January 30, 2023 Mountain View City Council Special Meeting

Video

Transcript

[00:00:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the city council's special meeting to interview applicants for the city council vacancy. 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 lecture. Requests 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 blue speaker card. Please indicate the name you would 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 were speaking on. Instructions for addressing the council virtually may be found on the posted agenda. We will now, um, take the pledge of allegiance, please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, invisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Now the city clerk will take role.

[00:02:51] City Clerk: All council members are present this evening.

[00:02:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: We are now on item number 4 on your agenda, which is 4.one, council vacancy, applicant interviews and appointment. Translation services are available for this item via Zoom. We will now hear from our interpreter. Is there an interpreter available? Be promoted?

[00:03:27] Interpreter: Buenas tardes a todos, mi nombre se la Garcia, voy a ser su interpretel español esta tarde. En la reunion, entre vista si nombre del solicitato de la Vacante del consejo Español, por favor, o prima, el globulo, al infredor de su pantaya que dice interpretación, y selecion Español. Gracias.

[00:03:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button on Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. And do we have a count of cards?

[00:04:18] City Clerk: Yeah, I... So we have...

[00:04:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: We will be taking a minute and a half for each speaker. So please note that speakers exceeding the amount of time allocated will be muted in fairness to each speaker. So, first, we have the first speaker will be Ryan Globus. Yes, right there. Thank you.

[00:05:08] Ryan Globus: Good evening to the Honorable Mayor Hicks, Vice Mayor Showalter, and members of the city council. My name is Ryan Globus, and I'm speaking tonight to support Emily Ramos for the council of vacancy. I spoke to you about why Emily is the best person to fill this vacancy at your meeting last week, so I'll provide a quick recap. I met Emily through the Silicon Valley Young Democrats, and she's inspired many young people like myself to advocate for housing affordability, environmentalism, racial justice, and many other critical local issues. She has experience protecting thousands of mountain view tenants on the rental housing committee, and that experience helped my sister when she faced a negligent landlord. And Emily has a strong base of support from local, state, and federal leaders that will enable Mountain View to solve the numerous issues it faces that the city cannot fix alone. She was awarded D13 Woman of the Year by State Senator Josh Becker, and she has the support tonight from Congresswoman Anna Eshu, Assembly members Ash Kulra and Alex Lee, neighboring Vice Mayor Omar Dean, and countless others. They all see what I know to be true in my heart. Emily Ramos is the best person to fill this vacancy on the council. Thank you.

[00:06:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. James Kuzmo.

[00:06:34] James Guzmo: Good evening. My name is James Guzmo, and, like Ryan, I want to strongly endorse Emily Ramos to be appointed to counsel, both on behalf of Mount VMB on behalf of myself. She is very likely the best positioned person in this city to help alleviate our housing crisis on council, and it would be amazing to see her able to contribute to the solutions, not just in housing, but across all sorts of issues in our city, from having worked with her in the context of Mountain View, I mean, in the context of all sorts of advocacy. She is one of the most outstanding advocates I've ever met. She is intelligent. She is excellent at listening when she needs to, and excellent at being assertive in speaking her opinion when it is necessary. And so I hope that she is appointed to counsel, and I thank you for your time.

[00:07:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Robert Cox.

[00:07:30] Robert Cox: Okay. Hi, I'm Robert Cox, and I'm speaking on behalf of the steering committee of Liverpool Mountain View. We are recommending Ronit Bryant as our choice to replace Sally Lieber on the council. We believe that Ronit is the most qualified of the four applicants, having served eight years on the council and terms on the parks and rec advisory committee, both before and after that. While on council, Ronit's input has greatly improved downtown projects, like Madeira and Cora. She has a special gift of turning an average project into one of excellence. Beyond that, Ronit exemplifies Sally Liber's values. Ronit has shown us not only how to serve our community, but how to become better human beings, she is compassion and community for all. Police select her as your choice to return to the council.

[00:08:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Lee Sen.

[00:08:26] Lee Sen: Hi, dear counsel. I have thought this for a long time, if I should speak up, but considering the current situation, and we compromised due to the expense of the special election, through the appointment process. Um, I would respectfully asking the council today to consider to appoint a candidate who had previous experience sitting on the council and had served the community and has been voted by the residents. not someone who has never been put her, or himself up, for election out of the respect of democracy. I, and a lot of people like me, immigrants came to this country. One of the main reasons we are here is because of the fundamental value of democracy of the United States. I hope you guys can take this into serious consideration. Thank you.

[00:09:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Tim Mackenzie.

[00:09:44] Tim Mackenzie: Greetings, counselors. I'm here today, in my capacity as co chair of the Mountain View local group of the Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America, to read this resolution that we unanimously passed as a full chapter, whereas the Mountain View City Council is appointing a new member to fill the seat left bank advice Sally Weber, whereas there was worry expressed by the city council that the low turnout would disenfranchise historically marginalized groups, including low income people, people whose first language is not English, and the working class more generally. Whereas the will of the electorate was most recently expressed in the election of Sally Lieber to the seat, that's currently vacant, whereas Sally Lieber is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and has a strong record supporting tenants and working class people. Whereas Emily Ramos is a member in good standing of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and whereas Emily Ramos has a strong track record supporting tenants and renters while serving on the rental housing committee, helping implement rent control in Mountain View. Therefore, be it resolved by the Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America, that we recommend Emily Ramos for appointment to the Mountain View city council seat left vacant by Sally Lieber. And just on a personal note. Emily's thoughtful, kind person, and she's a bit of a policy wonk, and I think she would be able to get along with everyone on council to make some excellent decisions and great things happen for the city. Thank you.

[00:11:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Kevin Ma.

[00:11:29] Kevin Ma: I recognize this is gonna be a long night, so I'll keep my comments brief. Speaking as about a year long resident of the city. I support Emily for the appointment. The spider application saying she's only been in the city for seven years. She's gone over and beyond what a resident of the city would do to improve the livelihood of its residence. She puts the time and effort to meet with all sides, to see the problems of the city, and seek solutions that better the community. as well as welcomes anyone who is willing to enter these halls to, you know, get used to it. Without her, I probably want to be even here tonight. Um, I believe she would be an excellent addition to this council, being representative of perhaps a group of residents that may not be fully represented on this council, and, uh, good luck.

[00:12:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Laura Drosic.

[00:12:26] Laura Drossic: Good evening, Honorable Mayor Hicks, Vice Mayor Showwater, and members of the council. My name is Laura Drossic, and I'm a Phil representative with the Norkel Carpenters Union. I represent over 7,000 hardworking men and women in Santa Clara County. I'm here to give my appreciation for this unique opportunity to appoint a highly qualified council member with strong progressive values. We need members that truly care about the needs of working people in Mountain View. This is our opportunity to get to work on urgent priorities, such as real solutions, to homelessness, affordable housing access, essential services, and critical infrastructure for the future. Emily Ramos has demonstrated that she cares deeply for the city as well as a community by continuing to engage with a variety of different community groups over many years. As a member of the rental housing committee, and as a current vice chair, Emily works to implement a law that protects over 15,000 families from significant rent increases and evictions. Please consider appointing Emily Ramos. Thank you for your time.

[00:13:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Angel Martinez.

[00:13:54] Angel Martinez: Hello, honorable mayor and council members of Mountain View. My name is Angel Martinez, and I'm a past president of the Silicon Valley Young Democrats. I have known Emily for the past six years, and in my time, I have never known a more passionate, dedicated, and knowledgeable individual. Emily tirelessly works to represent all residents in Mountain View, and I can't see a better choice to fill the vacancy on this council today. Mountain View would greatly benefit from her being elected to this council, and I hope to see Emily pick today. Thank you.

[00:14:27] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Eric Quickong.

[00:14:39] Eric Baikon: Good evening, Mayor Hicks. Honorable council members. My name is Eric Baikon, and I come to you today as the vice president of the Silicon Valley Young Dems. I believe there's many things that can dictate whether a person's gonna be a great leader or not, beyond that of their call of service, beyond how long they start in the oath in office, but I think it is how many people turn out for you, and show love. It's important based off the actions you've done in order to ensure people remain housed, healthy during pandemic, and to participate in active government. I believe Emily Ramos is the leader that Mount TV deserves and needs in order to progress to a better mountain view.

[00:15:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Alex Brown.

[00:15:30] Alex Brown: You guys need a teleprompter. All right. Hail, you know we are now. I'll keep it quick, though not as quick as usual. Yeah, I do script this part, I know. The thing that accounts at work is in your background, a raw ability, or a resume. There's no perfect council member, though some people get close. It's a sustained commitment, a persistence, and a will to do what you can to make the lives of residents in Mountain View, present and future, a little bit better tomorrow than they are today. And I think that's the intention of all four applicants being interviewed tonight. In my experience, Emily Anne Ramos has demonstrated a lot of care, compassion, and devotion to the people of Mountain View for many walks of life and countless stages of their journey. She's one of the best people I've had the pleasure to work alongside. The characteristic I value most in the council member, as you know, is a willingness to show up and be a part of the community. Emily's been there for the mobile home community, the whole time, when we saw protections from the RRC and Council. She was there fighting alongside us to protect vulnerable residents in the city. And I encourage you to appoint her to the council seat, so that she can take the passion, and she's applied as a member of the RHC and apply it to the city as a whole. Thanks.

[00:16:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, next will be... So, it's written Erin Chavez, but I have a note that says it may actually be Erin Chazer. Maybe introduce yourself and speak.

[00:16:50] Erin Kazer: Good. Evening, members of the council. My name is Erin Kazer, Hard Z. I know, it's spelled weird. I know. Um, I am the president of the Peninsula Young Democrats, a little bit north of here, but we do claim Mountain View as well as our friends down in Silicon Valley. I'm here to speak on behalf of my friend, Emily Ramos, who I think is one of the most universally well known and well respected people in politics here on the peninsula. She is one of the most hardworking people I have ever met. She is always willing to put herself out there, and to speak on what she thinks is right. She's been a leader in housing. She's been a leader in racial equity, and she's been a leader. On being an ambassador for the great city of Mountain View. We've got these great signs that say, Mountain View is the best city in the world, Emily Ramos. She says it all the time. Constantly. We fight about it. But I think that Emily has been so great and so wonderful in every role that she has taken on in democratic roles in her commissions, in the work that she's done here on the peninsula, in housing. Um, and I think that she would be a really excellent colleague for you all. I hope that you choose to appoint her. Thank you.

[00:18:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Sima Patel.

[00:18:23] Seema Patel: Good evening, city council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Seema Patel. I live in San Mateo, but for the past 10 years, I've been working for a company here in Mountain View. I am here tonight to speak in support of Emily Ramos. Emily is immensely qualified to be a city council member. She is a coalition builder, as you can see, from all the people outside of Mountain View, who are here tonight to support her. She's a collaborator, a problem solver, and has the experience to center the needs of Mountain View residents in policy and decision making. When I moved here a decade ago, I would have loved to live near in Mountain View near my job, but that was not an option for me financially. Emily has a long track record of working to preserve and increase affordable housing on the peninsula. As a member of the rental housing committee, and as the current vice chair, Emily is working to implement a law that protects 15,000 families from significant rent increases and evictions. As a board member of the community service agency, Emily connected many residents to receive assistance to prevent them from losing their homes during the pandemic. As a member of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee and former president of the Silicon Valley Young Democrats, Emily actively works to advance the principles and values of the Democratic Party. For her many community efforts, State Senator Josh Becker named Emily, the Senate District 13 Woman of the Year in 2022.

[00:19:45] Seema Patel: And tonight, for these and many other reasons, I strongly urge you to appoint Emily Ramos to the city council. Thank you.

[00:19:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Owen Day?

[00:20:05] Owen Day: Good evening, members of council. My name is Owen Day, and I'm here to support Emily Ramos for Mountain View City Council. I come here today because it is clear to me that Emily cares. Her robust support for tenant protections is a rental housing committee member shows that she cares about renters. Her former presidency of the Silicon Valley Young Democrats shows how she cares about uplifting the voices of young people. Her work for equitable representation and anti-racism as a member of the Democratic Party's anti-racism task force shows how she cares for traditionally underrepresented communities. All of this work that she has done says one thing to me the most clearly. Emily Ramos cares about Mountain View, and she's the best choice for city council. Thank you.

[00:20:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Jerry, I jog? I apologize if I mispronounced your name.

[00:21:04] Jariah Haug: Oh, it's okay. So, hello, my name is Jariah Haug, and I've come here today as the Communications Director from the Silicon Valley Young Dams, and I'm also a Bariusa Union School Board member from North San Jose, and I'm here today to say my support for Emily Ramos for City Council. I've worked with Emily in the past, and she has shown deep, deep compassion for her community. Just seeing how many people are out here today is just shows a sentiment to that. She's so incredibly smart and talented. She knows policy inside and out, and she has the collaboration skills to bring everybody to the table. And I know for a fact that she will do amazingly at the seat, continuously advocating for the community and for uplifting others around her. So thank you so much for your time today, and I really hope that you all consider Emily Ramos for this position. Thank you.

[00:21:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Nicole Fernandez.

[00:22:04] Nicole Fernandez: Hello, Honorable Counsel. I know many of you. Thank you so much for taking the time today to put such a great thought into who will be replacing the incomparable Sally Lieber. I am here, although I do not live in the city. I do have a regional perspective in that I'm here on my own, but I do work for Senator Becker. Um, and... Mountain View leads on so many things, um, so many issues, like UBI, and you are such a regional focused city, and you have the most regionally focused person as a candidate tonight in Emily Ramos. She is beloved up and down the peninsula in the East Bay. She has roots in Fremont, but has lived in Mountain View for so many years. And if you want somebody who can increase your connections regionally, while keeping her heart here in Mountain View, you've got it, and Emily Ramos, she's policy oriented, she's community oriented, and she is just the best candidate for the job, and I'm proud to be her friend, and I am even prouder to see her, hopefully, as a council member up here tonight. Thank you so much.

[00:23:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next is Jose Chavez.

[00:23:18] Jose Chavez: Hello, uh, city council members. Good afternoon. My name is Jose Chavez. And I come here today as someone who has lived and worked in Mountain View for 22 years. I'm a junior carpenter, but also, I've been working, so this washer, bus boy, cook, waiter in this city for 22 years. I have seen a lot of change in Mountain View. And I would love to see positive change. filled with progress for the citizens of this city. For this reason, I support Emily Ramos for a city council. Emily is a local leader that are on the site of renters and working families who will commit to create an equivalent housing ecosystem for everyone, that lives in this city. She understands the necessities of our community. Thank you so much.

[00:24:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next is Neil Park McClintock.

[00:24:39] Neil Park McClintock: Hello, mayor, members of the city council. I'll make my comment super short. I'm here to speak in support of Emily Ramos. A friend of mine and also a very effective collaborator. I live in the city of Cupertino, so not Mountain View, but I've had the pleasure to work with Emily, and time and time again, She's been just always very positive. She always speaks so highly of Mountain View at city council. in its community. We went recently to a leadership development training in LA. And the whole time she was talking about Mountain View. No one there knew what she was talking about, but she made it really clear that it was, in fact, the greatest city. And it was very heartwarming, and I think she'd be a terrific addition to the city council. Thank you very much.

[00:25:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So next, we have our virtual speakers. Um, starting with... starting with Mustafa Arshad. Mustafa, are you there?

[00:26:14] Mustafa Arshad: Hello, counsel, can you hear me?

[00:26:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, I can hear you now.

[00:26:17] Mustafa Arshad: Perfect. Counsel, thank you for letting me speak. I'm here to support Emily Ramos. I think she's a huge cheerleader for the city of Mountain View. She's an amazing policy wonk who understands the challenges that renter's face. I think that's really important for me for a council candidate, because I'm really concerned about marginalized families being pushed out of Mountain View. So I think that Emily's perspective there is going to be very important. So that's all. I just want to support Emily. Thank you.

[00:26:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Louise Katz.

[00:27:02] Louise Katz: Hello?

[00:27:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Hi, Louise.

[00:27:04] Louise Katz: Yes, hi. Thank you very much. Yes. Um, So, with Livable Mountain View, a resident of Mountain View for multiple decades, and we sent a letter to the council. So obviously, the issue that our, um, city attorney said that the council's obligation is to pick the most qualified, not the person who makes the most people, um, happy with her presence on various committees and volunteer work. So clearly, Ronit, as our former mayor, 2 term member, fulfills that. And the issue for Mountain View should be what the residents, the voters have voted for. If it was just a popularity contest, Li Zang had 6,000 people show up for her. So now we're down to the question of qualifications, not a popularity contest. So I hope the council will understand that the. Thank you.

[00:28:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: So next we have Tony Rath.

[00:28:17] Tony Rath: Hello, can you hear me?

[00:28:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can.

[00:28:19] Tony Rath: All right, thank you, honorable mayor, members of the city council. I'm a Mountain View residence since 2005, and I would like to ask you to vote for Ronet Bryant. She's the most qualified and has the expertise needed for the upcoming downtown precise plan work. She has served on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and she's also a champion for the environment and sustainability. Her values are aligned with cell levers, and critically, she has successfully run for city council several times. We have heard from many speakers already today, who are affiliated with various organizations. However, what matters most is, who is best for the resident of Mountain View? And Ronan Bryan will not represent special interests, and be that common voice for all the residents. So, please, appoint Ronit Bryant. Thank you.

[00:29:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Will Smith.

[00:29:19] Will Smith: Good evening, mayor and counsel. My name is Will Smith, and I'm a business representative for IBW, Local 332. I'm here tonight asking for each one of you to support Emily Ramos to fill the vacant seat. Many here of us here at IBW have worked with Emily for a number of years and she has shown to be an expert in any number of fields, but most importantly, around housing and overall protection of labor standards. We at the IBEW stand firm in our support, knowing that Emily will be a great collaborator, and someone that will hit, that is ready to hit the ground running day one to help continue moving Mountain View forward. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your future support of Emily Reynolds, and we continue to help for a fruitful relationship with the city and all of its development going forward. Thank you very much.

[00:30:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next we have Mary Hodder. Mary, are you connected? Hmm, I don't see Mary on the line, Mary, if you can, um, get back in the queue, uh, for now, we'll go with Allie Hughes.

[00:31:04] Allie Hughes: Good evening. Can you all hear me?

[00:31:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can.

[00:31:07] Allie Hughes: Yep. Awesome. Thank you so much. So, good evening, Mayor Hicks, and the honorable city council. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Ali Hughes, and I'm speaking in my capacity as the Silicon Valley Young Democrat president. And so, we at the Silicon Valley Young Democrats proudly endorse Emily Ramos, for the vacant seat on the city council, Emily is an absolute titan in our community, tirelessly dedicating her energy, time, and charismatic spirit to center the needs of others first. She has a long list of accomplishments, including serving as the former president of SVYD. But above all else, Emily's authentic character makes her a true leader and the right choice for this seat. Emily holds and fights for progressive values to benefit everyone, and does so with the attention to coalition building and bridging political differences. Within her leadership roles of the city, regional, and state, and at the statewide level, She consistently demonstrates an advanced understanding of land use and renter protections, while also taking the time to mentor young adults on environmental advocacy. Emily's actions and character have set an amazing example for generations of other young people and young Democrats to follow. She'll be an incredible asset to the city council, and we look forward to working with her and the rest of you to fight for the betterment of everyone in Mountain View. Thank you so much.

[00:32:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Jerry Steet.

[00:32:40] Jerry Steet: Hello? Can you hear me, all right?

[00:32:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you, Jerry.

[00:32:43] Jerry Steet: Oh, great. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Hicks, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and the other members of the city council. excuse me. I'm sorry, I can't be there in person. Pesky, a little matter called work prevented that. But here we are. I'm a longtime Mountain View resident, unlike a number of speakers you've heard from so far this evening. I'm also founding member of the Livable Mountain View, a livable Mountain View, and a subcommittee chair on the old Mountain View neighborhood association. So I've had what you might call a ringside seat of all things Mountain View. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to say, and I'm sure many of you would agree, this process of appointing a replacement for Sally has been far from perfect. Nonetheless, here we are, and we have several candidates signed for the position. From the marginally qualified to the highly qualified. In the latter category, Renee Bryant is by far the most qualified, as she has the most extensive and relevant experience among us candidates, and therefore deserves your appointment. Thank you.

[00:33:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Richard Mellinger.

[00:34:01] Richard Mellinger: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, and honorable council members. Can you hear me?

