Yeah, absolutely.
We would consider that space as part of the required width.
Yeah, thank you.
Can fully or partially pedestrianized streets meet clear with requirements? Like, is there a possibility to design streets that are that do meet this with the clear with requirements and would street furniture and other movable elements be acceptable in or near the clear zones.
So our understanding based on what we've seen in other jurisdictions is that there are some type of barriers that each end that are retractable bollards things we can drive over the things that can be easily move that are going to delay us from getting into that area.
And within the pedestrian zone, there needs to be an unobstructed fire lane of 20 feet.
It could also double as bike lanes, but there cannot be furniture or other things that have to be moved out of the way in that 20 foot fire line.
And I should say, council member, we're always open to creative ideas that people find in other jurisdictions and be able to evaluate if those would work here.
Awesome.
I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
I have a question about specifically, can you explain what a fire department feedback was incorporated into the street design because there are narrow areas between concrete bike lane barriers that are less than 20 feet and wider areas are still below 20 or under 26 feet.
And can you explain why these are not subject to the 26 feet foot rule when there are taller buildings on the street? Yeah, so unfortunately, everybody who worked on that project on our team is retired.
But in kind of quickly looking at, I mean, we're familiar with that street, of course, and looking at the surrounding areas, I think there could be a variety of things that influence that decision.
For example, all those buildings have fire apparatus access roads that are in the campus courtyard.
There's the parking lot, so there's other access points to those buildings.
There's also potentially the consideration of what was built on the east side, which is two parking lots at the moment.
If those were potentially going to become tall buildings, then there might need to be a reevaluation of that street layout.
The fire marshal could have also considered the public benefit that the project would bring.
That's a high traffic area with thousands of students crossing it every day and also completing the bike boulevard.
So there also could have been a consideration of the public benefit, and the fire marshal has the ability to, in certain circumstances, to not require 26 feet.
And that's their decision to make.
Okay, but there's no kind of policy that dictates what public benefit could mean.
No, and that's my interpretation of what might have happened without having the notes.
Okay, I understand.
Thanks.
And then my last question is how to clear with requirements affect parking in areas in the hills that have also taller structures or in streets in Southside and downtown.
So, throughout the city, there's a number of streets that are existing and nonconforming.
So, just like structures and the building code, we don't apply the fire code retroactively to streets that are nonconforming.
Our goal is generally to not create additional streets that are not meeting the standards.
Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you.
I also I had a question for the city clerk because I was a little confused about the second reading situation because we have in the past adopted second readings a week after first readings.
And from my understanding, we have also done it in special meetings, but I could be wrong about that.
Do you mind just clarifying? Right, so the adoption of the fire code and the building code has very unique requirements in the government code for how it's adopted.
Like, the first reading can be on consent, but then the second reading is a public hearing.
That's obviously very different than how we do most ordinance amendments.
And in the government code, there are specific noticing requirements for the second reading public hearing.
It has to be published twice with at least five days in between the two notices.
And then the 14 day noticing period starts when the first notice is published.
So that's when we figured all that into the calendar.
That's how we came up with the December 26 date would be the earliest possible time you could have a public hearing for a new second reading.
Got it.
Thank you so much.
Those are all my questions.
Thanks.
I also realized, did you want to present your settlement or do you want to wait till? Yeah, yeah, I think I, I want to I want to express which I did already, but I want to get express my gratitude to the Berkeley fire department for their amazing work.
I want to emphasize that the goal of the supplemental was not intended to overrule or override the fire department, but it said to encourage and invite more dialogue about some of the challenges and apprehension about certain aspects of the fire code and its enforcement.
And I want to frame the supplemental as not a struggle between competing priorities, but an example of how we can come together to find a solution that we can all trust in and hearing from community members and diving into the code myself.
So I want to start with my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my.
I'm I'm going to start with myself or you wrote this supplemental, which proposes to pass everything as proposed, except for.
Appendix D section 1 0 5.2, which governs with requirements on streets with tall buildings.
I think we need to have a further conversation about how best to proceed.
And incorporating maybe some of the elements of of the supplemental.
I think there's that the way that especially the 26 foot rule.
I think that the fact that.
That that.
Has been.
Enforced differently at different periods of time has I think led to a lot of confusion and I think it would be great that we would if we adopted a code that we are all fully.
We're not going to be able to.
We're not going to be able to have.
Very complicated pieces of this of this code, but I hope that we can figure out a way forward.
Yeah, so I know I was explaining it very quickly and there were a lot of words so I wanted to say that basically I've been having conversations with the city manager about this and that he's agreed to work with staff on a on transportation design standards to address this lack of of I would say murkiness I will say murkiness about this 26 foot rule when it applies and how it applies because I know we've had multiple issues specifically with the telegraph fair and also with Juneteenth and just some confusion.
And so, you know, the city manager and I both feel that this this would help address those concerns and also would, of course, involve community participation conversations about concerns that the community would have.
So that way, you know, they can understand it.
And that I've committed to preparing a referral for the January 20th, Berkeley City Council meeting to formally request this action.
Can I ask a question.
Yeah, this is question period around.
This would not just be only for festivals, but also for yes design right also for design.
I'm sorry.
Yes.
And to address the fact that that there are some concerns around safety changes that would be made to the street and how that might impact things.
So, you know, really making sure it's clear that we're all on the same page.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
I apologize for leaving that out.
That's very important.
And Council Member Humber, did you have questions? I did, although I think one of them I only had to was answered by the chiefs in response to one of Council Member Luna Paris questions.
I think I want to thank you all for being here for your presentation, for answering our questions and for the incredible good work that you do on a daily basis.
It's it's heroic work and I'm very grateful.
I want you to know that I'm I continue to be just very, very concerned about traffic violence, about the deaths and injuries that are happening on our streets.
That's one of the reasons why I joined Council Member Luna Parra and her supplemental.
And that's from where that's the place that my questions are coming from.
