May 14, 2024 Joint Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

Video

Transcript

[00:01:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, yeah. They don't know that. Good evening. All right. Welcome. Uh, I would like to welcome my brothers and sisters in, uh, in union. Tonight, I am a retired member of IFPTE local 21. It is something to clap it out. So we're very glad you're here. We start out, I'm going to talk a little bit more than I normally do at the beginning of the meeting, because I want to let you know what's happening. We start here, and we're going to go and have a closed session for probably about half an hour, 45 minutes. Then we will come back at 6:30, and the meeting will start. At the beginning of the meeting, we have a pledge of allegiance, and then we have two presentations. They're fairly short, but they're celebratory things. And then we will have the consent calendar, which I believe is the item you were all interested in. So, I just wanted to share with you that that's the schedule. And, um, so, um, with that, I'll go back to the script, and, um, say, uh, welcome to, this is at 5:45, we have a closed session. And, um, thank you for joining us for our closed session. City Attorney Lowe. We'll make a closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the item listed for closed session. City attorney Logue.

[00:03:24] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you, and good evening. This is City Attorney Jennifer Logue. There is one item on this evening's close session agenda. Item 2.one is a conference with labor negotiators, regarding labor negotiations with Service Employees International Union, Local 521, the Eagles 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 54957.6. The agency designated representatives are assistant city manager, Arn Andrews, human resources director, Maxine Gulo, human resources manager, Lindsay Bishop, and Charles Sakai of Sloan Sakai, Young, and Wong, LLP. Thank you.

[00:04:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Now, would any member of the public join us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session item on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first, and each speaker will have two minutes. Do we have any in person speakers for the closed session? Seeing none, and any on zoom. We also don't have any on Zoom. Okay. So, with that, the council will now recess to the Plaza Conference room for closed session, and return to the council chambers at the close to continue to the regular session. That should be approximately 6:30. Thank you so much.

[00:09:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. This is the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council and the Shoreline Regional Park community. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. My pledge allegiance to the flood of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. City clerk, may we have a roll call?

[00:10:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Abbe Coca?

[00:10:15] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[00:10:16] City Clerk Heather Glaser: counts member Ramirez?

[00:10:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:10:18] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Couns member Ramos.

[00:10:19] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:10:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Matachek.

[00:10:20] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:10:20] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Che Walter?

[00:10:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Here.

[00:10:22] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum with council members, Hicks and Kmei, absent.

[00:10:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right, now we are at item three, and we have some presentations. Please note that these are presentations only. The council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you would like to speak on items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. First, we'll be item 3.1, which is the teen week proclamation. I'm hoping that, um, uh, youth advisory committee meeting, member meeting members are Taylor Luna, and my Talzaiots are here to accept the proclamation. Are they here? Oh, wonderful. Well, let's join me at the dais.

[00:11:34] Unknown Speaker: Well you can I have it in here, so you can read along?

[00:11:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes. This is Teen Week. And, um, I'm very happy to be joined this evening by Taylor Luna and Metal Zayats from our, uh, local schools. And our proclamation reads, whereas youth and teens account for 20.3% of the Mountain View population, and teens represent an often underutilized resource, with diverse perspectives and innovative ideas for immediate and long term community development, recognizing, including and amplifying the voices of teens, empowers youth, and teens to become leaders, and change makers, in our community, and beyond. And whereas teens, participating in student based organizations and youth committees, actively contribute to Mountain View by spearheading initiatives that prioritize education, mental health, climate change, inclusion, and diversity. And since 2017, the Youth Advisory Committee has developed an annual week of celebration, teen week, to showcase teens to our community, including their creativity, intelligence, activism, mental wellness, and the value they provide. Whereas Teen Week emphasizes the significance of celebrating teens, and fostering positive connections between teens, families, schools, organizations, and businesses in our community, and whereas teens and community members can show their support of teens by attending teen week events, including a teen art showcase, teen led cultural diversity fair, teen open mic night, and teenage only enrichment programs. Now, therefore, I, Patricia Showalter, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues, on the city council, do hereby recognize Teen Week. 2024, May 13th through May 17th, 2024. Thank you so much. Would you like to say anything? Okay.

[00:13:36] Taylor Luna: Okay. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Taylor Luna, and I'm this year's vice chair of the Youth Advisory Committee. On behalf of the Youth Advisory Committee and our members, we are beyond excited for Teen Week this week and want to share thanks for the council for all of their support. If you are available, we will be holding open mic night at Red Rock Cafe this Friday night and would love to see you there.

[00:13:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. now let's take. All right. Okay. So now, we are going to move on to affordable housing month proclamation. We're happy to be joined this evening by Maria Merrickin, executive director of the Day Worker Center. Tom Myers, executive director, and um, Sergio Herrera, guarantee, uh, Tom Myers is executive director of the community services agency, uh, Sergio Herrera, guaranteed basic income coordinator, Melissa Lukan, executive director of rebuilding together, through, and Amber Stein, director of Move Mountain View, are here to accept this proclamation. And... And, um, you know, I think it's appropriate that we have so many people here accepting this proclamation, because affordable housing is one of the things that really takes a village. It's very complicated to get affordable housing across the line, takes many staff people, and it's very complicated to run our housing, I mean, our homeless, prevention and our homeless support programs. And all of these groups have really contributed dramatically to that in our community. And we're so grateful for the work that they do and the collaboration that they do among each other. It's really heartwarming. So, I'm not going to go through the proclamation. It's kind of long, but basically, we know that in Santa, in the city of Mountain View, almost 11,000 households are cost burdened by spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing costs. And over 5,000 housing units are severely cost burden by spending more than 50% of their monthly income on housing. So that means that we really need to work to help people make ends meet. And that's exactly what this is all about. So, thank you so much, Maria and Tom. And Sergio and Amber. I really appreciate your service. Okay. Okay, so is there any public comment on, um, item, uh, on item three? Seeing none, we'll move to the consent calendar, which is item four. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item, oral communications on 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?

[00:18:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Manachek.

[00:18:34] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I don't want to pull a item. I just want to make a comment on two. And there are really quick comments. Go ahead. On item 4.8, I want to thank everyone for revising the art for that park. I think you did a great job of that. And on item 4.9, which is another public art project for a different park. Um, well done. So thank you.

[00:18:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes. Okay, and then, um, I see we have a speaker, David Benny. Welcome.

[00:19:12] David Benny: Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to ask that those in support of the project labor agreement, please rise. Thank you very much. Good evening, mayor and council members. As the executive director for the Building Trades Council, I represent the vast majority of the Unionized Construction workforce for Santa Clara County. I would like to commend the staff for their work on this item. I've written dozens of agreements with entities, both public and private, and I would like to recognize that assistant city manager, Don Cameron and her team have a depth of subject matter on community workforce agreements that made our discussions frictionless. Ms. Cameron was able to articulate the needs of the city clearly and concisely, and I believe we were able to meet those needs together with this agreement. For the affiliates and members of the billing trades, I would like to thank you for bringing this matter forward and for ensuring that your projects, provide opportunities for residents, to have family supporting healthcare and real retirement security. Your vote to adopt the CWA means that public construction dollars in Mountain View will support local families and the local economy. This will directly benefit the residents of Mountain View, including the taxpayers, because construction will be on time and on budget, saving precious tax dollars. I appreciate you for coming to these chambers regularly, making sure that the residents, some of whom are members of our construction unions have a great city to call home. I ask that you approve this community workforce agreement tonight so that we can continue building Mountain View together. Thank you.

[00:20:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. We have another speaker. Joe Cabrera. Joe? Welcome.

[00:21:18] Jose Cabrera: Good evening, Mayor. City council members. My name is Jose Cabrera, and I'm a carpenter. I have been a carpenter for 28 years already, and I was speaking opposition to the current committee of workforce agreement, brought to you by the building trades. I, along with almost nearly 40,000 carpenters, have grave concerns regarding the proposed CWA, as leaders of the carpenters community. We wish to express our strong opposition to the current iteration of the agreement. As it fails to adequately represent the interest of our organizations and its members. The proposed CWA endorses a mechanism of fostering labor harmony. It presents a troubling oversight in its exclusions of the carpenters. Well, it may align with preferences to other unions. It fails to encompass the diverse perspectives and needs of our carpenters as a union that contributes about 70% of the total work hours, and in some cases, 85% of the total reported hours. Our exclusion of the agreement is deeply concerning. And let me be clear. The building trades council does not speak on behalf of the Northern California Carpenters Union. In conclusion, we are the county, the Mountain View City Council, to reevaluate the proposed CWA, and ensure that it truly reflects the interest of all stakeholders, including the carpenters. It is imperative that any agreement indoors by the council upholds the values of equity, transparency, and respect. We appreciate your attention to this matter, and we remain hopeful for a true labor harmony resolution that promotes genuine collaboration and represents the collective interest to all parties involved. Thank you.

[00:23:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Now. Now we have, um, two speakers on Zoom. The first one is Louise. Our Han?

[00:23:24] Louise Auerhand: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Louise Auerhand, from working partnership. I'm also speaking on the proposed community workforce agreement. We run the local pre-apprenticeship, the trades orientation program, and this community workforce agreement will provide a great opportunity for more of our community members, especially those from underrepresented or backgrounds who haven't traditionally been able to get into these good high road construction careers, the chance to do so. So we urge you to approve this community workforce agreement and we stand ready to partner with you to help mountain view residents enter and succeed on these projects. Thank you.

[00:24:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, then we have a couple more speakers. Matthew Espinoza. Estepona, sorry. Thank you. Welcome.

[00:24:27] Matthew Estipona: Hi, good evening. My name is Matthew Estipona, and I represent the Associated Builders and Contractors, Northern California Chapter, and I first wanted to take a moment to appreciate the time that the mayor and city council members, they did meet with our member contractors in the city. They took time to acknowledge our specific concerns and how a proposed comedian workforce training agreement would exclude in terms of discouraging our member contractors, non union, but also small businesses who've done work for the city of Mountain View from wanting to bid on public projects. But my chief concern and the reason why I'm opposed, organization as opposed to the CWA, as presented, is specifically the exclusion of apprentices, and the CWA that was negotiated. It only mentions joint apprenticeship training committee, apprentices. This explicitly excludes apprentices from open shop, uh, contractors, apprentices, which are unilateral apprenticeship, uh, committees, excluding apprentices from participating in these projects. contradicts the very allegation of this agreement, which is supposed to promote more people to work in the trades, and how can we expect to build a skilled sustainable workforce if we do not use everyone who's able and willing to participate in the trades to the table. I would urge the, out of the agreements we've seen, this agreement actually, it has been considerate of our concerns, except for the fact that unilateral apprenticeship committee apprentices can work on public projects. I'd urge the council to reconsider this agreement and to ensure that there's true equity and inclusion for other people to be able to work on political projects, especially those who live in the city of Mountain View. Thank you.

[00:26:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Our next speaker is Susan S.

[00:26:22] Susan S.: My name is Susan. I'm here to say no to a CWA. I'm a woman owned, certified small business. I am qualified to do public works projects. And I have done public works projects successfully. And I am non union. I would not bid a project with a CWA on it. My workers have been with me for over 15 years now. They receive competitive pay and benefits, and could leave and join a union if they chose to. But they do not, as approximately 85% of your local workforce chooses every day to work for non union contractors. All CWAs have requirements that are harmful to non union contractors. There is a core workforce requirement in all CWAs that allow nonunion contractors to only have a couple of their own workers. This CWA only allows 5 of a contractor's own workers on a project. A contractor's workers are what make them qualified to bid. Without their workers, their safety and successful completion of the job are at risk, because they do not know the skills or challenges of the workers the unions are sending to them. A contractor's reputation and safe workforce are what qualifies them to bid. Without their workers, they are no longer qualified bidders. And what makes this agreement even more discriminatory, is that it allows union contractors to use all their workforce. This is blatant discrimination and should not be allowed. Non union contractors have been doing your work. They have built your city, and they have been paying the prevailing wages and benefits that are required by law. Do not abandon your local contractors who have been doing your work successfully without a CWA. Do no harm and say no to a CWA. Thank you.

[00:28:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, that. Are there any more blue cards on this?

[00:28:27] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No.

[00:28:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, and we don't have any more speakers on Zoom, so that brings us to the end of the public... So I will bring this back to the council for emotion, for discussion, emotion, and second. We have a motion by council member Abi Koga, and a second by Vice Mayor Manachek. Council member Abbe Koga.

[00:28:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, so I'd like to move the consent calendar that includes item 4.2, adopt resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, adopting a list of projects for funding to be allocated during fiscal year 202425, from Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.3, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, amending city council policy D9, council appointee communications, and performance evaluation process, and item 4.5, adopt a resolution of the city. Council of the city of Mountain View approving the annual engineers report for the downtown parking maintenance and operation assessment district number 2 and approving the levying of assessments for fiscal year 202425 to be read entitled only for the rating waived. Thank you.

