Receive Report on Results from a City of Alameda Survey Conducted in December 2015 and Provide Direction on a November 2016 Ballot Measure. (City Manager 2110).
So very quickly, as councilor will recall, last October, we came to you for authorization to proceed with a survey essentially to determine if our voters were interested in actually taxing themselves for city services and if they were, which of those services were important. So we did actually go forward with your authorization to do that. We hired FM three to conduct that poll, and tonight we'd like to share those results with you and then the next steps. Very quickly, before we go into that, before you, you have Kurt Barlow from Form three, who will present the polling results. We also have Tom Clifford, who's from Clifford Moss. He's our outreach consultant. And then we also have with us Don Maynor, who's our attorney, who's helping us on the utility users tax ordinance and language. So we have a bunch of folks here that we'd like to offer to you at the end of this presentation if we have any questions. So with that, I'll give turn it over to Curt. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mayor, and members of the council. I will try to keep the mayor's advice here and go through as quickly as I can with all sorts of nice numbers in here. All this first time a few the specifics of the survey we conducted we conducted interviews the early first half of last December, telephone interviews with registered voters in the city who are likely to vote in this November's election. We conducted 600 interviews over the course of the survey, roughly for the margin of error for the first time in interviews. This is a 4% we split sample. Some of the questions were half the respondents, 300 heard one set of questions, and that's roughly a 5.7 or 6% margin of error. And we do have we did connect the survey for the city back in 2008. So it's a pretty big time gap between there. But we do have some comparison points for questions that we asked in both those surveys that were helpful to look at. So our basic approach to the survey is that half the respondents were asked about a general purpose sales tax measure and half respondents were asked about a U. Modernization measure. And then the full samples asked about a Paques parcel tax. And for those first two measures, we did a little bit of testing of pro and con argumentation to see where people would land in the context of an exchange of information in an election context. I hit on a few of these key findings and hit on them in a little more specific detail momentarily here. We asked a question about issues concerning residents and voters here in Alameda. Top issues were the drought and housing costs. Now the drought the issue was before the rains hit, but we've had a nice, unfortunately dry February. So that would probably probably be top of list. Once again, things that have changed a little bit since 2009 was economy and crime have gone down as concerns, but housing costs and traffic both gone up. We'll see those numbers momentarily. In terms of city services, we went through a series of questions that were corresponded largely to the performance metrics for the city. By and large, very large, very high levels of satisfaction with them, maybe the only kind of squishy area that were street maintenance. And we'll see what that looks like momentarily. And then getting to the couple of measures we have considered here, a general purpose sales tax measure at half cent level had initial support at 63%, and that's a majority vote measure. So it was above the vote threshold for passing one beauty modernization measure. And this is not an uncommon dynamic here. Start started off at 52% in the candidate vote yes with a pretty high level of people being undecided. We spent some time explaining what to you is and how it would be updated and then support went up quite a bit to 68%. So again, both of those were some sort of explanation were above the majority vote threshold and stayed that way over the course of the survey. A paques parcel tax we asked about. We'll talk about that momentarily. It's a two thirds vote threshold and we only saw 49% in the candidate vote yes for that measure. So let's get into some perceptions and just the mood of the people and voters living here in Alameda. Pretty happy people here. Back in 2008, we had three quarters of respondents who indicated they thought their neighborhoods were headed in the right direction. Almost identical now in 2015. Looking at the city more broadly, about three in five indicated they were happy with the direction of the city is and that was very similar to that in 2008 . No real big changes there. As promised, we went through a list of different items here. We presented as potential problems facing the community, and we asked respondents to indicate how serious of a problem they thought each of these may be is an extremely serious problem, very serious, somewhat serious or not too serious of a problem. So you see the orange juice bars here are the extremely and very serious problems. Those are items, items that generate some little more intensity, those dark blue bars or the percentages of people who suggested that these are not too serious of a problem. And you'll see the top two items here were drought and the cost of housing, where you have roughly a third who indicated those were extremely serious problems. And just about seven in ten say that they're