Joint City Council & Authorities Concurrent and SC Stadium Authority Board Meeting - Nov. 18, 2025

Video

Agenda

• 5:30 PM STUDY SESSION: Call to order and confirmation of quorum for the Study Session (00:05:14)
• 1.A 25-264: Study Session and Update on the City's Vision Zero Plan (00:05:39)
• 1.B 25-1103: Study Session on Pedestrian Access on County Expressways (00:57:58)
• 7:00 PM JOINT CITY COUNCIL/STADIUM AUTHORITY BOARD MEETING: Call to order, Pledge of Allegiance, and Roll Call (01:34:45)
• REPORTS OF ACTION TAKEN IN CLOSED SESSION: City Attorney reports on anticipated litigation and labor negotiations (01:35:38)
• 5. 25-868: Continuance of Public Hearing for Vesting Tentative Map at 4503 Cheeney Street to Dec 16, 2025 (01:37:03)
• 2. 25-1592: Commendation of the Santa Clara Swim Club in Honor of their Gold Medal Club Recognition (01:38:18)
• CONSENT CALENDAR: Approval of Consent Calendar items (excluding 3.L which was pulled) (01:47:51)
• PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS: Public comments on non-agenda items (01:49:25)
• 3.L 25-1573: Award of Contracts for As-Needed Engineering Support Services (Pulled from Consent) (02:03:00)
• 6. 25-944: Public Hearing: Amendments to project at 1957 Pruneridge Avenue to Allow for Natural Gas Stovetops (02:16:03)
• 7. 25-1519: Public Hearing: Resolution of Necessity to Acquire Real Property Interests on 881 Duane Avenue (02:37:30)
• 8. 25-1591: Introduction of a 'Special Event Zone' Ordinance for 2026 Major Events at Levi's Stadium (02:45:20)
• REPORTS OF MEMBERS & CITY MANAGER: Councilmember reports on committees/assignments and adjournment (03:17:20)

Transcript

1.B 25-1103

[00:00:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Item number 1.B, study session on pedestrian access on County Expressways. City Manager?

[00:00:06] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Thank you, Mayor. As you noted, this is an item on pedestrian access on County Expressways. The Council may remember, in November, a member of the public requested that the City repeal Resolution 5603 related to pedestrian restrictions on portions of Lawrence and San Tomas Expressways. Staff has coordinated with the resident, the County of Santa Clara, our Police Department, as well as the City Attorney's Office on this item. Steve Chan, our Transportation Manager for the Public Works Department, will provide a brief presentation related to the City's role in approving pedestrian restrictions on County Expressways, past actions taken under this authority, opinions on the City's responsibilities related to pedestrian access on expressways, and then finally recommended next steps. Thank you.

REPORTS OF ACTION TAKEN IN CLOSED SESSION

[00:00:28] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, we are back from Closed Session and we have a report from the City Attorney regarding action taken in Closed Session. Mr. Googins?

[00:00:37] City Attorney Glen Googins: Thank you, Mayor. Yes, earlier this afternoon the Council met in Closed Session to discuss... actually, two items. One, significant exposure to litigation, one potential case. And, initiation of litigation, one potential case. There is no reportable action taken with respect to either of those items. And that concludes my report.

[00:01:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you very much. All right, moving on to... we have a special order of business.

1.B 25-1103

[00:01:01] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Good evening, Mayor and Councilmember. Steve Chan, Transportation Manager. Tonight we also have Chris Lam, County Roads and Airport Deputy Director here to answer any questions after the presentation I will be presenting.

[00:01:19] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: For the agenda for this item, we're going to go over the background on the request, operation and enforcement regulation on the expressway, past Council action on this matter, enforcement, collision history, safety consideration for repeal, and then finally staff recommendation.

[00:01:40] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Mr. Akos Szoboszlay requested a repeal of Resolution 5603, which prohibits pedestrian on portions of Lawrence Expressway and San Tomas Expressway. He believes that prohibition is unnecessary and that pedestrians should be allowed to walk on the expressway regardless of sidewalk availability.

[00:02:05] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: County Roads and Airport operates, maintains expressway in the County, which also includes management of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle traffic. Santa Clara Police Department handles traffic enforcement and investigation on expressway within the City's limit.

[00:02:30] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Regulatory Framework. Both the County and the City have jurisdiction over pedestrian usage on the expressway as defined in California Vehicle Code 21960. County and City may restrict pedestrian use of the expressway. Specifically to the City's Resolution 5603, identifies area of pedestrian restriction on San Tomas and Lawrence Expressway.

[00:03:00] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: In June 2006, City Council reviewed a earlier petition from Mr. Szoboszlay to repeal Resolution 5603. Council action from 2006 at that time included the following: Request the County to lead pedestrian prohibition where appropriate; Repeal the City's Resolution 5603 once the County adopts updated pedestrian prohibition ordinance; And then finally, request the County to develop a program and funding to expand sidewalk on the expressway.

[00:03:45] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: This map shows the pedestrian restriction on Lawrence Expressway from Cabrillo to the right of your page, to Stevens Creek to the left of your page. The red and blue lines indicate the restriction segment of Lawrence Expressway, and then the green line shows the sidewalk or trail facility where pedestrian can be accommodated. Specifically to the restriction, it's enforceable only when signs are posted and where there are no sidewalks.

[00:04:25] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: And this is a map showing pedestrian restriction on San Tomas Expressway, from Walsh Avenue located on the right of the page to Stevens Creek Boulevard to the left of the page. Again, restriction is enforceable only where signs are posted and where there are no sidewalks.

2. 25-1592

[00:04:49] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Could I ask everyone to take their seats please?

1.B 25-1103

[00:04:50] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Expressway Signage. As stated, County posts pedestrian prohibition signs where restriction applies and where sidewalks are absent. County is also installing new guidance signs directing pedestrian to alternative routes where sidewalk are missing on the expressway.

5:30 PM STUDY SESSION

[00:05:14] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Good evening, I'd like to call this meeting to order. Um, may I have a confirmation of a quorum, Assistant City Clerk?

1.B 25-1103

[00:05:15] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: And here are two photos of the pedestrian prohibition signage on San Tomas Expressway. To your left is an image of Walsh and San Tomas. Clearly there is no sidewalk, narrow shoulder, a steep bank curb return behind the curb area. And on the right image is San Tomas and Monroe. Again, narrow shoulder, a overgrown area behind the curb line.

5:30 PM STUDY SESSION

[00:05:22] Assistant City Clerk: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum.

[00:05:25] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Very good. We have two items on closed session, I mean open session for study session and I know we're... we're uh... we have a time crunch today before the 7 o'clock meeting. So our first item is a study session and update

1.A 25-264

[00:05:39] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Update on the City's Vision Zero plan. City Manager?

2. 25-1592

[00:05:41] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Good evening everyone and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority meeting. Could you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for our statement of values.

1.A 25-264

[00:05:43] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Thank you Mayor, thank you Council. Our first item tonight is an update on the City's Vision Zero effort. Vision Zero is a strategy aimed at eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while also promoting safe and healthy mobility for everyone.

1.B 25-1103

[00:05:50] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: And here is image of some of the new guidance signage being installed by the County, directing pedestrian to San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail where there is pedestrian facility, directing them away from the side of the expressway, San Tomas Expressway, where there is no sidewalk.

2. 25-1592

[00:05:54] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

1.A 25-264

[00:05:59] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Since July of last year, the Public Works Department has made significant progress toward creating a Vision Zero plan for the city. With grant funding, it's important to note that the city hired Kimley-Horn and Associates and completed significant community outreach, a citywide traffic analysis, as well as a draft study.

2. 25-1592

[00:06:09] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: As we gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage, and will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice to all. Let us seek wisdom so we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbors, and our country. All this we ask so we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs before all.

1.B 25-1103

[00:06:15] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: In terms of enforcement and collision. There has been about 2,000 citations issued between 2023 to 2025. No citation were related to violation by pedestrian. There have been 800 collision between 2022 to 2024. 18 collision involved pedestrian, and 17 of those are at intersections.

1.A 25-264

[00:06:19] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Tonight, Nicole He, a Senior Engineer with the Public Works Department and the Project Manager for Vision Zero will present on this very important topic and it is her first presentation to you as a City Council.

[00:06:33] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Welcome. Is that on?

2. 25-1592

[00:06:36] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Please be seated. Assistant City Clerk.

1.A 25-264

[00:06:39] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Is that on? Thank you. Thank you City Manager for the introduction. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Nicole He, Senior Engineer at the Public Works Department. Very happy to be here tonight and walk you through our most recent Vision Zero Plan.

1.B 25-1103

[00:06:40] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Safety consideration for repeal. Area without sidewalk do not comply with ADA and pedestrian design standard. There are few light poles along expressway that limits nighttime visibility. Debris, uneven surfaces, and drainage structure create walking hazard along expressway shoulders. Walking on shoulders can conflict with high-speed traffic, disabled vehicle, and maintenance activity. And lastly, restricting pedestrian access may mitigate liability from unsafe condition where there are no sidewalks.

2. 25-1592

[00:06:47] Assistant City Clerk: Councilmember, Board Member Gonzalez?

[00:06:49] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Here.

[00:06:50] Assistant City Clerk: Councilmember, Board Member Shahal?

[00:06:52] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Present.

[00:06:53] Assistant City Clerk: Councilmember, Board Member Hardy?

[00:06:55] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Present.

[00:06:56] Assistant City Clerk: Councilmember, Board Member Park?

1.A 25-264

[00:06:58] Senior Engineer Nicole He: In the room with me tonight we have a few other Public Works staff: our Director Craig Mobeck, Assistant Director Michael Liw, Transportation Manager Steve Chan, and Senior Civil Engineer Ralph Garcia. And our project consultant Robert Paderna from Kimley-Horn and Mike Cody joining online.

2. 25-1592

[00:06:58] Councilmember Kevin Park: Here.

[00:06:58] Assistant City Clerk: Councilmember, Board Member Jain?

[00:07:00] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Here.

[00:07:01] Assistant City Clerk: Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Cox?

[00:07:04] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Here.

[00:07:04] Assistant City Clerk: And Mayor and Chair Gillmor.

[00:07:06] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Here.

[00:07:07] Assistant City Clerk: Thank you. The AB 23 announcement: Members of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, Sports and Open Space Authority, and Housing Authority are entitled to receive $30 for each attended meeting. Statement of Behavioral Standards: The City of Santa Clara has adopted a Code of Ethics and Values and Behavioral Standards for public meetings to promote and maintain the highest levels of conduct. This includes mutual respect, robust discussion, and allowing city business to be done in an efficient and consistent manner. Please note that as the presiding officer, the Mayor's and Chair's direction in matters of process and decorum should be followed and that use of the gavel indicates all conversations must conclude and everyone in attendance should come to order and attention. Welcome and thank you for your participation.

1.A 25-264

[00:07:18] Senior Engineer Nicole He: A quick agenda for my presentation. I'll start off with some background on Vision Zero, project history, and then go through the project timeline and the significance of this project. I'll spend most of my time on walking you through the key elements of this Vision Zero Plan and wrap up with next steps and implementation. A picture shown here is our project sign on Vision Zero, I hope you have seen that on our streets with our slogan 'Share the Road'.

1.B 25-1103

[00:07:25] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: For staff's recommendation, we recommend aligning with City Council's 2006 directions. County to lead pedestrian prohibition ordinance where appropriate. Repeal the City's Resolution 5603 when the County adopt ordinance modifying pedestrian prohibition. Support the recently adopted County Active Transportation Plan to enhance pedestrian and bike facility on the expressway. And lastly, the City continue to have development construct new sidewalk where the project abuts expressway.

1.A 25-264

[00:07:44] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So what is Vision Zero? As mentioned by our City Manager, it's a strategy, a really ambitious strategy to end all traffic fatalities and severe injuries in Santa Clara. It's not just a slogan, but we just bring together the communities and various stakeholders like police, fire, public works, and all the other departments together to work on this plan.

2. 25-1592

[00:08:07] Assistant City Clerk: For those joining us this evening in the capacity as a registered lobbyist, we ask you to please identify yourself as such and disclose the clients and/or organizations that you represent. This is pursuant to City Code section 2.155.110. Thank you.

1.B 25-1103

[00:08:10] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: This concludes my presentation. I am happy to answer any question you may have.

1.A 25-264

[00:08:13] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And why Vision Zero? First and foremost, I would say that traffic fatalities are not acceptable. Even one traffic death on our streets is one too many. It's also a policy goal from our City's Bicycle and Pedestrian Plans.

1.B 25-1103

[00:08:18] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you so much. I have a few from the Council. We'll start with Councilmember Hardy.

[00:08:25] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Thank you. My biggest question is, um, I heard that we were talking about just pedestrian at this point, but then you mentioned both pedestrian and bicycle. So I want to make certain... what... the prohibition, if I understand, is for pedestrians. And then you mentioned bicycling right at the end. So I wanted to make certain I understood. Thank you.

2. 25-1592

[00:08:26] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome. For today's meeting, the Council is back in person and is conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner. The public is welcome to attend in person and the City continues to use a Zoom feature to allow participation from your home or office. Members of the public can still join via the link and/or call into the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen now.

1.A 25-264

[00:08:29] Senior Engineer Nicole He: As I will show you more in our data analysis, we did see a increasing trend, slightly increasing upward of pedestrian and cyclist injuries. So it's very critical to address traffic safety now. And also as a growing city with more people living in Santa Clara, I think we want to take a more proactive approach to improve traffic safety instead of waiting for the next collision to happen.

2. 25-1592

[00:08:47] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: If you would like to speak on an agenda item or during public presentations, please raise your hand on the Zoom application or press star nine on your phone. Please only raise your hand while the item you are seeking to speak on is presented. Staff will enter your name or the last four digits of your phone number and I will call on you to speak.

1.A 25-264

[00:08:54] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Here is an overview of our project timeline. As mentioned, it started last year and over the past 12 months, we have done a lot. We completed a in-depth collision data analysis. We've done many outreach activities and also developed the recommendation of projects, programs, and policy updates.

1.B 25-1103

[00:08:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, thank you. Councilmember Jain.

[00:09:01] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Yeah, um, I actually very... in fact today, I drove along San Tomas, and I see that in front of Nvidia, there's a sidewalk there. And then, as one of your pictures show, that as you go across at Walsh, as you go across that overcrossing of the railroad tracks, um, there is a shoulder there, but there's no sidewalk there, and there is a sign as you show saying 'No Pedestrians'. And my question is, there's no sign saying 'No Bicycles'. What is the difference between bicycles and pedestrians in... if it's dangerous for pedestrians, it should be dangerous for bicycles. Why are we not restricting bicycles? Um, it doesn't... the consistency doesn't seem to be there.

2. 25-1592

[00:09:06] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: As a friendly reminder, members of the public have two minutes to speak on an agenda item and three minutes on public presentations, and those are reserved for topics that are not on the agenda. Prior to each agenda item, staff will lower your hand to ensure members of the public are seeking to speak on the appropriate item.

1.A 25-264

[00:09:19] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And in September this year we released the public draft Vision Zero Plan, and at the very latest October BPAC, City BPAC, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee meeting, the draft plan was approved and recommended to City Council for adoption. And our goal here is to bring it back to you for City Council final adoption in Spring 2026.

2. 25-1592

[00:09:27] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So let's move on now to the Council agenda. We have reports of action taken in closed session. I think we have a report from last meeting, uh, City Attorney?

[00:09:38] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. Um, Council did meet in closed session uh at our last meeting on November 10th. Um you accompanied mayor me Madam Mayor to report out on that to the empty chambers but as is our...

1.A 25-264

[00:09:39] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And why is this plan important for Santa Clara? First is our official commitment to citywide transportation safety. And as we're doing this project, it really is a plan that's shaped by the community throughout a lot of engagement effort, which I will have a few more slides to show. It documents and reflected a meaningful community engagement with our residents.

1.B 25-1103

[00:10:00] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Now is it because of ADA rules, where if you have... you're allowing pedestrians, then you have to meet ADA requirements? Whereas you don't have ADA requirements for bicycles? So that the slope, the... the level of the slope, the grade, might be too high for quote 'pedestrians', which are actually wheelchairs, um, for ADA. So I'm... it just seems inconsistent. And as I drive along there, it's just broken up. There are sidewalks, um, at Scott. There's a little sidewalk there. Then it disappears. And then, uh, in front of Nvidia, there's a sidewalk appears. And it just like... I don't really understand why it's so broken up and why there's no effort to, you know, make it contiguous.

1.A 25-264

[00:10:09] Senior Engineer Nicole He: It's also a roadmap to reach zero fatalities and severe injuries with very specific projects, programs, and policy actions. And after the plan adoption, this really allows City to pursue various level of funding, federal, state, regional, and local funding to implement those changes.

[00:10:33] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Here is an overview of the seven key elements of the plan. Number one, leadership commitment and goal setting. Strategic planning, number two. Number three, collaboration and community engagement. Number four, safety analysis. Number five, high injury network which is the key outcome of the safety data analysis. And then finally, priority projects, policy, programs, and progress and transparency. And I have a couple slides for each of these elements.

1.B 25-1103

[00:10:59] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um, Mr. uh... Szoboszlay... Akos... Akos has told me that, um, it's really, uh... there's an effort to try to expand more lanes, and that's why we don't want to add pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure there, because the goal is to actually add more traffic lanes. So I'm trying to understand, uh, what the motivation is for having this thing being so broken up. And, uh, why... what the difference is between... there's signs for no pedestrians, but there's no signs saying no bicycles. So I'm trying to understand that. Thank you.

1.A 25-264

[00:11:04] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So starting from the goal setting and guiding principles. As required by the grant program, we must set a target date to end all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. And the goal is 25 years from now, which gives us time to implement the projects, programs, and policies. And this 2050 timeline also aligned with the statewide goal on freeways of Vision Zero.

[00:11:33] Senior Engineer Nicole He: There are four guiding principles. I'm not gonna repeat myself but really want to emphasize that Vision Zero is a shared responsibility and everyone plays a big part in Vision Zero.

[00:11:44] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Strategic planning. So during this project we actually established a Vision Zero Working Group that comprised of city staff from various departments: Public Works, Police, Fire, Community Development departments, and also one City BPAC member that represent the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

1.B 25-1103

[00:11:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. So I'm going to go to the public now, so we can get those questions and comments as well. Akos, you're... you're up.

[00:11:55] Akos Szoboszlay: Akos Szoboszlay. The BOS has never enacted a pedestrian prohibition or a bicycle prohibition. So when staff keeps bringing this up, they want to muddy the issue. It's completely moot. Uh, they claim that pedestrians are not prohibited from using sidewalks. That's completely false. If you match up the sidewalks where the... where the pedestrians are prohibited. I can... I can... if I... I don't have time to explain unless I'm given more time on why the... the prohibitions are on certain blocks and not on other blocks and this side of the road and not on the other side of the road.

1.A 25-264

[00:12:08] Senior Engineer Nicole He: We also have partnering agencies. We worked together with Cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County with two different departments, Public Health, Roads & Airport, VTA, Mission College, Santa Clara University, the Unified School District, and Silicon Valley Bike Coalition. So it's a very diverse group that brings their perspective into the program recommendation.

[00:12:35] Senior Engineer Nicole He: In terms of outreach strategies, as I mentioned before, we really try to foster that two-way communication with the community. So there are, we try many different ways. We have a dedicated project webpage, a hotline, an email for people to send in their comments. We also push out regular updates through city newsletters and social media.

1.B 25-1103

[00:12:37] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: You know what, I'll go ahead and give you two more minutes so you can explain since the reason we're here is because of you, so... yes.

[00:12:43] Akos Szoboszlay: Okay. Uh, State law gave no authority to prohibit bicyclists and pedestrians from expressways. They... they only authorized prohibiting from freeways. Staff took the definition of a freeway... one of the requirements of a freeway is all right of easement of access must be acquired. That means 100% of property owners along the freeway must have signed a contract that they will never, ever walk or bike or drive onto the expressway from their private property. Well, what City staff did was they claimed that every block is a completely separate and independent freeway from every other block. And then the staff claimed, City staff, that northbound lanes are a completely separate freeway, uh, from the southbound lanes. Or there... I'm talking about Lawrence Expressway.

1.A 25-264

[00:13:02] Senior Engineer Nicole He: We also gave out free safety items, you might have seen some of those at our RNY event, various pop-ups. And we also have a street sign, like I mentioned, there were over 150 signs out there on our city streets. We also advertised the project at VTA bus shelters along El Camino Real which is the state route. We also created an educational video about avoid distracted driving.

[00:13:29] Senior Engineer Nicole He: In terms of project activities, we did three online surveys and received really a lot of feedback from the community with 1,300 responses. And those data really gives city staff to understand the locations of near misses and you know, what change the community would like to see.

1.B 25-1103

[00:13:42] Akos Szoboszlay: So, uh, wherever you have a driveway, that is proof that the right of access is not required. So City staff... and I... that's the one thing we could agree on. So, totally randomly, they removed 'Pedestrians Prohibited' signs, after the City Council repealed it, where there was a sidewalk in that block and then on that side of the road. Well, there was a change in management, uh, at County Roads, and the new manager completely agreed with me that... that City staff's idea is ludicrous. It's very dangerous because it forces pedestrians to go from one side of the road to the other, needlessly, which is the most dangerous. So he ordered all 'Pedestrians Prohibited' signs removed from Lawrence Expressway. So that's the reason there... that you have gaps.

1.A 25-264

[00:13:52] Senior Engineer Nicole He: We had four community workshops, some of them are in-person where people actually working on a map together as you can see in the picture. Six pop-up events. And we also brought this project to three different city commissions: Parks & Recreation, Senior Advisory, and Youth Commission to get feedback. And lastly five BPAC meetings with the last one approved the draft Vision Zero Plan.

[00:14:13] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And what did we hear from the community? These are the top concerns that I want to highlight. Speeding and distracted driving. Poor visibility at intersections. Lack of separated bikeways. Lack of pedestrian infrastructure. And lastly more education, more traffic enforcement, and traffic calming measures on our streets. Those are the key themes that we heard.

1.B 25-1103

[00:14:40] Akos Szoboszlay: Then, it is... where do pedestrians walk on expressways if there is no sidewalk? They walk adjacent to the curb, the edge of pavement. They are always further away from bicyclists... from cars than the bicyclists because most bicyclists ride near the solid line because it's safer, they are more visible and less debris, less flat tires. Now... now I'll continue with my regular speech. Staff completely ignored the Council meeting of March 25. I quoted the video after my speech. Mayor Gillmor said, 'Can we by consensus refer this to staff?' Councilmember Suds said, 'Yes'. Then Mayor Gillmor said, 'We are referring, so thank you.' But staff dropped the matter. That is why I kept coming back to Council.

1.A 25-264

[00:14:43] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And then on the right, this is a map from our first online survey where we allow people to interactively put down a dot, you know, and note what the concerns are, whether it's a pedestrian or a cyclist safety issue. So the bigger the bubble you see on the map means more comments are made. And everyone can see the comment, so we can collect all the feedback.

[00:15:07] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So I just want to point out, like the three biggest area we see is the Kiely/Homestead area, the Lafayette Street in downtown, and also on the north side the Montague Expressway, Agnew Road area.

[00:15:24] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Now diving into the data collection and analysis. We looked at eight years of collision data within Santa Clara, including the collisions on County expressways and El Camino Real. So those are... on the left it's a summary table that shows the total number of collisions. And over that eight year period we see, we saw about slightly under 8,000 collisions in total.

1.B 25-1103

[00:15:35] Akos Szoboszlay: Staff also ignored the 2006 Council vote to, quote, 'take action', unquote, after the 2008 County Expressway Plan is approved. City staff never complied despite years of my reminders. That is because Highway staff lost the vote to eliminate sidewalks on all expressways. Instead, the BOS approved sidewalks on expressways. Today, staff wants to continue prohibiting use of sidewalks and also bike lanes. The 2003 Plan shown requires six foot bike lanes for both pedestrians and bicyclists. There you can see the title page, the City Council endorsement, the... the width of the bike lane and the pedestrian use. The sentence: 'Shoulders or path facilities can serve for occasional pedestrian use'.

