okay hello everyone good afternoon I'm calling to order a special meeting of
the Berkeley City Council today is Tuesday May 19th it is 403 p.m. clerk
could you please start us off with a roll okay councilmember yes sir wani is
currently absent councilmember Taplin is currently absent
Councilmember Bartlett is currently absent. Vice Mayor Jacob. Present. Councilmember O'Keeffe. I'm
here. Blackaby. Here. Unapara. Here. Humber. Present. And Mayor Yishi. Here. Okay quorum is present.
All right, so for our action calendar for this we really have one item on here which is the
presentation and discussion of the second community survey results and direction regarding potential
ballot measures for the November 3rd, 2026 general municipal election and I
will pass it over to our city manager. Thank you mayor. Thank you for the
opportunity to present. Today we are excited our esteemed panel of staff
experts here as well as our lake research partner firm that did the
community survey. They are online so we're excited to present the results of
community survey that was conducted for the $300 million GEO bond for
infrastructure and the half-cent sales and use tax measure. We have a lot of
information to go through both on results of the survey as well as an
update on our project revisions that were largely driven by a lot of
conversations with the community, conversations with council members, et
etc. A reminder that we're not here tonight asking you to vote on ballot
measure language or not, we'll come back with that but we're wanting the
approval to move forward after you hear the presentation from staff and Lake
Research partners. So with that we're excited to walk through all this and I
will turn it over to Deputy City Manager White. Thank you City Manager. Good
evening Mayor and City Council. David White, Deputy City Manager. Just to
begin the presentation and explain a little bit about what we hope to
accomplish this evening just to amplify a little bit of what our city manager
shared. So we'll start off with some background and context just to set the
stage for why we're here tonight. Subsequent to that we are going to bring
forward Lake Research Partners to talk about the results of the second
community survey that we administered in April. Then we are going to talk more
specifically about the general obligation bond that is being proposed
this is why we're doing this
because we're going to have
a lot of time closed and some
of its impacts. And
importantly, we're going to
talk about the project
portfolio that we brought to
you actually back in December
of 2025. And I'll touch on in
a little bit about all the
work that's been done to help
refine that project portfolio.
Sorry. Can I just check? Mr
City Clerk. Is our volume? Okay
online? Sorry about the
interruption. I just want to
make sure folks at home can
let's see I think we're good thank you great thank you and then after we talk
about the general obligation bond we'll talk about the sales and use tax that is
also proposed for the November 2026 ballot and we'll conclude that
discussion with next steps and the timeline moving forward so in front of
you? Why is that up on the screen? Sorry, Mark. I think that we need to close this
settings box. Sorry about that again. No, it's okay. Mark, it's good. Alright, great.
Sorry about that. Ready? We're good. No problem. So what this slide just highlights are the
Uh, recommended actions that are in front of you, uh, this evening.
Um, we have previously received direction from council to proceed with ballot
language for a $300 million general obligation bond.
And we're seeking council's affirmation to continue that hard work in
partnership with our city attorney's office.
Secondly, um, with the team, uh, in front of you, we hope to unpack and discuss
more about the project list, the infrastructure projects that are part of
package and talk about what the state of that project list is, where changes have occurred,
and to provide some recommendations about those projects as well.
And then lastly, similar to the general obligation bond, Council has given us direction to proceed
with a half percent increase in the sales and use tax to address our structural deficit
in our general fund.
And again, after we talk about how those proceeds could be used, seeking Council's direction
and an affirmation to continue with that work.
So to talk a little bit more about context before we transition over to the community
survey, at a high level the city's exploration of the 2026 ballot measures really reflect
two significant and related realities that we're dealing with as a city.
First and foremost, as all of us know, we have a significant unfunded infrastructure
liability anywhere from one and a half billion to two billion dollars.
So the general obligation bond provides a tremendously wonderful vehicle for us to be
able to generate the resources needed to invest in our infrastructure, to address issues of
accessibility, resiliency, sustainability, and certainly to address issues of liability
and reduce costs as we're able to advance those projects in the future.
And then secondly, as I mentioned, because of our general fund structural deficit, the
The sales and use tax provides a tremendous opportunity for us to be able to generate
the resources needed to help address our structural deficit.
And this process has been multi-phased and it has been incredibly data-informed as we'll
go through this evening.
The work that we have accomplished has included council work sessions, follow-up and implementation
of council referrals, infrastructure analysis, implementing statistically valid voter surveys,
and commission engagement which we'll talk more about and certainly continued
refinement of our project priorities. So with that I'm going to transition now
to Lake Research Partners to talk about the results of the second community
survey and then certainly Mayor if it's at your pleasure we can stop and respond
to questions that pertain to the survey and then move to the second part of the
presentation. Alright so I think that's my cue and it's David Mervin here at Lake
research partners can you all hear me all right yes we can hear you excellent good to be with
the council and and staff and appreciate the support from the city staff in building these
the survey and helping us achieve the results and the data we're about to show you
and as you know we have been polling the city of berkeley now for many years various community
surveys on many topics, including various ballot measures. This is the second survey
we've conducted this year. And I'm going to be presenting both the overall findings and some
analysis of those results. This is an overview, of course. There are a lot more data in the full
report, which is available to everyone. And I'm happy to take questions at the end. So I'm going
to put on the screen here the presentation of the findings. Let's make sure that appears.
Everyone see that all right? Yes. Excellent. So again, this is a survey of likely voters
in the city of Berkeley. It's conducted from the voter file methodologies,
combination of live phone interviews and text online. And it's representative of the electorate
that we expect to turn out and vote in November of 2026 in the City. And I'll show you the
demographics in a second. Here we are. This was conducted in the week of April 21st,
2026. The data is stratified and weighted to be representative of the electorate in Berkeley,
margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 4.4%. These are the demographics,
more details on all of these available in the full report, but it is probably representative
across the city of the, again, the likely voters we expect to turn out in November.
So as a general set of takeaways, we would say our main focus here after having tested a range of
projects and options and priorities with voters in the earlier survey that was conducted in
February. This is a follow-up where we were bearing down on specific language for the
general obligation bond and the sales tax measure for the city budget. And also testing these
measures in the context of other measures that we expect to appear on the November ballot,
particularly those having to do with revenue because we know that that has an impact on how
people vote when they have multiple revenue measures to consider. What we generally found
is that both the general GEO bond and the sales tax felt measures have slightly lower support.
They were essentially identical to the very slight adjustments to the versions of the
measures we tested in February, and they both have majority support, and they are both slightly above
the threshold they would need to pass, but they did both go down slightly from where they were
in the February poll. And that is possibly just a reflection of evolution over time,
but also very likely affected by the crowded environment on the ballot, which we tested.
And we'll show you the other measures that we tested along with these two that probably brings
down a little bit the level of support when voters have so many revenue measures to consider.
Nonetheless, nearly 7 in 10 Berkeley voters are inclined to vote yes on the GEO bond on the initial
ballot, 69 percent. If that were right on target, that would be just about the two-thirds vote needed
to pass for that type of bond. And then the sales tax measure also starts lower than it did
in February, but it is above a majority of 52 percent. And again, it's just a couple of points
over the threshold, the simple majority threshold to pass that type of a revenue measure.
So they were both, at the moment, in a position to pass, but obviously pretty close to the
line in terms of being exceeding the threshold.
When we test additional positive and negative information, as you know, we like to do these
stress tests where we get positive and negative messages in equal time for both sides to simulate
sort of campaign and additional information that voters would get between now and when they would
vote. And when we do that, the geo bond, the support declines slightly, which means it just
falls just below the threshold for 67, but it is still very close to that two-thirds threshold.
Interestingly, the sales tax measure, the support increases after people hear the arguments back
and forth. And so our general conclusion is that both of these measures are in a position to pass.
Assuming there is a solid campaign that there is communication done to voters in support of each,
it does appear that, you know, based on past results, based on how close these are to the
thresholds, it does appear that these would be in a position to pass, but it would require
some information, some campaign in favor to maintain that support. We also tested several
other local and regional revenue measures really for context. We also found most of those also have
strong support. But the inclusion of so many such measures on the 26th ballot probably increases the
tax sensitivity, which may be dampening a little bit the support for these two. So we'll start with
the numbers on the bond. And just to remind everyone, this is how we described it. We
tried to keep these descriptions simple, but also very similar to what people would read
on the ballot when they were voting, mentioning the $300 million general obligation bond,
the improvements that it would fund, and noting the costs for property owners, estimated $22.14
100,000 of property value. And so that's the measure that people were voting on.
Very similar version of that, which we tested in February, we've got 71%. Yes, 12%. No,
that margin has decreased a bit, but it is still very healthy. 69% inclined to vote yes. 16%
inclined to vote no on that measure and 15 percent undecided. So even if assuming those
numbers are directly on target, even if all of the undecided voters broke toward a no vote,
that would still pass by a couple of points. It is typical for undecideds to bring more toward
a no than a yes, but you would also expect to pick up potentially some of those undecideds.
So it's still we would say in a position to pass. We also noted here, so you see that threshold,
the two-third threshold that we're exceeding slightly in the graph. And on the right is some
of the demographics broken down just for analysis and noting where the shift has been compared to
February. Our overall margin, which was plus 59 points, is now plus 52 points. The shift in that
margin, and when you measure a shift in margin, it's slightly exaggerated. It's only a couple of
points of a yes vote, but it looks a little bigger on the margin. We see that older voters and white
voters slipping down a bit more in terms of their support, although again, every group of voters
across the city, demographically, is in favor, and in most cases large majorities, in favor of the
geo-bond. We then tested these arguments pro and con, favor and against, equal time on both sides,
which may or may not reflect the actual environment, but wanted to do this to see how strongly that
yes vote would hold up as a result of that back and forth? And the answer is pretty well. It does
decline by a few points. And in this re-ballot after people hear that additional information,
the yes vote declines just slightly down to 64%. The no goes up a bit to 20%. And you still have
15% undecided. Even if this were the end case after the back and forth of the campaign,
that would still be a pretty plausible position for the measure to pass. It would need a few more
points from the undecideds to get over the two-thirds threshold, but that would be a typical
shift that you might see as we've seen in other revenue measures in Berkeley. But nonetheless,
it's pretty close to the threshold and obviously within the margin of error in terms of whether
it would pass. And again, notably, we're comparing this now to the informed ballot from the earlier
poll in February, we again see older voters, older men, non-college voters, and voters in
West and Central Berkeley moving down a little more from where they were compared to February.
Nevertheless, this is still pretty close to the threshold of passage with that 300 million
general obligation bond. We also wanted to just note where the undecided voters were and the
persuadable voters for those who would be involved in potentially communicating the undecided voters,
African-American voters in Berkeley, those who are registered independents, renters,
particularly women who are renters, a little more likely to be undecided. The persuadable voters,
those who are both undecided and move in the direction of voting for the bond, also more
women, white women, independent voters, and older black voters all in that group of being a little
bit more persuadable. So that's the overview and again there's more data behind that but just
that's the overview of the findings on the geo bond and then we turn to the sales tax
measure which also we were retesting to see if the specific version that would go on the ballot
would be successful. This is the description we gave increasing the sales tax in the city of
of Berkeley to help address the city's budget deficit
of approximately $30 million.
Shovel measure letting a 0.5% sales tax,
increasing the total sales tax rate to 10.75,
the amount it would generate
and the things that would be funded,
should it be adopted.
This measure did decline somewhat
from where it was in February.
We had measured this at about a 60%, yes.
