November 17, 2020 Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council


Video

Speaker Summary

(45 speakers)
SpeakerWordsTime
Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga5,96644m
Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei1,1087m
Councilmember John McAlister3,38921m
Councilmember Lisa Matichak2,41716m
Councilmember Alison Hicks1,80912m
Councilmember Lucas Ramirez1,78310m
Councilmember Chris Clark1,0496m
City Manager Kimbra McCarthy1,5258m
City Attorney Krishan Chopra2621m
City Clerk2321m
City Clerk Lisa Natouche148<1m
City Clerk Lisa Natusch120<1m
Unknown Speaker1,87012m
Superintendent Jeff Bayer1,51810m
Ray1,5799m
Senior Planner Eric Anderson1,1588m
Associate Civil Engineer Carla Ochoa1,1988m
Thomas Yee1,2527m
Senior Planner Margaret Netto9987m
Architect Marin Mogel9076m
Amrik McDonald7194m
Dempsey1,0164m
Public Works Director Dawn Cameron8144m
Stephen Goldstein7694m
Tim Steele4172m
Eric2812m
Staff Member Margaret2651m
Bruce England3341m
Applicant Tim2481m
Emily Ramos2861m
Applicant Representative2201m
Albert Jeans3201m
LASD Superintendent2491m
April Webster2051m
Superintendent Bear1931m
Business Development Specialist Tiffany Chu1731m
Ms. Cameron1791m
Alex Brown1741m
Cynthia Razo110<1m
City Traffic Engineer Lorenzo Lopez108<1m
Applicant111<1m
Landscape Architect90<1m
James Stockham86<1m
Dyla Ryan8<1m
Public Speaker46<1m

Transcript

[00:21:20] Dempsey: Getting that parking off the street, back behind a building, hopefully up in the tower, down to the ground. Um, transit orientation. I think it's going to matter a lot, especially if it's commercial. Like I want to see that they thought deeply about how they're going to keep people out of single occupancy vehicle car rides. I want to see how they're going to get people in on bikes, how they're going to get them in on BTA. And if I don't see that thinking, I'm going to be very concerned very quickly. Um, And again, you know, environmental remediation, I think, especially with commercial, there's going to be more of an obligation to really think about the impact of the kind of the environment around the construction. And I think being able to leave the environment around a place better than they found it is going to be pretty important. And finally, community benefits, again, is really gonna matter to me. Um, yeah, I can stop there.

[00:22:09] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Um, and then this is the one we were working on. What do you think when, I'm sorry, when do you think it is appropriate to convert existing land uses?

[00:22:22] Dempsey: It was a good one. I'm glad you created a new question on the fly. So when is it appropriate to, it sounds like to rezone. Um, it sounds like the question gets back to when would you go from light industrial to something that's probably residential? And I think it's a good question. Because if you do rezone from industrial to housing, you definitely displace businesses. So I think the kind of the couple of questions that I would think about are, you know, anytime you're doing land, you want to find the kind of the best use of that land. the most efficient, most valuable to society use of that land. So I think if you were looking at potentially displacing a business in an industrial area and rezoning it, so you could put in housing, I'd want to know, 1st of all, are they consumer facing or not? Because if they're just building something, if they're building something and there's no consumer, right there. And again, you know, the difference would be, you know, a coffee shop versus a factory that makes, I don't know, whatever, something, something fun, some high-tech gizmo. If you could make that just as well someplace else, It's an interesting question of what that impact is going to be on Mountain View residents, but if it's consumer facing, Then I think a better argument can be made that maybe we need it, right? And things like, if you look at some of our big industrial areas right now, like, um, auto repair shops, right? Everybody needs to have their car repaired. If you've got a car, right? That's consumer facing that really benefits the people who live in Mountain View. And I would really want to think about, like, do we want to take away folks opportunities to get their car fixed here in town or do we want them driving to Sunnyvale? So I think kind of the utilization and would the impact on actual mountain view resonance, like how much they use it? That, to me, I think actually matters a lot.

[00:24:07] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Um, and finally, What topics do you think would be of particular importance to you? Um, I'm sorry, what? Let me start over. What topics? Do you think would be of particular importance to you where you have expertise or interest in that you would be looking for in projects, plans, or items that come in front of the BPC, such as parking, trees, density, bike pad. Et cetera.

[00:24:46] Dempsey: Right. No, I've definitely noticed from watching this year's EPC hearings is that people definitely specialize, and I can see why that makes a lot of sense. So I think, and I covered this a little bit before, but my focus, I think, My 1st focus will be on legislation, because I think that's where I can offer the most value. Hands down. And again, we've seen a few, we've seen a few examples of that this year. I expect we're going to see more next year and following years. And that's a place where I think I can add a lot of value. So when I see the council having to deal with new state laws and sort of what are our, what are our rules going to be around dealing with that and implementing that here in the city, I'll definitely my ears will perk up and I'll be very focused on that. Um, you know, I could easily say affordable housing, but I think that's going to be true of almost everybody on EPC. I think the 2 other kind of issues that I'm really interested in, like naturally, and I would want to learn a lot more about, One is, I think, going to take a little watching 1st before we do anything about it, but it's how the precise plans are going to be affected by changes in the commercial real estate market going forward. And I don't think we even know yet, right? COVID's going to have a big impact on tech. They haven't even started bringing people back yet. But to the extent that the precise plans were kind of built with a certain level of economic demand in mind. I'm actually really curious to see how changes in that demand are going to change kind of the the impact of the viability of some of the plants, and it wouldn't be in a huge rush to change anything, but I'm actually very, very interested to see if any of them need to shift a little bit. And so I don't have any answers, but that's something that I would be watching for. And I think the last thing that I, frankly, just find a really interesting question. And I want to learn more about, is community benefits, and how community benefits, negotiations work, and how exactly we come up with, what we come up with, because, you know, fundamentally, I want to see the city of Mountain, but you get the very best deal for its residents that we possibly can. Um, So that's something that I would be interested in. I would study on my own, um, and really try to get good at understanding how it works, and it may be that it works great, and there's not a thing required from it, but that's something that I find personally very interesting.

[00:27:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: All right, thank you. Are there any follow-up questions from council members for Mr. Dempsey? No. Um, Great then. Well, thank you very much for, again, for your time and for, um, applying, uh, we plan to make a decision this evening, and so we will let you know, um, what that is, and, uh, again, thank you, um, for your interest, and, uh, appreciate your your time.

[00:27:31] Dempsey: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, council members. App appreciate it. Take care.

[00:27:34] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. And do we have the 2nd applicant? How long did the 1st one take?

[00:27:48] Unknown Speaker: Uh, that was about 13 minutes.

[00:27:51] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And we're giving each one 15?

[00:27:52] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[00:27:53] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, thanks. Hello, Ms. Ray. How are you? Thank you so much for making time to, uh, join us and thank you for your interest in the environmental planning commission. Um, we probably saw what we just did. That we will repeat that with you, um, if you would like to start with a 2 minute opening statement. That'd be great, and then we'll go into the 4 questions that we have. So whenever you're ready, please go ahead.

[00:28:25] Ray: Sure, sure. Thank you, mayor, council members, for your time and consideration today. I really appreciate it. In addressing you today. I'd like to explain why I am so proud to call Mountain View Home and how I envision contributing to the long-term success of the city through the planning commission. Three generations of my family live in mountain view. Among us are my daughter, my husband and I, who are young professionals and enthusiastic 1st time homeowners, uh, and my mother, a retiree. We reflect the multigenerational diversity that Mountain View is home to. And that diversity reflected in planning, the availability of entry ownership condos, townhouses, apartments, insurers not only the multi-generational diversity of our community, but the strength of our community and the longevity of the city. I have friends here in Mountain View, ranging from social workers, compassionately caring for our community's aging members, to executives at tech companies, working on developing solutions to the challenges of the future. And what they have in common is that they love living in Mountain View. And Mountain View is a better place because of their contributions to our society. So whether they are 6 months old, 6 decades old, whether they make a 6 figure salary or they don't. I want to work hard to ensure a comfortable home for every mountain view resident. And while I realize that this is not an easy task, I think it's a really honorable responsibility that the commission has, and I'm confident that I'll be able to put my skills to use on this commission. In addition to working at Google for 6 years here in Mountain View, I've also spent time working at the United Nations in New York, various nonprofits and on national political campaigns. I am a thoughtful leader and strive to bring a fair and balanced perspective to any discussion. I would welcome the opportunity to work on upcoming issues in the commission's work plan, such as the downtown precise plan, the R 3 zoning standards updates, um, and and many other, uh, issues in the work plan. I'm committed to dedicating the time and attention, the planning commission really deserves, and would be honored to have the opportunity to serve the people of Mountain View. So thank you for having me here tonight.

[00:30:44] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you very much. We'll go into our questions. Our 1st one is, what is the role or purpose of the EPC?

[00:30:52] Ray: Sure, that's that's a good question, and um, my understanding is that the EPC really formulates, um, but recommends uh, long range plans to the council, um, including uh, the general plan, uh, recommending implementations of the general plan. Um, and the physical development of the city. Uh, and addition to that, also establishing and maintaining. So, um, in addition to that element of recommendations for long-term plans, there's that component as well of just maintaining and monitoring the environmental, um, planning process for the city. I know that another big responsibility of the commission as well is to have a relationship with the city council, to communicate with the city council as well as other stakeholders like public agencies and really importantly, citizens concerning the city and the city's environment. as well.

[00:31:53] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Uh, 2nd question. Let's see, what criteria would you use to evaluate a mountain view development? And in your answer, please refer to both residential and commercial or retail projects.

[00:32:07] Ray: Sure. So um, I'll list a few things. What I would say overall is I'd use a framework that accommodates growth in a wide range of housing opportunities, but balances environmental protections and aesthetic elements that establish a sense of place here in Mountain View. So while looking at the big picture of the development, I'd want to know, does the development, help us have a healthy community and provide families with a clean environment, or in other words, does it accommodate growth while preserving open space, critical habitat, protecting water supplies and air quality? I'd also want to know, does the development bolster economic development and jobs that create business opportunities here in Mountain View? Will it add to the goal of creating a strong neighborhood, which provides a range of housing options, giving the people opportunity to choose the housing that best suits them. Does it maintain and enhance the value of existing neighborhoods and create a sense of community? In terms of transportation, I'd want to see are there adequate transportation choices available that give people the option to walk, ride a bike, take transit, or drive? Uh, and then specifically if the development is commercial, uh, would the development create a sustainable retail environment that will meet the needs of nearby residents and and growing amount of residents, um, uh, given the the increase in housing development as well. Um, and then finally, uh, well, first, I'll also add, in terms of, uh, from a tax perspective, I also would like to know what the effect the development would have on mountain use property tax base, um, and sales tax uh, revenues. And I think, uh, lastly, I always like to keep in mind equity. So I would like to ask myself, could this development increase opportunities for residents to attend quality schools, access good jobs, participate in community life here in Mountain View, uh, on an equal footing as all of us.

[00:34:06] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Um, the next question. Let's see, let me try to find it. Nice Google notes here. Um, Here we go. When do you think it is appropriate to convert existing land uses?

[00:34:24] Ray: So, um, in terms of rezoning, I think to put it simply, what I would say is I really should, I believe that they're only rezoning should only be done systematically and not ad hoc. So the process should be very predictable and transparent. So what I'd emphasize, I really want to emphasize is predictable and transparent. Anytime rezoning is done, I think it needs to further the general plan and always be within the general plan framework. Um, and if that's if that's done right and that's the case. Um, any kind of rezoning, uh, you know, moving from residential to commercial would need to be a systematic, uh, approach and not an ad hoc one.

[00:35:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. And the last question. What topics would you? Would be of importance to you, where you have particular expertise or interest in, and that you would be looking for in projects, plans, or items that come before the EPC? such as parking, trees, density, bike pad, et cetera.

[00:35:35] Ray: Sure. I think this is a good question and thanks for adding it in. Um, I would say 1st and foremost as a commissioner, I'd want to serve as an accessible venue for residents and community stakeholders to learn about city planning issues, project proposals, and freely provide uh, their views to me. And I think my professional experience would help me excel, um, at this, at this particular, um, way of of serving on the commission. So, um, I've served in roles before where I have to take the input of various stakeholders, um, specifically in like a, in a political campaign context where, uh, you know, you're listening to the input of a variety of people and the decision you make after hearing their input has really, uh, drastic implications on on the outcome of solving a problem. Um, and so I've I've really excelled at, um, of of balancing the line of serving as an accessible venue that people can talk to and provide their input and then turning that input into something that is that is beneficial, um, in the in the outcome. And so I think I would do a very good job at being a community liaison and stakeholder to people and help them learn about planning issues and project proposals. But in addition to that, I think, um, yeah, you listed some of those, uh, specific issues, I would say, um, the environmental impact, uh, the ability of our neighbors to age in place, uh, and affordable housing implementation are the 3 issues that I would like to focus on. Um, and those 3 issues come, um, from more of a of a personal, um, uh, passion. Um, so, um, for environmental impact. Um, I I feel that's that's very important where we live in California is so strong in this regard. And, um, I'd like to make sure to further that on on the commission, um, and and aging in place. The 2nd the 2nd issue I mentioned. Um, I mentioned in my kind of opening remarks that my mother lives here too. And I think that it's very important to keep, um, families together and, um, part of adding to a city that is so welcoming is is having all of our members members cared for here. Um, and and lastly, I would just say, I think now is a time where particular care and attention and focus on how California state law will impact our work here in Mountain View is very needed. Um, so so I would put that in there as well.

[00:38:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much. I mean, follow-up questions from council members. Yes, Council member McAllister.

[00:38:14] Councilmember John McAlister: Hey, uh, let me follow up on your last statement about what the state is, the state laws that are coming to it. Uh, since they're going to be more mandated. What do you really see the EPC able to do with it if this, they say you have to do a certain thing. So give me some context of what you thought the EPC or you felt like would do, when it's required to be doing something.

[00:38:43] Ray: Sure. Thank you, council member McAllister, and that's a good question. And I do understand that the EPC is not a final decision making body or a legislative body that has the power authority to necessarily implement those statewide changes. Um, but I think that as a recommending body, um, the EPC needs to have a solid understanding um, of the state law that might be new and coming down the pipeline so that when we do those recommendations. We're not out of sync with the laws that are coming down the state. So I know that those will be mandated. Um, but I do think that, uh, you know, a careful study of those new laws because we're, you know, not everyone is familiar with them since there are so many new things coming down the pipeline. So, um, well, I know that the EPC doesn't necessarily implement the mandated, uh, uh, state laws, um, I think uh, awareness and knowing uh, the the rules and guidelines that we are able to operate under is is very important. Thank you.

[00:39:47] Public Speaker: Sure.

[00:39:48] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Anyone else with follow-up questions, council members?

[00:39:53] Unknown Speaker: Nope.

[00:39:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, well, thank you again for your interest and for your time, it's very nice to see you, and we will uh, be making a decision this evening and we'll let you know what that is.

[00:40:05] Public Speaker: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. Take care.

[00:40:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Be well. All right. Everybody, is council number not a check? Did we lose her? Is it?

[00:40:23] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, look like we did, yes.

[00:40:25] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Hopefully she'll be able to rejoin us. Um, any comments? Oh, there she is. That's where my man checks back. Uh, any would anyone like to start? With comments? Thoughts.

[00:40:47] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I'll give a comment. Thank you. It's the obvious one. It's unfair, but it's an obvious one. The guy went to Cal. Go bears. What can I say? So. Yeah, preference it. I just said I had to preference it. They both sounded very intelligent very well informed. But uh,

[00:41:08] Unknown Speaker: You got to go bears whenever you get a shot. Sorry. I'll go back to my hole now.

[00:41:15] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That was it, the lair? Is that what it's called?

[00:41:20] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Counselor Clark?

[00:41:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: I was just going to say, I think both cabinets are excellent. Some of the, uh, you know, our accountants, I think we've had for UPC in a long time. So, um, thank you to both of you for applying and I hope, regardless of our decisions tonight, that, um, both of you will stay involved in one way, shape or form. Um, and there, um, there may be more opportunities on UPC at some and and opportunities on other bodies as well. So we hope you'll both remain involved regardless of tonight's outcome. I personally thought that, um, I, I think, um, just having, um, having the, the scars of, of APEG over the last year, year and a half , um, I think. Actually, there's a lot, um, there's a lot of value in having some expertise around, um, you know, what may or may not happen, um, coming out of Sacramento in the next few years as we do as we update our housing home and other things. And that's not to say, as John rightly pointed out, that we can really, you know, affect things aside from some lobbying that we might do, but I think we are as a city going to have to deal with, um, you know, a lot of legislation and changes that come out of Sacramento, and I think just having, um, some knowledge, um, and some experience around that would be helpful. So, I think, um, even though I think both kind of is the excellent one, I think I'd lean in the direction of, of appointing, um, Mr. Dempsey to fill this particular seat at this particular time. Um, but I'm certainly open to to what others um, feel as well.

[00:43:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Councilman Ramirez.

[00:43:05] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. Um, I'll do as much as I can while still on camera. Um, I, so I, I, I agree strongly with, with council member Clark, that we have 2 uh, incredibly, uh, well spoken, qualified, uh, and and valuable uh, candidates. I wish we could appoint both. Um, because I think they, they each bring, uh, you know, a little slightly different perspective. I think both of them, uh, spoke about, uh, some of the, uh, most pressing issues that our communities facing, you know, housing, I think, comes to mind 1st and foremost, but there was a lot of nuance in each of their, uh, responses to the questions. I think, you know, so where, where I differ with council member Clark, though, is, um, I, and there's, there's, I think, a balance here that we need to be somewhat sensitive too, but I, I, I try to make a distinction between where staff play should play the biggest role and where, um, where the planning commissioners themselves should play a bigger role. And and technical expertise can be tricky because I would, I mean, not that you can't have technical expertise going on to the planning commission. Um, I, I do, you know, I think our staff do a pretty good job interpreting law, state law and implementing it, and I don't necessarily want to be too caught up in those details, as valuable as that expertise may be. I I feel our professional staff do a good job understanding the laws that we we will have to comply with and integrating that into the work that we do. And my focus will be a little bit more, or I think the focus should be more on the policy decisions that, you know, the planning commission gets to make recommendations on and then the decisions that we get to make. Um, and that's where some of those nuanced answers are are important. And the answer that I, that I, focused on most, I think, because there was the greatest difference there was the, the question that, that council member McAllister brought it, which I think is an excellent one. That's when, do we, when should we deviate from, you know, the general plan and especially allowing conversion of industrial or commercial area to residential, because as we've talked about before, that's not going to come back. And I think, you know, what was interesting was, uh, Hank focused on uses, which I think is an important consideration because we need to make the, the uses that people, you know, benefit from directly available. Um, and if if those disappear, then, you know, that they're very difficult to replace. So that's important. And I think dialogue focused a lot more on sort of a comprehensive strategic thinking about, is this, you know, is this sort of within the framework of the general plan and, and, you know, in the direction that we want to go. And the reason I give dialogist a little bit more credit with that is, you know, that we don't, we can't really control the uses. If there's, you know, a mechanic, you know, at a given parcel right now. There's no guarantee that that mechanic will exist 5 or 10 years from now and doing long range planning around that mechanic. I think is, is not quite the way I think we should approach land use and instead focus on that blue area on the map, even if it's, you know, some kind of low, you know, um, low impact, low profile manufacturing plant or something, even, you know, if that, that manufacturing could occur somewhere else. That's, is that something that we necessarily want to use in perpetuity? you know what you mean. It may be a fine thing to convert to residential because we need housing, but that means we've lost the ability to have that kind of light industrial or general industrial use in perpetuity. Um, and I think a more strategic approach can be valuable rather than just focus on, is this something that people in Mountain View use, uh, right now, you know, what's focused on is, is sort of this category of use important enough to preserve, so that way, 10, 15 years down the road, you know, we can allow for, you know, light manufacturing, that might provide, you know, blue collar jobs, the community or whatever it is. Um, so I, I do have a slight preference or dialogue. But again, very comfortable with both. I think they're both excellent candidates. Thank you.

[00:47:29] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Counselor, Matt, check.

[00:47:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, so while my internet connection is not as stable as I wanted it to be, even after Comcast has been out here to address it. Um, I could hear you guys most of the time even though I couldn't see you. So I did hear quite a bit of this. I just, twice it rebooted. Um, but, um, yeah, I thought both did a very nice job, and we're fortunate to have 2 people who, um, appear to be qualified to do this role and have interested in doing this role. You know, some of the things that Mr. Dempsey said, really, um, resonated with me, and one of them was, that, um, community sentiment is very important, and that one is very important to me. How does our community feel about a given project? And, um, we also talked about the job's housing balance. And, um, You know, the other thing that I thought was interesting, they brought up, the impact of, uh, COVID, basically, on the commercial real estate market, and how might that change, um, the plans we have in place, and do we need to, you know, think about that? So, um, I feel like I, um, A lot of the things you said really resonated with me. And so I would give him, um, you know, a few more points for those answers, um, and would be supportive of appointing him. Um, I also think about a little bit of diversity on the EPC. Um, Hank would add a little bit more diversity. Uh, then. The other applicant, although I don't want that to be the total deciding factor. I just want to point that out. Um, so I, I will support um, appointing Mr. Dempsey. Thanks.