1.A 25-264

[00:15:55] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Most of them are property damage only, but I want to point your attention to the first two rows which are the traffic fatalities and severe injuries. So 51 fatal collisions and 139 severe injury collisions. So that's a total of 190 what we call KSI collisions. KSI is a very common acronym that you will hear me speaking throughout my presentation. It represents the collision resulted in someone being killed or severely injured. So on average in that eight year period we have about six to seven fatal collisions and 17 severe injuries per year.

1.B 25-1103

[00:16:35] Akos Szoboszlay: Prohibitions are not based on logic, but history. Staff ignores the fact, completely ignored, that Montague and Central Expressways with the same bike lanes and some sidewalks are allowed by Santa Clara and all other cities. Sunnyvale allows all expressways. Santa Clara prohibits bike lane and sidewalk use on Lawrence and San Tomas sporadically, due to tactics of staff who for decades fought to oppose them. Please repeal this discriminatory, unjust, and dangerous Resolution 5603. Thank you.

1.A 25-264

[00:16:38] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And if you take that 190 KSI collisions and plot it by year, that's where you see the chart on the right. And that gives you an idea of how the trend is going. It did slightly increase from 2016 and then peaked at 2023. 2023 is the most recent year of data when we first started the project but for this presentation we added the 2024 data, preliminary data for your review too. So it went down from 35 to 32. So, but overall you can see a increasing trend.

[00:17:14] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So here is one of our key findings, is that pedestrians and cyclists are most vulnerable. If you're only looking at all crashes, the cyclist and pedestrian involved crashes are about 7%. But when you zoom in and look at the KSI collisions, they made up about 35%. And that's really because our pedestrians and cyclists do not have the level of protection like people riding in a vehicle. So the priority is to look at pedestrian and cyclist safety in Vision Zero.

1.B 25-1103

[00:17:23] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Um, Ken, come up please.

[00:17:25] Ken Kratz: Yeah, hi. Uh, my name is Ken Kratz, and I'm a resident, and I'm a retired City of Santa Clara Public Works Inspector, and I am on the City's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and I'm also a member of the City's Vision Zero Working Group. Please repeal this Resolution 5603, a resolution prohibiting pedestrians on sections of Lawrence and San Tomas Expressway. According to the network screening tables in the draft Vision Zero Action Plan, there are very few problems along the expressways compared to other locations throughout the City, which are primarily located at intersections. Uh, there are fewer intersections and driveways along expressways, helping to make them safer than alternatives.

1.A 25-264

[00:17:54] Senior Engineer Nicole He: This slide, we looked at recurring collision patterns in Santa Clara that led to a fatal or severe injury crash. And these are the top nine collision profiles. And I just want to point out a few most common primary collision factors. Driving under influence is one of them. Speeding is another one. Turning vehicle conflicts and vehicles running the red light or stop sign. So really understanding these profiles help us to propose targeted safety interventions to stop a fatal crash happen.

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[00:18:20] Ken Kratz: I've lived next to expressways in my neighborhood for over 45 years, and I personally use the expressways for cycling and walking to nearby destinations, and I've seen other people use them now... in... in actually use areas where they've got it red. So they're actually using it. I have been walking and riding my bicycle for over 25 years along expressways, primarily Lawrence and San Tomas, to get to work here at City Hall, to go shopping for food, hardware, bike repairs, parts, and I go to the dentist, the bank, and I visit friends and occasionally go to restaurants. I also walk on the new sidewalk along Lawrence Expressway to visit Kaiser Hospital. Using the expressways saves a lot of time to get to those destinations. My wife, Diane, also is interested in bicycle access to expressways, and was also part of the effort to open the expressways to bicyclists. She won a court case after getting ticketed for riding on an expressway. Thank you.

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[00:18:34] Senior Engineer Nicole He: We also mapped where all the collisions happen in Santa Clara and identified the locations, intersections, and roadways that experienced the highest number of KSI collisions. And that's what we call a High Injury Network here, HIN. Another acronym. But this is really a tool that we can use to prioritize our investment because one of our key finding is that the collisions are happening on a small amount of streets.

[00:19:06] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So if we tackle the High Injury Network first, we can see, we can maximize the safety benefit we see through the investment. So about 60% of all collisions occur on 16% of our streets. And those are the blue lines that you see in the map on the right. And that's our High Injury Network corridors.

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[00:19:20] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right, thank you. Do we have any other members of the public that would like to speak on this? Seeing none, I'm going to go back to staff... and I know we have our County Roads person here, so if we can get a response to these questions... and we literally have about 10 minutes max. No pressure.

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[00:19:24] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And among those about 23 streets shown on the previous slide, we also want to identify our top 10 as we only have limited resources. So here are the top 10 corridor, priority corridors. And these really align with what we heard from the community. Many of them are along schools like Monroe Street, and El Camino near the Santa Clara University. So, and we also included very detailed exhibits of what the conceptual design looks like in the appendix of the Vision Zero Plan.

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[00:19:41] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Okay, uh, try to go through this quickly. Pedestrian prohibition... uh, as Councilmember Hardy mentioned. Uh, why are we talking about bicycle? Uh, this is regarding pedestrian prohibition. Actually there is no prohibition of bicycle traffic on the expressway right now. Uh, I only mention bicycle, uh, because the County adopted the Active Transportation Plan which expands pedestrian and bicycle facility on the expressway. So, uh, I want to highlight, it's... uh, the interest is pedestrian access at this time.

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[00:20:04] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Now going into the solution part. Countermeasure Toolbox is a wide range of engineering measures that we included in the plan that really recommended by state and federal best practices. So the countermeasures are grouped into six different categories. And I'm showing one or two examples for each, but the full list of countermeasures is also included in the plan.

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[00:20:18] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Uh, regarding the piecemeal sidewalk near Nvidia on San Tomas Expressway. Those sidewalks was constructed by projects, so they are not continuous, so they are kind of piecemeal on that section. Uh, luckily Nvidia is expanding, so that section on San Tomas, uh, south of Walsh, should be expanded as well. Uh, in regard to bicycle and pedestrian consistency. Similar to regular neighborhood street, we have bike lanes or where bicycle can travel on a vehicle lane. We don't encourage or generally permit pedestrian to uh, walk on the roadway, uh, because there... uh, sidewalk is a... is there. And generally when we uh, advertise that uh, pedestrian can travel uh, on a certain section of the roadway, we are considering all pedestrian of all abilities. So uh, able-body and uh, uh, pedestrian with disability. So uh, that's... that's why this concern that uh, expressway where there's no sidewalk, it does not accommodate pedestrian of all ability.

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[00:20:33] Senior Engineer Nicole He: For roadway segment, we have road diet which involves a traffic lane reduction and usually we add a center turn lane for that to allow safer vehicle turning. Access restriction is another one to eliminate conflict of vehicles. Second category was intersection design with closing the slip lane, that allows vehicles to better see the pedestrians when they're making the right turn. High visibility crosswalk.

[00:21:01] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And for signal modifications, a couple more example here. Protected left turns. Lead Pedestrian Interval is another common one. It gives the pedestrian a few seconds of head start before the vehicles making their turns. So really increase the visibility of our pedestrians.

[00:21:22] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Signs and markings. A couple example here is retroreflective backplate, advanced stop bar. As for speed management, we have speed feedback sign, speed humps. Bicycle and pedestrian improvement, we have separated bike way and curb extension.

[00:21:39] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And besides all the engineering solutions that I mentioned, the Vision Zero is really a comprehensive framework that includes programs and policy updates. Again just to reiterate, it's categorized into five different categories including strategies on education, speed management, enforcement, engineering design. So we grouped them into Safer People, Safer Speeds, Safer Streets, Safer Vehicles, and Post-Crash Care. And we have about 30 strategies in the plan.

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[00:21:40] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: In regards to, um... the vehicle code, uh, in uh, restriction. Uh, it's only enforceable when a company signage is put in place. Where there is existing sidewalk, there's no uh, pedestrian prohibition signage uh, installed. Uh, staff reviewed it, and uh, we did not find any uh, prohibition sign where there's existing sidewalk. There may be signage adjacent to Creek Trail, but that's to uh, prohibit pedestrian from walking on the shoulder of the expressway, not from walking on the trail, San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail.

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[00:22:14] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And on this slide I want to highlight some key near-term recommendations for city to implement. We want to update and modernize our Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program that was from 1999. Improve our priority corridors, the top 10 projects that you see previously. And also formalize a multi-department post-KSI collision review process. And lastly focus enforcement and education on the High Injury Network corridors.

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[00:22:15] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Uh, in terms of Central and Montague Expressway. Uh, the City lifted pedestrian, bicycle and motor cycle prohibition on Central Expressway in 1982. Uh, there was no staff report explaining the action of that time. Uh, possibly, because as Akos mentioned, it was tied to past Vehicle Code 21960 that require full access right before restriction can be placed. Uh, however, that was changed by SB 1233 in 2004, which modify the vehicle code to allow restriction even without full access right. And for Montague Expressway, there are uh, sidewalk there uh, at this time, uh, but that expressway was built in the mid to late 1970s, and was not part of the original 1966 expressway prohibition. And uh, moving forward from 2006, the City Council's direction has been for the County to lead pedestrian prohibition effort where appropriate.

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[00:22:44] Senior Engineer Nicole He: Progress and Transparency. After the adoption of the plan, we want to update the Vision Zero webpage regularly, develop annual reports, and also update the entire plan every five years or as necessary to meet grant requirements.

[00:22:59] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So that summarizes the plan. I want to take my one more minute just to discuss the program implementation and next steps. So without dedication of resources, the success of Vision Zero program can be very limited. So in terms of staffing resources for Department of Public Works, we're looking for one new Senior Civil Engineer and one Assistant Engineer.

[00:23:22] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And these two people will oversee the program implementation including grant applications, working on the projects, implementing the programs, policy updates like the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program, and also continue coordination with the Vision Zero Working Group. And as for Police Department, we're still in internal discussion, we will have a better understanding when we bring it back to you next time.

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[00:23:27] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: I think uh, that's the question I have written down. Uh, any additional input from uh, Chris Lam, uh, Roads and Airport?

[00:23:34] Chris Lam: Uh, thank you Steve and thank you Mayor and City Council for uh, having me here tonight. You know, I think the... the County Roads and Airports Department has... has a long standing uh, and... and very positive relationship with the City of Santa Clara Public Works Department. So we... we definitely work hand in hand, uh, and... and are in regular communication on... on all of these issues uh, regarding expressways through the... through the City of Santa Clara. Um, you know I think there... there... there were clearly some... some actions taken in 2006 that... that required some follow up. Um, the County is committed to... to continuing those efforts uh, today.

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[00:23:49] Senior Engineer Nicole He: In terms of the estimated program costs, we broke it into four different categories. Number one, the capital projects, the top 10 project that you see previously in 2025 dollars, that's, our estimate is about 93 million dollars. And we anticipate that most of it will come from grant funding with city funds as a match.

[00:24:15] Senior Engineer Nicole He: And as for non-capital projects, this includes all the consultant services for policy updates, ongoing educational program like Safe Routes to School, any educational campaign, and online dashboard, et cetera. So that's 3.8 million dollars. As for Vision Zero program, as I mentioned the staffing level cost, Public Works with those two positions that I showed you before, five years that will be 3 million dollars. And Police Department that's TBD right now. But overall our current estimate is a little under 100 million.

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[00:24:21] Chris Lam: Uh, additionally, as... as Steve mentioned, the... the County adopted its first Active Transportation Plan uh, earlier this year in June. The... the vision of that Active Transportation Plan as it relates to the County expressway system uh, foresees a... a Class 1 uh, bike path built on... on every expressway in the County. Uh, that's... that's a large endeavor, as you can imagine. The... the County has really one segment that... that has that in place. That... that's in Santa Clara, that was through a partnership with... with the City of Santa Clara along the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail. Uh, there's other projects that have funding assigned to them, and the County is... is actively looking for... for grant funds for... for a number of studies and the eventual implementation of those... those projects. But uh, over... overall the... the County is... is uh, uh, in support of... of those recommendations that were... that were made by uh, Mr. Chan in terms of uh, regarding this... this uh, this discussion tonight.

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[00:24:54] Senior Engineer Nicole He: So as for next steps, we're gonna take December to finalize our Vision Zero Action Plan and really get your feedback tonight. And we're looking to bring it back to you in Spring 2026 for final adoption. And after that we can apply for upcoming grants like the Safe Streets and Roads for All implementation grant program and also continue our Vision Zero Working Group coordination with different stakeholders. So that wraps up my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions.

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[00:25:22] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Uh, Councilmember Jain, you have a question?

[00:25:25] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Yeah, um, I had a question regarding the comment that, you know, we have bike lanes in the street, and then we have sidewalks and, you know, uh, bikes are supposed to be on the street, pedestrians on the sidewalk. But we have runners that run on our streets because it's smoother and safer for them, for ankle twists and, you know, debris from plants and everything. So we... we have many, many people that run on our streets. I don't believe they can get ticketed for that, is that correct?

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[00:25:29] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you for that presentation. It was quite comprehensive and you've all done so much work in the community to get to where we are. So thank you for putting in all that effort. I'm gonna start with questions from the council. We'll start with Councilmember Jain.

[00:25:49] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Uh, thank you for the presentation. Um, this is very important to me. Um, I have a few questions. Um, uh, I think you're talking about 100 million over 5 years, right? But the whole plan is a 25 year program. So that would be half a billion dollars, is that correct?

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[00:26:03] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: Uh, not that I'm aware of. Uh, again, I think the highlight is the able-body runner uh, on the street. Uh, you know, they could definitely, if they able uh, to be running uh, on the street on the shoulder side. But I think uh, uh, the emphasis uh, I am trying to make is that uh, if we open up to pedestrian travel, I think we should consider uh, pedestrian of all abilities, is uh, you know, the standard of care that the City uh, staff would recommend.

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[00:26:12] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: And then um, the thing is that we have Vision Zero which is to reduce fatalities, but we also have our Climate Action Plan which is our Transportation Demand Management. So as part of our Climate Action Plan and TDM, we have goals to add separated bike lanes. So you're trying to do that for Vision Zero and you're trying to do it for TDM. How does the money get separated out for those two programs?

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[00:26:30] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Well, that will be essentially impossible when you have big overpasses where the grade is just not the same. So I don't see how... Really what we want to do is we just don't want people to get ticketed for walking on the expressways. There's no reason for people to be ticketed for walking on expressways.

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[00:26:39] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um, and then, you know, I really like quick build, um, experiments like on Monroe you've added all those bollards. And I'm wondering can somebody explain to me how effective those have been in terms of uh, reducing collisions and and injuries um, to mostly school kids that ride Monroe. Um, I ride a lot to get to Wilcox but um, uh, you know I was in Morgan Hill today and I was on Monterey Highway. And they actually have a bike lane on Monterey Highway with the bollards there separating it out. It's very visible to show you um, where the bike lane is and it really makes people aware that there are bike lanes here. So I'm wondering if you can explain that.

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[00:26:54] Transportation Manager Steve Chan: And... and I'd like to uh, sorry...

[00:26:56] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh, City... I'm going to go to the City Manager for that.

[00:26:59] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Yeah. If it is prohibited uh, from walking on the expressways, um, we would need additional legal analysis and an opinion from the Police Department if the Council wanted to give direction uh, for uh, to the City to not ticket uh, if someone was violating the law. So.

[00:27:20] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: That's what I would like.

[00:27:21] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: That's another conversation. So, um... seeing nothing else and seeing we're going to be starting our other Council meeting in six minutes. Um, thank you so much. I think uh, City Manager, can you tell us our next steps?

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[00:27:30] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: And then we used to have a policy um, with a previous Public Works Director that did not like speed humps and speed bumps. And I'm a huge fan of them. Um, I know we have at least one on Brierwood. Do we have a number, can you explain how many we have and how effective they are? Um, and I know they have these new ones that are better for public safety vehicles, right? Can you explain what those are?

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[00:27:39] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Uh, this meeting was scheduled uh, at the request of the City Council due to the um, member of the public's comment. Uh, if there is no action or direction from the City Council, uh, staff would consider this... this item closed. So, um, happy to take any direction that the Council uh, will give.

[00:28:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Um... oh, now lights are on. We have like a minute. So Councilmember Park, and then Councilmember Jain again.

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[00:28:03] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um, and then of course um, the lighting thing is really important to me. Like I'm, we put in this really nice crosswalk in downtown, whatever we have of a downtown on Monroe Street, the rainbow crosswalk, but as I drive by there, there's really no lighting there. And I'm always afraid that I'm gonna hit somebody.

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[00:28:09] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, again, we had a number of people who... who take the bicycle lanes along Martin and Walsh. And I told them, well here's the bike plan cause we talked about this last year or some time ago. And it turns out that the bike lanes are... are there are part of the way as well. It's not just the sidewalks. There's no... the bike lanes are there part way, part way. Along the paths that we tell people to use. And I said, well I'm sure it's because we have not actually completed those... those yet. We have not completed the um, the work that we... that we uh, told staff that we wanted done to make those official bikeways. Uh, but again, this... this is one of the problems. One of the problems is it's not just along the streets, it's not just the sidewalks, it's the bikeway paths as well. If you want to get from, for example, De La Cruz over to... to um, Lafayette or even further down, there's nothing there.

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[00:28:24] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: And so, you know we we spend a lot of money on Hawk lights, those red lights that nobody can understand how they operate versus just the yellow flashing lights that I see everywhere where you don't even have to put them in the in the street, you just put like a a yellow flashing light on the sides. And I'm wondering whether the plan envisions that.

[00:28:44] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Finally, the real key thing is since the pandemic people forgot how to drive. And I see people just rolling through stop signs and rolling through red lights and you know, just people, we have to have really good police traffic enforcement to teach people how to drive again. And you know, maybe it requires red light cameras so you catch people um, going through red lights and punish them and the word gets out. So those are my comments. Thank you.

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[00:28:55] Councilmember Kevin Park: That's true. That's true. But I'm saying that... and that, again, is only required because they cannot take the expressways to go down. Uh, I would like to move that we continue this item rather than simply close it. If there... is there a way to continue this because I feel like there's a lot of other things I would like to ask that we are not going to have time for right now. But I would like to make a motion to continue this item.

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[00:29:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh, Councilmember Chahal.

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[00:29:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Jain?

[00:29:20] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: I also don't want to just close this item. Um, there is some work that staff could do on this, and I'd like for staff to come back to us.

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[00:29:24] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Thank you Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate that. Uh, few question I know Councilmember Suds asked some of those but I wanna uh, do we have a comparative data with our contiguous cities? Like how they are doing and how is their KSI data is compared to our KSI data for last 8 years? Because uh, we cannot be uh, like a silo ourselves unless our neighboring cities, contiguous roads help us out and uh, make it, all the roads uh, safe basically.

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[00:29:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Um, if... maybe you can articulate what other work you want staff to do on this. That would be helpful to the staff, I think.

[00:29:38] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Mayor, I expressed that already. That would be what would be the implications of not ticketing, having a policy of not ticketing or have very zero or minimal fines for something like this. Um, just posting a sign 'No Pedestrians'. It... you know, like when you... when you violate littering, they tell you it's a minimum, you know, $400 fine. If you run a red light, there's a minimum fine. There's no minimum fine for walking on an expressway.

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[00:29:59] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Uh, my second question was uh, we did not talk about the traffic cameras like I know San Jose has implemented some and other cities, Fremont has those. Uh, especially for uh, intersections where there are more accidents happening. I think it makes sense that uh, we should think about uh, traffic cameras uh, with a aim to punish uh, uh, like ticket those people who are jumping the lights or those things. That can be.

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[00:30:14] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Chief, do you have some comments on this?

[00:30:18] Police Chief Pat Patten: Just very briefly, I know we're... time is of the essence. The... the challenge we'd face in that, Councilmember, is we'd be running up against, say, the vehicle code, so that's a state mandate, and we wouldn't have the authority to disregard uh, validly passed law and not cite permanently. We have independent discretion, case by case, but to blanketly disregard it, it was not within our authority. That would be the challenge.

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[00:30:33] Councilmember Raj Chahal: And I fully agree with flashing stop signs versus Hawk signs. I think very economical versus putting a Hawk light over there. I see one on uh, Los Padres and Royal. Very easy to operate and uh, I think those are the things where some of the un-monitored intersections where we find fatalities or accidents happening, that can be a solution, low cost solution and uh, that can be, that can really help.

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[00:30:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: That's why I asked what specifically we're looking at for more staff work.

[00:30:48] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: But who sets... who sets the fine levels? I mean, if we made the fine ten dollars, could we set that?

[00:30:55] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Could we set the fine... could the Council set the fine to ten dollars?

[00:30:59] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: City Manager, do you want to answer this? And... and I... I'm ready for us to move on. We have a Council meeting that's going to start. If you want to continue by sending your questions to the City Manager, I think that is appropriate. Uh, to follow up on this.

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[00:31:03] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Uh, safe bike lane, that's important. And uh, vehicle free zones. I was looking at some of the European countries which follow Vision Zero like uh, Helsinki, Oslo and all those countries, they are very proactive in Vision Zero and they have reduced their fatalities to almost a minimal. I think uh, Oslo has reduced the, no fatality, something close to zero fatalities. And uh, so I know Santa Clara is uh, small city compared to those cities but we uh, we can look into ideas or places where no vehicle can be uh, no vehicle zones can be uh, implemented basically. Most of the European countries do that.

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[00:31:19] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Uh, we'll write a memo to the City Council uh, to answer the specific question of... of who has the authority to lower uh, fines for walking on the expressway.

[00:31:29] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Right. 'Cause it is County. Uh, okay. All right, thank you. Um... oh. The light is on. We have like a minute. So Councilmember Park, and then Councilmember Jain again.

[00:31:34] Councilmember Kevin Park: Uh, clarification. I wanted a clarification. Which is, again, I don't want this to be closed and come back with a report. I want there to be additional discussion. And I believe if... if we need to, I will make a motion to continue this item.

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[00:31:48] Councilmember Raj Chahal: And uh, I was also looking at uh, some of the uh, even within United States some of the uh, cities which have done great, um, uh, Hoboken in New Jersey. Uh, there is uh, I I think if I'm not wrong, last 8 years no fatalities in the city. So we should look at examples what they did and try to implement within United States. Although European countries like in Germany, Helsinki, Oslo they have done quite a bit of work in their own countries but let's, because our traffic habits, our speedings are different than what European countries are. They have smaller vehicles, smaller roads and um, speed limits are different basically. So that's uh, those are my suggestions and comments on that. Thank you very much.

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[00:31:49] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: You did, but nobody seconded it.

[00:31:51] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: I... I will second it.

[00:31:52] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: And continue, second, for what in particular?

[00:31:56] Councilmember Kevin Park: So I'm going to say I will leave it to staff to, you know, if they want to come back with reports, answers to some of these things here, but I... I would like to come back to a Council meeting where we can continue this discussion, continue to have input, and uh, talk about possibilities.

[00:32:09] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right, there's a motion, second to continue... to some unknown time for unknown issues. City Manager.

[00:32:14] Councilmember Kevin Park: I mean I'll... I'll give staff time, but I can... I'll state next meeting if you want to.

[00:32:19] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Just to clarify, uh, in case the measure passes, I do think we need explicit direction. I... I've heard a number of um, um, individual desires uh, from Council. Um, we have stated that we will come back with a memo on the authority to... to lower uh, fines for walking on the expressway. Um, Councilmember Park mentioned that staff can do additional work on this. We... we would need additional clarification on what is being requested from staff to come back with so that we know how to prepare.

[00:32:55] Councilmember Kevin Park: Because if... if I were to add, I would say that Councilmember Jain's questions about, you know, what... who... who can do fines, who can do... you know, can Council set fines, I think that would be fine. But again, this is one of those things where, um, I have additional potential questions that may lead to... to um, other actions, and I would like to be able to ask those. And I'd like to be able to continue this discussion even if there isn't additional staff work that is prescribed by... you know.

[00:33:23] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I... I... I'm going to... I'm going to interject here because why don't you submit your questions to the staff because we... you can't clearly articulate what they are right now. So, our staff is very busy right now. So, if you want to articulate your questions, put them in writing and send them to the City Manager and City Attorney, and then we can deal with them at that time. But a continuance just for the sake of a continuance without clear direction, it doesn't make sense and makes our staff work on something they're not quite clear on what they should work on. And we need to move on. So, let's vote on this continuance. I'm not supporting it. I think that you... you should put your questions, whatever they are, your comments specifically, and send them to staff. City Attorney.

