City Council - Regular Meeting

You, and I call this 05/05/2026 special meeting of the Cupertino City Council to order. Madam city clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Fren. Here. Councilmember Mohan. Here. Counts vice mayor Chow. Here. Mayor Moore. Here. And as a reminder, mayor and council members, council member Wong is participating remotely this evening, and he will be arriving a little late. I also want to make a note to members of the public that as of today, we have not heard from any members of the public that they plan to participate in tonight's meeting from councilmember Wong's remote location.

Okay.

Thank you. Our one item is a study session on Silicon Valley Hopper with the program overview and proposed strategy for future grant funding. Madam City Manager, do we have a report?

Thank you, mayor. So with this study session, staff will provide an update on the Silicon Valley Hopper program this evening, including an overview of service, performance, and a strategy for future grant funding. No council action is required. However, staff is requesting council support the pursuit of any grant opportunities for a potential program continuation. Staff would return to council for acceptance of any potential grant awards in the future. And with that, I will turn it over to public works staff, David Stillman, and Matt Schrader to present this item.

Try again,

Matt. Just

is it Didi, are you able to assist with the staff mics? Are they live now?

There's handheld mic on the lectern.

Evening council. Mayor Moore. My name is Matt Schrader, senior transportation planner. And as city manager said, I'm going be providing an update on the program as well as a proposed strategy for potential future grant funding. So if video could please share screen so I can present here.

You seen the presentation yet? Nope. There we go. Okay. So taking a step back, the program started in 2019 as an eighteen month pilot program.

It was originally just within the city of Cupertino as well as service to El Camino Hospital and the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. Here we see two previous vehicles that we had, the original vehicle on the far left and then the vehicle that was brought in fleet following COVID where we paused service. So here is what the service area looked like. We went to everywhere in Cupertino as well as El Camino Hospital here off of Cuesta and then over to the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. Then as that program was beginning to end, staff looked for possible funding opportunities and potential partners.

So to secure that funding, we partnered with the City of Santa Clara to pursue a transit and intercity rail capital program grant. And we were awarded that funding, which allowed for us to expand service in two phases over four years. So the first phase is phase one expansion, and that was adding the Mountain View Caltrain station and everywhere in Santa Clara that is south of the Caltrain alignment here. So that includes Valley Fair, the university, as well as the transit center, and many different residential neighborhoods. The vehicle fleet is all electric.

We have 12 vehicles and one spare. We also have three wheelchair accessible vehicles. Here's what the vehicles look like. We have the sedan here in the left and then our EV waves. So these can accommodate five passengers and one wheelchair.

So within the app, we also have additional information to assist riders who are trying to link to transit. So we've added the GTFS feed for Caltrain so you can do in app trip planning. And we're also working on getting ClipperCart integration later this year. So here's kind of a zoomed in view. I know we just looked at that, but we also go to Rancho San Antonio, which I didn't highlight.

If you wanna get out to Fremont Older, you can do that off of the Regnar Road entrance. And if you're trying to avoid parking over at Valley Fair, you can do that. And then we have folks that connect through ACE and Amtrak, and that's accessible at the Santa Clara Transit Center. Fares are $3.50, and at discounted rates available for students, seniors, low income folks, and people with disabilities. And if you're traveling with additional riders, it's 1 extra dollar.

It's a commuter service. So Monday through Friday, seven to seven, nine to five on Saturdays, and no Sunday service. There are students that use the service. You need to be 13 years old in order to ride alone. Like I mentioned, we have wheelchair vehicles for those that require wheelchair access. And then if you feel more comfortable booking over the phone, you can also do so with a dispatcher. So unlike Uber and Lyft, which is a door to door service, SB Hopper is a corner to corner model. So we'll pick you up and drop you off at the nearest street corner. And this is what it looks like on the back end. So you can see we have really strong coverage, and the average walking distance is about two fifty feet.

When using the app, if you haven't seen this, you just download it very similar to Uber, put in your payment method, add your destination and then you'll be connected to a driver. So here on the far right here, this is what it looks like after you've submitted a trip request. It's going to tell you your driver is Tarun. He's going to be arriving in the blue Kia Niro. And because it's a ride share service, you are going to be picking up people along the way who are traveling to similar destinations.

So in this scenario here, the wait time is twenty one minutes, and that's because this driver is going to be dropping someone off at De Anza College or picking someone up, making a pickup drop off over here off Mary Avenue and doing the same at De Anza and Homestead and then coming to pick you up at City Hall. So in terms of program funding, we secured additional grant funding beyond what was awarded through our TRSIP cycle five award. Almost 60 of the program is funded through grants. And then the remaining amount here is shared between Santa Clara and Cupertino, and that is based off of the geographic share. So based on the size of Cupertino's operating area and the city of Santa Clara's operating area.

And starting in July, those values kind of shift as Santa Clara is going be responsible for more cost because it's going be a larger service area. And now looking at ridership here. So, this chart on the right shows ridership by month since we launched in 07/01/2023 up until where we're at last month in April of this year. So this spike is showing the VTA strike that happened last year in March, where we were successful in kind of retaining riders that were brought in to the SV Hopper service after that. And when comparing our February ridership to February of last year, you can see that ridership has, you know, steadily increased.

And right now, we're averaging about 9,000 riders per month. Interestingly, so because there's such strong student ridership, it kind of peaks during the months when students are in session, and we have lower ridership in the summer as well as the December and late November. So looking in now at where people are going, we know that one in 10 trips start or end at the Caltrain stations. So this would be the Mountain View station, Sunnyvale station, and the Santa Clara station. And these are destinations.

So these are completed trips. And within the city of Cupertino, the most popular destination is De Anza College, Monte Vista High School, all those there is significant demand along De Anza Boulevard. So you can see here through this clustering, which just looks at the total number of completed trips within these boxes here. So then when we zoom in a little more and we want to look at those hotspots, this kind of just visualizes that pattern a little differently. So you can see along the De Anza Corridor that demand is pretty pretty constant, especially South of Stevens Creek Boulevard.

A lot of people also going to Safeway. And then along Stevens Creek traveling west, we see that the most popular destination is Valley Fair. And then significant demand generated over at the Mountain View Caltrain station and Sunnyvale Caltrain Station. So when looking at completed rides, so we have a bunch of information here. We served over a 100,000 rides last year.

This is now looking at completed rides by day of the week. Our most popular days of the week are Tuesday and Thursday. And then we see a dip Friday, Saturday. When looking at time of day, our peak period coincides with the school bell schedule. Although it's pretty steady between noon and two as well.

So between noon and about 04:00 is when we see our heaviest demand. And now in the lower left, this is a snapshot of what a typical day looks like. We'll receive 511 ride requests. Of those 511, 93% of those folks will be presented with a ride option. And then 63% will complete the ride.

Twenty one percent will not accept the proposal likely because of wait times or it just doesn't coincide with their schedule. 7% of folks, there's just such strong demand at certain periods that all the seats are in use. And then we do have folks that cancel as well as no show. So here you can kind of see that split. January of last year, 7,600 completed rides.

And we received 12,000 ride requests. So wait times vary throughout the day. On average, they're seventeen minutes. They spike in the afternoon when we're going to have longer trips typically associated with those commute trips. Our shortest wait times are around noon, so between 10AM and 1PM.

And they're relatively flat throughout the week, so about seventeen minutes Monday through Thursday. And then they drop Friday and Saturday coinciding with what you saw on the previous chart in terms of completed rides. And it is a ride share service. So the average number of passengers in a vehicle at any time is 1.4. And 47% of all of the trips have some time where it's a shared ride.

And again, you can see the aggregation here where we have higher demand earlier in the week. So we're going to have higher aggregation rates. And then that decreases when we see less demand later in the week. So moving forward, the recommended funding approach here, because there's very few grant programs which can sustain long term and meaningful funding, the opportunity that's available now is a TRSIP cycle eight application where we would recommend putting forward a project proposal in partnership with ACE. So it's TRSIP transit intercity rail capital program.

Its primary goal is really advancing the objectives of the state rail plan. So being able to have a partner like ACE where we can say, hey, we are not only providing service within the areas that ACE is trying to improve first mile, last mile connections, but we have a direct formal partnership with them. It's gonna be a more competitive application. So we would make improvements on their two routes that are within our service area, those being the gray and yellow fixed route shuttle service. They currently operate this program and they're looking for ways to make some modifications and we feel like that this would be a good opportunity and something that's mutually beneficial between the two agencies to move forward.

So tonight, the action we're looking for is just support so that we can go out and pursue grants as they become available. And then we would return later in the year or early next year to report on the outcomes from that. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you very much for the comprehensive report. Do any members of the city council have questions for the staff? Councilmember Mohan followed by Councilmember Fruin.

Somewhere in the staff report, I am not able to find it right now, but there was some indication that Santa Clara is not committed on a long term basis to this program. Is that accurate?

That's accurate. We have yet to receive any kind of formal or written support for continuing to operate SV Hoffer in partnership with the city.

So, we just had that big ceremony the other day, right?

Yes.

And so that was for one year?

Yes. Okay. Alright.

Thanks. However, good evening. David Silman, transportation manager, city of Cupertino. We are continuing to have discussions with Santa Clara about a continued partnership, and they are open to having those ongoing talks. So, even though we've not received any formal commitment from staff or their leadership, we are continuing to talk to them.

Councilmember Freud?

Has there been any discussion of the possibility of formalizing that relationship in the form of a JPA? No. Okay.

Vice Mayor?

So Sunnyvale and Milpitas, which the other city has adopted their own micro shuttle or to start. So, I think they did not use SV hopper. I'm just curious, do we have any idea how come they did not consider SV hopper? What company they did consider? Is it does Santa Clara looking to partner with the other CTO because of the partner they are with?

No. So, when the city of Sunnyvale was pursuing its TRSV application, we had conversations with their staff and told them that this would be a great opportunity and make sense Because when I'm out tabling, all I hear is, why don't you guys go to Sunnyvale? So we made it clear that this would likely cause some confusion if they wanted to pursue something independent, and that's the direction that they headed. They also are going to use a different operating model where if you request a ride along a route that could be served by VTA service, you're not going to be able to receive that on demand transit. You'll be prompted to complete that trip through traditional transit.

And do we know which company they are using?

I believe they are going to move forward with Via. So because we operate with Via and they will be operating with Via, down the road there would be opportunities for integration. And we've kind of had initial conversations with Via about what that would look like.

I'm confused. I thought we used

to

have Via. It was just renamed to SV Hopper. But now Via and SV Hopper Hut are two different things.

No. So Via or Nomad LLC is a company that we contract with to operate the service.

And so, they contract with Via also, but it's not SV Hopper?

Correct.

What does that mean?

It just means that they wanted a separate contract with Via.

And so they will have different

Yeah. Both Sunnyvale and Cupertino contract with Via or Nomad LLC, we have branded our service SV Hopper, and they will brand theirs presumably as something separate.

Female Even if it's through the same company?

Yes.

So, are they providing any fixed routes, or it will be completely on demand?

I believe it will be on demand, but I'm not precisely sure on what their specific service design is.

How about Milpitas? Any information?

Milpitas operates a model where they have designated stops within the city. So, I think they have something like 50 stops. So when you request a ride, you'll have to go in and look at which stop you want to go to. So it's not like our model where we have almost complete corner to corner coverage. They have So, have

Female it's like we have smaller grid, they have a bigger grid for the CT.

It's a different grid.

Female Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you.

Female All right. Councilwoman Mohan?

