March 16, 2021 Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:32:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Executive order, N dash 20, dated March 17, 2020. All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference, with no physical meeting location. Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so. At mountain view.legistar.com or YouTube at mountain view.gov slash YouTube. And on Comcast Channel 26. As noted on the meeting agenda, members of the public may provide oral public comments during the public comment period for an item by signing up at Mountain View.gov slash CC underscore speakers or by phone by dialing 669-900-9128 and entering webinar ID 923-290-0069. Any emails received by 430 PM today were received directly by the city council. Emails received after 430 p.m. will not be read during the meeting, but will be entered into their record for the meeting. All votes will be taken by roll call vote. And I'll turn to our interim city clerk, Miss Vanderlinen, to take the attendance by roll call.

[00:33:56] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: I also member of a Koga.

[00:33:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[00:33:58] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member Hicks,

[00:34:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: here,

[00:34:01] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member Lieber.

[00:34:03] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Sure.

[00:34:04] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Manachek,

[00:34:06] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: here.

[00:34:07] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Showalter.

[00:34:10] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.

[00:34:11] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[00:34:13] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:34:14] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mayor Kameh.

[00:34:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:34:16] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Thank you.

[00:34:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. All council members are present, and we'll move on to our study session, which is our public safety advisory board applicant interviews. So on December 1st, 2020, the city council approved the scope and the formation of the public safety advisory board. Or P SAB, as we're calling it for short. At that time, the council determined that this body would act in a advisory capacity similar to other city advisory batteries, and would be tasked withholding public forums and providing input and recommendations to the police chief and city council on public safety matters, including development of community transparency efforts, and identifying best practices. Council also directed a check in from the board after one year. In addition, I want to thank the members of the Human Relations Commission, for the considerable amount of work, they devoted to planning and hosting for community listening forums, along with collecting written online feedback during the months of August through October 2020. Ultimately resulting in a written report on the engagement process and the findings. So during tonight's interview process, each applicant will be asked 2 questions, and the interview is set to be 5 minutes total per person. And I will be keeping time for that. So I'll take public comment at this point. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise head button in Zoom or press Star 9 on. And the interim city clerk will display the timer on the screen and I think kind of due to time constraints, if we could keep it to a minute and a half from saunter London, that would be great. Let me know when you're ready and I see 3 hands. Ready?

[00:36:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right. David Lewis?

[00:36:19] David Lewis: Okay, you can hear me now.

[00:36:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah.

[00:36:22] David Lewis: Okay, I have 90 seconds.

[00:36:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:36:27] David Lewis: Okay, let me go ahead then. Uh, thank you for listening to me. I'm the David Lewis. I'm the church chair of omnivo. been in Mountain Grew for 15 years. And I was really appalled at the city's consultant or there's or the city staff. We're all too willing to recommend eliminating quality of life as an important strategic priority for the city.

[00:36:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: David, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Right now, we're in the study session. We're taking public comment on the public safety advisory board, applicants.

[00:37:00] David Lewis: Okay, that's right. Okay, well, I'll do this fighter then.

[00:37:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, sorry about that. We're not on that agenda.

[00:37:05] David Lewis: No problem.

[00:37:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, no problem. Dana Petey?

[00:37:17] Dana Petey: Hi, can you hear me?

[00:37:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:37:19] Dana Petey: All right. Hi there, Dana Petey, Mountain View resident. Don't want to take up too much time. You've got important work to do tonight. I just hope that we can take a moment to mentally sort of calibrate our community's priorities for what this advisory board is set to do. I read over the applications actually, and I saw a lot of promises to heal divides and build mutual understandings, and that's definitely admirable and important, but I worry that it sort of puts the cart before the horse. First of all, healing the divide. It cannot and will not be accomplished through just outreach public engagement and officers in coffee shops. Community trust really requires transparency and accountability to the public. I think that fiscal responsibility is going to be especially important as our city is recovering from COVID with such a massive deficit. And I was disappointed. I looked at the PCAP website and I didn't see a single mention of looking at the police budget or just making sure we're getting our money's worth and making sure that the funding is responsible in that capacity. Um, and secondly, while there is a place for outreach and sharing information. I want to highlight that that work's already being done. We already have MVPDX facilitating education efforts. We already have the HRC running dialogues and community forums. We need to make sure that the P sub city resources are in areas that are not already being done. We can't spend more resources on work that's already happening. Please make sure that the resources for the city are truly in a direction that's honoring what city residents have been asking for since last June and that this is the work that applicants are prepared to do. Please make sure that they demonstrate that readiness in your interview tonight. Thank you.

[00:38:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Miriam, C.

[00:38:53] Miriam C.: Hi, uh, thanks. So I wanted to chime in. I agree with everything. Dana said, especially, you know, on the topic of fiscal responsibility and being willing to take a once to the budget. Um, I also wanted to highlight that this is really, this is an opportunity for Mountain View to be really innovative and to become leaders in public safety, you know, where we form this board and we have a moment to take a step back and review what we're doing and what we can do differently are new. Um, and I'm hoping that you look for peace ad members who are prepared and open to thinking critically about that. And sort of not just where we can make things a little bit better, but if there's anything we can do to really be leaders. Thank you.

[00:39:36] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Celine Danbertichi?

[00:39:42] Celine Danbertichi: Hi. Um, I'm Celine, with MV Cebra, uh, and also Los Altos for racial equity. I work in Mountain View. Um, thank you for creating the Peace Ab. It is extremely necessary. After the deaths of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. police reform is part of the national narrative. Um, but it's also a local issue. As you know, the HRC worked tirelessly to connect with community members. And there was feedback that MVPD could do better. HRC reported that the majority of experiences were negative, that they found, and almost a quarter people experienced domineering or bullying behavior from MVPD. Um, and a 5th of community members experience racial profiling and biased policing. So when it comes to healing the divide in the community, we should start there. Um, so I'm glad that the city wants to lead and to get this right. We don't need to wait for a tragedy, you know, on the scale of the death of George Floyd to do something. We should be proactive the way we are with this public safety advisory board. So I encourage you to think about what you want from this board. If you want police reform, you should approve applicants who clearly want police reform too. Thank you.

[00:40:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Kelsey, Joseph.

[00:40:51] Kelsey Joseph: Hi, yeah, um, I'm also with, uh, MPC Brett and just calling into, uh, at my support here as well, that I'm really grateful that we're doing something like this, and I want to make sure that we take full advantage of the opportunity we are gonna have with, um, bringing together a group of diverse community members to like think critically about, uh, where we're currently at. It'll be really disappointing if we don't end up seeing them recommend changes because like what's the point? Um, if that's the case. So I'd like to see that we look for people who are willing to think really critically about the current uh, state of things and uh, examine the budget and operating procedures and everything, um, from a community perspective. Thank you.

[00:41:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, so at this point, I see no other speakers. So I will bring it back to council. So, um, I had a process that I was hoping to share with my colleagues to see how they felt about it, but I know that there might be some discussion on the 2 questions. So, um, before we go into um, council feedback for the public, I'd like to read what those 2 questions are so they can hear it first. Um, and then I'll I'll turn to raised hands. So for the 2 questions that are proposed, question, one is, tell us about yourself and what unique perspectives or abilities you would bring to the public safety advisory board. For question 2, it's how do you think the public safety advisory board can make an impact on the relationship between the Mountain View Police Department and community members? So those are the 2 questions that were proposed for the 5 minute interviews. I'll take council feedback then before going into the process since I, uh, see a hand raised. Go ahead, counsel member Hicks.

[00:42:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I was wondering if we could make any of the questions a little more specific. Um, I, one thing I thought would be asking maybe what your 1st year priorities would be, or another would be asking, um, what this would be a quick question. So asking whether how many, if any, REI subcommittee meetings they attended or HRC listening forums. So those are a little more specific and it looks to me like council member Mattachek has some suggestions also for the questions.

[00:43:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council matrimatic.

[00:43:31] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So I appreciate the suggestions from council member Hicks. I think those are good. Um, I also, um, think it's always a, an interesting question to ask candidates. What do they think the role? Of the advisory body is that they've applied to. So what do you think of the role? Uh, of the PCAB is. And um, I kind of feel like question number one. Um, I feel like I've got, um, a good feel for that based upon the applications that they put together. Um, so I'm interested in uh, supplementing the information from the applications. Thanks.

[00:44:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So. Council Nevada Koga.

[00:44:22] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I I appreciate the suggestions. Um, I actually wanted to keep one. Maybe it doesn't have to be all of it, but um, particularly the part about, um, you know, what special skills are, what do you bring? What's specialty for what's special about you that you bring to the PCab. Um, and then in terms of the role, like, maybe they can include that as, you know, what is, what do you think the role is and how do you think PCAP can make an impact? Um, I, I think that's great to ask about HRC and, um, the other, Oh, REI. Um, you know, I, I actually, and I, I think it's listed in their applications, but those who participated in MVP, DX, is also a very notable, um, experience that I consider. So I would like to just, you know, make sure that that is also in the mix as we deliberate on who we want to choose. Thanks.

[00:45:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so how about I take a stab at incorporating the suggestions into the 2 questions. So for question one, maybe it can be. What unique perspectives or abilities, could you bring to the public safety advisory board and what do you feel like the role is? And then maybe in question two. How How do you think the public safety advisory? Maybe, Have you participated in any? City. Program or meeting? don't know. I trying to kind of distill, it's 5 minutes and we're already 5 minutes behind in our interviews. So I'm I'm open to to how we can put this forward. Counsel the room out a check.

[00:46:23] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. I think you can incorporate, uh, the questions about, have you attended, um, any of those meetings into question one, um, in terms, so what unique perspectives do you bring and have you participated in any of the meetings of the HRC or the REI subcommittee? And then I think in the 2nd one, you can say, um, what do you think the role of the piece app is? And how can you make an impact with the rest of the question?

[00:47:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Are colleagues comfortable with that? Council member Hicks.

[00:47:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it's got my, my purpose was to make it more specific, and I think it's gotten that way, so I'm fine with it.

[00:47:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so let's see if my my notes are correct. So, um, For question one, what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the public safety advisory board? And have you participated in MVPDX or attended an REI or HRC listening session? For question two? What is the role of PCAB and how can you make? Um, impact on the relationship between the Mountain Beach Police Department and community members. Does that sound okay? Okay, I'm seeing shaking heads and a thumbs up. Is that all right with everyone? Okay, all right. All right. So, um, before we begin our interviews, I think, It'd be helpful if we discuss the selection process, so we're all on the same page since we have quite a few applicants. So, um, to kick us off, I'd like to propose a process and open to dialogue on this as well. So after the interviews conclude, I was thinking each council member could share their top choices, and those can be up to 7 people. Um, and I will make sure that myself, the city manager, and our interim city clerk will keep a tally of everyone's choices. And then the applicants with the most votes would be formally appointed to the council. Um, For to a 4 year term. Um, of up to 4 people and the next candidates could be appointed to a 2 year term, which is up to 3 people. Um, And these these appointments would take place formally at the April 13th city council meeting. Um, I'm not sure how people feel about this process, but trying to, to make sure that we're all on the same page too. Um, yes, council member Lieber.

[00:49:07] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, mayor. Um, I just wanted to, um, recognize that one of the, the demographic issues that has come up as, uh, in the community is the overrepresentation of, um, context that, uh, Latino members of the community have with police. And uh, I wanted to recognize that, um, We have no candidates who are coming forward at this point. Um, who, um, have lived experience with it, um, with that situation, and, and I think that this was a major factor in what was identified by the, the HRC, um, so, I, I didn't raise it as a possible question before to ask the candidates that are coming forward tonight. Um, how they would represent the, um, the lived experience of the Latino community. Um, but I do think that we might possibly want to consider some additional targeted uh, outreach. So perhaps it would be best if I turned it over to our city manager, Miss McCarthy to answer, um, that question.

[00:50:29] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, mayor and council member. So, um, I believe it would be up to council to decide whether you want to, um, appoint a certain amount of members this evening and, uh, perhaps leave, uh, positions open, or you could appoint all of the members with the process that you just, uh, proposed mayor. So, um, really, it, it's up to council, um, You can also see, um, what the candidates say, um, in regards to council member leaders, uh, question if you wanted to add that part of it. So I think, um, you will have options here in terms of how you would want to move forward with, um, appointing folks for, um, doing an extra recruitment process. Thank you.

[00:51:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I think Council member Liebert, did that answer your question, shall we? I think this is just a tentative process I was proposing, as I know that we, um, you know, we, I just wanted us all to be on the same page as before we went forward. Um, but, uh, Vice Mayor Ramirez, do you have thoughts? I see your hand.

[00:51:50] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Oh, sure. Thank you, mayor. So I, I, share the concern that council member reliever, uh, brought up and it was something I, I had thought about mentioning after the interviews, but, um, I, I think as a, as an initial thought, I'm, I'm not inclined to, uh, go back out for a 2nd recruitment. Um, because 1st I think we, we have a pretty strong pool of candidates as it is and there's no guarantee that, uh, a member of the Latinx community will apply with a 2nd round of, of, uh, of recruitment. Um, but what, one way we might approach this is if there isn't majority support for 7 candidates, if we find ourselves with a vacancy, at the end, maybe we can use that opportunity, uh, to pursue a 2nd recruitment, but just, as a starting point, I think we should work with the pool that we have. Um, and uh, and if there's majority support for 7 candidates, uh, make an appointment. Um, but keep the option open in the events that we don't have majority support.

[00:53:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Thanks, thank you for your input. So, um, at this point. Hopefully, um, council members are okay with, um, after the interview's concluding, we can share our, our, kind of top choices and and I will tally and keep track of those. Um, and then we can get into the discussion about the issue that council member Lieber and the vice mayor, um, brought up, um, as we as we do that selection and deliberation process. Does that work? Okay. All right. So I think we'll start with our 1st interview, um, Kavita Ayer. She could be moved into the.

[00:53:40] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: She was Mayor Kimmei.

[00:53:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay. Hi, Kavita. How are you?

[00:53:47] Kavita Aiyar: Hi there.

[00:53:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi. Okay, great to see you. All right, I will start. My timer as soon as I start my question. Okay, here we go. So, uh, what, what unique, Perspectives or abilities would you bring to the public safety advisory board? And have you attended MVPDX, the REI, um, meetings or any of the HRC listening sessions?

[00:54:15] Kavita Aiyar: I'll answer the 2nd question first. So I attended a few REI meetings, um, and actually followed the progress and development of this, um, proposal for PCAB. I, um, was part of the HRC listening forums as well. I was in the 1st cohort of MVPDX and actually was elected ambassador and facilitator and just finished the 2nd cohort of MVPDX. I feel I'm uh, would be a great addition to PCAB because I'm already working with the MVPD. So out of the 1st 2 cohorts that I participated in. Ideas came up from concerns that different members of the cohort raised. So I'm already working with the police department to implement advances in community policing. So, for example, I'm working with the chief, because I'm a big believer because of my nonprofit experience that if you're in a position to serve, it's really important to ask the people who you are serving. How do you want to be served? and not just put things forward. So with that kind of mantra in mind. The chief and I have worked together to establish different parts of the community, uh, representing themselves in, um, advisory councils directly with the chief. So we already have kicked off a leaders of faith advisory council, which I organized, and I'm working with Captain Armando Especia to actually do a Hispanic community advisory council, and also a parents of students who interact with SROs, advisory council as well. The Mountain View PD, I feel, has been really open to my ideas, which I appreciate. And we are looking at also doing a series of meetings with neighborhoods, because sometimes the neighborhood council meetings with the full police force and the fire department every 2 years. Um, doesn't feel often enough. So we're trialing, actually, since I'm president of Cuesta Park neighborhood association. I get to use my community as a kind of as guinea pigs and we're going to be trying a neighborhood connection with the with the PD about crime statistics and trend statistics in in our neighborhood with the PD. We're also going to get an update on what neighborhood watch should look like in 2021. This is no longer the see something, say something days. This is um, it's very different. So I feel like I've had the experience with the MVPD so far. I've learned about them I found them willing to work and open and we're making things happen and advancing community policing. And to me, that's a very positive experience. And I want to bring that sense of optimism and can do attitude to peace app.

[00:56:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. So what is the role of the PCAB? And how do you think that the PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[00:57:06] Kavita Aiyar: Well, I really think PCAB is um, an opportunity um, for to be, um, a kind of a, a, a bridge between the police department and the community. We have clear community concerns already about SROs. We've seen what happened in Los Altos, and there's movement afoot to do that here about the discrepancy in traffic stops of people of color. And also, you know, are the police the right folks to respond to mental health calls. So there's already clear concerns from the community. I think the PCEB is a platform for folks to continue to express those voices for us to listen and learn and explore those and figure out how to make, um, the right changes to address those concerns. Um, so I really think PCAB can be a bridge, not only to building community and evol- actually evolving community policing, so Mountain View can be a leader in small city policing, but to address these community concerns directly and head on. Um, I don't think any of us should be shy about approaching these, um, issues and trying to get the right information, the data, and decide how to actually implement changes in mountain view. With community, um, to evolve community policing going forward.

[00:58:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. And you were able to do that with 30 seconds to severe. So I don't know if you've anything else. you'd like to leave us with.

[00:58:30] Kavita Aiyar: Oh, I've thrown down the gauntlet for the all you applicants who are watching now. So, um, I want to thank everybody for your time. Thank you for establishing this board. I'm hopeful I'll be on it and looking forward to making change together. Thank you.

[00:58:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. So I think we can go next to Michael Berman. There's a little delay, I'm sorry.

[00:59:09] Michael Berman: No problem.

[00:59:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hello.

[00:59:23] Michael Berman: Hey, I am so not excited to follow Kavita.

[00:59:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: That's great.

[00:59:29] Michael Berman: No, it's really excited to be here, actually.

[00:59:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Okay, well the clock starts now. What unique perspectives or ability would you bring to the PC app and have you participated in MVPDX, the REI meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[00:59:48] Michael Berman: So as I mentioned in my in my application, I do, I'm not going to bring to this, uh, to this role, this committee, uh, a ton of subject matter expertise and experience in public safety. Um, But what I would bring, is it a fresh perspective and, uh, you know, about a 20 year career in, in public education and workforce development, working with communities to bring together multiple stakeholders to, um, surface and analyze data, to build mechanisms for community collaboration, collaboration with other entities across regions, um, that my current role right now is I work on helping communities, stand up workforce development programs, and uh, educational programs that lead into jobs and do that globally around the world and also here at home. And so, uh, my perspectives, um, are, are, and a set of professional practices is what I would bring to this work, not necessarily, um, a ton of subject matter expertise. I have lived here for 15 years. I've, um, attended or watched the videos for a lot of the, um, REI meetings and the HRC meetings. Um, but I, I, I would also just want to kind of echo uh, what I heard, council member, leave her, say, I, I really appreciate it. It was like, let's attend to the makeup of this group of people. So I, I, I do have experience. I am trying to talk you out of bringing me on, but I am trying to say like, um, I bring a, I bring a fresh perspective, but if, if I am, uh, you know, I bring my background, but I do think it is really important that you take into consideration all the different kinds of people, um, and the voices that do need to be heard. I have experience in bringing together, stakeholders from multiple different kinds of communities and making sure, diverse, uh, viewpoints are heard, especially those that have been historically marginalized, that's been my work and uh, in education, workforce development, with an equity lens, um, and a lens of inclusion before I feel like we had the, a sort of mainstream language to talk about it. So I feel really comfortable and confident, bringing that perspective to this work and would be really honored to do so.

[01:02:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Uh, so what is the role of the P sub? How do you think that the public safety advisory board can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:02:20] Michael Berman: So I think that there's real potential here. Um, to have the PCA be a part of a, a movement to sort of reimagine public safety. Um, and as can be mentioned, to have us be, um, a leader in public safety and sort of community engagement and involvement, um, so I think primarily, uh, you know, one of the 1st orders of business for the PCAB is to make sure that we have mechanisms of place to gather and analyze data. So I think the HRC report, what the PCRC put together, um, was a really great start, but it's not nearly sufficient. So we really need to question and analyze, like, where are we getting our data from? How can we bring that together, be transparent about communicating it, and analyzing it using best practices and expertise? So I also think the piece of is responsible for, um, being a part of going out and soliciting, um, you know, expert advice and best practices. And I know that, uh, our REI has already, you know, recommended and we're starting to, you know, hire um, um, a researcher to help analyze some of that data. I think all of that is a really good start. But I see the peace ad in sort of the longer arc of how we can make long-term community transformation. Um, I'm a historian by like sort of study, and so if we think about systemic inequality and how it gets entrenched and realized in a community like Mountain View or any community in the world, there's historical antecedents, it takes a long time for those structures to be in place and that inertia to take hold. We have to think about like what are both the short term and the long term approaches to address that inequality, and I think the peace app can be a part of that. And I really do mean a part of that. I think another really important role for the PCF is to collaborate with other organizations. You know, one of the participants earlier. I think I think her name was Dana mentioned, like, it's not clear exactly what the remit of the PCAB is, and I really would want to think about being very intentional and saying, this is what the PCAB does to complement and support the work of the REI, the HRC, um, the MDPD, right? And the other terrific community organizations that are already operating. So how can we, um, Support and complement that, not supply anything that's happening. So that's what I see as the role of peace app. And then as committee members. We are all responsible for making sure that we are very intentional in going out and soliciting those diverse points of view, making sure that they're heard. But grounding everything in that data, um, and being very intentional transparent. It's my process. Thanks.

[01:05:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Sorry, the timer went off one time I went off. I didn't have my timer in front of me.

[01:05:12] Michael Berman: No, no, no, no problem. No problem. Thank you all.

[01:05:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. appreciate it. Alright. Next is Alexander Brown. Hi, Alex.

[01:05:45] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: You're needed.

[01:05:49] Alexander Brown: There it is.

[01:05:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: There we go. All right. Welcome.

[01:05:52] Alexander Brown: You can play this game, vice mayor.

[01:05:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, we'll get started now. What unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the peace app and have you participated in MVPDX REI meetings or the HRC listening forms?

[01:06:08] Alexander Brown: Yeah, Kavita beat me to most of this. And I will also start with the 2nd half. I participated in cohort, one of MVPDX. I attended all the race equity and inclusion subcommittee meetings. I went to the English language HRC listening forum and the follow-up session walking through the scenarios. I've also been at all the council meetings, listening to the many hours of public comment. I participated in leadership Mountain View class of 2020, best class ever, and I'm engaged with so many community groups. Uh, I personally arranged uh, both Wally and Ruben come to the Santiago Villa neighborhood association meetings to address community concerns about safety. I think the unique perspective that I bring is that of someone who hears from dozens of active and proud community members every week, and I'm affected with afflicted with a deep sense of civic participation. Uh, it's what I do.

[01:06:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So what is the role of the public safety advisory board, and how do you think the PCAD can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:07:06] Alexander Brown: I, great. The beautiful thing about Pisa is that it's a novel group that gets to set its own goals and work plan. I think that the 1st year is going to be very important to set the direction going forward. Uh, making decisions in a vacuum isn't productive, and I have confidence that we can work towards a full and deep understanding, such as the Pisa, the city council, all the public safety organizations within the city, and most importantly, the residents of Mountain View themselves have a clear vision and that their priorities are aligned. Uh, my priorities for their 1st year would be that foundational work. Not just getting the information necessary for us to make decisions, but to make sure the processes are in place, going forward for the public to understand how the city is working to keep everyone safe and secure. And I think a healthy relationship comes from mutual trust. The peace out can help to give clarity and transparency to the operations of the city, and the MVPD, and also give a voice to the public in the decision making process so that they feel the city is working to support them and their needs.

[01:08:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: That was also 5 minutes, right?

[01:08:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes. Um... So those are those are our questions. So thanks so much for answering them. so succinctly.

[01:08:15] Alexander Brown: You know I try. I try so hard.

[01:08:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You broke my timer. All right. Well, thank thank you so much. I will see you in the general meeting.

[01:08:24] Alexander Brown: Yes.

[01:08:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right. So, um, next is Sebastian. Chris Boy, Chris Boy. Probably butchering that. Sorry, Sebastian.

[01:08:49] Sebastian Brisbois: Hello.

[01:08:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hey,

[01:08:51] Sebastian Brisbois: uh, don't worry about my name. It's something everyone gets wrong. My name is Sebastian Brisbois.

[01:08:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you. I was like, the 1st part, I have like, oh, an okay chance of the 2nd part, I was like 50-50? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, so let me just start my timer. Sorry about that. All right, so what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the peace app? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:09:25] Sebastian Brisbois: Yeah, so I guess I'll continue the trend of talking about what I've participated in first. So, I've attended most or all of the REI subcommittee meetings as well as a few different, um, city council meetings, um, over the months since June, and I've also attended the HRC report on their findings. And also, um, From there, I've also been, uh, steering committee member of NBC Cepra. And so I've been looking at this issue since last June and been involved with the process along the way. I've given it plenty of thought. It's something I'm really motivated to hopefully make a difference. In in Mountain View. And also, I'm an engineer, and I'm hoping to bring those, uh, analytical skills I have to this process. I think it's important to, kind of, think about it in inputs and outputs and outputs being the well-being of all residents, especially those who have been, possibly ignored and, I mean, definitely have more interactions with the police. You can look at the data for that. And so, I wanna see what parameters in our policing system can we change? to make a better impact based off of research, the data, and the stories from our residents.

[01:10:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: What is the role of the public safety advisory board and how do you think the PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:11:07] Sebastian Brisbois: Yeah, so, I think the role should be to look at the policies that are in place in the police department, see what can be optimized and done better in a way that benefits everyone, and especially the groups that are most in contact with the police by arrest records and so on that we see. and really prioritize them and their well-being. Well, Also, looking at the financial side of things. I think the book budget should be a part of the PC apps work. I think money plays a huge role in the way a city is run. I think it's hard to just ignore that. I think we need to take a look at that and also, consider like, are we spending it wisely or the best we can? And also maybe there's other ways to spend money that will help public safety as a whole and increase the well-being of our city, reduce crime, and may collect better for all residents.

[01:12:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Those are our questions. So really appreciate, um, your time. Thank you.

[01:12:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Great. Um, next is Laura, Jamal. Hi, Laura.

[01:12:52] Laura Jammal: Hi, everyone.

[01:12:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, there we go. Great. How are? I will start now. Okay. All right. So what unique perspectives or ability would you bring to the PCM and have you participated in MVPDX, the REI, uh, subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:13:10] Laura Jammal: So I'll keep going with that trend. Um, I have not actually participated in any of the um, the groups that you mentioned, unfortunately. Up until now, my free time was fairly limited. So I was not able to do that, but I, um, but I am now looking to get into that through Mountain View. Um, I'm very excited about becoming a lot more involved. Um, but as far as the unique um, skills that I bring, um, I've been a law enforcement employee for 8.5 years. I work for the city of Dublin in their police department. Dublin is a contract city. So I am one of 4 city employees in that department. The rest, uh, all of our sworn staff is, um, County, their county employees, their Alameda County Sheriff's office. So I have quite a background with a large organization such as the sheriff's office, but also a small one. Um, Dublin does not have um, a huge, um, police force, but we do a lot with what we have. Um, my specific role there, I report directly to the chief of police. I do all of our budgeting. I do all of our, uh, financial analysis and I even touch on crime analysis. So my background is very much funding. Funding-based allocation of training funds, things like that. Um, and how to maximize what we can do with very limited amounts of money. As we all know, that that is a huge talking point right now, about how money is spent regarding police forces. And so my role is to try to do as much as I can with not a lot. So um, I do bring that to the table. Um, I also, uh, I also used to do a lot of volunteering with very large groups of people at Stanford Hospital. So I'm quite used to trying to be a liaison between large groups of people and executive boards. So I'm quite familiar with that as well.

[01:15:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So what is the role of the public safety advisory board and how do you think the PCEB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:15:29] Laura Jammal: I think in this day and age, the mindset regarding law enforcement is really shifting. And we've all seen that across the country. And so I think, um, the peace sub would be a great bridge between the community and the police department. Um, I know that people want to have their voices hurt and a lot of people don't know how to have that happen. So if there's someone in, you know, just in their own neighborhood that they feel like they can talk to and be very honest with, then that can be brought back to, brought back to the city and the police department and and have their voices heard, but maybe not, have the spotlight on them. I know that can be quite intimidating for a lot of people. So I do view it as providing recommendations. Um, I would love to get involved as far as I mentioned before as far as, you know, funding for training and not necessarily taking things away, but how can we reallocate, how can we increase knowledge? How can we increase, um, You know, just hearing the community and really making sure that voices get heard. So that, that would be my number one, um, just really making sure that people get heard.

[01:16:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much. Those are questions. Appreciate your time.

[01:16:52] Laura Jammal: Thank you, Mayor.

[01:16:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks. All right, so next up is Derek Langdon. Hi, Derek.

[01:17:20] Derek Langton: Hi, am I, do we get the video going?

[01:17:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, there it is. We see you.

[01:17:24] Derek Langton: Perfect.

[01:17:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, hold on. Let me just restart my timer. Okay, so what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the PCAB? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings and the HRC listening forums?

[01:17:42] Derek Langton: So I'm a retired Massachusetts state police officer with almost 20 years experience. Um, I bring a background of a large institutional police agency with about 2400 uniformed members. Um, and I participated in policing small towns, big cities, supplementing law enforcement for the smaller towns that don't have like a full police department. Um, I've done driver licensing road tests for people for kids. Um, I eventually moved out to here, and I've got a dose of the Silicon Valley lifestyle, and I'm thrilled to say I'm enjoying it, and I'm starting to want to participate more and more. Um, which was what brought me to participating in the MVPDX uh, forum. And I found that to be, I know, a little bit cathartic, like I left the Massachusetts state police kind of, I, I, I, I was, It felt too big and institutional and or just, you know, and then I came and I participated in the MVP decks, and you got this little hamlet of kind of like a smaller department that feels like a neighborhood. Um, and it just, it just made me feel good about participating in law enforcement again. Um, and so that's what's drawing me into the desire. Uh, to do that. Uh, I've also participated, uh, with the CSA, uh, I volunteer at the food bank. Um, and I was a, like a technology assistant at one out of the elderly centers to help them with like questions like how do I turn on my PC? Um, and I think that's, And I've done a little bit of tech too. I worked with my husband in a startup. Um, so I'm, he's an ex-Googler. I'm familiar with those people. You know, I've worked with some of the homeless people at the food bank. I, I think I bring like a, a little bit of everything across the spectrum to the to the table, I guess.

[01:19:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Uh, so what is the role of the public safety advisory board and how do you think PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:19:59] Derek Langton: So I think that's a very complicated question. Um, and I have a feeling that's one that, this is going to be more like a, like a baby that's going to kind of start its growth and we're going to parent it and, you know, turn it into something that the community will really will like, um, what I see in law enforcement, typically the barrier, for the community is that uniform, um, walking into a police station, and if whether you have a question or a concern or a problem. Um, that's a very scary thing. Um, it just, uh, I mean, I know what it feels like driving down the road with a police car behind me. I'm like, 0 my god, don't pull me over. you know, And so I think having a civilian, um, bored that the community can kind of, can come to participate in these meetings and actually have a voice that will get sent to solve or, or the police chief, you know, Mountain View, plea, and their voices will be considered as opposed to them being a little too afraid to come forward and talk and contribute to the law enforcement as a whole.

[01:21:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Those are our questions. So appreciate your time.

[01:21:16] Derek Langton: All right, I did. Thank you.

[01:21:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You did it. Yes, you did it. Thank you. Um, next step is uh, Eva Tang.

[01:21:34] Eva Tang: we live?

[01:21:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, live.

[01:21:37] Eva Tang: Perfect.

[01:21:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, I'll start the timer now. Um, so what unique perspectives or abilities? Would you bring to the peace app? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:21:53] Eva Tang: Uh, yeah, thanks for that question. Um, I think that Growing up in Santa Clara County and, um, Being invested in the community and wanting to stay here for, Basically the rest of my life, I think that brings a unique perspective because I've seen how the area has changed and I, uh, want to see where the community is going. Um, I am a teacher and um, my whole educational program was, um, grounded in and based on equity. So I have the perspective of what is equitable. Um, what can we do for marginalized communities? And um, I work in East Palo Alto, so I see it every day. Um, and I see how the school of the present pipeline and, um, the conditions in which people are raised in, um, and in which people find themselves in, not even just raised in, they, they may just find themselves in that, um, position. Um, can affect their actions. Um, and so I have compassion, um, and love to explore the reasoning behind why people are forced to commit crime and also, um, why people may be experiencing mental health crises. Um, I am a staunch supporter of the discussion of mental health and best practices. Um, uh, my father was somebody who was unfortunately afflicted with um, mental illness until he passed uh, in January from COVID. Uh, but he, while he was alive, had a, a lot of, um, crises, um, before he was diagnosed, that were handled by police and as his daughter, it was a very scary, uh, and, um, vulnerable time. And I wonder how that could have been handled better. Um, as somebody who was a researcher in molecular cell and developmental biology, I understand how data is collected. Data is not actually um, objective. It really matters how you collect it, who collects it. Um, how you look at it, um, and things like that. And I, also as a scientist, I recognize that I don't know everything. Um, I'm still learning every day. I inhaling. I mean, inhaling books in this pandemic, because there's really nothing else to do right now. Um, and I attended every REI subcommitting meeting and also, um, the HRC's reporting of their results.

[01:24:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So what is the role of the PCAB and how do you think the PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:24:33] Eva Tang: I think this is a really interesting question because everyone, yeah, thanks for this question because everyone is going to have a different view of what's going on. And so my view is, um, that the peace app is to provide a 3rd party to handle issues of public safety, starting with uh, what we've been calling for, which is a line by line audit of the budget, their training materials, policies, um, and we have been calling for this since June. We've already heard the results of the HRC's listening forums and seen the data collected by MVP themselves showing the inequities in stops and arrests. So, um, we already know that, you know, we created this board because there are things that could be improved upon. Um, So trust comes from transparency and providing a 3rd party to audit and review issues of public safety would help the public build trust in their public safety system. Um, I represent the concerns uh, bought in the community because I'm one of the people who called for this advisory board in the 1st place. Uh, might as well apply for it, right? See things through. Um, and I'm also here as a meteor um, to take the raw emotion and anger from the community, which you have heard over and over. Um, in public comment and take that, uh, do the dirty work of digging in and actually turning it into something tangible for the community.

[01:26:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Eva. Those are the questions. And I want to say, and I think I can do this on behalf of my colleagues. We're sorry to hear about the passing of your father. And thank you for sharing that personal story with us. We appreciate it.

[01:26:16] Eva Tang: Thank you. App appreciate that.

[01:26:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Um, the next person is uh, call what? Sandhu?

[01:26:37] Kalwant Sandhu: Hello?

[01:26:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Unmute and start video.

[01:26:42] Kalwant Sandhu: Hi there.

[01:26:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi.

[01:26:45] Kalwant Sandhu: Hello.

[01:26:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: We see you.

[01:26:48] Kalwant Sandhu: Okay, is it okay?

[01:26:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, great. Good afternoon. Okay, I'm gonna get started with the questions.

[01:26:55] Kalwant Sandhu: Absolutely, absolutely.

