April 23, 2024 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:00:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our closed session. City Attorney Lowe will make a closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the items listed for closed session. City attorney?

[00:00:24] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you. Good evening, Mr. City Attorney, Jennifer Logue. There are two items on this evening's closed session. agenda. Item 2.1 is a conference with labor negotiators, regarding labor negotiations with service employees International Union, local 521, the Eagles Association, the Police Officer Association, the International Association of Firefighters, local 1965, unrepresented fire managers, unrepresented, police managers, unrepresented department heads, and unrepresented, confidential employees pursuant to California Government Code Section 549, 57. .6. The agency designated representatives are Assistant City Manager, RN Andrews, Human Resources Director, Maxine Gulo, Human Resources Manager, Lindsay Bishop, and Charles Sakai, of Sloan Sakai, Young, and Wong, LLP. Item 2.2 is a meeting regarding public employee performance evaluations pursuant to California government code section 54957. For city council, appointees, city attorney, city clerk, and city manager.

[00:01:33] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right, would anyone, um, member of the public joining us either virtually, or in person, like to provide a comment on the closed session items listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raised hand button on Zoom, or submit a speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first, but there don't appear to be any. So are there any, are there any, and there are no virtual speakers. So with that, we will adjourn to the Plaza conference room. and return to the chambers at the close of the, at the close, to continue with the regular meeting. Thanks very much.

[00:04:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everybody. I'd like to call the regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council of April 23rd, 2024 to order. Will you please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance? Roll call, please.

[00:05:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member, Abby Coca?

[00:05:14] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[00:05:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Hicks.

[00:05:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here,

[00:05:16] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Ramirez,

[00:05:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: here.

[00:05:17] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Ramos.

[00:05:18] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yeah,

[00:05:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Matachek. Mayor Walter.

[00:05:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Here.

[00:05:21] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum with council member commit absent.

[00:05:24] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Recently, the city has been subjected to disruptive racist verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments. The city of Mountain View is fully committed to racial, religious, and cultural equity and justice, as we strive to create a welcoming, safe, and inclusive community for all. The council welcomes respectful and non threatening public comments regarding matters over which the council has jurisdiction. Comments deemed otherwise, pursue it to the code of conduct and the government code, will be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period. Sally, so moving on to presentations. These are presentations, so the council doesn't really take action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. And if you would like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So the first one we have tonight is for National Volunteer Week. And I'm going to go up to the lectern, and I'd like to be joined there by John Coogan, who is a volunteer for the police department.

[00:06:56] Mayor Pat Showalter: Hi, John.

[00:06:57] John Coogan: Nice to meet you.

[00:06:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Nice to meet you. Yeah. All right. Well, I have this... I have this presentation for you, and, um, uh, John is a volunteer with a police explorer program, and he's here today to accept this proclamation on behalf of, um, of that program. And... whereas, every day, in the city of Mountain View, people exemplify the spirit of community by volunteering their time and efforts to support, and behalf, and enhance the well being of our city, they forge strong social connections, and they bridge divides among individuals from diverse backgrounds. And whereas the impact of volunteerism exemplifies the values of empathy, kindness, and civic responsibility, inspiring others to make a difference and create a brighter future for generations to come. And whereas volunteering benefits individuals, by improving mental and physical health, building social connections, and providing a sense of purpose and skill development. And whereas the Mountain View community collectively volunteers thousands of hours annually, it might even be hundreds of thousands. To feed neighbors, tutor youth, prepare for emergencies, lead programs, improve local habitat for wildlife, support the arts, care for animals, and strive to enhance the livelihood of all residents. And whereas, the city of Mountain View wishes to recognize and thank the individuals and organizations that have volunteered over time over the past year at Deer Hollow Farm, the Mountain View Public Library, Shoreline at Mountain View, the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, the Mountain View Senior Center, and the Teen, the View Teen Center, as well as programs such as junior leaders, police explorers, special events, and the community emergency response team, and whereas, National Volunteer Week is a 50 year national tradition. Let us honor and celebrate the dedication of volunteers, and let us encourage all members of our community to take action by volunteering their time, talents, and resources to create a brighter, more compassionate world for all of us. Thank you. So I now proclaim this National Volunteer Week. And here is the proclamation. Thank you so much for all you do. And, um, I have to say, personally, I have benefited so much by people who have been volunteering in organizations I was part at, and I've also, um, benefited by learning so much as a volunteer. So I, uh, you know, I really honor this work that you do. Would you like to say something to the public?

[00:09:56] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, here you go.

[00:09:58] John Coogan: Um, thank you all very much. It's an honor to meet you here to be able to receive this proclamation, and it's an honor to be able to volunteer with the Mountain View Police Department.

[00:10:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Should we take a picture? Looks like there's people ready?

[00:10:26] Mayor Pat Showalter: And thank you. And, um, I'll just stay up here for the next one. Um, Silja? Michael? Michael? Mike, right, Mike. Sorry. Got turned. Yeah. Soldier, would you like to join me here at the microphone? This is, uh, we have a certificate of recognition this evening for Soldja Palmer. And she has someone I've really enjoyed getting to know over the last few years. And so I was really very pleased to have this brought forward. I think it's particularly appropriate because this is Earth week. And we just had a big Earth Day celebration. And we are honoring Silja. Silger Plummer initiated the volunteer pollinator habitat at Questa Park in Mountain View. That's on the corner of Cuesta Park in... Montaldo? On Montaldo. Yeah. So where you come in for the tentist center. So you can everybody can go and look at it. And, um, it allows volunteers to plant California natives in the corner of Questa Park. She organized a network of volunteers to plan the plantings, install the habitat, and maintain the habitat. She received a number of grants to help cover the cost involved with beginning the habitat. Thank you. And the city has been supporting this effort since inception by providing mulch, compost, signage, irrigation access, and water use. The first plants were planted in the fall of 2021. In fall of 2023. Soldier received a grant of 880 seedlings from the Xerxes Society, which works to protect butterflies. And habitat for butterflies. The habitat features mulch pass, weaving among the plants, stumps, sitting areas, and a picnic table. as well as a native bee house. The habitat is supported by the city of Mountain View, the Xerxes Society, the Santa Clara Valley, Audubon Society, Green Spaces Mountain View, and many Volunteers. So, the city council recognizes Silja Palma for her dedication and hard work on the volunteer pollinator habitat at Questa Park. Thank you. Would you like to say a few words?

[00:12:50] Celia Palmer: Okay. Thank you so much. So, in return, I also, uh, we made a book kind of tracking the progress through the park that we would like to give to city council for, I don't know if you have a library or a coffee table. And at the beginning, there's also an acknowledgment for all the hard work that all of our volunteers have done, many of their names, but many of them we couldn't name because there was too many. So I really, um, value all the contributions from so many people and all this support from the city. And we look forward to continuing collaboration, hopefully, in Mariposa Park. We have a group that's excited to work there and maybe bring more natives next door to the annex as well, if possible. So thank you so much.

[00:13:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And we'd also like to welcome anybody who would like to make a public comment about either of these presentations? Anybody like to step forward and make a public comment? Okay? Would any council members like to make a comment? Okay.

[00:14:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor, you have one member of the public with their hand up on Zoom.

[00:14:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh. Okay.

[00:14:30] Bruce England: Thank you, mayor, that would be me. Bruce England, Wisman Station Drive. Uh, I just want to give my special notice to Celia and all the work she's done with the garden project, and um, as part of the Green Space's Mountain View efforts across the city. This is really a hallmark of the work that we've been doing, and Celia has really been working tirelessly on this, including bringing in all kinds of volunteers. So sometimes on days that aren't great, too hot, too cold, too wet. Mary Dadio has been very involved in that process too. So it's really great. And I hope that it is a sets a real strong precedent for other installations across the city like this that bring in members of the community to participate. Thank you.

[00:15:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Oh, council member Ramos.

[00:15:24] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I just wanted to add my congratulations for Cilia. Um, and after all the, uh, I don't know, it wasn't this past weekend, but it was the weekend before where we had the native, uh, native plant garden tour of all these different cities. And what we learned is like some of these other cities, their, their tours were like private homes, but this, this community park was an amazing feat. And people were like, how did you do that? And I'm just like, well, you really don't challenge Celia on doing anything. And she, because like, if she wants something done, it happens. And I think it's, um, it's really such a great accomplishment for you and Green Space is mountain view and the many people that worked hard to get that that habitat. And we're going to get more. So I'm so excited. Congratulations and congratulations on the Daughters of the American Revolution. Um, certificate. Um, That was this past week as well. Thank you.

[00:16:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[00:16:22] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I was just gonna thank both Mr. Coogan, although apparently he's left, maybe he'll watch on YouTube later, and Ms. Paymare, for both, I mean, we seem to be on a volunteer theme for both presentations. So I want to thank you both from the bottom of my heart, and then also say that the pollinator garden, the celebration of that is timely given that we have our biodiversity plan, our active transportation plan, our parks, all the things that we have coming in our urban forestry, all the things that we have coming up on our work plan. So I see it as very timely. Thank you.

[00:17:11] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, that's very true. And it's also really amazing how good it is for the habitat to have native plants that attract wildlife that is indigenous to this area. Okay, so that is item three. And now we move on to item four, which is a consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for either discussion or vote. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item, oral communications on non agenda items, in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the council like to pull an item for discussion or vote? Okay? Uh, vice mayor, Mata check.

[00:18:01] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I don't want to pull items. I just want to comment on a couple. So let me know when you're ready for me to do that.

[00:18:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we're ready.

[00:18:09] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. I want to make comments on item 4.4 and 4.5. Item 4.4 is a recommendation to approve the engagement of an external audit firm, and the city is required to engage, an independent CPA firm to conduct an annual audit of the city's books. And this year, the city conducted an RFP following council policy B6. I know council member Ramirez always likes to cite what council policy. And that establishes a 3 step policy or process for selection of an auditor. And it, I personally think it's good governance to reevaluate your policies and procedures and service providers from time to time. And that's what we did this year for the external auditor. The city received six proposals in response to the RFP, and staff evaluated all of them. And then three firms were recommended to be interviewed by staff and the council finance committee. And based on the staff recommendation, or the staff evaluation of the proposals and interviews, and then reference checks, the council finance committee recommends that the council approve an agreement with Bajawi, for an initial four year term, with an option to extend the agreement for additional two to fiscal years. So, as a member of the council finance committee, I will say that the firms we interviewed were all very qualified. to serve as our auditor, um, and it wasn't really an easy decision, uh, to decide on which one to recommend to our colleagues here for the next four to six years. But I thought it was important that members of the public know that, you know, we take that council policy seriously, and we do go out to market, every once in a while, to check to see, you know? Should we change? Should we do something different, or we should continue with the service provider word with? So I'm happy that we did that this year. It was very interesting, I think, for all of us on the CFC. The other item is 4.5. And that is the first step in preparing the Moffat Boulevard precise plan, which is this action is executing a contract, with MIG, to prepare the precise plan, and also perform the associated sequel work. Um, you know, the housing element, uh, requires a, has a program that requires the city to rezone the Moffat Boulevard, change area, up to at least a 1.85 FAR, and to identify any sites where neighborhood commercial will be required. And the rezoning has an adoption deadline of December 31st, 2025. Developing the precise plan will take about 20 months, and it includes a very robust public outreach plan, an existing conditions report, and evaluation of the planned boundaries, because the council had discussion about should we change it from what we originally thought in the general plan. And then several topics, such as economic feasibility analysis and others. Um, and also the EIR. And the purpose of pulling this one to make a comet is to encourage our residents and business owners to get involved in this. especially those of you who are within the precise plan area, or close to it. We really want to hear from you, because as a former council member always said to me, You know your neighborhood best. And so we want to hear your input. So, I want to encourage folks again to get involved, if you live within or close to that precise plan. Thanks.

[00:22:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[00:22:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I'm also going to comment on several of the items, but not pull them. One is 4.2, which involves reimbursing the school district for various items, including the school field at Vargas. And I just wanted to point out to people who are interested that there was, in the council questions, robust discussion of whether the plastic turf on the field could ever be replaced with real turf, and something that's not an easy process, but I know there's growing interest in that. So I recommend that members of the public, who are interested, look at kind of the back and forth between staff, and council asking those questions so that you can be more on top of that, that popular topic. And then the 2nd one is 4.5, which the vice mayor laid out in great detail, what it is, but if you can't remember, it's the, the, it's, the Moffatt precise plan, the 1st step in that, and hiring consultants, and I want to, um, uh, also encourage robust involvement from residents, but also notice, I notice that the scope of I don't think it named a number of groups that staff was doing outreach, too, but I didn't see the local neighborhood groups and some of the other groups that are, I saw more old Mountain View and Swan neighborhood groups than neighborhood groups from the Maffad area. I also didn't see other groups like CSA. and the Buddhist temple, which are near there. So I'm hoping that, um, staff not only talks to, I mean, I'm in the old mountain view neighborhood. I'm so glad you're talking to us, because I like to walk to Moffatt, but I hope you talk to those more local groups as well. And that's those are my comments. Thank you.

[00:24:16] Unknown Speaker: I have a couple of comments too. I wanted to talk a little bit about 4.8, the housing element, CIP funding appropriation. There's a long list of programs in the housing element, and this item is about three grants that the city staff successfully applied for to provide funds to carry out some of the housing element tasks. They're from the state programs called early local action planning, or leap, regional, early action planning, reap, and SB2. And staff has gleaned $479,665 from these grants that will be put to carry out our housing element projects. And that means that other money that we would have used can be used for something else. And that's really helpful. So I want to thank staff for all the effort to get those grants. And then the other thing I wanted to mention was 4.10. That's the household hazardous waste collection program, and the implementation fee, and we, we, um, collaborate with all of the other cities in the county, to have a household hazardous waste collection program. And one of the parts of that that I think everybody, I hope everybody knows about, is that there's a drop off of your hazardous waste, where you can bring your paint, and any solvents you have, or waste to an event, and they will be properly cared for. And our event will be August 24th this summer, and it's going to be advertised in a number of things. So I just want to give people a heads up to keep an eye out for that.

[00:26:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so with that, we have two people on Zoom who would like to comment. First, Devin Conley. Devin, are you there?

[00:26:26] Devin Conley: Yes, I am. Thank you. Mayor, show Walter. Thank you. Um, good evening to the council. My name is Devin Connolly, and I am the president of the Mountain View wisdom school district. I'm here tonight to speak on item 4.2. Payment to the Mountain View Wisdom School District. For Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary School Field. I wanted to thank you for considering this item tonight. When Vargas Elementary was constructed, the city requested a turf field be installed, and went into a partnership with the district to do so. Since the school and field were completed. The field has seen heavy usage by the community. If you happen to stop by in the evenings or on weekends, there are constantly neighbors enjoying this space. Now there will also be softball games scheduled at the site by the recreation department. Our school district values your partnership in the development and care of our open spaces, and looks forward to continued collaboration through our joint use agreement with the city in the years to come. Thank you.

[00:27:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And then our next speaker is Bruce England. Welcome, Bruce.

[00:27:36] Bruce England: Hi, I had to find the button. Do you hear me, okay?

[00:27:39] Unknown Speaker: We can.

[00:27:40] Bruce England: Good, thank you. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive. Just quick comments on 3 things. What is the Vargas item 42? Agree with comments from council member Hicks about addressing the artificial turf there? And of course, throughout the city. It's very problematic material and everything that we can do to not put any more of that in and to pull it out where we got it, totally support that. On, um, Poor 5, Moffatt Boulevard. Just want to comment, that's going to be a very important piece of the city plan around downtown and north-south connectivity. Uh, anything that can tire city together because we just, you know, we have different neighborhoods in different sections of town that don't always work very well together and being able to continue downtown into that Moffatt Boulevard area ultimately is going to be very important. And I wanted to add to that, that, We're talking a lot about 15 minutes city, where people can walk and bike easily to essential services they need. And on the active transportation front, I hear all the time from people, through the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning on Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, that we just are not contiguous enough, that you ride your bike or walk from one part of town to another, and part of it might be nice and comfortable and safe, and then you hit another part, a lot of talk about El Camino right now, that isn't really like that at all. And so anything that sort of creates more of a contiguous experience across parts of mound view would be great. And then on 49, for the public works item on upgrades to the vehicle fleet. Of course, electrification is very important where there are opportunities to go to electric vehicles for the vehicle fleet. Great. It's a lot of that's already happening. So I see that, but, you know, bring it on more of that. And also just the idea of putting staff on bicycles. I mean, does it have to be in a vehicle? There are times city hall is very close to parts of town and municipal operations center on Wisman is close to parts of town and people could just get on a bike. And I think it would send a very positive message to everybody in Mountain View that you don't have to get in a vehicle to get somewhere to do your work. Thank you.

