and mayor bates is absent my spare mile here my first order of business will be to read this report out from closed session on october twenty second two thousand and thirteen the city council approved a proposed settlement in the case of city of berkeley versus kenneth sara ken and lori brown in which the city had sought to foreclose on a deed of trust and lien against the property at twenty five zero one hay street the settlement calls for a waiver of the amount if mr sarah can complies with specific conditions concerning development of the property and now with that will go to ceremonial matter matters and i will to council member more i am really honored to have the rosa parks elementary mock trial students here so i'm going to asked high and come forward please and james stevens is wealthy come forward as well in recognition of rosa parks elementary mock trial well as on july thirteenth two thousand and thirteen a group of fifth graders from rosa parks elementary school conducted a mock trial at u c berkeley school of law that had been of berkeley patient scuse me a berkeley parent and clinical law professor berkeley law and his colleague james stephens a recent berkeley law graduate and whereas alperin stevens worked intensely with sixteen fifth grader students who volunteered to come to school and all are early for fourteen class sessions that spanned a variety of legal skills including public speaking persuasive advocacy direct examination and cross examination and were as although the basic fact pattern of the case were provided to them the students were required to use their creativity in writing their own witness examinations their own opening statements and closing arguments without knowing what the students on the other side of the case were planning to do were asked the students conducted the trial at the berkeley law courtroom in front of the presiding judge and former alameda county superior court judge has now been viewed by more than nine hundred people on you tube and has prompted calls from other berkeley elementary schools as well as schools across the country for materials and advice about how to replicate the experience of the students all of whom are now thriving in their first year of middle school yeah now therefore be a result of that our mayor tom bates on behalf of the city of berkeley recognized tie all per james stevens and their mock trial students for a developing and participating in an incredibly in gauging project that taught valuable skills that will translate into all aspects of student lives so i'm going to present this proclamation to tie and to james and the mass time if you would make a few statements and then if you would call the students will be receiving certificates the vice mayor and i will shake the hands of the students we're going to ask the students a line up in front here so we can take a picture with the council the background and the students up front here in front of the dyess so  thank you council member mar council and mayor bates we are so honored and grateful that that you are honoring these kids tonight for that countless hours of dedication hard work creativity that they poured into this project they met every challenge an expectation that james and i had for them and we're very proud of them their teachers are very proud of them and their parents are very proud of them  and for this community these kids the night before they started kindergarten they all met you and you gave them each a rosa parks backpack that they wore every every day to school and for that for then the night before they graduated from rosa parks for you to be there in the audience as they conducted this mock trial in front of more about twice as many people as here tonight up at the top of the law school for you to be there really meant a lot to them and meant a lot to all of us i thank you for everything  do get to it because this is also the first time that many of them have seen each other since they graduated from rosa parks their middle schools across the city and we're going to get to afterwards so this is just part one so i'm so i'm going to read the names and then they come up ok dylan getting laong brown who is traveling around the world with her family this year mollica hari nico esteban yes own and i believe we have a student here who is not quite as young as the last group but a college student who is here to receive it caitlin quinn and the national says whereas coming out today is a public celebration of l g b t identity encouraging our entire communities to stand up for not only whom they happen to love but equally important community there remain a significant amount of homophobic inspired disc discrimination that create a need for people of berkeley to come together in support of every individual regardless of orientation and therefore  that the city council of the city of berkeley here by proclaims national coming out day and urge all of our residents to support individuals courageous enough to have already come out and to continually foster  environment in which others may find the strength to do the same in the recognition and celebration of our differences and now we'll hear a few words from caitlin quinn thank you council members for taking the time to listen to  me i am coming on behalf of the u c berkeley clear community i'm the clear endorsed senator and i just really wanted to thank chris for writing this and giving us an opportunity i personally love coming out i think it's a great celebration i came out during pride when i was a junior in high school to my dad not even on purpose we were just standing in line at starbucks and he asked me if we were talking about i guess quote gay rights and all of a sudden he turns to me and he asks caitlin do you think you're gay and i was like actually yeah i think like ok cool but it's really important to know that not everyone does have supportive families like that right and that even when we do foster a sense of the importance of coming out that for some people it isn't safe to come out and that we shouldn't be pushing people out of the closet we should be working to ensure that it's safe for people come out of the closet if they so choose and also knowing that this idea of coming out of the closet isn't necessary for some people some people genuinely don't care if you know whether or not they're queer it's not necessarily anyone else's business so taking coming out day as a celebration of how far we've come but how far we have yet to come and to celebrate people of all sexual orientations and gender identities so thank you all  collected so that's two hundred fifty pounds of gold pharmaceuticals that won't go in the bay among other places so we're very grateful for everybody who participated in that and then the second thing is all storm day as many people know  every year the city of berkeley prepares for the onset of the storm season and we have what we call crew day which actually happened today and will also happen tomorrow where our public works crews clean out trash racks and storm drains and do hand sweeping in mechanical sweeping but volunteer storm day volunteer all storm days actually this saturday november second from nine am to twelve noon at king's school park so we are encouraging folks to come to kings school park while we're close close to choose bring your own work loves if you have them and we will be providing folks with safety vests and tools to clean out drains and gutters so again that's this saturday the second from nine to noon and we will also be providing something to each of the council members tomorrow morning to send out your list serves wanted to get it out today but had a few little glitches so we'll be getting that to you first thing in the morning so thank you very we can s that to our lists yes please thank you so much that so now we'll go to the public comment part of the agenda and not agenda items these are things that are not on tonight's agenda with the clerk please announce the speaker's margot's smith susan harman he'd jim thank you very much for margot smith with the berkeley east bay great panthers and with the save the post office committee we'd like to thank the city council very much for their support of saving the post office and we'd like to present each of you with a copy of this book by peter byrne which is going postal and it's the whole history of how it works on and who's doing it and we also like to ask your sick continued support for the zoning overlay that is coming up before the berkeley planning commission this is a very innovative way of saving our post office that we hope will be national example for all the cities that are working on this and again thank you very much i almost got here a few times recently i saw people run and there i don't know what the city is still going to do about it until maybe someone gets killed or can be kept crippled then we would do something about it they run to be the light we have to slow down someone's going to get killed these wonderful students who are and key walk in missouri are crossing the streets as a dorm right there and they're crossing against drones which was formed when we discovered that sheriff a herring was planning to buy some cute little drones and one of the things that we discovered was that the board of supervisors and we thought had authority over the sheriff doesn't and we as things evolved we got more did more research about who does have authority over the sheriff and discover that it's the voters so we have merged into a committee that's running