Final Passage of Ordinance Amending the Alameda Municipal Code by Adding Section 2.24 to Article II of Chapter II Related to Emergency Organization and Creating the City of Alameda Disaster Council as Required by State Law to Obtain Legal Recognition as an Official Emergency Organization.  (City Manager 2110)
The staff want to say anything before I call the speaker? Oh, no. Okay. I just. I'm just going to go ahead to you. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and call the speaker. Paul Foreman. Oh, yeah. Well, this is my third time. Maybe the third time. Third strike in, year out. I don't know. The. The charter, the Alameda City Charter. Says provides that the mayor may take command of the police and fire department and govern the city by proclamation whenever the council determines the public danger or emergency requires such action. The ordinance you are about to vote on for the second time today gives the city manager acting as a director of emergency services. The power to control and direct the effort of emergency organization for the accomplishment of the purposes of this disaster ordinance. The rescue operation, which between and coordination of services and staff of this emergency organization and resolve questions of authority and responsibility to make and issue rules and regulations on matters reasonably related to the protection of life and property as affected by such emergency. For to require emergency services of any officer or employee. To command the aid of as many citizens of this community as deemed necessary in the execution of the duties. Just to give you a few. Now, if that language doesn't, just, in more words, say exactly the same thing that the charter says about the powers of the mayor . I've been practicing law for 27 years. I represent a redevelopment authority. I represent a school district. This is as clear a case of conflict as I can imagine. And what makes it even worse is that. You decided in the first reading to solve the problem by inserting this language in the ordinance? This ordinance is neither intended to restrict, nor does it conflict with the city charter, section 61, which is the power of the mayor. To me, that's tantamount to Congress passing a law saying no congressman can be publicly criticized, but this doesn't conflict with freedom of speech, saying it does not make it so. If there's either a conflict or at the very least, there's a an appearance of a conflict. I do not want the chief of police or the fire chief to get conflicting orders from the city manager and from the mayor as what they should do in the midst of a disaster. I do not want an Alexander Haig moment in Alameda. When a disaster actually occurs. Whether I'm right or wrong. There is an appearance of a conflict here. And you either. If there's a real conflict, you resolve it by either giving the power back to the mayor or amending the charter. If there's not a conflict. All I ask is you at least put in the ordinance why there's not a conflict. So some reasonable human being reading it like a police chief or a fire chief can know what you're talking about, because I don't. And just one last thing. I understand that the city attorney has given you an opinion on this because Mr. Mallory said he would ask for it. I know those things are supposed to be in private. This is a public matter. It involves the disasters that involve all of us. If there's a if I'm wrong. Or write whatever the public is entitled to know. Why? Not a matter of private discussion between counsel and attorney. Thank you. Counselor, would you like to speak to the issues he's raising? So. Certainly, Madam Mayor, I did provide information to the council which frankly could have been shared with me. I didn't do it because that's not my role. It's up to the council to do so. But I respectfully disagree with your interpretation. Of. The charter. The language that you cite is permissive, not mandatory. We are completely in compliance with the charter. The charter section that you reference, which is 6.1, was put into place when the charter was adopted in 1937. Prior to the time there were any emergency operations, plans or the sophistication that we as a country, not just the city of Alameda, have learned over the years about emergency operations pursuant to all of that great learning, this city council, not this particular one, but the City Council of Alameda adopted in 2008 an emergency operations plan which lays out. So there's no confusion what happens in the case of an emergency, what the structure is. It has all been adopted by the city council pursuant to their authority under the charter. And the charter is also very clear about the distinctions throughout between legislative and executive authority. The legislative authority is established by the City Council as the policymakers. The actual implementation of policies is given to the city manager and it's made very clear in the charter that that's the way that works. So the emergency operations plan completely follows that theory. The Council has adopted a policy legislation and emergency operations plan, and the city manager is named as the emergency director, operations director. And there are goals and