January 24, 2023 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:07:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the city council study session of January 24th, 2023. For those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern. Requests to show an audio or video presentation during a council meeting, should be directed to the city clerk at city.clerk at mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishing to address the council in person, must complete a blue speaker card. Please indicate the name you'd like to be called by when it's your turn to speak, and the item number on which you wish to speak. Please complete one blue speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them into the city clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on. Instructions for addressing the council virtually may be found on the posted agenda. And now, the city clerk will take roll call.

[00:08:40] Unknown Speaker: All council members are present.

[00:08:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: We're now on item three, which will be a study session, on legislative program priorities for 2023. So the purpose of this study session is to receive city council input on the proposed legislative program priority issues to guide the city's regional, state, and federal legislative advocacy during the 2023 legislative session. Assistant to the city manager, Christina Gilmore will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So... we will now have a staff presentation from our consultant, Dane Hutchings. Oh, we'll now have the staff presentation. Great, thank you.

[00:09:36] Christina Gilmore: Good evening, mayor and counsel, Christina Gilmore, assistant to the city manager. As the mayor just stated, the purpose of the study session item is to receive city council input on the proposed legislative program priorities and issues that guide the city's regional and state legislative advocacy during the 2023 legislative session. Joining me this evening is Dane Hutchings, managing director from Renny Public Policy Group, the city's legislative advocacy consultant. Dane and I will present the proposed legislative platform to the city council for discussion and input, after which staff and RPPG will be available to answer questions about the proposed platform. As part of the fiscal years, 21, 2021, 22, 23 strategic plan, Council adopted a project to develop and implement and enhance legislative program under the organizational strength and good governance strategic priority. In November 2021, um, the city engage RPPG to be our legislative advocate. And in February of 2022, the city adopted their 1st legislative platform. The legislative platform that was adopted in 2022 consisted of 11 issue areas and 97 policy statements. The legislative platform serves as a guiding document for the city to promote and preserve its interest at the regional, state, and federal levels. It also provides ongoing direction for city staff and the legislative advocate to engage on a variety of legislative issues, and is a guiding document for the city to promote and preserve its interest at the regional, state and federal level. The platform also allows staff and legislative, the legislative consultant to quickly triage and assess legislative matters upon introductions as 100s of measures advanced through the legislative process, and it provides a focus and supports proactive council member engagement to help advance the city's priorities. So summary of the 2022 legislative advocacy, during the 2022 session, the city with the assistance of RPPG engage in 10 regional issues, we engage in 13 pieces of state legislation and 5 federal legislation issues. We also were able to obtain 2 federal funding earmarks, um, from the, um, with the assistance of a representative Anna SU. And we also increased our state and federal intergovernmental affairs representing the city's intergovernmental interest through meetings with legislators and staff to communicate the city's interest, seek grants in state federal earmarks, prepare position papers for meetings with the National League of Cities, and other conferences, and coordinate our city's participation in quarterly meetings with local stakeholders. The 2023 legislative platform that you'll be discussing this evening is based on the 2022 platform. We, our PPG and staff met with each city department to receive feedback from them about the platform statements. It does carry forward the 11 policy issues that the council approved in the 2022 platform. However, it does modify 2 issue area titles to be more inclusive. So the 1st issue area that we modify is the recreation and parks issue area to include library services. And we also modified the homelessness issue area to include human services. The 2023 platform does add 8 new policy statements across 4 issue areas. They are in housing and community development, economic development, environment, climate change and sustainability, recreation, parks, and library services. This list is a total of 120 policy statements for consideration for the 2023 legislative platform. And now I will hand over the next part of our presentation to Dane to provide a quick snapshot of the budget and legislative priorities for the fiscal year 202324 legislative session.

[00:13:55] Dane Hutchings: Thank you, Christina. Good evening, council. Dane Hutchings, managing director with the Rani Public Policy Group. It's great to be here in person and not see everyone just in a small square, as I have over the past couple of years. I wanted to provide really just a high level overview. We're still very early into this year's new legislative session, but since I was here to provide some counsel on the platform, providing a quick snapshot where we're at on the legislative session would be a good use of time as well. Go ahead, next slide, please. I am trying to get there, so hold on a second. There we go. There we go. New technology. All right. Here we go. So, from a high-level priority, you know, we have seen some of the most turnover in the legislature since 2012 when new term limits were established. And so we have now 24 new assembly members and 10 new state senators. And so really a whole, you know, by 2024, we'll see complete turnover, which means we'll see new priorities, new directions, and an opportunity for the city to continue to engage. Not only its legislative delegation, but, you know, other lawmakers throughout the state of California. Bills right now are still being trickled in, we're going to see really an influx of bills, likely up to about 2,000 different pieces of legislation will be introduced by February 17th of this year. So right now, from what we've been able to see, from what's being introduced right now, here's some of the major themes that we have been able to identify. We are seeing a series of bills that look at furthering the reduction of GHGs, energy, demand, and grid reliability as we saw rolling blackouts over the summer. Um, you know, building performance standards, decarbonization of buildings, a lot of its focus on state buildings for right now, but we anticipate there may be some local requirements moving in the future. Homelessness and mental health. And so we saw the big push last year for Care Court, which was widely supported by cities. And after additional funding was provided, counties came on board as well to help implement the care court system. So we're already seeing a few bills that we kind of call cleanout or spot bills. And so, um, measures that aim to provide technical fixes to the big, really legislative lift that happened last year. Um, we're also seeing, um, moving on to more of the sort of the housing and homelessness issues. Um, there's one, what we call an intent bill, meaning that, uh, it doesn't, uh, at its current introduction does not, um, uh, actually change any sort of, uh, uh, code or section of law, but it is the intent of the legislature to, and so sort of forecasting what they want to do, which is essentially creating a, um, what you would liken to your regional housing needs assessment for housing, sort of the same thing for homelessness. So a homelessness element, homelessness planning, and then sort of earmarks and benchmarks throughout that process to be approved by HCD. And so we'll see in the next 30 days what trickles out of that language, but wanted to let you know that that is something that's going to be coming. There is another attempt by Senator Wiener to allow for streamlined development of housing on religious institutions or religious parking lots and higher ed education institutions, to streamline sequel, and to streamline building in those areas. Also with the ongoing drought. Also flash flooding, you know, with our extreme weather, we're seeing both measures to help mitigate water supply, both in reliability and sustainability. And then, last but not least, really sort of tying all together. Um, we're seeing uh, several bills on active transportation, transportation funding, um, tying that to housing, homelessness, environmental, sort of a wraparound approach from the legislature, um, that has been an ongoing theme for a couple of years. Next slide. Now, typically speaking, the governor, through his budget really tries to outline his legislative priorities or his policy objectives through the budget. This year, is one of those years it was really rosy last year. We saw these really record- surpluses this year. Unfortunately, we're seeing a fairly significant budget deficit, around 25 billion, more specifically, the governor planned for $22.5 billion reduction. That number has now been up to about 25 billion, according to the legislative analyst's office. So major themes that the governor has put forth is closing some of those funding shortfalls through some discretionary cuts, also some trigger cuts. So if we see by the May revise levels of funding have not come back, that could trigger automatic cuts in specific programs, also pulling from reserves. The goal the governor has outlined is really not to try and cut programs, but really try and use reserves. And if needed, out your trigger cuts, so we can keep baseline funding for this year. That being said, he's also pushed pretty significantly and really made a point to address homelessness through local accountability. However, not a lot of increase in funding to help close the gaps for those services. And so, um, you know, of course, I know that, you know, I had the pleasure today of really taking a tour of the city, and seeing all of the great work that the city is doing, not only in addressing its homelessness issues, but also in spurring affordable housing. But we, you know, we need to rely on the state as a partner to ensure we can close the funding gap. And so we'll be working with the administration on that. Housing affordability and accountability, climate resiliency and transportation. Now, he's, you know, the governor through the budget has really been wanting to push more streamlining of transportation, active transportation, not necessarily widening of roads or anything of that nature, but trying to find ways to do more mass transit in those areas. as it ties to reducing GHDs and climate resilience. But again, at the same time, there's also some pretty heavily proposed cuts, specifically in rail, which I know actually has a specific interest to the city with respect to its potential grade crossing projects. And so there's a projected about $2 billion reduction, and some of those funds that we really want to take a close look at, and see if we can advocate in keeping those funds restored, or at least at baseline. And then, last but not least, keeping Californian safe. And so, you know, we've seen a rash of, as you know, both in Northern California and Southern California with some of the unfortunate incidences that have been happening with gun violence and in addition, seeing a pretty significant increase in fentanyl abuse. And so these are areas of law that both the administration and the majority of the legislature are really going to be pushing this year. And so we look to see a lot of those measures both through the budget and also through state legislation. Next line. Sure. So, you know, with respect to the process of modifying the platform, you know, council was very engaged last year in crafting these policy statements, but we're really looking to do this year, and what we should, what we're trying to do each legislative cycle, is to take a look to see if the policy statements are still germane. Do they need to be expanded? Do they need to be modified? And so part of our process, and working with your city staff on these recommendations, is to meet with each council member, meet with, if we can, each policy, or each department director, and then solicit specific feedback based on where we're at, what we saw in the legislature, what we anticipate coming in the legislature this year. And again, as Mosquilmore outlined, really, it's about us having as much ability to screen out what's important to the city, how to quickly engage and advocate, when needed, the legislative process, sometimes moves slow, but then it moves very fast without notice. And so, being able to actively and quickly engage on these policies certainly enables your consultants to make sure the city's interests are well represented and communicated back to council. So, yeah, as I said, feedback was solicited from each department who provided suggested edits based on city priorities, as well as assessing potential opportunities and threats moving into next year. And then last but not least, as we, you know, we've talked about before and each of you, and we've had a chance to discuss, really, we want to focus on state policies that have an impact on departmental operations, assessing, you know, major issues and projects, initiatives that the city is undertaking, and how that may align with state priorities, and even federal priorities. major policy areas of importance that we, as your consultants, can help elevate your profile, also monitor and engage as needed. seeking out critical funding priorities, both on the regional, state and federal grant opportunities, also seeking federal and state budget earmarks. I can tell you, we have been in contact already early with your delegation with respect to opening the conversation about state funding requests with a $25 billion deficit. I don't know how fruitful we're going to be, that being said, I am okay with continuing to remind our delegation, the importance of our priorities, and making sure that we're top of mind, should we see an augmentation in the May revise, and have an opportunity to seek some district specific funding. And then last but not least, you know, how can our PPG best support the city and its advocacy efforts? And so using that lens, we have, really, the following proposed modifications for discussion and consideration. That concludes my portion of the presentation. Thank you.

[00:24:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so thank you, Mr. Hutchings and Ms. Gilmore. I think this was the 1st staff and consultant presentation in almost 3 years, so congratulations on getting through it. Note that the following individuals will be available for questions, some of them participating via Zoom. It will be Nicholas Hargis, the field representative for a representative on a issue, supervisor Joe Samidian, who I believe is with us in real life, from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. And I think that will be it at this point. Is that true, Ms. Gilmore? Thank you.

[00:25:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, um, would any member of the public joining us either virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, either, uh, click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. And we will take in person speakers first. And I believe, if I have this right, This is the first time I've done it, Kevin Ma. Has he submitted, he stepped out. Okay. Then, um, We have Nicholas from Representative Anna Eshu's office, virtually.

[00:26:05] Nicholas: Hi, everyone, my name is Nicholas. I'm a field representative for Congresswoman Ashu, and I wanted to start out by sharing that Congresswoman Ashu was in Half Moon Bay today in the wake of yesterday's horrific mass shooting. He was grieving with families and the community. And in her press conference with local elected officials and Governor Newsom. She noted that yesterday was a tragic call to action for us to redouble our commitment to making sure that something like this can never happen again. I'd like to applaud the city of Mountain View for passing its, say, storage ordinance last spring. And inform you that Congresswoman Ashu supports robust gun safety measures, including universal background checks and red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others. He has voted to require safe storage of guns, ban assault weapons, and prevent domestic abusers from purchasing guns. In 2022, Congress passed the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years to prevent domestic abusers from getting done. criminalized gun trafficking, and invest in school safety, and mental health care. There's still much to be done, and representative issue will continue to push for universal background checks, taking weapons of war off our streets and requiring safe storage of guns and homes with children. I'd also like to highlight some accomplishments from Congresswoman Eshu's work in 2022. She was incredibly proud to have secured $750,000. to acquire, rehabilitate, and convert the 67 unit Crestview Hotel in Mountain View into permanent supportive housing. He also worked hard to secure $250000 for a bicycle, pedestrian undercrossing, at the Caltrain crossing, at the intersection of Evelyn Avenue, and Bernardo Avenue in Mountain View. Last year, Congress passed the inflation reduction act, which made a historic investment in clean energy. It lowers greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 through $369000000 in tax incentives, grants, and loans for clean energy and other technology to reduce emissions. This was the largest investment to address climate change in our country's history. In healthcare, the inflation reduction act requires Medicare to directly negotiate lower prescription drug prices for drugs without market competition. It caps the monthly out of pocket cost for insulin to $35 for Medicare beneficiaries, which started on the 1st of this year. It also taps out of pocket spending on drugs at $2000 annually for Medicare beneficiaries. And it saves an average of $800 per year for 13000000 people on their health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act. Congresswoman issues priorities for 2023 include housing. Representative issue has been a strong supporter of funding for programs, like community development block grants, and the home investment partnership program, to help develop new affordable housing in the Bay Area, and protect existing stock, representative issue, voted to increase funding for federal housing programs by 8100000000 dollars. In transportation. Congresswoman issue voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law. Which will provide $45000000 in guaranteed funding to the Bay Area over 5 years. In addition to other competitive programs, cities and transit providers can apply for. He remains committed to ensuring that the funds that have yet to be allocated benefit per constituents. And finally, in protecting choice. Representative issue has spent her entire adult life, advanced in the equality of women and girls and protecting and defending choice. With the Supreme Court unwilling to protect the right to access an abortion. The need for federal legislation to permanently protect women's rights over their bodies has never been more urgent. Representative, actually, will not give up or give in on this issue, because we should trust women to make the best decisions. Thank you, and if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to connect them with our team.

[00:31:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Nicholas. And then I believe we have one more speaker, Kevin. Nope. Okay. Okay, seeing no more public speakers. Do any members of council have comments or questions?

[00:31:17] Unknown Speaker: Excuse me, Mayor, I believe Supervisor Smidian is here to provide some comments.

[00:31:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Would you like to provide some comments, supervisor, submittium?

[00:31:28] Supervisor Joe Simitian: Staff asked if I might share with you five minutes of priorities for the coming year. So, uh, think of it as speed dating with the supervisor is probably the best way to do this. Thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about what we have top of mind, both at the county and in my office. Some of you will be aware of the fact that I am term limited out of office in two years. So I have an even greater sense of urgency about, let's get this done. Let's get that done than I ordinarily would, and my urgency level's usually pretty high anyway. So, in the next two years, things that are specifically relevant to Mountain View, that I will be focusing on are, um, the completion of what we shorthand, uh, call, uh, the teacher housing project, teacher housing project is really for, uh, not just teachers, but other staff, as well, 110 units on Grant Avenue in Palo Alto. The units there are split among half a dozen different districts, foothill Dianzas already said they're in. Palo Alto Unified has said, they're in, Los Alto school district has said, they're in, Mountain View, Los Altos, and the Mountain View Whisman folks are, I think, scheduled to meet in the next couple of weeks. The goal is to do a pilot project that not only provides 110 units of below market rate housing for folks who are struggling to live in the communities where they teach and work, but also for to be a demonstration project, a pilot project that can then be replicated in other communities, and perhaps right here one day. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to announce a new location in the West Valley, which is the other part of my district. This project was specifically designed to take advantage of a piece of property that was underused, and that could serve half a dozen different districts in northern Santa Clara County, including Mountain View, and southern San Mateo County as well. And I am hoping that we will break round in April, but I'll believe it when I see it, because that's the way I am about these things. We also have a project designed to serve housing project designed to serve folks in the intellectually and development, only disabled community, on Charleston Road and Palo Alto, just around the corner for mobility path, for those of you who know that area on Middlefield. The best thinking in the field these days is to make sure there's a mix of housing, so 25 of the 50 units there would serve the general public, but at affordable levels as well. 25 of the units would be specifically geared towards folks in the DD community, developmentally disabled community. Ability path has had an office there. Historically, this is on a county owned property. We're gonna try and, well, we're not gonna try. We're gonna put services from ability path, actually, in the building, so that they are right there on site. And then, of course, the main campus, for ability path, is just around the block, so that folks in this North County area, who are thinking, I'm still here for my young adult, but what are they gonna do for housing while? I'm gone one day, have an answer to that question. That project has been approved. We're looking for funding now, and that's the challenge of the moment, but we're gonna have a demolition exercise sometime in the next couple of months, and we'll invite you out to demolish something, 'cause before we can put something up, we gotta take something down. I know you know about Distell Circle right next door in Los Altos, which again, will serve the North County area. Really, a very big deal in that Los Altos has, I think, struggled to develop consensus around building affordable housing, and this was a project that on a council that folks sometimes characterized as being split 3, 2, voted 5, 0, for the city's first all affordable housing project in their 70 years of existence. So I thought that was an encouraging sign that project could be made if we did it well and right. And then, I don't have to tell anyone on this council, that there was a project called Crestview, which you heard passing reference to. That's one where we have a city partner, Connie partner, federal partner. Everything takes longer, we have partners, but you can do a whole lot more, and I think we're gonna do a whole lot more. We're making progress there as well. So that's on the housing front. Those are just sort of four specific things on my to do list in addition to the larger measure, A, efforts that I know you are all aware of, on the healthcare front. Some of you were able to join us when we announced and did a press conference on Middlefield Road, announcing that there would be a county health clinic in the 5th Super Resorial District, where we sit. I'm sure for folks who are listening, they're like, Well, why is that a big deal? And the answer is, because in the 172 year history of this county, there has never been a county health clinic in District 5, our district, North County in West Valley. Every one of the other four districts has at least three or four county hospitals or clinics, four years and years. We've had to make the case that there really was a need for such a facility and set of services here in the North County. And, um, we, in fact, found a building on middle field, not quite into Mountain View, but right on the border, it was as close as we could get. It's literally one parcel away from San Antonio, and because it's an existing building, we have rehab work to do, but the hope is that by the end of 2024, we'll be able to open the door and provide services at a county clinic, to folks of modest means, who use those services. And by the way, trying to do another one like it in the West Valley, shout out to Patrick Arrons, the president of the Foothill D'Anza Community College District Board, who said, You know, we've got this D'Anza campus. It's got some space. Got a lot of community college students and surrounding community members who could use a county clinic as well. Never been done before, so that's a bit of a challenge, but we're talking. We have an exchange of letters, sort of a notice of interest, and we're hoping to have a feasibility study wrapped up by June or July. So stay tuned on that one, but right next door here, coming soon as the North County Clinic. Some of you know that I have been focused on mental health for young people since the very beginning of my time back on the board of supervisors. Years ago, I had someone come up to me at a holiday party and say, Why is it that there isn't a single secure bed in an acute care facility for teenagers, who are at risk of doing harm to themselves or others, who are really, you know, in a bad way, in terms of their mental health, maybe thinking about suicide. And I was newly back on the board, and I thought, well, that can't be the case in a county with two million people. And they said, No, that's the way it is, and so I went and checked, and sure enough, if you were a 14 year old kid, and you needed to be in an acute care facility for six or seven days. You were likely to get shipped off to San Francisco, Sonoma. Sacramento, if you were lucky, you might get sent to a facility in San Mateo County. Wasn't a question even of money, even if you had the resources. There literally were no beds here. This has been an eight year exercise, and we are gonna have the groundbreaking exercise next month in February. They've already dug the hole, so that's a start, and like so many things. It takes longer than I wish it would or could or should, but we at least dug a hole, and we're about to start building something after, I think, too long a period of time. But that will serve young people who are in a tough way, throughout our county, including right here, folks from Mountain View, who currently don't really have a resource at a very tough time in their lives. COVID is still with us, and, um, you may or may not have heard that it is the expectation of the county that they will start to shut down the county testing sites and COVID vaccine sites for boosters, uh, sometime in the late February, March, April, uh, time frame. I have said it to you before, but I want to say it again. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for making the community center available for so long, and you were very patient about, you know, waiting, waiting, waiting to get it back to use. And by the way, your staff was just great. I was, you know, out there meeting with them from time to time, and off one night, handing out test kits, and they were game. They were really game, and it was just really sweet to see. So thank you for that. The site that is currently in Mountain View, as you know, is a Los Alto school district site, and over in Joanne Fabric territory there, over by the icon show, uh, showplace theater, uh, it will close February 28th. So if you know folks who wanted to get a booster, still haven't gotten a booster, it's quick, it's free, go get your booster if you want one. But after February 28th, it looks like that will be a little bit more challenging, and folks will have to go back to their providers, and, you know, we're pushing on the providers to step up to do their job. A host of programs that try and bring healthcare to folks that I call the missing middle of healthcare. These are folks who don't make enough to have first rate insurance that covers them and ensures them a provider, but perhaps make a bit too much to qualify for a program like MediCal. So we have a range of programs and a range of acronyms to go with them, and I will not impose those on you, Madam Mayor, or council members. I will, however, call out just one program, because it's a personal favorite, because it was among the initiatives from my office. And that's called medicineist. And not a very flashy name, but the general notion was that there are some drugs that are life essential. They're not nice to have, they're gotta have. I'm talking about folks who need EpiPens, because they're at risk of anaphylactic shock. I'm talking about folks who have diabetes and need insulin or other relatively high cost medications that have emerged. I'm talking about folks who have asthma, perhaps, and need inhalers, and these things cost an arm and a leg. And if you don't have first rate health insurance, good luck. And now there is a program called Medicist, that the county runs, our friends at the state and federal level have tried to wrestle this one to the ground, haven't been able to do it except for seniors. The program, again, is called Medicist, and even people making well into the six figures qualify for a reduced cost, a subsidy. Pretty simple approach, which is just, say, turn in your bill, and you'll get a rebate. And so if anybody is in that category who was listening, I hope they will check in again. This is not for, quote, low income, folks only. It's for folks well into six figures, depending on family size. And that's a one. Land use, the Stanford Community Plan, amendments, why would you care? Why do you care? Because after three years of what we thought was an application for three and a half million square feet of facilities approval, some of you will recall, back in 2019, the university decided to step away from its application, they withdrew the application, literally. But that left a number of issues unresolved about development on the Stanford lands in the future. Of the 8,000 acres of Stanford land, 4,000 are in the unincorporated county and are the responsibility of our county board of supervisors. What happens on that unincorporated acreage, has immense impacts in terms of traffic in our area, including mountain view, and housing demand in our area, including mountain view. So our general plan amendment, which we call a community plan amendment, because it's focused on this particular community, specifically addresses protection of open space in the foothills, traffic, mitigation, and housing mitigation, and I believe, if we can ever get, yes, it will be to the benefit of all of the surrounding communities, because future development will be fully mitigated, as I believe it should be. The other land use issue, and I am always surprised at the number of Mountain View folks who ask about this. Some of you are aware of something called the Lehigh Quarry and Cement plant. Seaheads nodding, and it's a Cupertino thing, I can assure you, but I hear about it pretty much everywhere in my district. And, um, You know, it's been 80 to 100 years. I finally just said, could we get a list of all the violations for the last decade? And because I felt like we were constantly sort of getting nickeled and dimed on violations. And the staff did a great job. What kind of council's office did a great job, came back and said, There are 2,135 violations over the last decade that we can document. There may be more. And that has resulted in a conversation about, what I would say are my three goals, which are, see, if we can't get the cement plant shut down, see if we can't stop the quarrying activity, and eventually restore and reclaim the site. Lehigh has indicated they are prepared to do the first two of those things, shut down the plant, and stop the quarrying activity, they have a somewhat different business model in mind that's yet to be fully fleshed out. I'll be working on that for the next two years. Caveat, no, the 3,500 acre quarry site will not be fully restored and reclaimed in two years. It doesn't work like that. It's a big ticket item that will involve literally decades. But if we can get some legally binding language in place on the closure of the cement plant and the quarry, I think that would be a good day's work all around. And finally, you know, all of us have talked about... law enforcement, reform, and accountability over the last 10 years or so. Obviously, the question is, you know, can you get that done in a way that still keeps people safe? I believe you can. I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive. We've made great progress at the county. We didn't used to have body cams. Now we do. We didn't used to require implicit bias training. Now we do. We didn't used to have civilian oversight. Now we do. We have an office of correction law enforcement monitoring. We didn't used to think we could sit down with the sheriff's department and talk about use of force protocols because the sheriff's an independently elected official. But now we've had those hard conversations and made some progress. I suspect most of you will know from what you saw on TV or read in the newspaper online. Ultimately, the prior sheriff, uh, was found by a jury of 12 folks to have engaged in six acts that were deemed to be, um, willful or correct misconduct. That meant she lost her job. It was a bit of a moot point, because she had already resigned in anticipation of that. We have a newly elected sheriff, and we're having those conversations now about how we can go forward and make sure that his department, the office of the sheriff, does the work that it does, both in the jails and out in the community, in a better way, while still keeping us all safe. Lots of other things to talk about. including the Social Services Office, which we were able to keep here in Mountain View. I'm going to close here, because I think my five minutes has long since come and gone. But I got on a bit of a roll about this at a board meeting a couple of weeks ago because, um, and I'm sorry, uh, consul member, I know you've heard this before, but there is this perception that there's no need in the North County. And it's a misperception that we struggle with. And I know that our area is more prosperous than other parts of the county, but I also know, as you do, that there are people who are just barely hanging on, and far too many who are no longer in this community, because they just couldn't hang on any longer. And that means we've got to have the services here, where they need them and where they can access them. And... I finally just said, you know, if it's the policy of our county to gentrify my district, then, you know, say so loud. And as you can imagine, that was not altogether well received by all parties, but it certainly generated a lively conversation, I thought it was an important conversation. It's the reason, you know, people say, Really, what's this thing you have about keeping a social services agency, the welfare off? in Mountain View? And the answer is, that's how we maintain some semblance of economic diversity in our community. Some of you were actually able to be there a few years back, when we had a new site, and we named it after former mayor of Mountain View, Vic Calvo, I will confess now what I didn't then. I thought if we named it out after a Mountain View mayor, it would be that much tougher to shut it down one day, but the lease is up. So right now, one of my priorities for the next two years is to make sure that we keep that office here in Mountain View, or as close, as close as we possibly can, to make sure that it's readily accessible to people in need in the North County, who are still hanging on as best they can. And with that, I will say, thank you for letting me run over what I know was my allotted five minutes. And thank you for all the collaboration cooperation, as I said, at the outset, it's harder. It takes longer when we do things together, but we get so much more done. Thank you for inviting me. Thanks. Take care.

