Together, were building a better california. Live from the kgotv broadcast center, this is abc news. It is unanimous. Berkeley city Council Passed an urgency ordinance aimed at improving the safety of balconies in the city after last months deadly collapse. Good evening. Im ama daetz. Dan ashley is off. The collapse at an apartment complex killed six students and severely injured seven nearly a month ago. Abc7 News Reporter katie is live at Berkeley City Hall with the late breaking developments. Katie . Ama an attorney representing ashley donahos family says they called for balcony inspections every year. You can see the line of people posed to speak. A series of proposals to improve the safety of balconies from the frequency of inspections and the type of materials used to balcony design. The Council Approved the urgency ordinance and it goes into affect immediately. Local building amendments have to be approved by the state. Council decided to call for inspections every three years.
Of inspections and the type of materials used to balcony design. The Council Approved the urgency ordinance and it goes into affect immediately. Local building amendments have to b approved by the state. Council decided to call for inspections every three years. The donaho attorney called for every year. There may be other buildings with this same design issue and problem out there. Why do i say that . We know these same contractors have had similar issues with other buildings that were built at the same time in other locations. Building organizations represents also spoke and they would like to form a task force to make sure changes made to the Building Code dont have uninend ited consequences. Unintended consequences. They asked them to pause after looking into the collapse. There were code amendments that make sense for the bay area for berkeleys nd. The city plans to hire certified professionals to do the additional inspection. At this point there is no word on how much it will cos
Inspections rule is so important is because if there is a new design or new materials being proposed it will catch something early on. Reporter also included in the City Council Decision is the requirement of existing balconies and weather exposed elements to have proper vent lake to prevent dry rot. The city council estimates that these inspections affect about 6,000 properties in the city. Back to you. Christian, someone has to pay for all those inspections. How is berkeley going to do that . Reporter thats the question. At this point the city says they dont have the resources to perform all these inspections within six months and at this point no solution has been found. So that will be the question moving forward. Thank you, Christian Hartnett live for us over in berkeley this morning. Thanks. New details are emerging about a kidnapping in vallejo. The case Police Originally called a hoax appears to have been a well planned abduction. But as kpix 5s andria borba tells us, if the vi
Denise. The feds also found videocameras wirelessly set up allegedly to let the suspect monitor aaron inside his home to be sure he was following their instructions after denise was thrown in a trunk. While most in vallejo city ranks werent breaking the thin blue line, councilmember a 30 year vet of police work offered up this to denise and aaron. Of course i would want to say im sorry that they have had to go through this. Its difficult for the attorneys for their clients as it would be for anybody that would be involved in this kind of an incidents. And as victims, i think our city should have been a bit more sensitive in the way we dealt with them. Reporter a retired fbi agent says there may be another reason for the wall of silence in the city of vallejo and that i be an impending lawsuit or the possibility of a civil grand jury and the citys Police Department getting called in front of it to explain how they handled denise and aaron. In vallejo, andria borba, kpix 5. Well, it turn
Lee. i have shared my share of crazy stories but this is definitely on the top of the list. You have a hollywood script and references to the oceans eleven it had all the makings of a true crime story vicki but fact is stranger than fiction. And the story kept unfolding. One that now backs up victim Denise Huskins and her boyfriend. i was stunned. Is this for real . And then i received many emails from the kidnappers vicki lee, who covers the crime beat for the chronicle, tells me before the fbi stepped in even his editors found the emails and photos notcredible and didnt print them. this is where denise was held vicki he shows me some of the disturbing images that now appear significant. here are her glasses vicki lee also shows me pictures sent to him that have wifi codes and a room full of high tech gear. Perhaps the most unnerving part for lee the emails clearly state that theres more than one person involved in the elaborate kidnap schemes. we do not know if there are other people