April 9, 2019 Joint Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

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Transcript

[00:00:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Gonna call the meeting to order, and we will start with the pledge of allegiance. So, our city clerk? Well, announce attendance.

[00:00:46] City Clerk: Actually, I'll do a roll call. I'm Council member Clark. Council member Hicks.

[00:00:52] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah.

[00:00:52] City Clerk: Council member Kame.

[00:00:54] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:00:54] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[00:00:57] Councilmember John McAlister: Here.

[00:00:58] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez, Vice Mayor Abbe Koga. Mira Matachek.

[00:01:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Here, thank you. Thank you. We're gonna start this evening with a proclamation recognizing National Volunteer Appreciation Week, and I'm gonna come over there in a second, but I'd like to invite some of our volunteers, Paul Goldstein, Cindy Longenbaugh, Martha Wallace, to join me at this lecture. So before we get going with the proclamation, I want to say a few words about each of you. So, Paul has been a volunteer since March 2007, and is nearing his 1,500 hours, uh, milestone as... Gatehouse Ranger, soon to be Recreation and Wildlife Ambassador, and previously served as an environmental docent. Cindy has been a trail ambassador volunteer since November 2017, helping to promote positive etiquette and being the eyes and ears of mountain view trails. Cindy has contributed nearly 450 volunteer service hours to date. And Martha has been a volunteer since August 2006, and was recently recognized for 1,500 hours of service at the Ringstorff house, and Martha will likely hit 2,000 hours in 2019. Thank you all very much.ason? Let me read that. Whereas, the city of Mountain View is proud of the over 660 volunteers who not only serve the community with pride, determination, and commitment, but help to make sure that Mountain View is a great place to live, work, raise a family. And whereas, volunteer contributions, in all city departments benefit the city, as an organization, and have enriched the lives of countless children and adults, and whereas, volunteer assistance to city special events has greatly aided city staff with providing better quality events for the community, and whereas the city of Mountain Vee wishes to recognize and thank the men, women, young adults, and children that have given over, get this number, 45,000 volunteer hours over the past year. That's a lot. Now, therefore, I, Lisa Matachek, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, take great pleasure in congratulating the volunteers of the city of Mountain View, and do hereby proclaim April 7, 2019, through April 13, 2019, as National Volunteer Appreciation Week, and convey my sere gratitude and appreciation for the volunteers' commitment and dedication to the Mountain View community. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council or audience wishes to remove the item for discussion. The reading of the full text of ordinances and resolutions will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. Are there any members of the council who would like to pull an item? Council member McCounselor? Do you have any items you want to pull?

[00:05:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes, I'd like to... I just wanted to make a comment on 4.2.

[00:05:39] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Any other council members want to pull any items? Any members of the audience wishing to pull an item? Okay, seeing none. Did you want to make your comments first, or should we... vote on... I'm sorry, should we vote on the balance? John, did you have a moment??

[00:06:07] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I, um, on 4.2, I've always been concerned about open space. And by going to the 75%, I think we're opening up a floodgate of developers that are going to be looking to minimize the amount of open space or park in Luffy's, that they're going to give us. And I think it's a path that's gonna be very treacherous to retreat. I will be voting no on 4.2, and I would encourage my council members to consider the path that they are choosing. Thank you.

[00:06:39] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we have a motion from Council member Clarke. And the motion is to... approve the consent calendar, including 4.1 adopt an ordinance adding section 19.70.1 to chapter 19, division 2, the Mountain View City code related to the parking of vehicles that discharge domestic sewage on the public right of way, 4.2, adopt an ordinance amending the Parkland dedication ordinance for the North Bay Shore. 4.3 adopt an ordnance, repealing articles, 6 of chapter 19 of the Mountain View, or of the city code, in its entirety, and adding a new Article 6 related to bicycles, electric bicycles, motorized scooters, and transportation devices, 4.4, adopt a resolution, approving the final map of tract number 10454, accepting dedications and making findings as required by the city code to be read entitled only for the redeem waived. in 4.5, adopt a resolution to approve the closure of certain streets in the downtown area on Saturday, December 14th, 2019, at 3 a.m. until Sunday, December 15th, 2019, at 1 a.m. for the German International School of Silicon Valley, German Holiday Market, to be read entitled Only Further Review, Wait. Thank you. Is there a second? Like, okay, so we have a motion by council member Clark and a second by council member Hicks. And I believe we have to do a roll call vote.

[00:08:07] City Clerk: Yes. Council member Clark?

[00:08:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[00:08:10] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[00:08:11] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[00:08:12] City Clerk: Counselor Merbert Commade?

[00:08:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes,

[00:08:13] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[00:08:17] Councilmember John McAlister: Uh, yes, but no, on 4.2.

[00:08:19] City Clerk: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[00:08:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[00:08:22] City Clerk: Bye, Samirabe Koga.

[00:08:24] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi.

[00:08:24] City Clerk: Mary Matachek.

[00:08:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next item is item five, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter that is not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. Is there anyone who wishes to address us on an item that is not on the agenda tonight? Looks like we have one.

[00:09:30] Unknown Speaker: Uh, we're just wanting to confirm, um, that the, the, the motion on the consent calendar included the entire consent calendar, including 4.6, not just the items that were read. That was the question.

[00:09:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. We're just confirming. you. And it does. Okay, so is there anyone wishing to speak on a non agendized item? Okay, seeing none, we will move to... the first item 7.1, which is the Caltrain business plan. And tonight, we have, as our presenters, Caltrain Director of Policy Development, Sebastian Petty, Transportation Manager, Rhea Lo, and Assistant Public Works Director, Don Cameron.

[00:10:28] Director of Policy Sebastian Petty: Great, well, um, good evening, council members. Thank you so much for having me here to present you. My name is Sebastian Petty. I am a director of policy with Caltrain. And so what I'd like to present briefly on tonight is what we're calling the Caltrain business plan, which is a pretty overarching planning effort that Caltrain has undertaken. Although it's called a business plan. It's really, in larger part, a long-range vision for the Caltrain corridor in service that looks at different options for how that service could grow and change over the next 20 to 30 years, considers the range of costs and impacts and benefits that the service could provide and helps Caltrain think about how we can plan and improve the corridor for years to come. It is a pretty significant undertaking for us. So there are multiple tracks of technical work that are ongoing. A lot of analysis of service and I'll talk about that tonight, looking at different options for how servicing could grow and change in the future. Closely paired up with those service options, we're developing business cases around each of the potential packages of service. So understanding, again, what the costs of some of the options we're looking at could be. We're also very focused on the interface between Caltrain and the communities we traverse. We know that we create a lot of benefits for the communities we serve, but we also know that there's a lot of challenges that come to being on an active rail corridor. And as we think about our future, it's important that we think about how that interface can change as well and how we can manage it better. And then finally, we're undertaking a review of the Caltrain organization. So how Caltrain is governed and organized and delivered and thinking about how that may need to evolve along with the service. Um, it's a planning process that's been running for a while, um, and we'll hopefully wrap up around the end of the year. It's really divided into 2 parts. The 1st part is really around framing a long-term vision for the Caltrain Corridor. So really answering the question, how should Caltrain grow? How much should we grow? What would that growth look like? We'll be asking our board to provide some direction to staff on that question in the summer of 2019. Once they provide that direction. We'll then develop a detailed business plan that really pivots back towards the near term and looks at, really what the next 10 years could look like for Caltrain, the kinds of key projects we need to invest in and how we would incrementally improve service. Um, We are electrifying the corridor, that project is funded and underway. And so we, growth is on the menu for Caldrum. We've already sort of committed to a level of growth with electrification. This plan is really about how we'll use that new technology and how far we should carry that growth forward. There's a reason we're asking that question. And it's where even as we've planned for electrification and funded the project and moved it into construction, we see that our trains are very full. We see construction cranes up and down the corridor. And when we look at regional growth projections, we see that there's a huge amount of plan growth in the Caltrain corridor. At the start of this effort, we really wanted to understand what that could mean for the market for rail. So we did some unconstrained demand analysis to look at, well, how many people would actually want to ride the train if there were Bartlight levels of service on Caltrain? And what we found using the latest regional land use and growth projections is that we might be carrying as many as 240,000 people a day in the future. And that's compared to 60,000 today. That's Bartlike levels of service and Bartlike levels of ridership on a per mile basis. So we know that there's a lot of future and even current unmet demand for rail service out there in the Caltrain corridor. Um, what we're really, again, talking about in this 1st part of the plan is sort of just looking at different ways to grow. The diagram you're seeing there is just sort of a representative diagram of sort of a normative trajectory of growth for the core where we're pure in 2019 now today. We know that we'll be starting electrified service in 2022. Caltrain is committed to operating as a blended service with California high-speed rail, and even though the exact dates of their project may be shifting a little bit right now. Uh, providing capacity for that service is still part of our core agreements and our long range vision. So the question is really ultimately how we'll grow in the long term. We've done a lot of work, and this work has been done with policymakers from all of the cities on the quarter, through our local policy group, as well as staff on a monthly basis. We present the sort of evolution of this work. And we've really defined basically 3 kind of options for what the long-term vision for Caltrain could look like. And they're intended to not be overly prescriptive, but really frame sort of a minimum baseline of growth, all the way up to really kind of maxing the corridor out. and looking at what the highest level of growth could be on the infrastructure we have. So the 1st of those is on the screen, and that's really the baseline, and this represents kind of Caltrain, meeting its sort of basic minimum commitments, both to electrify and operate up to 6 Caltrain trains per hour per direction in the peak hour, and then combining that with 4 high-speed rail trains at some point in the future. So the baseline growth is we do that and maybe that's pretty much all we do and don't grow too much more. We've also looked at sort of a moderate growth scenario where we look at what it would mean if Caltrain were to add a little bit more service and so operate 8 total Caltrain trains per hour per direction that looks at basically for local trains an hour and for express trains an hour. And again, then the same 4 high-speed rail trains. And then finally, we looked at a sort of version of the future where we really try to provide the maximum amount of service in the corridor and we actually go up to a total of 16 trains per hour per direction, 12 Caltrain trains, 4 express trains, and alternate 4 express trains, and 4 local trains, and then again the same 4 high-speed rail trains. That high growth scenario really is pushing the limits of the corridor. I think we recognize that that's a pretty daunting amount of service, and we've sort of illustrated it to kind of show what the outer boundary of the envelope is. doing more than that's not really possible on the corridor that we have. We have developed ridership projections for all of these scenarios now, and so you can, this is sort of a graph over time. Again, this presumes kind of the sort of standard set of projects and increases that we've been assuming. Really, what this shows is by the time we're out in 2040, just under the baseline scenario, we're looking at carrying nearly 160,000 writers a day, that could be as high as nearly 210,000 in the high growth scenario. We've also done some work to look at capacity constraining some of these numbers. Particularly in the baseline scenario, some of those trains are going to start getting really crowded. Um, and it may not be entirely reasonable to assume that people are going to pay to take a train where they're squash like sardines. And so that does lower those numbers some about 6% from the baseline and 4% of the moderate scenario. Where the capacity constraint becomes a big deal is really in the peak of the peak when the trains are most crowded. And so when we think about a peak hour on the corridor and how many freeway lanes, Caltrain could be replacing in the future, that's where some of the differences between these scenarios really come out. So, um, growing in these different ways, uh, in a, in the baseline scenario, we were essentially adding the equivalent of about 2 extra lanes of capacity on 101 in the moderate about 2.5 . And the high growth scenario, because we're providing so much more capacity at the peak of the peak when it's really needed. That's an equivalent of nearly 5.5 lanes of new freeway capacity. Um, so we've, as I mentioned on a lot of work to develop these different options, I think the important thing to emphasize is that we're not asking our board or really the community to choose an option just based on which service they like the best, what we're really doing is developing what we're calling business cases where we look at, um, again, not just the quality of service that's being provided, but the long-term operating costs, the capital costs of the investment ends, the kinds of environmental benefits that we might project from these different options and trying to provide a pretty complete picture of what it means to choose one version of growth or another. As I mentioned, one of the other areas of focus in this project is really, again, on that corridor community interface and understanding, as the railroad grows and changes how our interface with the cities we traverse changes. We go through 21 different local jurisdictions on the Caltrain corridor. There's a lot of good that comes out of having a train service and there are a lot of challenges as well. And so, um, we know that talking about big changes to the service implies changes to that interface and means we may need to rethink, um, how we approach some of those issues going forward. Um, probably the major part of that, um, that's a significant concern of a number of communities on the corridor is what happens at great crossings. Um, And I'll talk a little bit more about that, but when we're talking about things like 12 or 16 trains an hour, it's important that I think cities hear us that this isn't Caltrain saying that we think it's fine for that to happen with that great crossings in place. And so great separations and the kinds of investments that would be required to support, um, a higher number of grade separations are very much part of this plan. So I just wanted to highlight a, you know, I just threw a lot of data up on the screen, and this is a fairly complex efforts. I wanted to add a few slides of this presentation to really focus on what some of these options could mean for Mountain View. I would stress that these are all conceptual at this point. They're sort of illustrative of different levels of investment and growth. A subject that's of major concern to a lot of cities is passing tracks. Um, So in the baseline scenario where we're just sort of doing meeting our commitments and doing the minimum, there would not be any new 4 track segments required in Mountain View in the moderate growth scenario where we're again adding a couple more Caltrain trains, there would potentially be a need for a 4 track stations somewhere in either Mountain View or Palo Alto. So somewhere in southern or in northern Santa Clara County, we would need a 4 track station that could be anywhere between Palo Alto or Mountain View Station. And it could be any one of those. Um, not a decision that would need to be made at this point in the process. In the high growth scenario, and again, that's a very robust amount of service and it comes with some pretty robust infrastructure requirements. We would need nearly 15 miles of new 4 track segments throughout the corridor. They would generally need to be grouped. We need a fairly long overtake in the north of the corridor. We need a fairly long overtake in the middle of the corridor, and one in the south of the corridor. And so some of that overtake would be in Mountain View. Again, the exact geography of it would be subject to further study, but to achieve that level of service, 16 trains an hour per direction. We would be talking about needing to build some pretty significant 4 track segments. Um, We just uh, also did a little bit of analysis of just how service levels and ridership levels could change at the stations in Mountain View. And again, you can sort of see them on the screen there, but we've got sort of the number of weekday train stops at stations and how those would change under the future scenarios and also the stops per peak hour per direction and the off peak, as well as how the ridership would be projected to change. So for San Antonio, which gets largely one stop an hour today during the peak, in the moderate or high growth scenarios, that would be getting a, that station would be getting 15 minute service and would be projected to carry 1000s of riders. For downtown Mountain View, which is really kind of in Caltrain's top tier of stations. Today, downtown Mountain View gets roughly 4 stops an hour per direction. In the moderate or high growth scenarios, we'd be looking at 8 or 12 stops an hour per direction. So a really high level of service, kind of art-like level of service at downtown Mountain View. And again, starting to see volumes of passengers that go up to being well above 10,000 passengers a day. Lastly, we did want to talk a little bit about what this would mean for gate downtime, and again, I would frame this as describing the problem, not Caltrain in any way suggesting that this is an acceptable outcome. We know that we're very aware that Mountain View is pretty advanced in planning both for a new transit center and enclosure at Castro as well as a great separation at Rangsorf. These projections just show, if we were to do nothing at all, how bad the gate downtimes could get in these different scenarios at the 2 grade crossings in Mountain View. And again, the plan will include the assumed costs of those great separations and projects. as we develop sort of the overall financial package of what would be required to support this level of service in the future. I'll just go through these real quick. We have been engaging with a whole range of stakeholder groups and public groups as part of this process, I think, probably of most interest to Mountain View would be the city and county staff coordinating group in our local policy maker group. Those meet on a monthly basis, Mountain View staff participates in the city county staff coordinating group. And the local policymaker group, um, historically, uh, different members of the Mountain View City Council have participated in that as well. And that's kind of the 1st best venue to get updates on this process. And then just some basic numbers about the outreach that's been going on as part of this process. And there is a website for the plan for those who are interested.

