Sept. 10, 2024 Mountain View City Council Meeting

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Transcript

[00:02:45] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the September 10th, city council meeting. This first part is a closed session. And so now we need the closed session announcement. Senior assistant, um, city attorney, Salina Chen, will make the closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the item listed on for closed session. Um, Ms. Chin?

[00:03:15] Salina Chen: Good evening, Mayor. There are two items on this evening's closed session agenda. Item 2.one, our public employee performance evaluations, pursuant to California government code, section 54957 per council appointees, city attorney, city clerk, and city manager. Item 2.2 is a conference with labor negotiators pursuant to California government code, section 54957.6. The agency designated representatives for unrepresented employees, city attorney, city clerk, and city manager is vice mayor Matachek.

[00:03:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you for your announcement. And now I want to see if there is anyone in the audience, or virtually, who would like to make public comment on the closed session. I don't see anyone in the audience here. Clerk, is there anyone online?

[00:04:17] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No.

[00:04:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, well, with that, we will adjourn? to the closed session, and we will be back, hopefully, at about 6:30, to start the regular meeting. Thanks very much.

[00:05:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everybody. I'd like to call the Mountain View City Council. Meeting to order. I want to thank you for your patience, our closed session went a little longer. We have a, um, we have a fascinating agenda tonight, as we usually do, and the first order of business is, um, the pledge of allegiance. So if everyone will rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance.

[00:05:37] Unknown Speaker: allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. the Republic which nation God Liberty.

[00:05:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And the cork, we'll take attendance.

[00:06:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Counselor of Abby Koca. Council member Hicks.

[00:06:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here,

[00:06:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Ramirez.

[00:06:05] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:06:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Council member Roma.

[00:06:07] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:06:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Matachek.

[00:06:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here,

[00:06:08] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Shalalter.

[00:06:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Here.

[00:06:10] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum with council member, Kmei Temporarily absent.

[00:06:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right. Well, I'm going to share some things. Over the past couple of weeks, there have been some utility events that I wanted to highlight and recognize staff's efforts in response to these. Also, it's been several months since we've really met, and so a lot has happened in the city of Mountain View in that time. In particular, at Amy Mai Elementary School, there was a sewer issue. On August 27th, the Mountain View Whisman School District sent an urgent request to the city staff for assistance with their on site sewer line brake, which is located, the school is located at 253 Martins. The brake was on school district property, and not part of the city's infrastructure. However, knowing that the brake would affect the ability of the school to reopen and would disrupt the students' schedules, the city's wastewater staff responded to assist with the school's immediate needs. The city's utility staff, state in contact with the district operations director, and offered additional assistance to the school. Afterwards, the school district was able to bring in a contractor to fix the brake and reopen the school. So I want to thank those workers who took part in that. I know those middle of the night rescue missions are very challenging, but they're very important. Thank you. And then another one, we had a water main break. I think this made national news. Two days later, on August 29, a significant water main break occurred at the intersection of Charleston Road and Joaquin Road. This led to a significant discharge of water, known as a flood of the intersection, and a portion of Joaquin Road, completely shutting down this intersection. This is one of the biggest water main brakes in mountain view's history. And it put a big strain on the entire water system, in addition to closing an arterial road and major intersection. Over 24 members of the city's public services staff, along with police and fire staff, responded to the emergency immediately. City staff worked that day and through the night to complete the water pipeline repair and restore water service by the next morning. The intersection was then opened later that afternoon, where most of the affected areas were cleaned. And when they first made this estimate of when it was going to be reopened, They didn't say it was just gonna be one night. It was initially thought to be, you know, several days or a week. So that was wonderful that you could do it so quickly. The brake was from an approximately 50 year old 12 inch water line that was 8 feet deep. Collaborating with the city was Google and the Mountain View Transportation Mountain Management Association, who redirected their buses away from Charleston Road. A big thank you to staff for their immediate response, hard work, and dedication to the Mountain View community during both of these utility incidents. Thanks a lot. I mean, we really, really appreciate it. It's kind of service is exactly what the city needs. So thank you for doing it. And I also want to give you a little bit of an update on the El Camino real paving situation. I know that we are all talking about potholes these days. And Caltrans is continuing the project on El Camino Real, between Sandhill Road and Palo Alto and Grant Road in Mountain View, which is about eight miles of work. Sidewalk and curb ramp work are nearing completion, and the paving is starting in Palo Alto, while they'll be working their way towards mountain view. Cal anticipates paving to begin in Mountain View and approximately October weather permitting. The paving work will be performed at night, and on street parking will be prohibited in construction areas. Lane closures will be needed to perform the work, and Caltrans asked to allow additional time when traveling on El Camino real. As a reminder, the city received $4 million in VTA measure B pedestrian bike competitive grant funds for active transportation enhancements to be delivered with this Caltrans project. In Mountain View, the project includes New Americans with Disability Act, curb ramps, protected bike lanes, high visibility crosswalks, and three new pedestrian crossings, with hybrid beacons at Bonita Avenue, Crestview Drive, and Pettis Avenue. We're all really looking forward to this project being completed. So I wanted to share that. And then we're going to move on to item three, which is our presentations. Everybody should note that these are presentations only, so the city council doesn't take action, and public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you would like to speak on any of these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Okay. Well, the first one is our public works director, Dawn S. Cameron, our retirement proclamation. So, Dawn, will you please join me at the podium? It's kind of with a heavy heart that we celebrate Dawn's retirement. I've been working with Dawn, um, for about 20 years now, and it's always been a pleasure, and, um, and, and just a, uh, uh... She's one of those people that make sure that, um, you, you learn what you need to learn, um, to do a good job, and she helps everybody who's involved in the process, um, do their part better. And she's just a joy to work with. So it's going to be, we're going to miss you. And one of the things that I sort of joke with other council members that I meet from other cities is that I say that we have this public works director who's a council whisperer. And what I mean by that is that Dawn is the member of the staff who just has the knack of telling us, when we ask a question or we say we want to do something that really probably doesn't make sense, she says, she explains it in such a manner that we're fine with it. We understand why it doesn't make sense. And we accept her judgment and we move on. So that's a real talent. And I'm sure if we could clone this talent. There would be quite a market for it. But anyway... So with that, I'm going to read this formal proclamation or some of it. Dawn Cameron came to Mountain View as the assistant public works director in 2017, was promoted to the position of public works director in 2019, and served as assistant city manager and interim community development director. During her tenure, Dawn oversees city facility projects to better serve the community, including the community center renovation, fire station four improvements, shoreline safe parking improvements, new Ringsdorf Aquatic Center, and public safety building design. And under Dawn's leadership, the city made significant strides to expand parks in Mountain View, through construction of seven new parks, start of construction of an all inclusive playground at Ringsdorf Park, and purchase of land for future park sites. Dawn also worked on numerous projects, plans, and programs to promote safe transportation, such as pedestrian and bicycle improvements on Castro, Shoreline Boulevard, and El Camino Real, adoption of the Vision Zero policy and action plan, expansion of the Mountain View shuttle, and expansion of the safe routes to school program. Dawn Champion Sustainability, supporting an all electric powered pool, and building system for their new ring store for aquatic center. Update of the sea level rise study, and completion of the shoreline sailing access road project, development of a fleet electrification plan, design of Mountain View senior, solar water heating, and electrification of its commercial kitchen, and adoption of the zero waste policy and implementation plan. Dawn contributed to major land use plans to ensure a thoughtful, built environment, into the future, namely the East Whistman Precise Plan, Middlefield Park Master Plan, and the North Bay Shore Master Plan. Don helped develop new programs and procedures to meet emergency community needs, and ensure continuity of essential services during the COVID 19 pandemic, including water, sewer, garbage, and recycling services, street maintenance, and creation of the Castro Street, interim pedestrian mall, and the Castro Eats, program to support downtown businesses. Dawn demonstrated exceptional leadership to the men and women of the public works department, investing her time and energies, and mentoring and team building, remaining calm under pressure, offering strategic guidance, and motivating and supporting high performance. Dawn served as a valued colleague to her fellow executive team members, collaborating to accomplish shared goals, adding critical insights, and being an exemplar of dedication and responsiveness. Dawn provides effective professional staff support to the city council through clear and well reasoned reports, focus presentations, thoughtful responses to the council's questions, and creative solutions to emerging issues. And through these, and many other accomplishments, Dawn has made a lasting positive impact on the city organization and mountain views quality of life. After seven years of exemplary service to the city of Mountain View, and Mountain View community, and over 30 years of public works and transportation planning, experience, and leadership, Dawn retired from the city on September 6, 2024. Now, therefore, I, Patricia Show Walter, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, Mountain View employees, and members of the community, to hereby express gratitude and appreciation to Dawn S. Cameron. Thank you so much, Don. And now, you probably want to say a few words. Okay. Well, you should take a picture. I think we should go.

[00:16:57] Dawn Cameron: Good evening, thank you. I know there's a very full agenda tonight, so I'm gonna keep my comments short, especially in payback for the extra long answers I would give to city council through the years, so I think they've heard enough from me. I just want to say that, you know, joining the city of Mountain View 7 years ago was the best career decision I ever made. This has been the most fulfilling time of my entire career, and truly has meant a lot to me. I've been fortunate to be able to bring my own commitment to public service to such a forward looking community, which also has meant a lot to me. I'm grateful to have had the honor to work with a city council that respects and appreciate staff. With a collaborative executive team. We were always in it together. With a city manager that I greatly admire. And the best public works team that any public works director could ever want, an amazing group of managers, engineers, professionals, and field staff, who always do their best for the community. As you just heard, the mayor talk about just on the water main break from a couple weeks ago, where they literally work 25 hours straight, to fix it and get the street open again. I know that public works will continue to deliver exceptional services, projects and programs, because that is who they are. And I am grateful for having had the opportunity to be a part of this. Thank you.

[00:18:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: down, take a picture. I'm gonna take a picture of the city council. You can always take a selfie, too. October.

[00:19:22] Unknown Speaker: Don't die. closer.. Thank Thank you. that.

[00:20:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so would any council members like to make a comment? Lisa Matachek?

[00:20:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: That sounded so different. Thank you. So, Dawn, before you scoot out of here. A few of us might want to say something. I want to tell you how much I have enjoyed working with you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Um, I've worked with you for as long as you've been here at the city. I didn't realize that. And I really appreciate the knowledge and the experience you brought. The city has really benefited from that. As have I. I have learned so much from you. You will be missed. And I know other people have said that. But when you look back at the impact you've had on the city, you should feel really good about it, because it's been very, um, positive, and, um, forward thinking, and really made things better here. So thank you very much. All the best in your retirement. But, um, I'm hoping we see you soon.

[00:21:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you very much. Council member Abby Koka.

[00:21:34] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I also just want to offer my thank you and congratulations to you, Don. been a real honor to work with you for, as long as you've worked here, and especially on the transportation front, as I have worked with you and seeing you in action. And also, frankly, just learned about your stellar reputation in the transportation world, very well respected by so many people at VTA, MTC. So many transportation agencies and the whole world. And it really has been a source of pride for me to be able to say that you're our direct public works director, but thank you for all of your contributions. You leave a big hole. But I hope that we do continue. I think we will continue to see you and cross paths. So, um, as swishes on your next chapter in life and, um, thank you again for everything.

[00:22:41] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Great. It was wonderful. So now. Ah. City manager McCarthy.

[00:22:49] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. So I would just like to state for the public to hear and for everyone else to hear some of the sentiments that were shared with Dawn in her last week and at her retirement celebration. Um, I think really the thing that sums it up about Dawn is all of her colleagues and myself could say she's one of the finest public servants that any of us have ever had the pleasure of working with in our careers. And the community is lucky to have had a public works director that is not only so knowledgeable and savvy and experienced, but also kind and collaborative and able to navigate, as you've heard from the mayor and some of the council members, navigate through some really tough, technical policy issues and challenges in a way that makes it easy for people to understand. And also to do it in a way that tries to get to yes. And that's one of the skills that Dawn has brought. She's been a trusted confidant and advisor to me, to many of her executive team colleagues. And I think that we are certainly going to miss working with her every day, but we are even more excited for her to have this next chapter. And maybe take some naps. Dawn has worked a lot. So thank you, Don, for everything that you've done, not just for the public works department, but for the Mountain View community, for the city organization. I've said it so many times, I'll say it again. You're truly extraordinary, and we're gonna miss you, and we wish you the best of luck. Thank you for everything you've done.

[00:24:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: So now, we have 3.2 Mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District Project update. We're happy to be joined this evening by Kurt Riffle, Yoroko Kishimoto, and Karen Holman, from the Mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District, to provide this update. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:25:07] Kurt Riffle: Well, thank you so much for having us and making time, uh, for our, we've tried every couple of years to come back to, just give you a quick update of what we're working on, and as you've already introduced to my colleagues on the board, uh, Yoriko and Karen. So, all three of us are gonna take a very brief portion of this presentation, but it just so happens that our awards, which were redefined in 2020, it used to be, I was your guy, but now, there's portions of our wards that intersect with Mountain View. So we thought, well, how about all three of us, since we represent portions of Mountain View to be here tonight? So, with that, um, I'd like to go ahead and, uh, would it be possible to, for someone to advance the slide's force? Great. So just for those that don't know, MidPan is our mission could be defined by kind of the five words on the right side of this, preserve, protect, restore, educate, and enjoy. That's what we do. We've been doing for, what, 52 years now, and we, as of 2004, our region, if you will, expanded to the coast to San Mateo Coast. And that's when we added the agricultural land element to our mission, as well, is not only preserve agricultural lands, but the viable use of them, and also preserving rural character on the Semateo Coast. Next slide, please. We now have over 70,000. Actually, over 73,000 acres that we have now preserved in perpetuity. I like to say, our business is a forever business, because once the lands come to us, we take care of them for the rest of time, if you will. We happen to be one of the largest regional open space districts in the state of California. And so you can see, from the map above, the region that we basically run from Pacifica to Los Gados and from East Palo Alto to Pescadero. So that is our region. Next slide, please. This is what I was talking about a little before. We have 7 wards, and actually, Mountain View includes 3 of them. So that's why we're here tonight. And actually, if you go to the next slide, just some fun facts about midpen. So, as I said, created in 1972, we have about 763,000 constituents spread between seven of us on the board. We are funded primarily through property tax. We now have 27 preserves in three counties. We talked about the number of acres, 250 miles of trails, our preserves are free and open to the public, 365 days a year, sun up to sundown. Our office main office is actually just around the corner on El Camino, and we now are up to just over 200 employees, well over a 1000 volunteers. And, uh, thanks to the voters, um, in 2014, we passed Measure AA, um, which gave us a 3,300 million, um, 30 year bond measure that you're going to hear a little bit more about, um, from, uh, from Karen. Uh, next slide, please. Before I turn it over to Yorico to talk about some of our projects, I wanted to wet your appetite a little bit for some of the preserves that we have. So, Montebello open space preserve. It is 3,500 acres, and it contains Black Mountain, and a little fun fact of Mountain View, is named because of the view of Black Mountain, or El Monte, goes to Black Mountain. So Black Mountain is in our preserve, and it also contains our backpack camp. Although it's very expensive, it's $2 to get a permit to stay at our backpack camp, but it's something that we like to have open to the public. Okay, next slide, please. Rancho San Antonio, who hasn't heard of Rancho San Antonio. We have about 25 million visitors that visit our preserves, and well over half of them, about 60% of them go to Rancho San Antonio, and I think all on Saturday or Sunday morning, and try to find a place to park. So we're very lucky to have ranchos so close to us. And I just wanted to say thank you to the city of Mountain View, because we have a facility there called Deer Hollow Farm. And the city of Mountain View actually provides the programming for that. We provide the land for that, and the county of Santa Clara provides some funding for that. But I was just there tabling over the weekend and my gosh, that is one loved place. So we're so happy to have the partnership with all of you. And the final place that I want to take you to is the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. So this is about 3,000 acres, 10 miles of trails. It's a great place to go see raptors, and go see birds, and as this shows in spring, This is the place to go for wildflowers. So it's just a beautiful preserve that's nearby. And it also has Daniel's nature center. which is a fantastic place for families and children to go. And that's open on the weekends and also free of charge. So with that, as an introduction, I'm going to introduce Yorco to take us through some of the projects that we're working on.

[00:30:47] Yoroko Kishimoto: Good evening, Madam Mayor, and honorable members of the council. So thank you for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. So I get to give you a tour of some of our current projects. So next slide, please. And next slide. Okay. So the first one I'll mention is our wireland fire resiliency program. So everyone remembers the terrible CCU lightning strike. The series, that was a real wake-up call. And, um, so wildland fire resiliency, um, has become a major part of our, well, a major part of our work. Next slide. Um, and actually, I had the honor of being the, um, the chair of the, uh, technical advisor committee for the Fire Services, um, plan for LAFGO. So this is something that I have a special interest in. But the map on the left shows the very, let's see, what is it called? high and very high hazard severity zones of our district, and you can see there's a lot of risk there. And then the how we deal with it is the 4 prongs, which are mentioned there, which is a major part is the vegetation management, of course. There's a lot of preplanning that goes in there and mapping. And then there is the prescribed fire, which actually should be starting in the next couple years, and then the monitoring program. Next side place. And this is a map of how those projects are spread throughout the district, next slide. And then next, I want to introduce to you our youth outreach program, which is basically to reach out to our next generation. And this is for children between the ages of 5 and 21, with an emphasis of getting out to the open space, kids who may not have an opportunity otherwise. So we work with Latino outdoors and many other groups, including next slide. Our latest partner is the Sienna Youth Center, which is located in the North Fair Oaks area. X slide. Okay, and then, um, very exciting project is the Highway 17 crossing, uh, when we did our polling for our measure AA projects. This was the single most popular project. So it consists of both a wildlife crossing and a crossing for us humans. Um, and the goals are um, for the wildlife to maintain healthy wildlife populations, through habitat connectivity, and also to, um, uh, assist uh, enhance climate resilience by giving the mountain lions and other wildlife places, places to migrate to basically free migration. And then for us human beings, it will be a major recreational link between 100s of miles of trails and open space on both sides of Highway 17. So, VTA actually will be doing the construction, we're going through environmental review right now. And if all goes well, construction should begin in 2627 or so. Next slide. And another mountain lion related work is this study of mountain lion human interaction because we share the open space, human beings and mountain lions. And, um, this is a study of mountain lion behavior and migration patterns. And actually, so we've tagged, um, how many, um, 25 mountain lions. And actually, you can follow them yourself if you go to Santa Cruz Puma Project and see kind of the territory of the 25 mountain lions. Um, and the goal is try to see if we can discourage mountain lions from, um, hanging out too close to the most populated, um, human trails. Next slide. Um, and then there were denticide outreach is really, actually, it's a connection between what people do inside their homes and in the impact on our open space. So people, our visitors, have noticed, mangy, coyote, and other impacts of rodenticide. So, we were reaching out to all the residents near, especially near the open space, and then, and asking for, um, alternatives to rudance design. And a final project is the next slide, is the prisma to the sea trail. So this is going to be a spectacular trail. 15 miles from Prisma to the sea. Um, and, um, it should be, uh, I forget what exactly what the timing is going to be, but, uh, we, we, but I can tell you the board had a preview tour of it, and the, and the views are just spectacular. And this is part of the next slide, please, the Bay to Sea Trail, that post is studying, and we're working on completing, so you can look forward to that. And so with that, let me turn it over to my colleague, Karen Holman.

[00:36:44] Karen Holman: Good evening. Next slide, please. And at the end of this, there's going to be a pop quiz. I want to know how many of you can identify which one of us represents your award. So, um, measure AA was a bond measure that was passed in 2014, 10 years ago, and that was passed in order to fund the projects that were identified in the vision process that was an 18 month process that was public participants, and appointed members of the public. I happen to be one of them, come up with a vision plan for MidPin's future. So thank you to the public for funding that $300 million bond measure that Kurt referenced earlier. Since that time we've accomplished a good number of things. We have preserved over 9,600 acres, and we have expanded. Kurt had mentioned, also, that we expanded to the coast side. We've expanded our coastside conservation grazing program by 315 acres, and that supports viable ag use. It helps support and retain the rural character, and the ag character of the coside, and it also helps control wildfires. at the risk of wildfires. So it's a very important program. We've opened four new areas of preserves to the public, Mount Eminem Summit, Lower La Honda Preserve, Bear Creek Redwoods Preserve, Encourage you to go there. Not everyone needs to go to Rancho, and Mendigo Ranch. We've also inquired after a very long process. We have some very dedicated staff who work on land acquisitions. We acquired the 5,100 acre Cloverdale Ranch property, so that's a huge accomplishment, and it took a very long time. We've also opened over 31 miles of trails, with 10 miles already in construction, in addition to that. And if we think it takes a long time to acquire land. It takes sometimes as long, if not longer, to build trails, because part of our mission in the enjoy is to create ecologically sensitive access to the preserves. And to be able to do that, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of work, a lot of due diligence and a lot of care. So when you're out there on the trails, just think about how much investment, not just money, but time, care, and diligence that those trails represent. The, um, we completed a Bay Trail connection at Ravenswood Preserve, also very near to us. I encourage you, if you don't go there, if you haven't gone there, it's beautiful. It's really, really beautiful. That connection established 80 miles of continuous bay trail across the peninsula and to the East Bay. It's a very important trail. Completed the Mendigo Hill Trail at Russian Ridge Preserve. Russian Ridge is fantastic. It was mentioned by Kurt earlier, but one of the things that I really love about Russian Ridge, it has this enormous grinding stone. It's a fantastic feature of that preserve. We've contributed funding towards the completion of the Saratoga to the Sea Trail, connecting Corey Park to Sanborn County Park, and completed the Mount Eminem Trail at Sierra Azul Preserve, which was designated as the National Recreation Trail in 2018 by the US Secretary of the Interior. And another project has been completed. Another trail completed is the Oyon and steam donkey trails, El Cordobin, Nebendera. So, to accommodate access to the trails, we also have to do this thing that we are not the most happy about doing, but we must do, which is to create parking lots. So we have created parking spaces for another 126 cars, vehicles to come visit our preserves. And we do want you to enjoy the preserves. So when I sound a little down on that, don't be discouraged, it's just know that it's ecologically sensitive. So when you're in the preserves, I know you'll do due diligence and take great care, but enjoy them to the utmost. So with that, we are all here to answer your questions. Thank you.

[00:40:59] Mayor Pat Showalter: Does anybody have any questions? I really appreciated hearing an update in all the progress you've made in the last few years. It's really quite amazing. And I did go to the Bear Creek, um, uh, reserve, and the wildflowers, I just couldn't, I couldn't believe it. It was like, you know, it was like you were almost on a, um, a set for a, a, a movie or something. There were so many of them. was really beautiful. Bear Creek has quite a history too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, any, um, comments? Council member Hicks?

[00:41:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I do have a question. Thank you. So, and this is kind of a peculiar question for me to ask, because I'm much more of a hiker than a biker. But do are any of the trails, bike trails? And so tell me more about that, because I aspire to become more of a biker. And also, are you working on, in addition to parking lots, bike access to the trail heads?

[00:41:59] Karen Holman: Yes, good questions, and I'll ask my colleagues here to supplement, with their comments, if they should have some. A number of our preserves do allow bike access, and we had a very controversial conversation, maybe two years ago, about e bikes. And we do allow e bikes for those who have physical disability, and it's the only way they can enjoy the preserves. We do allow e bikes for that purpose. And we also, though, did limit e bikes to, like in Ravenswood. It's where the, it's a commuter really, that goes through Palato's Baylands as well. So e bikes are allowed there. They're allowed in Rancho San Antonio, on the areas where bicycles are already allowed, and anything to add? You want to go? Do you have something to add?

[00:42:52] Yoroko Kishimoto: I think it's about, I believe, it's about 40 or 50% of the trails are open to the bicycle, so it's a fairly large percentage. And a plug for our website. If you go to open space.org, easy to remember. If you go to openspace.org, it's really fantastic that all of the preserves are identified in all of the amenities and what's allowed in the preserves is all laid out, gives the history of the preserves, it's really a fantastic website. I really encourage you to access it.

[00:43:23] Kurt Riffle: And lastly, about that, it's like, so since our offices are just around the corner. There's also a pretty new. like maybe two months old or so. There's a new booklet that is an 8.511 size, and it has all kinds of information about the preserves. It's a very good, like, take it with you, access for the preserves.

[00:43:42] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you.

[00:43:43] Kurt Riffle: You're very welcome.

[00:43:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, thank you so much for coming. And cheering all that information, we really appreciate it.

[00:43:51] Karen Holman: Thank you for having us.

[00:43:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So, um, now we're going to move on to 3.3, which is Hispanic heritage month proclamation. And we're really happy to be joined this evening by Marco Antonio Sedillo, Treasurer of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View, to accept this proclamation. Marco, will you join me at the lecture?

[00:44:15] Marco Antonio Cedillo: Sure.

[00:44:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: This is a little shorter than the one for Dawn was, which is probably good, right? That's good. Okay, whereas in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson first introduced his Spanish Heritage Week, to recognize and celebrate the independence of our neighbors in Central America and Mexico, and 20 years later, the recognition period, the recognition period, was expanded from one week to one month, beginning September 15th through October 15. And whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities in Mountain View, who call our city home and help Mountain View thrive, represent a diverse group with routes throughout Latin America and beyond, and many Latino residents also trace their heritage to the original Indigenous communities of Latin America and Africa, and, whereas, in recognizing and celebrating the achievements of our Hispanic and Latino community, We honor them and recognize all they have helped build in our state and city. They are civil rights leaders, community organizers, first responders, healthcare professionals, teachers, artists, athletes, entertainers, colleagues, and friends, and whereas the Hispanic and Latino communities make incalculable contributions to our neighborhoods and community in every sector of the economy, and we are a greater and more vibrant city because of them. Now, therefore, I, Pat Showalter, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th as Hispanic Heritage Month. Thank you very much for being here. Would you like to say some things?

[00:46:17] Marco Antonio Cedillo: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:46:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, here we go.

[00:46:38] Marco Antonio Cedillo: Okay. Dear mayor, it is very nice to hear from you, the highest authority in our city, who recognizes the Hispanic and Latino communities for the accomplishments and contributions that we, as civil rights leaders and community organizers have made. We are making, Mountain View, our home, because truly, Mountain View, as our home, together, we did it. Thank you.

[00:47:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much, Mr. Cydia. And, um, would any council members? Have any comments at this time? Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. We don't usually have three presentations, but it was very nice to have them tonight. And on such uplifting subjects. So now we move to item four, which is the consent calendar.

[00:47:45] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor, what? Did you want to take public comment? on these?

