the time is 645. This is a special session of the Emoryville City Council. Madam clerk the roll. Council member privars. Here. Council member Solomon. Here. Council member Welch. Here. Vice Mayor Carr. Present. And Mayor Mora. Here. Thank you. Members at this time, I'll take approval of the final agenda. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve the final agenda. Second. I'm clerk. We have a motion in a second. The roll. Council member Privors. Aye. Council member Solomon. Aye. Council member Welch. Aye. Vice Mayor Carr. Aye. And Mayor Mora. Aye. Motion carries. Members, do you have any ex-partake communications to report? Seeing and hearing none. Now is the time for public comment for items, not on the agenda. Are there members of committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee's a new ruling that you should all be aware of. It is now as of April 1st today, deemed as offensive and will be enforced. There will be no loud laughing in Hawaii. The alternative is Aloha? Thank you for your comment. Are there any other members of the public who would like to make comment? Seeing none, we'll move to our our action items. First, we have 6.1, the annual report on the bicycle pedestrian advisory committees, goals, principles, and accomplishments for the year 2024. Hello, thanks for your time. I'm Jesse Olson, I'm the chair of the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee. And I'm here to present our goals, principles and accomplishments for 2024, as well as the committee priorities for 2025. So why why do we have a V-pack? So our mission is to provide input and recommendations regarding city policies, priorities, and feedback related to the cities, bicycle and pedestrian plan, and how that relates to our initiatives. What are our goals and principles? Our goals and principles are to work with the city council and city staff to improve access, infrastructure, and safety for people who ride a bike, walk, roll, or take transit in Emoryville. So just generally, we want to thank everyone at the city, city council, staff, consultants for all of our efforts. We think 2024 has been a great year, we've accomplished a lot. Had a great bike to wherever day, the completed or made major progress on the Greenway, Huchin Park, and installed a heck of a lot of new bike racks. Moving specifically to some accomplishments for 2024, we had a great bike rack inventory mapping and scouting initiative where we went out and cited new locations for bike racks to be installed. We provided extensive feedback on the 40th Street multimodal project phase one for 40th Street. We had a record-breaking bike tour every day with lots of participation and great enthusiasm. We talked about and discussed and provide a lot of feedback on the bicycle and pedestrian access to the marina. And we work with city staff and consultants to develop a plan to design and implement a fast and fruitful pedestrian and cyclist wayfinding program. So what are our priorities for 2025? We want to continue to effectively advocate for the city to improve the safety and accessibility of the Powell and Christie intersection for pedestrians and cyclists. We want to investigate developing additional safe infrastructure and provide recommendations to the 2028 to 2023 CIP with the top three priority fraction of all CIP projects. We wanna continue to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to the Marina. We wanna improve diversity and engagement with the BIPAC through increasing membership and participation and making sure that we have good representation for the City of Emoryville on our committee. We want to continue to improve this complete streets policy and provide good feedback there. And we want to continue implementation of great way-finding plans and improvements. Our first highlighted priority for 2025 is the Powell-Christian intersection, which we just discussed. It's a really tough intersection for everyone. It's one of the major intersections in the city and it can be really unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians, which is why we have it as our first highlighted priority. And our second highlighted priority is to increase bicycle and pedestrian access to our wonderful immigrant arena. So in conclusion, people walking, biking, and riding transit should be able to safely and quickly move around the city regardless of age, physical ability, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, or immigration status. BPAC works to recommend policies and projects to achieve the school. Thank you. for the presentation. Members, are there any questions? Oh, member pry force. Yeah. Thank you. So a lot of the committees have been diversifying their membership, have BPAC taken steps to also increase the diversity. If that's something that you guys care about. Yeah, it absolutely is something that we care about. We had record, I don't know if it was a record, but very low submissions for joining the B-PAC and we struggled to fill all the vacant seats. And that was kind of a wake up call for us. It was like, it's easy to not do all right, but this was big. So not only are we trying to fill seats, but we're looking at how we reach out to different parts of the community, obviously, the word is not getting out that we have these seats vacant. And maybe some people don't even know of the great work that we do. So we're definitely evaluating, really spreading the word, and also asking questions on the applications to better screen people so that we can really fill create a committee that is filled with all the voices that are present in Emoryville. Number of pry force. So in your opinion, do you feel that where the BPAC is now, that it does reflect the diversity of Emery Bill? No. Thank you. Members, any other questions? I actually had one, Jesse. You highlighted the Christie Powell intersection, which you called out as being quite difficult, I think as we all know. The obviously