[00:24:59] City Staff: Thank you. This is the second half of the presentation. So I thank Sebastian for presenting that. So staff has brought this to council tonight because there are a number of key issues for mountain view. First of all, Caltrain will be making some decisions in the next 2 to 3 months, and so we wanted to get council's input to guide city input to those decisions. And staff sees 3 main issues relating to the Caltrain business plan. First of all, Increased Caltrain service is good for Mountain View. It helps us to achieve our sustainability and our mode chief goals for the city, and we're planning the city around that. If grade separation projects are delayed, however, increased service and increased gate downtime would really affect the circulation within the city and safety issues around those at grade crossings that currently exist. And then the 3rd thing is that there are passing track implications, but staff has not received very much information on those so far, so it's difficult to assess what the trade-offs are associated. In Mountain View, the at grade crossing. So we have several grade separated crossings, amount of views in the middle there. And the outgrade crossings are at Ringsdorf and Castro slash Moffat. And we understand that Caltrain is considering potential passing tracks. So of one of 4 locations for the moderate growth scenario and from Palo Alto to potentially somewhere just north of Mountain View Station for the high growth scenario. What we're proposing in terms of guidance for input is a number of potential principles. The 1st principle is that the city strongly supports Caltrain service. Secondly, we support Caltrain electrification and the increases in service that come along with that. Thirdly, the principle is that Caltrain should support timely completion of mountain view's grade separations. And fourthly, that we encourage Caltrain to prioritize reconstruction of Mountain View station platforms, and also the Caltrain should conduct some feasibility study of passing track locations before adopting a service vision. And finally, we oppose passing tracks in Mountain View Station because it interferes with our plans for the transit centre. So our recommendation is to adopt those principles to guide the city's input into the service vision for the culture and business plan. Thanks.

[00:27:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. We will start with council questions, and then we'll open it up for public input, and then bring it back to the council for discussion. So, are there any council members who have questions? Well, I guess, uh, I was gonna start with, I was gonna start with the council that's here, because John tends to like to go last, but, uh, council member Hicks.

[00:28:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, one question I had is, um, we're developing quite a bit at San Antonio, and I'm wondering if there's any way, both in peak and off peak times, to make it to have stops more than the stops that are that have been indicated in the report.

[00:28:38] Sebastian (Caltrain): In the near term, I think there's certainly our fairly near term, as we look at electrification coming online in 2022, I think the hope is that we'd be able to certainly improve the service levels over where they are today. In terms of getting over some of the long-range service levels that we're looking at, I think that's largely the purpose of this exercise is I don't know that we can get over, say, more than 4 trains an hour at San Antonio without beginning to pull stations from or stops from either downtown Mountain View or from adjoining stations in Palo Alto. One of the challenges in this exercise is trying to fit a lot of trains onto a constrained corridor, and that inherently means having to make some choices about where service is allocated. So in this case, in Mountain View, we've allocated the majority of the service to the downtown station.

[00:29:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, Abi Koga? I think he actually wanted to, um, follow up on that question.

[00:29:39] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I, I remember almost 10 years, over, yeah, a little under 10 years ago, we actually cut the service, and San Antonio Station did experience, um, cuts, and have, are we, we haven't ever restored the amount of service heavily. Because I thought we had more than one an hour back then.

[00:29:59] Sebastian (Caltrain): No, I can't speak to the details of the change that may have been made 10 years ago in aggregate. Caltrain service has been fairly stable for the last 10 years in the sense that the overall service hasn't dramatically changed, but we certainly have adjusted individual trains.

[00:30:15] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so we probably haven't restored what we had before the recession. But in terms of what you just meant, your response to council member Hicks, um, do you have a sense or do you know, um, the writership, uh, for instance, California Avenue in Palo Alto, is that, um, where does that fall? And, like, would that potentially be something to look at? This is in light of the fact that, you know, we have Facebook, we have Lima there, and the companies are asking if we can get more Caltrain service in San Antonio.

[00:30:50] Sebastian (Caltrain): Yeah, I, you know, I don't have the ridership numbers right in front of me, but it's, you know, what I would generally say, and I, going back to kind of what I said at the start of this, is these different service visions are not 100% definitive. They're intended to be sort of illustrative of, you know, at different levels of investment and numbers of trains. These are realistic, sort of pictures of how service could be provided. So when the Caltrain board makes a decision, they're not picking the exact schedule that'll operate in 2040 and there's still room for some level of discussion and negotiation around exactly how many train stops could go at which station. And so to some extent, that's a discussion that we'll be able to visit over time. Um, you know, this isn't one project. We're talking about sort of a long-range vision for the buildout of the corridor.

[00:31:40] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So then, is there no possibility of more service at San Antonio immediately, before electrification?

[00:31:49] Sebastian (Caltrain): So I think it's pretty unlikely that there would be more prior to electrification right now as we're building that project. The corridor is very constrained in the peak hour. We're also limited by our existing equipment. And so that's one of the reasons we are electrifying so that we can provide more service and flexibility.

[00:32:09] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, When we, oh, in terms of great separations. Can we count on or assume that Caltrain will help us fund our projects? How does that work? I know Sure. There's measure B funds, but how will Caltrain assistance actually getting those projects done?

[00:32:33] Sebastian (Caltrain): So I think that's a really good question. I think there really are 2 roles for Caltrain in that. One is literally assisting in getting the project done is making sure that we're prioritizing the construction of those projects and fitting them into service in our construction calendar. Great separations are hard for the railroad to construct. They're very invasive for cities. They're also very invasive for the railroad. hard to operate. trains. So that's, I would say, the immediate way that we really do need to support Mountain View and make sure that your project moves forward. In terms of sort of overall funding. Um, I think we see this planning effort as kind of a major 1st step in that. There's been a real change in the last 10 years on the corridor and the number of cities who are interested in grade separations. It used to be a topic that didn't come up a lot and it was, you know, there were a couple of them that moved forward every 10 years and a lot of cities really did not want grade separations. And that's changed. So one of the things we're doing in this plan is framing the corridor wide potential need. And that need is going to be measured in 1000000000s and 1000000000s of dollars. So out of this planning effort, I think one of the things we're really hoping to launch is a little bit of a quarter wide conversation about how Caltrain can support cities and how cities can support each other in terms of advocating for additional funding sources for those efforts. There's there's no one who has the money for grades separating all along the corridor. Um, the counties don't have it. They have individual pots of money, Caltrain doesn't have it. High-speed rail doesn't have it. Not for the level of investment that we're talking about here. And so, um, we're going to have to work together to seek other state sources, to hopefully seek federal sources and and find some new pots of money.

[00:34:22] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And then in regards to passing tracks, Because, you know, we're very constrained in our, um, land. But what I see, I guess, one side, at least in the Mountain View section, Central Expressway. What are your conversations with the county in regards to the possibility of widening out that way, since the other side is pretty constrained.

[00:34:52] Sebastian (Caltrain): Yeah, so we haven't started those conversations yet, and this is planning exercise, not an engineering exercise at this stage. I think there are some very real feasibility concerns around the kinds of infrastructure that we're showing in the high growth scenario, both in Mountain View and in many of the other cities where we're showing that level of growth. Um, I think we've shown what that would look like in part because that is the level of service that might be required to fully serve the demand we see in the corridor. And so to some extent, we're laying it out there, so that there's a very transparent conversation with cities up and down the corridor of, you know, if we want to have large numbers of people riding rail in the future, this is what may be required from an infrastructure standpoint. To the extent that the Caltrain board may sort of select that as a long-range service vision. It's not a set of projects that would advance immediately. Um, you know, we'd be looking at building incrementally over time into that vision, we'd be looking at, um, to some extent waiting to understand exactly what happens with the high-speed rail program. So we wouldn't go out tomorrow and try to build it. We would have time to look at different options. Um, and conduct a series of feasibility studies and really engage with, um, communities around what's acceptable and possible in their communities. But at this stage, we want to be transparent about how many people the corridor can move and what's required to get there.

[00:36:24] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Is the expectation when you, when a decision is made, um, that it will be the capturing board in, um, conjunction with each of the city councils? Like, well, Caltrain, make a decision, um, that needs to be, let's say, ratified by the councils, or does Caltrain just get to make the decision?

[00:36:48] Sebastian (Caltrain): I think, in this instance, the Caltrain board would be making the decision. They're not adopting a project. They're really setting a long range vision for the corridor. So it's, um, really kind of a long range growth target. We don't ever have to get all the way there. Things may change along the way. There may be changes to the high speed rail program. But I think what Caltrain is challenged with sometimes is the inverse of that question, where if we don't have a long-range vision and we get requests to say sell our land or questions about what standards we should be building to, if we don't have a long-range vision of what we need to be, we can't build efficiently, we can't make good decisions.

[00:37:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[00:37:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. and following up from some of the vice mayor's questions. So, well, first, if we could go back to the San Antonio station slide, I wanted to seek a clarification. So the weekday ridership figure for the moderate growth scenario is higher than for the high growth scenario. Is that accurate or were they...

[00:37:52] Caltrain Representative: Yeah, that's that's correct. So all of these ridership numbers are being pulled out of a regional model. And so what you can see is that there isn't actually a difference between the moderate and the high scenario for San Antonio. The same number of trains are stopping there. Where there is a difference is that at downtown mountain view, you have far more trains stopping. And so what the model's likely picking up is the way these things work is some level of extra sort of gravitational pull to downtown mountain view.

[00:38:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Got it. Thank you. And then how long approximately would, so you've seen principle 5 in the staff report. How long would the feasibility study likely take?

[00:38:30] Caltrain Representative: The feasibility study of discerning contracts. Yeah, but yes. You know, I, it would be hard to speculate on that. I think there would be a, the 1st question would be really when it would make sense to engage in a specific feasibility study. I mean, a year or two, a year and a half , potentially, depending on how it was scoped and the expanse of it.

[00:38:57] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, got it. Thank you. And so, If the Caltrain board were to adopt a service plan with a higher growth scenario, sort of implied, and you discovered over the course of the next year, that the capital improvements necessary to make that service potential feasible are are not not possible. then would you anticipate a scaling back from the adopted service plan? Is that sort of...

[00:39:34] Caltrain Representative: Okay. So you're not... Yeah, again, this is a long range vision. It's not a plan that, you know, commits Caltrain to, you know, in exactly this year we're going to be able to run this many trains. All of these, all of these options are going to be predicated on levels of funding that don't exist today. So it's really, it's a target, and I think we would revise the business case as we update costs as we get new information about what high speed rail may or may not do, as cities change their plans, or as we discover through feasibility studies, that certain kinds of infrastructure may or may not be possible. Um, we'd have the opportunity to revise that. It's really, for us, it's the best roadmap we can come up with.

[00:40:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Got it, thank you. And then sort of related to this effort. Do you, um, I'm aware of conversations about a regional ballot measure that would provide a dedicated funding source for culturing. And my understanding is that's projected to go in the ballot in March 2020. Does any of the work being done here impact that work? In other words, do you need to have a service plan adopted this summer in order to have whatever information you need to craft that ballot measure?

[00:40:57] Caltrain Representative: No, not necessarily. I think we would, we would look at those as 2 independent efforts, and my understanding, at least at the staff level, is that the timing of that ballot measure is still under discussion. Um, I think the business plan and the analysis that's going into it is something that we feel strongly that we need to do regardless. Again, for sort of all the reasons I mentioned about having a roadmap and being able to plan efficiently. Um, I think one of the byproducts of that is it will, um, paint a pretty detailed financialized picture of both what Caltrain can do and what may be required from a monetary standpoint to do it. And after our board sort of adopts a long range vision and we pivot back to looking at what should Caltrain do in the next 10 years, part of that analysis will be looking at where could money come from? and how could different funding sources be patched together to make that happen?

[00:41:52] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, thank you. Last question. Um, and I'm not sure how to ask this, so I'll ask it in a kind of clumsy way. Is there a way we can convey support for higher growth scenarios and also, express our concerns about the impact of the capital improvements that are necessary to make that higher service possible, um, without sort of the input being interpreted as, you know, the council is concerned about the impacts so they're not supportive of the higher service potential.

[00:42:31] Caltrain Representative: Yeah, I think you could certainly convey that sentiment and I would do it much as you had stated. Um, I think the advantage, you know, we're we're engaged in this as a planning process, that we're doing this, it's not an EIR, we're doing it in advance, to set a vision, and that gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of, um, you know, the Caltrain board doesn't have to adopt exactly one of those we can talk about potentially a hybrid option where we say, um, you know, there's clearly benefit to the high growth option, but there are questions that remain to be answered. And so for now, maybe we should calibrate down a little bit, but not preclude, you know, there's any number of ways we could frame that. And one of the reasons I'm here tonight and reasons why we have groups like the LPMG and CSG is so that we can get this input from cities and understand whether that's, you know, sort of a middle ground that could be workable.

[00:43:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you very much.

[00:43:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Kameh.

[00:43:29] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Um, so, um, I was wondering, as Caltrain is putting together this, uh, plan, what the conversation has been related to the different, how the different gross scenarios would affect, um, Farebox recovery. So I know last year, Caltrain increased their prices. And it sounds like there's going to be high growth, no matter if we go kind of expected moderate high. And I'm just wondering what the conversation has been related to Barebox recovery.

[00:44:01] Caltrain Representative: Yeah, that's a great question. So that analysis is actually ongoing right now as we're adding up all of the costs for this. Both the capital investment costs as well as the ongoing operating costs. That's one of the metrics that'll come out. And at this sort of high-level vision stage, what will generally be assuming is that fares are held constant and just grow with CPI. In the next phase of the plan is we look at more of the details and what may happen in the next 10 years, we'll be able to analyze a range of options around if we wanted to have lower fares or off peak discounts, what could it look like versus if we wanted to try to maximize fair box recovery. What would that look like? So it's part of the analysis that's coming.

[00:44:41] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Is it is it also expected? You said that there might be a range of options, that there might be a variety of price points in terms of maybe make, uh, enabling Caltrane to be more financially accessible, um, to individuals, given the cost of what it is now to ride Caltrane.