candidates for both the sheriff and the district attorney of alameda county and i wanted to announce a meeting coming up next tuesday a week from tonight at seven o'clock at the site berkeley senior center that's a public forum we will have a few speakers but primarily will be hoping that people come and talk about what characteristics they'd like to see in a sheriff and a da so i'm inviting everyone all the city council people everyone in the audience and everyone on television to join us next tuesday seven o'clock south berkeley senior center we need a new sheriff  council member are again i'd like to remove from the agenda item number nineteen expedited permit processing for targeted retail segments i've submitted a revised item which will be going before the council at our next meeting on november twelfth thank you staff in addition i think the recommendations they have are really great in terms of trying to you know you can facilitate more use of the off street parking but i would like to add something additional the consideration of a sunday discounter additional programs because a sunday usage is particularly low and one of the reasons why is because on sunday there's no meters cost for metered parking and that's the time when you would actually like to get more people in the garages so there's actually more people can come and shop and i think a good time to try that would be this christmas so i don't know if we want to i should poland we should discuss a little bit i think whether it's wanted to add a referral to her that i would it is i also think based on what some comments i've heard that the information item on the st on a similar topic may be polled so we could also talk about that but i but i think we would like to explore this changes in rates for sundays as well so if the manager will take that as objection but i don't object to moving be if we also move a one one commission has expressed an interest in actually visiting every two years and the other six which is a grant to the school district for nutrition education a qualifying schools and afterschool programs and the amount not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars i think that's excellent going forward and also i don't number nine is authorizing an application for a loan to the california energy commission that will enable us to convert all of our street lights to l diode lights over a long period of time and at a very favorable interest rate and we just cross our fingers and we hope we get that because it will mean so much to the quality of the lighting in our city and the consumption of  power and as well what's the interest rate one percent one percent you know very very favorable i'd like to get to also along with counselor when graf had one hundred dollars for my t thirteen account to the berkeley public library foundation and i will recognize council member when graf thank you i want to join you in congratulating the city on moving forward with a grant to transition to l a the lighting this is very exciting for the city it's an idea that i raised probably about four and a half years ago and met some resistance at that time and i'm glad slow but steady where we're getting there so that's great i'd like to be recognized as contributing two hundred dollars to the to number sixteen the holocaust remembrance day event and i just want to clarify this is for past expenses hope past expand this is for past expenses from the so that item talks about setting rates for the garages in time for the holidays and we've committed to giving the council thirty days notice before we change those rates so if there's a possibility of getting to it tonight we would appreciate  say i i i received some e mails some regarding number twenty two the appeal on the warning for the second response ordinance and apparently neighbors  have not been more not notified of this item and they'd like an opportunity to be able to discuss it you want to hold it over so i would like to hold it over you is there any objection holding over item number twenty two well i think it is there an objection i think we can hold over the vote but i'd like to start to say you want to you want to have a conversation about ok so it'll stay on action and then we'll see already been turned in as council item before the last meeting where we were talking about this so based on the comments at the last meaning i'd like to just turn this into of a feral to the committee  the city manager my wish and committee just refer it to the committee rather than try to vote on it i mean personally i'd like to vote on it but based on the comments last time if it's a referral to the committee is there any objection to it being referred and place being placed on the consent calendar ok so that's that's so moved it will be twenty two twenty three will become a referral  committee on the city manager evaluation and that will go on the consent count demanded the consent counter will now take items just on the consent calendar so i'm just looking at the consent calendar now and there has been nothing there's been nothing removed from the consent calendar there's been something added that is item number twenty three and that's it so we'll take comment now just background and have a discussion about the points maybe a little longer than i normally speak but there's a couple of fairly complex issues here that i'd like to make sure that clearly understood so the building at two two two seven two white way caught fire in early march of two thousand and twelve the building official in the fire marshal red tagged the building basically declared it not habitable they ordered the building to be secured structurally stabilized and then to be repaired or demolished so that was an official notice an order from joint notice an order from the building official and the fire marshal that's an important point which will return to in a little bit in march and may of two thousand and twelve the owner got building permits to remove the damaged portions of the building and to stabilize the rest of the structure in march of this year two thousand and thirteen the owner applied for a use permit to rebuild a non conforming structure under chapter twenty three c point zero four which governs our non conforming buildings and structures the sad to prove that use permit in june of this year in july an appeal was filed on two basic grounds the first grounds appeal was that the project should have been treated as a demolition and findings made under the jan militia ordinance which is chapter twenty three c eight the second issue that was brought up by the was that the owner was in some way at fault for the fire and should be required to pay the affordable housing mitigation fee so let's talk about demolition first i think the appeal mentioned that in the zoning code the structure is considered demolished if the roof is gone and more than fifty percent of the remaining walls are gone however that refers to the structure you cannot demolish or eliminate residential dwelling units in the city of berkeley without a use permit with one exception and that is if the building official orders a building to be demolished based on its structural unsound inability to be repaired and so again as i said earlier the building official did not order the building to be demolished but rather repaired or demolished so you cannot eliminate and you specially can do it with rent controlled units which these were so the use permit provisions under twenty three c o eight the demo ordinance that we as we refer to it now as we've considered amending it at this council in the last couple of months  was not invoked the owner chose to repair the building rather than demolish it and one i don't think based on the evidence in the record they could have been able to get a demolition use permit to demolish the  because they would not have been able to make the findings that are required to demolish residential units the building is feasible to repair we have a proposal to repair in front of us and because it's a non conforming structure which is significantly over a lot coverage for that zoning district if the building was demolished and had to comply with the current codes then it's unlikely that they could build back a building of that size and with that number of units because they would have had to significantly shrink the building to comply with the zoning co so that basically leaves repair reconstruction of a damaged non conforming structure under twenty three c e o four as the only viable option in this means a couple of important things that i think may not be understood or have  understood through the appeal and the general discussion around that so these are not new units this is reconstruction of existing rent controlled units no new certificate of occupancy will be issued as i read thirteen seventy six the rent stabilization ordinance these will remain rent controlled units and be subject to the rent control ordinance i did reach out and talk with the rent board staff this morning they sent me an email basically concurring in this opinion they obviously are the ones who administer thirteen seventy six so all i can say is you know it's my understanding from reading it but i have i have checked with them so these rebuilt units will be rent control units and subject to the provisions the rent control ordinance the other important thing that it means in the repair is that under the relocation ordinance which is chapter thirteen point eight four and that is something that the city staff not the rent