[00:49:30] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Anyone else, Counselor Mayor Hicks?

[00:49:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I'm not gonna be some kind of tiebreaker here. I want to agree with everybody, but I thought that both applicants were excellent and in some ways, and, uh, you know, so I think we have fewer applicants than we've had in the past, but in some ways, very high quality applicants. So I feel like I'm at a particular, particularly difficult position. I would really like to appoint both of them. Um, I was very I was impressed with, now, I don't know if I'm saying, uh, your name right? Is it dial or Dylan? Which one?

[00:50:11] Dyla Ryan: It's Dyla. There's a typo in the record.

[00:50:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Oh, okay. Okay, thank you. Um, so, I liked the list under the question about criteria. I really like the the list of criteria that Dila came up with, you know, equity, um, sustainable retail, uh, open space, habitat, sense of place, aesthetic, strong neighborhoods, transportation choices, a few more. To me, those are really the things that more than, I agree with the council members who've said you're not really staff is, you're not, of course, legislating and staff is, is really an, communicating the legislation to us more than the EPC members would be. So I really feel like it's a list of things like, like that list that, um, that are what you're faced with when you're an EPC member. I, you know, we could add a few things to that list and I, I thought that Mr. Dempsey's, uh, some of his editions such as, I agree, uh, the, um, Changing nature of, of the retail environment under COVID and other land uses. Um, I have to say, though, although I liked Dallas' answer to that when I talked to Mr. Dempsey privately, um, he used the term the, uh, talking about the UX or the user experience of our city, and that's something I think about a lot in terms of urban design. So, so I wanted to add that to the conversation, and I'm, I'm actually willing to go whichever way other people do because I was quite impressed with both and had things I liked about both people. Thank.

[00:52:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, Counselor McAllister?

[00:52:06] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'll throw on my little 2 bits here. Um, I like, I like, the role of APCs to interpret, um, policies and directions that the council provides and give their point of view on it. And it goes along with what Chris said about public policy, knowing it's out there, how to interpret it, how to apply it. Uh, as it's something to Hank's resume. Um, And so I thought that was a good point. They all made great points on other aspects of it. Um, I like the idea that uh, the use when you're, you're, converting property. I mean, this everything we're doing pretty much in that view is infill. And so it's very important to figure out what really fits into Mountain View. And his response to the consumer is that we are losing a lot of those small consumers, those small businesses, because big money's coming in, taking over that space, and therefore people will be going to other locations. And I think we need to start looking at the complete neighborhood as we can be picky about what we're doing. Or well, we could be a little more picky and say, okay, we need to fill in the gaps. We could do some niche stuff. And part of that is we're losing the small businesses. So what can we do to retain them? And so I thought that was important to me. Um, So I support him. So, I don't know if we're at the point of making a motion. Um, But I, you know, just to get things moving along. I know the vice mayor hasn't had a chance to speak up yet, but uh, for discussion points, uh, I'll nominate uh, Hank Dempsey to be our uh, EPC commissioner.

[00:54:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Is there a 2nd or are we?

[00:54:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: I'll go ahead and 2nd it, or, or,

[00:54:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Counselor Clark. All right. Vice Mayor, you had your hand up? Did you want to say a few words? And I'll say a few words after you.

[00:54:16] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: I did. Um, so, uh, I too, just want to express my gratitude to both of the applicants for me. I was just struck by both of the thoughtfulness to your answers. It really shined through how much you truly care about our community and, you know, you're called to service and you're called to applying to EPC and I just really want to thank you. And I, you're hearing us all wishing that we could appoint both of you tonight. Unfortunately, there, there is just one spot and I, I feel like for myself, it's just, it's the slightest kind of thing for me, um, which is, I think the, the technical aspect of EPC or the growing aspect of EPC. I have, uh, found that in in my experience, that, that's kind of what really, um, you know, part of the role is, is that, and so I, just very, uh, slightly felt that, that he had that background, and so, um, you know, that it, that's the only kind of thing that put the edge for me. But I think that both are extremely exceptional. And I want to see both of you serve our community and be engaged and involved. I think that there was, you know, answers that Miss Ryan mentioned, that really struck me and I think that perspective is much needed in our commissions. We have over 10 now. And I think that it would be really great to have that perspective. So um, Just wanted to add that. Thank you, mayor.

[00:56:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. And I would just add that, yes, I will be supporting the motion. I do want to thank both applicants for applying and um, your interest in the APC and I was um, thoroughly impressed by, um, both and yeah, it, it, it's a hard call. Um, but as others have mentioned, um, we're in this new time where, um, so much more of what we do is affected by what the state does. And, um, and, um, I don't think of it actually as a, like, necessarily the technical knowledge. I mean, we do have staff for that, but it's just, um, and having a pulse on what's going on. Um, whether it's a policy related and even politically, um, over the last couple of years. And I've had EPC members ask me, reach out to me asking me, you know, what's going on with SV 50 and so forth. And it would just be really helpful to have some another person, especially, um, you know, I, I give my hats off to Mr. Dempsey because he's worked in this, the, the, in the capital and, you know, knows how things work, knows the players too. And I think that's just gonna be a really added benefit to have that kind of, um, knowledge and background and and the access to, um, the folks who are making these, um, you know, policies in, in Sacramento, um, on our, on our side. So, and I did appreciate, um, the comments I made about, um, you know, what the interest that he has in terms of the changing times in COVID, and I think it's very, you know, current. And so, um, for that, um, I I give the slight edge to Mr. Dempsey. So with that, I think, um, we are ready to, do we need to do a roll call vote on this?

[00:57:53] City Clerk: Mary, it's just a recommendation for, um, the final action by council. So I think if you wanted to do a show of hands and then we would bring it back for final action at a council meeting on consent.

[00:58:03] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. So the motion is for pointing Mr. Dempsey, if you can raise your hand. Please, one, two, three, four, five. So it's unanimous. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you again to both Ms. Ray and Mr. Dempsey. And so, um, actually, I thought we'd have a little time to break, but we don't, so we'll go right into our 2nd study session. Um, and then maybe we'll take a break after that. So our next item. Um. Do I need to do another call to order or are we just can I just continue?

[00:58:41] City Clerk: Um, I think Mayor, if you would just call the 2nd um, the study session to order, um, that would be great and then I can just announce that all council members are present.

[00:58:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. So we'll call the 2nd study session to order at 531 PM. Um, do I need to read the announcement again?

[00:59:00] City Clerk: Um, perhaps, perhaps maybe there's the announcement regarding the public participation component just in terms of dialing in. I think that would be helpful.

[00:59:09] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, I'll just mention that the meeting is conducted in accordance with state of California, executive order in 2920, dated March 17th, 2020, and all members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference. Um, the public can observe the meeting. Um, as written on the agenda, and those uh, members of the public pushing and provide oral comment if you are in the attendee box. You can um, raise your hand. And if you are on the phone. Um, Actually, I'm sorry. So public comment, if you'd like to sign up, you can sign up at mountain view.gov slash CC underscore speakers. Um, if you are participating, By Zoom, and then by phone by dialing 669-900-9128 and entering webinar ID 951-7739-6182.

[01:00:04] City Clerk: And all members are patients.

[01:00:06] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So we'll go into the study session, item 3.one is our traffic operations center feasibility study. Uh, overview, and we have a staff presentation by associate civil engineer, Carla Ochoa. Miss Ochoa, are you able to connect?

[01:00:33] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Uh, hi, this is Don Cameron Public Works director. I believe she is working on connecting. She has to use both a laptop and a phone in order to connect through.

[01:00:42] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Um, so if we give her just a moment.

[01:00:49] Associate Civil Engineer Carla Ochoa: Hi, can you guys hear me?

[01:00:51] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes.

[01:00:52] Associate Civil Engineer Carla Ochoa: Okay. I was able to log in last minute. Sorry, I missed it.

[01:00:56] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: No worries. Welcome.

[01:01:03] Associate Civil Engineer Carla Ochoa: Shall I start the presentation?

[01:01:05] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, please, go ahead.

[01:01:07] Associate Civil Engineer Carla Ochoa: Apologize for the delay. All right. Hi, good evening, um, honorable mayor and members of the city council. My name is Carla Ochoa. I'm an associate civil engineer with a traffic engineering section of the public works department. I'm joined today by our city traffic engineer, Lorez Lopez, and our public works director, Don Cameron. We are here to give you an overview today of the ongoing traffic operations um center feasibility study. We'll be touching base on why the TOC study was initiated, our vision for the TOC and our strategy for implementation. Over the last couple years, councils had goals 3 overall, this goal establishes the context for the 1st steps towards the transportation smart city. Um. From this school, a project that was established is the TOC feasibility study, which is currently ongoing, and will ultimately inform the implementation of uh an, the implementation process of a TOC and leave the city one step closer to use innovative transportation strategy. So what's a TOC? A TOT typically a secured facility, um, secured by card reader access and it's a large room, a section or an area of a city or city lease facility that is composed of video wall, workstations, conference rooms, and to serve during emergency needs, often has, um, backup power sources for the key components and services for staff to operate joint and emergency. Uh key elements of the TSCs, the advanced traffic management software, which is, in essence, the brains of the traffic operations center. The software is the primary functioning element of the operations of the TOC and for Mountain View. We envision the system allowing us to have a fully centralized system with all our 86 signals connected. We do have 5 to 10 new signals forecasted in just the next 5 years. Um, so we, we would want the system to be able to accommodate that growth and any future signals as well. As part of the centralized monitoring, we would be able to be real-time status of signal indications that each of the intersections and would also have monitoring cameras and all the intersections. We would also plan to set up the TOC to expand um beyond just a single TOC room by connecting to laptops, laptops, and tablets so that we would have field access at all times. We also envision the TSC to allow us to do remote single timing and uh, single signal management and maintenance. It's not uncommon for us to receive resident requests to review timing for greens that are too long or too short or yellows or other operational issues. So with the TOC, we would be able to um confirm these issues a lot quicker and have a more efficient um, uh, response and and, um, resolution. Another function of the of the TOC is to be able to do remote single timing changes. You may be familiar with the mini video clip on the right of the screen. This is the Castro Villa intersection that's currently an all way flash. Um this was done as part of the Castro downtown closure. When we started working on this project. Um we had to do coordination with our signal technicians. So if they could be on site um at this intersection and several others to manually set them on flash. With the traffic operation center, we would anticipate that these would be able to be done remotely and a lot more efficiently. Also, most TOC systems do have the ability to give notification alarms to staff. Um, the, the alarms typically would notify staff when, um, signal events happen such as a always flash. These are critical and reducing our response times to for repairs, um, because they get the opportunity to stop to be more proactive, uh, rather than relying only on, or mostly on, on resident or staff, uh, reporting. Um, I've already touched based on a few of these items, um, how ever, one of the benefits of having the remote monitoring would be to have the opportunity to improve traffic, um, traffic operations. Um, we would be able to monitor the signals on a more regular basis, it would also have the ability to have faster and more efficient response to pedestrian bicycle needs, bicyclist needs for operational or timing changes. Apologize for that. In the long term, we could also provide real time data to roadway users, similar to what the county uses. The images on the screen are real time congestion map and um travel time estimates from the county website. We'd also be able to use this information for um incident management and detouring during unexpected major events. To that note, we would anticipate the TOC to also serve as um emergency support um by allowing us to have quicker incident identification through our our cameras and signal management in in studying, for example, signals in all ways flash when an activity is at or near an intersection and also provide information to PB or fire um department so that they can do public notification through their social media site. So, to that note, um what do we need to achieve the goal of a transportation smart city? Um while the TOC is the home base for the central system? We need the infrastructure to be able to support it. Currently, much of the equipment that's needed out in the field to achieve that vision is either outdated near its end of life, or simply does not exist that our signals, um, much of that hardware, hardware will need to be installed or replaced to ensure all the signals are compatible with the system, as you can imagine, also need for comprehensive communication, network, um, to be able to bring all that data and video feed into the TSC to achieve this. We envision um a complete fiber optics network that reaches all our existing signals and allows for growth. In order to achieve, um, decision of the TOC and and supporting infrastructure, we need to implement, um, this project in phases that are not necessarily sequential. Initially, we anticipate a project for the TSC space, video walls, workspaces, um, and supporting hardware at the singles that already have communication. And as the opportunities come along, we would expand and improve on that infrastructure, these opportunities could come in the form of standalone capital projects or add-ons to other capital projects or even that's or as part of development projects when there's a nexus. Um, signal maintenance is also going to be critical to to achieving the goals. Um, as I mentioned, a lot of our, our technology, our hardware is reaching the near end of life, so, as we have to make replacements. We need to seek opportunities to upgrade this equipment rather than just replacing it kind. To that note we're here to get feedback on our vision for the TSC and our implementation strategy. So we're open to any feedback or questions you may have. Thank you.

[01:09:19] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you very much. Since this is a steady session. Maybe to go to public comments. 1st and uh, so if you are in the 10 day box. Please raise your blue hand, and if you are on the phone, please hit star 9. Um, and let's see, we'll start with April Webster and let's go ahead with 3 minutes.

[01:09:45] April Webster: Hello, um, I just want to start by saying I think this is great that the system's getting updated. Um, one thing I just wanted to ask regarding the, um, the signals for, um, bicyclists, um, is perhaps to consider some more modern technology, what is currently being used in mountain views and older technology. It's loop sensors. They tend to break. They're difficult to check to debug as well. Um, and really the only way to do that is through community feedback throughout Mountain View. Um, what, where things are moving, um, for other more progressive communities would be towards video sensors, they're touchless, and they're more in line with where this proposal for the TOC. Um, they're easier to debug and fix. You can be done remotely. Um, and, um, that's what's being done in Palo Alto. Um, blue lights is also a newer technology. Um, it is used to provide user feedback of sensor activation, which is very useful. Portland is one of the forerunners in adopting this sort of technology. So I just ask that the team investigating, um, uh, you know, working on this project, consider some newer technology for, um, bicyclists as well. I see my time. Thank you.

[01:11:04] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Well, good in Bruce England, please unmute yourself to talk.

[01:11:10] Bruce England: Hi, council members. Bruce England speaking for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. I'll echo in April just said. Um, we've been talking about smart cities for a long time within our organizations. We had a presentation and discussions, I think, a couple of years ago now with Roger Jensen, um, on IT staff at city and Bill Pugh, with Silver Spring Networks, now ITron, um, talking about a lot of these details. Um, as April alluded to the blue light system in Portland, is very interesting, um, that hasn't really been expanded on other locations that I'm aware of, but it's a real good way of alerting bicyclists that the signal has been actuated for them. Another solution is I Tetris. These are cited in our comment letter, but I submitted it rather late. So I don't know if anybody's had a chance to look at it yet. You can look at it later. Um, something that isn't in the letter is how other departments might take advantage of this, um, or if this is, uh, you know, the smart cities initiative is going to be handled by the individual departments. But I trust that that will all be coordinated and that you're all talking with each other because it will be um, a full sweet solution. Um, the S Mountain View system needs to be tied in in some way so that people who are monitoring traffic in the city can also look at the tickets and go back and forth in that way. We did ask the question about, um, The, uh, whether or not people with their individual um, computers, you know, staff members with their own computers, they would be able to monitor from there, wherever they are, rather than on dedicated workstations at the TFC. Um, and lastly, we ask that the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee be consulted at one or more stages along the way, um, as there would be a key stakeholder in this. Thank you.

[01:13:03] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing to speak. If so, please raise your blue hand or hit star 9 if you're on the phone. I don't see any. So I will close public comment and bring it back to council for comments. Is that, um, what you're looking for, Miss Ochoa, any comments? That's number Hicks.

[01:13:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Don't we start with questions? I have just one question.

[01:13:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I guess, those questions and go ahead and do both.

[01:13:34] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Both. Okay.

[01:13:36] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Get off more than I. My, my question was just that, and I asked this in my council questions, but the question that staff gave, made me want to ask a follow-up question. So my question was about whether there were any, um, privacy issues had ever been raised with the cameras that are used. And staff's answers was that it's not uncommon for cities to receive complaints about privacy. Um, But the cameras are not for monitoring and don't record ongoing video. And the quality is often not sufficient to identify individuals. So I just had a follow-up question about that. Um, one is, what does it mean, not record ongoing video? I wasn't clear on what that meant. And then my 2nd question was just whether we should refer this, just this one aspect to the committee for race equity and inclusion or the HRC, just to see if their best practices. I don't think it's a huge issue, but and I generally support, uh, the what the staff's recommendations, but I was just wondering whether maybe the HRC or somebody else could keep track of best practices in other cities, um, given that there are complaints in other cities, apparently. So any comments staff might have on that would be helpful to me.

[01:15:11] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: This is Don Cameron, Public Works director. And um, thank you for that question and asking for more information. I would say definitely at the point where we are installing cameras, it is a best practice I've seen among other agencies to have a policy adopted that relates to, um, how you're going, you know, how you can view this this material. And for instance, my experience is with the county of Santa Clara that has a very advanced TOC function. And they even stream the camera data online so any member of the public can see it. So the way that they handle privacy and they have a very strict policy regarding this is, as noted, um, the system does not record the video. You can only watch it in real time. So it avoids issues of having to say somebody saying, can you go back and watch what happened here, identify what where this car is going or what that person is doing. Because the point is for traffic engineers or other staff to build a monitor conditions in real time. But is streamed live to the public then is a resolution that is so low, you can't even, you cannot read license plates, you cannot identify individuals. And it's almost useless if they were trying to record it. So those are some of the practices that they put in place to protect. So that's what meant was meant by not ongoing video recording is that, um, It's meant to be reviewed live. You don't, you don't store videos and you don't have them accessible to retrieve in the future. And the goal is not to be able to recognize individuals, but to monitor what is happening with automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians as they travel.

[01:17:08] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sorry, having trouble with my unmute. Thank you so much. I knew you would have a better understanding of that than I do and it was, you know, privacy is an ongoing concern of mine. So, um, yes, so it sounds like it's, it sounds like you've looked at best practices and I guess I would just, if there were a preponderance of, of, uh, of complaints from the community, I would at some point maybe refer it to, uh, somebody like the HSE to work out the kinks, but, um, But now that I have that answer, you wanted comments as well. Um, The 1st question is, does counsel concur with the vision, um, et cetera. I do. I've had my questions answered, uh, on that. And the 2nd Um, do we support the proposed strategy for gradual implementation? Um, et cetera. And yes, I do strongly support a phased approach, especially with a focus on enhancing and incentivizing alternative modes as opposed to just moving SOBs, rideshare vehicles, and driverless cars around faster. So bike and pedestrian, for instance, and transit. Um, And then I'd also like to see in terms of the building whether we could maybe combine it with the police building or some other current facility. And other than that, yes, I support the staff recommendation thing.

[01:18:44] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Counselor McAllister.

[01:18:48] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, so... Uh, Don, stop smiling. So. Uh, and Lorenzo, I like you on the freeway. So the question I had a couple questions. One, is you were talking about the smart cities and fiber and that's going to be something that's going to be going into the city. Will we be able also to incorporate fiber as long as we are putting upgrading the systems and the traffic signals that would be a benefit for the residents, that these could be various fiber pods and it will be able to be the foundation for a network going elsewhere?

[01:19:33] City Traffic Engineer Lorenzo Lopez: I would like to answer that. That's a that's a tricky one. I'll try. Lorenzo Lopez City Traffic Engineer. Um, The intent of this project was for specifically for traffic signal, uh, infrastructure and communication. And I can't say I'm an expert on fiber, but there are, my understanding is that you, we would not use the entire cable of fiber and there, it's possible that strands may be available for other uses. Um, And if we have a network going through the entire city, it's possible that something could be used for the public. But, I think that's not the focus of this project or this study.

[01:20:22] Councilmember John McAlister: You have the network, you know, it would reach out to most corners of the city.

[01:20:28] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: So I will add on to that, that if we have a capital project that involves us installing fiber, what we're doing is usually underground, we're installing conduits, then we're having to pull the fiber. If you're going to go through all that effort. Logically, the next 1st thing you want to do is look around to see what other needs you can have there. Can you create capacity? For other communication needs, and then it could include whether it's internet access or whatever the issue is because, um, it, it's a major expense to, to dig the ground up, put in the conduit and pull the fiber. So, I would definitely say that when it's time to do so, we would be looking around and making sure that if there are other benefits we can provide from this, we would, um, design it and construct it that way.