[00:45:01] Caltrain Representative: Sure, I think in terms of enacting those kinds of policies, that would probably be follow on work that would be adopted through changes to our codified tariff or adjustments to our fare policy. But in terms of doing the analysis, we will do some of that in subsequent phases of this plan and just what it would mean if we priced the system in different ways.

[00:45:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you.

[00:45:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister, did you have any questions?

[00:45:26] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I got a few questions. For the gentlemen, we're gonna have, how many feasibility studies are being proposed along the whole length of the track.

[00:45:39] Caltrain Representative: So I don't, um, have an exact answer to that. I think, you know, what we're talking about with a service vision is really a long-term vision for growth that would be made up of a number of individual capital projects, whether those were specific overtake tracks or, say, the individual grade separation projects that cities pursue. So I think the answer to that in that context would be there will be a lot of feasibility studies. This is a very active and under construction corridor, mountain view, has 2 acrid crossings and grades separating either one of those is a major capital project. We have 42 acrid crossings in the corridor that Calgary owns. And about 18 of those are under some kind of study right now. So we're going to be in various states of engineering and construction for a long time on this corridor.

[00:46:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Then how would you prioritize the feasible feasibility studies? Let's say Mountain View is pretty soon ready to go and shovel ready. Will they then get priority for feasibility study from Caltrain, or will they have to sit in the queue for others?

[00:46:56] Caltrain Representative: I don't, um, I think, you know, as we, once we sort of have a long range service vision and then look at what might need to come next in the next 10 years. So really the investments Caltrain would need to make to achieve that next level of service improvement, that would likely guide where we would want to focus attention. Um, but I think, you know, I alluded at the start of this briefly that part of what we're looking at with this plan is some changes to the Calgary organization. Part of that is an acknowledgment that I think we have a lot of planning and feasibility work that needs to happen in the corridor and that we need to make sure that we have the bandwidth to work with all of the cities on the corridor.

[00:47:41] Councilmember John McAlister: Is there through your service vision? Are you going to prioritize any particular rate process? Or will there be a process to prioritize great crossing?

[00:47:53] Caltrain Representative: So, they will not be prioritized through the service vision. We are including all of the grade separation and great crossing projects that individual cities are planning for in all of the different service visions. I guess I'll answer your question a couple of other ways. One is that I know that VTA has engaged Caltrain and the city of Mountain View, and they're developing sort of an implementation plan specifically for the measure B funding that we'll talk about how that funding could be prioritized, and that's certainly directly applicable to Mountain View. I think a highly without pre-judging outcomes of this planning process. I think uh, an extremely likely outcome will be a launching of an additional process to really look at the issue corridor wide that you're addressing, which is, um, we have grade 42 Acgrade crossings in the Caltrain corridor. They span multiple counties. We know that there are major funding needs. They're questions around how they're coordinated and delivered, and there's a major piece of work that Caltrain in all of the communities on the core we'll need to engage in to solve that puzzle. And so I, we've budgeted money to advance that study in our next year budget. And we know it's a major priority for communities all up and down the corridor.

[00:49:19] Councilmember John McAlister: If you have 42 at great crossing, you're gonna have to figure out some way that you don't want to have 510 at one time or whatever, but that would be really disruptive toward the train. So, when will you determine how you want great crossings to proceed?

[00:49:38] Caltrain Representative: So, I think, um, we have a process that we work with now, and then Mountain View is very engaged with Caltrain staff on that. As I alluded to, I think, you know, one of the next steps after that is to really look at this issue at a quarter wide basis, look at different options for construction and coordination and staging and weigh those trade-offs of service impacts, cost impacts, and how we as a corridor can work with cities to manage that. And, you know, each of these projects can run into the 100s of 1000000s of dollars. And so it's a, it's an issue. I think we really feel strongly that we need to study and develop some analysis around because the financial swings are potentially in the billions.

[00:50:21] Councilmember John McAlister: So with this analysis, take place after this service vision?

[00:50:25] Caltrain Representative: Yes.

[00:50:27] Councilmember John McAlister: And that, was there a, is it a priority for cattle train to do this feasibility study or is it just another item that needs to be taken care of?

[00:50:39] Caltrain Representative: I would say it's a, we view it as a major priority for the corridor.

[00:50:46] Councilmember John McAlister: What are the starting ending hours of kale train?

[00:50:51] Caltrain Representative: The span of service? I believe that the 1st train typically starts in the 5 AM hour and ends at around midnight or between midnight and one. We're not...

[00:51:06] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Will the change when you get the electrification on?

[00:51:13] Caltrain Representative: Generally we're not looking at changing the span of service. We need those, uh, night hours to conduct maintenance and to construct projects like grade separations, we are looking at increasing, expanding, um, off peak service in the sense of having more frequent service, go later into the evening earlier in the morning or the middle of the day. So I'm trying to have more usable service throughout that span.

[00:51:41] Councilmember John McAlister: Does Caltrain have a preference to who does the construction on the great crossing?

[00:51:50] Caltrain Representative: You know, that's a topic that we're in, conversation with VTA right now. In general, Caltrain has a fairly strong preference that we control the construction rail interface. Railroads are sensitive systems. We're adding positive train control and an electrified system, so it's not a simple construction interface. It's pretty complicated and there are a lot of major safety implications. So whatever set of policies we ultimately settle on, there's a very strong desire on the part of the railroad to very tightly control that construction interface.

[00:52:27] Councilmember John McAlister: When you say control it, does that mean you will do the construction?

[00:52:31] Caltrain Representative: I think we're open to some other conversations, but it's, you know, not something at this point, I think the option we see is that we reconstruct it. We're not totally closing the door on that conversation, but it's a really serious conversation for us.

[00:52:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Question for staff, the staff have a preference and who does the construction?

[00:52:56] Dawn Cameron: Um, this is Dawn Cameron. Uh, we don't have an actual preference right now. What we have stated to both Caltrane and VTA is we would like them to come to agreement, on who will do the construction, because we know it won't be the city doing the construction. So, we're supportive of whatever arrangement Caltrain and VTA can come to.

[00:53:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. That's a bit my question. Thank you. I have a couple questions on attachment, too. It says here, I think. that 23% of the riders in Mountain View Park. So is that 23% of the 4,585 riders? Or do some of them carpool, or...?

[00:54:04] Caltrain Representative: So that would be?

[00:54:06] Councilmember John McAlister: On the second line. There's San Antonio, then Mountain View?

[00:54:10] Sebastian Petty: That would be what our survey data suggests. And again, there's a little bit of mixing and matching of different data sources there. I think it's also important to remember that when we're talking about a daily ridership, that includes people who are getting onto the train in the morning. It also includes people who may be working mountain viewing or then getting onto the train in the afternoon, and those people typically would not be parking. It's because Found view is generally their work stuff.

[00:54:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Do you have any estimate?

[00:54:40] Sebastian Petty: So, um, It looks like, I mean, a rough cut here is 50-50 people living in the city versus people riding out of the city.

[00:54:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So even if it was half of that. 23% is a big number, given we only have 340 parking spots.

[00:54:59] Sebastian Petty: Sure.

[00:55:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, I estimate that it's, like, yeah, 500 parking spots to, um, even a thousand parking spots are needed. We have 340. Anybody else concerned about that? I reading this correctly?

[00:55:23] Sebastian Petty: Um, I think you generally are, and I would imagine that there may be Caltrain partners who are... Um, I think, you know, as part of this plan, we'll do a set of analysis around um, sort of 1st and last mile projections and options. We'll do that after the adoption of a service vision, and so we'll start to get into the details of that kind of around the same time we start looking at fair policy. So we'll be able to look at a range of options in terms of what might happen if Caltrain built more parking versus what might happen if we invested in, you know, alternative 1st and last mile access to the system.

[00:56:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. And then we received an email saying that Caltrain is looking at selling naming rights to stations. Does anyone do you have any information on that?

[00:56:14] Sebastian Petty: So I don't have the details of it. I know that there was an initial policy discussion at our board. Um, my understanding is that they didn't, um, land on any particular decision, just that they wanted to flag it as an active issue. In part, there are major developments happening at some Caltrain stations, particularly in either end of the system. We're also introducing new vehicles, which in the past have been named. And so my understanding is that the Caltrain board wanted to put the issue out there, so it was clear that it was an issue that they may want to take a stand on at some point in the future.

[00:56:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[00:56:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So most of my questions have been answered. I was just wondering, for the passing tracks, do you have any visual models of what that might look like in different situations? I mean, there must be some preliminary visualization of what it would look like, you know, superimposed over existing stations, up and down the, you know, the corridor, and it would be nice if you had, somebody must have thought of this already. And if you have them, it would be nice to be able to look them up online and see, because I'm having trouble imagining exactly what they are.

[00:57:32] Sebastian Petty: So we don't have that. Again, this is highly conception. It's certainly pre engineering. What I can talk to the team about is the extent to which we might be able to develop some visualizations. I'm always a little bit cautious about doing that because again, there's a lot of feasibility study and engineering that still needs to happen. You know, so I'm a little reticent to put out, something that looks like a design if it doesn't really have the engineering behind it to support the details of what's being shown.

[00:58:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I encourage you to do that because without it, I'm probably imagining something much worse than what would actually happen. So I would like, you know, I just can't really, I really don't have any idea what you're talking about, and I'd like to be able to visualize it just a little bit.

[00:58:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So Council member Clark.

[00:58:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, over the years, I think one of the ideas that's been kicked around is, um, having some, some small amount of right away for, um, like a bicycle track or something like that that would span the peninsula in South Bay, um, since it's one of the few rightaways that does extend all the way, um, to and from, um, San Francisco. Is that even a remote possibility or did that die a slow death and people who bring it up, people like me who bring it up just should just give up.

[00:58:56] Sebastian Petty: I think there are sort of a couple of answers that one is, for some of the reasons we're talking about here, Caltrain is always very reticent to give away land to other uses. And even something like a bike path that theoretically could be taken back if it were needed in the future. There's a political reality to doing that. And so we've historically has an agency been very cautious about putting any sort of permanent uses on land, but we know that that land could be needed for railroad purposes in the future. And the reason is, you know, and the same is true for, say, development right near our tracks where we would hate to, um, you know, build houses or buildings that cost 10s of 1000000s of dollars and then potentially have to make a different decision about 1000000000s of dollars of infrastructure. Caldrine also has some level of safety concerns about encouraging active uses near the corridor, and that can get into maintenance issues. We're now looking at an electrified system. And so that's that's also played into some of those discussions. But the major reason is, um, again, we've been very, very cautious about wanting to, um, uh, sort of give parts of the corridor away when we know that we're not a complete railroad. And that can be both passing tracks. It can also be the construction of grade separations can require...

[01:00:20] Councilmember Chris Clark: The reason I bring that up is because those reasons that you articulated have always been reasons that have been given the past, which I completely understand. I was just thinking if you're doing a long-range business plan instead of, you know, worrying about what might happen 5 or 10 years now from now, it might be the right time to think more in depth about that. or be a little bit more open to that. But, um, But I certainly understand the concerns. But I was just curious where that was and if it was even a remote possibility in the long range planning.

[01:00:52] Sebastian Petty: So one of the reasons we are doing this plan, and there is actually a companion effort that's been slowly moving along, and periodically the Caltrain Board gets updated on it called the Rail Corridor use policy is actually for the reason you articulated so that we can have a long-range vision of where we may need property, sort of create an almost like a little railroad zoning code that tells us, you know, this is important property to preserve versus this is property that could be used for community uses or development. Right now we don't have that. And so the railroad tends to pivot to a very conservative perspective.

[01:01:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thanks.

[01:01:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions from the council? Okay, seeing none. We will open this up for public comment now. So if anyone wants to provide us with input on this, if you could make your way over to the microphone, be sure to fill out a blue card either before or after you speak and We will give you 3 minutes.

[01:02:00] Adina Levin: Good evening, council members, Adine 11, with friends of Caltrain, and, um, we've been, uh, watching the Caltrain business plan process, um, pretty closely, um, as it's been going forward, and are really thrilled to see the, um, old vision, including the pent up demand that, uh, Caltrain's most recent data, um, suggests that there's enough pent up demand that if the capacity was built to support it, would be the equivalent of 5.5 lanes on the highway. And even the moderate version would be about 2.5 lanes on the highway. So, imagine all of those cars not being in congestion on the highway and also not being on local roads getting on. on and off the highway. And, um, So with that, um, I want to make some comments about, um, some thoughts about how the city of Mountain View might be able to convey interest in having a lot of Caltrain ridership, given some of the concerns about the input. Um, and just watching pretty closely, it seems like a positive statement about being interested in the higher ridership would be really helpful and saying, um, you know, based on the answer about one to 2 years for a feasibility study, um, encouraging the board to stop their business plan, vision, and do to another year to 2 years of studies before adopting the vision. I suspect that that would happen. And therefore, a result of that might be to say, okay, well, I guess we're not even going to go there. And therefore, there might be some way to say a positive interest in a higher level of ridership, but only if the feasibility studies show that there aren't negative impacts that the city is unable to accept. And that would keep things moving along, but hopefully there's a way that Caltrain can agree, know, if there was something that, for example, in a hypothetical scenario said, this would cause the removal of 40 houses, and the city would say, absolutely not. that Caltrane wouldn't say we're going to do that. So if there's a way to make the point that way, I think that would be really helpful. 2 more quick points. One is that the business plan is looking at that question of frequent service during the midday and evening and weekend. So if that scene is helpful for, for example, downtown vibrancy, um, that would be a good point to make, if that would be of interest to the city. And the 3rd point in terms of the equitable access and fares, that would be another helpful point, not that the decisions would be made specifically in the business plan, but it would help to give some outlines if the city was interested in that as a potential outcome, if it was financially feasible. Thank you.

[01:04:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[01:05:03] Public Speaker: residents. So, I think staff did a very good job analyzing the business plan, and I support, you know, just about any of our recommendations there, and I hope you will support them too. I wanted to highlight 2 of them in particular. One is the need to make sure that great separations are a priority and don't get delayed anymore. The great separation is not just needed for caltrain. This is a key safety and mobility improvement within mountain view and there was some talk about priorities for great separations. You know, one thing that you may be Caltrain should consider in terms of varieties is look at how many people are living near these great separations and how many people it affects. And if you look at both ranks, Dorf and downtown, this is impacting a lot of people in mountain view, this is really, you know, making it very difficult to be mobile within mountain view. And in addition, that poses a lot of safety issues because we have a lot of people crossing these tracks. And the 2nd point I wanted to highlight is the very much the advice of, you know, kind of wait and see on, you know, the moderate or even high vision. I'm an engineer. And, you know, sometimes, you know, business, it happens, you know, start to have a grand vision without looking at what's visible. Better disaster every single time. Because the expectations are not set up right with the voters, with the taxpayers, with the public. And, you know, adjust the wrong way of doing business in my view. I think that, you know, before committing to a moderate or high things, culture should really look into what's feasible. And it's not just, you know, a question of aesthetics or things like this, there is just limited space. And, you know, if you look at the downtown Caltrain station, there is not much room because we also have VTA light rail there. And, you know, to me, it's really doing backwards. And there are examples of setting up a very ambitious vision and not delivering because it's not feasible because you want to form the phones, but the high-speed train. You know, somebody talked about, you know, founding measures. I don't think there is a single funding measure that would pass for high- high-speed train this day because we missed both so much on what was promised.

