Thank you. I call to order the special meeting of the Berkeley City Council today is Tuesday, January 27 2026 clerk
Can you please call the roll?
Okay
Council member Kester one is currently absent customer tap one. It's currently absent. Councilor Bartlett is currently absent
councilmember check him hasn't O'Kee
present black a bee here
Humbert I am present
Well I guess okay here
Here and Mary she here
Councilmember Taplin is also
present
Okay
I'm going to
Move over there
Thank you. We have one item on our special
Agenda today, it's the 2026 City Council referral prioritization process using re-weighted range voting R.R.V and
I'm gonna pass it off to staff to present this item
Thank You vice mayor. My name is Mark Newmanville on the city clerk for the city of Berkeley and I'm gonna bring up a short
presentation on the R.R.V.
prioritization process and
They're with me just one moment
R.R.V. City Council referral prioritization process.
Doing two jobs at once, sorry.
So today's presentation, we'll have a brief review of what re-weighted range voting is
and how the R.R.V. process works.
We can then discuss a little bit about the items marked for removal and I'll summarize
also what actions are up for the City Council to take at today's meeting.
So, how does re-weighted range voting work?
There's a list of referrals.
Each council member rates every referral on a scale of zero to five, zero being the least
amount of support and five being the most amount of support.
There's no limit to repeat scores or how many or how few referrals a council member assigns
a score to.
After the meeting today, the scores are all tallied up for all the referrals.
And the referral with the highest total score becomes the first priority.
Then for all of the remaining referrals on the list, the scores are re-weighted based
on a formula and that's affected by how much influence each council member has used up
to that point and this guarantees sort of a equal influence over the long run and gives
more voice to minority opinions.
That's how the system was designed to work and that's how it works.
So our current process from start to finish is the Council adopts a referral on the City
Council agenda.
Then that referral is categorized by the City Manager either long-term, short-term or urgent.
The long-term referrals are added to the RRV list to be prioritized by the Council.
The short-term referrals work is started on those right away.
Annually the City Council assigns the scores to the long-term referrals on the
RRV list, the process that we're doing right now, and staff generally starts to
address the referrals in the order of council priority. Of course some
departments are overrepresented in the results so the City Manager and those
departments have some discretion as to how many referrals they can take on all
at once. Completed referrals are reported back to the City Council through an item on
the agenda or also often through an off-agenda memo. So the data that we have in the item
itself in attachment one is the raw scores assigned to each referral by the Mayor and
all the council members where no rating was assigned, the default score is zero and the
list in the agenda packet is sorted by meeting date from the most recent date back to the
oldest date.
In attachment two are the referrals that were marked for removal during the scoring process.
So during the scoring process, any Councilmember could mark any referral for removal, to sort
of nominate it to be removed from the list.
And then that list of nominated referrals is brought here before City Council for the
Council to decide which ones should be removed.
A couple of notes, just some summary notes.
In the packet, the list of referrals, there were 53 items on the referral list.
Eight of those were marked for removal by council members.
And just as a side note, there were ten referrals that were not marked for removal that received
a total score of less than five and also had no single score higher than a three.
So the action for this meeting is to review the list of the referrals marked for removal.
Here in open session the council can add more items to be removed or also take items off
of the removal list.
The council will need to vote on which items should be removed from the list of 53 referrals
And you can do that all in one motion.
You don't have to vote on them individually, though you can if there's some disagreement.
And then the council will also direct staff to run the RRV algorithm.
And I will do so after this meeting this week.
And then the final prioritized list will be presented back to the city council
at a special meeting on February 10th.
So that concludes the presentation.
Of course, if there's any questions, happy to answer those.
Thank you so much.
Are there any comments or questions for staff on this item?
We'll start with Councilmember Humber.
Thank you, Madam Acting Mayor.