Initially, the current initial ballot
on this late April survey is 52% yes to 32% no.
That's still a measure with rounding plus 19 points.
And it is still just above the threshold of 50%
that a sales tax measure would need.
So you would conclude again that this is a measure
that is in a good position to pass,
but it is close and it would require some campaign
and information probably to ensure that it would.
And the declines we see in this case,
more among young older women, white voters,
younger men and central Berkeley voters,
as well as homeowners,
a little bit softer than they were in their support,
but everyone is still net in favor of this measure.
And in most cases over 50% in support of the measure.
Again, we stress tested supporters and opponents
arguing back and forth about whether it's a good idea
to pass the sales tax, the things that we need to fund
versus the opponents saying that it costs too much,
we can't afford it, and then re-ballot.
Interestingly here, unlike on the GEO bond measure,
the support actually goes up somewhat,
perhaps because voters understand better
that the budget need as a result of those arguments,
but instead of, so from a 52% yes on our initial ballot
here in April, we go up to 56% yes, up four points,
the no old steady at about 30%.
The margin is now plus 27 points.
And again, looking at the net,
it is pretty close to where it was in February.
It's actually gone up a little bit
among voters of color and renters,
but it has gone down a bit among white voters,
non-college voters and voters in Sucko Berkeley.
We look at where the shifts are.
But again, the overall finding here
is that this still has majority support.
That majority increases a bit
after the head-to-head arguments and it still looks like it's in a position where it would pass.
This again is just a breakdown of the undecided and persuadable voters for those who might be
interested in communicating. We have a lot of undecided voters in the Berkeley Hills,
particularly women in the Hills on the sales tax measure. Again, the independent voters,
interestingly voters with a graduate degree, the most highly educated voters are usually
less undecided on this measure or more so college educated women and again renters showing up in
the undecided voters disproportionately. And then we also wanted to share data we learned about the
ballot order as well as the other potential measures that could be out there on the local and
regional ballot. This is an experiment we did just between these two measures where we rotated which
which one people heard first.
And we wanted to see if it made a difference
as to the overall support.
So this is looking, all of the numbers you're seeing here
are just for the general obligation bond.
And when you hear it first or second,
it actually does slightly better if you hear it second
after the sales tax, which is not necessarily
what we would expect, but in both cases,
it's very close to the threshold of two thirds,
but it's slightly higher after they hear the sales tax.
And then once they have the back and forth arguments,
it's essentially no difference
whether or not they hear it in.
It's at 64%.
So our general conclusion here is it doesn't matter much
which one of these two measures goes first,
you're gonna need a very similar range
in terms of the level of support.
And then the sales tax measure also does a little bit better
when you hear it second, rather than first.
And that evens out somewhat, even on the informed ballot,
it's still true.
I'm sorry, I'm stating that wrong.
In this case, they hear it,
they do slightly, yeah, slightly better
when the sales tax is for a second,
that would be on the left, 53 versus 50.
And still true even after the informed ballot,
that if you've heard the sales tax second,
that's slightly better.
So putting all those together, it's a close call,
It's not a huge effect, but it is plausible
that the sales tax does slightly better
when it's heard second compared to the GEO bond.
It looks like all things being equal of the best order,
but it doesn't matter much.
The thing that does matter a little more than that
in terms of the order is the fact
that these other revenue measures from other jurisdictions
or just from other sources are on the Berkeley ballot
in 2026.
And just noting that in this case,
We put all of these before the two measures
we're most interested in
because we want to see the impact that they had on that.
And the one that is very popular here in Berkeley,
and this is a good sign,
although obviously the rest of the region
gets to vote on this as well,
but the regional transit measure as of today
would get 79% of the voting yes in the city of Berkeley,
only 9% would vote no.
it's a very pro-transit constituency here in the city,
only 12% undecided.
So that is a very supportive vote for the transit measure.
But again, the main reason we had it in this poll
was to see what impact it had on the city measures.
We also tested the Alameda County living wage measure,
which is not strictly speaking a revenue measure,
but does involve money.
And it does appear to have very strong support
in the city of Berkeley as well.
they are gathering signatures and have not fully qualified.
But assuming this is going forward
and is on the ballot has strong support
in the city of Berkeley, 78% yes to 14% no.
The arts tax measure, which is also gonna be in the ballot
in the city, assuming that is on,
we would see 67% right at two thirds of Berkeley voters
saying they would vote yes for the arts funding.
It's very popular among younger women
among renters. There is some correlation that people who tend to vote no on the
our two core measures that we were measuring that we showed you earlier, the GEO bond and the sales
tax also tend to vote no here and vice versa, but it is overall getting about two-thirds support.
And again, it's just a question of the impact of having the multiple revenue measures.
And then an additional sales tax measure, which is the specific to sugar sweetened sodas,
of course, which Berkeley has had now for many years, but this is an increase in that soda tax
measure – soda tax – to increase the impact of the programs that are funded by it. Sixty-nine percent
say they would vote yes for the soda tax increase, and 45 percent strong support. Only 23 percent
would vote no. This is also in a pretty strong position in terms of the support citywide and
again it's correlated the voters who vote yes on the geo bond and the sale fraud or sales tax are
also more likely to vote yes on this sort of tax measure. And then finally the public bank
which also involves revenue from a parcel tax. Would voters support this? This is the softest
In terms of the level of support of the measures we tested, it is still a majority in favor
of establishing a public bank funded through a parcel tax, but 58% would vote yes, that's
lower than some of the other measures, and 24% would vote no.
Still a positive margin, and again, renters and younger women being the most supportive.
So all of that is to say that we have several measures, all of which are pretty popular
on the ballot but cumulatively it does appear to have brought down me
by a few points the total level of support. Nonetheless our general
conclusion would be that we have approximately two-thirds or slightly
more support for the general obligation
bond making it a pretty good position to pass
and slightly a narrow majority voting yes
on the sales tax measure but with a wide margin over the no vote
again suggesting is still in a pretty good position to pass in November and
that's those are the conclusions we bring to the council.
Thank you so much I appreciate that. Do folks have any questions about these
results? Sorry, yes. Council member Blackby.
Thanks Madam Mayor. Hey David, quick question on
undecideds versus persuadables just to reflect, refresh my recollection.
So, the undecideds are truly the folks who said, I don't know how I'm going to vote.
Persuadables is undecideds plus the lean yes and lean no. Is that the right way to think about it?
No, the persuadables, good question, and I went over it very quickly, but the persuadables would
be the undecideds plus the people who shift who are the yes, because even though the overall shift
was almost even or some very slightly negative, there were people going in both directions,
right? So we're interested in for, again, not necessarily for the official communications,
but for anyone who is potentially supporting the measure, communicating with voters, noting
who the persuadable voters are, which would include the undecideds, as well as the people
who've moved toward a guess. So that's the difference between those. There's a lot of
overlap and the general conclusion about who those undecided persuadables are is listed in those
tables. So it's undecided plus those who shifted yes after messaging, is that right? That's correct.
And then in a typical revenue measure in Berkeley you're mentioning kind of the history
if we're at sort of somewhere right around 16 if we're right around the two-thirds now
how those undecideds typically break. So yeah it depends what year you look at right and also
So what's it?
So in other places, first of all, I would say, you know, our general rule of thumb that
we provide to those who are testing revenue measures is that most of your undecideds will
break through.
We're more likely to break toward a no than a yes, because if they're undecided, they're
already having some doubts and then that just, you know, it's easy for doubts to accumulate
and people don't know as a default.
said that, the city has a history of passing revenue measures, sometimes by quite wide margins,
and often in our own polling, which we've been done since 2012 in the city, those yes margins
have exceeded what we measured on the polling that we did around this time in the spring
of the election year. So I would conclude that in Berkeley, usually we see a little bit higher
yes vote that we measured in the poll six months earlier, but that's a reflection of
actual events there being communication and campaigns and so forth. And it is also true that
for instance in 2022, there was a measure on the ballot that essentially landed almost exactly
where the yes vote was measured in the spring, which was in fact slightly, you know, just a very,
very narrowly short of the threshold needed.
So I don't want to say we know that it will exceed,
it doesn't always, but it often exceeds by a few points
on the final ballot, on the actual ballot in November
won't be measured in the poll.
And that's why it's good you're starting at the two thirds
because you don't need a majority of the undecideds.
You need some of the undecideds to give you the cushion,
but starting at the second percentage.
You don't need them, most of them,
You just need a handful really essentially to break your way break toward. Yes. As a result of the campaign or information that they got. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Council member Kaplan. Thank you. And good afternoon. Could we just see the arguments for and against the jail.
That up to one string.
And, you know, I'm sorry for the geo bond, right? Correct.
Okay, very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. Vice Mayor Trago.
Thank you.
Three questions. First, just a clarification.
When you mentioned Central Berkeley, is that central and south?
Yes. So the definitions of the...
Sorry, one second. I will pull up my...
So, yes, we did we create three regions. It's the sample is not big enough to be able to break out every district on its own. Right. They are. It's not a reliable and size.
In each individual district, so the definitions of these 3 regions are what we call the Hills is council districts 5, 6, and 8.
We'll call central slash south, which is combined.
Is districts 3, 4, and 7.
And then west is districts one and two.
Okay, thank you.
You spoke about, I mean, the recommendation,
well, the overarching conclusion is that based on Pauling,
both measures are, there is a greater than 50-50 chance
that they would pass provided that there is a robust campaign.
What can you say about the intensity
or how might this be impacted
by the intensity of the opposition campaign?
For example, if there is an organized opposition campaign.
Certainly, I would say if there is no opposition campaign,
These are a very strong position to pass.
It would be unlikely for the no vote to increase enough
to defeat these measures if there was no actual campaign
on the no side and that has been the kicking.
Once some occasionally that has been true,
there's been very little opposition campaign.
There is an opposition campaign.
That's what we simulated, right?
With that informed ballot was a pro, a yes campaign
and also a no campaign communicating equal.
Oh, with voters. So I think we would say, as you know, what we show them as the.
Sorry, could you listen? Can you all hear me?
Can you hear me? All right. You're here now, but you, there was a checklist there apologies. That's probably on my end.
I am traveling this week as well. I couldn't be here in person, but the.
So we, if there was no, if there was not any opposition campaign, I would say these are in a quite strong position to pass.
If there is an opposition campaign and it is equal to roughly equal to the positive campaign in favor of the measures, that's what we simulated in the survey with that head to head argument.
And that would suggest that in that situation.
It would be close, but more likely to pass than not.
Uh, and of course, you had a massive opposition campaign and some big funder came in to, uh, you know, constantly hammer at these things and tell voters. It's a terrible idea. And that would be, you know, there's here more no.
Then yes, uh, this would be these would be in some danger that would be less likely to pass in that situation.
Yeah, thank you, and obviously when in particular the go bond when it's so close to the line,
I think this is probably going to be of importance.
My last question is around, you know, any high level thoughts you could share with us
around best practices for the packaging
of these two ballot measures,
if we were to include both of them on the ballot.
It's, you know, the no argument
like when you had the battery
of negative information out there.
understandably revolves around the message
we've been taxed enough, and there are different,
well, if you put the language back up,
I think it talks about affordable housing,
it talks about other areas of investment.
I'm wondering if you have any thoughts around
how we can explain this is why the two measures are needed,
but just as importantly,
this is why they're structured differently
because they are funding different things
that could not necessarily be funded
through a different revenue stream.