[01:21:15] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, and carpentry, they say, uh, Mark twice, cut once. We hit be digging up the roads more than once. My other question is, is, look at this, look at this fiscal year, uh, capital, uh, improvement, CIP program. And we're talking about your implementation and Lorenzo and our Lorenzo's mentor, we were always talking about the traffic controllers that we have here and you have a great picture of one on the 1st page of this study. Uh, study session. That we only fund these, uh, Traffic. Well, the major replacements of the signals controllers. And we're only funding about half of the cost of one every year. So, the implementation would take us. I know, Lorenzo, you can shake more. goes over a much longer period of time. So, Once we get this MOC, which I'm all, you know, getting this center going here. Why are we are we going to take a little more faster phasing of signals so that you actually get full utilization out of the investment of this uh, TOC Traffic Operation Center?

[01:22:40] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Uh, that would be definitely something we want to look at, and it is something we acknowledge has been an issue with our CIP in the past is, as Lorenzo likes to remind me on a regular basis, the amount of money we give him annually. He has to save about 3 years worth of money to deal with one upgrade or replacement of end of life traffic signal. So that is one of our challenges as we look at the 5 year CIP and a longer term implementation plan is, you know, this is expensive. And, you know, what opportunities do we have to, and funding opportunities we have to do more of this on a faster pace, because frankly, our signals, we can't afford this pace anyhow. Our signal infrastructure is at end of life, and we're going to have to replace more signals a little more quickly in the controllers and so on. So we'll be exploring that as well as various grant opportunities. There are some, not nearly enough to cover the full cost, but every every dollar helps. And as Carla was showing, we look at every other opportunity, for instance, you will shortly be seeing a major street reconstruction project. Where we're saying if we're tearing up the ground and going through this intersection with an outdated end of life signal, let's go ahead and replace the signal at the same time. So we're only disturbing the neighborhood and area once. And we're also trying to cost efficiency of getting it all done. So we're going to try to be much more proactive of finding opportunities to replace our signals. And a key piece of this, as was alluded to in the report, is having our standards updated. So that the new signals we're putting in will connect to the planned TOC when we get it built. So that, that's our current challenge to make sure, uh, that we are putting in the, the technology we plan to use going forward.

[01:24:36] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Good, I'm glad to hear that. I knew that. So I'm gonna go, that's the end of my question. So I'll go right into comments. Um, You know, I mean, Begging counsel, let's go for smart cities and this is a great start to get going because it will be covers so many facets of people's lives. A lot of people are talking about bicycles and pedestrians and all that. So, you know, there was an example of Tampa. They've got $20000000 from the feds to look into smart signals, smart cities, streets. And it touches all facets of people walking. I mean, they'll have these cameras or sensors of seeing somebody standing at a corner of a signal. And they can adjust it so that if there's no cars instead of waiting for a certain time, they can cross or if they see a lot of cars or if they see somebody in a stroller going across the street. It will adapt to that person going slowly across the street to give them more time. And it's just, it's just incredible amount of, uh, consumer protection and consumer quality of life involved with those stuff. So I just can't uh, Say yes, invest. It's going to be a huge investment. But this is investment that we have neglected for Don said for. Well, you saw the photo of 1989, the tubes in there. You can't even get the tubes, get the signals to work or the, the pieces. There was an intersection at, uh, at Grant Road, in, uh, Martin's, I think it was, where they didn't have the pieces, so they had a manufacturer, or there was a camera, maybe it was at Grant Road and Cuesta, where they had the cameras and they had, they couldn't buy them anymore, so they had a manufacturer, the in-house tough. And so it's it's just incredible how much work we can do. I mean, we got the sustainable program. Greenhouse gases. If you have cars idling, when they don't need to be idle, the signals will say cars can keep moving. So yes, I think the vision is there. But the commitment to investment is the thing. And. Now, the 2nd one, uh, your phase. No, I don't support it. I think it's way too slow. I mean, if it's going to take you 20 years to replace the sningles by the time you replace the signals, they're obsolete. They're going to be obsolete in a couple of years. I mean, 4 or 5 years. So we need to really invest in this money and get it going because it will be a huge benefit. And there will be other, you know, benefits that we haven't even thought about that will come along and be improved. I know there's we're working. I know the county and through VTA. Is one of the questions is, are there other TOCs of the city? And light rail is one of the big things that they're working on is trying to get all the synchronization of the light rail through preemption, priorities, and all those cities to do that, all the cities have to be on the same type of technology. And that's what we can also do with our bus route along El Camino. If we're all on that technology. Then transit will be congestion will go down, greenhouse gases will do some vehicle miles driver. So there's a lot of environmental stuff. Quality of life, safety convenience. So spend the money more now. invest in it. Um, And so you speed up the the phasing of this. I mean, it's been talking about. So, I know that I will continue to keep you guys pushing to get this, but yes. It's it's needed. It's going to be part of our comprehensive mobile program that Dawn promised me get done by January 1st and so we will just continue. We continue. It's just, it's a progress. Other cities are going faster than we are, and if we want to have the county, and I think counties getting some money out there. We need to be on board with everybody and it'd be tough to be in Silicon Valley, almost some of the most advanced technological companies in the world. And we just, The signal goes out. You know what they do. They send public works out there where the stop sign puts it in the street and says, okay, everybody stop and see where we go. So, uh, I'm done with that one. So, there's my thoughts. Thank you.

[01:28:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Like, fair?

[01:28:58] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, so I just had, uh, a couple quick questions. Um, so one of them and I think council member, um, McAllister brought this up is, you know, kind of given the the high cost, um, Are there any type of, you know, um, grand opportunities or any other types of funding sources. I know that, that we're obviously looking into quite a few, but, Could you tell us a little bit more about what staff's envisioning? Should we go forward with this?

[01:29:34] Unknown Speaker: So there are granted opportunities, um, like Don said earlier, they're limited, but they do exist. Um, also, like we mentioned in the presentation, do we anticipate this to be, um, uh, a support for Emergency services, so we will be collaborating with RPD, um, in our fire, and there may be opportunities for them to help with grants as well. Um, we haven't fully explored that, but I have heard of um, state grounds for safety that they might be able to, um, uh, collaborate with us on.

[01:30:11] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I guess I was just hoping to find out if there was just a little bit more between the present presentation and kind of what you were all were talking about. You know, I think that kind of given the high cost. I'm hoping that hopefully we can move in the direction of pursuing this, but also, you know, capitalizing as much as we can. And I know Miss Cameron's always looking out for that. So, um, just wanted to know if there was anything newer. Um, and then something that was mentioned in the stock report and, You know, I just kind of wanted to, to better understand it. So, you know, other communities, other cities have, have been able to, uh, move forward with this infrastructure a bit faster, it sounds like, or have have kind of had this going in place for a number of years. And so I was just kind of curious, you know, we tend to be a leader in Mountain View in many ways, you know, how, uh, what were, kind of how have the other cities been able to, to kind of, uh, move, move forward or are there any kind of best practices or lessons learned that we'll be able to kind of take, um, as we pursue this and move forward?

[01:31:28] Unknown Speaker: I'll take a stab at that one. Um, we, we do collaborate with a lot of the other cities around us and we, you know, we talk to them on a regular basis monthly in multiple, um, county wide meetings. And, you know, that was something that, kind of brought this whole idea to Mountain View was, we see what everybody else is doing and we're so far behind. We need to start preparing our infrastructure so we can get to that level or at a bare minimum, communicate with our signals. So, we look at the other cities constantly for ideas and, you know, we have, you know, it's a small world in traffic. So we know people and all the other agencies that we can reach out to you when we have questions or ask for advice. Um, so it's definitely something that we are doing.

[01:32:20] Unknown Speaker: I wanted to kind of step back for the previous questions and concerns about funding and all of this. We don't necessarily have to replace an entire signal in all cases. So there may be a signal that's relatively new, that we can go in and replace the controller and some other components. And once that communication is there, we can connect to it and that signal will be set, set up to, uh, to be more efficient. Um, and we do have another actual account for those type of purchases if it was just to be a controller. So, um, Like Don said, I, I, I always wonder why we get such a small amount to build a new intersection every year. It takes 2 or 3 years worth of funding, but we do have those other avenues to replace smaller components of the intersection that will bring that intersection up to up to uh, more current standards. So hopefully that helps.

[01:33:23] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: That sounds, oh, I see you, Miss Cameron.

[01:33:26] Ms. Cameron: If I may, I may hang on. Um, you know, I have served on numerous grant scoring committees with BTA and uh, other regional bodies and I have seen our, our neighboring cities come in and successfully get night, really good grants. For, you know, San Jose in particular once got a grant to replace 100 controllers. Which may not be the entire signal system, but it's still a major investment. Other times, um, to put in the camera system. Now, the key and the reason that they were successful is because they had a vision and a plan. And therefore they could sell it. And that's my feeling on, on a reason that Mountain View has not been, um, maybe bringing in the kind of money, that we might be able to bring in is that we needed this vision. We meet this plan. We need this commitment, and we need matching funds available in our CIP to go after grants. And with that, then we would then try to leverage our city resources. Through various grant sources.

[01:34:37] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, Miss Cameron. I think that, you know, connects the dots quite quite nicely and it gets the heart of the question that I was asking. And, you know, I work in telecommunication, so I understand, you know, the high infrastructure costs and needing to go in and maybe not necessarily having to start from scratch, but being able to swap out some pieces of infrastructure. So really appreciate that. And it sounds like we're being creative. I just kind of was curious. Um, so in terms of the, the questions. So for question one, yes, I concur with the vision and excited that that will be useful as we try to leverage more funds. Um, and, you know, I think that, uh, you know, given question to the proposed strategy of the gradual implementation, you know, I think that makes sense now. I wonder if once we, um, adopt this plan in this vision, if we might be able to, um, you know, create some more, more momentum. Um, you know, so I, I think right now it makes sense kind of given where we are, but I, I don't, I would be curious, perhaps it could be in a, you know, in our, in our CIP update, if you feel like we can move, I don't want to say faster. I feel very sensitive to using that word. Um, I'm not, I'm not counting on McAllister, um, but, uh, but I think if, if we see that there's like a, if we see the momentum building, perhaps we can move more, more swiftly and we can, um, move, move those benchmarks up. So, um, I would also be open to that, but kind of defer to staff on what makes sense as we move forward. Thanks.

[01:36:17] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. And we'll go to Council member Menachek? See. Did he lose her?

[01:36:25] Unknown Speaker: She's having connection problems. Hmm, you may have lost her.

[01:36:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, so why don't I go to council member Clark?

[01:36:35] Councilmember Chris Clark: Right. Um, I just wanted to chime in and say, I appreciate all the work that's been done on this. Um, I remember almost 8 years ago visiting the, um, the, um, operation center for the county and for the county express place and being, um, um, you know, wishing that we had, um, something like that about me. So, um, just all, uh, you know, yes to both questions, I'm glad we're making progress on this and appreciate, um, all the all the work that's have gotten into it. Otherwise, I don't have anything about your dad.

[01:37:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Right, thank you. And Counselor Medachek, if you are back.

[01:37:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I really apologize. My connection has been fine for weeks, and all of a sudden, it's not. Um, so I'm going to come to City Hall at the break. Um, but um, and I apologize if these questions were asked and I just didn't hear it because my connection went down. Um, I was wondering, and I'm guessing staff has looked at this. But I was wondering if you had thought about, you know, do we need a certain amount of critical infrastructure 1st before we build the TOC? Um, because if we only have a couple of nice corridors. Uh, where all the infrastructure has been upgraded. Um, You know, do we really need the TOC? Or, you know, have you thought about, you know, we need a critical mass like maybe, I don't know, 25, 40% of the infrastructure in place before you build the TOC. Um, on the other hand, if the TOC is five, 10% of the total cost, the bulk is in the infrastructure, then I could see where you might not do that. And I was just wondering, had you thought about that and looked at different options or will you be doing that as part of, um, the next steps.

[01:38:31] Unknown Speaker: I can give a shot on that question. We haven't explored specific numbers. I think what's going to be critical, to be honest, is to take advantage of the opportunities that they come up. Um, a lot of, uh, for example, if we get grants or projects that are ongoing, taking advantage of, the trenching that's already going in there. So in terms of having a specific percentage, uh, of infrastructure established before we get to TOC might be, uh, might be challenging. And at the same time, we want to take advantage of the communication we already do have. Um, as we mentioned in the report, we have some communication through through shoreline and and grant and we want to take advantage of it. Those are 2 of our major quarters throughout town. So, um, I, I, I don't think, I, I think it will be difficult to identify specific percentages, but, but ultimately, we, we, we need to take advantage of those as we go and, um, develop the, the, basically run, like I said, the, the facing shouldn't be necessarily sequential, so we're, we're hoping to run some of these projects parallel to each other. Including the TOC space.

[01:39:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so, um, unfortunately my internet went out again during part of your answer. So I'm just gonna go through the questions real quick. And then come to city hall. So, um, I think it's great that we are going to do this. Um, I so appreciate staff bringing this to us. Um, so I do agree with the vision. And the functions of the TLC. Um as you can kind of guess from my question. You know, I want to make sure we have a critical mass. We take advantage of opportunities as they come our way. Um, in terms of either projects or grants or anything to do the infrastructure. And if that happens before the TLC. okay with that. Um investment in the TOC. Um, But if staff tells me otherwise, I'm open to that. Um, I just want to make sure we take a look at that.

[01:40:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Did you repeat the last part, um, you cut out, actually?

[01:40:56] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, I'm sorry. So, um, the last part was, um, I do want to make sure we have a critical mass, um, and we take advantage of opportunities that come our way. And um, whether it's an opportunity for, um, you know, the infrastructure or the TOC. Um, but I do want to make sure that we have a critical mass to monitor before we invest a ton of money in a TOC. So that says to me, we need to have, you know, some corridors, um, already up and running, um, with improved, uh, monitoring and infrastructure that the GOC would leverage. But I'm really excited about this, and now I'm going to come to City Hall. Thank you.

[01:41:36] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Uh, see, counselor Ramirez, did you have any comments?

[01:41:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thanks, Mayor, very briefly. Yes, to questions one and two. I think the staff recommendation is reasonable. And uh, as much as I would like to see faster implementation. I understand it's, um, you know, financially not feasible right now and and, uh, there are a lot of, you know, competing pro- uh, projects. So I'm very comfortable with the staff recommendation.

[01:42:05] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you, and um, I would add the same. I appreciate staff bringing bringing those to us. I actually had thought that we were working on this, so it's, um, I, I appreciate that, uh, stuff has brought this forward and, um, I guess we need to get going. Um, and I would just say, um, yes, I I, I do wish we could go sooner. Um, but I think that having a plan can potentially um, help in that realm. We've done that with other projects, um, once we have a plan, and we can, you know, be ready to take opportunities as they come. So, um, I appreciate stuff going ahead and working on that. And we'll look forward to the progress. It looks like location is a big issue. Um, you know, my thought was, 1st thought was, as we build our, decide what to do with a new police station, perhaps we can include the TLC into that project. Um, but I I'm totally open to other options too. So with that, anyone else have any final comments? Staff, oh, is that good enough for staff? Yes,

[01:43:20] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: okay, great. Well, thank you very much. Um, so let's see. Actually, we have a little time. So why don't we take a break and well, we have to take a break and we'll be back at 6.30 for the regular session. Thanks.

[01:22:27] (archive recording) Unknown Speaker: And, uh, could be.

[01:23:12] (archive recording) Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: 69 9128 and entering webinar ID 951-77396182. Any emails received by 430 p.m. today were forwarded to the city council. Email is received after 430 PM will be entered into the record for the meeting. All votes will be taken by roll call votes. And if you can, please, um, join me in the pledge allegiance. Um, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, when nation, under God, individual, with liberty, and justice for all. Thank you. We will go to roll call, please, city clerk.

[01:59:22] City Clerk: Thank you, mayor. Council number Clark.

[01:59:25] Councilmember Chris Clark: Here.

[01:59:26] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[01:59:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:59:29] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[01:59:31] Unknown Speaker: Not yet.

[01:59:33] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[01:59:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes?

[01:59:35] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[01:59:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:59:38] City Clerk: Vice Mayor May.

[01:59:42] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: May I be coming?

[01:59:44] City Clerk: Thank you. May I be Koga?

[01:59:46] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Here.

[01:59:47] City Clerk: Thank you.

[01:59:48] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So we, uh, all members are present with Councilman Metachek on her way. Uh, so we will go to presentations and, um, I wanted to start off actually, um, as you know, um, Most of you probably know, uh, we were, um, in terms of uh, COVID-19 and uh, sheltering in place, we have been placed. Santa Clara County has been placed into the purple tier. We were in the orange tier, so we actually have gone back down to tiers. And this happened, um, I think by, I would say by surprise, um, yesterday. And so we actually did not have listed a COVID update, but in light of this sudden change. I wanted to ask our city manager. Cameron McCarthy if she would provide some more information about what this means.

[02:00:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor. Yes. So while, um, I do have an update this evening, it's a little bit different than my normal update, uh, which is more a more detailed presentation, but I do want to add, uh, just a few comments to what the mayor mentioned, um, just because this is, this is breaking news, um, essentially for for what we expected to happen. Um, so actually at 1201 AM, we were moved to the purple tier. And up to this point, the messaging from the county had been that Santa Clara County was likely going to be moving to the red tier. Um, so the way that the tier structure works is there are, um, if you recall there, uh, it's a blueprint for the safer economy. There are 4 color structures or different tiers ranging from the most severe, um, which is what we're now, the purple tier, um, to the red tier, to the orange tier, to the yellow tier. So, um, essentially what has happened is the governor of the state is sounding the alarm. Um, that is actually a term that has been used over the last couple days with just the rising number of cases that have been happening statewide. So in fact, we have actually seen statewide, the fastest increase in cases yet since the pandemic started. So even a faster increase than where we were at in the spring and the early summer. So this is really why our county has moved back into the purple tier, but we are not alone. So right now, 94% of, um, California's population is now in a county with uh, in the purple tier. So there is widespread transmission of COVID right now. Uh, just in terms of what we're seeing county wide in terms of um, positive cases. So today, the public health department reported 345 new cases and 2 additional debts. So now we are up over 29,000 cases and almost 450 deaths. Uh, we also have hospitalizations on the rise. So 32 new individuals were hospitalized. So we currently have 151 hospitalizations countywide. Um, we're also seeing an increase right here. in Mountain View. Just as of yesterday, we had 9 new cases. So now we have a total of 751 cases. And if you remember the updates that I've been given, uh, least last week and then a couple weeks prior to that. I was saying that we were seeing on average between one and 3 cases. Um, per day in Mountain View. So now that we had just 9 yesterday. Um, that is clearly going up even in Mountain View. And then even last Friday, we had 14 new cases here in Mountain View on Friday. Um, so we are reflecting the significant increases here locally that we're seeing statewide. Um, so the governor did hold a press conference yesterday about this and a couple of the things that he noted that we are still waiting to find out about is, um, he did note the potential for a curfew on business hours. We have yet to hear anything further about that. Um, I don't know what that means. And so we're waiting to find out if and when that that may happen. Um, but that's certainly something that has not been done statewide. So we are waiting to see what may come of that. And then in terms of other activities that may be closed. So right now, their most activities are closed indoors, but are allowed to open with modifications. So that's really what the purple tier is. I won't go through the whole entire list, but essentially what all this means is that we need to do a better job. statewide. We need to all do a better job at making sure we're wearing our face coverings, making sure that we are doing as much outdoors as we can and really simply just not congregating with people outside of our household. So I think that officials are very concerned about Thanksgiving and the December holiday period of people getting together and then case counts rising. So I think what we'll do over these next few days and weeks is just see how the state reacts to this. If our case counts continue to increase, It is potential, potential that they may take other action. So at this point, we don't know yet. But just the fact that most of the state is in the purple tier is an indication that, um, things are really ramping up and our health officer has indicated that she is extremely concerned right now. So, um, that unfortunately is not a great update for this evening, but I think uh, what we need to do is just make sure that that we are following all the rules and and doing things as safely as possible. And we will continue to keep everyone updated as we learn more information. So that's that's it for my verbal update on COVID and we'll continue to keep everyone informed.

[02:05:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you very much, Counselor Ramirez.

[02:05:52] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Good question. Um, or just a quick question. So how will the regression to purple tier impact city operations and services?

[02:06:03] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, council member Ramirez. So, it really doesn't necessarily impact our operations from the sense we still have most of our workforce working from home. Um, and that that isn't changing right now. We are planning to at least work from home through March with potential extension after that as we learn more information. In terms of what is and isn't allowed. There are certain things like indoor pools and indoor gyms, which actually we were planning to open the um, the city gym. Um, so that's changing, but in terms of just our operations in general and what's happening now, um, it really isn't that much of a change because we've already pivoted to doing most of our stuff virtually and and we've changed like our drive-through events and our appointment system. Um, so all that's changed over the past few months. I think the biggest impact is really to our businesses and activities.

[02:06:57] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Great. Do I need to open this up for public comment to the attorney?

[02:07:05] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: You know, this was a late, uh, addition to the agenda and it was, it was, um, more in the nature of an announcement, but if you, it wouldn't hurt to just see if there's any members of the public who are interested in speaking.