Yeah. This is I had a suggestion, a recommendation, and you may have explored this already. But West Valley Community Services runs another micro transit operation called RIDE, and that's from what I hear that's it's a county funded program, but with all the county budget problems, I'm hearing that that could be defunded, if not this year, pretty soon. So, is that something we could tap into or extend our operations to encompass that?

It's certainly something we can approach the county with, yes.

Okay. Thank you. I think you'll have to go through West Valley Community Services. Okay. But the last time I talked about this program, they said it was on the verge of being canceled. Thank you, I'd appreciate that if you could make some outreach.

Thanks. Thank you. I had heard that ride was pretty expensive, and the clientele needs a lot of assistance getting to the vehicles, which drives up the cost. Last I heard it was over $100 per trip. But I am interested in what the future holds with us and Sunnyvale, considering that they're using Via.

I had heard something to the effect that the way their grant was put together, that they wouldn't be able to connect into Cupertino. And it might have something to do with VTAs having some I don't know if they're if they help them get their grant, or it seems like that's some of the reason for why that if there's a fixed route from VTA that you need to go to a VTA line. Do you know something about that?

A little bit. So, they're kind of unique in the sense that they have two services, one that's operating currently in Perry Park, and then this other one, which will launch citywide later in the fall. And it's our understanding that they just thought that they could put together a more compelling grant proposal by saying we're not going to be potentially cannibalizing transit trips. So, that's why they made that design choice.

Okay. Thank you. At this time, Vice Mayor, did you have

Just one more question. I forgot to ask. Thank you for the data that you provide. It's really good. And I think I forgot to ask one thing. We know the number of trips that has increased. How about the number of unique writers? Yeah. Wonder if it's the same people who are just taking it more.

No. So we do monitor accounts created. And there are new accounts created every day. And it's kind of been interesting to watch because it's typically associated especially when we do marketing campaigns. So there is a effect that we see after those campaigns.

But do we know how many of those accounts actually continue to use? For example Yeah. I signed up with took the trip. I signed up before, but my phone died. Couldn't take the drive, and then I signed up again. And then the first time, the driver I waited for a while. The car didn't come. And then I called the number, then I find out, oh, I need to go to the corner. But it's not shown on the map. So it's a bit the user experience is a bit frustrating because I have used Uber before.

It was very clear that here is the route you need to walk to the pickup location. That wasn't clear on the Hopper app. So I wonder if that kind of initial user experience might have discouraged some new user from using it again.

Yeah. So we know how many riders have completed more than five trips, 10 trips, 25 trips. We have riders that have completed several 100 trips, and we can provide that data. I just don't have it in front of me.

Yeah. That's fine. Thank you.

All right. At this time, madam city clerk, do we have any members of the public that would care to speak on this item?

Mayor, at this time, I don't see any requests to speak in person, but I do see two requests to speak virtually. Okay. So we will first call on Peggy Griffin, followed by Sandra Rowe. And as a reminder, members of the public wishing to speak on this item shall submit a request to speak or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes of the start of public comment or before the public comment period is closed, whichever comes first. So we will welcome Peggy.

Good evening, mayor mayor Moore, vice mayor Chow, council members and staff. I am a user of Hopper, and I'm also a senior. And recently, I've had four experiences with Hopper. So I want to tell you that I think that the cost of the rides needs to increase significantly. A dollar 75 for a ride and a dollar for every passenger you add is not enough.

It's too low. The other thing is that I was trying to in two of the four rides that I've taken recently, I was teaching people how to use Hopper. And in hopes that they could go to the doctors by themselves because they had lost the ability to drive. And I did it in the afternoon. My husband and I use it in the morning because our we only have one car, and when it breaks down, we take it to the car and car repair, and we go and get it.

But these people had appointments in the afternoon for doctors, and it didn't work out really well. One of the problems was when we got to one of the doctors was Cupertino Podiatry, right in the heart of Cupertino. And it dropped us off okay, but picking us up, it took twenty minutes of no ride available before she even got an offer for a ride. And then the ride was thirty one minutes for a wait. So it was fifty minutes before she even got a car to pick her up.

So I think you need to you know, in addition to the average wait time, how long is the how often do people get rejected? I didn't realize that in the morning, you're less likely to be rejected, but in the afternoon, it can go twenty minutes before you even get a ride offer at all. And I've been considering there's certain places in the area, El Camino Hospital, Kaiser Hospital, Rancho, where parking is scarce. And so it's ideal to take Hopper, but getting there and getting back in the afternoon, I was told that you shouldn't ask for a ride. You need to have at least an hour before they close to even ask for a ride.

So if they close at seven, you better ask by six, and maybe you'll get a ride. So I want you to think about that. I also was told that people who are drivers are very friendly, but you have I'm running out of time. Anyway, think about it. Ask for how many times they're rejected. How much is Cupertino and Santa Clara?

Thank you, Peggy. That is your time. Next, we will welcome San Rao. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor Moore, vice mayor Chow, council members. Speaking on behalf of myself only as a resident. I wanna appreciate the great presentation by Matt Schroeder and David Stillman. It's nice to see them present on something other than bike lanes. When they do present on something that is more useful to the community, I think we see how how productive this conversation can be.

I have sent you feedback previously on this topic. However, I did poll the community. I polled, over 500 Cupertino voters, verified Cupertino voters, and I got very positive feedback. Of course, engagement was low, but I had over 10 say that they knew what it was. I had close to 10 say that they had the app installed, have written at least once, and some have written few times a year, and they have kids writing.

At least four had kids writing, and at least seven said they want the Hopper to be funded. Most of that feedback came from parents of, our high schoolers. And so keeping an open mind to this, I wanna, I wanna give you a few ideas to think about. It is interesting that much of the leadership is De Anza College, which matches what I see. And, I'd like you to see if you can partner with FHTA to see if FHTA can co fund this or FHTA can provide you grants so that the program benefits the ANSA as well as our high schools.

I'd also like to see if you might approach this differently and rather than move broad and outwards towards Santa Clara and other destinations, and maybe we keep a few like Caltrain Caltrain and and Valleyfair. But, rather than move broadly into Santa Clara, should we look at partnering with the school districts and FHTA and making this a ridership for school drop and pick from designated drop and pick zones? So rather than making this a door to door transit like Uber or Lyft, can you turn this into a micro mobility for a school drop and pick at major corridors and set up designated pick and drop zones so you can run the program efficiently? You can increase ridership. You can increase and, increase the school participations.

You can get CUSDFHST to hopefully co fund it and maybe even extend it to Los Altos and Saratoga for the focus purpose of high school drops and picks. So I encourage you to think out of the box. It is a good program. It should be maintained. We should look for grants and more funding, and we should look at focusing it where it really benefits our community, which is our seniors and students. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. And mayor, that concludes the request to speak on this item this evening.

Alright. Thank you very much. Do we have any further comments from the council? I do think that the request that the cost of the rides increases is significant significantly is is interesting. And the rider education, it seems like perhaps a video, educational video could be hosted on our website that could help with that. And I'm curious about the rejection rate. Could you speak to that, what that means?

Yes. So that rejection rate is the seat unavailability rate. So that was the 7% figure in that daily snapshot. So that happens during peak periods where all the seats are full. Again, when we're running a full fleet, we have 12 vehicles on the road. So there's high demand. We have a ride request every minute on a workday.

All right. Thank you. Next I see Vice Mayor.

Thank you. So yeah, I the yeah, during the rush hour, I guess, not even rush, maybe like after two or three, the wait time is very long. And then it is, you might not even get offered a ride. And once I got a ride, I was at the Anza, but then it would take 20, more than twenty minutes. And the car was driving, getting stopped on 85.

They are getting stopped under traffic from out of the city. So, I'm wondering, is it possible that during peak hours, we prioritize local rights so that people who are taking shorter city right close get prioritized so that the cars do not take long trips and getting stuff on the way, especially because this kind of long trips would take a lot of time. And with a flat rate, it's not making the problem less sustainable.

Yeah, that's something we can look at and this is already something we're monitoring. I've been talking with Via about those long trips to the Caltrain stations, especially during peak congestion. And one proposal that they've brought to us that they've done in other markets and we're still talking about it is maybe we can connect those rides through other TNCs. So that ride to the Sunnyvale station would be carried by depending on where it is, maybe a Waymo, maybe an Uber or Lyft because having a vehicle be drawn out of our core service area would is just going to have it's gonna drive up our wait times as we're talking about here.

Yeah. And also, I think the Sunnyvale idea of if there is existing VTA route and they direct you through that is good, but maybe not refusing, but maybe priorities. For example, we see a lot more usage along the ANSA because there is probably less VTA bus available. You'll see less, less demand usage along Stevens Creek. I'm guessing it's not because there are less users, but because there are more bus rides available.

So for example, once I took it, also trying to get from the Anza to the city hall, to the library. And I requested SV hopper first. And the wait time was so long, and then I eventually took a bus and canceled the ride. Had to pay $1 But then I find out, oh, actually, some routes, the bus is a better option. There are the frequency was really good.

So maybe then we can deprioritize those requesting rights along Stevens Creek, so they are more likely to seek other options. That way, we can have better service for those areas that has less VTA service. So is it possible for SV Hopper to support this kind of prioritization?

Yes. Maybe not prioritization, but we can certainly provide VTA timetables within the app, and then those routes can be visualized and provide you with a different trip alternative. So that's something that VIA can definitely do. Saying, hey, actually, you know what? Your wait time is twenty one minutes, but the VTA bus on the 55 is gonna come in seven. We recommend you take this trip. So that's something we can do.

And but then so the thing is, if, say, two person requests write at the same time, one is near Stevens Creek, one is in an area that doesn't have VTA write, do they get the same priority? Or does it depend on how close they are to other existing vehicles?

I'm not completely following, but in this scenario, it would really just apply to if a ride can be easily completed by existing transit. So if you're on Stevens Creek or you're on Wolf And Miller or De Anza Boulevard and you wanted to complete a trip that would be along one of those corridors, we could present that information within the app as a potentially quicker alternative.

But what I'm requesting is not only presenting an option, but giving the other request to who is not on Stevens Creek a higher priority in the queue.

Okay. I see. Yeah. I'm not sure how their algorithm works, but that's something we can have a conversation with them about.

Okay. So then another comment is, from my experience, the riders are very friendly, and some of them were former Uber drivers. And they decide I talked to them. They decide with SV Hopper, they get better job security and better working hours. So, they choose to move to SV hopper. However, one driver did tell me when he first start on the job, the first day, no with no training, he had to start driving. So I don't know if that's a regular situation or abnormal.

That's something that's not consistent with what Via's driver training protocols are and something we'll bring up to them.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Freund. Yeah.

Hopefully just a quick one to piggyback off of something that one of the public comments raised is whether you've had conversations with the school district specifically from Mount Union High School District on potential expansion to some of their campuses. I know that there has been a lot of interest in reaching Limbruck for example, which is relatively close to the city borders.

Yeah. So we did look at what including Limbrough would cost and presented that information. We also had conversations with Foothill College, had via model out some scenarios on what that would cost And neither were interested in moving forward.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you. So the recommended action is that we receive the report and support staff's proposal to pursue a transit and intercity rail capital program cycle eight application. So the city attorney, what kind of action are are we hoping to do here? Just kind of a straw poll on whether or not we support the grant funding?

But you could do more than a straw poll but we really can't take action.

Okay. So

in other words you could actually have a vote but, it can't be an action vote.

Okay so we can vote to support the recommended action?