long term, we have the Emeryville loop plan, but in the meantime, I'm curious what other measures have been looked at or evaluated by BPAC as possible in the negations to some of those safety hazards at that intersection. I don't know that we've necessarily touched on it specifically, but things that we've discussed are better light cycles, additional infrastructure to prevent certain behaviors, certain turning behaviors, traffic calming and those sorts of things. But it's definitely going to be a continued focus for 2025. Thank you. All right, let's take a public comment on this item. Are there members of the public who would like to comment on the BPEC report? Seeing none, members, any additional comments? Member Solomon. I'll say really quickly, Ms. Mayor, thank you for the question on power Christie and just you know, well, when I was on BPAC before I was on council, you know, that was for multiple years, I think listed as the number one priority and not necessarily because it was the item that was going to be discussed during that year, but just more as a as a messaging tool at the council. So just to say, I think we've heard that. And I hope that people can continue from my personal opinion, can you discuss that to identify solutions that are shorter term than 2028 to 2023, which is outside of, you know, that's that's on our supplement. But I think appreciate you identifying that as a continued area of concern. Thank you. Any other comments? Member Price Force. I just want to encourage a lot of our senior aging population in Enriville to be involved with BPAC. It's always been a great pleasure to see you and others like working with the BPAC and encouraging them to look at not just the pedestrian experience, but the experience of our senior population as relates to pedestrian pathways. And so, yeah, as well as I like to see more members with families, with children, and what their experience is when it comes to pathways. And so, my inquiry around diversity, of course, I always would love to see a cultural, ethnic diversity in our committees, but I'm really focused on experience, the experience of the folks who are in our cities, because you get to let us know if a sign is too high, if it's too low, if it's too bright, you let us know whether or not we really are creating a city of our innovation and within innovation is, I believe, inclusion. Thanks. I just had one additional comment. One was just on this Powell Christie intersection. One thing that I'd like to look into is, if there's any other low-hanging fruit, so the things that you mentioned, the light cycles, minor infrastructure changes, obviously an elevated walkway is a major project, uh, and also as a pedestrian, uh, often at that intersection, I can, I would imagine it's, uh, tiring to go up over and, and down, so we're asking a lot from pedestrians with an elevated walkway. Um, so I think that's something that the city can continue to look closely at. And then just as to the diversity of the committee, I do want to thank the committee for the work that it's done. And I want to emphasize that at least for all the members that I've been part of appointing, in part, we are selecting you not just for your experience, but your capacity to appreciate the breadth and the scope of the committee. So I wanna thank you for taking into consideration and imagining all the folks who would be using that walkway, even people who don't necessarily have the time in the evening or to be able to come attend and participate in the meetings. We can still take into consideration the needs of that population. So I trust that you're doing that and we'll continue to do that. Item 6.2, budget advisory committee annual report on 2024 committee accomplishments and 2025 priorities. I don't see the chair here right at this time we have the finance consulting and committee member here we could either wait and see if the chair is going to make it and see if we can ask another committee to go up or if a Brian or Fran would like to speak to it I'm going to take a look at the comments. I'll take a shot at it. And then obviously Fran can add her comments. So tonight we're presenting to you the budget advisory committees report to the council. And then the first slide we show you the committee membership. We go to the next slide. And here's the committee members and the committee members have a meeting with the committee members and the committee members have a meeting with the committee members and the committee members have a meeting with the committee members and the committee members have a meeting with the committee members and the committee members have a meeting with the committee members, the committee meets six times a year. Next slide. These are a list of the committee's achievements and accomplishments for 2024. And as you can see, 10 items there, pretty long list, including reviewing the Midyear Budget Report, the fee schedule, the General Fund Update and Review, the audited financials, the Section 115 pension trust, affordable housing programs, they discussed fire services, expenditures, long-term debt, and also ways to ensure that the committee's recommendation are communicated to the council. Next slide. For 2025, the committee has highlighted nine items, including the mid-year budget amendments, which you heard last month. The master fee schedule, both the city budget and the capital improvement budget, the two-year budget that's coming up. The audit, reviewing budget policies to ensure sound financial management, investment policy, section 150, and trust fire expenditures and annual housing. Next slide. In terms of their highlighted priorities, they selected one priority, which is to review budget policies to ensure sound financial management. And then their secondary priorities, they had two of them. One was to review the 2024-25 mid-year budget amendments, which you heard last month, and also to review the investment