Okay, here we go. It's seven o'clock and I'm calling to order this meeting of the San
Lando City Council. Today is Monday, October 19th. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Stand if you're able to.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Madam Clerk, would you please take roll?
Councilmember James Aguilar.
Present.
Councilmember. Councilmember.
Number of the arts culture and library commission is 10 a and I'd like to move this up to section for recognitions
If no one is opposed so we will do that
Let's see if San Landro conducts orderly meetings to fulfill its mandate and discriminatory statements or conduct that would potentially violate the federal Civil Rights Act
1964 and or the California Fair Employment and Housing Act
California penal code sections four three or four fifteen are per se disruptive to meeting and will not be tolerated
Please see the City Council handbook and City Council meeting rules of decorum for more information
Madam clerk your announcement, please
If you would like to make a public comment during the meeting you can do so in person or via zoom
If you were present at the meeting
Please complete a speaker card and submitted to the city clerk before the item is presented
Then wait for public comment on that item to be called if you wish to participate in public comment via zoom
you can use the raise your hand tool when the item is called. During the public comment session speakers will be invited to speak and
will have a set time to share their comments. A countdown timer will appear for their convenience,
and when the time is up the microphone will be muted. All raised hands outside of public comment will be lowered to avoid confusion.
Once public comment is open hands may be raised to speak.
There will be a 30-minute window for public comments on items not on the agenda which will take place under item 7,
Public comments as per the published agenda. After this time is up
The council will proceed with the rest of the meetings agenda
If you have not had the opportunity to speak during the initial 30-minute period
There will be another chance to do so after item 12 City Council reports
Thank You madam clerk at this point time we report out on closed session
Good discussion. No reportable action. There we go. So item number four
We do have the appointment of Nancy Brown to the Arts Culture and Library Commission and Madam Clerk
Would you please proceed with this item?
Thank you mayor. Yes this evening
We have the appointment of Nancy Brown to the Arts Culture and Library Commission for a term ending December 31st
2026
Following council action. Ms. Brown is here in the audience and is scheduled to receive the oath of office this evening
And I do believe she was already nominated. And so this is just more the minute
motion to make it happen officially. So can I have a motion please? Councilmember
Bowen please. So moved. May I have a second? Councilmember James Aguilar? I'll second. So we
have a motion a second and we do need to clear up one technicality not related to
this item so everyone can breathe easy. We forgot to have Councilmember Victor
Aguilar who is present remotely as a under just cause to make such a
statement and read the required components to make that legal and official and appropriate
and whatever other words I need to say to allow him to participate.
Madam Clerk would you please pass the baton to him so that he can make a statement.
Yes council regular. Thank you Mayor I am requesting just cause due to
notice and there is nobody over the age of 18 with me in there I'm sorry under the age of 18.
Okay, thank you very much and just and I know you will do this because you're very good about following all that
But just a reminder you have to keep your camera on
When you're operating under just cause so for this item, we have a motion and a second to a point
Miss Brown to the Commission
Seeing no further discussion, please vote
Councilmember Victor Aguilar your vote, please and
Councilmember bolt. I
Thank you all votes are in and the motion carries unanimously with all members voting yes
Thank you very much, Miss Brown
Are you ready to see the oath of office as a commissioner? Please step forward. I
Please state your name
I Nancy Brown do solemnly swear or affirm
to solemnly swear and affirm that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California and the
Constitution of the state of California
Against all enemies foreign and domestic against all enemies foreign and domestic
That I will bear true faith and allegiance
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States
To the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California and the Constitution of the state of California
That I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation
without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or
Purpose of evasion purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge
And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter
The duties upon which I'm about to enter
Congratulations, thank you
So, thank you for your service
At this point in we'll move to item number five our consent
Calendar are would any members like to pull an item from the consent calendar if not, I will move to public comment on this item
Seeing none and check online for me
Nothing online. So let us move to public comment. So you would like to point out public comment on this item, please
Mayor we have not received any comment cards on the consent calendar and we presently have one hand raised online
Okay, so we will close public comment in person. We're now opening public comment online. Please proceed
our online speaker is
Alvaro remos
Yes, I was looking at item 5e and
The one thing that stood out to me that really I've been hearing around a lot of public meetings people talking about
with the predicted wet weather associated with the
the city of El Nino. And I'm
on the 26th 2027 El Nino weather
event. Staff recommended
proceeding with work as quickly
as possible to prevent possible
sewage overflow and flooding.
And I found this to be important
because I wanted to make a
similar point on item 5A.
for the Manor-Mullford Library. And I have to ask, you know, is the furniture waterproof?
How resilient is it? I mean, nothing lasts forever. But when I see the word, you know,
wood printed, I don't know if that is just like a vinyl coating of wood. But, you know,
I think my concern with this, the location of this library is that it is on the coast.
And if ever, you know, I'm not wishing for a flood, but it could happen.
We know if you lived around here enough, long enough, you know that Washington Manor could
flood.
And so I just, if there is a flood, I would be concerned if, you know, the furniture would
get wet and deteriorate.
I mean, I guess there's also other considerations to think about, like, you know, library books
that's deteriorating from moisture and wood just deteriorating from moisture because we
are a coastal city. But I just wanted to point that out because I really want to know if,
how resilient is the furniture so we don't have to keep buying new furniture every time
there's wetness or flooding. Think about that in the future.
Thank you. The next online speaker is Douglas Spaulding. Douglas Spaulding. Mr. Spaulding,
If you're there, we cannot hear you,
but I see you're unmuted.
Mr. Spalding?
Mayor, are there no more hands raised online?
Okay, so we'll close public comment online
and come back to council members for motion and or discussion.
Council member James Aguilar.
Mayor, I'd like to move to approve the consent calendar.
Thank you.
Council, we have a motion from Council member James Aguilar.
Vice Mayor, please.
Second.
with a second of that same motion by Vice Mayor. Any further discussion? Seeing none please vote.
Council member Victor Aguilar your vote please. Thank you. Council member Bold.
Yes. Thank you. All votes are in and the motion carries unanimously with all members present
and all members voting yes. So thank you for that. At this point in time do we have any
city manager assistant city manager report anything nope okay so we will
move past item number six to item number seven it's opportunity now for
members of the public to comment on matters that are not on our agenda today
that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of this body Mayor we
received one comment card and there are two hands raised online so let's begin
in person please. Our in-person commenter is Leslie Watson. Hello again city council. My name is Leslie
Watson. I live in Florester Gardens. I'm a public school teacher, so I understand how challenging it
is to serve the public. I know that you all didn't simply walk into City Hall to be here. You saw a
need in your community that you felt wasn't being served, so you wanted to help. You canvassed the
the neighborhoods of San Leandro, you listened to your fellow citizens, and you showed them
something that compelled them to vote for you. I also know that you're all much more
experienced with city policy than I am, and I'm sure that many of those procedures have
prevented you from being able to serve your community in the way you originally intended.
I respect that commitment, and I really want to respect all of you, but at the same time,
I'm a citizen in that community who's asked for help on behalf of my neighborhood, and
I don't feel seen or supported by you, my city leaders, at all.
Four weeks ago, I addressed you about my feral cat problem in my neighborhood, and I want
to again thanks Councilwoman Bowen for honoring my request to add the creation of City Code
toward resolving the issue.