We could vote to receive it.

Okay why don't you do a straw poll vote then?

All

right. Because we really should not be taking action in a study session.

Okay So do do we have, general support for this? Yes. Seeing nods. Yes. Yes. I've got three. Vice mayor? You in support of?

So the grant funding is for next year.

Can I just intervene? I'm sorry. So we would like to be able to pursue not just the TRSIP grant for the next cycle we are looking at, but basically any grants or other funding opportunities that might be available to enable us to look at continuing the program beyond the current four years. And that just for your assurance, we would come back to you all as a body for approval any grants that we would have received before accepting. You know, obviously we would have to discuss what the next phase of the program would look like.

So we just need to kind of be able to jump on opportunities as we see them because sometimes deadlines approach quickly and we want to be able to try to find as much money as we can.

Thank you. Could we look at the per ride cost? Because there was that one request that we consider increasing it. I don't know if we're comparable to other cities providing a similar service. But is that something that you could look into a little bit?

Yes, we can definitely do that.

And also I think maybe we should consider longer rides, the cost should be higher, at least comparable high comparably higher with commercial on demand shuttle. And so that way, the offset for the shorter ride, the cost for the shorter ride will be lower also. I mean, the cost for the shorter ride could increase, but the cost for the much longer ride should increase much larger. If we can explore that next time it comes back to the council, that would be great. And whether we is the possibility is there a possibility to prioritize shorter ride that's near the city core than the other ride?

But, of course, hospital is different. I think that that way will be different from Kelchin. Right? Yeah.

Yes. We can investigate that.

But in terms of grant funding, I would prefer we don't use don't request funding from, like, congressmen for SV hopper because I would hope that funding from legislators and the congress is infrastructure that will last for longer rather than filling a gap of one year, and then it's kind of not we will see a sustained impact. So I would prefer if we grant funding would focus on more like transportation VTA fund. I don't know what the other council members think about that.

Are you done?

Yeah.

So, the request from Congressman Conno was not for VTA funding. It was for city hall and Tory. So, this came as a surprise, the 1,200,000. So, I don't know where that request came from. But when I met with him directly, the request was for those capital improvement projects.

No, what do you mean future funding? Are we going to pursue that for?

That gets into grant funding policy Mhmm. Which is kind of out of the scope for this. But this agenda item doesn't talk about going to the congressman and requesting funding for it. Do they have But other then they

are talking about all sources.

Yeah. We would we would like to consider any any source of funding, because it's not easy to come by. But if there are certain qualifications that council would like to make to that degree, that would be helpful to to have this evening.

Well, we're sort of setting policy right here with regards to project.

I think Mhmm. For this particular project, I would prefer that we don't use funding from legislators or the congressmen so that they can be used for other project. Think that's more do we have concurrence from the other council members for this particular I

have a question for the city manager. Do you know how this came to pass, the 1,200,000?

Yes, mayor. I I do believe I just checked in. It it staff did request it last year.

Okay. It was a request from last year. Correct. Okay. And do we have an opinion from staff or the city manager about having putting a request in for SV Hopper in the future?

So I think this year there were a lot of competing priorities that we rather get funding for and staff went ahead and asked for funding for a couple of other infrastructure related projects. So we did not ask for the hopper funding. Although since we're talking about various grant opportunities and to further this project, I think it is appropriate if council wants to kind of have more specific general direction on whether or not to go forward with that particular grant funding for this project. So if you wanted to exclude our request from, you know, congressman Khanna's office for the hopper, but look for other grant opportunities,

we

can do so at this meeting because we are talking about SV hopper project.

I don't have a strong opinion either way. Councilmember Fruin, do you have an opinion on this? And same as council member Mohan.

In general, you know, when we're when we're off asking for money, sometimes the the other side of the equation is interested in giving you things that you aren't necessarily going to prioritize in the same way. Sort of a beggars can't be choosers situation. So I'm I'm happy to accept money that people want to give us.

Of course, if if there is specific grant program, federal grant program, and for that, for microtransit, that will be different. But what I'm talking about is specific requests, I think, from individual councilman, congressman, right?

Through the mayor.

Yes.

Can I just add one more detail to that? So, a lot of time just for information as you deliberate on this, a lot of times the infrastructure project funding requests can be very large. So the only benefit to asking and submitting multiple proposals, for example, is that there's different kinds of grant amounts. So this hopper is usually a smaller amount. Infrastructure project can be very large. So, that's just another information for you to consider.

Okay. And council member Mohan, did you have a thought on this one?

Yeah. I would I would be reluctant to close off any avenues of funding. Whatever funding we can get, we should grab. I mean, my experience is you want more than less. And so, I would not say no to any funding, whether it's for the hopper or for anything else. And there is a general fund cost to the hopper operation. So, anything we get would be subsidizing that.

Okay. So, that's two out of four, and I'm ambivalent. But, I'm going to lean towards if they're going to provide us money, we're going to accept it. But I do understand that for long term funding being grant supported, we need to find something moving forward where we're not continuing to do that. And I think that's probably our biggest challenge, especially since we're 59% grant funded currently. And we have only five minutes left. Vice mayor, your hands raised.

So for congressman funding, I understand there is we there is not really a fixed allocation, and we usually can make one or two requests. And the CD have to prioritize between different projects to request which one. So, wouldn't yeah. So, it's really a prioritization from us what we want to ask. That it's not like because if they give it to if we prioritize and then put SV hopper on top, that means the funding could have gone to another project, maybe a building bridge repair would then go to SV Hopper, but then the general fund has to fund this other infrastructure project.

So, we are now losing if we don't ask for SV helper. Yeah, that's my point. Okay.

All right.

Thank So, are we going to consider raising the right so that will come back? Correct. Okay.

Correct. Okay. I'm seeing no further hands raised. This meeting is adjourned until our six forty five regular council meeting. It's twenty twenty six regular meeting of the Cupertino City Council to order. Please, if you're able to, stand for the pledge of allegiance. 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. Madam City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Freud. Here. Councilmember Mohan. Here. Vice mayor Chao. Here. Mayor Moore. Here. And as a reminder to members of the public and to the council this evening, councilmember Wong is participating virtually this evening, and he will be arriving a little late. As a reminder, as of today, we have not heard from any members of the public that they plan to participate in tonight's meeting from council member Wong's remote location.

Great. Thank you. Madam City Attorney, do we have a closed session report?

We do. This evening the City Council held a closed session. The item on the agenda was discussed and there's no reportable action taken. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Moving on to ceremonial items. Our first item is the recognition of Sanyasi Cheti Momidi Varapu on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday. So we have a very special guest tonight.

I'm pleased to recognize one of our residents who recently celebrated his one hundredth birthday on April 20. This is a special this is a special milestone. Reaching 100 reflects a lifetime of experiences, family, and the opportunity to see a community like Cupertino grow and change over the years. On behalf of the city council, happy one hundredth birthday, and thank you for being part of our community. I'd also like to thank our city staff for their help in honoring this special occasion tonight.

Madam city manager, would you like to make some comments?

Thank you, mayor. I'd like to add my congratulations to mister Chetti on reading reaching this milestone. A hundredth birthday is rare and deeply meaningful, not only for the remarkable life that it represents, but also because tonight marks the beginning of a new tradition for Cupertino. By celebrating, we recognize the generations who've helped shape our community, carry its history, and remind us of the value of connection across time. And we're proud to share this first moment with you and your family. Thank you also to staff for helping with this new tradition, and congratulations and our very best to you. And we'd like to invite you to to take a photo and certificate from our mayor and council.

I quickly ask how other people can request this?

It's a quick question for our city manager. If other individuals would like to have a similar, celebration with council, how can that happen?

Please reach out to us. We would love to celebrate anybody turning 100 in our city. Wonderful.

So our next ceremonial item is the recognition of National Public Service Recognition Week of May third through ninth. It's my honor to recognize Public Service Recognition Week observed this year from May third through ninth, which spotlights the individuals serving communities at every level of government across the country. Here in Cupertino, that service is visible in many ways. It means self safe and well lit streets, parks, and public spaces that are cared for, thoughtful planning for housing and the city's future, and programs and events that bring people together. It also includes the important work happening behind the scenes from managing city finances responsibly to supporting the technology systems residents rely on to access services and information.

Public service is not easy. The work is complex, and the expectations are high. Even so, Cupertino staff show up with professionalism, dedication, and care for the community they serve. On behalf of my colleagues on council, thank you for all that you do. Your work is meaningful, and it's truly appreciated by our residents. Madam city manager, would you like to add some comments?

Thank you, mayor. You said it beautifully, but I did also have a very short script prepared for this. So there's no surprise that we love this tradition in Cupertino, is celebrating National Public Service Week. It gives us a moment to pause and appreciate the people who keep everything running, often without much fanfare. Public service is often most powerful when it's least visible.

From safe streets, clean parks, safeguarding our city's resources, keeping residents informed, and ensuring transparency to legal support, technology advancements, and every department working in sync. It's a true team effort. Our staff does this work with professionalism and care, even when balancing limited resources and competing priorities. And knowing what progress does, that progress does not always equate to everyone being happy. We are proud to serve a healthy and engaged community.

And yes, our staff shows up every day ready to listen, adapt, and keep moving the work forward. We're proud to serve such an engaged community, and this week is about taking a moment to say we see you and we thank you. To all city employees, thank you for everything you do, and thank you council for helping shine a light on this work that often goes and goes unnoticed and happens quietly. I'm honored to accept this proclamation on behalf of our entire city team, but I will ask my executive team and any staff present today to please join me in receiving it. Thank you and happy Public Service Week.

Thank you.

Alright. Our next ceremonial item is the recognition of May 2026 as National Physical Fitness Month. During National Physical Fitness Month, we recognize the important role that physical activity and regular movement play in supporting longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. During National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, we recognize the important role that physical activity has, and that's a double line. I'm not going to read it twice.

I invite you to participate in the Move More campaign, an alternative an initiative that encourages us all to get out and move each month together with me and your fellow residents, whether that's joining a yoga in the park session, helping clean up a creek. Please keep the paddles down, there's people behind you that need to see. Thank you very much. Helping clean up a creek or tracking your miles on a bike ride. Please join me and learn more at coopertino.gov forward /mayorsinitiative.

And lastly, item four is recognition of May as National Foster Care Month. Assembly member Patrick Ehrens will receive the proclamation recognizing May as National Foster Care Month. Joining us virtually tonight is assembly member Patrick Arons, representing California's 26th District. Assembly member Arons brings an important perspective to the state capital. Having navigated housing and food insecurity in his youth, he understands firsthand that stability is a necessity for California's 60,000 foster children.

He has turned that personal experience into policy through his support California foster kids legislative package. These bills address the challenges foster youth face when aging out of the system, Specifically by strengthening housing protections, expanding food assistance, and improving access to higher education. As we recognize National Foster Care Month, we appreciate having a representative in Sacramento dedicated to practical legislative reform. Please join me in welcoming assembly member Patrick Ahrens to the screen to accept this proclamation. So we'll we'll move up.

Hi, mayor. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. That that was very touching, mayor Moore, and thank you to the Cupertino City Council and the Cupertino community for your steadfast support for our foster youth. I think now more than ever, in the state of California and the country, we need to look to supporting, the foster youth of California.

I'm really proud to have six bills authored in that space. And so I wanna just thank you all so much for everything, and thank you for the support of the foster legislation. And thank you, mayor Moore and the city council for your leadership. I'm in Sacramento, so apologies for the loud noise, but I wanted to say thank you so much, everyone, for your support for our foster youth.

