Transcription
July 7, 2026 · 7:00 PM
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- July 15, 2026
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Segment 1
Hello, good evening everyone. I am calling to order the Berkeley City Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, July 7th, 2026, and it is 6.05 p.m. Can we start off with a roll please? Okay, Council Member Kisarwani? Here. Oh, here. There you are. All right. And Council Member Taplin? Council Member Taplin is present. Bartlett is absent. Tregob? Absent. O'Keefe? I'm here. Blackabee? Here. Lunaparra? Here. Humbert? Present. And Mayor Ishii? Here. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. So, tonight is the first City Council meeting of the month, so I will read the land acknowledgement statement. The City of Berkeley recognizes that the community we live in was built on the territory of Huichun, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, the ancestors and descendants of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was and continues to be of great importance to all of the Ohlone tribes and descendants of the Verona Band. As we begin our meeting tonight, we acknowledge and honor the original inhabitants of Berkeley, who documented 5,000-year history of a vibrant community at the West Berkeley Shell Mound, and the Ohlone people who continue to reside in the East Bay. We recognize that Berkeley's residents have and continue to benefit from the use and occupation of this unceded stolen land since the City of Berkeley's incorporation in 1878. As stewards of the laws regulating the City of Berkeley, it is not only vital that we recognize the history of this land, but also recognize that the Ohlone people are present members of Berkeley and other East Bay communities today. The City of Berkeley will continue to build relationships with the Lujan tribe and to create meaningful actions that uphold the intention of this land acknowledgement. So for this evening, we have two ceremonial matters. One is an adjournment in memory for Carl Anthony, which was requested by Council Member Tregob, and he will read something in a minute. And then also we have a presentation from Ryan Lau from AC Transit External, he's the AC Transit External Affairs Representative. So I'm going to start us off with our adjournment in memory and pass it over to Council Member Tregob. And also I think that his grandson is here. If you want to come up to the front here, you can come up to the podium. Thank you. And anyone else who's here for the adjournment in memory. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Today we adjourn in memory of Carl Anthony, a visionary architect, regional planner, author, educator, and one of the nation's pioneers of environmental justice. Carl Anthony passed away on April 4, 2026 at the age of 87, leaving behind a legacy that reshaped the way our country approaches environmental stewardship, equity, and community development. Born in Philly, Carl studied architecture at Columbia University before making the Bay Area his home. Berkeley became the center of his life's work, where he advanced the belief that every community deserves clean air, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, and meaningful opportunities to thrive. As the founding director of Urban Habitat, Carl helped build one of the nation's leading organizations dedicated to environmental justice and equitable regional planning. He later served as president of the Earth Island Institute, co-founded Breakthrough Communities, and brought together diverse leaders to address the challenges facing cities and regions throughout California. Carl's influence on Berkeley was profound. As president of the Berkeley Planning Commission, this was before we had chairs, we had presidents, he championed thoughtful planning that reflected the needs of all residents and helped shape a more inclusive vision for the city's future. At UC Berkeley, he inspired generations of students to examine the connections between race, place, and the environment, encouraging many of them to pursue lives of public service and civic leadership. Through his writing, including The Earth, The City, and The Hidden Narrative of Race, Carl challenged readers to think differently about the history of American cities and the importance of creating communities where everyone can succeed. His ideas continue to guide policymakers, planners, educators, and community leaders across the country. Carl Anthony's legacy lives on in the institutions he strengthened, the students and advocates he mentored, and the countless lives he touched. We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and all who were inspired by his remarkable life. May he rest in power, and may his enduring example continue to inspire future generations. Thank you to the Council for letting me say a few words about my grandfather. My name is Makai Sloan Anthony, and I am Carl Anthony's grandson. So, Carl moved to Berkeley in the early 70s, where my father was born and where I was born and raised, just a little less than a mile from here, actually, next to San Pablo Park. And when I think about my grandfather, it can be very difficult to pick one achievement above all others to highlight from his long and fruitful life. For one thing, he was the only African American student at the Columbia University School of Architecture when he first entered into the program in the 1960s. He went on a tour of HBCUs in order to encourage African American students to enter the prestigious architecture program and successfully increased applications from black students. He visited Spain and West Africa in order to study traditional African architecture. He was an assistant professor of architecture at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. He co-founded Urban Habitat, which sought to create more multicultural leadership within environmental justice programs. He was a fellow at Harvard University and a published author. The list goes on and on, but despite all these incredible achievements and awards, by and large, his biggest success is the legacy he left, which is carried through his son, Khalil Doak Anthony, his niece, Robin Anthony Kouyaté, and their respective children, myself, Makai, and Robin's children, N. Fali and Jasmine Kouyaté. It is because of my grandfather that my father is not afraid to express his strong sense of justice. It is because of my grandfather that our generation has such a high standard of excellence and a desire to spread the change that Carl fought his whole life to see. After a life of fighting for change and a better tomorrow, my grandfather, Carl Kokain Anthony, finally gets to rest and reconnect with his brother, Louis Edward Anthony Jr., their father, Louis Edward Anthony Sr., and their mother, Mildred Anthony. Thank you. Thank you very much for sharing stories of your grandfather and his legacy, and thank you to Council Member Tregub for requesting the adjournment in memory for this evening. I will now invite Ryan up to present about AC Transit. And I believe we have a presentation. A cohort over here. Wonderful. And just so you know, for some reason I think one of them has to be on while the other one is or something. You'll see. I'm going to start. So good evening. I'm Stephen Jones, Director of Legislative Affairs and Community Relations at AC Transit, and it's a real pleasure to be here today. Thank you. And to share with you the essential role that AC Transit plays in the everyday lives of people in the neighborhoods of Berkeley. Alongside members of the AC Transit team, we'll also directly address the current budget challenges that, frankly, without a long-term solution, will impact the bus network that our cities depend on every day. But first, let's start with who we are. Next slide, please. The Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District is not an agency of any East Bay City. We are a special district serving 13 cities and 8 unincorporated communities across Alameda and Contra Costa counties. We span more than 364 square miles, carry more than 3 million riders each month, and are governed by a publicly elected board of directors. Three out of four riders are people of color, and nearly two-thirds are low-income, making AC Transit an essential lifeline for all the communities that we serve. It is why, for more than 65 years, we've strategically operated bus facilities in Oakland, Emeryville, Hayward, and Richmond, keeping buses close to the communities that rely on them every day. It's also why we're proud to ever receive the top honor as Outstanding Public Transit Transportation System in the United States in 2023. Next slide. Slide three. Okay, so being a top transit agency translates into 40 million rides every year. So let's unpack that number. That's more than 140,000 riders board on a typical weekday. Weekends are even busier, with more than 160,000 riders. Each weekday, more than 9,500 commuters rely on AC Transit to cross the bay, and when school returns, at least 30,000 students will depend on us to get safely to and from class each day. Riders recognize our affordability and our value, and the numbers prove it. February, March, and April delivered our first three straight months of year-over-year ridership growth since the pandemic. Next slide. We're also a workforce-first employer. AC Transit supports more than 5,100 jobs across the East Bay. More than half of those jobs are created outside our agency. Together, they generate over $604 million in annual wages, and they inject nearly $1 billion into the East Bay economy every year. Every bus we operate creates jobs, supports local businesses, and strengthens our communities. Next slide. While fueling the East Bay economy, we're also cleaning the air. For over a quarter century, AC Transit has led the nation in zero-emission buses. Today, our fleet of 58 zero-emission buses are eliminating any type of tailpipe emissions from our streets. That leadership earned AC Transit a $40 million federal investment to launch the transit industry's first zero-emission bus university, or ZEBU. Alongside Chabot College and the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 192, ZEBU will help our.