policy. Next slide. So that's the report. I'd be happy to answer any questions. And obviously, we have a member of the committee here to comment as well. Thank you, Brian. Members, are there any questions? and the private force. Thank you for your presentation. Unless there's been like a major change in membership of the budget committee, what has changed in terms of the budget committees, priorities, or maybe governing philosophy, views, that would help the city reach a different direction than it has been, a different trajectory than it has been in the past. Just to instill confidence to residents, to workers in a city that things truly are different. Not just in terms of the things that my colleagues and I have agreed on and city staff have worked on, you know, like folks like you have worked on, but that there is something also different. I don't know, is it a different vision? That's happening amongst the committee. Is it a different conversation? Could you speak to that? What's different, what's changed? Well, I would say at the last meeting, certainly when we talked about the major adjustments for the general fund, they did provide quite a bit of feedback to the council, including some recommendations on what they called the future. So they not only gave you a set of recommendations about the mid-year adjustments, but they had another set of recommendations about the future. So I thought that was a little bit further than the community had gone in the past. I also should mention that at their next meeting, the committee in addition to looking at the budget is also interested in talking about the composition of the committee in the future. so they've asked that that be added to the agenda and we'll put that on as well. Any other questions? Member Price Force? Yes, in terms of the composition of the committee, I definitely would recommend to the committee many of our, I remember at Keenow, one of the most amazing things that we did on our board was that we, not just, we served young people, but we actually added a young person to our board. And that really changed some of our assumptions, especially like preventing us from being she's say corny. And so, and I didn't realize how corny I can be until a 12-year-old tells you that. And so is there, I would encourage an opportunity to add not just those who are struggling, sort of paycheck to paycheck, those who are low income, those who are low opportunity. But I think it would be amazing if the budget committee also, if not adding a member actually spoke to and reached out to some of our unsheltered population to see how does the city budget since they're at the bottom, how does our city budget affect? it since they're at the bottom? How does our city budget affect them? And if they don't know where they're at, I can point to where they are in our city, but just like talking to them, sort of just get their ideas on how our budget affects everyone from our wealthiest residents and workers to those who are struggling the most. Any other questions? Thank you, Brian. All right. I'd like to open up the public comment for this item. Are there members of the public? Please come to the podium. Welcome, Fran. I'm Fran Kutel. I've served on this committee for about eight years. I was the vice chair and I have, I would say step back to so that younger people can come and take on leadership roles in our committee. I feel that's very important. If you don't know, I was a recruiter in the software industry for about 35 years and I am an adept recruiter of qualified people to participate. So I want to address a couple of things, particularly what you said, which I'll do at the end. I feel that as Brian said, the mid-year budget priorities were really important to us this year. And up until this opportunity has come up with center health, I think we were wondering about what focus, focus we could think about so that the city would be on firm ground. We take our work very, very seriously and using funds that we've set aside is really a concern. We pay attention to that, we pay attention to sales tax, we pay attention to staffing, we pay attention the funding that we need to help keep our city going and the funds that are being used. I feel that we are at a key point now. We are going to be at a different time in our city as we plan for a major landmark project in our city. and the most important thing for each member of council and for anyone in the public who wants to participate in our committee is some level of financial acumen being able to read and study reports being able to really look at the impact of decisions that are making. I don't think we'd be a good training ground for people who don't have the ability to sit down and Read a financial document the documents that we read are prepared by the city. Thank you for your comment and I finish Is there a member of the public willing to see two minutes of time to the speaker? Please proceed for yes, but I think we would be a good training ground for an intern. If we had someone who is willing to sit in, if there is somebody who has the interest in the budgets of the city and wants to get used to participating in the city, I think it would be great to have an intern, somebody who's interested in finance. And I want to add one other point. When you come to a committee like ours, we really love it when the City Council pays attention to the numbers and reads what we have and responds to it. It means a lot to us and we appreciate that very much. And you don't have to be a financial genius to participate in our committee but you do have to be willing to study the numbers. Okay I didn't plan to speak thank you very much. Thank you. Any other members of the public? Members any further discussion on this item? Member Price Force. I just wanted to share with the Emmerville public that I have a queeried our city manager as well as our staff on on on the South of Health and what it means to the