[02:07:20] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. Any members of the public wishing to comment on this, if you are in the attendee box, please raise your blue hand, and if you're on the phone, please hit star 9, and let's go 2 minutes. Um, Stephen Goldstein, please unmute yourself to speak.

[02:07:39] Stephen Goldstein: I hope I'm unmute.

[02:07:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, you are. Please go ahead.

[02:07:43] Stephen Goldstein: Just wanted to say. I'm sorry, but this has been actually predicted for at least 3 or 4 weeks that we knew we were at least going to go to the red tier. The fact that we jumped to the purple tier was actually also quite what for a long time anticipated. Now, the real problem that we're going to be dealing with here is that you just pointed out that the city is now doing work from home up until March. Well, that would mean that the city knows that nothing was going to be getting back to anywhere close to normal until at least March, if not, and many months later, because yes, we've gotten some potentially good news regarding vaccines, but the problem I'm thinking is that these press releases are not medical research. And so what's really, I think, going on, in fact, is that these companies are trying to spike their stock prices up, uh, prior to the end of the year so they can get their bonuses. And then what's going to happen is that uh, just short to the, the end of uh, the uh, maybe during the week in between this uh, Christmas and New Year's, 2nd and that's, oh, uh, our, our results haven't been verified and we can't go to delivery of a vaccine yet. So I'm just hoping that they're right, but I'm anticipating that they're wrong. The real problem is that you know by the end of January, the eviction moratoriums are going to end. And now that we are now back to purple, I would say that it would be a very good time for the city council to get together and start discussing a possible extension again of an eviction moratorium in the city. That's all I would say at this time, but thank you very much for doing me the time. Thank you. I'm done.

[02:09:33] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing the comments? You can raise your hand. I don't see anyone else, so I will close public comment on this item. And thank you, city manager. Um, We will move on to the next presentation. And um, We are continuing with um, inviting our community partners to do presentations and updates on their activities. And this evening, uh, we are grateful to have an update from the Los Altos school district and we have superintendent Jeff Bayer, um, joining us. Welcome, Mr. Bayer.

[02:10:17] Superintendent Jeff Bayer: Good evening, afternoon, evening. Uh, do you want, I don't know protocol. Um, mayor, should I turn on the camera or what's your preference?

[02:10:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, if you would mind, wouldn't mind that would, we would love to see it.

[02:10:29] Superintendent Jeff Bayer: Not at all. I just don't want to. break your protocols. Um, thank you for uh, inviting me, um, both to, um, Uh, Ms. McCarthy and, um, I know, uh, Mayor Abikoka, we, we spoke at the Resiliency Council Resiliency Roundtable meeting and uh, give an update at that time and I appreciate you inviting me to, to provide that same uh, or similar uh, update uh, here tonight. Um, it's just gonna be a verbal update to let you know what's going on. Um, So in Los Altos school district, we we have begun a reopening process. Um, to returning children to campuses, uh, who wish to come. Parents still have the choice to, um, take part in virtual instruction for their children, which is completely distance learning, or return to campus, and we are in a blended or hybrid format where, uh, children return 2 days per week, and then work, um, asynchronously, um, distance 3 days a week at home. This is really getting at the in-person instruction element that we have been missing. And the, we know that the impact on children berries. Uh, so providing these options for parents, we think, uh, is is really important, and we have certainly noticed that the children uh, enjoy the, the, the human contact both with their peers and with their teachers when they're on campus. But getting there was quite a chore, um, because it is, uh, it is a complicated endeavor with the, um, protocols and requirements set up by both the state of California and Santa Clara County public health department. So, uh, we we focus on a number of uh, key safety provisions, um, Uh, screening is a part of it, uh, both staff and students have to complete complete a, a screening protocol before they come onto campus each day, and we check that and follow up on those, uh, who haven't, uh, face coverings are required for, we've actually implemented it for all students from transitional kindergarten, uh, all the way up the line. Um, 6 foot distancing in classrooms is also a, um, a part of our return protocol. We focus on hand hygiene. making sure that time is built in for students washing their hands, especially after key activities, both in the classroom and outside the classroom. Um, We are also partnering with El Camino Hospital. They've been fantastic partner in providing asymptomatic testing for both our staff and our students who are working on campus. We've recently expanded it to students in working with the hospital. And that's offered, it rotates around to different campuses in the district, but about every 2 weeks, there's an opportunity for testing. So we're really grateful to El Camino for partnering with us on that. Um, Also, ventilation is a big part of ensuring that our staff and students aren't as safe as possible and really mitigating the spread. of COVID-19. And we also have a regular cleaning and disinfecting protocol in place in the district. Um, we, we set up this summer. Uh, I think everyone was anticipating that we would be back on campus from the uh, from the start, uh, that didn't happen. But we went ahead and set up all our classes and uh, queried all of our parents and asked them to make a choice. whether they wanted ultimately a hybrid or blended approach or a virtual approach. Um, so that we would be able to set up classes and have as little disruption as possible once we got the green light to uh, go ahead and start in-person instruction. Um, so right now we have about 30% of our students, uh, TK through six, about 30% of our students virtually, and about 70% of our students, uh, wanting the in person. Uh, that's, they're not all back on campus yet. So that's whether they either want it right now or want it in the future. So it's about a 7030 split. Um, And again, we have, we really have built those classes for that. We are on a return regimen right now. We have started with our special day classes. Uh, those are students who really do have our uh, have the most difficult time. Um, in the distance learning format. Uh, you know, we have classes ranging from, uh, mild to moderate disabilities to moderate, severe disabilities, uh, as well as uh, um, what we call a therapeutic special day class to, for students who are dealing with more severe uh, behavioral and emotional issues. So those students return 1st to our campuses. They return to, um, 5 of our 9 campuses. Um, And those were Santerita, and Block, and Egan, and Covington, and Loyola. And those students came back on September 28th. So they've been back for a while now. We followed those students up with bringing back our youngest students. So, transitional kindergartners, kindergartners and 1st graders returned on October 12th. 2nd and 3rd graders. We welcomed back last week on November ninth, and then grades 4 and 5 are scheduled to return on December 7th. 4 grade 6, 7, and 8. Um We're looking for them to return after the start of the new year. Uh, when the, At the, at the semester break. So that's, uh, those are our regular education, uh, classrooms that are coming back. We know that some students, whether they're coming back in person, or whether they're remaining virtual, have a really hard time, um, in a non-in-person format, and they need additional support, uh, for, for a variety of reasons. So we have opened up what we call LASD plus, which is a, um, an opportunity for students to come back onto campus more frequently. Uh, they come back and even if it may not be their, their day, so to speak, if they're students on Monday and Tuesday in person. They come back to campus also on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for some supervision, uh, in the distance learning. It keeps them engaged, and it keeps their progress continuing. So we have that now up and running, um, or it will be up and running. Um, In the coming weeks at every one of our campuses and some of our campuses with a higher need have multiple sessions of that happening. Uh, the cohort sizes are small. Um, needing to to adhere to the county requirements has really um, meant that classes don't get larger than about 14 or 15 students. In some cases, they're small as 7 or 8 students. As we break, as we break our classes into 2 essentially, on a Monday, Tuesday or a Thursday, Friday, regimen returning to campus. Um, We are giving our families opportunities to switch during the course of the year. There are a couple dates that they're going to be able to make a switch, one in January, and then another one in March. Um, it is, you know, at this point, really just based on parents' comfort with, with returning, returning to campus in person. Um, With regard to the earlier comment about the state or the county moving into the purple level, um, the most severe. Um, That for us, uh, that actually does not have an impact since we have already started returning students to campus. We can continue with our um, with our return schedule. We will, of course, work closely with Santa Clara County public health to make sure we're doing it in the safest way possible. And, um, I seek their guidance uh, with any changes or uh, uptics we want to be paying attention to as our return gets to campus. But it has been, I can tell you, very positive. Uh so far. And, um, it is great to see kids, albeit in smaller numbers, uh, back on campus, uh, enjoying the, uh, the company of one another at a distance and uh, of their teachers as well. So, Happy to answer any questions about that.

[02:19:29] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much. Thank you for, um, sharing any questions from council members. For Mr. Bear?

[02:19:39] Unknown Speaker: Um, I don't know if you're able to answer this, but have you had any cases since you've opened?

[02:19:46] Superintendent Jeff Bayer: We have had one student case. We actually have that data up on our website. We have a dashboard. Uh, we think that, you know, making sure we're transparent with what's going on on the campuses is going to build confidence in our, in our community. Um, so we have had one case um, at almond school. of a student. So there are a series of communications that go out to, um, classmates who are close contacts, um, et cetera. We have had no additional, um, positive test results as a result of that, um, that one case to this point. So, uh, we, we are, um, hoping that's a result of uh, the mitigation measures that we have in place, right? Because we know that there are, there are going to be cases, it is widespread in our communities. Um, But we really, uh, have those protocols in place to mitigate the spread, should it appear?

[02:20:45] Unknown Speaker: That's really promising to hear. Thank you.

[02:20:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I'm gonna open this up for public comment. So if there are any members of the public wishing to speak on this item, please raise your blue hand, if you're in the attendee box, and if you're on the phone, please hit star 9. And let's go 2 minutes and we'll go, we'll start with Cynthia Razo, Arezo. You can unmute yourself, please, to start speaking.

[02:21:12] Cynthia Razo: Hi, good evening, thank you. Um, my question is I understand that. Thankfully, since the school is open and some of our kids excel in being present, um, versus virtually. I hope that the cases don't continue and we go back to red or even a better standard for COVID. But in the, On journey that we have right now, if the cases continue to exceed, is there a possibility that the schools might stop this in-person learning and go back to 100% virtual? Um, that's my question. Or is that something that the mayor can establish, even though we have already started the in person? Um, learning. Thank you.

[02:22:05] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Uh, we'll go, we'll answer that when we go back to, uh, to the, um, to that, Mr. Bear. Are there any other public comments? On this item? Don't see any more hands. So, um, I will close public comment and would you be able to answer that question? Mr. Bay?

[02:22:28] Superintendent Bear: Certainly. Um, there is, uh, There is a process by which a school would be ordered closed or a district be ordered closed. That was actually set forth in the, the state directives issued on July 17th, I think it was, of this year. And, um, that is, if they're, is, uh, if we reach the 5% threshold of people on campus, so that includes staff and students, right? Because we're all human beings and, you know, have potential here of contracting this. If we reach 5% within a 14 day period, uh, We would need to report that to the health department, work in consultation with them, and the understanding is that the school would be closed for a determined period of time by the, um, by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. As far as a district goes, if, um, 20 if that, what I just described happens to 25% of our schools within that 14 day period, then, uh, in all likelihood, the public health department would order the district closed at that point. So there are metrics set up for them.

[02:23:45] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Right, thank you. And, um, I just wanted to, um, reiterate that it is the, um, Santa Clara County public health department that um, sets the orders and that the mayor or the school district is actually the county public health department in court conjunction with the, um, the state of California. So, we uh, cities and school districts, um, basically, all the orders, um, and um, protocols. With that, um, I don't see any more hands. So again, thank you so much for joining us, superintendent. Please stay safe and be well.

[02:24:24] Superintendent Bear: Thank you. Appreciate the invitation. Bye- bye.

[02:24:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Bye-bye. We'll go on to our next presentation and um, this one is uh, let's say bittersweet. Uh, we are um, sadly going to be saying goodbye to our, uh, city clerk, Lisa Natouche, who has, um, been so wonderful in serving our community and assisting us on the city council and has been such a wonderful addition to our city organization. Um, as uh, most of you probably know, uh, the city council gets to appoint uh, the city. Clerk, the city attorney and the city manager. And so, um, she is, um, definitely been, uh, an integral part of our operations and especially this year in this unusual time of a pandemic. Um, there is a need for a lot of adjustment and how we uh, do things around here, and she has just been so wonderful and fabulous and um, getting things up and running quickly and uh, running helping us run these meetings smoothly on Zoom. And so, um, I can't, um, thank you enough. Uh, Lisa, for all that you've done, uh, for us and, um, sadly, I'm sad to see that to have to say goodbye, but, um, wish you well in your next endeavors. And, um, if I may, we do have a proclamation that we would like to present to you. And I'd like to go ahead and read it. And then if other council members would like to. Make comments afterwards, that would be great. So, whereas the city council meeting calendar has been rigorous, and they send it to spent significant time successfully preparing agendas, attending council meetings, coordinating meeting logistics, preparing meeting minutes, and processing council actions, and whereas with the declaration of a local emergency in March 2020 due to COVID-19, and the governor's order regarding the ability to hold remote meetings of legislative bodies, they still work quickly to collaborate with the information Technology director to host and properly notice meetings by video conference, which was initially initially a tremendous lift, as it was uncharted territory for cities. Lisa collaborated with city clerks, troubleshooting, and working to define best practices to ensure transparency and continued public asset access to meetings. And whereas in order to allow for equal access to the video conference meetings. Lisa implemented a number of options for public participation, and a staff gained experience with video conference meetings, and the security and functionality of Zoom improved. She streamlined processes for efficiency, while still maintaining a variety of options for the public to participate in meetings. And whereas Lisa worked closely with staff to support the advisory bodies, conducting recruitments for vacancies, responding to questions related to video conference procedures, sharing expertise in the Brown Act and agenda management, providing support and training as necessary, and hosting the annual advisory body recognition event in October 2019 a year ago, whereas we somewhere closely with the city council policy and procedures committee to review. and update city council policies as appropriate, including advisory body attendance, modifying public comment time, as well as use of speaker cards to queue speakers. And whereas Lisa prepared and conducted elections, including the March 3rd, 2020 special election that included a ballot measure on reforming the community stabilization and fair rent act, as well as the November 3rd, 2020 general election of city council members, along with a referendum measure on oversized vehicle parking Restrictions, which required a significant amount of time and focus, strict adherence to deadlines, and completion of complex administrative tax tasks per the California elections code. And whereas Lisa has always worked diligently, with a can do attitude, and in a positive manner, developed procedures for standard processes, which has helped identify and eliminate redundancies, and has built in her city clerk team the importance of teamwork, accountability and customer service. Now, therefore, I, Margaret Abbe Kogamayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, city staff, and the community, do hereby express gratitude and appreciation to Lisa Natouche, for her many contributions to the city of Mountain View, signed and sealed the 17th day of November 2020. And again, I believe Wanda Wong has the actual proclamation there.

[02:29:22] Unknown Speaker: It is.

[02:29:24] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And so thank you for all of your service and um, would you like to say a few words?

[02:29:31] City Clerk Lisa Natouche: Thank you so much. I'm in the unique position to actually get to receive the hard copy. So thank you. Thank you so much. Um, really, thank you for this very special recognition. It was so kind of you. Um, it's been an honor to work with such a dedicated and innovative and supportive city council. Um, my clerk's office team, uh, Wanda and Margarita and not Jeanette. Um, my fellow counsel appointees, Kimber and Christian. Um, in the incredible department, uh, head team and city staff. And of course, the Mountain View community, which is so engaged and I've been so fortunate to build such strong relationships with so many. And, um, I'm extremely grateful and, um, I'm just very grateful for my time here. So thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it. I will miss all of you.

[02:30:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you again for all of your, um, dedication and commitment to our city and to, to helping us on council to, to keep going during these odd times. Um, any council members, would you like to? Counselor MetaCheck.

[02:30:45] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: sorry, I think I was on mute there,

[02:30:46] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: please. Feel free to comment. And I'm sorry, could you admit yourself now?

[02:30:56] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, sorry, I thought I did. I'm sorry. Um, I want to thank Lisa, um. You've been an absolute joy to work with. I so appreciate everything you've done for the city. And I really appreciate everything you've done for the council. Um, especially last year when I was there, um, it was just great to work with you, and the amount of support was absolutely incredible. Um, I really appreciate as it said in the resolution, your positive can do attitude. It just makes the world of difference. And, um, I just have to say again how wonderful it is to work with you. Um, Because of that approach you take, but also you're just so good at what you do. Um, it's going to be really, really, uh, different for us to have a new city clerk. Um, I've gotten so used to view and uh, levels for what you provide. It's just been absolutely wonderful. Um, I really wish you were staying with us, but, um, I totally understand what you have to do what's right for you. And, um, I don't hold that against you, although I will miss you horribly. Um, as I know others will as well. So thank you, Lisa, again for everything you've done for us. It's just been a tremendous amount of time and effort you put in and I so appreciate it. So thank you.

[02:32:28] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much. Council number Hicks?

[02:32:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I just wanted to say 3 quick things. First, as someone who ran for office without planning for years ahead to do so. I just wanted to thank you for helping me with that process and making me feel welcome and oriented, and I'm sure everybody else is run, particularly for the 1st time would probably give you the same things. Um, and second, the 2 years that I've served have been, From what I've heard, they're the only years I've served, but they've been particularly hard years, I think. Both last year, we dealt with a lot of difficult issues and very heavy work schedule, and then this year is, um, understandably unique. So I wanted to thank you again for kind of orienting me and helping us all through those 2 difficult years. And then lastly, although I wish you were not going. I want you to know that I understand having raised small children to become college students myself. I do understand if you need to make that decision to, you know, to be closer to home and family. So thank you again.

[02:33:36] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much, Catherine. And Counselor McAllister.

[02:33:41] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, I'm going to take a little liberty and include Chris and my thank you. But Chris, look at that. Uh, the thought of uh, not being there with Chris and I was, it was devastating and it was a hard, hard thing to do, but I, I can understand you leaving beforehand, but all serious aside. Uh, You really raised the bar of the city clerk's position in my eyes. I've been here for 8 years +5 on planning, so I got to meet the other the city clerks, but you you really raised the bar and expectations. Are there now. So whoever replaces you. Yeah, maybe you change your mind to come back, you'll realize, take that month off. Uh, it's going to be high expectations to do that. And the way how you got your staff working together and how you work with the other departments and coordinate everything. And me, the being the lone dinosaur among the 7 council members, always looking for that physical packet that I could actually read, uh, was, uh, a well thanked, uh, privilege that I had that you guys would spend the time to keep this cranky old man happy and give him his staff report. It made my job tremendously easier. I think because of having that, I was able to explore, get into the weeds where the city manager didn't always like me to get into, but I got there, but, you know, thank you so much for that. That's an extra step that you did. You did a lot of those little extra things that people don't see or think about, you know, and I remember on a Saturday. I showed up. There's Lisa with Wanda going there and I go, oh, come on, ladies. They were taking boxes away and I go, come on, you're out of here. Why you doing this work? She says, I got the heart. So thank you again for so much you've done for everybody. And we wish you the best of luck. And, you know, we're the best city to have dinner as in Mount View. So catch the train, come on down and say hi to us. Wish you the best.

[02:35:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you so much, Catherine McAllister. Oh, yes, uh, city manager.

[02:35:43] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor. So I also just wanted to echo thanks on behalf of the entire city organization and the department head team and all the employees and just tell Lisa how much she'll be missed. She has been tremendous as as many of you have mentioned and as the proclamation states. She has been wonderful to work with. She has been just the consummate professional and going through these last few months and I just wanted to tell you, Lisa, just how impressed I've been with just how quickly you were able to pivot and adapt in March. I think that we were one of the 1st cities to get up and running on Zoom because we had a lot of meetings that occurred during that time. Um, arguably probably a lot more than some other agencies in that March, April, May time frame. So, um, just just what you were able to do and how you were able to make it work so seamlessly was just so impressive to me and the rest of the organization. So, I just want to thank you for that. And I'll also end on this note that I'm not sure that any of us will forget the meeting till 330 AM where you read 100s of emails into the record, and did it with energy and ease and being calm. So I want to thank you for that. And I think that just demonstrates just your professionalism and excellence and being a city clerk. So thank you so much. We are really going to miss you.

[02:37:10] City Clerk Lisa Natouche: Thank you so much. Thank you.

[02:37:13] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. And I'm going to open this up to public comments. Any members of the public wishing to make uh, comments, please raise your blue hand, and we'll go with 2 minutes. We'll start with Alex Brown. Please unmute yourself to speak.

[02:37:30] Alex Brown: Lisa, uh, you are hardcore, and I'm going to miss you so much, and I'm really sad when I get to start coming back in person that you won't be there to chat with. Thank you.

[02:37:44] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And we'll go to Emily Ramos. Please unmute yourself to speak.

[02:37:50] Emily Ramos: Can you hear me? Ah, okay, you're naughty. Um, hi, city clerk, Natush. Um, I'm so sorry to hear that you're leaving when when I heard the news, I was so sad. You are absolutely a champ. Um, the city manager mentioned the, the grueling 3 AM meeting that, uh, you needed to read through the, the 1000000s of emails and it's really kind of funny because there, I was on different, um, slack threads and everyone was just like, the city clerks, a champ, right there? Someone get her a, um, what is it called? The thing where when you're sick and you need to, um, For your sore throat? Like everyone was thinking about it. like, should we come up with a pool for, um, oh, lozengens? Um, someone was saying like, should we come up with a pool to just like drop off a whole bunch of them to the city clerk as our token of appreciation? Um, But you were truly, truly, uh, uh, such a gem to our community, you, you, everything that we have generally asked for. you have always tried to be helpful. I'm so sad to see you leave, and we may, like, if you are going to another city, we may just drop by and say hi to those city, city council meetings, or town council meetings, whichever city it is, it'd be like Hillsboro. here we come. Um. But thank you so much for your work. I am so sad to see you go. Um, but we are so happy that that you're doing what's best for yourself and your family. And um, thank you so much for your your work with our city. Thank you.

