you. Linda. Are we ready to
we're ready. All right. Well,
good evening and welcome to
tonight's regular meeting of
the City Council. Also happy
St. Patrick's Day. I'm sure
everybody has other places
they could be tonight. So
thank you for coming. Um we
will begin with the roll call.
will do the pledge of allegiance. Please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United
States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. Next we will adopt the agenda and I would like to
propose that we move the council member and city manager reports to be after the public forum and
before the consent calendar if you're amenable just to bring it forward in the agenda. Do I have a
second? All in favor? Aye. We have an agenda. We'll begin with items for the good of the city
and to begin items D1, D2, and D3 are somewhat related and I believe Chief Rossi is going to
take care of all three of those. So please come forward for Citizens Academy Recognition, D-1.
Good. All right. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council and members of our
community. First we're going to recognize some of the members of our first graduating Citizens
Academy. It isn't working. I'm sorry. I just have a loud voice. I think it's carrying really good.
All right, start that again. So we have some our first graduating class of our Citizens Academy.
So our Citizens Academy is an opportunity for members of the community to kind of get a
behind the scenes look at law enforcement. During this they get all sorts of training where we show
them the laws, how we process subjects that are arrested at the jail, which seems to be everybody's
favorite part of the whole thing is doing that. We show them about vehicle
car stops, pedestrian stops. We don't just stop with the jail aspect. We also
talk about how the case goes and moves forward. So we have the investigation
unit gives a block of training and that followed up with our evidence
collection. And so we have evidence text that come in and explain how they
process evidence and how that how important that evidence collection is
to a case. And then we follow we follow it up on the final day with a
representative from the district attorney's office that puts the whole
thing together to kind of show our citizens from beginning to end how the
process is. So I'd like to recognize three individuals that can make it
tonight, which was Kevin. If you could stand up or just wave Kevin,
Narcy and Karen.
So I think they would attest that it was great and they've been hounding me
even just outside, when's the next one?
When's the next one?
When's the next one?
So we are gonna be having this Citizens Academy
as a reoccurring thing.
And Chief Fosse, before we go to the next item,
I was wondering if any of our participants
in the Citizens Academy would be willing to come up
and say a few words about their experience
and what it was like.
Please, any and all.
We'd love to hear from you.
I bet they've just come up to the podium.
She's the class favorite, by the way.
Just gonna say that.
Okay, is that right?
This was so interesting and so much fun.
I recommend that everybody in Orinda do this
because I learned so much.
I learned that with the canine patrol
that the dogs really love what they do.
When the dog was running up to the guy in the bite suit
and the dog has his jaws around the arm
of the guy in the bite suit.
The dog's tail is wagging.
The dog was thrilled.
We saw the drones.
We went to the firing range.
That was super interesting.
We were in this big kind of video game thing
called a force simulation.
And what I learned was it's super hard to do this job.
And honestly, I'm surprised that more civilians
don't get shot because when I was in this force simulation
and the guy is coming at me and I'm thinking to myself,
do I shoot him or not?
By the time I've decided he's already attacked me.
So they have to think really fast and be really smart.
And I learned that all of our police officers
really care about our community.
And I just, I felt great about the whole thing.
So I have been telling everybody I know
that they need to go.
So get ready, you're gonna have a full house next time.
Thank you.
Would anybody else like to speak about the Citizens Academy?
We don't have shy people, they're not shy.
Yeah, no problem.
Hi all, I'm Kevin Roback, I grew up in Arinda,
Sipi Hollow, I'm an EOS.
What a great experience.
I'd like to thank Chief Rossi, Sergeant Knoller,
Detective Hamblin, Baker aren't here tonight,
but I don't really care what political persuasion you have.
This was the most information of benefit
to learn about our community and how to keep it safe
and what these guys do.
It was just so valuable.
So Marcy mentioned the canine patrol, the drone unit,
And really, the highlight was the Martinez Detention Facility.
These guys have an amazing job.
But boy, the folks that do that job for us every day,
it's really amazing.
So I hope everybody would like to earn on the council
their own Citizens Academy shirt and promote it
to the community.
And I mentioned to the chief, I'd really
love to see our high school students at some point
be able to do this.
It's very much of an eye-opener, and I
I think they would feel even closer to the community
and closer to our officers and our chief
who would be really valuable.
So thank you for giving them the time
to share the experience with all of you.
It's great, thank you very much.
Great feedback, thank you.
Hi, Perrin Cleott, also from Miranda.
I just wanna echo what Marci and Kevin were saying,
that it was just a phenomenal program
and I was just really impressed
at how the officers really let us in.
It was nothing was glossed over.
They just opened up and invited us in like we were officers
and hid nothing and would answer any question.
And it was just a really wonderful experience.
So really glad I had the opportunity to do this.
And we're going to be a big cheering squad for the next
class.
But thank you.
Thank you.
Chief Farsi, is there anything else on D1?
Because I will open it for any public,
if there are any other public comments on this.
and if not, if anybody from the council had anything to add.
Yeah.
I just, I do recall, if I'm recalling correctly,
this idea sprung with Chief Rossi
and our city manager Linda Smith.
And so I just want to thank them both for this.
It's clearly really well received
and really appreciated by our residents.
And, you know, the information sharing,
knowledge transparency is so important
in helping people understand sort of the nuance
we all live in so thank you. I was just curious how many participants you had in the Citizens
Academy? Man we had six this first go-around so it was the first push. I'm guessing we're
going to have to turn people away or start setting up secondary and third classes for this.
I'd like to echo Latica's comments that thank you for doing it and for making time for you and your
officers to provide the service to our community, we really appreciate it.
And I would say the same. It's on top of all of the other great work that you guys do that you
had to design the program, implement it, and we truly appreciate it. With that, I think we'll do
the next item is the introduction of our new police officers.
Great. All right. So we've had the fortunate and unfortunate that we've had a high turnover,
but that's due to promotions. So a lot of the officers that we've been all
come accustomed to have moved on to promotion so most of them almost all of
them including myself a while ago there was a lot of promotions to the rank of
sergeant. So in that time we've had the the ability to get some new fresh blood
here to Orinda to get them to see exactly why it's so awesome to work here.
So I'm gonna have them just step up and recognize the new officers that we're
going to be seeing around town and at night that are protecting everyone here
in Orinda. So officer Tazoni, Officer Reyes, Officer Flores, Officer Garcia,
Officer Dickerson is not here today, and then we have Sergeant Shepherd. So these
are the new officers that are going to be here for a while until they probably
promote and move along. So these are our new officers here in Orinda. Welcome all
of you. Did anybody want to say anything from the public? And if not, anyone from the council?
Just welcome. We look forward to having you here in our city and we're excited to meet you all.
And next, Chief Rossi is the presentation of the Officer of the Year.
That's correct. All right. If you could stand up for me. Come on. Sorry, I'm gonna pull you
away from the family. He's here with his wife and his two beautiful daughters
tonight. So I usually you guys know I don't usually read from anything but I
wanted to make sure that I covered the this individual this great officer that
we have here in front of us tonight. So it is truly an honor to stand before you
tonight to recognize our Officer of the Year, a professional who represents the
very best our department and the values we strive to uphold every single day.
This officer exemplifies honor through integrity and accountability. He does the
right thing even when no one is watching and he carries himself in a way that
builds trust with our residents, residents, businesses, and visitors. He
understands that the badge is not just a symbol of authority, it is a promise of
service. He demonstrates courage not only in the moments of danger, but in the
daily decisions that require sound judgment, initiative, and confidence.
whether responding to critical incidents or addressing quality of life concerns,
he remains calm, focused, and committed to what's doing right for this community.
His commitment is evident in the proactive policing efforts. He
consistently identifies criminal activity before it escalates, helping to
prevent victimization and maintain the safety that our city is known for. His
His work ethic and professionalism set a standard for others to follow.
As a leader and a teammate, he supports his fellow officers, shares knowledge and contributes
to a positive and accountable work environment.
He understands that public safety is a team effort.
And he leads by example with humility, respect and dedication.
of our community. On behalf of
the department and the residents
we serve, thank you for your
honor, courage, commitment, and
unwavering service. On behalf
of the citizens, the council,
the mayor, the vice mayor, city
manager, and myself, I'd like to
present you with this plaque
for 2025. Would you like to speak a little bit? Sure. Sorry, I'm putting on the spot.
Thank you for everyone who's in attendance today. First of all, I'd like to thank my wife and my
children who I do this for every day. I'd like to thank my, I'd like to thank my amazing partners
who I also get to work with every day, most of whom are senior officers to me. I'm a relatively
Junior patrol officer. So without them, I don't know where I'd go to for
guidance on daily basis. When I first came to Orinda, my goal was to be the
police officer I wanted in my community, one that's proactive, cared for the
community and constantly looked to address criminal behavior. And I
believe I've been fairly successful in that. But I think there's always room
for improvement. I want to thank everyone that's here. And I'm very
appreciative to receive this award. And I mayor, I know that you might want to
we're taking public comment on this item.
But before the officer sits down,
I was hoping we can get a picture with the council
and the officer and the chief,
but I don't know if you want to take comment first
and then do that afterwards.
Why don't we do a photo right now since we've got the plaque
and then we will do some public comment.
Great, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for your patience.
I will ask if we have public comment on this matter.
I'd like to make a public comment.
Forgot my card.
My name is Nick Warren off.
I've lived in Orinda for 22 years and someone from the public needs to thank the chief and
the department, including the civilian employee, for their work and for what is, in my opinion,
a very positive approach to law enforcement in our community,
which if you think back,
it's a big change from not that long ago
in a positive direction.
I think the level of comfort that I feel in our community
and that I know others do is very reassuring.
And as I said, some member of the public
has to come forward and say this.
And since I'm never hesitant to stand up here,
I've nominated myself on behalf of the community
to thank the chief and the officers and Norma.
So thank you very much to all of you.
Thank you.
And I do think Mr. Warnock speaks for all of us
in thanking you.
the tone and the confidence and the feeling of safety
is something we're incredibly proud of here on the council
and as citizens.
Is there anybody else who'd like to say anything
on this matter?
No, just thank you.
Thank you very much.
We have one more item for the good of the city
and there's no one here to receive it.
So I will try to keep it crisp,
but in honor of Women's History Month in March
and March 8th being International Women's Day, belatedly.
I wanted to highlight something that happened
at the Miramati High School,
where they have named the Miramati Gymnasium
after Sabrina Yonescu.
They had a petition with 571 signatures,
which is pretty incredible for somebody
who's still mid-career.
This is not somebody who's retired.
She is a legend in her own time.
And so I just wanted to highlight a few things
that make her not just an incredible female athlete,
but an incredible athlete
for the town of Arenda to be proud of.
She graduated from the class of 2016,
compiling a career of 119 to nine win-loss record
when she was at Miramani.
When she went to Oregon,
she would reshape the landscape
of women's college basketball,
becoming the first player in NCAA history, men's or women's,
to record at least 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds,
and 1,000 assists in a career.
She claimed every major award in 2020,
including Player of the Year,
Naismith College Player of the Year,
USBWA National Player of the Year,
and several other trophies.
She increased attendance at Oregon Home Games
six times as much as before she had joined.
She is a four-time WNBA All-Star in all WNBA selection,
and she helped lead the Liberty
to their first ever WNBA championship,
also being a contributor on the national team
that took home the gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
We're incredibly proud,
and the Miramati Gym has been renamed after her.
With that, we will move on to the main meeting
with Public Forum.
The Public Forum provides an, oh, I'm sorry,
Does anybody have anything, any comments on that item?
Yes, please.
Since I was at the Mayor's Liaison Meeting,
I just want to make sure everyone knows
there's no known date yet, but at some point,
the superintendent and then principal from Miramani
said that Sabrina will be in Arinda
in order to be honored in person,
probably when they're playing the Valkyries.
So we'll keep our eye out.
But stay tuned and look for the announcement.
But there should be a time where we can go to the in-person.
I was hoping so.
Thank you.
Were there any other comments?
Great.
So back to the public forum.
Thank you.
That was an item for the good of the city,
and I'm just introducing the public forum.
Did you want to comment on that item?
OK.
Public forum provides an opportunity
for members of the public to speak
on any item within the jurisdiction of the City Council
that is not on the agenda.
In addition, a speaker has the option
of addressing the Council on an item
that's listed on the agenda
if the speaker will not be present
when that agenda item is taken up.
We ask that people limit comments to three minutes.
Mr. Wornoff, if you don't mind, I do have one speaker card.
Would you mind waiting?
Thank you, you'll be our second speaker.
Roderick Phillips had a speaker card for this item.
I live on Coral Drive and I just
wanted to make a few comments about what
has been happening on there since I've been there since 2014.
There's been three major accidents
that have impacted me living in 69 Coral Drive.
I'm probably the most impacted person on that street
in terms of accidents.
So there was one in 2017, one in 2025,
and then the one you're probably all aware of
just a couple, well, a couple of weeks ago,
where the car ended up in front of my driveway
and fortunately didn't do any major damage,
but that was more by luck than judgment.
I applaud the fact that we're gonna be taking the vote
on the four-way stop.
I do think that it needs to be more done
because I walk my nine-year-old to Delray every day.
I risk my life going down Coral Drive
with speeding cars at that time of the morning.
My oldest son goes to OIS, he walks to OIS.
So he's walking again.
There's no sidewalk between Moraga Way and Artyth.
Okay, and I think that would be a huge improvement,
but I fully admit that that wouldn't take into account
the speeding that goes on.
I think there are a lot of other things that could be done and we can all use chat GPT and
it's given me a long list of things that we could consider to make it safer for the community in
general. There are a lot of children that are on that road during the time when the kids go to
school. We could do speed tables, we could do chevron signs, we could do advisory speed signs,
flashing warning signs, surface and traction improvements, I could go on. But my point is,
I hope that after you've taken the vote to decide on the four-way stop that this isn't the end of
the discussion and that more needs to be done for the overall safety. I mean, it's annoying for me
that this has happened as many times as it's happened, but I am so fearful that a child,
just one child is going to be seriously impacted by a runaway driver. And the second event that
occurred, my neighbor on, so I'm 69, 73, he had an F-150 that is parked on his driveway.
He did not have any blocks under the tires. He was working on his gearbox. The handbrake failed.
That car rolled into the street. He jumped into the car. It was no more than 50 yards.
he built up enough speed to take out my green bin, to hit a tree, gashed a big tree, took out my fence,
and drove into my son's bedroom. And he was there one minute previously, and he had gone into the
kitchen to ask my wife a question about his homework. We were so close to that happening.
