City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 05:45, and I call this 05/19/2026 special meeting of the Cupertino City Council to order. Madam city clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Fruin? Here. Councilmember Mohan? Here. Vice Mayor Chao? Here. Mayor Moore? Here. And councilmember Wong is absent this evening.

Okay. Thank you. We begin with a study session, which is an update on the health and safety element of the Cupertino general plan. Madam City Manager, do we have a presentation?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes. This is a study session on the update to the health and safety element part of the city's general plan. The presentation will be conducted by community development staff and the city's consultant team working on this update. The planning and public safety commissions have had the study sessions on this health and safety element. And a public comment period soliciting resident input recently closed on May 8. We have also received feedback from council members, which we have consolidated as a desk item. And I will now turn it over to our consultants from Fairs and Peers and PlaceWorks. Luke Connolly, Assistant Director of Community Development is also here to introduce and answer any questions.

Okay, I'll keep it brief to be mindful that the regular meeting starts at 06:45. I don't really have a lot to add, but again, I just would like to remind the council that the one of the reason we're really doing the update at this time is because you're required to do so after updating the housing element, is now some time ago. So we've had this in the works for some time. We did receive some comments during about a two month public comment period, and I believe you all have a desk item because we have comments that came in this afternoon, which we're going to address, but we're not gonna be able to get through all of those tonight. So we do plan on having this item come back before the city council again, which would be required anyway.

And I just also wanna introduce the team tonight. We have Eli Crispie will be taking the lead. He's with Placeworks. And we also have Francisca Church with Farrand Pierce and Dan Rubin with Farrand Pierce. Tammy Seal, is a principal at PlaceWorks is on Zoom. I will turn the presentation over to them and we should have time to answer some of your questions afterwards. So with that, here's the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Moore, city council members. Eli Crispie with PlaceWorks. Started. For today, we are going to go over, the health and safety element and what it includes. We'll talk about some of the key updates we have made from the currently adopted version. We will also recap the study session that we held with with the planning commission a few months ago. Francisca will be here to talk about the evacuation study in a little more depth. And we will then go through, next steps and open it up for discussion and questions. So the safety element is a mandatory part of the city's general plan. Every city and county in California must have a safety element.

And the role is really to identify what are the hazards of concern in the community and to spell out policy to protect the community against these hazards, primarily those that are natural disasters or have the potential to become natural disasters, but it also addresses some human caused hazards as well. And the city's current element was adopted back in 2014. So as part of this update, we have been making a number of revisions and changes to make sure it is up to date and consistent with current requirements. As Luke mentioned, state law does require that the housing that the health and safety element be updated after the housing element has been revised so that it has to happen about once every eight years. As part of the revision to the health and safety element, we have been making a number of changes to comply with a number of new state laws that have been passed in the past ten to twelve years which have really added to the health and safety element and are being much more detailed now about what has to be in these documents.

These include a number of, pieces of information, maps, and policies relating to climate change, climate vulnerability, wildfire, and most recently extreme heat. We also want to incorporate the most recent draft or the most recent version of the county's multi jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan, which the city is a participant in. And inclusion of that plan in the health and safety element helps to make the city more eligible for various grant programs and potentially increase disaster relief funding, should that ever become necessary. Here are some of the changes to state law. I would note, in particular, Senate Bill three seventy nine, which was adopted in 2015, that requires that the health and safety element include a climate change vulnerability assessment looking at how climate change may exacerbate the frequency and severity of future natural disasters and what sort of impacts these disasters may have on the community, and then that the health and safety element include goals, policies, and actions to increase adaptation and resilience to these future conditions.

There is also Senate Bill 99 and Assembly Bill seven forty seven, both of which relate to, identifying evacuation constraints and, evacuation routes and their capacity, safety, and viability in the community. In our overview to the health and safety element and in our updates, we have gone through the document and made fairly extensive additions and revisions to the background information, to the maps, and to the policies and actions that are included. In general we have aligned the wild wildfire standards that are in the health and safety element with the most recent changes to state law and the new mapping of wildfire hazard severity zones, which the city adopted last year. There is some new information and new policies around flood plains, especially around protecting critical facilities against flooding. I mentioned that we have greatly expanded the discussion of climate adaptation and climate vulnerability in the health and safety element.

There is some greater planning around infrastructure resilience in the community and ensuring continuity of government operations. And then we have also added in a number of new policies and new information related to the findings from the 2025 Evacuation Route Capacity Analysis and the Residential Evacuation Constraint Parcel Analysis, which you'll hear a little bit more about later. Just to go through some of these updates in a little more detail, as part of the city's revisions to the Emergency Preparedness and Infrastructure Resilience policies, There have been a number of new and revised policies that relate to topics such as emergency communication, emergency alerts, including making sure that those alerts are available in multiple languages, making sure that Cupertino is coordinating effectively with the county and with other cities in the region on larger scale emergency events, making sure that the city's municipal infrastructure is, resilient and and is being hardened against emergencies, and also recognizing that the public safety power shutoffs are an ongoing risk and do pose a threat to the community. On the subject of wildfire, we have revised the maps in the health and safety element to include the most recent, wildfire mapping, as I mentioned.

And this replaces the previous what was previously called the Wildland Urban Interface fire area mapping with the new, local responsibility area mapping that was adopted last year. And then we have also significantly revised the, wildfire risk reduction policies, including those that relate to new development in the wildfire area to better align with state law. And that is consistent with the standard recommendations for policies that Cal Fire recommends. Here are some of those changes that we have made to the policies. I'm not gonna go through every single one, but as you can see, there are policies that relate both to new development, making sure that new development is being built to be resilient and to be fire resistant, and also to make sure that existing development is being maintained in a way to minimize fire risk.

You'll also note that for many of these, there is a citation or a reference to parts of the building code or the public resources code or the government code. And what we're trying to indicate there is that we have made sure to align Cupertino's policies with what the state requires. That way the state policies are fully consistent with what the city is requiring of both new and existing development. On seismic and geologic hazards, we have updated some of the mapping around landslides including how that mapping and the landslide hazard zones are discussed. We have added some discussions around, what is called the cascading impacts, essentially where one hazard results in another one.

So we have tried to clarify those interactions between multiple that may happen together or in a a close period of time. There is also some new geotechnical review requirements for any new development occurring within landslide hazard zones, again, to better align with what the state is requiring and what is already on the books at the city. And we also tried to clarify some of the limitations related to grading on steep slopes, again, just making sure that what the health and safety element contains is consistent with what is already in the city's municipal code. On the topic of hazardous waste and materials, there have been a number of changes to update the regulatory references, making sure, again, that we are aligning with the current state and county oversight requirements. We have reinforced some of the environmental site assessment requirements that are spelled out in the health and safety element.

We have generally maintained a number of policies, including those related to stringent, risk reduction measures for development that is occurring near known hazardous material site. And the new policies do strengthen the city's commitment to better coordinate with state, regional, and federal agencies on any ongoing cleanup and monitoring activities related to hazardous materials. On flooding, we have updated the floodplain mapping to just reflect what is currently adopted by FEMA. We have clarified some of the hazard zones from flooding and related issues. We have identified some of the critical infrastructure and other essential facilities that are located in flood prone areas.

There are a number of new policies that relate to strengthening the city's standards for development, new development, and redevelopment, occurring in flood prone areas. And then for existing development, we have adjusted the policies again to make sure that the city what is on the books with the city is aligning with state and federal policy. There's also some language about greater control with some of the regional flood control or greater coordination with some of the regional flood control agencies. On climate change, we have integrated the results of the vulnerability assessment, again, trying to identify who and what in Cupertino is most susceptible to harm as a result of the increase in frequency and severity of natural hazards as a result of wild of climate change. The primary hazards of concern related to climate change are flooding, extreme heat, and wildfire in Cupertino, although most of the hazards that are identified in the health and safety element do relate to climate change to one degree or another.

And then there have been a number of adaptation and resilience strategies, again, meant to sort of counteract this increase in risk and make sure that the city is protected not only against what has been the historic and what is the current hazardous conditions, but that the city is protected against what is projected to occur in future years and decades. This includes a lot of language related to emergency preparedness, community outreach and education, and support for those who simply need the greatest assistance or who are likely to face the greatest potential for harm as a result of climate change. Going a little more in-depth about some of the development standards, we have revised some of the language to be clear, partially based on planning commission feedback about whether requirements around development standards are applying to new development, redevelopment, or both, again consistent with what the state is doing. We've tried to identify some risk reduction standards for cases where existing neighborhoods excuse me, risk reduction standards for new development that is occurring within existing neighborhoods, recognizing that many of the state's policies apply to new development and not the existing ones. We have clarified policy triggers, essentially when does it is the development required to comply with a particular policy or mandate when it reaches a certain size or is of a certain use.

In general, trying to improve the transparency and predictability in development review so that applicants understand what the requirements are, city staff are all clear on what the requirements are. The community understands and that the development review process can proceed smoothly without any surprises. And and, again, in general, just trying to make sure that what the city is doing is consistent with what the state is doing and around particularly wildfire safety and evacuation planning. There were some changes to the noise parts of the health and safety element as well. These were not nearly as comprehensive, but there were some revisions.

These include some minor updates to be consistent with Cupertino's current requirements, to add some implementation strategies around guiding the review of noise generating uses, including public and private recreational activities, and to add some discussion of potential restrictions on quarry truck operations during designated quiet hours. And these edits largely reflect the input from the Planning Commission and from the Public safety commission during study sessions that were held last year. The planning commission did also hold a study session on March 9 a couple months ago to review the draft public health and safety elements. And there were a number of comments that we received from both members of the commission and members of the public. In response to those comments and to that discussion, the commission directed staff to incorporate some more evacuation related strategies that are related to the supply side, essentially making sure that the evacuation capacity has been adequately increased or assessed and that it can accommodate the demand on the the system if an evacuation should be necessary.

And also to strengthen some of the heat related policies to incorporate findings and strategies from the state's, heat action plan, which just came out a few months ago. And this includes policies around emergency alerts for heating, for extreme heat, improved access to cooling services, building standards to reduce indoor air temperatures during extreme heat, and, what are called nature based solutions or using trees, plants, and other natural systems to help reduce the impact from extreme heat. Going a little more in-depth, there were also some comments from the Planning Commission about providing greater clarity on how wildfires and evacuation standards are applied in the community. The the commission requested that there be some added language about emergency management as a sort of pillar of the city's public health and safety framework. That there'll be some more information about emergency communication, including related to the city's block leader program.

That we add some language about maintaining and improving the city's community rating system score, which is a score that's issued by FEMA. And the score correlates to discounts that people in flood prone areas can receive on flood insurance. So the more flood mitigation activities the city enacts consistent with FEMA direction, the greater the discount city residents can receive on this insurance. The commission also requested made some comments about incorporating federal EPA standards for hazardous materials, considering some objective noise standards for trucks, and that we clarify some standards and requirements related to law enforcement emergency response and FADE requirements for parking lots and commercial development. In addition to the commission comments, there were also some comments from the public at that March 9 meeting.

This included some requests to consider designating additional evacuation routes and to provide some clearer standards around evacuations, to make information about evacuations more accessible to members of the public, that the health and safety elements include policies about increasing wildfire resilience to incorporate the most recent hazard mapping, which we we have done, to better retrofit some city properties against earthquakes, and, again, to include objective noise standards as well as some policies for freeway noise mitigation, and to include a noise contour map in the health and safety element. And with that, I will turn it over to Francisca to discuss the evacuation study.

Great. Thanks, Eli. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members. My name is Francisca Church, and I'm gonna provide an overview of the Cupertino's evacuation route assessment. Yeah.

So first off, why did we conduct this study? Really, the intent of the study is to comply with Assembly Bill seven forty seven and fourteen oh nine that directs agencies to identify routes and analyze their capacity, the safety and the viability under various evacuation scenarios. And we also looked at, and we're also required to look at various evacuation scenarios. This is a planning level analysis of evacuation capacity, so it's not necessarily a study on of an evacuation operations plan or detailed evacuation time, but does provide a good framework for understanding where some of the bottlenecks are within the city under various evacuation scenarios. And so it really is intended to then support the general plan safety element Eli was just discussing and making sure the city has policies and can make decisions on how to consider evacuation within Cupertino.

The evacuation assessment was conducted following a six step process. I'm not necessarily going to talk through each of these in detail, but it's important just to note that they follow kind of a rigorous process in terms of first identifying what are the evacuation scenarios we're going to evaluate, defining the evacuation areas, where will the evacuees end up, looking at the evacuation routes, estimating the demand for those evacuation routes based on the scenarios, and then assigning those vehicles to the network and then doing the capacity analysis. So for the scenarios themselves, we looked at three scenarios. We identified those scenarios in collaboration with city staff as well as county fire. So the first scenario, scenario A, assumes a wildfire that happens in the middle of the day in the fall, so around 02:00, so school's in session.

