First Meeting, September 8, 2026

0:07Okay, good evening, everyone. My name is Holly, I'm the City Clerk, and I'm going to help facilitate this first meeting tonight of the Library Task Force.

0:16So just a couple of quick housekeeping things.

0:19The wireless mics in front of our members here. You guys can turn them on off with the button. It's a touchstone, so if you can see, the green means that the mic is live. If you can leave it off when you're not speaking, it'll help with the feedback. We are recording and have a hybrid meeting with some of our members virtually, so if you can always try to speak into the microphone, that way the audio is picked up on the system.

0:42And then, tonight, instead of me calling roll for our members, we're gonna give you guys an opportunity to self-introduce, so we're just gonna go down the line here, and then we'll go to our virtual members. If you just want to take a very brief minute to introduce yourself to the group, and then we'll get started with the items on the agenda, okay? So we'll start over here on this end with Tom.

1:03I am Tom Panis, resident of El Cerrito since 1975.

1:09Raised my family here, two sons, wife's gone now.

1:12A longtime member of the Friends of the Library.

1:16Library of Foundation, I'm very supportive of libraries.

1:21Thrilled that we're having this meeting.

1:23And don't be afraid to bring the microphone to you. I'm not afraid. Hi, I'm Ian Border. I guess I've been in El Cerrito since 1997.

1:34I've raised two children here, they both went to El Cerrito High, and they're both graduated from college, so they're out of the house. I'm currently the librarian at John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond, and it's sort of a new position for me over the last 5 years. Before that, I was an English teacher there for 16 years, so also a huge fan of libraries.

1:57Hi everyone, my name's Chelsea Sparti. My husband and I moved here two and a half years ago. We really love El Cerrito, and I'm here contributing my time towards the library in ways similar to how I've contributed to libraries

2:13throughout California, in Mexico, and Malaysia. It's really important to me that we have a healthy, accessible, and wonderful library, and I'm looking forward to hearing ideas

2:24From residents, as well as fellow task force members.

2:30Hi, my name is Bethany Woods. I am a resident of El Cerrito for about

2:36maybe 12 years now. I'm an education specialist in Emeryville. I value libraries as well. I think it's everyone here.

2:45I'm also the alternate library commissioner for the city.

2:48And I've been doing that for 2 years.

2:53Good evening, my name is Amy Chen. I've been an El Cerrito resident since 2021, so we had the privilege of moving here during the pandemic. I have two young kids in the Contra Costa School, so an 11-year-old and also a 4-year-old in TK.

3:05We love libraries, as is a common theme, I think, for everybody on this task force, and I'm looking forward to working with everybody here to figure out the right next solutions for El Cerrito.

3:16Okay, then we can go to our virtual members. Member Rosekind, we can start with you.

3:22Member Rosekind: Okay, my name's Rachel Rosekind, I'm a resident of El Cerrito, I've lived in El Cerrito for about 10 years, in the Bay Area for about 20 years.

3:30Member Rosekind: I, have two daughters, one of whom is on the task force, age 14, the other one is 11. I homeschool both of them. I also serve on the County Library Commission for about 6 years now, and as vice chair of the Countywide Library Foundation.

3:45Member Rosekind: I have done work with libraries for about 30…

3:49Member Rosekind: plus years, academic libraries, public libraries, archives, to bridge community partnerships and build more diverse collections. And I'm just excited that we're having this conversation and hear from community, hear from task force members, and to be in this space.

4:08Kane and our youth member, Rosekind?

4:12Youth Member Rosekind: Hi, my name's Eden. I love Liveways, and I have been volunteering

4:19Youth Member Rosekind: For the, like, the last two years at one, but I've been helping with library programs ever since I was basically, you know, born, because I love the library. I was born and raised here, so yeah.

4:34Great, thank you so much. So, future meetings, we'll simply do a roll call to know that we have a quorum of members to meet, but you are all present and accounted for tonight. There will be an opportunity for public comment on each of the items as we go through the agenda tonight, and then we also have an item at the end of the agenda for,

4:52Comments that are for anything that's within the… the…

4:56charge that this group has been given by Council that's not listed on the agenda. And then, real quick, before I hand it over to our City Manager to get us started with the first item, I also want to recognize Mayor Potem Saltzman is here with us tonight. She is the assigned council liaison, and you'll hear probably from her a little bit later on the second item in terms of what the Council's vision is for what this group will accomplish. So, with that, I will hand it over to our city manager.

5:21manager.

5:23Great. Thank you so much, Holly, and thank you all for being here. I'm really excited about,

5:31Going through our next steps, and can we put the presentation up?

5:38Maybe I will just sit here.

5:42Instead of going up to the podium.

5:52While that's coming up, just essentially, as you saw on the agenda, this first item is a little bit of the how we got here story, and it's a pretty long story. You all were talking about how, long you've been residents of El Cerrito. On Thursday, I will have worked for the City of El Cerrito for 25 years.

6:12Yay! I started out as, actually, Will, he will introduce himself. He's the assistant to the city manager. I started off in his job, September 10th, 2001.

6:23So, and that's about how long I've been working on a library project, which I'll get into in a second. But, this first part of the agenda is to essentially give kind of a baseline of where we've been, what we've done literally over a 25, 24-year span.

6:40To kind of get us to where we are right now. And a lot of questions, I know a lot of people had a lot of questions about

6:47what we looked at, what sites we looked at, how we were going to fund it, all of those things. And so, like I said, I'll go through it. You can certainly stop me if there's any, any of the task force members, if there's any questions.

7:00Then you can… or once we're done with the presentation, ask questions then before we go to public comment on this item, so…

7:10Is this on?

7:11Did I turn on? Nope, it's not on. That'll do it.

7:17It's a little slow.

7:20Great, see, it's so slow, but then it went ahead.

7:23Oh, there's Allison. Okay. Also wanted to introduce Allison McKee, who is the Contra Costa County Librarian, and…

7:32I see other people here. So, and she will also, we can call on her for an assist as well. We've been working very closely with the Contra Costa Library on this.

7:42So…

7:44What we'll go over, just in… is the partnership we have with the library, the timeline from 2002 to present, the different locations we've explored, why it has been prioritized, and any potential paths forward, which will come from, hopefully a recommendation from this task force.

8:04So just to start, and Allison, please feel free to jump in if you like.

8:09We have a wonderful partnership with the Contra Costa County Library, and we have, certainly as long as I've been here, the county is responsible for providing the library services, so essentially, we contract with them, but it is not a paid contract.

8:27We essentially have a lease with the building for… they lease it for no charge, we partner with them in order to, run the program. So what they're responsible for, again, as you see on the left here, operations, staffing, they do the collections.

8:42There are 40 base open hours. This has changed over the years. This is the current baseline that the Contra Costa County has budgeted for every single library branch in the library system.

8:56Any county branch that is open additional hours from the 40 that are the baseline provided are paid for by the city.

9:04And most of the technology, we actually have a library, like, in our lease agreement with the library, we do, they do some of the technology. We do, it is split throughout, and each year we get,

9:18When we get our, essentially, our bill for extra hours, because we do provide 6 extra hours.

9:23for the library to be open. We also partner with them on various technology. So, again, on our… on our side, on the right there, we own the building, and we maintain the building. We do utilities, landscaping, the furniture and shelving, so the, the, the,

9:40the permanent components of the building are ours, and again, we split technology costs and those extra library hours. And as Allison will probably tell you, one of the things that we,

9:53On this slide, as you see, they provide the 40 base hours. We fund 6 extra hours, so we are open a total of 46 open hours each week.

10:02And because of the size and the structure of our building, which is… we'll get into how undersized it is, and the amount of staff, and their staffing resources, and how they staff their buildings, 6 hours is the maximum that the El Cerrito Library can

10:21Pay for, essentially, that we can actually be open.

10:25Did I do that right? Thank you, Allison. Okay.

10:29So again, the library is owned and maintained by us. The facility is owned and maintained by us.

10:36Anything else, Allison, you can think of?

10:39And if not, you can come in later.

10:41You good?

10:41Okay, thanks.

10:43I just want to make sure I give you an opportunity if I don't get anything right. So, okay, we'll do a little bit of a walk down memory lane, and thank you, Will. I actually brought some of these. We've been working on this so long. Do you remember when we had newspapers? I actually have some clippings about

11:00This one is 2007, 2006, of, this is how long we've actually been. We did have an El Cerrito journal once upon a time,

11:11RIP newspapers, or at least RIP a dedicated reporter for, the East… this is now the former, now it's the East Bay Times. We did have a dedicated reporter for many, many years. So, just a little bit of a history lesson going back. So, okay.

11:28I have to get my cheaters on. So, back in 2002, I was still pretty new here, we began research into funding a new library facility because we were intending to apply for grants through what was called Prop 14, which was passed in the year 2000. It was the Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act.

11:49They had 3 rounds of funding, and these were multi-million dollar grants that were given out. The Hercules Library, for example, was built with one of those grants.

12:00Many libraries in the area were built with using some of these grants.

12:04Like I said, I started in 2001. I was kind of given this assignment, hey, heard about this grant, take a look at it, see if we can apply for it.

12:13Realized right away that we were nowhere near ready for applying for it, because a grant like this, multi-million dollars, it also required, a match, but it needed to be, like.

12:23shovel-ready, like, shovel hovering above the ground ready. It needed to be very… really, a whole timeline, a whole building program needed to be sussed out, which we had done no work for that, so…

12:35We weren't able to apply for it at that point, but we began to prepare to, to complete the work necessary, because a new bond act was going to be placed on a future state ballot. And we worked with the current… the then, county librarian at the time, who was working with us.

12:53On what might be some good criteria, what would be some good grant, you know, what would make our grant look good. But one of the things we needed to do was we needed to hire an expert to be able to,

13:05to put a needs assessment of the current building, a needs assessment of what the li… what library El Cerrito needed, and then, a building program had to be put together.

13:17So, that's what we did, and then at the time, we had been, I think, open even less hours, and we worked with the county to increase library hours all the way back to 2002.

13:28So then in 2004, actually, fun fact, and so…

13:33I have to tell you, and the Mayor Pro Tem knows this, because I've got piles and piles of old papers that I was pulling out in preparation for this to remind myself of all of this history. I've got stacks and stacks of,

13:49of, like, back criteria, and one of the things I've forgotten was that in 2004,

13:55Fun fact, there actually was a development that was considering building a library in a housing project in what is now the Ifshen Violins building. So you can see, that didn't… it passed the Planning Commission, but it didn't go over well, because that's not a very big site, and it would have had to go way up, and

14:14at the time, I mean, it wouldn't have been… I mean, there would be zero parking at all other than what would have been on Fairmont. So while the Planning Commission thought it was a cool idea.

14:23It didn't really materialize. Development obviously never materialized, because now it's If Shin Violin's a very successful, company, and so… but it's not the first time

14:34a development, a housing development was considered all the way back in 2004, so I literally had forgotten about that, but that was on Fairmont. So, at the same time in 2004, the city's redevelopment agency sold bonds, which would have included a plan to fund

14:54for the purchase of the Senior Center property. Now, the old Senior Center was behind the current library on Stockton Avenue.

15:02The city, owns the library building and just the parcel, and I actually have a map I can pull out and show you. But it's just essentially the land right around the library building is what the city owns. All of the rest of that is owned by the school district. So the senior center sat on school district property.

15:22we were working with the school district at the time to try to buy the property, and I'll get into that a little bit more in a second. But redevelopment agencies just… and I tried to

15:33I know this is,

15:35this is really getting super technical. At the time, the city had a redevelopment agency, and those were a separate agency, that was allowed by the state of California, started in the 1940s and 50s.

15:49The idea was to assist local governments in eliminating blight through development, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of residential, commercial, industrial, and retail districts. I want to make sure I get this right. So, but what it did allow for what was called tax increment financing.

16:05That is a public financing method that subsidizes redevelopment infrastructure or other community infrastructure… community improvement projects. What that meant was any future increases in property taxes in the redevelopment area

16:20Would, any future increases would then create

16:25I'm sorry, I got… I wanted to make sure I got this right. It used future increases in property taxes to subsidize the current improvements projected to create the conditions for the increases. For example.

16:36The completion of a public project might result in an increase in the value of the surrounding real estate, so that generates additional tax revenue.

16:44Redevelopment agencies were then required to pass through a portion of what was called the tax increment, that tax revenue, to different agencies, including the districts. We could take that additional tax increment revenue and bond off of it.

16:57And that's what we did. In fact, that is how we did a lot of affordable housing in this city prior to,

17:05the dissolution of redevelopment agencies, because in the 70s, there was a requirement that redevelopment agencies had to provide affordable housing funds. We're almost out of those funds now, because redevelopment agencies no longer exist.

17:19That's how the city bought… the Cerrito Theater property was purchased through redevelopment. The Hanna Gardens, we purchased that, was purchased through redevelopment funding, so…

17:30that was a big source of not just, affordable housing type of money, but money for public improvements and public projects. This plaza out here was funded partially by redevelopment money. The streetscape that was completed in the 2000s with new signage and,

17:48all sorts of different improvements alongside Pablo Avenue. That was also redevelopment agency funding. So, it's important because a lot of questions have come up about why didn't the city set aside money all those years ago for that? That's exactly what we were doing with the redevelopment agency when it existed.

18:07So, in 2005, we're on 2005-2006, so what we did then is started to prepare for the, the potential, Library Construction Bond Act that would be coming up next that was going to be on the state ballot.

18:24So, we did an RFP for a needs assessment and a building program, and we selected Page and Morris, and Catherine Page was the principal of that, great, great expert to conduct the needs assessment program. So that included surveys, it included, you know, all of… looking at industry standards, and

18:43I was also looking at surveys along this. We did so many… many different surveys, and these were old-school surveys. We did a… we had a printed newsletter that people would… that they cut out and sent back to me in mail with stamps and stuff. So, I mean, we've got a lot

18:58A lot of, a lot of survey data dating all the way back to literally 20 years ago.

19:04So we did surveys, we did focus groups, we collaborated with the county. At the same time, we built… and then we developed what was called a building program. So from the needs assessment.