[00:47:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Ah, of course I did. I'm sorry, I forgot about that. Yes, we have a public comment period for all the presentations. So, um, if you have given a blue card to the, if you'd like to speak, please, um, come forward. If you've given, do we have any blue cards?

[00:48:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No?

[00:48:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, anybody online?

[00:48:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No?

[00:48:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Right. Okay. All right. So is it time to move on now? Good. All right. Consent calendar. All right, these items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately, following approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you would like to speak on these items, or the next item, oral communication on non agenda items, in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. And it's also our custom to poll items not to vote on them separately, but just to comment on them. So we do both of that at the same time. So would any council member like to pull an item, either for a separate vote in consideration or just to make a comment? Council member, Mattachek?

[00:49:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you, item 4.9? I don't think I need to pull it for a special vote if I just want to make a comment.

[00:49:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Go ahead.

[00:49:18] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, on 4.9, this is the council advisory body work plans, and, um, I went through them, and going forward, I would like to see greater consistency in the work plans. Um, they have different formats. They contain different levels of information, um, some of them are, you know, very detailed, others are pretty high level. Some of them have, um, timelines, um, some of them don't. Um, it just felt like, um, perhaps they could be more consistent. Um, and I think it would also be good to add, um, something in there that talks about how'd you do versus last year's work plan. so that we can see whether or not our advisory bodies are accomplishing what they set out to do. So um, I guess that's my perspective. Others would obviously weigh in on that maybe at another time. But, um, for me, um, I would like to see greater consistency. Thank you.

[00:50:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And I wanted to comment on a couple of them, too. One of them is 4.6, Vision 0 and local road safety plan. It's the final plan. And I just really wanted to say that I'm so glad to see this moving forward. And I want to thank the staff, and the BPAC members, as well as all the community members who've contributed to this. As I talk to people on the campaign trail, they are continually telling me about the importance of bike and pedestrian safety. For the most part, they appreciate the improvements that have been made, but they're interested in even more of them. And that's really what this plan is all about. It's making bike and pedestrians safe. I think it's important that this is not just about building bike lanes and wider sidewalks. It's also about teaching people how to bike more safely, teaching drivers to share the road more safely, and particularly teaching our children how to be safe on their bikes, and with safe routes to school. So I want to thank everybody that, you know, that's really been part this. It's very important for our community. And I know there's council transportation. Have they been involved in it, too? Yeah, thanks to them as well. Yeah. And then I'd like to put in my own personal plug for item RU 9, which is conduct high visibility enforcement. I often think that a few tickets written, or strategic police presence can go a long way to improving people's behavior. And, um, so I would just like, I would like to say, I think that that can be quite, quite important. But anyway, kudos to getting this plan this far, and we're really looking forward to actually implementing it. Then the other item I wanted to mention was the 4.8. Concrete sidewalk and curb repairs. The city has an ongoing program to maintain our sidewalks and safe condition, and I thought maybe our public works acting director at Orango could tell us a little bit about the program. And in particular, the reason I would like him to do that is because this is one of those things where, um, active participation by Mountain View community members can make this better. So, tell us a little bit about how it works and how people can help.

[00:52:53] Ed Arango: Sure, thank you for the question. Again, Edorango, acting public works director. Whenever I get a chance to talk about public works, I always enjoy that. So thank you for calling attention to this. This is an annual sidewalk maintenance program that we have that goes around and fixes sidewalks and curbs that have been damaged, uplifted, deteriorated, they need to be repaired. The way that we, um, identify what locations are really um, largely community driven. So we have asked mountain views that get submitted on a regular basis to the city and identify. There is a sidewalk that's uplifted. There's a curb that's damaged. We put it on the list, we go out and do a field review, and assess it, and identify kind of priority. So based on that, and staff's field review too. Staff is always in the field. They've identified locations of curbs that need repaired, sidewalks that need to be repaired. They put it on the list. We use all that information. We compile it, and then we develop our program that we put every year. So, um, it's been very successful, um, and it's, it spans the whole city. It's not just one neighborhood, one location focused. We really try to identify all the locations throughout the city, they need repairs, so that way it's equal, and we're addressing all the systematic repairs that are needed.

[00:54:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. So it's important for us to put in those ask Mountain View requests.

[00:54:18] Ed Arango: Yes, please do.

[00:54:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So with that, I'd like to ask for emotion for the remainder of the consent calendar.

[00:54:26] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Public comment.

[00:54:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: You know, I've been off for the summer. I'm out of, uh, out of practice here. So do we have any public comment on, um, the, uh, consent calendar. It looks like we have, Tushar, more tea. Tushar, would you like to come forward and speak? Yes. Thank you. You have three minutes.

[00:54:56] Tushar Moorti: Yes, thanks. My name is Toshar Amorti. I have been in the area about 31 years now, 30 years with a bicycle, because the first year I didn't have a bicycle. 25 of those years, I've lived in Mountain View. And I am probably one of the very few, maybe the only people that you will see biking up and down El Camino. as it is now. I bike on, I bike to work, to groceries, to look at tile for our house remodeling. I mean, essentially, I try to bike anywhere I can. Now, one thing that I am a little bit worried about, and this is part of the whole, you know, road to hell paid by good intentions, is the Class 4 separated, physically separated bicycle lanes. What that does is it creates kind of a tunnel for bicyclists. So they can't really get out. I mean, one of the, I think, in the, the, the council report I read, is kind of highlighting the ones that are near Graham on Castro Street, saying, Hey, you know, the bicycle or the safety has been improved there. That may be the case, but actually, just the summer, I saw, and I took pictures of tree cutting services that had blocked the bicycle lane there. And now, how do you get out, right? So you're biking along, and now you're stuck. And what we really want to do. What I would like to do, what I'd like to see Mound View do is to increase the number of bicyclists. And any time one of these things happens, because, yes, for sure, the killed and serious injury numbers have to be reduced. No argument there. But getting more people on the bicycles, we've got lovely weather for eight and a half months of the year, getting people on more bicycles will actually reduce the total number of vehicles out there, and that's what we want to do. What we needed is create situations that don't end up aggravating bicyclists, as opposed to just trying to get the numbers down. So I'd like you to focus on, ideally, uh, solutions that don't involve, for instance, uh, tunneling bicyclists in, uh, on El communal. I'm actually kind of dreading seeing these barriers, because there's always delivery vans. There's always some sort of service. I mean, there's delivery lines everywhere now, right? There's up and down the peninsula all over the place. And where do they end up? The end of the bicycle lane, right? Because that's the that's ling over. And now we're stuck. So, as a bicyclist, I would love to see more people bicycle, I'd like to see also solutions that don't limit the ability of those of us who do bicycle now, because we don't want to reduce the number of injuries by just reducing the number of bicyclists. So, please think about those things as you not only just cash your vote here, but also in future projects as well. I think it's important to maintain the few bicyclists that we do have. Thank you.

[00:57:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Ramirez. Do you have a comment?

[00:58:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I've had a comment to his comment.

[00:58:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. On Zoom, we have April Webster. April?

[00:58:16] April Webster: Hi, I'd also like to make a comment about ECR and priorities. Um, I've, um, been cycling since I was a child and I've cycled, um, all around the world, and, um, even made it to Mount Von, too. So I want to point out that I'm a very experienced cyclist. I road bike, mountain bike, and I wanted to just counter the past comment. vehicularized cyclists. Those who actually ride bicycles, like, more like motor vehicles, and maybe comfortable navigating, and out of traffic on a street, high speed street like ECR, isn't your typical sort of approach. And it excludes that type of infrastructure as not perceived as safe or as comfortable, and it excludes more risk adverse groups, myself included, despite my experience. And it really targets marginalized communities that are encompassed in AAA, women, children, seniors, groups that frequently face disproportionate safety concerns, and, um, uh, avoid biking due to perceived risks associated with sharing the road with cars. So I really want to make sure that, um, that user group is identified, and that we are inclusive, and more user centric, and who we are addressing, um, and just say that, um, for these groups, that sort of protected bike lane is essential, absolutely essential to addressing their safety needs, and their perception of safety. Women may have heightened concerns for their safety and street harassment. Myself, I have been had men in large trucks pull up next to me and yell at me while I've been cycling. So, really just want to point out, when you were thinking about this, please consider all user groups. Thank you so much.

[01:00:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. Um, I don't see any more, um, public comment. So I think that it's time for emotion, and there are a few things to read. Council member Ramirez.

[01:00:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'm happy to make the motion, but I did want to speak very briefly, first, to recognize that the public comments. I think each of the comments we heard has merit.

[01:00:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I'm appreciating the first speakers observation that sometimes, there can be obstructions in protected bike ways that can make it challenging for cyclists, and this is actually a recurring problem in my day job. There's a protected bike lane that people park in, and that means you can't use the protected bike lane for cycling. So I think we do need to be thoughtful about roadway geometry and enforcement. But also, I support protected bike lanes because I do believe it will help incentivize or encourage folks who may not feel comfortable writing in the roadway with cars. So I think both of these things are good to keep in mind. But first, more importantly, I wanted to extend my appreciation and gratitude for the staff, the BPAC, the community, and the CTC for their work on the Vision 0 action plan, local road safety plan, terrific document. And I think very progressive and very helpful in achieving our bicycle pedestrian safety goals. I appreciated also the staff responses to the council questions submitted in advance and am excited about. the project level crash analyses that will inform the work that we do, and also the potential to explore some emerging or newer technologies, and safety, things like the no right turn on red, which I know is something we have to be really thoughtful and implementing, but something that historically we haven't really looked at. So with that, I'll go ahead and move to approve the staff recommendations, including item 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, Amending City Council Policy, K2, Council Advisory Bodies, removing the requirement for public safety advisory board, PSAB members to be interviewed by the entire city council to be read entitled only for the reading waived. 4.3. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees, and annuitants under the public employees, Medical and Hospital Care Act, with respect to a recognized employee, uh, employee organization, group 001 safety fire, uh, to be read in title only, further reading, waived, and adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, fixing the employer contribution at an equal amount for employees and annuitants under the public employees, medical and hospital Care Act, with respect to a recognized employee group, uh, employee organization, group 002, safety police, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. 4.4 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View authorizing the city manager to execute agreements with the California Department of Transportation for the city of Mountain View, Rankdorf Avenue Complete Street Study, to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.5, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View authorizing temporary closure of parking lot 12 from 730 a.m. through 230 p.m. on select Sundays occurring between September 29, 2024, and January 26, 2025, not to exceed 8 Sundays, for use by the California Farmers Market Association to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and item 4.10, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View Authorizing Application to the local Housing Trust Fund Program and certifying to the California Department of Housing and Community Development Compliance with the local Housing Trust Fund Program requirements to be read entitled only for the Reading Waived. Thank you.

[01:04:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, now, uh, Council member Kumet?

[01:04:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to add some of your comments and Council member Ramirez comments came up during our CTC meeting last week that we had. And so, um, uh, the committee did give direction, whether it's in our active transportation planner in our origin, 0 plan, trying to address some of the suggestions you all brought up. So I just thought it was, I was gonna talk about it later. But I thought I, since we have members of the public too, and I see our staff in the audience, this did come up during our council transportation meeting last week, and so we are aware, and we did provide direction that we would like to look at, variety of mechanisms. So just wanted to add that. Thank you, Mayor.

[01:04:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: That's excellent. Thank you. Okay, so, um, uh, we've had public comment and we've, uh, I think it's time for a vote. The motion passes unanimously. I always like to be able to say that That's good. Okay, now we come to oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter that is not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, Please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public join us virtually, or in person, like to provide comment on this item? I see one in person. Ms. Conley, welcome.

[01:06:09] Devon Conley: Good evening, Mayor Show Walter, and honorable council members. My name is Devin Connolly, and I'm the board president of the Mountain View Wisman School District. As many of you are aware, approximately 20% of the students at Castro Elementary School do not have stable housing. In fact, we've seen our homeless population in our school district, as well as countywide, continue to increase since the pandemic. I'm here tonight to share some good news, though. On October 29th, the Mountain View Wisman School District, we'll be opening our new school/parent activities and resource center, or spark for short, a resource hub for our district families, but especially those experiencing homelessness. These are our shared constituents and families, and I thought it was important that you know about it. Located at Grand Middle School, the spark will be a one stop shop for families, to receive support, including supplies, services, referrals, and more. We are also exploring adding laundry and shower facilities. Our teachers, staff, and school board know that the needs of our students extend beyond the classroom, and we are excited to be able to offer this new resource hub for our families. On behalf of the school district, our director of federal state and strategic programs and our school community engagement facilitators, I would like to cordially invite you to join us for the opening of Spark. Please watch your email for formal invitation coming soon. And I would also like to give a brief thanks for the support of the city when we did have that sewer issue at MI elementary school earlier this year. One thing that was really helpful. We had teams that worked through the night to try and dig down and deal with this pipe. And, um, the police department and emergency services knew that if people called in about the noise. They could tell them what was going on, and that was very helpful because we were worried about neighbors being disturbed overnight. But everyone, not just the city's staff, but even the neighborhood was very supportive of getting that problem solved. So thank you.

[01:08:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: And we'll look forward to that email. Is there anybody on Zoom? I don't... No, I don't think there is. Okay, so that brings our oral communications to a close. And we move to item six, public hearing. The first one is 6.1, minor downtown precise plan amendments, and council member of a coga. Do you have an announcement to make?

[01:08:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I am recusing myself from discussion of the minor downtown precise plan amendments due to the proximity of my personal residence to the downtown precise plan area. Thank you.

[01:09:02] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, and, um, Council member Hicks.

[01:09:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I'm also recusing myself from the discussion due to the proximity of my residence from the downtown precise plan area. Thank you very much.

[01:09:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, our economic development strategist, Amanda Rotella and Principal Plana, Diana Pancholi, 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. Staff, welcome.

[01:09:42] Amanda Rotella: Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. I'm Amanda Otella, economic development strategist here. I'm joined by my colleague, Diana Pincholi, and we're here to present on the minor downtown Precise Plan updates. So to just orient everyone to the downtown precise plan, It was originally adopted. originally adopted in 1988 with subsequent amendments, and you can see on the map here that our precise plan is broken into 10 subareas. And tonight, we'll be looking at the sub areas that run along Castro Street. So that's HDE INJ. And really, the precise plan serves as the foundation framework for guiding all private development and public improvements in our downtown. And there is a comprehensive update that will be coming. It's in the works, and we plan to kick that off in Q3 of this year, and we anticipate it will take between 2 and 2.5 years to complete. And so we're bringing these amendments to you in advance of that. Some other key background, our economic vitality strategy was adopted or approved in April of this year. And there are 5 goal areas, and goal number 2 is focused solely on downtown. And I just want to read that goal. Reinvigorate downtown Mountain View as the premier destination for pedestrian scale shopping, dining, and social engagement. And we have a number of actions that are focused on the downtown, but related to the amendments we're bringing before you tonight. There's an action item specifically around supporting and retaining restaurants, and another action item around supporting flexible zoning to allow for business innovation. Another key thing that came through during the outreach we did for the economic vitality strategy was retail vacancy repeatedly came up. And we heard this as a concern from stakeholders as well as city leadership. And there are a number of action items in the economic vitality strategy that are focused on ways that the city can support addressing vacancy. And there are roles for the public sector to play as well as the private sector. within the public sectors per view. Some of the things that we do to address vacancy is around streamlighting, the permitting process, facilitating zoning changes and response to market demands, developing incentive programs, and also investing in public amenities and infrastructure. So some of the work that we're bringing here, you're bringing to you this evening addresses those tools that are within our toolbox. So the goals of the proposed amendments. And really, the amendments are being before you are really targeted strategic amendments are really focused on forwarding some of our city goals, but we really are looking to position downtown Mountain View to be responsive to the trends, the changing trends that we're seeing, create some immediate opportunities for businesses and really to remove barriers and fill vacant storefronts so that we can bring in new businesses. and get those spaces filled. So the proposed amendments that you have before you kind of fall into 3 buckets, the 1st is restaurant uses. So we're seeking to modify the land use table for areas E and H, to allow for restaurants that serve alcohol alcoholic beverages, ancillary to food service as a principally permitted use. So it is already principally permitted in areas D-I-N-J, and so we're just looking to bring areas E and H into alignment. The next bucket is around indoor recreation and fitness center uses, and these are businesses that provide entertainment services for a fee or admission. So examples might be yoga studio, a mini golf, escape rooms, a paint and sip studio. And we are proposing adding indoor recreation and fitness centers with or without the service of beer or wine, as in areas D, E, H, I, N, J, as a principally permitted use. For those businesses that would like to serve liquor, they will still be required to obtain a provisional use permit. And then lastly, business services, and this is really just a cleanup item, modifieding business services to business support services. And this is really to ensure that the label is consistent with how it reads in our city zoning ordinance. So to jump in and a little more rationale for the restaurant use modifications we're proposing. So as I mentioned, our economic vitality strategy, um, has a action item focused on supporting and retaining restaurants. And so this is really allowing us to take immediate action to remove some barriers for new restaurants to move in and create a more conducive business environment for restaurants. We're also taking a move to align with regional jurisdictions who have already made a move and identified restaurant development as really core to downtown activation and revitalization strategies. And lastly, you know, we are seeing economic data that is really showing, you know, an upward trend in sales for dining, travel, and entertainment at the state level. We've seen sales tax surpass sort of pre-pandemic levels. And so this change really allows mountain view to position itself to be responsive to growing consumer trend and also capture some of that sales tax data that comes with it. For rationale for the indoor recreation and fitness center use modifications. So again, we're just seeing this shift in retail trends towards more experiential and entertainment offerings. We're seeing consumers seeking out those unique hands-on, you know, really memorable experiences. And we also see that entertainment uses when they exist in proximity to restaurant uses as really complementary. So what used to be dinner in a movie is now dinner in an escape room or take a yoga class and grab a cup of coffee. And so really wanting to support the existing bricks of retail that we have in the downtown by bringing this other complementary use in. We also see that these types of uses have a regional draw and see patrons that are willing to travel farther for unique experiences. I shared this with the EPC. I live in Santa Cruz and have done quite a bit of travel to visit escape rooms. And so we're seeing patrons who are willing to do a little driving to go to unique experiences. And really, again, these amendments are to be responsive to market shifts. We really want to streamline the process so that we can encourage and attract these kinds of businesses to our downtown. So we have gone both to the downtown committee and the EPC. In both cases, we had very strong support, no recommended changes. The EPC did make a recommendation of approval of the amendments. And the staff recommendation is on the screen above you or in front of you. And we're available for questions. Thanks so much.

[01:16:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. So we'll have counsel questions 1st and then public comment. So, anyone have a question? No? Okay. Seeing none? All right, so then I'll open the public comment on this. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak on this item? Do you see anyone online?

[01:17:23] City Clerk Heather Glaser: April.

[01:17:24] Mayor Pat Showalter: Ms. Webster. Go ahead.

[01:17:32] April Webster: Thank you, Mayor. I wanted just to comment on the permitting system. A friend of mine is trying to establish a new small business. And I was, has encountered, um, uh, a lot of issues with the perverting process. And I was wanting to ask if city staff could refocus efforts and strategy on better supporting small businesses, especially to expedite that process. From what I've heard, Mountain View is starting to gain a reputation of being somewhat more business unfriendly, with costly delays pushing some of these entrepreneurs to look outside of the city. My friend, in particular, lives locally, really close to downtown, and is actually looking to, instead of opening something an amount of you, is now looking at San Mateo, because it's just been taken that long to get something sorted, and is still waiting. And then, um, I also had a look at the, an article in the Mountain View Voice, which highlights, um, similar challenges, um, there's an architect act, and I, I believe, potentially, restauranteur, um, who have faced the same problem. So, you know, just asking that to me, you know, maybe take a look at that process and find ways to, I don't know, integrate technology or something, but just to expedite that, so we can keep some of these small businesses, some of these people who live in our community local. And that particular one is a coffee shop, so I personally would love to see that in town. Thank you so much.

[01:19:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay, so I don't see any more virtual speakers. And so I'll bring it back for council deliberation. Does anyone have comments? All right, well, then if nobody has comments, then it's time for emotion. And Lucas Ramirez. Okay, Emily's gonna make the motion. Um, council member of Ramos.

[01:19:45] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you mayor. I move. The staff's recommendation to adopt the resolution of the city council of the city amount of you, amending the downtown, P 19 precise plan to update the land use table for areas D-E-H-I-N-J, as recommended by the environmental planning commission, and finding out, pursuant to sequel guidelines, 15162 and 15163. None of the circumstances necessitating further sequel review are present to be read entitled Further Reading Wave. I'm open to any amendments, if that's the reason why you wanted to make the motion in the 1st place.

[01:20:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: And Council member Kame, you second?

[01:20:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay.

[01:20:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I would just like to comment that I think this is very good. I'm really pleased to see this kind of expediting of the process. It's going to be very welcome.

[01:20:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so, um, Council member Map Check. Lucas, I mean, council member Ramirez, do you have a comment?

[01:20:52] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. very briefly. So I wanted to also share my appreciation to staff for proactively doing this work and bringing it to council. It's something that the council has heard about over the years, and I think it's great to see creativity and proactive initiation of the changes that I think will really help revitalize the downtown. Thank you.

[01:21:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Matachek.

[01:21:20] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, that's exactly what I was gonna say. So ditto.

[01:21:26] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. So with that, I think it's time for a vote.

[01:21:48] Unknown Speaker: The motion passes with five yeas and two recuses. Thank you very much, Steph.

[01:22:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so now we move on to item 6.2, we can can somebody go and get council members, Hicks and Abi Koga, to come back? Join us. Item 6.2 is the fiscal year, 2023 consolidated annual performance, and evaluation report. Happily called the caper. So, um, Housing Officer Alec, uh, Vibro, and, uh, Fording Housing Affordable Housing Manager, Julie Barnard, 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. Staff, go take it away.

[01:23:52] Housing Officer Alec Vibral: Sorry about that. Hello, Honorable Mayor Show Walter. Vice mayor Medachek and council members. I hope you're all having a nice evening. My name is Alec Vibral, and I am a housing officer with the city's Affordable Housing Division. I'm joined by Julie Bernard, the Affordable Housing Manager. And today I will be giving you a presentation on the fiscal year, 2023, 2024, federal consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, also known as the Caper. The city receives grant funding on an annual basis from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for 2 programs, the community development block program, and the home investment partnerships program, also known as CDBG and home for short. To receive this funding, the city is required to complete several plans and reports. One such plan is the annual action plan, which outlines the projects and activities that the city will provide with CDBG and home funding over the fiscal year in alignment with the five-year goals that are established in the city's consolidated plan. The Caper is a HUD required report, which summarizes the accomplishments that were achieved using CDBG and home funding over the fiscal year, and how effectively those funds are meeting the needs of the community. The fiscal year 2023, 2024 caper, covers the period of July 1st, 2023, through June 30th, 2024, and also tracks the progress made towards the city's consolidated plan goals. The capers process includes a 15 day public comment period and a public hearing, after which staff finalizes the report and submits it to HUD by the deadline. The city completes the caper every year, and in the past, it was submitted directly to HUD. But in looking at best practices, this item is being brought to council as a public hearing for the 1st time tonight. Note that the caper is completed on a required template that is provided by HUD. While the template includes various questions and tables that describe the city's overall housing and community development initiatives, the main focus of the caper is to show how the CDBG and home grantees accomplished different tasks over the fiscal year, which will be the focus of this presentation in the next slides. Overall, the city and the grantees are on track towards meeting the goals established in the consolidated plan. CDBG funding was provided to local nonprofits for public services that helped almost 5000 low-income Mountain View residents over the fiscal year. These programs provide services that help seniors, people at risk of homelessness, people with disabilities, and victims of domestic violence to name a few. Grant funding was also provided to other types of projects. The CrestView project is converting a former hotel into 48 units of permanent supportive housing that will assist households experiencing homelessness, including some units dedicated to transition aged youth. You may note that the funding expended is much higher than the allocation. Due to the nature of such projects, They are a multi-year effort and receive multiple years of funding. The renovation work for this project began in 2023, and the project was able to expend its prior year allocation as well as its current year allocation, leading to the large expenditure amount. And the units will be delivered this fall. The minor home repair program, administered by rebuilding together peninsula, provides critical repairs at no cost to low income homeowners in the city who cannot afford to make repairs or modifications to their homes. For those whose independence and safety are jeopardized by the condition of their home. This program provides the life-change repairs that they need to remain housed. Staff recommends that council holy public hearing and approve the caper to be submitted to HUD by the deadline. This concludes staff's presentation, and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[01:27:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council members, are there any questions? Vice Mayor Manachek?

[01:28:03] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I had sent in the questions about, um, why is it that, um, we cite all of the people that a particular organization helps, not just those that are helped by this funding, and I appreciated the response? But, um, Is that something we could add just for our own or for our own information?

[01:28:28] Housing Officer Alec Vibral: I think it would be very challenging. to make that request. I think the most accurate way of providing that information would be to look at their overall program budget, and then what the CDBG or home, actually CBDG, I think in this case, contribution is to that overall budget, and then be able to determine maybe the number of people as the same proportion, if that makes sense. So it's not data that we have at hand. It is certainly something that we could contemplate going forward in our upcoming year, because we're on a 2nd of two-year funding cycle right now, so we will have a new NoFA at the end of the year. So it's a potential addition that we could make to our quarterly reports in our annual report. So, um, to cut a long story short, we don't have the information right now. It's possible, and we can work on it.

[01:29:20] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, so I appreciate what you said. Um, it would be challenging, but, um, I also think what you mentioned about just having what percent of the total budget, the CDBG and home funds are, of their total budget is very, um, interesting to see. Um, and you wouldn't even have to go so far as saying how many people. I just personally would find that very valuable information. I don't know about my colleagues, just so you see how much of, like, an organization's budget is funded by CDPG and home. Thanks.

[01:29:52] Housing Officer Alec Vibral: Sure.

[01:29:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: Any other council questions? No? Okay, so I'll open the public comment period. Um, for this item. Do we have any blue cards? No? No? Um, and I don't see, I don't see anyone online either, so I'll bring it back to the council for deliberation. So, um, who has some comments?