My District 3 representative, Councilman Victor Aguilar, told me that he forwarded my email
to city staff, but no one from the city has reached out.
Three weeks ago, I asked for an update.
I still haven't heard anything.
I'm frustrated.
My neighbors and I are facing a public health risk daily.
My neighbors with children have to thoroughly inspect
their front and backyards before allowing their children
to play safely on their own properties.
I have two dogs, and those of you with dogs might know,
they really love to eat cat poop.
So that's also a problem for me.
One of the things that I love about my community
is that people are really active,
we're always out walking, whether or not people have dogs.
And I can't walk around my neighborhood without smelling
or seeing cat feces or diseased cats.
We've tried animal control,
we've tried Alameda County vector control.
They can't enforce the county codes
that are supposed to keep our neighborhood
free of pests and disease.
So I'm asking you again to please help me
and my neighbors in floristra gardens.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Mayor, there are no more cards from in the room.
So we will move in, we'll close in person,
public comment and move online, please.
The first online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.
Thank you, city clerk.
Are you able to hear me now?
Yes.
That's what happens when you get a new device
and you don't know what you're doing.
Well, there has been so much activity
on the streets of San Leandro.
And I mean, literally slurry on the streets of San Leandro
and repaving.
It is amazing how much work is happening right now.
Is there an election coming up?
Oh my goodness.
I was at the Estadio States Neighborhood Association
candidates forum last Tuesday evening at the library.
Thank you very much, E-E-N-A, for putting that on.
And, you know, one of the big roads came up
and that would be Lake Chabot Road.
And I was disappointed to hear our very own mayor say
unequivocally, he does favor reopening the road
and he's spending a lot of time lobbying his ally,
Liz Ortega and others to raise the necessary dollars
to open Lake Chabot Road.
Now, I'm not really sure how that works
because the $1.5 million figure I heard cited
doesn't really seem sufficient to redo sections two and three
nor does it seem we'd be able to get the money
that we do need without kind of mortgaging our future
going into a whole lot of debt.
And I'm just really scratching my head over this one.
Why is Lake Chabot Road so important?
We've managed now a couple of years
without Lake Chabot Road.
And meanwhile, we have firehouses,
the Lapidata Firehouses where the roofs
are literally caving in,
the next big temblor is gonna take them down.
why are we not raising money for those essential services?
Lake Chabot Road is not essential,
and I live one block away from the closure.
My street doesn't go through, but I'm right there.
So, thank you very much, I'll be listening some more.
Bye bye.
Thank you.
The next online speaker is Alvaro Ramos.
Well, I just wanted to provide a few reminders
that November 3rd is election day.
And I also wanted to let people know, to vote no,
on five propositions in particular.
Let's start with Proposition 43,
which cuts public services by restricting local taxes
from funding public services that our communities need.
The consequence of Prop 43 will be cuts to police,
fire 911 for emergencies, street maintenance,
senior services, libraries, public education,
parks and recreation.
And then there are Proposition 42 and Proposition 41.
Both these propositions trick voters
to stop the billionaire tax and Prop 40.
It's time for rich people to pay their fair share of taxes.
I mean, if you literally have to have three propositions
on a ballot just because you don't wanna be taxed
because you are so rich, you gotta vote no on these three.
Now, Proposition 45 deregulates
California environmental reviews
on destructive projects by private developers.
Prop 45 basically would end up polluting our environment
and shortening the lifespans of Californians.
And then finally, there is Proposition 39,
which rigs elections by stealing your voting rights.
We already use ID cards when we go to register to vote.
And there's a lot of talk about voter fraud,
but voter fraud is a hoax.
It's a total narrative that's been made up and manufactured.
Prop 39 would end up restricting all voters
to keep us from voting in American elections.
so vote no on Prop 43, Prop 41, Prop 42, Prop 45 and Prop 39.
Vote no, tell everyone you know.
Thank you.
Mayor, there are no more hands raised online.
So thank you very much
for that well-closed public comment on those items.
We'll move to our public hearing.
So there's a public hearing
to bring our zoning code sections
into conformance with state law
because there have been updates to state law.
So in theory, this is a relatively simple process
that we'll undertake today.
And we've got Waylon Lee, planning manager here
to introduce the item.
Good evening Mayor Gonzalez and members of the city council.
I'm Waylon Lee, I'm the city's planning manager.
And tonight staff is asking the city council
to introduce an ordinance updating the city's regulations
pertaining to accessory dwelling units or ADUs.
This presentation will cover why we're making these changes,
what they do, and what will happen next.
First, why are we updating our ADU regulations?
For some context, ADUs are a heavily regulated
or a housing type that's heavily regulated by the state.
Over the past decade or so,
legislature has significantly narrowed what state what cities can regulate
meaning where 80s can go how large they can be parking setbacks fees and so
forth almost all the standards are ADU code are now set by the state and very
little discretion remains at the local level but nevertheless the city
maintains local ADU ordinance and that ordinance has was last updated in 2022
and since then the legislature has adopted about a dozen bills amending
state AD law. The purpose of this ordinance is simple to bring our zoning
code into compliance with current state law. I like to note that these state
requirements are already in effect and staff already applies them when
reviewing ADUs so the ordinance doesn't actually change how we process ADUs
internally. It simply puts the rules into our code so residents and builders and
and staff can find accurate information in one place.
It also fits with our pro-housing goals
of streamlining the review process
to deliver housing to the community more effectively.
State law now requires cities to submit their AD ordinances
to the State Department of Housing and Community Development,
or HCD, after adoption.
To reduce risk of HCD determining
that ordinance is not in compliance,
staff has restructured the ordinance to follow the organization and the wording
in state law as closely as possible. I'll just go over some highlights of the
changes to local ordinance. The ordinance clarifies the maximum number of ADUs
that are allowed in a lot for both single-family and multi-family lots. For
single-family lot under certain conditions that would be a maximum of
three ADUs and one junior ADU and on multi-family lots the law was clarified
so that to specify a maximum of eight detached ADUs on a multifamily lot but
never more than the existing number of units for the multifamily building.
Regarding processing, staff now has 15 business days to determine completeness
and we can't add new items after that first in completeness letter. Also staff
applicants can now appeal a denial or in a completeness determination. For
existing unpermitted ADUs the city cannot deny legalization of an
unpermitted ADU that was built before 2020 unless correctly it is necessary
for health and safety reasons. Order occupancy for JADUs is now only
required when a bathroom is shared with the main house and finally the standard
for measuring maximum unit size is now measured based on interior livable space
rather than exterior of the walls. Regarding next steps, if the council
introduces the ordinance tonight, the second reading is scheduled for November
16th and then after adoption staff would submit the ordinance to HCD. Staff has
observed that HCD has sent comment letters to many jurisdictions on their
AD ordinances and sometimes resulting in several rounds of comments. That's
because AD law is extremely nuanced and complex and it's difficult to capture
all the requirements. With that being said staff has reviewed state law
extremely carefully in preparation the ordinance and we believe we've addressed
every requirement. If HCD-ASR changes we may come back to the council next year
with some with some changes. That concludes my presentation. I am available
to answer any questions that the council may have. Okay so just for a matter of
process we will take any clarifying questions. If there are none we'll open
the public hearing, take public comment on the hearing, close the public hearing,
and then come back to Council for any discussions before a vote. Do we have any clarifying questions
on this conformance that's being proposed? Seeing none, let's go to public comment in
the form of opening our public hearing. The public hearing is open at 7.25.