The complicated question, let me preface it by saying that obviously with the, you know,
publicly funded research that we're doing here, we are not directly advising any campaign either
the yes or no side, right? We're just telling you the information based on the,
what we learned from the voters. I would say though that one thing we know, which we know from
previous experience as well as the earlier testing about the contents of the bond and sales tax
measure is that we deliberately highlighted here in this description some of the things that we
knew voters care most about in the city of Berkeley and that that is certainly important
if for any effort to pass these measures to highlight the actual impacts that they would
have positively on the priorities that voters have and those include ensuring safety first
and foremost in quality of life, the importance of repairing things that need fixing such
as streets and parks, improving and increasing affordable housing. So those things are specified
in part because we know that voters care a lot about them. And we have research data
to support that. I hesitate to go too much further in terms of offering any strategic advice other
than to say it's, you know, those in support of the measure would certainly need to talk about
the importance of those funding those specific outcomes, the improvements that are needed,
and creating a sense of urgency recognizing the, you know, the structural deficits, the infrastructure
that is long-standing and the importance of funding to catch up with us.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Council Member O'Keefe.
Thank you. I'll start by saying I'm only going to ask about the sales tax measure.
It's the only thing I have eyes for right now.
I'm pretty concerned.
There's a question coming, I promise.
I'm concerned about these numbers.
I hear your confidence.
I hear you say things like, it's very well positioned to pass.
And I appreciate your arguments about the undecided voters
and the dynamics of how things can change.
But a lot of these numbers for the sales tax
are disturbingly close to the 50% threshold,
considering the margin of error is 4%.
So given that is my concern, I'm really curious about this result
that hearing it second after the GEO bond
actually seemed to increase.
Am I reading that correctly?
It seems to increase the support
if they heard the GEO bond first
and then about the sales tax, is that right?
Yes, and you are not the only person
who was somewhat surprised by that result.
Yeah, because I'm really concerned about it,
maybe in a vacuum it would pass,
but the presence of other items.
So I'm wondering, yeah, thank you for confirming
that that is indeed surprising.
Do you have any theories?
Or is that a more common result than you would expect?
My hypothesis, and there's no way to test this
retrospectively, is that a general sales tax,
people think of it as going to just sort
of general operations, right?
And it's like, sure, maybe you need it, maybe you don't.
and that the cumulative effect of the description
of the urgent funding priorities for the city
that were contained in both measures
and the specific improvements that would result
in terms of public safety, quality of life,
fixing things that are broken may have created
a just a slightly greater sense of belief
that we need to fund things in the city.
And yes, we have some deficits we need to address
in terms of those facilities and services, right?
So that would be my guess as to why it would be slightly
higher as a result of having heard both.
And I would say that generally just reassuring
that it doesn't matter much what order you put the two in,
but all things being equal, you would go ahead
and put the bond first and then the sales,
give them these findings.
And then I would also point to the broader conclusion
that there are a lot of revenue measures here
and it does appear that the cumulative weight of those
is pointing these down a little bit
from where they were a couple of months ago.
Yeah, thank you actually.
Thank you for that last comment
because that was my second question is,
it wasn't clear to me and I'm sorry
if you did make this clear, but I missed it if you did.
Did you, you didn't do a similar test.
It looks like you, you did pull about all the other measures, but, and we did all of those before.
Sorry, just to clarify what I think where I think you're going to have, which is that we did test all of the other.
Local and regional measures before these 2.
Deliberately, because we wanted to make sure we understood.
The reality of voters seeing all these measures on the ballot, and the only way to do that in a poll, which is sequential rather than a ballot where you're looking at it all at once.
is to pass all the other ones first and then the two that we were most focused on.
So, this is the – it's a tougher test, but it is a more realistic test for those two measures to – for voters – for us to know, that voters are going to see, you know, these seven or eight different kinds of local revenue and – or, you know, money-related measures.
And, you know, it looks like their support is still pretty solid for both of these, but it is a little bit lower than what we were measuring a couple months ago.
Okay, oh, that's that's helpful. Thank you for clarifying. So, just to be sure, I understood you correctly. All of these numbers for both the geo and the sales tax were all measured after asking about the other measures.
That's right and you'll see that it's quite laid out in sequence in the top line
results which is another document submitted as part of the report.
Thank you so much.
I would like to move on because I know we have quite a bit of presentation time left.
So I'm going to pass it back to our city staff.
Sounds good. Can everyone hear me okay? Great.
So good afternoon, honorable mayor, city council and community.
My name is Carrie, I'm an assistant to the city manager
and before transitioning into the revised project portfolio,
we wanna briefly frame the broader infrastructure context
and intended impact of the proposed GEO bond.
So as this slide shows here,
existing annual funding addresses only a small portion
of Berkeley's infrastructure needs.
Many funding sources for the city are restricted one time
or competitive when considering grants.
And ultimately, this deferred maintenance
continues to increase long-term repair costs
and operational risk.
At the same time,
kind of going to the green part in the middle,
Berkeley does have a strong track record
of leveraging prior infrastructure investments.
For example, measure T1 passed by voters in 2016,
leveraged approximately $100 million in bond funding
into roughly $183 million in total investment
through grants and external funding.
T1 is winding down as less than five of the 75 projects
have yet to start construction.
And this bond measure has been responsible
for improvements across Berkeley,
including the Adult Mental Health Clinic,
North Berkeley Senior Center, Livo Community Center,
the award-winning Willard Clubhouse, Berkeley courtyard,
aquatic park tide tubes,
improvements to the Berkeley Rose Garden,
variety of streets including portions of Adeline
and University Avenue along the waterfront,
as well as a variety of green infrastructure projects.
Some of the projects under construction right now
include improvements to two fire stations, MLK YAP,
D and E docks, as well as the Santa Fe
right-of-way conversion to a park.
So these bonds are, these bond funds are totally committed
and will be fully spent in the next 18 to 24 months.
So the proposed GEO bond structure would support
the next phase of strategic infrastructure investment
focused on public safety, accessibility, resilience,
community serving facilities, and long-term stewardship
of critical public assets.
Just give me one second.
There we go.
This slide may look familiar.
It shows the estimated taxpayer impact
of a proposed $300 million general obligation bond,
assuming that $100 million is issued every five years
beginning in 2027.
So this slide provides two views.
First, a historical look at tax rates
associated with previously approved GEO bonds.
That's sort of the gray shaded portion you see there.
And then second, a forward looking estimate
of the proposed $300 million GEO bond
when combined with existing bond authorizations.
That's sort of the dark blue shading that you see.
So under this scenario, the combined average tax rate
from 2027 to 2067 is estimated at .0441%
or in layman's terms, $44 per 100,000 of assessed value.
So for the median assessed home value in Berkeley,
this equals approximately $242 per year.
So importantly, the projected combined average tax rate
remains below historical averages
for existing authorizations and below rates seen
in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
So in short, the proposed bond remains
within Berkeley's historical range of geo bond tax rates.
We're gonna bring back a couple of slides you may have seen.
So this one may look familiar to many,
but we wanted to note that the proposed geo bond framework
still organizes projects into three primary categories
or themes, community facilities and quality of life,
public safety and critical infrastructure and accessibility.
This structure was intended to make the project portfolio
easier to understand from a public facing perspective
while still reflecting the complexity
of Berkeley's infrastructure needs.
Staff have also developed
and applied a more formalized evaluation methodology
to improve transparency
regarding how projects were assessed and prioritized.
And I'll get into that in the next couple of slides.
We also wanted to bring back this slide and note
for those just being informed about this process
following the December 2025 Council Work Session,
staff launched a community engagement process
from January of this year through March.
This engagement helped inform the draft project portfolio
and broader infrastructure priorities.
It included meetings with city commissions,
community focus groups, joint district meetings,
and a city webpage and email for public feedback.
During these meetings,
staff shared the project portfolio
and asked for input on which projects felt most urgent,
what needs or communities may be missing,
where investment could improve access and equity,
and which investments would provide
the greatest long-term benefit for Berkeley.
In conjunction with Council Direction,
as well as the community survey,
this feedback helped staff refine
and prioritize the portfolio.
So one of the major goals in refining the project portfolio
was improving transparency around how projects
were evaluated and prioritized.
So to support that effort,
staff developed a six-factor evaluation framework
designed to assess both public benefit
and implementation feasibility.
I think this is attachment two in your packet.
Projects were evaluated across six categories
seen on the slide here.
Health, life and safety, infrastructure condition,
accessibility and resilience, community use and equity,
green resiliency and sustainability,
deliverability and readiness,
and external funding potential.
I do want to note that we did incorporate criteria
from the Park Recreation and Waterfront Commission's
information report where they evaluated projects.
This helped improve our definitions and framing
in our methodology and just wanted to note that.
So looking at this slide, the highest weighted categories
ranging from health, life, and safety
through green resiliency and sustainability,
those were weighted at 20% and deliverability and funding,
external funding leverage were weighted at 10% each.
projects then received low, medium, and high rankings
within each category, which translated into weighted scores,
contributing to an overall score out of 100.
So generally, as noted on this slide here,
projects scoring 75 and above were considered higher priority,
50 to 74 medium priority,
and anything below 50, lower priority.
So importantly, this framework was intended
as a decision support tool,
not purely a mechanical ranking system.
So staff also considered council direction,
geographic distribution, sequencing, community feedback,
updated cost estimates, and overall portfolio balance
when refining the proposed project list.
So ultimately this evaluation methodology is intended
to help staff understand priority phasing
should the general obligation bond pass.
This slide summarizes the current working
financial framework associated with the bond.
The framework currently assumes $300 million
in total bond sales, approximately $13 million
in assumed bond interest earnings on the conservative end,
and a total projected program capacity
of approximately $313 million.
The project portfolio itself currently totals
approximately $272.5 million
across the three infrastructure categories.
And the most important part,
framework also includes approximately 40.5 million in staffing and
implementation related resources. So this is an important component of the
framework because the bond program of this scale requires significant
delivery infrastructure over many years. So this could include project management,
compliance, any required costs related to auditing and reporting, and general
program administration needs. So these implementation resources are
are intended to support a responsible project delivery,
not necessarily ongoing operational staffing.
And with that said, I'll turn it over
to our Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Director,
Scott Farris, who will talk more about
the community facilities
and quality of life project portfolio.
Thanks, Carrie.
Mayor and council, so she's already introduced me.
I'll introduce my staff that are here to support it,
and provide detailed answers to questions if you have them.
They're sitting behind me.
Evelyn Chan, a supervising civil engineer,
and Taylor Lancelot, who was acting,
acting in Nelson's place, Nelson Lamb,
is also a supervising civil engineer.
Okay, so I'm gonna take you through 20 proposed PRW projects,
Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Projects,
and talk about them just briefly,
each project and a little bit of history.
So, first on the list here is Francis Albright Community Center.
This project was, first of all, Francis Albright is the only senior center that is not seismically
safe at this point.
So T1 has taken care of all the other facilities and we've got one under construction and another
one to be under construction soon.
But Francis Albrier got conceptual money to design the community center and T1 phase
one and we had an amazing two year process which we designed a community center there
and we'd like to go ahead and build that community center and that is essentially
replacing, that's a teardown and replacement like Willard was.
So it's a full replacement, a brand new facility.
It is a very small facility given the amount of people it serves and a much larger facility
in the same kind of envelope is going to serve the community much better.
Next, we're going to talk about the Harrison Turf field conversion.
So this converts Harrison Park soccer fields, there are two soccer fields there, from grass
to artificial turf.
This is really important to all the sports field users because it'll produce about 120%
more play time. That field is closed six months a year, largely because of the wear and tear.