[00:34:09] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: As a second, I had a comment. Um, I was...

[00:34:12] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: No, I'm... to the City Attorney.

[00:34:15] City Attorney Glen Googins: I had no additional comments, Mayor. I'm... I... I would wait for the vote on this matter to proceed.

[00:34:22] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Thank you. Uh, Councilmember Jain quickly, and then we're going to vote.

[00:34:25] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Yes. I would like to continue it till after FIFA.

[00:34:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: After FIFA for a year? Okay. July of 2026. That doesn't make any sense. All right. Assistant City Clerk, we have a motion and a second.

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[00:34:39] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Gonzalez.

[00:34:42] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Thank you Madam Mayor. Um, and thank you for the report. Just uh, sorry I didn't get this question to you earlier but um, as far as um, do we have any oversight? I know that maybe permitting process and things, but like uh I'm just thinking about events like at around the stadium, how uh traffic patterns might affect uh, you know the uh ingress to the those locations uh, even egress as well. But I'm thinking about ingress when uh, when you have people backing up out onto the street and even even like the um, what's that roundabout at the Costco here on Coleman where you have a lot of times you have tra, you know cars just uh, out on on the street because they're trying to uh either figure out that that roundabout and things like that. So do we have any oversight over the private property? And what they do um, as far as traffic patterns on their property that might um, push things out onto the street?

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[00:34:59] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Please register your vote.

[00:35:07] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. That passes 4 to 2. Um, we'll see this item next July 2026. And hopefully, um, you can clearly articulate what you want the staff to work on prior to then. Thank you. Yes.

[00:35:25] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Mayor, just want to note that this item will likely come up again when we bring back additional information on Vision Zero, which is actually planned for before July 2026.

1.A 25-264

[00:35:35] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: And and just just one thing that kind of came up with uh, as Councilmember Chahal was mentioning. Do we see that um, is there any correlation with better transportation systems, public transportation systems and and the different um, KSI numbers? Whether it's here in the nation or in other in other another nations? Thank you.

1.B 25-1103

[00:35:36] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: But the motion was after FIFA. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for this. We're going to take a seven minute break and we'll be back.

1.A 25-264

[00:35:59] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Um, that's it for the council questions. Uh, you have to turn on your light if you want to talk. Councilmember Park. You just did.

[00:36:09] Councilmember Kevin Park: It turned itself off. Yeah. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you very much for the report. Um, I, every time I see a report done on fatalities, I always wonder if we've got a survivorship bias. Like do we have breakdowns of finer details on the fatalities and the serious injury accidents? Um, meaning that those aren't aren't necessarily the people that are gonna come to and answer the surveys. And I want to make sure that we're looking at the data that that are there.

[00:36:42] Councilmember Kevin Park: Uh, I'd also like to do a breakdown on age. I mean I kind of want to do an analysis of all the the serious injuries and if we can have other people come in, uh, family members, other people you know that saw the accidents, you know give their input as well. Uh, I don't know if we we have a habit of taking those as uh input when when the injuries happen. I'm sure we do but I'd just like to see that be useful somewhere.

[00:37:03] Councilmember Kevin Park: I also noticed that uh, we have one really small section along Central Expressway between De La Cruz and Lafayette. And we just put a uh, a different type of crossing underneath the freeway there. But it concerns me that you know we've got that short, very short stretch that uh, is you know very accident prone. Uh, I'd like to know if there was a difference between uh when we put in, when we made the changes to that that underpass uh and the, you know before and after. And I'd kind of like to know why that stretch is so problematic. Because in the future if there, BART comes in, I believe that that connection is going to be very important to get from BART to any anywhere.

[00:37:47] Councilmember Kevin Park: I have a personal belief that Lafayette will be a major thoroughfare and there is no way to grow Lafayette. I mean it is it is confined by transmission lines, by railroad, by other things. And uh this is, and Lafayette is the the quickest way, the shortest uh shot to the train station, to the stadium, to almost everything that's going to be in our future Entertainment District.

[00:38:11] Councilmember Kevin Park: Uh, I agree with vehicle free zones. Uh, I think that we should not only be looking at where we can put in vehicle free zones but we should look into maybe in 5, 10, 20 years, how can we remove how can we remove traffic from every 10th street? I mean I think that this is a really big um, I mean it's a really big statement or a goal to say we want to remove uh traffic from every 10th street. I'm not saying everywhere. But uh I think we need to look at how we make uh roads that are just there for parking access, for houses, how we can make those into um paseos, places where people are feel safe to walk.

[00:38:56] Councilmember Kevin Park: Um, it's not something that's going to be easy to do but I think it's something that if we can solve this problem and we can change uh future developments so that we don't need streets, we don't need a street alongside every single house, um well we don't need streets to have cars. I think that would be a very very good thing as well.

[00:39:15] Councilmember Kevin Park: Um, I also noted that we don't I mean we we take all these surveys. I don't know how seriously we we do. I mean we get a lot of input from people who are very concerned. But uh how do we get input from people who who don't necessarily care about surveys but use these use these pathways um, you know that have been in accidents that come in, have a near near uh accident and then leave because they don't live in the area? Like I'm I am kind of concerned about that.

[00:39:43] Councilmember Kevin Park: I know that at the National League of Cities, they're very big on um camera infrastructure. I mean they talk in terms of um, uh what is that, license plate license plate reading technology, LPR. But I feel that if we're going to put an LPR maybe we should have something in there that can uh also look at what the traffic is like is like.

[00:40:04] Councilmember Kevin Park: Uh last thing is I know along Kaiser Drive there's a road diet. I mean we've actually extended out the the um sidewalks. We've kind of narrowed it at the intersections. But that actually creates a bigger problem because now people are much closer to the cars. When the cars are you know going at high speed around that restricted restricted way and then they see at the last minute that oh my goodness, it's it's actually a smaller a smaller street than than you know I expected. And then now you've got people that are really close to the cars as they're still going very fast into the restricted restricted uh ways. I I kind of believe that those um, there must be another way to you know keep people away from the the edges uh as they're extending out into the streets and slow people down.

[00:40:50] Councilmember Kevin Park: Um, I almost feel that there should be, you should keep the the people stopped uh where the normal sidewalks would be and then, you know if there's going to be restriction of any kind, I don't want people waiting there as cars are are coming around because I don't believe that slows down the cars. Um, uh I also you know I know that people don't like uh speed bumps. Um, Councilmember Jain was talking about um speed bumps. I think that speed bumps do slow things slow things down. And people who've gone through a speed bump at high speed, you know probably won't do that again. Um, I I think at some point uh I would like it not to impede public safety. And I think that Councilmember Jain was asking about something, you know improvements there. But again I I think that all things should be on the table when we're considering safety. Thank you.

[00:41:39] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Hardy.

[00:41:44] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Thank you. It's so nice to see so many of you. It makes me think of BPAC and I do miss you all. I will say that. Obviously uh, this is very near and dear to my heart. We've worked a lot on this. Um, when you mentioned the toolbox, uh you listed for each one of those um possibilities, but I was wondering what criteria you would use. Is it specific to something or is there a statistically best situation given given different possibilities because we know we have different tools in our toolbox? I wondered what criteria you were using.

[00:42:28] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Also when I look at the map on page 6 of the report and it shows different hot spots, and I remember noticing this when we first looked at it, that our state highway, El Camino, and our four County expressways, Lawrence Expressway, San Tomas, Montague, and Central are, especially those intersections, those are considered hot spots. But when I go down to page 24 of the report, I find something that's doesn't quite make as much sense statistically to me. So I want to understand. It says the majority of, this is at the top of page 24, the majority of collisions during the study period occurred on city owned and maintained facilities as seen in Figure 5. Collisions on County expressways accounted for approximately 15% of collisions while collisions along State maintained facilities, El Camino, accounted for only 10%. So I wanted to understand that.

[00:43:43] Councilmember Karen Hardy: We know that Monroe is a concern, obviously. We've been very very concerned about that. So the Council over the past couple of years has approved a plan for Pruneridge, one for Benton, and one for Monroe. If we pass this Vision Zero, because the concern is those have been passed but we don't have the funding to do those plans, would this help us with this? Is what I want to understand because those are already approved.

[00:44:09] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Uh, when we talk about uh speed humps and bumps, uh Brierwood neighbors who begged us for this many years ago, every time I go to any of their neighborhood activities, they hug me and thank me because they said it has made such a difference for their neighborhood and they truly appreciate it. Um, also Cabrillo right there at Brierwood at the intersection where we have put a stop sign. The neighbors on Cabrillo are telling me that really helps with people coming off Lawrence Expressway going very very fast or people trying to get to the light. And that stop sign has made a difference and they are, once again I got great big hugs. That was very nice.

[00:44:57] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Now when we talk about enforcement, that obviously will come from our police officers. Uh, in the past cameras have been, I'll put it this way, lawyers have fought against that saying that someone should be able to fight against someone seeing them and cameras are not as well a, not the best way to give a traffic infraction because you, it's hard to see the driver. I've always wondered, could we go to the car gets the infraction, not the driver? And especially with us having uh Waymo, we know that they are driving in our city and that's a car without a driver. I'm wondering why we do not go after the car or whoever it's registered to instead of the driver. It would also make someone very careful about who they let take their vehicle.

[00:45:53] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Also years ago I remember showing a lot of data that left lagging lights seemed to be very very helpful. And the idea was to let the through traffic go and then allow left turners. But and they've done this in downtown San Jose, where they allow left hand turn unprotected when there's no oncoming traffic, it's with a yellow light flashing, and then it goes to protected only if cars are still waiting in that lane. And I know many times I have sat, not happy, but sat at a stop light where there's no oncoming traffic, I could have turned left but the light is red so I do not. And then about the time cars come up is when it changes for a protected light for me. And especially during quote off hours. So I've wondered if we've looked at that because I knew we know we have a new system that allows us to uh adjust better. So that was, those were my specific questions that I did not hear specifically. Oh, yes. I did ask about, I wanting to know if that those approvals, if we'd be able to get some funding for those that we have approved. Thank you.

[00:46:59] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, that's it for the council. Um, but in because of time, I'm gonna actually go to the public. I have three public members at least that want to speak so at least we can get all the questions in. Um, we do have another close, we have, keep saying close session, study session item as well that we have to get through. So I want to make sure I get to the public. So we're gonna start with um, Akos? Come forward please.

[00:47:24] Akos Szoboszlay: Akos Szoboszlay. With me is Ken Kratz. I'd like to yield my time to Akos. How many minutes do we get?

[00:47:36] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh, two each, so that's four minutes. We can start all over.

[00:47:44] Akos Szoboszlay: Uh Ken Kratz is a long time expressway user. I have a I have a display. Uh the pedestrian maps shown are from Vision Zero. I added the circles. All pedestrian crashes on expressways were at intersections, red and blue circles. So, none were in bike lanes or on sidewalks. Blue circles are the pedestrians' fault described below right. The red circles are not. Vision Zero maps show intersections with KSI for crossing, but does not show whether the pedestrian was crossing the expressway or crossing the intersecting street. The crash spreadsheet would, but staff would not give me a copy.

[00:48:36] Akos Szoboszlay: Next slide. However, San Jose staff did. I looked at the most used expressway by pedestrians, Capitol. And their crash spreadsheet shows the following pedestrian KSI: 19 for crossing Capitol Expressway, that's 11 year data. Zero for crossing intersecting streets along Capitol. And zero on sidewalks, paths, bike lanes and bus stops along Capitol. In fact, all expressways in San Jose, 23 miles total, and in Santa Clara had zero KSI on sidewalks, paths, bike lanes and bus stops. Vision Zero is the proof.

[00:49:22] Akos Szoboszlay: County highway staff has conflated the many expressway crossing crashes despite pedestrians allowed to cross with zero expressway crashes on sidewalks, paths, bike lanes and bus stops to try to eliminate all bike lanes in 2025. They tried to eliminate all sidewalks in the 2008 County Expressway Plan. Highway staff lost all BOS votes. Next slide.

[00:49:48] Akos Szoboszlay: Both Vision Zero Santa Clara and San Jose show that expressways are the safest roads to walk along with zero crashes. Logic explains why. Expressways have one-fifth as many intersections per mile, the main source of crashes, one-one hundredth the driveways, bike lanes and/or sidewalks, unlike De La Cruz Boulevard shown where pedestrians use the vehicular traffic lane and the speed limit is 40. Next slide.

[00:50:19] Akos Szoboszlay: Example of a detour, red route with a double crossing of San Tomas Expressway forced by prohibiting the shortest route, green. Another example: The 'Pedestrians Prohibited' signs on San Tomas bike lanes, green route, forced people to use the next bridge to cross the railroad, Scott Boulevard. This added a one-mile walk, red route, and a double crossing of the expressway. Today, people use the Creek Trail. The remaining 'Pedestrians Prohibited' signs mislead drivers to not expect pedestrians on the road, thus further increasing crossing crashes. The BOS approved guide signs, not 'Pedestrians Prohibited' signs. To solve a danger, you need to know the cause. Vision Zero's detailed crash data needs to be released. Thank you.

[00:50:39] Betsy: I'm a member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee speaking tonight for myself. Thank you to the staff for this effort and to all of the Council members who have clearly done your homework on this policy. Um, education and enforcement can help, but engineering is likely to make the biggest difference. Education tends to be most effective if there's something new. Nagging people to drive slower doesn't work. People drive as fast as they feel like they can go, and making streets actually slower usually means changing the street itself.

[00:51:13] Betsy: Some of the engineering is going to be challenging. Carving out space for a bike lane on a road that's already been allocated entirely to moving and storing cars can be a tough sell. Cost savings can come by incorporating changes in repaving and other maintenance projects. Our Complete Streets policy and various county and regional funding sources already require improvements to pedestrian and bicycle facilities in conjunction with pavement rehabilitation.

[00:51:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Uh we have a phone number last four digits 1518 online? Unmute yourself please. 1518. There you go.

[00:51:40] Betsy: And staff have been doing a good job of preparing to have bikeway studies and other plans lined up ahead of such prospective repairs. We now have eight such studies approved, of which one, Lafayette, is currently making progress toward a build. Another plan on the website doesn't keep anyone safer. It doesn't reduce VMT or advance our climate plans or improve our safety. For Vision Zero to work, we have to adopt this plan, and we also have to commit and do something about it, both to improve the streets and to continue to scrutinize collisions that occur and evaluate the efficacy of the responses. Thank you.

[00:52:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Betsy. Uh, next we have Gavin. Go ahead Gavin, you're on... unmute yourself, there you go.

[00:52:27] Gavin Achtemeier: Hello, I'm Gavin Achtemeier. I live in Rivermark. I'll start by thanking the staff for this report and particularly for pointing out the immediate actions available to the City. The most important part of Vision Zero is the vision, and a wholehearted commitment to that vision at all levels, political and bureaucratic.

[00:52:45] Gavin Achtemeier: Vision Zero is talking about people, often kids, dying, multiple times a year, in a way that we know is preventable. Vision Zero is acknowledging that a key reason of the state and our government is to guarantee the safety of citizens, and the most effective improvement to public safety in Santa Clara today is to make our streets safer.

[00:53:05] Gavin Achtemeier: We know how. As you've referenced, there are other cities in America who have done this. There are cities nearby who are making improvements. There are other countries that have hit zero. We can do it and we need to.

[00:53:18] Gavin Achtemeier: These changes, we need to make some of these changes now. Um, we need to build as soon as we can, especially when we have the plans approved. We spent a lot of money and time getting the outreach, making sure Council has approval of these plans. I think it's time to build many of them that are on this network. We know they're important.

[00:53:40] Gavin Achtemeier: As Betsy said, many of these streets are going to be undergoing 20 or 30-year repayment projects anyway. Anytime we approach those, for low additional marginal cost, we can make these streets and should make these streets safer. What we need out of Council here is this commitment and to drive staff towards that commitment. Thank you.

[00:54:04] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Gavin. Uh, next we have Kathy. Go ahead Kathy.

[00:54:09] Mark Kelsey: Hi, this is Mark Kelsey, I'm, um, speaking with my wife Kathy here as well. Um, I applaud the Vision Zero project. I think it brings needed urgency to the, to the importance of pedestrian and safety and traffic safety in our neighborhoods. But I would urge the Council to also consider taking immediate steps and not waiting for any studies to be completed on a couple of issues.

[00:54:43] Mark Kelsey: Um, first of all is the implementation of the state-mandated daylight parking law which prohibits parking within 20 feet of an intersection. That improves pedestrian safety and it also improves driver safety as there's better visibility at intersections.

[00:55:02] Mark Kelsey: Second is parking enforcement. Parking enforcement is woefully underfunded in the city. Um, I could write parking tickets all day if you hired me, um, just around the, I live in the Old Quad neighborhood around the university, and I could certainly write parking tickets all day and I seldom see parking enforcement.

[00:55:24] Mark Kelsey: Um, it will do very little good to, to implement the daylight, um, law that the city has implemented if we don't have parking enforcement. Recently a police officer declined to cite a car parked next to a fire hydrant. I think there's opportunity for improvement.

[00:55:41] Mark Kelsey: And third, um, I, I would definitely urge the updating of the traffic calming policies. Um, when I requested traffic calming in a neighborhood street, I was referred to that 1999 policy, um, but was told that there's no funding for improvements that the city Traffic Engineering Department recognized were needed. So there are, there are steps that the Council could take immediately to provide funding for these improvements. Thank you.

[00:56:14] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Do I have any other members of the public that would like to speak on this issue? Okay, seeing none, I had one uh, follow-up question as well to add to your list.

[00:56:28] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh, knowing that we're going to um, start uh, implementing the 15 mile per hour zone around the schools, how is that, how does that play into this at all? Um, and was that taken into consideration? I think, I think our signs are up or they're coming up or at least maybe I saw a virtual sign online that, that they were coming but, but I mean I'm, I'm happy to see that but it should be around every school in Santa Clara. Is it 15 miles per hour? Yeah.

[00:57:04] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Mayor, in the interest of time, we can come back with written responses. This was a study session for presentation, Council feedback, and public feedback. We have that. Um, I think so that we can get to the next item, uh, staff can come back with written responses and the next time this item comes to you we can uh, give you a high level update on those as well.

[00:57:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you and I appreciate it. I know that you have quite a few questions and comments so thank you so much. All right we're gonna go... Councilmember Jain?

[00:57:33] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: How is the public going to see those written responses?

[00:57:39] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: We can provide them uh, on a future City Council agenda uh, as supplemental information.

[00:57:46] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Okay that's important. Yeah.

[00:57:48] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: And, and put them on the Vision Zero website.

[00:57:49] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. All right we're going to go... thank you so much for, for all the, the report. It was pretty, pretty amazing and, and complete.

CONSENT CALENDAR

[01:47:51] City Attorney Glen Googins: practice we also like to report out at a live meeting where it's being recorded so that's what I'll be doing here today.

[01:47:57] City Attorney Glen Googins: Council met in closed session on three items. Item 1A was conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation, both exposure to litigation and initiation of litigation. Action was taken by the City Council in that matter to authorize participation in litigation.

[01:48:15] City Attorney Glen Googins: The particulars of this action including the named defendants will be disclosed once the participation has been initiated to any person upon inquiry.

[01:48:24] City Attorney Glen Googins: Council also met on item 1B, conference with labor negotiators. Included in that was discussions regarding Unit 1, Unit 3, Unit 4, and Unit 9A. However, there was no reportable action.

[01:48:40] City Attorney Glen Googins: Finally, Mayor and public, on item 1C, conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation, City of Santa Clara versus Lingfelter as identified on that agenda. Council did take action to ratify the initiation of litigation in that case by a 5-0 vote with two members absent. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[01:48:59] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you, City Attorney. Our next item is Continuances, Exceptions and Reconsideration.

[01:49:05] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We have one item which is Item number 5, public hearing action on a vesting tentative map for a proposed common interest development of six single-family housing units located at 4503 Cheney Street.

[01:49:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: That was continued and there's going to be a recommendation when the item comes...

PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

[01:49:25] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: To continue to December 16th. But just, um, wanting to know, would anyone like to speak on that continuance right now?

[01:49:36] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Any member of the public? All right, seeing none, do we have any other continuances, exceptions, or reconsiderations? Staff, Council, sta- uh, public?

[01:49:52] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, seeing none, we're going to move on to our first and only special order of business this evening. For special order of business tonight, the City of Santa Clara commends the Santa Clara Swim Club in honor of their Gold Medal Club recognition.

[01:50:10] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Founded in 1951 by legendary coach George Haines, the Santa Clara Swim Club has carved its name in aquatic history, beginning with just 13 swimmers at a Santa Clara High School pool dedication. Today, the club provides a variety of programs for the community, including programs for persons with disabilities and Olympic aspirants.

[01:50:35] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: The Santa Clara Swim Club was recently recognized as a 2025-2026 Gold Medal Club by USA Swimming for its outstanding performance. This is an incredible achievement as only the top 20 teams in the entire country received this honor.

[01:50:53] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: The Club Excellence Program administered by USA Swimming is a program that identifies and recognizes USA Swimming member clubs for its commitment to performance excellence. This recognition is a testament to the dedication and excellence of Coach Kevin Zacher, his staff, and all the swimmers who continue to represent Santa Clara with pride.

[01:51:18] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: They are truly embodying what our city stands for: commitment, community, and excellence. I now would like to invite Coach Kevin Zacher to the podium to share a few more words about Santa Clara Swim Club. Kevin and friends. Yes.

[01:51:49] Coach Kevin Zacher: Thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, as you said, we were named a Gold Medal Club by USA Swimming, one of the top 20 in the country out of nearly 3,000 clubs like ours across across the entire United States. So, pretty prestigious to be named as a Gold Medal Club. We're really proud of it.

[01:52:12] Coach Kevin Zacher: That's due to the hard work of of our staff and you said, but these guys. These these kids do tremendous work. As you know, we've been out of the pool for a while. Um, and they persevere. Last year, uh, we had a schedule where they had to swim every single morning during the week, 5:30 to 7:30, five days a week. Um, and still go to school and and do all the things that kids need to do.

[01:52:37] Coach Kevin Zacher: Um, but tremendous work ethic from these kids. They work really hard. Um, I want to point out, uh, highlight a couple kids. Sharif, raise your hand. Uh, Sharif represented the United States at the Junior World Championships in Romania this past August.

[01:52:57] Coach Kevin Zacher: Mia Su is part of the National Junior Team. Um, so she's one of the top five in her event, in her best event in the entire country, 18 and under swimmers. And then Isabel Wu, Violet Rutter, Aya Gillis-Pade, raise your hand. They just over the la- either last year or this year attended the National Select Camp in Colorado Springs, um, for kids that are on track to to hopefully someday represent the United States.

[01:53:33] Coach Kevin Zacher: So. And I will say, you mentioned that we've got, you know, obviously we have kids that are aspiring to be elite, that are elite level swimmers and high ends, but we have programs that meet the needs of many different uh um constituents for the community and most of these kids started in a learn-to-swim program much like we provide.

[01:53:58] Coach Kevin Zacher: So, um, they start little, they love swimming, they get keep going and then this is what they can do. So, uh, we're really proud of them. Um, I do want to say a lot of the work that that these kids did have done over the years, it didn't just happen in the last two years, it happened swimming at the ISC when they were young. Growing up swimming at the ISC, loving being a part of that pool, being a part of that community.

[01:54:22] Coach Kevin Zacher: Um, uh, and on that note, I really want to give a shout out to Damon and his team, Carolyn and Kim Castro. We had a meeting this morning on uh some updates with the project and we're really looking forward to to that being done. So, um, thank you for this recognition. Thank you for all your support. Uh, we really appreciate it. We would not be where we are without without the city's support. So thank you.

[01:54:46] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Well, thank you for what you you've done. Let's let's also give a round of applause to their parents, family, friends and everyone who supports them.

[01:55:02] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We we know it takes a village to get this done and I think these honors are especially especially um, uh, poignant because this last couple of years has been very challenging for the Santa Clara Swim Club. And to um, to be honored in this way after all of these challenges that we're still going through, um, is is completely, I mean it's so admirable.