There's general traffic on the roadways just, you know, traveling through and around Cupertino, And that would have a demand of about 70 almost 8,000 vehicles that would need to evacuate under that scenario. That includes residents, employees, students, and visitors that are just in Cupertino during the day. We then looked at the second scenario, which is assumes a wildfire and earthquake. This is something that would have we're assuming under this scenario would happen early in the morning, 6AM. School would not be in session, but due to the earthquake, one of the roadways would be obstructed.

In this place, McClellan, would be closed near the clubhouse lane, kind of on the eastern end, and kind of preventing access from the to to 87 or 85 in the main routes. This has a higher evacuation demand just because most people are at home at six in the morning, right? Most people are still at home, but you don't have as many employees or visitors in the city. So it's primarily residents and some employees that are in the city at 6AM. Both scenarios A and B we evaluated quantitatively and then we looked at scenario C at a qualitative basis which is built on scenario A, the first one, but then assumed that there's access restrictions on Stevens Creek at 87, including the southbound ramps to 87.

So some of the key findings from the scenarios, they between all three scenarios, to be honest. So we have an evacuation demand of anywhere between eight and nine thousand vehicles, depending on the scenario. Generally speaking, the routes are relatively short. So getting from the hillsides in the high fire areas getting over to 85 or two eighty on the other side is about two, two and a half miles at the longest. But nonetheless, as this means short routes, it means a lot of demand for those short routes.

So we saw that in pretty much all scenarios, the hillside evacuation routes exceeded their one hour clearing capacity. So essentially what that means, you have capacity per hour and the demand was higher than that within a given hour. So each route generally had some segments that were capacity constrained under each of the evacuation scenarios. Main bottlenecks that we really found were West Of 85 and 280 as you're approaching kind of the evacuation points. The most constrained, maybe not necessarily surprising, is put Foothill Boulevard, especially as you're traveling towards 280, Stevens Creek towards 85, as well as McClellan towards the center of the city.

Scenario C, which was the qualitative scenario that we evaluated, probably in some ways, you know, builds upon scenario A. And the reason we looked at scenario C instead of scenario B, even though the vehicle demand is only 8,000 versus the close to the 9,000 for scenario B, is that there's more traffic on the roadway, general traffic on the roadway in the middle of the day. So scenario A was actually the more constrained scenario. Found essentially similar, even though we're looking at this qualitatively, really what it would do is just compound the effects that we saw under scenario a, where the roadways near Foothill Boulevard, McClellan, and De Anza Boulevard would become constrained as people are trying to evacuate the area. So what does this really mean for the city?

In a lot of ways, this sets a great foundation. You know, the city already has a unified multi jurisdiction emergency coordination, already has battery backup for their traffic signal, so should the power go out that the signals are still operating, and already has established emergency communication protocols. This provides then a framework for the city to think about policies for implementation relative to supply side, demand side, and information side strategies. Supply side strategies essentially like how can you potentially have targeted and flexible capacity improvements on the roadway to add additional capacity for vehicles, better traffic control or different type of traffic control during evacuation, and finding ways to just have faster clearances of the roadways during closures. Demand side strategies are actually also really important.

This can be reduction strategies. Our analysis generally assumed a household that had two or more vehicles would take both vehicles and drive to try to evacuate. And so if you have scenarios where a household could pledge potentially to take one of their vehicles versus two, you can substantially reduce the demand evacuation. And then also phased evacuation Reduction approaches. Demand side of strategies obviously depend on cooperation and people complying with them.

But nonetheless, those are strategies consideration. Another part that is also important is the information side. So having early hazard detection, real time traffic management. So as you're evacuating, if there's signage that can say, Foothill Boulevard is congested, continue straight and go to De Anza Boulevard, that's the safe and quickest way to evacuate right now, having those kind of signs to help direct vehicles where to go in real time. And just overall community preparedness in advance evacuation so community knows what to do during an evacuation scenario.

What's important to note here is at the bottom of the slide, like evacuation outcomes really depend on coordination, operations, and behavior. There's a lot of different dynamic pieces that play together, but it's important. And roadway widening alone really will not solve evacuation capacity constraints, though they are certainly a part of the discussion. I'll hand it back to Yulay.

Thank you, Francesca. And I will also reiterate that the supply side, demand side, and information side recommendations in the evacuation study have largely been reflected in the updated policies around evacuation that are included in the health and safety element. So following the the public review period, which, as you heard, public comment period recently closed, and we are now conducting these study sessions. Following this, we will incorporate, the feedback received, tonight and from any other meetings into a revised version of the health and safety element. We are required under state law to submit the health and safety element to state agencies, including CAL FIRE.

They they have a mandatory ninety day review period that must occur prior to any adoption hearings. At that time around that time, we'll also be conducting the environmental review as mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act, and ultimately, the health and safety element will be brought back to the Planning Commission and the City Council for public hearings, which we are currently anticipating will take place in the fall. So the recommended action for you all tonight is to receive the presentation and provide input on the public draft of the health and safety element. And that does conclude our presentation. Thank you for your time. And we'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Eli and Francisca. Is that Francisca or Francesca?

You had it right, Francisca. Francisca. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. So I would like to get a little bit of suggestion from staff about how to manage. We have a short amount of time, and when I look at the desk items, I looking at item one, the tables that we have. There's a number of suggestions. So, this is a combination of the vice mayor's suggestions, planning commissioner comments, and and I appreciate that the planning commission comments had the italics portion after each suggestion.

But I'm I'm my understanding is that that means that it wasn't incorporated. It was just it was commented on on whether or not it would be a good idea to incorporate essentially. Is that that correct?

I would like Luke to confirm the Planning Commission comments are incorporated or not into this update today.

And I could rely on Eli a little bit too, but I believe most of them have been. So in the cases where they were feasible to incorporate, they have been, I think as Eli noted going through that, many of the comments we were going through haven't been incorporated into this draft.

Okay, so it's I can't tell when I'm looking at the staff report which ones did get incorporated or not. So that was something I'd need a little bit of clarification on.

Okay, and I think we could do that. And like at the outset I said, I know we had a lot of comments this afternoon which will need a little bit of time to go through those as well. And I think getting another look from the council would probably be helpful because I know one of the things on the next steps is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe when this goes to Cal Fire, it's similar to HCD's review of a housing element, though not quite as formal. But it is a ninety day period. And once blessed by CAL FIRE, if we were to then say change things related to evacuation or fire hazard, we would essentially be having to go back to them to let them know there were changes.

So I think before we submit anything to CAL FIRE, we'd wanna feel comfortable that the council is fine with the draft we have. So we wouldn't be going through multiple iterations with CAL FIRE.

Okay. So my hope is that this, that we would be providing our input and that it would come back kind of like the TBD items where for each you would let us know if this is, if you think it's feasible or not feasible. If we're making too specific of a suggestion perhaps on evacuation route objective standards for instance, because I think that that could be one that it could be difficult to implement. So how would you like us to proceed?

Mayor, I think we definitely need time to take in all of the good suggestions that we've received so far from council members And of course, the Planning Commission suggestions, we need to confirm which ones are incorporated already. I like the idea of creating a table. I just want to clarify the TBD format. You don't mean add it to TBD, just mean like add it as a table and then have a staff recommendation column? I think that's doable.

Correct. And so, to clarify, like the ones that I suggested, I took the public comments and added those to some of the other cities, like five different cities, their health and safety element, and came up with a list of 25 combining those. And then in this table, this attachment, you've got planning commissioner comments and then my recommendations, which are, you know, a mixture. They're not just my own as well. So I've tried to add in particularly from the public, like around the sound walls at the two eighty and the 85, that being a missing area for noise abatement.

So I'd like to open it up for questions from the other council members, and if you have some suggestions about how we collect these suggestions.

Sorry to interrupt through the mayor. We have planning manager, Hugh Ghosh, virtually with her hand raised. I think she might have some comments or additions to add.

Please. Okay.

Thank you, Laura, and my apologies for a froggy voice here. I just wanted to clarify that the draft that is presented to the council does not incorporate the comments from the Planning Commission. That is the draft that was presented to the Planning Commission as well. Just wanted to clarify that.

Okay, thank you for that. That is my assumption, so I'm glad for that clarification. So I'm going to move to the home panel here and see if we have some hands raised. Vice Mayor, and first, if you have some suggestions about how to proceed through all of these suggestions, and I think you have some separate ones in your written communications.

Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, I was confused whether the comments from planning commission was included or not. Good to clarify. It's not included. I think the mayor sounds like yours we likely will have maybe we'll have another study session where we might have the table, like a 2PD, where with recommendation for each of the suggestion. Then maybe are you thinking for in that meeting, we will have a draft we could consider to adopt with some revision at that meeting? Or are you thinking we might need a third meeting?

Difficult to say it might be possible to have it finalized where we could have a draft, but I think if I'm understanding the format, what the goal would be to have a table where we have all the comments, the source, planning commission, city council, were they incorporated? Were they not incorporated? If not, why not? Or if they were modified, how were they modified? Mhmm. And I think if we did that and you had consensus on those comments, you could probably turn a draft around then and have Would it ready to

it be helpful if we have a council subcommittee that work with the staff, so that you at least have recommendation that work with two council members, we bring it to the council. Then maybe in the second meeting, we might have a version that have mostly approved probably minor revisions at that second meeting.

Yeah, I don't know. I think two meetings for sure, I don't see why we couldn't have a finished draft.

So, okay.

Yeah, my only concern was not sending something to CAL FIRE that was subsequently changed because it would be a big step back. And if I could clarify on the Planning Commission too is there were Planning Commission comments incorporated because the Planning Commission has seen

this

twice. The comments were from the first Planning Commission meeting, not the meeting in March.

So the ones listed in the staff report and in that presentation are the ones who have not been integrated, I assume?

They're not called out. They would have been from the earlier meeting in 2025 when it went to Planning Commission and Public Safety Commission.

I'm saying those stats already integrated are likely it's already in there, they are not called out in the staff report

Correct. Or in

the presentation.

The future draft would need to incorporate the Planning Commission comments from March and indicate whether they were incorporated. Similarly, the comments we've received from counsel tonight and in written form would need to be treated the same way.

Okay. So, do have a question about the evacuation study. So, we know that there is evaluation of the volume over capacity, and there is a ratio, but I do wonder, everyone, even if we can get to Foothill Stevens Creek, the answer, maybe the freeway would be all blocked to have you evaluated. Can we even get out of Cupertino in case of earthquake? Wildfire, it's okay.

It's more regional. They just need to get out the wildfire area. But if it's a severe earthquake, what's the evacuation out of Cupertino?

Yeah. Thank you, vice mayor, for the question. So during an earthquake, typically the emergency protocol, unless there is an event that is triggered like a wildfire or flooding, is to shelter in place and stay in home. So generally speaking, you would not have more greater demand on the Freeway because of an earthquake because usually you'll try to stay in your home and shelter in place unless there is some other secondary event that gets triggered.

Okay yeah that's good to know.

Council Member Freeman.

Thank you. First of

all, I want to

thank the mayor and the vice mayor for the amount of input that they provided here. I wish I'd seen more of it earlier to be able to offer something to piggyback on top of it. One of the things that I'd really like to hear from staff is sort of just to underscore that the tension that I'm seeing in some of the recommendations between what is typical for a general plan element that is rather high level versus an implementation document like an ordinance, etcetera. So regardless of what you can answer now, to the extent that in this table that we get back later, you can explain what's appropriate to have in an advisable to have in a general plan document versus an implementation document like an ordinance, I'd really appreciate that. But if you could maybe explain the difference here as to maybe why a level of granularity that's being sought is perhaps better for a different discussion.

No, that's a good point. And I've not had a chance to go through all of the comments, but there's always that issue of a general plan is called a general plan for a reason is you want to start more broadly and work to more detail as you go from policies and strategies. But then typically to get to that objective more granular level, you typically have ordinances or other documents that can be very specific that are, you know, the regulations implementing the policies identified in the general plan. So I think as we go through the comments, that's one of the things we're looking at is the ideas I I get, I think many of them from what I read were very good. It's just a matter of would they be something more appropriate elsewhere.

And I think that's a comment we as a team need to look at as we go through this is this may not be the place for them, but they may belong somewhere else.

Yeah. No, I'd say I broadly agree with that. One of the ones that I'll underscore is a, let's see, there was a recommendation here to do some advocacy with Caltrans, for example. But that doesn't really seem like a general plan policy to me. I would think that we would establish a general plan policy and then align our advocacy around that.

Yes, that's true. I mean, we already have a number of policies working with regional and state agencies on a variety of issues. So again, the intent is good. I think it's how we word it and how we want to implement it as a practice.

Okay. Yeah. That's that all makes sense to me. I may have more in a bit. I'll reserve my time.

Okay. Thank you. It is 06:25. We do need to have public comment as well and the regular meetings at 06:45. With that, Council Member Mohan, and if you have some suggestions on how we can combine our comments and make sure we've got clear direction for staff, that would be appreciated.

Sure. I'll keep my comments brief. This is meant to be a policy document, right? So, one of my questions or confusion was there was parts of the document that was high level policy, and I think that's how it that was what was intended. And then, there were parts where you went into really specific strategies and fairly detailed options to mitigate some of these problems that we could have.