[00:29:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And it looks like we also have council member Ramirez wanting to make some comments.

[00:30:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I will move the staff recommendation, including, or I'll move the consent calendar, including item 4.one, adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View Amending, chapter 36, zoning of the city code, amending the development standards and permitting process for emergency shelters, and finding the amendment to be categorically exempt under Section 15061B3 of the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and item 4.2. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, authorizing the city manager, or designate to reimburse the Mountain View Wisman School District, a total of $700,000 as the city's share of the cost to install the field improvements at Vargas Elementary School, to be read entitled only, to be, sorry, further reading waived. And also, just a couple of brief comments, I'm grateful for Vice Mayor Matachak's leadership as chair of the CFC. It was, I think we'd mentioned maybe in a previous meeting, it was a very robust set of interviews and a really enlightening and valuable process to go through, and I'm happy with the outcome. And then also, I appreciate the comments from both the vice mayor and council member Hicks about the Moffat Boulevard precise plan. I was actually tempted to pull it from consent to amend the scope to include outreach to some of the key stakeholder groups in the Moffat Boulevard area. Neither of you pulled it, so I'm not going to either, but I do hope that the staff, and eventually, the consultant hears that request. Thank you very much.

[00:31:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so we have, thank you for that motion. Council member Ramirez, and we have a second vice mayor on Manachek. So are there any comments, any more comments? Saying none? I think we should vote. Okay, it passes unanimously. That means we will move on to item five, which is oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for people who wish to address the council on any matter that is not on tonight's agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction for up to two minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda 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. And, um... So, do we have any speakers in person?

[00:32:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We have one.

[00:32:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Sean, passen. Welcome, Sean.

[00:33:06] Sean Passen: Thank you, Honorable Mayor. Council members, I'm Sean Passen, almost 50 year resident in Mountain View in the North Wisman area. I'm also an army reserve veteran. Yep, the most important title to me is husband and father. And I'm here today because our minor permit has been has been stuck in a bureaucratic purgatory for about 5 weeks. So this is just a minor permit for electric and gas for a backyard project. Uh, while I decided to, uh, we decided to improve our backyard so we can make it a space for my wife and uh, my kids. 13, 8, and 2 can enjoy as well as family and friends and fellow veterans who really need to connect. Um, Unfortunately, um, I've had to be a pest to the permit, uh, permit department because the application has not gotten intention, which is really disheartening, uh, because service, like you all have been in service, and I've been in service for the army and also for the VA. I take that seriously. And in my role at the VA, I was responsible for addressing issues where veterans have been abused or neglected. And I made sure in my HR role that those people who were doing that type of conduct were out of a job. I'm calling on you to do more because this is not just personally exhausting, these delays and adversarial practices, such as if there's a minor error on my permit, it'll be an additional 2 week delay. They're unacceptable. How am I supposed to attract quality licensed, experienced and safe contractors when permits are reviewed in a manner that's convenient to the building office? I understand they may be under tight circumstances, but this is not acceptable. The bureaucratic purgatory, discourages community residents like me from undergoing projects the right way, makes it more inconvenient to obtain quality talent. Waste taxpayers money on a horribly inefficient process, decreases city revenue, as it discourages others from getting involved in the permitting process, as well as put family and 1st responders at risk when people choose other means to improve their buildings because of an onerous permit application process. This problem needs to be addressed. Building department needs to learn to serve rather than making a simple process onerous. Process and communication improvements need to be put in place.

[00:35:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, sir. Could you wind up?

[00:35:31] Sean Passen: Yeah, that's all I have. I just want to ask if I can count on you to address this matter. Thank you.

[00:35:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: We are not allowed to respond to comments from the dais, if they aren't agendized, but you can be sure that you were heard, and, um, staff heard your, your issue, and, um, I'm sure that there will be a response, but we, we can't respond from the dais. It's just not... it's not the rules.

[00:36:05] Sean Passen: I understand.

[00:36:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Thank you so much for being here. Okay. Do we... Clarke, I don't see any virtual speakers to you. Okay. All right. Very great. So that's oral communications. Do we have another one?

[00:36:25] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No, no, no, okay.

[00:36:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Oh, now we move on to our public hearings. Item six. Tonight, we have 6.1, fiscal year, 20 24, 25, federal annual action plan. The Affordable Housing Manager, Julie Bernard, and Housing Director, Wayne Chen, will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Let us know when you're ready. Go ahead.

[00:37:28] Affordable Housing Manager Julie Bonnard: Mayor, vice mayor, members of the city council. I am Julie Bonnard, your affordable housing manager. I'm joined this evening by Wayne Chen Housing Director. I'm here to present the funding recommendations for fiscal year 2024, 25 annual action plan. The purpose of this meeting this evening is to hold a public hearing to receive public input on the draft fiscal year 2024, 25 annual action plan, and also to make funding recommendations for the community development block grant and home investment partnership program, expenditures, otherwise known as CDBG and home respectively. So each year the city receives grant allocations from the CBDG and the home programs. This funding allocation is guided by our five-year consolidated plan, as well as an annual action plan that's drafted each year. We provide public uh grantees with public service funding, um, and that is provided on a two-year funding cycle, with this upcoming year being the 2nd of the 2 years. So the public service recipients that are in good standing would receive the same funding allocations in this upcoming year. So in addition to the CDBG funded public service grantees, we also provide funding through the general fund for those that are not eligible for the CDBG funding. Staff also recommends, once again, providing direct allocations to capital projects for the remainder of the CBDG and home funding. So the annual action plan approval process so far has included the draft annual action plan being made available on March 22nd. This was presented also through a public hearing to the human relations commission on April 4th, where staff's recommendations were accepted. In addition to the public hearing this evening, the public comment window closes today. Finally, following this staff and the city will submit the annual action plan to hide on or around May 15th. So the federal programs receive funds from 3 sources. Each year, we receive an annual allocation of for CBDG around $610,000 and $285,000 for home. We have to estimate this amount based on our prior years awards. In addition to that, we usually have some prior year uncommitted funds, which for this year we expect to be about $650,000 for CBDG and $336,000 for home. Finally, we also have anticipated program income, and for CBDG, we expect about a quarter of a $1000000 and with around about half a $1000000 for home. So that leaves us with a total budget of over $26000000 for this federal program. In addition, as I mentioned, we do provide funding through the general fund to some additional public service grantees, and that budget is just under $279,000. How staff propose to expand this fund, these funds is through 4 main allocations or expenditures, rather. So we are permitted to expend some of our allocation on administration costs, and that is around $150,000. Um, we, as I mentioned, provide funding to the public service grantees. And this year, we propose to increase the minor home repay budget from $30,000 up to $180,000. I'll discuss a little more on that later. And finally, the remaining funds will be allocated to capital projects, most likely an affordable housing project, and that budget is likely to be around $2.1 million. As I mentioned, this is the 2nd of the two-year funding cycle. We have provided funding to 7 public service grantees. No changes to the grantees or the budget are proposed for the upcoming fiscal year. So in addition to the CBDG public service budget, the city supplements this through the general fund for some public service grantees that aren't eligible for the CBDG um program funding. So in fiscal year, the city budgeted fiscal year 2324, the city budgeted just under $279,000, which we propose to continue into the next fiscal year. The city provides 10 nonprofits or public service grantees with funding, and as I mentioned, no changes are proposed. Finally, we propose, staff recommend a budget of roughly $2100000 for capital projects, a project will be identified through the program year, and that funding directly allocated to that project. Finally, staff recommend increasing the minor home repair budget from $30,000 to $180,000. This will allow rebuilding together peninsula to increase the grant amounts from $5000 to around $15,000 and also increase the number of households that receive the funding or the improvements. So examples of eligible activities that weren't previously, when previously eligible, that are now include roof repairs, accessibility, conversions, such as replacing a tub with a walk in shower, furnish replacements, painting, and landscaping. So with that, staff recommends that city council take the following action. Adopt the fiscal year 2425 annual action plan to allocate approximately $2100000 for capital projects, most likely an affordable housing project, to allocate $180,000 in CDBG funding for rebuilding together peninsula for the minor home repair program, and finally to allocate 278,724 from the general fund for public services. And with that staff are available for questions, so we can turn it back to the chair.

[00:44:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. So we'll have council questions, and then we'll have public comment, and then we'll bring it back for deliberation. So, um, uh, council questions. Any of my colleagues have a question? Council member Ramirez.

[00:44:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I have a question about, uh, sorry, Tom. This may be for you. The Community Services Agency Services for Homelessness Prevention Program. So thank you to staff for responding. I think there were a couple of questions about this in the questions submitted in advance of the meeting. The program is estimated to serve, or will serve an estimated 5,817 beneficiaries, and the description suggests that the scope of the program is greater than the program title might suggest. And I wanted to better understand how some of the items that are referenced here are related to homelessness prevention.

[00:45:26] Wayne: Good evening, thank you very much. We also do have Tom Myers here to help provide any color. The funding is available for homeless prevention services and also related services that were part of CSA's applications. The funding enabled the full funding of the program to be put together so that the entire program can benefit a wider range of individuals. I might ask Tom if he would be able to come and provide some additional color and provide counsel some details of the different types of programs that are touched by the funding.

[00:46:06] Tom Myers: Yeah, thank you, Wayne, and thanks for the question, council member Ramirez. First of all, excuse me. I am fighting allergies, like, unbelievable this year. So, uh, if my voice cracks. I'm sorry about that. That number represents the total number that are served through our homelessness prevention program. Now, homelessness prevention has a lot of different aspects to it, and the $31,000 that comes from the city is part of an overall, much larger bucket. Now, when people talk about homelessness prevention, in general, the first thing that pumps to mind is what used to be called emergency assistance, which is rental assistance and direct financial assistance, those kinds of things. What we have, and those are very much a part of it. This funding is part of an overall bucket, though, that will also include reaching out and giving people through our back to school programs, our holiday programs, and things like that. And those people are considered homelessness prevention clients. Uh, what, and, and you might know that we changed many years ago prior to COVID, uh, in our, in when we give out things, we don't give out uh, things like backpacks. We don't give out toys anymore. It's about getting cash in people's hands. And that cash, through gift cards, can help people to stave off emergencies or whatever the case may be. So that number, that large number is not all rental assistance, and that may be a little bit misleading to people who think in terms of homelessness prevention, meaning rental assistance, because homelessness prevention program is actually much broader in scope. So, I can get numbers for you, if you would like, about specifically people who were served by what may be thought of as traditional homelessness prevention programs. And I can bring that back to council. If that's if I'm understanding where you're going with this?

[00:48:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah. Yes, my intent is to not create more work for you. I think it's to better understand the scope of the program and I would be interested in folks who are benefiting from, I guess, what the program title suggests it's intending to do, which is prevent people from being unhoused. I guess at the risk of getting into some commentary here, it feels like an inflated number, right? It's called homelessness prevention, 5,817 people who are not necessarily receiving emergency rent relief, or it may suggest to someone who isn't familiar with the program that that number of people is benefiting from emergency rent relief, and that's not quite the case. So, would it be a trivial enough thing, maybe to provide that number in addition to this one, so we have a better understanding of that?

[00:49:12] Tom Myers: Absolutely. And in fact, Brandy, Jotimani on our staff, and Ceri Soltero, who is the head of our homeless prevention services program. We're talking in the hallway today about the fact that what might be appropriate when we fill this out next year is to talk specifically in the application around those things that people think about, things like rental assistance. And I will go ahead and get those numbers and get that back, communicate that through official channels to council.

[00:49:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Fantastic. Thank you very much, Tom.

[00:49:46] Tom Myers: Absolutely.

[00:49:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Since we have you up here, Tom. I thought I would also ask you, I know when we've had discussions, another thing that you have said, over the course of your career, has hit you as actually helping prevent homelessness is also your food program. Now, this isn't part of this at all, but the food program, I mean, in the sense, it means people spend, they get food, some food for free, and they can use that other money they have for their rent. So we want to talk about that a little bit.

[00:50:18] Tom Myers: Yeah, just very briefly. The food program when I first started at CSA was a supplemental food program. More and more people are relying on our food program for a lot of the majority of their food. And as you know, the services at CSA are income, we do an income verification to make sure that people do qualify for our services. So, the fact that people are coming to us more and more for a much larger majority of their food indicates that that's much, much more important in their lives and being able to make ends meet. Another important thing about our food program. And I always talk about how food is the gateway to getting in to CSA. Food is often the very first service that people will go for. And then when they come to CSA for the food, that's when they find out about the other services that might be beneficial to their family. Food is not the only thing we do. And unfortunately, I think sometimes people think food is the only thing CSA does, and, and, uh, it's, or that it's the most important thing that we do. But it is often the gateway, if you will, to getting people into our programs. But yeah, the trends in food are actually kind of staggering. And one thing that happened at the beginning of COVID is a lot of different groups, schools, churches, groups that had never gotten into the business, if you will, before. We had as many as 20 to 22 food distributions going on in the middle of COVID in Mountain View. That number's shrinking. you now. And so I think that's part of the reason why our numbers are starting to go up. And one thing we're noticing, we have just relocated last week over to the old Joanne Fabric site in San Antonio Center. And we are noticing more people, people found us immediately, 1st of all, but 2nd thing is that we're finding more and more people, are discovering us from that particular neighborhood. So, sorry. I'm sure that was too long, so I apologize.

[00:52:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you.

[00:52:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Yeah. All right, any other council questions? Okay, so I would like to open the public comment period, then. And I see that Georgia Vassal would like to speak to us. Welcome. Come on up to the podium.

[00:52:46] Georgia Basile: Good evening, members of the city council and mayor. My name is Georgia Basile. I am the directing attorney of Senior Adults, Legal Assistance. You know, as a Sala. We provide free legal services to Mountain View residents, 62 or older, targeting clients that are low income, or at risk of abuse or loss of independence. 81% of the Mountain View clients we served last year were very low income. 53% were 75 or older, and 42% had a disability, placing them in high economic and socialism. need. We provide our services locally, at appointments at Mountain View Senior Center once a month, and by phone for clients that cannot get to the senior center, or that have emergencies that can't wait. We are a current grantee, and we thank you so much. Your funding helps us to provide expanded availability of our services here in Mountain View, and we are recommended for funding in the action plan, and we thank the staff for that. I just want to mention that we address a range of legal matters, impacting our clients' daily lives. We assist clients that are having legal problems with Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and Medical, benefits they depend on for their daily needs. We assist clients worried about eviction, clients that need reasonable accommodations in their housing, usually because of a disability, or clients whose housing is otherwise in jeopardy. As attorneys, we help clients do some really basic planning for the future, so that they can appoint someone to step in and take over when they're not able to do so. Someone they trust, which is really important before there's any kind of abuse. And regrettably, we continue to serve clients that are victims of elder abuse, physical and financial, usually by someone they know, or someone living in their homes, such as an adult child, grandchild, someone they ran a room out to, a caregiver. Unfortunately, these are not pleasant situations. attorneys are able to go to court and get elder abuse restraining orders, and domestic violence training orders to remove these parties from our clients' homes. So we can't charge fees for services, or accept fee generating cases. The only way that we can provide Our services are through grants, and some very modest donations that we get. So your funding helps us provide the highest level of service possible. And I wanted to thank you this evening.

[00:55:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. We appreciate your coming. Thank you. Do we have?

[00:55:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: It doesn't look like we have any speakers on Zoom.

[00:55:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So then it's time to bring it back for council deliberation. Do any members have comments they'd like to make? Council member Abbe Coca.

[00:55:31] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, um, I am anticipating emotion, but um, I actually have a disclosure in that I need to recuse myself from voting on, um, the item number 4 of the public services allocations, specifically, to the Health Trust. I mean, ask the city attorney to take it over from here. Thank you.

[00:55:53] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So in light of this recusal, can we take a vote on that item number 4 first? while a council member Abikoga steps out, and then we can come back and take a vote on the remaining items, if that's okay.

[00:56:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Sure. I'm sorry, I didn't see that on the agenda flow.

[00:56:13] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: No, it wasn't. It just came to my attention. I apologize.

[00:56:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Okay.

[00:56:18] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, I would just like to make a comment. Um, I had a comment I wanted to make. And that's really, um, I was just, I'm really glad to see this minor, um, repairs program expanding, because in today's, um, world, $5,000 worth of repairs is a very small number. And so I was glad to see that. And then the other thing, and the questions, I asked about the use of volunteers, and you mentioned that the volunteers that you use are actually professionals, who volunteers their service. Did I get that right?