[01:55:27] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So thank you for for your patience with us and it's gonna get done and it's gonna be beautiful when it's done and there'll be many, many more. So we don't really quite have Olympic gold medals, but we have our Santa Clara version of them. So we'd like to pass those out, invite them up and then um, give you this proclamation and then take a uh photo with the City Council. So.

[01:55:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Oh, here we go. That's cool.

[01:56:03] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Who's first? You gonna call their names? Mia Su.

[01:56:19] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Isabel Wu.

[01:56:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Sharif Elaydi.

[01:56:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Violet Rutter.

[01:56:48] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Aya Gillis-Pade.

[01:56:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Olivia Goana.

[01:57:03] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Hannah O'Young.

[01:57:10] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Ben Dodo.

[01:57:16] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Aiden Zhou.

[01:57:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thomas White.

[01:57:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Julio Valedon.

[01:57:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Congratulations. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it. Real real gold medals.

[01:59:30] Councilmember Kevin Park: This is the internet. [inaudible] There's a council member that's been complaining about the internet connection. And I completely agree with him. The only thing I don't agree with is the solution that Comcast is the answer to everything.

[01:59:58] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Next item we have is the Consent Calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless an item is pulled for discussion. Do we have any Council comments, uh, Council, Vice Mayor Cox?

[02:00:14] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: I'd like to pull item 3L which is Action on Award of Contracts for as-needed engineering support services to Electrical Power Engineers LLC, Flynn Resource Consultants, Handron Engineering, Leidos Engineering LLC and Power Tech Engineers Inc. with an aggregate maximum compensation not to exceed 15 million inclusive of option year to be funded from the Electrical Utility Fund and the Electric, uh, Electric Utility Capital Fund.

[02:00:42] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you and thank you for reading it. Uh, Councilmember Jain.

[02:00:46] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Uh, yes, I will be recusing from Item 3G, Action on Historical Preservation Agreement, Mills Act Contract for 1458 Lexington Street. Uh, the property search shows a potential conflict of interest, uh, being that this is, uh, 980 feet from my home.

[02:01:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Anyone else? Any member of the public? All right. May I, um, have a motion to approve the Consent Calendar noting the one pulled item 3L and the, um, abstention from Councilmember Jain?

[02:02:03] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Recusal.

[02:02:04] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Sorry, recusal for Councilmember Jain.

[02:02:06] Councilmember Raj Chahal: So moved.

[02:02:07] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Second.

[02:02:07] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, we have a motion and second. Motion by Councilmember, uh, Chahal. Second by Councilmember Gonzalez.

[02:02:20] Assistant City Clerk: Motion on the floor is approved the balance of the Consent Calendar.

[02:02:27] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously. Thank you. Uh, moving on, I believe is Public Presentations. Yes, we have Public Presentations and those are reserved for items that are not on the agenda. Do we have any Public Presentations, Assistant City Clerk?

[02:02:52] Assistant City Clerk: Yes, uh, we have our first speaker is Stephen Swanson.

[02:02:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Stephen? Come forward, please. Welcome.

[02:02:58] Stephen Swanson: Well, thank you. [inaudible] hostile work environment [inaudible]

3.L 25-1573

[02:03:00] Stephen Swanson: was all military. Well, it's not. My PTSD is from the damage done here. Well the other problem is, we got another city employee that's leaving the city because the HR department can't even do a good investigation. So I want the Chief and the Police Department to investigate the building maintenance, uh, hostile work environment. I was a witness and I was never called, and they found it unfounded. Okay? I'm not happy about hostile work environments. Okay? We need to fix that.

PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

[02:03:06] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Could you start again please? Could we start his time again please? The microphone wasn't on so those at home would not be able to hear you. So.

[02:03:15] Stephen Swanson: Yeah, since I don't have much time I'm gonna make it quick. In 2008 to 2013, I I experienced a hostile work apartment, uh, work environment working for the Santa Clara Police Department. I was able to see the PD Psychologist Steve DeZoza, uh, all the way up until the time I was retired. Okay. Nobody helped me with my workman's comp, with my PTSD because I thought that...

3.L 25-1573

[02:03:30] Stephen Swanson: Your HR is in very much trouble because I just filed a workman's comp because they triggered me over my pay. You guys can't go around changing somebody's pay without notifying them. I didn't get notified. That's illegal. But HR says it's okay. And then I got a letter from HR that says they can't pay for my medical because CalPERS says so. Well, under the workman's comp they do. Okay?

[02:03:56] Stephen Swanson: And then also, in uh, 2008, when I hurt my back in 2007 December, I was on vacation, right? I'm seeing a PD psychologist. I'm seeing a VA psychologist. I'm seeing a Kaiser psychologist, psychiatrist. Okay? At the same time I'm on vacation because my back, I ran out of sick time. Paul Coffman does a, uh, a police investigation on me. My understanding is if you're under investigation you put, supposed to be put on paid administrative leave. I wasn't. A lot of bad things happened to me and nobody fixed anything. And I'd like to know why.

[02:04:39] Stephen Swanson: Okay, there's an FBI report floating around in the city because the FBI ended up investigating mine because of my ex-wife. She had security clearances up the ying-yang. So the FBI every five years, so in 2013, they came in. They took my neighbor, nailed him down at the uh, Santa Clara Police Station. He was told to sell his house and move. Captain Coffman was retired. My boss was retired. All in 2013. Katie Tucker. I retired in 2014 because I couldn't work anymore. I was so beat. Okay?

[02:05:14] Stephen Swanson: And then you guys offered me a part-time job, and I said fine, long as I don't work for the Santa Clara Police Department. I'll do work over there but I don't work for them anymore, ever. And here we are. I no longer work for the City of Santa Clara because HR can't even fix my pay. They say either work for $60 an hour or tough. Well now you guys are going to probably have to spend $37,000 to do EOC when if you paid me a hundred bucks an hour that's 370 hours of my time which equals uh, six months. Thank you.

[02:05:46] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Um, thank you. Now we can't take any action up here. Uh, we don't know the particulars of your case, but the City Manager has heard them and the City Attorney. So can you please follow up with this gentleman?

[02:06:01] Stephen Swanson: Well he has my phone number last time you told him to do that he didn't.

[02:06:05] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Well, he will this time. Thank you, thank you sir. Thank you. All right. Um, I, we I saw someone else. Are they off now? Okay. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Please come forward.

[02:06:20] Paul Gelsinger: Thank you very much. Um, am I ready to go? Okay, thank you.

[02:06:26] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead please.

[02:06:27] Paul Gelsinger: Yeah, yeah, thank you. Okay, so I've uh, submitted some documentation to the Council. Um, I'm going to just go over the high points because it's a little long. So I'm following up on a code enforcement complaint uh that I submitted November 7th, 2025 to, regarding Summerwood Apartments, located at 444 Saratoga Avenue in Santa Clara, California. Regarding multiple violations of California Civil and Vehicle codes, specifically related to unlawful enforcement of a lease addendum, coercive contract practices, and interference with tenants' rights regarding assigned and unassigned parking. The grievance extends to the entire community of Summerwood Apartments which is currently managed by Interstate Equities Corporation.

[02:07:06] Paul Gelsinger: The residents of Summerwood Apartment are in opposition to the unethical and unlawful practice of forced lease addendums, which is evidenced by the petition signed by 50 leaseholders in Exhibit D of this documentation. I'm just going to go through the document real quick here to give you an idea of what's going on. Okay, so we had a forced signature of lease addendum restricting parking access with economic duress as a penalty. On October 14th, 2025, all tenants were notified by email that vehicles without parking permits would be subjected to towing after October 31st, 2025.

[02:07:34] Paul Gelsinger: Residents were told to collect parking passes from the office as soon as possible and they needed to provide their driver's license and registration information to be eligible. When residents went to the office to obtain their permits, they were required to sign a new lease parking lease addendum as a condition of receiving the permit, even for parking spaces they already assigned and paid for under their current existing lease agreements. This was not indicated in the email we received but rather told to the residents when they showed up. Without signing, tenants were denied their permit and told they would be towed from their assigned spaces.

[02:08:07] Paul Gelsinger: The new addendum imposed material changes as listed in the document I've provided. A new $100 fee for previously unassigned uncovered parking spaces. So that leaseholders with two-bedroom units with one assigned space to their unit were forced to pay an additional $100 for an uncovered parking space mid-lease, if two vehicles were owned by the leaseholders. This is an ef- a de facto rent increase of $100 per month enforced by the landlord mid-lease. Authorization power by the tenant over the use of paid parking spaces was revoked by the landlord, no longer allowing the tenants to authorize or deauthorize anyone to park in their paid parking spaces.

[02:08:39] Paul Gelsinger: All use of personal paid and unassigned spaces for guest parking was completely prohibited, and only vehicles listed on the lease are allowed to be parked in any spaces at all. Landlord retained unilateral power to tow vehicles without notifying the leaseholder of towing a vehicle from their space. We believe this to be illegal under California Civil Code 1567, rendering the contract voidable. We make the following requests. A formal investigation into the parking enforcement policy and contract practices at Summerwood Apartments. Clarification of tenants' rights regarding the use of assigned spaces under California law.

[02:09:13] Paul Gelsinger: Intervention if the management is found to be coercively modifying lease terms or unlawfully towing tenant vehicles, and a review of the legality of charging a fee for on-site unassigned parking spaces mid-lease. Thank you very much and I hope we can hold Santa Clara landlords to a higher standard than the rest of the country. Thank you very much.

[02:09:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Um, thank you Paul. And I know you sent this to City Hall and uh we forwarded it to our staff as well. So hopefully we'll get an answer on that and how we can help even though it's private property, how the city can get involved in making sure laws are are being you know upheld.

[02:09:49] Paul Gelsinger: I thank you very much. I know if you start looking here it'll be very productive for you. There's a lot going on at Summerwood right now with this new management.

[02:09:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you for informing us. Thank you Paul. Uh, do we have any other members? Please come forward.

[02:10:05] Howard Gibbins: Hello Madam Mayor and Council and I guess uh, I'm all done with all the city events. I told you guys about Spooktacular and we did that and Jovan never showed up. Poor grandchildren never have no fun.

[02:10:22] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: He might have been in costume, you don't know. He could have been there.

[02:10:26] Howard Gibbins: You know what? Oh, okay. But anyway, Albert, um, I need to really get with you about getting some parking out there at the train station. It's kind of leveled out. I've talked to a few people from Ace management and they said yeah they're really feeling the hurt from the no parking. And uh, even the uh Amtrak, I talked to the uh, what they call a rail boss, and he said he'll kick it further up with Amtrak. Maybe one of the commissions you guys sit on or something somebody will say, hey, you know, we try to get people to vote for these traffic and pay for this and pay for that, but yet here you got something that was working that's been closed down by development that never went nowhere and also by a private company taking over city property cutting out commuters.

[02:11:18] Howard Gibbins: So I'm still really trying to get you out there to talk to people, listen to them. You know, they they are the people come into the city and work at the companies that really generate. But if their employees have to be on the highway four hours each way, mass transit is a waste of time. And that's basically what's happened out there. You've cut it by probably about at least 50% of what was coming in. Now I don't make money off of people who drive their cars and park in the parking lots because they get to stop at 7-Eleven on the way in.

[02:11:50] Howard Gibbins: But I want to see the mass transit system work, not get stalled out because private corporation wants the parking lot because their employees need parking and they don't want them to park in their property. They want your property. And if you come out you will see at 2 o'clock that parking lot meant for commuters three-quarters full. Now those guys coming in on the train getting their car and leave shouldn't be three-quarters full. Should be an empty parking lot just like the other ones along the route. And I see it's almost out of my time. I hope I get you out there. Please? And nothing more for you guys until I see what you do with that blanket.

[02:12:38] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Howard. Always nice to see you.

[02:12:41] Howard Gibbins: Okay. Thank you.

[02:12:43] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Anyone else? Please come forward.

[02:12:56] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Welcome.

[02:12:58] Public Speaker: Good evening. I'm here tonight to speak in strong support of Councilmember Suds Jain and to express my deep disappointment with the unnecessary and wasteful recall effort. One year ago on election day 2024, District 5 voters made their choice crystal clear. They re-elected Suds Jain to represent them on this Council. The election wasn't close. Voters had a clear alternative and they decisively chose Suds. That was their democratic right and their decision deserves respect.

[02:13:33] Public Speaker: Now, David Curtis, the candidate who lost that election, wants to force taxpayers to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on another election. For what? What has fundamentally changed in the last year that voters need to reconsider? Nothing. This isn't about serving Santa Clara. This is about a former candidate who cannot accept the will of the voters. If Mr. Curtis had genuine concerns about governance, he could run in again in a few years, like every other unsuccessful candidate. But instead he's chosen to weaponize the recall process, wasting precious taxpayer resources that could be used for our parks, our infrastructure, or our seniors.

[02:14:11] Public Speaker: And let's talk about temperament. Mr. Curtis has threatened Mary Grizzle, a beloved 83-year-old Santa Clara resident and tireless downtown advocate with a lawsuit, simply because she expressed her opinion about who has done more for our city. Think about that. He is willing to intimidate a senior citizen and community champion for exercising her First Amendment rights. Is this the kind of person who should represent us? Someone who threatens senior citizens for speaking their minds?

[02:14:43] Public Speaker: This behavior demonstrates exactly why voters made the right choice last November. Public service requires respect for dissenting views, not threats, not intimidation. It requires accepting election outcomes, not demanding do-overs when you lose. Meanwhile, Councilmember Jain has been doing the work we elected him to do. He's championed fiscal responsibility that turned deficits into surpluses. He has strengthened the professional leadership in the city in city management. He has been accessible to residents and he has worked across differences to get results. District 5 voters spoke clearly one year ago.

6. 25-944

[02:16:03] Public Speaker: They deserve to have their choice respected. This recall is an insult to their democratic decision and a waste of their tax dollars. I urge everyone who values democracy, fiscal responsibility, and basic decency to stand with Suds Jain and reject this cynical recall attempt. Thank you.

[02:16:28] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak? Anyone online, Assistant City Clerk? Okay, thank you. We are going to move on now to consent items pulled for discussion and Vice Mayor Cox pulled item 3L. Uh, that she read and I'll probably have to read it again. 3L. Action on Award of Contracts for As-Needed Engineering Support Services to Electric Power Engineers, LLC, Flynn Resource Consultants, Inc., Handran Engineering, Leidos Engineering, LLC, and Power-Tech Engineers, Inc. with an Aggregate Maximum Compensation Not-to-Exceed $15 Million, Inclusive of the Option Year, to be Funded from the Electric Utility Fund and the Electric Utility Capital Fund. Vice Mayor Cox.

[02:17:33] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thanks. Um, so I pulled this and I want to center my questions really around three particular areas of this. Um, our staffing capacity, the 2028 readiness and 2032 readiness that it referenced, and then in light of the Bloomberg article that we read, some of the messaging. So I don't want to detour too much from what the actual agenda item is. So I think sticking with, um, really looking on needing more clarity on why we're bringing these five engineering firms in. Uh, it's my understanding that each firm is getting a million dollar contract with the potential of a $10 million expansion on that. I want to understand first if we're filling staffing shortages in SVP or perhaps this work is so specialized that we need to recruit these outside firms. I do know that there is a staffing shortage. Um, and then I want to better understand what specific functions these firms are going to perform that right now cannot be accomplished, uh, with existing city staffing. Um, and then again, uh, we've been given several dates in terms of capacity and then peak load and I think this one talked about peak load readiness by 2032. So I want to establish facts around our current load right now. Um, if this is about contractors materially accelerating our path to that, I want to know if this is necessary to achieve the 1300 megawatt capacity projected for 2028 and then to be delivered by 2032. Um, but again, the article really painted a picture of a grid that's already maxed out. So I think it's important to talk about our current megawatt capacity, what's actually used, what's actually promised, and, um, how the ramp load is going to work so that we can clearly tell the public that we're ready to go with this. And then finally, I think that maybe what I would like to see is perhaps a study session or a greater, um, discussion agenda item brought back for clarity about maybe our messaging around SVP because again, it was such a, almost a hit job, you know, when we say that an article comes out saying that we have empty data centers, not enough power to fill what we've promised, and then the next day go to San Jose, they've got 200 gigs on our 2 gigs online ready to roll. Um, I want to know what our staff is going to do about that and our messaging. I think that one of the things I hear in the development community a lot is, uh, Santa Clara really is not a friendly place for data centers. Um, I know that we are often polarized between our Planning Commission and how we view data centers and what they truly bring to our citizens, our general fund. So in light of a really terrible message about Santa Clara's positionality, I do want to see if there's opportunity, if not tonight, then to in the long term speak to our messaging around this because I think it's critical for our infrastructure and for who we are trying to become. Thank you.

[02:20:18] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right, City Manager.

[02:20:21] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Uh, Nico Procos, Director of SVP is ready, uh, and can respond and if there's any follow up, I will support.

[02:20:28] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Welcome.

[02:20:33] Director of SVP Nico Procos: Good evening Honorable Mayor, Councilmembers. Uh, so touching on the why are we bringing in these engineering firms and I think you actually nailed it. Um, these are very specialized services offered by these, um, folks. I mean, we do have engineering staff in-house, but, um, most of these entities will provide services to, for example, to support our efforts on the transmission planning process and so those involve very intricate technical, uh, studies that we really don't have the in-house expertise. We don't even actually have the positions. So it's not a matter of filling those positions. Um, so they're very specialized towards that. And so that's why there's that need. And this, this contract is not really a new contract. We've actually been doing this for, for a long time and they work very closely with our internal staff, um, as well, um, on these different efforts. And really one of the main areas that they're focusing on is the transmission planning process. So this is the process that we go through every year as part of our expansion plan. So we're trying to figure out what projects do we need to accommodate all the future growth. And you mentioned going to 1300 and that's, that's really been our, our kind of our laser focus for the past five years. And these, these folks work very closely with our, our internal staff to make sure that we're submitting what's needed to the, the Independent System Operator as part of that process so that they can then come up with transmission to meet our needs. So you've heard about the LS Power line, um, coming from the Newark area. Uh, there's another line coming from Metcalf and there's actually, uh, on the next Council meeting, we're going to be asking for approval for a new project to support another line that's coming in. So, so it's been a very successful model. Um, you know, in terms of our own internal staffing, I mean you had a question about, um, filling some of our positions. We are struggling. I mean that's not really a secret. Um, and especially in the engineering area. I don't think that that's really unique to us. I think if you ask any of our fellow utilities, you're going to run into a similar situation. Um, but it is, it is a challenge for us and it's something that we're, you know, we're working very closely with the City Manager's Office and with HR and and we're trying to get those recruitments out to really fill those positions. But again, those positions won't do what these consultants will do but they do manage them. So they play a critical role in trying to help move that forward. Um, I think you had a question about the date of the capacity coming online. Uh, we are still currently on track. The projects are on track, uh, to meet the growth needs that we're seeing. Um, not only kind of the existing ones that are in the pipeline, but we actually are working with, uh, other entities that have an interest in coming to Santa Clara as well. And, um, I can't get into too much detail on this, but we are exploring, uh, really a lot of, uh, alternatives and and innovative ways of trying to maximize how many megawatts we can get out of our system and the neighboring grid. We're working with Emerald AI. We're working with the Stanford Bits and Watts folks and we're really trying to get into a situation where we we hear from the all the data centers, they need more power. We're trying to be creative and look at that. And we actually are in the process of working on on something, um, that will allow us to kind of optimize how we operate our system and and look at the the substation agreements that we have with the various entities that have ramp rates and are is there a way that we can kind of accelerate those? So we're trying to be creative to meet that need. I mean, I you mentioned the article. We all saw the article. Um, you know, the two entities in question, Stack and Digital Realty, we are working very closely with them on on to meet some of their needs and I think I think we're going to be close and we'll probably be bringing something forward to Council in the coming months, um, on that subject. Um, on the subject of a study session, I I think that's a great idea. Um, what I what I would suggest or throw out there is that we do have the bi-annual update, um, and that's uh scheduled right now to come back to Council on the 16th. Cover a whole host of topics. But, um, certainly that could be one way where we can kind of delve deeper into this. But certainly I mean if there's an interest in kind of focusing more on kind of the data center, uh, uh, area of all this, I think we can certainly have more discussions with the City Manager and and maybe set something up if that's the direction that the Council wants to go. I think I covered most things there but if I missed anything...

[02:29:52] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Yeah, I think in general, um, the messaging component might be for a different day and, you know, even the ability to ask, you know, what is the capacity that's actually in use right now? Have we overpromised and underdelivered and is there truth, um, to this article that's saying that we've put ourselves in a really bad situation? Again, that is not, uh, pertinent to the topic at hand which is staffing unless this staffing is directly related to increasing, uh, the transmission delivery by those dates.

[02:30:08] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Uh, through the Mayor, just on that request. Um, I think there are at least two ways that we can address, uh, what you're asking for. One, I do think, uh, when we come back on December 16th for the bi-annual update, that is a general update on the status of SVP as well as all of our power expansion projects and goals. And so at that time we can certainly have, uh, the larger discussion around, um, our efforts, uh, to increase our megawatts as well as, um, our messaging. In addition, there are key items that were mentioned in the article that relate to two customers that we are actively negotiating with. Um, some of that, um, involves an active mediation that we can communicate an update to Council in a in a different fashion. Um, as well as, um, any modifications and the modifications that the Director alluded to would be modifications to substation agreements. Those need to come before Council and so we can discuss those specific projects then. And so I guess it's three ways. One through our bi-annual update that is currently on your calendar. The other through a confidential communication, uh, regarding mediation. And the the third item through the real substation agreements that will come to you individually.

[02:30:53] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: So I guess I would just say does any of that respond in public to the article though?

[02:30:58] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: We can certainly, uh, address points that were raised in that article, um, at the December 16th meeting.

[02:31:13] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: I don't want it for me. I want it for the, the public, yeah.

[02:31:18] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Absolutely. And know that SVP and the City normally, uh, reach out to our our customers. Uh, our our data center customers, the the division does have regular, I believe quarterly meetings with all of our major customers and so a lot of the direct communication, uh, happens there. Uh, and so we understand that there was an article. Uh, we're tracking it. We on December 16th will provide the Council and the public with additional information, uh, and continue our regular outreach to to to large customers both, um, those that are active in the City and those that, uh, we talk to for business attraction.

[02:31:53] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thanks. Councilmember Jain.

[02:31:56] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Uh, yes. Um, I have heard consistently from SVP that, um, you know, the load growth for almost every city in California has been flat, but SVP has predicted this dramatic increase ramp in load growth to doubling and tripling our load. And, you know, CAISO has these clusters, they have these queues. And, you know, we have applied to them and said our growth is increasing and we've had trouble convincing them. We finally were able to convince them of this incredible load growth so they have authorized or approved these new transmission lines for us. And it's very specialized work. It's, I get it and I I see that we need, you know, these companies to come in and do system level and operational engineering support such as transmission and reliability studies, load flow analysis, project scoping, regulatory submittals required by the CAISO and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation or NERC. Um, so there's very specialized, um, work that needs to be done and again, we're building out this transmission line which is temporary work. So to hire full-time staff within SVP to handle this doesn't necessarily make sense. Um, and so that's often why we use consultants to do this work. My question is though that typically when I see agreements in our packets, I see the actual contracts. I see the scope of work or scope of services. I did not see that in in in this packet for these five contracts. And so that uh is probably why Councilmember Cox or Vice Mayor Cox had these questions about what are these companies actually doing. So it would be valuable going forward to have the scope of services in our packets so we know what we're getting for this money.

[02:33:38] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I think those were just comments or was there a question in there?

[02:33:43] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Uh, they were comments but I'm saying can we get those, uh, contracts?

[02:33:48] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Yeah, go ahead please.

[02:33:53] Director of SVP Nico Procos: There was one thing that I that I forgot that you touched on in terms of you know what's happening in our neighboring communities in terms of the data center growth and and kind of what what are some of the activities that we're doing. And, um, through the transmission planning process, uh, we actually submitted comments recently and I'm not going to read all the comments, but one of the areas that we touched on was PG&E interconnected load adversely affecting SVP's reliability. And there's a whole process to go through in terms of challenging what's happening there because we we get it. I mean there's lots of proposals to add new data centers in our neighboring communities and we have we have concerns about well what does that do to us? And so we're starting the process and I think we're also you know coordinating very closely with City Attorney's Office and the City Manager's Office in terms of coming up what are some of the things that we can do in addition to just kind of doing comments through the normal process to kind of make sure that what we have done, worked so hard to get over the years and we're talking five, ten years, I think Councilmember Jain was correct that it took forever to get them to really listen to us that like this this is real. And so what are we doing to kind of protect what I would say, I don't think this is a very good term, but our entitlement. You know, what to our to to ensure that we're able to meet, you know, those commitments that we entered into so many years ago.

