Okay, hello everyone, good evening.
I am going to call to order
the Berkeley City Council meeting.
Today is Tuesday, April 21st, 2026,
and it is 608 p.m.
Thank you very much for your patience, everyone.
Can we please start off with the roll?
Certainly, and Mayor, before we get started with the roll,
Council Member O'Keefe will be participating remotely
under the Just Cause Provision of the Brown Act,
so we're gonna run through that script real quick.
Council Member O'Keefe is intending to participate
in a meeting remotely pursuant to the Brown Act
under the Just Cause justification.
A quorum of the council is participating in person
at a single physical location that is identified
on the agenda, open to the public,
within the boundaries of the agency,
and meets accessibility requirements.
This satisfies the requirements of the Brown Act.
Council Member O'Keefe has notified us
of her need to participate remotely.
Council Member O'Keefe, if you would please provide
general description of the circumstances relating to your need to appear remotely
and you're reminded that you need not disclose any medical diagnosis, disability or other
confidential medical information.
Yeah, thanks. I have a sick kid.
Thank you. Councilmember O'Keeffe, please disclose whether any other individuals 18 years
of age or older are present in the room at your remote location and the general nature
of your relationship with such individuals.
Just a cat, he's under 18.
Thank you.
And Council Member O'Keefe,
you're reminded that you must participate
through both audio and visual technology.
Okay, I might turn off my camera briefly
if I have to go check on my kid, but I'll be here.
Thank you.
All right.
And we can go ahead and proceed with the role.
Council Member Kesler-Wani?
Here.
Council member Taplin is absent.
Council member Bartlett is absent.
Council member Tracob?
Present.
Thank you, O'Keeffe?
Here.
Blackaby?
Here.
Munepara?
Here.
Humbert?
Present.
And Mayor Ishi?
Here.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Rose.
All right, so we have a quite lengthy report out
from closed sessions, so please bear with me.
a lot of letters and numbers. Item number one, the City Council met in closed session on August 20th,
2026, pursuant to Government Code section 54956.9 subsection d and provided directions to outside
council and approved a settlement by compromise and release as to a workers compensation matter
sign claim number BER 2200002 and WCAB case number ADJ 15513397.
Item number two the City Council met in closed session on April 20th, 2026
pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subsection D and provided
direction to outside council and approved a settlement by compromise and
released with a release of future medical care, or in the alternative by stipulations
with a request for award with open future medical care, as to a workers compensation
matter assigned claim number BER2000151 and WCAB case number ADJ17521808.
Item number three, the City Council met in closed session on April 20, 2026, pursuant
to Government Code Section 54956.9, subsection D,
and provided directions to outside counsel
and approved a settlement by stipulations
and request for award.
With open future medical care as to a worker's compensation
matter, assigned claim number BER2400105.
Two more items left.
Item number five, the mayor and city council
met in closed session and voted to authorize the city
attorney's office to file appeals
in the matter of Berkeley Homeless Union at all,
the city of Berkeley at all four one two five dash cv dash zero one four one four dash emc
and protto at all the city of Berkeley case number three colon two three dash cv dash
zero four five three seven dash emc uh in the northern district california item number six the
The mayor and city council met in closed session
to discuss the matter of INRI DHCS audit
of City of Berkeley GE MT cost reports.
OAH appeal numbers GE24-0621-963-TS.
GE26-0622-731L-VT.
And DHCS matters numbers 24-026104 and 24-026106.
The council voted to authorize the city attorney's office to engage in settlement negotiations
with the agency and commence litigation if necessary.
Thank you all for your patience.
So we have no ceremonial items this evening so we'll move straight on to the city manager
comments. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't have any comments tonight. Thank you. Is there
any public comment on non-adunda matters? Oh, did you submit a? Okay, good. Great. Thank
you. All right. Thank you, Mayor. We do have a couple of cards here for individuals in
the room. So we'll take those first. Okay. And our in-room speakers in no particular
order are Rachel Berry and Rolf Bell, so please go ahead and come on up to the podium and each
speaker will have one minute to speak. Hi, good evening Council Members. My name is Rachel Berry.
I work with Root and Bloom Institute, a non-profit renovating a vacant building on
6th and Bancroft Way in Berkeley. We're excited to open later this year for a holistic mental
health therapy and vocational training. I'm here tonight because after we began renovating this
building a new traffic light was installed on our corner and with it came red curbing 150 feet in
all directions taking away nearly 50 parking spaces including ADA parking from our corner.
When we spoke to our neighbors no one seemed to know this traffic light would include the
inclusion of four left turn lanes which is significant because those are what eliminated
most of our parking spaces. While many of us appreciate the traffic light bike lanes and crosswalk
Most of the left turn lanes of this intersection are unnecessary at Big Croft Way, which to
the east is a designated traffic suppression street and to the west dead ends after four
blocks.
In January of last year, several of us in the neighborhood began reaching out to city
officials and staff to share the impact and request some dialogue.
After 16 months of emails with mayor's office, city council members and city staff, we have
gained no traction on this issue and we ask for your support in finding a real solution.
We have online speakers as well. You are correct, yes, but we do have more than five speakers.
We do. Thank you very much. Just checking. Do I need to press the button
or you press the button? Yeah, we can hear you.