[00:56:57] Wayne: They can be. It can be a mixture of just anybody who's interested. They provide may go in and do simple things like changing smoke alarms and that sort of thing, or if they are somebody, a professional who has a more advanced skill set, they would utilize them to assist with things like electrical or plumbing or anything. So it, it, the volunteers come from a wide range of professions and they will just utilize them as people are interested.

[00:57:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: And generally, how do you apply for this? Do you apply through the city?

[00:57:34] Wayne: The minor home repair? Um, I think they have an online application. And right now, I think that rebuilding together peninsula receive a lot of their clients through referrals. I do believe they do a fair amount of work at one of the mobile home parks, and those are predominantly through referrals. Coming in the upcoming fiscal year, I would like to, for them to maybe connect with our code enforcement in some cities, they partner with code enforcement, to assist with, with other sorts of initiatives. And I think that we could do that with this enhanced funding. We've got some other opportunities we could leverage.

[00:58:16] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, yeah. And then the other the other, well, I wanted to make 2 more comments. One comment is, you know, I hope we'll be able to also connect this program with the rebate programs that are available for electrification, particularly for low income people. The rebate numbers are much higher. So hopefully, we can make that. And then the last comment I wanted to make was, I wanted to thank you, Julie, for your first, for coming to council, and for your first time?

[00:58:52] Wayne: Yeah, it's your first time here, and, uh, Julie has been to several neighborhood committee meetings, and, um, uh, we've really been impressed by her know how and, uh, calm and asking, uh, thorny questions. So, so welcome.

[00:59:10] Julie: Oh, thank you. Very, very pleased to be working for you and for the city.

[00:59:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good. Okay, well, looks like, while I've been talking, emotion and a second have been made. Are there any discussion on the motion? To take action? Well, I guess we should clarify that, shouldn't we?

[00:59:29] Unknown Speaker: Yes. I would like to move the staff recommendation of $43,200 to the Health Trust. Thank you.

[00:59:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. And I hope that's what... Concemember Ramirez is seconding. And that's the second, and that's the one we're supposed to do while. Council member Abikoga is recused, right? So that's the appropriate one. Okay? Any comments on this? No? All right, seeing none? It's time to vote. Okay, that passes, um, 5 to 0 with the 0 being the recusal. And now we can bring council member Abbe Koga back for the rest of the deliberation. There you are. Welcome back. Okay. All right, so I think it's probably time for a motion for the remainder of the staff recommendation. Council member Hicks.

[01:00:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I would like to move the remainder of the staff recommend.

[01:00:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: We have a second from council member Ramos. Do we have any comment? Saying none, it's time to vote. Okay, well, no? coming up yet? That passes unanimously. Thank you very much, staff, for the presentation. All right, so next on our agenda tonight is new business, and under new business, we have item 7.one, the economic vitality strategy. There will be Chinese and Spanish translation services for this item, and we will now hear from our Chinese interpreter.

[01:02:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now we will hear from our Spanish interpreter.

[01:02:18] Unknown Speaker: Hola, buenos noches. Si nasusita interpretación, al Español, pulse el icono que dice interpretación, en la parte inferior de la pantaya, y alije, la idioma español. Muchas gracias, que tenga una abuenanoche.

[01:02:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And given the need for council recusals due to conflicts of interest, this item will recede in the following manner. We'll begin with a staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment. At the close of public comment, the council will ask questions, deliberate, and take action on items requiring council member recusals first. Counsel will then ask questions, deliberate, and take action on the remaining items. Okay, so we are joined at the dais with vitality, uh, economic vitality manager, John Lang, and acting assistant city manager, community development director, Don Cameron, um, will present the item. And if you would like to speak on this item in person, this is the time to submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. Thank you.

[01:03:33] Economic Vitality Manager John Lang: Good evening, Mayor, members of council in the community of Mountain View. I am John Ling, the economic vitality manager. I'm joined by the acting city manager and community development director, Don Cameron, to present the Mountain View Economic Vitality Strategy for city council consideration. Providing some background and context on how we arrived here tonight. In 2021, city council identified economic vitality as one of its 7 priorities. The city is memorializing that priority through the development of an economic vitality strategy. After seeking input from council, on a proposed consultant, scope of services, the city issued a request for proposals in the fall of 2021. After a competitive process, the city ended up selecting community attributes incorporated from Washington State. To aid the city in developing the economic vitality strategy. Work began on that development in the summer of 2022. In the fall of 2023. We conducted a council study session. And we sought and put in feedback from council on the draft economic vitality strategy. As a brief refresher on the feedback received through that study session. We received feedback specific to equity and vision. And I'll discuss a little bit about that right now. The general feedback from council was to revise the vision statement, making it more succinct and specifically aligning with the city's overall vision and have it relate more specifically to economic development. Additional feedback was around equity in making sure that we applied an equity lens throughout the document that's more consistent with the race equity inclusion plan. We also receive feedback on goals, actions and strategies. We received 7 pieces of feedback, I'll highlight 3 of them for the purposes of being concise. One of the core areas receive feedback on was developing measures of success or performance measures as a way to evaluate the economic vitality strategy. create an implementation timeline for each action, and then incorporate placemaking elements and branding action items throughout the document. What's before you today is a summary of what has changed since that September study session. You will see by this table. We continue to have one vision statement. We no longer have an equity statement. We are applying an equity lens throughout all the action items in the plan. We have expanded the number of goals to 5, and this includes a downtown specific goal. And through the additional outreach and engagement that we undertook since the fall, we now have 164 action items versus the original 125 Since the fall, the engagement that we've undertaken has really been focused on engaging with property and small business owners, both English and non-English speaking, as well as engaging different entrepreneurs and small business owners during that time. As part of this process, we've developed a more succinct vision statement that's in line with the city's overall vision and highlights and associates well with economic development, which now reads Mountain View seeks to create a thriving community, where small businesses, innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity are encouraged and flourish. We aim to be a global leader that balances economic growth with the health and well-being of our community and our environment. As already mentioned, we have 5 goals now. A new goal was added specific to downtown, and this was really a result of the significant input and feedback we got as part of the outreach and engagement process. Downtown is an important aspect of our community, and we heard thoroughly, and therefore, we've developed a goal specific to downtown. Staying with downtown, wanted to share some significant efforts underway currently. Most recently, the city launched a new monthly newsletter called the Downtown Digest, and it is intended to provide updated information on Pedmol activations, various projects, and business activity to the community. In addition, staff will be bringing back this fall, a minor change to the table associated with Area H within the downtown precise plan. This change is going to be a small step forward in terms of the much larger work in updating the downtown precise plan. The change will focus on the use table, to provide more consistency across the various precise plans this city has, and it will remove a select number of use permits associated with uses. Another big change from the fall is the development of measures of success. In developing measures of success, we look to the best practices of the California association of local economic development, and the International Economic Development Council on how best to measure economic development and economic vitality. We've identified 14 measures that align to various goals in the EVS. We also have identified targets where we can identify targets versus what our current numbers are with each one of those targets. The 14 measures that are identified can be updated on an annual basis as a way to measure how we are moving forward with the various implementation of actions related to the economic vitality strategy. A redesigned vitality document now includes additional white space and new images throughout the document. Each action has a minimum of 2 icons that represent a timeline implementation, this is denoted through the use of a clock, and it also has a cost estimate, which is denoted with the use of dollar signs. The vitality strategy is envisioned to be a 5 to 10 year plan, and therefore, the time frames associated with the implementation reflect that 5 to 10 year implementation time frame. Some actions, such as 2 B 4 noted on this slide, also include an additional icon reflecting equity. So in some cases, action items will have 3 icons, all action items will have a minimum of two. In developing the timelines, we have broken down at a high level, how many actions are associated with the various implementation timelines, and you can see that here for a full list of all the actions, action items broken down by timeline, you can see that in attachment A to the economic vitality strategy. Staff also took the time to identify top 15 actions from an economic development lens. So over the next 2 slides, this is highlighting the 15 action items that we believe are the most important to our sustainability and success of a business ecosystem in Mountain View. Please note that the readability on each one of these action items has been truncated, just for ease of reading, for the full context of the language, we do have them written out completely in the council report. We are seeking 2 recommendations for adoption of the economic vitality strategy. The 1st is to separate 2 action items to be taken 1st and then the 2nd recommendation is to accept the balance of the action items proposed within the economic vitality strategy. I would like to conclude this presentation by thanking the city council, city leadership team, Mountain View residents and businesses who have shared experiences and insights with us, the economic vitality strategy advisory group, my city teammates, and community attributes for the heartfelt work on this project. Staff as well as community attributes are available for questions. Thank you.

[01:13:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council members, do you have questions? Yeah, wait a minute. I think we have to do the recusal thing 1st before we get to the questions. Sorry, just back. The council members with a conflict of interest rated related to economic vitality strategies, 2 A, 3, um, develop absorption targets for commercial and residential growth in, um, an update to the downtown precise plan and action 2 D, 3, conduct outreach to downtown businesses to spur participation and representation in a parking benefit district oversight committee. Please make your recusal statements now. Council member Hicks?

[01:14:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So maybe I tripped you up here, and you were supposed to take public comment first on the entire thing.

[01:14:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Is that, yes, that's the city attorney is telling me that I led you astray. So technically, you should take public comment on the whole thing so that everyone can hear public comment on everything, on everything. Then you take the recusals, and then you have questions, deliberation, and action on the recusals. Okay. Well, with that, Alex Brown has submitted a blue card. So, Alex, you come up to the podium and share your thoughts with us.

[01:15:18] Alex Brown: If you insist. Hey, friends. John, see, the economic vitality strategy, I also don't like all the vacant pads downtown, or a lot of the empty, I guess, for these signs. I would love to be able to walks places. I want there to be places that I can get to and patron and just enjoy. This strategy is kind of a lot. Like, it's very noisy. There's a lot and my issue with it is mostly that it feels like we're not trying to do things so much as kind of just passively, like, sit next to to other people who are doing things. A lot of it is, oh, yeah, we're going to engage with or do outreach to the idea of, oh, yeah, there's a broker who's doing something. There's a landlord who's doing something. There's a business that doing something, and we're just kind of, saying that we're part of the process in some ways. And the one big thing that we could do, which is to pass a vacancy tax and a registry, to find, here are the places that are opportunities that are empty. And an empty business is worse than no business because it looks bad. It's blight. It discourages other things. We could address that directly, but instead, we're kind of just, you know, doing a sideways approach of maybe talking to people who might do something and hoping that market forces fix it, which I don't think is, uh, an effective strategy, has been so far, but I guess we'll see. Thanks.

[01:16:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Um, Pamela Baird. Welcome. You got here just in time.

[01:17:05] Pamela Baird: I know. I was on a phone call, I got, I got to go. Anyway, good evening, everyone. My name is Pamela Baird. I'm a 25 year resident of Mountain View. I'd like to address the city council members, Vice Mayor Mattachek, and Mayor Show Walter. First of all, I'd like to applaud the staff for a great production. there. 184 pages of it. It's very nice. Anyway, tonight I am addressing you in two different ways. First, as a resident and a small business owner. I agree with one, one, two, which is way finding in maps. My husband and I just came back from London, which has a wonderful, of course, they have a lot of things to look at, but indicates they have a wonderful map system, two sided maps, that show a radius of a five minute walk, 10 minute walk, and all the buildings in the things that you can see. And I would really recommend that we consider doing something similar to that. In the report, some of the places are listed, but there's some things that I think that are left out. The San Antonio train station, exits from Stevens Creek Trail, our parks, and our community buildings. The next point is business help, 1 d 2, As a small business person, just being in business, it can be very daunting, because you don't have the knowledge, you don't even know where to start. You don't know how to get help, or you may have the budget to seek professional help. So that would be one thing I would really encourage us to try to help small business and perspective business owners to navigate and feel comfortable in making decisions correctly. Second, I'd like to address you as a member of the Historical Association. We conduct walking tours on a monthly basis, downtown, and this is to address .2 C. Our tours, I conduct those, and they're great fund for me. They're well attended, and I hear lots of comments from people, I've gotten two tips, $20 tips, because people have enjoyed the tours. But that tells me that people are interested in wanting to know about the history of our city. And so we talk about all the different buildings, which brings me to another point, is we have a lot of places that need to be identified. We have one marker on the Straits building where the 1909 city hall was located, but there's other historical buildings that need to be recognized as well. And not just downtown, but I'm also talking about other places, around the city, and I'll dress that in a minute. But one of my, the attendees on our walking tour, I think, said it very succinctly, that we have history hiding in plain sight. And that's one thing that we can do to create place making.

[01:20:24] Mayor Pat Showalter: I'm sorry, your time's up. Okay. Very hard. All right. Now we have some virtual speakers. Nobody else in the Okay. Virtual speakers. 1st one is Bruce England. Bruce, are you there?

[01:20:49] Bruce England: I was waiting for the unmute button, Mayor, but I got it.

[01:20:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: You got it.

[01:20:53] Bruce England: Yeah. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive. Yeah, I have a few. certainly talked with John Lang quite a bit about some of these things, and Alex and I talk a lot, so there's some overlap in our thinking. Um, The economic vitality strategy is really important, and I appreciate all the work that John is doing and staff and all of that. I'm very interested from conversations I have with people too. I know that there's a lot of thinking about this, that going outside the box on thinking is really important and looking for tangible results in the efforts. That can be hard to see in advance, but, um, looking for that ultimately is is really important. So strong support for vacancy tax. We just really need that. As Alex pointed out, we've got these storefronts that are just sitting there. And sometimes they're in the hands of larger real estate firms that don't necessarily have an interest in placing tenants in those locations. And maybe something needs to be done too. Oh, I don't know how that can be done, but just get that out of the hands of some of the major real estate firms and into the hands of somebody who can actually look for the best interests of our city. enabling micro businesses, support for busking on the streets, you know, um, really adding vitality to our downtown and other retail spaces. is important and consciously defining retail opportunities to serve 15 minute city design, as I mentioned earlier. Um, couple of examples of things I'd like to see, um, supported, maybe better, is Ava's, is really important place downtown. I use it myself, but I'm using Knob Hill too, because I can't get everything I need at Ava's. And yet they are struggling and they can't do everything that people might want them to do. So I don't know what kind of sport can be offered there. Red Rock, coffee, great place, but you know, you get in a line there and you're just standing there forever. I tend to just bail on that and go to a place like Pete's where I can get through more quickly. And they remove their tables from Castro Street, which used to be a perfect place to sit out there in the open sky. And now we're having to sit on the side on villa with buses going by in the shade. It's just not ideal. And for San Antonio Center, I really don't like it at all, that new one. I much preferred the previous center. Obviously, that center is not going away, but I want to see our new retail areas as they're developed, um, not repeat what I consider to be a big mistake that happened with San Antonio Center. Thank you.

[01:23:30] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next virtual speaker is Peter Katz. After that, it'll be Devin Conley.

[01:23:38] Peter Katz: Thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me?

[01:23:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: We can.

[01:23:41] Peter Katz: Great. Thank you very much. Seeing council members and city staff. I'm Peter Katz, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. I'll be brief tonight. The chamber has been grateful for the city's proactive and continued engagement with our staff and our members on the formation and revision of the strategy, recognizing the importance of the strategy for the health of our business community, and, of course, for the health and welfare of our community at large. We wish to express our support of the draft percentage tonight, which shines light on many key areas of focus. We do ask that the council and staff look at the entire plan as an interrelated whole, and not simply a list of recommendations that can be ticked off or omitted. Many of the actions require the others in order for success to be reached. We also need to be clear and bold in our vision of what the future will look like and the journey to get there. As Bruce said, we need to be creative and we need to reward creativity. I'll add that we need to be both old and committed in our approach. The chamber remains at the ready to be active partners in this ongoing implementation of the plan. Thank you very much.

[01:24:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Peter. Next speaker is Devin Connolly.

[01:25:00] Devin Connolly: Good evening, Mayor, show Walter, Vice Mayor, Madachek, and Council. My name is Devin Connolly. I'm an 18 year resident of Mountain View, and I live in the Shoreline West neighborhood. I just really wanted to commend you for taking on this work. Um, economic vitality is so important to our community. When I think about community well-being, everything is connected. So, how our students are doing in school is tied to whether or not they have housing, whether or not their families can find jobs, um, and the ways that we can navigate our space together safely, such as, you know, the 15 minute concept of being able to walk to these different, um, hopefully retail centers and and other needs that are located in business districts. I'm also really pleased to see the metrics that are included. It is very, very hard to measure many of these things, and I imagine that the metrics. Will be sort of a 1st stab and will evolve over time. As you see how these different strategies play out and what areas need to be beefed up. I would also like to recommend that rather than waiting for an annual update, that perhaps you ask for a mid-year update as well, so you can keep tabs on the many different parts of this, um, moving puzzle that is the economic vitality strategy. Thank you.

