Transcription Metadata

Whisper API Version 1
Generated 2026-01-28 22:31:32 UTC
Archive URI berkeley_b8177827-9ace-4c7f-a9eb-321675fc524f.ogg

Segment 1

Thank you.
I call to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council.
Today is Tuesday, January 27, 2026.
Clerk, can you please call the roll? Council member Kesarwani is currently absent.
Council member Taplin is currently absent.
Council member Bartlett is currently absent.
Council member Tregub? Present.
O'Keefe? Present.
Blackabee? Here.
Humbert? I am present.
Well, I guess, okay.
Here.
Here.
And Mayor Ishii? Here.
And Council member Taplin is also present.
Okay.
I'm going to move over there.
Thank you.
We have one item on our special agenda today.
It's the 2026 City Council referral prioritization process using reweighted range voting, RRV.
And I'm going to pass it off to staff to present this item.
Okay.
Thank you, Vice Mayor.
My name is Mark Newmanville.
I'm the City Clerk for the City of Berkeley.
And I'm going to bring up a short presentation on the RRV prioritization process.
And bear with me just one moment.
Okay.
RRV, City Council referral prioritization process.
Doing two jobs at once, sorry.
Okay.
So, today's presentation, we'll have a brief review of what reweighted range voting is and how the RRV process works.
We can then discuss a little bit about the items marked for removal.
And I'll summarize also what actions are up for the City Council to take at today's meeting.
So, how does reweighted range voting work? There's a list of referrals.
Each Council member rates every referral on a scale of zero to five.
Zero being the least amount of support and five being the most amount of support.
There's no limit to repeat scores or how many or how few referrals a Council member assigns a score to.
After the meeting today, the scores are all tallied up for all the referrals.
And the referral with the highest total score becomes the first priority.
Then, for all of the remaining referrals on the list, the scores are reweighted based on a formula.
And that's affected by how much influence each Council member has used up to that point.
And this guarantees sort of an equal influence over the long run and gives more voice to minority opinions.
That's how the system was designed to work and that's how it works.
So, our current process from start to finish is the Council adopts a referral on the City Council agenda.
Then, that referral is categorized by the City Manager, either long-term, short-term, or urgent.
The long-term referrals are added to the RRV list to be prioritized by the Council.
The short-term referrals, work is started on those right away.
Annually, the City Council assigns the scores to the long-term referrals on the RRV list, the process that we're doing right now.
And staff generally starts to address the referrals in the order of Council priority.
Of course, some departments are over-represented in the results.
So, the City Manager and those departments have some discretion as to how many referrals they can take on all at once.
Completed referrals are reported back to the City Council through an item on the agenda or also often through an off-agenda memo.
So, the data that we have in the item itself, in Attachment 1, is the raw scores assigned to each referral by the Mayor and all the Council members.
Where no rating was assigned, the default score is zero.
And the list in the agenda packet is sorted by meeting date, from the most recent date back to the oldest date.
In Attachment 2 are the referrals that were marked for removal during the scoring process.
So, during the scoring process, any Council member could mark any referral for removal, to sort of nominate it to be removed from the list.
And then that list of nominated referrals is brought here before City Council.
For the Council to decide which ones should be removed.
A couple of notes, just some summary notes.
In the packet, the list of referrals, there are 53 items on the referral list.
Eight of those were marked for removal by Council members.
And just as a side note, there were 10 referrals that were not marked for removal that received a total score of less than five.
And also had no single score higher than a three.
So, the action for this meeting is to review the list of the referrals marked for removal.
Here in open session, the Council can add more items to be removed or also take items off of the removal list.
The Council will need to vote on which items should be removed from the list of 53 referrals.
And you can do that all in one motion.
You don't have to vote on them individually, though you can if there's some disagreement.
And then the Council will also direct staff to run the RRV algorithm.
And I will do so after this meeting this week.
And then the final prioritized list will be presented back to the City Council at a special meeting on February 10th.
So, that concludes the presentation.
Of course, if there's any questions, happy to answer those.