The only reason I mentioned that one is because it does, that hill is so steep, you can, that was
was from a standing start and that guy built up enough speed that he could do
that much damage. Okay so if you've got somebody who's already speeding from the
top of the hill it's inevitable that there is going to be something serious
happens at some point sooner probably rather than later. Thank you for your
time. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Were there any questions for the
speaker? We're not allowed to comment on public forum but I do hope you continue
to advocate with the Traffic Safety Committee. There will be more more
meetings on those matters so I really appreciate your advocacy. Thank you so
much. Thank you. Mr. Warnock. I withdraw my request. Is there anybody else who would
like to speak during the public forum? Seeing none, we will move on to council
council member and city manager reports. Do we have any council member reports? I
I guess we'll start with council member Melcony.
I was going to report on,
I attended as our leads on the SSTOC meeting,
and then last night we had our infrastructure committee meeting,
which I'll let the vice mayor report on if you'd like to do that.
Why don't I start with SSTOC and you can.
They met last week and I know there was
more interest in hearing about what is happening.
There was a very, very long, very lengthy, very thoughtful,
very detailed discussion about a matter
that will be coming to the City Council, I believe,
which is a recommendation around the Incentive Program,
the engagement with FISMO.
There was discussion about sort of new community education
and what could be done, though really a lot of the meeting
focused on sort of the incentive program and FISMO
and what would be the appropriate relationship.
And so I guess it will come to us, so we will wait for that.
But just so you all know, there was really just very detailed
discussion where all permutations of these issues
were sort of pursued.
And then another thing that I think we all knew this,
but I just wanted to report that for insurance, which
has been a big issue for all of us,
there is now an assembly bill that
has been introduced by our own assembly member, Rebecca Bauer
Cahan, that would reduce a percentage of what
is required to, so currently, in order
to be considered a distressed community,
which I understand very loosely to mean that insurers
then have to write, you have to have 15% or more
of your population on the fair plan.
And this bill would reduce it, as I understood, to 10%.
And I will let our city manager chime in
if I got that incorrect, did I?
That's accurate, I apologize if I prepared to talk about.
Just FYI, this is more just in PSA, but keep an eye on it.
And I think it's the sort of bill
that would really benefit Arinda and in my understanding,
I heard from Sam that CalCities is supporting it,
which is great.
I do have a comment on that.
One thing I would enjoy when the SSTOC grant conversation
comes to the council would be a little bit more color
of what the conversation and the debate was
at the committee level because there's so much thought
detail that goes on and instead of just hearing the recommendation having a
little bit more depth whether that's in the written materials or in the
presentation would allow us to benefit from all that that groundwork that gets
done. I know that representative it was indicated at the meeting that
representatives from the SSTLC would be here. Terrific. Council Member Hoxie. So
last night, we had a transportation safety advisory
committee meeting that I attended.
And one of the topics was, you know,
what additional types of calming measures
we could implement in Arinda.
Traditionally, streets, neighbors have wanted speed bumps,
but MOFD has been very concerned about speed bumps
and the issues with fire trucks getting over speed bumps
and slowing them down, particularly in the areas
that are of the highest severity fire zone.
So we talked about other types of measures
that could be taken, including striping,
not just the middle stripe, but also the sides to 10 feet,
which narrows the lanes some
and should slow down traffic some,
possibly thinking about rumble strips
or other changes in the pavement
that could slow people down,
looking at whether we could do some offset speed bumps
like they use in San Francisco
that fire trucks and ambulances can drive over,
but cars presumably can't
unless they're really willing to slalom around,
which hopefully they wouldn't be able to do.
So the thought is really to try to improve the toolbox
of items that the TSAC can use to actually direct
and improve some of these traffic measures.
so that was a good discussion.
Also trying to tie together all the different plans
in Arinda, like there's the Connect Arinda plan,
there's the walking and biking plan,
and some of them are coming up from renewal,
but they're not always looked at as a whole.
And so really thinking about,
and I suggested that they might think about
identifying areas that we could think about improving
for walkability and bikeability,
and starting to look at what we might do to target certain areas
and make them safer for walkability and bikeability.
So it was a good meeting.
It was fully attended by all five of the members of the TSAC.
And they are open meetings.
Anyone is welcome to come.
So I encourage people to come and bring
your neighborhood concerns.
But more to come.
Thank you.
That's great news.
Yes.
We had last night, we had our infrastructure subcommittee
meeting.
And it was a follow-up on the discussion
that we had at the last council meeting.
Staff brought back some very well-thought-out information
to help us categorize some of the private roads in terms
of trying to take a look at it.
So that information is very interesting.
And I would recommend everybody from the council
and anybody from the public that's interested,
take a look at that.
And so we went through the work plan with the staff
and talked about the follow-up of options
that we wanted them to eventually come back.
And we agreed that they would come back
as the time and information availability permits,
not waiting until everything is all baked.
So we got an update on the storm drain mapping.
So hopefully by sometime this summer,
we should have that completed.
That sounds like it's going well.
Staff gave us a little bit more update on some of the work
that San Anselmo does with their community.
And we had a fairly good discussion as usual.
We had a reasonably good turnout of interested public
at the meeting.
So I'll have Council Member Malcomi add anything.
I think you've summarized it just in terms of the options that we're exploring or discussing,
right?
It includes everything from assessment districts to maintenance agreements to, I guess, grant
programs.
So the one grant program we know of was pretty limited in its scope and use, it appears.
course adoption, and then, you know, and really the full range. And we also are, yeah, pretty
much it.
That's great. Yeah.
I attended the District Breonies Boy Scouts of America event. It was Lafayette Veterans
Hall completely full, all dressed, you know, in uniform. Mostly adults, honoring all the
leaders in this huge, huge district, lots of women, and then honored many youth where
they're, you know, way beyond just being an Eagle Scout. The Eagle Scouts weren't honored.
they were the Conservation Award of the district.
And I was impressed to see how integrated it is.
I haven't been around current Boy Scouts of America,
and it's really a lot of women.
It's interesting.
We were also very happy to attend.
Congressman DeSaulnay was with us here in Arinda last week,
And we were very pleased to have him join us.
Good turnout and he was focused on his topic
of the evening was women's equality.
And so his staff does recordings.
So if anyone that was not able to be there
would like to listen to it,
I know it's available on their website,
but we were very pleased to,
we had three members over the council there,
Our city manager was there, so we were very pleased to be able to host him in Orinda.
Was there anything else, councilmember reports?
I did a rotary talk to the La Marinda Sunrise Rotary, a mini state of the city.
Questions were asked about BART, of course, and I also, the city manager will probably
talk about this, but you may have seen under construction signs on the dog park and the
scaffolding up on the library tiles.
So some things that have been out there for a while,
it's nice to see them underway.
With that, I'll ask if there are any public comments
on the council member reports.
Mr. Warnock.
Good evening again.
I want to address council member Hoxie's comment
about trying to make Arenda more walkable and bikeable.
With all respect council member,
surrender will never be walkable and it will never be bikable.
The geography and the existing infrastructure preclude that.
It's just the way it is.
Some things liberals sometimes have to accept physical conditions the way they are.
It's what we call a fact of life.
And the real failure of staff is in the request for proposals
on the updated bicycle et cetera program.
They didn't ask the bidders or proposers
or whatever they're called.
They didn't ask them to look at a bicycle plan
from a perspective of overall safety.
And the fact is that the city and county of Los Angeles
have paid millions and millions of dollars in settlements
to parties injured by bike riding on so-called bike routes,
which turned out to be unsafe for the bike riders.
And by putting a, by designating, for example,
the curvy, hilly, windy part of minor road.
By designating that as a bike route
and encouraging people to bike on it,
you are inviting an accident
because when the bike rider is going uphill
at five miles an hour,
the person behind the bike rider is very tempted
to cross the double yellow line and pass.
And that is wrong, that's illegal.
but there's nothing that the person coming downhill
can do to protect himself or herself.
There's no shoulder to pull over.
Half of it, when you're coming downhill,
there's a steep ravine on the side
and you are inviting a very serious accident.
And the consultant on this wasn't even asked to consider it.
My final point is that the place
where the bike lane goes under the freeway.
If you're coming south, it abruptly
ends at the BART driveway.
But there is no sign for the weekend bike rider who
comes into Orinda and is coming down.
I'll wrap this up very quickly.
There is no warning sign for the person coming down,
coming south on Camino Pablo, that just ahead of you,
your bike lane is gonna end and you're gonna have to merge
into southbound 40 mile an hour traffic,
which is gonna cross you to get onto the on-ramp.
And for years, I have begged successive councils
to at least put up a notification
there is a safe route to take the overpass and the councils and the staff have consistently
refused to do so and the former planning director actually redid the plan to invoke the design
immunity. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments to the council member reports?
Seeing none, we will go to city manager reports. Thank you, honorable mayor and members of the
Council. Just a quick update as the Mayor had mentioned we have a couple of projects that are
ongoing right now that are exciting for the community including the replacement of the library
tiles. So you'll see the scaffolding up around the buildings and the work is underway so we're very
excited. So far all of the tiles that were being removed have come off with some ease which is nice
so we'll have those for potentially those are being given to the Friends of the Library so
in case they wanted to use that for some fundraising activities as we replace those tiles with the tiles
that need to be placed up on the building. In addition, we're working on the dog park fencing
and that should be getting underway. I know they've been out meeting with the contractor on site,
so very soon we will have a fenced off-leash dog park, so it'll be really nice for the community.
Beyond that, there's a number of upcoming events and we've got actually a couple to note. We've got
the annual spring egg hunt that is in the community park on April 4th, on April 11th. We have the third
annual touch a truck event at Wilder Park. We do require registration for families that wish to
participate in that event. And in addition to that, we have a couple of openings on some of our
commission. So we are continuing to accept applications for two. I believe there are two
commission committee openings still. So with that, I will turn it back over to the mayor. Thank you
so much. Thank you. Were there any public comments? Mr. Warnock. I will be very brief. I commend you,
Madam Mayor, for moving the council reports and the city manager reports to an earlier part of the
agenda rather than the form of practice of having them at the end. As someone who attends these
meetings but also falls asleep at a certain point, in all seriousness, I think this is a major
benefit and I sincerely thank you for making this change. Seeing no other public comment,
We will close the public forum and move to the,
I'm sorry, we'll close the reporting section
and move to the consent calendar.
Before we do, I would note we had written correspondence
and a public speaker tonight on one of the items.
I would ask if anybody wants to pull anything
from the consent calendar.
Seeing none, I'll ask if we have a motion
to approve the consent calendar.
So moved.
Do we have a second?
Second.
With that, all in favor?
Aye.
And with that, items F1 through F8 on the consent calendar
are approved.
We'll now move on to H1 of policy matters.
That's our annual presentation from Police Chief Rossi.
Back again.
Green button.
There we go.
Is it?
Yeah, it's on green.
Green light means good, right?
OK.
This is our annual report for the Arenda Police Department.
I'm going to go through this PowerPoint as I'm speaking.
So we kind of got introduced to some of our new officers.
This is just a breakdown of the staffing
that we have here in Arenda, from myself
to my assistant, our investigations,
detective, our traffic and patrol officers.
And then we have one reserve officer, Derek Brown.
I think he's been with us since the city incorporated in 1985.
So he's he's been along for the whole entire ride, which is great.
We also have made a note there about our special officer
that will be starting hopefully this July.
Here's photos of our new officers.
There's Officer Dickerson right next to the sergeant who wasn't able to be here
this evening, some of our new police vehicles here in Aranda.
So last year we needed some new patrol vehicles
and we got some new Dodge Durango's, we're going to be getting a couple more to replace
our older and aging fleet.
Some new things for Arenda in 2025, our crossing guard service that we're basically managing
for on behalf of the city and in conjunction with the school district.
So all of the crossing guards and basically everything kind of falls under my preview
to ensure that they're showing up to work
and doing what they need to do
and communicating any issues so that we can quickly
address them to ensure that our students are safe.
Our quarterly traffic enforcement,
which I think is the most unhappiness
that we get out of our citizens
is because we have Danville officers
and Lafayette officers along with Orinda
issuing citations throughout the entire city
on a joint effort. We not only do it here, but it's done in Lafayette and it's also done
in Danville. And then the sheriff's office is also starting to model this and starting
to bring it to unincorporated areas due to the effectiveness of traffic control, reducing
speed and making safety throughout the area a lot better. Some of the other things that
are coming are continued education on e-bike or e-motorcycles. There is some
legislation that's in the works right now so as of right now our biggest push
on the police department side is education. One of our big things that
we're going to be pushing out this year, I'm still working out all the logistics
right now with a couple officers, is hosting a bike rodeo so that way we can
have our youth come out, e-bike or regular bikes, and come out and do an
education. Maybe partner with some of our nonprofits to issue out safety gear and
have a great day so that everybody can see that it's a safe environment to come
out and ride. Some of the new equipment that we've gotten this year or we now
have the capability we have three pilots that are assigned to Arinda and with
that we have two of our drones that we purchased at the end of last year and
looked to increase that as the years progress one is a exterior and ones an
interior obviously the bigger ones for outside as soon as we got these we were
already deploying them so these are out on the street right now they officer
Grossman who was here earlier is one of our pilots so it's sitting in the back
of his car right now so if there's a need for a drone to be deployed it's a
basically the officer pulls up and gets it out of the trunk and deploys it right
away so if we have a missing juvenile which we've had to use it before to
assist with Moraga if we've had an accident or anything like that they can
bring it up to get an overview they use it in all sorts of manners not just
looking and locating but also for evidence collection in addition
detective Hamlin's they're showing our spike strips that are deployed in every
patrol vehicle in Orinda along with our uh it's called the piranha uh that
little device that's up there in the far right corner those are both tire
deflating devices we use those to bring the end to a pursuit or prevent a
pursuit from even being going to start so it's another safety device that we
have now that we can deploy to try to reduce anybody driving through town
that's trying to elude law enforcement we can use this as an effective tool to
help bring that to a safe end. Along with our traffic suppression or the
e citations. So last year we got our approval for our OTS grant to have e
citations. So instead of the old press real hard on the three copies and you
get your copy we're in the 21st century now and we're going to have our iPhones
out and the officers basically will scan your license. All the information will
be pre-populated on their phone, they'll fill out the citation aspect and then
turn the phone sideways for you to sign and then you have an electronic copy
that's emailed to you, they have the option to also print one out for you, kind
of looks like a Costco receipt, how long it'll be, but it has all the pertinent
information that'll be on it, and then this also speeds up the process. Instead
of having paper that goes through us, then it goes to the courts and then has
to get entered in, there's a lot of errors that can occur. This basically as
As soon as they get back to the police department, it electronically sends it in a secure way,
and then the courts get it immediately populated, so that way people are able to take care of
their citations faster.