board staff administer to other things that the tenants have a right to return to the units at the rents and on the lease terms they were paying previously and they are eligible for  relocation assistance under thirteen point eight four so all of those things happened because this is not being treated as a demolition and if it was being treated as a demolition and findings were made of the demolition ordinance those provisions would be wiped out of the new units would not be subject to the rent control ordinance tenants would not be have a right to return and tenants would not have the possibility of receiving assistance under the relocation ordinance so again i think that may have been misunderstood if you look at the appeal itself it talks about saying if it's not a demolition these things should apply and i think their understanding was that they didn't that is not my understanding my understanding is that these as a repair these units will be under the rent control ordinance and relocation assistance ordinance so that then leads to the final point which is the affordable housing mitigation feet so because this is not a demolition but rather a rebuilding six rent controlled units rebuilding six rent control units there is there are no new units there is no impact you cannot charge a mitigation fee for an impact when there is no impact because the we are returning this to exactly the same configuration under exactly the same terms as existed prior there's no impact fee so the question of falsity even at or into the discussion at this point because these are not new  units they're not subject to the formal housing mitigation fee because that not being a demo that i talked to the earlier and so at that point i'm happy to take questions but i think again that that in light of what i've said in those understanding's i believe that again my recommendation would be that you dismiss this appeal and actually i think that is frankly better for the former tenants if you do it just make sure i just wanted confirmation from the city attorney about interpretation here i agree  rebuilding the units that were damaged and are they subject to the relocation ordinance two questions one did the city i don't know if you know the answer this question did the city notify the owner of their obligation to comply with the relocation ordinance that i do not know ok because i mean it's been a year and the tenants are many of them moved out of berkeley and i don't know if they've received any relocation assistance from the owners so i'm concerned about that and you know it  in whatever action we take i think it's important city follow up with the owner to inform them of their obligations on the law and ensure that they're complying with requirements in terms of moving costs rent differential payment all the different provisions that the tenants obese subject to and then  i really want to ensure that if the council were to affirm that it's very clear that the owner has an obligation to comply with the rent control ordinance and the relocation ordinance do you believe that the conditions as presently written approval there is a condition of approval in all land use things that says you must comply with all regulations and you know restrictions and rules and laws of the city because the plain department doesn't minister these you know required to comply with all laws so i think that does cover it i don't think there is any and even if that statement wasn't in there they'd still be required to comply with the laws of the city but i think this statement is in there and i think that is sufficient ok i just want to get clarification that you think that that's satisfactory to hold on accountable to the following those codes and also you know the thirteen eighty four the relocation ordnance also allows for private right of action non conforming in you you said you know you can rebuild it to be conforming but presumably when it's rebuilt our or whatever the term is that you will be built to the modern fire  safety and fire code and safety standards so like for example will there be a sprinkler system installed right the non conforming only applies to the zoning provisions on the lot not to the building and fire codes so the building will be brought up to the marked ok so just to clarify that might not have been clear in that in this report that these units will remain under rent control previous tenants will have the right to reoccupied and are also eligible for relocation to take a minute to gather my things so first of all i wanted to thank everybody here who are excited to start i wanted to thank everybody here for expressing interest in ensuring that affordable rent control housing still exists in berkeley and this has been a confusing process so having legal clarification from the city is something that i'm interested in seeing just as a matter of course now i would still like to take a moment to air my grievances over the  the actual procedure that happened with the zoning adjustment board specifically in how it considers negligence as a factor in determining fault in these sort of situations so perhaps i could share my experiences with you and perhaps persuade you that never negligence in this case and in the future should be considered a did a reasonable factor when determining fault when a building like this is destroyed in berkeley so first i'm going to share my experiences with negligence with l be ready the landlord of this property so on the morning of march eighth when this building burned down it was about four four o'clock in the morning from what i learned afterwards i didn't wake up to smoke detectors smoke alarms nothing like that i woke up coughing my room was completely filled with smoke i was on the third floor of the building and but for the grace of god i i woke up and no one else was up in the building i had to wake my roommate up and as i said before there were smoke detectors there they had promised to install them months before when they had representatives come to the property but then they never did and i don't know why the smoke alarms the actual fire alarm for the building didn't work either so then my roommate  tried to go out the back stairs and because this building was very old and not up to fire code at all the flames had already reached that point and i was unable to go down the stairs because it had gone right through the fire breaks as building was an absolute tinderbox now as i ran with my roommate down to the front stairs i had to step over broken glass pieces of construction materials that have been left by the landlord there pieces of the ceiling that had rotted out and fall  to the ground and remained there despite repeated requests and i finally made it down to the first story and was puzzled as to why there wasn't any alarm going off white and hear sirens nothing as the remnants of my apartment burned to the ground and so i ran back in and actually pulled the i pulled the fire alarm on the first floor to try and get some sort of attention to it and nothing happened nothing happened at all and what i'd i'd like to do is talk about how you know this negligence obviously affected me and my fellow the fellow tenants of that building my lungs were filled with smoke i had to go undergo several medical treatments and something that i will live with for the rest of my life but how does this relate to fault for the building how does this relate to the zoning boards practices and so what i want to talk about is the negligence involved in not maintaining a proper fire system at a building like this a large building with i believe twelve or thirteen tenants now on every occasion where that fire system worked the fire department was there within six minutes january second two thousand and eleven false alarm fire department there between five minutes and six minutes five minutes thirty eight seconds i have a record of six different occasions in which there were false alarms to this property and every single time the fire department's right around the corner they made it there and under six minutes and in this particular case when the fire alarm didn't go off it took them over twenty five minutes to get there and everybody in the building suffered smoke inhalation all of my things were destroyed i was homeless just really relying on the kindness of friends and strangers to to help me out and i think that negligence in failing to maintain basic services for a building like you know the fire alarms negligence to do that does contribute to fault when you're trying to determine the extent of the destruction of the building if the fire department had got there within five minutes we wouldn't be having a conversation about a building that was so badly damaged it was nearly scheduled for demolition yeah additionally you know there's circumstantial evidence to suggest of the landlord could have turned off the fire alarm themselves one of my neighbors actually went into the office and was talking to one of the l b readies employees over at everest property and she told him specifically to stop calling the fire department because they were assessed for a fee every time the false alarm went off so again in summing up my main point i i really think that negligence on the behalf of property owners in berkeley should be factored into fault when determining the extent to which a property is damaged and i think that they should be held accountable for their negligent actions and their behavior on this level and i don't think they should be able to profit from being determined to be