Thank you Patrick. Thank you for taking the time out. And we really wanted to recognize you for all the work that you're doing for the foster children. Thank you so much. And so we're taking a group photo here, and we're going to have a montage with you in it as well.

So we have to hold still. Alright. Thank you. And the mic's all set.

Okay.

Alright. Thank you, assembly member Aaron. We'll get you your proclamation and and your group photo.

Thank you, mayor Moore. Thank you. It's good to see everyone back home. Take care.

Okay. You too. Thanks. Alright. So next, we move on to postponements and orders of the day.

Mayor, I think your mic is not on.

My my mic is not on, or do I need to be closer? Okay. Is that better?

Yes.

Okay. Very good. So we've completed the ceremonial items. Our next item is postponements and orders of the day. I move that we postpone item 21, the council procedures manual to meet the timeline requirements of the civil grand jury report, to provide time to incorporate any necessary edits, carefully. Do I have a second on that item?

Second. Okay.

I heard council member Mohan seconded. Madam city clerk, will you please call conduct the roll call vote?

Council member Freund.

Aye.

Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Vice mayor Chao. Aye. Mayor Moore. Aye. Motion carries with Wong absent.

Alright. Thank you. Next, we move on to oral communications. Madam city clerk, how many speaker cards do we have at this time?

Okay.

Well, seeing as how we have a full house, I would like to limit the speaker time to ninety seconds. And I understand that the more cards can come in, and we have people online, in order to ensure that the city's agendized business, is addressed.

Yes. Mayor, at this time, I believe we have about 13 requests to speak in person, but this also encompasses about, I believe, four or five groups, as well as I currently see two hands raised virtually.

Okay. And so when we move to ninety seconds in the past, we go for, for the groups, we were having a total of was it five minutes?

So before reduced time count, the groups, up to five people in the group could have 10. So it would be limited to two minutes per person in the group up to no more than five minutes for ten minutes. Five people for ten minutes.

Okay. So in the when we reduce it to ninety seconds, it's five five people for

trying to

gets tricky. I didn't. I don't remember what the calculation was on that.

I think it was five for five. Do you want Five for a max of five.

Do you wanna do one minute per person for the groups to make Yes. Thank

you.

One per one minute per person for the groups and then you what would are we doing the same for individual speakers?

So ninety seconds individual speakers, five people. If you're having a group, that's five minutes total.

Okay.

Does that seem acceptable? Also, just for kind of the our our house conduct, please, if you have paddles, you can hold them in front of yourself, but please do not block the views of anyone behind you. We are very respectful of, people with different opinions here, so, we do not, cheer on and clap and do things like that. We want everyone to feel welcome, speaking here this evening. So with that, madam city clerk, would you, please share the instructions for all communications and conduct this item?

Yes, mayor. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter within the jurisdiction of the council and not on the agenda for discussion. Oral communication shall be limited to thirty minutes. Additional speakers wishing to comment on non agenda items may be given time to speak at the end of the agenda after the city manager's report. Individual speakers are limited to three minutes.

In this case, we do have reduced time. As necessary, the mayor may further limit the time allowed individual speakers or reschedule remaining comments to the end of the meeting on a first come, first heard basis with priority given to students. In most cases, state law will prohibit the council from discussing or making any decisions with respect to a matter not listed on the agenda. A council member may, however, briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by speakers. A council member may also ask a question for clarification, provide a reference for factual information, request staff to report back concerning a matter, or request that an item be added to a future city council agenda in response to public comment.

Members of the public wishing to speak regarding oral communication shall submit a request to speak or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes of the start of public comment or before the public comment period is closed, whichever comes first. So at this time, we will move to in person request to speak under oral communications. We will welcome Steve Soljit, followed by, Catherine Chu's group, and then followed by Zoe Tran's group. So, welcome Steve. You'll have ninety seconds.

Thank you for allowing me to be here. My name is Steve Solgut. I represent the Cupertino Toekawa sister city program, and I'm here today to thank the city of Cupertino for their support for our twenty twenty six Cherry Blossom Festival, which took place the weekend of April twenty fifth and twenty sixth. This was our forty second Cherry Blossom Festival and we couldn't have had this event without the distinct help and support of the city of Cupertino. This event is for the people of Cupertino, but also as we found out for many others.

We did a survey this year to find out where people are from and what they're interested in and discovered about 22% of the people who attended were not from Cupertino. They're from our surrounding cities. And we think the festival offers an opportunity for people from our surrounding communities to see what Cupertino has to offer and to experience an event meant for everyone. One of the interesting comments I had from somebody was you're not going to make a lot of money with the weather, and we had to remind them we're not here to make money. We're here to have a community event and see a variety of vendors and performances and exhibits that are a creation of a vibrant and diverse community.

Also, it was very, very nice to see all the members of the city council there as well as Japanese consulate and representatives from local and state government on stage because it shows that people are there and they care. Part of the things I enjoy is seeing what people don't see, and we thank Rochelle Sanders and her staff for our support. They're there at seven in the morning until 10:00 at night and to see them out there working is very, very appreciated. And so we thank you for our event and look forward to seeing you April 2027.

Thank you, Steve.

Thank you.

Next we will welcome Catherine Chu's group followed by Zoe Tran's group followed by, no name on this one, CPC. I have an email, overtonmaw SBC. So yes, I don't have a name. But welcome, Katherine Chu, and your group. I see four names. So we will have four minutes on the clock.

Four names plus myself. Right?

Female That is correct. So we will reset it to five. Thank you for the correction. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, and staff. I'm Cathy Chew, a member of the leadership team of the Cupertino Pickleball Club. I'm here tonight to register objections regarding the planned trial to restrict hours of play and the requests for quiet paddles at all hours at Memorial Park. But before I go on, I want to take just a second to ask all those who are here, part of the CPC as well as the community, please raise your hand or paddle.

Thank you very much for being here. In early twenty twenty five, when our neighbors raised concerns about pickleball noise, our club proactively took steps to work with both Parks and Rec and the neighbors to address them. For example, we proposed and the PNR agreed that lights on the courts be turned off by 9PM. After PNR posted their request for quiet paddles, we actively supported it within our community. Compliance has been strong among morning players.

Nearly all of them now use quiet paddles. Evening players, however, are a very mixed group and have largely ignored this request. We believe that the best way to address noise concerns is to ask sound barriers at CMP courts. Like many Bay Area pickleball courts have done at courts across the nation to great effect. Throughout the past several months, our club has worked closely with Public Works to evaluate the best sound barrier solutions.

We involved a nationally recognized expert in structural evaluation of existing fencing free to Cupertino and provide his recommendations to Public Works. We understand the plans are already underway to install additional support structures and noise screens. Here are two vision or visuals that we downloaded. Can you guys see it? It's upside down.

Thank you. One representing the considered solution and the other, the second one, shows the budget proposal. I'm happy to report that all of the foregoing have already had a positive impact. Nearby residents who previously raised noise concerns have expressed satisfaction with the progress and the complaints have subsided. In fact, a text message from one of them last night indicated their complete surprise by and disagreement with the trial.

Given all of the foregoing, the proposed trial to limit play hours and to request quiet gear at all hours feels sudden, heavy handed, and frankly unnecessary. The rules will significantly reduce access without clear justification, and they do not reflect the current reality among our neighbors about the noise issue. An overwhelming majority of our community agree that the most important and effective way forward is for this city, city council, to approve the budget for noise abatement at Memorial Park and to launch the CIP process as soon as possible. The people who are here, and there are many more who are not who are not able to register their strongest objections to that proposed plan. Thank you.

Thank

you, Katherine. Next we will welcome Zoe Tran's group.

Welcome, Zoe. Good evening, mayor, council members, and city staff. Hi. My name is Zoe. I'm a single mom, we just moved here a few months ago. When we first got here, we were trying to find our footing and reconnect as a family. We didn't know anyone yet. But we found this park and this pickleball community, and it made a real difference for us. What stood out to me right away was how inclusive it felt. You see kids, parents, older adults all playing together and people genuinely welcome you in.

That's not something you find everywhere anymore. And for my kids, Lucas and Liam, this has been really meaningful. We've moved about five times in the last three years, so finding a place where we feel like we belong has not been easy. This is the first place where I've seen Lucas settle in, build confidence, connect with others, and make friends. And in a world that can feel overwhelming for kids, this has become a place where he feels safe and where we can spend that time together.

So when I hear about these proposed limitations, it genuinely concerns me, not just as a fan of pickleball, but as a parent watching my child finally feel like he belongs. The truth is these proposed changes don't just affect hours, they affect access. And for families and kids with busy schedules, even small limitations can be the difference between belonging and being left out. And for people who are new, who are still trying to find their place the way we were, the door may not open for them at all. I understand that the city is trying to balance real competing needs, and I truly respect that.

The neighbors' concerns matter, and from what I've seen, this community here has already been willing to adapt through quiet paddles, adjusted behavior, and genuine good faith. And I hope that good faith goes both ways. All I'm asking for today is that before anything is finalized, the city brings this community to the table to weigh all the options together. What's been built here is really special. Please work with us to protect it. I'd love for you to hear from Lucas himself.

Hi. I'm Lucas. Hi. I'm Lucas. I like playing pickleball here. It makes me happy. I made friends, and I feel more confident when I play. Thank you. Thank you, Zoe. Next we will welcome the the CPC group.

There's no other name on this card. Mary Ann Overton, I guess. Mary Ann, do you have a group representing you?

I'm representing the group.

How many people are in your group this evening?

I'm a resident of Cupertino. I pay a lot of taxes so that I can enjoy the park. And playing pickleball is enjoyable and good for my health. Would like to live to 100

So, and Mary Anne, sorry to interrupt you. Are you representing a group or just yourself? I'm just trying to allocate the correct time for your speaking. Just herself. Just myself. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So pickleball is not only good for the old, but it's good for the young too. And I'm representing the 80 and older seniors. So it helps improve health and just taking away one day will affect the rest of the week because then more and more pickleball players will be coming over on those other days and then the wait is twice as long. But, so that's my recommendation is not to take away any days and also just stick with the paddles that we have so we don't have to invest in new paddles for all day, just the quiet hours time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Please. Next we will welcome Chris Farm. I believe you stated you're representing a group. Is there a group with you this evening?

We need four speakers. So

this would be any speakers that have not already spoken or not planning to speak under a different group or individually. Okay. So these you have four people in your group who have not spoken and do not plan to speak. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Hello. So you will have four minutes to speak. Welcome Chris's group.

Their names just took me to mention

Hello, city council. Hart. This is my first time speaking at one of these, so I'll keep it brief. My name is Chris Pham. I play at Cupertino Memorial Park.

I've started playing there maybe six months ago. And like the rest of these fine folks, it is a pleasure to play with everyone. The community is extremely welcoming. I think throughout my life, my short life, in the various sports I've played, I've never played a sport that has been more welcoming, more accessible to people of all backgrounds, of all ages. I believe that, you know, this community has done its best to proactively work with the, you know, the neighborhood, those who are impacted by the, you know, admittedly loud noises that pickleball does bring.

And so I do feel that this proposal to limit the hours, to require, you know, additional equipment to play a sport that everyone loves is a bit excessive, especially when the pickleball community is doing its best to, you know, work with the community and find a solution that works for everyone. Thank you.

Madam city clerk, will you get the speaker cards from the four other members of that particular group, please?