[00:49:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much, Supervisor Submittee. A lot of good contact. Now, um, uh, do any members of council have comments or questions? I see Council member Commé?

[00:49:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I'm sorry to have you, um, stand up, then sit back down and stand up again, Supervisor Submittee. But I do have some questions for you, but first, and I'm saying this not because you're my former boss, but because of the collaboration we've had, which is just to thank you, you're always thinking about the North County, you're thinking about District 5, and making sure that we are the diverse place that you grew up in, that I grew up in, and it's really heartening to hear about everything. I was feverishly taking notes. to just keep track of everything. But something that's top of mind and wonderful that we have our legislative consultant here is the Cares Court. It's something I know in particular, you know, CSAC, the League of California cities has been looking at, much talked about by the governor. I think your experience from the local level to your time in the state. It would be helpful to hear your thoughts on it, and how we might tackle that side of things. I know you mentioned the youth mental health side and wellness, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and maybe how that could go forward.

[00:50:50] Supervisor Joe Simitian: Well, the terminology that, um, I suspect many of you have heard, but that, you know, a lot of folks in the public just look at me like, what are you talking about is continuum of care. And, um, because if you talk about this, then people say, Well, what about that? And if you talk about that, people say, What about this? And the answer is, sort of, it's an all of the above proposition, you need to have a range of programs and services to address the very wide ranging set of needs that are out there, across different communities, different age groups, so on. Care Court, I would say, too soon to say, and I'm really not ducking here, it's just that, I think, right now there's still a lot of work to be done to define what Care Court is, can be, should be, will be. I can tell you at the local level. folks around the state in the various 58 counties are always anxious, and this continues to be the case about, will the funding be there to match the expectations and or the mandates? So that's kind of the question of the moment. I should say, because it may have gone unnoticed, um, we had a decision to make within the last year or year and a half about whether or not we were going to opt in to Laura's law, because Laura's law has some overlap with the notion of a care court. Lord's law is the sort of colloquial term for what's known as assisted outpatient treatment. It was very controversial back in 2002. irony of ironies, I voted for it as a first term assembly member on the floor of the assembly, and I remember the controversy, because it was about, essentially, compelling folks through the judicial process to get help if they were unwilling to get the help. And there were civil liberties issues that were very important. And the way that issue got addressed at the time was to say, Lower's law will only apply in any given county, if the county opts in. For 20 years, most counties did not opt in. And then, over time, people began to say, You know what, done right. This could be a real help to folks who simply cannot process the fact that they need help. It can be a tool that friends and family can use to get someone the help that they need and deserve. When we looked at it a couple years ago, the law had changed, and the law now says that if you don't opt in, you have to formally opt out, and you have to explain why in an open and public board meeting. Our county staff came to the health and hospital committee, on which I sit as chair and supervisor Otto Lee sits as vice chair, and said, We don't think you should opt in, we want you to opt out. Supervisor Lee, and I said, We're not sure we're prepared to accept that recommendation from staff. And we had a special hearing to hear from other counties in the Bay Area who had had a good experience. Ultimately, our county made the decision on the recommendation from our committee, Supervisor Lee, and I made the recommendation that we should opt in to Laura's law. It is now in place in Santa Clara County. It is not a cure all. It's for a relatively small number of folks. And the reason I'm giving you such detail is because it's really the thing that is sort of most closely associated with what we think Care Court might look like as it develops. I think there are possibilities for what I'll call particularly challenging cases, but I also think people need to be realistic about the fact that it's not a big picture cure all, it's for some very tough to handle cases where folks just aren't accessing the care that they probably could and should.

[00:54:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you very much. That's informative. And then my second and last question is related to homelessness, we know that the county point and type homeless count is coming up, and given what you've seen, you know, you were mentioning COVID, what other things that the city can think about, or any like lessons learned in terms of making sure we're getting the correct outreach for that count.

[00:55:09] Supervisor Joe Simitian: A couple of observations, and this may make you, in particular, smile, council member. I am going to go against the advice of my staff, and, um, sort of raise a slightly controversial issue, if I may. When I came back on the board of supervisors in 2013, the plan was to demolish the only shelter serving the North County area, which was actually in Sunnyvale, in my colleagues district, and it was the Sunnyvale shelter, the armory, that used to accommodate about 125 folks during just the four months of the cold weather season. I came back in 2013 and said, Well, okay, but what's gonna replace that? And the answer was, there is no plan to replace it. And I said, Well, where those folks gonna go, and the answer was, Well, we're investing now in housing first, which is a philosophy of how you deal with homelessness. And, um, taken to its extreme, it means all of the effort goes towards finding permanent housing for folks, sometimes permanent supportive housing. And I had a slightly different view, which was, well, that's our aspirational goal, but in the meantime, where are those 125 people gonna put their heads down? And I led a year, year and a quarter go by, and sure enough, it got knocked down. The shelter did. And then sure enough, there wasn't a place for those folks to go. And sure enough, the point in time, count, showed that there was about 125 new unsheltered folks in the North County. And so I went to our board in 2014 and said, We need a replacement. And the first year, we couldn't find a replacement, so we kind of cobbled together a program. The next year, we literally used modulars, portables, like you see at a lot of our schools, but, you know, larger, and that worked for a season. And then, ultimately, we found a site in Hamlin Court in Sunnyvale that could accommodate a 125 folks. And I'll now speed it up. The four months became six months, became a year, because we were saying, you know, guess what? People are still homeless when the four months of bed, weather is done. And, by the way, we need to have some services and programs there, including case managers, because if we really want to talk about housing first, you gotta help somebody make that transition, and then, by the way, let's expand the number of folks there by using some additional space that was available. So it now is, you know, 10 years later, it is year round, it has services, it is larger, and a much better situation than the old shelter was. But the question that I would encourage all of you to think about, wrestle with, hopefully come to some conclusion on, is, what's your measure? What's your metric? You all know, and now I'm really gonna be tactless, that life moves gets criticized, because not as many of their folks end up in permanent housing as we would hope. Yeah, but 100% of them are off the street, and in a place that's safe and warm, and gives them an opportunity to get there. Now, if your only metric is moving folks to permanent support of housing, you're gonna see it one way. If your only metric is, did we get folks who needed a place to be off the street? Well, then you're gonna see it another way. And my own view is, they're both legitimate metrics, and they're both areas where you want to put time and energy, which is why you've got to measure A with $950 million worth of support from the public for permanent housing solutions, but why you're still gonna need a system of shelters, just like I believe in preventative healthcare? I believe in primary care, but I don't think we're gonna give up on having an emergency room anytime soon. I know that's not the best way to provide healthcare. I also know that we can't let it go. So I would encourage you all to be thinking about both of those possibilities. And you know, we've partnered together on safe parking. We've partnered together on the, uh, marvelous, small shelter we have at Trinity, at the corner of Hope and Mercy, that serves single women and families with kids. Because this is the other thing I would say as an exhortation is, there's a range of needs, and when people talk about the unsheltered community, or the homeless community, as if it's a monolith, just dead bang wrong. So you gotta ask yourself, how do we respond to the very different sets of circumstances. This one may have just said, You know what, I can't hang on in a tough economy anymore. This one may say, I just lost my job and I need some time to get squared away again. Somebody else may be fleeing domestic violence in their home. That's different... All of these are different sets of circumstances, and you gotta have a range of solutions in my experience over the years, that responds to the range of needs, and gives people an option that works for them. It is not the one size fits all that would make our lives so much easier, but just isn't consistent with facts on the ground.

[01:00:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much, Supervisor Submittee. And now, Council member Abbe Koga?

[01:00:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I'm sorry, supervisor, before you sit down. I'm gonna look at the mayor and take a pledge, to be briefer in my answers. First of all, thank you for your many years of service and your, um, looking out for Mountain View and, um, a lot of the collaboration. Um, one area that I've been recently, um, I guess getting more involved in, or being asked to be involved in is, um, the sustainability. And as you know, we have our Silicon Valley, clean energy authority, but my understanding is the county has created an office of sustainability. And there's definitely a lot of eagerness to get that going. And you mentioned you have 2 years left on your term. What do you see as a vision for that office? It sounds like there's some funding that's been allocated. Um, I think I've heard there's some staffing challenges right now, but do you see that, um, office up and running in the next this coming year? Yeah, what would you see?

[01:01:55] Supervisor Joe Simitian: I think... The question is, what would the sustainability office want to be when it grows up? And I don't mean that flippantly or dismissively. I just mean, I think that has been a struggle for the past decade that I have been on the board of supervisors again. There are things that we can do, and have done as a county, you know, that you mentioned a principal among them, the Silicon Valley Clean Energy effort. The county was a charter member. I was a charter board member. It fit nicely with the work I had done at the state level, as an advocate for renewable energy. But for better or worse, a lot of these decisions get made at the state and federal level, in terms of policy decisions. That being said, you know, at a minimum, what every local government, including counties and cities can do, is model the behavior we'd like to see. So, you know, I know you've had the lively conversation about reach codes, and so have we. But a lot of it has to do with land use patterns in my view, in terms of work that we can do at the local level. So when we're having the conversation about Stanford Landuse or Lehigh, you know, it's got to be a sustainability conversation as well as, you know, an old fashioned assessment of, you know, did we check the boxes on the sequel form correctly. And then, I think there's a question that still hasn't been answered over the years, which is, are there other ways the county could and should lead? And I think that's still to be determined. But, you know, the use of renewable energy for our facilities, um, you know, things that are sort of every day and pedestrian to the members of the public, perhaps, but, you know, use of native plants and drought resistant or drought tolerant plants. These are the kinds of things that, for an organization that, at the county is, an $11,5 billion a year organization with 23,000 employees serving 2 million people. It's not an insignificant contribution.

[01:04:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, uh, council members show Walter?

[01:04:07] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I'm not really going to ask you a question. I'm just going to basically thank you. And, um, following up on what, uh, council member, um, Abby Kogo said, I wanted to thank you for, um, the Office of Sustainability. Yes, there have been some growing pains, and it's a very complex subject, and that makes sense, that it would take quite a bit of thought to figure out what's really appropriate. But I would have to say that over the time it has been in service, it has functioned as a convener on a wide range of topics, that some of which they haven't had a chance to follow through yet, but that convening function is not to be sneezed at, it's important. So I want to thank you for that. And also, again, for your assistance with our safe parking, you know, by giving us the use of the county waiver, we've been able to have the 24/7 safe parking, and that has turned out to be very helpful for our community. So I want to thank you for that again, and we do love to work with you. So thanks for being here.

[01:05:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Matt.

[01:05:25] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I also want to thank you. I feel like I was sitting here just kind of riveted by all of the great work that you've done. That update was fabulous. So thank you for that. And thank you for everything you've done, has been said for North County as well as the city of Mountain View. Greatly appreciated. I also appreciate the update that staff and RPPG gave. Um, you know, I'm pretty happy with the way this program has been going. You know, we did kind of the heavy lift when we came up with the original list of priorities. And as I read through the staff report, and I had a couple of questions. You know, I think the tweaks. They're basically just little tweaks in the whole scheme of things. Um, are, you know, I'm very supportive of them. So, I think it's going well. It feels good to have it so organized and I feel like we're able to have more of an impact now. So thank you very much for this. That's it. Thanks.

[01:06:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Abbe Coco, you have another comment.

[01:06:34] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you. I wanted to comment on our legislative platform and thank you to staff and thank you, Dane. It's great to see you in person here. I too appreciate the editions, the revisions. I did have a couple of, I guess I'll come questions, but they may end up being statements. So, uh, I think this would be on page five, number 4 is where I was going to suggest maybe we insert, but, um, as you know, probably know, uh, there's an effort now, um, at the regional level, um, for a regional housing bond measure, uh, Bafa, Bay Area Housing Finance Authority at, um, MTCA bag is rent, working on that. I'm on that committee. And, um, one issue that has come up, I guess, before we go into an actual bond measure is the lowering of the threshold of passage of these types of bond measures, I know there's been attempts in the past, um, we, there's now we want to keep trying again as the understanding. So could we include that, of course, with the approval of my colleagues, but include that item, and I was going to suggest it being under number 4 on page five? The 2nd item, I, this is more of a question. is on page 5 item six. There's mention of 100% replacement requirement, these are for affordable units that will be demolished or for due to redevelopment. I can't remember, but I thought we were going to have a presentation or study session eventually about this and I think it's under the displacement strategies, but there's, you know, been questioned. I still have the question of the feasibility of being able to require a 100% replacement. replacement of units. So, I guess I hesitate to put that in here before I see that feasibility analysis. So I would be more comfortable, more comfortable removing that 100%. requirement. So I would ask my colleagues how they feel about that. Thanks.

[01:09:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: So just to clarify, I was going to take questions and comments, overall comments 1st, and then move into asking the question about any changes to the modifications, additions, or removals from the legislative platform. Seems like maybe we flowed into that a little. But I just want to make sure, is that, was your last one a question, or is fine to flow into that, but, um, was your, uh, last statement about the replacement requirements, and whether they're feasible? Do you want somebody to answer that?

[01:09:37] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. Okay. So, yeah, so if someone, staff could remind me where we were on that analysis, if I had the, if my recollection is correct on that. And if we've done that and it's, I don't think it's been presented to us, but, you know, if it's already been done by staff and they think that they're confident in this 100% replacement requirement, I could go with that, but I would actually prefer to see that analysis before we make that concrete statement. So city manager? Do you have an answer?

[01:10:17] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, mayor and council member Abaykoga. I still need to get used to how to raise my hand on this. So yes, that is going to be part of the anti-displacement strategy that will come back to council later on. And I know that one of the considerations that staff is looking at is the feasibility of the 100% requirement. So I would need to confer with our community development or housing staff about that further, but that is something that they are working with, I believe, counsel, legal counsel and also consultants on this. So it is something that will be brought back to council for a determination.

[01:10:56] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So then at this point, I would request that we don't put that in, we can put it in later, but until we have that study session. I'd like to hold on that.

[01:11:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so I've taken notes on that, and I think we're still generally in questions and comments, um, council member Ramirez, do you have a question or comment?

[01:11:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. So I have some suggestions too, but I'll hold off on that for the next round. But first, echoing all of my comments. Thank you, supervisor somebody, for your presentation. The only thing I would request or suggest is if there are opportunities for the council to assist you in your work, especially in preserving any existing county facilities or services or expanding them. If there are opportunities for the council and our staff to assist, please let us know, because we don't know what we don't know. And I think you've done a phenomenal job expanding services in North County. And then having served as mayor during the inaugural year for this program, I found, generally, everything worked quite well. I don't really have soap by council member Mattachek had said, I don't have any major revisions to suggest. But in terms of process, There were a couple of opportunities where I'm not sure I felt totally comfortable taking a position on behalf of the full council. There are 2 bills that, in particular, I think there might be many different perspectives on, right? The Berman Bill related to VTA governance, that's one where, you know, it might be better for the full council to discuss how best to take a position because there are many different ways of doing that. And then, I think there was an opportunity to send a letter related to AB 2011. And that's another one where I think there could be many different perspectives. And so, not really within the scope of this item, but I would suggest that we think about some kind of procedural or process element, where if there are big ticket items where we can reasonably anticipate many different perspectives on the council, if the policy document, or the platform doesn't, you know, doesn't provide total clarity on the count, the position of the council, it would be nice to do a check in, right? Is there a subcommittee we could turn to, can you put it before the council's a consent item? But that rarely happened. Those were the only two bills, I think, that we're both pretty high profile, where, you know, personally, I feel like there was some merit in going back to the council for a little bit more guidance. And then, uh, related to that, I I don't care what position we take on for most bills that are, um, that are introduced by legislators who do not represent Mountain View, but I feel that there is a special consideration when we're, when we're, especially for a posey to bill, that one of our representatives is introduced. And, again, I don't have great ideas for how to introduce that sensitivity and our own approach, but it's a big deal, you know, for us to go and say, you know, Senator Becker, Assembly member, Bremen, we don't like your bill. Here's why. That might be one where, similarly, it might be good to go to the council and sort of discuss hearing staff's perspective and, you know, your perspective as the legislative advocate. Here is why it's really important that we take this position, and we go in eyes wide open, knowing that it might, you know, rub some people the wrong way, but at the very least, you know, giving some special consideration or special attention to bills that are controversial that, you know, would have a major impact on Mountain View, but are introduced by our own legislators, where we don't, you know, we might have to be careful, you know, we're opposing you now, but tomorrow, we're gonna come to you for money, right? or come to you with a different ask, and appreciating that it's the same person, and, you know, they might, they might remember the conversation we had the previous day. So some things I'd like to think about, don't have good answers for right now, but beyond that, overall, high level. I don't have too many other suggestions other than one revision I'll suggest in the next round. Thank you.

[01:15:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, just to clarify, are those questions you want, staff to answer, or, and they're also not things that you want us to vote on? Okay. Okay. Does anyone have great ideas, as answers to those, those two comments?

[01:15:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Um, I was gonna step in and make, uh, make one question, because I haven't spoken yet. Um, I recently spoke to the proprietor of Ava's grocery store downtown, and he expressed some frustration with the ability to do improvements, tenant improvements, and facade improvements, because he said that he said it was not only his concern, but other a concern of other businesses, as well, that they get reassessed, and that it's hard to make enough profit to cover the improvements, yet he hears from our residents, and he agrees that there are a lot of improvements that would be nice to have. And he's wondering if the, uh, tax assessments could be waived in or modified in any way for smaller businesses, so that smaller businesses could thrive. I also happened to, um, just by chance, run into our newly elected member of the board of equalization, who does assessments, and asked her whether she could check into this. This was recently, she hasn't gotten back to me, but she thought it was an interesting question. And I'm wondering if anyone, I am interested in enabling our businesses to make improvements and thrive. So I'm wondering if staff has any insight on that, or if I should just bring it up later, under comments, like who we would interact, how to interact, or any other particular comments.