And sometimes more than that, the sub-base of that field needs total renovation and needs
to be repaired. And so it really limits the amount of use and how long we can keep that
grass green. So if we replace it with turf, it's really going to improve the amount of
time that the youth can play on the fields. We've got several restrooms here.
We're going to talk about a couple of them are on the T1 list. Harrison Park
was originally on the T1 list and then got pulled off at the end because we
need to consolidate dollars along with the restroom near the park at the
waterfront. So in this case this would fund the construction of those two
restrooms. And so at Harrison and the Berkeley Waterfront, we're adding two new
restrooms to this list, Cedar Rose and Cordenesis, and we've gotten a lot of
feedback about these two parks and upgrading the restrooms from essentially
what we call our block restrooms, which is to tow it to something that's more
user-friendly. The last project on the list here is the King Pool and Locker
Room, and I'll talk more about this project at the end on our fourth slide
where we talk about how our projects have changed.
Next slide, Carrie.
So the next six projects are kind of,
the next seven projects are kind of a combination
of place structures and open spaces and greenies.
And so this list actually changed dramatically
throughout the public process in the city manager's eyes.
Cedar Rose, for us, is kind of a no-brainer.
It's fully designed and ready to bid out.
In fact, we have bid out the five to 12-place structure now.
The two to five-place structure is designed and ready to go.
We just need the allocation to construct it.
The same something very similar to Gwendola Loma.
We've gone through a two-year process there where we've designed,
done a conceptual design,
and we're not that far from being able to construct that site.
Got a lot of good input over the last year and a half,
and we've got a final conceptual design there.
We've added a couple of projects here during T1 phase two,
and we did a lot of public process.
A couple of projects that came up in District 8 were Monkey Island Park and
the Garber Path right away which includes a walkway,
kind of a street, and a bunch of landscaping,
and they didn't get funded in T1 phase two,
But we didn't have a whole lot of projects in District 8, so we kind of went back and took another look at that and heard some feedback from the community and added those two projects.
And while they're right together, so we would include them probably in one project, and we would potentially improve the elements of Monkey Island and just a total redo at Garber Path.
A couple of projects down below, the Adeline Corridor Space, this is refers to, we have
an Adeline Corridor Plan, Public Works is in the process of designing that street plan
from Ashby all the way to the Oakland border.
And also we've got 30% design funding on that.
We're applying for 100% design funding.
design funding doesn't include the open space and there's going to be
transportation dollars to fund that project as we move forward but funding
the park or the open space we're not going to have fun. Am I good? We have
actually about eight hundred fifty thousand dollars which will be a HUD
grant to do some design there but we're going to need money to construct that
as the Adeline plan goes on and so that's what these dollars are for. We're
we're talking about a 12 to 15 year spend here.
So we're anticipating in the next few years
we'll be ready to construct those open spaces
in the Adeline corridor.
Another project, a couple of other projects were added
was the Dwight Twelgraf Open Space,
which is what people refer to as the Adeline Triangle
as the telegraph avenue plan is executed.
It's gonna create an additional open space
at the Adeline Triangle.
And so this project, we would construct it
with 3.5 million native plant median conversions.
We've heard for years about the importance
of converting some of our bigger, larger medians
in Sacramento and University to native plant gardens.
And we heard a lot of feedback in the public process.
And so this money allows us to do three or four blocks
on Sacramento and University.
Next slide.
The last five projects are all waterfront projects.
And the three of these projects are very grant-eligible.
And so we're only asking for a portion of the projects
that we anticipate getting grants
to fund the remaining portion.
The perimeter pathway, the sea-level-rise bay trail
project, and the seawall drives of bay trail improvements
are all projects that we know we're
going to be able to secure grants for.
Not 100% positive, but given our ability secure grants,
we're pretty positive that these are just leverage money
in order to complete the project.
The last two projects, the South Cove Seawall project,
if you haven't been down to the South Cove Seawall,
you know it's failing.
And once that Seawall fails, everything that happens there
will cease to happen.
So all the, everybody who launches from that South Cove,
Cal Adventures, Cal Sailing won't be able to use that,
and won't be able to use that area.
And so this totally replaces the seawall.
And the other functional project here
is the timber pile replacement.
We did some of this in T1 phase one,
or if T1 phase two.
And we are permit ready.
Our permit doesn't expire for another three to four years.
So as soon as this, if this bond were measured
would pass in November, we could execute
the additional $3 million of power placement immediately.
Okay, next slide.
Okay, so what's changed here?
And I'll kind of skip the top area of what we kept
and what's advanced, but what's been scaled down
a little bit, I talked earlier about King Pool
and how that shifted a little bit.
originally we proposed, it was in the proposal,
was $25 million to replace the pool.
We got a lot of feedback about that,
Pro and Con, not the right location,
we should deal with West Campus
or put the pool at St. Francis Albriar.
And so ultimately, as we went through
knowing we needed to scale back on some of our projects,
essentially that original list probably had,
I think, close to $430,000,
$430 million worth of projects,
needing to scale back to meet our $300 million.
That was one of the projects that came off the list,
and we had a variety of pros and cons,
and people who supported and people didn't support it.
So we scaled it back to five million and did
a renovation of the existing two pools there.
One of the things that's happening at King as opposed to West Campus,
King is kind of up in the hills,
there's a lot of movement in that ground.
The concrete was poured in the middle 60s,
and so it's starting to move.
So we're having constant breaks in
our pipes that are associated with that concrete.
We have one now where we're losing water,
and I'm funding it in fiscal 27,
but this has been constant over the last five years.
The concrete is just getting old and it's moving,
the ground is moving, and so we're having problems there.
That whole thing needs to be replaced.
Things that were removed or deferred,
we had proposed anywhere between two to four million dollars worth of dog parks,
live oak park improvements that included
the basketball courts and the open grass area there,
San Pablo Park irrigation,
and we also proposed a project for University Avenue,
sea level rise and bike park and then we had kind of a portion of aquatic park
dreamland we know that dreamland area projects going to cost us about eight
million and we think we have a funding source for about three quarters of it so
all those got got removed ultimately there are grant sources out there that
can fund some of that and park stacks and so that was one of the reasons why
for the removal. If you have detailed questions, I can ask you to tell you about each project.
And then I've talked about the ones we've added. Carrie, am I going to pass it to the
chief here?
All right, good evening. I'm going to talk about the fire and public safety projects.
So there's four main drivers to the urgent need to renovate the city's public safety
infrastructure. Tonight I'm going to provide a high-level overview of why it's important
that this work begin now.
First, the stations are simply too old.
The city's 2023 Fire Facilities Master Plan
found that nearly every facility
needs major renovation or replacement.
Most of Berkeley's fire stations
were built in the 50s and 60s
and no longer support current staffing,
employee health and safety standards,
or long-term operational demands.
Acting now prevents an emergency situation
for future councils and staff.
Second, emergency calls and responsibilities
have grown dramatically.
Emergency responses have increased 65% in the last 30 years,
and today's fire service responds to far more than fires.
In fact, it's almost a misnomer
that we're called the fire department.
To meet that expanded mission,
the fire department houses far more people in each facility,
larger apparatus, and carries more equipment
than these mid-century stations were built to support.
Third, the complexity of each project
and the impact to employee health and safety.
Fire stations have to remain operational
following a large seismic event,
which means that they have to meet
California's Essential Services Act.
That in turn means that they're some of the most expensive
infrastructure to renovate and replace
that any city operates.
So it's slow going and it's really expensive.
We also know that emergency responders
faced increased risk of cancer from carcinogen exposure.
A lot of this happens in the living quarters
because older fire stations aren't built
with separated facilities where the contaminated gear
and apparatus are off gassing carcinogens
throughout the day.
So these new stations will be built
with those segregated areas that will improve employee
health long term and reduce the number
of cancer diagnosis that we have each year.
And finally, all of the public safety projects included
within this framework incorporate resilience
and sustainability components,
primarily solar and battery backup.
So this not only will take the facilities to energy neutral
but will prepare the city for transition
to the fleet of electric fire engines
in the next 10 to 15 years.
So the bottom line for us is these upgrades
are not expansions, they're critical reinvestments
in aging infrastructure to ensure reliable
emergency response for the next 75 years.
Starting now allows the city to phase the work responsibly
over the coming decades instead of deferring
these complex and necessary projects
to the community and the councils of the future.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members,
Wahid and Mary, Interim Director of Public Works.
This slide begins with one of the city's most visible
and liability sensitive infrastructure needs, accessibility.
The 50-50 sidewalk program at approximately 14.6 million
helps accelerate sidewalk replacement citywide
and address a long wait list of unsafe and uneven conditions.
In parallel, the 4.5 million ADA barrier removal allocation
focuses on improving access within city-owned facilities
and paths of travel for individuals with disability.
The category also preserves funding
for essential service facilities,
including animal service upgrades,
the Berkeley Mental Health Annex renovation,
South Berkeley Senior Center,
mechanical system improvements, HVAC,
and the remaining funding needed
to complete the African-American Holistic Resource Center.
That was a commitment to the city made.
Overall, these investments prioritize accessibility,
public safety, essential services,
and long-term facility reliability,
while helping ensure that limited capital dollars
are directed towards the city's highest impact needs.
This slide continues the critical infrastructure
and accessibility category with the focus on civic buildings,
public safety facilities, and historic civic assets.
These are not just building improvements.
They support daily city operations,
public access, emergency response,
and long-term facility reliability.
Key investments include
the 1947 Center Street Elevator replacement project,
which addresses safety, reliability, and ADA access.
Moving on to the 2180 Milvia Modernization Project,
which addresses aging building systems,
again, improving accessibility,
hazardous material, and so forth.
and moving on to 2100 MLK Public Safety Building,
which is a major investment
in our 24-hour emergency operations hub,
including the 911 dispatch center.
The slide also includes grand match funding
for the Maudel Shirek building
and the Veterans Memorial Building,
helping the city position these historic civic assets
for future restoration and community use.
Overall, with this approximate $75 million investment,
this category reflects a practical balance
between essential facility modernization,
accessibility, public safety operations,
and responsible stewardship of important civic assets.
This slide summarizes how staff refined
the critical infrastructure and accessibility category
to make the portfolio more focused and easy to deliver.
Most of the core projects were preserved
because they address well-documented needs
related to accessibility, life safety, seismic resilience,
essential services, and public safety operations.
A few changes that were made to somewhat improve
the alignment and reduced duplication
are Full City Hall and the Veterans Memorial Building.
They were scaled to the minimum funding needed
for grand match opportunities
rather than the full funding restoration through the bond
for the seismic upgrades that's necessary.
The 901 Dispatch Center was folded
into the broader public safety building project,
which better reflects the shared facility, systems,
and emergency operation needs at the 2100 MLK building.
The West Berkeley Family Wellness Center was removed
because it has recently been worked on, it's been improved,
and is a lower near-term priority for us.
The African-American Holistic Resources Center was added
to close a known funding commitment
that the city has made to fulfill that project.
Overall, these changes preserve the city's
highest priority civic accessibility
and public safety investments
while keeping the portfolio focused,
strategic, and defensible.
With that, I'll hand it over back
to our deputy city manager.
Hello again.
So in addition to looking at the general obligation bond
to support infrastructure needs,
As we mentioned, we also explored the feasibility
of an increase in the sales and use tax measure
of 0.5% from 10.25 to 10.75%.
And what we know in working with our outside consultants
that could generate anywhere from nine to $10 million
in general fund resources that we have proposed
to help offset our general fund structural deficit.