So, I was a little confused as to whether this is the kind of document that is not just high level policy, but specific suggestions for mitigating these problems that could arise, because most of them are, we are anticipating things that have not happened or may not even happen.

Yeah, if I could just answer it. It does this element follows the city's general plan as a whole, that you generally start with goals and then policies and strategies, each of which gets more you go from broad to more detailed. Whereas ordinances get even further detailed in implementing that. So I I think that the format is pretty typical and reflects what you see in the housing element or circulation element in the city. Some things do get, I think, a little more specific, and that could be related to specific laws or or measures that need to be addressed in the document. But you generally start with a broad statement and work towards your strategies that will help you realize that goal.

Okay. I'll get back to that later. But another question, mayor and staff. I see the document that you have submitted with your questions. And since we haven't had a chance to really look at it, what would be the best way? And then, hasn't made comments on these suggestions as well. So, at the next meeting, is there a way that there's a column where you say staff agrees, not agree, or it's not feasible, or it's sort of a pie in the sky recommendation. That would help.

Yeah, Council Member, that's exactly what I was clarifying earlier is I think the format that could work is we'll take all of these recommendations, create a table out of it, and then just like the TBD was used as an example. So when I bring the TBD back, there is a TBD language. Next to it is a column that says staff recommendation. So, we'll include a similar column that will kind of give you what our analysis of these recommendations are and what our from our staff, from our technical perspective, what the recommendation is. And if they were already included in health and safety element, we'll include that language under that column as well.

Okay, and that will give us a chance to spend some more time on

these recommendations. Thank you. Quick question for the manager. Is there a way that if the other council members or even we want to add a little bit more to it, can we have like a Friday deadline where we can still add?

I was going to suggest that. I just wanna make sure that works for for our team. If Friday is the deadline for any council comments that that you any of you would like to send to staff, would that would that work in terms of timeline?

Friday is fine, yes.

Okay, I think that's a good idea. Yeah, this Friday, 5PM.

Very good. Vice Mayor? And we'll go out for public comment.

I'll make comment after, but maybe I'll make that now. I think the recent state laws and planning guidance have increasingly emphasized the need for objective measurable standards in the general plan policies for development review. Therefore, when I try to develop potential revision of the policy, my process, I go to the CHIPT, I say compare our draft with the other jurisdictions' elements and compare, and they it will give me recommendation where we are strong, where we have gaps, and where we could have stronger policy. And then, would then with the recommended policy, I say, Would you evaluate, is it objective enough for enforcement? So, that's the kind of policy that I was my process of getting that.

So, I think if we only say evaluate, that's a policy that's really useless in the current state law environment. We have to have some objective standards. Results objective standards, know it's a standard as if it doesn't exist. So, I will share what I hope to quickly go through the things that I have gone through after the public comments.

Okay. Councilmember Fuhrman? Yeah,

just to continue sort of in the vein of my commentary from before, if we're going to have this deadline for comments, it would be helpful to have sort of a philosophical statement from staff as to what really belongs to the general plan and what might belong in an ordinance. It would be helpful for us to be able to then provide you with the feedback that is not going to send you on a wild goose chase.

There is a fine line, but I think looking at how general plans as a whole are written, again, they're different from ordinances. We don't specify building heights in a general plan, but we do specify a lot of other things related to what buildings should look like. We special density is specified in the general plan. So things that are more site specific and again, objective, Those are typically found in ordinances. I think it does help where you can be objective. But this document is really something about stating a policy. What your how your community sees itself. What your community wants. And then working down to your strategies from there. How do you get to that goal you stated?

And not trying to get too granular, which was the word you used. And I it it has gotten, I think, tougher for the reason the vice mayor says is there's been an increasing push to be more objective. Sure.

Presumably you could put your objective standards in an ordinance. You don't necessarily need to have them in the general plan.

Yes. You can or even in other documents. I I I think you do wanna be mindful of it's a general plan and always kinda pulling back with what is it you're trying to achieve is kind of the overarching thing and then there's usually a way to write that.

Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna

make sure that we're using the right vehicle. I'm certainly sensitive to what the vice mayor is saying. I think we all are. If we make the general plan so inflexible that we can't fix it if we need to and you've got to go back through this process of getting a state blessing on it, that seems like its own problem.

If you have concerns about noise, a decibel level should be in your ordinance, not necessarily in your general plan.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay, thank you. We do have some of these things in both including the heights and the noise decibels. Madam City Clerk

In the general plan.

In the general plan. Correct.

And, instead of boundaries, those are Yes. The

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay. We are short on time. Madam City Clerk, do we have members of the public who'd like to comment on this item?

Yes, Mayor. We do not have any request to speak in person at community hall. I am seeing one hand raised virtually, and I may have another request to speak who is who emailed me who is having difficulties raising the hand feature. So at this time, we will welcome Sandra.

Good evening, Mayor Hoare and council members. I'm our planning commissioner and was the chair in 2025 that led the first hearing on the planning commission on this draft health and safety element, speaking on behalf of myself only as a Cupertino resident. I I do agree with the comments that were made by, council member JR Froon and I believe Sheila Mohan. I think we have to think about this as a policy update. And while there are aspects of policy that can be objective and should be objective where they can be, I see a number of suggested additions that increase the burdens on residents that may be living in the corridor of truck traffic or that may be living in frankly most of Cupertino if we start to treat moderate high, very high as one category for additional restrictions on major home remodels, that does add a burden on restaurants.

So I do want us to be sensitive to adding costs to residents. It is already unaffordable to live in California, in Bay Area and in Cupertino. And when we add costs, it makes it further unaffordable. So I urge you to really think about how your suggested policy changes may add a cost of living burden onto restaurants. Further, I would also urge you to look at the cost you add to commercial developments because that translates directly into the cost of housing or the cost of rentals, and that is eventually a burden on future residents.

So what I see sorely missing in this is interagency policy that encourages and requires the city to work with the county and with the quarry to periodically interlock on the status of fire management and brush management, and to do that not only with the county and the quarry, also other agencies like Union Pacific Railroads, where the rail track runs through the city. What I see is our biggest risk is the hillside, the quarry and the railroad. And while we are overregulating and adding burdens to new construction and major home remodels and restaurants and truck corridors, we are doing absolutely nothing about policy to engage with the county and all of these other agencies. So I urge you to really take a step back, have another hearing, if you must, to think about what can be the priority here. The biggest risk is the the hills around us.

And if we can have policy that requires a two by two, I've suggested this before, maybe the city starts a two by two with the county so that you have the ability to interlock locally, to invite them locally, to have the members of the public engage with them locally because when the public gives the county feedback, there is no responsiveness to restaurants of Cupertino. So I urge you to really think about what you can do here. Also think about pickleball noise that was discussed but not covered. Thank

you, Sam. That is your time. Okay. Jennifer Griffin has emailed that she's having difficulties raising her hand virtually, so I'm going to ask her if she would like to speak. Jennifer, you there?

Jennifer, I'm trying to Lauren,

are you able to unmute?

Yes, she is unmuted. Jennifer, you are unmuted. I'm just we're not hearing anything on your end. So, Jennifer Can

you hear me?

Oh, we can hear you now. And just

Yes. Okay. But yeah. So, anyway, thank you so much. I my husband was telling me what he thought it was permissions problems, but we're gonna during your dinner break, we're gonna get off and then come back on again. So thank you, for this. I'll talk real fast. Thank you for having this, item come up. I appreciate you bearing with me. I just wanted to add a couple of things.

This was excellent presentation. I did read all the notes on it. You guys are doing a a wonderful job of trying to keep us safe. I just wanted to state, if you all weren't aware, there was in 1981, the malathion storage tanks that had been stored on Highway 85 exploded. I was at De Anza College at the time.

They had to evacuate, the schools in De Anza, and it was a complete the roads were completely choked up. I I waited four hours for the bus to come, at the Oaks. So we need to be mindful of things that can happen, that affect a a group, like, evacuating a school. It it's bedlam. They actually wound up leaving a a classroom of hearing impaired students in De after they forgot about them.

I'm not blaming De Anza, but these are the types of things that happen when you have some sort of a disaster like that. The other thing I was gonna say is we need to be mindful of tornadoes now. If you weren't aware, last December, there was a tornado that hit the Target store in Scotts Valley. I happen to have been through there the day before and the day after. It did extensive damage to the roof of buildings.

And routinely, where my in Santa Cruz, they will send out tornado warnings because they see, thunderstorm activity, etcetera, etcetera, beginning to build up. And these are things that we need to be mindful of that, yes, maybe it's a change in the climate, but you there are places in this country where they have regular tornado siren warnings, so we need to to think about that. Also, I I'm really as you're aware, I'm concerned about I feel like a lot of the authors of the current housing bills, a b one thirty, have blinders on, and they're not they're not thinking about public safety. Anyway, thank you so much for helping me get on, and keep up the good work because we need to keep everyone safe. Thank you so much.

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

Alright. Thank you. So, I would like to hear more about the general plan policies. This discussion that we've been having, I think is very interesting regarding on the perhaps the policies, strategies, and goals. I would due to the shortness of time move that we direct staff to clarify the general plan policies that previous discussion we've been having.

I think that's very helpful in that the council has until 05:00 on Friday to submit or resubmit your suggestions if you made suggestions and have already turned them in and you would like to alter them, you have until Friday at 5PM to do that And then we ask that staff will compile those suggestions into a TBD format, which will have their recommendations in a separate column, which will come back as a study session at a date uncertain. Would anyone like to modify that motion or second it?

I'll second it.

Okay, thank you. Do we have any council comments at this time?

I talked too quickly. One more question. So, is it possible we have policy strategies but also implementation action? I think similar to the housing in housing element.

That can be part of what they can Yeah, It'll brought back in a staff report.

Yes, so I'm just asking if that's feasible for staff to recommend.

I'll take that as a friendly amendment to the motion. Talk about implementation. It could

include implementation action.

Mhmm. Yes.

Which could be like adopting ordinance to do something.

Right. It would be suggestions if if something doesn't fit here, where does it fit? And then what are the steps that we need to do to make that happen?

Yeah. That works? Okay. Great. Thank you.

So So And the seconder, you you've made a friendly amendment and you accept that. Council member

I no. Time is short. I want to quickly go through

my meeting notes. Sorry. No. You have till Friday at five p. M. You can make changes to your current ones. And otherwise, we're gonna be running into the next meeting.

Then I just quickly mentioned I did address the pickable noise issue with impulse noise, how quantify that, and then the nighttime track noise in my proposed policies. And then there are, hopefully, requiring evacuation study for development project, which is not currently required in the draft. So please check the three written communication I have submitted. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Freud?

Sure. Just with regard to the recommendation that would be brought back to us, I would hope that usually staff do this, but I would like to see some fulsome reasoning as to why the recommendation is being made, just so that it's clear for our discussion.

That sounds reasonable. At this time, are we ready to call the question? Okay, looks like it. Adam, city clerk, will you please set the voting lights for us?

Okay. Okay.

Thank you. Please vote.

The motion carries with Wong absent.

Alright. Thank you and we have about half a minute before our regular meeting starts. So with that, this special meeting is adjourned. Good evening. It is 06:46, and I call this 05/19/2026 regular meeting of the Cupertino City Council to order.

If you're able to stand, please do so 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 Freund. Here. Councilmember Mohan. Here. Vice mayor Chow. Here. Mayor Moore. Present. And councilmember Wong is absent this evening.

Alright. Thank you. Madam city attorney, do we have any closed session report? We do.

We have a report out from the closed session we had. I'm I'm sorry. Would you remind me the date of that closed session?

May 11 at 8PM.

May 11. And the item was heard, but no reportable action was taken. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Madam, okay. And next we'll begin with one ceremonial item, recognizing the public's public works department in conjunction with public works week. And I wanted to say a couple of comments on this.

The sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association focuses on public works being rooted in service powered by community. Public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, services that are of vital importance to the sustainable and resilient communities and to public health, high quality of life, and well-being of people of California. Everywhere we look in Cupertino, we see the great work of our public works department From our beautiful parks, our orderly and beautiful boulevards, our environmentally responsible programs, energy efficient lighting, everywhere you look in the city, you see the work of our public works department out taking care of our built environment every day. Thank you for all that you do to keep Cupertino beautiful. Madam city manager, do you have some comments on this item?

Thank you, mayor. I do. Public service week public works week, sorry, is an opportunity to recognize the essential services that keep our community safe and connected and functioning every day from maintaining streets and infrastructure to delivering vital muni services. Behind the scenes, public works staff care for a vast and complex system, you have mentioned, Mayor, maintaining over 3,400 public lights that enhance visibility and safety, stewarding more than 23,000 trees that contribute to the city's urban canopy and environmental health. And the team also manages nearly 200 acres of parks and open space.