Segment 2
If we're unable to secure long-term revenue, we will have to implement a plan that the board would decide on by the end of the year, and then we implement in June of 2027. With that, I'll turn it back over to Stephen to close this out. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. So, in closing, AC Transit wants to hear from Berkeley residents, and here's how we ask them to engage. You can scan the QR code to learn more about our contingency service plan, and you can fill out the feedback form at that link. You can email us at planning at actransit.org, and as always, you can visit our website, actransit.org, to learn more. So, thank you so much for your time. We are committed to keeping Berkeley and the East Bay moving, with 40 million trips a year, connecting riders to jobs, schools, and essential services. So, thank you again so much for your time. Thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate it. I know it is very challenging, and I thank you for bringing us the information. It is really important for us to understand, since there are so many riders, AC Transit riders, here in our city. I just want to check and see if any of my colleagues have questions. And I'm sure, also, we can reach out if folks have other more detailed follow-up questions. I do just want to make sure that you send us these, if you haven't already. You may have already sent it, but these surveys to our emails, so that we can also share them through our newsletters and get it out to the community. I'm also curious how you're interacting with UC Berkeley and Berkeley City College, which are our two colleges, universities in the city, in terms of getting this out to them as well. The survey. Yeah, we will definitely work with them to make sure to push those out to all of our communities, but Berkeley is special, so we'll make sure to provide that to them. Thank you. Yeah, I know a lot of the students are gone for the summer, and many Berkeley City College students are commuters, so I want to make sure that they're able to take those surveys. Great. All right, well, thank you so much. We'll follow up if we have any other questions. Thank you for being here and for the presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay, very good. Thank you all. So now moving on to city manager comments. No comments tonight, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. I do not see our city auditor, so. Okay, so we'll now move on to public comment on non-agenda matters. Okay, so this is public comment on items that are not on the agenda. I'll pick five cards for in-person speakers, and then we'll go to the first five hands raised on the Zoom, and everybody will have one minute each. Come on up if you heard your name called. I just want to talk about garbage. This was distributed to us, and in my neighborhood, we try very hard to put our carts out in this order, but we live in a neighborhood where cars routinely move the carts back under the curb because they want parking spaces. Even if you try to move the carts back in the right position, you hang around and watch your garbage all morning, there isn't even enough space to do it because there's so much demand for parking. I'm describing the 1100 block of Addison Street. I suspect there are other neighborhoods who have this problem too, and my concern is that we have been told eventually we will have to pay a charge if we want our garbage to be picked up. I think that's extremely unfair, and I hope you will take this into consideration and look at areas where there is great demand for parking. Thank you. Thank you. Could you give her a card? Thank you. Okay. Honorable Mayor, Council Members, I'm here once again to talk about what's going on in Palestine 48, especially in Gaza, the West Bank, what's going on in Lebanon, and congratulate the people of Iran for what they're doing to mitigate the damage that's being done by the Zionist entity in that area. Also, Hezbollah is doing their share. Wars need to stop. Every war needs to stop, including this war going on there. It's very, very discouraging for anybody who's a veteran of any war to see another war going on with people getting killed and murdered, and it hurts a lot. It makes me sick to my stomach that it is going on. Please call for a ceasefire for the people of Palestine. Thank you. Thank you, Russell. Good evening. Affordable and inclusive are targets of the city housing program. I'm here to review what you guys did in February, which was a win, both affordable and inclusive housing that was built on Virginia Street, 2109 Virginia Street. We had 18 units of the 55 were affordable to categories. Under current code, this project, Patrick Kennedy's project, qualified for 100% density bonus. 55 units became 110 units under current code. Three stories under current code became eight stories under current code with the affordable housing on site, no trust fund where it's designed to be affordable and inclusive. We don't need upzoning. We just need more of the same. Thanks so much. Hi, I'm Gina Weger. I'm going to cede my minute to Stephen Elpert. Two minutes. I'm Dr. Stephen Elpert. On May 19th, Mayor Ishii interrupted by public comment remarks. The First Amendment Coalition advised that this was a violation of both the Brown Act and the First Amendment right to free speech. The government code 54960, I forwarded a former cease and desist letter requesting that henceforth the council will not interrupt public comment remarks by a speaker addressing statements or positions publicly made by individual council members. City has until tomorrow, July 8th, to provide this commitment, which must be approved by the council in an open session during a regular or special meeting as a separate agenda item, or I can and I will file legal action against the city as recommended by the First Amendment Coalition. That said, this council supports the false narrative that building market rate housing will readily produce affordable units. Real world data contradict this. As shown in table one, the Buckhole study demonstrated that in our area, it takes decades for newly built market rate housing to filter down and become affordable. Council members also assert that building market rate housing invariably will drive down rents. Housing data from nearby Emery refute this and the YIMBY supply side ideology that you support. As reported this April in the Emeryville Tablet, Emeryville went the YIMBY way. Now it has the most expensive rent in the East Bay. Building more is supposed to bring cheaper rent. What happened? Despite massive building between 2020 and 2024, Emeryville had a 16.3% year-over-year increase in one-bedroom rents, the largest in the Bay Area. Our council's fervor to build more market rate housing may produce a similar outcome in Berkeley without so much as addressing housing affordability. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now we'll go to the first five hands raised on Zoom. First speaker is Ed Iskander. Ed Iskander, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, how are you? I want to thank the Honorable Mayor and the City Council. I've been here before. There's an issue with the coffee shop, the behavior of the proprietor of a coffee shop on the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Kittredge. I will not state his name for the legal record. I have now for almost a year been attempting to meet with appropriate City Council members, particularly Igor Tregub, under whose jurisdiction the location of that coffee shop falls, I believe. And that has been to no avail. And it's really unfortunate because I hold Mr. Tregub, as well as all City Council members, in high esteem. And I want this matter approached in an appropriate manner. This person should be actually, at the end of the day, should be banned from having any business in Berkeley. And I have police records and video and audio. Thank you. Thanks so much for your comment. Next is Alana Auerbach. Hi there. Dr. Hussam Abu Safia is a Palestinian pediatrician held in Israeli detention without charge since December 2024. His life is now in imminent danger. He was beaten so badly with hammers and batons that last Thursday his attorney almost didn't recognize him. Barely breathing, struggling to sit upright with fresh injuries to his head, eyes, ears, and neck, and repeatedly on the verge of losing consciousness, Dr. Abu Safia said to his attorney, they brought me here to kill me. I don't see myself surviving. This is the end. I urge you to make an emergency resolution demanding his immediate release. Refer to the email I sent you today. This council spends thousands of dollars every year commemorating the Nazi holocaust. Never again is often said at those events. Silence isn't neutrality. It's complicity. There's a growing global outcry for his release. Will you use your voice and position to join that chorus? Please. Thank you, Alana. Your time's up. Next is Cheryl Davila, former council member. In reference to what was just said by Alana, Dr. Safia's son is urging the world leaders to secure his release before it's too late, saying Dr. Hussam Abu Safia needs to be released now. You need to save his life before it's too late. Don't let down a heroic doctor. Please act now. That is a quote. So what are you going to do about it? It's been over 555 days. He's detained without charge. It's sad that you all don't care about Palestinians. You need to change your hearts. Show some love for your community. Pay freaking attention to when people are talking. Get off your cell phones. Thank you. Thank you.
Segment 3
both the work of the police department as well as the Police Accountability Board in the review of the 2025 annual police equipment report. Just appreciation that we've now consolidated two reports into one, which was one of the objectives of making the revisions earlier this year, while maintaining the Berkeley-specific reporting requirements around deployment of less lethal, not just use, as well as use of handheld pepper spray. So, again, if you look at the Police Accountability Board's letter in Supplemental 2, I think they were also largely in support and appreciation of this consolidated report. So thank you for that. I'll also just note very briefly from the report that over the past year, there's only 13 uses of less lethal tools and a total of 61 deployments, where you might show something and not actually use it. Some of those actual deployments were actually out of Berkeley. And so, again, I appreciate the detail in the report and also the fact that this continues to be a very rare, which is, as intended, rare use of these less lethal tools, but I appreciate the reporting on them. The other item I wanted to comment on was Item 4, the revenue agreements. Again, appreciation to the police chief and her team for seeking and obtaining these grants, which provides $80,000 for crime suppression community safety initiatives and staffing of high-impact community events. And so with that, I'd be supporting the consent calendar. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have comments? Okay. Very good. Can we go to any public comments on consent calendar and information items only, please? And just as a reminder, we moved Item 9 to the consent calendar. Anybody online? There's two hands raised. This is for public comments on consent and information items and also Item 9, the waterfront specific plan. The first speaker is Marilyn. Madam Mayor and members of the City Council, my name is Marilyn Cleveland. I'm a resident of Berkeley and a member of the Berkeley Society of France and its racial justice action team. I am concerned to see that City Council Agenda Item No. 5 for the annual military equipment report required by state law does not appear to include the report from the Police Accountability Board concerning its review of the report. If that has changed since the materials that were provided, then I'm glad to hear that. But the materials with the agenda report did not include it. I also note that the report does not appear to comply with state law in several ways. I ask that the Council defer consideration of this report until the Council and public have received the PAB comments concerning this report and the report has been brought into compliance with state law, including AB481. Thank you for your consideration. We have received materials from PAB. Yeah, the Police Accountability Board submitted their letter after the agenda packet was published, and so it's in the supplemental communications packet, and it's also published with the Police Department's item on the agenda website for this meeting. Thank you. And next is Kelly. Is Item 6 still on action or was it moved? That's a public hearing on action. Okay, I'll save my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Next is Cameron. Hello, my name is Cameron Wu. I'm a current resident and a member of the Berkeley Art Commission, but tonight I speak only on my behalf. Tonight I ask that the City Council give Item 3 on the consent calendar serious consideration of this item in order for a nexus to do to see if the fee for public art made to continue would be adjusted to make the in-lieu fee more affordable. The current all-or-nothing situation is unpalatable. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for public art are lost by developers utilizing this loophole. Please help us support the arts. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Last hand raised for consent and information items is Cheryl Davila, former Council Member. So the items for the police on their weapons inventory is really alarming. The public should really be paying attention to all these weapons that they have that they can use against your constituents of the City of Berkeley, the residents of the City of Berkeley. They don't need all this quote-unquote less-than-lethal single 40mm launcher or less-than-lethal micore 40mm multi-launcher or 40mm rounds or less-than-lethal FN303 launcher and associated FN rounds. There's thousands and hundreds and thousands of all these different equipments and their ammunitions, rifles. It's really, really, really alarming. We're in the 47th era of fascism and authoritarianism, and you should be getting these weapons out of our police department to protect us from them. Free Palestine. Free yourselves from these isms that keep you in the way that you are. Thank you. There's one more hand, Wendy. Wendy should be able to unmute. Thank you. Wendy Altson, also with the Berkeley Friends Meeting. And on number five, going to the Police Accountability Board and then seeing the item on the agenda, there's no mention in the item of the Police Accountability Board review. It wasn't filed by the police department or the city manager with the item originally, and it being made available only in the second, as late as the second supplemental, when it's a required part of the process, is not very helpful, at least to the public. I don't know that it's helpful to you either. And I would just urge that you request or demand as appropriate that both be filed together. When this item comes before you each year, this is an annual process, and the Police Accountability Board's information that they are communicating to you should be a part of the agenda item. Thank you. Just a note, our Police Accountability Board is made up of residents, and so they're not always able to send things as expeditiously as I know they would like to, and so I just want to comment on the fact that, as our city clerk said, when that letter was sent to us, it was added as supplemental materials, and so we can't add something that hasn't been sent to us. So I do want to just thank the PAB for their report and recognize that these processes sometimes take a long time and that we did receive it, so thank you, Chief, for sending that. And I did have a question as well. I just want to check, does anyone else have questions before I ask? Okay. I was wondering if you could clarify a relationship with the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force. Just talk a little bit about what that looks like. Yeah, of course. So if we're working a local incident in our city and we learn that the offender has fled to a jurisdiction in another state, in another area, the U.S. Marshals is a resource for us that we can let them know we have an authorized warrant from a judge, are you able to assist us with that? For example, a case we had in Texas is a case that we worked with the U.S. Marshals Service. And so there was a time when we had someone that worked on that task force, and so if we had a local case, they would provide resources and personnel to help us work that case. And then if there was a local case in another jurisdiction near us, then that person could go and assist with that. That's a way you share resources and personnel power. We currently don't have anybody that's participating in a task force with the U.S. Marshals. Is that a capacity issue or is that just like we haven't picked a new person? Yeah, both. Okay. Just curious. Thank you. And then I'm also wondering, so when we deploy mutual aid, how do we ensure that other agencies are adhering to Berkeley's policies, you know, specifically around use of force, sanctuary city, et cetera? So when we're going to somewhere else to provide mutual aid or mutual aid is coming up? Mutual aid is coming to us. Right. Typically what you'll see is all mutual aid is coordinated through the county's mutual aid coordinator. And when we have a need for mutual aid, we will communicate with Alameda County Sheriff's Department and say we have this need in our city. When they come and arrive and resources arrive in our city, and we would tell them certain things like, hey, here are specific policies. And an example I can give you is for a while Oakland had a very specific policy prohibiting ammunition. When we would show up to check in for that mutual aid there, they would say here's the prohibitions we have if you are coming and operating in the city of Oakland. If you can't abide by that, we can't.