[01:26:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And the next speaker is paying Li. Paying?

[01:26:33] Paying Li: Hello.

[01:26:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: There you are.

[01:26:36] Paying Li: Yes, I want to echo almost like all the public commenters from Alex, Bruce, Peter and Devin. I think especially, um, to me, I think there's a lot of opportunity to bolster the metrics and outcomes. To me, I think the list of recommendations are great, and what we can do short, medium and long term, but as we know, the economy changes, um, quite quickly, I think year to year, and especially with some of our goals, like number 4 in helping small businesses, if we want Mount of View to be a place where it's welcoming, and having small businesses new, um, or old Captain Mount of View, I feel like we want to kind of figure out what a better measure could be instead of just a generic number of vacancies, which is more of like, I think, a regional metric. So I think there's a lot of growth in how we could tie in measures of success as indicators, but understanding what exactly is our measures of success and knowing how we fulfill the 5 goals of the EVS. Um, I won't touch upon something earlier about, you know, there are, there's been a lot of vacant storefronts specifically in downtown and some vacancies, I think, throughout the commercial hubs around in Plaza's amount of view. I feel like it is important to have regular outreach and engagement with small businesses in particular, again, linking it back to goal number four, like be it their food, retail, and startups. So the downtown digest, I think, referred to how commercial spaces are difficult to fill because of high cost potential tenants. I think the vacancy tax, it looks like, it's a long-term action, but I think there's much more immediate short-term value in exploring that now, um, to see if we should leverage a vacancy tax. Whole property owner is a bit accountable, incentifies small business to feel welcome and stay in Mountain View. So I think outreach engagement with small businesses who have left Mountain View would also be really great to understand both quantitatively and qualitatively on what exactly were their challenges. Um, last but not least, I think in just some of also the immediate or medium term actions that I would love to see for downtown specifically is in any of the grant programs that we're offering to businesses, maybe incentivizing ways that we can have more natural environment factors. So like green screens, um, I think the planters and all these activities are really wonderful ways to attract, um, Just our residents, but also just people coming to downtown. Thank you very much.

[01:29:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Cox, and after him will be Clara Jessup. Robert?

[01:29:26] Robert Cox: Hello, mayor, show Walter Vice Mayor, Matta Checkin, members of the city council. Thank you for the opportunity comment on the economic vitality plan. Thank you for revising, generalizing, and condensing the vision statement by giving it a positive punch which reflects our community values. I am thrilled that you have extended goal one to embrace village centers throughout the city. Economic vitality is something that we need citywide, not just in our downtown. I appreciate the data provided in the report, and I'm glad to see that the sales tax revenue post COVID continues to trend up, and that we've almost closed the gap. The one concern I have is about the sentence and the downtown precise plan. Update section, which notes, staff is working to bring forward an amendment to the precise plan, to update uses an area age to change some retail restaurant uses that currently require provisional use permit into permitted uses. Um, it's a bit of a teaser statement without the details and that's what I'll be looking forward to seeing. I think it's fine as long as these new permitted uses are public serving interactive uses. We have little Mountain View strongly support reserving the ground floor of our historic retail district for public serving uses, and excluding administrative office. As a staff report, notes, vacancy rates for office far exceed those for retail and restaurants in our downtown. So administrative office is not the right way to close the vacancy gap. Our downtown has been aptly described as Mountain View's living room. It should not become Mountain View's cubicle office farm. Our residents deserve better than that. Thank you for all the good work you've done on this. It's a much better document now. than it wasn't the 2 previous versions. And I appreciate your listening to my idea.

[01:31:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Robert. Next we have Clara Jessup.

[01:31:27] Clara Jessup: Hi. Can hear me?

[01:31:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can.

[01:31:31] Clara Jessup: Great. Hi, everyone. I'm just hopping on here today. Um, similar to other folks. I just wanted to express that, I think, in order to properly address some of the downtown vacancies. A vacancy tax should be, um, more thoroughly explored and could meaningfully address this issue of vacant storefronts. Um, I agree. I think it would be great to have ongoing outreach to businesses and specifically outreach to businesses that have left to better understand why. Um, Basically, I'm just echoing what many others have said here this evening. That's all for me. Thanks.

[01:32:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Um, That brings us to the end of our public comment. So now, I'll bring it back to council for deliberation and action, and we have a few, some recusals that need to happen to move forward. So, uh, council member Hicks, would you like to share your recusal?

[01:32:42] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I would. I'm recusing myself from participation in discussion and action on economic vitality strategies to a .3 and to D .3 due to my proximity. My residence's proximity to the downtown plan area. Thank you.

[01:33:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:33:06] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I am recusing myself from participation in any discussion or action on economic vitality strategies to A.3 and 2D.3 due to the proximity of my personal residence to the downtown plan area. Thank you.

[01:33:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. So We're going to talk about those 2 action items. separately, and then our recused council members will rejoin the group. for the rest of the discussion. So, um, would any council members have comments on A, 2, 3, and um, 2, D, 3? 2A3, excuse me, 2A3, and 2D3. Yes. And seeing none. So, I, we need to have a motion to approve these. Is that correct? Okay. So we have a motion from Vice Mayor Matachek and a second from Council member Ramos. Do we have any... Vice mayor, Matt check. Just what exactly is your motion?

[01:34:34] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I'll move the staff recommendation.

[01:34:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. I thought that's what you meant. Okay. So, um, we're going to vote on the staff recommendation to accept, uh, action 2A3 and 2D point 3. Is there any comments on that? Any discussion? Saying none? It's time to vote. That passes with four votes. Thank you. Okay? And so, now, council member Hicks and Abbe Koga are welcome to join us again. And we will have a more broadly based discussion about, about the economic vitality strategy. So, um, First, we haven't had council questions on this yet. So that will be the 1st part. And I see that council member Hicks is ready with some questions.

[01:35:55] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, so first, um, I, um, I apologize because I read the entire strategy after submitting my council questions, so I do have, uh, a number of additional questions. Um, so, um, so, uh, but I wanted to say, overall, I'm veering into comments, I thought it was, I thought it was a very strong economic vitality strategy before I start questioning all of it here. Um, I'm going to start with the question that Mr. Cox asked, um, that, and I saw it referenced in several places in the economic vitality strategy, and I haven't referenced all the page numbers or, um, action items. But, um, I, saying it may be the same thing that he said in a slightly different way. It was recognized somewhere in the economic vitality strategy that the downtown has good bones. And I first read that comment in the urban land institute. I think, I don't know whether you got that phrase from there. I thought it was a good statement they made. And I really think some of the reason it has good bones is, you know, some attractive historic architecture, the grid of the street, you know, we haven't kind of, some cities on the peninsula have kind of gotten rid of their hearts. They've gotten rid of their historic downtown. So as the gridded streets that are easy to walk. It has, you know, good architecture generally. And then it has what Mr. Cox was referring to, which is ground floor public facing uses. And I think the reason it succeeds in some other areas in town don't. I mean, I was there last weekend when it finally stopped raining. And it was just really, really lively, like lively enough that you would say, we didn't have to shut the streets down because people would be all, there's so many people, their cars couldn't get through anyway, whether we did it or not. It was very lively. Um, despite the vacancies. And I think, and then it stops, after 4.5 blocks, it stops, because there's the, the high rise building with nothing on the ground floor. There's the Kaiser. There are all those things that just interrupt it. And I just really want to make sure that we don't interrupt it in other ways by putting office uses on the ground floor in those first four and a half blocks. And, in fact, I would, you know, we could expand it to Moffat and so forth. But my question is like when, I suppose, Mr. Cox read the economic vitality strategy. I also read several action items that made me wonder, they were about more flexible uses, more flexible zoning. You know, if that means things, and other ways of using buildings, more flexibility. Now, if that means something I've talked to, um, Mr. Katz, from the Chamber of Commerce about allowing artists to hang paintings in cafes and sell the artwork, if that's what flexible means, I'm all for it. But if it means offices that are not public uses on the ground floor, then I'm not. So, I want to know exactly what flexible meant. It was said several times. I'm for flexibility, but the right kind in the right places.

[01:39:37] Unknown Speaker: Thank you very much for the question. So, I'd like to offer one point of clarification to the comment and then provide some examples. So in the reference to bringing back the Area H downtown precise plan change, Area H is a very specific element and one element in the downtown precise plan. When you look at the table that says here are the allowable uses in downtown, there's 3 permitted uses. Retail, personal service and gallery. Everything else requires a use permit. Under the current code, administrative office isn't allowed on the ground floor. So if you're a restaurant, you have to go through a use permit. You can go one block over California, you're now in a different use area under the downtown precise plan, and you're permitted by right. So the things we're looking at as it related to that update is trying to bring more parity to things of that nature. So we allow literally across the street in the 400 block restaurants by right, under a current code, you have to get a use permit if you're in the 300 block as a restaurant. So these are the little kinds of cleanups we're looking to do. So in that case, allowing a restaurant use in the 300, 200, 100 block as a permitted or by right use. would be a proposed change. I think we've certainly heard very clear the desire not to have office on the ground floor in downtown, and that's not envisioned the change. I think when we talk about general flexibility, There are uses that are changing, while our code is very good and tries to capture a lot of the different types of business uses out there, markets or changing now, and that some of the things don't align into the buckets that we've identified. And so looking at how do we either change definitions around those uses to be more encapsulated, I use this example at the study session. I think it's very relevant. A cat cafe. You know, you can go in, pet cats, relax, enjoy a cup of coffee. How does that fit within the definitions of uses? right? Right now, our code doesn't define that very well. So these are the times we are these are the items we think about when we're wanting to create flexibility. And obviously having the opportunity to bring this forward for public discussion, some of these things may not be the right fit. But trying to be more reflective of how uses are evolving, how experiential uses are becoming more prevalent. You see this happening in other communities where there is now a recreation element. Indoor mini golf is occurring throughout the nation as the hotspot. But then there's a typically a dining or a drink element associated with that. How does our code contemplate that now? And would that actually be allowed in our code today? So when we talk about flexibility? It's looking at those kinds of uses, which we think create good synergies for what we have as a base, and should those be allowed, or should there be some administrative permit on top of that? That's what we mean by creating some flexibility.

[01:43:32] Unknown Speaker: Okay, great. That's a great answer. I think we'll make people with livable Mountain View. Happy as well. Cafes, uh, Mini golf, entertainment and recreational uses. I'm all for those and in areas like the 1st 3 blocks in other areas that we might designate as walkable retail. What? So you also have, um, adding a citywide live ordinance that supports busking and other outdoor live entertainment, uh, complying with established decibel levels. That sounds good to me. But I just want to make sure, what would that ordinance entail? Would it be paperwork light? You're trying to make it more possible, I assume.

[01:44:18] Unknown Speaker: So, right now, once again, how our code is define an interpretation of it, it is busking is not allowed. Right. So if we're trying to support that activity, many communities have a, they generally call it a live entertainment ordnance, which creates the parameters for which it is allowed, but it also allows you to enforce it if it's getting out of control. And so coming forward with proposed language, that would say, we would allow busking during these types of hours and these types of locations. So it's putting some parameters around that. And it may not be appropriate in all locations. Once again being sensible to neighbors in the neighborhoods around certain commercial districts. Where should this be allowed, where it should not be allowed. So these are the kinds of things we are looking to explore, adding to code and working through with legal and the community on what's kind of an acceptable balance to that, and being able to offer that as an offering to the business community into the residents.

[01:45:32] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I would like to offer that. That's one of the things that currently makes the downtown more vibrant. I want to make sure that by adding an ordinance, we're not stopping it when we're trying to enable it. Um, and then, uh, 187 was about, uh, drive ups, how, how do you see, where do you see drive ups, and how do you see them interfacing with walkability? Would they be more in, um, strip mall type areas or how do you envision that?

[01:46:06] Unknown Speaker: So, um, as someone that does like to travel and look at other, um, places, I, I'll give a perfect example, I noticed this up in Santa Rosa over the weekend while I was up there, um, and there is a takeout window that is only walkable. You cannot drive a car up to it, but it is a way to serve the DoorDashers and other pickup deliveries instead of going into the business. They have a side window that's only accessible if you're on foot or potentially, I guess, bike, that you can go pick up that delivery because you're really not going into that business to dine. You're literally picking it up. And it's like a takeout window, but that's where you're making that transaction. So it's not, when we say pickup windows, we're not making drive-throughs with vehicles, it's making another entrance that you're able to transact business, particularly like to go orders.

[01:47:10] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I think I'm getting to the end of my quest near the end of my questions. What is alternative healthcare?

[01:47:17] Unknown Speaker: So there is a growing sector in terms of, um, healthcare. So a lot of people receive primary care through their physicians. So whether that's going to a medical clinic, a hospital or a medical office, in the world of commercial space, we're seeing lots of different blending where you're able to get both medical services and additional physical therapy services. And this is another area where our code may designate you, you have to be board certified medical doctor, and we treat you as this, but if you're doing licensed massage and these other elements, We treat you a very, we designate you as a different use. And so we're seen in the world of medical, these different opportunities where there's a little bit of blending of a medical experience, and then some type of service delivery associated with that. And these are the new models that are beginning to pop up, that are becoming very popular as well.

[01:48:27] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. I would like to walk to some of that. And then action 3 C one says investigate investigate the feasibility of tax sharing, um, that supports business investment. What are tax sharing programs?

[01:48:48] Unknown Speaker: So, um, This happens in a few different communities, depending on the level of investment. One very good example I can provide you is from a past experience from a different city I worked in. One of the obstacles was the city charged impact fees, and impact fees are paid at the very beginning of a project, even before construction. And because there's such a large upfront cost in doing so, how do you incentivize that development to move forward? So if you're a new car dealership, a new hotel, or a large restaurant, you may pay $50,000, $100,000 in impact fees before you even start construction. So under a prior employer, we had an impact fee financing program, which is really it was a an example of a IOU to the city. And really the city takes a lien against property while they start to pay back that fee. You can also do that from a tax perspective. So if you're if they're generating sales tax, you can say, because of your investment, we can grant you back some increment of sales tax back on that. So you're not using it as a location incentive, it's offsetting the investment in infrastructure. So there are various programs like that that can be used to help bridge the gap if a business is needing to make an investment. And you can either do that by leaning on equipment or against equipment, or creating these contractual arrangements. If they're going to be jettering tax or other types of revenue streams into the city.

[01:50:51] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. You know, I have one last one that I didn't know whether I wanted to say as a statement or a question. I feel like if I ask it out of the question, I might put you on the spot, so I, so you don't have to answer if you don't want to. Um, this is that, just, I mean, I think we've all been looking at the changes in some of our major employers caused by AI, and kind of that increased competition, and just over the past week or two, they're continuing layoffs, with some of the bigger tech employers, and then over the past week, our major employer announced that they're going to be focusing growth, not in Silicon Valley, but overseas and elsewhere in the U.S. To me, that, that, it makes me rethink some of the things in, you know, and this is kind of right as you were typing up the last words on your, on the economic vitality strategy. So I wouldn't think the reaction to the most recent developments would be in this strategy. But I'm wondering if you've thought about that at all and how it might affect the strategy.

[01:52:08] Unknown Speaker: It's a very good question. I think we are trying to... There are aspects of it within the strategy, maybe not as overt. One of the big elements is the idea of retention and also being more engaged with those with different businesses early on. So we aren't necessarily hearing about closures or reductions in the press, but we can anticipate that and work through some of that. And part of that is just being more engaged with our business community. I think one of the other things, if history's taught us anything and I've been working in this valley long enough, I remember the dot com bust and having to work through that, and that was a significant impact to a lot of cities, within Silicon Valley, and there was a flight of talent and on flight of businesses, and we had tremendous vacancies, and cities had to address that. So, you know, the economy will evolve and change, and we are in one of those cycles that it's changing. But what we have seen is Silicon Valley is resilient. So, one is how to be better engaged in listening to what's happening. And that helps us inform policy going forward. And that's part of what we're trying to do with the EV strategy is both gain insights, make good effective policy. So we as a city and a community are well positioned, but we're taking those learnings from those engagements. So, once again, I'll go back to if we look at kind of past history, you know, I think we are in a cycle. So how do we start to learn from this, better position our policy making around it, create either programs or opportunities for that soft landing, and then work to grow those new nascent sectors that are burgeoning it out of this. I mean, one thing we are seeing with AI is a brand new sets of industries are popping up. And so while there may be some impacts on the negative side, oftentimes new technology results in new industry growth as well. So being well positioned to take advantage of that.

