October 20, 2026 City Council Special Meeting

Video

Agenda

• 1. CALL TO ORDER: Video begins with a title screen before the Mayor calls the meeting to order. (00:00:00)
• 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: The council and attendees recite the Pledge of Allegiance. (00:05:16)
• 3. ROLL CALL: The City Clerk takes attendance by roll call. (00:05:37)
• 4. STUDY SESSION: Item 4.1: Environmental Planning Commission Applicant Interviews. The council interviews candidates and discusses the appointment process. (00:05:57)

Transcript

1. CALL TO ORDER

[00:05:02] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, we're going to get started. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City Council special meeting to interview the Environmental Planning Commission applicants. Please join me...

2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

[00:05:16] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:05:22] All: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:05:36] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Okey. Thank you.

3. ROLL CALL

[00:05:37] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Thank you. The City Clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[00:05:45] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[00:05:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:05:47] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Kamei?

[00:05:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:05:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember McAlister?

[00:05:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Yep.

[00:05:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Ramirez?

[00:05:52] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:05:52] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Clark?

[00:05:53] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Here.

[00:05:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Ramos?

[00:05:55] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Here.

[00:05:55] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum with Councilmember Showalter absent.

4. STUDY SESSION

[00:05:57] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Um, we'll now move on to item four, study session. Study session uh 4.1 Environmental Planning Commission Applicant Interviews. The purpose of this meeting this evening is for the Council to interview applicants for two openings on the Environmental Planning Commission and make a recommendation for adoption at the December 15th, 2026 Council meeting. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk. We will take in-person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes. Any speakers? Seeing none, I will now take virtual speakers. Seeing none. Thank you. For the selection process, outlined in Council Policy Number K-2, interviews will be conducted in a panel format. Each applicant will receive the same amount of time to answer each question and the question selected by the Council will be asked in a randomized round-robin order. The Council may ask a limited number of clarifying questions in the event that the applicant's answer was unclear or otherwise not understood. Clarifying questions should not be used to allow an applicant additional opportunity to expand on the original response. On October 21st, 2025 Council posed the following questions to EPC applicants in the denoted time limit for each category. Would any council member like to suggest changes to the questions or propose a time allocation per question?

3. ROLL CALL

[00:05:58] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Thank you.

4. STUDY SESSION

[00:07:46] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Excuse me. Perhaps I would like to add, um, to question number three, uh, which reads what are your thoughts on the city's existing plans like the General Plan, Precise Plans, and specifically the Downtown Precise Plan, maybe add and the Moffett Precise Plan?

[00:08:10] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: And any objections to that? Seeing none, we'll put and the Moffett Precise Plan. Any other changes to the time limits or the questions itself? All right, how do we want to break down the questions? All right, well what we're going to do is that we're going to start from Councilmember Ramirez and then we're just going to go down with asking these questions. You... there's a little less than five questions or or... there's six of us but five questions. So you know what? All of you guys will be asking the questions. So Councilmember Ramirez, you'll be handling question one. Uh, Vice Mayor Clark, you'll be handling question two. Councilmember Kamei, you'll be handling question three. Councilmember Hicks, you'll be handling question four. And uh, Councilmember McAlister, you'll be handling question five. Sound good? All right. So Council will now interview the applicants for the Environmental Planning Commission. Um, we're going to do this uh round robin. We're going to start with Alexander Amoroso. Well, you guys are all in the order. And then basically, um, the next question will start with Elizabeth. Then the next question after that will start with Daniel. And then we'll round like that. Does that sound good to everyone? All right. Shall we begin? Councilmember Ramirez.

[00:09:51] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure thing. Uh, what would you bring, or what have you brought to the Environmental Planning Commission that is unique?

[00:10:08] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: So, uh, also clarification make sure you tell them how much time they have for for the question.

[00:10:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: One minute.

[00:10:13] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: And your time limit will be here as soon as we figure out what's going on with the microphone.

[00:10:22] Alexander Amoroso: Uh, hello? Oh. There they go. Haha.

[00:10:28] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, go ahead, Mr. Amoroso.

[00:10:29] Alexander Amoroso: Okay, thank you, ma'am. So, what I bring to the Environmental Planning Commission is years of experience working in environmental and conservation uh protection, as well as development and infrastructure. I've done this work over the years working with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Native American tribes across both California and Nevada, and across the country. And working with scientists in US Geological Survey, and uh NOAA. So, a number of my years of service has specifics to operations, developing uh buildings and working on uh infrastructure that is environmentally sound and does not add to the pollution effects. And also working with uh organizations when it comes to developing uh preservation of native species as well as against uh invasive species. And all that is really just great work that I've done with the Corps of Engineers, Native Americans across the federal, state, and local level. Thank you.

[00:11:35] Elizabeth Conlin: Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Conlin. Thank you to staff and the Council for inviting me here. Um, my career and academic background are in the biological sciences, and I would bring a a scientific literacy to support the EPC on environmental impact reports, uh, topics like biological site assessments, and water and air quality. Um, as the EPC will be contributing expertise to a few precise plans uh that include CEQA review, I believe that my background would be beneficial to the city. As a scientist I have years of experience reading technical papers and documents, and then translating those documents uh for different audiences, both written and verbal. I also bring lived experience as a renter in multi-family housing in the Jackson Park neighborhood, and as a mother and frequent user of public amenities, and as a train commuter.

[00:12:39] Daniel Hulse: Alright, it's... hi, I'm Daniel Hulse. Uh, what would I bring to Council that's unique? Uh, I've got a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Um, and so I think part of it would be engineering mindset. My uh my academic background in engineering is is very much about thinking about uh complex systems where you have interactions between people, the actual technical system, and then the environment. And so I I think that's a a perspective that is going to be helpful in EPC where where we have really complex decisions that bring bring uh a bunch of things together. Um, personally I am live in the Del Medio neighborhood. Um, I'm a renter. Uh, I bike to work. Uh, I walk around a lot. I I carry that perspective of being a constant pedestrian with me.

[00:13:46] John Scarboro: Uh, hi. City Council, staff. Um, what I bring is a vision. It is not that different than Mountain View's vision. Perhaps broader, further in scope. But a vision of a sustainable, equitable, diverse, and stronger community so that we can weather the climate change and other changes that we have, and come out thriving on the end. I'm a systems thinker. I'm an industrial engineer by training, and by profession. I'm a professional engineer, industrial engineer in California even. I've been in Mountain View 24 years through various life stages. From being a married couple to having kids, raising the kids, kids are out in college now. I've biked around most of Mountain View. Walked around some of it. And I'm very familiar with north of Central because that's where I've been living for 24 years. And that'll be affected most by some of the upcoming um developments. I was on EPC, and I also have ideas on how EPC can evolve to fit this new regulatory constraints we're having.

[00:14:52] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Sorry. What do you feel is the role of the environmental planning commission, um, or of an environmental planning commissioner, the role that you're applying for? And that's um also 60 seconds.

[00:15:19] Elizabeth Conlin: Hello? Okay. Um, yeah so the, you know, the role of the planning commissioner is fundamentally to advise council on long-range planning. Uh, planning commissioners really have an opportunity to do a deeper dive on long-range plans uh than council members might have time with many competing priorities. Um, you know, so that really would afford, you know, me as a commissioner to study more in depth, you know for example like the pros and cons of different setbacks. Uh, implications of various FAR requirements, or allowing ground floor retail more narrowly or more broadly throughout our community. I also believe that a commissioner should be collaborative with council, the planning division, um staff, and respectful of public input. And I believe that accessibility and transparency are core values that are important in a planning commissioner.

[00:16:23] Daniel Hulse: Alright, um, so I've chatted with a few of you on on how EPC is is changing over time and and I I think that kind of changes what you want in a EPC commissioner. Um, I think historically you know EPC would get every single development. Now I think the role of EPC is is moving more towards uh broader policy documents. And so I I think for that, an EPC commissioner, you know, staff comes out with these huge documents and uh there's a lot of moving pieces, and sometimes it's not clear to see the policy implications or the political implications of these documents. And so I for me, an EPC commissioner is someone who can kind of tease those things out because they provide a unique perspective um as well as a professional background that um makes them able to help pre-digest those documents before they get to Council.