[01:26:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the P sub? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI, uh, subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:27:10] Kalwant Sandhu: Okay, I'll go over the back of the um, 2nd of the question first. I was the chairman of the HRC 3 times and I was a member since 2003 and I had a privilege of being with Margaret too, and we've come a long way since then we were really focused on the policing efforts, the profiling efforts of the police department. So we had them coming to report to us many a number of times, and that's when we started getting involved with the gang task force and so forth. See, um, what I can bring to it is my objectiveness, uh, dealing with the community at the grassroots level, not, uh, you know, I anytime anybody had a problem, I made sure I could take them to the police station and say, no, it's not, don't be so fearful. That's a question. We will help you. I would most instrumental in bringing the FBI into the HRC for a discussion for people who were undocumented and facing domestic violence and they never report anything for the fear that they might be deported. So we had them over too. So my objective, I mean, my feeling is that I could bring all these different things. I would be a person, I could talk to the police department, I can talk to the locals, I can talk to businesses, just to be the person who can help bodies together and find good solutes for problems that he is facing and might face. And also take a look at the police department, from the view, since when I left now, I think the, we still have the same problems for profiling, that needs to be changed. I have been profiled many number of times and I just brought it up to the police chief and the officers, he said, this is not right. If there's something wrong with my driving, yes, but you don't just pull over and give me a ticket for nothing. So that's happened a few times, but I'm not going to play the victim. It's not that. I, my idea is to help the police department help uh, the uh, peace app and also definitely advise the uh, city council as to what steps we can take. Uh, many a number of times. Today, to date, I still cannot figure out why they need to uh, shoot a person when they don't need to, right? That part that part of the training has to be visited. What are they teaching on the academies? I've had friends who went to, to this courses in sociology, uh, in, uh, SF, uh, in San Jose state who said that the professors and the officers said they, when somebody comes to you, it should kill nothing else, that has changed. I've seen the hell in here. I'm from Singapore, it's a different, uh, uh, system there. India is very brutal. Uh, here, it's uh, had been pretty bad last summer and Mountain View overall is very good. We've become, the department is pretty fair, I would think, but there's still a lot of things need to be done. We need to take the fear of the police department out of the society. We need to come to a position where we can say, no, hey, that's an office. I can go up to him and talk to him. So how do we do that? PCAP is at the vehicle which can help that.

[01:30:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Wait, so what is the role of the peace app? How do you think the peace app can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:30:28] Kalwant Sandhu: Apart from being a advisory board, it's really a clearing house and also to, uh, you know, uh, also to take a look at the budgets, take a look where the uh, resources have been applied. Are they applied equitably in equity or are they just spending money for the heck of spending money? Uh, you know, things like this are very, very important. We need to see how the training is. When we pass the uh, Taser rule back in the mid 2000s and uh, we are 22 days of meetings at the community center and people came to the, uh, the period when the free speech was took, was taken over by everybody's complaints. Basically, we looked at that. He said, okay, now you're going to have this, uh, taser to help you guys, but you all need to have proper training, have the taste on a different side, so you just don't draw it to taste somebody. You need backup. You need to have different policies. So the police department worked with us and we were advising the city council likewise. So, uh, the PCAP. It's going to be, it's a good start. It's a very, very good start for the city and I think, uh, it'll, uh, in the principal. whether anyone else has it, but I don't believe in defunding. I believe in the fact that we need to readapt the resources, readapt the police station to what the current situation is and also engage the community with the peace app and the police with the PD and the city council. I would love. A few members of this, a few members of this department, uh, hopefully city council members to sit down and have a round table. That's how you can bring, find out what is ticking, I feel the pulse of the community.

[01:32:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. That's your time. Appreciate it.

[01:32:24] Kalwant Sandhu: Anytime. I will run back to the field now. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

[01:32:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, next step is Susan Trench.

[01:32:44] Susan Trench: Okay, here I am. Camera on. Microphone on. One day.

[01:32:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hello, what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the peace app? And have you participated in the MVPDX? The RAI subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums.

[01:33:04] Susan Trench: Okay, um, I've participated in the MDPDX. I was in the 2nd cohort. Um, so that was that was a very interesting experience for me. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to do it. I learned a lot. I met A lot of interesting people with different perspectives, different stories, different backgrounds, and I think it was a really good representation of what mountain view is all about, um, as a community. Young, old, diverse people, with many, many different stories. So that was a good experience for me. And it, it, it, it did inspire me to get more interested in what is going on with the community between law enforcement and the public. Um, some of the, uh, volunteer work and the, the, the, the work that I have done as an RN in the area of public health, uh, mental health. Um, also, I've done a lot of work with, with, uh, aging populations. Um, and I think that experience would be helpful in working with the community to bring people together, from the Mountain View PD and the, and the general community. People seem to, there seems to be 2 sides, which I think is unfortunate, and I see kind of the goal of this group to sort of to, to learn and to listen and to hear people's stories and to make an effort to bring, bring things together, bring people together with a Mountain View PD in a way that makes the community a better place for everybody. So I also work on the, um, the Santa Clara County senior commission and on the, um, I'm on the subcommittee for the unhoused folks in Santa Clara County. So again, it's it's a learning experience. It's uh, very interesting. I, I, I hope to find a way to, to bring people together, make an impact and move forward in a better way for everybody.

[01:35:36] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So what is the role of the PCAB? How do you think PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:35:45] Susan Trench: So I, I, I, I see it as, as a way of, um, Sort of, I'm not sure ambassador is the right word, but, um, sort of a, a, a community outreach group that is involved and knowledgeable about what the real story is with whatever is going on in the community. You read and hear lots of things and, Some of which are true and some of which are less true. I, I think being involved at a very local level allows you to get a better perspective and better understanding of, of, of where the truth initially lies. And then with that, you can reach out to the community. Um, in the conversations I have with friends and neighbors in Mountain View, I think a lot of that connection and understanding takes takes place on a very individual basis, sort of one conversation and one interaction at a time. I think a lot of it is just getting the right information out there. Um, and exchange, exchanging information in, in a, in a positive way that allows people, the community to understand what is going on in the Mountain View PD, why certain things might be happening, and to assist, Any, anyone who might have some issues or some problems in that way to, to find a way to help their voice be heard, for people who might feel disenfranchised or not able to get involved for whatever reason. Um, I think we're a small enough community here that it shouldn't have to be that way. Um, and and I think this committee could be very valuable in that way.

[01:37:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Perfect, with 12nd remaining. All right, well, thank you, Susan. Appreciate it. Those are our questions. Thank you very much.

[01:38:00] Susan Trench: Have a nice evening, everyone. Bye bye.

[01:38:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Bye. Next up is Cleave Frank. Hi, Cleve. All right, we'll get started here. So, uh, what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the pizza? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:38:33] Cleve Frank: Well, so far, it looks like my unique perspective would be as, uh, a black man, unfortunately that happens to be, um, a component of these kinds of conversations, um, Uh, in the past, um, I have, uh, attended the MVPDX uh, initial cohort, um, and, um, uh, I also have had the unique experience of my father, um, and I, uh, participated in discussions with the city. manager's office on the creation of this board and what it might look like. And so I had some hand, I guess, in discussing how this would look. So, um, it is something that uh, my father uh, began uh, when I was a child that he ran one of the earliest versions of this kind of deliberate of body uh, in the 70s, um, and has uh, participated in it for most of my life. So I have a lot of, um, I don't know, family and institutional experience, um, with this kind of thing, uh, and on top of that with my work, Um, I do also get an opportunity to work with police officers, uh, for quite uh, for many years now.

[01:39:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So what is the role of the PCAB? and how do you think the PCAB can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:39:49] Cleve Frank: I think the chief role, um, has to be, um, a body that works with the police department in the community to find out, um, how the police department serves the city, um, and how the community wants uh, the police department to serve it. Um, and I think, uh, it's important to make sure that the, the body doesn't become a complaint board, it has to be a deliberative body that is focused on how to help, um, the police department in the city serve its community the way that, um, they want to be served in the most professional way. Um, and helping the police department find those answers and and create those policies um, as efficiently and professionally as possible.

[01:40:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So those are our questions. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

[01:40:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hey, thanks. All right, next is uh, Joan Brovsky. Hey, Joan.

[01:41:14] Joan Brodovsky: Hello.

[01:41:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hello.

[01:41:16] Joan Brodovsky: You should be able to see me.

[01:41:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, yes, now we see you.

[01:41:19] Joan Brodovsky: Wonderful.

[01:41:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. All right. Yes, we hear and see you.

[01:41:24] Joan Brodovsky: Okay, perfect.

[01:41:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, so what unique perspectives or abilities would you bring to the PCAB? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings or the HRC listening forums?

[01:41:39] Joan Brodovsky: Well, the 1st the 2nd one first. Yes, I was in code 2 of the M MVPDX. And I was in one of the listening forums. So the unique qualifications, uh, what can I say? 1st of all, I'm probably twice as old as anybody else who's been talking to you, at least twice. So think of all the experience that goes into that. Uh, then my formal training was in chemistry and the medical sciences. Uh, my work experience. Most of it was in Mexico City, and that's part of what I think I can bring to the table. I have, uh, some relationships with, uh, um, Latino community in Mountain View, and what, uh, has me a little worried is that nobody from that community has, uh, that I saw was, um, being interviewed. Um, So, uh, I think that's, that's basically what I would bring to the table, an analytical look at things, and um, and a certain bluntness about how I speak. Um, another question.

[01:43:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I do, I have 2 more questions for you, but they're rolled into one. So what it, what is the role of the peace app? How do you think the peace app can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:43:20] Joan Brodovsky: Um. Well, the role of the board is defined, of course, but I see it as 2 things. The board should be prodding the police on the neuralgic points that can come up within the community. Uh, one of them, we heard until 3 in the morning that, uh, when people wanted to defund the police, by the way, I'm really opposed to that. Uh, and the other part, uh, of the board, should be to support the police department, with facts and to take them back to, quote unquote, the community, to people who live in Mountain View. And especially those who might have worries or have reason to worry about how the police department is handling particular things. So, uh, that's what I think the board should be, should be doing, it should be a forum. Um. Another thing I wanted to say is I'm really conscious of the distrust of police that that people who, uh, have lived in Latin countries and who have immigrated here have, and for good reason. And this, uh, this makes most Latinos really, uh, with their claws out trying to keep away, keep out of anything to do with the police. And I think that I think there's a lot of work to be done, um, in making it under, making, it understood that the police, at least in Mountain View, can be a positive force for, for order and safety.

[01:45:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, thank you, Joan. those are all of our questions. Appreciate your time.

[01:45:11] Joan Brodovsky: Thank you for listening.

[01:45:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Of course.

[01:45:15] Joan Brodovsky: Right. See you later.

[01:45:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, next is Tim Mackenzie. I can. Perfect. I see. I see and hear you now.

[01:45:36] Tim Mackenzie: awesome.

[01:45:36] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right. Let me just start the timer. Great. What unique perspectives or abilities? Would you bring to the PCAB? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittee meetings, or the HRC listening forums?

[01:45:50] Tim Mackenzie: Um, I will start with a not unique perspective in that I'm going to begin this 1st question with the 2nd half of it. Um, just as everyone else has done. Most of you know you've been on the dais or on the Zoom screen as I have been engaged with this topic over the past year, commenting regularly at council, sending you guys emails. Um, but I've also been involved. I did listen to the English language session of the HRC listening session and then participated in sort of the community community report back once all the, once all the sessions had been had. also was just finished up the 2nd cohort of MVPDX. That was really interesting, learned a lot more about sort of the day-to-day insights of, or what, what uh, work is like as a police officer in our fine city. Um, and then for some unique perspectives, I'll mention a couple of them. One, I'm an academic. I'm surprised I'm a huge nerd that is something that I have and then I know that in the PSAB descriptor online. One of the things that was mentioned is there's a collaboration with researchers at Stanford and University of Michigan. I know MVPDX is also or MVPD. I learned through MVPDX is working with a researcher at UC Berkeley. Um, so I, I have a unique ability to sort of speak that sort of academic east and understand, and then I also, like most of my friends growing up back home are non-academics, I'm really the only one from my, from my firm group or family that went there. So I had to be able to have an ability to translate between the jargon that we sometimes use and then into plain English. So that's one unique perspective that could be helpful, especially at the beginning with these academic partnerships that the city and the police department are going through. Also, in my time at Stanford, I've done some organizing work there. I only talked about that in my application, I only mentioned local groups in Mountain View. I did talk about my work at Stanford, but one of the things I've done in some of that work is really dive deep into the Stanford budget, how it works. Mountain View from the last budget in 2019, the last pre-COVID budget, and it was about $400000000 total operating budget. Stanford is about $700000000 dollars. So I'm, we've had some discussions about, uh, about looking at budgeting, doing a hard look at that. I'm comfortable in doing that with something that has an order of magnitude larger than the Mountain View City budget. So that's a specific example of this another perspective that might be useful, hopefully.

[01:48:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So what is the role of the P SAB? And how do you think the public safety advisory board can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:48:47] Tim Mackenzie: So I think the biggest, the biggest thing that stands out to me in pizza, it's a public safety advisory board, and the framework through which I view this is sort of, is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. That's certain, and primary 2 safety is physiological needs. So, like, shelter, food, economic security. These are things that are intimately tied in with public safety and until you get these baseline physiological needs taken care of that allow you to like not be worried about where your next meal is coming from. Safety isn't really concerned for someone going through that. So making sure that everyone in our community gets raised up to the level where public safety is a concern. And then, I mean, it is a concern for everyone all the time, but the framework of Maslow's hierarchy. And then I also view this as extending not just relationships with the police. The fire department is a huge element of public safety. My roommate is an EMT for Santa Clara County, that's a huge element of public safety. We remember last fall. We had the forest fires and the sun was blotted out for a week. That's damaging all of our lungs. That's a huge element of public safety, and thinking of how all these different strands that seem really disconnected are actually linked together and bringing in systems level thinking so that we can sort of understand how these things are all interrelated and how we in Mountain View can address some of these problems. And then also, I'll say, the biggest problem, I think, I see in public safety is mental health. It was what, 2 weeks ago when the 101 was shut down because someone wanted to come off and Mountain View police were the initial responders, but then it was the county mobile crisis response team. So having trained mental health professionals. There's been 2 suicide clusters of high school students in the past 2 decades. I don't know if I would feel comfortable starting or raising a family here because of that aspect of public safety, the sort of mental health issues. expanding not with the police, but beyond as well.

[01:50:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it

[01:51:02] Tim Mackenzie: Thanks.

[01:51:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: See you, see you later in that session.

[01:51:04] Tim Mackenzie: Yes, see you later.

[01:51:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, we've made it to our final interview, Jeanette Wang.

[01:51:22] Jeanette Wang: Hello.

[01:51:23] Unknown Speaker: Hi. Hi.

[01:51:25] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi, all right. start the timer. What unique perspectives or abilities could you bring to the P sub? Have you participated in MVPDX, the REI subcommittees or the HRC listening forums?

[01:51:39] Jeanette Wang: Um, so I think mainly I bring, um, 2 pretty unique perspectives. Um, one of them is that I, um, have gone through police training. I am an explorer at the Mountain View Police Department, so I have gone to the peninsula law enforcement academy, um, and I've gone through basic, basic explorer training as well as continue to, um, go to meetings every, uh, bi-monthly meetings with the Mountain View Police Department. So I have this, um, active communication and active, um, Like, already having, um, with the Malibu Police Department. Um, and secondly, I am a teenager. Um, and I think that's something that's really important, especially because we we have teenagers in Mountain View. Um, and I think that the interactions that teenagers have with public safety officers like law enforcement or, Um, as Tim was saying, the fire department really shapes how they they view the world and how they approach the future. So I think, um, that tied with the large amount of, um, the very high suicide rates and mental illness rates in Mountain View, especially among teens. Um, I think those are all topics that are really relevant to teenagers, um, as well as the community as a whole. So. Yeah.

[01:53:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks. What is the role of the peace app? How do you think the public safety advisory board can make an impact on the relationship between the police department and community members?

[01:53:27] Jeanette Wang: Um, so I think the role of the public safety advisory board is not only to serve as, um, a form and a place for the community to, um, communicate their, like, things they feel like need improvement or things that they feel are already good, but also, um, not only to express their opinions and ideas, but to actually work with the Mountain View Police Department to see like what's possible, what's how, how can we take something that the community wants and the community needs? Um, And pair that with something the police department is actually capable of doing. Um, and I think one of, I think the public safety advisory board could be very, beneficial, it could be a pathway to making, um, policing and law enforcement and admiral profession in the eyes of the public again. So obviously there are a lot of things that, um, can be improved, especially since through my own training, I've had some things where I feel like this isn't right. Um, and the public safety advisor board is a good place to change that and then change the police, uh, the community's view on law enforcement because I think that's, that's also very important considering that, um, We are going, I assume, to have law enforcement for a while. So people should feel safe, especially because of the increase of mental health, um, calls and mental health crises that people are having. Um, I know a lot of my, um, peers are really struggling with their mental health right now and, It's, it's really a struggle to not want to call the police, um, and not want to call for help because you don't want to call for help and have, you know, police show up because that's like, it has a negative connotation right now. So I think the public safety advisory board could be a really good way of improving. or adjusting the community's view on what the police here is to do, is here to do, which is not just to fight crime, but to actually protect the community and serve the community.

[01:55:42] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks, Jeanette. Those are all our questions. Appreciate your time.

[01:55:47] Jeanette Wang: Thank you so much.

[01:55:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: See you later. All right, so we have made it through our 13 applicants. So at the beginning of our, um, study session. I had asked if we had wanted to maybe share some of our top choices. And then, um, the interim city clerk, the city manager and I can take note and we can see, um, what the, what the tallies are, if folks want to go that route. Um, or if people want, um, council deliberation and and other items open to that too. So I will be looking for hands. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[01:56:35] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. I was hoping not to go first, but in the interest of time, uh, I support the process that you, uh, had suggested at the beginning. Um, I don't really have a lengthy preamble. I'll just, I'll just share that, um, you know, what I was looking for. Uh, was representation, uh, sort of a broad. Um, broad representation of different neighborhoods, different, uh, ethnic, uh, groups, national groups, and, um, and stakeholdership. So, uh, folks who had, um, participation in the community and civic, you know, engagement in one way or another. Um, and uh, I think we have a very good pool of candidates. Uh, and we had talked earlier about, it's unfortunate that we don't have any, uh, Latinx candidates, um, I'll, I'll take some of the blame for that. I probably should have done a better job, um, recruiting within my own community, but, um, you know, I'm, I'm hoping that in the future once we see this board, uh, you know, doing good work, uh, we'll see a greater, uh, increase in, uh, in interest. So, just as a starting point here are my top 7, um, and if it's helpful, I can talk about why, but, uh, I'll just dive right in. So, uh, Cleve Frank. Ebetang. Uh, Jeanette Wang, Joan Brodovsky. Calwant Sandu. Uh, Kavita, uh, and Mike Berman.

[01:58:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Vice Mayor Ramirez, Council member Abi Koga.

[01:58:33] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I'll just say a couple words before I go through my 7. Um, I want to thank everyone for applying. This is the 1st time for this board, so we weren't really sure what to expect, and I was glad to see um, quite a bit of interest and uh, such a strong and diverse pool. So I was very pleased with that. Um, I was looking for, um, Those who, uh, also have have participant demonstrated, uh, participation in our community. Um, those who might have a uh, unique perspective, and I'm really glad that we asked that question, um, representation as the vice mayor mentioned. And also, you know, open-mindedness and a willingness to collaborate, um, it's really what we are, you know, looking to do here. So, um, and I would say, yes, it um, was disappointing that we didn't have uh, applicants from the Latin next community. Um, you know, I, I guess, I, as I have done with all of our advisory boards and commissions, I, I take it upon myself to try to go out and reach out to folks and, you know, I would just expect that of all of us. So, um, you know, it's unfortunate that we didn't have anyone, but I think we have a really strong pool and um, quite a diverse representation here. So, um, I'm fine to move forward with what we have. And 97, um, is uh, Kavita, uh, Derek, Kel, Cleve, Jeanette, Joan, and Susan. Thanks.

[02:00:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Sorry, I'm doing my tallies. Okay. Council member Hicks.

[02:00:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So yes, I uh, wanted to, um, command the people who did the outreach. I think that it's, uh, Except for the fact that there, there's, um, no one to really reflect our Latinx population. I thought it was a very good group of people. Um, and I actually would like to appoint all of them, and could name the particular reasons why I was, you know, moved by a lot of what people said. But, um, if I have, I guess I have to choose, um, and, um, I'll just be quick, uh, because of the time constraints. I, I, uh, thought a good, um, group would be, uh, Cavita. Well, I'll just say 1st names. Kavita, Michael, Alexander, uh, Derek, Eva, Cleve, and Jim. Do you need to hear that again, mayor? Did I too fast?

[02:01:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I got it. And I have the interim city clerk and our city manager to keep me on task.

[02:01:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Great.

[02:01:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I have triple. I have a double backup. Council member show Walter.

[02:01:56] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Hi, I want to let everybody know that I did interview. I contacted the council, the candidates. Um, I felt like 5 minutes was not enough time. So I said, you know, I sent him an email and said, thank you for replying and if you'd like to speak to me, um, please get back to me and all of them did but one. So that was really helpful for me to get a little more opportunity to talk to them. It's one of the advantages of being retired, right? So anyway, um, But I too was really impressed by the caliber of the people who applied. I think that we have to look at Joan Burdovsky as our, um, uh, rep from the Hispanic community. She, um, Bernovsky isn't the 1st thing you think of, um, as a Hispanic surname, that's for sure. But, um, she is, she is well connected and, um, uh, hopefully in subsequent rounds will have, will have more people, um, more Hispanic uh, people applying. But anyway, my, so my, my, uh, uh, it was hard for me to kind of make these decisions, but this is a list I've come up with, Kavita. Alex Brown. Um, Derek Langton. Uh, Eva Tang. Um, Clea Frank. John Brodovsky and Jeanette Wang.

[02:03:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Councilman Michelle Walter. Got it. Counselor Mattachek.

[02:03:24] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Um, so I agree, we definitely had a strong pool of candidates. Um, I appreciate so many people applying, but it makes it more challenging. Um, as I uh, listened to what folks had to say and uh, reread some of the applications after they spoke. Um, I was certainly looking for, um, diversity and I'd say diversity along many different dimensions. And um, I think it's helpful. People did have previous involvement with the city. Um, because it helps you understand how the city works and you don't have to learn that at the beginning. And, um, also, I really paid attention to what people said were the unique things that they would bring. And that definitely influenced, um, some of my, um, preferences for the folks. Um, I'm struggling a little bit on uh, seven, so let me do, um, My top 5 and then I'll quickly do the last two. Um, and I'm just gonna use 1st names. Um, Kavita, Michael, Cal, and Cleve. One, two, three, four. Um, Joan. Uh, Derek. And Susan. Thanks.

[02:04:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Got it. Thank you. Council member, did you want to?

[02:05:03] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Yes. Um, so my, uh, topics, uh, those available to us, um, would be, um, Cavito. Alex. Cleave. Derek. And Eva.

[02:05:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Got it. Thank you. All right. So. So I wasn't sure. And I can, and I can look to the, to my colleagues for this question.

[02:05:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I know that we had talked about the, um, of having up to 7 people. So I'm not sure if you wanted to go up to the 7 or if we should have that discussion. Um, before I add mine or if we just want to just see an aggregate, what the what the results are.

[02:06:10] Unknown Speaker: I think you should just go ahead and

[02:06:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right. Okay, great. Thanks. Just wanted to double double check. So, um, I just 1st I just want to, um, thank our our staff, who's been working on this, I want to, I think our our HRC, who's played an integral role in, in framing our thoughts and, and how we're going about this. Um, I want to thank all the applicants. Um, I thought to myself, I should have shared the questions because no one wants to hear me ask 13 people these questions. But so thank you, thank you for that. Um, you know, I think that this is a real, um, Uh, uh, point where we can do something new in our community and I find it a point of hope as we start out and I feel like, um, this is the opportunity to build that community trust and for those voices who may not feel like, um, there's a, there's a place for them yet. Hopefully the construction of the peace ad will make them feel both welcome and open to joining. Um, and that they can that they're included as well. So, um, my top choices are, um, Kabita. Cal, Cleave, Derek, Joan, and Jeanette. All right. So, Perhaps city manager McCarthy, you can help us with the, the, the numbers in terms of who were the, the top receivers of the votes, if you don't mind assisting me.

[02:07:51] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, mayor. I am adding them up here across. Okay, so it looks like the top 7 are um, Kavita. Derek. Eva, Cal, Cleve, Joan, and There is A tie, where 2 people got 3 votes, Jeanette and Alex, for the, um, The 7th slot. And actually, Michael got 3 votes as well. So there's 11 more. So there's uh, Michael, Alex, and Jeanette all had 3 votes. All of your other selections had more than 4 votes. So I think you need to decide on Michael, Alex, and Jeanette because there's a one slot left.

[02:08:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Counsel better, Mata check. You're muted.

[02:09:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No problem. Thank you. I am happy to change my vote. Um, and move it from Susan to Jeanette.

[02:09:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Okay. Any other changes? You said it was Michael, Alex, Jeanette, and who else? Sorry.

[02:09:31] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Now Jeanette has 4 votes. So she is now has more votes than Alex and Michael.

[02:09:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So, okay. unless anyone else has any other changes that those are the seven. I can repeat them again if you'd like. It looks like there's some hands. Yeah. Um, why don't I'll take the hands first. Um, They might want you to repeat it anyway. So let me just see, council member Hicks, and then Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:09:57] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I don't know what our process is. I thought we would just take the 3 and each vote for one, but it seems like uh, council member Matterchek was was going on a different process, assuming a different process than I was. So she was moving one of her votes. Um, Whereas I would just, I'll use my process and then we can just, what process we're going to follow? So I was just among the 3 gonna vote for Alex Brown. And, um, you all can tell me what the actual process should be.

[02:10:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I, I, I think council member Hicks, um, council member Matachek hadn't used all of her votes, I think. She hadn't listed 7 people. I think she only listed 4 or five. How many had you listed? I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[02:10:49] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No, I listed seven, sorry, and I just moved one.

[02:10:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, you did? Okay. I think I'm the one. I think I listed six. Did I just list six? I think I just listed six. So, I'm realizing that now as I was working to count everyone else's. I don't think I counted long. Um, Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:11:08] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I, um, I, it's sort of a different line of thought, um, it, I, if you could show the, um, the vote total, just for everyone's comfort, that might be helpful, is with a share screen, but I, since we, we also have to decide who's going to get a full term and who's only going to serve half the term. My recommendation would be that we go based on boat total. So whoever has the strongest support from the council would be, uh, would, would have the, uh, I guess, priority for a full term, um, if, if people wanted volunteer after the facts, I'm fine with that, but that's probably more complicated than it needs to be, but just as a starting point, stronger support. Um, uh, would mean that you'd have a full term and the folks sort of, uh, with, with the lower boat totals, um, would, would get the 2 year term.

[02:12:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Say manager McCarthy.

[02:12:15] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, Mayor, it's council would like, I could share my screen where I have it, the vote totals on a spreadsheet, and also have the top, uh, the 4 candidates who would get the 4 year term. Um, with the others getting the 2 year term and then, um, whether you, uh, still want to vote the way that, uh, council member Hicks suggested, or because council member Mattachek changed her vote, um, the 7th member is Jeanette Wang. So I'll share my screen if that would be helpful.

[02:12:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: It would be very helpful. Yes, please feel free to share your screen.

[02:12:56] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Okay, so. Can you see this or is it too much on the left side here?

[02:13:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I think if you magnify it a little bit. It'll work. I mean, I, there we go. Yep. There you go. Mhm.

[02:13:16] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Okay, so the highlighted. Yes, R and the X's are obviously the votes, um, and then attract and column I, um, the applicants who got the most votes, so they would get the 4 year term. And then the other applicants here would get the 2 year terms.

[02:13:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Councilman Robby Koga.

[02:13:49] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, so, I think there, there, there, originally there were 3 of us who supported Jeanette, and, um, Councilman Anachek added her support for Jeanette. So even if we were to vote out of the 3 that had 3 Mike, Alex, and Jeanette, I think we're still going to end up with 4 for Jeanette. So I would suggest that that would be the final spot.

[02:14:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, uh, customer Robbie Coca. I'm comfortable with that. I really, I think even if I use my son, it, it would still stage in it. So, I'm comfortable with that. Any other colleagues have comments on this? So it would be councilman reliever.

[02:14:44] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I only voted um, 5 of my votes.

[02:14:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, okay, right. I knew that there was some of us, but. Would you like to?

[02:14:56] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Uh, um, I was reserving votes for um, the candidate to aren't part of the process. And, um, Uh. So, um. Uh, could the city manager go over again, which, uh, which individuals are in or out at this point?

[02:15:22] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, Council member Leaver. So, um, Kavita would get a 4 year term. Derek, we get a 4 year term. Eva, get the 2 year term. Cal, 2 year term, Cleave, 4 year term. Joan, 4 year term, and Jeanette, a 2 year term.

[02:15:48] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. So, in essence, casting 2 additional votes would not change 2 wins. It would simply change who has, uh, a 4 year term and possibly not even that because, uh, there's a certain number of 4 year terms and a certain number of 2 year terms.

[02:16:06] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct. There are 4 seats for a 4 year term and 3 seats for the 2 year term.

[02:16:12] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And I'm assuming that you can't vote twice for the same candidate.

[02:16:17] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct.

[02:16:20] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you.

[02:16:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So, uh, it looks like we have our, our top seven. Oh, Councilman Rakota, is your hand back up?

[02:16:36] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I just want, um, I question, do we need to make a motion for this or? Okay. I'm happy to make a motion if. We're ready too. Okay.

[02:16:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Counselor Michelle Walter, is that a question?

[02:16:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Who would be a second?

[02:16:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Councilman Broadway Coco, why don't you make the motion? And I think council member show Walter will be your second.

[02:16:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Can I just move? Well, I said, there was no staff recommendation. Um, please help me if I don't get all of one, but I would make a motion to, um, I guess recommend to the city council that they appoint, uh, Cavita a year, Derek Langton. Clea Frink, and I believe the 4th 4 year term was Joan Brodowski, to 4 year terms, and then, um, Cal Sandhu. Uh, Eva Tang and Jeanette Wang to the 3 year terms on a 2 year terms. I'm sorry, on the P app.

[02:17:42] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, and Councilman Russia Walter?

[02:17:44] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I, um, I'd like to 2nd.

[02:17:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So we have a a motion and a 2nd. So I'll turn it over to our interim city clerk, Vonder Linden, to do the roll call vote.

[02:17:55] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member of Picoga.

[02:17:57] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi.

[02:17:58] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Hicks.

[02:18:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:18:01] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Lieber.

[02:18:03] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Hi,

[02:18:03] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member Medachek.

[02:18:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:18:06] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Scho Walter.

[02:18:08] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:18:09] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:18:11] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:18:12] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mayor Kamei.

[02:18:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:18:14] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Ocean carries unanimously.

[02:18:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Thanks all. So uh, this will close our study session. Before we start with regular session. I wanted to check in with colleagues, um, if we wanted to take maybe a 5 minute break before we get going.

[02:18:31] Unknown Speaker: 10 minute.

[02:18:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, okay. Let's, let's, uh, why don't we start at the top of the hour, 7 p.m. And we can, um, move into our special session with them to read my long preamble. Great.

[02:18:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, everyone. Um, welcome back to our special session. I'll start with our call to order. Um, I'm gonna read the usual announcement as required. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with State of California, executive order N dash 29 dash 20. Dated March 17th, 2020. All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference with no physical meaning location. Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so at mountainview.legistar.com. On YouTube at mountain view.gov slash YouTube. And on Comcast Channel 26. As noted on the meeting agenda, members of the public may provide oral public comments during the public comment period for the item by signing up at mountainview.gov slash CC underscore speakers, or by phone by dialing 669-9009128 and entering webinar ID 923 29080069. Any emails received by 430 p.m. today were received directly by the city council. Emails received after 430 PM will not be read during the meeting, but will be entered into the record for the meeting. All votes will be taken by roll call vote. Tonight, Spanish and Mandarin interpretation will be provided for item 7.one. The strategic plan, draft vision, strategic priorities, and potential projects. Please follow the prompts on your Zoom screen for interpretation, and select the language. I will now ask Miss Belchan to address the public and provide instructions.

[02:20:37] Nora Beltran: Hola, buenas tardes. Estamos a punto de nicer, este reunión de consejo, y en el punto, siete punto, uno, se bao fresertre ducción, en español, favor de seguir, las indicaciones, and supentalla para precionar, el botón de traducional Español. Gracias.

[02:20:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: And now we will have Miss Zoo and Miss Lee to address the public and provide instructions for Mandarin.

[02:21:25] Unknown Speaker: Uh...

[02:21:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. And now my colleagues can join me in the pledge of allegiance. Last Miss Wonderlinden to pull up the flag. Great. Right.

[02:22:02] City Council: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[02:22:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Right. Thank you. And now we'll move on to item two, which is roll call. Our interim city clerk will take attendance.

[02:22:26] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Councilman Rabbit Koga. Council member Hicks.

[02:22:33] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[02:22:35] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: House member Lieber?

[02:22:36] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Here.

[02:22:37] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Mattachek.

[02:22:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[02:22:39] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Schol Walter,

[02:22:42] Councilmember Pat Showalter: here.

[02:22:43] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Ice Mayor Arreires.

[02:22:45] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[02:22:46] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mayor Comet.

[02:22:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here.

[02:22:48] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Thank you.

[02:22:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we'll move on to presentations. Our 1st item is item 3.one, our women's history month proclamation. So I'm not sure, um, everyone knows, but, um, March is Women's History Month. Um, and I will be able to read the proclamation now. Um, whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of Mountain View in countless recorded and unrecorded ways, and American women have played and continued to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of the life of the nation, and constitute a significant portion of the labor force, working inside and outside of the home. And whereas American women have played a unique role throughout the history of the nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force, and American women were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions. And whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement. And American women have served our country courageously in the military. And whereas American women have been leaders, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement, which create a more fair and just society for all. And whereas the following current elected and appointed women of Mountain View have made significant contributions to the community. Council members, Margaret Abbe Coca, Alison Hicks, Sally Lieber, Lisa Matachek, and Pat Shell Walter. City of Mountain View, Advisory, Body Members, Lotta, Adamek, Anya, Andra Zeke, Pamela Baird, Phyllis Brismanovsky, Aaron Brewster, Ronit Bryant, Emma Burton, Margaret Caprillis, Amy Cadavito, Emily Chan, Delia Copeland, Stephanie Domingo Angel, Carol Donahue, Lauren Dove, Valerie Fenwick, Vick, Vicki Gilfix, Megan Keyboard, Pretty Haymire. Tony Shu, Myra Irgon, Kamayak, Kyani, Maria Lang, Annette Lynn, Kami Lo, M. Elena Lopez, Susie Merhar, Mary Moore, Nirvana Nivodku, Casey Pierce, Annie Pink, Malika Reddy, Alcaroy, Regina Salkos, Ali Schmeizing. Kalyamaran, Shankari, Julie Solomon, Sandy Summer, Ida Rose Sylvester, Tutu Thompson, Diana Tucker, Lydia Weeks, Mary Yen. And Joyce Yin. Rental housing committee member Susan Allmond, Nicole Haynes Livesay, and Emily Ramos. Mountain View, Wisman School District Trustees, Laura Blakely, Devin Connolly, and Ellen Wheeler. And Mountain View, Los Altos Union High School District Trustees. Laura Ramirez Berman, Debbie Torok, Catherine Bonnegan, and Fiona Walter. Now, therefore, I, Ellen Mayor, the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim and recognize the month of March as Women's History Month. So as a council too, that is a majority female, I just want to, um, maybe give ourselves a little bit of a virtual round of applause for all of our accomplishments. And thank you for, um, your patience with me reading everyone's names. I think it's really important that we pay tribute to the women that make Mountain View such a special place and it starts with all of you, my colleagues, as well as those who serve the city on boards and commissions. So I really appreciate that. And at this point, we can take public comment on this item if anyone from the public has any public comment on item 3.one. All right, I don't see any. So I'll move on to item 3.2, which is our equal payday proclamation. This proclamation will be accepted by Susan Ware on behalf of the Los Altos Mountain View branch of the American Association of University Women. So I will invite her to join us. Hey, Susan. I'm just gonna read the proclamation briefly, but hopefully you can, um, see and hear us.