I'm Rolf Bell, a 26-year resident of Berkeley and a business owner. In the last two months
of 2024 at the corner of Bancroft Way and 6th Street. All four corners were torn up
and a total of 16 signal lights were installed and the entire intersection reconfigured.
There are 30 small businesses and 16 residences directly impacted. None received a notice.
The traffic light makes pedestrian crossing safer, but three of the four left turn lanes
make cycling more dangerous and rob 30 businesses and 16 residences of essential parking.
We find it bizarre that our council member, Taplin, and our mayor can't seem to find
the time to meet with us and find a resolution that is better for cyclists, better for residents,
and better for business.
Now we ask you to make time for us, along with the traffic engineer, and correct this
over the side and dangerous intersection.
Thank you. Thank you.
We'll now go to the online speakers.
Catherine, you should be able to speak.
Okay. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay, great.
Yeah, my name is Lily Howell.
I am the parent of three Berkeley community members.
And I have a daughter who is 18 years old
who had the blissful experience of going through
the Parks and Recreation Therapeutic Recreation Program. She has autism and intellectual
disability and was enabled to access community programs through the Parks and Recreation
Department for enrichment and joy just like any other kid and like her siblings through
therapeutic recreation. I saw on the mayor's budget not a reduction but an elimination
of this vital program for students with disabilities. And in the birthplace of the
of the disability rights movement.
I'm pretty appalled at the city of Berkeley
to eliminate accessibility inclusion and recreation
for our children with disabilities in our community.
Frankly, shame on you.
It's very upsetting.
I cannot fathom that in a place that cares
about disability and inclusion and DEI.
Katherine, thank you for your public comment.
Our next speaker is the caller.
Whoops, I'm sorry.
Our next speaker is Della.
Yes, thank you.
I'm calling or telling you all about some thoughts I had.
I was reflecting on how many fires
there were recently in Berkeley.
And I'm noticing that maybe it's with the new
non-reporting clauses with the emergency,
but we're not as constituents getting a report back
on like what the cause of the fires were.
And it just makes me think that we all could be sitting on,
you know, a hazard that we're not aware of.
Maybe it was like an e-bike charging battery
or a lithium battery or countless potentialities
I could think of that it could possibly be,
but it would be nice to hear about
what is causing the fires in Berkeley
so that other constituents can be careful
and more mindful and make sure we don't have
the exact same hazard in our units.
That's it, thank you.
Thank you. All right. Thank you. The next speaker is the caller ending in 211 color. You should be able to speak. Hi. Good evening. So our measure business measure.
Roy handed you some paper documents. Please read them and let's take some consideration.
Our business did over 200 million dollars of business since 1973.
Help us, everybody needs help.
I want you to walk down Telegraph from Mancraft down to Ashby.
About half of the retail businesses are vacant.
It is a shame, shame on the city.
Why are these businesses vacant when they can be thriving businesses to help the students, to help businesses, to help everybody?
This is a call and a call for mayor as easy as soon as possible.
Let's get together and let's thank Berkeley great again.
Right now, Berkeley is bankrupt.
Have a good night. I will call you again.
Thank you. Thank you.
All right. Our next speaker is Craig.
Craig, you should be able to speak.
Yes, hi. My name's Craig Nagasawa.
I own a building at 1201 Sixth Street, which is Harrison and Sixth, and I'm sure you're
all aware of what's going on down there.
I've been there for 25 years, and the last five years have been completely living hell.
I'm on the front lines of all of the unhoused stuff that is going on.
Last week or 10 days ago, there was a fire.
was hot enough, it blistered the paint on the side of my building. The next day the
city came, made sure that the person who started the fire was okay, and cleaned up and then
allowed him to move back in. There's no parameters whatsoever for people coming or going. Anybody
who wants to can set up another tent, another house, another whatever they want. There's
There's trash and garbage, there's disease.
I mean, you know all of the adjectives.
There's all of this stuff going on, dangerous safety issues.
I have been-
Thank you.
Thank you, Craig.
Your time is up, but thank you for your comment.
All right, thank you, mayor.
That was our last speaker for non-agenda public comment.
And I'd just like to take a moment
and acknowledge that council member Bartlett
has joined the meeting remotely.
And council member Bartlett, if you are available, we can go through the just cause script.
I'm here, I'm still working on getting set up my, my computer is acting up, but I'm here.
Super wonderful. We'll go through the script, which will allow you to participate in the remainder of the meeting.
Council member Bartlett is intending to in the meeting remotely pursuant to the Brown act under the just cause justification a quorum of the council is participating in person at a single.
physical location that is identified on the agenda open to the public within the boundaries of the
agency and meets accessibility requirements. This satisfies the requirements of the Brown Act.
Councilmember Bartlett has notified us of his need to participate remotely.
Councilmember Bartlett at this time would you please provide a general description of the
circumstances relating to your need to appear remotely at this meeting and you are reminded
that you need not disclose any medical diagnosis disability or other confidential medical information.
I'm recovering from a medical condition.
Thank you, council member.
Please at this time disclose before we take any action whether there are any other individuals 18 years of age or older present in the room with you at your location.
And if so, the general nature of your relationship with them.
No, however, my spouse may come in and out at will.
All right, thank you. All right, Councilmember Bartlett, you are reminded to please participate
through both audio and visual technology. Thank you. Be there soon.