not at fault for a situation in which negligence isn't considered morning of the fire i went into the offices to collect what was my security deposit and perhaps pro rated rent and i was told that i was going to be charged for the four hours i was in the building while it was burning down around me so there's that as well now so i hope that the city council can see that negligence ott to be a factor in determining fault when it comes to the level of destruction that a building suffers in the city and i want to thank all of you for your commitment to affordable housing and to rent control so that people can continue to live in berkeley so thanks a lot if you have any questions just let me know thank you i don't bill council members i'm a mandy cone and i have bill coburn who's the architect and can answer questions relating to the project itself if you have any the planning staff pretty much usur thunder here so i'm not going to repeat what what he has said as i said in the letter i submitted to you there is no to the zab finding provided that mr mr reddy should comply with all the political ordinances and we certainly don't dispute that that's already here a couple of just a couple of supplementary comments one is that the tenan the tenants who are living there already brought claims against the property owner all of these claims have been resolved the claims included claims for relocation expenses now personally i don't think the relocation ordinance applies because the relocation ordinance only applies in situations as it explicitly says where there's been a temporary displacement here obviously this is not a temporary so i don't think the council has the power to undo those contracts and say you know i have to pay more because those claims were already already part of the claims at the tenants themselves brought so we don't have any problems with being told to comply with the law of course my clients going to comply with the law he has to comply with the law but to add something beyond is i don't think it's within the province of the council  with respect to the fault issue which goes to the affordable housing payments at the applicants that the appointed wanted the standard this standard is that i mean staffs opinion is that the affordable housing payments so don't apply whatsoever because it's not a new project we get that i think even if it is considered a new project it wouldn't apply because there's been no finding of fault by the owner now the finding of fault has to be faulty relative to causing the fire now there's conflicting testimony it's pretty much all except that that the fire alarm did not go off  l though it was in working order when up on the last inspection but by the fire department in december of the previous year with respect to the smoke alarms the first person the fired the  fire officer who wrote the report said he did hear that smoke alarms going off notwithstanding all of that the focus is on the fall to whether the fire was caused by the fault of the owner and their explicit findings repeated findings in the fire department report that it was no it was no fault of the of the owner the water heater malfunction there was not even trash piled up around the water heated that led to the  you know the fire itself happening so i just want to clarify that if there are questions and i'm happy to answer the face my mind of a question let me let me speak also to the to the rent control to the main control issue there's no question that the apartments as i've said in my sort of my presentation are subject to rent control they have been subject to rent control they will continue to be subject to rent control but in so far as these tenants have given up whatever they want to give up in those releases and i don't i don't even know what they say but if they did you know give up whatever rights they had then you know then the epic an obviously  local local price control regulations when they respond when there's been a vacancy so you are subject to the law he's subject to rent control there's no question of that but if people have vacated then he is entitle to raise  that of course is something for the rent boy to administer not that the council there's a question for you having served on the rent stabilization board i think this would constitute an involuntary vacancy and therefore the units would be subject to rent control but that's just a comment my question is with regard to the relocation ordinance issue so i don't know if you are legally able to disclose the terms of these settlements with the tenants but did the tenants sign away their right to the rights of the relocation or you know i don't i don't even know i had nothing to do with any of those settlements are handled by the property owners insurance companies i'm just saying that to the extent someone did sign away i mean that would obviously i share office is actually you know represented represented the a large number of the tenants and jeffrey told me you know that they had made claims relocation expenses and those were figured into the settlements who were reached what those settlements were i have no idea well i mean i absent the specific information i brought around the settlements and what the legal terms of the settlement was what how much was provided and whether that is consistent with the requirements of the relocation ordinance we can't say definitively whether your client has an forward good evening council members so i i just wanted to say whatever the applicant said one it was the focus of fault and it's one of the reasons  really the reason the appeals to four years because of faults we want to include negligence as part of fault because like he said the main problem of this is due to fault and we want to have landlords be responsible when they don't properly maintain their buildings if there is that is allowed to make such a decision despite the fact that there's negligence on part of the landlord we would have landlords not it would encourage landlords to not properly maintain their properties and have them burned down collect insurance payments and just rent the buildings out market rate the landlord also says that a lot of the tenets are not available for relocation payments due to cases i don't think a settlement payments and relocation payments should be on the same thing there are completely different and also the cases that have gone before the landlord also deal with the scope of fault and that is a major issue that is being or that is a major issue why the law is being sued the land the applicant also says that these buildings would only be subject to rent control only before the tenants moved bags of they don't move back it would be set at market rate or a lot of the tenants were students and they already left the city of berkeley so a lot of those units even if they would be subject to rent control before the first right are free views about the tenants the sentence are no longer available so they would not be subject to rent control anymore the one of the author message that in berkeley it is acceptable to neglect the maintenance of a family housing and put the lives of tenants in danger and that if a building bridges down through no fault of any kind of owner can simply collect insurance payments and rebuild with significantly higher priced units the decision by the zab sets a dangerous  precedent that encourages owners of older housing to not properly maintain their properties in order to get around rent control and the fee this practice would allow owners to sorry really critical that we have access to affordable housing and it's also critical that berkeley maintains its commitment to ensuring that this affordable housing is safe for us to live in and i personally know students who had all of their who lost all of their belongings in that fire and it sets a dangerous precedent to say that landlords do not have to maintain their properties because they will be able to count on these insurance payments in the event that the building burns down and so i urge the city to investigate the role that to further investigate the role that the homeowner's negligence may have played in this fire and to maintain its commitment to ensuring affordable housing for berkeley students good evening my name's moni of aa and i'm here in my personal capacity just as a concerned citizen in berkeley i also work as a rent board housing counselor the night of the fire i actually went in the office at five in the morning to find the names and phone numbers of these individuals that were displaced because all of the records were lost so we helped the red cross to help these tenets i know that adam has p t s d sadly from a result of this fortunately he's in law school and pursuing his education after graduating from cal i know that he lost all of his grandmother's writings others have lost everything they had my concern is the cost of this fire is beyond physical financial it's also emotional there's four fires that have occurred and it's my understanding that council member worthington and others helped start the rental housing safety program after cal student died in a fire ten years ago and it's there's various history as to why the rental housing safety program perhaps started but i do want to urge t council to ensure that part i is past part l for the rental housing safety program as always ensure that the smoke detectors are in place and verified because often they are not including in this case so please also the find quickly i do want to say somebody i think was  minute thank you