City Council — 2020-10-13

The special meeting of the city council meeting is back in session. Mr. City Manager and Mr. City Attorney, do you have anything to report out?

Very briefly, the council met in closed session to consider three items. Two items of anticipated litigation and one regarding a claim filed by Mr. McRae. No reportable action was taken on any item. Thank

Okay, then we are concluding our special meeting and I'll adjourn that. And now I will call the regular meeting into session. This is quite nice. The one benefit to the Zoom in the pandemic. Okay, we're back in session and will the clerk please call roll?

Mayor Johnston? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Platz?

Here.

Council Member Francina? Here Council Member Haney? Here Council Member Wyrick?

consent calendar that Susan and I would like to pull item H for discussion on the fences walls and hedges. And there's a comment I wanted to make on item J on the MOU with the Memorial Garden. I'm okay with taking those up after the reach code if you wish to because of the number of people if that's okay with the city attorney?

Yeah we have the fire chief or the retired fire chief is here. Okay so Councilman Haney would like

to

pull H also. Okay, so the agenda is approved with the realignment on item number five to come up first and we're holding H and J in advance? Yes. Do I have a motion to approve the balance of the consented calendar? So moved. Seconded okay any objection if none The calendar is approved. Let's go to the public presentation and we have Fire warden and retired fire chief of Ventura County, and one of our leading citizens Bob Roper who has graciously offered to come down talk to us a little bit about fire season. And his perspective on what's been going on in the state and what we might think about doing so with that is Bob out there?

I'm out here can you hear me okay? Can we see it now? I'm hidden tonight. Okay, you're a very smart man. This is more about the message. Okay? So what I was asked for is to give you a 10 minute analysis of the question is are we ready as a city for wildfires that may impact us? So the answer is not really if you look at Ojai history Back in 1917, none of us were here.

But we had one of the largest fires that burnt down the Foothill Hotel which many of you may not know it was up by Fairview Lane and it burned all the way down into the Arbolada destroying many homes and its path. And during that time since then we've had 12 major fires with 2017 Thomas Fire leaving us in what we call the donut hole The question is, why did we survive and not become like the town of Paradise in Northern California? And that was simply because on the third day of the fire when the fire was coming in, the wind shifted.

But what we have to understand is as the Fire Department has limited resources and we as citizens of this city and this area, we have to do our part to protect our own structures and stuff. Because there may not be enough airplanes or fire trucks to put in around the city to defend it. So that's what we're here tonight to talk about. What I'd like to show you is a quick three minute video for people to understand that it's not the flames necessary that destroy a community, it's the ember environment. The Institute for Business and Home Safety has a wind tunnel in South Carolina that We helped them construct.

It's designed to test hurricane force winds, but they've also built a fire chamber inside. So what you'll see is the embers materials being put in here it's burning and what you'll see is the embers coming out this is real life Experience what's happening to firefighters around. So they built this home, it's on a turntable and put vegetation wood mulch around the home just like we have at ours.

And then this generator throws the embers at the house and what you'll see now As these embers are hitting the house, there's some components of the house that are built out of fire resistive materials and other materials that are prone to spreading a fire. So what you'll see is the wood mulch at the bottom start igniting. You'll see in the rain gutters, the leaf litter that's in those. You'll see the valley of the roof.

Start catching fire. In this case, they're using pine straw but it could just be oak leaves up on the roof. This is real life how fires are spread. It's not the humongous flames that you see on TV. It's the embers coming in and this is important to understand because you can walk around a house and you can begin to see how a small ember Can start a fire at your house and with no fire truck there, what's gonna happen?

On this house they had vinyl rain gutters. They also had vinyl siding, the mulch is burning again the leaf litter on the roof. So it tells us that we have to do things like remove the mulch around our house, put rocks in that zero to five foot zone around there. Look at the type of screens we have on our windows. And you'll also be able to see here on an attic vent in the next series with embers going into the attic.

These are things that start small incipient fires out a house that could have been taken care of before the firestorm hit. This is what happened in the town of Paradise, it wasn't the flame front It was the embers igniting one house, and then one house in some cases or a mobile home park up there went from one structure to the next structure to the next structure.