[01:54:31] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that, and I do think that a lot of the strategy is, even though you might not have known what was coming up, a lot of the, like the focus on retention within the strategies you have, I think, is a good answer. Thank you.

[01:54:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Vice Mayor Matachek.

[01:54:51] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I did have a lot of questions that I sent in. I was just looking, it looks like I sent you 20. Um, and they were mostly around, um, what were the specific steps, like in greater detail, the actions, what steps were we going to take, um, and so I want to thank you for taking the time to answer all those. It was very helpful to me. I needed to know that there was more thinking done on all these things. So that was great. I do have a process question for tonight, and maybe I'll save that for when we get to the comments, unless you want me to ask it now. Like, if I have tweaks to suggest that I save those for comments, and we'll figure out how we deal with them.

[01:55:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: I think that's a good idea.

[01:55:38] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Yeah. Thanks.

[01:55:39] Mayor Pat Showalter: Let's go through the questions. Okay, Council member Ramos.

[01:55:44] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I just had one... Well, it's a chunk of questions all around something that was kind of brought up a couple times in public comment. They were asking about the vacancy tax. So it's set at the long term, and I know we voted for that, and I accept that. So the vacancy tax would have to be voted on. So the earliest it would come would be, if we're 5 years from now, 2030. Correct?

[01:56:15] Unknown Speaker: A traditional vacancy tax would require a vote of the people, and I'm a little over my skis on when the next election cycle would be, but presumably we could this is meant to be a 10 year plan, but when certain things happen could be suggested as changes, but I don't know when the next election cycle I don't know the answer to that question.

[01:56:42] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you.

[01:56:43] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramos, if I may. So the election cycles would be 26, 28, basically, every other year. So 5 years would be the 29, so the next one. The earliest we would see it on a ballot would be 2030.

[01:57:01] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Is that correct?

[01:57:02] Unknown Speaker: You could see it sooner if it's something that council would direct staff to explore. The next one would be 26.

[01:57:10] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. And would that be a two-thirds, 55%? Would that be a majority kind of tax?

[01:57:21] Unknown Speaker: I'm not sure if we have the answers to that yet. So I'm not, it would either be a two-thirds or a 50 +one. That would be something that we would need to clarify.

[01:57:32] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. And also, since it is something that could hit the ballot, that's also something that could be in a citizen's initiative as well. correct?

[01:57:44] Unknown Speaker: I'm not sure how a citizen's initiative would work for a vacancy tax. These are all great questions that would be explored if council would ask staff to dive into this and put it on your work plan. But that's certainly something that we can make note of and look into all the details that it would entail.

[01:58:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Well, I mean, I'm not, I don't want to Council made the decision on having it be the long term thing, but we did get public comment, and then we got people being like, is that all we can do? I'm like, you could speaking public comment. Um, and I didn't want that just to be the only thing that they can do. I don't, I think it's a heavy lift to do this as this initiative. I've seen that before, but like, I don't know the actual appetite of the public if that appetite is enough for that kind of thing. Um, and so I just, I wanted to get a clearer picture, like how hard would that be for them? How easy would that be for them? How hard would it be for us comparatively? How easy would it be for us?

[01:58:46] Unknown Speaker: All good questions. I don't think we have the answers to that now, how hard or easy a citizens initiative would be. certainly, um, I believe that it could be accomplished. I don't know all the details, though, um, in regards to what the city would do with the vacancy tax. Um, to your point about how would residents feel about it? We would do a poll likely if this is something that the city would bring forward. So we would test the, the interests of our voting, potential voting residents. Um, similar to what we do with other taxes that we might bring forward. So all of this would certainly be on the table, if that's something that the city would want to do. In terms of if there would be residents that want to bring this forward. I am not quite sure of those details right now, but that would be something that we could we could look into and bring back to council.

[01:59:40] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you.

[01:59:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Okay, I have a follow-up question for that, but it just, it just flew out of my head, so I will come back with it maybe in a little while.

[01:59:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Does anyone else have any questions? Um, Oh, I know. I have one question that isn't a follow up. One question is, in the, in the economic vitality strategy, you talk a tremendous amount about small businesses, and I think that's really appropriate. But you also talked about working with our major employers. And you talked about having a major employer forum. And I was interested in that. a little bit about what it would you know, what you think would be the topics of discussion. And then the other thing I was interested in is, we have a transportation management association, which has most of the major employers as members. I can't remember what is actively going on with that at the moment. It seemed like before COVID, it was quite active, and I'm not quite sure now. But I wondered if that was a possible forum that we already have for the conversations you were interested in.

[02:01:09] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, thank you for the question. The transportation management association that you're referring to is a membership based organization, um, the city is a member, and it is focused on bringing transportation alternatives, you know, they operate a shuttle system, they do provide some additional options and services, like they do support midday mobility options for those that are taking a car to work, but they need to get somewhere in the middle of the day. They have various additional initiatives they are working on, like putting together a residential TDM program of services that they can offer to our residential developments that are mandated to provide transportation, demand, management services. So they're exploring how they can support that further. And, in fact, they have a retreat coming up at the end of May, that I am also going to be attending to where they really want to reexamine where do they go from here because of the change in travel patterns, the work from home, how can they continue to be of, you know, where they can put their resources and services to the greatest use. So I know they're starting to look at their future. The participants on the Transportation Management Association Board, the assigned members, staffers from the companies, are their transportation people. It is their TDM providers, in their companies, the ones that focus on transportation. So they wouldn't be the ones that could engage in a discussion about economic vitality strategy, and what we can do for retaining the businesses, where they're at, at that level. It would be different representatives from the businesses that would need to participate in that kind of discussion. And from there, I'll hand it off to Mr. Lang, because I know your original question was, what kind of topics, what was being thought of in terms of such a forum. Thank you.

[02:03:30] Mr. Lang: So there are a couple reasons to convene the larger firms. For one, when you think about the overall makeup, in terms of number of firms that are very large, in the overall scheme of things, it's low. So one of the follow-up questions was what's the breakdown of large employers? And so only 3%, 3% of all the firms have more than 100 employees, right? But those 3% employ roughly 90% of all the jobs, right? So when you think about that small universe having a very large workforce, that's important and critical to know. So part of engaging those stakeholders is one, um, understand kind of what the future entails for them, where they going, and once again, we're kind of experiencing this. We're seeing changes in direction of where they're going in investments, they're making. So trying to be in a better position to understand that and anticipate that. There may not be anything we can necessarily do, but at least being aware that this is coming or there's this sea change happening. Two, we get a lot of inquiries from folks about different types of partnerships and where larger firms might be able to provide introductory space. We know we have large employers that have space that is available. Can we leverage that and develop small programs around that to support some of our nascent small businesses? Being in a place to engage and have those conversations, and where can the city help convene and have those conversations? Those are the types of opportunities we want to engage with our large community members. as well as just generally understanding what they're seeing, and how is that driving their decision making that goes on in our community. And I think one of the things we're seeing coming out of COVID is a lot of the outreaching engagement that was done prior to that subsided during COVID and we need to get back to doing those kind of getting back to the basics, I would say, and doing that and having a little more intelligence about what's going on. So, it'd be to convene the group around those particular topics.

[02:06:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, that's, I mean, that sounds like it would be very valuable. Um, but, uh, at the same time, it might also, it's often difficult to get, um, individuals to take companies to get cart and then get the right people to the table. But, um, yes, I think that's a great idea. Okay. All right, well, I think that brings us to the end of our questions. And so now we'll move on to deliberation. So, um, start with a little bit by saying, um, thank you. I wanted to thank you, the staff, and for all the work that you did and the consultants. Clearly, this has been a major effort. I was particularly impressed with the landscaped assessment report that was at the end of the Appendix Appendix I, I think it is. Anyway, it was, it's quite a, uh, uh, an information packed reference. So I urge people to delve into it carefully. I also really appreciated the assistance of people in our community. There was quite a long list of folks that had been taken part. Two former mayors, the former planning director, and I think that that's a testament to kind of the quality of effort that you went to. So I wanted to make that as a comment and thank you for that. Just kind of as a start. So, and then the other couple of things I would like to say is, I really loved the phrase that you've said many times as the, um, about the downtown, serving as the, as the community's living room. That really brings to mind a picture, you know, that I think we can all relate to. So I love that. And also, a friend brought up the idea that we want to focus on providing goods, services, or experience that you can't have delivered to your front door. And that's a very different mindset than how we have done retail in the past. So I appreciated that. I also just want to say, I love the idea of pop ups, and, um, uh, I want, you know, we really want to be supportive of new businesses, and, um, but even more supportive of the existing ones, to keep them to stay open. And then the other thing is, I think our, um, I'm not seeing any other speakers, so I just can't keep talking until somebody else puts their, okay, all right. Our permitting process, from my opinion, our permitting process should be designed to protect the public health. The public health and safety, and to get business moving as quickly as possible. So for me, you know, public health and safety are really, that's our job. We need to do that. We can't count on anybody else to do that. And, um, but, uh, but other than that, we want to get business moving as quickly as possible. Well, with that, my colleagues have put their lights on, and we'll start with Vice Mayor Manachek.

[02:09:33] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I just assumed you had a lot to say, so I was just waiting for you to finish before I pushed the button. But I also want to echo my thanks. I appreciate all of the changes that were made and the additional information. since the last time we saw this, especially the responses to all the questions I sent in. So thank you for that. I have a couple of wording tweaks, and then some proposed changes to the priority, and that's where I have the question about how we might do that. But in terms of the couple of wording tweaks, on, um, let's see, this is action 2B2. Um, I would say that it's to and from downtown to North Bay Shore. And let's make it a little bit more generic. I am looking at, um, attachment one. And the page numbers, well, I guess I could go by that page 40. Um, it's action 2B2. Age 40. Except I'm not sure if, um, yeah, if the PDF numbers are the same as the printed version. Great. So instead of Google's campus, it would say North Bay Shore. Um, and then, um, the other little tweak is on 2D5. And it's, I think this is just maybe a typo. Um, it says, um, as recommended in the approved downtown park strategy. I think that's the parking strategy. Okay, and then, um, I, um, spent quite a bit of time looking at the priorities of these, um, based upon the, um, categories of time, and there are some that I think, from my perspective, maybe our higher priority, then, um, are indicated in this document. And I guess I'm wondering, you know, if I proposed some to move them up in priority, I also had a couple that I thought could be moved out. But I do have more moved up than I have moved out. No surprise. Um, and I guess I don't know how we go about, um, potentially making those changes. You know, I assume my colleagues have to support that, but I also want to acknowledge that that could change the workload for staff. And so, um, you know, I didn't think this was a question to send in, because I didn't send in, because that would kind of, um, be sharing my thoughts, which we only do at the council meetings. Um, but, um, you know, I'm not sure how we go about this. Like, do we decide 1st if we agree with the change, and then we ask staff, Is that possible? Do we go through all of them, and then ask staff to say, yes, we can do these. No, we can't do these others. How do we want to do this?

[02:12:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, that's a good, that's a good question. There is quite a list of, there's what, 164 actions? So, hopefully, you don't want to move 164? Just 163.

[02:12:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No. No. It's one, two, three, four, five. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

[02:13:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, summer out, and summer in. Okay, why don't you just go through your list? And we will try and keep tabs on it.

[02:13:16] Unknown Speaker: Okay, so one of you can... I think, like, if you can explain to us where it is in attachment one, or... Yep. That would be helpful. Yep, I think many of us have that... It will be hard with my computer for me to page through, so if you can give me the number and sort of a quick description. That would be helpful. Yeah.

[02:13:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so... You can do that. One, A, four, which is on page... 26, for those of you with attachment one. Um, and this is, um, Streamline, update current city regulations to create standards for activating ground floor windows when buildings are vacant or temporarily vacant due to construction. That's listed as midterm, and I'm kind of concerned about that. I feel like since we're trying to, um, lessen the visual of vacancies, that, um, moving that up to short term would make sense to do. And then, and do you want me to go through all of these? And then, what are you going to do, then ask folks if they agree or not?

[02:14:41] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, let's get through your list. Okay. And then we'll... Okay. We can have comments on that.

[02:14:46] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So then, one, A, five? And just like others have mentioned, I'm also suffering from allergies here. Um, 185. This is also on page 26. Study the funding and creation of a rotating design services loan fund that would support facade changes and ADA improvements. Um, I would also move that one up to short term. From midterm. And then, um, oh, I thought I had these listed in order, but I guess I don't. Uh, one A2, which is on the same page, which is, consider including in the public arts strategy, utilization of public spaces, including microspaces, and pucker parks, to showcase works of public art by local and regional artists. Um, that one, as well as, uh, one A3, which is identified business districts... Wait, sorry, I shouldn't go to that one next. Um, let's just do one A2. So, um, I was thinking that maybe that gets moved to, um, a little bit longer term, because we haven't finished the public art strategy. And I thought it would be helpful to get that done before we start doing this. And then one A3, which is identify business districts and engage Mountain View business owners in evaluating the feasibility of creating a business improvement district in other areas. I'm just going to summarize that one. And I would move that one to midterm, from short term, as well. These are the two that I thought could move out, because I'm concerned about, um, asking our small businesses to, um, pay into something at this point. I'd like to see a little bit more recovery. And I know, in some ways, that doesn't make sense, because maybe paying into a BID could help with the recovery, but I'm sensitive to asking them to pay into one at this point. So I'd move that out to midterm. And then... Wait a second. Yeah. Staff, uh, what is a BID? And does it, does it, um, give you eligibility for grants and things that you wouldn't otherwise have? In other words, what kind of a benefit is it, or does it, how does it work? I mean, would the tax issue be? I'm not familiar with it. We have them downtown. Yeah, yeah.

[02:17:48] Unknown Speaker: So, a business improvement district is basically businesses organizing, and this could actually be a little bit beyond businesses, but businesses organize and self-select and assess themselves. So you could be, you could assess based upon the type of business. If you're a retailer, you pay a rate. So currently in Mountain View, we have the business improvement areas, the BIAs, the BID is the newer version of the BIA.

[02:18:23] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Ah, okay, okay. question answer. Thank you.

[02:18:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: Go on, boys, Mayor.

[02:18:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Next one is 2 A5, which is on page 38. And this is, uh, conduct a retail demand survey of residents to help inform efforts to recruit smaller, midsize businesses to the downtown core. Um, that one really caught my eye. I thought it should be changed from midterm to short term, because I do want to know what our residents and visitors want to see. that could potentially help us in terms of our activities to do recruiting, um, and change of uses, um, that we talked about earlier. So I thought a survey, I'd like that sooner rather than later. Um, okay, I was wondering, did you have a question about that council member, Hicks? Is that what you were trying to do? Okay. Um... 4B1... Get to the page. Okay, 4B1 is on page 56. Um, and this is identify opportunities to better support creative workers, including artists and performers, by assisting or connecting them with affordable live workspace studio spaces. Um, that one's listed as immediate, and here's another one I thought maybe that could move out to short term. You know, while I'm supportive of public art and the artists, I just felt like this one maybe, um, would have, uh, it wasn't as broad as the others. And so I was thinking if we had to push one out. I would push that one out a little bit. And then 4 F 2. 4B1, yep, and 4F2 is on page 66. And that one is Inventory Mountain View's assets, progress, and innovations to assess what defines the city, and distinguishes it within the region. And I thought that one was another one that I thought was pretty important, as we are trying to, um, sort of define, um, Mountain View, and maybe change, um, the, um, I hate to say the image, but, you know, the, the, when we're trying to market Mountain View, and what we have to offer here, that it would be good to have that information sooner rather than later. So I would change that one to either immediate or short term, from midterm. And on that same page, 4F4, which is strengthen a unique sense of place by supporting and leveraging arts, entertainment, and cultural assets, to attract new firms, industries, residents, and visitors while supporting existing businesses and sectors. Um, That one I would change to short term, um, and it's long term at the moment. Um, Because we've talked quite a bit about activating, um, areas and to me, um, activating it with arts and entertainment and cultural assets is a way to do that. Um... And then 5A2. Which is on page 70. It says in tandem with strategy 3D pursues zoning changes to ensure land availability for advanced industries and other sectors. I would change that one to short term, from medium term. And the reason I'm saying that is because I think we've talked about there's emerging industries that we would like to see here in Mountain View. And so, making sure we allow those uses, I think, is important. And I'd prefer to do that sooner rather than later, so we don't miss an opportunity. And then 5A3 on that same page 70 is explore possible rezoning to better accommodate regionally in demand uses, including non hospital health offices, office space, industrial space, and wet labs. Um, I would change that one as well to short term, similar to the one, um, above it for the same reason. And then 5A4, and this is the last one, which is on page 71. Um, and this is, uh, assess the city code to identify opportunities to revise permitted uses across employment, generating zoning, designations, um, specifically consider allowing a broader range of uses in retail and mixed use areas. And it goes on a little bit. But that's another one where I thought, um, I would change this one to either immediate or short term, again, because I wouldn't want to miss an opportunity or make it more challenging. Um, or maybe I should say, to reduce the barriers, um, for someone coming in, wanting to do, uh, some of those uses that our zoning code right now doesn't allow. Thank you.