extremely or very serious problems. A pretty clear top tier of issues and problems voters feel like are facing the community here. Obviously, the drought conditions are a bigger, bigger issue, but you clearly have some ability to address that locally in the cost of housing. Also, obviously, a local issue you'll discuss later on tonight. Looking a little bit down here through some other items here, sort of on the heels of those top ones are traffic congestion. Almost half thought that was an extremely, very serious problem, 46%. And then another little sort drop down to too much growth and development at 38%. Several of these other items here we're seeing, you have pretty strong majorities saying they're not too serious of a problem that includes a lack of parks and open space crime and the condition of the local economy. Now. I picked out a few of these here that we actually had tracked some 28. We asked a slightly different list this time ago. This time around, somehow tracks for every item here, but you'll see items related to crime, whether we characterize them as gang violence or crime. Broadly speaking, both of those were seen as less serious problems 2015 than they were in 2008. Also we asked about waste and inefficiency in local government that has gone down and concern has decreased significantly, as do the concerns about the amount people pay in city taxes and the condition of the local economy. That's the that's going down 8%. Feel like that's extremely, very serious problem when it was 44%. And obviously in very different economic times in 20. However, as promised, a few of these items have ticked up the other direction in terms of the concern levels here. Cost of housing being one of them. It was not. It was still one of the top tier issues in 2008, a 55%, but now it's up to 69%. And now we've got just about that third. And a lot of that increases in the intensity there. The extremely serious went from 22 to 32%. Traffic congestion also enough about 20 points in terms of extremely and very serious parking and commercial districts and open space are about where they were in 2000. This next question follows closely with some of the city's performance metrics here. And we asked and random order and the language here pretty much echoes some of the things you've adopted as goals for the city here. We asked respondents indicate whether they felt like these city services were being provided at an excellent level, a good level, an only fair level or a poor level, and give that only to the fairly put me a little tiny tinge of negative. Just so we have two and two, but you'll see here that by and large you have really strong majorities in the care. They felt that the city is doing an excellent or good job providing these services public safety park facilities, recreation programs, library customer service, library programs in general here, really strong majorities indicate they feel like doing a really good job. You'll see that the orange bars, the fair and poor are all really small. For most these items, the people who didn't give excellent good marks tended to fall into the don't know category. They may not be as familiar with the library services. For example, the only couple of items here at the bottom worth noting is just the quality of street maintenance was the only one where we had a pretty significant number in that fair poor category, or 56% excellent good and 43% fair or poor and pretty much only 1% didn't know. Everyone can judge the quality of the of their streets. So that was the one area that I think is I would I would suggest paying a little more attention to able to city's budget management and permitting services mixed results if you look at in absolute terms but pretty high numbers of individuals who didn't feel comfortable voicing their opinion one way or another. And in both the street maintenance and the city's finances, only 10% or 11% have poor responses to those. So most of those people were in the fair category. So I think the big picture takeaway really high levels of satisfaction on city services. A few items that people are less familiar with street mean it's been the one exception where there is a little more uncertainty where we have a substantial portion of the population falling in that category. Now we get into a couple of the finance matters we tested. The first one has a general purpose half cent sales tax measure. Here's a hypothetical ballot language that could appear on someone's ballot. Roughly 75 words includes what the measure would spend money on. What the mechanism would be would last for 15 years as the best case scenario looked at here, and we included an estimate here as to how much money it would raise on an annual basis. We read this two individuals and by a 2 to 1 margin. Voters indicated vote yes on the measure. And a couple of key things we look at here for majority vote measure is obviously, first, you'd like to see support exceed the vote threshold, which it does. And next is a sees it by more than the margin of error. So we're at 63%. We also look at the intensity of support and opposition. Maybe you have a lot of people indicating to vote yes, but the support is really pretty soft in this case. Or definitely yeses are at 28% and outpacing or definitely no's by a ten point margin. And so a pretty decent support here. Those tax measures are also things that people kind of get. Only 6% are undecided. Very few people in that squishy middle category. People understand