[02:28:01] Susan Ware: Yes, I can hear you. Thank you.

[02:28:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Of course. All right, whereas 50 Whereas 58 years after the passage of the 1953 equal pay act, women, especially women of color, continue to suffer the consequences of unequal pay, and the passage of the paycheck fairness act in Congress to update the 1963 equal pay act, will help close the pay gap by eliminating loopholes in the equal pay act. And whereas according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Women working full-time year round in 2020. Typically earned ¢82 for every dollar paid to men, showing minor change in the gender pay gap from the past year, and black women earn only ¢62 for every dollar earned by men. Native American women earned $.60 and Latino women, the largest group of women workers after white and Asian women in the, in Santa Clara County, earn only ¢55. And whereas between February and April 2020, due to the pandemic economic distress, men were unemployed at 9.9%, while women's unemployment was 12.5%, because of the occupation segregation factor for women who hold the highest number of jobs in the hard hit hospitality and retail businesses. And due to women dropping out of work for caregiving and responsibilities. And whereas more women than men graduate from college, and women graduates hold 2 thirds of the nation's outstanding student loan debt, totaling over 9929 billion. And are less likely to be able to pay off their debt, due to wage disparities, and a lifetime of lower pay means women have less income to save for retirement and less income counted in social security or pension benefit formulas. And whereas March 24th is equal pay day 2021. Marking the day that signals how far in 2021, women must work to make what men are paid for in 2020. Now, therefore, I own my mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my city colleagues on the council, do hereby proclaim March 24, 2021 as equal payday. And Susan, I'm not sure if you had a couple words that you wanted to share with us.

[02:30:24] Susan Ware: Yes, 1st of all, on behalf of the Los Altos Mountain View, AAUW, want to thank the council and and the mayor and all the staff that I've worked with to get this item on the agenda. I really appreciate it. And we, our branch has asked um, the neighboring cities of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills also to make a similar proclamation. And we're delighted that everyone is, is, um, doing that and it's, um, it's, it's, we really appreciate also the pairing of this proclamation with the Women's History Month declaration and, uh, I want to congratulate all the Mountain View women that you named. It's just, it's truly wonderful. And as a former elected official of a long, long time ago. I really love seeing all the um, participation by women in Mountain View. Thank you so much.

[02:31:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much, Susan. Appreciate all your work and coming and sharing this important proclamation with all of us. Really appreciate it. Thank you. And at this time, if we have any public comment on this item, please feel free to raise your hand in the Zoom or press star 9 on your phone. All right, seeing none. I will close our presentations and move on to item four, which is our consent calendar. We have none. So we'll move on to item 5, which is 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 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide public comment on non-agenda items? If so, please click the raise hand button in zoom or press star 9 on your phone. And the city clerk will display a 3 minute timer on the screen. And I see. Perfect. Ms. Wonderlanden, are you ready with the timer? Okay, perfect. Tim McKenzie.

[02:32:35] Tim McKenzie: Oh, yeah, no, um, I just wanted to bring something that you may be aware of. Um, the Biden administration is considering putting uh, children in detention centers at Moffatt Field in our city. Um, when the, the, my issue with kids in cages at the border wasn't the fact that they were at the border is that we were putting kids in cages, uh, just because we've had a change in administration. It looks like we haven't had a change in policy, and it's coming to our backyard. I hope that as the elected representatives of our city, um, you can do something to make clear and make known that, uh, Mountain View is a welcoming place for immigrants, but that we do not support putting kids in cages in, uh, it may be nicer digs in at Moffat Field than maybe at the border, but these buildings have asbestos, uh, employees who live there actually have to sign a waiver saying that they won't sue the federal government. Uh, does not seem like an appropriate place to be putting refugees who are just seeking safety in our nation. I want to mention briefly about the public safety advisor board, as I would have loved to have gotten even a vote, but I understand that the collection of people was amazing, and it was, I'm glad I do not envy you the very difficult choice that you all had in appointing people, but I have very serious issues with the process for what happened when there was a 3 way tie for someone to see how the vote turned out and then change their vote, especially when there were other people who still had votes remaining. That seems entirely undemocratic. It's sophomoric and amateur, I would expect better from the council in the ability to count and tally votes. That was, I am incredibly shocked by that. It's undemocratic, it was incorrect to do that, do it in that way. This is specifically about the process, not about me not getting on it. I understand that because as everyone mentioned, like, there are a lot of great people, but to change your vote after seeing the outcome when other people still have votes is entirely inappropriate. That was very bad. I, like, I, these calls for civility, when you go and do something and undemocratic like that really, really sound like bad faith things. Please be better. Thank you.

[02:35:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Rob Sealey?

[02:35:15] Rob Seeley: Can you hear me now?

[02:35:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:35:17] Rob Seeley: All right, thank you. Thank you to the mayor. Thank you, council members, for giving me a moment to speak. I am Rob Seely. I work for the California water service. I am the community affairs specialist for the Bay Area. I've had a chance to meet some of you and hopefully some more of you once COVID is over and we get back to a normal clip. I wanted to draw your attention today to an email I had sent everyone and just follow up because of how important it is and the impact that it can have on the community. Um, it is our understanding that the state currently is determining how to administer and prioritize funding made available through HR 133 allocated to California and maybe in the position to do the same potentially for HR 1319 funding as well. It's critical that the state administer these funds and other future federal funds equitably and in a manner that avoids excluding customers of CPUC regulated water suppliers. So it was brought to our attention that that may be the case or intention by some to exclude, it would impact dramatically the most vulnerable of our populations by not allowing them to receive some of that federal aid, the language that came down from the federal government in the A package, was for public water relief. Um, that has a federal definition behind it that does not exclude. And so we are asking for your support. Please, if you get a chance, take a moment, read that email that I had sent and reach out to me, it is time sensitive, and all the support makes a big difference. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you very much.

[02:36:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, that's all the. Um. That's all the public comments so we can bring it back to council. There's no public hearings, we'll move on to item 7, which is on our study session. So, uh, to frame the context of the discussion, um, study sessions are public meetings, which the council meets from time to time, for a detailed review of important matters. No formal action is taken by the council during study sessions. However, council members may express opinions on the agenda item under discussion and provide direction to staff for further investigation or development of an item. And tonight is the 2nd city council study session in the city strategic roadmap process. We'll start with an opening statement from our city manager, Kimbra McCarthy, who will then turn it over to our consultant team from Civic Makers. And that's going to be Lawrence Grdesca and Crystal Blackford. They will provide an update on where we are in the process and give a summary of the community input received. Then we will open it up for a public comment. Following this, council will engage in a dialogue with a facilitation by civic makers. Council will 1st discuss a draft vision statement and determine if there is conceptual agreement or if there are concerns or edits to discuss. Next council will discuss strategic priorities. Again, seeing where there is consensus or any concerns or edits. And finally, counsel will discuss potential projects. This will start with council members identifying if there are any projects from the existing list in the staff memo that they want to pull for discussion or possible removal from further consideration. Following this, council member members may suggest a very limited number of new projects with council voting to determine top projects with majority support. A project list is not going to be adopted this evening. Rather, staff will assess the list coming out of tonight's discussion for feasibility with an existing staff capacity and will return to council with a recommendation on the April 27th city council meeting. So next I'd like to invite our city manager, Kimberly McCarthy, to say a few words about this process.

[02:39:23] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Great. Thank you, mayor. Hello, good evening, council members and members of the public. I want to welcome everyone here and this is our 2nd meeting of the strategic planning process. The 1st one was held in February. On February 6th when council had your retreat on a Saturday. So tonight, as the mayor mentioned, the primary discussion is going to be in 3 key areas. So, the 1st one is about the city's vision and the short tagline, um, that essentially is illustrative of of the longer vision. And then the 2nd area are the strategic priorities that accomplish the city's vision statement. And then the 3rd area are those work plan projects that will support the strategic priorities that you all will agree on this evening. So, as the mayor mentioned, after, After I give this intro, you'll hear from civic makers and they're going to discuss in great detail the community feedback that was received. So there were 2 public meetings, there were 3 focus groups. There were numerous online comment cards and emails. And then they also received feedback from staff. There were also a few focus groups of staff. that provided them feedback. So I do want to acknowledge that I know that this is a new process for all of us. So not only are we doing this virtually, but, but we're embarking on a new way of really thinking about our, our goals and our priorities and our work plan. So, um, there are, you know, many different perspectives and I understand that this isn't the easiest thing to do. So, anytime we're trying new things we are committed to really learning from, from this process and iterating and making changes as we go throughout the process, that are going to be helpful. Um, so the last thing I want to mention is that this process is really meant to focus the important work that we have underway and be frank and have a realistic conversation about the heavy workload and capacity limitations on staff right now. Um, and really the the ability for us to, um, or inability, I should say, for us to to do it all. So I know that this is something that I've been frequently discussing this, and as everyone knows, the workload has just been exacerbated over the past year with COVID and staff responding to that pandemic, as well as the other multiple crises, that evolved over this past year. So, I'll discuss that in a little bit further detail, um, just to add some more context to that, uh, for counsel and the public, and just how that relates to the priorities and the workload projects. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Gradesca from Civic Makers. Looks like he needs to be moved into the panelist box and he will lead us through the strategic planning session and the slide deck and uh, we will, um, go from there. Thank you so much.

[02:42:31] Lawrence Grodeska: Thank you, city manager, McCarthy, and hello council members. It's great to be back. Uh, really appreciate your time tonight and um, just want to acknowledge uh, the majority women led council. It's a really beautiful thing to see and uh, thank you for those 2 proclamations and acknowledging um, International Women's Month. So, um, building off of what the mayor and city manager, uh, just shared, I'm going to share my screen and uh, present our deck for the evening and jump right in because we do have a lot to cover. Oh, this is a little bit of a rehash of what's already been shared, but I would not be a good facilitator if I didn't just, uh, uh, reiterate uh, what we're gonna do. We're going to give a quick overview on, um, the process where we're at since we last talked to you all, and included in that will be, um, uh, my colleague, Crystal Blackford, will share, uh, uh, fairly in-depth update on the themes we heard from the community. We will pause as well as staff. We'll pause for public comment, and then we'll get into the council dialogue portion. That will start with just a brief conversation about what it means to adopt the strategic roadmap and any questions or initial concerns that we should be thinking about as we look to develop a final and adopt an approved roadmap by the end of June. Uh, we, and then we'll get into those 3 areas that, uh, council, uh, excuse me, uh, city manager McCarthy had mentioned, the feedback on the draft vision statement, the priorities, um, and then, uh, the project list. And during those sections will be giving you a sense of how we landed on the drafts that you saw in the staff memo, including some sense of how we pulled in the themes from the community as well as what we heard from council and staff. I do want to thank you all for as city manager McCarthy said, going along in this new process, I know it's been different and in a way a little bit difficult, but we're really, we are looking to you to listen to what we're putting forth, understand. We'll do our best to make sure you understand why we're putting it forth and then look to you for continued direction about how to move it forward. So, um, just very briefly for those on the, um, uh, from the public that that may not know who we are, our name is Civic Makers, um, we are a, uh, strategic consulting firm based in San Francisco that supports public agencies and uh, their efforts to be more effective and achieve their mission. We do a lot of strategic planning work for cities across the Bay Area. So we're honored to be involved in this process. Uh, and uh, for an update on the process. You will have seen this slide before, just to ground us in sort of the the full arc of the work that we're doing together, uh, in the beginning of the year. We started with our discovery process that included a number of staff interviews and focus groups. And, um, actually, even before this, we had a, in December, we had a conversation with a subcommittee of council about the strategic planning process. And over the course of February and March, we had a conversation with all of you, to start and kick off this process of really revising the city's strategic vision as well as understanding what the key priorities were, and how to revise the current major goals. And, um, we started the engagement process, which Crystal is going to be sharing with you next. And tonight we start the project prioritization process of this planning arc and understanding what will be carried forward, what's been proposed, what staff has heard from you and also what they're proposing within the context of existing workload. And then also ideas of other limited projects that might be of interest to council. We'll talk about that all that tonight. That will go back to staff to prepare a staff recommendation on projects, and that project list will be incorporated with revisions that we hear from you tonight on the vision and priority areas. And at that point, um, by April 27th, we'll have a draft roadmap, and that will include, again, the revised division, the revised priority areas, and a draft project list. We'll share it with you. You'll get feedback again, and then we'll put it into a community wide survey and an all staff survey to do a final, what we call validation, and a round of revisions to present back to you on June 8th. So we are making great progress. Um, and to talk to you a little bit about what we heard from the community. Actually, a lot of it, what we heard from the community, because we had some really great participation from your constituents. I'll turn it over to my colleague, Christelle. Christel, are you with us? If someone could promote Christel Blackford to panelists as well. I see Sylvia Noddingerhead, thank you. The, the, endless shuffle of the Zoom meeting.

[02:47:43] Christal Blackford: Hello, everyone. It's great to be back Um, I've also enjoyed, uh, the, um, the items previously on Women's History Month, so Happy Women's History Month. Um, All right. So, um, as you know, as you're well aware, this strategic roadmap is meant to create alignment between council, staff and the community. And so we've been doing deep engagement on all 3 with all 3 groups. This slide here shows you our ongoing touch points with each group. For, uh, in the Teal. We have city council meetings in the purple, we have staff meetings, and in the orange, we have community meetings and other touch points. Um, and so what I want to do now is review each one of these in a little bit more detail in terms of the ones that we've done so far. And as, um, Lawrence already mentioned coming up in, um, May, we'll have additional touch points with, uh, community and staff via surveys. So, um, as you know, uh, we've already spoken with you several times. We had an initial council subcommittee meeting on goal setting in December. We did a council survey in January. Uh, we did our council retreat in February and some uh, conversations with you all leading up to this meeting. We've also done, um, some deeper staff engagement, uh, including staff focus groups, uh, department head survey and department head workshop. In terms of community, we've done 2 public meetings. Um, those were on the uh, February 25th and February 27th and we have here our engagement numbers. Uh, so overall, 82 people actively participated in those meetings. We say actively because there are a couple people who uh, wanted to observe and um, and did not actively participate. Um, such as former council members, et cetera. Um, In addition, we did 3 focus groups, one for monolingual mandarin speakers, one for monolingual Spanish speakers and one for small businesses. And we also had an online comment card that was available to people who were not able to attend the meeting, but wanted to provide feedback. In addition, we received 8 councils, uh, member emails or sorry, 8 emails from the public to council. Um, so, uh, I just want to share a little bit more on this, while we're on this slide about, um, the partic- the details of who participated. So, Because I think there was a curiosity about this. So, um, all but a few um, Participants in the public meetings were residents of Mountain View. Um, and a majority were longtime residents. Um, a few people who participated that were not residents, were active in larger kind of county or silicon Valley groups. Um, and around half of the participants who were community members considered themselves to be actively engaged. So we had a very active group. Um, in terms of the Spanish speakers. Uh, we had, Also many longtime residents. Uh, 15 to 20 years was the average for people who participated in that group, and a few who had lived in Mountain View for over 30 years. Uh, they're also very active in many local uh, groups like the Spanish leadership academy. Uh, for the Mandarin focus group, we had many, again, who had lived in Mountain View, uh, for 15 to 30 years, uh, the majority for that group was about 5 to 10 years, um, and from neighborhoods across the city. And then finally, for the small business focus group, we had represented a fitness studio, a nightclub, a coffee shop, janitorial service, auto shop, food market, attorney, and event space, so really a diverse group of small business owners. So we had a similar agenda for all of our meetings. Um, we began the meetings with an overview of the process and the purpose. And and then we, um, jumped into and spent the majority of the meeting discussing these questions, which were, um, really leading towards what we're going to share back with you tonight. So the 1st was, what are your hopes and dreams for the near future of Mountain View, really focusing on the next 3 to 5 years. What are the assets helping to realize your hopes and dreams and what are the obstacles that may be hindering progress? And, uh, what are the 3 most important things for the mountain for Mountain View to start working on in the next one to 3 years? So the way that we did this was we had, um, for the focus groups, we did this all as a group since they were small, smaller groups, less than 12, for the community meetings, we broke out into small groups on Zoom. And had a facilitator for approximately 6 to 8 people in each group. Uh, and we had an in-depth discussion so we could really hear from each individual who was participating on each of these items. Um, and did a sort of uh, prioritization dot voting exercise at the end to get at the most 3 cut priorities for the next one to 3 years. So we ended up with a lot of data. And it took us, uh, a little while to um, to sort through it and get it organized, um, and, um, and really pull out those key themes. So the way we did this is we separated the data, we kept the data from each different event, uh, unique, um, so that we would be able to differentiate between the perspectives that we heard. By which I mean, the focus groups were not combined with the community meeting data, although we did combine and look across all of the 2 open community meetings. The way that we did the synthesis for that large data set from the 2 community meetings, where we had 82 participants, is that we essentially analyzed everything based on the identified themes as the facilitators were working with those groups and collecting input. They were actually self, uh, sort of the, the groups themselves with the facilitator's help was organizing what the group was sharing and to identify themes. So we looked at those across all 16 breakout groups. That's 8 breakout groups from each community meeting. Um, we consolidate those into 24 standardized themes, since everybody used kind of different wording to describe those themes they had self-identified. We narrowed that down, um, to focus on themes that were in the top 3 priorities. So that's that final question we had for them. Uh, what should uh, the city focus on in the next one to 3 years, um, or that had emerged in at least half the groups. And then that led us to 7 themes that were identified. Um, we did, we also, um, looked at specific notes from the facilitators around general consensus to make sure that we weren't pulling in anything that was only proposed by, say, one member of that focus group. Um, and we de emphasize comments that were shared by non-residents and quiet observers. We did this similar process for the focus group data as well. It was just not as extensive. Additionally, we heard a lot of good things and also some constructive and helpful feedback from the public on this. So we heard some praise of the process. It was great. was a great idea to seek community input in the process of setting priorities. This approach of getting feedback from the community is spot on. Thank you. Efforts are applauded. Uh, but follow up with implementation plan with community oversight is essential. Thank you. We will be doing that. Um, uh, we will be sharing the draft plan and getting additional community input. Um, please get the word out more widely about this process. That's great feedback and keep up the good work. So, uh, what we heard, uh, I'm gonna go through an uh, for each uh, group, starting at the community meetings. So these are the 7 themes when I describe, describe that process. Um, these are the 7 themes that emerged, um, from the community meetings. Affordable housing. Um, and these are not organized in any kind of specific order, just so you know. So affordable housing, um, there was a talk of increasing affordable housing to maintain diversity, the diversity that everyone values in Mountain View, prevent displacement and create more housing security for everyone. Thoughtful development came up, um, in terms of distribution of development, uh, to create more housing options for all income levels, and also, um, promote social inclusion and some talk of access to amenities. Sustainability and climate change, um, really, uh, acknowledgement that Mountain View is a leader in sustainability, and, um, and, and really continue to focus on that and climate, and climate resilience, Active transportation. Uh, a lot of talk about multimodal transportation, and specifically focused on connectivity, walkability, and bike ability. Parks and open space, really wanting not just great parks, but parks that are equitably distributed across the city. Equity, centering equity, and city planning to ensure diverse and well resourced community. So really wanting to, um, ensure that equity is something that is forefront and decision making in order to, to, um, preserve that diversity everyone appreciates. And then finally, thriving economy, a local economy with a vibrant downtown, where small businesses thrive and big tech invests in a local community. From our Spanish speakers, um, in that, uh, monolingual Spanish speaking focus group. Um, the asterisks here uh, indicates themes that were not present in that larger community, across those larger community meetings, so we distinguish what was unique, and what was um, overlapping with those, those other themes. So we heard a lot about public services from this group. Specifically wanting city funded programs that provide holistic community services geared towards supporting low income, Latinx communities, youth, and working families. Uh, we also heard a value of affordable housing, um, in addition to providing a greater supply of affordable housing and preventing displacement, there was also talk of uh, eviction and rent moratoriums, tenant legal support, and improved rental assistance programs. From our monolingual mandarin speakers, we heard um, that parks an open space, again, similar from the community meeting, uh, wanting them to be more abundant, cleaner, um, with ample programming and uh, specifically what's called that space for dancing. Um, something that was unique from this group that did not show up across the community meetings was public safety. Not that they feel unsafe currently, but that they hope that the current level of safety will be maintained. That they think that should be a focus of the city. Transportation, more convenient public transit, both within mountain view and between cities, talk of a free school bus being desired and more bike lanes and sidewalks. And then again, affordable housing, affordable housing, especially for seniors and people living in RVs, protecting tenants rights and homeowners rights. Finally, from our small businesses, um, we heard a desire for a festive and inviting downtown, making downtown more attractive through decoration and entertainment. Uh, while increasing accessibility by foot for both local residents and visitors. Diverse and flexible development. So creating a city where a diverse range of businesses can flourish, with the flexibility to experiment and be creative in the types of services they offer. City and community working together to revive small business downtown and fill long times vacant storefronts. Um, and finally, city responsiveness, a culture wanting a culture of kindness and customer service, um, and more efficiency in the small business development and permitting process in particular. And now I'll pass it back over to Lawrence to share a little bit about what we heard from staff.

[03:00:17] Lawrence Grudeska: Thanks, Crystal. Um, just wrapping up here with uh, 2 slides about some of the themes that we thought were important to share with council that we heard from staff in our interviews and focus groups. Some of this, we covered a little bit last time, but I think it bears repeating that staff are really devoted to fulfilling their commitment to the community and the city and delivering the quality services that they're obligated to provide and other core operational obligations. Um, and they also recognize and believe in the unique uh, identity values and unity of the city. In this community. Um, staff has really appreciated the response to emergent issues like COVID and the movements for racial equity. Um, staff uh, express appreciation for this process that uh, the council's undertaking uh, with staff and community input, um, and uh, the ability to to be able to weigh in on the design of the new strategic planning process. And also staff just acknowledged, um, again, the council hears your appreciation for their work, um, which, uh, you know, I think is, is never, um, can never say it enough that the staff knows that council has, has their best interest in mind. The the primary pain point that we heard from staff and and you've been hearing it, uh, in other places, but also bears repeating, is, uh, the struggle with the workload in general and the number of projects on the current work plan. Um, as city manager McCarthy mentioned, the demands of the pandemic response on top of normal workload, we're already, you know, pretty significant. Um, But, uh, um, even before the increase in in work related to the emergent issues of last year, the number of projects has has been, uh, really a little bit out of the reach of staff to feel like they're able to, um, address in a significant way and with the follow through and success that they want. And, and the really the quality that they want that we heard from, uh, uh, heard about on that last slide. Um, and, you know, that sort of um, uh, workload and and, um, sort of struggle to to stand top of things can lead to delays, confusion around prioritization, with core services in particular, in the sense that there's always something more to be done. So just, uh, really, um, hearing from staff that they're struggling, um, to not only understand where to put their efforts, um, but also, um, just, uh, struggling to feel like they're, they're capable in their work, uh, and doing the right thing, considering just the challenges of this moment. So, um, wanted to share that uh, as a sort of a a piece of data to consider as we get into the the project prioritization um, later in our in our agenda. So with that, we are going to, to pause, um, and we're going to hear public comments, and so I'm going to pass it back to the, to the mayor, and then we'll get into our conversation about the the vision priority areas and, um, project prioritization. Mayor.

[03:03:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Oh, perfect. Thank you for moving your screen. Awesome. Thank you. So, um, for all those wishing, um, to provide public comment, please click the raise hand button in Zoom, um, or press star 9 on your phone. Um, and so as I see the hand totals, um, increasing, I think I'm just going to put it for 2 minutes. Um, and ask the city clerk to set that time limit. And uh, we can uh, begin. Okay, Carolyn Knight.

[03:03:59] Carolyn Knight: All right. Good evening, Mayor May, and Council members, my name is Carolyn Knight, and I am the education and outreach specialist for the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. We would like to thank the city of Mountain View Public Works Department for the recent installation of swallow nesting boxes on the Coast KC Pump house. Uh, and we want to thank the parks department for continuing to consider a wildlife management course for the benefit of the wildlife at Shoreline Park. As you can consider mountain view's goals and strategic planning, we hope you prioritize a standalone goal that focuses on livability and biodiversity. The biological fabric that holds life on our planet, is currently fraying, our region and our planet are losing biodiversity, populations of migratory birds. Even common ones are declining rapidly in North America. Climate change is one of the drivers of this decline, but it's not the only one. And we now know that integrating local nature into city planning can be transformative in efforts to sustain not just people, but also biodiversity. We sent you an email highlighting the importance of urban ecology and biodiversity to conservation and city residents. And we appreciate your attention and hope you lead the region in rewilding mountain view. Parks with native plants, uh, ecological connectivity through greener infrastructure and native trees can make a really large difference to our region. Thank you and have a nice night.

[03:05:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Nazanine, dashtara? Can you unmute?

[03:06:02] Nazanine Dashtara: Can you hear me?

[03:06:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, go ahead.

[03:06:04] Nazanine Dashtara: Oh, okay. Yeah, um, when I was seeing this lovely presentation, Um, it just occurred to me from the organization, civic. Um, I forgot the 2nd name. Makers, civic makers. Yeah, um, you know, all positive responses, everything was so positively displayed. It made me think, you know, how increasing housing, um, is just going to increase diversity and keep diversity and bring diversity to mountain view. And it just made me think, you know, all these, um, um, plants, all these, um, um, what are they called, these, these, um, um, these plants, um, uh, that are being made for these blocks of these, these blocks of land, um, are all much to the developer's delight, tiny, tiny apartments and dwellings. And and to me, diversity comes in in large in families and multi-generations and, you know, it just does not look like these packed housings that developers benefit from so much where there's barely a sidewalk to walk on. And so, um, it just kind of was puzzling for me to see it presented so positively and and pro-diversity, whereas, you know, to me, it seems like it's just short-term living for maybe one person and and then it goes away. It's not family living diversity for a town. So, um, I'm confused with that. I just want to admit, um, anyway, uh, hope the planning is better moving forward. And with that consideration. So thank you very much for your time.

[03:07:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Bruce England?

[03:07:53] Bruce England: Hi, thank you, Mary. You hear me okay?

[03:07:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:07:56] Bruce England: Uh, just speak briefly for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and Green Spaces Mountain View. I know others are going to speak. I'll just say there's a lot of activity across these groups and other groups around this process, so a lot of interest in the public. We, uh, there's overlap between NBCSP and Green Spaces Mountain View, and you'll see that apparent in our letters. We're very interested in greening our streets, so not just having open space and green spaces and parks, but actually putting green into our streets so that when you're walking and biking around town, you're actually experiencing increased canopy and landscaping. And also line with that is habitat protection, wildlife protection and biodiversity. Um, increases, of course, in park and open space, the whole uh, issue going on right now with the school district is emblematic of that. Um, The plans for COVID. Uh, we would like to see streets activated, street music introduced or enhanced out there and appealing destinations of all kinds. So when people emerge from their houses, when all this is over, they'll have something to go to. instead of just shuttered stores. Um, emphasis on CIP projects or 200 um, projects we saw on there in the report. That's quite a few. Be nice to see some of those, um, completed, started and completed. And leveraging across projects and departments, collaboration with the public. You know, let's get us all working together for highest efficiency. And then last, there's a question about the federal stimulus money. I personally am not sure what the city is thinking about that. I'd be curious to know, but I don't expect to hear about that tonight. And that's it for me. Thank you.

[03:09:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Tim McKenzie.

[03:09:44] Tim McKenzie: Hi, all. Tim McKenzie spoke a couple times already today. As we're planning and looking for the future, Like, one thing I'll mention, uh, like, it should be easier to be civically engaged, shouldn't take a PhD to be able to figure out how to come do this. I've, I've been coming, commenting at console for a while. Um, and it feels like things don't really, like, it moves incredibly slowly. I understand that's the way the gears of bureaucracy turn, but it's incredible. This is a strange process that, yeah, I know it's it's a long tradition and ongoing, but there's 10s of 1000s of people in the city that are probably not even aware that this meeting is happening tonight. And remembering that and keeping track of that. Another thing, uh, like just for planning into the future, uh, one thing that often comes up is like, hey, we need to go talk to other cities, Mountain View can't be the only one who's doing this. We're showing leadership, but we can't carry the way to the Bay Area, which is true. We can't do it alone. But then, right out of the same, out of the other side of the mouth comes, well, these people that aren't from Mountain View keep coming in, interloping into our city. And that's just a clash, a that is not self-consistent. So a little bit more self-consistency from counselors would be great. And working together with cities across the bay because a lot of these issues are regional. A lot of, I'm a renter, a lot of us are mobile. We live in one city for a few years and then move over to another city. So the borders between cities are somewhat arbitrary in some ways. So, addressing regional issues together and showing leadership. Um, and then just for a specific type of project or a thing to keep in mind, North Bay Shore is going to be developed and making sure this is a livable place where people have access to parks and grocery stores, green space, and all the amenities of life. Thanks.

[03:11:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Jackie Kashin? Jackie, you there?

[03:12:00] Jackie Kashin: I am now, I hope.

[03:12:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, yes, we hear you. Go ahead.

[03:12:02] Jackie Kashin: Okay. Trying to get the computer to accept my microphone. Okay. My name is Jackie Cashin. I'm speaking tonight for the Mountain View Housing Justice Coalition. Preserving Mountain View's cultural and socioeconomic diversity must include protecting residents from displacement. This means mobile home rent control, keeping and expanding safe parking and protecting against future apartment demolitions. Hundreds of apartments have been approved for demolitions since 2018, including 2310 Rock Street, which had been my home for actually over 18 years. But now there are no demolitions in the pipeline. And the reason for that is that we are currently protected by state bill SB 330 enacted in late 2019. It requires that rent controlled units must be fully replaced, if demolished, and that tenants can return at affordable rates. SD 330 expires on January 1st, 2025. There's no guarantee that it will be reenacted or something similar will be substituted for it. Mountain View needs a local version of SB 330 before it expires, and that starts with an anti-displacement study session. We ask you to both ad housing and to protect current community members from displacement. Thank you.

[03:13:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. David Lewis. David? Can you unmute? I think you just have to click the

[03:14:06] David Lewis: Okay, I got it now.

[03:14:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Okay, perfect.

[03:14:09] David Lewis: All right, onward, uh, I was really upset to see that the city consultant and the city staff were willing to get rid of quality of life, which used to be one of our priorities in Mountain View, a strategic priority. And the people claim that they've integrated this into the other priorities. But you don't see it there. What you really see is that they have disappeared, this priority. They're not gonna worry about it anymore. No one's going to worry about it. No one's going to see it. Uh, Sustainability, which they also, supposedly integrated, is right there up at number four. But not quality of life. Anyway, I'm concerned that Mountain View, which used to be a very pleasant place to live, if you actually, I've retired, I'm here all the time. A wonderful place to live, to walk around in, to see, to show people, is going to become a dreadful place to live. A dreadful place to raise a family. A place where people live only because they have to live here, because they have a job or for some other reason, or because they can't get out of here. And is not going to be a happy, happy place to be. We could easily have a downtown and surrounding area full of high rise office buildings, high rise apartment buildings, uh, traffic, uh, shadows everywhere. Noise, wars over parking places, And very little green space in case you happen to like greenery, some of us do. Uh, I would rather that Mountain Dew was a place where people would want to live. They want to come here, they want to raise a family here. They might want to retire here. Where they take a quality of light. But I don't think we're gonna have that. Thank you.

[03:16:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Louise Katz?

[03:16:20] Louise Katz: Thank you very much, mayor and counsel. Speaking on behalf of Livable Mountain View, we had sent him an email letter regarding, um, the issues that we wanted to address, and as the Audubon and other groups and other people have talked about, um, I'd like to address the livability, which, as, um, an important goal, it connects us to the strata of everyone in our society, regardless of their income. And it's intertwined with all of our goals, but it needs to have the focus. Um, We'd like to address the fact that livability would include and enhance the ecologically robust urban forest. Trees have already been discussed, and we'd like to add that, remember, nobody votes for less parks, nobody votes for hot, shadeless sidewalks. We want people to get out of their cars and support their local businesses. But if they can't walk, to downtown and they can't walk to the markets that we have the beautiful small markets that we have. They're going to be back in their cars. So without the promoting the ecologically robust urban forest, we're basically defeating some of our other priorities. Also livability, um, relates to the preserving our historic resources for today's generation and future generations. Every place we visit, we look for the places and buildings that provide the history of where we're going. Our downtown is always cited in websites as the most important aspect of visiting our downtown. We'd like to have you preserve. As a priority, our historic resources to assure that Mountain View will have a place for its history and its culture, long after tech has decamped, and the next big thing arrives. As it always does. Thank you.

[03:18:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Robert Cox.

[03:18:17] Robert Cox: Can you hear me?

[03:18:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:18:20] Robert Cox: Okay. Oh, I'm Mayor Committee of Vice Mayor Mayoress, and council members. I'm here also. on behalf of the steering committee. I've lived on mountain due to advocate for livability and quality of life as key strategic goals for our city. I'd like to add to what Louise has said and touch on 2 more specific livability goals. that are paramount for preserving and enhancing the quality of life for mound view residents. The 1st of those is to provide all residents with convenient access to public amenities that enhance the low ability and quality of life of our residents. These amenities include parks and other open spaces, trails, our world class community center, library, performing arts center, and other places. Beyond this, we should strive to provide village centers where our residents can meet, shop, and enjoy a sense of community. The 2nd item I'd like to talk to is ensuring that new development fosters a community atmosphere and has a positive impact on the surrounding neighborhood. This is not simply an aspirational goal. It has been done before. The Park Place project in downtown Mountain View is a showcase, and standard of what can be done when new development combines attractive architecture, tree canopy, and openness to the community. It's, it's one of the sad things, I guess I'll have to say, that in the 8 years I spent on the planning commission, I never saw a project as good as this one. And I'm hoping that we start to see them again. The previous council embraced livability is a key goal. Let's not have this council be the one who said, livability and quality of life no longer matter in Mountain View. Embrace livability and quality life as key strategic goals. Thank you very much.

[03:20:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Payingly. Lou?

[03:20:26] Pei Ling: Hello.

[03:20:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi.

[03:20:28] Pei Ling: Okay, hi, paying she, her, hers, here from Green Spaces MV, as mentioned earlier. Thank you so much, council, staff, civic makers. I'm really enjoying community opportunities for this new strategic planning process, especially regarding the vision and strategic priorities. So we envision Mountain View as a healthy community, thriving with urban nature, tree canopy, and native biodiversity, a network of urban green spaces and quarters. They enhance active transportation, quality development of parks, housing, village centers, and provide the necessary biodiversity to ensure life and survivability and planetary livability. So MountainView boasts a great foundation of ecological preservation, as evident by Stevens Creek Trail, native living gardens in our schools, egret colony in North Bay Shore, the native plant palette, outline in North Bay Shore, precise plan. And our community has a goal to grow the urban force laid out in the community master plan. So what the pandemic has underscored is the importance of health. Public health, um, in light of COVID-19, ecosystem health and light of wildfires and climate change threats are ongoing. With the benefits of nature to our community health and well-being, our vision with being space mountain view, um, includes nature at our doorsteps and walking through tree lined streets and corridors. We support a network of equitable green spaces and mountain view's vision, uh, the full vision aspect. And then similarly, we support having a healthy ecosystem for all, valuing an incorporated or standalone strategic priority of emphasizing the need to protect and promote biodiversity in nature. So we'd be interested in a potential project to hire a consultant to take inventory of green spaces and recommend opportunities to strengthen the network of green spaces. And maybe the consultant can also recommend strategies to integrate existing city plans and projects, to ultimately realize the holistic vision of a citywide network of green spaces and sustain wildlife and provide equable access to a variety of urban nature. Thank you so much.

