Oct. 28, 2025 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

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[00:00:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Most of the times when I've lived in apartments—and I've lived in ones, I don't want to name who the developer was because they were in town—um, there was a lot of reconstruction going on, but it didn't require people to move out. And I don't want to create an incentive where, you know, we were market rate, but it would have been really inconvenient. You know, I had two kids, people were changing jobs, people have all sorts of situations. We had neighbors who were pregnant, et cetera.

[00:00:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Um, that they have to move into a hotel and bear the expense themselves when they're paying fairly expensive rent. And probably the reason they're there is they thought they had a more or less stable situation, that they weren't going to be packing their bags and putting things in storage.

[00:00:45] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I think that's to some degree, a decision of the landlord that they're moving people out to do that work. Maybe it's not sometimes, but I hope that's very rare. And I would like to set up a circumstance where it is rare. So those are my thoughts. That's why I'm a little leery of means testing that particular thing, because I think we may be setting up an incentive to massively inconvenience people who are paying a lot of money.

[00:01:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Clark.

[00:01:16] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I think, um, you make a good point. I think, um, but I think in the vast majority of cases in... um, most landlords are going to offer accommodations in those cases because they want that tenant back, right? Um, they're not a... they're not a tenant in a below market rate unit or a rent-controlled unit that's paying below market. And frankly, it just, it happens all the time.

[00:01:52] Councilmember Chris Clark: You know, you get... most of the time they're going to move you into another unit within the complex or they're going to find some way to take care of you. And I just think it's... I just don't think it's great... in the vast majority of the state or the country, you know, these things just work themselves out.

[00:02:11] Councilmember Chris Clark: And it just feels strange, and it's really hard for me to go to a constituent and justify, um, you know, a really significant relocation and moving cost provision that isn't means tested. I just feel like that's just a better way to do it. But I guess, um, what I was going to say overall is I think there's, I think we can thread the needle and land the plane with everyone here for the most part.

[00:02:40] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think the means testing might be a little tricky, but, um, I'll just say that, you know, if, if what was summarized by the Mayor and staff is where we've landed, where... I just wanted to clarify that there is a reference to the moving cost cap in the ordinance, but it's defined in the administrative guidelines later.

[00:03:00] Councilmember Chris Clark: So what I would suggest is we, um, we take everything that staff has, that they've heard from us. Um, they can come back to us for the first reading in December. Um, the benefit of that is, one, we can hear from anyone in the general public between now and then. It comes back on consent, um, with all the things that we've identified tonight. So hopefully it won't be super controversial. Usually doesn't have to have the moving cost cap at that point.

[00:03:32] Councilmember Chris Clark: But at least we'll get additional feedback. We can still make amendments that night if someone wants to pull it. But I think the majority of our... our, um, comments have been aired tonight. So hopefully it'll be in pretty much final form. We still have the second reading shortly thereafter. Everything really kind of gets done roughly on time. There's also the opportunity for additional public input to us within that time frame.

[00:04:00] Councilmember Chris Clark: And, um, the moving cost cap, I don't think we should have an entire council meeting item on that. I think that could come back as a recommendation from staff on consent. If someone thinks whatever they've come up with is egregious, then we can pull it. But at least we've codified it and we've seen it. Um, but I don't think we need an item just for the administrative guidelines. Hopefully everyone agrees on that.

[00:04:21] Councilmember Chris Clark: But I think if we, if we, if we move forward with all... on all of that, have it come back to us in December, um, on consent. Someone can pull it if we're really uncomfortable with anything. And then we can move forward in whatever shape or form we want. I think that solves a whole bunch of different issues.

[00:04:43] Councilmember Chris Clark: And we could even just do, if we want to put the means testing to bed, we could do a straw poll. Um, just a raising of hands before we make motions to amend or substitute motions and try and tank something. Because I think everyone has worked, tried very, very hard to see everyone else's side tonight. So maybe, maybe, uh, maybe just a show of hands and then we can, either the maker of the motion, either way, can either accept that or not and we can go from there. But maybe that's a friendly way to do it. But that's up to the Mayor, not me.