[00:17:29] John Scarboro: Um, yes, um, I think the role of the planning commissioners are to provide additional eyes and ears, additional expertise, additional perspectives in helping Mountain View maintain its quality of life and sustainability into the future. So some of the ways that we can do that are by listening to people having additional opportunities for public input and going through, as um Mr. Hulse just said, going through the documents, and as more and more documents are developed by people who may not even be in this area. We can ground truth that. We can see how things are developing, what theyre recommending. And if we've been there, we'll actually get a better feeling for it and be able to bring that back. And as we're getting more restrictions on what latitude we have, it's going to be important to set objective standards. And set the right ones, or the best ones we can, monitor them, and adapt to them. And I think that EPC can help with that. Thank you.

[00:18:31] Alexander Amoroso: Yep. I have a clarifying question.

[00:18:35] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Let's finish Mr. Amoroso and then you can do your clarifying question. Let's do that.

[00:18:42] Alexander Amoroso: Yeah, so um, John said it best. Our body is that of an advisory body to make sure that you are well informed on the best way forward when it comes to executing on policy and executing on legislation. And my career has actually been right at the front and center of that as a career staff officer. My whole job is advising uh commanders and advising leaders on the best way forward. Because I am an administrator. Uh that's what I was doing today. So a lot of the regulation and a lot of the reading and literature that this count- this body is going to receive, I have the experience in doing that. And also when it comes to the collaboration piece. The cross-agency and the cross uh authority type of work that I have done is right in line with that. Whether it's comes to working with agencies on making sure that all goals are met and making those plans specific and measurable and attainable. That's exactly what I will bring to Council and what I'll bring to this Commission. Thank you.

[00:19:44] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, this for Daniel. When you said uh things are going to be broader policies. What were you referring to that the EPC is going to be looking at broader policies?

[00:20:01] Daniel Hulse: I I just mean more of things such as objective design standards rather than individual specific projects one at a time.

[00:20:15] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: If I may just chime in, um when, when you guys are holding the mic, if you can hold it like this so that everyone on Zoom can hear you, that'd be helpful. Thank you. Think ice cream cone. Haha. All right, Councilmember Kamei.

[00:20:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Uh, you have two minutes to answer and I think we're starting with Daniel, right? Cause it's the third question. Alright, so two minutes. What are your thoughts on the city's existing plans like the General Plan, Precise Plans, specifically the Downtown and Moffett Precise Plans?

[00:20:58] Daniel Hulse: Now I'll switch to on. Okay. You know, I I would say we have a lot of so there were a few plans mentioned in there. I would say there are a lot of opportunities with the plans that we have. Um specifically uh and these are the two that are coming up soonest right would be Moffett and Downtown. I think a lot of the land development in our city has been pushed sort of out to the broader edges such as North Bayshore. Um and this is this has led to what I kind of like to think of as freeway oriented development as opposed to transit oriented development. So I I think those are going to be really important um really important levers going forward for how our city develops into a greener city and also how we bring uh all of the opportunities that development provides uh into the rest of the town where people can actually uh residents of the city actually can uh benefit from those uh developments. So that that would be one one perspective I I have. The the other perspective I have is just often the map is not the territory. So you know, you you look you look at a zoning map of the city and then you walk around, it could often be quite a bit different than what uh what you see on a map. And so I I think any plan that we make there's always going to be some some limitations to to that process and we have to think about individual specific things that are that are going to happen as a result. So.

[00:22:59] John Scarboro: Okay, well I like the precise plans. I enjoyed working on them last time I was there and I liked seeing how some of the things we put in place for the El Camino, North Bayshore, and San Antonio precise plans are coming to life, you know 10 years later. So I I like them. I think they give better uh understanding of what we're looking for to developers so they know what theyre getting into. And also to the community so they know what is coming as well, or what we're hoping to have come. The Moffett Plan I think will be great because I think I ride when I ride my bike to work, I ride through that area. And it strikes me as like kind of what you'd see on the outside of a military base, but not quite as busy. You know, the old shopping centers. I mean they have life but you know, I think it would be great to have even more. The adult school there is great, and I more housing would be good so I think this would give us an opportunity to also address some of the things that are coming up with SB 79 so that we can get more housing developed on the North side and perhaps ease some of the concerns we have about having the South side on Castro Street impacted by development. And speaking of downtown, I've not seen much of the downtown precise plan since I guess it's not been redeveloped yet. But I think it's good to revisit these from time to time. I was looking back through the general plan and the overall goals I think still fit really well. But it's been a long time. It may I know it's a lot of work to update it and we've been updating parts of it like with the housing element. But maybe you know, it would be good to update it before 2030. So that is what I have to say on those. Thank you.

[00:25:00] Alexander Amoroso: So um, my uh being informed on both precise plans is actually by hands-on experience when it comes to the Downtown Precise Plan. A lot of this goes back to my work. So the Downtown Precise Plan, a lot of that is pertaining to my experience with Chamber of Commerce. And I work right up over at Moffett Field. So I actually am very very uh positively thinking towards both precise plans. Because like what's been said before, it's very forward thinking when it comes to making not only the uh city greener, but more ecologically sound for the future. And more more open, really. Because a lot of especially for the building plans since we're building up, now we can have a conversation about how high we should build. But building up definitely is a profound environmental success story as something that I've actually worked on on the federal and the state level. When it comes to making more space for parks, for other businesses, for other things. So when it comes to the businesses side over with the uh Downtown Precise Plan, there's definitely opportunity to be made for development not only just for uh retail, but also office spaces, also tech uh businesses to grow within the downtown space, and that's something that can be taken advantage of. Now when it comes to the Moffett side, there is definitely uh a lot of collaboration now to be had with the more openness towards the base. And that and since I actually work over there, I know the agencies that are open to collaboration when it comes to building and developing and working with those agencies that want to create a space where there is going to be a management of pollution in a better fashion. Management of natural species in a greater fashion. Because again, if you have the space there, we're gonna build the space there, and then that all just leads to better partnerships all the way around. Thank you.

[00:26:55] Elizabeth Conlin: Um, you know, starting with the general plan, you know, I really appreciate that the general plan is designed around fo-, you know, concentrating new homes, jobs, services around transit, and neighborhood corridors. Um, I also appreciate that the general plan updates are a huge lift for staff and that precise plans are a good way to do some targeted um updates of policies in many of Mountain View's uh busiest neighborhoods. For the downtown precise plan, I you know really appreciate the downtown development and preservation goals, along with mixed retail, office, and residential buildings, and you know I know parking is also a huge component of the downtown precise plan. Um, you know I definitely support continuing to enhance Castro Street for pedestrian access, um, mixed use development throughout the downtown area, especially taking advantage of downtown's proximity to Caltrain. And um, yeah I appreciate the focus areas on parking including um parking demand, exploring private public-private partnerships for structured parking, and encouraging car alternatives for visiting downtown. Uh for the Moffett uh Boulevard Precise Plan, um, that uh, you know I feel a personal connection to that. Um, my you know closest grocery store is La Michoacana on Moffett Boulevard. And so, you know I think there's a lot of opportunity for mixed use um you know construction, um more more residential, especially for the the part of Moffett Boulevard that's you know within um walking distance of the Caltrain stop. And so I think that working on these precise plans is is just a huge opportunity to um continue to improve our city.

[00:28:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So, um, one two three four, we'll be starting with John, am I right? And this question will be for 1.5 minutes, and is what do you think the big issues facing the Environmental Planning Commission will be? For instance, uh implementing the housing element or other issues.

[00:29:30] John Scarboro: Thank you. I think the big issue just like it will be for all the city is going to be climate change, and a lot of the impacts we have in the future. So there's going to be shorter term impacts that we have from the different regulations we're having come down about how development is going to be constrained. Implementing the housing element is always going to be an issue because it seems like we are getting more low income housing, middle middle income housing is still not... not up very much, and high end housing is still our best product looking at what we've been doing the last several years. So it will be I think it will be in the opportunities we have for making changes are looking at different housing products. I was glad to see that we're having stacked flats and possibly looking at different ways of multi-generational housing or communities. Different kind of housing opportunities that could help with that as well as making sure that we have we maintain our services and our industries that aren't high-tech so that we can still have an operating city with all the amenities that we've come to like. So long-term we have a lot of issues coming down, but we're dealing with them fairly well with climate change. Short-term, just all the chaos we have with our government funding rules, that kind of thing. Thank you.