[03:22:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay, next we have Albert Jeans, but before you speak, Albert, as you're getting ready, I know that you have a slideshow presentation. So, um, we'll see how much we can get in, I guess, in your 2 minutes of your 77 slides. Get ready.

[03:22:49] Albert Jeans: Okay. I have my own timer too.

[03:22:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. How about, yeah, well, both time. And uh, we'll ask Miss Vonder Linden to bring up your presentation. She's doing it right now.

[03:23:07] Albert Jeans: Great. Hi, Albert James, 38 year residence. Mountain View. Yeah, it's interesting that we are all clustered together here. I also want to speak about quality of life and ability. I strongly urge the council to retain this as a priority, not the top priority, because to me, everything feeds into that. And what I thought about is, you know, am I better off than I would say 5 years ago? I want to try to illustrate this next slide, please? These are places that I frequent quite often. These used to be a nice local, popular local restaurant, the corners, caramel and shoreline. And now there's a sterile office building and RVs. Not pleasant to walk around. Next slide please. This is each uh, Shoreline Boulevard near uh, Charleston. Used to be a very nice tree lined path. 100s of redwood trees were torn down, so Google could build their office building there, and this is what it looks like today. And within my lifetime. I don't expect to ever have that tree county back. Next flight, please. All through downtown, you know, little business are going out of business, and they're being replaced by, again, sterile, blank faced office buildings that block off all their, or windows. Next flight, please. And of course, my favorite, you know, Shoreline Boulevard, jam-packed, you know, that is pre-COVID, of course. And, you know, instead of doing something about, well, they want to put in, why, they want to widen shoreline and put in a bus lane, which, of course, I've always objected to, next slide, please. And finally, you know, this is nice contrast. You have Google's, you know, shining new headquarters building. And yet, Mountain View is struggling to provide safe parking for people living in RVs. You know, all this leads to next flight, please. All this leads to, again, we're essentially that we explicitly put quality of life as a priority. John McAllister often mentioned this, you know, when you ever spoke, and I really like to see that. mentioned more often in the future. Thanks a lot.

[03:25:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, Albert. Mary, Daddio? There we go. Mary, you there?

[03:25:20] Mary Dateo: Yes, thank you. Access Mountain View's full list of many projects will improve safety and connectivity amazingly for cyclists and pedestrians. This will improve our carbon footprint by giving people a viable alternative to driving. That connected network, huge achievement. Can we do more? There's a concept of high performance public spaces in which spaces are expected to perform multiple functions. So our public rights of way are one of our largest assets. Let's expect them to do more than only service asphalt and concrete to get from one point to another. We have so many goals to be lively, safe, carbon free, provide more equitable access to parks and canopy, and just overall be a desirable place to live. Resources are limited. Let's expect our quarters to serve many purposes by incorporating more trees and habitat planning and other amenities that we currently only expect in parks. Trees are the ultimate multifunction tool. They benefit our health, reduce urban heat, slow rainwater to sink it, um, sink water in and reduce flooding. They sequester carbon improve air quality, and they add to property values. So as we improve our bike ped corridors, rather than just paving them all, let's figure out how to make them multifunctional by creating a network of greenways. That will attract more people to active transportation, reducing car miles, and helping to achieve so many other goals. So when Access Mountain View, Many of the projects won't start for years and years. So for those future projects, let's take time now to prepare to be multifunctional. 2 key success factors to create those high performance public spaces that achieve multiple goals. 2 key success factors are one, a planning and design team that's interdisciplinary and robust public engagement. So let's create a project now to help us make those future access Mountain View corridor projects into high performance public spaces. Thank you.

[03:27:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Molly, see? Molly are you there? Says that you are able to join. Can you unmute, Molly? Okay, how about how about now? All right. Okay. Well, why don't we come back to you, Molly? hopeful that you can you can hear me. Um, Linda, Ruth Ruff? Linda?

[03:28:51] Linda Ruthruff: Yes.

[03:28:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, go ahead.

[03:28:54] Linda Ruthruff: Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Linda Ruthra. I'm the conservation. Chair for the California Native Plant Society, Santa Clara Valley chapter. People need nature. Our bodies and our minds developed in the context of the natural world. So of course, we function better when we spend time in the natural environment. There's a large body of scientific literature that spells out the many ways this is true. One example, there's a 10 year study, 10 year study, that was done at a Pennsylvania hospital. They looked at 2 groups of patients that differed in only one tiny way. Whether the view outside their hospital room was of trees or a brick wall. That's it. The group with the view of trees healed faster, had shorter hospital stays, needed fewer pain medications, and made fewer negative comments that were recorded in nurses' notes. Pretty amazing what a simple view of some trees can do for your body. Take a walk down a city street instead of take a walk down in a park rather than a city street. Your blood pressure will go down. Your immune system function improves. Your more creative problem solver. Your thinking skills improve. Neighborhoods with parks have lower crime. We are asking that you develop a priority that focuses on making mountain view a healthier and more vibrant place to live by installing native plantings that create habitat that will bring birds, butterflies, and other pollinators. That way, Mountain View residents can read all the benefits of nature in the areas where they work, live, and go to school. Thank you.

[03:30:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So I have a call in number. It starts with 650 last 3 digits are 146. So if you're a colin number. It's a 650 number, last 3 digits are 146. See. So if anybody is calling in on the phone?

[03:31:29] Public Speaker: Hello.

[03:31:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, yay, perfect. We hear you.

[03:31:32] Public Speaker: Okay. Okay. I just didn't hit the star very hard anyway, so, um, well, I just wanted to say something not, uh, to the point, I think. Uh, I always want to say good evening to everyone, um, and speaking of living our dreams in Mountain View. I have lived in Mountain View for over 20 years in my mobile home. Which I had hoped was going to be my forever home. I'm retired, living on a fixed income. On discovering through conversations with neighbors and the mountain view, mobile home association, how unprotected our rents could be, I wanted my voice heard, to ask each of you to prioritize the mobile home ordinance as high on the list as possible. It's been a long wait. And it's not written. It could mean losing our homes, and having no choice but to move out of the area. Um, which is difficult for me because my mother, um, lives in a skilled nursing, facility nearby. Um. So if there's any way that you could, uh, prior to prioritize this, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight.

[03:33:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Tim Larson.

[03:33:14] Tim Larson: Hi, this is Tim Larson. I am the president of the Mountain View Mobile Home Alliance. I wanted to echo, the sentiments that you just heard about prioritizing mobile home rent control. Uh, I would point out that trying to protect mobile home residents has come before council at various times over the past 20 years and it keeps on taking up staff time because they keep having to revisit and update the recommendations that they provide. Um, I would encourage the council to move forward with covering mobile homes under, um, provisions similar to the CSFRA, uh, as a way to speed up the process. Um, we've heard that this could be done as quickly as August, and we think that getting it off of the plate of the city staff and taking advantage of the work that they have done over the past several years would be, Um, beneficial in terms of freeing up time for other initiatives and protecting the, The vulnerable residents of our mobile home parks in Mountain View. Thank you.

[03:34:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Alexander Brown.

[03:34:38] Alexander Brown: Ah, we're all piled up together. Yay. I was so close. Uh, we as the city have so many hours in the fire. Such a tangled web is a web full of flaming irons. Prioritizing those is a hard problem. And as much as I'd like to focus on every issue, because I have opinions. You all know what I'm here to sport. The 6 mobile and manufactured home communities in Mountain View, comprising 1130 households have been waiting literal decades for the city to protect them from unsustainable rent increases. Mobile homes are the city's largest repository of naturally affordable majority senior housing. We are once again asking for an ordinance to protect mobile home residents. Staff has already put in a lot of work over the last few years, is just a matter of carrying it across the finish line. Let's get this done so we can move on to the many other projects making Mountain View a great city in which to live. Thanks.

[03:35:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Anna Maria Morales.

[03:35:35] Anna Marie Morales: Hi there. My name is Anna Marie Morales, and I've lived in the beautiful city of Mountain View for 40 years. My grandparents 1st came to Mountain View in 1915. And we have rich history in this city, and I care a lot about all our residents and their quality of life. Like many other vulnerable Mountain View mobile home residents, I have worked diligently to gain the protections that were wrongfully denied to us. Um, by city council and RHC, thus going against the council of their own lawyers to do so. This issue has been going on for nearly 20 years and it needs to be addressed now, not continually pushed to the side with pathetic excuses. We are tired of being told to wait. The damage has been done already, and with the pandemic, it is much, much worse. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Hope is what keeps me going. Hope is what calms my mind when I lay sleepless at night, worrying and wondering if finally mobile home residents will be protected by those that hold the power to do so, but thus far Haber refuse to help. There is an outcry for racial and housing justice all over the U S, and the city of Mountain View has the opportunity to act on that right now. Hard-working city staff have already put a lot of effort into this issue, which will make it much easier for counsel to act now. This is a critical issue that must be addressed today. I asked city council if they care about keeping a diverse mountain view. Then you must prioritize mobile home protections. This is one action council can make to keep mountain view diverse. I am hopeful that city council will do the right thing. and act on this today. And so I thank you all for moving forward with much needed mobile home protections. Emily Dickinson said it best when she said, hope is the thing with feathers that purchases purchase in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. Thank you so much.

[03:37:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Silvia Paymer? Oops. Sorry, Silja, I pressed Robin accidentally and Robin Lynn, and then we'll go to Silja.

[03:37:57] Robin Lin: Hey, can you hear me?

[03:37:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:37:59] Robin Lin: Great. Yeah, hey, thank you so much for the time. I almost feel like uh, this is like a cozy family. It's like you always hear the same people and I feel like I've become one of them. So, um, hey. Um, yeah, I mean, I, it's really interesting listening to all my fellow residents. Um, I think quality of life is something that seems to have come up over and over again, and I think, to me, I'm struck by how different, you know, everybody sees it through a different lens. And, yeah, I definitely, um, support equitable access to park space, green space, and, um, you know, all these city amenities, and I hope that as we work and try to figure out how to, you know, divvy up the finite resources that we have, that we can always be mindful of the, you know, how to be equitable in this. And I think, you know, I don't mean to, I'll probably diss my own self, but, you know, listening to this. I don't know if we're all really representative of mountain view, like we're kind of, uh, self-selected. And so I hope that, you know, as we move forward and make these decisions about the direction of the city that we really work to engage all the residents of the city, um, and this means residents who might not have, you know, tendencies to want to speak at council meetings or feel disinclined to for whatever reason, whether it is through because of language or cultural barriers. I really hope we work to, um, engage all these populations because I think, you know, my understanding is almost more than 50 percent of the city. And, um, you know, I would love to hear at least one agenda item in the future in, um, a different language, you know? Uh, it would be really great. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

[03:39:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Silgia Pemer.

[03:40:03] Silja Paymer: Hello?

[03:40:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hello?

[03:40:05] Silja Paymer: Hi. Um, so my name is Celia Pamer. I've been a resident of Mountain View since 2007 and I am also a representative from Green Space's Mountain View. Um, and our goal with Green Spaces Mountain View um, is, of course, biodiversity and livability to support community health and healthy ecosystems. Um, and I think what I wanted to speak to a little bit is how much I really did enjoy this process, um, in terms of, um, I got to hear from a lot of residents I hadn't heard from. This is a cozy environment we have here. And in the um, session with um, is it city makers? I got to meet a lot of new residents and hear their input. And so that was really cool and exciting. And I know one of our goals with Green Space's Mountain View is to connect different groups within the city. Um, And so I think that this process of vision setting is really important to creating a holistic plan, um, that really utilizes all of these community groups that want to support city staff and make their lives easier. And right now, I think we're not quite connecting. So I hope that one of the things is looking for plans, um, that work together with each other, um, instead of a little bit right now, we have 2 steps forwards, one step back sometimes. I really appreciated when, for instance, the walkability plan and the bike ability plan got integrated into one plan, so it wasn't them fighting each other. Now they're going to be working together. Um, so I'd like to see more of that in the future so that our goals of, um, livability and environmentally friendly and sustainability and housing. I really see them all as the same goal. Um, and so if we can make plans that, um, support all of them together, I don't see why we couldn't even have more goals on our list, um, without actually adding projects where projects are serving multiple goals. Thank you for your time.

[03:42:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Hi, Anne Ciao. Hi Anne, are you there? Can you unmute? You have to accept the unmute. Hi

[03:42:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, you're, we hear you.

[03:43:02] Anne Ciao: Um, well, it's okay. , I would. Mm. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, to Um, just... just

[03:44:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Okay. Yes. Um, Eileen, if you could switch to the English channel on your interpreter channel and provide an English translation, please. Just

[03:45:00] Eileen: All right, May, you can, if you can do it also.

[03:45:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we we hear you. So I'm hearing 2 things. And so I just, before, before you translate. I just want to let, I just want to let Roger know. So there's a globe and the interpretation where you can select English, but it did not translate. So, um, I just want to let you know, Roger. So feel free to to translate. Go ahead.

[03:46:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Appreciate it All right. B. Hansen.

[03:46:19] Bee Hanson: Good evening, counsel. That's Mountain View, Google science meeting last Saturday, we have been unanimously to support city staff's recommendation. But they developed a mobile home ordinance modeled after CSFRA, and we decided to ask you to do the same. We've already gotten great support from council member show Walter Hicks and labor at last week's meeting. And hope you'll accept their recommendation that our project and the work plan be prioritized at a high level. Council member Ramirez has also helped us on many occasions, and mayor can May, uh, recently, will respond to an issue, advising her that mobile home rent connections are on tonight's end, the 427 agendas. And we appreciate her taking the time to do that. We're very thankful for all of the support we've gotten so far, and although we know council members, Abby Poca and magic don't support rent control, we do know they support affordable housing, and hope that will work in our favor. Council members, you have many other worthy projects like COVID recovery, wage stuff, and project honky. But Honky Dan Dersen's staff is ready now. And the city and rental housing committee attorneys have also developed considerable expertise on mobile home rent protection over the years. We've been waiting for permanent protection since 2001, and our litigation alone took 3 years. So this would be an idea to complete an ordinance. We're just asking for the same rent protection other Mountain View tenants have. So we hope you'll all vote, yes, on staff's recommendation. Thank you.

[03:48:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Joan McDonald. Joan, you there?

[03:48:27] Joan MacDonald: Okay, I think maybe it's okay. Oh, but I would hear... Yeah, just by asking for the time... I'm hearing that other people talk... So it's totally gargled. But what I want to say, I appreciate the civic makers.

[03:48:47] Unknown Speaker: Joan McDonald. Yes. you hear me? McDonald? Yes. John McDonald. you hear me? Can you hear me?

[03:48:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[03:48:58] Unknown Speaker: Okay. John, are there? There's something strange about my computer. Showing you there?

[03:49:12] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So, so Joan, I muted you. I think that you must be watching it maybe on the YouTube. At the same time. As you're trying to speak. That's my guess. So what I'd ask is, I'm gonna, maybe if you, if you turn off the, how you're watching it, like the YouTube, and then, um, I'll come back to you. Um, so keep your hand up, but we'll wait until my message comes clear, hopefully. Okay. Uh, Mitch Menken? Okay, Mitch. We'll try to get bring Joan back.

[03:50:02] Mitch Mankin: Hello, I'm getting some...

[03:50:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi, Mitch. Go ahead.

[03:50:12] Mitch Mankin: Okay. Um, thank you, members council, for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mitch Mankin. I'm here representing Silicon Valley at home, the voice of Affordable Housing in Silicon Valley. Um, and I wanted to generally associate my comments with those of the representatives in the Mountain Dee Housing Justice Coalition, as well as the mobile home uh, alliance. Um, just in prioritization. Generally, we should remember that we're in a deep, deep housing crisis, and we have a giant backlog of housing, and especially affordable housing that we're missing in Mountain View. Uh, so prioritizing those, um, items that are related to affordable housing should be an especially high priority. Uh, specifically, that would be items one. one, study session on displacement, 2.one, R3 zoning standards, 2.2, Shenandoah property, for affordable housing, 2.4, strategies for middle income persons to afford different housing types, 2.5, developing a city mobile home ordinance, uh modeled on the CSFRA, administered by the RHC. Uh, 2.8 facilitating the development of affordable housing in the VTA Evelyn site. Uh, 2.9 facilitating the plenty entitlement and building current process for lot 12. Um, as well as the new items, um, partnering with the county to explore the potential conversion of the Crestview Hotel, into housing for unstably housed individuals and families, and work on the housing element and a, um, integrated homelessness strategy. So thank you very much for your time. I know many of these items are already prioritized. I just wanted to make sure that run record that these things are still very important and none of them should be dropped. Thank you very much. Take care.

[03:51:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay, April Webster. April?

[03:52:12] April Webster: Hello?

[03:52:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hi.

[03:52:13] April Webster: Hi, April Webster. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I wanted to, I'm speaking on behalf of SCDCN and the CSP. I wanted to talk about the transportation goal, and I, um, wanted to say that I think, um, it's at a high level is a good one and that the council and city, city staff have done an excellent job of putting forward and including projects. However, I would like to make some suggestions for future planning. First, the alignment and integration of the various transportation plans as an overarching multimodal strategy. For example, the bike plan and pad plan would both benefit from being developed in parallel as a single unified ATP plan and stress is melting little transportation. I was very happy to see this on the list of attention new projects preferred by city staff. And I would like to express strong support for adopting them. Similarly, I think the ATP and vision 0 plan would both benefit from being developed in parallel, such that the vision 0 can inform the ATP. Second, um, I would like to push for adopting a green complete streets approach and policy. Mountain View has made good progress in terms of moving forward with complete streets policy and has started to integrate these elements, but I think it would work. This work could be greatly enhanced to the integration of green elements. Locally, the Sierra Club, and say that they are currently working on such efforts. And globally, so cities around the world, they're moving forward to update their complete streets policies to agreed elements, and in the process adopt a more holistic and integrated approach. The city of Toronto is one example. They describe the integration of inclusive transportation and green infrastructure as truly joined up thinking. In Seattle, they've adopted the Dutch concept of a nurse, aka, a living street, which has a goal of opening up much more of that space to broader human and natural purposes, converting pavement to parts, um, and adding plats to only contract it, uh, but also creating public space. Thank you.

[03:54:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay. Joan, we're gonna try this again. You there? Okay. I'm gonna try to save Joan for last, and then that way we can, um, try to wait for the delay, um, before, and then hopefully she won't get any more feedback. So, Joan, I'm gonna put you last. Molly C.

[03:55:09] Molly Smith: Hey there, can you hear me this time?

[03:55:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[03:55:12] Molly Smith: Okay, I'm so sorry about that. I did my host. I have to do it for my cat again. Um, okay, great. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, city council members. I'm a resident of Mo Park mobile homes. I want to give a big thank you to council number 6 sleeper and show Walter for their support as I've been in last week's city council meeting. I also really appreciate the support and time that council member Ramirez has put it into listening to our concerns. Um, and I know that council members ate coca and committee have also stated support for implementing an ordinance for mobile home residents, as has congress limit issue. Um, as you know, we expected to be included under CSFRA years ago, but we weren't. And every day that goes on without protections, results in more anxiety and displacement of our vulnerable community. So I urge the council, please prioritize creating a mobile home ordinance and prioritize it to be done as soon as possible because we cannot wait any longer. Um, the good news is staff already has done a ton of work on this issue. So it can hit the ground running. In fact, as others have pointed out tonight, it would be efficient for the staff to be able to prioritize work on this so that the city can then move on to other projects. So Mountain View must prioritize finishing mobile home rent protections as quickly as possible. And thank you very much for your time.

[03:56:31] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you Trey Borman.

[03:56:39] Trey Bornmann: Hello. Um, I know what you guys know what I'm here for. Um, I'm the past president of the uh, Mountain View Oklahoma Alliance. Um, I have retired now because it's a very stressful and demanding job, and Tim's taken over and he's doing a fantastic job with a great team that has grown and grown and grown and been yelling from the rooftops, city council, please do something to protect your vulnerable citizens, living in affordable housing, and for 20 years, nobody's done anything. You gotta look at this, 20 years, some council members have been turned out, left, come back, and still not done anything. And it's ridiculous, honestly, and it's a shame that the, a city of, of, uh, Mountain View's prosperity, wealth, ambition, technology cannot seem to get a grasp on what they need to do with this issue. All you have to do is look at other cities, like San Jose. They've already done it, and they've had it forever. Um, when the when the rent stabilization act came to pass, and I think, um, some council members of, uh, pointed this out in the past, um, There is no other city that has rent stabilization and doesn't have a mobile home, um, protections as well. We are one off city for some strange reason that really hates mobile homes. And we have to question why this is. Um, do you just do people hate affordable housing? Do they hate senior citizens? Do they hate people that don't have high incomes? Is that the reasoning? Or do people have campaign ambitions that they think they're going to get line their pockets by these big donors that are very, very wealthy? Um, the last point I like to just make is that right now in Santiago Villa. If you want to rent a mobile home, the rents have gone down to about $2,800. When you sell your home, your own home, um, that you buy, they will raise the space right now, the $2200, which limits the pool of buyers that can qualify to buy this home, and it completely limits them, and then the part comes in and buys it. And put you out and takes it on and rent it out. So if you do not see the manipulation and the sliminess that's happening here. I don't, um, we've come screaming from the rooftops and yet nothing has happened. And um, I'm questioning why. Bad practices, bad stuff, and I will be done. Thank you very much.

[03:59:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Emily Ramos.

[03:59:15] Emily Ramos: Oh, that was fun to follow. Um, can you hear me now?

[03:59:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:59:19] Emily Ramos: All right, uh, thank you, mayor. I am here on behalf of Mountain View Yimby. Um, we uh, we sent a letter of, of the projects that we have supported. So this will just be very quick. We are support a project one. Hold a study session on displacement response strategy and that loss, develop work plan. 2.one, the revisions to the R3 zoning. We find that it's very important that you keep those 2 projects together because they kind, they, they, um, They're supposed, those 2 projects are very synchronous, synchronous to each other. Uh, the next one is uh, we support 2.2 to work with MBLA, to exploit a possibility of acquiring Shenandoah property, largely because we support all efforts and opportunities to build affordable housing. 2.4 develop strategies for middle income persons. So for different housing types, 2.5, develop a city mobile home ordinance, smaller wealth and CSFRA, administered by the RHC, 2.8 facilitate the development of affordable housing at the VTA Able insight, 2.9, facilitate the planning, entitlement, and building process for lot 12, 3.2, uh, 3.20, continue the feasibility study of the automated guideway transportation system, and among the new projects, the create a moffet boulevard street skate design strategy. We would like bike lanes, and if this gives us an opportunity for more housing, let's go for it. Um, partner with the community, the county to explore potential conversion of the Crestview Hotel, we are in support of that, um, and continue to work on the housing element for 2023 to 31 regional housing needs assessment rena period. Um, we will be following that very closely from council and we hope that you continue to reach out to the community to make sure that we build the housing that we need in our region. Thank you so much.

[04:01:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, colleagues, so we've gotten back to Joan, and so I just ask for your patience. We'll start her timer once it, the feed ends and Joan, if you can hear me, if you could turn off the, I think the YouTube you're watching, and then you can join the Zoom and you won't hear the double voices, I think. So we'll we'll wait and I will unmute you now. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, and I will unmute you now. Joan, go ahead.

[04:02:24] Joan McDonald: I decided, finally, I would just email you. My concerns, because something's going on with my computer, and I...

[04:02:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Well, it worked for a second. Um, I just, uh, I think, thank my colleagues and, and Miss Vonterlinden and, and Mr. Jensen and our tech team for trying to get through this. Um, Joe McDonald is our last speaker and it sounds like she'll be submitting her comments um, via email. Um, So we'll just, we'll just go that route since we've tried unsuccessfully, uh, 4 or 5 times now, if that's okay with everyone. Is that okay? All right. All right. Thanks, Joan. will look for your email All right, so we'll um, we'll close public comment and bring it back to, um, the council. So, um, I'll turn it over to our city manager, Miss McCarthy, in terms of the next part of the process.

[04:03:47] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Shall we turn it over to Mr. Grudeska?

[04:03:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Go ahead, take it away.

[04:03:53] Lawrence Grudeska: Great, uh, excuse me. Thank you to the public for, uh, all that great comment and let me actually, uh, on a 2nd. Share my screen. Make sure that I'm sharing the right screen. All right. So we are going to try and move as quickly as possible and get into the discussion on vision and um, priority areas and then projects. Uh, doesn't need to be said again, but, um, really what I wanted to emphasize that we're trying to pursue areas of agreement and uh, consensus and that's going to inform some of the, the ways that we, um, get feedback on the suggested uh, revisions and also some of the projects. Um, I'm going to do my best to keep things, uh, moving along, but, uh, you know, we're, we're, uh, we're it's going to be a little while here. Um, so I'll do my best to keep things on time. Uh, we did want to talk just a little bit about what adopting a roadmap means we've covered some some of us before, so I'll be quick. Ultimately, what we're trying to do is identify what is on top of that waterline in this iceberg analogy. You'll be hearing and have heard about some of the things that lie below the water line as far as existing obligations, that staff has core services as well, some of the other related plans, as well as the COVID recovery items. So what we want to do is make sure that we are defining the tip of that iceberg that is really the direction that the city wants to move in and any gaps that the city needs to address to move in that direction. So um, we're going through a new process here. It's a very thoughtful process that I think that we're trying to be, uh, thoughtful as we can about, uh, communicating to council, uh, listening to council, about what your, um, uh, your priorities are and how you want to revise the the major goals into priority areas, uh, and how you want to capture the city's uh, Mountain View's vision right now. Um, so, as we go on in the next couple months, we're going to be talking about what it means to actually make changes to this roadmap moving forward and proposing, um, basically some process enhancement enhancements to help counsel and staff work together to keep the roadmap on track. We're not going to get into the details right now, but I just wanted to, um, start to, to, uh, share some of the things that we think are going to be required of council and staff to really work together to implement this roadmap uh, as effectively as possible. Um, from council, um, you know, we've already heard that staff is, is, uh, um, uh, suffering under a pretty heavy workload. Um, so really hoping that you recognize the need to limit new projects tonight, um, or take stuff off of uh, the, the current proposed list, uh, for the projects that you do want to move forward, providing clear specific direction, the staff is really critical. That is one of the things that we heard from staff that they really want to make sure that they are clear about what you want, the expected outcomes and projects. So, um, we'll be providing opportunities in the coming months as we move towards the final robats to make sure that that clarity exists. Um, and then, uh, as mentioned, coming up with a process and a timeline to revisit, revisit projects and priorities, according to a new proposed schedule, which we'll be, uh, talking about more in in the coming, um, months. As far as staff, um, we're uh, really, uh, wants to have to look to council, continue to look to council for policy direction. This is a, a roadmap that is, um, supposed to be a, a roadmap that informs not only, um, that, that incorpus, encompasses councils, policy direction, but informs staff work. And so, um, uh, it's an umbrella roadmap for the whole organization, but uh, staff really, you know, should be looking to you for for that policy direction. Um, and as they pursue implementation of that policy direction, continue to be transparent about their progress, and then, um, continue to keep the community informed, uh, whatever that looks like on a, on a project by project basis and as well as during council meetings. So, um, we are just going to sort of, um, share that as a as a seed for future conversation and move right into, um, the draft vision. So I'm going to turn it over to Cristel to share, uh, the vision and get your your initial feedback on on this, the proposed vision. Christelle, are you with me?

[04:08:32] Cristelle Blackford: You, Lauren.

[04:08:33] Lawrence Grodeska: All right.

[04:08:33] Cristelle Blackford: I am here.

[04:08:35] Lawrence Grodeska: All right, we charge forward.

[04:08:38] Cristelle Blackford: So our hope today in terms of the vision is really to understand from all of you how close we are or how far we still have to go on having a vision that everyone feels good about. Um, we're not gonna agree on final wording today, but we want to gather your feedback, um, in a structured discussion and we'll come back to you with a revised vision, uh, by April 27th. So as a reminder, here's our definition of a vision, uh, which you've seen many times now, and I just want to remind you that this is intended to be a shared vision. between council, staff, and the community. So we're really looking for that alignment and we'll explain to you how we've layered community staff and council input to get there. So, um, in response to the draft vision that we shared previously, we heard from you that the format didn't quite feel right. It was a little too long and wordy. Um, you wanted a shorter tagline type of vision, but also that a longer narrative vision would be helpful. Um, so we've developed both. Um, you also suggested that we revisit the general plan, which is shown here on the slide. I won't read this, but for your reference, we did go back to the general plan vision. And what we did is we took the community input, uh, the input from the department head meeting, um, and from the council retreat. And we layered those on top of the general plan vision to arrive at what we're going to share with you tonight. And without further ado, here is our draft vision tagline, which you've already seen in the staff memo. Um, So, uh, I will just read it briefly here, a sustainable, accessible, and welcoming community for residence, businesses, and visitors. And some of you have asked, um, you know, why we need a tagline, um, version of the vision. Um, And and we've understood from others that while the longer narrative is useful. We've heard that it would be useful and meaningful to have a tagline that is memorable, something that people can, um, remember on a day-to-day basis and really understand how their work for staff, um, and for council kind of connects with where we're headed as a as a city, as a community. Um, And and the tagline, others asked how this would be used, and the tagline would be used throughout various communications channels. And then now I would like to read the longer version of the vision. And well then we'll get into discussion. In 2030, the city of Mountain View creates the conditions for a diverse community to enjoy a great quality of life. The community supports a lively downtown as well as village centers, which anchor a healthy economy featuring small local businesses that provide a range of important services. Mountain View's vibrant neighborhoods offer a variety of housing options to meet the needs of all residents, while providing access to ample parks and open space. The city's focus on equity and inclusion underscores robust policies and programs to support vulnerable populations. Mountain View is a place that balances preservation and conservation with innovation and intentional development. The city is a national leader in sustainable living, and confronting the realities of climate change. A robust transportation network coupled with a focus on walkability and connectivity, has improved mobility while reducing vehicle miles and congestion. This is all possible through the continued efforts of community, council, and staff to work together towards shared priorities, physical responsibility, and good governance. So I'll now invite each of you to briefly share your reflections on this 1st draft. Um, what we really want to understand from you is Do you conceptually agree? So is this format and are these words kind of generally leading us in the right direction? And overall, um, You know, do you have any significant concerns are important efforts? Are there any specific phrases that don't feel quite right? Is there anything really important that you think is missing? So as I said before, our hope today is to really see, understand from all of you how close or far off you think that we are. Um, and give us the feedback that we need to revise it before April 27th. So with that, we'll go into our discussion. And, um, Would would it be helpful to leave the vision up on the screen or do we want to, um, go into? I see different responses.

[04:13:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I mean, I, I'll just interject here, um, Crystal, which is, you know, while it might be, interesting to see, we all can't see each other. So, um, if the, if the purpose is to just provide feedback, then I suppose you could leave it up, but if part of it is the engagement as colleagues and and talking about what we'd like to do, then I would suggest taking it down so we can all see each other.

[04:14:19] Cristelle Blackford: Yeah, my proposal would be that we take it down and have a discussion. Um, we are going to ask you to start by just going around and each sharing your feedback. Um, so, um, I can just start with the order on my screen, which would be beginning with, um, with you mayor, if you'd like to start. And just responding to those 2 questions.

[04:14:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Um, sure. I mean, I would I would also say, well, I don't know if all of us are going to have feedback. So I might suggest just starting with those who have the feedback first. Um,

[04:14:57] Cristelle Blackford: Do we want to do a quick show of hands for who would like to give their, um, comments on this? Do I see Council member Leaper's hand?

[04:15:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, go ahead, council number lever.

[04:15:12] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Um, so my feedback isn't uh, entirely positive. Um it's probably not partially positive either. Um, I think that this is really um, long and and wordy, and cringe, cringe making. Um, and I think that we should strive to strip it down to, um, like maybe a couple uncomplicated sentences. Um, And it's, it's not just me, um, being a grouch, but I've, I've heard this from, um, people that I really respect in the community that we're getting a little bit too far off, and, and they're wondering why we're going down this track. And, um, Maybe we could go back to something that we've used before that was just really stripped down. Um, understandable. Plain language, um, but I'm not, I'm not comfortable with this, and, and I hope that we, Can skip to getting into the meat of everything that our constituents talk to us about over the last hour or so.

[04:16:31] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you, council member. Can I clarify, are you referring to both the tagline and the longer vision?

[04:16:37] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Yes.

[04:16:39] Cristelle Blackford: Okay. Thank you. And I see Council member Metachek.

[04:16:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: you. So, um. I, um, I do have, uh, some concerns about this, and, um, specifically on the tagline. I think we heard loud and clear tonight from lots of residents, um, and certainly over the past, uh, 5 years maybe. Um, as I've engaged with residents. I have heard a lot about livability and quality of life. And uh, 2 years ago when that was combined with sustainability. I was a little bit skeptical about that, but we gave it a shot. Um, and so um, I don't think that worked all that well. So I'm pleased to see that there was a comment about, um, breaking it out. But I feel like instead of breaking it out, it just kind of got lost. And so I would want to make sure that something about livability and quality of life is in our tagline. And um, I also, we got an email from one resident and I thought, oh, that was exactly my thought. This could be any city, and I think this really needs to be something that, um, differentiates us from every other city in the Bay Area. And, um, you know, I'm not going to wordsmith, although I am just dying to. Um, but, um, you know, something that really, Enables people to really understand why Mountain View is so special, and how we're different from other cities, and how we really do strive to have a great quality of life and have this very livable, sustainable, welcoming community. On the full vision. Um, Again, I think we need to have livability, quality of life, really jump out. I also want to make sure we focus on nature. And we hear comments about biodiversity. You know, we're kind of losing that. And I specifically recall many of us saying that what we would envision for Mountain View, is people laughing and having fun and hearing birds. And we're not going to be hearing those birds if we don't have biodiversity. And so we need that in our city to bring back and to, um, in, not only like protect what we have now, but enhance what we have. So that we have a very, um, fulfilling, you know, natural environment that people can enjoy. Um. I also want to point out that, um, we are not just counting on the village centers or downtown to provide services. We also count on them to provide goods for our daily needs. Um, and one of the concerns I have about this, as well as, uh, lots of other things that happen here. Um, I get concerned when we use terms like insure. I think that's really hard for us to ensure things. But we can certainly do a lot to enable and foster and, you know, try to make it happen, but insure is a pretty strong word. Um, the other word that makes me a little bit nervous is all. Um, again, I feel like it's, um, it's so broad and encompassing. You know, we can strive again to do a lot of things, but can we do all? Yeah, I think that's pretty challenging. So, um, I guess I just want to reiterate livability and quality of life. Need to jump out in all of this. Thanks.

[04:20:46] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Um, I think I next uh, council member show Walter's hand go up.