[00:34:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:34:06] Richard Mellinger: Great. My name is Richard Mellinger. I have the tremendous honor of serving as council member for Sunnyvale District 5, the happiest city in America, though tonight I speak solely on my own behalf. I'm here to express the strongest possible support for Emily Anne Ramos for the vacant council seat. Emily is exactly the sort of person who I would be thrilled and delighted to have as a colleague. She is extraordinarily intelligent and deeply knowledgeable with a profound grasp of the most serious policy challenges facing our region today. Emily and I have had numerous discussions over the years on a housing and other policy matters where we've gotten deep into the weeds. And invariably, I come away learning something new. She also has the necessary experience having served for some years now on the rental housing commission, including his vice chair, and that commission rule involves, you know, planning a budget. Even more important, Emily has what it takes to be an effective part of a team. She is collaborative. She is constructive, and most of all, she is kind. She will do a fantastic job. And my only regret is that we can't steal her for our city council. So please, appoint Emily to Mountain View City Council. She is the best person for the job. Thank you so much and have a lovely evening.

[00:35:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Alexander Melendres.

[00:35:33] Alexander Melendres: Uh, good evening, Mongview City Council. My name is Alex Malandres, and I don't think I would be where I am, today, without Emily, I think Emily is the most qualified candidate that you have before you. Um, there have been numerous, uh, commissions and, uh, you know, a public service that she has, uh, really worked to, uh, not just perform herself, but to model for others. I very much consider for one of the people that I try to model in my life, in my own public service. Um, she's smart, she's qualified. As you've heard multiple times tonight, She's a huge champion of the city of Mountain View, and she really cares about the most marginalized community members out there. She has the experience. She had the policy knowledge. Uh, and she wears her town, she wears her city with pride. Um, I think you would make a great selection in picking Emily Ramos for the vacant seat. Uh, and I hope you do so tonight. Thank you very much.

[00:36:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Lauren Fitzgerald.

[00:36:56] Lauren Fitzgerald: Good evening, counsel. Yes, my name is Lauren Fitzgerald. I am speaking on my behalf tonight, but I'm a member of the Peninsula on Democrats, which is how I got to know Emily, and I am just so in favor of her getting the seat. She is one of the most lovely people I have ever met, and anyone who has had the opportunity and honor of getting to know Emily, um, just knows what a tireless advocate she is. She literally won the Tireless Advocate Award. Um, it would be a great mistake of the council not to select her, uh, you know, I could go on and on about her qualifications, um, and everything she's done, but when you have someone who is quite literally, uh, the Senate district's woman of the year, um, and you have so many friends and colleagues and supporters coming out for her, I think it speaks, uh, volumes. Emily is just the kindest, most caring, most compassionate person I've ever met. People have touched on this. She loves Mountain View. She loves Mountain View more than anyone else in the world. Um, and she will make a point to tell you that, um, so, just everyone who knows Emily knows how lovely of a person she is, and, um, it would be a really big mistake of the council not to select her. So I'm in very strong support of Emily Ramos for the seat. And, um, yes, I really hope that we can celebrate her tonight for all of her amazing work in this city. Thank you.

[00:38:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Nadia Mora. Nadia, are you connected here? I am not hearing from Nadia. Maybe we can try Hala and come back to Nadia.

[00:39:14] Halla Al Shawani: Uh, yes, hello. Can you hear me okay?

[00:39:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:39:18] Halla Al Shawani: Great. Thank you so much, Mayor. Good evening, city council members. I am Halla. Al Shawani. I'm a longtime resident of Mountain View. Tonight, I am urging you to vote. for the most qualified person to fill, um, council member Sally Lieber's seat, and that person is Rooney Bryant. We, um, when I say we are, it's the people who live in Mountain View. Longtime community members. And, um, the community who cares deeply about affordable housing, healthy environment, sustainable living, strongly support, Ro need to take this position. Ronit has been a longtime resident in Mountain View. She is the one that has been committed to serving the community several times on the council numbers, and on the parks and recreation commission. And she's the most qualified person. She has experience, and she, um, uh, serves and represents all the community needs. Not just the housing needs, not just the rental, uh, situation needs, but all of our needs. So, I urge you to please appoint more needs to this council seat. Thank you very much.

[00:40:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now we'll try Nadia Amora again.

[00:40:55] Nadia Amora: Bueno, noche, de consejo. Como. Y del fondo de solidatidad de mountain view. Estamos abogando por eme. Porque ella, responde, a only de rasco, que ba, ay, terra altura, de la sitaciona del momento. [non-English speech not transcribed] Este prima que permite, ayudar, en contrar esanuel alternativas. Thank you.

[00:42:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: And do we have a translation for that?

[00:42:02] Interpreter: Yes, I'm here.

[00:42:03] Unknown Speaker: you hear me?

[00:42:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:42:05] Interpreter: Hi, my name is Nadia Amora. Good evening to all. Members of Mountain, she's representing herself as a member of Mountain View, as well as the Solidarity Fund. And she would like for you all to vote for Emily Ramos. She is a leader who knows the current needs of the community. She's also a leader of the emerging community, and she can help find new alternatives for the city of Mountain View. I ask that you please vote for Emily Ramos. Thank you Thank you.

[00:42:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: You know, I notice our timer is stuck. So I don't know if there's any way to fix that. Anyway, next we have Lucilla Ortiz.

[00:42:54] Lucilla Ortiz: Hello, good evening, mayor and city council. My name is Lucille Ortiz, and I'm here because I would like to speak in favor of Emily Ramos for the appointment for city council. I've had the fortune of knowing Emily for many years now, and I've never met somebody that is more passionate and more dedicated public servant, and, you know, as many people have said before, she loves her community. She loves Mountain View, and she gives all of her time too, to that. She's also really qualified. She's a collaborator, a problem solver, and has the experience to center the needs of Mountain View residence and the policy decision making. And so I hope that you will make the right thing and appoint Emily Ramas for city council today. Thank you.

[00:43:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Ali Supierman.

[00:43:51] Allie Saperman: Hi, my name is Allie Saperman. Speaking in strong support of Emily Ramos. I also want to note on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. We proudly endorsed her. When I moved to California, Mountain View was the 1st city I lived in, but unfortunately, I was priced out, like many others. As we know, housing affordability is a central issue to Mountain View and regionally. It's important you appoint someone with the experience to bring innovative housing solutions to mountain view. You heard a representation of community members calling in support of Emily Ramos, which range from our friends from the labor unions, folks from the state legislator, Lature, professionals who spoke to Emily's work experience, and housing policy, and of course, Mountain View residents. Many folks have spoken to her compassion, but I want to provide a specific example. I'm part of the trans community, and I'm queer, and in 2020, I was facing some pretty significant discrimination. Emily didn't know me well at the time, but she was one of the 1st people to reach out and provide support. And I'm not sure where I would be active in my community if it wasn't for Emily. I really hope you take all this in account tonight and support her for counsel. Thank you so much and have a good night.

[00:44:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, Ella Norman.

[00:45:01] Ellen Norman: Can you hear me okay?

[00:45:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can. Okay, great.

[00:45:04] Ellen Norman: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, and honorable council members. My name is Ellen Norman, and I am the political team lead at Sunrise Silicon Valley, which is a youth led climate action organization. I'm speaking in support of Emily Ramos on behalf of myself and Sunrise Silicon Valley. I have had the pleasure of working with Emily through sunrise for the past 2 years. Emily is always so knowledgeable about local issues and takes the time to help us understand local policy. She brings such a positive, collaborative, thoughtful, and hard-working energy to our meetings on behalf of all of us at Sunrise Silicon Valley. Emily has done so much to encourage and inspire us, and I think she would make an incredible council member. Thank you.

[00:45:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Evan Adams.

[00:45:53] Evan Adams: Hi there, counsel. I'm the president of Foster City Historical Society, and I'm here tonight to express my appreciation for Emily Ramos. Emily has been active in your local historical society. And in my interactions with Emily, she's helped guide me in my role, in my historical society to better interact with our membership. to be open-minded, to be patient and to be welcoming of everyone. She really has. She's taught me this. Emily has. Well, we all know this. Emily has this legendary and infectious uplifting deposition, disposition. I think she's going to be a great asset and teammate to you on your counsel. Thank you for your time and service tonight and have a wonderful evening.

[00:46:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Eva Chow.

[00:46:52] Eva Chow: Good evening. Can you hear me?

[00:46:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:46:56] Eva Chow: All right, good evening, Mary Hicks. And vice mayor, show alter, and Council mayor, Abe Koga, Tamei, Matachek, and Ramirez. My name is Ava Chaum. I am identified as she, her hers. Um, I'm also recognized as the Cupertino Union School Board, trustee, and Shinju, Santa Clara County Shinju, Sister County Commissioner. I'm also the Santa Clara County, Democratic, uh, um, Central Committee member for the now new AD 26. I'm here to support for Emily Ramos, um, and I'm here in speaking in favor of her at my own personal capacity. I've known Emily Ramos since getting onto Central Committee and working with her with the Silicon Valley Asian Pacific American Democratic Club. She has put a lot of effort out in our communities in, and especially in Mountain View, which she resides. This is not a popularity contest. This is a job application in which she and us are taking it very seriously. And we are endorsing her because she has affected so many people, which shows that she can build consensus and coalition, which is very also very important, not only knowing policy, but very important billing relationships with our community. Thank you.

[00:48:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Howard Higley. Howard are you there? Okay, maybe we can go to Rohan Gosch, and then back to Howard next.

[00:49:00] Rohin Koch: Good evening, Council Members. Can hear me?

[00:49:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:49:04] Rohin Koch: Good evening, Mayor Hickson Council. My name is Rohin Koch. Uh, you've heard from me before in years past, but I'm calling in now from Washington, DC, where I serve as an advisory neighborhood commissioner, uh, something I've been only able to do due to the mentorship and support I've received from Emily Ramos over the years. And that, I think, perfectly encapsulates who Emily is. She is a leader and a mentor who supports young people, uh, supports people who need to be listened to and who all too often are ignored. I have seen so many times when there are issues in the community, uh, that need to be brought to the forefront. Emily is the one who is in the room with the people who need to be listened to. And that itself is a qualification. That is what makes Emily Ramos qualified for this job. The fact that she has so many times put herself out there on behalf of the people who really need that advocate and that voice. And that is something that I hope that this council considers and that you all vote to appoint Emily Ramos as one of your colleagues. Thank you.

[00:50:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we're going to try to connect with Howard Higley again. No, she disappeared. Okay, well, we'll try Howard again later. Right now, we'll try Alex Dirch.

[00:51:04] Alex Thirsh: Hi, can you hear me?

[00:51:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[00:51:07] Alex Thirsh: Hi, good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Alex Thirsh. I grew up right next door in Palo Alto, and I'm speaking tonight in support of Emily and Ramos to be appointed to the city council. I met Emily while Emily while volunteering with local groups, advocating for affordable housing. And she immediately impressed me. Each time we met, she beamed with passion and pride for serving Mountain View. And I look up to her as a public servant and community advocate. Whether she's protecting renters, advocating for housing access or increasing voter engagement. She's been a tireless advocate for ensuring all community members have a seat at the table. And throughout her work, she's demonstrated a proven track record of bringing people with different views together. and collaborating to find solutions. As the best candidate for the seat. I hope you select Emily to join you on the dais, and I'm confident she'll be an exciting and fantastic colleague of yours. Thank you.

[00:52:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next, Jordan Grimes.

[00:52:09] Jordan Grimes: Yes, good evening, Counsel Honorable Mayor. My name is Jordan Grimes. I'm the political director of the Peninsula Young Democrats. And like so many others, I'm here to share my strong support of Emily and Ramos for the vacant council seat. I've had the privilege of knowing Emily for the last several years now, both as a friend and more recently through the professional arena in my role as a resilience manager at Green Belt Alliance. She is as bright as she is tireless, as pragmatic as she is progressive. And on ending wellspring of cheer and optimism, and a stalwart champion of the middle class. Her efforts and experience listening to and centering the voices and needs of those most vulnerable are quite simply unmatched. Mountain View, the peninsula, and indeed the entire region would benefit tremendously from her unique leadership, her experience, and her inexhaustible compulsion and willingness to serve the public good. This appointment should not just be about experience, which Emily has in spades, but should also be about looking forward. Minds and voices like Emily's are our future, and I really do hope the future of Mountain View begins tonight. Thank you so much.

[00:53:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Dr. Megan Fraley.

[00:53:23] Megan Fraley: Hi, can you hear me? My internet's a little.

[00:53:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you. Okay, great.

[00:53:27] Megan Fraley: Hi, yes. Megan Freeley. I've lived in Mountain View for over 15 years and been very engaged and active and know Emily for many years as well. Um, I think I spoke at the last meeting that I think it's essential that this appointment process is as close to democracy and that we preserve the spirit of democracy as much as we can. And for that reason, um, I believe Emily Anne Ramos is absolutely, um, the candidate that we should support, um, Really, I think just in terms of the criteria, there should be someone who can represent the voters that Sally Lieber that voted for Sally Lieber, which means someone who supports rent control, someone who's a strong woman, who has a strong voice, represents progressive values, but also can work well with others. This is not even enough time to begin to say everything I want to say. Um, but please make this not a political appointment around who the council members would want to work with, although I'm sure you would all love to work with Emily, but because she truly is the candidate. That is the one that is supported by the community in a way that almost feels like we just had an election. You can see from locally to far. She has a mass support and she's massively engaged in the community. And she has just as much regional support as local. Um, so thank you and I hope you will support Emily. Um, and allow her to have the strong voice and progressive ways that she has on our city council.

[00:54:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have B Handsome.

[00:55:03] B Handsome: Good evening, counsel. Well, at the Mountain Home, uh, View local Homoliath, we were very sad about Sally's Wigger's departure from C Council, because she's so consistently helped our local city mobile home park residents over many years. Fortunately, there is one candidate in the list of applicants who knows a lot about the mobile home parts, and that's Emily Ramos. Every time she shares it, so it's fully coexperienced with us. She can treat this valuable information, what we actually put into practice to get our problem solved and our fullest next. I've known Emily for several years, and I watch them make decisions on our HC. Over that time, my respect for her is John Stettles. Every time she talks, I take notes. I've also worked beside you during elections, and your energy, enthusiasm, and hard work are matched by others. Like others who've spoken, I too think highly of Bernie Bryant. But the timing is right, but Emily Ramos, please appoint her Pacific noses. Thank you.

[00:56:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have, uh, well, it says Marionette, but I believe this is Mary Hodder again.

[00:56:20] Mary Hodder: Hello, can you hear me?

[00:56:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: I can. Oh, excellent.

[00:56:25] Mary Hodder: Uh... Thank you, counsel. I'm Mary Hodter, and I vote in Mountain View. I support Roonet, out of the 5 People Council has put up, but I strongly suggest that Lee Zhang should have been on the list and chosen, as she already received 6000 plus votes in November. Choosing someone who has never run at all. Smacks of us losing democracy. The MB Party drives this with their 15 staff people at the state level and a massive social media and email campaign to keep their 80,000 members flying into meetings around the state to speak on anything they have anything they want as they have tonight. And that is not democracy. 6000 people who actually live in Mountain View, said they wanted Li Zang to govern. They already showed up. Compare that to the 300 or so people on your list tonight. Most of the people speaking tonight from Yembi or the Democratic socialists in support of Emily, don't live and vote in Mountain View. In lieu of Lee, Ronan is the closest to Sally in position, understanding and leadership. Ronit is the next most ethical choice next to the Democratic choice of Li Zang. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:57:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: And next, Sergio Lopez.

[00:57:55] Sergio Lopez: Thanks so much. I'm Sergio Lopez, council member in the city, Campbell, and on the board of directors for VTA, a number of other regional boards. Although tonight speaking as an individual, no one's asking me to come and speak. Um, and, um, I wouldn't presume to tell, um, my friends on the Mount TV City council how to vote. I know that you'll make the choice that's best for your community. Um, and I have no doubt that's what's gonna guide your decision make, but just wanted to, um, the weigh in with my perspective, um, which is that having seen what it, um, takes to serve. Um, I know that it's helpful to have a council member who is ready to hit the ground running and who has the regional relationships and respect to represent your city at the regional level because there's a lot, um, as you all know, that goes, uh, that's part of being council member outside, um, of just regular meetings that includes things like, regional board and committee appointments, um, and, uh, I'm sure that, uh, my friend. Um, so Libra was active on many of these and, um, you'll need, um, someone who can, uh, uh, uh, replace and and have many of those relationships or represent your city and community. Um, and Emily Ramos, I have seen, has the respect and the relationships, um, to be able to represent your city, um, in the best light. So I just wanted to add that perspective. Um, and I know um, y'all will make the decision. That's right, very... Thank you.

[00:59:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next, we have Alexander Gvatwa. Alexander, are you there? Okay, we'll go to Kelsey Baines and get back to Alexander later.

[01:00:03] Kelsey Baines: Hi, can you hear me?

[01:00:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can. Great.

[01:00:07] Kelsey Baines: So my name is Kelsey Beans. I live and vote in Mountain View, and I'm joining all the other folks and speaking in favor of Emily and Romos for this appointment. Um, Emily is one of the most civically engaged, kind and conscientious people I've ever met. Um, and we've heard tonight from so many different organizations and communities that Emily is a part of and it really demonstrates how engaged she has been for a long time and the connectives that she's made. Um, and I think that Mountain View is lucky to have her as part of this community. She loves the city. Um, which if you had her in, in a meeting before, she often will refer to Mountain View as the best city. Um, and I'm privileged to know Emily personally. I don't think there's a better person for this appointment and, um, and I think she would just make an outstanding council member. So, I hope you will support Emily and I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

[01:01:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Eva Tang.

[01:01:18] Eva Tang: Good evening, counsel. Thanks for letting me speak. Um, I am one of many people that's come out to speak in support of Emily Ramos tonight. I'll try not to repeat any points that have been made. First of all, I think it's a little silly to say that this isn't a popularity contest when all of you have earned your positions through a popularity contest. But they're all here, in support of Emily, because she is just so plugged into the community. She's made so many connections. You need somebody on council who has the regional, uh, the regional, uh, capital in order to come up with solutions that work for Mountain View, and for the rest of the South Bay, and the Bay Area. Another point, I'd like to make is that Emily, uh, actually, I did read that in the voice that, uh, the council is considering, uh, to appoint somebody that does not need any catching up, and Emily is such a policy want that she will need no catching up at all, because she's just, uh, very plugged in. Um, she has a very good grasp on the issues that are pertinent to Mountain View. Not only does she care about Mountains View's future, but, uh, when have you ever seen somebody as young as Emily participate in a historical association. She cares about not abuse past two. Emily lives, eats, breathes, sleeps, Mountain View. Um, I have no doubt about Ronet's, uh, qualifications, but I think you should choose Emily. Thanks.

[01:02:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have David Watson.

[01:03:02] David Watson: Hello. Uh, I'm, uh, David Watson, I am, uh, I live and I vote in, uh, in Mountain View. I'm also a lead for Mountain View Yimbi. I'm sure that you all regularly check our website to find out what our positions are on things, but just want to let you know that we also support Emily, for city council, and, uh, she's, uh, a dedicated leader of our organization for many years, he has a deep understanding of the city's housing crisis, and a proven track record of working towards creating more affordable housing options for mountain view residents. You can check the website if you want to, all the details of why we endorse her, but I think that you've heard a lot from everyone else here, so I'll leave the tab.

[01:03:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Paul Fong. Paul, are you there?

[01:04:11] Paul Fong: Hi, my name is Paul Fong. I'm, um, just had open heart surgery about a month ago, so I'm secluded in my house. Um, I am, I was a former assembly member for the 22nd assembly district, which included the city of Mountain View. I had my office there for four years, down the street from city hall for a good reason. The reason why is I received over 80% of the vote in the general election in 2008, and most likely all of you voted for me too, because I only received 70% of the vote district wide. So I know Mountain View very well. And I think Emily Ramos fits Mountain View to a T. And she would do a great job. She's a policy person. She's a progressive in the party. The Democratic Party, which I serve as a progressive in the Democratic Party, too. And so she would do an excellent job for the citizens of Mountain View, and she's ready to hit the ground running. Uh, she will uh, work with everybody on the city council. She's very workable too. I worked with her in the past. And so I strongly support Emily Ramos for the city council vacancy. Thank you very much.

[01:05:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Kathy Tran.

[01:05:34] Kathy Tran: Hello, can you hear me?

[01:05:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[01:05:36] Kathy Tran: Oh, great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mayor and council. My name is Kathy Tran, and I'll keep my remarks brief. I'm here to share my strong support for Emily Ramos, who is smart, hard working, collaborative, and empathetic. I echo many of the sentiments of the folks that speak today, and I'm certain she had the opportunity to be appointed. She will energetically get to work and do everything in her willpower to make Mountain View the best city in the region. Thank you so much for the opportunities to speak.

[01:06:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Tim.

[01:06:12] Tim Larson: Hi, all, thank you, uh, for opportunity to speak. My name is Tim Larson. I'm the president of the mobile Mountain View mobile Home Association Alliance. And I also wanted to voice my support for Emily Ramos tonight. Um, I just like to point out that the Democratic thing to do would be to hold a special election. Um, I know Emily supported the incumbents. Uh, several of the incumbents in uh, the latest election. Um, and if she had the opportunity to run for this seat, she would. Um, absent that, understanding that the council gets to choose. I hope you all appreciate all of the many long nights she has spent helping Mountain View navigate its housing challenges and administrating the CSFRA. Thank you.