I'm looking really forward to this.
In addition to the e-citation aspect, there's a software component as well that helps with
our accident investigations, so it'll help us better for the TSAC meetings, for giving
back feedback on our collisions instead of us giving the best we can with an archaic
way of counting you know tally marks of what we did this can give a better better report so
that it helps out the community to be a lot safer with what we're doing and what's occurring
a couple of the items that uh this doesn't cover everything that we've been trying to do here
to reach out to our community that's one of our main goals is one to make sure that the city is
safe but two is to be one with our city we're trying to really build a strong
bond and I think that we're accomplishing yet along with our citizens
Academy we have toy drive which we partnered with M.O.F.D. this year and
we're going out to the schools and collected a lot of toys we have our
amazing national night out that'll be in August everyone's been to that it's
great especially when I get dunked in the tank. Coffee with the cops. We have our recess
coming up with all the elementary schools where we test our tee ball or excuse me our
tether ball skills, our kickball skills, and some basketball skills with the youth.
That seems to go over pretty good. We have been called out at Delray to help the faculty
win a kickball game. I know it's calling in a ringer. They called, we showed up, we hit
a lot of home runs. So the kids were happy. And so it was faculty that they finally got
a win. Obviously, the touch of truck that the city manager spoke about trunk or treat,
which is a great thing. Fourth of July parade, which I think was awesome. Last year, it's
going to get better every year. A big thing was our age. Well, drive well with our the
age of our community. We saw a rise in accidents occurring with our elderly community. So
So I partnered with CHP and we hosted two classes free to the community and had success
with these.
They were completely packed and these classes just kind of like a refresher to kind of get
people on the same page.
It also able to give them a certificate, it helps them out with insurance.
There's a bunch of benefits to it but it also creates a drop in accidents that are occurring
with our elders in our community with driving.
then our continued safety education with the schools emergency preparedness and then again
our Citizens Academy. Oh wrong green button sorry guys uh here's some good photos of all the fun
that we have uh coffee with the cops at Starbucks uh they actually let officer johnson serve people
so i apologize to the community that got a coffee by him hopefully it wasn't bad they just let them
do the regular pour uh our guys out there and during our rainy season that we had assisting
with a motorists that got stuck there on the exit. Our national night out where we were able to have
our armored vehicle from our sheriff's office SWAT team there. Our class participation with
Officer Johnson to Zoni talking to kids and it was a job fair day. So apparently the
everybody that was going to that class when I the feedback I got from the second graders were
everybody wants to be a police officer after officer to zony and officer johnson was there
because they all didn't want to listen to the other cool jobs that parents had
they just wanted to all be cops so that's dear to my heart i appreciate that and i love that
our citizens academy uh just some photos from uh our day everyone with their graduation uh doing
some traffic stops and then some education here at the city hall some more photos of that our
trunk or tree, which we do a pretty good job. I think it's not too scary for the kids,
but we hand out a lot of candy and so we seem to be very popular with that.
Again, so some of the equipment that we always are constantly upgrading and doing is we have
brand new body worn cameras, just a new version of what we have. All the vehicles are equipped
with dash cameras and backseat cameras. The officers are able to perform their duties.
They can review that. They get audio from it. Right now they're even getting a, the
technology is actually narrating and showing exactly it's translating everything that's
being said. So the officers are watching a video and at the same time it's translating
the entire conversation. So that's just with making our reports a lot cleaner. And that's
That's an image of a traffic stop that was done just here at our Chevron to show you
kind of what the view is that the supervisors and myself see when we're reviewing these.
Some of the other services, our neighborhood watch, with our contact information to get
that started if we don't already have, we have a robust neighborhood watch in Arrinda.
We're always looking to make it bigger and better.
Our crime prevention, if you see the biggest thing that I've been harping since I've been
here in Orinda, if we can't be everywhere. But if you see something,
call 911 and we're going to respond and we're going to handle that. And I think
that we are getting
over that hump. I'm not going to say it's we're past that yet, but we're
getting over that hump where people are more comfortable calling us. There's
always the the comments that I hear from the community is I don't want to
bother you guys. I don't want it. You're not bothering us. Please call us.
That's our job to be there. Our normal firearm safety positive for this year
is that we're able to fill our parking enforcement.
So I have two civilians that fall under my management
that provide parking enforcement now for the city.
They basically work six days out of the week.
And if we need them for special events,
they work on the weekends as well.
And this allows us to enforce our parking
that has been neglected for the last couple of years
due to a staffing issue.
Here's the fun stuff.
These are our select crimes, residential burglaries, commercial burglaries and
auto burglaries. The green is our 2025. If you see that, you can see that our
model of our community outreach and our proactive policing has resulted in
drastic reduction in crimes. I think the biggest highlight I'd like to show is
that residential burglary. Last year we had 15 excuse me in 24 we had 15 last
year too. So our community is doing a lot better job of notifying us and our
officers proactivity has led to that. This also goes for our stolen vehicles.
We had 17 in 24 and in 25 down to five. Uh, the recoveries. Those are
basically we find somebody driving a stolen vehicle so that could be an up
and down. That's not just recoveries from a rinda. That's just recoveries
that we find within the city. Due to all that proactivity, there has been a rise
in our arrest. So the last year we had over 200 arrests, which is the highest
it's been by a margin. But that's due to proactivity, which is a direct result
of having less property crimes throughout the city. So our officers
are doing a good job of being out there being proactive and not allowing
individuals to victimize our community. Part of our emergency preparedness. I
work really close with Chief Isaacs. I think we talk once or twice a week. Uh,
not just about hunting or any other things or football. We do talk about
emergency preparedness. Uh, so we do a lot of training with them, tabletop
training. Uh, we're getting them up to speed on our active shooter training
for better mutual response. And that goes the same with wildfire in
evacuations. So Chief Isaacs and I are continuing to work together to make
sure that we have a seamless, uh, response when we show up to these
things that they know what we do and we know what they do. We've even stretched
this to the point of on boarding. So M. O. F. D has added some new firefighters,
some paramedics to their department. They've asked me to be a part of their
on boarding so that I kind of give them a introduction to law enforcement. And
then we've done the reverse where our new officers, we show them that
partnership and they come in and do an on boarding for what to expect with
fire and what they need us to do and what are expectations. So we're we're
striving to put us together almost seamlessly so that when we show up it's
uh it's better for the community. License plate reading cameras. All right.
So these are just overall view. Excuse me. These are overall what the cameras
are for and what they're not for. Um, their officer safety investigative
tools. They identify stolen vehicles, wanted vehicles. They help locate
suspects of criminal investigations that we are working or arrest warrants
and they also assist with locating missing persons.
We've had a couple people have called and they said,
a loved one has left and they drove
and we're able to use that camera
to at least start putting the cookie crumbs
to follow maybe what direction they went
to help assist us in locating that person.
The what they are not for is replacing our police work,
replacing good neighbors, doesn't necessarily prevent crime
but seeing the cameras up is a deterrent in itself.
does not provide Citizens Department of Justice information.
So we have a lot of private cameras.
I think we're up to 13 that are owned by Citizens of Arinda.
All those cameras basically do are put in their areas
because they wanted those.
They don't get any information from that.
And there is no live feed that is a result of that.
The system does not contain any personal identifying
information of the collected data.
The information is also not shared with any federal agencies.
Oops, how do I go back?
Oh, there we, sorry guys.
So with this, first I'd like to thank the city council
for my proposal that was last year
to increase our number of LPR cameras.
Currently we are at, I believe 25.
We have one more that's waiting to be installed.
We're waiting for a permitting.
And then we have a basically a flex camera
that is another camera that we can independently
put wherever we need.
So if we have an area that we need to have a camera
that we don't already,
we're able to mobile put those cameras,
this one camera up.
That has not yet arrived.
I wanted to highlight a couple of the things
that have been great with this.
So when I proposed this last year,
we said about three months to get it up
running and I hit that mark so I know I was apprehensive of saying that but we
hit our mark so by August of last year we were up and running with over 20 of
the cameras there was a couple more that due to locations we had to change them
for their solar power etc but we had cameras up since the those cameras have
been installed as of August of 25 we've had 14 arrests directly result of those
cameras. So with those cameras I have basically, of those statistics, I have at
least two of those cases where we had no leads, no witnesses, no surveillance,
nothing. The officers arrived, one was a stolen vehicle, another one was an
autoburg theft. The victims basically said, I don't know when this happened, I
just know the car's gone or all my stuff got taken out of my car. I don't know
what to tell you guys. So the officers were able to use the LPR system, kind of
go through, start looking. And in each one of those cases, they were able to
identify a lead. That lead left led towards a possible suspect, which led
to search warrants, which led to arrests, which led to successful filing
with the D A. So these have been exactly what I presented last year was
this is a evidence collecting tool that the city needs and it's paying
dividends as soon as it was put in these things are amazing. They assist us
in our investigations and just just those two cases right there. We were
able to have some sort of resolve to our two victims that somebody was held
accountable, including returning of their stolen vehicle. So they're a
great tool that we're able to get. And so I want to say thank you to all of
you again. Thank you for supporting me and having this put in. We're also doing our
best. Hopefully everyone's following us on Instagram and Facebook. We are doing a big
push to try to be more out in that 21st century. I'm a knuckle dragger by trade, so I'm learning
how to be a better with the computers. So bear with me. I usually let Norma, my assistant,
most of that. But we're having great outreach with that. We do our brand new officers, we
do little bios, any type of event we do, we post about it and we're getting a lot of positive
feedback on those that they saw that on our Instagram or they saw it on our Facebook or
even some of our next door posts. And it's just building that communication. I think that's
paramount for law enforcement in the community is that if we don't have strong communication and we
we use as many avenues as possible, we're missing out.
So I'm willing to get out and do as much as we can,
I'll even stand on the corner and try to help people out.
So that is pretty much everything I have.
So I'm ready for any questions that the board may,
or excuse me, the council may have for me.
Thank you, we'll start by asking
if there are any council questions.
Earlier on, you pointed out a piranha.
Yes, ma'am.
And how many are there out there in the department?
We have six of those, rather than right now, and they basically try to hold my hands up.
Their size is like a softball, but they're flat.
You can throw it down on the tire, and inside of it are huge, hollow nails, for lack of
a better term.
And if the tire rolls over, it instantly deflates the tire.
So you have to be there at the right time to toss it on the tire?
Right.
couple times where we've used them but haven't they haven't they've been
deployed but haven't had to be used where we had somebody inside believe a
safe way doing shoplifting and they said hey they came in this car so when
officers came out they kind of threw that under the car then when contacted
the individuals they did their job somebody was arrested and then they were
able to remove that no harm no foul but if that person decided to try to flee
we're gonna have an instantaneous tired inflation so it's safer they're not
driving through town driving way over the speed limit trying to evade us. Do
you think six is enough? Uh, at this point right now for the amount of
officers, then they can transfer it and it stays in the cars. That's good for
right now. The stop sticks. I think we're at 13. That makes sure I even
have one in my car. I'm waiting for the day that I get to toss it. I know
they'll tell me I can't. They'll some sergeant will cut me off or an officer
and be like, no, no, no, chief, it's my turn. So yeah, so everybody is trained
on that so that they can deploy that and that allows them to safely do it from a distance.
We have a video on our Instagram and Facebook that shows the officers training and it's
basically the length of a roadway at one single lane and the officers basically throw it out
into the roadway and it has a tether on it. As soon as the car goes over it they're able
to pull it back so the rest of the cars can go by.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Any other questions?
I have some questions. On the cameras, you said that you don't share that information
with federal agents, but do you share it locally if there's an investigation out of Lafayette
or a neighboring city and our cameras would provide them with some assistance?
Yes, ma'am. So the cameras are purchased and owned by the city. The software and the collection
and data is being held by the sheriff's office so in the in reference to like Lafayette that's
another contract city they have immediate access so the sheriff's office has access and then if a
neighboring agency wants that they have to go through a process of requesting that through
the sheriff's office to get permission and then what excuse me when they do that then the officers
from that agency can basically request that it's not like you and me talking here and say hey can
can I get access?
They actually have to fill out who they are,
what their case number is,
and what they're looking for specific.
And then there's an audit trail that is tagged with everything.
So if a specific officer from a neighboring agency
is looking for an auto theft or a commercial berg,
they have to put all that information in
that that's why they're looking at our specific cameras.
And then there's an audit trail
that ties it to that individual.
And for how long is the information collected retained
by the department or the sheriff's office?
We keep the data for 30 days, the audit trail, indefinite.
There's never, it never falls off.
So the audit trail will be there until the system's done,
but the retention of the data is on a 30 day cycle.
And did the officers and the patrol cars get alerts
if someone drives into a window with a stolen vehicle
or a plate that comes up for some reason?
Yes, ma'am, they're way more technical than I am.
So they have it on their work phone,
they have it on their computer in the vehicle.
As soon as something goes off,
you would think there was free food
because they just go flying out of the PD
or they go responding to stuff.
You can hear them on the radio,
like they're instant responding to those calls.
And what protections are in place to make sure
that the information you gather isn't hacked
or shared inappropriately?
So the sheriff's office has policies and procedures.
we follow SB 34 all of the state law procedures that are in place and we
follow that through through to make sure there's none of that. As far as any
system hacking for flock, I was speaking to one of the representatives. There
hasn't been any attempts on that. So as of right now, there's not and with the
data only being a 30 day period of time, they don't feel that there's any fear
in that at this moment. And do you feel like the new vehicles provide additional
technology to the officers out on the street? Yes ma'am. So all of the
vehicles that I've been selecting for us are all wheel drive and they're in
the SUV type platform because we're in a render. We have hills and if we're
having an emergency, they might have to go off road. So instead of having we
have a couple Tahoe's which are great, but they're kind of big for our city
streets. So I've been going to a smaller SUV model that allows them if they had to go off-road in
the wilder area, so to speak, or up El Toy and all, they can do that with the tires and the
vehicles that they have. So the technology is a lot better for them. Well, that's great. Well,
thank you. Thank you so much for all you do for our community. Thank you. First, I had, well,
I have a lot of thank you comments to make, but I'm going to wait that for comments and focus on
questions now. So all of this is said with gratitude. I see that the LPR cameras are
hugely useful in our community and have been really of use. The one thing, you know, normally
you would be able to rely that the federal government would follow the rule of law and
not break the law and you know, that if there wasn't information sharing that it would be
respected, the privacy rules and laws would be respected. But I know that there have been,
I think about 50 different jurisdictions
that have canceled contracts with Flock.
