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Full speaker list for general public comment. First one asks to reaffirm the sanctuary city status. She has signatures in support.

Next is someone from the social board asking for more civility in the city. Apparently he's had people taking photos and calling him part of "the criminal conspiracy".

Next is the owner of building 43 winery. Says she's being harassed by the city.

Next is someone thanking the city for reaffirming sanctuary city status.

Next is somebody doing Trump cheerleading.

Huh, Trish Spencer is next. Speaking on the building 43 business? She thinks it's retaliation towards Todd Hickman (the guy who sued the food bank). Good optics to have the Latina owner complain instead of Todd. (Info needed: have they paid any more rent?)

Gabriel Duncan thanking ARPD for work with their acorn project.

Todd Hickman shows up. Complaining about racism towards his wife. Calls out both of the two new members, ugh. Says Astra will get a sweetheart deal.

Finishes with the mayor telling Hickman to sit down and reminds him that children are watching. (Can't hear what he yelled since the audience isn't miked.)

Consent calendar. 3 speakers.

First is Gabe Duncan again, complaining about inaccessibility of one of the files from bad OCR. Asks for Alameda Historical Museum to expand its focus. Farms and shellmounds aren't represented. Wants them to move their records from there because it will be more available for public viewing and safer from flooding. (They had a recent flood?!?)

Todd Hickman again complaining about CEQA. [Maybe someday he'll actually learn how CEQA actually works.]

New speaker in favor of 5c to fix the shoreline on Bayfarm after the storm damage.

Council comments.

CM Pryor happy about 5f to improve Lincoln Ave. And happy about 5g.

CM Daysog has a story about 5f and watching a friend hit by a car at age 9.

Warning from the city manager that the paperwork isn't signed yet, and it's federal money, so maybe we won't get it. Thanks Trump for hating traffic safety.

First item. Two new folks are going on the Historical Advisory Board.

There's public comment on this? Of course....

Todd Hickman is complaining about Saildrone blocking the view corridors on the base.

Gabriel Duncan. He's the founder of the Alameda Native History Project. Mentions the various construction happening in areas near shellmounds, says that could be a CEQA problem. "Alameda history is more than Victorian houses." Mentions the take over of Franklin Park (huh?).

New members are approved and sworn in to HAB.

New board HAB members. They get to give a speech. Mayor asks if they planned to wear matching shirts and if that's the HAB uniform. It wasn't planned.

Josh Bevan. Architectural historian.
Arthur Brito. Landscaping designer.

Item 7b. An update from the Police.

Going over reorgs so far. Mentions 78 sworn officers added. March 2023 nation's largest hiring incentive voted in.

Previous 3 years, 17 applications per month. Then 55 per month.

All professional staff positions are now filled.

More training, tech, LPRs, re-did beats.

Larceny thefts -1%
Auto thefts: +24% (regional trend)
Burglaries: -52%

Troubling new trend of using cars to break into a building. Three here so far.

Overall crime down by 13%.
Traffic citations have increased by 62%.

Future priorities: transparency, staffing retention

CM Pryor asking how community meetings are communicated.
A: it's on their website

CM Jensen asks about domestic violence.
A: that's most of the crimes "against person"

A: it's very helpful to be able to have the city attorney prosecute misdemeanors. Crime reductions are significant recently.

CM Jensen congratulates them on the 50% reductions in vehicle/ped/cyclist collisions.

Public comment on police report.

Amos White. Struck by there being no demographic data on the impact from the police report.

Next, someone who participated in the racial equity and reform of the police. Asking about force reports.

Trish Spencer is back. Complains about increase in animal cruelty cases and arson cases.

A few more speakers, including someone asking why the armed emergency response vehicle keeps getting used outside of city limits. (Are they renting it out?)

On to the Urban Forest Plan.

The current canopy cover. There's a nice presentation.

Sorry, had to take a kid bedtime break.

Community feedback had people asking for taller trees under power lines.

(Cringe.

The tree across the street is under a power line, and it keeps getting a bad prune job. It's got fungus growing out of the roots now, never a good sign. )

General manager from AMP comes up to speak. "We need to avoid trees in contact with our power lines." Trees under power lines should be under 25'.

Mayor reminds us that while we're low risk for forest fire, but a wind driven firenado would still take us out.

Putting tall trees under power lines isn't where I'd be trying to advocate....

CM Daysog asks if "right tree right plan" is the case for the named protected street trees. (There's major corridors that have a single tree type on them. Central has London planes, for example. Those are protected. )
City person explains the matrix that lets you pick appropriate trees.