city. And and their response is the response that I share with all of you. We simply don't know it's too early to tell. And so I appreciate your calls and your texts and your and you know your messages asking about how this would affect our city. But it's too early to tell we really don't know. And so that's something we're all figuring out. And anything that we figure out will be very transparent with you. Any other comments? Let's move on to item 6.4, the housing committees annual report on committee goals, principles, and accomplishments. Mayor, I'm sorry we skipped the apologies. Item 6.3orable council members, I'm Beth Rosales and I'm actually pitching in for chair Ellen Strauss who is having a medical issue at this very moment. So here I am, and also our vice chair is done available. So I'm a member of the committee, and actually a returning member of the committee. And just really quickly, I'm going to assume that you've read the report. And so I'd rather not read it. And I'd like to start with our accomplishments. In that, in highlighting our accomplishments for last year, which I feel you know that we are successful in fulfilling all the vacancies in the commission. And we have an amazing diversity. We have four women and three men. We have two people of color, finally, on the commission. And we have five, we have some limitation of some sort. As well as we have three people who live in a BMR or affordable housing. So we think that the composition of the community is quite healthy and reflecting the population of Emergill. And secondly, as you know, we wrote the city's age-friendly action plan and we focused in the area of communications and assistance to our senior community and And later on, I'll speak about a volunteer program that we've initiated. As you know, isolation is really a key problem with seniors. And so what we've done is we've actually come up with a new initiative, a pilot program for a local volunteer run help desk because because it's not by agent. And that's meant to assist issues that seniors may encounter as well as recalling the guides, the volunteer as guides, because we will not only refer people to the resources, but rather also make certain that that their case is closed. So we have a follow-up on that. We are in the process of recruiting volunteers and we decided to actually start close to home that all of the members of the Commission are volunteering and we hope that the friends come and as you know, the senior center has a slew of dedicated volunteers. So we think that we can at least start with 12 volunteers and we are planning to launch that initiative in June. And in terms of our priorities for 2025, our top priorities are at this point making certain that the help desk is established in June. And we think that we're there. We just recently brought on a commission member who has an LCSW. So Miss Diane Rashwood, who just recently joined us and will be putting together a volunteer training program. And hopefully we will have some social work interns who will also staff the volunteer cohort and she has been willing to actually supervise, she provides that. So we are negotiating at this very moment with either the university, the Hayward University, as well as the Samuel Merritt Academy. And thanks to a generous donation for the help desk, we actually are able to purchase a dedicated laptop, which is a city couldn't give us. And so we're quite happy that we're also actively recruiting major guests for this program. Lastly, we'd like to basically convey that we have full support of the B-PAC's interest in having the council prioritize pedestrian safety and as you're aware that in it's been slightly difficult for us to actually get some statistics but every year is 2019. There's been a pedestrian injury and some fatalities and and like heavens there were no children at the park when to conditions happened by the Marina and the federal member car did promise that in 2024 that she would raise and assist in prioritizing pedestrian safety. Basically, we are also looking to gather some demographics about seniors here in Emerville and basically so that we can identify maybe some gaps in services. So with that, we are very happy and dedicated volunteers who work and live in Emoryville and thank you very much. I'm open for questions. Thank you. Members, any questions? Number, pry force. First, I want to start off with an apology. I think I can be quoted as saying that our public art committee and our housing committee are some of our most diverse committees, and now I see I stand corrected. So congratulations. How have you been able to reach that benchmark of getting and recruiting people as relates to, as relates to diversity in your committee. We basically had each commissioner look for come up with a recommendation and I think that we we focus on that this year and we wanted to fill up the vacancies. We had a number of vacancies as well. that the different locations of the city are represented. So we have basically the Marina and the mid portion and the triangle. And so we really wanted to make certain that the geography was part of that diversity and not just race or not just gender and not just disability. So we were very conscious and obviously, we have Kim Burrow's, the Secretary and staff of the Commission, and she's been really helpful in encouraging people to apply. And again, the pipeline is gonna be really critical. I think in any recruitment effort that the city has. Any other questions? All right, thank you. to open things up to the public for public comment. Are there members of the public who would like to comment on this item? Seeing no members of the public, members, any additional comments? Member Price Force. So my question is to the city manager and to the city attorney. How has it worked in the past when us relates to the committees being able to receive donations? Ida through the city, are they considered gifts? Is there a