19:18what Kathy Page did is created, like, what the industry standards said would be an appropriate library for El Cerrito and what it should hold. That's where the 20,000 square foot

19:30footprint came from. It should have these different types of amenities within the building, and then a building program, and also I have

19:40old school, look at that, old school books, what the… what the… it's needs assessment, and then the building program kind of puts it all in different, like, where it might land in a building that flows and makes sense.

19:55So in 2005, we also began discussions with the school district to purchase the senior center land parcels. The idea was we were going to rebuild the library and the senior center on that site, so we would have bought the

20:09the, the land all the way… that goes all the way back to the street, so essentially just the whole

20:15Part of that property, library, all the way back.

20:19To where the houses are.

20:21And, we actually, worked with the, with the, I don't know if you were on the board then, Tom, but, the school district actually agreed to surplus the site. They have what's called a 7-11 committee that looks at different properties to surplus.

20:35I'm told it's called a 7-Eleven Committee because it has no less than 7 and no more than 11, and it rhymes, so I don't… that's 7-Eleven Committee, but they surplus the site, the district agreed to surplus the site, we conducted an appraisal, we negotiated, we had a draft agreement, and we agreed upon a price for $1.7 million to buy their property.

20:55At the same time, the school district was also going through their own building program. They were essentially redoing schools all over the district, and almost every school in El Cerrito was rebuilt. And so that was also part of some of this equation.

21:10So we were getting ready, we were gonna buy the property, we had the $1.7 million was from the redevelopment agency, we were going to get ready to apply for this grant, and then in 2006, Prop 81 was put on the ballot, and it failed.

21:26So… That was strike one of many strikes.

21:32In 2007, the… again, the district, as we were moving forward, however, for those of you who remember the old Portola Middle School, it's now a very nice, lovely, expanse of land at this point. There was a middle school there.

21:47That was essentially, the idea was to rebuild the middle school on that property, and it was deemed that it would not be possible to do that.

21:58The upper part of the, property is an ancient landslide, and the division of the state architect, actually pretty much told the district, you can't build there.

22:09And so then they had to decide what to do with the middle school, and that actually was also a long and drawn-out process of, originally, the district considered

22:19converting Fairmont Elementary into the middle school, and then landed on what the former Castro Elementary to what is now Korematsu Middle School. But this was in 2007, so because they did not know what was going on, and they needed to figure out what was going on with the middle school.

22:35they put the, purchase for the Senior Center property on hold. However, knowing that the entire property was not on the landslide, sorry, the lower play field where the current portables are now would be safe to build on, except that it's too small to build a middle school.

22:53So they were… that's one of the reasons they were looking at other sites. So we began discussions then with them on looking at that portion of the property, since they wouldn't be able to build a school there. So we were talking with them that far back.

23:08In 2009, the State of California budget takeaway required our redevelopment agency to make a payment of $1.7 million to the state. That was the $1.7 million that we had set aside to buy this property. And just as an aside.

23:25the reason, redevelopment agencies don't exist anymore. This was a bit of a fight between the state and localities. In 2009, the state budget package had just diverted billions of dollars

23:39From local redevelopment agencies to, essentially, they… they rated… they rated localities in order to help balance their budget. Do I sound cynical? Yes.

23:50It was a very contentious time between the state and cities. This was meant for them to ease pressure on the state budget because of the recession.

24:00the local agencies very strongly fought the state's actions. There were court rulings, there were lawsuits. Essentially, what ended up happening was in 2010, the state

24:11Just simply passed a law to dissolve redevelopment agencies completely, and in doing so, we essentially lost

24:20Our major potential funding source,

24:24For, to do the library at all.

24:28So, moving forward then… 2013, so…

24:34Okay, we have no funding, we have no land.

24:38So, but we started, this is when we, did the first iteration of our city's strategic plan, and the, city council at the time of its adoption determined that

24:50I was gonna say is, I'm sorry, the… Is that the sun?

24:55To… to put that, okay.

24:58Alright, so thanks for,

25:01We'll have to figure that out. so anyway, it was, deemed as a priority in the strategic plan, and the City Council still wanted and intended to, to keep looking at how

25:14We could build a new library facility, maybe there was another way to do it, and this is when we started to discuss whether or not a ballot measure,

25:23to raise, taxes, local taxes was a possibility. So, in doing that, once, the City Council had determined that was a priority, they directed staff to re… to update the needs assessment. So, we did that in 2014. We worked with Kathy Page again. We did additional outreach, additional surveys. At that point, we had some online surveys.

25:45Focus groups, and working with the county.

25:48So… excuse me.

25:52In 2015, then the Council directed staff to move forward with the development of a ballot measure for placement in November 2016.

26:01So, at that point, we worked with, Group 4, which is a consulting firm, really great consulting firm. They work on libraries all over the state. And Swinerton Consultant, which is a, like a property management,

26:15or a construction management firm, to determine different site options and cost models. The City Council had selected what we thought would be a great site at the time, at the former Portola Middle School, the lower playfield area, where the current portables are now. In July 2016,

26:34well, actually, prior to that, the school district, but then let us know that they weren't interested in, letting us use that for a library.

26:46So, once again, we had nowhere to go. But the City Council decided to move forward to place a measure on the ballot

26:53Noting that if it was able to raise funding, then we could… we had looked at different sites, we could look at different ways, perhaps still work with the district, maybe swap land. We weren't… we were holding out hope that we would be able to do that, but it did go to the ballot. They decided to put it on the ballot anyway.

27:10It, received 63% approval, which fails to meet the two-thirds requirement. The city… if the city puts a special parcel tax or any sort of special tax on the ballot, it needs to pass by two-thirds. Essentially, it lost by about 500 votes.

27:30So.

27:31once again, we kept going, okay, no money, no land, but we're gonna keep trying. So, in 2017, the City Council did reaffirm their commitment to move the Hyde with planning for a new library, and at that point, they started… actually, I think it was back in 2016 is when the original idea was to start talking to BART

27:52Because at that point, they had started to look at their own properties to be able to develop into housing.

27:58And I will… I will be the first to tell you that when we first started, conversations with BART, that I was convinced that BART wouldn't go for it, and even if they did, that the developers wouldn't go for it, because it's not a moneymaker.

28:11And developers are in it to want to build housing, they want to make money, and to my surprise, and I think to almost everybody's… well, certainly to my surprise, maybe not to…

28:20former BART director Surprise, but a lot of the developers were very excited about the idea. It's a great amenity to have in a building, and the idea that came out was, and the developer that BART chose.

28:32Showed the library being in the affordable housing portion, meaning that, no, if you were to take, say, put it in a market rate.

28:42or put it on a piece of property on the avenue, you can't collect property taxes from a public building. So if you put it in an affordable housing building, which also does not collect property taxes, there would be no loss of potential property tax to do that. So that is where that idea came from.

28:58In 2018, AB 2923 was passed by the state, which required minimum zoning on BART-owned parcels, so we had already passed a San Pablo Avenue strategic plan.

29:10working really well with BART to be able to work on that development together, and once they, in 2019,

29:19is when we made that formal request for the, potential library RFP in the RFP, and then we conducted a workshop

29:29this is… at this point, I was appointed city manager then in 2018, so we did another library workshop, to start talking about proposed sites and partnerships and looking at, this site in particular. And that is what the City Council then ended up directing us to do.

29:51So in 2020, the, RFQ from BART was actually,

29:57was issued and accepted by BART, and there were two site plans, and this is the current development that exists now. Also has two site plans, one with a library and one without.

30:09So, and I'm counting from 2021 to 2024, we did…

30:16The site and access planning, more surveys, more mailers, more public meetings. We had a city council workshop, a public forum, a presentation, and a workshop. So all within 3 years, we had at least 3 different workshops and a couple of different

30:32council meetings and, surveys. So, we have been collecting, outreach on the library

30:39Literally, at this point, for 20 years.

30:42So, and in all of these surveys, interest had been sustained. I mean, people were still interested.

30:48In 2023, and I think, was this the, community survey and the national community survey at the time, 75% of residents rated building in the library at the Plaza BART station as a medium or high priority.

31:03So it really… and in 2025, it was 70%. So it still is a very high percentage that, essentially the council

31:12Let us… let… directed the staff to continue to work on all of this.

31:18So, at that point, we had, continued to look at whether or not we were going to place another ballot measure on the ballot. We did polling in 25 and 24, 23, 24, 25.

31:3523-24. And both of those surveys came back well short of the two-thirds requirement, and so the city did not place anything on the ballot, and we weren't planning to place anything on the ballot.

31:49And in fact, at this point, we don't have any, you know, from the city's perspective, there's no ability to fund our portion of the development for the library. So, if this goes forward and there's no funding that's identified.

32:03Then essentially when BART is ready to build that building, they will build it with the second site plan without a library.

32:09So, in 25 and 26,

32:13A group of residents, some of who may be in this room, put forth a petition, wrote an ordinance, and put forth a petition, to qualify signatures for a library initiative.

32:26It is important to understand that this was not a city initiative. The city had no part in writing the ordinance, did not assist.

32:38was… had literally no part of this. The only part that we had was once the petition was submitted.

32:45We are required by law to place that on the ballot. The election code allows for the city to develop a report, essentially interpreting what the ordinance that was placed on the ballot would mean for the city, call it an impact report, which we did that.

33:03And, as you probably all know, that went to the ballot on June 2nd, and it failed. It did not, at this point, because this was a citizen's initiative and not a city initiative.

33:16It only needed to meet a 50% threshold in order to pass, and it got 30.39%, so it did not

33:26This library task force, was created

33:30not to do anything with the ballot measure, and I will tell you, I mean, having worked on a library for a really long time, again, we had done so many different workshops and different conversations and surveys.

33:42And we'd worked with our library commissioners, our library. There's a big part of me that wishes that I would have, thought, worked with the council to come up with a task force sooner.

33:55So that we could have a lot more community dialogue in a fashion that allows for this type of a forum.

34:03And this type of a, you know, giving all of, all of you who have been appointed, all of this information, and having you work through this, ask questions, and then provide your own recommendation to the Council, but that's where we are now. So, looking,

34:21Kind of at the…

34:22the past part of this timeline and to where we are now, just… and again, I know I've been talking for a while, but this is a very condensed version of the last 25 years, so I will pause for this moment and ask if anybody has any questions so far.

34:44Hi, I have a question just around the polling results that were done over the last many years. Was there a consistent reason why it was not passing the threshold?

34:55So… and I could go… we'd have to go back and dig on the various, ones, prior to the last few years.

35:03And actually, we could probably even talk to our, we work with Goudby Surveys, who… we've been working with them for many, many years. They're a very well-respected firm throughout California. And, Brian Goudby is… is the lead, he's the founder, and

35:20He… if you're looking at some of the different time frames.

35:24A lot of it, his… and I… I'm speaking for him, so I don't want to necessarily try to put words in his mouth, but one of the things we've learned over time is a lot of the outside forces do have a lot of, have a lot of play within whether or not someone is willing to raise their own taxes.

35:44in earlier iterations of the survey, it at least met a 50% threshold. El Cerritans, over time, have been very supportive of public projects and very supportive of civic projects, even

35:58Our last, sales tax renewal, which was in 24, passed at 81%. So, I mean, we do have support in our city for those types of things.

36:09I think that right now, certainly this past, this past, the primary season, with the economy being the way it is, I mean, there's… that sometimes tends to,

36:23that tends to make people nervous about raising their taxes. Again, I am… I don't want to speak too much for Brian, but in the past, Brian has told us that there… if there is… if there's uncertainty about anything.

36:40Uncertainty about the measure, uncertainty about the economy, uncertainty about

36:44anything that that definitely can impact the polling results. Yeah, and just what I'd add is, you know, part of the next item we'll talk about is the work plan and what you all want to dig into, really. And so we'd be happy to, you know, get the survey results and what's been provided by the consultants to us, and share those with you

37:01And we can talk about that, or even bring Brian Goudby, our… the consultant who does the polling, if that's the direction that this task force wants to go in.

37:08Yeah, so, and we haven't done a poll for quite some time,

37:12Because, like I said, the last time we did a poll, that was 20… was that 24? Or 25? I'd have to double check that. Yeah, I believe it was 2024, and again, it… we didn't bring that to the Council purposely, because we knew that we weren't going to be able to meet the two-thirds draft rule, so…

37:28Got it, thank you. Yeah, I should have prefaced it by saying I'm so impressed by the amount of work and heart and commitment that has gone into this over the last 20 years, so thank you for sharing what seems like a very

37:39winding journey to this point, but grateful for your service. Yeah, thank you. It's been a series of hits and misses, I think, which is very interesting.

37:49Thank you for your presentation thus far.

37:51I…

37:53think that there's sufficient resident skepticism and valid concerns around developers, and I think it's important for us to hear, as the weeks and months roll on.

38:06an address… these concerns that residents have, specifically around paired development, when we're pairing a library with

38:15with housing, with a rec center, with a senior center, with the theater, with retail, whatever that might look like. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from residents on

38:24when they are comfortable with those arrangements. I heard you mention that Bart chose the developer for some of the previous plans.

38:32Can you talk about the process for engagement of developers, what that identification looks like, and what the city's role is? Sure, and actually, if you want to jump in on this at all, since you were a board member at the time.

38:45And we can also go… if there's something that any of you want to dive further into detail, we can certainly bring that back as well, because there's a lot of detail, so I'll try to nutshell it right now. But yes, so essentially.

38:59the BART development is going to happen whether the city's involved or not, is kind of the bottom line. And the…

39:07and again, I'll try to speak for Bart, and I'll let the Mayor Pro Tem jump in.

39:12But BART is looking to develop a lot of their property. They own that property, and is actually a great way to be able to have some built-in ridership. And the idea of transit-oriented development, obviously, is that you're able to

39:28You can live there, you don't need to have a car, you can go anywhere, and as you know, living blessed with two BART stations here in El Cerrito.

39:35We are connected to anything really quickly, and so, that…

39:43when the development was started, and again, the state law that was passed, what was that, AB2923, BART is also not required to,

39:55for the… the city… let me…

39:58It's backwards. City is not authorized or required to approve the prop… the plans.