If Daysog was asking if the protected trees would be considered good choices today, I don't think that was answered. Considering the person that complained about how much the sidewalks were being torn up by their protected trees, I'm guessing not all of them would be chosen today, a hundred years on.

Break till 9:40. No public comment on trees yet.
#alamtg

Back from break.

Amos White speaks (he's head of a tree non-profit: 100k trees).

Gabriel Duncan notes they left off the Ohlone in the "tribes" mention of the report.

Trish Spencer. Wants equity in tree cover. More trees on Webster.

A bunch of other speakers....

One speaker had a nice comment on syncing the utility undergrounding with tree planting.

(Trenching next to a tree can kill it: saw that happen on 8th.)

Clarifying questions.

(AMP dude talking) Something about an arborist doing emergency work on a tree that was on fire? Huh?

I must have missed something.

City Manager Jennifer Ott says there have been an average of 5.5 tree incidents a month. ie that something is causing a problem or that a customer that calls in

Ok, the mayor was confused by that story too. A tree grew around a power line, and caught on fire.

Jensen gives a call out to AUSD having "plant more trees" as part of their new heat mitigation plan.

Ryan Allen brought back to answer if younger trees are more susceptible to wind storms than older trees. "Yes and no."

A: they have to get their roots established. Then breakage depends on tree type. Some are more likely to break when young. Older trees it matters more on how well they're maintained.

You know, the bordello trees aren't protected, and they should be.

On at least two protected tree streets (where all the trees are the same), there's two trees in front of a house that are different. Supposedly it was to mark a bordello or speak easy. They must be as old as the protected trees....

You have until the 14th to comment on the Alameda Urban Forest plan.

Do you plant trees in an area that was historically a marsh? Hmm.

We should not have redwood trees in Alameda btw. You need several of them so they aren't likely to fall over: their roots interlock.

Oh gee, the Mayor just called out the PTAC green schoolyards group. I'm on that. They got a grant for trees at Ruby Bridges.

I should have gone in person, ha. I'm not sure who that was that gave the mini update, but no the group has not yet visited every schoolyard. Getting there.

Mayor asks what protection of trees on private property would look like. Allen Tai from the Planning Division comes up to talk about that.

- Could be permits for tree removal.
- Could be remove one tree, replace with 4.
- Could be no tree topping pruning

Tai is awesome btw. (Does he still read this?)

Next agenda item: Astra lease.

(pic 1) Currently they're on a bunch of expired leases, footprint has increased. That's a butt load of $$$$$.

(pic 2) They're over one of the underground pollution plumes that the Navy is currently clearing up, so they had to install a vapor barrier, ventilation stuff, and test their air quality.

Astra went public, but then it went private again. They asked for a lease deferment, would like to move another office here once the lease in Sunnyvale is up. (nothing legally binding)

City came up with something so that if they default, it would be on their biggest building. Astra is a large city tenant and employees a decent number of people.

Public speakers.

The woman from Building 43 winery complains that she isn't getting the same thing they're getting.

Trish Spencer is saying, I think, that #Astra isn't doing as well as they could be. And calling them out for being white men. (?!?)

A kid? Very young at least. Berkeley student helping folks do their mechanical engineering homework. Very excited about Astra for the engineering connections.
(And very nervous; but you're doing fine kid!)

Yawn, Todd H coming back, saying how much he supports Astra. But asking if they got a pay or quit notice when they didn't pay the rent. Says it's racist. (wtf calls Boller a spy) (mentions Pryor again.... #hickmanHazing I guess)

Mayor pauses time to tell the person applauding in the back to stop.

"We try to act like adults"

Mayor threatens to kick out the applauding guy if he applauds again. Apologizes to the other council members. (Is Todd still yelling? the mike is picking up something.) Dunno, but the mayor just called a five minute break.

Mayor talking. Apparently Astra is hiring machinists out of one of the local community colleges. (I'm very glad that we're still training machinists - I thought they were all getting really old. And I'm impressed that we have some place to employ them. Good stuff.)
She's praising Astra.

Astra lease thing is passing.

I thought it was over, but I guess there's another public comment section. Not sure what this guy is complaining about.

Shelby. Says she came rushing in from home after watching the last item. "I can't wait till the day you're all in jail" [Maybe we should call her Sunshine Shelby.]

To end slightly more upbeat, we get the part where everybody says what cool things they went to and Important things to know.

One more thing, Mayor introduces Public Utilities Board nominations.

Apparently the charter says you have to be a engineer. I wonder what exactly it says, but a cursory glance isn't pulling it up. Maybe @phildini has magic.