And so the first question is, you know, I just want I just want to understand or sort of lift up publicly the data about how many people are killed and injured on our streets and traffic violence versus how many people are killed or injured in structure fires.
So could you answer, you know, could you give me the data on that, you know, with a comparison? Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I, you know, oftentimes we find ourselves in this position of having these conversations.
It's paramount to me that everybody understands that we also really struggle with the number of traffic incidents that occur on our streets.
I mean, we're the ones that see all this stuff first hand and experience the trauma of people maimed and dying in the back of the ambulance in front of us.
It's horrible.
So to answer your question directly, and then I'll give a little more context, we did a quick scan of the last five years structure fire data last five years, there's been six fatalities and 54 injuries.
The challenge with that is that that data doesn't capture the number of people that were removed from that incident before they were injured or doesn't capture.
Modern fires grow so rapidly and that doesn't capture what could have happened if it had taken us another minute, two minutes, three minutes to establish fire track and fires could have spread from the room of origin to the whole structure or the primary structure to the neighboring structure.
So it's really difficult to quantify the negative kind of what didn't happen and what was prevented.
And if we're going to have a conversation about numbers, we all have to remember 60% of the call volume that we run are medical emergencies.
That's almost 7000 patients transported per year.
About 1500 of those patients get a critical intervention.
So that's a something that is life altering medication, bleeding control CPR.
And of those 1500 people, about 800 a year, 750 a year of transported code through the hospital, meaning that time is even after the critical intervention, time is still of the essence.
And so if we're going to talk about numbers, then those people also have to be considered.
And that's that's why that's the primary reason that you see us advocating is we have this experience with people.
Thousand a thousand people, 1500 people a year that are in these life threatening positions and worried that the outcome is going to be worse as it takes longer to get to the scene and for the ambulance to get from the scene back to the hospital.
So that's an important thing that is always left out of this conversation when we're comparing traffic violence to fire fatalities and injuries.
Right.
Do you have.
But having said all that, and I understand that and that's all legitimate.
Do do you have any data on the number of people killed and injured on our streets during the same period? It's not something that we track.
I think that's something that you Vision Zero tracks.
OK, but I'm familiar with the general numbers and they're more significant.
Right.
And the numbers that you mentioned with respect to fires, with respect to fires, but not for the emergency medical incidents.
Correct.
I appreciate that.
The other one.
And this is the one I think that you may have answered, although my question is a little bit different.
If it's important to maintain the 26 foot rule as opposed to the state 20 foot rule.
Why isn't that rule the 26 foot rule being applied to the narrow streets in the hills, but to remove parking from those roadways? There are three story buildings, at least on many blocks in the hills, I think, not all of them, but many of them.
The same situation, the same situations could apply there.
Yeah, it's the answer I provided before, which was there are many streets, both in the hills and in the flats that are existing and nonconforming.
And just like the building code, when there's a change to the building code, we don't go and retroactively apply that to the entire city.
So we don't retroactively apply the street width to existing nonconforming streets anywhere in the city.
It's when there's a modification to structures along that roadway that necessity that it would trigger the requirement for or the need for 26 foot.
And there's also a huge difference in a single family or a duplex, a fire in a duplex or a single family home versus a four story, five story apartment building with 100 occupants and fires on the fourth floor.
It's just a completely different type of response, different type of firefighting.
Yeah, no, thank you.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I appreciate that response.
So if somebody built a new three story building in the hills, you might require the removal of parking adjacent to that building.
Is that right? Potentially, we'd have to, of course, look at that when the permit was applied.
Okay.
Thank you.
Those are my questions.
I appreciate your answers.
Thank you, Council Member.
Council Member Trago.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
You mentioned that there are some, I think I'm probably using the wrong term, but travel routes or high frequency routes that emergency response uses.
Is there a list of such routes documented somewhere? We have a map that was just produced as part of a study we're doing this year.
It's based on a pretty limited data set.
I think response is collected over three days.
But from our analysis, looking at it, it looks pretty accurate.
We'd like to collect more data to make sure that it's really representative.
But we do have a map that we can share.
I would welcome that.
I don't need it in order for me to decide on tonight's vote.
But I think it would be valuable.
Could it provide a certain level of fidelity around, say, two parallel streets? Let's take the Milvian-Shattuck case, where maybe if whatever determination was made around the dedicated bike lanes that are protected for a fine there, maybe Shattuck would be used as the travel avenue.
Does the map provide a minimum set of routes for emergency responders? The map clearly shows by width of line how many times a fire vehicle traveled to an emergency along specific routes.
That's what it's showing is the routes that our drivers are using most frequently.
Of course, that's going to change as the city changes, because our drivers are very familiar with every block of the city.
If something makes it more difficult to get through one location, they're going to start to find other routes.
That can obviously impact how long it takes us to travel.
I had another question.
You mentioned your best hypothesis around the Milvian determination that it was fine to have protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.
Is there essentially a catch-all statement of overriding determination that a fire chief or a fire marshal can make? That the public interest essentially is such that it is worth putting in additional devices to slow down traffic and protect pedestrians, bicyclists, and bike-owned buildings.
I'm not following your question.
You said that your best guess was that someone made a determination that the treatments on Milvia were fine because of some kind of overriding determination for the betterment of the public.
That was sufficient to go below 26 feet.
I think my question is, how commonplace is it to make such a determination? That was one of three things I listed as potential reasons.

Segment 6

Segment 7

Councilmember Lunaparra, I urge the Council to support the city's historic downtown areas.
Oakland requires 20 feet, San Jose requires 20 feet, Hayward requires 20 feet, San Francisco requires 14 feet.
Clearly, our neighboring cities are able to make this work, and we should be able to as well.
I urge the Council to support Councilmember Lunaparra's supplemental.
Thank you.
Next, Nancy Rader.
Good evening.
Nancy Rader speaking on behalf of the Berkeley Fire Safe Council tonight.
The Council urges you to adopt the fire code update tonight as proposed.