Segment 4
exceptional services or we will give you a different task to do while you're in here. So there were times when we would respond and we would do facility protection because we couldn't use tear gas in a crowd control. So it wasn't safe for us at the point that mattered. So we did a different task and activity. So we would be checking with agencies that came to us, you know, do you have any issues complying with these specific things that are specific to Berkeley? Yes. Either thank you. We can't use your assistance or hey, we're going to assign you to some task that doesn't put you in jeopardy of having to do that thing. Thank you. That's very helpful. Okay. Is there any public comment on this item? We're on item number seven, the memorandum of understanding compendium 2026 agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private organizations. Is anybody online? There are two hands raised online. First is Wendy. Thank you, Wendy. Friends Committee. I would just note that the chief did not answer the last question in terms of mutual aid coming to Berkeley. I'd note that the rate of $190 for the jail to process a UCPDE arrest, especially if that includes either medical or transport to Santa Rita seems awfully low. But my main point is with regard to this federal MOU that Council Member Blackbee raised that the language of ALPR is not extended to all of the other data gathering cameras and information that you just approved. And it should be state all those different descriptions, you know, of community video and fixed cameras and first responder drones and all the other things that are planned to be in effect within this next year. And there's not specific language in there that says that we will not provide the information to the feds, you know, contrary to the sanctuary policy and state law with regard to the First Amendment and immigration. So I think all of those reasons mean that those MOUs should be not approved tonight, but revised slightly before they come back to you. The data sharing aspect of them is very concerning. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next is Marilyn. Thank you. My name is Marilyn Cleveland, and I'm a resident of Berkeley. I'm here to express concern that the agreement with the Berkeley, I'm sorry, with the Northern California Regional Information Center, NICRIC, one of the many federal fusion centers set up to create more surveillance and intelligence sharing among police agencies, can lead to problems with First Amendment activity and other activities supported by the Bill of Rights. That information can be shared from NICRIC with other federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, ICE, and other subgroups of the Department of Homeland Security. We've already seen efforts to stifle free speech and other protected activities, including demonstrations on college campuses. In 2025, the Berkeley Police Department submitted multiple suspicious activity reports related to pro-Palestinian activity and other protected forms of free speech. These were reports that were protected First Amendment speech and other activities. So please remove the agreement with NICRIC and obtain further information about which agreements may lead to violation of protected First Amendment actions before considering approval of this MOU compendium agreement. Thank you. Thank you, Marilyn. I see no other comments. Yeah, thank you. Any comments from my council colleagues? I'll just say thank you. Thanks, Chief, for answering our questions and appreciate your answers previously to my questions and also just the work that it takes to put this together because I know there's a lot of work that's involved. So thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate that our department does really care about other officers coming in and adhering to our policies. So thank you. That's very important to us. Yes. Sorry. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And apologies. I think the parliamentarian is on the foot. So in just listening to some of the public comments, I had an additional question for the chief and a question for maybe this is for the chief as well. I really appreciated the way in which PD and the PAB worked closely together on the police equipment report. I was wondering if you could describe the process. Is the MOU compendium something that historically the PAB reviews? And if so, can you describe the process that took place this year? And I will wait. Yeah, if you recall last year we had a robust discussion with the PAB. There were several old MOUs or agreements that were in there. There were like federal agreements that kind of described the way you could interact with certain federal agencies. And we knew we weren't interacting with them in that way, but they were still in our book. And so we had a long conversation both with council and the PAB. And we were able to remove a lot of those from there. So it was very clear that those relationships didn't exist, the rescissions. This went to PAB, I think it was 33 days, something like that. I don't remember the exact number of days, but it went to PAB very early for their first look at this. In fact, there were a couple of things they had questions about that we were able to answer and work through. So it was a collaborative process. They discussed it at the, I think, at least two PAB meetings, if I'm not mistaken. And so it's a collaborative process. They were able to provide feedback both to us and to council if they so desired around the document. Yeah, thank you. I do. 60 days. Sorry. Thank you. And I do recall last year, it was a very interactive process. So appreciate your clarifying. Can you also just, you know, I think just for the sake of the public being informed, speak to the relationship between these MOU compendiums and our internal procedures around data sharing practices. Yeah, of course. If I think I'm understanding the question correctly in light of the public comment, just to be clear, the policies that set forth both our uses, collection, sharing retention periods are the guiding principles, our policies around every one of our technologies. And those would be the things that would say when and what we would share and in what ways we share. Those reflect reproductive rights, immigration status, you know, how we interact with federal partners. All of those things are built into every one of our use policies to very clearly state that we would not share in that manner. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilmember Humbert. Yeah, I just want to say thank you, Chief, and thank you, Arlo, for this report. And thank you for answering all those questions so very clearly. Thanks. Okay. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. A second. Second. Thank you. Can we take the roll? Okay. Close public hearing. Councilmember Kesarwani. Yes. Taplin. Yes. Bartlett. Yes. Tregith. Aye. O'Keefe. Yes. Blackaby. Yes. Lunaparra. Yes. Humbert. Yes. And Mayor Ishii. Yes. Okay. All right. Is there a motion to approve item number seven? So moved. Second. Can we take the roll on that, please? Okay. To approve the Memorandum of Understanding Compendium 2026 Agreements with other law enforcement agencies and private organizations, Councilmember Kesarwani. Yes. Taplin. Aye. Bartlett. Yes. Tregith. Aye. O'Keefe. Yes. Blackaby. Yes. Lunaparra. Yes. Humbert. Yes. And Mayor Ishii. Yes. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you very much. We are going to take a brief break between now and item number eight. Just like 10 minutes. Thank you. Recording stopped. Recording in progress. Okay. Sorry about that, everyone. Thank you for your patience. We are moving on to item number eight, which is the large vehicle parking regulations in the public right of way. And, excuse me, Councilmember Taplin, are you here to present? Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, and good evening to everybody. I thank my co-sponsors, Councilmembers Blackaby, Humbert, Kesarwani, the members of the Health, Life, Enrichment, Equity, and Community Policy Committee, the Neighborhood Services Division, and City Manager's Office, as well as Madam City Attorney Brown and her office for all their input and guidance throughout the iterations of this item. Long-term recreational vehicle parking disproportionately concentrated in commercial and industrial neighborhoods and in proximity to open water resources in West Berkeley is a well-known phenomenon. Additionally, while many RVs at any given time may be used to provide shelter to community members experiencing homelessness, it is not uncommon for vehicles either not utilized for shelter, no longer utilized for shelter, or otherwise discarded by owners to sit abandoned on the roadside indefinitely and unabated due to a deficiency in the Berkeley Municipal Code's definition of the term abandoned vehicle. Over the years, indefinite recreational and abandoned vehicle parking in the public right-of-way has led to reported conflicts in the right-of-way, including reports ranging from impediments to delivery access, obstruction of sidewalks and roadways, debris accumulation, the disposal of waste in City of Berkeley storm drains, dog attacks against commercial employees, and public health and safety hazards in the most extreme cases, including the recent outbreak of leptospirosis. Recently, Bay Area cities, including San Jose, San Francisco, others in the region, and even Oakland, have adopted a variety of stances toward the management of long-term large vehicle parking and hazard abatement in the right-of-way. These approaches often pair parking restrictions and regulations with the establishment of large-scale safe parking where land and utilities are available, enabling intake for coordinated services. This item recommends that Council do the following. Refer the review of the BMC Chapter 12, Section 98, to ensure that the language authorizes the abatement of hazardous and abandoned vehicles in the right-of-way, clarify the definition of abandoned vehicle, and increase the city manager's.
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The organizations involved don't actually have the authority they said they did. As a result, an extraordinary housing opportunity is about to slip away. This report asks staff to clarify how enforcement intersects with encampment policy, but you should also examine how enforcement intersects with the actual functioning of our housing system, because taking someone's RV is easy. Replacing it with housing is the hard part. Throwing someone's RV while they're at work or in a nearby bathroom won't make them less homeless or make them leave town. It just moves them from the parking lane onto the sidewalk. We've all witnessed the indignity that people living in tents experience. Do you really think that it would be a better visual for all of us who currently live in vehicles to be relegated to tents on sidewalks? If Berkeley expands its ability to remove large vehicles before fixing the disconnect between outreach workers, voucher programs, and available shelter, the enforcement will continue to outpace housing. If we're serious about housing first, then the housing system has to work as well as the enforcement system does. That is the only way unless you plan on arresting us for being economically disadvantaged. Just because the Supreme Court said that you can arrest people for being homeless doesn't mean you should. They also overturned Roe v. Wade, but I don't see any of us rushing to comply with that ruling. Follow your conscience. Treat others as you would want to be treated. If the roles were suddenly reversed and you were at our mercy, do you think that we would treat you so cruelly? Thank you. Thank you, Amber. Good evening, Council, Mayor, staff, and community. I have one minute that's being offered. Thank you. I'm Moni Law, my personal capacity. I'm very concerned, I'm very troubled, and I want to raise a few concerns. We need house keys, not handcuffs, on the poor people in Berkeley. I walk by them every day, I say good morning to them as I'm on my way to work, and I see that they're sleeping on the street, and I see they're in the cold, and I see that they have nowhere to go. In this instance, we're asking them to shut down their RV vehicle, and I've actually had the pleasure of working with the prior speaker with the Tiny Home Project. We're doing constructive action to get people housed, including youth. Do we have a housing space for youth in Berkeley? The answer is no. Do we have women's housing? The answer is no. Do we have domestic violence advocacy and housing for people who are being threatened with death by their intimate partner? The answer is no. Where are they to go? That's my concern, that quarter million dollars in subsection four of this item, $250,000, you could use for vouchers, $1,000 a month times 12, multiply that by a number of people, and place an alternative in place of a jail cell or a park or a doorway to sleep in. Last night, I thought it was a dystopian situation when I left work, and there were more unhoused people on the street as a result of our homeless project, our program that was doing outreach, being disbanded. We're going the wrong direction in our solutions toward housing. This is not the right way, and I would appreciate your constructive, compassionate, and thinking approach to making a better approach to this. I've lived in a motor home, but on the road for travel and vacations, and I was fortunate enough to do that. These people are struggling on the street just to survive day to day, and we've got to find a better way and still keep the sanity, the security, the safety, the concerns to the water. That could be addressed as well without putting people in further harm's way. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Council Mayor, staff, and community. I have one minute that's being offered. Thank you. I'm Moni Law, my personal capacity. I'm very concerned, I'm very troubled, and I want to raise a few concerns. We need house keys, not handcuffs, on the poor people in Berkeley. I walk by them every day, I say good morning to them as I'm on my way to work, and I see that they're sleeping on the street, and I see they're in the cold, and I see that they have nowhere to go. In this instance, we're asking them to shut down their RV vehicle, and I've actually had the pleasure of working with the prior speaker with the Tiny Home Project. We're doing constructive action to get people housed, including youth. Do we have a housing space for youth in Berkeley? The answer is no. Do we have women's housing? The answer is no. Do we have domestic violence advocacy and housing for people who are being threatened with death by their intimate partner? The answer is no. Where are they to go? That's my concern. That quarter million dollars in subsection four of this item, $250,000, you could use for vouchers, a thousand dollars a month times 12, multiply that by a number of people, and place an alternative in place of a jail cell or a park or a doorway to sleep in. Last night, I thought it was a dystopian situation when I left work, and there were more unhoused people on the street as a result of our homeless project, our program that was doing outreach, being disbanded. We're going the wrong direction in our solutions toward housing. This is not the right way, and I would appreciate your constructive, compassionate, and thinking approach to making a better approach to this. I've lived in a motor home, but on the road for travel and vacations, and I was fortunate enough to do that. These people are struggling on the street just to survive day to day, and we've got to find a better way and still keep the sanity, the security, the safety, the concerns to the water. That could be addressed as well without putting people in further harm's way. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Thank you, Moni. Thank you. Cheryl, just a reminder. These are people's lives that you're messing with. And I'm wondering if I can get some time from somebody in the room, an extra minute. People are living on the street because you guys don't have a mental health department or a mobile crisis unit or services that go out and make relationships with people living on the street. These commercial districts aren't even utilized as much as you think they are. And if you gave them the services like garbage pickup, shower programs, they could make or tents or nicer vehicles. You could put money into that instead of evictions. That's what you should be concentrating on. Thank you for your comment. Your time is up. As a reminder, if.