[01:30:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: I guess I'll take a turn with comments. We have been getting this CDBG money and this home money from HUD for many years. I don't really know how long. I would say decades. But, um, I know that when we, um, when we go to DC, on the, um, the League of cities, conferences, in, in March, we always talk to HUD, about this, and, and, um, learn the new things we can, and cannot use the money for, and, um, uh, it's been, um, I think a very, uh, It's like a, it's like a really good, important foundation of the work that we do for affordable housing and to help with homeless. I mean, it's not all of the money by a long shot, but it's dependable and a steady stream, and we really appreciate it. And, um, so, uh, I want to thank you for, um, doing all the administrative work that you have to do to make us have this money and respond to it, because it is, you know, there is quite a bit of reporting. But we get some wonderful things out of it. And because we know that we can expect it for a number of years. We can use it for big projects that take a while, like the CrestView Hotel, and that's particularly valuable. So anyway, okay, those are my comments. And we I guess I'll ask for emotion. Do we need a motion to accept the report?

[01:32:22] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think the staff recommends that the city council receive input and approved draft.

[01:32:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: So we're essentially approving the draft, right?

[01:32:34] Unknown Speaker: That's correct.

[01:32:34] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So, time for vote. We have a second, and a motion.

[01:32:48] Unknown Speaker: It passes unanimously. Thank you very much.

[01:32:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So I'm going to ask my fellow council members, should we take one more item and then have a break, or should we take a break now? One more item.

[01:33:11] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, one more item. Thank you. So, with that, we are moving to new business, item seven. Seven, 7.one, resolution, governing compensation related to Cowper's cost share for all unrepresented police managers, and our human resources director Maxine Gulo 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, Ms. Gulo.

[01:33:54] Human Resources Director Maxine Gulo: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm bringing forward a resolution to amend the cost share for unrepresented police managers. Unrepresented police manager employees contribute a total cost share, which is 0.65% higher than the cost share contributed by represented sworn police employees. The additional 0.65% has been paid by employees in this unrepresented group on an ongoing basis since 2012, when it was implemented as an employee concession as part of a budget balancing strategy during an economic downturn. This resolution, will amend the employee cost share amount to be reduced through a subsequent Calpur's contract amendment. For this change to go into effect for safety members, not represented by a memorandum of understanding. The city needs to request a contract amendment process to be started with Cal Purse. The first step being that cow purrs requires current resolutions pertaining to cost share for unrepresented safety employees to reflect the appropriate amounts. There are three key components that are needed in order for the resolution to comply with Kelp Purse. First, on June 25, 2024, the city council adopted a resolution to amend the compensation for unrepresented employees, which included a reduction of the cost share for the unrepresented police managers by 0.65%. Secondly, Cal Perrs requires the employee paid employer contributions, and employee paid survivor benefit contributions for sworn admiral represented employees, to be combined and listed as a cost share in the resolution. And lastly, for the purposes of cost share, Cal Purs does not allow for single classifications to be considered for a group. Therefore, the police managers includes the police chief. Once counsel passes the resolution tonight, Staff will submit the remaining documents to Calpurs for approval, to begin the contract amendment process. Pending Cal Per's approval. Staff will bring the contract amendment for counsel's approval in two separate meetings in the next few months. This concludes my presentation. Thank you.

[01:36:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council members, do you have any questions? All right. Is there any public who would like to speak on this? I don't see any in the room or on Zoom? So I'll bring it back for council deliberation and emotion. Okay, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Mata check and a 2nd by council member Abi Koga. Any comments? No? Oh, uh, Vice Mayor Manachek? Yes, you have a little to read, don't you?

[01:37:02] Vice Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, and I move that we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View authorizing the city manager, or designate, to modify benefit contributions for unrepresented police managers, to be read entitled only, further reading waived.

[01:37:20] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. I think it's very important for us to take care of these administrative manners. So thank you for bringing this to our attention. It's time to vote.

[01:37:37] Unknown Speaker: The motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

[01:37:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So now we're going, we have two lengthy items after this. So we're going to take a 10 minute break.

[01:38:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, welcome back from break, everybody. Now we are on item 7.2, measure G, programmatic goals and spending priorities. We're going to have in person Spanish translation services for this item. So you will now hear from our interpreter.

[01:39:08] Interpreter: Para les personas, que es cita la interpretación in persona, tenemos auriculares, sisponibles. Oy solo estamos oprescindo interpretación en persona durante la presentación. Tami estaremos ovrescindo interpretación durante los commentarios publicos en persona y virtual. Las personas que necesiten interpretación, consecutiva, por favor aren en bloques de tres oraciones, logo hace pausa, para nosotros interpretari y asi, consecutivamente poder interpretatodas susideas. I will be translating the comment section. We're only translating this portion. We have Jason in the back, who will be translating simultaneously, and once we have public comment, I will be doing it consecutively, translating back to English to you. Thank you.

[01:39:52] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. Okay. So now we have assistant city manager, Arne Andrews, he will present the item. And if you would like to speak on this item. In person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. I can see some people have already done that. That's great. Okay. Mr. Andrews.

[01:40:16] Assistant City Manager Arne Andrews: Great. Thank you, mayor and city council. You recall that tonight's item is a continuation of a discussion that started on June 25th. On June 25th, as council took formal action to adopt a revenue measure for the November ballot, and during that discussion, you asked staff if we could consider options for an allocation strategy, if measure G is adopted by the community. Tonight, we're going to discuss some of the options staff is brought forward and provide some contacts, context of how previous councils have also aligned new revenues, with funding priorities of the community and the council at that time. Great. So I mentioned that previous councils have also tried to align new revenues with the community and the council's priorities at that time. A good example of this is the Moffat Gateway development project. Back in 2018, when this project was being brought forward, the council wanted to provide funding for a future public safety building. And so here, you can see that since 2018, there's been approximately 19.5 million in monies accumulated towards that project. And during budget discussions and budget adoption, we've also put aside an additional 4 million in reserves for a total of about 23.5 million for that project. In addition, we've already started through the budget adoption process, a debt service reserved, that also totals approximately $2 million right now. Another good example of prior councils wanting to align priorities with potential new revenues was the 2018 business license tax, also known as measure P. Back in 2018, the council actually adopted a resolution similar to the discussion we're having tonight, where they wanted to prioritize 80% towards transportation and mobility improvement, 10% to affordable housing, and 10% to other permissible general government purposes. Since the passage of measure P in 2018, approximately 24 million of new revenue has been generated. To look a little closer at the transportation section, the 80% allocation, you can see that the measure P allocations equated to about 45%, or 8 million, towards grade separation projects, another 9.4 million, or 53%, towards bike and pet projects, and then about 400,000, or 2%, towards community shuttle operations. The next pie chart actually shows that with the 9.5 million that Google brought forward to the community shuttle, once you factor that in, you can see that the bike ped projects, 9.4 million, but now about 35%, the grade separation projects, at 8 million, about 29%, and with the Google contribution to the community shuttle, that's at 9.9 million, at about 36%. So taking these prior commitments into mind, and also looking at some of the current community and council priorities, staff put together, what we thought could be a reasonable approach to some of the current priorities that have been articulated by yourselves and by our community members. In this example, we show approximately 35 to 40% towards public safety facilities, 30 to 35%, towards parks, and open space, 20 to 25%, for affordable housing initiatives, and then 5 to 15% towards other general governmental services, which could range from road maintenance, small business support, homelessness, prevention, active transportation, biodiversity, and workforce development. Staff thought it would be good to provide some context of what this could equate to in terms of potential future revenue if the community decides to adopt measure G. And so, since January 1st, we took a look at sales above 6 million. Here are three that stood out just because of the size of them. And what we've done is we've illustrated if they were at the current property transfer fee versus the proposed property transfer fee, you could see it would equate to almost an additional $6.3 million in revenue towards the goals we just described. In addition to the three transactions above, There were another seven transactions that have occurred since January 1st, and those seven would have resulted in about another 2.2 million in additional revenues. So taking it a step further, just for illustrative purposes, if we put together an allocation within the ranges that were provided on the previous slide, and just for illustrative purposes, if we said 35% of public safety facilities, 35% to parks in open space, 20% to affordable housing, and 10% to other governmental purposes, you can see how those three transactions alone, what it would have equated to for each one of those goals, versus if measure G is adopted by the community, and you can see where it is by project, for instance, for parks and open space, instead of that goal receiving about 621,000 under the current environment, if measure G is adopted by voters in November, it would equate to about 2.8 million for that goal. That concludes staff's presentation. We're available for any questions, other, as is other staff in the audience.

[01:46:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you very much. So, first, we'll have council questions and then public comment. So, do we have any council questions? Uh, Council member Ramos.

[01:46:15] Councilmember Emily Ramos: This question is for the city manager. We asked this briefly. What would be one of the things that the public has reached out about was concerned with the public safety building, that everything has already been decided. What are the next steps with the public safety building and what are the opportunities of engagement for the public on that?

[01:46:35] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, council member Amos. So council has not made a determination yet on the public safety building. Thus far, council has discussed a potential design, and the potential costs and structure of what the building would look like. Staff is anticipating bringing something back to council. And what we are looking at now is a substantially changed building, where we are looking at the cost of the building and trying to figure out ways that we might be able to reduce the amount of the cost of the building, which could also involve a phasing structure. So that is anticipated to come to council shortly, but within the next few months, I would imagine. And then the community will have the opportunity to provide feedback at that time and council will make their ultimate decision at that time.

[01:47:39] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. That's all the questions I have.

[01:47:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez? Council member Ramirez just noted that that does not include the construction contract itself. So just make a note of that. Thank you, Marin.

[01:47:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, city manager, for that clarification. First, thank you to staff for preparing some additional analysis in the report, or the presentation, and then also for the questions, or the responses to the questions submitted in advance, and several of those questions I thought may be useful for the public. So I did want to ask, repeating some of these questions, but just to make sure the community is able to benefit from that information. So first, affordable housing funding that is generated for measure G could also be used for acquisition and rehabilitation work as well. Is that right?

[01:48:42] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Thank you for the question. And speaking with Director Chen, there's nothing that would preclude them for using it towards any of the housing department's goals. Unless counsel were to provide a stipulation tonight, they would view. It is just revenue flowing into their program, and they would use it for whatever the priorities are at the time.

[01:48:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. And then, I submitted a question based on some community concern about cost overruns that could occur after a construction contract is awarded, and staff provided analysis of a number of different projects historically, that, I think, provide some insight into when there might be cost overruns, and I'd be interested in staff, at least providing a summary of that information, and then any other insight you can provide to the coun and the community.

[01:49:37] Ed Orango: Thank you for the question. Counselor Ramirez, Ed Orango, again, acting public works director. So, um, the question that got submitted regarding, um, examples of cost overruns for construction contracts. So, um, our efforts went back and just evaluated the various um, categories of construction projects. And these are, again, once we've gone through design. We've identified the actual scope of work. We put out a contract out for bid, and a contract bids on that actual scope of work. So then it's very fixed scope and items that we're looking to get costs for. We enter into a contract with a contractor at that time. And the contract says that you will do the scope items for the amount of money that you've bit up for the contract. So through that evaluation, we provided some example projects. Identify, we try to cover facilities, parks, as well as utilities, to demonstrate that through the project management and construction management efforts that the city goes through, which are very robust. We have staff that are very experienced in project management and construction management, years of experience, experience with city projects, utility projects, parks, projects, that we have been very successful and ensuring that we stay within the contract amount that we entered into the contractor with. Some of the examples that identified, again, we didn't do a robust search, but we tried to identify some, you know, larger projects and smaller projects, roadway and such. We could only remember one of them that really, we found an unforeseen condition during the field, which we identified in the response. Sometimes that does happen. We actually expect it. Within the construction contract, we build in a contingency. We identify an additional amount of a buffer, really adjust in case, because during construction, it's not an exact science. We run into issues during construction on a regular basis. But again, staff does a really great job of managing the contract, communicating with the contractor, and finding solutions that are cost effective. What is the most cost effective way to solve the problem? So through those mechanisms and through those procedures. Again, we've been really successful in staying within the contract. The one that got flagged that we identified, that we remembered, was that one with, we were resurfacing the roadway. Actually, remember very clearly. And the contractor found that there was no subbase at that location. So the typical roadway configuration is, as everybody sees the asphalt, is the black asphalt. Underneath it, there's a structural subbase. It kind of rock. It gets compacted. When they went to do the repairs, they found no subbase. So it was hard for them to apply pavement measures to something that just couldn't withstand it. So we ended up doing a reconstruction effort there, more robust than we had anticipated. It was very focused on that one street. We came back to council and requested additional appropriation. But if you notice the, that the amount was, of the overall project was a very small percentage. And again, the other projects that we've identified, we all stay within the contract amount. So, we feel like we have a very good track record in delivering projects within the contract amount.

[01:52:55] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So, one example of a project that, where there was a cost overrun host award of the contract, and in that case, it was 5% above the contract amount, which is, I think, actually a pretty remarkable history. So thank you for doing that analysis. I'm not done with you, Ed. The next question, I've gotten this question a lot, and I appreciate in the staff presentation, There was a tee up of how we've used measure P funding, the business license tax increase from 2018. I'm hoping you can break down, especially the bicycle pedestrian, the projects that were funded by Measure P. You have some granular detail to provide the community. That would be helpful.

[01:53:44] Ed Orango: Sure. Again, we through our extensive capital improvement program process. I'm starting here to give some information to the council and to the public. We go through a robust evaluation of all the capital projects within the capital program projects. I don't have the exact number. What I want to say, it's 335 projects within the Captain Broom Park. Every year, we evaluate and review them. Every other year, we could go through a five year evaluation, which is very intensive. But regardless of if we're doing an intensive five year review, or we're just doing a second year review. We always identify the bicycle and pedestrian projects that are being identified in the program. So we pull those out separately, to identify for the public and for the council. Here are all the projects that the city is working on that are bike and pedestrian focused. So it was a good opportunity to bring that list back, because we came here in April of this last year. identified those projects as an attachment to the study session, and so we use that as a starting base. And then, from there, we identified all the measure P, is it you're asking about the measure P program?

[01:55:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes, measure P funded projects.

[01:55:04] Ed Orango: So it was, some work had already been started. So, um, I have a list that I prepared. We're big on spreadsheets in engineering. So, um, I just wanted to go through. There's probably at least a dozen or more projects in here, but roughly. I wanted to call out just a few examples. These are projects. We use a combination of funding in our capital improvement program that it's not just focused on one funding, but it may be focused on one funding, but it may be a various sources of funding, may contribute to one project. So I don't have that granular level of detail for each of these projects, I want to mention, but it measure P did contribute to funding. So some examples that are, I'm going to give you completed projects, projects and design, and then projects to look forward to. A couple of projects that are complete is the Calderon bike lane project. These were the bike lanes that really provided that last connection. We had bike lanes north of, um, um, mercy. But south of El Camino. And there was a gap there. So we identified bike lanes to improve there, so funding went to that one. The Castro Pedmal feasibility study. That was also another project that was funded my measure P, which led to the Grand Pet Mall that you see today. So, really, it really started the initiation efforts for that. Couple in design. It's one that's very popular right now. It's the middle field road complete street project. We're using Measure P funding to fund that project. Another one in design is a Rankstorf Avenue grade separation project. Also measure P findings to help with design and right away there. And then, lastly, it's someone to look forward to. It's the Terabella Avenue bike wave feasibility study. Also, portion of it, measure B funded. And that's going to study the feasibility of installing bikeways along Terabella.

[01:57:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. And if it feels like I'm grilling you, it's because I am. I'm being grilled in the community a lot the past several weeks, and so I'm very grateful to staff for preparing a lot of this information relatively expeditiously. Um, thank you. I think those are my questions for you. I did have a few additional for R and or for other staff who might be able to answer these questions. I've gotten a lot of questions about monitoring and tracking, measure P-funded projects. So that analysis that Ed just shared, for instance, could that be posted on the Legistar page for item 7.2? So members of the public could benefit from it? Would that be possible?

[01:57:46] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Sure, our communications program and staff is always trying to find better ways to be transparent to the interests of the community. Clearly measure P with the conversations around measure G as an interest, and we can definitely find a way to make sure that that information either has its own web page. Perhaps it's on the public works website since they're handling most of the projects, or maybe it would just be an individual one. Hey, community. This is how your dollars are being spent.

[01:58:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Great, thank you. We might, sorry, one caveat, we might have to wait till after the election, so that we don't give the appearance of advocating, but I can check with the city attorney's office on that. But for measure P, which has already been approved by the voters. Are there ways we could help provide some transparency to the public that were using the money in accordance with the resolution that was adopted in 2018.

[01:58:39] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Within the context of just measure P and the public works department, and not tonight's conversation, yes.

[01:58:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

[01:58:50] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I'd like to add council member Ramirez, and this was noted in the council question and answers that we are also going to engage our audit firm every year to clarify the way that the measure P dollars are being spent. So it is called out in the CIP for those projects. Now, you saw in the pie chart that there is more money that the city is spending towards the community shuttle. And to clarify, that is because Google no longer pays for that shuttle. So there are more measure P dollars being spent on that now. And then the breakdown of the other pieces of the pie, we will certainly find ways to provide that information, much as what the assistant city manager said. And also the audit firm will also do an audit of those dollars being spent. And the way that counsel prescribed all those years ago.

[01:59:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you very much. And my final question is, how will you implement the expenditure plan, if it's approved by the council tonight, and what happens if there's a shortfall?

[01:59:59] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Thank you for the question. So, similar to measure P of counsel adopts an allocation plan tonight. Staff will be bound by that, and we will treat it as such. That will be our direction going forward, and we won't deviate from that direction. Whatever percentages you set this evening, if you do, that'll be how we move forward, and similar to what the city manager was just saying for measure P, we also anticipate engaging an independent audit for measure G, if it is passed by voters in November, to do a similar annual audit to show how the monies were 1st received, the revenues received, and then how they were expended.

[02:00:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you very much.

[02:00:42] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Abbe Coca.

[02:00:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor and I are chatting. We're looking at slide number four. Actually, 3 and 4. So, um, 3 has the percentage breakdowns. We're trying to figure out what the pie charts. Where, where are the, where's the 10% affordable housing slice as well as the 10% um government purpose slice?

[02:01:07] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Thank you for the question. These pie charts are just illustrative of the 80% for the transportation budget. Okay. We did not show the other two categories. Okay. And I will say, so the first pie chart, actually, totals $17,800 of just measure P funds. What we were doing on the second pie chart was to show that when you also add in the money that Google has provided since 2020, the percentages would have changed in terms of how the different goals were achieved. But the first pie chart was just showing true measure P dollars, and then the second pie chart shows measure P with Google. So it goes from 17.8 million to 27.3 million. It was really just to show that the percentages changed. when you add in the Google piece.

[02:01:52] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. So, um, the affordable housing piece, we have been allocating a 10% of, is it, 24 million total, so 2.4 has gone to affordable housing.

[02:02:08] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Approximately 2.4. The way it happens is council pledged everything above what would have been collected. And so, it would be a little less than 2.4.

[02:02:18] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Because I do recall to some of this funding going into our affordable housing funds. So I just wanted to make sure that's reflected.

[02:02:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member commit.

[02:02:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, I just had a quick question, and it um, pertains to what council member Ramirez was bringing up. Um, I know that our measure G has a dedicated webpage on our, on our city site, that there's, um, charts and and frequently asked questions and kind of to piggyback off of what, because I remember Ramirez was asking, would we also be able to do a dedicated webpage for measure P? And I think that that would be, do you think that that would be something we could do? And I know that the city manager mentioned the audits. Perhaps we could have a place where that lives as well?

[02:03:16] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Thank you, and I believe yes to both questions. I think initially, we can have something probably on the public works website, but in a post adoption environment, we are allowed to post factual information. Everything I've presented tonight is factual. So I believe most of it would also be can be accommodated by the current Measure G website. I will seek a little bit of attorney guidance on that, but the way the web page has currently been designed, It's factual data, and tonight's data is factual data.

[02:03:45] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. And I thank you.

[02:03:50] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, uh, Vice Mayor Manachek.

[02:03:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, um, there was a question about the public safety building, and, um, that was the first I've heard that we're taking a look at that again, uh, tonight. I felt like when it came to council that we made the decision about the size and configuration and stuff and the direction of the architecture. But I didn't think the whole thing was a draft. So can you tell me a little bit more about what's going on, how it came about, and why?

[02:04:19] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Sure. So, council did give direction on the design and the architecture, so that hasn't changed. What needs to be looked at is the cost increases and the the direction that council gave, uh, staff has needed to look at some of the components of that and will need to come back to council.

[02:04:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Primarily because of the cost?

[02:04:45] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Correct. And some other components that they're still analyzing right now.

[02:04:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Thanks.

[02:04:56] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Oh, Council member Hicks.

[02:04:59] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I have a quick question about the public safety building agenda item for the future as well. The last time we addressed that item, there were also areas of the site that were, um, correct me if I'm saying this wrong, sort of designated for other possible public buildings, will that be something we review during that agenda item?

[02:05:20] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: No, just the public safety building?

[02:05:22] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you.

[02:05:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, well, all the council members have had a chance to answer questions, and so we will go to public comment. And, um, I see that we have several people who have put in blue cards. The first one is Malia Pirez, and after that, we have Maria Flores. So, Malia, are you here?

[02:05:49] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, how much time are you? Do we know total how many comets we have? How many commenters?

[02:06:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Um, probably around 15.

[02:06:06] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, everybody gets two minutes. Welcome.

[02:06:11] Malia Pirez: I think it's on. Okay, there we go. Well, good evening, Mayor Show Walter and Vice Mayor Matachek and honorable council members. My name is Malia Pyrus, and I'm an 18-year resident and local nonprofit executive, and I want to just thank you, council member Ramirez, for coming to speak to multiple Spanish speaking groups regarding measure G. And I also want to thank the council for the proclamation given earlier this evening for the Latino and Hispanic heritage. So I think it's really quite fitting that we have a translation this evening too. Many of my friends from the entrepreneurs program who are Spanish speaking local residents are here in attendance this evening. So I'm so glad you guys are here. But I am here in support of Measure G, which feels like a no-brainer to say yes to the real property conveyance tax measure. I support the 2024 for identified priorities, the public safety facilities, which we know are quite outdated in their current condition, affordable housing, which our cities supply far out exceeds, excuse me. Our city's needs, far out seeds, exceeds the current supply. Also for the parks and open space. I love the thought of expanding their footprint. So more parks and more open space. And then the general government services, like addressing our homelessness prevention, and something near and dear to myself and my friends in the audience here, for workforce development. And the estimated annual 9.500000 per year is significant. While I support the 4 identified priorities, I would like to ask the council to reconsider the percentages to an equal 25% per category. Each of them, to me, feel intertwined and each of them are of equal importance. So thank you for your hearing me this evening.

[02:08:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And next is Maria. Flores? Welcome.

[02:08:31] Maria El C. Flores: Thank you.

[02:08:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: And after Maria will have Rubidia. Welcome, Maria.

[02:08:43] Maria El C. Flores: Gracia, mucha gracias. Mi nombres, Maria. Mi nombre, Maria, el si Flores.

[02:09:53] Unknown Speaker: Good evening, my name is Maria El C. Flores. I have lived in Mountain View for 16 years, and I'm here to say that I support Measure G. especially the four important areas. As dear to me, are the low is because we are a low income community, and there's affordable housing. There's help with the police department, and here, I've been here before, and I'm here again, because I know it works to come. I know that you all listen, and I know this process won't be quick, but I trust that it will happen. Thanks again, and we support measure G.

[02:10:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Rubidia? Welcome.

[02:12:21] Rubidia Ayala: Good evening. My name is Rubidia Ayala, and I'm here to say that I support measure G. I see that it's been broken up in four different areas, and I support all four areas, but I would like for it to be in equal parts, 25% for each part. Sometimes I think that, um, I'm sorry, I know that you all listen to our voices, and we come from a space where we have a low income, and we need housing. And I would like for it to be easier for me to pay my housing. I've lived here for 34 years. And I also am happy that we're supporting the police department, because in those 34 years, I can walk and feel safe in the city. That's why I'm here so that you hear our voice, and that you know that we support measure G, and may God bless you.

[02:13:11] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. The next speaker is Renee Bryant. And after Renee, we'll hear from Matthew Reed. Welcome, Renee.

[02:13:21] Renee Bryant: Hi, uh, your mayor, your council members. Um, you know who I am. I'm Rooney Bryant, but in any case, longtime resident, trying to see how I can see this. Okay. Longtime resident and former mayor, I haven't come to address you specifically on the proposed Major G goals and spending priorities. My comments about process. You formulated a splendid set of priorities for the city, one that has a resident and a voter I'm proud of. And these priorities should be guiding your planning and budgetary decisions. The language you approved for Major G emphasizes emergency responses and pavement repair. I say emphasizes because emergency services and pavement repair are the 1st service, the 1st city service is mentioned. Now I see that the proposed spending priorities you're discussing tonight race parks in open space to 2nd place, in terms of fund the location, just behind public safety buildings, which is good. But I find the lack of consistency in your communications with the public troubling. Conflicting messages about how major G monies will be spent, have created an unfortunate lack of trust. Are we to believe the language of the measure? Are we to believe the current proposed priorities, which, of course, can easily be changed? How do your priorities for the city are priorities for the city, figuring into this? Thank you.

[02:14:53] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Mr. Reed, welcome.

[02:14:59] Matthew Reed: Thank you, good evening.

[02:15:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: After Mr. Reed, James Zaworski.

[02:15:03] Matthew Reed: Great, thank you, Mayor Schoalter and Counsel. I am very pleased to be here, this evening, and I am here to speak to the importance of affordable housing in your community. The great thing about Mountain View is that there's really never a question, from this council and from your staff, about the importance of responding to the housing needs of the community. So, it's an honor to come and to work with you all and your staff. As you know, three weeks ago, we were envisioning a different election. Um, we were expecting there to be a substantial opportunity to raise funds for affordable housing, production, and preservation on the ballot. That is not going to be happening. It is fortuitous that this, administration and the council have had chosen to move ahead with this measure because we think it provides an opportunity for the city to reflect on the ongoing need to continue to invest and commit an affordable housing production and preservation in this city. This isn't an easy time. We know there's a lot of priorities that are under consideration. What we would really ask you to reflect on whether the recommendations from staff really, really respond to the priority for housing solutions that your residents have articulated. So we're pleased to be here. We're excited about the opportunity. You're the only city in the county that has an opportunity to bring more resources for affordable housing, and we're looking forward to the campaign. Thanks. Thank you.

[02:17:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Jim Zaworski? And I understand that you'll be speaking on behalf of 10 others. Okay? Are they here? Are they here?

[02:17:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Two here, eight on one. I don't know if they're really there or not, but... could be more.

[02:17:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Can you... Do you see them?

[02:17:28] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are only a few of them online. Uh... How many are online? Two or three? Okay, so that's four.

[02:17:46] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, uh... And how many people are needed for additional? Do we need all 10, or is that that our rule?

[02:17:56] Jim Zaworski: I was only looking for five. I would have got...