[00:29:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Are there any council comments? Seeing none? I think it's time for us to vote. The consent calendar passes unanimously. Okay, I'd like to thank everybody for their hard work on this. And now we will move to item five, which is Oral Communications. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Well, give a minute for people to mark, walk out. Thank you for joining us. All right. Item five, oral communications. This portion of the evening is reserved for persons, wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the council's subject matter, expertise, and 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. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first, and each speaker will have two minutes. All right. So, it looks like the first speaker is Mike Meredith. Mike, are you here? Welcome.

[00:32:47] Mike Meredith: Thank you. I'm Mike Meredith. I live at 400 Delmidio Avenue, and a 6 unit condominium project built 1981.

[00:32:58] Mike Meredith: I'm here to respectfully demand that the city immediately enforce the California building code. Geez, that address. I'm missing it? Oh, I'm sorry. Did you hear my first line there? No. I'm here to respectfully demand that the city enforce the California Building Code at 400 Delmidio Avenue here in Mountain View, where I've lived since 1996. Now, the reason for this, is that we have a problem with cantilevered balconies and dryer. I'm sure many of you recall that in 19, excuse me, in 2015, we lost six college students, and five were seriously injured in Berkeley, won a cantilevered balcony, infested with dry rot, collapsed. Now, we have a similar problem today, at 400 Delmidio, it's been there a long time, and it's not getting corrected, in October of 2017, multi tenant inspector, James Olsen cited that building for two cases of clear structural infirmity of balconies, and nothing's been done. It's important to note that these units are owned, along with an additional townhouse, by a real estate investor who has left them empty for a period of 21 to 25 years. Now, I am in court against this investor for his negligence, and against the HOA, for its failure to uphold the CC&Rs, and comply with the Civil Code of California. Now, someday, this condo association, this case will work its way through court, and they'll decide, and we'll figure out how we're going to take care of these balconies. But in the meantime, We have a non trivial safety hazard in front of us. It's important to notice that, uh, to actually half of the building of six units...

[00:35:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, your time is up.

[00:35:21] Mike Meredith: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[00:35:39] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Now we have Abhag, Ganish. Welcome.

[00:35:49] Abey Ganesh: Hello, I'm Abey Ganesh. I'm a mountain view resident on Harpster Drive, and I'm representing our neighborhood of like we have around 12 houses around or 12 or 15 houses. And this is in response to, so as a residence, we sent a letter to the city council with regards to the emergency shelter zoning that happened last month, I believe. We have some concerns. First of all, we don't oppose it, but we would like to get more information with regards to what is going to be done there because we certainly have some safety concerns given what we have experienced and given that it is within walking distance to Graham Middle School. Kids are going there. And senior citizen, peace that is also coming up, right? So there is some real concerns that we are and how is it going to be managed, right? So we need to understand that because we will be primarily impacted by it. There are like 3 locations identified within like this one block between Shoreline and Castro. And we'd like to understand what it is, what is the city doing. Is there the right oversight for it? Are those facilities going to be maintained properly? What's going to happen for what's the neighborhood impact? Because we are already seeing, we have had cases of our residents who actually students who have been working in Mr. Sun or even in Starbucks, where it's been abusive, right? There have been some interactions with mentally challenged folks and we are worried about our kids' safety. So some of the major concerns. So I'd like the city to come.

[00:38:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. You're doing very well. Thank you very much. Your time is up, but you've done very well. We appreciate you coming. Okay? Sally Lieber? Welcome.

[00:38:14] Sally Lieber: Thank you. Thank you, counsel. It's good to see everyone here. I'm Sally Leeper. I'm a 30 plus year resident of Mountain View now. How did that happen? I don't know. But what I wanted to talk with you about tonight is the concern that I have with the notices that are apparently going out to our RV dwelling people. And it was great to see labor here. The predominance of people that are living in RVs in our city, are working in trying to survive here in Mountain View. The waiting list for affordable housing, even for shelter space are just too long. And so people are resorting to RVs. And if there is ticketing, and especially in particular towing of RVs, and especially those RVs that don't belong to the resident, but belong to a landlord, if you will, is really a concern, because people would have a very difficult time of recouping, anything that was inside that RV in terms of their clothing, their medications, their pet, their tools, their children's books, et cetera. And I hope that council can step up and really fill the gap and take responsibility for any changes in terms of towing and the policies around that. I know the council has already done a lot. on the issue of the RVs. And my own feeling is that we need to get back to where we were before, when there were RV parks up and down the peninsula, that were an option for working people. But right now, I think that this issue, in particular, has to be dealt with with extreme care. And I hope the council won't just leave it to the PD to implement, but will take personal responsibility for it. Thank you.

[00:40:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is Corey Walbach. Welcome, Corey.

[00:40:26] Corey Wolbach: Hello. My name is Corey Wolbach with Silicon Valley at home. We are the convening organization for Affordable Housing Month here in Santa Clara County. Thank you for earlier tonight, recognizing Affordable Housing Month officially. And thank you to you and especially your housing department for being great partners in trying to get more of our desperately needed affordable housing built right here in our community. And I should say, I'm a proud Mountain View resident. I walked here tonight from my home. Uh, and also a renter. So I know the rent is too high. This is really the time to bring people together so we can transform our communities into more affordable, accessible places to live. Of note, as we look to the future, across the 9 County Bay Area region, a broad coalition is working to place on the ballot, hopefully, potentially, in November, a affordable housing bond that could bring as much as $20 billion, that's with a B, $20 billion for affordable housing to the Bay Area, $4500000000 of that could be for Santa Clara County. SV at home, along with working partnerships, USA, is leading to effort to place that on the ballot. Uh, so we want to just make sure that the public and you are aware of that. Our theme for Affordable Housing Month this year is for us, for you, for all, recognizing that our well being is tied to the well being of our neighbors. We're lifting up local partner programming to demonstrate the breadth and power of our collective work in the Santa Clara County affordable housing ecosystem. We envision a future for the Bay Area that begins with us. Please be sure to check out our entire calendar of Affordable Housing Month events at Silicon Valley at home.org slash events. siliconvalley at home.org slash events. Thank you again very much. Good night.

[00:42:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is Tim McKenzie, and after Tim, Megan Fraley.

[00:42:22] Tim McKenzie: Greetings, all. I'm Tim McKenzie, he him pronouns, Monteloma resident for almost a decade at this point. I'm here to echo what an earlier commenter said, and I'm sure what future commenters will say about asking the police department to move slowly with ticketing and towing RVs. There are community-based organizations that have actually been able to obtain some funding in this time when we have a state budget that's facing a shortfall, nonprofits left and right all over the country are having budget issues. There have been some community-based organizations that have got funding and are hoping to be able to bring in more to help deal with registration, things like that. And if the police start towing, or even ticketing, then that's going to really just dig the hole deeper, that we need to give some time for these community-based organizations to be able to help with the registration, the smog check, all the things that will need to be taken care of, these things have taken time, I don't know the last time you went to the DMV, but it is not always the smoothest or fastest process. So things take a little bit of time. And if we start ticketing now, that's real, all that funding that those community-based organizations have been able to get in a very difficult funding environment, we'll just be getting back to the status quo of where we are now, not actually moving forward. So I really hope and that you guys can consider this and you'll advise the police department to issue warnings and make connections between when they're going to be ticketing or towing instead make connections with the community-based organizations like reach momentum or things like that. Thank you.

[00:44:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. My next speaker is Megan friendly. welcome, Megan.

[00:44:25] Megan Fraley: Thank you. Megan Fraley. I guess I've lived in Mountain View for about 18 years now. Um, I know, that's crazy. I just want to come to speak around expired registration tickets, not being used to tow someone's home, and working with the police department to not kind of take that route. I think we all know that feeling, that drop in your stomach, when you see police lights, and you think, is that me who's about to get pulled over? And just imagine, let's say, for some reason, one of you, one of us, lost our house, we're stuck in our car, and then the police show up, and the terror of them taking our home, our dog, you know, whoever might be in that car or that vehicle. So I think really it's just kicking people while they're down. It doesn't solve anything. It just digs somebody who's in a lot of pains hole, a lot of a lot deeper. We have someone outside my workplace that, I just, on my way here, someone came up to me and said, we should call the police or someone who's been sleeping in their car for 5 days. And I said, we should call CSA, not call the police. This is just a person. And I work at a mental health facility. So we're just making people, good people who just are down on their luck because we live in one of the hardest, most expensive places to live. We're actually hurting their mental health and we just need to get to know people and know that we're safe, that they're not there to hurt us. They're just trying to survive. Thank you.

[00:45:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Our next speaker is Joan McDonald, and after that, Edie Keating. Welcome, Joan.

[00:46:02] Joan McDonald: It has to come way down. Hello? I'm here to echo and to say ditto to the last two speakers. And I want to point out something that's a little troubling to me in addition to the threat of towing. And that is, that it appears to me, that that thread has not been equitable over the entire city, and all of the vehicles that are not currently registered. That distresses me. Additionally. And I do think that the council needs to be... constantly... attending to the equitability of enforcing whatever the code or the laws require. So I would urge you to help the PD see that their roles need to be totally equitable. And in this case, the money is coming. It's just coming from a source that is very slow, distributing it, the county. Thank you.

[00:47:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Edie Keating. Welcome.

[00:47:47] Edie Keating: Thank you. So I, too, am here to speak about ticketing and towing. And this document really got me here, this flyer from the police. And I have been hearing, with pleasure, that the police are using discretion, and seeking to not tow, and in communication with community groups, and those verbal reports are great. But I think I'd like, I will feel more peaceful and need to feel more peaceful. When this flyer, the printed material, says registration, expired registration for more than six months on any public street, highway alley, or publicly owned property, may lead to the motor vehicle trailer, or semi trailer being towed. So there's nothing printed here that says, but the police are going as slow as they can. Um, I think, when there's a lot about registration, that time and money can fix. Perhaps not everything, perhaps not a vehicle that will never be smogged again. But for so many vehicles, even old ones, time and money can fix the problem. And I wish that we lived in a world where, um, of RV was not the best option that some people have, but unfortunately, it is the best option for some people. And so I just encourage you to express yourselves to the police department and through the city manager, that you really want the police to go as slow as possible. And to be informed, and to know that all options have been taken before any vehicle is towed, because that's when it really gets expensive. And it might as well be just confiscating the vehicle, because those costs are so high. Thank you for your consideration.

[00:49:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Brown, and after that, we will go to virtual speakers.

[00:49:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Welcome, Alex.

[00:50:00] Alex Brown: Hey, friends. Ah, I was stuck out there because of all the crowd earlier. Okay. I'm also here to talk. I'm gonna echo Tim's preemptive echo of myself and then end up in an infinite loop. So, might take the full 2 minute, no. Uh, I think the city has been doing a great job working with the CBOs, working with the residents. Jan Land's got doing outreach, making sure that people who are living in vehicles have notice, but that doesn't stop the, that doesn't mean that we don't have enough housing. The acknowledgment earlier from affordable housing, all the stuff that we're doing, the Lot 12 that's coming up. We need more. We need a place for people to stay until we have it. Just ticketing and towing doesn't help. It isn't keeping people safe. It is not, like, benefiting the community at large, and it's actively harming some of the most vulnerable people. Uh, so I just want the city to continue, lead with compassion, do what you can to help people and focus on the things that we can do to solve the root cause of the problem, which is not having places for people to live, uh, instead of focusing on one symptom and then treating people like a symptom. instead of people. Thank you.

[00:51:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now, that's all the speakers, um, in, uh, the chambers, but we have a few virtual ones, Devin Connolly. You're 1st and then Bruce England.

[00:51:38] Devin Connolly: Good evening, Mayor Show, Walter, and honorable council members. My name is Devin Conley, and I'm an 18 year resident of Mountain View. I'm also the co founder and vice president of the Digital Equity Coalition of Santa Clara County. Since the pandemic hit in 2020, we have championed both short term solutions, to closing the digital divide, and long term solutions like broadband infrastructure development. We were successful in 2020 and advocating for $10 million from the county, for hotspots devices and data plans for 15,000 high needs families, across the county. In 2022, we pushed the board of supervisors to approve a referral on establishing a municipal broadband service or a JPA with other local agencies to provide broadband to unserved or underserved households throughout the county. Despite a slight hiccup last week, when that report came back as a digital equity strategy that did not address broadband, the board of supervisors sent the report back for a thorough analysis of the cost and opportunities for countywide broadband at our urging. Here in Mountain View, I applaud you for taking on a broadband needs assessment. This work is all the more urgent right now because the Federal Affordable Connectivity Program, which provided subsidized internet service plans for over 39,000 households in the county, expired in April. But I also urge the city to connect to the work that is being done by the county, to establish municipal broadband or a JPA. It does not make sense for cities like ours and Los Altos Hills, which is also exploring broadband. To undertake this alone, when the county is additionally exploring broad broadband access. There is federal and state funds to pull down for these efforts, and I know that together we can achieve something far more supportive and sustainable long term than if we go it alone as the city of Mountain View. Thank you for your work. Internet access is a human right.