there is a huge binder that talks about all of those things. So this in no way modifies that. And yes, there is the language in in section six one, again, permissive, not mandatory, which by its very language says if there is a certain set of circumstances that the council decides requires that the mayor be put in charge of these things, they can do that. But what they have done to date is they have established this other process, and that's the one we are going forward with the ordinance before us here, before the council that before me is consistent with what's required under State Office of Emergency Services rules that there be a disaster council adopted, which is a pre-planning advisory body, and also then reaffirm certain tasks, declarations of emergency and goes to the implementation rather than the legislative authority. So there is no conflict with the Charter. We are perfectly in compliance with the charter and I don't think there's any confusion about what should happen in an emergency operations. And I think. Captain Oliver, thank you. Captain Oliver is here from the fire department who can answer any questions about that. And I think there will be some updates to the Council coming in the next few months as to where we stand on updating those procedures. Thank you. All right. Council members dissolve. It's now time for comments. Yes, we only had the one speaker on the forum. So you can ask questions or make your comments in. The comments that I'd like to make is the following. The most important message, I think, to the residents of Alameda is this is that the purpose of a disaster planning council and all the preparedness that we're doing is that in the event of a disaster of such magnitude that we don't respond to it, to that on the fly, that we already have a game plan in place. This is just council comment. Mr. Foreman, when you hear. That we already have a game plan in place days, weeks, months, years, decades before, heaven forbid a disaster occurs of such magnitude. But the concern raised by the member of the public, Mr. Foreman, in the event of an actual disaster, if we're in the eye of the storm of this disaster, it is altogether possible that per the charter, that the city council, now the city council, the mayor can't take the power just on their own. It is altogether possible that in the eye of a disaster, the eye of the storm, that the city council can designate the mayor as being in charge of the police or the fire, because perhaps the city manager is elsewhere for some odd reasons. But that is a design that is a a decision of the city council per charter 6-1. But the point of having a disaster plan is that hopefully in the. We're in the eye of the storm of a disaster. We don't have to pull that trigger because we already have a plan in place and that we've got all the right people, including the city manager and the police chief and the fire chief and their assistance in place. Maybe they won't be. In which case, then. Then we would pull six one and that the ordinance as amended reflects that possibility. So 6-1 is included in the language, as is three dash 12. I think there are reasons to get into this lengthy debate about three Dash 12, and I'm in favor three Dash 12, and that re dash 12 speaks to the City Council's ability to determine emergencies and public dangers. And out of that flows all these other charter actions. But there are some debates within three Dash 12 that can happen. But I'm very happy to see that it's actually specifically referenced in the amendment in the ordinance as amended. So I feel that we have a plan in place in the event we're in the eye of the storm of a disaster. And so that we have the people both on our city staff and on city council who understand what what needs to be done then. And that plan is being put in place now so that we are not doing things on the fly just in case something happens on, you know, June 27th, 2019. Okay. I want to confirm when this came before as last time and the vote was 4 to 1. I'm the only one that voted against it and I'm the one that pulled it tonight. At that time, I asked if the meetings would be public. Can you can you clarify with the meetings, in fact, be public? So the meetings of the Disaster Council are subject to the Sunshine Ordinance and will be open in public. All right. So I had pulled this evening because I agree with the speaker that there is either a conflict with the charter itself or at least at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict. And the charter is very clear that the mayor shall be the official and ceremonial head of the city and may take command of police and fire per the council's determination. My concern with this change is that since 1951, a member of council, i.e. the mayor, has in fact been part of this disaster council. And now our fire department and our and our staff are recommending that we completely remove any representation of city council on this disaster council. And in fact, if you look at our current people that would be involved, our city manager, our police chief, our fire chief, none of them live on our island. All council members do live here. And we had a letter submitted by a former