In addition, Public Works maintains approximately 300 miles of streets and 60 signal traffic signals to support mobility and reduce congestion while proactively protecting neighborhoods from flooding, from cleaning nearly 2,100 storm inlets each year. So collectively, this work, as well as countless other efforts, reflect sustained commitment to public safety, environmental stewardship, and quality of life. Thank you to public work staff for all of your work. And thank you, counsel, for recognizing the department. I would now like to invite the director of public works, Chad Mosley, and any department staff in attendance to come up on stage and receive the proclamation.

Alright. Our next ceremonial item is the recognition of Asian American Pacific Islander month. Tonight, the city of Cupertino is proud to recognize May as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Our sister and friendship city relationships reflect who we are as a community. Through our sister city relationship with Hinshu, Taiwan, and our friendship city partnerships with New Taipei City and Taichung City, we have built exchange, and friendship.

We also recognize Taiwanese heritage week observed from May 10 through May 17 and celebrate the contributions of the Taiwanese American community here in Cupertino and beyond. We're pleased to recognize the two groups here with us this evening, the Asian Pacific American Public Affairs Group and the Asian American Parent Association. Stacy Tang, Regional Director of the Formosana Association for Public Affairs on behalf of Asian Pacific American Public Affairs will receive the proclamation. So here, Stacy. Hello. Okay.

Can I make a short comment? Please. So I'd like to mention that we just held the AAPI Festival the last Saturday. This is the fourth year it was held in Cupertino. I wish that we could have invited the founder of that event for hosting it. But the same event is also sponsored by the AAPA organization that's also recognized today. Thank you. And I think four council members attended that event.

That consists of the, like, the reach, the community, and then to coordinate.

So we're doing, this is AAPA first.

So I think we're oh, yeah. This APA. Oh, that's all the APA. I

think that because that's on the same

oh, okay. Yeah. Because under the same proclamation, but two two groups. Oh. Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. It's not that way.

So this is Betty Yang, member of Asian American Parent Association, AAPA, will receive the next proclamation. Alright. Thank you all for coming. Our next item is postponements and orders of the day. Do we have any postponements and orders of the day, madam city clerk?

We do not, mayor.

Okay. Any members of the council wish to move any of the items? Not seeing any hands raised. Our next item is oral communications. Madam city clerk, how many comment cards do you have for oral communications at this time?

Mayor, I'm seeing one request to speak in person, and I currently see one hand raised virtually. The request in person is a group, so of of more than five, so it'll be ten minutes for this

one group. Okay. Thank you. Madam City Clerk, will you please provide the instructions for oral communications and conduct the item?

Certainly. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address 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.

As necessary, the mayor may further limit the time allowed to individual speakers or reschedule remaining comments to the end of the meeting on a first come first served 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 the 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. And as a member as a reminder, members of the public wishing to speak regarding the this item under oral communications shall submit a request to speak or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes start of the public comp period or before the public comp period is closed, whichever comes first.

So again, mayor, one request to speak in person, and right now we have three hands raised virtually. So at this time, we we will welcome Helene Davis' group. So so welcome. You guys will have ten minutes.

Excellent. Thank you. Good evening, mayor Moore, council members, and city staff. My name is Helene Davis, I am the president of the Cupertino Cupertino Sister Cities Association. And we just completed our sixth student exchange with Cupertino, Italy.

We sent seven delegates and two chaperones. And we thought it was really important that you hear directly from the students before they disappear for summer break and such. I do want to acknowledge especially our chaperones, Janine Waddell, who is here tonight, and Nick Pregioco, and also the parents, of course. I have to acknowledge them. And I want to thank the council and the city staff for all your support of our program and all the Sister City programs through the years. So I will turn this over to the first delegate, which I think is Jaden.

Hi, my name is Jaden and I'm an eighth grader who attends Hyde Middle School. When the Italian students first arrived at San Francisco International Airport, they were excited but tired and immediately noticed how big everything seemed. The roads, the cars, the schools, and our community. They stayed in our homes with our family sharing dinner at home that first night and starting to get to know one another. During their visit, they discovered that life in Cupertino is a little bit different from life in Italy.

At school, they noticed how much technology we use and how involved students are in activities and sports. In our homes, they experience busy schedules, meals from different cultures, and everyday American family life. We also got to show them some of our favorite places, including San Francisco and Santa Cruz.

Video next slide. Next slide.

Hello, everyone. My name is Udav, and I'm in the seventh grade at Miller Middle School. After a brief flight delay, we arrived in Cupertino right at dinner time, which is around 9PM in Italy. When we got there, we were greeted by our Italian friends and their families with a warm welcome and dinner at home. Everyone was really nice and excited to meet us, which made us feel comfortable right away. Our first impressions of Cupertino were really interesting. The pace of life felt much slower than what we're used to. It also felt more rural with lots of open fields around the town, but also very small tight streets in the center. We spent time at school and with our families, learning a lot about the culture. The school gave us a presentation that included Italian dance and music specifically from the Cupertino region, Puglia.

We exchanged gifts with the mayor of Cupertino and the school officials and ate homemade regional food made by the families.

Next slide.

And speaking of food, the food was one of the best parts of our trip. Hi. My name is Sithara Siva and I'm in the seventh grade at Hyde Middle School. While we were in Italy, we ate fresh homemade dishes made by the Italian moms. A lot of the food ironically included some variation of bread, tomato sauce and cheese. Lots of cheese, including ricotta and mozzarella. We also had a lot of gelato. The chocolate they had was always dark chocolate and everything seemed less artificial. Sometimes, the best place to stop for gelato was at a bar, which was more like a cafe where people get coffee, snacks and desserts. At the school, we had a chance to learn how to form our own orichette as one of the activities at the school.

And we got the chance to visit a bakery and make our own pasicciotto, a local custard filled dessert. The food helped us experience real Italian culture and family life in a really fun way.

Hi. My name is Anshika Daga, and I am in seventh grade at Lawson. Next slide, video. I truly loved enjoying hanging out with my host family. I loved hanging out with every single family member as well as the dog, Ray.

I love being able to spend every single day with my host student, Sofia, from being able to get ready for activities together to eating meals together. Every single day in Cupertino is memorable. I love being love being able to cook with the grandma and playing with the dog, but I think the moment I will forever cherish and keep in my heart is how every single night, no matter what it was no matter whether it was 9PM or 2AM, they would always watch movies and play games with me and include me in everything, which made me feel so loved as if they were my second family. I love learning everything in Cupertino from how to cook your pasta and how to greet each other with kisses. But something I never thought would happen is that that I I learned how much I would miss the family, and every day I look back on the exchange program and miss truly miss everyone.

Next slide.

While we were in Italy, we had the chance to visit San Giuseppe School of Copertino, which was really different from our schools. First, we noticed that the school was a single building, which was interesting because we could access classrooms from internal hallways. I also noticed that it was a K through eight school, which I was familiar with because I attended McAuliffe, which is k through eight. The time they spent in class, which was much less, the school was dismissed at 01:30, The school bell was different and sounded old style, and the students presented Italian culture that was really interesting and exciting to watch. We got to read books to the younger students about San Francisco that were about cable cars and the seals on Pier 39.

The schedule and subjects were a little different too. They relaxed the schedule while we were there so that students got to spend time meeting a lot of students and attending presentations. The classroom setup was more traditional with desks facing the teacher. We were able to watch and participate in group activities. The best part was definitely the students. They were super nice and friendly and kind and they made us feel welcome right away.

Hi, good evening. My name is Maya May and I'm a seventh grader at Lawson Middle School. We experienced memorable places in Italy. What I like best were the little matching huts in Albarrabello where we walked through its street's famous Truly houses. We visited Oranto, a beautiful coastal town with historic streets and the amazing view of the Adriatic Sea.

It was incredible to see the eleventh century cathedral and its stunning mosaic floor. What impressed me most was the cave tour in Grate Di Castellena where we saw massive underground caves. The tour guide stopped every couple minutes to show something truly fascinating, like how the stalagmites and stactites form a bull like creature. We also visited a historic tower in Santa Catarina overlooking the coast line where we had a panini picnic. We also had one evening in Lecce, the largest city in the region with a small coliseum of its own and unique architecture.

We even had sushi. In Lecce, we did a scavenger hunt where we had to find certain places and take pictures with our mini group. In short, surrounding areas of Cupertino were very cool and each had their own traits. All the places we visited were very endearing and I would love to go there again.

My name is Melina Maie and I'm an eighth grader at Kennedy Middle School. I am now going to talk about speaking the language in Italy. While the Italian students from Cupertino could speak quite a bit of English, most Cupertino California students did not know much Italian. With the help of digital translators, human translators, and the universal thumbs up sign, in addition to the traditional Italian hand gestures like this. We successfully broke the language and made communication not only possible but sometimes entertaining.

Hi, I'm Janine Wedel. I'm a member of the Cupertino Cupertino Sister Cities Association and I was lucky enough to be a chaperone on the trip. I would just like to say a final thank you to the city of Cupertino for supporting this program along with Cupertino, Italy, St. Joseph's School here in Cupertino and San Giuseppe School in Cupertino, also with the Cupertino Union School District and the Cupertino Cupertino Sister City Association of course and the families of our kids who supported the students, the Italian students while they were here and were brave enough to send their students abroad. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Helene. Next, we will move to the request to speak virtually. We have three hands raised. At this time, we will welcome Jennifer Griffin, followed by Nori, followed by Sandra L. Welcome Jennifer.

Jennifer. Can you hear me? We can hear you now.

Okay, thank you. We loaded the app on the tablet and it's working better. Thank you so much. Just on the side, I loved hearing about the students going to Cupertino. I just wanted to mention again, there is a housing bill which I've been following.

It's AB 50 I'm sorry, AB seventeen fifty one by Buffy Wicks and Mrs. Quirk Silva. I think it's Sharon Quirk Silva of Southern California. And this bill, I I'm just real every time I read the contents of the bill, it gets worse. They're trying to do ministerial approval for townhouse projects, and then the text of the bill says that the public is not supposed to be able to give comments about the townhouse projects.

And I I just find something really, really strange about this whole bill. I really hope that it can be modified. Evidently, some cities in Southern California have expressed their frustration with it because they said that it is overriding the planning departments. And what I'm concerned about is that we have a lot of issues coming up concerning water accessibility, telecommunications, traffic control, etcetera, etcetera with CEQA. And I don't think, I think having a lot of things that are ministerial really defeats the whole purpose.

We want to be safe. You guys just spent, you know, a whole bunch of time and research trying to have a safety element that is required by the state. But why why would we have a bill like this that would be have permitting something ministerially and preventing the public from asking pertinent questions? What what kind of government is that saying that they're promoting? I as we're going in with the new governor, I I I have some very serious questions about what the purpose of a bill like this is to do.

Is it supposed to expedite construction? Okay. Yes. I understand that. But if you have the public having a lot of questions pertaining to CEQA environmental issues, to me, it's trying to punish the public for asking questions. And it's also trying to prevent the city council, the planning commission, and the planning department to do their due diligence. I really think that we're on the wrong road with this type of a bill. And I do hope Mrs. Wicks and Mrs. Quirksilva can try to maybe alter this bill so it becomes something useful.

But to me, it's a boat anchor. It's an exercise in futility, and it's try I'm sorry. It's it's an exercise to try to frustrate the public. I'm frustrated, so let's hope it goes away. Thank you.

Thank you, Jennifer. Next, we'll welcome Nori. Welcome, Nori.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you for this opportunity. Burnley Drive is used for business district, include many upper office buildings, upper cafeteria, business building for small businesses, and academy for children. It is not for housing area. Have you been to look at the 10002 And 68 Valley Drive and walk inside the office to look at it? If not, please do so.

10002 And 68 Valley Drive Building is used for educational building, businesses, and small commercial businesses, law office, technology incorporation, architect office, and in the building. Most importantly, Mirai Gakuen, Japanese Language Culture School for Children, Beyond the Learning Center, Chinese Language, Taiwanese Culture Education Academy, Kapybala Clay Studio, Art Clay Studio for Children, Niwo Shu Academy, Chinese Martial Art Training Center and enjoy dance studio for many young student learning learning dance are in the building. Many, many children enjoyed attend those schools. Summer school will be start soon. Once again, summer you develop the property to townhomes.

Where those academies for children can go. Many office buildings are developed to townhome by Summerhill, and the city always approved. If you have a compassion to those children, please let the building stay where they are now for children academy for school. Please do not take the school for children. Please find alternative location. Please help. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you, Nori. Next we will welcome San Rao.

Good evening, mayor Moore, commission members council members. Speaking on behalf of myself only as the resident, even though I'm a planning commissioner, I have a few different issues to bring up for your attention. I hope you will consider agendizing and addressing these. I encourage you all to take a drive during peak hours in the morning and evening on the Anza Boulevard, on Stevens Creek, and Homestead. The traffic conditions have never been worse.

I have lived here thirty years. I've driven these roads for thirty years. I've worked in Cupertino for thirty years almost, and the traffic that I see has never been worse. And I urge you to drive and experience it personally. I urge you to stand at the block corners on Stevens Creek in the evenings between 05:30 and six or five and six and experience it particularly Tuesday to Thursday.