The updated code will ensure that all traffic calming street infrastructure is reviewed for impacts on emergency response, including early response to wildfire emissions and thousands of emergency medical calls annually.
As the mayor noted and the chief explained, these standards have been in place since 2008, and the city has approved all kinds of new street infrastructure and street fares while keeping everyone safe.
Every single person in Berkeley benefits from fast emergency response where every minute, if not every second, counts.
The city's 2023 Standards of Coverage and Community Risk Assessment found that complete emergency response already exceeds best practice here in Berkeley by over seven minutes, and that the department is struggling to meet current demand, much less demand with the future growth of the city and university.
To keep everyone in our city safe, proposed infrastructure must be reviewed.
All right, Nancy, your time's up.
Thank you.
Next is Janice Ching.
Good evening.
Thank you.
I'd like to comment on something that hasn't really been discussed, and that is that with the increased height and density that we all see in Berkeley, that there is increased fire risk, and the middle housing ordinance allows 35 foot heights throughout the city, so we might see even more and have more need for the extra height, sorry, the extra street width.
Another point brought up tonight was about Milvia Street, where recent bike tracks were put in, which sounds like they reduced the width to under 26 foot feet.
There's a new six-story senior housing building on that street, and I'm wondering how that is impacted.
After what we see, how fires can spread so quickly, that does concern me that we are creating existing and non-conforming streets with the bicycle track.
Like Kelly, I work in healthcare, and I've seen the impact of all the accidents and injuries.
Janice, your time's up.
Thank you.
Next is Beth Rossner.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
This is Beth Rossner from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber supports strong fire and life safety standards, but we are concerned that large community events such as the weekly farmers markets and the Juneteenth Festival and others mentioned tonight could be significantly affected by the rules related to permits, fire access, temporary structures, and equipment.
These events are essential to Berkeley's culture and small business economy, and even small operational changes can impact their feasibility.
So we ask that we please collaborate with event organizers before any code enforcement to ensure safety improvements do not unintentionally threaten long-standing community events.
Thank you.
Thank you, Beth.
Next is Charles Siegel.
Hello.
So I want to point out that the 26-foot rule was designed for new cities with wider streets than Berkeley's streets.
It's not just the narrow streets in the hills.
Most of the streets in the flatlands, typical street is two traffic lanes and two parking lanes, and that has only about 22 feet of clear road space.
And any street like that with buildings over 30 feet high is out of conformity.
Most of the streets in downtown Berkeley do not conform to the 26-foot rule.
Most of the streets outside do not conform to the 26-foot rule.
And there's really no great benefit to worrying about a farmer's market that doesn't conform to the rule of one day a week and ignoring all of these streets in downtown that don't conform 365 days a year.
So we really can do something that is actually workable.
Thank you, Charles.
I'm sorry, your time's up.
Next is Sarah Bell.
Hi.
Thank you, Council.
I wanted to speak in support of the direction expressed in Council Members Lunaparra's and Humbert's supplemental.
I think there are tradeoffs here, and I really appreciate the previous commenter who mentioned that, you know, the fire department should have input, but they should not have a veto.
I also agree with a previous commenter that if these codes are too strict to enforce, let's not codify them.
I also think it rings false to say that these codes are already in place, because if they're not being enforced, then they're clearly not in reality actually in place.
So Oakland, SF, Sacramento, they've all removed or greatly modified the 26-foot rule.
Clearly, it's possible to do.
So, again, agreeing with previous commenters, let's follow suit.
And I'd like to—I don't have time.
Thank you so much.
Let's proceed thoughtfully.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sarah.
Next is Theo.
Hi, Council.
My name is Theo Gordon.
I am a member of the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, although I'm speaking for myself tonight.
I just wanted to support the direction of the supplemental from Council Members Lunaparra and Humbert.
And I really just wanted to call out that this process that we're talking about today is in stark contrast to the process that I witnessed for the Ember Ordinance.
Over the last year, the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission has met multiple times.
There's been an entire other work group stood up and several Council meetings and community outreach sessions, all to make some changes to landscaping requirements.
And I think that we should be asking ourselves why we're not doing that same thing when it comes to street design in the flats.
We have vital community events that were almost destroyed because of the application of this rule.
And I think that we can go through the commission process and work with community stakeholders before we codify this.
Again, as others have said, we can look at other cities, our peer cities, and yeah.
Thank you, Theo.
How many comments do we have? We have four more hands.
Okay, thank you.
Next is David Scheer.
Hi.
I just want to emphasize that this is not a neutral technical change that we're talking about here.
This is the Fire Department weighing in on major political issues about the distribution of public resources in the city.
A few years ago, after substantial public controversy and public investment, we were told that the Fire Department was essentially vetoing the Hopkins Street bike project.
That is what got me interested in local politics.
The enforcement of these rules is incredibly selective and systemically biased.
It is incredibly dangerous for the leaders of the city and for BFD to allow emergency services to become politicized in this way.
I am personally outraged and infuriated at the idea that I and my children can't move around the city safely because trucks need to be able to drive down every street going 50 miles an hour.
Thank you.
Next is David.
You mean Daryl? Oh, yeah, sorry, David's the next one.
Daryl.
Go ahead.
Good evening.
Thanks.
Good evening, Council.
I want to reiterate, I extremely support our Fire Department.
I don't care what the outcome is.
I've always supported fire funding measures.
I'll continue to do so.
We have a great Fire Department and we have low fire deaths in part because they're just really skilled firefighters.
All I want to understand is why the rule on street width is not applied to streets where the parking clearance is less than 20 feet throughout the high fire zone hills.
I have firefighter friends who tell me on numerous occasions that engines get stuck and cannot go through the parking in the hills.
And I just don't understand why parking is allowed there, but we're applying these rules to one-time-a-year festivals.
I'm not saying that the rules can't change.
Maybe we do need to adopt, and that's fine.
I'm just trying to understand, can we get some consistency with these application of the rules? And that's why I think that Luna Parra's supplemental will help deal with that problem.
Just consistency.
That's all I'm asking.
