RNCC Meeting Minutes, July 10, 2017
1. The meeting was called to order at 7:02 pm by Vice President Naomi Williams. Her only announcement was that this meeting may be videotaped and shown on Facebook and if you did not want to be on it to let her know.
2. MSP approval of the Minutes from the June 12, 2017 meeting.
3. Representatives from the following (13) neighborhoods introduced themselves and some gave reports: Castro Heights, Hilltop District, May Valley, North & East, Panhandle Annex, Park Plaza, Parkview, Pt. Richmond, Pullman, Richmond Annex, Richmond Heights, Santa Fe, and Shields-Reid neighborhood councils.
4. Announcements from RNCC PIO: Madalyn Law announced the Food Emporium at East Brothers Brewery on Sunday, August 27th from 1-8, International Day will be at JFK Park on Saturday September 23, 2017, JFK Park will be getting a restroom for the park, Our Power Festival will be on August 12th at Nichol Park, the CERT program will begin on Tuesday, October 3rd on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a month with the drill on the Saturday after.
5. City Department Heads/City Official Reports:
Engineering & Capital Improvements: Tawfic Halaby talked about the major capital improvements that are occurring in the City. The Nevin Ave streetscape is almost completed, they have started work on the Greenway gap closure project and the restoring of Baxter Creek. The Wastewater treatment plant will be replacing old sewers in the City of Richmond.
City Manager/Community Services: Rochelle Monk unavailable.
Mayor’s office: Sequoia Erasmus talked about the Urban garden contest, the post office closure, the tiny house from UC Berkeley, Lily Mae Jones dedication, August 18th is movie night in the Civic Center Plaza, the North Richmond Feasibility project, and Time with Tom at Your Way Pizza on July 27th.
Police Department: Lt T Mollenbernd talked to us about the uptick in crime of about 10%. Property crime and auto theft is down but auto burglaries are up. Every month the Officers will be walking the beat. Around the 4th of July they had 119 calls from people and 480 shotspotter activities and only 9 were actual gunshots. They were doing their best to close down the people that were selling illegal fireworks but did not make much of a dent in stopping them from being used in the City. They have hired 4 new officers to start throughout the next few months.
Dept. of Infrastructure and Maintenance and Operations: Stationary Facilities Engineer Supervisor, Mario Vaz told us about all that they do. They manage all of the Civic Center Plaza, the Richmond police station, 2 sub stations along with many other building for a total of 57 buildings.
Planning Department: Staff unavailable, but sent projects by neighborhood
Fire Department: Adrian Sheppard unavailable.
WCCUSD: Marcus Walton unavailable.
6. Presentations:
1) EBMUD, Charla Sullivan talked about the rate increase and why it is happening. We heard from Charla instead of Lesa MacIntosh as Lesa lost her voice. We have a complex water system and in the overview 90% of our water comes from the Eastern Sierra Mountains and there is 4200 miles of pipes that bring us the water. Since we had a wet winter we have 85% full in the East Bay but with all this water, the pipes need to be upgraded. They will be replacing pipes with Aqua pipes that are trenchless piping. We made so much hydro electricity they were unable to sell it all. Over the next 5 years ? of the pipelines under the City streets will need replacing. They only replace pipes every 100 years and it’s time to replace them.
7. Old Business: Hold over the By laws until the October meeting.
8. New Business: None
9. Adjournment: 8:27 PM.
Respectfully submitted by,
Jan Mignone
Recording Secretary