And I've been trying to figure out
what the scenarios were in those.
Again, this is information from news reports.
So it's admittedly limited in that regard,
but it seems like in some cases
there was a national lookup switch.
Like for example, Mountain View Council
canceled their contracts with Flock
and it was according to the news reports,
again, I'm just repeating what was written,
so somewhat unverified, admittedly,
but it was too, because that national lookup switch
was on where they had intended it not to be on,
and so can you talk a little bit
about the nitty gritty logistics,
because this is all controlled through our sheriff's office?
That's correct.
and so how do we like is there anything we can do? I'm more interested in ways to verify
that the in that the sharing is not improperly happening in violation of California law as
opposed to getting rid of a camera right so is there any further verification or so as audit
or anything we can do sure um so as of right now uh Flock has basically a firewall up for
for the state of California and has made their system
basically following SB34.
So the toggle switches and everything
that you're referring to, you do, you can see them,
but they are, I'm gonna do my best explanation.
They're gray, like you can't click on them.
There's no way for you to change it.
There's no way for you to have an option
for picking immigration or picking upon.
I'm sorry, there's a word I'm not,
There's another thing that they're also,
you're not allowed to on SB 34 to look for.
You can't click it.
You can see it because it's a national system,
but for California users of the system,
excuse me, there's no access available to that.
As far as who we're sharing with.
So the sheriff's office right now
is doing quarterly audits.
There's two captains, a lieutenant,
and two sergeants that are in charge
are the only administrators
for the entire Sheriff's office for all that information.
So everything goes through those five individuals
for approval.
So, and that goes along with the audit.
And I saw our share list today.
I can guarantee you that we are not sharing
with any federal agencies whatsoever.
We are sharing with local agencies that are a Walnut Creek,
something that makes sense,
but we're not sharing with anything
that would be of a fear for our community
think that we're going outside that scope. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. Then I had
questions on other issues, but I don't want to hug if you if anyone had a related
happy to bounce around. I echo my thanks as well, Chief. It's great to see where we are,
and I'm really very appreciative of the cameras. My question for you, and I don't remember the
legislative number or whatever. But a number of years ago, and fortunately it's not at the
forefront of what our community is asking us about anymore, but a number of years ago,
there was a phase-in of some state law where police departments and the reporting, with all of your
new reporting tools and everything, was able to capture all the data so that if somebody,
you know, wants to look at, you know, the racial profiling issues or anything like that,
is that system all in place now from where it hadn't been several years ago?
So you're referring to, I think it's called BRPA. And so that data is still being collected,
the officers have been doing that since that was enacted and became law. So every time,
excuse me, every time an officer has any contact, a proactive contact, so they make a car stop for
citation violation, they have to fill out a form. So it's basically just fill in the box and
some of the questions are, could you tell if it was male or female? Did the driver identify as
anything? Did you have any pre-determined decision on who it was that was driving?
So a lot of things to gather that data and so we upload it just like every other agency in the
state and give that data up. So we are up to date and we can follow that.
So fortunately, like I said, we haven't had any members of the community that I'm aware of really
be all that concerned right at this time, but all that information is there so that we can show that
you know this is what has happened in Arinda and all of the data is available.
Yes ma'am.
Okay.
with more questions I had a few more where is that data available actually that was just out of
curiosity so this you brought it up so the state controls the rippa data so i it's a state so we
just basically forward the data the sheriff's office yeah we just give them and forward it all
that information so they're the keepers of all that raw data um and then i know that i'm asked
the in terms of firearm safety i appreciate that you presented on the safe storage and
gun locks. Is that being used? I was just curious. We for sure have, we do have individuals that
bring us firearms, like a family member passed away. I don't want these and bring them to the
PD. That happens a regular along with the ammunition. As far as handing out gun locks
in storage. I imagine it happens. It's just not enough where it registers for me. But I know that
we have a box full of those things that we do handout when we need them. Fair enough. And then
this is just sort of a thinking. When you go and do the education at OIS and Miramani or the cop,
And thank you for so much community education. I mean, it's really, really impressive. Right? All
of that. So, and I think we're seeing the results. So, you know, huge credit props to you, sir. But
is there any part of that at this point, none of that includes e-bike education yet, right? Or
does it? We're working towards that. So, if we do talk about e-bikes, it's kind of that officer or
that supervisor that's bringing that up or the question is proposed and they kind of handle
that at that moment but we haven't put together anything. The city manager and I are working
towards a recent grant that we put in for to like help us and give us some more tools
but nothing with that as a specific that we've been able to address. As far as like the high school
We hang out there a lot and we do a lot of education, especially about parking and where
they need to park and then their driving habits. So we are there. The principal, Ben and I
have each other's personal phone call. We talk about these issues. We're at all the football
games. So we're really involved. I just like, right now we have a kind of a low profile at
the high school level where we're more present at the elementary schools and middle school.
based on what you've seen, like what is age, if there was to be e-bike education,
whether it's provided by us or, you know, in general, do you have an opinion as to sort of
what age group is best to sort of, is it middle school, is it younger? I'm just curious.
I'm putting you on spot. No, no, no, I don't have an opinion.
My son's in second grade. So I would think that that fifth grade and then transitioning to OIS,
that's usually when mama bear my wife will be like, okay, you can go on your own. Yeah.
And you can take yourself to school. So I think at that age is appropriate, where we kind of feel
that the kids can go to and from school on their own, is probably where the bicycling will start
to come in. And that's probably where the education will have its best impact.
Thank you. And then one last thing, just because there was art, the community, you know, the
Citizens Academy was so impressive. And what enthusiasm from our residents, I mean, that was
pretty cool. Thank you. So like, I was wondering, is there any opportunity for the Citizens Academy?
This is just an opinion. I want your idea. And you can tell me if this is crazy. I see our city
manager like, you know, what's the opinion? But could they be like, like, emergency preparedness
ambassadors for us? Or like, I just love that enthusiasm of volunteers and, and Arinda,
I don't see that there would be any reason that we can't make them more proponents for it. I mean,
all three individuals that were here tonight are literally like telling me, chief, I have not stopped
talking about it. My friends are tired of hearing about it. Yeah. Marcy's great. She's like,
she's like, I tell everybody you need to hurry up and have another class. I'm like, I'm, I'm
work. It's a logistical nightmare to get all of these people to agree. Luckily, I have good
connections, so I was able to knock it out. But we're going to make this such a reoccurring thing.
And we're also opening it with talking with Chief Isaacs that I want a fire component of that. And
so that might be where it is. Because it is a citizens' academy. It is the law enforcement
branch of it. But it's our citizens. So why not show them, hey, this is also what fire does,
you know. And these things can grow exponentially and maybe there's a city government day as well.
Like just anything that brings people feeling like they know a little bit more and they got
behind the curtain a little bit just makes everybody buy in and then they're that much
better for our community. Thank you to my colleagues and to you Chief Rossi for
being patient with all my questions. But it's I was very excited about your presentation and
really appreciate it for everything you and your staff do. Thank you. What other questions do we
have? I have one. The statistics of crime reduction were so dramatic from the last two
or three years to this year. I'm just curious, is that primarily from the LPR camera difference or
what made such a meaningful change in one year? I don't, I wouldn't be able to sit here and say
For sure. I know the cameras are a huge, huge issue because you can see them. It's not like
we're hiding them. They're out there. So I think the criminal element that would be coming into
town to try to victimize this can see that. I think also when you look at Officer Huther and
the things that he is like the tip of the spirit for Orinda, but all of his colleagues and all my
officers and sergeants have that attitude about bringing that to work. And so they just have a
drive right now where I makes my job very easy as chief. I get to sit back and hear the accolades,
but it's really them. They're out there day in day not at night, keeping us safe and making
they're finding this stuff and they are amazing at what they do. So it's a combination of those
two things. We've been able to recruit really good candidates from the sheriff's office to
be officers here. So it's, it's kind of a little bit of everything that's going on right now. And
I'm elated with what we're able to produce and how we serve the community.
Thank you.
If that's all the questions that we have for now, we still need to do public comment and
then we'll bring it back up for any council comments.
And Mr. Warnock, I apologize, but I do have a speaker card from Jeff Bloom, and I forgive
me if I mispronounced your last name.
And you will be second, please.
Thanks.
Yeah, just a second.
for the city manager. The
material is just back up on
some of the things I'm saying
because if I tried to read all
those articles it would take
forever. I just want to start
out by saying I don't have
anything, any bad experiences
with the police at all. I
think the officer is the chief
and everything I don't have any
bad experiences with them. I
have no issue with them. But
I'm here because I'm concerned about flock safety
as a service vendor to the city of Verinda.
License plate readers are like a knife.
A knife is both a useful tool and a weapon.
You can imagine without a knife in your home,
what would you do?
We have to set up boundaries, we have to set up rules,
we put the knives up so children can't get to them,
things like that.
I recommend we do the same with flock.
I heard the chief just discuss some things that were done,
which was one of the things I was going to mention.
But methods and procedures can be monitored with floc
because the person that talked to the chief
is probably related to a sale.
And you know a salesperson needs to make the sale,
needs to keep the revenue.
But there's something called the SOC 2 Type 2 Report
that as a vendor, the sheriff or the city is allowed to have.
And that basically looks at methods and procedures
over 12 months of what Flock Safety has been doing.
So I recommend that we look into getting that report
and reviewing it.
I also, I know what happens when you do quarterly reports.
That's three months have gone by
and let's say an incident happened.
I don't have any idea what the data looks like,
but I think we should be looking at the access issues
a little bit more frequently than every three months.
I would personally recommend monthly
because you get used to the data,
but I understand what he said.
we're already doing something, maybe a little more focus.
So, and we want to make sure that the system
that we got is being used as intended.
Now, here's why I'm concerned.
You saw this, may have seen the Super Bowl ad
for Ring with the dog and everything,
and all of a sudden Amazon dropped flock immediately,
no more partnership because it's such a bad response.
In the packet, you'll see a copy of something from Flock's patent, which is 29 pages,
which is interesting. I have some questions about processes, but I'll never get that from Flock.
You'll see that surveillance is their intent in the package, not security, but surveillance.
Also, remember, Peter Thiel was one of the venture capital firms that contributed to Flock. Now,
do you think if Peter said, I want some data, I don't know what Flock's going to do.
You can also see that there's five states where FLOC is deployed cameras illegally by not getting the proper permits not following the proper procedures.
Ironic that a law enforcement tool is doing illegal legal activities.
In addition, just checks and balances, you'll see that a police chief in Kansas illegally used FLOC access to track his ex girlfriend and boyfriend.
boyfriend. Really quickly, yeah. You'll also see that in 2020, that California audit found
that LA wasn't using best practices for granting users.
I need to ask you to actually wrap up. And it just, just two more seconds here. You'll
see a reference to flock online where there was a for sale of access. It was in another
and then lastly there was a Forbes article interview where the founder was
interviewed and Flock wants to end crime in America and you'll see that the CEO
calls you're still going so I'm gonna have to ask you to calls calls anybody
that doesn't agree with them a terrorist we're gonna also see that I'm sorry three
minutes is up and I'm I know you're you've got a lot to get in but we do
have your packet and thank you. Mr. Warnock. Good evening. I am a huge supporter of the cameras.
I see no infringement of anybody's right to privacy. You're driving around in a public place
in a car. The cameras don't even record who the driver is. You have multiple people in your
household with multiple cars and this whole thing about the privacy in my opinion is a lot of BS
and it's just part of an overall movement and I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat to bear with me.
It's part of an overall movement led by people like anti-capitalists who sit on this council
to undermine our norms and our security. The main thing I wanted to address right now
is that we should not be complacent. The chief and his team have done a very impressive job
fighting crime. The state housing mandate envisions a horrendous population growing by
20 to 30%. And I know there are some naysayers on the council who say, oh, well, nothing will get
built. I mean, I've heard it from some of you. Of course, the rezoning, the ink isn't even dry
on the rezoning. And some of you are champing at the bit because nothing's been built in the few
months. We are facing massive population growth. And on a per capita basis, we're going to see a
decline in the police response unless you impose an impact fee for public safety.
Now the city manager if you ask her she'll poo poo that and say well it doesn't cover
police salaries. I say half a loaf is better than none. The police vehicles cost a small fortune.
The whatever it is 30 pounds of equipment the weaponry that the police use are all recoverable
from the developers even if the salaries are not.
So don't fall for this half truth about, well, it doesn't cover, the impact fee can't cover
salaries so therefore we shouldn't bother.
We should take what we can and preserve the safety of this community by making the developers
cover the cost so that we can maintain the current level of police protection.
And one of the council members questioned about the new police vehicles.
I have a word of caution for all of you.
The white vehicles with their profile, whatever we used to call them, bubble gun machine lights
are almost invisible.
So if you're sitting at a red light and you look around and you say, well, I think it's
say for me to make an illegal turn. And I'm saying this from personal experience this evening,
the car facing you, the car facing you may be one of the new police vehicles. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there anybody else from the public who would like to speak on this matter?
Seeing none, we will close the public portion and bring it back up for any council member comments.
Would you like to lead off?
I just wanted to reiterate thank you for all of the community outreach you're doing,
for the Citizens Academy, for I think most of all bringing us officers who are community rooted,
who inspire trust, who are transparent, and for setting that sort of tone.
for our police office.
I think it's admirable
and you've earned the trust and respect
of a lot of our community.
So thank you for that,
for having a way cooler professional job
than I do as an attorney, especially to second graders.
To the extent there could be sort of any follow up
and continuous feedback.
Again, in an ideal world, I wouldn't
feel like we shouldn't have to worry about information
sharing happening that is considered inappropriate,
happening amongst government agencies,
because government should be respecting the rule of law.
I am very concerned about that information sharing
and about the loss of controls.
I think it's, to me, it's important to understand
what's happening in California and in Costa Costa County.
And so the reassurances you provided are helpful,
but it is something that sort of,
I'm just personally continuing to try to self-educate myself
about for our residents and so appreciate continued sharing
to the extent we can receive information about it.
I also wanna thank you.