Just a quick question that 10 referrals not marked for removal but which got really low
scores and no no single score higher than a three can we vote on removing
those here today yes yes certainly account the council could add new items
to the list of those to be removed and also take items off of the list to be
removed as well so okay thank you that's all I have councilmember Taplin are
there any other questions for staff just questions for right now I have a quick
question what happens if there are multiple referrals that are tied in
first in raw scores that's a good question that's never happened it has
happened okay it's happening now I mean oh it's happening now well I suppose
we'd have to figure out some way to break the tie because I'm not sure how
the algorithm would respond to a tie vote okay thank you okay if there are no
more questions let's do public comment I don't see any public commenters in
person are there is there anyone online there's nobody online who's raised their
hand to speak okay thank you council colleagues are there any comments on
on this item. Council member Humbert you're you're still I'm sorry.
Okay Councilmember Blackaby. Yeah thanks Acting Mayor. I think my main comment kind of responding
to Councilmember Humbert's question in terms of items removal I support I think removing
most of the items believe all the items mark removal and I think there were some items
for example that I scored a zero it looked like everybody scored a zero partially for
the reason we're not yet in the window when there's a 2028 ballot measure consideration
or looking back in three years after middle housing has been in effect so if we do go
a little further than reviewing the items that aren't already marked for removal I just
caution us to be careful that we don't inadvertently remove some of those that I think some of
us just put zeros on because we're not yet in the window to review them so that's my
family comment. Thank you. Councilmember Taplin. Yes. Thank you. Madam Acting Mayor. I had
a sort of process question for the City Manager. One of the items the Vision Zero Rapid Response
referral includes the direction to incorporate Oak Dots Neighborhood Traffic Homing guidelines
into the city bike plan.
Given that the bike plan update is underway,
I was wondering if you could confirm
whether that particular direction
has already been acted on.
I'd actually like Director Davis to weigh in on that.
They haven't been to my knowledge,
but I'm not 100% sure.
And I would say if they, or he's here,
so why don't I just let Director Davis speak to that
and then I can add more.
So council member Taplan those have been included in the existing draft. So the draft 20 25 plan is currently under its final review and those recommendations from Oakland and those standards have been included and incorporated along with all of the other stakeholder and community feedback received.
received. So once that final plan is brought forward to council, I think at that point in time
there'll be additional opportunity to comment on the draft plan and if there's any final
recommendations or direction council has at that point in time. So but short answer, yes, they've
been incorporated. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's do council member Humber and then
then Kesserwani and then we'll do Mayor Ishii, who's online.
Council Member Humbert.
Well maybe I'll defer to Council Member Kesserwani because she may be addressing one of the items
on the list for removal that she and Council Member Taplin sponsored that I had a question
about.
I don't know.
Okay.
Council Member Kesserwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Acting Mayor.
I did want to say that I was fine with removing all of the items that were tagged for removal
except for one, and that is the one it has, the code 04053.
This is about giving residents who live in West Berkeley within two blocks of commercial
corridors the opportunity to opt into the residential, preferential parking program.
Right now, you know, I don't know if everyone is aware.
There's an RPP eligibility map and it's mostly eastern neighborhoods and when you go into
West Berkeley, even if you want to have RPP on your block, according to the map, you know,
many streets and blocks and neighborhoods are not eligible.
And so this is something our public works department had brought to the council and
I know we have a lot of referrals to public works and so it makes it difficult, but I
think this is an equity issue and it's it's a way for people to sort of be
able to have some agency with parking on their block so I would ask that that
wouldn't be restored but I'm eager to listen to hear from my colleagues on
other items that maybe were not tagged for removal that we would want to remove
based on low scores and any other items that we would want to bring back from
the removal list but that was the one I wanted to advocate for and did I answer
for your question, council member Humbert.
Yes, you did.
And in fact, I join you in wanting to keep that on.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, council member.
Let's go to mayor Ishii and then council member Trejo.
Yes, I just wanted to make sure
that we had a good understanding of the 10
that were not marked for removal,
but had lower than three, was it?
I just wanna make sure we all know which ones those are.
was it three, is that right, Mr. City Clerk?
There were actually 10 total that fit that criteria.