way for some of our committees if they need laptops, if they need certain resources for us to be able to advocate on our behalf, whether it's a link on the website or something where people, I'm sure, like to donate to to the committees Mr. Kennedy Thank you councilmember pry force. I'm not aware of what the practice has been in the past but In my view this would be considered a gift to the city So if it reaches a certain dollar threshold, I think the city council. Sorry. I'm gonna ask our community services director to answer your question. Thank you. So if we're approached about a donation, we have an AI in place, and we actually come to City Council with a staff report where you accept that donation before we take it. And we have a great example is we did get some donations in the past that you have seen and through Stanford Healthcare and Cliff Barr recently as well. recently as well. Member Price Force. Stanford Healthcare and Cliff Barr recently as well. Number, pry force. Is there a way and maybe that's a question for Madam Clerk and Madam City Manager? Is there a way for us to share or for Rebecca? Is there a way for us to share that like on our website or any way to sort of let the public know that our committees need certain resources or that sort of thing? That's a really great question. I don't think we have a specific space dedicated to that. But we also have, as Beth had mentioned, we also have a nonprofit at the senior center, the friends of the, the friends of the senior center, as well as we have one with the friends of ACDC. They also can accept donations and then purchase those items for us. Okay, okay. Yeah, it would be great if the, if all of our committee members, if you do need some laptops or support or any that the city can show a shore up for you all. And if we can create that kind of a channel for that to happen, that would be great. And so if we could extend, we have already set up for all the committees. But as long as there's some sort of communication happening and then in a yaw can communicate to Rebecca and say, hey, we need this, we need that. That would actually help us in our work. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have item 6.4, the housing committee. Mayor. I'd like to introduce economic development and housing manager, Valleie Bernardo, she's going to be providing us as secretary to the housing committee on behalf of this housing committee as the chair was unavailable this evening. Thank you, Valerie. Good evening. So as the director mentioned, I am the Secretary of the housing committee and our goal is to provide input and recommendations back to the city council on policies and priorities and feedback related to a variety of housing policies and programs. So that's our overarching goal. In 2024, next slide please. We had quite a few accomplishments. We had a total of four. The first one is we recommended approval of the 2022 and 2023 housing successor annual report. That report is a statutory report. We have to submit to the state by April 1st of every day. In that report, we identified that we have 150 loans on our portfolio. We had expended $4.4 million during the fiscal year, and we had an ending balance of assets as well as resources to a $23 million. That did go to city council, and it was approved in March 19th of 2024. We also have a second annual report that's required to go to the state. It is our Housing Element Annual Report, the Housing Committee reviews and makes recommendations related to that. In that report, we identify our progress on meeting our regional housing allocation needs and what programs the city is implementing related to housing. So that also was approved by the City Council on March 19th, 2024. Next slide. We also provided a recommendation related to our first home in reveal program guideline. This is our first time home by our assistance program. This did come to City Council in May of 2024. The program previously had only issued one loan in over a 10 year time period. There was recommendations that the committee made regarding changes certain program guidelines related to front and back and ratio loan amounts interest rates. That program is funded through our measure see housing bond so it actually allocates utilization of those funds at the city. And the residents had approved through a bond issuance and it also supports work within our housing element. That program was launched in September of 2024 and is currently being implemented. And then our fourth accomplishment was recommending approval of the Emeryville Accessible Living Guidelines or the EALI for short program guidelines. The purpose of this program was to provide accessibility and aging and place improvements to our residents and our existing homeowners association developments related to doing common area improvements or our multifamily properties could also seek funding for common area improvements. This also supports our housing element. It also supports our aging, our plan under the housing domain. Funding for this program was came from the state's pro housing implementation pilot program. The council approved those recommended guidelines in June of 2024 and that program launched in July as well. So those were the accomplishments of the housing committee. Did want to identify that one of the biggest challenges we had with the housing committee last year is we lost seven members. So we had a significantly high turnover. Because of that high turnover, we were only able to meet three times in 2024 and that was between January and June. We were not able to hold any meetings between July and December because we had the inability of obtaining a quorum. So the solutions that the committee was able to come up with when we met in early January was to reduce the number of committee members from nine to seven. The committee thanks council because you guys did approve that request on January of this year. And then also they wanted