also may bottom line concern is the cost of return if a tenant were to return and they said theoretically that was the option this is now rent control building six units can return should a tenant not have waived their rights perhaps i'm not sure of that could they return at their twelve hundred dollars per month rent rent controlled rent the right control it was twelve hundred whatever it was it was twelve hundred thirteen hundred thirteen fifty about that i have a list of all the rent would it instead be the current market rate there twenty five hundred twenty eight hundred new market rate rent currently existing tenants but the existing tenants have been vacated according to the architect's testimony earlier and he says they  voluntarily vacated by the fire but my concern that they have no opportunity to return after the fire should they return and have the desire to return i want to ensure that they have that opportunity to return at their former red controlled rent not the new market rate rent and there's also concern about capital improvement hi my name is judicial tin i'm on the rim for but i'm here as a private citizen i want to say that it really disturbs me the way this whole process has unfolded it's been extremely confusing i spent several hours today talking to some really knowledgeable people to try to figure out what the hell was going on with this thing and i don't think it should be that difficult i mean really smart people so i think it should be an automatic thing that this these units be rebuilt as rent controlled units there should have been no confusion about it should be assumed so i also want to weigh in on fault fault is too narrowly construed if it means taking a match and starting a fire fault has degrees negligence is in that area of fault i too agree that the land the land lord in this case was very negligent with respect to the water heater and with respect to the fire alarm system it's it is as people say a very bad precedent to set to let this go thank you thank speaker and when adam bolts at the meaning they sort of disregarded what he was saying but if you read the fire report it's very very interesting because there were two separate people that actually tried in different areas to pool the alarms and they found that they didn't work they were not activated whatsoever the smoke detectors all of the people that were in residen there said that the smoke detectors did not wake them out nobody heard at that point the smoke detector the only way they woke up was because two tenants in separate apartments woke up because of the smoke entering their lungs so they were having quite a problem if the two tenants had not awaken with the smoke with the coughing everybody in that apartment house would been dead within ten minutes and i think it's something that you have to really consider this was a very very serious fire also one of the tenants a woman tenant tried to use the fire extinguisher that she had in her apartment which she you know went to the kitchen area and found it was totally in flames and the fire extinguisher lasted for about three seconds she said and then it just didn't work anymore so i think there is fault here i think there was negligence and i think we have to really reconsider what what the owner is what the managers of these older apartment houses are obligated to do board sets a does a dangerous precedent that encourages owners of older housing to not properly maintain their properties in order to get around rent control and the fee this practice would allow owners to rent the new units at market rate reducing affordable housing with affordable housing as a long standing issue in the city of berkeley the area's u c strongly encourages strongly urge urges the city council to pass the appeal and support of affordable housing and enforcement when landlord negligence leads to unsafe living conditions  report commissioner here is a private citizen it appears that there's a lot of confusion about what specifically is going to happen here and i tried to read through the record but it seems like maybe you guys want to just set this aside for a week or two to make sure everything's confirmed about what will happen to the tenants and whether you need to be controlled it raises very clear concerns about how negligence plays into fault and that seems to be something that needs to be elaborated in policy change needs to be made there especially when you have a property with a history of code violations and a property owner with a history and notorious history as this the other direction this goes is the rental housing safety program has never been propped adequately funded and if there's anyone that around i was in safety programs they're there to deal with its properties and property owners like this and it's time for us to properly fund the rental housing safety program if not to really make all berkeley property safe at least to target the problem properties lease to we can fund the rental house and safety program enough to adequately address problem properties week over the course of the summer i did strongly consider moving my living in the office space and i saw the name everest appear multiple multiple times and there's couldn't help but wonder if they had bitten off more than they could chew and then i had learned later about this and now we're in this meeting now and it's obvious that they have bitten off way more than they can chew just own too much and if this is a serious issue because well and there's less competition for pricing when you have fewer people owning more of the property and the safety issue when you have this there's no competition and safety or concern for upkeep when you have this consolidation of properties under an increasingly smaller number of people there's just something wrong when you see the name everest ever sever severs everest everywhere in berkeley and there's different companies in berkeley that more and more that can do properties are being consolidated to these larger companies and if people are suffering from because of it so seeing no other speakers will bring it back before the council and we have a recommendation for the zoning justice board which now that we've clarified that the tenants have a right of return have the rent controlled rents and are eligible for relocation seems pretty straightforward to get the building the units built but then we have to also deal with what we heard tonight regarding testimony regarding the condition of the of the original building so i recognise council member air again thank you this is honestly been one of the morse complex appeals that i seen in my time on the council because there are so many so many different issues and there's also a lot of unanswered questions including despite the fact that the fire inspection port said that the fire was  accidental it still also said that the cause of the ignition is still under undetermined and that there was an ongoing investigation that was still happening and there's a whole host of stuff in the fire inspection report such as improper installation of a water heater electrical problems tenants have reported habitability issues so to me it seems pretty clear that the building was not properly maintained and that may have led to the to the condition which result in the fire but the decision we're making tonight is on whether two firms avarice at this are hearing and i'm very encouraged to hear from the planning director that this private property would be subject to run control and owner would have to comply with the relocation assist e ordinance so you know i want to ensure that if the council does pass a motion tonight that we make available the rental housing safety program inspection reports to the council the public if they if they are there they're interested in viewing  those about the property maybe for the last five years that staff contact the owner to notify them of their obligation to comply with the relocation ordinance i encourage the tenants to contact the housing department to find out what your rights are under the ordinance because i you know we want to make sure that you you know that you are getting the right to return to the property if you so choose but it's seems to me that you know at this point  you know the council has to vote to affirm the zoning board decision i am encouraged that the property will be subject to rank control and and the relocation ordinance i will say however and this is a this is not an issue we're deciding tonight but an issue that has come up in the public testimony in the appeal i think you know as was stated by the former tenant and by many people in the public very eloquently i think we need to take another look at this policy that we have in the affordable housing for the resolution about exempting buildings due to n fault all the ordinance says is faulty doesn't define what fault is and obviously burning your building down that's fault but if you maintain a building in such a condition that it creates a negligible fault i believe that's something the city should also look at in making this decision that's a decision we're not making tonight that's that's a decision we have to make separately but i believe we have absolution taken a look at this policy because it does create an incentive you know for owners to not properly maintain their buildings and that's totally contrary to our goals so i you know i'd like to see if there is a motion that we are to make that motion that we get from this that and make the rental housing safety record available