I'm sorry, but you said that had scores below three
or something like that?
I just wanna make sure I understood.
They had, the total score was less than five,
so four or less and no single score from a council member
that was higher than three.
So that, yes.
Because I might recommend that we, that folks review the list to make sure that there isn't
anything on there that they may be put as the three that they would still want to keep.
And I'm happy to review those with the council as well.
Although I do think that it's a great idea to remove some items that, you know, we haven't
moved forward on in many, many years.
thank you mayor. Yeah, I think it would be helpful to go over those. Let's go to counselor
treg up and then and then go over those. Yeah, thank you. So first of all, and I'll, I'll
fess up I might have been the one to recommend the rpp one for removal, but I, I appreciate
the explanation and I would support on doing that recommendation. Now that I have a better
understanding of what this is because I was thinking of it globally as the RPP
program itself being up for review to ensure that it is a funded program not
operating under a deficit so that that makes sense and then my I wanted to
to associate myself with others desire to better understand what these other ten are.
For example, there was an item, I think, ending 3994, expansion of paid parking, and I think
We're actually discussing that later today
during the regular agenda,
and then there was one more, I think, parking in the marina,
and I would like to better understand
what is already being done by staff right now,
or may have already been considered by Council.
Thank you, Council Member.
Mr. City Clerk, do you have the list
of those you were mentioning?
Yes and then I can, we can also sort of follow along
in the agenda packet as well.
So I'll share the screen.
Okay, so in the agenda packet,
the list of referrals that were scored
starts on page three of the item.
and I'll just match that up with the list here.
So there's two demands here.
Both have the companion report,
affordable housing for artists,
and probably the easiest thing to do
is go by the meeting date,
because that's how the list is sorted.
So this was the December 2nd, 2025 meeting date.
You have demand that ends in 4242 and 4240.
So the first one, the one that ends in 4242,
this is companion report, affordable housing for artists.
The recommendation is to implement strategies
from the Berkeley Social Housing Study.
This referral received a total score of three.
There was one council member who scored that of three.
the rest were were zeros.
So I don't know if you want me to go through the list
or if you want to address them one at a time.
I think it'd be helpful to go through the list.
Okay. Thank you.
The next is the companion report,
affordable housing for artists.
This recommendation is to place
an affordable housing bond measure on the 2028 ballot.
That's from the same meeting December 2nd, 2025.
This item, this referral had one council member
who scored it at two and the rest were zero.
The next one is the demand on some,
it's from September 30th, 2025.
And that is number 4222.
This is to refer the item to the city attorney
with direction and parent memorandum to city staff
City Council addressing applicable legal documents related due process pending investigations
and other related matters.
This is regarding the Police Accountability Board.
This item received a two from one council member, a one from another council member,
and all zeros from the rest for a total score of three.
is a referral from November 21st, 2023.
And this is the demand that ends in 4135.
Let me just scroll to keep up.
And this one is regarding south side zoning amendments.
And this is to refer to the city manager
to develop requirements for new residential construction
that all bedrooms contain windows,
considered window requirements for habitable space.
And this one, again, is from eleven twenty one twenty twenty three.
This has a total score of four.
One council member gave it a three.
Another one gave it a one.
The next referral is from July 11th, twenty twenty three.
And this is number four one one one.
This is to conduct a study on the city's history of discriminatory actions and housing policies and programs.
This item received a score of two from a single council member and the rest were zeros.
Next one is from June 27th, 2023.
number 4110 adopting a temporary exemption from the collection of taxes under BMC
9.04136 the tax rate for non-medical and medical cannabis businesses.
This item received a score of two from two different council members for a total score of four.
Next is a referral from June 6th, 2023 bird safe building requirements.
And this was a, a, um, I think a referral, the subset of the item, um, to refer to the
city manager to provide a council, the city council report on the bird safe building
requirements, um, no sooner than three years after effective date of the ordinance that adopted
the the bird safe requirements.
This item received a score of one from a single council member
and all the rest were zeros for a total score of one.