[02:34:53] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Park.

[02:34:55] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, so I I would think that you'd be able to do uh provide the contracts almost immediately. I mean that's something that should go really quickly. I mean when when can we get those?

[02:35:08] Director of SVP Nico Procos: So I I might ask Dan Ballin from my group who's worked on the contract to come um speak to the status of that. I will say um and Member Jain a fair point, um, when we have the contract in substantial form, you know, we give it to you. Our job is when we don't have the contract to describe the terms and in effect you're approving it on the terms that we've presented and authorized and delegating authority to us to finalize, you know, the contract. A lot of these contracts are are relatively standard um in their form particularly vendor, you know, contracts. So you might not always see it but um Dan Ballin was on the front line of this so he can answer um your specific question regarding this contract.

[02:35:48] Dan Ballin: Yeah, the authority is for uh execute and negotiate and execute. Um, the agreement is our standard form. There was some additional language that we wanted to include um specific to independent contractors that we wanted to make sure that we covered our bases. So, um, I I don't think there was anything unusual about the template. It is based on what we've used for a lot of our standard professional services agreements, but um but but it it has a little bit of upgrades based on recent um recent templates that that template upgrades that we've done.

[02:36:28] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds: I just wanted to understand, are all of the companies doing exactly the same work or do they have their own specialties? Which gives the scope of work.

[02:36:38] Dan Ballin: Yes, they they're there will they will be doing all the same work.

[02:36:43] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: I see. Okay, that wasn't clear.

[02:36:46] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Park.

[02:36:48] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, I think that even if they're standard templates, I would think that the specific work that's being called out is would not be in the template and therefore would be useful to see the the contracts.

[02:37:00] Dan Ballin: In this case, um, it's there might be occasion where the contractor, we we're still in the process of negotiating. Some of them may push back. We haven't heard back from all the contractors. So we brought this as a negotiate and execute to allow us some flexibility to finish the the completion of those negotiations. Of course, I suppose it's it's we could always bring those contracts back.

7. 25-1519

[02:37:30] City Attorney Glen Googins: The point that I'm hearing being made is you'd you'd um you know I think you're comfortable deferring and delegating to us to manage the standard template, you know, and make sure the City's interests are are are protected and those things are included. You were interested in the sco- in the specific scope of work. And so we typically describe that in the staff report, you know, when we don't have the actual contract.

[02:37:53] City Attorney Glen Googins: But, um, I get how when there's an elevated interest in exactly what's being done, we either should be more specific about that in our RTC or at least provide you the scopes of work if they're finalized, you know, at the time that you approve. It may vary different contracts. Sometimes with unique contracts, right, you get the whole thing and we make a a um and we go through, you know, the whole thing.

[02:38:16] City Attorney Glen Googins: In other instances like this one, where it's a stan- standard uh template with some modifications still being worked out, what we really need to do is make sure at least the scope of work is substantially described to you so that you're comfortable comfortable with what you're approving. In this instance, once the contracts are finalized, they are public, you know, documents and so if the Council wants, you know, to um to see those, we can certainly transmit those once they're finalized.

[02:38:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Park, are you done?

[02:38:43] Councilmember Kevin Park: No, I mean, I I hear what you're saying, but at the same time the the item that we're we're approving is action on award of contracts. And I'm looking at authorize City to take actions necessary to implement and administer the above agreements. And and I think at some point, you know, it seems like they should be finalized by by this point.

[02:39:05] Councilmember Kevin Park: Um, to it's to execute agreements. And I think at so- at that that that point if you're saying execute agreements and that's what the action is, then to say that well, not everything's complete is very very uh disconcerting to me. I'd like I would

[02:39:19] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, I I um I I appreciate that. I I think um a lot of contracts are actually handled this way again where where we're working on a standard template with a certain range uh of of understanding that we will manage that in due course, you know, to finalize terms. You actually get a lot of contracts like this that are on based on the standard template. Um, where you are in effect authorizing us in our professional capacity to make sure the contracts say what we said we said to you that they say and they're within appropriate ranges of minor modifications of our standard template.

[02:39:59] City Attorney Glen Googins: So this isn't an unusual practice at all. I get when because I raise this issue myself sometimes when I see it, if we've got the contract, we should present it to you. But if it's a standard template where there's things that are being modified, we frequently won't and in effect you're authorizing us and delegating to us authority to finalize with the City Manager executing, him making sure that all the business terms are as we described, us confirming that and making sure uh the appropriate, you know, risk management provisions are included. So it's not uncommon to do it this way here.

[02:40:32] Councilmember Kevin Park: Okay, well, again, I I kind of agree with Councilmember Jain and usually we do see the contracts. And in this case where you're asking us to approve something that will take effect even before the next Council meeting. So at some point I would think that they should be pretty final by this point. Right. And again, even if we do have templates and they are standard standard practice things, I would think that the specific work, especially if you've got five different companies doing this, and I'm assuming you have five different companies doing this because you need the capacity.

[02:41:11] Councilmember Kevin Park: Right. That may not be, I'm I'm making assumptions now. You know what they say about assumptions. That you know, we're doing this for capacity, but at the same time, I'd like to know kind of why we're doing this. Why do we need so much of this this this one work for something that I don't know I don't know that we have something so big or so different that it would it would necess- necessitate this kind of of item.

[02:41:27] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Um, Council um uh Member Park and um the rest of Council. Let let me try and articulate. Essentially we're discussing uh through this item uh whether full contracts uh should come to Council or a description of the scope with delegation of authority. Uh in my experience here, uh little over two and a half years, uh we've done it both ways fairly frequently. Um, I feel that actually more frequently it's just the scope, uh not not not the full contract.

[02:41:46] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: It's important to note that uh the level of work that goes into negotiating contracts with our purchasing department, with the department, and the the City Attorney often means that we've nailed down the scope of work uh but we haven't finalized all of the final contract language uh but we want to proceed toward Council because of the business pipeline, uh your um tickler file on uh when we can get items on the agenda.

[02:42:11] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: You often times delegate authority based on a very clear articulated scope of work. At this point, that's almost a a necessity to continue that path so that we can do the business um um and and conduct business in a timely manner. Um, we normally uh go through all of the appropriate finalizations with the with the City Attorney's Office, with the department, um as well as the as well as the City Manager's Office.

[02:42:43] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: And so unless there's a need um to have further uh discussion and change the process for how we bring contracts to you, um my recommendation would be that we keep the process. When we are have a final contract, we will certainly endeavor uh to bring that final contract before you. If for whatever reason we do not have that final contract but we've achieved business terms, we will articulate those clearly in the staff report and req- request delegation of authority to s- to sign the final contract.

[02:43:35] Councilmember Kevin Park: Okay and and and I'm not trying to argue what we have done or what we could do. But I'm saying that for this action which is going to take place, it's going to start, the contract dates I believe start even before the next Council meeting. Uh, we should be fairly final in what what we're agreeing to. And at some point that in my head says are we asking for a little bit more money than we possibly need just to smooth over any any issues that could go on with negotiations or you know, with could this come back like.

[02:44:08] Councilmember Kevin Park: Uh, I would think that we would have the you know, the skeleton, the structure of the contracts here. And again, hearing templates doesn't make me feel more comfortable because templates don't have this kind of information. That's why they're called templates.

[02:44:23] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We're we're going in circles here. The City Manager has given a a very adequate explanation on this, so.

[02:44:29] Councilmember Kevin Park: Oh, I I don't think he has.

[02:44:31] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right, well, we're going to move on. Councilmember Jain.

[02:44:35] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um, we are on an extreme ti- tight deadline. LS Power, we really need that transmission line to go in at the end of 2028. Um, there are a lot of data centers waiting in the wings to get that power. I do not want to delay this at all. Um, so I will make a recommendation for staff's recommendation. Motion for staff's recommendation.

[02:45:05] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right, we have a motion from Councilmember Jain, couple of seconds. You can pick whoever you want, City Clerk. Yeah, the one closest to you. Uh, Councilmember Gonzalez. I just I just want to make a couple comments. First of all, we

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[02:45:20] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Been working hard for many, many years to double our power capacity in Santa Clara and bring those transmission lines to Santa Clara. And I know that it sounds like we're on sched- we're on schedule for that. I just want to make sure when they actually come to Santa Clara that we are prepared with our substations to take that power so that we can distribute it. The data center world is a small world and they talk. And what I've heard about Santa Clara recently, I actually don't like what I've heard. And the article that was put out there was deliberately negative about our our public utility, which I think is a great utility and we do amazing things. But our reputation is critical to our success in attracting and retaining these data centers. So I think protecting our reputation and delivering what we promise we're going to deliver at the time that we deliver, that we promised, is important. You can't pick up--well, I would say normally a newspaper, but people don't pick them up anymore. You can't go online to see a day, a day doesn't go by without the discussion about data centers. And it is a huge part of our General Fund budget. Data centers. They they contribute more than anything almost, they're almost pretty close to sales tax. And if we continue doing the right thing and delivering what we promise, they're probably going to, our our proceeds are probably going to exceed sales tax. So this is more critical to our city than almost anything at this point. And so the small world of data centers, we have to maintain our reputation. And so I'm just talking at a higher level as opposed to getting down into the nitty gritty, but I have to say I don't like what I'm hearing lately. So please keep that in mind and it is important that we communicate with not only Santa Clara and our residents, but communicate with the entire nation that Santa Clara is here for business. We're here for data centers like we have been since 1994. Um, we never talked about it before, but it seems like because of what's happening and how quickly the world is is changing, um that we want to make sure that we are, you know, still the West Coast, you know, leaders in this. And we want to make sure that we retain our businesses here in the city. And in order for us to do that, we have to be, um, our reputation has to be stellar. So that's what I want to to leave us with tonight. Councilmember Chahal.

[02:48:19] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Thank you, Mayor. I also want to say the business environment we are working in for last almost a year, uh the tariffs, shortage of equipment, and uh these are headwinds which SVP is trying to deal with. And uh I'm proud of what SVP has done in the past and uh all these are hurdles which are delaying some of the things, which are beyond our control. You know, some in business environment you have internal controls and external controls. Some of these are we don't even control. And uh you are hearing uh in the 10 o'clock in the night, you will hear 15% tariff, in the morning you will hear 50% tariffs. And uh that is not a good business environment for a very big capital investment like SVP. And it uh spoils relationship between our vendors and our supply chain issues. So given the circumstances, they are working very hard and uh to fix the things. So I commend that and uh I'll support the motion.

[02:49:27] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Assistant City Clerk. Uh, motion by Councilmember Jain, second by Councilmember Gonzalez for staff recommendation. Please register your vote.

[02:49:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: And that passes 6 to 1.

[02:49:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Uh, we're going to Public Hearing, General Business, Item Number 5, Public Hearing: Action on a Vesting Tentative Map for Proposed Common Interest Development of Six Single-Family Housing Units Located at 4503 Cheeney Street. The recommendation is to open the public hearing. I'll declare the public hearing open. And I'm going to ask for a motion to continue the item to December 16th, 2025 City Council meeting.

[02:50:15] Councilmember Karen Hardy: So moved.

[02:50:20] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Second?

[02:50:23] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Second.

[02:50:25] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on this item? Anyone online? Seeing none.

[02:50:39] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Councilmember Hardy was the maker of the motion. Who was the seconder?

[02:50:42] Unknown Speaker: Chahal.

[02:50:45] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Chahal. Thank you.

[02:50:53] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Motion is to close the public hearing?

[02:50:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: The motion was to continue until December 16th. I believe it was December 16th, 2025. Date certain December 16th. Please register your vote. And that passes unanimously.

[02:51:15] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Next item is Public Hearing, Action to Approve Amendments to the Proposed 22-Unit Single-Family Residence Project at 1957 Pruneridge Avenue to Allow for the Installation of Natural Gas Stovetop Appliances. Um, I will be recusing myself on this issue. I don't have a current conflict of interest, but I might have a potential one in the future. So out of abundance of caution, I'm going to turn this over to Vice Mayor Cox to run this public hearing.

[02:52:20] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Staff, would you like me to read the item again? No? Okay. Uh, again, since this is a public hearing, we'll declare the public hearing open. City Manager, would you like to introduce the staff's presentation first?

[02:52:35] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Uh, thank you, Council uh and and Vice Mayor. This project was previously approved by the City Council for a 22-unit single-family home development. The request tonight is to remove a condition of approval so that gas stoves can be installed. All units will remain electric ready. This project was approved as a planning as a planned development and the proposed modification requires City Council approval even if the Reach Code no longer mandates all electric construction. Our Community Development Director, Afshan Hamid, uh will present tonight's item.

[02:53:15] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Thank you. And good evening, um Mayor and Councilmembers. And tonight, um I would like to first acknowledge staff that has been working on this item. Uh, Nimisha Agrawal, she's Senior Planner, and Lesley Xavier, who is the Planning Manager, and Alexander Abbe, um who is with the City Attorney's Office. They are all available online tonight um in case we need to um have their resources. Uh so the request uh tonight requires two actions. And it's the first two bullet points. So the first action is the Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Deck and Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program. And then the second request is approve the amendments to allow 22-unit single-family residences project at 1957 Pruneridge Avenue to allow for the installation of natural gas stovetop appliances.

[02:54:25] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Um, so the legislative action is to amend the Planned Development zoning. And Council has discretion to approve or disapprove the requested modification. Uh, because the approvals were for Planned Development, the developer at that time committed to an all-electric construction as a condition of the Council's approval of the rezone. So the commitment to all electric was cited by the Council in its findings in approving the PD zoning. Um, so the developer is coming back now before you and they are stating that the modification is necessitated to meet to for two reasons: one, to meet market demands uh for gas stoves; and two, to provide flexibility during power outages. Um, however, uh the residential units will be constructed as electric ready, uh ensuring that future homeowners have the option to convert to electric stovetop if so desired.

[02:55:25] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: So the project itself is 2.47 acres... The General Plan is Very Low Density Residential... So very briefly, uh as a background, on March 19, 2024, the City Council approved a rezone... So a quick project timeline that I wanted to go over with you... So the proposed project request is to amend the approved Planned Development to replace the 22 electric stovetops... The other um uh in order to take the actions, a zoning code conformance is also required... And then the CEQA Analysis was done. Um, our consultant is here um and our consultant David J. Powers uh analyzed the Initial Study/Mitigated Neg Dec... And um as uh pointed out, uh the Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on October 8th... So the recommendation tonight is to adopt a resolution... Thank you. And staff is available here if you have questions.

[03:03:24] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you, Director Hamid. Um, before we go to the public, we will go to Council and staff and with my very limited governance capacity and in the spirit of continuity, we will do uh all questions first and then responses from staff. Um, I think that's it. Again, uh I do have a note here and this script was drafted for me by staff that says questions only at this point. So I'll note that. We'll get to comments later. So questions first and I'll start with Councilmember Jain, please.

[03:03:55] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um, yes. Um, I guess this question is probably for David J. Powers. I don't understand how the CEQA analysis could say there was no impact on air quality given that it's well known that indoor air quality is adversely affected by natural gas versus all electric. Um, the second question is uh that these are for sale units. Uh, is it possible, are these units being sold in advance of completion? In which case, could the installation of the stovetop be delayed until the unit is sold and the appliance would be installed at the preference of the homeowner, whether they wanted induction or they wanted gas? Since the provision is there for either. If all gas is is provided, then there's an additional expense to have to switch it out to induction. So it actually makes sense to ask the the buyers at the time of purchase which they prefer. So those are my two questions.

[03:05:12] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you. Councilmember Hardy.

[03:05:18] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Thank you. I was uh more concerned about the timeframe because I noticed that the minute we pulled back the Reach Codes uh there was an application that was in February, but this did not go to the Planning Commission till November. I wondered if that is holding up the project. Thank you.

[03:05:38] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Good. I see no further questions from uh the Council so we will open this up to members of the public. Is there anyone in the audience? Oh, sorry, go ahead, yeah. Did I do it wrong? Oh ask... those were just questions. You got it. Thank you. Director Hamid.

[03:05:53] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Uh yes. Um, so first I want to clarify regarding um uh the impact. And I know David J. Powers is also here. Um, but briefly uh the ISMND said that there was a significant impact, but the impact is reduced to less than significant with the TDM measures. Um and also we don't look at indoor air quality because that is CEQA um in reverse. We look at the contribution of methane to greenhouse gases. But I will let David J. Powers um Patrick uh respond to this one.

[03:06:40] Consultant: Hello Council. Um so yeah, like uh she said, uh the CEQA analysis only functions to serve as a analysis of the impacts of the project on surrounding areas. The project would not impact itself um and we don't analyze impacts of the project on itself um as part of state law. So. Does that suffice? Yeah. And then just to clarify the yeah the significant significant impact with mitigation was the GHG emissions, not the air quality emissions.

[03:07:10] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Right right I understand the the mitigation.

[03:07:18] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Uh and Councilmember Jain, your second question was uh these are for sale units and these are being sold in advance for completion um and whether it would be an additional expense to switch out. Um I will let the developer respond uh to that question.

[03:07:45] Steve Schott: Yes. Hi, I'm Steve Schott. Um uh President of SCS Development Company. Um we're building the homes there on uh Pruneridge Avenue. We uh we are giving the buyer the option to we are putting an electrical switch uh electrical outlet in where the stovetop goes so the buyer could switch it out in the future if he would like to go to electric. Um we don't know where the construction will be when we go to sales. We're we have models um ready for sales uh in February of this of this coming year. And um we have homes under construction now. And if the sales go well, we will have those homes, those homes will not be complete by the time sales go. But if the sales are slow, we will complete the home and uh the buyer then would have, we would complete it with gas and the buyer then would if the buyer wants electric they would have to change them out. Um but that's that's the way construction would would go. So again, it just depends on how sales go. If sales goes quickly, we can have the buyer have given the buyer the option.

[03:09:08] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Um and Councilmember Hardy, uh the timeframe you requested, why was there such a lag time uh between the project coming in and and um Planning Commission. I believe it was probably because we had to analyze go back and analyze the ISMND.

[03:09:35] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thanks. And I guess I forgot to ask my questions there. So I'll tag on to the end before we go to the public. But um you know, if one of the options here is to deny this amendment in light of the suspension of the Reach Code, I'm not sure how we are able to do that in the first place. And I guess I would ask the City Attorney if there is ability with prudence to do that. And then um to the developer's point about the potential for moving electric, uh if electric goes in and let's say the Reach Code is not suspended or we change our Climate Action Plan again later, does that still give this property the op- opportunity to go back to gas if the new homeowner wanted to do so?

[03:10:20] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: City Attorney, did you want to respond to the first question?

[03:10:25] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, I'll I'll respond to the first one. Um um the the the answer is really uh based on how the the uh project was processed. Since it was processed as a Planned Development with a um condition to the project being that it be all electric regardless of whether or not um the uh the Berkeley case, you know, applied then or now, you have the authority to um approve the project or to to approve the the modification or not. The the developer had the the um option to process the project um as a as a gas project but it was identified for the developer at that time that they would have to do a whole new environmental study um in order to analyze what the impacts of that would be. And the developer opted instead of doing that to include the um the the the um the electric uh uh um uh option as as part of his project. And so our analysis done by my lawyer was that this project is not the therefore given the nature of how it was processed and approved with um with this being a discretionary action, it's not subject to the the Berkeley case preemption. And sounds like the developer has a comment to to that effect. Happy to um welcome that.

[03:11:50] Steve Schott: I just want I just want to clarify that because that that is true what you stated, but um when the Berkeley case, the Berkeley case just happened when we were going in front of you and we didn't know if it was going to get appealed to the Supreme Court. Um because it was it was it was won on appeal and it stopped there, but we didn't know if it was going to get appealed to the Supreme Court. So and I don't think the city knew either. So that's why we just kind of said, okay, we'll deal with this later and see where this whole thing goes. And it never went to the Supreme Court, so the decision became final. So I just want to clarify that.

[03:12:28] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, appreciate that additional thought process behind the developer. That doesn't change our analysis. You'd still have the authority to approve or deny. I think the developer is suggesting that that um that in light of that and other issues that this accommodation be made in order to allow it to be the option, one or the other.

[03:12:50] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Um and uh Vice Mayor Cox, there was another question that you asked um and I I need clarification on your second question. You asked that if electric goes in but then if they want to go back to gas?

[03:13:05] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Yeah, perhaps I was uh muddled there. Uh because we are giving the home buyers right now the option to go to electric if they want those uh hookups are ready to go. What I'm wanting to understand is once electric, always electric? Or will they have the option to go back to gas then if a different homeowner was to move in?

[03:13:25] Director of Community Development Afshan Hamid: Um and I would probably refer back to the developer for this on how they are working on whether they're offering an option for electric or gas and how that works.

[03:13:38] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Yeah. And maybe um I'm not talking preferentially but about our Reach Code potentially and what it intends to be. If something is changed to electric, does it deem then that it will be permanently electric even though it's suspended right now?

[03:13:52] City Attorney Glen Googins: Our Reach Code would only apply to projects going forward. It wouldn't apply to this project on the conditions of its approval.

[03:14:00] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: So it could go back and forth. A resident could decide to go back and forth to gas as long as they wanted.

[03:14:05] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yes, this is set up to be in effect provide that option and the the resident could do that for this project.

[03:14:12] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Um uh direction here. I do have another Councilmember question. Do I need to go to the public first or can we do another round?

[03:14:19] City Attorney Glen Googins: You can still do more rounds of questions. Yeah. If it's questions only.

[03:14:22] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Sure. Councilmember Jain.

[03:14:24] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: I think to clarify what Councilmember uh Vice Mayor Cox is saying is that you could dual plumb for gas and electric, but install the electric and and then allow the homeowner to switch out to gas if they wanted to. Which would be the same thing. There would be an additional expense, but it would be the same way as if you installed all gas and then the homeowner decided to switch to electric. My preference would be if sales are going really well, you offer the homeowners the option upfront and say, hey, you can use both. But we we wouldn't preclude the use of gas uh given the EPCA decision.

[03:15:10] Steve Schott: And and that is our plan as if sales are going well is to give the buyer the option. That is our plan.

[03:15:25] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: All right. I'm going to go ahead and go to the public. Thank you. Uh um anybody in the audience first or do we go online? You think I'd be better at this by now. Madame Vice Mayor if the applicant what I don't know if they desire to present on this uh but this would be the the best time for them to present. Thank you. Third trip. At this point I I think it's pretty self-explanatory. I don't think any any presentation needs to be made on our part. So and I'll I'll be available for any other questions so. Sure. Councilmember Hardy does have a question for you. Yeah.

[03:16:00] Councilmember Karen Hardy: I was saving this for you. Okay. Um when I read this it sounded like you were hoping that this would make it more marketable by having options. Obviously you have to put more infrastructure in there, but I'm guessing there there was gas to this property anyway. And I will say personally, I have a gas top stove and an electric oven and I love that. That was part of what I liked about my kitchen and my family wishes I would use the kitchen more often and cook for them. But um by giving it also gives a homeowner options when there is a power outage. Now the nice thing is we don't have too many power outages because we have SVP. But I do know commercial kitchens use gas and that even in our Reach Codes we had that as a carve out for commercial kitchens. So I will say that I feel comfortable giving someone options. Thank you.

[03:16:57] Steve Schott: And and can I can I comment about the gas? Um uh PG&E has allowed us to put the gas into the subdivision. So that is the the infrastructure's already there for the gas to be in the in the in the in the unit. So. Just wanted to clarify that.

REPORTS OF MEMBERS & CITY MANAGER

[03:17:22] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Right, is there any member of the public either in chambers here or online that would like to speak? I have a few callers online. Anyone in chambers?

[03:17:32] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Great. I have Linda online, please.

[03:17:36] Linda: Can you hear me?

[03:17:37] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Yes we can, Linda.