to board decision because i don't believe we have another option in this case we have a obligation to but that we make the rental housing safety program a special courts available to any tenants and council members say the last five years probably that we direct staff to contact the owner to inform him their obligation to comply with the relocation ordinance and try to find out you know what's been done and what the owner needs to do because we heard reports from the owner's representative that there were these the owner was negligent what would be the alternative remedies or actions i'm just i prefer to click if we could you know well it's it's relevant to whether the affordable housing fee would have to be paid but since it doesn't have to be paid anyway because these are not new units it wouldn't make any difference to this decision so this is just really it has been an academic discussion for the last half hour well i mean we want the six units rebuilt and determine and the applicant has decided to rebuild the building not to demolish it so that there was no consequence as to whether it's a poorly maintained building or not i'm not suggesting that landlords shouldn't be in danger buildings i was just curious why it got this far and we had this long a discussion about it if in fact our alternative was he wants to rebuild the six units we want him to rebuild the six units if he had wanted to demolish the building he would have possibly been subject to mitigation fees if he had been declared a legend or at fault for the fire since he didn't want to demolish the building then this was an academic discussion can i just say i think it really all need to be aired and we have a motion for with a second anyone who does not want to be voting on this motion motions path thank you so thank you very much and we'll move on to the minor zoning change on i smile i believe there are several people in the audience here that came for camp information report so i just wanted to follow thank all them that they report is on the information calendar it's not scheduled for any action by the council on that the time for public comment was at the very beginning of the meeting and the time has passed so there wouldn't be an opportunity for you to speak but actually you could come to our very next meeting and speak during public comment at the very beginning of the meeting you don't have to come for a short time you have a couple of minutes to address whatever issues regarding leaders who were in the audience and they have agreed as a courtesy to council member when grass we quest to hold over item number twenty two to give a chance for the  neighbors the jet community and the general public to get more information and give council members a chance to also talk to people and get more information so you want to make a motion to reconsider that c if you think we need to vote on that carry it over if the sponsor has agreed that he can just hold it over ok thank you very much now we will go to this minor zoning change on one thousand to one thousand and ten gelman and  d i don't know if there is public here for this let me just find out so is anyone wanting to speak to this so many changed it to during the public hearing ok bring it back to the council their  motion to close the public hearing well all the record is voting i is there a motion to move the item anyone deviating from that we'd all be voting i am moving on the item which is the recommendation for the we have a general plan amendment re designating a portion of a parcel within the building from light industrial to commercial and upon conclusion consider the re designation and reason of the poorish of the parcel identified for the public hearing adopt the resolution amending the berkeley general plan to read as an aid a portion of the parcel from light industrial to commercial and up to first reading of an ordinance amending municipal code title twenty three official zoning map to rezone a portion of a parcel in west berkeley from merely to  how hearing no objection will be voted i think i moving right along you are doing right in number twenty your yes can we bring in from the hallway the exhibit with the list of remaining council items we've we've got a visual problem to assist people in understanding what we're talking about on th simple concept and it's based on repeatedly we've had people who come and sit in the audience sometimes for hours and hours and hours and they don't realize that the item that they came to be here for was moved from the action item on to the consent calendar or they may not even know it was on the consent hunter in the first place and  so the concept of this is that we would create a list of what i after we vote on the consent calendar we would create a list of what i continue to remain on the calendar so for instance tonight at the end of the vote on the consent calendar it looks like there were six items we may need and so someone could look on the list and we have  a student who is actually working on creating something that would communicate their select tronic lee but for the last couple of meetings we've just done it in the hallway so that people who are here can see it  so this is what we're talking about is just having a list of remaining council so that people know what's still coming up but my question is who actually physically does it and it may be easy to just do it by number but who would actually physically do it well the i had originally volunteered that my office would do it and somebody said it shouldn't be done by a council member or a politician and that's why we did the council a to have it be official e blast ok let me ask if people i don't mind having my volunteers do it you know it's ok people don't care about that but it if they do care about that i think we got it counselor wise you know i mean there are lots of changes and it would be we should have a way of posting but i mean we just had a year debate on making our campaign finance reports electronic this should be electronic and shouldn't be paper and then the right way really is we are i mean there are all kinds of technical issues which we have to refer to id but we already have an agenda electronic and i pad you know which summarize it and someone just said the city clerk or somebody should be some city staff it should not be a law interior just says put type on you know if it's in the action  for that something i think referring to staff to look at it it may cost a lot of money we may decide we can't afford to do it but that's the right way to do it not to have a volunteer you know we are takes half an hour to write it out it's hard to read but can we just that actually it would be really nice to have an think about it and see how they might be able to do it so you're ok with that you want more you know that if you made that motion i'd be happy to second it well this is your right in this too and i'm happy to make the most in  moving the motion to refer it to staff and then they'll think about it and come back to us with what might work right ok so madam manager so we were a little confused by the recommendation so we appreciate the clarification because it was a city manager for all that the council do something so if what the referral is is for the city manager and staff to explore ways of notifying the public about changes in the agenda we can take a look about and we'll get back to you ok thank you say there is a motion helps thank you so we're going to item twenty one a and b and what i'd like to do is i know that the staff has thought about how this can be done within the brown act and maybe we can take twenty one a first and you have some proposal for the issue before council tonight and thus i'm jane mikkel up the director of health and community services department i mean i'd like to invite the homeless commission to sit at the staff table with us what the commissioner said at the staff table that would be fine oh yes be fine join us the issue before council tonight is the question of site visits to community agencies who applauded the city for time available to assist the commissions and visiting the community agency as we understand the visiting community sees as part of the evaluation process is an important and there are a valuation and so staff has proposed you know recommendation kind of balances the importance and the need of the commissions and looking at the agencies and also the availability of staff time in order to facilitate that process this is an issue that but the reason we have we wrote this letter of clarification is we just want to maintain the status quo we don't want to change anything we just want to go back to the status quo as it was when we were allowed to do there's a report here from staff that says that we want them to change the administrative rules where that recommendation came from was that we were attempting to relieve the burden on standoff and so it was something that we wanted to do we were offering to them at their discretion that if they chose for us to go on staffed we could have a point person and also unlike the previous site visit round we agreed not to be so we were actually trying to make a concession to staff to relieve their burden when we proposed that we were in suggesting anything to violate administrative roles what we what our commission wants is to go back to site visits again  funding cycle we had no site visits whatsoever we don't believe that two hours rather i should say we do believe the two hours every two years is a very short period of time but we