September 12, 2023 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

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Transcript

[00:01:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our closed session. City Attorney Lobe. We'll make a closed session announcement, and then the city council welcomes public comment on the item listed for closed session. City attorney.

[00:02:15] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. There is one item on this evening's close session agenda. Item 2.one is a conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation, pursuant to government code section 54956.9. The name of the case is Alice Akuno versus City of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, Superior Court, case number 22 CV, 405643.

[00:02:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us, either virtually or in person, like to provide comment on the closed session item listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take in person speakers first, and each speaker will have three minutes. No, are there any? So there are no in person speakers? We'll now take virtual speakers. And there are no virtual speakers, either. So the council will now recess to the Plaza conference room for closed session and return to the council chambers at the close to continue the study session. Thank you.

[00:05:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, good evening again, everyone. We welcome you to our study session of September 12, 2023. We will begin with a roll call. The city clerk will take attendance.

[00:05:27] City Clerk: Councilman Broadway Coca?

[00:05:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here?

[00:05:30] City Clerk: Council member Kimme.

[00:05:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:05:31] City Clerk: Council member Matter check.

[00:05:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:05:33] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[00:05:34] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:05:34] City Clerk: Council member Ramos?

[00:05:35] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:05:36] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Shalter.

[00:05:37] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here?

[00:05:37] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks?

[00:05:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:05:38] City Clerk: You have a four?

[00:05:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: We are now on item 3.1, which is potential revenue ballot measure for 224. The purpose of this study session is to provide the city council with an overview of potential revenues to consider placing on the ballot in 2024, including major considerations associated with each revenue type. Staff seeks any council direction or policy guidance related to the revenue options presented, and council adoption of an ad hoc committee to assist staff during the year long ballot initiative process.

[00:06:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Assistant city manager, Arn Andrews, and deputy city manager, Kimberly Thompson. Thomas. We'll present the item.

[00:06:24] Kimberly Thompson: Well, thank you. Good evening, Marion city council members, the purpose of this study session is to provide the council, as it was just recapped, an overview of the potential revenue measures, to consider placing on the ballot in 2024. Staff will also be seeking feedback on the revenue options presented, in addition to the consideration of the ad hoc committee. The city is in a sound fiscal operating position with the operating budget and general operating fund forecast showing sufficient resources to maintain the mountain view of today with existing services and programs. But building the mountain view of tomorrow, with bold initiatives and facilities that the city is advancing will require us to continue to enhance and diversify the city's revenue streams. This is necessary to maintain the ongoing fiscal stability, accomplish and address a variety of our unmet capital needs. At the June 13th, 2023 council meeting, the city council approved, a work plan for fiscal years, 23, 24, and 24, 25, which included this item as a priority A work follow up. To this end tonight, a staff will cover an overview of the unfunded capital priorities, the regional and statewide ballot measures, city revenues and rates, regional revenue rates, and potential new revenue, as well as the revenue measure adoption, process, and timeline. Shown on screen here are a number of critical unfunded Mountain View priorities. The Mountain View of Tomorrow will require addressing aging facilities, citywide infrastructure, maintaining superior public safety facilities, building new parks and open spaces, implementing ambitious decarbonization, and climate change mitigation programs, as well as building additional affordable housing. Onscreen are some examples of the unfunded capital initiatives. The public safety infrastructure, emergency operations center, with the 911 emergency dispatch, the current estimate for the new public safety building is approximately $160 million. Climate change and mitigation. In the coming year, the city will develop a decarbonization strategy to achieve significant emissions, reductions by 20,305. And the city's need in this space is more than 50 million, parks in open space. The city currently has an open space goal to provide three acres of open space for every thousand residents. Based on current data. The city is expected to create an average of one to two parks per year through 20 30. Fire stations, fire station 3 and 5, are in need of substantive rehabilitation, with an estimated cost of 30 million. There are also major transportation related infrastructure projects, with unfunded needs, up to 45 million. That's all in addition to the affordable housing pipeline, which has currently, just under 1,700 units. This will double our housing supply in the coming years, and there is a current need here of approximately $50 million to fully fund this pipeline. Going to hand it over to Arn Andrews, our assistant city manager, for the next part of our presentation.

[00:10:06] Arn Andrews: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. So, as Kimberly just described, the council in our community does have a bold vision for the future, Mountain View, which was gonna require building to the additional base of revenues that we currently have. One of the first considerations that council will need to contemplate, is if you do move forward with a revenue measure. What type of measure will you move forward with? There's really two constructs. One is what's referred to as a general tax measure, and the other one is referred to as a special tax measure. With a general tax, you can stay on your screen. The use of the funds is unrestricted. And so, what Kimberly described before, these funds could be used for any one of those purposes. One of the advantages of a general tax is, also, it only requires a simple majority at the ballot box. So what we've referred to as a 50 plus one. If you were to consider a special tax, a special tax, you have to be very, uh, specific, and what you identify the use of those funds for, and it then does have a higher threshold of approval at the ballot box, a two thirds approval. As you can see, as a governing body, there's almost so different thresholds for yourselves, one is a two thirds for a general tax, and the other is a majority for a special tax, if you are inclined to move forward. On the next slide, we'll start to see what this means at the ballot box throughout the state. So statewide ballot measures in 2022, you can see general tax measures out of 128, 102 of them passed in 2022, about an 80% passage rate. You can see as you move to the special tax, as we discussed, it's a higher threshold to meet. And you can see, out of 53 measures, in 2022, only 23 of those passed, or really. 43%. And then if you look at data since 2001, it just confirms what we're seeing happened in 2022, which is, on average, since 2001, 76% of general tax measures have passed, and about 49 or less than 50% of special tax measures have passed. If we move on to the next slide, we started to look regionally, what does this mean in our area, and then we started to look at as it relates to the types of revenue types that you could consider putting on the ballot. And so for fiscal 20, 21, and 22 for those three ballot years. There were a total of 30 measures, 25 of them passing and five failing. And as we start to look at passage rates, per the actual revenue type, you can see at the top, is it transient occupancy tax, there were nine total measures, with only one fail. It's interesting to note that that one fail was actually East Palo Alto, and they put it on the ballot as a special tax, earmarked for affordable housing. You can see that all of them passed at about a 72% passage rate, as we start to move down the list, business license tax, five total, zero fails, 64%, sales tax, five total, zero fails, 61%, property transfer measures, five total, one fail at 60%, partial tax, three total, two fails at 60%, and then utility user tax, three total, one fail at 50 4%. One of the things this slide is telling us is that the closer you get to an individual voter, the lower the passage rate is. So if you start a TOT, we'll see in a few slides later, that is typically paid by folks who are just visitors to hotels. And as you start to move down the list, whether it's a property transfer, where now you're actually touching the individual directly in their property or partial tax, you start to see how these passage rates diminish. One of the interesting things, as we started doing our due diligence for this study session, was seeing how conservative Mountain View has been, literally, over the decades in bringing revenue measures forward. You can see that you've come forward four times for revenue measures in the last 50 years. Starting in 1973, the city adopted a property transfer tax at $1.65 for each 500 as a charter city. You were entitled to go above the minimum rate, which is basically $1.10 per $1,000. So we currently have 330 per 1,000. In 1991, this is the last time voters considered a TOT, and they actually moved forward with increasing it from 8% to 10%. In 2010, voters approved a modernization of our utility user tax, basically expanding the definition, but keeping the rate at 3%, but it added a lot of new technologies and telephony that weren't in the current descriptions. And then in 2018, as most of you are probably aware, voters did approve the business license tax, that was put on the ballot as a per head tax, and that same year, there was a cannabis business tax. We don't really go into much depth on that because there's been no revenue collected to date on that measure. So moving forward and starting to look at how we compare in the region, compared to some of our peers, if you look at the property transfer tax, as I mentioned earlier, as a charter city, we were allowed to increase it, and that did occur in the 1970s to the 330 per thousand rate. You can see that's similar to Palo Alto. That has also, as a charter city, done the same. And then in San Jose, they took a different approach, and they moved to a tiered system, and you can see, as the increase in value of a transfer goes up, they've adopted a higher tier rate with a top rate of $19.40 per $1,000 for any transfer over $10 million. When we start to look at how we compare on TOT, you can see here in Santa Clara County, Palo Alto has the highest rate at 15.5%. You see clustering around 14%, you see more clustering around 10%, and then, clearly, on TOT, not having addressed it in 30 years, you can see that we're near the bottom at about 10%, along with Saratoga, and then Gilroy at 9. When we look at ourselves compared to utility user tax, you can see Palo Alto, San Jose and Gilroy are near the high end at 5%. You can see ourselves at 3%, and then Sunnyvale at a lower end of 2%. Any of the cities in our county that aren't listed here, it's because they have never adopted a UT. When you look at us compared to a regional sales tax, you can see that the county rate is 9 and 8, and we are at the county rate of 9 and 8, there are only four communities in the county that have moved forward with increasing and getting a local district sales tax, San Jose, Milpitas, Campbell, and Los Gatos. I led the effort in Los Gatos. They opted to move for an eighth, so they're at 9 1/4, and you can see the other jurisdictions of Campbell Mopitis and San Jose at 9 and 3/8s. One of the things to understand when we talk about sales tax is in the state, there's a jurisdictional cap of 2%, which means, cumulatively, you can't go above that. Currently, other agencies have taken up one in three quarters of that. And so, if you were to contemplate a sales tax, you would only be talking about potential quarter increase to the 9 3 8s, like the other jurisdictions. So we start putting all of this together to try and give the council some ideas of what they might consider based on the taxes we discussed to date, the types, and what that could mean moving forward in increment. And so, as we discussed, if you look at TOT, we're currently at 10%, who are we gonna impact if we were to consider that? Hotel guests? And for each 1% increase, it yields approximately almost $1 million in additional revenue, so $950,000, and so for illustrative purposes, if you were to increase at 5% to the 15%, that would yield almost $5 million in additional revenue, or 4 3 quarters. Sales tax, we discussed a red 9 and an 8, we discussed that that could only be moved a quarter. It impacts any purchaser of goods and services, whether that's residents, visitors, or businesses, for each eighth increment, that would add about 2.2 million, an additional revenue, and so if counsel were to contemplate the full quarter, go into 9 and 3/8, it would be approximately 4.5 million, an additional. revenue. Property transfer, as we discussed, as a charter city, it is within your purview, if you wanted to move forward with trying to increase the rate from the current 330 per thousand. Typically, it's the home seller that pays that during a transaction, and for each dollar 10, if you were to think about it in terms of those increments, about another $1.3 million in additional revenue. And so that would move us to a rate of 440 per thousand, and that would increase it by about $1.3 million. We thought it would be an interesting educational exercise to look at San Jose's tiered system, take our own data for the prior year, put it into that tiered system, to see what that would yield. You can see that that exercise yielded about 2.9 million in additional revenue. But it's important to note that last year, Fazdi did notice a significant decline in that revenue source, almost half. And that's probably the impact of a 7% mortgage rate starting to lower transactions in our area. If we were to look at UUT, as we mentioned, we're currently at 3%. The folks that are impacted by this are the folks that receive telecom electricity and gas ratepayers. If you were to consider a 1% increase, it would yield about 2.7 million. So as we noticed, currently in our region, the highest is about 5%. So if you considered a 2% increase, that would yield about 5.4 million additional dollars. And so these are just some examples and scenarios, these are not staff recommendations in terms of the rate options. It was just trying to give council some understanding of what could be possible in terms of additional revenue. And Kimberly's going to start to walk us through what it will require of staff moving forward if you are interested in continuing to move forward with a revenue measure.

[00:20:20] Kimberly Thompson: Thank you so much. Generally, it's recommended to allow 12 to 18 months to have a dialogue with the community about the need for new revenues and to fully prepare for the ballot measure. Staff has developed a work plan which accommodates placing a measure on the ballot for November a 2024 election. Shown on screen are the basic phases of a revenue ballot measure process, beginning with a community survey. This is an early survey that can be used to determine our citizens' overall satisfaction and priorities of services and facilities. This would be a first step to see what is most important to residents, and begin to gauge support for a potential revenue measure. Public outreach and information would then be begun. And after that survey, depending upon the levels of support, additional public outreach would continue, in addition to potential additional council study sessions, ad hoc meetings, community forums, use of all of our communication channels to engage with the community. about a potential measure, and then a final decision would be made on whether we would do a measure. Additional polling, after that, may be needed as well. And then we would develop and place a measure on the ballot. This process of writing the ballot question is very detailed, and a full text of the measure would be conducted with final approval by the city council for placement on the ballot. A campaign that would be non city driven, would also follow on after the adoption. This phase does not include city resources. The city's role is limited to information only at this time. It will often involve community members and interested stakeholders. Shown on screen here is an overview of what the timeline is like. I won't go through each individual month, but what I can share is it essentially falls into three groupings of actions. One is the phase that we are in right now, through the end of this year, which includes our analysis of options, polling, engagement of a potential ad hoc committee. Then we shift into phase two, which is early into 2024, when the council would provide direction on whether to pursue a measure, potential additional ballot language would be drafted, as well as a potential additional polling as needed. Phase three, which is crucial, to meet some registrar of voters' deadlines would occur prior to the council break in the summer period of 2024. Shown on screen are the council questions we are seeking feedback on this evening. First is does the council approve exploring the feasibility of a 2024 revenue measure and creating an ad hoc committee? As noted, staff does recommend an ad hoc committee would be the most effective and efficient way to gain council input during the development of a survey, and the polling process, as well as other aspects of the revenue measure process. Question 2 is, does the council concur with polling on a general tax only? As discussed earlier, a general tax measure does have higher ballot success rates and provides greater latitude to address a multitude of city fiscal needs. Question three, what specific revenue increase is the council interested in pursuing based upon the information provided tonight? This concludes staff's report. We are happy to take additional questions. Thank you very much.

[00:24:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, uh, at this point, uh, this is the point for staff, uh, I'm sorry, for members of the public to joining us either virtually or in person to provide comment on this item. So if you'd like to do that, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city. clerk if you have not already. We will take in person speakers first. Um, do we have it? We do not have any. So, I do see members of the public. This is the time you should raise your hand. If you have any comments on this item. And I don't see any comments there either. So, uh, the council will now discuss and provide feedback on the three questions. Can you put those questions back up on our screen? I'm not gonna read them all. So on the 3 questions on the screen. Um, And I will first take counsel questions on this item. Are there council members with questions? I know there were a lot of questions asked in written form. Uh, Council member Mattachek.

[00:25:17] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Just one quick one. Um, Fire Station 5. That's our newest fire station. So, I assume what needs to be done, if I recall correctly, is that that needs to be expanded? Is that...

[00:25:32] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: We were referring to 3 and 4, which are the fire stations that are 51 and 61 years old.

[00:25:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I was thinking, that was sort of my follow on question, fire station four. Okay, thank you.

[00:25:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[00:25:50] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I have three questions. One, generally, how does the TOT vary per year? Because I know it's not static, and particularly, that was in the report, but, and then, kind of, coupled into that, we, you know, we're in the process of developing four new hotels. So we expect to get more revenue from, from those, and kind of what, what does that do to, um, the amount of revenue we would expect to get from a TOT.

[00:26:24] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: Thank you for the question, council member. So as you mentioned, in the staff report. We did provide a history of revenues. Unfortunately, that history also coincides with COVID, where we saw a lot of variability and volatility in our revenues. And so TOT, if you were to probably try and give an estimate of what the average was and trying to kind of mitigate against that impact of COVID. It rebounded recently to almost $9 million. And if you look at 2019, sorry, 2018, 2019, $10 million prior to COVID, so probably is somewhere in the vicinity of $8,000 to $9 million on average, when we were looking up the question that did address the amount of hotel rooms in the pipeline, in addition to the existing hotel rooms, and if you give me one second, I will find it.

[00:27:15] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you.

[00:27:19] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: But basically, we currently have approximately 1,800 hotel rooms currently. So if you look at that amount of hotel rooms relative to the revenue, and then FAVSD was kind enough to run a scenario, where for the new hotel rooms, which are almost an additional thousand of those four projects that are in the Q and A, at 250 per night, and a 50% occupancy rate, once again, just using a scenario 15%, it would generate approximately another 6.8 million in additional revenues.

[00:27:49] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Thank you. And then, um, my third question is, well, I think that's all. Thank you.

[00:28:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, other council members, other questions? This is the last call I have to say, there was a robust list of questions in written form. So members of the public, we're curious about what council members might have thought about this, can refer to that. Um, so that said, um, I will now take comments from council members regarding the answers to the 3 questions, we will also be talking about an ad hoc committee to, uh, handle this issue further, but I'm going to keep that for after we answer these 3 questions. And I'll just, while council members are getting ready to press their buttons and give their comments. I'll just preface the comments by saying that I'm really glad we're paying attention to this issue, although staff said we've been, the city has been conservative in terms of moving forward on this, another way of putting it, is that we, we really haven't, um, we haven't grappled with this issue very much over the past, say, 20, 30 decades, not 20 or 30 decades, while we've been growing tremendously. And there's a lot of talk from members of the public about needing to supply various kinds of infrastructure and services, to meet the needs of that growth, and that, I think, that's my preface, and why we're doing this, and it is extremely important to me. So, with that, I have a comment from the vice mayor, and I'll take your answers to the three questions, and then we'll review them and see at the end when we all agree.

[00:29:44] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: First, I'd just like to, I'd like to compliment the staff on this report, and particularly this presentation. I love the graphs, and how you have benchmarked with neighboring communities, how other people are doing it. I think that's always really important to know. So thank you for doing that. And thank you for the graphs. Especially the one that shows the, um, the, uh... I guess it's this one, the wide ballot measures and and how much money would be, um, yeah, the statewide ballot measures. I thought there was one about how much money would be produced? Anyway, the last one. Yeah, here it is. They're sticking together in my page. Yeah, this... Yeah, how much we would get. That's really helpful. And the scenarios, especially the scenarios that tell us enough about what's in it. So we could try, okay, Okay, well if you, you know, if you want to jiggle the amounts around, what would that mean? And, you know, we could do that arithmetic ourselves with the information you gave us. So I appreciated that. Okay, that's said. I really am interested in going forward with the committee. I think that's a great idea. And I'm interested in the tax that just takes the 50% plus one. That's very important. And then, um, of the ones that were suggested, uh, the one there's two that, um, that really appeal to me. One is the transit occupancy tax. And I'm not so sure I think going up to 15 is good, but certainly, we can edge up closer to that. I think sales taxes are regressive. And that is against our goal to be a community for everyone. So I'm not for that. And then the property transfer, again, I don't think that gets us that much money. But the one I think we want to do some more research on, really, is the UUT tax. And that's because I think that this could also be used as a way to incentivize electrification of buildings. And that is in support of our, you know, our sustainability goals. So I would like to see some research done on that. And is that all the questions?

[00:32:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: I think that's all the questions. Yes. Thank you. All the questions. Thank you. Uh, Council member Abbe Koga.

[00:32:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for all of the research done. Um, Charlie No Surprise, where I land. I've been saying this for at least two years now that we should have gone out for a sales revenue tax revenue measure this past 2022 cycle. It was up on our docket as a work plan item, and then it got derailed. So, you know, if anything, I just regret that we lost 2 years of potential revenue generation. And, um, but that's, and my concern, frankly, is that 2024, from what I'm hearing, is going to potentially be a crowded ballot measure with a potential regional housing bond measure. The county is talking about potential sales tax measure. So that's my concern is that, you know, what will pass, what will be the most likely to pass in that scenario. And I have to say that I've seen polling on some of these other measures. And it's not very positive, to be, to be frank. So there is some concern, but I think with a general tax revenue at 50% plus, that's more likely to be successful. So I would support that. I support, obviously, moving forward with the feasibility of a revenue measure, and then in terms of the type. Um, I support, I support it, and I continue to support the TOT tax. And we had actually looked at all this when we were doing the UUT tax increase in 20 or expansion in 2010. So I knew what the rates were. I knew that our cities hotel rates were the lowest in the area. And so we've been losing that market share, frankly, of revenues. So, I think it makes sense for us to increase it. Again, I agree. I don't know if we should want we want to go all the way up to Palo Alto's rate, but something in the 14 to 15% rate seems reasonable. And, um, and then the reason why I would not support UUT is as much as I appreciate the vice mayor's comments about electrification. I know there's a response, a question, response about parsing out. I think that, and, you know, my concern is electricity. I hear a lot of folks complaining that electricity rates are going up and I don't want to do anything to, frankly, make it too expensive. So, the UOT would cover electricity rates, I believe. And so I just, I don't really want to, um, do anything to increase, uh, potentially increase electricity rates at this time when I hear a lot of consternation about that. So, um, I think the TOT, frankly, is the most likely to succeed, and that's where I would land on the type, but. Will you explore, I guess you'll just explore whatever we decide, we ask you to explore, is that what are you asking us to pick one or does it matter?

[00:35:39] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: The point of this question this evening is to kind of get a straw poll of counsel, because we will be bringing the upholster consultant on board soon, and we want to give them a first pass of our council's impressions as we onboard them and start developing the survey. So it's helpful to know, even though this is about definitive tonight, this is our first real conversation, heading into the process, but I think it will be helpful for the pollster to have at least a first impression.

[00:36:06] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Okay, thank you for that clarification. So yeah, so I would look at the TOT, um, I think simplicity is going to be important and the likelihood of passage. And so I think the TOT is going to be that, that, so that's where that's what I will support. Thank you.

[00:36:27] Mayor Alison Hicks: So just 2 items of clarification. Just so that I fully understood the answer to council member epicopo's question, you're looking for, you've listed a plethora of possible taxes, and you're looking for us to pick one or several that will be explored, and the ones that we don't pick will not be explored. I just wanna make sure that I've fully understood.

[00:36:53] Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews: Once we engage the pollster, they might advise us to add more that maybe the council hasn't inquired about, but if there are ones that the council absolutely has no interest in, And I think that'll be good for them to know as they start developing the instrument. But tonight is really just starting to get a sense of where the council's gravitating, as opposed to having to pick definitively tonight, 'cause we could go out and poll a community, and it is true. It hasn't been pulled since 2018, and we're not the only jurisdiction out there who is going to be doing revenue measures or has done them since 2018. And so, it'll be interesting to get that information back from the polling, and then come back to council with the help of the ad hoc committee, because some of that information might change what's being discussed here tonight, in terms of potential preferences, or potential inclinations, or it could solidify potential preferences, and inclinations. So this is really our first pass, where we feel our council would like staff to focus, as we discuss with the consultant, but we're not necessarily picking anything definitively tonight.

[00:37:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. That's a good clarification for me. And then I heard the vice mayor, um, feeling misunderstood, just a minute.

[00:38:04] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I wanted to make a clarification. I agree with you wholeheartedly. We don't want to raise electricity rates. And I would only be interested in the UUT increase if we could raise the gas rate and maybe even lower the electricity rate. So that's what I would like to have investigated. You know, something that would provide incentive for electrification, not make electricity more expensive. So I just wanted to clarify that.

[00:38:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, now, council member Ramirez?

[00:38:35] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Maybe a quick question for staff first. In the, we were provided briefings in advance of the meeting, and you had shared a soft target for revenue generation, and that might be helpful for us to think about in, as we make this decision. Can you share with us what that soft target was, roughly?

[00:38:57] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I believe you're referring to, we kind of provided context, because everything we generated for this meeting tonight talks about potential additional revenue, but what would that revenue equate to in potential bonding for the various programs we put up there that have unmet capital needs? And so, once again, Fazdi was able to work with their consultant, and basically, if we were in the current market at the current rate, to consider bonding $160 million worth of bond proceeds to try and work on any one of those initiatives.ives. That would equate to roughly a little more than 9 million in annual debt service payments. And so a lot of the scenarios that you saw tonight are somewhere in the four to five million range. So you can think that the discussion we're having currently could potentially yield half of that in terms of, you know, us obligating those revenue streams to a potential body. offering. That being said, I would also enter into the conversation tonight that council has also taken prior action when it comes to the Amswell development. You committed the majority of the revenues generated off of that development, whether it's TOT, whether it's property tax, to be held aside in abeyance, in a reserve for what could potentially, one day, be a public, new public facilities, building, with the dispatch and with the EOC, that yields about $4 million a year, in additional revenue. And to date, that revenue has just been accumulating in a reserve, and it has approximately 20 million in it all. already. So you can start to see as we start working towards trying to put the pieces together and build the blocks to eventually get revenues we need. For any of those, this is another step along the way to doing that.

[00:40:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's helpful. So, it's we're not required to, but it feels like it's safe to think of $5 million as a baseline, because that gets us pretty close to where we need to be. Presuming we want to use this measure to achieve our infrastructure goals, right?

[00:40:57] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: That's a fair goal, I guess, for us. It would achieve, many of the scenario staff provided, would achieve between four and five million and additional revenue, which, if counts were direct staff and the future, to use that against bonding. It would get us to another about 80 million in bonding capacity.

[00:41:16] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. That's helpful. My answers are not going to be substantially different. So question one, yes. Um, and then question two, yes. Question three. I'm thinking about this in terms of both the viability of a measure and getting the most weak, we can realistically get with this opportunity. And TOT actually performs better than I was expecting. So would love to continue to explore that. I'm not interested in a sales tax. And I appreciate some of the policy goals that you're discussing, uh, vice mayor, with the concern I have is, especially for looking at lowering the rate for electricity, we're not really, that, that achieves a policy goal, but it doesn't achieve a revenue generation goal. And so I feel like focusing on those opportunities that maximize revenue really ought to be our priority. And we talked about this in the context of a vacancy tax, for instance, in the briefing, a vacancy tax achieves a policy goal, and it provides an incentive for property owners to fill vacant units, but it doesn't really generate a lot of revenue. And so in this case, you know, as interested as I am in that, I feel like it's not really achieving the goal that we're establishing tonight. I'm so not really interested in sales or UUT right now. I am interested in a property transfer tax if it is tiered, kind of like San Jose's. San Jose has a $2 million threshold, so anything under $2 million is exempt. Mountain View might need a little higher of a threshold, maybe 3 or four, but something tiered, I think could actually produce a healthy amount of revenue. So even though the number on slide 12 is underwhelming. The table provided on page three of the staff responses to the council questions is actually pretty favorable, right? The minimum there, if you apply a San Jose like tier structure, historically, the minimum would have been an additional 10000000 in revenue, and the most would have been a 27 million additionally in fiscal year 2018, 19. So that's pretty healthy. So I would be interested in exploring that, at least to see if there's support from the public to consider it, if it pulls poorly, then, you know, obviously we wouldn't want to pursue it. And then there was also some council, sorry, staff discussion about alternative revenue sources that I'd be interested in exploring a gross receipts tax, again, with a threshold. It's not, it wouldn't be, in my opinion, intended to apply to smaller businesses, restaurants, and retail, but some of the bigger businesses that do quite well. And same thing with the commercial office space parcel tax concept, like East Palo Alto has, presuming that with some additional analysis, it actually provides a meaningful amount of revenue. If it doesn't, then again, not worth exploring. Um, so, uh, That is my input for now. Thank you.

[00:44:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramos.

[00:44:36] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I have a very, um, optimistic point of view on what we can study. So in terms of question one, I agree with my colleagues, as the council approve, exploring the feasibility. And as we explore the feasibility as a council member, Abbe Koga I mentioned before, there's going to be a lot of things on the ballot. And I would prefer to view it as, um, complimentary to to the other things that will be coming down on the ballot. And we we know of some already, and then there'll probably be more coming down the line. And if that means that we have to adjust on what we, what we tax and what we spend for, I do want us to, um, like I said, be complimentary to the other things that would be coming down, not in opposition of other, uh, tax goals, I guess. Um, does the council concur with polling only on general tax revenues? Yes. And then what specific revenue increase are we interested? The TOT seems like the easiest one. Um, I think that's, that's everyone else seems to be coming down on that. I agree with the vice mayor. on the UUT. I actually don't think it'll pass, but it would be interesting to see if that is the hardest one to pass, it'd be interesting to see how passable it is. I don't know if that makes any sense. Like, at like, the worst case scenario, I would love to see, um, how that would actually work. I do like the property transfer tax. Um, with the tiered system. Um, I think that that might actually work out pretty well. I did not think about a commercial office space tax. I like that idea. I'm not against a grocery receipt tax, but that would be something that we would have to study more and I don't know if I'm putting way too much stuff on your plate to do. But yeah, those are overall my answers to those questions. Thank you

[00:46:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Matic.

[00:46:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I am concerned about the amount of funding the city needs. Um, not just what we're talking about here tonight, but I feel like there's even more. Um, I think we've underestimated the cost of the fire stations, because, frankly, I think those are rebuilds as opposed to modernization and repairs, um, especially Fire Station 3. Um, and I am concerned that we really don't have a good grip on the amount of revenue we need to reach our park and open space goals. We don't have a number listed there, but I guess the point of all of that is, I think we need to be very candid with our community, to say, well, this is what we're doing now. We certainly have a lot more need. I don't want to just talk about part. it. I want to paint the big picture for everyone. Let's see. So, with that said, yes, I agree that we should do this. And, um, yes, I agree for question number two. When it comes to question three, while I feel like, you know, we're probably gonna end up with TOT, but I view this as an opportunity to also learn and get information that can be useful, not just for this round, but for the next round, because we could obviously see how things change over time. And so, um, I am interested in maybe more than others have mentioned, um, I'm interested in TOT, and, uh, UUT, if it, and, and I am kind of interested in can it be parsed out by type of utility. And I am interested. I'm surprised that sales tax, um, passes, so, at such a high rate in comparison to some of the others. And so, I don't mind exploring that. It's not to say I'm supportive of doing that, but I think it'd be interesting to have that information. Um, I am not interested in any sort of change to our business license tax. since we just did that. I think it's too soon. And I'm not interested in changing the, um, parcel, I'm sorry, the property transfer tax. I just don't feel like this is the time, um, and this is such, uh, a high cost area. I'm not sure I want to add to that cost. And let's see. I hadn't thought about commercial office parcel. I guess I don't mind getting information on that. Um, so I don't wouldn't totally eliminate it. And I think I've covered them all. Thanks.

[00:49:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Council member, committ.