Next is a referral from November 3rd, 2022.
This is a referral
to conduct an automatic traffic calming review for the area
immediately surrounding the project at 1201 to 1205 San Pablo Avenue,
and this one received a score of two from a single council member and the rest were zeros.
Next, there's another referral from this same meeting. This one is 4059 budget referral,
no right on red signs and this was to refer the city manager to develop policy recommendations
for considerate for consideration of expand limitations on right turns on red.
This one received a score of two from a council one council member and a score of one from
another council member for a total score of three.
The last one on this list is from May 30, 2017 in the before times.
This is the one ending in 4188.
This one, the recommendation is refer a city density bonus policy for the Telegraph Avenue
commercial district to the planning commission to generate in lieu fees that could be used
to build housing for the homeless
and extremely low residents,
oh, I'm sorry, and extremely low-income residents.
This one received a score of one
from a single council member and all zeros from the rest.
So that's the list of the 10 that were identified
as scoring low that were not placed on the removal list
when the council did its scoring
but are for your consideration at this time.
Great. Thank you so much, Mr. City Clerk.
Are there any council comments? Councilmember Casar-Wani?
Thank you, Mr. City Clerk, for that list.
You know, for the purposes of moving things along,
I was going to make a motion, we can modify it,
but so I'd like to make a motion to remove all the items
on the removal list, except the one related to RPP
for West Berkeley, and to add all the items,
the 10 items that you just listed, Mr. City Clerk.
So that would be the new list for removal,
but I'm interested to hear from my colleagues
if we wanna preserve anything or add further for removal.
So that's the motion.
Do you need a second?
I'd second.
Okay, thank you.
And if I may, I wanted to explain the thing
about the traffic calming at 1201 to 1205 San Pablo Avenue.
That is a, there was a housing development proposal
for that empty parcel.
If you were on San Pablo Avenue,
I think it's a Christmas tree lawn at times,
you know, over the holidays, but the project is stalled.
So there's no construction going on.
So I think given that, you know,
so we have sort of like a lot of items
that are sort of weird like that,
like something about a bond next year
or something for traffic calming
for a project that's stalled.
So, you know, I think that,
I mean, we may want to be cautious on those
because there may be a need to do those things.
But I think at this point,
I think these projects are stalled for quite a while
and someone can always bring back a traffic calming referral.
So that was the explanation for that.
But I'm fine to add it to the removal list.
Thank you.
And certainly any item that's removed from this list
today can be reintroduced in a modified format
or when it's more timely or anything like that.
This just would remove it off the list for now.
Yeah.
Thank you, Council Member.
Let's go to Council Member Trigib.
Yeah, thank you.
So some of these are probably we've moved on.
I had a question about the board safe building requirements
for 106.
This looks like the only remaining part of the referral
appears to be to bring something back
no sooner than three years after the effective date
of an ordinance, which I guess this would be the year
that it would be three years after the implementation date.
And that doesn't really sound like a referral to me
in the traditional sense, that's just something.
It is on the referral list, but I'm wondering
if there's some alternative mechanism
that this were which this could be tracked.
I think that's a question for city staff.
It is.
Mr. City Manager.
So your question is how might we track that
if it got removed from this list?
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, and I believe this was one of several
where I had a question.
I think some of them were,
like consider placing a bond in 2028.
Well, we can just have that discussion in 2028,
but something where maybe X number of years
after something was passed,
just asking for some kind of effectiveness report.
Do these currently get tracked in some way
Or is this the only way to keep track of them?
Director Klein, I don't know if you have an opinion on this one.
Yeah, I mean, I recall this action being attached to the adoption of the bird safe glass ordinance
that essentially asked staff to reevaluate the policy after three years.
And as you noted, we're getting up to that three year anniversary.
I see this as a, this would be a policy project.