[01:17:03] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Madam Mayor, for your comments.

[01:17:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: We have taken note of your concerning your interest, and we'll work with staff to provide you the response, but I'm not able to respond to this question today.

[01:17:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Council member, did you have another question or comment? Comment.

[01:17:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Great. Thank you.

[01:17:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I don't have anything to add for the next question. So I'm just gonna make my comments now, which is, I just wanna, thanks, staff. I wanna thank my colleagues. We kind of went out and did something new by trying to engage with a legislative consultant. And as we are approaching, I think, what is it, year two? I see the value. As we've received 1000000s of dollars both from the state, you know, via Senator Becker for lot 12, or as Nicholas was mentioning, from Congresswoman Esu, from federal funds, and being able to have those relationships, I think that that's really important. And what I have found too is our consultant is very open to the feedback that we provide. And I think, um, that is from my experience on the cities association for Santa Clara County. I sit on the legislative action committee. We see various bills and being able to cross-reference the city's positions, on certain significant bills, as council member Ramirez said, and where they may have alignment, it's nice to be able to know our position, have the background on the bills and go into these meetings prepared. And I know as council member Abbe Koga, gets ready to take the helm and be president of cities association. That'll be even of more value. And I'm really grateful that we have our consultant there to be able to do that. I think, um, in kind of response to council member Ramirez's comments. I think that the engagement needs to go both ways, right? I think we are working to improve our relationships with our legislators so that if they have a bill, they come to us before they drop it. Like, that would be my hope. And so I think that was difficult because there were many different implications on bills. And I know that there's discussion about working with our current delegation to run bills together and to address the needs and the issues in our community together. So I don't feel like it's like us on the dais. Sometimes we have differing opinions, but we're all invested in what's best for the residents and the rest the best for Mountain View. So I think it's, it can remain collegial and courteous and professional while also having differences of opinion. I think that's natural for the public policy process. So, um, And I've expressed that to Dane. And so how do we move forward? And we're working on that and this platform is a way for us to be more on the same page. And I see this as the vehicle, to be able to do that in an open and public process. And that this is the opportunity for us to voice the concerns and our suggestions. and have that relationship continue. But I like that we're able to air things transparently. So thank you.

[01:20:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. So I see other hands up. I assume we're now moving from comments and questions to the meat of the issue, but if I'm wrong, okay, then, and Mr. Rammer is... Okay. So, council membership, Walter, you have another comment or question?

[01:20:40] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, um, I, uh, I serve on the National League of Cities, um, EE and our committee, policy committee, the Energy Environment and Natural Resources Committee. And, um, I have just wanted to comment that I have found this document, our document, very valuable and supporting, um, the policy making at NLC, and comparing, you know, how they, um, how they work together. So my question is, how do our consultant use those policies that from NLC? Do you find them valuable, or do you engage with them?

[01:21:17] Dane, Legislative Consultant: So I don't directly engage with the representatives too much on NLC. Our role is, with respect to serving the city is, providing information on pending federal legislation, working with city staff to prepare them for engagement at the federal level. But we don't provide direct federal advocacy services. And so I don't I don't align. I don't work too much with NLC when I was at a league in California cities. I worked with them quite a bit and their policy platform statements and their processes is very much similar to the League's process, to League of California City's process as far as how they established their legislative platform. there is certainly inherent value there. But on a day-to-day basis, I don't engage too much with NLC.

[01:22:05] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, anyway, I was going to say thank you. When I was, you know, I was getting ready for the meetings, I sent you the, and several other people in the staff, the policies we were going to be working on, and I got some really good feedback, and many things, we're sort of ahead of the curve, which is good. But there were a couple things where we were able to... I mean, I got one policy, for instance, on increasing the beneficial reuse of sediments, of dredge sediments, for restoration and flood protection added as a policy to EENR. And actually, that's a big... mean, that's a big deal for sea level rise protection. So I was, that was exciting. But I just wanted to thank you for that assistance, and also to say that, you know, our ability to compare what we see at different levels is really helpful. And without your assistance, we weren't able to do that. So, thanks.

[01:23:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Council member, Show Walter. So now we'll be moving into, unless I have additional people with comments and questions, we'll be moving to have each council member answer the following question for staff, and the question is, are there any policy issues, priorities, or policy statements that council would like to discuss, seek further clarification on modify ad, or remove from the proposed 2023 legislative platform? And I will be taking notes, and at the end, taking straw polls to see which of these items will move forward. So, I see council member Showalter. Did you, you just did not. Okay. So is there anyone who would like to make more substantive comments? Uh, so council member Abbe Koga?

[01:24:06] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So, is this the time to bring back the... Two items?

[01:24:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, the right time.

[01:24:11] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So just reiterating the 100% replacement of affordable units, I would like to get the analysis before we make that statement. And then the 2nd was adding a statement about supporting lowering the threshold to passing on measures such as ones related to affordable housing. And then I'm sorry, I'm going to go backwards. But, um, I wanted to respond to Councilmer Ramirez's comments too, and I appreciate Council member Kame, your comments about the two-way street. Um, I think one thing that I remember we used to do before COVID, and then it just, we just got busy, but we used to try to meet up with all of our local legislators at the beginning of each year, and it would just be whoever on the council could make those meetings. But I think that is important for us to have more FaceTime as we're now back in person. So I know it's more work, but I think it is really important to do that. So that would be my request is that we try to start scheduling those meetings with legislators again. And I would, I'll say, um, you know, that's, um, president of the city's association this year, we're trying to get back to business as usual, and that's a piece that I want to reinstate with the city's association as well. And I will say, and I agree with Council member Kame's comments. You've been a great help. You know, I had been pushing for this for a few years because I was having trouble going to the cities association or these other regional boards and being asked, well, where is, you know, Mountain View's position or having a vote and not knowing what our position was. And so now with this background and research and actually even having positions, it's put us in a different place. And I actually see us. You know, we've, thank you. We will be having Dane at our next cities association meeting in February to provide an update or a preview of what to expect at the state. legislation, legislature. And that's what other cities are actually looking for. Like, we are now, you know, ahead of the curve on this. And I look forward to, hopefully, mountain view being able to maybe lead at a regional level and more legislative advocacy. The other thing too, and again, I don't mean to add more work, but something to consider is, um, on a lot, some of the other boards I serve on, we do have a legislative subcommittee, and might be something we want to look at adding a council subcommittee on legislation now that we have, uh, Dane and staff to help us with this. And, um, you know, I think it is helpful at least to meet in the beginning of the year to go over the legislation that's being introduced, come up with ideas for legislation we might want to propose, you know, at the end of the year for the next term. So, you know, our workload is is large, but it might be worth considering adding such a subcommittee. Thanks.

[01:27:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, just for clarification. I've noted 3 things that you've said, the item on displacement. Is it, fun to say, that you, we leave it in there, but it's only, if it's found feasible after the display. Okay, because that's, and then I've added the additional item on council subcommittee on legislation. And then the, um, bond.

[01:27:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, and the Baffa one, yes, I have that one.

[01:27:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: So thank you. And now, uh, council member Ramirez.

[01:27:57] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, and agree strongly with the suggestion that we try and find opportunities for FaceTime with the legislators. I think that'll be a big help. Two ideas for the platform. I'm thinking about the discussion we had last year with the Google Middlefield Park Master plan where we incorporated some language to help facilitate the inclusion of childcare. And that came, to some extent, at the expense of our own open space. And I was thinking if there's an opportunity, and I think part of that discussion was, there was a response in the staff report that provided some of the state requirements for childcare, that often have the unintended consequence of making it very difficult to provide childcare in urban settings. And so it would be, I don't know what language to propose, but advocate for changes in state law that would make it easier to provide childcare, you know, and maybe thinking about different standards that would apply to an environment like Mountain View. And then the other idea, which may not even need direction. One thing that, so we have a deficit at the state level that we're contending with, and also enormous amounts of money, coming from the federal government that, I think we're doing our best to stay on top of and trying to take advantage of, and, I guess, a request would be, for staff, to come back to us and let us know if there's capacity for exploring, you know, all of the opportunities that may exist, or if we have to think about providing some additional direction to staff to focus on opportunities to secure some of that federal funding, right? I mean, there's a lot of money, a lot of different programs, a lot of new stuff that we're not familiar with, and maybe there's staff capacity to look into all of that, or maybe, you know, it might be helpful for counsel to say, let's prioritize that opportunity, because once that money is gone, who knows, you know, when we'll have a similar opportunity. Thank you.

[01:30:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: So just to clarify, you're asking to add staff capacity to explore federal funding. Is that, did I hear you correctly?

[01:30:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, I guess for staff to evaluate whether... Evaluate.

[01:30:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So we have, I'm presuming, I think the staff response to one of the council questions about grants and earmarks, says, you know, that RPPG has been very helpful in securing some of those funding opportunities, and it would be helpful for me. I'll speak for myself to know whether you have capacity to continue that and then expand it, to look at, you know, the inflation reduction act or bipartisan infrastructure law, opportunities, tons of money. There are many, many different programs across a variety of different departments. If you need some direction from council to pursue those. You know, I think we'd love to discuss that. If you can do it with the capacity, you have great. You know, I think it would be good to prioritize that money.

[01:31:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: So to make sure I have that right, it's to evaluate and get back to us on whether there's a current capacity to explore applying for federal funding or whether we would have to add staff capacity. Okay. And the childcare, yes. Ms. Gilmore, did you have a comment?

[01:31:21] Ms. Gilmore: Oh, I just as a response to Council member Ramirez, we do receive grant support from RPPG, and so we are actively working with their grant manager to identify potential funding opportunities that align with council, city council priorities. And so we do meet monthly with them as well as receive, um, um, grand opportunities, and we will share that with staff, and we'll work with staff to assess each opportunity, um, to see if it's appropriate for us to apply. But thank you for your comments and your feedback and it is noted.

[01:32:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, are there any other council members who want to make comments on the question at hand? So I'll just say, I'll just say overall that I agree with council members who said, I, you know, we've done, I think we did a really deep dive last year. It was really worth it. Um, I don't have a lot of substantive items to add, but I would like to explore the question of whether, uh, ton of improvements and facade improvements, whether there could be any sort of tax breaks on those, uh, in order to help small businesses thrive. So, I will now, I will now call off all of the modifications that we have, that various council members have raised, and I'd like to see a straw vote on each one, to see whether the majority agrees with the council members who've made those comments. So, first, we have, um, and the makers of the comments can modify the way I've summed it up, if you don't like the way I'm summarizing your comments. So the 1st one is regarding the Bay Area housing finance authority bond, and I don't know whether you also intended other bonds, but looking into whether we can lower the threshold, the voter threshold for passing those bonds. And are there people who are interested in that? Seems to pass unanimously. Um, then the second one is regarding our displacement policy. Um, we are pursuing 100% replacement requirement, but we will not be sure if this is feasible or not until we review the displacement item as a council agenda item. So this is to, the comment here is to reword this, to say that we will do it if we find it feasible, when that agenda item is reviewed. Council members, can I see a straw vote? Okay. And then the 3rd is whether we should add a council subcommittee on legislation. I have to say, we have a lot of council subcommittees, so if people are raising their hand on this one. I wanna make sure there are volunteers to actually do it. Because. So, who wants... Oh, there are only two people... I think that one doesn't pass at this time. Um, the next one is to, uh, to evaluate and get back to us on, uh, whether we have capacity to explore federal funding. And I want to know, do you think that was adequately answered? Yeah, I think what I heard was, you do? You have that capacity. Okay. I'm satisfied. Thank you. They already got... Okay, that one's achieved. Um, the next one is to advocate for, um, changes in state law regarding childcare settings, so that possibly it will be, uh, it will be more possible to provide childcare in urban settings, who agrees, who would like to explore that. Okay, and then the last one is, is reviewing, uh, the possibly changing, looking into changing the assessment, after tenant improvements, and facade improvements, the tax assessment, to see whether there can be any changes to enable small businesses to thrive. So how many people want to explore that. Okay. So, staff, do you have, do you have good notes on these or need any further review?

[01:36:22] Unknown Speaker: We do, thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[01:36:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, uh, we are going to go into regular session. I'm going to say we go into regular session at 640. a 7 minute break.

[01:38:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, we're gonna bring the meeting to order at 6:42. Um, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the meeting of the Mountain View City Council of January 24, 2023, for those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and visit EO presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern. Request to show an audio or video presentation during a council meeting, should be directed to city. clerk at mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishing to address the council in person, must complete a blues speaker card. Please indicate the name you'd like to be called by when it's your turn to speak, and the item number on which you wish to speak. Please complete one blue speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them in to the city clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you're speaking on. Instructions for addressing the council virtually may be found on the posted agenda. And now, please join us in the pledge of allegiance, Chief Chung, will you lead us?

[01:40:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Oh, city clerk, please announce the role.

[01:40:15] Unknown Speaker: All council members are present this evening.

[01:40:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, I'm now going, welcome again, everyone. I'm now gonna make some remarks in recognition of Lunar New Year, and our Civic Leadership Academy. So here in Mountain View, we support a community for all, and continue to find meaningful ways to welcome all who live, work, learn, and play here. This Saturday, the city of Mountain View is holding its first lunar New Year celebration. The free event is taking place from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon at the Mountain View Community Center. It's a way to celebrate Asian culture, and, in fact, more than 30% of Mountain View residents identify as Asian. The Lunar New Year celebration is the result of direct feedback from graduates of the city's first Chinese Language Civic Leadership Academy, which was held last spring. The free 8 week long Chinese Language Academy was provided in English and also in Chinese. And the curriculum is designed in a culturally appropriate way to expand participants' understanding of local government and city services, while also encouraging civic engagement. It's based on the successful Spanish language Civic Leadership Academy, which the city has held for several years since it was launched in 2017. We're planning on holding another Chinese language academy in the spring of 2024. Our multicultural engagement program produces both academies, which support the city's efforts to celebrate diversity and build a community for all. We hope that you'll join us this Saturday for the Lunar New Year's festivities, which will often offer Asian arts and music, traditional performances, and much more. We hope to see you there. Next, we're moving on to item number 3 on our agenda, which is presentations. Please note these are presentations only. And the city council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after all of the presentation items. And if you'd like to speak on these items in person, Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So, our first presentation, unfortunately, is a very relevant one. It's a presentation on national gun violence survivors week, or a proclamation. And we will be joined this evening by Rachel Michaelson, am I pronouncing your name right? Mountain View resident, and head of the San Jose Chapter of Mons Demand Action, to accept the proclamation. Rachel, will you join me at the lectern?

[01:43:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Turn this around, and, um, you know, I'm happy that you joined us, but I'm not happy that this is, uh, unfortunately, because of, uh, several shootings in California, mass shootings within the past week. This is a particularly relevant proclamation. So, the proclamation reads, whereas every year, more than 40,000 Americans are killed with guns, and approximately 76,000 more are shot and wounded, and every year, on average, 3,160 Californians are killed in acts of gun violence, and nearly 7,300 more are shot and wounded, and, whereas, by early February, more Americans are killed with guns than are killed pure countries in an entire calendar year. And, whereas gun violence surviving is, a gun violence survivor is anyone who has personally experienced gun violence, whether you have witnessed an act of gun violence, been threatened or wounded with a gun, or had someone you know and cared for, wounded or killed. And, whereas forms of gun violence can include, but are not limited to gun suicides, gun homicides, domestic violence involving a gun, shooting by law enforcement, and unintentional shootings, and, whereas 59% of American adults, including 71% of black, and 60% of Latinx Americans, or someone they care for, has experienced gun violence. in their lifetime, demonstrating the reach and impact of gun violence has had in our communities across America, and firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens. And, whereas people in America, in cities across the nation, are working to end the senseless violence by advocating for common sense gun safety legislation, and, whereas, by commemorating national gun violence survivors week, on February 1st of 2023, through February 7th of 2023, cities across America will raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives stolen by gun violence, and, whereas, we renew our commit to reduce gun violence, and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of those who are danger to themselves or others, and encourage responsible gun ownership, to help keep our communities safe. Now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim February 1st of 2023, through February 7th of 2023, as National Gun Violence Survivors Week. in the city of Mountain View, to honor and remember all victims and survivors of gun violence and uplift the resilient voices of survivors across the nation. Rachel, here's the proclamation. Thank you. And would you like to say a few words?

[01:46:44] Rachel Michaelson: Um, just, uh, I appreciate Madam Mayor and city council for taking this bold stop, and for all of your bold steps that you've taken over the years, um, to help us fight gun violence here in our communities. Thank you.

[01:46:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much. And next. Next, we have a presentation in recognition of Police Chief, Chris Chung, on his retirement. We're happy to be joined this evening. My police chief, Sean, to accept the proclamation, and here is the proclamation, and I am now going to read it to you. The proclamation and recognition of your service reads, whereas Chris Shung began his law enforcement career as police officer with the Mountain View Police Department in January of 1995, and his retiring as police chief in February of 2023, after more than 28 years of service to the city of Mountain View, and, whereas Chris has made the safety and well being of our community, his highest priority, and, whereas Chris has distinguished himself as an esteemed law enforcement professional, having served in a variety of assignments, including patrol, property crimes, detective, person crimes, detective, SWAT, tactical, and in leadership roles, serving in every division in the Mountain View Police Department, and, whereas Chris was appointed, the city's 11th police chief, on December 27th of 2020, and, during his tenure as chief, has played a pivotal role in the further connecting the police department, and the community, including forming two ad hoc advisory councils, the Latino community advisory council, and the faith based leadership council, and, whereas, under Chris's leadership, he championed enhanced public communications through emerging technology early on, including social media, driving increased open dialogue, and heightening public awareness within our diverse communities, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic. And, whereas Chris actively contributed to his profession, including being recognized nationally as a speaker and writer in the areas of digital engagement, crisis communications, and adaptive cultures, and, whereas, along with academic credentials that include baccalaureate and graduate degrees, Chris is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Senior Executives, in state and local government program, and, whereas Chris continues to serve in several leadership positions on multiple boards, including his service as a co chair, on the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Human and Civil Rights Committee, and Board member on the Global Advisory Council, for the Crisis Ready Institute. And. Whereas, Chris is a founding board member of the curve, a nonprofit formed by author inspirational speaker, Simon Sinek, police chiefs, and sheriffs, from across the country, with the mission of providing the most current leadership development and resources to forward thinking leaders in policing, in order to modernize police culture from the inside out, and, whereas Chris's colleagues send their best wishes for his retirement and future endeavors. Now, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council and city staff, do hereby express gratitude and appreciation to Chris Shung for his dedication, hard work, and loyalty to the city of Mountain View, and the community. Chris, would you like to say a few words?

[01:50:38] Police Chief Chris Chung: Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, uh...

[01:50:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Go ahead.

[01:50:44] Police Chief Chris Chung: Just trying to think of the best way to summarize 28 years. I figured I'd start with a very, very short story. then wrap it up there. Quick trivia is, when I first learned about my job here in Mountain View, the only experience I had was attending the Moffat Field Air shows as a little boy. Outside of that, my first full time job was here in Mountain View. And I may or may not have gotten so lost on training that I ended up driving by the airport and watching a 737 takeoff, only for the training officer to tell me there's no airports in Mountain View. So fast forward a few decades later, the best way I can summarize this is all of the planets lining up, all the planets, meaning a community that's just loved and supported our police department, our men and women who work and serve every day. The planets of being paired up with just incredible colleagues on the department head team, all the different departments that just work together all the time. It's just the norm to drop everything we do when another department asks for help. To be led by an incredible boss, Kimbra, who is just 100,000% supportive, and just helping us do the mission of just outreaching and being a part of our community, an incredibly supportive council, all the notes, all the messages of support, especially when we have very difficult calls for service. Our partners in the fire department, for their being out there with us on the streets. And, of course, I'd be remiss, not thanking my family, who's watching on YouTube. that just the support of that planet lining up, to go through a career this long, to always know that there's a stable love and support at home for no matter what we go through. And last, but certainly not least, the women and men of Mountain View PD, who make it their passion to just serve every day, this community, and always doing a little bit more than the industry standard calls for. And I guess one last thing is just the mentors that come before me, that have helped out. These accolades that you see here are not never done individually. They're always done as a team, um, especially calling out friends and mentors like, uh, future interim Chief Max Bozel, um, for just giving us, you know, the leadership compass of knowing, you know, the direction to go and always. So, thank you very much, mayor, vice mayor, counsel, for just the ardent support over the years.

[01:53:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: And now I'm going to give, uh, Rachel, you may not want to go right now. I'm gonna give, uh, I'm gonna give council members the opportunity to comment on, uh, both of the presentations. I probably should have done one at a time, but I didn't. So, um, if you want to, uh, if we have any council comments on the retirement and the, um, gun violence proclamation, I see council member Abbe Koga.

[01:54:08] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I will start with, um, thank you to Rachel in Mom's demand action for being here today to accept, uh, uh, proclamation that is unfortunate that we have to do, and, um, I know that we all are, um, still trying to process what, what happened just the other day in Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park, and especially at this time, um, during Lunar New Year for the API community. It's been quite devastating and we're just all trying to reflect on that. So, you know, I appreciate this council for your support over the years to strengthen our gun safety ordinances in Mountain View.

[01:54:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Clearly, we have so much more work to do. I wish the rest of the country would follow along. That's the bigger challenge in the uphill battle, but I appreciate just this reminder that we need to continue to fight for gun safety and, you know, we just can't lose one more life. the way we have. So thank you, Rachel, and please think your organization for all the leadership that you've taken in this issue. And then for Chief Shang. Um, it's with a heavy heart, um, although I am, you know, definitely congratulate you for, um, all that you've accomplished for so long. Um, you know, uh, when I've been here 15 years now and city, the city staff have really become like family to me. Um, and Chris is someone who I met very early on when I, when I 1st started. We actually had a mutual friend, and so I kind of sought him out when I was elected. And, um, even though he went to um, the inferior high school in San Mateo, Hillsdale High School, and I went to Aragon, we were rival high schools, um, we became, um, good, friends, and, and, um, and, um, it's just been a real honor to watch, uh, Chris's development here in Mountain View, and ascending to, um, Chief, has just been a real source of pride for, you know, for our entire community, and, you know, I will too, for the Asian API community. He was one of 13 API police chiefs in the state, I believe. So, a real sense of achievement, coming at a time with, well, now that we've experienced, well, has 3 years with COVID and police reform, and really, you know, probably the most challenging times, at least I've seen, and Chris has really led the organism, our department with such grace and thoughtfulness and real leadership. And so I want to thank you, Chris, for all that you've done. We wish you well. You know, I had hoped that we'd had a few more years with you here. But the plan was we were gonna go out together, but, um, I'm proud that I was able to install you as the chief. Um, and, um, and, uh, so many good memories, and at least I know that you'll be protecting my home base of San Mateo County. So congratulations on your new adventures, and thank you again for all of your leadership. And thank you to the entire department, all of you. I just have so much pride for our organization and really, I believe you guys, you are all the best of the best. Thank you.