Thank you. I just wanted to make sure there was a public comment that was made earlier,
although I think that person has gotten off, but there was a program that they had mentioned in
particular and I just want to make sure that that person knows I don't think they're listening
any more, but that we propose to keep it with the sales and use tax passing. So they should
just know that. Okay. Oops. So many things. All right. Here we go. I think that that was
it then for our public comment on non-agenda matters. Thank you all very much. And we will
now move on to the consent calendar. So I would like to see if my council member colleagues
have any comments? Oh, Council Member Trago. Thank you so much Madam Mayor. I would like
to thank my colleagues for supporting or I would like to thank my colleagues on the agenda
General Committee for moving items 14, 15 and 16 to the consent calendar.
Item 14 is a support position on SB 1301 by Senator Allen, reforming the insurance nonrenewal
process, which is obviously something that is a situation that is increasing not just
among homeowners in and around zone zero, but also now in the Berkeley Flats, including
my district. So we have heard from a number of constituents and this bill is an effort
to reform the insurance non-renewal process. I would like to thank council members, Black
Abhi, Humbert and O'Keefe for their co-sponsorship. Item 15 is a support position on SB 1257 by
by Senator Oregon, which would be a report
around federal immigration enforcement,
another way to keep the federal government accountable.
And I would like to thank the mayor,
council member, Luna Parra,
and I would also like to add council member,
Kesarwani as a co-sponsor to that item.
And lastly, item 16, which is a support position
on three environmental bills, SB 222, the Heat Pump Access
Act by Senator Weiner, SB 868 also by Senator Weiner, which
is the Plug and Play, also known as the Balcony Solver Act,
and AB 2389 by Assemblymember Orwin,
which will extend a tax credit for rooftop solar,
which will otherwise expire at the end of this year.
And I would like to add council member
one of our four co-sponsorship.
Also, I would like to thank council member Blackaby
for adding me as a co-sponsor to item 17,
setting measurable goals and metrics for key city priorities.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
And then something else I want to make a comment on
before we move forward with comments from my colleagues
is that I'd like to move item 11
from the Peace and Justice Commission on the flocks safety
to May 7th when we hear this item,
the Surveillance and Flock Contract item,
and also move item 12 from the Peace and Justice Commission
on the proposed use of controlled weapons
and other policing tools to the meeting
when these items will return from the public safety committee.
And mayor, may I recommend that item 12 be referred to the agenda and rules
committee for scheduling at that time? Thank you. Yes, that would be good.
Rose, do we need to take the action can be part of the action.
The council takes on the consent calendar. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay.
Council member walker B.
Thanks, madam mayor. I'm just a few comments on the consent calendar. Um,
in an order.
First, I just wanted to thank Councilmember Bartlett
on item two for his nomination
to the Police Accountability Board
as we're working to kind of reset and restock the board
with a full complement of board members.
My nominee's coming at our next meeting
and I know a number of us have others coming.
And so again, just following up on that
and making sure that folks know
we are trying to get the board fully staffed
and back fully functional as quickly as possible.
So just want to thank Councilmember Bartlett
for his nomination and look forward to mine next week.
Item 4, I wanted to really appreciate our health, housing, and community services team
for their work with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation to help secure $9
million in state funds to support the portable housing project at the North Berkeley BART
station, which I know is near and dear to many of our hearts, in particular Councilmember
Kesterwani.
So thanks to city staff for, again, securing that important financing.
14 thanks to councilmember Trager for adding me as a co-sponsor. This is
Senator Ben Allen's bill to reform the insurance non-renewal process. As
councilmember Trager mentioned this is a bigger and bigger issue for many
families here in Berkeley. We're seeing it in my district all the time. The number
of people who are losing insurance and then do not know why they've lost
insurance, do not know how to sort of remedy the situation. They're given sort
very vague communications and have no sort of recourse. And so I just want to
appreciate the bill and also Councilmember Tragob's work on this. We also
have a full kind of docket of other wildfire safety legislation that's being
considered by the legislature. We're bringing a resolution on that at our
next meeting, but I hope my colleagues will support. There's a lot of good
stuff happening in the legislature and it's important for us to lend our voice
to those things that are addressing real problems that we're facing here in
Berkeley and then on item 17 you know we've seen we've kind of been seeing
different pieces of this the city auditor came out with a report and some
suggestions this is the setting measurable goals and metrics for key
city priorities the city manager and his team have been very helpful and
supportive the health life enrichment equity and community policy committee
reviewed it. I'm excited that, again, with adoption on the consent calendar
tonight, we'll be able to move this forward to help bring even greater
transparency and accountability around key performance goals. I think that, again,
there's no news to anyone that we're facing some real budget
challenges here in Berkeley, so I think it's even more important to be able to
communicate to the public what we are delivering with a reduced level of
financial resource, what they can expect from us in terms of what the city is
delivering, and I think this is one measure that again is about setting
those goals and holding ourselves accountable for for meeting those those
marks. So I just want to appreciate the support on that and that's it. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilmember Humbert. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My first comment is on
on item 13, which is an item from the Peace and Justice
Commission to reaffirm city of Berkeley commitment
to international peace, opposing war on Iran,
and standing in solidarity with the people of Iran.
And I want to say that council's already adopted an item
on this topic that I believe is substantially similar, very
similar to this one.
I don't think it's sensible for us
to adopt a second item, especially
without knowing whether and how it may
conflict with the earlier item.
