RHNC Membership Meeting
May 7, 2018
Executive Committee Members Present:
Seren Pendleton-Knoll, President
Ralph Thomas, Vice-President
Nina Smith, Secretary
Police Lieutenant Johansen reports April crime report for Richmond Heights: 4 auto break-ins in the Planet Fitness parking lot, evenings and early morning hours. 2 residential burglaries, 7 auto thefts, 8 auto recoveries, 1 strong arm street robbery, 1 robbery with use of a firearm in a business, assault with a deadly weapon, non-firearm, which was a domestic matter. No beat in the City has 2 officers.
Lori Reese-Brown, Project Manager, City of Richmond, 510-620-6869, lori_reese-Brown@ci.richmond.ca.us, who oversees all the transportation services, such as the city-wide shuttle service, bicycle share and designated lanes, better pedestrian access, electric vehicle charging stations. Was a planning development manager in the Planning Department previously. Came here to talk about the First Mile- Last Mile (FMLM) plan designed to address how residents think about transit: how convenient is using transit in relation to your home and to your destination. Looking at alternates that make it simple to use transit to ultimate destination. First Mile-Last Mile is an attempt to research with CalTrans federal funds ($300,000) how people are accessing transit. The City has to adopt the by 1/19. Looking for residents’ input on challenges they face and what they’d like to see. They have a consultant working on it. Another program coming: bicycle sharing, they have funding for it and going to go through an RFP to be released next few month. Total of 122 bikes. A number of bicycle stations. Senior para-transit services have had challenges in the past. New name: R-transit for seniors and disabled. Contracting with Lyft to provide non-wheelchair rides for seniors, which she hopes will provide better service and greater subsidies for the services. Expanding to include transport from Richmond to Martinez County Hospital and the Veterans’ Hospital in Martinez. There will be a peak hour shuttle from the new ferry to Richmond BART and El Cerrito Del Norte BART. Eventually, such services will have to generate sufficient income to maintain funding of such services. The existing bike share programs hire local people to do the repairs.
Introductions.
The Factory Bar: North & East Council has already voted unanimously to support the project. The question was raised as to whether it’s okay for us to write a letter of support on an issue involving another neighborhood. Motion: tonight and in the future that we not vote on an issue that impacts another neighborhood council geographic area. Seconded. 1 in favor. 6
opposed. Motion Defeated. Presentation on The Factory Bar: hoping to establish bar on San Pablo Avenue. They repeated the basics they covered a few months ago. The Planning Department suggested that they talk with both neighborhood councils because the proposed location is right on the border. They want it to be a neighborhood bar. Marcus Hibser, architect, Kensington resident. Tom Lyons, lives in Richmore district in Richmond, works in ad agency. Third partner is Jason Beebout, third generation Richmond resident, who has been a bar owner and manager for years and will be the day-to-day manager on site. Target audience is the surrounding neighborhood. Currently negotiating purchase of the building at 12513 San Pablo Avenue. They are meeting with everyone they can in the community possible to incorporate community feedback into the design of the bar. Hope to have music. Plan is to have music on an occasional basis, not be a music venue. It should hold about 40 – 60 people. Closing hours: midnight, weekdays; 2 am Friday and Saturday. Open: 3:30 pm on weekdays, 1 pm on weekends. Not planning on having regular sports but would show the playoffs. Facebook and Instagram page will be started once the location is confirmed. Hoping to open by March 2019 but that is dependent on a number of variables. Probably won’t be pool tables. They anticipate having a food truck. Hope to have an outdoor space but probably the license won’t allow children to come into the bars. They’ve had conversations with the Richmond Police Department. Roberta Feliciana = their Planning Department staff contact. In negotiations to purchase the property, not in contract yet. 4 – 5 months of contingencies after they sign the contract. Email addresses: tom@thefactorybar.net; marcus@thefactorybar.net. Vote on letter of support: Nina made it clear that the usual condition of
“no opposition from immediate neighbors” will apply to the letter of support. Motion to approve a letter of support, seconded. 8 in favor, 1 opposed, 2 abstentions.
Skytown Preschool seeking a use permit for a site at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church on Solano. Maximum 10 toddlers, plan to put a modular building on one of the sites for 2 – 5 years and eventually a permanent building. It’s a parent cooperative. 5 hired employees. 8 am – 3 pm with evening meetings and weekend family events. Not yet talked with immediate neighbors. In negotiations with Mt. Zion. Lena Velasco = the Planning staff they’re working with. They currently are in a temporary site in Berkeley. Families are from Berkeley, Richmond, El Cerrito, El Sobrante and other locations. The email address: Thao33anh@gmail.com. Maximum children at any time = 35. They have parking there. Families self-select because they’re a cooperative and require family participation. They admit based on first come, first served. Acceptance is based on availability of space. They were originally joined with Crestmont but they couldn’t afford this so Crestmont will stay on their current site off the Arlington and Skytown is proceeding on their own. Motion to write a letter of support. Seconded. During the discussion it was explained that this won’t meet the needs of regular working people who can’t help during the work day. 8 in favor, 0 opposed, 2 abstentions.
National Night Out: Executive Committee recommending we partner with the big City event rather than have a separate event in our neighborhood where the turn out has been low. The City event starts at Target and then goes around to different parts of the City. No one expressed opposition to making this change. Seren will let Michelle Milan know what our plans are and will research what other neighborhoods are doing. Rock suggested we might think of some ideas for other kinds of events.
May 16, 7 – 8:30. Block party captain training refresher course. Recreation Center across from DeJean Middle School
May 18, 7:30 – 10:30 St. Mark’s Church, Harbor Way and Bissell Pancake breakfast sponsored by the Santa Fe Neighborhood Council fundraiser for National Night Out.
Ideas for future meetings from Cordell: Jim Becker of Richmond Community Foundation; Cesar Zepeda, Contra Costa College; Genevieve Pastor-Cohen, office of emergency management with City of Richmond.
Ben Schwartz, Park’s Commission: Humboldt Park now has a water fountain and bottle filling station. It isn’t ADA compliant so there may be some more work done.
Next Meeting: June 4, 2018, 7 pm
Budget Presentations by the City Finance Manager
and City Manager Bill Lindsay