You'll see here on the vinyl siding how it's melting and burning down. On the left hand side that's concrete sidings and it's not igniting. This next view is the attic vents. And attic vents are great because you need the ventilation in your attic, but modern building codes now have changed the size of the screen. That means that somebody should go up on the older home and change the screen size so that the embers can't be going through.

The new codes work for new homes, but the largest inventory Are they existing homes in our community? Vinyl windows are great, but they also help carry fire. So this is a short demonstration so people can see what a firefighter actually has seen with the flying embers and you can begin to understand what the role is that we all have to play. There's long term Actions that we can take and there are short term actions that we must take.

It's the personal responsibility that each property owner, renter occupant in this city needs to take care of. The first thing we need to do is if you get that annual notice from the fire department about getting 100 foot clearance for your defensible space, do it. Check with the fire department either online or go down to the fire station and get your copy of the Ready, Set, Go brochure. Make sure your address is legible in front of your house, not a gang of mailboxes but an address. Make sure your trees are trimmed up so our fire engine responders can get to your house.

Try to do some of the home hardening if you can. Remove the firewood next to your house that you put it there to keep it dry You don't want embers to get into that firewood pile. You wanna make sure that you clean your roof and your rain gutters, as you can see by the video how the embers do that. Close your windows when there's a red flag day and it's hot. Have your air conditioning running in is great.

Take your patio furniture cushions away, store them in your garage or somewhere. Again, you don't wanna transfer the fire to your house And lastly, that mulch around your home. Either irrigate it very well or consider removing that and look at your ornamental vegetation like Italian cypresses people have near their home. Those are like a matchstick. Make sure you sign up for alert notifications through the county and make sure that you're ready to evacuate when law enforcement tells you need to go.

The biggest thing you need to do is maintain your home. You need to actually learn to defend your home before the fire gets there by taking simple actions. If you do that today, your family will be safer, your home will be safer and you need to know that you need to help your neighbors and those who cannot help themselves from the simple standpoint if your neighbor has an issue next door, their house catches on fire. If it's density of the homes are close enough, it can go from one home to another. That's why this is an important message for community members to understand we have to help each other.

For further reference information, please go to the VenturaCounty.org Ready Set Go program that you can find and also with the Ojai Fire Safe Council with their website that's listed here. The last website is from the video that has a lot of great information there for So that concludes my message. I want you to know that it's nice at the Thomas fire burnt the vegetation, but I have to tell you this, that the area is ready to burn again cuz it doesn't take long with mother nature with rain to regrow or grow our fuels. So thank you for the time tonight.

Okay, well thank you Bob and Bob you're currently what? Are you the president or chairman of the Fire State Council?

Yeah, I'm the co-chairman of the California Fire Safe Council. And then I'm also a policy advisor to the Western Fire Chiefs Association.

Okay well we really appreciate you coming and talking to us. I have one question for you or you don't have to answer it tonight but we have had requests over the last few years for modification or amendments to fire maps and uh the two questions that i ask and i think most of the council has been asking which is How does the, how does a fire mat necessarily make us safer?

And what impact is it have on the ability to even get fire insurance. Is that something that at some point you would be comfortable in giving us some guidance on?

Yeah I'd be happy to come back and give you a briefing on that plus Senator Jackson had a recent legislation that attaches itself to the maps that CAL FIRE maintains so I can give you an update on that.

Well, thank you very much. Does any member of the council have a question for

Bob? Is this video available for the city to have and to download on our website?

Yes, James Han who I've worked with he has it, the file so he has it right now plus it's available on the IBHS website

Okay, and it's now part of the minutes in the archives of our council meeting which is recorded and you can get it on the internet. Susan did I hear your voice?

Yes people have been wondering if Ojai if we have an evacuation plan and It doesn't seem to be enough to tell them that the plan depends on where the fire is What what is the our evacuation plan And can there even be an evacuation plan? Or is it more an issue of a communication plan?

Is that directed at me or

staff? No, at you.

Okay.

For anyone who can answer it.