to increase the frequency of meetings from by monthly to monthly. So instead of meeting six times a year, we'd meet 12 times a year, because we had a lot of work that we were unable to get done. And they thought it would be better for us to meet more frequently. And the City Council, they also appreciate the fact that you guys approve that change in March of this year. So their goal, number one goal, to hold more consistent and frequent meetings, and to ensure that they're having an active membership. That is. of that change in March of this year. So their goal, number one goal, is to hold more consistent and frequent meetings and to ensure that they're having an active membership that is participating in the meetings and able to attend moving forward. Next slide. Separate from that, they have identified two highlighted priorities. Their first one is to continue to make modifications to the blowmark rate rental guidelines. The guidelines are intended to provide guidance to both the developers, property managers, but also our tenants in regards to the requirements for participating in the BMR program. This does relate back to our housing element in order to ensure that housing is accessible and affordable to very low, low and moderate income households. And we started this discussion in 2024, but as I've mentioned, we only met three times. In 2024, we did discuss minimum income to qualify, BMR tenant income increases. The other items that we need to continue in order to complete this work and that we're working to discuss in 2025 will be how we can limit rent increases and other fees, how we can come up with a better policy related to BMR weightless management, capping unbundled parking fees, and the BMR tenant recertification guidelines. In fact, the BMR tenant recertification guidelines is on the agenda for the Housing Committee meeting tomorrow night if anybody is interested in participating or hearing that conversation. Next slide. Our second highlighted priority is our tenant stabilization methods. The person of this is to provide renter household with the ability regardless of their means to live in a safe, decent, and attainable house without undue risk of displacement. This also supports our housing element. It's our program QQ, which is our tenant protection measures. We did start, again, this discussion in 2024 with a conversation regarding rent control. We need to finish our work related to this. So in 2025, we are going to be discussing eviction trends, modifications to the residential landlord tenant relations ordinance, release requirements, expansion of our BMR tenant protections and tenants' right to organize, and also tomorrow on the Housing Committee agenda is the tenants' right to organize, if anybody wants to hear that conversation. So we wanna be able to get tenure on our work so we can come up with some recommendations to submit back to the city council. Next slide. The other work that we anticipate doing in 2025 is of course we'll do the 2024 Housing Element Report that actually has already been completed and approved and submitted to Council and it was submitted to the state today. Same thing for the 2023 24 Housing Successor Annual Report that's been complete. We have done any evaluation of our housing committee composition. We've had that discussion and compiled that was recommendations will be tallied with all the other committees recommendations and brought to city council later this year. We will do the 2025 housing affordability table review the rental rehab program guidelines. It's also funded out of our measure see housing bond. And then of course the 24, 25 measure C annual report will come at the end of the year as a look back as to how we've expended those funds and what we've done under our housing bond administration and expenditure plan. Next slide. With that, I do wanna say thank you again. I'm the secretary, our chair, unfortunately, could not be here tonight. You'll see on the left side of the screen all of the committee members that we had between January and June of 2024 and then this year at least from January till June until we have our new committees everybody who is there today and I definitely want to say thank you on behalf of those committee members that we have there today. They're extremely active. They provide a lot of good conversation and feedback and they make it interesting for me to be on the committee and I really appreciate their feedback. Thank you. Thank you, Valerie. Members, any questions? for the private force. I know that sometimes will save the and the importance of the community to have a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community that is a community a lot of people. Absolutely. So within our housing admin bond expenditure and admin program, we identified a variety of programs that the city wanted to fund. One of them was a rental rehab program that would provide funding to existing property owners to provide renovation funds to rehab existing rental properties. So if there's an existing multi-family property that has some kind of capital need, potentially they would be able to apply for funding from the city in order to do the renovations necessary at the property. Number of price for us. And so for the rental properties, how do is that is that coming from the sort of property owner, property manager, or can that come from the tenants? So if there is something that they feel, oh well, this needs to be worked on, is the rental rehab really geared towards them, or is it more so geared towards the property, or property managers, and is there a way for the two to work together? So we have not drafted the guidelines. So I'm going to provide you what typically would happen, not what is late in stone because there is no stone yet. But traditionally, the funding would be available to the owner of the property because the funding would be provided as a loan. So they would have to be interested