April 25, 2023 Joint Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

Video

Transcript

[00:05:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I want to tell everybody here in real life. that you're going to have to watch us start from the very beginning, because none of that was recorded. So you can, you know, if you enjoyed it the first time, I'm sure you'll enjoy it more the second time. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our study session of April 25, 2023. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[00:05:32] City Clerk: Council member, Abbe Koga.

[00:05:33] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here.

[00:05:34] City Clerk: Council member, Kimei, your Council member, Matachek?

[00:05:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:05:38] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[00:05:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:05:39] City Clerk: Council member Ramos.

[00:05:41] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:05:41] City Clerk: Vice Mayor of Show Walter.

[00:05:42] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here?

[00:05:43] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks.

[00:05:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:05:44] City Clerk: You have a Coral?

[00:05:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: We're now on item 3.1, fiscal years 2324, and 2425, council work plan development, project prioritization, and gatekeepers. The purpose of this study session is for council two, first. Review Potential Council Work Plan Project. Second, receive input from advisory bodies and department staff. Third, provide feedback on the draft fiscal year 23 through 25 council work plan, project prioritization proposed by staff for additional analysis and incorporation into the final draft of the council work plan. That plan will return to council for consideration and potential adoption with the fiscal year, 23, 24 recommended budget. And last, to give direction to staff, regarding next steps in the gatekeeper process. Given the need for council member recusals during the conflicts of interest, this item will proceed in the following manner. We will begin with a staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment. At the close of public comment, the council will ask questions, deliberate, and vote on matters requiring council member recusals first. And then the council will ask questions and deliberate on the remaining items for discussion and take action. Principal management analyst Laurel James will present the item. Miss James?

[00:07:21] Laurel James: Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, counsel. As the mayor mentioned tonight, we'll be discussing in this study session, the fiscal years 23 through 24 and 24 through 25, Council Work Plan Prioritization, and Gatekeepers. For tonight, we'll be reviewing the council work plan development process and discussing the status, review recommended project prioritization in the draft fiscal year 23 through 25 council work plan, and provide feedback on project whose priority category should be changed and the staff recommendation regarding the gatekeeper process. As a reminder, at the January 24th council meeting, the council approved a process for this year, uh, fiscal year 23 through 25 workplan development, and at the February 28th council meeting, the council identified 42 potential projects for this work plan, including 20 carry forward projects, 10 plan projects, and 12 projects proposed by council members at the study session. These were key projects that were identified for focus during this war plan period that are of particular interest to council, advanced the council's strategic priorities in a meaningful way, and typically require significant city resources, particularly staff time to complete. And the goal of this process is to balance responsiveness to emerging or urgent counseling community issues, and with stability for efficient use of city resources and staff planning. Staff analyze the proposed projects, using the criteria approved by the council in January, including the advancement of the strategic priorities, and other council goals are initiatives, advancing the council's race, equity, and inclusion goals, the urgency or timeliness of the project, the creation of additional capacity or dependencies for future projects, staff capacity, and the fiscal impact, analysis of which is summarized an attachment 4 to the staff memo. Additionally, potential projects were shared with the council advisory bodies to garner feedback, which is summarized in attachment 3 to the council memo. And finally, the staff developed a draft fiscal year 23 through 25 council work plan, which is also attached to the memo. All of these projects are intended to advance the council strategic priorities, which were adopted in 2021 and pictured here for review. And additionally, this is a reminder that the council work plan is one of many special projects that staff works on, which is represents a proportion of staff work, um, that is much smaller than the core services that the city provides, which primarily include things like, uh, excuse me, water and sewer provision, fighting fires, policing, storm water, and tree or park maintenance, and all of the things that help the city run on a day-to-day basis. Here, we have a graphic that identifies the project count by lead department for those potential work plan projects. The community development department and the public works department together account for more than 50% of those projects and are particularly impacted by the council workplan project workload. And then following that, we have a total project count by department. So this includes both projects on which the department is the lead, and also the projects on which the department plays the supporting role. And that supporting role includes not just typical contributions to projects, but more substantive work that needs to be done by that department in order to complete the project. And this is to give a picture of the workload and the distribution that we're talking about while we're talking about these proposed projects. Here is a proposed project count, shown by strategic priority. All of the projects advance the council's strategic priorities as a whole, and many of them advance more than one strategic priority, although this graph captures the main thrust of the advancement from that project. So for the draft, fiscal year 23 through 25 council workplan document, as approved by council in January, the staff has created a recommendation that sorts the projects into 3 different priority categories. Projects in priority category A will be the highest priority and considered 1st in staff allocation and phasing. The recommendation includes 20 projects in that category. Projects in category B are also high priority and will be considered after category A in staff allocation and phasing. In the staff recommendation, this category includes 16 projects, and projects in category C will be a priority that will be worked on as time and resources allow. And the staff recommendation includes 5 projects in that category. One project was not recommended for inclusion in the council work plan. A note on these project priority categories. The difference between category A and B is relative. Category B prioritization doesn't mean that projects won't see substantive progress or be completed in the two-year implementation time frame of this council work plan. Some of these projects may also already be underway. What it does mean is that if there are limited staff resources and staff can't work on all of the council work projects at once, projects in category A will receive priority. Here's a slide that shows the projects that are included in the category A recommendation. Again, these are the highest priority projects. Staff is recommended projects that will make significant progress toward advancing the council strategic priorities and goals. And the projects in this category also include those that were associated with specific external deadlines, including ballot deadlines. And those that are included in the housing element. And also those that have the potential to increase organizational capacity. Additionally, the projects in bold were those that were most deemed most important by a majority of the council advisory bodies. Here we have the projects that were recommended for category B. Again, these are still high priority and will be considered after category A in allocation of staffing resources. They're closely aligned with council strategic priorities and other goals. And the deadlines for these projects tend to be more flexible or farther in the future than those in category A. Projects may also be recommended for category B, if the staff team's responsible for their implementation are also responsible for multiple other category A projects. And finally, of category C, projects in category C are priorities that will be considered after A and B. The projects listed in category C are projects that are not as critical to advancing the strategic priorities and other goals and initiatives, and additionally, they don't have specific deadlines. They include many of the same teams responsible for category A and B projects who are already at capacity and or requires additional staff capacity to define the project's scope. Since category C products will be undertaken as staffing resources allow on the attachments to the staffing memo, they don't have defined timelines that are proposed. The next item that we're seeking council feedback on tonight is the gatekeeper's process. At the February 28th meeting, council directed staff to prepare a memo, summarizing the process and return for further discussion this evening. On April 14th, the gatekeeper process and next steps Meno is provided to the council, and recommended that the council retain the existing gatekeeper process and requirements. All the council study session in quarter 3 of 2023 to discuss new gatekeeper exemptions per projects that are residential per the housing element, to bring back zoning amendments for council consideration in quarter one of 2024. And finally, after the adoption of amendments, accept gatekeeper applications by June 2024, in preparation for a council authorization hearing in quarter 3 2024, as suggested in the housing element. So the next steps after this evening will be for staff to take the prioritization changes that council requests during this study session, analyze their feasibility in terms of capacity, and bring back a final recommendation for workplan adoption in June alongside the recommended fiscal year 23 through 24 budget. The next step, sort of gatekeepers, will be those that were outlined in the staff recommendation, if it is approved by council, to hold a study session in quarter 3, 2023, bring ordinance amendments for final adoption by quarter one, 2024. Issue a call for gatekeeper applications by June 2024 and schedule a council authorization hearing for quarter 3, 2024. With that, reiterating the staff recommendation to review and provide direction on the draft council workplan project prioritization and to approve the staff recommendation for the gatekeeper process. The study sessions for tonight are on this slide, study session questions, pardon me for tonight or on this slide. First, are there any projects whose priority category should be changed in the draft fiscal year 23 through 25 council work plan? And second, does the council agree with the staff recommendation regarding the gatekeeper process or have any other feedback? Thank you.

[00:17:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Ms. Chance. Are you done? Okay, thank you. So at this point, would any member of the public joining us either virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? We'll hear people in person first. Mr. How much time would you like to allocate? We can have 3 minutes.

[00:17:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Oh, it sounds like maybe your mic isn't on. Do you need technical assistance?

[00:17:59] Public Speaker: Oh, there it is. Is it does this sound a little better?

[00:18:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, thank you.

[00:18:06] Public Speaker: Anyway, I'm passing out for your review, just a little memo that I put together, that I think could immediately address some minor issues in the gatekeeper process. My biggest concern is even with the presentation this evening, that we could be years out in postponing potential projects that could provide housing for Mountain View consistent with the recent plan that was approved by the city. And they're actually quite minor, but they would have some benefits that could be immediate. If you look on the memo, I just highlighted a couple areas in red. And it really has to do with the gatekeeper authorization exemptions. Right now it currently states that if a property is two acres or less, it could be exempt. I actually think my observations, um, of different areas of town, and knowing that lot consolidation is an issue for people that if you just, um, were to increase that number from two acres to three acres, you would get some immediate reaction from the community, the development community that is, for residential. That three years carries through to the next item is written. But there's also another area that could easily be changed. For some reason, you have a very specific exemption for industrial properties adjacent to residential. If you were just to expand that, uh, to include mixed use or retail or other commercial. areas. I think you would also get some expansion of potential projects. So those two minor changes, really, could do a lot to help expedite the process. Otherwise, if you wait, insert the process in the fall, we could be a year and a half to two years out and some opportunities could be lost. So thank you very much for your time.

[00:20:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Do we have more in person public commentators? If so, I think we do. Yeah, please come to the microphone, and do you have a blue card? Okay. You can speak first. Give us your name, and then give the card to the city clerk afterwards. Okay.

[00:20:42] Michael McDonald: Hi, my name is Michael McDonald. I'll make it short. I just want to make sure that A 2 stays, S A 2. Um, the item around, um, uh, reviewing the city charter. So that's it.

[00:20:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Do we have additional public speakers?

[00:21:02] Andrea Bello: Yes. And I'll complete my blue card in a moment. I'm Andrea. Um, Bello, and I support doing a cleanup and modernization of the city charter, um, as per item, A 2 in Attachment One, I believe it should be kept as priority A. I also prefer that it be done as a citizens commission. Thank you.

[00:21:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, this is the last call for in person speakers. Seeing Noah, will go to virtual speakers. Bruce England?

[00:21:39] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England, Wisman Station Drive, speaking for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning, and Green Spaces Mountain View. I'll be short. We submitted a letter with details, I won't repeat the details here. But what the letter called out were a lot of details around consolidating some of the projects, together, that is somewhat covered in the documents, but not entirely and not completely. Um, there could be a problem with projects becoming siloed within departments where there actually can be some cross pollination among them. And that's the kind of thing that's called out in a letter. So we suggested some groupings that you might consider, but also some, in the section, in attachments, one in five, where you have, oops, nope, that's the wrong one. It's the attachment where it calls out how different departments can be involved, where there's a primary department covering a project, but then there's secondary departments. I dont have that in front of me. And we felt that there were some cases where partner departments were not called out. We made some suggestions about where some of those could be added. Thank you.

[00:22:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So next, we have Casey Headerly.

[00:23:05] Casey Headerly: Good evening, Mayor Hicks and Council members. My name is Casey Headerly, and I'm an intern with the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. We want to voice our support for prioritizing and continuing work on projects 817, A19 and A20, and ask you to consider shifting project B22 into the A priority category. Project A 17, develop a Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan, A 19, develop a biodiversity strategy, and A 20, update the community tree master plan to create an urban forest plan are critical and inherently connected. We are excited to see them prioritize so highly because they're essential for bird safety and biodiversity. It's important to consider these projects together because of the ways they will interact and affect one another. We're glad to see the prioritization of project B22 development of a dark sky's ordinance. But we recommend recategorizing it to priority A, in order to begin this work sooner. Implementing a dark skies ordinance is vital for both bird and ecosystem safe fee, as well as human health. When dealing with an issue like light pollution, it is important to act quickly and take action to prevent further increases from happening. Once light pollution levels have increased, becomes quite difficult to reduce them, so the sooner this ordinance can be developed and put in place, the better. Furthermore, Project B 22 is also connected and related to projects A 17, A 19 and A 20, and moving it into the A category with them would make it easier to consider and work on them altogether. Please consider moving project B22 into the A category and look into the connections and interactions between it and projects A17, A19 and A20. Thank you.

[00:25:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, Steve Chesson.

[00:25:08] Steve Chesson: Um, thank you. Can you hear me?

[00:25:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you.

[00:25:12] Steve Chesson: Thank you. Yes, I just want to add my voice to those asking that the charter review stay in the category A Priority A Group. I would like to see it done, preferably by a Citizens Commission, but if you do do it by a council subcommittee, then I would hope that you would be very willing to take a lot of citizen input into that process. And I'd also like to hear more about what the scope of that, what the council's envisioning, would be the scope of the changes being considered. Thank you very much.

[00:25:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Robert Cox.

[00:25:51] Robert Cox: Did you hear me?

[00:25:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you, but not very well. Move this up.

[00:25:57] Robert Cox: Can you hear me better?

[00:25:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[00:25:59] Robert Cox: Okay. Hi, I'm here, uh, on behalf of Louisville Mountain View, to propose elevating the priority of Item C 37. Conduct a holistic citywide review of parking regulations. And our main motivation for this is changes that have been happening due today, B 2097, that has eliminated parking minimums near transit, and also the changes in the housing element that have eliminated the parking minimums in Old Mountain View, El Camino, San Antonio, East Whisman, and Moffat. These are big changes in terms of, you know, being able to get around our city. And many of us are concerned about how this will affect, you know, residents who don't have right now, places to park all of their vehicles on their own property, or even want to be able to come to our downtown. And the question of using our downtown, using cars to get to downtown businesses, and being able to park around those businesses, when parking minimums have been eliminated for new development is an important consideration to understand. So we would really want to have this discussion now, as these changes are going to be impacting us now. So please don't delay this, because it's a number C item, and push it off a few years, because the issue is now, the potential parking problems are now, and the impact on Mountain View residents and businesses is going to happen now. So, uh, thank you for that, uh, having a chance to talk about this tonight. Thank you.

[00:27:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next, we have Celia Paymare.

[00:27:50] Celia Pemer: Hi, thank you so much, may I? Um, and I'm Celia Pemer, a representative of Green Space's Mountain View. I echo a lot of what we said and, um, agree with what we submitted in our letter. Um, I do also want to, um, give a shout out for Dark Skies initiative. Um, right now, I think it's kind of, um, considered as part of, um, Parks and Rec and those plans, but really we're looking at something that could, um, fit more into our, um, carbon footprint reduction as we reduce our energy usage through it. And it's the only form of pollution that we can turn off with the flick of a switch quite literally. Um, so I think it's something that we could prioritize up with, um, the, um, biodiversity plan, but it will kind of be, um, it won't just be isolated and tricks and wrecks. So I think we mentioned that in the letter. So thank you so much for your time.

[00:28:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So this is the last call for virtual speakers. And I don't see any more virtual speakers. So, at this point. We will at this point, I'll bring the item back for council questions and deliberation. Attachment one to the study session memo is the draft, fiscal year 23 through 25 council work plan. Um, Project B 25, which is Explore Implementation of a Downtown Office Cap on New Development, and Project B 26, which has developed comprehensive updates to the downtown precise plan on the draft work plan, require council members to recuse themselves from any discussion regarding these projects due to conflicts of interest. So now, the council members, with conflicts of interest related to the proposed downtown office cap and downtown precise plan update, can make their statements. Council member Abi Koga, you can go first.

[00:29:57] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I am recusing myself from discussion of projects B 25, implementation of a downtown office gap on new development, and B 26, comprehensive updates to the downtown sites plan, because my residence is located in close proximity to the project area.

[00:30:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: And I'll go second, I will be recusing myself from discussion of projects B 25, and B26, because my residence is also located in close proximity to the project area.

[00:30:29] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: So, um, Do council members wish to discuss Project B 25, uh, implementation of a downtown office cap on new development? I see that someone does, so we should be recusing ourselves. Council member Mattachek.

[00:31:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I do want to discuss B 25. I'm not sure that, um, the intention of this was clear when it was brought up the last time we talked about this. This was supposed to be a temporary office cap, and I don't feel like that really came through in this material. And the point was to have a temporary office cap until the downtown precise plan is updated. So I really view these as two different projects, um, and I don't think I don't think it makes sense to wait on a temporary office cap until the, uh, downtown precise plan is done. The point is, we want to do the temporary office cap. while we work on the downtown precise plan. Um, so that we are managing it better. So I would actually like to move that one up and have the temporary office cap separate from the downtown precise plan.

[00:32:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Would anyone else like to speak on this? I'm not seeing anybody. Oh, okay, I'm gonna take a, um... I... Well, first, I'd just like to say to, to, um, the people who worked on this report, this is a really huge amount of work, thank you. I mean, there's so much, um, so many pieces to it, and a lot of thought went into it, and, um, we've all given it a lot of thought, too. So, but you gave us food for that thought. Anyway, um, I, uh, I kind of wanted to look at, at all of these projects more in categories, slightly different categories than the staff used. And one of the categories I had put together was a revitalization of the downtown. And, of course, within revitalization of the downtown, the downtown precise plan, and this temporary, and you're right, we did talk about it as a temporary. were just part of that. So I don't really need to discuss that anymore, but just to say that I think that I literally ID'd 11 projects that I see as really connected to the revitalization of downtown, and these were two of them. One of the things, though, I thought about the, particularly when this, you know, this cap is discussed, I kind of feel like in the current economic situation, this is a problem that's going to take care of itself. I mean, why would a developer be building office now? I mean, I guess there's the Sobrado one that's in the pipeline. But other than that, are there any office projects in downtown right now going on? Are any planned?

[00:34:27] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you, Vice Mayor, Artisha Vastva, assistant city manager, community development director. We continue to have interest in building office. Many of them want to go through the process, um, because they see, um, uh, that coming out of the next 2 or 4 years. They will be able to build and examples of those are, we've got a project on Dana. We've got the Marwood project that wants to come in. Our Robert Green project contains an office development. So we continue to see interest. But those particular projects that you just mentioned are things that have been in the works for years. The Dana one is fairly recent. Dana one may be. The other ones are for a while, but the other ones, yes. have been there for a while. Yeah, for some years. And then we've got small projects, you know, where you see on smaller parcels, like the council saw, the dentist's office. So on. Yeah.

[00:35:29] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Well, Lisa, do you want to provide guidance that this should be a temporary cap?

[00:35:36] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, um, I would say we need to clarify that it's a temporary office cap, and it's until we decide what we're doing in the downtown precise plan with office. So it would be probably until the downtown precise plant update is finished.

[00:35:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Right, okay. So... And I would move it to A. You know, it's my understanding that, um, this already went to the EPC, um, but it didn't come to council. So I'm actually hoping this is fairly simple to do, because I think staff has already worked on it. Is that the case? I think I see a nodding head. Is that correct?

[00:36:21] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you, council member. Yes, staff has done some work on it, and we had prepared a staff report for the planning commission.

[00:36:29] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Okay. So, I would move it to A. So, there's two things clarify that it's a temporary office cap and move it to A. Okay. So, can I see a show of... Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there. Um, council member?

[00:36:48] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. I guess, uh, some questions for staff. There are many different ways of structuring an office cap, and I know there was some work done by EPC. So if we if we accept that, then presumably that could be brought to us fairly expeditiously. Um, and uh, probably with with no need to return to EPC, right?

[00:37:20] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you, council member. I would say if we made revisions to the date, which we have to. It would go back to EPC, and the recommendations would come back to council because the parameters that we had developed earlier, implied that we, you know, we had different dates. We also had anticipated starting on the downtown precise plan earlier based on our recommendation. So if it's been moved back to a category B, then there will be some time lag before we start work on the downtown. And we want to make sure we're talking to developers, helpicants and property owners about it before the EPC and council see it. So there would be some community outreach. Yes. It would take some time, and then the EPC meeting, and they would it would come to us.

[00:38:08] Unknown Speaker: If we if we rank this as a higher priority and begin the work sooner, what comes off the list?

[00:38:18] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: We're gonna have to go back and take a look at it. I know that we have certain implementation actions for the housing element. So some things might have to be put off. An example of that is, we had intended starting work on the Moffat precise plan. We haven't completely started yet, so we might want to wait until this is done before we initiate work on that.