[00:49:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, Mayor. So I'll answer the questions 1st and then I do have a couple comments. So for question one, yes, question two, yes. And then for question three, I really, um, kind of echo, council member Matachek sentiments, which is, I just want to be really open, about what the city explores, and that kind of goes into my comments, which is a little bit of what Council member Matachek was talking about, because just in the staff report alone, we're talking about the city's unmet needs of over $200 million. And so that, for me, causes me great pausing concern on how we meet. those needs, and that's not even including our parks in open space. And so I did share with staff during my council briefing. I'm hoping, and the vice mayor was very, um, supportive of this, a graph of just what our needs are and calculating the total, because prior to going out for polling, I do feel the city really, truly needs to communicate the depth of the need that our community has for the high quality services that we do provide, um, and all of that costs a lot of money. And I think that the narrative of how we share this with our community is important. And something that was also just mentioned was that we'll likely have to do multiple rounds and have creative solutions on how we are adding all of our funding together. So while I think it's been wonderful that council has already kind of pre-allocated funding for the public facilities building, that's just one of 6 to 7 unmet needs that were listed tonight. So I think some sort of graph of that sort would be great to come back to council for, um, quarter, so sorry, October 2023 when the ad hoc committee meets. I think it would be great. Um, to know, is that, and I'm sorry, I didn't think of asking this question before. Will the recommendations? come back to counsel as a consent item or a regular item on whom we choose to use for the, um, who we select for the RFP. I forget.

[00:52:06] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: For the RFP, if it's under 100,000, it'll be done administratively under city manager authority.

[00:52:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Right. And if it's over, it will come back to the case. So it's coming back as a council agenda item in October. Is that what I'm hearing?

[00:52:17] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: If needed, depending upon what the price is for, what the quote is that comes in on the RV.

[00:52:24] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So I think that's good too, for council to know that this item may be coming back and when it does, I'd love to know if any of those who are applying, um, have history in Mountain View, have done any of the 4 prior, um, taxes, I think it would be informative for council. And then, as the ad hoc committee meets, because I'm hoping not to be a part of it, I do think it would be great if we could share the agendas with the full council, just so that we can be informed. And I think this is such a high visibility issue that we'd all like to stay informed. And so I think as things are moving through, just like we get different city commission agenda sent to us, if we could get the ad hoc committee agenda sent to us, I think that would be really great. Thank you. Those are my comments, Mayor.

[00:53:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much. So my comments on the 3 questions are, yes, I approve of exploring the feasibility and having an ad hoc committee. I concur with polling only on general tax revenues. And as for the 3rd question, I'm agreeing with what several council members have said, that we have great need. I personally think we probably should have, we should have visited this more frequently over the past several decades. So I think I do want to, as other council members have said, be open to a lot of, to several different revenue generating mechanisms, and learn from this process. And I think we're all interested in learning. I am personally interested in the hotel tax, the TOT like everyone else. I'm also interested in the tiered property transfer tax. And I just want to clarify on that. My understanding is it's not just residential. It's all property.

[00:54:23] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct. It is all property, but if you actually look at the receipts, it's primarily residential for the most part, with occasional blips, depending on what some of our commercial companies are doing in the area, but it's primarily residential.

[00:54:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'm interested in looking at various ways of structuring that. I am interested in possible tweaks to our business license tax, for example, a gross receipts tax, I'm interested in commercial office space tax. I'm not interested in the sales tax. And I am interested in the UUT, but only if it could be separated out to incentivize, cutting back on gas use. And I don't know whether that, we've talked about the vacancy tax. I think being, correct me if I'm wrong, housed under economic vitality, perhaps any exploration, I'm open to whatever staff suggests on the UUT, weather, splitting it out, you know, splitting gas from electricity, et cetera. Um, whether that's better handled through sustainability or through this particular um, you know, this particular ad hoc committee. So maybe you have the answer now or maybe you can tell us in the future.

[00:55:48] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: The questions that were brought up related to UUT, in the context of trying to use it as a policy tool, spurred both our sustainability director and our public works director to come and speak with me, so that probably would be an appropriate conversation for them, and probably housed within those departments, but with everything, we'll confer with our city manager and see what our direction is.

[00:56:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. So, so you said the purpose of this was to take the temperature of council. Um, we've done that. I'm wondering whether, as you said, we're not picking one or two, we're exploring a number. Do you want me to take a poll, or is what we've said enough information for the first round, and for the ad hoc committee, which I will talk about in a moment, to take over.

[00:56:40] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mayor. I think the feedback we got so far is exactly what we were looking for, because, as staff mentioned, we're not trying to settle this definitively tonight, we're trying to first hear our council, take that information to the pollster we bring on board, then see what our community has to say. and then take what our community has said, see if we can wet it with what our council thinks, and ultimately get ballot language, that is fair and transparent and open to success. At the end of the day, if we move forward with a ballot measure, Steph wants our council to be successful, we want our community to be successful. We do have needs, and we do need the revenue. And so it's important that we all move forward in a transparent manner. Make sure that we build credibility with our community, because if you were to ask staff, we concur, we will probably need to be at this again.

[00:57:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, good, because I don't really want to take a straw fall in six different items. The other things that I heard coming out of this are wanting a graph of what our needs are, and also sharing the ad hoc committee, which I'll talk about in a moment, agenda with council as it progresses. And, uh, city manager, you have a comment?

[00:57:52] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, mayor. So I just wanted to say that generally when polling firms work with agencies, we wouldn't typically likely pull on every single possible tax. So what the ad hoc committee will do is narrow it down. So, you wouldn't want to appear to be bombarding voters with all of the potential tax measures because that could skew the results. So what the ad hoc committee will do, I believe, is take this feedback will work with the polling firm and then see what would make sense for polling. So we would not be polling on 4 or 5 different things. We really would need to narrow it down, but it doesn't have to just be one thing. So I just wanted to clarify that.

[00:58:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, good. And I imagine you can correct me if I'm wrong, that we will be visiting this several times at the council level, and of course, we can put it on our to-do list for the future as well. Okay, so the remaining question is the ad hoc committee. People have supported having an ad hoc committee. I have heard that the, some members of the finance committee are interested, but could I have, um, could I have, uh, any volunteers? Are there any volunteers for this particular committee? I see two volunteers. So, I don't want to draft you. Are you sure?

[00:59:23] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's okay. No, no problem. Okay. A quick question. So for staffs, I mean, if it is the finance committee, um, do we need to create a special ad hoc subcommittee, or can we just use the, um, the infrastructure of the CFC, I think we have a CFC meeting coming up, so why not just, can we just use that?

[00:59:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: And if I can defer to the city manager, the question was, can we use the existing finance committee as our ad hoc committee, it seems reasonable to me, but I'd like our city manager.

[00:59:54] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, thank you, mayor and council member, Ramirez. So it does need to be a separate committee. It also has a separate charge, then a standing committee, an ad hoc committee does not have to go by the Braunak rules. Typically when discussing revenue measures for an ad hoc revenue measure committee. They would not be public meetings. So it does need to be different. And that's just because of the strategic and confidential information that is gleaned. So, that's how it would work. It would be a separate finite short period of time ad hoc committee. With the and the agendas, we will have to discuss that as staff, how we would be able to share that information, which certainly we would, but just the process for doing so, we'll talk about.

[01:00:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'm hearing an ad hoc committee with members, council member Ramirez, council member Mattachek and council member Ramos, and all those who agree, raise their hands. Okay, it's unanimous and it's settled. Does staff have anything else that they want to summarize from this meeting?

[01:01:10] Unknown Speaker: Beyond what I've summarized so far? We don't. We would just like to thank the council for your participation tonight in the study session, and as the city manager mentioned, most every council member agreed that we should only pursue 50 plus one. However, there was curiosity expressed about some two thirds measures. So, we'll speak with the pollster, because, as the city manager mentioned, we don't want to do anything that'll obtain or bias the survey, but we'll see what we can do. And then the ad hoc committee, there might be a way where we could schedule it at the same time as the other committee, since the council members are already here. Maybe we can at least try to make it convenient for you.

[01:01:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, if there are no further comments, the study session is closed, and we will be back at 6:30 for our regular session. We'll see you then.

[01:02:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council of September 12, 2023. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[01:03:02] Unknown Speaker: Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, and individual, with liberty, and justice for all.

[01:03:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: We are now on item number two, which is roll call. The city clerk will take attendance.

[01:03:24] City Clerk: Council member Abbe Koca?

[01:03:26] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here?

[01:03:26] City Clerk: Council of America May,

[01:03:27] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: here,

[01:03:28] City Clerk: Council of America May.

[01:03:29] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[01:03:29] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[01:03:30] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:03:31] City Clerk: Council member Romos.

[01:03:32] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here.

[01:03:32] City Clerk: Nice Mayor Sh Walter.

[01:03:33] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here,

[01:03:34] City Clerk: Mary Hicks.

[01:03:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:03:35] City Clerk: Here.

[01:03:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: And we're now on item number three, which is presentations. Please note, these are presentations only. The city council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after both presentation items. If you would like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Also, Spanish translation services are available in person for item 3.2. We will now hear from our interpreter.

[01:04:16] Unknown Speaker: Buenas noches, esta, pabemamos, fateener, interpretación en español, para articulo tres, punto dos, disco, por favor, by analicono, con el guravo, y seleciamen, interpretation, y selection, elidio, español.

[01:04:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. We are now, we are now happy to be joined by Greg Announced, president of the Stevens Creek Trail, to accept a proclamation for the Friends of Stevens Creek Trail's 30th anniversary. Um, Mr. Annunst, will you please join me at the lectern?

[01:05:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Let's make sure, is this on? Yes. And also make sure I'm giving you the right one. because we have two this evening. So welcome. Thank you. This is a proclamation for your 30th anniversary. Whereas the Stevens Creek Trail and Wildlife Corridor is an important segment of the Bay Area Regional Trail System and traverses Mountain View, and, whereas Mountain View's portion of the multi used trail provides important regional recreational and transportation benefits to South Bay residents and employees, connects business centers with transit centers, provides students safe routes to their schools, and reconnects neighborhoods. And, whereas the friends of Stevens Creek Trail was incorporated as a 501C3 public benefit nonprofit, in March of 1993. And, whereas the Friends, I'll just call you friends from now on, have played an important role in promoting community pride and involvement in the completion, enhancement, and enjoyment of the Stevens Creek Trail and Wildlife Corridor, as well as the Permanente Creek Trail, and whereas events, such as the Stevens Creek Trail Cleanup Days, and the Trailblazer Race are worthwhile activities. And, whereas the friends have provided project leadership in protecting and restoring steelhead populations in Stevens Creek, and, whereas the friends' policy, is to support the efforts of public agencies, in planning, funding, constructing, and maintaining the Stevens Creek Trail, advocating passionately for issues and concerns related to trail safety, environmental pres... Preservation, public access, and more. Now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the 30th anniversary year of the establishment of the Friends of the Stevens Creek Trail. Congratulations. Thank you. Would you like to say a few words? And I'll stand by.

[01:07:37] Greg Unangst: Yes, I just wanna thank the city council for their support of the Stevens Creek Trail. Not only the city council now, but also the city council over the past 30 years, has been a leader in developing the trail, whereas the other cities, other cities involved, I've been a little bit slow on the uptake, and now they're starting just now, they're starting to get started on getting going in Sunnyvale and Cupertino. So, thank you, uh, city council for Mountain View. You guys have been a leader in having the foresight to develop the trail, talking to you, but I'm talking to the 30 years of city council members before you. They helped develop the trail of Mountain View. It's now a regional asset. It's cherished by the population, and it's growing. So, thank you.

[01:08:32] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Greg, guy. Walk it and ride it all the time, and can't wait until it goes all around the bay. Next, we have, let me turn the page. Next we have a National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation. And for this one, we're happy to be joined by Carmen Kingkana, Spanish Language Civic Leadership Academy Ambassador, and graduate, and community action team member to accept this proclamation. Will you please join me at the lectern?

[01:09:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Hi, congratulations. So, the proclamation reads, whereas, in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson first introduced Hispanic Heritage Week to recognize and celebrate the independence of our neighbors in Central America and Mexico, and 20 years later, the recognition period was expanded from one week to a month, beginning September 15th through October 15th, and whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities in Mountain View, who call our city home, and help Mountain View thrive, represent a diverse group, with routes throughout Latin America and beyond, and many Latino residents also trace their heritage to the original indigenous communities of Latin America and Africa, and, whereas in recognizing and celebrating the achievements of our Hispanic and Latino community, we honor them, and recognize all they've helped build in our state and city. There are civil rights leaders, community organizers, first responders, healthcare professionals, teachers, artists, athletes, entertainers, colleagues, and friends. And, whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities making calculable contributions to our neighborhoods and community, in every sector of the economy, we are a greater and more vibrant city because of that. Now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim September 15, through October 15, as National Hispanic Heritage Month, in the city of Mountain View. Kerman. Here's the proclamation. And would you like to say a few words?

[01:11:10] Carmen Quintana: Yes, please.

[01:11:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Go right ahead.

[01:11:11] Carmen Quintana: Thank you. Um, good evening. My name is Carmen Quintana. I am Peruvian. It's an honor for me. to accept the 2023 National, Hispanic, Heritage Month, Proclamation, September 12th, in person, in Mountain View, City Hall. I'm very grateful to live in this city, 21 years, and contribute to the Hispanic community leadership. Thank you, Mayor Alison Hicks, and city consuls, and city members, for this, forgiving me, this proclamation on behalf of the Latino people. Thank you, Nancy Ducos. For a great opportunity to be here today and realize one of my dreams. Thank you, my mama, for we here. My, one of my group community action team, Maura, Gardusa, and other people, it's in Zoom, too. Thank you. Again, thank you.

[01:12:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: We will now take public comment for both presentation items. Would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide comment on these the items listed on the agenda. If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. And I see none. I do, however, see one virtual speaker, and the speaker will be given three minutes to speak. So, Valeria Anderson.

[01:13:23] Valeria Anderson: Hi, good evening. Thank you so much. My name is Valeria Anderson, my aunt Carmen Quintana. I just want to say thank you to the mayor's. Thank you to the council for the recognition and giving him this award. She works tirelessly and effortlessly to help the community out, who, as she said, we are from Peru. We like helping our communities out. Um, and like I said once more, thank you so much for giving her this privilege. We are very happy. Um, that her hard work has been recognized. So thank you and kiss from Carter and Tyler.

[01:13:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you as well. So, seeing no more speakers in person or virtually, do any city council members wish to make comments? Okay. Seeing no comments? We will now move on. to our uh, let's see.

[01:14:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: We will now move on to our consent calendar. Um, consent calendar. I want you to note that consent calendar item 4.5 regarding acceptance of 2020 and 2021 community greenhouse guests, admission inventories is being pulled from the agenda. The city council took action on this item at the June 27, 2023 council meeting, and it was placed on this agenda by mistake. So the remaining consent calendar 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 these items, or the next item, which is general oral communications, that would be communications on non agendized items, in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Council member committee, do you have an announcement to make?

[01:15:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I am recusing myself from participation in item 4.12 on the consent calendar regarding acceptance of construction for Well Abandonments and Pyramid Park due to the proximity of my residence to Pyramid Park. Thank you.

[01:15:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Would any member of the council like to pull any other item? Vice mayor, I see your name, is that to pull an item?

[01:15:47] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: No.

[01:15:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Uh, Council member Matachek. your name to pull an item?

[01:15:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I'm not sure if this needs to be pulled or not. Um, item 4.14. In there, it talks about the number of net new parking spaces downtown, and I think we need to take a second look at the number there. So I'm not sure if we can just direct staff to do that as part of the motion, before it's finalized. Can we do that?

[01:16:17] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Mayor Council member Matachek, I'm going to find out from the public works director if that would be okay, or if we need to take some other. action.

[01:16:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Okay, so when will we be finding that out, right?

[01:16:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Right immediately. Okay. Great. Good evening, mayor and council members.

[01:16:41] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Don Cameron, Public Works Director. I could use a little clarification on your question, please.

[01:16:47] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Sure, um, and I don't have the report in front of me, so, um, what I remember it said was that for, um, the parking structure, where, currently, there is Lot 5, the net new, parking spaces would be 375, And I sent in a bunch of questions about how many current spaces there are at the Hope Street lots, how many would be replaced, how many there are at lot 12, and how many of them would be replaced. And then in other areas of downtown, how many parking spaces are being removed. And, um, I come up with a number quite a bit lower than 375 net new spaces.

[01:17:31] Unknown Speaker: Okay. I think, so a couple pieces, we can definitely do a deeper dive for you and provide an off agenda response, giving this more detail, if this doesn't delay you approving this agenda item, which is, I believe, to accept the parking and loop fee, report, but otherwise, I could try to dig into it right now with you. What's your preference?

[01:18:03] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I don't think we should dig into it now. I guess, is there any implication of accepting the report and then adjusting the number later? if we find or clarifying what the number is.

[01:18:15] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So this is something I'm gonna have to lean a little bit with the, um, finance administrative services director, Mr. Raponi, because it's their report, and helping to understand what the implications are.

[01:18:31] Finance and Administrative Services Director Derek Rampone: Yes, yes. Yes, thanks. All right, good evening, Derek Rampone, Finance and Administrative Services Director.

[01:18:38] Derek Rampone: We'll need to dig into the report and look at it, and it may cause us to postpone, because we've got it for coming up on an agenda. So I don't want you to accept this now and then have us change it. So let's pull it, and we'll investigate it.

[01:18:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. Clarify that. So I guess I'm pulling that one for later consideration.

[01:18:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Duly noted. At a different meeting, that is, not tonight.

[01:19:03] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Right. formally postpone I think it probably would be best just to make a motion to formally postpone that item, and for the record.

[01:19:19] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, should I do that now, or do you want to wait till at the end?

[01:19:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so I'll move that we, um, postpone item 4.14 until, um, a future meeting.

[01:19:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay. So we have... a motion and a second, but they're not showing up on the...

[01:19:41] Unknown Speaker: We can just do all in papers.

[01:19:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay. Okay. All those in favor, please raise your hands. Passes unanimously. And Vice Mayor, do you have a comment?

[01:19:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I wanted to make some comments, not pull things, but make some comments about what's on the consent calendar. So this would be a good time, right? Sure. Yeah. Um, you know, right before we have our summer break, and right after our summer break, we always have just a tremendous number of items on the consent calendar. Tonight, we have 17, I believe. And that doesn't mean that these items aren't important. It just means that the staff doesn't think that they're controversial. But I want to bring a few of them to your attention, because I think that it's important to understand the work that we're doing. This particularly related to our climate change protection efforts. This summer, you know, we've all heard just incredible news about horrific stories about climate change. And, um, uh, but there hasn't been much coverage about all the work that's being done to mitigate and adapt for climate change. And Mountain View is actually working very hard on this. So I wanted to bring a couple things to everyone's attention. One, 4.5, which we passed at June 27th, the final 2020 greenhouse grass inventory, that showed that we are on task to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals. And our greenhouse gas reduction goal is basically to reduce, by 2050, our greenhouse gases 80% from what they were in 2005. So that's really a big deal, and it's important to keep track of how we're going. So we do an inventory every year, and that's what this is. Also, I wanted to mention items 4.8 and 4.9. There are projects that are part of our sea level rise capital improvement program. And that whole program includes 14 projects. One of these is the analysis and design for replacing the Charleston Pump Station, and the other is levee improvements on Stevens Creek. These also both tie into the marsh restoration that's currently being done at the old salt pun A2W. If you go all the way down to the end of the Stevens Creek Trail and turn left on the Bay Trail, you will come to sort of a construction site, and you will see that there's being a lot of material put into the bay to build a horizontal levee there. And then item 4.15 is also about adapting to climate change. It's about turning our senior center into a resilience center, so that it can be served as a refuge for hot days or as a shelter during emergencies. And of course, when you have all these programs, you have to have people to carry them out. So 4.11 is about getting two fellows from the strategic energy innovations to work his staff, for our sustainability efforts and to train them for careers and sustainability work. So I just wanted to bring those efforts to your attention. And also to just put in a plug for our advisory councils. We 4.7 is the advisory council work plans, and it is really a list of all of the things that our advisory councils are going to be working on that we know about so far this year. There are always other things that come up. And these commissions are made up of volunteers who donate their time and their expertise, and their work and their recommendations are very, very important for the city and the decisions we make. So I just wanted to mention that as well. So thank you, and that's it.

[01:23:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I see no other council members wishing to pull items. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comments on these items? If so, please click the raised hand button and zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. I see none in person and none virtually. Um, in that case, do I have emotion?

[01:24:11] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes.

[01:24:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: I have a motion by council member Abbe Koga and a 2nd by council member Kame, so we can all vote now.

[01:24:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, you have to read, yes. Before we vote. Please bear with me as I read the items. as part of the motion. So I will make a motion to prove the consent calendar, including reading the title of the resolutions to the following item 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city of Mountain View, fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuance under the public employees Medical and Hospital Care Act with respect to a recognized employee organization, group 001 safety fire, to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and adopt a resolution of the city of View fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuants under the public employees Medical and Hospital Care Act with respect to a recognized employee organization, group 002 safety police, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.3, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city amount view appropriating $390,949 to the city manager's office from the general non-operating fund for an Americans with disabilities act self-evaluation and transition plan, and authorizing the city manager, designated, executed professional services agreement with Bureau Beritas, Technical Assessments, LLC, to develop an Americans with disabilities act self-evaluation, and transition plan in an amount not to exceed $390,949 to be read in title only for the reading waived. Item 4.4, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View approving the final map of track number 10584, 570 South Franksdorf Avenue, accepting dedications, making findings as required by chapter 28 of the Mountain View City Code, and making appropriate California Environmental Quality Act sequa findings to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.10, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, appropriating $771.975. Oh, sorry, $771,975 in the general non-operating fund for workforce development and job training programs and small business assistance programs to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.13, adopt a resolution of the city council of City Mountain View, authorizing the city manager or designated, enter into an agreement with the city of Palo Alto to provide water and sanitary sewer services outside of the corporate limits of the city of Mountain View, to be read entitled only further reading waived. And, item 4.15, adopt a resolution of the city of Mountain View, authorizing the city manager, the city manager's Designee, to apply for and accept grant funds from the California Strategic Growth Council for the Community Resilience Center Implementation Grant in an amount up to $10 million and negotiate and execute any related documents necessary to accept these grant funds to be read entitled only for the reading waived.

[01:27:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay, now we can vote. The motion passes unanimously. So we move on to item number five, which is oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council in any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on nonagenda items. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, 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? Uh, if so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or again, the blue speaker card. You will take in person speakers first. And each speaker will have uh, 3 minutes, uh,

[01:28:23] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. So we have James Ziorski, who I understand has additional minutes. Appreciate your time.

[01:28:46] James Ziorski: I'm here to talk about, I was at the meeting of the new practice partners on August 21st and August 22nd. And the meeting itself, next slide, please. Left me, uh, wait, do I hit the button? How do I advance the slides? Or just say next slide? Okay. Left me with some concerns that I wanted to bring the attention of the council. The meeting was a very high tech production, and, obviously, new practice partners is a good organization, and they chose well. Yes, they're based in Indiana, where land might not cost $10 million an acre. And, yes, they've done work in places like San Diego, where the school district allows the city to build dog runs on the land, so there's a much more symbiotic relationship between the district and the council than we have. But at the same time, they seem to know what they were doing. My concern was that when there would seem to be funneling their information toward a specific result, and they also were funneling it away from some of the areas, I've lived in that for almost 40 years, and I've seen two of these processes, and I've seen two of them go awry. And one of the reasons I thought they went awry was they did not include the Hispanic community and the people that were not at those meetings, so you have... If you add all those numbers up, you have 50 people deciding what's going to happen in Mountain View for the next 10, 15 years. The other thing is, they seem to funnel the votes toward things that they're comfortable with. So the choices offered worldwide, more playgrounds, more shades, stump, obstacle courses, splash pads, upgraded restrooms, sports courts, and more indoor facilities. We live in a city that doesn't have enough parks. There was nothing offered about more parkland. There was nothing offered about more trees. There was nothing offered as an option about more undifferentiate play space, or more native planning, or more biodiversity. Which are the concerns of a lot of members of this community? Unfortunately, when you don't put these down, people don't vote for them. I don't know how many people on council would have the confidence to run as a writing candidate. But when you're looking for more parkland and more trees as a right in candidate, you can kind of predict what the result's gonna be. Next slide, please. So that, if we look at Mountain View right now, I don't think it's a secret to anyone in this meeting, because we've been talking about this for three years, that we have less park space per person, than our neighbors. Next slide, please. So if we take our different planning areas, And we break them up. There's only one planning area that if we take out the school space, next slide, please, that has sufficient park space based on the 2014 plan, and that's the Miramonte area, even Graham, which seems to have a lot of land, is basically leaning on the park space from the Cooper land that's owned by the district and the Mountain View high school land that's really unusable by the community. So almost every community in this area does not have three acres per thousand people. Next slide, please. And if you look at it, some of these areas are chronically short of park space. You look at Rangsdorf. You look at Sterling, you look at Thompson, they have less than 25% of what we want what we want to offer our community. Unfortunately, these are the areas where most of our growth is taking place. And so we're putting more people into areas that have no parks, and we're not offering in our strategic plan the option or the goal for the very difficult task of allocating how we're going to have enough room for our kids to play. How are we going to be able to have neighborhood parks that people can walk to? How are we going to be able to have multi use environments where people can have biodiversity, trees, and things like that? Next slide, please. So, the city actually has less park space per resident than in 2014, which is sad. I don't want to have... It would pain me to see another strategic plan that results in less park space 10 years from now. We really want to have a strategic plan that addresses the needs of the community, both the community at these meetings and not at these meetings. I think the meeting's got off to a bad start. Next slide, please. So, for instance, I don't think there are very many people mourning the passing of the JUA. This is a sign outside of Crittenden saying, Welcome visitors, but you're only welcome after 4:30, and it gets dark out in the wintertime at 4:30, so you're not welcome at all. The JUA provided very little. I think the council's making a good decision and not wasting any more time on the JUA, 'cause it's taking them away from what they should be doing, is look for looking at a better, more permanent solutions. Next slide, please. If you look at our park census that was published by the Parks and Rex society, I think almost, I can almost say a fraud is being perpetrated on the city. If you look at all the things they list as park spaces, 88 acres out of a little more than 200 is JOA space, which we couldn't use anyway, and we can't use it all now. So if you look at that, and that's too small to read and too hard to read, but you all have a copy of it, if we take that out of the mix, we're down below one acre per person, and it's something that we have to address as a city. Next. This is a really sad story for me. I almost got kicked out of a meeting two weeks ago for getting into an argument with the Honorable Steve Nelson. Steve, um, Steve brought up the fact that one of my neighbors, who claimed that they were felt really bad because they bought their house 'cause it was close to Mauna Loma Park, shouldn't have believed the city in the first place, and they should have looked at the county's maps before buying the house, because it was something that was mislabeled as city land, and it was really district land. I really don't go for that. Even though I felt bad, 'cause Steve was right, I really, I really feel like the citizens should believe the city, and that they should be able to count on the city to meet their needs. And in this case, it pained me that I was wrong, and it pained me that I was wrong. So, for a lot of people, even though this district has made a good, honest effort to try to meet some of the needs, and this is only in the last two months, of the citizens, there's a great deal of distrust of the district. The sports teams do not trust that things aren't going to change with the district, that the three fields that they're using over, uh, from the district at Mauna Loma, at Bub, and I think the other one is at, um, Stevenson, might disappear someday. And then what? They worry about that things might change with the district, and then, all of a sudden, any land that we have is being... I've heard people worry about that the trees aren't going to be as well taken care of as they are from the city. These are all real concerns, and these are our concerns that we, as citizens, here all the time, and we want to address, and we're asking the city, look, we want our services from the city, and we feel bad that we're dependent upon the district to find our park space wherever we can get it. Next slide, please. So what the community is looking for from the council is clarity. We're looking for clear articulation that there's a problem, that there's an identified source of funding. We're not going to solve the problem that for every development, because we've had to cut Park Lin Loofes, that it makes the situation worse. That's not to say we shouldn't have cut parking loofees, but we have to find another source of funding to make up for that, no matter what that is. This is a hard problem. But it can be solved. We have a lot of land, we have places, Google has land. It can be a town, but it's gonna be done slowly, and we need a plan of attack, and we need to dedicate sufficient resources for planning and implementation. Next slide. So, the communities looking for vision. I don't think a potpourri of popas, existing park upgrades, and pocket parks, spread over several new developments, is gonna make a dent in this problem. In fact, it's gonna make things worse based upon where the new developments are. I think on focusing on improving and remediating, existing parks will only exacerbate the problem. At the meeting I was at, someone raised their hand and said, How come there wasn't any new park buying new parks as an option? And the moderator told them, Well, why don't you just vote for pickleball, so maybe the city will build pickleball parks in your neighborhood without any parks. Maybe that will spur them to put a pippleball court in your area that doesn't have any parks. That went over real big. So I suspect there'll be no magic bullets. Fixing this problem will require time, effort, and resources. I know most of you, and I know you can do it, and I thank you very much for your time. Take care.

[01:37:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And just as a note to the public, we, um, do not, uh, we do not comment on the public comments at this point. The next in person comment is Steve from Steve Minden, Mr. Minden.

[01:38:12] Steve Minden: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, and members of the city council. Thank you for letting me speak. The reason I'm speaking tonight is regarding the new playground that's being starting construction in Ringsdorf Park. As some of you know, I know Mayor Hicks, you're aware of this, that, as part of that playground, a number of trees are slated for removal, including four healthy specimen trees that are very large and beautiful trees, as well as a number of other trees that are not, per se, specimen, but large trees that provide a lot of shade and aesthetic benefit to the park. My understanding from talking to public works and others, that the reason for the removal is that San Francisco PUC has an easement, which runs through the park, the new park, or right next to it, where these trees are located, and in the course of getting review and comment for environmental clearance, PUC notice that the trees were there. I think they weren't even aware of the trees until then. And as a condition of their consent or approval for environmental clearance, insisted that the trees be removed. From what I understand, there is a fairly wide right of way, that is for a large water transmission line, but the line, in no way, takes up the full right of way, and the trees are not immediately encroaching on the pipeline. And what I am here to request the council to support is, number one, asking or directing the director of public works to have the contractor hold off for the time being removing those trees. And, you know, the contractor is already in the process of mobilizing. And I think one of the first things they'll do is remove the tree. And second, I would urge the council to pass a resolution and send it to the SFPUC commission, requesting that instead of insisting that the trees be removed now, as part of the par construction, that they simply allow the trees to remain, until such time as a project or major repair comes up that actually requires the to be removed. In other words, not ask for the easement to be modified or anything like that, but just let the satisfy quote stand. I think that it's highly unlikely that in the near future, there'll be any major project that would require the trees to be removed, and I understand if there is. But absent that, I think it would be worth appealing one last time to PUC. I think we all agree that, you know, it's the city's policy, and the policy, in general, to keep such trees, and to not cut them down.