[03:17:39] Linda: Thank you. Um, I think that if you do, um, the electric is actually better um in a lot of ways. It does not provide uh have a lot of gas in the area which they're finding more and more it poisons people. They call it natural gas, but it's really stinky methane. So, stinky is the added in so that you know that there's a leak somewhere. And that's a real problem is leaks, gas leaks.

[03:18:18] Linda: PG&E will come out to Santa Clara, any house in Santa Clara elsewhere to check and make sure that you are not leaking because it is a real hazard. Other thing is that um electric uh is a little bit more expensive to buy so they are the developer is trying to be cheaper by doing the gas. Which I understand but I don't think it's right. I think that electric is the way to go.

[03:18:58] Linda: The other thing is in any disaster, having a good camping stove is good. Yes. I agree with having something else but poisoning yourself to be routinely is not good. That's all.

[03:19:14] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you, Linda for your participation and comments. Um, I have Kirk online, please.

[03:19:21] Kirk Vartan: Yeah, hi, um, thanks uh thanks so much for taking taking my comments. Uh, I had two two ge- general questions. Uh one is the environmental report, I didn't have a chance to look through it, um and I I don't know if it was mentioned but it sounds like the environmental report did not consider gas or at least um the PD permit was approved as an all-electric solution which means it didn't have to consider it.

[03:19:50] Kirk Vartan: So by allowing it and listen I'm a I'm a fan of gas personally as a as a cooking uh solution. Uh I know everybody's trying to go electric. San Jose's actually banned uh gas to homes. Uh I'm glad Santa Clara hasn't banned uh you know taken that kind of position. But a project that went in as an all-electric sounds like they may have had gotten consideration because of that.

[03:20:20] Kirk Vartan: And so I'd hate to see that consideration now be kind of obviated because they didn't have to go through that initially and now they want to add gas at the end and not have to go through whatever environmental considerations or expense or whatever that is. So I don't think that's quite fair for any of the other developers that start with gas. So I would just ask, you know, if you could comment on how the expense and and certifications and environmental considerations are are are looked at.

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[03:20:45] Kirk Vartan: perspective and um yeah, thanks very much.

[03:20:50] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Anyone else online? Thank you Kirk for your participation and comments. Um do I give another opportunity for the developer to speak who's come up again?

[03:21:02] City Attorney Glen Googins: I don't I don't I don't think you need to. Um unless the developer has any issues or or things they want to present. Available for questions.

[03:21:10] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: I mean you made the big trek up here so.

[03:21:15] Applicant: I just want to say that um it it is more expensive to to to provide gas to the home and gas cooktops and electric stoves instead of all one together all electric so. We're we're trying to give the buyer the option and these are you know these these homes are not cheap homes they're they're expensive homes and and I do believe that um you know cooking with gas is a much better way of cooking. Um I think I think we all agree that's why you see restaurants cook with gas not not so much electric. Um and we have a lot of different nationalities that are going to be buying these homes and they they really like to some some nationalities really like to use gas exclusively. Um especially when it comes to woks and everything else. So uh you know we're just trying to we're we're you know we understand that that uh the environment we we we we want to protect the environment and that's why we're not asking for any any other utility to be gas just the cooktops. Uh the ovens will be will be electric the the water heaters will be electric uh the furnaces will be electric. So. So I hope you would approve our proposal in front of you.

[03:22:35] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you for your comments. Any other members of the public? Thank you for your help with that Madam Assistant City Clerk. Um at this point we will need to close public hearing.

[03:22:47] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Move to close.

[03:22:48] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you.

[03:22:49] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Second.

[03:22:50] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: I think it was Councilmember Jain. No I'm just kidding. throw somebody on this end down alright.

[03:22:57] City Attorney Glen Googins: I think it was Chahal who who got in there under the wire.

[03:23:00] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Okay we have a a motion and a second. Please register your vote.

[03:23:15] Assistant City Clerk: Madam Vice Mayor your vote?

[03:23:18] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Oh do I have to go down there because I'm voting here?

[03:23:22] Assistant City Clerk: Do you want to just cast it and I'll...

[03:23:24] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Yes.

[03:23:24] Assistant City Clerk: Thank you.

[03:23:30] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: And that passes uh unanimously six with one um recusal please. All right so we'll move now back to Council deliberation or action. Do I have any uh Councilmember Hardy.

[03:23:43] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Yes I'd like to make a motion to approve the uh recommendation from staff and allow this. I do understand uh the the impetus for wanting to cook with gas and I and to have some options especially if the power goes out so I can appreciate that.

[03:24:05] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you we have a motion. Councilmember Park.

[03:24:10] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah. I can let I can let somebody else second um but I did have a couple of questions.

[03:24:22] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: So we'll need a second first? Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Gonzalez.

[03:24:27] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Always a game. Here we go. Okay. Councilmember Park.

[03:24:30] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yes. I feel like there's always somebody who wants to second more than I do. Which is fine. So I I think this was brought before us because of a resolution of necessity. I think that what you're asking for is a preference. You have a certain demographic that you're targeting the units toward uh to and I mean you're trying to make it as wide as possible but at the same time I mean you made specific comments so I'll have to think about that. Uh I did hear Mr. Vartan's comments about and I have to I thought about this for a while which is yeah we we we do tend to give a little bit of uh leeway to projects that follow the uh follow the plan that go all electric that have these things. And now you know I thought about this for a while and I thought are we giving anything away by not requiring any other uh discussions or or investigations because we're now moving to gas. And what I hear from CEQA what I hear from uh David Powers that you know it's funny it's every single time I've talked in CEQA and I there was a time almost 10 years where I came to council every single meeting and almost every single CEQA every single thing that we talked about was David David J. Powers and associates right. Wasn't necessarily a good thing but there it was. Um I don't think anything's going to stop this project but again uh I do feel that coming in with the guise of necessity I don't think it's a necessity. Uh I do understand that it is a marketing preference. I think it is a it is very strong marketing preference. I do hear and I do understand the the um the benefits that people have said about gas. I know the benefits myself. I mean the wok was made for an open flame it was not made for a flat stove uh flat uh heated surface and we understand that. I mean my culture uses that too. Um but at the same time I'm very concerned about projects coming forward um I mean that that seem fairly set. I mean I do hear Councilmember Hardy's uh concern about this project coming in with a change very late after its initial approval. Like I mean again it wasn't just uh when the project was approved but it was also when uh you know there was time it's been a while since we redid the reach codes uh we removed the electric and I'm just concerned that other projects coming in that haven't quite uh been finalized yet because I don't want to see this. I mean I I do do feel that once you've committed to something one of the things that makes you a good developer is you say well whether we I mean by based on preference you know we will go through with what we've what we've done uh what we've agreed to and then that will give you a better basis to approve bigger and better things from us in the future. And I I kind of like that way of going but here I do understand it so I'm not going to say anything about that. There is another thing that's somewhat unrelated but um my understanding is staff in the notes to the Vice Mayor put down 'questions only'. And I feel like uh giving that kind of direction for any kind of any kind of council discussion goes against the robust discussion that is promised in in the uh in in our in our packets in every meeting we we talk about robust discussion. I have been someone who said that talks all the time that questions only doesn't doesn't cover the robust discussion that we would like to have. I mean this is one of those robust discussions these are not questions these are comments and I think these comments are I think they're relevant and I think they're important for future developers as well. And again I I really am disappointed to hear that. That said I'm not going to hold up this vote any any more but I do feel that these comments needed to be said because again uh this is affecting a lot of things. Uh I do prefer prefer the option I would like there to be electric unless somebody explicitly asks for something to not be electric even if that you know holds up the installation of their stove top. Um but let's go to the vote.

[03:28:45] City Attorney Glen Googins: Madam Vice Mayor if I if I might just comment on that. Um just to be clear um Member Park appreciate your comments. That note for the the Vice Mayor was not intended to um to squelch discussion. It's really a question of process before you hear from the public the the general protocol and for uh in best practices for due process is that um you um only ask questions before you hear from the public um and then you can deliberate and make your comments. So so that's that's the standard practice with really all items that are public hearings particularly quasi-judicial items but for all public hearing items that's the only purpose of that is to order things so that questions are asked first and then you have as much robust you know discussion as as you need to. So I wanted to be clear that that that note was not intended to run counter to robust discussion and is part of the standard practice.

[03:29:48] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: And I will note it does say in there 'questions only at this point'. So I'm sorry to put you on the fryer City Attorney.

[03:29:55] City Attorney Glen Googins: No it's okay. I just wanted to be clear on on process. Thank you Madam Mayor.

[03:29:59] Councilmember Kevin Park: And I just want to be clear that again you have said this before because this has come up not just once not just now but has come up before and I believe that's been the same same comment. Um the clarification of that wasn't the full comment is very helpful but at the same time um when you look at how this this council has been uh led by a chair who's been who's actually stopped discussions I think that you probably need a little bit more clarification on how you you specify that this is uh being asked because before public input we should ask for questions. Like I'm asking this because this issue has come up many times and it's not going to stop coming up. Thank you.

[03:30:45] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: All right we have a motion and a second. Councilmember Gonzalez?

[03:30:50] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Thank you uh Madam Vice Mayor and just just as far as uh I'm still getting my wheels as far as being on the council and the way that we run things and I I understood the the time for for uh and the way that we run this asking questions initially and then comments after so that's uh that's just typical of what I see that we how we run the process here. Um and thanks to uh the developer as far as giving the options to those future buyers as far as you know even maybe having a dual fuel stove if they wanted to so. I think that's this is something that's uh they're going above and beyond you know and it's going to be even more expensive but definitely something that they see that a potential buyer might need or or want and desire in the future so I'll be in support of this motion.

[03:31:35] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you. Go ahead. Madam uh Assistant City Clerk please.

[03:31:55] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: And that passes five with one no and one recusal. Moving on.

[03:33:05] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Moving on to item number 7. Public Hearing Action to adopt Resolution of Necessity to acquire certain real property interests on 881 Duane Avenue Santa Clara California from the owner of record for purposes of implementing the Silicon Valley Power 115 KV transmission line project. So I'm going to declare the public hearing opened and refer to the City Attorney for a brief introduction and staff presentation.

[03:33:45] City Attorney Glen Googins: I thought you'd enjoy the irony in that Madam Mayor. I'll I'll be brief by my standards. Um I said brief in capital letters. City Attorney. Thank you Madam Mayor. This this item is one in a series of this type of action that Council's been asked uh to consider to implement SVP's 115 KV transmission project. Um this type of action only becomes necessary when voluntary acquisition negotiations have not been successful um and the timing of the project necessitates possession of the subject property. Um there are a number of legal procedural requirements built into this process which will be outlined by staff uh and we do have Special Counsel Gael Connor here tonight available to answer any more technical legal questions you might have about the about the process. With that I'll turn uh the presentation over to SVP Electric Division Manager Ali Jackman uh for staff's presentation on this item. Thank you Madam Mayor.

[03:34:45] Ali Jackman: Thank you. Good evening Mayor Vice Mayor Councilmembers and members of the public. I'm Ali Jackman Electric Division Manager overseeing system expansion for Silicon Valley Power. I'm also joined here today by Principal Electric Utility Engineer Leonard Montilla so I wanted to introduce him as well. He's been at all these Council meetings as well and supporting the team. Um so we have been here several times before so we'll go through the background here quickly. Um this is a new 115 kilovolt transmission line uh that'll be all overhead from the Northern Receiving Station to Kifer Receiving Station traveling along Lafayette Bassett and Duane. Um this project is necessary to accommodate our load growth and maintain our system reliability. It's going to transfer additional power from the new CAISO 230 KV line that you guys have also been talking about today the LS Powers line um from NRS and redistribute those loads throughout our city. With this project the capacity will increase to 1300 megawatts. Without this project's completion we'll be limited to 819 megawatts. We're currently potholing for the transmission line alignment and working through our 90 percent design development. So we have been here several times before. Um just over a year ago we did come in front of Council and Council approved our Mitigated Negative Declaration um our environmental document for the project and our route approval um based on the items listed here below. Uh the overall route is shown on the right in blue. Um it's important to note that this route does require 20 easements um as shown in the southern section of the route alignment which is that dashed portion line. The easement acquisition process is lengthy um and so there's several items we need to complete. We first send a letter to the property owner that our city will appraise the easement area. We complete a fair market value assessment. We send that initial offer of compensation to the property owner for consideration. We then negotiate with the property owner for months. Um we obtained City Council authority to execute purchase and sale agreements previously for the easement acquisitions and we have also still continued to negotiate with the property owners. Um when negotiations do reach an impasse we can come to City Council and they may adopt a Resolution of Necessity to authorize commencement of the eminent domain process which can take up to 24 months. Pending the final determination of the value the City has the right to obtain an Order of Possession for this which can be within five months. So specifically we are here today to talk about 881 Duane Avenue. We have been negotiating with the property owner for just over a year with the initial offer letter being sent on November 13th of 2024. We went through a detailed informational exchange between March and May of this year and in July we had legal negotiations begin. We have reached an impasse on those negotiations. We now are coming to Council to say that we are in order to meet our project timing and implementation we are requesting it to be necessary to commence the eminent domain proceedings. We have several steps here um in order to move forward with the process. So we make an offer uh to purchase the property of from the owner of record based on the appraisal. We can engage in good faith negotiations. If that impasse is reached we schedule a hearing on the Resolution of Necessity with a minimum of 15 days notice to the property owner. We conduct the public hearing which is what we're doing here today. We consider all testimony presented and adopt a Resolution of Necessity making all required findings. It's important to note that this hearing does only establishes the matters set forth in the findings and the issue of just compensation for the taking is not up for consideration today. Moving into the findings which I do need to read verbatim to enter into the record um we will get started here. Finding 1: The public interest and necessity requires the project. So this project is necessary to increase our capacity as I noted previously to 1300 megawatts and without it we'd be limited to 819 which is just not sufficient to meet our projected electric loads currently. Finding 2: The project is planned or located in the manner that will be the most compatible with the greatest public good and the least private injury. Uh we had a team within SVP and consultants evaluate the um potential routes and came up with the most feasible route alignments and brought those to Council. These were select the overall project route was selected based on its overall feasibility least impact to residents and businesses permitting constraints ability to meet our project schedule flexibility in power delivery ease of maintaining our system and the reduced construction disruption to the public. Finding 3: The easement area sought to be acquired is necessary for the project. So this easement at 881 Duane Avenue is within the alignment of the selected route and is necessary for the project. Um this easement area is adjacent to the public right-of-way and is necessary for maintenance purposes and to ensure proper electrical conductor clearances are met. Finding 4: All environmental review required by law has been prepared and adopted. So back in November of last year the MND and MMRP were adopted by resolution by Council. Finding 5: The offer required by Section 7267.2 of the Government Code has been made to the property owner of record for the full amount established as the fair market value of the property. So just over a year ago we did make the offer to the property owner to acquire the easement area based on a value determined by an independent appraisal. And finally Finding 6: Notice of this hearing has been given in accordance with Code of Civil Procedure Section 1245.235. And so on October 20th of this year we did mail a letter to the owner which included a notification to the public hearing and consideration of a Resolution of Necessity for the meeting today and it also included a request to be heard document as an attachment to the letter. So here we are with our recommended action which is to consider all written and oral testimony presented at this public hearing. If we're satisfied that the information presented supports the required findings we can adopt the Resolution of Necessity in the form presented to acquire the real property interests identified at 881 Duane Avenue Santa Clara California making the required findings. And it's important to note that this does require five affirmative votes and that staff will of course continue to negotiate with the property owner. That concludes staff presentation and we're available for any questions.

[03:41:10] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh thank you so much. At this time we'll have uh questions from the Council for the staff and it's questions only at this point.

[03:41:20] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Hardy.

[03:41:23] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Yes I'd like to make certain that it's clear that the owner knows of this hearing and have they answered back in any way. Thank you.

[03:41:35] Ali Jackman: Thank you Mayor. Yes. Yes. They are aware and they did not uh submit a request to be heard. Thank you.

[03:41:45] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay seeing none we're going to go now to move on to the public testimony. Each member of the general public wishing to testify will have two minutes to speak. However if allow answer to question. Is that yes? Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. Each member of the general public wishing to testify will have two minutes to speak. However if you have an ownership interest in 881 Duane Avenue or you are authorized to represent someone who has such an interest you will be provided five minutes to speak. So um City Clerk do we have a speaker?

[03:42:25] Assistant City Clerk: Yes we have Kirk Vartan online.

[03:42:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay Kirk you'll unless you're an owner you have two minutes to speak. Go ahead please.

[03:42:35] Kirk Vartan: Uh thank you uh Mayor and Council. Uh this you know the the issue that I bring up I I sent an email about this uh a few days ago wasn't planning to talk about this particular topic on this item but seeing this is an eminent domain um item regarding electric electricity and capacity it further um provides examples of what's happening with our electric infrastructure and why it needs to be bolstered. My comments are around why we need more capacity at the level that we do and as such we are now taking and demanding this from the public. Uh a lot of these demands happen with data centers and when I brought this uh the issue of costs up in the past uh it was well everybody's rates go up 5 percent or 4 percent. I know in a couple weeks that's going to come up as a Council uh discussion item for a rate increase but this helps bolster the argument of why should we have to pay as a community for these increases when the data centers um are driving this substantial increase and there's so many data centers in the City of Santa Clara which is great for the city but it does tax the electrical infrastructure as well as water infrastructure. So I would you know I'm not here to get in the way of this uh or say you should or shouldn't do this I'm just using this as another example of how the electrical infrastructure is being taxed and the small people the residents and small businesses are paying uh the fees for these and the burdens for increased infrastructure that might not have been necessary had some of these other larger projects that don't pay their fair share of demand for electricity not just the cost of electricity but the infrastructure necessary to build it. Thanks so much.

[03:44:28] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Kirk. Do we have any other speakers? Okay. Uh public testimony... go by my script here. All right I'll now return to... SVP and legal staff is there anything you want to clarify or to add to the record.

[03:44:42] City Attorney Glen Googins: Um nothing from legal Madam Mayor and I'm not seeing anything from business people either.

[03:44:48] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay thank you. Um may I have a motion to close the public hearing.

[03:44:52] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: So moved.

[03:44:53] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Second.

[03:44:55] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So motion by Councilmember Gonzalez second by Councilmember Hardy to close the public hearing. And thank you for putting your light on for that appreciate that. Please register your vote.

[03:45:15] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We'll now move on to Council deliberations that passes unanimously. So uh two notes from the City Attorney before we get into this.

[03:45:25] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yes yeah just quickly Madam Mayor just to um remind you that um your deliberations tonight are whether or not you can make the findings required to proceed with eminent domain we're not um discussing um the value of the property that'll be determined by uh either a judge or or a jury. Um and then it does require five votes to proceed. Thank you Madam Mayor.

[03:45:48] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Any comments questions motions. Uh Councilmember Park.

[03:45:55] Councilmember Kevin Park: I mean last time they I was told we need a motion before we can discuss and I don't believe that's actually true but um I'm going to try to make comments anyway I don't believe it's actually true that we need a motion prior to that. It's not actually under our adopted procedures. Agreed. So um all I'm going to say is I'm not here to stand in the way of this either but but at the same time I think one of the callers I think that Mr. Vartan is absolutely right I think that we when we talk about um the uh infrastructure projects that we need and even though the residents pay their 6 percent uh what they what they actually use the question of why do we need these at all when it's not the residents that need the new the new power coming in I think that's a valid question. I think that a lot of the uh inputs that he had were were very good which is you know to the point that we are now taking using eminent domain to take away uh private private lands but again that's not what's before us. Um I was just noting that uh Mr. Vartan's comments um did uh did resonate a little bit. Thank you.

[03:47:10] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Move the staff recommendation.

[03:47:15] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Second?

[03:47:16] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Second.

[03:47:17] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We have a motion for staff recommendation by Councilmember Gonzalez second by Councilmember Hardy. When you're ready Assistant City Clerk. Please register your vote. And that passes uh six to one. Thank you. Thank you staff for that.

[03:47:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right next we have uh our last item item number 8. Action on introduction of a special event zone ordinance regulating and prohibiting certain activities within a protected area in connection with the 2026 major events at Levi's Stadium. City Manager.

[03:48:05] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sure. Thank you Mayor and Council. Uh this evening staff is bringing forward an ordinance establishing a temporary special event zone to support public safety transportation mobility and coordinated operations for major events at Levi's Stadium including Super Bowl 60 and FIFA World Cup. These regulations are narrowly tailored uh and event specific uh and are intended to mitigate the heightened risks and operational challenges associated with large scale high impact events. To provide an overview of the ordinance its purpose and the outreach plan for our businesses and residential communities I'll now turn the presentation over to Assistant City Manager Elizabeth Klotz who has been leading this effort. Thank you.

[03:48:50] Elizabeth Klotz: Thank you. Welcome. Good evening um Mayor and City Councilmembers. Um I will be pre um presenting on the proposed special event zone ordinance tonight um which regulates certain outdoor activities around the stadium during the major events. I would also like to acknowledge um and thank the City Attorney's Office especially Jennifer Byers who has been um very instrumental um in helping me develop this ordinance. Levi's Stadium has a long track record of of um of hosting major events. This includes Super Bowl 50 the College Football National Championship in 2019. However with these events come reoccurring challenges. There is heavy congestion unpermitted vending counterfeit merchandising and just um a lot of access constraints around um the stadium. Special event zones um or also known as clean zones the city has adopted them in the past um and they were created to help manage some of these issues. The 2026 events create similar needs and this ordinance is a proactive measure to ensure safe and organized operations during the two two of the world's largest major events. As many of us in this room are acutely aware Super Bowl 50 or 60 is happening in February of 26. We have six matches coming in June and July for FIFA um and we are really trying to get prepared for those events at this point. And it will bring international attention and create significant operational demands on our city. These events require coordinated planning among the NFL FIFA City departments and regional partners. Um as part of the League Event Agreement the City agreed to consider the adoption of a special event zone ordinance to protect public health safety and welfare during these major events. While this type of ordinance is in our mutual interest a condition of um us considering this ordinance was the reimbursement of staff costs for preparing the ordinance. So why are we looking at a special ordinance what does it do. Um while we regularly hold concerts and sporting events at the stadium Super Bowl and FIFA are events that are on a completely different playing field. This ordinance will help the City respond to the increasing scale and complexity of major events by establishing consistent and predictable public safety standards across all event organizers and activities. It'll ensure safe and efficient movement for attendees workers transit um services emergency responders and will also protect residents in neighborhoods um that will have um impacts from these events. We will it'll also support operational coordination for load-in security screening credentialing media operations and logistics. And it'll also reduce risk posed by unpermitted food sales counterfeit goods and um obstructive vending. Um and lastly it would also help maintain Santa Clara's appearance and community standards during these global events. So just to give you a brief overview of how we crafted this event we took a lot of care in drafting the ordinance to ensure that it is narrowly tailored by being temp being temporary event specific and geographically limited to a defined zone around the stadium. It activates only during the specific windows tied to the event preparation event operations post-event crowd dispersal and um load out. It addresses heightened safety and mobility risks associated with the large scale events and focuses on certain outdoor activities vending temporary structures signage advertising that can impede safety and operations. So this is the map um of the of the um of the special event zone. Um and it's the geographic area where the restrictions will apply. The zone is bounded by 237 to the um north um going south on Calabazas Creek um heading um uh or sorry going west on Calabazas Creek heading south on 101 east on Montague and back north on Guadalupe River um until it reaches 237 again. This map actually mirrors the previous zones that the city has adopted um for its prior ordinance in um Super Bowl 50 and reflects where the city historically sees the most traffic congestion pedestrian surges and security operations. In addition to understanding the um the stadium's traffic um management and operations plan and also the security perimeter needs we were careful to include the highly trafficked um areas that are trafficked by vehicles and pedestrians. We also encompassed all in the gray if you look are the all the parking lots that will be utilized for public parking. Um you'll also notice in the tan are some of the event facilities that could be activated um during this time. And then there's also several hotels um parks and other areas that may be activated during this period as well. Now I'll provide an overview of um the activities that will be regulated through this ordinance. There is a temporary suspension on vending permits through the zone. No mobile vending will be permitted in the zone during this period of time. Outdoor merchandise sales are um is also prohibited unless it is already conducted in an existing um fixed business location. This supports coordinated public safety and mobility um operations by restricting pop-up or mobile vending that could interfere with emergency access crowd flow staging activities and traffic congestion. Um next are temporary structures like tents canopies um inflatables wireless equipment those will require city approval to ensure that they do not obstruct access or create hazards in this zone. Um free product sampling and outdoor giveaways are also prohibited to prevent crowding and congestion. What we see with these major events are that lots of vendors will try to come out and distribute and market their businesses and it can create kind of an over proliferation of um activation in these areas. Um and then selling illegal or counterfeit goods is explicitly prohibited. This is an issue that has been historically a problem at any real sporting event as well. As the City already has robust sign regulations with regards to commercial advertising and promotional activity the ordinance does not deviate from what is currently regulated under our sign code. All of our existing businesses are allowed to continue with the commercial signage for their business so long as it complies with our zoning code. Um what we are expressly regulating are unpermitted commercial advertising visible from the public right-of-way including banners LED displays projection. Mobile or pop-up advertising installations are limited unless it is in the ordinary business advertising um ordinary course of their business advertising such as transit ads on buses taxis delivery vehicles um that are just in the course of their business and doing deliveries. Parades races um marches and similar activities will be required to obtain a permit from the Police Department. And those are all the regulations. Now I'm going to go over through the time periods for the ordinance. So for Super Bowl um the time period that for these regulations would be February 1st um 8:00 a.m. through February 10th um at 10:00 p.m. The FIFA World Cup will be for three approximately three weeks that's June 12th through July 1st um to allow for 24 hours prior to kickoff and the first day match through midnight on the final match. Um one thing I'd like to note and I apologize for the discrepancy in the draft ordinance we had listed January 29th as the start date. It's actually a shorter period so that will be February 1st start date for Super Bowl on the restriction. And then we would also like to designate a start time just to be clear for FIFA World Cup that the start time would be 8:00 a.m. as well to kind of align with the Super Bowl start time on their restrictions. Um any additional events um we're going to keep this ordinance it's uncodified but it could be reactivated by resolution um for any future events that we might want to um engage with. So this ordinance provides a tool for the City to address public health and safety concerns during the large events. It is expected that enforcement of this ordinance will be conducted by code enforcement as well as public safety um personnel that are supporting the events. Um these um public safety personnel that are supporting the events are being reimbursed um through the our event agreements. Um for the enforcement um administrative enforcement applies to all of the violations. Each day of the violation is considered a separate offense. However for mobile vending those violations will follow the City code in Title 5 and all other violations will um follow the administrative citation process in Title 1. Um the City may seek injunctive relief from the Superior Court to stop ongoing or um serious violations and these remedies do not limit the City's ability to pursue additional enforcement under federal state or local law. So once adopted the City will need to conduct some significant community outreach to the residents and the businesses. The City will notify residents um residents and businesses in and near the special event zone through multiple channels email city website and social media. Um we'll do direct outreach um with um the permitted vendors and mobile businesses that are going to be directly impacted by being restricted from this zone to ensure there's clarity and compliance from them. Um we'll be coordinating with hotels event venues and the chamber to help disseminate this information widely and we're also working with our public agency partners VTA and the County of Environmental Health who actually does the food permitting for the for the county um to help engage um all some of these vendors that will be affected by this. We will also ensure that outreach materials will be available in multiple languages to reach all impacted communities. And here's the staff recommendation um to introduce the ordinance waive the first reading and direct staff to return for final adoption at the next City Council meeting um with the updated date for Super Bowl starting on February 1st and then the FIFA start time at 8:00 a.m. Um the City Attorney will be authorized to make non-substantive edits needed before final adoption. Um and this concludes my presentation please let me know if you have any questions.