[02:17:58] Mayor Pat Showalter: I think it's five, isn't it?

[02:18:00] Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

[02:18:00] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so if that's the case, then we have five. You just thought you were talking... So go ahead. Yeah, okay.

[02:18:06] Jim Zaworski: I probably need what... Can I have, like, six minutes? Is that...?

[02:18:09] Mayor Pat Showalter: No, five minutes.

[02:18:10] Jim Zaworski: Five minutes. I can do that. Thank you, ma'am.

[02:18:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. We're good.

[02:18:14] Jim Zaworski: Okay, my name is Jim Zayorski. Next slide, please. Oh, do I hit the slide? No. As people know, I'm... I wrote the rebuttal argument against measure G, and I'm representing a large group of people that are... we're opposed to measure G. And I want to thank the staff and members of the council for clearing up some of the things that cause us to be against measure G. And with the hope that, someday, we can someday soon, we can rectify this and move together with common goals, because I think staff has done a very good job, as as counsel, to put this forward. So what I would say is our no corps is not against measure G, but it is the Mex 'cause it's gonna generate badly needed revenue for the city where opposition arose from the city's June 25th expenditure plan. And the way the expenditure plan was articulated that caused a lot of anguish in the community. We saw threats to this planned post for the city's budget and keep programs moving forward. As Councilman Ramirez said, based on the fact that cost overruns would now come out of the general fund, which would threaten some very key housing, parks, and other active transportation, canopy programs, and we saw that measure G on net to the community might be net loss, even if we passed it. Next slide, please. So when we looked at the expenditure plan, we saw that there must have, should have, and nice to have, meaning must haves are things we have to do right away. Next line, please, and that we really thought that the city's administration, nice to has, were displacing community must have. There are many must haves in the public safety area. We must have a public safety building that can handle 911 emergencies in a crisis. We must have a city public safety building that is a safe place to work for the people that we trust to protect the environment. However, there were a lot of nice to haves that caused the cost to balloon, and then also caused us to allocate most of those funds to the public safety billing. The staff has taken care of that. Next slide, please. So, this is in an environment where some of our fees, and everyone on council knows they're leveling off. We're not getting as much business builder fees, we're not getting as much tax fees, and as Mr. Reed mentioned, we're not getting state and federal revenue that we were counting on. So this whole environment led us to believe that Measure G was gonna put a squeeze on some of the funds we badly needed to continue to move forward as a great city. Next on, flight seat. So, the new measure G plan is most promising. The public safety building has been refocused on must had islands, fears of cost overruns have been addressed by Lucas and the committee, and I thank the committee and the members of the committee, and the gee allocation for community facing projects, such as affordable housing and parks, has been increased. Next slide, please. Still, G is a limited source of funds. It's not gonna solve everything. Contributions for G Affordable Housing could be important, but it could still be important in defining our future. Next line. We have a $50 million shortfall in affordable housing, versus our housing elements. G's not gonna solve that right away. We are probably about 68 acres short of park space if you use the Quimby rule. Geez, not gonna solve that right away. And G funds that allows... but G funds allocated to the public housing could help us keep our share of federal and state funds for housing and can leverage those funds, and in that way, it's very possible. And also, G funds can magnify the impacts of those funds for housing that we're doing, that we lost if we did not allocate those funds. And I commend the council for allocating those funds to affordable housing. In the case of parks, next line. Well, less than 1% of the money needed to address our 60 year parks deference store, for G funds could nonetheless be allocated to duress our most critical parks and open needs space today, and they can be capitalized to take advantage of large opportunities when and if they arrive. This is gonna be the first dedicated funding to parks equity issues in underserved parks community, and that means a lot to this community. Next slide, please. A strategically planned neighborhood park network, um, driven by G, could be a focal port for integrating city plans for green streets, biodiversity, canopy, active for transportation, and sustainability, but only if we strategically plan for today. Next slide. We're gratified that counsel is committed to making a meaningful Parks and Recs plan to make sure that the funds allocated for parks are spent wisely and focused on the things that we need now, next slide. We thank you for providing us very focus of G, and for making G more community centric, and if we load the last slide, we're costly optiminics that we can quickly get rid of the campaign against G. Personally, I'm for that. The thing about no blank checks has been resolved, and now we are focusing on community, and I commend you all for that. Thank you very much.

[02:23:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thanks for getting all that information together. Okay, so the next speaker is Reina Dominguez. And after that, we have Cindy Valdarama. Rena? Welcome. Thanks for being here.

[02:23:57] Reina Dominguez: Thank you for... good evening to everyone. Well, I support the Major V. I mean, G. And the only thing I don't like is to give some huge percentages to parks and open spaces. I guess you can ask them for the new developers develop, how do you say, the new constructions that make spaces and parks close to them, because they only build, like, rooms and bathrooms, but they don't build any, any parks for kids to play in there, and so why do you have to make it extra parks? I mean, if they can make their own and their own spaces, And then, because if you make parks, then you have to put the water, you have to cut the grass and all the stuff, and every year, it doesn't, I don't think it's a good idea. And I guess, for the small things, I think you need to give a big percentages, like, for the small business, I hope they can, for the small business that they can open their own business, new people who can come and open the restaurants, and then, that way, the families can support their own families, and if you give it the opportunity to open their new business, maybe, um, they can support more, and, um, it gives more, um, They can give a job to another person and they can uh, give you more, um, more opportunities to another person, to grew as a, as a business members of families. And thank you. That's all.

[02:25:47] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Cindy Valdorama.

[02:25:55] Cindy Valderama: Buena noches, querido consejo, mountain view, quiero compartirum poco, y estoy aqui apollando la medida.

[02:28:21] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Dear Mountain View Council, I want to share a little of my story and the support I have had from the entpreneur program. My name is Cindy Valderama, and I have lived in Mountain View for 8 years. I have 2 children, ages 4 and 5, and for the past 3 years, My husband and I have been the owners of Cali Caracas, a business registered in Mountain View that serves Venezuelan food around the Bay Area. I started selling food from home, but when I saw the potential of the big companies in Mountain View, I decided to legally register to be able to have more opportunities. It has been a challenge for me since this type of business is one of the most expensive to start due to the large capital that you have to have. Having a restaurant, a food truck, or a factory, or even a good catering service, starting with the permits and a commercial kitchen that is not at all accessible and affordable in this area. And it was not until San Jose that I was able to find a commercial kitchen for my business, and on a very few occasions, I had been able to do business in my city. But I am standing here because they gave me the opportunity to be part of La Collectiva, of the mompreneur cohort, which is one of the reach SV programs, a program that was created with the purpose of empowering entrepreneurial mothers from Mountain View to start their own business in Mountain View based on food. I am so grateful for this support. And in this last year, I have seen how many, how my sales have increased with the participation of the months of July and August in Ava's markets where I was able to see many of your faces. And at the wine festival, and I have also been closer to my children since I have been working locally in my city. This program not only facilitates the creation and growth of new business, but also contributes to local economic development and the diversification of our gastronomic offers. It offers you appropriate resources and training promotes the economic independence of women, and strengthens our community as a whole. Today, I come to tell you that it seems essential to me that Mountain View continues to grow as an inclusive and accessible city for all, and promoting programs like entrepreneur, not only empowers entrepreneurial mothers, and makes them economically independent, but also contributes to the local economy, generates employment, and strengthens our community, that's avoiding displacement. Thank you.

[02:30:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. And then, um, Allie Shapierman and Gloria Arias. Allie?

[02:30:51] Ali Shaperman: Good evening. My name is Al... Oh, sorry. Good to go? Okay. My name is Ali Saberman, and I'm here on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. As you know, we are in a housing crisis. And the leading reason is difficult to build much needed new housing, our fees. We hope that the council does not make a decision that will make housing production more infeasible. We recommend that multifamily housing is exempt from the transfer tax. If multifamily housing is not exempt, We recommend whatever amount housing is taxed, that it directly goes to affordable housing. We believe this amount might be higher than the suggested 20% allocation. We also recommend that the city continues to monitor the feasibility of housing, and it is deemed infeasible, considered to scale back the transfer tax on multifamily housing. We appreciate the council and staff's work to fund affordable housing, but we hope the council can truly strike a balance that will not halt housing production. Thank you.

[02:31:48] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Gloria. And after Gloria and Michaela Francesca. Welcome, Glory.

[02:32:01] Gloria Arias: Gloriarias, yo buenas saciudad, de... Gracias

[02:32:16] Unknown Speaker: Good evening, my name is Gloria Arias, and I've lived in Mountain View for 24 years. I am part of the monpreneur program here in Mountain View, and I also support Measure G. And I just want to say thank you for listening.

[02:32:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Michaela.

[02:32:36] Michaela: Hola, buenas noches, mi nombres micaella, vivo quiemontembio. Y estoy aqui esta noche? yo pienso que para mi para todas, mi compañeras que pertenemos al... Gracias.

[02:32:57] Unknown Speaker: Hi, my name is Michaela, and I'd like to say good evening to all, and let you know that I also live here in Mountain View, and I'd like for not only to speak for myself, but also for my partners, who are entrepreneurs, or part of reach SV, and say that we also support measured G. Thank you.

[02:33:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now, Angelica Gabriel. And after Angelica, um, John McDonald.

[02:33:28] Angelica Gabriel: Hola, bueno noches.

[02:34:00] Unknown Speaker: Good evening, my name is Angelica, and I'd like to say thank you to each and every one of you for listening. I've lived in Mountain View for 24 years, and I'm also part of the mountpreneur program, and I'd like to say that I support Measure G, not only because it benefits me, but my family, and also many other people here in Mountain View. Thank you for listening.

[02:34:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Gracias. Thank you. Joe McDonald? Welcome.

[02:34:37] John McDonald: Good evening, mayor and council. Initially, I was questioning measure G, primarily because it seemed way up in the platitudes, and not very clear or transparent with what the specifics could be for that money. I guess what has happened as I read it more carefully, and said to myself, I have to trust you, the people of Mountain View have to trust you, because the way the law's written, You can say, definitively, this much money is going to go here, that much money is going to go somewhere else. I'm hardened by the fact that the cost of the public safety facility has been reduced. And I've been told that the size of the offices were enormous. I don't know whether they still are with reduced costs. I didn't have the opportunity to do any research to find that out. But, My mind has been changed. And I am cautiously optimistic that the money will be spent for affordable housing... for parks all through the lens of DEI. And this is extremely important. Both for parks and for other opportunities, such as affordable housing.

[02:36:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you very much. And so now, we will go to our virtual speakers, the first one is April Webster, and then after April, we'll have Bruce England. April are you there?

[02:37:10] April Webster: Hi, Mayor. Yes, I am. Thank you. I just got the unmute button. Um, I would like to, like the others, voice my support for measure G. And however, I do have some concerns about the allocation of funds, and particularly in how they align with community priorities. Um, city staff have repeatedly reported funding shortages for active transportation projects, um, yet only 5 to 15% of funds are allocated to these projects in the, um, the proposed plan compared to 35 to 40% for public safety buildings. Well, I strongly believe that parks and open spaces and affordable housing are important, and I strongly support their prioritization. I, um, would like to, the percentage allocated to the public safety facilities seems disproportionately high, especially given the community's dated policies. And I urge council to allocate more funds to active transportation, to address some of these critical deficits. Additionally, expenditure P, or the expenditure plan for measure P, established in 2018, received very limited public attention. Raising concerns about its effectiveness. The lack of transparency makes the insufficient prioritization of active transportation and measure G more troubling. So I would request that council, um, look into revisiting measure peace plan to make, to more clearly prioritize active transportation, by at least 45% of funds to these initiatives. And I believe this adjustment would ensure the city's priorities align more closely with the community's needs enhancing, um, and also enhancing clarity and accountability, and promoting sustainable transportation solutions. Thank you so much.

[02:39:03] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now we're here from Bruce England.

[02:39:08] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I... I'm sorry, give me just a second. Um, Okay. I, yeah, I just want to say that I personally support measure G. This is going to be important revenue to accomplish a lot of things in the city. So I will say that, but I'm concerned, as others have said, about the 35, 40% set for public safety facilities. It seems too high compared to other categories, uh, that I wish to see, um, is that we used to see the primary thrust of spending directed towards what will help us realize the community's vision for a mountain view's future. And I support comment letters from Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and Mountain View Coalition for Police Reform and Accountability. Also, the letter submitted by April that she just commented on, and comments from others tonight that includes support for measure G with necessary caveats, including where protections might be needed for property transfers that will lead to more affordable housing. Thank you.

[02:40:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is Tim McKenzie and then Deb Hendickson. Kim? Tim, are you available?

[02:40:23] Tim McKenzie: Hi, Al. Thanks for, uh, thanks for give it a moment. I'll personally say that I like the idea of taxing people speculating on land that have driven the housing crisis that we're currently living in. But I'm actually speaking beyond that, other than that, I'm speaking on behalf of Mountain View Coalition for Police Reform Accountability. So this is the community group comment. We support the ballot measure with reservations and are very hopeful about the opportunity to presents for our city. However, we'd like to see more flexible thinking applied to the construction of the new public safety building, which seems to be receiving a significant portion of measure G funding. In order to support the measure with no reservations, Mountain View coalition for police reform and accountability would need to see robust exploration of solutions that meet the facilities needs, as well as the ways this property could be used to address multiple city priorities simultaneously. We're concerned with allocating up to 40% for city buildings takes away from other projects and programs. We recognize the city does need new facilities for public safety standards and appreciate the comments that were made that there will be opportunities. to speak in the future, but we also want to highlight its prime downtown real estate and could be leveraged in different ways, such as housing or open space. And we haven't really heard substantive discussions of ways we could meet, the department needs, while incorporating community needs, like market housing elsewhere on the property, that could offset costs and generate funding sources for future needs. We'd also like to hear considerations of ways to meet the department's needs using other properties, like the other side of Shoreline or empty office space on Castro. We'll talk more at the upcoming meeting in the future weeks. Um, and just on a personal note, I'd like to say public safety could be more than just the building.

[02:42:27] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Um, and finally, we have, um, Deb Henixen. Deb, welcome.

[02:42:35] Deb Hendickson: Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment. I'm here to represent the Mountain View coalition for sustainable planning. Um, and as mentioned in our letter, Um, we also were one of those groups that had concerns about the lack of transparency around Measure P funds. So I really appreciate council member Ramirez bringing that up today and the staff response, both in advance and in the meeting today. In general, and VCSP supports, measure G. However, we recommend a different prioritization of the funds themselves starting with developing and preserving affordable housing. And then focusing on achieving the city's vision 0 goals through full implementation of the active transportation plan, as well as investing in climate resilience programs and practices, and protecting biodiversity. Um, we actually would deprioritize further allocations from measure G to the public safety building as we feel that specific capital improvement already has um, sufficient additive funding from the Ameswell Hotel um, development. Um, but we are really excited to see measure G, proceed, and um, are glad that the city will have the opportunity to spend these additional funds, um, just in a slightly different way. And then separately, in, uh, addition, my daughter is here, so this is separate from the NBCS, uh, MBSCFP comment. Um, she is 12 and she attends, um, Graham Middle School.

[02:43:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay.

[02:43:58] Deb Hendickson: Um, she stayed up really late, um, to make this comment, but she's very tired. So she wants to say to you all that she really wants to see funds prioritized for safe routes to school in particular as part of the active transportation plan. She rides her bike to Graham every day. There isn't even a crossing guard, although she and her friends have to cross El Camino every single day to get to school. Um, so she would really like to see additional funding go towards the, um, parts of the active transportation plan and support safe routes to school. Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment on behalf of both of us. Thank you.

[02:44:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: We appreciate your participation and thoughts. Okay, so now that we've heard from number members of the public. And um, I think it's interesting that everybody has been in support. That's great. It's time to bring it back to the council for deliberation, and I see that council member Ramirez has his light on.

[02:45:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to speak continuously for about 20 minutes, so I hope you brought your sleeping bags. But I'll start with. First, I want to express my appreciation to staff for your efforts to incorporate the many and often conflicting opinions that you've heard into the expenditure plan. It's not an easy task. It's very clear that our community is engaged and activated and passionate around a number of different topics, many different community priorities that we've heard today. And I want to express my appreciation also to the members of the community who were able to participate tonight and provide input, who submitted emails, and then who I've had a chance to meet with over the past couple of months or so. It's been very enlightening, and I've learned a lot and want to speak to some of the concerns that I've heard over the past several weeks. The intent of the expenditure plan really is to provide a level of transparency and provide assurance to the community that we're going to spend the money in a manner that is consistent with the priorities, as we've understand them. Again, understanding that many priorities are sometimes conflicting, and as Mr. Ziorski mentioned, measure G provides a healthy amount of revenue, but it's not going to be enough to solve all of the problems that we've heard tonight. So we have to be tactical. And we want to also use the expenditure plan as a way to demonstrate to the community that we're serious about trying to address the priorities as best as we're able to, within the constraints of the resources that we will have available to us, and to allow members of the community over time to share with us where, you know, perhaps emerging or changing community priorities may require or periodic evaluation of the expenditure and maybe some changes to the allocations. And the resolution, as drafted, already includes a commitment that the council will review the expenditure plan after 10 years, which we may want to change, but that's a good amount of time to invest very heavily in the community priorities that we are establishing tonight. I want to acknowledge that there has been an erosion of trust and confidence in the city. I've heard that loud and clear, and that's also why I think the expenditure plan is a very important tool for us to show that we're not just going to put the money into things that maybe the community doesn't have any interest in, but we, this is the, this is the tool and the most important mechanism that you can use to hold us accountable and ensure that we're spending the money that we're asking you to provide us on things that actually help advanced community goals. And there will be other opportunities as well for us to work on rebuilding trust and rebuilding confidence, including, as again, Mr. Zayorsky had mentioned, but we've heard many in the community share, an opportunity for the council to provide input on a number of the plans that are coming our way. The council has not yet had an opportunity to provide input, for instance, into the parks and recreation strategic plan, and I know there will be a very robust conversation around that because there's been so many, there's so much community attention. And sometimes concern about the trajectory that they're seeing. So we want to continue to work with you. Not everything will be solved tonight, but I think we could do a lot of good work in adopting an expenditure plan that at least provides resourcing for the many plans that we're continuing to work on. That also includes the active transportation plan, although I'll share. I've been following the CTC a little bit, and you're doing great work. I think you're doing a good job hearing the community and making tactical changes. So, with that, I do want to share. I think, the council, rather, the staff, have carefully calibrated the recommended spending priorities. I don't think that was an easy thing to do. So I do want to express my appreciation, again. It's not easy to pluck numbers out of thin air. And especially when you have so much input the way we've absorbed tonight, and to think about, what do we really need to make meaningful progress on a finite number of community priorities, recognizing that there are many other things that we need to work on even beyond what you've listed here. Uh, and uh, at the same time. Even though we will be adopting, hopefully, an expenditure plan tonight, there is flexibility, right? This is not the end of the story. There will be opportunities, opportunities for the community to let us know. It's not working the way that we had hoped, and we might need to revisit the expenditure plan to invest accordingly. And the last thing I'll share, again, this is historic, insofar as, for the first time, through measure G, if it's approved by the voters, we will be investing in priorities that historically have received 0 or very little general fund support, including parks and open space, and including affordable housing, historically, that revenue has come from development. And if we are experiencing down market as we are right now, that means we're not getting any fees at all for parks and very little fees or no fees at all for affordable housing. So to have ongoing, dedicated general fund revenue, supporting things like parks and affordable housing, will be very powerful for our community, and also appreciating that we're projecting, based on the budget discussion several months ago, a series of shortfalls over the next several years, which means we won't have, help me with the term, general fund operating balance, right? that we can reinvest in capital improvements. So this is really important. And I'm very proud of the work that we've done over the past several months, you know, crafting measure that I think we can get community support for and putting together an expenditure plan that reflects many community priorities. again, recognizing that. We're not generating enough revenue for everything, but this is a very good start. So, I'm going to be obnoxious and make a motion, but include some modifications that I've workshopped with staff. There will be four. So first, I will move to adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View establishing programmatic goals and spending priorities for general tax revenue, generated by measure G, real property conveyance tax measure, if passed by Mountain View voters, to be read entitled, only further reading waived, with form modifications. The first is to place the biodiversity, priority into the parks and open space spending priority category. That's something I've heard requested by many of the public. And I think it's a good way to acknowledge, and then enforce, that we should be thinking about biodiversity in an integrated way as we plan parks and open space. They're not separate things. They don't exist in silos, right? But they need to be integrated holistically. And we can't make policy decisions tonight on precisely how to do that, but I think we can commit as a council to ensuring that the parks and recreation strategic plan, and the biodiversity and urban forest master plan, are able to help achieve community goals as we continue to collect input and work with our staff to identify possible solutions to the problems that we've heard from our community. So that's the 1st one. Second one is to include language in the resolution, requiring a two thirds majority to amend or repeat the resolution. And the reason I think that's important is because we've heard many in the community share that, it may be too easy to modify the expenditure plan. And I feel this can help at least provide some assurance that we are intending to be very deliberate, and that it would require more than four council members. And we could define super majority in different ways, but I would suggest two thirds, which would require five of the seven of us to agree. that a change is desirable or necessary. And that means it's a little bit harder. It's, you know, still possible, but it's unlikely that we would do so without, um, a request to modify the expenditure plan that is community driven. So that's number two. The 3rd one is a little trickier to explain, and so I may have staff assist me, but essentially, we would have a windfall allocation strategy. What does that mean? We know that for some of these spending priorities, there is an anticipated amount of revenue that we will need. We don't have to overfund certain types of priorities. And so, uh, and again, workshopping with staff, um, one idea that we came up with is, in the event that we generate $12 million or more in measure G funding, the dollars collected after you hit that $12 million threshold would be allocated in a different way. And I'm open to suggestions on this, but as a starting place, it would be the same categories allocated proportionally, as adopted by the council, excluding the public safety facilities spending priority. Again, recognizing that there may not be a need to superfund, that category, and allowing additional measure G funding, then to support the other priorities that we've identified here. So that's number three. And the last one is a corresponding shortfall strategy. And again, I'm leaning on staff for assistance on how to incorporate this into the resolution language, but essentially, notwithstanding the commitment that we've heard from assistant city manager, Arn Andrews, which I appreciate, that even in short fall years, these would be the spending allocations that would be enforced. based on what I've heard from the community. I think it is good, nevertheless, to have an opportunity for the public and the council to discuss what actions may be necessary in the event there is a shortfall in the context of the budget process, to provide some additional transparency and an opportunity for the public, to weigh in on potentially, if things, let's say, there's a pretty severe economic contraction, that's a really good time to check in with the community to make sure that you know, this is, this is gonna work as intended, and that we're not, you know, we may be driven to some hard decisions, right? There might be some tradeoffs that are necessary in that type of contraction. So, just being mindful of that and incorporating into the resolution and commitment to having a public hearing, having public comment, and then a council discussion to identify community accepted solutions to the problems that we would encounter, if there is, a shortfall. So that's my emotion. I'm not going to recommend adjustments to the spending priorities right now, because I'm interested in hearing what my colleagues have to say, and I also recognize that this is hard, because it is zero sum game, right? If you pluck from one priority, you know, if you invest in one priority, that comes at the expense of something else, and I think we want to be very thoughtful about how we approach that. So again, thank you for your indulgence and my apologies for speaking too long.

[02:57:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, thank you for putting all this work into it. and thought. We appreciate it. Next speaker, um, is, um, council member Abbe Koga.

[02:57:46] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, and the committee for all of your hard work. on this measure. I appreciate council member Ramirez, your motion, and I think I think I got it all. I think I support it overall. Just my general comments on this. Um, Well, number one, I will start by saying that, um, you know, we, we may have heard from some folks who feel that their confidence has eroded in the city, but I still go back to our polling, polling numbers, and, you know, we have 85,000 people here, and it is a random sampling, but polling is, you know, pretty good indicator of what people say, and I think I was actually surprised at how high our satisfaction rate was, so let's not um, forget that. Um, I look at this. And to be frank, you know, I started out looking at this as how to be able to fund some of our capital improvement needs that we have been discussing for almost, more like decades and rather than years, in particular, our public safety facilities. And, um, you know, for me, that's something I've been a part of the conversation on for 15 plus years. And, um, when I left in 2014, we had done a study of the public safety building, we looked at various options, including at that time, office space was also, um, pretty cheap. So we had looked at off, you know, other commercial space. We looked at different configurations, we looked at how to just renovate what we had, and we came up with an option that was $60 million. And, um, you know, when we talk, I, you know, I appreciate the questions about cost overruns, but frankly, you know, and I'm involved quite now quite a bit in major capital projects, especially around transportation. And my conclusion, is that the biggest cost driver is time. The longer we wait in building these things, the more expensive it gets. And frankly, it gets to a point where it's not even feasible anymore. So for me, this is that it's a sense of urgency, I have in getting our public safety facility built as soon as we can so that we can still actually afford to do so. Um, I look at this measure and, um, even the way it's structured, you know, we could have done a bond measure for capital projects, but, um, that, you know, I think the threshold, this is the, the, the measure, the way it's structured that has the lowest threshold for passage, right? And so, um, you know, from a just a real practical perspective, it makes sense. But I also think that this is a measure that allows us the flexibility to fund our needs across time, you know, in perpetuity, frankly. And, frankly, our needs change over time. And so, um, you know, I will support this, spend the spending priorities and the percentages, but I really want to emphasize the key here is flexibility. And I've been a part of, you know, number of measures and discussions on measures and, again, I'll go back to transportation where we, you know, the measure prescribes exactly what projects are going to be built. And then 20 years later, it just doesn't make sense to build some of those anymore. But we can't get out of it because it was prescribed in the measure. So I don't want to do that, to be frank, and I understand, you know, the concerns about accountability. I think, you know, transparency is gonna be key to that. But I don't not want us to be tied so tightly that when our needs change in 10 years, we can't we can't shift the way that we're going to fund things. So, um, You know, with public safety, we can say now, I mean, I was thinking, yes, after we build the public safety building, we may not need that funding. But to be frank, we have fire stations that are going to be need to be rebuilt and whatnot. So probably, you know, we'll need to keep that category there. But in terms of the percentage, I think, again, based on time, a point in time, and what the needs are, it should be flexible. And we should be able to, you know, shift things around. Um, I look at this also as, you know, as mentioned, this is not going to solve all of our funding challenges, right? This is money. I look at to be used to leverage other funds. My priority with the public safety building. I believe we will probably have to bond against this funding. And so my question will be, like, what amount of funding do we need to be able to do that? Um, in terms of transportation and road maintenance. Uh, you know, I see that there are other funds, and frankly, we need the state and federal funding, uh, regional funding to do those projects, but more and more, they look for a local match. So I see this as that opportunity to have that pot of funding there. And then with affordable housing, you know, it's interesting. You know, I've been part of the Bay Area housing finance authority. And yes, it was very disappointing that we had to pull that measure. But one thing that came up as I was looking, you know, involved in these conversations was, um, if it were to pass, um, you know, I was questioning what the state would do with their housing funding. And, um, you know, whether they would give us more or shift it over to another part of the state. And after, you know, in the last few weeks, we've been having these conversations, and I've heard that the state was actually maybe looking at zeroing out their housing funds. And so that's my caution. My point of caution to this is, you know, as much as it, I think it is important for us to continue on our path, sometimes, when we do that, maybe too much, we may end up losing other funding that was there because, you know, they think, they think that we're self-sufficient. So just want to, you know, be careful about that, that possibility down the road. So overall, I think, yeah, I think it's fine. I can support the emotion. But again, my point here is that we really, need to emphasize flexibility as much as possible.