Mayor, we have not received any comment cards on this item, and there are no hands raised
online.
As a matter of courtesy, we'll wait a few more seconds to see if somebody wants to raise
the public. We do want to use
of the California Voting Rights Act,
that's always a good practice.
But I think it's particularly important
during this time of housing need.
And I think it seems apparent to everyone
that we need housing by all means necessary.
And this is a particular kind of infill
that has a lot of potential in our city.
I am one of those that thinks slash dreams about putting
in ADU in my backyard.
Will it fit?
Will it fit?
Yeah, I even had people come out and estimate and draw plans
and stuff like that.
But I know people that have done it
have done just tremendous loads and loads and loads of research.
And I'm wondering if the city has ever
considered offering some kind of ADU class,
just to kind of explain, you know, how it's done
and what the limits are.
Like, you know, I had never heard of a JADU
before I opened the agenda for tonight,
but, you know, looked it up and oh, that makes kind of sense.
But I wonder, you know, the existing apartment in my house,
is there any advantage to, you know,
now reworking it and defining it as JADU?
So, you know, questions like that,
it would be very, very nice to have a place to go
and get information along with like-minded folks
because you know, more heads are better than one
and often other people ask good questions
that I have never thought about.
So that's merely my suggestion too as a corollary
to the action you're about to take tonight, thank you.
Thank you.
Mayor there are more hands raised online.
So it's 7.27 and we are closing the public hearing.
come back to see if there's any council discussion on this item. Checking online
for sure. Any hands raised there? Okay, perfect. So I do need a motion on this
item. Councilmember Simon. I have a question. Please proceed. And then I'd
like to move it. My question on the item about 15-day review period is that
applicable just of course just ad you talked tonight discussion tonight but is
there a review period for other items on the city or through the city
applications generally are subject to the permit streamlining act which
requires completeness determination within 30 days I'd like to move the item
okay got a motion by councilmember Simon councilmember Bowen please I'll second
that any other discussion you know the only comment that I'll make obviously we
were pro-housing said he wanted to have more housing but one of the challenges
that I see we just talked about it before on the parking regulations is as
we build more on individual lots and start taking up street parking it makes
it harder for bicyclists we're also trying to be a pro-biking city and so
by putting a bunch more cars on the streets for parking it means that the
bicyclists inherently have to move towards the middle,
and many of our streets can't handle.
So just something to be thinking about,
and how we advocated the state legislature level,
to make sure that we have spaces,
corridors that are good for bicycling.
That being said, let's go ahead and vote on this item, please.
Councilmember Victor Aguilar, your vote, please.
Aye.
Councilmember Bolt, your vote, please.
Yes.
Thank you.
All votes are in.
And the motion carries unanimously
with all members present and all members voting yes.
So at this point we move to the presentations portion
of our agenda.
We will begin with a presentation by Bart
and then move to a presentation by Eva Community Energy.
We've got Robert Director, Robert Rayburn,
Dr. Robert Rayburn, here to present.
That's just fine.
be very much your honor and council members. My name is Robert Rayburn. I'm a BART director
for District 4, which encompasses all of San Leandro below 580 to BART stations, San
Leandro and Bayfair. It's a defining year for not just BART, but I believe the entire
Bay Area. I want to highlight BART's efforts to make the system safer, cleaner, and easier
to use than ever before. Next generation fare gates have been an absolute game changer.
By reducing fare evasion, the gates are helping to deter unwanted behavior on the system.
Hours spent on maintenance within the paid area has reduced significantly, and BART revenue
has grown by about $10 million annually
through reduced fare evasion.
The number of crimes against riders per million trips
has fallen 67% from the end of 2024 to the latest quarter.
Over that same period, the number of BART police
and safety-related delays fell 47%
as police had to respond to fewer reported incidents.
and our riders are noticing the difference. They're giving BART a 91.4
satisfactory or very satisfactory marks. No, BART is making these improvements all
over the Bay Area, but we also are deeply invested in San Leandro. San Leandro
and Bayfair stations together average 7,000 weekday exits with a total of 182,000 exits
in the month of August. San Leandro has been a great example of transit-oriented development
improving the areas around our stations and growing our ridership. María Alta opened
in 2017, followed by La Verera in 2019.
Together, they built 200 affordability and senior units
within steps of our platform.
BART is also planning future development
at Bayfair Station in collaboration
with the city of San Leandro and Alameda County.
We recently worked together on a community-based transportation
plan and look forward to a shared vision of redeveloping Bayfair station and the
Speedway Bayfair Mall into a vibrant neighborhood with housing, jobs, and
amenities, and I'll add a park. Bart's partnership with San Leandro includes
Litt San Leandro, the East Bay Greenway, and a strong relationship with the
downtown of San Leandro.
Bart is also a long-term partner in the Cherryland Festival,
bringing thousands from across the Bay Area to San Leandro.
While we work diligently to improve our system
for our riders and communities, Bart
is also focused on running efficient service.
Bart has the lowest operating costs per passenger
mile for peer transit agencies.
BART runs efficiently despite Bay Area costs.
There are about 10% higher than other US cities served
by heavy rail in the US.
BART operating costs are growing below inflation
and at the slowest rate of peer agencies.
BART is the only transit agency in the Bay Area
with an inspector general to provide independent oversight.
An independent state mandated financial efficiency review
found that between 2020 and 2025,
BART reduced operating costs by over $500 million
through service reductions, workforce controls
and operational efficiencies.
BART is focused on further enhancing revenue
and reducing costs to continue to stabilize the service.
Remote work has changed how Bay Area residents
live, work, and travel.
Before COVID, BART depended on fares
to pay for over 71% of service,
more than almost any other transit agency in the nation.
While total ridership is down,
We are serving the same number of people.
They're just taking BART trips fewer times a week.
Fair revenue is down, and BART faces deficits
of over 370 million per year,
beginning in fiscal year 2027.
That's now.
We need to continue to grow our ridership and control costs,
but that's not enough.
BART needs a new funding model that is similar
to how transit is supported elsewhere.
The current operating budget maintains service levels,
makes $18 million in cuts,
and assumes the passage of a regional transit measure.
If passed, the transit measure will provide BART
about $310 million annually,
beginning in fiscal year 28.
BART is committed to further cost savings and efficiencies
to balance the budget.
Without new revenue, BART has approved an alternative service
plan that would cut service by 70%, close the system at 9
PM, and increase fares by 50% in just two months from now.
Recent ridership growth.
We're really excited to see a surge in ridership.
We just had back-to-back years
of double-digit ridership growth.
Last month, ridership exceeded 14.5% higher
than the previous year.
On October 6th, ridership was the highest since the pandemic
with over 254,000 exits.
and we are pleased that on July 20th,
BART began running longer trains
during peak commute to reduce crowding.
With this positive momentum,
we hope to see you soon on BART.
Thank you very much for your time this evening.
Thank you, Director Rayburn.
At this point in time, we will take,
this is kind of an informational item,
so I'm gonna take public comment on this item
and then come back to the council
for their feedback, their observations, and questions.
So just very quickly, we have public comment
on the BART presentation.
Mayor, we have not received any comment cards
from within the room, but we do have two hands
presently raised online.
So we will close public comment in person
and proceed to opening public comment online.
The first online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.
Thank you so much.