[00:38:40] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. I don't have a problem with returning to counsel with at least some understanding of what the trade-off would be. So I I understand what you're...

[00:38:58] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Um, I, uh, Ellen has her end up. Okay, got it.

[00:39:06] Unknown Speaker: So I, an understanding of what we're trying to achieve is helpful. So temporary, temporary cap, um, that would be in place until the downtown precise plan is complete. That's a helpful clarification. I'm okay with moving it forward, but I would want an understanding of what would come off the priority list as a consequence. Thank you.

[00:39:34] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Kumei.

[00:39:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Hi, thank you, um, vice mayor. Um, so I had a couple different questions. One was, um, a request to, to Mr. Maston, if he can email me that handout that he passed out to counsel, that would be really helpful for me to review those proposed changes that he had. Um, and my 2nd, um, question is, um, I agree that the project name might not, that might need some revision and would ask, uh, council member, Matt a check if possible if she has a better naming for it, um, because I do see, I was just taking a quick, quick notes of all the projects, you know, it would be great to have something in the interim as we work on the downtown precise plan, but I'm not sure that the current name of the project is um, correct. And then would it be possible for staff to share with council this report that went to planning commission, if it's an attachment to a certain meeting, we can look at it too, but that would be a question I asked for staff, they could send that along. I didn't see it.

[00:40:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, our, um, the planning director is, is nodding her head, so I think we can get there.

[00:40:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I can't see that. Thank you.

[00:40:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So, um, uh, anybody else wishing to speak? So, uh, council member, Mattachek, do you have a suggestion for a site name change here?

[00:41:09] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I would just add the word temporary, and say, explore implementing a temporary downtown office cap on new development. And again, that's B 25.

[00:41:23] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right, so I think the thing that we should do is, um, have a show of hands of the people who are still in the dais, and, um, council member Kameh, so I suppose that means to be a roll call about...

[00:41:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Can we just clarify what precisely where...

[00:41:40] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we are voting on the motion to change the name of this, to temporary cap, and have counsel considerate earlier.

[00:41:56] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Does that include the staff analysis of what the trade-off would be?

[00:41:59] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Clerk? Do you have to do a roll call for something like this?

[00:42:09] City Clerk: No, just a show of hands would be fine.

[00:42:11] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay. Okay, everybody show of hands? All favor? Okay, so that would be, um... Council member Kume, are you voting for it?

[00:42:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:42:25] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay, all right. So that's all 5 of us. All right. Well, I think, does that bring this section of the discussion? Oh, the downtown precise plan. That's right. Would anyone like to talk about the downtown precise plan? That is Project B 26. Okay, I'm not seeing anyone needing to talk about that. So, I think that does then bring this part of the discussion to an end. Jennifer, you want to let them know that they can rejoin us. Okay. Welcome back, Mayor Hick. And, um, council member, uh, Ivy Koga.

[00:43:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Let's see. Step three, thank you. So, the council will now provide feedback on the following questions related to the draft, fiscal year, 23 through 25 council work plan projects. The 1st question that we'll go through is, are there any projects, excluding projects B25 and B 26, whose priority categories should be changed in the draft fiscal year 2325 council work plan? And I guess I should also open it to any questions on those projects as well, because I have a question. Vice mayor?

[00:44:32] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I'll go first. One question, I do have a couple of questions to start with, and then I'll go into answering the question. I was wondering about the revitalization of the Gateway Park. It seems like this will be taken up as part of the Castro Commons discussion, and or it could be a small part of the downtown revitalization study. I was wondering if it needed its own study, or it's something we can drop. I would like to ask whether I need to recuse myself from this as well.

[00:45:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. I will be recusing myself.

[00:45:16] Unknown Speaker: I'm sorry. You guys live close.

[00:45:18] Unknown Speaker: The projects you're talking about are close to my place of residence. Yeah.

[00:45:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: All right.

[00:45:22] Unknown Speaker: And I believe I need to recuse myself as well, for the same reason.

[00:45:27] Unknown Speaker: Sorry, I should have remembered that. I know just where you live.

[00:45:33] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Z 39. Revisation of Gateway Park. Do we really need this project? Is it one we can cut?

[00:45:42] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So, good evening. Vice mayor, council members, Don Cameron, Public Works director, and I've asked John Machant, Community Services director, to be available as well. So just to clarify, Gateway Park would not be part of the Castro Commons development. If something goes forward, Castro Commons, of course, you know, be looking for it to be designed in a way that will work well with Gateway Park. So wanted to set the record straight on that. Now, in terms of whether it needs to be a separate project or not, I think in the end, it really is up to council to decide, but staff does have a proposal for how to proceed, and it would not necessarily have to be a separate park. So, again, I'm going to ask community services director Mashant, to correct me if I misspeak it all, but one of the things that we were talking about is engaging the community over the next year or so in a general discussion about the value and the importance of Gateway Park and what they look for in this particular park. It's really a unique setting, as we are aware. And it serves some unique purposes currently for the community. And after doing some of that discussion and assessment, we could see then, if it just needs a refresh, that could be done more through our more typical park renovations, replantings work that could be done that would serve that need that would not rise to a formal capital improvement project that requires a project manager, design, and construction. So that would be, in our mind, the first step. And then, if based upon that work, and after doing a refresh, there still continues to be a desire to do something more holistic with it, and a complete redesign retrofitting of it, it could be looked at then as a future capital improvement project. Is there anything you want to add?

[00:47:44] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Well, I guess my... Oh, I've questioned it that is, don't we do that for all the parks on sort of a rolling basis? I mean, having lived in Mountain View for a long time, I've certainly seen the, for instance, the tot lot in the park I live near changed dramatically, like, three or four times when it got a little old.

[00:48:08] Community Services Director John Marchand: Yes, thank you, vice mayor, city council, John Marshawn Community Services Director. So, yes, typically, we do go through and look at our parks and look for opportunities to renovate. This, in particular, property is one that we do maintain. Um, but it continues to be maintained year over year and hasn't been looked at for a period of time. And so, um, based on the interest of counsel, it would be an opportunity for us to then, as, um, a public works director said, is to take a, um, community view of the benefit of what that offers to the community and how we can support that.

[00:48:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. All right, so, um, uh, the next speaker would be Emily Ramos? I think Council member Magic has something relevant to this discussion.

[00:48:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, sure.

[00:48:59] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Council member.

[00:49:00] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I was the one who, um, put this one forward, the Gateway Park, uh, project, and it, I had in mind exactly what, um, Ms. Cameron and Mr. Marchand described. Um, it has been a very long time since that park has been looked at in terms of, should we do something different? And so I think the first step is exactly what was described. We'd get community input on what would they like to see different? You know, I think the term gateway is overused. When it comes to development, but in my opinion, this actually is a gateway location. Hence the name Gateway Park. It's a very important corner to our downtown, and I think it could be better. It could be more inviting and refreshed, which is why I added it to the list. Thanks.

[00:50:05] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, my my question is has to do with another item. So... I, I actually, so while they're already out of the room, there is one other potential project that they would have to recuse on, if you wish to discuss it, so rather than have them come in and out again, um, can we just ask council, um, the council members that are here if you want to discuss Project A 10.

[00:50:37] Unknown Speaker: Uh... Yeah, the... Okay, let's do that. And what number... That's A 10?

[00:50:45] Unknown Speaker: Mm hmm. All right. I personally think it's a great project. I don't know what other people feel. It's a great project, so I don't think we need to. move that around at all.

[00:50:58] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Okay. So then it would be appropriate to bring our colleagues back.

[00:51:36] Unknown Speaker: Take my script. I think you did, yes. Thank Hyperball.

[00:51:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, another one I I had a question about was A18, implement online permitting. Now, I understand that this is in the ongoing mode, and we've gotten some information about some major changes that have been made recently. And I wondered, you know, what's kind of what's left?

[00:52:09] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Vice Mayor, our teacher of Vostovo, again. We've got two pieces to the online permitting. One is being in process right now. The biggest piece of this, the building module for building permits, was implemented in April, and we expect to continue to finish it out with planning and public works through the end of the year. So all permits then would go through this new module. And the 2nd piece of it is what we call the land management system, and that's going to take much longer. Um, you know, and it'll probably start in this work cycle, but it won't be completed in this work cycle. We expect to start probably, I have to talk to the, to our chief information officer, but from what I understand, I believe that it's going to start closer to the end of the year, because we're going to take time to implement the 1st module, and then it'll take probably about 2.5 to 3 years to complete.

[00:53:12] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay, so it definitely hasn't just gotten into the ongoing management status yet.

[00:53:17] Unknown Speaker: It's not management. It's still in the implementation status, even the 1st module.

[00:53:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And then, I wondered about a name change for B31. That's the strategy for low and middle income home ownership. And, um, it seems like every time we talk about this, outside of what we do in partnership with Silicon Valley housing trust, it's related to the community land trust program. So I was wondering if we should rename it that, or if it really is broader than a community land trust program.

[00:53:57] Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chen: Good evening, Mayor and Counsel, Wayne Chen Assistant Community Development Director. So the intent of that item is to be broader. Staff have been exploring opportunities for more down payment assistance programs, funding for closing costs to assist low and modern income households to actually be able to enter into housing, community land trust is a part of homeownership, but just one part of that, that item.

[00:54:22] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Well, thank you. Good. Good to know. All right. Well, so that's, those were the questions I had, and then I have some projects I'd like to move up. One, I'd like to move up, is Project C 37. That's conduct a holistic citywide review of parking regulations. And we discussed this in the study session we had on the, or the item. We had on the 72 hour rule. And, um, it was also brought up by livable Mountain View in terms of dealing with changes to parking, parking laws. And I just, I really don't feel comfortable for it to be in the sea category. I view that there's one about municipal code updates, and this could perhaps be the first municipal code update we do. So that's one thing I'd like everybody to think about. And then the second one I'd like to see move up is begin work on the Stevens Creek Trail. I know that it's B21. That's just the first one into the B category, but, boy, at least, in terms of the people I talk to, there's hardly anything in the community that is more treasure than the Stevens Creek Trail. And, um, so there, it seems like there's a lot of reasons to keep going on this, as, as quickly as possible. One, it's a long term community dream. Two, this section will open up a large open space that's essentially nobody has had access to, and that's a lot of park space that we knew you'd access to. I think it's 16 acres or something like that, 16 or 17 acres. It's quite a large swath. And also, I think that making sure we go as quickly as possible on this is important, from the point of view, of functioning as a good neighbor to Sunnyvale. Right now, Sunnyvale is beginning working on this. This is the first time in a long long... Well, this is the first time in my memory anyway, that another city has stepped forward to help us, and boy, is that welcome with the Stevens Creek Trail. That is very welcome. So we want to encourage that. And then the other thing is that, you know, this Stevens Creek Trail really functions. I mean, we started out the dream, we thought of it as a recreation trail. But over time, I think we've all found out that it's a lot more than that. It's a real important connector in our community, and it's a very important commute group. And so this extension that we're being talked that we're working on next, we'll really increase the number of people who can use it to commute to high school and also to the North Bay Shore. And that is good for our health, and it's very good for lowering our GHD emissions. So for that reason, I'd really like to see this one moved up. And then the other one, a couple more, B30, and that's the R3. I think this is really long overdue, and it directly supports our goal of providing more housing. And I just, I feel like, in the mix of planning that we're doing, getting this included as soon as possible would be, you know, is a good thing. And then, and then, the last one I'd really like to see moved up is, um, uh, B24. Develop a comprehensive citywide storefront activation program. Oh, I hope this doesn't trigger... No, citywide. Okay. I would really like to see this moved up. We have a bit of a blight problem with vacant storefronts, and I would really like to see work done to deal with that as soon as possible. So those are the ones I would like to move up. And I think I'll let other people take a turn, and get back with more comments later.

[00:58:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, now that I'm back, I'm going to ask a question as, as the vice mayor has, just a procedural question, as chair, now that Pat has named for, if I took notes right, to move up, I'm wondering how we how staff recommends we proceed, because I guess I was kind of thinking we would move some up and some down, but if we all recommend moving 4 up, we're gonna be in trouble.

[00:59:05] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, mayor and council members. So, yes, I was going to say, without hearing from the rest of the council members, if there is interest in moving a number of other things up or shifting them around, then you'll have to have a similar discussion about what you may want to move down because if all of the things are in category A, then. Yeah, it's just, you know, figuring out which items you really truly do want to be finished 1st. And then category B. They'll all still be complete and started, but they may just not be worked on as quickly as the items in category A. So it's just a trade-off discussion of what you want to move up and down.

[00:59:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. I was hoping you would suggest a magic formula, but, um, I guess it's just that we review, I'll review afterwards the number of up and down. I'm sure the next person speaking is Emily and Ramos, I'm sure she's gonna move forward down. Um, so... So, um, I guess I'll just review them as I see how it pans out. Okay, uh, council member Ramos.

[01:00:11] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Unfortunately, I...

[01:00:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Oh, one other thing, uh, also, I see, uh, Ms. Logue is in the cue, but I think that may be leftover.

[01:00:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Council member Ramos.

[01:00:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So unfortunately, I'm not making any recommendations to move anything down right now. Um, but, uh, one of the items that was not listed in the priorities, the developed strategies for residents and market rental units, This is probably my fault for not being as clear. I think it was more last minute thinking, but I wanted, it wasn't just market rate properties. It was properties that were specifically not protected by our CSFRA or our MHRSO. Um, so, 11 item, or one type of unit that is exempt from our CSFRA, um, law, um, is uh, BMR units in particular. Those are people who you actually have to be low income to be in there. Um, and so they're in a particularly vulnerable place. Now, in some cases, they live in a unit or a project that is all affordable housing with a mission-based nonprofit developer. But in other times, they are inclusionary within a market rate development, um, and there are, um, I have some questions in terms of, uh, the protections that they have available to them. So, for example, in the CSFRA, you can't increase your rent above a certain amount, which is the annual general adjustment. But another factor to that is if you lose, um, housing services, um, that is considered a rent increase under our CSFRA law. I do not know if that is the same kind of protection as afforded to those who are in BMR units. I've been getting comments relating to that. For example, like someone's in a BMR unit in a market rate complex and they're all like, we used to have a locker. And suddenly they took away the locker and they were just like tough luck. If that was a case of a CSFRA unit. That would have been considered a loss of service that they would have been able to say, hey, you need to decrease my rent at that point. Um, And then the other kind of clarification for those in BMR units is, um, the calculation of how their rent is paid. Some, um, I had a discussion with some of my council members on it and they're like, oh, it's just automatically 30% of what they make. But my understanding is it's actually based on their level. So if you are there's, if you're in that range of low income, which is the 50 to 80% AMI. Um, the rent is set at that 80% AMI. So I sent an email question in advance, but then I was told that it was probably best to just ask it in the council because it was a lot more complex than just throw it into our council questions. Um, But so, for example, if the AMI is 100 K, and 80% AMI is 80 K, but that range is 50 to 80 K. If you make 50 K, um, that 80 K, the, if you make 80 K, that rent would be 30% of that would be about 2 K a month. But if you're making 50% AMI, that's 48% of your income. Um, so I don't, that's, that's that border of severely housing burden. And I don't know what kind of protections there are for residents like that, especially also, when we get our AMIs increasing at a dramatic level because AMI increases a lot here.

[01:04:04] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, council member. There are a few parts of that question, and I'll try to remember each of the pieces. RBMR program has a couple of key components. One is a 65% weighted average, and a microwave developer needs to include at least 2 AMI levels. So what that means is, for example, a developer could say for the BMR units, we'll have half of the units at 50% AMI, and the other half of the units at 80% AMI, which would balance out to 65% weight at average. For those units, the rents would be set at the 50% AMI rents, and for the other half, those units would be at the 80% rent. So it would not just be all of the units in that category are all set at the top of that level. In terms of rent adjustments for residents who are existing in place. We typically have a 3% annual cap for in place rents. If a tenant vacates and a unit becomes open and gets refilled, then the developer property manager will look at the existing HCD income limits to determine the income qualification. Once a new tenant is in the units, then it's capped again at 3% on an annual basis. Our BMR program also includes kind of an intentional piece to allow over income tenants. So, for example, there are three tiers for over income allowance. As an example, any unit that goes up to 80% AMI, the tenants can earn up to 95% AMI and still remain in the unit. If they exceed 95%, then they have one year of a transition plan, that just gives one example of the ability to allow folks to stay in place. Regarding amenities, typically what would occur is if staff is contacted, we would pick up the phone, call the property manager, find out what the situation is, and find a corrective measure for that. If you are hearing from tenants and BMR units where this is the situation, please do let us know. I think that we have maybe not heard as much of those complaints, so do direct them to staff so we can have a conversation with property management.

[01:06:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Perhaps you haven't finished, council member, Ramos.

[01:06:25] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, one follow up to that. So, I mean, we have a lot of BMR units that are in our city. Are we keeping track that they are following those rules?

[01:06:37] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we are.

[01:06:38] Councilmember Emily Ramos: How do we do that?

[01:06:39] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. So we have over 170 BMR units. The majority of them are rental units. There is an annual certification process that, through our BMR administrator, currently house keys, there's an annual process for that. And then on an ongoing basis, we will follow up on any issues that we may hear about regarding issues from tenants. And then we have active conversations with house keys as well. on an ongoing basis, just to make sure that the BMR units are administered properly.

[01:07:07] Councilmember Emily Ramos: And is this the same process for both our BMR units, our inclusionary in market rate developments, as our 100% affordable housing developments?

[01:07:19] Unknown Speaker: Generally, except that for the NOFA projects, we don't have a 3rd party administrator like house keys, they would be property managed by typically the developer. So, for, say, a midPem project, they have their own asset management arm, and then, um, we have, um, ongoing coordination at the staff level directly with the developer or the developer's property manager. And then we're also building up our asset management function within housing to be able to step up the ability to do ongoing monitoring and compliance.

[01:07:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, is this, uh, Ms. Ramos, is this a proposed project, or is it something? It sounds like make be something that could be addressed with an off agenda memo?

[01:08:06] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I think I would love to get some updates on this as it comes. Um, but not necessarily project worth, but more like, Just, I don't know what you would call that. What did you call an off agenda memo?

[01:08:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, an offogenic memo? I think we got gotten them in the past maybe on the gatekeeper process, so, um, I think you're right. We could use one on this topic.

[01:08:31] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. Thank you.

[01:08:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Uh, we have council member Mattachek now?

[01:08:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Um... So, I agree with the vice mayor, about pulling in C 37. That is the citywide review of parking regulations. Um, that one's really important to me. And, um, that was number one on my list to pull in. So thank you for raising that. But I do have a couple that I'm happy to push out. And one of them is A2, which is the ballot measure to amend the city charter. You know, I got to thinking about, um, doesn't make sense to have two ballot measures on the same ballot. And there's the revenue measure, and then the modernizing the city charter. And from my perspective, I think it would be better to have one at a time. And so, um, I think the revenue measure is more important to me than the modernizing the city charter. So I would push out A 2. And, um, I'm not sure if that falls into category B or C, but I would want it on the next ballot in 2026. And then, um, I also would push out B 35, which is prepare a citywide travel demand update. And... the reason I'm saying that is because, um, pulling in, uh, C 37, um, with public works as the lead, I was looking for something that public works was the lead, um, in to sort of balance this. And, you know, um, there's a lot of important projects that public works is working on, but if I had to pick one, I would say I would push out B 35. And let's see. I have a general comment that I guess I'm going to make right now. And that is, while I appreciate getting input from the advisory bodies. I would like to see the process changed for next time. I'm not sure all of the members of our advisory bodies know a whole lot about this wide variety of projects. And actually, I look to them to be experts in the area, like visual arts, or bike pad. And I don't think, you know, they know about all these projects. So, what I would prefer to do is, before the council discusses this, we ask our advisory bodies, you know, what are the top, maybe one or two projects that you think the council should put on the work plan? in your area of responsibility. And then, um, that comes to council, and we review that along with projects we might have in mind. And say yes or no to the projects that they would like to add, you know, this way, I feel like, you know, I'm not sure I can really trust the results, because I just think there's a lot of projects. They're not that familiar with, and they don't fall into their area of responsibility. So I would flip it around next time. Thank you.

[01:12:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[01:12:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I agree with that last comment that we probably ought to allow the advisory bodies to provide a general opportunity to share with us what they think some priority projects are. So I appreciate that comment. I'll start with a couple of questions because I missed that opportunity earlier. My apologies. It sounds like we are doing one question at a time, so I'll focus on...