in securing a loan in order to do the renovation. So funding would only be made available to owners. A property manager could apply for the funding on behalf of the owner but tenants would not have the ability. Tentents would have to relay their concerns to the property manager or the owner. And then again, it would be an incumbent upon the owner, and then again, it would be an incumbent upon the owner or property manager to want to apply for the funds and be willing to take on the loan. Number of price force. Thank you. Would it, within the sort of program guidelines, us that's being composed, would there be an opportunity, or it can there be an opportunity that's created for tenants to be able to share their recommendations for rehabilitation that property managers can perhaps share with you all. Like is there a way for that conversation to happen? So that tenants are a little bit more sort of active or engaged in a way that I believe is similar to, is the question, is the rental rehab, is that related to the accessibility, wherein we provided that loan for communities to be able to rehab their accessibility. Is that somehow connected? They are similar. And that it was providing renovation funds. The accessibility program specifically focused on accessibility improvements to homeowner properties. This would be only funds available to make renovation improvements to rental properties. So it would not be something that's owner occupied or managed through an HOA. A tenant, of course, could communicate their request to the property owner. But again, because the liability would rely on the owner of the property, we could not take a request from a tenant separate from the owner wanting to secure funding. But we can definitely think about ways for the owners to engage their tenants in identifying needs. That's possible. Gotcha. Because from my recollection, that program, the accessibility program was kind of, I was saying not largely, but probably half way, or at least 35% underutilized that there were still funds left over. Yeah, so an opportunity for there to be some engagement. It could be, hey, I want this gym equipment here, or I would like the pool to be heated. And maybe something wherein the tenants are able to provide something to their property managers, property owners, so to be able to, hopefully that they'll make that recommendation to you all as they're pursuing these funds. I will say on the accessibility program, we did have one homeowner who wanted an improvement in the common areas, and so they submitted their request to the HOA, and the HOA did include that in their request to the city for funding. So that did happen on the accessibility program. It could also happen on a rental program as well. Awesome. Thank you, Val. Any other questions? Thank you, Valorate. Now's the time for public comment. Are there members of the public who would like to comment on this item. Seeing none, members, other discussion. Member Price Force. I just want to say that Valerie does a lot. And for the committee members to have taken the charge to now need seats, but to meet 12 times a year, it's pretty amazing. So I want to give a shout out to the housing committee. And I don't know, just might give me sanctioned again, but yeah, when I think about labor negotiations, I think about Valerie. I think about how hard our staff really work to not only do the job that they're assigned, but you know, Valerie's also taking a lot of complaints and like the community. Can you imagine If you had to receive as a committee, so many complaints from residents in the city, like, hey, this is what's going on, this is what's happening. And so it's not only brought to her doorstep as a staff member, but also in terms of the committee. And so I just re-appreciate all the hard work that she does that all of our staff do. Any other member comments? Let's move to item 6.5. This is our last committee update with the Parks and Recreation Committee annual report on committee goals, principles, and accomplishments. Welcome. Hi everybody. Good evening. Excuse me. My name is Nicholas Robert. I'm the committee chair for the Parks and Rec Committee. I'm excited to be here tonight to tell you about our accomplishments last year and what we're up to this year. So just a little bit about the Parks and Rec Committee and our goals. Next slide please. So providing input and recommendations regarding city policies, priorities and feedback on the city's recreation programs, cultural events, activities, public use of parks, developments of new parks. It's a long list, but mostly enhancing what we already have here in Emoryville. Yeah, and trying to go forward with our, adapting our parks and recreation strategic plan. Next slide, please. Beautiful shop from, from the beach there. Next slide, please. Cool. So, our accomplishments last year. I think our major accomplishment was supporting the staff with the design and distribution of our parks and rec survey. We noticed that it was time to get the word out as you brought up member of our force is getting more voices heard, not just from volunteers on the committee, but trying to reach out to the community and really get some of that feedback. We've also been collaborating with Emeryville Trilbeeswin in nature to host a pilot program in Stanford Park. Started a new quarterly park site visit for our committee to get out there and enjoy the parks, take notes, share those with the committee and kind of get back because it is volunteer position and it is hard to get to the parks, but it's better to kind of share that experience with all of us. Continuing to encourage progress for the McLaughlin, East Shore Park, coordinated with public works on park-related projects like the Tree Canopy Project Study and other items. And a big issue in the reveal here. We advocated for the increase of dog bag dispensers in all parks. Keep our streets clean. Next slide, please. All right, some