[04:00:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Questions. Uh Vice Mayor Cox.

[04:00:02] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Yeah so and I know I brought this to staff's attention but um one of the things I wanted to be cautious of and get a little clarity on was again the court case that passed this year in Arizona which deemed the clean zones unconstitutional in lights of free speech um and to clarify for those that don't know again uh a business owner was told he couldn't put a Coke sign out I think and um won in trial because again he said as a business owner he didn't feel like this was appropriate because it wasn't really a public safety concern it was a a franchising and um a merchandise capitalist concern and that then they also won that case saying that the city had unrightly given power to an outside entity to create legislation and rulings on the people within the city. So I want to understand how we are protecting ourselves from that same case. Um I want to again understand what we really think the impact is in public safety with this. I understand that we're calling this a public safety measure and I I guess my question's a little on the nose and rhetorical but I would like staff to tell me if they can name a safety related event at Levi's that was caused by temporary signage window advertising coupons or tents. Um I also understand that because we signed a Super Bowl agreement that said they can get this or they can walk I actually don't know what flexibility we have in this. I think that if we're looking at what's best for our residents stuff like that giving away coupons maximizing benefit at something like this is what we told our public this would be about and now it's a pretty massive zone that's taking that right away from them. I want to understand how this impacts the aerial signage and the things we want to do with the um Economic Development Committee what's going to be restricted on that. And then I think just in general uh you know again it would be great if we looked at this in terms of yes I understand rampant vendors carts there there really can be uh impact to traffic to safety I agree with you know the unsafe food and all of that but this advertising thing and people not being able to put out specials or put tents in their yards I mean it becomes pretty restrictive in the name of public safety. Um but I also don't think that we at this point have the right to pick and choose or adjust this at all if I'm understanding our prior agreement with uh the NFL um uh agreement that we signed. Thank you.

[04:02:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Jain.

[04:02:42] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Um I had a similar concern. Uh if I look at the map it encompasses Mission College which in my reading of it prevents students from having tents or canopies or inflatables for any of their events at Mission College. Um they would require city approval. That doesn't make any sense to me for students to have events on campus.

[04:03:10] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Hardy.

[04:03:15] Councilmember Karen Hardy: I think we're all going in the same direction because I had made a note uh within the entire area even an inflatable so some mattress company is having a sale and they can't have one of those blowing something or others. It just it doesn't quite make sense to me. Um I I do understand how right around the stadium I've been at concerts and been nearly accosted by people trying to sell things as we leave and I do understand that concern and we do know that there's been realities over their not having a health permit. Now we do have a ordinance and my understanding is only a few vendors have actually uh availed themselves of that to make themselves legal and how are we going to get any of the other vendors to play along if if they won't regularly. That's my concern. And we didn't talk you know it didn't really I looked for a penalty uh is the penalty enough truly to be a deterrent because it may not be. Um would there be any way for someone to turn something in that is really a concern on the MySantaClara app if we're operating by uh concerns and complaints how would someone turn that in and let us know. Thank you.

[04:05:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Councilmember Gonzalez.

[04:05:05] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Thank you Madam Mayor and I guess we we were all thinking the same as far as the uh like tents and canopies and inflatables and just the question as far as is you know little Johnny going to be able to celebrate his fifth birthday or something with an inflatable jump house and I'm sure there's probably exceptions but just want to make sure that that those um neighbors who are really going to be impacted um nearby or at least can you know continue with their uh with their weekly or weekend uh events as well.

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[04:05:50] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: I wanted to understand any impacts on the Creek Trail, whether you couldn't have a race for a benefit or, you know, if it was a small race, I know a big race you need city permits and all of that, but what would be the impacts on the Creek Trail use during these times?

[04:06:16] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: Thank you. Yeah, and I'm sorry to throw one more on. Who will be educating the businesses and the residents in those areas about these implications? And if they do not feel like they were adequately informed of the consequences, what is going to be their vehicle to kind of contest that or, you know, talk about the limitations? It's a big area, and I don't know if we've done any impact study yet on how many businesses this will affect or how we're going to get this notice out to them.

[04:06:55] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, I think everyone's pretty much said it. We have the concerns. I mean, I looked at the area and the area encompasses not just the stadium area, I think we actually expanded this at the request of people before, but the major retail centers in that area, almost every single one of them. And I guess that's it. I mean, is there a way that we could tailor the language a little bit better? Are there things that we could do? I mean, I don't necessarily... I mean, I could see us reducing the area as well, to places that we think people who are attending the stadium would go. But then again, I feel like if they're going someplace else that's not near the stadium to eat or something, I almost feel like they're fair game to any marketing that would be there. I would think instead we would like to look at people who are, you know, again, counterfeiting, you know, not in good faith advertising products, those kinds of things, which I would think we have some ordinances or we have things against anyway. So, I think you've heard the comments from everybody else.

[04:08:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I just say, I think that shouldn't we have conducted the outreach before we adopted this and not after? The item ended up on our Council agenda but the map didn't end up on it until yesterday. So, the area is the entire Northside. It's including all the residential areas, it's the entire Northside. So, what is the purpose of this? Is it really for public safety or is it for advertisement protection for FIFA and NFL? Because it sounds like... I understand around the stadium, because you made a comment that it was the area around the stadium, but it's not, it's the entire Northside. It's about four miles, the entire Northside. So I get it around the stadium if that's really public safety, and even advertising at our Convention Center is excluded and some of these areas are excluded because they're going to be part of, you know, what's going on. But somebody who lives next to the Guadalupe River, if they want to have a birthday party for their kid, they have to get a city permit? I mean, that makes no sense. So, can we make this something that actually makes sense? Because the way it's written now, it doesn't make sense. And it might have had the same area in Super Bowl 50, but we were supposed to learn from things from Super Bowl 50 and not repeat the same mistakes. So, you know, what about our existing vendors that have their permits already? What happens to them? You know, that's interesting. You know, I think about it like in the summertime, there's food trucks at Rivermark that come every Wednesday night or something like that. Sounds like this would prohibit any food truck at all that's out on the Northside. Giveaways for restaurants. We have been harping on this for the last couple of years, we want our small businesses to benefit, make money, be successful during these events, but we're telling them you can't offer anything, you can't send flyers, you can't put advertisements in the street in front of your place, you know, buy two ice creams for the price of one, the Super Bowl, whatever. So we're basically telling other cities, you're all going to benefit but our entire Northside will not because we're not going to allow them. And not only are we not going to allow them, but if they do something we are going to crack down on them and arrest them. So I think that we have to change this to what the real purpose is. Is this public safety for the residents of Rivermark or Agnew Village or is it really public safety? Or is it do we need to tighten up the perimeter? What about all the areas also on the map that were, I don't know what's excluded. It's possible that the areas that were excluded are all business areas, but yet the areas... are the parking lots, are they all excluded?

[04:11:25] Unknown Speaker: No, those aren't excluded. Those are kind of to demonstrate why the area got so wide, right? Because you have so much, all those gray areas are the activities in there.

[04:11:37] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All the activities in there. So I get that. But to the east, all those residences over there, why? Those are our businesses too. You don't have to answer those right now. Those are our businesses. Those are the ones we want to participate. Plus we want to have events out there as well. So, we want to put wrapped buildings with banners. This would preclude that from us from doing that. Impact on Mission College. They have a lot of outdoor events. Uh oh. Are we going to arrest them? I mean, come on. Some of this makes zero sense. People with their parties. Impact on events. No food trucks. No small businesses. So, I'm for the clean zone, I get it, I understand, but if it's really for public safety, put it around the stadium in those parking lots. But if it's for to protect the advertisement rights of the NFL and FIFA? Absolutely not. What message are we sending to our businesses and residents? And plus, they don't even know about it. They didn't even know they were included. We should have done the outreach... we should do the outreach now before we pass this. Absolutely. Okay. Questions?

[04:13:09] Unknown Speaker: I think, Jōvan you want me to start? Okay. Yeah. So, I think I want to start with the map and just kind of talk about what was thought through because yes, like I think concerns have been raised about whether it's too big and we can think about whether or not we want to shrink it. But the map actually mirrors 2050. It actually is the geofence that we're using for some of our autonomous rideshare program right now, because if you look at Lafayette and also Lick Mill, those are primary northbound entrances to get people, pedestrians and vehicles into the stadium. So when it hits Montague, those are kind of when the traffic kind of frees up, but we did look at why it was extended that far and it is a big traffic impact for ingress and egress, extending that way. And then as you mentioned that if we look, we highlighted all of the parking lots that would be activated during this period of time. So those are the reasons, pedestrians will be walking over there and those will be areas that could be targeted right by advertisers, marketing, people, food, right? Kind of just targeting and creating some type of congestion and crowd in those spaces. And so those are the type of things that we're thinking about when we crafted this space. Also to the north of it, there are potentially two sites that are going to be rideshare drop-off and pickup. One in Tasman East. So that's why we get out to that direction. And then also one pretty north toward 237. I think that's an existing rideshare parking lot. And so that's kind of how we get to the north, as big as to the north side. But I understand the concerns about the residences and potentially that's something we can discuss about whether we want to shrink that area.

[04:14:50] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: And just to piggyback on that, important to note that at our very last meeting, Council asked us to expand the boundaries of our Stadium Neighborhood Relations Committee to include Rivermark. And now the boundary of the Stadium Neighborhood Relations Committee actually includes the exact same boundary we're talking about. And in part that was done because of a recognition that even normal events at the stadium have impacts in this entire northern area. And so when we talk about the Super Bowl or FIFA, larger events, the ability for mobile food vending, illegal advertising, and other actions that we would not like to have occur, we think that having the zone this large, we thought fit with the very statement that Council made at the last meeting saying that this entire area has an impact from the stadium. And so...

[04:15:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: It was parking and people urinating in people's yards. It wasn't about sandwich boards and mobile vendors. That has nothing to do... especially with the businesses out there that were going to impact from this.

[04:16:04] Unknown Speaker: So I do want to talk about signage, right? So existing businesses are allowed to continue with their on-site signage that's permitted for their businesses. We're not restricting that. It's unpermitted signage.

[04:16:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: What about outside their businesses?

[04:16:42] Unknown Speaker: If it's allowed under the code, they're able to do it. I think there's certain issues with sandwich boards that are maybe already unpermissible, not because of this, but because of our existing zoning code. So I want to be clear that we're not changing anything for existing businesses. They're able to continue to put the signage that is already permitted under our code. What we're regulating is unpermitted commercial advertising out there and just calling that out.

[04:17:18] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Is that a public safety issue?

[04:17:22] Unknown Speaker: Well, the issue is over-proliferation of signage, right? If people come out and stick signs, sandwich boards, they're blocking sidewalks. We just don't know the measure of where they are, right? That's the concern, right? Is if everybody is able to just come out and put up signs and we have no regulation to take those down, then, you know, then we have to permit that activity, right? It just becomes... this is a way to help deter the activity so that we can keep our sidewalks and our public rights-of-way clear. That's the intention of the signage piece. I do want to go back to the questions.

[04:17:40] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: And I'm sure we could spend a thousand hours asking every specific one, but a lot of people want to paint their windows right now, you know, specials, whatever going on. So is that allowable?

[04:17:51] Unknown Speaker: I'd have to look and see.

[04:17:58] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: I think the point is that this ordinance doesn't prohibit anything that businesses would be allowed under our normal code. What it addresses are things that would occur in the public right-of-way.

[04:18:09] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So we actually don't need it then for the businesses.

[04:18:16] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Well, it doesn't address what businesses are currently allowed to do under our code. What it addresses are things that would occur in the public right-of-way.

[04:18:29] Unknown Speaker: One thing I think, the issue is calling, you're right, like we do, we need to be express and put it in here and say, you know, if you're existing businesses, you comply with the zoning code, it's fine. I think the idea is that we put it here so that people know what they're allowed and not allowed to do. And so that's kind of why we specifically have put the language and drafted it the way we have.

[04:18:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: But we didn't outreach to anybody about it.

[04:18:55] Unknown Speaker: That's correct.

[04:18:58] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I do want to go through the questions. And I think, Glenn, I don't know if you want to take the first one on the case.

[04:19:08] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, thanks. Appreciate the question. In putting this together, we looked at a number of different cases and issues that dealt with ordinances like this. So not just the Phoenix case that you're referring to, but we are familiar with that and did look at that. And that's really very different than what's being proposed here. The Phoenix code was enacted in connection with Super Bowl 57. They actually added some temporary sign allowances within this code. But what they did and what ran afoul of the law is they actually had the authority to approve such signage delegated to either the NFL or the host committee in that case. That was an unlawful delegation of authority. It did in effect create a content-based approval with respect to first amendment speech and signage. And we're doing none of that here. People can still apply for sign permits. We're the ones who decide whether they get that permit or not and we'll apply our existing standards under our existing sign codes. So very different cases. Absolutely a concern of encroachment on first amendment rights and the prohibition on cities to regulate the content of signs. Ours doesn't do that and we don't delegate authority to anybody else to decide what's okay and what's not.

[04:20:52] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: So I just want to clarify, I believe the Arizona case was two parts and that was the second one that you addressed. The first one was because they put out a Coke sign when the NFL supported Pepsi. And so what might be common in code for our people to do is advertise Coke products in an NFL zone that is a Pepsi sponsor and that is what they deemed a violation of free speech. So are we protected against that part?

[04:21:20] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, and then that's an example of content-based regulation and ours do not do that.

[04:21:25] Unknown Speaker: All right, and then we had a question about the public safety. We kind of went over the public, the ingress, egress issues, the crowd management issues. I don't know, we do have the Police Chief here if you'd want to hear from him on some of the public safety concerns they might have in the area.

[04:21:47] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: And why we need this entire zone to be set aside for public safety.

[04:21:55] Police Chief Cory B. Morgan: Evening Mayor and Council. I will try to make a nuanced civics argument at this late hour. I want to give the first caveat that I'm not going to represent myself as the legislative body. That's your discretion. We're the enforcement branch. The Council in its entirety has brought up very valid points. When we enforce anything, we first enforce them under the protections of our Constitution, and the First Amendment is a big one. These are, I want to emphasize, these are administrative citations. So if there was a public safety issue that we had to address at these events, we would lean more on our misdemeanor authorities that are already on the books in the penal code and the vehicle code for clearing right-of-ways and that's what we would lean on in the event of a public safety access emergency. The way I see these is more of a code enforcement issue if they would issue these citations. And we would definitely not be sending our officers into storefront windows to rip down Coke signs and approach anything near a First Amendment violation by our officers. That being said, there are very real ingress and egress considerations. We see them routinely with illegal food vendors or unlicensed food vendors, I should say, at our events. And that does cause sometimes a restriction of the egress channels and that would be something that we would want to clear for public safety. But like I said, there are laws on the books that exist that give us mechanisms to free those ingress and egress lanes without leaning on administrative authorities. Hope I made sense. This is my 14th hour of wearing this pistol belt.

[04:23:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Do you feel it's necessary to have the entire Northside set aside as this special event zone?

[04:24:03] Police Chief Cory B. Morgan: In terms of the need for a public safety access on some of these residential streets, I don't.

[04:24:14] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you.

[04:24:16] Unknown Speaker: Thank you Chief Morgan. All right, so we went through public safety. Now we're talking about advertising restricted and the need for public safety perspective. And I think we kind of covered that as well. Then I got to the Mission College question, and that is a good point. Right now, temporary structures, if you want to erect within this zone would require city permit or approval. And I think that does become overbroad when you kind of encompass this entire area for the city to have to permit or approve anyone putting up a pop-up tent. I think one of the ways that we could try to limit this and try to address the concern, right? The concern is people setting up events areas and putting up pop-up tents, selling food, and it becoming a dangerous area or dangerous condition in crowds, is that we regulate our city property. So for any of anyone putting up a tent or a structure on the city right-of-way, public roads or anywhere that the city controls, that we regulate it and limit it to that perspective. And I think that might be something that might be feasible. And it's already required, but it would just be clear to the people that you can't just get on a sidewalk and put up a tent without getting city approval first. So if you would like put a carve out there...

[04:26:35] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: That makes sense. Wow, that makes absolute sense.

[04:26:47] Unknown Speaker: The question about penalty and is whether or not that is enough of a deterrent. I know our legal team went through our codes and we were trying to balance our current peddling and vending ordinances. We were trying to balance what those violations would be. We don't want to make it more egregious than what is currently allowed under our code. So we wanted to create the code that was consistent with how we enforce other violations in the code on a daily basis. As for reporting, yeah, we would be having an email address and a phone number to report complaints to. I do think the MySantaClara app will create an avenue there for people to file their complaints when there is a violation. I think I covered the tent issue. Impact on the Creek Trail. Right now there's no impact. We're not restricting anything, well, from this ordinance perspective. There may be something on the transportation management operation plan for the event that might impact the operations out there. But the ordinance doesn't restrict anything on the Creek Trail. Now for events, they would have to come in and get a special event permit and depending on capacity, numbers, security needs, you know, we would have to evaluate it for that. But the ordinance is not prohibiting those activities right now. I got the question about who is educating businesses. Our office will be doing the outreach immediately after adoption of this ordinance and even after we move forward with the introduction, we'll start preparing those and getting information out that this is coming. Food trucks. So I know a concern is about that there are existing food truck events. What ends up happening is when food trucks just pop up anywhere kind of does create that congestion issue. I mean, the event is very limited to the time period, right? So it's only the one week during the Super Bowl and then the three weeks during FIFA that they would be precluded from being able to have some type of food truck activation out there. And that could be the outreach that we also do is to kind of figure out how we can coordinate and manage their events around these dates as well.

[04:29:07] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Right. Because Rivermark, I'm just using that as an example. They have their summer series and they come out every Wednesday during FIFA World Cup.

[04:29:24] Unknown Speaker: And I don't think I had any other questions. Please let me know if I missed something.

[04:29:29] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I have a few. What about our existing vendors that have permits? What happens to them?

[04:29:34] Unknown Speaker: So right now, our existing vendors in the approved location under the ordinance would not be allowed. They would have to be moved out. We're trying to coordinate potential alternative partnerships for them. The city is doing a bunch of community events and hopefully will be inviting the vendors out to those activations. But within the zone right now under this ordinance, they would not be allowed to operate.

[04:30:00] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Do we offer them any compensation?

[04:30:03] Unknown Speaker: No, we don't have any compensation offered.

[04:30:07] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: So who is also going to enforce this ordinance and then who's paying for all this? Because this is due to Super Bowl and World Cup. How is it being paid for?

[04:30:18] Unknown Speaker: So right now, you know, the ordinance is a mechanism for the city to and public safety and code enforcement to go out and to deter these activities out there. It's complaint based. We're not going to be actively doing it. Right now for from a public safety perspective, it would be during the event days. So there'll be public safety officers that are out there working the events that if they need to have a mechanism to move somebody off a sidewalk or remove a sign, they would have the ability to use this ordinance to effectively use to clear the area. And so, but these would be city costs. From a code enforcement perspective, we would be bearing those costs to enforce.

[04:31:47] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Hardy, you've had your light on for a while.

[04:31:50] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Thank you. I appreciate when you said what we can do is public property, anything that's set up on the sidewalk or impeding a road or anything like that. We already have a temporary sign ordinance that... I'm going to say it, it's... I remember before we had it and it was mostly because there were political signs put everywhere and then left and it was a mess. So that was to help that. But I noticed that those temporary signs such as say a realtor come out on the weekend because they know code enforcement isn't working. And so that's a reality you would have. Now, I do like that our established businesses, if they had a way to contact and say someone has set up something in my parking lot and it's not permitted, it's not appropriate, we didn't ask for this. I like that they would have the ability to let us know and that could be taken care of if it was explained to them in that way, rather than you can't do blah, blah, blah. Because there are... it... when I read through it, it wasn't really clear that anything that was already there and permitted was okay. And I read it twice to make certain. Thank you.

[04:31:58] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Chahal.

[04:32:04] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Thank you Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Coming back to the food trucks or events like that, you know, we have multiple days activation for these zones. I can understand even day minus one day that we restrict these food trucks and we can restrict them on the main roadways. But you know, Northside Library close to the library parking lot, they have a food truck over there. So I would suggest like we should make some exceptions for those like game day minus one day. Okay, you cannot do that. But all other days, yes, the business as usual. But you can restrict some of the positions like you cannot on the main roads but you can go internally in. So that's my suggestion. How can we achieve that basically? And second thing, we have multiple parks over there. Same thing applies to them. Birthday party in a park. Like they are putting up a tent over there like what can we do even if we want to. I understand from safety point of view we don't want gathering, bigger gathering can be risky. But on the non-event days, can we have some relaxations for these businesses or for these type of events? Thank you.

[04:33:25] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Park.