[01:12:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: You did not get an opportunity earlier. You were not.

[01:12:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right. I missed the opportunity. Um, uh, I only have one question, actually, for this question, and that's, uh, operationally, what is the difference between category A and category B? If something is placed into category A, does that really guarantee it's going to be done within a specific period of time? And similarly, if it's in category B, does that necessarily mean that it'll be pushed out if other things come up?

[01:13:16] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question. The difference between category A and category B is somewhat relative. And again, it has to do with if there are limited staff resources, and there needs to be some prioritization of the council work plan projects in order to move things forward in a timely manner at all. Category B projects will be prioritized below category A in that limited allocation of staff resources. Again, that does not mean that category B projects won't seize substantive progress or completion in the two-year workplan period, it doesn't mean that some of them aren't already underway in receiving staff resource allocations. It's that if there's a need to prioritize based on limited resources. Category A will take priority.

[01:14:04] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's helpful. But it's challenging because it's there's an element of subjectivity. And there's a lot of information we're not necessarily privy to, right? So, I think at a high level, we know that CDD is working both on the R3 update and the Moffat Boulevard precise plan, but it's hard to know beyond that, how the 2 relate or don't relate, and whether moving one aside necessarily means that the other will get any level of priority. And so because of that, I'm very comfortable with the staff recommendations. I don't feel like we're, there's going to be a tremendous amount of value in, um, unless we're removing something from the list or we're making a fairly dramatic shift, um, like taking something that's scheduled and making it unscheduled, I don't think there's going to be a whole heck of a lot we could actually achieve with, uh, you know, moving things between categories A and B, for instance. Um, and I, you know, so I agree with the vice mayor. The R3 update is important to me. That's something that we prioritized in June 2019. And I'd love to see it done. Um, but there are, there have been a number of reasons why it hasn't been able to be completed. And, you know, despite the fact that I would love to see that done as quickly as possible. I think priority B is a fair place to include it relative to all of the other things that we want to achieve, and especially appreciating that CDD is so heavily impacted, that we might place it in priority A, but in practice, that won't necessarily mean that it'll be done faster. So I'm comfortable with the staff recommendations. I would be interested in understanding what it would mean to place the holistic citywide review of parking regulations in a higher priority. I have a suspicion, and the public works director, can correct me if I'm wrong, that the citywide tribal demand update may not be sufficient. If we were to deprioritize that, that wouldn't necessarily create enough capacity for the parking regulation update, which feels far more significant in scale. Is that a fair assessment?

[01:16:33] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Thank you for the question, customer Rares, Don Cameron, Public Works director. Yes, that is a fair assessment. The holistic review of all the city parking regulations dealing with our on street parking will involved myself far more extensively than the travel demand model update, which is more technical in nature. It will also involve other departments a little more extensively than the child to mind model update would be. So it's not an even trade. But, again, we're interested in hearing your priorities, and we'll do what we can if you move things up on the list.

[01:17:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. That's helpful. So I'll, I guess, might, yes, sure, go ahead.

[01:17:19] Unknown Speaker: Uh, excuse me, while you're up here or before you sit down. I actually have a follow up question, because I have interest in C 37 about citywide parking demand, too, but it's for slightly different reasons than other people have brought up so far tonight. I think it interacts a great deal. I agree with what some people have brought up. I guess it was Mr. Coxton, public commentary, that we've agreed to dramatically change how we do parking with very little discussion about it. It was brought about by the housing element, and we haven't really talked council hasn't really talked about it at all. So that concerns me. But in particular, where it concerns me is that I think it will interact a lot with our active transportation plan. Um, which is something no one's brought up yet. To me, it's less about parking than about that, and also our urban forestry plan, which often includes street trees. So, what I'm afraid of, when we did, uh, both the El Camina Real, uh, bike lane, and also the Calderon bike lane, is just two examples. I I think the process was to first look and see whether there was much parking on those two streets. And when we found that there was not, we put in the bike lanes. And what I'm afraid of is that, and I've already heard some of this from developers, and I would do it myself if I wanted to make money off of a housing development. They look around and see, are there is there a lot of parking available on the street, and if there is, they put less parking in their project. But then we, I'm looking out, not, I mean, not always for developer profits. I'm looking for the benefits of the residents. And I want to make sure that we can put in bike lanes or widen sidewalks or put in street trees. I don't want to give over our city streets, which we own, to become permanent parking lots. I wanna be able to use them, frankly, for active transportation. And that's on our that's upcoming on our agenda. So, to me, I have a sense of urgency around that particular item.

[01:19:30] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Well, thank you for bringing that up. So, in my mind, you are talking about two separate issues. So the comprehensive, holistic review of our parking regulations, would generally involve looking at our city code, what the California vehicle code says, about how we may regulate on street parking. And these are all the different ways that we regulate on street parking. It's whether we put time limits in to our, five hour, some folks have brought up the, you know, people have brought up the 72 hour limit. It could be also related to various other pieces that allow us to regulate when people and how they, the public uses our parking areas. And, you know, we've started writing down what the scope could look like that starts to address the various things we've heard from the community and from council members that range from using our right away as storage, or businesses using it for their own purposes. And that's more in terms of, you know, as we look at regulating and enforcing. But also the future of our right away, in terms of making sure it remains, when you provide public parking, the intent is available for the public. You expect turnover. It's not dedicated to any specific users. So we do see this as this comprehensive review, looking at the future development, and as looking at going with less or no parking on site, what are the strategies that we would be recommending be put in place to do exactly what was brought up. How do we keep parking available for the residents in the area for other public uses that could involve revamping the residential parking permit program to potentially make it so that the city initiates it at times based upon developments coming in. It could involve looking at putting in more time restrictions and, you know, the legalities around doing all of that. So that's the parking regulations. Now, the issues that you're also bringing up, which are critical policy issues aren't really related to parking regulations, but how the city is going to choose to use the right away. So, for instance, as you brought up with El Camino Real, which, although it's not city right away, we'll pretend it was, because we do do this for other streets, we did it with Calderon, for instance, we do, if we want to put in, for instance, a protected bike way, that means we need to, we need the space, we need to repurpose the right away. As part of our community outreach and engagement. Yes, we do survey the amount of parking that's already being utilized on the street. Did they have other options off the street to park? And then we talk to those homeowners or others that are involved about the project and get their input to it. But ultimately, it is a council policy decision to say, this is a higher priority for the right of way, to put in this bike lane, to widen this sidewalk, to put in these trees, then parking. And that's not a parking regulation per se. That's a decision for how the right of way is going to be used. So this is where the active transportation plan, for instance, comes into play, and it's look at policies. And this is one of the key things for the active transportation plan to look at, as well as some of the other planning work that the city is doing, is coming to a place of if we have priorities where we want to put in improved bike facilities, wider sidewalks, more green infrastructure, and it means we need to repurpose a part of the street, and remove parking, that is a policy decision. It's not a parking regulation decision. And that can still happen. Um, you know, these two timings don't have to, one doesn't have to proceed the other, is what I'm trying to say. That was a longer answer than I saw. expected.

[01:23:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: And I want to say that we're running into some timing issues, because, um, Senator Becker is going to come, and I know that come visit us soon. Um, virtually. Um... Yeah, and there are three council members who still need to comment, and, and, uh, Council member Ramos... a council member. Ramirez was in the middle of his comments. So, I think we may, we had talked when preparing for this meeting, because it's unusual to have a Senator Grace our meeting, we talked about beginning, uh, taking a break from this issue, uh, allowing, uh, Senator Becker to show up, and then restarting this issue. So I think I'm going to do that right now. I don't know, but we have, we would be starting the, I believe, we would be... No, we wouldn't start... Okay, so that's just a heads up that we will be doing that. Okay, so, uh, Council member Ramirez, do you have more?

[01:25:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I don't want to take up too much time, especially. I mean, if we could wrap up question one, that might be kind of a natural, you know, concluding point for this. But in short, I'm supportive of the staff recommendations. I think they're very well thought out. I'm comfortable with some tactical revisions, including better understanding what it would mean to rank the parking regulation item as a higher priority, which I think would basically mean we want to commit to achieving that priority within the two-year cycle is kind of how I interpret it. Um, but beyond that, everything else is, um, I'm very comfortable with. Thank you.

[01:25:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And I saw Council member Kameh's hand. Are you ready to speak, Council member Commé?

[01:25:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I am. I am. Um, so for question one, I just wanted to, um, say, I, that I'm comfortable with the staff recommendations for the prioritization, and I, uh, would be comfortable to the change that I've heard about moving C 37 prioritization up and B 35 down. Um, And I think that's kind of it. I heard a couple others, but that would be my preference is to keep everything else as is and just to move up, C 37 down, B 35. And then I also wanted to comment and say that I'd like to recuse myself from the 39.

[01:26:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:26:48] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I don't have much more to say after listening, everyone. I appreciate the comments and, um, I guess just a couple of things, I would say, is, um, I do support moving up the parking. C 37 item. And I appreciate, um, Ms. Cameron's comes actually, mayor, your comments too. I think there's actually a lot of things that tie together. Um, I agree with you, you know, in a perfect world. I'll just say, I think we should have as many bike lanes as we can throughout the city. But of course, that is relative to the parking situation. And in light of the changes in what we can require, require with parking, that, that's might complicate things. But, um, as I was listening to, um, the others I was thinking that also type size in or could tie into the TDM ordinance. We talk about transportation, demand management, you know, that a lot of that ties into active transportation, transit, whatnot. So I see a lot of these actually kind of melding into each other. So it's a little tricky, frankly, to try to separate them out and to distinct projects, I think. And as we work on them we'll probably see that happening. So I want to be mindful of that. So to be frank, knowing, understanding that. And then the other piece that I know is that there's, um, you know, funding considerations. So, in a, again, a perfect world, if we got funding for the grade separations, that should move up to category A. And so, you knowing that, being mindful of that, I think this is a very, you know, helpful plan, but there's a lot of room for movement, a lot of things that affect, you know, will affect this, that is out of our control, frankly, like funding issues. So, um, you know, I think we just need to be flexible with that. I was gonna say, with the Stevens Creek Trail extension, that actually is the piece that I was thinking is we could work on it, but there's a funding issue there. I don't know where we're going to get the funding to do this next reach. And so I guess, and I appreciate Sunnyvale's moving forward. I would be appreciative of maybe a memo because I remember there were a couple of different options with this. Like if Sunnyvale were to move forward, there was a possibility that we wouldn't have to come back to this final piece. I know at one point we talked about, let's just do it anyway. But again, you know, I just want to be realistic about funding opportunities and understand better, like what is possible and what we really need to do versus now that we have a collaboration with these other cities, what the alternatives can be. Because I think the real, initially, my understanding was this loop around the Bay or going up to... Sunnyvale up to Cupertino, but there were some challenges, engineering challenges, and then Sunnyvale for a while didn't want it to go through their city, but I think they changed that direction. So if it's going through Sunnyvale, do we really need to do this last piece as a question, frankly.

[01:30:14] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Um, thank you for the question. And if I may save myself a memo, I'd like to just answer the question.

[01:30:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: That's great. Thank you.

[01:30:23] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So what's being discussed in terms of Sunnyvale's moving forward, as Sandyvale did succeed in acquiring some grants, to build a section from Remington down to Fremont Avenue. Now, the gap then is from where it ends in Heatherstone and comes down to Remington, which is the section of the project that we would be doing in partnership with Sunnyvale. And then our project also wants to cross over and connect to Mountain View High School. So Sunnyvale is going to proceed with their section, because it can be done as a standalone project, recognizing it leaves a gap, which then city streets can serve as an alternate route till we can fill that gap. Now, we do have grant funding, and we have funding set up for the design phase of our partnership section, which is between Heatherstone and Remington, headed over to the bridge. It's about 6 million. It is in our CIP. We plan to assign a project manager to that project by this fall and get started on the design work itself. Now, it's that construction money that's going to be challenging. But by doing the design, we do set ourselves up to try to compete for more grants and try to keep this one moving forward. So, wherever you put it on the priorities, we do plan to get started on the design work this fall and use the grant funding and we'll be coordinating closely with Sunnyvale.

[01:31:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Well, in that case, then, I think, I'm fine with where it is right now. So the only change I would look at is the C 37. Thanks.

[01:32:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: So the beauty of speaking last is that people have said most of what I have to say, I, as you can tell, also believe that C 37 should move up, and that, um, most of the items, I agree with council member Ramirez, that, um, his take on why most of them can stay where they are. I do have a couple of comments or questions. Well, I liked the comments that many people made about cross pollination between projects, you know, biodiversity, park planning, active transportation, and don't want them to be siloed. And I liked the comment about advisory bodies, telling us early on, giving us advice early on, regarding their own areas of expertise, as opposed to commenting on all the projects that council looks at. I think that would be more meaningful. I also wanted to look a bit at Project A 14, which is the Moffatt Precise plan. In my opinion, when I look at the area defined for the Moffatt precise plan, it's too small. It should go all the way to where 85 crosses over the Moffatt. And I also think it should be renamed, not the Moffatt precise plan, but the Moffatt downtown precise plan, because I do believe it's the other half of our downtown. I would actually name, rename both of them, the Castro downtown precise plan on the Moffatt downtown precise plan. I think making it larger is, first, we're trying to do transitoriented development. So I think making it larger, makes it, you know, we say that people can walk from the intersection of El Camino and Castro to the train station. I think they can also walk in the other direction, and we're doing ourselves a disservice, or we're not really doing good transitorian development if we only look on one side of the train station. And I also think that those two changes would make it more competitive, possibly for grants, because I've heard that it's not as competitive, because there are not enough sites in it. And I was going to ask Ms. Shvastova whether one of the properties within that area would be the Shenandoah property, which whether that could be incorporated in an expanded downtown precise plan, because that property is different than the rest of the properties.

[01:34:47] Aarti Shrivastava, Assistant City Manager / Community Development Director: Thank you, Mayor Artisha Vastava. Ass assistant community, Assistant City Manager, community development director. I would say, yes, with a caveat. That property is not currently within the city, it needs to be annexed. However, the city can prezone it, and I think we need to do a little bit of research to see what options the city has if we want to incorporate it into a precise plan. It could extend all the way from saying, this is not annexed yet, and we have plans for it, all the way to, oh, we can pre-zone it, and provide a little more direction. So I think a little bit of research is required. But we can certainly research that and bring that back when we bring it back for the study session. Um, for counsel. And then if council wants to extend the scope, we can also look at what's a reasonable walkable distance and how far should the scope extend.

[01:35:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Well, that's something I'm highly interested in, because I want to make that more competitive and more walkable, more competitive for grants, more walkable. Um, and the last, I have a question also on, um, uh, the race equity and inclusion concept, because I thought that the, or the equity component, I thought that the proposed childcare project, which staff said did not have an equity component, actually, has a pretty large equity component. I'm happy keeping it where it is, but I, I, um, wondered why, I think for, um, you know, women to be, uh, economically independent, uh, to reduce, uh, and also for low income families that that, like many families, um, need two workers, I think that, uh, childcare is critically important. So I think there was, I just want to change that staff comment and say that it has big, a big equity component. And those are my comments. So, does staff feel that we have enough clarity, or should we come back to which things, I have notes and could go over it, but do you think we have enough clarity at this point?

[01:37:10] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Thank you, mayor. So I do think we need to make sure that we're on the same page with where you all have landed? What I am hearing, and I would ask our principal management analyst, James, to fill in the blanks if I'm missing anything. I'm hearing that you all are in agreement to move up C 37. What I would like clarity on is whether you're talking about category B or A, because right now it's in C. And then I did not hear a majority support for moving other things around. So I'm going to ask the person who 1st brought up C 37, which would be the vice mayor, whether she had a preference for A or B, and other people who chimed in, anybody who wants to answer.

[01:38:09] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I don't really have a strong preference, one way or the other. But I, yeah, I don't have a strong preference.

[01:38:17] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Okay, Council member Ramirez?

[01:38:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Staff is coming back with a feasibility analysis. Maybe it would be helpful to return with if it were in category A, what would come off the list and if it were in category B, what would come off the list? Because I'm not sure we have enough understanding of who is what work would be replaced now that we've prioritized this project.

[01:38:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, we had some comments, but we haven't, um, taken straw votes on them. Is that clear enough?

[01:38:51] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So if I may, I think I would just suggest to move this to category A.

[01:38:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay And I think at that point, because there are no other items that are really shuffling around unless there are other things you want to make sure that you take a straw pole on. We can move it to category A and then our public works director and her staff will figure out what else may need to be shuffled and we could come back, but I don't necessarily anticipate that we would come back with further shuffling. Okay, why don't we take a straw vote on that? Move it to category A and everything else stay as is, all those in favor? Okay. That's unanimous.

[01:39:35] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mayor. One point of clarification. Um, B 25 was also moved to category A, and that is a temporary downtown office cap during the recusal. I can't speak about.

[01:39:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, with that. So, I'm the gatekeeper question, question number 2 on this item. I'm going to postpone until after we begin the rest of the meeting. So I will call to order our... Actually, I'm gonna ask for an opinion. Should we, is Senator Becker here? Should we go to that and then do the gatekeeper?

[01:40:22] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mayor. I believe you can call the meeting to order and then... And then go through those items.

[01:40:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Go through the items, and then when he arrives, we can make sure that we turn over the floor to him.

[01:40:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Just, um, Okay, so we will now be moving to our regular session. And so for those of you who have just arrived. Good evening. Welcome to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council in the Shoreline Regional Park community. For those of you who are joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern, request to show an audio or video presentation during a council meeting, should be directed to city.clerk at mountainview.gov by 430 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishing to address the council in person, must complete a blue speaker card. Please indicate the name you'd like to be called by when it's your turn to speak, and the item number on which you wish to speak. Please complete one blue speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak, and turn it into the city clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you're speaking on. Instructions for addressing the council virtually may be found on the posted agenda. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. So, we're now on item two, the city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[01:42:30] City Clerk: Councilman Brave Coco?

[01:42:31] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here.

[01:42:31] City Clerk: Council member Kamei.

[01:42:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[01:42:33] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek?

[01:42:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[01:42:35] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[01:42:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:42:37] City Clerk: Council member Ramos.

[01:42:38] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[01:42:38] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Show Walter.

[01:42:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here?

[01:42:40] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks?

[01:42:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:42:41] City Clerk: You have a corn?

[01:42:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you We are now on item number three. Presentations. Please note, these are presentations only. The city council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you'd like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So, I imagine that the senator is not here yet? Okay. So, uh, we will go to item 3.2 presentation on the North County Trust mobile mental health program. We're happy to be joined this evening by David Manetta, president and CEO of Momentum for Health to share this presentation.

[01:43:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Hi, welcome.

[01:44:00] David Minetta: Thank you very much, and of course, sorry, um, we were outside thinking it was gonna be a bit. So apologies, mayor. City council, city administration. Thank you very much. My name is David Minetta. I'm the president and CEO of Momentum for Health, and I'm joined. I'm doing a little moonlighting. I'm working for Andrew tonight, our assistant manager of the trust program, and we are very happy and pleased to be here, to present the trust program, to the city council and city administration. As many of you maybe already know, The trust program actually had a soft launch back in November of last year. And one of the things that we wanted to make sure we did tonight was to thank Mountain View for its support of inclusion of the North County in the trust pilot. Um, and, uh, I believe, um, so, again, trust uh, is a mobile crisis response team. And this is a pilot program funded by the state through Mental Hall Services Act money. It's a 4.5 year pilot. Again, began in November of 2022. Uh, there are 3 pilot areas, East San Jose, Gilroy, and the North County, including, um, obviously, Mountain View, um, Sunnyvale, parts of Santa Clara, and uh, Palo Alto. The team, I'll let Andrew talk about kind of the makeup of the team, what it does. But I just want to make sure that, um, um, that you all know that it is a 247 program, 365 days of the year. If we could, the next slide, I believe. Um, so again, uh, are, um, actually, I think we have to go back in the slide. Sorry, I think we started off on five. Yeah, if we can just go back right there on slide two, thank you. So again, on this slide, just so you can see that there are really three, 4 different options for mobile crisis in the county right now. The 1st being the psychiatric emergency response teams, pert. These are run with law enforcement teams. This is a licensed clinician going out with law enforcement. The mobile crisis response team, MCRT is run by the county, that's a county wide response team. Uh, and um, the mobile response stabilization services. This is run by Pacific Clinics. It's for youth services throughout the county. And then the trusted response urgent support team trust. This is, again, a 3 pilot, 3 area pilot program, and our team will respond to North County. So when you call 988. If folks want, um, a, this, what Andrew will describe in the trust team, right? So people call 988, they say, hey, I've got a behavioral health emergency, uh, or crisis. They will triage that on 988. There's a separate call center for trust that people then would say, hey, I'd like the trust team. Right? And then Andrew will describe what that means. So next slide, please. Just to give you a little history, this has been going on for a while. And again, that's why I wanted to thank Mountain View because Mountain View was actually helpful in this process before it even went and, you know, went anywhere. I was talking to, uh, council member, um, Abbe Kogo about this. way long time ago, right? And appreciated her support in talking with the county as well. So again, it kicked off, actually, with George Floyd. And the idea that there was a way to respond to crisis calls and not necessarily have to have law enforcement out if there was a behavioral health crisis. So that has been one of the successes since November Start is actually reduction in actually police involvement in our trust calls. Um, and I think out of, I don't know, 1000 calls so far, um, I've only been at like 6 law enforcement, uh, um, interactions. And again, that's where even we're asking for help from law enforcement on certain calls. So with that, I will, again, I want to turn over to Andrew real quickly. I've thanked Mountain View. We have to recognize the county, and to thank the county again for the pilot, and support of the pilot, and they're managing this and the three teams right now. Andrew.