And what this slide really helps to emphasize
is how we have proposed those resources be deployed.
So they're proposed to be used across three departments,
Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront,
the Police Department, and Fire Department.
And working from the bottom to the top,
for the Fire Department,
these resources would be proposed to be used
to maintain Fire Station Four and keeping that open.
For the Police Department, it would be proposed
to be used for 15 police officers
and six dispatchers in total.
That would be useful to help keep the department operating
in a manner that they can proactively address
public safety needs.
And then lastly, for our Parks, Recreation
and Waterfront Department, these resources
would be deployed to help support critical staffing
to ensure that afterschool programs, camps,
community centers, pools, and other very important programs
for our youth can continue to operate as they currently do.
So where are we and what's on the horizon?
So as mentioned before, we are bringing,
we brought forward to this evening
the results of the second survey,
the results of the refined infrastructure project list,
and in terms of going forward, after this evening,
we look forward from direction to council to move ahead
with developing ballot language for both the GEO bond
and the sales and use tax measure.
If we receive that direction, our intention is to be back
in front of you on June 16th with the proposed
ballot language, and that will give council plenty of time,
if necessary, to make any additional adjustments
because we have to have that to the County on August 7th.
And we would like to obviously, if necessary,
have that done by the last Council meeting on July 28th.
So just to come back to what we're looking for this evening
from the City Council, the three actions that we reviewed
at the beginning of this meeting.
First is to affirm direction to continue to move ahead
with the general obligation bond ballot language.
Second is to give us feedback on the project list
that have been presented by our three directors.
And then lastly, to affirm direction
to continue to move ahead with the sales and use tax
and draft ballot language for that as well.
Mayor, we'll turn it back over to you to facilitate.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Deputy City Manager and also team.
Really appreciate the presentation.
And what I'd like to do is start with questions
from my council colleagues on the part two
of this presentation and then we will take public comment
and then we'll come back for deliberations discussions.
Are there any questions for my council colleagues?
Yes, council member Kesserwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you to our three department folks
for your presentations.
I did wanna ask you Chief Farris,
the situation with King Pool, I didn't quite follow,
I mean, I understand it's old.
So are you, and the presentation said that,
so you're just proposing,
actually, can you just clarify what exactly
you're proposing for King pool?
Essentially, we're redoing the infrastructure
associated with the two pools there and the pump room.
So the concrete, the piping, the pumps and the filters.
Okay, because I think,
because I thought you were suggesting another pool
somewhere, but that's not part of this.
Because I feel like, I don't know if I made it up,
but like, you were saying something about a pool
of Francis Albrier?
So, there was some feedback, as a part of the conceptual
plan for the community center in San Pablo Park,
Francis Albrier, there was a discussion around a pool.
In fact, it was included in the original conceptual plan.
And so, as we brought this to the public,
there was some concern that we were spending money at King
and not building a new pool there.
And just to remind you, we, a few years ago,
in 2020 we signed a new agreement with the school district
that it gives us a 30-year lease at King Pool,
but only a 10-year, two-fives lease at West Campus Pool.
the thought at that time was as we're going through that process that either
the school district might use West Campus for some other some other thing
or that we wouldn't need it because we potentially would build a pool at in
San Pablo Park and so as we started to take it through public process we got a
a lot of that feedback. Hey, you know, why rebuild a brand new pool of King? Um, should
be more equitable. She'd do something and Francis Albrier. And ultimately, as we kind
of went through priorities and heard feedback, there were some, a lot of people in favor
of King, a lot of people in favor of San Pablo Park for pool, and a lot of people that just
thought we should just renovate King, the existing King pool. And so that's where we
landed for a variety of reasons. I didn't quite follow this full story art. Sorry it wasn't. So okay so and
actually this race is another question for me. So we're leasing King Pool from
the school district? Both King and West Campus. Okay but but we are paying for
these infrastructure improvements. Correct. Okay that's part of our lease
agreement is that right? It's a no-cost lease agreement. So we're not paying for
for the you know we take care of the facility and operate and you know it's a part of agreement
that includes King Park, Thousand Oaks Park, and both pools. Okay. And the MLK facility
next to Grove Park, that community center is also part of that lease. Okay, okay that's
all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Keefe. Thank you. My first
question was about the King pool, so I think you answered most of it. I just
want to clarify, are there under the current version of the proposal, are there
any improvements to be made to the locker room or the outside of the pool
or is it just you're limiting it only to the repair of the concrete in the pump?
Yeah, it's limited just to the pool envelope, not to the locker room. Okay, so no
that's a good question. I'm a
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that we if this was a this all as we thought was an important project even
from people in that district but we would prefer that you spend your money
elsewhere as you know that you know there's an open grass area that's not
really it's you know it's not it's not no irrigation in it and the basketball
courts we get all kinds of complaints about the basketball courts and
volleyball courts because he's slammed down and so this this proposal would
that have leveled it, created kind of a smaller,
under eight soccer field there,
but there wasn't a whole lot of community support for it.
And as we needed to whittle down our projects
to get into the $300 million,
that was one that we didn't, that fell off the list.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much, Vice Mayor Traeger.
Thank you, we have discussed the reductions
to improvements to historic buildings in downtown Berkeley.
But for the benefit of the public,
could you speak a little bit more
to how the new proposal would work
with respect to the grant match
and perceived probability of still receiving the grant.
Ojido, I'll let you take that one.
So based on our data,
the full amount for the seismic upgrades
at the old city hall would be approximately $14 million.
And at the veterans building, it's about $6.7 million.
and that's just seismic upgrades.
There is a FEMA grant that we are aiming for
and strategically we're aiming to,
the goal is to match city funds
to be able to leverage the FEMA grant that's coming up
and use the resources and the funding
for other more system safety,
public safety facilities as funding is very limited.
So that was a strategy there.
Yeah. And then two more questions. I think, so on the sorry, three more questions. I think
this one is for Carrie. On the project evaluation methodology under green resiliency and sustainability,
that factor in the recommendation from the Environmental and Climate Commission
to make buildings zero net energy slash electric? Yes so I can you hear me okay
okay so for the methodology so we we looked at the Parks Recreation and
Waterfront Commission report and then also the Environmental Commission report
as well so what you'll notice in the methodology for green resiliency and
sustainability that's something with in addition to accessibility that's
something that we made an effort to try and incorporate in many of the projects
where feasible for green resiliency and sustainability that's where we have very
specific criteria for what it captures and what it doesn't capture one thing
that I want to note is you know we had some notes in here around important
guardrails so just because sustainability features are woven into
that's where it would receive a high score.
Or for the native plant median conversions,
that's where it would receive a high score.
Whereas things that are more traditional,
sort of HVAC improvements and things of that nature,
that's where clearly it wouldn't receive a high score.
I hope I don't have to say that.
I think that's where we're going to see a high score.
And I think that's where we're going to see a high score.
And I think that's where we're going to see a high score.
And I think that's where we're going to see a high score.
the high score, I hope I answered your question.
Oh yeah, enough that, yeah,
I think I have a better understanding.
On the Harrison Field Torf conversion,
I know this Astrotorf has come up at public meetings,
and I understand that what you're proposing
is perhaps a different kind of Astrotorf
that is more environmentally friendly.
Could you speak to that and maybe just a suggestion
to be very specific about how the word astroturf is used,
given its connotation?
Yeah, so astroturf kind of refers
to a different product that is essentially
all polycarbons and rubber,
the product that we would be putting in at Harrison is very similar to the product we
would be putting except an upgraded version at Tom Bates that we have now,
which is a plastic stem with a cork base.
Initially, what we installed at Tom Bates was very traditional,
where you see everywhere is plastic stem with the black rubber pedals.
In 2018, we switched to a different subsurface,
we added a concussion subsurface,
and we added a different plastic stem and a cork base.
And so there are a variety of trends out there now
amongst a lot of these turf soccer fields
that we would evaluate.
Some of them are moving towards walnut-based turf, walnut-based
infield.
It doesn't float like the cork does.
So if you go out there on rainy days,
you'll see some of our cork floating away.
The walnuts don't float like that,
but in the industry now,
there's some problems with youth and adults with nut allergies.
So we would do the research that we needed to do to have
the most up-to-date product that would be
the most environmentally friendly product
that we would install on Berkeley.
Great, thank you.
And my last question,
and this might be for perhaps David,
and questions have,
well, let's say that the combined levy
of approximately $44 for $100,000 of assessed value
over 41 years.
Could you speak to approximately what that might mean
to the median homeowner?
So the median assessed value that we observed
when we brought for the December report was $550,000.
So applying that and $44 would be $242 a year.
Thank you.
Yes.
And council member Bockaby.
Great, thanks Madam Mayor.
Just to pick up on that point,
because I actually had a question about that also
on that chart about the overall,
the bond analysis and the indebtedness.
And I appreciate the look at it just by bond.
What might be helpful moving forward
before we kind of do the final implementation?
I think most residents don't think
of just the city bond part of the separate.
They think about the total tax bill.
They think about all the parcel taxes,
the stuff that comes from the school district,
the things that come from the county.
So I think the right context for this
is not just the city's bond indebtedness
and what's this is costing the residents
from just that portion, but the overall tax bill,
I know that's hard, and we've talked about that in the past.
But, yeah.
In December, we did a fiscal year 26 model
of the property tax bill,
and I think for Berkeley is about $10,924
for a $550,000 median home at 1,900 square feet.
In looking, this is a $100 million bond every five years
based on analysis.
If we did $100 million in 2027,
that would add an additional $16 per 100,000.
So you could add that to the $10,900
to get the total tax bill based on fiscal year 26.
Looking at fiscal year 27 is obviously unknown to us.
There are a number of partial taxes on the ballot.
So we could model something out
depending upon which ones you think may pass.
But looking at fiscal year 26, that would be the impact.
Right.
So I guess, yeah, so you're saying, again,
and the 242 is in the context of the median bill,
which is already, what'd you say?
The median total?
The median assessed value is 550,000,
and that's over the course of,
that's the average over 40 years.
And just when we look at the immediate $100 million,
it's obviously a lot less.
Got it.
But that portion of the overall tax bill
also again thinking of it in those terms with for the median average person
their average annual property tax bill with all of the other bells and whistles
comes out to something like. It was ten thousand nine hundred and twenty four
dollars your total tax bill fiscal year twenty six. You're talking about two forty
two on top of ten thousand again which puts that in perspective you know again no
one wants to pay more taxes but they're already there's already a ten thousand
dollar not between the property tax and everything else that we're talking about
So this is a incrementally is not it's it's it's something but it's not the biggest driver that number
Yes, but to be really clear
Because we'd only do a hundred million dollars in right thousand and twenty-seven. We'd actually only add
$16 per 100,000 and we wouldn't add the two hundred and four. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you
Question for the city manager. I know we've talked about in this past but just to confirm
if we do embark on this infrastructure measure and it passes and we then have sort of these these projects on our plate
knowing that we've got a super talented management team, but they're also managing a lot of day-to-day work
How do you foresee how do we staff this execute this make sure that we do all the oversight?
And all of the work on these infrastructure projects at the level of quality we expect how would you staff it and organize it?