[01:06:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next we have Nazanine.

[01:07:16] Nazanine Dashtara: Oh, hello, do you hear me?

[01:07:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we do.

[01:07:19] Nazanine Dashtara: Yes, hi. This is Nazanine Dashtara, long time, Mountain View resident. Um, I, I, I felt a little bit concerned about how, um, this process occurred and, um, you know, that it was more selective and did not feel as democratic as it should have been. Um, so kind of moving forward, I feel like, uh, the person that is to replace Sally Lieber should be the most aligned with Sally Lieber and her positions and because that is what the people voted for. And there was another person that people voted for that was somewhat aligned in that direction. And, um, the, now that we are where we are, I think that the person who is also aligned with Sally Lieber, um, to me, seems to be Ronique Bryant, and she's very conscious of our green spaces and livability. And that is the direction that I think we should go. Um, and we want a democracy and we want to maintain that as much as possible. And we want to maintain that in the city of Mountain View and not have this be like a, oh, great, this is our time that we could pick and choose in this undemocratic way. So that is my position. Thank you very much.

[01:08:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Leslie Bain. Leslie, are you able to connect? Okay, we'll try Lauren Bigelow and go back to Leslie Blaine.

[01:09:31] Lauren Bigelow: Good evening, council members. Can you hear me?

[01:09:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[01:09:35] Lauren Bigelow: Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. My name is Lauren Bigelow. I am the chair of the Menlo Park Housing Commission, and the board president of Palo Alto Renters Association. I am calling in to speak tonight in favor of appointing Emily Anne Ramos, who I have really had the pleasure of knowing personally for a long time, as many people who have phoned in, and talked about, but also professionally working on renter protection, for the past 3 years, and I am not at all. surprised by the number of people who are speaking in favor of her appointment, but I am impressed by the breadth of the organizations and individuals present. And I really think that you have an opportunity to connect with more of your most vulnerable residents by appointing Emily Anne Ramos tonight. Thank you so much. And I look forward to hearing your discussion.

[01:10:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, we next have, um, well, somebody whose name is run together, but it looks like, uh, well, it's L 0 R E T, O D, I M, A, N, N, D, A, L.

[01:11:08] Loretto De Mando: Hi, can you hear me? This Loretto de Mando?

[01:11:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can.

[01:11:12] Loretto De Mando: Hi, good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'd like to speak in support of Emily Ramos, who I've known for several years now, and I am the founder and community organizer for Loretto cutest brigade Silicon Valley, and I retired from the city of Mountain View for several more than 2 decades of working over there since I was a student. So, um, I'm very familiar with Emily, and I think that she'll be a great asset to the city of Mountain View, and in service of the, um, city residents as well as, um, those people that are working in Mountain View, especially those who are underprivileged and the in-housed. So, I would like her to really served as a council member and contribute to the efforts of, um, providing services to the community. Thank you so much. Take care.

[01:12:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And last we have Leslie Bain.

[01:12:19] Leslie Bain: Hi there. Hello. Can you hear me?

[01:12:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[01:12:25] Leslie Bain: So, I am just calling in to express my disappointment about this entire process. I believe it's highly democratic and highly unfair. Um, apparently, a special election was considered unfair because of low voter turnout. And, you know, if the council wanted to follow a process of choosing the candidate, then, you know, that was the route that you chose, but now to have people, you know, talk about low vote or turnout, the people that are calling in tonight are obviously a small fraction of the residents of Mountain View. And, um, I just, um, be honest, um, Ms. Ramos has impressed me, and, uh, I'm glad to see that she was lying, but I was highly disappointed to see that Lee Zhang, in particular, was, uh, kind of dropped out of the process in phase one before even the, the public forum was held. you know, in politics, having, um, having, um, momentum is important, and basically efforts are being made that basically kneecap her momentum, which is to represent the residence of Mountain View. She got 6000 votes. I am just very deeply upset about the process that's been on...

[01:13:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So last, I think, we have... Oh, Jonathan, last I think we have Jonathan.

[01:14:12] Jonathan: Hi, thank you. I'm a member of the Silicon Valley Young Democrats. I've known Emily for years, and when I think of folks who have been community oriented, as long as I can remember, Emily is the first person that I think of, Emily Ramos, for all the work that she has done, she has a lot more to give. And I look forward to seeing her serving in Mountain View, if given the opportunity. Thank you.

[01:14:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now the public speaking is complete. We will take a short break. We'll come back at 6:25.

[01:15:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm going to call the meeting back to order if people can take their seats. Okay, take your seats. The meeting is starting up. So the city council will now interview four applicants for the vacancy. We determined the following interview questions, which I will read briefly, and also allocated 30 minutes per applicant, which is approximately four minutes per question. Each applicant already has the questions. So I will not be reading them while the during the interview, although the applicants can read the questions they're answering themselves if they want to. The questions we will be asking are number one. What are your top priorities on the council's strategic work plan and why? Number two, are there any issues where you disagree with council direction, and what would you change? Number three, how can we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residence? Number four, how would you consider public comments from residents? Number five, what criteria would you use for land use decisions? Number six, what efforts that we have not already made 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? And number seven is closing statements. We'll now proceed with our interviews. Each candidate will have 30 minutes, and we'll save council discussion until the conclusion of the interviews. The interview order was selected randomly by the city clerk, and our first interview, we will be Emily and Ramos, Emily. Yeah, come up to the lectern, and turn on your microphone. And you will be facing the council. This is quite a second. And you have 30 minutes.

[01:18:23] Emily Ramos: So, um, Mayor Hicks, uh, Vice Mayor Ramirez, when he gets to his seat. Oh, vice mayor, show Walter. I was thinking about council member Ramirez as he was getting to his seat. Um... the members of the Mountain View City Council. Um, I am honored to be here, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to move me forward to interview with you for this position on the city council and joining you up there to help make Mountain View a wonderful, beautiful, vibrant community. Um, so I will get started. with the questions. I, I, we'll just go. All right, let's go. So the first question that council asks, where what are your type priorities for on our strategic plan and why? So I will start with my top three. The first one is the displacement response strategy. which may include a net loss policy and other policies to preserve affordable housing. We are in the midst of a housing crisis, and Mount View has done really incredible steps to move us forward, but the work isn't done yet. And we have, in recent years, faced several tragedies of demolition of naturally affordable rental units and families being displaced. And in my personal and professional capacity, I have experienced housing instability, and I think we need to work together, and I know Mountain View is willing to do that work to work together, to find solutions to prevent that. Also on that same vein. My second priority is to develop strategies for middle income persons, so for different housing types. Even if you're not low income, it's still really expensive to live here. You either have to be really lucky or practically a time traveler at this point. It has kept us from really moving to our full potential as a city to not invest in our middle class, to make sure that those who are in that middle income section can afford to also live here. Um, we need to keep mountain view diverse, and that means abundant housing at all levels. And finally, my third final priority. And there's many priorities. I think you all figured that out when you did when you had to do your strategic planning, there were a lot of great ideas, and a lot of things that we want to do, but for third, I would like to focus on developing a parks and recreation strategic plan. Because parks are important public spaces that are available to all people, regardless of their income. It is the place where people can come. Your families, their friends, and their community, to come together, to play, to work, to solve the issues we have in the future. And I'm well, very well versed on all the policies that have come forth to your strategic plan. I sat through many of those conversations all the way since 2015. As you did your goal setting, as you change your goal setting process, as we did goal setting during the pandemic. If appointed, I look forward on working on all this with you, as we, um, because it will provide great benefits for a diverse equitable and a sustainable future. Um, so let's move on to the next question. The 2nd question is, are there any issues where you disagree with council direction? And what would you change? Which is an awesome softball question right there? The one I thought about initially, and I'm going to expand on it now, is back in 2018, there was an attempt by the city to initiate an RV voucher program to help them dispose of the waste in their septic tanks. The program ran for a few months. And then, unfortunately, we found that there weren't a lot of participation in that program, and then it was cut. I think if we want to work on innovative programs, we need to center on the needs of the people we're trying to help. And if we are working on innovating these type of programs, we should take the time and patience to figure out what went wrong with it and figure out why it didn't work out, or maybe it just needed more time, maybe the outreach, needed to be more in depth. Maybe we needed to focus on what were the barriers for people to take part in this program. Government programs are usually, um, are usually for those, especially in most need, they are hard to reach, for language issues, um, schedule issues, and the, um, they're hard to reach. So I would love us to, as we move forward with programs, and match view is the place, to create a lot of innovative programs, that we center on our community and listen to our residents, to see how we can move forward and center what they need to... to solve our problems together. All right. Next question. It's a very odd process with just 30 minutes just to... So, um, the third question is, how can we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residents? I mentioned in my strategic priorities from the strategic, my priorities within the strategic priorities of the city council, which is also really fun, because the vocabulary has changed over the years. Our strategic goals, to become strategic priorities, to our strategic plan, loss is strategic, uh huh. Um, so, like I mentioned, um, an important part of quality of life is the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan. That will be a very important facet of our community that, like I mentioned before, they're public spaces that people can use to convene. I recently became new auntie. Baby EJ is right there. She's adorable, um, and tiny, but she's so tiny. You'd be surprised on how loud they can be. And then when you're in enclosed space, it feels even louder, but a wide open space, and it comes baby down a little bit more. And it's a great place for families. And when she wants to run around and enjoy being mobile. She's not quite mobile yet. You want some spaces to go through and be able to connect with the outdoors. Another thing that helps with the city's livability and quality of life that enhances it. I love how many festivals we have here. So we have a bunch of local festivals. So there's that multicultural festival that works together with the multicultural engagement program and the Human Relations Commission. It was really cool. You got to see all the different cultures that are representative of our community, and so much food, the food is the best part, usually. And then you have the Harvest History Festival, which is brought by, I believe, is the Kiwanis Club, but I know that we usually have a table there for the Historical Association, and that's in Heritage Park, and it's a really cool way for people to celebrate our history and the many fastest of it, because in History Heritage Park, we have that structure, immigrant house, and I like how we center that in our history, because it shows that mountain view has always been a welcoming city, even back in our initial creation, back in 1902, um, And then you also have the art and wine festival that's brought forth by the chamber, and they take advantage of now our permanently closed streets on Castro, which is, um, really brings people from all over the region to check out, and, uh... and enjoy our community, and really give more people reasons to see that mountain view is the best city, which is... something I realize I say that a lot more often. Now I'm a little bit more self conscious about that. Maybe not as much, 'cause Mountain View is the best city, so, to also help with the quality of life. It's also important to update the community tree master plan, which is now the urban forestry plan. Sounds much better. It feels more, um... some truly great. Um, so we're going to re-reviewing the existing guiding policies and ordinances. We're relating to our trees, beautifully lined, beautiful trees that line our streets. Now, they, they're not only really nice to look at, and I think that's what most people generally think, but they also reduce heat island effect. They also provide improving air quality, and it also improves the home energy use in our city. I have, I recently heard that Oaks are King. Um, they, I'm interested in ensuring that these trees are also echoly distributed that we have a good, equitable canopy throughout our city. And so I'm looking forward to also working with all of you on all those issues to improve the quality of life of our city. So the next question, um, number four, um, how would you consider public comment from the residents? Um, I feel like I should have only three minutes for this, but, or actually, what, one.5 minutes to match everyone else? But we are really lucky. Like, we are truly blessed to have such an organized community, um, and passionate too. Um, we would not have been able to achieve a lot of what we have without the support of this very robust community that's willing to engage with each other in our council. Um, one important part of public comment is to alert us to the issues that we may not have thought about. We can't think of everything, and that's why it's important for our community to come in and engage with us. We, it is, the real, valuable public comment. And I know that, like, when it happens, you all lean in and you're like, oh, why didn't he think about that before? Are the people that come from different perspectives and give us the opportunity to learn and grow? I personally enjoy it so much when I see a new person here at council. I'm just like, what brings you here? Um, it, it's, I find it an exciting, exciting way for our city to grow and learn. So, five. What efforts would you take to help our existing businesses stay in Mountain View and make it easier for new businesses to enter and renew the number of long-standing empty storefronts? So, one thing I think about is that even though COVID transmission is down, and we are starting to recover from this devastating worldwide pandemic, we're finally back here, which is something to truly celebrate. Um, we still have to recover from our economic, um, impacts of COVID. And so, some of the efforts I would address to help with the business community is obviously work with our Chamber of Commerce. I am a proud graduate of Leadership Mountain View, class of 2019, best class ever. And one of the big things we were working on is the economic vitality strategy, which I understand that we have a consultant out, doing some studies where we can investigate the barriers to creating new businesses in Mountain View, and streamlining some permits, and also looking into how we expand, to be equitable, and have more diverse small businesses, and, um, and more options out there. One of the ideas is, we got this during the pandemic. There was a small business loan program that was created. I think that we should make that permanent. Um, we should also look into the opportunities, um, that are in, when we passed, when, when, when the council passed the Middlefield Park Master plan, there was in the community benefits package, a small business diversification and nonprofit inclusion program, um, that is something that I, I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic, that we can, um, use that, um, that resource to, um, learn what we can do, and, and, really take lessons from when we have this opportunity of funding and resources, 'cause they, it looks like they're, should it get built, there's some ground floor retail that they're looking at supporting our business community with and providing some training and loans to help them and discounted rents. So that will be exciting to see how that could expand to the rest of our city if it goes well. So if we don't address these issues around business recovery now. We'll have a harder time with our economic resiliency in the future, and I'm committed to ensuring our economic vitality in them city and mountain view. Um, next. So question number six. What criteria do you use to consider land use decisions? So, um, The 1st foremost is we take a look at what existing plans and guidelines we have. So the king is general plan. So that will be one of the key things. And then the precise plan, if whatever we are deciding on, is in a price size plan, that we don't want to reinvent wheels. We want to see what councils in the past have approved, and moving forward, because that is what people come in with their projects, understanding that that is the guidelines that we set forth for our community. And eventually our housing element. Um, should we get, uh, hopefully we get that passed, um, soon. The other thing is that we should focus on the knees of the community through the lens of our strategic priorities. We have the community for all, housing options, um, economic, uh, resilience, um, environmental resiliency, um, and that should be our lens to which we determine some of these land use decisions. Um, going deeper as we look at housing policy, which I could probably talk to, uh, much longer than I have the time for, um, I like to follow the 3P framework, which is production, preservation, and protection, where production is producing housing at all income levels, protection, protecting tenants, and families from displacement, and preservation, keeping the affordable housing that we have. So those are the criteria that I'm looking in our land use decisions. So, I guess we're at our final closing statements. So, from the first, my 1st job at the Tech Museum of Innovation, where our motto was inspiring the innovator in everyone, it was very Silicon Valley esque, and I'm very happy to have grown up and was born in Silicon Valley in this region, um, to now at Silicon Valley at home, where I research and educate the community on housing policies. My entire professional life. I've worked hard to empower people to come together. and work toward improving the world. I am, I am very honored to, to see the support that I've had so far. I'm sorry, you have to sit through that long of public comments. I did not, I really didn't anticipate how much was gonna turn out for me, and I'm truly honored. I've spent so much time nurturing and mentoring and empowering, young, BIPOC leaders in our region. Um, and it... It's not that they came out for me, that I feel proud, is that they came out, believing that they can affect their community, and speak to counsel, and make the change they want to see. It's very strange that the change is me. But it is truly, truly an honor. Um, I've developed current and contemporary relationships with people throughout the city and with Mountain View. I had a wonderful time at the community forum that was on Friday. I hope you all had the opportunity to check it out and see it and learn more about us. I was really happy to learn more about my fellow colleague applicants. I think we, um, Vice Mayor Schol Walter, uh, joked one time, that we are in an embarrassment of riches, that we have so many good leaders, willing to step up, and I'm, I'm so happy that I could join you among that, for that opportunity. It's quite much.

[01:37:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much, Ms. Ramos. Am I interrupting you? Did you have... another comment?

[01:37:58] Emily Ramos: I guess I could go a little... I have a few more talking points.

[01:38:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Go for it. And then I see the countdown of... Yes, you have 10 more minutes. We can also reserve some of that time for questions of clarification from council. But have you had a couple more points to make them?

[01:38:14] Emily Ramos: Sure, and I'm happy to answer questions. So we'll get through these last bit of talking points. So, mountain views quickly, becoming a cutting age city on the peninsula, a true leader, and that is thanks to your leadership, and the leadership of those who have served in the past. My pledge is to counsel, to staff, and the residents of Mountain View, to always work hard, to continue the innovative legacy of our city, and be collaborative, but firm in my values. You know what I care about and what I stand for. We can work together on how that is executed and represented. I have the energy track record of doing my homework and performance of six years on the rental housing committee, where I was able to do highly impactful work implementing the new charter amendment. We were independently in charge of a budget, and we also, unlike many other committees, we actually had closed session, because we had legal implications for our city in implementing this law. So, thank you so much for the time I was given. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I really, I really do appreciate it. And I would be honored to be appointed and serve our community together with you all. And that's it for me.

[01:39:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: So thank you as well. Are there questions of clarification from the council? Uh... Yes. Uh, Council member Ramirez?

[01:39:50] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Marion. Thank you, Emily, for interviewing and for applying. I have a question about the fourth question. How would you consider public comments from residents? I think I heard you speak to the value of public comment? But I'm not sure I got a response to how you would incorporate those public comments into your own decision making. I think that it.

[01:40:23] Emily Ramos: I don't want people to come here and feel like they're not heard. We have sat through. I sat right there in the back. Um, and then usually, we do have waves every once in a while, uh, people, um, for subject matters that we had no idea was gonna be controversial. And... I do hold it as an important part of our decision making process, because I never want someone to come here, believing that they can make a difference, and feeling that they are not heard, that they are not valued in our community. Um, we may differ. on what we believe may be the best path forward. But I have, I have core values that I believe and I trust our staff. And we put it kind of all together for the package of was the best path forward.

[01:41:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you.

[01:41:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Do other council members have questions of clarification? Council member...

[01:41:38] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. On question number... regarding Landius. Um, I heard you speak, um, about, uh, like the rules, the general plan, the precise plan, housing element, uh, the 3 Ps, uh, which are not quite rules, but things you think about. Is there anything that's less concrete that you think about when you think about land use?

[01:42:04] Public Speaker: Less concrete? I mean, the reason why I mentioned the general plan, and the precise plan, is generally prevent us from any legal liability. We don't want to be sued for not following our own rules. Um, but I do prioritize... how we move toward our strategic goals within our land use decisions. So I believe in having housing, I believe that we should work to preserve the housing, the affordable housing we have, those are more intangible. I care about the people who will live in these homes. The people who will be affected by those who live in these homes, the surrounding areas. I care about how we develop those standards, and those standards would be guided by our values of ensuring that people have good homes to live in, and they are vibrant communities, and have options to move forward. I think about like our downtown. I live in Shoreline West. And then you also have Moffatt. So the downtown has the neighborhood that's near, the nearest neighborhood is downtown, is the old Mountain View neighborhood, very vibrant neighborhood, and people can go to downtown easily enough, but we also have the Shoreline West neighborhood that can easily go downtown. And the Moffat, the Moffat neighborhood area. If we plan our land use goals and our transportation, and the walkability from those areas to our downtown, those are things that we can put together to really make our community very strong, and especially our downtown, which is like a truly a jewel in our city. Everyone's kind of jealous of our downtown, part of it. It's what makes Mountain View the best. And I keep on doing that. Exactly.

[01:44:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Let's see, uh, Vice Mayor Show Walter has a question.

[01:44:18] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, you've talked a lot about housing, and that's very important, and sometimes that's, housing is, I know, when I talk about housing, I just mean housing. And other times, it's a surrogate, more for a balanced community. So I'd like you to explain to us what you think are the components of a balanced community.

[01:44:39] Public Speaker: The key to any balanced community are the people in it. They're the people who will be living in these homes. There will be the people who are the neighbors of the people in these homes. They are the people who will be serving the people, and this is when I say serving, like, working in jobs, and, like, that are in our retail, or restaurants, um, that... That is where I view, when we think about our community, the interactions between all of us.

[01:45:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council members, are there additional questions? Council member commit?

[01:45:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Excuse me, thank you. So I think on our question six, but maybe on your question five. Um, I was hoping maybe you could expand a little bit about the efforts that the city has not already made. I took note of a couple programs that you mentioned, which were our small business loan program, bring that back permanently, small business, and diversification, which we've been talking about, and a couple master plans, and the economic vitality strategy, but was curious if there were any other ideas in an effort that have not already been made by the city that you wanted to share with us. Thank you, Mayor.