[01:49:36] Andrew: Thank you, Dave, for the introduction. Good evening, everyone. If we can move on to the next slide to go over. What we're really doing on the calls that we're being dispatched to throughout North County. So what trust is responding to are pre-crisis situations, low-level crisis situations, are situations that might be, um, involved with substance use? Our team that you'll see later on, the slides goes out, and the main goal is to create a safe space for individuals to open up about their crisis situation, to us, and the hopes that they'll go back down to a baseline and be willing to take the next step in their mental health journey as we provide resources for them. In addition, we also provide transportation. But the main goal is to create that safe space with our team. We're not approaching these calls in a clinical way, meaning we're not diagnosing individuals out in the community, whereas creating a space and hopes that we can assist them on the next step in their journey. Next slide, please. So as Dave mentioned, we are a 24-7, 365 day year program, North County, we're servicing Santa Clara all the way up to Palo Alto. Next slide, we covered this information. So the call center that is run by Pacific Clinics, 988 triages with call at first. It gets sent over to trust. When trusts receives the call from Pacific clinics, they see where the call came from if it's North County. Our team will be dispatched. The makeup of the team consists of a peer navigator, which is somebody with lived experience, who is able to guide a client or a community member with their own journey that they have been on really enforcing that human to human relationship with people. We also have a first aid professional who are licensed EMTs, but acting on under scope of a first aid responder. And then we have a crisis intervention specialist, someone who's, you know, has experience working in this field de-escalating situations, providing coping strategies to individuals as well as familiar with resources in this given area to assist in people. Next slide. So we did do a soft launch. A few months ago in November, we are fully launched now, servicing North County Pacific Clinics is servicing San Jose in South County. We're seeing calls come in bit by bit, but we're really trying to portray the community that 988 is an option for mental health crises. The person whose experience a crisis doesn't need to call for themselves. You can be a community member. You can be a bystander and see someone who's in need, or you think might need an additional help. Call 988 and our team can go out and just, you know, evaluate the situation and provide assistance in whatever way we can. Thank you.

[01:52:47] David Minetta: I'm not sure. If it might be helpful, actually, to hear maybe just one example of a call in North County, I don't know, Andrew, we got just something, just an example of some of the, like a typical call or something that we get.

[01:53:01] Andrew: Yeah. So we see on calls that oftentimes when we have client information and we're going to, say, a home setting that oftentimes the client isn't the only one who's experiencing a crisis. Family members around them might be as well, stressful situation. They might be seeing a loved one experiencing, a mental health crisis for the 1st time. It takes a toll on everybody. So just examples, um, without going too in depth, we just, when we arrive at these homes or even in the community, um, our team is just aware of that it's not only the client who might be in need, but the family members around them. So if, you know, we were on a call with someone experiencing substance use, you know, related issues. Um, and then the family members did not know how to navigate what their son was going through. So we provided education for them on how to deploy Narcan for their son, who they were fearing that might experience an overdose. So we sat down with the family, went through the parameters of how to address those situations, where to ask for help, how to deploy the Narcan and things like that. So, you know, we're not forcing any of our, you know, clients into a level of care, but we're just there to assist them and hopefully provide enough information and a space for them to continue on their journey.

[01:54:20] David Minetta: Thanks, Adrian. And oftentimes, it's a connection to a program. So resources in the community. And after the team will go out, there'll be a follow-up with that person to see if the connection was made, how they're feeling, and kind of next steps. Um, we appreciate also, uh, Congressman an issue. She was able to get an earmark funding for extra help for the trust team in North County, and through an arrangement with Palo Alto, and in conjunction with Mountain View. We have both case managers coming on to do the follow up calls to help on the after the team goes out, or after many of these calls will actually be handled from the call center itself. So even from the call center doing follow up to see how somebody is doing if they need connection to a program. In addition, we're through the earmark, we're also training more mental health first aid providers that will be going out and doing community trainings on mental health first aid, for young folks and for adults. And this is really important in the sort of behavioral health epidemic we find ourselves in now, just more information on the ground for folks, with families, I mean, for families, faith communities, schools, on and on. So, again, we can't thank Mountain View enough for the opportunity to come out and present. We do appreciate. I know Andrew talks often about his discussions with council member Ramirez as well, updates, and, you know, so we would be available for the rest of the council as well. So if you have other updates you'd like, please feel free. Love to come out and update. So, thank you all very much.

[01:56:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, thank you very much. I learned a lot, and I know this is something that the council has been very concerned about for some time. Are there any council members who want to make comments on the presentation? Council member, Abbe Koga?

[01:56:46] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you to Mr. Minetta and your team. Um, this came out during COVID, and, um, the George Floyd issue, and, um, it really came from the community, the community's interest in having alternatives to emergency response, and, um, I appreciate our counsels, uh, you know, interest in pursuing something, and, um, there's silver linings. I think this is another one of them of the pandemic and just everything we were going through at that time and just learn, um, you know, trying something new, being innovative. And then the partnership, really, I want to highlight between the city, the county and nonprofit organizations. It really is a team effort. I'm very excited that this has happened and it's happened so quickly and appreciate also congressman issues, helping us get funding for it. So I look forward to, I hope that we can get regular updates. I hope to hear some, you know, good success stories. So, again, thank you very much for being here and for your partnership.

[01:57:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Great. Thank you. Thank you all. Yes. Oh, Council member Kameh, do you have a comment?

[01:58:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I do. I just, I just wanted to, uh, thank David and Andrew and just say that I know this is something of particular interest to our PCAB, our public safety advisory board, and so hopefully we can pass on the side deck and the materials, um, to them. Um, I think that just would be great. Thank you very much.

[01:58:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Great. Thank you. Yep. Yes, thank you so much once again. Great, great, great. Thank you. So next, we are going to be having a presentation from State Senator Josh Becker on legislative priorities for 2023.

[01:58:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: He will be joining us via Zoom. Welcome Senator Becker. The last time I joined you, was on your gun safety town hall. Although that was virtual, so you didn't, we didn't shake hands, but, um, welcome to the council meeting.

[01:58:59] Senator Josh Becker: Well, thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Can you hear me, okay?

[01:59:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you, yes.

[01:59:06] Senator Josh Becker: And as the lighting, I'm looking at it, is just too... Unfortunately, I'm in, uh, my hotel room, but is it too washed out? I could try to change the angle.

[01:59:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: I can see you well.

[01:59:19] Senator Becker: Okay.

[01:59:21] Senator Josh Becker: All right, will you let me know if that's not the case? Wonderful to be here with all of you. Um, it's very, uh, fortuitous week, I guess, to be here, because there's a lot going on, both from a legislative perspective as well as a, um, budget perspective. Um, let me just start with the budget, and one of my, um, highlights this year is been sharing one of the key budget committees. And this is a committee that's responsible for all natural resources, all climate, uh, water, about $20 billion, uh, investments. And, uh, obviously, it's been a deep, depassion mine, and shared by, I think, many people in, uh, in the area, but it's also given me a deeper insight into the budget. And as you know, we started the year with a budget deficit, um, and people, there's sort of speculation that when we have what's called the May revise, when we get some updated numbers, um, that that deficit may may grow slightly. So, uh, without spilling any uh, particular beans, I think you can expect to see some creative thinking from the Senate, uh, tomorrow morning, we'll be announcing some of our ideas on how we can continue to invest in key priorities, whether it be housing and infrastructure, uh, whether it be, uh, raising finally raising our medical reimbursement rates, which have been way too long, uh, too low for too long, whether it be transportation, which was cut in the governor's budget, and this topic I'll come back to in a moment. Um, um, and other key priorities, including climate, which also was cut, uh, in the governor's budget, including climate resilience, which was cut about 40%, uh, over some of our previous allocations. So we put our heads together, we did a lot of creative thinking, and you'll hear more about that when it's announced tomorrow. And, you know, I have some concerns about one or two pieces of package, but overall, I think there's a lot of good stuff in there to start a discussion. Um, so back now to legislation, and for my focus, it's really been two things. Number one is what I think of as quality of life issues on the peninsula. So that may be an issue like transportation, an issue like housing, education. And then, second, is really leveraging the platform of the state of California, where the fourth largest economy in the world, if we were our own country, and leading on issues like climate, or protecting women's reproductive health rights, that we can really have an impact on the rest of the country. And so, I'll start off on the first bucket of issues, and, uh, some other new news, since I was here last, is that I was named vice chair of the Bay Area caucus, and this is a great honor for me, and gives me, um, really a window into some of these issues that's really regional. And a lot of these issues are regional issues. When you think about transportation, housing, homelessness, they really need regional solutions. So being vice chair of the Bayard caucus, now, I get to have that, um, that view across, uh, the area. And transportation is is one area where it's no secret, we're at a bit of a crisis, where Caltrain, particularly, and BART, as well, are transit systems that were the most self sufficient, got hit the most. Um, so they had the highest fare box recovery, uh, and then have been most impacted by Duke Cruz, a ridership in the pandemic, and the increased, uh, work from home. So, uh, you may have heard about the fiscal clip, but some of these, um, you know, some of our systems are facing really, uh, existential threats. They don't want to, uh, cut service and end up in a downward spiral, uh, but facing really significant a budget shortfall. So as a caucus, we're working on that and seeing how we can shore up these systems. And do it, hopefully, in a way that also improves the customer experience. So I had a seamless Bay Area bill last year. So, you know, we have 27 overlapping transit agencies. And the point of that bill was to do at least do schedule coordination, fair coordination, and do better signage and better data, so that we could better coordinate the system. And, um, that bill didn't pass, but a lot of that, by going through that whole process, um, MTC, which is our regional transportation agency, has the ability now and the authority to, um, go and implement some of this, uh, on its own. And so I think that's what people want to buy into a better transit system and feel like we're tackling rider safety, uh, as well as, um, that the coordination pieces that that I mentioned. So that's one big area, a big area to watch in the budget negotiations coming up here in the next couple months. For a reminder, the budget really has to be done by mid June, so a lot of the decisions are gonna come pretty quickly. Secondly, in housing and homelessness, I'm very proud to have a bill and homelessness that I'm very excited about. And I have to say, it was really inspired by the action of Mountain View, standing up, the center with life moves, where the governor came, it was a one acre, and built very quickly, 100 units, I think 120 people, some for families, a third of it was reserved for supportive services. And, um, I know there was some, some criticism on that recently, which was really around the length of, that people can stay. And, um, and we do want people to stay long, and that's part of, part of my bill is to really focus on these modular, relocatable structures that we can scale up quickly, uh, that we can really take advantage of excess public land, so that's land that doesn't have another use for five years. So maybe you're a community college district, a water district, a, um, uh, another government district, maybe you're thinking about land that you may, you know, or your building's getting entitled, that's gonna take a bunch of years, we can put these units on there. And the key is, we, you know, we lead the country in both homelessness and unsheltered homelessness. We have 50% of the unsheltered homeless in the country. And so, the keys, we got to get everyone indoors. We got to get everyone indoors, and this is the way to do it fast. We also have provisions for private land, and then provisions to make sure they're both high quality and fast and inexpensive. And then the goal is, again, let the people say they're longer. So, three months probably isn't enough, really, for people to get back on their feet. So this is, we want people to be able to stay there long enough, and we're finding some of these communities that are being built now in San Francisco, Santa Barbara. People do want to stay longer. Um, and and that's great. We want to give them the option to do that. So, I'm very excited about that bill. And then on housing, and I was really fortunate to be at the state of the city, and, um, uh, here are you, uh, Madam Mayor, and the rest of the team, and the C manager, and just talking about a lot of wonderful things that, uh, Mountain View's doing in so many areas that I talked about, and one of it was our partnership, um, uh, council member, Kameh, was the mayor, um, and our partnership around, uh, building affordable housing, and I was able to secure money from the state, um, to help, uh, that project, which is gonna be right downtown. a wonderful project being built. And really appreciate the city's commitment. And that's one of my goals. The state has to come up with more money for affordable housing. You know, it's expensive to build, and we really have to target people earning 50% of the area meaning income and less. And it's hard to do that without support from the state. And what we also don't want you to have is, is, uh, you know, five different places to go, and in a really complex, uh, system of portable housing fans, which we have now, and that we have to work to streamline. So, again, we have to provide you more resources, uh, if we're gonna build truly affordable housing, um, and, um, and, uh, and, and really just continue to streamline that process so things don't take so long. And um, and become so, uh, complicated. So, I know that's always a priority and will continue to be a priority of mine going forward. On education, we have been able to get more slots of the UCs for California kids, which has been another huge priority of mind. And, um, and that's some designated spots at the three most competitive you see, but it's about 10,000 across the, uh, entire system. And, um, and so, uh, we continue to push for more slots for California kids. I don't want to have to rely and say, Hey, we're getting this many out of state or international kids, because they bring more money. And, um, you know, it's fine. If we want to, you know, make the decision, we want, um, that kind of, uh, that kind of diversity from that perspective and and to have the enrichness of of that kind of cultroversy, that's great, but we don't want to do it just for financial reasons. And we want to make sure the state steps up in that case. And, uh, we can enjoy, uh, both our, our CSUs and our community colleges, uh, which you know, overall, attendance has been going down, and I've been working in San Mateo County for free community college, and something I'll continue to work on. We've actually seen the benefits of that, where community college attendance is up significantly, where it's really down in a lot of areas. So I think we're getting some good learning from that, as well, and how we can continue to leverage our community colleges. Um, on the environment. And again, I was very appreciative to hear that, um, so much of what Mountain View is doing, and this is really a partnership, and, um, what, uh, you all are doing, um, through your service on the council, but also, uh, through your work with Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and I was talking to council member Abbe Koga, um, about Silicon Valley Clean Energy recently, and some of the innovative programs that are being led, uh, there. And that really is what it takes. It takes that innovation at the city level, at the regional level now, with peninsula clean energy and silk Valley clean energy, and then me, and my colleagues setting the, the, the, the, the, conditions at, at the state level. And so last year, I'm very proud, after a couple of years where, um, you know, we didn't have a lot of big things happen in Sacramento, on climate, last year was called the most impactful year for climate legislation in California's history. And that's because of the goal setting that we did, the budget that we allocated, and then the specific pieces we started to implement. And now we need a lot of that more specific pieces. So I have seven more bills this year that I won't go through all right now. But if we're getting serious about climate, we have to tackle everything. So it's large buildings, it's residential buildings, it's our grid itself, which includes transmission, includes holding peach and eat, accountable, finally, for actually connecting things to the grid, whether that be homeowners who want to electrify, or big, um, big buildings or housing projects that are being built, and actually getting them connected in a timely fashion, uh, to the grid, and I have the leading bill on that. Um, or I have a bill on cows at Cal Burps and Cal Flatulence, because agriculture missions, methane overall is about 11%, agriculture is about 7% of our emissions. tackle building materials in the past. Uh, with another bill, uh, that was our ought to be a law contest winner this year. It just was a Stanford student around stacking incentives for home electrification. So we have a lot of different pieces that we're working on, because that's the opportunity, and that's also the challenge where really, it's really about remaking our whole economy, and I think, really entering a golden age. The next five years are just gonna be fantastic for implementation with all the EV models coming up. Transportation is gonna happen. It's just gonna take some time. Um, and now we're tackling all these other areas, uh, as well. And, um, it couldn't, could be more, having to be involved. But a lot of the hard work happens in committee, so I appreciate when, when you all weigh in, and I appreciate Councilman Ramirez coming to a press conference yesterday on, on, um, on our homelessness bill. And so when you go away and it really, it really matters. So that covers some of what I wanted to cover. There's, you know, a lot more that we're doing. We're looking at AI regulation, and I feel responsibility to work on that from our area, so we'll continue to open for ideas as we shape that. I had a bill I present today called the Delete Act, which is to delete our information from data brokers. And, uh, Tim Cook, no less, some of it, Tim Cook said that in the Stanford Commencement speech, and later in time, this is something we absolutely have to do, um, but we're battling the industry, uh, on that one. These data breakers have 1000s of pieces of information on all of us, and it's been used to track down immigrants, but used to puts women at risk for visiting reproductive health clinics. Um, it's been used for docks, you know, public officials. for elder scams. This information's out there. We have to make it easy, one stop shop to delete that information. So, happy to... Is this a form to take any any questions, or would you like me to tell a little bit more?

[02:12:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, if first, I want to thank you for coming. and sharing what is, you know, I'm glad to hear some good news. Because it's usually, we hear so much bad news. And also to thank you for the money for affordable housing. I certainly agree that that's something, that's a challenge for us, and we always appreciate, you know, anything you can get for us. I'm gonna ask whether any council members, have comments and questions, if that's okay with you. Do council members have comments and questions? I'm mostly hearing gratitude. Yeah, and I also wanted to congratulate you on being coming vice chair of the Bay Area caucus. I guess now we know who to call. And yeah, if you want to make some concluding remarks, that would be great.

[02:13:45] Senator Becker: Yeah, well, I just want to continue to...

[02:13:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: You know, I don't want to interrupt you, but, uh, council member committee did raise her hand. She's here virtually, so she's a little hard for me to see.

[02:13:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Hi, Senator Becker. It's good to see you. I think we're both in Sacramento right now. Um, I just wanted to, um, thank you for for coming. Um, the city has really been working on focusing on our legislative priorities and hearing directly from you, I think, helps us, um, look at bills, find alignment, and I think it's been really fruitful to hear, um, about potential ways we can partner. We just, um, right before you joined us. We were going over our work plan and goal setting and one of the items is. about, well, several have to do with housing and one has to do with homelessness. And so it sounds like you have bills that are tackling this topic. So, um, it sounds like it's a really good time for you to be joining us. So I just wanted to share that back and thank you again for joining us.

[02:14:45] Senator Becker: Thanks, Mayor.

[02:14:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah, so, uh, sorry to interrupt you, and if you have any, if you have, want to uh, close out with any additional comments, that would be great.

[02:14:59] Senator Becker: Sure. Yeah, which again, you know, it's wonderful to engage a lot of the best ideas. Do you, uh, happen from people in our district people in our area that was formerly now, through this autobile law contest, which, um, which was fun. Senator Hill did it before me and Senator Samidian, helped start it before that. Um, and, um, but also just informally, uh, a lot of ideas coming. We're also working with El Camino Health, El Camino Hospital on a bill that's a priority bill for them this year. So I want to certainly continue to do that. And, again, just continue to hear from people on a variety of issues. I know that, um, appreciate, uh, that folks in our area, my district, you know, we pay significant by the income tax, and I think people want to see, then, that progress on the roads. And I know El Camino, we're finally, I'm hounding Caltrans all the time, and, uh, read the mercury news, where it's always listed as the worst part of the worst roads in the area. And we're finally making some progress there. So, I think people want to see just good return, and the basics of the roads and infrastructure, and especially in housing and transportation, education. So, looking to do our part there, and then continue to think of ways we can really be bold visionaries in a way that makes all of you proud, and makes us proud to be here in California, where we can lead in a really, in a really meaningful, uh, meaningful way in things like producing our covering emissions here and around the globe and in other areas. So thanks for having me.