The conditions have gotten considerably worse than what it was even two years ago. And this is not the time to be exposing our bicyclists to the smoke of these vehicles, that pollution is unhealthy. I encourage you to look at off, off main corridor bike lanes and to look at ways to accommodate our multimodal traffic without putting our bicyclists in the midst of that kind of smoke and without putting barriers to the free flow of our automotive traffic. So I urge you to agendaize and bring back the fourth lane on, the answer that was taken out, that that lane really needs to be restored and we need to keep our traffic flowing. Secondly, want to bring to your attention that the solar panel project on the sports center has completed, but the parking lot has not been cleared.

That parking lot is always fully occupied. And right now, we have paying members, the Cupertino Sports Center members, generate revenue to the city of 1,300,000 a year. And we have paying members having to park by Quinlan or park by Whole Foods or Adyenza and then cross and come over to the sports center. I encourage you to have the parking lot clear. You may move it to the Quinlan Parking Lot, and staff may park somewhere else and walk that distance.

When you ask paying residents and nonrestants to park somewhere else so that you do not inconvenience the Quinlan parking, what message are you sending? Are you sending a message that the restaurants and non restaurants and the members that pay insignificant amount do not matter and matter less than the occupants of Quinlan? Think about that. I hope you were clear that this was never something that was stored the council that you would keep this as a storage for public works during and after this project. This was never disclosed.

I'm pleased to clear that. And then finally, I wanna bring to your attention that the city has not addressed the truck traffic noise. And while I have received an explanation for that, I encourage you to work with the county to bring back the conditional use

Thank you, Sam. That is your time. Mayor, that concludes the request to speak in the oral communications.

Thank you very much. Next, we move on to the consent item. Madam city clerk, have any items been pulled from consent? No, mayor. Okay. Do any council members wish to pull an item off of consent? Hearing none, do we have members of the public who would like to comment on the consent calendar?

Mayor, I do not see any request to speak in person and I do not see any hands raised virtually.

Alright. Do I have a motion to move the consent calendar?

Had a comment. Maria. Shall

we move the consent item and then comment on it?

No, I didn't really want to spend too much time on the item that I want to talk about.

Okay. Happy to move it. Items 3,217.

Thank you. Moore second. And, Councilmember Bemoya?

I just wanted to make a comment on item number five. I've questioned this, and I've had a really good detailed explanation from the former city clerk. And I'm satisfied with the explanation, but I'm not satisfied with the need to have on the agenda. So it's on the agenda. We can leave it on for now if you want, but I would prefer that in future years we just don't have the site.

All right. So noted. Do I have any further comments on the consent calendar before we go to a vote? Vice

mayor? Yeah.

I guess I should comment on item nine because we did receive some public comments on that. So I think in the past, there were some designation for candidates who elect to abide by the campaign limit. It's voluntary. And some people think it helps them to make a decision. Some people it doesn't.

Support the item because I think the intent is to encourage more grassroots campaigns so that the candidates spend more time going door to door and using volunteers rather than hire a professional consultant, as have been done in some campaigns. So the amount is reasonable, I think, for grassroots campaign. Thank you.

Can I Yes? Please, councilmember Mohan.

My my only response to the vice mayor's comment was that everyone who runs for election, these elections are adults, they can make a decision as to how much they want to spend and how much time or money they want to spend on consultants, etcetera. So, I'm not sure we as a city need to make that decision for them, given the fact that it doesn't really carry any weight.

Okay, thank you. Seeing no further hands raised and we've already gone for public comment, Madam City Clerk, will you please set the lights for a vote? Thank you.

The motion carries with Wong absent.

Okay. Our next item is a public hearing. It is item 18. And it is a public hearing hearing pursuant to government code section three five zero two point three to receive a report on the City Of Cupertino vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts. Madam city manager, do we have a presentation? Presentation?

Thank you, mayor. Yes. Tonight, with this item, we're providing a report on city's vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts in compliance with the new law, which is the AB twenty five sixty one. And presenting this item tonight will be Vanessa Guerra, our human resources manager, and I will turn it over to her.

Hi. Good evening, madam mayor and council members. My name is Vanessa Guerra. I'm your human resources manager for the city. And as you may recall, assembly bill two five six one went into effect on 01/01/2025.

And the focus of this bill, assembly bill, is to ensure transparency, accountability in the recruitment process, and to provide human resources with an opportunity to update the council and our community of our ability to recruit and attract talent to work with our great city of Cupertino. So with that, I'm going to start the slides. A brief overview of the Assembly Bill. A brief overview of the Assembly Bill is that it requires us on an annual basis all public agencies to assess and address vacancy rates as well as to present information on the status of vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts at least once per fiscal year and identify any policies, procedures, or recruitment activities that may present obstacles in our hiring process. There are additional obligations that we have if our vacancy rate is in a particular bargaining unit exceeds 20%.

I'm happy to report that we do not have any vacancies exceeding that 20% mark. As a reminder, we have two union and bargaining units with the city. Our operating engineers, or OE3, and our Cupertino Employee Association, IFPTE Local twenty one, or CEA. And OE3 is our maintenance classifications, which you just celebrated earlier this evening. CEA is our professional and paraprofessional technical and clerical positions here.

And then we have an unrepresented group of employees, Those are our managers, our confidential positions here with the city. The next slide is just a diagram of our budgeted full time equivalent positions. This does not include our part time staff. Next, you'll see a graph going back ten years, which will give you some metrics on new hires, promotions, and transfer information back to fiscal year 'sixteen-'seventeen, and inclusive of 'twenty five-'twenty six through 04/15/2026. And then we broke it down by vacancy rates by department as of April 15.

And you can see here that we've got all of our offices represented CMO and city attorney's office are represented separately. So they have 1333% vacancy rate together. Administrative services, which is still here as one group, is 16 total FTE with four vacant positions or a 25% vacancy rate. CDD has dropped significantly with a total FTE of 34 positions and one vacant position. INT, 15 FTE with one vacancy.

Parks and Recreation, proud to report no vacant positions. And Public Works, we just filled a large number of vacancies, have 89 full time equivalent positions and two vacant FTEs, and hopefully down to one later on in the month. So you'll see here that with a total of two ten full time equivalent positions, we have 12 vacancies throughout the city, and that is a vacancy rate of 5.8%. By bargaining unit, we have broken it down for OE3, 54 budgeted positions. And again, 54 budgeted positions, 53 are filled.

So our vacancy rate is just shy of 2%. CEA, we have 72 budgeted positions and 69 of those positions are filled, and that's a vacancy rate of just a bit over 4%. Our unrepresented or appointed group has the largest amount of vacancies. Budgeted positions are 84. We have 76 of those positions filled, and that has a vacancy rate of 9.5%.

Ways in which the Human Resources Department proceeds to attract and retain our talented workforce include posting our job opportunities to attract a talented workforce on our city's website. We do utilize NeoGov, which goes by commonly in the publicgovernmentjobs.com to post our job postings. We work with our departments and their internal or external professional organizations to post. We look at different ways to market our websites, And we have been pretty successful this past year in retaining our workforce and recruiting a very innovative, challenged, and creative workforce here at the city of Cupertino. So with that, I'll conclude my presentation.

And we'll put any questions you may have.

Great. Thank you so much, Vanessa, for a very comprehensive report. And we'll start with any counsel clarifying questions. And if I don't see any hands raised, we can go to public comment. Madam city clerk, do we have members of the public who'd like to comment on this item?

Mayor, I'm not seeing any request to speak on this item in person, but I do currently see one hand raised virtually. So at this time, we will welcome Zanrao.

Evening, mayor and all council members speaking on behalf of myself only as a resident. I do wanna ask that you consider proactive measures around staffing. The agencies all around us have a structural budget deficit. The city of San Jose has a $50,000,000 budget deficit. The county has a nearly $800,000,000 budget deficit.

Depending on where our sheriff's contract lands, we may be short of where our revenues are and our revenues are declining and our forecast does not adequately account for that decline. And so I'm asking that you proactively close all open recs first so that we take that, saving first. And then to start to look at where and how you can reduce the maximum amount of costs out of our staffing, particularly with focus on minimizing impact to the community. We have had this, cost reduction in the past in 2023, 2024. And the approach taken was to maximally impact the community by raising taxes, fees, cost recovery and so on, while minimizing impact to staffing.

And we have to change that. We have now a different council majority. The council majority is a grassroots council majority that was elected based on that distinction, and it is time to work for restaurants and not impact the community. I'm asking you to look at consolidating departments, at eliminating either a director or assistant director and looking at consolidating departments. We cannot impact our fleet workers, our ground staff, and people that serve the community directly.

We cannot get savings at the lowest levels, but you do need to take actions that are hard actions so that you do not impact our budget and you do not impact our residents. I also urge you to look at what you can do to turn existing staffing into contract staffing to save on health care and pensions. You can certainly save the jobs. You can save the roles. You can save the people's existing employment.

However, we have to recognize that health care and pension is a growing part the liabilities of the city, and this is an area you need to address. All around us, agencies are having to take steps. And if you act proactively, you can manage this in a controlled manner rather than having to deal with even larger cuts. And I encourage you to do a realistic study of what our actual revenues are because it is not gonna be at the run rate that is being projected. Thank you.

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

Okay. Do we have any council clarifying questions on this particular item? Vice mayor. Hello.

Hi. A question for staff. So are the vacancy ratio normal for Cupertino? And do we expect to fill those vacancies, or could they be considered for potential, reduction? Is there?

Vice mayor, there's currently no plans to reduce these open positions. There are, however, plans to fill some of

the vacancies that you saw tonight. So as they have been vacant because we haven't been recruiting?

They're either active recruitments, or we're in the process of either opening recruitment soon, or they're actively being recruited for.

Okay. Actually, was trying to do we have what's our staffing level? Do we have a chart of our staffing level so we can take a look at how historically

We do. I believe it was included in the budget document and also in Vanessa's slide.

Yeah. Oh, that's true. Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Are there any further clarifying questions? Okay, I'm not seeing any. So, we're closing the public hearing. For, do we have a motion for purposes of deliberation on this item.

I will move the recommended action.

Thank you, Council Member Freuin. Do we have a second? I'll second it. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Mohan. Do we have any further comments from the council before we go to a vote? Vice mayor, your hand is raised. Okay. I see no hands raised. Madam city clerk, will you please set the lights for a vote?

So everyone voted?

The motion carries with Wong absent.

Okay. With that, thank you very much, Vanessa. Thank you very much. And we will take a five minute break and be back at 07:40. Next is our action calendar.

The first item is our third quarter financial report. Madam city manager, do we have a presentation for item 19, acceptance of the city manager's third quarter financial report.

Thank you, mayor. We do have a presentation. Tonight, council is requested to approve the third quarter financial report for fiscal year twenty five twenty six and the budget modifications. Presenting this item tonight will be Jonathan Orozco, acting director of administrative services, and Tony Oase Anderson, our budget manager. And I'm going to turn it over to staff to lead us with the presentation.

Good evening, mayor, city council members. Tony Owase Anderson, budget manager here to present to you the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six third quarter financial report.

Sorry about that.

Oh, video. If you can please show the PowerPoint presentation. Thank you. The third quarter financial report for fiscal year twenty five twenty six outlines the city's financial status as of 03/31/2026. This is the third of three quarterly reports for each fiscal year.

It covers the analysis of how the current year is trending compared to q three of the prior year and also covers any recommended budget adjustments as of the third quarter. Then we will cover the budget road map followed by next steps and recommendations. So as mentioned earlier, the third quarter financial report outlines the city's financial status up until 03/31/2026. As of 03/31/2026, the city's amended budget across all funds is 229,700,000, an increase from the adopted budget of $136,100,000. The amended budget is higher primarily due to carryover appropriations, which consist of budgeted amounts not spent in the prior fiscal year that were carried forward for unfinished projects or purchases and encumbrances, which represent funds committed under existing contracts that have been set aside but not yet expended.

The increase also reflects additional budget adjustments that were approved by council between July 1 and 03/31/2026. The largest carryovers and encumbrances in the general fund are primarily due to the dollars associated with the RISE project. Carryovers and encumbrances in the special revenue and capital project funds are due to multiyear CIP projects that are fully budgeted and carried over until the project is completed. Additional information on these carryovers and budget adjustments can be found in your packet as attachment d. This chart shows the estimated use of fund balance in the general fund from the adopted budget and throughout each quarter of the fiscal year.

The estimated use of fund balance over time is due to changes that have been made throughout the fiscal year. So at budget adoption, expenditures exceeded revenues by approximately $2,000,000 resulting in the use of fund balance. During the first quarter, both revenues and expenditures increased significantly compared to the adopted budget. This is due to carryovers and encumbrances and council approved adjustments. The projected use of the fund balance was $1,100,000 at the Q1 financial update.