Well I would have to say that you're almost exactly right. I can't answer about is there in the city wide evacuation plan But because of the dynamics of a fire, and what could I also be happening around the area? We know in Ojai you basically have three routes 33-150 West 150 East. And what really has to happen is get the information out to the public cuz if a fire cuts off one, you only have two other ways to get out. And we've had situations happen like during the Thomas Fire where we had basically everything cut off. So it does become a communication plan on how to inform the public, which are the best routes out and that is a dynamic issue.

Okay, and I can add two things to that from the emergency or the disaster council says that Bob has described we only really have basically three escape routes. There's a fourth but you generally don't want to go into the Los Padres National Forest during a fire because the odds are not in your favor. But the sheriff's office and the highway patrol have worked together back when Chief Fryhoff was here. And they have a coordination plan for in the event of a fire that's moving in towards the town itself, those people who haven't already evacuated, they will then call a mandatory and it'll be a one way whichever the safest route is out.

There will be circumstances like the Chief Roper said, where you won't be able to get out. In which case Soule Park, the high school open areas with grass or where people need to go. It's hard to keep everybody's attention, the information is available. It is not as simple as saying this is the plan and you'll all be safe. We're not really ready It depends on each of us as citizens helping each other, our neighbors and being prepared ourselves. Any other questions?

If not, well Bob thank you very much for the time and the information. And we will invite you back on the value and what kind of fire amendments to the map particularly at the state level and see what they've done so okay thank you. Okay, we are getting close to the bewitching hour. Let's see we got a little time we can take up a couple of those items that we pulled off the calendar before public communication so we have H second

reading. Mayor in terms of efficiency of time my comment on item J is very short and we may be able to dispose of that in five minutes

okay let's deal with J

All right, it's your pleasure. On item J the only comment I have and I've shared this concern with James and no Brown Act violation also with Randy on attachment B page three of five Where it says maintenance and repairs, and it says children's memorial shall have sole responsibility for scheduling and providing ground maintenance and repair services. Excluding maintenance of the existing oak trees to be completed by city. I don't want there to be the language in any way to imply that the Memorial Garden people would be free without coordination with the city to remove other kinds of trees and vegetation.

In other words, I think you know it's not just oak trees that are valuable specimen vegetation. I just think that we ought to make sure maybe we don't have an incorrect implication with the word soul and understand that that's a joint and it also has to be coordinated through the city in terms of vegetation changes and landscaping changes. That's my only comment

Okay, well it's a good point and it does cut both ways no pun intended. We as a city went in there after the garden group thought it was sort of a secret garden because it was nice you know it's vegetated it was in a way overgrown But it was pretty private and it made for a nice venue. But we, the public works crews I guess must have been came in and decided to clear the area for maybe fire prevention or whatever. Actually the Memorial Garden people did a lot

of that clearing.

Well they did too yeah right you and I were both down there watching them do something. You and I were

there doing that.

Yeah right so I think that it should be a cooperative effort Our consultation as to what gets removed or doesn't get removed on both our sides. So that if there's a question as to the desirability of keeping something that maybe otherwise would be removed, I think the garden people should get a chance to weigh in on it too so.

Absolutely, I just wanted to be clear it's a joint effort there. That's all I wanna make sure that language did not imply unilateral action. Okay, you got that

Mr. City Manager? Any other comments or objection or support? If not, okay. Do we have a motion to approve J? I'll measure J as amended. Okay, I'll second it. Any objection? All in favor? Aye, okay. So how are we doing on time? Is H gonna take a little bit more time? Should we hold that off? It will take time. Yeah, okay. So we'll then go rather than to open up lengthy discussion let's take some public comments.

We might even be able to get through them. The city clerk do you have any public communications for topics not on the agenda?

There is one speaker who wants to speak during public communications.

Okay are they available now?

Yes.

Okay well invite them in

Hi, good evening everybody. Can you hear me? We can, can you hear me? Yes, hi, good evening. Do I have the ability to share a screen or is it just talking?

Well, I don't know Mr.

City Manager. I believe...I don't think we're set up to share the screen with the panelists or with the guest speakers, I'm sorry.