[01:07:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to provide us with input on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public input portion and bring it back to council for deliberation and action. Council member Clark.

[01:07:54] Councilmember Chris Clark: So, I am, um, I'm fine with all of the proposed principles that staff is, um, highlighted, the only 2 that are all coming on are, um, just 5 and 6, I would say, on 5, the, um, the feasibility study. I think the most important thing there, from my perspective, is not that there's a multi-year study that identifies the gory details of every single passing track location, but more a high-level feasibility, look at the feasibility of certain sections. So there are probably certain sections where there's a wide medium for Central Expressway or something like that where you could get away with constricting things a little bit. Heaven help us if we have to remove a lane of Central Expressway or Ulma for certain sections, but I mean, that might just be the might just be the reality in some areas. But related to that, I think, I think we should take a strong stance. on the passing tracks at the Mountain View station in particular, just because it's going to, it conflicts with all the work that we've done on the vision in terms of the pedestrian and bike tunnel in terms of the ramp on the shoreline. There just isn't going to be any space at that particular location, I think, for passing tracks. So there may be other, other areas of the corridor within Mountain View Palo Alto and elsewhere where it might work, but I think it would, um, it would create significant issues at the, at the Mountain View station, and probably at Ringsdorf as well just because of the great separation that we have planned. So, um, Those are my only 2 comments. I don't think I'm a multi-year feasibility studies required, but I do think that it would be helpful for the public and the various stakeholders along the corridor to know sort of what the rough feasibility is of various passing track locations. And then I do agree with staff that I don't think the Mountain View station in particular, just because of the plans that we have in the narrow just all the uses on either side. I don't think there'll be a good location for the passing tracks.

[01:10:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else? Vice Mayor Abi Koga.

[01:10:17] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you and thank you to staff, and thank you, Mr. Penny, for your presentation. Um, I also do support the proposed principles. Um, I, I was looking at the staff report, though, versus, um, what you have on the slides, and... I was... I missed something, there was some... Go with the wedding on the, uh, on the report.

[01:10:44] Unknown Speaker: In the report? The slides are kind of abbreviated.

[01:10:47] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great, 'cause there seems to be more in the report. I noticed, which one was it? Um.. So, I'm sorry. Oh the platforms? Is that the... Not principal 4, is that on here? Oh, it is. Okay. All right. So, I'm sorry. Um, I degree in terms of the passing tracks, um, it's, uh, I, you know, just looking at what we have. I think it, I mean, it's pretty obvious to me that, um, the Mountain View station, Castro Street would be very challenging in light of our plans for the transit center. I think we just need more information about whether this would work at even at San Antonio. And my understanding is it has to be at a station. Is that correct? Or can it be between stations?

[01:11:55] Sebastian Petty: So the best practice would be to put it at a station so that one train could be serving customers while another train passed. Otherwise, it could physically work outside of a station, but you would just have a train sitting there for a few minutes doing nothing while on another train pass. So the preferred customer outcome would be in the station.

[01:12:15] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, thank you. So yeah, I think we just need more information. So the feasibility study is key. And, um, at this point, um, do we need to decide on a level of service, hype moderate or high, or is that something we're just gonna wait on? Just information?

[01:12:41] Unknown Speaker: It's counsel's decision if you want to adopt a principle supporting a particular service level. As you will see, what staff wrote in the principles, is, um, under number five, is that, with the moderate and high growth scenarios requiring passing tracks, that it would be nice to have more information, but, you know, again, it's council's decision.

[01:13:07] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, I agree, I think... I just don't think we have enough information at this time, and I would just encourage Caltrane to do the feasibility studies first before they even pick a scenario, a growth scenario. So that would be my comments. Thanks.

[01:13:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[01:13:27] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I basically agree with the direction that council member Abbe Koga and Clark are going in, and the one thing I would add, one of the questions that, I think you asked, I can't remember who asked, was whether, if more people were coming through the Mountain View station would, our downtown become more vibrant, and I guess, my, my, one of my answers is that, if we had passing tracks there, and we, it, it, more than what just council member Clark said that all the plans for our transit station would be, maybe, possibly futile or have to be redone, but also our currently most vibrant block of the downtown might be affected, so it's not just the transit station would be, that would be affected, it would be, most likely, or possibly, one of the most vibrant, the heart of our downtown would be affected. So that's why I go along with what the previous two council members have said.

[01:14:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez?

[01:14:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, I'll try to be brief. So I agree with the principles and concept. I think for Principle 5. The only thing I would want to convey is that because additional Caltrain service has so much value for the city, um, and, you know, could provide immense congestion relief and help with our greenhouse gas emissions, I don't want this principle to be interpreted as, um, you know, we don't even want to consider the possibility of the higher growth scenarios because of the potential negative impacts. I think we need to, as I think every council member has said thus far, we need to evaluate and understand those impacts before we make a final decision. But I would want the direction to be more conditional support for higher service, and the condition would be, you know, if we find that the impacts are unacceptable, or, you know, if the capital improvements necessary or not feasible, then we would not have higher service, as opposed to we oppose higher service, unless, you know, whatever our conditions are met. But beyond that, I support I support the other principles. Thank you.

[01:15:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Kameh.

[01:15:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thanks to staff for their presentation, as well as Caldrine, for coming, and being here to answer all our questions. It's really great to have you here. For me, the proposed principles, I support them. The one that I'd like to highlight is the grade separations. I think that the city has been doing a lot to prepare for the grids, to upgrade separations, and just encouraging the commitment from Caltrain, to, you know, help us fund this, to complete them as well as looking at our VTA dollars, I think, are going to be really critical. And one of the principal, one of the things that isn't mentioned as a principal, but I would be interested in is just kind of being able to diversify the ridership for a Caltrain, and I think there was a lot in the staff report. And in a bit of the Caltrane presentation on the impacts to the community. Obviously, gate downtimes are, you know, important. The construction of bringing our tracks, um, up to support high-speed rail hypothetically. And electrification are important. But, um, I think one of the others is, um, how do we make it so that more people can write it and that it isn't something that we're gonna see at the fair box once again, um, and feel that hit as writers. So that's kind of the thing and, um, not listed as a principle, but I think one of the items, uh, to be thinking about, so we go forward. Thanks.

[01:17:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister. Did you have any comments?

[01:17:33] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I had one, uh, it was long, principal 5, or, uh, proposed a principal 7, that, um, I'd like to see Caltrain's, shell conduct feasibility studies, uh, passing tracks, locations, based on the progression of the, of city, and their VIR or construction, the guidelines. Something along that line, that's Mountain View is proceeding along, rather, on a steady path, for getting their great crossings, that Caltrain should give that feasibility to those cities that are almost shovel ready to continue on. So if that could be incorporated in number five, or be made of principle seven. I would appreciate the council's consideration. Thank you.

[01:18:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anything else?

[01:18:29] Councilmember John McAlister: No, ma'am.

[01:18:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, um, I have a couple comments. I, um, appreciated all the information that we heard tonight. This was incredibly useful, and I think staff has done a really nice job of the principals. So thank you very much for putting these together. The two areas where I think I'm most pleased about, are the comments about great separation and how important those are to us, and the concern about the passing tracks, because that could have a major impact on our city. So I like the way that it has been framed in the principles. So, if there are... we do, Council member Ramirez.

[01:19:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, just very briefly. I support, uh, Councilman Rukumay's suggestion for exploring opportunities to diversify ridership. I don't know if that needs to be codified in the principle, but I just want to express support for the idea. Thank you.

[01:19:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um, we are going to take a vote on this, so, um, Vice Mayor Abe Koga?

[01:19:44] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, yes, so, like, we'll make the motion to approve the principles to guide the city's input in the service vision for the Caltrain business plan. And I'm gonna leave it as is, I actually don't really, um... I guess I don't agree with Councilmer, McAllister's suggestion, because, um, if I understood what he said correctly, he wants to base the passing tracks, um, locations on our progress, I think, on grade separations, and he was, but he, on 5, it's about passing tracks. So unless he's talking about great separations, which should be...

[01:20:30] City Manager Dan Rich: I think if I could, I think he was referring to the feasibility study should be done in a timely basis for those that are most ready, so I think he was saying, since we're close to Shovel Ready, a feasibility analysis of passing tracks for our region should be done sooner than a feasibility study for some other section of the corridor. I don't think he was saying that because we're ready, we should have passing tracks...

[01:20:56] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. The study would be done sooner. Well, and I'm not actually sure that I agree with that, to be frank, because I think we just have to decide if we won't need them. I want to see the feasibility study for the entire corridor before we make that kind of decision on passing checks. So, I'm gonna leave the motion as is.

[01:21:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by council member, Kamei. Any other comments? Council member McAllister, did you have any other comments?

[01:21:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I would just like to follow up. Uh, the city manager did have my eye, you know, the concern is that we would get a feasibility study sooner. I don't, I like to know the vice mayor's concern that she would want to see if his ability studies for the, if I heard it correctly, for the whole track versus just Mountain View. or our area. If you could, uh, clarify, please, let them advice mayor.

[01:21:53] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I think we need to look at the feasibility of passing tracks as a whole, just because our, let's say, we're ready for grade separation. I don't necessarily then want to go into feasibility studies for passing tracks because, let's say, it is feasible. Do we really want that? And I would like to see where else it's feasible before we make that decision. So I don't necessarily want us to move forward, and then maybe get caught in the situation where, well, it's feasible, so let's do it. So that's why I want to hold off on that.

[01:22:29] Councilmember John McAlister: So are you willing to wait two to four years before we get Great Crossing?

[01:22:35] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: But it has nothing to do with Great Crossings? Grade Crossings are a separate project from the feasibility study of passing tracks. So, right, right? Or am I wrong on that?

[01:22:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I do want to make a point of clarification. The ringstorf grade separation project is being designed to accommodate four tracks, since we are building a bridge, ringstorface being lowered, and the tracks are gonna be in a bridge. We are, you know, Caltrain is designing it to four tracks. So passing tracks will not necessarily affect the rainstorm grade separation. It's the other areas along mountain view along the corridor that could be affected by passing tracks, and, of course, the Mountain View Transit Center, if there were to be passing tracks there. But there's no correlation of us having to wait for, or to do the feasibility study on passing tracks, to move the Rangsdorf. Great separation. That's for it. That's moving on its own timeline, and it's moving forward, correct?

[01:23:36] Unknown Speaker: That's correct.

[01:23:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I think we're fine there. Council member, McAllister, did you have any other comments?

[01:23:46] Councilmember John McAlister: No, thank you for the clarification.

[01:23:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks?

[01:23:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, maybe it's already been explained, but I was just gonna agree with council member, Abbot Koga, that I think they're, um, even though you've explained that there's some relation at Rengstorf, um, that there's, they're still relatively unrelated, and I would hate that we were ready to go first, and that, therefore, we got the passing tracks studied first, and therefore, we get the passing tracks, rather than looking at all up and down the corridor and see the best location for them. That's what I want to happen, so I agree with what Council member Abbe Kokosto.

[01:24:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I agree with that as well. So any other comments? If not, we are ready to vote, we'll do a roll call vote.

[01:24:31] City Clerk: Council member Clark.

[01:24:32] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[01:24:33] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[01:24:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes?

[01:24:35] City Clerk: Council member Kameh.

[01:24:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[01:24:36] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[01:24:39] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah?

[01:24:40] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[01:24:41] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[01:24:41] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Abbe Koga?

[01:24:43] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I

[01:24:43] City Clerk: married Mattachek.

[01:24:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So that was unanimous. Okay, that ends item 7.1. Next item is 7.2. And this is the Pear Avenue Parkland dedication credit request. Our presenters tonight. Oh, just one. Martin Alkire.

[01:25:26] Martin Alkire: Okay, uh, good evening, mayor and council members. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to consider a request from the Serrano organization for Parkland dedication credit for the project at 1255 Pear Avenue. This project was approved by council on October 23rd, 2018, and as part of that project approval, the council had several comments on the open space at the site, and those were those full four sub bullets on the screen to add more active use elements, to add more amenities, to reduce the size of the private patios and to consider realigning the path. Those were the comments made as part of the project approval for that open space. Staff then returned to a council in March of this year with changes to the Parkland dedication ordinance, and several changes were made to the ordinance. Again, on the screen, the bullets at the bottom to allow up to 75% credit for private, publicly accessible open space as part of a project, to make it apply only to North Bay Shore, to specify that each site can only be allowed either a private or publicly accessible open space credit, but not both. to add local school strategy as a factor, that is the voluntary contribution to local schools that's part of the North Bay Shore precise plan, have that be a potential factor in the decision. And also just to clarify that it's a council discretion for granting any credit. The Sprado organization then submitted a request for Parkland credit for about one acre of private, publicly accessible open space that is part of their project at 1225 pair, shown approximately on the screen, where the red rectangle is. Again, it's the open space area between the new apartments and the two office buildings at the site. The Parkland dedication requirement fee for the project is approximately $38 million, and with the request that Cerrado is making, that fee would be reduced to approximately $30 million. So, again, for the private open space area, the parkland ordinance standard requirements include the following key elements, the private open space area must be a contiguous one acre size, it must be publicly accessible, and it must contain three of the five elements, shown on the screen, either, a turf playfield, a landscape park like quiet area, family picnic area, game court area, or children's play structure. So, in terms of the size requirement, Sobrano complies with this. This graphic on this screen shows the publicly accessible private open space areas in green. Again, this is a partial clip from the project site. Here's the two new office buildings in white, the multi family apartments right here. Again, this is the private, commonly, publicly accessible, common open space area. The total is approximately 1.26 acres. That's shown in the entire green box. However, they are only requesting credit for the approximate one acre size that's shown by the dashed rectangle. So Sobrado has redesigned their open space to include three of the five required elements that I mentioned before, and I've labeled these on this conceptual landscape graphic of the open space area. They're labeled one, 2, and 3, number one, is the quiet park like area, with seating, some maple trees, a small bridge over a rain garden. And this is this area in this vicinity, which is adjacent to La Vanita. Number two is a picnic area. You can't really see it very well, but it's in this general area where the red triangle is. That includes benches, tables, and an outdoor fireplace, and then the third element, the sport court area. This is near the center of the open space area. Again, this is approximately the size of a volleyball court with a little buffer area surrounding that. And that will include a court, again, with a net and a removable post for the nets. So the overall open space area was also slightly increased. And again, they are limited by the footprint of the project, but they were able to reduce the size of the private open space areas within these office complexes to enlarge the open space slightly. They also added a fireplace, and then added some seating and art, and we'll include some signage at each of the three entrances to the area. On the screen is an additional graphic that provides kind of a more holistic set of images of this complete open space redesign, and the developer can talk more specifically about these amenities. So because the project complies with the Parkland dedication ordinance, and that this credit will help the developer to voluntarily contribute funds to local schools for the North Bay Shipper size plant. Staff is recommending that the developer be granted this Barkland dedication credit. There's several alternatives in the staff report, and on the screen, council can improve a credit in an amount less than that, the 75% request. Do not approve or credit or provide other directions to staff. And that concludes staff presentation. Thank you.