[00:31:21] Alexander Amoroso: Thanks for the question. So, um, definitely housing as a strategy is going to be probably one of the biggest uh issues we have to face. Um, and in regards to the conversation about low income versus middle income versus high income housing, there definitely is a collaboration to be had there. I have spoken at length in regards to middle income housing, like bungalows, or even the concept of workforce housing. That is actually a state strategy that Sacramento is trying to implement when it comes to bringing essential labor to local communities for middle income earners. Now the big problem I say is uh handling climate change, especially since that is actually a priority of the National Strategy from 2021 on the federal side. And I sit over there at Moffett in the Environmental Quality Control Committee, which is a cross-agency uh body of engineers, policymakers like myself, administrators like myself, scientists, and biologists that all work on the fact that we are managing all this wild space across this region across uh the country. Looking at the effects of invasive species. Looking at the effects of pollution. Looking at the effects of old buildings that are adding to these effects by climate change. So going back to the issue of housing, everything that we need to build needs to be sustainable going into the future. Whether it's sustainable materials, whether it's sustainable locations. And that needs to be the priority or else we are not going to have a planet anymore, and that's what I would bring to the commission. Thank you.

[00:32:55] Elizabeth Conlin: Yeah, I am taking maybe a little bit more of a short-term view on this. You know, I really think the biggest issue um immediately is SB 79 and what to do about implementation. Um, 'cause, you know, whether the city implements SB 9 or comes up with an alternative, that will then impact um large parts of downtown and Moffett Boulevard, and I know those two precise plans have been delayed because of SB 79. So really thinking about how you know Council decides to approach that. What changes get made in order for the city to comply with SB 79, and then how that then affects um those precise plan updates I think will be a major um issue facing uh the EPC. And you know, further I think that when um the commission is is working on those plans, they should do so with the um the 2031 housing element in mind. So that we are not having to make another update in in five years.

[00:34:09] Daniel Hulse: Alright. Uh, so I I would agree that um I think that the biggest uh set of issues that we have right now are just that we've got a flurry of laws coming at us every year from the state. And uh they have real implications on on how our city does things. And in addition we we have choices often in how to implement uh these bills. Uh, SB 79 is a a big one but there's also just a flurry of quote-unquote local control bills that our city needs to figure out. Do we do these? How do we do them? What do we do? Um, so that that's what I I would say is is really uh a quite the the biggest issue is is just how does our city uh respond to, do we implement these laws well or are we just kind of scratching our fingers on the chalkboard as we get dragged into the future? So, I I think really uh adaptation over over time to these laws is a really big uh issue.

[00:35:32] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, I got a softball for you. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Okay, no, we'll just put that on hold. It's got a little tight in here, so okay, here you have two minutes. How does good land use improve our city, and what is good land use? You, Alex.

[00:35:52] Alexander Amoroso: Thank you... thank you, John. This is actually an area that I have probably the most passion for and the most experience in. So working with tribes and also even, believe it or not, the US Army, uh, good land use is proper maintenance of natural environments. It's wildlife. It's plants. And also making sure that the interactions between human uh involvement and the wildlife is, and the nature itself, is properly maintained through equilibrium. Now with that said, how can we best develop a city that not only you know lives parallel to nature, but also coexists with nature? So a lot of the work that I have done when it comes to maintaining the land over at Moffett, or maintaining the reservations, it has to do with stewardship. So there is a lot of engineers. There is a lot of uh agencies and non-profits I actually work over there in Shoreline that maintain our burrowing owl population, that maintain our marshes, that we can continue to develop that work. And then how that translates to our building strategies and what we're going to do as far as education towards maintaining that land. That's going to be the uh way forward. And when it comes to suggesting those strategies that develop these educated individuals when it comes to stewardship of the land, when it comes to preserving water sources, when it comes to preserving uh endangered species, that's going to be uh those professionals that teach this and lead on this. And project that. And the thing is, they already exist. Whether it's at Moffett Field, whether it's here among us, they just need to be staffed and put in the right places at the right time to do this work. And that's the kind of uh suggestions and recommendations I'd bring on the commission. Thank you.

[00:37:45] Elizabeth Conlin: First of all, chocolate chip cookie dough. Um, yeah, I think that the land use question is you know, it's so important. I think once you sort of spend a little time reflecting on land use, you see how it can drive all the things that you really love or hate about a city. Um, you know land use policy can drive economic growth, it drives community, it um you know it's the reason why I can walk to a train stop or I can walk my kid to the park every evening after dinner. Um, and so, you know, I think that those are elements of good land use. That um, you know that the people can interact with their neighborhoods. That they can walk safely to local businesses or get to where they need to go in the city. That they have options for commuting. I also think that land use policy is a great way for the you know, the council, for the city to advance our priorities, including sustainability, halting gentrification, and encouraging economic development. So yeah, I mean I think that um yeah all of those are are really um central to good land use policy and um are are topics that I would you know, reflect upon and and digging into like the nitty-gritty of of policy if I were to serve on EPC. Thank you.

[00:39:25] Daniel Hulse: I I would like to hear it again. Yeah.

[00:39:30] Councilmember John McAlister: How does good land use improve our city, and what is good land use?

[00:39:38] Daniel Hulse: Yeah, yeah. So I think I'll answer the the first question or the the second question first. Which is that good good land use it's really about two things. One is just enabling everything that supports life and activity in a in a city. So uh that can be people's material well-being, it can be uh business, it it can be all of those things. Uh and making sure it can happen. Um, but connected to that is is you want uh really good uh de-confliction between land use conflicts. So you you don't want to put people next to pollution. You you want to you want to keep people protected from pollution. That's that's a big reason why why we think you know zoning exists. So I I think um those are two really big principles at at play is is you want to support everything that that a city needs, but you also want to make sure that uh you aren't putting it's a it's a harmonious balance, let's say. So that's that's that's what I would say is good land use. In terms of improving our our city, I would say that our biggest land use problem is that we have a a profound like imbalance in that we don't have enough housing here for all of the people who want to work here and want to live here. And so good land use would be uh you know making all these people who want to live here giving them the opportunity uh to live here, to not have to uh commute hours on our freeways and uh also pollute the environment. Um and so that's my uh answer.

[00:41:38] John Scarboro: Okay well I guess I could say good land use looks to me a lot like Mountain View. It looks like you have a place with greenery, with parks, with solid businesses, with some diversity. I think we could be better on a lot of those. Um, like like Daniel mentioned, we could use more housing for people so we don't have as many people having to commute into work. We could use better transit, and you know, continue having more parks. The end goal I think would be having a community that meets people's needs where they don't have to go outside the community to get most of their daily needs met. And like I heard earlier, needs both physical as well as mental and you know community. I think when you have good land use, you have facilities you know public facilities, housing, uh grocery stores, parks, things that people need to have a good strong community, get to know each other, and so we can help each other out. And you know, when when need to, we can be a be a strong community. I would also think we would have better transit, better... well I guess I mentioned that again. Biking and more walkable areas. I like the idea that we're working on of having uh different town center type areas where everything could be your normal daily needs are within walking distance, but yet still have the ability, if you need to, to get in your car or transit or on your bike and go someplace else. And the yeah, so the overall thing I'm thinking is good planning. The end result looks like you have a community of people who are tied together well, sustainable and resilient. Thanks.

[00:43:39] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right. And that was everyone, right? That's great. The Council, um, I will now bring the matter back to Council for discussion and recommendation to the Council for the two seats. Term running from January 1st, 2027 through December 31st, 2030, open on the Environmental Planning Commission. You guys could go back to your regular seats, by the way. Thank you so much for your time. You don't have to stay for this, but you're welcome to stay for for this fun discussion. Um, you can keep that, right? Like you guys aren't gonna use that. Um, but yeah, thank you so much for your time. Um, per the selection process outlined in Council Policy Number K-2, when voting, each Council member shall vote for as many candidates as there are open seats. Uh for example, if two seats are available, vote for no more than two. If there's a tie vote, we will revote on the tied applicants. The applicant with the highest number of votes wins. This process can be changed upon a majority vote of the council. We can now discuss our recommendations for the two members of the Environmental Planning Commission or proceed directly to a vote by ballot. So, I'll start with Vice Mayor Clark.