[00:53:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Devin. And the next speaker is Bruce England.

[00:53:42] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England, Wisman Station Drive. I have three quick comments that essentially echo what has been said by previous speakers, so nothing new. care for me. Number one, fair labor practices are essential. And to the fullest extent, our city can manage it. As a son and grandson of local labor members, I'm proud of the work they did as union members, and I feel strongly that the labor practices they enjoyed in years past, must be carried forward here in the same spirit. Second. The resumption of ticketing for vehicles used for living purposes is very unfortunate, and I urge city council to do what you can to help pull in this policy, in the interest of those in our community, who are most challenged, as they face the needs in their lives, that can be near impossible, if not entirely impossible. Most of us do not have to contend with such challenges. And our compassion for them must be exercised in this case. And lastly, I agree that the situation at 400 Del Medio appears to be problematic. It reminds me of a long considered problem with soft story buildings in Mountain View at serious risk in the event of a major earthquake. I urge you to direct code enforcement or other appropriate city team to look into potential issues with this location and other locations like it, for that matter. Thank you.

[00:55:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. I'm just checking to see if we have any more virtual speakers, and we don't seem to. So that brings, um, public comment to a close for, um, for item. Fine. And that brings us to new business. Our first item is 6.1, Lot 12, Affordable Housing Development, supplemental city funding and project modifications. Would any council members like to make disclosures? Council member Ramirez.

[00:55:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I will disclose that I had an opportunity to speak with the applicant prior to the meeting.

[00:55:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Vice Mayor Matachek.

[00:55:51] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I also had an opportunity to speak with the applicant prior to the meeting.

[00:55:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Uh, Council member Ramos.

[00:55:59] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I also had the opportunity to speak with the applicant before this meeting. Also, we drive by like that site all the time to get here.

[00:56:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do. Council member, Abbe Coca.

[00:56:13] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I too have met with the applicant and walk by the site quite often on my daily walks with my dog.

[00:56:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Well, I think I'll make that unanimous. I have met with the applicant on many occasions. Okay. So, now we'll move into the presentation section. Housing director Wayne Chin, and acting assistant city manager, community development director, Dawn Cameron, 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. And, um, so we'll have the staff presentation. Thank you.

[00:56:56] Housing Director Wayne Chin: Thank you, Mayor and Council. As mentioned, this item is regarding the Lot 12 Affordable Housing Project, and the supplemental funding request, and information about some key project modifications. It's been some time since this project has come before you. So here is just a slide on some key milestones, highlighting that the development team of related and Ulta were selected back about 4 years ago. And that the key project terms were executed back in the early 2022 and the project was approved via a streamlined SB 35 application in April of 2022. This is a summary of the project's key components. Again, 120 units of a wide range of affordability levels and some rapidly housing units. This is a development that has some mixed use of space, which is one of the key ways in which the project will achieve some of its placemaking components. And the project is replacing all 160 public parking spaces via payment to the city. The development team has worked really hard to advance the project and what the development team has done so far is to secure a variety of funding sources. That includes measure A funding from the county. Really important 25 project-based vouchers from the housing authority, an innovative funding source for pre-development funding from destination home, and city funding as well, which includes 4 and a quarter 1000000 from the city's housing funds, as well as $8 million that were secured through Senator Becker's leadership, $8000000 from the state there as well. So that was really good. However, there is still a $36000000 gap for the project. And we would want to note that this is a very tough development environment, not just here in Mountain View, but throughout the county and the region. There are several measure A projects that are also stuck in the county, along with cities, are trying to find ways to move them forward. The challenges include the lack of funding, cost increases, and also increases in borrowing costs and interest rates. The development team has implemented and is proposing several ways to close the gap. The 1st one is really focusing on securing state and federal tax credits, and the development team has submitted an application for those funding sources in April. The team is also proposing to make some modifications to the project's design that can save a significant amount of project costs, a total of approximately $90000, which the city staff will work with the developer to implement through a ministerial SB 35 process. Just to summarize some of the key design changes that we'll be able to save, key project costs would be moving the residential ground 4 units currently located on the ground floor. To the 2nd floor, and then there would be some associated design changes along with that. And so that's projected to save approximately $8 million. The 2nd component is to modify the construction management plan, which would include a partial closure of Bryant Street. And we just wanted to highlight here that the intent here is that by being able to use a portion of Bryant Street for the construction, staging, we'll be able to save the project a $10000 in project costs. Some remaining strategies to help close the gap is to increase, uh, some of the units from 60% AMI to 80%, which would bring in some additional rents, to include 15 units for the intellectually and developmentally disabled, which unlocks county funds, which we'll talk about in just a moment. And then all of the project modifications would be, again, processed through the SB 35 process. With these modifications, the project still remains compliant with the RFP requirements. However, there is still a $10000000 gap. So one of the ways that the developer team has implemented to close the 10000000 gap is to connect with the county and the city. And in April, the board of supervisors did approve additional funding to help bridge the funding gap. The county has identified additional funding. to support the IDD units, the intellectually and developmentally disabled units, and also some bridge funding of remaining measure aid funding that could help bridge the gap. The developer did need to show that the funding gap was closed for the tax credit application, so the county was able to have some bridge funding up to $10000000 to help bridge the gap and allow the developer to submit their tax credit application. So here tonight is the city, um, uh, in staff recommending an additional $5000000 of city funding to close the remaining 10000000 gap. A lot of 12 does remain a priority project for the city. The site is part of the city's housing element, site inventory, and there is sufficient funding in our BMR funds. With the additional funding, it would be bringing the city funding up to 17.25 million, and this funding would be needed to advance the project. If council approves the recommendation, then the next step would be for us to work with the developer to amend the development agreement, the least disposition, development, and loan agreement. And then the developer would submit the proposed changes regarding design through the SB 35 process. And assuming the project gets awarded tax credits, the anticipated project start would be a Q one of next year with a 24 a month estimated construction timeline. So here's the recommendation for council's consideration to appropriate $5000000 from the city's BMR funds and to authorize the city manager designated to make the necessary amendments to the development agreement. That concludes staff's presentation. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

[01:03:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Ramos? Is your name up from before? Okay. All right. Do we have any council questions? At this time. All right, well, then we're open, we'll open it up for, um, comments, and don't we have a presentation by the... the applicant?

[01:04:15] Unknown Speaker: No presentation, but they are here to respond to any questions, should the council have any?

[01:04:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Um, so, do we have anyone who would like to speak, um, Council member Ramirez?

[01:04:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No public comment?

[01:04:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I thought you wanted to speak before public comment.

[01:04:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No. No. We will go for public. Yeah.

[01:04:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So in that case, I will open the public comment. And, um, would any member of the public who would like to speak on this, please bring a, um, a, uh, blue speaker card? Do we have any blue speaker cards on this? Nick. Ah, we do. Nick Wilder. Welcome, Nick. And also, if anyone on Zoom would like to speak, This is a good time to click the raised hand button and press nine on your phone. Welcome, Nick and go ahead.

[01:05:17] Nick Wilder: Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Nick Wilder. I work for one of the applicants, related California. The pleasure of meeting with some of you, and here, our partner, Alta housing, as our co developer and partner with the city on this project. I just wanted today to thank you as a council and mayor and city staff for all of their work, thus far on Mountain View Lot 12. We know how important this site in this project is to the city of Mountain View. Its prominent location, within downtown, just across the street here, as well. You know, we've heard abundantly on various issues tonight of the urgent and important need for affordable housing within this community. This is a very challenging development environment with the governor's budget, an additional state funding, just not being there. So we've worked creatively to try to come up with an alternate pathway to move this project forward as quickly as possible to house as many people. Um, and we appreciate, uh, mountain view's partnership on, uh, that vision and being able to to creatively move this forward. So that's all I have to say tonight. I just wanted to really thank you all and thank staff. for all of their work. We came with some plans and ideas. Very last minute. Staff worked incredibly diligently and hard over a short period of time to bring this forward, to be able to take advantage of some state and county funding within that window. So we just want to express our sincere gratitude. you all. Thank you.

[01:07:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do we have any other speakers? Okay. All right, well, um, I see, uh, council member Ramirez has indicated he wants to speak.

[01:07:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I want to move the staff recommendation, and then share just some quick thoughts and observations. First, echoing the comment that we've just heard. I'm very grateful to both the applicant and staff for the very good work to find a solution to a very tricky problem. We're not alone in trying to figure out how to unstick projects that are struggling to achieve financial feasibility when there is now a decreasing amount of funding to draw from at the state level, especially. And it's a much more competitive environment. And we thought that this would be a very competitive project. And I think it is, but we're also, I think, appreciating that, um, the environment moving forward is going to be very different from how we envisioned even just a few years ago. And I appreciated the mention and the staff report about the very different economic reality that existed when this project was first conceived. And that's one of the things I wanted to share as an observation. I think we had to make a tough call fairly early on. I came relatively late into the process. I know the council had been thinking about this a lot for some time prior to my election, but one of the challenges that we had to think about as, well, there's going to be a significant impact with the loss of 160 public parking spaces. And so the challenge that the council contended with in 2019 was, do we require that all 160 parking spaces be replaced on site, underground, or do we find some other way of mitigating that impact? And the answer ended up being, well, we'll accept a fee in lieu. So that way we can, you know, identify other funding sources and construct a parking structure elsewhere. And I think at the time, it was ambitious to expect this of an affordable housing developer, but we thought it would be achievable. And what I'm sensitive to is, while I strongly support the staff recommendations, in particular, particularly the efforts to conduct some value engineering, to make this financially feasible, and then also the relief were providing with the construction management plan, it doesn't feel so good to take affordable housing funding to essentially pay for the parking replacement cost. That's the 10 million split by the county and city. And I think, you know, that's absolutely a public need, and the council has been working aggressively to figure out how to implement our downtown parking strategy. I just wish we could do it with funding other than affordable housing funding, which is limited and hard to use for this purpose, in my opinion. So I think, you know, moving forward, I think we'll have to be much more sensitive to economic realities and financial feasibility of affordable housing projects, including projects that are already entitled, and now struggling to move forward. I hope we can take some of the learnings from this experience and apply them to those other projects. So similar, um, opportunities to, uh, implement more cost efficient design, for instance. I would be willing, maybe this is a discussion with the council, to explore construction management plan relief that we've provided with this project, also in other contexts, and there are different impacts there. But if we want these projects to be delivered, we have to make some tough calls. And there's only so much money to go around. I think it's worth it for this project. It's such an important project to deliver, a model for other jurisdictions, but we're not going to be able to provide the same financial relief for every single project that is stuck. So what are the other tradeoffs that we're willing to make? And I think that's going to be the name of the game for the next couple of years, unfortunately. So, again, thank you to staff. I know this is not easy. When we all learned about this just a few months ago. I will say as the pessimist on the council, I wasn't certain this was going to happen, so I'm very grateful that you found a way to make it work. Thank you.

[01:11:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I don't see any more council lights. So I'm going to make a comment. And my comment is that I am, too, very grateful to staff and to the developer for the creativity and the hard work that you have put into this to come up with a solution. And, um, I, you know, I'm very supportive. At the same time, every time I visit legislatures, they tell me that they want to understand the stories behind the money that we use. And I think that this is a very important story to tell. So I would like to ask that we draft a letter to our legislators, explaining, really, what we've had to go through to get this to work. Is it okay if we add that as a friendly amendment?

[01:12:32] Unknown Speaker: Could we have an assessment of the staff capacity impact? I'm not opposed to it, but I want to make sure I understand the utility of the staff time expended in producing the letter.

[01:12:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: I think that we have a very explicit example here of how money has been used creatively, and we've had to glean it from so many sources, and that's taken such a long time. And we've had to re, you know, we've had to re design the project. I think it's a good story to tell. I don't think it's a long letter. They have the staff report. They can take some paragraphs out of the staff report, I think, primarily. I'll defer to it. Yeah, staff. Yeah, staff has some comments.

[01:13:20] Unknown Speaker: Yes, I believe we can certainly work with the city manager's office with the intergovernmental relations team and with our RPPG to draft a letter to share this story and perhaps other relevant information that can help shape at the state level.

[01:13:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: I'm happy to include it in the motion, but I'll share one of the concerns I have is what I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, part of the challenge is the ground lease prepayment was an impediment to securing the state funding. So we want to be careful, not to say, part of the reason why we need, you know, relief from the state is because we wanted the developer to pay $10 million for our downtown parking plan. That's a hard sell for the state legislature. So I think how we articulate this has to be very careful. I trust staff can do a good job with that. Council member Abby Koga.