[02:39:29] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing the comments? If not, I will, uh, close public comment and again, um, as you can tell, we will, uh, I'll sorely miss you, but we wish you all the best, Lisa, and I know that you'll be close by and um, hope that we will be able to continue to keep in touch and you're always welcome in that view. Um, and I just wanted to also um, recognize uh, Sylvia Vonder Linden, who has joined us this evening. She is our interim city clerk and has started yesterday, I believe. And so thank you very much, Sylvia, for joining us and filling in at this time and we really appreciate that. So welcome to Mountain View. With that, We'll go on to our consent calendar, I think, 4. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. But any member of the council like to pull an item. Yes, Councilman Ramirez.

[02:40:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mark. I don't I don't want to pull it, but I do have a question for the city manager about 4.2 the capital meeting schedule. Should I ask now or wait until after public comment?

[02:40:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, yes, go ahead. Go ahead and ask now.

[02:41:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Um, so, so. One of the things I, I was thinking about reviewing the schedule is we do have potentially, you know, uh, uh, a major set of decisions to make related to the expiration of the addiction moratorium, and I was wondering if it would be helpful to, uh, provide any direction related to that or if, you know, you have within your ability. Um, you know, the, the option to insert uh, an emergency meeting the way we have done previously.

[02:41:34] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, thank you, council member Ramirez. Yes, I think what we have been able to do over the last few times where we've had special meetings, um, or emergency meetings, as we've called them, I believe we've had 2 or three. I think that um, that would be something that we would look at doing in January. So I wasn't necessarily wanting to pick a date right now just because I want to see what's going to happen with the state, but absolutely, I think, putting it on everyone's radar that that is likely to occur in January. So although you may not see it listed on the schedule, there is a potential for that. And I think that that is within my purview and working with the next mayor, um, to call that meeting and and coordinate on a time where we may have to do that.

[02:42:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Great, thank you.

[02:42:24] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other, um, items council members would like to pull? Or speak to? Nope. If not, are there any members of the public who would like to speak on any items on the consent calendar? If so, please raise your blue hand if you're in the attendee box. And hit star 9 if you are on the phone. I don't see any hands, so I will close public comment and bring it back to council, uh, council member Clark.

[02:42:55] Councilmember Chris Clark: Move the confront calendar.

[02:42:58] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And council member Metachek. Any other discussion on the consent calendar? There's a motion by council member Clark, 2nd by council member Medachek. And if not, could we get a roll call vote, please? Council member Clark.

[02:43:17] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[02:43:18] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[02:43:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:43:20] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[02:43:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes,

[02:43:22] City Clerk: council member McAllister.

[02:43:24] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes.

[02:43:24] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[02:43:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:43:27] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Kame.

[02:43:29] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes,

[02:43:30] City Clerk: Mayor Bikoga.

[02:43:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I,

[02:43:31] City Clerk: thank you.

[02:43:33] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Mission Carry 70 with no extensions would go on to item 5 oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 we'll decide the time. And state law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on a non-agenda item, and again, if you are in the 10 D box, Please, uh, press your raised hand button at the bottom to raise your blue hand, and if you are on the phone, please hit star annoying. And let's see, we have two, so we'll start. I will go 3 minutes and start with season Goldstein. Please send me yourself to speak.

[02:44:19] Stephen Goldstein: Thank you again for giving me a chance to discuss things. I just want to point out that what we're really going to have to do at this point in time is start making some longer term plans regarding the situation we're dealing with here. The simple fact is, we are not anywhere near out of the woods yet, but it comes to the crisis we're living through right now. And what we're going to have to do is, I understand that there's been a lot of work done regarding buying things like rental assistance and things like that, regarding the city and so on. But right now, it's really a situation where we've been doing things, trying to plan things ahead maybe 3 or the most 6 months down the line, and right now, we're not looking like we really have any light at the end of the tunnel yet still until we get some kind of final statements saying that the CDC or the NIH has turned around and said we have a proven safe vaccine and we're about to deliver it. The biggest news I'm hearing is that they're talking about an emergency authorization. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe yet. As a matter of fact, under those circumstances, what you're going to have is you're going to have only the, uh, the primary, the emergencies, uh, people being given the vaccine. And the scary part will be is if it turns out it blows up in our face and it turns out to start taking down our medical professionals that we need in order to fight the disease as a whole. I'm deeply concerned that that might end up being in a situation where we wind up into. I'm hoping not, but I'm just wanting to say, we really start to, we had to really get the long term plans in place. I said this right back in January of of 2020. Uh and I'm still saying it now. And it just seems like wherever I go and whatever I hear, it's always talking about, oh, we have things going for 6 months down the line. We can't. Uh trust that anymore. We have to do something that will establish a long-term stability that will make sure that if anything, if things were to get better, we would be in a position to make the most use of it. But right now, we're not. And I'm hoping that maybe in the future, uh, either this uh, current city council or the next one coming in in December, we'll start putting that plan into effect. Thank you very much. And done.

[02:46:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Well, you will go to Albert Jeans, please unmute yourself to speak.

[02:46:58] Albert Jeans: Yeah, good evening, Mayor Abbott Colge and council members. Um, I don't know if Lisa, did you get a picture I sent you? Anyways, um, yeah, I want to talk about the abandoned vehicle hotline. I understand it's been suspended. I mean, this towing has been suspended because of COVID-19. Yeah, I guess the reasoning was, you know, people are working from home. They may not be driving every day and, you know, they may leave their car on the street for a few days without driving it. However, that doesn't stop other vehicles from parking on the street. And for example, in my neighborhood, there's this boat. This picture was taken on September 1st, and the boat had already been there for several weeks, and it's still there. And I've heard of boats in other neighborhoods too. So, yeah, we, you don't want to tow people's cars if they're actually using them, but this is clearly one of these cases of neighborhood blight where people are just taking advantage of, you know, parking free on the streets and not having to park their boat or whatever in a real parking lot. And so I'm hoping somehow you can change, 1st of all, I hope the abandoned vehicle hotlines recorded message can be changed. So at least people know that, you know, they don't have to call it in because it's not going to be acted on. you know, because of COVID-19, but in addition, I hope that somehow you can make an exception here, maybe phrase it in terms of, uh, you know, code violation or something like that so that now you could continue to be the, you know, clean and beautiful place we know it to be and not start getting cluttered up with people just leaving their trash on the streets. Thank you very much, and good luck. We saw, I've really enjoyed working with you.

[02:48:33] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing to comment? On a non-agenda item? You can raise your hand or press star 9. I don't see any, so I will close oral communications and we will go on to item 6 public hearings. 6.one is a hearing, a public, public hearing on the downtown business improvement areas, and allocation of the 2021 business improvement area revenues, and we have a staff presentation by our business development specialist to Finney Chu. Welcome, Miss Chu.

[02:49:15] Business Development Specialist Tiffany Chu: Good evening, mayor and city council. Tonight we are holding the 2nd public hearing in the annual renewal process for the downtown business improvement areas. The 1st meeting on October 27th, 2020 was to renew and preliminarily approve the BIAs. There are 2 business improvement areas. BIA number one includes all businesses along Castro Street and Side Street, and BIA number 2 includes businesses in the 100 to 300 blocks of Castro Street. The BIA assessments are used for specific programming and services to support the downtown business association. Any changes to the area, including fee structure, and boundaries require a majority vote by the downtown businesses. In the annual report provided by the DBA. The 2021 projected revenues from both areas are approximately $40,350. Tonight, there are 3 recommendations for city council consideration. Adopt resolutions to levy and assessment in BIA's number one and 2. Authorize the city manager to execute a contract with the downtown business association and allocate the 2021 revenues to the DPA. This concludes staff presentation. Thank you.

[02:50:32] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any questions from council members? Don't see any. I will open this up now for public comment. If there are any members of the public, wishing to speak on this item, please raise your blue hand if you're in the attendee box or hit star 9 if you're on the phone. I don't see any hand cell closed public comment and bring it back to council for deliberation and emotion. This is a pretty standard item that we uh, we uh, always uh, have on our agenda each year. So, um, with that council member Hicks.

[02:51:10] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I was going to make an a motion to approve.

[02:51:13] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, please.

[02:51:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: But if you, um, can you, if we need to, um, Have you read?

[02:51:21] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, my solution?

[02:51:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I want to adopt a resolution of the city council and city of Mountain View, levying the annual benefit assessment for fiscal year 2021 for downtown Mountain View Business Improvement Area, number one, to be read in title only for the reading wave, attachment one to the council report. And to adopt a resolution of the city council in the city of Mountain View, levying the annual benefit assessments for fiscal year, 2021, for downtown Mountain View business improvement area, number 2, to be read in title only, further reading waived, which is attachment number 2 to the council report.

[02:52:02] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, and Counselor Ramirez?

[02:52:05] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I'll 2nd the motion.

[02:52:06] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other discussion on this item? There's some notion like that's number Hicks, 2nd by council member Ramirez.

[02:52:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And I just wanted to clarify that that motion, it doesn't need to be read, but includes staff recommendation number three, the authorization of the contract for services.

[02:52:25] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much. Um, no further discussion. Could we get a roll call vote, please?

[02:52:31] City Clerk: Council member Clark.

[02:52:33] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah.

[02:52:33] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[02:52:35] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:52:36] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[02:52:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:52:38] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[02:52:40] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes.

[02:52:41] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[02:52:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:52:44] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Kme.

[02:52:45] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:52:46] City Clerk: May I be Coco? I,

[02:52:48] City Clerk: thank you.

[02:52:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mission Carry 7 0 with no abstensions. Thank you very much, Ms. Chu. We will go on to item 6.2, uh, which is uh, the 44 unit condominium project at 2655 Fayette Drive. And um, Before we start with the presentation, do any customers wish to make any disclosures such as contacts with the applicant or site visits? Yes, council member Ramirez.

[02:53:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Uh, I, uh, will disclose that I both met or uh, spoke with the applicant and uh, did a type visit.

[02:53:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, and vice mayor?

[02:53:31] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sorry, I thought we were just all gonna Sorry, our hands. I didn't know we were going to do blue hands as well. But yes, I virtually met with the applicant.

[02:53:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thanks. Thank you. Counselor your Medachek?

[02:53:45] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I just want to disclose that I did a site visit on mail.

[02:53:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, and council member Hicks.

[02:53:52] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I met with the applicant as well, virtually.

[02:53:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Right, and council member client?

[02:53:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: Because I've met with the upcoming a number of times over the years.

[02:54:02] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. Uh, Counselor McAllister.

[02:54:07] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I, I'm, We've gone through a couple of applicants, but, uh, I don't know exactly who I've met with, but I've met with people there, so.

[02:54:16] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh yeah. Thank you, and I have met with the applicant in the past, I did not have an opportunity this time for this latest proposal to meet with the applicant. So, uh, counselor, I meant a check.

[02:54:34] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Sorry, I guess I thought it was just we had to disclose since the last time, but if we're also saying previously, So yes, in the past long time ago, I've met with the applicant.

[02:54:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: City attorney, could you clarify this? Is it for the current proposal only?

[02:54:53] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, the disclosure requirement is for the current proposal.

[02:54:56] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. Well, we went above and beyond then. So with that, we will go to the staff presentation and we have senior planner, Eric Anderson. Welcome Mr. Anderson.

[02:55:13] Senior Planner Eric Anderson: Thank you very much. Um, uh, council member, uh, mayor Abby Kogo. Let me share my screen just a moment. There we go. Here we go. Thank you very much, Mayor Abi Koga, thank you, city council. This is a 44 unit condominium project at 2645. 2655 Fayette Drive. My name is Eric Anderson. I'm also joined with, um, Community Development Director, Artis Vastava, and, um, planning manager, signing administrator, Stephanie Williams. Uh, so here is the project site and its vicinity. It's surrounded by multifamily residential uses. It also adjacent to the SFPUC property, which is planned for a new linear park. Uh, it's across the street from the Dean development, which is nearing completion. It's 5 to 7 stories and there's going to be a future mini park directly across the street. Proposal is 44 condominiums. They are requesting a state density bonus, which does affect the San Antonio precise plan standards, which it would be subject to. Uh, it is 6 stories, 2.5 FAR. They are proposing to remove 8 heritage trees and relocate one. They are going to replace those trees with 26 new trees on the site. You can see the site plan here. There is a publicly accessible plaza on the in the lower right corner. Uh, a driveway to the parking garage is kind of at the top of the screen. There's a, uh, a resident amenity area with a pool at the upper left corner of the screen. And just to orient you, the linear park is at the bottom of the screen here called Fayette Park. Back in 2016, a 24 unit condominium project was approved here. Shortly thereafter, council approved a gatekeeper request to rezone this site into the San Antonio precise plan. The applicant's 1st submittal under that gatekeeper in early 2018 was similar in scale and design to the current proposal. It also incorporated the requested state density bonus. The council approved consideration of that density bonus at a steady session last year. Some differences from what the city council previously saw. The size and income of the below market rate units, the public benefit, and there have been some minor changes to the design. The precise plan does require community benefits, and the city council indicated that they would be interested in transportation improvements and BMR housing. You can see here 2 prominent views of the project. The lower left hand view is the view from that SFPUC parcel where the linear park will be. You can see the use of balconies, materials, and plane changes to break it down into smaller masses. The project also includes a rooftop open area adjacent to the SFPUC side, which is just barely visible over this facade, for which a provisional use permit is required. The upper right hand view is the Fayette view. You can see the prominent entry with the plaza, uh, which is clad in brick veneer. The rest of the facade is broken up into smaller masses, with upper floor stepbacks, and the ground floor is active with unit entries. The requested zoning amendment would put the project site into the San Antonio precise plan. You can see it, the parcel circled in blue on this slide. There's also a proposed residential transition setback area. This is in White Hatch on this slide where the existing site would transition down to lower density, but still multifamily housing to the west. The rezoning into the precise plan would allow more height, more floor area, less coverage and less parking, though I would note that the project would comply with the parking standard either way. They are proposing 4 very low income and one low income unit. This is to comply with 3 separate requirements. The 1st is the city's BMR requirement. They are subject to the phase one, uh, ownership, BMR requirement of 10%, which is equal to 4.4 units. They are subject to the, uh, requirement that for a density bonus, they need to provide a number of very low income units, and they are providing 4 very low income units. So the density bonus. And because they're providing a density bonus, state law requires them to replace existing units on the site if those units had residents that were very low income or low income. And so they are replacing those units for very low income and one low income unit. As I said before, they are requesting a density bonus. The 4 VLI units qualify them for that. They are also requesting one concession, which they are allowed to under the state density bonus law. Their concession is that the size of the BMR units does not match the distribution of the unit sizes and the rest of the project. Their proposed BMR units are all one bedroom. In addition, they're requesting several waivers, which are needed to accommodate the units in the project. Pursuant to the San Antonio precise plan and the request for the rezoning. They are offering $691,512 worth of public benefits. This includes 250,000 for an HOA homeowners association reserve. The purpose for this is for occasional large assessments that may come up for the residents at the resort of the homeowners association. It is necessary for the long-term needs of these lower income owners who may not be able to, um, provide these these unexpected funds. In addition, they are also going to build a crosswalk, connecting the 2 proposed parks. And the remainder will be put into a fund for public improvements, primarily transportation improvements in the San Antonio area. On October 21st, EPC reviewed the project. They recommended approval with um, one abstention. The, they endorse the project's community benefits, the fact that it was ownership units, the mix of unit sizes. They also endorse the parking, the fact that they were providing enough parking for all the units. They had some concerns, however, they were concerned about the waivers from precise plan standards, that there are 6 existing units being replaced with only 5 affordable units, relatively few large trees because of the parking podium. And there was also some discussion of the adequacy of the HOA reserve, whether it would be enough to provide for all the long-term needs of these lower- income units. In summary, the project is consistent with the general plan, the San Antonio precise plan, the subdivision Map Act, the city code, and the state density bonus law, so staff is recommending approval of these 5 actions, approving the initial study, introducing an ordinance to amend the zoning map, adopting a resolution, to approve amendments to the precise plan. Adopting a resolution to approve the project and the map. This, uh, concludes staff's presentation, the applicants, Emmerich McDonald and John Barton with octane are here, and, um, we'll be happy to make a presentation. And we are happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much.

[03:03:45] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Before we go into questions. Yes, I'd like to invite the applicant if you they would like to do a presentation. Um, Amerik McDonald. And John Barton, um. Would you like to make a presentation if you could raise your blue hand? Oh, actually you're up. You're in with loaded juice. So, um, Welcome to both of you and uh, if you'd like to make a presentation, that would be great.

[03:04:14] Amrik McDonald: Is it, um, do we do, should I do 7 minutes or?

[03:04:19] Unknown Speaker: It's up to 10 minutes at your discretion mayor.

[03:04:22] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, um, yes, so you'll have up to 10 minutes.

[03:04:28] Amrik McDonald: Great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Eric, for the presentation of meeting there and city council and city staff. It's nice to see all you again. My name is Amorek McDonald. I'm the managing member of Octane Fayette and the project sponsor. We're very pleased to present. is a great project, providing much needed ownership housing for the city of Mountain View. I know pretty much everyone here has seen this project over its evolution the last several years and we're very pleased to be coming to you this evening. We purchased the property in 2014 and um, having been a Mountain View apartment record myself for almost 20 years, I'm familiar with the, you know, significant concentration of department complexes in Mountain View. And buying a single family, detached dog can be prohibitively expensive, and that's the reason why we're very excited to bring the stacked plat ownership economy and project exploration. I'd like to make a few general comments about the project and then turn the presentation over to our architect, make some more detailed descriptions. Uh, I think our architect has a presentation, a set of slides, uh, which we, uh, like to put up if possible.

[03:05:38] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Marin Mogel is, uh, has her hand raised, it looks as it. Yes, could we, city clerk, could we promote, Warren Mogul?

[03:05:50] City Clerk: Yes, he's coming over now and I'll give her the ability to share her screen.

[03:05:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. There we go. Thank you.

[03:06:00] Public Speaker: Hello. Thank you. Oh, my joining in and chining in to say, uh, as a member of the public interacting with Lisa, it's been a pleasure in terms of these council meetings, so thank you, Lisa.

[03:06:21] Amrik McDonald: Um, Martin, go to the next slide. Eric did a great job of describing many of the attributes of the project, so I won't uh, Belabor them, but I'll emphasize the following. Uh, ownership builds community and uh, stacked by economy and grouping represents a great stepping stone from a partner living, which there is much to detached homeownership, which is very expensive in our area. location is very important and this proximity to the San Antonio Center, creating an urban suburban lifestyle, close to public transit, walkable to shopping, workplay, restaurants, parks, movie theater, a new school. All make this site very attractive. The consequence of that it, you think, is that the density here that we have proposed is appropriate at 3.5 that they are in a 6 story structure, especially considering the 50 year plus lifespan of a building like this. Um, We think it's important to have um, an increased density. Uh, the unit mix is, is uh, with larger multi-bedroom units, which are targeted immunities of valleys and and those working at home, which is appropriate in these uh, COVID times. Um, typical apartments, have smaller units such as the VA across the street, uh, 3 thirds of the units in that complex or studios or or one bedrooms with an average of 685 square feet, compared to uh, over 1300 average units size in their complex. And we feel we have some great amenities with the public plaza in front of the complex there. Inside the pool, spa, barbecue area, the club room, we bought that, and then great access to these 2 new parks, which are just, I think, underway in terms of their development for physical development. On the public benefit side, in total, it's about 2500000 About 1800000 of that is a subsidy related to the difference in construction cost for the BMR units versus their selling prices, and then an additional approximately 700,000 and additional public benefits represented by the BMR. HOA, the crosswalk, 5 lanes, public Plaza, and then a $350,000 pass contribution to the San Antonio Hollow Benefits Fund. Next slide, please, Martin. This is just providing a physical location context, you know, near the San Antonio and intersection with El Camino Rio. Next, please. And it's sort of the 3D aerial perspective to show the context of a graphic of the building and how it fits in well with the multifamily structures in the surrounding area. Mexico. And then it's just a top-down aerial, uh, showing sort of the dinner spacing with the surrounding, uh, structures, and obviously the fortunate proximity to the Hetchechi Park, which I believe commenced construction yesterday, and then across the street from the new city park, New Park, um, with the crosswalk, it would be part of the, uh, part of the construction of our, our project. Next. Mario, the next slide. Uh, and here, this is a little more detailed top down, and I'll let uh, Mar mobile, our architect, uh, describe some of the details. Thank you.