[01:31:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Are there any questions from council members? Vice Mayor Abbe Koga?

[01:31:50] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, um, I asked this question late, um, but could you, um, tell me what the current, um, park fee is for per unit for the... that area? based on land value.

[01:32:07] City Staff: Sure. I think if you were looking at this project in particular, with 635 units, without the change, it's about 60,000 per unit, and with the park changed, it's about 47,000 per unit.

[01:32:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[01:32:27] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, so excuse my ignorance on this one. Can you, can someone tell me what the definition of an active play area is and who defines it? Is it the state or the city? And I'll tell you, the reason behind it, for me, is that I would like to encourage as much variety as possible, and I think what's active, I don't like the word passive, actually, for outdoor uses, but what's active and what's passive, really depends on the person. So, for my cousin, who's a football quarterback and my father, who's 87 years old, you know, what's, like, what is it, cornhole, the game would be really active for my father, actually probably eating at the picnic table would be active for my father, and it would not be for my cousin. So, what's the, what are the definition of those two terms? And how can we encourage greater variety, maybe not just two categories?

[01:33:27] City Staff: Yeah, I'd maybe ask, uh, are someone from our community services department who, uh, implements our Parks and Open Space Plan, and has dealt with that exact question, uh, perhaps they have a clearer definition between those two?

[01:33:50] Community Services Director J.P. Delamontagne: I, J.P. Delamontagne Community Services Director. You know, the active is an act, you know, just what it says, an active area, an area where there's an opportunity to do things that may interrupt others from just sitting around. You know, passive is a nice, quiet, read a book area, um, meditate type area where an active, it allows some kind of noise, some type of movement. That's kind of the definition, whether it's an actual volleyball game or whether it's just a space to throw a Frisbee, still is both considered active. compared to a passive where it's just more quiet-like.

[01:34:35] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So the cornhole or the botchi ball or a bench that swings that adults can swing on. Are those all active? Are they passive?

[01:34:45] Community Services Director J.P. Delamontagne: No, those in between. Those are considered active. You know, when I play corn whole, it gets a little active sometimes.

[01:34:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay.

[01:34:53] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Council member McAllister, did you have any questions?

[01:35:01] Councilmember John McAlister: I just had one. Yeah, so there's 600 and some units, so with that, based on a 2.one per unit, is that approximately 1300 people, uh, would be living in this project?

[01:35:18] City Staff: I think the range of the estimate is between 1.75 and about 2.1 persons per unit. So it would be about 1,200 people, roughly. Approximately yes.

[01:35:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Any other council questions? Council member Hicks?

[01:35:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sorry, I do have one more thing. I would just like to encourage anybody in the audience who lives in the area to come up during public comment, because I would, this is, you know, one of our first North Bay Shore, maybe the first North Bay Shore, privately, privately owned publicly accessible park spaces, and I'd really like to hear comments. Are you getting what you want? Are you not getting what you want? I'd really like you to encourage to come up during public speaking.

[01:36:17] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, I just have a couple of questions. For the sport green area, did you say that would have, um, potential for volleyball, or, so, are the poles in the net, something you'd have to go get and put up yourself? Are they always there, or how would that work?

[01:36:39] City Staff: Um, the developer could respond more specifically, but it's my understanding. Again, they'll be responsible for maintaining this area, and, uh, it will be sized to be a volleyball court, so they'll be providing that net and poles as part of the operation and maintenance of the space.

[01:36:58] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, I do want to know, does somebody have to, like, check them out, or how does that work?

[01:37:10] Tim Steele: Happy Mayor, Tim Steele, this boral organization. Frankly, I think in the follow up dialogue that we need to have with staff is to document this in a management maintenance agreement. We'll work with the parks department to identify the best way to do that. We will have two different kinds of users, if you will, on the site. We'll have 2 private office buildings, and then we'll have a residential. The residential is probably the best place to have the support products, if you will, since they'll have a leasing office fully staff that's open to the public. We haven't quite worked out that level of detail. I do want to point out that it's not just a volleyball court, and in fact, council member Show Walter actually threw out volleyball or badminton, both would have different nets. So I don't know if it's practical to have the polls, and one that when someone might want to use the other products for that other sport. So we're gonna have to figure out a way to sign it, a way to maintain it, and a way to make it easy for them to change from one sport to the other based on what their interests are and use in that space. So I think there's actually 3 categories of users. And the 3rd would be the general public, because this is publicly accessible, private open space.

[01:38:27] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Sorry, I wasn't answered in the question as they're the only users as much as where would you go to get the polls and if you're doing badminton, where would you get the rackets and that, not just leave it out there for the public to put it in and pull it out, but some way to manage and take care of them. and sign it to go and get it here if you want to change it from this sport to that sport.

[01:38:50] Tim Steele: I don't know all the details, because it doesn't exist today in this format. I'm looking forward to working with staff to work out the finer details on how to manage that and adapt to whatever those demands are.

[01:39:01] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So then, I guess the same question about the fireplace. You probably haven't worked out all the details there, but that would be also publicly accessible.

[01:39:10] Tim Steele: A couple fireplaces that are on site would be supplied with gas operating during normal user hours and then off in the off hours.

[01:39:21] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. And how much did the patios get reduced in size? I compare it, and they look the same size to me. But I'm looking at little charts here.

[01:39:33] Tim Steele: Dardo, our landscape architects here, and this is not a scale, a good scale drawing to show it. I'd say a larger portion of the private patios is on that got reduced, is actually on the office side. You can confirm. Nick Sandlingson is our landscape architect with a Bizardo partnership.

[01:39:52] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, that was my question about the patios that are on the office side.

[01:39:57] Landscape Architect Nick Sandlingson: Yeah, so you can see on the new proposed office, the complaint we see it. There's a, there's a, there's a line, and it pulled back about, like, eight, 10 feet right there. It's about the same length of the walkway. So we pulled that back, and that gave us room to put the little plaza space in to have a fireplace. You can see a, it's more of a slight pull in on the, on the 1255 pair building right there. It a little bit of a pushing. I don't have the exact numbers with me. We just pulled it in to get enough room to get them in. He said that we wanted to get there.

[01:40:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from council members? Okay, seeing none, we will open this up for public input. So, come on up to the microphone. Be sure to fill out a blue card. So we have a record for the minutes, and you can fill it out before or after you speak. That's fine. And, um, you can have three minutes. Okay.

[01:41:06] Alex Brown: Hi, okay. Hi, Alex Brown. Santagabella, North Bay Shore, Mound View. I mean, most of it looks good to me. I can't see myself really using the picnic plaza where sport green very often. I like the art sculpture square idea. I would much, I'd like more discretion used by council. With the 5 items on the thing. It seems kind of restrictive in terms of what you're directing developers to offer as a community. And I would love to see more interesting and creative uses. I like the idea of adult swings or other structures, more creative things that we can walk to. That would, I think there's actually, you know, walk out of the park right there, uh, head over, grab a coffee from Starbucks, come back, read a book, something. So, you know, but just having a volleyball in or badminton court, not as compelling. Also, the whole passive active thing seems kind of arbitrary and it's entirely based on how you choose to use it, because I could walk up to people who are relaxing and meditating and start doing jumping jacks near them and transform a space from passive to active immediately, which kind of, like, that's not a great design principle. If you depend on how the people choose to use...

[01:42:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next please.

[01:42:29] Public Speaker: So, over the years, our people in San Diego will have gotten used to the project, uh, a couple of years ago, nobody wanted to happen, and we've had people, um, skills organization, but Microsoft and Google coming. I'm getting us used to the fact that we are going to be living sick and that we have to change. And things like this are very encouraging to see. Mr. Steele was visited us a couple of times and explained the project and offered to put a gate into this area for us. And since that he made that offer. We have been working with our part management to get them on board, and it's not easy. But we believe that they are going to be supportive of opening up the park to this beautiful area. And so we are very pleased about it, and looking forward to being able to walk out, and you know, participate in this beautiful public space, and we hope you will support it.

[01:43:46] Unknown Speaker: Would you make any changes to what's there?

[01:43:50] Public Speaker: Uh, you know, I'll let, um, uh, Alex speak, speak to that, because, um, I, I think, uh, I'm kind of happy with whatever is out there. I think that our population is largely senior. So maybe it wouldn't be, you know, at volleyball all the time, but I think people should go out and play volleyball. I hope that helps a little. Thank you.

[01:44:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next place.

[01:44:24] Sergio: So, good evening, Sergio, I don't live in the area, so I can project what it, you know, would mean to me, but I actually grew up in, in, in a pretty large apartment complex where we had that time, some sort of setting, like a private bar that was open to the public. And so I can speak about the benefits when I was growing up, is that we had the kids from all the neighborhoods coming to this park and, you know, from experience, it made for much more competitive and, you know, soccer tournaments, you know, much more, you know, a more critical mass when we were playing tags, you know, with large teams and so on. And more importantly, it kind of brought the whole neighborhood together and it kind of broke some barriers between, you know, poor developments and and, you know, more open on developments that we had. So I see a lot of value in terms of doing these type of things because to me it's much more preferable than having more educated community because if it was purely private, that's what it would be. And it would be a nice park that people are, you know, maybe in the, affordable housing development next door, maybe in the mobile home park, we just see from the outside without being able to be part of it. In a way, it's a little bit like the benefits of doing inclusionary housing on site versus paying in new fees. There is much more benefits for the society to bring people together and and, you know, have a more diverse crowd. So just wanted to share my experience. Thank you.

[01:46:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Any other comments? Nope, sorry. Um, you should get one chance. Anyone else wanted to provide input on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we will close the public input portion and bring it back to council for discussion and action. Vice Mayor Abbe Koga?

[01:46:24] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Actually, I wanted to start with a question that came to mind as the public speakers were speaking. Um, So I think, you know, there's definitely more and more increased interest in public space. Um, So in lieu of, I know, we're doing this, um, I guess in lieu of getting a park, a public park, dedicated park. But why, why couldn't we have this as a public park? Is it the HOA issue? What is keeping us from making this just a public park?

[01:47:11] City Staff: Well, again, I can ask our CSD folks to come up and comment on that. Um, I think it it doesn't meet the some of the standards that we have for public parks in terms of size and configuration, um, uh, and, you know, was never proposed to be, um, to be a public park, uh, the developer, uh, a credit and to make this private, publicly open space.

[01:47:40] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So is it the size of the project isn't big enough for us to require it to be a park? And it seems like they're making, you know, creating a one acre plot of land that's, now we're talking about publicly accessible open space. So what prevents us from saying, well, this should be a public park.

[01:48:03] City Staff: It would be, well, this is a modifying, basically, the project's already been approved. So conceptually, this is the direction that the council provided at the time that the project was approved. And I don't remember, and maybe JP does the actual parkland, whether there was any dedicated park space or is that what we're using for the Affordable Housing Project, Martin, do you know?

[01:48:30] Martin Alkire: We had initial discussions. Right. Again, going back several years when the project was 1st in its initial phase, and we were looking at different concepts, the initial 2 acres, that was, ultimately, given to the city for affordable housing, that was initially discussed as a potential public park.

[01:48:49] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay.

[01:48:49] Martin: So it went through various iterations, and we ultimately settled when we brought back to council the option to approve this concept overall, and then include that two acre for housing.

[01:49:01] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Housing. Okay, got it. Thank you. Okay, well, so, in light of that. I've actually been focused more on the local school strategy issue is you probably have surmised from my past comments. Um, and I mean, I'll just be very frank. I had very different. understandings or assumptions, I guess, I'll say, when we had this discussion originally last year. Um, you know, the, my recollection was, um, the applicant came, uh, to request this credit, or, or, I guess we talked about how do we offset the school strategy costs, and, um, this is what we came up with. But since then, and I know there were some questions, written questions that were submitted by other council members. I guess I've had further discussions with our school district, well, mainly our elementary school district superintendent. And, um, I guess, I was under the assumption that they would be made, you know, whole, um, to the, you know, to the most part, maybe not entirely 100%, but, um, a reasonable amount. Um, I guess I would, and I know we had the high school district superintendent here, and he had, I think, made, mentioned, they had reached agreement, but, um, I don't think he was speaking for both, I've been told that he wasn't speaking for both school districts. So my big concern here is that there's actually a real shortfall in, and, you know, I only have the numbers, and I have, they, I have the data here, but there's a real shortfall in the school, a school fee or however you want to call it, um, the school strategy for the elementary school district in light of the fact that they, you know, would most likely have to, um, build a school out there. And my calculation is what they were, um, they were offered as only 22% of what they what they say they need. And then the high school district is actually higher. was a 47% amount. So, um, I guess in light of that, my, you know, my, I just have real concerns because, um, when we talk about, talked about how would we, how would the school district come about the other, you know, the other portion of this, the school, of providing the schools. You know, there is the assumption that they might get state grant funds. In all frankness, I don't think that's very likely. Um, there was this issue of the developer fees and there's a level one and a level two. And they actually don't qualify for the higher level. So, what they're getting now is, like, lower than I think folks were assuming. So there's just going to be a real gap. And I think that, yeah, there was some discussion, and in light of what we did with Los Altos school district and the, you know, coal site, there, I think there is an expectation that the city would come in and help with park fees to pay for some of the land. Should that happen? But my concern is, if we're now not collecting all of our park fees, if when that time comes, um, we're gonna be short, when we may not be short, but we're not getting, we're not collecting our fees, that we should be collecting, to help pay for the school, that will need to be built. And so if the school district is not being made whole. And now we're not being made whole. I don't really, I just don't think, you know, at the end of the day, when this issue comes up and they have to build a school, my question is gonna be, who's gonna pay for it? And so, in light of that, like, unless, and I made calculations, they may, you know, they'll need to be verified, but it looks like there's a difference of $13,000, they're getting in credit for park fees, and they're paying for the Mountain View Wisman school district about $11,000 per unit. And so there's a $2,000 shortfall per unit, on the school fee that I see should be collected. So unless we can get that upped. I don't feel comfortable going with the 75% at this time.

[01:53:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark.