Yeah, it's a good question
As the staff mentioned we did build into this into the measure costs to add staffing. Obviously we'd have to have more staff to
to run a $300 million bond project over these years and so
We you know, we haven't come up with exactly what the staffing model would look like
But we built in this the additional costs to add staff to run the measure
Whether that is done sort of like t1 where part of it was done in parks and part of it was done in
Public works or whether we created a separate stand-alone
Capital projects division to run it all we haven't just made that decision yet
But you know those are the things we're talking about okay, and there are other cities
We can also borrow from in terms of best practices and look at there are and we have also
Great, thank you
when do we need to finalize the list of projects does that have to happen before we go to the ballot or
This list that we're kind of negotiating between and what's on and what's off
yes we want to finalize a list before we go to the ballot but I also want to be
clear that we what we're not we're not saying that this is that there can be
no flexibility on this list for moving spending around because we know that
there will be you know things will happen we'll get grants that like fully
fund a project and we'll want to move that money into another project and so
just to be clear that yes we would like to finalize a project before we before
we at the time when we get the ballot measure when you adopt the language of
the measure but also we will have flexibility built-in so that we can move things around.
Okay, thanks. A question for Chief Sprague on the fire training center. That replacement project,
is that, do you have a location, is that envisioned to be at the Gilman street location or somewhere
else? We don't have a location nailed down. That's one potential location but the city would have to
acquire the property and make sure we can fit everything there. Okay, first. Got it. And then
We talked a little bit about the investment in 2100 MLK,
the Public Safety Building.
Obviously, SOFIRE has shifted a lot of their operations
out to the new location.
So that work at the Public Safety Building
is mostly 911 dispatch and police, is that right?
Confirm, it is.
Okay, and what are we doing with the rest of the space,
by the way, in that building, with BFD moving up?
Well, police is expanding into it,
is the short answer to that.
Okay, great.
Councilmember, also just to clarify,
the dispatch center does still serve fire and UMS.
Joint, right, it's joint, yeah, thank you, okay.
I think, oh, last thing, specifically on the projects,
you mentioned that we'd reduced the allocation
for the Civic Center restoration,
basically enough to secure grant matches.
My only question is whether or not,
If that's, there's sort of a too hot, too cold, just right.
I would be supportive of something
that's a little bit more than that.
It feels like we're kind of bringing it way back
to a very small amount that's,
we still have a lot of runway to go
to actually get those projects done.
So I know we've listened to a lot of the community feedback
and so I wanna honor and respect that
and as you guys have thought about this process
but I at least would be curious
about moving that back a little bit higher.
maybe it's not the full level that it was before,
but I just don't wanna drag that out
and then have a super long runway.
Like, if we're gonna do it,
I would like to make a solid step forward towards it.
So that's my own personal feedback.
I don't know what other people think.
Thank you, that's it.
Thank you very much.
I have a few questions as well.
In the last conversation that we had
about the sales tax and infrastructure bond,
We talked about allocating funding for auditing.
Could you speak to if we've made any changes around that?
That's where the 40.5 million that's baked into that cost.
And could you speak to a little more
to what that exactly would be used for?
So it would probably be very similar to T1.
So we audit, self-audit,
we actually outside audit T1 every two years.
So I think we're in the middle of our fourth audit right now.
And so it would be very similar.
And the audit is to make sure that the funds are being spent
as per the measure and per the language in the measure.
And it's pretty comprehensive.
And so it happens every two years.
We probably do something similar for this bond measure.
Thank you.
And I just want to understand, because I
think for measure FF, we had our city auditor do that auditing.
Is there a reason we chose to do external audits for that?
I can only venture to that that's because that's it was a citizen initiative from a city practice perspective
We typically do audit our tax measures, and I think what we've what we're proposing is fairly standard for how we perceive
Thank you. I just want to make sure we
Have a clear understanding of that since we of course accountability is very important to us
We want to make sure folks know that we have these measures in place
When we're asking them to support them
And what happens if we don't secure grant funding for the projects that we hope to?
I know that was touched on a little bit, but
there are a number of projects that we talked about getting grant funds for.
So obviously grant funding is never a hundred percent.
What you see in in these proposals are really
The only spots that we kind of mentioned that there was a potential usually as leverage
are ones that we were pretty confident that we could secure funding for.
There's probably another half dozen projects on this list that we think are possible for
grant funding sources that we didn't do that with.
So we will either be able to leverage that funds to add more to the project and more
folk a more scope too but we only really included the ones we were pretty
confident on and the grants that we know that are out there have talked to
funders about and either have applied for or received similar grants before
yeah I just want to make sure we're clear with the public that if we don't
receive that funding we probably won't be able to do those projects one thing
I'll say you know our city manager had alluded to the fact that we're wanting
to build in flexibility.
And I think where the scoring methodology comes into play
for the items that were scored very high
for leveraging external funding,
that could potentially help just the phasing of it
just because the bond is issued
at a hundred million dollars every five years.
So I think that's something in terms of strategy,
thinking about phasing out certain, or not phasing out,
but how we phase in certain projects
related to grant timelines as well.
If that makes sense, thank you.
And then one more thing I wanted to make sure I understood.
Can you speak a little bit to how we've prepared
for any increases in costs, both the labor materials?
I think I'm a little cautious of that knowing
that these costs can go up really drastically.
Right, this is something we didn't.
You push a little closer.
Didn't do in T1.
but it's something we've done with these projects.
So we've added additional funding,
knowing that depending on how these bonds are sold,
whether it's in two or three phases,
we've added the appropriate amount of money
to some of these projects
that we know are gonna be later.
They're gonna happen later in the bond measure.
And we didn't do that in T1.
It was one of the reasons why we,
along with increases from COVID
and all the related concrete and metal increases
that we saw during that time
that we had to restructure the projects.
I think over the life of T1,
we restructured maybe five or six times,
which included council approval on that.
We would go to our public works
and Parks for Creation and Water for a Commission,
then bring those changes to council.
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
I'd like to move us over to public comment.
If there is any public comment on this item,
which its official title is presentation and discussion
of second community survey results and direction
regarding potential ballot measures
for the November 3rd, 2026 General Municipal Election item,
please raise your hand if you're online
or come up to the front if you've,
if you'd like to make a comment in person.
Hi, I'm J.D. Zayka.
I'm one of the co-presidents of the Berkeley Historical
Society and Museum.
And I'm particularly interested in the Veterans Building
and the Old City Hall.
There seems to be this misconception
that these are vacant buildings.
In fact, in the part D of the Civic Center improvements,
the survey results, there's a statement
that says these are closed buildings
that are not currently serving the public.
And I think that that perception is really misleading
because in fact, both of these buildings are used every day
and the Berkeley Historical Society
has been there since 1992, that's 34 years.
These buildings are seismically unsound.
We host events.
We host exhibits.
We host.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
In any case, I think that that's important to keep in mind.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Thank you to the commission, or the council and the staff.
My name's Alison Labonte.
I'm a resident in District 2,
and I especially appreciate hearing how the focus groups
and meetings with the commissions has been incorporated
and some of the changes recommended here
by staff. There was just two things in conversations that I continue to have with the community.
I wanted to point out one, I'm uncertain about how we can say that the bathrooms are user-friendly.
One thing that's going around on the West Berkeley WhatsApp chat is like these are requiring
a phone to scan a QR code, some of the smart bathrooms, and I'm not sure that that's really
that easy user-friendly, especially for elderly.
And the other thing is in a February,
2026 document with the costs of projects,
the king pool with a locker room decking piping roof was five million.
So if there's no locker room,
why is it still listed five million recommendation?
Thanks.
Thanks, Allison.
Just some, I know you already answered this,
but just some changes were made
because of the increase in costs along the way
and some staffing as well.
So that might address some of that, but go ahead.
Hi, John Caner, Downtown Berkeley Association,
Community for Cultural Civic Center.
So we appreciate the challenge that you're all facing
in that, you know.
John, can you talk in the mic?
Oh, I'm sorry, how do we get funding for the Civic Center?
It didn't poll as well as other items.
I think the idea of having a match for the FEMA grant
is a good idea.
I think was it about $5 million the match for both buildings?
The question I have is, if we don't get the FEMA grant,
God knows with this administration,
could we repurpose that?
When I talked to Liam Garland a couple of years ago,
prior head of public works, he said
we needed about $2 million to make us shovel-ready
with CEQA and Niqua.
So one of my requests is that that $5 million,
we wish it was more,
but that there's some flexibility in that
and how the ballot measure is written
and how that money can be deployed
to get ready for shovel-ready
when the economy turns round.
Thank you.
Anyone else in person?
Okay, go for it.
What is born in Berkeley bursts out
and buzzes around the world.
Right now, we have a great historic museum
and we do great things,
but we are underrepresented and we are an underfunded gem.
And what I'm asking is,
I respectfully ask the city council to approve this bond,
reconsider the puny allocation given to Old City Hall,
and dedicate enough financial resources
for our mission at the Historical Society
to build a great museum and I ask your help
to make that happen, thank you.
Thank you.
That was Karen Chapman
from the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum.
I'm Anne Harlow from the same institution,
but I wanna mention that it's not just our museum
that is occupying space in one of those two buildings,
there's also the Dorothy Day House,
which is visited by many people every day
and it could collapse in an earthquake
and who's gonna be responsible?
the city of Berkeley for not taking care of a building it owns.
And then there's options,
recovery services also is very active in the Maudel-Shirik building.
Berkeley Community Media is active in the Old City Hall,
which you do need to always say Old City Hall,
not just Maudel-Shirik building for the public.
I'm glad that the numbers got revised about the seismic work,
but it didn't sound to me like you were budgeting an adequate match for the total amount for the veterans building grant if we get that. Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else in person, folks online?
Yes, there's currently 10 hands raised. First is Aaron Dean.
It is saying you hear me. Yes. Thank you for taking my comment. This is Aaron Dean. I want to speak in support of projects number 30 and 31 the model Sherrick and veterans Memorial building. I strongly support the work and vision for these important community spaces.
And I really want to highlight projects number 22 and 23.
And this is transforming the mediums from weedy locks that can be a visibility risk
and require ongoing mowing to beautiful, climate resilient, green, low water,
low maintenance, California native plantings.
I'm sure it would garner a lot of strong community support.
I'm actually in the parks one to two days a week helping maintain the native plant gardens there
that I helped spearhead on the commission.
And honestly, every time I'm in the park,
one, two, three, four, five people stop
and they say they love the native plants.
They even know the names.
They surprise me.
Hummingbird Sage or the sea of notice.
People know it's a movement.
And so supporting this would be a wonderful idea
and a great addition to our city.
Thank you.
Next is Mary Carlton.
Sorry for the time to, thank you very much.
I'm sorry I was not able to attend in person
and I really appreciate your work.
Regarding line 22 and 23,
I'd like to suggest adding the words as needed
after soil replacement and new irrigation,
because there are, in my personal experience
and experience of other native gardeners,
while water is vital for getting the plants started,
it's remarkably little water
And can go from daily down to weekly quite quickly and to monthly and certainly far less if the planting is done when the rains are starting.
20 gallon water carts with bicycle wheels.
And a spigot on the median would allow volunteers to provide sufficient watering very easily. So the cost and the then plastic and the ground irrigation could be.
Yes, thank you. I'm sorry. Your time is up. Thank you for your comment.
Next is Ted steam.
Hi everyone. Thank you council members. My name is Ted Steen and I represent Eshore Alliance FC
where we serve over a thousand children right here in the East Bay. I'm here tonight to talk
about supporting two things. One, it's vital to include the turfing of Gabe Cattafo fields at
Harrison Park and the bathroom improvements in this bond measure. The city's own assessment
calls these failing fields which our kids play on every week. That's a health and safety issue
and our community deserves better. We have a petition with over with hundreds of signatures
on it. Second, taking a look at the proposed 40 to 60 percent increase in youth sports,
especially with the expansion of Harrison Park when it comes to turfing, that kind of jump put
soccer out of reach for a lot of families. Before I step down, I have to recognize two Berkeley
staff members, Cesar, who does a great job keeping up the grass fields, and Twin, who's always out
here on the field and in the parking lot, making sure that our kids are safe and supported. Thank
Thank you all so much. Thank you.