Well, I hope to all those present in the room
and all listening that we all are voting yes
on the RTM so that we can maintain BART services.
Director Rayburn, I guess the thing I found missing
from your presentation was any discussion
of the transit village currently under development
at the Bayfair station here in San Leandro
since that's a joint project between the state
of the county and BART.
I'm not really sure why the city and county side of things,
which is approximately to the south and west of the canal,
seem to be behind San Leandro's plans from the planning
meetings that I've been to.
But I would hope that on both sides of the canal,
as it were, that, again, we really
the city of Toronto. And I'm
Center is going to expire by 2030. And from my drive through the parking lot, there's a whole
lot of empty building in the Fairmont Square area, the storefronts over there by Lucky's. And
since it's housed restaurants before and whatnot, I think probably we could remodel it into a
navigation center. And I think that that is the end of my notes. Thank you.
Thank you. The next online speaker is Alvaro Ramos. I wanted to start by mentioning
that AC Transit's bus service is not there, and I do think that is a contributor that is hurting
BART in San Leandro. I think the tempo line is good for downtown San Leandro, but the perpetual
problem that we are dealing with is the harm of suburban sprawl on west and east sides of San
And I also want to talk about how recently I took BART into San Francisco and I was on
a train car with my fellow writers.
We were harassed by multiple fare inspectors who forced us to prove payment.
Now before I boarded the train, I used my clipper cart on the pad to get past the restrictive
fare gates, which I also have a problem with.
and square. When I see public funding wasted on over-policing, that's when I know that
I as a writer am not a priority for the BART Board of Directors. I think this is the quickest
way to lose ridership. Based on that experience, it just was like, why do I have to keep proving
that I already paid.
The machine already told me that I did so.
So that bothers me.
So honestly, please tell your colleagues
to fire the fare inspectors.
We don't need them.
Then there's fare prices, which are extreme.
I paid for that trip.
I had gone on San Leandro BART station
and I traveled all the way to Daly City.
So for one two-way trip, I paid $15.
So now these days, I'm hesitating to ride BART
and just not taking that many trips
because the price is an obstacle.
And I do think that BART is sort of sabotaging itself
in this respect.
And yeah, I think I'll leave it there.
Thank you.
Mayor, there are no more hands raised online.
So we'll close public comment online
and come back to council members
for questions and discussion.
Council member Bowen, please.
Council member Bowen.
Okay, thank you.
Just two comments, thank you for the presentation.
As part of the student transit pass through Alameda CTC,
BART provides 50% fares to students.
AC Transit provides free rides for students
and considering the cost of BART and how it has increased,
Is there a consideration or has there been discussion
of possibly providing free rides for students 6th grade
through 12th grade for BART?
We have not had that discussion.
We're offering the Clipper Start Program, which is suited
for low-income people, like myself
when I was a college student.
And it's offered to Cal State East Bay students.
Our youth fair is a 50% discount that's available to all youth between the ages of five until
they turn 19.
So a youth discount from five to 19.
So, oh, I didn't realize that.
But then the student transit pass through ACTC, which is included in, include SPART,
is at 50% correct?
correct that's right okay I it would be I think something to consider if Bart
would look at reducing those rates because through the student transit pass
the threshold is low is it's relatively outdated now because lower reduced lunch
is not used I mean we all get free breakfast and lunch in the schools but
But it's already that threshold of communities
that get reduced rates for the bus passes.
And so it's already a built-in criteria,
so that could be something that BART could look at as well.
I think that that would help families a lot
if they could actually ride BART for free.
I have, for example, three kids.
And so at that point, if my family's willing to ride,
it's five times the cost,
so it might just be easier for us to drive
than to take public transit, right,
if it's gonna be that expensive to actually take BART.
The other thing that I wanted to uplift
is around the Bay Fair.
One of the concerns that I've heard often
is around safety around the BART station,
especially as the weather gets,
as the seasons change and it gets darker earlier.
And we know that the newly built pay center
is gonna be opening in January,
which serves four to 500 seniors
and will potentially expand
and with the development of the businesses at the Bay Fair,
just ensure that there's increased safety around BART,
whether it's lighting or more personnel or signage.
I think that that would help folks feel more comfortable
around the BART, especially walking from BART to the Bay Fair.
Thank you, and on our property we maintain the lighting,
and I've worked in great partnership with the mayor
in policing the area, and I'm out there quite a bit,
and I invite anybody to join me,
bring your own pickup wand and a trash bag,
and I'll arrange for dumpster to show up, thanks.
Any other questions online,
do I have any hands raised over there?
Okay, council member Simon, please.
Thank you for the presentation.
I just wanna show my appreciation for Bart
and all that you're doing for our community.
And you've been around for so many decades
through whether it's great events to ball games,
world series, tough times helping people out
when they lose their jobs, they don't have a car.
And I know prices are up there, I got it.
But bridge tolls are 825 one way.
cost of a car is expensive and BART is a good option. So I appreciate the service
that BART provides. Thank you. Thank you. I will close that off, round it off by
piggybacking. I drove, I drove, drove, drove, drove. No I didn't. For 30 years I took
BART. It was so much cheaper to take BART than to drive because of the bridge toll,
because of the wear and tear on the car, the parking once you get to San Francisco.
at one point I calculated it was costing $50 to drive into San Francisco and park at work
and taking BART at that time was costing me a round trip of about 12 bucks.
And so I think just the cost trade-off has consistently demonstrated that it's better
to take BART than to drive if you're willing to tolerate being around other people.
It's great to see that 242,000 people like to share space with others and so I encourage
more people to do so.
I do want to thank you for being a great partner with the city of San Leandro.
I want to look at some of the improvements that have been made at the Bay Fair BART station.
We went from a situation where we weren't having graffiti cleanup happen too quickly,
but you jumped right on it.
We have graffiti cleanup being addressed very quickly.
You expanded the walkway to the tech center, brought in new lighting.
We have worked together, I know, on lighting in particular between support letters and
the like, so just the concepts that you're always looking for ways to continue improving
Bart and the one that I was you know kind of particularly hits close to home
because of our commitment to economic development you're willing us to say hey
the San Leandro have a drone company that can help us as we do drone
inspections and just being able to have those dialogues and connect you with
people and making sure that you are a partner to the city of San Leandro as
opposed to just a rail system that runs through the city and so your partnership
is appreciated. Thank you very much for being here today with that we will move
on to our next item. Thank you and I work for you. Most welcome. Our next item is
second presentation 9B and we've got Ava Community Energy CEO Howard Chang here
to present on this item. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Excellent well thank
you so much council members for allowing me the time today to present. I've got
about a dozen slides or so. So plan to take ten or twelve minutes to try to
review these materials. The reason why I'm here is because we've released our
inaugural impact report on behalf of Ava Community Energy. So wanted to use this
as an opportunity to get in front of our various city members to provide a little
bit more detail on who we are, our background, how we operate, and some of
our key achievements and accomplishments over the years since we launched in 2018.
Again, my name is Howard Chang, the CEO for Ava Community Energy.
You may also recall us as East Bay Community Energy when we launched originally.
We have since expanded.
I'll touch upon that in a little bit.
So what is Ava Community Energy?
We are the local community choice power supplier, which means that we are the default provider
of electricity generation services for all customers, residential, commercial, and municipal
customers throughout our service territory.
We are a not-for-profit public agency.