[01:46:02] Public Speaker: So, um, one of the things with the economic vitality strategy is that there is studies that are gonna be available to us off of that. So, I would love to see what the data brings, but also, there are things that we can do as leaders of our own community to encourage people to shop at our local businesses, to work together, to elevate them. Council member, come A, you actually do a great job on your Instagram. I see a particular favorite, Bloomsgiving, post every once in a while. Um, no favorites, of course. We don't have favorites. We love all our businesses. And so we can be as leaders to really elevate our local shops, our local business owners, really show that by coming to Mountain View, because it is the best city, that everyone should be coming to Mountain View and shop our local businesses.

[01:47:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Are there additional questions? We are coming to the end of time. Yes.

[01:47:14] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mayor. So along those lines regarding businesses. You mentioned the grant program, which, um, has been a loan program and then a grant program, but one of the challenges to any of these is funding. So what would you propose as the funding source for these programs?

[01:47:38] Public Speaker: We have been very fortunate with ARPA funding, and I understand that that will run out. As we look for revenue sources, we actually did a business tax recently that will that has a bunch of goals from it. I would also, I know that a vacancy tax for businesses, or vacant storefronts, was something that was proposed and even supported by chamber, it'd be interesting to look into that. I, hmm. I would be interested to see what other options we have to, um, grow that revenue source for projects such as these. I'm at time. Thank you so much.

[01:48:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, our next interviewee will be Ronnie Bryant will again be running through the seven questions and open for questions of clarification at the end. Thank you. Welcome, Rosie.

[01:48:58] Ronit Bryant: Just hi. Just as soon as I liberate myself from this mask. There we go.

[01:49:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: And I'm having a suggestion that, um, that each question that you should read each question before you answer it. Just to be, um, just to be completely clear on which subject you're talking.

[01:49:19] Ronit Bryant: Yes, and I actually came, um, came with notes to make sure that I got to say all the things I wanted to say. I'm very impressed that Emily managed to do it. And a time of... Congratulations, Emily. Um, so... Um, I wasn't intending to read, but maybe I will read. So, the first question is, what are your top priorities on the council's strategic work plan and why? So I'll start by saying that I have, I love the strategic priorities that you came up with, and I support them all, and I think that they're all interdependent. They all work together, and if we achieve all these goals, the final result will be a community for all. That said, my top priorities are protecting our residents and protecting our environment. Housing is critical, and we have many units in the pipeline, and eventually we will have more affordable housing than we have right now. My focus would be on making sure that we don't displace residents. My focus would be, really on, on not displacing our residents, on making sure that if residents lose housing, they are rehoused as quickly as possible, and the county programs don't necessarily work that way, I would like to make sure that there is no period where somebody gets displaced in a couch surf, or sleep outdoors, immediately housing, and we need to think of, uh, We need to think of new and innovative ways to make sure that happens. So, um, you know, we we need to, we say we are innovative, so let's think of innovative ways of housing people. Um, you know, many, many, I'm talking too much, but there we go. Many programs that I've seen, like, tiny houses and stuff like that, they take way too much space. We need to, we talk about densifying housing. We also need to densify the solutions to to temporary housing, to housing on the way to having permanent housing. And I'm very fond of pilot programs. You have the basic income, which is a pilot program, hopefully, that'll flower into more than that. Same thing with housing, with immediate solutions to housing problems. All right, um... So... I would also like to look at, um... turning office buildings into housing, into not building townhomes all the time, but building stacked flats. And I would really like to see densities spread around town, not one area of very tall buildings and everything else, single family, that doesn't strike me as a model for the kind of diverse in welcoming city that we all say we want. Well, housing is critical. Housing, we cannot focus only on housing. Because we have run out of the time needed to solve one problem at a time. So we need to build housing, and while we're building housing, it's a community that we need to be building, which means that we need to protect the environment and add services and add canopy. And make sure that we have active transportation modes, really supported by the city, not just, say, go ride your bicycle, but provide the safe routes, where people will want to ride their bicycles. All right, moving on to the next question. Are there any issues where you disagree with council direction and what would you change? So, I will not take specific projects, but talk generally about issues that have disturbed me over the years. One of them is the immense edition of office space that we keep on seeing, which is always disturbing, but when we know how high the vacancy rates for offices is right now. It's difficult to accept office building. Even when there is a linkage between offices and housing, the truth is, we are in a housing crisis already. We have nowhere near enough housing. Every time we add office, we add a need to build more housing, and we are making, we aren't making a dent in the housing jobs imbalance. It's like, we keep on being on this wheel, running, running really hard, and not necessarily achieving our goal, which is a city with enough housing. So that disturbs me. And, uh, frankly, like I said, I would like to see offices turned into housing, or maybe even require that when office buildings are built, flexibility is built into them, that they can could be turned into housing, at some stage. And there are cities where this is happening, not in every type of building, but there are cities where this is happening, and I would really like Mountain View to be looking at that. Yes, and then... I don't like seeing townhomes coming in all the time, one townhome, after the other, all of them in beautiful beige colors. I would like to see, I like color. I would like to see us working on stacked flats, and I would like to find out why, what are the incentives we could provide, how could we make sure that it's not simpler, easier, quicker to build an office, or simpler, easier, quicker to be done to build townhouses? Stacked flats will give us a lot more units for the same square footage or acreage or whatever. Um... Yes, and finally, I'm worried about a tendency to try to say, well, just build housing, maximize housing in a specific area, and not worry about open space, not worry about biodiversity, not worry about sustainability. Well, just build housing, we'll worry about all the rest of the time. And maybe because of being around for a while. I'm tired of waiting. I think we need to solve as much as we can now, not in 20 years, in 30 years, in 40 years. I personally can't wait that long. All right. Next question. How do we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residents? So, for me, quality of life, and livability mean having housing that's affordable to everyone. And having green spaces, where the community members meet and support each other, that's how we build community, and having sidewalks that people want to walk on, bike routes that people want to ride their bikes on. Bus stops, where people want to sit, and, you know, sometimes it feels, I stand at an intersection, it feels like punishment. There's a lot of traffic. It's really sunny. I smell bad air. That's not how you encourage people to do active transportation. How am I doing on time? I'm not doing too well. Am I amusing a lot of time, or am I good?

[01:58:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: Excellent. You are not using too much. You have over 20 minutes.

[01:58:09] Ronit Bryant: Well, in that case, that's very good. All right, so... Another thing, so I live downtown, I believe there for, like, 35 years, I think. And, um, my quality of life is greatly enhanced by the fact that many of the services I need are available to me downtown. There's a grocery store downtown. Um, I don't have to get into my car. I think as we move forward to sustainability. Whatever we can do to make cars less central in our lives, you know, cars, and all the streets wide enough, and do we have enough parking? I don't have to worry about that. I can walk to groceries. I can walk to the library. I can walk to the park. And I think the more we can do to develop neighborhood shopping centers, neighborhood services, the better off we are as a city. That's very... very much of support for livability and quality of life. And that can be done, very well mixed with housing. There is no reason there shouldn't be a house on top of a grocery store. It happens all over the world, we can have it here, too, rather than the strip mall that people need to drive to. Next, how would you consider public comments from residents? Well, I've spent a significant number of years listening to public comments for residents, and I hope I have always listened with great respect and attention. So many of the comments we get are based on a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, both local knowledge and knowledge of people from all over the globe. So, um, I'm actually very proud of the processes we have in Mountain View, to listen to people, uh, the way we design parks, listening to the neighbors in what they want. I think I have and followed what I advocated for to have as much public input as possible. It makes for long meetings, but we gain from it. Both people, feeling heard and counsel, hearing them, and staff, hearing them, so that we try to do things together. Now, how I would, how I would consider probably come. There's something... something that we need to consider that the community does not speak with one voice. So sometimes people ask me, you know, have you listened to the community? Well, I've listened to communities of communities. I've listened to many groups. There is no one voice to the community. We're a diverse community. We're proud of it. There was no one voice. So our job, your job, is to listen to everyone, to listen with an open mind, and then you need to take a step back and think, what are our goals as a city? What are my values as a person, and create the best, uh, Make the best decision. And my feeling about council members when I decide whom to vote for is not, what does this person promise? But do I trust this person to reach decisions in a good way on issues that maybe we aren't thinking about right now? So that's, um... I told myself, when I was in council, 10,000 people voted for me, that means they trust my judgment. And hopefully, hopefully, that's true, and hopefully I didn't disappoint too many people. All right, um... Onwards. Um, so, I'll just say something about, about the, the letter from HCD about the housing element that said that there were people in town that didn't feel they'd been heard. That really made me sit up. And I was wondering about that, and I hope that council will look into that very deeply, and see what happened here. That doesn't sound like the mountain view that I, I know that I, that I hope for. Um, you know, my hope for the city is that we do things together, not antagonistically, not adversarially. So I hope, I hope counsel looks into that very deeply. All right. What criteria would you use for land use decisions? So, the criterion is the good at the city, the goals that we have set for ourselves as a city. And, you know, we need more housing. We need to build a community with open space, with canopy, with services. We need to provide dependable housing for our residents, but we're also responsible for improving the life of the people who are already living here. And so, we need to look at developments not one by one, not in a vacuum, but to see what a development is offering us as a city. Is it... Is it bringing us to the girls we want? And that's never an easy decision, and we have a lot of plans that need to guide us. But in the final analysis, we need to look at it and say, is this moving where we want to go as a city, the goals that we have together are defined. All right. What effort have we not already made? What efforts that we have not already made would you take to help our existing business sustain Mountain View make it easier for new businesses to enter and reduce the number of long-standing empty storefronts? And this is kind of the question that we've been asking ourselves for ever since I was sufficiently involved in the community to listen to the questions being asked. So, had there been an easy solution, we would have taken care of it, taking care of it already. However, I do of course, have some ideas. So there are at least two strands that I would look at, and I would separate the concerns of small business owners from the incentives that must be in place for property owners to let their properties sit empty for decades. So, um, for the small business owners, I would work both with the chamber, because I think the chambers is possibly now more involved than it was before. And, um, with our various different community groups to make contact with small business owners. I have a feeling that there must be plenty of small business owners who don't know about what services the city could provide or what help the city could provide. And, um, it seems like we should convene these people with help from community members and talk about it. You know, what would help you? Are we requiring too much parking? Are the processes too difficult? Or language barriers? I don't know what the answer is, but I think we just need to ask, and we need to ask, we need to insist on asking, and we need to insist on making contact with the right people. Which is not easy, because hadn't been easy. We would have done it before. Or we would have resolved it before. As for... as for the empty storefronts... I would like, I don't know if it's legal or economic, we need to know what incentives are there for business owners to be happy, for the storefronts to be empty. I have heard from nonprofits and residents who have told me the business owners are just not interested in short term rental. They're not interested in a pop up store. I know the Chamber has managed, at least in one case, to have a pop up store. But, There must be something there. There must be a good reason. A tax reason or whatever. And I would like to have a clear understanding of that. And then do something to change those incentives as far as it's in the city's ability to do that. Um, you know, is time for vacancy tax, is the time to be a lot more strong about saying, this is blight. You know, there's been a hole in this wall for 10 years. Why can't it be filled? These plants have been dead for 15 years. Why can't we have life plans? Um, it's a conversation to be had, and I would be very interested in the answers. Um... I think... I have said what I wanted to say. So... I've tried to be as, um... as clear and as full in my answers, and in the application papers, and, um, in the forum, on Friday, the candidate form, whatever, and thank you, Alex, it was a really fun event, I really enjoyed it, which I had completely not expected to do. You know, for the rest, I would like to ask you to just ask clarifying questions. What have I said? Where have I not been clear? Okay, thank you very much.

[02:09:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: I see from Council member Ramirez, a clarifying question.

[02:09:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Renee, for applying and for, uh, participating in the interview. Um, I wanted to ask a clarifying question about, uh, number two, are there any issues where you disagree with council direction? I heard concerns about, uh, office space, um, sort of a glut of down, or townhome development, and, uh, concerned about beja vu, which we see with a lot of these residential developments. But I think what would be helpful to more equitably compare across answers is, if there are specific projects or decisions that the council has made that might be consistent with these thematic issues, where you've disagreed and maybe how you might have approached that decision. And I know you've elected not to be too precise in that, and that's okay, but I did want to make sure you had an opportunity to provide a specific example, in case that's something that would help us compare and contrast the answers from all of the applicants.

[02:10:27] Ronit Bryant: Sure. I have a tendency to not talk policy, but to talk where I want us to go as a community. So that's just, and not to talk numbers either because, because that's how I talk. Um, So I would be happier if our housing element. had a... had a lot more opportunities open for denser housing across the city. Okay, I think, I think that would both make it, hopefully, easier to build and would not put us in a quandary, as some developments have put us in a quandary, to say, we need to maximize the space. It's true that there's very big trees here. It's true that we will harm the environment and harm the people living in the development if we take out the trees, but you know what? We need to maximize housing. I don't think we need to maximize housing. I think we need to build the best housing possible in as many places as possible in town. Okay, I... I don't think we need to build housing. I think we need to build community and a good community in which to live. You know, when I first came to Mountain View in... One of the computer development booms, Mountain View was a place where you went for your first apartment, it really wasn't particularly... fancy, luxurious, um, and then you left as quickly as you could once your salary improved. So some of us, who arrived in the early '80s, you know, discovered this is a lovely community. This is actually, I don't want to go anywhere else. There's things that could be improved and let's do it together. But when you just build housing and you don't worry about anything else, just maximize housing, you don't build the community where people say, this is where I want to live. Nature is protected, people are protected. This is where I want to be. It's kind of general, but there we go. Thank you very much.

[02:13:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Are there additional council questions? I'm not seeing additional counsel questions. We have six minutes, so I'll give you a few seconds to think of none, but if everybody is satisfied? Council member Committee?

[02:13:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So, um, I guess a clarifying question for our city attorney. Can I only ask clarifying questions on these seven, or can I ask them from the application as well?

[02:13:33] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: You can ask them from the application, as well.

[02:13:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, wonderful. Thank you very much. Okay, this one of the questions and I'll read it so that everyone knows what it is, is, what are your thoughts, ideas? for improving the housing supply to meet today's requirements, including R3, as well as planning for the future. And in your application, you talked about adding densities to transit rich areas, to find ways to encourage new housing options. And I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about what you meant by transit rich areas, um, aside from, I'm, you know, the Caltrain or, or maybe you could list the different, the transit rich sites that you see that we have in the city, just to clarify for this question. Thank you.

[02:14:16] Ronit Bryant: Right. Well, the downtown is really, is really where we have a lot of transit. El Camino has a lot of transit also. And, you know, when I was in council, we tried with the El Camino precise plan to add housing, and frankly, when I go for a walk along the El Camino, I'm kind of pleased with how much housing we have added. And I think we El Camino, to me, has transformed. I was on the Grand Boulevard committee, or whatever, it's called, for many years, and I think El Camino has really transformed, because we changed. We changed what could be built there. I think we need to be pretty clear that if we want to be a sustainable community, we need to break our love affair with the car, we need to build and have housing where there is transit. And where there is in transit, we need to, Main view is really small in acord. Taking a bike, or even walking from one part of the city to the other, is really not that difficult to do. The difficulty isn't how unpleasant it sometimes. When you need to cross in the sunlight with no trees, you know, smelling all the bad air from cars. If we have active transportation corridors, we can add housing in all kinds of places. But mainly El Camino in downtown, I think, at this point, and then, as we develop more corridors, we can look at more stuff.

[02:16:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: We have about three more minutes. Are there any other council questions?

[02:16:22] Ronit Bryant: If not, if not, then maybe I'll just take those couple of minutes.

[02:16:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Sure, are you gonna make a closing statement?

[02:16:29] Ronit Bryant: So, it's... I guess it is a closing statement. I'm, you know... I've been on the parks and rec, I've been on nonprofit boards. I did 2 terms on city council. I was a recovery council member until very recently, very happy to let you guys take the decisions, and stay on the sidelines, and shout my advice when I felt it was necessary. When, when, because of Sally's resigning, you asked for applicants, I decided it was appropriate for me to offer my services for these two years. I personally am done with counsel, but these two years, I'm happy to help you reach the goals that you have set for the city, and I think I can help by bringing my experience and my interest in looking at everything we do for more than one perspective. You know, not, let's resolve. Let's try to solve this problem. Let's try to solve this problem. We have to solve everything at the same time. And you will be making many important decisions on parks, on funding parks, on biodiversity. Those are really important to me. And if you ask me to join you, I will be advocating for those on council, and if you don't ask me to join you, I will be making sure that PRC writes the absolutely best reports possible. So thank you. Thank you.

[02:18:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: And, let's see, next in line is, uh, we're going to ask John McAllister to join us at the lectern, John. And like the previous applicants, if you can please read the questions so that we know which question you're answering at which particular time.