[04:20:54] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah. Um, I, uh, When I 1st read this, I thought the tagline wasn't too bad. And, um, I still don't think it's terrible, but, but when I, then I think about when I was the mayor and I was traveling around the country and really to other countries, explaining what mountain view was, um, uh, the 1st thing I talked about was that we were the innovation center for Silicon Valley. And that's not even mentioned here. And and we're known throughout the entire world for that. So, I think that's really important. I do kind of question how valuable something like a vision statement is. I think the discussion to get to the vision statement might be, uh, kind of valuable, but but the statement itself. I'm not so sure. But anyway, we haven't gotten this yet. So, um, I think we need to go back and um, when we're, if we do have a vision statement, it needs to be probably less than a 100 words. Um, it needs to be short. And um, uh, I, uh, I like the concepts in a sense that are in here. You know, there's very nice happy thing, you know, good things that are listed here. But, um, as people have said, is that what distinguishes us from every other community in the Bay Area? Um, Not necessarily. And, um, But anyway, so on top of my colleague's comments, that that would be mine. I'm not sure that we really need this long kind of a vision statement. I think it should be very short. And we ought to bring up the fact that we are the innovation center of Silicon Valley. And frankly, for many, for many people think of us as the envy of the world. Um, because we, you know, we are that, and, um, and there's lots of reasons why we are that, but, uh, they're not really captured here. So we need to work on this some more. Thank you.

[04:23:02] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you, Council member, Sher Walter, and Council member, Atic, Koga.

[04:23:09] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, um, so I appreciate all the hard work that's been put into this and, um, the fact that, uh, there was community outreach and, um, I guess I, I, I liked this and I think it was a real, um, you know, strong effort to try to capture all the different, um, opinions and perspectives that have been shared by our community as well as, um, as um, council and and staff. So, um, in that sense, you know, I understand how it's turned out. Um, and I think it is trying to capture everything. Um, I guess when I, you know, I, as I was, have been participating in thinking through this process, um, and I know we're, I don't think we're there yet, but, I guess I go back to, um, you know, the, um, kind of have, uh, a vision to me is some, something that is succinct and kind of a big picture of where we want to head. And, um, so I I actually like the tagline pretty much, but I do agree with some of the other comments that my colleagues have mentioned. Um, like when I think of Mountain View, and over the years as I've talked to folks, um, here in Mountain View, and, you know, outside of Mountain View, um, And word innovation, as I think, Council member, she'll Walter mention, comes to mind constantly. I think also leadership has become something that's, you know, we're known for. Um, And, um, quality of life, as Counselor Romatic has mentioned, I think that even more is, is, is, is even more prominent now because, um, you know, we've put in the hard work to plan for, uh, growth and development, um, and, you know, have focused primarily really on housing. But I think we're at a point now where we, you know, in our community is starting to say, well, let's make sure, though, that that housing, that growth is being supported by, you know, the amenities that provide that high quality of life, that makes mountain view different and unique. Um, the other, uh, word that we often hear, and I think we really treasure is a word of diversity. And um, and I think, and I think of diversity, not just in terms of our, you know, people, but actually in terms of even our businesses. So when you, your, your, your fuller vision talks about certain businesses, but I think it's really the full spectrum of businesses that makes mountain view um, thrive and makes it special. So, I, you know, I would feel more comfortable just kind of expanding and using more, a broader terms that capture, you know, that, that, that diversity. Um, yeah. So I think those are just some of the words that come to my mind that I would like to see in our tagline, um, in your fuller vision. I, I really like, um, the, the, the sentence I like the most was the balancing of preservation and conservation with innovation and intentional development. Um, So, I guess, yeah, my thought is, I don't know if we need both, or we could have. I think a short tagline is nice to have because, you know, that's something it becomes our marketing, our branding, right, our branding piece. Um, but I think we could shurn the fuller vision and maybe, you know, make it broader and trying to capture, again, the diversity of business and whatnot. Um, And so that would be my nice suggestion. Um, And then I think at the last sentence, I did like too, because I think that ties into what we, I think, was coming next is the mission of our city as city government. Um, and in there, you know, we've always talked about fiscal responsibility and good governance. And so I would definitely like to keep that. Those, those, those phrases. Thank you.

[04:27:26] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you, Council member, Adocoga. Council member Hicks, please go ahead.

[04:27:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I'll start off by saying I'm, I'm really not a, um, a vision statement and, uh, and tagline kind of person. I'm, I tend to, you know, be here thinking, I want to get to the meat of the issue and and leave time while we're fresh to prioritize projects and and do that strategically. So that that caveat. Um, I, I, um, didn't particularly care that it was long. I think it captures a lot of what different community members say. get a lot of input from a lot of community members and I don't think any short statement is going to really capture everything everybody's saying and thinking. Um, I agreed with a bunch of what council member Mattachek said that, um, I've been hearing a lot from residents lately on, uh, livability, green spaces, and I also liked what council member Abbe Koga said about balancing preservation and conservation, adding in innovation and diversity. Um, and, and, um, with that, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to, I, I feel that this is something that can evolve over time. Maybe other councils can come back and revisit it. I feel a need to get on and um, plan our projects. Um, I guess I'll leave it at that.

[04:29:03] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you for sharing. Is there anyone else that would like to share on this? Mayor, vice mayor.

[04:29:17] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, go ahead, Mayor.

[04:29:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So, um, I think you've received a lot of feedback. So I, I think the, the only thing that that I would share is, um, I like the idea of, of the tagline. Um, and I like the idea of the vision. I think that, um, my colleagues gave quite a bit of food for thought in terms of how to craft that. Um, So I won't kind of, I think, dive into that too much. Um, but I do know like in the past, um, we as as council members are given the opportunity to, if we choose, put the mission statement on the back of our business cars in a time when you actually got to see people and needed them. And so whatever we're creating in terms of this vision, you know, that would be something I would hope that we could maybe perhaps put on the back of those when when the time comes to see folks again. And so, you know, to me, it's, it's, really sharing, thinking about what would we want on the back of that as we're sharing our, our information and and they would turn it over and what do we want them to know when they turn it over and read about our city and our community. I guess so that's kind of the thing I think about when I'm thinking, um, for the, for the tagline. Um, is something that will stick with you and, and I think my, uh, how do, how do we make it unique and not kind of generic? Um, In terms of the vision, I do agree with my colleagues in terms of kind of maybe pairing it down. Um, I think right now it's about half a page and I liked the idea. I think that one of my colleagues mentioned about perhaps like a 100 to 250 words or so. Um, you know, or might be might be good to aim. Um, so I think that that's, The, the community for all is something that just sticks out to me. Um, and that's, you know, socioeconomic as well as kind of in intercultural diversity. Um, and then the, I do like the comments that people shared with the quality of life. I mean, I think that's why people like myself move away and then move back. It's the quality of life of our community that you can't get anywhere else. And I think that's kind of the intangible, that would be great to put into the vision, which is that mountain view is like no place else. Thanks.

[04:31:51] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you for sharing. Um, Bye, Mayor Ramirez, did you want to share or?

[04:32:00] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Um. Thank you. I've been going back and forth about whether I should comment on this or not. Um, um, I'm reminded of a biblical passage. Like most of us are familiar with doubting Thomas. Uh, unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side. I will not believe. And I think what I struggled with from the beginning is, I still don't have a sense of the policy implication of the vision statement. I wonder if there's a discernible difference between adopting this vision as drafted and whatever the ideal vision statement as compiled by my colleagues, you know, would there be a meaningful difference? Would it change the way we would do anything? Um, would it change the strategic priorities or the projects that we select? And I'm skeptical that it would. Um, so I guess, what I'm hoping to get a sense of, uh, as this work continues is, what is the policy implication of any statement that we adopt?

[04:33:26] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you for sharing. Um, I, it seems like we can move on. I think we have a lot of really helpful feedback to move us forward here. Um, what I'm hearing is that, We want something that, um, really sets mountain view apart that, that demonstrates the uniqueness. We heard some great comments on the things that need to be included, like quality of life, innovation, diversity, leadership, biodiversity, conservation. Um, birds singing. There's also a desire. It seems like there's um, general consensus that we want to have something, the longer version, that is shorter, that really captures, um, in fewer words, uh, what we've heard. Um, and, and so I think that my only clarifying question is, Um, If we capture kind of these key words that you've shared, um, and sort of the, Um, you know, we can't capture everything, if we, we can do our best. We can't necessarily capture everything if we make it really short. Um, you know, maybe maybe 250 words, I don't know, but I guess what I'm curious about is, is there any concern about leaving out components that have been shared by community or staff? Um, You know, is it, is it that we distill it into the fewest kind of really striking words, um, or that we just kind of focus on the most important things? And I think we'd, I'm just curious, if anyone has a comment and then we can move on. Council members show up.

[04:35:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Just focus on the important things. That's that's all it should include is the important things.

[04:35:19] Cristelle Blackford: Thank you.

[04:35:22] Unknown Speaker: Very much my opinion.

[04:35:25] Cristelle Blackford: Okay. All right, if there's, um, if there's no other comment, I think for the sake of time, we can move on and, um, we'll work with your comments and and bring you something back. And I'll pass it back to Lawrence unless you have any clarifying questions.

[04:35:43] Lawrence Grodeska: No, I think we should move on to the priorities. Um, you know, and and the, Just to, I think there's a, where did you go? There we go. Um, The way we think of the purpose of vision is to capture the desired end state, the mountain view that we want to be living in and the future, and the priorities set us up to get there, um, to to revisit our our definition here, the top area of focus to achieve the vision. So, personally, for me, I think vision, and I've heard it from some of you too, is that quality of life is a huge component of the vision, rather than a strategic priority. We want to choose the strategic priorities and projects underneath them that lead to that outcome of quality of life. Um, that's the way I think about strategic planning. Um, what are the outcomes and then what are the, the sort of, the, the gaps that we need to fill to get us to achieve those outcomes. Um, So what we've done is we've taken, what we heard as far as those community themes, and um, we, uh, sat with them, and then based on the feedback that we heard from you all last time, we went back and we revisited a couple things. We visited the council major goals. I think you'll see when we get to the priorities that all of them for the most part are still intact as the 1st 4 priorities, with some minor modifications, again, based on what we've heard from all of you and some staff, but a lot of community as well. Um, we also, uh, wanted to revisit the general plan themes so that there's some sense of integration, and I think the, the one that came up for me, which, um, didn't feel like it was really capturing the current major goals was the economic prosperity, and that was also a theme, um, from the public. Um, and then we sort of revisited the, the, the goals through the lens of the themes that we heard. And that's how we ended up with the priorities that we're presenting and talking about tonight. So, what I'd like to do is read through these. I can give just a little bit more context of the specific areas that we, why we ended up here and where we heard. Um, some of this from. And then we'll do something similar, just hear from each of you about sort of what feels off. Um, and, um, what, uh, what you'd like for us to work on for the next revision. And, um, I think that these become important because they also inform, um, the, uh, the, the projects that, that should be, this to me is, is, in a sense, um, to speak to Vice Mayor Mayors's question is, is the gap or the bridge between the vision and the, um, the projects. In a way, these could be considered strategies, uh, or sort of certain areas of focus that the project should, um, fall under to, to reach those outcomes of the vision. So you'll notice here in the format, um, we also uh, chose to go with one specific uh, or a short header for, or priority area name. And then we have generally 3 sentences that reflect, um, some of the specific focuses on each priority that were, uh, either part of the original major goals or came up in in the input that we've received to date. And, um, you know, some of these could uh, be reflective of uh, are considered strategies to to achieve that vision. So, um, let's jump in, Equital Community for All, uh, Preserve Mountain View, Socio Unique, Socioeconomic, and cultural diversity. Um, this was, um, one of the existing current major goals. Engage in protect vulnerable populations through programs and services, and then ensure safe access to parks and open space and other key amenities for our community. I think this last sentence is was our attempt to incorporate quality of life that we heard in a more specific way, um, especially based on the feedback that we heard from the community, which was very loud about the importance for, um, uh, uh, equitable access to to parks on open space. Um, but then also other key amenities from an accessibility lens, which we heard about from the community as well. Um, The, the biggest piece here, though, is is focusing on equity, um, and bringing that in as a consideration, um, uh, to sort of, um, uh, to, further define community for all and how mountain view gets there. Uh, 2nd is intentional development and housing for all. This is a refinement of the last major council major goal on housing, affordable housing. We brought in intentional development based on a lot of really great feedback from the community. Certainly increased the quantity and university of housing options was a big part of the existing current major goal, provide opportunities for subsidizing affordable housing as well as ownership was as well. This last sentence, planned for neighborhoods with nearby businesses and amenities that balance density, with livable green and mixed use development. This is something that we tried to capture, which reflected the feedback from the community. And I also think some of the conversations we've heard from you all as well, about the need to think about other services and access to services and really, again, quality of life as density of housing increases and there's more residents. What does that, what does it mean to balance, um, housing density with providing, um, the other services and amenities that are necessary and need to be thought about while planning and development happens. Uh, number three, mobility and connectivity, we uh, shifted the transportation focus uh, to uh, be uh, more about mobility uh, as a concept rather than specifically transportation, uh, and then connectivity, sort of, again, a little bit of an outcome. We heard quite a bit from the community that they wanted to feel like Mountain View was something that they wasn't isolated neighborhoods or centers, but that they could easily access different parts of the community via transportation network, or being walkable, bikeable, et cetera. So develop and promote transit options that reduce vehicle trips and traffic, enhance connectivity across mountain view, which is what I just spoke to, and then focus on safe, walkable, bikable, accessible neighborhoods. The, the desire for for walkable uh, and bikable neighborhoods was uh, also heard, um, prominently from the community. Let's see, going on to four. Uh, again, it was, we did decide to pull out quality of life from environments as far as the major goal number 4 of the current work plan, that was brought up in our last conversation with you all. It also felt to us like it was a little bit of a cludge to fit those together. Um, we also heard from the community that it wasn't just environment, but it was also climate, uh, readiness and resiliency. So what we were proposing here is, uh, minimize the city's greenhouse gas emissions, support residents and businesses to adopt sustainable practices and use resources wisely. We actually heard from the business focus group that they wanted more help and understanding how they could be sustainable and be more green as an example, and then protect local ecosystems and prepare for sea level rise. Um, And I think it came up in um, our council conversation with you all about that sea level rise preparation and the adaptation piece of, of, climate and sustainability. Five thriving local economy. Um, this was, uh, again, referencing the, the, the major, uh, general plan themes as well as hearing this, uh, really loud and clear from the community, and it's also came up from a number of you during our 1st session. Uh, really focusing on the economy. And this felt like a big gap to us as far as the conversation that's happening right now, but what's captured in the current major goals. So the proposed language here is invest in a beautiful vibrant downtown that draws residents and visitors. create an environment where small local diverse businesses can survive and thrive across the city and continue to work in partnership with large employers in mountain view. Hopefully that threads the needle as far as addressing the gamut or the range of economy in Mountain View. Um, and this was also something that, um, we wanted to to really focus on, um, diverse businesses and um, local and small businesses, which uh, was we heard in a number of places. Finally, we added, we're proposing adding organizational strength and good governance. This was something that came up through a lot of the staff interviews, a need to focus on the organization being sustainable in and of itself, being strong and being able to govern itself and provide good services effectively. So, uh, language here is continue to innovate, collaborate, continuously improve, to deliver a high level customer service. We heard customer service from the business community, um, and also, um, intimations of that from from the public meetings. Recruit, develop, and retain top notch staff, maintain fiscal responsibility and effective intergovernmental partnerships, and finally communicate and engage regularly and transparently with our multilingual community, which is something that we heard from you all in our 1st meeting. So with that, um, we're going to stop our share and um, ask each of you to share your thoughts on, um, similar to to the vision. Do you conceptually agree with the draft strategy priorities and any significant concerns or things that are missing to discuss right now as we think about the next round of revisions. Vice Mayor Ramirez, your hand is up.

[04:45:37] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Um, and I appreciate your comment, your comment, Lawrence, about this sort of stormy as the, uh, the intermediary between the vision statement and the projects that were, uh, were prioritizing. Um, uh, I have a, a few thoughts that are, that are related to the questions, but I think kind of in a different, uh, with, with some different intentionality. I guess in mind. Uh, so, 1st um, and and you've alluded to this, sort of, in, in other context, but I, I think one of the things I'm hoping we can achieve here is to shift away from council goals and towards organizational priority. For a couple of reasons. I think, uh, in doing so, what I'm hoping we can do is daylight, the work that staff is doing to give both the community and the council, a better sense of staff capacity and the true work that's being done. Um, I appreciate the metaphor of the iceberg. But I think, It would be ideal not to have to worry about, uh, you know, being mindful of work that is sometimes invisible or often invisible. And instead, uh, recognize that if we have these kinds of thematic goals, they really should be organizational and not sort of give a sense of a dichotomy between what staff cares about and what the council cares about. Um, so, uh, I'm not sure it's, it can be easily done. in this process, but, uh, that's the direction I'd like to go with this. Uh, and and ultimately, for, for the organizational priorities to be useful in multiple contexts. One that'll get into shortly and then the other, uh, to inform the budget process in a much more significant way than the thematic council goals historically, uh, have. Um, The the other objective, I think, is, uh, to shift away from thematic aspirational goals and towards quantifiable goals, with metrics that we can use to show the community that we're making progress. And I think actually more importantly, uh, to have some common ground as a council, uh, on whether we've made progress or not. Um, I've had interesting conversations with many colleagues about a lot of these thematic goals. I think we all recognize they're all important. But the problem is on the other side of a 2 year cycle. We have different opinions about whether we've done a lot or we haven't done enough. Um, and I think that's highly problematic. I think when we don't have quantifiable goals. The projects that we select, don't necessarily, uh, there isn't necessarily an easy way of determining whether the projects that we're selecting help us materially accomplish those goals, because the projects themselves have different types of impact, oftentimes it's, you know, it's, it's important things, but, you know, in terms of achieving a particular goal. It may not have you know, full relevance. Um, and uh, I think it'll, it'll help us, it'll, it'll help us better select projects that will actually, you know, materially impact the goal that, you know, that the project is categorized under. Um, so, you know, not not interested in, you know, convenient ways of categorizing projects, but looking for actual goals that we can say to our community. You know, we've we've made this much progress on. And consequently, we either can retire that goal because we've made significant progress or we need to retain it for another couple of years because we haven't made as much progress as we'd like. Um. So those are my, my 2 thoughts. Uh, many members of the council and many members of the public, uh, shared, uh, very valuable input about, uh, sort of other important concepts that weren't really captured here, uh, related to livability, quality of life. Uh, biodiversity, green space. Um, I don't have a good suggestion for how to incorporate that into the strategic priorities. I will support whatever recommendations my colleagues um, share. But I do think that is something that should be reflected, and ideally, with some kind of, you know, metrics or or a way of quantifying our ability to to advance that goal. Um, so I think I'll stop there. Thank you.

[04:50:37] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you, vice mayor. appreciate that input. Council member Hicks.

[04:50:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I appreciate hearing that as a way of starting off and I agree with the vice mayor, at least I think this is what he was saying that the previous way that we set goals, sort of the 4 goals that we've had since I've been on council and also before, are, it was, um, in some ways broken because in terms of uh, choosing projects, because they were aspirational, We would never, you know, yeah, we would, I would like to complete them, but, you know, finishing off addressing climate change, within Mountain View, we're probably, you know, not going to say, okay, we've, we've done that. Great. Let's move on and so forth for the other goals. So, um, So, I appreciate also what the vice mayor said in terms of being responsive to staff and the council. The piece that I feel you left out as being responsive to the voters. And or the residents or members of the public who come and address us. Um, And so, That's what, that's what makes me, so because of that, I kind of like this larger list of goals, and it's what makes me not particularly want to say, you know, we need a strictly defined number, and it needs to be quantifiable, and we need to say we've totally gotten there before we move on. Because I think that makes, that leaves 2 things. It means that we're not able to be responsive to residents if they bring something that doesn't fit under, you know, whatever number we have. We just have to say, no matter how many of you come, I'm sorry. That's not one of our 4 goals, so we can't work on that at all. And it also means if you run for office, promising a bunch of stuff, it's hard, if it's not within those goals, you just have to shelve it at all. So, I, um, I totally appreciate the, um, the need for, uh, for, for not biting off more than we can chew. Um, but I like being able to hear from the public and being able to, um, select projects that meet some of some of the aspirations of the public and I don't want to cut off, sort of artificially cut off our ability to do that. Um, and with that, I have a couple, just a couple little wordsmithing things, which, since this is not in front of me, maybe I won't be able to say it correctly, but, uh, and I think the 1st goal, it says safe, access, safe, access to parks. And a member of the public changed that to, I think, um, equitable access to parts, and I think that would be better because I don't think we're having any problems with unsafe people getting to parks unsafely. Um, And I may have some other work. smithing ones, but, um, that was, that was the, um, 1st one that jumped out at me.

[04:53:57] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Celts member reliever.

[04:54:01] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you. Um, well, I I liked uh, uh, the amendment that uh, council member Hicks made, and um, I, I think that goes to a little bit of what I'm thinking about, um, and I was trying to understand, you showed us, uh, 3 sets of, of, uh, language, and I wasn't sure what, uh, each of those sets represented, um, and how they related to each other. Um, but I did notice on the 3rd set on the, um, 1st bullet point about, um, the equity, uh, I don't normally think about, uh, equity of open space in, in Mountain View, and I, I think it is important. Um, but I think more of um, equity in terms of um, public health. And um, access to housing. And, um, uh, access to jobs and et cetera. And then, um, I think that there was a, another point, uh, that talked about, um, dense development with, um, green space. Um, and I think somewhere in the language, what we put together, we should talk about, um, uh, access to a meaningful amount of green space. Um, because that's really kind of, I think, emerging from a lot of different community members in many different contexts that the, the need for uh, a meaningful, cohesive amount of um, green space. But again, I think more of equity in terms of transportation justice, economic justice, um, public health, uh, being spread as equitably as possible in, in those kinds of issues and, um, freedom from eviction. Um, safe parking, uh, those kinds of things.

[04:56:13] Lawrence Grodeska: So you're suggesting that some of that potentially could be brought into that 1st priority of equitable community for all?

[04:56:20] Councilmember Sally Lieber: I think right now it looks like it's a forced marriage between open space and equity and I would uh, flesh out the equity. And, and put the open space into an environmental uh, kind of thing, but I would, I would keep, Some sense of uh, recreation and public health and access um, in that 1st one. Um, but I might not, uh, have those 2 very disparate elements, um, just kind of thrown together.

[04:56:51] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay. Great. Thank you. For that clarification. Other council members. have anything to share? Uh, Council member Abi Koga. saw your hand first.

[04:57:04] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, so I, um, I liked the 6 goals in general. Um, have a few um, tweaks that I'd like to suggest. Um, and before I do that, I wanted to respond to, try to respond to vice mayor's comments, and I totally understand, and, um, I think this is my 6th or 7th, uh, time doing goal setting, and I've seen it, had done, you know, in many different ways. It used to be yearly, it used to be very specific. I remember when one year we did technology or upgrading technology and city, you know, our cities and city services, and those were things that were measurable, and we were able to take it off after so many years, but in the past, you know, few iterations of this that's become these larger goals, housing, and transportation. And I think that's, you know, I mean, it makes sense to do that. But I have been questioning like, at what point, you know, would we take those off? Because they're always be, right, um, issues that we have to deal with. So my thought has been has been like, well, you know, we'll probably keep the main 3 transportation housing and uh, sustainability or climate change. And then maybe we added the 4th last time. And, um, you know, I'm actually okay with adding a couple more, um, this round because I think the, like the one that you do add in terms of driving local economy, that to me is probably like in this point in time with COVID and, you know, um, yeah, like the national situation. This is something that I think we really do need to focus on. Um, so my hope is that, you know, we will work on it and we'll get to a point where, um, back, you know, up until 2000, 19, we were thriving, so maybe we could ease up on it a bit is what is my thought. Um, so I'm okay with the categories here. Um, 6 of actually, I appreciate what, um, the reason for 6. Um, but it's been interesting to see some of the emails that have come in saying, well, this is what, you know, city government should be doing. So I'm a little, um, yeah, I'm not really set yet completely on that. Um, and I've been thinking of how we could perhaps include some of the, these points into our other goals. So, for instance, in terms of like a high level of customer service, and I mean, I look in having top notch staff, and we should always be doing that, but to me, that relates to being able to provide a high quality of life. So that would be sort of how I would connect it to maybe number one goal. Um, but specifically for number one, um, some of the things I'd been hearing, and I was very pleased to hear this because it's always been a priority for me. Um, and maybe in the past a little too soon for its time, but um, health and uh, wellness. So my thought was, could we say a healthy and equitable community for all that maintains our high quality of life? Um, and then, but two, um, I think 2 is fine. I like, I really like the word intentional, um, because I think, you know, it'd be really neat to think about just not building housing everywhere, but where it goes and that it makes sense to where it goes. Um, you know, I would say, and I'm, I mean, I maybe, I, in the minority on this, but, you know, we have arena numbers, we plan for in zone for us to be able to meet arena numbers, I believe, this coming cycle. So, quantity is not as, I think, crucial now as quality, um, diversity. And, um, frankly, you know, I, I, I've said this, like, as a city, I think we've done our part to make sure we have, we can have the quantity, and it's really kind of now up to the development world to actually build the housings, and we don't have a lot of stay in that now. So I could, you know, I would be okay to maybe even remove quantity at this point. Um, and then the other, uh, for 3, um, I was thinking about, um, in terms of bike walkable, bikable accessible. And we've talked about this, we've had discussion about this, that, um, I know in the past we've tried to do complete streets, but the reality is, is you can't make it, you know, not every street is made to be good for cars and bikes and people. And so I've been thinking about like maybe the term net, a network for walkability, bikeability, and to access neighborhoods or something like that so that we actually have, it might be different, you know, different routes for each, but that we have that network. So folks can choose, which, you know, which route they want to take if they're biking or walking or driving. So I would maybe, you know, try to change it in that way. Um, and then with 4, I think 4 is where it should go, but we have heard a lot about, um, biodiversity, and I really, I have, you know, always valued that. I, we have a very unique, um, city that has, you know, for, we have wildlife habitats here, I mean, not a reason he does. And I think that's a really big part of the city that our community values. So I would like to bring that word biodiversity into probably 4 is what I'm thinking. Um, and then 5 with the local economy. Um, again, I think this is fine, but I'm actually not. I mean, I know folks want small and local. Um, um, I guess I would say, Frank, and, you know, we had a time where we had a lot of startups, and, and then those startups would grow, and they wouldn't have space to grow here, so they move away. And I think that's just as important. Um, so again, I go back to that whole diversity of businesses, but and would say something like maybe, um, you know, an environment where businesses of all sizes thrive. Um, and yeah, I think that was it for now. Thank you.

[05:03:48] Lawrence Grudeska: Great. Thank you. Cats member, Mattachek.

[05:03:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I want to start by saying that I appreciate the vice mayor's comments. I am very used to in the business world having goals that are measurable so that you know what you're reaching for and you know when you've reached it. So, I think it's, you know, it's been a struggle for me to, um, sort of switched to a different way of looking at goals here at the city. Um, and if there's any way to inject an element of being able to quantify these so that we know when we're 80% of the way, 100% of the way, that would be great. Um, because I appreciate, uh, council member of a Congus comments about. You know, when we've reached a goal, then we can have another goal for something else that's really important for us to do. Um, I absolutely appreciate her comments on housing. Um, we have done a lot to enable housing, and the city doesn't build housing. So it is up to the development community to build that housing. Um, on that specific, um, priority, I also like the phrase intentional development. Housing for all, again, you know, throughout all of these priorities. I worry about the use of the word insure and all. So, I think I'd change that to um, housing options. Um, because that implies um, a lot of variety or it could be diversity of housing. Um, but, you know, something that says there's lots of different options that people have to choose from. Um, I would also in that section, um, subsidized and affordable housing are the same thing from my perspective, but I think what's missing in there is addressing homelessness. And um, I think that would fit in nicely here. Um, back up to the 1st point or the 1st priority. And, and I also struggled with, um, ensure safe access, again, because it's insure safe. I thought, well gosh, I don't think it's not safe. Um, so it's like providing, um, parks and open space throughout the city, um, that I would say is, you know, pretty equitable so that everyone has the ability to walk to open space in their neighborhood. Um, I appreciate uh, council member, Abbe Koga's comments about, um, mobility and connectivity. I feel like I've been saying for years now, we can't um, ask every road we have to accommodate all modes of getting around the city. And so we have to optimize some for vehicles, some for pedestrians, and some for bicycles. And bicycles and pedestrians might be the same one. And what I would add to that is, and those are also the routes that are the green routes. So that they're pleasant to use. People want to use them, and it encourages people to get out of a vehicle because it's such a great alternative. Um. I would add, um, in number 5 that, um, one of the things that makes our vibrant downtown so vibrant is, um, the character of it, and our historic buildings, and that we want to preserve that, uh, character and look and feel of our downtown. Um, and then probably the area where, I'm sure you can imagine I had the biggest concern is, I actually would like a standalone, um, priority around livability and quality of life. I don't feel comfortable having it sort of distributed throughout these other priorities. I think it deserves one on its own because it is so important. And frankly, because the past 2 years, I feel like I've seen where, where it has been kind of distributed in other things. It hasn't gotten the attention than I think it deserves. And so I think it does need to be a standalone priority. And, um, I'm happy to send you my draft wording if you want it.

[05:08:12] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay, great. Sure. Thank you very much.

[05:08:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And one other thing. Um, and that is, I sort of, um, had, um, the same reaction that, um, council member on the COVID had to the, to number 6 and I thought, huh, you know, usually we haven't had sort of an internal focus, um, on a priority. And I, I appreciate it, and I don't want us to sort of take it for granted. Um, but I, I was sort of thinking maybe why I feel like this was a little bit different than the others, is because it's more how we do the other things. Um, and we still need to focus on it. But I don't know, I'm not totally convinced that it should be, um, a standalone priority. But, um, certainly I'm open to changing my mind about that one. Thank you.

[05:09:07] Lawrence Grudeska: Thank you. Council member of show alter.

[05:09:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I I'm glad I have a turn. I was generally pretty pleased with these categories. I thought this, this did a good job of capturing, um, ideas that I have heard, um, discussed in our community for a long time. I also agree with a lot of things that have already been said. Um, and um, so I'm just going to kind of go through quickly my changes or places I'd like you to add a word or a concept. I don't want to tell you how to do it. You could figure it out. Um, like in the equitable community for all. I think it would be good to add the concept of health and livability. Um, and also that last sentence we've all been playing with. What about provide walkable access to parks and open space and other key amenities in our community? Because to me, what people are really asking for is that they can get there under their own, you know, they can get to those parks easily from their own house or business and use them. Um, and, We don't want to insure it. We want to provide it, and it is already safe. So anyway. Okay, um, I really loved the, as we talked about on the phone, Lawrence. I really liked the phrase intentional development. I think one of the things that Mountain View has done for many years is use the precise plan, you know, to figure out these tailored planning documents for neighborhoods. And I think they've been really successful. And this intentional development, I think, is a good phrase to kind of describe that. So I really like that. And, um, I would, I would maybe change this to be intentional development and increase housing supply, period. And then, um, in, uh, the last sentence in that group, um, you say nearby businesses. I, it seems to me what we've been talking about is, is we want to plan for neighborhoods that are near jobs or near employment. Um, so that people don't have to um, drive very far to their jobs. That's the whole, I, you know, deal with North Bay Shore and and, and development of East Westman is to have, you know, the jobs and the housing close to one another. So I, I, somehow they get that concept in there. And I like the idea of adding addressing homelessness. That is certainly a huge issue in our community. And it should be in here. Uh, certainly somewhere that, and, and the housing is, is the, is a very logical place. Okay, um, I like the idea of the network for mobility and um, connectivity. That's great. And under sustainability and climate resilience. I was very excited to see the last sentence. Thank you very much for that. And, um, but I, I would, I also think that adding biodiversity is, is really important over the years when I've worked with biologists, uh, it's like the, the big, um, concept that's been battered into my head has been that if you really want to improve the habitat, the, your goal should be to increase the biodiversity. And, um, so, uh, getting that into, into this is important. Um, and the thriving economy. One, um, I think, uh, uh, council member, um, Abbe Koga is is absolutely right. Uh, here we are in COVID and and we're, we, we, it looks like we're, we're getting to the end of the public health crisis, but we're not anywhere near the end of the financial crisis. And we don't know how long that's going to go on. So, so, um, you know, working on the thriving local economy, it's very, very current, very important. Um, and, um, I would like to get that word innovate in there somewhere and also, um, employment. Uh, I think we're really interested in getting people to have jobs. Um, that, not just, not just working with businesses, but making sure that our residents have jobs that, um, produce good, uh, you know, good, uh, good wages that they can, they can live on. I liked number six. Um, I think we, you know, one of the things we should, we should all be duly proud of is the, um, is the good, uh, level of service and and the quality of our staff and and the civility that has been a tradition in our community for for decades. So, I like this one. So thank you. That's my thoughts.

[05:13:54] Lawrence Grudeska: Thank you. Council member and Mayor Kameh.

[05:13:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Okay. So, um, in an effort to to just go through the priorities. I just took wrote quick notes. Um, So, I think for for me, for item one, um, I feel comfortable with the different suggestions made by my colleagues about including, you know, other policy topics. I think health was mentioned. But I guess sticking point for me is the word equitable. I feel like the word equitable is such a. It, it can, according to whom, right? And so I feel like I really have appreciated the word promote a community for all because that the intentionality there is to strive to be a community for all and to and to always be trying to improve on that strategic priority. So for me, I do feel like equitable, like I understand kind of the nuance to it. But when it comes to priorities, I think we really need to, and I think some people have had some wordsmithing. We really, the intentionality needs to be there and also like the clarity. So I do like the promote the community for all that was there. Um, for number two. Um, I'm okay with this. I think I'd also maybe like to, to broaden it and to, um, our, our unhoused community, because I, I feel like that, that can be those who are homeless, those can be those who are, you know, in a transitional space, it could be those, um, who are, who are living in their vehicles. So I really think the umbrella term unhoused would fit under item 2 and I'd like to see that added. Um, so for number 3 um, mobility and connectivity. So an item that I'm interested in hearing about is multimodal. And so I know that things are listed, but I like the idea of, you know, a lot of what we've been trying to do in Mountain View is when possible create mode shift, right? Um, and so what are those like multimodal opportunities? Um, I appreciate my colleagues' comments on on kind of green loops, connected networks. Um, I also appreciate how we have, um, you know, this is this is also Arbor Week, um, on a side note, and one of the things I thought is so great is, um, the work of some of our nonprofit, um, organizations in terms of how they're trying to green. Um, our, our community and and trying to create this network where, um, instead of just seeing the freeway with a fence, you're going to now see 10 trees that will grow to maturity and have a natural buffer and it'll bring back habitat, right? So I want to see like some of that included in kind of the connected networks, green loop idea. For item 4, I'm okay with it. Um, item 5 in terms of um, the thriving local economy. Um, so I appreciate the focus on residents, visitors, um, large employers. But I didn't hear any mention of workers. The actual people who help these these businesses thrive. Um, so I'd like the the employees, our workers, many of whom are essential workers. Um, to be included in item 5 if possible. Um, for the last one, I'm open. I could go either way and I always want opportunities to share what our incredible staff is doing. So however, we might be able to do that, whether it's a priority or in some other way to showcase. Um, and then appreciated the comments that colleagues, um, shared about calling out quality of life. I do feel like it deserves its own standalone. Many of the comments that we heard for over an hour. We touched upon that. Um, and I, and I think it's very clear from our community that the quality of life in Mountain View is, is number one. And those are my comments. Thanks.