[03:10:02] Architect Marin Mogel: Thank you, Amrik. Oh, thank you, mayor and council members for your time tonight. As a, yeah, Emma, and also, Eric, did a great job presenting the design just to elaborate a little bit more on the overall design. Uh, at the earth, the plastic size, on the main corner, which we consider the vantage of the site, and be enhancing it with a, um, pavement and furniture and also lighting and, and, um, attractive benches and all that, really creating a nice, attractive pedestrian friendly street vantage. With a sidewalk along Vayette drive, that is, uh, um, planted as 2 rows of trees, one row of street trees, and the chasing of that is the 2nd row of, of trees that are, um, in, in planters on, um, in front of the units. And also there is some stoop entries, like on the ground floor, um, um, entries to the ground floor units that further um, enhance the street fundage to be very pedestrian friendly. As I said, there's enhanced paving material, um, even in front of a tripade, it's going down to the 2 story underground garage. We are making sure there's plenty of setback from the adjacent neighbors. Um, I think it was mentioned before, there's 30 feet minimum, um, um, on the, on the northwest side here to the chasing the story apartments, and the 48 feet where the pool area is, so there's plenty of setback. And, um, on the, on the, um, Hetching side. There's landscaping. You see there's plenty of trees, um, just efficient enough to or to efficient number of trees to soften the architecture without, uh, causing too much darkness inside the yonets. And to the next site. We made all effort to design this as a foresided architecture. So there really is no side of the building that it doesn't receive the same amount of attention to detailing and materials and articulation. The, um, there's, um, the problem of the prominent features here to include a base, um, of um, a greener, tower elements, and then larger masses, um, of white stucco, and then small receding masses of of left siding. So really articulated in different masses with the different materials. And then plenty of balconies and awnings to create nice shadow lines, and the thin hoof lines, that through the articulate the building, um, Then just for Greek orientation here, the top left building at the top left image here is the main facade of the building, along for you to drive. Um, the bottom left, you see the, uh, the facade facing um, the S, SFUC or Hachi, and the um, bottom right image is reflecting the elevation that you see from the adjacent 3 story apartment buildings. In a little more detail here. The fund is obviously the most important. So, um, there's a strong ground for element, this brick, which um, goes up to the switch story just to reinforce the main entry of the building. It also has a very strong awning and then adjacent tower element. And next to that, uh, there's a setback. Uh, area on the, on this uh, 6th floor. And then again, you see here the very nice residential field on the ground floor. Really enhanced it with nice warm materials, and again, those nice stoop entries to look on for units, some awnings, and warm materials, and fun of, fun of it, you can see the, the, uh, um, landscaping and the uh, furniture and bike wax, and light fixtures that really can create a nice feel for for the public fondage. The, um, elevation long hatch hatchy. Thanks to staff, we really appreciate all staff's input. The, uh, this design came a really long way and it looks very much uh, very much better than than we started. We, one of the main things we've worked on where the balconies in the center to provide the right proportions for this site and, um, the articulation or different treatment of awnings, that there's major awnings on the fontage and secondary locations which made the, we provide its awnings that are a little bit um, thinner in the profile. So yeah, as you see here, here's the um, on the top left, you can really see the stepping down to the neighbors. That we're stepping down 12 feet on the 5th floor and then an additional 14 feet on the 6th floor, which is a total of 56 to the apartment buildings. You can see here also on top left image, the entry into the garage with a nice trail is over it and really made, uh, you provide a nice obesion friendly feel. The large image here is the facade facing the pool and it really show us the nice outdoor amenity that is going to be there for for the residents. And then mainly you see all the articulations with awnings and balconies. that really create a 4 sided architecture, that that reflects good design, sensible for the neighborhood on all sides of the building. I can really appreciate staff, highly collaborative, buried along all the the hallway over the years. And um, complement them on their great suggestions throughout the process. I think we designed well integrated, uh, architecture, but integrated in the neighborhood with, um, more contemporary designs along San Antonio and the more additional character in the more older neighborhoods. Thank you.

[03:16:04] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, 10 minutes is actually up. So appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I will now bring it, take it back to council for questions. Any questions from council members for staff or the applicant? Yes, council member Hicks.

[03:16:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I have a question that's really a confirmation of something I learned in the, um, when I met with, with the developer, and that's the, we've gotten some, uh, questions from members of the community asking that you take down the fence between the Hetchechi Park and the, the building, and I just wanted to ask or confirm that that's really a decision of Hetchechi, not yourselves, and that they were not willing. They have not so far been willing to do that. Is that true?

[03:16:57] Unknown Speaker: Emmer, you muted.

[03:17:00] Applicant: Uh, yeah, so SFPUC San Francisco Public Utility Pollution, owns the Hitch Hatchy, the other way in that, uh, space, and they did the, uh, this, uh, black lot iron face that, uh, you know, uh, black lot iron fence that would go all the way along the Hatch Hatchy, uh, version. So we had original designs, which had a gate and access to the to the park from and within the complex and and that was shot down. Um, Unfortunately, it's just a little walk around the fence and uh, though it would be nice to have have it broken up. They're not able to do that. So thank you.

[03:17:38] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other questions from council numbers? Yes, council member Ramirez?

[03:17:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mary. Just a quick question about the publicly accessible plaza. Um, so, and my apologies, if I if I miss this, uh, what enforcement mechanism exists to ensure that it remains publicly accessible for the duration, for the life of the project, is there going to be Spanish or, you know, what, what, what, uh, what, are we sort of conditioning on the project?

[03:18:12] Unknown Speaker: We are uh, it's a, it's a condition of approval. Uh, so it would run with the project, uh, this condition of approval. Um, the, uh, the nature of the condition of approval is that they have, you know, some rights to, um, you know, remove individuals who may be problematic, you know, or, you know, um, but, but that in general, uh, people are welcome to, uh, to sit in the plaza and use it. Um, but as a condition of approval, that's our enforcement, and we would use the condition of approval to enforce that if they were to ever, you know, put up fencing or put unreasonable measures of of, um, uh, you know, not allowing people to use it.

[03:18:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Great, thank you.

[03:19:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That's not romantic.

[03:19:04] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um. So for the other projects in Mountain View where we have ownership BMR units. Have we also created these reserve funds for HOA, either special assessments or increases in fees.

[03:19:26] Unknown Speaker: Uh, there's only one case that I know of, and that was the 1101 El Camino Real, uh, project about 6 or 7 years ago. Um, and that project had some BMR, uh, in Loop fees, uh, remainder after uh, complying with, or after complying with the density bonus, they had some additional BMR requirement from their, uh, that they needed to provide BMR and Loop fees to satisfy. And so as part of the conditions of approval of that project, we took those BMR and Luffy's and put them in a similar reserve for a similar purpose. The other projects or the other ownership BMR units in the city, um, where we were not able to, where there weren't additional funds available, we have not been able to do these reserves.

[03:20:20] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And do we know if it's been an issue in any of the other complexes where we were not able to create a reserve?

[03:20:29] Unknown Speaker: It's certainly been an issue in other jurisdictions. Um, I don't know about cases here in Mountain View, but the, um, the ownership unit, the BMR units here in Mountain View, I think, are fairly new, and so we haven't had these cases of, you know, needing to replace the whole roof or, you know, needing to replace the swimming pool or something, you know, these very, very costly occasional assessments. But it has certainly been an issue in other jurisdictions.

[03:20:56] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And can anything other than community benefits be used? There are no in the fees, but could you use CBBG or home funds for the reserve?

[03:21:09] Unknown Speaker: I would have to defer that to our team.

[03:21:11] Unknown Speaker: Um, uh, Council member Manachek. This was actually identified as as an issue when the BMR phase 2 was was done that when we do have low and very low income units. Um, and the recommendation was that we work with developers to set aside reserve. Um, I have I don't have any detail to see if we can use CDBG funds for the purpose. Um, but we could sort of research that, uh, but I, I would think that we would have done that research as far as the BMR phase too, if that was the case. But I think really the thought was to have the developer set it aside. Um, depending on the number of units they were providing. We didn't think it would be an issue with modern and communists, but certainly with the low and very low.

[03:22:00] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So from my perspective, having the developer set it aside, um, is not using community benefits funds. So do we have the ability to ask this applicant to set the money aside and not use community benefit funds?

[03:22:16] Unknown Speaker: I don't believe so because we don't have that set yet or adopted. Um, it's a follow-up that we're going to have to do. Um, so we wanted to take the opportunity, um, and and make sure that this project was able to provide it with a lot of, um, BMR projects, I think for sale projects. Um, based on the average, um, affordability expectation, we're not expecting to see a lot of low and very low income units. Um, and so we don't expect this to be um, an ongoing issue unless we hit um, a replacement issue. Um, originally this project wasn't expecting to provide loan very low, but because of the replacement requirements of density bonus, they had to, they had to pivot, um, and we can't require it. Right now.

[03:23:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And we also can't require the BMR units to mirror the market rate units in terms of number of bedrooms, is that correct?

[03:23:21] Unknown Speaker: I think Eric can answer that.

[03:23:23] Eric: They've asked for this as a concession. Right. Yeah, under the state density bonus, they are allowed one concession. Uh, and the requirements for a concession are that the, um, the concession has to reduce the cost of providing, uh, that reduce the cost of the project so that they can provide the affordable units. And, um, they've shown through their letter that this is a reduction in the overall cost of the project, uh, less than or equal to the the amount of money it costs them to provide the affordable units. So it complies with the state requirements for a concession.

[03:24:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thanks. That's all my questions.

[03:24:14] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That's from I'm sorry, counselor McAllister.

[03:24:18] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'm uh, I'm pretty confused about this whole community benefits and what's required or not. So let's, uh, So let me just follow a little bit of what Council member, Metachek said, so, They wanted density bonus. To get that, they're required to put in BMR units. Correct?

[03:24:39] Eric: That's correct.

[03:24:40] Councilmember John McAlister: So, Now they're required to do it. So, Now they want more money because they wandered densely bonus, they gave some privileges. And they had to put the BMR. Now they want to take, Some of the money, and say, well, I'm going to, because we're putting in the BMR units that we want to put in. We also want to get $250,000 of some kind of benefit to go back. So tell me how this works together is that one, they wanted the density bonus. They're required to put the BMR units in. And yet we're saying, no, they're not required to do anything, but they're still getting $250,000 as a community benefit for those BMR units that they requested are required. Am I making it harder than it is?

[03:25:33] Unknown Speaker: Can I remember McAllister if I may, um, Eric, if I could just provide the framework, maybe you can provide the detail. Um, so this project has evolved over time. The last time the council was stopped. Um, I think the expectation was they would provide modern and communits and they were expecting to do that. With the density bonus, they've had to pivot and had to provide very low and low income units and maybe add a unit as well. Um, so their community benefits is fairly consistent with the expectation. But because they had to pivot to the low and very low in communities. We are supportive of the recommendation to take part of that and put it into a reserve because that was identified as an issue. Um, that maybe the council hadn't seen before because at the time the units were only moderate income. Um, so this is not, this can't be a requirement. But, but it's, it's an issue that we see coming up as staff, which is why we're recommending that some of that money be set aside. Does that does that help?

[03:26:40] Councilmember John McAlister: No. No, it doesn't help because you're saying, They wanted to put the density, they got a benefit of the density bonus. And you're saying, well, then they had to pivot because they had to put very low in. Now they had the option of not asking for the density bonus, and therefore then they wouldn't have had to put the BMR units in. Is that correct?

[03:26:59] Eric: No, any, they would have had to provide those those very low income units no matter what. No matter whether the dancing bonus.

[03:27:08] Councilmember John McAlister: So, okay, so if they didn't claim a density bonus, they still had to put the BMR units in.

[03:27:14] Eric: Yes, because of the replacement provisions either of density bonus or now of SB 330. So either way, they would have had to have put those replaced the existing units.

[03:27:25] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so they had to replace those existing units. But now you're saying, Well, we're going to give them, they're entitled to $250, 250 K. Of community benefits going to, To 4 units or 5 units in the building.

[03:27:45] Unknown Speaker: Again, council member, this is a staff recommendation. The council can choose not to put the money into the reserve. And and take all of it and put it somewhere else if they should. Okay, we're suggesting using it for the reserve because we see it coming up as a future issue.

[03:28:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Well, let's go talk about community benefits, then that they sent a letter. Stating their proposal. I'm looking at her staff report. And all it says to me, it says, Octane offered $691,000. I don't see anywhere in here in the Stafford Fort and forgive me if I didn't see it. What were they required to provide in community benefits?

[03:28:34] Eric: Uh, so the, the, um, The, Because they're asking for a density bonus. The calculation of community benefits isn't as straightforward as it is under a normal San Antonio precise plan project. So this is consistent. The calculation of 691,000 is consistent with how we have applied community benefits to other density bonus projects in the San Antonio area. It's the same methodology. So it's the same calculation.

[03:29:08] Councilmember John McAlister: So you didn't commit, you didn't, you just took their numbers and accepted them? Did you modify them or if you had done it your way, would you have come up with the staff had done a little different of their job and not accepting theirs, but did their own calculations, which I'm normally used to seeing staff doing their own calculations. How much of difference would there have been?

[03:29:35] Eric: There would not have been a difference. We instructed them in detail how to calculate this and then we double checked the calculation.

[03:29:42] Councilmember John McAlister: Is this something going forward that if a, a, um, applicant proposes the community benefits, staff doesn't, uh, write something to their own proposal?

[03:29:57] Eric: Council member, I think every precise plan has a different way of calculating it in the case of the San Antonio area, there's a specific number. And this project complies with it.

[03:30:09] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Um, Okay, those are my, let's, yeah, I'm still confused about this community benefit. That's, It seems like they're, well, that's comments later, so I'll, I'll go. Thank you.

[03:30:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other questions from council members? If not, I will open this up for public comment. Any members of the public wishing to speak on this item if you're in the attendee box, please press your uh, the raise hand button at the bottom and raise your blue hand and if you are on the phone, please press star 9. Don't see any, uh, hand, so we will close public comment and bring it back to council for deliberation and emotion, Council Ramirez.

[03:31:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, ma'am. I'm going to go ahead and um, move the staff recommendation, including, uh, introduce an, uh, an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, amending the zoning map, the properties located at 2645 and 2655 Bayette Drive from the R3D, multifamily residential zoning district, the P 40, San Antonio precise Landzonian district. And we read entitle only further reading waves and set a 2nd grading for December 8, 2020. Adopt a resolution of the city of Mountain, the city council of the city of Mountain View, approving amendments to the P 40 San Antonio precise plan to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Uh, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, approving a planned community permit, development review, permit, and provisional use permit, for a 6 story, 44 unit condominium project with a state density bonus, and a heritage tree removal permit, for the removal of 8 heritage trees at 2645 and 2655 day at drive, to be read entitled only, further reading waived, and adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View approving investing tentative map to create 44 condominiums. And one common, 2645 and 2655 Fayette drive to the red and title only, further reading wave, and just uh, by way of some quick comments. I, uh, I, I, I appreciate the opportunity to add some entry level, uh, ownership housing to the city, and I think this is a, a good location for the, the densities and heights that we're looking at. And then, you know, regarding the, um, very low income BMR units. I'm also not thrilled with using the public benefit, uh, contribution for the purpose of helping sort of subsidize the HUA fees for for future tenants, but the way I think of it is, um, it with, by doing this, we're, we're preventing a future crisis where one or more of the occupants, I guess one of the, of the future BMR owners, you know, is threatened with foreclosure because they're unable to pay. a fee. And, uh, you know, we don't want to get into a, a situation where, um, you know, knowing that this is, uh, uh, you know, a potential outcome and then based on the staff research that this has happened elsewhere, um, you know, we, we don't want to sidestep something that, that is, or we don't want to ignore something that is entirely preventable and, you know, given what we've heard about. There's really no other means of, of a mitigating that impact, um, that strikes me as an inappropriate use of that funding. Um, but beyond that, I'm comfortable with the project and appreciate um, the work that staff has has done. I know it's been, it's been a very long and challenging, um, uh, uh, project to condemn with given all of the permutations of state law that you've had to deal with. Um, but with that, um, uh, I'm uh, happy to support the project as, and the set proposal. Thank you.

[03:34:05] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, counts. I'm sorry, vice mayor.

[03:34:09] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: So, I just, uh, wanted to 2nd uh, Castle Ramirez's motion. Um, and my, my compliments would be, I had been excited that this would be an opportunity for some entry-level moderate um, income ownership opportunities. And so for myself, actually kind of given the prior discussion from colleagues, I think it might be worth a conversation with counsel on how we'd like to uh handle the different legislation coming from the state and the implications that that means for the projects that we see. Um, you know, in this case, it's, you know, for both uh, the state density bonus laws as, as well as SV 330. Um, you know, that changed the type of ownership units we're seeing. And I think that also contributed to the staff recommendation. Um, you know, in allocating the HRA reserve. So I think that if there, you know, that that could be worthy of a further discussion on how we'd like to move. Thank you.

[03:35:24] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So there's a mission by accounts memory mayor, 2nded by the vice mayor. We have some comments, counselor McAllister.

[03:35:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, um. I was, I'm always supportive. Motorship housing. And that's why every time it came in, starting with uh, Bill Matson and moving its way through the ranks that I go, yep, I'm for it, and as it continued to change, I was still for it, and I'm still uh, in favor of, uh, ownership housing. Uh, I think we need it in the town and it's very important. The only hiccup I have is it's $250,000. It doesn't make sense to me. All due respect, the council were mayors, I've seen a lot of things come through and I've never seen this particular idea come up. We are going to have a lot of transportation issues in that area. We're going to have a lot of, um, other concerns that we need community benefits for. We got parks in there and to have something where uh, uh, Where's that, um, Is is directed just for 4 or 5 units. I don't see a crisis coming down the road. Because we haven't seen one really before and this president of doing this. I mean, the people who buy these units are well screened are well qualified to do this. I mean, they wouldn't get to this unless they were able to do it. So, I think it's a, a diversion of much needed funds that can go elsewhere into the area because it is getting so big. And since it's only a recommendation. Uh, it sounds like we have an opportunity to, uh, modify that and I would, uh, like to see us put that money back into the overall community benefits that will benefit more of the community as we go forward.

[03:37:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, thank you, Counselor Mattachek.

[03:37:34] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. And so I've had concerns about this project from the beginning. I have a different perspective than the council that I thought this should be part of the San Antonio precise plan. I actually don't think it should be, um, but I wasn't involved when that decision was made. And there's a lot of, um, development that has happened in this area. And as Councilman McAllister just said, this area is in need of infrastructure to support all of that development. Um, we know that um, we're in need of more park space, as well as, um, there's a lot of congestion on the roads. And this is going to add to that. Um, well, I do, you know, appreciate that this is ownership housing and that it's stock flats, so it's good entry level ownership housing. Um, and I do like the architecture. I have concerns about adding to adding so much density to this area and then taking the community benefits, which, yeah, I feel like I've been saying for years, huge benefits should benefit the area that is impacted by a development. And yet we're taking 250,000 of that community benefit and just helping 5 units. That's not benefiting the greater community. So I really have concerns about doing that. Um, I agree with the comments council member, McAllister just made about that. It just doesn't sit well with me. Um, So, um, I can't support this project, um, because of the reasons I mentioned, thanks.

[03:39:23] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And Counselor Hicks.

[03:39:26] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I appreciate the comments brought up by council members, McAllister and Manachek, because I do, I do think that as, as we develop, um, we need community benefits to be used for the things that, the transportation and parks and so forth, the things we need in each, uh, community as it becomes more dense. In this, I think that for this, I also appreciated the vice mayor's comments that, um, this is something that maybe we should talk about, uh, doing this on a regular basis. I'm willing to, I actually really like this project in a lot of ways, um, and will be supporting it. Uh, you know, I won't go through all the things I like, but their family units, there's stack flats, so they're not all upstairs, that there's some affordable housing, that there's a very welcoming streetscape with 2 rows of trees, that it's 4 sided architecture, you know, and I think it's one of the most handsome, uh, apartments being built in the, uh, San Antonio area. So, I like all those things. I do share the concerns that council members McAllister and Mattachek brought up and I think, like the vice mayor said, maybe we should visit this in some way in the future because I would not want it to happen over and over again, but for this project, I will be supporting it. Thank you.

