Mayor and Councilmembers:

This is the weekly report for the week ending January 8^th, 2008.

1.         Meeting Notes

The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, January 8^th, 2008, beginning with a 5:30 PM Closed Session, followed by a 7:00 PM regular session.

2.         Storm Response on Friday, January 4^th

As you can undoubtedly guess, Friday was an extremely busy day for the Public Works Department, and other field personnel, beginning in the very early morning hours (4:00 AM) and extending throughout the day.  The City Richmond received approximately 2 inches of rain during the past 24 hour period.  Areas of localized flooding and downed tree limbs requiring immediate attention and traffic control, including lane closures, were common throughout the day, with the number and severity being too extensive and too preliminary to list here in this report.  We will provide the City Council with a complete list of “hot spots” in the near future when needs for immediate response by field personnel have subsided.

City facilities that experienced problems included City Hall, where there were areas of flooding and roof leaks.  In addition, the strong winds were responsible for breaking the main general public entrance doors, which then needed to stay locked throughout the day, with public access to the general lobby being diverted to the City Manager’s office and to the back of the building at the Engineering Department.  PG&E power to the City Offices went out during the late morning, so that the facility functioned for most of the day on its backup generator.

There was also water intrusion in the Main Library, around some windows in the adult reading area, and in the Administration Office, where remodeling work has been in progress.  There were three additional leaks in the Children's Room of the Main Library.  Also, the drain at the staff entrance to the Library flooded to point where it impacted staff access to the building.  Library staff also briefly closed the mezzanine, in case the water was leaking through the tiles.

The City experienced 5 sanitary sewer overflows during the past 24 hours, all of which were capacity related, meaning the system was overwhelmed, exceeding the hydraulic limits.  There were 25 service calls handled by Veolia Water on Friday, none of which resulted in property damage caused by a sewer back up.  

At approximately 1:40 PM this afternoon, we placed the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Section Chiefs on notice about a possible activation of the primary EOC in the IT Training Room.  Activation was not ultimately necessary, but Section Chiefs remained in a standby mode throughout the day.

I was asked today what type of preparation the City makes when there is the forecast of a serious storm threatening the San Francisco Bay area.  In addition to regular preparation, including annual EOC exercises (last year’s exercise happened to be a scenario involving a severe winter storm with flooding), providing information to residents as broadly as possible on KCRT and the City’s website (see the Newsflash section of the City’s website at www.ci.richmond.ca.us), field personnel are placed on standby for callout, and materials that are anticipated to be needed for emergency response (such as sandbags) are staged.  Again, we will provide more information to you describing such preparations when this particular emergency subsides.

For this weekend:

·         EOC Section Chiefs will remain on standby;

·         Approximately 30 Parks, Streets and Abatement member staff will be on standby/call-out;

·         Public Works Building Services, Electrical Section and Stationary Engineers staff will be on call for any facility or electrical related emergencies due to current weather conditions;

·         All current flooding areas will continue to be monitored until the water level subsides.

3.         Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) Activities

Key activities for the ONS this past week were:

·         The ONS and a panel of community based and public systems leadership interviewed a final group of candidates for the Neighborhood Change Agent (NCA) Street Outreach positions.  More than 20 candidates applied and were interviewed.  Finalists for the NCA positions will be interviewed early next week.

·         Unfortunately, the initial gathering of the Richmond Youth Sports Camp series, which represents a community/grassroots-based and public systems partnership to help fight violence by filling children’s lives with sports alternatives, and which was described in a recent weekly report, needed to be postponed due to the severe rain and wind storms.  A new date for this event will be established early next week.

·         ONS finalized and submitted its application to the Governors Office of Emergency Services for the California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Program grant (CALGRIP).  The application represents a public system and community based partnership that includes the City of Richmond’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, Police Department, Employment and Training, the Contra Costa County Probation, Sheriff, District Attorney, and Office of Education, and the West Contra Costa Unified School District.  The Community-based partners for this effort includes the Amer-I-Can program, Neighborhood House of North Richmond, Straight Talk on Prisons (STOP), and the Bay Area PeaceKeepers.  This partnership forms the Richmond Community Wellness Collaborative (RCWC).  The funding request represents $500,000.00 over 2 years to provide healthy alternatives to youth and young adults who are currently involved and/or highly at risk for involvement in gangs and street violence.   

We will continue to keep you informed of these activities.

4.         Update on Oil Spill and Reopening of Shoreline

The City’s Oil Spill Task Force, led by Emergency Services Manager Kathy Gerk, reports the following status regarding reopening areas of the City’s shoreline:

a)    Opening the shoreline from the Meeker Creek pedestrian bridge west and north (to Point Pinole) will be effective Tuesday, January 8, 2008 as long as the current storm has no negative impact on the shoreline ( i.e.:  re-oiling);

b)    A SCAT (Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team) is scheduled to make a second walking review of the area from Meeker Creek South to Baxter Creek on or about January 8^th, with City of Richmond Parks representative(s) as well as community members;

c)    The area from Meeker Creek South to Baxter Creek will remain closed until further notice and results of the second review ([b] above);

d)    Signage has been created which will be ready to post on the shoreline areas when they reopen, stating that if any oil is spotted to please contact the phone number for the Cosco Busan command,

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments about these or any other items of interest to you.

Have a great week and a great New Year!

Bill Lindsay

City Manager

City of Richmond

1401 Marina Way South

Richmond, CA 94804

Phone:  510-620-6512

Fax:      510-620-6542

e-mail:   bill_lindsay@ci.richmond.ca.us