[01:41:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you very much, Mr. Menden, and just a reminder that as a matter of protocol, counsel does not comment during public commentary time. Um, there's also, uh, the next person, the next speaker is Alex Brown.

[01:42:00] Alex Brown: Hey, I just wanted to agree with a previous speaker that I also would like more parks, more continuous parks. I think that the kind of atomized, tiny pocket parks and popas don't actually serve a lot of the benefits that large park space and continuous green space mix. Also, no pickleball, just none. Just stop it. I don't like it. We don't need it. I don't believe it. It not a thing. I don't believe it's real. I swear, everyone's gaslighting me. It can't be. Pickleball, really? Come on. But yeah, no, more parks, yes. Thank you.

[01:42:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. I say no in no more in person speakers. I do, though, see, 2 virtual speakers. Uh, the 1st is Shawnee Kleinhouse. Shani?

[01:42:55] Shani Kleinhouse: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, and council member is, my name is Shani Kleinhouse. I'm the environmental advocate for Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. I participated in the public meetings. For the new strategic plan for parks and recreation. And I thank other speakers for highlighting the things that were somewhat missing in those, um, and trees in general and parks. I just wanted to say that, uh, the, uh, consultants, Say that they're going to have several surveys, some surveys that are, um, approach that are aimed at the entire population and some that are more statistically, statistically correct, which are tailored to sample the population. But I think the important thing, and in some ways, Mr. Zorski referred to that. Is what are they going to ask? Because the questions determine the outcome of surveys. So if the questions do not include added parkland, nature, trees, biodiversity, then those things don't um, are not reflected in the outcomes. When people are asked about nature in other cities, including Palo Alto, Cupertino and San Jose. The, the craving for a natural open space was at the top of all the responses, more than all the sports put together. And it's not surprising to me, and potentially not to you because Mountain View is definitely one of the cities that has done most in the area to look at biodiversity and open space. But I think it's really important for you to consider that in looking at the questions that they'll be asking the public to respond to. Thank you.

[01:44:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have, uh, Rashme Sahai? Rashmi?

[01:44:57] Rashmi Sahai: Yes, hi. I actually wanted to be there in person, but I didn't realize we would have public comments so soon. So I apologize, and I couldn't figure out how to show my face on video. But anyways, um, thank you for hearing me. I wanted to also speak, um, for the trees that rangstorf Park. Um, I've I've emailed all of you several times, so you probably know me and my concerns about the, the, um, destruction of the, the open space to put in a magical bridge playground, but I wanted to speak today on a way of moving forward in alignment with what Steve was saying, um, Steve Minden. That, you know, if we really want this magical bridge program to be useful for those folks who donated and who really want it, then we need to keep those shade trees there. Um, I know there's, um, you know, an effort to plant 40 new trees, which is great, but they're going to be small, and it's going to take many, many years for them to provide adequate trade shade over the playground. So, um, and this is a problem at the Palo Alto magical bridge, bridge playground currently that it's very unusable for much of the many of the summer days. So if we want this project to be successful. Um, for everyone, for those who want it and, you know, uh, you know, save some semblance of natural beauty in the area, then I would highly encourage you to consider saving those 15 healthy trees that are there, 4 of them, which are heritage trees, and then 15 others. Um, that are providing great shade for the area right now. And I guess I would end on this note, you know, we've all grow, we probably all grew up reading the book, The Lorax, um, and, um, you know, I just urge you to use your position as a city council member to dig deep into that childhood memory and speak for the trees. Thank you very much.

[01:46:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So seeing no more raised hands virtually or blue cards in person. We will now move on to item 6.one, which is our study session on the gatekeeper process update. The purpose of this study session is to obtain council direction, on the timing of future gatekeeper authorization hearings, future modifications to the zoning ordinance, regarding gatekeeper exemptions from council authorization hearings, and updates to the gatekeeper amendment authorization criteria. Assistant Community Development Director, Lindsay Hagan, and Assistant City Manager, community development director, RT Shravastova, will present the item. Lindsay, are you starting?

[01:47:46] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan: Yes. Good evening, Mayor Hicks and council members. Um, So, uh, as Mayor Hicks just read, the focus of tonight's study session is really to get input on some gatekeeper process updates. Staff is requesting that any of the direction that's provided by council tonight be based on majority support of the direction. And also, if there's any other input that council wants to provide or share on the gatekeeper process to please share that with staff tonight. So, beginning with some background context, the city adopted gatekeeper process for reviewing legislative amendments back in 2001. It was really based on the need to balance policy planning and private development applications that the planning team was working on at the time. Um, Specifically at that time, staff was processing development applications with legislative amendments as they were received. So they were directly processed by city staff with no kind of council authorization process. These projects would go directly through the development review process. Concerns were raised at that time, even some by council members that were frustrated that staff was sort of expending time on projects that were not seen as beneficial to the community, in lieu of working on council directed policy projects. As a result, the gatekeeper process was born to really manage staff resources while also allowing an avenue for the city to consider legislative applications. The city is not required to entertain any legislative amendment proposed by a private party. Since the gatekeeper process was adopted, There have been 2 major updates. The 1st was in 2012, which added a requirement that all gatekeeper applications be reviewed by the planning commission. In 2017 and 18, a more robust update was done to add a lot of clarifications and framework around how gatekeepers are processed, including application requirements, procedures. This is when it was introduced, the amendment authorization criteria were introduced as well as the introduction of gatekeeper exemptions. Um, and then, uh, earlier this year at the April um, council workplan study session, council directed staff to return uh, for a study session that we're here tonight to talk about these updates. Um, a gatekeeper is a private uh, development project that includes a proposed legislative amendment update to the city's current general plan, zoning or precise plan. So it could be an amendment to a map or a text amendment. And so essentially, these are requests to change the existing city rules and regulations. The council has full discretion to approve or deny a gatekeeper application, whether or not it goes to a council authorization hearing or not. Um, so on this slide, uh, we've sort of laid out the 2 processes we have for gatekeeper projects. The top timeline here is the process for a standard gatekeeper project. Um, really the, there's an application submitted, um, at which time staff will, uh, conduct a very cursory review of the application and review its consistency with the authorization criteria. will bring that assessment to a council authorization hearing, which is really when council can either authorize the application to proceed to a formal development application, so allowing them to even submit a formal application to the planning division. Or they, or there's an option to defer an application to a future date. Or to not allow a project application to proceed at all. So if it's authorized, uh, then uh, the applicant can proceed with submitting a planning application and start going through the city's standard development review process. Uh, these uh, applications will go to EPC and council study sessions for policy direction, uh, as well as go through the standards, city staff review, environmental review, and public outreach process before returning to public hearings with EPC and council. For the gatekeeper exempt applications, These are really more streamlined, which is represented in this bottom sort of timeline. The difference between the 2 really is that exempt projects do not require the council authorization hearing. And instead, those projects can go straight to a formal development application and go through the development review process. These exempt projects will typically go to an EPC study session, but do not typically go to a council study session. And these projects, as shown on here, will proceed through the development review process similar to how the gate standard gatekeeper process works. So looking at the frequency of our authorization hearings, um, so since it, uh, the gatekeeper process was enacted in 2001, um, from 2001 to 2019, the city has had annual gatekeeper authorization hearings. From 2019 to present day, there has not been an authorization hearing, um, due to the COVID-19 response and the efforts around that, as well as uh, staff vacancies. Um, additional thing to note is in 2000, you know, earlier this year, um, the housing element was adopted, that includes a program, uh, program one. that requires the council to hold an authorization hearing annually for residential or residential mixed use gatekeeper projects. So, um, taking all of this history and housing element program into consideration, staff is recommending that we return to holding annual council authorization hearings for all gatekeeper projects, residential and non-residential. This is based on, based on sort of our past practice, we would target or anticipate these hearings to typically occur in Q3 of each calendar year. So this brings us to the 1st council question, does council support establishing an annual gatekeeper authorization hearing each calendar year? Moving on to the amendment authorization criteria. So these criteria are essentially an objective tool for evaluating gatekeeper applications alignment with city objectives and council goals. I won't read through all 7 on this slide here, but generally, these are really focused on providing some kind of context on where or whether the gatekeeper application is consistent with city goals, general plan, as well as if they exceed any city standard requirements. In reviewing the amendment criteria, staff has used the lens of the current council strategic priorities and city objectives, city staff's past experience, as well as council's feedback from the April study session earlier this year. And so taking all of that into consideration, staff is recommending some updates to the criteria. And really, they're focused on combining criteria that are about exceeding city requirements into one criteria. clarifying that community benefit is required, and also clarifying what proximity to services is really relating to. And then, um, additionally based on the direct from, or some feedback we heard from council in April, uh, introducing some new criterion, uh, regarding the business community and innovative projects. So this slide sort of captures the proposed recommendations from staff on the new amendment authorization criteria. Just walking through this really quickly here. So number one is not a modification. It currently exists in the criteria today. Numbers two, 3, and 4 have all been modified. So number 2 was modified to represent and kind of collate all of the items that were previously listed in the criteria into one about, if any of these exceed current city standards. Number 3 was modified to address the requirement about community benefits and really to tie that community benefit to whether it advances a particular goal or objective or priority. And number 4 was modified to add a one half mile metric. Previously, the term was just near, and that wasn't very clear. And then also to expand services initially, the criteria said commercial services, staff is recommending, we broaden that to necessary services based on the proposal. So it could be schools, retail services, or transportation just as examples. And then criterion 5 and 6 are both new. So for criteria five, does the project directly contribute to the growth or expansion of an established business or introduce a new business in an industry that is currently underrepresented in the city? And number 6 is does the project propose an exceptionally innovative land use, development type or project delivery system that advances general plan goals? So this leads to our 2nd question tonight for council, which is whether council supports these modifications proposed by city staff, which includes combining the criteria around city exceeding city requirements, clarifying some of the existing criteria, and then also adding the 2 new criteria. So moving on to the final topic of gatekeeper exemptions. So gatekeeper exemptions, or gatekeeper exempt projects, are gatekeeper projects that include sort of smaller, simpler, more straightforward legislative changes that align with existing city goals. The exemptions were created as a streamlining effort for considering smaller scale legislative amendments. The main attributes of a gatekeeper exempt project, really, are 3 main attributes. One, consistent with existing city goals and policies. So, for example, uh, expanding upon a gatekeeper's expanding upon an existing or adjacent land use or adjacent land use. So sort of expanding on the compatibility within the neighborhood, or converting to residential use. Number two, generally non-controversial, meaning utilizing our existing zoning and general plan designations that come with existing development standards. And then number three, the streamlined process, these gatekeeper exempt projects do not go to a council authorization hearing, they don't typically go to a council study session. They don't include a community benefit and are, do not require extensive staff time beyond a comparable code compliant project. Um, the 3 existing current gatekeeper exemptions are listed here on the screen. Exemption one is regarding split zone sites. This is really targeted for residential or non-residential development. Exemptions 2 and 3 are for residential development only. Any gatekeeper project that meets one of these gatekeeper exemptions. It's important to note, it's still a gatekeeper project. It's still asking for legislative change. And the city continues to have full discretion on the processing of the application, the timing of staff review, and council still continues to have full discretion on approving or denying the project and its associated legislative amendment. In staff's memo, we've outlined a series of categories or characteristics of smaller scale legislative amendments that could be further developed into newer modified exemptions. The 6 categories discussed, identified as A through F, are not implied to each be exemptions necessarily by themselves. They could be, some of these could be combined into an exemption, but staff felt it was necessary to get counsel direction on each of these components. So with that, staff is has recommended for category A, retaining the project size site maximum to less than 2 acres. The only exemption to this would continue to be the exemption regarding affordable housing projects authorized through the NoFolk committee, which could be of any size. Category B, retaining requirements regarding consistency with existing or adjacent land uses. Category C is really introducing some new ideas of residential to residential rezonings, or rezonings to residential mixed use, which would allow for some neighborhood serving commercial uses. Either of these rezonings would need to match up with existing zoning or general plan designations. And really the idea behind this category is to potentially further support residential development or introduce smaller scale mixed use development to support walkable neighborhoods. Category D is staff recommends for 100% affordable housing projects less than 2 acres in size to be exempt, irrespective of where they're getting their funding. So the current exemption in place is only applicable for projects that are essentially get some kind of funding assistance from the city. So this category would be sort of expanding it so that affordable projects could go down multiple paths for a streamlined approach. And then for category E, staff is introducing another new category here of residential upzoning of no more than 25% above the existing or adjacent site density, whichever is greater. The upzoning would need to align again with an existing zoning or general plan land use designation. And the idea here is really whether there's a reasonable amount of density increase that could be considered exempt, the current exemptions that allow for residential development that are in place today do not currently have any kind of residential cap or density increase cap. Um, Category F is regard to innovative projects. Staff does not recommend proceeding with any kind of exemption for innovative projects simply because there's no way to really put any kind of policy framework around unique projects. Um, one last thing I do want to briefly address is a comment that we received from the public. So these gatekeeper exemptions are, you know, presented tonight are simply ideas brought forward by staff on how the city could streamline some of our smaller legislative amendments that we see. They're not required by state law, so council can choose to direct staff to proceed with moving forward with some of these or not proceed forward with them. And so I just wanted to briefly mention that. So this leads to our 3rd question for council tonight, which is really, if council supports what staff just walked through in the A through F categories. Um, and then before closing out the presentation, staff was asked to provide some additional context to, um, the gatekeeper process. So there's 2 pieces here that I want to talk about. The 1st is in regards to a comparison of amendment procedures for some of our nearby cities or comparable cities. So the cities listed here on the screen are generally comparable to Mountain View. I will note, San Jose is maybe not quite as comparable, but I am bringing it up simply because they do have a procedure that is worth mentioning. So just briefly walking through these different city processes. The city of Sunnyvale holds authorization hearings with the planning commission and council to authorize all legislative amendments. They do it up to 4 times a year. If authorized, set staff will study just the legislative amendment itself. And so council at times will suggest that council, that staff study actually more parcels or more area than what maybe was initially proposed. So staff will, you know, that study will be funded by the applicant, and we'll go through the process of studying it, maybe doing some environmental review associated with it, before bringing it back to the planning commission and council for consideration. So if the amendment itself is actually um, adopted. Only then, could the applicant proceed with a development application under that new legislative amendment that was adopted? So it's kind of a two-part process. Sunnyvale receives about 2 requests a year to go through this process. The city of Redwood City requires a council authorization hearing for any legislative amendment, um, which they do and they schedule sort of ad hoc, um, as needed. If it's authorized, the applicant can then proceed with a formal development application similar to Mountain View's process. And the city receives about 2 to 4 applications per year. The city of Cupertino adopted a council policy requiring council authorization hearings on general plan amendments prior to allowing an applicant to submit a development application. The authorization hearings are held twice annually. However, the city hasn't held one since 2000 and 21. But in general, they receive one to 2 applications a year when they have had those hearings. The city of Santa Clara accepts all zoning and general plan amendments directly to staff, so there is no council authorization hearing. There's also no planning commission or council study sessions held on these. So these projects go through the development review process and environmental review process before returning to the Planning Commission and Council app public hearings. The city does not receive very many general plan amendments, but they do receive multiple zoning amendments a year. Previously, the city adopted a council policy that required council authorization hearings for general plan amendments, but that was rescinded in 2021, due to the lack of applications, and the council decided to pursue other policies. The city of San Jose accepts does a similar process in accepting all applications as they are received and starts processing them. similar to Santa Clara. There's no council authorization hearing required as well. Um, And there's only study sessions held if these projects are required to go through that process. Um, I will say the city does have this optional early consideration process where city staff or the applicant can request to essentially have a council authorization hearing for the general plan amendment, um, to consider whether it should proceed forward or not. These are typically held within the 1st 6 months of an application, if the applicant requests it. But I will note that staff does begin processing the project when it's received. So they start the review process, they start the environmental review process. So they do start working on the project even before going to the early consideration hearing. So overall, the majority of cities here do have council authorization processes for legislative updates. So Mountain View's not unique in that regard. A couple things I do want to know, Mountain View sees more applications for legislative updates than any of these cities, with the exclusion of San Jose. Historically, the city receives anywhere from 4 to 16 gatekeeper applications per authorization hearing. Average basically about 6 applications per hearing. Mountain View is the only city that has developed any sort of streamlining for legislative amendments, which we've been calling gatekeeper exemptions, of the cities that have the council authorization hearings. So we're the only ones with that approach. And part of the reason Mountain View has such a robust framework around gatekeeper procedures is in response to the volume that we receive. So I think we do get asked that question quite often, and that's why. Um, So moving on to the last piece of context to provide is really about um, staff workloads. So the gatekeeper process is an important tool to ensuring that the planning division team is able to meet mandatory review of compliant development applications, long-range policy planning efforts as well as council workplan items. So the table here on your screen represents the volume of planning applications, the volume of long-range planning policy projects underway, and the volume of building permits reviewed by planning staff over the course of the last 5 fiscal years. A couple things to highlight here. All 3 of these items are being shared because this represents the bulk of what the planning team works on. So these are pretty high volumes for the size city that we have. Mountain View. Currently, the city averages about 250 planning applications a year. Um, We have always have more than 10 or over 10 long-range planning policy projects underway any given year. And we work on over a 1000 building permits a year, and this is specific to building permits that planning staff is reviewing. Um, and that's been pretty consistent over the last couple years. And so really, if you combine all of this, um, the work that's sort of represented here represents the 1st and 2nd sort of, uh, importance of work that we're doing between the planning applications and the long range work, uh, as well as the council work items. So really gatekeepers sit as a 3rd priority in terms of the workload. And the last thing I want to mention here is that you might notice in looking at these numbers, what actually is the trend of development activity. So, for example, if you look at 2018 and 19, which are the higher planning application years, Um, you'll notice that a corresponding increase in building permits happen in the subsequent one or 2 years after. So this represents really the lifecycle of a development review process. So something starts in planning, gets approved, and then it proceeds into the building permit process. And what's really important about this is that planning staff is part of this entire life cycle. So planning's working on it on the front end and on the back end. And so really, this is workload that staff is working continuously on. And so I hope that provides a little more context. And just in conclusion, some of our next steps. So following the direction we received tonight, we plan to move forward with draft zoning text amendments regarding the gatekeeper exemptions to EPC later this year. And then from there, plan to move forward to a council public hearing in early next year. Um, and then should that be adopted by council, we would start accepting gatekeeper applications in Q2 of next year, uh, followed by an authorization hearing, um, anticipated in Q3 of next year. So that concludes staff's presentation, and we are available for any questions.

[02:11:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. So the next step in this study session is to ask members of the public joining us either virtually or in person to provide comments. If you have a comment, please click the raised hand button in Zoom, or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. And we will allow 3 minutes for each speaker. In person speakers first, we have Peter Cats. Mr. Katz.

[02:12:21] Peter Katz: Kim Mayer. And good evening, members of the city council. Thank you for this opportunity to speak in front of you. The chamber is very, this is Peter Katz, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, and the chamber is very pleased that the city is taking a hard look at the gatekeeper process. Its value was clear when it was 1st created. However, it is shown, it is now out of date and actually hurting our city. The real problem is frequency. We haven't had one for four years, and it's going to be, according to the report, another year. That's 5 years since we've been able to entertain any kind of project. It's no wonder that so often we hear that Mountain View is the hardest place to do business. We can't afford to allow this to continue, especially at a time we need to be rapidly building more affordable housing, as well as addressing other vital needs for our residents and our businesses. We need to have a nimble process and procedures that promote creative solutions. The suggestions made in the staff report or a good start. We hope we can go even further. Other cities, as shown, like San Jose and Redwood City use different models that are quicker to evaluate out of compliance requests, and put less stress on staff, and happen more often. We encourage the council to request staff, to look at these other programs more closely, and to leverage best practices in their new model. We further ask that applications be accepted now, rather than a year from now. Mountain View is the center of innovation. We are very proud of that moniker. Let's have a development process that proves that. Thank you.

[02:14:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Manuel Salazar.

[02:14:20] Manuel Salazar: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, Enesty members of the council. My name is Manardo Sarasar, and I am a production and planning associate at SV at home. We want to acknowledge the work done by the city staff and the commitment of this council in reviewing and updating the heat keeping process. We believe this work both improves the efficiency and transparency of this critical, excuse me, critical aspect of the city's development process. We believe it does so while acknowledging the constraints poised by current processes. We are in strong support of the, uh, excuse me, of the proposal to establish an annual gatekeeping authorization hearing each calendar year. This will support a more predictable framework that benefits both developers and a community at large. Well, we acknowledge that this may require additional staff, time, and effort. We believe that this regularity will improve the overall efficiency of the process. We do however, have 2 concerns. First, by collapsing, excuse me, by collapsing affordable housing into the list of any of the following, we believe the city may be walking away from important opportunities to have market rate developments that will otherwise stretch beyond the current inclusionary requirements. This may be particularly important for moderate income units. In the last RHNA, you hit about 25% of your RHNA allocations for moderate incomes. You recommend that the additional affordable housing remains separate from the other priorities. Second, we believe that stat recommendations recommendation not to change the current rule regarding adjacent uses may be in mistake. Residential uses are clearly compatible in the fact, often complementary with commercial office and retail spaces. They may, however, be incompatible with some manufacturing industrial and light industrial uses. So recommendations here is too broad. We recommend that the use be updated to specify that residential projects should be supported when adjacent to compatible uses, including retail, commercial, and commercial offices. Again, we appreciate the work that has been done and look forward to the robust engagement for the council. Thank you.

[02:16:20] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, we have Bill Maskin.

[02:16:26] Bill Maskin: Good evening. It's nice to see that we're moving this along. Just, as usual, I try to frame some thoughts that we'll be able to have a little bit later. I guess I would start by the question of opportunity lost. Whatever we do, we want to make sure that those few projects don't fall through the cracks, because when I talk to developers, they're usually limited on time. They have so much time available to engage the people they are working with to develop a property. And when we, through a process, or, in this case, a lack of a process of the gatekeeper, we lose opportunity not only in the development community, but as a city and as a community. So I really like the idea that we're basically going to, hopefully, with council approval, look at something that's taking place on an annual basis, and I think that would probably get rid of some of the log jam. The second thing that people tell me about is just the, um, the perception in the developing world that it's a very difficult place to do business in Mountain View. And the gatekeeper process is very time consuming. So let's change that perception. If nothing more than a marketing program, to say, Hey, we're here to help you expedite and get through this process, I think, would be good. Would that being said, there's people out there that wonder why we need a gatekeeper process at all. If you don't have a gatekeeper process, then you basically allow those people that want to be innovated and want to go quickly can. However, totally understand how it affects planning staff, and it probably makes sense to keep the gatekeeper process. Generally speaking, one area, in particular, that might resolve both of those issues are what was brought up by one of planning staff's recommendations. I really like this new 25% rule. And the reason why I like it is that it would allow the city to actually indirectly encourage maximizing residential uses in areas where new development could take place without the developer thinking that he won't do that because there's no flexibility in the process. So I really like the 25% rule. I hope that you do as well. And the last thing that I will touch on is what I maybe already mentioned is, how do we make a developer understand that the process is actually easier to do than the perception is in the community. So whatever it is that we do to welcome the developer's ideas and get rid of this perception that we are, um, confrontational by having a gatekeeper process would be a great thing to do. As always, thank you for your time.

[02:19:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, seeing this is a last call for in person speakers, seeing no more, I do see a virtual speaker, and it is Robert Cox, Mr. Cox. Can you hear me?

[02:20:03] Unknown Speaker: We can.

[02:20:05] Robert Cox: Okay. Uh, Honorable Mayor Hicks and council members. Now for a different take on the 25% rule. My greatest concern on the gatekeeper amendments is the category E proposal to allow 25% density increase for projects of less than 2 acres without a special council study session. Our council members are elected representatives. They should weigh in on all significant zoning changes before the project is in process. A density increase should not be approved without their oversight, and the opportunity to extract commensurate public benefits like park space. From the developer. Mountain View is in the midst of an open space crisis. We need to make sure that the amenities we current residents enjoy, like park space will also be available to our new residents. If streamlining is the key issue, we should require a stated public benefit contribution, commensurate with the density increase in the revised gatekeeper rules. For example, if somebody wants a 25% density increase, they should have a 25% increase in the park space requirement and in low fees. Just my opinion, but thank you for the opportunity to address this important issue. I yield my time.

[02:21:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Mr. Cox. And next, I see Louise Katz.

[02:21:42] Louise Katz: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I agree with uh, Robert Cox's position and wanted to point out that the speakers, um, did not seem to offer an actual reason why it is somehow inappropriate for the city council, who this council and others, who have, I think, a pretty good record of considering an approving projects, why the city council should not have the voice that the voters elected them to have. And instead, why we should be turning over all of this authority to often overwork staff and with minimal, if any, opportunity for the public to actually have any sort of actual understanding of the process from the beginning. I think this does a tremendous disservice to the city council members, and it basically continues as sort of a pattern of eroding what is the essence of our democracy. This is our city. The residents have a vested interest in what it will look like and how it will be built in the trees, in the parks, in the sidewalks, whether there'll be family housing, whether there'll be more rentals or condos, the missing middle, as you've often referred to it. And to hand all of this power and authority over to a developer whose allegiance is to themselves and or their shareholders. Again, I believe this is seriously erodes our democracy, and I think people are becoming increasingly sensitive to this problem as it seems to invade many aspects of how our city and our governmental agencies work. So again, I would hope that you would not be using this 25% um, increase and that the city council would retain the authority for review of projects on behalf of the voters who put you in that chair.

[02:23:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you. So last call for virtual speakers. I'm seeing no more hands. And still seeing no more hands. So, um, public commentary is is over, uh, and now the council will discuss and provide feedback on, uh, the questions. I want to know from staff, do you have one slide with all the questions?

[02:24:20] Unknown Speaker: Yes, we do.

[02:24:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we're going to have questions from the council first, but I thought you might want to refer to the questions that we're being asked. So, yes, now I will take council questions, and first, I see council member Ramos.

[02:24:39] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. Um, just for clarity for everyone, I'm very grateful for, um, the pre-submitted questions and the answers for that. So I did want, at least for the public record for people or watching, particularly question one on the council questions. Um, If a gatekeeper project goes through, uh, uh, and they're allowed to submit an application. Council does have the discretion to approve or deny the project, is that correct?

[02:25:17] Unknown Speaker: That is correct.

[02:25:19] Councilmember Emily Ramos: All right. So, like, we still have our democracy. I did have some questions about the benchmarks of other jurisdictions handling, and then some, I get some cities, I understand why. Those were selected and then some, I'm a little bit more head scratching. Um, I'm curious about, um, I realized that Mountain View is a very unique city and, and, um, it's hard to to get proper benchmarks, but, uh, in terms of population wise, I was curious about, uh, like Milpitas, who has a closer population to us than, uh, either side of us, like as San Jose or or Cupertino, I was curious if they had a, a gatekeeper process, a general amendment process. And also, uh, I'll let you do on that for a short while, but also for all these council authorization hearings, Are they for all 3 things like general zoning amendments, uh, general plan amendments, and text amendments?

[02:26:21] Unknown Speaker: Yes, the authorizations are for all, um, any changes to our rules, which include the general plan, the zoning, or size plan.

[02:26:33] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I'm sorry, I don't know if I was clarifying. I meant, uh, when you, we have this wonderful chart here, I guess there's, um, but it said council authorizing hearing required, is that required for all those 3 things, including zoning amendments?

[02:26:47] Unknown Speaker: Yes, hearing author. So any project that changes our general plan, changes of zoning or changes of precise plan requires an authorization hearing.

[02:26:59] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I'm asking about the other cities. Is that what you're asking for? Sunnyvale, it says the council authorization hearing required. Is that for all the 3 things or just a general plan amendment? Because I found the language for the general plan amendment, I did not find language for zoning amendments.

[02:27:15] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so sorry, if I may, just clarify. So the city of Sunnyvale, Redwood City, and Mountain View all require it for zoning and general plan amendments. The city of Cupertino's policy is just in regards to the general plan amendments, and San Jose's approach is only in regards to the gym. The early consideration is for general plan amendments.

[02:27:40] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So what do they do for their zoning amendments?

[02:27:44] Unknown Speaker: Um, so San Jose still proceeds forward with their zoning amendments. Um, so they do not require a council authorization hearing. Um, And sorry, I'm trying to think back to Cupertino follows the state law process, which, um, I can't remember off the top of my head what state law says, but basically it does require going through, um, a process, but I'd have to, I'd have to go back and clarify that one.

[02:28:20] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Overall, I would love to see a more direct benchmarks for the 3 things. I know Mountain View has their gatekeepers for zoning amendments, general plan, and text amendments, but I did want to see how each city kind of has, what did they do for each of those things because it is different, and I wanted to see that difference.

[02:28:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: So as chair, I just wanted to say that one of the, one of the things that members of the public have been asking is whether we could ask staff to explore more extensively what the, what the, what differencities do, but I think that was not their assignment for, for this particular staff report, but we could require it for the future, because it would be interesting.

[02:29:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos, did you have more questions?

[02:29:11] Councilmember Emily Ramos: One more follow up question, if we do direct staff for that. Does that, I remember last, when gatekeepers were last before us, because we wanted changes, it pushed back the gatekeeper. Um, If we did want those kinds of changes, would it push back the gatekeeper again?

[02:29:31] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question. It depends on ultimately what path we'd go down. So I think the one issue would be that there is a language in our code that does talk about, um, you know, going to a hearing. So if it involves needing to get direction on whether to amend that, to say don't have council authorization hearings, just as an example. That would be a text amendment. So, um, I think we'd have to figure out exactly what what the directional change is that would be proposed, um, to really know, what the impact that might might have.

[02:30:10] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. I don't have any further questions.

[02:30:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Are there additional counsel questions? Council member Matachek.

[02:30:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I want to follow up on the Sunnyvale approach. where they study the legislative amendment 1st and then the project. So if they study, I guess I'm kind of wondering different scenarios there. So if they just study what the proposed development is requesting, then I assume the proposed development has to just meet whatever is changed. But if they broaden it, you said they sometimes broaden what's being studied, then the proposed development, could it be something different?