Okay, I can, I can talk you through then. Just just to start. Thank you, Mr Mayor Johnson and the Council for having me just briefly introduce myself and the family. We are the Duncan family we we've been living here in Ohio. for about three years now, so going on four years. And excuse me one second, just trying to get back to my screen. So the issue that I have on hand is we purchased our property 305 Palomar Road in the Arbolada neighborhood and when we purchased the property there was a hedge that was right on the edge of the road Recently we were informed and through the drought that that hedge was a fire hazard and had to be removed.

So we took the effort to remove that hedge, replanted a hedge that was in fact about five feet back from the edge of the road, and we put a small stone wall in front of that hedge. And I have presentation with several pictures and so on and so forth. That said, we were informed by the city planner driving by that he felt as though we had potential encroachment issues on city property with both the wall and the hedge.

That was of course very surprising to us given that one, we had not had the property surveyed when we purchased it. The existing head was on the street Quite frankly, in the Arbolada it seems like everybody's wall and or hedge is on the edge of the street. So we were very surprised by that. We went and had the property surveyed and we are in fact encroaching on the city property with the wall and the hedge.

We've invested thousands of dollars quite frankly $30,000 in total in the project between the wall and the new hedge. And we've been told that we have to take the hedge down So I'm here tonight to ask for your guidance and really to understand what the options are aside from that if there are any given where we are. And certainly asking for just fair and equal treatment as we look around the neighborhood, I think 19 of the 30 houses on our street have some sort of encroachment issues that seem to be very obvious. So at this point, we're wondering what the intent of the city would be to have us tear it down if in fact that's not being enforced across the neighborhood?

Our intent was certainly not to encroach. It was an accident, it was a mistake. We intended to improve the property and I think we've done that but at this point where we're at a loss in just asking the committee if have options beyond what would be really a total loss for us which is tearing the wall and the hedge down.

I'll respond to it. It'd be under public communications Mr Duncan, you know the council's not allowed to discuss or to engage in discussion they may have meet with Mr. Duncan and see if there are any extenuating circumstances and what the options are.

And Mayor, I would just like to point out just to remind us that this has come up before and to remind staff that there is some precedent for arrangements in these situations that we could be researched and I would urge that research be done in terms of working with Mr. Duncan.

Got it and we'll follow up with Mr. Duncan this week.

Okay, thank you Gary for bringing that to our attention.

Thank you Gary. Thank you all appreciate the

time. City Clerk do we have any other public communications?

No that's the only one.

Okay and so if that is the only public communication we have we can now go back to the consent calendar Bill, were you the one that pulled it? H or no.

Is it H? Yes I did. I'll start out. I think all three of us did. Susan and I again no Brown Act violation. Susan and I have talked about this matter uh and let the DA be the judge of that but go ahead well two is not a is not you know we jointly agreed that there are some issues um And I think that, uh, I just want to start out by saying preface my remarks by saying that.

Um, I really think that the one of the problems that we need to address tonight and probably it's going to require some changes to the text and therefore continue the item because you know, we can't go to a second reading if we're going to be changing the text for first reading. But I think that The core problem here is that, and I'm hearing loud and clear from the community that they want a living thing, a hedge treated differently than the non-living thing in terms of these regulations. And so therefore lumping together and putting together fences and walls and screening in the same category as hedges is a core of a lot of problems that we have in terms of the community buying in and understanding what we're doing.

And so I have some suggestions that would, in effect, separate hedges, something that's living from something that is built, you know, the walls and fences and screening And I'm prepared to go through them, but I just wanted to say that's the principle by which I start in terms of looking at this.

Okay well before you go further City Attorney Matt is this a resolution or an ordinance? Is it part of the public hearing process that would require us to have these suggested changes? It seems to me if the council is in agreement we could postpone this or

perhaps continue to re-agendize in the future.

Yeah, we've held the public hearing so you can make changes. But if the changes are as substantive it sounds like they might be it might be reasonable to have another public hearing on those changes right and then continue it for that purpose. The other option would be depending on the council's feelings you could have I direct the two who pulled it or the two who indicated they want to make changes to work with staff on a revised version to come back in a new public hearing

Well, I will move we go in that direction because I'm not ready to vote for it as it's presented tonight.