[03:04:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Vice Mayor Matachek.

[03:05:03] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I appreciate the motion by council member Ramirez, and I agree with it. Um, I think it is important to add biodiversity, and I like the addition of the other 3 uh, elements that you added. I think we need to keep in mind that the community has lots of priorities. Council has lots priorities. And, um, the ones that are listed here are not the only priorities we have. Um, it's just that the other priorities we have, we actually have the funding to support those. And we have some gaps and some new things we want to do. And that's kind of the focus of this because we don't have that steady revenue stream to support them. So I don't want people to come away thinking, these are our only priorities. We have lots of priorities. We just happen to have the resources available to execute on those, whereas some we didn't. Um, I, um, do want to leave the percentages as they are, um, and I do think things, things do change. Um, so it is important to have a little bit of flexibility, um, especially down the road. But I think, you know, 10 years, we'll probably still be working on these because things don't move incredibly quickly. Um, and so, uh, I will be supporting the motion, I seconded it, the council member Ramirez uh, made, and I hope my colleagues do as well.

[03:06:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[03:06:43] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. Yes, I generally, of course, I support Measure G, and I generally, I generally support the motion. Um, I, if other council members were supportive, I might, uh, tweak it and up the percentages for, um, parks and open space and for affordable housing. The reason being, in terms of us talking about flexibility and things changing, I think, in those two areas, just recently, things really have changed, in terms of the Bafa bond not being put on the ballot, and us having large obligations, in terms of our housing element, that in terms of housing for lower income, people can only be produced, if we have some kind of subsidy. So, I don't know whether there's support on council, but I would up that a little. I think we're also experiencing challenges in terms of parks and open space, in that, again, with our housing element, we've had to reduce fees on housing developments that would go towards parks, and we've also recently had a lot of our neighborhood parks fenced in by the school district. So I think I'm glad those are taking good portions of our recommended allocation here. Personally, I would opt them a little bit. Beyond that, I just want to say I think we're doing the fiscally responsible thing. I think that there's, if you look at, there was recently the city of San Francisco finance department, did an analysis looking at their taxes similar to ours, their large property transfer taxes and various other business taxes, and compared them to cities on the peninsula, and there's were San Francisco and other cities in that area, such as Oakland. There are taxes of this type are many, many times, that of mountain views. So basically, in order to, um, meet the priorities that we need to meet, we really kind of have to have a, I would say, a more mature attitude in this area towards, um, towards this kind of taxation. So, um, that said, let's see if there's, um, I think I have basically gone through most of my comments, um, in terms, I think that, um, things will always be changing, and as some council members have said, um, we need to be flexible. I think the two amendments that council member Ramirez made are building some of that flexibility, I think also having a tenure check in is another thing that will be a good measure for making sure that we're flexible. And I think those are my comments at this point. Thank you.

[03:09:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Kameh.

[03:09:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, staff. Thank you to our residence in our community. When I was reflecting on measure G, I went back to the section on our website that talks about Mountain View, and it says we provide excellent public services and facilities that meet the needs of a caring and diverse community in a financially responsible manner. And I really felt the dialogue that we're having the conversations, where we are, with the current motion as amended, I think, is a great reflection of that. And want to thank my colleagues. I know we've all been meeting with both staff and residents to bring a sense of clarity to what will be used for, as was mentioned. This is just for our unmet needs, that council was discussing, which are in the 100s of millions. And this is one piece of, I believe, the puzzle to utilize and try to bring those capital needs forward. It was, I think, I was reflecting upon last week, we had our council transportation committee meeting, and one of our presentations was about our pavement condition index, which I know is near and dear to the vice mayor's heart, and our index is 67, which is fair. And that just goes to show, um, you know, one of our buckets is going to be other government, other general government services, road maintenance, um, and we'll be able to bring our our roadways, um, up. And that was just one example where I felt the tension with which the council, but also the city's unmet needs are bubbling to the top, which is we cannot continue to have deferred maintenance. We need to be fiscally prudent, which Mountain View has had a strong reputation of doing, and we need to focus and invest in our facility, in infrastructure improvements, so that we can benefit our community, which I believe has world class services and world class amenities. And I feel like as we move forward with measure G, it'll avoid our larger problems later. And we're seeing that with one of the items of discussion, which is our public safety building. It's a facility that's older than at least two thirds of us on council. And it was constructed before a time when the Seismic Safety Act was passed. And I also feel like, just as we're talking about fiscal responsibility and transparency, I feel it is incumbent on counsel to have city staff, which I think goes beyond just our public safety, but also the residents and the public that come into that building, to be in a seismically safe facility, especially when they are sworn to protect and serve. It is our duty to make sure that we house them safely. And in a building that is usable for these essential stuff. And I also feel like this discussion will happen a bit later, but, um, I see this site as being able to address some of the office needs that the city has. Right now, the city has a office lease on Villa Street, office leases can be expensive, even if it is for a small office space. And I believe this could be an opportunity where we could house that staff. I also am comfortable leaving the ranges where they are. I think that since there's a, it's a range, and provides that flexibility. I also know that we'll use these funds coupled with grants, and we had our proclamation for our former public works director, this earlier today. And one of the things that I know that public works has always looked at as well as our other departments are grant opportunities, so that we can address it not just with having to go out for a public measure. And then lastly, just want to reiterate my support for not only having our measure G on our city website, with the audit, but also the measure P, and bringing that forward. We have been able to do a lot with our business license tax, for example, expanding our shuttle routes based off of community feedback, and we continue to get community feedback on how we can better meet the needs of our residents. So I think that that will be important. And I do believe, lastly, this is our current opportunity. We don't know what this future holds, but I think that this is where we need to grasp what we can, but also know that we need to be forward thinking and we'll be doing that as we look at our budget processes. I think that there's a lot in place where we can make sure that we are fiscally prudent. So thank you.

[03:15:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramos.

[03:15:36] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I support the underlying motion with I'm just confirming the 4 editions that council member Ramirez said that is part of the motion or not part of the motion? Yes, the 4 underlying things. And then I'm assuming also the 10-year check-in that a council member Hicks also. Great. And then, um, the uh, measure P allocation and the measure G allocation website that I may. All right, we are we are approved. So, yeah, I approve, I support the underlying motion and all the additions. Um, just, uh, as the for the flexibility. I think the wimfall allocation strategy, I think, is a good idea for that, because we will probably have more needs for affordable housing. And not that this solves those needs for affordable housing, but it'll allow us to leverage that. And I know where we're all kind of grieving the loss of the Baffa ballot measure, but it's not fully done. My anticipation is going to come back at some point. Not the cycle, but at some point it will come back. Um, So I think that's overall, I am in support. I'm ready for hearing the mayor and then ready to vote.

[03:17:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, counting noses. This looks like this is gonna make it. Um, I am, I'm just pleased that we've, we've had a really healthy discussion about this. When we pass this on June 25th. I just felt like it wasn't quite complete. And what wasn't complete was this resolution of how we were gonna allocate the money. And I thought that people would talk about it a little. And boy, they talked about it a lot. And, um, and I think that, um, it's been, it's been good for us to, um, talk to each other about what we care about, what we think we need to do with extra money that we have, and also how we have to build our call first for the future and build in flexibility. So I'm really pleased that this discussion has gone on, and that we're at this place now. Probably, if it were just up to me, but it seems like everything's decided, I would just have, I would just have divided it evenly between the three categories. And, um, but, um, I'm not unhappy at all with this categorization, I think it will work fine. I also would like to say that 10 years is a good time span to let things that need to get built be built. You know, you don't build anything overnight. And not that, we haven't been working on this safety building for a long time. But we don't have the plans yet. I mean, there's quite a bit left to do. And even why you're under construction. I mean, that's a three or four year project. So, um, I think that, you know, that the 10 year allotment of time, it will go by quickly. And if, for some reason, that doesn't work. It's a resolution, we could, if we wanted to, go back to it immediately. But I don't think we'll need to do that. I think 10 years is a wise length of time. And, um, the other thing, I think, is that, uh, we are talking a lot. One of the things that we've talked a lot about in the community this summer is fiscal responsibility. And, um, I think that we all want to know how our tax dollars are being spent, and we care how our tax dollars are being spent. So it's very important that we have transparency about telling people, how we're spending our tax money. And so I think the proposals of putting a website together to, specifically, explain that is a really good idea. And I would also like to say that I'm looking forward to seeing the budget in brief, which I understand is gonna be coming out shortly. And that tells us not just how we're spending, you know, this $10 million, but how we're spending all of our revenues, which I think, you know, many of us should really care about, and it's good to have that information put together in a form that we can digest. So with that, are there any more comments?

[03:20:16] Assistant City Attorney Diana Pavalli: Mayor,

[03:20:17] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: if I may, the city attorney's office is looking to weigh in.

[03:20:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh. Uh, Miss Chen.

[03:20:25] Assistant City Attorney Diana Pavalli: Actually, good evening, Mayor and council members. This is Assistant City Attorney, Diana Pavalli.

[03:20:30] Assistant City Attorney Diana Pavalli: I wanted, since we will, our office will be drafting the resolution with the modifications. I just wanted to make some clarification. Um, first, for the windfall clause. Was it the intent of the maker of the motion to include an opportunity for public discussion and public input, or will the council at this time be deciding a new allocation plan in the case of a windfall?

[03:21:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you for the question. The motion was to use the expenditure plan or the spending priorities that we're adopting, keeping the spending priorities proportionally the same, but removing public safety facilities.

[03:21:20] Assistant City Attorney Diana Pavalli: Thank you. Um, and let me see, I think that was, that was it? Thank you.

[03:21:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Um, so I think we are ready to vote now. And I'm very happy to say that the motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

[03:21:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much to everybody who's been involved in this. Okay, so now we move to another important item on our agenda this evening. Item 7.3, which is about gatekeepers.

[03:22:11] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh.

[03:22:11] Unknown Speaker: Yes, Madame Mayor, it's past 10?

[03:22:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: It's past 10, right? I'm reading that, right?

[03:22:18] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[03:22:19] Mayor Pat Showalter: Should we make a motion to continue the meeting?

[03:22:21] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Please do.

[03:22:22] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I move to continue the meeting past 10 o'clock.

[03:22:25] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do I have a second?

[03:22:29] Unknown Speaker: Okay.

[03:22:32] Mayor Pat Showalter: Do we need a roll call, or we can just say all in favor?

[03:22:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I'm not in favor.

[03:22:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, we need a roll call.

[03:22:57] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, well, it passes not unanimously. Passes 6 to one. So let's move on to item 7.3. And... um, we have staff at the, uh, at the dais, getting ready to, um, make a presentation. And I'm, whenever you're ready, please go ahead.

[03:23:33] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blizinski: All right, good evening, Mayor Schwalter and council members. My name is Amber Blzinski. I'm the assistant community development director. And I have Carol Johnson, who's the project planner with me tonight, and Christian Murdoch, the community development director. And then also Rebecca Shapiro is virtually with us tonight. Um, due to some due to an illness. So tonight we'll present the 2024 Gatekeeper authorization hearing. So, uh, the gatekeeper process was established to provide an opportunity for counsel to consider new development, opportunities, and ideas, and balance with the need to ensure adequate staff capacity to complete existing workload. In January, council provided direction to staff to utilize the existing gatekeeper process for 2024. Um, and then staff notified uh, key parties and interested parties list, developers, and uh, opened that process on March 1st, and that ran through June, and we received 2 applications. This map shows the 2 project locations, 2400 to 2470s Charleston, and then 62 West El Camino Real. So, in preparation for this hearing, um, staff, uh, conducted cursory analysis of the 2 gatekeeper applications, which uh, focused on project consistency with the 7 criteria, uh, gatekeeper authorization criteria, um, the general plan change area policy, and the industrial land conversion policy. Staff's analysis also included a general assessment of the work necessary to process these proposed developments, if authorized by council, as this is pertinent to the balancing criteria on impacts the staff workload. So we'll start by describing the 62 West El Camino real project. This project site's about one. 5 acres. It's currently a small U-Haul site. There's a small commercial building and the majority of the site is a parking lot for the rental equipment. This project proposes to replace this existing use with a 5 story approximately 107,000 square feet, uh, personal storage facility, uh, which will also have equipment rentals. The site is located in the village center character area of the El Camino real precise plan. For context, this project site is adjacent to low density residential properties to the north. And then within the El Camino Real precise plan, the BMW auto dealership to the east across Highway 237, an auto use service use to the south on 2 properties that are designated as housing opportunity sites, and a hotel use to the west. So the general plan change area policy is one of the gatekeeper authorization criteria. Uh, through extensive outreach and analysis, this policy identified 5 areas of the city that were determined to be desirable, ready, and with capacity for change during the last general uh, plan update. Subsequently, to implement this general plan policy, precise plans have been adopted with more specific vision, goals, policies, and development standards for 4 of the 5 change areas. including the El Camino Real precise plan, which covers this project site. The overall vision and goals for the precise plan include assembling parcels to redevelop what has traditionally been an underutilized car oriented commercial corridor with higher value uses, creating high commercial community benefit that is more people and less vehicle focused. So this slide includes some graphics from the precise plan, which help illustrate the vision for this area. And some photos of built projects in Mountain View and Menlo Park to further illustrate that. The precise plan currently prohibits the personal storage facility use, and the project does not meet several standards for the village center sub area, including the exceedence of maximum allowed floor area and pavement area. It also falls short of the required minimum open space area. So because there's no existing sub area that would allow the development as proposed, a new sub area, and other amendments to the precise plan would likely be needed, requiring, you know, a pretty substantial amount of work, which would include, but is not limited to environmental review. And technical studies, like a fiscal analysis of public benefit requirements. The proposed project meets 3 of the 7 endorse gatekeeper authorization criteria. So in brief summary, the project is located in the El Camino Real change area. The project is located near commercial services, and the applicant has proposed an approximately $590,000 community benefit as a cash contribution to be used at the city's discretion. And I want to note that this is a revised amount from what was published in the staff report, um, and originally proposed, um, and it was submitted by the applicant yesterday. Additionally, it's important to note that the project plans do not show minimum open space and frontage improvements that are required under the precise plan. At this time, staff has no reason to believe those minimum frontage plaza and streetscape standards can't be met or that the applicant isn't going to propose to do those. We just want to note that, that it isn't currently shown on the plans. So I'll switch over now to 2400 to 2470s Charleston. This is a 10.32 acre site. It's currently developed with largely vacant big box retail, a smaller retail building, and a large surface parking lot, which would be replaced by this proposed mixed use development, which is comprised of about 450 residential units, 350 R rental, 100 ownership stacked flats, 450,000 square feet of commercial office, and R&D space, 30,000 square feet of retail space, and structure parking and other on and offsite improvements. This site is immediately adjacent to the city boundary with Palo Alto to the west, which is currently designated for manufacturing and R&D uses, but has been identified as an area for potential conversion to residential in the recently certified Palo Alto housing element. In Mountain View, the property is otherwise surrounded by service, retail, warehouse, retail uses, on sites in the same general, industrial zoning district as the subject property. The proposed Charleston project includes a request for a general plan amendment to mixed use center and a zoning map amendment to the P, which is planned community district, you know, which would encompass the project. The general Plan Amendment may also need to include additional text amendments to allow the one.0 commercial FAR that's proposed because the current mixed use center allows a maximum of 0.75 FAR. This project meets 5 of the 7 authorization criteria. So this project would provide additional affordable housing at exceeding the minimum 15% of the rental component. They're proposing 16.5%. The BMR ownership requirements that they're proposing an alternate proposal that includes 10% on-site BMR ownership units in a stacked flat configuration. Uh, and the remaining 5% provided via an inloof fee payment. More detailed beam, our information is needed to really undertake this thorough compliance analysis, but based on currently available information, the project would exceed the minimum requirements. This project's located near commercial services, and the submittal included extensive information on the means to enhance and improve environmental sustainability, mobility and connectivity as summarized on the screen. This project also includes 2 elements that would qualify as community benefits, including a daycare space, with developer subsidies on rent and tenant improvements, and a 2500 square foot community space that, you know, the applicant welcomes community input on what exactly that would be programmed for. The project is not in a currently identified change area, so it doesn't meet that standard. And it proposes to meet but not exceed applicable open space requirements. So additionally, this project has been analyzed with the 4 criteria in the industrial land conversion policy, which is intended to help analyze proposals for conversion of industrial to industrial land. And this project proposes a mix of uses, including residential and meets 3 of the 4 metrics in the policy, as shown here. The only one that is not, you know, currently meeting is that it's not adjacent to a residential user zone. However, as I mentioned before, that may change, as development occurs in Palo Alto, in accordance with their certified housing element. So overall, this concept doesn't appear incompatible with, you know, the surrounding uses that are out there today. So, as noted prior, the gatekeeper process is intended to provide an avenue for consideration of the new development proposals while also managing staff resources, um, to, you know, deliver existing current and long-range planning projects, uh, quality customer service and meeting project deadlines. Um, the planning commission's current workload includes, but is not limited to approximately 141 planning led projects, including permit streamlining act projects, SB 35 projects and housing element implementation tasks, which, as you know, have state mandated deadlines. Planning staff is also working on additional items without required deadlines, some of which are shown on this table. But they're also important and previously prioritized by the council in the community. The planning division currently has 15 full-time staff members, those range from junior planners up to me. Um, and 3 vacancies with open recruitments. The division has an exhaustive list of tasks with statement and data deadlines over the next 2.5 years, which restricts the resources that are available to devote to projects that don't have mandated deadlines. Additionally, all projects must be reviewed by the managers in the division, which limits the overall capacity, regardless of the number of staff planners. So, to summarize, staff has analyzed the 2 applications against the criteria, um, and pertinent city policies, priorities, and evaluated, um, the work that would be required of city staff to process these applications if authorized. Um, that concludes our presentation. There are 2 project applicants. They both have presentations that they want to give, and they're here tonight, and we're happy to answer questions.

[03:35:14] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, should we have council questions before their presentations or after?

[03:35:19] Unknown Speaker: I think I think we should hear their presentations next, right?

[03:35:21] Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

[03:35:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so who would be first? Um,

[03:35:27] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blizinski: I think 62 uh, El Camino probably, because that's the order we go in the, in the report.

[03:35:33] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Welcome. Good evening.

[03:35:40] Dante Abordo: Good evening, mayor, council, and city staff. I'm Dante Abordo. the marketing company president for U-Haul of Mountain View. Our business has been operating in Mountain View at the corner of State Highway 237 and El Camino for roughly 50 years. Tonight we are respectfully asking this council to support the future growth of our business by allowing us to add an existing service that U-Haul has offered at many of its locations in the Bay Area. Yes vote tonight is a vote for supporting the future of a longtime business member in the city of Mountain View. A vital stated purpose of the city El Camino real plan is to support and nurture existing customer facing businesses like U-Haul. We believe our project promotes a needed service demanded by dynamic and mobile workforce. Please note that our community benefit has been substantially modified, U-Haul will donate $592,145 as a community benefit upon approval of our requested project to the city of Mountain View to be used at their discretion. There is no city direction on a community benefit, so this amount was based off the development fees and precise plan area of 2766 per square foot. However, we modified the formula to recognize that this is a commercial project, not housing. The economics between a commercial, retail project and housing are vastly different. We believe this is a reasonable calculation for the non housing commercial development. While the city rightfully envisions more housing, We are mindful that the El Camino plan also includes a corridor with businesses that provide important goods and services to people in the community. We are convinced our proposal helps achieve that goal. In our first, we do have, so, on the screen here, we have our side plan. In our first slide, you can see our side plan on the corner of El Camino and Highway 237. A busy corner that, again, is not in your housing element. We'll go to head to the next slide, please. Want to go ahead and cycle through. You're just a couple renderings and potential conceptuals of the building. In this last slide, you'll see that our new and more efficient modern buildings are beautiful. This project will abide by all rules required by the city. Finally, U Haul stands ready to work with the city in terms of timing around its workload to allow our storage use. We know you and staff have a lot on your plate and can be flexible within a reasonable time frame to allow for our workload management. We first approach the city about our proposal roughly two years ago. So, thank you for this opportunity to share our project and show in your support and existing businesses along El Camino, who need to evolve their business plans to be more successful in the future. Thank you.

[03:38:18] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. So now we'll hear the presentation for, um, the Charleston.

[03:38:29] Cyrus Sanandaji: Good evening, council members and staff. Thank you so much for your time. I know. You've been kept late, given today's agenda, but... my apology, yes. So, first off, thank you. I know this has been a rather laborious process to try to gather all the different key priorities that the city and each of you, that represent your constituents, have in mind as it relates to the future of Mountain View, and recognizing that there's an evolving need, and pressure on the city, both in terms of managing staff's time, and also what future uses, or expected in this sort of changing world. Obviously, the pandemic had a major effect on how we use our built environment and really how cities need to adapt to continue to be thriving environments, and the reimagined Charleston Plaza that we're proposing here today. is really our answer to that, in listening to each of your key inputs, in terms of priorities, and trying to synthesize that, to come together with a proposal that really, in our view, encompasses a comprehensive neighborhood, that has both aspects of commercial and residential functions, that can really set and draw both the community from outside, but then service the community that would reside within it as well, with key features of sustainability and transportation management. and so on, taken into consideration. So just a few slides and at the risk of being a little repetitive with staff's report, if we could move forward. So the existing site is highly underutilized, and at this point, predominantly vacant big box retail shopping center, and it had been that way since prior to our ownership in 2022. Best Buy, bedbath, and beyond REI, and so on, have all gone out of business, for a variety of reasons, e commerce, our changing retail habits, our purchasing habits, and so on, have really driven these types of format, large format, retail shopping centers into obscurity. And that then, coupled with what the housing element has set as the goals for Mountain View in terms of delivering housing, has provided us with this blank slate opportunity to really actually look at and reenvision this 10, 11 acre site. And that's really what this proposal entails, if we can go to the next slide, please. We really wanted this to be a comprehensive district. And I think it's worth repeating that what is happening in Palo Alto immediately adjacent is complementary to and will be building on the vision that's set forth here, as well, as the housing element for Palo Alto did acknowledge and identify what was formerly industrial land immediately adjacent to the Charleston Plaza area, as a key opportunities zone for mixed use development, not just purely housing. So that combination of both commercial and residential to be able to actually create viable, feasible projects, and to actually have the footfall and the density that's required to then substantiate retail, so that we don't end up with any vacant storefronts, as you currently see on the site today. So all of that being anchored through this notion of a sort of district heart, that is meant to draw in the community from the surrounding areas, and then also promote sort of activity from within next line, please. So, some of those elements, really leaning into the outdoor, open space, again, privately owned, but publicly accessible program space, something that we've done quite a lot of in our developments, and I know that we've had the opportunity to be able to show several of you, an example of a project similar to this that we built and have been operating in Menlo Park, the spring line project, if we can go to the next slide, please. So just similar examples of some of the activation that we have there, all community serving neighborhood focused, not looking in any way to compete with, Castor Street, and some of the great work that the city has done, downtown, but really looking to amplify that, and to create more places, more destinations within Mountain View to help drive the local economy, and to help provide amenities for those that choose to make Mountain View home, or have the benefit and opportunity to work here. Next line, please. So, the community plaza, combined with that public open space, the actual landscaped area, provide us with this opportunity, well over an acre, almost 2 acres, of organized, activated, programmed, events and engagement. So everything from movie nights in the park to farmers' markets to our 5K turkey trot, Christmas tree lightings, and so on and so forth, and the list goes on. In Menlo Park alone, we host a little over 110 events a year, majority of which are all open to the public, and, again, act as a true community anchor as a true node and destination within the community to really help activate that part of downtown. Next, please. Just a few examples of some of the things from Super Bowl events, to pet adoption, to group fitness, all, again, available to the public and as an amenity. Next line, please. Some key components here that we knew were priorities for counseling, for staff, but a big emphasis on ensuring that, as a comprehensive, a real community, they can actually support everyone's needs, both on the professional work side, but also on the resident side, and then on the neighbors and sort of community perspective, looking to address everyone's needs. Childcare has been a repetitive and ongoing need. It's only been amplified. Its significance has only been amplified, uh, post pandemic, or through the pandemic. And in every one of our projects, since 2020, we've been designing and building and partnering with great local operators to provide for childcare. There's a few examples on the next slide of spaces that we've recently built, but really looking to cater both to the residents, but also to the broader community, and to those that plan to work within the project as well. The top right one being in top ones, actually, excuse me, being in San Francisco. a couple of others in San Carlos and other places that we've been building. Next life was. And with that, I really just want to emphasize one key aspect of this, which is that while we recognize that the city has a large obligation with respect to housing, the reason we've proposed a mixed use project, in and of itself, was a pivot from what we'd actually submitted and had approved as a conditionally use permit, which was to completely redevelop the existing shopping center into 100% life science and R&D project. But in light of the housing element and the need for the city to actually deliver on that housing promise, we recognized that this opportunity was too great of an opportunity to pass on and really wanted to take that chance and come forth once the gatekeeper was opened up. And so with that, want to thank you in advance for your consideration, and we're available for any questions that you may have.

[03:46:07] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, sir. And I, are you, you're Eli Robles? Sorry,

[03:46:11] Cyrus Sanandaji: I'm Cyrus Sanandaji with Presidio Bay. Okay. Yeah, so we're the Project African. Thank you.

[03:46:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, do we have any questions for the speakers from the council?

[03:46:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: No? Okay, all right. Council member Hicks?