[00:45:03] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Thank you. Um, so I was thinking about this over the last day or two and um and thinking back to prior EPC um EPC interviews and recruitments and and some of the good outcomes that we had and the and the um the trickier outcomes that we had. And and one example would be um I I think some of the best outcomes that we've had are when we've been able to think about the appointments um holistically, especially in election years. So um, if you recall a couple years ago, um when I was running for election, I was on EPC and they did um they did a recruitment before the election and we did an interview cycle like this before the election. And then after the the voting results became more clear, um I ended up resigning so that we had enough time. Cause you... there's a time period where um after a vacancy we can do a recruitment and then that allowed um an appointment to occur before January. And um and in thinking about that, and I should have thought about this, you know, before the last couple of days, um I I just think the timing of this is suboptimal. Um and we probably should have thought about that before. And so I think we have four good candidates. So I don't want to um I think I think we can move things forward, but my my suggestion or my preference would be that we um knowing that we have an EPC member running, we have no idea what's going to materialize there. But if there were to be an opening, it would be nice to um I might make different decisions if I had um three choices versus two. Um, and that might also um because I think the the the makeup of the EPC in terms of its its um you know, representing various parts of our community is is important to me. And so knowing the full scope of the available vacancies going into the next year I think is important. So that's a very long way of saying um and I did um kind of run this by staff just in case, is that one thing that we could do tonight is move folks forward or or... have all the applicants who apply tonight remain in the pool, they wouldn't need to reinterview. Uh but what we would do is um keep the process open through the month of November. Um we could um we could also if we wanted we could have the recruitment remain open during November. But since we aren't making the actual decisions until the second um week in December, it gives us an opportunity to post-election understand sort of whether we're pointing two or three seats. And I think to make a more informed decision. And if we if for some reason if we do uh keep the recruitment process open and we get more if we end up getting more applicants, we could have a a short study session like this before the um before the December meeting, it looked like on the towel there would be time to do that. And if we don't get any additional applicants then we've already interviewed our applicants, we have um we have our pool. I think the other thing that will occur is I think next Monday is the Council Appointments Review Committee. Um, and um, I think one or more of the candidates may have applied may apply for positions there. And so we would have the scope of of that recommendation too. And I think we could just consider it more holistically. So, my my preference would be to not exclude anyone tonight but to basically extend the process until after the election, and um, and then make a I think a more holistic decision then. But I don't know how my colleagues feel. But that that was going to be my suggestion tonight rather than just picking two and then maybe we do or don't have to do yet another recruitment like we did two years ago, and then we're we're making two separate decisions in two separate vacuums that unnecessarily, in my opinion.

[00:49:17] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Councilmember Ramirez.

[00:49:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Uh first I want to uh commend the applicants for uh participating in the interviews tonight. It's it's uh, I've been through it. Uh it's an intimidating process. Uh it's designed to be intimidating, that's why we have you up here, you've got the crowd behind you, and uh six people, sometimes seven, with stony faces who look like we don't care and have no feelings, uh and you have no sense of whether we like the answers that you're providing or not. It's it's a difficult process to go through and I appreciate the fact that you've applied uh and uh are willing to commit potentially four, maybe 8 years of your life to uh land use decision making. Um, thank you. Um, I I'm not certain I'm uh processing uh the Vice Mayor's recommendation, maybe starting with uh the City Clerk's office. Uh when, so we are making a recommendation to ourselves, uh so this evening we'll say to future versions of ourselves that we think we should appoint two of the four applicants tonight. Uh when is the Council meeting where this will appear, I'm guessing as a consent item, where the the actual appointment will occur?

[00:50:41] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We have it slated for December 15th.

[00:50:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: The last meeting of the year. Mhmm. Um, so I want to repeat what I think you're suggesting Vice Mayor, and that would be we make a recommendation tonight to ourselves to appoint potentially two of the...

[00:50:57] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: applicants. And then if we discover that a current planning commissioner is elected to the council, then we retain the other two, right, in as eligible in the process. We may not need to reinterview them, but they would remain in the candidate pool. And then concurrently have a recruitment process where maybe other folks decide that they want to participate and we would interview them. And then we would have another special meeting where we would interview those other applicants and then amend or, you know, add to that resolution, still scheduled for December 15th, that third applicant?

[00:51:48] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: No, that's messier than what I would suggest. I would, unless the majority of my colleagues feel otherwise, I just I wouldn't rank folks tonight. I would say, you know, this is part one of a two-part interview process, or it could just be part one of a one-part interview process, we don't know yet. But what I would say is, you know, tonight, we've heard, you know, we've had four solid candidates interview. I think we consider those folks interviewed. And especially since we're down a colleague, have the opportunity to, if we want, review and we can rank those folks at the December meeting, either pull the consent item if we want. So let's play out the two scenarios. Let's say there's no additional EPC vacancy. So then we've done our interviews, we don't have to necessarily reopen recruitment. We could if we want. But then at the December meeting when we have all seven of us, the absent council member could watch the video and we could just pull the consent item and put folks in order there. And we might know what happened at the CAC meeting. That may or may not change what happens in December. If we do end up with a vacancy, we'll obviously need to do another recruitment. I think what we would do is just simply reopen the existing recruitment. Other candidates could apply, we would interview them like we have in some prior years at a study session before the meeting, and then make the recommendation to ourselves at that study session and then just fill in the blanks when we get to the consent item. So the benefit there is we know what CAC, we know what the Appointments Review Committee is going to be. We know the full breadth of the vacancies that we have, and we'll hopefully have all seven members here and present. I think the other benefit to me is that the reason I don't want to start picking and choosing tonight is that if we have a third vacancy, one of the things that's important to me is that we have some semblance of, I don't want to call it balance, but that the EPC reflects the diversity of the community, and in terms of renters, homeowners, thoughts on growth and development and land use, and if we move two people forward tonight and we get, I don't know who we would get in the subsequent recruitment, and I just don't want to be in a position where we're changing our minds in December. So I don't know if that really answered your question, but I guess what I would do is just move everyone forward tonight. People can, the candidates can elect to remain in the process. They could withdraw, maybe they'll get appointed to other things in the interim. We'll know the results of the election and whether or not we have another vacancy. If we need to reopen recruitment, we would do that for the required, I think it's a minimum of 10 business days. I'd check with the clerk before that. So one thing that we could do is just have the recruitment run for the month of November for 30 days, or we could trigger it after we know the rough results. The problem is we're not certified until December, and we don't know how close things will be, even if it looks like there's a vacancy. So my preference would just be to have the recruitment period open regardless for the month of November, and then we would just make the decision in December.

[00:55:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I appreciate the suggestion, and I disagree with it for many reasons. The first reason is I don't think it's fair when we had a robust recruitment period, it was more than a month, I put it in my little silly newsletter, and I know many of us talked to many people in the community, there were two open seats. This was not a surprise. And I think it does a disservice to the people who put in the time to interview to say, thank you, but please hold on for another month while we wait for someone who may or may not win to determine whether we should advance new people. Because there is a recency bias. If we're asking them not to participate in interviews, so one, either they interview twice, which I don't think is fair, or two, they don't interview, we have a new crop of people who we will be sitting in front of right, who I think we, through recency bias, may unfairly advantage. So I could not, I don't feel good about that. I also am not certain that a CAC recommendation is going to be helpful, right. For some applicants who have applied for multiple positions, they may have a preference for the Planning Commission. And then they're left in this limbo where the CAC could say, well, you know, we think you're perfect for another body. And then they would have to decide, well, gosh, I'm not sure if the council is going to pick me for the Planning Commission. Do I accept this or do I decline while I wait for this hypothetical scenario where maybe they extend the recruitment period and then determine at a council meeting on the 15th whether I'm the right person for the role. So I think that's logistically more challenging than I don't want to be, I'm not smart enough to understand your original idea. So I don't want to accuse you. No, I don't want to suggest that you intended to create an unfair advantage for any particular applicant for another body even. I don't think that's what you're suggesting. And I don't know. I agree. I think we have a strong applicant pool. If we had fewer applicants than we had seats, or if we truly felt that it was not a competent candidate pool, then yeah, we could extend the recruitment period. But if we genuinely believe that these are people who are capable and eligible and did well in the interview, I think the responsible thing is to complete the process. If you don't like someone, don't vote for them. I think the other thing too is if we do another special meeting, well one, some of the remaining agenda items are pretty full. We have a very ambitious council and I think an ambitious city manager who is doing her best to help us achieve our goals before the end of the year. There is no guarantee that in a future meeting that all seven of us will be able to participate. So what happens if you have a different combination of six? Have we achieved any particular goal by having a different special meeting at a different time where maybe not all of us are able to participate? So I would argue, if you don't like a candidate, don't vote for them. But I don't think it's fair to the applicants to extend a recruitment period or to potentially advantage a different pool of applicants if we choose not to re-interview them, re-interview this applicant pool, on the hypothetical scenario where a planning commissioner happens to get elected in a few weeks. That's my position. I just, I'll share, I do believe that we have four good capable candidates. I am prepared to move forward with two of them. And I just appreciate again that you've taken the time to participate tonight. And if you don't get appointed, I do hope you remain involved and find other opportunities to participate civilly. Thank you.