And in the second and third quarter financial updates, revenues remained relatively flat at approximately $134,600,000 while projected expenditures continue to increase from $135,400,000 to 137,700,000 and $138,400,000 as of third quarter. As the expenditure projections increased without corresponding revenue growth, the projected use of fund balance rose to $3,200,000 and ultimately at 3,900,000 So as of third quarter, staff anticipates the general fund will end fiscal year twenty five twenty six with 178,000,000 178,000,000 in fund balance, which is an increase of 22,000,000 from the fiscal year twenty six adopted budget fund balance projection. The increase from the adopted budget is a result of both year end revenues exceeding expenditures and budget savings achieved in the prior fiscal year. And it's important to note that the only portion available for use according to city policy are the unassigned funds. As shown here, unassigned funds as of third quarter is 63,500,000.

Now

we'll move on to the proposed third quarter budget adjustments. Departments continuously monitor their budgets throughout the fiscal year. When unanticipated operational needs arise, departments may request budget adjustments throughout the quarterly financial reporting process. This slide summarizes the total request adjustments requested adjustments by fund. Across all funds staff is requesting $526,184 in new appropriations partially offset by 372,500 in revenue, resulting in the net use of approximately $153,684 in fund balance.

This slide here provides a high level summary of the department requests. First, the city attorney's office is requesting $175,000 for legal services due to several unforeseen matters, including personnel matters, affordable housing, builders remedy cases, and anticipated responses to a recently released grand jury report. There's also a requested budget adjustment for the senior assistant city attorney salary alignment to a department director from January through the remainder of the fiscal year with a one time cost of $15,696 and ongoing cost of approximately $31,191. And this alignment reflects the classifications executive level responsibilities, which include department reviewing department staff reports, increased PRA requests, complex special projects, and interagency agreements, plan board appointment duties, and expanded risk and insurance management responsibilities. Second, community development is requesting a $150,000 in additional appropriations for bank charges, which is partially was offset by $200,000 in revenues from credit card transaction fees.

This is needed to correct budget line items that were inadvertently omitted from the original base budget for this year. Community development department is also requesting 25,000 in additional appropriations for the human services grant program, which is needed to meet the funding recommendations awarded to the applicants of this grant program. Also in community development, there was a request for a $150,000 in appropriations due to increased contracts for large residential development projects under a b one thirty, which requires expedited city review timelines. There's also a request for $3,000 for advertising and legal notices. This is needed since more hearings are required and necessitates more advertising and legal noticing that was not anticipated in the beginning of the year.

The last request here is for the Innovation and Technology Department for $7,488 to ensure compliance with SB seven zero seven language accessibility requirements by providing real time translation for Chinese speaking residents at city council meetings to improve transparency and civic participation. Those are the requests for third quarter. Next, we'll cover the city manager discretionary fund, which council originally approved as part of the fiscal year twenty six adopted budget. As of 03/31/2026, the discretionary fund was used for the property appraisal services for the Finch Avenue, property at a cost of $9,850. And staff will continue to report on the use of this fund as part of the quarterly financial reports.

Next, we'll just move into the budget road map that you've seen frequently. This, again, highlight highlights just a high level overview of where we are in our budget process. As a reminder, we started with the budget format in the fall, which was approved by the budget format subcommittee, audit committee, and city council. In December, we presented the q one financial report, followed by the midyear report and the CIP program in March. And in April, we also held our successful community budget meeting, which highlighted the OpenGov's financial transparency portal.

Last week, we had the fiscal year twenty seven proposed budget study session, and here we are today presenting the fiscal year twenty six third quarter financial report. Next month, we will bring forward the final budget adoption. Oh, for sorry. Next month, well, staff will return in council in mid June for final budget adoption. Okay.

And here are the recommendations for this evening. The first recommendation is to accept the city manager's third quarter financial report for fiscal year 2526. Also, to adopt a resolution approving budget modification number twenty five twenty six four four three increasing appropriations by $526,184 and increasing revenues by 372,500. And lastly, to adopt resolution amending the unrepresented employees compensation program to incorporate revised salary schedule. This concludes the presentation, and we are available for any questions you have.

Alright. Thank you. You very much acting director Orozco and for our senior management analyst Tony for this report and also especially for the prep sessions that you provided for all of the council. And I believe all of the council took the opportunity to attend these separately. I think it really helps a lot. So we're going to begin with some clarifying questions. And Vice Mayor.

Hi. Thank you for the presentation. Could you show the adjustment page, please? So my question is about environmental review contract due to expedited, I guess, AP130 requirement. Are these costs going to be covered by development fees?

Your

mic?

I talked too fast. There you go. All right. Thank you for the question. Vice Mayor Ben Fu, Director of Community Development. That item is entirely passed through and paid for by the applicant.

Yeah. And also the advertising and legal notices, I'm guessing.

That one as well, yes.

That also, yeah. Correct. That's good to know. And then for the translation service for Chinese required by the state law, I'm just wondering, is there any state funding for this mandate by the state or something we can apply? Terry? Good

evening, mayor and council members. Terry Gerhardt, director of innovation and technology. There is no funding for this, for the SB seven zero seven initiatives as far as I know.

So how many how do they determine what language we to provide?

So it's 20%, any language spoken outside of English that's 20% or greater in your community. So the census gives us that information.

Oh, so we get that from the census? Mhmm. I see. And then for this service, if you add one more language, how much is the addition

It jumps it up pretty high exponentially. So it's beyond what we could do without going out to multiple bids and basically we didn't have the funds to go to that level. It's something we could do in the future but it's not something that we could foreseeably do with the immediacy of this action now.

Okay. So that's not provided like through Zoom or those?

Yeah. So it's a QR code that's available for residents to use. They come up and they can use headphones or use their own headphone set and tap into the QR code and it pops up and it's it's almost real time language translation.

So in audio? Yeah. Audio. Do they get transcript?

And they can get text as well, and the text is a little bit faster.

Oh, okay, thank you.

Sure. That's pretty cool. Okay, I did have a quick question for Director Ben Phu. I was just curious what the 20,000 for the grant amount, what that was for?

Yes, Mayor. So that item, it was a county grant to the emergency services division. And so as a two year grant, I believe, and when the on house functionality was transitioned from CMO to CDD, it was inadvertently left out in the budget book. But where do you get the money? So it was just more reflective of what's there.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

And do we have any further clarifying questions? None at this time. So I think the prep sessions went extremely well. So Madam City Clerk, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Mayor, I don't have any request to speak in person here at community hall, but I do have one request with a hand raised virtually. We will welcome Sandra. San, are you there? I don't see your microphone.

Thank you. The unmute is lagging, so I just get to unmute a minute after you may be unmuting. Speaking on behalf of myself only, Mayor Moore and council members, I'd like to the members of the public don't have the benefit of your prep sessions. So actually, you should consider having less prep sessions so that you're on the same page as the members of the public. And you should actually extend these discussions so that the benefit of what you are getting is the same as what members of the public get.

So consider that if you can. It's unclear to me what the carryovers are, and maybe that was explained and I missed it. But if the carryovers are one time and we are budgeting based on the additional revenue shown due to the carryover, it's a concern whether we are kicking the can down the road because the carryovers do not recur year over year. And so the actual revenue may be smaller than the increased revenue that appears to grow because of the carryover. So, I just want you to, plan for something that really does not assume carryovers and hold ourselves to a high bar in being frugal with our budgets.

I'd really like to also encourage if we can cut the contracts with these consultants and see if we can do less without consultants. Can we encourage staff to take on some of these projects? For example, can Council Research if the no net loss housing element site is tradition in other cities has had to use consultants? Why do we need consultants to identify sites? Is that something other cities are doing?

And so look at creative ways to really cut costs because right now, there's only limited levers we have. You cannot recoup the costs that we need out of this budget and the budget keeps rising because of health care and pension costs. I also want to encourage you to look at reducing the CIP and we need to take some hard cuts here. And so I hope you will look at structural changes to reduce the CIP projects. Finally, want to remind you once again that the general fund is subsidizing the senior center non residents and there is no limit on the number of non residents that can be signed up.

And while we talk about the member annual fee, that is not the only cost to the senior center. So you need a study session on the actual cost of the senior center per non resident and why should the general fund pay for an unlimited number of non residents at the senior center. And let's not just look at the $30 fee versus the $25 fee. That's not telling the whole story. So I encourage you to make sure that costs that are in the general fund are not in any way being applied towards non restaurants.

And I hope between the consultant cost, the non restaurant cost and taking a more holistic view at CIP and finally looking at staffing at the top level so that we can consolidate, you can say some questions.

Thank you, San. That is your time. Mayor, I don't see any further requests to speak on this item.

Okay. Thank you for that. I do want to mention that we have an excellent informational memo from staff regarding the Parks and Recreation Department, which addresses the residency and the cost recovery of the programs that are through the Parks and Rec Department. And it's several pages long, and I think you'll find some very good information there. I do want to comment on the consultant issue.

A consultant is a contractor, so on the one hand, if you're saying you want to reduce staff that's a full time employee and you want to move to consultants, then on the other side, those are contractors. So, I'm hearing mixed messages there, so I'm not really sure what to do with that. I do see some hands raised. Vice Mayor.

I wonder if the staff can address the question about carryover from the speaker.

Yes. So, carryovers is an attachment that is included in every quarterly report. And so, for the most part, for instance, in this last report, which was included in Q1 and midyear, majority of the midyear or of the general fund transfers or carryovers is relating to the VTC or the VAALCO project, and this is just a multi year project. And there's corresponding revenues to those as well. So, although you're seeing an increase in expenditures, you're also seeing an increase in revenues.

Yeah, okay. I do have one more question regarding the adjustment. So, we see $200,000 in credit card transaction, but that's a revenue. I thought that that would be an expenditure.

So, you'll see two lines. So, I believe you see 150 in expenditures for bank fees, which are your merchant fees for credit card processing, and the $200,000 is for the revenue. If I remember correctly, it's about 3 and some change percent for that credit card fee. And so if a resident or contractor chooses not to pay with a credit card, they don't incur that charge. So you just see that there's a relationship between the two.

In general, two are supposed to balance or essentially be a zero cost to the city. However, there's other expenditures the city incurs by processing that. So at this time, council, what's being asked of council is just 150 in additional appropriations to cover the cost that the department doesn't have available to it, to absorb those costs.

Okay. Thank you.

For purposes of deliberation, do we have a motion and a second on this item?

I will move the staff recommended action.

Thank you. Second. Vice mayor seconds. And do we have further questions or comments on this item? Vice mayor, your hand

is raised. Actually, I have one more. Okay. So for parks and rec, we have a lot of payments through either bank or credit cards also, right? So how come we don't see these adjustments?

Parks and Rec is a bit unique in that they use a system called ActiveNet where those fees can be passed on, actually correct me if I'm wrong. She's not here.

Oh, just rest

in The fees can be directly assumed by the individual taking the class, right? And so the city doesn't incur that expense, nor does it cede the revenue.

Oh, I remember we adopted, I think it was a council decision when we were trying to reduce cost. So the customers pay the credit card fee. So that's not the case for the CDD customers?

They do, except in this situation, the city bears the expense. It pays essentially those those fees. However, it collects a revenue. Whereas with parks and rec, through that the active net system, the the individual taking that class or paying for their whatever service they're getting pays that fee directly to the merchant. So it's essentially the city never sees the revenue nor the expense.

I see. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second, and I don't see any further hands raised. Madam city clerk, will you please set the lights for a vote?

The motion carries with Wong absent.

K. Thank you. Our next item is 20, and thank you to staff for for the great work on this item. And we move on to item 20. It's the annual review of the OPEB and pension trust investment policies. Madam city manager, do we have presentation?

Yes, mayor. Thank you. Council has requested to renew review and adopt changes to the OPEB and pension trust investment policies. This was discussed at the audit committee, it was recommended that this is brought to council. Presenting the item tonight will be Jonathan Orozco again. He can stay where he is, acting director of administrative services. And with that, I will turn it over to him.

Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor Moore and council members. Tonight's item is the annual review and adoption of the city's OPEB and pension section one fifteen trust investment policies. At a high level, the policies continue to prioritize prudent long term investment management while maintaining the city's balanced investment approach for both trusts. The proposed updates this year are relatively minor and primarily include clarification of fiduciary responsibility language policies to further emphasize that investment decisions must be made prudently and in the best financial interests of the trust and their beneficiaries inclusion of soft ESG or environmental, social, and governance language acknowledging that ESG related factors may be considered as part of the overall investment valuation process when consistent with the city's long term investment objectives and fiduciary obligations, and adjustments to the strategic allocation table to include global infrastructure as available asset class at a target allocation to 0%, consistent with the audit committee's recommendation.

The audit committee reviewed the policies on January 26 and provided general direction supporting the consideration of ESG related factors within the broader investment evaluation process while emphasizing that fiduciary duty and prudent financial management remain the primary judging, primary guiding principles of the policy. Overall, the city's trust continued to perform well. As of 06/30/2025, the OPEB trust was approximately at a 103% funded, and both trusts continue to exceed their long term target rates of returns since inception. Staff is recommending approval of the updated policies, and I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. And I have one hand raised. Council member Mohan.

Thank you, Jonathan. What exactly is ESG?