[02:24:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, thank you for all of that evaluation. Um, I have, I have one question for staff about um, 4F2, um, the inventory of Mountain View assets. I wonder, how is that different from the landscape assessment? I mean, there's, they inventoried a lot of the economic value that we have in Mountain View. So how would you generally describe it as different?

[02:24:40] Unknown Speaker: So the landscape assessment was very much focused on demographics, housing, information, population information, in broad, broadly characterizing industries, but for F2 is really getting at is a little bit more refinement on like industry clusters, just beyond kind of there's manufacturing, like what kinds of manufacturing are going on. So it's actually providing a much more detailed deeper dive. The landscape assessment was a way to kind of ensure we were all working from a base level of data about who Mountain View is, but it didn't go deep in a lot of areas. So, um, in this, for this particular item, it is actually doing a much more specific in deeper dive on some of those clusters and technologies, um, that exist in innovations that exist.

[02:25:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thanks for clarifying that. Okay. Council member Ramos.

[02:25:49] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, mayor. I am not planning to move anything up or down with the strategy. One of the things I really wanted to, to more go over was, um, when it does, not necessarily come back for another adoption, but like when we get the, um, updates on how it's doing. You mentioned in our staff briefing that some, um, for example, goal 5, the measurements of success, where, um, there are more measures of success that we can see that we are tracking to assist with goal 5, and I would love to see, um, that or any other, um, my understanding is, uh, from what our discussion was, is that there are some metrics, uh, that will be in essentially our budget. Um, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to do it just for this. I'd be happy with just the most recent like budget in relation to it. But I would love to see that also connected with any updates that we get from the, um, the, EVS. Um, I was looking at the, um, I, I, I, going back to, to the vacancy text, which I believe is AC, uh, 6, uh, one C6. Um, I don't I don't plan on moving that up, but I would love the flexibility. I don't want us to be caught flat-footed if there is a citizens initiative, and like, it's not, it's not what we would want, and we should have more of a conversation in that. It should that, it, I don't know if there's enough momentum for something like that, but I want us to be ready if there is. I don't know how to even address that, but that's just a concern. don't want it. want us to be caught flatfooted, and it's, and then having an initiative that we don't, that could be better. City manager, McCarthy, do you have a comment?

[02:28:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Would you repeat that? Um, so we have our time frames. And I know one of the things that, so there's the short-term median intermediate long term, the, the, I believe the direction more exact from councils, like we want to explore all the other options. It was supposed to be the vacancy tax was supposed to be a last resort kind of thing. But I don't want us to be caught flatfooted if there is a citizens initiative. So I don't know if we should look at, um, viabilities of that, uh, before we even, like, take that on versus, I'm trying to figure out a better answer, a better way of saying this. I want us to be ready so that we don't have to worry about having a bad vacancy tax put on the ballot measure. Instead of a good one because it is so long term comparatively. So we already are too far down thinking about it for 2024. So it would be 2026. So what council could do if you are interested is, uh, explore it, perhaps over the 2025-2026, time frame, for the 2026 election. Because even if there were and citizens initiative, it would likely not be the 26, I suppose, unless folks are really galvanized right now in the next, like, 2 months. So I would suggest that that's something that council direct and it would be part of your work plan, much like the exploration of a revenue measure was. So that would be the direction that I would seek.

[02:29:43] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. So we don't have to change anything in the EVS. We lead that as an, and then if we see anything issues. We can adjust to it next year.

[02:29:51] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct.

[02:29:51] Councilmember Emily Ramos: All right, thank you. That's all I have. Thank you.

[02:29:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Councilman member Abbe Koga.

[02:30:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, for all the hard work on this. Um, I had a question before I start that came up, um, regarding BIDs. We have the ones in downtown. I was trying to remember, those used to fund the downtown business association. Can you remind me what where that funding is now allocated to?

[02:30:26] Unknown Speaker: So the current BIAs that are in existence today do fund, uh, the downtown business association still, so the BIAs, historically, the, there's 2 BIAs that come combination of both of those generate approximately $40,000 a year in funds that do go to the downtown business association. When those BIAs were developed. It was specifically for marketing purposes. So that's how the money has to be used. So there's they're constrained on how the funds can be used based upon how the BIAs were established.

[02:31:12] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Are you, would you be able to, um, cite an example in the last year or 2 of how that vending was used? For marketing?

[02:31:22] Unknown Speaker: Um, the, um, So, uh, I'm reflecting on the report the Chamber provided this past September. I know they were doing activations around some of the taste events that they did in downtown. marketing for a couple of the holidays. I did, I think Elf on the shelf promotion. So the dollars go to support those kinds of activations.

[02:31:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you. I don't know where to begin on this. I guess my reaction is, I think all of these strategies sound fine. Um, you know, I could go through, like, um, vice mayor did and try to move things around, but it can get limitless. So I'm trying not to do that. Um, so maybe what I, I guess I was thinking I'd just, um, share my thoughts on broader themes. Um, one being that, again, I think all of these, um, strategies are fine. I do feel like there's some repetition with some of them. Um, I'm just trying to, there's like one about, um, a toolkit for small businesses, but then that's like, I think midterm, but there is something more immediate about, um, you know, helping businesses, a small business program. So, I guess, yeah, I kind of question that and maybe if the intent is to try something now, because we need it more immediately and then flesh it out later with a more robust program, I can understand that. But, um, or yeah, I guess that would be my question is, um, how are these, some of these are similar to me. What is the intent on that?

[02:33:29] Unknown Speaker: And thank you for the question. And there is a lot of interplay between a lot of these items, many of them are designed to build upon each other. So as an example, we did in partnership with the chamber, a social media toolkit. So that's one component. So as we build out information on our website about starting a small business, we can now insert that toolkit as part of that deliverable. So these things will build upon each other. And they will, so you will begin to see the interplay and references when we provide updates that this action aligned with strategy to be dot four, and you'll start to see some of that interplay as we provide updates.

[02:34:18] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Um, and then next comment. So some of the immediate items, and when I had my briefing, we chatted about this, um, There, I notice there are things that we've done in the past, and I think maybe because of the pandemic and other, I know for a while we didn't have an economic development director, which I think was a real, you know, hurt us quite a bit to be in hindsight. They just stopped happening. And so, um, you know, I'm glad to see them on here, um, you know, some quick, quick things, quick immediate, um, you know, easy lifts, um, that I thought were quite effective. Um, I was excited when I got to be mayor again in 2020 because one of my favorite activities was to do the corporate visits as mayor. And I remember doing one kiwi company and then that was it. And we went into sheltering. And, you know, it's been 4 years since the pandemic. At least, you know, the last 2 years we could have probably started doing them again. But that was a great way for one, for me, as a council member or mayor, to see the companies that we had and the businesses out there and get that direct input of what we, you know, what they needed, what they wanted to see, what we could do as a city. And two, I think that I really, I mean, to this day, I hear from businesses who remember we know me, especially the downtown ones. And, you know, well, share their appreciation for that connection and them feeling like we cared about them. So, I don't know if the mayor's up for it this year, but something like that, easy, really easy, should be done quickly. You know, we started including the chamber. I know it was a little bit awkward because we didn't necessarily want the companies to feel pressured to join the chamber, but I think there were some benefits of having a chamber person there with us. So that's, yeah, something to explore. But that's what I was looking for when we talk about immediate. It's really, frankly, kind of picking up on some of these things that we used to do that I think we can do quickly and resume doing again. The other thing is that, um, to be frank, you know, I feel like we, and again, going back to, like, some of the things that we used to do or that look very familiar from the past. Some of these things, I feel like we've studied many times over, and, you know, I just will say that I'm ready to just get going in implementation, and I don't know how much, this is it, the final product, but rather than, you know, trying to work on the report and making it pretty and whatnot. I think we just need to start implementing, and that's what I really want to see. So my concern with this is that, again, there's so many strategies. I just want us to be realistic. And I guess that's the question. is like, how realistic is this to do? What is this, 21 items in a year, for instance? Can we really get all of this done? And I would rather, you know, yeah, be realistic and pick the ones that we really think we can do and even move, you know, some of the items from midterm. Like what I'm looking for that I see and we've been talking about for many years are things like permit streamlining, providing information for small businesses. I hear that often, people, you know, people who want to start small businesses. They want, they need, they need someplace to go to get the information. I remember when I ran a small business and there's really no place that you can go to get that. And then as we were, you know, running the business, we learned, oh, we have to do this and that. And so having some kind of depository of information and being able to direct folks who are looking to start a business there, I think is something that I often hear from folks that want to be entrepreneurs. The broker visits, I remember we used to do that again, and that's something I think we should resume. Um, I'm glad you went to the International uh, shopping centers conference. Like that was something I remember, even council members going way back when. And, um, you know, I think we just, yeah, need to be out there and, um, you know, hit the ground and, um, and interact and try to actively recruit businesses into Mountain View. Um, I would also say some of these items or the parking, the parking thing, I appreciate it being integrated into this strategy, but again, we passed a plan a couple of years back. And so I'm not sure, I would like to request an update, but, you know, where are we with wayfinding and park, I remember we're looking at parking demand, management and, you know, lately, I was approached by a company that does AI parking. Like, where are we on all that and like, how soon? Are we going to start seeing those implementations? Is my question there? Um, and then, um, the other question, the reason why I asked about the VID and the chamber, and I guess that would be, um, you know, maybe we have to have another conversation with the chamber, but what is the chamber's role? Over the last year, I've done some downtown, especially downtown merchant walks in other cities, and I've noticed the chamber takes on the role of something like the passport program or restaurant week. I don't know how it works, but there's a peninsula foodist and looks like it might be the publishing company, but these things are happening and it's not necessarily the city that's making them happen. The chambers, other organizations are out there. So if it's a matter of connecting with them to, you know, attract them and recruit them to do that here. I think that's fine, but I guess that's where I question, like, what is really the city's role. versus what these, you know, business organizations roles are. And I know with the chamber, especially, you know, we have a relationship with them and provide the funding. So, um, I hope that we could, you know, call upon them, as Peter Cat said, they're ready to help. And some of these things, I think they should actually be the ones to lead. like the passport program and others. So, um, Yeah, I could probably go on and on, but I think I'll just leave it up to leave it to here. I get, my question is, is this the final iteration or will we see this, again, in some form?

[02:41:27] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question, council member. The intent was to request that you do adopt this tonight, but it is considered a living document, and a status report would be provided to counsel about once a year, and in fact, Appendix B has been set up already as a way to provide a progress update, which also gives the opportunity to make adjustments or changes to the priorities or what we're focused on as we see how things are progressing. Um, I would also suggest that, um, we can turn, one, acknowledging there are a lot of action steps, including immediate action steps, and staff had to think long and hard about what to put in immediate, because it meant, let's either we're already working on it. Some of these were already working on, or were confident that it is something we can work on in the next year because of this staff that would be involved in working on it in terms of their workload. And appendix B here, which was also the format for the products report, talks about which divisions and departments would need to be involved, which gives you a sense who's working on it. So a lot of the immediate ones, as I recall, were more focused on our economic development team and initiatives that they are prepared to get working on right away. Having said that in your council report, as was noted, there were the top 15 action items. And these were purposely selected to say, you know, sometimes we can't do it all. But, um, when Mr. Lang put this together, and, you know, I asked, you know, what was the basis for putting this together, he was looking at one of the ones that could be the most effective, and some of these are, many of these are immediate, many of these are short term, but based upon experience in other areas, his own experience, these are, can be more of the heavy hitters, and you'll see even some of them are listed as mid or long term.. And in these cases, it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to wait five years to start, but the nature of it is, it needs a lot of effort. We may not be able to start it right away. And it's gonna take a while to implement. So, one suggestion I have, you could consider is look at these top 15. And can we look at through the list that you just provide in terms of things of, you know, we should be doing getting out now and taken care of, and are they captured somehow in the top 15, or in the immediate list.

[02:44:16] Unknown Speaker: Where is the immediate list? Is that in the staff report or is that...

[02:44:21] Unknown Speaker: It's an expense. Oh, it's in it's also in the presentation.

[02:44:26] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. It is. in the top 15 is on, yes, there's a presentation slides that show it. It's also on page 13 and 14 of the staff report. It's on slide 14 of the presentation.

[02:44:42] Unknown Speaker: So, a question on that. I appreciate the top 15. So when you have the timelines, um, some of them are one's long term, a few are midterm, but is the intent that you will start these as soon as possible, but it'll take maybe a few more years to do the, um, you know, develop and track performance metrics item, for instance. These are the permitting ones, especially, I'm very interested and concerned about, and again, something we've been talking for many years, and that's something I see, like, what the city should be doing. So are we going to be? Is that what that meant?

[02:45:25] Unknown Speaker: That's meant. The top 15 our actions were going to start right away, but maybe they'll take longer than a year to finish. So the top 15, as the community developed director, assistant city manager outlined, was kind of the things that, um, are could be the most impactful, but may not be what is perceived as the most immediate need, but lay a found a good foundation or a kind of core to kind of economic development business, development, economic vitality. Some of these items do just take a long time to implement. So even if we started it today, it's going to take some time, given collaborations with within the building that need to occur or with partners outside. So, um, this was really looked at as a lens of identify the topic, not be so focused on the timeline, but like what are these things that are happening?

[02:46:29] Unknown Speaker: And I would like to just take the opportunity to make one comment about and reiterate something. Don had mentioned, which is on the immediate action items. A lot of these are actually already being undertaken in some fashion. We made a couple references in the memo to a couple of them that are have actually effectively already been implemented. So we're done. So it was with that intention of these would be fairly straightforward lifts given the resources of our division now that we're fully staffed.

[02:47:03] Unknown Speaker: Thank you very much. that, you know, we can actually move forward with these. So that was done with a deliberate intention. And then the top 15 is more of a mix of kind of these idealistic kinds of things we want to do.

[02:47:21] Unknown Speaker: And if I may add, in terms of the permitting, this is something we are working on constantly. It's we are continuously working to make improvements to our permitting processes. And over the last year, as you know, we've rolled out new online permitting processes. We gave emphasis when we launched the new development permit web page that was announced last month. Priority was given to initially on that web page to focus on single family and small business permit needs. And then we will be adding other uses in, in terms of their permit needs to this web page for the quick finder, and how do I do this? And all of that over the next several months. But it was given a priority that small businesses permitting needs would be one of the first, as part of this initial launch. So we are continuously working to improve this. Some of the things you see take longer time, for instance, the land management system will actually also really assist with permitting over time, and we hope to start that process actually in the next year, but it is going to take time, and it could take a good 3 years to get fully implemented. So you are you're seeing it more in the midterm range of it being fully implemented.

[02:48:53] Unknown Speaker: Okay. So it does some, in some cases, we do have to start, we're starting now on some things that you might not see to fruition for a few years.

[02:49:02] Unknown Speaker: Okay, yeah. And that's when that we've talked about it many years ago. And so that's why I would like that to happen more quickly. But regards in regards to permit. So I appreciate the permit process and, you know, streamlining and moving things along more quickly. But the other items like um, flexible uses, getting rid of CUPs. Like, what about those? Because I think those really are, again, things that are, you know, city specific items, and I've heard over and over the years from businesses that they would like to see changes too. So yeah, thank you.

[02:49:45] Unknown Speaker: And as was mentioned earlier, um, Definitely one of the quick actions that we see that can be taken is revising the land use table for area H of the downtown, which has the most restrictions, let's say, it requires use permits for restaurants and recreational and some of these other first, you know, ground floor uses that we'd like to see more of. And so even in advance of doing the full downtown precise planned, comprehensive update, staff identified that we should be ready to come back to you in the fall.

[02:50:31] Unknown Speaker: Okay, good. to make more of these permitted uses and remove the need to have a use permit, and we are actively working on that.

[02:50:39] Unknown Speaker: That's great. Thank you. My final comment is, um, regarding... Well, I think so, you know, we've always, I think, been known to be business friendly. Um, that's very important and I think reputation matters a lot. So, I, you know, I will say, I think these are great tools. supporting business tools are great. Um, you know, I, we heard from like 2 or 3 people about a vacancy tax today. I would not say that's a huge ground swell. And I will say too, that I think something like that signals to the business community that we're not business friendly, taxes are not. And right now, especially, you know, there's polling being done about some a revenue measure, and I'm involved in a number of revenue measure, movements, and the polling is showing that people are just really tired of being taxed and feed. So I would not be looking at, after we've done some of these other strategies and evaluated where we are, and if we're still having issues, then perhaps that's a last resort. that's why I appreciate that, you know, we talked about it and we moved it down. But I really don't think this is a time for us to be talking about more taxes, so I would not want to pursue that at this time. Thank you.