[00:59:57] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez. Councilmember Hicks.

[01:00:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Gosh, I was kind of convinced by the vice president's argument. Vice President, I promoted you.

[01:00:09] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Yeah, congratulations.

[01:00:10] Councilmember Alison Hicks: The Vice Mayor's. Have I, has he unconvinced you by now?

[01:00:16] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Me? Yes. No. I think there's a different permutation of it. Here's my issue, where it all comes down to timing. So could we move two people forward? Sure. But a whole bunch of information, the landscape could change between now and December and it feels kind of unfair to, well it might feel like we're disadvantaging some folks, I think we're also kind of disadvantaging ourselves because we lack the full context and information that we would I think normally like to have when we would at this time of year to know how many vacancies we're going to have, what the candidate pool is. And I think there's one permutation of this where we move one or more of these folks forward as finalists and then maybe we make the final decision in December. That's fine too. But and maybe that is more palatable. But I mean probably no more than two. But I just I it just feels very strange to me to be making a truly final decision in a vacuum when I just I think the makeup of the EPC is really, really important. And I hate to do it in two separate processes very close to one another without having all the information when we very easily could just extend this process and have more information.

[01:01:47] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I share those feelings. And in particular, one of the things I've been thinking about with both Council and the EPC is the residency of people. I think there's the possibility. Of course, I don't know who's going to win the upcoming election in November. In fact, I think it's less sure than it has been in a long time. So, but there's the possibility that we'll have a lot of people on council who live south of El Camino. Like really, it could be the majority of people. And including Vice Mayor, you-ish living there. And one of the things that might balance that is a lot of people on the EPC who are familiar with other neighborhoods, which is one of the things that I like about this current crop of candidates. And I think it's quite possible that, and then in terms of, if you don't like some of them, don't vote for them, I actually liked a lot of them and would like to vote for a lot of them. So if I only get, to me, they're more balanced than many of our candidates have been. You know, like, I don't know if this is a compliment or criticism, but I don't see one that like rises miles above the other. So it leaves me for that reason also, maybe not wanting, I mean, eventually this is what you do on council, you make a decision. But, but the other thing is, um, yeah, and the other thing is I think that knowing the makeup of council. Oh, the other thing is that many of the people who are candidates here, here have been, from what they told me, encouraged by current council members or the mayor to throw their hat in this particular ring. So the mayor looks confused, like, I never did that. But, so I feel like if we don't go around encouraging a lot of new people, we probably won't have a lot of new people. Although maybe we do want to broaden the field. That's another possibility. But I'm kind of liking the idea of advancing everyone and then seeing the makeup of the council and the remaining EPC and making decisions from there. I kind of like that.

[01:04:27] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: So, Councilmember Ramirez, you're next on my queue, but I'm gonna let Councilmember McAlister have a chance to speak before you have a chance to speak for the third time.

[01:04:39] Councilmember John McAlister: I've heard. Of course, Councilmember Ramirez is always eloquent in what he's saying. Thank you. You're nailing me on that one, Mayor, aren't you? And so I'm inclined to go along with Vice Mayor and Councilmember Hicks to see the totality of the group at one time instead of saying it individually. I mean, yes, we have some great candidates here, but I'd like to make it a little more of a formal. I think it's a little better government if we get every, all the data in front of us at one time and then make a better informed decision.

[01:05:24] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: I'm going to let Councilmember Kamei also speak because she hasn't spoken yet and you have spoken three times already.

[01:05:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Well, perhaps before I give any comments, it sounded like Councilmember Ramirez may have been open to a compromise, which I hope he is, has himself in the queue to illuminate us all on. But I think I, a couple different thoughts. And apologies, I'm going to blame jet lag. I don't know if the mayor will. But I think one of the most important parts about EPC and having served on EPC, like many of us up here, is that it's a decision made by the full council. And I do would appreciate if we were able to vote on it as a full council. Like that's important to me. Because while I am one of the three that is leaving, a person who is staying is unable to participate. And I do think that that's important to hear all seven of our perspectives. It's a decision that the council, you know, has made that given the weight of the Environmental Planning Commission, it's a full council decision. So I think that in part, just wanted to share. I also wanted to share as well something I noticed in tonight's interview process, which is appreciate that all of the candidates reached out or at least three of them did to meet with me further to tell me about their candidacy. You know, unfortunately, given work and travel, I was unable to meet. And so I was really relying on the interviews and the responses tonight to help illuminate their application and to give me more information. For many of the questions, there was still time left on the table. And I would have hoped that I would have been able to, you know, get as full of a picture as possible given that I was unable to meet with the candidates. And so in that way, I don don't have those one-on-one meetings to help. And I have to rely on the public process, which is part of what we do on council. And so I just kind of wanted to share that, which I think is quite important. I think interest in a commission and getting involved and meeting with council members to get ideas is important. But we need to respect that this is a public process. And when people interview, everyone is getting the same information. And I do feel that I don't have the same information to feel comfortable to be able to vote tonight. And I just wanted to share that. So I was coming into tonight's meeting kind of a bit flummoxed on how to move forward. I think there might be a path forward for what Vice Mayor Clark is suggesting, kind of an elegant solution to what we had to face two years ago as a council when this came forward and want to have an openness to talk about this because I do know that the current members of the Environmental Planning Commission have had several team-building meetings, have had some goal-setting, and I feel now more than ever that having a composition of seven individuals who can work collectively and collaboratively, while understanding that it's not always, that sometimes you take a vote and you're unanimous, and sometimes you take a vote and you're split, and just the relationship building with which that takes I think is very important. So I wanna, Mountain View prides itself on our civility, and I wanna make sure that the EPC that at least I have input on before I ride off into the sunset, continues to have that tenor. So it's just kind of some of the comments I wanted to share. Thanks.

[01:09:46] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, have at it, Councilmember Ramirez.

[01:09:50] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I'm gonna attempt to, I appreciate Councilmember Kamei's suggestion to find an elegant compromise. And I think the one I would suggest is that we proceed with making a recommendation to ourselves, knowing that we can always pull that resolution when it returns to us on December 15th, so that we continue this process. But that at the same time, we have the city clerk pull us tonight on availability for a special meeting that we would hold, and it could be concurrently with a scheduled meeting, where we would have another set of interviews, that we would keep the recruitment process going, and that we would have already scheduled another special meeting for an additional set of interviews in the event that a vacancy, I mean, I guess, yes, it would be a vacancy, were to arise as a consequence of the election in a few weeks. So that way, we would continue to solicit, collect applications. We would have agreement on when that special meeting would be, so we don't end up with another suboptimal scenario where someone's not available because we didn't know that we were gonna have another special meeting. You can get candidates that you like more, so you can vote for them later in the event that there is that third vacancy. But if that doesn't happen, if there is no vacancy that arises, there's really no need to have another set of interviews if we all genuinely believe that we have qualified candidates tonight. So that would be my motion, that we would, if you could help us in the next few minutes, find another opportunity for a special meeting. I don't know if there is a closed session or a special meeting that is currently programmed for any of the November or December meetings, but that would be ideal, right? If we could meet at 5 o'clock or something and have that set of interviews ready to go. Continue the recruitment period, but then have this recommendation to ourselves available for the December 15th meeting in the event that we don't end up, that planning commissioner doesn't get elected to the council, so there is no additional vacancy that's generated.

[01:12:14] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, so as staff figures out that, there's a couple of things I'm kind of concerned about is Maddy Act compliance. Now I don't know if our current interim city attorney may be not, uh, follows it as strictly as we've had our previous city attorney. And that makes me a little nervous about it since this is a kind of meeting that does not have our city attorney there to ask about whether about Maddy Act compliance. Although the city clerk may know all the fun things.