mayor, Bev Johnson, whose recommendation was, in fact, to increase the role of city council , such as having the mayor and one other council involved in this. Yes, it is preparation and it would be important to have someone that we know will be on the island, at least involved in the preparation of a disaster of our city. So I do not support eliminating our role, the council's role. I would prefer we do the opposite of increasing the role of council on this disaster council. And I'm very concerned. I'm happy that the meetings are public because I do plan to attend the meetings and I would encourage members of the public to attend these meetings because we all know if we have a serious disaster, it is going to be on us that live here to figure out what we are doing, which is why we really encourage people to do this training. And I'm very concerned about eliminating the role of council from this. Now I'm going to call on vice mayor and I. I looked at this and I read the city attorney's opinion this afternoon and come to the same conclusion that the separation of operations from policy is maintained in this ordinance. And it does not usurp the ability of the council to to provide that authority to the mayor. It also does not usurp the ability of the council in its role in defining emergencies. And I'd like to move the second reading. And I'll second that and for discussion, if I could just save the discussion. We do things now differently than we did in the past and in some instances in when it comes to disaster planning and preparedness. Back in 1941, when the disaster council was first formulated six months before Pearl Harbor, by the way, the kinds of disasters that communities have seen would need to even have been contemplated. And so what we also have that we didn't have then is a much more sophisticated response to emergencies and disasters of all kinds from a variety of agencies. And so what the Disaster Council is and the ordinance that we're going to have hopefully passed the second reading tonight brings together a number of staff members and even community members from a variety of backgrounds that can help, whether it's fire, earthquakes, tsunami, economic terrorist attack. It's much more sophisticated than just, you know, an elected city council would be able to handle. But they're planning the policy. And as the city manager indicated earlier, maybe it was the city attorney or both of you. We will all have our roles. We'll be looking forward to having that updated disaster plan coming forward to us. And I will echo the mayor. We just got an email recently about cert training and we all on the council. If you haven't done it, we should do it and you in the community get your neighbors to do it with you. Set up your cert groups within your neighborhoods. It helps make us a safer city. I know a lot of neighborhoods already have. Anyway, that's my second in my discussion. And I just want to add if in response that if you look on the state's website for disaster council, their proposed city ordinance does in fact have the mayor be the chair. So we are not following the state's model ordinance. On this, we are modifying it. Councilmember, did you have a comment? I think this horse has been beaten to death. So I'll just echo what Councilmember de SAC said, because I thought he said it best. All those in favor I opposed. I opposed. Motion carries 4 to 1. Thank you. Now we go to our regular agenda item six a. Adoption, a resolution calling an election to be consolidated with the city's next general municipal election on November eight, 2016, and submitting to the voters at that election a measure the Utility Modernization Act. It proposes to amend the City Charter by amending Section 1206 to reaffirm Nestle Power's annual general fund transfer and amending the ZIP Code by repealing Chapter three, Dash 59 and replacing it with a modernized utility users tax ordinance. Consider authorizing a direct and possible rebuttal argument and directed to the attorney to the impartial analysis. And the assistant city manager is going to give an overview. This council has already looked at the you are may and directed unanimously to go forward and place this on the ballot. And so this is the first step to doing that. Thank you, city manager. Before I get started, I just want to. Acknowledge that tonight is my 25th wedding anniversary. So, John. Are you still married? I don't know. I'll have to check when I get home. To make it. And Will? Also, I did want to acknowledge that we do have a whole bunch of folks out in our audience tonight that have been helping us on this. As you know, we've been talking about this for almost a year. I'd like to acknowledge Tom Mayhew, who's here, who's one of our attorneys, James Harrison, although I don't see him here tonight. We also have Tom Clifford, who's been helping us. Don Maixner, of course, Glenn Steiger, Babita, Elena Adair and Amy Wooldridge. So lots of people working on this. This is kind of the culmination tonight of a lot of hard work. And hopefully we're going to be answering the questions that you posed to us last time and asking for unanimous support for the Novem, putting this measure on the ballot in November.