[00:05:18] City Staff: Mayor? May I provide a, maybe an important detail to this discussion? I just want to flag that there was a lot of thought about this issue and there is a specific piece in the recommended amendments too, that, for example, for temporary relocation situations, is that if, um, a tenant accepts a temporary relocation option, they're still paying rent on the, on their unit, which offsets the cost that the landlord would have to pay.

[00:05:53] City Staff: And, um, I think that is an important piece of information. But, um, that... they would still be paying rent. But it was the easiest way that we thought of administratively so that, um, benefits temporarily could be provided to the displaced tenant, but the landlords are still getting rent for the unit while it's getting renovated.

[00:06:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So I think that takes care of that then. So I don't think we need to do the straw poll, um, Councilmember Clark. Does that sound fine? Or do you want to still do...

[00:06:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: Was it with respect to means testing?

[00:06:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I thought that's why you were leaning forward. Did I misunderstand?

[00:06:32] Councilmember Chris Clark: That's for temporary. The moving cost piece, um...

[00:06:36] City Staff: We had embarked on this direction because the initial direction was to make it available to all, um, tenants regardless of... of income. And, um, but if there's a modification on that, then... yeah. Um, but that, that was the direction that we took to have a number for everyone.

[00:07:04] City Staff: I think part of what Councilmember Clark was saying was a way to address maybe the moving cost piece, but that was... what I was saying here was really related to the temporary relocation piece. Yeah.

[00:07:16] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, it was the moving costs that I was concerned about providing to just anyone without... uncapped and, you know, it just seemed strange.

[00:07:23] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Well, I think before we do the straw poll on the means testing part, you, um, made another suggestion on a change. So I want to check in with the Vice Mayor that it's okay, right? Because you said you would want the... the December 9th to be the first reading. Is that right?

[00:07:44] Councilmember Chris Clark: And the intent of that is just to give staff the grace... the time.

[00:07:48] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, yeah, right. I just wanted to clarify for the record, right?

[00:07:51] Councilmember Chris Clark: If staff doesn't need the time, that's fine. But if I were them, I might want it.

[00:07:56] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So, you know, I would say... like, putting that forward, I would ask just if we do that just for discussion and input purposes, have the December 9th as the first reading. Could we turn around and have the second reading our following meeting? No. You need to have... cause it has to be a regular...

[00:08:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: The next regular, cause it's a special.

[00:08:24] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. Correct. So it would be January 27th. So it would be like a month difference. Give or take. Yes. City...

[00:08:38] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Thank you. If I may, if you do choose to, um, more create a motion where it's directing staff to bring back the ordinance for first reading, taking... you know, amending it based upon the comments received. Uh, if you could not set a specific date, but ask staff to bring it forward back as quickly as possible because, well, you know, it suggested it be put on consent when looking at our... TOW [Tentative Order of Writing] and so on, we may need to make sure it comes to a meeting where if it's going to get pulled... um, we have the time to make that happen.

[00:09:23] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: So allowing staff to pick the timing, we'll bring it back as quickly as possible for the first reading. Especially since we won't get a second reading until the end of January.

[00:09:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Okay. So I just wanted to put that out there before we do the straw poll. Um, and see if there's an openness to that... um... to the motion maker.

[00:09:54] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Sorry.

[00:09:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: That was the suggestion. So I need to go back to you as the motion maker.

[00:10:00] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I'm trying really hard not to be unreasonable, but...

[00:10:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I think... I mean, I think that, um, what's nice about that, I think, is it tackles the public outreach, community outreach piece. And maybe it... I mean, it can be in the administrative guidelines, but then... you know.

[00:10:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yeah, I'd feel much more comfortable with a time certain than...

[00:10:24] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: But I think that staff can work... You and I can work with... we can get it as fast as possible knowing that the second reading would be on consent.

[00:10:39] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I guess I'm curious to see what my other colleagues think about that too.

[00:10:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: But there's a question on the floor and I think as the motion maker to continue the discussion, right? She needs to...

[00:10:52] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So if I say... I'll say no now, and then we can do a straw poll...

[00:11:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: There was a request to make an amendment to the current motion. So I need to... I'm asking...

[00:11:07] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Whether or not I accept it as a friendly amendment?

[00:11:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:11:10] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Or then he could treat it as a substitute...

[00:11:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry, I'm just trying to follow procedure. Yes. You know.

[00:11:16] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Rosenberg's Rules.