[03:46:45] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I have a question regarding the Charleston, uh, the Charleston Road Project, which members of the community have asked, I was just scrambling to see if this was in the council questions, which we got at the last minute, so if I'm making you, if I'm repeating something that's already been answered, in those, just, you can repeat. Um, so, one of the last things you talked about was the need for housing in the city and why you did a mixed, why you are doing a mixed use proposal. And one of the things people have been concerned about is the job's housing balance, maybe you can give a little, I'll just say, maybe you can give a little background to that, in my opinion, it's actually fairly good, but I want you to give the details.

[03:47:30] Cyrus Sanandaji: Sure. Thank you, council member. So, we're actually at about a 1.13 ratio, so we're providing net positive housing to the jobs housing balance. And so contributing to sort of the deficit that the city has, our view is that if we were to develop purely housing, those projects would just be infeasible, no matter what construction type, size, typology, et cetera, that we would pursue. And so, in order to justify, or in order to actually have a project that can be built, we pursued a balanced approach of both commercial and residential, with the idea that there's ancillary benefits beyond sort of the financeability or the feasibility of the projects, but also the, the, essentially, the ability and the synergies between these uses that are actually going to promote the sort of foot traffic and football and so on that will support retail, for example, that'll be attractive to folks that actually want to place their companies there. And then similarly, folks that want to live on the site as well, so that the, essentially, the presence of all three of those uses make it that much more of an attractive place to want to be.

[03:48:45] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thank you. Vice mayor Mattachek.

[03:48:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I want to start by disclosing that I met with the folks from Presidio Bay. Um, I have a question about, um, one of the statements from the folks from Prescio Bay saying that they would be open to funding a planner to process their application if this was approved. I guess I'd like to know from staff's perspective, how does that work? Have we done that in the past, and is that something that would interest you or not?

[03:49:24] Christian Murdock: Mm. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council, Christian Murdoch Community Development Director. So we appreciate the understanding from the Presidio Bay applicant about the workload challenges faced by the community development department, particularly the planning division. The good news is we already have a system in place relying in part on consultant planning support. And so we have a framework through a formal application, if this is authorized to proceed, to rely on contract or consultant planner support, and to have that reimbursed in large part, if not entirely by a project applicant. So, I think it's a recognition that we're not likely to face resistance from the applicant in relation to those kinds of billings, but it isn't specifically adding a new capability to what we already have in that regard.

[03:50:12] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Uh, thank you. Let's see. In that same proposal, it also talks about community space. And I was wondering if we have any, um, information on other projects in the city where there has been community space, and if they've been used or not?

[03:50:37] Christian Murdock: So I have to admit that I'm not aware of any. Um, and...

[03:50:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: You're not aware of other community space?

[03:50:43] Christian Murdock: That has been proposed with projects such as these, and maybe that's just, you know, because they've only been here about a year. Um, we do have Rebecca on the line who has more of the history, um, and she may know of something that has been proposed with that.

[03:51:02] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: There is some at, um, like LinkedIn as community space.

[03:51:08] Christian Murdock: Yeah, that was one of the, um,

[03:51:18] Rebecca Shapiro: Hello, yes, the LinkedIn project was one of the projects that came to mind. I don't have current information. on, um, its active use by community members. I would say the other series of projects where we've seen community spaces proposed, have been recent 100% affordable developments, and usually those have come with, um, kind of active partners on board. Um, There's something tickling in the back of my brain about one or 2 other projects that have, um, have had smaller community spaces available, typically for things like neighborhood meetings and things like that. But, um, I'm not remembering which projects those were. So, in summary, I'd say that we do have some, but it's something that we're seeing more of and has not been necessarily as plentiful in the past and at least residential projects. Um, So, yeah. Thanks.

[03:52:15] Christian Murdock: Mayor, if I may. So not necessarily a gatekeeper project, but the Google Charlestonese campus does have a community space that I understand is used fairly frequently. Um, we used it ourselves, uh, for a retreat. And there's generally been, I think, a lot of people there and a lot of people using it. Actually, I think there's one at the Ameswell Hotel, too.

[03:52:40] Unknown Speaker: Yes, that's right actually. Allow, yeah.

[03:52:45] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And let's see. One of the options that was in the staff report is to postpone starting on these if we say, yes, let's go forward with one or both of these, to a later date. And I was just kind of wondering, um, how does that really work in practice?

[03:53:08] Amber Blazinski: So I think it's important to remember that these types of projects, these legislative projects, they don't have, you know, those state mandated timelines. So, you know, even if, it would, you know, it's going to take the applicants a little bit of time to get their their formal proposal ready to begin with. Typically, um, from what I've understood in the gatekeeper process, most people go through an informal first, an informal review, um, which allows us to the planning division, other departments to give comments in terms of what we would be looking for in that formal application. They don't have to. That's voluntary. And then they would be submitting that more formalized application, which in past practice has then been brought back to the council for a study session. So, I'm not sure it necessarily makes a huge difference on whether or not the start date is delayed because it's going to take them time to, you know, prepare these applications anyway. And with the, you know, timeline with no, you know, mandated timelines. It really just works into what our existing workload is and when we're able to dedicate the time on these projects. So while that is an option, uh, and it has been presented to the council in previous gatekeeper authorization hearings, it is not, uh, it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, we're not able to absorb that at this, at this time or if, if you don't choose that.

[03:54:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And I think Christian knows something that.

[03:54:45] Christian Murdock: Yes, thank you. Another point I'd like to make is the timing, I think, is one aspect the city council can control. Um, I think it may be worthwhile to explore, and we've heard, in fact, um, some representations from both of the applicants that they understand and are amenable to a reasonable, um, even if sort of slow, uh, imploding process, as long as there's some consistency and some forward movement. And so, it may be worth exploring that a little further. I think I'm less concerned with getting a mandated delay to submission, if the council wants to authorize one or both, if the applicants acknowledge their agreement to the staff limitations and resourcing, and also recognizing the city ultimately does have control, as Assistant Director Blazinski said, to manage those outside of a permit streamlining act, sort of strict legal deadline.

[03:55:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I guess I'm wondering, um, does it really work to delay something, or do you still, or is it, you know, the workload is on top of what you're already doing, and you don't have the capacity to do that? Are folks respectful of the fact that you've got a lot on your plates, and, therefore, they need to wait.

[03:56:00] Christian Murdock: Right. I think you know, the applicants should speak to that. I think what we're trying to represent from the staff side is we don't have significant excess capacity to work on these gatekeeper applications, but we do recognize the council may recognize, or the council may identify these as important for the community in the long term vision for the city. And so taking them in, but recognizing the work on them will be metered, if you will, as resources permit, and making that clear to the gatekeeper applicants, and they can decide whether they want to pursue those applications and recognition of those limitations, seeing as they're likely to be resource limitations for a year to two years, at least, given what we have projected on the horizon.

[03:56:41] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Okay, council member Matachek,

[03:56:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Mayor. May I, um, Ms. Malzinski, can you pull up the slide about the staff capacity? I just want to be really clear about the resource constraints right now. So there were 140 some projects listed. Weather council authorizes one or both of these projects this evening. The reality is that the permit streamlining projects are gonna be are gonna be addressed first. The housing element implementation items are going to be addressed first because they have deadlines. The SB 35 projects are going to be addressed first. There are a number of council work plan items that are in process right now, and council may choose to look at those in February when you revisit your work plan items, but if you look at the bulk of these items, there's very few things that would move from, um, where they're at in line right now. So I just want to be really clear. The reality is that these projects come last. So, where you authorize them, it's really going to depend on where we are at with the 141 other items. And these are just projects. This doesn't represent the daily tasks that staff has to do. These just represent project work. So, I think, you know, we just need to be really clear on what the workload implementation, um, entails and the reality of doing all this with 15 staff and 4 vacancies, 3 vacancies right now. It's why we have contract help. So it's not, uh, like there are, uh, no other people that are helping us, but we are not a large city um, that can move through these things very quickly.

[03:58:44] Christian Murdock: And if I may just supplement my earlier response in terms of the consultant support. Bringing on a new consultant specifically for either both of these gatekeepers. I think we foresee as actually being a detriment to staff capacity over the near to midterm because of the training that would be required. And so we would need to find a way to try to work with our existing consultant support that's familiar with Mountain View's regulations and processes and approaches to projects. In order to make consultants support a net positive resource on staff.

[03:59:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I appreciate that clarification, because I have heard in the past that, yeah, when you bring new folks on, it is a commitment of your time and you have to have enough managers to manage them. And it's not just as easy as some people might think. So thank you for adding that. Thanks for that clarification. That's it for now, for me.

[03:59:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Ramirez. We're in the question phase.

[03:59:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of questions for staff, and then some questions for the applicants. So for staff first, just to clarify, I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but the gatekeeper exempt projects are not subject to the permit streamlining Act, right?

[03:59:57] Unknown Speaker: Correct.

[03:59:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. And then those are projects, notwithstanding the fact that they're exempt from the authorization hearing process, they still require a discretionary legislative action, which means the council can say no.

[04:00:12] Unknown Speaker: Correct.

[04:00:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Is there, um, anyway, let's say, council really doesn't want to expend staff time on some of these projects. Is there any way we can have some process that will allow the council to relieve staff of the burden of processing those applications?

[04:00:36] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Oh, I'll like Christian. Like, director Murdoch, answer that.

[04:00:39] Christian Murdock: I think the simple answer is, yes. I think the process, as the city manager alluded to, is the February Council work plan discussion, is perhaps an appropriate opportunity to look at those gatekeeper exempt applications, whatever gatekeeper authorizations may be granted tonight, as well as the totality of other work plan items on the current work plan, and those that may be identified by the council that's seeded in February of 2025, and what they want to work on, and weighing all of those demands on planning staff resources, to make the best decision for the community at that point in time time I think that's one opportunity that we're seeing for the council, too, make that critical determination specifically, for instance, on the gatekeeper exempt applications.

[04:01:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I personally would be interested in staff's assistance in teing up that discussion. And then, if you happen to know off the top of your head, what are the four SP 35 projects?

[04:01:38] Christian Murdock: Give us one second, I believe, they are in the attachments.

[04:01:51] Shakira: I can chime in on at least 3 of them. Sure, if I can Shakira, deputy zoning administrator. Um, the 3 that immediately come to mind are the uh, affirmed housing project on the city lot on East Evelyn, the adjacent charities, uh, 100% affordable development, um, Alta housing has, um, a site uh, on Linda Vista, Terabella. Um, and, um, I think actually the the 4th site is another Alta housing property at, um, at Ortega and El Camino Real.

[04:02:30] Unknown Speaker: That is correct.

[04:02:34] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. I didn't realize I had an application at Ortega.

[04:02:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I have a question about the funding agreement to support staffing. I know we've done that in the past, most notably with Google. Can staff help us understand the nature of that funding agreement and exactly how it increased staff capacity and whether there's an analogous kind of agreement that could be provided through the Charleston project.

[04:03:15] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Council member Ramirez. So when the When the project with Google was funded previously. funded limited period positions. So it essentially provided a certain amount of funding. And given that that funding was not guaranteed to continue as ongoing funding. We couldn't hire ongoing resources. So it basically covered limited period positions and contract planning positions. So that's analogous to what might happen in this situation, to where they would offset the contract planning contracts that we have right now. Um, were really competent with the uh, people that we're working with now. And I wouldn't expect that we would be going out to find new people. Um, given that we've had to spend a lot of time already months, um, finding the contract positions that we have now. So that's really how it would work is they would provide funding to help offset that. But as the director said earlier, it doesn't mean that we'll have brand new resources to only solely devote to this one project. The contract positions generally, at least the way they are now, are devoted to a variety of projects. It's just that we had a separate, more long term agreement with Google. It lasted many years.

[04:04:49] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's helpful to understand. Thank you. But it sounds like it's still valuable, particularly given the shortfall that was identified in the development services reserved.

[04:05:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, from that perspective, yes.

[04:05:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And now some questions for each applicant, maybe starting with Charleston. Well, actually, this maybe this is more appropriate for staff. There already is a conditional use permit approved for that site, right?

[04:05:26] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I'll, uh, ask Rebecca if she can. that.

[04:05:33] Rebecca: Hi, yes, there is an already previously approved CUP for office R&D use.

[04:05:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Can you remind us at least high level what the project parameters are?

[04:05:46] Rebecca: Sure, yeah. So the, the, proposal in that case was for converting the 3 vacant big box storefronts into, um, into at least 3 office R&D spaces, um, significant site improvements, including uh, converting some existing pavement area into, um, outdoor amenities for, you know, those future, uh, employees. Um, it was, it retains the, um, the PetSmart, uh, location as well as the small commercial pad building that's out along Charleston Road and that had sort of miscellaneous other site improvements involved.

[04:06:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Do you remember when that permit was approved?

[04:06:31] Rebecca: Um, I don't, the applicants might, I think it was sometime within the last year or so, perhaps a little bit longer, but fairly recently.

[04:06:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. That's that's helpful. And if I'm going to ask the applicants some questions. So if you want to provide us a precise state, that would be helpful too.

[04:06:48] Unknown Speaker: It was within the last year. Do we have a... Yeah. It was May of 23. Okay, thank you.

[04:06:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: All right. So I have some questions for you about what you're proposing and then some existing conditions. So the 1st is, I understand that PetSmart is a valuable amenity for many in the community. And sometimes, in other contexts, we've had applicants work with existing businesses to help relocate within Mountain View. Have you had conversations with PetSmart? Are you looking at other commercial spaces where they could relocate and remain within the city?

[04:07:35] Unknown Speaker: So our preference, particularly when we work with incumbent tenants that have been on properties that we come to acquire, is generally to promote small local businesses and not larger multinationals. In the case of PetSmart, we recognize how important they are to the community, but that's not because they're PetSmart, but rather because of the service that they provide between the doggy daycare, the boarding, and the actual pet supply aspect of it. And so we would be incorporating those uses, our intention would be to be incorporating those uses into the existing project, and less focused on sort of relocating them elsewhere in big box format within mountain views. So we've kept them at a rather favorable rate to keep them at the project because they had been there when we bought it. They were on the verge of wanting to leave, along with everyone else that did prior to us owning it. But we did a five year extension to accommodate them recognizing that any of these processes, both the original phased plan that we had, which was 100% commercial, and what was described earlier, was really phase one of that, the idea being we would have converted, and then looked to develop in a second phase, the remainder of the parking areas, the surface parking areas. In this case, in the more comprehensive sort of mixed use approach, similarly, we would look to keep them for as long as we can on site, and then approach the development in a phased manner, given that that whole 11 acres can't be built all at once, given the scale. And so would then look to ideally have the same uses and maybe even broken down at smaller scale rather than big box for print in the new project.

[04:09:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's helpful. Do you happen to know if PetSmart is, given that they will have to leave eventually looking at alternative sites in Mountain View?

[04:09:30] Unknown Speaker: They still have, I believe, another four years or so on their lease. Um, so it's a little way, you know, there's a little ways to go. I would say a couple of things, we're actively engaged in trying to backfill a lot of the vacancy that's on site. You may have seen. We popped up the local Democratic Party, which was great ahead of this election. Uh, we have spirit Halloween that's gone in a number of years now, at least 3 years since we've had ownership, uh, to help, you know, to sort of service the community. And so we're looking in that same vein of backfilling and promoting uses and testing uses to see what the community's actually excited about, to then use that as a platform to then sort of convince other local, smaller operators, that the demand is there, that the community really likes their product, and to be able to bring them into the new project. So to answer your question, yes to both. One is, you know, we have a long way to go with them still, uh, and certainly, I wouldn't rule it out, you know, off the table, that, to the extent, they're willing to go into smaller footprint, not big box, then we would give them, you know, an honest chance of trying to stay in the new project, um, with a, with a phased in or some sort of transition.

[04:10:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. That's very helpful. Two remaining questions. The first is, you spoke to this a little bit, but we've, in recent history, had difficulty with newer developments that have commercial space, with filling the vacancies. So can you help us understand your strategy to ensure we don't have yet another development with a significant number of commercial vacancies, notwithstanding, I think, your intent to revitalize the area.

[04:11:15] Unknown Speaker: And if I can double click on your question, predominantly retail, when you say commercial, is that,

[04:11:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: yep.

[04:11:21] Unknown Speaker: So, at the heart of this whole development really is that ground plane activation, to us, that retail is not as much a transactional sort of, you know, money maker, if you will, the whole notion of retail to us, we view it as a service. So our whole view is that we partner, and this is to go to my earlier comment about wanting to partner with local, small businesses. We look to find great operators locally, whether it's on the F and B side, or we're on the community serving amenity side of things, and then actually partner with them, and it oftentimes actually take the role of partner in financing the majority, if not all of their buildout, and then taking a revenue share position. So we're actually in it side by side with them to operate their businesses, and that allows us to then curate exactly the types of uses that we know would be successful. Whereas these entrepreneurs may not have the capital necessary to take that risk, we're doing it in partnership within the context of the broader project.

[04:12:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. That's helpful to understand as well. And then the last question, this is, um, one of the important components of the community benefit package, but for the daycare component to be, I think, really meaningful to the council, we will want some kind of assurance that you're serving residents just, you know, not just in, you know, the complex, but, you know, in the city at large, and then, in particular, that it's affordable. So what can you do to help guarantee that that actually is the community benefit that we're expecting?

[04:12:51] Unknown Speaker: So our commitment on that, and as always the case in all the projects where we've sort of taken the lead to actually build childcare as part of our projects, we've looked again to partner with local operators. So, in the case of, um, San Carlos, we were able to, where we've got a similarity sized project. We were able to partner with city council and staff, identify some great local operators. In that case, a nonprofit, able to set then the standard, the criteria to which they're going to actually target enrollment, and fill the gap that was the need within San Carlos as an example. San Francisco, same thing we partnered with. We knew we wanted to do a head start program. We then partnered with the city and the mayor's team to figure out which of the nonprofit, head start operators, were looking to expand, had the funding sources to actually be able to operate a successful head start program, and then ran an RFP process, and essentially negotiated a lease that was favorable to them, to give them a 15 or 20 year long process. So our view, no different, here would be to work with council and with staff to evaluate local operators and figure out where specifically in that sort of continuum of education in terms of childcare is a rather broad term, and we then actually dive deeper into it and say, mountain view in this neighborhood, in this location, actually needs X, Y, and Z, and then we would look to find the right operator, to be able to do that. The nice thing about having that space immediately adjacent to that significant open space. Both the plaza and the park area, is that we can satisfy the sort of dedicated playground space, which is generally what the hindrances in childcare capacity, and then not just provide that on a private basis to just the childcare, but have them leverage the outdoor, privately owned, open space as well. And that's where we've been able to find, again, a lot more success in doing a larger format, like, larger matriculation rates in those uses on the square footage that we're proposing.

[04:14:54] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I appreciate it. I have a few questions for the U Haul applicant, and then I'll be done. Don't worry. So first, the, I know originally you had proposed some improvements to the Caltrans property, which I know are proved not to be viable, but your pavement coverage is very high, 52%. Is there anything that you can do to help achieve some of the council sustainability goals and allow for green space or tree canopy or something like that to improve the project proposal?

[04:15:33] Unknown Speaker: Um, yeah, you know, our site plan is it's super early in our site plan, and it's definitely something that we can explore with recommendations from the city. We're open to exploring any options that they throw at us.

[04:15:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah. Okay. Let's come back to that later. I think I'll actually stop there. And I should have done this earlier, but I'll disclose that. I also had a chance to speak with both of the applicants and it doesn't sound like it because I had so many questions, but I did in fact speak with them. Thank you.

[04:16:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Now, council member Abbe Coca.

[04:16:16] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. It's been a while. But I remember my 1st question, it was about the 3 gatekeeper exempt projects. Could you name them? I was looking for them, but couldn't find what they are.

[04:16:36] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so they're in attachment too. They are at 922 San Leandro, which is a 38 unit row house development, 2144 Yandot, which is a 36 unit row house development, and 918 to 940 San Rafel, which is a 37 unit row house development.

[04:17:02] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. Uh, the other question I had, um, So with the Charleston site, uh, One of the, I would, one of the attractive aspects of this is the, um, ownership component, housing component. As we recently experienced a gatekeeper project, you know, that came in and then went went through the process and then the very end took out the community benefit that was proposed that really was, I think, the clincher for a lot of us. How do we prevent that from happening again?

[04:17:55] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So for this, in this situation, it would be that, like, if the ownership piece were to switch to rental, which we've seen actually on other projects. How do we prevent that from happening? Or can we require that the project come back to the council, should the community benefits change or no longer exist? So I'm sure you remember we kind of had long conversations about this in the gatekeeper, you know, discussions on the process. Um, I think, you know, once, you know, legislative changes are made. It's a little, it's a little more difficult to regulate what, you know, is actually proposed with the project. Um, so, you know, ways that you can try to protect, um, you know, the city and get those ownership units, um, you know, conditions, obviously. Um, I don't know if there will be a development agreement, but that's another way. Um, I don't know if um, director Chen has anything he can think of that's beyond these items. But, um, I think, you know, it is it is difficult once you get to that legislative change step. The project that you see, it may not be the same project, right? Because even if we approve a project with the legislative changes, another project that meets the, you know, what changes were made on the site, legislative changes, you know, could come back in and be proposed in its place. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I think the applicants can probably speak to some ideas they may have in order to ensure confidence. Um, but I think it's important to point out that um, you know, once a site is changed to being able to have residential, then it has a lot more rights than, um, you know, previous to that or prior to that.

[04:19:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: And then at what point does the legislative change happen then?

[04:20:00] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: So typically in, you know, this process, you would, um, make that decision, uh, in, in Mountain View, the project comes with that legislative change decision, um, and, you know, once that's completed, then the applicant, you know, would be able to to then build that project. But if they don't build that project, you know, an alternate project could then be proposed that still meets those, you know, the parameters for the site. So in the Google case, which is what I was referring to,

[04:20:35] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: the 120 BMR units was the community benefit, and they took that out in the end, at what point could we have at some point, denied the project, required them to come back, you know, because the benefit that got them through Gatekeeper was no longer there.

[04:20:56] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Right. I think we're trying to address 2 potential hypotheticals. One is that the legislative changes are made and approved by the council. They take effect. And then the project that was envisioned and approved at that time, doesn't move forward, and then another operator or another conception of the project comes forward, separate from the package, right? I think the second situation is, the same developer is moving forward, but wants to change its project. That's the linen. And so I think that the tools to address that are perhaps different. A development agreement is one opportunity to very clearly specify that. Perhaps classify that type of change as a major change, that would not allow the project to move forward, without coming back to council, so that the proper review and consideration of that change could be made. And so, I think that's an opportunity to do that, and to ensure that the development agreement, for instance, if that were to be mutually agreeable to the applicant in the city, has enough specificity to elucidate the particular areas of interest that are essential to the city, to get out of the development agreement. But with the development agreement, don't we have, that we mentioned mutually agreeable, and I guess, in this situation, I'm really trying to get at, you know, this whole gatekeeper process is based on community benefits. So, I think we have some authority there, if those benefits go away for us to be able to say, sorry, project's not moving forward. And I just want to get solidify that. Um, because there's no, you know, permit streamlining. There's nothing, right? This is just our prerogative to allow these projects to come through or not. And so how do we just codify that?

[04:22:42] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Right. I think other staff need to help me, but my understanding of what happened in the particular instance you're describing was not the post approval that changed, but I thought that there was a change, sort of concurrent with approval of the package, and so I'm not sure if the timeline and circumstances are quite the same as what you're describing in the hypothetical, based on my understanding of the Google situation. I think Rebecca...

[04:23:09] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I wanna add some things as well.

[04:23:11] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I can chime in there. I think in the case of the Google project, also, was not quite a traditional gatekeeper, and that it was part of the bonus FAR and master planning provisions of the North Bay Shore precise plan. Um, however, our codes and regulations that apply to gatekeeper authorizations for presenting map of Netments, et cetera, do include provisions or cases in which, um, a project would need to return to the city council for reauthorization. And that includes changes in a project, including to the community benefits. Oh, so we do require that it come back. Correct. As determined by the community development director due to a substantial change in the project. Okay. Great. Thank you. Council member, come A.

[04:24:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Mayor. I have some questions for our applicants. So I'll start with the U-Haul applicant first. Um, so I, Council received your revision to the community benefit after hearing our discussion. I just wanted to ask a little bit further. As you may have heard, staffing is the staff time is a rare resource that we have in our city. Would there be a willingness or an openness to perhaps do an additional monetary contribution for the additional staff time, which would go to your project? I don't know if that's been discussed or if there would be an openness to that.

[04:24:47] Dante Abordo: At this time, you know, it's definitely something that we can discuss if we, you know, if we do move forward with the project. At this time, what we've put down is kind of what we have that I can commit to. But I know, you know, if we move forward, it's something that we can definitely discuss if the city allows us to kind of move forward with the project.

[04:25:06] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right, um, I think that I had another question, but your answer answered that other question. So it sounds like what you are authorized, or what you are empowered with tonight is what's proposed, but if counsel, seeks anything additional, it would be an ongoing conversation.

[04:25:27] Dante Abordo: Absolutely. There's a willingness for an ongoing conversation and that could be a monetary contribution that counsel sees fit.

[04:25:34] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.

[04:25:36] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, can I just add to that? So both of these projects would be, you know, done through cost recovery for the city. So the applicants are paying for the work that we're doing, that staff is doing in order to bring their projects, you know, to fruition. So I do want to make that point clear that they would be, they would be covering the cost of staff time.

[04:25:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Well, then I'll have to ask for an additional monetary contribution for something else. Thank you.

[04:26:04] Unknown Speaker: Hmm? Okay. And then I have a question...

[04:26:07] Dante Abordo: Oh do you have more?

[04:26:08] Dante Abordo: Yeah, just kind of touch on the sustainability that was asked earlier. You know, storage is definitely acquired or use, and there'll be fewer truck rentals. The new building would be more efficient, and we've also agreed a concession to include biosoil elements on the site. So I just want to kind of throw that out there. I feel like, you know, Councilman Ramirez kind of asked about the sustainability, and that's something that we would definitely be interested in doing to help with the sustainability of our project.

[04:26:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Thank you.

[04:26:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, I have questions for our second applicant. Um, and some of the, oh, and I want to disclose I met with both applicants or I've had some discussion. So, um, some of these questions I emailed directly to the applicant, and I just wanted to kind of highlight some of those who may have not had that access to those discussions. And, um, but one question is related to the unit mix. So one of the, um, items noted is that 50% of the units will be designed to accommodate families. Would that be something that could be an ongoing conversation? Mountain View's been really interested in creating more units for our families. I think you heard a lot of that feedback from our earlier discussion on measure G and just wanted to mask.