I don't know if it does or not.
And I don't believe it is worth the time of council or staff,
especially in the context of a major budget crisis,
to try to reconcile largely duplicative items.
I'd suggest, if the commission feels strongly,
that their item touches on subjects
that are essential and which we missed as council,
that I would encourage them to send a new item that
specifically calls out those areas of difference and explains why they necessitate further council action.
Number 15, the Federal Immigration Enforcement Report, I was going to ask to be added but now I think it's full.
But thank you very much for the council members who are the author, Council Member Tregub, and the co-sponsors.
Item 17 is a wonderful item.
Thank you, Council Member Blackaby, that's setting measurable goals and metrics for key city priorities.
And I'm privileged to be added as a co-sponsor on that.
And then there was one more that I wanted to address.
And maybe that was it.
It was the insurance non-renewal process.
And thanks, I want to thank Councilmember Trigube for authoring that and for adding
me as a cosponsor.
It's a really critically important issue.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other council members have comments?
I will just add a thank you also to Councilmember Bartlett for putting forward his PAB nominee.
And I know that Council Member Blackavise is coming up, I believe, in the next meeting,
just so folks know, we are moving those appointments forward.
So we will hopefully have a full PAP very soon.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Can I please take public comment on consent and information items only?
Come on up.
I don't know if I get two minutes because there's – oh, good.
And I have Ralph Bells giving me his time as well if I need it.
George Lippmann, I'm representing the Peace and Justice Commission tonight and at the
request of the chair, Pastor Duane Phillips, who couldn't be here tonight, so he's asked
me to represent.
First, I want to say with regard to item 13, I appreciate the comment and agree with the
council member we did pass this before the council acted and we also appreciate
the similarities and also to appreciate the council members comments at that
time it's very full-throated support of the item so appreciate that and the
whole council I want to speak about item and and I and I support the mayor's move
on 11 and 12 for those. That's not an issue. I want to read a little bit, even though we're
moving this item 11 to another date, I want to take the opportunity to read a little bit
of what we asked for. The Peace and Justice Commission recommends applying a social justice
lens to policing decisions that could have a significant impact on the lives of birth
and visitors, including disparate impact on marginalized, low-income, disabled, elder,
and community members of color.
The proposal is – the recommendation is cancel flock safety contracts for public surveillance
images and video footage, and do not sign any new contracts with flock for stationary
cameras or for drones such as first responder by drone.
due to Flock's repeated sharing of such data with immigration authorities and the inherent
risk of exposure of cloud-based storage to Trump administration access.
And I'll just make, from my perspective, a few key points.
What we've learned over time, it can't, first of all, it can't be said too many times.
No matter what safeguards you have built into your contract with Flock, a judicial warrant
obtained by Homeland Security will override your contract and ICE will get our photos
and videos of our vulnerable community members.
And if you are hit with a secret FISA warrant, you won't even know your data was taken because
it would be a felony for Flock to tell you.
This has to be taken seriously.
You check with your attorney if you want, but all this work that you're going through
to find exceptions isn't going to help you when they come with a subpoena.
Secondly, Flock's biggest shareholder is Andresen Horowitz.
That is owned by billionaire ICE supporter Mark Andresen, who is a leading supporter
of Trump.
He flipped from being a liberal to being a MAGA.
And he considers, and this is the quote to remember, DEI and immigration to be quote
two forms of discrimination. That's from Fortune magazine, not a left-wing paper.
Thirdly, Flock has engaged in politically corrupt business practices. It is reported
that the company has hired the mayor of Moreno Valley, California, 300,000 population, to
work as a community engagement manager to get local policies passed and contracts signed
to benefit floc. This is corruption and this is what they're doing. This is what they want
to do with every community in the state. This is the company that we're in bed with. Your
constituents are warning you of the risk you're taking on. We love Berkeley and we are trying
to protect it from moral, public health, financial and legal exposure. Please be careful with
your vote. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Todd Demoguchi, District 2, and I use the
pronouns he and him. I'm just here to thank council members Trega Benunapara
for the item 16, the support of the two bills by Scott Wiener on heat pumps and
and Balcony Solar as well as the Erwin's
Keeping Solar Affordable Act.
I really appreciate all the support
from the City on Clean Energy this weekend.
Thank you also for your support
for the COP coming Home Electrification Fair
at the Brower Center from Citizens Climate Lobby.
Unfortunately I won't be able to be there,
but I hope you all are able to come out
and keep moving progressively on the climate
while Washington continues to go backwards.
But we're moving forward.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I guess I've missed you.
I had to come back.
And I do have an extra minute.
I'm speaking to number two.
I really encourage the support that we're
for the Police Accountability Commission.
I am so impressed with their diligence,
their brilliance, and their wanting
to serve this community.
I'm really concerned, on number four,
about the low income and actual, quote,
affordability of so many of these projects.
The ratio is like a few to a hundred
in most of these enterprises that I've been listening to.
I'm concerned about that, just as a general principle.
And then in terms of number 10, STAIRS, I've had personal interaction with them such that
I have nothing good to say, given that they broadcast themselves as being ADA compliant
and definitely were not and yet had been paid, I'm trying not to yell, I'm sorry, had been
paid a bazillion dollars to do it with over 90 code violations.
So they've also, again, been given more money
to create this amended situation with structures
that were left out in the rain, all winter fog, anyway.