So it is environmental, social, and governance. Right. In short, we're looking for green, investments. At least that's the the the thought process behind it. At the meeting, at the January 26 meeting, our consultant at PARS and U.

S. Bank did a brief analysis comparing what a ESG portfolio or inclusion of an ESG portfolio versus the existing portfolio, what that would look like. And for the most part, it yielded no change in the return. So at this some of those types of investments, the city would, for the most part, at least based off of their analysis, would not see a decrease in the returns, which is, for the most part, it's a win win situation for the city.

Did we not do that before?

That wasn't its primary target. Essentially, its sole focus was to balance the preservation of principal, liquidity, and the rate of return. It's a more balanced approach. However, if we're emphasizing some of these more green investments, again, based off their analysis, it won't have a a material change to the rate of return. However, as we all know, the the current market for some of these types of investments may not be the same as when we had this first conversation in January.

What does that mean?

Well, for instance, the the war in Iran has changed some of the the return or the the essentially what what the value of some of these assets would be. Right? And so whether that's kinda pushing the the investments more or away from green, I'm not sure. As we can see on the March, the last investment, the quarterly report, it did not provide a positive outlook. So there was a negative rate of return for the last quarter, so which spanned January 1 to March 31.

So it's not having a positive effect. So whether we would have to perform that analysis once again to see whether an ESG portfolio or incorporating some of those more green investments still makes sense. However, at this point, we haven't implemented any of those changes.

Right. The bottom line is it has to work for us financially, right? Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor?

Yeah, thank you for bringing up that question. I think each company gets a rating for the ESG. And it's true, sometimes companies will hire ESG may or may not perform well because of some policy changes. And so based on this policy, the city, the first priority is our fiduciary duty. So if two companies project the return is about the same, but one has a higher ESG, they are doing good things, we would then make a decision to maybe invest in that company rather than the other one, right?

So provided they would have provided the same return for the CT, right?

That is correct.

Okay. And then you said that we will incorporate soft ESG. What does that mean, soft?

By soft, it's more of we are not committing to investing in ESG. However, if the market shows that it's in, there's no change or if it's beneficial to the city, then certainly let's move forward to that kind of, to your previous example. If you have two companies, one with a higher ESG rating, and they both yield the same rate of return, we would prioritize that that that Mhmm. Greater that that second company that has that greater return or that Yeah. Higher

Thank you.

Okay. I'm not seeing any further hands raised. Madam city clerk, do we have members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Mayor, don't see any requests in person here at community hall and I do see one hand raised virtually. So at this time, we will go ahead and welcome Sandra Rowe.

Evening mayor Moore, council member speaking there myself only. I did wanna refresh your memory on a comment I sent in previously that the city should look at the investment portfolio mix of other cities' pension funds. And as I recall, some of our neighboring cities, and I may have this wrong from memory, but I did write this in previously to the city. I believe the city of Sunnyvale and Mountain View allow for investments to be in ETFs and mutual funds, whereas we seem to have a policy that prevents us from doing that in The U. S.

But allows it overseas, which is really some sort of legacy artifact, I guess, because there is no reason to allow it overseas while not allowing it in The U. S. I encourage you to look at what is allowed in the other cities and what is practiced in the other cities and to highly adopt highly encourage adopting the use of ETFs. And an S and P 500 or a total market investment approach should be used to diversify so that you're not having to make these decisions. The current set of investments are all single investments or single asset investments.

The returns certainly can do far better. They are underperforming the S and P in many cases. And so I encourage you to look at how you can adopt the best of breed for the policy as seen from neighboring cities and to particularly try and adopt the ETF investments and investment market indices such as the S and P partner of the whole market. I also would highly recommend that you not prioritize ESG. Your priorities should be to responsibly manage the funds of our employees and not to try and apply your ideologies onto the future retirement of our employees.

That is not okay. So I think this ESG should be lifted. And if you went with the market index approach, it will be immaterial in any case. Thank you.

Thank you, San. And Mayor, I don't see any request to speak on this item.

Okay. Do we have a motion to move the recommended action?

I'm happy to move the recommended action.

Alright. Thank I'll second it.

Thank you. And vice mayor, your hands raised.

Yeah. Could you please answer the speaker's question about mutual fund investment? Either we allow it or not, and or is it for foreign country?

Yes. So the pension section 115 and OPEB trust investment policy allows for ETFs or exchange traded funds. What does not the investment policy that does not is the city's general investment policy which was approved earlier today in consent. There is state code that. In ETFs So I think there's a bit of confusion there from the speaker.

Oh, so the state code prevents the city from investing? Then how come Sunnyvale and Mountain View could do it?

There are two different investment, technically three different investment policies the city Cupertino has. One is its general investment, restricts it to more bonds and whatnot, whereas these policies are OPEB and pension, Section 115, allows for those types of investments.

Oh, okay. So this does allow?

Correct.

And general fund investment policy doesn't allow because of the state law?

Correct.

Okay. And for the global infrastructure, I see that it's added so that we have the option to invest if we want. The target is currently zero. So, what's global infrastructure considered?

So this could range unfortunately, Dennis Mullins, our representative, isn't here. But this could range and he is an expert in this, but it could range from dams or just general infrastructure. It could be even AI, data centers. It could even be water infrastructure. It can be a variety of different types of general infrastructure type of projects.

Oh, it doesn't does that mean global in foreign country?

Certainly, it does.

Also mean oh, okay.

However, there was some hesitancy in investing outside the city or outside the country. For that reason, it was set to zero. But to bring the policy kind of current to what the industry is moving towards as a separate investment category, the city or the audit committee decided to include it as a category, however pin it to 0% for the benchmark.

Okay, thank you.

Not seeing any further hands raised, we do have a motion and a second on the recommended action. Madam City Clerk, will you please set the lights for a vote?

The motion carries with Wong absent.

Alright. Thank you very much, director Orozco. And with that, we move on to item 21. It's the authorization of the below market rate housing administration contract execution. Madam city manager, do we have a staff report?

Thank you, mayor. We have a staff report and also a presentation. This item is requesting council to grant authority to the city manager to execute the agreement with RISE Housing for below market rate administration services and approve the budget allocation for the contract. The city's current contractor for b m contract for BMR administration services expires on June 30 year. To ensure that the city's program remains innovative and follows best practices, staff Staff completed an RFP to find the best fit vendor through a fair and competitive process for the next BMR administrator. Presenting this item tonight will be senior housing coordinator Nikki Wu, and Fu, director of community development, also available for questions.

Thank you, Tina. Good evening, madam mayor and the city council. My name is Nikki, and the item we have before you tonight is an agreement for administration of the city's below market rate housing program. Our recommended action for you tonight is to authorize the city manager to execute that agreement and to also make the necessary budgetary appropriations from the general fund to execute this agreement. So first a little bit of background about this program.

Since 1992, the city of Cupertino has required that all market rate housing developments provide a percentage of their development to be made affordable to low income households. This is known as the inclusionary housing program. These units are individually owned and operated by the property managers and developers who constructed them. But when it comes to the leasing, the wait list, the lottery, recertification, and resales, That process is jointly administered by a single entity. This is to ensure compliance with our affordable housing program.

Right? And then also to try to centralize the program into a single wait list for ease of access for our applicants. Rise Housing has been the city's current BMR administrator for this program. Their contract expires this June 2026. So in accordance with city financial procurement procedures, we enacted a request for proposals to get a competitive bid.

We announced the RFP in October during a regular meeting of the housing commission. We also posted online on the Cupertino Courier to advertise it, email blast as well. The official RFP opened 11/03/2025. It was open for responses for one month after which it closed 12/03/2025. During this time we received three proposals from qualified consultants to run the program.

After that, a three panel staff evaluated the three proposals based on a four point criteria that was outlined in the RFP and assigned each one a score. The two highest scoring consultants moved forward into an interview stage which took place in January 2026 which we allowed the consultants to further elaborate on their proposals after which we had one front runner proposal. At that time we went to the Housing Commission at March during the regular meeting for a kind of a new step in our process for transparency. We did a presentation to the Housing Commission on our evaluation process and during that time we solicited comments, suggestions from the Housing Commission on our evaluation process as well as anything that they would like to see included for the BMR program. We took into account those comments that we received during that Housing Commission meeting and then we enter into what we call the final negotiation stage where we studied the feasibility of enacting these changes with the front runner as well as all the necessary parties like our legal team, finance team, all the necessary parties.

And now in May 2026 we are here before you today to ask you to authorize execution as we believe it is currently ready in its form. So let's go into the evaluation criteria of the RFP. There were four categories. The first was firm and project team qualifications. This was where they could demonstrate essentially their credibility in running the BMR program and their experience.

So former BMR applicants that have been in you know this industry for a long time scored high as well as those that could demonstrate local experience, meaning those that work in California, even better if they were in the Bay Area, even better in Santa Clara County, and of course best if they could work with the city of Cupertino. This is not just the firm but also like the individual employees qualifications as well in each consultant. The next criteria was work plan approach. This is where they could demonstrate their knowledge of the city of Cupertino's BMR portfolio and also the kind of opportunities and challenges right that we are facing in BMR administration and for them to describe their work plan approach of how they would do BMR administration for us and what are their processes. These are the two highest weighted categories because this is really their ability to demonstrate that they understand the work that they are applying for.

The next two categories, first is CaliforniaBerry Integration. This is their ability ability to demonstrate that they are connected within the region and they know some of the best practices that are happening in BMR administration that they could suggest for us to adopt to better improve our program. And then the final category pricing and cost. This is the most objective part of our criteria. This is where they could demonstrate number one, having a complete cost proposal and two, having a very effective and cost efficient cost schedule.

So while we were doing our own staff evaluations, we really kept in mind the program priorities. And this is not just city dependent being in Cupertino but time contextualized. What is the priorities that are the program is facing right now? And without a doubt, the biggest issue that the BMR program is facing in the next three years is going to be the expiration of 95 out of our 119 rental units in the portfolio due to a thirty year sunset. These rental units, they were constructed back in the nineties and with them they were required to be kept at affordable for a period of thirty years because these are owned privately.

Once this thirty year mark ends, the individual property owners and landlords are going to be able to start charging market rate rents on these units so we do need to find a way to work with the tenants and the landlords as they navigate this issue. And so while this on paper might look like a reduction in work, what this means that we know is that there's going to be negotiations of final leases, there's going to be needing for support to tenants during the reapplication process to try to get rehoused, landlord compliance for the necessary noticing that they need to send out before the expiration of these units, and then finally just general support services to both of these parties. Our evaluation, Rise Housing showed the strongest understanding and preparation of the work expectations based on these priorities. In addition to this they also had the most complete multi year cost proposal. So they were the front runner that we identified after the interview stage which we brought to the housing commission on March 26 for a staff presentation.

After we give a presentation on our evaluate process and our thoughts we took in feedback from the Housing Commission. Generally they were in agreement with staff decision however it was clear that they wanted staff to consider some of the proposed innovative process improvements and the best practices that the other jurisdictions are currently implementing into what we could potentially do with rice housing for the next program cycle. So when we entered into the final negotiation stage, staff explored the possibility of enacting these improvements through final negotiations for price housing and also consulting our legal team, finance team, and also other regional groups that work in housing who have done this before. We are prepared to present what are the kind of findings from these studies. First, the first process improvement that was suggested was trying to reduce costs in to the city, right, in the BMR program by charging the price of BMR homeowner resale as an administrative fee to the sellers of the BMR homeowners, right, in the program rather than the city paying for it out of pocket.

This is a successful model that has been used in some other cities. However, procedurally, this is technically require this requires a separate council action as this constitutes approving a new fee. So this is not necessarily something that we can do with execution of a contract but it is something potentially if the council desires something we could explore in the future for program process improvements. The other item that we wanted to explore was trying to reduce wait times for getting placed into a BMR unit by utilizing the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority or BAFA doorways portal. This is a centralized listing portal that a lot of cities have put their BMR listings onto.

It does require cities to kind of adopt very standardized practices for their BMR program but the benefit to this is that it makes for a uniform application process So it encourages applicants to apply to multiple cities. Right? That's casting a much wider net in their search for a house and could potentially reduce their time to getting placed into a unit. But of course the issue that I've kind of alluded to with that statement is that it does require a separate council action to really move a lot of the current BMR program structure into very, very standardized practices. Namely, we we currently use a wait list system that's open for one month out of the year, and then we have a centralized lottery that we continue to pull from for the entire year.

And in order to move on to doorways, we'd have to move to a year round open waitlist where where people can continue to play throughout the year. So this is not necessarily something again that we can do with the execution of a contract. It would be a separate city council item and also something to consider with this is that whereas the previous item would most likely right be a cost savings, this might potentially require us to revisit the cost proposal to add additional work items. Right? One of them being purging the waitlist.