Segment 6
On the motion, Council Member Kesarwani? Yes. Taplin? Yes. Bartlett? Yes. Dragop? Aye. O'Keefe? Yes. Blackaby? Yes. Lunapara? No. Humbert? Mayor Ishii? No. Okay, motion carries. Okay, we are moving on to item number nine. Oh, nope, we are not because we moved it to consent. We're moving on to item number 10, which is the five-year street rehabilitation and measure FF plans for fiscal years 2027 through 2031. So I will ask staff to come up and present. All right. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. Wahid Inari, Interim Director of Public Works. Tonight, staff is presenting an integrated and transparent five-year implementation framework. This plan maintains the city's core paving program, begins delivery of measure FF, which we are delighted about, coordinates with safety, ADA, stormwater, and utility work, and preserves flexibility for biennial updates as conditions, funding, and project schedules evolve. With me tonight are Terrence Alonga to my right, our Supervising Civil Engineer. Online, we have Manoj Madhavan, our Measure FF Principal Program Manager. And just behind us, we have the Public Works Calvary, which started with Paige Maherfar, our City Engineer, Candice Almondro, our Measure FF Program Manager, and last but not least, our Pavement Engineering Consultant, Joe Riley. With that said, I'm going to hand it over to Terrence to kick off the presentation, and then we'll field questions as they come in. Thank you, Wahid. Good evening, Mayor, Members of Council. I'm Terrence Alonga, Supervising Civil Engineer in Public Works, where I oversee the streets program. I'm joined tonight on Zoom, as Wahid mentioned, by my colleague Manoj Madhavan, the Measure FF Principal Program Manager. Tonight, we're presenting two companion plans covering fiscal years 2027 through 2031. I will walk through the five-year street rehab plan Manoj will present the Measure FF plan, and at the conclusion, staff will ask Council to adopt both. To begin with context, the network, the city maintains 213 centerline miles of streets. As of the end of 2025, the citywide pavement condition index, or PCI, was 57, which the industry classifies as at risk. The network's replacement value is approximately $1.2 billion, and the 2024 pavement management program update measured the deferred maintenance backlog at over $330 million. What these figures reflect more than anything is that the cost of repairing a street rises substantially the longer the repair waits. I want to spend a moment on that relationship before turning to the plan itself. This chart is a typical pavement deterioration curve. It plots the condition of the street over its life with pavement condition on the vertical axis and aging years along the horizontal. The colored bands represent condition categories from good at the top to failed at the bottom, and the call-outs identify the treatment appropriate to each. As the curve shows, a newly paved street's hold its condition for many years before it drops off steeply. The cost multipliers shown are approximate, but the relationship between them is what's important. So a crack seal or other preventative maintenance applied while a street is still in good condition in the green band represents our baseline cost. Left untreated, the street falls into the yellow band where a surface seal costs roughly 10 times as much. Continuing to ignore a street and it falls into the orange band where an overlay costs on the order of 20 times the baseline cost. And once a street has failed into the red band, the only remaining option is full reconstruction at roughly 40 times the cost of the original baseline cost. Given those escalating costs, the essential question of pavement management is how to keep streets from declining in the first place. The baseline program applies critical point management, often summarized as right treatment, right time, which means we target streets near the bottom of the condition tier and treat them before they fall into the next more expensive tier. Treating streets at that point in their life cycle is where each pavement dollar delivers the most important life across the network. However, an approach built on cost efficiency means streets already in poor condition can wait a long time for their turn, and those streets can remain in a condition that carry real impacts for the residents who live on them. Both of these are legitimate, and the city is addressing them through two complementary programs, the street rehab plan and Measure FF, which Manoj will discuss later in this presentation. So how does critical point management become an actual list of streets? Street selection rests on two inputs, condition data and the pavement policy. On condition data, the city inspects the entire network every other year, and each street receives a PCI score from 0 to 100. That data is fed into StreetSaver, the pavement management software developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and with StreetSaver staff input the dollar amount and the proprietary optimization algorithm, which simulates the critical point management approach, produces an initial list of streets. This initial list of streets is shaped by the second input, the pavement policy, which Council adopted in January 2022. The policy directs how staff refine our lists in line with the city's broader goals, including prioritizing streets that overlap with the equity zone, the Bikeway network bus routes, while also maximizing efficiency through contiguity, which means keeping adjacent street segments together where possible, and ensuring compliance with dig once through coordination with utility and capital projects. The resulting list of streets is what makes up the plan representing to you tonight. Before turning to the new plan, a brief word on what the prior plan delivered. Between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, the program averaged roughly two to three centerline miles per year. Once the current FY26 project is complete, the FY24-28 plan will have delivered 29.2 centerline miles over three fiscal years, roughly a fourfold increase, thanks in large part to the additional general fund support Council provided through its 2022 referral. After completion of this year's FY26 pavement project, the projected PCI will be 61.6 in the equity zone and 59.3 for the rest of the city. Both improvements, with the equity zone tracking ahead of the citywide average, consistent with the policy's direction. Approximately 43% of that mileage was on bikeways, 39% in the equity zone, 39% on bus routes, and 21% on high injury streets, delivered alongside 338 ADA curb ramp upgrades. Turning to the fiscal year 27-31 street rehab plan, this map shows the plan color-coded by fiscal year. It covers over 350 street segments and approximately 55 centerline miles, representing $88.6 million over five years, distributed across the entire city and funded through the city's ongoing revenue sources independent of Measure FF. For this fiscal year 27-31 plan, here's a snapshot of what we're delivering by category. Bikeway streets account for 44% of the plan's mileage and 51% of its cost. Bus routes account for roughly a quarter of the mileage and 30% of the cost. High injury streets represent 23% of mileage and 26% of cost, and the equity zone, which the policy directs to reach a PCI of 70 sooner than the rest of the city, accounts for about a fifth of the mileage and nearly a third of the cost, concentrated investment relative to equity zone share of mileage in the network. Taken together, the street rehab plan advances the city's other adopted plans, including Division Zero Action Plan, the bike plan, and the pedestrian plan, consistent with the pavement policy goals. In terms of budget, the city will have $96.3 million in total available funds over the next five years. $5 million of that is set aside for storm drain improvements necessitated by paving projects, typically old shallow pipes, also known as cross culverts, that must be replaced during paving, which leaves $91.3 million available for paving. The largest contribution is the CIP fund for the 2022 council referral, which provides $8.5 million in fiscal year 2027 and escalates with inflation each year thereafter. The plan programs $88.6 million worth of paving, which maintains a roughly 2% to 3% reserve to ensure against volatility in global oil markets, as asphalt is a petroleum byproduct. Next, I'm going to spend some time on several major corridors, each of which staff considered carefully when developing this plan, and each of which involves coordination with a separate city process. I'll also note up front that deferral from this five-year plan does not remove a street from consideration entirely. The plan is updated on a two-year cycle, and each of these corridors will be reevaluated as part of the next update. Claremont Avenue was programmed for 2027 in the prior plan and is deferred in this one. A fatal collision on the corridor in 2025 prompted the city to pause the repaving and consider Vision Zero safety elements, and interim measures are underway through a quick build project with rapid flashing beacons and procurement at Claremont and Eaton. The city is also coordinating closely with Alameda County Flood Control District on its stormwater bypass project. Projected to begin by the end of 2026, the project will trench the Claremont roadway to install over 4,000 linear feet of large diameter storm drain pipe between Tanglewood and Mystic Street, with completion estimated in 2031. Hitting ahead of that work would conflict with the city's Dig Once policy. Pausing pavement would also allow staff to evaluate the efficacy of the newly installed Vision Zero safety elements and complete the Measure FF-funded corridor study, currently programmed at 350K in fiscal year 2027, which will set the street's long-term direction. Telegraph Avenue between Bancroft and Dwight was a 2023 holdover in the prior plan and is deferred in this.