[05:18:09] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you all. Very helpful feedback. Um, you know, I, uh, grateful that they, these priorities have landed well, clearly they're not perfect, uh, and the feedback you've given us. I think we'll move them forward even further. Um, I do want to mention, uh, that, um, you know, there is room here, depending on the appetite for counsel, uh, by council and staff to to add measurable, um, outcomes for each of these priorities, and so I think that that's a bookmark for future discussion. Um, But right now, just to keep things moving to get to the projects, um, which I know everyone's waiting for. Um, I would like to just ask one question to kind of get a sense of uh, options to incorporate quality of life into the uh, priorities. One way to do it. Um, and I'm also always a little hesitant to add more priorities. Um, Just for, for, um, economy sake, uh, and also try not to bite off too much. Um, But if that needs to happen, needs to happen. But the question I would ask is, uh, kind of a take a straw poll, if we were to, to emphasize quality of life or directly incorporate quality of life into the 1st priority of, um, community for all, um, would that, uh, suffice as far as your desire to have, um, quality of life, um, more deeply incorporated. Can I get a quick show of hands for folks if that, uh, either directly emphasizing, um, uh, equity in the, the, the name of the 1st priority or throughout the 1st priority description, if that would suffice? Raise your hand if yes. Is that clear? Uh, Council Rabiko.

[05:20:03] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, you said equity? Sorry,

[05:20:07] Lawrence Grodeska: I'm sorry, quality of life. Incorporate, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So the question is, if you were to incorporate, if we were to incorporate equity, excuse me, sorry, it's getting late. If we were to incorporate quality of life into the 1st priority more directly, would that satisfy, suffice for you? So I see 3 hands raised via Zoom. Okay, all right. So, um, let's do uh, physical hands, analog hands, if if that would suffice, raise your analog hand. Two. Okay. Um. If, um, I, so let's let's ask another question and then take a couple comments, um, how many of you would support adding a new priority area of, uh, focusing on quality of life, raise your analog hand. 234. Okay. Okay. Um, we had a question from Council member Hicks and then Vice Mayor Amirez for comment.

[05:21:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I was just gonna say, since I spoke early on and then heard what everyone said, I, I, and then some of the last things that have come up, I agree with council member Lieber that when I think of the 1st goal that it's, uh, it's about quality of life and equity are, are, uh, to me, distinct con, uh, concepts. I want the, the, uh, 1st goal to be think about things like, uh, it used to include language on our vulnerable populations and some of the, the things that those people in particular might need, things like housing, um, housing and related things. And quality of life, I see as not particularly focused on vulnerable populations. And I actually think it could include some of the other things that, and it's also something that I feel is not reflected in most of the other goals that we've, we've had during my time on council, you know, transportation, related to transportation and housing, and sustainability. So it might include some of the things that people have brought up most recently and those would be things like, um, those would be things like, uh, open space, biodiversity, which could be quality of life for people and the, the, the creatures that live among us. Um, and also, uh, things like walkability, I see some of the things expressed about our economy are actually, I think that the restaurants and those small businesses, um, and the places we go for them, such as our historic downtown and village centers, those are all quality of life related. So that's why I see it as very distinct from the 1st goal. Thank you.

[05:23:08] Lawrence Grodeska: Great, thank you. Um, uh, Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[05:23:12] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So 1st I agree with council member Hicks very strongly. I also see the equitable community for all thematic goal as pertaining specifically to vulnerable communities. So that's where anti-displacement and uh, the projects that council member Hicks described would fall and livability would include a number of important things that are quite distinct from those. So, um, I'm trying to remember if there was a great, uh, suggestion, I think from, uh, livable mountain view. I got an email from Robert Cox that had, um, some appropriate projects to be listed under a livable, um, or livability quality of life. That was public art, um, preservation of historic resources, um, and I think so the, the, green space, uh, those kinds of things, which are pertinent to everybody, uh, in the city and not just vulnerable communities. So, because of that, I would be comfortable with one of 2 solutions. Uh, if we retain aspirational goals that are not quantified. I don't have a problem with introducing a 7th strategic priority. And that's because all these are, are categories for projects. And we already have great projects that I, I'm guessing are likely going to be advanced, that we can pull out from the other strategic priorities and put under a new thematic goal. Um, But, if we do quantify, uh, or include metrics, uh, for the strategic priorities, then I think several council members, uh, council member Madachek and Council member, I believe, had, had pointed out the good governance, uh, strategic priority. Um, that would be the strategic priority. I would feel most comfortable transforming into a, or so basically supplanting, um, you know, with, with a, a livability, quality of life oriented strategic, uh, priority, and that's not because good governance is not important. It is. It's just that I think all of the other things are, as many members of the council pointed out, uh, community facing and, um, there's just, there's, there's, there's greater, um, uh, it's, it's more comparable, I think, with what we're trying to achieve with quality of life. And I think there are other ways of achieving the good governance objectives that are more inward facing, um, important, but less sort of community facing outward facing. Um, so those are the, the 2 solutions and and really it would depend on whether we're actually introducing, you know, measures that we can use to hold ourselves accountable for progress made or not on individual strategic priorities.

[05:26:12] Lawrence Grodeska: Thank you. Council member, show Walter, then Libra, then Ivy Coca. And then, oh, no, okay. Cal's member of Liber.

[05:26:22] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you. Well, I'm hoping that we won't supplant the good governance, um, item because I think that's really important and it is outward facing as well in terms of, um, transparency and and ethics of the institution and and the equity with which we run things. Um, and I think it also touches on the sustainability of the organization. And, um, that, that to me is a big, uh, question right now because it's all about, um, how much can we layer on in terms of projects and and themes and et cetera. Um, before the knees of the organization does kind of buckle. And what we're hearing from staff right now is is that the complexity and the layering has gotten to really be a lot, um, particularly during COVID. Um, but I, I think after COVID, and I'm hoping that as we get to the projects, we can really start to cut some things that are, are maybe important but not timely. And um, that we can, um, give some relief to people that are waiting. I know it's after 10 o'clock right now and and so staff that feel that they may be called on to present, you know, who have kids are, um, eagerly waiting and the community members that we heard from. But I'm really hoping that we don't lose the concept of good governance because I think that's something that right now is, is very much on the chopping block and the sustainability of the way that we're doing things is really an issue inwardly and outwardly as well.

[05:28:08] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you. Council member Abakoga.

[05:28:12] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I wanted to just tack onto it, the vice mayor's, um, had mentioned, um, options on how to, uh, address the interests, and, um, yeah, I, I guess I was trying to, you know, keep us to 6 originally goals. Um, so that's why it could be combined with one, but honestly, it could go either way. My thought though is now that, um, looking at this, and I look at 6, um, without good governance and what not, um, I, so, I, I believe in, you know, I've heard this over the years, that there's a direct connection to our quality of life and how we run our city government, mainly city services. And if without, you know, and we've kind of gone away from core, our core services, we don't talk about that much anymore, but, you know, those are really the backbone to our quality of life. And so my thought was, what if we flip it and make, you know, quality of life, the goal. And then under that, when, when bullets, or a couple of bullets could be something about good governance, you know, ensuring strong city workforce, et cetera. And I know some of those are already in the work plan items. So that would be my, because I would think you can't have a strong quality of life if you don't have a strong government, city government.

[05:29:54] Lawrence Grodeska: Got it. Thank you. All right. So I think I've heard 3 proposals at this point. One is to add, um, uh, a new priority on quality of life, well, for proposals, but the 1st one was to modify community for all to focus on quality of life. That didn't seem to have much support. Adding a new quality of life priority. There was at that time before, uh, of you that suggested it. Um, one, another proposal was to drop the, the organizational strength of good governance priority and uh, fill that hole for that gap with the, the, um, Um, quality of life. Um, or um, uh, to basically take, uh, as the council member said, uh, council member Abikoga to take, um, the, uh, quality of life, uh, basically turn 6 into quality of life and try and embed some of the good governance uh, as an aspect of quality of life. So, um, I would love to just do a quick straw poll on those 3 proposals to get a general sense of where they land. I'll repeat them again, but then I do want to move on to projects. Um, Council members show Walter to, show Walter. Do you have a, uh,

[05:31:09] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, just real quickly. I'd have to say that for understandability's sake, I think just adding another one is probably the easiest to understand and I wanted to ask staff. I wanted to ask the city manager, does it make any difference whether we have 6 or 7?

[05:31:25] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, thank you, council member, show alter. So, you know, at this point, I think it's been mentioned that the the projects stack underneath the thematic goals, I think the vice mayor might have mentioned that. So, you know, I do think it signals to the organization and staff, the importance of, um, you know, the good governance and having that that organizational strength. So, It probably doesn't really matter if you add a 7th one, but what I would caution against is, in the future, thinking that you have to add a lot of projects under each of the 7 themes. So, um, that's the one thing that I would just not want. To happen that we have these themes and then we feel like we need to fill them up with a lot of things. So, um, you know, I think that you could probably add, add the other one, um, add the livability and quality of life, and then, um, if you are all still interested in keeping that more internal focused, um, organizational strength, strength and good governance, you could do that too.

[05:32:28] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, I would just like to urge my colleagues. I didn't vote for it the 1st time. I would change my vote to vote for that next one because I just think it's easier to understand.

[05:32:38] Lawrence Grodeska: Sure, yeah.

[05:32:38] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Way too much in the same one. It just it just gets hard to understand.

[05:32:43] Lawrence Grudeska: Great. Okay. Well, let's just take, uh, it sounds like we have a, a motion to, uh, to add a 7th priority, uh, around quality of life and livability in some way, shape or form based on, on, on what you all have shared as far as what that would comprise. Um, can I get a quick show of hands for folks that would, uh, uh, support that? Fantastic. Um, let's uh consider that a win and move on. Uh, and again, very, very helpful. I think this really sets you all up for having a thoughtful roadmap that is, to your point, council member show Walter clear and hopefully actionable. So, um, let's jump into the priorities discussion to set the stage for that. I wanted to turn it back to city manager, McCarthy.

[05:33:36] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Lawrence. So are you going to share the slides?

[05:33:39] Lawrence Grudeska: Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm moving it forward, but I'm not sharing it. So I'd see it on my screen. Here you go.

[05:33:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And I'll just say while you pull that up, I think, you know, the other piece that we haven't really talked about with the organizational strength. Um, category is just the fact that the organization is right now coming out of COVID and the recovery process, not only internally but externally, is really going to be the focus certainly for the next year, probably 2 years. As we completely have changed a lot of operations. We've changed a lot of processes. We're really looking internally about how we've always done things and whether it makes sense going forward. So I do think that this is, you know, a signal also to the organization and the community that, you know, we are focused on coming out of this and we are looking internally at how we can continually improve and do better. So, um, I just wanted to note that if that if that kind of gives a different perspective on that organizational strength. I do think that, um, it's a good signal and it's important right now as we come out of COVID. Um, okay, so then moving on to these slides. So, um, I don't want to, um, completely just continue to talk about the same thing, but I do want to provide some context to counsel in the community about when we talk about the workload. What does that mean? So what is the context right now of what's happening and why are things so hectic right now? So, Obviously, you all know that we have been, um, really dealing with all of the different COVID related changes, not only, um, the programs that we've been putting in place for the community, which we have acted faster now in government, then I think, and not just mountain view, but cities and and other districts across the country, faster than we ever have had to. On the midst of multiple crises on top of it. So what we have now is staff working 6070 hours a week and these are not all staff that get overtime. Um, and that's in addition to regular daily duties that people have to do. So I think the iceberg slide is the next slide, but I just want to emphasize that there is regular daily work that occurs that is really, you know, 70, 85% of uh, any staff person's um, normal duties on top of the special projects or things that come up and and not just the special projects from council. These are any special projects because we have a number of work plants. So it's it's really anything that's out of the ordinary of daily work that comes up. Um, so you can go back to the other side actually. Um, Lawrence, the one that I was just on. So then the other thing is just in talking about the significant change, the citywide operations. Really, what this means is, like we've all been hearing about what's happening in the private sector and other places across the country, the, the, the organization has had to also pivot our operation. So, we have over 400 and some staff telecommuting, which the day that we declared the state of emergency, we had to send over 400 staff home. Now, these are staff that are normally facing the community, and are processes that are about people coming in person, and working and serving the community in person. So, we have had to change and adapt those, those whole operations via staff that are working from home. And like everywhere else, we have a lot of our workforce, a lot of employees that are also teaching their children at home while they're working. So it's like anywhere that this has just been a significant change to our operations. And our staff's ability to just frankly get work done and get work done at a normal time. Um, then obviously, as you all know, part of the workload is just all of our various action plans and all of our work plans. So not just the work plan we're talking about tonight, but all of the other work plans that we have underway, which I'll get to in a bit. And then the other part of it is just, um, something that we don't always talk about a lot, but we do have staffing vacancies, like, like any other city. And so when you have a vacancy, and when you have vacant staff, which I'll illustrate an example of this, um, we have many projects related to housing. And we also have staff that have retired or might be retiring soon or have left to leave the state or go work in other places. So we have been experiencing in Mountain View what you hear about others are experiencing. So people really thinking about what they want during COVID and where they want to be and where they want to live and work. And we've had um, a lot of transitions from retirement. This isn't necessarily just related to COVID, but it has happened over the last couple years. And that has continued over the last year. And we've just also had staff leave, you know, the organization for various reasons. So the vacancies is also layered on top of everything. So, I just want to give that context instead of just talking about the workload, there's a Y. Um, and this is all the why. And this is why staff are just, you know, honestly very exhausted. Um, working so hard. And like Lawrence said in a couple other slides, the staff very much cares about the organization and serving the community and we all believe this is a very special and unique place to be and we love it. It's also, there's a lot going on. So I just want to kind of set the stage for that going into these projects just, just to add that color, um, for what's happening internally with the organization. So, Lawrence, you can you can advance a couple more sites. So then this side, um, as far as the action plans go. This gives some of that more detailed analysis of just how many and the volume of projects that are going on right now. And again, this is in addition to daily duties that would happen. So, um, right now with the rollover projects that you all will be talking about, there's about 30 projects that have rolled over or were deferred, um, that you will be able to talk about shortly. Then we also have projects in our sustainability action plan, our general plan, action plan, our race equity, and inclusion action plan, and our capital improvement program, which, as you all know, is a 5 year plan that we update, which has many, many, many projects in it. So as you can see, you know, there's over 400 and some projects underway, give or take at any time, um, that really take a lot of staff's focus. So the next slide. Um, so essentially, um, This slide talks about just some of the things that the staff has done over this last year, and this is in addition to any of the work plan project. So, um, just acknowledging the COVID related work that has occurred both, um, externally for the community and the different programs we've put in place, but also internally, the changes that we've had to make to our city operations, which have also taken a lot of time. So, that's kind of setting the stage as we lead into this project discussion, just so that you all are aware of the limitations that we have. Um, and just knowing the the projects that we have that are rolling over and then the the ability to just add a very limited number of new projects. So, Lawrence, all, I'll turn it over to you now and that's uh, just providing context, but I'm open to any questions that city council members have any questions for me, but otherwise, I'll turn it over to you, Lawrence.

[05:41:28] Lawrence Grudeska: Any questions for uh, city manager? Uh, Council member Matachek, and then Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[05:41:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So as I saw the number of plans that we have. Um, and based upon some of the comic, the, uh, the thoughts I had while reading about all these projects that are part of the council process, um, you know, I was thinking, It would be great if the council had visibility into all of these other plans and the status of all the projects that, um, staff is working on. I feel like we have good visibility into, um, SAP 4. And um, the general plan action plan. And to a certain extent, I feel like we probably had more familiarity with it when we passed the general plan and have maybe lost track of all those action items. Um, the REI, um, we, we've seen it, um, but in the CIP we see, But I feel like, you know, I'm, I really feel like I'd like to see them all because what if there's things on there that we feel like, you know, their, their lower priority at this point, but staff is charging down the road to get them done because they're on one of these plans. So, is it possible to take a look at all of these? Is that like an absolutely crazy request?

[05:43:01] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, thank you, council member, Mattachek. Um, realistically, I don't think that it's going to be possible to take a look at all these within the next couple weeks, but I will say this. Um, the, the SAP 4, we are bringing an update to counsel, um, um, I believe the beginning of May, um, about the SAP 4, so we'll be able to provide an update at that time. Um, the CIP program is coming before council also in May. So, um, you should have uh, an update at least with where we're progressing and there'll be 2 council meetings about that. Um, then the REI action plan was just passed recently. By council. So at this point, um, a lot of the work is underway, but also will will be underway as the months progress. So there's not too much more of an update about that beyond what was just passed a couple months ago. Uh, then as far as the, oh, I think I hit them. Oh, the general plan action plan. Uh, you know, I'm not sure about that. I would need to talk to staff to find out how we generally provide updates about that. Um, I do know that we have some general plan cleanup items that are coming to council. And another thing that council will need to consider at some point is even thinking about an update to the general plan. Um, so I think there's, Not that I want to add another big project to the list, but maybe I just did. Um, you know, I think there's that, there's, we, we should talk further about that.

[05:44:34] Lawrence Grudeska: And we had a Vice Mayor Ramirez next.

[05:44:40] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, uh, and and Council member Mattishak, I think, had had sort of the same, uh, line of thinking. Uh, I'm, I'm, you know, concerned about, I guess, the challenge with the work that we're doing is we're, we're prioritizing work. But clearly, these items in the action plans have some kind of priority as well. And we don't have a good sense of how one item gets prioritized relative to another, depending on which plan it's in. Um, so, and I appreciate, um, I think, uh, the city manager. You mentioned the, uh, the challenge of reviewing all of these projects in just a couple of weeks, but is there any way we can, um, we can get a better sense of how, the priorities that we're establishing here, relate to or rank against priority projects that are included in other plans.

[05:45:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So I might need some help from Lawrence and thinking through this. Um, I know that one of the things that we're really wanting to get from council tonight is feedback on your priorities so that staff is aware, you know, what is rising to the top for council? Um, what are the projects that that you all um, put, put above others? And then part of this analysis over the next couple weeks is the trade-offs. So if you want to do project, ABC, over project X, Y, Z. What is the trade-off of doing that? What else might have to be dropped? What timeline may need to change? So I wish I could have a good answer for you right now by Samara Ramirez, but I think what we're going to need is just some, um, Some direction on what your priorities are. And then as far as looking at what um, is in all of the other action plans and work plans. I will say this. There is often some overlap with some of those projects also being daylighted as part of, you know, council's, council's work plan. Um, because It's either something that relates very directly to your priority or maybe council has, the majority of council has expressed an interest in that project, so it kind of lives in both places. Uh, a great example of that would be, um, I think the, like the, the, looking at mental health alternatives to mental health, um, service delivery. So, that's on the race equity and inclusion, action plan, and staff also daylighted it as part of, uh, the council work plan just because it's something that is going to take a lot of staff time, and that it's something that we heard from council members and the community about. So, uh, you know, I think it's really just going to be about your prioritization and giving that direction tonight. And then when we bring back the updates, like for example, the sustainability action plan, um, you know, talking about some of those things that are more of a priority will be helpful. Um, I do know that there are some things that are coming down the pipeline that are part of the SAP action plan that council indicated is your priority. So I think it really is just going to be kind of resetting, because a lot of these plans have been in place for a while, except for the REI plan, and really just thinking about what those trade-offs are. So if you have one priority, how does that impact the other priorities?

[05:48:19] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: No, I, I, sorry, go ahead.

[05:48:21] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Uh, finished.

[05:48:23] Lawrence Grudeska: I was going to just make sure that we're clear on what the process is going to be for prioritization over the next couple months. Um, but please share and I'll follow up.

[05:48:32] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Oh, thank you. Just a very quick concluding thought. So, I appreciate the city manager's response, and it's very helpful, and I think, um, in, in, in continuing this work, daylighting those items will be very helpful. Um, because right now we're prioritizing only from the list that is daylighted now. And that's that's important, and we do have to be mindful of staff capacity. Um, but, uh, there's a lot of other work that were, were maybe not as familiar with because it was approved, you know, several years ago. Uh, and the work is occurring, and it's important for us to be cognizant of that work, but we're not able to think about it in, in terms of priority, because it's not included in this list. Um, so, to the greatest extent, we're able to, to sort of, uh, um, uh, what's the word I'm thinking of that we can include all of the work that's being done and think of it holistically. Uh, that would be ideal. Although, you know, again, I appreciate that that itself is a lot of work. Um, so, uh, this, this, this has been very helpful in, in giving us a sense of the amount of work that's going on, but it makes it a little bit more challenging to think about prioritization.

[05:49:51] Lawrence Grodeska: Well, let me just jump in and say that we're actually not asking you to prioritize anything tonight. Um, let me walk through the next couple months and the next couple council meetings to get to that approved roadmap and then I'll come back to council member Hicks and council member Abikoga. Um, this slideshow is basically what we're going to do tonight for the next, however long it takes, is to review the initial staff project list that was included in the um, staff memo, um, the report. And then ask you if there's any projects that you want to discuss or remove from further further consideration in the coming weeks and months. And then, um, hear about any uh, potential limited number of new projects that you also want to consider. And then, um, if we have time and we'll see where we end up, but just make sure that that there's clarity around staff about what, um, you're proposing moving forward. Um, After tonight, that will become the universe of projects for staff to go back, consider and provide a recommended project list to, uh, for you to review before April 27th and then discuss on that meeting. I think, um, uh, and that's the slide, um, staff will vet that list based on capacity and prepare recommendations. I think the point I wanted to make is that they're, and this will require some conversation with city manager and and understanding of what's feasible from staff as far as providing updates on that. But I do think that that's a good moment to potentially indicate sort of the overlap with the proposed full list of, uh, projects for the roadmap, um, and how they relate to the other plans and if it's possible to to bring in updates about the other plans. There might be something that we can do before the 27th. I don't want to make promises because I'm not staff and I don't know how difficult it is or is not to report on things and I know it's a lot of extra work. It can be a lot of extra work and especially with things in flight. I don't want to to overpromise. Um, but I do think, um, and I'm hearing the city manager suggest that there might be some things that we can do before the 27th to, to help inform some of the prioritization that will happen uh, on, on that uh, at that council meeting.

[05:52:02] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, and I think that's part of this exercise, but I do want to say that I'm not saying that it's going to be possible to come back with the litany on the 27th. Um, I don't think that's possible. Um, I do think that we have some things already on some upcoming agendas that are going to give council, uh, more of an insight as to those projects, and then part of the exercise that you just described, Lawrence, over these last, well, over the next 3 or 4 weeks, uh, will involve staff getting together in their teams, different departments getting together and looking at, you know, all the projects going on in the trade-offs. And we will bring that to council. Um, so I think we're just going to have to look at, um, just what is feasible to do in this shorter time frame, and it may not be everything, but we're going to try our best, um, to define and daylight as much as we can.

[05:52:57] Lawrence Grodeska: Yeah, and uses the basis for improving moving forward. Continuous improvement. The process won't be perfect this time. Won't be perfect next time, but it'll get better and better. I think that's the commitment we're all making tonight to each other. Council member Hicks and then council member Abi Koga and then council member Lieber.

[05:53:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I just wanted to thank Council member Manachek for bringing up the other, um, all the other buckets of projects because that was, I had the same, when I read the staff report, I had the same, um, reaction, and then also the vice mayor and the, the city manager for clarifying on this too. And I guess the one thing I might ask to move it forward, is that I understand staff will not be bringing, you know, a staff report with all of those, um, different plans, uh, and projects in them and action items, but I would, I really would appreciate if staff could look those over and and take some themselves off the list, um, and possibly present that to us, or in some, there must be some way if counsel's not looking at all those plans for staff to make some suggestions for how to cut them because I would like, um, I would like those buckets of projects and action items be, um, you know, to be cut or deferred. You know, some of it can be deferred for 3 or 4 years. And I mean everything. I mean the REI plan, sustainability plan, the general plan, um, and what was the 4th one I'm forgetting. now. But, um, Oh, the CIP, yes. So all of those. I would appreciate if if staff could find ways to or suggest ways to cut those. And like I said, I do mean all of them.

[05:54:45] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you. Council member Abikoga.

[05:54:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I was thinking a similar lines to, I think, what Council member Hicks just mentioned, um, you know, in particular, I'll pick out the, um, sustainability action plan. If I recall, it's been a while since I've looked at that. I need to look at it again, but it has, you know, 81 projects, but it was multi-year. And I'm wondering if there's a way for staff to give us like a recommended, um, you know, timeline or, or just tell us, like, how many of those projects do you think you can really do in the next 2 years or, or, or, yeah, something like that so that we have a sense of, um, what, yeah, what staff capacity is, and my, you know, my hope would have been if it's possible to do that. Well, I guess it could be possible to do that before April 27th. I dont know, but that would be the, um, request. It could be either way, either. You, with what we decide here, you know, you can say, okay, based on this, these are the number of SAP. Um, projects we can undertake, or it could be the other way around if they, these are recommended SAP projects. So based on that, um, you know, we might have to move things around on this. And with the general plan, update items, and REI as well. So, yeah, I think it would be helpful to get some, um, some idea of how to make it more manageable and have, you know, Uh, what do you call it? Um, yeah, goals or timelines around, around all those projects.

[05:56:40] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Council member, Abi Koga, I do want to give some context. So we will be discussing this on May 11th. So I will make note of that and we'll try and incorporate that as part of the update to counsel about SAP 4 on May 11th.

[05:56:56] Lawrence Grodeska: And council member and Lieber.

[05:56:58] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you. Yeah, I definitely don't want to rush staff to go through and reprioritize everything for us. Um, so that we can, you know, know in a very quick way how much bandwidth we have, but, um, I do think that we need to trim things, and, um, We have, uh, more advisory bodies than the county has, we have far more than other local governments have. And that might be a place that we can trim uh, during COVID. At least when staff is cross training into other departments, and um, taking on very heavy workloads. I know parks and rec staff are, um, stepping in with the vaccination center, and they're also stepping in with emptying garbage in the downtown because with all the to go food, there's been a much heavier burden of garbage in the downtown. So, um, in addition to having their kids at home and trying to educate them at home, they're, they're jobbing into these, um, very different functions. And we, we might want to look at how can we, um, slow the flow of the advisory bodies, um, during COVID, because preparing for each one of those meetings, um, is, is a significant amount of work. It just plain is. And, um, I think that whatever we can do to, um, get rid of things if it's too hard to get rid of them from, um, the priorities here permanently. Maybe we could put them in that, you know, 3rd tier, maybe the top tier, the things that are just burning to have done. And the 2nd tier, it can wait till after COVID and the 3rd tier, um, it would be nice to do, but we really have to wait on those items or there's some good reason to wait because we're waiting for the state or another level of government to take their action. And I also notice that it seems like we tend to, um, open up an open-ended thing, like we want to do more about mental health options. But to whatever extent, we can, um, say we want to, uh, do what this other city is doing or if there's the best practice. And maybe not leave it open where we're doing a bring me a rock, um, type of a situation. But if we have if we can boil it down to something very specific. It may be that we can't get it even that way. Um, but at least it won't be such a giant research project for staff.

[05:59:48] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you all, uh, for your comments of perspective on, uh, the existing workloading capacity as we get into talking about the project list in front of us. So, uh, just again, a reminder tonight, uh, we're going to review that project list and asking for your, uh, uh, we're going to ask you to share the, the list of projects that you would either like to discuss or remove from further consideration. So we're focusing on what we, um, what we want to take off the list or any questions you have, um, to clarify uh, a project before it gets forwarded to staff for consideration. And then we'll get to, um, any new projects that you want to propose. So, with that, um, uh, we have, I would refer you to the, uh, council member, Lieber and Showalter. Did you have questions again right now? Uh, customer show, Walter?

[06:00:52] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I was hoping I could give you my my projects.

[06:00:54] Lawrence Grodeska: Sure. Okay, okay. Get get there. Yeah, hold tight. Um, so I would refer you to the, um, to the, um, Actually, Kimber, were you going to walk through these project lists as well? Um, or did you, um, did you want me to, um,

[06:01:11] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, I, no, I think in the interest of time, it's just recognizing that there were, I think, council members know that there were some, um, projects that were proposed that either staff heard, um, council interest about these last few months, majority council interests, or they were projects that staff is proposing, um, that align with your priorities and put, especially what's happening right now. So for example, um, the economic vitality strategy, um, to align with what's happening, um, through COVID and we do have a small business action plan, but thinking more long term. Um, so that's just one example, the, a staff proposed item that, um, we thought aligned with councils priorities right now.

[06:02:00] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. And then the other, um, issue that we wanted to project that we wanted to call out specifically, um, in addition to the, the, um, carry forward or deferred, uh, projects from the current work plan and that new list of projects identified by staff and council, um, there was, we wanted to highlight this specific, uh, mobile home ordinance project for your consideration, um, in this next question. Um, so, uh, out of the the universe of existing projects that you've seen already. Are there any projects that you want to discuss, um, or any that you want to specifically call out, um, as being excluded from carrying forward to staff to evaluate in their recommendation to bring back on April 27th? So that's the question at hand right now? Is that clear to the what we're asking from all of you? Got one thumbs up. Yes, yes, uh, uh, Counselor, I'm Rabchek. you have a clarifying question?

[06:03:04] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I do, so.

[06:03:05] Lawrence Grodeska: Yeah, please.

[06:03:07] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I have some projects that, um, I really want to make sure I understand the scope that is being proposed, but also, um, as I went through this, I don't necessarily have a new project, but I have some things that we've talked about in the past that I think are part of existing projects. So where do you want me to clarify that I think they're part of existing projects.

[06:03:33] Lawrence Grodeska: Let's um, let's uh, do that right now. Um, I'm going to so we'll start with you. It sounds like you've got some projects that you want to identify that that fall into what we're asking right now. So I'm going to stop sharing my, that one screen and I'm going to share a, uh, a spreadsheet or a, um, a document that we have here, um, which will just track um, projects as they come up. So, um, my colleague, Marielle, is taking, um, so council number, show altar. Did you have this is this the projects that you wanted to share as well?

[06:04:08] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I'd like to have a process check.

[06:04:11] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay.

[06:04:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Just go through. We have this attachment one. And or we have the study report, the staff report, where they both have lists. Can we just go down the list and and query people whether they want to keep them in or not?

[06:04:24] Lawrence Grodeska: We were hoping to avoid that just for time's sake. The, yeah, the, the, the, the discussion that we had as far as designing this meeting was to ask you all and apologies if this did not come clear in the directions we we shared and then what we shared so far, was to ask you to provide, um, this projects that you either wanted to discuss or clarify or that you did not want to move forward. Um, rather than going through the, and having a potential conversation about every single project. So that's our, that's our request, um, tonight to start. So, um, and if we have to go through every project, I guess we'll do that. But, um, let's start with um, uh, council member Libor, uh, uh, uh, C manager McCarthy. Do you have a thought?

[06:05:10] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, I just want to clarify. So, for the process, um, council member show Walter, we are assuming that things are moving forward. Unless they're pulled off to discuss or unless there's some sort of change. So in the interest of time, we weren't going to go through all 30 items. So we're assuming they're moving forward unless they're pulled off and discussed.

[06:05:31] Lawrence Grodeska: Thank you. Great. Okay. Vice Mayor Ramirez, do you have a process question?

[06:05:40] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: No, I'm ready to jump in.

[06:05:42] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay, so we've got a stack here, Council member, Liber, and then, uh, cancel our about a check, and then, uh, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and then we'll keep going. Um, Council member reliever.

[06:05:53] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay, great. Um, the 1st one that I would like to remove is Project 4.14. Um, the the vaping issue. Um, this is one that's being dealt with at the state level. And uh, there's nothing that we can do about it until that state level issue is resolved. Um, the next one that I'd like uh, to do is project one. 7. Um, city led or sponsored, know your rights workshops. Uh, I think we're all very connected to the community organizations and they can do a much better job of, um, of, uh, going after that. Um, uh, another one that I would like to really, uh, slow roll during COVID. Um, is uh, project 5.5 um, the around the visual arts. And again, I think it's very worthy, but um, during COVID, it's, it's difficult. Um, the next one is uh, uh, project 3.5 on the E scooter. Uh, regulations. I think that may not be completely, uh, completely ripe yet, and we need to look at what's other communities are doing. Um, in terms of uh, project 3.20 Uh, the automated guideway transportation system. I'd like to, um, at some point have us get clarity on how far we're going with that, if it's just the right of way that we're discussing or are we going expecting staff to go further and further into it? Um, uh, in terms of the economic vitality strategy, I know that we're bringing new staff on board, but I would like to see some parameters around that or just simply express my expectation that we're not going to bring a ton of work, um, forward from staff. Uh, so maybe internal planning, but not a full-blown process with a chamber and uh, the community and a lot of different things right now at this point in time. Um, and um, um, the project 5.7, the enhanced legislative program. I like to see us put some parameters around that. Um, maybe a limit on the number of bills that we would pursue. Uh, this year and um, keep it at a manageable level. And then I'm not sure where the um, where I saw the mental health. Um, in here. Um. I guess it's one of one of the new projects. And I'd like to see some some parameters on that so that, um, it's not something that staff feels like they need to reinvent the wheel, that we maybe pick out some pieces that we can do, uh, during COVID, or or start to get done during COVID, and that we realize that we, you know, 1st need to take care of individual's mental health by keeping them in their housing and making sure that they don't die of COVID. And and then we can get at the next stages as as time in the public health allows us to. And that was the, um, alternative mental health crisis response method, feasibility, um, under the potential new projects. Uh, on my copy, it says explore the feasibility of alternative mental health crisis response methods. Yeah, I think it's really worthy thing, but we need to look at it in relation to COVID and and I think that also council should put some, uh, parameters on exactly what we're expecting from staff on that item. Um, so that staff doesn't feel like they have to go out and form 20 different community partnerships and, Um, you know, come back with a, a huge package that maybe we can kind of do that in a step-wise way. Uh, that will. You know, uh, makes sense at this public health time.

[06:10:33] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you. Um, Council member Matachek. And if you have anything to, um, if, if you agree with, uh, anything that's been shared, um, we will add your name, um, if you, if you agree with anything that's been shared to remove, we'll add your name, if you'd like to, uh, um, make a different point, let us know and we'll track that too.

[06:10:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. So, um, I agree with removing 4.14 the vaping issue. Um, I also agree with uh, one. 7.

[06:11:11] Lawrence Grodeska: Great.

[06:11:16] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um. So the next one, uh, visual arts, I actually would propose that gets moved to the livability. Um, Priority?

[06:11:30] Lawrence Grodeska: Would you like to see that carry forward?

[06:11:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I do.

[06:11:33] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay, great.

[06:11:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And um, e-scooters, I'm fine with removing or deferring it. On the AGT, I think we can remove it.

[06:11:50] Lawrence Grodeska: Great.

[06:11:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um. You know, I could go for um, limiting the number of bills for the 5.7.

[06:12:03] Lawrence Grodeska: Got it.

[06:12:04] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, Okay, and then, um, let's see. Oh, now we've got lots of different lists here. Um, I am going to mention the ones that I think should move to livability. Developer parks and recreation strategic plan. Um, I was wondering if um, the city manager could provide a little bit more detail about um, the comprehensive homelessness response strategy.

[06:12:34] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, council member, Matt. So, um, as counsel knows and as I'll also remind, um, the public. So we have our uh, 3247 safe parking lots now, which, um, you know, were planned for a while, but we opened during COVID, um, and partnership with the county. We also have the project home key site that will be opening soon within the April, May time frame. Um, we are now also exploring the Crestview Hotel, um, uh, conversion. So these are all things that came up. Um, so one of the things that we've been doing with our homelessness response is reacting, especially from a budget perspective. We haven't really ever taken kind of a long-term view of what our strategy is going to be. Um, and one of the things that will be proposed with the forthcoming recommended budget is a, um, conversion of a, uh, position to a, uh, human services manager position who will oversee our homelessness and our, um, mental health response. So we really want to just kind of take a more, um, thoughtful and strategic approach to what the city's homelessness response should be or will be and bring that to council so that we're not just in a reactive mode. And part of that is also going to be really thinking about the funding. So right now, it's limited period funds. We kind of figure it out as we go throughout the year and, um, as you all may know. Oftentimes when we bring the council items to you, we're bringing the appropriation request to you. So we just want to try and be, um, like I said, just more strategic and and, um, long-term thinking and thoughtful about, um, just holistically what the city's, um, response would be and the funding for that.