[02:18:48] John McAlister: I will. Look, just a second here. One of the update I have is, I need to read glasses more, so... I will give you a brief update, since I haven't seen you in about two years, and personally, I don't miss it, but it's, uh, I like coming back. Um, small update since I've last saw you. I've lost 15 pounds, and I've had my teeth straightened, so I've taken the time and used valuable use out of it, so it was nice to do. The last time I addressed you guys, you spoke kindly to me, so please remember that as we go through this journey here. So the questions here, I've sort of, to me, they sort of blend together to one of my main goals, this quality of life, and how do I improve things? Since I've been off, I've been able to work. I have to work a lot these days. Because it's labor issues, and needing money to stay in this area. So I get to say to a lot of people every day, coming through the doors, all types. And so, I've developed a little bit more sense of compassion towards people, a little more focused on what I want to get done, time short. And so when I approached some of these things, I thought, okay, council, and I know the city manager tried real hard to consolidate, but less is better. And so I will keep some of my responses a little less in my responses a little more detail. So what are your top priorities for the council plan and why? To no surprise, to some of you, mobility, transportation, and sustainable, affordable housing, or should I say, subsidized housing. I'll start off with the transportation. I was the champion for the comprehensive modal plan, which has been diverted around and moved and massaged and came out with many different things. But transportation to me is very important. And again, it ties into quality of life. It ties into connecting the community. It ties into leaving people of stress of having to drive. And it takes care of one of our biggest environments. It's greenhouse gases. It reduces greenhouse gases. And so with our pedestrian and our bike plans that we've been working together, the modal plan was to overlay everything so that we could see what exists and what we can fill in where there's not. And there's still a lot of work to be done. But that's what my goal was to see that, and so that everybody could hop on a Charlie, I mean, not on a Charlie, that would have been great. A tram, maybe, going to North Bay Shore, or taking a shuttle around town. Because getting downtown, if you recall, and this goes back to some of the viability, was that the parking was an issue, and people just did not want to deal with parking downtown, so that hurt viability, and that could be still a lingering effect that we have right now, is people don't get that. But I think transportation is very important, so that it does also, you know, people were asking about livability. And a simple question, and I was talking about, for those who've been to the convention, and go to Washington, DC, and you see wide sidewalks. And you look at our sidewalks. And they're tiny. They're really not that wide. And why are the sidewalks gives people a sense of safety of breath, of comfort? And as we build our more buildings and higher buildings, they're going to have, if you don't have the nice sidewalks, they're going to fill people pushed out to the street. So sidewalks is part of the transportation of an active program that we need to do, along with the bikes, the walking, the transit from corporate shuttles that have to be incorporated, the school buss. People go into school, where I go through half all the time, you see the biggest traffic is early in the morning and the afternoon when people are picking up their kids. Now, do we really want to have our people driving back and forth where if we had a shuttle or we worked with a school in some way to be able to get a transportation system so that kids could get to their neighborhood schools, that's important. Bike lanes. You know, we're talking about bike lanes, safe routes to school. We really haven't did a good plan of laying that out. Our bike, our safe lanes or safe paths to transit centers. Calderon. If you go up Calderon, that is a main route to the transit center, are there biclanes there? No, they were taken out at one time. And I think they're coming back, but these are things that we need to start looking at us, where people go, where people want to go, and make sure that we have something there to go. We don't have to make something very elaborate. Street lights. I know on corners, someone was talking about feeling safety at a corner. Turning down my street down sleeper. There's a light, but there's a bunch of trees, and it's hard to see the pedestrians walking along the street there. And now a lot of people are using sleeper because of the coming through the park to go down into Stevens Creek Trail. But simple things that we can make happen without spending a lot of money and money is going to be a tight issue. But transportation, again, overall, will tie the community like a web and make it stronger. So that's transportation. That's what active, to me, is incorporating everything as possible. Taking California, taking Latham, looking in those streets, what can we do? Looking at VTA and seeing if we can reroute some of their routes. When I was on the VTA board, I was able to get a route rerouted for the city of Los Altos so that their school, the route would go and pick up kids and drop them off at their schools at the homestead, and there was the junior high. But if we can do that sometimes, and you got to be persistent, we can get VTA to modify their routes if we give them the right information, say, these are where we need these kids at this time, we take them there. And in that particular case, the spot that they were taking people was not used at all. And so we were able to reroute it so forth. Working, again, with Caltrans has a shuttle back to North Bay Shore. Remember, we're seeing all these shuttles. We don't need all these people running around if we can get people to cooperate together. So that's why transportation to me is also, and again, I always like to push on the transportation of people are able to get to work, then they can go to places where they can afford, because we can get them to work, and it's better. Then affordability of housing. I've been preaching, and snow surprise. City of Mountain View has to buy housing. Everybody says, oh, we don't want to get into the housing industry. But I've been involved with the planning commission for five years on a council for eight. And we have not really progressed in getting subsidized housing. We've lost 1,000 units. And everybody, and so I keep hearing everything, and you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, getting something different. Yes, it's great that you're reaching out to all these partners and trying to get them to collaborate. But what is wrong with the city of buying units as we go along. If we bought Rock Street. We could have had saved all those people's housing. Now, when I, when, um, there was talking about rapid rehousing, I'm a bit of advocate of rapid rehousing. In fact, I advocated and we got a $1 million when I was on council, we got people to put that in. But if we have our own housing, we can do rapid rehousing, we can do domestic violence housing. We can do needy housing. I mean, we can do so many different things. that if we take it and spend the money, and I know it's tough, we don't have it, but we have to do it, we might have to get a bond, and the bond would be paid back through rental income. But we don't have the city doesn't have to be managed the properties. We just have to get them. Give them to some organization that will manage it for us, and take care of them. But doing the same thing that we're doing, you keep talking about what, you know, we're gonna do this and that, it hasn't worked. So I personally like to see us do that. And that's what, to me, is affordable housing displacement. You gotta get the housing. We keep talking about it, but we gotta get it done. So, that's what I, that's really some of the things that I, and I'm keeping it small, because there's so much on your plate. You're not gonna get enough done. And staff, I always remember a great city manager would always say, yeah, we can do it. What do you want me to take off? Right? And so, we got to do that too. Somewhere along the line, councils has to say, okay, what would we really want to do? Okay, well, one more thing about the housing? There was a housing project that we were looking at. I think it was Lot 12. And we're gonna put in a bunch of housing there. And I said, okay. And then there's somebody who said, well, how about we put daycare in there? I said, I own a daycare. So I know it's a great idea, and people, it's a need. But what are you trying to accomplish? That was we're trying to put in housing in there? We saved that lot to put in housing. And that sometimes the council has to sit back and say, if housing is a need, Let's focus on the housing. Childcare can go many different places. But we already got this big complex for housing. Let's put it in. So sometimes that's what I see. And that's what a need is. My next question, as I pull through my notes, And actually, I took a bunch of, I made a bunch of notes on this thing. So I was pretty thorough. As you know, I'm pretty pragmatic about doing things. So are there any issues that the city, would you disagree with? Well, you know, that's true, and I do. And my biggest one that I disagree with. And again, it deals with housing and office buildings. It's the Middlefield Park master plan. And when I looked at that, I said, you know, there's a lot of great stuff, sustainability, traffic, transit, but then I start looking at the housing, and we're letting them off the hook. Google is supposed to be building, they're going to build 19, it says planned for 1900 units. They're only going to build 1,500. They're saying, city, we're gonna give you the land, and you figure out how to get the 380 affordable units. And that's wrong. If the city's serious about getting affordable housing, hold the developers' feet to the fire and have them pay for it. And before they even start, one spart of foundation on the office, presidential's done. And I looked at the numbers there, and I go, well, isn't that crazy? So they're going to be putting in a net 700,000 square feet. But they already have a 700,000. So they got a 1.3 million square feet. But they're only putting housing in for 4,000 residents. But it doesn't make sense. This math doesn't make sense that they still need to be, they're still in a deficit for their own projects and housing. So we need to address that and play hardball on that sometimes. I know sometimes you want to do and give something, but sometimes you have to play a little more hardball. Impact fees is another way that we can help with our housing allotments. We have to raise the fees. Now there's 2 ways to issue the housing imbalance, build more housing, or reduce the office. And I think the COVID and the new work environment is starting to see what's happening with office space. We really don't know what's gonna happen down the road. Are working from home going to be the thing that's going to happen? Look at San Francisco, their vacancy rate of office base. People are moving out of town, big boys, you know, big tech companies are closing up offices in San Francisco. Why doesn't that mean that they're going to do it in Mountain View? Look at Google and all they're building you in downtown San Jose or they project to build. I mean, that's pretty awesome what they're going to do. They want to have their corporate headquarters in the 10th largest city? Do they still want to be in Mountain View? We don't know. But that's why we need to make sure that if they really want to be committed to Maldew. Let them see either start building a residence and see how we can do it. Because the rest of the community, the rest of the master panel looks really great. And another thing that sort of ticked me off on that one, it didn't, it was interesting. It wouldn't take. So they said in the staff report that they're going to build it in 4 phrases between 8 and 12 years, why do they need a 20-year building development agreement? Isn't that a little absurd? I mean that's really reaching out there. They're covering their base, and who's gonna be holding up the city of Mountain View and the residents, because we're losing up money opportunities on that money. So that's one audience that I disagree with. And also, you know, I sort of, I'm a little bit of blame, too, because if we didn't hold them on the feet when they were doing some of the North Bay Shore stuff. But anything that goes on over there, start holding them a little more to it and see if they're really committed to mountain. And they're not going to go elsewhere because there are a lot of spaces that are going to be opening up. And we need to be right there to make sure that we can take advantage of it and protect ourselves. The next question. Yeah, because I got my notes. Okay. How can you enhance the city live livability and quality of life for the residents? Potholes. Why don't we go after some potholes and improve the city? That affects everybody in this room. So, I know it sounds funny, but where we don't, we get money from VTA to take care of potholes. Now, maybe BTA is hurting for a little bit of money right now. But we're supposed to be getting money from them to take care of potholes. So I picked that one because everybody can relate to it. But that support, I mean, it is a little thing about life. And I mentioned earlier, everything sort of blends together and that goes back to housing. How can we enhance livability for people? They got to make sure housing, the loss of housing is one of the most distressful things that can happen someone that affects their family, their livelihood, their children's education. And I know some of you going, well, McAllister, you never sound like that before, but, you know, I'm starting to realize this is really important. This is what happens. So affordability of housing can always help enhance their little ability of knowing where somewhat thing is. Whatever it is, but knowing that there's a roof over their head. Then also enhancing livability and quality accessibility. Things need to be accessible. They need to be affordable. Like anything going, like right now, the parks and recs, if we have to subsidize something, let's do it. If we do something with the center for the performing arts and there's a performance, Maybe there's a way we can get people to come in, you know, and just, you know, say, hey, I want to voucher and come do them. Um, There was talk about the multicultural, uh, festival. We way back when I was mayor, with Juan, uh, Aranda, and JP Moore, uh, JP. We started looking at doing a multicultural festival. And now look at it. It started off. So there's always something that you can do that's easy for people to, you know, enjoy and doesn't cost a lot of money. Another thing that, like making things accessible to people, maybe public art. Now, you know, I've been pushing to get public art going. We got a lot of these mental controlled things and irrigations and so forth. Let's see if we can get, we can, we can reach out and get people to volunteer to do that. And just walking down the street, have a nice little visual art to see something. If you go down to Long Beach. If you ever get down there, you'll see a lot of, you know, public art, or you go to other cities, you'll see these unique little art structures, and it's nice to see. And it makes, put people's, uh, puts a smile on their face. It makes simple form. We don't have to go crazy, but these are simple things that I think that we can do. And if we get a public art fun going, You know, to get the ball running. We have a commission that looks at public art. We also have a commission on performing arts, which I am proud to be a member of. And so we'll get into that a little bit. But those are very important. Parks. Parks can also be educational. I remember there was talking about, years ago that they said, let's put some, you know, different types of play structure in there that are educational or bowlers or something. And I remember there was a book about asphalt and getting rid of asphalt put in the parks and making those. Making parks more of a place to also gather, to exercise. And that's enhancing. We used to have what par courses. And I think they used to have one over at Ring Starf, but I think they might have taken that away. But parks can be utilized just more than they can, you know, just for sitting and relaxing. But also, simple thing for the parks. You want people enjoy it, enhance? More benches. Look at how little benches or seats that people have. For again, I'm going to Washington and CC. You'll see a park, and it's about the size of our plaza and the thing is totally around with seats. So that's something else. Street lights. I mentioned those before, and trees. You know, how can we improve the quality of life and enhance it in a simple way? Instead of giving trees away during Arbor Day, year round. Give trees around year round. People are you need it in a tree, so hey, how can you do it? The more times we give people a tree, plan it, and improve things. And that goes back to another thing, quality of life, and the environment as long as we can keep the greenhouse going. And one other thing that we could probably do, which we haven't done, and it could be on many topics, as a city survey. I can't recall the last time we had a city survey. And not do it once every 10 years or so. Maybe 4 years, maybe every recycle of election or something. Let's put a survey out there and see what the community is talking about. Now, it may not be a great response, but it's something that people can hear. It can affect all go across all denominations, economic forms out there. So that's something I would also see to add to the affordability. I mean, the livability and improve the quality of life.

[02:37:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Mr. McAllister? Just, this is the mayor.

[02:37:05] John McAlister: Oh. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am.

[02:37:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: I'd just like to tell you, you're a little over half your time, just, I know it's hard because you're self pacing. I wanted to tell you where you were at in terms of...

[02:37:16] John McAlister: I've been following it, so... Great. But I wanted those goals, those were important. The next one there, how would you consider public comment from residents? I encourage it. I expect it. I needed to do my job as a council member. Many of you would set up there. I would sit on the council on the dais, and I say, Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Do it. And we need that. We also have advisory boards where we can get public comment. So don't want to win, you know, just when we think of the council, we have, you know, hundreds of people out there on committees that will also be our eyes and ears on the road. So I appreciate it. And I'll talk to you, I'll call people up afterwards and say, thank you, give me a follow-up. I'll follow upon that. But we need public input to really do our job correctly and be true to the people that got us where we are. What would you, um, what criteria would you use for land use decisions? And I remember that's a question that's usually asked on the EPC. And the question I come across, is it compatible? Is it compatible with the surrounding area? I mean, you know we have the general plan, and I worked on the general plan, but I'm looking at, is it compatible with the surrounding area? Is it a necessary development? How does it enrich that area? in the quality of life or affordability for those people? You know, we are going to have to be flexible and nimble, nimble. Another word we use. That, as the city evolves, we even though it's zoned one way, we have to start looking at that and go, hey, here's a project. It may not be zoned for it, but this is what the city needs. This is what the city wants, and it's a good project. And so we be able to have to be able flexible with our zoning. and how it forms so that we can fit that project in. Who knows what's going to come down the road in the way of housing and the design of it, and what we need, but we always need variety, and we need to get density, if we're going to get to that point where we can have a lot of good projects. I remember Matt Pair a long time. He says, John, don't worry about the project. Just make sure it's a good one, because it will stand the test of time. And that's why when I was on council, we always, I always make sure, is it a good project? Will it stand the test of time? And a good project has open space. It's compatible, it's functional. You don't want to be sitting in a project where you got two story houses, and all of a sudden you got seven stories. You know, somewhere along line, something is not right. And it's a burden. But we want to make sure it's compatible. As I say, and it contributes to the quality of life. Okay. The next one, what effect would you, what efforts that we have not already made would you like to take to help our existing businesses stay in business? Stay in Mountain View? Make it easier for your businesses to enter. Well, you know, I drew a blank on that one. Just kidding. As a 20 year old, a 20 year, um, a successful business and been in business for more than 40 years on different things, uh, I know a couple of things that I would suggest. Now, we have a labor shortage, and that goes back to our housing. Remember how the people that I hire are the people that are the day to day people. You know, I hire a lot of students, because I can't afford the other people, because I just need part time. But I have those people, I mean, those, I keep saying those people. But those employees, I know two of my employees, they live on Franklin, at the subsidized housing. And so I'm very familiar with the lives they do and how it affects them. And I know how it affects my people, the people I hire. So, housing is the labor shortage, if we can get that going, that's very important, because we have employees coming from out of town, and as soon as they find a job closer to town, they're gone. They may not even give you notice, they'll just stop and sew over there. So we need to have that kind of housing so that we can keep our workforce close by. Hire our rents. I don't know what you can do about that, but rents are always a problem. City regulations. You know, there's you've heard of things called unfunded mandates. Well, sometimes the city will put a mandate on a small business that says, one, that we don't have the solution to it right now, it hasn't come about. Or it doesn't make sense. So the city has to really reach out and get a sense of what they're doing, what they're trying to accomplish. One thing that's also a big deal that the city could do. I'm located on the El Camino, over by Miramani. But there's a thing called City Blight. There's a project to the west of me. It used to be Johnny Rockets, and that vacant lot has been there for 04 or 5 years. Doesn't look good for businesses long there to have that kind of project just sitting there, dead. And so, somehow, the city needs to be able to say, get a project, get it going, or drop or do something. If you look on this east of Castro on El Camino, look at all the vacant buildings there. It doesn't look very good. So the city's got to figure out somehow to be able to get owners of that property to energize it and do some more with it. Another thing that you want to help small businesses and big businesses broadband, citywide broadband. We just need to start putting an infrastructure in so that when a business comes in, they're able to go right to work. And that's big or small. And that's going to help also cross the transit. Anything that city does, and, you know, use it back for COVID. You want to know people that have to stay, COVID came along. There was a dead spot in the city of Mountain View, that the kids couldn't go to school. I couldn't get the information, broadband, and so they were at a disadvantage. So their employees need to get to work. The employees need to be informed and broadband, it's a great way to do it. And one other thing, I'm a member of the chamber. I'm also a member of rotary. And so I communicate with them. But one thing in the past, and I'm on the board right now, and the reason I got on the board, because I didn't think they really represented small businesses, as they should, There's things that they could do to speak up to let you know from the business community to the council, these are issues and how we can do it. And maybe it's part of the time that they didn't speak up, and so you didn't know the issues. One other thing is the ADA frivolous lawsuits. How many small businesses have you seen have gone out? Now, the city at one time, about 10 years ago, was having an ADA consultant? That would be very helpful if the city reached out and got someone that's qualified or certified in ADA so that they can go out and help small businesses. I've been sued twice for ADA. And both times it was, okay, about $25,000, to fix the problem was a $400 issue. And if legislation was up at a higher level, it would have been less. Okay, and I know the mayor wants me to be on time, so I'll keep going. So that's some of the things that I like to see. And, oh, I'm down to my closing statement now. aren't I? Okay. Well, let's start off more recent. So, I have been, my qualifications, or what I speak up here, I've been around, I just one of the more recent council members off. I've been involved for, um, Regionally. I was still involved with BTA. I was with Silicon Clean energy. And by the way, I was one of the one that introduced legislation to the city of Mountain View, and my council agreed that we were the first city to go carbon free on electric. So I have regional connections other than, you know, and so that's important that I bring to the table, that I still know people in those positions. To get up to speed, again, on one of the most recent, but I also know staff. Staff hasn't, staff has changed, but I still can be able to relate to a lot of the staff. They know who I am, and that will help me get going to speed. I know a lot of the issues. Because I looked at your work plans and there's still things that we started long ago, or I was involved with, you're starting to deal with. You know, the transit center, that still hasn't come along. North Bay sure, that still hasn't come along. But I'm still a lot of the issues. They've moved along, but they haven't come to that at final SWAT. So I'm fairly informed about what's taken place. And one other thing I like to do. and let you know about it, it's my perspective, why I would be a good choice to fill that vacancy. I bring the perspective of a business owner. And that's very important, because I can see things from the ground where other people don't. I think differently. I see how inflation has affected my cost, how it's tough to get employees, how parking, our supplies, competition are affecting us. In fact, the voice recommended me for counsel one time because that one time, because I was a small businessman, and I brought that perspective that was needed. I breathed the perspective of a longtime resident here. I've been here 65 years. I was here when this was the Garden of Delights when we had apricots and cherries. El Camino Hospital, I used to pick cherries. My 1st job was cutting cots. So I go way back here. And so I've seen a bit of context. And in some regards, the quality of life has gone down from when I used to, when I, since I've lived here, because of all the congestion and traffic and noise and pollution. I attended local schools. My children attended local schools. I was on school committees, and school site council. So I have the perspective of being involved with the schools and having a sense of what's important to them and their children. I was a youth soccer. I mean, sports, so I did a lot of stuff coach with the youth. So I was involved with the youth of the city and know how important fields are, and how Mountain View is so superior to their fields, to other cities, because we have a great maintenance, and we have a great partnership with the school districts. That's very important to have. My business, you know, again, I've been in here for 20 years, been successful. My education, I'm a business major, and so I have a sense that I've critical thinking that I've learned. I basically learned from being a council member, where I sat and you looked at projects, and you don't look at the initial thing, but you look at the over ramifications of all that. And that's helped being on the council, and it's not something that you can learn overnight. It took me a time to develop that. I want to tell you you up one minute. I know, I see that. And I seem to like my comments, jeopardy going. The clock's going down. I got to write something down. Um, But these are things that I think will help help me blend in with this particular council. I worked with all of you. I collaborated with all of you. I worked with many of you to be pro legislation, so we got things moving along, and that was very enjoyable. And that's something that you know about me. I will be proactive in trying to get things going forward and work with all of you to make something work for the city. So thank you for your time. It was interesting to being up here. It sort of reminded me of why I was sort of glad to get out, but at the... No, the pressure. I mean, this is serious business. And I take it very seriously. And so sometimes you just want to relax a little bit. And so, again, thank you, and please consider me for your position. Right to the last second.

[02:49:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much, Mr. McAllister. So, our next applicant is Chris Clark. Please join us at the lectern, and do you remember that we may not be clear on which question you're answering, so please read the question. Thank you.