[01:57:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member manager.

[01:57:51] Unknown Speaker: Well, that was very well said. Thank you. Chris, I, you know, it's been an absolute joy to get to know you and work with you. And I know I'm gonna miss our chats over coffee at specialties. That was always a highlight. I appreciate all that you have done for Mountain View and for the police department. You know, it has been a very challenging time, and your leadership and thoughtfulness really has come through. Um, I feel like, yeah, all the best in your new role, but please don't forget us and come back and say hi, or I'll come up there and we can have coffee. So all the best to you and thank you again for everything you've done for this community.

[01:58:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Commé.

[01:58:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Well, um, first, I'd like to thank a mom's demand action. As a council member, Robbie Coca mentioned, you have been such a collaborator, as we've been looking to take the lead in Mountain View related to gun safety and addressing gun violence, and I really appreciate how accessible you all are, and I think you both know I recently became a mom, and there's nothing fiercer than a mama bear, and I applaud you for the work that you've done, but the work that we continued. We need to continue to do. because it's not done, and it sometimes feels like, What's it gonna take? It's gonna take your continued passion and commitment. So thank you so much for doing that. Uh, Chief, you will always be my chief to me. I want to say that we've often talked about the city of Mountain View culture, and how unique and special it is, and when I think about it personified, it's you. You are our empathetic, compassionate leader who has changed the face of law enforcement in our city, but also nationally, and the world, you go and talk at these conferences globally, I know. And you can see that through how you've been able to, I think, bridge the divide, about what people think about public safety, police. I know that when we met a decade ago, I was doing fire ops. I was doing a citizens' academy in a city I was working in, and it was your accessibility, your willingness to answer my questions, listen to me, that really made me feel empowered to do things with the Mountain View public safety Foundation. And I do want to call out MVPDX, which I think has been a really great community resource for our residents in terms of understanding the relationship, and you are not afraid to have those hard conversations. But I also want to say that the enthusiasm that you bring to the department is something that I know will be missed. I see the posts, and I softies, Boba. I hope that the tradition continues with our interim chief Bozelle. Because I do think that it is, there's the heaviness to the role, but we also need to have the moments of levity, and you were able to bring that balance. So for that, I'm eternally grateful to you. I know our residents are, and congratulations. Thanks.

[02:01:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez.

[02:01:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, and echoing the sentiments of my colleagues, first, you know, 2 important proclamations that both have an element of sadness with them. And I also want to extend my thanks to you for your advocacy and also express my appreciation to the council for really pushing the envelope envelope on a gun regulations. And we have a few more items coming before us. an opportunity for the city to continue the good work to protect our residents from gun violence. Thank you for joining us this evening. And Chief Shung, I'm really going to miss you. You've been a tremendous pleasure to work with, very responsive, as my colleagues have said, empathetic, compassionate. And I want to share my appreciation for you for working with the Latino community, the Latino community, advisory council and the faith community leadership council. I've heard nothing but good things. You've done remarkable work engaging both communities. I'm pretty close to both. And, you know, my pastor is, you know, a participant in the faith community council. And I think what you've helped done is build trust with communities that historically may not always have had strong relationships with the police department. And I'm really grateful to you for making the effort, especially, as my colleagues have said, during such a difficult time, when we saw the erosion of trust, I think, but in Mountain View, it remains strong, and it remains strong because of your leadership. Thank you. And I'm hopeful that your successor will continue that strong tradition. Thank you.

[02:03:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[02:03:02] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, it's hard to follow all of those, after all of those thoughts. I just really echo what has been said previously. But I also think it's just kind of ironic. Tonight that we have two presentations. And really, in a sense, they both relate to guns or gun organizations that you associate with guns. We're thanking the mom demand action for helping us to reduce gun violence. And your perseverance is so, so vital. None of us know when AK 47s will be banned. But I know you will persevere until that day occurs. And on the other hand, we are thanking a police chief, who leads an organization, who, although they carry guns, they almost never fire their guns as part of their jobs, except for training. I remember when we were working on developing the PCAB, learning that it had almost been 19 years since a Mountain View policemen had had to fight a gun, because, besides, outside of training. I don't know if that's still true, because you do such a good job of figuring out other ways to de escalate situations and to deal with safety problems that we have. And I think that our, I know I am very grateful for that. And I think I share that with our entire community. So thank you.

[02:04:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: City manager?

[02:04:50] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. So, Chief Shang, I just want to thank you on behalf of the entire city organization, for the tremendous service that you have brought to our community almost 30 years. I don't think many of us can say that we have dedicated almost 30 years to one place in one profession. And I know this is an incredible transition for you, to leave what is like family. And many of you probably don't know. I've actually known Chris for almost a decade. And when I first came to Mountain View, almost 10 years ago, he and I were peers on a continuous improvement committee to improve our purchasing process here at the city. And, yes. And what struck me about Chris, when I first met him, was just, Wow, this guy's different than a lot of police officers I've ever met. He's different. I really enjoyed working with him as a peer, and I actually never would have thought that almost ate, seven, eight years after that. We would be working together as a city manager and a police chief. And so, for me, I think what you look for, as a city manager in a department head, is someone that can be a true partner, because you don't always know all the answers, as city manager, and certainly going through the last three years, not just with the pandemic, but with all of the police reform and social justice changes, having to navigate that first with Chief Bozelle, and then with Chief Xung, I couldn't have asked for a better partner to both of you, and Chief Shang, with you the last two years, I really do feel a tremendous amount of gratitude and appreciation for your counsel, your wisdom, your guidance, not just to me, but to your peers on the executive team, and to the entire Mountain View community. You will be missed. You are a son of Mountain View. And thank you for everything that you've done. I know this isn't goodbye. This is until next time, and our loss is San Mateo County's gain, and you know that you're on speed dial for many of us. So just wish you the best of luck and just sees the day and best wishes to you.

[02:07:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'm a little out of breath after reading those long proclamations, so I won't go on at length. Um, but just, uh, Rachel, uh, with Mom's demand action, I, um, we did put this proclamation on at the last minute, um, I had a feeling that it was gonna be relevant this year, although I truly hoped that it wouldn't. Um, and I, you know, again, I hope that this is the last time. But since it's probably not, we all have to continue to work to, you know, reduce the likelihood of gun violence. And then, Chris, the first time I remember really talking to you was, uh, right after I was elected, we all went out to dinner, you know, those dinners were you don't know anybody, and you don't know who you're gonna sit next to. And I sat next to you, and you told me, multiple stories about traveling with your four children, I think, it's four, is it four? All around Europe, I thought that was pretty bold, because I would not take my two children around Europe when they were that age. So, um, I hope you, with this, I hope that you now have more time for that, among other things, I'm sure. So with that, um... Next. Uh... We will take public comment for the presentation items. Would any members of the public joining us either virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Um, I do not see any in person speakers, but I do see a virtual speaker who is Peter Katz. Peter, you have two minutes.

[02:09:35] Peter Katz: Thank you very much, mayor, and team members of city council. This is Peter Cat, CEO, the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. Um, I'm not quite sure this is the right place for public comment regarding the commendation for Chief Jung, so, um, I'm going to just go with it. So on the app of the chamber, we wanted to congratulate you on your new role in San Mateo, and thank you for all you have done for the community, let alone for the chamber, our members, and leadership Mountain View, over the many, many years. Whereas we speak often with other cities and business communities about their issues with the police force. No such conversations happen here in Mountain View. Businesses here have great respect and gratitude for the department, and especially its compassion for our most vulnerable. We are safer, healthier, and better for your leadership, and the performance of your team. It's been an excellent experience working with you in the PD, and a personal pleasure to get to know you since you since coming on board. We wish you great success in your new adventure and hope you will stay in touch. You will be missed. Thank you very much.

[02:10:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: So at this point, I see no more speakers. Yes, I see no more speakers. So, we will now move on to item number 4 on our agenda, which is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item, oral communications on nonagendized items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Now, would any member of the council like to pull an item? Council member Ramirez.

[02:11:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I like to pull item 4.3.

[02:11:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, duly noted. Any other, uh, items to be pulled? Uh, okay. Okay, we're gonna have a comment on one of the items. And okay. So, uh, So, vice mayor, why don't you, uh, why don't you comment on an item?

[02:11:58] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I would just like to, um, comment on item 4.1. That is annual water and sewer main replacements. That isn't something that, um, a lot of people think about. But it's very important for making sure that we have clean water supply that is delivered to all of our various houses and businesses. And so that our waste is taken to where it needs to go and treated carefully. So it takes a tremendous amount of effort from our engineers in the public works department to get all this maintenance done and keep on top of it. So I just would like to recognize that. And thank them for it.

[02:12:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide comment on any item on the consent calendar? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. And we will take in person speakers first. I see no speakers, either in person or virtually. Um, So, um, now, actually, I'm going to ask the city manager, should we go with all of the consent items or do the pulled one first?

[02:13:34] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, you can vote on the remaining items and then talk about the pulled item, or you can talk about it really doesn't matter.

[02:13:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. It might be easier just to vote on the ones that are left. Okay, so I see motion from council member Kameh?

[02:13:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I moved to approve the balance of the consent calendar. It was 4.1 and 4.2. Item 4.one is adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, adopting a mitigated negative declaration for annual water main replacement project 1921. Pressure reducing valve installation on North Wisman Road and Evondale Avenue. Whitney Drive, Whitney Court, and Parker Court, Water, Main Replacements, in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act to be read entitled only for their reading waived.

[02:14:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: And council member Ramirez? Okay, we can all vote. So it passes 5 zero, but there's 6 of us. Did mine not register? Oh, Margaret's didn't. Council member Abbe Koga, how have you voted?

[02:14:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Yes, I voted I.

[02:15:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so it passes unanimously. Okay, so, um, we also have, uh, item 4.3, which has been pulled. Would you like to speak on that item?

[02:15:17] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Sure, thank you, Mayor. The goal setting subcommittee had a very lengthy and productive conversation about this item. On the whole, I think it's very good. I think the process is solid and support, I support all of the recommendations. I did want to make one tweak and after speaking with the city manager, it does require council direction and it relates to the 1st response in the staff responses to council questions on this item. One of the evaluation, a criterion that is proposed is to determine whether any proposed projects help advance the council's strategic priorities, which is perfectly consistent with, I think, the intent of goal setting, I was wondering if we could tweak that or maybe add a separate criterion that would evaluate whether the proposed project helps advance other existing work plans or initiative. So, for instance, there are council priorities related to sustainability that have very clear metrics, right? reducing greenhouse gas emissions by x percent by whichever ear. And there are a whole host of other things that we've approved over the years, that are not explicitly tied to the strategic priorities. But nevertheless, we may want to propose projects that help advance those goals. And it would be helpful for us to know if a proposed project does happen to help us achieve a previously approved goal or objective. And so I was hoping that we can include adding a criterion that staff would reference as part of the evaluation of the projects when we start proposing them, that would look at that. It may not tie in explicitly to a strategic priority, but it does help advance some other previously approved goal. So I'm happy to move the staff recommendation with that tweak. I'm comfortable with staff proposing language for that criterion. I'm also happy to clarify it if the intent is not adequately conveyed. But I'll go ahead and move the staff recommendation with that one modification.

[02:17:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, we have motion and a second. Are there any additional comments? Okay, then we can move to vote. Suspense. Okay, that passes unanimously. Congratulations, Margaret. Okay. So next, we'll move to item five, 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 nonagenda items. If you'd like to speak on this item in person, or the next section of items listed under new business. Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us, either virtually or in person, like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take inns, in person speakers first. And first, I see Patrice Moore.

[02:19:19] Patrice Moore: many minutes. How many minutes?

[02:19:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Um, not seeing many speakers. I'll give you three minutes.

[02:19:26] Patrice Moore: Okay, thanks. On Thursday, May 26, 2022, MVPD, received a 911 call from Shelby Garrison. VP of HR at for sale, my former employer. Miss Garrison went on a rambling discourse about supposed problems that I was having at work. The 911 dispatcher interrupted multiple times, asked why Ms. Garrison was calling 911. Miss Garrison finally invented a fiction that I was suicidal. The only description in Ms. Garrison could provide the 911 operator was that I, my transgender woman. Not my age, not my skin collar, not my hair collar, nor any other physical characteristics, simply as transgender. MVPD had a choice on how to respond. MVPD chose to handcuff me, leave me in a squad car for several minutes, while neighbors could see me being detained, and then transport me to emergency psych services. There, the transporting officer misgendered me in spite of my appearance, my government identification, and my spouse's reference to me as a woman. As placing involuntary, overnight hold, forced to sleep in a recliner in a room with the lights turned on full, forced to take a COVID test I was billed for. I was released the next day after I answered six simple questions, questions that MVPD could have asked and saved me from a great deal of trauma. The EPS psychiatrist at this point asked, Why are you here? My answer was, because MVPD demonstrated by their actions that being transgender means I'm crazy. Versell use this involuntary hold that MVPD willingly or unwillingly participated in as part of her cell's pretext for terminating me. I have a separate legal action with them. I spent all summer trying to deal with the trauma of being handcuffed, detained, and terminated because of who I am not because of my actions. It took me till September to deal with the trauma enough to file a complaint about MVPD's actions. It is now January. I have not had any formal response about the complaint. After conversation with then Mayor Lucas Ramirez, It was relayed to me that MVPD chief was willing to meet with me, but did not know if I was willing. So the police chief chose silence. I filed a request for City of Mountain View to pay for the EPS bill in November 2022. City of Mountain View Attorney denied this request. So now I'm being forced to pay for the cost of my imprisonment. This is my notice until I find the paperwork to file for an appeal of that decision. Because a city attorney, like all lawyers, will concern themselves with the law, but never what is just. I realize that you cannot take action on this issue at this moment. However, please do agenitize this item as soon as possible. Briefly, I'm requesting that. And I see I have 13 seconds left, so I'll just say I have four requests. I'll just read them off really quickly. Mountain View PD pay for the cost of the EPS imprisonment as a result of the officer's untrained response. MVPD undergo training with the Santa Clara County of LGBTQ Affairs, to help have a better response. MVPT warmly acknowledged my 2020, September 2002 complaint, and officers educate themselves about basic transgender issues, and then meet with me, to help me deal with the trauma, and for the city to become a better place. Thank you.

[02:22:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And now, in an alternative events, the Zoom has disappeared from my screen. So, are there, um, are there, uh, virtual speakers?

[02:23:12] City Clerk Glaser: Mayor? We do have a couple speakers. I can mention their names. The first speaker is Stanley Wang.

[02:23:21] Stanley Wang: Oh, yeah. Oh, hi. I would like to comment on the item 4.1. So about the sewer man on replacement. So...

[02:23:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, actually, the time for this has passed. The 4.one has, uh, has, we've already dealt with that on our agenda. So... Oh. Sorry. So, the next... So, we will not be speaking on that item. The next speaker, I now see them. Uh, is, uh, Dr. Meghan Fraley, and you have three minutes as well.

[02:24:01] Dr. Meghan Fraley: Hi, um, yeah, this is Megan Frealey. Um, I am a Mountain View resident. Um, I'm honestly just speaking kind of spur of the moment. I cannot remember the name of the woman who just spoke, but I just want to express my deepest, deepest condolences for the trauma that she experienced. It, um... The 5150 process can be used, and I have seen it used, um, as kind of an arm of different institutions and as a way to, like, discriminate. So, um, I don't know if the person who spoke has heard of the Mountain View coalition for police reform and accountability. My name is Meghan Fraley. My email's Meghan Fraley at gmail.com. Um, if there's any way, it can be a listening ear, or, um, in any way, uh, I think someone just messaged me that your name was Patrice. Um, yeah, if there's anything I can do, even just have coffee or tea. It sounds really very traumatic and I would just like to provide any witnessing I can. And since this is not just since of the city council meeting, um, this is actually a really very, very, very big problem in terms of the 5150 process. And a clinical psychologist, and at times I actually have to use the process as much as I can in an ethical way when there's someone truly in danger, but this process is incredibly traumatic, and I don't know if there's something mountain view can do about that. But, um, I'm happy to sit down with council numbers to walk through the different ways that it is dehumanizing, traumatic and actually creates more trauma for us to pick up the pieces for, for even the people that really need to be kept safe. It actually does damage, let alone having it be used as an act of, like, discrimination is, can cause lifelong scars. So, I mean, um, yeah, I think it would be really great if there is some way on a city level to actually get into the 5150 process. Maybe it's more of a county issue. I don't know, but anything we could do, um, and training our own police officers, perhaps around. Yeah, I don't have the solutions, but it is a very, very, very big problem and it does deep, deep damage. So, um, hopefully council can come up with something that they can do. And um, just my deepest condolences for that traumatic experience. Thank you very much.

[02:26:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: So now, seeing no additional speakers, uh, we will move on to new business. We're on item 6.one, which is a resolution appointing a retired annuitant, as an interim police chief under government code section 21221 H. Human Resources Manager, Lindsay Bishop, will present this item. And you should note that the following individuals will be available for questions. They will be Sue Rush, the human resources director, and actually, there's only one individual. So it's Sue.

[02:27:04] Lindsay Bishop: Okay. Thank you Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of council. As you know, this meeting before you, or excuse me, this item before you this evening, is for to appoint Max Bozel as interim police chief. Earlier this evening, council recognized current police chief, Chris Shang for his service to Mountain View as he retires next month. The city has initiated a recruitment to fill the position. And until the position is filled, the city needs to appoint an interim police chief. Max Bozel retired as police chief in 2020 with 25 years of service to the city of Mountain View. Mr. Bozel is available and has the unique and specialized qualifications and experience to serve as interim police chief until the city manager fills the position on a regular basis. Government code 21221H. Permit city council to appoint a cowper's retired annuitant to a vacant position during a recruitment, with several restrictions, which include that the interim appointment is for a single appointment, and does not exceed 960 hours in a fiscal year. The proposed interim appointment meets the cowper's requirements. Staff recommends appointing Mr. Bozel as interim police chief with an hourly rate of $169.58 effective February 10th, 2023 to serve in this capacity. This concludes my presentation.

[02:28:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: So thank you, Ms. Bishop. Does any member of the council have questions? Not saying any questions, would any member of the public on the line, like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or press star 9 on your phone, and a timer will be displayed on the screen. Okay, I see no one on the line. And anyone in person. Yeah, I see none in either venue. So I will, yes. So I'll now bring the item back for counsel deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation, should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. So, I see, uh, council member Abbe Koga making a motion and, uh, council member, Matachek seconding. Is there any discussion? I see no further discussion. Yes.

[02:29:48] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, so yes, I would like to make the motion to adopt a resolution of the city of Mountain View, appointing Max Bozel as interim police chief under government code section 21221, H to be read entitled only for the reading wave, waived, and I'd just like to note that, um, despite the big shoes that he has to fill, I think he's going to fill them just fine and we're very fortunate to be able to welcome back interim police chief Max Bozel to the position. And thank you for coming out of retirement to do this.

[02:30:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: And the second?

[02:30:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: My 2nd that?

[02:30:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so now we vote? So the motion carries unanimously. And now we move on to 6.2. Council member vacancy, uh, applicant interview questions. City Clerk Glaser will make a brief presentation.

[02:31:01] City Clerk Glaser: Good evening, mayor and council members. The item before you builds on the council's January 5th determination to pursue the appointment process. to fill the vacancy that was created by Sally Lieber's resignation. The city clerk's office accepted applications until January 18 at 5 p.m. 10 completed applications were submitted, which were attached to this report for your use. Three things that we really need from the council this evening in anticipation of your January 30th interviews are to one determine whether you'll interview all 10 applicants or narrow that pool. If the council chooses to narrow the pool staff has proposed a path forward for that or the council can choose another method to tackle that. The other 2 things would be to finalize the questions for the January 30th interviews and then finalize the amount of time that will be allotted either to each question or each applicant for response to all questions. That's just the brief overview that I wanted to give, and obviously city manager and city attorney and I are available for questions.

[02:32:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you, City Clerk Glaser. Does any member of the council have questions? I don't see any questions. Um, so, uh, now would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comments on any item on the, uh, any item? Sorry, turn the wrong page. Uh Hmm. Uh, let's see. There's an error. Okay. Yes, it does. So, um, so would any member, so I see uh, 2 members of the public, uh, Eric Pecon, would you like to comment? Yes, you will get three minutes.

[02:33:28] Eric Buykone: Three minutes, okay. Okay. Thank you, Mano Mayor, Council. My name is Eric Buykone. I am a humble member of the community of Mountain View. as well as an avid 49ers fan, who, like many of y'all possibly believe, should make it to the Super Bowl. But yes, like my team, I believe that there is a member of our community that deserves just that chance in council, and that is Emily Ramos. Emily Ramos has shown time and time again, has even been the biggest reason why I even moved to the city of Mountain View and why this city's cherished, what can be done in this community and how we can build a community of belonging. So I hope, in this process, you consider Emily Ramos for the appointment of city council. Thank you.

[02:34:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now I see Alex Brown.

[02:34:27] Alex Brown: Yeah, I can't lower and raise my hand. Ah, so weird, being in person. Hi, everybody. Uh, Alex Brown, Santiagoville Neighbor Association, Mountain People, Home Alliance, other groups. Just wanted to let you and the public know that, you know, for this process, we're hoping to have a community forum on Friday. We've got it scheduled. Actually, I think all of you at this point are registered, maybe, to attend or view it afterwards. We're gonna, you know, let the community interview all the applicants to get through tonight first, um, if that's all 10, it's gonna be busy. If it's fewer than that, then we'll have more time to answer questions from various community groups. Mountain People Home Alliance, Little Mountain View, Mountain View streets for all, Green Space and Mountain View, so many more. If you want to, if anyone wants to register, MVMHA.com slash vacancy dash forum, or several versions of that, or just check out the Mountain View voice article. got a link. We'd love to have you. We'll have audience questions. It's gonna be fun. You can ask questions. If you're in the audience. Like you? Yeah. All right, thanks.