Okay, next is Lisa bull winkle.
Hi, good evening everyone. I'm Lisa bull and call I'm on the art commission, but I'm speaking as a resident tonight.
1st of all, I'd like to see us fix existing things that we have instead of coming up with a whole bunch of new projects, but I'd also want to talk about old city hall and the veterans building.
I understand the match for Old City Hall. If it's a 50-50 match, it kind of works. But the amount
for the Veterans Building is nowhere near what we would need in order to provide an art center for
our community. And the idea of fixing these two buildings, besides that they're beautiful,
is to also activate our Civic Center and keep it safe and a wonderful place for everyone to come
and enjoy, and that a lot of foot traffic. By fixing these two buildings, we will have
the facilities to encourage people to come downtown, enjoy the park, enjoy the Berkeley Museum,
and take some art classes. So I hope we can find some more money for the veterans.
Next is Bay Area Adult Soccer Week.
Hi, everyone. My name is Irene. I'm the owner of the Bay Area Adult Soccer League,
and we have actually been playing at Tom Bates Sports Complex for about 13 years.
We serve primarily the Berkeley community, the adult soccer community, so I'm here to make a
big, big push for the artificial turf conversion for the Gabe Catolfo Harrison Park field project.
We have been waiting for this for a really long time. The fields are totally congested.
I can tell you pre-COVID we had maybe 12 sports groups vying for those lots of Tom Bates.
Pre-COVID and then post-COVID now we have quadruple the amount of groups so it's
completely congested and it would eliminate a lot of pressure on the Tom Bates competition for us
to be able to have that artificial turf which as Scott Farris was saying we could it's not being
used right now because it's grass and it needs to be maintained like six months out of the year
which is a whole lot of time. And this is really a quality of life issue. It's a public health
issue. It's a mental health issue for adults. Thank you so much. Next is Taj. Yes, I'm sorry,
I'm under the weather so unfortunately I can't be there in person tonight. But I wanted to address,
I'd like to urge the council tonight to take a step back and look at this issue microscopically.
So, honorable mayor and council members, my name is Tarshi Baptiste. I do serve as a
commissioner on the disaster and fire safety commission and on the community health commission,
but I'm speaking tonight in my individual capacity as a Berkeley resident.
And the views below are not my own and do not represent a position of either commission.
I urge the council to reject the staff recommendation and item one is currently
framed and to direct staff to return with ballot language for a general go bond,
infrastructure resilience bond in a range that's higher than the currently proposed $300 million.
Because the city's own report contains the answer. The staff confirms that the Berkeley's identified infrastructure needs exceed 1.5Billion dollars. The proposed bond would address less than 20% of that backlog.
We are being asked to commit to 30 years of debt service for a program that by the city's own admission cannot solve the problem. It was created to solve that. Thank you.
Next is Jean Hammond.
Hi, I am Jeanie Hammond I live on Sacramento street and I'm speaking for myself and on behalf of my dad who lives next door and we're here to support line items 22 and 23 for the general bond measure.
Um, greening the medians, uh, you know, converting medians to native plant gardens supports biodiversity, native pollinators, which, you know, are in severe decline globally.
1 way we can help us to provide more habitat in our cities and this is a really beautiful and creative way to use underutilized land to create very visible pollinator habitat and also replace areas that are currently requiring mowing.
And that provide no habitat value. So I hope you include those projects.
In the bond measure, thank you.
Next is Amy. Hello. Thank you. First of all, thank you for all the work that's gone into this process. It's obviously takes a lot of time and effort.
My name is Amy Woodward. I'm a resident in District 3. I'm also here to support Line items 22 and 23, the native plant gardens and medians on Sacramento and University.
I happen to be in a part of Berkeley that has a lot of oak trees and the backyards of a good quarter block and the number of birds and other native animals that come through here is really quite astounding.
Going and providing more habitat for native plants and animals.
Uh, both helps the local environment and creates a lot of enjoyment for countless Berkeley residents.
Um, also reduces water needs and, um, is just the right, um, thing for this particular climate because well, they're natives.
Um, I also wanted to just quickly speak out for Francis Albright community center as well.
It's long past time that, uh, San Jose park had or San Pablo Park had a corporate facility. So thank you.
Thank you.
Next is David Flores.
Hey, council, can y'all hear me?
Yes. Yes.
All right, cool, thank you.
I'm sorry, I couldn't be there in person.
I'm on baby care, but David Flores,
I'm with Berkeley Community Media,
but I'm here speaking as resident of District Two,
and I just want to put my full endorsement
behind the investment in the Civic Center.
I think it is a beautiful vision to have a place
where the community can come in and be together.
And not only that,
but just preserving these beautiful historic buildings
that are there,
because they're just a thing to behold from the outside,
but also they're beautiful on the inside.
Thank you all and keep up the good work.
Thanks, David.
Next is Lonnie Hancock,
former mayor and state senator.
Hi, sorry.
I hope I'm unmuted.
Just to add to what people have said,
This is a great opportunity for a legacy
for the generations that come after us
to save our old buildings, to put them to reuse.
I was mayor over 30 years ago
when we set up the Historical Society
in the Veterans Building.
They have grown to an extraordinary institution,
all on volunteer organization and work.
have incredible archives, would be a great addition to the art district that's adjacent
and to life in the Civic Center for our city. Just to point out again,
during the Great Depression, some pioneering people set up the East Bay Regional Park District.
Aren't we glad they did it? This is about the soul of Berkeley. People need a sense of place
in this time. Thank you so much for all your work. Thank you very much. Last speaker, the
username is just iPhone. You should be able to unmute iPhone. You have your hand raised.
You should be able to unmute. Thank you so much for letting me give you the opportunity.
My name is Harry Dorsey.
I am actually the commissioner
for the Bay Area Adult Soccer League.
I am speaking to support TED as well as my boss Irene,
you know, in regards to expansion of the soccer field
and converting those grass fields to top fields as well.
It's a very healthy thing to do
for both the adult and youth community in our society.
And in the interest of time, I would like to say very quickly,
a shout out to Brian and his group
for being able to coordinate the field allocation process.
And particularly also to twin a young man
that keeps the fields together
and order in the packing area.
Since he's been around, we have had very few break-ins
in the packing area, a particular atom base.
It keeps those fuels tidy.
Yes, it looks at it as if it's not private.
Thank you so much.
Your minute is up, but thank you so much for your comment.
OK, that's all the speakers.
OK, thank you very much.
I know we just had a lot of people walk in.
For those of you who have just walked in,
I know it's 6 o'clock, but we're still
finishing our special meeting, which happened before.
So it's going to be a little while, because we haven't
actually done deliberations yet.
So if you have something that's a little bit later,
if you want to take a stretch, feel free.
And then also, can someone open the doors, maybe?
Because I think that will help with the cross breeze.
Thank you, it's quite hot in here.
All right, so moving on to council comments,
I'm gonna start over with Council Member Taplin.
Thank you very much and thanks to staff
and to all the speakers this evening.
I first like to move that the council affirm
the direction to prepare about language
for a $300 million general obligation bond
and a 0.5% increase in city sale and use tax.
Second.
Thank you very much.
And I'm supporting these amounts
because one thing that I learned from Measure L
was that after doing engagement
and increasing the amount twice after that engagement,
had a huge detrimental effect on public trust
and made it impossible to message against on the trail.
So that's why I'm supporting what we've done tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to Vice Mayor Tregub.
Thank you so much.
I also support this direction
and I would like to thank staff
for their immense amount of work
to help get both proposed measures
to this point today,
and I also wish to thank members of the public
who have been
Just incredibly generous of their time
coming to the meetings and providing their input.
And I think this list has evolved very much
in accordance to the feedback that we heard.
So my only comment around asking staff
to look at a further adjustment.
It is going to echo Council Member Blackaby's comments
somewhat on investing in, or at least trying
to prevent the demolition, the potential demolition
by neglect of two historic buildings in the downtown,
the Madel Chirac City Hall Building
and the Veterans Memorial Building.
I completely agree with the comments that even
in the state that they're in today,
they're still teeming with public life.
I was just there, actually, for a memorial service on Sunday.
And I've been to the Berkeley Historical Society offices.
Imagine what it could be if it was seismically safe,
and all the spaces could be open for use.
I was just looking, and I understand
that this is a balancing act.
There's only so much that can be squeezed
into $300 million, but I went through
and I'm just noting that the adjustment
to the Madel Chirac building restoration
from the February slash March numbers
constitutes a 1.86-fold reduction,
and to the Veterans Memorial Building,
constitutes a 7.7-fold reduction.
If there was a way, because as much as I would love to see
FEMA provide matching grants under this Trump administration,
I am just not confident in anything,
And I want to urge staff to look at if we might be able
to move the line up a little bit
for both of these buildings.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Humbert.
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.
And in the interest of brevity,
I had a whole list of thank yous to individuals,
but I would just wanna, you know, in one ball of wax,
thank you for everyone who worked on this,
compiling this list of projects and estimating costs
was a huge lift when something I know
stood on the shoulders of past work and past bond efforts.
So I'm going to express my deep gratitude for everyone who
has brought us to this place.
I want to thank our consultant who
performed the polling, who's done really good work for us
this time and in the past.
I think the project list is in very good shape,
so I don't have other than one substantive comment about that
at this time. I'm really happy about the proposal to fully fund the 50-50 sidewalk
program. I think it's critical in terms of public safety. It was one of the first referrals
that I brought when I joined council was to fully fund it, got lost in the budget process,
and I'm glad it's reappearing here. I do understand that people may feel a little uncertain given
that we've seen some decreases in the second set of polling but I think we're
still at a decent level. So all told I feel we're ready to move forward both
the sales tax measure and the general obligation bond as proposed. Thanks again
and I'm gonna support the pending motion. Thank you very much Councilmember
Casarwani. Thank you very much Madam Mayor. Thank you again Director Farris,
acting director of Mary and chief Sprague for the information you provided. Thank you Mr. White,
thank you Carrie. I I miss Arradondo. Am I pronouncing your last name correctly? Okay I just
want to make sure I I do that. So um and I like council member Hubbard I want to thank everyone
for all the work. There was a lot of community input that went into the the project list that
we have before us today. So I want to express gratitude for those meetings that occurred and
and the members of the public that provided input.
I did want to just highlight some particular projects
that were really important to me
as one of the two representatives of West Berkeley.
So, one, the Francis Albrier Community Center,
I think that's very important for that center
to be seismically retrofitted
and to be a modern facility
for West Berkeley and San Pablo Park.
I also wanna note all of the restroom improvements
happen to be in District 1. I'm calling it the North Waterfront Park now at the
marina. That's really a citywide amenity and we hear all the time. People are
appreciating the throne bathroom that is there but you know our goal is to have a
permanent bathroom there so I'm really pleased to see that. Of course really
pleased to see all of the important marina infrastructure improvements that
here the the seawall you know there's a climate resilience element to this that
I think is very important and I must do a nod to the the soccer players the
the advocates for the soccer players Harrison Field is also in district one
and I would love to see that get upgraded with the artificial turf also
West the West Berkeley Family Wellness Center is in district one as well and
That is in need of improvement.
