RNCC Meeting Minutes, April 10, 2017

1.  The meeting was called to order at 7:03 pm by President Stanly Anderson. He asked the membership to find someone to go to the NUSA conference in Omaha, Nebraska from May 23rd to May 27th. You will be refunded for the costs by the City of Richmond as they fund us $2000.00 to go to this conference each year. If no one goes we might lose this funding. We want to let the membership know that these meetings might be videoed and shown live on Facebook. If you do not want to be videoed, please let President Stanly Anderson know and he’ll make sure you are not video taped. The RNCC Executive Board had received a letter from the Santa Fe Neighborhood Council wanting to extend their boundaries into an area already designated as a part of the Iron Triangle. The Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council Board attended this meeting to talk about this issue. Since this is not an unclaimed area in the City and it does belong to the Iron Triangle we decided the best way to end this issue is to state what the written boundaries are for the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council in the minutes of this meeting. The written boundaries for the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council are:
From the East – the train tracks on the West side of 23rd Street; from the South – North side of Ohio Ave; and from the West – East side of 1st Street and Garrard Blvd. The written boundaries for the Santa Fe Neighborhood Council are as follows: North – South side of Ohio Ave; East – Harbor Way South; South – North side of Cutting Blvd and the train tracks; and West – South 1st Street.

2.  MSP approval of the Minutes from the March 13, 2017 meeting.

3.  Representatives from the following (16) neighborhoods introduced themselves and some gave reports: Belding/Woods, Castro Heights, Coronado, Fairmede/Hilltop, Iron Triangle, Laurel Park, Marina Bay, May Valley, North & East, Panhandle Annex, Park Plaza, Pullman, Richmond Annex, Richmond Heights, Richmore Village and Metro Square, and Shields-Reid Neighborhood Councils.

4. Announcements from RNCC PIO: Madalyn Law told us about the 2nd Annual Healthy Parks Day at JFK Park on Sunday, April 23, 2017, the Commission on Aging is having a fundraiser trip to Red Hawk Casino and it costs $40.00. See Naomi Williams for tickets. City of Richmond has a job opening in police dispatch.

5. City Department Heads/City Official Reports:

Engineering & Capital Improvements: Yader Bermudez/Rob Chelemedos, neither were available so Tawfic Halaby attended in their places and he told us that the Auditorium elevator was completed, the Nevin Streetscape was completed and they has two landslides, one on Via Verde and the other on Rifle Range and both will take sometime to get them back in working order. CalTrans is still working on their project on the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge. The marshland bridge at Pt Pinole is completed and they will start work on the Richmond/Ohlone gap closure, the Yellow Brick Road and the Iron Triangle Park soon.

City Manager/Community Services: Rochelle Monk was not able to attend.

Mayor’s office: Alex Knox/Irene Perdomo/ Christopher Whitmore were not available but Sequoia Erasmus came and told us about the Unity park Groundbreaking Ceremony, The Family Justice Center event on 4/14/17, the update on the Nevin Post Office and the town hall meeting to save the post office in the second or third week in May. May is Bike month and May 11th is Bike to Work Day and Richmond will have a few refueling stations around town. Earth Day is 4/22/17 and there are many events happening around the City. There is much more happening in the City between now and the next RNCC meeting.

Police Department: Allwyn Brown was unavailable but sent Captain Anthony Williams in his place. Capt. Williams is in charge of the Traffic and Special Events division. He updated us on the UAS ordinance that will have its second reading on April 18, 2017. There was a shooting on 4th Street and Main Street and the UAS would have been helpful to this investigation. The Safety Academy has 40 people signed up and the Principal policing training is going well with community members learning to work with officers in their neighborhoods. The Explorers Post took 4th place in the games in the Central Valley.

Department of Infrastructure, Maintenance and Operations: Tim Higares shared with us an end of year report that his department had put together. They have located 9 illegal transfer stations and have closed down 3 of them, They have issued 5 foreclosure notices and have received $66,000 in fees paid from these notices. The abatement team has cleared out many homeless encampments, demolished properties, and done weed abatement all over the City. Ed Posh is the graffiti man and is the one that cleans up the graffiti before you can inform him. They have also collected 100’s of mattresses and the State will be reimbursing them for the disposal of them.

Planning Department: Roberta Feliciano brought us the planning proposed projects by neighborhood print out for this month and she told us about the Richmond Wellness Trail and that the Urban Greening Master Plan has passed City Council and will go into effect soon. They are still working on the Zoning cleanup to make it as user friendly as needed.

Fire Department: Adrian Sheppard spoke to us about managing the  vegetation and the use of goats in some locations in the City. They have their work cut out for them in Pt. Molate, Garrity Way, Fascination Circle. They will also be teaming up with PG&E, the railroads, and CalTrans to help with all the weeds on their properties. They are posting “passed” stickers in the windows of businesses that have their update business license and they are also inspecting rental properties to make sure they are up to code. He and his team are working on budget reviews and the Fire Department is running lean and mean. They are moving their training facility to Gertrude so that they will no longer have smoke and the other air pollutants in the air for those that live around South 34th and Cutting Blvd. The Fire Department is planning on hiring 7 to 10 new people and have them out in the streets in 2017. The new emergency manager starts on April 24th.  You will see the Fire Department on 23rd Street for Cinco de Mayo.

WCCUSD: Marcus Walton told us that the Board was meeting that Wednesday evening and one of the items on the agenda is the Voices Charter School and they will also be discussing school construction as well. Paula Roy, a teacher at De Anza High School, is the teacher of the year for WCCUSD. The Richmond HS robotics group came in 6th in their last tournament. There is also a District music festival happening soon. The week of April 17th is Volunteer Week and the WCCUSD would like to thank the 8200 volunteers that help our teachers educate our youth.

6. Presentations:
1) DIMO Supervisor Eva Mann, who was a Code Enforcement officer and now is a supervisor, made the presentation. She did a PowerPoint presentation on what the Code Enforcement has been doing over the last fiscal year. They have closed illegal transfer stations, cleaned out illegal dumping sites and homeless encampments, demolished buildings and other structures, and much more. They have placed liens on properties and gotten funds from these liens. They are also working on business licenses and more.

7. Old Business: None

8.  New Business: None

9.  Adjournment:  9:01 pm

Respectfully submitted by,

Jan Mignone
Recording Secretary