[02:49:37] Chris Clark: So, uh, thank you, Mayor. Good evening, council members. Staff and everyone watching. I'm honored to be here this evening, and I look forward to answering your questions, and hopefully helping you bring this process to a conclusion, since I'm the last speaker tonight. Um, it was interesting to see everyone took a slightly different approach to this. I wanted to stay on time. So most of my remarks are prepared, but I'll try and ad-lib a little bit and then obviously answer any questions you have. The 1st question was about the top priorities on the council's strategic work plan and why those are important to me. And as folks probably know, the strategic work plan is the city's one of the key city guiding documents, it sets forth council's high-level priorities for a multi-year period. And I generally feel that the council's current 7 priorities makes sense. And given the state of our community, given the state of the community that we're in right now, I think all 7 makes sense. And I think whoever's chosen this evening should be committed to helping implement all of them. I addressed the community for all in my written application. So I'll talk about three goals that are particularly important to me, and they dovetail pretty well with livability and quality of life as well. So, I think, one, increasing the supply and diversity of our housing options remains critical, given the high cost of housing and the number of unhoused persons in our community. I think we should be intentional and thoughtful about our approach to increasing the housing supply, and that can occur through the implementation of the housing element. Our long term housing plans that others have touched on, and that we've all spent an enormous amount of time on, including both on council and on EPC most recently. We should put density in your proven transit options, create new open spaces for residents to enjoy, and meet one another and socialize, and then ensure that we have a mix of uses that make our neighborhoods more walkable, bikeable, and generally accessible. And it means ensuring that our city's housing stock can adapt over time to market conditions. So we've seen a really hot rental market, for example, we've also seen right now, lending is a little bit more tough. We're seeing some cities in the country shift more toward ownership that hasn't happened here yet, but I think by continuing to map as many units as we can for condos, allowing for the adaptive reuse of parking and storage and other areas as conditions evolve over time is important because we're talking about projects that are going to be here for decades, not just for the near term. And then I think we just need to provide a good mix of housing options, as the council has talked about doing in the past, and is working toward today to ensure a greater number of residents have a secure place to live, and they have entry-level ownership opportunities whenever possible. I think with respect to mobility and connectivity, The 2nd one, that's important to me, I'm eager to continue forward movement on the number of infrastructure projects, especially those that promote safe and active transportation options in transit. So to give you a few specific examples, I hope that we can continue to prioritize reimagining some of our more dangerous corridors, and we've identified those. California Street. I'm really eager to move that project forward. I know we're doing some trial runs there. But we've been talking about it for years, and I really hope that we can move forward with making that a much more walkable bikeable corridor, but most importantly, a safe recorder. And the same with El Camino, which I know that you all, and thank you for your support of the work that Caltrans is going to start doing very soon. But I think there's more that we can do along El Camino as well as it redevelops with wider sidewalks and making it just as walkable as it will hopefully soon be in terms of bike ability with the new bike lanes. And then finally, I want to maintain our momentum on sustainability and climate resiliency. We've made great strides in recent years with prioritizing our natural environment via precise plans, reach codes, sea level rise, planning, and local greenhouse gas reduction strategies. That's really accelerated in the past few years, compared to when I was on the environmental sustain, the Council Environmental Sustainability Committee, and we really struggled to get a lot of momentum behind things, and I think part of the change at the federal level has really helped with that too. And so I hope that we can take advantage of it. And then, finally, commitment to water is important, obviously. So recycled water infrastructure that allows us to mitigate climate change and reduce our use of potable water over time as we developed in North Bay Shore in other areas is critical. So those are the 3 strategic goals that I'm most excited about. And I know that there are a lot of subprojects within those, but overall, I want to work with you, and this will be a theme tonight. I really want to work with the council as a team to move the ball forward on the priorities that you've already identified, not necessarily bring a whole bunch of my own new ideas and priorities to the table. The 2nd question is, are there any issues where you disagree with council direction, and what would you change? So I took this pretty literally, and I figured that you wouldn't let me out of here if I didn't give you a solid example. So it granted, it isn't probably the most important decision you ever made, but I remember watching that meeting, and I wanted to make sure that I offered it to you. So I followed your actions closely over the last 2 years with a little bit of a hiatus when I kind of tore myself away for a little bit, just for just to take a break. But, um, so there hasn't been any high level direction that you've given that I disagree with or would want to change, but, um, and I've worked with all of you long enough to, to, I think we're all comfortable occasionally disagreeing with one another in respectful and principal manner. So I feel comfortable sharing an example here. Um, the, um, the reversible bus lanes on Shoreline, which, uh, you know, I help work on originally with, uh, when I was on, on Council, or at least provide some input on, um, as you've gotten into the implementation phases, I think one of the, one of the questions that staff brought forward, uh, from public works, was how to handle the left turn lanes from middlefield leading on the shoreline. I think in that particular case, I probably would have supported the staff recommendation for the turn lane, but which wasn't the council majority direction at the time. But I think the key to that is one, when you disagree understanding the thoughts that went into those who disagreed with you. And I totally understood the direction that was ultimately given, even if I disagreed with it. But having said that, this is obviously not a topic that I would push to revisit. I just thought there I thought there should be an example of some of the constructive ways that we can agree to disagree and still move forward. And I'm really happy that we have the professional staff that we have who can adjust their plans on the fly. When we don't necessarily recommend agree with their recommendation, They can readapt, and things might take a little bit longer, and maybe cost a little bit more, but I think it's important that we're able to move forward on whatever direction council is, council gives, and not necessarily revisit it time after time after time, because the, I think, staff ultimately, at the end of the day, just once an answer, and they want it to not change over time. And then I'll give you a 2nd example of an item where I didn't disagree with the direction that you provided, but it's something that I might have been able to provide some additional suggestions on and maybe more fully implement a program. So I strongly support the basic and compilot that you all launched. Thank you very much for that. And I think one of the things that I would have done there is just offered some additional program suggestions, because it's one thing that I'm passionate about at part of one of the projects that I work on in my day job is actually helping with one of the largest basic income studies that's running right now in the United States. And I know that for a community pilot like this, the data isn't necessarily the top priority. It's really the assistance that it provides to residents. But I think there are some items there where I could have, and I should have just done this as a member of the public at the time that was kind of during my hiatus, but I think there are ways to garner more valuable study data that will help support UBI as a strategy moving forward. And I think some of those things could have been incorporated. And I think ultimately, I think what would be really valuable is if we can, if we can put together some sort of regional effort, not necessarily every single city, but that's the sort of project that I think would really gain steam, because it's really difficult to do it statewide or at a broad level, but it's also really difficult to do it community by community. And I think there's kind of a happy medium there. So I just wanted to offer that as an example, not necessarily of a place where I disagreed, but someplace where I might have been able to add value. How can we enhance the city's livability and quality of life for our residents. So, I think every resident's gonna have their own unique idea of what a city's livability and quality of life means to them, but there are themes that come out of all those conversations, and I'll share three of them. I think the 1st that I hear a lot from residences about mobility. So, our residents want to be able to effectively and safely, excuse me, Safeway and efficiently get to and from their destinations. And they generally want multiple options for being able to do so. So, uh, they may, there might be days when they need to take a vehicle. There might be days when they're perfectly comfortable walking and biking. And so I think part of what a lot of folks consider to be a key quality of life in Mountain View is a way to work toward that is to enhance the ability to walk our bike to neighborhood destinations. Those are parks, hopefully retail in the long term as we build out our neighborhood, our neighborhood centers, as we call them in the past, where they can access not just the parks and open space and the public services that we provide, but also private services, like retail and other things, and make our community, a safer and more walkable and bikable community, especially the safe routes to schools, as we've seen. recently. We have a lot of less safe corridors than we'd like to have, and we need to continue the work there to be able to get our kids to and from schools and parks and things after school. I think another key theme that comes up is thoughtful and intentional development. So having a city, we're a city that's largely built out, obviously. And so the way that we approach redevelopment in all parts of the city, is one of the key ways that we main train the trust of our residents. You know, if folks feel like we're trying to, you know, push through a project without taking proper, the proper time and do care to evaluate it and get their input, then we can lose the trust of the residents, and then we lose the momentum that we need to continue making progress. I think we, all those projects often require trade-offs, and I think we just need to be especially sensitive to the impacts on those who will experience those impacts the most. That's not to say we shouldn't consider everyone else as part of that process, but those who are most impacted or should receive special consideration. And I think conducting community outreach and fully evaluating the anticipated impacts of a key project, that includes not just the final product, but the preconstruction timeline, whether it's vacant or not, the construction that occurs, the impacts that occur due to the construction, and all the planning that needs to go into making sure that the construction period is least impactful as possible, and then knowing what that project is going to look like and function like for decades to come, because it's, as I talked about earlier, as we know, the projects that we put in place in the land use decisions that we make are here for generations. So, also, the things that we all talk about, sight lines, and elevations, how pedestrians, bikes, and cars circulate, and whether or not the canopy ultimate weight expands. I think one of the really key things that we're looking, we need to look at is, you know, what is the impact on the canopy over the next 5 to 10 years, and then ultimately, are we, as a city, expanding our canopy for future generations? And then that leads me to the 3rd element that I hear from residents with respect to livedability, and that's sustainability. I think we need to balance density with new parks and open spaces for our impacted neighborhoods and ensure that each project is more efficiently utilizing land and resources than the use that was there before. So we need to evaluate the cumulative impacts of development, to ensure that each project ultimately enhances the community in the long run instead of just fulfilling near term needs or just fulfilling whatever the market demand happens to be at that time. And then finally, I think a part of, I didn't mean sustainability, necessarily just environmentally, I think part of having a sustainable community is ensuring that we can maintain our public safety service levels over time, such as police and fire, as we grow. I think our residents, one of our key responsibilities as a public council, is the public safety. And we need to we have a really great record there, and we have great relationships with our public safety personnel. And I think it's important that we maintain that. The fourth question is, how would you consider public comments from residents? Um, so I think this is really, uh, it sounds like a generic question, but I think it really gets to the heart of the skills that, uh, one of the key skills that a council member has and how they balance their own, you know, personal beliefs and convictions with what they're hearing from the community they were elected to represent. So I think the solicitation and consideration of public comments is a skill that you hone over time. It's not something that can easily teach to someone. And it's just one of those things that, unfortunately, you just have to, you have to gain experience over time and hone that, hone that skill. So I think you 1st need to establish a clear process and cast a wide net for getting as much public input as possible. I think the process is really important and setting the expectations of the public as to how and when they communicate with you, and the best means that they, through which they can do that is really important. And I think we should obtain as much relevant input as possible, especially from those who are most impacted by a project or policy. And then I think we need to consider those comments in context. So for example, the comments and concerns of those most impacted are probably especially valuable to understand, but those aren't the only comments that should be evaluated as part of that in taken into consideration. Comments from advocacy organizations are also really helpful. I think, to help put things in maybe a broader or regional context. However, those views don't always those folks don't always necessarily reflect the views of the residents in the local community. So one of the key things is just to understand the point of view or the perspective that someone is coming from and to be able to balance all those views when you're coming to what you believe is the best and final policy outcome. And then, as all of you know, it's ultimately, it's a balancing act, and it's a skill that you acquire with experience, and I think, um, one of the things I most valued about being on council was the ability to hear different perspectives from not just the public, but my colleagues as well, because I think, uh, I think we all process things differently. whether it's an EPC member, a council member, a member of the public, a member of an impacted neighborhood, or an advocacy organization. And I think, um, I think hearing all those perspectives, um, using them and your own basic principles and core values to formulate what you think is the right decision, uh, is important, but then ultimately at the end of the day, you need 4 votes. And so, it's that process of working together as a team to keep moving the ball forward, even if it, even if it means not necessarily, you know, maybe it probably, sometimes it might not agree, that might not mesh well with the loudest voices in the room, and oftentimes, so oftentimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. And I think it's just important to recognize, when it how to melt all of that public comment together and come out with a good compromise. Five is what criteria you would use for land use decisions. So, I wanted, I thought, I'm on the EPC now, and I know a lot of what council spends his time on his land use decisions, and I tried to think about how best to frame this, and I, at the risk of boring you. I really genuinely thought the best way for you to understand how I process and evaluate these things is to list some of the questions that I ask myself as I go through a staff report and an EIR. So, um, you know, first of all, why is this matter before us? Are there, maybe there are exceptions being requested, if there are exceptions? What is the community getting in return for those, and are the benefits sufficient? Was an EIR prepared? What impacts were identified, and are we being asked to make findings or overwriting considerations? And if so, why? What public input is available? How extensive was it, and was the outreach recent, and what were those outreach efforts, were they community forum meetings? Were they held by a developer, an applicant? Were they held by the city staff? How is the project going to impact nearby residents and the city as a whole? does it advance the council's goals? Um, I think that's a really key decision, um, that touches a lot of different facets of a particular land use decision. Is our tree canopy impacted? Are we doing what we can to save as many trees as possible? And do we really believe that the project applicant is truly trying to preserve as many trees as possible? And then I look for independence too. So what has the city arborist, or an independent arborist, said about the status of the trees, versus what an applicant has said about the status of the trees? Looking at mobility, traffic, and safety, and circulation plans. One thing that you've heard me say over the years is a theme is breaking up superblocks and finding every opportunity possible to encourage connectivity through blocks of the city or through neighborhoods, because those right of ways are really difficult to acquire. And I think it's key that we acquire them at every opportunity possible. And then, obviously, the design of the project, what alternatives there were, how environmentally sustainable it is. And then if it's a housing project, are we increasing and diversifying our housing stock, are we what's the affordable housing component, the bedroom counts, and is anyone being displaced. And if so, what is the plan to assist them, and then what is the amenities in open space, and how publicly or not publicly accessible is that? So, um, I know that was a litany, but I just, I think hearing how someone evaluates, uh, you know, a staff report and the questions they're asking themselves is helpful context. efforts that have not already been made that you would consider to help existing businesses stay in Mountain View to make it easier for new businesses to enter and reduce the number of longstanding empty storefronts. So I had the good fortune of being able to chat with Chambers, CEO Katz, about this recently, because I most of my interactions with business owners these days, not that I'm not in council, is mostly just been walking downtown, and I do utilize services there a lot, but I have noticed a lot of the vacant storefronts, and I, for a while, you sort of assume it's a post-COVID thing, but then you realize some of those have been vacant for a really long time. And, you know, I think one of the key things that we can do is continually evaluate, continually evaluate the pain points that small businesses are facing when they interact with the city. So, um, Is there red tape that can be further minimized? For example, I hate to harp on this, but we still don't have an online business registration or renewal process. I know it's in process, and I know I'm not supposed to talk about things are in process, but it's been in process for a long time. And I know that's a minor thing, but I think anything that we can do to, like, reduce the number of times that someone has to physically come to City Hall and have those interactions helps everyone involved. I think there may be ways for our economic development department to better shepherd small businesses through the permitting process. So one of the really frustrating things in San Francisco is, basically, the process is so difficult that there's an entire cottage industry around expediting permits. There are permit expediters that you pay money to to help expedite the process. And, you know, find all the right people and tick all the right boxes. And I think perhaps there's a way for some of our economic development department folks, or just to set a, to work with the chamber, to create some sort of joint program where, you know, if someone really just wants to do basic tenet improvements, but they don't know where to start, they have a partner here at the city who can help shepherd them through the process. And I know we do some of that stay, but it might be, there might be a way to better formalize that and get the word out a little bit more. Being willing to streamline regulations that were perhaps in place decades ago, and rightfully so, maybe there were outcomes that we experienced that we really just wanted to prevent, but maybe those are a little outdated now, and we might want to look at reevaluating our risk profile, and whether we're willing to take a few more risks for maybe every now and then about outcome, but on balance, better outcomes, and less empty storefronts, for allowing businesses to have multiple lines of business under a single license, and then recognizing that ultimately foot traffic is going to be key to the discuss of our downtown. So that means making it safer and easier to get to and around downtown. It means having a greater concentration of day and nighttime populations, which building housing would really help with, I think. And I know that some folks are uncomfortable with additional office, but if we're uncomfortable with significant additional supply of office, one thing that I think would really help is if we start to encourage either new spaces or redevelopment of additional spaces that don't necessarily play to a single tenet. So there are spaces that are set up and can be demised to have multiple tenets of different sizes. And that really increases your odds of pulling in tenets of different sizes instead of having the space sit vacant while you wait for a particular large tenant to come in and take an entire floor plate or a couple of floors. So that's something that I think that we could work on from a land use policy perspective, is just encouraging a wider range of flexibility in ways in which different floors and spaces can be demised and used in different ways. Um, so, uh... um... I think just to leave time for questions, I'll go to the closing statement, since I've addressed everything so far, and, um, and then keep you all in time, because I know you're looking forward to this next part very much. The, uh, you know, I just want to thank you all again, um, for the opportunity to interview this evening, and, um, and close by sharing while I think I'm the most qualified candidate to, uh, fill this vacancy. First, I've served with every single one of you in one capacity or another at one point in time or another. I'm a known quantity. I haven't, for better or worse, I haven't changed that much over the years. in terms of the way that I approach different issues. I think I've demonstrated that I'm a team player, and I'll work to advance your goals. I think, and then I think another small benefit is that my day job is outside the political arena. So, you know, I don't have any potentially significant conflicts of interest that would limit my ability to participate in your key discussions. I think that's one important thing, as you're looking for a 7th council member to, you know, try to drive conclusion to really tricky issues if you're conflicted out a lot, um, either due to where you live or what your interests are. Otherwise, I think it can make things difficult. And I think I'm far enough away from the downtown precise plan that I'm typically not conflicted out of that, and I don't think my work will conflict with anything there. Second, especially because you ultimately decided not to go with a special election. I just want to make the point that I've stood before the voters three times. First time unsuccessfully, it hurt, but it wasn't a surprise, and I learned an incredible amount from it, and I learned how to better respond to residents' concerns. I won the subsequent two times, most recently in 2016. And in that election, I was the highest incumbent vote getter, as someone reminded me today, a little bit behind a couple of you sitting up at the dais, but that was not the best year for incumbents. I blame it on that. But I make that point because several of you expressed a desire to hold a special election, and like I said before, I think the next best option is to choose someone who's proven that they've had voter support in the past, and they've, they have a willingness to go out and faced the community, and they can do so with the community knowing that they've, at least, maybe it wasn't in the last two or three years, but you've had that support in, at least the semi recent past. And then, third, I just wanted to say that, you know, as part of that discussion, as to, you know, whether to seek an appointment or a special election and the process for that, um, several council members expressed that they didn't want this to be a political process, or I don't think there's any way to take politics out of this process, but I do think, um, I heard a number of folks say that they would really like this to be, uh, not an overway political process. And I agree with that. I think these vacancies are rare, and the precedent that we set tonight is going to impact, you know, the future discussions of vacancies. And we've seen at the, at higher levels of office, this be a very politicized process where people try to grab power. And I don't suggest the name was trying to do that tonight. But I just think the more that we take politics out of this and really focus on qualifications and appointing someone who can work with every single one of you as opposed to some faction of the council, I think, is really important to at least keep in mind as you're making your decision. I deliberately, based on those discussions, I didn't seek a large number of endorsements and the ones that I did seek. I focused on locally. I'm proud to be endorsed by our firefighters. One group that I've been really close with over the years, that I did seek an endorsement from. Baymac, you saw the letter. I sought that endorsement because, uh, not just of, uh, because they're important to me, but because they cut across a number of political groups from the party. They're nonpartisan, but they have the backing of folks in both parties. They work closely with labor on a number of equity issues. And I thought that they would be the most appropriate on a very short timeline to support me. So, I just wanted you to know that I think it's important that we not make this too political of a process, not just for tonight, but for future councils to come. And finally, I'll hit the ground running. I'm currently on EPC. I've served on council before. I followed your actions pretty closely. with the exception of that one period over the last couple of years, and I have a solid knowledge of the issues that are before you right now. I've built really solid working relationships with all of you and with city staff. And I think those relationships are invaluable. for an appointed role. So thank you again for your consideration. I know this isn't, this process isn't fun for anyone. But I humbly ask for your support and happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much.

[03:18:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Does someone have a one minute question here? No, I'm gonna escape that easily? Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, we're going to take another short break, because we've had two hours of... Sitting here, listening. So, uh, we'll be back by 8:40.

[03:20:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: So welcome back, everyone. I'm going to reconvene the meeting, um, and bring the matter back to council for discussion and questions, and maybe take questions first. If there are any questions, um, yeah, we'll start with that. Do... So I see that Council Ramirez has a question. So only questions right now? I thought we'd do our usual routine of questions first, and then comments. Do you want to ask a question?

[03:21:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I do.

[03:21:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay.

[03:21:11] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for the city clerk. There was a letter sent to the council requesting that the public input be compiled and posted on Legistar or some other public portal, and I wanted to confirm that the city clerk's office has been compiling all of the letters that have been sent to the council, and they are being posted. They may not all be posted right now, but over time, they will be.

[03:21:44] City Clerk: Yeah, that's correct.

[03:21:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, great. Thank you. And council member Matachek, you have a question?

[03:21:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, I do, but I also have a comment on that. I went through a lot of the emails we received, and sometimes people send it to city.council at mountainview.gov, and sometimes people list our individual names. And it's my understanding that you don't see the ones where people send it to our individual names. Is that correct?

[03:22:14] City Clerk: Yeah, only if it comes to city.council, or my office, specifically, or me specifically, are copied.

[03:22:22] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, so I think there is a lot of public input that would not be posted because the city clerk didn't see it. But, you know, I had a question. Um, you know, last, was that just last week? Um, we talked a lot about um, the process and, You know, now we have um, a different number of applicants than we had last week. And I'm also hearing, sort of through the grapevine, that there was confusion about what process we discussed and decided on last week. And I guess, um, I sort of hesitate to But, you know, I am open to discussing that process, if we think, because things have changed. We want to change the process.

[03:23:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Are there any comments from council members on that particular question about changing the process or discussing it? I see council member Abbe Koga.

[03:23:31] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Marin. Thank you for bringing that out up, council member, Metachek. I was thinking, yes, originally we had five. Now we have four, and I think we had agreed to talk about our top three, but in light of the fact that there's now only four. I would, you know, prefer that maybe if you want to, you can talk about all of them or you can just choose who you would like to speak on. But I do still like the process of having 2 per council member. And someone had asked me, well, can you stack the votes, you know, for one had 2 votes on one person? And I wanted to clarify that it was 2 individuals are each of our top two. No ranking. I don't I don't think, um, we need to rank them, but just our top two. Thanks.

[03:24:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[03:24:33] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate council member Mattachek for bringing this up. I would feel comfortable as council member Abbe Koga suggested modifying the number of people we want to speak to. I remember in that meeting, it was a struggle to find 4 votes to modify the process. The only other process I would feel comfortable with is the staff recommended process that we had considered. I think it was January 5th. So either that one or continuing what we've approved just because I think it'll be very difficult at this point to find 4 votes for an entirely separate process. And can you clarify what the previous process was? I might need staff's assistance on this, but I think it was, we each get one vote, and then if there isn't a majority, We have a subsequent round removing those who have, you know, 0 votes or the fewest number of votes, and it would just be iterative until we find somebody with majority support.

[03:25:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member manager. Thanks.

[03:25:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I was thinking about this more, and I thought, well, what if there's a tie? Um, and I did watch some other cities, um, there are processes for appointments, and, um, I really would like this to go as smooth as possible. And one of the things the Sunnyvale Council said was they wished that when they created their process, because they had one, for appointments, they had talked about what happens if there's a tie. because there was. And they didn't really have a process. So maybe we need to talk about that before we get to voting, so that we're not, um, you know, deciding how we would approach a tie when we have one.

[03:26:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: So the attorney lob.