[02:16:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: You know, I'm seeing, I like the idea of being bold and visionary. I'm seeing several council members having second thoughts and actually wanting to dress you with questions or comments. So council member Abbe Koga?

[02:16:49] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you, Senator Becker, for being here, and just for your leadership. It's just, it's been really great to, um, have a representative who's very accessible, thoughtful, and, um, you can see the direct connection between our local jurisdictions in Sacramento. In particular. I just really want to thank you for your leadership on climate change issues. And that's, as we know, the most important issue for all of us. And it's just, again, great to see someone who really understands issues and how it impacts our local communities. So thank you for that. And then I'll be actually going to MTC. have a 2 day retreat to talk about the fiscal cliff and other issues around transportation. So again, just having that direct line to you means so much. So thank you so much for your leadership.

[02:17:42] Senator Becker: Absolutely. Thank you on both of those issues. And, uh, we just had Earth Day. It was a great chance to celebrate. I mean, solar's coming down 99% in my lifetime. And now we need to do that across other areas as well, including removing carbon from the atmosphere, which I also have a bill on this year, which happens to be controversial. I don't think it should be. Um, but, uh, lots to do, but really exciting time. Thank you.

[02:18:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: I also see that council member Ramos has a question or comment for you.

[02:18:08] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Hi, Senator Becker. Nice to see you again. It was great seeing you in person a couple weeks ago. Um, you have a lot of, uh, very important legislation moving through, um, now that we have a legislation program in our city. Is there anything that, that we can be helpful to you in pushing your uh, bills and priorities. Like, what is something that we, how can we be helpful?

[02:18:35] Senator Becker: Well, thank you for asking it. I'm sure we'll follow up. But like 634, for example, which is the homelessness bill. We had the event for yesterday. That one's up in governance and finance committee. Um, and, you know, there's some people who just, you know, they're very focused on permanent housing, which is great. I am, as well, supporting every bill, and every money we can for that. But then they tend to look a scans at anything that's not that. So, um, it actually is a bit of a, uh, is a bit of a battle. So, you know, that's an example of one, um, that, you know, will be a somewhat, well, be a somewhat close vote. Um, and, um, but in others too. I'm sure we will follow up with you.

[02:19:16] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I appreciate that, 'cause it is good to have the local voice, uh, weighing in, and for folks to know that, that, um, a local cities are behind us, and we have important legislation.

[02:19:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, well, once again, thank you so much. I was especially glad to hear you say that we're in a golden age for climate legislation. I think that's what we all want. And, um, yeah, I hope you come again next year. with an even better update.

[02:19:46] Senator Becker: I work on it. Okay.

[02:19:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you again.

[02:19:50] Senator Becker: All right, bye.

[02:19:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, we are now on item 3.3 on our agenda, which is the teen week proclamation. We're happy to be joined this evening by our youth advisory committee members, East Stephanie Domingo, Leonard Foeman, Januo, to accept this proclamation. So, join me at the lectern, and we have a surprise tonight. We don't actually have the proclamation, I think. Do you have it up there? Oh, we have it up there. Okay, it's a surprise for me, then. So I will be presenting it. in a moment. Yes. So, um, I'll hand this to you after I read it to you. These proclamations are a little bureaucratic, so bear with me. Whereas youths and teens account for 20.3% of the mountain view population, and, whereas teens who perceive the adults in the community value youth are more likely to grow up healthy, exhibit leadership, value diversity, and succeed in school, and, whereas teens represent a large and often underutilized resource for immediate and long term community development efforts and change, and, whereas teens from student based and youth committees provide positive contributions to the mountain view community by leading initiatives that prioritize mental health, climate change, and sustainability efforts, LGBTQ plus inclusion, and diversity, and whereas parents, teachers, and community members can support teens by encouraging them to share their voice, provide them with meaningful opportunities, and role model positive behaviors, and whereas the youth advisory committee has developed an annual week of celebration called Teen Week to showcase teens in our community, including their creativity, intelligence, activism, mental wellness, and the value they provide. And, whereas community members, including fellow teens, can show their support of Teen Week, by attending events, including a teen art showcase, teen open mic night, and enrichment workshops and classes, and, whereas teens are the future of our community, and including them in decision making and celebrating their achievements is imperative. Now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim May 1st to May 6th, 2023 as teen week. And here now is the proclamation, and you can make any comments you want.

[02:23:12] Stephanie Domingo: So quickly just starting off. My name is Stephanie. I am the chair or president for the use advisory committee, and here behind me, we have some of our members for the youth advisor committee, and just quickly, for the past couple months, we've been planning, and creating very digitently for these activities for teens, and everything. Um, we've been working really hard, putting all of our ideas and all of our efforts in order to make, um, the world a more safer place for teens in general, in order for them to, like, be more expressive, be more open, with, like, everything that's going on, especially since the pandemic was a huge hit onto everyone for, like, mental health, financial difficulties, especially for academics. So we're just here, and we would like to say thank you for the proclamation, and we wish for all of your guys' support in our upcoming events such as Team Week, which will be in May. Thank you.

[02:24:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: So do council members have any comments? I just wanted to comment, thank you very much for bearing with us. I hope you enjoyed some of the previous presentations. And thank you for doing this during this difficult time, you know, of the tail end of the pandemic. It's not the easiest time to be a team. And council member Kime also has a comment.

[02:24:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, so just as chair of the youth, um, advisory committee, I just want to, um, thank you all for coming. It's always exciting when we get to see your action plan and what you're working on. And I know that for the last 2 years, you've done your, um, teen mental health summit. I can't wait, hopefully for fingers crossed, it'll happen again. Um, this year, and I just wanted to thank our city staff, who've really, um, stepped up to help, um, amplify the voices of our youth, and in particular, wanted to thank our recreation coordinator, um, Lauren Eck for working with Yak to bring next week's events to life, and I know that I'll be checking out the art showcase in the city hall rotunda, and encourage everyone else too, too. So, thank you, mayor.

[02:25:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, um, We'll now take public comment for all 3 presentation items, would any member of the public joining us either virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items? If so, you would click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk, and we will take in person speakers first. Do we have speakers? So next, we'll turn to virtual speakers, of which I see none. So, with that, we will close out the presentation section of our agenda, and we will be going on to item four, which is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. If you'd like to speak on this item or the next item, oral communications on nonagenda items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Um, We also have uh, some uh, some announcements from uh, council members, uh, council member Abbe Koga, do you have an announcement to make?

[02:27:03] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, Mayor, thank you. I will be abstaining from voting on item 4.2 related to the Sergeant Ranch Quarry project due to my candidacy for county supervisors.

[02:27:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: And council member Ramos, do you have an announcement to make?

[02:27:18] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I am reusing myself from participation in item 4.3. relating to the extension of the elevate MB guarantee basic income pilot program for a 2nd year and the amendment relate of related contracts due to a conflict of interest arising from a recently held position as a member of the community services agency board. Thank you.

[02:27:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Would any member of the council like to pull an item? Um, Council member Mattachek.

[02:27:53] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I don't necessarily want to pull an item. Um, I just want to register a no vote on 4.3. And then on item 4.2. I do support this, but, um, I would like to request that as part of this, um, the mayor contact supervisor submittian and have a chat with him before, um, the board of supervisors votes on this. Would that be possible? Instead of just sending a letter?

[02:28:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Before say that one more time, before?

[02:28:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Before the board of supervisors votes on this. Just have a personal conversation with our...

[02:28:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: I would certainly be willing to talk to him.

[02:28:33] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Great. Thank you very much.

[02:28:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, I don't see any other council members wishing to put or any council members wishing to pull an item or make comments. Um, would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide, uh, like to, um, like to pull an item, um, and if so, please click the raised hand button. I'm assuming these are, I'm seeing people wanting to speak on item 4.2. So I'm assuming that we pull that. So, any... What's that? Oh, okay, we can just have you speak. Would any member of the public join us, virtually or in person, like to provide comments. If so, please click the raised hand button and zoom or submit a blue speaker card, and we'll take in person speakers first. Each person will have one minute. So we have Hannah Moreno. And the next person, while we're coming up, it will be Elizabeth Brown. Um, do you guys have a timer? Oh, right there. Perfect. All right.

[02:30:10] Hannah Moreno: Good evening, Mountain View City Council, and Mayor Hicks as well. My name is Hannah Moreno. I'm a Mutton Tribal Band member. Our territory is at risk right now, and as you can see in front of you, I hope you're in support of opposing the mining quarry that's happening at your stock. Your stock is really a sacred place for us and my people. And our ancestors. It's known as the big head dances, and where every tribe came and gathered and had ceremony. We have many, as you probably can maybe see from really far away. I do have a lot of animals and plants that are in danger here. And our duty is to protect these animals and plants and to keep the land as it is. So I hope you can support with us in opposing the mining. Thank you.

[02:31:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you very much. Elizabeth Brown, and the next person will be Valentine Lopez, and then Sarah Tram.

[02:31:18] Elizabeth Brown: Mayor, council members. My name is Elizabeth Brown. I am a resident in Mountain View for the last 12 years. Came down to live here after I retired from education, 20 year career. I really enjoy living here. Uh, it has a lot to offer. Uh, I've been a student and teacher of history my whole life, and became aware of whose voices get amplified, and whose do not. I was really glad, actually, though, to hear that Mountain View had this resolution on the agenda for tonight. Excuse me, in support of the tribal peoples who are trying to take care of their land and protect what they feel is sacred and holy to them. I want to be in support of them. I want us to be in support of them. It's the right thing to do. So... Thank you very much.

[02:32:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: And thank you. Valentine Lopez.

[02:32:29] Valentin Lopez: Good evening, Honorable Mayor, council members, administrators. My name is Valentin Lopez, and I'm the chairman of the Ama Mutsin Tribo Band. And, um, we're here this evening to talk to you about your stock. Your stock is our most sacred site. Eurostock translates to the place of the big head. And throughout a large portion of California, Other big head dances were the most important and highest form of ceremony that indigenous people had. Our people have not been, our spirituality has never been respected. Our tribe is not recognized, even though we signed treaties in 1851, that were sabotaged by the state of California. And that is why we are not recognized today, and that's why you don't have recognized tribes in this territory today. You may ask, why are we in Mountain View when the project is in San Jose? I've been told that the only thing that could prevent this mine from being approved is overwhelming public support throughout Santa Clara County. And that's why we're here this evening to ask Santa Clara County, to join with other members of the county, other cities from within the county, to let the supervisors know that this must be DNI. Thank you.

[02:33:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Sarah Tran, followed by Alice Kaufman and Jordan Grimes.

[02:33:58] Sarah Tran: Um, hello, um, city council members and mayor. Um, I'm Sarah Tran. I am a resident of Mountain View. I live on Hope Street, nearby. I've been a resident here for about a year. I've been in Santa Clara County for about 5 years. I moved here for university. I wanted to speak in support of the resolution on 4.2. Um, just honoring indigenous sovereignty and speaking in support of the Alma Mutan tribal band in terms of, um, honoring what has been taken from them, um, and just showing up in support of indigenous rights. Um, so I would hope that the city council would vote in support of this proposition. Thank you.

[02:34:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, Alice Kaufman.

[02:35:02] Alice Kaufman: Good evening, Mayor and Council members, Alice Kaufman, policy and advocacy director with Green foothills. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you for taking action on this issue tonight. Your stock is a unique region, both for indigenous spirituality and for wildlife. Because of its location at the very southern end of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It's the gateway for animals to move in and out of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There's only two remaining pathways for that kind of migration to occur in Coyote Valley in San Jose, and here at Eurostock. And this quarry would lie directly across the pathway that animals need to take to get underneath Highway 101. So for animals like mountain lions, which are already at risk in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This is a critically important issue. And we really appreciate you taking action on it tonight. Thank you very much.

[02:35:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. That's Jordan Grimes.

[02:36:00] Jordan Grimes: Good evening, counsel honorable mayor. Jordan Grimes, South Bay Resilience Manager, with Green Belt Alliance. Like Alice, I just want to say, and express our deep gratitude and appreciation for agendizing this item tonight, as has been mentioned. This project truly would be ecologically and socially devastating to the area, as Alice mentioned, as others have mentioned, in addition to the social aspects, the social damage that would be caused, there would be irreparable harm done to critical wildlife corridors. Ecological sustainability is something that affects all of us. It does not respect manmade borders, which is why we are here tonight asking for your support, asking for you to join with us, and with other members of the county in opposing this project. And we appreciate both the resolution, as well as mountain views, considerable commitment time and again to sustainability. Thank you so much.

[02:37:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, last call for in person speakers. Seeing no more in person speakers, will go to virtual speakers. Uh, and the first is Teddy Simon.

[02:37:25] Teddy Simon: Good evening, Mayor Hicks and members of the Mountain View City Council. I'm Teddy Simon, Indigenous Justice Advocate at the ACLU of Northern California, and a member of the Navajo Nation. We have thousands of members throughout Northern California, including many in Mountain View and the Peninsula. At the ACLU, we understand indigenous justice fundamentally as the right and ability of indigenous peoples to exist, as indigenous people, and exercise sovereignty over themselves in the land to which they belong. This includes the freedom to practice traditional ways of governing and being, to teach and learn indigenous language and celebrate culture. Tribal sovereignty is inherent and timeless. And the existence of native nations is often intimately tied to land and protection of sacred sites. We're proud to join the Amamits and Tribal band, and there are many allies this evening in asking that the Mountain View City Council adopt this important resolution. Thank you.

[02:38:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we'll have Helen Carroll followed by Casey Headerly.

[02:38:30] Helen Carroll: Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

[02:38:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: I can hear you, yes.

[02:38:34] Helen Carroll: Okay, great. I'd like to, uh, if this is the right time, I'd like to speak to 4.5. Is that... okay?

[02:38:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, yes, you can speak to that.

[02:38:44] Helen Carroll: Okay. I just wanted to, uh, to give my thanks to the, uh, to the council, the mayor, Parks and Rec commission, and the Parks and Rec, uh, city staff, for all the hard work they have done. I'm the Helen Carroll, the president of the Pickleball Club in Mountain View. Uh, and I just wanted to, uh, to let everyone know that if you need anything from us, or any way we can help, or more than happy to do that, but just, uh, just thrill with the work that the city is doing, and to make Parks and Rec just available for everybody.

[02:39:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. And next, we have Casey Headerley.

[02:39:26] Casey Headerly: Good evening, Mayor Hicks and council members. My name is Casey Headerly, and again, I'm an intern with the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. We are here to support this resolution in solidarity with Ama Mutsin tribe, to preserve your stock as open space. The development of this land into a quarry. will have a devastating effect on tribal cultural resources, wildlife, and the local ecosystem. Thank you for taking steps in the right direction to support this preservation of essential land. Thank you.

[02:39:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So now seeing no more virtual speakers. I'll bring the item back for council action, and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinance attached to item 4.one, and the resolutions attached to items 4. 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, and 4.9. As we have a council member, a member of the city council participating virtually this evening, all votes will be done by roll call vote. And Council member Ramirez.

[02:40:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'm happy to move the staff recommendation, including the following items, and I'll also register the no vote, and the recusal, and the abstention, as recorded. So the staff recommendation includes item 4.one, adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, amending the Mountain View City Code of Ordinances to repeal, in its entirety, Article 8, drainage, and flood control of chapter 8, and add a new Article 8, floodplain management of chapter 8 to further the flood The city, and align the city code of ordinances with the California building code, and finding the ordinance is not a project under the California Environmental Quality Act to be read entitled only for the reading waived. 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View in support of the efforts of the Amamutsin Tribal Band to preserve Sergeant Ranch slash Eurostock, as open space to be read in title only, further reading waived, 4.3, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, extending the elevate MV guaranteed basic income pilot program, elevate MV, for a 2nd year, and authorizing, one, amendment of the agreement with University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research, to extend the term for one and increase the amount by $137,548 to Amendment of the Agreement with Community Services Agency of Mountain View, Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills, to extend the term for one year and increase the amount by $1,165 and 3 execution of other related agreements as necessary for implementation of elevate MV for a 2nd year to be read entitled only for the reading waived. 4.4. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View appropriating and transferring 14,141 sorry, $14,181.48 from the general non-operating fund to the general operating fund and to increase revenues and expenditures by $14,181.48 in the general operating fund for reimbursement of fire personnel costs to be read entitled only for the reading waived. 4.5. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, appropriating and transferring $600,000 from the general non-operating fund to Capital Improvement Program Project 22 37, inappropriating and transferring $600,000 from Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan, Projects 22 37, to the Parkland Dedication Fund, to return funds originally appropriated to Project 22 37, to be read entitled only further reading waived. And 4.9, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain Bee, transferring $80,000 from the Gulf Subfund, to the Restaurant Subfund, and appropriating and additional $384,000 in the Shoreline Golf Links, Michael's at Shoreline Restaurant Fund, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Thank you.

[02:43:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: And I say we have a second by Vice Mayor Showalter. So, I believe we're doing a roll call vote, city clerk. Would you like to take the vote?

[02:43:47] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez?

[02:43:49] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:43:49] City Clerk: Council member Ramos?

[02:43:51] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[02:43:51] City Clerk: I'm a member of a Koga.

[02:43:54] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I, with abstention on 4.2?

[02:43:56] City Clerk: Thank you. Council member Kmei?

[02:43:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:43:59] City Clerk: Council member of magic?

[02:44:01] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:44:02] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Showalter?

[02:44:03] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:44:04] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks?

[02:44:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:44:05] City Clerk: Motion carries unanimously.

[02:44:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Maybe anticlimatic. Next, we'll move to item five, Oral Communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. If you would like to speak on this item in person or the next item, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. And each person will have two minutes, but I don't see anyone, city clerk. Do you see anyone? Okay, virtual speakers.

[02:45:15] City Clerk: I also don't see anyone.

[02:45:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, with that, we are going to return to our study session. Oh, I'm hearing. I've had lots of black breaks, but okay. I'm... I'm hearing a call for a break, so we will be back at 8 p.m. at which time we'll talk about the gatekeeper item on our agenda.

[02:48:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: So We are going to rearrange our agenda a little bit. We have a brief item, which is, if I can find it on my agenda, it is item 6.1, adopt a resolution governing compensation related to Cowper's cost share for all unrepresented safety Pepper employees, and senior human resources in that analyst, Ada Chang, will present the item. Uh, Ms. Chang?

[02:49:18] Ada Chang: Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Ada Chang, Senior Human Resources Analyst, and I'm Sue Rushman Resources Director is in the audience as well. Today, I'm bringing forward a resolution to amend the cost share for Unrepresented Safety Public Employees Pension Reform Act, otherwise known as Peppra Employees. Every year, Cal Purr's publishes an actuarial that shows the employee normal contribution amounts every fiscal year for the upcoming fiscal year of 2023 to 24, the employee normal contribution for safety pepper employees is increasing from 11.25% to 12%. In order to keep the total agreed upon contribution paid by safety pepper employees the same, the employee share of the employer contribution, otherwise known as a cost share, would need to be reduced by 0.75%. For represented safety members in the police Officers Association and International Association of Firefighters. This reduction has already been processed via a side letter, however, for unrepresented safety members who do not have a memorandum of understanding, the city would need to request a contract amendment process to be started with Cal Purse. The 1st step of the Calpur's contract amendment process would be for us to have current resolutions pertaining to the cost share for unrepresented safety members reflect the appropriate amounts. There are three key components that are needed in order for the resolution to meet the cowpers requirements. Firstly, the sworn, unrepresented employee regular contributions have been updated to reflect the pepper contribution rate of 12%. Secondly, Cal Per's requires the employee paid employer contribution, and the employee paid survivor benefit contribution for sworn unrepresented employees to be combined and listed as a cost share in the resolution. And lastly, for the purposes of cost share, cow purse does not allow for single classification groups. So therefore, the fire managers will include the fire chief, and the police managers will include the police chief. Once counsel passes the resolution, staff will submit the remaining documents to cowpers for approval to begin the contract amendment process. Pending helper's approval, staff anticipates bringing the contract amendment for counsel's approval in the next few months. Thank you very much. Do any council members have questions?