I wanna particularly thank you
for the Traffic Enforcement Day.
I was sitting at Trippetto's and saw at least four graphic stops while I had coffee from
a Danville police, from a motorcycle police.
And it was great to see that our safety is being taken care of so that speeding and running
through stop signs and some of the behaviors that we want to try to discourage were being
get dressed. And so, uh, I was very noticeable and I think the community also noticed it. And so,
I appreciate that. I actually called the city manager and said, what's going on?
I was a little worried. Like, is there some problem? And she let me know. So I, I, I think
that's, it's a great way for the community to understand that, you know, stop is stop and
your speed limits are speed limits and, you know, just creating more safety on a day-to-day basis
everybody in the community so thank you for all you do. Well I will say thank you
again and public safety is so important and I am very happy about all the
cameras and I'm feeling so good about so many things but I also sense and I
appreciate that your team likes to have fun and that you do a good job with our
students and I would suggest that perhaps you need to check in with our
city manager because some of those lovely new officers look like they might be able
to play cornhole.
And we need you.
I already told the city manager I'm working on the team right now we've been we've been
working to recruit.
I have a good arm at your disposal.
Lord knows we need a good arm.
I'm not going to make a female throwing arm choke right now.
I just wanted to also, what I was going to say, the balance you strike is just fabulous
in the sense that we are a small town, we feel like a safe small town and you do such
a good job of adopting cutting edge technology like drones and LPR cameras in a way that
still feels thoughtful and appropriate and you're just doing an incredible job of making
people feel really safe. I mean, as recently as when we were running for office, there
were a lot of questions about perceived safety problems. And I have heard so little in the
last year or two that I just feel like the sensibility of what a wonderful job you guys
are doing is, it's out there and it's noticeable. And so I just wanted to say thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm very, very pleased with all you've done.
And I don't want to be the only one who doesn't tell you you're wonderful.
You're wonderful.
And you're, you're a wonderful leader.
You're obviously doing a great job recruiting and hiring and retaining.
And, um, we appreciate everything you're doing.
And, uh, if your head was this big a minute ago, it should feel like this big tonight.
Thank you so much.
Of course.
Yeah, I, I wouldn't be here without these guys and gals there.
They're the reason that you guys feel this way.
I'm just here.
They're the ones that are actually doing the work.
They're actually not there.
Oh, that's right, because I kicked them back.
So, yeah, you go.
Yes, please.
Thank you, Jen.
I also just wanted to think we had a public comment earlier that gave us a bunch of articles about the cameras.
And I wanted to thank that public speaker for his information and for sharing that with us and sharing your concerns.
So I think it was Mr. Bloom.
Is that right, Jeff Bloom?
Thank you.
Great. Well, thank you.
Thank you.
And with that, we'll move along to item H2,
the housing element annual progress report,
because nothing says fun.
Like the housing element progress report.
Hello, Mayor Iverson, council members,
thank you for being here about the, yes,
the topic is the housing element annual progress report.
We do this every year.
My name is Christine Thompson,
staff member with the City of Miranda.
And so wanted to just note that we'll talk a little bit
about the background of the housing element,
talk about the 2025 APR, which is the reporting,
and then talk about next steps.
So the background, and I actually, about six weeks ago,
I presented for this group before,
We talked a little bit about new housing laws.
And then we talked about that we are in the implementation
phase of a certified housing element.
So just a quick refresher sort of where we left off.
We are working hard on the implementation actions,
actions one through six.
We are finishing, and there are some ongoing things
from the fifth cycle.
And that we are looking at the RINA numbers
for the sixth cycle, which are on the right.
And they are between very low and above moderate
with income categories, but a total unit count of 1,359
as a target that the state identified.
And so just the background on the housing element,
January 2023, the City Council adopts the housing element.
March, 2023, HCD certifies it, makes it official,
says it's in compliance with state housing law.
And there was a delay due to lawsuits,
but the final EIR was presented and certified
in March of 2025.
And so the city is currently obligated
to implement its adopted and state certified housing element.
So part of that process is doing an annual progress report.
So specifically, HCD says you must report.
They issue a very specific Excel file with many inputs.
They're tracking, you know, the progress.
And this also has to be considered annually
at a public meeting of the city council.
We also want public comment on it.
So we're happy to be here just presenting it.
It is due April 1st.
And so we're coming up on that.
And then you have a little bit of a grace period.
But they like to get it by April 1st.
So what did we learn?
So after looking at the housing for the previous year
in Arrinda, we learned that the building permits
and the residential applications are showing
that they're continuing at a pretty steady pace.
Despite the positive indicators,
these numbers are much lower
than the state mandated RINA target.
Remember, it's that 1,359 units.
And then noted that we really were in the first three years
of an eight year cycle.
And so we started in 2023 and we'll go through 2031
and we'll be just tracking
and making progress through that time.
So the state actually identifies the RINA units,
but they identify them from the building permits.
So that is an important distinction.
They track the income levels.
So really looking at the very low to the above moderate.
And this year we reported in the moderate
and above moderate categories.
We had a total of 27 units,
27 building permits.
But what does that mean in terms of housing?
Just to break it down in terms of the unit type,
the ADUs are the highest number of building permits.
There's also some JDUs,
and then the single-family new detached.
There are a few of those units as well.
Again, 27 total.
But I think one of the other things
that the state is asking about
is they're asking about the streamlining
and how that's affecting the housing.
And so we just bringing it to this meeting and saying,
a lot of these are being helped by streamlining,
overall 80% are taking advantage
of some form of streamlining.
So we made an effort also to describe
sort of where this activity is taking place in Arinda.
So it is a total of 27 new residential units,
but they really are spread throughout the city.
Wilder continues to build single-family homes.
And the residential low-density districts
are adding mostly the ADUs and JDUs.
But there are a few single-family homes
that are also in other areas.
So that's just a quick picture of where they are.
But the annual reporting does more than the RINA number.
It also wants to know about the development applications that
have been applied for this year.
And so just to note, the planning department
has received 37 residential project applications,
so higher than building permits issued.
And they are a good indicator.
However, projects do get stalled and they stop.
So it isn't necessarily that 37 applications
will go to building permits.
Again, the question about what levels of income
are people's projects in?
They are still in the moderate and above moderate income
categories.
Something that is distinctive about these applications
is that there are anticipated units beyond the applications.
And this has to do with where the actual applications,
what their type is.
So you're getting a minor subdivision
and a major subdivision, but you're also
getting those same ADUs, ADUs, and then
the single-family detached.
You're also getting a couple two to four-unit applications,
SB9.
And we did another map to sort of look at,
is this geographically different?
And I think of those 37 applications,
they still are throughout the city.
But you certainly do notice Southwood Valley as a large area.
And then Linwood Court, which is the minor subdivision,
which is four units, doesn't look particularly
distinctive, but is in one of those category of one
application and more multiple units. So if you think about it,
37 applications, potentially 71 anticipated units, but again,
projects can stop or stall or not get to conclusion. Another
reporting element is the rezoning. So this is a little
bit of just an acknowledgement of the great work that's
already been done. These should look familiar. The rezoning was
accomplished this year. It did provide additional capacity for
housing. HCD loves to see that additional capacity. And then
they also, we sent them the information on February 2026,
three days later. They recognize that ARINDA is in
compliance. Very much an agency understatement. They've reviewed
ordinance and they found they appear to meet the requirements of state housing law but we all
jumped up and said yay hooray we're in conformance that's exciting. So I wanted to also just kind of
summarize the big picture. So what does what does it all mean if the if the big RINA number is 1359
units. We're three years in, and we have a total of 82 units. So the order of magnitude is not their
target. We're more like 100 units to their 1300. So and I think many communities are facing this,
the targets are large. And the question about how to how to meet that how to move forward,
how to show implementation. However, I would say that in terms of just getting rezonings done,
having a continual set of applications that are coming in, being able to show units created,
these are all very positive indicators. So in terms of just the summary saying that
moderate and above moderate income categories, there is modest but continuous units created in
those income categories. Very low and low income categories are not receiving applications,
either one or not receiving units, although I should say that one of the applications does
identify three very low income units, the subdivision. So again, 24 total building permits,
slightly more than last year, but for a percentage over three years, 30 percent of your moderate
income units, that number you're at 30%. And after three years, the above moderate because
it's a larger number is only 3%. And then if you look at the order of magnitude of 82 to 1359,
it's really 6% of the total. So it's a small amount, but it's continuous progress.
And so the future outlook is the number of applications are increasing. We are seeing
more diversity multi-unit applications and that first time where we're seeing a couple low-income
units integrated into projects. And then I did also want to note that, and I'll talk a little
bit about Table D, which was In the Packet, which is a narrative of the progress of housing,
all the housing programs. They do want that submitted as well, and that does show all of
the sort of narrative housing initiatives that are happening and there are quite a few of those.
But insufficient progress in implementing the housing element can result in increased state
law streamlining requirements and so that's why every community is looking for ways to
implement their housing element. Today, and this was mentioned last time I presented,
was that Arinda is subject to the streamlined SB 35 approval process where there's at least 50%
affordability. If HCD believes that the community is not making sufficient progress, then it
will be subject to the mandatory SV35 streamlining with developments with at least 10% affordability.
And so it is important to keep making progress and keep talking to HCD about housing opportunities.
This is not easy to read, but this gives you a sense of how much information is contained
in Table D, and that you have actions from the fifth cycle through the sixth cycle.
And then even some of these are actually completed. So we can report back this year
that the rezoning is completed. They have acknowledgment of it. So there's definitely
progress being shown in the number counts, but also in the narratives about what's happening
in the community. So it's a short presentation trying to summarize everything that's been going
on in a year. And then basically based on on this council review and direction, the staff will file
the the 2025 annual progress report with HCD and the governor's office of land use and climate
innovation. So that is just the final next steps, submit the annual progress report by April 1st,
and then continue to keep moving forward with housing. And that is the conclusion of the
presentation. Thank you very much. Before we go to public comment, I'll see what questions
we have from the council. Just had one. Thank you for the detailed presentation and the chart was
very useful to see that whole summary of what we've done.
On this additional streamlining requirements,
is that based on,
can you give us a little understanding
of what is not meeting progress?
Is it just overall units?
Is it tied to the very low income or low income units
or is it just something that HCD decides?
This is when I'm gonna look to my colleagues
about the mid-cycle and they can elaborate on the mid-cycle.
Okay, so I think what you're talking about there
is what we sometimes call SB35.
Yes. Okay.
It's not working well.
There was a slide, right, in materials,
we go from 50% to 10%.
Affordability puts us in that if we aren't meeting enough.
Right, so we're currently at 50% jurisdiction,
so in order to get the streamlining,
you need to come in with half the units affordable
and meet certain other requirements,
including basically union labor requirements.
If, when, at the mid-cycle, we do not meet,
we're not on track to meet the,
both the affordable and market,
we will then become a 10% jurisdiction.
And we'll be in good company,
many, many other jurisdictions are 10% jurisdictions
and then somebody could propose a 10% affordable project
also meeting other requirements in the law
and would get the benefit of streamlining.
And I'll say, the Rinda has already through
other mechanisms created streamlined processes.
So this won't be totally new,
but it is, it's just one of the many tools
the state has used in their housing loss.
Brandon, yeah.
How does Arinda compare to other like cities
in our progress towards our arena?
We have looked into that particularly
for the affordable housing subcommittee.
And what we're finding is that the surrounding communities
of Danville, Lafayette, Moraga are ahead.
But I would say not dramatically, and I would say that the most accessible information is
really about the multifamily and large development projects.
And so what you can see in the surrounding communities, particularly Lafayette with its
downtown has many more of those projects.
One of the things that we talked about in the staff report was really that the Monte
Verde, Vista Verde, you know, we have pipeline projects too, but we have one. We don't necessarily
have multiples. And so yeah, and so we're slower. But I think it's really due to land
and slope constraints.
And I'll just, but in here to say, we may be behind on production, but I don't want
it to go unsaid that we should have some pride that we did get a certified housing element
on time and we did the rezones that were required. So that is not a given. Many, many jurisdictions
up and down the state are not in compliance with those requirements, but we are.
Yeah, agreed. Agreed.
I just wanted to follow the question about the significance of getting the streamlined,
you know, the 10 percent. Given how many other, as you said, other state laws already create
streamlined permitting, will there be any practical, noticeable change or will it be
pretty subtle, assuming that that is something we become subject to?
No one can quite tell the future, but we certainly were thinking about the inclusionary housing
ordinance and the 10% threshold there that's been under discussion. And so there may be
policies that are actually aligning to that 10% level already encouraging projects. So
it might not be as dramatic, but I don't know if there are other thoughts on that.
Well, so I think if the council would like a detailed analysis of that, I think you should
ask us to prepare it. But I will say the thing about SB 35 is it won't be limited to your housing
element sites, right? We've been thinking in terms of the sites that we've identified for zoning
changes. Those are the downtown. But there are other properties that were not rezoned
as part of the housing element, but do have residential zoning on them.
But the DPP sites do not currently have residential zoning. Would those be automatically
eligible because of, and I forget the number, there was a state law saying that you could
do residential within a half mile of landfill. That's a different law, right.
So if the question is about SB 35 then I think it has to be residentially zoned.
Ah, thank you.
Which is not true for the office, for what do we call it, the downtown office district,
but for the downtown core there was a 10% I think in any existing.
So I get my, the short answer is we have not done, because we are not at the mid-cycle yet,
we have not done a citywide analysis of this, we could if you'd like us to.
But no, my question was more just qualitative. Would it be a noticeable change or would it
be relatively subtle? That was just it was a directional question. Yeah, I don't think we really
know. Okay. And my other question, you touched on the Caltrans site progress. I know we're in
compliance with our housing element, but just do you have any update as to as to how that's coming
along. And we've talked about, we've met with Caltrans. I think that's where the conversation's
been, but that it was also not recognized in the housing element. So we're still pursuing
it as an opportunity and it's in discussion. Perfect. Thank you. Are there any other questions?
Curious to me the number of ADUs seems pretty small. Do you have any insight as to why, given the ease of adding an ADU, there aren't more of them happening in horrendous it cost. Is it the terrain is it
Yeah, I mean, again, if we have not done a detailed study, but anecdotally, I think certainly
Certainly cost is a factor, and people are looking to always sort of change projects
once they get the cost estimates in.
The terrain and the difficulty of even with reduced setbacks, meeting requirements, exactly
as an applicant had imagined, it often takes a couple rounds.