[02:35:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you, Mr. Brown. Next, we have Tim McKenzie.

[02:35:44] Tim McKenzie: Greetings, all. I just, I learned a lot in the discussion on the 5th, and one thing that really stood out was the decision to do the appointment process was, was worrying about sort of disenfranchising historically marginalized groups, due to low voter turnout, less than 50% of the electorate generally. So just as a principal at four year discussions tonight, and next Monday. I just want to highlight the need to sort of focus on, or to respect the will of the voters in terms of the last time that people had to say during the election, which was Sally Lieber seat, not people elected someone who had that. So I hope that you'll consider someone whose values align with Sallies as a kind of gadding principle as you work through the process tonight, and I'll just echo what was said earlier. Like, I would love to see Emily on, I'm active, pretty much, and a lot of city things. One place that I actually haven't put too much of my time, because we only have so much capacity, is the rental housing committee, because I've known that Emily is a strong advocate for renter protections and tenets. So, that's something I've always appreciated, knowing that that's there. And I think, uh, some of the values that made me vote for Sally, also, I recognize in Emily. So, thank you.

[02:37:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Mr. McKenzie. Now, I see a couple of people online. The first is Ryan Golobus.

[02:37:28] Ryan Golobus: Uh, good evening. Can you hear me?

[02:37:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can.

[02:37:32] Ryan Golobus: Excellent. Uh, good evening to the honorable mayor and members of the city council. My name is Ryan Globus, and I'm asking you tonight, too, if you narrow down the list of candidates for next week, I ask that you please, uh, include Emily Ramos in next week's meeting, and ultimately, appoint her to the vacancy. Emily is an intelligent and experienced, collaborative and kind person. Uh, I met Emily 6 years ago when I joined the Silicon Ballet on Democrats. Uh, and I was sort of unsure of how to make a difference, uh, locally, but she as the club's president brought me into the fold, and her leadership inspired me to advocate for housing affordability, green transportation, racial justice, and so many other critical issues. As you know, her she has experience on the rental housing committee. protecting thousands of tenants in Mountain View. And when my sister in LA faced a negligent landlord, who was breaking the law, Emily took the time out of her incredibly busy schedule to help my sister know her rights and fight for the safe housing that every tenant deserves. Um, As you well know, the issues that Mountain View faces can't be solved by one person or even one body or agency, and that the city needs to collaborate with the county, the state, the federal government, and the community on the ground. Um, and I've seen her work firsthand with the community on the ground, myself included, and I was not at all surprised when she's based recognition from state leaders, uh, like state Senator Becker, uh, as well as support from, uh, federal elected officials like Congresswoman Eshu. She not only has a good heart, but the experience with key steak quilters to get things done. And so Emily is the best candidate to fill this vacancy, so I urge you to support her moving on to the January 30th meeting. Thank you.

[02:39:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, the next speaker will be Angel Martinez? Angel?

[02:39:41] Angel Martinez: Could everyone hear me?

[02:39:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can.

[02:39:44] Angel Martinez: Hello, everyone. My name is Angel Martinez, and I'm a registered Democrat here in Santa Clara County. There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said about Emily Ramos, but as past president of the Silicon Valley Young Democrats, I believe that she is the most qualified individual that can be appointed to the Mountain View City Council. I urge the city council to continue pushing your name forward, and hopefully ultimately ending with Emily Ramos being appointed city council for the city of Mountain View. Thank you.

[02:40:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, now, council will provide direction to staff on the number of applicants to be interviewed, the questions to be asked, and the length of time for each question, or length of time for each application to respond. First, I see, uh, council member Mattachek.

[02:40:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

[02:40:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Did you want to tackle those all at once?

[02:40:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, would you like to tackle them one at a time? It doesn't matter to me. I'm ready to do all of them, if you want.

[02:40:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: You can do all of them.

[02:40:49] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so in terms of the questions. Um, I... Not surprisingly, have some suggested tweaks to it. Um, I feel like I always do. Sorry. I think we could reduce the number of questions. I think the first one that's listed here, we could probably delete. Um, I'm not sure we are looking for folks to have, as we described last time we talked about this, an agenda, that they want to push, that, um, and so I think we could probably delete the first one.

[02:41:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Could you, for the benefit of... Oh, sorry, yes. Read it.

[02:41:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: The first one is, what are your top priorities, and how would you get them taxed? Or how would they get tackled? The second question, are there any issues where you disagree with council direction, and what would you change? And I think that one is fine. I'm very interested in that one. Also interested in number three. How can we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residents? Question four. I would tweak this slightly. to say what projects on the current council strategic work plan are important to you, and why? Question five, which is about private property rights, community benefits, and public comment. That one, you know, we ask the EPC, and I'm not sure I would ask that of the applicants. But if we did, that's such a big question, that I think I would break it into pieces, and personally, I'd be more interested in just hearing, how would they consider public comments from residents? And then, um, question six, uh, I would make a minor tweak two. What efforts that we are not already doing, would you take to help our existing businesses stay in Mountain View, make it easier for new businesses to enter and reduce the number of long standing, empty storefronts? So just a slight tweak to that one. I would add a question about how would you quickly come up to speed? And I also, depending upon who we interview, we might want the opportunity to ask clarifying questions about their application. We might not have that for everyone, but we might have it for some. And I would also want to provide each applicant with a bit of time to provide a closing statement. And then on the process, if we choose...

[02:43:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Now, maybe I will summarize those.

[02:43:41] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, are you? If that's okay.

[02:43:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so, you, um, want to delete question number one, keep question number two, keep question number three. Was it tweak question number four, uh, to ask about projects on the work plan, uh, what's important and why? Tweak 5 to focus on how you would consider public comments from restaurants, from residents. Keep number six, and add a number seven, which is how would you quickly come up to speed? Is that?

[02:44:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I was saying we could either tweak number five or delete it. I'm open to either one of those.

[02:44:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay, and the next... Now, your comments?

[02:44:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: The next part, um, is on the process, if we want to narrow the number of people that we, um, interview. Um, I think this is a good um, start. I would have just very minor edits, and I'm looking at the process on page three of the staff report at the bottom. And, um, on the first step, I would say, um, instead of five or six applicants, I would say, a minimum of four and a maximum of six, instead of five to six. So that's just changing it from... from five to six to four to six.

[02:45:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:45:22] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And then, um, on the, let's see, one, two, the third step, um, about the votes for each council member would be tallied. And I would say the applicants that receive the highest number of votes would be put through, so long as they've received at least four votes. I would add that. And then, instead of specifying how many people we want to interview, I would say everyone who receives at least four votes. or more would be interviewed, so we really wouldn't be able to tell until we tally the votes. I guess I don't want to, um, constrain the number of people we might interview, um, at the beginning. I rather see how much support there is, and then interview everyone who has, at least four council members who are supportive of having them interview with us. And, you know, I also took this to mean, You know, there's no cumulative voting, just to be cure, clear about that. So you can't put your four votes on one person.

[02:46:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Oh, okay.

[02:46:34] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And then, you know, this isn't listed here, but I would suggest, and tell me if you want to talk about this later. Um, that we use a very similar process for voting, um, on the 30th. So we would all just list the names of the... I mean, we're gonna have fewer people, if we narrow it down. So I would say, you know, maybe we want to say, you know, list the, uh, the two people, um, that you're interested in appointing, and then whichever one receives the most votes would be the person we appoint. So it's the same process, but it's just because we have fewer people, you get fewer votes. Okay. And that's it, and that's it.

[02:47:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay, so, um, I could summarize that. It's tweaking of the process in the staff report. So the summary is that, uh, there were a number of questions, and then the staff report process. Council member Mattachek is, uh, suggesting, uh, changing, uh, she's supporting narrowing the applicant pool for interviews, but suggesting that the process would allow us to write down four to six applicants to interview, and that, um, the applicants would not, it would not be the applicants with the highest number of votes, but those with four or more votes would be put through to the interview. And that we would also use a similar process for the 30th, except that at that point, instead of putting forward four people, it would be putting forward two people. So I think that was a good summary. I guess I probably would have said, or clarified, that the people with the highest number of votes would be put through because they'd have more than four. Um, yeah, just want to clarify that. Okay, uh, vice mayor?

[02:48:42] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, thank you, Lisa, for that, I really appreciate the changes that you made to the question. You gave that. a lot of thought, and I think those are good. I particularly like adding in the closing statement. I think that's always a good, you know, I mean, it's good to give the person a sort of a time to summarize and share their most important thoughts. So I really like that. But I have a different take on the process, the number of people to interview in the process. I think we should interview everybody. I mean, they're 10. And, um, initially, uh, it was suggested a 30 minute interview. I think with 10, that's too much. I think we should have them be 20 minute interviews, but I think you can still have a good interview in 20 minutes. 20 times 10 is 200 minutes. That's about three and a half, that's about three and a half hours, not quite three and a half hours. We have a lot of meetings that are three and a half hours and more. So this is a very important subject. So I think that that would be a reasonable commitment on our part. The other, the reason I think that interviewing everybody is so important is really about government transparency. Um, I think that this just gives, um... gives everybody... about government transparency, and the idea that everybody in our community who wanted to apply honestly had a shot, that they had an opportunity to do this, that you didn't necessarily have to be a council member before, and come with that experience, that, you know, that we were welcome and interested in hearing from anybody in the community. So that's why I would really like to, um, cut the interviews to 20 minutes. But interview everyone who went to the amount of work that we ask them to do to apply. And then, uh, when we get to the voting stage, if we do have all ten, I think we, probably the first round, would all, each one would, everybody would want to vote for three or four to start with, or more than one, anyway. We would want to vote for several people to start with. And then we would have two or three rounds. You know, if nobody got any votes, they obviously wouldn't go on to the second round, or perhaps we could say if nobody got, you know, three votes, they wouldn't go on to the second round. But I think that there should be a process so that we don't just vote for one person. the first round. And, um, and then we would reduce the number, uh, until we have, say, three three applicants left, and then we would just all vote for one. So that would be my suggestion, and I'll be interested in hearing to hear, and hearing what my colleagues have to say.

[02:51:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Commé.

[02:51:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Um, I'm taking notes on everybody's different suggestions. Trying to keep track. I don't envy you, Mayor. Um, so I think, let's see, where shall I start? So, I'll start with my feedback for the questions. Um, I've given it a lot of thought, and I have thought back to being on cart, particularly the last 2 years. And I do like asking some sort of opening type question and some closing type of question because I think we're all familiar with having gone through the electoral process. They don't just ask you a question. They do allow you to have some sort of opening statement, and I want to give the opportunity. So I'm comfortable, you know, keeping question one, I do want to hear what people have to say in terms of what they are thinking. I don't see it as being an agenda, but I want people's point of view beyond the paper application, which we received, or the electronic version. And I think that could be an opening question in terms of giving us more of a sense of who the applicant is. I like the closing. Um, so we, I support that. I think that is the majority of my comments on the question process. Um, in terms of the criteria process. Um, I'm open to discussing with colleagues more where we land. I think when looking at the 10 applications. I thought that it was council's opportunity to include criteria, um, that addresses the get up to speed question. We have applicants who either have prior elected experience, who currently serve on a border, a commission, which I feel gives them a familiarity with the city. Um, and I thought that might be a criteria that we could look at, um, in terms of, um, experience that that's brought as a way of narrowing in the pool before going into the 30th. so that we could have the full 30 minutes. I do not want to feel rushed, um, through the process and, um, but also make sure that we're not there until the next day. So I think it's a delicate balance. So I think in when we had the robust discussion on the fifth, is that one? We talked about getting applications as quickly as possible, I think, so we could review them. so we could look at them. I know we've all done that. Um, so I thought we could at least do some narrowing tonight so we could have a full comprehensive, um, potential 30 minutes on the 30th. But I am open to different type of processes. My concern, too, is if we don't do some sort of criteria discussion tonight. We interview potentially 10 people, then we narrow it down to, or I wasn't sure what the final number would be, then that would probably be a discussion of the four. And then we would do a final narrowing. So, this sounds like, it's a, you know, yeah, it's a long and lengthy process, and we had an application process so that we could, yeah, narrow it down. Thank you. Castle of never, okay. And or at least that was the discussion that I left our prior meeting when we discussed this. That's the impression I left with. So, the current feedback is different than what I thought we had discussed. But again, completely open. Um, to the rest of the... But I think one of the things the clerk mentioned is talking about a time, perhaps a time per question. And I know we haven't discussed that yet. So if potentially, we have 7 questions. You know, was it 3 minutes each, 5 minutes each. I think we as a council need to decide that, which also, to me, plays into how many people should we interview? If it's 5 minutes, times seven, with 10 applicants. I'll let council member, Ramirez, do the math on that. So, um, I just want us to fully flesh that out because I do think that was the feedback that our appointees gave us from the prior meeting is that to be, to promote the transparency is have the full discussion, go, before going into the 30th, because I also would feel, personally, I would feel bad if we had 10 people go in, and then the 1st thing we do is narrow it down to 4 to 5 people, and they have, they go into that 30th meeting. Um, I feel like that would be much more difficult in my opinion. Thanks.

[02:57:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So just to clarify, I'm letting everybody go through all of the questions at once, because, as you said, council member can may. I think they're related. You know, we could ask people to respond for 10 minutes if we only have, if we come away from tonight with only two applicants, which I don't think we'll do. But just as an example, if we have all 10, we can probably, the questions will have to be fewer. So, um, so first, I'm taking an overall response, um, council member, Abbe Koga?

[02:57:35] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the comments already been that have been made. I'll start with the questions. Um, I really appreciate, and I kind of count on council member Metachek to dig deep in and look at these types of items and details. So I really appreciate you for coming up with your suggestions on the questions. I agree on the whole with the suggested changes. Um, I think with, you know, question one and I appreciate the other comments. I'm looking at this, it's an appointment for the remaining term of council member Lieber. So, um, I really actually am not interested in hearing someone's priorities if they're different from what we've agreed to do. Um, you know, for the last uh, couple of years. We're on, we have a strategic plan. Um, you know, my expectation is to find a team member who's gonna help us get through that strategic plan. I don't really expect us to go, you know, completely in a different direction because, frankly, that plan was delayed with COVID. And so we have a lot of work still to do. So, you know, if it's priorities within, and I think that question comes in four, you know, what are the items on the strategic plan that are important to you, to me, that is that's really more important to me. So I appreciate and, you know, I don't know whether it's a closing or an opening statement, but if it's an opening statement, that would just, you know, help the inner in the applicant set the stage, I mean, we can flip it and do it that way. But I don't really want to talk about new priorities in this situation. And, you know, if someone has different priorities, they're welcome to run in next year and, you know, after that. So, um, that's what I would, so, yeah, I would eliminate one. I like adding, um, Five is interesting. I think, you know, because we do so much land juice, I do feel like it's in, you know, relevant. I just don't know if this, the wording is really... on, you know, right getting to the point of what we're looking for, but, um, so yeah, still trying to mull over that one. Um, definitely clarifying questions. And my thought was, if we had number seven, how would you come quickly come to speed, um, 3 minutes per question, half dozen questions, 21 minutes with an opening or closing statement of 2 minutes. So we get to about 25 minutes and then with some clarifying questions. So I guess I was thinking of 25 to 30 minute interviews. And in regards to interviewing, you know, whittling down, I agree with, um, council member Kame, um, you know, the, we did the applications. And, you know, I was waiting to see what we would get. And this is different from an election, an election. everyone is welcome to run. But we are, we've, you know, we talked about this. We are looking for certain qualifications. And so in light of that, I think the application was the real 1st cut, or we should make a cut from there and interview a smaller pool. And I was thinking of, you know, just cutting it in half at five. So 4 to 5 4 to 6 for a minimum, 6 maximum sounds reasonable to me. And, um, yes, I think San Jose did it where you had to have so many boats to make it to the next to the interview round. So I think, you know, 4 votes majority of votes make sense. So, um, yeah, and I would agree 3.5 hours to interview and then deliberate and then whittle down and it's not going to be 3.5 hours. We'd be looking at 6 or 7 hours, I think, and I do want to be mindful that we are doing this on the last day that we're allowed to do this. So I would hope that we can do it before midnight and make our deadline. So in light of all that, I would like for us to cut it down to round five, folks to interview. And then I appreciate the last round suggestion of each of us picking 2 people that we would be comfortable appointing. Thanks.

[03:02:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And just as just to benchmark what we're doing. I am keeping track of what everybody's saying in general, but in, as it's all related, but in particular, looking at whether people say they want to interview everybody or narrow in some way, and I have a summary of that after everyone has spoken. So, uh, Council member, are you still up? Council member Ramirez.

[03:03:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, on the questions. I'm generally supportive of the modifications that have been proposed. I do agree with council member command, council member Matachek about having some high-level introductory statement, and it could be framed with a question about priorities or whatever it may be, but an opportunity for the applicants to distinguish themselves in some way is important. Um, I don't mind asking about priorities because I, a valid answer could be priorities that are aligned with our strategic priorities, and that would give us a sense of, uh, if we have to make some difficult decisions, which I anticipate we will have to do as part of our goal setting. Um, you know, it might even include cutting some projects that we were interested in because there isn't staff capacity. Having a sense of priorities, could also inform which projects might get cut. Um, the applicant, you know, whoever we appoint will participate in that process. And, you know, there will be some opportunity maybe for new projects, but I think most of this of the discussion will be challenging, you know, in getting the sense of here's really where we have to focus. could be helpful for us, again, to select someone who is likely to carry forward projects that we think are really the top priority. So I don't have a problem asking about that. Or maybe we could frame it that way, you know, of the strategic priorities, or the projects that we've prioritized, you know, if you had to make some difficult decisions, what our projects that you think are highest priority, and what are others that may need to wait for a future goal setting cycle. I'm comfortable with the staff recommendation for process.

[03:04:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member or Vice Mayor Show Walter,

[03:04:48] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I am sympathetic with where you're coming from. You know, I think, you know, ideally, it would be nice to give everyone an opportunity to, again, differentiate themselves and an interview process could be really powerful. I'm not sure there's 4 votes for interviewing everybody. I'm not opposed to it personally, but I'm recognizing that there's a time constraint and, you know, and it would be very difficult in practice, I think, logistically, to pull it off. So five, I think, is fine. And one of the things I appreciated about the staff recommendation is, it would likely result in an outcome where we're not prematurely eliminating viable contenders. I think there are some, I appreciate everyone who was applied. Thank you for doing that. It's not an easy thing to put yourself out there in such a high profile way. But I think what the applications have revealed is there are some folks who we know are ready tomorrow. because they've served for an extended period of time. There are folks who have been active for a number of years, have relevant experience, and then we have some newcomers, right, who I think are saying, I have an interest in serving my community, and that's great. But I think what we're hearing a consensus that I'm hearing is, we're looking for someone who doesn't need a year to get up to speed. And I think 5 is a good number for us to get the 5 folks. I'm 6 is okay to, but really 5 people who are distinguished in the applications by virtue of highlighting the qualifications and experience that they have. And I think are worthy of an interview, because they're already strong candidates. I feel uncomfortable with prematurely eliminating folks, you know, without even giving them the benefit of an interview. So in San Jose, a majority was not required to ascend to the interview, it was, I think, 4 votes, 4 out of 9 council members. I don't feel personally a strong need to have a majority to advance to the interviews. I think the top 5, regardless of vote is fine. You don't have to vote for the folks at the bottom if you don't want to on June 30th. But more importantly, I think, you know, my my suggestion is staff recommendation does a good job of making sure, you know, the stellar contenders, the top choices for the council right now, at least get an interview, and, you know, prevents challenging scenarios where, you know, we might have to come back after a vote, finding out that, you know, some viable contenders, maybe were left out. So those are my thoughts for now. Thank you.

[03:07:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So now that everyone's spoken, except for me, I'm going to summarize the things that I've heard somewhat of a consensus on. Um, so, the first is that I heard, um, I heard, uh, one, two, three, four out of five council members speaking, saying that we should narrow the field tonight, and I agree with that. Do we need a show of hands just to make sure that we're, I wanted a show of hands for narrowing the field a little tonight? Just to make sure I heard it, right? Okay. So just to rub it in. Sorry.

[03:08:14] Unknown Speaker: It's okay.

[03:08:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: So the next question is, so that shows that we will not be interviewing all 10 on the 30th, which means that that affects the number of questions we have and the length of time. I'm going to now go through the tweaks that I've heard, to the process, to narrow tonight. The first tweak I heard, the process, the staff recommended, says, uh, should council wish to narrow the applicant pool for interviews, a proposed process could be, um, each council member would write down their choice of 5 or 6 applicants to interview, or another specific number and in no particular order. Council member, Matachek said 4 to 6 applicants to interview. Can I have a show of hands for that modification? 4 to 6. You can write names of 4 anywhere between 4 and 6 people. Okay, I see tonight, yes. So, I see 5 out of six. So I guess we'll go with that. So the next process... Well, 4 to 6. Oh, you wanted specifically five. Okay. You didn't win that. Staff says 5 or six. Anyway, those votes will be collected, and the city clerk will publicly announce council members votes on the 4 to 6 applicants to interview. I guess we can raise our hand on that, although nobody has suggested any changes, but just to confirm. The votes will be collected, and the city clerk will publicly announce each council member's vote tonight. Okay? So the third part of that is that... Oh. Vice mayor?

[03:10:30] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Wouldn't it be just as easy for us to go down the list and vote and see how many game up as to collect the numbers?

[03:10:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: No? Okay. Well, we went with... I suppose we could. Next time. Um, and the third element of narrowing will be the votes by each council member will be tallied by applicant, and the applicants receiving, uh, four votes would be put through to the interview. Oh, we even have four forms for this. So I guess we could discuss the highest number of votes or four votes. I'm just going to go with four votes. Do people say at least four votes? Raise your hand. No, that's the third part of the process. For tonight, votes will be tallied

[03:11:33] Unknown Speaker: mayor, may I?