[02:51:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Seeing no one. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comments on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have one minute. No speakers. Okay, we'll take virtual speakers. And I see no speakers. Um, I will now bring the item back for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. I see a motion by council member, Ramos, and a 2nd by council member, Mattachek. Council member Ramos?

[02:52:45] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I move to adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View to modify Calpur's cost share contributions for all under represented safety public employees pension reform act employees to be read entitled only further reading waived.

[02:53:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, with a 2nd by council member Mattachek, uh, city clerk, would you like to take a roll call vote?

[02:53:10] City Clerk: Council member Ramos.

[02:53:12] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I.

[02:53:13] City Clerk: Council member Metachek?

[02:53:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:53:14] City Clerk: Council member Abbe Koca. Council member Kamei?

[02:53:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:53:18] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[02:53:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:53:20] City Clerk: Vice mayor of Shel Wilter?

[02:53:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:53:22] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks.

[02:53:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:53:23] City Clerk: Motion carries unanimously.

[02:53:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. We will now uh, return back to our unfinished study section, and I will let uh, Ms. James come, come back. I'm sorry to keep you all night. And so we will be answering the 2nd question proposed to us during our study session. Ms. James, would it be possible to put the question up on screen? To refresh our memories? So the question is, uh, does the council agree with the staff recommendation regarding the gatekeeper process, or have any other feedback, um, and I, we can start with council questions, and then council comments? Are there questions? First questions? Council member Romos, is that a question? Because I have a question, if it is... Okay, Council member Roma?

[02:54:29] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Just understanding in terms of the gatekeeper process. This, um, this, Having the gatekeepers heard in 2024, that is only if we want to make major changes to the gatekeeper.

[02:54:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, council member Ramos, I will refer that question to community development stuff.

[02:54:52] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you for that question, council member, our teacher, Vastava, assistant city manager, community development director. The housing element, actually, requires the council to take review exemptions, in particular, in the gatekeeper ordinance, and what staff is recommending is scheduling a study session on the fall to discuss that. We anticipate it will take until Q1 of the coming year in 2024 to bring back amendments because it will have to go through the planning commission. And therefore, we're recommending that council hold off on accepting new gatekeepers until the code amendments have been made, and maybe they want to amend the authorization criteria. So we are still recommending, moving forward with the housing element process, to look at exemptions, amending the ordinance, if necessary, and then taking gatekeepers afterwards. So our recommendation would not be to accept gatekeepers this year.

[02:55:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Would it be possible to do gatekeepers this year under the old program, and then work on getting updating our gatekeeper process as required or housing element for next year?

[02:56:09] Community Development Director: Council is entirely within your purview to do that. We're a little bit worried about even completing the council work plan. And we want to make sure that we have a lot of housing element, implementation, action items, that were not part of the work plan that we have to get to. And so, you know, we were thinking about that in addition, as we made our recommendation. But yes, council has the purview to do that. But in the end, gatekeepers will always be priority three. And we will not be assigning staff to the projects until we have staff available. So they might have to wait a year or more.

[02:56:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay, so again, questions first. Council member Abikoga, your questions.

[02:56:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Um, so, I just wanted to confirm that if we were to proceed either way, um, I know, I just heard there might be interest in doing gatekeeper doing a process this year as is, um, that we, I know we talked about, we would include commercial developments, in addition to housing proposals. Well, I'll just ask that one 1st and then I felt potential follow-up.

[02:57:34] Community Development Director: Thank you, council member. Yes, as part of the fall study session discussion, council may add other exemptions. We were required to do one for the housing element, and that might be a good time to discuss all of it. And that could include non-residential. exemptions as well.

[02:57:53] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So if we, where does flip the, the timing and go ahead and do a gatekeeper process with current... requirements that would also include commercial development?

[02:58:07] Community Development Director: Well, if council wish to look at gatekeeper projects this year, for example. And let's say they authorize 2 or 3 projects to move forward. Those would come in through the gate. But staff wouldn't start working on them until we were done with our housing element, items, implementation items, and council work plan items. And then as we have staff available, we will assign them to the gatekeeper projects, which are priority three. In light of that, the and the housing element project relative to gatekeeper is to look at potential exemptions. So...

[02:58:52] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, begging the question, but that's why...

[02:58:56] Community Development Director: That would definitely get priority.

[02:58:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. So that, and that's why you, you have the recommended process, the way it is with the study session.

[02:59:05] Community Development Director: Yeah, because we wouldn't be assigning staff anyway to the ones that were authorized since they're priority three. It just makes sense to do all of them after council has made the change.

[02:59:17] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: And so, are we looking at, I mean, we received the letter from Mr. Maston, but I don't know where this came from. Maybe it was just Mr. Maston's idea, but this exemption of going from two to three acres for these exemptions,

[02:59:32] Community Development Director: that would be something we would discuss at a study session.

[02:59:36] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, I think it makes sense and counsel, maybe staff can provide a little bit of color to what a project like that could look because just to add a little more detail when that was originally intended.

[02:59:50] Community Development Director: I think projects used to come in at maybe 40 units to the acre. So 2 acres would mean potentially maybe 80 units. Now we're seeing projects at 100, 120, 150, and one at 200 units to the acre, just so council understands the magnitude of the projects. And then you can decide, if it's 3 acres, that's fine, but I think just understanding what those projects could look like is going to be important.

[03:00:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Great. Thank you. So, again, your questions, vice mayor.

[03:00:24] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, um, I understand that uh, we've had some, that the staffing has changed in the planning department. So could you tell us how that's going? I know we've been very anxious about getting more people.

[03:00:39] Community Development Director: Yes, we're very excited to say that out of the 18 planners and managers in the planning division, and two administrative staff, we just had, I think, five people join in the last few months. In fact, 3 new planners, a junior planners joined on Monday. And so we have 2 positions. One for the deputy zoning administrator that's being recruited right now that's still not filled. And then one senior planner position, which we plan to recruit for in the fall, um, that would provide an opportunity for existing staff to be able to apply to that position. And we will have our new assistant director for planning, um, joining um, in early May. So there'll be 2 outstanding positions out of the 20. Very excited. So things are definitely looking up.

[03:01:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: They are looking up. Good. Council member Ramirez.

[03:01:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of questions about the staff recommendation. So, the recommendation, essentially, increases the number of applications that would be exempt from having to go through the authorization process, right?

[03:02:06] Community Development Director: Thank you, council member. Yes, it could, it could. If looking at exemptions is one of the requirements in the housing element. Council may wish to loosen the regulations on projects that would be exempt, particularly residential projects. So there would be fewer applications that would come to authorization, and they would be accepted over the counter instead.

[03:02:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right. So that would increase the demand for staff time. right? So every time we exempt something, that means you are required to process it.

[03:02:46] Community Development Director: Yeah, it does mean that. Every time you exempt something. I mean, staff is processing it. It still doesn't mean that they're going to get certainty that the city's going to change regulations for them, but we go through a long process. And typically, um, they do they do take longer than the typical um, project that meets meets all the standards.

[03:03:07] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, um, That's helpful. Thank you. And then I'm looking at the housing element draft. In the schedule for June 2024, it says establishing gatekeeper schedule and begin accepting gatekeeper applications. And then I'm looking at the milestones and time frame for, I guess, it's project one. Uh, which does include some mention about the gatekeepers, the milestones and time frame section says, hold an annual gatekeeper meeting, which may be focused or start limited or focused on residential or residential mixed use projects that council discretion, and begin accepting gatekeeper applications before June 30, 2024. But it doesn't appear to commit us to changing the process in any way. Including modifying exemptions. It's just, we're committing to resume the gatekeeper authorization process that would start entertaining applications.

[03:04:11] Community Development Director: Well, it does look at reviewing exemptions, I believe. I don't have it in front of me. And that's why we recommended the false study session. It also does talk about accepting applications by June of 2024. And our recommendation would fall in line with that. Um, I, you probably don't have a draft having all that in front of you. I could pull it up if you just give me a few minutes.

[03:04:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That would be helpful. The line I'm seeing is create increased opportunities for project specific rezoning is through the gatekeeper process. I guess I ask because I'm not finding a commitment in the housing element to modify the process. The only commitment I'm finding is to hear gatekeeper applications, which doesn't mean we have to authorize them. But it would be helpful to understand, do we actually have a commitment?

[03:05:05] Community Development Director: We don't have a commitment to amend the ordinance, but I believe we were going to review them to see if they needed to be changed. So it doesn't commit the city to making changes to the ordinance.

[03:05:16] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you.

[03:05:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah. So, you might not want to sit down. I have a question as well. Um... Just uh... My question is, um, so I would say one of my chief concerns about the gatekeeper process is the amount of staff time it will take. I know working and planning myself that applications like this take a great deal of staff time. So and we have other, um, things pulling staff time, uh, as well. I'm wondering, for example, how many builders remedy projects we have right now.

[03:05:57] Community Development Director: We currently have five that could qualify, and they've submitted preliminary applications. We've, I think, most of them are considered complete, except for one that I have to check on, but the four were, and they have six months from that date to submit a formal application. If they choose to move forward. And again, we have to keep checking and making sure that I believe they came in right before the council adopted the housing element. So they would presumably be considered builders remedy projects. And also, if they provide 20% affordable housing. So there's some requirements, if they continue to meet those requirements, and they do submit a formal application, we would be processing them.

[03:06:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: And so 5 submissions, that doesn't give me an idea of the number of units. How many units total?

[03:06:57] Community Development Director: It's in the thousands, is my understanding.

[03:06:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: It about 3,000. About how much?

[03:07:01] Community Development Director: 3,000 units.

[03:07:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: 3000 units at this point.

[03:07:03] Community Development Director: Yes.

[03:07:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. And will that take a significant amount of staff time to process if they come through?

[03:07:09] Community Development Director: Yes.

[03:07:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. And then this housing element relative to previous ones, is it going... It seems more sizable than previous ones. Have it impact your staff over the next year.

[03:07:28] Community Development Director: I would say over the next, at least three years, we have a very, very ambitious housing element, and it does commit us to timelines. It also commits us to time us beyond that because it says, if certain units are not built, the city will then embark on rezonings and doing other things. So, it's an extremely ambitious housing element and very reflective of what the state is looking for. And we got a lot of input from community groups, which is why it is ambitious as it is. So we do expect it to take considerable staff time.

[03:08:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: And then the council projects that we just passed. I don't need you to tell us how many of those there are, because I think we just reviewed that, but, um, how will those three interact in terms of increasing the volume of work in your department?

[03:08:23] Community Development Director: So, as learned reminded us, we have a sizable list of projects that are considered permit streamlining projects that are not reflected at all in this discussion. And those are the bulk of the work we do. Um, so whatever staff time is left after that, that's the tip of the iceberg will be spent working on, um, uh, you know, the gatekeepers and other council priorities. With council priorities taking preference. So the 1st commitment we have is to make sure we process projects that are meet the standards in a timely manner, because we are committed to doing that. The state has very, very strict requirements. That's priority one. And then the 2nd priority, one actually is the housing element and other implementation, there are state mandates, we have to update our ordinances. So those are the priorities. The 2nd set will be council work plan items, um, the ones A and B, because we are committing to starting and substantially completing those within the 2 year work plan. Priority 3 will be gatekeepers. And we will assign staff as they become available, because our planners are working on all of these projects. And they come and go depending on when applicants submit their resubmittals. So we can't always predict, and we can't plan our work purely based on our availability, because applicants are constantly resubmitting. And we have to constantly send our 30 day letters and coordinating with the department. So it's a very iterative process and we figure out where this time where the staff and then we assign them to those priority 3 projects.

[03:10:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: And then I guess my last question to get a concept of your workload is, how long does it usually take newly hired planners to come up to speed?

[03:10:22] Community Development Director: I would say a minimum of 6 months, to learn just the basics, and what we call the Mountain View Way, because we have a very, we have a very good customer service model. We have to go through. We go through a lot of training, we have a lot of procedures, committees, commissions, um, and they have to learn processes, um, and it takes about 6 months to just get your feet on the ground and up and running. And after that, you know, there is some very heavy supervision. So all of our managers and senior planners are also supervising other planners on projects. So, um, there is that task as well that they do, and our planners get trained and takes about, I would say, at least another year and a half to be able to just get on your feet, um, even for a senior planner because there's so many pieces to learn about um, in our city. The precise plans, the replacement requirements for CSFRA units, it's very very detailed, the list of items we have to learn. Thank you.

[03:11:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Um, I see Council member, Mattachek, and the city manager. Did you want to?

[03:11:36] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, um, thank you, Mayor Council member Magic, for, um, letting me go now. So I would like to just add to what our community development director said just about workload and bringing new staff up to speed. And also let the council know that we have about 30% of our employees in both the planning division and also in public works that are eligible for retirement within the next 2 years. So even though we are filling these positions and we're really glad that we're at this point, we are still in the great resignation period, where folks are leaving because they're retiring. So it is very possible and highly likely that we will continue to see staff leave Mountain View just because they're retiring. So we are seeing a changing of the guard and it's happening in every single department. So to add to what Ms. Shravastova said, training will continue to be a critical component, but with new people coming on, it means it's a loss of experience, knowledge, understanding how things are done, understanding all the new state laws, all the changes that are coming fast and furious. So I would say that's another large component to the workload is just not only bringing people up to speed, but the constant potential for people to be leaving and then having more vacancies. And we are still the employer of choice. I mean, there is no doubt about that. Mountain View is highly sought after. We are very competitive. So that is not the issue. It is just what's happening in the public sector in general. So I would just let you all know that too, that, um, whatever we decide to do with gatekeepers. as the director said. They will be priority three, just because of all the ambitious projects that we have on the work plan and are very, very ambitious housing element. So, I just wanted to give you that perspective as well. Thank you.

[03:13:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. I was going to say we're moving into comments, but perhaps, well, council member Mattercheck, whichever you want.

[03:13:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, it's a question. I just want to make sure my understanding of permit streamlining is correct. So, um, I think I heard that gatekeepers, obviously, are not subject to permit streamlining, but are exemptions to gatekeepers?

[03:14:17] Community Development Director: No, they're also not subject department streamlining, just because they didn't need gatekeeper authorization, does not mean that their permit streamlining, any project that needs a legislative change, change to our zoning, change to our general plan, is not a permit streamlining item.

[03:14:35] Unknown Speaker: What about Builders remedy projects?

[03:14:37] Unknown Speaker: Builders remedy projects, actually, I believe we have to process them in a timely manner, because even though they don't comply, and I have to confirm this, but we will give priority to them over gatekeepers.

[03:14:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. So, seeing no more questions, we'll turn to comments. Yeah, and I'll just kick off my comment is clearly, I'm concerned about staff workload. So I'll just kick off with that short comment, and I did not set up the city manager to make that comment or talk to her ahead of time about it at all. Uh, vice mayor.

[03:15:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I, too, am concerned about staff workload. But I also think one of the reasons that we are the employer of choice is that because we have really interesting projects to work on. And, um, I think that that's one thing that gatekeepers often bring, they, uh, they bring new projects. It has been quite a long time since we've had a gatekeeper hearing. I've heard three years, I've heard four years. Anyway, it's several years. It's a long time. And one of the policy things. I just wanted to sort of start the discussion off with, is our general plan in our zoning, and our precise plans, they reflect the values of our community and how we want that community to develop. And as time goes on, those plans get, you know, some of them get built out, some of our values change, and there may be, uh, there may be, uh, opportunities to further our, um, our goal for our community that a developer would see, and be able to bring to us. I mean, for instance, we are now seeing a new kind of tech sector, the life sciences come forward. And we haven't really had that much before. But it's a new opportunity. It's, we're having a, we have sort of strong feelings about office because of the traffic that that produces, but, um, R&D is, um, you know, kind of part of our innovative DNA, and, and it doesn't produce as much traffic. So I think that this policy issue is sort of the tension between, you know, the wanting to be innovative and wanting to have projects that are reflective of where our community wants to go now. If a project comes through in the gatekeeper process, it gives us the council an opportunity to say, yeah, this is something we think would be great in our community or no. You know, really, we don't think this fits, and so we don't want any more time spin on it right now. That's kind of the idea. And, um, so I think that it's a balancing act. Obviously, if you don't have people to work on the project, the project doesn't get worked on, I mean, but at the same time, even giving somebody a priority three gives them some certainty that they don't have, um, otherwise. So, I think this is something we really should be looking at seriously, because it has been such a long time. And I think that there are a couple of really simple changes. I'd like to be looking at. One change in the exemptions, is it says, it says, the 3rd one has to do with NoFA. Well, no foot deals with affordable housing. What if somebody came forward with an affordable housing that didn't want to ask us for money? I'd just be as happy for them to be exempted as people who want to ask us for money? So I would like that language changed to, you know, 100% or 50% affordable housing. I don't know what would be best. That'd be something to talk about. And then, and then when I looked at the exemption list, uh, that, um, no, not the exemption list, the amendment authorization criteria, that I really thought that, um, that that really aligned well with our focus areas. And, um, I think that's, you know, that's good. It's like we're saying to the development community, these criteria are things that are, you know, that we want for our community, and they align with our focus areas. Such as parkland. You know, we want more parkland. Environmental sustainability. Mobility and connectivity. These are, you know, these are on that wheel. We look at so many times, many of them are. And I think another one, I like, add a couple more to, does the project promote innovative land juice? And I think we could describe maybe what that innovative land juice is, like, does it include parcel reassembly? Like, the project we saw, the only gatekeeper we've seen recently is the one for Terabella, where there was the parcel assembly between public storage and Alta, and they work together, and which the private sector can do, and do Lot Assem And they came up with a much better project for our community, which, hey, that's what we want. So, I think that's good. And then another one, I could see, is, does the project promote new businesses or industries? So, I, you know, I think that, um, there's been a lot of talk over the last six months or so in our community, and among the development community, in particular, about changes that would be helpful. I don't know if we're gonna get a lot more by having a, you know, waiting six months and having a study session. Um, I just don't really see that as, um, as being helpful. I think we could probably go forward with either the current one we have, or, um, one with some slight changes, and, and that would really be better from a, from a policy point of view for our community, even if the people who were taking part in the exercise understood that they wouldn't necessarily get their projects, um, uh, evaluated immediately. It might be six months. It might be a year. At least they would know what happened. So those are some things I wanted, you know, I wanted to share. I think this is about the balancing of helping the policy, of our community, and the workload. And it's always a balance. So, um, like to hear what other people have to say. Thank you.

[03:22:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice Mayor, I'm going to have council member Kameh speak next because she's virtual and not in the line.

[03:22:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Uh, thanks, Mayor. Um, so, um, related to this question, question two. Um, I just wanted to share that I I do support the staff recommendation and kind of wanted to walk through the rationale of how I got there. Which is, I just appreciate the memo that was shared with us, April 14th. Um, it's attached to the staff report and I think it really walked us through just the magnitude with which the, of projects the department is taking on and appreciated, um, colleagues questions about the, the hiring and, and that discussion. Um, one of the things I've talked about that's upcoming in the June budget is kind of a reorganization within the community development department, with which I think housing will be its own division and look forward to, I think, what that will bring, um, to the department, but, We have our, you know, state mandated applications, our policy amendments, then our council workplan items, which we were just kind of shuffling through earlier today, which are quite lengthy and meaty. Um, and then, you know, giving staff capacity, it moves on to gatekeepers. And I think for me, I understand that rationale, given gatekeepers do not fit within the general plan or our precise plans. And so understand how it kind of came into the mix. Um, you know, some, the reason that I think that it's important to have a study session on gatekeepers is, I don't feel that we're stifling, um, innovation. I think the way the mountain view process has worked is, you know, it allows, it always allows for all our processes allow for us to be, um, innovative and creative. Um, and I think in terms of certainty, having a process and having the gatekeeper process, I think, allows for an applicant to, um, get feedback before they um, put a lot of resources in. Um, and I think in terms of the workload topic. You know, I think it, help manages, having the process helps manage, um, staff workload, which I feel like the assisted city manager community development director was sharing. And I think there's 2 items that kind of raise to the top, for me, is one, the Terabella visioning process, which was a 3 year, um, exercise, which ended up not going forward, you know, something outside of the change area, um, outside of the general plan. Um, and what we recently went through 2 weeks ago with the A bag grant. And well, I know that was a unique experience. I think both of those um, got significant feedback from the community. And I feel like I would prefer to hear input from all members, the those who are in the development community, those who are in residential areas where they may be, um, seeing gatekeepers or that may be seeing some builders remedy projects. Um, because I think it's really important to have the community input. We just, you know, adopted our housing element as well. And that took significant public input to get there. We have a very engaged community. And uh, for me. I want to bring to fruition, things that we said that we were going to do. And last year, many of us were talking about how we wanted to move on from the pause we had to take during the pandemic and the projects that we wanted to initially, that we initially prioritized in 2019, see them through. And I want to stick to that promise. I want stick to that commitment. And I worry that if we continue to put other things before. Um, the commitments that we made, that we will shuffle the timeline even further back for what's actually on our work plan. And I don't want that to continue to happen. So, especially for things that are asking for exemptions and variances, I think that, for me, the study session, I have a lot of feedback in terms of what we could do and revise it and think that that would be, for me, the appropriate place to have that discussion. So all of that to say, I support the staff recommendation. Thanks, mayor.