Yes, mayor. So we would just like to collect your names for that group. If you're Thank you. So thank you, mayor. Next, we will welcome Robert George, followed by Tom Cunningham. And he has four names listed with his group, so a total of five people, and then followed by Kevin Yang. So we will welcome Robert George.

Good evening. My name is Robert George. I'm a Cupertino resident, homeowner, and active voter and have been so for twenty five years. I live next to the Blackberry Farm Golf Course, Stevens Creek Trail, Blue Pheasant, Blackberry Farm Picnic Area, and I worked with the city many years ago to create an equitable plan for these locations since they're quite literally behind my house. Every morning I hear noise coming from these areas.

I appreciate the value of having this available to residents and non residents and accept what such attraction that such attractions come with noise and in convenience to those who live nearby. I work from home and accept that living near these attractions often means early morning lawn mowing, leaf blowing, loud trail conversations, laughter music, people ignoring rules, and staying on the trails. People wanna exercise, have fun, and enjoy Cupertino, what Cupertino offers, and I'm willing to accept this even though it may come with noise and inconvenience to me. I'm also an early morning pickleball player. I need to get to Memorial Park At Sunrise to enjoy exercise, great community of people, wonderfully maintained park and courts, and avoid heat related health issues.

I don't have a flexible schedule, so I'm limited to the hours. I'd hate to take my morning play and shopping to Palo Alto's Mitchell Park. They're more accommodating. Here's what I ask of you. We elected you to solve problems. Here's one that for you all to keep working on. So please work with the park and rec department to come up with a better plan.

Thank you, Robert. Next we will move on to Tom Cunningham's group. And I have the names listed as well. Yuriko, Wancheng, Tsai, Bob McElney, and Shelly McElney. I hope I didn't butcher those too bad. So welcome. So we have five people in your group, so you will have five minutes this evening. Welcome.

Hi there. All I ask is that you look at me when I'm talking. It's simple request. My name is Tom Cunningham. I'm a resident of Cupertino, and I've been very involved in the pickleball group for the last year and a half.

First and foremost, I think I want to thank you for being willing to include the sound barrier wall in the budget for consideration. I think that's an important factor. You're talking about an organization that is involving a huge chunk of your community. And as somebody who's been a former HOA president, has worked with numerous city councils, I really appreciate the time that you guys spend, And it's a thankless job, and I really want to thank you very, very much for what you're doing. And I think that we've got some real basic things that we want to communicate.

First and foremost, we're talking about potentially impacting this organization in July, just when summer kicks in, just when the daylight savings allows you to play longer, and just when people who work all day long and may not even be able to get out to the courts until after work can't even arrive until 6PM. I myself take care of an 84 year old man who had a stroke about fifteen years ago. And I'm preparing dinner for him, making sure that he's taken care of before I can even get away. So I really appreciate the fact that I can go and play. And I've never, you know, I've played tennis in Northern California, Southern California, all over the place.

I have never ever interacted with a more friendly, engaging group in my life. I have seen little children with their parents playing on a on a regular basis, retirees, people of every race, religion, and creed. I swear it's the most inclusive group I've ever seen. In fact, out of those six tennis courts, we're only taking up two of them. And out of those two, we're talking about involving 80 people on a regular basis, 32 that are playing and 42 that are are waiting to play.

There are friendships and bonds that are taking place every single day, and it's because of your ability to facilitate this. I know as a as a community leader, you're always trying to create activities that have engagement and inclusion. Right? That makes the most sense. What kind of impact can we create on our you know, for our residents?

Well, you have the perfect solution here because where else are you going to find that kind of impact? You talked about the Cherry Blossom Festival. You wouldn't assess that based upon, oh gosh, look at how much traffic it created. You would talk about it based upon involvement of the community. And that's what we're asking you to consider here.

I mean, could be comparing that in terms of sound and its impact. It'd be like saying, moved to a golf course, but the new Ping golf clubs make too much noise. So can you just use a foam golf ball, and everybody will be happy? It's just not really that easy. I just want to also emphasize from a social economic impact, you have a park that allows people that can engage in an activity that doesn't cost them a fortune.

It's tough. These, you know, a lot of these people, they can't afford to join a private club. They can't afford even to join, you know, Cupertino's, you know, workout group. This allows them to come on a regular basis and interact with people and form really strong friendships. And like I shared, from six to 80, I've never seen anything like it before.

And I really invite you to please come down there and and see what what people are are participating in. But more importantly, I really wanna emphasize that if you can make this sound barrier wall work, please do. Because I think it would be a wonderful solution. And as you've already heard, we're more than willing to cooperate with the community to try and make this work. So thank you again for everything that you do. Really appreciate it.

Thank you Tom and Tom's group. Next we will welcome Kevin Yang, followed by Adam Oren's group, followed by Arif S. Welcome Kevin.

Hi. My name is Kevin Young. I'm a longtime resident of Cupertino. I have been living in Cupertino for more than twenty one years with my three kids and my wife. All my three kids went to through the public school and I have been actively involved in the community by volunteering as the Boy Scout Cup Master for five years in Ragnard Elementary School.

So I taught many people to teach pickleball. And I found that the best place to do this is in Memorial Park. I've been to many pickleball course in the Bay Area. And I found the Memorial Park pickleball course to be the most friendly and most welcoming place for new beginners. So we have something really special there.

And I think the council should consider it to keep it regular hours. I have never been to any pickleball court with our restriction specified in the trial program. Is totally unfair, you know, for our resident to get that kind of treatment. Another thing I wanted to mention is I'm a very busy working professional. I do not have a flexible schedule. So the only time I can work out is early morning and evening hours. Thank you.

Thank Kevin. Next we will welcome Adam Oren and your group with Danielle, Connie, Boone and Danny. 12, 3. So we will have five minutes on the clock for you and your group this evening.

Hello. Thank you. My name is Adam Oren. I grew up in Cupertino, and I attend Homestead High School. I was taught from a young age that this was a community of acceptance. Nothing better exemplifies this than our community. It does not ask who you are or where you're from. It's a community as diverse as the brands of paddles in this room, which is a lot. We have never asked for special treatment, but now we are being asked to restrict access to this community. I learned, played, and even represented our city at the high school national championships, and this lack of support has me astonished.

My these people are my friends, and they are my family, and we have built a community here. We are here together because we love this community, and I urge you to consider the values that make this city a great one. One of which, these these values are acceptance and community. And by stopping this this trial, we allow these values to thrive. I'd like to tell you a story. I came at this community truly unsure of myself, and frankly, afraid of the community I'd find. But here, was welcomed with open arms. I was taught by these people. They offered me community. They offered food to those who were hungry, and equipment to those who needed it, and they have never turned someone away.

So please do not do that to them. Please protect this space that we have, and that we have made a home. By rejecting this trial and following through on the plan for the sound barrier. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam and the group. Next, we will welcome Arif s followed by Rajiv Patek. Welcome, Arif.

Hello. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Arif. I'm a resident of Cupertino. And one of the reasons to move to Cupertino was to use the park facilities, specifically the pickleball.

I'm here to voice concerns on the plans to put restrictions on the pickleball timings as well as how it's played. My kids and I play in the morning as well as in the evening, on the day of the week. By putting these restrictions, you're basically telling me not to play. And and most and basically, you're also telling certain sections, most people not to play because the timings would not work. And you're also telling them to forego all the benefits that comes with the pickleball, such as fun time, family, friends, help, etcetera.

The real solution, as others have said, is to put a sound wall or some sort of a barrier. And city really needs to figure out a way to fund the project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Next we will welcome Rajiv, followed by Varun, followed by Rota Fry. Welcome, Rajiv. Is Rajiv in the audience this evening? No Rajiv?

Okay.

If he's not here, we're going to move on. So we will move to Varnum Singh. Varnum, you have two people right right in your group. Are you speaking as a group?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. So you have two minutes this evening. Welcome.

Hello, council, and thank you for allowing us to be here. We are environmental science students from Monte Vista High School, and we are here to voice our concerns about the management of city land and the lack of green space in our community. We are worried about the lack of invasive of awareness of invasive versus native plants in our community and how this is leading to a less stable environment. The main issue is invasive species. For example, several years ago, Lake Cunningham had many invasive species such as poison hemlock and cape ivy, which were killing near nearby native species.

Instead of tending instead of spending time and money micromanaging these invasive plants, it'd be better to replace them with native species so that newly added plants can help the ecosystem, and fertilizer does not need to be wasted on maintaining invasive species. Native plants native plant species can increase biodiversity and can even help us sustain the local environment by providing food and pollination to other local species. Furthermore, we can also use areas with little to no plants to increase biodiversity by planting native plants in those areas.

Specific native species will be more ideal than others for addressing the issues of dead spaces and fragile ecosystems. For example, frog fruit is a grass variety that requires minimal water and can be used widespread as a widespread ground cover in parks and lawns. Additionally, sunshine mimosa ground cover is a nitrogen fixation plant and can attract more insects like butterflies and bees nearby. We believe that planting more native species and spreading awareness about dead zones can lead to an increase in tourism as it makes areas in Cupertino more attractive also aiding the environment around it. While plants like May seem negligible in the short run, they can increase the ground's ability to to absorb water and decrease the amount of water pollution in the city while also maintaining the quality of soil.

So even if, like, if it doesn't seem like what what we're doing is important, like, in the long term, it can really help just the overall biodiversity of everything in Cupertino. So, yeah, that's what it's worth.

Thank you. You. Next, we will welcome Rhoda Fry, and then mayor, we will move into the request to speak virtually. So welcome, Rhoda.

Hi. Good evening. Disappointed that there you're not hearing from neighbors of the pickleball courts. I do not live nearby, but I've heard them, and the noise is really obnoxious. Okay, you can say boo. Now De Anza College has offered space. I think we should work with De Anza College to get more space for pickleball. So I hope you look at that, because the people who live there deserve to have their peace. And when they moved there, pickleball wasn't there. That level of noise wasn't there.

Anyway, the main I came here for actually another reason. Flock cameras. Now I understand that were, Santa Clara County said we can't do them anymore and we should rip them out. Turns out that Sunnyvale has figured out how to not rip them out. And I think we should do that too.

And after we've reengaged them, we should use them. Very disappointing to hear about the lack of sheriff response when we know who license plates on people who've committed crimes. I went to a block party, a block meeting, hearing from residents that they've shown their personal cameras, whole bunch of neighborhood cameras to the sheriff's, and they're not moving forward on investigating thefts here. So, we need this is a two part solution, and and I hope you can move forward on it. Thank you.

Thank you, Rhoda. And before we move to the request to speak virtually, mayor, council member Wong has joined. So council member Wong, I have my questions to ask. Thank you for joining this evening. Council member Wong, are can you confirm that you are in the lobby this evening of the Renaissance Cincinnati Downtown Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio?

Yes, I am.

Thank you. And council member Wong, can you confirm that you posted the agenda at your location?

Yes, I have and a picture has been sent to you.

Thank you. And council member Wong, are there any individuals over the age of 18 with you and has anyone indicated to you that they intend to make public comment or address the council this evening?

None at this moment.

Thank you. I'll rely on you to notify me if any members of the public wishes to speak from your location. Thank you.

I will. Thank you.

And mayor and council, at this time, we will move to request to speak virtually under oral communications. And we have five requests five five hands raised virtually. We will welcome in the following order, Tracy Kosocialone, Peggy Griffin, call in user one, Sandra, followed by Jennifer Griffin. So welcome Tracy.