[01:53:36] Councilmember Chris Clark: So... So, last year, this was the, for those who weren't up at the dais, this was the first residential project to come before us. Sobrado has been, I think, working with us in good faith over a number of years to sort of be the guinea pig, and they've, I think, accepted a lot of, you know, changes over the course of time and changes that we've made over the course of time, and has been a good partner in working, not just with the city, but with the school districts and with the neighbors and everyone there to put together a really solid project. An agreement was made. There were school district trustees and superintendents standing before us who agreed, that's on video. That one was speaking, said literally said that they were speaking for both. So either we can go back on our word, or, you know, the way this process works is, um, we agree on the principle of the project. We agreed on the school fee, that was an agreement that was made in advance, and then we had to sort out the park dedication component of this. I think the dedication, the credit that we're offering here is in line with the ordinance that we had just approved. I think there's value in having this be privately own because it will be privately maintained, but we have the ability to help program it and provide input on everything. And so I don't think at this point, it makes sense to change our minds on the school fee or the park fee. You know, we said at the time we made it very explicit that this wasn't a precedent, setting that this was a very specific development, that was sort of the 1st to move through, that everyone was working together in good faith to make it work, and that we would use that framework. We may or may not apply that framework moving forward. and that we were just trying to make everything work. So, um, I don't think it makes sense at this point, and I think, frankly, it would be, um, it would be bad for, our reputation to go back on our word and sort of just change our minds at the last minute with respect to what we expect from this developer. So I think, you know, we've and we're not, frankly, although the school fee is slightly tied to this. What we're talking about tonight is a Parkland dedication credit based on the ordinance that we passed. So, um, I don't think it's worth, um, you know, revisiting this, so I'll move that we adopt a resolution, uh, granting a Parkland dedication credit for the mixed use development project at 1255 Pear Avenue in the North Bay Shore precise point area, incorporating the attached findings. We read entitle only for the reading weight.

[01:56:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Robbie Koga.

[01:56:40] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, I understand that, and, um, that there were, that night evening, there are actually a lot of, um, misunderstandings, including myself. I had a different impression of what we were doing, and, frankly, we talked a lot extensively about how this is, yes, it's the first project. So, as a test case, we could do this. But I guess the way it's unfolded has been what's been of concern to me, because now I'm more concerned that this is precedent setting than a one off, you know, test case because of this policy. And that's my concern with this, is that, you know, the criteria we lay out, it's not that hard to meet. So I don't see how we're gonna say, you know, we can say no to other projects coming. forward down the road as long as they meet this criteria. That's why I was very explicit, and we did include the local school strategy as one factor, and that's what I'm going to, because for me, that was how this issue was brought up was where, you know, we have to pay the school fee now, and it's getting so expensive, so can you give us a, you know, break on the park fee, and that's fine if they're gonna make the school district whole, but they're not doing that. And so, I just feel like everyone's gonna be shortchanged at the end of the day. And if when it comes time to build a school and we don't have the park fees because we gave them a credit, we're gonna regret that.

[01:58:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I think that's a fair point. But what I would say is, we're not approving a framework for the North Bay Shore tonight, we're approving the framework that we'd previously agreed to for this particular project, and we've made it extraordinarily clear that it's not, one, it's not precedent setting. And two, we also made it clear that the council did not expect the school district, that the developer would not bear 100% of the burden, and we can disagree about what the right percentages, but they brought this forward in good faith based on the direction that we provided them. So you have very valid concerns. I just, I don't think, in my mind, this is, we've made it extraordinarily clear, this isn't precedent setting.

[01:58:51] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I guess I just don't see how it won't be, because this is the actual project that we are, you know, using the policy on. And if we pass this, I just don't see how we can say no to anyone else, other than using the local school strategy as the way to do that.

[01:59:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, come in.

[01:59:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. I have a question. Um, and I'm not sure if I'm able to ask it, but I'd be interested in hearing from the applicant in terms of what the breakdown was with the school fees, and, uh, I don't know if that's possible, um, how the final allocation went out.

[01:59:40] Applicant: If I'm allowed, yes. Um, we start out with a couple of things, and I want to touch on something that, uh, Vice Mayor mentioned about what she was hearing from Dr. Rudolph, but first, the state mandate estimated fee that we would normally pay for school fees for both our new office building, 'cause it does have a smaller fee on a press square foot basis, but also a unit fee on the residential. We would be paying approximately between $2.1 and $2.2 million. Normal state mandate fee based on the 2 school districts, current state approved fee structures. Staff recommended that we pay after all of the analysis, all the discussions. Staff recommendation in the staff report on October 23rd was that the developer, Sobrado, paid $129, which is 6 times that number. At the same time over about a period of 2.5 to 3 years of our entitlement process, the park fee doubled from about 32,000 the door to $60,000 a door. So in the motion that was made that night, um, was to, because the council could not approve a park credit that night, because the park ordinance, did not allow it. They gave directions, the staff to bring back those changes, but the obligation was for us to pay the staff recommended $12 million. If I might touch on Vice Mayor's comment of what she was hearing from Dr. Rudolph, we followed up with staff and then wrote a letter to both school districts, identifying how the $12 million would be distributed. And after sending out the first letter, the high school district responded back that the proportion of that fee is usually one third to the high school district, two thirds to the elementary school district. Dr. excuse me, Mr. Harding, superintendent for the high school, indicated that they had a special agreement between the two school districts to give the high school district two thirds, and that the elementary school would take one third. So I think Dr. Rudolph is accurate in telling you that the number is lower, but I'm being told by the school districts that they had a separate agreement on how to split the 12 million over what normal state mandate numbers were, and that's reflected in the two letters that I indicated back to the school districts, of which Dr. Harding, excuse me, Jeff Harding, had already acknowledging writing that was consistent with his understanding, but we never heard back from Dr. Rudolph.

[02:02:13] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That's not the issue. Thank you.

[02:02:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[02:02:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, just very briefly, I... You know, the project has already been approved, and I don't really feel comfortable deviating from what was agreed to, but just to express more broadly. I have zero optimism that a school will be constructed based on the fees that are collected. I think most likely, the only realistically, way we could get a school out there is if a master developer were to construct a school as part of a bigger project. So that's more what I'm counting on. Um, you know, I'm, I don't see the fees yielding anything, but that's more a broader concern about the precise plan than this particular project. I'm going to go ahead and 2nd the motion. I intend to support it. The project is approved, and I just don't feel comfortable modifying it at this point.

[02:03:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you Council member McAllister, did you have any comments?

[02:03:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes, thank you. Um... Comment a couple observations. I do, uh, want to thank, uh, Sobrado for modifying their Parkland. I appreciate their willingness to work with the city and to uh, and that they're building some housing, needed housing out there. As I have mentioned before, I'm very concerned about open space out there. And that my question when I ask that we're going to have 1200 people out there, and if we go by our city guidelines, it's over a 1000 and that requires 3 acres apart. that the city is not buying, a lot of parkland, and that, we need faith that is usable for large quantity of people to exercise, to release energy for their kids to play in. Now, some council members will say, well, there's plenty of park over in the regional shoreline, shoreline regional park, but that's not usable park. A lot of that is preserved for the burr and owl. It's a golf course, it's trail, but it's not usable, open space, green open space for people to use. And that's why I am always concerned about giving away credit for Parkland, because we are going backwards on our open space, and if land is going for approximately $12 to $150000 an acre out there. We are going to shortchange ourselves again because, if we get $30 million, that is potentially 2 acres, at, at worse and if we get a little bit more. The other observation I wanted to make was, that was my concern about doing that credit. But my other concern is, I want to make sure, my perception is, that when we hear that a credit helps fund the voluntary school contributions from the developers of the school district. The word voluntary is not, uh something that I feel is happening at that particular time. It's more of a required contribution to the school. And that, basically, if you're looking at it, is the city of Mountain View, is crediting a developer, 7 some $1000000 to then pass it on to the school district. So if we cut out the middleman with the developer, that would be the city giving $7000000 to the schools. If the city wants to do that, that's the right of the council. But to say that at the voluntary school contribution, I think would be misleading. And, I've always thought that, we should not have a developer contribute to the full cost of a school, and I think their contribution, for my remembering of that particular meeting, was never really clarified on how that school was going to be funded. But the burden on a developer is unreasonable. So those are my thoughts, and if you probably haven't figured out, I would not support a motion because I really believe that fundamentally, we need our park lands, and once they're gone, they're gone.

[02:07:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[02:07:07] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, as for Parkland, I think that as long as we're creating high quality, publicly accessible private space in North Bay Shore, not in other parts of the city where there's not so much open space, I would not be for it, but as long as we're doing that, I think, as people have said, there are advantages, such as different, you can program it differently, for instance, the volleyball, badminton court, that we've spoken tonight. And that the private developers will maintain it. I think as long as we have a series of them that are very varied so that residents of the area can really access very different things. I would hate to see, you know, a volleyball court and picnic tables stamped across every single one of them. You know, I think we have to work on what the variety would be. Do you have a particular item, you want to add to it? Okay, just variety. Okay. As for the school issue, I really sympathize with what the vice mayor has said, it may just be that we having kids going to the schools, We may be talking to the same people. But I have to say that I also sympathize with what council member Clark said that, you know, we've gotten pretty far with this project, and we can't change it at the last minute, but I think we have to revisit this discussion at some point, because, frankly, the people, and they're mostly women, they're mostly moms, who have run the bonds in the past. They run the bonds on the idea that we're improving our schools, not that we're building new schools. And the people who've been running the bonds of, some of them have told me they're not going to do it again for, because it won't, although I support this project, it won't pencil out for the developers, they're saying it won't pencil out for us to either. We don't want to do that work. It's a really different thing to ask people to work for a bond for new construction versus, you know, we're going to improve where your kids have recess, or, you know, whatever, whatever the improvements are. So I think this is a serious issue that we really have to think through. We really do have to provide schools and it's not going to be probably volunteer moms running. the same old moms running the same old ponds. It has to be something different than that. Council member Clark.

[02:09:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: Just be quick. I just wanted to address Council member McAllister's concerns. I just wanted to say that, John, you're right. And, you know, if you if you feel that, you know, having Parkland is more important than than than in Luffy's, then that's fine. What I would say is, I just want to I just want to say that we could have had the 3 acre park. We chose to take the land dedication for affordable housing instead of open space. And whether that was the right decision at the time or not. We took the large, we decided to have the large sort of parcel that could have been a park and decided it was best in the city's, or at least at the time, we felt it was best to have that dedicated to build affordable housing and to accept, you know, an acre or more of still publicly accessible open space to sort of balance everything out. And so, you know, if we were making that decision tonight, I could completely understand why you might not want to make that tradeoff. But that decision was made quite a while ago. And so for me, when I'm looking at this now, like that's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether to accept, um, to give them an $8000000 credit for the publicly accessible open space. And so the question to me becomes, could we build something of this magnitude for the public for $8 million? And the answer, and we can talk all night about where that $8000000 goes. But that's the real question for me, is all the other decisions have been made. Do we take the, do we give the, uh, could we take the $8000000 from the developer and do something either equal to or greater than what they're providing here with probably accessible open space that we don't have to maintain? Or do we let them have the $8000000 credit and program it the way that we want it and maintain it? And in my mind, it's worth the $8000000 to let them build the one acre plus public accessible, private open space, and we've already made the decision to forego the multi-acre land dedication for affordable housings that sort of water under the bridge at that point. But I just wanted to address that specifically.

[02:12:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I share council member McAllister's concerns, and I do think we need to make sure we have enough resources when it comes time to buy open space for parks. And so, I think, you know, for me, and I believe I said this the last time we talked about this project, this is certainly not something that I consider a precedence that will be easily granted to other projects in North Bay Shore. This, for me, is sort of a one off to get things going. And I do share the concerns about the schools that the vice mayor brought up. And that's why I'm saying I don't feel like this one is precedent setting. It can't be because we do need to make sure there's enough resources for the schools as well as having the park space. And this park space in particular feels very crowded to me. Do we typically have this much going on in a park that's about an acre? When I think about parks like Devonshire Park, I think is a little more than half an acre and it doesn't have like half as much as this. I simplify this a little bit. It feels, um, It feels very crowded to me. And I agree with the comment about having variety. So whatever's here, I certainly wouldn't want it repeated in all of the other parks in the North Bay Shore area. I do appreciate council member Clark's comments. And I think it would be hard at this point to change anything. I guess I just want to emphasize one more time. For me, this is not a precedent. This is a one off opportunity. Council member Kamei.

[02:14:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So appreciate the robust dialogue from my colleagues. I think that, you know, the conversation we're having is trying to figure out how we, um, create, uh, you know, an integrated community in North Bay Shore, um, how do we best utilize the land in the area. And so I think for myself, one of the things that I found encouraging when I was looking at the park is the integration with the existing community. I appreciate the residents talking about how there was outreach to them. They were an integral part of the process. I think, um, as we're going forward with North Bay Shore, that's the precedent I want to set in terms of working with the existing community and residents to ask them what they would like to see, um, you know, the real the alignment, the possibility of the gate. Those were questions that I had, and I was happy to hear them answered through through public comment. Um, I think that one of the things that's been stressed is that this isn't precedent setting, and I would have to agree. I think that this was a decision that was made by the prior council, trying to make the best decision that they could with the information available. I think since that time, information may have shifted and I think that it'll be an opportunity for discussion with the fee structure. I think there's much more to be discussed and would be interested in maybe if there's an opportunity where the council and the school district could have a type of meeting where we could hear directly from them, the needs of the school districts, both the Mountain View has been in the Mountain View, Los Altos. I think that that's something that would be important and informative as we go forward with North Bay Shore. And I think that this will, this discussion will help inform the conversations that we have for North Bayshire going forward. Um, I think that one of the things about the area that's unique is that it may be that we need to look at projects on an individual basis, that we evaluate things more case by case, um, because you know, the times we're living in the fluctuation of the market. We may need more, you know, funding for things like schools. So I'll be supporting the motion. I think that it's important to, um, go forward with development in the area, um, and I think that this will be something that we can take with us as we look at further projects in the North Bay Shore area in terms of what maybe we would do differently. Thanks.

[02:17:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, I'll be coca.

[02:17:09] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you just to respond. I, you know, completely understand all of the arguments that made, and I frankly originally supported this, but I've just, you know, did a little bit more digging and research. And, um, and we've had some things that happened since we talked about this. And I think I'm trying to be equitable in light of what we did with Los Alto school district and, you know, using our park fees to pay for, help them pay for land there. I just have this feeling that that's going to happen here. And if we're discounting and, you know, just degrading that fund by giving credits. You know, I share, um, councilwoman McAllister's comments, like we land is valuable. So we need to, you know, have the funding to be able to, whether it's a park or open space or schools, have the funds to be able to provide what we need to provide and assist in getting the amenities out there. You know, I support house, I support the project as the housing project. You know, the mention of the affordable housing, development and the taking the land dedication. Yeah, that's fine. We had a, I guess, a choice, but they had a, you know, requirement on that as well. So, um, you know, we were trying to help them out, but, and, but my expectation was that they would then fulfill other obligations and I just don't see, it's not a huge amount, I think, I've calculated out to about a 1000000 and a half . And, you know, I would be open to doing a lower, like a 60 or 65% credit or yeah, requiring them to just make that difference up to the schools, but I won't be supporting this motion as a result. And we'll see if there's opportunity for something else.

[02:19:09] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments by council members? Okay, then I guess we're ready for a roll call vote.

[02:19:16] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[02:19:17] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[02:19:18] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[02:19:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:19:20] City Clerk: Council member Kameh?

[02:19:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:19:22] City Clerk: Council member McAllister. Council member McAllister?

[02:19:30] Councilmember John McAlister: No.

[02:19:31] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez?