And now they're asking for more money.
I just want to alert you.
I have intimate firsthand and secondhand knowledge.
And I am not pleased, especially when
I know of programs that actually do what they say
and come through and serve the community
such that we aren't wasting money,
getting pillaged and plundered,
and back to then the, I'm gonna jump to number 17
because this measuring thing
so that there can actually be transparent accountability
is brilliant, but again, the numbers in the wrong hands
can be misused as we're seeing all over this country.
right. And then in terms of the Peace and Justice Commission, I go there much to their
chagrin and mine over and over and over again because peace is not just a noun, it's a verb.
It's a verb and justice. It's not about fighting who's right. It's about could there be some
measure of equanimity, equality,
caring, concern for everyone in humanity.
It's like, oh my God, so the flock thing,
safety, not really weapons, no thank you.
And what about committing to, like the old hippie that I am,
make love not war, again, it's a darn good idea.
I'm really trying to encourage you to remember
that we could be living in peace and harmony
where everyone could be okay.
So, all right, I just thank you.
I'm so glad you're still willing to show up,
and not really I am too.
So take care of you, thank you.
Thanks, Maria.
All right, we do have some raised hands on Zoom.
The first speaker,
and this is comments on the consent calendar.
Our first speaker is the number ending in 211.
Speaker, you should be able to speak.
So now I like to speak in consent item 2 and consent item 13.
Two, memory of our great Berkeley police chief, Josh Butler, who made Berkeley a very safe
and great man.
Also saved my family, one who had over a million dollar embellishments in our San Francisco
store.
22 Berkeley policemen, I paid them $6,000 a month.
I had to save my family, my son, and everybody.
As far as the 13th, Donald Trump was actually going to a trombone in Iran, but the nuclear
football refused to walk out of the room.
This man is extremely dangerous, he is extremely dangerous.
Every day he is in power, all of our life, certain life, everybody's life, is in danger.
Again, our business paid over $1 million in taxes at the city of Berkeley in license fees
and sales tax need help. Berkeley people need help. Everybody want to have
East TV location in Berkeley where we can do lots of business, help everybody
and where I come the whole city of Berkeley. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right,
our next speaker is Wendy. Wendy, you should be able to speak.
I'm sorry it's number 35 included on the the Peace and Justice Commission included on the
consent calendar now. Yes the items from. Okay that's what I wanted to speak in support of the
Peace and Justice Commission recommendations with regard to the flux safety contracts
and strongly urged that no action be taken to engage in contracts at this time. I don't think
we know enough to do so in a safe and prudent manner that would safeguard all of the interests
of all of the people of Berkeley really appreciate the stand that's been taken by the mayor,
council members, Jacob, Luna Parra and our vice chair, Anne Bartlett. And I hope that the rest
of you will reconsider. Thank you. Thank you. And just so folks know, I'm allowing public comment
for items 11 and 12 for the Peace and Justice Commission, but we've also, part of the action
that we'll take on the consent calendar is to move those items to the meetings in which we'll discuss
those issues so just to make sure everyone is on the same page.
Thank you. Our next speaker is the caller with the number ending 405. You should be able to speak.
Hi, I'm sorry to be off topic here but I'm so severely anti-flock. I just had to pull my
to bed 10 thank you thank you thank you our next speaker is lisa lisa you should be able to speak
good evening mayor and council thank you for this opportunity to support the peace and justice
commissions recommendations via read the contract um i believe that they um are correct and um that
Council should really take them to heart. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Okay. I see that Council member Bartlett has his hand raised. Did you want to give comment?
Oh, yeah, just briefly. Now that I'm all set up properly, I wanted to thank everyone for all of your thing. In particular, my addition to the PAB, Benjamin Nash is an excellent young man.
Uh, he's going to serve the body really well. Hope you approve him. He's going to, you know, really deliver a whole new vantage point and he's really a conscious young man. He's been active in the community.
And I happened to teach his class as a coincidence at the grad school at the Cal and it was quite a wonderful day and I'm really impressed with him. I think you will be too. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you council member. Yeah, council member Humbert.
Public comment is over. Is that right? Okay. Thank you Madam Mayor. Yeah, I wanted to in connection with the motion on
Accepting the consent calendar because item 13 and following up on my prior comments because item 13
As salutary as it may be is duplicative of what we've already done
I'd like to to keep that on the can move to keep that on the consent calendar for the purpose of taking no action
All right, just to clarify
Rose does that need like
Does it's that would happen unless there are objections or could you I'm sorry, please refresh my memory
Yeah, if that is the council's intention to take no action on that item and that is accepted
by the body as the motion related to that item then
That can proceed
As long as there's no objection is that right correct? Okay, so just wanted to make sure that there's no objection to that, okay?
Okay, very good. Thank you. All right. Is there a motion then I?
Move adoption of the consent calendar as amended second, okay, can we take the role on that please?
Certainly
On the consent calendar councilmember keserwani yes tap when yes Bartlett. Yes
Trago, aye
No Keith. Yes
Black abi. Yes
Muna para. Yes
Humbert in solidarity with council member to goob. I'll say aye
and Mary she yes
Thank you. All right. Thank you all very much. Okay, so we have completed our consent calendar moving on to our action calendar
to item number 18, which is to conduct a public hearing
in compliance with assembly bill 2561,
government code section 3502.3 regarding vacancies,
recruitment, and retention efforts.