Good evening city council. My name is Tracy Kasolcharan. I serve as chair of Cupertino Planning Commission. And tonight at the direction of the commission on 04/14/2026, I wanted to share the results of our community noticing subcommittee report. The goal of the community noticing subcommittee was to address continued feedback that many residents and businesses were unaware of major projects and zoning changes or found out too late.

So I wanted to just briefly recap some of the Planning Commission's recommendations for community noticing improvements. I know that I only have ninety seconds so this is not comprehensive and the full list is via email. And I'm happy to discuss later if anyone has questions. So first the commission expressed unanimous approval for increasing the noticing radius for larger project public hearings. Zoning changes such as the seven housing element. Very high fire hazard zone area projects. Expanding that noticing to one quarter mile. As well as proposals for changes to any major streets. And as shown in the subcommittee report, several neighboring cities are officially noticing for large projects at 500 to seven fifty feet. And staff already also does this unofficially.

So the cost impact here would be relatively minor. It would primarily just be on the changes to major streets as well as zoning changes. I'm running out of time. The the full report is available via email. Thank you very much to staff for helping to figure out the new process for the subcommittee to make its report out to council. And thank you very much to council for your attention to this issue.

Thank you Tracy. Next we will welcome Peggy Griffin.

Good evening counsel and staff. I want to express my frustration with the politicizing of our government facilities in in in specifically the grand jury. I mean, it's election time and all of a sudden there's an election report and it attacks Council Member Wang. And it has happened over and over and over again. Which changes our perspective on our procedures and our committees and the jury.

I don't respect the grand jury anymore because of the politicizing of their reports. I also want to, point out that it's time to stop. Calm it down. I'm talking to both sides. Stop it. We are trying to elect officials. We want the best candidate to win. Stop the BS. Stop the attacks.

Entirely Thank you, Peggy. Thank That is your you. Next, we will welcome colon user one. Call in user one, are you there? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome.

Good evening, council members. And actually, I just heard something about pickleball. And my previous study brief study that I feel like the city, I think, was standing in a different location. Maybe that location can have less restriction. I don't know. And also, if it's noise, I was thinking that way to have like a sound board, sound wall, like highway. I mean, just some thoughts. That's just a quick thought. I think I need to do a little more study on it. I'm here actually today because I have not we have not received response to our request to a meeting.

And since the second time 2021 and the property and taking without notice even belongings, and we're still facing the ongoing sanction and the retaliation, like political refugee and no clear explanation for that long time. And the people have similar thing to us in even legal field. They never had that long time. So we have made multiple efforts to resolve the issue respectfully directly, but those requests have not canceled. And we feel like we are prejudiced because we had a weak either because we had a weak residence of the city.

And so we really want this resolved and this lack of communication is deeply concerning. We're asking for three simple things, clear explanation why the learning is also taken. And another thing is review of current sanction placed on us.

You, Colin, user one, that is your time. Next, we will welcome San Rao followed by Jennifer Griffin. Welcome, San.

Good evening, mayor Moore, council members, planning commissioner here speaking on behalf of myself, also the 2025 chair of the planning commission. I'd like to comment on this grand jury report that was just released. What kind of city would we be if we limited who could participate in our council and commissions? If we limited it to people that cannot travel and will need to be there in person all the time, we are saying people with families that are remote can never serve on a commission or council. We are saying that people who need to travel for work can never serve.

People who have the business and need to travel for business reasons can never serve. People who have to care for their elder parents can never serve. Immigrant communities with families abroad can never serve. What kind of community would we be? We are seeing that seniors with grandkids that live elsewhere can never serve. Council member Wong is not remote for convenience. He is remote to earn a livelihood for his family. And we're saying you can either choose to do that or serve. Council member Wong represents the residents of Cupertino far more than many of your diocese. And to deny council member Wong the opportunity to be remote and serve his family's needs while serving the city's needs is not convenience.

We should be fortunate that we have members of the public willing to serve when they have a live carrier. And to deny them the opportunity to do that is to limit representation of Cupertino residents. This is suppression of democracy. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Next we will welcome Jennifer Griffin.

Hello, good evening. Can you all hear me?

We can hear you.

Oh, yes, thank you. This is Jennifer Griffin. And I will tell you I am very, very concerned about the civil grand jury report. We went through something like this during the pandemic. And we had to use remote during pandemic.

I think it's very important that we just recognize that we had our assembly member come in tonight from Sacramento via remote. He's up in Sacramento doing good works, and he was able to join us tonight earlier to speak about issues that are important to Cupertino. I often now have to take care of we have elderly people in our family. We just installed Wi Fi at my mother's in Aptos so that I can come in on Zoom there to other meetings, And then my mother-in-law in San Jose. But, and that's, I'm coming in tonight that way too.

I think that there are decisions that are made about how we come in remotely. And I'm happy with the way things are, what the city clerk went through tonight to verify that everything is being done legally for council members, etcetera, commissioners coming in remotely. I don't have a problem with it, and I think it should continue. It really helps. Think I'm all

Thank you, Jennifer. Yes, that is your time. Thank you.

Good.

Thank you. I do have one hand raised, but that hand was raised after the nine minute cutoff, mayor. So that concludes the request to speak under oral communications this evening.

Alright. Thank you, madam city clerk. Next is our consent calendar. Madam city clerk, do we have any items that have been pulled from consent?

No, mayor. Not that I have received.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have council members who wish to pull an item? Council member Fruin?

Yes. I'm not asking to pull an item, but I do want to make separate comments on item 14.

Okay. Okay. I would as well. Okay. I'm not seeing any other hands raised for this item. Do members of the public wish to speak to the consent items at this time?

Mayor, at this time I have one request to speak in person. I currently see one hand raised virtually.

Okay.

Okay. So at this time, this speaker card does not have a name. Rhoda. Okay. So we will welcome Rhoda, and then we'll go to the request to speak virtually. Just as a reminder, members of the public wishing to speak regarding any items on the consent calendar shall submit a request to speak hard or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes of the start of this public comment period or before the public comment period is closed, whichever comes first. Welcome Rhoda.

I managed to fill everything out except for my name, my apologies. Anyway, regarding Sister Cities, before you like to see, perhaps you could postpone this. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to write to you all in detail. But anybody who does anything with sister cities needs to watch the Dwight D. Eisenhower's video when these sister city programs were created.

These were created for neighbor to neighbor. It wasn't, it was actually, that was it was about. It was grassroots diplomacy. It wasn't about diplomat to diplomat. And I think that we should not have any city staff go on sister city trips.

If they do, they should do it on their own time and on their own dime. We should not be having PTO for staff going on sister city trips or paid time. It's wrong. And it goes against what the sister cities programs are about. If there is a staff person who wants to put on their regular normal person hat, they can take vacation time and open their own wallets and go on the trip just like everybody else does.

But I've seen this so so many times also in the past among council members who went on many many trips. Also abuse of expenses. There's a little bit of a disconnect when city employees, although they're not supposed to travel internationally, but when city employees do travel, they're not supposed to travel business class. However, we have seen city council members travel business class and have half that ticket reimbursed. Or stay at luxury hotels and have half of that reimbursed.

That's wrong. You know what, if you want to go, you can go economy and maybe have half economy or half of economy reimbursed. And if you want to go business class, you can do it on your own dime. But it's just not right to me and it really sets a bad tone for how we spend our public money.

And

we just want you to represent, we like you to represent the city, but we also want you know, our residents to represent representative as well. Nobody's paying residents to go. So the fact that if you get half back on an economy ticket, that's saying something. But you shouldn't get half back on a first class or business, nor at a Ritz Hotel or any of those things. So I've said my piece, thank you very much. Have a good night.

Thank you, Rhoda. And that concludes the request to speak here in person in community halls. We will move to the request to speak virtually. We have one hand raised, we will welcome Sanrao.

Good evening, mayor Moore, council members. Vice mayor Chow, speaking on behalf of myself only as an resident. I'd like to comment on the consent calendar items that involves street paving. I would like to provide my strong support for street paving. Under mayor Darcy Paul, we had some of the best streets in the city.

We have allowed the streets to degrade under the prior council that made street paving a non priority that needs to be undone and restored despite the reports that came out saying Cupertino has good streets. The conditions on the ground tell a different story. If you drive on Bub, if you drive on Stevens Creek, if you drive in Creston, the conditions are quite bad. And and as we as we look at this report, I fully support and request that we prioritize more street paving. I also wanna say the slurry seal is not sufficient.

You need to look at actually doing paving because I've seen slurry seal on lockboard that was done a year ago or maybe two years ago. And with with the winter rains, the slurry seal tends to flow downhill. So when you use slurry seal on on streets that have a gradient, the slurry seals flows downhill. And then if you come look at Lockwood now, you'll see quite a bit of striations where the slurry seal flew downhill or or, basically went downhill after the, after the rains. I also want to point out Creston has been ignored in this process.

I have a number of streets in the Northwest corner of the city to the East of Hotel and to the North Of Vista Knoll, so I'd encourage public works director. Mostly, if you'd like to come out for a drive, I'd like to take him around. Starling Drive, Baxter Drive, Creston Drive, Einsworth Drive. A number of these streets are in really bad condition. Just because they're the far end of the city should mean that they should be ignored. I wanna thank director Mosley for including Inspiration Heights. We have not seen pavement work done here in over twelve years, all my time I've been here. And please do not ignore Creston. I'd like you to see Creston and then decide if you can include the streets I mentioned. I'd be happy to send you a mail with those streets mentioned as well.

Finally, before I run out of time, I do want to say I support the sister cities, and I can speak to that another time. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on the consent calendar.

All right. Thank you very much. With regards to item 14, I did get an email from mayor Turner that he has three other cities which have signed on to his letter as it is, and he will be sending it tomorrow, if that helps. So I'm not sure if this item is, is a moot point, because of that. Council member Freund, do you have some thoughts on the matter?

I just wanted to thank you for the openness and the willingness to collaborate on it.

Okay. Good. I think they're great ideas that you have added to it. And perhaps there's another route that we can work in the future. I'm not sure. Are we still wanting to send this as an individual letter from Cupertino? Because it's not that we're no longer looking at the multi jurisdictional letter. We're we have our own at this time.

I I feel comfortable with it. And if mayor Turner's open to it, that's his business too.

Okay. So he's sent he's already sending the one that he's written up. So we can send one independently. Okay? So, do you would, I'd like to make a motion to break out item 14 to vote on it, separately, from the rest of the the consent calendar. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second. Okay. Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

I do have a question.

On item 14? Not

14. So the other items. Do we now do fourteen first? Do we all do all the question comments?

I think the mayor was just taking a vote on whether to, pull the 14 out and vote on it separately.

Yes. But I thought we would actually go ahead and vote on it and then and then move the rest of the consent calendar in one omnibus motion and and vote on that. And then, like, if there's a comment on the remaining items that would happen

to to pull it or can we just make a motion for item 14? And then make a motion for the rest?

I do think you can make an item for 14 and then make a motion for the rest, but I assumed that you were voting to pull it.

Oh, no. Just to vote on it separately from the rest in case we have some disagreement. I don't want item 14 to cause the entire set to have an issue.

Wait. So the motion was to vote

To item vote yes. To move item 14 to a vote. So that we would vote now on item 14, pull it apart, and then we will pull it out of the set, and then we'll look at the the rest. So madam city clerk Mayor Addict Yes. Comment? Sure.

I was one of the I'm probably the only one who had reservations about the original letter that we discussed that Mayor Turner drafted. So, I'm really pleased with the effort that's gone into this version. So, I'm hoping that you won't make any changes if Mr. Mayor Turner wants to jump in with you guys. I'm perfectly okay with that. But, as a standalone letter with the the way it's drafted now, I think it's a far superior document than the earlier wish.