[02:19:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:19:33] City Clerk: Vice mayor Abi Koga?

[02:19:34] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: No.

[02:19:35] City Clerk: Miramatachek.

[02:19:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:19:38] City Clerk: So that pass says 52 with council members, McAllister, and Vice Mayor, Abi Koga. No.

[02:19:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, thank you. Thank you. I think we just lost him. Okay, the next topic is... a study session. Consideration of use of unmanned aircraft systems, UAS for short, in support of city operations. And our presenters tonight, our police lieutenant, Saul Jager, Fire Captain Paramedic Eric Roth, and public works director Mike Fuller. Oh, there you are. And since this is a study session, just to give folks a heads up. After the staff presentation, we'll take public input and then the council will deliberate.

[02:20:41] Police Lieutenant Saul Jager: Thank you. Okay. All right, thank you for seeing us and letting us be part of this tonight. The purpose of this presentation is going to be to provide information and background on the use of unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, or drones, as they're commonly known, and they're for the operations within the city and to solicit input and direction from the council. To give a little bit of background on UAS technology. I wanted to just briefly cover some of the things here. And also, Captain Roth is going to be here for any questions specific to the fire department. And Mike Fuller will be here for any questions specific related to anything public works related that I can't answer. But US technology has been used successfully for many years in municipal governments now. For everything from building inspections to disaster recovery, and the bottom line with the technology is that it's used for increased situational awareness and better decision making overall. So regardless of the specific departmental mission, that's the overall use. For the city of Mountain View, the public works department, the fire department, and the police department, have expressed interest in looking at the technology and seeing if we could use it for our operations specifically. And as you'll see through the presentation that the kind of meshing of the same things of interest which are enhancing operations, working safer, providing better service within their specific areas of responsibilities. In general, US technology provides aerial views of locations or events, quicker evaluation of an event, and with different technology that's available to be added onto them with Zoom cameras and infrared technology, environmental sensors and things. provides live streaming of some of the video to decision makers, provides enhanced problem solving as we go through these things. And again, we'll get into all this in a little bit more detail. But some of the questions that have come up in other areas and jurisdictions, our questions around civil rights and privacy and the appropriate use of the technology. and the just to put this in there as well. The ACU publisher report in 2011 talking about the use of drone technology and guidelines that governments can take to stay in lines with those kind of things. And we've incorporated a lot of that in our presentation tonight and a lot of the things that we want to use. So that's the general background. We'll get into the specific department use examples. So for public works, And again, I'm not the subject matter expert when it comes to public works, but in general, there's a lot of uses for that specifically as well. Things like roof and gutter inspections, for instance, can be done without having employees climbing up ladders or standing on roofs unless they need to be up there. They can make a quick assessment of damage or construction projects and things like that, piping, leaks, wiring, all those kind of things, canopy inspections for trees can be done. And then project management of construction sites and things that are going on within the city. Those can be all used. As an example, there's some quick videos that we put together. This is an example of a more of a residential building, but this is a roof inspection of what it looks like and how quick it can be deployed, and see any issues or problems that may require either more investigation or a, you know, this one is okay, let's move on to the next. And then the next video that you're going to see and another common theme that's threaded in between this is that the use of software, and some of the things that are available. So for project management and construction management, making sure things are being done on time and done safely in the public works world as well as, and this is the software piece for mapping and some of the project management tools that are available for this as well. For the fire department. Again, disclaimer, I'm not the subject matter expert with fire, but I can speak a little bit about it with drone use. For the fire department, specifically, currently the Alameda County Fire Department, Menlo Park Fire District, Fremont Fire, and San Jose Fire, are using drone technology to enhance their operations, and it's going to be similar crossover with the law enforcement operations as far as incident management, situational awareness, personnel and asset allocation during an incident, operational safety and firefighting strategy overall. And with the fire department, we're talking about life-saving efforts, mostly before and during natural disasters like floods and things like that, but also large scale incidents. The picture on the bottom left is a railroad derailment and a hazmat issue. And so firefighters are able to see where plumes of smoke would be going and chemical things that are happening around that. And then also the technology around the FLIR and the ability to see hotspots, so people, and or areas of fire as it's going. And the video for that gets into that as well. You're going to see a very clear example of on the left of a normal camera view and an infrared camera view of the same incident. So for fire decision making and fire strategy, firefighting strategy that clearly makes a big difference on where they need to be focusing efforts. This next video is a big warehouse fire. It is not the ghost ship fire, but it does show some examples of different camera views and things that are available to fire fighters and battalion chiefs and decision makers for those. For the police department. This one I can speak intelligently on. Currently, there's many agencies in the area that are using this technology, Alameda County Sheriff's Department, has been one that has been an early adopter and has learned, we've all learned a lot from them. But Fremont Police Department. Modesto, and then in Southern California, Chula Vista, and some of our local agency partners like Sunnyvale, San Jose and Santa Clara are looking at programs as well. And it's a lot of the same things that we're concerned about with same as fire. So situational awareness and decision making during an incident. The picture on the top right is a collision scene. There's a lot of technology that's available. Again, it's more about the software that is able to take very accurate measurements of a collision scene very quickly, which would result in intersections being cleared a lot faster. So we're talking in a major or a fatal collision, generally intersections or areas of roadways can be closed for hours and hours on end, because we want to get it right, with this technology that would speed that process up. I did put the 2 bottom pictures in purposely. The bottom one on the left is a FLIR still shot from a video of a subject hiding in a boat. And this is the Boston Marathon bomber that was found. And the right picture is the coffee park, one of the areas that was hit with the wildfires. And initially that's a fire problem, but after the event, that becomes a law enforcement problem. And drone technology is can help us with looting issues and trespassing issues and things like that, which are pretty common, unfortunately, and those things. And then one of the lessons we've learned from our partners and being part of this now is that the uses that we think that the technology would be good for are still there, but there's many more that we don't even know about yet. And I'll give you some examples of that as well. The 1st video for the police one is gonna be a very, very early video from Alameda County. If you look on the left side of the backyard, You'll notice the subject already jumping out the back of the house and over a fence. And if you keep your eye, this is a SWAT, arrest warrant at a house in Alameda County. You'll notice a dog that's not a police dog. That's just a neighbor. But that's one person out the back, now there's a 2nd person going out the back. And this was very early on deployment of their drones. They did not have live streaming, so the operator and the observer, and we'll get into the details of deployment. We're radioing into the incident commander to tell them that there's people going out the back. The wanted subject was followed for about a block until they could get a unit there. And then what you're going to see is them attempt to stop him in a in short foot pursuit, um, and then him taken into custody safely. And this was all captured on the drone, clearly. That's what we're seeing. The next video, um, that you're going to see is more related to the software that's available for some of the things that we can do with collision scene, um, development as well, and documentation. So this is a collision, but you can imagine if this was a shooting scene or a crime as well. We same kind of technology can be used for that, which allows bird's eye view and walkthroughs of these crime scenes. So this is a pedestrian collision that you're not going to actually see the collision, but that's what the end product actually can look like with the software that's developed from the photography and video that's taken from the drone during an evidence scene. A quick background on some of the technology, and I'm going to kind of go over this pretty quickly, but there's a large variety of equipment available from consumer grade equipment off the shelf kind of things that you can buy at hobby stores to more commercial grade equipment that's not available to the public. The examples that I have here are all DJI products. They're one of the most common UAS manufacturers in the area. And this is just to give you an example. The DJI Spark is one of the smallest. It's considered almost a toy. It still has applications in some of the things that we're talking about. And then moving through all the way up to the Matrice 200, which is the most current one that's being used by many municipal agencies now to do inspections on PG&E owns a few of these to do inspections on power lines and things that are really difficult to get to, and railway inspections and bridges and things like that. As an aside, one of the things that we learned quickly, the inspire 2 drone and the ones that are like this, if you've seen any movies recently in the past 5 years that have action shots, most of them were shot with that drone, it's very fast. And because it's very fast, a lot of police departments thought it would be one that we would want. That turned out to not be the case, and this was Chula Vista's example. What they ended up needing was a drone that was more stable, that had a better payload for better cameras. And that became their mission profile for that. So lessons learned as we've moved through the technology that's available. They also vary in levels of sophistication from handflown drones that are the person's actually operating it from a remote control to completely fully autonomous drones that are flown on a mission that do it themselves. And there's use cases for every one of those within all of our, um, all of our areas of responsibility. Um, And uh, basically, the, depending on the one that you uh, would want mostly falls back onto the specific mission of what you're looking at doing and budget and things like that. I didn't want to get too much into the technology platform because quite honestly, it changes very quickly. It's like any other technology of decisions were made now in 3 months, there's going to be newer, better stuff. And so it's more about getting some input from the council. As far as deployment requirements, some of the best practices that we've seen, is going to have around the flights themselves would be conducted in strict accordance with the FAA guidelines and policies that are adopted by the city would also have to be in compliance with the FAA rules. If you want to look into this, the CFR part, um, part 107 section, um, talks in detail about the needs for cities to have for these types of things. The adherence to part 107 also includes what's called certificates of authorization or coas, which the city would need to get to be authorized to fly. The FAA, just as a side note, treats these just like any other aircraft. So maintenance logs and flight logs are kept. They don't consider them toys, and they don't consider the flights to be hobbyist type flights. There's also waivers that can be obtained for things like flying at night or in darkness, or in certain airspace restriction areas, or going over the minimum height or the maximum height rules. There are waivers for those types of things as well. For the city, what we would be recommending would be on each deployment. There would be a pilot in command or the pilot that's there and an observer. So it'd be 2 people going out. The piloting command focuses on flying the drone. The observer focuses on making sure there's complete visual contact with it the entire time, looking for additional hazards. So other aircraft, bridges, trees, things like that. And then also keeping in contact with local towers as necessary by the FAA, and any incident command people that are involved in the incident themselves. So the observer is actually much more busy than the pilot is themselves. And then again, just to emphasize flight logs and aircraft maintenance logs have to be maintained in compliance with the FAA rules as well. This does bring up, as we talked about earlier, privacy concerns, and throughout this, the protection of individual and civil rights, and the reasonable expectation of privacy will always be key components in any decision to employ deploy, sorry, a UAS in any kind of incident that we're doing. Some of the rules, if you look at the ACLU's guidelines, talk about prohibited uses for drones, things that are not allowed. So weaponizing any drone is not allowed. Random and proactive surveillance is also not recommended, targeting people based on individual characteristics, such as race or ethnicity, also not recommended. And then conducting any other business that's not official city business is not recommended. Our guidelines and recommendations fit very clearly within those as well. The other question that comes out a lot often as well is what do you do with the data, the video themselves and the retentions and all that? For us, what we'd be recommending is that all of the recordings that are from an incident are retained in accordance with already existing department policy. We've recently gone through this with the Officer Warren camera and all of the video that's captured with that, as far as evidence retention, and the data, purging data and things. So all of it's going to be retained as provided with established record. Excuse me, records retention schedules, and retained as evidence of a crime as needed. There won't be any authorized use or duplication or distribution of any of the video, and any requests. The question comes out about public records requests and things, treated and accepted and processed in accordance with already established rules and laws around that. Um, And then for program oversight. This is, I did kind of put this in the law enforcement world, sorry. But what we're going to recommend is that each department that's interested in having a UAS program use this general kind of guideline for their own program. So we would have a program manager in the police department, that would be a lieutenant or hire. And that person would be in charge of program direction, performance and accountability, the selection of members of the team, budget, and things like that. The program coordinator for the police department, that would be a sergeant level manager. They're going to be working through the day-to-day operations and supervision of the unit. So the actual hands on the boots on the ground and drone on the sky operations that happen, and the maintenance of all the records. So the flight logs, the maintenance logs, the training logs that are all required. And then the team of pilots and observers. Their job is the overall mission safety during the mission and after, records, maintenance, and training, which we'll get into in a 2nd too. And we also are recommending that the pilot in command have the authority to say no. if the mission itself does not necessarily fit the criteria or he or she feels that it may be not safe to fly. Well, that could be environmental factors, it could be, um, other things that are going on, a good case example of that would be, um, we had a missing person during 4th of July. And some of the people who potentially could be, uh, We're talking about drones. We're saying that would be a great use case for the drone. One of my, bless you, one of my potential pilots actually said, well, probably not, because I don't know if I would want to be flying, because what's happening on Fourth of July. Lots of fireworks and at low, low altitudes where drones are flying. And also if you're looking for a person in Shoreline Park, um, and you're using the FLIR on Fourth of July, you're going to see a lot of people in Shoreline Park. So it's very different unless we have in, it's very different than one person missing last seen in Shoreline Park, and we could deploy a UAS to go look in the park for that person and find the one person, but you're going to see 1000s of people in Shoreline Park. So it's not a very good use case, even though it kind of seemed like it might be. For training, we are recommending that all of the pilots and observers are part 107 certified or licensed FA licensed UAS pilots, that requires a ground school, just like you would as a regular pilot, except it's not as long. And then the taking of the test, the certified FAA test, which has to be recertified every 2 years. And that's what the license actually looks like on the top right. In addition to that, that's really all that's actually required by the FAA is to recertify and maintain that license. But because of the missions that the complicated missions that were potentially flying in, I would recommend that we do training and the training can be done in conjunction with already established training that's happening. So, for example, if fire is having a live fire training event, like they did today, the teams could go through whatever training that they need to to remain certified in their expertise. And then as soon as they're done, the UAS team for fire could pull off and then fly those missions as if it was an active fire event and use the UAS to train in an actual training scenario. And it also allows the battalion chiefs and things to work with that new asset and learn. Same with the police department for active shooter training or pursuit training and the things that we do. We would do something similar with our teams. The public works team. We would also suggest that the training be highly encourage the pilots and observers from each team to train with the other teams because in reality, if there was a big disaster or a giant fire, the fire UAS team may not be available because they're busy doing the fire stuff, then we may use the public works team to actually fly the fire mission for them or a combination. It could be a police pilot and a fire observer or public works pilot and a police observer or whatever. Um, so the, um, The mixed training is highly recommended. Um, let's see. So basically for the study session, what we're actually asking is, does the council support the development of a UAS program for the city overall, and does the council concur with the overarching policies as proposed in the memo that was written? And we're looking for any input on the program as well.

[02:40:38] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Welcome. Okay, since this is a study session, we'll open it up for public comment. So if there's anyone who wants to provide us with comment on this topic, please come up to the microphone and be sure to fill out a blue card before or after you speak.

[02:40:59] Public Speaker: The drone program sounds really cool. A few years ago, there are drones above Shoreline Ampitheater for concerts. Is that considered a proactive search and observation? If you are watching concert goers with no specific incident in mind, I appreciate the value of drones technology, but that's kind of creepy and I like it. Thank you.

[02:41:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next, please.