Segment 7
improvements to sidewalks, streets, and highways designed to reduce collisions, injuries, and fatalities. They can include measures recommended by manuals published by the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the Federal Highway Administration, or similar. Next slide, please. Safety improvements shall also include improvements to emergency vehicle access, which may be traffic signal controls. These improvements can also be traffic calming measures designed to reduce vehicle speeds. Next slide, please. Environmental enhancement projects are the last bucket of project types and may include green infrastructure, permeable surfaces, use of native plants and tree plantings, as well as community spaces, benches, and bus shelters. Now that we've seen what kind of projects may fall within the four project types, let's start looking at the selected projects for Measure FF. Next slide, please. Next, click. Thank you, Terence. Terence already showed you this map of five-year paving plan projects. This next one, if you click again, will show you the selected Measure FF projects, which are over 50 street segments and over 9 centerline miles of anticipated heavy rehab at six proposed project areas, which are based heavily on community input. Next click, please. Combined, that is over 40 street segments and nearly 65 centerline miles of paving over the next five years, covering all council districts of Brooklyn. Next slide, please. In addition, Measure FF also has selected over 20 transportation safety projects, as well as green infrastructure compliance projects, keeping in mind the goals established by the ballot measure. The table here shows the funding allocations towards each category across each year, and as you can see, the totals fall in line with the compliance targets of 60, 30, and 10% that are to be met by the end of the measure's lifecycle. The next couple slides will demonstrate how the projects are ensuring we're being efficient with costs and mobilization, while also meeting the requirements to implement safety projects concurrently with street paving projects. Next slide, please. One of the proposed projects is the Cedar-McGee Rehab Project, which includes approximately 1.4 miles of street segments along Cedar, McGee, Wine, Josephine, Eola, and Buena. This project will be started in FY 2027 with a budget of about $4.7 million and result in repairs surfaces in the identified project area. We will also be concurrently addressing safety by constructed sidewalk improvements that will address identified public right-of-way related ADA violations. Next slide, please. Another proposed project is the Shattuck Ward Street Rehab Project, which complies with several city plans and policies, as you can see on the slide, and we'll be taking into account some proximal projects, as well as implementing the Shattuck Ward Pedestrian Crossing Refuge Transportation Safety Project to deliver a comprehensive project that repaves 1.5 miles, while addressing over 700 reported ADA violations. Next slide, please. To really illustrate what we're hearing from community members, I want to share two examples of these long-deferred streets that FF is targeting. You'll see comments and communications to staff. On the left is McGee Avenue between Cedar and Rose. McGee had a measured PCI of 10 in 2024, likely in the single digits today, last paved in 1992. On the right is Ward Street between Fulton and Ellsworth. Ward had a measured PCI of 12 in 2024, again likely in the single digits today, also last paved in 1992. Both of these streets have been selected for paving in the next five years under Measure FF program. They're exactly the long-deferred repairs the ballot measure describes. We presented the entire project list to SSCOC last month and have heard and addressed every concern raised so far. When Council passed the budget last month, all these projects were included. Council also took action to move four of the transportation safety projects to an unfunded list pending further action, which we will discuss in the next slide. Next slide, please. These are those four projects and the next steps towards how we're proceeding, which includes staff working with the City Attorney's Office for legal interpretation. Per the Council direction, staff will also bring these projects back to SSCOC along with the City Attorney's feedback. After these steps, we will return to Council for consideration of feedback and recommendations. Now I'll hand the mic back to Terrence to take us through how both these programs affect the overall COVID condition in Mexico. During plan development, staff examined whether directing all of the funding, including Measure FF, to the same critical plan management method as a five-year street rehab plan would produce a substantially better citywide outcome than street selection based on targeting long-deferred streets. This graph compares both approaches by projecting PCI over a 12-year period through 2038. Both lines assume the same total funding. The only difference is how the Measure FF streets are chosen. Selected by the same method as a street rehab plan, citywide PCI reaches 63 by 2038. Directed at long-deferred streets consistent with the ballot measure, it reaches 62. The citywide outcome is not materially different, which means the city can deliver on the ballot measure's stated intent at essentially no cost to the citywide trajectory. Neither line reaches a PCI of 70, and the next slide addresses what reaching 70 would require. This graph also shows 12-year projections of PCI through 2038. Citywide PCI is projected at 59 after this summer's paving, which is the starting point for each line. The bottom purple line is the baseline plan alone. Citywide PCI declines modestly to approximately 56 by 2038, largely due to construction costs escalating at an estimated 3% per year, while revenues grow at only an estimated 2%. A gap that compounds to an over 11% loss in buying power over that period. The middle blue line adds Measure FF, and together the programs improve citywide PCI to approximately 62 by 2038, as shown in the previous slide. The top red line shows what reaching a PCI of 70, the level the industry characterized as good, would require. An additional $8 million per year on average, approximately $37.6 million through year 12, and roughly $25 million per year thereafter to maintain a PCI of 70. Combined programs do not reach 70, but they are the difference between a declining trajectory and an improving one. And to close, staff requests that the City Council adopt a resolution adopting the five-year street rehabilitation plan and Measure FF plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2031. Thank you. Happy to take questions. Thank you all so much. Are there any questions from my Council colleagues? Starting with Council Member Taplin. Thank you very much. We've received this presentation a number of times at FITE, so I appreciate the opportunity to see it again and ask more questions. I'm wondering if we can, as I understand, the TIC made a recommendation that the staff did not recommend. I'm wondering if staff can speak to their rationale. The TIC recommended that we include Claremont, Oxford, and Telegraph, and I believe we addressed that during the presentation, but to recap, each of those are going along. They're separate city processes. They are budgeted for design and construction for Oxford for All. Telegraph is budgeted for long-range development, and I believe Claremont were complying with the Think Once policy there because of the conflict with the Alameda County Flood Control District project, which starts by the end of the year. In parallel to that, we have just installed quick-build safety elements, which we are evaluating currently, and there's going to be a complete street study done in the next few years. I can add for Claremont Council members, also part of the proposal for Measure FF under fiscal year 27, as we met with the community members regarding the flood control project, we were very clear that although we're following our policy, coordinating closely, we're not going to wait until the flood control project is done. We are initiating our assessment as of fiscal year 27 once it gets adopted. It will also give us an opportunity to be able to study the quick-build that's already gone in there. I've been communicating with Council Member Humbert a few weeks here and there, and it's taking shape, so it gives us a good opportunity to study what we've implemented to be able to fine-tune the design for permitted infrastructure, and that's part of the fiscal year 27. Thank you very much. You mentioned that these streets are on a separate parallel city process. Can you illuminate or rather re-illuminate for the public and the Council what that process is and walk us through what that process looks like? Typically, you have streets that get a street repave, and you have these other streets that call for more of a complete street-style project, which is more involved. It typically takes a more involved public input process. The delivery timeline for a complete street project is a minimum of three years, three to five years. I think, for example, Southside was 10 years at the extreme end. For a standard repave, we can kick off a design in June of one year and have it in construction June of the next year, so it's a very short timeline. That's why the paving plan typically only programs streets that we know are going to pave in the next one or two years. Anything beyond that, we want to make sure that we evaluate in the next five-year plan cycle. That's kind of why these are floating out there. For these three streets, like I said, deferring them now doesn't mean we are never going to pave them. We'll reevaluate them in the next five-year plan cycle in two years. Thank you very much. This is a very long, extensive segment of Hopkins, and I imagine that's more than just a resurfacing. I'm wondering why that's on the schedule, whereas the previous streets we mentioned are not. Sure, I can take that question, Council Member. As we presented in fights and many other opportunities to explain this, the whole intent of.
Segment 8
Streets that are sitting near behind me and I have met with Council Member Blackaby that we're incorporating a framework and a policy. And again, we'll be more than happy to look at what that looks like. But again, we can do that from a technical perspective. I'll look on my colleagues from the City Attorney's Office and the managers for direction and guidance. Great, thank you. Thank you. Council Member Tregub. Thank you so much. So, I'd plan supporting. I do have a number of questions. I want to go the reclutter route. I'll cover as many as I can in my time. I note that the majority of FF streets tend to be east-west travel. Can you speak to whether that was intentional? I don't believe it was intentional. Can you speak to if or how schools or other sensitive areas of interest were considered in developing these two plans? Yeah, when we select our streets, one of the things we look at is the equity zone. We prioritize streets within that equity zone by adding a score. So what we're seeing is that our street selection reflects that, our mileage and our pavement dollars as a comparison to their actual share of total mileage is essentially a concentrated investment in those areas. On table 1C of the report, it seems that there is kind of a lumpiness in the allocation for each year between streets and sidewalks. It's about $10 million one year, $8 million the next. Can you just in general talk about how you're thinking through the funding allocation projections for some other categories? There's a drop off within different categories. That's the Measure FF table? Sorry. It's the Measure FF table. So I'll start and I'll hand it over to Manuj. So Measure FF is a bit unique as far as our revenue. As you might know, the cash flow varies. For fiscal year 26, it includes about 18 months worth of revenue that's been collected since January of 2025. So that gives us approximately $22.5 million to kick news off. With that, I'm going to hand over to Manuj if you want to go into the details as far as the table. Yeah, I think that basically explains it, Wahid. I think we also talked about some of the complications that we have to take into account when administering Measure FF. The funding buckets specifically of the 60, 30, and 10, 60% being for streets and sidewalks. And then that again is split up into a 45 and 15 bucket. So we're taking all of that into account as well in the math when we're actually calculating all these numbers across the five years. And it is very complicated to actually get a project complete when we select streets or sidewalks to actually ensure that we are going and mobilizing at the exact same locations and also meet these funding requirements. That's basically why you're seeing some what you call lumpiness. But it's actually really well thought out in terms of trying to meet all these requirements for Measure FF and the cash flow. We don't want to spend more than what we actually get year over year. Sounds fairly reasonable. Thank you. My next two questions cover points raised in the letter we received on this past Thursday from Walk by Parkland. First question is what would be the implications of combining FF funding with other paving funds to align paving efforts and allow for an integrated citywide paving plan in the manner suggested by Walk by Parkland in their letter? Yeah, I believe when we in our second to last slide or might have been third to last slide, we cover what the trajectories might look like if we use Measure FF funds as basically an extension of the street rehab plan. We reach a PCI of 63 by 2038 versus 62 if we were to go with our current approach, which is along deferred streets. To reiterate, we don't believe that's a material difference. We believe the benefit that we see from alleviating the impacts to some of these community members that live on these streets or travel on these streets is worth it as a trade off. And this gives us the opportunity to be able to service streets like Stewart and other corridors and segments that have been skipped for 20, 30 years. Thank you. What coordination is this plan making with the newly adopted bike plan? So whenever we select streets, we are looking at how it overlaps with our bike network and specifically with the proposed and existing bike networks in the bike plan. And similar to the equity zone, we are prioritizing those streets when we select them. We're giving them a boost in its prioritization. And then to add to that, once we move forward with the design of those projects, we're coordinating with our transportation colleagues to implement some of these safety measures that are recommended in the bike plan. Things like traffic calming, traffic circles, things that improve things for bike users. Thank you. Are there any corridors? You've touched on a few. Are there any other corridors where resurfacing is intentionally being paired with Vision Zero improvements? Not intentionally. We do overweight arterials and collectors. That's where we see most of our high injury streets. So we don't necessarily prioritize based on Vision Zero. But we do implement recommendations made through the Vision Zero Action Plan. That is our goal, to act as an implementation vehicle. Okay. Thank you. Actually, I'm almost done with my questions. If a street deteriorates significantly during the five-year period that is not currently scheduled for rehabilitation, my district has a few of them. I think that's true for every district. What process exists to get it on the program and or move it up? And actually, specifically, what the ends for change if utility work or nearby construction activity causes unexpected damage to adjacent jobs? I would say two things. I would say, first off, if possible, I would call 311 to ensure that the road is made safe immediately. In terms of trying to get it on the paving plan, I would recommend that they reach out to their council members and advocate for the street. That was something we would consider as part of the Measure FF process. The street rehab program is kind of independent of the input we receive from the community. It's based on our paving policy. It's based on condition. So it's not as sensitive to the community input as Measure FF is currently. Additionally, if I can add one more thing for Measure FF is we are supposed to go and do outreach with the community once every three years, which will start next year. So we're supposed to go to three different parts of Berkeley and talk about the next set of projects that are actually being evaluated and selected and, you know, get input as well. Thank you. And I look forward to just receiving more information at the appropriate time about the next outreach process. Do we have established processes for two-way communication with agencies and utilities such as East Bay MUD and PG&E to ensure that planned street work, infrastructure projects, and multi-year plans are shared with us well in advance? We have a quarterly coordination meeting with PG&E, AT&T, all the telecom. Separately, we have a quarterly meeting with EB MUD where we share our projects. We've recently gained access to PG&E's GIS maps that show their capital projects. So we get a live update whenever they shift schedules. So it is something we are actively coordinating with, and we're also getting that information through GIS. Thank you. What, if anything, has caused delays to plan implementation in the past, and what can be done to minimize those delays in the future? I'd say the major delay is in the procurement process, either contract execution. And we often see big protests holding up the process. Typically, you'll have a low bidder, and then the second low bidder, who just misses out on winning the project, will try to intervene and win that project by filing a big protest. That can set the project back, I mean, the contract back anywhere from four to six weeks, even longer. That potentially delays it into the wet weather season. We want to target anywhere from late summer to early fall in order to get the best optimal weather for paving. So right now, that's the main risk I see now. It's just been driven. And for reference, we just had a reason for fiscal year 26 contract. We experienced exactly what Terrence was mentioning. Thanks to our city attorney's office, we're working through those logistics. Thank you. Sorry, can you repeat the last part? I mentioned that per Terrence's feedback, we're actually going through the same big protest issue with the fiscal year 26 package that we're working with the city attorney's office to be able to resolve and move forward. So again, it happens more than we'd like, but it's a process that has to be played out. And thanks to our city attorney's office, we try to maneuver it as swiftly as we can. Thank you so much. And my final question. So I do understand and appreciate the thought that has gone into this whole presentation. And it's no secret I have been advocating for Oxford for all. I understand why it's currently not in the plan because it's on a parallel track. No pun intended. If for whatever reason there is a delay in implementation of that separate process, can you speak to what consideration can be given to at a future point putting Oxford back on the plan? And I think that's probably I will ask the same question for the other two initiatives that were mentioned as moving on a separate trajectory. Sure, I can start. I think we already have Oxford for All under. I'm sorry, Oxford Complete Streets under Measure FF for fiscal year 2030 or 31. Which one is it? 30 or 31? 30, I believe. But I am checking. Sorry. So to your point, Councilmember, if Sosa doesn't come through for Oxford for All, that would be the next opportunity for staff to grab it and hopefully move into design in a more comprehensive corridor Complete Streets approach. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you so much. Thank you. Councilmember Blackabee and then Councilmember Kesarwani. Great.