So there's that element, it seems really easy, and then they get into the details, and they're
are like, oh, I have to be very thoughtful about this.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions?
Seeing none, we will open it for public comment.
And it looks like we have a comment from Mr. Warnock.
I'm going to try to be constructive in this comment
and address the questions from Councilmember Maleconnie
and from the mayor.
And I want to supplement what the city attorney said.
The application of SB 35, which now is SB 423,
in case you try to look it up, it's not a touchy-feely
determination by HCD.
It's a strictly numerical determination
at the midpoint as to whether for each income category,
the city has issued building permits equal to one half
the arena for each income category. It's just strictly mathematical, not touchy feely. There's
no way we're going to make it. It's a year from now. So what is the consequence? As was sort of
indicated, the housing element sites, I'm pretty sure the city has already committed to ministerial
streamlined processing on all of the housing element sites.
The only thing is the objective design standards.
That's all that has to be met.
The housing element sites were chosen
after extensive outreach and investigation
as the sites most likely to be developed within the city.
The non-housing element sites downtown
that might colloquially be referred to as the DPP sites.
Many of those, putting aside the office sites,
and there are specific laws with very onerous requirements
as to developing residential on an office zone site.
But the rest of downtown is currently zoned
at a 10 dwelling unit per acre limit.
So even with the density bonus, even with a 50% density bonus for adding a few units,
it's not very appealing to a developer in terms of profit. So in my opinion,
having spent the last 10 years studying this in my spare time, in my opinion, the impact of not
meeting the mid-cycle target is minimal. Thank you unless you have any questions of me.
Are there any questions for the speaker? Thank you. Would anybody else from the public I don't
see anybody else from the public. So we will bring it up for there's not really anything to
to vote on? Just direction to staff in any comments? Would anyone like to lead us off?
It seems like a very thorough report. Thank you. And you know, it's very clear that we are making
slow progress towards meeting our RINA targets, but there is some progress and that's good.
And I think we should just continue moving forward. Not much else to do at this point.
Thank you. Anybody else? No, I mean, I feel like a lot of the housing element adjacent
issues are regularly coming to us, whether it's inclusionary housing ordinance or objective
design standards. And it's certainly something that is before our council on a frequent basis.
And so I appreciate that staff is doing that and that there's a real effort to continue moving
forward and I think we should continue doing the best we can do you know given sort of the
topography and just overall you know constraints or limitations of Arinda. I agree I have nothing
to add other than just to thank all of you on the planning staff for all the preparation meetings
that you guys have been giving us sort of briefings on various aspects of the housing laws
um so that this is a little anticlimactic but um really appreciate um the depth of work that you
guys have done for tonight um and with that i believe the direction to staff is please go ahead
and file file when ready uh and with that we'll move on to h3 a discussion regarding possible
joint meeting with the town of moraga and mofd um and city manager did you uh want council member
councilmember Hoxie or did you want to lead. I can kick us off and then I'll turn it over to councilmember Hoxie so on February 3 that council directed me to bring back this item for a future joint meeting between the town of Moraga and the Moraga Orinda fire district Council wanted an opportunity to discuss potential agenda item
and questions should the other agencies wish to participate.
The council's also being asked to provide any feedback so that feedback could be shared
at an upcoming MOFD City two by two meeting and then I was also directed to informally
reach out to the town manager and the fire chief to gauge interest in that joint meeting.
Before I turn it back over to Councilmember Hoxie who might want to talk more specifically
about what her interests are, I just wanted to give a bit of background about the staff
working relationship between MOVD and the city of Arinda. I believe that over the past year,
year and a half, that relationship has strengthened greatly under my leadership and the leadership of
Chief Isaacs. We have a joint commitment to wildfire preparedness. We have, at the staff
level, we have joint meetings once a month in addition to the chief talking to him twice a week.
I probably talk to him three to four times a week.
We focus our joint meetings on issues around wildfire preparedness,
emergency planning, community outreach and our fuel mitigation work.
It's a really appropriate forum for us.
It brings in not just the chief, but his team and the executive team members
of Arinda to talk about any issues that are ongoing in the community.
We've been working closely with them on trying to build our Render Ready page, which has been a
huge success thus far, integrating the evacuation modeling technology into that page, and then
working with the chief currently on evaluating their embercasting modeling and making sure he's
very comfortable with what's being shown. We also share information on our grant programs,
the initiatives that they have going on and broad community engagement efforts.
And then at the policy level, of course, the council has the two by two subcommittee and that
is really to address the more strategic issues, regulatory changes. And we've had multiple
discussions over the last year around defensible space standards and when the state of California
is actually planning to move forward with these changes. The code updates. We've talked about
how to collaboratively work together
and find commonalities
and how we can use community education more broadly.
And both of us are both collectively working with FISMO,
the Fire Safe Moraga Rinda,
are the nonprofit community partner
through contributions of staff time and coordination.
So I just wanted to sort of have a level set
of what we're doing currently
and then maybe turn it back over to council member Hoxie
might want to talk a little bit more about her intentions and bringing this item forward.
Great. Well, thank you. And it's great to hear all of the coordination that is going on,
sort of behind the scenes. Since I joined the council after the last time the two cities in
the MOFD met, I thought it might be nice if we could do that again. One of the issues since I've
joined the council that has been the most perplexing to me is really the division of
roles and responsibilities between MOFD and the city and the SSTOC and FISMO. We have a lot of
players who all have their own pots of money trying to solve very similar and interconnected
issues. For instance, I understand MOFD has a chipper program and ARINDA has a chipper program.
FISMO is offering some grants to groups of homeowners. ARINDA is offering some grants
for fire mitigation to individual homeowners.
M OFD is offering some hard home hardening devices
such as Geter guards and vent mesh to help homeowners comply.
But it doesn't seem like other than the Arinda ready website, which is wonderful.
Doesn't seem to be that we're really coordinating our efforts
and getting everyone on the same page.
Perhaps FISMO can ultimately be an organization
that can manage a number of these items all at once, such as the grants, maybe even the
home hardening equipment, maybe the chipper programs.
But my understanding is that I've come to Arinda and asked for funding, but not necessarily
getting a positive response from Moraga.
And I don't know that the M.O.F.D. is intending to fund FISMO with actual money, as opposed
to staff time.
Another concern that has been raised to me has been by some of our senior community members.
The difficulty of complying with MOFD citations.
So if you receive a citation as a homeowner, then there's a website.
It's very hard, I've been told, by senior community members to actually access a human
person on the telephone.
It's very hard for the seniors to get on this website and actually input the information
to show compliance so then they get repeat fines.
It doesn't seem like the Ambassador Program is coordinated with the Citation Program so
that if a homeowner were receiving a Citation, they could have some resources available to
them to address attending to the items that have been noted in the Citation and someone
to help them navigate the process of finding the people to do the work, reporting back
to the MOFD that the work has been done.
So there just have been a number of issues that I've become aware of since I've joined
the council and I thought it might be helpful if we could encourage some more joint coordination
of all of these efforts so that we all could be involved because our two by twos are great,
but we get a very short report on what was actually talked about.
So I was just hoping that by bringing this back, this would give us an opportunity tonight
to talk about all these issues but also to perhaps have a joint meeting with
Moraga and MOFD together to talk about all of these types of issues and
helpfully better coordinate all of our efforts. Thank you. I mean I guess the
first thing we should do is ask if there are questions or public comments and
and I'd love for to have a little bit of a discourse.
Vice Mayor G.
Yes, I wanted to ask the city manager,
one of the things that you said on the list
was to inquire whether Moraga and MOFD were interested.
Did you get feedback?
I did get feedback.
I think the town of Moraga's city manager
indicated interest.
The MOFD indicated a desire to understand
what the topics would be.
Can I ask another question?
Because there was a...
I recall having as part of our Tri-City meeting,
which we do annually or we used to do annually.
Which is coming up.
Which is coming up, getting a report at one time
from Chief Winnicker.
I recall being at two.
One was sort of, I think, smart signals
and the other was Chief Winnicker.
And I don't recall, at least since,
I've served on the council having a joint meeting with just MOFD and Moraga and Arinda.
Did we have one?
We did.
That was right at the, I think it was the first week I was here that there was a joint
meeting and that was when Chief Winokur presented with the outside expert on wanting to pursue
the zone zero regulations locally.
Oh, I thought that was Tri-Cities.
No, that was the-
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because it was MFT.
Got it.
Okay.
Um, was that the only time we did that or was that something that happened regularly?
I was just curious.
I don't know.
I'm aware of Sherry's shaking her head now.
It hasn't happened.
Frank.
It's not regular.
I mean, I'm not saying it's never happened, but I don't recall any time before the almost
that's my question.
Thank you.
The Tri-Cities is generally yearly.
That was, that was, I think, I, I understood that.
That was really, it was sort of a Chief Winniker led presentation that he wanted to give to
both councils, right, because it would be something that ultimately the councils would
write Wayne in on.
If there are no other questions, it looks like we have a public comment.
Yes, please.
A lot of the concerns I'm hearing from Councilman Hoxie, I think, are coordination, all those
different loose items. And I'm wondering if that's if we were to give direction that we'd like to
see greater coordination just from this item tonight, could that happen at the staff level
with the chief as opposed to all the groups getting together? If that were.
I would say to some extent, yes. I think it depends on the item. For example.
Well, you could, could you go down to listen? Sure, I would say based on Councilmember Hoxie's,
some of the things she was discussing, I think it would be difficult for the city of Arinda to
coordinate if there are issues and citations being given to seniors from M.O.F.D. and coordinating
some of the community education and outreach because we don't really have the ambassador
program and that coordination should really be between FISMO, MOFD, and any ambassadors
who are working on behalf of MOFD to be out in the community and helping with the proactive
piece of it, not just the citation and enforcement piece of it. And some of that, it may be just
their systems and how they communicate out with residents around enforcement.
And so I think that is not something that City of Orinda could really, I mean, we could certainly
make suggestions that they modify some of those practices and figure out a way to make it
more user friendly. But we don't have any role in that specifically. Where we have some role
is maybe, and we've been in discussions with them, they have a chipper program. It's intermittent at
best we have a consistent chipper program and if there's some way we can alleviate some confusion
in the community around what ends up happening ultimately is they sign up for ours and they sign
up for theirs and oftentimes they get cancelled by MOFD and have our backup appointment. So
it does feel like there's some opportunity there and I've talked to the chief about it and he also
agrees that there's probably some opportunity for coordination and maybe the city
since we have the infrastructure already in place to deal with it,
both in terms of the contract and the software,
that maybe we should help to coordinate and take on
their piece of it in terms of scheduling those appointments.
So those are some things that we're about ready to make a staff-led proposal to MOFD,
that we do that so that we can make that part of this a little cleaner and more coordinated.
about coordinating the grant program with FISMO?
So we've been working, and Doug, and I know Mickey is not here, but there have been multiple
meetings with the SSTOC and a subcommittee about making a recommendation back to the
Council around the FISMO grant request. And I know we have also asked FISMO to reach out
to MOFD and to the town of Moraga and make similar requests. I don't think that they
have been received in the same way in which the city of Arrinda has received them,
meaning we're looking to work on what we think is a good outcome.
They have a grant program.
We have a grant program.
How can we coordinate those better?
But there are things that we are seeing some progress.
For example, Town of Moraga is finally getting their own two-by-two with M-O-F-D,
so they can start having similar conversations.
I think their first meeting was last night.
So that's something new for them
that they didn't have previously.
So they'll be a little bit more coordinated with M-OFD.
So that's good progress.
I think FISMO is really starting to get some momentum.
I believe they got a very large recent grant from PG&E,
about $100,000 that they're going to help put to use
in serving the communities of Arinda and Moraga.
So we're excited about that.
And I think hopefully at your April 7th meeting,
if not your April, whenever 14 days later is 24th meeting,
21st meeting rather, you will have a report
on recommendation on the FISMO grant requests.
So as we get closer to the start of wildfire season,
we're gonna be getting more information to you
and trying to up our game a bit on coordination.
So can we benefit by getting together
to talk about the scene that loosely described
the senior issue that comes up with enforcement
or it's the best path to help with that?
I think some of that could be addressed
at the two by two, at least as a topic,
if there are concerns, I mean, that's at least,
I think what we thought we would do out of this meeting
has come up with a list of topics.
If there was interest, we could present those
the next two by two meeting to see if the MOFT board members who are part of that agree
that those are good topics and if they're also interested in having a larger meeting
between the two agencies.
Well, that was part of my thought in bringing this back tonight was we don't really have
a lot of input as a whole council into what's discussed at the two by two and this would
give us that opportunity to discuss.
okay I have a comment so let's I'll wait for after public coming public comment
and then we'll bring it up sorry to keep you waiting mr. worn off no problem it
was very educational many many many many years ago at about this time of year a
soothsayer said to Julius Caesar prophetically beware the eyes of March I
I say to you tonight, beware FISMO.
Earlier tonight, we twice heard from council member
Malcony alleging that the president of the United States
and the current administration is acting lawlessly.
I respectfully disagree, and I can know that I speak
for many people in this community
who voted for the president,
and who believed that the current administration
is on the right path.
My point is that my point on this item
is that one thing we all have learned, Democrat and Republican
alike, is that the greatest lawlessness in our country
comes from non-gunvermental organizations, NGOs.
And that's what FISMO is.
And one of the things they do is they siphon off the top,
they siphon off salaries.
And of course, FISMO came to the SSTOC
and its proposal out of the box was that its president,
Mark Evans, who, like everyone involved in Firewise work,
had been a volunteer, which includes myself.
He now wanted a six-figure annual salary
a six-figure annual salary for one of his colleagues on FISMO. They're exempt from the
Public Records Act, there's an NGO, there's no transparency, and it would be a very grave mistake
to take this very important issue of fire safety and delegate any meaningful power to a non-governmental
organization, particularly to FISMO. The leaders of FISMO have engaged in personal vendettas and
petty bureaucracy going back many years. I've documented this all to the SSTOC previously.
So, coordination is a nice loosey-goosey, touchy-feely term. Everyone's in favor of coordination.
but as part of your coordination, please do not make the mistake of delegating any meaningful
authority to FISMO. There will be a total lack of transparency contrary to what each of you
pledged in your campaigns. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other public comment?
Seeing none, we'll close the public portion and bring it up for further discussion and input. And
this is more of just a workshop open discussion item, so without too much formality, would love
anybody's thoughts on how best. And I actually just wanted to react to Councilmember Hoxie's
introduction because what I remember from the one meeting we had was we all left with this
really positive takeaway saying,
oh, we should do this more often.