40:05BART has been excellent in working with us. We… and they do this… they've done this with other cities, they're working with Berkeley now, they've done this with Oakland. They want to be able to work with the cities because they want to have a development that people are going to

40:20you know, that is going to fit into the community, and that the community does have a say in. And actually, if you go on the BART website, there's a lot… they did a ton of outreach.

40:30And a ton of research specifically on just the Plaza Station, looking at how people get there, doing pop-ups, talking to people. So they, they did their… a great deal of their own outreach that we partnered with them

40:45to try to come up with all of these ideas for the development. While the specific plan that has been passed by the city allowed for this type of a zoning and this type of density, again.

40:58They did not have to go through the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission did not have to approve it, the Design Review Board did not have to approve it, the City Council did not approve it. But they did go through that process in the interest of public engagement and making sure that the public was understanding and engaged with what was happening.

41:21Why don't you go ahead?

41:24It's hard to get over there.

41:26Hi, I'm Rebecca, I'm the Mayor Pro Tem, and I also served on the BART Board for 12 years before being at the City, so I was El Cerrito's BART director and worked a lot on this development, so if offline you want to go deep, I can do that too. But the only thing I want to add to just make it really clear, everything Karen said was correct, and also, and this is what BART's been doing with all of the cities.

41:50When BART went out with the request for qualifications to pick a developer.

41:55BART staff and city staff sat on that panel.

41:58to… to look at the qualifications of the developers and to choose together. And it was a unanimous decision, and that's usually the case. So, the city and BART had near equal input onto finding the developer. And in terms of the community outreach, I certainly talked to or emailed with hundreds of people, and that's just me.

42:21BART staff probably a whole lot more, so there was robust community input. It was just now several years ago, because it got approved

42:31Right at the beginning, early in the pandemic. So, a lot of that… there's been some outreach since then from the developers, but the BART part happened now many years ago.

42:43Thank you. Yeah, no, I… it has been… it has been great to work with BART, because they have, you know, as Mayor Pro Tem said, they've been very engaged with us, in…

42:54They didn't have to, to be honest, but they… they did, and we're really grateful for that, because we believe that we came up with a really good project.

43:04for example, like, other… other state agencies, like the school district, for example, same thing on their land, they go through the state, they do not come through our planning commission or anything like that, so… but we've also had good partnerships with them, so it's…

43:17it's one of those things where we all have different agencies that are all working together on the same thing, and like I said, I'm really grateful to when the Mayor Pro Tem was our BART director, that we had such a really great partnership with them to work.

43:35Okay.

43:37All right, so then we'll keep going, and Will, you can help me, on some of this as well, jump in. So what locations have been… do you want to… I've been talking a lot, do you want to start on some of this? I can jump in, too.

43:49We can do it together. So… so really, the city, and again, just to introduce myself for anyone online or for here, I'm Will Provost, the Assistant to the City Manager, and kind of helping facilitate, and support the task force, however I can help.

44:03So…

44:04The city has looked at many, many sites, so sometimes the question comes up, well, have you looked at the Portal site, or have you looked at the current library site, or have you looked at

44:13X site. In short, over the last 25 years, the city's probably looked into it. And so here's just a map. This is from a prior presentation, you know, around 2015, 2016, but really it shows mapping out all the schools, all the BART stations.

44:29You know, just picking a generic place on San Pablo Avenue, thinking about the theater site, the community center, the current location. So that just gives you a sense of just the things that have been floated.

44:41You can jump to the next slide, but what comes to mind now

44:45about the… your question, Chelsea, is, or might have been a prior one, is the…

44:52Part of why, a development, like, a paired development has come up in the past is because, actually, based on an analysis dating back to 2016, it was actually the cheapest option.

45:02And so, there was a way in which the city could get a deal, by piggybacking on a development that was already happening, and that's where that $10 million number came from that the city was using, is really to… because we had looked at and shown

45:16based on our estimates, that building as part of a housing development, it couldn't… maybe not the DoD, but any… any housing development.

45:24as a paired project, the city stood to… to save a lot of money, and that was definitely a constraint that we've been having. Yeah, and just to… to look at, like, this list, for example,

45:36One of the things that we also have to take into consideration is opportunity cost. So, for example, if there's a property on the… on San Pablo Avenue, as I had talked about earlier, if we were to buy that site, first of all, it would be at market rate. We wouldn't get a friends and family discount.

45:54And, we also would potentially be taking not only property tax, but perhaps sales tax opportunity off the table. So, that is one of the considerations we have to think about when it comes to any of the commercial areas.

46:11The same is true of any empty buildings, and

46:17You know, whether it's a,

46:21a rental opportunity, or purchasing, or that type of thing. Again, the opportunity cost is one that we have to consider. And furthermore.

46:31I know that a lot of people have seen, and we've been just as frustrated as a lot of people over the years, that a lot of what are either vacant lots or underutilized lots on San Pablo Avenue that currently exist

46:44Most of those sites are all entitled for housing, meaning they've all passed

46:51Across the street is a great example, or moving dirt over there that's just ready for building permits, as long as the developer can get the financing to do that. Trevino's down the way that was first slated for housing.

47:03the lot next to Burger King, the lot over by the button store, all of that is already completely entitled. It's past Planning Commission Design Review Board approvals for Housing.

47:15It's just as right now, especially in… right now in the economy, the developers have had trouble financing. The city council has done things for, has act… tried to activate at least four different sites that are this… that are the closest to being able to finance and do a building permit to try to lower fees.

47:33to incentivize them. We've got a couple that are perhaps maybe looking toward,

47:39Being developed a couple sites, so that's also part of, you know, the economy and some stalled progress on the avenue, but again, if we were to take one of those sites, those are multi-million dollar sites just for the land alone.

47:52And it would potentially be, any opportunity for property or sales tax would be lost.

48:00Yeah.

48:01And so these are just, you know, some bullets of the sites that have been investigated. I think important to this is, you know, and maybe how the TOD was identified as the highest priority after the Portola site fell through, was really weighing cost, but also size. So the needs assessment that was done in 2006 and then redone in 2014 kind of reaffirmed, and we'll get to this later in the slides.

48:24that based on library best practices, serving a community of our size, with the amenities that people in El Cerrito at least stated in the surveys, that they wanted to see things like private meeting rooms, or a dedicated area for children, or a dedicated area for teens, all that quickly gets to

48:40What was determined to be about 20,000 square feet.

48:42And so, you know, Karen outlined how the city had been exploring an expanded library on an expanded footprint on the… at the Stockton Ave location, and that would have been possible, perhaps, if we had bought that $1.7 million property that was already negotiated, but after that fell through.

48:59And we'll get into this, is just the specific constraints of the parcel.

49:0420,000 square foot was determined to not be feasible at the current location. Now, that's… maybe that's an assumption that we don't… aren't going to make moving forward, and this task force digs into what is the appropriate size, given our constraints, but really, that was an operating assumption for those years, was trying to hit that 20,000 square foot.

49:22At the lowest cost, or at a reasonable cost, which is how the TOD became so competitive.

49:27And also, in these different options, particularly options, I think, 1, 1B…

49:36one that would have been on the Portola site. The city also, again, in every iteration except for the BART TOD, because there wasn't enough space.

49:48In every other iteration, a senior center was also part of the equation.

49:54that we looked at as far as how it could fit on the site. We looked at the community center. Could we move the community center and then make that a senior center, or vice versa? Or do we rebuild the whole senior… the community center and make it

50:083 or 4 stories.

50:09My personal favorite at the time was the Contra Costa Civic Theater site, because I just thought it was a neat idea to put a theater in a library in this, like, the same building, and the preschool could even still be there in the corner. But one of the,

50:23one of the issues with that site is that there's… the grade is so steep that that would have been cost prohibitive. So again, this was… this is all back in… this was many, many years ago.

50:34So, we could certainly, you know, take a look at different sites. We don't know how much the cost would be for some of the sites that we have kind of

50:43You know, that we had not considered for many years, but anything could potentially be… potentially be on the table for the task force to take a look at.

50:53Next slide. Okay.

50:58So… so getting to why has the city focused on this, so beyond the survey responses and council direction, really what it comes down to is… is the building conditions. And so, this building was built in 1949, last updated in 1960. It was in need of…

51:15of, repair back in… when Karen started 25 years ago, and it hasn't gotten better.

51:21And so, 25 years later, it's still, in need of repair, and you can hear that from our county librarian or our library manager, Heidi, who's terrific. And certainly one idea we have is this group is to actually go tour the

51:35The facility as a public posted, you know, everybody's welcome, but as a task… formal task force meeting, to tour the facility so you can see it with your own eyes.

51:44But really.

51:46you know, literally, you can't open the windows on hot days, and the library shuts down. And in a time where libraries are serving as, refuges, refuges on hot days, or smoke today, we had very… today was smoky, because they were doing a prescribed burn on Angel Island.

52:02And our library could have been a haven with clean air and, you know, modern HVAC filters, but instead, you know, their windows don't open and close, and I'm not sure what happened there today, but typically on hot days, they do have to shut.

52:16They closed?

52:17Oh.

52:19Okay.

52:20Maybe tomorrow. Wow.

52:23Okay, we're hearing they were this close to closing, but that's just indicative of the issues that are being faced there, not to mention ADA access, seismic, issues, you know, not built to any sort of contemporary building standards.

52:40Oh, please, yes Yeah, do you wanna, Mike? Do you wanna… Yeah.

52:46Join us.

52:47This is Allison McKee, our county librarian. One other, condition is, there is no air conditioning there, and, two things are making that more and more critical. One is, it's getting warmer and warmer here in West County. The other thing is, is that,

53:07how OSHA just lowered the threshold For, indoor temperature.

53:16That is, permissible for employees to be working. And so, 80 degrees.

53:25is…

53:30So, as soon as the… it's 80 degrees inside the library, and there's no place for staff to go and cool down, we're required by, state regulation to close the library, and that has… does happen, and, I was waiting for that to happen today, but it looks like we're okay.

53:49It's just compounding issues.

53:52So yeah, so that's just very indicative of just the very real kind of facility needs, whereas a modern library could have AC, or clean air, or even power, you know, outlets. So if the power's out, but if the power were out for 3-4 days in El Cerrito.

54:11People could go there and charge their devices, that kind of thing.

54:15And then beyond the… those kinds of

54:17physical constraints, it's really lack of space. And so, as mentioned, things like private meeting rooms, or you could… so many people work from home but need to take a call or a job interview, are these things that you can do at other libraries now, or dedicated area for seniors and adults, dedicated area for children, even, you know.

54:37Bigger amenities like makerspaces.

54:39Those are all things that would be possible in a larger library that are certainly not in our… it's a one-room library, so we'll tour, and you probably all… everyone here probably knows, but

54:50If there's a reading program for kids going on in the reading section, everybody's… everybody in the library is at that reading program. There are no dividers, and… and so it just limits the ability to even have a quiet reading time or study area alongside a children's area right in the very same space.

55:07And then, as was mentioned earlier, just, you'll also see when we go, there's a staff area, but there's also just, like, with little stanchions, like these little black ones, there's a second staff area that's just…

55:19delineated by Stantons, just… which shows just the severe lack of staff space. That's the bottom picture. Just like these black ones.

55:28That shows the severe lack of staff space that they've had to, without any sort of formal walls or building infrastructure, they've just decided this little section is for additional staff space to make their

55:40operations work. And so it's… it's… because of those kinds of limitations, they're not able to, even if we had the funding, to be open more than 6 additional hours.

55:52Next slide.

55:54I think the next slide says more or less the same thing, in… In different ways, but,

56:01But just the needs.

56:03And Allison actually was letting us know that more and more libraries in the whole region, and Contra Costa County, specifically our county, are being updated such that El Cerrito's really is going to be at the bottom in terms of its age and deficiency.

56:16But here's just a table of ones we were aware about when we created this that just shows our square foot per capita far below a lot of our neighbors, including

56:25Hercules, Pleasant Hill, and some of those in the region.

56:34Yeah, and then this slide just speaks to what libraries can be. So this is just inspirational. We've gone into this at other presentations, but… and I've spoken to it here, but really, libraries aren't just about books anymore. This is about that libraries, yeah, that it's not just a place where you go and check out a book and you return a book. They can be much more than that for

56:54All sorts of people, whether it's technology labs or meeting rooms.

56:57Or, you know, these people that work from home, or anything like that. They're… they're…

57:03community centers in many ways. Again, this slide says it well, where it can be, you know, places to learn, but also maker spaces to gather, teens, tweens, really a place for everybody.

57:20And these were some of the statistics mentioned earlier, and these are all, you know, publicly available, but there was the 2016 ballot measure where it got near two-thirds support, so that's definitely a clear sign of support for the community.

57:32We've done these national community surveys, and what I'd say about that is those are statistically valid surveys, where they sample about 400 members of the community in a statistically valid way.

57:42And then they… they weight them based… so that they're generalizable. And so they weight them knowing our population distribution, our age distribution, our ethnic and racial distribution, and so they can weight that to create this estimate. And from those.

57:56You know, in 2023, 75% rated, building a new library, and this one was specifically at BART as a medium or high priority.

58:04And then in 2025, that was confirmed again, new, as building a new library. 70% of folks said it was a higher median priority. This one didn't have the plaza in the question that was asked, but it still focused on a new library.

58:19And then… but notably, we do have to account for the recent election. Only 30%, it was a citizen's initiative, it wasn't crafted in a way the city might have crafted it, the ordinance, but still, 30… only 30% voted in favor of a new library, at least at that funding level, with that perceived location.

58:38Next slide.

58:41And so, the next question is, is how should the city proceed from here? I could hand it back to you.

58:46Karen? Sure. Yep. Okay, so, potential options, and again.

58:52These are options that we have previously discussed, so we're sharing those with you, not to sort of lead you in any direction, but just to share what we have certainly looked at to date, and the data that we have that we can, of course, dig into deeper.

59:07If that's what the task force is interested in looking at. So, essentially, the five options that we have been looking at, for many years.

59:18Renovate the existing library, which is, as you… as we've been saying, 6,500 square feet. Notably, if we were to renovate it and keep it essentially the same building size.

59:30there would likely be a loss of square feet, because we would need to do some expansion for ADA, and, HVAC systems and that kind of thing that actually could cut into the usable square feet anyway.