[04:33:28] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, so I've been going listening to all the input and I've been looking at this presentation again. I think that what we're kind of omitting, I think part of it is because it started with a commercial context and then we have one slide that says temporary structures and promotional restrictions and then it kind of leaves the commercial context. But I believe that this is supposed to be in the commercial context as well, which means that all of these things, whether it's a tent, it's not a tent for personal use, it's not a chair for personal use, it's not a sign to support your team or not. I believe when I look at this in context, it is about commercial activity controls. And even when it says temporary structures and promotional restrictions, it's for commercial activity controls. When we look at outdoor sales, mobile sales, I like the fact that we've got this tied to existing fixed location businesses. I think that when we talk about suspension of business vending permits that we have issuance of special permits, time specific permits, maybe a specific number of permits where people can do their normal business. But everyone, I mean if you're doing commercial business, then you're subject to these sign restrictions, right? And anyone that has a mobile cart or they're doing business or they've got signs up that are selling anything or offering anything, then they can be subject to a request from code enforcement to say, show us your permit. Are you allowed to do this? Did you sign up for this? And if you haven't signed up for this, well, I'm sorry, you're going to have to put those down. You're going to have to take these down. I don't think this is about college students setting up things for, you know, their clubs or supporting a team or supporting an organization unless they're selling something. I think that the other concern is, well, promotional materials, which is you're not selling something, but now we've got all these different things that say you can get this for free or you know, coupons. I do see a, you know, a purpose for all of this. I also know that during big events like this, and we know about Atlanta and all these other things, but bringing in mobile carts and vending carts that aren't regulated, that do not have a permit, that you can't ask them to leave because we have no mechanism to ask them to leave is a very dangerous thing. So I completely support having something like this, you know, so that if there is a questionable activity, if there is a questionable, you know, cart or business or booth that we have an ability to ask them to leave. I think in that context, I concede a little bit more. I actually want them to be in places like Rivermark. I actually want them to be in places like our commercial areas. But again, this is a lot of work. And that takes me to my next concern, which is I'm told, I don't know if this is actually true, but we've got the expert himself in the audience, which is we only have two code enforcement officers. I would think that if we have a zone like this and even if we manage the restrictions so that it's only about commercial, what is our ability to enforce this? What is our ability to actually make the zone that we set up, our imagined zone, useful? Right. But again, putting the lens, putting the filter of commercial activity controls actually makes most of this make sense. When we talk about, you know, again, you I think you have it in here, outdoor merchandise sales prohibited unless conducted by an existing fixed location business. Permits that are already there, the signage agreements that are already there are still there for existing businesses. But if you're somebody new, if you're somebody that does not have an agreement with the city, then well, you've got to follow these restrictions. And I'm sure that we can get to a place where we can let business as usual be business as usual, invite a little bit more commerce in, but at the same time put controls on unregulated vending, on unregulated signs, people putting up signs over signs, misleading people to their vending carts, to their mobile vending stations instead of the actual businesses and things like that. I see the need for that. I agree with the need for that. I'm concerned about how we enforce this given the scope, the size of the area, the number of people that could potentially be there and the number of resources we have working on this. I don't know how we're going to move forward but I do see it in the commercial context.

[04:38:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. So I'm going to go to the public now. Do we have any public members that would like to speak? Kirk, go ahead Kirk.

[04:38:44] Kirk Vartan: Yeah, hi, thank you Mayor and Council. I've been doing stuff in the background listening in and what caught my ear was this was presented as a public safety requirement or request or public safety driven thing. And when the Chief of Police responds pointedly saying he does not see this as a public safety need, then I think you need to re-examine the premise of this entire item. Further, I don't know where Howard is on this, but what I thought I heard was even if you have a permit to operate in the City of Santa Clara, if you don't have a brick and mortar place, you are banned. Places like the stadium is his bread and butter for big events. I mean, that's like one of his prime things to do. So I'm surprised to hear that even if you have a license, and again, unless I misunderstood that, that if you have a license to operate in the City of Santa Clara, if you don't have a brick and mortar place like he does not have a brick and mortar place, he's got a cart but it's licensed. One of the few that's probably licensed in the city that operates around the stadium. That he can't operate. He's going to be asked to leave. I think that's egregious. I think that's terrible that you would require that of him if that's what it actually is. And from a freedom of speech perspective, there's plenty of tabling and tents that get created so you can have sun protection while you're doing your First Amendment activities, whether it's liking the team, disliking the team, talking about politics, whatever it is. And it sounds like that is also not going to be allowed. So I don't see this as a public safety thing based on the comments I've heard. It does seem like you could have someone that doesn't like someone's messaging go around the city and start calling in code enforcement. So I think there's a conflicting message in this. Thanks so much.

[04:40:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Edward, go ahead Edward.

[04:40:49] Edward Strine: Yeah, speaking of brick and mortar, would have been nice to have Related speak up and maybe give a reason for why they didn't have their retail hotel restaurant phase of the project completed by now for FIFA and Super Bowl. But of course we'll probably have to wait another ten years for that. And as far as the catering trucks or food trucks, you've got the Mr. Softee ice cream trucks that come to the Northside of Santa Clara every week. I think it's like two or three times during the week they come to the Northside. So maybe somebody want to let them know that they won't be allowed in the area. And that's all I've got to say. Thank you very much.

[04:41:34] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you Edward. Do we have anybody else that wants to speak on this? No? All right. Council? I'm just going to, I'll start. I'm okay with a clean zone. I just think the area is too big. And I just want to correct, Kirk Vartan, the Chief didn't say he wasn't in favor of this, just I asked him the question about the area being too large. That was it. I wanted to correct that. Um, I think it should be surrounding the stadium and in the general areas that the parking lots and others where normally there are issues and on the streets and public rights-of-way, the sidewalks, that would impede traffic or anything. I mean, I think that makes sense to deal with the safety issue part of it. I just think the area is too big. I also think that we're going to have a very difficult time enforcing this. If you've ever been out to a game and you see those carts, they're everywhere. We, with our two code enforcement people, unless we bring on the cavalry, I don't know how the world we're going to enforce any of this. And I know that's the purpose of it is to do that, not to be in little Rivermark when they have their events at the library or other things like that. So I think that I'm really worried because we did zero outreach on this and this is going to send a terrible message to our small businesses especially that we have been hyping up to be ready for World Cup and Super Bowl. And you may say okay, well it doesn't make a difference because they can operate as they're operating right now legally, but when they see something like this that's going to restrict them with a list of, you know, misdemeanors or violations, it's really going to... this is going to really blow up into something huge that doesn't need to be at all. So I think we should redo this and fix it and make the area smaller and get exactly what you need in there and not anything more because the message that I'm really worried about the message that this sends. And I had one last question. Is there no free speech areas? Are we doing away with free speech areas? Because usually you can't really do... There are free speech areas? There are.

[04:44:44] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we're not restricting. So if they want to assemble, yeah, they'll be able to assemble.

[04:44:45] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Thank you Madam Mayor. So maybe I missed this but as far as a rideshare, are we saying that this is going to be geofenced and there's no rideshare that is going to go in here?

[04:44:48] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. And if some version of this or this gets passed, I would recommend hearing a Q&A for the community, but I think it needs some work and I think there's a little bit of time if we can do some outreach and do some due diligence, fix this, and then approve it before we end the year. I don't see a problem with that. But right now I can't support it the way it's been presented. All right. Councilmember Gonzalez.

[04:44:55] Unknown Speaker: For autonomous vehicle rideshares. Like Waymo. They're geofenced from outside. They from coming in. That's been agreed upon with them.

[04:45:05] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Okay because I couldn't see people getting dropped off on the other side of Montague and walking across Montague to get to the stadium. I think this is going to be, Super Bowl is probably going to be a little bit better. FIFA, I could see just because of other events that we've seen around the stadium with folks who are coming in one time a year where it's a little bit more challenging for ingress and egress and things like that. So yeah, so thank you for clearing that up.

[04:45:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Park.

[04:45:42] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, I mean, I know what we said and I think that reading this again, I actually can see some of these items here not just in the current zone but city-wide. I mean when I look at prohibit sale or distribution of illegal or counterfeit goods regardless of permit status, I could see that city-wide. I could see that in Mariposa Plaza. I can see that in, you know, Santa Clara Square. I can see that everywhere. I think that, you know, we could set up the reputation that Santa Clara is the one place where it's safe to buy something. I mean I think that that's kind of the purpose of something like this. Where if you're going to get something, not only is it safe for you to buy this, but we know that the vendors that are here, that their carts and their tents and their tables and whatever are also safe for the event. I think that is the purpose of what we're trying to do here, what we try to balance this. And again, the question that I have is the enforcement. You know, I have heard again and again and again that we only have two enforcement officers. I don't think that will be true. I don't think that only two people will be looking at enforcement at the time of the mega events, but you know, setting up having a a goal, an ideal that we're going to stop all of these things, free product sampling giveaways, promotional items, coupons, commercial services in outdoor and public areas, all of these things. And again I'm looking at prohibit selling of sale or distribution of illegal or counterfeit goods. I don't even know how we're going to do that. I mean I've seen bigger events with people at every corner that, you know, can't really stop this. And at some point we can't do this in every part, every inch of this city like I would like to do because, well, that's just becomes a practical matter. But I feel that anything that we do to keep the people in the stadium safe would be a good thing. If we can increase that area as wide as as wide as practical, I think maybe the practical considerations will will eventually limit the size more than our our ideal of what the size would actually be. But it will simply move the people that are doing the things that we're trying to prevent in the near the stadium area, it'll simply move them to the other other areas, other cities, other shopping plazas, other places where people congregate, other places where people are going to be when they're not at the at the events themselves. Right. But I can see this with the current zone. I just think that the language needs to be tightened up a bit and it needs to be absolutely clear. At some point I do think you are trying to preserve businesses, existing businesses, but I mean the presentation doesn't go go through that as much. I'm looking through kind of the draft language as well, but but maybe we could just make it a little bit clearer. But I don't know that we we that I would want to reduce the zone. I think that the zone is actually right for what we're trying to accomplish, right, when it comes to commercial activity controls. And I think at some point maybe there would be some consideration, some resource resource assessment allocation that says, well, this is the area we can actually do and this is what this is what the the clean zone will be a little bit more practically. Anyway, thank you.

[04:49:20] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Hardy.

[04:49:25] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Thank you. I'm going to take a stab at a motion. I want to ask Council if we continued, it would be the same thing or would it be better to say send it back to staff with the comments?

[04:49:45] City Attorney Glen Googins: I'm going to... the City Manager and I have been talking about how to proceed in light of everyone's comments. I'm going to turn it over to the City Manager to talk about that.

[04:49:53] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: So first I'll say we've heard your comments. I think the best thing to do is to end tonight with this item with clear direction to staff, not really action on the ordinance. We will reschedule it. We will aim to come back at the first meeting in December. And because it is an ordinance we... I don't know, we lost... Mine's dead too. All right, we're back. Okay. Don't know where I dropped off but the recommendation was that Council not act on the ordinance but instead give direction to staff to come back with a modified ordinance. I can go through some of the things that I have heard. As I was saying, we would endeavor to bring that back on your first at your first meeting in December. This is an ordinance that requires two additional...

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[04:50:45] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: ...readings and so it is important that we have two readings and complete this item before the end of the year. With that said, I think it's important to note that we've heard a number of different items. We've heard a desire to reduce the size of the zone, tailor it to really the areas that are most needed closer into the stadium, but also being mindful of the parking lots and areas of congregation as well as paths of traffic.

[04:51:18] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Additionally there were questions about enforcement. I think it's important to note that there would be two enforcement entities: the police department and code enforcement. Code enforcement is not the police department; code enforcement is ran out of our community development department. Also there were questions around what would be the impact to Mission College as well as what would be the impact on our neighborhoods.

[04:51:42] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: I love the analogy of Johnny's birthday and will Johnny be able to have an inflatable for his birthday. Johnny loves inflatables. I hear. There were also additional comments around the restrictions on businesses and I think we can address that by coming back, talking about the restrictions but also being a little bit clearer on exactly what businesses can do and what's permitted. Not what you can't do but what you can do.

[04:52:15] Councilmember Karen Hardy: So staff, should the motion be to continue the item or to send it back to staff with the comments for a rewrite?

[04:52:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Come back first meeting in December.

[04:52:26] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Come back first meeting in December in consideration with the feedback provided by the City Council tonight.

[04:52:35] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: And one thing to add was something that, I don't know who brought this up, to include the streets, the sidewalks and public right of ways.

[04:52:41] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Yes. Yes.

[04:52:44] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Okay. So the motion is to bring this back to our first meeting in December. I notice staff has taken very, very good notes and been very aware of our concerns. So the motion is to bring this back at our next meeting which is the beginning of December.

[04:53:02] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Second.

[04:53:08] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Sorry, before you act, I just want to point a clarification. I think when we take a look back on the specific prohibitions, there may be things that we want to propose that are active in the entire zone, but other things that are in a smaller zone. I just, because we're taking Council feedback, I want to gauge interest in... we need to do more analysis and a lot more research, but is Council saying zone smaller no matter what or are you allowing to give staff a little bit flexibility for some provisions that may apply to a larger zone?

[04:53:44] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I would keep in mind how this is going to be communicated to our business community especially. And whether it's punitive or whether it's protection of them from all these outside vendors and other things. It has to be communicated positively. So I don't know what you mean by the bigger zone, like what types of things, but I can't think of anything that I would put in the larger zone that aren't going to look, you know, punitive to our businesses. I'll be open to looking at it I guess, yeah, but I can't think of a single thing.

[04:54:32] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay, so we have a... is that okay for the motion? Who made the second? Albert, are you okay with that? Okay. City Clerk, do you have that?

[04:54:39] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: So if I may just read back the motion to the maker. Direct staff to return to first meeting in December with a modified ordinance incorporating Council's feedback. Is that suffice, City Attorney?

[04:54:56] Councilmember Karen Hardy: Yeah. I'm looking at Council. I'm okay with that unless some Council wants to go further with this.

[04:55:02] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We're all recorded so...

[04:55:03] Councilmember Karen Hardy: We understand that. That's fine, Madam Mayor.

[04:55:05] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Very good. All right. Councilmember Jain.

[04:55:09] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Yeah, I see two main driving forces and I want to see the minimal zone size. The first is of course public safety. You know, what do we need to protect for public safety? And I heard from the Chief that, you know, the residential zones, we don't really need to protect those from activities.

[04:55:37] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: But the second is what do we have in terms of contracts with FIFA or or NFL that restrict certain commercial activities? Like for example, you know, if people are going to be there all day, people come from out of town, they're going to be hungry. You know, and they're going to need food.

[04:56:02] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: So to have, you know, Howard come out and serve hot dogs, I think that's fine. But where? Where can we restrict that? You know, maybe it's the commercial interests require 500 feet within the stadium but beyond that, we could have food trucks or we could have vendors. As long as they're not impeding traffic or public safety. But we're going to have a lot... we want to create a great fan experience. We don't want hungry, angry people.

[04:56:34] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Park.

[04:56:37] Councilmember Kevin Park: Yeah, I was going to say that as well. Meaning you asked the specific question, City Manager asked the specific question, do you want it to be... you absolutely want to reduce the size or can we, you know, have some flexibility to right-size it? And my response is I would like to see it right-sized. Again, I don't want something larger than... I know, make it very clear we have somebody mentioned we want something very clear, this is for public safety. These are for public safety. It's not just threats to the stadium but could be threats to people, could be threats to people's pocketbooks hopefully. Things like that. I would like to see that.

[04:57:35] Councilmember Kevin Park: When we talk about food trucks and vendors, I think that fixed vendors, you know, hopefully they've already got places where they're putting up their mobile carts or whatever they have. And for people that are food trucks and they are purely mobile vendors, maybe there ought to be a place for them. Like I know in Palo Alto for example, they have a place where the food trucks just go to this one place and that's where you go. And if you want to go to a food truck, you go to this one street and that's where you go. If you go someplace else, that's not part of this program, that's not where it is.

[04:58:12] Councilmember Kevin Park: And maybe we put out a special permit for that. We create a special place for these vendors. You make it like a mobile marketplace. But I'm not going to prescribe how you do this, but at the same time I think that we need a place where people can put... you know, I would like a marketplace type of thing where people can go out and get things, but I would like it to be regulated. And again, if we're going to create a zone for regulation, I want to make sure that with the Police and with Code Enforcement, we can actually do that regulation.

[04:58:29] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Councilmember Gonzalez.

[04:58:31] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Just wanted to, as far as lessons learned, I think our Mayor mentioned something about, you know, was it the same zone that we used 10 years ago? And what worked, what didn't work at that point to make sure that we incorporate some of those knowns from that past event. And I don't know, our Police Chief had something important he wanted to say, but I don't know if there's something that you wanted to mention? Okay. All right. Let's just go ahead.

[04:58:57] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. City Clerk, when you're ready.

[04:59:12] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Please register your vote.

[04:59:17] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: And that passes unanimously. Thank you all for that. Next, Reports of Members, Special Committees and Councilmember 030 Requests. Councilmember Jain.

[04:59:32] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: Yeah, I have... I would like to report some gifts that I have received. On November 6th I attended the VTA Board meeting and I received this "United Against Hate" shirt. Very nice shirt. And then I also received this Turkey Trot shirt. So for those of you who have not been to the Turkey Trot, it is a... let me explain what they said. It's sponsored by Applied Materials. The Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot is the largest Thanksgiving Day race in America. It's on November 27th.

[05:00:12] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: It allows participants to start Thanksgiving Day off on the right foot by celebrating generosity and wellness with thousands of other runners and walkers committed to investing in their community. All event proceeds are donated to four non-profit beneficiaries: Healthier Kids Foundation, HomeFirst, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, and Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County.

[05:00:41] Councilmember Sudhanshu "Suds" Jain: So those are two shirts that I went... then on November 13th I attended a coffee chat at Sarah's Kitchen. Usually it's not hosted by, but promoted by Mary Grizzle. And I had a coffee and a bowl of oatmeal and that was covered by the owner. He insisted on covering my check, so that was a gift to me. And then on November 14th I attended the opening of Bafang Dumpling and at that event I received this shirt for Bafang Dumpling. It's expanding to Santa Clara and I received this cooler from that event. And that's my report. Thank you.

[05:01:34] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Looks like you have a whole new wardrobe there. All right. Councilmember Chahal.

[05:01:40] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Thank you, Mayor. So I want to bring forward a 030 for Santa Clara City Code Title 17 Chapter 17.15 Table 3, which is basically if a resident is building, adding 300 square feet, single family residence, adding 800 square feet within a span of three years, they are liable to improve the streets, ADA compliant. And multiple residents have complained that it costs them almost $20,000 to do that. And none of the cities like Milpitas, Mountain View, San Jose, Sunnyvale has anything like this. It's very restrictive and sort of a lot of financial loss to residents. So we want to revise this particular City Code so that we don't put our residents into this financial burden when the construction costs are so high. So that's a...

[05:02:50] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. Councilmember Park. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Were you finished?

[05:02:56] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Yeah.

[05:02:57] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Second for the 030?

[05:03:00] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Second.

[05:03:02] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Or is that just...

[05:03:03] Councilmember Raj Chahal: 030. I need a...

[05:03:04] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: He's requesting it.

[05:03:05] Councilmember Kevin Park: Second for the 030.

[05:03:06] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: You agendize it for a future...

[05:03:08] City Attorney Glen Googins: Yeah, second and a vote, Madam Mayor, to agendize it for a future...

[05:03:12] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: We need to vote on that?

[05:03:13] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: I didn't understand it so I don't know what it is.

[05:03:16] City Attorney Glen Googins: So it's an effective... it's technically not a 030, it's really more of a referral at this point but a vote, a second and a majority approval by Council will get staff to act and potentially put it on an agenda.

[05:03:29] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: So... I'll let the second happen, Mayor, or do you want me to speak?

[05:03:32] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: I don't even know what it is so I'm not... I'm going to abstain. I don't understand what it was.

[05:03:36] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Per the Council 030 request, it can be written or verbal at a meeting. This is a verbal 030. What your policy calls for is a Councilmember can articulate the desire to have a 030. If a majority of Council supports that, staff will agendize the item with a very brief item, not heavy research, but just to articulate the item, bring it back to Council for approval. If the 030 is approved, that would authorize the staff time to conduct the necessary research. And so as the City Attorney said, you would need a second and a vote with the motion. I do, because I still have the floor, want to clarify Councilmember Chahal said the street. I think you meant the sidewalk.

[05:04:22] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Sidewalk. Sidewalk.

[05:04:24] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: Yeah.

[05:04:25] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Was... you made a motion. Did somebody second this motion?

[05:04:28] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Yes. I did.

[05:04:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Uh... Albert did. Okay. So there's a motion and a second for whatever the request was?

[05:04:39] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: May I read the motion back into the record? So this is agendize requested 030 to revise a City Code at a later meeting?

[05:04:49] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Title 17 Chapter 17.15 Table 3.

[05:04:54] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Title 17...

[05:04:55] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Title 17 Chapter 17.15.

[05:04:58] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: 17.15?

[05:05:00] Councilmember Raj Chahal: 17.15 and Table 3.

[05:05:05] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Table 3?

[05:05:06] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Yep.

[05:05:16] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Okay. Agendize requested 030 to revise City Code Title 17 Chapter 17.15 Table 3 at a later meeting.

[05:05:24] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Kevin and Albert, yours... is this for something different?

[05:05:28] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Yeah.

[05:05:29] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Okay. Kevin, is it for something different?

[05:05:31] Councilmember Kevin Park: No. I realized with the 030 we can't really talk about this but I was going to add a little bit more context and clarity and I was going to second if we didn't have that as well. But I think it's all done. Thank you.

[05:06:05] City Clerk Bob O'Keefe: Motion passes. Six votes, one abstention.

[05:06:18] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. You still have the floor?

[05:06:21] Councilmember Raj Chahal: Yes. Yes. Yep. So on the last VTA Policy Advisory Committee we were given a bag from VTA. So I was gifted that. And at the Sutter Health event I was given an umbrella for that. Just want to declare that. Thank you.

[05:06:40] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Councilmember Jōvan is your light still on? You want to turn that off?

[05:06:45] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: It was in regard to the last item.

[05:06:47] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. Who else has spoken? All right. Councilmember Gonzalez.

[05:06:50] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just wanted to mention that a few of us were at the City/School District Liaison meeting last week and there's... the New Valley High School... continuation... New Valley High School is going to be relocating to the Benton site and there's some ideas and some renderings that they had as far as what it could possibly look like. So as they move and impact some of the programs there that definitely our adults may be partaking in, I know our Parks and Rec Director is going to be... will be notified as far as when that's going to happen and how any of those issues may impact the community in that way.

[05:07:45] Councilmember Albert Gonzalez: And that was another meeting last week that Councilwoman Hardy and I went to as far as the Regional Wastewater Facility plant that San Jose and ourselves co-own together. And some of the development that might be going up there was mentioned as far as a Microsoft data center and some other businesses. And I know Councilwoman Hardy brought up the issue of possible power that might be utilized there. So we'll see how everything pans out but any plans would be brought to our Council for approval.

[05:08:26] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you for that update. Councilmember Park.

[05:08:29] Councilmember Kevin Park: All right.

[05:08:30] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Vice Mayor Cox.

[05:08:32] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: A report out on the Legislative Action Committee and the Cities Association Board meeting. The Board held elections for their new executive board. The President next year will be Tina Walia of Saratoga. First Vice President will be JR Fruen who will be leaving the LAC Chair position. The Second Vice President and then incoming LAC Chair will be Elliot Scozzola of Campbell. And the Immediate Past President will be Larry Klein. Secretary/Treasurer will be Rosemary Kamei.

[05:09:09] Vice Mayor Kelly G. Cox: And then in the Legislative Action Committee, didn't take action on anything but were supposed to bring back to the City Attorney the request to look at our residential overlay zoning due to Redondo Beach's adopted housing element that relied on residential overlay and that was contested by a developer called New Commune DTLA which filed lawsuit. You're looking at me like you already know this. Our task was to tell our city attorneys to check in on our residential overlay zoning. Thank you. That's it.

[05:09:37] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: Thank you. City Manager report?

[05:09:39] City Manager Jōvan D. Grogan: No report.

[05:09:41] Mayor Lisa M. Gillmor: All right. This meeting is adjourned.

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