Yeah, I support that. Would council give us permission to work with staff? Is that what you said?

That would be my recommendation. The motion will be to postpone and you don't need permission to do it. You can just

do it, work with staff. And you and I as two council members can get with staff Present our ideas. I know Randy had a comment, but that's where I'm coming from.

Yeah, well I agree that we should. I think it's gonna go pretty in depth especially when we're trying to differentiate in regards to safety something living and something that's manufactured does an interesting conversation but more importantly I'm gonna talk to lot sizes and lot differentials that we have in this community so I would enjoy having the time to talk to Matt and planning and me.

Okay so it sounds like support Ryan did you have your hand up?

I just wanted to say, I voted against this. I thought we did a poor job. I didn't like where it was before so I'm in complete agreement of redoing it. That's why I said no and I want to say that one thing this council seems to forget that when this hedge issue came up before to enforce this new rule. Nobody talked about it when the enforcement went out a few years ago everybody got so upset that the city declared an emergency to not enforce the rule they had just passed. At the meeting we had where Now we're retreading backwards. So I think it's very good opportunity to wait till we get some more public input because this is obviously an issue people are missing on the front line, but they're never gonna be happy with on the back end so maybe we can do something and make a little bit better outreach.

We didn't need a crystal ball to know that that will happen as soon as you start enforcement. And the blessing of having you on the council is you could tell us you told us so. My only comment bill on this thing about the difference between you know, what did you call it?

The hedges are a living green organism. Fences, walls and screens are not. Right.

And fences, walls and screens generally don't move around a whole lot until they fall down for lack of maintenance whereas the growing things as we know just walk down any street in this town Mr Duncan is correct in wanting fair treatment The growing thing, if the adjacent property owner doesn't take care of it, it can become a safety problem. And I think yeah, safety has to be paramount. I agree. So I bless you too. We've been at this before I got on the council and I'm retiring in December so I leave it your capable hands.

Yeah.

So is there any objection to postponing this or when will you be bringing it back?

We can bring it back next meeting, right Bill?

I believe so yes. So the motion then is to postpone to the time certain of what is it 27th or whatever the next meeting is. Thank you Mayor. Yeah any objection to that if not so ordered. Randy agrees too yeah okay good thank you Randy Okay, so that will now bring us to probably the major feature for the evening. And I'm responsible for those who are unhappy with this. I put the reach amendment on the council agenda because I think it is a topic that is overdue to be discussed. I understand why people maybe would rather not dive into this but out of respect for our climate committee And the fact that it's sort of a test as to our will or our interest in the climate change issue.

If there is a thing they call the rule of holes, when you find yourself in one stop digging. And I think that at least people who believe that there is a climate change issue and they do believe that it is substantially caused by carbon footprint brought about by gas and oil. That to continue building structures You know, range in estimates of like 30 to 40% or something adding to the problem that we ought to at least not to tell people now that you know they've got to spend a lot of money. But to say let's quit making the same problem worse in the future on our new construction so that's why it's here and I'd like to introduce Michelle.

Leahy Ellison, who is the chair of the Climate Committee. She's going to introduce our presenter who is gonna give us kind of an overview of what this is about so that we'll start the conversation. So Michelle are you out there?

I'm here can you see me and hear me? Good evening, Mayor Johnston and councilmembers. I'm Michelle Ellison, chair of the Ohio Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee which was formed and appointed by Council last year following the city's declaration of a climate emergency. I am joined this evening by my fellow committee members Jim Selman, Steve Colomay, and Phil White. Brian Holly is unable to be with us.

The committee is tasked with identifying key ways for the city to reduce emissions and sequester carbon in an effort to mitigate further climate breakdown. The city of Ojai has demonstrated remarkable leadership on climate action. Ojai was the first city in the county to declare a climate emergency and has led the way with the adoption of 100% renewable electricity with Clean Power Alliance, and the Program for Electrification of Landscape Equipment.