[03:11:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:11:35] Unknown Speaker: So what I'm hearing is that you all would vote down to write down tonight between four to six votes, then those will be tallied up tonight. The clerk will read them out loud, and then people who have at least four votes from four council members would move forward to the interview on the 30th.

[03:11:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes. So are there comments on that or are we ready to vote on that?

[03:12:06] Unknown Speaker: Yes. Okay. Sorry, I just have a process question. So, um, right now, so there's no more straw motions or other polling on what you want us to do?

[03:12:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, I was gonna let you ask your question, and then I folks gonna make sure... Two different ways have been suggested for the last one.

[03:12:23] Unknown Speaker: I just... Yeah, I just wasn't sure on which way. I wasn't sure if we had decided on the questions and the time per question, but are we gonna just do, we're going to do our selection, and we're gonna talk about all the applicants, and who will interview first, and then we'll circle back to the question part, and because I know there was some wordsmithing people had suggested, and then we'll talk about time after we vote on who we want to interview.

[03:12:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can do it in that way. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't... we haven't... I know it's confusing also. My script is missing, so... So, um, yes, we'll vote on this, we'll vote on the third part of the process. Then we will fill out this form. The council vacancy applicant selection for interview form that we've just received. And then once we know how many people that's going to be, we will talk about the remainder of the questions. So the last part, the last part of our process for narrowing tonight, is that the votes by each council member would be tallied by applicant, and the applicants receiving the, uh, four votes, or more, would be put through to interviews. Do people agree with that? Two people agree with. Oh, three people agree with that. Council member show Walter?

[03:13:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I would just prefer to have the top 5 interviewed. The people who get the most top five. Well, if there's a tie, we'll have to vote again, but the 1st 5 or the top 5 or six, I think we should just interview. This idea that we have, everybody has to get four votes, I'm not sure that that will necessarily play out. It probably will, but it's simpler, if it's just the five, the five people who get the most votes.

[03:14:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, any other comments? Well, since the first process did not get a majority. I'll bring the second, the second would be, the votes by each council member will be tallied by applicant, and the top five will be put through to interview. Three people say that. Uh oh. Okay. So. So my comments were just that I agreed with people that I thought we should narrow tonight, and that I would go through. I generally agree with the, um, with the staff process, and I'm open to tweaks, and then I started taking votes on the tweak. So here we are. So, I guess I'll do, I'll go through the, those, unless there are further modifications, I guess we say now why we need an additional council person. Um, so, I will get, are there additional suggestions, and I'll just go through the voting again until we, um, until we have a majority, or we have additional suggestions for how to move forward. So, we're now voting on the votes by each council member will be tallied by applicant, and the applicants receiving the, uh, four votes or more would be put through to interview. We vote on this one again. How many people would like to do that? Okay. So now we're... Yeah, yeah. So now we're doing the top five vote getters. Yes. Okay. So the majority of people are on that. Okay. So now we move to the part of the meeting, where, where we fill out a form, which, for those watching the meeting, we fill out the number of the round, the name of the council member, and we put in the names of four to six applicants. Sure, we'll have a five minute break while those are tallied. Well, we'll be back at 8:30. Make it round number.

[03:20:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm calling the meeting back to order. gavel. I want quiet in the... auditorium. Um... So now we're gonna hear the tally from, uh, City Clerk Glaser.

[03:21:18] City Clerk Glaser: Yes, I'm going to read how each council member voted, and then I'll give you what the top are. Margaret Abbe Koca voted for Roni Bryant, Chris Clark, Michael Casper Zack, John McAllister, Emily Anne Ramos, and Li Jong. Allison Hicks voted for Ronnie Bryant, Chris Clark, Mike Casper Zack, John McAllister, and Emily Ann Ramos. Ellen Kame voted for Ronnie Bryant, Chris Clark, Michael Casper Zack, John McAllister, and Emily Ann Ramos. Lisa Matichat voted for Ronnie Bryant, Chris Clark, Michael Casper Zack, and John McAllister. Lucas Ramirez voted for Roni Bryant, Chris Clark, Michael Casper, Zach, John McAllister, and Emily and Ramos. And Pat Shoalter voted for Ronnie Bryant, Chris Clark, Michael Casper Zack, John McAllister, Emily and Ramos, and Anita Rosen. So you have Ronique Bryant got six, Chris Clark got five, Michael Casper, Zack, got six, John McAllister, got six, and Emily and Romos got five.

[03:22:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so read those one more time.

[03:22:36] City Clerk Glaser: Roni. Ronate Bryant got six. Chris Clark got five. Michael Kasperzak got six. John McAllister got six, and Emily and Romos got five.

[03:22:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so we have our 5 applicants going on to the next stage. So now, um, we will go on, now that we know how many we have, and we're, we will go on to tweaking the questions. Um, if people, people can make specific comments, but they have already. So if there are no additional comments, I can read down each question and make sure that we have each question together. So I see no additional comments. Um, so, for question number one, I heard, um, I heard that people would like an opening question. I heard that, um, that people do not necessarily want to, uh, list of top priorities that were not on the strategic plan, and there was one, uh, there was one suggestion that that the opening question be, um, what are your top priorities on our strategic plan? So does that question sum up the comments fairly well? If there are no other, can we have a show of hands for, the question can be, what are your top priorities on our strategic, among the priorities on our strategic plan? Okay. Okay, so that is the tweak to question number one. Um, I heard no tweaks to question number two, regarding Are there any issues that you disagree with counsel? So can we agree that that question stays the same? Yeah, I didn't read the whole thing. Okay, no problem. So that's question number two. Question number three regarding livability. Council member Ramirez, would you like to read the complete question since you have it in front of you?

[03:25:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure. How can we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residence?

[03:25:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: All those in favor of keeping that question? Um, number four, uh, let me see. Number four is, what items on the current strategic work plan are important to you, and the tweak was, and why?

[03:25:43] Unknown Speaker: Oh, you're right.

[03:25:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. So all those who are in favor of eliminating question number four. Would you like to add why? Okay, all those in favor of adding why to the first one. Okay. And why? So number 4 is eliminated. And number five, which will be the new number four, how would you balance... Well, it was about balancing property rights, but the suggestion was to simplify How would you consider, how would you consider public comments from residents? Everybody in favor of simplifying it to that? How would you consider public comments from residents? Yeah, that was the, so everybody in favor of that. One, two, three. They're four. Okay, it's simplified. Number six is, what efforts would you take to help our existing businesses stay in Mountain View, make it easier for new businesses to enter, and reduce the number of longstanding empty storefronts? All those in favor of that question? That's the majority. And a closing question that was suggested was, how would you quickly come up to speed? Okay. Majority? Yes. Okay. So we have questions, and the next, um, there were some comments on the, uh, number of minutes per question, now that we have um, 6 questions.

[03:27:33] Unknown Speaker: Oh, you don't... I thought that how would you quickly come up to speed was the closing question. You're proposing an additional closing question?

[03:27:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay. Okay, how many people would like to give the applicants an opportunity for a closing statement? Okay. So now we have six questions plus a closing statement. So, the question, which equals seven. So the question is, how many minutes per question? Suggestions? Oh, council member committee.

[03:28:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: No, no worries. I know it's hard to look at so many different things. So I just had a question for my colleagues before we move on to the time limit, which is with the augmentation of question five, I think that for me, it takes a little bit away from the majority of what council does, which is land use, and I do want to understand the applicant's thoughts about the balance of the different things that mountain view is facing. And so some of the other questions, you know, the priority is the livability, the quality of life. are important, but I do feel, and all of us have served on EPC that I do want, or sorry. Well, you're a city planner, sorry, in my mind. All of us have. Um, um, I just want a land type of use questionnaire or something where we can get an understanding of the thought process or I don't know. But perhaps that's moot, given the applications, people feel like that's been adequately answered.

[03:29:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez?

[03:29:23] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So I'm inclined to agree with council member Kameh. I think that the question that's proposed, I think, is at least similar to a question that we ask of our EPC applicants, and I think there's merit in something along those lines. There are land use related questions in the application, but it is so important to the work that we do. I feel that there's value in continuing to press on that. I would be willing to, I didn't vote for it, but a majority did. I would be willing to eliminate the question about how would you come up to speed, because we have four former council members who, presumably, know their stuff, and an applicant who comes to basically every council meeting. So, I mean, unless there's value to having that question that I haven't thought about. That's the question I'd be willing to replace with a land use question.

[03:30:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: And do you have a proposed land use question?

[03:30:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: The one as it was before, or? I wouldn't do that? But I wanted to bring forward the idea. You know, we've been looking at so many different master plans. We are asking for community development, open space. So I think there's a lot of different directions we can go, obviously our sustainability goals as well. So I don't have one floating, but I know that others on our council can have strong opinions on, you know, how we might tackle a question like that, so I want to make sure that. One, if there was some sort of support for going in that direction of asking that, asking it. And then, um, I don't know, mayor, do you have,

[03:30:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: I was going to take the comment from the vice mayor 1st and if I assume it's on this question.

[03:31:08] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I was just going to ask something fairly straightforward, like, how do you evaluate land juice considerations, or how do you evaluate land juice topics, or something, you know, very simple like that?

[03:31:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: So what I'm hearing is, eliminate, how would you quickly come up to speed, and add in how do you consider land use topics? Do you want to refine that word again? Or maybe how do you to consider land use decisions? How do you make land use decisions? Or what criteria do you use for land use decisions?

[03:31:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Maybe that's better. What criteria do you use for land use decisions?

[03:31:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so, let's see a show of hands for eliminating, how do you quickly come up to speed, and, um, also, we're eliminating, how would you consider public comments from residents, or leaving that one in? Okay. And replacing, how do you quickly come up to speed with how do you consider land? What criteria do you use to consider land use decisions? All those in favor? Okay, we've got that. Okay. So we have our questions, and now the question is how many minutes for each question? do we have

[03:32:43] Unknown Speaker: I was just gonna say 3 given that. That's what we give, you know, a member of the public, so I, having listened to many people as we all have. I've actually come to appreciate the ability of folks who can be succinct in even one minute. So I don't really think we need to give 5 minutes or, you know, much more than 3 minutes. I think 3 minutes is actually quite sufficient.

[03:33:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. So I've heard 3 minutes for each question. Are there any other comments on that? Okay, all those in favor? Oh, there is a complication.

[03:33:24] Unknown Speaker: Let's just do the simple math. We're thinking 30, you know, 30 minutes, and we have seven questions, right? Well, that is... Yeah, so 4 minutes, 4 4.5, 4 and a quarter minutes. So 4 minutes or 3 minutes, 3.5 minutes. Or just let it float. Basically, say we have a 30 minute interview, and if they don't answer all the questions, that's... If, you know, they want to end earlier, that's fine. I'm just saying maximum would be 30 minutes.

[03:33:59] Unknown Speaker: I was thinking there might be some clarifying questions, so let's keep a little bit of cushion.

[03:34:04] Unknown Speaker: Well, 3 gives us that. Okay.

[03:34:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: So what I'm hearing now is 30 minutes per applicant, they can take as long as they want for each question, but they should finish all the questions, and we may have, so they should paste themselves, and we may have follow-up questions.

[03:34:24] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and maybe we should give them a, we should announce, you know, you're 15 minutes into it. And we're only done, like, two questions. We should sort of keep track a little bit. But I think that would work.

[03:34:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: And city manager?

[03:34:39] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. So, I would suggest that what you could do is just give the general guidelines at the beginning, and everyone's gonna know, there's a 30 minute interview time per applicant, which is generally around three to four minutes per question, but you also have to time their opening and closing. Some people will talk longer on their closing perhaps. Some people might be shorter. So you could just give those general guidelines. Now, oftentimes in interviews, you do give folks a warning, let's say they're only on question two, and they're 20 minutes in. I think it's perfectly fine to say, you know, we've only gotten through two questions. There's still, you know, five questions remaining, and you only have 10 minutes. So, I think you can gauge it, and we can kind of keep track of that as well. But if you give people that general guideline from the beginning, then I would expect that they would try to adhere to that 3 minutes per question, plus their closing.

[03:35:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so what I'm hearing is it's an estimate of roughly 3 minutes per question, that we're giving each applicant 30 minutes, that we're giving them the questions written ahead of time, and that we give them a benchmark when they're, I'd say, halfway through, and then maybe when they only have 3 minutes left to close. Does that sound good? Any additional comments? All those in favor? Okay. Okay, so we have our process, the, do we need to refine? Are there any comments on refining more the, what we have here? was for the 30th. Um, the process after listening to the uh, answers to the interview question. We would each list 2 people. Does that sound? Does that sound right to everyone?

[03:36:36] Unknown Speaker: For round one, yeah.

[03:36:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: And then for additional rounds.

[03:36:52] Unknown Speaker: I think we were talking about just whoever gets the most votes. In the 1st round.

[03:36:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Uh, city manager?

[03:37:02] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yeah, if, well, thank you, mayor. If you all vote for two people, there's gonna be someone that will likely come out on top. If there's a tie, you're gonna have to vote until you break that tie. But I think it's whoever comes out on top of that two person vote.

[03:37:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. And if there's a tie, then we end up voting on the two people who were tied, just to be clear.

[03:37:25] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct. Yes.

[03:37:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay. Everyone. Comes a number, Ramirez?

[03:37:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I'm sorry, just to clarify, I had imagined sort of an iterative process. So two votes, as Council member Matachek had identified earlier, not cumulative voting, right? We would vote for two people. Separate people. Two separate people, and they would advance to a 2nd round. And then so what was the some number advanced to round 2 and we would have a 2nd vote, right? And whoever gets the most votes wins, unless those who get the most votes are tied, and then we have to vote again. So just for whatever it's worth. I'm a little bit more comfortable with an iterative process, but I'd have to think about how that would work in practice. I was, for whatever it's worth, we did approve a process on January 5th, and it's okay if we deviate from that, but that was sort of the process I was, you know, assuming that we would go into January 30th with.

[03:38:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. City manager, are you still in the queue?

[03:38:53] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Apologies, no.

[03:38:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. And council member command.

[03:39:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Um, I, uh, I share Council member Ramirez's perspective. I too thought it might be iterative, so my comfort level would be we interview the five, and then we each write three names, and then I'd love to hear, too, like, the perspective of my colleagues, I think this is, you know, something that's important. And then we would have the final. But if people only want to vote for two, and then that person is it. But I like the idea of kind of further narrowing it to 3 and then being able to narrow it down to the finalist. I think my comfort level comes from having done so many, uh, counselor appointments that we tend to, um, you know, have a, have a process where we, we could narrow, narrow, narrow, and I, and I, I do think that we, um, are thinking about, who vacated the seat, how the answers came, um, and who's who's best to fill the role. So, that would be my preference.

[03:40:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abbe Koga?

[03:40:20] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So I guess my recollection from the 5th was that we were going to decide today on the questions in the process, so I didn't think that what was what was proposed was the final process. Um, and then, um, I like the 2 because, um, you know, what I'm looking for is someone that hopefully we can all work with. And so my sense is if we all have a choice of two, there will be someone who can rise to the top by, you know, it might not be our 1st choice, could be our 2nd choice. That's how elections are run, right? You don't have to be everybody's 1st choice. If there's 3 seats or 4 seats, and that's how I'm looking at this as well, is that, um, we, you know, hopefully there'll be someone who we, most of us, if not all of us, can, you know, say we're comfortable working with. So that's why I think this process would get to that. get a consensus per candidate and would get to it maybe even put more quickly rather than continuing to do mountains. It may eliminate the Thai issue.

[03:41:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Mattachek.

[03:41:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Yeah, I also didn't think we settled on the process for the 30th, and that we were gonna talk about the questions in the process tonight for the 30th. Um, and, um, I agree with what, um, council member Abaykobi just said. You know, I feel like by, uh, after reading all of the applications and interviewing the folks, I think we should have a pretty good idea of, you know, who we could work with. And I'm looking at this, thinking, you know, I'd list two people that I would be happy if either one were appointed, that I could work with either one of them. I'm thrilled at the number of applicants we got, but, and the quality of them. And so I think by that point, I'd feel comfortable just going right to two, you know, two people where I'd be happy if either one of them were appointed. Thanks.

[03:42:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[03:42:34] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I am a little happier with the three idea. This is a very important decision, and I think going through another round is just fine. So I'm a little happier with the three. And the criteria, could we all work with? I mean, I voted... Yeah, I think that people were interviewing. I mean, I have knowledge of all of them. I'm quite positive, quite sure that I can work with all of these people. So that's not a criteria that, you know, that sorts anybody out, for me, and, uh, but I like the idea of three. I think that's nice. nicer.

[03:43:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Well, I liked the idea of two, so now we're split again. I'm trying. Does anybody have any comments on how to work through this, this log jam? Council member Ramirez.

[03:43:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, I... Two or three in the 1st round, I'm not as wedded too, so much as having an opportunity to have a subsequent round of voting, right? So if we pick to, and somebody gets all six, I think it's very clear that that person is probably our winner. I'm not anticipating that. I'm anticipating some messiness in the outcome. And I'm thinking, even with two, a subsequent round, would be helpful and identifying who the consensus pick is likely to be, right? Having one vote in the first round risks eliminating the consensus person. So 2 votes, I think, is an elegant solution to making sure that a consensus candidate remains a viable contender. But I wouldn't be comfortable with, you know, just having that one round and then whoever's at the top is necessarily the person that we would agree to.

[03:44:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member after Koga.

[03:44:38] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So I guess I see it as the consensus candidate could come out of that vote for two. So again, it's like we all, you know, we'll have our 1st and probably a 2nd and my expectation is, right? Those are the 2 folks that we feel most comfortable working with. Um, and someone could very well come out with at least a majority. in just that one vote for 2 folks. So it might not be your top choice that gets in, but, you know, if it's one of the top two. I think, I mean, I would feel very comfortable with that person.

[03:45:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Any more comments? Take more votes, but I have a feeling that we're we're 3 to 3 again. How about a compromise, which is the 1st vote is three, and the 2nd vote is two. Does that work? Okay, all those in favor? Okay, we have it. Uh, city manager, do you have a comment?

[03:46:05] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor. The mayor and I were just talking, or the city attorney and I were just talking about the math for voting for three. You could get to a majority candidate by voting for 3 folks. So just wanted to clarify that. And that if you did, you couldn't go to a 2nd round. There would be no 2nd round. If in the 1st round, you put your top 3 and somebody gets a majority, you're done. Like you can't, because you would have a majority vote for one person. And so you can't move to a 2nd round to eliminate that person, they've gotten majority of the council to appoint them. So I just wanted you to keep that in mind that, like, you can't you can't force a 2nd round if there's a top contender in the 1st round, even if you put your top three. You might all, you know, Forb, you might agree. If you list your top 3 and 4 of you, and your top 3 is one person, They they move, they get appointed. That's majority vote. Even if we've decided on a different process ahead of time, that there's going to be a 2nd vote. Yeah, you can't, we can't. We can't get someone majority and then put them back in the pot again. They've gotten majority. So I just wanted to make sure that you knew that.

[03:47:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Epicoca.

[03:47:41] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So in light of that, I think just to narrow it down more, we should just do two. And we'll just, you know, hopefully we may end up with someone after that. So I hear starting with 2 because otherwise we may get someone without while we have a wider process and we're not expecting it. And then after two, if there's tie, we vote again.

[03:48:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez.

[03:48:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: At the risk of belaboring the discussion, I guess with three, there's a higher probability that we'll have multiple candidates getting majority support, and I would force the discussion with two. I mean, I don't know. I hadn't thought this was really an option because I had presumed we had selected a voting process. So I guess my discomfort is not having really had an opportunity to think about how this plays out, where I had sort of the assurance of a process that staff had determined earlier, that we did vote on, and we do have the discretion to change it. I'll fully acknowledge that, but I don't like just sort of creating the process on the fly. You know what I mean? If a majority supports whichever, you know, that's okay, but I'm more comfortable with 3 than I am with two. Just because it seems to be more likely that it'll force a 2nd round of voting.

[03:49:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: So what I'm hearing is that you would be open to three. And if somebody does come out on top, that would be the end of it. It could happen. Okay, is that what people No, we have more comments, okay? Council member, Epicog, I, you're not in the queue anymore. Council member Matachek.

[03:49:50] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I don't feel comfortable with that. I feel like I would prefer to be more intentional about who we select. I kind of feel like that might result in, um, maybe not, um, a good choice from all of our perspectives. I would like to go back to the original proposal, which was to vote for two, and whichever applicant gets the most votes is appointed. And if there's a tie, then we take another vote.

[03:50:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Kameh.

[03:50:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thanks. So, um, thank you for navigating this discussion, Mayor, I, I find that it would be of use to me for the council to be able to discuss the applicants, um, and we've done that before, for example, we just went through EPC interviews where people were able to talk about the applicants and what they were looking for. Um, I would like to hear the perspectives of my colleagues. Um, that's just of importance to me because that also, if that is maybe prior to the vote for two, then that's fine. I just want the opportunity for us to be able to dialogue as a council, for me to hear your perspectives after we've had the interviews. Because it sounds like the clarify, the questions we're allowed to ask are clarifications only, we're not, it sounds like, at liberty to ask follow-up questions per what the city attorney has told us. So I'm looking for an entryway point for us to have a discussion. So that is of most importance to me. And I thought with the 3 that might give us the iterative process to do that. Given what the city manager said, that might not be possible. So, I am open to suggestions on how to bring that about. Because for me, your perspective is helpful in terms of informing... your perspective. Because I don't think that it might just be consensus. So, thanks.

[03:52:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, council member, show Walter?

[03:52:12] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I just would have to disagree with the city attorney. We can set the process to do this, and we can say, we want to have at least three rounds, and the first round people are going to vote for three. The second round, the, you know, the top, three contenders are going to be voted on, and you'll get to vote for two, and then we'll have a final one. We can set that there'll be that number of rounds. if we want. We can say that's the criteria, is the rounds. And that would give us an opportunity to, um, have the discussion that council member Kameh, um, has suggested. I think what's more likely to happen is that we will have servable people who get six. And then, you know, we'll have to go through the tie. But I, um, just doing the math quickly in my head with this. I don't think we really need to worry too much about this. Let's just say there's gonna be three rounds. And make that the process.

[03:53:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Abicoga.