59:45Note there's a basement that is actually essentially the warehouse for the Friends of the Library,

59:53inventory that's not usable. And again, I can show you a parcel map. The… the part that the city owns, essentially, there's several parking spaces right behind the library. The property line actually goes into the middle of those parking spaces. We don't even own the whole parking space.

1:00:12So it's very smart.

1:00:14So rebuild and expand, this would essentially require going up a floor, and Allison can speak to this. The county library does have their own building program, or strategic, building program. Their preference is for a one-story library

1:00:34a lot of that is for staffing reasons. The… if you have two floors, you have to have more staff. I mean, think of a retail store, same thing, you have to have more staff.

1:00:43So it would… and any additional staff beyond… staffing beyond 40 base hours would be the responsibility of the city, so it would be a staffing cost to the city. But one of the things we would have to look at is looking at the land. We have not done, in many, many years, we would have to do a geotech

1:01:02probably steady in order to know if we could expand. Could we build on that building? Is the… is there a grade? Is there… so all of that is unknown, but that is possible for us to look at. It wouldn't be ideal to have two floors, but that is one way that we could potentially get more space.

1:01:19The number 3 is what we've been looking at. Again, this has been the direction of the City Council since essentially 2016 and confirmed in 2019, so that's the direction staff have been going in.

1:01:30So, if this was to change, and there was a different recommendation from the task force to the City Council, then the City Council could certainly consider any other site

1:01:39And take a look at that, and we would have to explore all of that. But what we have been looking at in the, the Plaza TOD is because that has been the direction that staff have been given.

1:01:51A new site, again, 20,000 square feet on a new site.

1:01:55Problem is, don't know what that new site would be. We could certainly work with the school district again, see if the current staff and board would be amenable to doing something else.

1:02:07The portal is, the lower play field is still, right now, it's a charter school.

1:02:13Is there any other land that the district would be willing to work with us on? We've actually… I've talked to how many superintendents since I've been here about doing joint projects? Maybe that's a possibility. It's always a possibility.

1:02:27Again, if it was a new commercial site or a different site, as we had talked about that, what the opportunity costs would be.

1:02:34The only other site that the city owns is on the other side of the public safety building, and that is a small site, so that

1:02:42You could… we've had architects look at that before, including the site where the church is. The city now owns all of that.

1:02:49you could put a 20,000 square foot there, it would be really squeezed, but the bigger problem of that is, is not only do we need a new library, we also need a new public safety building. And so the idea of having that land is that we could expand the public safety building, the fire station.

1:03:07Into all of that property if we were to rebuild it, so that would also take that off of the table.

1:03:13And then, of course, renovating an existing building into the library. This would be extremely costly, because not only would it be taking, property… it would be the property, but whatever the building is. If we were to lease a building, again, we would not get friends and family discounts, so that would be, you know, anything that is not publicly owned currently, or somehow paired, as Will was talking about.

1:03:35would be potentially more costly, so…

1:03:37That's… those are all of the different, kind of considerations there. Funding, the site would need to be identified and assessed.

1:03:46community support for any of these is unknown. Even… even with the current Measure C, you know, there's been a lot of discussion in the community that a lot of it was about the site, but we didn't survey people as to why they voted no. So that's perhaps just one consideration. So that is, you know, we don't…

1:04:06we don't really, at this point, know. We would have to do an actual survey to see if people

1:04:11You know, specific to that site, so…

1:04:14the data is… is kind of a bit unknown. I mean, again, it's an assumption, but it's only that, an assumption.

1:04:20And then, of course, if we go smaller than the $20,000 that the needs assessment has called for for several years, that we would have to address any other… any service gaps that would exist, or any in the current facility. Again, if we were to expand even the current facility.

1:04:39to 13,000 square feet, and again, that's just adding a floor, doubling that. What does that mean for what we could provide?

1:04:47So again, these are all starting points, these are the options we've considered so far.

1:04:53And then the financial estimates, as we were talking about, and, certainly we can go into a very deep dive about financials. This was, done… we worked with a consultant called Griffin Structures, and this was the most up-to-date costs,

1:05:08When there were costs that we were working with prior to, creating the impact report, those… that was data that was, you know.

1:05:17That was collected at the time, and as you can imagine.

1:05:21every year, and particularly now in this economy with tariffs and construction costs, it's probably even more expensive, and this was done a few months ago, and I can imagine it's even more expensive right now. But these were the estimates for each of those scenarios.

1:05:36That's the project cost in that first column, and like I said, the new site or purchasing a building, those were in the $40 million, range. The annual debt service requirement, is

1:05:50If we were to finance it, take out a mortgage, or, you know, not go to the ballot and just try to do… take out a mortgage based on our general fund, that's how much we would be potentially paying each year just for that building alone.

1:06:05I will also note that these estimates, and again, we can dig deeper into this, and if the task force is interested in talking to

1:06:13the consultants, we can certainly, you know, get them questions, or maybe even have them come to a meeting. Some of that did include ideas of whether or not there would be parking or not. This is also, I know, a very,

1:06:27fun, contentious, and potentially controversial issue about this. We've heard a lot from the community about that, particularly with respect to the TOD, so…

1:06:37That could also be… that could also be, teased out. These were, again, these were meant to be estimates based on what we were trying to put together for the potential financial impact of what that ballot measure would have cost the city. So…

1:06:53again, we could go into a deeper dive, or we could pick a scenario and… or something like that. So, just wanted to kind of give you… this is what we had done most recently, and that was… when did we do that? February?

1:07:07They were finalized in 2016. They were finalized in 2016. But presented in 2026. Yeah, when we presented it to the Council in, 26.

1:07:16And again, we could… this is a deeper dive, but this is just kind of an overview of different sources. So, the first one is what I had talked about, using existing reserves and financing off of our general fund.

1:07:28I can tell you that the current direction of the City Council is to protect our reserves, as much as humanly possible, because

1:07:36Several years ago, we spent down our reserves, and that was not a good budget situation for the city. We have rebuilt those reserves, it took a lot of hard work.

1:07:45And we want to… we don't want to get there again. So, besides the fact that we certainly don't have… even in the reserves that we have, we don't have $30 million to spend on one building, nor as a… as… as a city manager, I would never also

1:08:02Proposed paying cash.

1:08:04for a building. You finance a building like this over time.

1:08:08So that, not one… essentially one generation of taxpayers is paying for the building if you pay it in cash. You're… you're… you're… you're spreading that over… over time, and that is… that is, like, City Hall, for example, has been financed over many years. Most of the buildings that we, that you see, public buildings are financed over many years for that purpose. Also.

1:08:29you're not spending your entire savings account, essentially, on one building, and then you… I mean, you can think of that, like, in your own household.

1:08:36How you finance your home as opposed to paying cash for it.

1:08:40Grants, we have certainly been looking for grants, if they are available. There has been some questions about… there was a recent grant called the California Building Forward Library Grant. We did look at that grant, and we did not apply for it, for two reasons.

1:08:55First of all, it required a 50% match, which at the time of the grant, he did not have.

1:09:00So we would not have been able to… we would not have been… if we had been awarded the grant, we would not have been able to… to use it, because we would not have had the match funding. This was several years ago when we did not… and again, the City Council at the time, we would have had to go to them and ask them if they were willing to take that money out of our reserve in order to… to make that match.

1:09:21Secondly, that, those, grants, and Allison, you… I know that the county has gotten some of these grants, they were focused on, I think, more challenged

1:09:30neighborhoods and more challenged cities. So more lower income, more, meant to try to spur development in underutilized or under,

1:09:42like, again, more challenged, cities, which the city of El Cerrito really doesn't qualify as a challenged city comparative to other, maybe, low-income areas.

1:09:53Denny?

1:09:54Other thoughts on that? Because I, again, I know there are a couple of,

1:09:58Of branches that the county owns that are utilizing this funding.

1:10:03Yeah, and this money is no longer available. It's all been granted throughout the state, and it maxed out at $10 million, was the largest amount you could ask for, and you were required to make a 100% match, but you could ask for a reduction, and I think

1:10:19El Cerrito may have qualified for the reduction. They were prioritizing areas with high poverty levels, although I have to say Palm Springs got one of the grants, so I was a little surprised at that.

1:10:31So…

1:10:33So at this point, we don't have any other grant funding available, but we do… we're constantly seeking out any grants

1:10:42we would certainly be looking at those. An enhanced infrastructure financing district, and this is a little bit…

1:10:50when I was describing redevelopment agencies before, and the idea of financing off of higher… the higher tax increment that they would, generate.

1:11:00This would not be that. You could still…

1:11:03you could… you could still isolate a certain percentage of property taxes to bond off of, so you could go into debt off of that money, but it's not additional money. It's the current property taxes that are being generated, so it doesn't raise any additional revenue. It allows us to bond off of it.

1:11:23But again, it is still a general fund obligation, so the first one, where it means that we would be financing, essentially paying a mortgage from the general fund.

1:11:31it would… it would be very similar to that. So it's not new revenue like a redevelopment agency would be, or a higher level of property tax that would be restricted would be.

1:11:44And then new revenue, which we don't have, and the voters told us no in 2016 and 2026. Well, they didn't tell us no in 2026, because that wasn't our ballot measure, but they did tell us that in 2016,

1:11:58And, the city has not, looked to put its own ballot measure on, as we've been discussing, so…

1:12:04If we were to do that, that would take another round of looking at polling and looking at, what, what, what the residents might be willing to look at as far as cost or that type of thing. Would it be a parcel tax? Would it be a bond measure? Would it be a… we can't do a sales tax, we're maxed out at our sales tax?

1:12:25We haven't discussed another ballot measure other than a restricted parcel tax.

1:12:31Did someone have a question?

1:12:33You did, okay, but that is not your handcuffed.

1:12:36Are there any limitations to monies that the city can accept? Like, corporate funding, private philanthropy?

1:12:44certain nonprofit grants.

1:12:47We… if someone would like to donate money for a library, I would love it. I will name it after them. I…

1:12:55In fact, if the Library Foundation… I'm looking at you, Michael, somewhere, or you, Tom, I know that you've been on the Library Foundation, wants to go out and solicit donations, absolutely. In fact, that's… that happens a lot. There's… there's,

1:13:09There are a lot of active foundations around. I'm thinking of Lafayette, as a matter of fact, when the original grant, the Prop 14 grant, I think they were… they were able to get some… I think Lafayette was Prop 14. Their library foundation actually had so much money, they fronted them. They front-loaded them.

1:13:28Now, of course, it's Lafayette. I mean, they have a lot of, you know, maybe very wealthy people in Lafayette, but I…

1:13:33We… doesn't mean we couldn't go out and try to do some, you know… Again, library foundations do fundraising of that type of nature.

1:13:42Yeah, I'll… I will happily accept donations and nonprofit money, and whoever would love to build… I'll name a wing, I'll name a room, I'll name whatever. I mean, we certainly would absolutely

1:13:57That would be great, if anybody knows anybody.

1:14:00Okay, and you also mentioned that city staff are looking for grants, or have looked for grants. How… how many staff are dedicated to writing grants, and how many hours per month? We have zero staff dedicated to writing grants. We hire a grant… we have a grant writer that we work with, it's called,

1:14:19what are they called now? I was gonna call them… California Public Policy Group. Thank you, California Public Policy Group. We contract with them for grant writing services and lobbying services, so we work with them. To say we have no staff… we don't have staff grant writers. We have a lot of staff. In fact, we have an interdepartmental team that works directly with CPPG,

1:14:38On, soliciting and writing, putting those grants together, but we do hire a grant writer for that purpose.

1:14:45Yeah, and they've actually been, just an aside, is they've been quite successful. We were on a call with them today, I don't have the number out specifically, but it's in the millions of what they've helped us bring down just in the last few years. Yeah, not for libraries, but for a lot of others. Yes, not for libraries. Yeah, but if they're out there, I mean, they… that has certainly been, like, the… But it comes up on our call. On the library grant, it came up on our call today. It's on their tracking list. If one opens up.

1:15:08We're gonna look at it.

1:15:10And further, actually, to that end, we've also been working with our state legislators and our Congress, our Congressman, Garamendi and our state… and our U.S. Senators, on, requesting earmarks, of any type of money that they can give us toward a library,

1:15:29We… we ask every single year.

1:15:32So… Yes.

1:15:36Okay, I think we're almost done with my part. Oh, we talked about this. These were the two prior revenue measures. The one November 2016 was the one that the city was placed on the ballot.

1:15:48And then the 2026 was the,

1:15:52the Citizens Initiative that was placed on the ballot.

1:15:56We talked about that. So, okay, the next steps, here we are. So, the next item for the task force to consider would be for you all, how you want to develop your work plan.

1:16:06We do want to tour the library building, maybe not tomorrow, because it'll be super hot, but we can, talk about a time, and we can come up with a time, whether it's one of our regular meeting dates, or we have a special meeting, and obviously that would be, with all of you meeting, that would be a quorum, so it would be a

1:16:21The public would also be welcome to join us.

1:16:24And then develop, over time, develop recommendations to the City Council, whether it's a new library, a modified library, and evaluating all of these. And these, that are listed here, these bullets are in, I believe, the resolution.

1:16:38That's where that came from. So, site feasibility, projected cost, funding options, design and features, public engagement, and any other work, assigned by the City Council.

1:16:49I think…

1:16:51That's right. Okay, so at this point, if there are any questions, any additional questions from the task force?

1:17:00Do we know how the Kensington Library renovation is being funded?

1:17:05Yeah, so Kensington is, not a town or city, it's an unincorporated county area, so that's under our purview. So it's being funded by Measure X dollars and, county library reserves.

1:17:26Any other questions from Task Force members?

1:17:30Yes.

1:17:31Has there been any needs assessment, any more recent needs assessment, either from the city or the county? Because, since the pandemic, the nature of the library has changed a lot. Sure. Well, the most recent formal needs assessment was 2014, so it's been quite some time.

1:17:48In 2019, when we were working with Group 4, they did a bit of a…

1:17:56I wouldn't say a formal needs assessment. They did some, updating and kind of confirming the size and some of the space

1:18:04needs and the program needs, but no, that is, that is probably the most… that's the most recent formal one, 2019. So yes, it has been quite some time since we've done a formal need… any formal or informal needs assessment.