[01:12:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: What's the question that you're concerned about?

[01:12:50] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Okay, so like as we're trying to figure out some kind of compromise, like okay, so how long would we have if we had to reopen it? At what point would we be allowed to reopen it? So like there's a lot of, I'm looking at like this as a like a flowchart. Um, basically if Mr. Donahue, I am sorry, Mr. Donahue. I know you're on Zoom. Um, watching this whole shenanigans go on, um, that we're guessing you're, you're, um, whether or not you're, you're going to, uh, join us on this dais or not. Um, so like there's the if, there's, there's two possibilities to start off with the first branch. One, Mr. Donahue gets elected to City Council in this upcoming election. Then there's also the other option where he doesn't and then we're doing just the same process kind of thing. So there's the one. And so if that happens, um, but do we just, do we just hold off? Like, do we not make a selection? Like, there's, there's a lot of, there's the first round of questions. Then you have that, that branch off of if Mr. Donahue does get elected, but like, is it clear on election night? Or is it clear when we have to certify? We've had a couple of elections, notably 2018 and 2018 and 2020 where we didn't find out the winner until pretty much certification time because of the margin of victory, essentially. And so how does that affect when hypothetically, should Mr. O'Donoghue, if he gets elected, if he gets elected clearly on election night versus if he gets elected not so clearly on election night and we find out a month later, how does that work with the timeline of this? Then it branches out to a little bit more actually that's probably the end of the branches. So how would that work? How would that be legal or making sure that it's legal? Not saying that it's not, but how do we make sure that is it legal? Because we are throwing out these kind of ideas without making sure about that.

[01:15:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: So for us to do to bring you guys other applicants for a possible third vacancy, which would be for a year, right? So his term only has one more year in it. Mr. Donahue would need to resign from the EPC. I need to post a notice of unscheduled vacancy for 10 business days before the council can consider applicants. So you can kind of back that out and see like when about he would need to resign and whether we have solid data on whether he's a lock in or not is unclear.

[01:16:03] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Okay, that's interesting because I do remember in 2016, Lucas, you, you lost, sorry, sad memory. Um, but you, you were able to apply because at the time council member, um, Lisa, uh, Mattacheck, council member Mattacheck, um, won and she resigned from her planning commission seat, which led to that opening, which you were able to apply for. By the end of that, you apply, you had to apply by that Friday of election day of that election week. Um, because I remember the stress of that. Um, I know, yay. But I'm also thinking like there's, there's also an interesting thing as I'm thinking through. Like that's how Councilmember Ramirez got on Council. Both Councilmember Ramirez and Councilmember Kamei vacated their Planning Commission seats when they got on Council, I believe you did too, Vice Mayor Clark. I mean, there might be also a discussion of like, should we have our Planning Commission appointments before the election because of how common it is. It's interesting because like also probably paying attention to this debate a lot also on Zoom is Mr. Cox, who's on the REC. But the REC does their interviews after election. So like he doesn't have to deal with this. So that might be something to think about for a future CPPC item, but I don't this is a long way of generally my general feeling is we made a process the process was followed people adhere to those deadlines. And the presumption is that as council members, we would follow our processes through. So I don't I don't like the idea of pushing that. But that is that is my kind of general sense. That was my long winded way, but also that general sense of that is because of my unease of that flowchart of like all the things that that could happen, and I'd rather have a clean process of we know that these two seats are open, people have known these two seats are open for how long unless whatever people decided to resign from it early. And it didn't seem fair to me. And I know that we've done this before. I recall, and maybe it's because of my time when I went on the RHC, I followed the rules, I got my application in on time with a high amount of stress, because it's always really stressful to get these applications in on time, and then the council chose to reopen it because they didn't like the applicants. Or they felt like the applicant pool was insufficient. And I feel that that doesn't sit right with me. So we can go to Vice Mayor Clark. And then Councilmember Kamei is in the queue. Did you want to do an immediate response? Or did you want to hear after Vice Mayor Clark?

[01:19:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Well, I was just gonna say, this situation has happened a few cycles now. So I do feel that it's something that should be, we should come up with a new solution. And so I think that in an election year, if for EPC specifically, then that can be scheduled for after the election. I would if that's possible. Okay, you know. I just think there has to be, and that can be for a future council, but I will say too, like, it's within council purview to make the decisions that they make, we'll vote on it. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes as applicants, this is how it goes, you know. And, but I'll look to the city clerk and turn it over to vice mayor.

[01:19:59] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yeah, this is gonna continue to be a problem. Yeah. So one thing the council may wanna consider in a future CBBC meeting or an item brought directly back to council is simply just extending the terms for your ex-seated members to align them with RHC, so that we do everything together. And then you'll always be past an election, you'll always know who's on, who's off, you kind of bypass this whole issue. All of your other boards and commissions that end on a December 31 term, it's kind of not an issue, but for your two big ones, this is always gonna be a problem.

[01:20:40] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Yeah, that's a really good point. As long as the charter doesn't say that they have to be calendar year. But it sounds like they don't, then I don't know why we didn't think to fix this a long time ago. Thank you for suggesting that. I did, well, the city clerk can chime in if I'm wrong. I did check with staff today as I was thinking about this is the December 8th or the 15th meeting better from a tent, from the tentative agenda list and the current list perspective, if we needed a study session, you know, a 60 or 90 minute study session like this before. And they said both the 8th and the 15th would work. With the 10 business day kind of recruitment window, the 15th is probably more viable, although the 15th is also likely to get the most backlogged. If we did it the 8th, the 8th is conceivable, but it gets a little tricky with the 10 days depending on when someone might resign or the typical resignation process. So, but you're right, Mayor, the sequence would need to be, if there's a vacancy or resignation, then we just have to do, we need to do the 10-day recruitment obviously. I think a little play on what you suggested is, I would prefer not to rank folks tonight. I think what I would prefer to do is, it sounds like Councilmember Hicks would be fine with moving forward all four as finalists. Maybe some of us would want to move fewer than that forward, I don't know, but the way that I'm thinking about this is we're moving forward a set of finalists, there might be additional finalists if there is a vacancy and a recruitment for that, but if there's a recruitment for that then I would kind of, I would bucket everyone together and sort of not rank them at this point, I would just have, you basically if there's a vacancy the pool would expand and we would make the decision either by pulling the item from consent if we don't wanna, I guess if there are additional applicants then we would need to have a study session to do the interviews like we're doing tonight. But I'm thinking about this as advancing finalists to the December meeting. Because that's essentially what we're doing anyway. Except in a normal process, we would just pick two tonight to recommend to ourselves, and I think what I'm suggesting is we pick some number or all of them to advance as finalists. And there may be additional ones before December depending on whether or not there's a vacancy. If that makes any sense.

[01:23:40] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: So I looked up, California certified election results on December 11th. We're voting on, sorry, we're certifying our election results on the 8th, I think.

[01:23:51] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yeah, so the county has until December 3rd to certify, and then we bring them to the next regular meeting, which is the 8th. Okay.