[02:31:05] Unknown Speaker: We actually have Amber Blesinski, our assistant director for community development, who led the process in Sunnyvale, so she can...

[02:31:12] Amber Blesinski: Perfect. My expertise. So, um, the reason in Sunnyvale, we kind of went that direction was because a lot of times people were asking about properties that were just very isolated, and they weren't surrounded by anything that was a compatible use. So typically, during that authorization hearing, we would have made a recommendation to the council that we include additional parcels, so that we're studying the use as a whole. And if we're going to change an area, then we're creating consistency with something that's adjacent to it or that we're creating kind of, you know, maybe they wanted a high density zoning and we put, you know, a little lower in between and then it merges into maybe single family or multifamily. And so, we often, you know, made the study area larger. Um, and then the app, that we, you know, the applicant was still, the one who was paying for that. Um, and then when we were done studying that area, then individual projects could come in for any of those properties.

[02:32:22] Unknown Speaker: Including the applicant that started the whole thing.

[02:32:25] Amber Blesinski: Correct.

[02:32:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And, um, did you ever have a case where you did something different than what the applicant was looking for?

[02:32:33] Amber Blesinski: Yes. Yeah, actually, one of the most recent authorizations that we had done before I left, uh, did use us a little, a larger area and a little less density than they were looking for, um, and then, you know, it was up to the applicant if they wanted to apply to do that project. And I don't know if they have yet, but...

[02:32:58] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That was very helpful. Um... And my other question is... Um, what, um, would prevent an applicant from dividing their project into a series of smaller projects?

[02:33:26] Unknown Speaker: Just to, um, clarify, are you asking whether somebody would divide the project up to be exempt and then work their way through?

[02:33:35] Unknown Speaker: Sorry, yes.

[02:33:36] Amber Blesinski: We haven't typically seen this because the smaller the smaller the parcel that you're working on, you still have to comply with, you know, setbacks. It tends to kind of limit you a little bit and there's a time frame issue. But it could happen. You could have a series of adjacent, let's say, 2 eco parcels come forward. And, you know, we're seeing a couple of projects, for example, interested, not yet applied in the Terabella area. Not by the same person, but, you know, they could eventually, even one person or a series of people could change an area through these minor actions. Okay.

[02:34:19] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. And just to follow up on that particular question. Can you think of any measures we could put into the language to prevent that?

[02:34:34] Amber Blesinski: So I'll give you an example. If we were concerned that an area that was not a change area was beginning to transform, we might, for example, we have the choice to bring these items to a study session, you know, at council to say, we're seeing some of these, some interest here. We've received applications, is the council interested in holding off such applications, even though they're exempt, until, say, for example, a precise plans done, or a larger plan's done. That's an example of what we would do. It would be hard to put in a framework now, because almost every area, you know, one of the authorization criteria is to ask ourselves whether this is a general plan change area, or whether this is a new area. So we've already have one item that you're looking at, if you were concerned about that. It's not, however, in the exemption categories. And maybe that's an example of a criterion you would use, that it's not changing out an area that's not expected to change. Um, If we were to add another criterion for exemptions. But de facto, a general plan amendment is changing something in the general plan. So if your question is, can we add a specific criterion in the exemption category? I think that would be hard to add in such a way that would, it would meet all of the intent that you wanted it to meet. Okay, I'll mull that over.

[02:36:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abby Koga?

[02:36:16] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Just along the question, questioning of the Sunnyvale model. Do you know if they've done a recent general plan update?

[02:36:29] Amber Blesinski: Oh, yes, thank you. I, um, so the, you know, the most recent, um, was 2000, I want to say 16, so it's been a little while. However, I will say that we, um, typically felt like what was in the general plan there, um, was what we wanted the city to look like, and, uh, when we would get some of the authorization or questions.

[02:37:01] Amber Blesinski: Um, we, you know, uh, sometimes would just, you know, discourage. And that's, I think, why there were not that many applications because of that.

[02:37:14] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, and then, yeah, a few more along on that, um, on Sunnyvale. In terms of that expanded area with the legislative amendments, um, were there experiences where you would have multiple parcel owners and how did that?

[02:37:31] Amber Blesinski: Yeah, it gets a little complicated. I won't pretend that it doesn't. One of the areas that, um, was authorized, um, this is pre, uh, before COVID, um, was our section of Evelyn in Sunnyvale, where, um, there's the lumber yard and some other, more industrial uses, and, um, and then some single family behind it. And we got a lot of inquiries there on people who wanted to do, probably like more of like an Arthur, like a medium density type of development. And when we brought that application forward, We ended up studying an entire block. Like, suggesting that we study an entire block of Evelyn. And I will not pretend it wasn't a little complicated to have multiple property owners, but we did not require the property owners to be a part of the application. We just required that the applicant included them in, you know, what was happening on a regular basis and what we were doing on a regular basis. So they understood that that could change their property as well. Yeah.

[02:38:41] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. And that segues into, I guess, some of my questioning, it sounds like it's similar to what we talk about, when we talk about master planning or precise planning, and that's the question is, I was actually looking at the, and I, you know, I've asked this before, is like, at what point do we say, this needs to be master planned or precise plan because I go back to, I think, is 2015. I wasn't, when I wasn't on council, and I think there were 23 gatekeeper projects in one evening, several in the same area, the, uh, what was it, Moffatt, to Terabella. And, um, you know, if you asked me, if I was on council, I would have probably said, uh, this is a general area with multiple gatekeeper requests. I think it's time for us to and look at a precise plan. And that's really where the Cherabella precise plan concept came from or the visioning, right? So rather than go through a gatekeeper with 23 projects, like at what point, can we just say, no, we're just gonna pause and do a precise, and that's where we are, really, with Terabella. But, you know, I guess, yeah, I I would like to see if we can create more clarity around that because that's really my concern is I don't want to see multiple projects in the same area, and everyone's saying, well, we don't want the park in our area, even though there's a need for a park in that area. So how do we come up with that kind of process is my bigger, my big question here.

[02:40:19] Unknown Speaker: So typically when staff reviews projects, We also provide recommendations to council, and we would, in this, in this instance, we would provide a recommendation. For example, we're seeing 6 or 7 applications for the same area, and we think it would be appropriate to do a precise plan, so we could lay out the open space, the infrastructure, the transportation, and have very clear requirements for all projects. And then projects can come in, you know, later. And an example of that was the R4 zoning district was actually a gatekeeper application. The South was been precise plan, was a gatekeeper application. And then when we did the East Wisbon precise plans, projects were allowed to submit slightly ahead of the adoption as gatekeepers. So we've had examples in this very city of that sort of, you know, planning, but yet allowing people to submit things a little bit in front once the rules are done.

[02:41:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So we don't need to change our, you know, we do have that pattern. And I remember that pattern. And somehow, we, the count in the city veered from that in that 2015 era. And that's where I guess, you know, I'm looking to, for guidance on how do we get back to that era where I remember the P district very clearly. You know, at some point we just, right? We just have to say, look, we need to plan this whole area out. And that's what my concern is with all of this, is that, you know, the other cities and again, well, and I'm sorry, I'm going into comments, but, um, yeah, how do we have some kind of orderly planning when we have so many projects? And I don't, maybe that's rhetorical and we can have more conversation about that. That's the question.

[02:42:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I have a few more detailed questions. When we talk about innovative. Do we need to define innovative? Or are you gonna leave that to counsel discretion?

[02:42:37] Unknown Speaker: Um, I think part of what we could do, um, so as part of this process, there are the zoning, you know, potential zoning text amendments. There's also a council policy that would be drafted with the authorization criteria officially, you know, incorporated in that. We could clarify things like that, um, in that in that policy.

[02:42:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. That would be helpful because I can think of some innovative projects and some that were not innovative at all. So, um, What happens when projects change, and we've seen this recently on a big project? Um, and community benefits are reduced. And they're no longer really considered gatekeepers if there's no community benefit attached. Or the, you know, the original or the same amount. And maybe that's something that you can't answer right now, but that would be something that I think we should look at as well. And then, let's see. Oh, on slide 13. Uh, item C, allow residential residential rezonings, and then item E, allow residential projects with an increase of the 25%. Um, I guess I'm not really sure, or could you explain to me what the difference is? And E, wouldn't, would that, wouldn't that also be residential to residential, essentially, or no? Is there something I'm missing?

[02:44:12] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, thanks for the question council member Abby Coca. So that's an example where you might actually layer C and E together and actually that would become, for example, one exemption, where you're describing a residential rezoning, you know, to residential could occur and also can't exceed the 25% increase. So there's a way that these categories might layer into just one exemption together.

[02:44:37] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Or do we just, it would be an option to talk about just eliminate E.

[02:44:43] Unknown Speaker: Correct.

[02:44:43] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Okay, I think that's it for now.

[02:44:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you very much. So vice mayor.

[02:44:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Yes, I have a couple of questions. And Margaret's comments have sort of reminded me of, you know, gatekeeper applications in 2015, 16 and 17, which, um, I remember, um, as very unpleasant experiences, frankly, um, being very unsatisfied with what happened, because, really, we didn't have any good choices. I mean, it was a beauty competition, and there were a lot of good projects that came through, and we had to say, yes, to a few of them. And then, typically, the next gatekeeper, we would have the same projects come back. And so, you know, I'm really pleased to see the benchmark information you have here. I thought that was a big lack in the staff report. So thank you so much for adding this in. But I have a few questions about these numbers, of how many projects there are, and I wanted to know if they're sort of unique projects or the same projects that came back. I mean, you know, you were talking about the cycle and how you work on a project for four or five years, right? You don't just work on it. for a year. I mean unless it's very small. That's just not the nature of it. So when I see this, these numbers of long range projects, I wouldn't be able to take the sum of what's in this column here on Slide 15 and say, That's how many long range projects are there. It's more like there's, you know, maybe a third of that, because those long range projects go on for all those years, right?

[02:46:36] Unknown Speaker: Correct. So each year that's represented represents the amount of work that's being done that year. So to your question, I think, um, for example, a long range policy project might take 2 or 3 years of work. So it's represented in maybe 2 or 3 years of those line items.

[02:46:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, that makes sense. I just wanted to make sure that I understand that. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's just how long they take. I mean, they take, um, you know, we go out and we get community information, and we come back with a draft, and, you know, it goes to the planning commission. I mean, there's a lot of iterations of things that do take time. And often, usually, I would say, the project is a lot better at the end than it was at the beginning. So, but still and all. It's not, you know, the number of projects here, I think, it might be a little bit, um... It's a little... it, to clarify, they're not distinct projects. They're not 11 new long range projects every year, or 16 new long range projects every year. And then, how many long range projects do you have the bandwidth for? Or do you know? Does it vary depending on the size of the project?

[02:47:56] Unknown Speaker: Typically, we have to look at the staff we have and we have to prioritize. And so some projects might take longer. We might have projects that have timelines like the housing element implementation, in which case we have to prioritize those. We have permit streamlining projects, which have very distinct timelines. So every day we're juggling priorities and making sure we're meeting all of those timelines. So there are projects that have to be pushed back a little bit, and you see that sometimes when you look at the work plan, and you're looking at delays.

[02:48:31] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. Alright. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you about is, what do you really, what do we really need, and you need to give us the information so that we can make the decision? What do we really need to know? to make the land use decision? Um, I keep thinking about this. And I've come up with, we, you know, we really need a site plan. We kind of need a site plan. We need to know, you know, how is there enough room for emergency vehicles to get on and off the site? We need a feeling for how big it is. You know, like the mass of it. We don't need a floor plan. We know in the project planning process. That's gonna change 15 times anyway, right? In elevation, we don't really need an elevation. I mean, if we have amassing, we probably don't need that. So, I mean, I just think that we, you know, while we're thinking about the streamlining of this, we need to think about both ends, we need to think about the process part, and what do we really need to make a good decision? And is that what we're asking for, or are we asking for more than that? And, um, if we could get these, you know, if we could get these projects to us, um, at at an early stage with just that information, then the ones that we didn't like, we wouldn't be wasting any more of their money or any more of your time. And you wouldn't be, you know, evaluating. So I would really like us to think about, what do we really need to make those decisions? And that's not necessarily an easy answer. I mean, I've been thinking about it. I'm sure you have a much more detailed list than I do, but I just think that's part of the process we need to think about. So thank you. That's my questions for right now.

[02:50:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'm not seeing any more council questions. Okay, we're going to move into comments, but 1st I'm going to ask my question, and they're piggybacking on other people's questions. First, can you clarify a little or tell me a little more detail about council member Abbe Kogo's comment or question on reducing community benefits? I was probably not around for that history, so I want to know more about...

[02:51:05] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: It was the North Bajor Master plan, okay?

[02:51:08] Mayor Alison Hicks: That's, thank you. I'll never forget that. Okay. Okay, that's good to know. And then the 2nd, I'm going to ask a follow-up question to the vice mayor's question about what we really need. I guess I'm, I'll put that in the context, I'll flesh that out a little more. I'm thinking, so, uh, the, to me, the key, and I don't want to go into comments here, but to me, the key to a good gatekeeper, or some other process like this, is alignment with city objectives, rather than innovation, and, which I don't even know what that is, really. Um, and so, uh, I mean, I imagine I would like some innovations and not others, so I'm not even sure that should be a criteria, but I'm moving into comments now. In terms of what we really need, I think we need to know things that help us determine whether the project aligns with city objectives. And for me, those would be things like city objectives, or things like housing and affordable housing, quality of life, increasing economic diversity, and increasing alternative alternatives to cars. So what we need, I think, to flesh that out, and I'm hoping you can help me more, is asking questions that tell us more about whether those city objectives are being met. That's the information that I feel that we need. And I'd love you to, like I said, help me flush that out more. And I feel that I haven't the gatekeeper projects that I've been in on the tail end of, such as 555 middle field, kind of, I felt I was at the end of it, and we didn't even have the information for some of those questions. So I'd like that to be fleshed out more. You can either say that now or at some later point.

[02:53:16] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan: One way to flesh those out would be to amend the authorization criteria, to better reflect those objectives, and to refine those, because we think those are very important, for the applicant, as they put their project together, for staff, as they review it, and for the public, as they look at how the council is making decisions. And, of course, for the council to make the decision.

[02:53:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, so I would agree with that answer. Okay, now we're moving into council comments. And I guess we can, these are a lot of questions, so I'll try to take notes. I'm gonna try to take all the questions at once, but, um, we'll see if that works. I hope that staff can take good notes as well. So, first, I see council member Ramirez.

[02:54:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for staff for preparing the study session. I'll just go through each question. The 1st one, is pretty easy. We have an obligation to adhere to our housing element, which includes a program, that requires us to hold one session per year. So the answer is yes, I am actually open to more frequent hearings, and how I think about that is really informed by what decisions the council makes for the remaining 2 questions. But as a baseline, yes. And, uh, That's the bare minimum, you know, and that's not something that we should necessarily restrict ourselves to. Um, for question two, um, I, I think in the, the staff responses to council questions, you indicate that you're intending to bring back a formal council policy with the authorization criteria, which I really appreciate. Um, I was concerned that they don't really exist anywhere. They don't live in the municipal code, they don't live in a council policy. And so I think formalizing that is good. And also, I actually don't like the criteria as they're laid out, rather than questions, which are qualitative for the most part. And, you know, we could have different perspectives on whether a gatekeeper uh, application meets or doesn't meet the questions. I would rather be more prescriptive and state very clearly in the council policy. Here's what we want, you know? And I don't have strong ideas on what that should be. I would rather that, you know, staff take a 1st pass at that and then come back to council, again, in a study session or CPVC, and then counsel whatever makes sense, where we get to be prescriptive and what are the things that we want, if we're going to make a discretionary legislative decision, like amending the general plan or rezoning. So I don't have great feedback for you for a question to other than, yes, please bring back that council policy, I think that's a terrific idea. And when we do that, I think we need to rethink criteria, not as a series of questions, but rather affirmative, prescriptive requirements. And then question three, this is where I'm probably going to deviate the most from the staff report. I think as I thought about exemptions, I realized I just disagree with a lot of the presumptions that are made in the staff report. So, for instance, um, you know, uh, an exempt project, uh, I'm looking at page 12 in the staff report. Um, you know, when we're thinking about, um, uh, certain rezonings and and the exempt project that comes to mind very clearly is the Latham and Escuela project, you know, staff, says something along the lines of there's a level of comfort with the exemption because there's no policy question being asked of the council. And I disagree. I think there are 2 with that one. One is, we're amending the zoning and the general plan. That's a policy question. I don't think that we should ignore that because those are decisions that we don't make lightly and should make lightly. But in that one, the bigger policy question was, do we support, or do we care about the displacement of existing businesses that have been there for a long time? That's a policy decision, and that's one that we actually had a tool to do something about. But we elected not to use that tool because we said exempt gatekeepers apparently don't need to provide community benefits, which I also disagree with. I don't think that I think anytime we have a request to amend the general plan, or to rezone, or for a text amendment, unless it's something that clearly helps achieve a council or community goal, I think we should take advantage of that and ask for something. And in that case, I would have said, okay, you know, we're comfortable with your proposal to rezone or amend the general plan, but you gotta provide some relocation assistance for the businesses or retain them, right? We've done that effectively in other projects. Um, There's also a presumption that or a suggestion that smaller projects tend to not be controversial. And I disagree. We talked about 590 Castrostry, which is a code compliant project that meets that criterion, right? It is less than 2 acres. Hugely controversial. Just because a project is less than 2 acres doesn't mean that it's not controversial. And the converse is true too. We've had very large projects, where we got very minimal public engagement, right? And the Prometheus project on East Evelyn comes to mind. You know, there just wasn't the same community concern about that. And even with a streamlined process question. You know, I think the concern, I think we should actually have a council policy, if not stipulate this specifically in the zoning code, I think we need to provide some parameters on when we want study sessions. Because I, like, I've been going through some of the history and it feels capricious and whimsical. Sometimes we have study sessions where it doesn't feel like we really needed one. And the example that comes to mind is the Ulta Affordable Housing Project on Terabella, as public, part of the public storage project, we had a study session about that, even though we say that projects that go through the NoFoot committee don't need a study session. In that case, we required one. And it doesn't, I'm not sure why. It seems counter to, you know, the policy that we otherwise have that's not written down anywhere. And sometimes we have study sessions where, you know, a gatekeeper isn't authorized or isn't required, right? So the Tidehouse and Shea TJ building redevelopment. I understand why we had a study, so there's a couple of study sessions, it turns out, but that's not a gatekeeper, right? I think I think we need clarity and guardrails and a policy on when and why do we have study sessions. Otherwise, you might have study sessions where the council says, why did we need to spend staff time preparing staff reports for EPC and, you know, council when it really wasn't necessary? And sometimes maybe we really ought to have had a study session, but we didn't have one. So, uh, that's a long winded way of saying, I think we need to rethink the gatekeeper authorization process and what it strives to achieve. And the answer that I'm leaning to is to shift where that gatekeeper exists and not have a patchwork of exemptions that are really difficult to justify, because they don't, there's no filter. There's no set of criteria that will be perfect. You know, some small project will, you know, get stuck and, you know, will require. So I think about the U-Haul project, for instance, like that's not captured by the exemptions. I don't want to have a huge patchwork of exemptions. That's one where I don't think they need to go through the gatekeeper authorization. But they're required to because our gatekeeper process is very restrictive. It's a very strong gatekeeper. So I would rather shift the gatekeeper to after submission of an application. Submit an application, it goes to staff. Staff are fantastic gatekeepers. I know this from San Jose. The staff know the general plan. They know our priorities. You know, they're strong reviewers of projects, and we should trust them. And especially if there's a council policy that says, here's what we want, that really ought to dictate the terms of what we're currently calling an exemption, right? But the early consideration process is the gatekeeper authorization in San Jose. And you're not getting 1000s of projects, or 100s of projects, or even dozens of projects, because what staff will say to applicants is, okay, fine, you can submit this application. We're going to take it to council for denial. you know? And most applicants will say, okay, I don't want to spend a lot of money and time to go to council and be embarrassed, right? So projects don't even make it that far. And I have many stories to share someday about how that process has worked. So I would rather staff be the gatekeeper. We set the policy parameters, and then we can bypass all of these questions about, you know, 2 acres or not, or, you know, should it have a community benefit or not? I think, you know, we should try and extract as much as we possibly can when somebody's asking us to amend our general plan. But if a project adheres to the council policy and staff says, you know, this is a pretty good project. In that case, I trust you as the gatekeeper, right? Maybe that's how the U Haul project gets through. It's a text amendment to the El Camino precise plan to allow personal storage as a permitted use. I don't think we need to give permission to submit that application, right? And make that application compete with, you know, the 15 acre Prometheus project where they're providing, you know, $10 million in community benefits. It just doesn't make sense to me. Um, so I uh, I have a lot more to say, but I ramble, and I know you're tired of me. So I'll stop there, but that's where I'd prefer to go rather than spend a lot of time coming up with more exemptions or a framework for thinking about projects that, honestly, we don't know if they're going to be controversial. And I would like to extract community benefits every possible way I can.

[03:04:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, next, we have council member Mata.

[03:04:20] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, that's an interesting idea. Part of it. I have in my notes that I would like, and I appreciate the other aspects of it. So I think I would seriously consider that idea. Um, I think we spent a great deal of time putting together our general plan and our precise plans. And the most important part of that was there was a great deal of community input. So I'm not really looking for a lot of changes to our general plan or our precise plans. Um, we identified the change areas, and um, you know, I, until we redo this all, that's kind of what's guiding me. Because again, we got a great deal of public input on those. Um, We also did some rezoning when it came to the housing element. So I feel like we've done quite a bit. And again, I'm really not looking for a lot more. So, um, I actually would change the exemptions, and so there's only two, and it would be if it's a split zone, and you are moving to the exact same zoning of what a portion of that parcel has. So, not just residential to residential, but, like, R2 to R2. It can't be an up zone. Um, or 100% affordable housing. And those would be the only two exemptions I have. And then I agree with what council member Ramirez said about we have very specific criteria, in terms of how we evaluate things, and that's a policy. And, um, I would, you know, I went through the ones that we have, and, you know, I guess I'd take out some of them, um, and I would add another one. The mayor mentioned this. I mean, I think we need to focus a lot on quality of life. And I would move, you know, the, um, park space into quality of life, and I would add things like, um, walkable, you know, does this, or sorry, I'm going to phrase it as a question, because that's how I was thinking about it, but I like the idea of making statements we're looking for. Um, Improvements to walkability in a significant area, like a large area, or, um, contributing a great deal to the, um, habitat corridors for wildlife. Or creating a tree lined street. You know, things that, um, add to the enjoyment of living in the city. I think we need to call that out here. Um Let's see. I definitely, um, you know, depending upon this, how this goes, I want to make sure that I'm really clear that I do not support any increase in density as part of an exemption. And the increase is already provided by the state density bonus law. And I think, adding to that, makes it even more controversial, when just the state density bonus law makes projects controversial. So I can't support any automatic increase in density. But I already said I'd eliminate that exemption anyway. Um, so let's see. I think that's what I have for now.

[03:08:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: I don't think you answered question number one, maybe you don't want to yet. Sorry.

[03:08:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, that's right. So, yeah, so if we, um, reduce the number of exemptions and only have a couple, then I am okay having at least one, maybe more, um, gatekeeper meetings, but I also am intrigued by what council member Ramirez said, um, that might be an approach that I think is good too.

[03:08:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay, so just to make sure I have notes. Um, I have, uh, for one, yes, one, or what council member Ramirez said, which is staff can be gatekeepers. Um, for two, you want various prescriptive criteria. I won't go into details. And for three, only two exemptions, which two were those? Do you have them?

[03:09:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: 100% affordable housing?

[03:09:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. And then, if it's a split zone parcel.

[03:09:11] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And for the split zone, it would be less than 2 acres.

[03:09:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: And for the affordable housing, it could be with or without the no for process. And, um, staff was recommending two acres or less for that as well, right?

[03:09:27] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Yep. Thanks.

[03:09:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. Council member command.

[03:09:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, Mayor. So first, I'd like to thank staff for bringing this back so quickly after our council recess, which I'm sure you spent the entire recess working on this, since it's priority A, item number one from our work plan. Um, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. I think all of us on council have been itching to have this discussion. Um, and so what I'd like to do is I'm going to try to go through all 3 of the questions and then um, provide some some comments. So for question number one, does council support establishing an annual gatekeeper authorization hearing, yes, that's for our housing element. So I feel like we got that adopted, we can't disagree with that. For item two, question two. Yes, I'm comfortable with combining the criteria. clarifying the existing criteria, and then adding the 2 new ones for the gatekeeper amendment authorization criteria. I think there's been really interesting conversation related to question number 3 about gatekeeper exemptions. And one of the things that I feel like I've noticed over the 4 years has been a frustration from both of the development community, as well as our resident community, in terms of when are council's hands really tied, and when are we, um, maybe hamstringing ourselves at certain times. And so I really appreciate how council member, Mattachek and Councilman Ramirez have kind of talked about how do we incorporate the feedback we've gotten from the community in terms of, well, why is this gatekeeper and why is this not? Um, and addressing that. And I do feel the exemptions or discussing it is the best way to maybe kind of heed the advice from our residents, which is using the full council discretion, which we have ability to do when it comes to land use. And so I'm really intrigued by the idea of staff as the gatekeeper. I do feel like we've spent such a large amount of time on precise plans, in some cases revising precise plans. We're looking at revisions, right? We're looking at our downtown precise plan. We have our general plan. I do feel like the blueprint of what we'd like Mountain View to be is out there. And so if something is coming forward, that is outside of that, I do feel like it needs to be exceptional, and I feel like the amount of work that, um, CDD is doing will enable you to know, um, what shouldn't shouldn't be exempted. So I am interested in that. And I do feel like what I'd like to see is, and I've discussed this over the course of this year in particular, is we're trying to do our parks and open space master plan. We have our small business strategy. We have our economic vitality strategy. As things are coming forward that are, could be considered exemptions, how is that all fitting into those strategies we're trying to put forward? If they are outside of the general and precise plans. So I really feel like, because those are also, those strategies are also blueprints on what council is looking for. And I feel like, I've talked about, I want the plans to talk to each other, because I feel like the development community should understand the priorities of not only counsel, but our residents, in times when we are seeking their feedback. So I do believe it's there. So, um, and kind of interested in what council member Mattachek said, we have our housing element, and as that is, uh, as that's being adopted and having our gatekeeper process, I really want them to complement each other rather than compete with each other. And how are we, um, progressing, our council work plan goals, um, at the same time. And one of the things I realize that's been on our work plan now for 4.5 years is addressing middle income, um, strategies and housing opportunities. And I just feel like I would be remiss to say, that's what I'm looking for. If I, you know, if something is a gatekeeper, I want to see these opportunities for our residents, because I do feel that's something I continually to hear. Um, so I think that's maybe where I'll leave my comments that we can see where, um, people fall on question number three, but those are my thoughts for now. Thank you.

[03:14:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Ramos.

[03:14:39] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, mayor. I think I'll just start with. I was hoping when I read through the staff report for more significant changes with our gatekeeper process. We have been hearing, from different stakeholders, how restrictive it can be, and the fact that we haven't had a gatekeeper in a very long time was concerning. Um, with the 1st question, that seems the easiest as a council support establishing an annual gatekeeper authorization hearing this year. Yes, and if more is possible. I would love that. I don't, I imagine our gatekeeper similar to, as if we were an airport, and we are asking people to go through the whole security line before they even buy a ticket. And I'm not, I'm not liking how that, that, that works with our, um, with our developers. We, we, we pride ourselves in Mountain View, that we are a very innovative community, that we are welcoming to trying something new. That's what I view, the gatekeepers are one of our access points to do. Um, And, and yes, we spend a lot of time on our precise plans, but, um, there are precise plans in our city that are older than, um, almost half of the council members on the dais. Um, and so there is probably some thought to sometimes, uh, if we want to change and evolve and and be innovative, sometimes we do need that, that, that release valve in order to allow that. Um, I do agree with, um, council member Kame, how important it is to really share when our hands are really tied. Um, I did, uh, I didn't think about that as we did our gatekeeper. But what's really interesting is that, yes, we can authorize the gatekeeper and still say, no, this project does not meet the needs of our community. Um, when it comes down to the final, like, Uh, Things. Approval. Um, so, I like the idea of, um, relying on, as council member Ramirez was saying in the early consideration, um, model that San Jose has, that, like, staff acts as a gatekeeper, based on the criteria that, um, council has in our regular goals, um, And I believe, what is the 3rd and final question? So, um, I do support having, um, written down the authorization criteria. I think that's actually very important for our stakeholders and developers to know what are what are the things that we care about to allow for things to break the mold, essentially. Um And then the final question. Is. What was our final question?

[03:17:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: The final question is, does council support the following gatekeeper exceptions?

[03:18:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yeah. Thank you.

[03:18:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, council member Abbe Koga.