This is so great to get to share ideas and thoughts.
And I'm very hesitant to force such a complex,
large group meeting without a very specific purpose,
the way that one was called for,
you know, we were being called for a heads up
on something that was gonna be controversial
and impact us broadly.
But I also remember all of us really enjoying it.
And so I wish there was a way we could,
to your point about having ways of knowing
what the two-by-two is working in,
opining on what the two-by-two is working on
without summoning a complex meeting.
And I, just as an introductory mark,
I didn't hear one thing that was so important
that it made sense to call everyone together,
but I do agree that I enjoyed having more exposure
to the MOFD and to Maraga's interactions
and to those issues.
I wish we'd had more forums to talk about those issues,
whether that's a group meeting or some other forum
to discuss those issues,
maybe it's an agenda item from time to time,
something like that.
Along those lines,
Cause that's a good segue.
I do want to thank council member Hoxie
for bringing the issue here and like raising these topics.
I took notes for our next two by two meeting,
but I guess I was wondering, you know,
whereas certain topics because they require decisions
to be made by the full council on a regular basis
are brought to us as a full council all the time,
such as housing issues, planning issues, zoning issues.
So we become sort of subject matter educated
in the application of those topics in our communities, right?
By regular exposure.
I don't know that that's the case with some other topics
where we all serve on committees, right?
And so, you know, which includes, you know,
whether I learned more about the traffic safety issues
because of the no left turn sign workshop we did
and things then I had otherwise known
because we don't have the ability
to have these regular reports.
So I know there was a lot of work, for example,
I'm looking at the mayor
because she was our TSAC liaison at one point
that was being done in TSAC,
but I was not aware of it all, right?
So now we're trying to do more reporting.
So I'm wondering if maybe, again, I do think,
I'm not at all opposed to a joint meeting,
but I was also thinking if we have a specific topic
because I don't see otherwise how in just the logistics
of 15 elected officials,
how any of this could get sorted out.
And also I actually think a lot of it is really happening,
but maybe what is needed is just a further briefing
to the full council about it.
Because I don't know, I think a lot of the coordination
is like, I mean, I think we've,
so some of these, I mean, some of the more granular issues,
like in terms of the citations with the seniors,
I'd love to hear more details about those scenarios,
because sometimes also, you know, for example,
when the citations first started being issued,
we would hear feedback about people's reactions,
and then when we talked to the police chief about it,
and said, you know, we're hearing these feedback.
And it turned out, well, in this scenario,
there was a unique circumstance.
We hear sometimes anecdotally, right?
And that doesn't necessarily match up with systems,
but it does raise questions that need to be answered.
So I'm wondering if maybe, like, we have the SSTOC report,
and we get a lot of briefings from the city manager,
but I'm just wondering if maybe an agenda item
with sort of a more full briefing to the council
shouldn't be where we start.
That's kind of, and I guess I'm also looking
at the city manager as to whether,
because I also know we have a very full agenda coming up.
So coordination, FISMO, some of this, you know,
the grant program, some of that is gonna come back to us.
I know that because, literally because I just observed
and sat in on our SSTOC the other night.
So that's gonna come back to us in April.
so I would say to everybody, hold tight,
because I think a lot of this will,
it is literally, it's gonna come back to us
for decision-making.
And I think a lot of the other coordination is happening.
And, you know, but even walking us through fire ready,
I mean, I've gone and looked at it a lot,
but have also been working on these issues
for five years now.
So they're also, I would love a report from the MOFD
on sort of the status of the different things
they're working on, because like the North Arinda firebreak,
where is that today?
That was something that, you know,
Chief Linnaker really championed.
It got a big grant to do it.
Trees and shrubs grow.
So what's going on with that shaded firebreak today,
who's responsible for it, where's the money to do it,
what other technologies.
I know there are a lot of detective,
early detection type technologies,
advanced warning technologies
that the fire department can be deploying
in areas we know of being the biggest risk to us,
Brioni's wild land that's adjacent to Orinda.
I would love a report from them
as to what steps they currently are taking
in a global sense to protect Arinda and Moraga,
because they're asking homeowners to spend a lot of money
to do a lot of removal of trees and brush
and plants close to your home and be landscape,
all sorts of things, which is fine,
but they also have an obligation to do some of this work.
And I am very unclear myself
as to what they are currently doing.
And I would like to know and I'd like our community to know.
So I just, I feel like, yes, some of this is two by two.
And that was one of the things I was thinking about
so that we can have the conversation
so that there was a list of topics for the two by two.
But I still think more joint reporting
and since Moraga is a big part of MOFD,
I feel like they need to be part of the conversation
that we can't all just come from Miranda.
The funding is the two cities to MOFD.
I mean, I'm happy to have a meeting again.
I agree that if we're gonna have the meeting,
it needs to be well-focused because there's a lot to unpack
in the topics that we've discussed.
I could see some real value in all three entities together
and having a really excellent report from MOFD
as council member Hoxie mentioned,
simply because it is always good for them
to bring in the status or and maybe it actually involves
the other entities as well, like East Bay Mudd
and the Park District and all that,
because getting an update on where they all are,
we do all get piece parts of it from the various things
that we participate in committee wise
or the political level interactions that we have.
But I think maybe this year would be a good time
at some point to really get a really good update
of where things are.
Again, those of us that participate in the two by two
do get more information on a more regular basis.
So I understand that it's hard to make all of that coordinate.
But, you know, I just want to make sure it is obviously,
we all know it's challenging to have that kind of meeting.
And so if we're going to do it, I just, you know,
my vote would be that, yeah, I'm all for it if,
as long as we can make it, you know,
targeted and valuable in a way that, you know,
because again, some of these other issues, you know,
are probably more like staff level
and other briefing type issues.
But if we, if we can bring it together in a way that,
again, gives the both communities an opportunity
be together and hear all at once. I'm certainly willing to do so. I wonder if, you know, Chief
Isaacs does not do kind of an annual report to us the way Chief Rossi tonight did the annual report,
and so I'm wondering if maybe instead of focusing on the board members as the elected board, but if
if we had the chief come and be able to sort of talk
about, you know, sort of what they're doing
because it is very confusing.
I mean, the first two years of being elected,
I couldn't understand the message of, you know,
well, we just suppress fires
and everything else is somebody else, right?
It is confusing.
And so to maybe be able to have a conversation
with just the chief and us might be another way
to try to have these conversations
where it doesn't feel, because you're right,
the idea of 15 electeds all in a room
feels incredibly not constructive.
Unless there's, again, the zone zero was something of like,
we are all going to have to get our arms
around this collectively,
so we all had a shared problem to attack.
versus it being like M-O-F-D reporting to the two cities?
I'm struggling with the best forum to do that.
Can I ask a really, okay, go ahead.
Can you respond to that?
Maybe it's like a two-step process.
Maybe you first have a presentation by the chief,
and then we see what percolates,
and maybe we can narrow the issues
find a happy topic that would work with 15 people. I don't know. Maybe we won't. Maybe
we'll be satisfied with that update. Also, do we know, does the Chief do an annual
report, or is there some sort of annual reporting that MFFD puts out? Is there something-
Don't know. I can find out. Maybe I can look into that. Yeah. I don't know either.
I will say from the school two-by-two, the school does, and I had always meant to, in
the years that I was on the two-by-two, bring back the two or three slides that we sort
of had to ask them to share with us some of the highlights from that, because they would
do that from the school district to the school board.
But then we'd always have to say like, hey, will you tell us some of the highlights about
enrollment and friends. And then as the two by two, we never actually brought that forward
other than things were great. So there's probably a version like that.
Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of different... I mean, it's good. This is brainstorming. There's
a lot of different issues. One is generally when we have these committees, whether it's
transportation or recycle smart or schools or or you know M.O.F.D. like how much how do we how do
we when we learn that information share it with the full council in an efficient way and I feel
like that's a whole separate topic because by definition you can't get in the granular unless
we have an engendized item right and then maybe there are certain subjects where we want to bring
it back annually. So I guess I guess I would say this. I'm really on the fence about the joint
meeting. And so I'm, what is the topic? I guess from my perspective, part of the topic would be
like an annual report to report to both Moraga and Arinda, what, you know, what they're doing,
right? Generally oversight of the kinds of calls they take, what actions they're taking to protect
our communities, what larger initiatives they have, just an understanding of what exactly they
believe their mission and what they're doing because it feels like we're all trying to solve
the same problem. Is it focused on overall services or is it focused on wildfire prevention?
Oh both, not just one, it's both. No I'm asking. For me it's both those things. I mean my
My understanding is most of their service calls are medical, not fire, they're very
few home fires.
But I would like just a general overview and understanding.
I don't even know exactly, I could figure it out, how many stations they have, how many
firefighters are on duty, how many calls they get, what other activities their firefighters
are supposed to be doing on a daily basis in addition to responding to calls.
doing wildfire prevention work? Who's other than the inspector? Who's doing
citations? What kind of outreach are they spending money doing? I mean, it feels
like it's repetitive, right? We're spending money doing outreach. They're
spending money doing outreach. FISMO may be spending, I don't know, other
organizations. Firewise, it feels like we're all trying to do the same sorts of
things, and spending money doing it in an uncoordinated way.
I mean, on that I would totally disagree. I think there's a
incredible amount of coordination, just respectfully.
I hear you, but it's not.
And I don't think there's a lot of repetition. There is some on a
couple things and coordination is there's a continued constant
effort to have that coordination. So I do think it's
important that before we have a meeting that we sort of have some education about well,
that was the point of bringing this up was that we could have the conversation because
unless it's on our agenda, the five of us can't even talk about it. So I mean that that's
that's the point. And as you acknowledge, you go to the SSTOC meetings, you go to them
two by two meetings, I'm not on those committees. So I don't go to those meetings. So I don't
At this time.
You know, if we can't discuss it in this environment,
then we can't discuss it.
And I assume that the other councils have similar issues.
That they can't discuss things either.
So I guess.
I'm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thoughts.
to have the chief come talk to us and then see what happens.
We've done that before. I feel like maybe we should start with that as well or just have
an agenda item for ourselves, right? Where it's staff and then we couldn't, do you think the
Chief Isaacs would be receptive to? To coming to a council meeting and a report?
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, he's been very gracious up until now about coming. I guess
I wouldn't want it to feel like he's getting any direction from the council. That's not his board.
I would, if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn't want to show up to an MOFD board meeting
and be asked to make a presentation and have to answer questions about Arinda, right? I mean,
And I think it's, I would be a little sensitive to that, just as the administrator of this.
Right.
That's what I was...
Yeah.
I mean, I think if I could offer some help in this discussion, I would say, I've been
taking notes of the things that you all have been saying and trying to figure out, well,
what could potentially be possible topics for a joint meeting, but that maybe having
that conversation at the two by two to see if there's concurrence with M.O.F.D. to have those
types of topics being raised. And if there's a willingness, you know, by those two board
members representing Arinda to advocate to do this as well with the chief. So what I captured
thus far is that there's an interest in information sharing on capital projects. What are they doing?
What are I mean, what I would assume we would share what we're doing on capital projects that
might be of interest to them, they would share with us. For example, my understanding is that
they're planning to rebuild a couple of fire stations, so maybe they could share a little
bit about that. I heard that there was some interest in getting some information on call
volumes and types of calls that they're responding to in our communities. There's a request for
information on wildfire preparedness activities. What are the things that MOFD is working on,
and, prospectively, what are Moraga and Aranda working on, topics around the North Aranda
shaded fuel break, how they're working with outside agencies, and then I heard fire technology,
what's happening with fire technology, and how is it advancing to help protect communities.
I know there have been changes in the services that have been provided to the two communities,
particularly around ambulance service, so if there's a desire to get an update on how,
I mean, it's early in the process, but certainly if the Council wanted to hear more about how that's
going, particularly because ARINDA has finally got its own ambulance service housed here in ARINDA.
And then maybe if the follow-up would be partnership opportunities, where are there,
in terms of a global conversation, are there other opportunities for partnership between
the three agencies. I think you could have additional topics that are just two by two
topics, which could be around enforcement and compliance support for the senior community.
That doesn't necessarily, I don't see that rising to the level of a joint meeting, but
maybe that's a topic can be discussed at two by two and then reported back at our upcoming
council meeting, maybe a little bit more information on their outreach and education efforts and
and how they connect their ambassador programs
with those enforcement activities that are going on.
Obviously a conversation about CHIP or program coordination,
funding for FISMO and the actions
that potentially the city council will be taking
to help to consider additional funding
or shifting programs that we're offering to FISMO.
And then any other additional coordination
we could come up with around grant programs
between the fuel mitigation work we're doing
and the home hardening grants that they're providing.
So those to me seem like two by two topics,
and then maybe an elevated, if there is possible topics,
we could bring those potential joint meeting topics back
to the MOFD to talk about, but I listed six of those
that I came up with out of this discussion.
I love that.
If I may though, everything that you repeated back
were the... those were sort of the softballs. Those were the things that were the easy and clear and
the unambiguous. And what Councilmember Hoxie was really focused on was the messiest gray area
portions that it was so interesting to me that Councilmember Malconney saw there to be great
coordination and great clarity. And I found myself really hearing what Councilmember Hoxie was saying,
which is until, I don't know, five, seven, ten years ago, the fire department suppressed
fires and did paramedic work. And the city, with its police force, did evacuation and
nothing about fire was the city's role. And in the last, I don't know, five, eight years,
there's all of this fire resiliency infrastructure that is a whole new thing that has an education
It has education component. It has a home hardening component. It has. So there's there's fire ordinances that get enforced, but then we feel quite a bit of pressure about education, helping people with their vegetation removal, helping people know what to do.
told that the M.O.F.D. is not, it's not their job to educate, build awareness, provide grants,
help homeowners, help them know what to do, help them know about evacuation. So we're
filling all those gaps. And so I think there's still huge gray area because fire resilience
as a type of, I always call it like the third leg of the infrastructure stool, is relatively
new as a city service because it's sort of a fire service, it's sort of not a fire service.
And now because we have this Measure R bond, a finance advisory committee on how we spend
our measure our bond has become the fire preparation and resilience expert committee and they're
doing a fabulous job but it's weird that they're a bond committee that has formed that role
to sort of become experts and coordinate so I I found myself really agreeing with your
talking about redundancies and ambiguities and and duplication of effort and and sort
of the city winds up picking up all the loose stuff. City manager when you talked about all
the things that the fire department might report on, those are the things that were clearly the
fire department's roles, but all of this sort of muck that we're trying to figure out. I don't
know. I don't know that the fire department would necessarily report on that because those things
aren't really their job.