[01:24:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I was really hoping we would finish early tonight. So I, one thing is, so if basically it sounds like what would come back to us is a blank resolution on consent that we're appointing, if two scenarios. If Commissioner Donahue does not win his election, then there would be two names, or pointing blank and blank. So we would have to pull that item from consent and then kind of hash it out at that point. And then if he does win, guaranteed two, if he does, then I guess there would be three. Which would mean at some point, there would also have to be potentially an interview process. Because we would, I'm guessing, want to expand the candidate pool. So another recruitment, and then at that meeting, we would also not make a recommendation. We would hear the interviews, and then wait for that December 15th meeting where someone would have to pull the blank resolution, which would now have three blank spaces, and then decide then which three we would want to pick. Sort of, we would do what we've done in the past, where we have the study session, we make recommendations knowing the full gamut of how many available appointments there are to ourselves, and then the only time you're filling in blanks is if the study session happens immediately before the meeting, right? Because if it happens the week before, you can fill that in in the staff report. But I think you're broadly right. I think the other point that I forgot to make earlier is that what we would do is direct staff to, if there is a vacancy, to open a recruitment, but to open the recruitment officially not just for that position, but for all three, so that we have the ability at the meeting to decide who. There might be, as we've done in the past, there might be some candidates who we feel are fairly new and might fit better for the one-year slot than for a multi-year slot, and so it gives us the ability to kind of move things around. That's the other advantage of this. But I assume that we could do that as authorized staff to, if a vacancy occurs, to proceed with a recruitment, not just for that vacancy, but to open it for all of the vacant seats, and then we could consider all the applicants, including those who have already applied. They wouldn't need to re-interview if they didn't want to. I guess we could offer them the opportunity to if you feel that's really important. And yes, it's sub-optimal, but honestly, that's our own fault. And that has happened to candidates in the past where we've had sub-optimal processes. It happened to me. And it's not great, but hopefully we can fix that in the future. It's just I think that's probably, I would just much rather make the decision holistically than to do this in silos. And if others have other thoughts on the better way to do that, I think that's probably the best way is to advance some number tonight as the finalists. It could be all four, it could be two, and then if there is a vacancy, the clerk's authorized to run that recruitment for the full set of vacancies, and then we'll have the ability at the meeting, to appoint as we see fit into whichever slot we think each candidate best fits. So, I'm also dissatisfied with that approach obviously. I'm also curious about your thoughts on, so Mr. Scarborough is also interested in the Library Board of Trustees. That interview is, it sounds like, next Monday. So he's gonna be in limbo here if his preference is for the Planning Commission. But maybe the CAC decides that he is an excellent candidate for that role, the resolution will have his name on it. But now he's in limbo while we decide.

[01:28:23] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: His name is not on a resolution. His name is as a finalist, and he gets to make that decision as to whether he wants to roll the die. This is the suboptimal part of this is if you as a candidate get to decide whether you want to roll the dice or not.

[01:28:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I, I, I, I share the mayor's frustration that we're changing the rules because we don't like the applicant pool. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's right. Here's what I would support. My last ditch effort at what hopefully might be an elegant compromise. I would hope you would work with me on this. We don't know if Commissioner Donahue is going to win. If he doesn't win, then we've frustrated ourselves and the candidates by waiting for Mr. Donahue, waiting for Godot, right? Like the Samuel Beckett play. So how about we advance these candidates as finalists and then in the event that Commissioner Donahue does win his election, then we can have your approach? And that way there will be some certainty that we don't need to spend a lot of time and effort on additional process because Commissioner Donahue has not won his election and these folks will have some assurance of whether they're advancing or not advancing, whether they decide to pursue additional process for other boards and commissions that they've applied for, and then December 15th, you know, we can always pull that item from consent if we don't like it. But we've concluded the process as our rules stipulate. But if it's really important to have an expanded field because Commissioner Donahue has won his election generating a vacancy, then this goes away. And then we do the additional recruitment, we have the expanded candidate pool, we can go through another set of interviews. Hopefully we'll find a time that works for everyone. And then we can consider this more holistically. I think I understand, I think I kind of understand but not really. But the unexpected twist was if Mr. Donahue wins and resigns, then we're starting from scratch essentially and pretending tonight never happened.

[01:31:06] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Yeah, I see. That was a twist that I wasn't expecting. I'll listen to...

[01:31:10] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: I think we should hear from the other colleagues because we've been in a colloquy for a while.

[01:31:15] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Councilmember McAlister.

[01:31:17] Councilmember John McAlister: Gentlemen, I would like to see if the Vice Mayor would like to make a motion or do we withdraw a vote to bring this to somewhat of a clear conclusion? I do like the idea of moving all four forward, so just a comment, but if the Vice Mayor likes to make a motion or if the Mayor feels straw vote is apropos, I would like to see what we can do to move this forward.

[01:31:51] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Councilmember Kamei.

[01:31:54] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. I don't know if there's a motion yet.

[01:32:02] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: There's not a motion.

[01:32:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, just clarifying. Just clarifying. Yeah, yeah. I think it's important to, it's an important point of clarification for me that I don't think that we're changing a process on this dais tonight. I think that we are discussing an issue that has plagued the council for multiple cycles, and we're discussing how to remediate that, much to how we will soon hope everyone looks at their ballots on cleaning up our charter. And so I think that it's apropos that we're finally discussing how we might address this issue. So I do wanna clarify that, which I think is important. So regardless if it's people tonight, this is something that we probably should have tackled earlier. I just think that that's something that I feel is very important. I also wanna clarify that having this discussion does in no way mean that I don't appreciate and respect the candidate, current candidate pool. And I think that however things are tonight, with our final motion, that's not what I would want any applicant or resident in Mountain View to leave thinking. And I want to make sure that we are having a discussion and we are one council member down as well. So I think trying to figure out how we want to tackle this in a holistic manner, just, like to me process, policy wise, that's okay with me. And we're not, the idea that if we can move all four forward doesn't mean that we aren't appreciative of the candidate pool, and if someone loses or wins, we can still do the selection of the two. So I think I'm not necessarily, it's just not as immediate, but the thing is, people wouldn't be seated until January anyways, so I don't, perhaps I don't see the dilemma as much. I think the dilemma is more on applicants who decide to apply for multiple commissions. That's their dilemma. Not, not a council dilemma. Thanks, mayor.

[01:34:46] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Yeah, just to that last point, I agree. Like there is cause I have been in this, I have taken this risk before when you apply to multiple bodies, you don't know how that's going to turn out. And things can happen because the timing of the correct meeting and EPC interviews is typically not aligned. And I did have one quick question before I make a suggested motion.

[01:35:57] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: City clerk, do you-- so the appointments review committee meeting I think is scheduled for next Monday. When would those-- do those, um, are those recommendations, those also go on the September or the-- December 15th agenda? Okay, so everything's aligned on that final meeting. Okay, that's actually really helpful. Because that means that can be pulled and rearranged if we need to based on updated information.

[01:36:22] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: So, um, so I'll, I'll go ahead and, um, I'll go ahead and move that we do, um, that we do the following. That we, um, that we move all four of the candidates who interviewed tonight forward, uh, as, as finalists for the, um, for the, um, for the EPC vacancies that are, um, that exist now. Um, that, um, that they also would be eligible for any of the, um, an additional vacancy should it occur.

[01:37:05] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Um, so they would be considered for any of the vacancies that, that might exist at the time that we take this up in December. Um, without necessarily needing to, to re-interview. And then if a vacancy, uh, an additional vacancy on the planning commission occurs between now and the end of the year, that the clerk's office is authorized to immediately commence a, um, you know, immediately being, you know, whatever a reasonable timeframe is for the clerk's office, to commence an additional recruitment period and that whoever, and that recruitment period would be valid for, um, all of the existing vacancies at that time.

[01:37:50] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: And that we would hold time on the, um, from a scheduling perspective, that we would hold time on the, um, ahead of the December 15th meeting, um, for a study session to, if we need to, to perform additional interviews for, um, for the vacancy should it occur. If no vacancy occurs, then there's no need to do the additional recruitment and there's no need to have that study session. If we need to pull things and make adjustments based on the, the ARC recommendations and, and, um, um, I guess we would have to pull it in order to choose our two, but hopefully we'll have, um, hopefully we'll have seven council members there.

[01:38:37] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Um, that would be, that would be my recommendation. I don't know if I missed anything. I'm also open to, should the clerk's office, because the city manager's office isn't here tonight, if for some reason it makes sense and the recruitment period is finished in time for the December 8th meeting, that would actually be optimal. But, um, but I just want to make sure we have the ability to do both since we don't have their input.

[01:39:00] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Yeah, and I was just thinking about that. We could, for the December 8th meeting, we would be publishing the agenda on the 3rd, uh, which is when we would have the final results from the county. Um, we could hold interviews on the 8th for all vacancies and then you wouldn't be appointing until the 15th in line with the Maddy Act.

[01:39:30] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: That works for me if it works for you because I'm just backing up 10 business days from that date and it's kind of Thanksgiving-ish and Thanksgiving doesn't count. But if you think that it's okay, I think the preference would be for the 8th. And if you determine that it needs to be the 15th and the 15th is okay, but the 8th would be preferential or we would prefer the 8th because it just gives us the time to consider everything. Um, that would be, that would be, um, that would be my motion.

[01:40:00] City Clerk Heather Glaser: What about the CPC alignment?