[03:18:14] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So, um, I'm gonna start off by saying, I think we are doing fine in terms of innovation, and the whole purpose of doing the general plan update and the precise plan updates that we've done over the last several years was to allow for more development and growth and have the community input so that we have buy in as to where that would happen. And we have a very innovative document. We've received awards. I think we put in a lot of thought into it. We have, you know, the strategies about connecting jobs to housing, things that no other city has done. So this whole thing about, oh, the gatekeeper is gonna allow for innovation. I'm sorry, I don't buy that. That's not the whole point of, of gatekeeper. It's like, I remember Gatekeeper, the start, at least my start of it, Artie was our staff on the planning commission, and it was because we had an old general plan and we were seeing all of these requests for rezonings. We have rezoned a big part of this city. And frankly, we have more work than, you know, we have staff and resources for a long time to get our general plan in our vision done. And so that's where I would like to see us put our resources and actually realizing this general plan and the precise plans that we have worked so hard to develop. So the gatekeeper really was just, you know, used at a time when we had an old plan that was outdated. We don't have that anymore. To me, I look at this as, you know, folks, maybe you don't have a parcel that fit into a change area, so you, but you want to redevelop. So it's like, okay, maybe there are some of those parcels that make sense. But this is not the way to get innovation. Innovation is already in the general plan. So, you know, I looked at this as really exceptions to the rules, and, you know, when I talk about, you know, getting through the airport, if you buy a ticket, you go straight through. Like, you can't even get through security if you don't have a ticket. So buy a ticket and follow the general plan and, you know, and provide us proposals in areas that we've already resigned for. So, like, I don't I'm sorry, but I just don't buy this whole thing about, oh, we're, you know, stunting, growth, and development. We're not. I think we have a lot of development that could happen. So the gatekeeper process. Again, it's just those, you know, one-offs, exceptions. And that's why, like, I had some fundamental problems with it. And back in 2015, when you had so many projects, especially in one area, I mean, that's not the whole, that's not the purpose of a gatekeeper. So I'm looking at this as, okay, you know, what do we let through? And so it has to be very, it has to be exceptional, is what I say. And I agree with Council member Ramirez. It has to have community benefits, because that makes it exceptional. And, you know, and in the community benefits. We come from, you know, $100,000 for some street improvements to, I mean, I think the, frankly, the, um, pure storage, not pure storage, public storage project was exceptional. And, you know, that one I personally talked to the developer and said, you know, like, they came in with, you know, I forget how many affordable units originally, and I told them, unless you can get a hundred, I'm not going to look at this. I'm not going to support it. So that's what I'm looking for, is something, you know, above and beyond what we see normally. And unfortunately, I've seen gatekeepers and like that one was exceptional and innovative, but there's been a whole bunch that to me were just mediocre and regular. And they just, frankly, got around. Our general plan update because they were, they had parcels out didn't fit, you know? So that's what we're talking about here with this gatekeeper. I, you know, I hear the, I hear the complaints, you know, I hear, and I see the perception, but when I look at this chart, I don't really see what our problem is, and I think maybe that's where Counselor Ramirez, you're going with, you know, not having that many exceptions, I think the challenge is, is that we just have that many more projects and applications coming through our city. And, you know, you can have 4 times or however many times a year a process, but if you're getting one or 2 projects, so what? I mean, you know, we have one a year, we have 20 projects. So, I think that's really the challenge is that we have so many projects. And, you know, I am at this point at a point where we've done all of this planning. Let's start implementing, we have limited staff. I want to see the staff. I want to focus them on implementation and getting these projects done. So I'm not that excited, interested in allowing a whole bunch of gatekeepers that really, to me, circumvent art rules, is how I look at it. So, you know, I now actually have really changed my direction, listening to all of you, because originally I thought, okay, how do we, you know, make this, though we have more exemptions so that we don't have the U-Haul situation? But maybe we don't need to do that. And I think I do agree that, um, staff, you know, we may we just need to maybe empowers you to make those recommendations to us, us earlier on. So instead of like collecting all these projects to bring to us, maybe you, you know, in this whole thing about doing it, however many times a year or taking it in at any time, I can actually support taking in projects anytime, but then I would say staff, you know, you go ahead and look at them. and then deny the ones you don't think fit our criteria, or our policies, and then only bring forward the ones that you think do. And that's how I would put the, that's where I would put the gatekeeper. So I agree with that. And then in terms of exemptions, um, Actually, I do agree with Counselor Matachek. I will, I think I'm down to the, um, split zone, which is what we had affordable housing projects. And yeah, that would be the only two. And then, uh, again, like, if we give staff more authority, perhaps than, you know, when staff, you start to see multiple projects in proximity to each other, you can hold them and bring a, you know, bring them forward to this, to us and say, maybe it's time for a master plan or a precise plan, whatever, however you think works best to have a bigger zoning process so that, you know, we look at the area more comprehens and make sure that our needs are our goals are being met. Does that make sense? Maybe I want to listen to all of the council and maybe provide some thoughts on it. Um, So that, I think that... Oh, and then the other piece too is the whole thing about community benefits. And I do feel that once those benefits, if they are reduced or they go away, the requirement should be that they are replaced with something comparable. And if they can't do that, then that project would have to come back for review and reauthorization. Because it's no longer a gatekeeper project if it doesn't have community benefits attached to it. And I think that is, for now, that's I'll just leave it there. Thanks.

[03:26:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Vice mayor? Do you have comments?

[03:26:33] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Sure. I, um, I tend to agree with what, um, council member, um, uh, Ramirez and Metachek and Ramos and and Kameh have said about this. Um, I, uh, you know, having been part of several gatekeeper meetings in my previous term, they were, um, they were very disturbing, because so very, very much work had been done, um, to get to those points. And, you know, we just weren't able to handle all this projects. But one of the things that I think we haven't taught about much is how the world has changed since 2015. I mean, Mountain View has just had this incredible boom over the last 10 years previous to the pandemic. We had, you know, so many tech jobs come here, so many housing units need to be built. The cost of housing went up so high. And then we've had the pandemic. And I don't think we're going to have this kind of boom continue. I would like to hope that we'll have a lot of housing development continue, but I don't think we're going to see much office interest. I just think that that's too risky. And also, not only is it risky in terms of, are people coming back to work or not, But it's risky in terms of the fact that the cost of funds has gone up dramatically from where it was. And so, you know, just these projects, I think, fewer and fewer from would pencil out for developers. So I think that onslaught of the number of projects that we had 10 years ago. I think that's probably over. We may have sort of a, you know, I think our gatekeeper, the last five years, it's kind of functioned like a dam. We may have some things that are behind the dam that, you know, need to go through in the next year or so, but, um, I think that, you know, that that incredible push of projects is over for a few years. And that could be good in the sense that much of the planning, the long term planning that we have been so superb at over the long pull. We haven't had as much time to do. I mean, we haven't really, you know, we really, it would, like, we, we'd really like to do a Terabella, or I'd like to see a Terabella precise plan. We want to do a Moffat precise plan. I mean, those things are very staff intensive, but you've been so busy doing the housing element. and North Bay Shore that you haven't been able to do that. But those are sort of behind us. So hopefully, moving forward, you know, we'll be at a little happier time. So, I'm not as concerned about the, you know, the number. as it was in the past. I think the circumstances are different. I don't think the, I was very impressed by the quality of the letter from the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for writing that and getting together that bench marking information, and thank you to staff, for getting that together, too, because I think that was really helpful. But, um, there are always a lot of different ways to do things. And, um, we, we want to make sure, we want to maintain council policy control. So I think the ideas when something comes to you, when a project comes to you, that you really think is at odds with the policy, that we have been talking about the last five years, then you should definitely bring it to our attention. And that is what, it seems to me, is the San Jose process is kind of all about. And, um, And the other thing I think is that, uh, the discussion of, um, of community amenemies. One of the things we get with gatekeepers that's so great is community amenities, you know, we get to ask for things that we couldn't otherwise ask for, and, and, you know, the community really enjoys those. So I don't want to, I don't want to leave those behind. So, I suppose we have to have a gatekeeper authorization meeting, at least once a year, or something that we can substitute as the equivalent for our housing element, but I think if we use the San Jose process, or a San Jose like process, that would probably work. I thought the criteria were reasonably well thought of, but, well thought out, but I still like the, you know, I like the idea of moving forward with the staff being more of the gatekeeper and having an early consideration process. And then, in terms of the exemptions, I really think the most important ones are the affordable housing. The most important one is the affordable housing, and nobody, and I also like the idea of innovative projects, or projects that bring in a new industry that we hadn't considered before. Innovative is a very open ended word, and, um, it would be helpful to have some clarification about what we mean by that. Council member Avocaga used the word exemplary. I could see how, in many cases, they could be equivalent, innovative, exemplary. But so I think those things are, you know, allowing for innovation is very important. And then, and then the other thing I want to say is, is that I like the, the comment by Council member Ramirez about, I mean, Council member Ramirez about the, um, the gatekeeper is kind of functioning as a release valve, for something that comes up that we didn't consider in the planning. We've done really good planning. We've done really extensive planning, but we haven't remembered everything. There are things that were left out. So this allows a release valve. And I think that we should see this as sort of a positive thing. So, that's my comments for right now, and, um, thanks, everybody.

[03:33:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So I'm going to sum up what I've heard from council members, and then add my own comments, and we can move on from there. I'm hearing, I mean, I thought this was a complicated, overly complicated set of questions, and I wouldn't be able to summarize, but I've seen kind of, um, remarkable convergence, and you can disagree with me if I'm someone your comments up wrong. Um, so as for question one, I heard everybody say yes once or more frequently, as for question number 2 on supporting the modifications, uh, to the gate. Well, I won't read the whole thing. You can read it. Supporting the modifications, I mostly heard people saying make the policy more prescriptive regarding what we want. And I'll say a little more on that later. As for question number three. I either heard people say, um, picking out several exemptions, and I'm not going to read them, um, all off, uh, or saying that, um, and maybe, uh, maybe I'm summarizing this wrong, you can tell me. But saying that staff should be the gatekeeper. Um, we set the policy and staff as the gatekeeper. Um, instead of looking at particular these particular exemptions. So that could, I think, use more refinement. I guess the way I see this and other council members have said this is that, um, you know, both running for office and afterwards, I talk to a lot of residents, and also, we have a lot of resident input into our general plan and precise plans. And to me, they, that's what I want, that's what I want to focus on for development. And I think that we do have a lot of development. So I don't think that we're squelching development in particular. Um, I do think there are reasons to have gatekeepers, and those would be, um, those would be when we see a reason to make a major land use change. that we have, and we have not had time. to update the general plan or precise plan or other documents. Um, and that, in order, and I'm just repeating what other people have said now, in order to, um, decide when... I think we need to be more prescriptive in terms of saying, uh, which ones of those we choose, we choose. And I think, you know, so they have to be in alignment with our city objectives, and some of those objectives, I mean, I think we've talked about what some of them are, they would be housing and affordable housing, they would be quality of life things, and I would list things like, the gatekeepers I've seen, we come to the end of them, and residents come in and want to save a particular set of trees that could have been saved in the beginning fairly easily. We're so far down the road, it's like a surprise. At this point, it shouldn't be. I'm not saying, save every tree on every plot of land, but there are times that it would have been simpler if we'd said that from the very beginning. Other things like increasing economic diversity, increasing alternatives to cars, things like more public space, green space, and circulation that involves active transportation, you know, walking, biking, et cetera. I think we need to be very clear to developers from the outset. I don't want ending surprises, if possible. I guess I'm just saying, again, in different words, be more prescriptive. Um, and I agree with people who've said that we, that gatekeepers need community benefits. I also think we need to take the long view on community benefits. Um, not, um, you know, certain developments have costs. We develop certain things and later develop an office, for example, and later, we have to add housing. We have to add parks. We have to add transportation. So to me, community benefits have to, they can't be benefits in the short term, and then the city picks up the cost in the long term. We kind of have to see, how is this gonna play out? And then, in terms of innovation, I find the term innovation too vague. I'm really looking for certain, although, I guess, the vice mayor substituted, let me see if I have your words. A new industry or exemplary, I don't know what that would be, exemplary green space, public space, architecture, exemplary, something, I imagine. Um, and something that aligns with our, you know, preexisting objectives. I also think parcel consolidation can be very helpful, but that's, I mean, that was one of the things with the public storage that was so valuable. Yeah, I have mixed feelings on personal consolidation. I mean, sometimes it can wipe out small businesses, and you can have a, you know, I don't want the, I don't want a city that's all Costco much. Some people love Costco. All big boxes, I should say, I shouldn't pick out a particular name. So, I think that is most of my summary, and I think there's pretty much alignment. Do people want to clarify further any additional alignment? Vice mayor, your name is up. Is that because you forgot to take it down? Uh, Council member Mattachek.

[03:39:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, um, I'm not clear on the list you just um, went through. I thought those were your perspectives. Was that the summary of what you heard from us for criteria?

[03:39:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Just to confuse you, I did both.

[03:39:36] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thank you. So I guess I'm wondering what the takeaway is from staff's perspective. I feel like I would like an opportunity to go through the statements of what we're looking for, um, another time. Um, yeah. I don't feel like we talked about those enough tonight. I feel like I need another bite of that apple. Thanks.

[03:40:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, I would say, in case it was too confusing. The high for you, the high level summary was, um, for number one, yes, we want one or more gatekeepers. Sorry, I got number one and two. You got number one number three. Okay.

[03:40:22] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: You got number one and number two. Oh, so you summarized that by saying we'll decide more about the credit. Well, we will be more prescriptive, but we will decide about that later. Okay, is your summary. I would agree with that.

[03:40:42] Unknown Speaker: If I may summarize and provide one comment. We did hear that council is definitely interested in annual or more hearings, if that's the case, with the authorization criteria, we heard that council wants to be very prescriptive, make sure that we require community benefits for all projects, whatever we call those criteria authorization or otherwise. and be very clear and prescriptive about linking them to council goals, and we heard quality of life, description of that innovation, and a description of that. So we will try to coalesce all that and bring some criteria for gatekeepers for you to review. In terms of exemptions, sort of unclear about, I'm a little bit confused about whether the council wants staff to take in all applications, in which case exemptions have no meaning, or whether council is interested in exemptions, which implies that there will be one or more hearings a year to authorize projects. So we can provide some options for counsel to review. What we did here, though, is there's a lot of coal, there's a lot of convergence regarding affordable housing projects to be exempt, for sure. So we can bring some of that back for you to review. I think we'll need another study session. We were not planning on one, but it looks like you want to see some of this, so we will try to bring one back. I'll have to talk to the city manager about when we can schedule that. In terms of taking in applications, I'll just say one thing. Having counsel review them and authorize them is a huge, um, workload help because we are, once we take in a project, We have to assign planners for each project, start work on it. Everybody in the city who reviews development has to start reviewing it. We have to start the environmental review. And so it is a huge workload item to take in all projects. And then only bring them in for council consideration. Giving staff the ability to deny projects means there will be an appeal process, which becomes pretty involved. And so what I'm going to say is we might bring some options, but also some pros and cons for you to consider. Some of these options might be bringing in more frequent hearings than annual, some cities do that, so you don't have to wait for a whole year. But I think taking in applications starting to process them is a big workload item that we would be concerned about. And then making staff, the gatekeeper. Um, We like the idea, but I think I think the transparency part of having the community also look at what council is authorizing is important, and you heard many residents talk about the, the importance of transparency. So I just thought I'd make a few comments, but we can bring some options for you to review.

[03:44:12] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I'm going to add one more comment that I neglected. I just also strongly agreed with what council member command said about some of the prescriptive criteria aligning with some of the larger plans that we're working on, like biodiversity, park and open space, economic vitality, and probably active transportation.

[03:44:37] Unknown Speaker: Yes, we will add we will add those. And they are actually all aligned with the council strategic core plan goals. So.

[03:44:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez.

[03:44:47] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. So I... City manager, did you want to speak first?

[03:44:52] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Okay, I'll be quick.

[03:44:54] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I think, so I appreciate staff's suggestion to come back with ideas and some different ways of approaching this, I think that will be very helpful. But I think just as a point of comparison, Council member Committe was looking at the chart that I think is very helpful in showing us how other cities approach this, I think having that council policy will be really helpful to staff. right? There is no council policy in San Jose. All applications go through, you know, they're accepted, and then, you know, staff will work with them. Sometimes they go to council for early considerations, sometimes they just get processed, but there's no overarching guidance from council, which can be very challenging 1st half. In this case, I really like the fact that we're contemplating a council policy that says, here's what we're looking for. And then we get to decide, if it's different from that, maybe it's just a categorical, we don't accept that application, you know, or, uh, so, so, we, we basically get to provide a high level of guidance, and we, I think this is where staff's input will be really helpful. Um, you know, what kind of guidance would be helpful in staff's evaluation of these applications. Um, but, but, you know, it would basically be that framework of if these, if an application meets the prescriptive criteria, not some subjective set of questions, then it could go through. It could be processed, right? It's consistent with these very prescriptive set of criteria. If it's not, then maybe it's a categorical rejection. It doesn't comply, right? We don't have to take in applications. We haven't for years. So that's how I think we can address the problem that you've identified for us, and I think that's something that hopefully, you know, we can learn more about in a future study session. Thank you.

[03:46:51] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Kmei.

[03:46:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. I just had a question. Um, and and mine was of the chart um, provided to counsel, the city of Mountain View is the only city that allows any exemptions. And so, and we're having quite a bit of discussion about exemptions. So, um, I don't know if staff wants to kind of illuminate why we are the only one who allows exemptions, or maybe when this comes back, we can get uh, a more full picture in the chart of what not having exemptions in these other city means in terms of maybe staff capacity or city workload, or what types of projects those are. Because I think, um, rather than going through the list of exemptions, I'd love to understand why we're the only city that allows them. Thank you.

[03:47:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: City manager, McCarthy.

[03:47:52] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor. So, um, I just want to reiterate what I'm hearing and make this perhaps a little bit easier for staff. So what I'm hearing is both that there is interest in reinstituting the gatekeeper process. That's clear. What is not still clear to me is what that process might look like. Because in question one, we're asking for a hearing every year. And then we're also talking about just having staff do all of the intake and either fast tracking some of them, if they match the exemptions, or bringing some of them forward. So what I'm hearing is the council's interested in policy alignment. So having some sort of guidelines on whether they match the 7 policies, whether they match a lot of the visioning and a lot of the things that we have already in the general plan or the precise plan, but maybe this project is a little outside of it, but fits with the spirit of what the precise plan or general plan has intended. But right now, I think that it is very difficult to say that staff could intake. Let's say there is a floodgate of projects, because it's been several years. It's going to be very difficult from a workload perspective for the amount of staff that we have on now to take this on. And this is because gatekeepers really are fifth in line. We have all of the state mandated timelines and the permit streamlining projects that come in, which we have a lot of those. We have the housing element projects, which we have a lot of those. I would argue more than almost any city in our area. We have the projects on council's work plan, those priority projects, especially in your A and B categories. We have just the regular daily work that the planners do, and not just planning, but engineering and building. So then gatekeepers would be five. So if we just let everything come in, and then it's on staff to decide. I hear council's interest and appreciate the San Jose process. However, I would just caution that San Jose has an army of staff that we don't have, arguably, much larger city, 4,000 staff. You know, we have 700 staff. So maybe there's a middle ground, is what I'm saying. If staff can go back, take in all the feedback that you all have given tonight, figure out what a process might be suitable from what we're hearing, and we may even want to say, all right, let's try this for a year or two. and see how it works. That's what I'm hearing, too, is maybe kind of a pilot gatekeeper process if you want it to look differently than the way it looks now. And we can just try it. We can see, you know, that doesn't work, or it's too overwhelming for staff, or it's, you know, 20 projects coming in, and we don't want it to look like it did in 2015 or 16, and be overwhelming for both staff and council. So I think we need to just put our heads together and bring something back to you with the spirit of all the guidance that you have given us, but then come back with the study session and then say, okay, here's what we put together from the feedback you all gave. Here's what we think might work, whether it is an annual process, or just staff accepting applications, being very prescriptive. But I think we need to talk it through, because we've heard a lot of feedback. And what I'm hearing is some sort of, perhaps a pilot process. that we would want to bring back to you all to react to.

[03:51:30] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, well, that sounds good to me, but, Council member of Meta Check, you have comments?

[03:51:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I do. I just want to clarify with Steph. When, um, you talk about, you have to process the application. I guess I was assuming that if an application comes in, you can quickly see if it's one of the one or 2 limited exemptions, and if so, it gets processed. If it isn't. Then you see whether or not, and I don't want a laundry list of criteria. I think it's the most important things that we're looking for. A handful. If it meets those, it goes to a gatekeeper meeting. If it doesn't meet those, it's rejected. And I would assume that would cut down on staff processing time of applications. That's how I was... That's my interpretation of what we were describing, but I don't know if that's everyone else's interpretation of what we were describing.

[03:52:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Uh, Council member McCarthy, City manager McCarthy, is your name up there? 'Cause you have an additional comment.

[03:52:43] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, Counsel... So, I would agree with that, but, uh, council member, Abbe Koga.

[03:52:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: That was exactly what I was thinking. So, you know, my thought was, do you have a checklist of what our criteria is, you know, so many affordable housing units. I'll just throw that in. Connectivity is really important. You know, if you're gonna, if the project proposes to build a park, say, okay, you know, that would be a reason to move forward. So we'd come up with a checklist. If it checks off, then it moves forward. If it doesn't, then you deny it. I think it can be that straightforward. And I, you mentioned an appeal process already, but do we even have to have one? Because this is not, it's the gatekeeper, right? It's exemptions. It's not any kind of mandate. So I don't think we should have an appeal process.

[03:53:35] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we try again. We could design and provide some options like city manager McCarthy noted. It could range from the San Jose process all the way to the one that council member Mattachek explained, because San Jose, they just start processing the project. as opposed to having this exemptions and denying ones that don't meet policy and the ones that meet policy come to a hearing. So in San Jose, it doesn't matter, if it follows the general plan or not or anything, or if they just process anything that comes in. So process is a term of art, right? So as an example, I remember in, I think 2018, there was a guy who, um, submitted a preliminary application to staff to, uh, build like a skyscraper heliport in Coyote Valley. Just categorical, there's no way we're gonna do, this is not gonna happen. And so, you know, staff said, we're going to take this to council for denial. We don't have to spend 5 minutes on it because it's just so ridiculous. So the guy came to the council office saying, hey, I really want to do this. Um, you know, staff says they're going to recommend denial, uh, with the council members supported. We would say, no, of course not, we're going to support it. It's a ridiculous idea. Right? So the application was submitted. There wasn't a need for the council to authorize him to submit the application, right, in competition with a bunch of others. We took it in, and it was processed, but it was basically a categorical rejection right then and there, because it was just so fundamentally inconsistent with anything that the council in San Jose is doing. And that's kind of how I envision this council policy to work, right? Sure, you could submit some ridiculous idea, right? We'll give you the courtesy of five minutes, right? But it's a stupid idea. We're gonna recommend denial, right? And the concern I have is I'm not sure that gatekeeper process, as it exists, is actually effective in managing staff time, right? I would love to ask you how much time you spent on the Castro Commons project, which has never come to council, but it's taken hundreds and hundreds of hours of staff time, right? And the same thing with the Amber Project, which was an exempted gatekeeper that never went to council, how many hours of staff time. So I'm thinking that this is why I think it bears some deeper thought about what is it really that this process should do for the city.

[03:56:21] Unknown Speaker: You know, I appreciate that explanation, and maybe that would resolve some of this issue of, oh, well, you know, it's gone through gatekeeper, and it's come so many years in the making. So it makes it just that much more difficult for staff or even for counsel to say no, right? When it gets by the time it gets to us. So if that denial happens sooner, you know, it just saves everyone a lot more, a lot of time. So, however we can work that to just get, maybe that's what, you know, the developers are looking for is an answer sooner, then later, not necessarily, you know, it may not necessarily be a yes answer, but at least it's an answer. you.

[03:57:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, well, I'm seeing some nodding in the audience. So have we gotten to where we need to get staff, is that, have we gotten far enough?

[03:57:21] Unknown Speaker: Yes, I think you've given us a lot to think about, so we can come back with some options for you.

[03:57:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Wonderful. Okay. So at this point, we're gonna... Oh, okay, we're gonna... We're gonna, at this point, we're gonna close out this item. and move on to item number 7.one, which is a public hearing. It's the Cal Perr's contract amendment for all unrepresented safety Pepper employees, and human resources manager, Lindsay Bishop, will present the item.

[03:58:09] Human Resources Manager Lindsay Bishop: Good evening, mayor and council. I'm returning on behalf of human resources to continue the process to amend the cost share for unrepresented safety employees under the Public Employee Pension Reform Act, otherwise known as Pepra. You may recall that Calhurst publishes an actuarial and analysis to set the employee normal contribution on an annual basis. For fiscal year 2023, 24, the employee normal contribution for safety pepper employees has increased from 11.25% to 12%. In order to maintain the agreed upon total contribution paid by safety pepper employees, the amount of the employer contribution that employees pay, otherwise known as the cost share, must be reduced by 0.75%. Please note, updates for represented groups have been completed via side letter, and this process is related to sworn positions that are unrepresented, and therefore are not covered by a memorandum of understanding or a side letter. There are three steps required by cowpers to implement this change for unrepresented employees. Each of which require legislative body action, with a presentation at a public meeting. The first step was completed in May with city council's adoption of a resolution outlining the intended employee contributions. I'm here before you with the second step of the three steps required by Cal Purse. Tonight's item is adoption of a resolution of intention to approve a contract amendment, which will incorporate the employee contributions as intended, as well as the introduction of an ordinance authorizing the said amendment. Following city council adoption of the resolution and ordinance. Staff will wait the cow purse required 20 days, and will return before you with a recommendation to adopt the final ordinance in October for an anticipated effective date in November. This concludes my presentation. I available for questions. Thank you. Thank you.

[04:00:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Do any members of the council have questions? Seeing none. Um, I'm going to take in person public comment. No in-person public comment. Virtual speakers, I see no hands raised. So, we now have a, we're coming back to council. We have a motion by council member Kameh and a 2nd by council member Ramos. So we can vote. So, uh, I have to read the resolution, I think. Oh, yes. Okay. So adopt a resolution of intention to approve an amendment to contract between the Board of Administration, California public employees retirement system, and the city council, city of Mountain View, to be read entitled only further reading waived, and introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, authorizing an amendment to the contract between the city council, of the city of Mountain View, and the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees Retirement System, to be read entitled only further reading waived, and set 2nd reading for October 10. 10, 2023. Thank you. Now we can vote. Oh yes. Okay, passes unanimously. We will now take a short break, and come back at, uh, nine, approximately 9.35. You want 940? 9 40.

[04:03:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, we're back in session. We are now on 8.one, new business, which is discontinuation of school, field, joint use agreement between the city and Mountain View Wisman School District. For this one, Spanish translation services are available, and we will now hear from our interpreter.

[04:03:39] Unknown Speaker: We didn't have anyone requiring translation services, so the interpreter has left the building.

[04:03:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you very much. Now, city manager, Kimber McCarthy, city attorney, Jennifer Logue, and assistant, city manager, Audrey Seymour Ramberg, will present the item.

[04:04:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor, and good evening, council members. So I really want to just start off by saying tonight that this brings none of us any joy to be here before you to talk about this agenda item. You all know that the joint use agreements have been in place for 60 plus years, we've had a lot of community enjoyment from them, certainly residents using the open space, the rentals, to our youth sports and other community groups. We've really tried to manage equitably the use of all of our parks and open space, and certainly the spaces that are actually school fields. And we all know that things have changed in the last couple years due to the pandemic. We've talked about it a lot over the last few years, how people's habits changed. We've talked about it here. certainly, the school district has talked about it. And we all know that Park Space became a refuge for people. It was really a place for people to go outside. There were more people using our parks and outdoor areas than ever before, for obvious reasons. We all know why. And all of that has contributed to the situation that we're in right now. And I want to also say that we're here tonight, yes, to talk about the joint use agreement, but it's only one element of our partnership with the Mountain View Wisman school district, and I think it's really important for us to start out by acknowledging the many other programs and areas where we have a very great and collaboration and work extremely well together. So you all are aware, and the public mayor may not be aware that the city provides the district with crossing guards, safe routes to school programs, school resource officers, free community shuttle service for students, after school programs like the Beyond the Bell program. Funding for teacher housing, for the teacher housing project, and so much more. And I really want to emphasize that there is no other city in our region that provides as much funding or as many services to an elementary school district than the city of Mountain View does. So, clearly, the success of our students and having a partnership with the school district is very important for the city. But, frankly, we are in a very challenging situation right now, regarding this one aspect of our longstanding partnership. And you know, I think we should also acknowledge how difficult land uses. We just had the study session about the gatekeeper process. Land use for any agency is extremely difficult. It's challenging. We also know that in Mountain View. Land is precious, land is expensive, and our land use planning is very complicated. So that's also part of how we got here tonight. I want to work backwards just to tee up before our assistant city manager starts presenting to talk a little bit about the time frame of what led us to this event this evening. So we've all been working since 2019, 2019 as prior to me starting almost 4 years ago. to reach an agreement with the district on the renewal of the joint use agreement. And there have been various pauses along the way, some taken by the city, some taken by the school district. And we were just informed this weekend. It was news to me. I'm not sure if it was news to all of you, that district officials have actually been negotiating this agreement since 2017. That's almost seven years. Seven years negotiating one agreement. So I think we can all agree that whether it's 5 years, 6 years, or 7 years, that that's way too long. And this much use of staff time and resources is just simply unproductive and untenable. We, and I am sure that the district would say the same thing. So it's really clearly been a struggle for us to get on the same page for many, many, many years. So earlier this year, our staff teams began to meet. We thought we were making a lot of progress. In fact, the city was under the belief that we were almost done with negotiations. We thought it was almost wrapped up at the very beginning of this year. Then in February of this year, everything changed. In February, we were told by district staff that they wanted to stop negotiations until further notice, and at the same time, they were exploring whether to even continue the joint use agreement. The feasibility of it. This included a school board presentation on March 2nd, which discussed placing portable trailers on the Monteloma elementary school open space, and they also questioned the need to extend the joint use agreement further. Then in May, the superintendent sent a letter to the city's Parks and Recreation Commission, where he proposed alternative solutions to the joint use agreement. There were three solutions proposed. One was for the city to rent the fields, which the city is not interested in. The other two solutions were to have the district take financial and operational responsibility for the maintenance and rentals of the school fields. That was proposed by the district. Then recently, the district took other actions, including removing city signs, without notice. You'll hear later tonight that, although signs changing, being removed, had been discussed at various points during the negotiation, but nothing was decided. Nothing was understood. Nothing was known. There was no decisions that were actually made. So these signs were removed and taken down with us having zero idea that that was going to happen. That's a fact. And then also proposing fencing options at Monteloma Elementary School without involving staff. this time around. Staff was involved in the past during COVID, when there was a lot of discussion about what would happen with fencing there. But just recently, we were not invited to be part of the process or even give any feedback on what council or what staff thought about it. So ultimately, the words and actions of the district put the city on notice. that the school district was disengaging from the partnership, and was acting independently over their own land, outside of and despite of the joint use agreement. Any rational person would look at this and say, okay, this is certainly a severing of the joint use agreement. There's not intent to move forward. And so those steps, those words, those actions that have been taken by the district over these past many months have led us to this point this evening. This is why you have the item before you. So as leaders, I know that we all need to recognize when you're trying to put a square peg into a round hole and think about how we can do things better and how we can do things differently. And that's really where we're at. I think Mr. Zayorsky did an eloquent job of pointing out some truisms. The city does need to do a better job at how we're planning for our parks. We do need to build more parks. We do need to find funding for parks. He's absolutely right. And that's our next steps. The city needs to really do more and do a better job at planning for our own parks. So right now, you'll hear a little bit tonight about how we're going to be focusing on that strategy. You're all aware that we're doing the parks and recreation strategic planning process right now. So part of that is going to be buying the new land, building new parks, and really focusing on those very specific neighborhoods that have less space than other neighborhoods. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our assistant city manager, Audrey Seymour Ramberg. She's gonna take you through a little bit of what I talked about, and then we'll be joined by our city attorney, Jennifer Logue, to also address some of the questions and issues that have come up recently.