Thank you.
Next is David.
David, you should be able to talk.
Okay.
Hello.
Yes, I'm an artist.
I'm a vendor.
I'm a community organizer.
I appreciate the Fire Department, the City Council, and I understand that surrounding cities are not really pushing this 26-foot rule.
I don't understand why the City of Berkeley is pushing it so, so, so, so much and making this happen.
Because as a society, a city, as a community, we need cultural events in our streets.
And it was mentioned that the Farmer's Market, Juneteenth, and the Telegraph Holiday Fair wouldn't be affected.
How can we get that in writing where it's documented and on the books for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years down the line they're going to still happen? So that organizers don't have to stress, oh, are we going to be able to have our event? So if it's not going to be affected, we need to have it on the books that no matter what happens, no cultural event is going to be affected by this 26-foot rule if it goes into effect.
That's it.
Thank you.
Just to clarify, the Farmer's Market wasn't included in what I said earlier.
Next is Lisa Bullwinkle.
Hi.
Good evening.
My name is Lisa Bullwinkle.
I'm an art commissioner, and I am an event producer, and I've produced almost 250 street fairs and festivals in Berkeley and Oakland without any problems, I might add.
And I want to thank the fire department for always being there to help me and to help our neighborhood when we needed you.
But most of the time, it's been totally safe.
As event producers, we want to be safe.
We don't want to create a problem or have fires in the community, and we understand we have to play by the rules, but we need to have them applied equitably.
So I am in favor of Councilmember Lunapera's amendment to this, and I would highly recommend establishing some sort of community body that is able to go over some of this until we can work this out in an equitable manner so that we maintain our incredible cultural events in the city and don't turn into a wasteland.
Thank you, staff.
Next is Sam Greenberg.
Hi, everyone.
Sam Greenberg here, part of Walk by Berkeley.
I want to echo all the many previous commenters, and the way I see this is that we're making choices about public space in our city, about whether we want our city to be more of a city or more of a suburb.
And there's no reason why we should be making choices that are different from our neighbors, more in the direction of our public space, our streets being like a suburb.
I don't think that's what any of us would agree on here, and that needs to be our North Star.
How do we make this work in a way that results in the urban space we want? But right now, that's the way we're making decisions when the hills have differential.
This is applied in a differential way in the hills.
And I echo previous commenters, and thank you for your thoughtful consideration of all the complexities here.
Thank you, Sam.
That's it.
Okay.
So someone asked, how do we make sure this is clear? And that is definitely what we were talking about earlier about transportation design standards as a way to kind of make sure it's clear.
But what I'm going to do is I'm going to move the recommendation with the understanding that we'll be coming back in January with a referral for staff to develop transportation design standards.
Second.
Okay.
Okay, Madam Mayor, can I make a substitute motion? And I'm sorry.
I want to share my screen.
It's not that long, but I'm having today's December 2nd.
I think I've okay.
Let me try to log in.
It's going to take me a moment, though.
I don't know if you all want to wait or give me a moment.
Yeah.
Do we want to wait? I don't know if you want to wait.
I think we should just I think we should I think we should take some comments.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, Council Member Chaplin, you're next.
Thank you so much.
I just want to just for the record, the 20 foot rule is state code.
That's not changing.
That's not going anywhere.
That's going to apply.
I do have to say, I understand it's difficult when the city has previously non enforced rules.
But now we are.
I understand that is disruptive, but that's what happens when you have new leadership and they have.
Priorities that include enforcing our laws.
So I do want to welcome all of our festival people to continue working with the city and our fire department and all the other departments to ensure that our festivals can happen in a compliant, successful manner.
And, you know, I want to highlight some things I heard earlier on.
I fully believe that all of our state departments, all of our staff, all of our colleagues and council members and community members are interested in collaborating and finding solutions.
And we understand that when we're making changes to the right of way, it involves a great number of stakeholders, both internal and external.
And it is entirely our job to weigh all the needs and concerns of those stakeholders and arrive at solutions that are mutually beneficial.
We may not always agree, staff and council may not always agree, council members agree, but it is very important that all of the people who the changes impact have a say in the outcomes of those changes.
And it is entirely appropriate for a city to include both the fire department and the public works department when it comes to changing the right of way.
I want to just be very transparent about that.
I don't think there's any way around addressing all of these issues.
You know, obviously, or, you know, not obviously perhaps, but I am a cyclist.
I am a transit writer, a pedestrian.
I also have elders in my life.
And so emergency access.
Bicycle pedestrian safety transit priority are all things I care about.
So.
I don't think we.
Have I don't think there's any way around addressing all those.
Needs and I do take issue with this.
This.
Certain statements claiming that the fire department has vetoed or killed projects.
I understand the frustration regarding certain specific projects, but I do not think that this city.
Is a city that would allow.
It's constituent members to harm our collective goals.
And I don't think I've seen that from this department.
I don't think I've seen that from any of our department.
And I also want to acknowledge that.
Yeah, like, no 1 from 2008 is here.
So I acknowledge me.
I'm not sure if.
You know, but we're all, but we're all here now.
And so we, we inherit our codes, our laws.
So, you know, I would have, you know, I know, I know, of course, hindsight swings, but I think we should do that in a formal, productive manner that allows for real input, both from our professional staff and the community.
This is a 2nd reading.
Okay.
This is a 2nd reading.
So.
You know, I would have, you know, I know, of course, hindsight, but, you know, as.
As, you know, we're on, we're on various.
Policy committees, I would have been doing that.
I would have been doing that.
Back in September, so that we could have.
You know, taking steps to address it ahead of time, but here we are in December at a 2nd reading.
And I won't be supporting any motion that derails.
And I will be supporting the motion to do additional referrals to certain elements.
Great.
I welcome that.
And.
As I understand the mayor's conducting that, and I would support that.
And I will be supporting the motion and that's why I seconded it, but.
But I, you know, like, in full to speak.
Candidly and frankly, I think we should.
I think we should do this.