But I do feel like that maybe the two by two could,
I don't know, I'm surprised that you find it very clear
and Vice Mayor G, it's seen,
I'm sort of reading the body language,
it seems like you find it pretty clear.
And I find it constantly confusing.
And I'm just wondering how we as a group
can maybe agendize it or talk about it in a way that,
Where we can talk about it and not have to involve other agencies and other people
to maybe get better a
Better sense of direction and and maybe councilmember Hoxie and I just need to take board members of mofd to lunch or something
But well also wondering what what I have no idea what maraga does
I know a lot about what are into does and the efforts we've made with
Arendaretti, and Ladras, and all these different things.
I have no idea if Moraga has taken any of these efforts
towards educating people in Moraga.
I guess, okay, here's one thing though.
I don't actually know all of the amazing work
that Vice Mayor Jeats is doing with CCTA right now.
Like I can't tell you exactly what you're doing.
I can tell you I'm spending a lot of hours at it.
That's because, well, I know.
And I'm just acknowledging with appreciation.
And I don't really know other than our annual report
what happens with Recycle Smart.
And frankly, I don't feel like I really knew anything
about what was happening at the school two by two last year
or the year before.
So I think that if we wanna learn more about a subject
as a full council, we need to agendaize that subject
and so that we are self-educated about it.
And I think that's where we need to start, right?
On any one of those subjects.
So, because those of us who have been in the weeds
do feel like there's some coordination,
I'm not saying everything's perfect,
there's constant issues, but you know,
so there's different levels.
There's an overall view of what MOFD does,
which we could certainly do that,
but I don't know that we need to,
I mean, we could invite the chief to present
with a really clear topic,
but a lot of the answers to a lot of these questions,
including the North Orenda Firebreak, the latest.
You know, I think that our staff can answer, right?
So I think we should just,
to be constructive and move forward,
I think we should just start by agendizing,
not just an SSTFC report,
but maybe an overview report
that could touch on some of these items.
Is that something that staff could do without,
I hate to put any additional work on staff
because that's what we're doing,
but you know, and maybe it could simply be
a more informal presentation
where some of these questions could be addressed
or would you want us from the two by two
to help give the report and we could,
I don't know how to do it.
I'm trying to satisfy this need for,
I think, some discussion, a venue for discussion,
sharing more sharing of information
on an important topic to our community,
but also I don't wanna do a joint meeting
unless we're really, really, really clear
about what that topic is, right?
And if it's an overview, that's one thing.
But, you know, I don't share your hesitancy.
I feel like having Moraga, for instance,
hear all the efforts we've taken in Orinda
might be helpful to Moraga.
I'd like to hear what they've been doing.
I just feel like we're all working in our vacuums
and our bubbles.
And I just don't understand your hesitancy.
That's a perspective though.
So my hesitancy is comments like we're all working
in our vacuums and our bubbles,
because respectfully I disagree and I don't want,
I would not want to communicate that.
I mean, it's different opinions,
but I wouldn't communicate that.
I would push back on that if it was communicated too,
because we've worked very, very, very hard,
including there's been so much work behind the scenes
to improve coordination and improve relationships
that frankly were not always good.
And I don't want to see that hard work
jeopardized by us going into,
I would like to see us self-educate first
before we have a joint meeting,
at least so that we are answering questions internally
and then have a clear scope of a joint meeting.
I'm not suggesting we jeopardize anything.
The idea is to improve discussion and communication,
not to at all jeopardize the relationships
that have been developed.
So I don't know, I don't know.
I guess my, my view would be,
I mean, is there consensus or agreement
that we should at least.
Okay, I'm gonna put it out there
for someone else to offer something.
I do agree that I think maybe there's some,
we need to have some more discussion
or have some more mechanism
on maybe how we can better share information.
But I think the initial effort should be us.
Again, I'm fine with a big meeting
if again, it has a very defined topic
because it is very hard to put 15 elected officials
and a lot of key staff in a room
and be able to make it meaningful
unless there's been a topic that's been gelled down
that really, really works for everyone.
So I just don't want to go there
unless that's been well defined.
It sounds to me listening to the conversation tonight
that a lot more of it is about trying to find ways
that we can better communicate.
And maybe we need some kind of a meeting workshop
or something where we can explore ways that we can do that.
Because I mean, there's no doubt
that we all have very different perspectives
based on what we serve on
and how long we've been on the council
or what we've been doing, or what we've been exposed to.
And so trying to find a way to communicate
all that is challenging.
And our staff already has a completely full plate,
so maybe we can explore that a little bit more.
But it sounds to me like
that's kind of what we need to do first.
I'm not objecting to getting together
with our colleagues that's always has the potential
to be beneficial and has the potential
to give the public access to everybody all at once.
But I also look at what the regular attendance is
at the Tri-Cities meeting,
and it's usually amazingly not very much.
So I could see Moraga, Arinda and MOFT together
being more interest than the tri-cities.
But again, I think it has to be a pretty specific topic
if we're gonna do it.
I am loathe to say this, but I actually feel like
council member Mal Kani and city manager Smith
could almost do this off the top of their heads
with no written materials to talk about,
But no, but to talk about MOFD does this.
SSTOC does this, this city of Aranda does this,
the police do this.
This is where we have open issues we're working on.
This, you know, education, home hardening,
suppression, evacuation, emergency response.
I feel like from conversations
I've had with you individually,
a lot of this is just stuff you guys know
and work with all the time that I think Council Member Hoxie
and I from some of our comments tonight feels to us
like there are many groups all trying to solve
the same problem in parallel.
I love hearing that the people that are closest to it
feel like there is narrowing and progress.
And so I just, that's what I said.
I'm loath to say it because I'm pretty sure if we just said,
let's agendize it and you guys just talk,
that would be not the way you'd want to handle it.
But nor do I want to create an annual report by MOFD
that they're not otherwise doing.
I don't know if there's a way that we can do something
that doesn't become a big work project,
but that it can at least clarify why those of us
that don't sit in on these meetings feel like
citizen education is not handled.
What about,
so we did, and I would say Vice Mayor G also,
probably knows a lot about this.
I think we have a lot of agenda items before us
in the next few months, so that's the only,
but if we were to do some,
I mean, we did a separate workshop
for the Ivy Drive thing, and that was...
I know a lot of work, but also I think for some of us,
for me speaking personally, that was when I,
you know, the materials provided and the public comment
and that workshop really gave an understanding of an issue
that hadn't really, I mean,
had come to the full council a couple of times,
but so a workshop, I think, can be useful.
I'm wondering if we should have a workshop on that we do on our own,
or it would also just give us a time for more discussion about this, frankly,
which is probably some of what we might need.
I don't know. Is that something that anyone thinks would be useful?
I would enjoy that. I don't know if there's
just a one hour workshop before a regular meeting to just be
able to talk about maybe where those of us who aren't on these
committees perceive there to be redundancies or gaps. And those
of you that are closer to it can explain it. Maybe we would
invite the chief as a guest. I don't know. Maybe we would talk
internally first and then narrow issues.
And I don't think there's any rush to do that.
I wouldn't feel the need to do that
in the next two or three months.
I agree, there's no rush.
And I think, you know, that would be instructive.
And I have to assume that all the questions
that I as a council member have,
the community has those questions and more,
which is a good reason to have a workshop.
And then we can see what the next steps
after that would be.
And I do think that some of the coordination was sort of discussed or explained or the
different roles. And this wasn't all of it, because it doesn't address like some of the
overlapping chipper issues and the overlapping incentive programs. But some of it, just for like,
you know, overview, included presentations from Chief Isaacs, from Chief Rossi,
from our city manager. When we did our community education nights, especially the first one we did
last year. I think that video maybe as a starting ground could be circulated just as a refresher
to the Council. I'm sort of looking at our city clerk if we can to city manager if we can dig it
up and because it came with the PowerPoint. I actually think it's a great I did not watch
that video so I think that's I know you're trying to say it's already on our YouTube channel anybody
can any member of the public can view that. I actually think that's a really good suggestion
I have not watched it and I think that'd be a great starting point to, you know, use the work that's already been done.
And then I'd still be interested in maybe being able to talk amongst ourselves about what we're concerned about, whether that's a workshop or just an agenda item, I don't know.
I guess the one of the questions that comes to my mind is is how much of what
people are struggling to figure out would be just factual like there's a lot
of factual information that can be pulled together really quick I mean so
if it's just a matter of understanding you know how many calls does MOFD make
for medical how many do that you know all that information can be compiled
really quickly, if it's more questions about, you know, who coordinates with what,
how, I mean, I guess part of it is because I because I've heard kind of a
mix of both things tonight, and so maybe it's pretty easy and quick to
figure out the factual stuff that can be pulled out pretty darn quickly and, you
know, compiled in a way that, you know, maybe makes it a lot easier for people
to access the information.
And then the coordination part maybe
can be discussed in a different way.
But trying to understand the difference, I think,
is important, because putting it all together
then seems like an overwhelming project,
whereas there's an awful lot of factual data
that can surface pretty quickly.
Right, and the factual data, like I said,
it's easy to figure out how many calls, how many fire stations.
that stuff is easy to figure out.
What I was hoping to understand better
is sort of what MOFD itself thinks its role is.
I guess with that, I mean, each one of us
can also individually talk to the direct,
our Linda directors, right?
That might be also a good place to get some sense of that.
because I don't know that anyone here can answer.
Right, that's why I wanted a joint meeting
so that was something we could better understand.
Joint thing is each organization's roles.
We're at 10 o'clock.
I know this is the last item on the agenda
and I feel like we're, we may not get close
to sort of talking ourselves out on it.
move to extend the meeting until 10 10. I would second 10 10 all in favor. I mean we
don't have to have a resolution tonight. I'm glad we could have a discussion and
that it was on the agenda. I think that there's more to discuss in my opinion.
I do see a value in the joint meeting so that the directors of all three
organizations can have an understanding of their organization's roles and
responsibilities and how everything fits together. And I'm curious what the
board president of MOFD would say they feel their role and responsibility is.
I don't want to put words into their mouth. So that that's sort of where I'm
coming from. But we can take intermediate steps as a council with a workshop or
whatever, you know, it's a process. It's not like it's going to happen overnight.
if nothing doesn't government, it's not supposed to, right?
So that's all fine.
I do see an opportunity to, at our next demo,
I have two by two to talk about some of the conversation
that's happened tonight.
And maybe solicit some feedback at that time
from the fire chief and from the two directors
representing our community to see how they feel about,
you know, what we can talk about.
I do think that some of the things
that council member Hoxie has brought up
where she perceives there potentially to be gaps.
Those do feel like two by two topics to me.
The enforcement and compliance support,
connecting those dots and maybe educating the two by two,
like what really happens when someone gets that letter?
And then what are the appropriate next steps?
What are they finding happening with the community?
Are they getting responses?
Are they getting people to comply?
Do they see the same issues that anecdotally
you're hearing about?
Sort of those types of things.
Education and outreach connected to enforcement.
I don't, I think that's another dot.
We could potentially just connect in the two by two.
Maybe report back and then there's maybe
out of that discussion there's some topic
that maybe rises to a joint meeting.
I don't know.
And I do believe that that chipper program
coordination conversation should happen at the two by two.
It has nothing to do with Meraga
because Moraga's not doing any of it right now,
other than relying on the MOFD program.
And ultimately maybe reporting back,
because I think we might be taking up
the FISMO discussion here
before the next two by two meeting with MOFD.
So maybe just reporting back out at that two by two
about the decisions, whatever those decisions are,
that the city made with respect to funding FISMO,
and maybe pressing again on MOFD
to find ways to partner with this nonprofit
to get education going and putting money out
into the community to help improve wildfire preparedness
and resilience in our community.
The fax information, I'm sure I can pull together
that information and share that back to the council.
I think it's probably relatively ready available.
I can get that from the chief.
And then there's these, I think the bigger conversation
about roles and responsibilities I think is what I'm hearing
would be a topic of for a joint meeting.
Although if I'm another agency,
that kind of scares me a little bit, right?
Where we're gonna be tackling who's responsible for what,
when, and they, and you might get some feedback
at the two by two about if you bring up that topic,
what they think their role is,
and that feedback could be brought back to this council
in a workshop and see if there's more to be said.
I am struggling a little bit similarly
about how to frame this up for a workshop
because I, so if it's, if more information can come back
from the two by two where maybe you've gotten feedback
from MOFD and it starts to solidify a little bit more
for you and maybe report back to on an agendized item
for this meeting and not just a report
of council member reports, but an agenda item
of any outcomes from that last two by two.
That'd be good.
Could we after our next two by two then schedule
like a one hour workshop where we have it
before our council meeting so that we actually
have time to discuss?
Sure.
We can report back and then discuss those issues
and get feedback.
Yep.
That makes sense.
Okay.
I think that all makes a lot of sense.
And I really appreciate you guys understanding
that for some of us,
it really does feel like MOFD makes ordinances
and enforces them,
and everything about complying with their ordinance
is our problem.
I look forward to watching the video before the workshop
and really trying to understand and make sure that we,
you know, and the line might be we're education
their enforcement and that's fine. But this felt actually like something that's going
to be helpful. So appreciate those of you for whom this is not confusing putting up
with it.
It's not like completely clairvoyant in every respect. There isn't like complete coordination
on everything. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that we went from nobody doing anything
to yes a lot being done and then there was overlap and now there's a ton more coordination. So I'm
just saying we've improved like you know it's you know we're on a good track overall our community
is really safe. Orinda's way ahead of Moraga in my opinion that's my personal opinion but you know
our residents benefit. And one request I would I would like to know what Moraga is and is not
doing, just as part of the background. Doesn't need to be a group meeting, but just in some
point, just so we kind of know. I don't think there's any formal action be taken here. Does
staff feel that you've cut somewhat direction? I believe I have some direction. I've got the
notes I've taken from this meeting and I'll work with Chief Isaacs and getting scheduled and
and agendizing topics for the next two by two.
And we will have the next two by two
and then after that, we'll have a workshop
to discuss what was discussed.
Well, thank you all very much.
This was a more in-depth topic than maybe just,
should we have a meeting or not?
So thank you.
Any matters initiated?
With that, Council Member Hoxie,
do you have any matters initiated?
Without a move, we adjourn.
Alright.
Thank you.