[04:12:47] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Thank you, city manager McCarthy. I'm also joined by Community Services Director John Marchant. And I'm going to fill in a little bit more of the detail around the timeline of what got us to this point, as you have provided in your overview. I'll try not to duplicate and go over things just to make sure that the council has the full breadth of the steps that we've taken and the actions that led us to this point. I'm going to start with a little bit of history, which, as the city manager stated, goes back over 60 years of joint use agreements governing the ways that school fields have been jointly used between the city and the school district. The 1st agreement was entered into in 1959 between the city and the district that was in place at that time, which was Mountain View school district. And it covered the schools of Bub, Castro Graham, MI, which is formerly Huff, and Vargas, which was formerly the Slater schools. Following two renewals of that agreement, the current agreement was entered into in 2000, and it expires in 2025. The second agreement was with the former Wisman school district. And it was entered into in 1960, and it covers the schools of Monteloma, Therakov, Wisman, Crittenden and Stevenson schools, and this agreement is no longer in effect. At its core, what the joint use agreement does is it defines areas of park and recreation, on school site space, and then defines the city's responsibility for maintaining those areas that the city then makes available for community use. Negotiation of current staff at this table, anyway, on the joint use agreement, renewal, and update, as a successor to the 2000 agreement, and that would incorporate the former Wisman district agreement, began in 2019, there was a slowdown in the process during the pandemic, and city staff attempted to reinitiate conversations in the spring of 2021. And then the parties began to meet again in the beginning of 2022. There were sticking points, such as a disagreement as to whether or not the city is in compliance with the Civic Center Act, and the district's desire for handling indemnification in a different way. But overall, we did feel as if we were making significant progress. So it was a surprise when staff heard from the district, in February and March, that they were stopping negotiations of the joint use agreement. More recently in a letter received, which was yesterday, the district raised two additional sticking points. One relates to whether what the letter refers to as costs of service, and a request for itemized invoices from the city regarding the maintenance services provided at school fields. This seems to be more of an administrative matter, that a legal term for the joint use agreement, and the city is not clear about the relevance of this issue. Another recently raised sticking point is what the district has referred to as maintenance tracking, and staff does not have recollection of this being a discussion topic during the negotiation meetings, but does recall making good progress on clarifying the roles and responsibilities for maintenance of the school fields. So since the report for this item was published, We've heard additional context from the district regarding their concerns about the Civic Center Act and indemnification, and I'd like to turn the presentation over at this time to city attorney Jennifer Logue to speak more to those issues.

[04:16:46] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you, good evening, mayor, and council members. If we could move to the next slide. Thank you. So, I want to address 2 issues that have come up recently with regard to maybe reasons or sticking points in the negotiations for the new joint use agreement. One of those relate to the Civic Center Act, and the other one relates to indemnification, the city's willingness or unwillingness to indemnify the district for injuries and damages for use of the fields. I'm gonna start with the Civic Center Act. The Civic Center Act generally provides guidelines for use for the granted use of school facilities and grounds. And it is city staff's understanding that the district believes the city is violating the civics interact in its rental of school grounds. Um, in two in two specific ways. First, the district representatives have stated that the city is violating the Civic Center Act by charging too little for use of the fields. for use by nonprofits or clubs, or associations that promote youth and school activities. The Civic Center Act sets a maximum fee that can be charged, but does not set a minimum fee that can be charged. And shown up there on the PowerPoint slide. I have my first bullet point, which says use fees, and I have quoted the portion of the Civic Center Act, which provides guidance with regard to fees that can be charged for use of school grounds by non profits and the organizations that I described. And the law states verbatim, except as otherwise provided by law, a governing board of a school district may, not shall, may charge an amount not to exceed its direct cost for use of its school facilities or grounds pursuant to this section. That law, as we interpret it, and as we understand it, says that you may charge an amount not to exceed the amount that would allow you to recover the cost for maintaining the fields, as they're used by members of the community. But you do not have to charge that amount. You can charge something less than that. And so, the claim that the city is violating the Civic Center Act, by charging too little, does not comport with our reading of the Civics Center Act, and its plain language. The next way that, um, the district representatives have stated that the city is violating the Civic Center Act is the way, um, applications for use of school fields are prioritized by the city. And, um, the Civic Center Act, however, does not prohibit prioritization of applications. And, in fact, it specifically authorizes the establishments of terms and conditions for use of school grounds. And my second bullet point on the PowerPoint slide shows another quote from the Civic Center Act that says, the governing board of any school district may grant the use of school facilities or grounds, as a civic center, upon terms and conditions the board deems appropriate, subject to limitations, requirements, and restrictions set forth in this article. So, schools are allowed to adopt reasonable regulations for use of their facilities and grounds, so long as they are not in violation of other provisions of the Civic Center Act. The city, standing as, I suppose, in the school's shoes, in this regard, has adopted a policy, which provides for prioritization of certain sports and organizations over others. So, for instance, in the policy, our policy generally prioritizes local leagues, and leagues recognized as Mountain View youth sports organizations over non local, unrecognized sports, and adult sports schools. And it also prioritizes sports based on season. So, for instance, football and soccer are given priority during their typical season, which would be August to December. over other sports, like baseball that are not in season during that time. It is the city's position, that this is a reasonable and legal, um, regulation of rental use of school fields, as provided by the Civic Center Act under the bullet point section there, which allows for terms and reasonable terms and conditions. And, um, you know, it has always been, and continues to be the city's intention to comply with the Civic Center Act. Under no circumstances, do we wish to be out of compliance with the Civic Center Act. And so during the most recent negotiations for the joint new joint use agreement, we agreed to include a specific term, which has not appeared in any of the other joint use agreements, which I have quoted under bullet point number three, where it says, the city may allow other groups to use the recreational areas pursuant to the city's schedule recreational programs, all scheduling, use, fee collection, and other activities, shall be compliant with Civic Center Act. And so during the negotiations, we agreed to include that term. Now, if you could move to the next slide, That last term that I just described that we agreed to include in it is very important with regard to defense and indemnification. In the letter that, um, Dr. Rudolph sent to the Parks and Recreation Commission, it states, the district has requested that the city agree to indemnify and defend the district against any challenge, the city declined to do so. That's not true. We never declined to defend and indemnify the school district. In fact, we offered to defend and indemnify the district to the fullest extent permitted by California law, and shown on the PowerPoint slide, I have quoted the language, the indemnification language that was included in the last version of the joint use agreement that was sent to city staff from district staff, in which they included, you know, other proposed edits, but this language stood in that agreement, and that's where we thought we had an agreement on indemnification language. And if you read this language, it's very, very strong. It says to the fullest extent permitted by California law, each party shall defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the other party, its agents, representatives, officers, employees, and trustees, from any and all, losses, liabilities, claims, suits, and actions of any kind, nature, and description, including, but not limited to attorney's fees and costs, directly or indirectly arising out of, on account of, connected with or resulting from this agreement. I'm going to stop there, because that's important. It says, This agreement, which means if we violated the term requiring us to comply with the Civic Center Act, we would have a duty, and a lawsuit arose out of that. We would have a duty and responsibility to defend and indemnify the school district for that violation under this provision, which was contained in the proposed joint use agreement. And so, yes, it is a mutual indemnification provision. It does require the school district to also indemnify the city for its own errors, omissions, negligence, but we are clearly obligated to defend and indemnify the school district, pursuant to the supervision. So we were very confused when we saw this letter stating that we declined to defend and indemnify. Thank you.

[04:25:15] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, City Attorney Logue. These school district concerns regarding the Civic Center Act and Indemnification were also raised during the March 2nd, which is what the title of that slide should say, school board meeting presentation, which also noted the potential need to preserve open space for portable classrooms. And what this slide shows are two slides from that actual March 2nd school district presentation. meeting with the slide on the left, showing many portable classrooms that could be put on the Mount Aloma school fields, and the slide on the right, noting that the district will need to determine the feasibility of the joint use agreement extension. So in addition to these issues that the city attorney just went through that have been raised as concern regarding indemnification and the Civic Center Act, there was this additional concern raised about whether or not the school fields would be needed at some point to house school class units for future students. This is the May 3rd letter that was referenced both by the city manager and the city attorney. and what you see on the screen here are excerpts from that letter, and as noted, these did include statements regarding the potential need, to use the school fields, to house portables. So that was a reiteration in this May 3rd letter of what had been stated at the March 2nd school board meeting. The letter also raises the concerns, again, about the Civic Center Act and the district's interest in broader indemnification. And it was in response to these concerns that the letter put forward some potential solutions to have the public rent fields from the district, so this is a quote from that letter, saying that if the district were to take over field rentals, groups would simply go to facilitatron, to rent field space. Another potential solution was identified in the district's letter that the district maintained its own school fields, saying, from another quote, that maintenance of the fields would be cost neutral to the district, and that this proposed option may also be the most beneficial to taxpayers. The district did put forward a third solution to have the city rent fields from the district. However, paying rent for the fields on top of the cost of maintaining the field is not in the city's interest. There were other actions that signaled to the city that the district had an interest in acting independently regarding its land. One of these actions was in early August, when the district removed the city park signs and replaced them with district field signs. On the screen are slides from an August 17th school board presentation. The slide on the left shows a collection of four city park signs removed, and as the district slide notes, replaced with new signage designating appropriate ownership. The slide on the right shows both the old and the new signs at Monteloma Elementary School. And as the city manager noted, although we had talked about signs during the negotiation meetings over the joint use agreement, we had not concluded the joint use agreement negotiations, therefore, we had not made any decisions through that process, and the district acted alone to make this decision without talking to the city about it. So the city had no idea that it was happening until Park Cruise showed up at the city parks, the school field sites, and saw that the signs were being removed. Another district action. was to reinitiate plans to install a fence at Montalome Elementary School. The city had been part of a working group in 2021 about fencing at Monteloma. However, that working group ended, and the city was unaware of the ultimate new plans to introduce offense at Monteloma School, and the city did not have the opportunity to provide input on the three design options that were being considered by the district. When we learned about the plans, the city did offer to assist an outreach to the sports groups, who used Montalema Fields, but were told that that was not necessary. Following additional community outreach, The district by the district, the board approved option one, which is what is shown on this slide from the August 17th school board presentation. In addition, at this meeting, staff notes that the joint use agreement was referred to as a pawn for the school district to leverage additional funding from the city. These recent steps by the district regarding signs and fences were seen as independent and unilateral acts. Taken together with the previously mentioned communications, this led to the conclusion that the district was initiating an end to the partnership over school fields. And this led to the city's recommendation that's before the city council this evening, to discontinue the joint use agreement, and to focus instead on finding possibilities to expand our parkland. The city continues to be committed to building new parks in the community. Last month, the community services department, initiated the Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan, Imagine Mountain View Parks. As part of this plan, the city will develop strategies to identify and buy land for new parks and to develop those parks. especially to help meet park land goals in areas of the city that are underserved, such as Montaloma, Rex Manor, Wisman, and other neighborhoods north of Central Expressway, and Central and San Antonio planning areas south of Central. In addition, the city has worked on five parks over the past year and a half and has identified eight new park sites. The city is planning to complete a nexus study to determine the feasibility of charging a parkland fee on commercial and hotel development. And the city is also exploring, or as also conducting a fee study, that will look at field rental rates and review making them closer to market. And the final comment is that the city is exploring a feasibility of a revenue measure, as was discussed early in this meeting, which will help to fund new parks. So my last couple of slides are just the next steps that the city would undertake if the council does go forward with discontinuing the joint use agreement. First, if council approves the recommendation, we would formally inform the district in a letter from the mayor, a draft of which is included in your council report as attachment one. While the 1960 JUA is no longer in effect, the 2000 JUA doesn't expire until 2025. So it would be necessary to send a letter at the staff level initiating the termination of this joint use agreement. We would then coordinate with the district on a transition plan to determine the work and that would be needed to do together on the steps and timing for a smooth transition. We would also work with the user groups and help to find opportunities to make reservations on city fields. We would look at how to reassign city park crews to other parks into the downtown area, where a higher level of service is warranted, especially given the expanded number of city parks in recent years. And as mentioned on the previous slide, the expansion of parks is part of the parks and recreation strategic plan, and which will assess community needs, and develop creative strategies to meet these needs, and to expand and achieve our park goals. The final steps in the process of discontinuing the JUA would be to redirect capital and maintenance savings, to focus on the expansion of parks, to affirm our commitment to shared use and sites at the sites that are governed by separate joint use agreements separate from the ones that we've been talking about, and that are focused on the sites that are jointly owned by the city and the school district. Those are particularly the Mountain View Sports Pavilion at Graham, and the Mountain View Sports Center at Crittenden, both of which are co-owned by the 2 agencies. Another step would be to determine the approach for the maintenance of Cooper and Wisman Parks, which are on separately owned parcels, but are contiguously used and enjoyed by the public, and to determine the maintenance responsibilities for the city-owned land at Stevenson School, on which there's a district parking lot, some landscaped open space in a tennis court. This leads me to the final slide of the presentation, which are the recommendations that are before the council this evening. Those are to authorize the city manager to send a letter to terminate the joint use agreement and to work with the school districts on that transition plan. To affirm the continued agreements and commitment to work together on the jointly owned sports facilities at Crittenden and Graham, and to prove the mayor to send the letter that's included as attachment A. So this ends the staff report, and we're available to answer questions. Thank you.

[04:35:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Do any council members have questions? Council member Ramirez.

[04:35:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Maybe Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of questions. Um, 1st do we know when the JUA that has expired, do we know when it expired? I couldn't read it in the document itself. If you could give unless you know, you could give me a moment and I can see if I can read it on my own screen to see when it expired. Unfortunately, the 2nd question, I think you might be able to answer better than anyone else.

[04:36:24] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I could, well, we could wait or I could ask the 2nd question. I believe I have an answer to that question, which is that the, um, 1960 agreement did not have an explicit expiration date, but that it was set to be in existence as long as the supplemental agreements covering individual schools were in effect, and the last of those supplemental agreements expired in 2019.

[04:36:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so relatively recently. Okay, thank you. And then what are the implications of continuing to do work on those campuses, despite the fact that that JUA has expired? Are there legal implications that we should be aware of?

[04:37:08] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Um... I mean, I think continuing to do the work on those campuses in light of the expiration of the agreement might demonstrate It's kind of iffy. I think that what we would need to do is, in our notice, probably terminating the 2000 joint joint use agreement, make it clear that we are also terminating our actions under the expired joint use agreement. I mean, there are, it's in its complicated law, but there are legal theories under which, you know, the expired joint use agreement could be argued that it continued as long as we continue to perform under it. But what would the termination terms be? After that, it's unclear. So I think that, you know, we can work with them. We can just basically work on a transition plan in light of the fact that we've continued to perform. We would not want to simply just walk away. without, you know, making sure that there was a proper transition plan in place that probably aligned with the termination of the joint use of agreement that is still in existence.

[04:38:23] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Maybe a more direct question would be, let's say, you know, we have been operating as if the GOA didn't expire. Let's say there were a problem. A pretty severe problem where there's litigation. Where did the is the city protected, despite the fact that that document that provides whatever level of protection, you know, that the document provides, so that doesn't exist anymore, right? So what would is the city liable for anything? Do we have a defense, even though that document technically doesn't govern anymore? When did the problem occur? Did it occur?

[04:39:00] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I mean, it depends. I mean, is it, did it occur now before we've, you know, seized our up? So after the expiration.

[04:39:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So let's say, you know, we decided to postpone this item for two weeks. And then something catastrophic occurs. Are we protected? Are there legal concerns that we ought to be aware of?

[04:39:23] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think that that would be very risky, I think, as long as we're performing maintenance responsibilities. Any injury or accident that arises as a result of our our performance of, you know, rental or maintenance of those fields, if the injury or damages or accident arises from our own work, I think that we would be liable for that. So regardless of the fact that the agreement has expired, because we continue to perform. So it's, I think, our actions would speak more than the expiration of the agreement.

[04:39:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you.

[04:40:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Let's see. Other questions. I don't know whether, so there are public speakers on here, and so council members, if you have questions, please do raise your hands, because okay. I don't see anyone else. Are there any other questions? Okay. Seeing no more questions? I will start to take public speakers. Um, The 1st public speaker that I see is, and let me see how many, okay, I'm going to give everyone 3 minutes, the 1st public speaker is Laura Blakely.

[04:40:46] Laura Blakely: Well, mayor Hicks, may I request that the, that he was in board, President Ramirez, go before me?

[04:40:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Certainly.

[04:41:03] Laura Ramirez Berman: Good evening everybody. Good evening, honorable Mayor Hicks and council members. I'm Laura Ramirez Berman, president of the Mountain View Wisman School District. I am also here in my own capacity. I hope you've had a chance to read my letter and consider the points we've raised and the question and answers around the JUA before you deliberate tonight. I'd like to provide some clarification about the JUA negotiations. Just to clarify, the school district did not unilaterally end the JUA negotiations, nor have we made any decision to do so without any further discussion. Mayor Hickson, we had a copy on August 15th. I enumerated a few of the concerns that the district still had regarding the JUA, and one of them was, in fact, indemnification. And as I listened tonight, I wondered why if the city felt that they had fulfilled that part of the concern, why it hadn't been communicated to us. I wish that there had been some follow up communication with us after that conversation. I ask that you make your decisions tonight based on the specific issues we raised and your assessments of the need of the community, not on the inaccurate notion that the district walked away from the table. Finally, I want the public to know that regardless of the JUA, the public should be assured of our unwavering commitment to ensure that our community continues to enjoy access to school owned spaces. Thank you.

[04:42:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Laura Blakely?

[04:42:51] Laura Blakely: Thank you, Mayor Hicks and council members and city staff. I'm Laura Blakely. I do serve on the Mountain V Whisman board, but I'm here speaking this evening in my personal capacity. The city proposal to unilaterally terminate the joint use agreement is abrupt and premature. I know all parties are weary from years of negotiating and fits and starts. But, and despite the assertions made by one of the speakers earlier this evening, um, terminating the JUA may not have that much impact on Mount View Wisman's day-to-day operations or on the community's ability to use the school facilities after hours. But it's not a good look for the city and school district to simply cease communicating and attempting a good faith to work collaboratively together for the good of the residents of Mountain View. It feels like young kids at the playground, getting into an argument in the sandbox, and saying, I don't like you anymore, and taking their toys, and going home. Really? Have we sunk to a level where we can't even have a civil conversation and treat each other with respect and in good faith? I hope not. I believe that most, or probably all of you council members ran for office, because you love Mountain View, and you care about our community, and you want to make it even better. Those were my motives, too, for serving on the school board, but with an emphasis on families and students. As elected officials, I feel like we should be modeling respectful grown up behavior for our constituents. We don't have to like each other, although many of us do on a personal level, but we do owe a duty to the residents of Mountain View to get along and govern fairly and equitably. I encourage you to think about the impact unilateral termination. Uh, sorry, uh, of the joint use agreement we'll have in our community, and the respect our constituents have for the public agencies in our community. We collectively can do better. As assistant manager, Seymour described, the open points to be resolved in the agreement had been narrowed to a handful of issues that were outlined in President Berman's ladder, and perhaps there's a couple others that I'm not aware of. But I'm confident that these issues can be resolved. Please defer voting on approval of this item, and give the school district an opportunity to give direction to our staff, and restart the final stage of negotiations. Preserve the possibility of joy. Do this for the good of our community. Thank you.

[04:45:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Brian Cullinane?

[04:45:44] Brian Cullinane: Hi, everyone. Thank you, Mayor Hicks and council member. My name is Brian Culinan. I'm resident of Mountain View for 8 years. I've been the president of the Mountain View Los Altos Girls, Softball League, Softball League in our Area for Girls, 5 through 18. We've existed for, I think, since 72. Um, I'm here trying to represent some of the local, uh, nonprofit volunteer run youth sports that are gonna be very much affected by this decision, whichever way it goes. Our nonprofit youth sports are really struggling. There are more and more advanced and expensive travel teams that are asking for more and more fields, and they don't care about the costs. They are happy to pass that on to the people who can pay. For example, my league, we are 25% full scholarship. We keep our costs so low to try and keep anyone who, any girl who wants to play softball, who can keep playing softball, where they can get there, they can ride their bike and be part of this community. Um, I'm familiar with the council's report. Thank you, city manager, assistant, city manager, for the summary. It was really well done tonight. I believe I understand what the recommendation is. Um, but with respect directly to youth sports, this really feels like a step in the wrong direction for us, um, it will be, you can look at the quality, for example, the Los Altos fields that are run by Los Altos school district as a direct understanding of where we're headed. Those fields are terrible for softball. We can't play on them, essentially. And that's why we use Mountain View Fields more, probably a little more than we wish we would sometimes than Los Altos, but we just can't put the girls safely on those fields. Um, The move that's been talked a little bit facilitron. Wow, facilitron is gonna be a mess. That is a system that will be completely taken over by all of the advanced travel teams. No matter what cost gets put in them, it will squeeze us out. We won't get our fields, we won't have enough time to run our leagues. And I really believe that a lot of these nonprofit youth orgs like mine will be gone in 3 to 4 years if we move to something like that. Again, I understand the recommendation. I really do. Um, it seems, like, there's stuff on both sides here, but for us, it probably will kill girls softball in our area. Um, To, lastly, um, just ask if there is any chance of common ground. I know how difficult this has been. It is definitely eye opening to see so many years of work back and forth on both sides. If there's any hope for coming ground in a resolution here, we would appreciate it if there's any hope for that still to still be something that the council could do other than simply approving this resolution at night. Um, thank you all for your time. I appreciate it. Thanks.

[04:48:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Uh, Mark Jamgard?

[04:48:31] Mark Jamgard: First, I just want to say thank you for all the work you guys have put into trying to find this common ground with Mountain View Wizman. Um, I'm here as someone who's coached my daughters in soccer and in softball, um, and I've seen, you know, what that does, and how that's led to my girls being confident young women now. Um, and I don't want that to die, and that's where this is gonna head, uh, if, uh, Mountain View is, uh, is running this. City of Mountain View has done a fantastic job, and we don't want it to stop. You know, I know that, uh, I know that these negotiations are in a bad place, but I would really encourage you for the, for your residents, for the youth in our city, please, please, try to restart them. Thank you.

[04:49:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Uh, former trustee Nelson.

[04:49:43] Stephen Nelson: In a room where it happens, I used to be, maybe I will be in the future. Mr. Randolph seems to be the negotiating rock. A bump, a big bump. Mia Cooper. Mr. Randolph prefers the horrific, the honorific doctor, our superintendent. Yet, he officially writes to Mrs. McCarthy. It's... she has a title. She also has one that she likes to be called. Mia Kupa. I wanted to hire a self assured leader. But Randolph, Dr. Randolph is too sure of himself. He is not the genius of our community. It is a distributed genius in our community. His public integrity is not above reproach. As we well know, teach to one, math, that's one fiasco of his. Council, reject this cooperation defeat. Don't agree to be defeated. Meet and confer and negotiate with the board directly. Cut out the middleman. Have a council to board, joint meeting, and when a brick wall impede your progress, just walk around that wall, just walk around it. I'm Stephen Nelson. member of the board that hired Dr. Rudolph. I too, for all have come, have sinned and come short of the glory of God, myself, and Dr. Randolph, Rudolph. Thank you.

[04:51:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now we have our virtual speakers, I assume we have no more in-person speakers. We have first Devin Connolly.

[04:51:47] Devin Connolly: Good evening, Mayor Hicks, vice mayor, show Walter, and... Good evening, Mayor Hicks, vice mayor, Sher Walter, and honorable council members. I apologize for not being present in person tonight. My childcare arrangements fell through. I had hoped to speak on this item, but unfortunately I've been informed that a member of the public is threatening a Brown Axe lawsuit if more than 2 trustees speak on this item. But I did want to share that I am here via Zoom, and paying close attention to this evening's decision making. Thank you.

[04:52:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next, we have JR.

[04:52:46] Jill Rakestraw: Hi, it's Jill Rakestraw. And I, 1st of all, wanted to say thank you for addressing this issue. Um, I actually think, That it's important to understand that the very 1st request from the school district from Wisman to have help building a park was from 1955. Actually, 54. When the superintendent of the Wisman school district, lacking funds proposed that the city help with developing a part of the Mauna Loma school site for a joint school playground community park. That was paid for with development funds through the city and not by the school district. That decision was that the city would lease for $one a year. That portion, half of the school site, to provide a park for the community. As far as I understand, That leash hasn't changed, it just became a joint use agreement. Um, the joint use agreement was fine for the next 60 or 70 years, um, when we started to discuss fencing, somehow. It became an item that people hadn't thought about for a really long time. Um, I don't necessarily think that it needs to change. Um, I just want to make sure, I would prefer that things stay the way they are. The city has done an excellent job for 70 plus years maintaining the portions of the school grounds that they own. And I would just like to see that continue. Thank you.

[04:55:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And the next speaker is Christopher, I hope I pronounce your name right. Christopher Viagi.

[04:55:17] Christopher Viagi: Yes, that's correct.

[04:55:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you.

[04:55:19] Christopher Viagi: Good evening, everyone. Um, my name is Christopher Viagi, and I'm here to uh, represent AYSO, Region 45, um, which is the local youth soccer organization that services the residents of Mountain View. And I'd like to advocate that the city, um, continued to attempt to negotiate, um, a continuation of the JUA. I know it was mentioned earlier this evening that nobody's going to miss the JUA, but as, um, the envy lags, um, field Brian said, um, all the youth sports organizations are going to miss the JUA. Uh, because while the, Field use or the, the use agreement may not have benefited all of the, the adults who wanted open space. It definitely benefited, um, all of the, the sporting youth, um, in our region, and so I'd, I'd like to see that continue, because it absolutely benefited them. Um, I worry about direct renting from Facilitron, because we will start to be squeezed out by other organizations. And I know for soccer, it'll be Stanford, and it'll be Palo Alto, and it'll be, um, Cupertino FC, and it'll be all of the other organizations that are around us that can afford to just pay and can afford to use facilitron. Um, And and monopolize field space. And so, as soon as we go to facilitron, right? Residents and nonprofits will be deep prioritized because there's no ability or facility to do that outside of facilitron. And having spoken with the sister organizations, um, the AY sister organizations that are all south of us. I can tell you all that, without a doubt, they will all say that those who now have to work through facilit- facilitron in their municipalities have suffered quite a bit. Um, all of their programs are much weaker and they can no longer service the same number of children that they used to serve. Thank you.

[04:57:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Next, I see Tim McKenzie.

[04:57:55] Tim McKenzie: Hi y'all. Um, Tim Mackenzie, resident of Monte Loma since, uh, 2015. Um, I just get, I need to make the observation that this whole situation really has felt like a political pissing contest between the city and the school district, which seems to have been started by the school district, based on my somewhat paying attention, but really, it feels like, uh, think of the children as a rhetorical shield to, uh, fight over political power and or, something in the city. It's really frustrating as a resident of the city, doesn't seem like there's actually much, it seems more like a conflict between the boards and echoing what people have said earlier. I hope that we find some way around this impasse. We're able to do some things. Also, as a resident of the city who has been involved in a couple of things. I wish that there was as much, uh, examination of the school resource officer program as there appears to be for, uh, for this situation. Um, it, I don't know if anyone went to the Pisa meeting just recently where we heard the one year report out on the, on the SRO program. There was a child discharged a weapon from a cop. at accidentally, which is just an absurd thing. But this, this whole thing, I would love to see resolved, love to find some ways where we can find some common ground. Uh, repair, rebuild trust in ways that the city and school district could work together on some things. Um, hopefully we, and just, one potential idea floated in this in, in the past. I don't expect anything to happen anytime soon, but I'll keep, uh, saying it occasionally. Um, I would love to see the voting age lower to 16 in municipal and school board elections, and that seems like a really natural place for the city and school district to find common ground and work together. And I'd hope that that and that could be a way to build those bridges that have clearly been broken. So good luck making these decisions. Sorry that this is a conversation that we have to have. Thank you.

[05:00:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so this is the last call for public comments. I'm saying no more virtual or in-person commenters. So we will go to council comments. First, I see council member Ramirez.

[05:00:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Sorry, I have to use the other module because mine isn't working. I have a couple of quick follow-up questions. So 1st thank you to the members of the public who have remained with us this late into the evening. Just to clarify, unfortunately, superintendent Rudolph didn't speak, so I'm sort of asking you to speak on behalf of the district, but just to clarify, did you share with the district the indemnification language that you showed us and the interpretation of the Civic Center Act?

[05:01:19] Unknown Speaker: The indemnification language was included in the draft joint use agreement that went back and forth between city staff and Mountain View Wisman school district staff during the negotiations. I don't know if it was shared at any other time, but it was not a point of contention during those negotiations. It just wasn't an issue. We agreed to indemnify them and agreed upon that language. So, It was available to them. It was in their possession, it went back and forth many times. Was it shared outside of that contact, I don't know.

[05:01:54] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Did we ever receive any proposed language from the district about indemnification?

[05:02:01] Unknown Speaker: No, we did not.

[05:02:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Did we receive some thoughts or like, here's what's wrong with our language? Any suggestions of what we're doing wrong?

[05:02:13] Unknown Speaker: No, in the last version of the joint use agreement that I review that was exchanged between the parties, where there were comments and modifications, from district staff, there were no modifications or edits to the indemnification provisions. There were many to other provisions, but not to that section.

[05:02:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. And then, I'm not sure I understand how, how are we violating the Civic Center Act? What from the school district's perspective, what are we doing wrong?