We've been able to address the North Berkeley Senior Center,
the South Berkeley Senior Center.
This is another center that we have
that we would like to improve.
And then, like Council Member Humbert,
the 50-50 Sidewalk Program is very important.
We have so many bumpy sidewalks that are a hazard
for people of all ages and abilities.
And as the birthplace of the Disability Rights Movement,
we really need to make sure all of our sidewalks
are accessible for people who may use
mobility assistance devices.
I also, you know, we had those three fire
infrastructure improvements.
I do, and I'm not trying to single out station four,
I know a lot of us said about station four,
I know we're gonna talk about it a lot at the budget.
Just because it was a very significant dollar amount chief,
it would be helpful to get a breakdown.
I don't know if you can speak to it now.
I know you said you talked about, you know,
carcinogenic apparatus.
And maybe that's a conversation we can continue to have.
I just like to understand better how we arrive
at the $54 million.
Yeah, you bet.
We have detailed analysis in the fire facilities master
plan that was conducted by fire station architects
and then priced out by contractors
and then escalated to 2030, I believe.
Oh, I'm sorry, it escalated.
And then the cost was escalated from $2023 to 2030.
OK.
So I can go back to that document and understand better the breakdown.
I'll send you the relevant section so you have to dig.
Thank you because that sounds like a long document.
So it'd be helpful to have that.
So for the public too,
if we get questions I'd like to have that information.
I did want to just speak briefly to the concern.
I think maybe some of my colleagues are feeling,
I know members of the public may be feeling the number of revenue measures
that voters are potentially going to see on the ballot.
I do just want to state that it's actually very inspiring
that we have citizens gathering signatures
to put measures on the ballot for various causes
that they believe are important.
So that effort is not under the council's control, right?
So there's the arts tax, the public bank,
the public transit measure, you know,
these are other entities, other people who are doing that.
But of course, we do have to think about
that may impact what we are trying to do. I think ultimately given where the
polling results were this time that you know I think we should still proceed. I
didn't see any reason not to proceed with our plans but to go into it with
the awareness that there is going to be fatigue. I think this is a tough economy
people so there needs to be a positive message around both measures and I think
there's a lot of really important critical projects to emphasize for the
infrastructure bond I think some of this you know the cost will escalate you
know the the chief just spoke about escalating 2023 costs to 2026 dollars
so the longer we wait the larger the bill is going to be and so and that's
That's true for most of our infrastructure.
So I think we need to emphasize those points.
Okay, oh okay, I just almost said,
I did want to just address the costs,
and I think Council Member Trager asked about the costs.
I just want to note the bond measure
is $22.14 per $100,000 of home value.
And I know those new homeowners that were trying
to create new home ownership opportunities for you.
If you bought a home this year for $1.5 million, if you do that math, $22.14 by $1,500,000,
that's $332.10 per year.
People who bought earlier, who bought at a lower price are going to be less than that.
So we are aware of that number, and I want the public to be aware of that number.
It's not nothing, but relative to the entire tax bill,
you know, we have to think about it that way
and some of the bonds that are gonna be expiring,
I think you talked about.
So, and then finally on the sales tax measure,
I did want to say, I know we're not finalizing
the ballot language tonight,
but I think that final language
should reflect our budget plan.
And I think maybe we're gonna finalize the language
June so maybe we'll be have a better exact sense of our budget because we've
been talking about restoring public safety positions, critical programs
operated by the Recreation and Parks Department. So I think those are the
programs that we should highlight and and not talk about other things that are
not in our plan because you know I want the public to know what the plan is how
those funds would be used. So that's all thank you so much for indulging me and
and ready and very eager to support the motion.
Thank you.
And yeah, again, apologies for folks who have just walked in.
We're still finishing our special meeting from before.
So we will go over to Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you, I just have some brief comments.
I really wanna thank everyone
who has put in the time and effort into this.
I support both as written,
I support the amount that has been allocated.
I really appreciate the addition
of the Dwight Triangle project in this.
That's very exciting, has been in the works for a long time.
And with the goal of a car free telegraph in the future,
it'll be a perfect end note to it.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, that's it, thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I too wanna thank you all for your work.
This is quite an expansive list, very complicated
and put together in two different buckets of finance
that are each also somewhat complex.
And according to the poll,
and I know Mr. Berman's work is fantastic.
According to the poll, it looks somewhat promising,
and so we will across for fair use
and support this going forward.
And I do support the motion.
Thank you.
A couple things I want to call out I'm really excited about
and a couple of notes.
The ad line open space, very exciting.
This of course is part of the reparative framework
we've undertaken the last number of years
and with regard to these public finance tools
and the districts.
You know, when they underground at BART,
this people don't know this.
When they underground at BART,
they were supposed to make a park
to go all the way across the city.
He said they made a loony park in North Berkeley,
but they made asphalt in South Berkeley.
So this is a great effort to restore that
and give us a beautiful park Greenway.
I'm excited about that.
The Senior Center, wonderful DHVAC upgrade.
I'm wondering if there's a possibility of shoehorning
a bit more work in that project as it was rehabilitated
under T1 as was North Berkeley Senior Center,
but North Berkeley Senior Center
happened to get a really beautiful cosmetic upgrade
and we did not in South Berkeley.
So it'd be great if we could maybe shoe in a little bit more
in there to give it a similar, similar look
like we've got in North Berkeley.
That'd be wonderful.
And of course, very happy for the saga
of the African American Resource Center
to be coming to a fund and close.
Now we're excited about this.
Very supportive.
And that's what it, thanks so much.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Blackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
Everyone has said so many things.
I'll be extremely brief.
Again, thanks to city staff for their heavy lifting
and all the community engagement
that's gone into this process.
Thanks also to David Mermin for his research support
to help inform some of these decisions.
Just three kind of sets of projects I wanted to call out.
One, again, I agree with Council Member Tragob
that to the extent we can find a way
to augment some of the funding,
the Civic Center's safety improvements
around Old City Hall and the Veterans Building,
I would love to figure out a way to do that
within the overall portfolio.
Second, as the dad of two young soccer players,
really glad to see the upgrades at Harrison Field and Scott I'll say the
other thing about the the cork is it really gets in your shoes and so if
there's a better material if the wall that's better but it's a really painful
but anyway upgrading Harrison Field so it's more accessible more of the years
fantastic and third certainly from a district six perspective the 5050
sidewalk program extremely important we have so many deteriorating if not
non-existent sidewalks in the hills. The more we can do around safety and
infrastructure for folks who are walking, biking, not on the sidewalk but next to
the sidewalk and just using the street infrastructure up there is really
important so I appreciate seeing that. The last overall comment I think in this
whole process we've been and I again appreciate the transparency through all
of this in public engagement and I think it's really incumbent on all of us as a
council and as a city team to demonstrate continued transparency and
accountability both in order to get these revenue measures passed and then
to ensure their successful delivery. I think that's something we've all heard
time and again that again ensuring we have trust of the public that they have
confidence in these plans and in what we're delivering is really really
important to me. I authored an item earlier this year with supportive
colleagues to again set clear goals and metrics around the goals that we're
trying to implement as a city. So again heading into fall I think the more we
can do heading into November and then beyond to show that kind of discipline
setting really clear goals measuring those goals and being accountable to
what we said we're going to do and then delivering it again it's good for
showing voters that they can trust us with their hard-earned dollars and then
it's really important to actually delivering the work. So I thank staff for
this and I also support the motion and look forward to these moving forward.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilmember O'Keefe? I think I'm last.
The mayor's last. Thank you very much. You know I was I want to say something. I
I second almost everything that was said,
I think everything that was said,
especially thanking all of the work that went into this.
I do have kind of just something I wanna name,
which is that we're talking about
two different revenue measures here,
and I'm happy to support the motion.
I think we should move forward with both of them,
but the sales tax measure for me,
like if I had to choose between them,
the sales tax measure would be the one I would choose.
I feel like if we didn't pass it,
that results would be catastrophic to what we have now,
whereas the bond is a lot of really important stuff
that would be really wonderful to have.
But if I felt like the two were in contention with each other,
I think I might have a little more reluctance
to support this.
However, I'm saying that because I
want to say that I'm really heartened by the results
of the survey and learning that the numbers that we saw
were actually in the context of all the other measures
and even when these two measures specifically
were side by side, it actually arguably helped
rather than didn't make a difference.
That makes me feel a lot better about supporting both,
which feels a little scary and risky to me.
But I think it's okay.
Let's go for it.
That's it, thanks so much.
Thank you very much.
I wanna start by just thanking all of you
for the presentation this evening.
I wanna, there's so many city staff out here,
So I also just wanna thank all of you
because I know so much of your work and your feedback
and your number crunching and your experiences
go into these presentations
and also all of the work that was done
in the community outreach.
So thank you all very much.
I also wanna thank the Realize 2050 Task Force
that was meeting in this last year
to work on updating Vision 2050
and working also with Councilmember Taplin and Trigab and myself to make sure that we were
really focused on bringing this bond measure forward in the first place. I think that's
incredibly essential. Both are really, I'm glad you highlighted that Councilmember O'Keefe because
it is important to acknowledge that there are two different things that we're talking about
here and I also see the real serious opportunity for success with both of them moving forward
together, and so that is very exciting to me.
I want to acknowledge some of the comments that were made,
specifically from the folks who were talking about
the Veterans Building and Old City Hall,
to just say, yes, of course, we know those buildings
are being used, and I'm very aware of the programs
that are going on there and how important they are
in our community, both the history,
but also, of course, Berkeley Community Media,
which is responsible for streaming our meetings
that we have here.
that is their home and Dorothy Day House options, et cetera.
And I want to say that, yeah, I mean,
I was very excited for the results of the first poll.
So I do have to say I was a bit disappointed
to see the numbers going down there,
but that hasn't made me feel that it's not possible.
And so, you know, I will be working hard to make sure
that these pass to help continue the support
that we need for our city.
I want to also mention second what Council Member Blackaby was saying about
accountability and oversight that is incredibly important. Many of you know
that my background is with the League of Women Voters and a lot of my work has
been around you know making sure that we are transparent and accountable that we
are transparent and accountable government and so as mayor that's also
very important to me. I want to mention also that the tax burden that folks
we're talking about. It's folks like me that are lucky enough to have a newer
home that are gonna pay a lot more of this tax burden and and I am still very
supportive of it because I know how much benefit that brings to people around
the city. It's incredibly challenging for those of you who were not involved to
take a look at all these districts across the city looking at equity and
safety and climate change to think about all these different projects just I know
that there was so much work that went into it. So I just want to make sure you
know that I really see that work and how hard and challenging it was. I had
an intern or staff or both at all of the community meetings and I know that you
all continue to improve that process and make sure you were getting really
strong community engagement. So thank you very much again to the staff. I am
supportive of both items and I'd like to move us forward for the vote. So can we
take the role on that please okay to approve the staff recommendation to
prepare the ballot language for the 300 million dollar general obligation bond
and also the ballot language for the 0.5 percent increase in the sales and use
tax for the November 3rd 2026 ballot on the motion councilmember kiss our wanting
Yes. Tapplin. Yes. Bartlett. Yes. Trago. Aye. O'Keefe. Yes. Lackey. Yes. Punepara.
Yes. Humber. Yes. And Maryishi. Yes. Okay, motion carries. Very good. So I would like
to see if there's a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Okay, is there any
opposition to adjournment? Okay, we are adjourned by unanimous consent. Don't leave
Yeah.