[03:27:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[03:27:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I think I'm landing in the same place as Vice Mayor Show Walter, but I took a different path to get there. For one thing, I do think we need to have a study session about the gatekeeper authorization process. I think there's a, um, there's a lot of opportunity to improve it and make sure that the kinds of projects that are exempted actually help advanced community goals. Um, I'm not terribly interested in just adding to what's already a fairly long list of exemptions that really don't have a lot of rhyme or reason. Some of them were created specifically to help one property owner. And I don't feel like that's a good way to go about revising the policy. So I think, um, I would like to have a more comprehensive discussion about what gatekeepers can do for the community and when it's appropriate to consider them. I think we should do that, but I'm also not feeling a great urgency in doing that, one, because it doesn't, unless I'm corrected. It doesn't appear to be explicitly directed by the housing element. There isn't that sense of urgency. that exists with other types of projects. So we can be, I think, a little bit more thoughtful in how we approach it. We don't have to come up with a whole bunch of exemptions, you know, within the next 6 months. And the other challenge with exemptions is that means they're not going through the authorization process. So they're going to take staff time. Staff will be required to process any application submitted, that happens to be exempt. So, Crete, I think, you know, certainly some exemptions may have merit, but I think the trade-off is, that means staff will be spending time processing those applications. Um, So I'm okay with delaying the study session. But I do feel there is some urgency in entertaining gatekeeper applications sooner rather than later. And the reason I think there's value in doing so is there's a lot of development pressure. And if we don't provide some relief valve to explore more interesting projects, what we get are code compliant projects that nobody likes. And earlier today, I was thinking about some of the ones that have been either brought before the council or not at all, just over the past few years. So Charleston Plaza, I think, has a lot of community attention because we lost retail, and now we're getting biomed, I think. And that's not something that I'm hearing a lot of enthusiasm from the community about, but it's code compliant. So the developer can do what they're doing. Uh, 1001 North Shoreline, which is now the office project occupied by Google, didn't come before council, you know, code compliant project, and there's a lot of land in Terabella that has the same zoning. So if we don't provide some alternative pathway, we might get more office buildings like that, that don't even come before us. 590 Castro Street was another challenging project, 2019 Leghorn Street, which is sort of another nondescript office building, just off of ring stores. And then 1400 Terabella, right next to the Crittenden middle school. Um, that's, that used to have KMVT, I think it was at Irvine that owns that property, decided to just renovate it and maintain it his office. And then there were a whole slew of residential projects, most of which had a displacement impact that were code compliant. And none of these projects, I think, do anything for our community. They're perfectly legal. They comply with our rules and regulations. And I think what that should tell us is our rules and regulations probably need to change, if we actually want to start seeing projects, that provide community benefits and have greater merit to the community. And what I worry about is, if we keep delaying the gatekeeper authorization hearing, we're going to start seeing more code compliant projects that don't advance any of our community goals. So I'd rather provide an opportunity sooner rather than later. Um, and some of, you know, we've, I think, heard from representatives of some of the property owners interested in pursuing something. And it might be worth hearing what they have to say, and whether there are community benefits that are, you know, sufficient and merit some additional staff time, we could reject them all too. There's nothing that compels us to accept any of the applications. But I do feel there's urgency and at least having the hearing, because if we don't, the risk is we start seeing code compliant projects. And I don't feel there's urgency in doing the study session. Although I do think we should do it, and I think that there's a better way, we can approach the whole gatekeeper authorization process. Thank you.

[03:32:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Mattachek?

[03:32:18] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, I do support the staff recommendation. I am very concerned about the workload, um, in our community development department, and, um, in addition to the large number of housing element programs that need to be worked on. We have the builder's remedy, and as they said, all of the code compliant permit streamlining projects. So, um, I'm not interested in adding more to their plate, even if it is projects that are lower priority. Because, you know, if it's lower priority, you know people are still going to ask, when are you working on my project? Do you have time to work on my project? You know, it's not like they're gonna just, wait. So I don't want to add that pressure to what's already, um, a very busy staff. Um, So, I'm okay with, um, the staff recommendation, and, uh, taking stepping back and taking a look at the exemptions and the criteria, um, in a study session, and then holding a gatekeeper application, uh, next year. Thanks.

[03:33:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Abbe Coca?

[03:33:42] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So I appreciate my colleagues and the comments, and I agree with a lot of them. Even they might be on disparate sides of this issue. I... So, I think I am leaning towards staff recommendation. And, um, mainly because, as others have mentioned, there is this issue of workload, there are priority projects that we have to get through. And realistically, I just don't think we can get to gatekeeper projects until what staff has already stated, it would be the schedule. And, um, I know in the past, there were, um, there were gatekeeper projects that were approved, and, but then with a, like a time, a delayed time. And, um, the challenge I was that with those projects where there were projects that I wasn't here to approve the gatekeeper on, and then I returned and they came to me. And, you know, and I know that's challenging because we have turnover on council, but, um, I guess what I, you know, my thought was with that is that, um, we could, you know, say, okay, you're through and that you're delayed. But what if other projects come in in that following year, that might be better projects. So isn't it better just to say, you know, do an annual gate go back? We'll probably go back to an annual gatekeeper process and just, you know, see what projects come in that year that and we can pick the best ones from that bunch. I don't want to be committed to something because we approved it earlier. And then, you know, see other projects that we might like better come in later and then have to say no to those or delay those because we had already made these prior commitments. So, um, I think that's where I hesitate about doing a gatekeeper sooner than what staff is recommending. Um, and I have some other, um, items that I've been thinking about and maybe at bringing up when we have this study session. And this is really, um, you know, I know that there's pressure to provide more exemptions, but I'm actually, I've been more concerned about the bigger projects, um, you know, and I've been, was trying to figure out how do we, how do we categorize these? But, um, some of the project keeper projects we've seen that are larger five, six, seven, 10 acres. They start to create, um, you know, challenges around transportation, you know, where's the parks, state park gonna go? And then there's some, like, unfinished business, I think. Like we, I don't know what we really decided with Terabella, but my concern is that. Like, if we said, okay, let's go back to Gatekeeper, and we have 5 projects in Terabella. I have a concern about approving those, you know, one by one, because when you get to, we talk about assembling, um, it's, you know, in a way, you would start assembling projects in one area. And, you know, this came up when we had the precise or the conversation about Terabella. We have to start thinking about things like where do the bike lanes go or where does the park go? And I remember developers coming in with their projects and saying, well, we agree there should be a park here, but not on my property. And so that's when it starts, I started thinking, well, we maybe then need to be looking at a precise plan or a master plan or some other plan to plan out a neighborhood. So that's my hesitation with allowing a gatekeeper, just, you know, any gatekeeper project to come through. If it's starting to be in a certain area, in neighborhood, I think we have to start deciding if we need to, like, take a step back and look at a more comprehensive plan. So I guess I would ask staff for more, you know, for some guidance on how to determine when we need to start doing that. But that's really my concern with these gatekeeper projects. And, you know, the whole, I appreciate, um, counselor Ramirez, your comments, but, you know, some, I guess I look at, we're talking a lot about, spend a lot of time about residential projects and I, you know, rightfully so. But I guess my concern is that, and we talked about this and that was partially why we paused on Terabella, is that we're losing our commercial space and industrial space and, you know, the code compliant uses, frankly, are for that. That's where Neuro is. That's where some of these innovative technology companies are situating themselves. And so I don't have an issue with that. I think that that's part of our community, and that is a benefit to our community that we provide, you know, land for innovation to happen, and that ends up being a community benefit. So I'm not as concerned about code compliant projects. I think they do provide benefits. So, you know, and I want to make sure we have room for them. Um, I appreciate counseling, uh, vice mayor. Like, if we wanted to tweak it, I think you actually said it perfectly. Again, my concern is about businesses. I know we need to do housing, but we need to also maintain a strong, vibrant business community. So if we were to add, you know, a project, does the project support, you mention new business, new industries, I would even say existing businesses, because through COVID, we had a lot of businesses who, you know, made it through, but there might be limping along. And if there's something that can happen to help them, um, thrive more, I would be open to that. So I'd like to create a category for businesses. And I think the way you worded it, vice mayor, if I can just add, you know, supporting existing businesses, I could go with that. So that kind of, you know, I hear both sides, but I do think we just need some kind of discussion conversation about how we're going to proceed with, you know, categorizing these projects, because they are different, and they impact the community in different ways based on size or location and, or, you know, use. So, um, I guess because of that, I am leaning towards doing that study session. But I will say, and we've done this in the past, and I know it's challenging, but I remember we had something called the P district, where we would process projects alongside, you know, a precise plan amendment or a master plan amendment. So it was in parallel with, you know, basically trying to do both at the same time. And if we can bring that back, I would be open to that, if that would help with moving things along. But I think we're just pretty backlogged right now, and that's really my top priority. Thanks.

[03:41:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: So council member Ramos. And then I'm gonna go, and then I'm gonna give people their 2nd pass.

[03:41:22] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. Um, so, One of the, as I try to wrap my head around the whole gatekeeper process. One thing I've been kind of struggling with is, why don't I hear this problem in other cities? Um, and I found it really kind of interesting, and I, I get different answers from different people about it, but my general sense is, is like that TikTok meme where the girl is like, a girl boss too hard, and now everyone wants me to do everything. Um, and that's how I kind of feel with our gatekeeper projects that Mount View has been seen as such an innovative and forward looking, um, uh, city that that people want to take their chances with us. I'm concerned that we haven't had a gatekeeper in a really long time. My understanding. The closest one, I thought, was the Alta housing and the pure storage. But wasn't that not even like a real gatekeeper? That was like a weird sidestep gatekeeper. Public storage. Why do I... But, like, I thought that was, like, also a special sidestep gatekeeper. So when did we last have like a true gatekeeper process and I, my, my understanding is that like other cities don't have to deal with that level of bottleneck. And so I know that, like, um, there is a concern about, um, I thought it would be an elegant solution if we just kept our standards now and then do this this year's and then, like, as we continue on and doing our study session on a new, um, gatekeeper projects, or a new gatekeeper standards, that we would just start those new standards next year. And therefore, we get back into the rhythm of doing annual gatekeepers. Um, so that they don't have to wait now 5 years before they could actually submit a gatekeeper project if they wanted to make any kind of zoning amendment, general plan amendment, um, the various different amendments that you require gatekeeper projects to. Um, The reality is, we could always say no. We can we can see the projects and and get a better sense of staff time on that. And if staff time has not improved in this year's gatekeeper batch, then we could just say no to them all. Um, but I, I think people are really just chomping at that bit to just, just, they just want to be heard. They just they just want to shoot their shot on that. So that's my general sense. I could live with staff recommendation, but I do, I do think that we should have a gatekeeper process this year. Thank you.

[03:44:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, my, so I've learned a lot from hearing everyone. And, um, the most surprising thing that I learned is that some people here don't believe that code compliant projects, maybe I'm misquoting you, benefit the community, because when I think of code compliant projects, I think, so my problem with gatekeepers, and I do think we should have gatekeepers. But my problem with gatekeepers is that they're very piecemeal. And I feel like where we get the creativity is when we have general plans and precise plans, and the whole community comes in, and talks about how the whole community is laid out, you know, where there should be bike paths, where there should be parks, where there should be more density, et cetera, where there should be more density, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I've, you know, I found some of the, I have not introduced, been on council when gatekeepers were introduced, but the one that I worked on, the 555 project, I voted for it, because I don't think you, you know, it was so far along, I don't want to vote it down. That's one of my principles. But for me, it was a problematic project. It didn't tie into, I think, what we could do with Moffatt. It didn't seem Moffatt as part of the downtown. The sidewalks weren't wide enough, there was no ground floor, retail to walk to. It was as if we took just a little piece of the puzzle of Mountain View and removed it from Mountain View and looked at it all by itself, as if it didn't fit into the rest of the puzzle. And I don't think that's the way the community experiences. That's not the way I can experience where I live. It ties into all the places around it. So, I feel when we get real community input, and I don't know, my experience also with 555 was we didn't get community input until the very end. And I think when we do, hopefully, when we do precise plans in general plans, we get it earlier. So, I am, so, at the same time, we do see a lot of innovation with gatekeepers as well, and I'm not against gatekeepers. But, as you know, I do have concerns about staff capacity. And in my opinion, we just have to be realistic about not putting more on our plate when we already know our plate is full, but, you know, maybe tomorrow it won't be full. Um, let's see. So, so I do support, I do support the staff recommendation. And I will go on to, we're doing a second round of comments. So council member Ramirez.

[03:47:08] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'll be pretty quick, because it sounds like there are four votes for the staff recommendation, and there's no need to continue fighting, if that's not going to change. But a couple of things that I think, I'd like to respond to. So actually, we agree. It comes to member Abbe Koca about losing industrial square footage. I mean, that was one of the reasons why I voted against the Terabella visioning plan in 2019. Um, because I don't think we had we had really taken enough time to think about what Terabella is going to be in 20 or 30 years. Um, and uh, and I, I agree. I don't want to lose very valuable industrial land because once that's gone, Did I did I misspeak? Once that's gone, it's not coming back. Um, so I, I, I'm not opposed. I think using the gatekeeper authorization process to help preserve businesses or create innovative opportunities for business is valuable. But that was part of the public storage gatekeeper, right? Public storage wanted to expand, and the gatekeeper process allowed them to do so. And with a community benefit that we consider substantial. And then there are projects like U-Haul, which require gatekeeper authorization for a fairly modest expansion. So clearly, I think there are some, there's room for improvement with the gatekeeper authorization process. And I don't mean at all to suggest that it should be used as a tool to convert industrial land into residential, or that it should come at the expense of our business community. I think it can also help, with those economic development goals. Um, and, uh, I don't know if what you, uh, how you summarize my comments, you know, is really, uh, uh, I think you're probably right, that generally speaking, I land in a place where I look at most of the code compliant developments, and at least the time I've been observing the council, and it's hard to like them. And I feel, I don't want to just relist the ones I had talked about, but I don't know if there's any anyone on the council who would say that any of these code compliant projects really helped achieve any of our goals or community schools. They're just a lot of them are office projects, you know, with no provision for affordable housing or park space or public facing amenities, they just comply with our rules and regulations, many of which were established decades ago and haven't been updated. A code compliant project in East Wisman is a different story, right? And a code compliant project in El Camino is a different story. But the gatekeeper authorization process tends to be used in areas where we have zoning districts that haven't been updated in decades. And that's why I think we get projects that generally were less than enthusiastic for, right? And then, you know, the, the, I think the sort of the corollary to 555 West Middlefield is 1555 West Middlefield, where we demolished 116 rent controlled departments on 5.5 acres of land and built 115 row houses with no parks or affordable housing. It's hard to say that that was a good project, but it complies with our code. And I've got, in my head, a long list of those. But that's why I think there's value in having gatekeepers. I feel like we agree on that, which is good. Um, I think we just differ on timing and maybe exemptions in some of the, um, parameters of the program. If there were 4 votes for the staff recommendation, I'm comfortable with that. I just personally feel some urgency in hearing them sooner rather than later. And if we get more code compliant projects in that time, then we have no right to complain about them. They comply with the rules.

[03:50:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. Vice mayor?

[03:50:59] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I think that we've heard that I certainly agree that this needs to be used for industrial and commercial as well as residential. I didn't, if I said that, I certainly didn't, or if I gave you that impression, I didn't mean that. That's not my intention at all. I think that gay people should be pretty wide open of what we would consider. That's not necessarily what we would approve when we got them. It would, of course, depend on, you know, the caliber of them, and how good they were. I just don't think that, um, I do think that there is an urgency that, um, is real. and that we are, sort of, inspiring the development community to do less than they know is possible. And we make it so difficult to get variances or, you know, or changes that they just come in with what's code compliant, and that's, and I think, you know, like you said, council member, Ramirez, in our really new precise plans, that's great, because they've all been thought about, you know, recently, and they're sort of up to standard. But if you look in some of these precise plans, I believe the oldest one is probably at least 50 years old. Is that right? Um, uh, Mishra Basarah?

[03:52:23] Mishra Basarah: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would say we have some in the '80s, but I don't think, you know, so I would say close to 35 ish years, but I don't think we have one that's for that.

[03:52:34] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: No, that's 80s is 80s is 40, 40 to 50. Yeah, 80. Yeah. So 73 would be 50. Anything before 73. So we have some that are 40 years old. A lot has changed in 40 years here. And that's, those are the ones that I, you know, I think, give us heartburn. So, um, I will not be supporting the staff recommendation, as I said earlier, just because I think, I think it's out of, I think it's out of sync. And for the reasons I said earlier, And I would like, I think we should have more urgency. But I don't think that our gatekeeper process needs to be sort of blown up and completely redone. I think that there are some just some gentle tweaks that need to be made, and that we need to do it on a regular basis. So there's some certainty for our development community. And I think pretty much everybody's said that, is that we really think it needs to be a regular thing. I think it was really telling that the mayor said, She had never been on the council when there was a gatekeeper hearing. You've been on the council for over four years now. So that means we haven't had one for over four years. Now, I know we had a pandemic, and that really, that was really incredible, and, uh, that put many things off, but still, that's a long time. So anyway, I, still in all, I just want to bring back that I think we need to, we need to remember that our zoning ordinances and our general plan and our precise plans are supposed to draw a picture of how we want development, to go forward in our community. That's sort of, you know, how we have converted our policy understanding into maps on the ground. And as those maps get older, they get a little stale. And that's, you know, and the gatekeeper can also be seen as something that, that sort of identifies areas that need a little attention. And I don't think that's, you know, that's, I think that's also another thing we could, we should think about, that they, the development community brings to us when they bring us, um, gatekeeper suggestions, is that maybe that is an area that needs a little attention. And we should pay attention to that. Thank you.

[03:55:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: I'll make one more comment, and then one more second pass, and then Council member, Abby Koga. I just wanted to say, although, thank you for clarifying, and putting some details on that, how I misquoted. Um, and, uh, you know, I do think we should have gatekeepers. I still do support the staff recommendation. The one thing, the one additional reason that I would say that I support it is, this idea that we should see what everybody brings to us, and then we can just say, no. There's a tremendous amount of work involved in just seeing it. It's not, you know, staff takes it in, and spends a lot of time working on it. They, clearly, they don't just email it to us. So I think, and then I think if we're doing that, and we can't, it's a third priority or whatever, we're kind of not being clear with developers, because we're not really, they don't know how full staff's played is, they, you know, they dwell in their own world like we all do. So we're giving them the expectation that we're going to see it very soon. We're giving staff a lot of work, and then we're not seeing it soon. So I'm hoping that we get out of this. We hire more staff, we get some of the builders' remedy and housing element projects underway, and then we can see them on, we reform the process, and we can see them on a regular basis. And that's the process I would like to go with. Council member, Epicoga.

[03:56:33] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, here. I guess I'm trying to see how we could speed up or a gatekeeper. If we were to have a steady session and that's, you know, maybe it ends up just being tweaked, so though, we might have a lot more conversation, but in terms of you keep your criteria, could it potentially come to us sooner? Is it really dependent on what happens at the study session?

[03:57:00] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, council member. So the recommendation was to 1st make the change and then accept gatekeepers. And if that change doesn't take a long time, then yes, we could put the call for projects out as soon as the changes are adopted. And then once the projects come in, staff will, of course, have recommendations based on workload or other ideas, like maybe a precise plan, a better idea here than, you know, we'll have we'll have thoughts on those, but we can bring those earlier if we get done with the adoption of the changes earlier. Thank you.