[05:02:47] Unknown Speaker: So I am aware of only 2 things that I have heard. One is that we are charging too little for rental of the school grounds, for the fields. And, you know, as I explained, the Civic Center Act does not provide a minimum charge. It provides a cap, it provides a maximum, it says you cannot charge more than your cost recovery. But there is no low end. So if you want to, for instance, if maintenance costs, you know, $100,000 a year, but you want to charge significantly less, and you want to subsidize the maintenance costs, because you want to provide a benefit to the nonprofit organizations, the Civic Center Act allows for that. You can charge less. And so, we were always confused by the accusation that we were charging, by charging too little. We were violating the Civic center act. The second thing that I have heard that has been shared with me is our prioritization. But there is nothing in the Civic Center Act that prohibits prioritization, and, in fact, I did read a letter from a member of the public, Mr. Shrenny, I believe, that provided examples of many other areas that actually prioritize, have a reasonable prioritize prioritization system. And, you know, I have reviewed our prioritization system, and I think it is reasonable, and I think this, the type of scrutiny that would be applied by court reviewing it would be rational basis, most likely. And rational basis is the lowest, and is it reasonably related to a legitimate government interest. And the way we've laid this out is, we're just providing, you know, prioritization to use of the fields to local, nonprofit, youth oriented sports organizations, which is one of the primary benefits of the Civic Center Act. And then, again, I explain that we prioritize the sports that are in season. So it's logical to prioritize, you know, football over baseball during football season, because that's when those youth sport activities are occurring. And so I am, I'm just not seeing, we have been confused at the accusation that that is, you know, a violation of the Civic Cent Act. However, I will also clarify that we have asked, many, many times, for specific examples of how we're violating it and what we can do, to not violate it. In fact, in the negotiations, we said, you know, we're willing to put this language in it, saying that we will comply, but what would be really, really helpful is if district staff articulated very clearly exactly how we're violating it so that we can correct the behavior. And as I stated, the only things that have come off are the two that I've described, which we might just simply be at an impasse on those, and we might disagree on the interpretation of the civic center act, but we just don't think we're violating it based on those two things.

[05:06:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Um, I'm curious to know if there's been any... My apologies. I've got a cold and it's starting to act up. Has there been any communication from the district suggesting that there's any board direction around the negotiation with the JUA?

[05:06:35] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Council member Ramirez, not explicitly. No.

[05:06:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. So there's never been a suggestion, for instance, that, you know, the board has any interest in discussing the JUA.

[05:06:48] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Oh, yes, let me clarify. So there was a suggestion earlier on this year, from the superintendent to me, that the board was interested in discontinuing the JUA. So it was suggested that they wanted to explore it. and that there was interest, but not explicitly that the board directed it. But I was certainly told in writing. And we were told many times in meetings that it was something that the board was wanting to discuss and consider whether the expiration of the joint use agreement should continue to, well, should expire, basically.

[05:07:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: And my apologies if I missed it. When did when did we receive that communication?

[05:07:37] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: February.

[05:07:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: February, a couple weeks prior to our negotiations ending or being put on pause by the district. Okay.

[05:07:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Council member Ramos.

[05:07:55] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, so I'm trying to understand time frame. Negotiations pause when.

[05:08:02] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: February of this year.

[05:08:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: And was that the same time we got the email from the superintendent that you reference?

[05:08:12] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes, it was 2 weeks after I received an email.

[05:08:14] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. Just for reference. I got I didn't get the email. It was sent to us. But the quote here I see is, as such, there's now a feeling on the board where it wants to weigh the consideration of ending the joint use agreement. As you know, while everyone values the agreement, the addition that many students means that all available lands will be used for portables to house feature students. There is now a sentiment that ending the JUA will help to ease the tensions of a transition of the future reduction of green space, where we would have to place portables on existing fields. And so this was after negotiations were paused.

[05:08:54] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: This was a couple weeks before negotiations were paused.

[05:08:57] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. And so it would be reasonable to think that negotiations were paused for similar sentiments that were in that letter.

[05:09:07] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Correct. That is what staff believed. And we were told that it was not going to commence until further notice. So, our negotiations were paused, but there was still actually some action between the school board and the city, there were a couple of city, the school board meetings that I had the opportunity to listen to. Um, one interesting, uh, there were a few interesting letters, but one interesting requests that I saw that came, uh, in front of the council, uh, representing from the school district was a public records request.

[05:09:46] Councilmember Emily Ramos: How, um, how come it is it for a a jurisdiction to send a public records request to another jurisdiction?

[05:09:57] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: It's almost unheard of. And in our professional careers, we, us staff and the executive team have never been at any agencies while we were working, where one agency did a public record act request of a partner agency. And I have a sense of why that would be, but why, why is that usually unheard of? When you are partners with an agency, even when you're trying to work through differences, you would work through challenges and problems via staff, perhaps via elected, and would not resort to submitting a public Records Act request to inundate that agency with 1000s of pages of documents and hours and hours worth of time and work that the other agency's staff would have to do. It's just not, it's not a common practice. It's not a professional courtesy. It's just, it's unheard of.

[05:10:55] Councilmember Emily Ramos: And as far as you know, those conversations, the action of filing a public records request. Also, the, um, I believe they also sent a letter to our Parks and Rex commission.

[05:11:10] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Correct. That is the letter from May that was referenced, where the superintendent, again, raised the issue of placing portables on school lands, if enrollment should possibly increase at some point in the future, and then 3 proposed solutions were given to change the nature of the joint use agreement, the 1st solution was for the city to pay rent, to the district, which, as our assistant city manager stated, that's not something the city would entertain to pay rent for fields that we are paying to maintain. Then the 2nd and 3rd proposed solutions were for the district too. take over the maintenance of the fields at what was said at that time to be a much less lower cost than what the city paid. And the other option or proposed solution was for the district to rent out their own fields. So those actions taken together with all the other many, many actions over the months, led to the conclusion this evening.

[05:12:19] Councilmember Emily Ramos: And so all these these messages, the letter to the PRC, the Parks and Rec Commission, the PRA, this email, pretty much around the time, we weren't in negotiations.

[05:12:36] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Correct.

[05:12:40] Councilmember Emily Ramos: No further questions unless we're ready for comments.

[05:12:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: I think we have a few more questions. If that's council member Abakoga is in the queue.

[05:12:51] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I actually wanted to see if one of the district representatives could come forward and I just have some questions that I would like to hear directly from the district on.

[05:13:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, if you particularly. Don't want to. That's fine. I mean, it's up to them as to who they would like just speak. And if they don't, that's fine.

[05:13:17] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: But frankly, I just want to hear. I'm looking for, I guess I'm trying to understand the rationale for some of these questions or the issues and why, you know, does the district want to know how much we charge for the fields or how much we spend on maintenance if we're paying for them? And why does the district, um, have a concern. I guess it sounds like a concern? as to who the city rents the fields out to. But again, I don't know. And I'm looking for clarification here. Like, I guess I'm just trying to understand what the issues are. I get the indemnification, but it sounds like that's been clarified, and I guess I'm looking for acknowledgement on that. But the other 2 issues that have been referenced in the letters. I just want to understand like what the concern is.

[05:14:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah, so if I can get someone to respond to that, that would be very helpful. Otherwise, I don't know how we're gonna proceed on this. I don't know if President Berman, you would be willing to come speak or Superintendent Rudolph, um, and someone, please, answer the questions.

[05:15:03] Superintendent Rudolph: Good evening.

[05:15:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good evening. How are you?

[05:15:05] Superintendent Rudolph: Pretty good. How are you?

[05:15:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good, thank you.

[05:15:07] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: All right. So, um, yeah, so my questions have to do with... It looks like the sticking points of the JUA. Um, could you, could you explain or share what the concerns are around the pricing of the, the rental of the fields, or who we, the city rents out to, or how much the city spends on maintenance. Because I don't think we charge you for that. We cover all those costs. So I guess I just would like some clarification as to what your concerns are around these things.

[05:15:48] Superintendent Rudolph: Sure, sure. First one indemnification that hasn't been resolved. Um, I got a text from staff who's listening to this, and it hasn't. I don't sit in negotiation, so I can't really attest to that, but I can tell you, I would suspect that if two lawyers needed to address it, they would just call each other up and they would address it. So I can't speak to as to whether or not your indemnification Klaus meets the mustard, but I do know that our lawyers haven't talked about that, um, with your team. The second one has to deal with sort of the structure in which you were setting the fees. And so, yes, the Civic Center Act allows you to prioritize different groups. perfectly fine. However, you can't blanket every single group at a set cost. You have to delineate it. The 2nd part about this, it has to actually adhere with the actual board policy, which that hasn't taken place also. Um, and the, in terms of the fees, I think this is in response to the city continuing to say that they take this as a loss and that they constantly are putting this back. And so our, or at least my response, I can't speak for the negotiating team, my response simply was, well, you either accept it as a loss, and we all just accept that that's the cost that we're actually paying. Or you charge a rate that's commiserate with whatever your costs actually are. That's my perspective on it. I mean, I'm sure Dr. Westover, who actually sits in a negotiation, um, probably has some more, but the, in the fee structure, if you go back to 2017, since we've been negotiating this for quite some time, the fee structure was actually determined, a large part of the joint use agreement are a series of mishaps that have occurred over the course of various transitions. So it is fees that have yet to be paid. So, for instance, lighting bills, water bills that have not been paid. Uh, Vargas never came. That's actually how this all started. Vargas actually never came online to the joint use agreement because the city refused to pay for the Vargas Field until they had a joint use agreement that captured Vargas Field. So that's the origin of all of these negotiations. And so these mishaps over time have led to the question in terms of, well, how is maintenance actually being handled, how many hours are taking place, and sort of who is using in particular fields, and whether or not that adheres to the various groups that have been carved out by our board in terms of nonprofits, for profits, and other ones. Um, so you can't, while you can say, a nonprofit, fits within a certain criteria under your interpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean that it meets the board's interpretation of how the rental rate should be charged. And that's a large part of where the issue is, that the way that the fields are rented out, have to adhere to that. I think the last thing is, and while, you know, and I've talked with several of the youth sports members, no one wants to end any of the youth sports, but what cannot happen is that you block schedule before, as a priority, for anybody else has access to the actual fields. So if you do it on at this time and you block and everybody has equal access, then that totally complies with the Civics and Act. But if you book all of the fields prior to the actual rental process, then we have an actual issue. And I want to, I do want to clarify, um, and I just want to point this out to Kimber, because I know we haven't talked to our city manager, um, McCarthy, in our, in my email as our meetings were previously. We actually spoke about issues that both of us collectively had. That's the whole point of the actual meeting. is to share, here's what's going on, and to find a common ground. We did that with teacher housing when there was an issue there. We did it and I shared it again, because we didn't have a meeting in January. Now, after that, the meaning's ended. But what I find interesting about this is, because if I was signaling, it was an end to the joint use agreement, I would have brought it to the board. But in my last email at the beginning of August, I also stated that our board was developing an environmentally Green Stewart plan. And wouldn't this be a great opportunity for all of us to show how we could reduce our carbon footprint and the use of a combustible engines. And I inquired about the feasibility of using electric lawnmowers at the conclusion of next year, because it's possible that that's where we're gonna go. So these questions did not... That email did not indicate, and I also talk about water usage and reclamation, and that this is the opportunity for it, those comments did not suggest that we were ending it. But 7 years of negotiation. That's a long time. And I agree with you. It is a frustrating moment. But at no point. outside of me expressing, privately, what was taking place, and how we needed to find a solution, did I ever want to say it? In my letter, while I understand, it can be interpreted one way, and I apologize that that's how you interpret it, but my letter simply indicates that if you refuse to indemnify us, because at this point, we still believe that we haven't met that clause, that if you refuse to indemnify us, here are three possible solutions. That's it. This is our work around, because we didn't have the time or capacity. So I think, and I understand it as a lot of hard feelings, and I can own my role in this. I hope that you can own yours. But I do think that cooler heads have to prevail. And if it was an issue where I wanted to unilaterally change something. I would have took it to my board, like I do all the time. Well, so, you know, I just, let's just have a great conversation, then. So why did the signs get removed without... The signs got removed as it was stated in the FAQ because city residents continued to get put in the queue. In terms of how to address issues. And what ended up happening is 2 months later, they come to us upset that they got to run around from city staff. Now I'm not blaming anybody here. Obviously, none of us are taking the phone calls. But when somebody has 2 months of that issue, and then we take Monteloma, and we have that whole community saying, I thought that this was a park, and it's not. All that, and we expressed interest, time and time again, and I did email the city manager saying we were going to change the signs. And we intentionally made the signs to look exactly the same, so that all it changed was who you needed to go to to address the issue. Because up until last week, when I needed to make a phone call, the reporter issue, it goes to a standard number in the city, and the person in the city's office actually said, I have no idea about this. So we had to reclaim the phone number, so that we could address issues that continue to come up. Because it is unfair to us, as an organization, to take the blame for things that should be done by both organizations. And that's why we changed the sign. Oh, I mean, they have my opinions. I get blamed for a lot of things that we're not responsible for. But all I'm trying to say is I'm going to stop it here. I know we're just doing questions, so, you know, we could have conversation after that. Thank you.

[05:24:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you for responding. App appreciate it. All right, thank you. Council member Mattachek.

[05:24:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, I had a question for city staff, and that is, um, what options do we have in terms of fields that we manage and control? For youth sports? It's very difficult to hear the comments tonight.

[05:24:30] Community Services Director John Marshont: Good evening, Counsel John Marshont, Community Services director. So, um, the recreation staff took a look at our city owned, um, parks and looked at the volunteer led nonprofit groups. And can we accommodate them on our own city fields. And for the most part, we think we can. The change would be that some of the those nonprofit volunteer led groups use the school district fields as home base. And so we would be moving them to a field that they may not typically use in order to accommodate them on city park space. But for the majority, we believe we could move them to, um, city park space, not necessarily those that are more the competitive, um, sports, but those that are volunteer based programs, AYSO softball.

[05:25:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. Vice mayor.

[05:25:36] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. I wanted to ask a couple questions about the Civic Center Act. I had a conversation with Jennifer Logue, our city attorney, on Monday morning, and she went over the city Civic Center Act with me a little bit. And one of the things that I thought was so interesting, is that it seems to apply to school districts. And I just want to confirm this. This law is written to control how school districts use their property as a civic center, which basically has the definition of, of, of, that's, of sentimine, a place where civic, basically non educational uses occur. Is that correct?

[05:26:24] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes, that is.

[05:26:25] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so when you read through, we read through several pages of the Civic Centeract, not the whole thing. It's not very long, but we only went through a couple pages, but the word city was not mentioned anywhere. It really applies to this school district. So, anyway, I just, I had never heard of the civic center act until, um, a year or so ago when it kept, started be bringing up. And I think that's because I've normally worked in city issues, and it's a school district issue. So, I just wanted to mention that, that it was, it's about school districts. And you could, you know, you did interpret it, I think, very liberally to say, we could be seen as sort of stepping into the shoes of the school district because we, you know, we, the parks are, the fields are used for parks during non school hours. Okay, and then another question I wanted to ask you is about, um, the idea that we have two school board members here who are speaking on their own behalf. I always wonder about that. When I go, um, to another meeting in Mountain View now, everybody knows that I'm on the city council, or I assume, you know, if I'm speaking in a capacity. So how do you really do divorce yourself from your role in a situation like this? I mean, particularly when we're talking about a school district, um, a school district issue. How can, how can, how can an elected official do that?

[05:28:13] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I don't I don't want to read too much into the comment. Maybe they were just here saying that they were speaking as school board members and also as members of the Mountain View community. And I think that you could probably speak in both capacities. I mean, they're known as board members, but they also are members of the community. And so I'm not I'm not sure that there's, I can really answer the question about divorcing yourself from your 2 roles, but I think you could speak as both.

[05:28:44] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. A resident. Well anyway, I'm very glad you're here. I appreciate that you came and that you spoke. But to me, when you came to come to this meeting, you're a school board member. I mean, I suppose if we were talking about, um, I don't know, uh, if we were talking about, uh, recycled water. Yeah. Thank you. You know, I can imagine you just speaking as a regular member, but when we're talking about this, you're a school board member, and when I go to your, and I appreciate, I respect that, and I, I know that you have a lot of expertise that you bring. Um, and likewise, when I go to your meetings, um, I go there, you know, I go there sort of as part of my city council job, although I'm talking, you know, I'm saying my own words. So I just, I wanted to bring that up, because I find it very confusing, because here we have these two school board members, but we don't really have anybody who's, like, the official representative, and I suppose that's because maybe they didn't have a chance to vote on these issues. Which is very legitimate reasoning.

[05:29:53] Public Speaker: We always have to be very careful about what is voted on, and what, you know, is our personal opinion, based on what we've learned in our capacity of doing the job that the city has asked us to do.

[05:30:09] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, and then the other question I have, which may seem sort of elementary. But is... What do we mean by negotiation seized? I mean, to me, a negotiation ceases when people stop coming to meetings, people say, I'm not gonna work with you on this anymore. I mean, that's what cease means to me. It doesn't necessarily mean, you get a cease and desist order or somebody sends you a letter and say, I'm never going to talk to you about it. When they quit working with you. That's, so, is, is that, what do we mean by cease?

[05:30:53] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yeah, thank you, council membership, Walter. So, negotiations cease, meaning we will no longer talk about joint use agreement. We will no longer negotiate the terms, the conditions, of the joint use agreement. Now our staff have spent many hours and many meetings talking about other issues, but not the joint use agreement.

[05:31:15] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. So I see council member Romero is going to make a comment, I guess, but I was... Oh, I was going to ask a short question. So, I'm hearing the term refuse to indemnify thrown around a lot, and I'm curious how and when that's been used, because I'm hearing something kind of, I mean, that's what I've heard from the school district that the city has refused to indemnify, but from the city attorney, I'm hearing that there was indemnification, there was text about it, and it's less a refusal, then a disagreement, maybe, about terms that... So I'm wondering why, whether you have, I've continued to hear this term refused to identify an indemnify. And I'm wondering if that's been used continually, even after you had proposed that tax.

[05:32:17] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So... the first, I... heard that we refused to indemnify in any context was when I saw the letter, saying that we declined to do so. I don't, the indemnification provision was not a hot topic during negotiations, and I heard Dr. Rudolph say that he got a text from staff saying that that is not resolved. But what, in response to the question from council member Ramirez, when he asked, had we ever received any proposed alternative language, we had not. So even if there's a disagreement with regard to the indemnification language that I showed, we were not told there was a disagreement with that language. And I read the language. It's very strong. I don't know what more we can give, but I don't think that staff ever said. They wouldn't consider alternative language. It just, we never received alternative language indemnification language. And never once did we decline to defend and indemnify. So I just, I honestly don't know where that has come from. It just didn't, we just didn't say we wouldn't defend an indemnify.

[05:33:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you.

[05:33:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez?

[05:33:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And just to be very clear, I'm speaking in my capacity as a council member, not a staff to San Jose council members or do him and his, I have a question for staff about the, um, the concern that the superintendent shared about members of the public contacting the city about the fields. Because we maintain them, it's hard for me to see a scenario where we would say, we don't know or not our problem. Do you do you happen to have information about the nature of the complaints and how we would, how do we respond to questions about the fields controlled by the JUA?

[05:34:30] Community Services Director John Marshont: We would answer questions just like we would for any other park facility. I think we need to look at what phone number is being listed, where that is going and ensure that we have the appropriate staff being contacted. So if there is a, um, improvement we can make, we can certainly look into that.

[05:34:50] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. It's pretty helpful. And it's a pretty big step to have members of the public say. We've been getting around the runaround from the city, you know, and then to say, okay, we're going to change all the signage. So did this district ever communicate with the city to say, hey, we're getting a lot of concerns from the public, and there's uncertainty about who's addressing the concerns that we're hearing. Like, did we hear about those concerns? Did we take any corrective action? What was the communication from the district about those concerns?

[05:35:25] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Council member Ramirez. Well, I'll take some of this, and then I'll turn to our community services director to fill in. So signs had been talked about during the course of negotiations, and city staff and district staff, both were trying to reach agreement on how the new signs would look with both logos. City logo and the school district logo. And it was something that, over the course of time, there were different ideas, but nothing was ever agreed on. Nothing was ever landed on at that point. And we do know that the signs needed to be updated. There was no dispute over that, because some of the signs were old. Now, in relation to the actual park signs themselves, some of which had been up for decades, We had no idea that was gonna happen. And as we heard this evening, the signs were planned and designed, which takes weeks, maybe months. And me, I was notified on a Thursday when I was on vacation. Granted, no one would have known that. Uh, didn't see the email till the weekend, but the signs had already been planned to come down on Monday. So, we didn't know about that. Um, but yes, in regards to knowing that the signs needed to be updated, yes, that was something that staff had been talking about, but there was absolutely no agreement, no decisions, no determination on what they were gonna look like. They weren't even designed, jointly. So that's where that landed.

[05:37:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. And Mayor, I'm ready to make comments if there are no other questions.

[05:37:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: All right, go ahead.

[05:37:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, um, my last question was, um, if you could explain this issue of the rentals and priority and the Dr. Rudolph mentioned adult leagues versus youth leagues and like, how does that all work? And what, and I don't, I should have asked what the policy is that, when it seems to, we were apparently not complying with maybe. Maybe you know that, but could you explain that a little? You don't have to go into all the details. But how does this all work?

[05:37:46] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So that goes back to some of the questions that City Attorney Logue was talking about, which is, It's a matter of us receiving information, very clear information of how we can meet, what the district feels is non-compliant and be able to negotiate from there. And so it's just a matter of getting clear information in clear direction so that we could determine whether or not that is, um, negotiation that we want to continue.

[05:38:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So could we potentially, um, satisfy the the adult league requests on our fields and then reserve the school fields for youths if that's the issue?

[05:38:35] Unknown Speaker: I don't think we're at a point of understanding the issue is. Sounds like the school district has rules, regulations that they have agreed to and we are not satisfying that and so it's just a matter of fully understanding what we need to do to meet those standards.

[05:38:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: And then are you familiar with, is it, like, strong or scheduled? Facilatron.

[05:39:02] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[05:39:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: So it sounds like, is it like 1st come 1st serve or whoever gets willing to pay the highest amount that gets the...

[05:39:10] Unknown Speaker: I would assume there's different ways to configure the system.

[05:39:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Um, And then our priority is to try to accommodate the nonprofits and the, and to that allows for more opportunity for, um, youth of all all incomes to participate, Christ. I know we've done like, I personally have done like club volleyball, which is expensive. So our priority has always been to try to accommodate those that are less costly because of their nonprofit status. Is that right?

[05:39:46] Unknown Speaker: There's a nonprofit rate is good for both, but we are giving priority to those groups that have a higher Mountain View residency on top of the nonprofit rate.

[05:39:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, great. Thank you. Council member Ramirez.

[05:40:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you mayor. Um, so I, I think everybody knows, I'm very poorly read, but I watch a lot of movies, and I like to reference them. And I've been thinking for many months now about, I think it's, is either warden and cool hand, Luke, when he says, what we have here is failure to communicate. And I feel that very strongly in this meeting where the presentation of the facts shared by our staff is very compelling. And then I hear information from the district that is different, and I feel that a lot of the information I get from the, there's a lot of deeply mixed signals, and it's not easy to respond as a consequence, right? So if there's an email saying, there's a feeling of the board, you know, where we want to consider ending the joint use agreement from the superintendent. It's really hard not to take that seriously. Wow, that there's actually interest in ending this. And then there's no communication, and there's a total lack of clarity on where we're in the wrong, you know, where we're sharing language that feels very strong and clear to me, and we're being told it's not good enough, but we're not being told, why? It's not good enough. So what I don't want to do is direct our staff to continue spinning their wheels in mud. I don't think that's going to be productive. I have no confidence that if we continue to negotiate the way that we have been, that things will be any different seven years from now. So, I feel like the path forward is a narrow one, and it's for the board to provide direction in a public meeting, saying, We want a successor JUA, and here are very clear and unambiguous terms. And if that comes back to us and it aligns with something that we're comfortable with, great, we can move forward. But if it's an affirmation of, you know, the ambiguity, then I feel like that's the same thing as directing our staff to continue negotiating with a party, that just is not on the same page. on a lot of the things that we've been talking about. So, I'm comfortable with the staff recommendation, but I also would love the board in a meeting to articulate their concerns very clearly and say, if there actually is interest in a successor agreement, you know, here are the terms. You know, here is the language that we want to see an indemnification. So we can come back and our city attorney can evaluate it and conclude, yes, this is implementable. It's actionable, it's defensible. Or, you know, there's a very good reason why we can't accept this, right? It's just not in the city's interest. Or, you know, similarly with the Civic Center Act. You know, I'm hearing that we're being told we're wrong and in violation. And that's it's a serious thing to accuse an agency to be in violation of state law. I don't think that's something that we should take lightly. So, if we're in violation, it's really important for us to understand, from the district's perspective, how we're in violation and how we can correct that. And I'm, I'm, it's kind of bewildering to me that we don't have that clarity after so many years of dialogue. So, I'll be supporting the staff recommendation. But I do think that in our letter, we should say, presuming that a majority of the council wants a successor JUA. I want a successor J away. Um, you know, here is here is the way we can get to one, right? It's clear that at a staff level, there is no longer inability to reach a mutually acceptable outcome. So, you know, we need we really need the board to tell us in clear and in, you know, unambiguous terms, here are the terms that we would need, you know, to feel comfortable with the successor JUA, and that for that to come back to us, and then we would say, looks good. No problem. We can move forward. Or, you know, now we have at least that clarity. And we can understand where, you know, either, you know, where maybe there's an area for compromise or no, we're just, we're completely on, you know, different pages and there really is no path to a successor JUA. So that's the process I would like to see. But if we can't do that. If there's no interest from the board in such a meeting or, you know, uh, you know, there's, there's, I mean, I guess the council would have to be comfortable with that too, right? Maybe we need a time frame. We don't want this to linger indefinitely. But those are the kinds of things I'm thinking about in terms of direction we can provide in our letter, where we might be prescriptive and how a successor JUA can be developed. Thank you.

[05:45:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos.

[05:45:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. Um, as as I have been watching all this unfold, I, um, and seeing the communications that came from the school district, and also comparing that with discussions I've had with school board members. And I do believe that the discussions that I've had on an individual basis with all of you, have been pretty productive and collaborative, and there's the general sense that we want to work together. And, um, and that is something that just has not been quite happening in these negotiations or the lack of these negotiations. I am supportive of the staff recommendation, largely because I think about, um, being a good boss is to not subject your staff to, to, as a council member Ramirez says, spinning around the mud and spinning your wheels in mud. Um, and when we, as we look at this, I understand that by doing this, this allowed our shift to, um, focus our efforts in terms of our park space, to actually expanding our park space as a city and not relying too much on the JUA for that. It was almost like a crutch at some point. And then it was a crutch that wasn't really that great of a crutch. Um, I, I, I had been fortunate to, um, I did not go to the meetings because the, the brown act. We're not entirely sure how that works with all of us, and we were just being careful. So I was able to listen to the meetings afterwards. And I was very happy with the comments from the school board members because, like in our conversations, we want to be collaborative and work together on these things. I agree with council member Ramirez. I don't, the way we are negotiating now is not working. And I hold trust in the school board. The issues of communications that I had mentioned in my questions, I saw no votes that directed staff to do, to tell, I saw no votes that said the school board was considering ending the joint use agreement, but it was in a conversation that sent, presumably under official capacity. Um, and so, I think in order to resuscitate the JUA or come up with a successor, JUA, we really need a vote from the school district with clearer guidelines and and really work on this as we represent our joint constituents. So, um, I agree with council member Ramirez to move forward with the staff recommendation and that narrow path of, um, our letter to the school district should probably have directions or, um, clear guidelines and what we hope to get in order to re bring back negotiations with the school district. And I really think that decision has to be with the school board members.

[05:49:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abbott Koga.

[05:49:05] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So, um, this is a very, um, challenging and disappointing place to be as someone who, um, served on a school board, the County Board of Education, and, um, or my 1st foray in Mountain View politics was walking precincts for parcel tax measure, 8 months pregnant and on partial bed dress. So education in schools of, you know, been very near and dear to my heart with, and my, both my girls have gone through the school district. So, you know, and a large, large part of my wanting to even serve on the city council was that I wanted to maintain and strengthen the relationship between the schools and the city. And I think, you know, over the years, over my time, we've been able to do that in so many ways. And it's just unfortunate that, um, I feel like some of that, the, the, the relationship, or some of that has been forgotten, perhaps, and that we're at this point, um, I guess of, you could call it impasse, but as I listen, I can, you know, as I listen to, Staff, to school district, staff, um, I feel like we're not, and it sounds like we were, before we go, we were, we were feeling like we weren't that far apart. And I actually feel that way right now after hearing this conversation. Um, but what I have not gotten and is clarity, frankly, from the school district. I've had personal conversations with school board members one on one. And frankly, I've, you know, sensed that there might even be dissension on the school board as to where their position is on some of these issues. Um, you know, I can see the, the, the letters, the communication we've received and then the actions, the chain of actions, and the, you know, the conclusions that we've come to as a result of that. But hearing that the board, you know, has the school board has said that they did not give clear direction, um, I think that's what's really missing, is like, I would like to know, um, from the school district. If they are interested in continuing, negotiating, because I felt like we were reacting to what them essentially saying we're done. And if that's not the case, then let us know. Like just let us know what you want to do. And you've heard, you know, I see 3 school board members and one online. So you've all heard today, this evening, what seems to be the issues, what are the city's responses in terms of indemnification. I don't, I agree. I don't think, I don't understand what this policy on rentals is and how that's might be, that's bought, that we might be violating the school board policy in the civic center act. And then the clarification. I mean, I don't, I guess I'm, you know, I have to say, I'm troubled by the inquiries into, you know, the PRAs and, you know, wanting invoices and whatnot. It just sounds like if people have an issue with the fields, they just need to know who to call. So can we just like give them a clear phone number that someone's gonna answer. Um, and then be just clear in terms of who's gonna take the responsibility in responding to any concerns or complaints we have from the fields. I mean, to me, this is pretty simple stuff. So I don't, you know, I get it. There's just been a lot of emotion, I think, that's unfortunately got in the way, but, you know, trying to be dispassionate about this, I think it seems like there's, you know, simple few items, you've, you know, school district, you've heard our city attorney on indemnification, and then it's up to you to decide if you can live with that or not, I guess. And then, you know, let us know what your policy is and it sounds like we can adjust accordingly. And then, yeah, let's just clarify who's gonna take care of the fields. Simple to me. But, you know, I just feel that we haven't had clarity, frankly, from the school district, and I would like to get that. So I'm not, you know, I feel like at this point it's kind of like semantics, whether we say, okay, we're going to end it, but, you know, let us know, school district, if you want to restart, or say, let's pause and not end it, and just ask the school district to, please, you know, decide what you want to do within the next, I don't know, month or a month and a half, and let us know if you can live with these terms or not. And then we can go from there. So I think we're, well, I have, I know I have to hear from my other colleagues, but I think we're kind of, you know, getting to a similar place. It's just a matter of what order we want to do it in, right? Thanks.