Thank you so much.
Are there any comments or questions for staff on this item? We'll start with Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Acting Mayor.
Just a quick question that 10 referrals not marked for removal, but which got really low scores and no single score higher than a three.
Can we vote on removing those here today? Yes, yes.
Certainly, the Council could add new items to the list of those to be removed and also take items off of the list to be removed as well.
So, yes.
Thank you.
That's all I have.
Council Member Taplin.
Are there any other questions for staff? Just questions for right now.
I have a quick question.
What happens if there are multiple referrals that are tied in first? In raw scores.
That's a good question.
That's never happened.
It has happened.
Has happened? Okay.
It's happening now, I mean.
Oh, it's happening now.
Well, I suppose we'd have to figure out some way to break the tie.
Because I'm not sure how the algorithm would respond to the tie vote.
Okay, thank you.
Um, okay.
If there are no more questions, let's do public comment.
I don't see any public commenters in person.
Are there, is there anyone online? There's nobody online who's raised their hand to speak.
Okay, thank you.
Council Colleagues, are there any comments on this item? Council Member Humbert, you're, um, you're still on.
I'm sorry.
Oh, okay.
Council Member Blackabee.
Yeah, thanks, um, Acting Mayor.
I think my main comment, kind of responding to Council Member Humbert's question, in terms of items removal, I support, I think, removing most of the items, I believe all the items marked for removal.
And I think there were some items, for example, that I scored a zero.
It looked like everybody else scored a zero.
Partially for the reason that we're not yet in the window.
When those, like, you know, there's a 2028 ballot measure consideration.
Or looking back in three years after middle housing's been in effect.
So, if we do go a little further than reviewing the items that aren't already marked for removal.
I just caution us to be careful that we don't inadvertently remove some of those that, I think, some of us just put zeros on.
Because we're not yet in the window to review them.
So, that's my only comment.
Thank you.
Council Member Taplin.
Yes, thank you, um, Madam Acting Mayor.
I had a sort of process question for the City Manager.
Um, one of the items, the Vision Zero Rapid Response, my referral includes the direction to incorporate, um, Oakdot's Neighborhood Traffic Calming, um, guidelines into the City, uh, bike plan.
Given that the bike plan update is underway, I was wondering if you could confirm whether that particular direction has already been acted on.
I'd actually like, uh, Public Works Director Davis to weigh in on that.
They haven't been to my knowledge, but I, but I'm not 100% sure.
And I would say if they, if they, or he's here.
So, why don't I just let Director Davis speak to that, and then I can add more.
All right, thank you.
Uh, so, Council Member Taplin, um, those, um, have been included in the existing draft.
So, the draft 2025 plan is currently under its final, um, review.
And those recommendations, uh, from Oakland, and those standards have been included and incorporated, along with all of the other stakeholder and community feedback received.
So, um, once that final plan is brought forward to Council, I think, um, at that point in time, there'll be additional opportunity to comment on, uh, the draft plan, and if there's any final recommendations or direction Council has at that point in time.
So, but short answer, yes, they've been incorporated.
Wonderful, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Um, let's do Council Member Humbert, and then Keserwani, and then we'll do Mayor Ishii, who's online.
Council Member Humbert.
Well, maybe I'll defer to Council Member Keserwani, because she may be addressing one of the items on the, um, the list for removal that she and Council Member Taplin sponsored, that I had a question about.
I don't know.
Okay, Council Member Keserwani.
Thank you very much, um, Madam Acting Mayor.
I, um, I did want to say that I was, um, fine with removing all of the items that were tagged for removal except for one, and that is the, the one it has the, the code 04053.
This is about giving, uh, residents who live in West Berkeley within two blocks of commercial corridors the opportunity to opt into the Residential Preferential Parking Program.