More of a proactive attitude.
So that we can.
Initiate all these things that we claim to wants about collaborative collaboration and process and.
And, you know, we should do these things on the front end, instead of trying to shoehorn things in during a 2nd reading.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
The mayor.
Thank you to.
Oh, sorry.
I just had 1 last thing.
I'm so sorry.
And I love all my I love all my speakers tonight.
I just have to say, it's not just trucks going 50 miles per hour.
It's people in ambulances who are holding on for their lives for those moments.
And.
That matters just like.
You know, the people who deserve safe streets matter.
All this matters.
Right.
And it's our job to ensure that every road user is safe, but I.
To stop.
Again, because.
It's not just.
Those in those vehicle.
Yeah, transparent.
Public hearing after 10 PM and the next items.
Sure folks know.
Okay.
I'm going to go ahead and close that before we move on to folks know what's going on.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Madam mayor.
And I want to thank the fire department for your presentation today.
And my deepest condolences on the loss of Stephen Hall.
Thank you.
And I want to so moving into this item recording in progress.
Being brought to this review of the fire code.
I just want to acknowledge that.
And so I'd like to find a way to thread the needle and a way for us to adopt this fire code tonight.
So, having said that, I just want to ask.
The point 2.1503.2.2 and 503.4.1.
Those sections mentioned by the council members and their supplemental and appendix D, including section.
D105.2 that I think could benefit from some further public input.
So.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for the proposal.
And I do appreciate it.
You know, having some kind of trust standards.
So, city manager, can you explain if that were to come before the council in January and pass.
You know, how long would that take.
It's really hard to say because it's not defined.
I mean, it could be.
You know, a year really depends on the scope of that whole design is okay.
So, and if I could answer also, just because it would be my item that I would be bringing forward just to say that I would work really closely with the city manager to make sure we have an understanding of that timeline and that it's, you know, that it happens as quickly as possible.
So, thank you.
I appreciate that.
So, okay.
So, so that's helpful to understand.
I also want to just recognize, you know, I think we're all concerned about the fire department's ability to respond to emergencies, all emergencies, you know, whether it's a structure fire, whether it's a 911 call for a health emergency or whether it's serious injuries on the street itself.
So, and I want to just say, for the record, I want fire department.
I want, you know, people with expertise to provide input into our, our safety infrastructure that we want to add to our streets as a result of the passage of measure FF.
You know, I really believe it's important for our public works department and our fire department and other relevant departments to work collaboratively to promote the safety of everyone in our city.
And, you know, I think chief, you've demonstrated your commitment to that.
I just want to recognize, you know, with the street trauma prevention program, trying to have somebody in our fire department who can work closely with public work so that we can do that collaborative work.
So, okay, having said all of that, those are my comments.
I want to, I'm going to share so people can just see my, the motion that I have.
That's not the motion.
Here's the motion.
Is that visible? You want a bigger.
Okay.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
See it over there.
Is that big enough? Okay.
So, this is my, I guess this would be my substitute motion to adopt the fire code as proposed by the city manager tonight.
But further to refer the sections that were of concern in the supplemental from council members Humbert and Luna Pata to which are sections 503.2.1, 503.2.2 and 503.4.1 and appendix D, including section D105.2.
D105.2 speaks to the 26 feet, by the way.
And those other 3 sections.
My understanding here is that there are some words that are used like shoulders or public safety objectives that I think the community wants to have a better understanding of what those words mean.
So, so, so that's the idea of referring these specific sections to the city manager and the facilities, infrastructure, transportation, environmental environment, sustainability policy committee to develop and recommend potential revisions or definitions or clarifications, whatever they come up with for council consideration by April 2026.
That's the motion council members.
Is this really a friendly amendment to my motion? Because really, it's just the same thing, but you're adding this section.
I think it's a separate motion.
Also, do you want to just to clarify it just to clarify what what is the difference that you see.
Leaving out the transportation design standards piece.
Well, I do you are you referring these sections to fights? If you are, then that's great.
I know I can.
That's what I'm saying.
So, you know, are you my question was, are you making a friendly amendment to mine, which is that if you want to take some amendments on how to make a friendly amendment.
I'm happy.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, great.
Then I'll accept them as a friendly amendment.
I think the concerns are related to street infrastructure.
So, my feeling, I mean, they could, it could go to either one.
I think it's complicated to send to both.
And I think, you know, the motion is to send it to fights.
So, I mean, policy wise, I mean, if it's for general rules, I would send the public safety, but I'm wondering, Mr.
Clerk, do the rules provide any guidance as to whether it makes more sense to send this to fights or public safety, or is that entirely council discussion? That's a discretionary call, but it can only be referred to one committee.
Okay.
So, so, you know, our proposal is to send it to fights.
And are you okay with that as my second or.
Yes, I just.
It's to the authors of the separate on fight, so I don't know if it would change anything.
Okay, great.
So, yeah, then I think we'll hopefully be unanimous then.
Well, we'll see.
Okay, do you folks have additional comments? And before I'm sorry, before we move forward, I do want to just say, so.
Okay, so.
With the item, the number 40 will not be able to do 43 tonight, which is the amendments to title 21 to allow separate sale of 80 years.
So I just want to make sure folks understand that.
So we will be able to close out with the item, but not the other one right after.
Okay, great.
Why can we do 1, but not the other.
Do you want to have? I think it makes sense to have the city attorney address that.
Okay.
Since the 2 items are related, we felt comfortable moving forward with.
With the 2, but given that it's past 10 o'clock.
Okay.
Okay, and it was just all right.
Okay.
I'm disappointed in that, but that's what it is.
Okay.
So, all right, we have 1 motion.
This class, the, your, your statement mayor to do a referral in January.
Related to transportation design standards.
We should yeah, and we should close the public hearing 1st.
Any opposition to closing the public hearing? Okay.
The public hearing is closed.
Okay.
All right.
So, comments on that council member.
Did you have comments? Yes, thank you.
Madam mayor.