should at least have that to adequately visit agencies it's add to whether it's what staff or without staff let them be at that their discretion we don't want to take away from staff we were very very pleased when two years ago we're very pleased with the housing department we were very pleased with their staff support we were just trying to come up so it's something to relieve the burden that's all  but whatever other commissions decide they know what their commission bassed there are some commissions if they look at structures they may be able to do several site visits in an afternoon for us to visit so that's permissible that's that's all we want we feel that that's what we owe you with as the city council we owe you to do a proper evaluation to pay make proper recommendations  make to half day this is to three can you see for a maximum of one hour each every six months in the period between issuing requests for proposals so it's hard to compare the two of them so maybe you could help me i'm not turned over to kristen lee she is a community service a specialist with the department and she manages to look me in syria process good evening by smearing counsel so you know what the staff proposal is to and it is a little bit difficult to read but it's to have to visit every six months for three sites per visit so that would  to all eighteen sites that the homeless commission is going to be reviewing some of the agencies have a couple of different projects at the same site so we think that we can accomplish that with the proposal more efficient that way ok well i think we're trying to reach a happy medium within budget here cancelling the worthington yeah if if it's if it's a three hours and you're going to three different agencies how much of that time is travel time presumably travel time included or not extra time allotted for travel between the agencies it's kind of something that we had modeled with the housing advisory commission when we went out the last round and it seemed to work well so it's i guess i'm i'm trying to understand how many actual business is going to happen under the staff recommendation compared to how many actual i mean it seems like what they're asking for is very simple and straightforward and easy to understand they want to visit every program that they're voting on for two hours right and so i mean that's easy to understand so under this alternative of is is the question is is the main component of the alternative is that it's spread out over the entire two year cycle and that's why it's the staff thing spatter or is it i guess so it's just a difference of one hour versus two hours so it's eighteen places get visited for one hour instead of two hours is that right the homes commission is saying the entire commission would go out to sites for two out to eight hundred different sites so they would go out eighteen different times for two hours each time to eight we are proposing that there are actually six times that we go out and we still accomplish visiting eight hundred sites but for one hour each and every commissioner is able to participate we're suggesting that a subcommittee be created  so that it is not the whole commission every time the dramatic difference that didn't come out in the original presentation and i should add that in the past when the whole commission has been invited to go to the site visit it is never the case that every commissioner shows up it's always been a subset subset of commissioners that come to the site visits so i'd like to try to do a blending of these two options because it seems like the staff recommendation gets to have to visit all the sites but it's only have it's only one hour instead of two but i don't see a benefit to prohibit most of the commissioners from attending so if we adopt the stuff recommendation but with the amendment that all the commissioners would be able to attend they don't get power for what they're asking for transportation for for that many people so that's what the original suggestion was for a subcommittee that could be easily transported by one staff member or if we have more than a subcommittee then we're talking additional staff members to be able to help transport on they're able to provide their own transportation well my amendment would be that the commissioners would coordinate their transportation in order to make it possible for more of them to attend the other logistic challenges that when there is a full commission it is a noticed meeting and it really is a much more challenging for us because i had council member more ok is absent and vice mayor myal you know ocean feels ok so now we'll go on the main motion which is the staff report recommendations counts for more yes anderson is j we are going to now go to information report every twenty seven go berkeley pilot program which i believe is our last item and staff is making their way in this is an information report as you recall and we initiated the go berkeley program we promise to come to you thirty days prior to making any changes in rates either with on street meters or with the garages and this the garages relating primarily to occupancy in those garages and how we believe the pricing affects that i believe there has been some conversation with the d b a and mr cain or wanted to speak to some of the proposals that we're making but with that i'd like to hand it over to  willing who are the staff to the go berkeley program who can briefly explain why we are proposing to make the parking pricing changes in the garage as they will do that and then john will hear from the public good evening hours of council  mayor these changes are really the second piece of the launch of the go vertically parking pricing pilot program which began on october fifteenth as you guys know and that that program that pricing change on the effect of the on street pricing in our go berkeley areas and this would be the second piece of that to coordinate our off street parking to send the same price signals to create  adequate visitor parking in the off street garages and to have a clear simpler pricing structure so that visitors can understand what the price they're going to pay is and therefore make the smartest decision for them whether to park street or on tree so really we're coming to you with what would is the second of those proposals october fifteenth or so far as gone very well and  talk about what the actual conditions in the garage are which is why we came up with this particular proposal thank you matt i just wanted to reiterate some of the goals of the go berkeley program especially as they apply to the garages and as to the changes that we're proposing the most important thing for us is that we ensure that there's availability and parking garage as much as we want to ensure that on street we'd also like to encourage visitor parking in the garages we'd like to encourage people to go right into the garage as rather than park on street so those are the sort of the principles that were at here in two we have a problem in hearing to those principles and reaching those goals because we have a situation at our garages right now especially as pertains to center street garage as you may have noticed in your your walks by the garage center she kharaj is full it's dispensed playing the full sign many days recently in  monthly permits that includes electric vehicles they can no longer get into the garage in order to charge some of our disabled parkers cannot enter the garage in order to charge this is quite a situation that we're dealing with we don't want there to be a perception no consistent and persistent negative perception that there is no parking in our downtown berkeley area on the other hand what we have at the telegraph channing garage is availability we are doing a little bit better than we were last year last year when we spoke to you though the previous time that we presented we said that there were approximately two hundred  in the garage we're doing a little better now but there is still ample and excess capacity there so the information item that you have in front of you proposes a different rate structures as matt said number one we want to simplify the information that we provide to our drivers as they approach their garages most importantly we want to provide an incentive for people to use the telegraph garage by decreasing rates and we would like to improve the so we'll open this up to the public please come hi john kaner c e o downtown berkeley association the concern we have is what the staff is proposing is a thirty three percent increase for all day parking in the center street in oxford street brushes and i think it'll be the garage i'm from fifteen to twenty dollars that is a really big increase  need more community input before doing crease of that size we met with staff last week and i thought we had reached a consensus a tentative agreement but i understand there's other issues because it's already been submitted to council where we are willing to support a thirteen percent increase to seventeen dollars and also from one fifty per month to one seventy which is all thirteen percent and the early bird rate from eight dollars nine dollars which is also thirteen percent we can't do a thirty three percent increase without participation from the broader community and i also did work with all the leaders in the arts district and and also frank audi at the y and cop the oxford street raj so i apologize for throwing up a stick in the spokes at this at this late date but it's really problematic not council on the act