[01:40:02] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Oh, sorry, and if we, and the last part of that is if we're able to do this tonight, I don't know if at this meeting, do a referral to the CPC, CPPC to, um, to review the, the terms of the EPC, like the timing of the terms of the EPC so we don't end up in this mess again.

[01:40:29] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Can I get you to restate the motion so I can make sure I have it correctly for my notes since I am making the buttons?

[01:40:34] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: I, there was no button. Um, but okay, so, so just to recap. We would move all four of the, the finalists forward tonight. Um, if there is no additional vacancy, then we don't need to do anything, we'll just decide on the four, um, we'll either pull the item and we'll just make the decision at that time.

[01:40:56] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: If there is an additional vacancy, the clerk's office will run a recruitment for, um, all three of the vacancies, uh, an additional recruitment for all three of the vacancies. All four of these candidates are automatically advanced as part of that. They don't have to re-interview.

[01:41:13] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Um, and then, and then in that scenario, we would have a study session either on, uh, preferably on the 8th, if not on the 15th, um, to make final decisions about who's going to slot into what. Um, and then we'll still at the, at the, um, but we'll still keep the final, the final decisions or the final council action will still be on the 15th for both the appointments review committee appointments and the EPC appointments.

[01:41:42] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: And then the CPPC will refer to the CPPC the, um, the issue of the, um, of the, um, the, uh, yes, aligning the, um, aligning the EPC appointment, um, terms, um, so that we don't bump into this in future years.

[01:42:07] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, I don't know where we are in the queue because I don't know if Councilmember Ramirez wanted another shot or Councilmember Hicks wanted a shot.

[01:42:18] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I was just gonna say I'm ready to support the motion, but press the button, that's all I had to say.

[01:42:26] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Councilmember Ramirez?

[01:42:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Uh, thank you, Mayor. You have to give me credit for trying. So here's my last, uh, too clever by half, um, uh, procedural attempt. We're ordinarily in a study session, we're not agendized for action, so I just want to make sure that we, this is a valid motion that, uh, could be legally entertained.

[01:42:48] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Um, I mean it'll just be direction to staff to, to take these steps moving forward.

[01:42:51] Interim City Attorney Jannie L. Quinn: You're not, you're not taking any action to do anything specific tonight, but we will take it as direction.

[01:43:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's too bad. But, uh, you can't blame me for trying. So I'm, I'm going to vote no because I don't believe it is fair. I don't like changing the rules in the middle of the game. Um, but, uh, I'm going to lose this motion. But I'm going to request of the Vice Mayor, um, some friendly amendments, um, that one, uh, we allow the current applicants, uh, the opportunity to participate in the second round of interviews, uh, if, if they would like to. I think it is, um, you know, I, I, I do, I do feel there is a difference in treatment, right? You were interviewed a month ago when members of the council wasn't even here, you're not particip-- you know, it doesn't feel right to, uh, to have them absent for the interviews when you have, you know, maybe a-- additional candidates in front of you as a council, uh, to consider. So giving them the option to re-interview if they, uh, if they desire, I think that would be important. Uh, two, that, um, if there is a, um, second round of interviews in a, in a expanded candidate pool that the questions be identical. I don't think it's fair to, uh, have one set of questions for one round of applicants and a different set of questions for, uh, the second round of applicants.

[01:44:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, and the-- so I think those, that would be the friendly amendment. I guess this is more commentary. I, you know, I, I also disagree with the notion that there is a risk incurred on the candidates' part because they participated in good faith in the process that we set, um, in applying for multiple committees and, and commissions. Um, you know, I, I think if, if for instance the ARC decides that Mr. Scarboro is an appropriate candidate for the library board of trustees, and then we decide later that he's a good candidate for the planning commission, um, the other applicants for the board of trustees will have only been interviewed by three members of the council, and then the remaining members of the council will then have to determine which other applicants who were not recommended by the, the ARC would be elevated to that position without having the benefit of participating in those interviews. So I, I don't feel that that is an appropriate or fair process either.

[01:45:16] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, I don't have a clever solution for that other than to vote no against this motion. Um, but I, I, you know, I would, I would encourage us to, you know, if, if, sometimes we make hard votes, you know, and I, I, if, if, I would wonder aloud if we had, you know, maybe some applicants who, uh, were part of, you know, Livable Mountain View or had some other perspective whether we would be having this discussion tonight, which is why I'm voting no. Thank you.

[01:45:49] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Well, I can answer your last question at least from my perspective, the answer would be yes because this is more a holistic thing, uh, having gone through it, then I, I'm not going to speak to the motivations of others, I will say that yes, I would be making the same, uh, request. Um, second, I do have a, I don't think it's clever, but I do have a solution to your ARC issue which is, you know, we have that context now going into the meeting next Monday. We can rank additional candidates, you know, we can make the recommendations for the vacancies and we can have folks in our back pocket. Um, that can be part of the meeting minutes and the ARC members will be able to speak to that I think at the, um, at the December meeting. So, um, you know, we can help inform the decision there. Uh, it's not just an all or nothing thing. Um, we'll still have all the context for all the folks who interviewed if we need, uh, if we need backups.

[01:46:47] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: Um, and then to your requests, 110%, if folks should have the option to, they can choose, they can choose just to have this be their interview and not, um, re-interview, they can re-interview, they can withdraw, um, if they decide between now and then that they really want to be on whatever body the folks who or they just don't want to deal with this anymore because they think we're, we've lost our minds, I don't know. Um, and then, and then of course we should ask the same identical questions. Um, that, um, that's perfectly fine and we can keep notes tonight. We did make the modification for number three to add the Moffett Precise Plan, that's memorialized, I think we can do that again. So I'm, I'm, the two friendly amendments I'm perfectly fine with, um, if they, as long as the seconder is, as long as, uh, Councilmember McAlister is.

[01:47:39] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, can I add just a small twist? One question I would like to add that I was always involved with when we didn't ask it so since we're putting items, putting it, is which, uh, project you liked in the city and which project you didn't like in the city.

[01:47:55] Vice Mayor Chris Clark: I don't, if we didn't ask it tonight, I don't think we could change it.

[01:47:58] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, then otherwise I will accept the, uh, well we can discuss that later but, uh, yes I'll accept the, uh, secondaries.

[01:48:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: It's in the application.

[01:48:05] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: It's in the application. That, that question is in the application.

[01:48:10] Councilmember John McAlister: Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

[01:48:12] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: All right, I am seeing no other council members in the queue. I will also be voting no on this motion, although I do think that I am probably in the minority of this vote. I have... I have staked my mayoral theme, um, on that we needed to treat everyone who wants to serve our city as if it was a gift. Um, so we have been working on things like our volunteer framework, um, highlighting opportunities for people to volunteer every single council meeting.

[01:49:07] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: We, we, I know things can change, um, and, and things happen like, and we've known that this was kind of, we knew that this was a possible issue going in because we have faced this issue at least for over a decade. Because when, when Lucas, um, took over, uh, Councilmember Matichak's seat, that was after the 2016 election. So that was a decade ago. And I think that was like also kind of an issue probably even before that. But we, we knew that going into this.

[01:49:44] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: Um, and yes, like I said, things change. But when people applied to this, there was a process that we had set forth. There was, um, like if you had called the city clerk before the deadline and asked, 'How will this work?' they would have had an answer. And I, I, I dislike how this has maneuvered.

[01:50:12] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: If this had been... and I, I do wonder, I, I won't go as far as, as Councilmember Ramirez has said that if, if they were all a certain group, um, it would have been kind of a different thing. I do feel that even if it was like all applicants from a group that I wouldn't, uh, agree with most of the time, I would still feel strongly if they were, um, qualified and willing to serve, um, I'd like to believe that that I would, I would feel the same way.

[01:50:46] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: So I will, I will be voting against this motion, although I do see kind of where, where things are falling. I do feel very strongly about this because I, I've ran my entire, uh, mayoral, um, term around, like I said, focusing on the people who want to serve our city and, and, and treating that with the utmost grace and, and gratitude. Um, so like I said, I will be, uh, voting against this motion. So we are ready for a vote.

[01:51:34] Mayor Emily Ann Ramos: And the motion passes four to two. And with that I don't think we have anything else on our docket. So, uh, we will move on to item five, adjournment. Thank you. And, uh, the script does not match said adjournment. Um, the next council meeting will be held on October 27th, 2026. This meeting is adjourned at 8:20.

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