I don't think it would be a huge policy project, but it would be a policy project that would
require staff time from our land use policy team to research and evaluate the policy,
talk with the planning commission. I think we'd likely want to look at, talk to the development
community, do an analysis of how the availability of bird safe glass has changed and analyze how
how it's impacting project feasibility,
and then so that we can advise planning commission
and city council on any potential changes to the policy.
If the referral is taken off the list,
we wouldn't pursue that project.
We would just let the existing policy go on
unless we have some reason to initiate work on it,
or whether it's referred again in the future.
Okay, great, thank you so much.
So I generally feel comfortable with that motion.
I do want to hear some of them were specific
to other council districts that are not mine.
So I would support if a colleague wants to fight
for something, but generally I'm comfortable
with the motion on the table.
Thank you council member.
Let's go to Mayor Ishii and then council member Tapplin
and then council member Blackby.
Yeah, I totally agree with folks that there are times,
are some items here that might be more appropriate at a different time. And so, of course, you know,
I think that we need to have an affordable housing bond for 2028 and also we don't need to leave that
on the ROV right now. That's something that I know we will be following up with far before the
election itself. And then the other thing I wanted to just mention that I'm okay with leaving it on
on the list to remove it right now,
but the no right on red signs one, the 4059,
I just wanted to say that I still think
that that makes sense to look into
how we can implement something like that in our city.
But I agree that for right now,
given our current situation,
that it may not make sense to have that continue
to stay on the RV and we can come back to it later.
So thanks everyone.
And thanks for your work to help clean up our list.
Thank you, Mayor.
Council Member Tapplin.
Thank you. I just have a short question. The staff report says that the list would not
include budget referrals, but a number of the items included are budget referrals. And
I was wondering, is that because some of them are like budget referrals slash policy direction?
Yeah, typically, usually, you know, a budget referral is just a budget referral, and that
That goes on the budget referral list for the items that have a policy, a proposed policy
or some new program or project and then include the budget referral within the item.
We've put those on this list for the council to decide if they want to do the new policy
and program first and then it would, then the budget referral would follow.
But as you know there's lots of just straight budget referrals that are submitted throughout
the year and those go on a list that the budget office keeps and is considered during the
budget review process.
Thank you very much.
Thinking ahead, do we foresee that there might be a scenario where an item is prioritized
but does not have the necessary budgetary allocation for it to move forward?
I mean, I speak to that a little bit.
Part of the reason why we moved this process up in the year is to get a list of prioritized
referrals for you to consider when we go through the budget process.
Water well thank you.
Thank you councilmember, Councilmember Blackby and then Councilmember Humber.
Just for clarification on the motion so would 4203 or 4054 be on the new remove list?
Just want to make sure 4203, 4203 was the middle housing three year study.
I don't think that was included.
Okay, and then 4054 was autonomous vehicles.
I don't have that one.
Great, okay, I just wanna make sure.
Okay, so those remain.
Then the only solution I had was maybe to go ahead
and keep the 2028 affordable housing bond investigation,
which is a 2028 item, to keep that on the list
just so we don't lose it.
Again, because I intentionally marked it low
because it wasn't, we didn't have to take action on it now.
so that was my only thought was just you know keep it on the list for future
ranking because we're not kind of in the window for evaluating it yet and just
didn't want to lose that for the future I know it's not a big deal but that was
just kind of my so is that a formal request? It would be a friendly amendment to restore that one and not
delete it. Okay I'm fine with that let's keep the 2028 affordable housing bond
items. It's still a zero it doesn't get ranked right now but it's on the list for
Okay, so that means we're only gonna remove nine of the ten that the city clerk just read off and
Councilmember Humbert agrees. Okay, sounds good. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember Humbert. Yeah, I'd like to add an item to the list looking at page 10 of 31 and it's item 0 4 1 9 7 which is Topa Copa.
But it's got all zeros, one five, but the remainder are zeros, and it's something maybe
we come back to in the future, but it requires funding, significant funding for any kind
of a Topa or Copa program to function, and given our current budget situation, there's
no funding for it, and I would recommend, I would want to add as a friendly amendment
that we remove that as well.
all zeros but one five so it's got a total score of five.