Right now, you know, I don't know if everyone is aware, there's an RPP eligibility map, and it's mostly eastern neighborhoods, and when you go into West Berkeley, even if you want to have RPP on your block, um, according to the map, you know, many, many streets, and blocks, and neighborhoods are not eligible, and so this is something our Public Works Department, um, had brought to the Council, and, um, I, I know that we have a lot of referrals to Public Works, and so it makes it difficult, but I think this is a, an equity issue, and it's, um, it's a way for people to sort of, uh, be able to have some agency with parking on their block, so I would ask that that wouldn't be restored, but I'm eager to listen to hear from my colleagues on, um, other items that maybe were not tagged for removal that we would want to remove based on low scores, and, um, any other items that we would want to bring back from the removal list, but that was the one I wanted to advocate for, and did I answer your question, Council Member Humbert? Yes, you did, and in fact, I, I join you in, in wanting to keep that on.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Council Member.
Let's go to, um, Mayor Ishii, and then Council Member Trago.
Yes, I just wanted to make sure that we had a good understanding of the 10 that are, um, were not marked for removal, but had lower than three, was it? I just want to make sure we all know which ones those are.
Was it three? Is that right, Mr.
City Clerk? Uh, there were actually 10 total that fit that criteria.
I'm sorry, and you, and, but you said that had scores below three or something like that? I just want to make sure I understood.
They had, uh, the, the total score was less than five, so four or less, and no single score from a Council Member that was higher than three, so that, yes.
Because I might recommend that we, uh, that folks review the list to make sure that there isn't anything on there that they maybe put as the three, um, that they would still want to keep.
And I'm happy to review those, uh, with the Council as well.
Although I, I do think that it's a great idea to remove, um, some items that, that, you know, we haven't moved forward on in many, many years.
Thank you, Mayor.
Yeah, I think it would be helpful to go over those.
Let's go to Council Member Tragop and then, and then go over those.
Yeah, thank you, um, so first of all, and I'll, I'll fess up.
I, I might have been the one to recommend the RPP1 for removal, but I, um, uh, I, I appreciate the explanation, and I would, uh, support undoing that recommendation now that I have a better understanding of what this is.
Because I was thinking of it globally as the RPP program itself, uh, being up for review to ensure that it is a funded, um, program not operating under a deficit.
Um, so that, that makes sense.
And then my, I, I wanted to associate myself with, uh, others' desire to better understand what these other, um, 10, um, are.
For example, um, there, there was an item, I think, um, ending 3994, um, expansion of paid parking.
And I think we're actually discussing that, um, later today during the regular agenda.
Um, and then there was one more, I think, parking in the marina.
And, uh, I would like to better understand what is already, um, being, uh, done, uh, by staff right now, or may have already been considered by council.
Thank you, council member.
Uh, Mr.
City Clerk, do you think, do you have the list of those you were mentioning? Yes.
And, and then I can, we can also sort of follow along in the, um, in the agenda packet as well.
So I'll share the screen.
Okay.
So in the agenda packet, um, the, uh, the list of referrals that were scored starts, you know, on page three of the item.
Um, and I'll just match that up with the list here.
So, um, there's two demands here.
Both have the, um, the companion report, affordable housing for artists, and probably the easiest thing to do is go by the meeting date, because that's how the list is sorted.
So this was the December 2nd, 2025 meeting date.
You have demand that ends in 4242 and 4240.
So the first one, the one that ends in 4242, this is companion report, affordable housing for artists.
The recommendation is to implement strategies from the Berkeley Social Housing Study.
Um, this referral received a total score of three.
There was one council member who scored that of three.
The rest were, were zeros.
So I don't know if you want me to go through the list, or if you want to address them one at a time.
I think it'd be helpful to go through the list.
Okay.
Thank you.
The next is the companion report, affordable housing for artists.
This recommendation is to place an affordable housing bond measure on the 2028 ballot.
That's from the same meeting, December 2nd, 2025.
This item, this referral had one council member who scored it a two, and the rest were, were zero.
The next one is the demand on some, it's from September 30th, 2025.
And that is number 4222.
This is to refer the item to the city attorney with direction per memorandum to city staff and city council addressing applicable legal doctrines related due process, pending investigations, and other related matters.
This is regarding the police accountability board.