Thank you for that. Yeah. And council member Freud, you can accept a lot of of that praise there. Okay. So, madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Yes, mayor. Do we have a second? And I apologize if

I didn't Oh, I seconded Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. So we are voting on item number 14. Councilmember Freud.

Aye.

Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong.

Nay.

Vice mayor or vice mayor Chow? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. Motion carries with long voting no.

Okay. So next, we are voting to move consent calendar items five through thirteen and fifteen through 18. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second?

Second. Yes. But I do have some questions and ask.

Please, please do.

So one public comment mentioned the difference between slurry seal that we are seeing a lot more than the repavement. I believe that's a result of our budget situation. So we have decided to reduce the cost. So we cannot we don't do as much repayment, right? Can we clarify that?

Is this working? There it is. Good evening, counsel.

Chad Mosley.

Chad director of public works. I think my predecessor also liked to talk about paving, so here I am talking about paving. We use a combination of both an overlay project as well as slurry seal. Slurry seal does a great job of prolonging the life of pavement and it does it at a very reasonable cost. It does not it's not necessarily the same product as a paving overlay. It's not that we're trying to cut paving costs by replacing overlays with slurry. We're actually using slurry as a life prolonger for the paving. So it's standard process for keeping paving in a good condition.

Okay. So, then, yeah, the next question is for the sister city policy. So, with this update, any staff travel will also require council approval. Does that also include the vacation time or paid staff time to maybe take any international travel? Because in the past, we had staff traveled on city paid hours for this international trip to sister city.

And what does the current proposal's revised policy say?

So, it doesn't the policy doesn't go into the details of the time. It you know, It does clarify, though, if there's staff travel involved, that it will come to counsel for approval. So, that might be the

Only the traveling cost or the approval also for the to stated purpose of to allow paid staff time overseas?

I think all inclusive. So if it's council approved staff travel, that means it's city related. So we would bring, you know, it would be covered by the city in terms of the cost and then the time off.

Okay. It's a little vague in the policy, but I'd like to clarify if that's included. That's good. Yeah. Just want to clarify. So for the current sister city and friendship city, there is no change in the amount of meeting space they can use or any other change, right? We are just defining terms. Want to confirm that.

We're clarifying some of the terms, including the staff travel. Yes, and there's no change to the reservations of meeting space.

Or the number of students needed to qualify as student delegation?

There is one slight change that we wanted to include is that there we have heard particularly from one sister city group that they've had difficulty getting visas for student delegations. Whether it's you know, I don't know what the reasons are, but there are documented reasons that some countries are experiencing difficulty and delays. So we didn't want to limit or beat that as a limiting factor. So we've just added that clarifying language that there other activities, including the community events that sister cities do produce at the moment, may qualify as an alternative to that.

Even okay. That's fine.

Thank you. Council Member Wong.

Yes, I just have a comment on item number 16. Over the past week, I've had chance to talk to multiple businesses about our ordinance here, which is above and beyond what other cities are doing and above beyond what the state law is. Many of them feel that customers should have choices, businesses should have choices, and that we've, you know, a forwardarian approach here on the science to Ag ordinance. I just wanna point that out. I know we don't have the votes for it, I just wanted to comment. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. And seeing no further hands raised, madam city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Councilmember Ferron? Aye. Councilmember Mohan? Aye. Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

Vice mayor Cho. Aye. Mayor Moore.

Aye.

The motion carries unanimously.

Okay. The next item is an action calendar. We've been going for a while, though. So we're gonna take a five minute break, and we'll be back at eight 08:09. Madam City Manager, do we have a presentation?

Thank you, mayor. We do not have a presentation, but we, this item is an introduction and first reading of an ordinance to update various sections of the Cupertino Muni Code to reflect recent organizational changes. These updates are administrative in nature and are intended to align the Muni Code with the city's current structure, including the transition of human resources to the city manager's office and the the renaming of administrative services department to the department of finance. The proposed amendments ensure that the department names, titles, and responsibilities are accurately reflected, improving clarity and consistency across city operations. I will now turn it over to Jonathan Orozco, who is currently the acting director of administrative services department, to walk through the proposed changes.

Thank you, Tina,

And good evening honorable mayor Moore and council members. It's going to be a short presentation, so jump right into it. Tonight's item is the introduction and first reading of an ordinance updating several sections of the municipal code to reflect the city's recent organizational realignment. These changes are administrative in nature and are intended to improve clarity, consistency and alignment with how the city is currently structured and operating. As part of the recent organization, human resource division has been transitioned to the city manager's office to better align the citywide strategy and workforce planning.

Additionally, the Department of Administrative Services has been refocused on core financial functions and renamed to the Department of Finance. Importantly, this reorganization does not add staffing or create new executive level positions. It is limited to reporting structure and alignment. The proposed amendments include updating references from administrative services to finance across applicable chapters. Reflecting the updated departmental structure within the code including Department of Finance's focus on accounting, budgeting and purchasing.

And lastly clarifying roles and responsibilities to align with current operations. These updates span several chapters including administrative citations, city clerk and treasurer functions, departmental organization, audit committee support and certain finance related sections. Next steps in, if city council introduces the ordinance tonight, staff will return on May 19 for the second reading and adoption. At that time, staff will also bring forward updates to the unrepresented employees policy and compensation program to reflect the departmental name change. That concludes my presentation. I am available for any questions.

Thank you very much for the report. Are there any council questions before we open this item up for public comments? I see one hand raised from council member Wong.

I just wanted to make sure that the clarification to everyone is that, you know, the HR department's still there. Finance is different, but they're spread out finance, and pretty much what we're seeing is reporting directly back to the city manager of two distinct functions and two distinct department heads. Is that correct?

Council member Wong, there are no two separate departments. So the human resources was a division of an admin of the administrative services department. It's moving into the city manager's office as a division, so there's no creation of an HR department. It's just the renaming of the administrative services department to the finance department, which does not include HR.

Understood. Okay. So this is to reflect the changes in terms of reporting structure. I just wanted the public to be clear because I I wasn't exactly clear. So

Yep. Thank you. Great. Vice mayor?

Yeah. Actually, my questions were answered in the supplement, desk item today. Really thankful for that. I'm sharing that here because I think this is probably the information people would appreciate. So I asked whether there will be any addition on executive level position.

There will not be. But I I do wonder how big is the human resource that's being moved with it because I thought it might be big. And then so here is city manager's office currently has 21 full time employees and two part time. So these are the current city manager office employees, and HR will add only five more full time employee there and the Department of Finance will now have 13 full time to part time employees. So that this number gives me better picture of this reorganization.

So thank you for the answer on that. And here is a list of executive level positions we currently have. And as mentioned, only three we have three assistant directors for department that's public facing. So community development, parks and rec and public works. So you can reference the desk item for other questions. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Mayor, at this time, I don't see any request to speak in person, but I do see one hand raised virtually. So we will go to the members of the public requesting to speak virtually. Welcome, San Rao.

Good evening. Mayor Moor, vice president, council member speaking on behalf of myself only as a resident. I'd like to encourage you to change the suggested wording from the proposed change from director of administrative service to director of finance to instead change the language preceding it, which says including but not limited to, change that to such as so that it is suggestive rather than exhaustive, or or at least minimally, inclusive. I think you're you're having to make these changes because the language says such as, including but not limited to, which means you need to include at least the named references. And rather than make changes every time you have a reorganization plan, you can change the preceding language to say such as that allows you the flexibility to make changes without modifying this each time.

I'd also like to propose another change, which is instead of fusing the word director, use head off. A director could be head off, but you could have a head off that's not a director. And as we are on structural budget deficit, maybe we have to reduce the number of directors. Maybe we have to consolidate departments. And if we do, you don't have to come back to do this language change again because we've named directors for each department explicitly.

While we're making this change, let's reference department heads as head off that gives you the flexibility to reorganize to accommodate the city's structural budget deficit. It is time that we reorganize. We should also consider whether we need assistant directors and directors for these departments. While they're nice to have, we cannot afford, the the costs both from a budget deficit, but also from a cost recovery perspective. So it is critical that you do the hard work that is needed here in order to protect our ground staff.

Because if you do not do that, the cuts are paid by essential critical workforce that the city needs. And I do not want us to lose a single ground staff employee. Not in public works, not in box and track. I don't wanna see the union employees affected. What I'd like to see is how we cut costs elsewhere. And so give yourselves a little more room and flexibility to achieve what you need while you're making changes here. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. That, thank you. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak, on this item.

Thank you. Do you have a quick question for the city attorney? To the first edit, do you feel that is a necessary change? Would you clarify which one you're talking about? It was not the head of the departments. Perhaps another council member caught it a little more clearly, but it was something to change the introduction to the item. Which one?

Introduction.

Vice Mayor, did you catch that, the first edit?

And he talked about to rather than to use including and not limited to right. Use such as. So I looked up the resolution. The only place I can see is this part, the enforcement officer that's relevant. There are other occurrences of including that's not related to the finance function, but I don't think that's necessary to change this to such as.

I agree with you. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I don't know. Is there any other

Including just means that this includes these, but it's not limited. So saying such as is broader than including but not limited to.

I guess he meant with such as you don't you can even include part of the list. Not including is at least this many you can add more. I yeah, I think this is good.

All right. Yeah. Thank you. Do we have a motion at this time to approve the recommended action?

Have to make a motion, move the recommended action.

Second.

We have a second from Council Member Fruin. And do we have any further comments from the council? I will make one that I'm very glad to see this modification happen. To me it's more logical to have the highest ranking financial officer be our treasurer and separate the duties from HR and finance. So I'm glad to see this moving forward. I see no other requests to speak.

I do have a question. Yeah,

sure, Vice Mayor.

Sorry.

Yeah, I do think this change makes sense because administrative service covering both function has been kind of odd. However, I do have a concern that the the it seems the city manager's office is getting heavier and heavier. So how will the city manager's office be able to handle all of this? Would that would there be a need to create another department later, then we add more executive level position? That's my main concern with this. Thank

you for sharing your concerns, vice mayor, that there's currently no plans to create another executive level position. You know, this is something that we are you know, HR is such a specialized role. It is you know, it's primarily autonomous. It's more bringing it into the city manager's office for more executive oversight and so that we can have more of a, you know, enhanced service delivery to all city departments. But it's yet to be seen how it will work. I'm hopeful that it would work the way that I'm envisioning it. But if there's, you know, future needs or adjustments, will come back to council with with more information.

Yeah. Thank you. Just a little background. Before I got on the council, I remember at the time, this assistant city manager was a position that's also the Director of Community Development. So it's kind of now we and then later on, we had a separate director of community development and assistant manager city manager.

So it's good that the assistant city manager is now removed. And then you have made deputy city manager a little more higher level executive position. So maybe with that change, that will help you manage the city manager's office.

Yeah, that's the hope. But as you are alluding to, there have been changes all along as the city grows. So, like I said, right now, I'm not anticipating any changes, but, know, I'll report back. And, yeah, thanks. Thank you.

Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote?

Yes, mayor. Councilmember Freund. Aye. Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Vice mayor Chao. Aye. Mayor Moore. Aye. The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. Next we move to item 20. This is minor revisions to the municipal code. I'm not going to list all of the chapters. Madam city manager, we have a staff report?