and i to say seventeen vs fifteen would be ok if we end up holding th should go back and look at the early bird issue we recommended to staff who actually do away with the early bird because early bird as you may recall we were here three years ago recommending early bird because we had all this excess capacity in the garage and was sort of lost money well now we're filled and eight dollars you know it doesn't make a lot of say and so too and at that point at that time it was seen as a temporary measure and then if it's held over i think looking towards issues about treatment on sundays it cetera but we'll be ok yes so gordon you're an expert you know well i wanted they asked john this question i mean what we're trying to do here is set market rates for parking and let the market decide what it is where the center sheree garage is the market is what we don't know what we know the rates too low ok and we could move it up in steps but i think we've also granted the city manager some flexibility but it  you know the market may be that it's going to be thirty prints going to be twenty dollars ok that's what you know you know given the capacity there and we certainly should look at the early bird i want to look at sunday's because i think it were overpriced there the vacancies are there there there are too many empty spaces there so we should we should try to fill it up so there's actually more parking available downtown in the in the on street but the market may say it's twenty dollars in the garage  the down and the century telegraph it's last because there's less demand but that's kind of the the process we're going to and i don't know if we should artificially now say well that's too high i mean there's a there's demand you know well comment i don't think it makes sense to have twenty dollars for all day and if you happen again by nine o'clock it's nine dollars it's less than fifty percent it just doesn't make sense so i think that if we eliminated the early bird see what  impact was and bring up the past the certainly seems to make more sense twenty dollars i thirty three percent increase corden maybe you're right but we need input from the stakeholders can you imagine for you know woke up parkers  john's a lot taller than him and ok so i just like to support the will and matt i know particularly well has talked a lot of our merchants and came up with this plan for the telegraph chaining garage and i just want to support their plan as it stands i think it's a great plan ruse the problematic validation system that we used to have it gives something that i think virtually every merchant that she talked to talked about was some kind of free parking promotion we have just the opposite problem we have a lot of vacancy in the garage and then we still have people driving around and going to garage and having the false impression that there is no parking on telegraph when there's really funny a parking if we could just get them to the garage thank you so that's all i have to say thanks thank you hi jacqueline mccormack just real quick a point of reference i have driven around and come downtown for the last couple weeks not been able to get always relied on in the past and we went to early bird about a year ago i wondered about this and what the impact would be over time having worked in downtown much paulton areas for the majority of my life i know what challenges that can bring and as we get more residents downtown there's an incentive to be parking in those slots because it's very safe i mean it's a safe environment in those slots as a point of reference if you go to west oakland to park and take bart into the city during the weekdays and you get there early bird the more secured lots are ten dollars a day so it would say that you know here in berkeley where it's you know it's a very safe environment for these cars you're right next to parts you can quickly get so i am sympathetic to the concerns that john king heard raise that a thirty three percent increase in the the the four hour more rate is a pretty significant increase to implement at one time and so i think by implementing what he had suggested which is a seven thousand dollars increase so than having staff evaluate whether in a future increase may be warranted in the future because staff will be constantly evaluating the rates so this is an ongoing process that i think would be a reasonable compromise so i want to make a motion i guess and maybe i asked the city manager to help me in terms of the form of the motion but i guess would be directing staff to the city manager to rethink what you what you're getting out is in terms of the the four plus our rates in center street and oxford it's seventeen rather than twenty routes and so we would just take that direction but if i could just pose one question for consideration is who is parking there for that amount of time because of what we're doing is accommodating all day parkers who are employees in the downtown the other part of the just one remind the council the other part of the go berkeley program is the provision of transit passes and we gave out about thousand free to businesses to encourage their employees to use transit rather than parking in the garages all day long so it's something that i think we need to keep in mind that the turnover in the garage is important we believe to the vitality of those those areas so i have a few other components to emotion so making that change from twenty to seventeen for the four plus hours for center in oxford referring to staff consideration of the sunday discount rate cuts where was the i could suggest seventeen or the twenty so so would be the changing the twenty to seventeen looking at a sunday discount for all the garages i believe because there's an underpass city i think in all the garages on sundays and then considering used which is more than what first is the city of berkeley's usage rate is so that's a good it's a good rate we are working with a z transit in our own consultants to keep doing promotions within the employers that that signed up for instance talking about the berkeley rep and really making sure all of their all the people that have the passes know that they can use them and keep promoting it so i think there's some room for growth but basically the programs working well i mean is the whole point of this exercise number one we want to have some street street spaces available but number two are we looking for the tipping point where people might go to public transit rather than drive down to the parking garage yes we would like that but we don't feel that seeing a full sun century garage is a good experience  away to get them to change modes you know as and especially in the holidays the only thing that the reason we're proposing twenty dollars as the first step in the possibility of reducing the rate if we've overshot it is because of the importance of finding getting vacancy in the holiday season and that with our new covertly program council provided authority to raise at this high five dollars at a time but with the understanding that we would come back with data and reduce it to the market rate if that's what it's called for i think that the holiday season was what made us want to really make sure we move the needle one one final question that is we handed out a thousand asses to employers have they all been distributed yes so so thirty percent of the thousand have been years at least once or regularly here that we don't know we just know that of a thousand passes that we gave out thirty percent of them have been being used counseling graph i want to follow up on something you said about the electric vehicle parking spaces do electric fields park in those spaces all day long regardless of whether they're charging or not it's we offer free electrical vehicle charging an astonishing garage and when the full sign is on those vehicles can't get into charge their vehicles so we can't offer that you mean regardless of whether or not the space is empty y kharaj for monthly permit holders so when you see the full sign it does not mean that all spaces are filled in the garage rather that the space that we have for visitor parking and other non monthly parkers is now holding back from monthly permit holders and service vehicles there was of a space available for electric charger but what happens when we're at the full capacity a person cannot pull the ticket so we now have instruction that's being ordered so that people will know if they press the assistance button we can override and let them into the available vehicle charger space so that information is actually going out to our three one one services tomorrow with explanation  i put forth a proposal to the university's college of natural resources because they've started this thing called the purply food program which was actually the you sees response to the occupy the far movement to try to build a movement to promote urban farming and so my proposal that i put forth to them which there's some interest and initially is to transform people's park into a fully functional urban garden where we grow food for  and what we offer classes gardening classes ecology classes for the player for the community for everyone and so i can actually i'm here to ask for everyone's help city council and the community to talk to the you see and ask is there a way for people's parks to be part of the perfectly institute i think that  turning people's park into a place for education and for urban farming is something a lot of people would agree to and so yeah so that