[02:41:35] Public Speaker: So, um, I happen to know quite a bit professionally about systems like this, um, you know, and I can't talk at all about what I'm doing with them, but, um, so I had a few comments on this. I mean, 1st for the public works type of work, I had a solar city, you know, kind of contact me because they wanted to fly a drone to check my solo panels. And I think that I like the idea that they were giving me notice that it would happen. So that's probably a good practice to keep, you know, whenever you do this so that you know, you know, why you have something, you know, flying over you. The 2nd thing is that, you know, again, from my professional background, you know, with any of his cameras, you can capture a lot of information and a lot of information that's not German to what you're trying to do. So I think you need to take very good care about keeping the info- only information that's reached your main on this. And you had a scene where there was a kind of a a drawn chase, I guess, or a dog chase. I don't know if people are. Depending on the type of cameras you have, there is a lot of information, but not German to this, but you could have captured like some splits of cars that were parked, possibly facial recognitions, you know, if you had good quality on passerby. None of this is really something that was key to things and from a privacy and civil rights perspective, you want to make sure that's not stored. And then, this is more, you know, the way I've done it. I've seen it in kind of business type of settings. You know, you need to definitely keep, you know, good blogs of the flights and the missions and why you decided to do this, but that auditing should be done outside of your department. It should be, you know, kind of somebody who's kind of neutral, not involved in the decision so that you have kind of a clear eye, you know, somebody who's refocus on privacy, civil rights, not on the operations of the development. Thank you.

[02:43:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:43:48] Barbara Goodwin: Hello, hello, Barbara. Goodwin, Mountain View resident. Many years. I'm fascinated, as I'm sure you are, with the technology, but of course, like the ACLU, they want to know about facial recognition. If that's just sort of one of those extras they pile on with, because that could get very interesting. And also, the business about transparency after the fact. Would records be kept available to the public, as to these incidents that are would be occurring everywhere. That's my question. I'm sure you have others. That's it, folks. Thank you.

[02:44:39] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Anyone else want to provide input on this topic? Okay, then we'll close public comment and bring it back to the council for... discussion, and... thoughts on the proposed policy. Council member Hicks.

[02:45:01] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I can see there are all sorts of ways this would really make your jobs easier. Um, I have my, I do have some privacy concerns, and I guess my 1st question is, um, you say that conducting random, proactive, um, surveillance activities would be, um, prohibited, but I'm, I'm not sure what's random and what's not random. For example, in my neighborhood, and I live in a single family neighborhood where people have a lot of backyards that they fenced in backyards that, frankly, they kind of use as if they're inside. They think that they're in a private space. And maybe they're not anymore. So, we have, you know, from time to time, police cars drive by on the road, would it be, could it possibly become fairly commonplace that drones would be flying over our, our houses instead as you, I don't know, as you, you look, as you do your job, because I think that that's something that could be problematic.

[02:46:20] Staff Presenter: I agree with you. When that, I think the spirit of that is that it's not gonna be patrolling. Like, you see the police car rolling around your neighborhood in a patrol stance, that's not what these are gonna be intended to be used for at all. So this for on the police side, this is going to be an incident that's happening right now, um, it could be a traffic collision, a major traffic collision, and we need to know traffic patterns of where we should shut intersections down or, um, we need to use it for evidence collection, that kind of thing. So it would be a kind of a reactive response to that. Or it could be a huge fight downtown that we may deploy it over that first, as units are responding in, that the drone may be used as another incoming unit to give us a an aerial perspective of what's happening right now as units our police units are arriving to a scene. So would it be used to be just patrolling down your street? No.

[02:47:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: It just seems like there are all sorts of, um, it's like a slippery slope. Like if there's a fight down the street from me, is the is the drone flying over our property and filming while it's getting there, do we get to add, if there's one flying over our property, do we get to phone somewhere and ask what it's about? It seems like there's a whole series of questions around this. that it's not quite as simple as it maybe immediately appears, and I'm wondering whether some of the other ordinances that were referenced in the staff report, can shed a little more light on, it seems like probably they looked at some of those possibilities, maybe work through it a little more. And I'm just bringing up the ones that come to mind. There may be all sorts of other ones that could create a kind of, and I'm thinking of it in my own neighborhood, but I think, you know, there may be all sorts of other possibilities in other physical spaces and other, you know, maybe not just in police, but in public works and fire and so forth that I can't think through on the spot, but that maybe some of these other ordinances did look through in greater detail.

[02:48:27] Staff Presenter: Yeah, the drones, the other thing that I didn't cover in here is that for what we are proposing, they're not, like, placed at the police department on the roof and launched from the police department on the roof. They'll be in the trunk of a responding unit, just like a canine, right? We don't launch the canine from the police department to run, you know, they're in the car with the officer. And so, you know, for us, it wouldn't be that. It would be at the, if the incident is right here, that's where the drone is going to be launched from, somewhere safe that they can launch it from. Maybe a couple 100 feet away, and it's going to go up and provide an aerial view of that. Another example would be that's actually in the memo is the fleeing subject that's jumping over backyards. Traditionally, we would chase that person on foot. Sometimes we may not have time to deploy drone. Quite honestly, it may not be used. It's just another tool that we have in our pocket. But if we do have the time, then that becomes a very valuable tool for finding a person that fled from us that could be dangerous, depending on why they fled, if they were in a stolen car or just committed a crime. It's safer for everybody because then we can locate that person a lot faster without deploying a dog or without having officers going into a backyard and then potentially having a conflict with the subject or suspect. So there's different methods of how these things are deployed. We're nowhere near having it deployed from the roof of a building and proactively going somewhere, you know, maybe in the future. But now we're talking about a drone that's in a bag. The officer throws it on their backpack once they get to an incident, and they deploy it from the incident directly.

[02:50:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So I didn't see a lot of folks in the queue. So if you want to ask questions, but also provide your input at the same time, that would be great or you can wait. Either way is fine with me. Council member Clark.

[02:50:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I do support the development of a US program. You know, I think this technology, you know, like any new technology needs to have policies and associate with it and be managed properly, but I think it also has the queer potential to save lives. and make several aspects of what the city does, whether it's public works or public safety, more effective and efficient. Overall, I concur with the policies that you proposed. I think as we develop. I do think that we should develop as a city, sort of the guidelines that we will use to address all of the all the key questions that I think you hit on really well and that many other cities have struggled with. I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. I think that we can borrow from a lot of the policies that have been put in place in best practices that exist in other cities, and we can always make it our own. But I think a lot of these things have been worked through, and there will clearly be things in the future. But I don't think we need to completely start from scratch. But I do think we should put something in place to certainly address, you know, privacy and the other concerns that are raised with any technology like this. And that includes, for me, in particular, 2 things. One is, uh, the access to the, so, and we saw this with body worn cameras, the footage, if it's subject to public exercise requests, or at some point is made public, just that we ensure that, um, you know, just as Google redacts license plates and faces of its street cameras, you know, that we would ensure that we're protecting the privacy of anything that's not germane or related to, um, as, as one person said to the incident in question. But I'm sure a lot of those policies are in place now with body worn camera footage. So I just think we need to think through the same things there. And then this is more for my own curiosity, but, um, what is the, what is the judicial precedent or the rules around, um, let's say you, you want a drone to go, um, figure out where a suspect ran off to? And, um, you notice my pet alligator in my backyard? Can you, you know, if you notice another crime in progress or some other violation, you know, is that actionable? Um, just like if you had a wiretap and you happen to figure out that something else, a crime other than what you're going after is committed or is being committed, you know, is that actionable from a law enforcement perspective?

[02:53:02] Staff Presenter: It's gonna be whether or not there was a, I think, one of the factors is whether or not there was a reasonable expectation of privacy, but there have been cases that have allowed the pursuit of that, that...

[02:53:12] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I figured. They find another violation that they can pursue that. So I think, and the only additional input that I would have is, I mean, this is the city manager's wheelhouse, so I probably shouldn't go there, but the one thing, in terms of the, in terms of the structure, it seemed like the program coordinator seemed a little duplicative to me, if the observers and the pilots are doing the maintenance and records, requests, or records, maintenance, and all those things, and the program coordinators also charge with some of those things, you know, maybe it makes sense to have a program coordinator if this really grows into something that's, used quite frequently, but I'm not sure. It's necessary to have those 3 levels of positions that the outset, but that's totally up to you.

[02:53:58] City Manager Dan Rich: Your opening statement was correct. That would be.

[02:54:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: But it was in the slide.

[02:54:02] City Manager Dan Rich: That would be my wheelhouse. Yeah, I think just I want to emphasize, you know, the point of tonight is the overall philosophy and acceptance of the concept, we will come back to you for a high level council adopted policy that will deal with the issues of privacy, transparency, accessibility, those sorts of, you know, valid concerns that you want to put your stamp on. It will then be up to me and the individual departments to come up with the detailed procedures, whether it's one person, 2 persons, 3 people, and how they're going to implement it as long as it's within the context of the council approved policy.

[02:54:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member commit.

[02:54:48] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So for the first two questions, yes and yes, and then for the input, I think being able to utilize technology, while also keeping our city employees safer is of interest to me. And I think that this could be a good opportunity. I hear my colleague's concerns about privacy and preserving civil liberties, as well as comments from the public. You know, one of the items that we receive some public comment on via email was looking at an overarching surveillance technology policy. I don't feel like we're there yet. We're just starting to talk about UAS. So, I think that might be for something later down the road. But one of the things that the county in particular has is compliance for existing surveillance technologies. They go over a variety of things, including data access, protection, retention, as well as public access, um, that I would recommend maybe we take a look at. I think that those are really helpful. It also defines what the technology, what those parameters are for those technologies, and I think that that could be helpful in terms of just transparency. Um, because I think if we're using this, We need to be as transparent as possible. So I think those are just my initial comments. Thank you.

[02:56:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez.

[02:56:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I, uh, basically agree with everything that Council member Kumei has said, um, I also am so yes on questions one and two. I'm also interested in exploring the development of a broader surveillance technology policy. I agree it's not urgent, doesn't need to be done, you know, before the end of or before the summer break or anything, but I think longer term, it would be a helpful policy to have. And I'm sort of following up from what Council member Clark was talking about in a question, or some of the public input from Mr. Bont, I'm interested in better understanding whether the technology right now allows for the ability to remove data or video that is not germane to the the incident that is being recorded. Is that something that could be done easily?

[02:57:22] Police Staff: Um, easily is is, so yes, we can, we can redact. We do it with Officer one camera, video already. We've done it with the YouTube shooter video. If you guys saw that. It does take some video editing in some hours, but it is possible. Yeah, I mean, it's there.

[02:57:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, but it's done manually is what you're suggesting.

[02:57:47] Police Staff: Right.

[02:57:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, got it. And then also from Mr. Bun's questions, is there, you know, do you anticipate developing sort of a compliance, auditing component to this, and would it be done by folks outside of the department?

[02:58:04] Police Staff: We haven't explored that at all. But one of the questions from the public was talking about having an outside party like that, that's interesting and something that we could definitely explore.

[02:58:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Vice mayor Abbe Coca?

[02:58:18] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Just quickly, I do support one and two. In terms of input. Mr. Bont mentioned the communication, and he was noticed of something happening, and I've noticed the last few days on, I think it's next door. There's been some chatter about drones and what are they? And so that would just be my question or area of interest. you know, how do we mean, how do we be transparent? How do we communicate with the public? What's going on?

[02:58:55] Police Staff: I'm glad you asked. So, one of the things that, you know, we definitely want to leverage the social media presence that we all have in our, for the city and for our department specifically, that's one of the best ways that we've found to communicate with the community about things. So whether that be any of the channels that we have for that. So that would definitely be one to tell stories, you need to answer questions and talk about this type of technology, but holding another speaker series, bringing the community in to talk about what we have, the capabilities, the intended uses, to hear feedback is very valuable, uh, PSAs that we can put out small videos for that. the more transparent, the better. So that's the plan.

[02:59:40] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. But would it also be real time if one is being used, like, in a neighborhood? That you'd say, hey, that's us doing this on social media?

[02:59:52] Police Staff: Well, I don't want to get tied to anything. It could be. There may be times where we don't want to say that that's happening. But, you know, it's just like with any other incident. you know, it depends on the incident specific.

[03:00:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Council member Hicks?

[03:00:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I would say yes to questions one and two, and as for additional input, I was basically going the direction that you've just been going since I requested to speak, but I think that the outreach is really important as we go forward, and that, like you say, social media is great, but probably going beyond that, you mentioned a speaker series, I don't know if it's civility round table is appropriate for this, but something that engages the community more, Because I think, you know, now that you've explained it pretty well to me, I still have more questions. And I imagine that the public would as well, and I'd like to give people the opportunity to weigh in before the program gets too far. So transparency and like Mexican public outreach as we go forward would be my input.

[03:01:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Is Council member McAllister still on the phone?

[03:01:10] Unknown Speaker: No, he's not.

[03:01:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, so, um, I do agree that we should develop a policy, and I think what has been suggested in the staff report is a great 1st start. Um, I do want to highlight that I think transparency is very important in communication with the residents here. And also a good understanding of the personal privacy protections that might be in place. But I think we should go forward with this. And I also agree that it might be good at some point to develop a more comprehensive policy for all technologies, but I wouldn't want to stop this and wait for that. So I think we can go ahead with this. And then if there's additional ones come up with a more global policy. for what types of technologies need to have council policies. Um, any other comments before I summarize? Okay, so, um, is unanimous yes to develop a policy and unanimous that we agree with the ones that have been proposed. And I feel like I heard a lot of comments about transparency and personal privacy. And then, um, a lot of communication with the public, about the program, and... what, if there was a public records request, how that is handled, and what information is shared as part of the education. Anything I missed?

[03:03:03] Unknown Speaker: Uh, we do. Then we have four for that?

[03:03:12] City Manager Dan Rich: I did. I did. So I would suggest that would be better discussed as part of our goal setting and work plan items, 'cause it's really a totally new project, and it should be prioritized with everything else you're looking at.

[03:03:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thank you. Okay. I think that's it. on this topic, unless anybody else has a comment. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, so that ends item 8.1. Item 9 is council staff committee reports. Are there any? Okay, seeing none. At this point, we will have the announcement of the next item, which is the close session, and our city attorney will give that.

[03:04:12] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: So, item 11.1 is the conference with real property negotiator pursuant to government code section 549556.8. The property is the unimproved lot located at the southwest corner of East Evelyn Avenue and Pioneer Way. The APN number is 160 65 008. Our agency negotiators are Wayne Chen, Assistant Community Development Director, Tim Wong, our Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager, Vera Gill, the project manager, and affordable and for affordable housing, and Dentistren, and our real property program administrator. The negotiating party is Santa Clara, Valley Transportation Authority, and under negotiation, are the price in terms of payment for the lease and option to purchase real property.

[03:04:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

[03:04:57] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: And I might just add, I don't anticipate that we'll have a closed session announcement following the closed session this evening.

[03:05:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Is there any public input on the closed session item? So we will take it now. Okay, seeing none. We'll close the public comment portion. And since council member or McAllister is no longer participating in the meeting. We don't need to announce anything, right? Okay. So, um, we will adjourn to the closed session in the Plaza conference room after a brief recess, and then the next city council meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019, at 5.30 p.m. in the council chambers, 500 Castro Street. And the regular council meeting is adjourned at 9.35. Just shocking. Thank you.

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