[00:11:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes. Yes. Trying to follow all the rules. Yes. So, okay. So looking to the City Clerk, I can take a straw poll. Um, and perhaps that can, um, curb continued discussion and people can just decide. So, um, the suggestion was to, uh, bring the ordinance back as a, uh, first reading... uh, I would say like by December 9th or before. You know? Um, cause it's... has a second reading date, um, but we could try to do it before. Um, are people interested in that? Can I say that?

[00:12:03] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Um, how about, um, I think we have a meeting December 16th. Is that right?

[00:12:12] City Staff: It is, but it's introducing an ordinance so you can do that at a special meeting.

[00:12:17] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: So if you could say *by* December 16th or earlier. And it would still allow the second reading to occur in January.

[00:12:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right. So if you are interested in having the item come back, uh, for first reading before December 16th?

[00:12:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: On or before?

[00:12:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: On or before December 16th. I mean, it doesn't matter to me. Yeah. Okay. So that looks like five. Okay. So that... So then we take the vote on the current motion or...?

[00:13:11] City Staff: Yes.

[00:13:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Perfect. Okay. Great. Thank you. Just want to make sure. So the... that didn't get included. The means testing did not get included. So we're just going to call the question now. Is that all right?

[00:13:27] Councilmember Chris Clark: All right. Everyone... And to be clear, the means testing I was suggesting was for any benefits that don't... that are new. So not means testing existing things. Just any new benefits to the non-CSRA ones. But if that's been put to bed...

[00:13:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Well, and maybe when the item comes back, staff can provide detail or I don't, you know, I don't know if there's more information that you would...

[00:13:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah. Okay.

[00:13:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. Shall we vote?

[00:13:52] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes. What are we voting on?

[00:13:54] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So the... what I repeated earlier. Nothing... I'll repeat it one more time. Yes?

[00:14:02] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: The current motion, I believe, is to adopt or... adopt the ordinance in first reading. And that's not what you're doing at this stage. So I think, um, a new motion is warranted that directs staff to bring back the ordinance for first reading on or before December 16th, incorporating the, the...

[00:14:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All the changes that we discussed tonight.

[00:14:31] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Yes. Exactly.

[00:14:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. And we don't need to restate all those changes because those are already in the record. Correct?

[00:14:36] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: That's correct.

[00:14:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Great. So shall we... do we need to do a withdrawal of the motion or do we need to do a substitute motion? Since we need to do... yes? Uh huh. City Attorney Logue?

[00:14:50] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Who's gonna make it? Are you gonna make it, Emily? If you do a substitute motion, it could be somebody else. But I mean, if you're just gonna... If you're okay with it, then you can... If you're gonna do it, you can just modify your motion.

[00:15:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: All right. I will modify my motion to have it bring back on or before December 16th, but all the items on there are staying. Um, that we have all collectively agreed to. Um, so that means I probably won't read the motion because it's...

[00:15:25] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Correct. You're not going to read the title anymore. You are...

[00:15:28] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Great.

[00:15:29] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Yes?

[00:15:32] Councilmember Chris Clark: No, I was just gonna say, yeah, it's the same motion. It's just that we're bringing it back on the... on or before 12/16.

[00:15:41] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So is the seconder okay to be the seconder?

[00:15:45] Councilmember Chris Clark: No.

[00:15:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So you can withdraw. And then would someone else like to second the motion?

[00:15:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Second.

[00:15:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. It's been seconded. Let's vote.

[00:16:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. And that passes... what is that? Five-two.

[00:16:06] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. Thank you to staff. Thank you everyone. May someone make a motion so I can close out our meeting to continue past 10:00 PM?

[00:16:13] Councilmember Chris Clark: So moved.

[00:16:15] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Let's vote.

[00:16:28] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. And that also passes five-two. So we'll move on to Item 7, which is our Council and Staff Committee Reports. Does anyone have a report? Councilmember Showalter.

[00:16:42] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Excuse me, I need to find the right paper. I guess the first thing I would say is that, um, uh, we all had a, uh, Council Appointments Committee yesterday. And, um, uh, I appreciated the announcement that you made about, uh, other people needing to step up. That was very good.

[00:17:05] Councilmember Pat Showalter: And along with that, um, one of the subjects that arose was that the, um, uh, bylaws for the Downtown Committee specify different categories, um, of, uh... different categories. And we haven't been able to meet, um, all of those categories in many years.