[03:26:36] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So I think it's important for me to provide a little bit of clarification before we go any further down this road. I also heard through the grapevine that there might be some questions about whether or not there was clarity on what council passed at the last meeting, so I went back and I listened to the last meeting and I listened to the final vote on what all of you voted on in favor of. And I think there was a clear path forward, which was, you would have a discussion at post interviews. You would identify your top three, and you would discuss those top three, then you would vote on your top two, and then whoever won through that process would be put on the resolution. And if there was a tie, meaning you had a 4 4, that those two would move down, and you would vote just on those two, everybody else would drop out, until one of those two got the most votes. So that was my understanding. It seemed clear for me watching the video. So if you would like to revisit that process, The proper path to do that is to make a motion to reconsideration, you vote on whether or not you have majority vote to reconsider that vote. And then if you have majority vote to reconsider it, someone else can, a new motion can be put on the floor, proposing a new process for you to follow by which you would then vote on. So there's a way you can undo all this, and you can change it today, but that would be the proper way to do it based on your account adopted council policies.

[03:28:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: So as mayor, as I haven't commented, yeah, I'm gonna add my comments. That is the process that I remember. There. So my understanding is that for a larger change of process, we would have to do exactly what you've described. I'm wondering about the smaller change, where we just, um, instead of talking, discussing our top three, we discuss all four of them, because is that a minor enough change, or, uh, would we need a resolution for that as well?

[03:28:37] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think that is a minor enough tweak to the adopted process that you could probably just move forward with that, if you all agree, by straw vote.

[03:28:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Uh, Council member commit?

[03:28:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, city attorney log, for that clarification. And mayor, for asking that question. That was going to be my suggestion, which is, I feel like we had a really robust discussion. Yes, it was last week. It's hard to remember that it was just then. But I think it seems appropriate to make the minor change for the talk about 4 vote on 2. And then should we have to go down that path and we can vote on the 2 outstanding people if there's a tie? I think that process was, um, something we discussed at length and probably something the public and the applicants were expecting for us to do and I wouldn't want to make any changes. I feel like we've been as open and transparent as we can be in this process, going through this route of appointment. So I'd really like to do that.

[03:29:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: So do we need motion? Shall the mayor make the straw motion? How shall we proceed?

[03:29:48] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think anyone can just make the motion to make that minor change and you can take a straw vote on that.

[03:29:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: I'd be glad to make the motion for that change. Do we have a seconder? Okay, so I see a motion to make a minor change, and a seconder. Now we all vote. So that minor change passes 620. And Council member, Matt...

[03:30:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Sorry, I just was saying, I didn't feel like we clarified what we did if there was a tie. I know we talked about it, but I didn't recall that being part of the process. So if it was, my mistake. I just didn't feel like it was as solid as it came across to others. Thanks.

[03:31:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: City Attorney Logue.

[03:31:09] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Just in listening to it, I did hear that discussed multiple times that that would be the possibility if there was a tie, it would move down those two would go down. In the end when you summarized. I will say that you said, if we need to, we will have a second round, but I think that was pulled from the earlier discussion about how a tie could be broken. So it was a compilation of an entire conversation, and lots of explanations about how a tie could be broken, and then the summary didn't specify that, but I think it could only have been taken in context of the full discussion. So that's why I felt like, because we had talked about how a tie could be broken, it was approved by counsel. But again, you can change that, or further discuss that today, if that's what you would like to do, to reconsider that aspect.

[03:32:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, is there anyone who wants to make comments about reconsideration? Okay. Okay. So it sounds like we have a process. And, um, we are now, now that we've clarified the process and asked our questions, we're at the point where we discuss, um, where we discuss the applicants, and I see council member Ramirez.

[03:32:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to recognize and praise all of the applicants. It's not easy. We talked about this, I think, on the 24th. It's not easy to put your name out there, the way that all 10 applicants did. And we had the very difficult discussion to reduce the number to a more manageable and appropriate number for the interview process today. And I think, even though not everybody proceeded to the interviews, It was still, I think, commendable for everybody who applied to do so. It's a very public process. It's very challenging. The application itself was arduous. And we hope that even those who did not advance to the interview stage, and those who may not be appointed today, continued to remain involved in the community. And I also want to request of those in the public, that you be empathetic with us. This is a hard decision. And many cities, as other council members have alluded to, have really struggled with this. And it's particularly challenging when we have four very strong, qualified and solid applicants to consider. Personally, regardless of the outcome, I have a preferred outcome, but regardless of the outcome, I'll be very happy. Our city will be in good hands. All four of you, I think, are tremendous. The three of you who have served previously, I've had the good fortune to serve with two of you, former mayor, Bryant, while I didn't have a chance to serve with you, I did observe the final two years of your service, and I could speak to the work that you did then, and then also, there were several individuals who reached out to me and said, you know, please reach out to Rooney and give her a fair shot. And I'm glad that you made the time to speak with me for about an hour, talking about your approach to many different policy issues. So I'll segue now into a discussion about each of the applicants. This is hard. I think all of you did very well. I'll share some of the things I liked about each of the interviews. I think Emily, for somebody who has not had the benefit of serving on council, has done a very good job making it clear that she is very aware of the issues that we're contending with. And giving us a sense of if we had to make some tough choices where her priorities would be. I appreciated that, uh, you, uh, gave an interesting example, uh, in the, uh, second question regarding an area where you would disagree with the council. I think that's, it's a fair point, right? If we're going to try something innovative and new, that we make sure that we provide enough time to see it through and see if it really is successful. I think that the experience that you provide, or that you offer is relevant. And I think you spoke to this in the interview. The rental housing committee is unique among the appointed bodies and actually having a budget to balance, a massive amount of stakeholder input to consider. We want to make sure that, you know, even those of us who tend to be very sympathetic with tenet protections aren't burdening rental property owners to the point where they're unable to do business. That's not an easy thing to do. And as you also reference, it's very valuable to have the experience of working in closed session, and to discuss sensitive legal matters. That's something that the council does regularly. And I think that's relevant and valuable experience that you bring. I'll also share one of the things that I am considering, and I think each of us will have different eligibility criteria to evaluate, and that's appropriate. One thing that's personally important to me is representation. And, you know, I was actually reflecting, thinking, reading over your application about, you know, growing up, there were many Filipinos in my class. There have been many Filipinos at the church I attend, it's a community that is horrendously underrepresented in our area. And I know it's a community that would be very proud to have a representative on the council. I think that's powerful, personally. I also think it's incredibly important to have renters represented on the council, and right now, I'm the only one. I think all of my colleagues do a very good job of being sensitive to the needs and concerns of renters, and also, I think it's important for renters to be represented on the council. So that's a factor that I'm evaluating very carefully. And I think, um, knowing you for as long as I have, I can speak to the amount of work you put into all of your efforts. It's extraordinary. I remember working with you in 2015 on the campaign finance regulation issue. And you had taken the time to go through all of the campaign finance regulations, statewide, and compile a massive spreadsheet showing what each city was doing, and then bringing that in the advocacy to city council to say, here are other viable options. You know, take these into consideration. I can say with absolute certainty. that should you have the good fortune to be appointed, you will work very hard, and you will take the needs and concerns of the community very seriously, and I think you will do a good job. So, I wanted to make sure that, uh, you know, I provide an affirmative, an affirmative case for Emily. That said, the former members of the council performed very strongly, too. I really appreciate your discussion about the housing element. I think others touched on it, but I think you did so most directly, and I appreciate your reference to the HCD comment letter, which is something I think we're all struggling with. What does it mean? How do we respond? And I think, you know, even though you haven't had the benefit of serving as recently as former Mayor Clark and former Mayor McAllister, I think what you've demonstrated is getting up to speed very quickly, and your sincerity in approaching this process, right? You are ready to begin the work from day one, even though you're maybe a little bit further removed. I'll share, though, you know, because you're the applicant I know least well, I wish I had had more time to get to know you and to understand your priorities and your approaches. But you performed very well in the interview, and I thought your application was very strong too. Is Mr. McAllister still here? Because I wanted to speak fairly directly to him. What I would say, if he were still here, is, John, your application was very weak. I read through it. I was thinking, I know you can do better, and I thought, I thought he did very well in the interview. I was impressed. And he had also reached out, and I had spent some time on the phone. And I'd say, you know, if there's, if, you know, one thing I really appreciate about John is, there's been a lot of evolution in his thinking. And I remember, you know, observing him on the council getting elected working with him on council. I really appreciated the effort he made to work with me, and to find compromise on really tough issues. And even though he and I don't always agree on everything, I know that he's very sincere about his work, and that I can count on him to help deliver a compromise that might be challenging for me, but something that he and I both can work on. And I also gave, I also gave him extra credit for referencing core municipal services. He didn't use that term, but mentioning potholes. I was driving to City Hall. was thinking about that. And I was impressed that he was the only applicant who actually brought it up. That's something we hear about every day. And I think that sensitivity for somebody who will only serve for two years. I can't remember if he had indicated, if he was going to run or not, undecided, okay, in the event, he decides not to seek reelection. That was something I actually wanted to see, expressed in the interviews. And I appreciated him bringing it up. I also appreciated. Um, and extra credit to, um, former Mayor Clark as well. He gave a very strong answer for number two. The referencing the Middlefield Park Master Plan and, you know, doing a little bit more to address the Affordable Housing Component. He and I may disagree on this issue. But I appreciated that he gave a very clear answer. And I'll share. I also liked Mr. Clark's answers a little bit better on that one, because they're more in line with my thinking, but I appreciated that both of them went very far in providing a very clear and precise answer. And then for Chris, your answers were very thoughtful, and very methodical. I think, you know, there's a disadvantage in going first. You don't have the benefit of having heard the other applicants. You don't necessarily know what to expect. I think Emily did a good job in sort of providing a template for everyone to work off of. It's also difficult to be the last person, because everything has already been said, you know, and it's hard to differentiate yourself when high level, I think, there was a lot of similarities, uh, across the interviews across the priorities, um, which is why this is a tough decision. Because I think fundamentally, all of the applicants did well. I think all of the applicants spoke to all of the issues that, you know, were concerned about, and that we need to prioritize her for the next two years. And I think, you know, it just comes down to our own experience working with each of these individuals. And I'll share, you know, even if the outcome isn't necessarily what I want, I will be very happy with it. I'll be very happy with the council we're gonna be working with over the next two years. Um, so, uh, Those are my preliminary thoughts. I'm happy to share more of helpful, but that's where I'm leaning right now. Thank you.

[03:43:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, council member Ramirez. Is there someone who wants to go second? Okay, council member committee.

[03:43:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Everyone's pretending to be shy up here. No, I'm just kidding. Um, well, um, I just want to say, thank you. Um, thank you to our, I was mentioned, our our 10 applicants, our 5 that went to 4, and the 4 that stood before us tonight, I think that, um, having put myself out there very recently in November. You never get used to it. It never gets more comfortable. But you do it because you love your community and your city, and I heard that from all four applicants tonight, which makes me very fortunate that we live in the city of Mountain View. I want to thank our staff, who has been working very hard to guide us through this process. We were put in a, you know, very difficult position, uh, where we had to decide between a $2.1 million special election after just having had an election or going through an appointment process in our staff has really been working to support us through this, um, even tonight, clarifying our process. So I just wanted to say that. I want to say thank you to my colleagues who we had a very robust conversation last week. We had one on the 5th, and I know that we're going to have a difficult decision before us tonight, but I know that all of us are coming from the viewpoint of wanting to do what's best for Mountain View. And lastly, I want to thank our residents for entrusting our council with a process that I think some would have wanted to see the special election. Um, and understanding that, um, you had just seen, um, an election and knowing that, uh, your, those that you elect are ready and willing to make the difficult decisions. Um, I want to thank our applicant pool, which, um, participated in the community forum, which I'm really glad happened. I think it was over 20 organizations came together very quickly to put together a Zoom format, which was also available on YouTube, and I think all of us did either watch in real time on Friday, or watch it last minute today, which is what I did, in between my work commute. And I just want to say thank you. That really is indicative of our city, and hopefully that adds some transparency to the process. I think it's important for me to disclose that I did meet with all four applicants. Um, and some Maya, some asked me, and it was just honestly, to get to know why they were applying a little bit more. Not everybody thrives, sitting under a spotlight, with 30 minutes, or having to write an application, and I am making decisions, as a council member, and through the appointment process, I really try to meet with everybody who wants to, to do what I can with the information that I have available. So I just kind of wanted to set the stage on where I'm coming from with this process. Tonight, all four applicants show that they're knowledgeable. No one needs to come up to speed. All of you would be ready to be our seventh council member. You all bring a very unique skill set, and a very diverse viewpoint depending on where you live in Mountain View. I know that this can be controversial, but what I love about our city, too, is that we are an at large city, which means that you care about every district, not just the one that you're in, and today we got to hear from the Waverly Park area, downtown Shoreline West, and El Camino real. So, which I think our perspectives that are really important. And let's see. So, um, in talking about each of the applicants, um, for Emily, thank you for always bringing your enthusiasm, positivity, and inclusivity, I think, um, for me, one of the things that stood out the most to me was your answer for our community for all. Um, community for all strives to take the different experiences and perspectives of our residents as an essential starting place to tackle issues. We face, like, the housing crisis, climate change, and economic instability while ensuring that no one is left behind or treated poorly. I think we, as a council, talk very much about how our community for all and all our policy decisions are based off of that. So I applaud you for that really thoughtful answer. For former, Mayor Bryant, thank you for showing us your independent and unique point of view. I think that I always appreciate about you, whether it's your application, seeing you in the neighborhood, or in your answers, is I always learn something new from you. And you are always thinking about something from a different angle. And you also think about the evolution. You're not just thinking about the problem now. You're thinking about what something is going to look like in the future. Um, and I, um, I'm glad to have heard your many ideas. For former Mayor McAllister. Personally, what I miss most about you is your sense of humor, which I'm sad you're not here, 'cause I can just imagine him hearing his laugh. But he also provides a point of view, which, I think, is that of his small business, but also somebody who's born and raised here, and what I appreciated the most of the interview and his application was his talking about how he has grown. And part of what we have to do on council is we have to grow. And we may come in thinking we have certain ideas, but working with colleagues, working through the policies, and realizing perhaps what we thought was the answer was not. Um, and after 5 years on EPC and 8 on council, um, he's still coming to us and saying at 65 years old, he's still growing and changing, and I think that's the viewpoint that we all should strive for. And lastly, Mayor Clark, I really appreciated how you're always so comprehensive and pragmatic. I have had the pleasure of working with you and former Mayor McAllister, and you always remind us of the policies, procedures, the precedent. Maybe it's the Ps. And I think that you are always also willing to explain, like you did today, your thought process, how you got to that. And that's one of the most important things, I think, as a council, we need a council member you need to do, which is, when you vote, explain why you vote that way, so that everyone can not, even if they disagree, can understand where you're coming from in your perspective, and you always do such a great job of that. Um, so, uh, I think that is it for all four. Like council member Ramirez, happy to say more. Um, But I am also happy that of the applicants, half of them represent the 20 over 25% of our community, which is working professionals between, uh, in the, in the millennial, Eugen Z... elder millennial area, um, because, um, we just got our census numbers, and I think that that's really great to see more of that. So thank you.

[03:51:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Is there another council member ready to speak? Council member show Walter. Vice mayor.

[03:51:41] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, it's okay. Um, yes, I'll give it a try. It's always better if you're not the first one, because then you can just kind of build on many things that have been said, and I think everybody started out with thanks. And I'm certainly going to do that. This has been, I just sit here thinking about this. It hits me. How much homework has been done to get to this point. Oh, my goodness, all the work that was done to get the council reports ready for us, the discussions we had, filling out that really pretty onerous application, all 10 people that did that. Thank you very much. I mean, you have to get, it's so much effort to get your thoughts together and get them down on paper. Uh, that's, I really appreciate the effort that went into that, and I, and as was said, for the people who didn't make it to the interview, um, I hope that, that thought process really inspired you to get more involved in the community, and that's what you'll do. And I certainly would love to talk to all of you about how you could do that, if you'd like to reach out to me about that. I also would like to really thank the organizations. As was mentioned, we had a couple organizations who said, Oh, no, the timelines too short. We can't have a forum. But we had some people who stepped up and said, Of course we can. And they put it together, and it was a benefit for all of us. And it was also pretty, pretty funny. I think, um, you know, I think the Jeopardy format that was used was very creative, and we all, we all kind of got a kick out of it. So that's the thanks part. I also want to thank my colleagues for sharing the strong desire and tradition that we have in Mountain View to work collegially and to work civilly. I don't, I know, in the deliberations that we've had, all of us have said, we want this. We do not want this to be a big drama, as we have seen in some other community. We want this to be somebody that we can all work with. And I personally, I do know everybody, and I have no doubt that whoever gets chosen. I will enjoy working with tremendously. And those of you who don't get chosen, I hope I'll be able to call on you from time to time for expertise. Anyway, I was real interested in kind of the idea of the geographic perspectives and diversity that the applicants produce. I think that that could improve our council. We've been a little downtown centric, and I think having somebody from out of downtown could be valuable. Emily is from Shoreline West. Renee, of course, is from Old Mountain View, and she knows everything about, really, the whole town, even though she's lived in Old Town Mountain View. And John, he lives in my neighborhood. But again, as a small businessman, he's very, very up to date on what it's like to be on El Camino Real and in a shopping center. And then I think that one of the things that, Chris, that you bring, you live in a dense area on El Camino. And we don't, that El Camino viewpoint. It's the main corridor in our community. So, that viewpoint of what you see from El Camino is, as a person, as well, of most of us who are just drivers, is very important. So I thought that was really interesting. Another thing I thought was interesting that, um, is the things that everybody, um, the conclusions that everybody came to, housing and increasing our housing stock is something that everyone agrees with. Um, we have slightly different ideas about the best way to go about it. But nobody doubts that that is a vital thing that we need to do. I think another thing that came up, that is sort of the flip side of that is making sure that our mobility is improved. And as time has gone on, I've been so delighted to see how, now, when we talk about mobility, it's not just driving our cars, it's very much how we can improve biking and pedestrian safety. And I think we have improved that a lot. But we all believe in it and want to do better. So those are some issues that I really was glad to see. Emily, when talk about the individuals, I think Emily brings to, um, in a sense, a fresh voice that hasn't been on council before, but somebody who, because she's been, uh, coming to council meeting, I think every council meeting for at least five years, she knows these topics backwards and forwards. As was mentioned, she, um, she cannot help herself from doing just an amazing amount of research, and we would definitely, um, uh, we would definitely be helped by that. I was interested to hear John talk about how much more important affordable housing was. He, for many years, I've watched John vote for affordable housing, but I'd never heard him speak so eloquently about why it was important. So I thought that was, that's really something that's important to me. So that was something that I was very, very interested to hear. Something that, um, Renee talked about. And really, John and Chris did, too, was how, when we look at a particular project, it's not just that point, that point in the city. We also have to look at how it fits in with the web of our city. And I think that's that viewpoint of how things fit in with the web is really, really important. Is the, I think... I think Chris used the term compatible. I think it's really important to find out, to consider whether or not a structure or whatever is being proposed is compatible with what's there and what's planned to be there. That compatibility is something that, um, is always a balancing act. And it's never simple. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention was the discussion of how we consider public comment. Um, I guess I haven't had that many conversations with people about why I think public comment is important. But I was really pleased that it was part of the questions, and everybody had given it a great deal of thought and expressed a tremendous amount of respect for it. And I think, also, that is one of the things that distinguishes Mountain View from some of our neighboring communities or other agencies. We are very respectful to people who come and talk to us. And that's because we recognize that it's a lot of effort to get up there and speak. It's intimidating to get there up there and speak. And, um, you care, if you bother to come and speak to us. And all of those things matter. So, I thought it was really important that at this juncture, we brought those things up again, and kind of reminded everybody in the process that public participation is really important. So those are the some things I am taking... I'm thinking about right now, and I would like to hear my colleagues' comments.

[04:00:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Mattachek.