it. Not a lot of confusion. Your voters were able to pick a side on it pretty much right out of the gate. And by a truly margin, they indicated they voted yes as of last December. We also asked about a couple of different variants here, about some of the accountability provisions that could be included in the measure. And two of the key ones that popped up here, you'll see, is a public review of spending and independent audits where you have upwards of three quarters of voters said they'd be more likely to vote for a sales tax measure if it include a public review of spending and required independent audits. Also, see general support for an oversight committee as well. And the base case that we asked for had a 15 year sunset. And we also asked about, well, what about a nine year sunset? And frankly, there really wasn't much distinction between those. Both cases, you had 58% who said they'd be more likely to vote for a measure with one of those sunset levels. So in this case, the existence of a sunset probably seems to be more important than the duration of it at this rate. Looking at a UTI measure. It's a slightly different set of circumstances here. Can you tell us what you use to use? That is a really good point. It is here a utility user tax UTI. Thank you very much. A clarification again, one of the things that people get choked up on and we talk about this in public. So here is a 75 word bal language hypothetical here. Again, talks about a similar set of public services that the tax would fund. Again, this is a general purpose measure as well. So it has a majority vote threshold, but it talks about basically treating tax taxpayers equally regardless of communication technology used. This is because we'll get into this momentarily. People are using VoIP and other types of communication technologies that that didn't exist or weren't contemplated when the annuity was first passed in the city here. Many, many cities up and down the state and vast majority of them have modernize them at this point in time to be more flexible definitions to capture these new types of technologies. This is what would be the intent of this measure. And out of the gate, we saw 52%, a very slim majority expressed support, 26%, no. And the two things that I pointed out in the sales tax, a highlight here, too, is the intensity of support and opposition and the number of undecideds. So here they definitely yes, is only at 17% and just about where the definitely no's are at 14%. I see pretty equal intensity on both sides, although frankly not a lot of strong opinions one way or another. But yet that 52% is relying upon a lot of tentative supporters to get to that majority level. And that undecided level clearly stands out at 23%. About one in four of the people we asked on the phone, we read that 75 words, too, and they said, I don't know. And in fact, we gave them two bites of that apple. If you said your first instinct was you don't know, we asked, are you leaning one way or another? And they couldn't even say that. So this was something that was throwing people off a little bit initially. However. Being clever pollsters that we are. We anticipated this having done a few of these surveys in the past, so we decided to read respondents a bit of an explanation about what's going on here. So here is the language. It's a little hard to read, I think, in the room, but talks about how the original tax was established back in 1995, what types of services it applies to, and what this measure would do. It would extend it to services like voice over IP, not changing tax rates at all, though. So I before you move on, because you actually explain what this is for. I don't think you should spend a little more time on that. What is this, u u t. What would that be? The utility users. Yes, yes, yes. You're right. We can't read it. Tell us really what is. Oh, it is a tax that you see on your on your various utility bills. And we have actually more well versed experts here. But essentially for I think your city has it for electricity, natural gas and cable. And the the rub here is that if you you're telling if you're telephone services now using VOIP voice over IP , so you're using Skype or some technology like that instead of a traditional landline, then those are not covered by your your city's utility users tax. And so the city is now losing revenue over time as people transition to these different types of technologies and replacing them with other technologies. But people with a landline pay a tax that if you don't have a landline, you're not paying. And that goes to the, quote unquote fairness argument. Thank you. Exactly. So after we went through that explanation, opinions changed somewhat dramatically. We went from 52%. Yes. To 68%. Yes. And those undecideds went down from 23 to 10%. So a pretty marked change there. The intensity of the yes is still, you know, falls a little bit short of where the intensity of the rest of the yes vote comes from. So there's still some some softness there. This suggests, though. It's a concept. And the fairness thing, I think, is the mayor pointing out here, strutting, struck a chord course and respondents reacted to that. I get it now. But they need to have it explained to them as I'm doing inarticulate job of doing here right now. I think it was probably an indication that this is a complex issue. But when voters have a, you know, someone to sit down and talk to them about it, they get it and they feel more and more responsive to a measure. Modernizing your your tax. Over the course of the survey. We have the side by side comparisons here where we went through some arguments in favor of the measures, arguments opposed to them. We wanted to see what would happen. Where's the ceiling? Where is the floor? And at the end of the the surveys, both of them ended up in roughly the same places. 