And we have a presentation, so I will pass it over to staff.
Good evening, honorable mayor and members
of the city council, I'm Monica Walker.
And tonight, on behalf of the human resources department,
I will be presenting on the vacancies, recruitment,
and retention efforts under AB 2561
and Government Code 3502.3.
Effective January 1st, 2025, AB 2561
and Government Code 3502.3 now requires public agencies
to present on the status of vacancies,
recruitment and retention at a public hearing
once a year prior to the budget being adopted
before the governing body.
just to note the measurement period for the data that we will be presenting
tonight is from calendar year 2025 so it spans January 1st through December 31st
of that year. The vacancy rate citywide during that time frame averaged about
15% at the end of each month with the highest vacancy rate being 16.1% and
14.7% and although the staff report refers to the frozen positions that were
held vacant, those were added in as part of the number. When we look across the
bargaining units, most of the bargaining units were under 20%. Two of them were
over 20%, Berkeley Chief Fire Officers Association, BFCOA, and the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, IBEW. BFCOA's percentage resulted from two
battalion chiefs who retired in December 2025 and because the snapshot was taken
as of December 31st 2025 it captures those vacancies before they could be
filled and they were filled a few weeks later in January of 2026. For IBEW the
vacancies were two electricians which have since been filled are now in
pre-employment, two lead electricians and one lead communications technician which
resulted from an internal promotion from within that bargaining unit. And just to
take a moment out to talk about percentages as it relates to smaller
bargaining units. The number of vacancies in a smaller bargaining unit
represents a larger portion, each position does. So although we had five
vacancies in IBAW it represented an over of 20% percentage but with those two
positions that have since been filled it reduced it to under 20 percent and the
same with the battalion sheaths it was two positions but the total number was
seven which resulted in a higher vacancy. These are the general steps for a civil
service recruitment starting from when a position is vacant all the way to when
an employee is onboarded. These steps are part of a civil service framework to
ensure that there is transparency and fairness and an equal opportunity for everyone to apply
for a position. And though we operate within this framework, we try to look continuously
at ways to make things more efficient. Our entire process is electronic. We have brought
a lot of things in-house, such as our fingerprinting, and we try to move things along while still
embracing a civil service framework.
One of the things that we're also doing
is reaching out to get qualified candidates,
and we're not waiting for candidates
to just hear about a job opportunity
or to be looking for a job.
We reach out to find them.
This is our dedicated career website
where they can find out about how wonderful it is
to work for Berkeley.
These are examples of our continually increasing
social media presence where we talk about and feature our existing employees
and why they like to work at the City of Berkeley. We also have information on how
to apply for jobs and we really try to outreach to candidates in that way. We
also do for the harder to fill positions professional industry websites. For
example for the electrician positions we went to professional websites such as
as this to try to find those who are already in the profession and see if they're interested
in working for the City of Berkeley.
We also go as far as doing executive recruitment strategies where we have a dedicated analyst
who acts in the capacity of an executive recruiter and looks for candidates who might
not even be looking for jobs because sometimes they're the best candidates.
As a result of our efforts, we received close to 16,000 applications in 2025, and 12,000
of those were unique applicants, unique persons, and this is an overwhelming number for the
positions that we are trying to fill, and it resulted in the relatively low vacancy
rate that was reported earlier.
Of the 229 vacancies created in 2025, you can see that over 40% of them resulted from
internal promotions, internal transfers, or budgeted positions. And the rest were due to
natural attrition retirement, voluntary terminations, and a few involuntary terminations.
We also filled 248 vacancies in 2025 through new external or internal recruitments,
internal only recruitments, and existing eligible lists. We also have very rich benefits at the
City for retention. In addition to strong compensation we offer a defined
benefit retirement plan through CalPERS, medical, dental, vision, insurance,
Claremont EAP support services throughout the employees lifecycle and
organizations such as Team Unity who plan events to try and unify the city. We
also offer training and development opportunities. We have a supervisor
learning plan. We will soon have a manager learning plan. We offer a skilled
worker Academy and we offer a lot of courses through NeoGov learn to enhance
and grow our employees from within. And this has resulted in a 93% retention
rate. We had 3% through natural attrition, 4% through turnover and
overall a very very strong retention rate throughout the city. I would also
like to take a moment to highlight the efforts of our small but mighty HR team.
Without the members of our HR team I would not be able to report the numbers
that I am reporting today. Our team supports our employees through every
phase of their employee life cycle and like to give special recognition to our
our director Janelle Rodriguez for her leadership
and guidance and Anna Guler our HR analyst
for compiling and tracking a lot of the data
that you saw on this slide as well as spearheading
our outreach and digital outreach for our candidates.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Monica.
Thank you for the presentation.
Okay so I'd like to start with any council questions.
Questions from my council colleagues?
Okay council member Blackby.
Just one quick one.
Thanks for the presentation.
When you talk about the 15% average vacancy,
how does that stack up against other municipal governments
locally?
How does this benchmark?
So other agencies that we've seen average
from between 14% and 20%, so we're about average.
And it really depends on the composition of their workforce
too.
Our vacancies might be different than their vacancies
in terms of the classifications in the bargain units.
That's great.
And then similarly on the numbers around,
sorry, the turnover and attrition and retention,
I think you said 3%, sorry, 93% retention.