[02:52:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Councilman... Well, I have... Cameron.

[02:52:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. I would appreciate. I would like to return to the Vice Mayor's comments and suggestions. And I realize there may be other council members that want to speak, but I think if we could share some staff comments on some of those suggestions that might better inform the discussion that you're going to have, if you don't mind.

[02:52:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: No, I think that's a great idea. And I would also like, along the vacancy tax issue, Mr. Lang, it seems to me, in my, in the briefing that you gave me on this, you mentioned activities that were happening on some of the vacant properties in downtown. Can you share that with us?

[02:53:12] Mr. Lang: Yes. Thank you very much for opportunity. So, when you look at downtown, I'll specifically speak about Castro Street. If you look at the number of vacancies along Castro Street, there's my last calculation was there was 18 or 19 vacancies, of which 10 of those have active permits. They're going through some type of entitlement process or getting a permit or through a review. So part of the challenge and perception around vacancy is just because it may be empty doesn't mean there's not necessarily something occurring. And so, to try and stitch all this together is, you know, where in those circumstances, do we maybe activate the windows to say coming soon? Right. So it's a way to help amplify and communicate. Something's coming. Something's, and there are some of these signs that exist in windows, but they're very, very tiny and in a corner. So, you know, these are the kinds of things we can maybe stitch together. So there is there's the perception and then a little bit of the reality. So, yes, we have vacancies, but we also have people working through entitlement process.

[02:54:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I know, I found that very encouraging, and I think your idea of big signs that say coming soon. Um, especially if they're, you know, attractive, and I'm sure they could be made very attractive, would, would do a lot to cheer people up about it. Okay, so let's go back to the list that the vice mayor had. We'll start. Staff was going to make some comments. I have the numbers written down, and you probably do, too.

[02:55:02] Unknown Speaker: Yes, and I'm going to start with a specific group of them that I'd like to talk about. And one, I want to say, I do appreciate, um, the review that you've given with this, and obviously, when you, when it suggested to move something from short term to midterm, that is, that can be very helpful for us, because we're juggling workload at all times. Um, and trading that off with maybe moving something from midterm to short term, um, can balance things out, as long as we are dealing with the same staff in the same workload. And I'm gonna... Oh, Mr. Lang, in a moment about the items that more directly relate to his staff, but the items I wanted to bring to your attention are the items that involved zoning changes or changes to regulations, And I will list those in just a moment. They were primarily put in midterm, which is 3 to 5 years out, because that's when we expect to be able to handle that as staff. And I say that because short term, which was the suggestion to move it up, is in the next one to two years. That's the exact same period that we have, the bulk of our housing element, zoning changes to get through. And zoning and code changes do take a lot of staff time and effort when done well. Not only is there a fair amount of community outreach that needs to be done, but there are a lot of consultation with the city attorney's office, because it needs to be well thought out, written well to avoid unintended consequences, and then frequently, some zoning changes may require sequel review, so there can be a lot of work involved with them. So in the next two years, the staff that is primarily involved with zoning changes and code changes are the same staff, that is doing a lot of the housing element implementation, and the two precise plans. I wanted to mention those two are also happening, and they involve the same staff. So, well, I appreciate the desire to get some of this done sooner, and maybe pieces of this could be done through the two precise plans, as they may relate to downtown or so on. Um, it would be very challenging for us to try to do these kind of zoning changes sooner. than the midterm. And so that does relate to action one A.4, streamline update current city regulations, to great standards for ground for windows when buildings are vacant or temporary vacant. It also involves 5A.2 pursues zoning changes, ensure land available for advanced industries, and other target sectors, 5A.3, possible rezoning to better accommodate regionally in demand uses, and 5A.4, assess the city code to identify opportunities to provide permitted uses a cost, employment generating zoning designations. Again, that is one of the key reasons these were put in midterm, and I think one, even in long term, was workload. And then, Mr. Light, I passed over to you, some of the ones you, you know, do you have any concerns? Because I believe they weighed more related to your staff?

[02:58:42] Mr. Lang: Sure, thank you very much for the opportunity. Um, in particular, um, the noted 4 b one, I think moving from immediate to short term, um, is, it makes sense. And obviously with a lot of the work that you just mentioned regarding, um, some of the housing elements, uh, and housing element work, um, that aligns well. And then the other one, to A5, conduct a retail demand survey of residents to help inform efforts to recruit small or midsize businesses, moving that up. That is certainly something we can do and achieve within the time frame. The... uh, regarding 4 F2 inventory Mountain View's assets, progress, and innovations, um, to assess what defines a city and distinguishes it in the region, um, moving it from mid midterm to short term, uh, This is something I think we can, this, once again, this predominantly in the economic development division. That is a doable thing. The strength and unique sense of place by supporting leveraging arch entertainment cultural assets to attract new firms. The work that's currently undertaken in the, or currently being discussed as a potential element in the public arts strategy that is yet to forthcome to you, does touch on some of these aspects. I'm a little nervous about moving it to short term, so it's currently long term. Um, I think we may have better sensibilities of once council has an opportunity to provide input on a public arts strategy. I don't know if short term midterm might be a better fit, but that might be something to discuss, or maybe we can take that up as part of that conversation around a public art strategy. and then seek to see if that needs to be repositioned at that point in time.

[03:01:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, thank you. My smear, Manachek, do you have any comments?

[03:01:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No, I guess I just say, you know, I appreciate it. I knew there were going to be constraints. It's kind of like when we try to move CIPs around. Um, you know, it depends on the department a lot of the time. So, I knew this wasn't going to be possible to move all of these. So I appreciate the input. Um, and I guess we can decide if we um, do want to direct staff to change the handful that could be changed that are mostly within economic development department. Thanks.

[03:01:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And, um, Allison, I mean, council member, Hicks, it's finally your turn.

[03:01:57] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I want to make sure that I'm clear on the ones we, we, um, the different items we just discussed, uh, I heard that 2A5, 4B1 and 4F2 were all, am I saying them too fast? Mr. Lang, these are ones, I think, that you addressed. 2A5, 4B1, and 4F2 were all okay to change. 4F4 might be better to talk about when we talk about the public arts strategy.

[03:02:34] Mr. Lang: Correct.

[03:02:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Um, that... Uh, I think that the 5A45A3 and 5A2 were all ones that were difficult to change, okay? And then that leaves several that, maybe I didn't, maybe I wasn't listening well or they didn't get brought up. One A2, regarding public art in businesses. Did you address that one?

[03:03:10] Mr. Lang: So, um... Yeah, that's moving. 182 was being suggested and moved from short term to midterm. And one A3 moved from short term to midterm.

[03:03:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I see. So you didn't bring them up because it's easier to do them later. Okay. And it may help. I mean, Mr. Lang, with the suggestion of moving one A5, from midterm to short term, you know, study funding and creation of rotating design services, loan fund, um, since it will be freeing up, by moving some of these to midterm, will be freeing up ED staff, and they could put their, you know, move their emphasis more to one A5. Those were some of the things. Okay, so yeah, now you covered all the ones that I was unsure where you were suggesting we go with them. The only one I wonder about then is, and I don't, I'm taking this from notes, not reading it out of the report. So you can tell me how wrong my notes are. Um, one, I, two, which is about, uh, showing public art in businesses, and that was, said, maybe do it later, but it seems like maybe something we do, just like, 4, F, 4. A lot, no, is that for a four? Along with talking about the public arts strategy. Because it seemed to tie in with that. So, um, that does make a lot of sense. I mean, right now, based upon one, A, 2, and 4, the other one, 4, F, 4, I believe it was. Yeah, that's it. Both of those. So one was looking to be from long term to short term, and one A2 is going from short term to midterm. Midterm is kind of the middle point for both of those. And maybe that is the, Maybe that would be the best place to be today and when the art strategy is discussed with council and that feedback's given in terms of showing the different potential recommendations that could come out of an art strategy, there could be some realignment or readjustment associated with that. Okay, that sounds good to me because I wouldn't want putting art in public play. I wouldn't want to put that off too long, I think that's one of the things we need. But I think I understand now your comments and suggestions on the vice mayor's reordering. Um, so... So, my comments are, um, are, uh, you know, it was great to hear council member Abi Koga say what was done in the past, because I also am bringing that back. I also found, I mean, for this, I found a lot of really kind of new stuff, and the new action items. At least they were new to me. People can tell me they've seen them in the past. But the new action items are things that I've wanted. I think they're kind of current suggestions for making public places thrive, and for acknowledging that, you know, our downtown used to have a blacksmith shop and a department store, but, you know, some of the things that were there in the past are no longer current, and that currently places like that thrive with arts, entertainment, place making, small businesses, you know, the things you brought, food trucks, et cetera, maybe we don't need food trucks downtown. So I was glad to see those things suffused throughout the various goals. One of the things that I thought was that given the rapid changes recently in AI, and with our, our, some of our larger employers, the situation becoming very changing a lot, and becoming much more competitive, that the items under goal number three might be one which are more, which might pertain more to retention and diversification. I think we'll probably have more of a focus on that than I would have expected in years past. So, I was happy to hear you say, it's a living document, and because I think we're going to want to be as, because the situation's so fluid, I think we're going to want to be checking in a lot. And I think I didn't fully understand, in all these hundreds of pages that I read, how you're checking in with us. You referenced, um, an appendix that said, how you're checking in with us, maybe I skimmed that part. So how will you be checking in with us, and if this is a living document, how will we, um, you know, continually, help it to continue to evolve? So within the, within all the attachment, it would be attachment B. Um, and it is a matrix that shows the, it's all ranked by goal, and then every action under goal strategy, um, and it defines the department. And that was envisioned to track the implementation items. And so we can bring that back on an annual basis to council to say, this is the status update. We've started implementing this. This is the things we've done. This is on hold for this reason. We have an opportunity to move this one up a little bit because of maybe some other work that's going on in the city. So the intent would be to bring back that matrix and use that as either an off agenda memo or an item that council could hear and provide feedback on, but use that as a framework to come back to council to inform you as to the progress that is going on. At the same time, in terms of the measures of success, we can update that document as well and say here the new numbers today. Here's what's happened in the last year, or the numbers trending up, trending down, provide some insights as to why that may be happening, good or bad, as a way to help inform that conversation. And do you see the measures of success is something that could also evolve over time? I have to say when I read the measures of success, I was a little unclear on whether they were measuring what I really wanted measuring, but I didn't have great suggestions for alternative measures. So, I think with any performance measure or tracking, um, at any point in time, things can certainly change. One of the things that, um, speaking more broadly, we've been asked to add additional performance measures as part of the budgetary process, so as you begin the budgetary process here as a council very soon, I think you will see in all the department's new performance measures. And so some of the things and some of the feedback we've heard is tracking more around permits. And so as a department, we have put forward some recommendations around performance measures that may get to some of these things that we've heard here. So, um, that can certainly be incorporated, but that's something council will see and have the opportunity to discuss. Um, So let's see, what other comments I had. I found the graphic on the decline in diversity of industries over 10 year period, kind of alarming. Um, and I think that's something we haven't, with all the kind of the fluidity of industry right now. Maybe that's something we could focus on making it more diverse. I think a lot of the action items kind of aim at that. And maybe we I don't know if there's a way to continue to visit that table. Or if it's only updated every 10... I dont know exactly where you got that information. I don't remember. That information is our employment data that we do get from the employment development department, so that is something we receive quarterly updates on that information and is something we can continue to update going forward. Okay. If it's easy, yeah, I imagine it doesn't change all that rapidly. Um, and I, you know, I personally, regarding vacancy tax, would like to kind of keep an eye on it, uh, on how it's going to, uh, particularly downtown and see whether we need that. Uh, whether that would be a remedy we would need uh, by 26. Let's see, what else? Um And then I guess the, oh, the vision statement, you know, the only wording that I would change, and I'll throw it out there. I don't know if other council members would agree, but the vision statement, I liked it. I liked it shorter. It says, uh, But one of the sentences says, uh, we aim to be a global leader that balances a flourishing economy, a flirt. No, that balances economic growth with health and well being of our community and environment. And I, we've grown dramatically over the past 20 years, I don't care whether I want to maintain what we have. I don't care if we continue to grow dramatically. So if it were me, I would change it to a global leader that balances a flourishing economy with the health and well being of our community and the environment. I just don't need to constantly grow. And who knows, we may not in the future, anyway. Uh, and then the last thing I'll say, you featured Boulder, I like the different places that you featured throughout the document. Great. But, um, I was in Boulder recently. Actually, my son is working near there now. And the three things I took away from visiting Pearl Street is, one is that they, the way they do parking, they have time limited parking in all the, you know, the neighborhood residential all around it. You can't, that's how you find parking. You park in front of somebody's house for 3 hours. But the person can park there for much longer. And I, you know, that's, they didn't have to build any parking garages, um, it would work with the new state laws, I just think to make, that's a solution that we need to look at more. They have all ground floor retail, no offices, and they really have a focus on not just rapidly, filling vacancies, but on quality, and so that's quality and art and windows. And so those are my takeaways from being there. Thank you.

[03:14:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Council member Ramirez.