61% indicate they vote yes for a sales tax measure after an exchange of pros and cons, 64% for the US measure. And so they're both sort of in that low mid-sixties range for support after protocol argumentation. This is just a little bit of a summary of some of the concepts that we tested here in terms of the arguments in favor and with slide arguments opposed. Some of the arguments were a little bit different for the routine, the sales tax. The U.S. obviously had a much more nuanced sort of argumentation for them because it talks about the fairness issue and the fact that the rate would not be increasing, but basically talked about some of the ways the money could be spent from these measures park maintenance, fixings, farm dreams, public safety, helping the city's general quality of life and fiscal preparedness for the next recession. And then we went through a series of arguments opposed to these measures here, and they're a little more visceral, right? It's the city is going to waste our money. We don't need this stuff. We can't afford our taxes. But also some things that are a little more specific to these measures, the fact that there was a sales tax measure that was rejected here in the city not too long ago, and the fact that maybe that the US is a little bit of a trick in terms of. Of achieving the tax rate the same, but broadening the base of services that are being applied to. So. The last measure we looked at here was a Parks personal tax and again went through the 75 words that would hypothetically appear on a ballot. This was a we tested a $25 per person tax, but raised about a half million dollars annually. I'll pause here momentarily. But we talked about a lot of the maintenance that this type of measure would support, but also talked about opening and maintaining new parks. So it was a it was a mixture, leaning heavily on the maintenance, but also did mention a little bit about opening new parks. And unfortunately, support at that level for that measure was was far lower than for the other measures. And keep in mind that this is a special purpose measure. It has a two thirds vote threshold. So the 49% is a just little herrell lower than the majority vote threshold. But this will require a two thirds vote threshold. Um, I think I just have one last set of data here to get through. And we did ask a series of, of ways that money from a potential general purpose measure could be spent. And we asked respondents indicate how important it was that was spent on this particular type of service scale. Use was important, extremely important, which is dark blue bars. Very important, which is light blue bars. Somewhat important, which is the I guess it looks like here it's kind of looking a little light orange. And the dark orange is not too important. A couple of slides here to go through, not the entire list of them, but pretty much every voter thought all these things were at least somewhat important. None of these services were dismissed out of hand. So in cases like that, we tend to try to focus on the intensity of those reactions. Those who said something was extremely or very important. I think, generally speaking, Alameda voters feel like all these things are vital services for the city. But there were some differences in intensity here. And on this first slide, things that generate much more strong intensity here. A lot of them were public safety oriented response times to a variety of different things violent crimes, property crimes, but also a couple more generic, bigger picture of things overall, maintaining the city's quality of life and the financial stability. So you see a pretty big public safety and general infrastructure concerns there, as well as maintaining and repairing storm drains. And I think keeping pollution out of the bay where our our belief is were a pretty critical component of that. The next series, next slide here we have on it were items that were in the sort of sixties, low seventies range in terms of extremely, very important. Again, very few people, very few items in the have dark orange bars. Everything here are seen as at least somewhat important looking at the extremely in various to try to sort them out here you start to see more infrastructural items come up where the storm drain might come on the prior slide. But now we see street repairs, maintaining parks, things of that nature popping up here as well. The other item here that actually generated a fair amount of intensity was addressing the cost of rental housing in aggregate. It didn't have the same intensity as some of the items on the prior slide, but not a lot of people are dismissing that as an item, a spending priority. We have two more slides in this series, if my memory serves me. And so now we're getting to much smaller blue bars here, roughly in the 50 percentile range for all these items on the slide. Again, the dark orange bars aren't particularly big, but we're getting into other types of services libraries, tree trimming, safe space for streets, for bicyclists. Pedestrians. Economic development. Most people feel like these would be nice things to spend money on. They just aren't generating the same intensity as some of the other items. And the last slide is one of the few that we actually have any big orange bars on and particularly reopening city hall on Fridays. 