[01:14:14] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mira, and thank you for your suggestion. I think it is important to tell our stories, and I actually would say that the issue of the ground lease is important to talk about, because what I've seen, as I've seen affordable housing and been in these conversations, I don't think that there's a real clear understanding of the, frankly, the consequences to a city and the city finances about when we do these projects. I know affordable housing is important. So is economic development and having parking in our downtown is still a necessity. And to be told that the state expected us to not to forgive that groundways, to me, was actually a problem, because if the expectation is for the city to finance all of these, you know, necessities, these amenities, how does that practical, right? And, you know, just, and, to be more blunt, I guess, I do feel like we, the city is getting squeezed more and more. And, um, you know, we can't require power parking, but we, this one we had it already is a part of the project, and then to not be able to get funding because it was part of the project. I think they need to understand that these are still things that a city needs. And if not through investments, where do they, where does the state expect the city to come up with the funding to be able to provide the services and amenities that are important to a city? So I actually think it is important to tell our story, to be frank, as I've seen what other communities are doing, Mauvia really is ahead of the curve. And we're starting to, I think, see the challenges of the state legislation because we're so far ahead. And other cities are just starting, and they haven't come to these, frankly, some conflicts. And I think it's important for us because we are leading the charge to share with our legislators that there are some unintended consequences. So thank you, Mayor.

[01:16:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, um, is the, so the mover has agreed to the change, is that, okay. Oh. So is that okay with the seconder? It was changed? Okay, all right. Well, are there any more, so we have a motion, and we have a second. And I don't see any more council comments, so that means that it's time to vote. The motion passes unanimously, and I would like to thank everyone involved. We appreciate your hard work and expertise. Okay. Now then, we move on to item 6.2. Item 6.2 is a potential revenue measure for the 2024 general election ballot. We'll be joined at the Dias by Assistant City Manager Arn Andrews, Deputy City Manager Kimberly Thomas, and Jessica Polski Sanchez, principal EMC Research. 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. Thank you. Well, welcome, staff. Are you ready?

[01:18:08] Unknown Speaker: Almost.

[01:18:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Go ahead. Thank you.

[01:18:14] Unknown Speaker: We're just getting queued up, mayor. Thank you.

[01:18:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, while you're taking a break, I'm just going to make an announcement, and that is that. The, um, the council neighborhoods committee is having a neighborhoods meeting tomorrow evening at, um, 630 at the, uh, Amy MI, uh, school multi-purpose room. It is for the Grant Sylvan area, and we would like as many people to attend as possible. Thank you.

[01:19:08] Unknown Speaker: And mayor, maybe while we're getting queued up, I can go ahead and start the conversation. So just to reorient the council, this conversation started back in September when we had a study session, and the study session was brought forward because the council had a priority A item to explore a potential revenue measure. And so that's exactly where we've been doing, is we've started that exploration. And tonight is another step along the way in that exploration, as we move towards ultimately a decision, to either place a measure on the ballot in November for our community to consider or not, and we'll be back in June to have that discussion. But currently... Good? Yeah. Almost. Okay? So you'll recall back in September, we came forward with a study session because of the council's direction on exploring a revenue measure. And at that meeting, one of the things we did, if you could move forward. Thanks. At that meeting, one of the things staff brought forward was the fact that, from a budgetarian financial perspective, Mountain View has been fortunate that we're able to meet the needs of today. But what we have learned over the years, as we see some other priorities for the community and for the council, is that we have a lot of objectives that we would like to accomplish in the future. And as you can see from this diagram, the Mountain View of Tomorrow, and some of our future goals come with some pretty hefty price tags. And so, a revenue measure at that meeting was discussed, and at that meeting, it was discussed to also create an ad hoc committee, to do further exploration on the concept of maybe doing a revenue measure. And if you go to the next slide, So at that meeting, you created an ad hoc committee that included the members of your council finance committee. You asked staff and the committee to focus on what we referred to as 50 plus one revenue measures. And you also asked us to continue, as we said tonight, the exploration of potentially doing a revenue measure. Thanks. So your ad hoc committee met on five occasions. You can see that they had their first meeting in December, when they convened for the first time. They then had subsequent meetings. that started to look at detailed different types of revenues that meet a 50 plus one category. They then started to discuss those revenue types, as they would relate to putting together a survey instrument. And then they ultimately came up with language to be provided in that survey instrument. And then they finally decided on, and they heard the polling results, that you'll also be hearing tonight. And so part of the exploration we've been doing is trying to understand what our community thinks, and to engage them. And so tonight, we have Jessica Polski Sanchez, who is the principal for EMC, who conducted the polling on our behalf, and she's going to share the results of that. Thanks very much.

[01:22:07] Jessica Polski Sanchez: Thanks for having me. I will present some poll highlights tonight from the survey of likely voters here in the city of Mountain View. So on the next slide, a quick overview of the methodology of this pole. In order to reach a sample of just over 600 voters, here in the city, we used multimodal methodology, so that incorporates live telephone interviews, along with online interviews where we reach voters by email or text invitation. We did, as I mentioned, complete just over 600 interviews, so that carries an overall margin of error of plus or -3.95 percentage points. We did the survey in mid-March between March 14th and 27th. The survey was offered in multiple languages. English, Spanish and Chinese languages. And we did utilize what's called a split sample methodology, simply to balance out order effects so that we could test a potential transient occupancy tax and a potential property transfer tax measure in different orders and balance out the potential order effects. So on the next slide, I'll just share a few highlights from the poll. This question we thought would be helpful for you to see, it is an overall question that we use to gauge optimism or pessimism among the local electorate. Do you feel things in Mountain View are generally going in the right direction, or do you feel that things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track? We do ask this question in a lot of different communities. You can see the headline on this slide said, voters are optimistic about the direction of the city, and that's even a bit of an understatement. 72% say things are headed in the right direction. Only 22% say things are off on the wrong track. And that's overwhelmingly positive, especially when we compare this community to a lot of other communities where we conduct polling and ask a similar question. On the next slide, these questions help us understand how voters rate the job that the city is doing. Generally speaking, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the job the city of Mountain View is doing to provide city services? You can see the results from this poll on the top where it says 2024, where 27% are very satisfied, 53% somewhat satisfied, and on the dissatisfied side, we have 17% total. So overwhelmingly, voters are satisfied with the job the city is doing. You can see we have some data from way back in 2012. with which to compare these results. Although we see some softening compared to that 2012 survey, that's very consistent with what we're seeing in communities over the last 10 or so years, along with, you know, changes in methodology for polling and what is the industry standard for polling nowadays. So still, I want to emphasize the overwhelming majority, 79% say that they're satisfied with local city services. We also asked, would you say you were satisfied or dissatisfied with the management of city finances in the city of Mountain View? And here, again, we see a majority 62% are at least somewhat satisfied, whereas 21% are dissatisfied. On this next slide, this highlights a perception of need for additional funding. So we asked, would you say that the city has a great need for more money. Some need for more money, little need for more money, or no real need for money for city services. And you can see, among the 90% who were able to give a substantive response, we have an even divide, where about half see a need for additional funding, and half do not. On the next slide. A few questions to help us gauge willingness to pay through a revenue measure for services and sentiment around taxes in general. These are, do you agree or disagree with this statement type of questions? The first one on the top? It is crucial to have high quality city services, even if it means raising taxes. You can see two thirds, 67%, agree with that statement, 31% disagree. We also see a majority just about two thirds who agree. I trust the city of Mountain View to properly manage the funds it collects. And when it comes to the anti-tax sentiment, I generally oppose increases to taxes regardless of what they are used for, a majority, 56% disagree with that sentiment. On the next slide, here you can see how voters and respondents to the survey voted on these two potential measures, a transient occupancy tax, and a property transfer tax. As I mentioned, we used a split sample methodology to balance out order effects, but what you see on this slide is the overall results of the average of the 2 splits. So everybody was asked about each of these measures in the survey. And these are the results. So on the left hand side, we see 53% inclined to support the TOT, 38% would vote no, on a property transfer tax measure, 63% vote, yes, 30% no, 7% undecided. On the next slide, we had an opportunity to ask about some potential service priorities or components of a potential revenue measure. So some of the things that could be funded with additional revenue for the city. And we asked about each of these on a scale from one to seven, where one is not at all important, and seven is extremely important. How would you rate each one? And so you can see where we ended up on the slide, we're showing the 7s, 6s, and 5s on that one to 7 scale, along with the total, who consider each of these to be important. Rising to the top, our maintaining 911 medical and disaster response, fixing potholes, repairing streets and sidewalks, and addressing homelessness. You can see, however, that all of the items on this list are important to a majority, or almost a majority, adding local parks is important to 47%. On the next slide, some additional information about the benefits and features of a potential revenue measure. We wanted to see how this might impact opinions about the measure if voters understood a little bit more about the benefits and the features. So each of these questions was presented, and we asked how convincing is this as a reason to support the measures, very convincing, somewhat convincing, not at all convincing, not very convincing or not at all convincing. And on this slide, you can see summarized the very and somewhat convincing. Similar to what we learned when we tested the potential service priorities. We learned here, that explaining the benefits to disaster response, as well as the benefits to infrastructure projects, like increasing safety of streets and roads, is highly compelling to voters as a reason to support a revenue measure, along with a couple of explanations about the accountability features of a potential measure. Also, the highlighting how this would impact the average citizen, as well as the benefits to local parks. All of these messages are impactful and convincing as reasons to support a potential revenue measure. And with that, that is what we wanted to share today, and I'm happy to hand it back to the city. Thank you.

[01:29:56] Arn: So, given the positive polling results for a property transfer tax, the ad hoc committee and consultation with staff and our consultants, asked us to explore more on a property transfer tax and bring it to this body for discussion. So, just to remind folks, there are currently six charter cities in our county, three of which have taken advantage of the ability to have a slightly different property transfer tax rate than the non charter cities. You can see here, Mountain View ourselves is one of them. in addition to Palo Alto, and then San Jose, who implemented a progressive tiered structure. One of the things I'll also say, as the other three cities are Gilroy, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale, Sunnyvale is actually having similar deliberations as ourselves to explore whether or not they want to pursue a property transfer tax. So, since we are starting to explore the property transfer tax a little more, what would that mean to us if we were to bring a ballot measure forward, the way it was polled, which is basically for any property over $5 million? You can see, looking back five years, these would be the additional revenues that would have been received if we had this in place. And over time, it averages out to about 9 1/2 million in additional avenue, additional annual revenue if we were to implement it. Looking a little deeper into the numbers, what exactly does this translate to in Mountain View in terms of residential properties versus commercial properties? So doing that same five year lookback? You can see that there were eight properties, residential properties, that were actually over $5 million in value? And then you can see, the commercial properties are 75 commercial properties for a total of 83. There were years on the residential side, where there were zero properties that traded over five million, and you start to see this year so far, we've had three. What this breaks down to into actual AV is for the eight residential transactions. I totaled about 46,725,000 in transaction volume. For the commercial properties, the 75. You can see that that actually translated into $3 billion, 297 million, 606,000. And so clearly, the commercial side of this proposition is the majority of what we'd be discussing. And you can see the total of residential and commercial together is about 3.3 billion. And I'm going to hand it over now to Kimberly Thomas.

[01:32:35] Kimberly Thomas: Great. Thank you, Arn. For context shown on screen here is a summary of the timeline and required legal and administrative procedures for the formal adoption and placement of a revenue measure in Santa Clara County. The crucial deadlines occur in August in advance of the general election in November. If community feedback supports it, staff would return for a discussion of ballot language at the June 25th council meeting. If given direction to move forward, staff will conduct extensive public outreach and information sharing will also be seeking and receiving organized feedback from the community. This will include developing an informational web page, a mailer speaking opportunities, among other channels that will be used. If feedback supports it, as noted, we would then develop a measure for the November ballot. Shown on screen here is the recommendation for the council, which is to receive the revenue measure polling results and recommendations from the ad hoc subcommittee, direct staff to pursue community outreach regarding service needs, and come back to the council with a recommended action. This concludes staff's presentation, and the project team as well as our consultant are available for questions. Thank you.

[01:34:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: First, we'll have council questions and then we'll have public comment. So do we have any council members who would like to ask questions? Or spare man to check.

[01:34:11] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. I briefly had the opportunity to speak with staff about this before the meeting. And I was wondering if we had considered having some sort of an annual increase built into this.

[01:34:27] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for the question. One of the areas we want to explore more between now and June when we come back to this body is exactly that. It was raised that perhaps having some type of an index function on the 5 million, to make sure that as time progresses, and 5 years from now, 10 years from now, we don't necessarily have to keep coming back to council if we continue to see inflation and home values, very interesting concept, and when we want to explore and potentially a recommendation that we would bring back in June.

[01:34:57] Unknown Speaker: Do we have any idea if that's, um, fairly common or not?

[01:35:03] Unknown Speaker: So we don't? But we can definitely look into that. It is common, whenever you have a flat dollar amount, regardless of what we're discussing tonight, to have some type of an inflation factor. just picking the right inflation factor, and then picking the right time frame to do it in increments. And that is part of what we'll research between now and June.

[01:35:23] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you.

[01:35:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Councilman Rabbi Coca?