1:18:18just a basic question, I'm just wondering, how is Heidi, the library manager, involved in this process?

1:18:28So, Heidi's a county employee, so she's involved in similar ways that I'm involved, but our typical,

1:18:36relationship that we have with the cities is you own this facility, we will certainly advise you on what our needs are, we'll share our design standards with you, but this is your facility, so this is your project. We're in partnership, but you're in charge.

1:18:52Yeah. But we love Heidi, and Heidi's great, and, she is… we've certainly tried to keep her, and I know Allison, keeps her, informed on everything that we've been doing, so… She was invited to this meeting, but wasn't able to come because she needed to… she's working tonight.

1:19:10Yeah.

1:19:13Okay, any, from our Zoom

1:19:17Hanging in there. Any other questions? Okay. So at this point, Holly, should we take… oh, I'm so… I'm so sorry. I have additional questions, but I wanted to make sure that everyone else had the chance. Okay. So you had mentioned that

1:19:32the Western Contra Costa County negotiations were… were tabled.

1:19:38What, if any, conversations have happened?

1:19:41Since then. Since then. So we have not,

1:19:46Well, I was gonna say, since… probably 20…

1:19:522016 was when the district informed us that… it was, like, March 2016 when the district informed us that we wouldn't be able to work with them on the Portilla site.

1:20:05We also… I think the… one of the, when it came to other land things, I think it was 2017, year later, that,

1:20:17I mean, the Senior Center property had fallen through, and then actually they, ended the lease with the Senior Center back in 2017, so I would say the last time we talked about anything to do with land, for the… with the school district was 2017.

1:20:32And I'm completely open to talking with the school district. We've been, I think we've been to at least 2 or 3 superintendents even since then. The pandemic, obviously, that happened, you know, in 2020 really just put a hold on anything, so we really haven't re…

1:20:51reinstitute in any, any conversations.

1:20:56So, totally willing to do that now. Times are different, times have changed, there's… they have surplus property, still talking about… I know that the Seminoleum Committee has been meeting, so absolutely willing to talk with them, but no… no… no negotiations have happened since, I would say, 2016-17.

1:21:18And then after this, we're moving into the agenda item on work plan, right? Okay, so I'll save that question then. And just to clarify.

1:21:29You've mentioned…

1:21:31some of this, but I want to hear it directly. To what extent has the city, or can the city.

1:21:38Bye.

1:21:39Currently, today, earmark funds for a library.

1:21:43Do we have any funds earmarked for a library? We do not have any funds earmarked for a library currently.

1:21:51Oh, other than additional hours, thank you. We do have, we have budget each year for additional hours, and that has been, approved by the City Council. But we do not have any for a facility, we do not have any earmarked.

1:22:05As you will see on our next City Council agenda, we're going to do an update on how we ended the year.

1:22:12the fiscal year that ended as of June 30th, we did very well. We came in under budget on our expenditures and over budget on our revenues, which is excellent news, so we are once again in good budget shape. However.

1:22:27I'm not the first one to say this. I say we are healthy, not wealthy.

1:22:31We have, we've met our minimum requirements as far as reserves. We have an emergency fund, and we have a pension trust fund. Those are all part of our reserves, also called fund balance.

1:22:45There is not a lot of unassigned fund balance. That is up to the City Council. So, were the City Council to take any of those funds and decide to divert them into an earmark, or a fund, or a library fund, that would need to be at the direction of the City Council.

1:23:04So, could they? They could.

1:23:08Have they? No. Not at this time.

1:23:14We're… yeah, we're gonna do public comment.

1:23:16Yeah, we'll do public… yeah, if the task force is…

1:23:21Are there any more questions from the task force, and we can do public comment? Oh.

1:23:25Sure.

1:23:26question or request. On the chart on page 17, is it possible to get the numbers for El Sobronte?

1:23:33Because their library's kind of new.

1:23:37Yeah, I can provide that. That, again, is another unincorporated area. It's not a new library, it was completely gutted and renovated because of a fire, but it wasn't expanded at all, yeah.

1:23:51Interiors, yeah.

1:23:57How many square feet it is?

1:23:59Yeah, we… in fact, maybe we could get information on all the buildings in the county as a comparator. We know that you have that information. Yeah, we could update that table.

1:24:08That table is… was a comparator table for similar populations that we've been using for quite some time, but we're happy to get any… any comparisons, that the task force wants to look at. We can do that. Sure.

1:24:23Okay, so at this point, we can do public comment, so if you'd like to go up to the mic, if the…

1:24:30My bike is on.

1:24:37Hello, can you hear me? Yep, great.

1:24:40Great, new sound system is good.

1:24:42So, just… responding to, what Will said.

1:24:51I see that in all the materials that are being presented tonight, it's all city expertise.

1:24:57And then there's our former BART director who worked on this, there's the county librarian. And, I think one of the feelings in this election was that people wanted to be involved more directly in a different way, that they were not satisfied with just being surveyed.

1:25:14And they, gave a 70% no vote on the proposal. So, I'm just,

1:25:23Interested to see whether the task force will question some of the assumptions, like, for instance, the 20,000 square foot size from the evaluation that was last updated in 2014.

1:25:35Some people came to meetings and said, there is a state standard for library size based on population, and based on our population, that would be 13,500 square feet for El Cerrito. I can't guarantee that, but this is what I heard at several meetings.

1:25:51Then there is the, statement often that there is no money, and I liked your question about has any money been earmarked? But…

1:26:01There is some money. The El Cerrito Library Foundation has, total assets of $652,177 as of June 30th, 2026.

1:26:15With an operating balance of $382,000. And, the Friends of the Library, had a, a,

1:26:25had $236,606 as of December 31st, 2025. And it's interesting that they have,

1:26:34donated to the campaign committee. They are a non-profit corporation, and they're not supposed to be engaged in politics, but I did call someone from their organization. They said to this extent that what they did was legal, but

1:26:50If they are in favor of a new library, for instance, if,

1:26:55more research was necessary, more public engagement before people are offered alternatives. Well, maybe, they would like to help fund something like that.

1:27:07And… What's the… Third assumption…

1:27:13Oh, and I'm really happy that you brought that up about talking with the school district. I've asked that question also. I recently went to a 7-Eleven meeting, and, the upper part of Coordilla Middle School, is being,

1:27:28Oh, I forgot the word again. Remaindered, whatever that is, by the 7-11 committee. The lower part is not, and there is a charter school there, but it is not impossible that the school district would find a different location for that charter school. So, I think…

1:27:43You're asking some really interesting questions. Appreciate that. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in the room that'd like to provide comments? You can go ahead and come up to the podium.

1:27:57Hello, my name is Richard Brooks. I'm a resident here in El Cerrito.

1:28:03My background is in software engineering and a little bit of mechanical engineering, so to help, my lens here is a little bit of an engineering perspective.

1:28:11If I look at our current

1:28:13Resource capacity. We're currently leaving 2 days on the table, and I think in my private industry experience, if I told my boss that I was leaving capacity on the table and seeking new capacity before utilizing my existing capacity, my boss would probably give me some amount of back pressure.

1:28:32One thing I kind of want to bring up, I think something to…

1:28:40understand is, like, some of the… I'm a no voter on C. Something that has been mildly concerning to me is, like, I don't see myself or people like me represented on the committee. I understand some of that is happenstance, and some of that is just logical, that probably some no people didn't get involved, so I'm trying to

1:28:57to speak towards that a little bit. I think if… I think about some of the things that made me a little bit, you know, feeling a little bit weird about Measure C,

1:29:06Some of that comes from seeing things on the strategic plan. I look at it, it was in Quinto's 2022 campaign statement. It was specifically in the wording on some of the surveys that were done, and if I see that, it…

1:29:21it gives me some concern about, like, you know, what involvement between the city and the group was. I think there's important there's supposed to be firewalls between the two, and I think that explains why maybe some of there's weirdness about being able to talk about some of this.

1:29:35where that comes from is my understanding is that Oakland had issue with that, with Measure E, and their involvement between the city and their Citizens Initiative, and I think if we're open and honest in talking about this, that's where some of the frustration comes from, is we saw something that was

1:29:50kind of specific tax shape became more a citizen's initiative. Getting to the point here about that capacity, my understanding in talking with Allison briefly about that 6-hour cap.

1:30:01is that it's not, like, a hard and fast rule. It's not like a parking minimum, where it's, like, square footage, the amount of space that you need to have is dedicated to staff. And that staff area is why we have that 6-hour minimum. So I would encourage thinking around

1:30:14You know, how can we solve that 6-hour minimum? I've done a little bit of research, I think.

1:30:18One way to consider getting around that might be to look at some of the self-service hours. There are other libraries in the county system that have used self-service on Sunday. I think that might be a way for us to open on Sunday and have access to resources. We don't have access to all the resources, but it's at least some. It's a betterment and improvement.

1:30:40I think that's kind of where I want to encourage things here. I think you guys are looking at longer-term perspectives on the course of years. I don't doubt that at some point in time, we do need to replace and modernize the library, but I do think that we got to take

1:30:53best use of what we have, and look for some of these small wins. You know, we talk about this air conditioning thing a little bit, and OCHA concerns. I think these are solvable problems that don't need to be, you know, years down the road. Thank you.

1:31:05Any other requests?

1:31:07Mine it?

1:31:17Hi, nice to see y'all. My name's Jerry Fugoni. I, I believe at 5 years old, I was at the opening of the library.

1:31:25So lived here off and on most of my life, if not here in Berkeley, but back here for 30 years.

1:31:32My problem with Measure C was safety.

1:31:37I thought the… A library at the transit center across the street from a shopping center.

1:31:45And you can envision, I'm down that way a lot.

1:31:48Envisioning all these little kids on their little bicycles.

1:31:53between Richmond Street and Liberty Street, it's just a mess all the time. If you were to go there between about 2.30 in the afternoon and 7.30 at night, you go.

1:32:05There's no way I want my kids anywhere near this neighborhood.

1:32:09Buses, semis, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

1:32:12Now… And we've all talked about this, some of us individually.

1:32:20The dream site for me.

1:32:22and I went to school there, is that Portland Junior High School Playing Fields, where the charter school is now.

1:32:28I mean, that's…

1:32:29I know we have a new superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District. She went to El Cerrito High School. We hope that that's a friendly inn.

1:32:38But having a… having a library there, kind of overlooking the community center with Cerrito Vista Park, and the Contra Costa Theater, and the pools, and…

1:32:48what we use the… a lot of seniors use a community center for a lot of senior activities, so there's somebody… one of you had a great term for it, of all the ages and different needs, all in the same area, same neighborhood. So, anyway, safety.

1:33:03So please, not on San Pablo Avenue, or at some heavily transit area.

1:33:09And take another hard look, and I like to be in a meeting with West County Costa Unified School District.

1:33:15to see if we can't make a deal there somehow. I realize that's the dream, Hard work.

1:33:22Everybody's used to hard work. Anyway, thanks. Cheers.

1:33:27Any other requests in the room?

1:33:29Okay, if there's any members of the public who are on via Zoom that would like to speak, now would be the time to raise your hand.

1:33:41Seeing none…

1:33:42We can bring it back if there's any other last-minute comments or questions from the task force members, or we can move on to the next agenda item.

1:33:52One quick question. If we were to either renovate the existing one-floor space or to expand to two floors at the current location, is there any estimate of how long that would take? And I guess the library would be completely out of commission during that time. Is that a correct assumption?

1:34:08It is, and I'll look to Allison for how that might work. I know that they're closing Kensington completely while they're doing renovations. I remember being told when we were looking at that site.

1:34:21That, we could either operate, you know, you could do, like, book the book deliveries or anything like that. We could certainly find a space to do book deliveries, or we could utilize another branch.

1:34:35But as far as length of time, that's absolutely unknown, because we have not explored that in many years, what that would look like, but maybe Kensington, what's happening with Kensington might be a good guide.

1:34:49Yeah, at times we have, opened up temporary libraries, and that might be, like, a room in a community center.

1:34:58we're not doing that. We're doing, 5 renovations right now, and we're not doing that for any of those, because we simply… it's extraordinarily complex, and we just don't have the staff bandwidth to coordinate that. And that would also, you know, the city would need to find a place, and that may have a cost. So…

1:35:18There are a couple different possibilities.

1:35:25Thank you. Mr. Bader asked.

1:35:28getting a little more data about the different library sites and costing sizes. I was just wondering, I don't know, now, I don't know if the county library has it available, but

1:35:37some of the libraries rent their space, for example, San Pablo. It might be interesting to know what their annual rent that they pay, and in terms of

1:35:46Trying to figure out the capital cost. Nobody, nobody rents. Oh, no, San Pablo's rent. No, San Pablo owns the site. Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

1:35:59Just wanted to point out also that, the Richmond Public Library right now is going through renovation, and they are using, a couple of the community rooms as a temporary library, so just if you want to check it out, they're doing it.

1:36:13And to… just… and for people who don't know, the Richmond Public Library is not part of the Contra Costa system, they are completely separate.

1:36:21But it is a possibility.

1:36:29Okay.

1:36:30Thank you, everyone. Okay, so we're going to move on to the second item on the agenda tonight, which is to discuss the task force purview and work plan, and I'm going to hand it over to Will to kind of go over, give a brief overview. We'll also have an opportunity for,

1:36:47you to hear from Mayor Pro Tem, representing the Council and the Council's vision of what the Council's intent of this body is for, so I'll hand it over to you all. Thank you, Holly. And so this item, this is the time where we really, you know, you heard Karen's presentation, but where we hand it back over to you all to really open the first of probably many discussions of this task force.

1:37:07Just starting back, you can see the agenda both here, but really rooted in the formation of this task force, and what you're all tasked with is this resolution passed by the City Council, to ultimately to serve an advisory body to the City Council, with regard to a new or updated library. So that includes, and this is coming from the resolution.

1:37:25But reviewing, analyzing, and making recommendations to the City Council regarding a new or modified library.

1:37:32And this includes in a variety of areas. It could include, but doesn't have to, any of these, site feasibility, the projected costs, potential funding, library design and features, if we get that far, and doing charrettes with the community and things like that.