And how does that kind of look
if you were to benchmark that?
I can look more into that.
I don't have that number offhand,
but I can look more and get a followup with you.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, other questions?
You stole my questions.
Good questions, okay, very good.
Can we please have any public comment on item number 18?
Which is the public hearing and compliance
with Assembly Bill 2561,
Government Code Section 3502.3,
regarding vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts.
Public comment, yes.
And for the unions, just so you know,
I've given you five minutes, you know,
So you have a little more time than public comment.
So, I don't know if, oh, you're just here to take a video?
Okay, all right, very good.
Okay, go ahead.
Hello, Mayor and Council.
I appreciate this opportunity to speak.
My name's Thomas Gregory.
I'm the president of SEIU 1021 CSUPTRLA,
and I'm commenting on behalf of my chapter.
As you know, the city management is planning
to eliminate many vacant positions
when the new fiscal year starts in a couple of months.
As of December 31st, 2025, there were 270 vacant positions
citywide, and 77 of those 270 vacancies are within my chapter.
If council passes the budget balancing plan, as is this June,
the city will eliminate 42 of my chapter's 77 vacant positions.
And the city will eliminate at least 114 of the 270 vacancies
currently exist citywide. And this 114-figure only accounts for the non-sworn vacant positions
to be eliminated in fiscal year 27. On top of this 114-figure, there are sworn positions
that could also be eliminated in fiscal year 27.
Of course, elimination of positions, including vacant positions, is bad for our members,
bad for members of my chapter and other chapters. The elimination of positions results in less
collective power for bargaining units, fewer opportunities for promotions and
lateral moves, and fewer opportunities to retreat during times of proposed
layoffs, such as right now. That said, tonight I wanted to stress the negative
impact that the elimination of so many positions will have on the community at
large, as opposed to the city's various labor chapters. Eliminating vacant
positions makes permanent a downward adjustment in the city's capacity to
serve its constituents. Vacancies obviously don't provide value to
constituents, but at least vacancies have the potential to benefit the
community in the future when funding and or qualified candidates are more
abundant. Planning department vacancies that get eliminated will deprive
homeowners and businesses of the potential for quicker turnaround times
for permit approvals in the future. Behavioral health vacancies that get
eliminated will deprive at-risk and unstable residents the potential for
prompt delivery of mental health care. A permanently understaffed accounts
receivable team will perpetually struggle to adequately collect
revenue. Every eliminated position translates into a permanent deficit in
capacity and this deficit will have tangible impacts on the constituents who
avail themselves of city services in the future. It's true that an eliminated
position could theoretically be established and reestablished in the
future. However, given the City's HR department's failure over the course of
years to fill large numbers of vacancies, it would be a mistake to assume that HR
and other leadership staff will be nimble enough to adequately create
needed positions in the future when funding allows. I urge Council to
consider rejecting management's plan to eliminate large numbers of currently
vacant positions come fiscal year 27. I urge Council to demand
accountability from HR leaders generally, and more specifically, to require management
to conduct a thorough analysis to discover all the reasons for the City's chronically
high vacancy rates.
Again, please do not eliminate any positions through a wholesale reduction in force process,
as doing so only serves to make permanent a downward adjustment in the City's capacity
to serve its constituents.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other public comment on this item?
I don't see anyone online.
I don't see any hand raise. Are there any comments on this item?
Councilmember Casarwani. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to thank you very
much for the presentation. It's very helpful to get this information about vacancy rates.
I think you had it by position, right? I thought you may have. But in any case, and
And then you also, oh yes, you do on one of the slides,
the vacancy rate by position.
And so I just wanted to note that.
And then the other thing I wanted to note was
the retention rate and the vacancies created.
And I know this was, this is technically a question,
I didn't ask it during the question time,
but I just wanted to clarify when you have this 93%
annual staff retention rate,
can you just explain how you're calculating that?
Are you just looking at, well, I'll just let you answer.
Sure, so the first two numbers,
retirement and voluntary separations,
that's that number added together
divided by the number of budgeted positions.
Can you just speak into the microphone a little bit more?
Okay.
So it's the 38 retirement, the 15 involuntary separations
added together and then divided by the total number of budgeted positions.
Okay, okay, that's helpful.
I was just a little, okay, I misread, 2025 colon is 227.
Okay, thank you so much, that's very helpful.
Thank you again for the presentation.
Thank you, thank you.
Councilmember Humbert.
Yeah, I just wanted to quickly say thank you for the presentation and
all the work that went into it.
Thank you.
Thank you. Other comments?
Okay, yeah, I also want to just add my thanks.
I really do see the work that HR is doing,
not only to receive a lot of applications and do outreach into the community to get more applications and strong applicants,
but also in the retention work.
I think it's something that folks in the public don't get a chance to see very often.
And I do really see you all trying to create a culture that helps people feel supported.
So I just want to thank you all for that.
And yeah, thank you for the presentation as well.
Okay.
Thank you.
And I don't think we need to actually vote
to accept this report.
I think it's just, is that right?
Could I get a motion to close the public hearing?
Oh, I'm sorry Monica.
We can, we should do that.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing?
The Berkeley Police Association
would also like to present.
We actually finished the comment period,
Eric, did you want to make a comment?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, so I was saying earlier that unions could have five minutes
to speak during the comment period, but do you want it?