[01:35:31] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, staff, for the presentation, all of your work on this. I was just a few questions. Um, when we looked at the options for the type of measure, um, did we not look at a bond measure because a bond measure more than 50 plus one?

[01:35:53] Unknown Speaker: That's correct, council member. It would be a two-thirds if we went for a geo bond or something of that effect.

[01:36:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. And then, um, there's some, maybe we received emails. The representative may speak as well, but I occasionally look at Zillow, and I had seen over the last few years, some homes that were for sale over $5000000 I think the staff report said there was one, but the email has actually eight. Do you have an update or an idea of what the real number is?

[01:36:40] Unknown Speaker: So we looked at transactions that had already occurred, were not familiar with what could be listed and potentially sold. But you can see that for 23, 24 through March, there were three, over five million. And so whether or not that's an indicator of a higher propensity, I don't necessarily know, there were three again in the year 2021, 22, followed by zero. So we don't necessarily know if there's a discernible pattern, but this is between now and June, when we talk about doing community outreach. Obviously, we would reach out to the commercial industry to talk to them, and that's along with the Chamber.

[01:37:17] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: That was my next question was, what is the plan for stakeholder outreach moving forward? So, I am interested in hearing from the development community, what their thoughts are on this, and, um, And I guess I would ask perhaps our EMC representative. When you do the polling, I understand it's probably difficult to, um, estimate the influence or the effects of a opposition campaign, but, um, do you have some insights to that?

[01:37:58] EMC Research Pollster: Yes, indeed. We didn't show you the slide, but we did investigate the potential impact of opposition on both measures. We did see an impact of opposition in the poll, although we did see support for the property transfer tax remained above the 50% threshold. even after opposition messages. So, yes.

[01:38:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay.

[01:38:23] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, thank you. I also had a question. One of them was about the indexing, so thank you for asking that. And another one was about, um, what about the projects that are currently in the pipeline. And...

[01:38:49] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Great question. So, we did look out in our various departments to get an understanding. Our understanding is, anything in the pipeline has currently already purchased, or at least their land, and so they've already transacted, and so this would not impact them. We did reach out to the housing department, as well, to make sure that there was nothing there. They're currently as not. But it did start to beg the question of, as we were to you in June, should we contemplate whether or not there's a legal ability to have a carve out for affordable housing projects. If, you know, a developer is bound by the fact that if they do purchase the land, and they do get a carve out that it has to be used for affordable housing. That's something we'd like to explore with the city attorney's office when we come back in June.

[01:39:40] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you.

[01:39:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Sorry, any more questions? No. All right, well, with that, I will open the public comment for this. Do we have any cards? I don't see them. Oh, paying Lee. Paying. Welcome.

[01:40:14] Paying Lee: Hi. Hi, Council, yes, I think it's worth exploring putting the ballot measure for the community to consider, especially for the property transfer tax. I mean, just even from today's presentations, there are so many needs in terms of affordable housing. A lot of times when I talk with community members. We are looking at parks and open spaces, and there's also throughout the past console meetings, we've heard a lot about displacement strategy, economic fatality strategy. I think the increase into city revenues. We would benefit from putting property transfer tax. I like the idea of the index, making sure that we also increase the property to X every year without having to come to council regularly. So I think these are all worth considerations for the community to ultimately vote in November. With regards to community outreach regarding service needs. I think the survey has some interesting places to start, but it'd be worth asking the community on what exactly do they want from each of the priority, critical needs regarding sustainability, specifically, parks, affordable housing, anything that helps with our vulnerable populations. We should be asking very specific questions to them instead of, um, and asking them how they would want to see that budget allocated, I think. That would be something that's interesting. Lastly, I think in terms of the staff report. From the staff discussion here, I think it'd be great to see in the next time we come back to the meeting, what the other cities like Sunnyvale are doing. I think that would be worth to also look into to help with our understanding of what could be placed onto our ballot measure in November. Thanks. Thank you. And then the next speaker is Clara Jessup. Welcome. Hi. I'm Claire Jessup, a Mountain View resident, and I was just coming forward to express my support for putting this on the ballot. Um, I do think that it's important, um, like paying was saying to make sure that, um, it's, looked further into how renters will be impacted and not just commercial, which I know you mentioned. I think it's really important to hold corporations accountable as well as very wealthy people able to afford $5000000 homes. And I think this is a great opportunity to explore that more. Um, and I agree that, um, some questions, uh, regarding how the revenue should be used and allocated. I think it is helpful to have more specific questions. Um, I think public safety specifically is a little bit vague, um, and confusing of a question. But generally, I'm just wanting to express my support for the ballot measure. Thanks.

[01:43:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Brown.

[01:43:22] Alex Brown: I'm down with PTT. Okay.

[01:43:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, now we'll go to our virtual speakers. The first one is Bruce England. Bruce, are you there?

[01:43:46] Bruce England: Yeah, it took a while to get the unmute thing, but I just saw it.

[01:43:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. Okay.

[01:43:51] Bruce England: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England Wisman Station Drive. I would like to speak also in support of this measure. I urge you to approve the drafting of a property transfer tax revenue measure for the fall ballot. Already mentioned was affordable housing needs, Parkland needs. There's a whole variety of things. We also, from public works perspective, a number of projects, important projects have been deferred or otherwise compromised, including at least one of the great separation under crossings. along with other CIP projects of great interest in the community. And given that the active transportation plan is being worked on, a lot of attention from the community on these things. As noted in the September staff report, our tax rates do not necessarily align with rates in nearby cities, as they should. I also want to highlight that other taxes were discussed in the September staff report. And I would support continued consideration for some of those as appropriate. In the case of the property transfer tax. It's important that major corporate interests pay their fair share toward the community that they are privileged to enjoy, along with all of us. Thank you.

[01:44:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And the next speaker is April Webster, and after that is Emil Abraham.

[01:45:08] April Webster: Hi, my name's April Webster. I'm a resident, happened for almost a decade and a half. Um, and I'm also an active transportation advocate, and I support the ballot measure, and I want to encourage staff and council to really take a close look, um, at this, and to make sure that, um, when, if it comes through that the, um, money is allocated to match the city's priorities, so that... um, truly realize some of the goals the city has. We've had a look at the CIP for a number of years, and often where we're spending our money isn't really matching what our priorities are. So I'd really love to see, um, you know, walking, walking the talk. So, um, thank you so much for letting me voice my opinion. I see my time.

[01:46:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, April, and the next speaker is Emil Abraham. Emil?

[01:46:15] Emil Abraham: Hi. Can you hear me?

[01:46:18] Unknown Speaker: Yes, we can.

[01:46:19] Emil Abraham: Okay, perfect. Uh, hi, uh, I live on Middlefield Road, and, yeah, I'm just calling in support of the ballot measure. Um, yeah, I ordered the ability to get it on developmentary. Yeah, I love the idea of such a targeted revenue measure, like targeting the folks that are most likely able to afford it and not affecting the general populace. And yeah, um, I hope it goes towards funding, um, projects that will advance our climate goals and hopefully to meet our climate headlines. Um, yeah, thank you very much.

[01:46:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, I don't see any more public speakers, so I will close the public comment and bring it back to the council for deliberation, and it looks like council member Ramirez would like to talk.

[01:47:07] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. I'd like to start by thanking my colleagues on the subcommittee, Vice Mayor Matachek, and Council member Ramos, who currently serve as members of the council finance committee. It was a difficult committee to serve on. I think it was pretty clear from the outset that we all came in with very different ideas, and none of us actually had prioritized this particular revenue source. We all came in with, I think, radically different ideas of what might be viable and what might bring in the revenue necessary to achieve our priorities. And it took a lot of time and very powerful and valuable support from our staff and from the consultants to come to this conclusion. A lot of compromise. Um, and, uh, I think for the better. I'm pretty happy with where things are landing and very grateful that staff will be pursuing a very robust community input strategy over the next month. I think there are a lot of valuable ideas worthy of exploration that have come from members of the public who have weighed in, including the escalator, which is something that the city of San Jose has in the 2022 measure E, a real estate property transfer tax that was approved. So that may serve as a model. And then also some of the other ideas that have come up, including whether there could be an exemption for affordable housing, nonprofits, for instance. So I'm eagerly awaiting the results of those investigations. But I think as a starting point, I want to move the staff and ad hoc subcommittee recommendation. And if I may? Can we put it back on the screen? We'd be looking for the motion to be specific to the 2nd bullet that we're about to get on the screen. Okay, thank you for the clarification. So, I will move to receive the revenue measure pulling results and recommendations from the revenue measure ad hoc subcommittee, and direct staff to continue community outreach regarding service needs and come back to council with recommended action at the June 25th council meeting.

[01:49:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right. Council member Abbe Koka.

[01:49:42] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you again to the, well, actually, I'll include the ad hoc committee. Thank you for all of your hard work on this initiative and thank you to staff. Um, I uh, definitely um, was a bit surprised to see the polling results. As you know, I've been saying this for many years, that we should have gone out for TOT tax a few years back. Um, it's usually TOT taxes are um, pretty um, straightforward. There's not a lot of opposition because it's usually the, especially for a city like Mountain View, the business travelers, whose companies end up paying for the hotel fares or fees. And so there's not a whole lot of opposition to TOT tax. So I think there might be some misunderstanding of what the where those taxes applied. And I understand the concern, I hear it about economic development and small businesses. And so there may be some misunderstanding and disconnect with what a TOT tax, where that's applied. But, um, enlightened. So I appreciate, though, the polling results and data is data. I am concerned, though, as I've brought up the issue of opposition to a campaign, and I know we cannot run a campaign, but having no or very little opposition versus potentially large opposition, and I think property transfer taxes usually have a bigger battle. So that's really my concern with this. I think as we receive some input, definitely looking at indexing. Um, uh, and um, doing the steak. So it says, I'll reach out regarding service needs, but I was hoping that would be expanded to just stakeholder outreach, to get reactions from the development community about how about their feelings about this. So if we can add that. I would appreciate that. Yes. And then I, you know, I am concerned and to be frank, when I came to Mountain Viewer, we bought our 1st home 20 something years ago, I never thought we'd hit $2000000 homes, but we do now have $5000000 homes in the city. And so, um, to minimize the effects on um, on single family residents. And actually, this does affect multi family dwellings too. My thought was, I mean, I would like to see if we could perhaps increase the threshold to 6 million. And I don't know if I could add that as a friendly amendment, if the...

[01:52:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No, I... I appreciate the recommendation, and I'll share a part of the discussion that the subcommittee had when we got the pulling, the data was surprise. and then also a commitment to start doing some stakeholder outreach ourselves. And one of the things that, um, I don't want to share who it was, but somebody who represents a stakeholder group that, um, has interest in this, told me, you know, at at 5000000 in practice. It's probably not the text that's going to make the difference between the sale or no sale. And this is from somebody who, um, has a very strong perspective about this type of revenue source. So I think based on, this is very preliminary, this is why I think I agree with the 1st recommendation to broaden the scope of the outreach to make sure we're talking to the stakeholders to better understand some of these issues and concerns, that what, you know, we need to set a threshold, the 5000000 was itself a compromise. Some of us had considered lower, and some of us were uncomfortable with lower. I'm disinclined to, from the get go, increase it, especially because I think it was a fair point, right? Is the tax going to be, to mean, the difference between the sale or no sale of the $5000000 property. And I'm thinking, you know, looking at some of the numbers that we saw in the staff, responses to the council questions submitted in advance of the meeting, the additional taxes, it's non-trivial. You know, it's very valuable for the city, but in terms of the total value of the property, it doesn't feel like it's going to be the difference maker. So I think maybe as a compromise, I'd be interested in hearing from staff when they come back to us what would be the revenue projection with the higher threshold, but right now, I just want to stick with the the compromise that came out of the subcommittee discussion.

[01:54:57] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I guess I was just hoping we could explore it. Um, I appreciate your comments. You know, I'll go back to, like, my experience and then, you know, my peers or, um, and just looking at the market, oftentimes $100,000 does make the difference of a sale or not, or you'll see prices would drop by that much. And so on a, I think it was like 930000000 on a, you know, $5000000 property. I do think it does matter. So I guess I just wanted to keep it as an option to go higher if we do hear enough and concern about it. So, I guess, yeah, I don't know, like, how specific we have to be tonight, the last item I did have is that can we keep the TOT as an option in case we do get enough pushback that we should consider changing gears in light of the time schedule. I know this comes back to us at the end of June, our last meeting before the summer. And, you know, just so, who knows what's going to happen? The economy is changing quite quickly right now. And did something happen and we have to switch gears. I wouldn't want us to lose the opportunity to do anything. So can we keep the TOT as a 2nd option if we were to need to switch over?