We try to reinvest our revenues back into the community
through lower rates, electrification programs,
and clean power projects, both sort of smaller scale
renewable energy projects in our local jurisdictions,
as well as larger scale wholesale projects
throughout the state of California,
primarily solar and wind, typically speaking.
Certainly want to acknowledge and thank Mayor Juan Gonzalez
for his role on our board, also currently serving
as the vice chair of our board,
as well as the chair of our executive committee.
So thank you very much for your leadership
and service for our agency.
And also want to acknowledge council member Simon.
You are in the role of alternate
and given his regular presence there,
I know you're not often called upon,
but nonetheless appreciate your service
and role there for our agency as well.
The map to the right you can just see
is our territory in dark green.
So that's primarily Alameda County.
The only little exception there is the city of Alameda,
which actually has its own municipal power provider.
And as I noted earlier, we launched originally
as East Bay Community Energy,
but we have since expanded into San Joaquin.
So we're serving Alameda to the Valley,
and you can see we serve Stockton, Lathrop, Tracy
in unincorporated San Joaquin County as well.
We are specifically structured as a JPA,
and we have 18 members overall, two counties and 16 cities.
A little bit more explanation
on what a community choice aggregator is,
and that is what Ava Community Energy specifically
is designated as, we are actually enabled
by state legislation that allows municipalities
to provide their own municipal power provider.
Traditionally, I'm sure you're familiar with PG&E
as all customers throughout San Leandro are.
Historically, PG&E has provided both the gas
and electric services and those electricity services
are both for delivery and generation.
And then of course, to the column to the right,
you can see publicly owned utilities
such as Alameda Municipal Power
that I mentioned just a little earlier.
And of course we have other local public agencies
part as one example, AC Transit, EB Mud, the variety there.
CCAs are unique in that we provide some level of choice.
Many of these other entities don't provide a lot of choice
and the way that we provide that choice
is not just in the decisions or elections
that a city can make on the power supply,
but customers can elect to opt out of the CCA service
and return to the IOU service.
you'll see some stats that that rarely occurs,
but it is all about choice
and giving customers choice and optionality.
So how does that work specifically
for electricity services?
It is broken up to generation related services
and delivery related services.
We, Ava Community Energy, go out and procure the power.
We have a huge focus on renewable energy,
lowering the GHG emissions of our power supply,
but obviously we ensure that we are procuring
reliable energy to serve a significant base of customers,
then PG&E continues to provide services related to delivery.
So that's your lines and wires, your meter services.
So they operate and own the transmission and distribution
lines that we transmit that electricity over.
As I noted before, customers can elect
to opt out of the generation portion of service provided
by Ava, and they can return to PG&E for generation services
in addition to their delivery services.
The stats on the right,
I won't read through every single one,
but overall our service territory serves a population
of about 2 million people,
and that translates to about 760,000 accounts.
As you can see by the participation rate,
we serve about 96%,
so very few customers elect to opt out
given that we are generally cleaner
and less expensive than PG&E.
And over time,
we have provided over $183 million in savings
to our customers.
In addition to that,
we've reinvested over $100 million to our local communities
in the form of procurement, purchases, grants,
other types of program investments.
We'll go on to the next slide.
This is a little bit about the power products that we offer.
We call them Bright Choice and Renewable 100.
The Bright Choice product is generally the default product,
but certain jurisdictions have elected
to opt up to the Renewable 100 product.
The Bright Choice product, as you can see,
there's about 55% renewable energy
and has a significant mix of large hydro
and some nuclear energy as well.
On the R100 or renewable 100 side of things,
naturally that is all renewable energy
that's primarily a mix of wind and solar.
You can see the bottom right
is what PG&E's power content is.
Again, this is for 2025 power mix.
That is about 33% renewable energy,
significant portion nuclear energy
and then a significant portion natural gas as well.
So we have differentiated ourselves
by really focusing on decarbonization
as a primary focus for our agency.
On the bright choice side,
it is at about a half percent discount to PG.
That's fairly modest.
And then for the R100,
it's at a bit of a premium at one and three quarters cent.
Currently San Leandro is defaulted into the renewable 100
that occurred back in 2022.
And then recently the city council has taken action
to actually default back down to bright choice.
And that will likely take place in 2027
with a focus on sort of affordability
in the light of the general transition
for our base product to become greener and greener.
Mayor Gonzalez knows this about me.
I tend to get a little detailed in some of my slides.
This is one of those slides.
I like to get a little bit technical
and use the opportunity always
to provide as much transparency and education
around how our rates are structured
because I know just how challenging it is
for your everyday customer
to look at their electricity bill
and really understand what that says.
it is multi pages, there are so many line items,
it's really hard to look in there and decipher that.
What this is, is a bar chart of our historical
generation related costs, it's only generation costs.
So as you can note at the bullet in the top left,
generation costs are about one third of customer costs.
So this is for average residential customer.
The delivery side of the bill or PG&E side of the bill
is about two thirds of that bill.
So overall, electricity rates are in that 35 to 40 cent range
on average, your generation rates tend to be
in the 12 to 15 cent range historically.
You can see here that there has been quite a bit
of volatility over the course of the last 10 years
with rates coming a bit back down.
And then the other explanation I'll give here is that
in totality, these bar charts reflect your generation costs.
Ava is charging the orange portion,
PG&E continues to charge the yellow portion,
so that's referred to as the power charge
indifference adjustment, or the PCIA,
and really what that is is an exit fee
that they continue to charge customers
for any stranded or legacy costs that they have.
When Ava provides generation-related costs
and communicates to our customers,
we are always accounting for that PCI
when we communicate because we think
we have to account for total costs
so that we are fully transparent to our customers.
The little blue portion there is referred
to as PG&E premium here, but that's also equivalent
to the discount related to the bright choice product
that Eva's able to provide to customers.
You'll see that when rates are higher,
that blue portion increases.
And when the overall rates come down,
that blue portion shrinks a little bit.
So historically it's ranged from about half a percent
to five percent discount relative to PG&E.
This is a snapshot of certain stats
about Stanley Andros specifically.
Obviously the population here you all are aware of
is around 90,000.
That translates to about 33 to 34,000 accounts.
And that is a mix of all residential, commercial,
municipal, industrial accounts across the board.
Participation rate is about 93%,
so about 7% of customers have elected
to opt out of Ava service and return to PG&E service.
Overall savings since 2018 is nearing $7 million,
and that's through a mix of bright choice savings
as well as on-bill credits that we issue
year to year depending on the budget surplus scenario.
There's about 8,400 Care Fair customers
and that's an income qualified designation.
So that represents sort of your lower income population,
generally speaking.
You can see some numbers around the number of solar customers
as well as EV owners in your jurisdiction as well.
The pie charts to the right, you can see the blue portion
reflects a commercial entity.
The yellow is municipal accounts
and then orange is residential.
This is relatively reflective of our overall surface territory as well, so by number of accounts, heavily residential,
but by volume of load, significantly commercial industrial type load.
The right side shows the mix of those customers that are on bright choice at around 19% and those that are on renewable 100 at around 81%.
What's in that
blue sliver is customers who have elected to opt down to a bright choice product, given that the default is our 100 today.