Right? Without a natural sort of refresh mechanism in the waitlist we'd have to start purging the waitlist for you know old applicants that are no longer interested. So knowing this, we would want it to move forward with the housing rice housing proposal as it was submitted. Going into what is in that proposal, it is for a three year contract starting from f y twenty six twenty seven going to f y twenty eight twenty nine. The costs are approximately $160,000 per year and this covers the cost of a three person team, a team lead, a program manager, and a program specialist and this is to cover three areas of general administration, the purchase program for BMR homeowners, and then the rental program for the apartments and rental units as well.

In addition to this action, we are asking that the city council approve a general fund appropriation in order to execute this contract. This is aligned with the city council direction we previously received on 04/15/2025 during housing funding awards. We were told that we should prioritize our funding in our BMR affordable housing fund towards available new construction of affordable housing projects which we have two and we have. And so in order to execute this next administration project we are asking that we reprogram administration services with an appropriation through the general fund. We do have a recommended staff motion for this item.

It's to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement with Rise Housing Inc. For blue market rate administration services for FY twenty six to twenty nine and appropriate $470,000 $650 from the general fund. With that, I'd like to open it to the council for any clarifying questions.

Alright. Thank you very much director Fu and our season senior housing coordinator Nikki for a very thoughtful approach and explanation. Do we have some questions at this time from the council, Council Member Mohan?

Thank you for an excellent presentation, Nikki. This RISE, we will you've been working with RISE in the past. What is the difference in cost? We've obviously been paying them for the previous contract. So how much of an increase is there for this contract?

This would be about a 50 percent reduction in the overall contract. Previously we were paying about 2 and $50,000 to $300,000 per year. This is $160,000 per year.

Isn't that a little unusual?

I think this is the result of a competitive and thorough procurement process. And also a reduction in the size of our portfolio as well.

Okay so it's a good thing that's happened but I'd like to think we were not overpaying last year.

I may also add, we contract to RISE. Prior to RISE the system for the city was old school if you will. So we work with RISE a lot to kinda digitize our process and programs. So that's why the cost was a little higher in the previous years because of that onboarding and ramping up into making our process our program twenty first century. So I think moving forward that process has been set up already. So I think with their familiarity with our process and our program, that's why you see this significant reduction in the cost.

Okay and one last comment. So you're not really asking for new monies. The money's already been budgeted I take it because we've had this contract in the past.

We have. It's previously been paid for out of the BMR administration.

So you're switching it to general funds.

Thank you.

That was part of trying to move some of the administrative costs out of the BMR program. And we probably need to revisit the BMR manual at some point to make that more solidly written up. Vice Mayor.

Hi, Thank you for a great presentation. But I see that you have received three proposals total and two were invited for an interview, but you didn't include the names of the applicants, which I think was usually included for public works when they present an RFP. So could you share who are the other applicants?

Yeah the three applicants were Rise Housing, Housing Incorporated and the third was Heart of San Mateo County.

So who were invited for interview?

The top two. That was RISE and Housing Incorporated.

Okay. And I see that the four ranking criteria did not include anything about customer feedback. For example, either feedback from applicants and feedback from agencies like Project Sentinel or others who are helping applicants to find housing? Because otherwise, how do we really evaluate the quality of service, customer service they provide?

That's a great question. So the first priority which is firm and team qualifications we ask that they provide references for other cities that they've worked for and we actually call and ask them to ask if they are satisfied with their level of service and if there's any difficulties that they've experienced with onboarding. Right? Any of the different

But the other city may not talk to their customer cider. So you basically talk to a counterpart of yourself in another city.

True. We all hear from our constituents, right, if there's an issue with service, whether it's through our phones or emails or when we come into public hearings like That's

my next question. What is the mechanism there for applicant to file a non business complaint? Because I think we have heard for a lot of these housing providers, people are afraid to lose their BMR units. So they are afraid to report any mold issue. And that's a prevalent issue actually with a lot of the housing providers. I spoke to people who directly was infected because she reported the mold issue.

So. It's a great question.

Is there any mechanism for people to

I've personally received lots of feedback from our program participants. Whether or not that is attributable to RISE's service or whether it's actually their property manager or whether it's another party that's a part of this whole system. If we would like to include an anonymous way to give you that, we can certainly explore that as well.

I think someone who has worked with Rice to try and rent a sale there for sale condo has told me that their experience really wasn't very good with Rice. It was taking a very long time for them to to I think we we will have a lot of bill market rate for three bedroom for sale homes that's coming up. And somehow, they feel that wasn't handled well. But I don't know the specifics, but I do wonder, do we have a mechanism to ensure the process is smooth and for the a mechanism for people to to address any concerns. Yeah.

Vice mayor, right now the mechanism in the past have always been similar to sort of your code enforcement process. The public is more welcome to email us and connect with us. In terms of the fear of eviction from filing complaint, that's not how BMR units work. You qualify the unit, you're in that unit for the duration that you continue to qualify for the unit. So I think the mechanism is there and exists now is through a complaint with the city with a 301 or direct contact with staff. But if you're looking for something more concrete, we can certainly look into that and have that discussion with the consultant.

Yeah, for that particular example, it's a new unit that's been just built, constructed. And then it seems RISE brought in potential tenant potential buyer of the BMR units. But then even for a very new unit, they were making a lot of demands on, you need to fix this, you need to fix that, you need to fix that. And it went through multiple rounds, and then the seller didn't want the unit. And so I don't know if that's maybe just one single incidence, or there might be other ones.

But then what is the mechanism for them to even reach out to the CT staff to address that?

Yes, we'd be happy to look into that specific example. If you have something you can share with us offline, we can look into that. But for the sale of the units, it's very strict the process. We wanna make sure the units are up to a certain standard. So that's why it's a very strict process for resale processes and a lot of different steps you have to go through as opposed to market rate because it is for below market rate property owners both selling and also buying.

Another question is the Housing Commission proposed the innovative process improvements. Are these the are those the ones you mentioned in your slides about future negotiation or are they different ones?

Those are the same ones. And I hope we we demonstrated that we, in good faith, tried to explore every avenue, right, to try to incorporate those as we could at this time. But unfortunately, both of those, procedurally speaking, they can't be done without a separate city council action.

Yes, that's why I'm wondering, innovative process improvements, will they require council approval? So both of those proposed will require council approval?

Correct, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. I do wonder suggestions that you had for whether or not that would be something that could be addressed more fully in an informational item that could talk about pros and cons of each one of those. Yeah. Okay. That would be appreciated. And madam city clerk, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Mayor, I don't have any request to speak in person here at community hall, I do see two hands raised virtually. So we will welcome Jennifer Griffin followed by Sandra Rao. Welcome Jennifer.

Can you all hear me?

We can hear you.

Oh good. All right. Thank you. Thank you for a very, very helpful presentation about BMR. I will say I was shocked that so many of the BMRs are going to be going essentially away.

And I just was wondering if I could ask what is the breakdown between rental units that are going to be still available versus for sale units? Could you talk about that a little bit? And how does that change Rice's management of the BMR stock for Cupertino? Also, one other question is, I think you said that more for rent BMR stock coming online. I see that the rent rates are so high in the Bay Area.

I think it's really good to have rental units available for BMR. Could you all talk about that a little bit? And in the new for sale BMR units coming up, how long is their availability as BMRs? Thank you.

Thank you, Jennifer. Next we will welcome San Rao.

Yes, good evening, Mayor Moore and Council Member Spakin on behalf of myself only. In addition to seeking feedback from occupants or potential occupants of the units, I'd encourage you to seek feedback from the applicants that have built new housing in Cupertino that have for sale BMR units. My understanding in in informally pulling for feedback is that there has been negative feedback And, the concerns, and the feedback that was expressed was, quite numerous. And I will give that offline to director Fu since it may not be feedback that can be shared here. But I would encourage you to talk to the applicants that build for sale DMR units, and I would encourage that to be, hopefully, an independent method of getting feedback.

We should not feel that giving feedback to planning or building or CCD is going to jeopardize their ability to work with the city. And I know that's not the case and that should not be the case. But there is always that concern, especially from single family homeowners in an unrelated context around feedback for planning and building. So regardless of that, I do want to express that I have talked informally to some applicants, and I have received feedback that the current vendor, the service was horrible. And there there are a little more specifics there, but I can share that offline with director Fu.

Specifically, you know, there's there's concerns around the time they take for processing and the recommendations they make on the realtors and the realtors that were used. And there's also some concern around having to pay for both the buyer side and the seller side for commissions. And it's unclear why applicants had to pay both sides of commissions on a PMR unit. So overall, very slow process and very non responsive process. And there were concerns around staff not responding to emails as well. So I want to put that out there as well. Thank you.

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

Alright. Thank you. Vice mayor?

Well, so I first, do you remember what's the Jenny first question? I kind of about BMR expiration, but I don't remember exactly what was the question. Anyone?

I think her question was, are there any new BMR rentals coming online and what's the mechanism that we have in place to prevent them from expiring in thirty years? The second question we've amended the program since to go to a ninety nine year expiration. So hopefully that prevents that problem in the future. And as for new projects coming online with rentals I think the biggest one we know of is Valkyrie and the next one would be the Mary Avenue project.

So these rental units are they all inclusive units so they are mixed in with market rate. It's harder to buy them out.

In the Valkyrie's projects, it is a mixed income project, right? So there are market rate units and they're essentially subsidizing.

No, not Valkyrie's, I mean the expiring ones, 109 rental units. Oh 95 expiring.

95 expiring units, yes. They will go to market rate.

Yes. So they are inclusive with market rate units.

That's correct. Within a market rate development privately owned.

So it's harder to get funding to potentially buy them out?

Yes. I mean it would first be kind of impractical legally right because you can't individually buy rental units out of an apartment building And then also, yes, we would essentially be purchasing them at market rate from a private owner to try to restrict them for affordability.

Okay. Another question is from Santosh. So it sounds like we need some kind of feedback form from current applicants, or even the applicants who are the wait list and then got rejected. I think recently, we had a case of someone who almost got on unit, but then she was rejected the last moment because of her credit check. But she's longtime employee of, CUSD, recently divorced, and they're going through hard times, single mom.

Of course, her recent credit history is not as good, and Rice rejected them. So is that something? Is it a city policy issue, or is it Rice who is inflexible when administering the policy?

I think I'm aware of this example and this is a great example of when there's multiple actors that kind of contribute to the outcome and it's not necessarily something that we can attribute to RISE's service. Even though RISE does control things like advertising units and you know finding applicants for units. Ultimately these are privately owned by their individual property managers who can choose to accept or not accept any applicant for their for their rental units including using mechanisms like a like a background check or a credit check. So in that scenario they were actually rejected by the property manager. So

that criteria was set by the property manager.

That's correct.

But somehow they were not informed of this particular criteria until the very last stage. So I guess the RISE could help improve the process by screening the applicant ahead of time rather than telling them you got the unit, and then finally credit check failed. Because that's a very objective standard that can be checked.

We can explore adding that. Would just also add that that would be adding a new work item too. Right now in addition to doing their intake they're gonna be doing credit checks for each potential applicant at the front end.

Not credit checks. I guess telling the applicant what information will be Educationally. For them to qualify for the units, right?

Yeah, I believe that is already part of their educational package and they also do conduct a BMR program town hall presentation annually. So that's already part of what they advise each applicant, the potential what you need to bring to the table, what could potentially be issues. But we can certainly reach out again and make sure that process is more robust.

Okay, so one other comment from Santosh is, according to the ones he has spoken to, the service was horrible. I don't know how true is that. But for me, I'm just wondering what kind of process could there be so in the future, going forward, people has a way of providing feedback like that. Then there was a comment about it says response was slow or non responsive in the application process.

Yeah, we always ask for a feedback whether it's a permitting process or a resell or rental process, but that doesn't mean the applicant is required to provide that feedback. I will say that we do not, the city does not have a lot of turnover in terms of sale for sale units, what two, three per year or so. So it's not a lot of them. We haven't heard feedback wise that the service is poor. I think the duration of the process itself like I mentioned is very detailed.

So that could be frustrating but that is just a process. Rental unit wise there's a lot more units that do turn over because there's annual check for applicability, qualification check for renters. That for the rental units they do turnover more often than for sale.

Hopefully we'll have more, I think we'll have more for sale BMR units coming up with new developments.

We hope so too. Yeah.

Yep. So okay.

Do you have any further questions or comments from the council? And I'm not seeing any, so we have had public comment on this item. Do we have a motion to move the recommended action?

Yeah, happy to move the recommended action.

I have to say who came in first there. I'm gonna say vice mayor first. We have a second from I second. From councilmember Mohan. Wonderful. I don't see any further request to speak. Madam city clerk, will you please set the lights and we'll vote?

The motion carries with Wong absent.

Alright. Thank you. And with that, we have completed the action calendar. We have no items removed from the consent calendar and we further have a few reports that you may read at your leisure. And if you have a future agenda item, you know you can ask for a second and send that in in his email.

So we are moving on to the adjournment, but before we adjourn tonight, I ask that we close this meeting in honor of Memorial Day, May 25, to remember the brave soldiers who gave their lives in defense of our nation's freedom. While Veterans Day in November honors all who served, Memorial Day specifically asks us to pause and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. This meeting stands adjourned in their memory.