I want to thank our community for your active participation in shaping our streets and shared spaces.
And I also want to thank our fire department for their foresight and their tireless work to keep Berkeley safe and prepared for emergencies.
Over the last few weeks, I've heard.
A wide range of perspectives on sections 5, 0, 3, 2, 1, 5, 0, 3, 2, 2, 5, 0, 3, 4, 1 and appendix D.
What comes through clearly is a shared desire to balance robust emergency preparedness with the everyday safety and activation of our streets for people walking, biking, rolling and moving through Berkeley in many different ways.
I've heard from residents.
In the span of this, these past 2, 3 weeks.
Biking and micro mobility advocates.

Segment 8

stakeholders and others who have emphasized the importance of keeping our transportation network connected, accessible, and safe.
I've also heard from event organizers and their devoted attendees and everyone has raised thoughtful questions about how these amendments may affect the planning of long-standing and new cultural events and I appreciate the willingness across the board to collaborate and adjust so that our approach reflects Berkeley's evolving needs.
I really appreciated this discussion.
I will be supporting this supplemental.
I believe it is a win-win.
I wanted to share that my reasoning for supporting moving forward with these new codes tonight.
I spent nearly 14 years, this was my first career as a safety engineer at Livermore Labs.
Day in and day out, my life and the life of everyone at the lab depended on the professional input when it came to matters around fire and emergency response to the fire department and fire protection engineers.
So when I asked the question about acceptable level of risk, which I have done many times in my professional career and for very understandable reasons, the level of risk of not moving forward tonight could not be quantified.
The old safety engineer in me came back and said, I'm going to take the precautionary principle here.
I am not willing to accept additional risk on behalf of the city of Berkeley and everyone who lives here and everyone who relies on the expertise and the incredible work and the professionalism of our fire department and all of our first responders.
I do appreciate that this supplemental and all of our discussions here and all the public comments has opened the door to a fuller conversation about how these standards are being interpreted and applied across our city.
And this gives us time to continue to make informed recommendations.
We can look at what other cities like Oakland are doing.
There is an opportunity to refine this.
So I really appreciate this discussion.
And I also want to appreciate the mayor's desire even before we have this discussion to bring back an item around transportation design standards.
And I'm glad that we are able to just do that tonight.
So thank you.
And I also just in my last 20 seconds I know that everyone is passionate and comments were made with sincerity.
But I want to apologize to the fire chief and the fire department for whatever comments were made that fell short of recognizing the professionalism that you demonstrate every single day.
I'm honored to be on a council that has a fire department that is the gold standard in the state and the nation in its professionalism day in and day out.
Thank you for keeping us safe.
Okay council member Humbert.
Thank you madam mayor and thank you council member for making that last statement.
I join in it fully.
I think everybody has been struggling with this a bit because fire codes are complicated in general.
They're truly complicated.
I'm a lawyer and I'm used to dense you know regulatory texts and statutory texts and fire codes are like they're in a on a different planet.
And this is turned up to 11 because we have international codes, local codes, and a state code that in various ways reference and overlap with one another and perhaps even in some cases contain contradictions.
It's clear that we're also seeing heightened public interest in this issue because of our ongoing failure to achieve Vision Zero.
Two people were hit by drivers in my district and died this year and that just deeply affects me.
And also because we've seen our street fairs and farmers markets having to contend with major disruptions because of portions of the fire code.
We've received dozens and dozens of emails from safe street advocates, from the folks having uh who are involved with the with the farmers markets and the and the um and the festivals and dozens and dozens from folks who want us to pass this without any amendment or further consideration.
You know I'll be honest and admit that I'm still not sure why we adopted optional provisions of the state code which our neighboring cities did not adopt then proceeded not to vigorously enforce them for what appears to have been years and years only to suddenly start enforcing them this past year.
This has created a lot of confusion and frustration for those who organize our street fairs, for the public, and our street safety advocates.
But I think we're reaching a really good place.
I mean I think we have to to pass um these code provisions on this second reading and I think the motion um you know that's a combination of the mayor's motion and council member uh Keserwani's motion you know with influence from um obviously the the supplemental that council member Lunapara drafted.
I think we're in a good place and I'm going to support that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Blackby.
Thanks Madam Mayor and thanks to the fire department team.
I'll be really really brief.
I know we've had a lot of discussion.
I also agree that it's really important that we adopt the fire code tonight.
That is especially it is a fire code that we've had in place.
We are not making changes to what has been on the books for a while and I think it's important to acknowledge that.
That said I do think it's really important that we continue this dialogue.
