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More than 1,000 pages of briefings on 72 agenda items will be before the City Council for possible discussion or action tonight. 

One of the more intriguing items on the agenda deals with religious holidays. It seems that a number of important community meetings were held on April 19, the first day of Passover, one of the more significant of the Jewish holidays. 

“We are dismayed at your disregard for permitting the scheduling of public meetings on a religious holiday which automatically excludes the possibility of a section of our citizenry to attend these meetings,” Viki Tamaradze and others wrote Mayor Shirley Dean. 

So, in an item before the council, Dean is proposing that the city manager write an annual calendar taking into account the major religious holidays and distribute the calendar to those persons who schedule city-sponsored meetings. 

An aide to the mayor was unable to say which religions and which holidays would get on the calendar. She said that would probably have to be debated in a public forum. 

An item likely to spark some discussion is a request by Councilmember Dona Spring for equity in city mailings and TV time. 

Spring says the mayor had more than her share of TV time through her televised State of the City address, and that the other eight councilmembers should each get an hour of TV time, paid for by the city. 

Spring also said Councilmember Betty Olds and the mayor have been signaled out for recognition on city mailings, while others have been ignored. She wants the city to fund mailings for the other seven councilmembers to advertise their meetings. 

Some dozen items are repeats of items that have come to the council, but that the council has not discussed over the past weeks and months. 

Other items are new. The manager is scheduled to present a mid-term budget report, although the report had not yet been submitted to council at the time the agenda packet was distributed. The budget is on a two-year cycle, so this would be a preliminary discussion of the Fiscal Year 2000-2001 budget. 

Other new items include: 

• Discussing a proposal to go to court to authorize using Measure G funds to purchase the Cragmont Water Tank from the East Bay Municipal Utility District. 

• Making permanent the temporary off-leash dog park at Cesar Chavez Park. 

• Discussing which measures to put on the November ballot, including taxes for fire safety, affordable housing, public arts (a hotel tax), city hall expansion, a youth center, an animal shelter, remodeling the warm pool, and more. 

Some three-dozen items appear on the council’s consent calendar. If these items stay on the consent calendar, they will be passed with nominal comment. Councilmembers, however, often remove some of these items for discussion later in the evening or at another meeting. Councilmembers can also opt to place noncontroversial items – yes, there are some – from other sections of the agenda, onto the consent calendar. 

Consent calendar items include: 

• Mandating training for commission chairpersons. 

• Adding a year to the retrofit-property transfer tax program, so that people who buy new property will have two years to protect their homes from earthquakes and still receive a transfer tax rebate. 

• Establishing a position of information technology director with a pay range of $90,000-$123,500 annually. 

• Changing the name of the Personnel Department to the Human Resources Department. 

• Approving $17,000 in state health funds, in addition to $18,000 in state health money already allocated to the program for a community-wide prenatal through preschool health needs assessment. 

• Naming the public safety building and its plaza after two officers who were killed in the line of duty. 

• Endorsing a May 13 rally to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is seeking a new trial after being convicted of killing a police officer. 

A number of items on the consent calendar and regular agenda are referrals to budget discussions that will take place later this month. They include: 

• Funding a position – or part of a position – as an employment specialist to link training and placement agencies for the high-tech/multi-media industry. The economic development division is asking for $65,000 for this function. 

• Funding $35,000 for a meals program for Section 8 residents of Strawberry Lodge. Strawberry Lodge is a residential housing project for seniors. 

• Funding $21,000 for the Hope Pre-Recovery Program, a shelter for homeless youth 18-25 years old, sponsored by Jubilee Restoration, Inc. Most the shelter funding comes from federal sources. 

• Funding $50,000 for bicycle and pedestrian safety efforts. 

The council meeting takes place after the housing authority meeting a few minutes past 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It is broadcast on KPFB 89.3-FM and televised on Ch-25.