But also for income qualified customers those customers are automatically defaulted to break choices the lower-cost electricity product
I'm gonna get into a few more specifics. I have about three slides left about programs in the San Lien Drey area and beyond
So here I just want to highlight some of the infrastructure and investments that we're making specifically
So currently we are building out an Ava charge network
And what that is is it's a collection of DC fast chargers for Evie owners out in the territory
Our first site is open in Oakland city, Central West garage really trying to target
Charging deserts multi-family housing those that are lower adopters of EVs historically to try to improve adoption there
And we're hoping to expand that portfolio of products or projects
I should say throughout the broader territory and looking at San Leandro amongst other cities
We've also done some funding for a flea electrification in this category of transportation electrification
And we've supported about 13 of our members,
including San Leandro on that analysis.
Historically, we've provided about an $80,000 COVID relief
grant to San Leandro back in the 2020-2021 timeframe.
Obviously a very unique time for all of us.
And then lastly, we've worked on some level two EB chargers
and brought in some state-based funding to help support
and enable some of that development.
This is just a quick summary of three active programs
that we have out there for residential customers.
On the left side we have a program called
EVA Smart Home Charging, and that is a program
where individual EV drivers who charge at home
can elect to participate in this program,
get a small upfront incentive and an ongoing incentive
in order to adjust their charging behaviors,
and that is to hopefully help them
reduce their charging costs,
but also have them charge at hours
where the electricity tends to be cleaner
and tends to be lower cost for us as an agency.
The middle column is a program called EVA Bike Electric.
We funded that actually up to $13 million
with some recent action from our board.
This has been a hugely popular program
through our territory with a lot of different types
of customers electing to participate in this.
Heavy emphasis on lower income customers
that are really utilizing some of these incentives
for e-bikes and using it, not just for recreational use,
but really for transportation and commuting to work
and such, so we've seen a lot of value through that program.
and the last one to the right is a program called
You Have a Smart Home Battery in Resilience Hubs
and that is a solar and storage incentive program.
The lion's share of that is for residential customers
to improve the resilience at their homes
and try to reduce their energy costs.
We funded that at a total of $15 million for customers
and there is also a carve out specifically
for community resilience hubs.
So for local non-profits, community based organizations,
churches, community centers to try to participate
and install battery backup at those types of facilities.
We're rounding out this presentation here.
This is a little bit of an eye chart
in terms of the different types of programs that we've done,
so I'm not gonna read through all of that,
but you can see there's a high variety
of electricity products and services
that we are out there trying to offer to our customers.
And some of the participation tends to be low,
and some of that's a bit higher.
Everything from a mix of we have 13 low-income customers
within Stanley and Joy that participated
in a program called Healthy Communities where we went in
and installed free induction cooktops in their homes
and measured the air quality improvements
from doing that installation.
We've done, we have 161 customers participating
in a program called DAC Green Tariff.
DAC stands for Disadvantaged Communities.
And that's where we receive some state funding
to build a local solar project
and provide 100% renewable energy to low income customers
as well as a 20% discount on their bills.
So that being another example.
And then of course you can see some stats related
We have a bike electric, which I mentioned earlier,
430 customers utilizing rebates from that program.
And then the very last bullet I'll just highlight,
we have about 100 customers that participated
in the smart home charging and a handful
in the smart home battery program.
So really excited by that.
Oh, and I will also just note,
we've had one large commercial customer
that's participated in our building efficiency
accelerated program, which is an energy efficiency program,
generally focused on industrial entities.
So we're trying to provide a variety of types of services,
both residential as well as some commercial customers.
Last slide here, this is really just a brief summary
of the impact report itself.
I believe you were all handed hard copies.
That's a link to the soft copy online.
I didn't touch on everything there, of course,
but some of the highlights.
But hopefully you'll peruse that
and follow some of the accomplishments
and milestones that we provided.
And I'll just leave you with, you know, we are engaged,
not just with you as elected officials,
but with your city staff as well.
And we hope that you and your city staff
will look at us as an energy resource.
We know there's a lot of technical issues there.
There's a lot of concerns in terms of affordability
and economic development and policies
that relate to electricity and energy use.
So we hope to be a resource to you all
as you are engaged on this topic in any way.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the thorough presentation
for helping educate us on the work of Ava Community Energy.
We will begin with public comment on this item
and come to council members
for discussion of this presentation.
Mayor, we have not received any comment cards,
but we do have two hands raised online.
Let us close public comment in person
and open public comment online.
Our first online speaker is Douglas Spaulding.
I'd be happy to go before Alvaro.
Listen, I am a very happy Ava community energy receiver,
a proud Renewable 100 customer,
a recipient of an electric bike I never would have gotten
had I not been able to utilize the Ava incentive.
I just am so appreciative of everything that Ava does.
What I'm not a big fan of
is I'm not a big fan of data centers.
And I'm wondering to what extent discussion has gone on
in the AVA board about this dawn of the age of data centers.
I assume there are probably multiple data
centers in your area.
Certainly one is Eden Landing and Hayward.
I would like to understand whether that data center is
tapping into the energy generated by AVA.
I would not be happy to know that I'm participating
in a program that is generating energy for data centers.
And of course, then there's the prospect of a data center
here in San Leandro.
And the reason I bring that up is that
our mayor, the current vice chair of AVA Community Energy
is poised to become the chair of AVA Community Energy.
And while initially quite transparent and saying,
well, yeah, you know, I'm interested in data centers
and we'll see, let's see what it can do for us revenues wise,
you know, we've then been through this shell game of,
you know, what makes a mega data center
and the, you know, hide the data center facility
behind the warehouse shell wall
and, you know, at the same mayoral form
I referenced earlier, he basically came and said,
oh yeah, you know, like if it's for research development,
yeah, let's go for it.
So I'd like to understand how that affects us
in San Leandro as energy rate payers
and how that might affect us environmentally
as well, you know, data centers use fossil fuel backup
generators, so it seems...
Thank you, sir.
Your time has elapsed.
The next online speaker is Alvaro Ramos.
I am concerned about certain issues.
For example, how Ava was about to issue a 560,000 contract
to Deloitte and Touch LLP, which was known to hold contracts
with immigration, customs, and enforcement
and the Department of Homeland Security.
I'm also concerned about how AVA committed $0
to the local development fund
and approved staff's recommendation
to utilize their backup funds known as GASB 62
or the rate stabilization fund to account
for a $24 million deficit.
And $10 million was taken from the local development fund
address a budget deficit and that was not reinvested for our communities.
So I do need updates because I don't have the bandwidth to go to these meetings.
I'm also frustrated with Pacific Gas and Electric.
Their particular inflation of utility bills is out of control.
They charge hundreds of dollars each month and it always gets worse in the winter.
I think that I am also most concerned about our present crisis.
We have an oil shock.
The United States is not, as far as I'm aware, not even at the state level, are they interested
in rationing the oil supply?
And so I got to tell you, quantitative propaganda will not help people through this national
crisis.