There are a lot of um very um passionate um people on on all sides of this discussion um and again I think like so many times before we're really being asked to balance um you know the interests of different stakeholders as well as really in this case balancing um the different kind of components of public safety because you're really saying um you know how much of what we do should be around preventative um traffic calming and you know preventing traffic violence from a preventative standpoint versus the emergency response needs of um how the fire department responds to fires but also other kinds of emergencies health emergencies not just traffic emergencies and those aren't necessarily competing interests but we need to somehow harmonize them and sort of figure out what our approach as a community is to how we balance those interests and balance those priorities so it's a lot more than we could do you know tonight I think we will benefit from having a much more you know detailed conversation I support um the proposal to send it to committee where we can have that kind of a process and maybe come out of this on the other side with something where we all um feel better about what and at least there's agreement uh hopefully as a community in terms of how we balance those interests so um again thank you for being here and thank you for the mayor's motion and uh council member kesarwani's amendment to which I will be supporting thank you council member lunapa thank you um I I there's not much I want to add I appreciate my colleagues comments um I'm also very I wanted to say that I'm very grateful to the fire chief to the city manager and um and their teams to find a way to keep the annual Juneteenth festival and telegraph holiday fair in their traditional locations this is a successful collaboration and it proves that we can find solutions that honor both safety and community vitality and so I really appreciate everyone's effort in that I also want to I guess uh broadly summarize my over what I've been really thinking about since we started um digging into this um the staff put together a memo that very clearly demonstrated that appendix d has rarely substantively impacted street design and of the almost two decades it has been implemented and this is helpful but it also raises the question that I've been really grappling with um what is the ultimate goal of continuing to adopt a policy that we hope not to enforce that doesn't make any sense to me so I'm I'm looking forward to to thinking about that some more and figuring out how we can um work and and figure out a um a solution to a lot of the concerns that we heard tonight thanks thank you very much um did you move your supplement okay I'm going to be supporting the main motion okay just to make sure I understand because council member Tregobit said he would support yours so I just wanted to make sure everyone understood I would to clarify I am supporting the amended motion very good okay on the floor all right in that case let's take the take the roll okay on the on the motion um to to adopt the code the understanding that the mayor will introduce an item in January 2026 regarding development of traffic design standards and to refer the items mentioned by councilmember Casarwani the city manager and the facilities um policy committee yes okay on the motion councilmember Casarwani yes Taplin yes Bartlett is absent Tregob aye O'Keeffe yes Blackabay yes Lunapara yes Humbert yes and Mayor Ishii yes okay motion carries okay thank you all thank you very much I really appreciate it thank you for being here um well and now you have to stay because we're going the next one okay so I'm going to open the public hearing for 41 which is the adoption of amendments to the California wild urban interface code it's the second reading did you have anything that you were going to present to us we do not have a presentation um substantially beyond the one that we had from the first reading we've got a couple of updates and comments to make uh just to bring up speed with where we're at sounds good thank you uh so this would be the second thanks uh this would be the second reading of the WUI code which is an additional new code that is applied in addition to the fire code for areas of the city that have exposure to wildfire risk those areas are predominantly determined by the maps that were previously adopted establishing high very high or excuse me high and very high fire hazard severity zones in the Berkeley Hills and the code is applied depending on where you live in those zones the plot the code essentially applies both the building standards for new construction generally called home hardening and then what are called fire protection measures under the WUI code which would be vegetation management the WUI code essentially carries over the state um the state recommendations for building construction uh the one major change that was made as a local amendment to the WUI code would be the adoption of a what's called rigid zone zero which is the lack of any combustibles within the first five feet of any structure and that also includes vegetation the only thing that I wanted to highlight to the group tonight is that as a part of the initial adoption of these local amendments you requested that a WUI work group be established to review a couple of priorities and I just want to briefly let you know where we're at with those priorities the work group has essentially concluded the emerging science and code language review the code language is what you see before you as a part of this measure the group has not been able to complete the mandate to review the board of forestry ruling and align that or or review that with the city's policies because the board of forestry has not made their final ruling we expect emergency rule making at some point next year and the group is currently working on pivoting to focusing on the resident guide for the remainder of the year including clarity around the AMR process where they're making some great progress uh in the uh packet tonight you have a supplemental which is a cover letter from the work group uh in there I just wanted to highlight that the work group as a part of their work also suggested some other areas that were outside the purview of the group for council to consider some of those may be attainable some of those may not be but the group felt it was important to pass those on and then one final piece from the group is that there was a recommendation from the group that because we were not able to complete that board of forestry mandate that the group that council consider having the group revisit that at the time that emergency rule making happens so that we can wrap that up I believe that's the only it was really the only substantive changes from the last time we talked but I'm happy to answer any questions thank you very much are there any questions from my council colleagues okay is there public comment on this item any public comment on this item there's two hands it works oh okay I've got a couple folks maybe heading this way for public comment go ahead and come forward said there were two hands online as well oh three while we're waiting for that comment one more thing that I promised I would add is that the group also suggested or made themselves available if council in the future did want to hear from the group during a work session they did want you to know that they were available great thank you come on up I'm Margaret Ruth Collins I'm one of the members of the work group and we just wanted to give you a little bit more of what Colin was saying or less actually uh but we're starting to work on flushing out a creative idea that the fire department has about keeping some treasured plants in zone zero by creating equivalent ember protection in other ways and so one of the things I want to say is this fire department has a great attitude about how to gentle us into this and try to preserve what doesn't add to risk and find ways to make that happen and I think what you can do and what we're we were asking for is the kinds of changes that will make all this effort more effective so you know it was 100 years ago that the city first tried to get rid of thank you yeah she's got a minute from someone in the audience go ahead it was 100 years ago the city tried to get rid of shake roofs but there's been a repair loophole you could close it it's hard for people to give up plants and still have shake roofs that's an example um out there causing risk another thing is please be sure your city doesn't allow new structures whether they're tool sheds or adus or anything else within five feet of a property line up there so that sun zero falls entirely inside the property boundary but I think we're going to get there and I can't imagine a better group in this whole group to make it happen it's great to hear thank you I do get two minutes I'm Judy Dale I'm a resident of council district five I wanted to say about the the wui legislation you're considering tonight please look at this as a first pass and not the last thing you're ever going to do on this because it's very important to keep considering what we need to do for fire protection I feel like the council really jumped the gun and rushed to decision on this and that there has been inadequate public input inadequate consideration of how effective this will be inadequate consideration of the negative effects of all the vegetation removal and inadequate evaluation of alternatives um the wui work group has done a good job of making the legislation clearer and more easily understood but they haven't been able to finish their work particularly on making the legislation reflect unique local conditions of the city of Berkeley you know the the legislation is based on the state state board of forestry regulations and they seem to have been devised