[03:40:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I would just add my comments that, um, I've seen, I know we've seen this project several times now and, um, I do, uh, support the, uh, it is an ownership project, the stack flights that we've been looking for to, um, more of in the city, um, and, um, for that, I, I support the project. Um, I do agree with the vice mayor and I think this may be an illustration of something, um, that I had noticed, um, last year. Last year? Yes, last year, time is just an odd, nebulous to me, but last year, um, when I served on the Abag and TC legislative committee, and we went through the various, um, pieces of housing legislation that was being proposed. I think it may have been SV 330. It might have been another bill. I can't recall, but I had noticed that, um, Some of the, uh, affordable or BMR requirements were actually lower than what we have been requiring in our city. And, um, and, um, so I, I, I, my, my thought was that, um, yeah, in, in many places were more advanced than what the state is requiring of, um, of cities to do. And my my concern was that we would actually maybe be going backwards. Um, in this case, my concern is that, um, with a very low income requirement, I mean, we've talked about this, we've talked about this and when we're doing our affordable housing strategies that, um, you know, if even if they can qualify for the, the mortgage, um, the HOA, it costs is on top of that and that's not calculated and, um, I think when the state had looked at these issues. And so, um, I think that our, our conversations, our deliberations have, you know, been more in depth, frankly, and really looking at real, real life, um, scenarios, and we were trying to accommodate for that. And, um, you know, this is, we're doing that with the reserve, but again, like my preference would have been to do more moderate income. Um, BMR units, um, where the, um, that, you know, the folks, the owners, the future owners are set up to be able to afford to, um, afford, um, all of the costs, and, um, the city would not have to provide those, um, extra subsidies. So, I do have, um, I do feel I don't feel comfortable, um, In addition to, um, you know, providing the, the HOA, um, reserve, but, uh, I guess to, you know, to try to ensure as much success as possible. I don't also want to. I guess I was trying to envision, you know, the scenario what would happen if they weren't able to, the owners weren't able to, um, you know, to afford it. I don't want us to go down that road. So in that sense, um, I definitely, I will be supporting this, um, motion as is, but I do feel that we need to continue to, um, you know, advocate at the state level. Look at the state housing legislation, see how it really applies to our city, and then, um, you know, offer our recommendations, um, for any revisions or changes for future legislation to our state legislators. So, um, that's something that I would like for us to, you know, be mindful of and monitor and continue to advocate for. So with that, uh, counselor, McAllister.

[03:44:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just had a one final question to my colleagues. I heard 5 council members were concerned about the community benefits. Um, But yet you're willing to go forward. So, You know, we have an opportunity to consider that or if we could, we could bifurcate it and bring it back to the council later, since it's the only part of a recommendation. It's not, it's unusual for me to see 5 people say they have concerns and yet you still move something forward. Is that something that people would be willing to take up on another issue past everything? Because I don't think it's part of the motion? It just, I don't know if it's included in there, but if that be something that people would consider.

[03:45:33] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I'll go back to the motion maker, council member Ramirez.

[03:45:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So I, I think the challenge I'm having is, you know, just given the circumstances, circumstances we're under now with the pandemic, people lose income and lose their jobs. And I don't want to be, you know, such, I don't want to find ourselves in a set of circumstances, maybe, you know, five, 10 years down the road, where one of the very low income BMR owners suffers some kind of. tragedy, right? A medical issue or job loss and is unable to pay the right away fees and loses their harm as a consequence. So while I'm, I'm not enthusiastic about the use of, of the community benefit funding, it, it strikes me as necessary to really make this work. Um, it's, you know, something that I think we, we will figure out in the implementation of BMR phase 2. I agree with the mayor, but I think, you know, talking, looking at opportunities to maybe stick some things at the state level will be helpful in this context with this project. I feel it's it's necessary.

[03:46:48] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, council member, Clark.

[03:46:51] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, and I agree. It's not that, um, I think we all feel that this is the best use of the June $50,000, but I think the staff has gotten the signal that, you know, this isn't something that we want to do long term, and then we hope it's part of the MR face too. You know, we can come up with ways to deal with this other than making these, these contributions, but we're also hearing from staff that, with these very low income units, that this is, uh, this is an issue, um, in other jurisdictions that we need to be aware of, and, and although this isn't the ideal way to handle it, this is the, the, um, long term, this is the best way to handle it in this particular case. Um, If we were talking about a $1000000 or something that would have a significant public community benefit in the San Antonio area, then I might feel a little bit differently, but we're talking about $250,000. Um, you'd be lucky if that buys you a new signal somewhere, um, you know, uh, it's just not worth, um, I, I think it's very clear that we aren't setting precedent here. We're going to use community benefit money to capitalize HOAs. But I think in this case, um, you know, given what staff has heard and what they're recommending. You know, I think as long as we're committed to addressing this in the future, um, from a long-term strategy perspective that, it's fine to move this forward in, in the best way that we can because taking that $250,000 and spending it somewhere else kind of, signal or whatever $250,000 buys you, um, is, is not worth the risk of, of those, um, those units ultimately. Um, going on the folks in those units going under and being in the position where they're foreclosed upon or or something worse. So I think in this case, it's it's just best to go with the top recommendation.

[03:48:39] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other comments? If not, can we get a roll call vote, please?

[03:48:46] City Clerk: Thank you. Council member Clark.

[03:48:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[03:48:49] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[03:48:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:48:52] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[03:48:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No,

[03:48:54] City Clerk: council member McAllister.

[03:48:57] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, begrudgingly, yes.

[03:49:00] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[03:49:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[03:49:03] City Clerk: Vice Mayor May.

[03:49:06] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:49:07] City Clerk: May I be Koga?

[03:49:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I, thank you.

[03:49:09] City Clerk: Thank you. Motion carries 61 with no abstentions.

[03:49:15] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, staff. Thank you, uh, applicants. We will go on to the next item. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my go the item. 6.3. The 600 Ellis Street Office Development Project, and again, before we start with the presentation, do any council members wish to make disclosures such as contacts with the applicant or site visits? Yes, council member Mattachek.

[03:49:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Uh, I had a site visit on my own.

[03:49:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Council member of Ramirez.

[03:49:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I uh, will disclose that I spoke with the applicant.

[03:50:03] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, vice mayor.

[03:50:07] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, the, The applicant reached out, um, I wasn't able to connect with them, but I just wanted to disclose that and I did visit the site. Thanks.

[03:50:17] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Council member Hicks. Can you unmute yourself, please, council member Hicks?

[03:50:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: There. Okay, thank you. I communicated with the applicant via email. I don't know if I have to disclose that actually.

[03:50:38] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I believe all contact is needs to be discussed.

[03:50:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Council member McAllister.

[03:50:43] Councilmember John McAlister: I have had in communications with the applicant.

[03:50:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And Council member Clark.

[03:50:50] Councilmember Chris Clark: I just visited the site, um, and exchanged emails with the applicant, but we didn't meet.

[03:50:57] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And thank you and I did receive an email from the applicant. I did not have an opportunity to connect with him, however. So with that, we will go into our staff presentation by senior planner, Margaret Netto. Welcome to Meadow. Miss Nedo, are you? There we go. Great.

[03:51:24] Senior Planner Margaret Netto: Good evening, mayor, and council members. My name is Margaret Netto. As noted, this is a request for a planned community permit and development review permit for a new 259,000 square foot, 6 story office building and 8 level parking structure. And 80,000 square foot transfer of development rights, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 23 heritage trees. And the determination that an initial study of environmental significance has been prepared located at 600 illustrate. Um, this is Slide 2, the project location, the approximately 4.45 acre site is located on the southwest corner of Fairchild Drive in Ellis Street, in the East Wisman Precise Plan area. The project site is in the northern portion of the East Woodman precise plan area. We're here where the star is located. Um. It's um, in the employment character area. The site is designated as high intensity. This is the proposed layout of the site. The project proposes to redevelop the project site by demolishing 2 existing office buildings and construction of the 6 story office building in the 8 level parking structure. An existing 15,000 square foot office building would remain on the site, which is near the corner of Ellis and Pairchild Drive. The office building and parking structure would be connected via, um, a multilevel, suspended bridge, the parking structure would serve both the repose, office building, and the existing office building. Surface parking spaces would also be available to office occupants and visitors and are located between the new and existing office buildings. And along the driveway from Ellis Street. 2 points of vehicular access to the project would be provided, one from Fairchild, which is right here and this other one from Alice. The architectural elevations, the architectural design of the reposed building and parking structure is modern, and the site layout and massing composition were designed to respond to the site's context, orientation, and boundaries. The design utilizes a simple form, the deep overhangs, of the floor slabs at each level. The building mass was previously adjusted based on the initial feedback from the DRC and the APC to better emphasize the linear expression of the deep overhangs, which are the prominent accent feature of the building. Modifications of the building, including changes to the varying depths of the building overhangs. To consistent depth of 5 feet on all sides of the building have been incorporated. This is the parking structure. As designed with the mesh screening and artful pattern texture to the exterior wall portions, add visual interest and complement the new building. Trees have been incorporated to the to provide a soft landscape buffer. And this is the key corner or that existing building will remain. Um, part of the East Wisdom precise plan, project should design key corners. With enhanced landscape design and or enhance architectural features such as emphasize entries, distinctive corner articulation, visually interesting materials. The project is in compliance with these requirements. The applicant has work to make the key corner appear distinctive and welcoming through planting. Of a large 40 inch box, Palo Verde tree as a focal point on the corner. Which is right here. Adding in sculptural seating, pedestrian scale landscaping, and special paving material. The project details, the open space. The project proposes 46,464 square feet of open space, which conforms to the East Wisman open space requirement. Repose project includes common usable open areas in multiple locations, including a private outdoor dining area, adjacent to the main entrance, an entry plaza, a private zen garden, key corner, passive open space, and a rooftop terrace. 23 heritage trees are proposed to be removed. They're in poor to fair condition. They're proposed to be removed, um, because of their health or within, or because of their location, within the footprint of the reposed buildings, or site, or site improvements. A 100 replacement trees are to be proposed. Um, the development agreement. To allow for flexibility and timing and phasing of this project. The applicant is requesting a development agreement. The requested term for the development agreement is 7 years, $200,000 public benefit fee, plus an additional $200,000. The AppleCant has agreed upon as a response to a request. And payment of future ace was a precise plan impact fee at 3.200000 for a total of 3.65 million. The extended development approval time approval time is being requested by the applicant. Due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. This project is also one of 7 Los Altos, school district, TDR projects authorized by the city council to participate in the program with the purchase of 80,000 square feet. This purchase will provide 10000000 in the new funds for the LASD project. Um, also, an initial study of environmental significance was prepared to evaluate whether any new environmental effects would occur as a result of this project. Um, which were not examined under the program EIR, and whether any new mitigation measures would be required. The initial study prepared for the project found that the new office project and associated improvements would not result in any new environmental impacts beyond those evaluated in the EIR. Um, also on October 21st, the EPC unanimously recommended approval for this project. One person spoke and expressed concern with bicycle safety in the area, and the protection of the migration path for birds. Um, Those issues have been resolved. And um, the last slide, the recommendation, staff recommends, they approve the initial study. We adopt a resolution for the planned community permit and development review permit, and also to introduce the ordinance for the development agreement, and also, um, I would suggest amending the development agreement to add the additional $200,000. That concludes my slide presentation. Also tonight, I have with me um, Carol Near and Christy Wise, I'm David G. Powers and Associates, and Ryan Caldera, and Robert Eccles from Pier and Pierce, to answer any questions, and the applicant is also here to make a presentation. Thank you.

[03:59:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Ms. Netto. So, uh, let me see if we can bring the applicant and promote the applicant, city clerk. Mr. Steele.

[03:59:12] City Clerk: Yes, there I see. On their way in now.

[03:59:14] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you.

[03:59:17] Tim Steele: Good evening.

[03:59:19] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yep, welcome.

[03:59:20] Tim Steele: Can you hear me?

[03:59:21] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes.

[03:59:22] Tim Steele: Yes, okay. Thank you. Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Tim Steele, and I'm the senior vice president of real estate. For the Sobrano Organization. I wanted to thank Margaret and staff for her presentation tonight. We are pleased to be here and present to you our new office redevelopment project that is located within a recently adopted East Westman precise plan area. As staff indicated, we were granted gatekeeper roughly at the same time the city initiated the new precise plan process and been working with staff on our project now in parallel to the development of that plan. For over the last 2 years. Though muted by the current pandemic, I have to say we're very excited to bring this precise plane conforming high quality design project forward for your consideration. Can we start showing the slides here? Okay. Are you Tommy going to put that up for me?

[04:00:19] Unknown Speaker: Yes

[04:00:20] Tim Steele: Okay. You can move to the 2nd slide real quick. I'm just going to touch on a couple highlights, and then we're going to move to having Tom, the architect, uh, Tanya, uh, make the presentation on the project, but quickly, um, As I mentioned, we were approved for gatekeeper in 2018, uh, under our commitment to purchase 80,000 square feet in TDRs from LESD. We were in full compliance with a recently adopted East Westman precise plan. Our landscape home space exceeds the plan's requirement by nearly 20%. Our project utilizes good gateway building design, Project Incorporates sustainable lead platinum design. It also incorporates bird safe design. And the project team has had 3 DRC meetings, study sessions with both the EPC and council. And then recently, as staff indicated, We had EPC unanimously recommend this project to you for approval. Our architect is studios and has been with us from the beginning of this process. However, I do want to mention that our collective friend, David Salvovara, was the initial principle. I wanted to acknowledge all of his hard work and leadership and bringing this project forward. However, he recently retired, and his colleague and partner, Thomas Yee. As taken over as the lead architect will be presenting the project to you tonight. Our core design team is also here, including our landscape architect and our civil engineer, and are available to assist and answer any questions you may have following Tom's presentation. With no further delay, Tom, please walk us through the project.

[04:01:59] Thomas Yee: Thank you, Tim. As Tim mentioned, I'm Thomas G, a principal with studios architecture and mayor, um, uh, Beacoba and members of the council and staff. Thank you for the time to present the project. As Margaret mentioned, the site is located on the northern part of the east, a wisdom precise plan area in the employment, uh, character area, uh, fronted by one, uh, highway 101, 237 If you can see my cursor on the lower left, lower right, excuse me, and then 85 on the west. And the site located there. Uh, as the site is located uh, along uh, uh, Fairchild and Ellis, one on one is to the right on this plant. You can see the site, a grade out here, 2 existing buildings will be removed, uh, to make way for the new development, uh, the building on the corner at 636. Ellis will remain as a critical part of the plan. You can see from a pictures of the existing site, uh, various views from Ellis and Fairchild, along Fairchild, and then you can see the building here on the right, that uh, the 636 Ellis building, which we propose to retain. A critical, as Tim mentioned, you know, when we started the project, my partner, David, um, we started when the East Wisman precise plan was also starting, as we developed a plan, working with city staff. We developed a plan that really supported and is integral to the goals of the East Wisman precise plan area. And so our site, which is located here, uh, you can see it's uh, well connected to, uh, VTA stations, uh, uh, uh, uh, with the middlefield uh, station here, uh, uh, in the station off of 101 here. You can also see that the bikeway systems that are developed as part of the East Westman Plan area are also a critical part of our plan and we're making way and accommodations for those plans in our master plan. Uh, this is the landscape plan. Uh, want to want us to the right. Fairchild is here on the right, uh, Ellis Street is over here on the on the lower part of the project. And you can see the uh, 6 story office building uh, over here on the right, and the parking garage, located on the south, away from view from 101 and away as much as possible from view from Ellis Street. Um, One of the key aspects of our plan was to eliminate this driveway, uh, the existing driveway onto Fairchild, what that did was, uh, gave us the ability, uh, from a landscaping point of view, to create a contiguous frontage along Fairchild to reinforce the edge of Fairchild with landscaping, reinforce the bicycle path, improve safety, create a main entrance off of Ellis Street toward the, uh, new building, which is, uh, again, a requirement by the East Wisman precise plan, then a secondary entrance off of Fairchild toward the site. We also have some storage water treatment areas here. Here, and here. And so that also follows the city of Mountain View's requirements for treatment of those areas. Um, Another aspect of the plan, uh, was was, excuse me, was the key corner, uh, again, a critical part of the East Whisman precise plan. The key corner is a very important mark for the site and reinforces the existing building and makes a linkage to the new project. Another aspect was the development of usable outdoor open space. Not only do we have landscape areas in excess of the requirement, for the east wisdom precise plan, but we also have active areas in outdoor area, adjacent to what could be a future dining facility, a passive open spaces here, like a Zen garden along the west side of the site. And then a bus drop off areas, and another landscape zone here. So again, these are all major improvements to the to the way the site is developed along the a precise plan requirements. In terms of the building massing, uh, we, we set about locating, as we said, the building along, uh, Fairchild, we, we made it orthogonal to Fairchild, and also, uh, as a gateway site to, to make it a, a visible from 101. The inflection in the setbacks here, created this opportunity for an entrance to the building on the east side, and of course, the parking garage, on the south side, away from view of the major roadways. You can see the massing here. Fairchild is here, the 6 story office building here. The 8 story parking garage over here, the inflection and the building mass. Again, the precise plan calls for a variety of building masses, inflection points like this. The bridge is a lower element to connecting, connecting the garage with the main building and the upper terraces. There are always of modulating and giving the building some scale. And then, of course, you can see the existing building on the corner here. Uh, we also uh, did a number of uh, uh, solar studies and sun studies on the building. This represents a series of about 20 to 25 studies we did over different times of the year, different times of the day to minimize the heat load on the building with use of the horizontal floor extensions to shade the building. Uh, the building is uh, is going for lead platinum. And and uh, this study, along with the building design, helps us reduce the heat load uh, on the building, and you can see here, uh, 2 views of the same elevation from the east, looking at the, the office building without landscaping, just to show you the building massing, and the way the 1st floor is, is modulated to create the main entrance, and then with landscaping. This is a more developed view of the main entrance to the building. of looking from the 636 building. Uh, this is the west side of the of the site. Showing the office building here, the bridge connector, and the parking garage. And you can see also the full of a take, array panels on top of the roof of the garage, be completely covered to provide under the lead platinum, provide energy storage on site, energy generation and storage on the site. And then this is a view from 101 looking toward Fairchild looking at the building as a gateway project. This is a critical part of the development of East Westman, uh, employment, uh, character area. So they have a building that's distinctive as a gateway, uh, uh, a piece uh, for the city of Mountain View. And then finally, another more developed rendering of the east side of the building showing the entrance from from the south, east a corner of the site, looking back toward the building. So we're very excited about this project. Uh, we think it's going to be a, a great addition to uh, the East Whisman, uh, East Whisman area, the city of Mountain View, a great gateway, uh, entrance to the city of Mountain Way, Mountain View, along 101, and uh, uh, we're, we're happy to have worked with staff and, uh, DRC and EPC to, to get then study sessions, of course, with, with city council to get to this point. So, again, it's been an interesting path and we're excited to have a discussion about the project today. So thank you very much.

[04:09:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[04:09:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: We will now go into questions from council members for either staff or the applicant. You have any questions from council members? Yes, council member McAllister.

[04:10:04] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, um. And I remember when this project was a couple 2 uh, 2 level uh, buildings in a small group, saving. But hey, my question is, uh, concerning the development agreement, uh, So they're asking for 7 years. So could somebody walk me through that development agreement and the funding that they're doing and how's it tied into Los Altos school district receiving their money?

[04:10:35] Unknown Speaker: Uh, Council member McAllister, maybe Margaret, you can share your slide that shows the, um, the key features of the DA.

[04:11:04] Staff Member Margaret: Excuse me. So, council member McAllister, the key features, um, are the 7 years, a total of 3.450000 and an additional 200,000, um, that the applicant has added since the drafting of the report. For a total of 3.65 million.

[04:11:33] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, how much of the 3 points? The 3.45 million. Isn't that some a requirement of something?

[04:11:40] Staff Member Margaret: No. Um, they're not, uh, none of none of the term items in this, um, um, in the 3.65 is a current requirement. Uh, we do anticipate in the future that we might develop, but that we would develop a nexus fee, but we couldn't charge it today to the project. And we took the opportunity of the DA to be able to estimate and apply it. So that's 3.25 million. We wouldn't have received otherwise.

[04:12:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, so this is. Okay, maybe I was looking at that $200,000 and maybe I didn't fully understand the 3.45 million. But, um, Normally, uh, We've had uh, we had another development that we were sitting on agreements a while back a couple years ago. And the council was concerned about the 7 years. Um, And that was a long time to have that development agreement going there. versus the, there's 4 years is your, is the normal development agreement. Or is that customer, should I say normal or customary?

[04:12:46] Staff Member Margaret: Um, I think it depends on the project. So in this case, if you have a very large project that's going to be phased out, it could be even more than that. In this case, we timed it with, um, Um, with, with the general timing was in, in keeping with the sunsetting of the transfer of development rights, Um, just to give some certainty to the applicant that they would be able to build it because they would be purchasing, Um, those TDRs from the school district for a total of uh, 10.4 million.

[04:13:21] Councilmember John McAlister: So when, okay, so the, the 10.400000 that's, they, they need to pay that when they get entitlements and will they be getting entitlements tonight?

[04:13:31] Staff Member Margaret: They'll get entitlements tonight. Um, they would have to show proof of that before they apply for the building permit that they've purchased those before they can start building. But I understand that they have a separate agreement with um, the Los Altos school district. To purchase it within, um, I think 2 years.

[04:13:54] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, thank you.

[04:13:57] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And some are Hicks.