Natural gas and buildings is the second largest source of emissions in Ojai behind transportation. One way to begin weaning ourselves off of gas is with reach codes for new construction. A reach code is a local building energy code that reaches beyond the state minimum requirements for energy use in buildings. Because the electrical grid is rapidly heading towards zero carbon emissions, there's a strong climate argument to be made for electrifying everything including buildings.

While the emission reduction resulting from an electrification code change would be modest, because Ojai is expected to have only modest new construction. Adopting a reach code would enable Ojai to again lead by example. We've invited Amy Ryder of the Building Decarbonization Coalition for presentation and answer any questions you may have. Amy assists local governments across California with their building electrification efforts.

Following Amy's presentation I'll provide the Climate Committee's recommendations for your consideration.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Ellison and thank you Mr. Mayor and council members for having me this evening. I have a fairly brief presentation for you that is a high level overview of zero emission buildings, their benefits and the mechanism that is available in the state of California that would allow Ojai to adopt a movement on new construction projects in particular.

And happy to share that with you here momentarily. So give me one second as we get our technology in the line, we will go for that. All right, can you see my screen? Fantastic. So as Ms. Ellison mentioned this presentation is A summary from the building decarbonization coalition for whom I am a consultant and going to give you just this overview. But first, in case you've never heard of the building decarbonization coalition, I just wanted to give you a quick introduction because we are a membership based not-for-profit California centric and we represent a variety more than 100 different agencies that include utilities local governments NGOs manufacturers as well as the design community. So that includes Southern California Edison and the Electric Power Research Institute, and others who you may have heard of across the industry.

And hopefully that gives you some insight as to who I am. And I've been managing the local government efforts that we'll talk about shortly in terms of reach codes in particular, and really just bringing education to local governments because you have It's sort of a unique position that allows you to set the stage for this new movement towards zero emission buildings.

So really what that means, zero emission buildings has to do with building electrification and so we're going to spend a few minutes in talking about why that works and how it works. So specifically the greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California today are roughly 24%, about a quarter, related to buildings. Now that number is higher in Ojai simply because you don't have heavy industry there but it is significant and as again Ms. Ellison mentioned the second in line in terms of the highest emissions right behind single use vehicles And the good news is that electrification works because electricity is getting cleaner. We know how to make the electric grid cleaner, there are good examples all over the state and Clean Power Alliance is a great example.

And Ohio's already ahead of the curve because you've adopted their 100% renewable standard and so you're well on your way and actually on the adoption curve faster than many other cities in the country and certainly in the state. So this is just an example of we're slowly over time expecting electricity to get cleaner and cleaner, you're already there but we don't yet know how to get the emissions out of gas.

And so that's really what electrification is about is eliminating that source of climate emissions and switching to electricity only And the good news is that there are lots of technologies available. They're not even new, really. There might be new to California but there's lots of electric technologies that affect almost anything you could think of certainly across the board for appliances. Certainly hear a lot about cooking being one of the items people are not sure about and yet we see these just amazing results in terms of once people try induction they really, really like it So we could talk about some of those if you're interested, but the technology exists and it's readily available.

Just a quick note on biogas because we do hear the question often is why can't we just clean up the gas, the natural gas system that we have? And the challenge is really one of quantity. If we're just using California based sources there's just simply not enough. And if we look outside of the country or across the country outside of California I don't have enough natural gas that is biogas in order to really supplement the need for current gas and new construction. So again, today's focus is new construction can't reiterate that enough but we certainly think that biogas has its place but it's not likely in buildings and much more important to save it for those industries that are hard to electrify So some of the benefits of zero emission buildings really, I always include the asterisk after cheaper because existing buildings is a little bit of a fine.

There's some nuance there because it's not always cheaper unless you already have air conditioning in which case it is universally cheaper but for new construction, it's cheaper across the board. It's healthier more climate friendly and it's safer. So we'll talk about each of those just briefly here One of the main pieces that I should mention is just you're eliminating the gas infrastructure. So that can really add up the piping to the building, the piping in the building and really helping with the affordability of the housing units because for every $1,000 extra a building cost to build more than 2,000 households are unable to afford that home.