Well I kind of wanna check in with Council Member Trego
because he feels very differently.
Very.
Because I feel like this should be a unanimous process.
Yeah, I'm sorry I can't support that
but I appreciate the suggestion.
Okay.
Okay so Council Member Member,
are you still okay seconding my motion?
Yeah I am.
Okay.
I'll withdraw that.
Okay.
Friendly amendment.
Yeah, I think it's not gonna be ranked highly, right?
It's based on where it's at, so I think we can leave it.
Okay, thank you, all right.
I had a couple comments to make.
I worry that if we remove items that we agree on
from the list, even if they're ranked low,
that they'll kind of be lost in the ether.
And so there's one that I would really like to bring back
from as a friendly amendment,
which is the no way on red budget referral.
I think that should stay on the list,
even if it's ranked low, so that.
People have a really hard time.
You want a list of priorities?
Giving things up.
That's fine.
Thanks, Julie.
Sorry, y'all.
Cuting roles.
I also, that's a friendly amendment.
Yeah, I have one more.
Referring to the city attorney to prepare a memorandum
addressing the PAB ODPA discussions.
I think that that's still important to keep on there,
even if it wasn't ranked highly so that it's still tracked.
Those are the two main ones that I would like to keep.
I also, yeah, those are the two.
Okay, Madam Acting Mayor,
I just wanna go back and just check that ODPA item.
Okay, so it's 04222, correct?
So this is, okay.
Does anyone have any further context for this referral?
So it was sent September of 2025?
I believe that was with Council Member Blackaby's referral
that was connected.
Okay.
It was, this is the referral attorney to prepare a memo
to city staff and council addressing
the applicable legal doctrines related to due process,
pending investigations and other related matters.
I'm just trying to refresh of what it is we're wanting here,
what issue we're trying to address.
It was on a previous PAB item.
Okay.
And I think it was on the bike unit investigation.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's fine.
Let's, if Council Member Humbert is amenable,
I think we can restore these too.
No right on red will be restored,
and this referral related to PAB and ODPA,
04222, Mr. City Clerk, that one will also be restored.
Yeah, I'm fine with the first one
and grudgingly okay with the second one.
Yeah.
And I also, I agree with Council Member Tricop
on Copa Topa, I also don't want that to be lost
in the ether, even if it's not possible to happen right now.
Okay, and then we, yeah, so that is,
that was never on the 10 and it's not going to be.
So, okay, I think we have a reasonable proposal now.
Okay, great, if there are no more comments,
can we call the roll?
Okay, so again, this is to, on the initial list of eight,
removing all of those minus the RPP for West Berkeley,
that will stay.
And on the additional list of 10,
we are keeping 4240, affordable housing bond 4059,
right turn on red, and 4222, police accountability board.
And then this motion, if you'd like,
could also direct the city staff to run the algorithm
in return with the results on February 10th.
Yes, that's part of the motion.
Great, thank you.
And then just before we vote on Vice Mayor,
with regards to the tie scores,
I might have to consult the originator of the RRV program
to determine how best to address that.
I'm sure we can find a way within the system
to make that work.
Sounds good, thank you so much.
Okay, so on the motion, Council Member Kessarwani.
Yes.
Tapplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Traged.
Aye.
O'Keefe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Vice Mayor Lupara.
Yes.
Council Member Humber.
Yes.
And Mayor Ishi.
Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you so much.
I will adjourn the meeting and we'll be back for a regular.
Is there something I'm saying to motion? Okay, thank you.
Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? Thank you. Second.
Okay. Uh, to adjourn the meeting, council member kesserwani. Yes.
Tamplin. Yes. Bartlett. Yes. Tragem. Aye. O'Keeffe. Yes.
Blackaby. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes. Council member Humbert. Yes.
and Mayor Ishi.
Yes.
Okay, we're adjourned.
Great.
We'll be back for a regular city council meeting at 6 p.m.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Enjoy your break everyone.