1:37:46engaging with the public that we want to go in that direction, and really any other work assigned by the City Council. So there's… there's lots of directions to go into, and you could see just from your… the nature of your questions and all the different facets of the slideshow, that there's lots of threads to pull at and directions to pursue. So that's really what this discussion is about.

1:38:06And so we've attached, and I do want to introduce our Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman to talk about, you know, to speak for the Council on really what they're hoping for. But also included in your packet is just a work…

1:38:19work plan template, and this is the same template we use for all our boards and commissions. I want to say this is a template, it's optional, so it's a tool that we wanted to provide in case it's helpful to you all in time, kind of.

1:38:32building consensus and identifying specific pursuits and activities. You don't have to use it, but it might be useful to you.

1:38:42And then I wanted to share just some ideas and us brainstorming as things that might help move the conversation forward. Again, these are just suggestions, things you could take up or not. One is, it just came to mind enough, this conversation, is

1:38:55We could bring Godby Research, our pollster, out, if you wanted to. We could look at the survey results. Again, a lot of the stuff I'm going to suggest now would cost money, and we'd have to figure out making

1:39:05even maybe the first step would be to make a recommendation to Council to request authority to spend X number of dollars for such and such, but that would be an option.

1:39:15to have them attend the meeting. Another would be to bring Griffin Structures here. So, Griffin Structures was our owner's representative working with us on the project.

1:39:24to say a bit about them is they're helping build the library in San Rafael, they're helping build the library in Santa Cruz, they build public facilities for public agencies like ours, so that's where those estimates came from. But you could grill them about, you know, why this, or why do you include parking in this scenario, and really try and suss out if that's a direction you wanted to go to.

1:39:44Another option would be to bring our financial advisors, so the folks that said.

1:39:48This $30 million would translate to this $2 million a year annual debt service. We could ask Craig Hill from NHA Advisors to come and lay out, here's what an EIFD, an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, is. Here's how that works, here's how a bond works.

1:40:04Here's how parcel text works. We could dig into that, with our consultants.

1:40:09We talked about doing a tour, and then the last thing to just float is, Griffin Structures. We could also work with them to really dig into the current library. So, one of the public commenters did talk about, you know, well, maybe it's just the AC that needs addressing, and maybe it's not the whole building.

1:40:26Well, we could get more clarity on that. It would cost money, but we could engage a consultant, it could be them, it could be another firm, to tell us what exactly is needed at this current facility. You know, what's the timeline, what's the life cycle of this existing infrastructure, how long could we make it last, that kind of thing.

1:40:44So that's something we wanted to float. So those are just suggestions. We want to be clear,

1:40:49the task force could go to any direction, but wanted to just float some ideas we had. But with that, I'll introduce the Mayor Pro Tem.

1:41:02So I think a lot of this… this is all in the packet, so…

1:41:07What the Council voted on was this, what's written right there, which is that you would make recommendations to us about a new or modified library involving things like site feasibility analysis, projected costs, potential funding options.

1:41:23Library designs and features, public engagement process.

1:41:28Outside of that, we know you're not going to solve all of this. It's immensely complex, the city's been working on it for decades, there is no funding available at the moment, and I just want to reiterate and maybe strengthen what Karen said before.

1:41:44There is no money in the two-year budget that we just approved for the library. That doesn't mean we couldn't find some few thousands of dollars to do some of the things Will was talking about. If this task force wanted some resources.

1:42:01I would be open to suggesting that to the Council. I can't speak for the other council members, but in terms of big money, there is no money allocated. So this is the challenge with this task force, is I think.

1:42:14Within this room and outside of this room, a lot of people know what the issues are that need to be addressed, but how do we do that with no funding, or how do we figure out what can be done over some amount of time without the huge amount of money that a new site would take

1:42:31you know, what… how do we want to prioritize? Do we want to go after the big project and figure that out, or do we want to look at, you know, what's in the interim, which is also important to address, because at some point.

1:42:44there's gonna be 10, 20, 30 days a year when it's too hot for that library to operate, so we have to kind of deal with what's there, too. And I will try to be here at every meeting, but also I'm available offline and happy to answer any questions tonight or any other time.

1:43:09Sure, well, yeah, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So yeah, just… this is really just to tee off the discussion, and so with that, we'll hand it over to you all, to talk about your work plan, what you all want to dig into. Some of that can be asking staff, you know, can you update that table with the square footage per library, all the ones in Contra Costa County, and we can… we can take that,

1:43:30kind of direction and work with it, though.

1:43:32But I'll hand it to you.

1:43:34So I think, since you don't have a chair, I'm kind of acting in that capacity for you tonight, we can just…

1:43:40kind of go down all of the members, each of you can take some time to kind of share what your thoughts are and direction, and we can kind of start the dialogue there, but this is intended for you guys to have a dialogue with one another, so maybe if you want to speak, you can just raise your hand, that way we can acknowledge speakers so you guys aren't talking on top of each other, but as a start, why don't we start with Amy?

1:43:59And we'll go down the line, and I'll share your comments, and then we'll go to our remote, members as well.

1:44:05Perfect. This is a lot of really great information, and there's been so much history, as we've discussed. I mean, I think

1:44:12I'm quite intrigued in diving, maybe revisiting, at the sake of opening up history again. Some of the questions, I think, that have been raised by the committee suggest that the data and some of the analysis is dated.

1:44:23I mean, I think a lot has changed since the pandemic, and needs, assessments, square footage, the whole thing. I think without trying to restart the project from scratch and taking full advantage of the work that has been done.

1:44:35I think there's probably some select areas that I would want to dig into a little bit more. The other thing I think, that I was just thinking about based on Mayor Pro Tem's comments was, is it typical for a city not to budget any meaningful dollars for a library, and is that the standard that's in Contra Costa, for example, or is that

1:44:55an anomaly. Just to be clear, we do every year, and it was a big…

1:45:00conversation point in this budget, and I believe the last couple of budgets, we do budget for the extra hours, which we don't have to do. So we are budgeting for the library, and at least for this two-year budget, almost all of which was developed, even though we voted on it right after the election.

1:45:18nobody knew what would happen with the measure, so it wouldn't have made sense. But honestly, if you… I would encourage all of you who didn't follow our budget process to take a look.

1:45:29I mean, we had to make some really hard choices and hard cuts, and if we had decided this year, or if the council I was there two years ago had decided then to start putting away… some people have said, you should have been putting away a million dollars a year. That would have been a million dollars in the other cuts, because the city was getting out of this financial crisis, so…

1:45:49it's a balance. I don't know of other cities right now that are our size that are putting away, like, a million dollars a year for a library. Most of them are

1:46:00going to the ballot for library measures, or they're much bigger cities than we are that have extra outside funding, like Richmond having the funding from Chevron, that clearly is a unique circumstance. I mean, they should be getting that funding, but it's just not an asset we have, or that most cities have.

1:46:18and again, typically for public facilities, there is a financing component involved to spread that cost over time. I don't know if anyone would spend $30 million cash on a library, and it would

1:46:29you know, owing to what the Mayor Pro Tem said, this is the struggle we do every year with the budget, which is if you… we only have a finite amount of money that we can raise, and a finite amount of money that we can spend, right? So, if you're…

1:46:42putting aside money, that means it's coming from somewhere else. It's a zero-sum game. And raising revenue has been essentially what the city has looked at

1:46:53before. If we had a much higher, revenue package and looking at being able to finance against our general fund.

1:47:01That would just put us into a higher level of debt service, which, again, that's… it's a consideration. Currently, that is how, for example, it's just like a mortgage, and that's how we're paying for City Hall, for example. We are paying on City Hall. This building was opened in 2008.

1:47:18We financed it then with what are called certificates of participation. Just, again, calling it a mortgage is probably the easiest way that I can explain it, and even in my head that I understand. We'll be paying on that debt service for another 10 years.

1:47:33The other financing that we have, the other major debt service that we have is for our streets. So the street bond that was passed in 06? 08? That's a sales tax measure. We financed, rebuilding all the streets back then, and we did a 5-year project to rebuild all the streets, and then we have been

1:47:53maintaining that over time, but we do have to pay that debt service. So those are our two major

1:47:58loans, if you will, that we have out, and those expire within, like, 10 years from now, so…

1:48:04in 10 years.

1:48:06We still have a library to deal with, but we would have more capacity, that capacity available to us for our general fund.

1:48:14The Streets Fund is a specific restricted fund, so it's a little bit different, but from our general fund, that's one of the

1:48:21that would be essentially the main thing that we could finance off of, because we don't have any other restricted funding that we could go into debt for. So otherwise, so if we're not able to set aside funding

1:48:33From what we currently have, we would need to raise revenue in some way, shape, or form in order to be able to either finance or set aside money.

1:48:42Thank you.

1:48:47Sure. So, some of the things that I noted were I… when you mentioned the needs assessment from

1:48:54Gotcha. The needs assessment from 2014, looking… I guess just overall, looking more at, like, the data that we have, if we could dive into that. Survey results, because I'm looking at the…

1:49:08the 2025, 70%, but then we had the yes on C, 30%. So looking at, like, the discrepancy between that.

1:49:15And diving into, do we know more? Could we get information from residents? Just looking at…

1:49:24Yeah, the public engagement process.

1:49:27And then… Auditing of the library needs right now, so…

1:49:34Going back to, like, the air conditioning, seismic retrofit, that kind of thing.

1:49:40That's it.

1:49:43So I have two clarification questions. The first is, when we're talking about consultants, I think it's great to have consultants that understand our context and our history.

1:49:53But I'm curious if the city is getting multiple bids from a variety of consultants to ensure we're getting

1:50:00Yes, absolutely. And certainly with big, you know, things over $45,000, things like Griffin Structures, the consultants I'm naming, that's all competitive. Okay, great. Typically with an RFP that's open to anybody.

1:50:11I really like the idea of scheduling our… a tour for our library, but I'm curious if we can go to other regional libraries, because that's the vision. And I actually would like to ask if it's possible to have focus groups of residents, invited

1:50:28to those tours.

1:50:30I think that would be a really great use of our time.

1:50:33I am extremely hesitant to ask for funding

1:50:38four items. I know we'll need to, but, my goal is to be…

1:50:43As diligent as we can with the talents that we have here in the room, on the task force, and also with our residents at large.

1:50:51That's why one of the ideas that I have

1:50:54is… and the area that I really would like to focus on is public engagement.

1:50:59These A-frames we've seen with the parking at BART are working. My neighbors saw them. There are neighbors in this room, on my block, and we were 20% of the people on that call, based on my estimates. So our conversations were generated largely because of those A-frame signs that are all over the city right now.

1:51:19Regarding parking surveys.

1:51:21So…

1:51:23my idea is that I'd like to see a contest. We've heard a lot of people talking about the library. I… I want to see how we can get, perhaps, an open source free software, or maybe a resident would design software, where residents and library users can cite.

1:51:40design.

1:51:41and really create their ideal library for El Cerrito. And it might look like how we handled the districts.

1:51:50Where we can all see what people are creating, and we can discuss and make those better. I think that that gives us the opportunity to iterate on our best ideas, and… who knows? Like, whoever's ideas get accepted by our residents, maybe they'll be on a plaque in the new library.

1:52:07I think that… that that creativity and that joy and that collaboration is what will bring us a new library, and

1:52:16I think that… that there's a lot of people who would be interested in that. And quickly, before I move on, I just…

1:52:23I want to reiterate what Allison, our county librarian, said about the heat. Tomorrow, it is nearly guaranteed that our library will be closed. I looked up two nights ago, and I talked to my neighbors about their

1:52:35their, their plan, which cooling center were they going to go to? Well, Contra Costa County has no cooling centers, Alameda has no cooling centers open, and you know what? Tomorrow is projected to be in the 90s.

1:52:47And most of us don't have air conditioning.

1:52:50We have wildfire smoke that is expected to continue on. Not wildfire, prescribed burn. Good fire. We're glad for this, but it's still smoky, and all of our windows are open. So we have two things happening today and tomorrow that are going to cause us harm, and have caused me harm today.

1:53:07I have nowhere to go.

1:53:10you know, none of us have anywhere to go, so I think that the time is now. It's not just disappointing when the library closed, it's actually dangerous.

1:53:24Okay, so I had just a few thoughts that I want to get into the record. So, thank you for that history lesson. That was actually kind of fascinating.

1:53:34So… it… it… if I'm reading the history correctly.

1:53:39there's been, I think, 3 times that there's been a measure to try to pay for a new library, and they've all failed? Two. Two times, okay. Well, one was a state measure, a state, proposition. Oh, yes, yes, the state construction bond that failed. That's true, yes, so… Related, yes. So, I would want to, you know, find out,

1:53:59you know.

1:54:00why are you all voting no all the time? You know, just kind of like, somebody mentioned a survey.

1:54:05for the most recent election, and I'd be all behind that, because You know, dude.

1:54:11Good money after bad money and all that.

1:54:14So, you know, what exactly,

1:54:17Let's see, what would it… so, and then the follow-up is, what would it take to pass a budget measure?

1:54:22You know, if it's… you know, we can find out why people voted no, but then what would… what would get you to vote yes? You know, have a more positive spin.

1:54:31Also, big picture things.

1:54:34I can… I can tell you, based on, you know, articles and literature, what a modern library has, and what a modern library needs.

1:54:42But is that what the El Cerrito Modern Library wants or needs? So, again, being very specific and intentional about what El Cerrito needs in a modern library. And not just

1:54:55Now, in this… Point in time, but also in the future.

1:54:59what does a future El Cerrito look like? You know, I've lived here just long enough to have seen a lot of changes.

1:55:07Oh, big changes. We're sitting in one, actually. I love this building.

1:55:11And, you know, there's the new,

1:55:15the two BART stations have both transformed, so how does a library fit into whatever the vision of El Cerrito is? Because I'm figuring somebody's got a vision of what the new library is… and the streets, you know, what's going on with the streets. So, you know, how does the library fit into what

1:55:31El Cerrito looks like 20 years from now. Because right now, it's just its own little

1:55:37thing that endures, and it hasn't grown as the city has grown, and it hasn't changed as the city has changed, but the needs have changed. So, those are things that I would want to think about.