[06:14:23] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Um, the next one, um, project 2.one. I don't know that I want to, um, defer it or remove it. I just am very concerned about it. And so I want us to be very thoughtful about the timing of this one. Given, um, the implications it might have for displacement.

[06:14:47] Lawrence Grodeska: And um, can you uh, tell us what the name of that project is?

[06:14:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No, I'm going to let you get. Sorry. I will pull it up, but I just, while we're here. That's the R3 zone, um, zoning update. Because we might be incentivizing redevelopment, and that concerns me. Um, I will comment on the mobile home when we get to do you want me to comment when we get to that page?

[06:15:17] Lawrence Grodeska: Uh, I think, uh, you might as well make a comment now, since that's one of the projects in the existing project list we want to consider.

[06:15:23] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so the last time the full council talked about this, which I, if I recall correctly, was um, earlier in 2020. Um, we talked about, um, You know, does this mirror the CSFRA, Are there other options, and I expressed support for an ordinance that has 2 parts to it, but it's one ordinance. And it is, For those park owners who are, um, considered to be responsible park owners, where their residents um, do not have concerns about their rents. Um, we give them the option of having what was called, um, an accord or a model lease. And then we even had some residents of mobile home parks, um, speak to us during public comments saying, we don't really need rent control because we have a good park owner. So, um, we talked about doing, um, an option to do the accord, and if a park owner doesn't agree to that, then they're subject to traditional rent control that's modeled after the CSFRA, but doesn't conflict with the mobile home residency law. Um, and that's the direction that I feel like we provided at that council meeting at the time. Which I did support.

[06:16:51] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay.

[06:16:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, Okay, so then the next one I have concerns about, this is um, development of the VTA Evelyn site. And again, it's not that I want to defer it or change it or anything. I just want us to be mindful of the timing. Because we're using that lot right now for safe parking. And, um, you know, we need to just make sure we have our, um, bucks in a row. Um, I think we can move um, 5.2, which is the historic preservation ordinance to livability. And we can move project 5.5, which is the visual arts committee, encouraging public art, to livability. Um, The Moffat Boulevard streetscape design strategy. I was thinking, Um, you know, and maybe the city manager wants to comment on this. I thought we would do a precise plan as opposed to a piece of what might be a precise plan. And then in the council Q and A, it said that we were never planning on doing a precise plan for that area, which surprised me. Um, I thought, well, gosh, if we identified it as a change area, why wouldn't we do a precise plan? So, I'd say that one should really be a precise plan unless there's a good reason not to change it to doing a precise plan.

[06:18:16] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So, council member, Mattachek, I'd like to ask our assistant city manager and community development director, RT Shravastva, to um, answer that question and provide some context.

[06:18:31] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, good evening, council members. Um, I just wanted to give a little bit of context. Um, I did talk to staff about that particular project, and my understanding is, uh, the land use changes were made already. There were some minor land use changes that had to be made, and I believe there are some developments that have been approved as part of that. The balance of the sites are really small. Um, and the development potential is is not very high. And so the intention really was to kind of unify the connection to downtown and provide a gateway through a streetscape plan. Um, and so creating a precise plan would probably not have the the intended impact because of the the parcels along, um, along Moffat.

[06:19:25] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Then I guess, sorry, while you're typing, we can probably take this off this list. Um, Because I...

[06:19:33] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So I don't want to interrupt, but I have a, I have a question directly on that. Should I wait or ask it now?

[06:19:40] Lawrence Grodeska: Uh, why don't you ask it now? And then, um, yeah, we'll just limit it to this particular project, and then we can come back to finishing Councilman Rata checks list.

[06:19:50] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So, I have been, um, I've been, uh, not happy with the development along Moffat recently and for some time, and, um, I think that with the underpass, the grade separation we're doing, I personally have always thought that Moffatt should be the 2nd half of our downtown. We're talking about almost doubling the number of, um, of housing units that will, that were, you know, will have in Mountain View. And I think we could use a larger downtown. The development I'm seeing is not very downtown oriented. Um, I was not happy with the 555 project. It was, I thought that, um, and that may be because it was a gateway project and it was kind of a patchwork. But we're not doing any kind of ground floor interface with sidewalks. We, of course, we don't have the sidewalk streetscape design yet. But I think it's also, there's a very large um, shopping plaza there with like a laundry and a gun shop and some other things that I remember. Um, I think a Mexican restaurant. Not, these all look like we're out in the suburbs instead of in the 2nd half of our downtown. So maybe, um, Maybe RT, you can clarify, maybe those changes have already been made, but I haven't been happy with, you know, the hotel is not face, again, it looks like it's off in the suburbs somewhere, not in our downtown. So, I actually, if the things that have been developing thus far, you know, over the past few years are in compliance with the changes that were made, then I think there need to be additional changes. And I had also thought that council member Abbe Koga had talked about a precise plan there. But I should ask her that because she's present to answer.

[06:21:51] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, could I?

[06:21:52] Lawrence Grodeska: Sure, go ahead.

[06:21:53] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I'm in. So, yeah, so, um, I think when we did the general plan, and I went back and looked up the general plan, Moffatt, um, was a change area identified, and the plan was to do precise plans for all the change areas, and Moffatt was on the last of the list. And so at some point in time, I think after I took my, when I took my break, um, that, that was taken off the list. Um, my thought has been the same and then what's happened is that they have, there have been these gatekeeper projects in that area that have come on, uh, on, um, in the meantime. But I will say I was trying to look at the lines and, um, the original precise plan area for Moffatt was very, um, limited. And in light of these new projects that have come online, I think they're mostly gatekeepers. My thought has been to extend that to, um, because it stops before middle field, but to extend it to middle field, and then really, you know, really talk about the guidelines for streets and sidewalks and whatnot, which we never got to because we didn't do the precise plans. So, I was going to suggest that the that item off field streetscape become the precise plan, but that we also look at extending the area of that Moffat change area.

[06:23:24] Lawrence Grodeska: Thank you.

[06:23:27] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay, so, um, it sounds like that there's general interesting carry this forward, but uh, potentially want to consider this being a precise plan instead of just a strategy. Um, any other comments on this while we're talking about it? Um, Uh, okay, the, uh, Ramirez.

[06:23:48] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So I'll keep it narrowly scoped to this item, because I have a lot to say about some of the other items that were identified, but, um, I don't feel prepared to have a long conversation about this right now. Um, I think there's a lot of uh, nuance uh, that we have to be sensitive to. And if maybe how we advance it is we have a study session on Moffat Boulevard to provide direction to staff on what we want to do there because a precise plan has major implications, the streetscape design has its own implications, you know, extending the change area has a lot of implications. Um, and it feels like, um, it's too high stakes for me to pick one of those right now without having thought more deeply about it. Uh, so my, my suggestion would be, uh, that we, we advance it. We, we, we can broaden the scope to, sort of, what do we want to do about Moffat Boulevard as a study session and then staff can provide some context and maybe some of the, the implications of pursuing one of these alternatives over another, um, rather than pick right now, whether we want to, whether we want to do the streetscape design or precise plan or modify the boundaries to the change area in the general plan.

[06:25:13] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay, great. So I'm hearing that they're, we need to go, uh, take this back and then rethink what this looks forward moving forward in the roadmap. So, just gonna pause us there. Um, anything else to feel complete, Council member Matachuk?

[06:25:31] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, um, Again, as far as, like, we're really focusing on what we're removing or any clarifying questions to be able to make a decision about what you want to remove. Yep, um, item 3.10 and that's the transit center master plan. So it's my understanding that if we want to, um, do some sort of an RFP or design competition for a portion of the transit center master plan, which is, I would describe it as the portion that is above ground, where we might have the parking, retail, office, housing, the plaza area, that we would have to tell staff, we want them to do a, a design competition or an R for that. So I'm interested in expanding the scope of that project. Um, I'm okay with slowing the e-scooter regulations that was previously brought up, that was 3.5. Mm Um, oh, that sorry, I might have already said that. I was going off. Got that one. Sorry. And I think I said the next one. Um, then, uh, a new one that's listed here, develop a city active transportation plan, which is the combination of the bicycle master plan and the pedestrian master plan. To me, that's where I would add, and let's include in that. The, um, defining and planning for this, um, connection of green, green paths or green ways. Um, So we should be talking about, you know, what they should look like, um, how much there should be and that kind of stuff on the routes that are optimized for pedestrians and bicyclists. Um, I would, um, move the, uh, project 4.one, which is the community train master plan to livability. Um, and I would move 4.2 to livability. And, um, Let's see, I think I said this before, the project 5.9 Um, which is the COVID recovery efforts. Um, I want to make sure that's not just limited to businesses, but it also includes helping our residents recover. And Okay, so the thing that, um, I wasn't sure where this would go, but I feel like it's not a standalone project. Um, and that is, um, Defining like biodiversity requirements. For, um, our trees, and so maybe it's in the community tree master plan.

[06:28:24] Lawrence Grudeska: And is this a, is this something that is not reflected that you want to include, would this be kind of a new edition?

[06:28:31] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: You know, I don't know. I think it's it could be added to something, but I'm not sure what.

[06:28:36] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay. pause on that?

[06:28:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, let's pause on that.

[06:28:39] Lawrence Grudeska: I want to just make sure we're focused on the existing universe before we... Okay, great. Okay. Let's see. Um, council member show alter.

[06:28:57] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, I I don't, uh, I agree with a lot of what's been said. A couple, um, Principles, I'd like to say, is that I think that our job number one in the next year or so is getting through COVID and doing what we can, you know, we're at the end of the public, hopefully of the public health, but, but there's the economic recovery in, and we, you know, we, we have some things strategized that we know we need to do, but there will be other things that will come forward that will just be necessary and, and we'll have to rise to the occasion. Um, then the other general principle is that, The things that we can kind of get from somebody else or have somebody else do. Let's do it, like the vaping. I mean, state law is taking care of it. And, um, Perhaps the leaf blower plan is uh, a similar thing that we can, you know, we can build on what's being done either by the state or Silicon um, valley clean energy with incentive programs. Um, That said, there were 2 in, in particular, I just wanted to, Talk about, I don't want them taken off the list. Um, uh, Under sustainability, 4.one, participate in the South baseball pun project conjunction with, in conjunction with the California State Coastal Commission. That is only listed as moderate. I think that that should be changed to high, because it is, um, just so, um, intrinsic to our sea level rise protection. So that should be high. Um, um, And, um, Then another one I wanted to discuss a little bit. And maybe we don't need to do it in this meeting, maybe I could do it offline. Um, City manager could tell you, this is, I'd like to learn more about the soft story seismic retrofit program. And I think that that is under um, livability. And that is a, um, that's a new plan, one of the new projects proposed.

[06:31:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: No, it isn't. It's... It's... No, and I would ask our assistant city manager and community development director, RT Shravastova, if you could weigh in on that, RT.

[06:31:14] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Uh, yes, um, council member. We actually, um, had started working on it, um, had done an initial windshield survey, um, of our soft story, um, in the preparation, in preparation for an ordinance. Um, uh, the council had directed staff to work on, um, an assessment of soft story buildings. And that particular estimate actually came out to. I, I believe our, our, um, our budget at the time had been in the 200,000 range. I'm trying to remember the specifics, but our budget actually came up to over 2000000 for that. Um, and that's why we recommended deferring it because we really didn't have a budget. And at that time, staff was working on a bunch of other priorities, so, um, for those 2 reasons, we had recommended it for all.

[06:32:10] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay. All right, well, um, Are there any, um, uh, that you agree with removing, um, that have been talked about?

[06:32:22] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. Removing the vaping, the city, right, your right to know. I think the visual arts should be carried forward, but I would hope that we could actually get the visual arts committee to volunteer to write it themselves, not necessarily the staff. Um, uh, the east scooter. Find to remove or defer. The automated gateway, what's really important is to clarify the right of way. So I wish you would add that under 3.2 clarify right array. ROW. Yep. Um, And uh, Then I think the legislation having a number of bills we might want to follow is not a bad idea. At all. Um, And really most of these other ones aren't to be removed, are they? They're just moving around.

[06:33:22] Lawrence Grudeska: Yeah, so these are all just discussion points.

[06:33:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Um, The, the, uh, the mobile home. The mobile home, red control. I think that the, the, as I said in the previous meeting, I think that the, um, city council should adopt an ordinance and the, um, uh, and the RHC should administer it.

[06:33:43] Lawrence Grudeska: Okay. Great. Thank you. Uh, let's go to Vice Mayor uh, Ramirez.

[06:33:52] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Um, this got complicated pretty quickly. So, uh, I'll do.

[06:33:58] Lawrence Grudeska: And this is supposed to be the easy...

[06:34:04] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Starting at the top. I agree with council members, uh, Lieber Metachek and Show Walter on 4.14. Um, one.7 um, So I, I, I wasn't expecting that to be a, a heavy list. I don't think we're saving a lot of staff, uh, or freeing up a lot of staff capacity with that, but, uh, and I think it's actually, it's an important, uh, uh, service to provide, but if there are other ways of, of doing this, if CSA, for instance, can provide that information, uh, or if there's another nonprofit or community organization that could achieve the same thing, then I would be comfortable with removing it. Um, but, but I, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want that to just drop off entirely. I'd like I'd like to at least see if there's another way of providing that information. Um, I agree with council members, Metachek and show Walter on 5.5, the visual arts. Um, and the reason is we've already spent money on a consultant and the VAC has been working on that for some time, and I think moving it to livability is a great suggestion. Um, 3.6. Um, I would not support removing it, but I think we can safely defer it, but I think at a certain point we will want to rethink, uh, or revisit micromobility generally. Um, 3.20, um, I think we're going to get a lot of opinions about this. I'm fine with with deferring it for now. Um, but I guess I'm curious to see what other members of the council have to say. Um, 5.7 I agree with, um, uh, Council members, Lever, Metachek, and Show Walter. Um. Uh, so for all of council member Matachek's suggestions to move to livability, I support all of those recommendations. Um, uh, so I don't, I want to speak to R3 and the BTA Evelyn site, but I, it sounds like I, identifying the concern about timing, I think, is reasonable, but I, I want to keep those going, and I think we have strategies in place to mitigate those concerns. Uh, those are both important projects to me. Um, and, uh, and I agree, we want to be thoughtful, but I think that, um, staff is is being thoughtful in their approach. Both with the anti-displacement work. And, um, and with the practical considerations for VTA that, uh, it's gonna take a long time. We, we still haven't acquired the property from BTA or we're going to have to go through an RFQ RFP, you know, or we don't even know if we have funding available to subsidize a project. Um, so I, I, I think we, we've got some time, um, to think about what we're going to do with safe parking there. Uh, I agree uh, with council member, show Walter on the mobile home ordinance. I think the city council should should lead the effort and adopt me an ordinance and I think it's reasonable for the RHC to administer it. Um. We've already talked about Moffat Boulevard. Um, if you wouldn't mind scrolling down.

[06:37:43] Lawrence Grudeska: Oh sure.

[06:37:45] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Um, 3.10. Um, so my understanding for, I, I think council member, council member of magic is talking about phase 2 of the project, and I think, think being mindful about design and exploring ways of, of addressing those concerns is, is appropriate, so I'd support that. Um, I like the greenways idea for the transportation plan as well. Um. And us, I think council member show Walter had mentioned the gas powered leaf blower. Uh, and I underst- I had heard that there was some, some interest at the state level. in regulating that, so I would support removing or deferring that item. Um, And I, I think that was everything. Thank you.

[06:38:42] Lawrence Grudeska: Well done. Uh, castle on our show, alter. Should we put your name by that one as well?

[06:38:47] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I didn't want to, the the gas powered leaf blower as far as referring. Yeah, I would like to add that that we might also work with Silicon Valley clean energy for their incentive program.

[06:39:00] Lawrence Grudeska: Great. Thank you. And Councilman, I got you there too. Thank you. Uh, and um, Vice Mayor Ramirez, anything else to add as far as projects to defer, you complete, you're gone, so you're complete. Castle member Hicks.

[06:39:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, so if you can go up to the top? Well, the E thing about going so near the end is much more expensive. Um, and I'm glad we're kind of coming to a consensus. So, uh, 4.14 vaping. Yes, I would remove it because the state is doing something, uh, one. 7. I would remove it and let some, let a nonprofit do it, find a nonprofit to do it. Um, 5.5. Um, I, I agree with, I guess it's Mattachek, Shelter and Ramarez, who said, carry forward, get, get the committee to write it themselves with the consultant if possible. And I know they were, uh, the visual arts committee was thinking of some uh, downtown projects like murals. So I think it could be helpful with reopening. Um, and so therefore, I'd like them to do it, but not to, um, defer it. Um, e-scooter regulations, yes, I agreed defer. I agree with the vicemail deferred, but don't totally remove. Um, the automated guideway. I agree with council member Lieber, get clarity on the scope. And show Walter clarify the right of way and Ramirez defer for now. Um, economic vitality. I agree with Libra that I really do want to discuss. I want to discuss that one. Um, Legislative program. I agree with what everybody said. Feasibility. Of mental health crisis. I agree with labor on that one. Um, I agree with, uh, Matt a check on all the move to livability ones. Um, as for R3 zoning, I'm, I'm actually very concerned about the displacement possibility, so I would like to have the display, I would like to defer it until we've clearly talked about, um, our displacement strategy until I'm comfortable with that. Um, so that's the uh, 2.one. Um. Oh. Okay. And then, uh, mobile home ordinance. I agree with uh, show Walter and Ramirez that we, um, do an ordinance, do uh, rent control, that uh, the council adopts in the RHC administers. Um, Oh, for me, the the spreadsheet just disappeared.

[06:42:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hold on, everyone, it looks like Lawrence disappeared as well. Hold on.

[06:42:36] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Okay. Mayor, so they are rejoining Zoom. Okay, yeah, I have I have Marielle here. So hopefully, Marielle, you'll be able to share your screen. And then I'm looking for Lawrence in the attendee box.

[06:42:51] Marielle: Yes, I'm sharing now.

[06:42:54] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: So we can probably, yeah, I think we can keep going and I'll just keep an eye out for Lawrence and move him over if that's okay with you. Okay.

[06:43:02] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, if you go up. Yeah, I think he wasn't able to record some of the things. I think he stopped around a little above, if you can go up a little. To 2.one, I think is where he disappeared. So our 3 zoning. Uh, Okay, yes, he has defer until we've talked through displacement, mobile home ordinance. Um, Okay, I guess he did put me in with show Alter and Ramirez. Uh, VTA Evelyn, um, I, so this, I could agree with either one. I'd like to be mindful of the timing because it's used for safe parking, but maybe the vice mayor is right. Maybe we've already been mindful enough. So, you know, whichever it is. Um, okay, again, the next 2, I agree, move to livability. Um, The, with the Moffat, I agreed with a council member at a Koga, change it to a precise plan and extend it. Um, transit center master plan, which is 3.10. Um, I, I mean, basically, I think it's important and we need to do an RFP or design. I think it's the centerpiece of our downtown, and I don't want it to just be a big hole in the ground. Um, Develop a city active transportation plan. Um, yeah, so for this one, I would combine that, some members of the public have said, uh, combine that with the the tree, the tree plan. So I agree, connections, greenways, compliant, combine it with the, um, the, the, whatever it's called, community tree plan, a street tree plan. Um,

[06:45:01] Marielle: Community trade master plan.

[06:45:03] Councilmember Alison Hicks: What's that?

[06:45:05] Marielle: It may have gotten me the community tree. Maybe it was their plan.

[06:45:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. Um Well, like habitat management plan. Yeah, there's been a lot of, so I'd like to understand the scope of that and there's been a lot of talk of biodiversity and I don't know whether wildlife seems to be, I don't know whether that's included in this or whether that's uh, something the public is uh, loving for as a separate item. Um, COVID recovery. Efforts, okay, I agree with that. The community tree master plan, I... Oh, sea level rise. Wasn't that the salt ponds? I'm confused about that one.

[06:45:55] Marielle: That was supposed to be the salt ponds issue.

[06:45:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. And wasn't the, the high, medium and low meant to mean the, the amount of effort, not the priority?

[06:46:07] Marielle: Yes.

[06:46:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah. Okay. So let's not change it to high effort. Let's let them do an effort. Um Uh, Soft. Okay, I don't have anything particular to say about the retrofit. And the gas powered leaf blowers. I think it's on our sap 4. So I would just like to move it up in priority on that and just do a slow start, you know, which is basically what people are talking about here, I guess. Um, call, uh, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and see if we can network with them as well as, um, I know Palo Alto and Los Altos have have gas flowered, leaf flowered bands of some sort. So maybe if we can do joint enforcement with them. Anyway, see if we can do an easy lift to start out with. And then I guess the last thing I wanted to, to add is the um, city school joint use agreement. Like, you know, really what I just want in the short term out of that is that, um, is that council be notified if there are any changes, that it not just be that staff is notified. So if we can agree to that and then do the heavier lift work a little late, if that gives staff some breathing room to do some heavier lift work later, that would be fine. I just don't find myself in the situation we were this time where we found out something significant was changing when it was kind of almost a done deal. Thank you.

[06:47:46] Lawrence Grudeska: Appreciate that Um, council member and my laptop uh, after uh, 5 or so hours uh, sharing its screen, decided it was done. But we are not. We're moving forward. Council member, Ave Koga.

[06:48:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. I think we can all use the breakthrough. If you don't mind going back to the top, I'll just start with comments on the already created list. Um, 4.14. Uh, yes, um, um, I support removing it until we have more clarity from the state. Um, one. 7. I support removing. I actually think this came on, I think, 4 years ago, um, and since the, we added this, um, there have been a lot of other, more community or regional groups that have, I've seen flyers for a lot of these workshops and whatnot, so in light of that, I think we're okay to remove that. Um, visual arts, yes, I think a lot of work's already been done and a consultant hired, so I'd say let's move forward with that. Um, So I'd be the 2nd one on 5.5. Um, 3.6. Um, yeah, I'm fine to defer it. My question or my thought was, um, down the road. Um, we may want to expand it. I see a lot more different types of micro mobility. Um, I don't know what you call them, vehicles or whatnot, um, around these days because, you know, our streets are, some streets are closed to, um, cars here in downtown, so we may need to expand that scope, but I'm fine to defer it for now. Um, the HET. So this isn't an this is a kind of a complicated one. I've done some, little bit of research, talk to staff about this, and, um, I'm all, uh, uh, as part of ETA, um, we recently had a workshop on the future of light rail. And so, um, I, and I had asked that, um, BTA look at how to incorporate an AGT type assistant into the future of light rail and, you know, that we can use the tracks or the, the right away from the light rail system. So, um, I think there's more work we just need to do conversation wise. Um, my main concern with this is the next phase was a $1000000 for the study, the next phase study, and the cost of doing the AGT, building a system was somewhere in the half a $1000000000 range. And so I just don't think, you know, we can get funding for something like that alone. So if we're gonna really try to do this, we would probably need to partner with VTA or some other entities. So that's my interest, but, you know, I think we could defer this for a year or 2 until we have more clarity on these other aspects. Other, other talks that are going on. Um. I would keep economic vitality. I think that's really the gonna be the should be the focus um for our city as we come out of COVID. Um, so there's a lot of things, you know, we could talk about in terms of, I, we've heard a lot about downtown and the regulations and requirements we have that are some, some of them are pretty outdated. So I think this is important to do. Um. And I've been thinking too, like, how are we gonna actively recruit for new businesses and and fill the empty store prints around town. So this is important to me. Um, the legislative program. Uh, yeah, I think they can limit it. My, you know, interest right now is at the federal level, keeping up with, you know, all the relief, um, relief, uh, built legislation around COVID relief. Um, there's a lot. Not as much right now, but there is some, you know, some stuff at the state level, especially housing continues to be a topic the state wants to continue to work on. So I think those are the areas I would um, can, you know, look at. Um, So we can narrow it. I don't know if it's really about how many bills to follow, but just maybe certain issue areas to cut to follow. Um, so my question with uh, mental health and I'm sorry if I missed this earlier, but, um, Are we talking just about, like, uh, the, for instance, the the county mobile crisis, uh, response band, uh, that kind of service, or I guess my question was, um, and, you know, we talked about youth mental health and wellness. I know we passed some work plan items for the short term, but there were some medium and longer term items on the comprehensive work plan. And I just wanted to see like ensure that those items are going to move forward. Um, into the future. So I'm wondering if mental health can cover, yeah, all of that or if this is specifically just towards um, emergency crisis response.

[06:53:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, Council member, Abikov, if I can answer. So, that item was specifically for the mental health crisis response. So, yes, it would be exploring, the county has a couple pilot programs right now, that they're working on in South County. Um, so we want to explore some sort of North County option or solution or see what even may be possible or if there's some other possibility that we haven't even thought of with the county. So that is very specific to that item.

[06:53:34] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Then could you, um, answer the question about the youth? Well, I think we called it wellness. We changed it to wellness and the action plan there and short, medium, long term work. Plan Ida projects.

[06:53:49] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, well those, I can't remember if we just passed the whole plan or if it was just the short term items and we need to follow up on the longer term items. Um, I'm going to turn to our community services director, John Marchant, to assist. Um, I do know there were short term items, um, but he can provide some additional context to that.

[06:54:10] Community Services Director John Marchant: Good evening, counsel. Um, for the youth mental health item. Yes, we do plan on continuing the efforts that were approved by council both short term, medium term, and long term, um, as an ongoing effort with our, um, you can teen services.

[06:54:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Great. Thank you very much. Um, so then you can just mix all of that. The easiest route. Um, I've, I, uh, support um, Councilman Matter Checks, um, recommendations to move certain items to the livability news strategy. Um, are 3 um. I'm kind of undecided on our 3 right now, so maybe I'll come back to that later. Um, mobile home parks. Um, so I support, um, moving forward with, uh, the, uh, ordinance, but I do, I know, I recall, um, similarly, the council member MedCheck. We did talk about, um, you know, an option for, I think we called it back then, long term lease or now it's called an accord. So, I would like to see, um, all of that come back to us, so so we can really decide what is best for, um, mobile home parks. Um, BTA. I think we're, and we should be fine moving forward with, um, the timeline that we are on. So I'm fine to keep it going. Um, yeah. Historic presentation, public art, moving delivability is fine. I think I've already discussed Moffat Boulevard or the Moffat change area, and doing a precise plan, and looking at expanding the area under, in that change area. Um, in my real concern there is, um, it's around, um, circulation. Traffic, circulation, also things like parks and, you know, all the things that we would be putting into a precise plan, because a lot of the projects in that area were piecemeal by gatekeeper projects, we don't have a comprehensive vision for the area, and that's what I'd like to do. Um, center master plan. I think that's, yes, design's fine. Our design's important, so we can move forward with the RFP. Um, active transportation. Yes, I appreciate the Greenways edition. Um, I think this one really, uh, talks to that idea of uh, network of walkability, bikeability, neighborhood connections. Um, And well, 4 point line, 4.2 to move over to livability is fine. 5.9. Oh, want to include residents. I think there's, um, that actually is very important, so I would support including residents. Um, and then, yeah, I like that the salt ponds, the the high is about staff time, so I don't think we want to add things that are high and high intensive for stuff. So I'm fine. I think it was not.

[06:57:21] Lawrence Grudeska: Um, thanks, council member, Abby Kuger. I was going to interject council member show Walter messaged me and said that she was to just delete that one, the salt ponds.

[06:57:33] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Yes. I just, just the hell item off.

[06:57:38] Lawrence Grudeska: Um, you actually just delete the column?

[06:57:40] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah. Just to the whole row.

[06:57:43] Lawrence Grudeska: forward as is.

[06:57:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, exactly. Great. Um, seismic retrofit. So, my question here is, there were some challenges that, you know, we tried to fix, um, with the CS Safari and the Fair Raider return, I believe. And so my question is in light of, um, some of those changes we tried to make through the ballot measure not going through. Where are we, realistically, and being able to, um, do an ordinance, the key here, I believe, I recall, was whether it should be a voluntary or a mandate, and the challenge with a mandate is if you can't, um, you know, if you can't, um, guarantee, uh, reimbursement, how do you mandate something? So that, I think, that was the issue. That's if I remember correctly, so I'd like a little bit more clarity and follow up on that. Um, gas powered leaf flower. So thanks to council member. Show Walter for reaching out to me on this. Um, I checked with our air district and, um, so, the air district does not have authority to, um, regulate, but the, the, the Bay Area air quality management district, but the state our air resources board does, and the understanding is that they are proceeding, uh, the planning to proceed with a rule, this year, um, as well as there's an assembly bill, and I don't have the correct number for it. But a bill being proposed at the state level that will require all small 2 stroke engines likely flourish to be electric by the year 2024. So in light of this, um, I think we should wait a little bit to see where these go. And in terms of Silicon Valley clean energy. I talked with my staff there. And so they, and they don't have authority to do an ordinance. Um, but they said that if there were something moving forward in terms of an ordinance or an incentive interest in an incentive program, they could work with us and to create an incentive program. So I think that's fine for us to start that conversation. Um, and then joint use agreement is fine. I think that was all of the items. Let me just tick, tick, click on my notes here. Yes. That's it. Thank you.

[07:00:21] Lawrence Grudeska: Fantastic. Mayor Kameh.

[07:00:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. I just wanted to, to, to turn to our assistant city manager really quickly. Um, Audrey, was there something that you had wanted to share about the leaf, the leaf blowers?

[07:00:36] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Well, we did. I think I may be getting clarity now as we are making the distinction between the incentive program, which could be worked on collaboratively with Silicon Valley clean energy and any kind of regulation, which we could wait for the state to take the lead on. I wasn't sure I was hearing people who on the council who were, whether they were saying the same thing or different things, but I believe I'm clear now around that.

[07:01:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, and was there anything that you had wanted to clarify too on the SAP 4th items?

[07:01:12] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Um... Could you be more, we were talking about SAP 4 in terms of status and when that was coming back to council, um, or were you speaking about something specific in this project list?

[07:01:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I got a ping that maybe you wanted to discuss it. So perhaps not.

[07:01:32] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Oh, um, I did want to, uh, confirm what, uh, city manager McCarthy said that we are bringing back an update on the SAP 4. Um, in May, um, which we'll talk about the status of the 81 projects and staff has already been asked to look at whether there are any that, um, are no longer a priority, um, that and where we are and the timeline on them and what would be realistic to accomplish in the next 2 years. So I just wanted to confirm and reiterate the city manager's comments there.

[07:02:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Cream?

[07:02:10] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: And in terms of how the project on leaf blower shows up in the SAP 4, it is really just focused on rebates or trade-ins and incentives. So it would be great to be able to partner with Silicon Valley clean energy on that.

[07:02:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Got it. Thank you very much. App appreciate that clarity on those items. Okay. So Lawrence, I have a quick question for you. So kind of given the late hour, does it make sense for me to go through like all of the list or can I just kind of tell you, at this point, maybe some high-level thoughts?

[07:02:41] Lawrence Grudeska: Uh, I would say if there's anything that is not um, sort of an overwhelming uh, consensus at this point that uh, to remove. Um, I think for actually, I'm going to strike that. I think for just completeness, we'd like to hear which projects you'd like to not carry forward and then capture anything you have questions on. Um, I think we should just go through the list. Everyone else have the chance to do it and would appreciate you doing it as well.

[07:03:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Best, best laid plans to not go through every project, but I, okay.

[07:03:12] Lawrence Grodeska: Well, we haven't gone through every project, but.

[07:03:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so, um, so is this the top?

[07:03:19] Lawrence Grodeska: Yeah.

[07:03:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um. We can just keep scrolling. So the one that I do want to remove is a 3.20. Project 3.20. I do think we should remove that. Um. And let's see. So let's see, economic vitality, new project. So, our folks here are saying they support it.

[07:03:55] Lawrence Grodeska: Uh, no, it's, um, Basically, with the new staff member coming on board, there was a desire to basically discuss exactly what that would look like. Um, um, uh, council members Lieburn Hicks, uh, suggested that, and then, uh, cast member Abikoga said that, um, really should keep this focus, and it's so important, but uh, sounds like there'll be some requests for clarification, exactly what this looks like.

[07:04:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. I'll skip that one. So Project 5.7. Um, I, I'd like to keep item 5.7. I think we continue to see legislation, um, on the state level and from the federal government. I mean, we're, we're looking to see now how much the, the, the city will be getting from the relief package. I think it's really important that we have a dedicated person who can who can do this. And, um, I remain consistent with that, um, message. Um. So, um, I agree with moving the, um, the parks and recreation strategic plan to livability. Okay, so the mobile home part. I mean, I move, I'm fine moving forward with it. I don't move my favorite discussion. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I think I'm comfortable with the city council adopting an ordinance in the arch, the administering it. I think we'll have more discussion on it anyways, um, but that's fine. Okay. Um, sure, this is fine. The, the, development of the VTA Evelyn lot, like the timing is important. Um, for 5.2 and 5.5, you can add me there moving it to livability. And then for the Moffat Boulevard. I think if you can add me into the Hicks Abia Coca, area. Yeah, I, or is it all the same as magic too? I think the discussion about a precise plan. I liked, I liked that. I wasn't able to participate in 555, but live, lived in that area. So, um, Be nice to have that. Um. 3.10 yes. You can add my name to that. Uh, yes, to the developer city active transportation plan. And then for 4.one and 4.2, you can add me 2 to moving it to livability. So for 5.9, I'm comfortable. It's, you know, in relation to the include residence, not only businesses. I'd also want to hear from employees like the workers. I think that's, you know, another, I think that's, they're the ones who are most likely the essential workers working in these downtown businesses. I'm comfortable with the gas powered leaf blower, seeing what we can do in some partnerships there. And then um, so for the joints. City joint use agreement. I mean, I think I'm comfortable with the way staff wrote it and that it's added as one of the 10 projects that I think I'll just, um, I'll just leave it at that.

[07:07:56] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. You feel complete?

[07:07:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I would go into that list. Yeah, I mean, I think that there was 3 projects that are on the list that have been deferred. Um, that are either high or moderate with the timing being TVD that I'm interested in, but I can save that for the April discussion.

[07:08:16] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay. Great. Before we take other comments from council members. I know city manager McCarthy wanted to clarify a few things.

[07:08:26] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Lawrence. So, I do want to go back to the mobile home ordinance item just to get some clarity around that, um, because we did hear different feedback from council. And, um, depending on the feedback and the and the direction we go really depends on the staff, um, workload and impact. So, can we get clarity from council as to whether you desire to, um, look at long term leases or compacts or whether you want to keep it to how CSFRA is. So I think we're going to need to take a straw pull on that so we know how to move forward and how staff will, um, assess that in April. Christian. Sorry, city attorney, do you want to?

[07:09:08] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I have what may be a helpful clarification. The interest in that council member Mattachek raised regarding the park owners who are offering good terms to their tenants, um, We've identified in our preliminary research a structure of an ordinance which could would be a standalone rent control ordinance for mobile homes and mobile home parks, but it would have, uh, potentially an exception for park owners who offer a compact accord or a long-term lease, some type of arrangement that is as protective as the underlying ordinance, and other jurisdictions have explored that approach. So, uh, it could be an ordinance with this exception in it as opposed to one approach or another, an ordinance or a, uh, an accord and a compact, and citywide, accords and compacts are all dependent on, excuse me, park owners voluntarily, all agreeing to a similar arrangement. So, uh, I think to simplify my comments, we've identified the potential for an ordinance with a, an exception that would allow these uh, park owners who offer, um, protective, uh, terms to their tenants uh, within the ordinance itself.

[07:10:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, yeah, so, um, City manager McCarthy, anything to share after that or or, um, where we want to take this conversation about the local ordinance?

