RNCC Meeting Minutes, June 8, 2015

1.  The meeting was called to order at 7:02 pm by President Don Woodrow.

2.  MSP approval of the Minutes from May 11, 2015

3.  Representatives from the following (16) neighborhoods introduced themselves and some gave reports:Belding/Woods, Greenbriar, Hilltop District, Hilltop Villages, Laurel Park, Marina Bay, May Valley, North & East, Panhandle Annex, Pt. Richmond, Pullman, Richmond Annex, Richmond Heights, Richmore Village and Metro Square, Santa Fe, and Shields/Reid.

4.  City Department Heads/City Official Reports:

Public Works: Yader Bermudez was unavailable but Robert Chelemedos came in his place. Robert told us that of the 11 people in Public Works, seven were now working for Parks and Landscaping and the other 4 were doing potholes and repairs that they can do until the new budget is in place.

Engineering Services: Staff, no one was available, so there was no report.

City Manager/Community Coordinator: Rochelle Monk was not available but she gave her time to City Manager Bill Lindsay’s presentation.

Mayor’s office: Alex Knox spoke about the Mayor being unable to attend but did provide the refreshments for this evening’s meeting and the Mayor will attend and speak at next month’s meeting. Their department has a $50,000 non-salaried fund that they are cutting by 21% for the next fiscal year. They will not be supporting many of the events in the City, such as Juneteenth, the Pow-wow and other yearly events. They are gearing up to fund the Community Benefits Fund with a golf tournament and other fundraising ideas and this may help balance out the community funds. The West County Detention Center wants to increase the number of beds in Richmond by 418 which will take it to about 1,000 beds and reduce Martinez to 300. If you wish to speak about this, please go to Supervisor John Gioia and tell him your concerns. The West County Family Justice Center had its grand opening on Thursday and it received $95,000.00 in donations. The Mayor is also going to talk about the social impact bond for rehabbing boarded up homes and will tell us more next month.

Police Department: Chief Magnus was not available but Deputy Chief A. Brown came in his place and he talked about the increase in crime and that it is up in all categories over the last 2 months. There has been an increase in street robberies and this has led to the Chief deciding to have a Crime Prevention Fair on August 29th from 10-3. He would like to see the neighborhood councils have tables and they can introduce themselves to new neighbors to join the neighborhood meetings.

Code Enforcement: Tim Higares was not available but he did send some information through Deputy Chief Brown and that was a volunteer litter pick up all around the City on a day in July or August. The neighborhoods would get groups of people to pick up litter on the main streets, in the parks and the schools. The City would provide the bags for cleanup and would also pick up the filled bags at the end of the day.

Planning Department: Jonelyn Whales brought the “Under Review Planning Project List and Staff Directory” and some postcards for the affected neighborhoods about the Community Mapping Meetings regarding the Form-Based Codes. She was asked questions about the Terminal One plans and she did not have an answer and the developer of the Central Ave project is making the changes to their plans that the Planning Commission recommended.

Fire Department: Terry Harris was not available, so there was no report.

WCCUSD: Marcus Walton talked about the 900 students that graduated over the last week or so. School is now out and the Summer Nutrition Program will service breakfast, lunch and snacks to any child that is under 10 years of age. They do this in many locations throughout the City. There will also be many summer programs through the school district and Ed Fund also throughout the City. The WCCUSD’s website has an interactive place to find all sorts of data, it’s called the Data/Dash Board. The next Board meeting will be on Wednesday at 6:30 and on the agenda is the Summit II Charter School that is looking for a place to go and get the okay to open here in the City. It seems that the public schools are not losing students to the charter schools, it’s the private schools that are losing students. The public schools are only losing funds to the charter schools.

5.  Announcements from RNCC PIO: Garland Ellis told us about the Richmond Promise Scholarship meetings and the RNCC and the neighborhood council presidents are invited to a mixer put on by the Council of Industries on Monday, June 22, 2015 from 5-7 pm. There will be a Community Mapping meeting for the Livable Corridors Form-Based Code on Thursday, June 17, 2015 from 6-8 pm at the Council Chambers. There will also be a CERT Leadership 2 day meeting in the City of Richmond on Monday and Tuesday, June 29th and 30th. The cost is $25.00 and if you volunteer, you can go for free. May Valley is putting together an event to honor Eleanor Loynd and you can contact them for the when and where. The Moody underpass on Marina Bay Parkway should be open to 1 lane traffic in both directions around the 3th of July.

6.  Presentations:

1) Bill Lindsay (City Manager) and Belinda Warner (Finance Director) presenting the 2015/2016 budget. First, City Manager, Bill Lindsay introduced the new Finance Director Belinda Warner, who is replacing Jim Goins, who is retiring soon. They started off telling us that the economic recovery is happening but just much slower in Richmond than other cities. They are still a year behind other cities and this is the hardest budget to balance in the last ten years. Inflation has grown 2% and sales and property taxes have dropped in the same time frame. The City will see an increase of about 6% in property taxes but that is still low compared to other cities. The number of people working for the City has gone down from 818 to 767 this year and most of that is from staff leaving and not rehiring anyone in their place. The City’s revenue is not growing in the same way as the expenditures are so it is harder to balance the budget. There has been a downgrade in the City’s credit rating and balancing the budget will help to get that back on track. The Chevron tax revenue will be down this year by $6 million and the City is well aware that they have front loaded the payment schedule so this is another revenue source that will be less than before. The City staff that has not been replaced is in the non-public safety area and it is down 20%. Bill Lindsay talked a bit about the Berkeley Global Campus and that if the University can acquire one financial partner and they can break ground and we will reap some of the benefits of the University’s expansion. The complete PowerPoint program will be online at the City’s website under the Finance department.

2) Lisa LeBlanc, Associate Superintendent of Facilities spoke to us about what the WCCUSD is doing about the bond money that they have left. They are in a major planning process and are in the process of hiring a consultant to help them know what and where to spend the last of the bond money. It will take them about 10 months to develop a master plan. There is currently $457 million in bond authority remaining under Measure D, Measure E, and Measure Y and approximately $250 million available for planning after 2019. They will be having community outreach and input meetings in July or August.

7. Old Business: The election of a Sergeant at Arms and/or a Director at Large. Our newest Director at Large, Chiara Jacobus filled in as the Sergeant at Arms for this meeting and there was a call to have her fulfill the 2015 year as the late George Schmidt’s successor. There was a nomination from the floor for Janie Holland to be Sergeant at Arms and our President Don Woodrow objected to nominating someone that was not there at the time and may not want the position. Jan Mignone made a motion to hold over the election of the new Sergeant at Arms until Don could speak with Janie Holland to see if she was interested in this position. If not, we will open the floor for nominations and if Chiara Jacobus is elected, we will then nominate someone for the office of Director at Large. We also discussed the Pam Wimberly memorial bench to be placed in the newly opened West County Family Justice Center. First, there was a vote as to what type of bench we would like and the vote was 8 for the recycled bench and 4 for the concrete bench. We then had a unanimous vote to have the RNCC pay for the bench and then raise money for the bench and any extra money raised would go to the Family Justice Center.

8.  New Business: There was no new business.

9.  Adjournment: President Don Woodrow adjourned the meeting at 8:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted by,

Jan Mignone Recording Secretary

Thank you to the Mayor’s office for tonight’s refreshments.
The next General meeting will be July 13, 2015 at 7:00 pm in the Council Chambers.
The refreshments for the July meeting will be provided by Marina Bay and Richmond Annex NCs.
The next executive board meeting will be June 15, 2015 at 6:30 PM in the 2nd floor conference room, 440 Civic Center Plaza