basically for more rural or you know not not an urban situation that we have here and so it would be really good if we could adapt our regulations to the specific fire situation that we have in Berkeley uh um there's a recently passed um assembly bill 1455 an urgent statute that um specific specifically allows local agencies to develop alternative practices that provide for substantially similar practical effects which is you know that's what we're after um and it looks like the state has done a good job of making the legislation clearer and more easily understood and I thank you thank you thanks for your public I hope you let the work group do more thank you finish I think you said there's two hands online is that right yeah yes the uh first speaker is alfred two thank you this is a great item those clarifications are going to be really helpful for a lot of my neighbors and next is uh richard ilgen good evening I'm also a member of the week working group and we've been working sorry I have a respiratory illness so I'm having trouble talking but um we've been working for steeped in this for two months and I need to say a couple of things about it one is I disagree with staff we have not completed any review of science on this we're waiting for the state to to act and we need to get sciences applied to zone zero so we have not completed any scientific review we barely started it secondly there are folks in the community going around saying that the that the misdemeanors have been removed from this the misdemeanors have not been removed misdemeanors are still part of this they took the the word misdemeanor out of the section on violations but they specifically said it's subject to penalties prescribed by law all the legal remedies civil or criminal so on so and so the misdemeanor has not been removed much disagreement of many of people in the community who who have wanted that to see that go and it's still there now I know the fire department probably takes the position well we don't intend to use them very much or they're only his last resort but you have to spell that out in the legislation you have to say that in legislation they don't say that it's not there so as far as the legislation is concerned the misdemeanors are still part of this and also I know some people have been concerned about the appeals process it's still the same fact even worse because now they've clarified it that anything happening under wui has to go through the appeal process which which gives people only very little time and goes to the city council for all the appeals under wui is that what you really want do you want to hear all those appeals and I also like to see us continue the work of the of the working group into the next year and to cover all the other issues we didn't get to thank you thank you that's all uh council member traiga uh thank you I just wanted to ask uh the chiefs um if you could comment on um what the previous commenter mentioned on misdemeanors can can you explain the extent to which it is or is not in the code and for what I can briefly tackle part of this and then I'll turn to other folks at the table uh the original language back in June of last year had a clause in it that was considered to be applied to the wui language none of that language included in the wui code that's the section that I'd be responsible for so there isn't language around misdemeanors in the wui code that doesn't necessarily apply to other sections of the berkeley municipal code as it pertains to violations um of any uh um of any code section and so that's outside the purview of the wui code we'd fall into the same jurisdiction I don't know if I'm missing yeah I think he covered it it's not in the wui code and that's what we were asked to do thank you so much thank you council member Blackaby thanks madam mayor um and thank you again to the bfd team for being here uh and for being so diligent and working with us uh and with the work group um I also want to thank the work group um I'll just say you know at the beginning um uh you know folks were selected to serve on the work group not because there was unanimity of thought but because Colin and the team and the chief wanted a diversity of opinions and you've heard some of them tonight and and I think that we are the better for this sort of going through this process and trying to kind of hammer it out um so I just again I want to thank them for convening the process and for improving I think you know we we in in June sort of set the kind of planted the flag and said this is where we're heading uh as one of the public commenters mentioned um you know there will continue to be room for improvement but I think as a body and as a fire department I think we felt it was important to say let's plant the flag and move in this direction then we will improve learn get better you know um and and educate ourselves educate the public um and and there as we go it was important to sort of plant the flag this is the direction heading and this work group has been an important part of really kind of crystallizing and addressing some of the big concerns doesn't address all the concerns there's still concerns and I get it we'll work through that but I thank them for the work um I also just to share this I literally got this direct mail piece the first reading and I was sorry I didn't get home to see it before I came to the meeting but I do just want folks to know like you know in addition to everything that we've been talking about you know the department is communicating with folks that are in this very high zone and giving them information about you know what we mean to do and I just I want to compliment the team for again continuing though the extra mile we're not done we have a lot more to do but in terms like providing materials you know helping to sort of you know give people information scheduling personal home consultation even in advance of the inspection starting next year again this is this is just kind of part of part of this piece where we're talking about why we're doing zone zero highlighting the kind of work that we're doing people can download their own self-inspection checklist that they can start the process for themselves and then we're highlighting as well you know individual neighbors who are doing work and talking about their experiences with with the process so this is a process this is going to continue and we're going to continue to kind of as we move towards fuller participation this is this is a really important part of the effort on the work group letter again I it was really thoughtful and there were actually two reports back to council one that came a few weeks ago and one that came more recently that really I think very accurately described the work that had been done and some questions and issues that remain and I want to thank them for that and so I know we'll still have more discussion but I do want to incorporate some of those suggestions and what we're doing tonight on that letter they identified and as margaret mentioned you know questions about can we work with the zero waste department to develop more non-combustible trash and recycling bins that's a great idea what's possible there can we do more to sort of move away from wood shake roofs in a very high fire zone so that we don't have as many of them that is a fantastic idea there are questions about the size of the wire mesh holes that the vector control team uses when they're they're dealing with rodents and can we shrink those down so they're more consistent with what we need for for zone zero again it's a great idea they even have the idea that you know neighbors move in see hedges that they may have had for many many years and they're being asked for the private hedges if they're within five feet of the house but can we facilitate the permitting of metal privacy screens that maybe are a little non-conforming because they're a little higher than what might otherwise be allowed place emotional night here um including their very detailed and thoughtful recommendations i do want to refer to the city manager um the items in the letter those four things that i mentioned in particular uh so the city manager and staff can work through those some of them may be more implementable more quickly some of them may take more time to flesh out so i'm not we're not kind of saying that this is on a everything will be on an expedite least go through the referral process ask staff to come back with specific proposals and then third um make a point that already okay a lot longer did the work group comment on to identify the different what this says so what my role is after the board of four has finalized a relation convene this group that's already done work reconvene the group after those regulations are promulgated to help back on those differences and staff comes back to council with an update within 90 days of those new rules going to affect we have the benefit of this work group's um input into that process so that's a proof stack recommendation with those three additional on second and again thank you staff and department work group all your great work thank you you can talk to all the there on this and everybody in bfd that's that's this process it's been a long yes and it continues i expressed really deep gratitude who has truly gone through trial by fire code uh can you count number uh can i read my own and i want to thank you for your um important safety effort i've absolutely fully invested in it um you're a member and you really took this major piece of work and again thank you as well to our city attorney and staff went to all the neighbors commissioners and others who participated in the but there isn't blatant um strong argument for doing the right and say independent state action so i think we should.

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