This item received a two from one council member, a one from another council member, and all zeros from the rest for a total score of three.
Next is a referral from November 21st, 2023.
And this is the demand that ends in 4135.
Let me just scroll to keep up.
And this one is regarding south side zoning amendments.
And this is to refer to the city manager to develop requirements for new residential construction that all bedrooms contain windows, consider window requirements for habitable space.
And this one, again, is from 11-21-2023.
This has a total score of four.
One council member gave it a three.
Another one gave it a one.
The next referral is from July 11th, 2023.
And this is number 4111.
This is to conduct a study on the city's history of discriminatory actions in housing policies and programs.
This item received a score of two from a single council member, and the rest were zeros.
Next one is from June 27th, 2023, number 4110.
Adopting a temporary exemption from the collection of taxes under BMC 9.04136, the tax rate for non-medical and medical cannabis businesses.
This item received a score of two from two different council members for a total score of four.
Next is a referral from June 6th, 2023, bird safe building requirements.
And this was a, I think, a referral of a subset of the item to refer to the city manager to provide a council, the city council report on the bird safe building requirements no sooner than three years after effective date of the ordinance that adopted the bird safe requirements.
This item received a score of one from a single council member, and all the rest were zeros for a total score of one.
Next is a referral from November 3rd, 2022.
This is a referral to conduct an automatic traffic calming review for the area immediately surrounding the project at 1201 to 1205 San Pablo Avenue.
And this one received a score of two from a single council member, and the rest were zeros.
Next, there's another referral from the same meeting.
This one is 4059, budget referral, no right on red signs.
And this was to refer the city manager to develop policy recommendations for consideration of expand limitations on right turns on red.
This one received a score of two from one council member, and a score of one from another council member for a total score of three.
And the last one on this list is from May 30th, 2017, in the before times.
I have to scroll down, oh, let's see.
This is the one ending in 4188.
This one, the recommendation is refer a city density bonus policy for the Telegraph Avenue Commercial District to the Planning Commission to generate in lieu fees that could be used to build housing for the homeless and extremely low residents, oh, I'm sorry, and extremely low income residents.
This one received a score of one from a single council member and all zeros from the rest.
So that's the list of the 10 that were identified as scoring low that were not placed on the removal list when the council did its scoring, but are for your consideration at this time.
Great, thank you so much, Mr.
City Clerk.
Are there any council comments? Council Member Casarwani? For the, thank you, Mr.
City Clerk for that list.
For the purposes of moving things along, I was going to make a motion, we can modify it, so I'd like to make a motion to remove all the items on the removal list except the one related to RPP for West Berkeley and to add all the items, the 10 items that you just listed, Mr.
City Clerk.
So that would be the new list for removal, but I'm interested to hear from my colleagues if we want to preserve anything or add further for removal.
So that's the motion.
Do you need a second? I'd second.
Okay, thank you.
And if I may, I wanted to explain the thing about the traffic calming at 1201 to 1205 San Pablo Avenue.
That is a, there was a housing development proposal for that empty parcel.
If you were on San Pablo Avenue, I think it's a Christmas tree lot at times, you know, over the holidays, but the project is stalled.
So there's no construction going on.
So I think given that, you know, so we have sort of like a lot of items that are sort of weird like that, like something about a bond next year, something for traffic calming for a project that's stalled.
So, you know, I think that, I mean, we may want to be cautious on those because they may, there may be a need to do those things.
But I think at this point, you know, I think these projects are stalled for quite a while and someone can always bring back a traffic calming referral.
So that was the explanation for that.
But I'm fine to add it to the removal list.
Yes, and certainly any item that's removed from this list today can be reintroduced in a modified format or when it's more timely or anything like that.
This just would remove it off the list for now.
Yeah.
Thank you, Council Member.
Let's go to Council Member Trago.
Yeah, thank you.
So some of these are probably we've moved on.
I had a question about the board safe building requirements 4106.
This looks like the only remaining part of the referral appears to be to bring something back no sooner than three years after the effective date of an ordinance, which I guess this would be the year that it would be three years after the implementation date.