[01:56:35] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I'll just share from an ad hoc committee perspective and consultation with our consultants. Their advice was not to move forward with TOT because of the polling results. They also shared with us that they have seen over the years a consistent degradation in TOTs, that could be a factor of the sympathy associated with COVID and what happened to the hospitality industry. It could be a multitude of things. But their advice was to not move forward. But on June 25th, the council will decide, one way or the other, if the community is gonna be able to weigh in on ballot measure. For us, we were gonna put efforts over the next month and a half into a couple members mentioned, you know, about, well, how would the monies be allocated? So we have statistically valid data now from 606 households. We're going to move forward now with a mailer to all eligible voting households, basically asking the same question with a tear off saying, What's important to you? So we want to see what comes back from a broader range. of the community in terms of what they perceive to be the highest priorities for them. And when we do come back to council based on all that, we probably will have allocation recommendations from a staff perspective based on all the input we've received. And then, we're also gonna have very specific meetings with industry groups. I mentioned the chamber already and things of that nature. We're going to host meetings with the city manager to meet with certain groups. All of this will take place leading up to June, and we'll help inform the council in June. It will ultimately be counsel's decision, but we'll provide you with all that additional input from what we have found reaching out to the community at large. So, um, just for having done this in the past, my recollection is that because June 25th is our last meeting before the summer, and this has to go into the registrars filed by August, the 2nd week of August. We have to have the language done and vote on that on June 25th.

[01:58:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So that was my question or concern is, let's say something happened and TOT does look like the better way to go. Well, we have language for a TOT measure as well? Currently, staff wasn't anticipating doing that?

[01:59:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: We will not necessarily have polling data again on different revenue types. We will be discerning information on community need and community priority, and we will be using the polling data we have potentially with a tracking poll. We're not certain there yet. But based on the ad hoc committee and the advice from our consultants, we weren't planning on pursuing language for a TOT in June.

[01:59:30] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. So, yeah, so that was my concern. But moving on, then, regarding service needs, just a comment, we did a poll, we did a poll like this, I want to say maybe 10 years ago for similar community center, the public safety building in parks. And similar results, you know, the community always puts public safety as the top priority, so I'm not surprised at the results. I know some may be surprised because we've been talking a lot about open space and parks, but I think in general, if you really look at our community. I think the public is pretty satisfied with what we have. And, I mean, we're very pleased to see the satisfaction number overall. So I don't, this isn't really a surprise. It'll be interesting to see, I guess, when you do the survey, but, you know, public safety, 911 response, emergency response. That's always been top priority. And so, and frankly, that's why the argument is there for trying to rebuild the public safety building. Thank you.

[02:00:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Vice Mayor of Mattachek. Oh, Canberra, your light is back on.

[02:00:50] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you, mayor. So just a couple things that I wanted to add, um, which could provide some additional perspective too, the questions that council member Abbe Koga raised and also some of what we heard from our consultants. So in regards to TOT, one of the things that was discussed was the potential for 2026. And I think that where we had landed at the time based on the polling results was that at least at this time, the property transfer tax, just it pulled significantly higher than the TOT did. So we were thinking that the TOT could be in our back pocket potentially for 2026 and kind of move away from some of the sentiment that our consultant and our strategy advisor firm was telling us that they were hearing about in some of the neighboring agencies over TOT. And they weren't necessarily hearing similar things about the property transfer tax. So I do think it could still definitely definitely be on the table. Um, but potentially just maybe in 2026. Then I would also like to say that one of the things that staff has been looking at in relation to other cities polling results. It's been significant that our city and the sentiment among our community members and the voters, how they feel about city services and the job that we are doing is significantly higher, then what other cities have shown in similar study sessions or new business items like this, to the tune of other cities, generally what we're seeing is in the 40% range, and ours is in the 70, almost 80% still. And that's after COVID, after the change in public rhetoric, civility, all of that. So I think it's certainly something that this council should be very proud of the job that you all have done and that the city organization does. And I think that moving forward or at least exploring, engaging with our advocates, many of whom we've heard from a lot of community members tonight and a lot of other groups. Over this next month and a half, we'll have that chance to talk further with folks on what they're thinking and what they're feeling about this, and maybe even how they feel about the TOT in 2026 even. So I just wanted to keep that on the table that it's not totally off. It's just that it was, this is not the right time, it appears. And it was pretty clear advice that we got about that.

[02:03:30] Mayor Pat Showalter: Now, Vice Mayor Matachek.

[02:03:32] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, I agree with the comments that council member Ramirez said at the beginning about, um, it was a challenging um, ad hoc committee. I definitely went into it, thinking we would be doing something different than what we're recommending here tonight. And it's primarily based upon the polling and the information we got from the community. I was surprised at, um, some of the results, the one I want to highlight is, um, the, um, priority of parks, um, and while we do hear from a lot of people, I think, you know, if you're in an area where there are a lot of parks, you're fine. But if you're in an area where there aren't a lot of parks, then it's incredibly important to you. And so, I feel like it is very important to me, and a lot of other people, and I don't want to lose that, even though in the polling, it was ranked quite low. I agree, public safety is always right up there at the top. Um, I appreciate the discussion about what you'll come back with. And when it comes to indexing, I think there's lots of different options, and I'd like to have staff tell us which one you think is, you know, the most appropriate and make a recommendation on that, because I think we should definitely do that. And I know we got some input, saying we should adjust it every, maybe 3 to 5 years. I actually just think we should do it annually, like we do a lot of other things. Um, and so, um, Let's see. I also was thinking about maybe we want to raise the threshold to 6 million. And so I would be open to that, if that is something others would want to consider. Um, but I do hear the comment about, um, you know, at 5 million is not gonna, at 5 million. It might not impact whether or not you purchase the home. But, um... I'm open to increasing it. If we don't increase it. That makes the index even more important, to choose the right one. So, I'm supportive of the motion. It seems like it's more than what is written here, though, because there's a lot of things we talked about, about having staff come back with. I don't know if you want to summarize those, just so we're all clear. I think that would be helpful. Thanks.

[02:05:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Hey, let's let council member Ramos have an option to speak, and then we can go back to council member Ramirez, the motion who gave the motion.

[02:06:08] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I also had the opportunity to serve on the ad hoc committee. I actually enjoyed it a lot. I don't know. I, um, everyone was saying it was difficult. Maybe. But I did, I know that staff has probably also seen the email that we got from one of the stakeholders about the indexing. I am not inclined to wait to have indexing like happen to different groups. I did suggest maybe we could average out, like, the years to make it less volatile. I am curious in using a housing index. Our city has used a housing index before. We don't, um, the rental housing committee used it for the petition process. Um, they don't use it anymore, but, um, it was something that they did use. So it's something that our city has tracked before. The problem is, is actually it's really volatile. And so, uh, if we were going to do that, then it does make sense to maybe come with like an average and use that. I don't know how that would actually work. I don't think any other city has done that. So it's like one of those things where you have to look at the risk and rewards of that extra work, um, but it is something I'm kind of curious and about, curious about, um, I, um, and I think I'm just overall going with those, uh, comments, um, and I support the motion as it is.

[02:07:39] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so back to council member Ramirez.

[02:07:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And I'm going to ask staff to fact check me, but my understanding of the motion is what is written on the screen here, but we are broadening the scope of the community outreach to include general stakeholders, it wouldn't be limited specifically to service needs, but also feedback on the construction of the measure itself. And then also, when staff returns, you would include your recommendations regarding things like, so this is not limited to, but it would include an escalator, including the appropriate index, the revenue projection, that we would include in the ballot measure question, if we had a $6000000 threshold, and then generally your recommendations about what the policy should ultimately be. One of the things we have to, so that is my understanding. And then also, in a, we have to, this is tricky, right? We have to balance the viability of the ballot measure itself with the ability of the revenue measure to actually meet our community needs. One of the things that we talked about in the subcommittee meeting was that this is a pretty the real estate transfer taxes are incredibly volatile, right? And we don't want to be caught in a scenario where the revenue that we get is less than what we need, for instance, to pay for a bond for, you know, a major capital project, because then we have to dip into our general fund. So, you know, we need the assurance from the staff that we're likely to generate enough revenue at the least, you know, to pay for, you know, a bond that we might pursue for the public safety administration building, for instance. So that's something that we're sensitive to. We have to, you know, absolutely, the measure has to pass, but it also has to generate enough revenue to meet the needs that we're, we're sharing with our community. It was. So this is actually an interesting question for staff. So at what point are we likely to discuss how we intend to spend the money, right? As we did with 2018 measure P?

[02:10:06] Unknown Speaker: Staff anticipates bringing recommendations at the June 25th meeting as well. We're just waiting to get more information from the community, and then the outreach that we've discussed this evening. And then based on that, we would probably formulate recommendations very similar to the priorities that have been identified by the community.

[02:10:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so what you're telling me is we should bring our sleeping bags to that meeting, because it's going to go very late.

[02:10:29] Unknown Speaker: Uh, staff will bring recommendations based on feedback from the community, and then the council will deliberate as I see fit. Thank you.

[02:10:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, I'd like to take a turn with some comments as well. I think the outreach for this is really important. And when we do outreach, I think, um, it can't be overstated how important it is to think about who you're reaching out to. We need to give a lot of thought, to who is impacted by this, who, and that certainly would be developers and sale of commercial properties, and also who benefits from that. So I think, you know, I hope that staff will really give some thought to who are these two groups, and how do we get to them? And then the other thing that I hope, in the course of the outreach, you will be able to gauge for us is what is the level of organized opposition. Because that is also a very meaningful piece of information, as we go forward with this. Right now, we don't really know anything about that one way or the other, do we? I mean, I don't think we do. I think it's just... We only know that when the polling data asked questions that were in opposition to the measure, how that impacted it, and we used the types of questions that you would assume an opposition group would think relevant to the conversation, and Jessica, I don't know if you want to speak more to that.

[02:12:04] Jessica: Sure. I just wanted to add really quickly, that another thing that we are, you know, we want to emphasize about the poll results, is that we did test potential 75 word ballot questions. And so, if we change anything about the structure of a measure, for example, adding an escalator, or changing the threshold from 5 million to 6 million and higher properties, the poll results then would no longer apply, because we tested very specific ballot measures in the poll. So I just want to make sure that's clear, we can certainly explore further, but, yeah, we wouldn't be able to infer how that might impact support without testing it further in research.

[02:12:45] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right, well, but anyway, I just wanted to share about the importance of really thinking about who's impacted and who benefits and seeking their opinions. I think that's really important. Okay, so I don't see any more, um, any more, uh, requests to speak. So I think that means that we are at the time to vote.

[02:13:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: I'm happy to report that this passes unanimously. Thank you, staff, and consultants for all your hard work on this, and also to the ad hoc committee. You know, I know that when we start on these, we take this office. We never know how many of these committee meetings they're going to be. And not only is there with the committee meeting, it's not just the time in the meeting, there's always a lot of homework before you get to the meeting that you have to do. So thank you for doing that. And we are being joined at the dais for item 6.3 by our police chief, Michael Canfield. And the name of the item is A B 481 Military Equipment Annual Report and Policy adoption. And, um, Police Chief Canfield will present the item. Thank you. Oh, also, if you would like to speak on this item in person, please fill out a blue card and give it to the city clerk. Thank you. I will also take this moment to make an announcement that we are having a wonderful parade this weekend to celebrate the 150th anniversary of our firefighters. So, um, I look, I'm not gonna be there. I'm going to be on the other side of the country for my college reunion, but I'm looking forward to hearing the reports and seeing the pictures. Sounds like it's gonna be wonderful. So with that, are you ready?