[03:53:26] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, I actually agree with the city attorney. I don't see the point of continuing on if we have a majority. If we have four, at least 4 people naming one person, then to me, that person is the majority candidate. So I don't know why we would do another round. Well, it's just that it would be a really fast round. You know, it would be a really fast round. What's the point of it? If it's the outcome is gonna, you know, most likely be the same. So if we're going from 5 and, you know, my sense is it won't be in one round, but frankly, I want to get to that consensus more quickly than, you know, more as quickly as we can. And that's why I'm saying let's limit it to two. And the dialogue happens after we do the interviews. We can all talk about, you know, who our preferences are and why and whatnot. And then we just pick 2 and then whoever comes out, if someone comes out with the majority, then great. If not, then we can go for another round. But if we do 3 and there's 4 for someone who gets 4 votes. I just don't see the necessity of voting again because we have someone who has the majority support of the council. And that's what I'm trying to say is like, at least with a, you know, 2 choices, your 1st choice might not get it, but maybe your 2nd choice will, and we can get to that consensus candidate. I think more quickly. And, um, I actually think that we could end up with someone that has even a super majority. of support.

[03:55:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, manager.

[03:55:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thanks.

[03:55:05] Unknown Speaker: I guess I had assumed we would have a discussion about the candidates. Not that as soon as we finished the interviews, we would vote. I think one of the things I appreciate is, no matter what the topic is, when we actually have a discussion about it, as opposed to just quickly jumping to a vote. So, I absolutely would support. I just kind of assumed we would have a discussion about the candidates, and then do the vote. Because it is helpful to hear what others have to say.

[03:55:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thanks. So I'm hearing that we will do the interviews, the suggestion being, we will do the interviews, then we will discuss the interviews, and then we will vote for two people, and then if those two people, if it ends up tied, will take a second vote for two people again, is what I'm hearing. All those in favor? Okay. So modifications to that process? Council member commit.

[03:56:21] Unknown Speaker: Sure. I'll ask a question to our city attorney. So per what council member show Walter mentioned, can we say there'll be one round and then a 2nd round?

[03:56:35] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Um, I think that if you want to set the process, and for instance, you want to make a requirement that the person who gets appointed gets all 6 of you, and so you're gonna go over and over and over again until you get all 6 on one person, I think you can do that. But I just think it should be clear that majority isn't going to be enough because I think all most action by this body is taken by a majority vote. So when you have a majority, Um, you know, I think the expectation is that that is the winning person. So if that's not going to be it, I think you should be very, very clear what it's going to take to move forward because it would be weird to go through the process and then get to the end and the person that actually gets appointed only has 3 in the end or something because of the way it played out. You forced multiple rounds. So that's the concern that I have. I don't know mathematically if it could work out that way, but it's weird to have someone get majority and then the winning person kind of not be there. So I would just be crystal clear on what it's going to take to be appointed. if it's, you know, if it's all 6 of you coming to a consensus eventually. Okay?

[03:57:52] Unknown Speaker: Okay, so could it be as a follow-up then as an attempt to kind of merge the different ideas going on? Could we say, we have the interviews in the discussion process, council members can bring up their top three. Then we could vote for two. So at least we get a sense of the 3 who rise to the top. And then, because I, and then, because it sounds like the round situation brings up a multitude of issues. So perhaps, you know, more of like a verbal narrowing, which is, these are the top three I'm interested in, given the five we just interviewed, discussion of counsel, sharing of perspectives, and then we vote for two. Is that a compromise that colleagues might be interested in? I think it gets at the heart of all our concerns.

[03:58:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so if there are no more comments on that. I will take a vote on that. This is that we We do the interviews, we discuss the interviews. Our discussion, topic, includes picking our top three in the discussion, and then we vote for two. All those in favor?

[03:59:12] Unknown Speaker: Oh, clarifically. clarification. So would the voting process look like what we just did here?

[03:59:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: We'd write them down. We pass them to the city clerk, and then she would read off the votes.

[03:59:23] Unknown Speaker: That's what I thought.

[03:59:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, would you like to add that?

[03:59:27] Unknown Speaker: I would be comfortable with that?

[03:59:28] Unknown Speaker: Yes, we can do it.

[03:59:29] Unknown Speaker: I'd be happy with that.

[03:59:31] Unknown Speaker: I would add that. The process would include the same kind of form and process that we use tonight.

[03:59:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you.

[03:59:37] Unknown Speaker: And then I think I know the answer to this, but just to be very clear, a formal motion is still necessary, right? So the conclusion of the voting process isn't an appointment. There would have to be a motion a second. We'd have to say, you know, somebody moves to a point whomever gets, whatever the majority looks like.

[03:59:57] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yeah, because I think we're gonna actually have a resolution prepared for you, where you would move the resolution, and we would write in the name of the person that gets the vote. So we will have a resolution prepared with a blank spot.

[04:00:10] Unknown Speaker: On the 30th?

[04:00:11] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes.

[04:00:11] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Thank you.

[04:00:12] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes. That's part of what the council has to do in that 30 days.

[04:00:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so, we will vote on, I think it was council member commit's recommended process, which is that we, we interview. We discuss the interview, and one of the points of discussion of the interview is our top three candidates. Then we vote for our top two with the process that we use tonight. And then we may have to do that more than one time, but the winner of that process, we will have a resolution and have somebody appointed that night. All those in favor. Okay. Okay, we now have. I think we have... We have the list of people going on to the... I think we've answered all of staff's questions. Staff is nodding, yes. So, um, we will now go to item number seven on our agenda, which is public hearings. 7.1 is, uh, the topic general plan, zoning, and precise plan amendments related to the housing element update. Senior planner, Ellen Yao, will present the item. And there will be a number of individuals available for questions, including Eric Anderson from Advanced, the advanced planning manager, RT Srivastava, the community development director, and assistant city manager, Jill. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, Jill Fakemani, managing environmental planner, ESA, and participating via Zoom, Sandra Lee, senior assistant city attorney.

[04:02:14] Senior Planner Ellen Yao: Good evening, council members. Thank you, mayor and council members. The item before you tonight. I'll be presenting on the general plan, zoning, and precise plan amendments for the housing element update. Again, my name is Ellen Youse, Project Planner, and I'm joined here tonight with my advanced planning manager. Oops. Eric Anderson and our consultant who is available on Zoom. So tonight, I've listed out to 3 items on the slide here. The council previously reviewed and provided direction on the rezonings that are being proposed for the housing element tonight. At the March 8th study session. The city council supported the sites inventory methodology, which included directing staff to include shopping centers, where the general plan already allows for residential. And at the June 14th study session, the city council supported the rezoning strategy for the Journal Plan Village Centers to also include the 5767 East Evelyn Avenue and the 1010 Linda Vista Avenue sites, and the El Camino Real Village Center sites. And to establish the mixed use centers standard framework to ensure commercial uses would remain on those sites, and it would provide open areas. So the 3 amendments to address the council direction from those previous study sessions. Number one is to prepare zoning amendments to the R4, zoning district for 100% affordable housing developments, and the site-specific rezonings for the housing sites at 57, 67 East Evelyn and the 110 Tarabella Avenue site. The 2nd item is to prepare the El Camino Real precise Plan amendments to eliminate the tier 2 overlay zoning requirements for residential projects with FAR that's greater than one. 85. And then lastly, to prepare zoning and precise plan amendments at the shopping centers that are identified in the general plan as village centers. This is to allow residential uses, require neighborhood commercial uses and include other standards for development. I want to highlight specifically the last 2 items are to address state law requirements to bring the zoning ordinance in alignment with what is allowed in the existing general plan. So the 1st item, at the June study session, council directed staff to prepare the rezonings for these 2 pending affordable housing development projects shown on the screen. This will streamline the approval process, which will allow them to utilize the SB 35 approval process and will benefit from having the rezoning environmental review as part of the housing element EIR. During this analysis, one of the lots, 1110 Terabella, did not meet the requirements for rezoning to R4. So as you can see on the slide here, the changes include amending the zoning code to eliminate lot area and lot with minimums for 100% affordable housing developments that receive funding through the city's notice of funding availability, know for process. This will allow for more flexibility for 100% affordable housing development at higher densities on these smaller sites. The 2nd change will be to the general planned land use designations for the sites. It'll be changed to the high density residential designation. And then the last change is to the zoning. Each of these sites will change from industrial to high density residential. So the EPC also recommended the staff recommendation. The 2nd item is related to the El Camino Real precise plan. So on the screen, you can see that the price size plan has specific subareas called village centers. These areas allow for additional density with a combination of required ground floor commercial. And these areas are near a specific BTA 522 stops and other major intersections. This includes the intersections of San Antonio Road, Showers Drive, Escuela Avenue, El Monte Avenue, Castro Street, and Grant Road. So this just shows the specific locations. On the next slide, I'll show the changes to the El Camino Real price precise plan. So right now, the village centers, They require, specifically, these are El Camino village centers. They require an overlay rezoning process to reach the highest FAR or tier 2 in the precise plan. However, the current general plan already allows the higher FAR. And so the proposed amendments will remove the tier 2 overlay rezoning requirement for residential development and allow for that higher FAR within the tier one approval process. The tier one process would continue to require council review and the provision of community benefits. So on the screen, you can see the change. This change does not alter the development standard for village centers, but it simply modifies the approval process to allow for residential to be built to the density allowed in the general plan without the rezoning process that's required in tier two. So this is in compliance with the Housing Accountability Act, which clarifies that if zoning standards and criteria are inconsistent with applicable objective general plan standards for the site. The housing development cannot be found inconsistent with the standards and criteria of the zoning. Further, if such an inconsensity does exist, the local agency may not require rezoning prior to the housing development approval. So again, this is shifting allowed residential in the general plan into the tier one, so it does not require the rezoning process that's currently identified in the El Camino real precise plan. So the tier 2 rezoning overlay requirements will still continue to apply, but for non-residential uses. And then the 3rd item is the General Plan Village Centers. So council 1st directed staff to integrate the General Plan Village centers into the site's inventory. And then they ask to propose zoning amendments that would address that general plan policy direction, and to specifically ensure that the residential development on those sites would provide for neighborhood commercial uses, publicly accessible open spaces, and also consider transitions to the surrounding residential areas, if there are adjacent residential zones to those sites. Again, residential development is allowed on these sites under the journal plan. However, the zoning does not allow for residential. So the changes to the zoning ordinance will allow for residential on these sites, and will ensure that the development standards would not constrain residential development allowed under the general plan per state law under SB 330. And I'll go over some of that in the next couple slides. So you can see here these changes that we're talking about to the General Plan Village centers, they are located throughout the city. They're shown on the map and in this table. The General Plan Village Center sites have one of 3 general plan land use designations, and you can see in the table here, they are the neighborhood mixed use, general mixed use, or mixed use corridor. This sets the maximum density allowed. And then in the last column, you know, each of these sites are shown with 3 zoning designations, CN for neighborhood commercial, CS for commercial services, or P27, which is within the Grant Phyllis precise plan. So each of the general plan, land use designations in this chart, allow for residential, but none of the zoning designations do. So the proposed amendments are to make sure that the zoning is in alignment with what is allowed in the general plan currently. So to avoid changes to the existing districts that could affect existing conforming uses, the sites are not actually being rezoned. Instead, a new general plan mixed-use village center development land use is adjusted into the zoning ordinance. And so if you look at the attachments, you'll see that the specific changes are to the zoning ordinance and the Grant Phyllis precise plan to allow for mixed-use village centers in these sites. So zoning will still remain as commercial. This would only allow the land use, it would permit residential, specifically only on these commercial districts, for these village centers identified in the general plan. So these sites will maintain their commercial zoning and development following the commercial, um, development of commercial uses would still follow the commercial development standards of that zone. The changes that we are making specifically to residential being added to these commercial sites. So as stated earlier, SB 330 prohibits development standards that reduces residential density. Therefore, the standards that have been developed with that in mind, considers the goals of maintaining neighborhood commercial and providing publicly accessible open spaces. So on this chart here, shown on the slide, we use the El Camino Real precise plan, highlighted in green as the basis for development. We have many recent examples of four story, one. 185 FAR development on a range of different parcel size within the El Camino real precise plan. And so these examples point to a set of development standards, including open area and setbacks that can accommodate the floor area allowed in the general plan. So since the El Camino Real precise plan right now doesn't require commercial, the changes that we're listing out here for the FAR and high standards, the heights will be increased by an additional story to accommodate for the commercial that council directed staff to have in these general planned village centers. And this will, by accommodating for that additional story, This wouldn't reduce the residential density allowed in the general plan. And then on this slide, we highlight the other standards aside from FAR and height. It highlights the major development standards that are related to the mixed-use Village Center developments, and they are more specific than compared to the El Camino Real precise plan because of the specific goals of the general plan Village Center developments. The approval process for these projects are consistent with the underlining zoning districts or the precise plan, depending on which site we're looking at. And to highlight this, the EPC also recommended staff recommendation, but they did specify allowing for exceptions to ensure with compliance with SB 330, which I'll go over on the next slide. So at their December 7th meeting, the EPC recommended allowing exceptions to certain standards if they physically constrain the residential floor area allowed in the general plan. So based on the EPC recommendation and the public comments that we've received, staff revised the amendments to the zoning ordinance and the Grant Phyllis precise plan to allow for such exceptions. But the exceptions are limited to the standards that are shown on the slide. These changes are reflected in the amendments that are presented to council tonight and attach to the staff report. And I'll briefly go over the environmental review. The ER prepared, um, analyzed potential physical environmental impacts. This EIR is a program EIR and does not provide the detailed analysis that you would typically see on a project level EIR. Instead, this EIR discloses potential environmental impacts that could be reasonably anticipated if the maximum scenario of the housing elements built out at a broad scale. When each project comes in for review, they will be assessed to determine their consistency with this EIR, they will be subject to the mitigation measures identified and will be required to conduct project specific environmental analyses as necessary. This EIR studied both the draft housing element update, and then these specific rezonings that you are considering tonight. The housing element is anticipated at about 18,000 units between 2021 and 2031. These rezonings that is brought to here tonight does include some of the back pockets that are identified in the housing element, and all of this is considered in the environmental impact report. There were several impacts that were identified, but they were determined that mitigation measures would reduce the impact to less than significant. I want to highlight that, there was one significant and unavoidable impact related to air quality for larger development projects. But again, this captures the potential for a variety of projects that could come in through the housing element in the next 8 years. It will depend on the size of the project, the length of construction time. And because this is a program EIR, It kind of captures all potentiality. So it is likely that most projects would not exceed any of these significant thresholds, and that the identified mitigated mitigation measures will reduce the number of cases and the severity of impacts of air pollutants. As you can see on the slide, I also highlight the short schedule that we went through public review, we held an EPC public meeting, and the final EIR was published November 4th. So since the publication of the ER, there have been some changes to the housing element, we've had a couple of study sessions in between as well. But these are mainly program details, some background analysis, and site inventory changes that don't materially affect the analysis and the final conclusion that is reflected in the EIR. So the EEPC at their December 7th meeting was able to recommend certification of the EAR. I'm going to wrap up my presentation with next steps. The rezonings presented to you tonight. They are required to be approved prior to the start of the 6 cycle planning period, which begins January 31st of this year. This is to ensure there is adequate existing sites within the necessary residential zoning to accommodate for the arena, and that the additional residential capacity is captured in the site's inventory. I'm a little bit of schedule information. HCD provided comments on our latest draft, our 2nd draft on January 17th. A brief overview. Their comments do relate to 3 major 3 key issues. One is to address the potential displacement of safe parking residents when the site at 87 East Evelyn is developed with affordable housing, because we did identify that as a housing element site. We were also tasked to recategorize certain sites from the pipeline project lists and move them into the site's inventory list, and then to provide additional analysis on how those non-vacant sites can be dealt can be developed within the Arena cycle. And then lastly, we are continuing our outreach to our community, especially non-English speakers, so that they have the availability to provide additional feedback on our draft housing element. So staff is working on these revisions to the housing element, but I want to clarify that tonight we are focusing on the rezonings and the precise plan and general plan amendments. We do have a meeting scheduled with HCD tomorrow, and so we will continue working on those comments with their staff. And after reviewing with HCD and looking at any public comments that we will be receiving, staff will assess the level of changes and we will update the council on future next steps in adoption hearings. So here are the recommendations for tonight. There are total of six. And that concludes my presentation. So I'll be staff is available for questions as well as our consultant who is available via Zoom.

[04:19:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you, Miz, yeah. So now is, uh, I'm going to ask whether any members of council have questions, um, we did receive a lot of, for the benefit of members of the public. Council did ask a lot of questions in written form, so I don't know whether we're going to get questions now, but do any members of council have questions? Council member Ramirez.

[04:19:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I have mostly clarifying questions based on the staff responses. So first, thank you. There were a lot of questions as the mayor alluded to, and the responses were helpful. But I don't think I understand the response to question 8 about the impact of the need for 2nd readings, for some of the ordinances, and then how that ties into, or addressing a shortfall, the buffer issue. I've read through it a couple of times and I don't think it's quite sinking in. So if you could sort of walk me through what exactly that response means.

[04:20:20] Unknown Speaker: I'd be happy to, um, and, you know, I wish the legislation was simpler, I'll just say, uh, but there are a lot of if thens in the in the state law, and you have to kind of keep your finger on a lot of them at the same time. So the issue at hand here is really about the lower income units in your sites inventory. And if you do not have, as of January 31st, 2023, your rena's supply of lower income units in your site's inventory, then you have a shortfall. And if you have a shortfall, then the sites that you identify for that shortfall need to have several characteristics. The most kind of relevant to this discussion is that you can't require commercial. on those sites. Now, in several of the areas that the council's focused on tonight, including the El Camino Real Village Center, the General Plan Village Centers in Grand Plaza, the general plan as well as council have expressed interest in requiring commercial on these sites. So that means that we need to be very careful with either adopting them before January 31st, if we do that, then we're in the clear, it's not a shortfall, or if we don't adopt them before January 31st, then we have to ensure that our buffer is in lower income sites, is larger than the number of units that we've identified. through these rezonings, right? So, in the response, I talk about the 82 units that are being rezoned through or that are on sites, in the inventory that are being rezoned through zoning ordinance actions, which are subject to 2nd reading. And so even if conservatively we say they were not approved or in place, that zoning wasn't in place before January 31st, which you could say conservatively. That's only 82 units that we would need to exceed in our buffer. And it's certainly staff's intention. I know it's council's intention to adopt a housing element that has a resilient buffer to no net loss. And 82 units at less than 2% of the lower income sites inventory would be much less than our intended buffer in the housing element. Even if we need to, upon further review, identify more, you know, there's a shortfall and we need to identify additional sites for rezoning. We're going to identify more than 82 units worth of sites, just because it's so trivially small in the overall inventory. However, the El Camino Real Precise Plan and the Grand Park Plaza Village Center contribute over 600 units, that's a much more substantial number to be concerned about in terms of meeting that buffer. Certainly, it's our goal to have more than a, I think it was a 14%, yeah, 14% buffer. But just in case we don't. Adopting those today will ensure that we can still require commercial on those sites even if we don't meet that buffer. Does that help?

[04:24:15] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes, yeah, thank you. That, um, I think I have a better understanding of the, the timing and then the explanation about the relevance to the buffer was, was, I think I understand that a little bit better now. The chart is helpful to a point. you know, comply with shortfall requirements. I don't think I fully grasp grasp, but I think I do now. And then really the only 2 that have any time urgency are the El Camino real precise plan in the Grand Park Plaza Village Center. And because those don't require a 2nd reading, were okay there. We can require commercial.

[04:24:59] Unknown Speaker: Yes, that's correct.

[04:25:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. God, I think I understand that now. I wanted to better understand the response to question 9 as well. The general plan alludes to height guidelines, not standards, and I wanted to better understand whether a guideline in the general plan is the same thing as a standard.

[04:25:24] Unknown Speaker: The way the guidelines are structured or the way the term guideline is structured in the general plan is that you would need to identify some kind of, um, policy, standard or public benefit in order to exceed it. That's the language in the general plan. So without that, we would apply, you know, without the an adopted standard or public benefit, we would apply the height limit in the general plan. Okay, so it is, it's an objective standard. And for that reason, SB 330 consistency would not allow somebody to exceed the guideline in the general plan, even though the zoning, which doesn't allow residential has no hype maximum. in that one case. In that one case, the zoning which applies to commercial uses, yes, has no height maximum. in the, um, There hasn't been a lot of case, you know, cases of trying to, um, kind of figure this out and what what actually the, you know, what developers would actually have the rights to. But in this case, our analysis in the staff report and the outcome that we have in the standards is to show that the standard itself wouldn't even constrain the density that's allowed in the general plan. So from that perspective, uh, we're confident that it's consistent with SP 30, even if it is taking a zoning district that when applied to solely commercial uses doesn't have a height standard, uh, we're applying a height standard specifically to the residential use. that would be allowed consistent with the general plan.

[04:27:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. I think I understand that too. There's a lot of complexity here. This is not trivial material. And then for the Moffatt Boulevard area, the general plan allows a much higher FAR than what the zoning prescribes. And I'm curious to understand, what does that mean if there's a development proposal in that area? Do the standards in the CRA zoning apply?

[04:28:25] Unknown Speaker: Uh, they would apply to the extent that a developer can show that they are, um, that they are constrained by that standard. So it's that particular case is a little funky because the zoning has a dwelling units per acre standard. And so FAR under density bonus law and other state laws, the term density has a kind of privileged status, right? And so, um, the zoning, the dwelling units per acre is the density. And so what we would do is we would what we have done in the in a case on Central Avenue, which actually has this very case. The project was approved on Central Avenue, in CRA, with the mixed-use court or general plan designation. We applied a density equivalent in one.85 FAR from 43 units per acre up to that density equivalent at one. 85 FAR. And then because they were requesting a density bonus, we went through the kind of typical waiver process for what heights they needed in order to accommodate that density and setbacks they needed to accommodate. That's an unusual case. So the density bonus in that case would apply to the general plan FAR. right? And not to the density in the zoning development standards.