Thank you, mayor. We do have a staff report, and we do have a short presentation as well. So this item is the annual muni code amendments, routine updates that address minor corrections and align the code with state and federal law, as well as our current administrative practices. And I will now turn it over to deputy city manager Kirsten Squasha to present this item.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. I'm just going to pull up my presentation. This is a brief presentation. And video, I am sharing my screen. Okay, I see it.

Great. So this is, these are, this process is a process that the city goes through regularly to correct minor errors and revise outdated municipal code sections. These are routine and they are intended to make sure that the code is clear and aligned with evolving state and federal laws. Administrative updates are also made to improve business administration and to clarify administrative updates are staffing updates. And these proposed updates are not intended to introduce new policy for council consideration this evening.

So this slide highlights a summary of the code revisions being proposed. The first item relates to the Brown Act. This is non substantive. It modernizes special meeting notice provisions by removing outdated delivery methods such as telegram and personal delivery. The standard method of delivery is electronic communication, though the code does not prescribe the method.

Second, update aligns with public works definitions with recent state law AB2192. By updating the public works project definition. And we are only suggesting to add a word installation to the list of project activities. So no operational change. Third, this item clarifies business license appeal procedures including filing deadlines and hearing timelines to improve predictability and scheduled hearings.

This is a staff recommendation. So we have this next item relates to the bingo prize limits, which conforms with state law, the penal code. And it increases the maximum cap for, prize limits to $500 per game from $250 per game. So we're not discussing bingo fees at all. And a few more.

We have also added a definition of stationary mobile equipment to the code. This actually matches recently adopted, additions for the RV ordinance. And also we are recommending removing outdated sales restriction language in the abandoned vehicles chapter. The next change relates to feeding wildlife in city parks. It updates regulation terminology to expand it to wildlife instead of simply water, Let's see.

Waterfowl. Coots waterfowl. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, council member Mohan.

Additionally, it adds clarifying language to advertising and sales restrictions in parks. And essentially that ensures that the city has control over regulation during city events on sales and vending and marketing. And the final update is to conform to FEMA and federal law. It updates flood damage prevention, the flood damage prevention chapter to reflect current FEMA flood insurance study and as well as manufactured home standards. The city does not have manufactured homes but we still would like to conform with with FEMA.

And the recommended action before you this evening is to introduce and conduct the first reading of the ordinance which is ordinance number 20 six-two 284. And it would be amending muni code sections 2.04.020. I guess should, shall I read everything Mayor? I'll go ahead and go through everything. 3.2, 3.02, 5.04, point four eight zero, 5.32, one three zero, eleven point two eight point zero one zero, eleven point two eight point zero five zero, thirteen point zero four point one three zero, 13.04, 16.52.11, and 16.52.053.

I'm a little rusty since I was the city clerk. Thank you. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you so much. Do we first have some counsel clarifying questions on this item? I'm not seeing any. I'll look at zoom. I don't see a hand raise. Vice Mayor?

Yeah. Okay. So Just want to clarify which part is a state requirement, which part is existing practice or anything new? Because so the bingo fee, I understand, increased from $2.50 to 500 is to align with the state law. Right? No question about that. But the business license appeal, that's not a state law, so that's to align with our existing practice?

That is correct, vice mayor. So I so we we we added two section amendments. The first one has to do with the number of days allowed for an appellant to file an appeal. Currently the code is silent on whether or not those are business days or calendar days. So we're just clarifying that this timeline is for calendar days for them to to submit.

So that adds clarity for the appellant on when they need to submit an appeal. The second update just adds a a line to to clarify when the hearings will be scheduled with the council. Because council does have a recess in August that could present an issue with being able to meet that timeline. That's one example. But it just so it adds predictability for applicant deadlines in public hearings.

So we are not changing the number of days. We're just clarifying these are calendar days.

Yes, correct.

Yeah, just want to. And then the other thing is the mobile equipment. So it's crossed out. It's maybe let me share. Oh, sorry.

So I see this section is crossed out. It's unlawful for any person or persons to sell any public street. But then this portion or any private land abiding a public street where traffic flow might be affected, that's crossed out. So, can people sell or not sell? Because we do see, like, kids having a laminate state stand by a park or somewhere. So by crossing it out, are we aligning with state law?

Vice Mayor, I'm using a lifeline, and we have our director of community development here.

Vice mayor, good evening. State council members, Ben Fuchip, director of community development. So this section is to allow our code enforcement and ability to actually code enforce. So this language is indicates where traffic flow might be affected. So that is could be very difficult to measure and and could be subjective. So what we're suggesting suggesting is is simply removing that and just to say that you may not be able to sell on any public street within the city, which is I believe the original intent of the section?

Wait. The the now we have only the first portion, which says it's unlawful to sell on any public street.

Correct.

And we are not so any private land abutting a public street, by crossing that out means any public land, any private land abutting public street, people still cannot sell it from their own private land?

Think what that means is that you may be able to on your private land because if you have a house,

you

are You gonna be can sell.

Correct. You have a private land, private house, you are gonna be abutting a public street.

Oh, right. So we are allowing people to sell.

Correct. So in the example you gave about the lemonade stand, if you're gonna sell lemonade on your own property, you certainly allow to do that.

And then we are since we can't make your traffic flow, you decide to does not have that prohibition? Okay.

Correct. Exactly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So this is not state law? No. Just an improvement so for ease of enforcement?

Yes, so enforceability and also a little bit of common sense as well. You should be able to sell lemonade stand for example in your private land also too. It's just a measurement of that traffic flow is very difficult, very subjective. So that's why.

Okay. It's just for me, this is a little more than the minor refuging because this is kind of substantive change of the call. So yeah. Anyway okay. Thank you.

Not seeing any not seeing any further council hands raised. Madam city clerk, do we have any members of the public that would like to speak to this item?

Mayor, I don't see any request to speak in person, but I do see one hand raised virtually. So we will welcome San around.

Yes. Good evening. Mayor Moran, council member speaking in behalf of myself only as a resident. There is a section on page eight that talks about restrictions and parks, and concrete has language that talks about shall not roller skate or shall not skate a rollerblade such as in a manner such as to cause damage to the parks. I'd like you to include biking in that because what I noticed, particularly in some of our parks where we have added the new equipment that looks like a fish, we are seeing a number of people that are biking on the lawns, and the public works ground staff might actually confirm that they're seeing that because people are mountain biking up and down the lawns and the mounds that we have in our parks.

And so if you might consider amending the language to not just talk about skating or rollerblading, but also biking on the lawns so as to not cause damage to the park, that would be great. I also wanted to remind everyone that we do not have an RV ordinance. We have an oversized vehicle ordinance. The head of code enforcement told me that we cannot enforce an oversized vehicle if it's not an RV, which is completely incorrect. As the 25 chair of planning that led the discussion of planning, we were very careful not to use the language RV anywhere.

And I I look at the code, it still says oversized vehicles. So I request that you not use the word RV. In fact, the three one one tickets are all using the word RV, and that is inaccurate. The intent of the code is oversized vehicles, which means trucks, and so request you to make sure that we amend any accidental references to RVs because trucks are oversized. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak on this item.

Thank you. Council member Wong, I see your hands raised.

Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to say this was a great job in terms of cleaning up the code and cleaning up some of the items here. I thought it was well done, and I really appreciate a lot of those amendments. I would second what the caller said, San Rao there, as to oversize versus RV. I think it'd be great to have that clarification in there. And then I I would say that these are a lot of great cleanups. I think in the future, when we do this, it'd be nice to solicit from other council members what other cleanups might be suggested, make that more of a group effort. But in general, I think these are a lot of great cleanups here, so I applaud everyone who worked on that.

Thank you. Next, we have vice mayor Chow.

Yeah. So according to the definition of stationary mobile equipment, so that would mean someone can just get a food truck, put on their front lawn, and start selling on their private property. Is that what we are allowing? I mean, lemonade state is one thing, but stationary mobile equipment is could be it could create traffic. It does. So now I'm concerned.

Sure. I think our intent, Ben Fu, sorry, director of community development. So the intent of us, modifying the section I'm sorry, adding the stationary mobile equipments because the code references the stationary mobile equipment throughout, but there's no definition. Yeah. So for that section, we're simply just adding a definition to that. But the mobile vending ordinance, believe, has has requirements set for vending mechanisms. So but if if council is concerned about removing that language that potentially could have some greater impact, you know, that that's that's fine if you don't wanna make that second change.

So I just want to understand. So with this change that's proposed, let me share this again. So this is from the red line document. The same thing, so with the removal of this red cross outline, does that mean someone can have a foot truck on their front yard and then sell?

No, it doesn't. So it doesn't change our existing permitting process for vending, mobile vending machines. This what this is saying is that, previously when you are going to have sales on your own property, it's prohibited when there is a traffic flow issue and that that creates enforcement issue for us to measure that that. So what we're simply saying is to simply remove that because there's no way for us to actually measure what traffic flow might be affected means.

I know, but then with this removal that means I mean, if you just remove the cross out where in the traffic flow might affect That's then then that we that removed the confusing language. But then selling from private land or boarding a public street is still prohibited. But since you have crossed out on any private street abutting public street, you have now removed the prohibition to sell on any private street, private land, on public street. So, you are not just removing this part that's harder to enforce. You have changed what's allowed or not allowed.

So, I Sure. Don't

I don't

to believe we're understand

Yeah, don't think we're

the scope.

I don't believe we're changing what's being allowed or not allowed. Go ahead. Sorry, ma'am. Didn't mean to cut you off.

Pardon. The business license process would still need to be followed Correct. For somebody to be selling on their own property. They would still need to do that. I think if anything, puts this more into the category of a business license issue, which if the city allows them to do that depending on how they're zoned, then they are allowed to have a home business.

So are they required to apply for permit for that food truck on their private land?

Yeah. So we have a mobile vending ordinance. I have to look it up and see what the exact is for that, but that that's not being changed. We also have a hand build ordinance as well. So if you wanna be able to pass off flyers, have to get a permit for that. So none of that is being changed

at likely all. They need a permit for that

Correct.

For trap and get a business license.

Correct. If they take it off their property and onto the sidewalk, then there is a sidewalk vending facility. That was something we worked on in 2021. So

if that creates any traffic issue, how will the CT address that? If it's still popular, that will be

That hasn't been a case. I don't think we've ever had a case where, you know, a lemonade stand is creating a traffic issue in a corner. So that that hasn't happened. Not not to say it won't happen.

But this does change what's allowed or not allowed. This does not just remove traffic flow determination. This actually allowed remove this previous prohibition, right?

No, it does not change any of the requirements or anything. All we're saying is In that

your staff report, remove language prohibiting the cell from private property. That's exactly what said in the staff report. Remove language prohibiting the cell on private property. So, you have removed that previous prohibition.

Vice Mayor, I think that section is actually modified by the where traffic flow may be affected.

Yeah. But with this removal, it means regardless of traffic flow the on prohibition for on private selling on private property will be allowed. Previously, it's not allowed where the traffic might be it might affect traffic flow.

Correct. So now, setting aside the traffic flow issue? It would be allowed, I think.

Yeah, I just mean I did not expect a minor revision will make this kind of change.

If might ask a

quick Is Councilmember Frans?

Point in clarification, Director Fu, you had said that in essence, this additional language, this conditional language with regard to interfering with traffic flow is essentially unenforceable already.

Correct.

Okay. So then there really isn't a change because we don't have a means for enforcing that issue.

Correct.

Okay. So I think that's why this this qualifies as a minor edit.

For purposes of deliberation, do we have a motion on item 20?