[03:57:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Um, Vice Mayor, do you have additional comments? Are those your old comments you're registering? Okay, so to sum up, what I'm hearing is that we will, that the majority wants to go with the staff recommendation, but there have been calls to see whether we can speed up in any way, um, after we have the study session, actually holding a gatekeeper, is that, is that a fair summary, or would you like straw holes? Okay, would you like a straw pole on speed up or both of those, I could say? Okay, so we'll take a straw pole on we go. One, we go with the...

[03:58:33] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Mayor. Oh, do you have a comment? I'm sorry.

[03:58:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: I do. Yeah. I'm so sorry.

[03:58:38] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you.

[03:58:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: No worries.

[03:58:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Just, um, uh, so, you know, I appreciate the direct, you know, the straw poll, it sounds like that staff already can can go in that direction, given the study session. So I don't know if we need, if staff recommends we take that extra step, but from what I was hearing, it sounded like. It could be sooner anyways. Can we just clarify? Should we just go forward? Everybody happy with that? I mean, I think I heard a majority, from what I'm hearing, I heard a majority, and I heard that, you know, post-study session, depending on what the discussion is, they can't proceed faster, and maybe we can get into that timeline or that discussion at the study session, which is what I would prefer. But if we need to take a straw motion, then I understand that too, but I just wanted to ask and see if we could get some clarity. Thank you, mayor.

[03:59:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, I'm seeing heads nodding, which is the same as a straw pole, but anyway. Okay, we'll go with that. So to be clear, yes, we're going with the staff recommendation and then seeing whether we can speed up acceptance of gatekeepers. Okay, so now, um, jumping through our agenda, we are now going to item 7.1, which is funding recommendations for fiscal year, 2324 annual action plan, and council member Abbe Koka, do you have an announcement to make?

[04:00:13] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you, Mayor, pursuant to government code section 84308. I am recusing myself from participation in item 7.1 related to approval of the fiscal year 202324 annual action plan and allocation of federal grant funds because I received a campaign contribution from Michelle Lou in the amount of $1000 on March 6, 2023. Thank you.

[04:00:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos, do you have an announcement to make?

[04:00:41] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I am recusing myself from participation in item 7.1 related to the approval of fiscal year 202324, annual action plan, and allocation of federal grant funds due to a conflict of interest, arising from a recently held position as a member of the community services agency board.

[04:01:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Well, thank you and have a good evening. Next, housing specialist, Hershaw, Ramchu. I'm sorry, Ramchun Dunny will present the item. Herschel.

[04:01:28] Housing Specialist Harsha Ramchandani: Good evening, counsel. I'm Harsha Ramchandani Housing Specialist one. Along with Wayne Chen, assistant community development director. We're pleased to be with you tonight for this public hearing to discuss federal funding recommendations for public service activities and capital projects, as well as general fund funding recommendations for public service activities. The city of Mountain View is an entitlement jurisdiction, which enables the city to receive annual grants on a formula basis for the CDPG and home programs directly from HUD. The amount of program funds awarded, each fiscal year fluctuates, and is dependent on the federal budget adopted for these programs. To receive the annual grants, the city must develop and submit to HUD a consolidated plan. This is a comprehensive planning document outlining the city's priority goals for a five-year period, and how CDPG and home funding would be used to achieve those goals. The city is currently implementing its fiscal year 2020 through 2025 consolidated plan. In addition, the city must also submit annual action plans, which includes a summary of the activities and projects that will be funded in the upcoming fiscal year. Shown on screen are the 6 priority goals identified in the city's consolidated plan. Summarized here are the key milestones of the funding cycle process. Each year, staff provides program updates to the human relations commission and seeks feedback before the beginning of a two-year public services grand cycle. At the November 3rd meeting last year, the HRC approved a general funding framework, and policy recommendations, which include minimum funding thresholds for public service grants, and CDBG capital grants, a minor home repair program, and direct allocation of home funding to the affordable housing projects pipeline. These recommendations were incorporated in the NoFA, which opened on December 5th in 2022. and closed on January 17th this year. Staff funding recommendations were brought to the HRC at its March 2nd meeting, and the HRC supported staff's recommendations to be forwarded to council for approval. Council action at this meeting will be incorporated and used to finalize the fiscal year 2023 through 24 annual action plan. The council adopted annual action plan will then be submitted to HARD by May 15th as federally required and the program year will begin on July one. The city's allocations for fiscal year 2023 through 24 are about 610,000 in CDBG funds and about 285,000 in home funds. In addition to the annual allocations, the city also receives program income, or PI, for both programs on a periodic basis, in the form of loan repayments, from past CDPG and home funded capital projects. The PI may be used to fund public service activities, capital projects, and or administration. Additionally, there may be funds from prior years that are considered unallocated. Unallocated funds typically occur when the city receives PI that it did not expect, or in an amount higher than anticipated, or when funds set aside for program administration are not fully spent. Finally, the city provides an annual allocation from its general fund, to supplement federal funds and support human services, educational, cultural, arts, and other programs not eligible for federal funds. Furthermore, council appropriated about 95,000 from one time ARPA funding, as part of the city's adopted budget for the current fiscal year, to support public services. The table shown on screen summarizes the total funding available by funding source for each activity for the upcoming fiscal year. 16 organizations applied to the snow file, requesting public service funding for 19 programs or activities. The city received one application for administering the minor home repair program, and no applications were received for CDBG capital project funding. As approved by the HRC in case of no or ineligible applications, the CDBG funds available for capital projects is recommended for direct allocation to the city's affordable housing projects pipeline. Each application was reviewed and scored based on the evaluation criteria, which included completeness of application, and scoring awarded for furthering of consolidated plan goals, addressing community needs, and administrative capacity to implement the program, and have processes in place. Both the CDBG and general fund public service applications were oversubscribed. And all eligible programs scored highly. Funding recommendations have been made, taking into consideration several factors, as shown on screen. 10 applications were received for CDBG public services funding, based on the available funding, and that all eligible applicants scored highly, 7 of the 10 applicants are recommended for proportional funding. This funding framework allows for available funds to be distributed equally among all recommended applicants for the two-year grand cycle. The rationale for the 3 applicants not recommended for CDBG funding is as follows. Project Sentinel is recommended for funding through general housing funds instead, as they have been funded through general housing funds on an ongoing basis for their fair housing program services. And the funding request is included as part of the city's base budget. Weekare's boost program was determined as an economic development project, and hence ineligible for public services funding. The day worker center's education, skills, training, and job placement program is recommended for funding under the general fund category, along with their healthy meals program. As the requested amount is more than the available funding of the general fund allocation and ARPA funds, an applicant scored highly, all 10 programs and activities, including the day worker center's education, skills training, and job placement program, which is transferred from the CDBG list of applicants, are recommended for proportional funding. RPA funds have a flexible expenditure deadline, and will be spread over 2 years of the grand cycle, while the general fund allocation is per fiscal year. Making the ARPA funds available to spend over the two-year cycle would allow for similar levels of funding to be available to nonprofits for both years of the grand cycle. There are 2 recommendations for capital funding. The city allocated 30,000 for implementing a minor home repair program and received one application from rebuilding together peninsula for their safe at home program. Staff recommends that the annual action plan include an allocation of the available CDPG and home funds of approximately 2200000 in funding for the Crestview Hotel project. At the March 14 meeting, Council approved an allocation of housing impact funds towards the Crestview Hotel project, and the staff report noted that this additional allocation of CDBG and home funding will replace a portion of the housing impact fees, which is reflected in the recommendations tonight. Based on previous allocations of CDBG and home funds to the CrestView Hotel and the additional funds approved on March 14th. The total city funding for the project is approximately $9100000, which is reflected in recommendation number four. The following 3 slides include the recommendations, as noted in the staff report, which include funding recommendations for capital projects of the minor home repair program, and rehabilitation of the Crestview Hotel, public service activities, and adoption of the fiscal year 2023 through 24 annual action plan. This concludes staff's presentation. Wayne and I are joined by Paneet Dinza, Human Services Manager, via Zoom, and we're happy to answer questions.

[04:10:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. Do any members of the council have questions? Um, Actually. Actually, it is. Okay. Vice mayor.

[04:11:27] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'm just going to kind of re-ask a question I asked in the council questions. I see that there's a sort of a deficit of $107,000 and $107, $655 from what was requested. And I understand that we have a, we're expecting to have a, it's like budget surplus this year. So I'm wondering if we should, or if we could, where would the money come from? to make this up.

[04:12:02] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So in coordination with VazD, we were able to determine that there is additional funds. I believe it would be the general fund.

[04:12:17] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thanks for checking into that.

[04:12:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So are there any other council questions? Many of us to ask. So, um, would, so now, uh, I'm asking whether there are any members of the public joining us either virtually or in person who would like to provide comment on this item. If so, please click the raise hand button and zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take in-person speakers first. And Each speaker will have 3 minutes. First, Mark Fischler, then this is in person first. Mark Fisher, then Tracy Wingrove, and then Tom Myers.

[04:13:09] Public Speaker Mark Fisler: Good evening, city council members. My name is Mark Fisler. I'm the development director for Parents Helping Parents. We're an agency in San Jose serving Mountain View families raising children with disabilities. We have a +20 year relationship with you and really appreciate all the city has done and continues to do to support the disability community. PHP, provide services to parents, whether it be advice and how to work with their child's school, on how to get the proper education plan in place, how to apply for public benefits, like in home sports services, which you can get from the county or SSI from the federal government. We also have free mental health workshops for parents. So we do a lot to support the parents raising children with disabilities. Last, in the last 12 months. I just look today, as a matter of fact, we've supported, uh, almost 400 services to 120 different Mountain View families. So we're very active in Mountain View, outside of San Jose. It's one of our busiest cities. Um, I just have to say, um, in closing, I heard the comment about potentially finding a little more funding to make up the deficit. Obviously, I could tell you, we would appreciate it, because right now, we're slated to get a little less money than, uh, as in the current grants. So anything you guys can do to, uh, look at that would be very much appreciated. Again, we really appreciate everything that City Mountain View does for the disability community and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[04:14:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, Tracy Winggrove.

[04:14:46] Tracy Wingrove: Good evening. My name is Tracy Wingrove, and I am the chief development officer at Healthier Kids Foundation. We are organization, which, uh, supports families by, um, conducting healthcare screenings, in, uh, providing health education and advocacy, uh, for underserved, uh, families and underserved areas of our Silicon Valley. Here in Mountain View, we specifically provide vision screenings for children, and we have had a long time partnership with the city, and we appreciate your support over these many years. And we are so thrilled that we're able to help the families in the community with healthcare. One of the things that I call our Secret Sauce at Healthier Kids Foundation is that we not only provide healthcare screenings, but we also provide care coordination afterwards. So many of the families that we work with, have barriers to getting healthcare for their children. So once they find a vision issue, they may be, uh, don't have insurance, or they don't have the language skills to communicate with a provider, or they don't have transportation, or there's so many barriers that they face. And we have multilingual care coordinators who work with the families, all the way through until their kids get the support they need. And we recently reached a really incredible milestone in which we have helped kids and families get 10,000 pairs of glasses. So we are really, again, honored to support the mountain view community, and so appreciative of the support from the city. And I just wanted to say, Thank you in advance and urge you to vote for this agenda item. Thank you so much for your time.

[04:16:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. You have a question?

[04:16:40] Unknown Speaker: I do have a question. Do you take... Are you a place you can recycle glasses?

[04:16:46] Tracy Wingrove: We are not.

[04:16:48] Unknown Speaker: Okay, do you know how to do that?

[04:16:49] Tracy Wingrove: I believe the alliance, um...

[04:16:52] Unknown Speaker: Okay.

[04:16:52] Tracy Wingrove: Organization. Recycles. Oh, my classes.

[04:16:54] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I'll Google it. Thank you.

[04:16:56] Tracy Wingrove: Uh huh. Thank you.

[04:16:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Tom Myers. And yes, it is the lions that do that.

[04:17:08] Tom Myers: Madam Mayor, council members, it's a pleasure to be here before you, this evening, and first of all, to say thank you for the many years of cooperation and collaboration we've had with the city of Mountain View. It's been quite a success. Uh, the, uh, 3 programs that are before you for CDBG and general fund funding, our homelessness prevention, an incredibly important uh, program that was uh, uh, that proved throughout the pandemic, uh, when we put out the millions of dollars that uh, went out into the community, thanks to the city of Mountain View, and to our incredible HPS Homeless Prevention Services team at, at CSA . The second, of course, is senior case management program, making sure our most vulnerable seniors have access to safety net services. The 3rd is through the general fund, our senior lunch program, every single day, between 150 and 200, sometimes more, lunches at the Mountain View Senior Center. But I'm going to go off script. I had all of these different ways of describing these programs to you. You know our programs very well. Something that the city manager talked about earlier that I think is really important to know about CDBG funding. Very little funding that goes to nonprofits is actually available to pay for staffing. It's really, really a problem in the nonprofit world, and CDBG funds can be used for staffing. You will be paying for case management services in both the HPS program and in the senior case management program. Staffing is really important. We're very proud at CSA that we pay better than most nonprofits, is in our compensation philosophy, that we must be above the average or the median pay for a nonprofit to our staff. We have an excellent healthcare where we pay fully for healthcare for our staff. We also have a retirement plan for our staff. We still are seeing the problem of staff turnover the way that everywhere else is seeing. It's just universal, but we are pretty stable right now. Cross your fingers, it stays that way. these funds are absolutely vital for helping us to pay for our staffing. So thank you for the many, many years of cooperation and collaboration and support. It is our pleasure to serve this community. And we hope to continue to do so for many, many years. Thank you.

[04:19:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: You. I see one virtual speaker. Um, it's Albert Luster.

[04:19:58] Albert Illustrate: Good evening, city council members. My name is Albert Illustrate with Carpenters Local 405. Great to see local funding being granted for different projects in the city of Miami. But it would be great to see this projects built by responsible general contractors. A general contractor that promotes apprenticeship, local hire healthcare, and a legal wage. The need of a responsible contractor ensures the construction workers are not taking advantage by contractors by filing with a 1099 that implies the need of construction workers to pay cactus as an independent contractor at the end of the year. It also prevents wage theft, tax fraud, which often happens in the construction industry. Having the responsible general contractor, ensure the construction workers have health care for the workers, his family, and not to become averted to the system, since 80% of the construction workers depend on some sort of government aid. Apprenticeship, apprenticeship, with a responsible general contractor, promotes training, education for reuse, minorities, women, into a four year apprenticeship program. This program provides college credits that apprentices can continue into a higher education and be able to attend a college degree. Local hire, for most quality life, for the construction workers being able to spend more time with the loved ones, and being able to be part of the community. It also benefits the environment by reducing pollution, and not pushing a local workforce away from our city. I would like to ask our elector officials, please promote our responsible contractor, the promotes apprenticeship, local hire, healthcare, and all future projects in the city monopey. Thank you for your time.

[04:21:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you very much. So, we'll now take this item back to council for deliberation and action. Are there any council people who want to make comments? Vice mayor?

[04:22:07] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I think that these are all very worthy causes, and we have supported them for many years. And since we have the opportunity to fill in the difference between a slightly smaller allocation that we have, and the requests, I would move the staff recommendation with the additional $107,000 to and...

[04:22:38] Unknown Speaker: Oh, push the button.

[04:22:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Exactly. Sorry. Um, to, uh, to make the difference. Thank you.

[04:22:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, I see a motion by the vice mayor and a second by council member Ramirez. Are there additional comments on this? Then we can city clerk, can you take the vote?

[04:23:05] City Clerk: I... Roll call. Vice mayor, show Walter?

[04:23:11] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes.

[04:23:12] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez?

[04:23:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[04:23:14] City Clerk: And member Kamei?

[04:23:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[04:23:18] City Clerk: Council member Matachek?

[04:23:19] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[04:23:20] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks?

[04:23:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[04:23:21] City Clerk: Motion carries you unanimously.

[04:23:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So we will now move to item eight, which is council staff committee reports. And if there are people waiting in the wings, yes. Did council member Abbe Koga leave?

[04:23:41] Unknown Speaker: She She did.

[04:23:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: That's what I thought. Okay. So, uh, it's now time for a council staff committee reports. Do we have any of those? Council member Ramos.

[04:23:58] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, uh, pursuant to, I don't know what government code, it would be. Okay, great. Um, I went to the League of California, League of Cities, Cal City Summit, um, 2 weeks ago. Um, it was a really, really great experience. It was in Sacramento, and I got to meet with our lobbyist, which was really fun, and tried to work, how we can push our legislative agenda that we've all agreed to. It's very interesting 'cause we had to kind of balance. There's the league of cities positions, and then there's our positions, and they may not be completely aligned, but, um, they were, uh, The big thing that we were pushing was more money to help fund affordable housing and homelessness, which is a line, so we would just go for that push, which was great. We got to meet with Senator Becker, and it was his birthday at that time, too, so we were wishing him happy birthday. Couldn't give him a gift because we were there lobbying him, and that was, like, round upon. Um... We also met with assembly member Berman. We met with the staff of assembly member, uh, Lee, who's carrying a legislation for us that seems to be going pretty smoothly through the legislature. It went on consent calendar, and the subcommittee that it was at when we were there, and it seems to be going pretty smoothly. The other build that our city has co sponsored and is being carried by assembly member low, who I was able to connect with, but mostly in passing, because you kind of, like, you walk around in Sacramento, and you kind of run into, like, everyone at that point. Um, so, uh, unfortunately, that bill was, was, um, put on hold for now, um, and we're trying to, to see what we can do, but it was great meeting with other, um, council members of other cities. Um, especially when we think about, like, our legislative agenda, these other cities, they have legislative agendas too, and sometimes they may align with us. And then we were like, hey, your person that represents you, especially, like, when you think of the Southern California cities, because we don't really have the level of connections to Southern California legislators, and we have our connections with our legislators. And so if we find alignment to that, I think that would be a really good way of really meeting with each other and trying to get our goals pushed forward. But I really did enjoy my time there and meeting all the other council members. I look forward to, apparently, the bigger conference, the real conference is actually in September. They did have some classes or seminars, but really the focus of it was meeting the legislators and lobbying for our cities. So, I look forward to joining everyone else for the next one.

[04:26:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, are there other reports?

[04:27:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, I'll just say I went for Earth Day to Sunshine Gardens, which is one of our, which is an apartment in Mountain View, an older apartment, where they have retrofit the apartment using low interest, Fannie Mae loans, I guess, designed just for this purpose, to reduce their carbon footprint, and it was very inspiring to see all the things they did, and that other older apartments can do, too. you know, other older apartment owners can do to reduce the carbon footprint of their apartment. And there was a great turnout also, and lots of food. And I was also invited to theater works, as mayor to theater works, new play, which, by an Egyptian author, which, uh, and it was on, it's on, um, a distinct society. Thank you. And it was on, it was written by, actually, he calls, he's a playwright, because it's not a book. He's not an author. And the topic is immigration in the Muslim band, and I thought it was going to be preachy and pedantic, and I have to say, it was not, and I recommend it. So, um, vice mayor?

[04:28:25] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, you reminded me of some things. I also went to the play and would recommend it. It was entertaining and thought provoking, which are two really good qualities in a play. And, um, there was an inconsistency in the, sort of in the doors. So if you go, tell me if you catch that, too. Anyway, that same day, I went to the open house that Google held in Camp Charleston about the North Bay Shore master plan that will be coming to us in a few weeks, and that was very interesting. And I also went to our Earth Day celebration that we had at Ringsdorf, the community center in Ringsdorf. And I just want to take this opportunity to formally thank all the people on the staff who were part of putting it together. I think it was one of those places where, you know, a good time was had by all, is a, it was an honest thing to say. And I think there would have probably been very few people who didn't also learn something. It was really inspiring to see all of the community organizations that came out to share, um, their, uh, their work. I was sitting at the carbon free Mountain View table, and I was next to door to the Silicon Valley bicycle coalition, and there were, you know, there were a lot of organizations. So, they really, we had a great Earth Day, and thanks very much to the staff.

[04:30:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So this is the final call for council reports, saying none will move on to item nine, the closed session report, City Attorney Lobe, do you have a closed session report?

[04:30:24] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: There is no closed session report this evening.

[04:30:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Then we will move... Thank you. We will move on to item 10, which is adjournment. The next city council meeting will be held on May 9th of 2023. And this meeting is adjourned at 944. Thank you. Bye, everyone.

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