[04:27:30] K. Cyrus Sanandaji: We're committed to building workforce housing that's predominantly family oriented and affordable by design. I think definitions are sort of a little subjective, but the fact is, we're looking to accommodate families and almost all of our units. It's just then a combination of whether it's twos, threes, sort of one plus dens and so on. And, yes, we anticipate that through this process, as we look at more detailed design layouts for each of the buildings, that the actual unit makes will get further refined. Okay.

[04:28:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Well, I asked the question because in your note to us, you say approximately 50% will be designed to accommodate families. So therefore, I felt compelled to ask the clarifying question, if the percentage could be increased. So I understand that the workforce is generally those who do have families, but since it's called out, I wanted to highlight that. you. So for the 2nd question I had, appreciate that it'll be ownership and rental for the rental rate and the pricing of the BMR units. Can you share with the public, what the proposed AMI levels are?

[04:28:41] K. Cyrus Sanandaji: I'm actually going to have to look at my colleague for that, if you don't mind. But we'll be driven off of the city's sort of actual MI levels. But one second, John can answer that. Sorry.

[04:28:52] John Maney: Uh, thank you for the question, council member. Yes, so what were...

[04:28:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Your name?

[04:28:58] John Maney: John Maney with Presidio Bay.

[04:29:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you.

[04:29:02] John Maney: Well, we're currently proposing is affordability that's in line with the city's requirements for both rental and ownership, so on the ownership side, it's an average of 100% AMI, uh, and that ranges, I believe, from, uh, 65 to 120% AMI.

[04:29:22] John Maney: I can clarify that, and it's in the notes that I provided to you. on the rental.

[04:29:27] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: That's what the public who may have not had.

[04:29:28] John Maney: Yes, no, no, certainly. I just want to make sure that I'm right off the top of my head. On the rental side, it's 65%, an average of 65%, am I? Uh, and that should be ranging from 50 to 120%. Can I ask you if that aligns with the notes that I provided to you?

[04:29:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[04:29:49] John Maney: Okay, perfect. Thank you.

[04:29:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, perfect. Thank you, thank you. And then I had a question about the commercial space. So, uh, I think a couple of my colleagues have asked, we have had, uh, instances where we have seen developments say that they have a robust strategy to make sure that they're occupied and they sit vacant. Uh, canoe maybe share with us in the public a little bit about maybe how your approach is different. Um, I know that some of it was in the design and what you offer. But, um, I think if you could provide a little bit more color.

[04:30:33] K. Cyrus Sanandaji: Sure. And thank you for that question. As a firm, I think we're a little bit uniquely positioned in the sense that we develop both residential and commercial, but not only on the development side, we actually operate our own assets as well, on both those property types. So, looking at this more holistically, we view this purely as an operational sort of goal, and the retail, as I said, is just one of the many service offerings that we would have or amenities that we view as driving demand for the projects. So, without the retail being occupied and vibrant, we view the housing and the commercial, meaning non retail, as being doomed for failure. So our view, similar to yours, is that that is absolutely a crucial part of breathing life into any project. And so, in addition to partnering, as I'd mentioned earlier, where we don't just view it as a landlord tenant relationship, with a sort of, here's a rent and a TI, go figure it out yourself. We generally turn key, and sort of, what that really means is we're really white glove delivering this for these operators, who are generally smaller businesses, local operators, mom and pop operators, who may not have the wherewithal to deal with the rather complex design and permitting and construction process, and let them just focus on actually being successful at running their business, which is what they're great at, and why we would partner with them in the first place.

[04:31:55] Unknown Speaker: Okay, and speaking of that, I think, appreciate Councilman Ramirez bringing up one of our, although Big Box, very beloved in the community, There's quite a bit of feedback I've received about that. Um, I think there are some existing businesses that are small, uh, businesses in, isn't there, like, a restaurant? So, would there be an openness to having them return? I think it sounds like they might be more aligned with the swamp.

[04:32:23] Unknown Speaker: Definitely, I think the small, the inline strip is predominantly. It's like Starbucks and Chipotle and so on. But yes, we do have, of the smaller businesses, we would, and don't get me wrong, we would be willing to bring Starbucks and Chipotle and everyone else back here.

[04:32:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: But I think on the other side, there was like a little restaurant or did that close?

[04:32:42] Unknown Speaker: I thought there was a...

[04:32:45] K. Cyrus Sanandaji: Maybe I'm Mr... Sorry?

[04:32:47] Unknown Speaker: The deli would,

[04:32:48] K. Cyrus Sanandaji: yes, we would definitely love to keep, you know, to the extent that they want to actually continue to operate.

[04:32:54] Unknown Speaker: All right. Um, so, just on the childcare, um, operators. So it sounds like there haven't been any initial conversations yet, but that, uh, your past practices that you would work hand in hand with counsel and our community to find a good fit. Is that correct?

[04:33:15] Unknown Speaker: That's right. We're so early in this process. Just given, it was sort of the end of January when, I think, collectively, council decided that this was gonna happen, and then the deadline to submit, we were focused on ensuring that we actually captured all of your council priorities and the city's priorities in a proposal to set the framework as a starting point and recognize that if we were to receive your blessing, to actually dive into the process itself, that that's where all the legwork would happen in terms of introducing all that nuance to the project.

[04:33:45] Unknown Speaker: Okay. And just one last question, and I don't know if this is a question for John. So, on the ownership, the BMR ownership units, what do you all feel would be, um... the cost of those for the, um... for those units? So, is that...

[04:34:10] Unknown Speaker: In terms of the sales price?

[04:34:11] Unknown Speaker: Yes, thank you. I would love to have them... getting a little late, yeah. I'd love to have a magic 8 ball. I think it's truly a direct function of just cost and time. And I think we...

[04:34:23] Unknown Speaker: Do we have a do you might have a range?

[04:34:25] Unknown Speaker: Not at this point because we don't even have pricing on.

[04:34:28] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Or do you? Yes. Yes, please. To clarify the question, this was how much, basically, what is the pricing of the BMR units? If the sales, what do you think the sales price would be for the BMR units?

[04:34:44] Unknown Speaker: Yes. Okay, yeah. Uh, so, on average, for the ownership units, we're looking at about $350,000. That's set by the city's pricing, or really the county's pricing, uh, at the average AMI level of 100%. Okay. And that's roughly for a one to two bedroom. The range is much wider than that. The pricing, for example, for a studio at 80% AMI can be much lower, closer to 200,000. It can go up to a little less than 500,000, not 120% AMI for a larger 3 bedroom, for example.

[04:35:25] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Ultimately, we would set our pricing based on whatever the AMI levels are dictated by the city.

[04:35:33] Unknown Speaker: Okay. It just, sorry, this will be my last question. So, for those past projects that you have, have you had past projects with these ownership units, have people been able to utilize the first time home buyer assistance program, or is it usually have they have to put down the 20%?

[04:35:56] Unknown Speaker: Candidly, so, and I apologize because I didn't realize your question was about just those BMR units. Thank you, John, for that. In terms of where the financing comes from, it typically is driven by the regional banks and regional lenders. So First Republic was a huge advocate and proponent of lending having a lending program for these BMR ownership projects. And at the time, the percentages vary depending on the zip codes and whether they were federal priority zones or not. So, yes, is the answer to your question. I just don't know the nuances at the time when we go to sell as to where each of the banks are, what their allocations are, and whether the zip code here would be a priority zip code or not.

[04:36:40] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Thanks, Mayor.

[04:36:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, I understand that, um, Council member Hicks has one more question.

[04:36:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes. So I do have one more question. It's, um, for the gentleman from the El Camino Real project, and I'll just, I'll just use this, since I have the floor to say that I, I did meet, I have not met with the gentleman from the El Camino Real project, but I have met with folks from the Charleston project. Um, that said, um, did I hear you correctly, to say, when you said that, um, you would be reducing your rental, uh, the amount of rental, you would be doing, and then increasing, well, you don't have any, uh, public storage right now, so certainly you would be increasing that. Did I hear that properly?

[04:37:32] Unknown Speaker: Yes, that's correct. It'd be slightly decreased from the amount of truck rentals that we currently do. A slight.

[04:37:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Can you say, so slight, like, is there a percentage?

[04:37:43] Unknown Speaker: Don't have an exact percentage at this time. We, um, the fleet of trucks that we currently have at that location is roughly about 50 trucks. Um, we'd probably decrease it. Probably about down to like 30, 35 trucks.

[04:38:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Not a 50% decrease, but...

[04:38:04] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, there'd be some decrease from that.

[04:38:06] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, that gives me a better, um, picture of what you're doing of what you're proposing.

[04:38:11] Unknown Speaker: Gotcha. I just want to say something brief tonight. This is his first time speaking in front of a city council. He has never spoken in front of a city council today, and you guys have been really good. Dante, we're very proud of him. We wanted him to speak tonight, and he started off as a janitor with U Haul. How old were you?

[04:38:28] Unknown Speaker: 16. 16 years old, and he's worked for the company for 22 years. And tonight, your questions are really good. We're very proud of him that he spoke tonight. And if there's any other question, we didn't know if we were the only person that could speak tonight, so if there's any questions, the questions you answered was great.

[04:38:43] Unknown Speaker: Yes, and yes. And, uh, but I want to tell you, we're very proud of him. We want to speak tonight, and you guys were gracious. I sat eight years on the council, and these late night meetings. I know a lot of you in your service, you do a great job here in the city, but thank you for me. I just wanted to interview them and let them know that we're proud of him for doing this tonight.

[04:39:02] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, I did not know it was his first time.

[04:39:06] Councilmember Alison Hicks: That's it for me.

[04:39:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Well, now... Good job. Now we come to the exciting public comment part. And, um, uh, do we have a tally of about how many people are going to speak on public comment? Or?

[04:39:29] Unknown Speaker: Live.

[04:39:29] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So... um... Armando Maria? welcome. You have two minutes, sir.

[04:39:43] Armando Mundo: Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Showalter, and fellow council members. Again, my name is Armando Mundo, and I stand here today as a proud representative of Northern California Carpenters Union, local 405. I'm here to voice our strong support for the Presidio Bay Development Project, located on East Charlton Road, Charleston, excuse me. This project is exactly what our community needs. Not only does it promise much needed housing and commercial space, but it also checks all the boxes that matter most to our union and the people in this city. First and foremost, this development supports local hire. And this means jobs for men and women who already live here. Strengthening our community by ensuring residents are the ones who benefit. In addition, Presidio Bay has committed to providing a responsible general contractor that pays a livable wage for its workers in a time when the cost of living continues to skyrocket. This ensures that families cannot only make ends meet, but thrive. And perhaps most importantly, this project incorporates healthcare and apprenticeships, an incredible opportunity to equip workers with essential skills for one of the most critical sectors. It's an investment in our workforce and in the well being of our community. In every way, Presidio Bay has shown a commitment to creating opportunities that lift up local families and help them build a better future. For these reasons, we urge you to support this project. Thank you so much.

[04:41:28] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, sir. And the next speaker is Eli Robles. Welcome. And thanks for your patience. I know it's getting late.

[04:41:38] Eli Robles: No problem. Uh, let me see. Good evening. Mayor Shawwater and members of the Mountain View City Council. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. The Charleston Road project proposed by the Presidio Bay represents a significant opportunity for our community, not only in terms of economic development, but also in providing life changing opportunities for men, women, and minorities who are seeking a path into the construction industry. Pasudio Bay has shown a strong commitment to using a responsible contractor for this project, which means you can rest assured that workers will be treated fairly, and no one will be exploited. Apprentices on this project will gain essential job skills, which will improve their lives by providing a livable wage and much needed healthcare for them and their families. The project stands to benefit not just those who work on it, but the community as a whole. So let's get the wheels put in motion and put the shovels on the ground. Thank you for your time, and I urge you to approve this important project.

[04:42:40] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Thank you. Next is Manuel, Salazar, and then after that, Peter Cottz.

[04:42:54] Manuel Salazar: Bear with me, I was falling asleep. Good evening, mayor, and members of the men of U city council. My name is Monardo Salazar, and I'm here on behalf of SV at home to express our strong support for the gatekeeper application for the mixed use project at East Charleston Road. I urge the council to authorize the formal application process to help this project move forward. I'd like to start by saying that this proposal offers a much needed range of housing options with both rental and ownership opportunities at different price points, notably 16.5% of the 350 rental units will be affordable for low and moderate income households, exceeding mountainous inclusionary housing requirements. The inclusion of 100 stacked flag condominiums, 10 of which will be affordable homeownership units for middle income families, also directly aligns with the council's priority goals, specifically expanding middle income housing, and ownership opportunities. At a time when resources for affordable housing are increasingly limited, it is critical that we leverage projects like this to fill the gap. The development not only surpasses inclusionary requirements, but also generates BMR in lieu fees, which will support the other affordable housing projects in the city's pipeline. Additionally, the commercial space will excuse me. The commercial space will generate linkage fees, providing crucial funding at a time when office developments and their associated fees have slowed. It's important to remember that the policies adopted through the housing element were designed to enable housing projects like this to move forward swiftly. Whether or not the site was originally part of the city's site inventory. It presents a real and timely opportunity to help Mountain View meet its renal obligation. We also want to acknowledge that the economic challenges developers are currently facing, including rising construction cost and unpredictable development climate. And delays will only compound these issues, increasing both costs and risks. By allowing this project to proceed without delays, The council can help ensure its financial viability and avoid further setbacks. This project has the potential to address our housing crisis today. We understand staff capacity as key consideration. But timely action here can significant lower development costs, and bring much needed housing to Mountain Dew sooner rather than later. Thank you for your time.

[04:45:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And next is Peter Katz. Welcome, Peter.

[04:45:08] Peter Katz: Thank. Thank you, Mayor, and members of the city council. I'm Peter Katz, CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. I'm here to voice support of both projects that have submitted gatekeeper applications. You know, we often speak of making Mountain View the best place to live, work and play. To do this, we need to adapt to a rapidly changing social and economic environment. We need to provide housing for current and future residents and businesses to support them. We need to ensure our existing businesses thrive and attract new businesses as well. U Haul has been supporting our local community for 50 years, but they, too, need to change to survive. Their expansion plans provide new and related services to an area sorely in need of improvement. Their project makes sense for community and keeps a trusted resource local. We are grateful that the city staff has been in discussions with the applicant on ways to balance gatekeeper's public benefit requirements and the size and scope of the project, and we urge council to support it. For Charleston Plaza, we have a unique opportunity to reimagine, revitalize a sizable parcel that has been dormant since, well, the exodus of the big box stores. And by the way, they aren't coming back. This bold project transforms barren parking lot, and empty storefronts into a state of the art community with more housing, parks, and retail. In addition, it welcomes new research and development in areas such as AI, robotics, life sciences, infusing our local economy with diversity, and new investment, attracting new employees, and reinforcing mountain views reputations in the center of innovation. All of this is directly in line with the city's vision of the future, its economic vitality strategy, and its commitments to the housing element. We urge council to support it. We are grateful that the Gatekeeper has been restated after seven years and that we continue to look for creative solutions to recognize our vision and to address our most critical issues.

[04:47:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you very much. And next is, um, Allie Sapperman. Thanks for staying around.

[04:47:34] Allie Saperman: Last time I spoke to you is the evening, and now it's almost the morning. So, good almost morning. My name's Allie Saperman, and I'm here on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. Our endorsement committee had the opportunity to review Presidio Bay's Charleston Plaza proposal, and enthusiastically endorsed the project. I had the opportunity to speak a number of months ago to you all regarding the housing element and the gatekeeper process. I appreciate the council and city staff's tireless work to pass a certified housing element and resume the gatekeeper process. Program 1.3 of the housing element. In program 1.3 of the housing element. The city committed to not only holding a gatekeeper annually, but actually move qualified projects, housing projects forward. The Charleston Plaza project serves many goals of the housing element, including to help advance the city's rena targets, which is 11,000 new units over the next eight years. Therefore, the city council should grant the project the resource it's needed to move forward immediately. The project transforms a largely surfaced parking lot to 450 much needed new homes, addressing the critical need for diverse and affordable housing options in Mountain View. The housing component of this development is thoughtfully designed to serve a wide range of residents and income levels. The project will feature 350 apartment homes, of which 16.5% or 558 units are designed as affordable for low and moderate income households earning between 50 and 120% of AMI, with an average affordability of 65% of AMI. Additionally, it will include 104 sale stacked, flat condos with 10% reserved for moderately income households earning 80 to 120% AMI, averaging at 100% AMI, allowing an extremely rare opportunity for affordable homeownership in Mountain View. The inclusion of 68 affordable units, a variety of public amenities, and a much needed childcare facility demonstrates significant commitment to fostering economic diversity, promoting inclusivity in Mountain View. This important development also supports Mountain View's long term goals of increasing the housing supply, promoting sustainable growth, and enhancing community vitality. Thank you.

[04:49:51] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. Are there any speakers online?

[04:49:55] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No?

[04:49:56] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So I'll bring it back to council for deliberation, and I guess while I'm waiting for people to push their buttons, I will mention that I have met with the Charleston project on several occasions, and I learned about the U Haul project through a presentation at the BIP. So, um, council member Hicks, what are your thoughts?

[04:50:30] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I'll start off with my first impressions, and then see if anyone on council wants to persuade me otherwise. So, given the attributes of the projects and staff constraints, I would tend to allow the Charleston project to go forward, and, well, I think the El Camino project has maybe should not go forward and has more work to be done. In particular, I think the El Camino project could be, well, improved in multiple ways, including streetscaping, facade, and some other areas, I have some concerns about its fit in the neighborhood, and that it doesn't, at this point, fit the village center character. I think it could at some point, but I think there's work to be done. As for the Charleston project, you know, there are a number of attributes that I think that speakers have mentioned, and I'm sure council members will mention. So I'm going to mention one that maybe other people won't mention. I think that one thing our gatekeeper process doesn't highlight enough, as far as I can see, is that a really good development that meets the desires of our community, things that we've heard tonight from members of the community, you know, green space, w great streetscapes, walkable and bikable neighborhoods, neighborhoods serving uses, of course, housing and affordable housing, those things are in and of themselves a community benefit. So when I'm looking at these gatekeeper projects, I'm looking at how the project itself is a community benefit, not just the daycare center, which I appreciate, or the monetary contributions. I think a development can either meet some of our community's aspirations, and thus, in the future, make the community support more development, or it can do the opposite. It can kind of not meet what the community wants to see, and then, at least, my neighbors then don't want to support more development. So I'm going to call out a few things that the Charleston development does that were not highlighted tonight, as I said, I met with the applicant, and that's also why I didn't have many questions. But there are a number of attributes that I think have not been highlighted in the presentation. Um, and one of the primary ones, for me, is a gym that would be open to people who are not in the, um, living in the apartments or condos. That's something that I've seen in other communities. It kind of makes more public facing space and makes the community, makes the development belong to the wider community in a greater way. So that's something that I've long been wanting at least one project to do, and this is the first project that has, um, suggested that. I like the, that a lot of the site is car free pedestrian priority space, and that it has a lot of fun things that would make it a great place to hang out. If you, if you lived there, or if you went, for example, to a restaurant there, you might hang out there afterwards. With, with additional, not just a lawn and tables, but, you know, ping pong, adult swing, things like that. I liked that the, um, that the offices are bio labs. I know these are just renderings that we're seeing at this point. But they appear to have, um, facades that are not, don't have all glass office appearance that make it for the people living there make it seem more residential and more friendly. I like the job housing balance. I like the massing of the buildings that maximize sunlight, that don't kind of constrain the public space. And I like the streetscaping along Charleston. So those are some of the kinds of things that I would look for in a project that would make it a neighborhood that I think people would appreciate. Um, not just, um, not just a kind of a bland project that people would not appreciate. So that's why one of the reasons that I would support it. Thank you.

[04:55:26] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Amos.

[04:55:30] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, thank you, Mayor. I'll disclose that I met with representatives from both Presidio Bay and from U Haul. Um, and, uh, I'll start with um, the Charleston Plaza, one, the, uh, the Presidio Bay project. I like it. And I mainly like it because the alternative is just all office space. So I'm happy to get housing there. And we need housing. So, um, that made it a lot easier. For some reason, people have been asking me, like, why do I seem to care about the U-Haul site? Um, or why do I have, um, a sympathy for it? Um, and I think it's because when you submit a gatekeeper, it's almost like you are submitting your dream and your vision for our city. And I think where, uh, the Charleston Plaza plan, like, that's a that's a big vision. That's a big dream. that, uh, you had a lot to work with to get some buy in from different council members from, I guess, whenever you met them and all, and all that. So we could get our housing so we could get our life sciences. Um, and and build, essentially, a complete neighborhood or retail. And it's a, it's a really, really nice dream to, for us to work forward to. And then we have the U-Haul. And it's a smaller dream. But it's it's, there's something precious about that to me. Um, and that's why I have some, um, softness to it. Um, I don't know if it has the votes to make it through this round. Um, I think what you're going to be hearing from from me and the rest of the colleagues, The dream, that dream of yours is still precious, but we want you to dream bigger, and we want you to dream bigger, uh, as our plans for the future, we know that there are, uh, we, we have our, how we want that those 4 corners to go. And I think as we move forward, that might be something for you to think about. I do like the steps that you're taking, uh, more funding for, um, for the city and more, um, sustainability options. Um, I think that is a good direction. I, and that's, that is generally my thoughts of the 2 gatekeepers and my feedback on that. Thank you.

[04:58:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Abbe Coca.

[04:58:26] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor, um, and thank you to staff, um, for the presentation and your work on these gatekeeper projects. Um, so I, um, I will disclose, I met with both applicants, and, um, I plan to support both projects, um, for different reasons. But, um, well, number one, I was the one who had suggested we stopped gatekeepers many years ago because of staff workload. But that's been for, that's been many years now. And frankly, when we reopened Gatekeeper, you know, I had thought maybe we'll get the 10, 15, 20 projects that we'd gotten in the past, but surprisingly, there's only two. And so I feel that we should be, you know, able to handle 2 projects. I know that there are other commitments and the workload is still heavy. And, you know, I guess I just have issues. I know the housing element is something we have to do, but I guess I really question planning versus, you know, actual product projects that bring in housing and which is really should be more priority. Um, but that's uh, a bigger conversation and a bigger debate to be had. Um, in terms of the, um, Charleston project, uh, I think the potential activation of a site that has been rather dormant for several years is appealing. I like the mix of, um, commercial and, um, housing. Um, I toward the site, the site that the applicant has in Menlo Park and was very impressed by that. And then in terms of the housing, I'm very much interested in the ownership piece. And I, you know, do hope that it can come to fruition. We have seen other projects, similar ownership projects, and they all end up, or most of them have not been built. Yeah, I'm not sure how many have actually been built. Um, so there's a bit of uh, concern about the viability, but, um, I think it's worth worthy of of, um, giving it a try. And, um, should the project change, I would expect it to come back to the council that I will not be on. But, um, I think it should be, you know, brought back to council for, um, reconsidering. But, um, in terms of the, um, the U-Haul site. So, um, I understand, and, you know, I was a part of the precise plan development for El Camino real, and I know I know the whole gen- um, origin of village centers. I think, though, that when we did the planning, I don't know that we thought that every parcel that we designated would actually become what we designated it to be. So a lot of it was based on, you know, a lot of this is really based on the market, frankly. And to be frank, over the years, my concern has been the conflict of wanting to build more housing, but at the expense of businesses. And, um, even, you know, the the project here at, I think it's 801 Castro, the Greystar project with apartments, you know, it had a, if you all remember, uh, thriving Pete's coffee shop. And then the building burnt down and it didn't look very nice. And so the project came in with apartments and people wanted housing. So, um, you know, it moved forward. I actually did not support that because I was concerned that the retail that was existing there would struggle. And sure enough, the peats moved. There's been issues with the parking there, frankly, there's just a lot of challenges. And so, um, you know, I really, uh, when we talk, you know, we keep talking about we want more retail, we want more businesses. We want to support more businesses. And yet we, you know, have these plans that essentially are pushing out businesses. That's a real problem for me. And so here are just a business that's been existing a long time. They want to do something to be able to continue to operate. And so I really think that we should allow that. And frankly, I didn't realize this site was a village center site until it was brought up. But, you know, it's a, it's an intersection between an exit of a freeway in a major El Camino corridor. It's not really actually an ideal site for housing, if you ask me. It's loud, it's noisy. You know, I mean, I wonder about the neighbors who live here. Um, I think maybe in a way too. The public storage buildings could possibly be a noise buffer for the existing neighborhood. So, um, and you know, the American tire shop's been there a long time. It sounds like they're not planning to leave either. And so why should, yeah, again, here's an area that businesses seems to be working. So why not support it? Um, I don't, you know, I don't want us to convert everything and we shouldn't be converting everything into housing as much as housing is important because if we do that, we become the bedroom committee community that, frankly, San Jose doesn't want to be anymore. So, um, for those reasons, I support, I will be supporting the U-Haul project as well. Thanks.

[05:04:35] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now we have Lucas Ramirez.