of our ongoing accomplishments, stuff that we're keeping our eye on is community services, events, and programs, as well as playing division developments, changes in state and local laws affecting our parks. Cool, next question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. So, I think that's a good question. and update our parks and recreation strategy claim. Just a note, we got about 276 responses to the survey, so it's a pretty good sample size for our annual size. So pretty happy with that result. And our second priority is to continue and make recommendations for children and nature programs through park improvements or being greening and programming. Some other priorities we have for this year, work with city staff utilize those survey results. Prioritize and bring new ideas and support current recreational programming and support and rebuild traditions. Support staff in strategizing marketing opportunities spread awareness of current future programming. One of we kind of got to get the word out online. I think QR codes are a great way to do that just to let people in the know if like the parks are visiting and how to interact and book these things and so on and so forth. We're going to continue to make recommendations for children in nature and programs through park improvements or greening and programming and continue to encourage progress on the McLaughlin and E-Shore Park. More great shots from around our city. Okay, so we're gonna continue to prioritize our parks as essential infrastructure throughout the city operations management, planning and coordinations with the PR Advisory Committee, advocate for increased access and funding for outdoor recreation in our city. Continue to advocate for the prioritized parks and recreation CIP projects. Continue to advocate for projects and actions related to climate resistance, rewilding, and inequitable access to nature, as well as continuing to advocate for urban greening for our city parks, as well as environmental health strategy and community health strategy. Cool. All right, and I think one last slide. Small great shots, thanks Rebecca. Cool, all right, thanks everybody, and I'll pause for questions. Thank you, Nicholas. Members, any questions? Number, pry force. If anyone takes a quick glance at Rebecca Somano and she has a proud mama face on. Yeah, you all should be proud because now when you have, what you all have done, of course, alignment with community services has gotten so much recognition from local elected officials, from so many awards. But the most important thing is that people want to live in Emeryville because of the valuable work that you do. But it's question time. And so one of the biggest questions that I get a lot, and I know it doesn't necessarily fit into the green area, is the skate park. The skate park, and that's something I've raised and you may you may want to answer Rebecca, but what is going on with the skate park it feels underloved and and and and also is there perhaps a potential or yeah for for your future parks to maybe have a bigger, for us to have a bigger skate park. And that I think that this is something that, yeah, when we get the, we get the adults who use the skate park. I mean, that's be real, A lot of adults use the skate park, but for a lot of our kids who get to that age, where they want to use it, sometimes they feel safer and burply, which is well-lit, it's huge, and they have that. And yeah, and I think that hopefully maybe one day we can provide something even better. Yeah it's a good question I think it is loved a lot by the people who use it and but you bring up some good points of things that it is missing. I'd like to point out our member Andy Aggers she was part of our kind of outreach group that we're doing and she she went visited and talked to the people who were there. They have a community, they love the park, but they do have some notes. Like the bathroom doesn't really be used. They ask for some more lighting, but they do have a community there and I think supporting them will help kind of let more people be part of that community. So just making it a little bit more accessible, we have ideas. Number of pry force. In terms of the lighting or even any other lighting with the parks, sometimes birds have more rights than we do. This is our sort of, what's the word for birds? It's, I forget it. But how, is that, does that become an issue in terms of the lighting, in terms of? I'm not aware of that. I think as maybe it's not all the lighting, but I think a lot of the people who use the park kind of bring their own equipment. They help kids who are kind of learning how to skate. I think trying to work with the people who are there all the time to figure out what they need most is probably the best way. Like they set up their own personal bench to work on the skateboards and kind of teach these kids how to do it. I think kind of investing more in potential nice amenities for the park to kind of get people as like to talk and teach is probably a better way than maybe lighting if we want to go cost effective. But I think it's just listening to that community. Any other questions? Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you, everybody. Now is the time for public comment. Are there members of the public who would like to comment on this item? Seeing no members of the public, members, any additional comments? Member Price Force. Just thank you for all you do for our babies, for our seniors and everyone else who benefits from everything that you all do. It really, really matters. Thank you. I would just like to thank the Parks Committee and all the committees on the updates provided today, the committee. Thank you. I would just like to thank the Parks Committee and all the committees on the updates provided today. The council greatly appreciates the work that you do. Thank you. The time is 746. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you