53%, a majority said that they didn't think that would be a great way to spend tax dollars from new meaning new revenues. So in the final versions here, it looks like both a sales tax and a utility user's tax. Both are viable here in the city. Now, there's big caveats and distinctions between those two sales tax people kind of get, you know, a pretty strong majority and more than three and five indicate they'd vote yes for this. Every time in the course of the survey until the users tax, though, it appears to have a slightly higher ceiling than a sales tax. A lot of confusion out of the gate. And if you were to pursue something like that down the road, it seems like this is something you need a longer runway. Spend much more time educating the public about what's going on here and why this is needed. Generally speaking, it seems like the types of services that people want to see additional dollars spent on tend to be public safety oriented, focused on bigger picture infrastructure issues. And finally, the last thing in terms of a Parks parcel tax here at this point in time, particularly to personnel, the two measures, it doesn't seem like it's viable, particularly with a two thirds vote threshold. At. Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, go on. So that actually concludes the presentation on the polling. And then we're going to go into just kind of some discussion about moving forward. But if you'd like, it's at the council's pleasure whether or not you want to ask Kurt questions now or if you want to wait until the end. Council. At my desk. It looks like you may continue. Thank you. Okay, so I will continue. Thank you. And if we have questions before we back up. Okay. So as Kurt said, the sales tax measure does seem to be viable and requires less voter education. But as we talked about, I think back in October, we've reached our statutory cap of 9.5%, which is a state cap. Can you explain that a little bit more maybe? Yeah. So the state sets a threshold for nine and a half percent that cities can levy a sales tax. And we actually are at that nine and a half percent. Other cities have actually exceeded that cap. They're at 10%. There's four other cities in Alameda County, but they exceeded that cap because of a variety of reasons, but primarily because Measure B, which got special legislation, allowed them to go over their nine and a half cap and now are sitting at 10% in order. So we because of the polling information, we did a little bit more research and we could, if we wanted to pursue the sales tax in November, pursue a special legislation at the state. But that would require a two thirds vote of the legislature. And just talking to our lobbyists, they said that's very unlikely that that will actually happen. The other cities and measure b b that did get the special dispensation, I guess you could say, to go to 10%. They all pursued that with a simple majority, 50% plus one from the state. We could do that, but we need more time to do that. And. We'll talk about that a little bit later. So we actually right now are we actually don't have the authority to go for a sales tax that has been confirmed in 2016. That could we could change that. It is sales tax. From from a financial perspective, from a fiscal stability perspective is very attractive because it generates three and a half million dollars a year to the city, which can go for a lot of things, not the least of which are those parks that we all love but nobody seems to want to pay for which we've noticed. On the lack of support on the parcel tax. So the utility users tax also appears to be viable. It lands at 64% after the education. And unfortunately, that doesn't raise as much money. It's 1.6 million to the city's general fund. So it's not insignificant. But obviously, it's not as it's not as compelling as the sales tax argument. But unfortunately, that's off the table. So our recommendation actually to you is to pursue the utility users tax in November 2016. But obviously that's going to take a fairly significant voter education component. We'd also like to suggest that you move forward with trying to secure that special legislation, because we're starting now, and it wouldn't take effect until 2017 or 18. You'd only need that 50% plus one threshold at the state state legislature. And then that allows you that opportunity if you wanted to do it in 2018 or 2020 or 2022. It's not a huge work effort, but it allows you that ability sometime in the future. So this is sort of two recommendations that we're saying go forward with the November 16, but also direct staff to to pursue the special legislation at the state level to exceed our cap to 10% on the sales tax. So if you are amenable to that tonight, this is what we would be doing. Staff would begin the formal community engagement process with our consultants. That would include putting together 2 to 3 different mailers that would go out to the community. And those mailers would be information mailers. As Curt said, this is this. The utility users tax obviously needs a lot of education. And so those mailers would be talking to the community about what exactly we're trying to do here. We would do speaking engagements, online surveys, social media