[05:04:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I will I agree with much of what has been said. I'll share, um, it's hard not to have this role for a number of years and, um, and not become a little jaded and cynical. So I really appreciate it. Council member Kamea's questions and many of the questions shared by my colleagues because often we are promised very nice shiny objects, and then a few years in, we, you know, we learn that they're really not so shiny. So I think when we, there is an expectation that, uh, you know, a gatekeeper, um, has has tremendous merit, and that's why we allocate staff resources at the extent of expense of other work that's important to the council, because we're getting something for our community. And so it is frustrating when we authorize something and then we find out, well, it turns out it's just like any other project that we can get. And so I think that's why there's a level of scrutiny that the applicants are subject to. And we're, I'll speak for myself. grateful to you for answering some tough questions up here. But very thoughtful and important questions. Um, if they're, depending on how the vote breakdown may work, we might want 2 separate motions. And I'm happy to start with the, I think the easier of the 2 maybe, we'll see. Um, the, uh, the Charleston project has merit for a couple of reasons. And um, Council member Ramos spoke to one of them. There's already an approval there for a conditional use permit for office space, which is not providing too much, in my opinion, for our community, in contrast, the proposal that has been shared with us, has a great potential. I think, obviously, we want to solidify some of the commitments that you've made here, and important for me, and I know for many of my colleagues, the assurance that the childcare will be affordable and accessible to the community at large, ensuring that the housing that is built also is accessible and affordable and not just what we've been building, which is generally inaccessible housing, $5000 for, you know, a 2 bedroom apartment. It's not really what we're trying to address as a council. But I think there's clearly still a lot of work that we need to do to make sure that the project meets the council's expectations and can provide for our community. I am interested in whatever funding agreement that staff is able to negotiate to help offset some of the city's costs. I like the idea and concept to expand capacity, but I appreciate staff's explanation about why that's hard, and maybe not totally realistic, but if there's a way to do that, then I think that that actually is a community benefit, because, as you saw from that chart, we're a very ambitious city. We have a lot going on. So I'm happy to move to, um, authorize the Presidio Bay Ventures project with the additional commitments that were shared by the applicant voluntarily. I don't know how precise you need my language to be, but the funding commitment, and then I appreciate staff's explanation about the timing of the application submittal maybe is less important. But I do think the time frame that was proposed seems reasonable. So by the end of January, I think that was what the applicant was proposing, please shout, no, no, no, that's not what we were saying. But if that is a timeline that makes sense for staff as well, because we will have achieved the housing element commitments that have the deadline at the end of the year, right? Hopefully that will be squared away, and then we can start thinking about the application for this pretty substantial project. really quickly on the U-Haul project. I actually appreciated your comments earlier, Council member Ramos. I feel like when I was describing our gatekeeper authorization process to a good friend, he was his observation is people have a right to petition their government, right? And so it was, it was surprising to him that we haven't even allowed a gatekeeper authorization process for so many years. So I'm glad we've brought it back. I think there was a lot we could do to make it better. Our gatekeeper process is very challenging, right, for us because we don't have we have different expectations as individual council members. So it would be helpful to have objective criteria, It's hard for the applicant because it's extremely risky and subject to the political whimsy of the council. So I think there's a lot we can do to maybe make it a little bit easier for everybody. But it's the process that we have to allow property owners and business owners to ask their city for permission to expand or explore some interesting concepts. So I hear you. I think gatekeepers shouldn't just be reserved for extremely, you know, well capitalized major companies, but smaller folks who want to do a little bit more with their property, I think, should have an opportunity to submit applications. And I know that was something that council member Kame also had suggested when we were talking about our gatekeeper update last year. So I'm actually generally supportive of the El Camino project as well. I appreciated the attempt to respond to the question about sustainability and would love, maybe, if there is support for that project, to give the applicant a chance to affirm or confirm what it is that you're proposing in addition to the increased community benefit, which I do appreciate. I think that's closer to the expectation of the council. But I feel like because there are differences of opinion, maybe. that should be a separate personally. So I have moved the Charleston project, though, and I'll conclude my remarks. Thank you.

[05:11:17] Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Vice Mayor Matachek.

[05:11:19] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. That's my biggest concern here is staff capacity. And, um, got 141 projects on their plate in addition to all kinds of other work. And we've heard tonight that, um, even if you did have funding, um, hiring additional folks who would be new to the city, um, does take oversight on the part of the team, and so it's not necessarily, uh, an increase in capacity. So, as a matter of fact, it might be a decrease in capacity, because now you're spending time bringing them up to speed. So I don't really feel compelled to support either one of these projects. Um, even with a delayed start date because, um, from what I've heard, um, it doesn't really happen because the applicants are, um, wanting to move things forward, and they have questions. And they end up taking up a lot of staff time, even when we say it's deferred to a later date. Um, and I also, I feel like I just have to say that had we not been forced to have so many projects in our housing element, um, and left some room for development applications in our capacity, um, to actually process applications for housing. We wouldn't be in this position. And that was one of the primary reasons I didn't support the housing element, is because I don't think it was reflective of what our community wanted. And it didn't leave any capacity for what a lot of people were advocating for, which is more housing. So, um, I um, at this point, I can't really support either project moving forward. I would defer them both to the next gatekeeper, um, hearing to see if, uh, we want to move forward with them at that time.

[05:13:23] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thanks. Council member Komei?

[05:13:28] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Mayor. So I just want to reiterate my thanks to staff and our 2 applicants and the public. It's been a robust conversation. Um, tonight. And I, um, I was going on to our city website and just seeing what we had when it said, uh, what a gatekeeper is, we spent four council meetings last year talking about it, and I felt like that the one nuance that's missing is something that we discussed quite a bit, which is that gatekeepers are outside of our normal processes, and that a gatekeeper should go above and beyond. That is what I thought that we've talked about as a council, for the time that I've been here and on EPC. And so, when I'm reviewing a gatekeeper, that is what I'm thinking about, and just, like, for clarity, I use our city strategic priorities as a rubric, so, for example, is it, um, creating more mobility and connectivity? Is it sustainable and climate resiliency, how is it contributing to the livability and quality of life of our residents? Those are just some of our strategic priorities. And in reviewing these two, those are the things that I was thinking about. Um, as well as we decided upon these 7 questions on how what our criteria is. And appreciate that staff went through meticulously and put it all in a chart for us to review. So, and I, uh, feel like we have heard consistently from staff, uh, that in order to finish our work plan from 2019, which I know all of us, I want them to, uh, have a balance of the new items that we'd put forward. So all of that is the lens with which I am approaching tonight's projects. So I guess I'll start with the first, which is the El Camino project, the U-Haul project. I feel that what was proposed does not, uh, go above and beyond at this time. And, uh, the initial community benefit while uh, it has increased. was initially, uh, $150,000, and I believe that that is not a significant amount with which, uh, to go through our gatekeeper process. To me, that is not above and beyond, especially for a Fortune 500 company, and we have other large businesses in our community with which council asks a lot of. So we need to be asking all, I think, large companies for the same thing, no matter the size of the project. That's the ones I have. Um, so I think it's a good 1st start and would encourage some more opportunity to, um, take some of the feedback in the terms of the sustainability goals or, um, a larger community benefit, perhaps, um, something specifically for the parkland dedication fee, uh, which we, um, so desperately need to acquire, um, our public open spaces. That would be some suggestions for that project. For the Presidio Bay project. I feel like when thinking about the strategic priorities and thinking about above and beyond, it, for me, hits one of our most important, which is advancing a community for all. I do appreciate the mixes of both rental and ownership. I have been talking quite a bit on counsel about more ownership opportunities, particularly for our load of middle income. I appreciate the suggestions that some colleagues have brought forward on how do we ensure that? We have had instances where that was promised and then changed. So I think that maybe when the project comes forward, we can discuss the mechanisms to ensure that the ownership stays in because to me, that is a bucket of above and beyond. The other, I want to highlight is the childcare component. Um, you know, I acutely feel that right now in my personal life with 2 children in daycare. But I would say I really want to make sure that we're working with a local operator that will prioritize our Mountain View families, appreciate that there could be a greater percentage called out for the multifamily units. We have so many families in Mountain View that are living, um, in one unit, but multiple rooms, multiple families, and really want to make sure that we're addressing that issue. I know we'll have an opportunity for more feedback at a later time. Um, but those are some initial things, um, that I wanted to state as well as priority prioritizing, if possible. I understand that some of the businesses, maybe, are considered big box, but, um, those services are essential for the residents. It's something that I have heard a lot of particularly having somewhere to take your pet for those needs. And if it's gone, people were saying, I have to go to San Jose. I don't want to do that. I wanna be able to do those things in Mountain View. So, I feel like the community outreach is really going to be essential to make sure that whatever uses are there will be there. Thank you.

[05:19:37] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, we do have a motion on the floor, and we have a second. And, um, uh, does everybody understand the motion? I think so. So, I'm gonna, uh, Council member Ramirez, you can help me. I'm gonna restate the motion, which is basically to defer consideration of the Charleston Plaza, gatekeeper application until January 31st, 2025. Is that and...

[05:20:10] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, that's okay. Um, I'm thinking, that's why you see this expression. So I don't know that we should include the date and the motion. I don't want to be so prescriptive. I really think that staff is going to need time to figure out Uh, 1st of all, the timing of when the applicant gets their stuff in. And then 2nd of all, how that fits with the pipeline of everything else going on. And I have a window into what we are potentially bringing the 1st and 2nd quarter of 25 and there is a lot of stuff for CDD. And that's separate and aside from what we're talking about this evening. So I just don't think the motion should have the time in it. I would rather counsel defer to staff to figure out what would work when the applicant turns it in.

[05:21:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, so I'm, I guess I'm, um, what I, I'm trying to understand what that means operationally. So I don't mind eliminating the date, but what I don't want that to mean in practices. You can't submit an application until a time we deem acceptable because that doesn't provide the assurance I think the applicant is looking for. So I was thinking they had said January and that provides a little bit of space and time, but if not January, then if they want to submit an application in January, would this mean that they could not with this direction?

[05:21:51] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: No, I think that it just means that it doesn't compel staff to have to drop everything in January to have to address this. They could submit an application, but I don't think we're under the impression that we're expecting staff to make this a priority, just that they can submit an application. I think the community development director had described maybe a, you said plotting, but maybe what we what we mean is very intentional and deliberate. And, you know, so that's the process that we would operate, but we're not denying anyone, we're not denying the applicant, the ability to submit an application. That would work then, just to clarify that. Understood. you. So I'm happy to eliminate the date.

[05:22:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: No, as a second or I'm not happy to deliver to do that. I think that it's really important that we include a date, and it is the understanding that once that's put in to the system, this is a gatekeeper. It is processed at the rate of a gatekeeper. But we're saying that you can put this in after a certain date, and then it starts the process of a gatekeeper, which has all of the qualifications that have been described to us. But I think that, um, after 7 years of putting this off, it's time to put a date on the table. So I would really prefer that there was a date. Um, I just think that it's, um, it's much fairer and more transparent. It's more transparent to our staff. It's more transparent to the applicant. And, um, uh, it doesn't mean that, The planning department drops everything and starts working on it the next day. That's not how gay coopers work. We have, we know that, but, um, I still think that that, um, a date is important. And, uh, I think we owe that to them.

[05:24:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: Is there, is there, if we have to provide a deadline to submit, is there a date that staff would be amenable to?

[05:24:24] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So I want to make sure I understand what the concern is related to the date. I had been understanding the conversation as a note earlier than January 31st date, not a deadline to receive the application. So, can I get some clarification first, and then I'll offer my... That's exactly what I meant. Yeah. No, you know, no earlier than January 31st. So after January 31st, they can submit it, but no earlier than that. Thank you. So I think from my perspective, there's not much of a functional difference. It's just a handful of months away. The applicant in the Charleston Gatekeeper example is going to have a significant amount of work to do, in my opinion, before they'll be ready to submit a regular application of this sort. If we were talking about a July 1st, 2025, or September 1st, 2025 deadline, I think the conversation might be different. In reality, there may be a slight difference before or after a January 31st deadline. And I feel like the bigger concern and consideration for my perspective is hearing that the council understands that whenever it comes in, it is not a priority application that will divert staff resources away from other housing element, or permit streamlining act, or other already identified higher priority council items. I feel like I'm hearing that from many, not sure a majority of the council, but clarity on that would be the most important thing to me as the CDD director. Is that okay?

[05:26:08] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so we have emotion. And we have a second. Do we have more to discussion? Council member command?

[05:26:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Mayor. Would council member Ramirez be willing to just repeat and clarify your motion just before we vote, especially given that we're into the next day? I just want to make sure that we are all clear. Thank you.

[05:26:30] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's an excellent idea. No problem. So to authorize the Presidio Bay application, as the community development director said, with an understanding that once the application is submitted, it's not going to be the priority of the staff, and also accepting the voluntary contribution from the applicant to, I guess, work with staff or negotiate with staff, some contribution to pay for the contract staffing. January 31st.

[05:27:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Everybody clear? Right? Call for the question, please.

[05:27:41] Mayor Pat Showalter: The motion passes, six to one. Thank you, everybody. So now we're going to move on to the other applicant. The U Haul applicant. Does anybody want to council member Abby Koka?

[05:27:57] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I will go ahead and make the motion to approve the gatekeeper application for 62 West El Camino real. Um, I'm open, if there are any interest, if there's any interest to modify or add anything to it, but I'll just start off with the straight up motion.

[05:28:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, I would just make a suggestion that the time frame for that would be quite a bit later than the, um, than the one for Charleston Bay, because I think that there's more that the applicant needs to do to get ready to submit. So maybe the date for that would be July 31st or even the end of the summer, I mean, I would be open for suggestions as to what would be appropriate. Council member Ramirez.

[05:28:53] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to give the applicant a chance to clarify, we had some discussion about environmental sustainability or some component to that. So in addition to the revised, increased, monetary community benefit. What else would you propose that you could include in the package?

[05:29:13] Dante Abordo: I'm gonna let Jim after fill in.

[05:29:16] Dante Abordo: We're absolutely, you talked about the dream, and all the comments you tonight, we appreciate this. We really want to be here. We've been here for 50, so on years. We are open to a lot more. The process has been interesting, and we've been moving, and some of the things we've been figuring out. Staff has been wonderful. Thank you, staff. You've been really wonderful, 'cause we came in and really, we're trying to work through things and trying to explain things. And so your environmental stuff, as Pat knows, I was the founder of the Santa Monsequino Creek Trail. And when you're talking about, I knew exactly what you're saying, I think I do. And we want to do that even better. And what you were talking about over there, um, council member Ramos, um, about the dream, stuff like that, we know the situation, I think when, um, council member Abra Kobe said that, on the El Camino, it's tough, you know, 'cause you have, you want to do everything a certain way, but U Haul wants to be the best we can, and as you were talking about, can we give more? Yes, we can. And we'd be open to having those discussions, and I wish we could come back. The gatekeeper process has been kind of interesting. I served eight years on council in Santa Clara. We have things we just couldn't get through over the years. You guys at least get things to you. And, uh, but this process here, um, we wanna do everything we can. We fill the staff. We can work with them to get some of the needs environmental. You wanna make it pretty, so it fits in there. And then the other thing that we, I guess, we didn't do well enough, and I'll take the blame for it, and I'll blame Jim. Now, is the entrance, and so it's stunning. We want to do all that. And so was there any question I didn't answer? Yes, and if it has to be later on, we know the city staff there, I don't know how you do it, we got a football stadium done. And I could tell you, I still have gray hairs from that. You guys are doing a wonderful job, but you've done the city. If we have to wait longer, we will wait longer. Pat, would you tell us when we wait and we will wait. We just want to really be here for another 50 years, and, um, I'm rambling a little bit. So I hope I've answered some questions.

[05:31:33] Unknown Speaker: Let me just specifically answer council member Ramirez on the issue of sustainability. UHaul is committed to, for example, adding bioswale elements to their landscaping, which is considered widely a sustainable feature. So this is along, perhaps, the 237 median area or around parking lots to allow water to flow through and not just have a sea of asphalt, running off the water. So that is a commitment that they're willing to make in that area. And again, if we're given just the permission, to even have an application be considered, as it comes back to the council, we're willing to continue to talk about the community benefit and other things we can do. We're flying blind a little bit for a small project like this in a commercial building, with no clear direction. But, uh, U Haul is committed to, uh, to continuing that discussion.

[05:32:31] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Hicks?

[05:32:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So it's great to hear that you're open to improving the project. I'm not, um, against the project, uh, you know, moving forward in some fashion, and, you know, I think there are a lot of improvements that could be made, green space, trees, bios whales, the way it faces the community, not just El Camino and 237, but also the residential community behind it. My preference would be, you know, it's gonna take you some time to do it. And I don't see you as the small guys. I mean, U Haul's a big company, so, you know, I would like you to make it a great project that would be, actually, um... I was shopping around. going to L.A. next week, and I was to move my son there, and I was shopping around for U Hauls just yesterday. Um, so, um, you know, I think you are a large company, and I would love it. I was shopping all over San Jose, Sunnyvale, here. I would love the project to be an example for other U Haul locations, to be, you know, kind of shine in their community, as well. But I think, in order to do that, you can just resubmit next year. So, I don't think this is, you know, there's work to be done to improve it. We're all, I guess, saying that. And so I don't, for me, it's not a big, you know, whether this moves forward or doesn't right now. You know, I think there's another opportunity, so I don't think it's, um, maybe as big a deal as the vote may seem. Thank you.

[05:34:21] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Abbe Koga?

[05:34:23] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mary. I had some questions for Steph in regards to environmental sustainability. I can't remember. It's been so long, but don't we have like lead, some kind of lead requirements for new buildings and like, can we? I mean, I'm assuming part of that is things like solar, rooftop solar. I notice on the site, there's actually a grove of trees and so, you know, adding to that. But don't we have some requirements?

[05:34:54] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, there'll be minimum requirements that they have to meet things like bioswales. those are requirements. Um, you know, treat, you know, trees in the parking areas, you know, just the general requirements or the bare minimum of what they'll have to meet. So then, you know, what goes beyond that, you know, they would have to propose once they are showing what the minimum is, which is not currently shown on their plans at this time.

[05:35:22] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. And I think that's just because they're, you know, they're kind of a more preliminary plan. But yeah, I'll leave it at that. But we do we have a requirement for league gold or I can't remember where we are now, or lead platinum. At one point we did.

[05:35:40] Unknown Speaker: Yes, there will be a requirement for a minimum that they have to meet. Yes.

[05:35:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Do you know what that is?

[05:35:46] Unknown Speaker: I do not. I think the issue with this project is it doesn't fit into that existing sub-area of the El Camino plan. So right now, I can't really answer that because I think the work that we have to do is to decide, are we creating a new sub-area for this? And then what are what are all of the then requirements per the plan that still fit within that, you know, sub area and that development? Okay. I guess I recall us having some kind of lead level requirement for new building. We do, but it's not possible to assign it on this project at this point because it doesn't fit into, you know, a project, it's not a project that can be built currently under the precise plan.

[05:36:37] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. But you can come back with a recommendation.

[05:36:43] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we would absolutely.

[05:36:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Lead level it should be.

[05:36:45] Unknown Speaker: We would absolutely come by.

[05:36:47] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[05:37:04] Mayor Pat Showalter: So we have emotion, but no second. Is anybody interested in seconding this? So, if that's the case, then the motion dies for lack of a second.

[05:37:15] Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, okay. Thank you, council member Ramirez. And, um, all right, so, uh, any more discussion?

[05:37:32] Dante Abordo: Oh, if that'll help. Sure. What was your, Mayor, what was your date recommendation, July? And we are open to the date there. One of the other things, we tried to buy the tire company in front of us. We really want to make this the most beautiful, you know, U-Haul on thing. It only helps us. So we're open to whatever date, what you said, Pat. Sorry. Did you have a 20 July 2025? What was it?

[05:37:59] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I was happy to... I'm happy to include that.

[05:38:04] Dante Abordo: Okay.

[05:38:05] Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, July. July of 2025. So no later, or no sooner than.

[05:38:10] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: No sooner. July 1st.

[05:38:13] Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah. Uh, Council Mayor Kameh.

[05:38:16] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, mayor. So, um, I just wanted to say as, um, as proposed, I'm not going to be able to support the motion. I think that what we see at this gate in this application is pretty preliminary, even to the point where we were receiving the revised monetary contribution just yesterday. So I feel like I would encourage the applicant, please work with us more, reapply. I, as Council member Hicks said, we want you in Mountain View. We want to work with you, and I just think this just requires a little bit more conversation with our staff. And, um, as was mentioned, the gatekeeper process is a unique process. And, You heard my rubric and how gatekeepers are, in my viewpoint, to be above and beyond, and weighing the two, um, tonight, I feel like this just needs a bit more work at this time, so I cannot support. And I just wanted to make that clear before we take the vote.

[05:39:12] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. I think it's time to take the vote now. The motion passes on four to three. Okay. All right. So that brings us to the end of item 7.3. I want to thank everybody. It's already 1230. I wanna thank everybody for the hard work that it took to get here. I know that many, many people were involved, and there's a lot of hard work to be done in the future before these are finalized. Okay, so I'm looking for the project flow, the agenda flow. That brings us to item eight, council staff committee reports. Does anybody have a committee report they like to share? at this time? Council member Ramirez.

[05:40:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I can't remember the council policy at the top of my head, but I want to disclose that I joined the summer mayor's innovation project. which was in Knoxville, Tennessee, in August. It was for many of you who have attended in the past a phenomenal event, and Knoxville is beautiful. I'll share. I had never been before, anywhere close to it. And the 1st thing you notice when you fly in is how green and lush the area is, and the downtown is very vibrant. It was very good event tonight. I would encourage members of the council if they have the opportunity in the future to go to either the winter mip in DC, which also is, it's very fast, but very intensive and valuable. And in the summer MIP is an opportunity to explore cities that, at least in my case, I'm very poorly traveled, as you all know, that I probably would never otherwise go to. And have to disclose that because there was a use of public funds. And then I have a request of the council. I would move that we direct the city manager, to agendize any actions necessary by the council, to permit the Pilot LowMo proposal for Coesta, to extend the pollinator habitat project. I understand from members of the community. It sounds like there's an interest in exploring this, and there might need to be some staff direction to the council, and if there's anything that we need to do to help advance that work. Many of you may already be familiar with the pollinator project on Equesta Park, but there's an interest in expanding it over to the annex side. And so I've heard this is, in the context of many discussions with the community, some interest in doing so. And I spoke with the city manager and we just need to understand if there are technical council actions necessary to authorize that.

[05:42:41] Mayor Pat Showalter: Wait a minute, I'm a little confused. So there are technical, or you need to understand if there are.

[05:42:47] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor Council member Ramirez. So I think 1st staff would just be seeking whether council is supportive of exploring, um, the native habitats in Cuesta Annex. And then if you are interested, then staff would bring back the basically the implications and what the technical aspects would be. Um,

[05:43:16] Mayor Pat Showalter: Vice Mayor Matachek?

[05:43:19] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I thought we were deferring things like that until we had the Parks and Rec strategic plan finished. So are we changing that perspective?

[05:43:33] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So we had originally said that as part of the interest and expansion of the pollinator habitats, and I'd ask our community services director to come up and provide some feedback as to timing. And at this point, it sounds like we are just wanting to find out if council has a willingness to explore the native habitats in Quest Annex.

[05:44:03] John Marchant: Good evening, John Marchant, Community Services Director. The pollinator habitat Equesta has been successful, thanks to the great volunteers that do the work out there. Um, they have been making requests to expand that footprint into the annex. Um, through the Parks and Recreation strategic plan. I think we will be looking at the annex as a community, um, value, um, and an opportunity, possibly. Um, maybe look at a master plan, but there's a lot of things that we could look at. However, if city council would like us to come back and provide some, what we learn as we look to explore the expansion, what that means, how we could make that happen sooner, then later, if that's of interest to the council, then that's what we can do.

[05:45:01] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Back to council member Ramirez? Are you done? Okay. Um, so... So wait a minute, with that, we haven't really finished this conversation. So, are there peop, should we take emotion? Would you like a straw pole?

[05:45:26] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I think so. And what we would likely do is just provide an off agenda memo, just to let you all know what the considerations would be and what we would need to do, what the next steps are. And just getting your feedback as to whether you're open to the expansion and a quest annex is really what staff's looking for.

[05:45:49] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks?

[05:45:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I'm just, I'm gonna support this. I have long known the people who did the, the, um, plan for the Questa Park annex. I know they're, like the neighborhood people. They're very, they're into expanding, the area. And then the newer people with green spaces, who started this initial smaller, pollinator habitat area. You know, they also, who are from a wider community, not just from the neighborhood, are also into it. So, given that the smaller and wider community both seem to be into it, I will be supporting the motion.

[05:46:30] Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so let's just see a show of hands. Everybody who is supportive, what? I'm sorry. Oh, that we do have emotion. I'm sorry, it's late. I'm getting a little tired. Um... Okay, we have emotion and a, um, a second, and, um, uh, let's call for the question. All right, we have six. Six, four, and one against, so the motion passes. All right, so I think now we go to council member commé for your report.

[05:47:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, CTC met last Tuesday, the 3rd. We discussed the active transportation plan as well as the pavement management program update. We also got a report, um, about the transit sender. Was that right? Wasn't that right? I just took out for a second. We also had a verbal update, sorry, grade separate, grade separation. Um, and that is my report.

[05:47:43] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thanks. Thank you, Vice Mayor Manachek.

[05:47:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Since we're going back a ways here, I attended a Bosca board meeting on July 18th. We haven't had a meeting since then, and also an SVRIA board meeting on July 25th, and then as council member Kamei mentioned the CGC on September 3rd.

[05:48:10] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thanks. Um, Council member, Apicoca.

[05:48:16] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Just an announcement, exciting one. Many of you know, Caltrain electrification has happened, and there are already electric trains running, but the actual opening of the start of service is September 21st. And we will Mountain View with me having a, there'll be events and festivities throughout the line along the line that weekend. Um, but I was very excited and, um, to be able to, um, nominate, uh, Congresswoman Anna Eshu to have a train named after her, and that was approved by the Caltrain Board, so we will be having a naming ceremony here in Mountain View, um, on September 21st. I believe it's at 130. We have to actually catch the train coming. They're not gonna stop it. So we're gonna catch the train as it pulls into Mountain View, and then it'll take folks to Palo Alto where there'll be another ceremony. But I think all of you have been invited, hope the public will come, and celebrate this very exciting moment, and honoring our retiring member of Congress as well. Thank you.

[05:49:39] Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[05:49:41] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I'm reporting that the council's sustainability committee, Matt, and we did two main things. One is we received updates from staff, on the work they've been doing recently, a lot of innovative work, mostly focusing around decarbonization. And then we reviewed consultant scope of work, which was proposed, and we suggested modifying that, to focus more closely on decarbonization work. Um, and actually getting that work done, and that will be coming back to us. Thank you. And I also have been to a number of things. I think most relevant is Silicon Valley Clean Energy meeting in August. There was a regular meeting, as well as a financial committee meeting, and they both dealt with the budget, and working on the budget for the year. And I also have attended several BCDC meetings. And we will be presenting at the city's association meeting on Thursday evening about the guidelines for sea level rise protection plans that each city is now required under state law to produce. I think the deadline is something like 2034. So, clearly, we have had a sea level rise protection plan since 2012, and we've updated it new. And, when we get these guidelines, it should be relatively straightforward to present, you know, to put our planet. I'm sure we'll get it done way before 20,34. In fact, we may get everything built. for 2034. But, um, so I think that's the, uh, uh, that's the main things for me.

[05:51:54] Mayor Pat Showalter: With that, um, I would just really like to thank everyone for having a tremendously productive meeting this evening, um, and this morning, um, I will... I will adjourn the meeting at 1:43. $1,243. Oh, it just seems like 148. $1,243.

[05:52:20] Unknown Speaker: There's an item for a close session report.

[05:52:22] Mayor Pat Showalter: Ah, closed session report. Senior city attorney, Chen, do you have a closed session report?

[05:52:30] Senior City Attorney Chen: I do. No final action was taken in closed session this evening.

[05:52:36] Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you.

[05:52:37] Senior City Attorney Chen: Thank you.

[05:52:38] Mayor Pat Showalter: Alright, and with that, we come to adjournment. The city council meeting, the next city council meeting will be held on September 24th, 2024. This meeting is adjourned at 12:48. All right.

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