[02:15:10] Police Chief Michael Canfield: Yes, Madam Mayor, thank you very much. That wonderful. Appreciate the patience. I'm Mike Camfield, police chief, and with a little bit of help. We have this launch. This is AB 481, our military equipment. It's our annual report, and also a policy adoption, item 6.3. I'll give a little bit of background for this item. In this presentation, we'll be going over both the background for AB 481, also reviewing some of those militarized item category. Reviewing Mountain View Police Department's use of equipment in 2023, summarizing our intended purchases, and then reviewing our public meeting, and finally going to staff recommendations. For a background on September 30th of 2021, AB 41 was signed into legislation by the governor, and it regulates the acquisition and use of military equipment by police departments. It does not prohibit equipment, but places reporting requirements on how we, as a department, request funding, acquired equipment, and how we place that equipment into different categories. Those categories will cover shortly. Significantly, AB41 requires prior approval of an ordinance before we make any purchases for equipment falling into those categories. For background, May 10th of 2022, Council adopted Ordinance 7.22, approving the department's military equipment policy, and on May 9th of last year, Council renewed that ordinance. AB 41 requires the preparation of an annual report, which is attached in this agenda, and it also requires that we have a public meeting and that we announce it on our website. That public meeting was both announced in the website, but also shared through the City Hall Connection E newsletter, and was sent via email to a number of community organizations and community members, as was a notification about that community meeting, which was April 25th at our public safety advisory board meeting. I'll cover feedback from the public meeting in just a little bit. As required, our annual report includes a number of topics. It includes how our military equipment was used, a summary of complaints or concerns that we received, a summary of our initial, any internal audits or information about violations of our policy, then the total costs of each type of equipment, and that includes the acquisition, training, and all. the maintenance of items. It also requires that we include the quantity possessed for each type of equipment, and that we then list those items that we want to purchase for the next year. AB 41 defines military equipment into 15 different categories. The police department has eight items, or eight categories, of those 15. This is a list of the items that we do not have, and it is really the larger vehicles, and then a number of unconventional type weapons. And this is a list of our items that the police department, those other seven categories, I'm sorry, this is the eight categories we do have, and it includes both our drones, indoor and outdoor drones, our robots, our mobile command vehicles. We have a standard mobile command vehicle and a SWAT command vehicle, our battering rams, and also our explosive breaching equipment, specialty SWAT rifles, sniper rifles, and some surplus rifles, and their accompanying ammunition, as well as less lethal munitions, noise flash diversionary devices, and chemical munitions. Before we discuss the use of our equipment in 2023. I just want to talk about some of the considerations for the type of equipment and the requirements that come with it. So many of our items that are deemed military equipment have specific functions, and they really help to serve to allow us to slow down a situation, create time and distance, and better help to de-escalate a situation. There is no one piece of equipment that is perfect for every situation. And so the more types of equipment we have, the better we are able to assess and address a number of variables and different types of situations. Our equipment requires training and practice. Everything from a less lethal projectile to flying a drone, requires approval before use, and notification and approval after use. We regularly evaluate specific or significant law enforcement after action reports for major incidents, and then we apply those both to our training and to review our policy. Equipment can only be deployed by trained personnel who have passed both department training, but also certifications and requirements. And almost all of our equipment is stored inside our police department, except for our less lethal deployment systems, which are in our vehicles, but then locked in the station. All equipment listed here in the slide are items that were deployed in the field, but when I say deployed in the field, I don't mean that they were fired or if they were a noise flash diversionary device, that they were ignited off. They were just brought out with us for active callouts, or active use or accompanying us into the field. And those include our drones and robot. Those were deployed both for an active search for a homicide suspect from another city that had fleed into Mountain View, as well as for a SWAT, an unrelated SWAT search warrant in the city. Similarly, our SWAT mobile command vehicle was brought out for that SWAT search warrant activation. Our standard mobile command vehicle was deployed at numerous concerts, and also at larger community events, like our art and wine festival. Our specialty firearms used by our SWAT team, those include the sniper style rifles with an optic on them, and then their standard issue SWAT rifle. Those were deployed out both for the manhunt for the homicide suspect as well as for that search warrant. And our Leslie Phil deployment systems. Those are in every car in every shift every day. This is a list of items that we did, in fact, that we used, but that we didn't deploy in the field. So this is for training. And, of course, we trained on everything that we deployed, so there's a lot of overlap, so you'll see that we used our drones and robots, our mobile command vehicles, as well as many of our firearms for our training. We use noise flash diversionary devices in training every year, as well as chemical munitions, and all officers have to qualify on a less lethal kinetic energy system. We do have equipment that was not used in 2023. And in this case, that's some of our specialty firearms. We have a number of weapons that aren't deployed, but have benefit for the department in allowing our officers to know how to make those firearms safe. There are types of weapons that we don't see often, but certainly our officers are expected to be able to remove a magazine and make sure the chamber is clear, et cetera, if they do come across them. So the ability to be familiar with firearms is important, but that doesn't mean that they're used every year. So we do have kinetic energy weapons, some 37 millimeter older, less lethal launchers that have not been used. Some of those previous firearms I was describing as well as a 50 caliber rifle. Here's a list of equipment purchase, uh, recommendations, and these are items, nothing is really new here, but there are either items that are going to be expiring in the next year or to replace the munitions and the items that we will anticipate using. That total cost is $16,400. And this is the new item request, as listed in that 41 report. The department is requesting 40, 40, 40 count of 40 millimeter sponge round launchers. It's a less lethal deployment system that has a soft foam tip, and would be in all of those patrol vehicles in lieu of that 12 gauge Les Lethal deployment system. That cost for the launchers themselves is a little over $50,000 in the ammunition, which includes the cost of retraining the entire department. So it's a little bit higher than a standard annual cost. is just shy of $16,000 at $15,700. We had the public safety advisory board meeting on April 25th, and that doubled, and that served as our community engagement meeting, fulfilling that requirement. During that meeting, we had feedback from the public safety advisory board where they inquired about equipment, everything ranging from the definition of a kinetic energy weapon to the battery length and kind of deployment systems associated with our drones. They asked for clarification on when chemical munitions, like pepper spray or CS gas, would be used and by whom? And they explored the rationale behind purchasing items, like the ones that we saw earlier that will expire, even though we don't anticipate using them in a given period, but they wanted to know why we would purchase something that may expire within the next 5 years. They inquired about possibly trading in, unused equipment to save money and purchase new equipment, and members sought information about those 40 millimeter sponge round launchers, seeking clarity about their efficacy, and how we would be replacing our 12 gauge, less lethal bean bag deployment systems. Two members highlighted the benefits of those 40 millimeter launchers when asked for a poll by the chair, and they highlighted the improved distance, accuracy, and efficacy of those launchers, and one particularly highlighted the importance of having less lethal or non lethal means for addressing people who are in a crisis, in the likelihood of that improving the outcome, and lifesaving abilities. in those circumstances. P said members also emphasize the importance of those tools to really de-escalate situations. Additional inquiries regarding sharing of information with neighboring agencies were brought up. And the question about examples of when less lethal versus lethal force might be used. And when our last purchase of firearms for the department was. How about comment, which was delivered virtually by 2 attendees, requested further information about expired equipment and disposable disposal of our equipment, as well as commenting about the question, or questioning, rather, the term less lethal, and the place that lethality has on a spectrum. Concern was also raised about a recent policy violation that was highlighted in the 481 report, regarding a beanbag launcher that was fired during a vehicle inspiredfection. And we received a suggestion to redirect those funds for those 40 millimeter sponge round launchers to mental health services for the community. He takeaways from the report? Is it the department continually assesses our equipment, our needs, how we use it in our training? And in 2023, our militarized equipment was minimally used operationally, and the predominant use for that equipment was for training and certification. And although we received no complaints, there was one policy violation related to our military equipment, and that was a result of a less lethal 12 gauge deployment system being fired, being left loaded, and locked inside a vehicle, and during a vehicle inspection or tour, youth was able to fire off that round into the ceiling, that bean background into the ceiling of the vehicle. Moving to the adoption of the ordinance, the proposed purchase request are reflected in amendment to the PD policy, 709, and staff recommends repealing the old ordinance, 722, and adopting the updated policy 709 by a new uncodified ordinance. And with that, staff recommends counsel take the 3 action items listed on the slide, and also listed in the staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[02:28:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do we have any council questions at this time?

[02:28:44] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Manachek.

[02:28:46] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. One quick question, Chief, you said that at the peace of meeting, one of the peace of members ask about sharing of information with other agencies. The sharing of equipment.

[02:28:57] Chief Canfield: Of equipment. I apologize when we might lend equipment to another agency or vice versa.

[02:29:01] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Got it. Thank you. I also wanted to ask you a little bit about the, um, the rifles that you're trying to, um, dispose of? What's, it seems like that's much more difficult than I would have expected.

[02:29:20] Chief Canfield: Yeah, normally, I agree, Madam. Normally, acquiring items is harder than getting rid of them. In this case, I think a lot of agencies, I suspect, have expressed an interest to return items that they received from the military. So we do have 12 rifles that are, through the 1033 program, which is essentially on loan, were given to us from the military. They were other than being a little bit longer, really indistinguishable from our patrol rifles. However, it's easier for us to just have our own surplus of equipment or our own fleet of equipment and return those items. And I didn't see the need to really maintain or retain items that belong to the military. So we've made a request to return them. And I'm optimistic that maybe by next year, when we're reporting them, they will be off of our books, but certainly they are out of our inventory for deployed items, and they are sitting and waiting to be returned. to the military.

[02:30:18] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: I didn't realize you had to return them. I was wondering if you could just melt them down, but I guess that's not, you know, it's not yours to do.

[02:30:25] Chief Canfield: Correct. They are not... We have an agreement in which we retain them, but we do not have ownership of them to destroy them. Otherwise, we would have destroyed them. Thank you.

[02:30:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: With that, I'm gonna open it up to public comment. It looks like we have one speaker in the chambers. Mr. Tim McKenzie. He's coming to the front. Thank you. And then we have Bruce England on the line. Hi, Tim.

[02:30:53] Public Speaker Tim McKenzie: Tim Mackenzie, him pronouns, decade long resident or so of Mountain View, on the way back in after grabbing a quick bite after the last one. I saw Joan McDonald on the way out. She wanted to say that she wanted to add her voice also to what I'm about to say. I just wanted to do that for her. I would request specifically that counsel make a motion doing all the legal things required of the city for this thing without the inclusion of 10s of 1000s of dollars for these new weapons that the police are asking for. Less lethal doesn't make sense, things are lethal or they're not lethal. And I just want to highlight, thank the chief for that great presentation, but also highlight the very mild way he described of a child getting access and shooting one of these less lethal beanbag munitions. I, as a community member, I don't think it's a good idea for us to be spending 10s of 1000s of dollars on new equipment after that sort of incident that just occurred in this past year. It doesn't seem like a good idea. There's been a lot of discussion about needs for funding, where things go, if we rubber stamp every request that the police ask for increase of funding, this is a place where things go, death by a thousand cuts type situation. Um, $65,000, that is more, 1000s of dollars more than my yearly salary for the 1st job I got after I finished my PhD. That's a lot of money. I don't think that we should be doing this. I ask that when you make the motion doing all the legal requirements to receive the report, et cetera, et cetera, that you do not include the more than $65,000 for these weapons. Thank you.

[02:32:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And it looks like we have another speaker, um, in the chamber, Claire Jessup. Welcome, Claire.

[02:33:09] Public Speaker Clara Jessup: Clara, sorry. Thanks. Yeah, I wanted to reiterate what Tim was saying. Um, I also was curious about, uh, using less lethal munitions to de escalate a situation, uh, a mental health situation, that shooting something, or someone is is only going to escalate a situation. This is a little bit of a tangent, but I work with wildlife, and have worked in wildlife management, and part of that management has been to use less than lethal ammunition, to haze animals, and to scare them away, and to create chaos and negative stimulus. And while this might seem unapplicable here, but these are dangerous tools, and they are going to escalate a situation. So I was curious with the community member who brought up concern in terms of, um, the de-escalation and, you know, using these funds to, um, go towards mental health services or potentially, uh, de-escalation training and mental health training, I think that would be really worthwhile to explore, to look at these different, um, ways to de-escalate situations. There's been countless cases of, obviously, lethal situations. So, yeah, I would say that that should be explored more, and that should be put towards proper de-escalation tactics that are helpful in these situations. Thank you.

[02:34:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And we have another speaker, paying Lee. Welcome. Thank you.

[02:35:01] Public Speaker Paying Lee: So, I think something that stood out from the report, or this discussion, is that PCAB counts as the community engagement piece to kind of vet or advise all of these things. And so I'm kind of lucky in that I was able to hear this presentation. I think something curious, at least from my understanding of this report is, you know, we can understand the purpose of certain weapons and upgrades to equipment, but I think zooming out is understanding the ultimate objective of, are these the right tools and strategies for our outcome. So, in the case that, like, some of the public commenters were asking, you know, if we're trying to move towards de-escalation, for example, you know, there are a lot of other kind of services, professionals, and other tools and strategies that might not be met, actually, through equipment and upgrades, and also based off what, in 2023, was used for the equipment. It looked like most of it is for training and certification. So if we don't ultimately need, I think the 2 questions that we need to zoom out is, what are we using these equipment, these upgrades for? And if they're really to try meeting other objectives, like talking with community members, de-escalation and all these other purposes, we might be, we might look into other ways to do that. So I would probably echo the public comments on not moving forward with the the budget part of this motion. Thanks.

[02:36:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, so now, we go to our virtual speakers, and that brings us to Bruce England. Bruce, are you ready?

[02:36:52] Public Speaker Bruce England: I am ready. I got the unmute button faster that time.

[02:36:55] Mayor Pat Showalter: Great.

[02:36:56] Public Speaker Bruce England: Yeah. Bruce England, Lisbon Station Drive. Yeah, I appreciate all the information Chief Canfield shared tonight, and as he has along the way, during PCAB meetings, and is shared with the members of Moundview Coalition for Police Reform and Accountability, or MP Cepra. I do have some ongoing concerns about use of equipment like this at a city level. And I want to at least share that with you for the record. It was my question at a recent P said meeting about the process for, uh, quote unquote, destroyed firearms. I'm hoping for further information from the chief, which we have discussed about what destroyed actually means. Because any part sales after the effect can contribute to the proliferation of ghost guns as a result. I agree with previous speakers that allocation for de-escalation purposes instead of towards equipment like this would be ideal. Achieving the right balance is so important. And I do trust that the chief takes this consideration seriously. So I'm saying this primarily for the record. Thank you.