and website activities. And that cost would be primarily $65,000, mostly for education material, which we actually have already budgeted. Knowing that we were there, there was a likelihood that we might be doing this. And then in May of this year, we would come back to you on the work that we've done to date, sort of what are the stakeholder educations that we've done? What were the information materials that we put out we would bring to you the draft resolution that the ballot measure and about ballot measure language. And then we would discuss the next steps. And then on June in June, we would ask you to adopt the final ballot language. And. Okay. That actually concludes our presentation, so I'd be happy to take any questions. And first, I want to confirm we don't have any speakers. Correct. All right. Councilmember Ashcroft. Just a quick question on the staff report. Thank you, Ms.. For Madame on page four, talking about should the staff direct should the council direct staff to pursue the utility user tax, the modernization ballot measure, community engagement would begin quickly. It will also include direct door to door resident contact. And my question is simply who would be doing that door to door residential contact? As. Oh, right. Yes. Yes. What? Okay. Remember his comment was us. That's what we're like. Okay. That would probably become that would come later. Later. But most of the what the work that the staff would be doing are the is the educational material. So the question was who. Is to be. Determined? Is that to be determined? Thank you for the here. Any other questions or comments from Council member Desai? The comment that I have to share is I think, you know, I, I recognize the fact that the way in which our telecommunications activities are conducted now has effects on the amount of uut that we've been gathering, utility user tax that we've been gathering, meaning that as people shift away from landlines to cell phones, we've seen corresponding decline in UTC. So I get that. But I think, you know, the question that I would always have is as we're seeking to generate revenues via these changes or even down the road, additional sales tax revenues, I think the first thing I need to know is, you know, what is the underlying problem that we're seeking to solve ? I think in the big picture of things, we all know that at Alameda that we are in a structural deficit and we've always been that way, meaning that it's baked into the nature of our cake, that our expenses go beyond what our what revenues we collect through the the normal channels, i.e., property taxes, sales taxes, etc.. But oftentimes the way that you deal with structural deficits is by changing your economy, encouraging the private sector jobs, business sales tax, etc.. So it's just I just need more information as to the nature of the problem that we're gathering. And I do suspect also that the nature of our labor relations are such that, you know, whatever whatever we gather, some amount is already. Some amount is already constrained. So I. Yeah. That's my comment. Any other comments by council vice mayor? I agree with the. Assessment of sales taxes is out. Although I. Do think the direction to pursue the legislation that will allow us to go over so that we're at least where some of our peers are. I think it's a good a good direction to give. I think the use of utility taxes is antiquated and it does need to be brought up to to the current utility use. That's a question of fairness and it's a question of changing means of our utilities are are delivered. And we need to. To avail ourselves of that. Member Ashcraft. I'm in support of staff's recommendations. I'm ready. I'm in support, too. Just to be clear, the the analysis of the likelihood of this getting through the assembly was obtained through our lobbyists, correct? That's correct. Okay. Just to kind of. I just want to make sure that was clear. But I do want to point out, you know, the the struggle that this might even have if we didn't need a two thirds vote to get it through the legislature when we did the Measure B B authorization in the assembly, it got 43 votes . So 41 is the magic number, only got 43, even though there was a two thirds Democratic majority. No Republican Assembly member supported it and a number of moderate Dems stayed off. So. They want to make sure where we go in managing their expectations. And we make sure that our our lobbyist understands that this is our priority. So I do support staff's recommendation as part of the update. I'm going to want to know. So we're going. If we end up. Well, actually, I think there's a more basic question to begin with, what percentage of our meetings actually do not have a landline? If you have any information on that, that's something we know. How many homes? Okay. So I am. I actually would like to know, you know, what this 1.5 million is based on where we're going to capture that money. We have. Yeah. My name is Donald Maynor, and I work with the till to use your tax ordinances. About half the homes now. Don't have landline there solely on. Wireless or VoIP. And what the problem in your with your ordinance, you have no definitions and it invites. Companies to interpret the ordinance different ways. So you're missing most of your money's missing because of wireless companies the way they interpret it. So by adopting about 90% of all the utility in California now is voter approved with modern audiences. So you're just catching