Segment 9
And then to have Measure FF come in and address the deferred maintenance, address the streets that need the full reconstruction, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I do think that, you know, looking at the map of what is going to be done by Measure FF, I do see Council Member Blackaby's point, you know, certain districts are not receiving the benefit with what we're proposing here. And so I know we have more time with FF, and so I know there are other streets in need. So I think hopefully we can sort of spread the love there and get to more streets that are below 50 pavement condition as that measure continues to provide us resources. And I do want to thank the public for supporting that item and thank the advocates who, you know, collected signatures for that so we can actually get to a place, as Director Amiri was explaining, you know, where we can see a citywide average pavement condition that's in the 60s. So I'm just really pleased to see where we are. I also wanted to, you know, because I was here when we developed the policies that you're now implementing around the equity zone. And I just want to say that I think that that's really important because before we had this equity zone, we were doing the exact same street miles in each district. And as we know, you know, when you are exactly equal, you end up not being equitable. And so, you know, we had our auditor put out our rocky road streets audit that showed, in fact, when we do an equal number of streets in each district and we underinvest overall, we were seeing the pavement condition going down by a greater number in the equity zone than in other zones because the equity zone does get heavier truck traffic and greater use. So I think it's really satisfying to see us effectuate that concept of trying to allocate these dollars equitably. And so I wanted to express my appreciation for that. And I hear from my colleagues. I know everyone. I know not every street is getting what it deserves. I see those emails as well, you know, the frustration of people. And so I just want to reassure the public that we do have these resources now. And so I do hope and expect that streets that need to get the reconstruction will be able to get it over the 14 years that we have Measure FF in place. So thank you again for this presentation and looking forward to seeing us spend these dollars. Thank you. Council Member Humber, did you have a question? No, Madam Mayor, I really just have comments, so I'll wait. Sure. So I think there are a couple of things that I'm trying to understand now that we've passed the budget. On the major corridor status slide, which is slide 11, I'm sorry, I know we keep coming back to this. So I hear what you're saying about that they're deferred. But I think what I'm struggling with is that a couple of things. It says that the Telegraph multimodal corridor study is underway and that $1.349 million, that's funding that already is towards that? The $1.325 is from the long-range development plan that was part of the adopted plan. The $1.349, that's below it. That's the next bullet. That's the multimodal corridor study, south of Dwight. That's the Telegraph multimodal. Dwight to South City. Yeah, that one is a separate project from the segment we're looking at for paving. It's just in there to show how much of the corridor is going to change in the next few years. The Telegraph multimodal is from Dwight going towards the Oakland border. We're getting into final design that's fully funded. And then the Carfree Telegraph is, again, going towards Bancroft. The second, this $1.325, though, for Carfree Telegraph budget referral in January 27, was the referral. But then at council, we approved funding from the LRDP. Correct. It's just not listed on here. Is that right? Yeah, maybe we forgot to update that. My apologies. Okay, no, that's okay. I just want to make sure that somewhere it's confirmed that that exists. And I guess what I'm also trying to understand is why Telegraph and Oxford are being deferred if we set aside funding for them in the LRDP and SOSIP. I believe that funding is for the preliminary phases of the projects. It doesn't fund paving. Like I said, for projects like this, complete street studies, we're looking at a three- to five-year horizon. It's the biggest disparity in terms of, you know, we're 17% of the miles and 12% of the treatment. In particular, what's left over after the five-year plan is we have the most street miles of sub-50 and sub-30 PCI streets in the city by a fair margin. So my concern about, again, how we're allocating FF dollars is all from this perspective. Like my district has a lot of streets in poor condition, like many of us do, but we're going to have the most streets in poor condition relative to other districts in the city. We also are a part of the city where, in many places, we don't have sidewalks. So the quality of the street is the quality of the sidewalk for many residents in District 6. So, again, I'm fully supportive. We're taking and unleashing an enormous amount of paving and safety improvements in the city, and I'm very, very pleased about that. That is really great news. We all use in District 6, we all use resources and transportation infrastructure in all parts of the city, so we're going to appreciate having stuff done that's downtown. We're going to appreciate things that are done in North Berkeley. We're going to appreciate all of this investment that's happening all across the city. But I do think as we move forward and come back again in a couple of years, I just think we need to narrow a few of these gaps because I feel like, you know, I think we need to see more of these benefits more quickly as we move forward. But, again, this is not to minimize staff's work. Staff is following the policy directions of the council, and they're making the best use of those scarce resources. I totally appreciate that. I just think we need to look at some policy adjustments just to make sure that we're treating all parts of the city fairly as we move forward. But, again, I'm proud to support the overall plan and look forward to the results that come from this. So thank you. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Trigub. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to first thank the Public Works Department for their incredible work on this item, in particular Acting Director Amiri, Mr. Silonga, and Mr. Madhavan. The annual increase in miles plan for rehabilitation truly demonstrates the department's commitment to improving conditions citywide into the long-term maintenance of our street infrastructure, minor fluctuations in percentage spent per mile in each district notwithstanding. I'm also glad to see that we're coordinating the five-year street rehabilitation plan with Measure FF funding, and I really appreciate your explanation around the methodology used for each of this. I think that's going to be very helpful as I attempt to explain this to my constituents. And together, this truly allows for sidewalk and pedestrian path accessibility improvements, safety projects, and environmental enhancements. I'm so proud of the work that has already been done in my district. These are streets I walk by every day on my way to City Hall, and I know that that will accelerate with FF.