[03:14:56] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to staff for preparing what I think will be an essential and very powerful living document over the next 5 to 10 years. I'm very excited to see the work plan that's proposed and even more excited to see it implemented. I have a lot to say, and I'm a little disorganized, so I'm going to do my best to remain coherent. Um, so, I think the most important element to me that has come up multiple times from comments made by other members of the council is accountability and ensuring that we are making good progress in implementing the action items. I know it's highly likely that we will end up having to reprioritize based on things that we don't know will occur to the city, right? So things that we can't reasonably anticipate. And that's okay, as long as we provide the council and the community regular check ins, so you can help us understand why maybe something is delayed a little bit longer than we would like, or, you know, it could be that a future council may elect to elevate an item that had been previously lower priority, and something that might otherwise have been implemented at a later date. So, the regular check in process that I think may serve as a good model is the general plan action plan, which is placed as a consent item, that the council reviews every year. I would like to recommend, um, because for the most part, especially in the early, early years, I don't think there will be a meaningful need to discuss the work that you're doing. We'll do the best we can to implement the plan with the constraints and resource limitations that exist. If something goes sideways, or if the council decides, you know, that we need to rethink our priorities. Every year, there's an opportunity to pull it from consent and make the case. So I think the general plan action plan has shown, or has proven to be a good way to monitor, some key action items, that council adopted over 10 years ago. And I think this economic vitality strategy, similarly, could be monitored in a substantially similar capacity. And if there is staff capacity available, you could also take it to advisory bodies or council subcommittees as appropriate. Um, I really appreciated many of the remarks that you made, uh, Council member Ravi Koga about prioritizing some of the things that we've been hearing about forever. And as I was thinking about what you were sharing, it reminded me of a challenge that I've seen in my day job, where members of the council or the mayor, will get very frustrated and have sometimes uncomfortable exchanges with staff. Why can't you do this faster and better? And what I've learned over the years is the primary reason is the direction that the council is giving is bad, right? What does it mean to do something faster and better? What is it that we actually want to change to improve the process or to make it easier to do business in the community? And I think this gives us a good starting point for staff to discern what it is that we actually want to do, to improve the business climate in Mountain View. So I think I'm going to make a motion. I wrote down what I thought I heard everybody say. I'm going to do my best to incorporate that direction. I think the way I view this document is, it provides a very, it's good bones, right? As we heard about the downtown, it provides a very concrete and robust way of improving the business environment in Mountain View. I'm reluctant to deviate too far from the staff recommendations, because they are well thought out, and do take into consideration the resource limitations and staff capacity, that we have available, and I think, honestly, most of the work that will come out of it, even in the immediate and short term, will have some, will provide some tremendous value to the community. If some other quick comments before I make the motion. One of the things that I've been frustrated with is how hard it is to carve out time and capacity to do regular code cleanups. You know, I really like the, used to be annual zoning code amendments, because that's the way we respond to changes in market dynamic, or, you know, implement state law, or whatever the case may be. And there was a period of time where we barely touched the zoning code. And I think this can provide a vehicle for more routine evaluation, taking into consideration what we are hearing from constituents and from the business community. And while, sort of the next step from that. Even where we have been successful and modernizing or updating the zoning code, we struggle even more so to do the same for precise plans. And that's really concerned me. So I really appreciate the initiative that staff is taking, taking, thank you, Don, for bringing back the downtown precise plan to Area H, looking at the land use table to appreciate that. It may have made sense, you know, in the 80s. It doesn't make sense today. A provisional use permit, or conditional use permit, is a non trivial impediment to doing business, especially for something that, you know, you can do if you went across the street fairly easily. So those are the kinds of things I, this is why I appreciated many of the recommendations that you were making, vice mayor, that speaks to, it responds directly to many of the concerns that we're hearing from folks who are trying to start a business. Um, I was reflecting, listening to the comments about, uh, something a neighbor had shared with me, passed away in 2020. He said, Lucas, I can fix any car, built before some certain date, 1993 or something. And the reason he could fix any car before that date is because they were all essentially the same. And then something changed, state law or whatever, right? Cars became much more complex, and he was no longer capable of fixing them. And I feel like that analogy, or metaphor, whatever, works pretty well in this case, where used to be a lot easier to do stuff. And things became hard, not because we wanna make it hard to do business, but because we have higher expectations. Right? We're trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or whatever. A lot of the regulations put in place are well intentioned and have a purpose. But when you don't have time or capacity to audit those regulations, they just build and build and things become harder and harder to a point where, um, you know, they might take a couple of years to secure a permit. And so I think that's, that metaphor was in my head this entire conversation, right? Let's start thinking about our own regulations, which I think are well intentioned, but are hard, right? It requires a degree of sophistication that many people just don't have. And so they either have to spend a ton of money to figure it out. or do business somewhere else where it's a little bit easier. So all that to say, I'm very excited about the work that we're doing. I'm going to move the staff recommendation, with the following amendments. So please keep track of this. So, first, we will amend to B2, to remove the explicit reference to Google's campus and make it a more general destination of North Bay Shore. 2D5, correct the typographical error that the vice mayor identified, and I think, generally, I'm presuming that staff will retain the authority to clean up language, and maybe even consolidate action items as we learn more, about our ability to implement them, and then, uh, to based on the recommendations made by the vice mayor, Postpone 1A3, 1A2, and 4B1, to give staff a little bit more space and capacity to potentially elevate some of the other items, and the way, I think the, probably the fairest language would be to direct staff, to assess the feasibility of moving up the other items that the vice mayor brought up, 1A4, 1A5, 2A5, 4F2, 4F4, 5A2, 5A3, and 5A4. The staff may determine, we realistically cannot elevate those, and that's okay. At least, you have some sense of the priorities from the council. And if you can move something up, or, I think, Assistant City Manager, Cameron, you were suggesting, maybe do some of these piecemeal through other, you know, leveraging other work items. Great. You know, that would be ideal. But basically, you have the discretion to let us know whether something realistically can be done faster or whether the staff recommended timeline makes sense. Um, and then, uh, I think I heard from council member Hicks, uh, in the vision statement, replace, uh, economic growth with flourishing economy. Please correct me if I missed that, and then to at least explore or consider adding a new metric or measure of success related to the diversification of industry, leveraging the existing graphic that Council member Hicks had referenced. And then I will add that a progress report should be brought to the council annually on the consent calendar beginning April 2025. And using the appendix that you referenced. I think it was Appendix B. So I believe... That's the, so that concludes the motion. A couple of other things. There was a mention of alternative healthcare. I trust your judgment, but I'll share a quick story several years ago, not too far from where I live, somebody, some business noter, created this, like, cryogenic, freezing healthcare thing, and a couple of folks reached out to me, saying they had used it just because they were curious, and were pretty severely injured. And so I reported it as a potential code violation, and the staff were very quick, and shut it down. Thank you very much. But I don't consider that healthcare. So I hope that, you know, we have some very clear definition of alternative healthcare, so we're not permitting really crazy things, people like crazy stuff, and abuse their bodies. So, and I don't really want to facilitate that through the zoning code. Um, I would be interested. There was an action item related to the development of new metrics. I don't remember which one it was, Vice Mayor. I think you may actually referenced that one. It's one of the 15 key or essential items. That's really important. I appreciate council member Hicks, statement about making sure that we have the right set of measures of success or metrics, because we don't want to accidentally incentivize bad behavior, right? We don't want to say, this is the right metric, and then what we discover two or three years down the road is that metric actually results in sort of a misplaced priority. So I think part of the progress report may include a discussion about, are these the right metrics? So, you know, I would love to see, for instance, I'm not part, this is not part of the motion, but metrics around things like how long, how many rounds of review are there, right? When somebody submits an application, how many resubmittals are required. Those are not things that we need to stipulate today, but, you know, it would be helpful to know. Are people getting their applications deemed complete right away, or do you need three or four submittals? And then why? Or the time it takes to secure a permit, right? I think we have that for small businesses, and that's great, but I think these are things that have, that have sort of an impact beyond what I felt was a fairly narrowly scoped metric. I would also be interested if staff thinks this is quantifiable and useful, understanding the percentage of restaurants that are chains, especially in areas where we're trying to create destination points, like downtown, like San Antonio, that might be interesting to know, if 90% of the restaurants, I think Council member Hicks, you taught me a chain has more than 11 outlets. If memory serves, I think that's the metric San Francisco uses something along those lines. I don't really care what the number is, but I think it's a useful thing to think about. It's not part of the motion, but staff can let us know if that's useful. And finally, and then we could all go home. I'm comfortable with the vacancy tax where it is in the set of priorities. I'm not ideologically opposed to it. What I've heard from Commissioner Bill Cranston, who has a business in San Francisco, is that actually has been helpful in encouraging, in certain cases, property owners to, you know, fill vacant space. But, you know, going back to that earlier analogy, before we penalize, folks, let's see if there are things we could do to make it easier to fill vacant spaces. I don't think it's 100% our fault. But, you know, sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. But I think, you know, doing our due diligence, implementing the action items here could result in, you know, material impact, or result in the material change, and how easy it is to fill a vacant space, and we might find, you know, we end up with very few vacancies as a consequence. And I know some vacancies are actually good, right? You don't want 0% vacancy. You want some, you know, reasonable healthy target. So a vacancy tax, I think, could have value in certain cases, but let's really do our due diligence first. I think that was everything I wanted to say, and the motion is made.

[03:30:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, thank you very much for that. And we for that motion, Council member Ramirez, and we also have a second. Council member Hicks. So that's great. So then we can go to discussion. I have a couple of questions that I want to make sure are included in the staff recommendation. Namely, I think it's really important that the definition of ground floor retail is updated as soon as possible. And I understand that you're expecting that that will be done fairly quickly as part of the, that it's not an action item in here, but that it will be done fairly quickly as part of the downtown precise plan update. Is that correct?

[03:31:45] Unknown Speaker: So, we do have an existing, uh, definition of ground floor retail in the downtown precise plan, what we are looking to do is within that vertical of, uh, ground floor, say, if it's a restaurant use in a ground floor, change it, or what we're contemplating is changing it from a provisional use permit to a permitted. So the way the table's written is ground floor, and that's already defined. So that's not something we need to define, it's what are the uses within that ground floor?

[03:32:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: Right. So is the plan to do that right away?

[03:32:27] Unknown Speaker: So this is what we are contemplating for just specifically Area H in the fall.

[03:32:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: So, um, the greater updates will occur in the downtown precise plan as part of the bigger update?

[03:32:40] Unknown Speaker: We're focused on the pedestrian mall section, and having that align more consistently with how we treat some of these uses in other precise planes.

[03:32:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: I think that's great. I just want to make sure it's on the docket as quickly as possible. Because I think it's crucial for, you know, we have so many restaurants and so much business for restaurants in our downtown, and making the process to get them opened is as reasonable as possible and as easy as possible, is in everybody's best interest. So, I just wanted to check on that. Okay. Um, so what other discussion, um, do people, I don't see any lights right now? Council member, Hicks.

[03:33:29] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I just wanted to clarify that two of the items that we're moving around, which, I believe, is, I believe they are, 182, regarding, uh, public showing public art and businesses, and, um, for a four, um, that... that the way you've heard the, uh, the motion that, that we will talk about during the public art strategy, I'm possibly throw that into the mix for where they end up. Okay. Oh, and the other comment I wanted to make is, in addition to an annual report, I would also like to see this frequently, descriptively in council connection. If there's anything descriptive to report, not just in the spreadsheet regarding progress.

[03:34:28] Unknown Speaker: Council member, if I may, I'm having eyes with this camera here. We're trying to include these sort of updates in the downtown Digest.

[03:34:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Oh, okay. That's good

[03:34:40] Unknown Speaker: The items that at least relate to downtown will go in that version. Any of the other things that may be related to just economic vitality in general. We will try and include in council connection as we go.

[03:34:52] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So my point at good point. And I will read both of those. But my point is that I'd like ongoing descriptions of any major news. Thank you.

[03:35:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Okay, with that. Um, uh, Councilman Barabi Koga.

[03:35:11] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Vice mayor, kindly ask me, um, or I guess I should, as, do I need to specifically call out the corporate visits or is that included in the immediate action items?

[03:35:26] Unknown Speaker: The mayor's corporate visits. Or it could be council numbers, so it doesn't have to be just some air. We don't specifically label it as mayor visits or we don't use the terminology corporate visits, but it is engaging employers, so we can certainly extend that as part of the going back to the corporate, but we don't specifically call it out as a mayoral visit or a corporate visit in the older definition, but it is an immediate implementation.

[03:35:59] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I'm just going to add that then as the friendly amendment too. reinstate reinstate the mayor's corporate visits program. Thanks.

[03:36:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Matachek.

[03:36:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. In 2019, when I was doing corporate visits, instead of going to just one corporation, I went with the chamber as well as somebody from economic development, and we went to an area, and I think we did four, like, um, Gastro or Moffat Boulevard, and we visited a bunch of businesses. And as council member Abbe Kogo mentioned, Some of those business owners still keep in contact with me. And some of them wrote thank you notes, because they said in all their years of being in Mountain View, they had never had a visit by anybody from the city. They were absolutely shocked. And I feel like it just, it helped me really get a better appreciation for some of the issues they were facing, some of the successes they were having, and also just the different businesses we have here that maybe people don't know about. And it was a lot of fun, actually, to do that. So I think corporate visits can take different forms. And that one I found incredibly rewarding. Thanks.

[03:37:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: I would also add in that when I had mayor visits, in 2016, they were just a delight. I was fascinated to learn about the real work that people did. I had no idea. the breadth of the activities of some of these, some of the companies. And it was just, it was fascinating. And they have kept, several of them have kept in touch. So it's a great program, if we can get it going again. Okay, so I think that... Vice Mayor Magic, are you done? Oh, good. Okay, so I think that we are ready to vote. And I'm delighted to announce that that passed unanimously. So thank you, staff, very much for all of your hard work, and thank you, colleagues, for all of the great discussion in homework that we did on this. This was a hefty packet to read. There was a lot of meat to it. And we really appreciate your efforts. Okay. So... Let me find my agenda flow, but basically, I think that brings us to committee reports. Which is item eight. So, who would like to make a committee report? Council Memoramo.

[03:39:08] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to report out that I went to the Cal City Summit in Sacramento last week. Mountain View enjoys a very good reputation of being part of the solution to many of the problems in our state. So, um, it was great, got to meet with a number of state legislators, and, um, other counterparts in other cities. So thank you.

[03:39:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member, Abby Coca.

[03:39:40] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. That is a number of events. when you'll probably report on it too. And, um, may accounts for Hicks, we had our sustainability committee meeting where we discussed, um, RHG, emissions, inventory, but, um, also as a follow-up from our council meeting, um, next steps on the, uh, the suspension of the, um, all electric building requirements. And then, um, I attended the cities association board meeting where we had a robust presentation on the Bay Area, housing finance authority, upcoming regional housing bond measure. I also participated in the buff committee and voted to support moving the measure language forward. It actually comes to, it has to go through a number of committees that comes tomorrow to our MTC commission for approval. Um, so that is moving forward, uh, still haven't determined whether it'll be a $10 billion or $200000000 bond. They're polling, right? Actually, they've done the pulling. That has to be yet to be determined, but we are working through the actual language for the ballot measure. Um, I went to with the vice mayor, um, the Bay Area host committee, office grand opening, which is right across the street from us at the Boston consulting group offices. And so the Bay HC. For short, is a committee that is in charge of hosting the NBA All-Star game, the FIFA World Cup games and the Super Bowl 60, all in the 25, 2025, 26 years. And, um, yeah, I thought it was great that they chose to locate their office here, right in downtown Mountain View. So talk about economic development. I think that there'll be some opportunities to partner with them and do some great activities. Um, And then I also have been in a lot of discussions. We'll be discussing this tomorrow at my MTC meeting, a regional transportation measure. Now you may have been reading about it in the paper. There is some enabling legislation that's being uh, making its way through the state legislature. And so a number of transit agencies have taken a position on this measure, including VTA and Caltrain, which have taken a pose unless amended measures. I won't get into all the details, but the way the measure is being written right now, would actually have some real challenges. So Santa Clara County is a, is a, um, self-help county. We have 4 sales tax measures as it is right now. that fun transit, and this regional measure, if it happens. But actually, um, make it difficult for us to renew some of these measures because of the lifetime of the regional measure that's being proposed. So because of that, and we're a donor, we give more money in sales tax to the big pot than we actually receive. So that's been our big challenges. We're not getting our fair share in transportation funding. And this would actually make it even worse, frankly. So we're in this oppose, we're working, we're trying to get amendments of proposed or introduced on the bill, but it's in the works tomorrow at NTC. We're expected to take a vote on a position. Um, I and our South Bay, uh, delegation will most likely take in a pose, unless amended, um, decision. But if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. It's a little kind of complicated, but happy to talk about it. And I do expect us to be talking about this more and making sure that our county and our cities are aware of what's going on. Thank you.

[03:44:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Well, I also have quite a few things to share. Some have been mentioned. I went last Monday. I had a meeting with the city manager with some staff from Stanford to discuss working together on future programs, primarily after the new president starts in September, but it was very interesting, and I think that there may be some, particularly some policy assistance that grows from this. The sustainability meeting was mentioned, and I just really want to thank the staff for the level of effort that they went to present options that they're working on for the replacement for our reach codes. I was really impressed with the caliber of the work and how much thought had gone into it. On Wednesday and Thursday, last week, I attended the California Community Choice Aggregation Association Conference, and it was a great opportunity to learn much more about power development in California and how CCAs are functioning and making a difference. It's really quite an amazing movement that we are part of to make, you know, energy throughout California, and hopefully, we can get other places in the country to catch on to this. Carbon neutral. So, um, also on Wednesday, there was a council neighborhoods meeting, and, um, I attended that along with council member Ramos and Ramirez. And we were joined by, I would say, 40 or 50 members of the public easily, and many of them spoke. They are very excited about the neighborhood grant program, and, in fact, we've been so successful that there are several new groups that are coming forward, so that will be mean, we'll be having to ask for a little more money than we had expected. So that will be a recommendation, coming from the committee to the city council soon. On Thursday, I also went to a BCDC meeting, and there was a very interesting presentation on the draft California sea level guidance report for 2024. In this report, they break down likely sea level rise scenarios based on global temperature increases. And I was just blown away by how different the sea level rise implications are for, you know, 3 degrees of Celsius of warming versus the worst case, they think, is probably 5 or more. And, I mean, it's really made me think that all of these efforts were going to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions are right on target. On a fun, many people were having fun on Saturday at the Earth at a Arbor Day celebration that we combined for the first year, and I just wanted to say kudos to all the staff that was involved. I know there were many, many staff that were involved, many of them were there. And, um, it was just a, it was a great day, and I got to plant a tree with the help of about, I don't know, 10 or 15 very small children who were just having a fine time, and, um, I was too. Anyway, and then on a more personal note, I just want to share that last weekend, my husband and I attended tiger style at Theater Works, and it still has another weekend to go. And, um, it was, it was both funny and thought provoking. So if you haven't gone and you have time to go, I would urge you to give it a try. So with that, we can move on to item 10. Adjournment. Tonight... Oh, no, we have a closed session report. Sorry. So that's item nine. City Attorney Lowe, do we have a closed session report?

[03:49:02] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Actually, there is no co session report this evening.

[03:49:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, so we'll move on to item 10, adjournment. And tonight, we are adjourning the meeting in honor of two individuals who recently passed away, and who have provided special service to our city organization and our community. Former mayor, Chuck Gordon and Robin Duggan, wife of former city manager, Kevin Dugman. Duggan, our thoughts are with their families during this difficult time. They both really made important contributions to our community over time, and they will be sorely missed. So with that, the next city council meeting will be held on May 14th, 2024, and this meeting is adjourned at 10:39. Thanks, everyone.

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