up to the rest of the communities by adopting the modern audiences. And it'll take away any ambiguity as to how old you are and and supplies. But most of that money that you're missing is going to come on the wireless side, part of it's prepaid wireless, which comes about as a result of a new state law. But there's one or two major companies that are interpreting your ordinance in a way that they're really under collecting. Sir. Did you. Are you with them or happened to be here in the audience? No, no. I'm sorry. I represent your city. Yes. So we introduced I introduced him. This is Don Maner. He works. He's under contract with the city. He's an attorney that helps cities up and down the state on their utility users tax ordinances. It helps. It was modernized for the plane the Warriors just won in overtime. So I was like. Okay, thank you very much. So and so that's good to know. And then in regards to the additional money, assuming this passes, how that could be spent by council, what that really looks like and this would be indefinitely, then this doesn't have a it's not like nine years or 16 years like the other. This is a change in the definition. It just goes on and on and on. Is that correct? Right. And I see heads nodding yes. I just want to put up the slide. This is our utility user stack. So it's not like we're going to it's not unlike it's not like the sales tax where our sales tax continues to go up. And then if we pass the sales tax tax measure, it would continue to go up even further. This is a revenue measure that a revenue that is just continuing to decline. So it's not even it's just trying to keep ourselves whole. It's not actually trying to buy us more. It's trying to keep us whole. And this falls into the category of fiscal sustainability. All right. And then I also want to just share in regards to the the negative or not a strong positive comments on the parks connected to parcel tax. And I actually think that that is the issue, as opposed to the public not being willing to pay additional money to support our parks. I think that there is a concern in regards to so many parcel taxes and who pays the parcel tax that that makes it so it's more complicated than not necessary supporting paying for our parks. And I actually think our community is very supportive of financially supporting our parks. But it is is it is correct to say that. Well, let me ask is it correct to say that the uut is part of the re formula? Yes. Well, you two is part of the brief, so you. Have some definitions. Balanced revenue index, which is a formula that's used for the salary increases on some of our employees. It's well, can you name can you specify the sum? It includes all of the public safety employees, and it does not include our employees at Alameda Municipal Power. So those are excluded. They are the employees at Elmira Municipal Power do not have their raises tied to the Balance Revenue Index. Which is an interesting question and not to be answered tonight, but I mean, that doesn't trigger any legal issues in terms of the ballot balloting numbers. No. The use of that, the use of the your funds. This is a 50% plus one, which is a general tax. You can use that money however you choose. So this would and I also want to just clarify this point. We're just asking staff to come back with these. But if we were actually going to put this on the measure, council would have a lot more input and we would vote whether or not it's at some point we would actually vote whether or not to put this on the. Back so that you have to vote. So we're going to bring the actual language to you in May. And then we we expect that in June, late June, we'll ask you to formally vote to put it on the ballot in November. All right. Any other vice mayor? If there are no questions, I would like to move the recommendations of the staff. I'll second all those in favor. Hi. Hi. Four in favor. One abstention. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Two. All right, next item six D. That one's been continued. Six E. Final passage of ordinance amending the limited missile code by adding Article 15 to Chapter six concerning review of rent increases applicable to all rental units and rent stabilization applicable to certain rental units, and concerning limitations on evictions and the payment of relocation assistance applicable to all rental units. Amending Section two Dash 23.4 concerning the duties of the rent with the Advisory Committee and suspending Article 14 of Chapter six in its entirety. And determining and. In determining that the talk to the audience is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act and also considering adoption of urgency. Ordinary spending ones in the city of Alameda, a temporary additional 22 day moratorium on rent increases for certain residential rental properties and on evictions from all resident residential rental properties except for just cost. This item requires permits. All right. And staff. Good evening. I'm Debbie Potter, the city's community development director. The item before you this evening, there are two parts. One is final passage of the ordinance that was introduced on first reading on February 16th. That's typically final passage is typically a routine action. And if that if the ordinance is approved for final passage this evening, it will take effect in 30 days, which would be March 31st. So that's the first item the staff is recommending that you take action on the final approval.