[04:30:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's right. Yeah. Okay. And then, sorry, I have a lot of questions. The I appreciate the language that allows for waivers in the event that the standards physically preclude the construction of the residential floor area ratio and the general plan. But I'm not sure I fully understand exactly how that would be applied objectively, right? So what I know there are some constraints, what the density bonus law, and what we can ask for, right? We can't ask for a pro forma, for instance. I don't know if there's a relevance here to that, but, you know, a developer comes to the city and says, I can't build the project I want because of the restrictive standards, what do they have to prove to you to get waivers and then how do you determine which waivers are applied? Do they get to pick or does the city get to impose waivers? How do you can you walk us through an instance where that would occur?

[04:31:29] Unknown Speaker: Sure, that's correct. Yeah. I can describe the typical waiver process. And this is a distinction. This, it's not, we don't want to create confusion by calling them waivers because waivers are specifically about density bonus. So we do call them exceptions. Because the exceptions are encoded in the zoning ordinance, we would expect that a developer would be able to choose those exceptions. That would happen ideally with some consultation with staff early on. Usually we get a lot of great conversations, great options early on, and the project outcome, you know, is has positive benefits for both the developer and the city and being contextually appropriate. So I want to make sure that that's clear. Um, the, uh, what would the, the typical waiver process is that an applicant simply shows the, um, that the requested waiver has a relationship or a nexus to the physical size of the building, um, and that the amount of, um, of reduction in that standard is proportional or related to the actual amount of additional density that they want. So that's a very quantitative process. In this case, it could take a similar approach. But what would likely happen is they would have a plan set, and they would show us, this area, we're requesting an exception for, and it's a certain amount of floor area that we can't accommodate elsewhere on the site. It's an amount of floor area that were allowed under the general plan.

[04:33:32] Unknown Speaker: And that kind of rationale and amount of floor area would be, um, you know, would be evaluated for its relationship to the physical, you know, the physical envelope of the building. In reality, what's probably going to happen is that these will be density bonus projects. I mean, that's probably what's going to happen. Our BMR requirements are such that most projects coming in will probably be density bonus projects. And so they would be subject to waivers as well. And under that scenario, they get additional leeway in order to identify development standards that could be reduced.

[04:34:22] Unknown Speaker: Okay. That's complicated too, but I think I understand that. And the last question I have is about the R4 standards. Um, I think what I'm struggling with is, you know, a one acre minimum is arbitrary and it's not totally obvious to me. Why the standards would be difficult to comply with a different acreage.

[04:34:50] Unknown Speaker: I think part of the value in eliminating the minimum is that We don't have R4 throughout the city, right? In order for there to be additional R4 zoning districts, the council would have to affirmatively allow a rezoning, they have to go through the gatekeeper process, essentially. And it allows for the application of a zoning district that has utility and that it's defined. We don't have to do like a P district or something and go through a lot of work and creating entirely new development standards.

[04:35:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: You know, why, why, why do you pick one acre as the minimum size, what would be wrong with half an acre or eliminate eliminating the acreage entirely, and then sharing with the council when we get a gatekeeper proposal, this isn't appropriate, because the, there are, you know, so many variances require or whatever, right? It would be an extreme deviation from the zoning district to the point that we couldn't even recommend processing the application. What is the value of the one acre minimum?

[04:35:54] Unknown Speaker: If I may address the council, interestingly, I was the project planner on the R4 zoning when it wanted to place, and we worked with an urban design consultant, and we looked at where it could be applied, and what the minimum acreage would be, what the density was. And at the time, it was actually 60 units to the acres, but it increased to 80. And even 60 would have been hard to accommodate on a one acre site if we had to get to, if they had to meet all of the requirements. And so we did these test fits. And it's very common in zoning districts to do that, because what you don't want to do is frustrate the applicant by implying that a site can accommodate it, and then they go through this whole exercise, and, you know, this general frustration between the applicant staff in the community. So we did actually do a lot of test fits to determine that. In the case of the dopo projects, we know that these are, you know, 100% affordable, there's a lot more leeway, um, and, you know, um, and so it, it, we felt that these were projects where we could give a pass. But regular projects, you know, there'd just be frustration, because they just could meet it, and previous study had shown that they couldn't. But we have examples in, like, East Wisman and North Bay Shore, for instance, where we have well beyond that density on potentially smaller acres, right, or smaller parcels. And in that case, you know, I'm guessing a completely different set of development standards, but higher density projects can be done, and arsenal smaller than one acre.

[04:37:39] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and I think your point is very well made. East Wisbon has a different set of standards, and they probably went through the modeling to determine how those sites could accommodate. In some, I think, the assumption might have been made that there would be some site aggregation. And eSoism does have some rather large sites. So I guess the final question would be, if we wanted to consider a higher density project on a parcel that's smaller than one acre, we'd either have to devise an entirely new zoning district or use a P district.

[04:38:20] Unknown Speaker: Well, let's say council wanted to look at, right now, R4 allows 80 in as to the acre, and, yes, the site minimum is one acre. If council wanted to look at allowing these on half acre sites, for example, we might have to go back and look at densities that are allowed either in North Bay Shore, or in East Wisbon to see, like we're using El Camino real, for example, for our village centers. We go back and look at some prototypes to figure out what would be standards, we want to develop, that could help developments at these densities on smaller sites. So it would need a little more work.

[04:39:03] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you.

[04:39:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Mata.

[04:39:09] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. On the topic of exceptions. I also had a question. Um, I appreciate, though, that the state density bonus law comes into effect a lot of times, I hadn't thought about that. But, um, on page 10 of the presentation, and actually, in the staff report, it says, um, the reduction of the minimum neighborhood commercial floor area, and ground floor building frontage storefront to 50% of required. I think it was attachment three, um, but isn't that up to 50% of required, and not just, you can get, it's 50%. And not maybe 40%, or something lower than 50%, because I think the attachment said up to. Is that correct?

[04:40:03] Unknown Speaker: So the minimum, even with exceptions, is 50%. You could do 60% or 70% of what is required. not or 30% off or 40% off.

[04:40:18] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, you know what? I think I read this differently. I read this to mean the amount of the reduction. This is actually the amount that has to, not the reduction. It's the amount that has is required, so to speak.

[04:40:33] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[04:40:34] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Got it. Okay. So, in, I think, in Attachment 3 is... Does that need to be changed? Because it says up to...

[04:40:46] Unknown Speaker: Well, I guess it doesn't, no, up to 50%.

[04:40:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, got it. Then the other question I have is... Do, you know, sorry to be so, um, particular about this one, but, um, you know, I am on the airport land use commission for Santa Clara County. And while I recused myself from this item, I read the minutes, and the requirement was to do the navigation easement. And in the Q and A, we had the answer was that that would be coming back to council. Do we have, like, a date and some sort of idea of, like, what form will that come to us in?

[04:41:33] Unknown Speaker: We are assembling a list of minor code amendments that we're gonna be bringing forward. I don't know if we have a date. I don't know if it's going to be before summer break or maybe just after, but that's the plan. It'll be this year. And yeah, we have a whole bunch of fun little cleanup items, of which that is one of them. I, to be honest, we haven't put a lot of thought into what form the standard is going to take. We have to dive into that. But we know, and we've had this conversation with the commission on several occasions. We know that it's a requirement. We want to just make get it done on a citywide basis so that we're not getting this, this requirement on a project by project. basis.

[04:42:27] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: But it only has to be done for those projects that are within the airport influence area.

[04:42:33] Unknown Speaker: That's right, right. So it doesn't really apply citywide. very specific to an area.

[04:42:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, the influence area is about half the city.

[04:42:41] Unknown Speaker: The Moffat Field? AIA?

[04:42:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes. Hmm. Maybe, maybe a little over a third. I don't know. maps that I've been looking at. Okay. But it's this year. Okay. Thank you.

[04:43:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, seeing no more questions. Um, so saying no more questions, would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on any item on the consent, not the consent calendar? I don't know how that got into this. Anyway, would any members of the public like to make comments? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city, and we will take the city clerk. We'll take in person speakers first, and we have Kevin Ma.

[04:43:58] Kevin Maugh: Evening, Counsel. My name is Kevin Maugh. and we'll be representing the League of Women voters tonight. We have sent a letter about this topic. We do support the rezonings for the Affordable Housing Projects, as this would make them zoning compliant, and therefore allow SP 35 to be used to reduce everyone's time, money, and uncertainty. We are hiring the R4 amendments. We do agree that the minimum lot area and width requirements seems arbitrary, given, really, in our appendix to our letter, there's not many R4 parcels, and other requirements ready to make market rate development on those parcels, feasible with that, even without the requirement. And to correct the bid on the slides. The rezoning, the lifting of the requirements would only be possible for projects that go through the no foot process and receive funding through it. So for all affordable projects that don't go through no for whatever reason, or was rejected, would not be able to take that advantage. Small correction to a letter, that was correct on the EPC one, is that SB330 prohibits the reducing of overall residential development capacity, which includes density, but includes a bunch of other things, including height, and open space requirements. We are still concerned that there has not been enough analysis to determine whether it follows us B330, but we are encouraged to see a density bonus waiver like requirement. mechanism. We also note that there remains a conditional use permit in the zoning table, as well as the requirement for the Grand Phyllis precise plan that it always goes through council, whereas the other ones go through ZA, and the intention of putting it going through this process is to put them on the side inventory of the housing, which implies that we want them to be loved in 8 years. So we should be reducing constraints in order to make out a deer cap if we want to keep them in the silent tory. Thank you for the consideration.

[04:45:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now we have, say, no more in person speakers. We have, uh, virtual speaker, uh, it's, uh, Samsung identified as Samsung, SMG 781B.

[04:46:16] Albert Lucia: Good evening, uh, council members and uh, members of the public. My name is Albert Lucia with the Northern California Conference Local Union. Local 405. I'm here today to speak on the city housing element, and the need of L.A. with standards implementation. Laborary standards include liberal wages, healthcare benefits, apprenticial programs, and local hire. They pointed to having liberal wages because it helps our working men and women be able to balance wages in a current inflation rate. It has skyrocket in the last two years, to be able to afford rent in a community, and to provide businesses for family. Healthcare is a necessity for occupant means we cannot have our members, or community, sigmatic, not sick, medical attention, because their employee does not provide them, any, they don't provide any healthcare benefits, and instead, they become a burning to our medical system. A pressure program, helper, working class, just gain knowledge, skills and craftsmanship. These apprentices can build projects to the highest degree by implementing skills or how to learn other training centers and at the job sites. It also helped developers ensure the projects are completed on a family manner and app standards. These apprentices are the future builders of America. Local hiring. The local hiring benefits are entire community, not only for tax revenue, but also for money spent by local workers in local shops. by how locally ensures that our citizens have more time to spend time with their families, and having involved in their community, instead of spending time on the road, trying to make ends meet. I would like to ask the community and our electro officials to please adopt these area standards in our new housing element. Thank you.

[04:47:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. We'll now bring the item back for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the ordinances and resolutions attached to the report. So, do we have any, uh, general comments, deliberation and direction? Okay, uh, Council member Ramirez?

[04:48:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'll probably make the motion because I don't know nobody else wants to read. Um, the, uh, extensive, uh, staff recommendations here, but I did want to start... So first, thank you for bringing these amendments to us, especially given the urgency in doing so, right? I think the council has been clear in wanting to preserve commercial uses in those areas, the village centers designated in the general plan. And I know on top of everything else you're doing, you're, you know, implementing a component of the general plan that, um, I don't think anybody thought we would be implementing in this context, but for state law, right? So, I appreciate your diligence in taking these amendments to us now. And I support all of the recommendations. I think these all make sense and are necessary for housing element compliance. I guess where I wish, you know, there might be a little bit more time to do some of these things or where we might want to be, um, uh, thoughtful now is, you know, we, we got the, the comment letter from HCD, and I'm wondering if there are things, you know, minor adjustments we can incorporate into these recommendations that might help us achieve compliance and address some of the comments in the HCD letter. Some of the low hanging fruit, I think, could include eliminating the minimum lot size for the R4 zoning district, you know, and preserving our discretion to using it when we want to. We don't have to allow that rezoning, but it gives some flexibility to the development community to say, you know, this, it's a, you know, .75 acre lot, but we think we could do an R4 development, and it would be helpful, and, you know, making the case to each CD that we're making these tactical adjustments, to help facilitate housing without eliminating discretion. Because at the end of the day, we get to pick. You know, if we don't want that project there, we could say no, because must be a gatekeeper. There is no instance where a developer would be able to take advantage of the elimination of the minimum lot size because there is no R4 in the city, where that would be possible. So that's one idea. you know, there might be other development standards we would we would want to look at using. And so I need to speak more into my mic. Is that what I'm understanding? Um, so, uh, so that's one instance, there might be other development standards that we would want to look at and see, is this something that we can modify now to help meet our, uh, our obligations under state law? One standard I've heard concerns about, for instance, is the private storage or personal storage requirement, which not every city has, and it's something that some developers, including charity housing, with Montecito, has used a density bonus to eliminate entirely. So that's something that we might want to look at, that could be a program. It doesn't have to be something we do today, but it's an example of something where we've got the development standards before us. We can make those modifications, and that might help us make the case that we're striving for compliance, you know, and address the comments that were just provided. There are other examples where, um, you know, that might be useful, um, but I'll stop, at the last thing, uh, getting back to the, um, the waiver. I think, um, this was referenced in the public comment. It would have been, it had you more time, right? It would have been, I think, ideal to have development standards that we knew were SB3, 330 compliant, that didn't allow that level of flexibility. I know it's not easy to do that after the fact and in such a short period of time, but I do have a little bit of hesitation with just sort of this generic catchall. You know, you can wave standards to, um, access the FAR. Because it's necessary to do, and I understand why we're doing it, but I feel like it's not the type of planning that we're accustomed to doing. We would want to have development standards that are more likely to guarantee certain types of outcomes, right, community supported outcomes, but because we maybe haven't had the time to really think through what standards would be SB 330 compliant, and produce, you know, the kinds of outcomes that we're hoping to achieve. This is, I think, fine language for now. But it's something I don't want to get into a habit of doing, right? Having to sort of this generic language. You can waive a standard to get the FAR allowed in the general plan. Um, ideally, you know, we would have more time and we can be a little bit more prescriptive and development standards. At any rate. I'll move the staff recommendation, including, one, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View certified, the 2023 to 2031, housing element, update, environmental impact, and adopting California Environmental Quality Act, findings related to environmental impacts, mitigation measures, and alternatives, and adopting a statement of a forriding considerations, and a mitigation monitoring and reporting program to be read entitled only further reading waived. Two, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, amending the General Plan, land use map, from high intensity office to high density res residential for the properties located at 57 and 67 and 87 East Evelyn Avenue, located south of East Evelyn Avenue between State Route 85 and Pioneer Way, and from general industrial to high density residential for the property located at 1110 Terabella Avenue, 1012, Linda Vista Avenue, located at the northwest corner of Linda Vista Avenue and Terabella Avenue, and amending the general plan to clarify floor area ratio exemptions, and make other minor modifications to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Three, introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View amending sections of chapter 36, zoning, of the city code to eliminate lot area and lot width minimums in the residential high density, R 4, zoning district, for 100% affordable housing developments that receive authorization, through the city notice of funding availability process, allow residential, mixed use, village center development, where the general plan land use designation allows residential uses on sites within the commercial neighborhood, CN, and commer Services, CS zoning districts, and establish definitions, procedures, and standards for such general plan mixed use, village center development to be read entitled only further reading waived, and set a second reading for February 14th, 2023. Or introduced in ordinance of the city of Mountain View amending the zoning map from the General Industrial MM Zoning District to the High Density R4 zoning District, for the properties located at 57, 67, and 87 East Evelyn Avenue, located south of East Evelyn Avenue, between state Route 85 and Pioneer Way, and 1110's Terabella Avenue, and 1012 Lindavist Avenue, located at the northwest corner of Lindavista Avenue, and Terabella Avenue, to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and a second reading for February 14th, 2023. Five, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, amending the El Camino Real Precise Plan to increase the maximum floor area ratio, and height allowances for residential, mixed use development for tier one projects in village center areas consistent with the general plan, and other minor text amendments, to be read entitled only, further reading waived. And six, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, amending the Grant Phyllis Precise Plan to allow General Plan Mixed Use Village Center development as a provisional use, and add development standards to update the administration provisions, and to make other minor text modifications and clarifications.

[04:56:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Council member Commé.

[04:56:39] Unknown Speaker: Second.

[04:56:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: And Council member Medicin?

[04:56:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I just had a quick comment. I watched the EPC meeting on this topic, and I just want to give them a big kudos. They really dug into this topic, especially Chair Cranston and vice chair Yin. I ask a lot of great questions, had great discussion. I feel like they really did their due diligence. So I want to thank the EPC for their work on this topic. Thanks.

[04:57:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so that went by fast, but I have to tell members of the public there was a lively question and answer in council questions, if you want to read more about this online. So with that, um, we will take the votes. Passes unanimously. So, thank you, thank you all. Council member Ramirez?

[04:57:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I'll move to continue the meeting past 10 p.m.

[04:57:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, and Council member show, Walter?

[04:57:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I'll second that.

[04:58:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: And we vote. You can just do it all in favor. Okay, all those in favor.

[04:58:05] Unknown Speaker: Hi.

[04:58:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay, passes unanimously. Um, so now, uh, we will move on to item eight, which is council staff and committee reports. Are there any council staff or committee reports? Council member, Metachek.

[04:58:29] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I attended the Bosca, Bay Area, Water Supply, and Conservation Agency board meeting on January 19th. And as usual, we got an update on the state of the San Francisco public utilities commission's Hachechy Water System. And as a reminder, the city has 4 sources of water, but the head Chechi system provides the vast majority, which is why we focus on that so much. And, um, it is good news, as I'm sure you can imagine that, uh, with all the rain and snow pack that's in the Sierras, we're in much better shape in terms of our water supply than we were before, and, um, as of January 17th, total system storage of the Hetch Hetchy system is a 91.7% of capacity. It was at 64.3% of capacity as of November 14th, and the normal is 80.3. And while that's a huge improvement and more rain is expected, you know, I feel like I sort of hesitate to say, you know, this is so great, because I don't want that to mean we can just use all the water we want. Because, you know, we do have to be very mindful that, um, well, for one thing, we don't know what's coming in the years that follow this. And so we need to continue to be vigilant about our use of water and the amount of confervation we do, to protect, you know, a limited resource. But for now, it's good news that with all the rains we've had and the amount of snowpack we've had, which could set a record this year for both of those, that it's, you know, a really good position to be in. Thanks.

[05:00:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Council member Mattachek, Council member Abbe Koga.

[05:00:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, um, had a number of report outs. I attended the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority meeting. Um, committee meeting. We continue to work on the programs that we would like to propose as part of the regional bond measure plan. And they're around the 3 Ps, I believe it's production, preservation, and protection, although the enabling legislation puts an emphasis on the production, I think that it's about 85% of the funding to be generated to go into production. So there's some work in trying to tweak that legislation. Um, VTA, uh, We have a new chair, uh, Pat Council member Pat Bert from Palo Alto, and vice chair is uh, county supervisor Cindy Chavez. Um, Clean Energy. Silicon LA Clean Energy, also elected a new chair, who is George Tyson from Los Altos Hills, and Tina Walia, from the city of Saratoga, is our vice chair, and just a couple of other items, lots to be proud of. Um, we, SVC, um, you know, has launched, essence it launched. It set a direction of providing carbon free electricity on an annual basis, and SVC is on track to meet its renewable energy procurement obligations as mandated by the state. SVC has contracts for 16 long-term renewable energy projects totaling $18 billion. Six of these projects are now delivering energy to customers. However, there are many challenges that we are facing to meet our 100% clean goals such as competition for resources, drought conditions, supply chain constraints, and regulatory changes. All clean energy providers in the state are facing these challenges, following significant reliability events during the summer. There is an increased focus on the role of natural gas plants playing to keep the lights on in its role through the 2030s as new clean sources, resources are built. SVCE remains committed to its mission and is working on innovative solutions to advance the statewide transition to a carbon-free grid, such as continuing to contract for clean non-term resources, exploring long-term hydro, continuing to monitor developments in new clean energy technology and more. But basically saying that it's becoming more challenging because there's more demand for clean energy as more CCAs come up and whatnot. And then the increase in the state's standards and requirements. So it's becoming more challenging to do it in a cost-effective way, but we're continuing to look for, frankly, alternatives and as many options as possible to try to continue with our mission. So, I just wanted to highlight that, as you probably will hear in the news, these types of issues coming up. I also attended the Sister Cities dinner. I know, actually almost all of us were there. They resume their annual dinner. There are 6 students who will be representing Mountain View to Iwata in Japan. And this year, usually it's a two-year program where they our students go and then the next year the Japan students come, but this year they're doing both in one year. So very ambitious, but exciting, I believe. And I also attended the St. Francis High School Innovation Center opening. And there was a lot of, I just wanted to pass along the many thanks from the St. Francis community, to our city staff, who worked really hard with them to make sure that this project moved forward during COVID. And they were very excited because it was completed on time. So I wanted to relay that. Thanks. And then just a note, this Thursday is our 1st city association board meeting. We also had planned a city selection committee meeting before that, but due to some transition issues, some councils actually have not ceded all of their members. We will have to postpone that to February 9th if anyone has applied for a position. We close the application or letters of interest, but we do always allow nominations for the, from the floor. So, if anyone. And there are some, I think there are still some openings. So please take a look at our website. And if you're interested in any of the open positions, please come and nominate yourself or have someone nominate you. Thank you.

[05:05:27] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[05:05:30] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. I think it's in accordance with council policy A too. Is that right? I attended a taxpayer funded trip to Washington, D.C. for the mayor's innovation project. You don't have to be the mayor as long as you're a former mayor. okay to participate. I think that was January 19th through the 21st. And it was a very informative program. discussions about polarization, and racial equity, pedestrian safety, and municipal finance, a lot of really interesting material. There's a summer session. I think in August, and if you're available, I would encourage you to participate. They're always very informative and fun. Thank you.

[05:06:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah, I just have a question, do you know where this summer session is this year?

[05:06:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Scranton, Pennsylvania.

[05:06:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Ah.

[05:06:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Susquehanna River Basin, just in case anybody cared.

[05:06:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so now, lastly, my script says closed session report, but I believe we do not have a close session. No close session report. Okay. So, we will, um... let's see. So, uh, we will, the next city council meeting will be held in person again with a virtual component on January 30th of 2023, uh, and to for council member vacancy applicant interviews. And this meeting is adjourned at 1016.

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