1:55:51Awesome. Thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank the staff, and the Mayor Pro Tem, and the county librarian for their excellent contributions to the meeting tonight.

1:56:01That's all very helpful.

1:56:03I'm also very curious about

1:56:06I don't know if there is. Is there a way to figure out what people's… 3…

1:56:14worst issues were with the library measure as it came up. I just…

1:56:19You know, we need to be addressing people's concerns. That's, like, why we're here.

1:56:26So, I don't know if there's actually a way to do that, but I would… that'd be such great information.

1:56:32Number two, I really wish we could spend some money on, like, Library Fitness…

1:56:39problems, you know, seismic safety, etc. I just… Really want to know.

1:56:46What are the… Issues that we face, you know, in the next 5 years.

1:56:53With our… with our current facility.

1:56:56That's it for me, thank you.

1:56:59Okay, we'll go to our remote members. Rachel, you want to start?

1:57:06Member Rosekind: Sure, so I will pick up on Tom's comments to…

1:57:12Member Rosekind: rephrase both of them, which is, I really have felt

1:57:16Member Rosekind: That we've needed to understand better the opposition to… Measure C…

1:57:22Member Rosekind: a lot of those in my neighborhood. I spoke with many neighbors and other community members and heard

1:57:28Member Rosekind: Some of their opposition, but it was actually the… the returns were far more…

1:57:33Member Rosekind: drastic than even I anticipated, even having had those conversations. So I do think it is important to take the pulse of the community around, yes, what they want to see in the library, but also

1:57:45Member Rosekind: Why they rejected the measure and what their concerns are with, what the vision was for the library, how the city

1:57:54Member Rosekind: I understand the division between this initiative and the city, but

1:57:58Member Rosekind: what the perception of the city was in terms of its involvement, the city's handling of finances was a big

1:58:05Member Rosekind: theme in the discussions amongst my neighbors, so I know there's concern in that regard. So I do think it's important to dig into that and part of our mission in being here. The other piece is also understanding, yeah, in the more short term, what we can do to address

1:58:21Member Rosekind: The very real limitations of our current library.

1:58:26Member Rosekind: Also, it was mentioned, revisiting conversations with the school district and the 7-11 committee in particular, I think that's an excellent idea.

1:58:36Member Rosekind: Definitely worth pursuing.

1:58:38Member Rosekind: And also just a larger… Maybe a deeper dive on the different sites.

1:58:43Member Rosekind: potentials, along with cost estimates, I think is…

1:58:47Member Rosekind: Definitely within the purview of an important task that we could

1:58:50Member Rosekind: proceed with, and then the historical polling data, I don't know, it would kind of depend, I know you mentioned cost and bringing… I can't remember the firm's name,

1:59:00Member Rosekind: Of course, bringing them to the meeting might be prohibitive in terms of cost, and so I guess I'd want to understand better the benefit of having them in the room. But it would be interesting if we were trying to understand the current environment in relationship to past polling data and where we are now, to have them

1:59:18Member Rosekind: them here and maybe entertain that conversation a little bit with an expert in the room. So, those are my key takeaways, but I'm still processing. I appreciate very much

1:59:28Member Rosekind: All the care, given to the presentation by staff.

1:59:34Thank you, and Eden?

1:59:37Youth Member Rosekind: Yeah, so, I think that, like, public engagement, you know, is really important, like, whether it would be meeting in person, you know, and talking about what the… what they think the library should look like.

1:59:51Youth Member Rosekind: Or, you know, like, surveys that you can take online that are, you know, like, 5 minutes, because those are usually pretty easy to take, and I know a lot of people usually take those, or at least the ones I've seen.

2:00:02Youth Member Rosekind: And then also, I think, like.

2:00:06Youth Member Rosekind: because it, you know, it's hot, where we live year-round, so I think, like, having air conditioning in the library is really important, because, you know, it's closed most of the days, so…

2:00:15Youth Member Rosekind: maybe while, like, people figuring out, you know, all the new library stuff, and where it should be, like, we… people should get, like, a head start on the air conditioning, because, you know, it's just gonna get, like, harder. So, yeah.

2:00:29Youth Member Rosekind: And then… I also think learning, like, more about how the new library would look, like, the sites and… or building on top of the library we already have.

2:00:42Youth Member Rosekind: I think that's worth, like.

2:00:44Youth Member Rosekind: A go, but, like, and bringing the four men to talk, but, like, also depending on how much that would be.

2:00:50Youth Member Rosekind: And… yeah. Also, the presentation was really good.

2:01:02Holly, can I add something again, just based on the comments made? Sure, certainly. Something that the comments made me think about, especially about, like, what to do for now with the current library.

2:01:13Something that exists in the city is the capital improvement plan, and we just approved that as part of the budget. It was very updated this year, but the one thing missing from it is the library, again, because of this uncertainty around

2:01:28was the measure gonna pass, and whether it passed or not, that makes it look very different. But there's a lot of things in the capital improvement program, plan that are just listed.

2:01:39not necessarily funded, and so I think that could be something that came out of this task force, is what do we want to get added to the CIP

2:01:49Either for the current library or for a new library, so it's at least there. Like, the public safety building is there, even though we don't have the funding for it. It at least lists all of our capital needs, and then we go out and figure out how to fund it and either budget for it and find outside funding.

2:02:13Any other thoughts?

2:02:15Yes.

2:02:16Thank you for that, Mayor Pro Tem Saltzman. What…

2:02:20I'm sure that we'll all go back and look at… look at that, but what generally is the format of the capital improvement plan per topic?

2:02:29like, is it… are they tables? Are they multi-pages? Oh, can we pull it up?

2:02:38It's on our website. The capital improvement program, essentially is…

2:02:43I mean, it's, at this point, divided, as, you know, the Mayor Pro Tem said, into essentially, a

2:02:52a to-do list and a wish list, almost, of all of our capital needs. Over the years, we do various studies and plans on different types of capital needs that we have. For example, one of the biggest ones that we have been working with, I want to say 2019 it was adopted, was our Park and Recreation Master Plan. That goes over, essentially, all of… most of the buildings in the city.

2:03:16that…

2:03:18we have, because a lot of those are, like, the clubhouses and the community center, all of those things. There is a senior center, in there, that we don't, since we don't have a permanent one,

2:03:30Yeah, can you go to… Oh.

2:03:34Oh, that's… No, that's all.

2:03:37No, no, no, go to the… sorry, we want to go to the budget.

2:03:45Finance.

2:03:46This is how you all get there?

2:03:49Go to the budget, budget page, and then go to our digital budget book.

2:03:58And down here, where it says Capital Improvement Program, this describes… oops.

2:04:05Process… oh, good.

2:04:09Thank you. So…

2:04:12It's divided between a one-year plan, so this is what is currently budgeted for this year, and this is all the different funding that's available for the various, projects. This is a multi-year plan.

2:04:25And, a lot of this is funded from specific

2:04:29funding that is not the general fund. The general fund is the overall fund that can fund anything, but we have several different funds that can only be spent on specific things. For example, the Measure A Street Improvement Fund, as we were talking about earlier.

2:04:43Different state grants, Measure J Storm Drain Fund, for example, those are all required to only be spent on those items, and so that's why you'll see the rainbow colors there.

2:04:55The different, multi-year plan, the project types.

2:05:00So they're divided here by category, transportation, creeks and trails, expenditures, and then if you look at some of these, which is kind of cool here, so the Street Improvement Program, you can… it has a description, it has a map, so you can go through, and then… here we go, unfunded projects.

2:05:19And that's a pretty long list right there. So, if you… you can certainly take some time to, check that out. We've reformatted it, as the Mayor Pro Tem said.

2:05:31So we're really happy with how it's easy to look at and format, but one of the things we do want to dive into a little bit deeper, and we'll probably be doing that over the next calendar year, is prioritization of those projects. So looking at the plans we have, looking at these unfunded projects, and how do we prioritize those

2:05:49if there are restricted money that we can spend, like, we have to do a storm drain project, for example, so those types of things. So that's kind of the overall capital improvement program, and if there was any money to be set aside from grants or from

2:06:05donors, or if the Council wanted to set aside some money from the general fund or any other fund that would be represented in this sec…

2:06:14Thank you for that, also, because now anyone can access it. Yeah, anybody can take a look, yeah.

2:06:24One other thing I was thinking about with respect to the work plan and all the comments on public engagement, I think, kind of underscored for me, is a question around how we as a task force want to communicate with the public and the community. We had a meeting. This is the task force, right? How many people know that? How many people know who we are, why we're here?

2:06:41So I think we should work in also just a ongoing cadence of updates back to the community. I love the idea of focus groups and of surveys, and there's very easy, low-touch ways to do that, but…

2:06:52Also, sort of outbound communication on our process, even if there's no conclusions, just to keep people engaged.

2:06:59And luckily, one of our, staff liaisons is also… Will is also our public information officer, and he is in charge of all of the social media for the city. So, Will also has a very good way of being able to… and I do a city manager update once a month, there's all sorts of

2:07:16formal and informal ways that we as a city can do some outreach, in addition to anything that this task force, you know, comes up with something different. But yeah, I don't know if you want to chat. Yeah, thank you for the nudge. I think that's a great idea, and we can… I'll work with Karen in her update every month. There can be maybe a little blurb about

2:07:35the happenings of the task force, and then so too on social media. Yeah, and again, this meeting is being recorded, so we're going to archive this so that anyone can watch it.

2:07:46There's… there's all sorts of different, things that we can do within the scope of what we already do for public outreach. It's… I think I've spoken about this before, it's always challenging, to…

2:07:59to as much outreach as we put out there, or all sorts of ideas that we can come up with, but still, how do we reach people? How do we reach everybody? It is… it is something… I mean, I've been…

2:08:11you know, working in local government for a really long time, this is almost… it's a problem we're constantly trying to solve, and we have so many more avenues now to be able to reach people, so… and yet, we're not always reaching people, so it's a huge challenge, one that we're constantly facing, but we're also constantly trying to get better at.

2:08:29and do more, so any additional ideas that this task force has for how to engage the public? Chelsea, I think you mentioned a contest, cool. I mean, like, different creative ideas, I mean, that we… certainly how we might be able to support that.

2:08:44Is, you know, again, we're totally willing to give whatever we can a try.

2:08:52Yeah, and so you do have… so in your packet, as I mentioned, there's this work plan template, and so how we've typically done that with other boards and commissions, because we do have to be cognizant of the Brown Act, is what works… has worked well is you all, if you want to

2:09:07go that route, is you'd send one-way communications to Holly as your staff liaison, and then before the next meeting, she would put it all into one cohesive, you know, comprehensive document, and then she'd share that back out with you all in the public before your next meeting, and then you could refine and fine-tune at the following.

2:09:25So that's one path, or just a general discussion. So again, this is optional, but that… that's one path forward if you want to keep adding. And we definitely heard you, too. I was taking notes, and I saw everyone else taking notes.

2:09:36So we heard your ideas, and we can take that, or if you want to use this template, that's a tool for you, too. Holly. And the only other thing I was going to add, we also have a standing item on each of your agenda to discuss future agenda items and upcoming items, so some of the things that we've talked about, like the tour and things like that.

2:09:53For example, if we haven't scheduled the tour before the next regular meeting, that would be potentially an upcoming item that we know we're going to be addressing. So, there's a couple different avenues. We're just looking for you guys to give us direction on how you would like to proceed, and then, as staff, we'll certainly support you in whatever effort you want to do.

2:10:16I'm of the opinion that I'd like to…

2:10:20to take this back and each of us individually think about it and share it back with Holly, mostly because I think that's the best way we could get information from the community and have resident voices influence the items that we're setting onto this work plan.

2:10:34But one other item that I'm really excited

2:10:37to talk about in a future agenda is hopefully having Heidi here, and to be able to hear from her

2:10:44I have a number in my head of what she told me as the average number of library users that come through every day.

2:10:50And I don't want to misspeak, but it was a really high number for a small library, and I think she said 400. It might have been 200, it might have been 400, I can't remember which. She'll correct us, but that's a lot for a small

2:11:05under-resourced library. It's a pillar of our community, and it can… it can grow so much more. So I really look forward to hearing, both from Allison and Heidi.

2:11:16and Anasa, and Esteban, and Chelsea, and whoever else shows up, but… So, I think we… we did take a lot of feedback. I did hear a lot of overlap from a lot of you, so,

2:11:28I think there's kind of two options, you guys can give us direction to kind of move forward based on what we've heard tonight, and kind of planning the items that would be on the next couple of agendas.

2:11:41Or, if you prefer, I can send an email to all of the members, give you guys directions in terms of giving me your feedback directly on what you would like to see in a draft work plan, and we can put that on the next agenda, and you can, as a group, decide those are the things that you want to discuss, and that's the direction that you want to go.

2:12:02Does anybody have a preference one way or the other?

2:12:08Okay, sounds like everyone is open to it, so why don't we, why don't we move forward with kind of what we've heard from you guys in terms of the things that you're interested in discussing, and we'll build upon that, and… and we can continue to build upon what you guys want to work on as we schedule our meetings moving forward.

2:12:28Just to clarify, I'm actually suggesting the latter, that we

2:12:33I would rather go back, take feedback from the community, and have that inform the work plan.

2:12:40For myself, that's… that's my suggestion.

2:12:44Sorry, I'm running the meeting off of my computer, and I have no battery. So, can I come up here and just leave that question?

2:12:51Okay, so if there's not consensus, then what we would actually want to do is, this might be the first opportunity you guys get to experience, kind of, the parliamentary procedure of this process, if someone wants to make a motion how they want to move forward, either with generating a work plan, or

2:13:07For staff to take the direction based on the feedback we've gotten from everybody tonight. And then you can all vote, and depending on how the outcome of whatever motion is made, then we can move forward in that.

2:13:21direction.

2:13:22So, is there something specific that…

2:13:26I have a question. Yes. Is there a hybrid version? Because I do think that there was a significant amount of overlap on wanting, for example, better information around why people voted no, and focus group engagement, public community outreach. I think that's, in my mind, unlikely to change with further comment.