[02:37:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And I don't see any further. Speakers, any for any further speakers, so I'm going to close the public comment at this point, and bring it back to the council for deliberation. And I see council member Ramirez would like to speak.

[02:38:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I wasn't intending to speak on this item, but since I am, I have the privilege of not having to run for anything this year or ever again, I'm happy to do the hard work of responding to some of the concerns from the public. I think it's important to understand that this is an exercise in compliance, right? The purpose of this hearing is to ensure transparency, and to disclose, not only the equipment that we have, but also use, and findings that are made during audits and that kind of thing. So that is the utility of this meeting. It's also why we have tasked the public safety advisory board with providing the 1st of 2 hearings that are legally required to make sure that there's maximum opportunity for the public who may have interest in this to learn about what's going on with military equipment that may be used by the city of Mountain View. There is no appropriation associated with the section. So take heart members of the community who have asked us not to take that action. We are not taking that action tonight. And with that, I'll go ahead and move to approve the staff recommendations, and that includes, find and determine that the Mountain View Police Department's 2023 AB481 Annual Report has complied with government code section 7071D, introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View repealing chapter 2, article 4, division 1, section 2.69.3 of the Mountain View City Code, and finding that this action is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act to be read entitled only. reading waived, and set a second reading for May 28, 2024, and introduce an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, adopting a military equipment use policy governing the funding, acquisition, and use of military equipment by the Mountain View Police Department pursuant to California Assembly Bill 481, and finding that this action is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and set every second reading for May 28, 2024.

[02:40:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: And it's been seconded by Vice Mayor Matachek. Would you like to say something?

[02:40:25] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, please. In addition to seconding this. Chief, this comes up a lot in conversations with members of the public about, um, mental health training and de-escalation training for members of MVPD. And I was wondering if you could, um, just briefly summarize what actually training is done by MVPD in those two areas.

[02:40:49] Unknown Speaker: Absolutely. So, I will say, first de escalation training is really, at the heart of all of our training, we don't just talk about de escalation, but we practice and implement it and embed it into our scenario based hands-on training. So our scenarios are designed regularly to have a component where we are looking to build and strengthen our de-escalation skills. We also expect our officers and our sergeants and our staff to implement that in their work in the field. So that is essential. We also, it is part of our policy. It's not just a use of force policy, but as a de-escalation and use of force policy. So in our use of force review, we are looking for an examining areas and required areas and opportunities for growth for de-escalation to avoid uses of force that can be avoided, whether they be less legal deployment systems or a hands-on graph. So it is truly part of who the department is and what we train and what we expect. As far as training and mental health, crisis intervention training, we strive to make sure that all of our employees attend CIT training, and we have, it's somewhere in that I'd have to check, but somewhere in the high 90 percentage attendance for the, it used to be a 40 hour block, but it's been paired down by post. I think it's a 32 hour block now of training. So all of our recruits, when they complete the academy, they then go to that training immediately before they go into field training, into our field training program. And other than some folks that perhaps have not been able to go to the full complete course, that full week course that we like so much. We'd have annual or it's actually on a two-year cycle built in mental health crisis intervention training for all of our officers to develop skills for communication and de-escalation and how to communicate with people who are in crisis. We are one of the few police departments where our SWAT team and our crisis negotiations team both work in concert, but also attend CIT training specifically to de-escalate situations. So we really are looking at how we deploy our resources in a way that de-escalate situation and see every situation, you know, as it is and try to find a solution that is peaceful for everyone involved.

[02:43:14] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you I also have a question actually, and that's about the drones. Of course, I understand how drones can be a military, um, piece of equipment. But it seems to me that the kind of a way we do it. It's more of a search and rescue kind of piece of equipment. So, I just wondered, you want to talk a little bit about how we use drones, and, is that, is that kind of a misnomer here?

[02:43:49] Unknown Speaker: Absolutely, Madam Mayor. So I will say, AB 41 creates the term militarized equipment, and it creates those categories. So, however, one interprets a piece of military equipment or a doesn't, is it really, it doesn't apply for the purposes of the report. They tell us what qualifies. They give us the 15 categories. We look at the equipment, and we place it in the respective places. Having said that, some of our drones are consistent with what a hobbyist would be able to purchase. We have one larger drone that, although anybody can buy it, it's a little bit more expensive, I think it was $18,000, I'd have to double check, but it's a little more expensive than a hobbyist drone, but we utilized them, really, in a number of situations last night. For example, we were looking for an at risk missing juvenile, and we deployed our drones, searching in the evening in the nighttime hours, looking for this at risk kid. It's an invaluable tool. We have used them to search large spaces. For example, in this year's reigns, but the year before, those significant storms that we had, we actually searched the creek bed, looking for homeless encampments because of risk of flood and danger, to the community, and we were concerned that the floods were so significant, that there could be folks in there that would be at risk of peril, if we weren't able to find them, and we really couldn't find them, if you recall those rains on foot. So they have a myriad of ways to be used. The drones that we have, although they fit for the state's definition of militarized equipment. They're not military drones. They don't drop payloads and drop noise flash diversionary devices, they go into the sky, they put a camera down, and they move around. And that's really, they give us an eye in the sky, and they give us a greater ability to search a larger area for whatever purpose that is.

[02:45:43] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks for sharing that information. I appreciate it.

[02:45:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, we have emotion, and we have a second, and I don't see any more lights. So that means it's time to vote.

[02:46:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: The motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much for the report. Okay. So that brings us to the end of item six. And, uh, now we are moving on to item seven, which is council, staff, and committee reports. And, um, first, we will hear from council member Ramos.

[02:46:36] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I went to the VTA pack a meeting. I'm the from Mountain View there. And the only major action, is we move, we recommended to VTA to add an additional $4.12 million from the 2016 measure B funds to the SR5 SR 85 corridor program for some noise reduction projects. They're doing, they're doing their 2nd round of piloting for that. And one, the one of the sites is that border of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos-ish area. So hopefully it will reduce noise in that area. Um, and we'll see if ETA passes it.

[02:47:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: What highway was that?

[02:47:29] Councilmember Emily Ramos: 85.

[02:47:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Um, Council, I mean, vice mayor of Madachek.

[02:47:35] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I have 2 things. I participated in the Santa Clara County Airport land use commission meeting on April 24th, and I don't have anything to report from that, but I'm assigned to the AOUC. And then today, um, I attended Google IO, which is their developer conference, it's typically held at the Shoreline Amphitheater, and I was invited by Google to attend. Um, and while it is a 2 day event. I just attended today. Um, I attended the keynotes session where they covered a lot of new and upcoming product enhancements, and it was almost all focused on AI. And in the afternoon, they had a separate track for government affairs and public policy, which is why I assume they invited me. And, um, it really was very interesting. I had the opportunity to chat with other attendees, and found it to be incredibly informative and interesting. And it was really a great way to spend the day. Thanks.

[02:48:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abbe Coca.

[02:48:51] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I have been attending quite a few transportation related meetings and workshops from MTC, Caltrain, VTA. A lot of the discussion has been about SB 1031, this potential regional transportation measure, enabling legislation, VTA, actually change service, position from oppose, unless amended to oppose. Caltrain has upheld its position, oppose unless amended. And, um, and then MTC has not taken a position. We will be discussing it at our next meeting in 2 weeks. And the legislation is going through various committees and I guess it has to make it out of committee by May 24th for it to move forward. Um, I won't bore you with all the details, but if anyone is interested in learning about the measure and why these agencies have taken the positions that they have happy to do that offline. I attended the, actually, was invited to speak at the housing trust and investor briefing, their annual meeting, where I was able to talk about the potential Bay Area housing finance authority Buffa measure that we are anticipating to vote on at the end of this month as well for the final language to put place on the ballot for November. I attended the challenge teams, champion for youth, and the mayor was there presenting certificates. Um, and, uh, um, well attended lunch. It's usually a breakfast, but it was nice that it was lunch this time, not 7.30 AM. And then I attended the city association board meeting where we adopted our bylaws for our new JPA. So we are, I think, almost close to completing all of the list of items that need to be completed for us to move forward as a JPA. And then I attended the Caltrain 160th anniversary event and they are doing these electric train tours, a new electrified trains that will come online in September. Very exciting. Lots of folks were there. Lots of anticipation for the new electrified train Caltrain trains. And then kind of on my own, but I thought it was really interesting. I went and toured alcove, which is a youth, wellness center, mental health, wellness center, funded by the county in partnership with Stanford University. And I thought it was interesting. It was really, it was actually really nice and impressive. They have counseling rooms and they have like a homework area, kind of similar to actually our teen center. And I just, um, wondered if there's some opportunity for us to maybe partner with the, um, service providers down the road. I don't know if I'm sure funding will be an issue, but I think we have the facilities and it would be really nice to bring some of the services that Alco provides to the youth. But I was told to Alcove is a North County resource, and I was told that some Mountain Views youth do actually go to, it's in Palo Alto in Midtown, but they actually go there and utilize the services. Thank you.

[02:52:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez.

[02:52:56] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I was not invited by Google to attend their conference, which I'm not bitter about at all. But I will share that as the board representative from the city of Mountain View on the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority, that the town of Los Gatos has approved their or has formalized their request to join as the 5th city in that authority, the board of the Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority will be reviewing the revised JPA. Not tomorrow, but the following Wednesday, and then if the board approves it, which is likely, it will come to each of the city councils represented in the authority. And there is some good news. With the inclusion of the town of Los Gatos, each of the annual contributions from the member agencies will decline, and ours is projected to recline, decline by about $100,000, which is non-trivial. And I understand from the city manager that this is likely to come before our council may be as soon as June. So, and hopefully as a consent item. But so just be on the lookout for that. Thank you.

[02:54:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, I have gone to do a lot of really fun things as mayor. I had 3 ribbon cuttings, the Tuscana Memory Center, which is at the site of the old Frankie Johnny Luigi's, and several other council members attended. This is really going to be a nice addition to our community, to some services that, you know, that we need. And the good news, too, is that they will still be selling pizza. So everybody was relieved with that. I also went to Artistic Kitchen Designs 20th anniversary party. It was sort of a ribbon cutting, in a sense, to celebrate that they had been in business for 20 years and still going strong, and also a ribbon cutting for the caddy car wash. Again, several council members were there. I remember, particularly, Vice Mayor Mattachek was there. And then I got to welcome folks to the multicultural festival, which had been postponed a couple of times, I think, this year, but that did not deter people. Boy, it was beautifully attended, and there were really a great many wonderful performances. So kudos to the recreation department for putting that on. And for all the non profits that took part. I took part in the Los Altos Mountain View community foundations and annual community conversation. I moderated a panel on climate change adaptation, and along the climate change adaptation theme. I gave a walk out at Shoreline last Saturday, on our sea level rise protection program, particularly to show people the restoration that we're doing at Pond A28. And, um, you know, that is something I won't I won't, um, bore you with right now. But if anybody would like to join me out at Shoreline for a short walk, and it's a really pleasant kind of thing to do. You can go for the walk and go to the cafe for lunch. You know, could be fun. Okay, um, Also, I attended the historical association program on Chinese history in Mountain View, and I was really glad that we had this. I think it was particularly appropriate for Asian appreciation month. So, and it was attended by, I think, many of us. It was really, it was really, very interesting. Um, and, um, Affordable Housing Month is going strong at the moment, and there was a tour of Luna Vista Apartments, and, um, there are many more activities to come, so I hope, uh, everybody will take a look at the website that Corey suggested what we look at. Um, I know we've all gotten numerous emails about it. And, um, I have been attending the, um, Silicon Valley Clean Energy board meetings. Um, and, uh, yesterday, I took part in the finance committee meeting where we learned about the financial stress tests that they've gone through, and the budget process, which is going to start, um, immediately, and we'll be voted on the board at the spring meeting. At the May meeting, the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Board received an update on the income graduated fixed charge proposed decision. And, um, there is a group of, uh... There's a page of, of explanation on that. I would be glad to share with anybody who's interested. And we passed a resolution to fund emissions, mitigation efforts in our community. in a community where a power plant is located. Sorry. And Hanford, I was really pleased to see that, though, is very much an environmental justice activity. And it's the first of its kind or commercial industrial decarbonation program. So, that's my report for this time, and, um, I, uh, thank everybody for inviting me to all of these events. It's really one of the great funds, great parts of being mayor, is to get to take part in so many things. Okay. Any other reports or comments? Okay, seeing none. We move to the attorney's report. Is there a closed session report?

[02:59:17] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: No, no final action was taken in closed session this evening. Thank you.

[02:59:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Well, with that, I think it means that we move to item nine, which is adjournment, and it is... not 922. The next meeting of the Mountain View city council will be held at May 28th. And perhaps the... Yeah, thank you.

• ← Previous
• Next →