[04:00:41] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I'll start out with thanks as well. I want to thank everyone who thought about applying for this opening. And while not everyone who thought about it actually did apply. I do appreciate the 10 folks who did decide that, yes, they would apply. Um, I hope everyone who thought about it, um, remembers in a couple years, that there will be quite a few openings. And, um, you know, uh, you always have the opportunity, everyone has the opportunity to run for council. So, great opportunity for lots of folks in the coming years. Um, you know, as we talked last week, um, I did prefer the special election route. And I still prefer that. Um, I really think it's important that the residents decide who their representative should be. I know it was costly, and I know that, um, it would delay having a seventh council member, but, um, I think the benefits of allowing residents to vote, outweigh those two items. So since we didn't go that way, for me, the next best option, as I'm sure people can remember, last week, I thought the next best option was to look at the folks who had previously been on the council. And tonight, for me, I thought they really distinguished themselves with their thoughtfulness, their breadth of knowledge and their depth of knowledge. I especially appreciated, um, when they spoke about land use and how they think about land use. It wasn't, you know, like, by the books. What does the, um, general plan say, what does a precise plan say? What does the zoning ordinance say? It was about, how does that development add to the city? How does it create a neighborhood? How does it make it in a great quality of life for people, not only those who, you know, live in a new development, but in the surrounding area, and looking at a new development, from lots of different angles, to really understand, you know, if it's approved, what is the impact on our city. And I really appreciated the three, former mayor's answers on that question in particular. You know, I think, um, I really appreciate Ronet, for lots of reasons. Um, she is passionate about some of the same things I feel like I'm passionate about. And so, um, I think it would be great to have her as a colleague. The focus on the environment, trees, nature, rewilding mountain view, quality of life. You know, having, um, your goods and services within a walking distance of your, of where you live. Um, in addition to, um, all the other areas where I think she's incredibly thoughtful, um, about her perspectives. So, um, I'm glad she's on the parks and rec commission. Um, but I think it'd be, you know, it'd be great to have her on the city council as well. I think, Chris, you know, I was very, um, impressed with your, uh, interview, uh, tonight. Clearly, you had thought a lot about the questions, and were very thoughtful, articulate, and demonstrated a great deal of knowledge. I appreciate that you're on the EPC, because you're totally up to speed. on land use issues. And as we've talked, you know, one of the reasons there was a question about land use is because the council does address a lot of land use issues, and you're right there, you know, up to speed on all of those, which would be a huge benefit. Um, and again, I appreciated you talking about looking at the totality of a development and not just, um, and does it meet the rules. Um, I also appreciate it, uh, I can't remember now who said this. Someone talked about how your thought process, how you explain that. I was like, Council member, come May? And I also appreciate that, because I think it's important not only for us to understand what someone is thinking, but, you know, how they came to that, um, decision. And I think it's important for the public to know that as well. So I appreciated that. Um, Former Mayor McAllister certainly also brings a lot of knowledge. And I appreciate that he is a small business owner and brings that perspective to the council. He also is very passionate about transportation. And that's a topic that is vitally important to us. And I'll never forget his last meeting on council. When it was open for public comment. A couple of council members from other cities came and said, Our city is better off because John McAllister's on the Mountain View City Council. And that really struck me. And it was mostly because he did a great job of, um, addressing transportation issues, as he talked about, and they really appreciated him, not just focusing on Mountain View, but focusing on a regional issue, and trying to make it better, because transportation is a regional issue. It's not, you know, what do we just do in Mountain View, although I will say, and I think Ronita's was a huge supporter of this, our community shuttle is wonderful. If it wasn't for COVID, I think we would have continued to see ridership steadily increasing, and we've expanded the hours, and it's great. So, um, sorry, I'm a little tangent on that one, because the community shuttle is great. But I think, you know, John, you know, and that perspective of a small business owner is really important, and, as was mentioned, I also appreciate his sense of humor. Yeah, it's great. Um, I did watch the forum, and, uh, I thought one of the most interesting questions was at the very end, I don't know if everybody watched till the very end. If you were a flavor of ice cream, what flavor would you be? I found his answer kind of interesting. But I also found the comment by one of the audience members saying, Well, I'm glad you didn't say Rocky Road, even more interesting. That was a great form. Great format. I appreciate the folks who put that together. Um... And that's it for me. Thanks.

[04:08:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abbe Koga.

[04:08:23] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I guess I'm next, since the mayor usually speaks last. Um, that's been already said, and I'm going to try not. not to repeat too much as the hour gets later, but I will start as well with thank yous. Thank you to our staff for running a smooth process and a very short amount of time. It was, I think, an enormous amount of work and so I appreciate all of you for making this happen. Um, to the public and to those members who applied. Thank you for putting yourself out there. I know. I actually just reme- or was today recalled, my 1st foray was an appointment process to the Santa Clara County Board of Education, which did not, um, I was not appointed. They ended up taking it or keeping it open to the election, to which I actually ran and was elected. And so I was recalling that experience, and then the 6 other times, I've run for office, and each time it's, it gets a little easier, I'll say, but I feel like I work just as hard, if not harder, every time. So it takes a lot. It's quite an effort, but, um, I think that, um, you know, I've really appreciated the process, and it's made me, um, better, and has helped me to, um, be the council member that, hopefully, um, you know, can, uh, make, has made good decisions for the city. And I, I, um, am very proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the years. So, um, I think that with the four candidates we have, frankly, we can't go wrong with any of them. I can see each of them fitting into this group. And I'm very, really pleased with our council right now. And so that gives me a real sense of, um, comfort to know that, um, you know, I think that, um, everybody brings something different, um, different perspectives, different skill sets, and, and yet, I think they can fit into our team quite well. So I'm very pleased with that. As we get into discussion or comments about each one. I actually have had the benefit of working with all three of our former mayors and council members. And I'll start with Mayor Roney Bryant, who we came in together on council and spent 8 years together. And I credit her for, well, we worked on the general plan. And so she helped, you know, shape the planning of our city. And I've always appreciated her thoughtfulness. Her real attention to quality of life. I always looked to her as the one that would speak out for the environment, the trees, wildlife, really all of the things that adds to our community. It's not just about development, but it's about everything else that comes with it. That makes Mountain View the special place that it is. And she's been a real staunch supporter of, I'd say, you know, many of the progressive programs and initiatives that we have moved forward in the city, with minimum wage. She was definitely one of the early adopters of increasing our minimum wage. She's been a strong advocate for diversity. I believe she speaks poor languages, um, four, five, 85. Um, and this really has six, six. So a real appreciation for the diversity of our community, and, I think, to, you know, we have a growing immigrant community, and she herself, being an immigrant, has that unique perspective. Um, I, you know, I, I, we meet on occasion of just full disclosure. You know, she has my ear. And when COVID hit, she was the one who called me and said, Margaret, we really need to do something, especially for, you know, folks who are struggling to pay their rent and mortgage. And she was the one who had sparked my thought of starting the rent relief program. So, I, you know, I want, I want to give her that credit that where credit's due. And so I appreciate her, her always watching out for the community, and especially in times when we really, you know, needed to look at, um, who needed the most assistance, and she's always been there to advocate for that. And she has had my ear. So I appreciate her guidance and her counsel. Um, going to John, uh, John McAllister, um, you know, agree. He's always offered a sense levity to our council. Um, I, too, I think, I agree with the comments about hearing his progression or his, I think he called it growth. Um, and, um, and I do see that. I will say, though, you know, we actually share a lot of the same issue areas and transportation. You know, that was, that's been my, my issue area. And I have to say, I think we're actually in a different place right now. The issues around transportation. They're larger. You know, we're talking about things like a fiscal cliff. And so we're not in a place where we're looking at new projects or, you know, I'm sorry to say, looking at a half a $1000000000 HET program. We're trying to save transit right now. So I feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect. But, you know, I certainly appreciate his perspective. his advocacy for small businesses, broadband. So, you know, he definitely adds a lot of perspective on several issues. With Chris Clark. I would say, I came, I think he was the most, you're the most comprehensive in your answers today. Um, clearly, uh, and, you know, Chris has always been, uh, seen as the, um, logical thinker. I think, you know, we called him the compromise, the compromiser or the creator of compromise, you know, how to slip split the baby as many times as possible. And I really, you know, appreciate that about him, because oftentimes, you know, that's what we have to do is to come to consensus and compromise, and he's able to, he's been able to help us think that through so that we can move forward, but definitely impressed with his continued knowledge of the issues we are facing. Now. I think him being on APC has been a real benefit, and I've heard from APC members that it's been a real benefit to have them, and his experience there, and, you know, clearly, he's current on the issues. So, you know, all three, honestly, I think, again, any of them can fit right in, and we'd be fine. And then Ms. Ramas, who has not been a council member, but certainly has been gaining experience on our rental housing committee. And this is where I, so my thought process and this appointment has evolved. You know, I will say that I agreed with council member Mattachek. I still you know, I still think that a special election was the way to go. I've heard, I've read, you know, most people seem to have wanted that or preferred that, and I do think that, um, you know, a democ, it's worth, it's worth the, the money we, we would have spent on an election to allow democracy to play, play out. You know, we certainly have spent similar amounts of money on, frankly, again, studies of projects that will never go anywhere. And so I thought it was worth it. But, um, given that we did not go to that direction, I've been, you know, thinking about what this, what should this appointment be about? And again, it's evolved. I, you know, I certainly wanted someone who could hit the ground running. And so my thought was, sure, a former council member, yes, they've also been elected, so that's a benefit. But I guess things have, I've been also thinking, and this was, I was dealing, working, dealing with an MTC appointment this morning, but, um, to me, you know, I ran, or I've been involved in, in, I ran, or I, because I felt that it was important to provide a voice, um, a voice to communities that weren't necessarily being represented. Um, you know, I, you know, that I take diversity and equity very seriously. You know, I represent. Uh, I like to think I represent a certain, you know, certain categories of populations in our community. And a long time ago, when I first started, someone gave me a chance. And I'll say, when I started, you know, I didn't win my first election here, I'll say, you know, it's hard to break in to an established community. And yet someone gave me a chance. And, um, so, there's a part of me that is thinking, yeah, is that is that what we should be doing, maybe, is giving someone a chance. And I think I've grown over my almost 2 decades now. Is this an opportunity to give someone that chance and that represents a certain, you know, voice in our community. And I certainly have been impressed by the amount of support, Ms. Ramos has received. And I know there's comments about politics, should this be political or not. You know, Frank, this is politics. And, you know, I've gone through these processes myself, and, you know, you have to do the politics. And so I have to say, I have been impressed by the amount of support that has come in for Ms. Ramos. And so that gives me things to ponder upon. And so, again, this is a very difficult decision. But those are the factors that I am considering right now. I don't know if we're gonna do another round. You know, I would like to, because I think we said all the great things about all four of them now, and we need to start whittling down. So, you know, I hope that we can maybe discuss a little further what folks are thinking about coming to their decision for the final two. Thanks.

[04:20:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Sure, we can surely do a second round. I thought I'd make my, I'd add to the first round, though. Um, I have to say, it's kind of hard. I'm not used to being mayor. I'm used to being the trying to make sure I'm the first person to speak, because then everything hasn't already been said. Um, so a few, a few things that I can say that may be a little different. I will repeat the thanks that everybody has already given to the applicants and to staff. Um, you know, it's been a lot of hard work, and I will also repeat what some people have said that I can, I can work with every one of you. I mean, I think we've whittled it down to four excellent applicants, with a lot of experience. I have to say, my background, most of my background, working in political related things has been as an activist. not as an elected official. Um, and so I, these are very hard decisions for me, because my tendency is to see the good in everyone, and to think that everyone can contribute. And I don't mean that in a small way. I mean, I've met with each one of you, as you've been applying, and as I've talked to you, I really genuinely have felt, oh, you're the one I want to work with. like one after another. So that's why this is a very difficult decision with me, because I really believe that everything we do, the city should be a leaderful place. At the same time, one, we have to make the decision, and two, whatever we decide tonight, there will be in the next two elections, I think, more openings for positions without incumbents that you will not have to compete with incumbents. So, it's whoever we pick, we are not closing the door. And I, on other people, other applicants who may want to run. And I also believe that community members contribute a great deal as well, which is what I've done most of my life. So I hope to I would like to work with all of you on council, but I also hope to work with you, uh, if you do not end up back on council. So, that said, I'll just go through each applicant and kind of the things that I, especially, that stood out for me. As I said, there's kind of a piece of each person that I want to work with, and for Emily, I would really like to work with her on housing issues, in particular, on displacement, because that's what I worked in, early in my career after I got my master's in city planning. And I think it's just, you know, it's a critically important thing in Mountain View. There are tremendous numbers of people being displaced either onto the street, or to the central valley, where it's difficult for them to get jobs. In particular, I would look forward to working with Emily on the sort of COPA, CLT, structures, and other, you know, other tools that we might have, but that's one that I've worked with in the past, and I'm comfortable with. I also like that she talked about public gathering spaces and historic preservation, because I've worked with that. And I enjoy a person who can do a deep dive on those issues. As for Roni, I know Roni, I've worked with Roni on the old Mountain View Neighborhood Association. I think that's where I first met Ronet more than a decade ago. Way more than a decade ago. And I know Ronita is now on perks and rec, and talks a lot from that perspective, but I believe that the issues of parks and open space and biodiversity are not just about trees and parks. I think they're a part of, I think, we have to hold those central, because I think those are a part of making our, making a city that we still love as we densify. You know, you'll talk to various people in the city. Some people like that we're growing, some people don't, but I think if we don't incorporate, um, perks, biodiversity trees, et cetera, into our city, then people will not like density and will kind of rebel against it. I also believe that these are the things we need to truly get people out of cars. You know, if people are gonna be walking and biking, We can't be building a concrete jungle. So that's, those are the things that I appreciate about Roni. John, everybody said the same thing that I was going to say, I was rapidly crossing out adjectives because they'd already been used. But I really think since I first met John, he really has evolved, um, in a lot of different ways. But a lot of them are on his appreciation for the need for affordable housing, and I actually think what he's talking about when he says the city should buy the housing. He's talking about a COPA program, which many people are, a community opportunity to purchase their housing. I think that's what he's been talking about all this time. I also like that he was born and raised in Mountain View and has a true love of Mountain View that has evolved over time. And then, Chris, Chris was the person I called all the time on my first two years on council. Every Monday, I find him very, I also crossed out a lot of adjectives when I was, because everybody is the same ones. But I find him very thoughtful, very, very able to listen, and kind of able to compromise and work with everyone. So that's what I feel you would bring to the table or to the dais. And those are my comments. Are we going to do a second round or go straight into voting? What's your preference? So I'm hearing that people are comfortable voting, so we will be... Oh, vice mayor.

[04:26:45] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I was going to say, yes, I think it's, I think we would all be comfortable voting. I would be comfortable voting.

[04:26:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, no more discussion. We will all vote silently, submit our votes. They will be tallied. Well, I guess we'll be on a short break. We will allow the city clerk to count the votes for five minutes, and we'll be back at five of 10.

[04:34:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so we'll reconvene the meeting. Um... So, I'm reconvening the meeting, asking everybody to sit down and settle down. Um, and ask the city clerk to announce the votes of each council member.

[04:34:51] City Clerk: Margaret Abbe Hogo voted for Chris Clark and Emily Anne Ramos, Ellison Hicks, voted for Ronique Bryant and Emily Anne Ramos, Ellen Kame voted for Ronique, sorry, Chris Clark and Emily Anne Ramos. Lisa Matachek voted for Ronit Bryant and Chris Clark. Lucas Ramirez voted for John McAllister and Emily Anne Ramos and Pat Shoalter, voted for Chris Clark and Emily Anne Ramos.

[04:35:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: So if I read that right, we have a an appointee, and it's Emily Anne Ramos.

[04:35:32] City Clerk: Yes, ma'am.

[04:35:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Congratulations. So, now we're gonna bring the item back for council action, and note that a motion to approve, the selected applicant should be done by reading the title of the resolution attached to item 4.1. I have a mover and a seconder. Uh, council member, Commé, would you like to read the motion?

[04:36:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I would, thank you. I move that we adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, appointing Emily and Ramos to serve as a member of the city council until the successor qualifies following the November 5th, 2024, General Municipal Election, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Thank you.

[04:36:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Now we vote. So, uh, the motion carries five yeses and one abstention. Oh, thank you. No. You're a better reader than I am. Okay. So, we're going to, we're moving to adjournment, and we're going to adjourn our meeting in honor of Fire Captain Greg Cooper, who recently passed away very recently. We're going to have a minute of silence at the end of the meeting, but before we do that, I'm going to ask that council members who have comments to make. I didn't not know Captain Cooper very well, but council members who did and have comments to make. are welcome to make comments at this point. And I see council member Abbe Koga.

[04:38:01] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. This morning, we received news that Captain Greg Cooper passed away and I had the pleasure and honor of knowing him since, um, almost since I, well, actually, since I came on council, and, um, I wanted to share a little bit about him. Um, he was uh, hired in, in Mountain View uh, in 1998. So that was when we, the city started the paramedic program and he was one of the 1st paramedics to join our fire department. He was a very passionate person and he, you know, certainly loved the profession. He got very involved and active with the union, and that was much of the way I worked with him. He became political director in 2005 and then served as president of the union from 2013 for 8 years, pretty much until his retirement in 2021. During his time, he was instrumental in many different programs, including enhancing our hazmat program, creating the Captain Paramedic program. And we actually have a canine program at this time that he also was a strong advocate of. I met Greg back in 2006, and then in my 1st year in 2007, my father was ill and collapsed a number of times that year, and I called 911. And, um, it was, you know, all new to me. And, um, he would always call me and check in on how things are going. And it was during this experience, that I began to question, like, how does this all work? How does EMS work? Why does, you know, why do our firefighters show up? And then the county sends the ambulance program. And, um, so I started to ask those questions and he was very patient with me and explaining how things worked and I did more research on my own, but he really, really became the go to person for me when I wanted to learn about, um, fire and then emergency services. And then that also folded over into police, as, you know, public safety works very closely hand in hand. Again, he was a fierce firefighter. We didn't always agree. especially when it came to things like salary negotiations and benefits, but he always did his homework, and he cared deeply for his membership and would always work to protect them. But he was also very, you know, he loved the city. I believe he loved the city, and he always wanted to do what was best for this community. And I really credit him and a former Union President, John Miguel, during a very difficult time when we were going through the Great Recession, the Fire Union, had offered concessions and helping us out with some of those, giving back some of the benefits so that we could balance our budget. He succumbed to cancer, I think it's all right for me to share this. And as you may or may know, our firefighters have a very high rate of cancer, 9% higher risk of being diagnosed than the general population, and 14% higher risk of dying than the general population. And so, unfortunately, he succumbed to that. You know, it's just, I don't want to necessarily make this a public PSA, but it is, you know, just a reminder that it's important for folks to get their screenings and make sure that you can get early detection is the way for a cure. And, unfortunately, his cancer was quickly fast growing. And so he succumbed, but I just wanted to share a little bit about him. He, um, you know, I think of our employees as my family. I've been here a long time, and he definitely was one of my family members, so I will miss him deeply, and if you saw me today and saw that I might have been a little bit more emotional than usual. It's because of Grace passing. So I just wanted to share that with you all. Thank you.

[04:42:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Matt.

[04:42:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I've known Captain Cooper for about 10 years. I did my first ride along with fire with him, and I remember every single call we went on. I learned so much. It was a fabulous experience. Um, and, um, you know, I remember what fun I had and how many laughs I had. But most of all, I remember gaining an incredible sense of respect, an appreciation for all of our fire department members. Greg is a very kind person, and, um, he became a good friend, I really treasured our friendship, and I'm really, um, thankful and happy opportunity to speak with him, um, not too long ago, a few days ago. Um, and just tell him how much, um, he meant to me, and, um... just had that final conversation. I really miss him.

[04:44:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez?

[04:44:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Council member Madachek and Council member Abbe Koga, for sharing your touching stories about Captain Cooper. I didn't know him personally at that level. I met him much more recently, but very similarly. Remember every experience I had with him. He's a consummate professional for one thing, very respectful, very passionate, very strong. But the thing that always got to me was, I remember, you know, shortly, first time I ran, and, you know, when I was elected, the respect with which heep, he treated me. He didn't know me from Adam, you know, but we sat down, and he helped educate me, and he was always responsive, always reached out whenever there were issues that he needed, you know, the council to understand. And I've always enjoyed working with him. And I regret not getting to know him better. I'll miss him.

[04:45:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, May.

[04:45:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. I want to say things, but I don't want to also get upset, so I'm going to try to thread the needle here. Thank you, Mayor Hicks, for our journeying, our meeting in honor of Captain Cooper. I also had the pleasure of getting to know him right when I moved back to Mountain View in 2011. And, um, I just want to say, especially because we did an appointment tonight, which is, um, the personal aspects that we bring as council members, um, and the interactions that we're able to have with staff and and sometimes, um, staff can become like family, become friends. and you have the opportunity to have relationships. And I also want to say, um, the interactions that we have with people, um, can really, um, affect us, and I just know that when I ran unsuccessfully in 2014, ooh, okay. Four years later, when I ran again, Captain Cooper was the one who made me feel like I could believe in myself that I could do it again. And, um, I think it's really important that when we're in these positions that we remember the human aspect to lead with compassion, I think we talked about that, um, last week, um, in, in Chief Shang's, uh, retirement, which is to be, um, kind, compassionate, um, leaders, to lead with empathy, and, um, that is why, for me, the community for all question is always so important, that's the moral compass with which we lead. And Captain Cooper definitely instilled that in me, in colleagues, as you're hearing as we share our emotions about his tragic passing to cancer. And I think that's the piece that I will hold with me is thinking about our greater community and how we can empower each other to take care of one another. Thanks, Mary.

[04:47:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: So with that, we will observe a minute of silence.

[04:48:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: The meeting is now adjourned at 10:09 PM.

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