Segment 10
I appreciate that Public Works is doing a lot to incorporate utility coordination, big ones, opportunities, Vision Zero priorities, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, ADA and PROWAG accessibility and stormwater requirements as they do this work. As the city continues to solicit input from all segments of the community, it will be important that due attention is given to soliciting and closely considering the input of differently abled community members, such as those who are blind or deaf, as they create the plan since by the time it's fully scoped out, it is often too late. Just responding to a few communications that we received and comments that have been made, I'm very open to continuing to revisit or to revisiting the ordering of funding within the first corridor between California and MLK. While it is not in my district, many of my constituents do use that particular corridor to be able to bike. And I think there is an interest, and I have used it as well, and there is an interest in making sure that when they do, when I do, that we're able to transit it safely. I look forward to continued collaboration with staff around future community engagement opportunities in general, as well as in my district. And I want to note that this process is just the beginning. And as well, I look forward to continuing our longstanding partnership to effectuate our Oxford for All referral. And with that, I am very excited to support this plan. Council Member Lunaparra. Thank you. And thank you for being here today. I share a lot of the concerns that Council Member Taplin laid out. I really wish that all of these streets were on one list and they were all in the five-year paving plan together. I don't think it makes sense to treat Hopkins Complete Street as any different from any of the other Complete Streets. I think they should all be on the five-year paving plan together. I've said that at fights too. And it's also what I'm disappointed that that's also what TIC recommended and it was not incorporated into this version. So I know that we need to pass this tonight, and I'm happy to do that. But I also think that we need to come back soon and revisit it because I think that this system makes it much more complicated. And it's also a new system. But the previous Complete Streets treatments that we've done, including Milvia and the Southside streets, were on the paving plan and received paving plan dollars to do the asphalt piece in addition to transportation dollars from other sources. And I don't think we should be siloing the pots of money like that. As we wrote and put forward Measure FF, the goal was to enhance the amount that the city had to fund these projects and to fund this paving and to do it in a way that was aligned with our other plans and aligned with our priorities of Safe Streets. And this approach was not what was envisioned. And it's not the way that I think we should do it. And I hope that we can come back and address those issues. Thanks. Thank you. Vice Mayor O'Keefe. That's right. Vice Mayor. I keep forgetting. So, yeah, I just want to echo the thanks. I want to give my own thanks to all of you, Acting Director Amiri, Mr. Silonga, Mr. Madhavan. Thank you so much and all of your people you work with. This is so much work. And actually, I want to start by saying that as somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about algorithms, I'm just really in awe of what a complicated algorithm you've been implementing. And that's exactly what it is. You're required, due to the nature of tax dollars and equity, to be as methodical as possible to be as equitable as possible. And there's just so many factors that go into it and so many considerations. And I really want to appreciate that. And just, you know, it's not perfect and obviously not everyone's happy. And I acknowledge the comments of some of my colleagues are valid. But that said, you guys did a really good job on a really, really difficult problem. And I just I really appreciate it. And I specifically want to thank you just from a District 5 perspective, which is my perspective. I want to really thank you for adding including McGee and Shattuck North of Vine are two small segments that are really, really in desperate need of paving in my district. And those are, I believe, covered by FF. And then, of course, I have to mention, thank you very much. I'm very grateful that Hopkins is being identified as a street that will be paved in 28. It's been often on the paving plan for quite some time. It is in terrible shape. It is a major street. It's probably the worst major street in the city. And it has major safety problems. So I'm just so grateful that it is finally getting paved. And of course, we will talk about the specifics of that in a few weeks. So I do want to say one thing about that, though. It's about this and about that. I want to invite my colleagues right now, while we're sort of looking at this paving plan situation in its totality, I think we should all just really appreciate how unforgivably zero sum this is. Every single street that's on here is another street that's not on here. Every dollar we spend is not getting spent somewhere else where it's needed. And I want us to think about that, because in a few weeks, when we look at Hopkins Street, we are going to choose between a treatment that is either unbelievably expensive or a treatment that is twice as expensive as the unbelievably expensive treatment. So just, you know, I'm not going to go into that more. We're going to do that next, you know, in two weeks. But I just this is every dollar counts. And let's be really careful and smart with how we spend these dollars, because it's a very difficult problem to solve. And thanks again. Thank you. Council Member Humbert. Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. And I mentioned before that I'd like to make a motion and add some language to the staff recommendation and the resolution. I'd like to add a whereas clause, one whereas clause and one therefore clause to the resolution and otherwise move the staff recommendation. Whereas at its June 23, 2026 meeting, Council identified the Traffic Signal Master Plan Transportation Fiber Optic Network and Traffic Signal Modernization Project and Transportation Nexus Study as unfunded needs requiring further review by the Safe Streets Citizen Oversight Committee, SSCOC in print, and City Council. Therefore, it be resolved that the Berkeley City Council direct staff to note the Traffic Signal Master Plan Transportation Fiber Optic Network Traffic Signal Modernization Project and Transportation Nexus Study are preliminary measure FF safety projects and are subject to subsequent review and approval by the Safe Streets Citizen Oversight Committee, SSCOC, and the City Council. And otherwise, I'd like to, with these slight amendments, move the item pursuant to the staff recommendation. Council Member, and maybe staff also, just to confirm, that would mean that just as we agreed to or we discussed at the CIP conversation that those pieces would go to the Measure FF Committee and they would take a look at it and then if approved, it would be added on to? Correct. I think part of that is also City Attorney's review and then if it passes that review, then we would present it to the Oversight. Great. Can I, sorry, may I interrupt and just say that the four projects that Council Member Humber just mentioned, there's one that's slightly off. We're talking about the Vision Zero Action Plan update, phase implementation roadmap, that was unfunded. Oh, right. We add that too. I'm sorry. So there are four, there's a fifth one you mentioned, which is not on that list. The fifth one as well, that was the Transportation Design Element Plan that was part of the CIP. That was also asked for the review. So there are actually five, not four. There are only four. You mentioned another one right now, Council Member, that is not on that unfunded project list. That was passed during budget. We'll share the slide on.. Yeah, I can see the slide. Is that the Transportation Fiber Optic Network? Correct. I think that's the one that you mentioned that is actually not unfunded. Okay. I would like to make this five then and that should likewise be unfunded and subject to the same process as the other four. Sorry, I'm just checking the slide. I think just for clarity, I think we can just say the same ones that we talked about at the CIP conversation. Right, but I think we did talk about the Fiber Optic Network at the CIP. Sure, that's fine. I just want to make sure that we're all saying the same thing. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Okay. All right, very good. What's being added? The Transportation Fiber Optic Network. Well, that's great. To the list that's on page 26 of the slide deck. Is anything changing in the whereas or the resolve clause that you had? Yes, I guess to add just those, just which one did I miss? The Vision Zero. The Vision Zero phase implementation roadmap should be in the motion. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I also just want to add my thanks so much to city staff. There's just so much work that goes into this and I understand how complicated this is and we have so many miles of streets to go through. So I really just want to appreciate all of you for the work that you've done to put this together and to present it to us this evening. And I know you've also had to present it in many different iterations to many different bodies. So thank you for that as well. And of course, thank you to the public work staff who actually do the implementation and work to make this happen. So, you know, one of my policy priority areas is infrastructure and I know that our street sidewalks infrastructure are really need of a lot of care and work and I'm really happy to see the support.
Segment 11
of typographic clarifications and relatively non-substantive edits. Some of the sections of the amendments correct typographic errors, which are highlighted in red here. These sections in blue address current inefficiencies and streamline deadline changes to better align with rent board practices. Oh, I'm missing one of them. And then the sections in orange are clarifications and non-substantive edits, including clarifying definitions, striking obsolete sections, removing outdated requirements, and allowing new developments to include rent stabilized units if agreed by both the city and the developer. In the Humbert-Kesarwani supplemental, the authors brought up a potential misunderstanding of what is meant by replacement units in the rent stabilization ordinance. To clarify and with no substantive change, I'd like to replace the existing language with designated as replacement units in a housing development project as defined in SB 330 to the motion to this following section. And I can bring this back up also if that's helpful later. I'm happy to answer any questions, and rent board staff are here to respond as well. Thank you. Thank you. It might be helpful, actually, if Council Member Kesarwani or Humbert, if you wanted to present. I know that there have been some maybe changes. Sure, thank you, Madam Mayor. And yes, it's been a moving target. I want to thank Council Members Luna Parra and Terry Gobin, you, Mayor Ishii, for bringing this item forward. I want to thank the rent board and for all of you for all the hard work of making the fixes and improving clarity. I especially want to thank Council Member Luna Parra and her staff who have been thinking really deeply about these issues. And from what I've seen in the supplementals in the presentation are working extremely hard to be fair to both sides, tenants and landlords, and build consensus. I was very pleased to note that after I submitted our own supplemental yesterday, Council Member Luna Parra had also submitted a supplemental, which addressed really my biggest substantive issue with the proposal, which was golden duplexes. They're out of it, and I appreciate it. While I agree that even mom and pop landlords with golden duplexes should, as a matter of good practice, be providing notices to their tenants of the special provisions governing golden duplexes so tenants know what their rights are, I wasn't not prepared to accept a remedy that brought such units under the jurisdiction of the rent board. And I recognize there are students and others who may not be fully aware of tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities and how these are affected by different housing types, but I don't think that would have been solved well by creating situations where soured tenant-landlord relationships drag on. I think that increased outreach and education by the rent board is the way to go, and I appreciate that the rent board already has a social media presence that they could potentially build upon in this regard. And this is now moot, given council members supplemental, so I'm very glad that we're moving toward consensus. As far as the question of waiving fees for non-profits, Council Member Kesarwani and I in our supplemental thought it would be cleaner just to exempt non-profits, but I think as long as we can adjust the language to make it even more clear that regs and the resulting waivers would be standards-based and non-discretionary, I could support that. And I understand there may be some particular nuances that I wasn't aware of having to do with the language in that regard. With regard to our language and our supplemental about SB330 projects, at least for me, I'm not sure whether it's satisfactory to Council Member Kesarwani, but for me, I think Council Member Luna-Para has addressed this and more cleanly than I did in my supplemental. So I think I'm fine with that version under subsection B1. I think the city attorney asked about this as well, and I wonder if the city attorney believes this resolves any minor ambiguity that may have existed. The version that Council Member Luna-Para just read, is that what you- Yes, that's correct. Yes, it's okay. It has your imprimatur on it, is that right? Thank you, Madam City Attorney. Those are my comments for now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member Kesarwani, did you have a question or a comment? Yes, I had some questions, and I do want to do all the same thank yous that Council Member Humbert has done. Thank you to the authors of this proposal, and I've looked at your latest supplemental, and so it sounds like the Golden Duplex issue is now moot. I just, is Mr. Brown the legal representative for the Rent Board on the call to answer questions? Matt Brown? They're here in the room, yeah. Yes. Oh, okay, wonderful. Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't see who's at the table. Thank you to the representatives at the table as well. Okay, I see. I see you now. I didn't see you before. So I just want to make sure I understand, there's two paragraphs. I just want to get clarity of my understanding of the intent of them. So when I'm in the Council Member Luna Pata sub two, the 28-page PDF, and I'm on page nine of the PDF and page two of the proposed ordinance changes, and it shows this language around as set forth in California Civil Code Section 1954.52B, and I was tracking all of those code references, and it looks like it relates to single-family homes that may be, oh, okay, no. So can somebody at the table just explain in layperson's language that paragraph? Yeah, happily. Solly Alpert, chair of the board. 1954.52B is the only section of state law I can cite by memory. It's been my little pet project for the past six years now. Essentially, this is a provision of Costa-Hawkins that allows for a landlord or developer and a city or other public agency to agree by contract to allow what would otherwise be exempt from rent control as new construction or a single-family home to be covered, but only by contract. So what this section does is says if the- Okay, so it is about single-family homes in some regard, but also other types of housing. Yeah, so this same section is- Okay, that's what I thought. So I just wanted to confirm my understanding. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Mr. Alpert. I just- Yeah. I was just trying to- So, oh. It was just going to clarify that it only allows the city to create such a program. It doesn't direct anything to be created. So if the city were to decide to create some kind of incentive program, giving some kind of density bonus or real financial interest in exchange for the application of rent control, it would be allowed, but it wouldn't provide for that to be created. Okay, all right. So that was one of the paragraphs I want to understand. So it looks like it appears twice, and it's the same thing, right? So it's on page two of the ordinance and then page three. So I'm going to go on. And so there was one other thing I just wanted to talk through, which was, so this is page five of the ordinance or page 12 of 28 of the PDF. So the paragraph D around no removal of rights previously established. So this is saying, no exemption articulated in subsection C shall apply when the current tenancy commenced prior to the date the unit met all elements of the exemption. This subsection shall not apply to any rental unit deemed exempt prior to November 3rd, 2026. I guess, so after a lot of sort of thinking this through, my sense here, well, maybe I'll have Mr. Brown just confirm. So this is related to any two-unit situation, right? So it could be a main unit and an ADU or a golden duplex, right? It's sort of like when you have a two-unit situation that's exempt because the property owner is on site, it seems like, so basically I was trying to understand the implications of this paragraph for the two-unit exempt situation. So I guess to use an example, a main unit, like a main house and an ADU, and let's say it starts as exempt because the property owner lives in one of the two units and has rented out the other unit. And then if you have a situation where that property owner moves abroad for a year, let's say a sabbatical, can you just clarify, Mr. Brown, does that tenant who remains there, who started the tenancy when the property owner was living there, that tenant remains exempt, correct? Or you can tell me if I'm wrong there. Good evening, Council Member Kesarwani. Thank you for the questions. I think it's important to distinguish a little bit between the two scenarios that you pose. The one being golden duplex in which you have to answer two questions, yes, in order for the exemption to attach. The first question being, was there an owner principally occupying any unit on the property on December 31st, 1979? And the second, is there a current 50% owner principally occupying the unit? And if you can answer yes to both of those questions, then yes, the other unit that's occupied by a tenancy would be completely exempt from any provision of the ordinance, including just cause eviction protections. The second scenario that you asked about is one in which, which is clearly defined in the ordinance where there is a single family home with a principal unit and an ADU, which was built after 1980. And that, in that situation, there is a golden duplex-like exemption. However, in the event that the owner moves out of, let's say, the principal unit and the tenant remains, the tenant would not be rent controlled because that's a newer unit, so it would be partially covered by the ordinance anyway. So, in the situation that is proposed by the board and adopted by the 4x4 in front of you today, the tenants.