And that doesn't really sound like a referral to me in the traditional sense.
That's just something like it is on the referral list, but I'm wondering if there's some alternative mechanism that this were which this could be tracked.
I think that's a question for city staff.
It is.
Mr.
City Manager.
So your question is how might we track that if it got removed from this list? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, and I believe this was one of several where I had a question.
I think some of them were like consider placing a bond in 2028.
Well, we can just have that discussion in 2028, but something where maybe X number of years after something was passed, just asking for some kind of effectiveness report.
Do these currently get tracked in some way or is this the only way to keep track of them? Director Klein, I don't know if you have an opinion on this one.
Yeah, I mean, I recall this action being attached to the adoption of the Birdsafe Glass Ordinance that essentially asked staff to reevaluate the policy after three years.
And as you noted, we're getting up to that three-year anniversary.
I see this as this would be a policy project.
I don't think it would be a huge policy project, but it would be a policy project.
It would require staff time from our land use policy team to research and evaluate the policy, talk with the Planning Commission.
I think we'd likely want to look at, you know, talk to the development community, do an analysis of how the availability of Birdsafe Glass has changed and analyze how it's impacting project feasibility.
And then so that we can advise Planning Commission and City Council on any potential changes to the policy.
If the referral's taken off the list, we wouldn't pursue that project.
We would just let the existing policy go on unless we have some reason to initiate work on it or whether it's referred again in the future.
Okay, great.
Thank you so much.
So I generally feel comfortable with that motion.
I do want to hear some of them more specific to other council districts that are not mine.
So I would support if a colleague wants to fight for something.
But generally, I'm comfortable with the motion on the table.
Thank you, Council Member.
Let's go to Mayor Ishii and then Council Member Kaplan and then Council Member Blackbee.
Yeah, I totally agree with folks that there are times, there are some items here that might be more appropriate at a different time.
And so, of course, you know, I think that we need to have an affordable housing bond for 2028.
And also, we don't need to leave that on the ROV right now.
That's something that I know we will be following up with far before the election itself.
And then the other thing I wanted to just mention that I'm okay with leaving it on the list to remove it right now.
But the no right on red signs one, the 4059, I just wanted to say that I still think that that makes sense to look into how we could implement something like that in our city.
But I agree that for right now, given our current situation, that it may not make sense to have that continue to stay on the ROV and we can come back to it later.
So thanks, everyone.
And thanks for your work to help clean up our list.
Thank you, Mayor.
Council Member Taplin.
Thank you.
I just have a short question.
The staff report says that the list would not include budget referrals, but a number of the items included are budget referrals.
And I was wondering, is that because some of them are like budget referral slash policy direction? Yeah, typically, usually, you know, a budget referral is just a budget referral and that goes on the budget referral list for the for items, you know, that have a, you know, a policy, a proposed policy or some new program or project and then include the budget referral within the item.
You know, we've put those on this list for the council to decide if they want to do the new policy and program first and then.

Segment 2

And then it would the than the budget referral would would follow, but as you know There's lots of just straight budget referrals that are submitted throughout the year and those go on a a List that the that the Budget Office keeps and it's considered during the the budget review process Thank you very much and then I think you got ahead Do we foresee? That there might be a scenario where an item is is prioritized but But does not have the necessary budgetary allocation for to move forward I Mean, I could speak to that a little bit part of the reason why we move this process up in the year is to make It's to get a list of prioritized referrals for you to consider when we go through the budget process I Just for clarification on the motion so Would 4203 or 4054 be on the new remove list just want to make sure for 2034 203 was the middle housing Three year study.
I don't think that was included great, and then 4054 was I Thomas vehicles, I don't I don't have that one great.
Okay.
I just want to make just okay So those remain then the only the only suggestion I had was was maybe to go ahead and keep the 2028 affordable housing bond Investigation, which is a 2028 item to keep that on the list just so we don't lose it again, because I intentionally Marked it low because I it wasn't we didn't have to take action on it now So that was my only thought it was just you know, keep it on the list for future ranking because We're not kind of in the window for evaluating it yet and just didn't want to lose that for the future I know it's not a big deal.