I think that there is a priorities issue, and I think people are going to need a lot
help. I mean it's it's easy to point at gas prices sure but it's it's a much
more serious structural systemic problem to have an oil shortage when we are so
oil dependent and I feel that Ava needs to step up and do something for the
people. Thank you. Mayor, there are no more hands raised online. Okay so we'll close
public comment online. I do want to ask you just a couple of questions to help
this set the stage we do know that electricity prices are higher than what
you posted up here you had numbers like 14 cents a kilowatt hour ballpark but
when I look at my bill it doesn't look anything like that so can you help us
understand the difference between what we see on our PG&E bill and what Ava does
absolutely it's a it's a great point to call as I noted bills are far more
complex than what I presented there on the in the bar charts. So the different
the difference there is for a few reasons. One is as I noted there are
different components there's the delivery charges and the generation
related charges so overall electricity rates are going to be more in that kind
of 40 cent range and what I showed was in that 10 to 15 cent range because it
is about a third of the bill that we're covering and the other really important
difference is that generally speaking residential customers on a time of use
rate so there are different rate levels throughout the day and for different
seasons so what we presented was a simplification of that looking at your
average residential customer thinking about what their energy use is and
showing you what the average rate is for their consumption but the reality is
every consumer may have a different load shape and be charging they may have an
EV that may not have any V that may charge a different hour so it's going to
look differently depending on their use patterns so I'll come back to council
after this question. The price of electricity is obviously set in the
market. Can you share a little bit about the role that natural gas prices,
carbon prices, shall we say, play in setting that price? Absolutely. So when
you look at the energy system in California, there are a lot of different
technologies that generate electricity, which is a significant component of our
energy generation cost but there are other costs without going into too much
technicality there that is the lion's share of the cost and when you think
about renewable energy generally speaking renewable energy operates at a
zero marginal cost so you build you you pay up you invest in a generation unit
and it continues to operate throughout the day when the wind blows you get
generation when the Sun shines you get generation and so for any incremental
kilowatt hour or megawatt hour generated there's a zero cost conversely natural
gas plants, of course, their costs are associated with the fuel that you use and when you actually
turn them on.
And so energy prices in California are actually predominantly sent by natural gas plants.
For one, they are still a very significant share of the electricity generation in the
state of California, though we're certainly trending in a cleaner direction.
But for the other reason, it's really because they are the marginal cost.
So when you think about energy markets and how resources are bid into the market to determine
and what is dispatched throughout the state of California.
It is those gas plants that generally set those prices
and that determines the overall electricity rates.
Thank you, so I'm gonna go to Councilmember Bowen next.
Thank you Mayor and thank you Howard for the presentation.
Just a few quick comments and just a clarification.
If we could go back to one of the first slides
that talked about Sprite Choice versus R100.
This one? Yes, perfect.
actually gotten a few questions about this from constituents and so I know we
had taken action on this prior but sometimes it's good to connect those
stats. Can a few things, so in likely Q3 or Q4 of next year does that mean that
everybody will transition to default bright choice unless you opt into R100?
That is correct. So your customers of course always have the option to choose
what they want ultimately but the default will change the bright choice,
Correct. And how would they opt for our 100? You can go on our website and
there's it's fairly straightforward to go on our website and be able to choose
your electricity supply. You need your account number when doing so or you can
call into our call center and make that election over the phone. Great. And can
you speak to what the impacts would actually a very simply what the impacts would be on
ratepayers and I'm thinking about two things in particular balancing the city's commitment
to reducing emissions and going renewable and but at the same time also ensuring more
affordability for residents and so what does that actually mean for for
residents when they're on bright choice yeah so maybe what you're asking is sort
of quantify what that savings is and obviously that will change your to your
depending on where electricity rates are and as you saw on the other graph that
there is volatility there over time but generally speaking is about five or ten
dollars per month in terms of savings if you assume the current sort of rates and
average uses you use patterns so you know over the course of the year you
were talking about in the you know he'd a hundred dollar sort of range in terms
of overall savings okay thank you so much just one clarification the city of
San Leandro itself if I understand it correctly will remain renewable 100 in
the power that we procure but individual customers will be a little bit
different other questions or comments let me just check online do we have
anything online? Okay then just very quickly I wanted to ask you about data
centers because I know that Ava has to explore an integrated resource plan. Can
you talk a little bit about what that means and how that ties into what the
state of California is doing around energy planning? Absolutely, so your
reference to integrated resource planning is you know energy load-serving
entity specific term where every every power provider in the state of California has to
do a fairly rigorous analysis that plans out our energy needs for the next 10 years and
plans for the resources we need to in order to serve that load and what that requires
is of course for us to do a forecast of all of our load and assumed load growth and that's
load growth that could be driven by increased transportation electrification building electrification
data center load, you name it.
And so we try to account for all of that in our projections
and we work closely with state regulatory bodies
like the California Energy Commission
as well as the Public Utilities Commission
in terms of looking at this forecast
and agreeing to what are the right numbers.
We then of course as an independent agency
are out there talking to individual cities and counties
and thinking about what are the opportunities
for load increases, what will actually materialize,
how do we manage that risk?
And so we do that process to look at load forecasts.
As it relates to the data centers,
I would say go back about a year
and we were forecasting roughly a 30% load growth
over the course of the next five or 10 years,
which is quite significant,
given that load has generally been flat
in the state of California over the last decade or two
due to energy efficiency.
And so load growth is a pretty unique thing
in California right now.
Part of that is driven by transportation electrification,
so increased EV adoption.
And part of that is based off of assumed load growth
from data centers.
Just over the last few months,
I would say we've seen updates from the CEC,
the California Energy Commission updating that.
They actually are muting some of those load growth
assumptions related data centers.
There is less growth than anticipated
in terms of what's being indicated right now.
So we're seeing some of those numbers drop a little bit.
Couple more questions.
One of the public speakers referenced a GASB, G-A-S-B,
standard, and my understanding, a recollection,
is that we as an organization set aside money
to accommodate swings so that customers don't feel
the full impact of the swings.
Can you elaborate on that?
Absolutely, you have engaged community members,
so when they're able to reference things like GASB 62
coming from our board meetings,
that's certainly a reflection of that.
That is an accounting provision that basically
we utilize to allow our rate stabilization fund
to function properly.
So we can defer certain revenues in stronger years
in order to release them in weaker years.
And that's how we manage the volatility of energy prices
and absorb that both in terms of managing our own financials
but of course also trying to stabilize our rates
for our customers.
And so it's aptly named a rate stabilization fund.
So it's not necessarily a concerning to see us
release some of that, if we have a structural deficit
for a year of $25 million as an example.
Currently in our rate civilization fund,
we have about $160 million and in our reserves,
we have about $330 million.
So a very healthy balance sheet, with that said,
you do see swings and potential for deficits
of 50 to $100 million on some years.
While that's not the norm, we do need to plan
and manage around that volatility.
So that reference to GASB 62 is related to releasing funds
from a revenue deferral account specifically.
Okay, and then two last questions for you.
Local development.
So my recollection is that they're somewhere on the order
of 80 to $100 million set aside for local development,
local investments.
So can you explain the difference between
what I'd call the money that we have
in the savings account that we're spending on investments
and the year to year contributions to that account.
Absolutely, so historically we've allocated
roughly $100 million towards local development efforts
and that's covering the variety of programs
that I highlighted throughout this presentation.
As I think there was a reference to the public comment
about reducing roughly $10 million in that funding.
So I think what's important to highlight
is we currently have approximately $80 million remaining
in our local development funding
that we are still deploying in our active programs.
And so there is that reduction of $10 million
is not leading to a reduction in our services
or the offerings that we have.