Segment 12
on the November ballot for the voters to decide. Thank you. Thank you. Carol Morasovic, pleased about the changes in terms of the Golden Duplex, that the exemption remains and how the nuances were addressed here today. We need to be focusing on larger multi-unit buildings and not small landlords that only have a few, of which there's only a few Golden Duplexes in the community anyway, or a small number. Second, I believe that the discretionary nature of waiving the fees for nonprofits should stand because there may be a situation where they're out of compliance and you want to be able to have that leverage. For example, the elevator ordinance. Many, some nonprofits reportedly have not been in compliance with that, as have also some market rate buildings. Last, I want to say that in terms of the voluntary agreement that developers would be able to enter into, it seems as if there should be clearer language on that in terms of the incentives so that it's more transparent. The language as is seems very convoluted. It's really not clear what's being proposed here. It seems for the voters to fairly consider it, it should be clear what an incentive program could be for transparency purposes. Thank you. Thanks, Carol. I think there are a few folks online. Yes, first speaker is Karen Shinoi. I'm going to proceed in a minute. Thank you. Yeah, I was like, I think you're standing for a reason. Okay, there you go. All right, two minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Krista. Good evening, Council. I just have to say the irony here is hard to ignore. We're being told that nonprofit landlords need an exemption for rent stabilization board fees because they can't simply raise rents to absorb those costs. In other words, the rent board is acknowledging that these fees and regulations increase rents across the city. This is further proof that the constant tightening of Berkeley's rent stabilization ordinance is little more than lip service to the problem of housing affordability. This measure is an admission that rent control increases rents. The result isn't greater affordability. It actually limits available housing to only the wealthiest of tenants. Now, we appreciate the willingness to remove the proposed changes to the golden duplex exemption that would have harmed seniors and longtime homeowners who live alongside their tenants. But one problem remains. That's section 13.76.050D. Every time this council tinkers with exemptions and puts something on the ballot, it sends yet another message to homeowners. Don't build that ADU. Don't create that duplex. Don't invest in more housing because the rules can change after you've already made the investment. You can streamline permits and pass zoning reform all you want, but none of it matters if homeowners don't trust that the rules they build under today will still exist tomorrow. Please remove section 13.76.050D and move this measure forward without these unnecessary amendments. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Next is Tony Mester. Good evening. I'm the owner of a golden duplex. I used to be a landlady. When they started to threaten, when the rent board started to threaten my exemption, I went out of business. I stopped renting. And I think that's what a lot of people will do when rent control becomes so onerous and so complicated that members of the city council, like council member Kesarwani, who I think is a very smart lady, gets very confused by it. I acknowledge, I acknowledge, Roshan, your confusion. Believe me, it is such a pain to try to figure out what the rent board is going to do next. But wherever you have exemptions, that's fine. Make more exemptions. More exemptions means more housing. That's basically the bottom line. People will build when they're exempt from rent control. Period. Full stop. Thanks, Tony. Next is Stephan Elkstrand. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and council members. This is Stephan Elkstrand, rent board commissioner. Good to be back at the council meeting, even though I'm just here virtually. I wanted just to provide some additional background as to how we got here. Before this item went to the 4x4 or the full rent board, there was an ad hoc committee, which I served on, to develop this measure. We really went into the weeds, and I wanted to have a proposal that provided a thoughtful and balanced approach that incorporates the best practices and builds upon Measure BB that was approved by Berkeley voters back in 2024. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the input of the council and stakeholders to further refine this measure. I think we're getting to a very good place. So I hope that you will place this item on the ballot and to let the voters have the final say on this. Thank you and have a good evening. Thank you. Nice to hear your voice, Stephan. Next speaker is Sophia DeWitt. Hello, Mayor and council members. Reverend Sophia DeWitt, Chief Program Officer with EBO, here to support Councilwoman Luna Parra's memo and hope that you will put these changes to the rent ordinance on the ballot, particularly those that provide an exemption for affordable housing providers to the rent board fees. And we appreciate the work that the committee and the 4x4 and the rent board did with stakeholders to put this approach forward. And thanks so much for your work. Thank you very much. I think that was our final comment. Do I have any comments from my council colleagues? Oh, I do. Council Member Trigub. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to appreciate Council Member Luna Parra and her staff, the rent board and the 4x4 for all of the work that has gone into this item. I also want to acknowledge the thoughtful efforts to address stakeholder feedback. And the item that is in front of us tonight, to be very clear, incorporates changes that have been made in close collaboration with advocates and stakeholders, including both the renter community and the Berkeley Property Owners Association. These comments have been reflected in the updated language. As a former rent board commissioner and current member of the 4x4 committee, I feel strongly that this ballot measure, if placed on the ballot by the council and adopted by voters this November, would modernize the administration of the rent ordinance by the rent board, such as to allowance for paperless billing, increase the number of renters who could avail themselves of the right to organize, and enhance transparency provided to prospective renters. I was particularly pleased to support language providing the rent board with discretion to waive or reduce fees for residential properties leased or controlled by nonprofit affordable housing providers. And to be very clear, given some of the public comments that have been made, this is something that I felt very strongly about when it came to nonprofit housing providers, because these nonprofits already provide an important public service to the community and tend to already be under stringent federal requirements to provide an affordable, habitable place for renters to live. So they are already regulated. And so the point was to ensure that as they're already regulated, that those fees be used to address habitability concerns and make sure the renters have a hospitable, habitable place to live there that is affordable. The provision related to SB 330 addresses an ambiguity that I faced many times as a former member of the Zoning Adjustments Board. I believe my colleague, Council Member Keith, was in a similar boat. I am supportive of changes that have been made in consultation with the BPOA to remove noticing requirements related to the treatment of related to golden duplexes or housing types that map onto the golden duplex framework. Looking ahead though, I encourage us as a city to prioritize education and outreach on that point. This is something, the noticing piece is something for which I have advocated since 2018, and I will continue to do so. This is a topic that would benefit from clear guidance and will help property owners as well as renters understand their rights under the law. And I look forward to still seeing how such a noticing provision could be incorporated into the ordinance, or at minimum, how we could support a consorted educational efforts, perhaps along the lines of what the BPOA already provides in its model lease, and perhaps that framework could be used to provide that same information to those who currently do not have access to it. I also just really want to appreciate how just the careful, deliberate way in which this provision has made it easier to subdivide ADUs where appropriate, to create new housing opportunities while ensuring that sitting tenants can avail themselves of the same rights with which they started. And with that, I will make a motion to support the Council Member Luna-Para item, which I'm proud to co-sponsor. Thank you. A second from Council Member Bartlett. Okay, I'm so sorry. I think I just accidentally hit reset, but I believe that Council Member Humbert was next on the queue. Did you have comments? No, I don't. Okay. Did anyone else have comments? Okay. All right. Very good. There's a motion. There's a second. No other comments. Can we—oh, you have comments? Sorry, can I just ask that we incorporate the language that I brought forward in the presentation because that was not in our supplemental, about the replacement units? Yes, as incorporated in the presentation made on the dais tonight. Does that go in the ordinance? You'll have a citation as to exactly where that— Yes. Okay. Thank you. And that's okay with you, Council Member Bartlett, as well as the seconder? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. All right. Well, I do just want to thank you very much, so much, for all of your work. I know that this was a lot to go through, and I really do appreciate you meeting with folks, especially those who have reached out and coming to a place where we could agree on things. I also see—sorry, Council Member Blackaby has his hands up. I just want to thank Council Member Lunapara and the rent board team for bringing this forward. I share some of the feedback we've heard from.
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She's vulnerable, and that's why she's going to the city and saying, can you do something about this so that my name doesn't have to be involved? And I also want to add, again, showing how there is common ground here, and you are aligned on some matters. On an unrelated matter, she texted me, Harrison is horrible. I hope they don't bring their shit here. So I just want you to know that you do have common ground. Amber was at the Spark Lot on Grayson, but she was housing assessed. But almost four years later, she doesn't have housing. And for her, if she were able to secure the apartment that the prospective landlord promised her four months ago but is now put out on the market, it would be cheaper than the cost of being in a motel at a time that our motel conversions are in jeopardy anyway and may not lead to permanent housing. That would be a lower cost for her if only someone could facilitate it through the system. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. I think there's one person online. It's just somebody listed as Zoom user. Hi, it's me. It's Moni Law. I just wanted to invite everyone. There's a closure here for the fact that we have a landlord's welcome and a huge workshop with all of the organizations that service property owners in Berkeley being hosted at the Berkeley Rent Board offices in two weeks' time. So check out your social media, and we will be there providing information and guidance and all the clarity that people have been talking about the last few minutes on this last item. So landlord's workshop opening with all the groups that are there in one space from room to room, and they will be able to interact and get a lot of education about how things go and to be encouraged to enter that marketplace to provide housing if they have not started to do so. So I just want to make sure everybody puts that in their calendar. I believe it's July 22nd. Yeah, it's a Wednesday, and it's from 10 to 1130, I believe. But check your Instagram, your Facebook, our website. All the details are there. Thank you. Thank you. One more with the caller with the phone number ending in 211. Hi, good evening. So our measure is still out of town, so we're not able to connect with you today. But what really all of us worry, first of all, the global warming and also situation. We've been back to 62 years, never been so cold in the summer. We have a serious problem with all of this heat in the East Coast, as well in Europe, and also we have a monster in the White House with totally breaking our rules. What rules? Be aware about, not myself, I don't care, I lived long enough, about you, my family, your family, everybody else. Anyway, I would love to hear from you soon, and you have my number, 510-848-5000. Thank you, and have a good night. Thank you. That's all. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Can we take the roll on that, please? Who, who? Second or? Okay. To adjourn the meeting, Council Member Kessarwani? Gone. Council Member Chaplin? Yes. Bartlett? Yes. Tregary? Aye. O'Keefe? Yes. Blackaby? Yes. Gunnarbara? Yes. Humbert? Yes. And Mayor Ishii? Yes. Okay. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Meeting is adjourned.