That was just kind of mine Okay, I'm fine with that let's keep the 2028 affordable housing bond item it still was zero it doesn't get ranked right now Okay, so that's that means we're only gonna remove nine of the ten that the city clerk just read off And councilmember Humbert agrees.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
That's it.
Thank you councilmember.
Come from Brambert Yeah, I'd like to add an item to the list looking at page 10 of 31 and it's item 0 4 1 9 7 which is Topa Copa It's got all zeros one five But the remainder are zeros and you know, it's something maybe we come back to in the future, but it requires funding Significant funding for any kind of a Topa or Copa program to function and given our current budget Situation I there's no funding for it And I would recommend I would want to add as a friendly amendment that we remove that as well all zeros But one five, so it's got a total score of five Well, I I kind of want to check in with councilmember Tregu because he feels very differently Yeah, I think It's not gonna be ranked highly right based on where it's at so I think we can leave it, okay Thank you.
All right.
I had a couple comments to make I Worry that if we remove items that we agree on from the list Even if they're ranked low that they'll kind of be lost in the ether And so there's there's one that I would really like to bring back from As a friendly amendment, which is the no way on red budget referral, I think Even if it's ranked low so that Priorities giving things up Meeting worlds Referring to the city attorney to prepare a memorandum addressing the PAB ODP a Discussions, I think that that's still important to keep on there Even if it wasn't ranked highly so that it's it's still tracked Those are the two main ones that I would like to keep I also yeah, those are the those are the two.
Okay Madam acting mayor.
I just I just want to go back and just check that ODPA item.
Okay, so it's 0 4 2 2 2 Correct.
So this is correct Okay, does anyone have any further context for for this referral? So it was sent September of 2025.
I believe that was with councilmember blackabys Referral that was connected.
Okay, it was this is the To prepare a memo to city staff and council addressing the applicable legal doctrines related to due process Pending investigations and other related matters.
I'm just I'm just trying to refresh of what it is.
We're wanting here.
What issue we're trying to address It was on it was on a previous PAB item Okay And I think it had it was on the bike in that bike Bike unit investigation.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's fine.
Let's let's If councilmember Hubbard is amenable, I think we can restore these two No, right on red will be restored and this referral related to PAB and ODP a 0 4 2 2 2 Mr.
City Clerk that one will also be restored.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm Fine with the first one and grudgingly.
Okay with the second one.
Yeah And I also I agree with customer take up on Copa topa.
I also don't want that to be lost in the ether even if it's not possible to happen right now Okay, and then we yeah, so that isn't that was never on the 10 and it's not going to be so, okay I think we have a reasonable Proposal now.
Okay, great.
If there are no more comments Can we call the roll? Okay.
So again, this is to on the initial list of eight Removing all of those minus the RPP for West Berkeley that will stay and on the additional list of ten We are keeping four two four zero affordable housing bond four zero five nine right turn on red and four two two two police accountability board and then this motion if you'd like could also Direct the city staff to run the algorithm and return with the results on February 10.
Yes Thank you, and then just before we vote and vice mayor With regards to the tie scores I might have to consult the originator of the RRV program to determine how best To address that I'm sure we can find a way Within the system to to make that work.
Sounds good.
Thank you so much Okay, so on the motion Councilmember Kessler wanting yes Yes Okay, yes Yes Yes Yes Okay motion carry, thank you so much.
I Will adjourn the meeting and we'll be back for a regular Motion okay.
Thank you.
Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Second Okay to adjourn the meeting councilmember Kessler wanting.
Yes Kaplan, yes Bartlett.
Yes, Trigum.
Aye.
Okay.
Yes Yes Yes, councilmember Humbert, yes, and Mary she yes Okay We're adjourned.
Great.
We'll be back for a regular City Council meeting at 6 p.m.
Thank you Thank you.
Enjoy your break everyone.