You can just, since we haven't closed the hearing,
you should just go ahead and get your comment.
Thank you. Thank you. There's a presentation that uh Monika are you able to put it up? Yes.
Thank you. I'll go through this as quick as possible. Thank you for the time Madam
Mayor and Council for uh hearing us out regarding our vacancies. Uh looking at our current
authorized versus actual vacancies this is up to date current not for 2025. We're currently looking
at 44 vacant sworn officer positions to uh sworn sergeant positions for a total of 46 vacancies.
much higher than the numbers from last year due to many factors. That's based on our current
authorized staffing. If you look at with we do have numerous trainees and people that have been
hired and they're in the academy currently or in the process. So that does boost us up to 105
sworn positions that are filled for officer. And so definitely that is in the works. But as you see
out of our 179 authorized positions seven are currently vacant due to vacant frozen positions
and we currently have a total of 15 on both modified and workers comp so basically working
with a total of 66 of our actual authorized current staffing positions. On the next slide
you'd be looking at what the proposed budget would do to our staffing based on the two possible
Scenarios which would be a reduction of 32 positions for the worst-case scenario
You'd be looking at a total of only 133 sworn positions basically putting us almost at full staffing right now
Which is our lowest staffing in my entire 15 years
Even with our
Trainees and whatnot we'd be pretty much approaching that
The if the sales tax measure passes we'd be losing a total of 17 positions
Which would still put us at a total of a hundred sixty two sworn positions with still numerous vacancies
Some of our current staffing challenges is that we in 2020 had 174 sworn positions to
compare to our current numbers. In the past couple months we've had one sergeant and six
officers leave the department to join most of those join San Francisco Police Department
and one another police department. We currently are anticipating a handful more in the next
few months to go to San Francisco Police Department as well. We have 19 current officers eligible
to retire as of right now, with a total of about 25 by the end of the year. And some
of our other staffing challenges have been a long-term struggle to recruit lateral police
officers, which are quicker to get trained and onto the streets. And we're currently
at about 55% of our department has 10 years or less of experience, which is pretty much
a low in my career right now. Next slide. This is looking at our current patrol, our
updated patrol staffing that will be starting in a couple of weeks compared to April of 2021.
So in April 2021, we had 16 beats. Now we have 14 beats. You can see there's been a 25% decrease
in our patrol officers from 73 to 55. In 2024, the city hired an outside company to do a workload
survey and 73 was the number that they recommended that we have as our patrol staffing along with
creating numerous other proactive positions and things like that. Regarding our workload,
the good news about that is that since 2020, our calls for service and our case
reports have stayed pretty steady. But the bad is looking at our staffing
numbers. Officers will be responding to approximately 32% more calls for
service in cases on on a basis. What that means is that your patrol officers
will have, you know, longer response times to these calls for lower priority
calls for services. You're gonna have less time for follow up with victims.
you're going to have less time to do investigations. And for me, some of the
most important things, a lot less time to interact with the community on just
a one on one basis to have down time to talk with them and to conduct traffic
enforcement. If you have officers that are just on calls all day, you have no
time for them to do any kind of interactions with the community
besides going from call to call to call.
Our current hiring situation is we currently have one conditional offer to
an entry level police officer, one entry level and one lateral officer in the
background process and we have police recruit interviews being conducted in a
physical agility test scheduled for this week. It's approximately about a three
plus month process to get people hired and when the police officer recruit is
hired it takes about six months for an academy and then a four-month field
training program. So all those recruits that we have hired right now we won't
see them probably till end of this year next year actually working on the street
and they'll most likely just be filling positions that are people retiring and
leaving this year. We can go to the next slide. Some of our biggest recruitment
challenges we're facing, the main two are lack of industry standard tools and
lack of opportunity due to our understaffing. Most of, when trying to
recruit people from other departments, they're used to working with tasers,
canines, and drones as first responders nowadays. Also our lack of, you know, our
understaffing leads to a lack of career opportunities. Our investigations
division, our traffic unit are both understaffed. We currently don't have any
kind of narcotics or special investigation unit and we don't
participate in any of the county task forces. It's very difficult to recruit
officers away from other departments. If I can get like to one more minute. I'm
sorry. Just I offered to give the unions five minutes. I apologize that we
didn't have this conversation beforehand. Thank you. Thank you though.
I really appreciate you giving us this presentation and folks have the slides
here so we can look through them as well. Thank you. Okay. Is there a motion to
close the public hearing so moves second okay can we take the role in that
please rose all right to close the public hearing councilmember keserwani
yes tapland yes Bartlett yes Traga I okay yes and clerk would you email me
those slides please yes we will do that okay so yes bro Keith black abhi yes
Unapara? Yes. Humbert? Yes. Mayor Ishii? Yes. Thank you very much. Is there any
public comment on items not listed on the agenda? I don't know, I don't know if
it's permissible for me to speak on 12 since I wasn't here. No, I'm sorry. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay, anyone online? No, hands raised online. Okay, is there a motion to
motion to adjourn. So moved.
Second. Can you take the role,
please, Rose? To adjourn.
Councilmember Custer-Wany? Yes.
Taplin? Yes. Bartlett? Yes.
Jacob? Aye. O'Keefe? Yes. Blackaby? Yes. Munepara? Yes. Humbert? Yes. Mayor Ishi? Yes. All right. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. That. Recording stopped. Thank you.