[00:17:32] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So I think it would be good for the, um, the... uh, when the bylaws are revised—we're going through and revising all of the Advisory Committee resolutions and things—for, um, the, uh, the Downtown Committee membership to be relaxed. Um, so that we don't have this problem of, of, uh, the... the numbers in the, in the right boxes. So... um, would Ellen or Emily like to clarify that? I mean, did I get that sort of what we were talking about?

[00:18:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. Then the other thing I wanted to say is that, um, last Wednesday we convened a, um, uh, a meeting of the Santa Clara Shoreline Cities to talk about sea level rise and the, um, progress that has been made over the last year and, um, what we want to do moving forward.

[00:18:30] Councilmember Pat Showalter: And we, we had really good staff participation from all of the, uh, um, cities. We, we didn't have... we had elected officials from, uh, Mountain View, Valley Water, uh, Sunnyvale, and uh, Campbell. Campbell was representing VTA. And a representative, staff representative for, um, uh, the, uh, County and for San Jose.

[00:18:59] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So we had a really robust discussion and, um, I think one of the things that we, we celebrate, um, or we should celebrate here too, is that, um, the County has received a $2.4 million grant for planning for, um, sea level rise to get our regional shoreline adaptation plan together.

[00:19:21] Councilmember Pat Showalter: And this grant, um, goes for three years and we will working on, be working on, our staffs together will be working on a, a plan, um, that will have to be passed by all of our cities. And, um, uh, I think it's important to remember that in addition to, um, uh, just the cities in Santa Clara, we also have Valley Water taking an active role. They are the flood protection agency for this, for the County. And VTA. There's a lot of transportation implications with sea level rise protection. So that's my report.

[00:19:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Does anyone else have a report? Councilmember Clark?

[00:20:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, if you don't have anything, Mayor, I was just going to say something about...

[00:20:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh, okay. Yeah, no. Um, I just, I was looking through my calendar trying to remember everything. Um, we, we had Monster Bash over the weekend, which was, um, lovely. And we had our CARC meeting, our Council Appointment Review Committee. Um, we had our, obviously our EPC interviews the other week. Um... let me see. And what else am I forgetting? Um, and I think that's everything, um, that we've done since then. And then, um, so I'll move on to Item 8 since there's no others, which is Adjournment.

[00:20:45] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And tonight we're adjourning the meeting in memory of Monique Kane, who provided special service to our community as the former Executive Director of the Community Health Awareness Council. She was also a member of our Kiwanis Club of Mountain View and a member of the Mountain View Rotary Club. Our thoughts are with her and our loved ones.

[00:21:05] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And I know that many of us had the opportunity to know, um, Monique, um, as she was a fabric of our community for decades. Um, and I, um, want to turn it over to Councilmember Clark for a few words.

[00:21:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I just wanted to say, um, I was deeply sorry to hear that we, um, we lost a champion in our community. Monique, um, led CHAC for a long time. I worked with her closely when I was on the board both as a council member and not as a council member. And she was, um, not only instrumental in ensuring, um, you know, everyone's... uh, not just CHAC, but the community's commitment to youth mental health and, um, and counseling services.

[00:21:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: But she was also instrumental in, um, the long-term well-being of the organization, which is now Pacific Clinics. Um, I worked with her closely on the, the land swap, uh, to get them into the, the building that they're in now, which used to be the business that I worked at, um, before it was CHAC.

[00:22:03] Councilmember Chris Clark: And, um, and the Malik family and Monique, um, and the business that I worked for at the time worked really hard to make that happen. And I think, um, anyway, we've, we lost a great champion, not just for Mountain View, but for youth mental health and a number of other causes in the, in the Bay Area. So, um, as you said, Mayor, um, thoughts are with her family and, and I, um, and certainly celebrating an incredible life and all the gifts that she gave to everyone.

[00:22:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes. Very much agreed. And a woman of the year and, um, uh, just a, a great sense of humor too, which I really appreciated. She always had a smile and a laugh. So our next City Council meeting will be held on November 4th, 2024. This meeting is adjourned at 10:52... Sorry... November 4th, 2025? Uh, the meeting is adjourned at 10:51 PM.

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