And so the cost really summarizes as this, that building all electric saves in construction costs. It saves over the life of the building in utility bills especially when you add solar which is required for low rise residential in the state of California now for new construction and it helps to protect against rising gas rates which are expected to go up over time and those rate increases largely have been approved already at a higher rate of increase compared to Southern California Edison rates, at least. I don't know the specific trajectory for Clean Power Alliance but regardless the increase year over year is expected to be more for gas than it is for electricity.

Then we talk about healthier. So stoves alone emit a number of different gases that impact health and safety and specifically related to children. And so one highlight here is that children living in a home with a gas stove have a 24% increased risk of lifetime asthma, and there's more and more studies of these that come out it seems like each month or it's fairly newer science but it certainly is fairly compelling and important to note.

And I'm certainly happy to answer questions about that as well but one thing I'll mention In homes and when tested across the state, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs did a study. And they found that more than half 55 to 70% of households their indoor air quality is so poor that it would be illegal if there were outdoors and actually monitored. And then the outdoor air is important as well because often we hear the argument that what about power plants?

contributing to this problem. And this is for just nitrogen oxides in particular, which is a direct contributor to ozone and you can see that electricity because it's generated and so heavily regulated, it's a much smaller contributor to that ozone problem and that buildings really are on order for this particular gas with vehicles. We also talked about resiliency. I was really impressed by that fire presentation earlier in the evening And a couple of things about electric homes that we often hear, what about resiliency? How about the ability to use gas when electricity is down during a public safety power outage or something of that nature.

The fact is that modern electric appliances and modern gas appliances all use electricity to start with the exception potentially of stove which you might be able to light by hand the appliances because Pilot lights don't exist anymore in new appliances. They have electric ignitions, so there's no gain in terms of resiliency except the ability for an all-electric home to be powered with a external backup power system as well as really looking at eliminating combustible materials is part of the strategy for fire suppression Fire hardening, so eliminating gas piping helps with that as well as hardens for earthquakes and fires as well.

So local governments have some power here and happy to say that 35 cities and counties have already taken action. And the way they've done this is through the building code. So the energy code in particular which is a subset of the building code went into effect January 1st of this year And it still favors gas slightly. And so we have the ability to shift that, and I'll just point out that it favors gas because until fairly recently, gas was the cleaner option for the last 40 years. That was the way to go. It has been the bridge fuel and very much has done its job.

But now that we know that electricity is a clear trajectory to 100% carbon free We're starting to make the shift and the codes are slowly catching up. But what we have in California is the ability to have a reach code, and state of California actually encourages local governments to take this action by adopting a local ordinance that must be cost effective to deploy strategies that they're not yet ready to take across the state. And so a reach code And I'll certainly let the Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee talk about this more. But a reach code is simply a local ordinance that can be adopted, that affects new construction and you can then require all electric for buildings in your city.

And with that, I will wrap up but thank you so much for your time and attention and I look forward to your questions and discussion.

Thank you Amy. To the council How many cities did you say have already done this in varying degrees? 35. 35, okay so it's too late to be the leader and the first one but that's never too late to get started. Okay from the

council... Johnny may I just close the presentation with our committee's recommendation? Thank you. So the Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee has spent a good deal of time investigating this opportunity At the request of council, we provided the building appeals board with information about the benefits and extent of reach code adoption in California including a presentation by Amy.

And address the concerns and questions they'd raised which mostly related to existing buildings and impacts on low income residents. I'll reiterate it again here now. The proposed reach code is for new buildings only so it has no effect on existing gas appliances or electrical panels. And building all electric is beneficial to low-income households because of the cost savings and improvements to health and safety.

The Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee therefore recommends that the city adopt a clean, straightforward all-electric reach code for new residential and nonresidential buildings unencumbered by car routes or exceptions so as to be of maximum impact. All electric is cheaper to build and operate, reduces indoor and outdoor air pollution We recommend that the council direct staff to bring back an ordinance and building code language at the next regular meeting for adoption. The committee and Amy are ready to assist staff and available to answer questions you might have. I encourage you to take advantage of Amy being with us this evening, she has expert knowledge in this area.