[05:54:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Metachek.

[05:54:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I want to be really, really clear that this is not an easy decision. Um, I don't think any of us take it lightly. And, um, it's really, uh, disappointing that we've gotten to this point because the city has had a really good relationship with the school district for many, many years, but things have definitely changed. You know, there is a lot of... There are a lot of different perspectives on what has transpired, and what has been communicated, and what hasn't, and, you know, none of us have been involved in every single meeting, in every single discussion, or seeing every single email. And so I kind of feel like I'm at the point where I'm just gonna agree to disagree on what has transpired. Um, because I don't know that it serves, uh, any purpose for trying to sort that out. Um, you know, the city does have, um, the goal. It's not a requirement to have, um, three acres per thousand residents. And while we were counting the school fields, Um, you know, whether or not we count them is a city decision. That's not a term in a joint use agreement or a school district decision. That's strictly a city decision. And at this point, you know, I don't feel comfortable counting the school fields at all. But I will quickly add, I think we all know that, um, we have a major task ahead of us to, um, get to take action to try to reach that goal of three acres per thousand residents, evenly distributed throughout the city. And we talked earlier today about a revenue measure. We are starting on the Parks and Rec strategic plan, and I think we all have the intention of carrying that forward, and making a real serious commitment to address that. And, um, I'm happy we've started on it. It's never gonna happen as fast as everyone wants it to. But I think we're all committed to doing that, which is good. But, um, I, um, well, it's uncomfortable to walk away from an agreement. I don't want to continue to have staff spin. We have so many other things we need to work on, that I don't know if anything will be any different if, um, the trustees come back with, Here's what we want. We'll still be negotiating. And I don't know that I want to continue doing that. So I actually do support the staff recommendation that we just end the joint use agreement. Um, You know, people often say, you know, what, you know, what's that expression about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Well, that's where I am. I feel like we're just gonna do the same thing over and over and not get a different result. So, I do support just the straight staff recommendation. Thanks.

[05:57:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[05:57:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I, this is, um, this is a hard decision, and, uh, it's interesting. I was at a community event on Monday at St. Joseph School, and somebody said, Well, thank you for making all these hard decisions, and I was thinking, well, actually, most of the time it's not that hard. You know, we're presented with very clear information, and, um, it's not that hard to make the decision. But this isn't one of those cases, because as, you know, as has been mentioned, we've been presented with a great deal of conflicting information. And, you know, I think of this in terms of negotiation languages, there's just been an awful lot of posturing, very counterproductive posturing. And that's really unfortunate. It's been a waste of colossal amounts of time. And, um, I think it has, you know, it really has, um, done serious damage to the relationship between the city and the school district. And the truth is, we share the same constituents. We share, you know, the same land. We share so many things, and we're going to share those things in perpetuity. But on this particular pop, subject. I think we've kind of come to an impasse. And I think going on in this negotiation vernacular, it's time for a cooling off period. And the question is, is this cooling off period gonna be six months, a year? A decade? I don't know. But I think that the ball's not in our court anymore. It's time for to say, you know, we we really were proud of, um, uh, of taking care of the school fields. But it isn't our property. And if the owners of that property really don't want us to do that, then I really don't see what choice that we have. And on top of that, um, You know, you communicate with words and written things and with actions. And in the negotiation process, when you have 6 months where you refuse to have a meeting on the subject, you've ended things. And, um, so we are formalizing, uh, that, we are formalizing that based on, you know, the behavior that's happened. And it is very sad, but that's what I think it's time for a cooling off period. And this is a way to start that cooling off period. And I do think that the bottom line is, what we really care about is that the people in Mountain View have access to as much open space as possible. And for many years, the joint use agreement has been away for the city to assist the, you know, the district, the school district with supplying that. But that's not the only way to do it. We know that's not the only way to do it. And so, I hope that the school district will evaluate how to continue that tradition of supplying good open space to our shared constituents, as they've said they will. I hope they'll do that. And we'll just see how things go over time. Thank you.

[06:01:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, I see more council members in the queue, but I'm going to make my statement. So, I, you know, I don't, I share the disappointment of other council members, and so I won't go into detail on that. I think that, you know, as, uh, those of you on the school board, and I think council members know I've been going to some of the school board meetings recently. Um, and I was thrilled to hear about your school greening project. Um, plans, something that's very close to my heart, and I would, I, you know, truly would like to have a joint use agreement so that we can work on that together. Um, I, at the same time, I feel like, uh, through the examples of the fencing and the signs, we haven't been working together on those things. We haven't been collaborative. I would like to work towards that goal. But we haven't been working in that way. In addition, I think one of the phrases that most resonated with me tonight was talking about our staff spinning wheels in the mud, or maybe maybe school district staff as well. And I think I put that on top of the situation. I think the situation we're in now, and this is not the fault of the school district or the city, but in terms of the school fields, contributing to a park like situation for residents, the exception of the leagues. I think that that's diminished over time, because unlike 50, 60 years ago, there are a lot of after school activities and summer activities. So I think, you know, no matter what was happening between our two bodies, regarding these negotiations, I think it's time to start looking elsewhere for parks for the city, I think, for city residents. I think to do a good job. We just have to do that. But on top of that, it means that a relationship between us, negotiating the JUA, the, you know, as it becomes, um, well, like we've been saying, as it becomes more time consuming, and what we're getting for residents out of the JUA diminishes over time, we need to become more efficient, not less efficient on working together, and that's what I'm not seeing happening. So, I hear different... So I think that I hear different things from different council members regarding where we go next. I hear, um, pause and cooling off period. I hear the, um, you know, uh, voting for the, um, the end of the JUA, but asking the, um, the school district, the school board to come back and give us some clear direction. Those are kind of the two things, the two things that I hear. I don't know if there's any way of broaching those two. You can go.

[06:05:06] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, I'll move the staff recommendation, and I'll follow that with the comment that the school district always has the option of coming back to the city and saying, you know what, we'd like to talk to you about it, JUA. Um, you know, they might do it, um, month from now, six months from now, two years from now. Um, but I think for me, um, ending the joint use agreement is the right thing to do. Um, and the ball's in their court. Um, and, um, I appreciate staff working with the non profits that have spoken tonight to try to help them out, so thank you for that.

[06:05:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I see a motion by council member, Mattachek, and a second by the vice mayor. Council member, Abbe Kogo, do you want to speak?

[06:06:06] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you. Again, had a question first. I know we had set up an ad hoc committee, I believe. And then there's a meeting scheduled next week. depending on how we vote. I see where the votes are going. How will that, could that affect what we were planning to do with this ad hoc and the meeting?

[06:06:31] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, council member Abbe Koga. So the ad hoc committee was intended to be an offshoot of the joint meeting to discuss the education enhancement reserve, joint powers authority agreement regarding Shoreline. So the JUA was not a part of that. Correct.

[06:06:48] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Um, I very much appreciate, um, you know, all my colleagues and where you're coming from, I guess my concern was, is, is that if we end it, um, you know, is it gonna be more work to restart it or versus taking a pause and, you know, writing a letter or however you want to communicate, asking the school district, you know, to decide, like, here what we've come up with, our terms, Are you able to live with that or not? And then based on that, decide if we can move forward or not. I, I, that's my preference is to, I guess, do it that way because it just seems like it would be easier. Um, you know, I do feel like that hearing that we haven't really had a clear answer from the school district, I'd like to at least give them the opportunity to do that. But um, Well, that's where I am. So I guess if the motion is emotion, I probably won't be supporting it.

[06:07:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez.

[06:08:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. We rarely do this, but I think I'm not too far away from where you are, council member Mattachek, but I do think including language in the letter is sort of that middle ground. It may not work, but I guess the question would be, are we opposed to a successor, JUA, if or not opposed to it, then I think the invitation for them to say, here are our terms. Yes or no? Feels like we're giving them a chance, right? Because I'm hearing the presentation from staff and I'm feeling like, you know, these are very favorable terms for the district. And so it would be helpful to understand from them. If they're not favorable, at least an explanation why they're not, would be valuable. So, so I would like to move to amend the motion, um, to, um, direct staff to work with the mayor, uh, to modify the letter, to, um, include, uh, and I'll probably need some help with this, because I want it to be productive and useful, but essentially, to include, um, language inviting the board of trustees to provide us with a response to our terms, basically. So we would include the indemnification language and just the information that you had shared with us in this meeting. Um, and say, you know, we, presuming the majority of the council sports is, we would like a successor JUA, here are our terms. You know, if you are amenable to them, then we've got a successor JUA. Um, which is staff comfortable with that, 1st of all. Is there a compelling reason why we shouldn't do that?

[06:09:54] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Council member Ramirez. So certainly, if it's the will of the majority of council to do that, we will. I would suggest that we include some final parameters. that, uh, we say that these are the things we want. And those would include items such as publicly recognizing the city as a partner, which would include on field signs, involving the city in a more meaningful way on changes to the school fields. Um, it would also mean finding resolution to field use prioritization that is acceptable to the city. It would include finding resolution on indemnification that the city agrees with, and is acceptable to the city, um, set in a very short, finite time for completion. No one wants to be doing this seven and a half, eight, nine, ten years. So, very short timeline, we either get this done, or the agreement is over. The last one would be to make sure that we can work together on all of the other partnerships that we have and just continue to reaffirm our commitment to all of these other projects and priorities that we have with the school district. But that also means both sides acting in good faith and not using one thing to leverage another item, um, things are blurring right now. So, I think we just need to make that very clear, too, that we want to be on very honest ground and really work as partners together. So I would suggest, if the majority wants to do that, that not only do we put the terms in, that the city attorney and her team would advise with, but include these other items as well.

[06:11:51] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, I would prefer that as well, does the maker of the motion accept that?

[06:11:55] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I just want to clarify. So you're saying that we put together the agreement, I would agree with that, as opposed to asking the district to put it together. It would be, here's our, our terms, you can decide if you're agreeable to those or not. That's fine with me.

[06:12:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Is that fine with the second or? Is that acceptable to the second or?

[06:12:19] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I'm interested in the time frame. No longer than six months. Why are you giving them so much time?

[06:12:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Two months would be great. I think, realistically, we would just want to make sure that we can get through everything. I mean, end of year would be great, but that's why I say no more than 6 months. But I would be okay if you're comfortable with a shorter time frame.

[06:12:49] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I would prefer that it was the end of the calendar year unless both parties agree that there's a reason for it to be extended slightly, but, you know, I think the end of the calendar year, it's now September.

[06:13:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sounds great.

[06:13:03] Unknown Speaker: So I guess I don't understand why we need that much time. Because if we're putting together, what we're saying is the agreement. Take it or leave it. Why do you need more time? We're not doing more negotiating. They can have time to discuss it.

[06:13:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right. But, well, that's the end of the calendar year. I mean, in September, it'll get us, It would take us a week or so to get the letter out. So that'll be, what is it? It's the 12th. you know, the 20th of September, maybe, when they get it. And then they'll have a meeting. They got to schedule a meeting today. But this is not negotiation, negotiation, negotiation. It's just to give them time to have, give them time to have two, I would say, two board meetings where they discuss it, which should be enough.

[06:13:51] Unknown Speaker: It should be. One should be enough. Well, Okay, by the end of the year, and we put together the agreement. Okay, I'm okay with that.

[06:14:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramirez, your name is still there. Oh, that's Ellen's name? It is Ellen's name, but I'm used to that by now. Yeah. So, we have a motion in a second. We can vote if there's no other discussion. Are you Alan? You have Oh, but there it goes. Oh, yes. Ellen's gone. So it's unanimous for those of us who are here. Okay, so, you want a short break, and, uh, I guess we'll, we can vote without him here to get. Um, oh, yes, we have a motion to continue after 10 o'clock. We can vote. Emotion by council member Abbe Koga and a 2nd by council member Ramos. Okay, it passes. Okay, called order. Um, we're now on 8.2, which is uh, firearm safety ordinances. Assistant city attorney Diana Fazelli will present the item.

[06:16:38] Assistant City Attorney Diana Fazelli: Good evening, Mayor and Council, or rather, good morning, Mayor and Council members. Diana Fazelli, assistant city attorney here tonight to present on item 8.2 firearm safety ordinances. This item is a bring back from the October 11th, 2022 city council study session, at which time our office presented council with potential firearm safety legislation. options. At that time, council voted to have staff return with legislation that does the following. To require firearm dealers to obtain a permit from the Mountain View police department to operate, including require them requiring them to have liability insurance, prohibiting firearm dealers from being located within 250 feet of schools, daycares, and parks, and prohibiting firearm dealers from operating as home occupations. For those existing firearm dealers who may be operating from their homes, council also provided direction to not grandfather, not grandfather them in, but rather provide them the grace period, also known as an amortization period before they would be required to cease operations from their home. This direction is before council tonight in the form of two ordinances. The 1st is the permitting requirement, which includes the location restrictions, and the 2nd is a zoning text amendment to effectuate the home occupations prohibition, and establishing the grace period for those existing home occupations. These ordinances will be discussed in turn. The 1st ordinance is the firearm dealer's permit ordinance. Firearm dealers are required to obtain a federal firearms license, an FFL and a California license in order to lawfully operate within the state. California authorizes local agencies to adopt their own permitting requirements for firearm dealers. And if they do, then firearm dealers would have to comply with those local permitting requirements before being able to get a state license. And that's in the penal code section that I have on the slide. The proposed ordinance before council tonight would establish that local permitting requirement and require firearm dealers operating within the city to obtain an annual permit from the Mountain View Police Department. And that would be required in order for them to be licensed from the state. The proposed ordinance requires the applicant to provide specific information to be included in a permit application. For example, it includes putting their prior permitting history, criminal conviction history, and demonstrating compliance with federal and state requirements. It sets forth grounds for the denial, suspension, or revocation of the permit. It also sets forth those location restrictions, 250 feet from schools, daycares, and parks. They that they can't operate as home occupations and that they comply with any other applicable zoning regulations. The requirement for liability insurance is also included in the proposed ordinance, as well as an appeals process to challenge any denials, suspensions or revocations that would take place before a hearing officer. And finally, it established a 90 it establishes a 90 day deadline from the effective date of the ordinance in order to come into compliance with the ordinance. The 2nd ordinance is effectuates the prohibition on firearm dealers from operating from their homes as home occupations. Section 36.28.90 of our zoning code specifically sets forth which uses are prohibited as home occupations, and our proposed text amendment includes language that encompasses the retailing of firearms, firearm, and ammunition sales. It also includes the amortization period. So, the legal standard for the amortizations periods is providing a reasonable time commensurate with the investment involved. Because firearm dealers operating from their homes don't, doesn't impact the structure of the home or the primary use of the structure as a residence. The biggest costs are associated with the need to move any inventory and finding somewhere else to conduct business. Accordingly, we determined that a year was appropriate before existing dealers would be required to cease operations from their homes. The proposed zoning code amendment went to EPC on August 16th were a majority recommended approval to the city council. This map, let's see if I could zoom in. This map shows the proposed location restrictions will look if adopted. The gray lines are the 250 foot buffers around parks, schools, and daycares. The red commercial parcels are commercial parcels that intersect with those buffers, and it would be locations where firearm dealers would not be able to operate. And the green parcels are commercial parcels where they would be able to operate. And as a point of clarification, um, in the October 2022 study session, the memo had indicated that there were 3 firearm dealers operating out of their homes in 2 brick and mortar businesses. Since that time, our office became aware that one of the home occupations is no longer in business, and that we had inadvertently included one of the other businesses as a home occupation, because it did look like a home, but it is rather it is on a commercial parcel, so it's being recategorized as a brick and mortar business. So, to summarize, currently, we have one home occupation and three brick and mortar businesses in the city. And zooming in further, you can see those 3 businesses are indicated with those small little gun icons, and all three fall outside of the 250 foot buffer. Oh, I'm sorry, I had one more note. We did send notices of both the EPC and council public hearings to the existing businesses by email, and we did send them post, we also sent postcards. This chart shows how our proposed ordinances, how our neighboring cities fare with the proposed ordinations in the proposed ordinances. We have Mountain View here in italics, because it does it's pending, if the proposed ordinances are adopted by council, and we also have 9 of our neighboring cities, included in the chart. If counsel does adopt the proposed ordinances, our office would work with the Mountain View Police Department to create the application and ensure that the process is ready for the intake, review, and response to those applications. We will also send special notices to all the existing firearm dealers, businesses about adoption of the ordinances and what they need to do to comply. We will also assist the Mountain View Police Department to ensure the all processes are in place for any appeals, and without Mountain View Police Department would be ready to receive applications by the 90 day deadline. And with that, staff recommends the introduction of the proposed ordinances, and I'm available for any questions the council may have. Thank you.

[06:24:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council questions? Vice mayor.

[06:24:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, um, I just wanted to ask you about um, how you got in touch with these um, uh, gun, uh, store owners. So there were only 4 of them, and you didn't go and speak to them in person or call them on the telephone. You just sent them a postcard at an email. How do you know if they got it?

[06:25:15] Diana: We sent them email notices, and we send them postcards, and, um, that is how we outreach to them.

[06:25:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes. Did you hear back?

[06:25:23] Diana: We have not heard back now.

[06:25:26] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay. Well... That's my question.

[06:25:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abit Koka.

[06:25:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. In looking at the chart with the comparison cities. I noticed that 250 feet seems to be the distance used, but Los Gatos actually has more sensitive uses. What would it take if for us to add the same uses?

[06:26:03] Diana: We would need to see if we add additional uses if it would affect existing businesses. And if that was the case, then we would need counsel direction as to whether grandfather, if there was, whether we would need to grandfather in those existing businesses or provide them an amortization period before they must cease operation.

[06:26:23] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So, this evening, should we, we could pass, what's being recommended, and then, how would we revisit, potentially revisit? Would I have to take an alternate vote?

[06:26:40] Diana: So if you if you pass the ordinances tonight, um, you could direct us to investigate adding additional uses to see how they would impact the um, the existing firearm businesses. And if there was no impact, we could come back with amendments for your adoption. If there were impacts, we could come back more like a study session and say this is how it would impact. And then you would provide further direction, and then we would come back with an amendment after that after the study session. So there's, it's kind of 2 ways it could go.

[06:27:15] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you.

[06:27:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so seeing no more council questions, would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment? If so, either raise your hand on Zoom or submit a blue speaker card?

[06:27:37] Unknown Speaker: I, uh, no blue speaker cards? Last chance to raise, I see no raised hands, last chance to raise your hand.

[06:27:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so there are no public comments. Um, I'm now bringing the item back for council deliberation and action, and do note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the ordinances attached to the report. So, I see, uh, motion by council member Abbott Koga, and a 2nd by council member.

[06:28:14] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, and thank you, staff, for bringing this back. I will go ahead and read the resolution here. Item one, introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View amending chapter 18 of the Mountain View City code to add Article 2 firearm dealers, to impose local permit requirements on firearm dealers operating within the city of Mountain View to be read in title for the reading wave, instead of 2nd reading for September 26, 2023, which is attachment one to the council report, and 2, introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, amending chapter 36 zoning of the Mountain View City code to add firearms and ammunition, retailing as a prohibited home occupation used to be read in title only for the reading waived, and set a 2nd reading for September 26, 2023, attachment to the council. report. And I actually wanted to add the 3rd item of directing staff to, um, to look at or research, uh, the prohibition of, um, firearm dealers within 250 feet of government buildings, places of worship, public parks, and trails, and businesses, providing activities to minors, as well as residentials, residential zoning districts. and return to council with that information for further discussion. I don't know if the 2nd or what's that part. Thanks.

[06:29:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Second has been pulled. Council member.

[06:29:55] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I had a question first. So, um, you know, I guess I'm wondering, what impact does that have on the projects that are on the council work plan? So I feel like we just added a fairly error proposed to add a fairly significant amount of work. Um, Diana, do you want to?

[06:30:19] Diana: Um, I can, well, I can speak to one of the editions that the council member brought it up, which is the residential zoning district, and I did actually have GIS look into that, and it does affect all 3 businesses. So I will say that if we did put that, then, you know, that would require some additional, quite a bit of additional research depending on counsel's direction on how to treat those existing businesses. But for the rest, we would have to do additional research. So I guess the question I have is, how would it impact other projects that were on the council work plan? I mean, we would have to work on them simultaneously as far as, you know, we could work with staff to create another map, you know, and it doesn't take that long to create a map to see, you know, where these other things lie, like where the religious organizations or whatever lie within location of the existing businesses, so that probably wouldn't take too much time to get the answer as far as getting back on council for a study session. I think I needed to refer to the city manager.

[06:31:32] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you for the question, Council member Mattachek. So I'm actually just looking at council's work plan projects. So you all know that it's category A, B, and C. And so I think what we would need to do is assess the city attorney's staff time and look at the projects that are going to be coming to you all in the next few months, which there are quite a few that are on your category A list and even a few on your B list. and just the timing of when that this might fit in. And now that we're also going to be perhaps doing a little more negotiation, quickly before the end of the year, there's just a lot of things that are going to involve, I think, city attorney staff and other staff just in the next few months. So I think it just the timing. It would just take some time to bring back. And I must be tired because Diana does work on the joint use agreement, so she is going to have to.

[06:32:30] Diana: Yeah, I work on drafting.

[06:32:32] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yeah, that to get it back out. Turn it around quickly.

[06:32:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. I'm hoping you can help me because we had several conversations about gun safety ordinances. I remember at one point a few years back, we agreed on doing one a year. And then more recently, I thought we, I remember some conversation about accelerating that and doing more than just one a year. And so, like, I guess I'd like to know where we are on that because I don't see this as deviating from the latter agreement of doing, you know, more ordinances.

[06:33:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Abbe Koga.

[06:33:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I'm looking at give me a couple minutes to just find where you all put this. Um, and really, it's it's just the workload of staff, really. I mean, I don't think it's a matter of whether you all are prioritizing it or not, clearly you are. It's just when that might be brought back to you. And I'm not going to, like, say we need to do this by the end of the year. Um, I guess I was just looking at it as this is, I thought this was a part of the work plan to continue to work on gun safety ordinances. So it would just be within the next cycle of the work plan.

[06:34:11] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, can I take what you're saying as we're working on one per year, so this would come up when we would be working on the reiteration of this ordinance would come up when we would normally be working on the next one?

[06:34:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So we've had successive conversations. So originally it was one a year, but then I recall us having the conversation of doing more than one a year. And I thought that's where we landed. So if that was the agreement, then I don't, this wouldn't be deviating. This wouldn't be adding to the work plan. It would be the understanding, is my understanding.

[06:34:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I actually don't remember that. more than one a year, but I could be wrong.

[06:35:02] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: But, you know, I won't let the emotion stand as is, and if there's a 2nd that's great. If not, um, that's fine. You can create, I can do a different motion.

[06:35:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes. Okay, I'm not seeing a second.

[06:35:31] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, then I guess I will withdraw the motion and I hope I don't have to read this again, but just move the staff recommendation.

[06:35:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: So now we have a motion by council member, Abbot Koga, and a 2nd by council member, Matachek, and we can vote.

[06:35:59] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[06:36:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So we have, um, six. It's unanimous. So now we move on to item number nine, which is council staff committee reports. Are there any reports? Council member Ramorez?

[06:36:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. I would like to report that in accordance with council policy A2, I think it is. I took a taxpayer funded trip to Scranton, Pennsylvania, for the mayor's innovation project in the 1st week of August, I think it was. Um, and uh, I won't uh, belabor the point too much. I thought it was a fantastic. conference. A lot of really interesting presentations. Our colleague, Lisa Matachek, was there as well. We got to meet Senator John Fetterman, which was really cool. And here, the other, the senior senator from the state of Pennsylvania. Bob Casey. Is that right, Robert Casey? Uh, speak as well.

[06:37:14] Unknown Speaker: It's how often do you have 2 U.S. senators in the same room. Um, but, uh, it was it was a fantastic trip and, uh, there was a lot of material that I think, um, I will be using in future meetings. Thank you.

[06:37:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[06:37:34] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I also took a wonderful trip at the taxpayer's expense. I flew to the city of Tacoma to the north of us in late July to attend the National League of City summer meeting. I serve on the EENR, the Energy Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee. And so this was our working meeting to put together resolutions. And I'm glad to share those resolutions with everyone. We are working on sort of finalizing them. Today, we had a Zoom to go over all the changes that have been proposed, and we have another Zoom scheduled for September 27th, because we didn't finish the job today. And our resolutions will be approved, hopefully, without change. At the general meeting, at the NLC conference in Atlanta in November. I've been to a number of BCDC meetings that have really focused on sea level rise policies. And Monday, I attended the Patriot Day celebration at St. Joseph's School, a celebration of 9/11 with several members from our fire department and our police department, and that was delightful. And as many of you have been, I've been to a number of neighborhood association social events this summer. And I'm glad to be back. Thank you.

[06:39:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Matachek.

[06:39:09] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Yes, I also attended the Mayor's Innovation Project Conference in Scranton. And the conferences that they hold are very small, maybe 40, 50 people, and it's a panel format, and the presentations are very practical, I guess I would say, lessons learned, informative. It's really one of the better conferences, I would say. Really enjoyed it. I also participated in a Santa Clara County Airport land use commission meeting in August, and the main topic continues to be the update to the comprehensive land use plan for the San Jose Airport. We're having challenges agreeing on that. And, um, I participated in a Basca, Bay Area water supply and conservation agency, board meeting in July. And as of July. Sorry, this is a little bit old news. The water storage system for the Hetchy system was 100% full. Yes. And that's where the city gets the vast majority of their water. We received an update on the negotiations for a new tier 2 drought allocation plan. So tier one is the amount the SFPUC allocates to their customers, Bosca being one, so to speak, and then Bosca negotiates among itself, the 26 agencies at tier 2 allocation plan. And we will have another update on that at the next meeting. And, um, Basca is also starting to work on a strategy for the next 20 years, primarily looking at, I guess I would say, water supply. And um, let's see. Bosca is 20 years old this year. And at our, uh, maybe it's not the next meeting, might be the one after that. We are going to have a little recognition of that that is 20 years old. Thanks.

[06:41:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: I have a question, and that's at the Bosca meeting, when you're talking about the allocations for, you know, the 26 agency. Is there discussion of reducing the amount of money we have to pay because we often, you know, our allocation is higher than the amount of water we actually use by quite a bit. So is that included?

[06:41:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, um, the negotiation is currently happening among the uh, the city staff. So our water management representative, Elizabeth Phlegel. And that has been brought up as an issue that needs to be addressed. Ultimately, you know, and I will certainly reinforce that at this next meeting, that, um, you know, you have efforts to conserve, and yet you're sort of penalized if you have that, yeah, um, minimum purchase agreement. So they absolutely need to address it. On the other hand, during drought, um, the SAPUC, typically, oh, now I can't remember, I ask if it was a shall or a may, um, wave that penalty. And now I forget what the answer is, but during drought conditions, they have it in the past, typically. I don't know if the shower made, but... I looked up the wording and now I forget. Sorry about that. But, um, It absolutely is part of the discussion. Yeah.

[06:42:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, council member Abbe Koga.

[06:42:46] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I to, let's see, I attended, I think several of us attended the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Bike Summit that was here at our community center, which was really a full house and very interesting. And also, I went to Sacramento, to the Asian-American Pacific Islander, Legislative Caucus Leadership Academy, which was very inspiring. There was about 500 folks from nationwide that gathered for 2 days. The city association held a housing symposium in August, I think, a few of you were there, and we went over the measure A affordable housing projects. That's a status. It was a status report of where we are with those funds and quite a, I think I think it's like close to 5000 units have been built as from those funds. And we also talked about the regional or had a presentation on the potential regional housing bond measure. Um, And then, um, from the cities association, you will be seeing in the next couple of months, um, a joint powers of JPA agreement. So I, I, we have, the city's association has operated as a non-formal organization for many years. And we've had some challenges as a result of that. And so, um, the board voted last year to form a JPA, and that agreement has been worked on, and we hope to have that completed, and, um, well, the board will be voting on adoption, and if, uh, it is adopted, then each city is then required to vote on it. So that potentially will be coming to council for a vote. So I just wanted to give you a heads up on that. And then a sad announcement for Silicon Valley, Clean Energy, our CEO Girish Belachandra, has announced his retirement. And so we are beginning a search for his replacement. He's been a fabulous CEO for 6 years now, so he will be very missed. Thank you. Oh, actually, I did want to go back going back to public comment. Is there, um, regarding the gentleman in Rangstorf Park and the trees on the SFPUC easement? Could we get, um, some response to that as to where we are and if we do have opportunity to ask the PUC for delay and removal. And then the parks and recs plan, the comment about, um, the choices not including things like more park space, which I thought would, you know, tie into our potential revenue measure. How do we? Can we revisit those options and have the community weigh in on them? Thanks.

[06:45:55] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: May I?

[06:45:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[06:45:56] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, mayor. Council member Abbe Koga. So we do have city staff, our public works director, Don Cameron. I believe our community services director may also be meeting with the individuals who came before us and who've written, and there, we do have some pretty stringent limitations with SFPUC. So they're going to actually be meeting at the magical bridge area to walk through the plan and the designs for the parks and the trees and what some of our limitations are and what we may be able to do. I believe that's happening this week. And then what was your 2nd part of your question?

[06:46:38] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: With the Parks and Rec plan, the comment about how there are some choices that were not included in the list of improvements.

[06:46:48] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: That's already been discussed with staff and we will be making sure that in future community meetings that on the surveys, we will make sure to include way more robust options that are reflective of where we know, we're headed in the future. And we'll also make sure the messaging is consistent with council's vision and priorities.

[06:47:15] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, I see no more comments from council members. So, um, city will move to item 10, city attorney lobe, do you have a closed session report?

[06:47:26] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: No, there was no closed session report this evening?

[06:47:29] Mayor Alison Hicks: And we'll move to item 11, which is adjournment. The next meeting will be a joint special meeting of the city council, Shoreline Regional Park community, Mountain View, Los Altos High School District, and a Mountain View, Wisman School, and the Mountain View Wisman School District, on September 18th of 2023, in the Pebble Beach Room, at Michael's, at Shoreline Restaurant. This meeting is adjourned at 12:42 p.m. AM. AM. AM. Yes.

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