In fact, that was for future years planning,
given a structural deficit in a particular year,
we felt it was more prudent to take that
and make sure that we're continuing to offer
our current programs and rather do our local development
programs planning work that is taking place
the next year or so and then create a funding plan for that looking out into
the future. Looking around seeing no other questions I do want to say thank
you for coming I know that you have led the agency through some difficult times
particularly when there's been price volatility and cost volatility so thank
you for doing that and I'll brag on you for just a little bit because you know
you bring both the Wall Street experience to understand that technical
ways to I'll use the expression beat PG&E at its game because you are literally delivering
savings in a competitive environment, so you're using your Wall Street knowledge and you're
combining that with your passion for sustainable energy, greenhouse gas reduction and the like.
So thank you for bringing both of those talents to the agency.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
This point in time, we will move on to item number 10,
which is action items, but we don't have any action
other than what we already took earlier today.
We don't have any item 11, so I don't believe.
And for item 12, we've got City Council reports
or comments, discussions about items
that might be of interest to the community.
Council Member Bowen, please.
Thank you, Mayor, I'll make it quick.
I just wanted to share, I was at the stop waste meeting
last week and wanted to give a shout out
to San Leandro residents and particularly those
that are in the San Leandro schools.
The entire staff presentation was focused on the work
that the city and the students,
the schools are doing around four hours
and all of our elementary schools use the four hours program
and it was really sweet to see.
And Dr. Smith from Madison was there to give a presentation.
So it was very much a San Leandro appreciation event,
which was great.
And then the other thing that I wanted to share,
I am trying to do some staff highlights, shout outs,
and I had not gone to the Explore GOSL maps page previously.
It's actually included in my signature now,
but if you go to www.geosl.org,
there are neighborhood and interactive maps
that are there in one place,
and so if you wanna find out who your city council,
your council representative is, the city boundaries,
the street sweeping schedule and if your street is impacted,
property lookups, zoning, flood zones, earthquake zones,
street maintenance, pavement conditions,
capital improvement projects, bike ways, garbage recycling,
parks and rec, my property community services,
and one that I really wanted, oh, city trees,
resilience hubs, and also free Wi-Fi locations,
but the one that I wanted to call out,
especially this week, before we start to get our first storms
from Super El Nino is to adopt the drain page.
And so if you go to that page,
you can adopt the drain and make sure
that you are helping your neighbors
and cleaning out your gutters
and also getting ready for the storms
that are coming this year.
Thank you.
Council Member Victor Aguilar, please.
Thank you, Mayor Gonzalez.
On Wednesday, October 14th,
they attended the 1,152nd meeting
of the Elementary County Mosquito Bay Area District,
the board we reviewed the district's finances
and long-term planning efforts
And the agenda included a presentation on CLAS,
which is a private agency investment poll
designed to provide liquidity and competitive returns
and an update from the Strategic Planning Committee.
As the board, we also addressed updates
to the publicly available salary schedule
to reflect the district's organizational changes.
The district reported receiving a national award
for excellence in financial reporting,
recognizing its commitment
to financial transparency and accountability.
And on the public health side,
the district reported that the West Nile virus activity
had declined from its summer peak,
but four positive bird detections were recorded
in Newark and Union City.
So staff has conducted mosquito control treatments
and inspections in response.
The update underscores that West Nile virus
remains a local concern, even as activity decreases,
but I do not have West Nile virus
to report affecting humans in our county.
That concludes my report.
Thank you, mayor.
Thank you both.
Any others?
Okay, so I'll just quickly run through a few things.
I did have the opportunity to represent
the city of San Leandro
at the Asian Health Systems Gala.
Asian Health has been expanding its presence
in San Leandro for the last few years
and continues its build out at Bayfair.
So that's exciting.
and then got to sit with the president of the organization
who was highlighting that they're looking
for other opportunities here in San Leandro.
So that's very exciting.
Attended the fitness court ribbon cutting.
So that ties into the 100th anniversary of Rotary,
attended the Rotary Gala 100th anniversary.
They donated $100,000.
I think we had a presentation here,
was it February or April, something like that,
where they present us with a $100,000 check.
You should check out the fitness court
at the southwest side of Marina near the park horse.
Beautiful, and it has a beautiful mural on the back side.
So the connection of both public art
and healthy San Landro is a wonderful connection
to see put in place.
We celebrated the East Bay Greenway
north segment groundbreaking.
So you will start to see construction activity
along San Leandro Boulevard over the next about 270 days,
adding bike lanes, enhanced crosswalks,
improved lighting and landscaping with a single purpose,
not to drive greater safety on San Leandro city streets,
particularly in that corridor.
I do wanna thank all, you know,
it's just been many, many people over many, many years
who have worked and been persistent.
And then this City Council went to Washington two years ago,
specifically for advocacy that resulted in $30 million,
which helped get us over the finish line.
So thank you to all that have been involved
in bringing that dream to this point.
Quickly, I will call out Prop 43,
one of our public speakers spoke about it.
The Alameda County Conference of Mayors
has unanimously agreed to again,
encourage residents vote no on Prop 43.
I was particularly proud to have brought that to the body
and have gotten a unanimous vote on that.
Element County Transportation Commission
also supports the regional transit measure.
I think we voted as a body.
Councilmember Bowen is on that body with me and others.
We voted unanimously to support
regional transportation measure.
So encouraging a yes vote there as a member,
as a commissioner on ACTC.
The Filipino American Heritage Month,
we talked about last time,
I did have the opportunity to attend a celebration
here in San Leandro on Friday.
Friday, yeah, so it was a very busy day
because it was also fall festivals at multiple schools,
including Washington and Corvallis Elementary.
So it was a busy night, but it's very powerful
to see the role that schools play in building community.
And so that's why it's so important for the city
to collaborate with the schools
and continue driving the support
of the community building that happens there
because it is so foundational to strong community overall.
So congratulations to each of the schools,
the last one being Madison,
which held the Filipino Heritage Month.
Congratulations also to Assumption Parish and School
on the 75th anniversary that had a gala on Saturday night,
which I attended and read a proclamation
acknowledging their role in the community
over so many years.
Two last things, the rotary of San Leandro,
I mentioned their $100,000 donation,
but it's particularly powerful because I was there
with Director Suniga and city manager Cameron.
We sat there and we heard the amazing things,
the role that Rotary has played in the city of San Leandro
over 100 years, and it is no exaggeration to say
that we heard 45 minutes of detailed stories
about endless examples of the way that Rotary has contributed, so just very
grateful for the persistence and not just this year, not just last year, but
100 years of service and dedication to our community. I did proclaim, if I'm not
mistaken, it was December 26th of this year, it will be Rotary Club of San
in the City of San Leandro.
And the last thought that I'll cover, voting, please vote.
Please vote.
Number two, please follow the directions on the ballot.
Vote following the directions on your ballot.
Some people are concerned about will that mean
that we won't do district elections correctly
or anything like that, nope.
we will take care of any confusion on the backside
when we actually calculate
and determine the winner of the election.
So your job as a voter is to vote, number one,
number two, to follow the directions on the ballot,
and then we will have a transparent process
using certified election results,
the actual count for each precinct.
We will use that information to ensure
that when we determine the winner of each district,
we do so in accordance with the City of San Leandro Charter.
So have confidence in the election process.
Please vote, follow the directions,
and leave the computations to us.
We will show you exactly how we did it transparently
so that each of you can check our work.
Should I add anything there?
Okay, we are spot on.
At this point in time, we have reached the end of our agenda.
It is 8.31 and we are adjourned.