[04:14:01] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I have 2 questions. One is about the parking management program and whether I also talked to the applicant briefly about this, what I've noticed downtown is when we have parking structures in underground parking, um, many of the employees at the offices don't park there. Instead, they park on the streets. Now, this is a somewhat different neighborhood, but I have the same concern, and when I've talked to developers, other developers, they say that they could work on better parking management, you know, some maybe some missing incentives or rules to employees to actually have them use the parking structure, underground parking rather than park on the streets. So, um, so my 1st question is whether you would be, um, willing to implement some of those new rules so that the pregnant structure is is used to the max by employees and whether you have any ideas for how to do so.

[04:15:10] Applicant Tim: I assume, I'm sorry, uh, this is Tim. I assume you're pointing that question to the applicant?

[04:15:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I am, yes. Thank you.

[04:15:19] Applicant Tim: Um, The Eastwestern Precise Plan area has a um, very aggressive uh, trip cap. And so the 1st focus of the tenant, uh, tenant management plan, if you will, is going to be to encourage their employees 1st to take public transit or other alternative transportation opportunities before they drive to the site. Uh, the parking on site, there's no allowed street parking, so, uh, and there isn't going to be any available adjacent street parking, uh, per the conditions of approval. And our parking ratio for here is lower than historical levels for an office R&D project. So the burden's going to be on us with the penalties that are in place and the restrictions and goals of the TDR plan requirements. So, I think we're going to have the tenants going to be focused more on reducing trips than accommodating parking. However, there is a possibility to add if the parking is insufficient in the garage, uh, we can, they can. The tanner can, um, address that by as much by of 20% additional if they were to implement a valet parking kind of program. So if there is an ongoing problem, that this is not accommodating and they're not taking enough public transportation, uh, and there is an ongoing problem, there is an ability to go as high as another 20% by implementing that kind of a program.

[04:16:56] Applicant Representative: Yeah, if I may add to what Tim mentioned, the way the building and the garage are designed, they're they're actually connected. They're physically connected. So there's a secured entrance to the garage for the office building tenants. So that, uh, folks uh, entering the garage, um, uh, will be entering the site will be encouraged to use the garage because unlike other developments where the garage is separated physically from the building, with open space. But the bridge part of the building connects the 2 together. So I think the convenience of linking the 2 will encourage people to, you know, park in the garage, you know, to mention there isn't any street parking adjacent to the site anyway, but again, uh, we try to overcome some of those, uh, possible issues in the future by making the garage and the building uh, act almost as one entity.

[04:17:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, probably no street parking in the area sells that. That's the hammer.

[04:18:03] Applicant Representative: It is a big hammer, yes.

[04:18:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, um, My, my 2nd question is that I saw, I love, I appreciated a lot of the open space and a lot of the things you're doing with it and I won't go through line items, but, um, I did see a lot of grass, what appeared to be grass area and I was wondering if you would be willing to switch to native landscaping. Or maybe that's what it is and it's just the picture appears that way.

[04:18:31] Applicant Representative: I think it's the picture and I'm going to ask James Stockham, can you just, uh, uh, join this, uh, address this question, please? For Paul, Letierry.

[04:18:47] Unknown Speaker: I just brought, um, James into the meeting.

[04:18:50] Applicant Representative: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. James. James.

[04:19:03] Unknown Speaker: Actually, I'm not seeing him. I'm sorry, could you tell me the other person that you would like me to bring in?

[04:19:10] Applicant Representative: Paul Letierry?

[04:19:12] Unknown Speaker: Okay, one moment. Thanks again.

[04:19:16] Unknown Speaker: Oh, there's James. Where's James?

[04:19:20] Unknown Speaker: My own? Yes, we can hear it.

[04:19:22] Applicant Representative: Okay, yeah. Oh, James, did you finally made it? Go ahead.

[04:19:26] James Stockham: I got booted off there. Yeah. So visually, it does look green as in grass, but it is all shrubs, and we would certainly entertain a quantity of native shrubs, and we have to be careful with a certain amount of native shrubs just of how they winterize, but that is certainly something, especially along a Fairchild frontage, where we've activated, uh, the sort of botanical garden-esque walk along the way with um, interpretive signage, educational opportunities. So yeah, there is no turf on the project.

[04:19:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you.

[04:19:58] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, cancel another check.

[04:20:02] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um. My question was, 0 yeah. Um, I know the east was my precise plan is consistent with the market field, comprehensive land use plan. But given the increase in height and density of this project, because of the LASD PDRs, is this project consistent with the Moffat Field Comprehensive land use plan for heightened density?

[04:20:35] Unknown Speaker: Yes, council member Mattachek, um, it is. It is actually outside of the, um, flight path of the Moffatt field, um, comprehensive plan. So it does meet the density and height requirement.

[04:20:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, but it's within the noise contours of the market field.

[04:20:55] Unknown Speaker: Yes, it is, but it still, it still meets the density room. I mean the requirement.

[04:20:59] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, and then, let's see, on page, let's see, I have seen the question about, um, where would I find the plant palate? And, um, I did see that, but what's missing is the quantity. And the only one I had a question about was um, how many grape myrtles? I found exactly a big tree. Does anybody have that data?

[04:21:33] Applicant Representative: Yeah, I could probably have landscape architect probably answer that quicker than I can. James or Paul?

[04:21:41] Landscape Architect: There are several crepe myrtles that are being transplanted, if that's what you're referring to. existing today.

[04:21:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I'm looking on page. You get the page number for you. It's L M L 02. And there's a table that shows, um, the plant palette. And I didn't think it. Um, Yeah. So it's it doesn't say if they're transplanted or if they're new. It says...

[04:22:12] Landscape Architect: Right. There are some new ones introduced to sort of marry that oldness and news. And part of that approach is that, uh, you're right, they're not large trees. And part of bird safe design is placing trees of that size against buildings. So you sort of, um, hit that range where there's some bird safe design built into that.

[04:22:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, do you know how many in total cricket models there are?

[04:22:39] Landscape Architect: Don't have the number right now. Okay. I can get that for you.

[04:22:46] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: That's okay. Um, that's it. Thank you.

[04:22:51] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other questions from council members? And I will open this up for public comment. If you are in the 10 day box and would like to make a comment, please raise your blue hand. If you are on the phone, please press star 9 and uh, we have, um, a fair superintendent right there. If you can unmute yourself, please, and let's go 2.5 minutes.

[04:23:21] LASD Superintendent: All right, good evening again. Um, it's, uh, I appreciate being able to talk to you on this, on this item. I want to thank the council members for the opportunity to speak. I'm going to start by acknowledging and thanking you for your role in enabling us, LASD, to acquire property in Mountain View, for a new school, largely through the TDR program you implemented. The transfer of unused development rights has enabled us to purchase a site and plan for a school in an area where land is very expensive. While responding to the pandemic has required most of our attention for the last 8 plus months. Planning for design and construction of the new school has continued, beginning with a master planning in collaboration with city staff. Our mutual partnership in this program along with our joint use facilities agreement will benefit the children and community of Mountain View for decades to come. Tonight you have before you one of the developers, Sobrato, who is purchasing development rights from us for their proposed project. Sobrato wishes to purchase 80,000 square feet at our price of $130 per square foot for a total sale price of $10400000 as was mentioned previously. Because of the importance of this transfer of rights to our ability to utilize the property we purchased at the corner of showers in California in the San Antonio Precise Plan area. We do urge you to approve this project. Thank you for your consideration tonight.

[04:24:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. We'll go to Alex Brown. Please unmute yourself.

[04:24:57] Alex Brown: Oh, Tim, long time no see. Miss you, man. I appreciate that this is trying to get to the platinum that you're focusing on bird safe design, but there's got to be a way to make a building passively cool that isn't just taking a square and adding the staggered wings on it. This building is not interesting or attractive. Come on. Also, the only section of it that has, you know, something that could be attractive, if you go back to slide 12 on Tom Slides. Uh, you put trees right in front of. So you have something that's carved out that could have a lobby with interesting art or something that's visible, and then you can't see it from a distance because it's surrounded by trees. I know you can do better than that. Thank you.

[04:25:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Anyone else wishing to speak on this item? I don't see any more hands, so close public comment, bring it back to council for deliberation and impossible motion. Would anyone like to? Oh, counselor my Clark, thank you.

[04:26:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think given the, um, Given the um, the vetting this has had, um, through through staff and the committees and and the unanimous recommendation from EPC, I'll go ahead and move the stock recommendation, which includes, um, that we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View. Conditionally approving land community permit and development review permit for a new 259,000 and 95 square foot, uh, 6 story office building and 8 level parking structure. 80,000, um, uh, 80,000 square feet of transfer development rights from 2535 California Street, 506 Showers Drive to $600 Street. In relation to the Los Alto school district, TDR program, and heritage tree removal permit, to remove 23 air industries located at 600 L Street, to be read entitled only for the reading wage attachment to the council report. And 3, we introduced an ordinance of the city of Mountain View approving a development agreement. For 600 L Street and 636 L Street Mountain View, California, to rent out only for the reading wave and for the 2nd reading for December 8th, 2020 attachment 3, the council report, and the um, the um, staff recommended modification. Um, which changed the amount, um, Christian, you might have to help me. Yes, I the amount. Yep.

[04:27:34] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I can help you with that, uh, council member Clark.

[04:27:37] Councilmember Chris Clark: It's on page 10 of the development agreements section 3.one A, which formerly referred to an amount of $200,000 would change to $400,000.

[04:27:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so we'll incorporate that into the motion as well.

[04:27:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Counselor Ramirez.

[04:27:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, 2nd the motion.

[04:28:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Thank you. Council member at a check. I guess we'll go into comment says there's a motion in a 2nd by Council member Clark and Council member Ramirez.

[04:28:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, I just had a couple of comments. Um, I actually agree with the um, comment from the public about the architecture. Um, I didn't think this was as nice as it could be. Um, I was kind of surprised. I think it's kind of, um, playing, um, and I was looking for something more interesting. Um, I saw a comment about the bridge connector, having worked in a um, building that had one of those. It's kind of interesting, the unintended consequence of it. While people will park in the parking structure, because there isn't, um, street parking or much surface block parking. And if you look on the 3rd floor, you will drive very quickly through that parking structure to get to the 3rd floor entrance to the building. And if you work on the 1st or 2nd and you are trying to back out of your space, Watch out because people speed in these parking lots. So, um, I don't know if there's a way to, um, address that, but it certainly surprised me how quickly people go because they know they want to get to the floor where they can enter the building so they don't bother looking for a parking space on any other floor. Um. But they do park in the in the parking structure as opposed to the street. Um, so, um, if it was left up to me, I think I'd take that out, but I don't think that's, um, a change we're going to make here tonight. But I will support the motion. Thanks.

[04:29:46] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other comments?

[04:29:50] Unknown Speaker: Um, yes, I would just add, uh, I agree with Counselor Meter check. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the, the look, the design. Um, I'm not a big fan of 8 story parking garages. Um, we actually turned down one a long time ago, it was a mini parking structure buildings, um, in a row, um, but in light of, um, where we are with this project, I will go ahead and uh, uh, support the motion.

[04:30:19] Unknown Speaker: My snare. I just, I just wanted to ask, uh, the applicant had said that, you know, they might pursue a type of phasing for this project. And so I would just ask that if that's the direction that they can, they go kind of dependent on how things are navigating the pandemic. It would be nice to both update staff and council as that goes along.

[04:30:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. And council number hicks?

[04:30:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I'm just going to agree with that. I will be supporting the motion. I wanted to agree with the other folks who commented that I find the architecture a little cold and I was hoping for something nicer as in East Wisman and elsewhere in Mountain View. Um, but I will be supporting them much.

[04:31:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other comments? If not, can we get a roll call vote, please?

[04:31:18] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: I'm sorry, council member Clark.

[04:31:21] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yep.

[04:31:22] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Council member Hicks.

[04:31:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[04:31:24] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Council member, Matt, check.

[04:31:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[04:31:27] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Council member McAllister.

[04:31:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes.

[04:31:29] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Council member Ramirez.

[04:31:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[04:31:32] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Ice Mayor May. Vice American May,

[04:31:38] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: I'm sorry. Yes, thank you.

[04:31:39] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Thank you. May Abby Koga?

[04:31:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Bye.

[04:31:43] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Thank you, Mission Carrie 70 with no abstensions.

[04:31:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you very much, Ms. Netto, and staff and applicants. Thank very much. Thank you. We will now go in onto item 7 council staff committee reports. Are there any reports, comments by council members? Yes, council number McAllister.

[04:32:11] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, you know, uh, You're hearing a lot of bit about measure B and uh, the potential of the 10 year funding that would uh, affect a lot of cities and uh, So go a lot of it going to BART. And so I just want to let you know that the, Our colleagues in small cities are speaking up publicly, there's an article you'll probably, if you notice the VTA Daily Moose coverage. There's a headline says, don't cheat us again. Officials outrage, it's VTA plans to slash road repair funding to pay for BART extension. It was an update in the Mercury news today. So, uh, You'll hear a lot about it from your mayor and myself that we're going to be advocating hard to make sure that the funding is not diverted to, and Joe submitting, supervisor Joe submitting. He's leading a big charge on it too. that if you go and talk to your regional, other, meetings that you go to, make sure you're bringing up because it affects your roadways, it grades, grades crossing. It grades S 0 85. It's operations. It's a full cross the board. And for the next 10 years, Bart would get all the money except for pedestrian and bikes. They would get a small port of operations. And we want to, we want to stop it now before it goes to the board because staff has this thought that, um, It doesn't need a super majority to convert funds for, let's say, hey, we're going to take money away from grade crossings or SR 85 and we're going to put in operations or we're going to put in the sunny San Jose or something like that. So, uh, it's very important. So wherever you see in other elected officials, Start ringing the bell, start saying, no, no, no. I get to say no on December 3rd that, and this Thursday, another committee, I'm going to say this is not good for us. So, uh, just letting you know that uh, it's out there now, much more public than it was before, and everybody's support is requested. Thank you. City manager's also involved. So city managers are going to be talking to city managers, and the mayor's going to be talking to mayors, and I'm talking to BTA, small cities, and so everybody, if you can see something out there, get out there and say no. Oh, at dawn, to dawn. So, I mean, we got we got the whole city staff. Dawn's going to be on the VT packs up. I think that's about it.

[04:34:39] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Anyone else? Are you sure? Heidi. Well, get it, counseling or matter check.

[04:34:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. The National League of Cities Conference, virtual conference, um, is this week. And um, I attended a session today on um, airplane noise. And one of the things they mentioned was that there is going to be a resolution on supersonic aircraft. And I was wondering, I don't know who else is attending the virtual conference, but has somebody been designated as the voting member for the business meeting? Don't recall us designating anyone, city clerk, would you?

[04:35:31] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, council did not designate a voting member for the business meeting. We looked back just briefly before this meeting, and I didn't see a history of doing that, but I didn't get a lot of opportunity to spend some time looking, but I know we hadn't, we did not for this particular conference.

[04:35:50] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I need my Lisa Metachek. Are we able to do so, city attorney?

[04:35:58] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Normally, I believe, um, Those designations are made, uh, as a, uh, part of the regular agenda. So, uh, This would be, uh, unusual to take that action now. Um, and maybe I could ask the city clerk if I think there was another uh, item maybe on your consent calendar that designated a a voting member for another similar, a similar matter. I believe it was a league resolution. So that that, you know, would not have been agendized for tonight's discussion.

[04:36:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh yeah, I don't recall for NLC as designating a voting member, um, I guess my, my recollection is whoever is in attendance would be voting, but, uh,

[04:36:53] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, and then that, I don't know the history of this. So if that is the case, if that is the convention where somebody who's in attendance customarily votes, then that certainly could take place without a formal action tonight. I don't have that level of background on this. On this item though.

[04:37:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Can we look into this? And, um, would you be able to send a memo or email to the council if it is that someone is?

[04:37:26] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, what is the next when is the next session where this would take place? Wouldn't it be Friday?

[04:37:33] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, I think it's either Thursday or Friday. Unfortunately, I put on my calendar the meeting regarding resolutions because I don't know what the resolution says. Um, And so I need to find that out. So I put that meeting on my calendar, but I didn't put the business meeting on my calendar, but it's either Thursday or Friday. I can make it.

[04:37:57] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I will look into this and then coordinate with the city clerk and we will advise the council members who are attending and who is going to be in attendance again?

[04:38:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I'm not sure I can make that the exact time, but I am attending what I can, the NLC meeting.

[04:38:15] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: We'll follow up with you on that.

[04:38:17] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Sounds like Counselor McAllister's also attending. Is that right? Great. If you could follow up with both of them. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[04:38:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. and I wanted to follow up on the comments from Mr. James. Um, Is it possible to change the uh, voicemail on the abandoned vehicle hotline to say what is being enforced and what isn't? And actually, I think he raised a good point about, um, the boats. Um, I know we're not enforcing, um, you know, passenger cars or oversized vehicles, um, that, you know, people are people are living in. But, um, both seems like a separate category, and there might be others, construction trucks or something that have been parked there a long time. Um, are those ones that we can continue to enforce the, um, abandoned vehicle, code on.

[04:39:18] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Council member Matachek. So I did um, confirm what the police chief that the line is working and um, like, like, I believe the usual process would be that someone would leave a voicemail. Um, letting PD know about the vehicle and so they can do that and they can also go through ASCIMV. But staff will be following up with Mr. Jeans about the boat. But yes, that that would be something that we would look into if a boat has been there for a while. We wouldn't just leave it there. We would just need to know about it.

[04:39:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I think his point about the line was the phone line is working and you can leave a voicemail, but the message that you get, um, from whoever recorded it, you know, says to, uh, leave the message, but it doesn't say we're not enforcing, um, aspects. So people leave a message, assuming that, um, it's going to be followed up on if it's like a passenger vehicle. And it's not because we're not enforcing that part of the abandoned vehicle code right now. So, the outgoing message to say something about, you know, um, we're not enforcing, It. But if you want to leave a message about something other than a car, you know, go ahead and do that for us to follow up on.

[04:40:41] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yeah, I'll follow up with the department about that council member Mattachet.

[04:40:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. That's it.

[04:40:48] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other requests or comments? Yes, council member clerk?

[04:40:56] Councilmember Chris Clark: Well, I was just, um, I don't want to steal your thunder, but were you going to mention the city association meeting, otherwise I was going to congratulate you.

[04:41:04] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. Thank you. Um, I was going to do a few things and include.

[04:41:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, I'll let you do that. Thank you.

[04:41:13] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Anyone else?

[04:41:14] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: It just followed up, the annual business meeting for NLC is Friday at 330.

[04:41:21] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. Um, let's see, I had a few things that, uh, Friday, several of us attended the grand opening of our newest park Evendale Park at 134 Evendale. Um, I hope that our residents, our community, will enjoy our newest park there. It was exciting to have 2 park openings in 2 weeks. Um, as mentioned by council member McAllister, I attended the VTA pack meeting where we did talk about measure B funds, um, as council members uh, should have received, um, the letter that we sent on behalf of the city, um, with our comments about the potential proposal to, um, to move funds to BART. Um, we continue to, um, yes, we continue to fight that effort. Um, I just, I was just thinking, I think it was back in 2010. Um, I, I believe it was another measure B, um, on BART funding BART operations, and I recall that election and that it won by, I think it was like 0.8%, and the city that put it over was actually Mountain View. And we received kudos at the time from the proponents. But in light of that, um, uh, I, you know, I, I just think it's really important for our community to, um, to rally and advocate for our fair share of funding, um, for our our needs here in the city. So, uh, let's continue to be vigilant um, on that. Um, I also, as thank you, thank you, council member Clark, for prompting, I attended the cities, association, uh, world board meeting, and we had a selection meeting, uh, where we, um, selected new, appointed new members to the Bay Area Air Quality Management district, and, um, the new members are Rich Constantine from Morgan Hill, the mayor, as well as Rob Brenney from the city of Los Gatos. For a bag, uh, we appointed Mesa Fly. from Los Altos. Um, these were appointments due to, um, council members turning out. And thank you, council member Clark, for your service on the A-Bag executive committee. So Misa will be taking council member Clark's position. And I was appointed to the MTC, the metropolitan transportation commission. Um, I'll be filling out the uh, an expired term of Genie Bruns from Los Altos for the next 2 years. So, uh, with that, um, are there any other comments? And if not, city attorney, is there a closed session report?

[04:44:08] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: No close session report tonight.

[04:44:10] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Wait. Thank you very much. So we will stand adjourned at 917 PM. Our next council meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 1st, 2020 at 430 PM. I would like to wish you all um, a happy Thanksgiving, uh, in light of us being in the purple tier. I ask that everyone please stay socially distanced. I know it's a hard time that we want to gather with family and friends, but please be mindful of where we are with the pandemic. Make sure that you wear your face coverings. Stay socially distanced, wash your hands, and um, please stay safe, but have a wonderful holiday. And thank you again to our city clerk, Lisa Netouche, for your amazing service. And so much.

[04:45:02] City Clerk Lisa Natusch: Thanks. I can't believe this is my last meeting. Thank you recently.

[04:45:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: We wish you well, and again, happy holiday to everyone, happy Thanksgiving, and we will see you in December. Thank you very much. Take care. Stay safe.