2:13:43But there could be other things that come up that might differ from that. Yeah, I… thank you for saying that, because I was thinking that

2:13:49We could actually probably do both, where

2:13:53we have taken notes, and we have the recording so that we can… I, like, I agree, there's several different things that a lot of you touched on, but we could also give you a date to

2:14:05give additional feedback to Holly if you're talking to people, or people contact you, or whatever, then you could do that. So perhaps, maybe we do a little bit of both, and what we… what we would do as staff is that we would take

2:14:20you know, we're not going to try to interpret for you. I mean, we would… we would bring you back something that we've heard, and you can…

2:14:27you know, play with it or wordsmith it however you want. I want to make, you know, you are the task force, we want to take your lead and not the reverse. But if we could give a date certain, for example, for

2:14:38you know, before the next meeting, to give any additional feedback you have to Holly, then we could also take that into consideration.

2:14:48I like that version.

2:14:55I just want to point out that this is my first foray into public.

2:15:00Meeting service time, and thank you. And, but I've been in other meetings, and first of all, I want to say that this is extremely well run, so just, I'm really impressed by how organized and

2:15:14competent everything is. So, having said that, I would be totally into, at least for the next meeting, if not the next two meetings, doing the suggestion of taking what we talked about.

2:15:26formulating it into an agenda, and then, you know, having… kind of doing what we're doing now. As I learn, as I…

2:15:34educate myself so that, you know, after those first couple of meetings, then we're ready to kind of take over and, you know, talk to our neighbors and, you know, have more experience.

2:15:47And I was also gonna say, I mean, some of the… I know that there's been, a lot of you, including myself, we've expressed wanting to be very diligent about costing and consultants and all of that type of thing, but some of these items that have brought up,

2:16:03We certainly could also look at getting maybe some cost estimates from, like, say, you know.

2:16:10if there's anything, like, what is it… what… what are we even looking at as far as costs? I mean, you know, is it having a consultant come to a meeting, or preparing some data, or anything like that? I mean, we can take a preliminary look at that, so if you say, hey, go do another needs assessment, we have a ballpark so that you know, so we could also work on that from a staff perspective.

2:16:30If that's…

2:16:32you know, I see you all nodding your heads. I mean, I think that would, you know, also provide some data, like, I mean, you know, some of the things you guys were saying, for example, the first thing that popped in my head is, wow, we should do another survey, but surveys are not cheap. But it's… it's also a possibility. We could go to the Council and ask them for money. I mean, again, these are all possibilities, and so us having maybe

2:16:51you know, I'm looking at, well, a ballpark on some of these ideas might be. You know, I think… I'm very aware of time, too, so I think one thing we didn't talk about is that the task force is really tasked with making a recommendation in about 12 months, and so, you know, we're just in month one now, but 12 months will fly. And so.

2:17:09So I think to make sure that you have things that are actionable, if we had cost estimates at your next meeting, and then… and then if it was agendized appropriately so that you could

2:17:20take action even then to say, you know what, let's make a recommendation to Council to spend, you know, $5,000 or however much it comes out to, so that we can keep the… keep the conversation moving.

2:17:31And we can certainly do a bit of a hybrid of all of this. We can have an item on the agenda for the next meeting, where we have, kind of.

2:17:40the feedback that we've heard from you. We can also give that deadline if you guys want to provide one-way communication to me about things that you would like to be added to that draft, and we can put that on for you to continue to refine it. It can be a living, breathing document as well, because you're going through, you're learning more information about what it is that you're trying to accomplish, you're going to be able to better refine what it is that you're hoping to do.

2:18:02So I think that gives us sufficient direction to be able to move forward. And then, as I mentioned, we do have the standing item on the agenda for future agenda items, so…

2:18:15Continuing, kind of, a work plan, discussion, and,

2:18:21What you guys would like to accomplish would obviously be one of the items on the next agenda, and then we'll get some preliminary

2:18:28Cost estimates for potential assessments that you guys might be interested, so that you can have that dialogue around that as well.

2:18:35Okay, so we didn't take any action on this item, but there is an option, yeah, if there… if anybody, and any member of the public wants to provide public comments on this discussion item, okay, you can go ahead and come up to the…

2:18:50Podium.

2:18:55Hello, I think I might have forgotten my name last time. It's Betsy Wing, I'm an El Cerrito resident. Oh, Betsy Wing Basher, and

2:19:04I, also have a local news website, Livable El Cerrito.

2:19:08I just wanted to say, I'm not trying to insult anyone, but, there has been tons of controversy about the, surveys by Goudby.

2:19:19And although it seems like all the local communities use them, I think that might be damaging to the credibility of this task force, especially since his surveys did not predict anything like the 70% no vote. So, thank you.

2:19:36Any other requests?

2:19:43Hi, Richard Brooks, resident, again.

2:19:46I would encourage that the feedback loop on this be relatively as tight as possible, constantly giving it back to the city in the form of, like, your advice to the council.

2:19:58On the one point, I would like to say that if you're considering doing surveys on things, just keep in mind the balancing act between what you are surveying and the cost of doing the survey. As an example, if we look at the cost of, like, air conditioning.

2:20:13Theoretically, if this survey costs more than a few thousand dollars to run, the cost of portable AC units is on the order of about $1,000.

2:20:21So if some things are cheaper to just buy, like, 4 portable AC units.

2:20:25Consider that as an option instead of conducting a larger survey to prove something that's cheap.

2:20:30So I gotta say, thanks.

2:20:33Thank you. Any other requests in the room?

2:20:37Okay, now would be the time if anyone on the Zoom call would like to provide public comments on this item. You can raise your hand now to request to speak.

2:20:50Okay, I am not seeing any hands.

2:20:53Any final comments on this item before we move on to the next item?

2:21:00Okay.

2:21:01So the next item on the agenda is to, discuss and set the regular meeting schedule for the Library Task Force.

2:21:08In the packet of materials that we provided you, we provided two options as a starting point. This is based on availability of staff that are involved in this process, as well as space availability. The resolution states that the task force will meet no less than once every two months, so that is the basis of the regular meeting schedule that we have set. That does not mean that special meetings cannot be scheduled, this would just

2:21:33set those regular meeting schedules so we can put that information out to the public. So, there are two options, that are…

2:21:42Included in the packet. One is on the… sorry, I don't have my computer. The first

2:21:51Thank you. So the first… the first option is the second Tuesday of…

2:21:56sorry, the second Monday of the month at 6 p.m, and the second option is the second Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m, and going on in every two-month schedule, that would put the next meeting in November, and every two months through the duration of the 12 months of the task force.

2:22:14So we're looking just to have a brief dialogue to see how availability works for the members, and if one of those two schedules is amenable to everyone, we can adopt a regular meeting schedule that we can then put out to the public, so the public knows when you are meeting and can participate in those meetings.

2:22:36Any… Yes.

2:22:39Yes, this is as a starting point, again, based on staff availability, and we have… we do have boards, commissions, and committees that… that do have regular meeting schedules, so we're trying to… we're trying to kind of mesh it in with all of the… those things, and taking all those things into account, so…

2:22:58Does anybody have any initial feedback or thoughts? Only Tuesday's better, but I could do Monday. Okay.

2:23:04Any other comments or feedback?

2:23:08Monday's preferable to me, but all of the Tuesday dates work as well, and January is a month that I think I will have an unmovable conflict, but…

2:23:17Okay.

2:23:19Oh, go ahead. Oh. Tuesday. Tuesday? Okay. Mondays? Okay.

2:23:27What about our virtual members? Any feedback on preference or availability on those schedules?

2:23:35Member Rosekind: Tuesday is preferable. Monday is doable, although one is an immovable conflict in March.

2:23:42Okay.

2:23:43Is the assumption that the meetings would always be in person with a virtual option? So, the virtual option is only…

2:23:50if you have a noticed virtual location under the Brown Act requirements. So if you noticed on our agenda tonight, there was a second physical location listed. That is where members that are virtual tonight are participating from, with the agenda posted, open to the public. If any public wanted to participate from that location, they would have to. So that is the only way that remote participation can take place.

2:24:13So, other… yes, the answer is yes, the meetings will be in person, but we will always have a virtual component for the public to participate, and then if a member met the requirements, they would be able to participate virtually.

2:24:25And the proposal right now is for the 6 p.m. time slot, is that correct? As a starting point, yes.

2:24:31But again, if that is one of the reasons why the date might not work, that's a discussion we can have if an earlier or later start time would help avoid those conflicts.

2:24:42And I am hearing a lot of Tuesday would potentially be the better option of the two, so, we can take a formal vote, but if we have consensus.

2:24:54From everybody, for the Tuesday option, we can simply move forward with publishing that as the regular meeting schedule.

2:25:01If there's no objections, and we can also take a formal vote if you guys would prefer.

2:25:11Wait, were you?

2:25:16I can… yes, I think I could probably make most of the Tuesdays. I need to go back and look. I just have another standing board that goes until 545, so…

2:25:25Okay.

2:25:28I can likely make the Tuesday or Monday work.

2:25:30Although, there might be some Tuesdays where I will be out of state.

2:25:34Does that still work with this hybrid meeting noticing? As long as you can meet the requirements of posting the agenda, that the location is open to anybody who wants to attend from that location for the duration of the meeting, then you could potentially participate virtually, as the members have tonight. I'm flexible, then.

2:25:53Yeah?

2:25:55And that requirement would mean if you're traveling in a hotel, for example, you need to post the location, but not your room, correct? Yes, typically in those… typically in those circumstances, we post information for the hotel itself with instructions to check in at the front desk for the room assignment.

2:26:12If you are participating from your room, you would have to allow them to come, or you could participate from, like, a conference room at the hotel, or even the lobby.

2:26:21It does… yes, it's… this is something that's very…

2:26:24typical for council members, but… Or it could be at a library. Can I just give feedback? I've done this many times over my career, nobody's ever showed up when I'm in some other city. It seems very unlikely, it's fine. Especially out of state, as our virtual members can probably attest to.

2:26:42Bye-bye.

2:26:47And is the 6 o'clock time, then?

2:26:51Yes.

2:26:53And, you know, It's hot.

2:26:55as Holly said, I mean, we can also, if there are major conflicts or something happens, we can certainly do special meetings. And actually, I think, I'm looking at Allison, and maybe we can work with Allison and Heidi to schedule a tour if that

2:27:12we could… we could look at maybe doing it on a… on a typical, regularly scheduled, but perhaps not. So, we'll…

2:27:21We're open Tuesday evenings, so perhaps, you know, that could be… An upcoming…

2:27:26Meeting, or we could just set a special meeting. So, just to let you know that we can, you know, if things happen, we can be flexible.

2:27:36And again, this is just kind of a regular standing schedule. That doesn't mean we can't hold special meetings. That doesn't mean that we won't come up on a regular meeting and find that we don't have a quorum of members available. That happens

2:27:47that's when you schedule a special meeting for a different time and place. So, you were all very responsive for my polling request to schedule this meeting, so as long as you all continue to be responsive, that makes it a lot easier if we do have to schedule those special meetings, so…

2:28:00Okay, so then we will move forward with the Tuesday at 6pm… the second Tuesday of the month schedule, and we'll post that on your guys' website, so everybody in the public knows when you guys will be meeting regularly.

2:28:13Any requests to speak on this item?

2:28:16No?

2:28:18It's… the regular meeting schedule's every 2 months, so the next regular meeting would be in November.

2:28:31Yeah, yes, the… this is the regular meeting schedule, so did you want to provide public comments?

2:28:46Okay.

2:28:49Okay, any other comments, thoughts on this item before we move on?

2:28:55I noticed that the final meeting is in July of 2027. Is that when we're expecting to wrap

2:29:00That is the 12-month mark. So the resolution that the Council adopted for the task force is that it would sunset 12 months from the date the members were appointed, which was July 15th. Okay. So that's why it goes through. So we really have 10 months of work. Well, and I will… this is the flexible part. So, again.

2:29:19this would be the regular schedule so that we know we have something every other month. If there are things that come up, or special dates that we can do, or…

2:29:28We actually have… if there's work being done by this body that is not complete exactly by July 15th.

2:29:38We could certainly ask the City Council to extend that, or modify it. I mean, that, you know.

2:29:45it's not like we have… well, I'm trying not to speak for the City Council, but I would be relatively certain that if this body is doing work, and we have… need a little bit more time, we could certainly make a request of the City Council, and I would

2:30:00very much hope they'd be amenable to extending that if this… I mean, again, this is, you know, this is something that certainly, like, as you've seen, we've been working on for a very long time. We…

2:30:13we're trying to get answers, we're trying to get public engagement, we're trying to come up with some new ideas, or maybe refine some old ideas, or whatever this task force comes up with. I don't want us to worry about being, troubled by a deadline, because the work is what's most important. And again, I'm

2:30:32trying not to speak for the City Council, I never predispose a City Council vote, but if this task force is doing work that is, you know, needs a little bit more time, I cannot see an issue with going to the Council and requesting more time.

2:30:46And she's nodding, so we're good.

2:30:50Okay, so that brings us to the next item on the agenda, which is the future agenda items.

2:30:56item.

2:30:57I'm not sure there's much that we need to discuss further on this item, because this is our first meeting, and we have already established some of the things that we're going to come back with as agenda items for this group. One of the things that staff did talk about that we are planning on putting on the next agenda is for you to appoint a chair and a vice chair for this body, so that person will work

2:31:20with me to help chair the meeting, so doing a lot of the moving through the agenda that I'm currently doing, and it's also the person that serves as, like, the spokesperson for the task force. So if a recommendation or item goes to the council from this body, the chair would be the person who would kind of be there to present that information, answer questions.

2:31:39And the vice chair would fill in in the Chair's absence, so that is one of the items that we will have on the next meeting agenda.

2:31:45Okay?

2:31:47Any other questions, comments on future agenda items?

2:31:52Okay, so then that brings us to the last item on the agenda, which is or communications from the public. So this is the time for members of the public who want to provide comments on anything that is not listed on the agenda, but that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of this task force. Are there any requests for anybody in the room to speak on this item?

2:32:14Nope, seeing none, are there any requests for any member of the public online? That would be the time to raise your hand if you wish to speak.

2:32:23Okay, seeing no hands, that brings us to adjourning the first task meeting at 8.33. Thank you, everyone, for your participation in the meeting tonight. Have a good evening. Thank you.