[07:11:05] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So I think I need to understand the direction. So what, so what are we saying? What's, what's,

[07:11:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I'll defer to council member, uh, Lieber? Cous member Libra, go ahead.

[07:11:19] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Oh, um, what has been discussed, what's described in the staff report is, um, uh, a, um, mobile home, uh, rent control ordinance modeled after the CSFRA, um, and, uh, implemented by the RHC. And, um, a clean ordinance is what has been put out to the public. I've just, as we've been here over the last hour, so I've gotten a large number of messages. Um, from our mobile home, homeowners and residents saying that they do not want, um, an accord that they want, uh, a, a clean, um, rent control that is, um, what has been presented in the staff report. And so I'd like us to take a straw pull on that. And to move it forward, as we talked about in the last, um, in the last council meeting and throughout this process. Um, it's not my wish to change the the goalposts now. Um, and I think that if we bring forward a clean ordinance, that, um, council members within that meeting can suggest, um, amendments to it. But I think that we need to keep faith with what we've offered to the public. And so I'd like to make that motion that we uh, agendize, uh, that type of an ordinance.

[07:13:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Casimir Hicks.

[07:13:08] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I agree. I want to keep it simple. I want to keep what the the residents have asked for. I've never had anybody ask for an accord. Um, you know, quite the opposite. I think it'll be easier for staff and more protection for the residents. Um, and, uh, and all that's good.

[07:13:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Calvin Michelle Walter, I saw your hand. Don't get the council member of a coca.

[07:13:36] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Hey, you're so... I was going to say what council member Hicks did. Let's take us to a poll.

[07:13:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, okay, Counselor, up in Koga.

[07:13:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I was going to say that we did discuss this and we did, I believe that it was at a study session and we did talk about doing both and I don't see the harm and having staff come back with at all options and then we can decide which one works best, but we did talk and I mean, I need to go back, but I thought there was a majority direction to have staff look at look at the accord concept.

[07:14:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Cats member Ramirez.

[07:14:12] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So, I don't have a problem with the accord idea coming back, but I don't want it to delay, uh, the time frame that staff had had suggested in the staff report. So I guess the question would be uh, uh, for the city attorney. Um, have you done enough, uh, research, uh, to do you feel prepared to come back with that idea? Alongside, you know, uh, an ordinance model after after the CSF array for the August September time frame. Uh, that was recommended in the staff report.

[07:14:51] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, and just to, so I'm clear on your question. When you say come back with the idea, was it the exception within the ordinance I mentioned or a separate accord only approach?

[07:15:04] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: The exception idea.

[07:15:06] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, we would be prepared to do that, and I could have continued my comments a little more thoroughly. The bring back of an ordinance. It still would be a standalone ordinance, and this exception, if you will, could be offered as an option to counsel for those interested in in that, um, really brought forward as an option within the ordinance.

[07:15:34] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: If it doesn't delay it, then I have no problem with the idea coming back and we can discuss it then.

[07:15:40] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Would not, it would not delay it.

[07:15:42] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, great. Thank you.

[07:15:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member, I'm not a check.

[07:15:46] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I just want to clarify, and I feel like we're getting a little bit hung up here on words. Um, when the council discussed this, I don't recall us ever saying, um, this would be 2 different ordinances, and, um, that it would be one or the other. What would be one or the other is, if a park owner signed, the accord, Um, and my guess is maybe there'll only be one. Um, and it's the one that residents said, you know, we have a great park owner. We don't need rent control. Um, and I'm guessing everybody else is going to be subject to rent control, but it's one ordinance with sort of, um, I hate to use the word options, but, you know, 2 routes you can go down. Um, it's not one or the other. In terms of, we have an ordinance, just ground accords. That was not the intention of the council discussion when we talked about this. And I'm fine with this being, um, the rent control portion of it being modeled after the CSFRA and asking the RHC to administer it.

[07:16:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks. Celcium reliever.

[07:17:01] Councilmember Sally Lieber: So, a question for the city attorney, does, um, the rent control currently provided, um, by the CF, CSFRA, um, can can landlords decide to opt out of that in this way by providing an accord?

[07:17:19] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: No, it doesn't.

[07:17:23] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Um, so I think that points too. Um, sort of a.

[07:17:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Well, it looks like Council member Libra is froze, unfortunately.

[07:17:39] Councilmember Sally Lieber: And vocal about not wanting an accord. And um, this is why my motion is just simply for a clean ordinance is provided for in the staff report.

[07:17:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You froze there for a moment. So you said what points to...

[07:17:58] Councilmember Sally Lieber: I think, uh, I'm not looking to set up, um, disparate treatment for lesser protections, um, for people in mobile homes. I'm looking for equal protections for them. And so if landlords can't decide to opt out of rent control, um, on, on apartments, and it's clear that that's not something that the mobile home community, um, is, is interested in. So that's why my emotion is just, uh, simply around, uh,

[07:18:40] Unknown Speaker: Uh, can I get a point of clarification or process? Are we taking motions right now?

[07:18:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Um, I think what we're trying to do is get guidance for, um, staff about how to move this forward. So what I'd like to do is take a straw poll on a clean ordinance versus an ordinance with an exception. So can I get a, um, Vice mirror mirrors.

[07:19:10] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Um, Kim, uh, Kimber, what do you need to move this forward?

[07:19:14] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I'm going to defer to the mayor. I believe she's gonna conduct this part of it.

[07:19:19] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay.

[07:19:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sorry. So, I mean, I think that, from what I heard of our discussion, the, everyone is supportive of the mobile home park ordinance going forward and I think we have different ideas of how we want to implement it, it sounds like the city attorney's office is going to come back in August and provide, you know, the different options at that time. That's my understanding, but I know that it's now midnight, so maybe I'm wrong. So I, so I, I think that this discussion to me, I, I, I feel like personally it's a little premature to have straw polls. I feel like the time for this discussion will be when the city attorney brings, brings the ordinance back and brings back the, I would hope that the suite of options and then we can hear directly from the mobile home park community is how I would, I would envision this process going forward. And hopefully colleagues feel comfortable. I heard unanimity in terms of wanting this to come back and ready to get this going and roll up our sleeves. I think that staff clearly heard that. And we're going to hear about it in August. So if other colleagues are comfortable, I think, you know, the city attorney and his team, you've heard this robust discussion last Tuesday and this Tuesday, I think you hear where we'd like to go and just ask that you be responsive to what you're hearing from us. So, um, Mr. Chopra, can you maybe respond to, to my understanding and perhaps clarify to colleagues if there's anything more that you need at this time?

[07:20:53] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: No, I wouldn't need anything more at this time. It was always our intention to bring back, uh, options, if you will, uh, within the the framework of a city council adopted ordinance. So, we would, that was our intention originally, and, and I believe there's consensus to move that, that forward.

[07:21:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So I think that at this point, you have, it sounds like, I just heard you say you have everything you need. So if colleagues are comfortable, we'll be able to, I think, dive deep in when this comes back in a few months. That, okay? All right, I see heads nodding. Okay. Great. All right. Lauren, anything else that you need? I know that Miss Cameron, our public works director, had wanted to clarify something related to the, uh, automated guide away.

[07:21:45] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Yeah, I'm just looking to staff to, to share uh, city manager McCarthy and had a few things you want to clarify. And so if, um, uh, Ms. Cameron is part of that, then please go ahead.

[07:21:57] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Thank you. I'd like to request direction on how you do want to handle the ADT item. What we heard was 2 of you said to remove it, 2 said the deferret. And 3 mention wanting clarity on the scope of work. So I'll just mention that the scope of work for the phase 2 feasibility study was focused on alignments, potential right away alignments, for the potential AGT system. Uh, the advantage of doing this would be to give us an idea where we think we wanted to go and preferably preserve our options along those corridors if that's where we think HET should be aligned. The question I'm putting before you tonight is because we do have a funded CIP for 500,000 city money. And if you want to remove it or defer it for a few years, we can defund that CIP and put that money to other uses. And then when you're ready and if you want to take it up again in the future, we would create a new CIP.

[07:23:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Customer, show alter?

[07:23:09] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I think if the money is already in the CIP and it's planned, we should go forward with it. It's really important with these projects to have the right of way identified. If the right of way is identified and we protect it, which basically means we pay attention to whether or not development is planned there and we don't let any development take place there without really thinking about. Are we willing to give up that right away? That possibility that the transportation project will go through. That, it gives us that, that option. In the future. And I think that's valuable. So, I'd like to support that. Going forward with the, the um, project that you're talking about on this camera.

[07:23:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member Lieber, did you have a comment as well?

[07:23:57] Councilmember Sally Lieber: No,

[07:23:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: okay. Any other comments on this? Um, Councilman Abikoga?

[07:24:04] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I mean, I don't want to get into the actual project, but my question has to do with some of the details in that one of the right of ways, if I recall, was along Moffat Boulevard. And in light of what we've talked about this evening about precise planning and streetscapes. I guess I'm just not clear how we could even move forward. Um, without doing the other studies.

[07:24:31] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Well, again, uh, we can come back in April, if you want to bring more clarity on the potential scope of work, it does not need to be limited to Mobbet Boulevard, there was a possibility of a loop that used shoreline. It could even across Stevens Creek and come back through NASA. property and connect to the light rail, and on the Bay Shore, uh, light rail station, and then, who knows what put out with the light rail right away. So there were there were possibilities out there. Um, again, I was just putting forward and it can wait till the April 27th meeting. Uh, that if, if 4 of you do not want us pursuing this project right now, we, we have other potential uses for that money. But if you would like us to keep it on the books and see if we can move forward with it. Then we'll, you know, we would try to do so and we'd keep the CIP. It sounds to me like I should bring more information to you on April 27th. I see nodding heads and thumbs up.

[07:25:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Does that sound okay, Miss Cameron? You got what you need?

[07:25:48] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Thank you.

[07:25:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks. All right. So we have, oh, Council member Hicks, did you have something for Ms. Cammon? Your hands up.

[07:25:55] Councilmember Alison Hicks: No, I, I'm sorry, I had just one more unread short, hopefully unrelated question.

[07:26:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay.

[07:26:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Apologies. My zoom keeps crashing, and so that's why I'm disappearing. Yeah. I deeply apologize. So, I have assumed we have this project and I don't have the knocks anymore in front of me, but a project on homelessness, and I was assuming that would, our homeless response, that would also focus on, uh, possible if needed extension of, um, you know, like what's happening to the shoreline lot and extension of, of safe lots if that's what we need depending on what's happening there. Is that, I want to know what the scope of that is. I realized I never asked that and I had meant to bring that up. And if the scope has not been scoped out, I would like it to include that possible extension of, say, lots if necessary.

[07:27:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, council member Hicks. So we are working with Live Nation about the extension of the parking. We're actually planning to bring back a couple items to counsel this spring. Um, likely in the April, May timeframe in June. Um, of, of, the program because it is, um, I think it has the June end date. So we'd be asking for council consideration of that. Um, but we can certainly add that to the long term strategy if that's something that the council wants as part of that. Um, we can we can add that.

[07:27:35] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I would like to know where we're going with safe parking as a part of, as a part of that strategy. I assumed it was, but I realize now I shouldn't assume.

[07:27:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, can I do a check to see where we're at as far as um, the existing projects list. I think we had a pretty good understanding of where we were as far as projects to, um, pause or defer or not carry forward. There's a number of questions and clarifications that have been made. Okay, I think Lawrence has frozen again, but um, I think his question is probably, you know, what else is needed? Um, at this point in the process. And so, um, city manager McCarthy, can you maybe clarify, is there anything else staff needs clarity on or anything else or are we do have everything that you need?

[07:28:39] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, I think we have everything we need in terms of the existing work plan being rolled over or deferred, the last item, um, of this exercise was to find out if there were, um, any limited number of projects or any interest that council had, obviously taking into account everything that we've talked about this evening. Um, so that that's the last part of it, um, of this exercise.

[07:29:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right. I see council member Libra's hand.

[07:29:10] Councilmember Sally Lieber: And um, I was just wondering for the, the people that were kind of going 1st in the, the line putting projects on there. We didn't get to go back and add on to certain things. And, um, uh, given that the consultants dropped off. Um, maybe we could do that offline to be able to add on to those or, um, to add some small clarifications. Um,

[07:29:40] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I, I, I would, I would suggest that it would be hard to do offline because then we're not going to know what council consensus, so I would actually prefer that we get, um, council feedback and consensus because it's going to be hard when we're getting just maybe one thing from one person and one thing from another. So I would ask that we, um, finish to the extent.

[07:30:02] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay, great. If the if the consultant rises again, we'll we'll do that. We'll add on.

[07:30:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Well, why don't I, let me see if I can bring Mario back and maybe she can bring it up, if possible. Hi, Mario.

[07:30:19] Marielle: Hi, yeah, I'm here and I can take note of any of that. Is that okay? I'm sorry.

[07:30:25] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah. Okay. Great. And I think if you could just maybe share your screen, and then council members who have new items that they'd like to add to the list, can see it and then that would be very much appreciated. Great. Thank you so much. All right, council member Leaper. sounds like maybe you have some things to add.

[07:30:46] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Um, I just wanted to have her scroll down so that the ones that I never got to add onto, um, that I could take a look at those. Um, So, uh, yeah, on the the parks and rec strategic plan, I'm great with move to livability. Um, on the R3 zoning update, I share the concern about displacement, that council member, Manachek, so I want to add on to that. Uh, that we have a hearing or such um, before uh, going after that. Um, mobile home, I think we've worked our way through that. Um. And so you could put me down on the mobile home that I, I want a clean ordinance. Um, and then, uh, keep going down a little bit here. historic preservation. I agree with moving that to livability. Um, encouraging public art. I like to defer on, obviously, um, uh, Let's see, uh, keep going down, um, on the active, uh, transportation plan, I agree with, um, the thought about the tree plan being a part of it. And, um, community tree master plan. I'm fine with moving that to livability. Uh, same with uh, the wildlife habitat, and I agree with understanding the scope. Um, uh, let's see on the gas powered leaf blowers. I'd like us to follow that with carb. And, um, see if we can make a change with that because, uh, the public health issues that come from that really do accrue to, uh, people of color and communities of color, so that's the concern there. Um, and I think that's all of it for me.

[07:32:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[07:32:47] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, uh, really quickly. Uh, so 1st, uh, I, I had mentioned, uh, intended to bring us up earlier, the, the, um, staff responses to council questions, suggested that the campaign finance regulations item also be included into the work plans. So, um, we didn't talk about that, but I'm assuming that we're still interested in, in the, the update that the city attorney's office and the city clerk's office is working on, um, so I just wanted to confirm with staff that the intention is to advance that unless we decide not to.

[07:33:25] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, uh, excuse me, Vice Mayor Ramirez, that's our understanding from the, I believe it was October 27th. Uh, council meeting where that request was made by council, uh, I would maybe take this opportunity to ask council in terms of timing. I know the next election cycle is a little far out, and often the statutes related to campaign disclosures are, um, some new legislation comes down usually in January 1st. I was interested in council's preference on timing, to me, it makes sense. Probably early, uh, 2022. But I mean, I know we don't have to get into that specifics, but I would welcome council's preference on timing.

[07:34:19] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: So I'm going to do a dangerous thing and speak for my colleagues and say that we trust you. Um, so, uh, early 2022 seems reasonable. I don't think it's so urgent that it needs to be done this year. Um, so I'd I'd suggest that you take the time that you need. Um, and then the only other uh, point is procedural, uh, several members of the council um, had, had, uh, mentioned our 3 and concerns about displacement. Uh, we do have a study session next month, and I think that might be a good opportunity for staff, uh, to provide, so if Wayne is available, uh, since he's working on the anti-displacement component, and the replacement requirements, that might be a good opportunity to provide an update on the anti-displacement work, how it, it's being integrated with the R 3 update, and then that's an opportunity for the council to decide how we want to respond. Um, but that would be my recommendation. Thank you.

[07:35:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, thanks. Hi Lawrence, you're back. Okay, maybe you're not back. But I saw you back. Okay. Do other council members have anything they'd like to add? If so, please raise your hand.

[07:35:42] Unknown Speaker: This adding to this current list or adding new projects?

[07:35:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, city manager McCarthy? Sorry. Let me get.

[07:35:49] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Oh, thank you, mayor. Thats okay. Um, I did want to give, um, uh, community development director Artis Shravastova a chance to respond to Vice Mayor Ramirez with an update about the displacement item, and then I also want to clarify the Moffat precise plan. So if we could go to that page, I'm looking for whether there are 4 votes on that. Um, because we really need clarity because that's a, that's a, um, large item. So I just want to make sure that I know what the votes are for that one.

[07:36:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So here's the Moffat Boulevard precise plan. So so far I'm seeing 3 council members. So, um, just I see, I see council members Mattachek's hand. So let me have her clarify.

[07:36:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I thought we were sort of going down the path that we need to understand the different options here and what they apply and that we would have that discussion, but we weren't going to have it tonight. Um, because, I mean, I'm not sure, which makes sense at this point, I heard we want to expand the area. I heard we want to do a precise plan. Staff proposed the streetcape. I thought we were gonna have a discussion about those, but not tonight. Because I'm open to the discussion on which direction do we think we want ahead?

[07:37:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: City manager McCarthy, do you need more on this?

[07:37:24] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, no, I would just ask our community development director to um, clarify that and the um, displacement item.

[07:37:32] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Okay. Um, good evening, council members. I'll tackle the the Moffat Boulevard. Uh, what we can do is maybe by April 27th give a little bit of background on what's been done to date. Um, and then um, uh, uh, uh, discuss the streetscape and and the potential options. Yeah, and if the council's interested in moving forward, or you could decide to just schedule a study session before deciding to move forward, that could be step one of your goals. You can decide that on April 27th. Um. If if that works for you. We'll give you a little bit of background. And then on the R3, I did, I did, those are moving in parallel. Um, what you'll see um, on the R3 are, are 3 concepts, and then we expect to schedule the displacement um, Um, study session this fall for you. Um, and so, we have been a little bit impacted in housing, but housing staff, um, with a housing manager. And so, um, because of lot 12 and some other projects, um, it, it has taken a bit of a backseat, but our goal really is to bring them, uh, in a timely manner, so we're not moving, forward and adopting the R3 without understanding options for the displacement. So we understand where the council stands on that.

[07:39:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. Anything else needed? Um, city manager McCarthy and clarifying from anything on this chart. Okay. So I think you had also mentioned that we, this was the time for, um, council members to share if they had anything additional that they'd like to add. Is this the time? Okay. So I, so we can scroll to the bottom of the list um, and do council members have anything that they would like to add? Okay, council member show alter and then council member Abi Koga.

[07:39:34] Councilmember Pat Showalter: One thing I would like to bring up is the possibility of getting the, um, uh, agenda put out on Wednesday night instead of Thursday night. I don't know if this is the appropriate place to bring this up, but it has been brought up to me by a number of organizations and I do think it would, it would be helpful. So, um, I would like to bring, and it seems like our planning and session is the time to talk about it. So that's what I want to just bring up is the idea of getting the agenda published on Wednesday. That would give us one extra day to evaluate things before Tuesday meeting. And particularly given that we're mostly having just 2 I mean, I know it would be an adjustment, but we are only having 2 council meetings a month. So in a sense that would make it, I think, a little more doable, but I'd like to explore that.

[07:40:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. And Lawrence, I see your back. Would you like to drive?

[07:40:37] Lawrence Grodeska: Sure, happy to do it. Um, Council member Abigoga.

[07:40:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Some of this, I think, is part of the dislacement strategy, but I wanted to, so it's not really brand new, but call it out. Um, it talked about um, a funding measure. And, um, I've actually been, Talk mentioned, have thought, and I know we've talked about it in the past, but, um, I'd like for us to look at, um, doing a TOT, a hotel tax increased measure in the next election cycle, um, to, and it was actually the conversation, um, was, it was in the context of our sustainability action plan, actually, and how to fund that. So without putting any parameters as to what the funding would go to. Um, I'd just like for us to look at maybe going out for a TOT increase because ours is um, much lower than our neighboring cities. at this point. Um, and then the other item was, um, kind of came out of COVID, but the, um, realization that, um, brought access to broadband is, um, limited in certain communities. And I saw that with the, um, American rescue plan funding, some of the uses that included broadband, increasing broadband access. So that would be another area that I'd like to look at. And then I think this is more internal and it probably would fall under, I think, strategy 6 and we heard from community members about, um, and I don't know, yeah, how, but more inter-departmental coordination. So realizing that things are interrelated, whether it's, and then we talked about it, but the streetscape and trees and so forth, and biodiversity, I think, falls under that too, but how do we increase, um, coordination across our different departments? Um, And then I don't know, I, I, I, I, I guess I wasn't clearly taught, I, I thought a number of us talked about health earlier, um, but I wasn't sure if that was going to be somehow included in whether it's a strategy or a vision and part of the vision, but I just wanted to highlight health and wellness. Thanks.

[07:43:02] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay, but no particular projects about that, just making sure that's highlighted. Okay great. Uh, council member Mattachuk, and then Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[07:43:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Sorry, I think Vice Mayor Ramirez was ahead of me.

[07:43:16] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay. Sure, if you'd like the seniors spotline, we'll get to everybody. Vice Ramirez.

[07:43:22] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, so I've got uh, 3 Um, I'll start with the, what I think is a pretty low effort one and that's a, uh, shopping cart abatement cost recovery program. So I might be the only member of the council who cares about this, but I live in the San Antonio area, and we have a big problem with abandoned shopping cart, and uh, I reached out to staff, uh, last year about this and learned that the city is, uh, fully subsidizing the cost of shopping cart abatement. And we have a staff person. Uh, I think if, uh, and Don will correct me if I'm wrong, but the, my recollection is the city spending roughly $30,000 a year on this, just collecting shopping cards and, um, holding onto them for, for, uh, stores to, to retrieve. So, the recommendation would be to uh develop a cost recovery program so we're not fully subsidizing the cost and uh, the program I had referenced uh, when I, um, uh was corresponding with Don about this was a San Jose program that may service a good model. Uh so that's the 1st one. The 2nd one, um, is performance auditing, uh, and uh, we talked a little bit about this in 2019. Um, the long and short of it is, uh, just like we're doing with CDD and and, uh, the study, I feel like it's, it's a healthy thing for an organization to periodically, uh, undergo auditing, for departments, uh, programs, for policies, just to make sure that, uh, the, that things are performing at the level that we would expect them to. And I'm not expecting, you know, significant, you know, um, uh, audits every year, you know, it could be, you know, uh, once every 2 years, it could be, you know, we we were doing CDD, maybe next time we do, um, you know, a program or a policy that we're all curious about. Um, but I think it's an important, um, uh, concept to introduce in a more formal way. And while I appreciate the CDD study. I'm a little concerned that it'll be a bit of a, a one off, and I think this is something that we want to think about, uh, comprehensively. And the final one is uh, this came out of conversation with planning staff, um, last year as well. Uh, we have a fair amount of existing multifamily buildings that at some point, uh, have been down zoned, and in fact, I grew up in a duplex that is now zoned R one, and the concern I have is, uh, it's legal nonconforming, uh, but if there's an earthquake or a fire or something and we lose that housing stock, it's, it's, the zoning wouldn't allow for, for it to be constructed. So what I'd like, uh, to do at some point is, uh, just a, uh, an inventory of such, uh, housing stock, and, uh, if it's, if it's meaningful, um, then finding the right size zoning for it. So, the parcel I grew up on would be, you know, brought up to R2. So if that duplex burns down, a duplex can be built right where it was. Um, I think this is, um, an extremely important housing type. Um, it tends to be more naturally affordable, and I think protecting it by providing the right zoning. I'm not talking about up zoning, but just the right size zoning to to make sure that it's not legal conforming anymore. Uh, uh, legal non-conforming. I should say. I think it would be a good, maybe phase 2 for, for the R3 project or something similar. It's not urgent, but it's something that I think we need to, uh, we need to do it at some point. thank you.

[07:47:09] Lawrence Grodeska: Great, thank you, uh, Council member about a check.

[07:47:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So it looks like you, um, captured, if you scroll up a little bit, um, what I was talking about earlier. Um, defining biodiversity requirements for our environment. And, um, this is where I was thinking, you know, I'd want to make sure we're defining biodiversity in the community tree master plan. Um, so I think it's part of that project. But I think it could also be part of other things because biodiversity is not limited to trees. So, um, I'm not sure where else it would go, but I would want new development to also be required to do biodiversity. Thank you.

[07:47:57] Lawrence Grodeska: Anything else?

[07:47:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: That's it. Thank you.

[07:47:59] Lawrence Grodeska: All right. Council member labor.

[07:48:01] Councilmember Sally Lieber: You, I just had a question for staff. Um, um, one. 2 the wage theft and responsible contracting. And it, it sounds like from the updates that there's a lot of complexity there. And I'm wondering if there are any discrete pieces that we could um break off. Uh, to try to have some accomplishment. Um, in it, even if it's a small one. Um, because I know that some of the larger cases of wage theft have have been in Mountain View. And, um, one was at the restaurant on Castro Street, and, um, one was, uh, involving the, the smart station workers, and there have been a number in construction, and I'm wondering if, um, staff can think of any discrete pieces or, um, If council can maybe go out and see if we have any small pieces of it to get a smaller win. Thank you.

[07:49:08] Lawrence Grodeska: So is that a, um, a, a, kind of a clarifying question for an existing project? Okay, great. Uh, and um, okay. Uh, well, uh, thank you. Council member show Walter or Council member Hicks anything to add?

[07:49:26] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, Lawrence. I wanted to clarify it. If I can have our assistant city manager, um, Audrey Ramberg, answer that question.

[07:49:36] Assistant City Manager Audrey Ramberg: Um, yes, a staff is um, underway in scoping, um, a wage theft and responsible construction ordinance, uh, project, and with those 2 put together in the current council goals, uh, work plan, the focus is on the construction industry, not on all industries. And we've been meeting with, uh, staff, um, uh, from the different departments that would be responsible for both shaping and helping to implement, um, that ordinance, uh, an ordinance such as that. And we've been getting information from other, um, cities, um, that have recently gone through a similar process, so we have templates to work from. Um, what we're finding is that, uh, I don't see anything that that we could easily tease out to bring sooner. Um, because, well, an ordinance itself could be drafted quite, Probably relatively quickly. It's having a realistic understanding of what it would take the mechanisms and, um, uh, resources needed to enforce, um, that ordinance. And so, um, we're hoping to be able to bring the options that we're identifying to counsel in a study session um, before the end of this fiscal year. But we wouldn't expect to have an ordinance implemented before the end of this fiscal year.

[07:51:14] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And, um, I guess if it comes up, the, the, there are, um, pieces and I, I do think that the construction is, um, an important part of the, uh, the game, but I, I know that going back to the 1990s, the various legal clinics have worked with the restaurant workers on Castro Street. Um, and one of the largest, um, uh, cases of wage theft was, was on Castro Street. Um, so if there are, um, pieces of it that we could take on, um, in advance, even giving an informational sheet about, uh, the state laws relative to wage theft when people get a business license in Mountain View. some kind of very small step like that to get into the game. Um might be potentially doable.

[07:52:12] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. And Council member, Abuko, did you have a question on that?

[07:52:16] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, I um, I just want to clarify. I think when we talked about wage theft, we were limiting it, just construction, and in fact, I believe, I don't know where it, what, I know with COVID things, you know, got were put on hold, but I remember hearing, hearing that we were, um, doing a pilot program with the county. I found it was around the food industry. Um, So, yes, I think this staff could, um, maybe update on us on that pilot program too, that'd be helpful.

[07:52:50] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay, thank you. And council member, I'm out of check.

[07:52:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, on the same topic. I don't remember as limiting it to the construction industry and as council member Lieber pointed out, um, I, I feel like I've heard it's mostly restaurants, um, that have been the primary offenders. So I'm not sure how this morphed.

[07:53:17] Assistant City Manager Audrey Ramberg: It may have been a, um, uh, a lack of clarity when the scope was originally discussed in the 2 projects that were separate projects of which theft and construction, responsible construction, through the prioritizing process got combined into one project, so that might have been an incorrect assumption on staff's part with regard to where the priority lay. Um, especially with regard to the, the discussion being that there were, um, the similarities in terms of the, the ways in which you would implement, um, those, uh, uh, you know, a wage theft, um, ordinance that would be quite different across different industries. Um, but, um, we certainly are hearing council's input now, and, um, and, in our discussion with, um, the departments, um, can make sure we're understanding the, um, implications for looking at wage theft in a broader way.

[07:54:33] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay. Um, I want to ask one more time if there's any other projects that council members would like to put forward. Okay. Um, and uh, Cows member Hicks.

[07:54:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes. I just want a little clarity on. I'm interested in kind of around the realm of things that people had talked about, if you go up, just a couple of, if you scroll up there. Um, the bio, we had a, uh, the defining biodiversity requirements, the, um, wildlife, the wildlife planning, which I understand would include, you know, animals and sort of the flora and fauna, um, and, uh, some of the others that we're talking about with, um, increased interdepartmental coordination and the, the, um, tree master plan, a lot of those seem to overlap. And the parkland planning as well. And I think a lot of residents have been asking for things that relate to all of those. So, it's not, I'm not saying anything, I'm agreeing with some of the things that people have brought up here and also kind of wanting to scope those out to make sure that we're, that we have the right scope for those and that we're getting, you know, what residents have been asking for. And then my only other new one was the Moffatt precise plan. So that's it.

[07:56:06] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Thank you for that clarification and reiterating the Moffat precise plan. So, um, we have reached the end of our agenda. Um, uh, there was, uh, I'm seeing one note, uh, about, um, We have not raised the end of our agenda. We just need a couple clarifications from staff about these new projects. So, um, Council member Hex to your point about the biodiversity requirements. I think, um, staff would like to just know a little more exactly um, what that looks like. So if there's any, uh, desire that any of you want to share about, um, what a potential project around defining biodiversity could look like with a bit more specificity or potential outcomes, um, that would be appreciated so they can put something together for you to review on April 27th. Any, um, ah, customer, amount of check. Go ahead.

[07:57:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that one. So, um, when I think about trees and I know I don't know everything about our community tree master plan, but I believe we have um, a list of approved trees that can be planted. And I'm thinking we need to take a look at that and make sure that we've got some trees that add to the diversity and that, um, our good trees for nesting, um, and for, um, other for, um, attracting, um, birds and other species that have perhaps disappeared from Mountain View. Um, and I would say the same thing when it comes to, you know, I don't know where we have a list of like, these are the acceptable like bushes and shrubs and other things that can be used in new development. Um, but if we could have, um, some sort of requirement that there is biodiversity in new development in terms of what's planted. Um, that's kind of what I'm thinking. And that's the one where I don't know if we even have a list or how that happens.

[07:58:16] Lawrence Grodeska: Great, thank you. And council number hicks?

[07:58:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so what I'm, I'm kind of agreeing what I, what I've heard people who know much more about this than may say is that for, um, to have biodiversity, you need multiple layers of, of, um, flora and fauna, not just trees and then cement or grass. And so it would be, you know, recommendations and city use of, and I've also heard people want more of that, you know, more natural areas in their parks. So it would be, it would be what are recommended trees. And then mid-scaping, which is like bushes and ground cover is what I've heard, all of those levels that you need. So recommendations for all of those.

[07:59:03] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. And thank you, Cal member Shelter.

[07:59:09] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Through the water conservation programs that have been delighted to the county, um, the Valley Water and, um, uh, has landscaping proposals and, um, tree, uh, tree proposals and and native plant proposals. And I know that, um, our staff, I'm sure our staff, Elizabeth Flegel, could point, uh, the uh, staff to the right direction to find all those lists. Um, they're, they're, uh, They have been developed. Native plant society is also a great um, source of that information. They have it done by region.

[07:59:51] Lawrence Grodeska: Great, thank you. And, Councilor Machak, another comment?

[07:59:57] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No,

[07:59:58] Lawrence Grodeska: okay, great. Okay. yeah No, okay, got it. All right, one more clarifying question about the desire from increased interdepartmental coordination, and what that might mean as a project. There was a notion that this might fit under the 6th priority, as it currently stands, of the, um, organizational strength and good governance, but is there any notion of what, um, uh, specifics want to look like or outcomes you're looking for? Council member Abi Koga?

[08:00:32] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So, um, it actually follows along the lines of, um, counselor rheumatic check and Hicks on the other item that we talked about. So, how it's been described to me. Um, For, from folks in our, um, residences. If we take, for instance, um, walkable streets. What does that mean? That means trees. Do we have the right tree selection? Um, you know, is public art? Is there a place for public art? So it's trying to look at these projects that we do. I mean, mainly, I guess, capital projects, from, again, a holistic view, so that we do include these other pieces, and we get, get it right. So, you know, we can pick trees, but, and, and maybe we have to expand our listing of wet trees work and include biodiversity, not just drop tolerant, for instance. Um, there's also an example in the past, you know, that's come up about the transit center, and I think we're moving towards it, but, you know, folks have said, well, it's very, it's an engineer driven, um, project, but, What about the aesthetics of it? The design of it that makes a big difference because it's here in our downtown. So how do we incorporate the, you know, different pieces to these projects to make sure that they are really, you know, seen from a higher level and inclusive of all the pieces that we think we need to make it, what we're trying to get to.

[08:02:07] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay, thanks. and Council member of Shelter.

[08:02:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: No.

[08:02:12] Lawrence Grodeska: Okay. Any other thoughts on, um, kind of the interpartmental collaboration piece right now? Okay, and um, any other um, clarifying questions from city manager McCarthy? Okay, so, um, we have now reached the end of our agenda, and um, the plan will be to take the, um, uh, revised, uh, well, the, the existing list of projects that we've talked through with the removed defer and clarifying questions along with the, um, 7 projects that have been proposed um, by council tonight. Back to staff. Staff will put together staff recommendations before April 27th for your review and then further discussion. So, uh, thank you all for your very thoughtful, um, uh, conversation, your input. Um, I know we've covered a lot of ground, um, but, uh, I think it was a, a really productive and, um, uh, successful evening as far as moving the roadmap forward. So thank you all for your time, and I'm impressed by your stamina, because I hear this is not the 1st time that we've all gone this long. So kudos to you. Um, anything to wrap up, uh, mayor?

[08:03:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: No, nothing, nothing from me, just, uh, thank you to you and your team for sticking with us. We knew it was going to be a long night. Thank you.

[08:03:38] Lawrence Grodeska: Great. Well, my it's our pleasure and honor. Thank you. And thank you, Maryelle, for taking notes.

[08:03:43] Marielle Olentine: Great. Thank you.

[08:03:44] Lawrence Grodeska: All right, take care, everybody.

[08:03:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So, um, turning back to the city manager, if there's no other, um, questions or comments on this item, I can close item 7. one. Okay. All right. So, um, I'd like to close item 7.one and move on to item 8 council staff committee reports. Does anyone have anything to report here? No, okay. All right. Um, Okay. Um, so, uh, I'll move on to item 9. Um, a closed session report, Mr. City Attorney, do we have one tonight?

[08:04:27] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: There is no close session report.

[08:04:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All right, great. Thank you. So, um, I'll move on to item 10, which um, is adjournment, thanks so much for for joining us and and sticking with us into this late hour. Our next city council meeting will be on March 23rd, 2021. And, um, you know, I, I, I want to injourn. I don't know if all of you were getting pinged as well. I want to adjourn, um, in memory of of the 8 women in Atlanta, who, who were murdered tonight. Um, it looks like it was a, a hate crime there. And, um, the, the racist and, and, and racism and hate going on to the Asian-American community is one that's just very heartbreaking, and so I just want to adjourn in their, in their memory, um, at, uh, 1247 AM. Thank you.

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